The Other Half of Me (15 page)

“I’m going next,” Alexa says and sheds her shirt, revealing her bikini-clad chest. The act does not go unnoticed by Dan Donovan and Dan’s girlfriend, Heather, who rolls her eyes the way all girls do when a pretty stranger inserts herself into the crowd. Alexa leaps onto the slide and goes barreling down, laughing while her ponytail flaps.

“Who’s your friend?” Dan asks while sipping a beverage of unknown origin from a tall plastic glass. It’s the color blue of the paint I used today. Thinking this brings a small bit of peace to the frenzied scene.

“Yeah, who
is
your friend?” Heather asks, one hand on her hip, the other on Dan territorially.

“She’s…,” I start. It shouldn’t be difficult to iterate, but it is. “She’s my sister.”

“I thought your sisters were younger,” Dan says.

“They are.” I sigh and pull at my shirt. The neck is too tight, the fabric lets no air in, and I’m sweating while watching my sister flirt with Tate at the bottom of the slide. They aren’t out of view anymore; rather they are walking up the hill together, often leaning in to whisper.

Heather points to Alexa. “So that’s another sister? She looks like Russ.”

Everyone knows Russ. He’s the golden-boy-to-be, I guess, with his charm and athletic grace. “Alexa isn’t
his
sister, though.”

Heather makes a face as though I’m making this up as I go along. “You’re sure you’re related to her?” I swear I see her do a double-take of Alexa’s features and mine. It’s not that I’m unattractive and Alexa’s a retouched photo; we’re just different. The fullness of this word encompasses the moment.

“I’m sure,” I say to Heather and Dan as Alexa and Tate approach. I just don’t clarify how. Aside from Alexa, all the girlfriends of the jocks, cheerleaders, and other preppy sportsters are noticeably dry.

“That was splendid,” Alexa says. Only someone so shiny-pretty can say
splendid
without sounding like an affected ass. If Faye were here, she’d give me a knowing look.

Tate glances at me, and I can’t tell if he’s blushing or getting sunburned. What were he and Alexa just talking about? “Yeah, it’s great. You should try it, Fitz.”

I feel Heather and Dan watch me while Alexa and Tate stand there, waiting for me to make a move. I feel like I’m in the truth-or-dare zone. Where is the quiet Tate, the one with interesting questions and an odd sense of humor? I feel the urge to reach for his hand, but he beats me to it.

“Go for it,” Tate says, and pulls me by the hand so I’m right at the top of the slide.

“I’m not in a suit,” I say, and tug at my horribly bright T-shirt as proof.

“Who cares?” Alexa says, and pushes my back. Her touch takes away the fact that Tate, in front of all his friends, had reached for my hand. Now it looks like everyone’s plotting to get me down the slide and he’s just the instigator.

“Hey,” one of Tate’s teammates says, and points at me. “Is that Fitz’s sister?”

This is all it takes for me to perch on the top of the slide, get sprayed by a gaggle of girls who are acting as spraymasters, and ready myself for the long journey down the hill. Tate claps his hands in a show of solidarity. He hasn’t made one real nod toward our romance, but I try to tell myself his steady look says it all.

“Here I go!” I say with more dramatic flair than normal.

Except, I don’t. The water from the hose succeeds only in drenching my ugly shirt and matting my hair. With shorts on I go nowhere, and as soon as my failed Slip ’n Slide action registers with the onlookers, they disperse in search of chips, drinks, and something that actually happens.

“I’ll go for you,” Alexa says, and hops next to me. In one swift swoop she’s gone down the hill, bumping and rolling away from me. Tate stands next to me, his feet near but not touching mine. I wish he’d kiss me, but instead he does an enigmatic tug on my hair and grins.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, and my instant response is a smile that matches his. Tate flips his soaking wet hair back from his face. How is it possible that in private, in the studio, by the dolphin fountain, and in my backyard I’ve combed my hands through that hair, and now—in plain view of everyone I go to school with, who has seen me pre-braces, with braces, and now without them—I can’t even reach for his hand? I’m about to do it, to reach for his hand and not care what the fallout is, when he adds, “And your sister rocks!”

I want to say
half sister
, but I’d sound jealous. Plus, as I stand there wondering about Alexa, wondering what Tate refers to me as in his own mind—friend, girlfriend, Russ’s sister—I realize that that the label alone doesn’t sum it all up. It’s the connection under the title, beneath the summary, that matters.

TWENTY-FIVE

Later that night, when my parents are settled in with the newspaper and Alexa’s e-mailing her mothers, the doorbell rings. I’m hardly down the stairs to greet Tate when Alexa shouts from the bedroom, “I’m researching transfer policies!”

The girl has a one-track mind.

Tate is wearing running clothes—shorts that swish when he walks and an old T-shirt that makes me want to grab him and kiss him. “Ready for our run?”

“You bet,” I say as I trot over to him in my sneakers. I’m glad I acted on impulse a few hours ago and asked him to show me his jogging route tonight.

Outside, Tate starts off slowly, at a fast walk, but I still have to catch up. “I hope I don’t wreck your time or anything.”

“You’re better than you realize,” he says, and pushes my lower back so I’m forced to pick up speed.

“At running?” I ask. But Tate doesn’t answer. He just grins and motions for me to follow him. On the moonlight-covered path near the wooded area up the road, Tate’s feet start moving too quickly to qualify as fast-walking and I have to work to keep up the pace. My heart fills with excitement. Maybe it’s because Tate is leading me into the woods and showing me how to slalom run, bending away from the trees. Or maybe it’s just because he’s near me.

“I can’t believe I’m liking this!” I say, breathing hard.

“Don’t act so surprised. You could give a guy a complex.”

I laugh and dodge a branch.

“So what was Alexa researching?” he asks.

I jog next to Tate, our legs touching every few strides. “Schools with art programs in the city. She has this crazy idea of my coming to stay with her for a semester so we can get to know each other better.”

Tate slows down a little, holding back a thick leafy branch so it doesn’t swat me. “You think that’s a good idea?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it yet.”

He stops and stares at me. Then I stop, too, my breath coming out jagged and hard. Running with Tate and the idea of jumping in without a thought makes me brash.

In the dark air I ask, “Would you care if I left?”

“Yes,” he says, his eyes flickering on my mouth.

And then I do something else without thinking. I put my arms around him, pull my body against his, and kiss him hard, our breath still uneven from running and even more from this.

“Good,” I say. And then I lean in again.

Sticking me with the early-morning shift at Downtown Studios is Sid’s way of passively asserting his control. Even though I need to perform maid duty in order to earn the studio time, I don’t relish the hours spent with a mop, broom, or any other implement of cleaning torture. With aching legs from last night’s adventure with Tate, I mop sludge from the concrete floors. A smile creeps onto my face even as I empty trash bins, walking the bags two at a time down the steps and out into the back lot, where, if I heave hard enough, I can get them into the Dumpster.

Inside Downtown, I sneak a look at my plain-edged paintings and feel a rush. Sid still hasn’t made a decision about my paintings and the art show, which I try not to take as a sign of anything other than his laziness and self-centered focus on his own piece of art—a series of murals that take up at least one half of the showroom. I should just walk up to him and ask him once and for all. But since my shift required arriving before sunrise and leaving Alexa asleep in my room, I’m more than ready to depart when I check my watch and see that my shift is over.

I dash out to the car, looking into my oversized canvas bag to search for my keys, when I see familiar blue-and-green sneakers in my line of vision: Russ.

“What’re you doing here?” I find the keys and snatch them before they can disappear into the abyss of my bag again.

“Oh, the usual. Jogging. And I hear you’re turning into a runner, too.”

“Jock rumors travel fast,” I say, assuming he somehow saw Tate and me last night. “Want a ride home?” I consider asking Russ to come inside the studios since he’s here so I can show him my paintings and give him a brief tour. But Russ probably has other things he’d rather do with his time, and I don’t want him to feel obligated.

“No, you go ahead.” Russ swats at a fly near his ear. “I need the workout, and besides, I have to swing by Main Street Hardware, anyway.”

“Why? Desperate for a new ladder?” I get in the car and roll down the window. Russ pulls his heel to his butt to stretch his leg muscles.

Russ raises his eyebrows. “No, Dad wants to order a slab of marble for the yard.” He looks over his shoulder at the plain red brick of the studio building. “Hey, mind if I check out your stuff in there?”

My body responds to this request faster than my mouth, and my hands pull the key out of the ignition and open the door. My legs are halfway out of the car, my feet on the warming pavement, when I say, “Yeah! I’ll show you, but they’re on the third floor, which, even though it seems high-up, is actually where they stick the lesser-known artists. Or, in my case, the totally unknown ones.”

“You’re completely unknown,” Russ agrees. “But not forever. You should go home and get some breakfast, hang out with Alexa. I’ll go for a quick undercover snoop and report back.”

It’s clear Russ wants to take his inaugural tour alone, and I don’t think about asking why until I’m almost home.

The first shocker is that no one is in the front yard when I pull into the driveway. As the countdown to fall has begun, I figure everyone will be basking in the sun on the few sunny days we have left. But the driveway is vacant.

The next shocker is bigger. When I walk toward the side door, the backyard is filled with laughter: Alexa’s and my dad’s. As I approach the stone wall that separates the patio from the grass, I can’t help but notice Dad’s to-be-completed area is cleared out.

With my bag slung over my left shoulder, I move my sunglasses up onto the top of my head to make sure I’m not missing something. Sure enough, not only are the gravel bags gone, but the dumping ground of raw materials is, too. Where just yesterday there was a heap of mulch and upturned flowerpots, now there are planted shrubs.

“Hey!” Alexa is dirt-covered and smiling. She is sitting in a ring of pansies near a tangle of sweet pea blossoms and waving me over.

“Check it out!” Dad gestures with his chin to the stone bench near the edge of this transformed area. I plop down onto the bench, soaking up the cool from the cement and taking in the transformation. I wonder if Russ wanted me to come home now so I could see this. Maybe he knew I’d be bothered, or that at the very least I’d want to know what was going on when I wasn’t looking.

“What do you think?” Dad asks, wiping his dirty hands on his pants. He stands up on the patio and hands a bottle of water to Alexa, who swigs from it right away.

Alexa answers before I can. “It’s different, isn’t it? A huge improvement.”

Dad comes over and pours his water onto the pansies. “Alexa suggested a slab of marble for over there.” Dad points to a rectangle of uncovered earth, its soil dark against the colorful array of blooms.

“Alexa did?” I say with a chill. How could she suggest this when I left her sleeping upstairs?

“Over breakfast while you were at the studio, she mentioned that she was the head of a city gardening group.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. I’m jealous enough of their home improvement scene together that I semispit the words out. “She arranged for all these stores to donate goods, and these kids to volunteer to transform this tire factory space into a usable garden.”

“You never told us that,” Dad says.

“I didn’t?” Maybe I thought I did. Maybe I just assumed those details wouldn’t matter to him. Guess I was wrong.

“Anyway, impressive stuff. She sort of inspired us to tackle this thing once and for all.” Dad shakes some loose dirt off a shrub and looks at me.

I’m about to nod and smile and reiterate how nice it looks, when I realize this won’t help the situation. “You could’ve waited for me to get back,” I say. “I would have helped.”

Dad studies my face. “Really?” And then, as if he’s doubting my sincerity, he adds, “It was sudden. That’s sometimes how these things go.”

I want so much to say I feel like I missed out, but it’ll sound stupid. I’ve had the chance to do this garden project all summer, and I’ve mustered precisely zero interest. It’s only now when I’m cut out of the activity, that I realize I want to do it. I stand up and follow the path of bluestones until I’m at the kitchen door. Instead of saying anything, I kick at one of the stones and don’t fix it. “It looks great, Dad,” I say, and go inside, leaving him to admire the work, and letting that one imperfect stone stay on its side.

“By the way,” he says, “the photographer needs to reshoot this year’s family portrait. The lighting was all wrong.”

I wince. Dad will be furious if I tell him that I’ve already ruined the purple shirt. It’s covered with paint now. But I nod and decide to put off telling him this. “Um, okay. Just tell me when.”

Once I slide the glass door open and step into the dark cool of the kitchen, it dawns on me that maybe it’s not that I didn’t participate in the beautification of our backyard that really bugs me—maybe it’s because Alexa did. I grab a snack and flip though the mail. One letter, overnighted, is for me—a packet of information from some school in New York about the transfer process. The language is complicated, and I read it as Alexa goes by me, up to my room.

A few minutes later I enter my bedroom waving the letter like a flag. “It’s too much,” I say tersely, the express packet heavy in my hand.

Alexa’s on her cell phone, her hands still grubby, and covers the receiver. “Oh, it came? Good. I just wanted you to know about your options. And that’s all they are:
options
, right?”

I leave the room again to check on the view of the yard from one of the upstairs windows. It looks nice, truth be told. But I still feel left out. This feeling is exacerbated when I pad quietly down the carpeted hallway and push my now closed bedroom door open with my bare foot and find Alexa still on the phone. I stand there for a minute while she’s saying, “She won’t know. It’s a good cover. Yeah, me too.”

The words themselves are cause enough to trigger alarm. Combine them with Alexa’s hushed tone and the way she’s twirling her hair in her fingers while she talks, and she might as well be standing under a sign that reads
I’M DOING SOMETHING SHADY
.

But I don’t register all this until she sees me and flips her phone closed without so much as a
see ya.

“Hey!” She’s forcing a smile.

“Hey.” I slump my bag onto my desk. It’s been less fun sharing a room than I thought. Sierra and Sage never complain about cohabiting, but the fun of splitting my space is wearing thin. Alexa’s clothes are strewn over most of the floor; her books, pens, multiple swimsuits, and lists are enough to take over the bulk of the square footage. If my closet weren’t so fumy and filled with paints, I’d have slept in there.

“That was my mom,” Alexa says, still holding her phone so tightly her knuckles are white. “I called her to say hi.”

I’m about to shrug off the weird tone when I notice Alexa is biting her top lip, chewing it pensively. Then I panic. When I put my lower teeth on my upper lip like that, it’s because I’m distorting the truth or hiding something. Not that I do it often, but it’s usually an inadvertent action that indicates I’m covering up, like when Russ first asked me about Alexa, or a couple times this summer when Sid’s asked if I triple-swabbed the floors. Or when I didn’t tell Tate how I felt about him and our maybe-future in the gravel stacks, which have now been transformed into a garden. “Really? Your moms? How is she—or they?”

Alexa notices me looking at all her stuff, but doesn’t collect the articles of clothing on the floor. “They’re good.” She looks at me and scratches her nose. “They’re really on board with the Jenny Fitzgerald Study Abroad in NYC plan.” She raises her eyebrows in the hope I’ll be excited, too.

I sigh and twist a piece of my hair.

“What?” Alexa asks, and waits for a response.

“Nothing.”

“Okay, well, I hope you’ll think about it seriously. A semester in New York would give you so many opportunities. Museums, galleries, and me!” She smiles. “I’m going to shower. Then we can make a plan for the day.” She gives me an overdone grin that reminds me of the temporary tattoo on my ankle. When she grabs a towel and heads to the bathroom, I look at the yellow circle on my ankle and wish again that it would leave. Or maybe this is just my way of saying I’m ready for Alexa’s departure, too. Not today, but after the carnival and the art show, I think it’ll be time.

As I stare at the mess of my room, an idea pops into my head: why not jump in again? If I’m suspicious about her phone call, why not check? I grab Alexa’s phone and open it, fully expecting to find her home number on there. I go to the last number dialed; it’s not a long-distance area code. It’s local. And not just any local number, but one I recognize: Tate’s.