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I burst into the hall, whipping my head in the direction of laughter and footsteps coming from the art wing. Tovah and Zack are making their way toward the gym. At first I think their faces are bleeding, but as they get closer, I see that they’re actually covered in paint. His arm is around her shoulders, holding her close.
The most jarring thing about this picture, though, is the obvious happiness smeared all over Tovah’s face.
“Adina?” she says in between giggles. She sounds drunk. Drunk on joy, perhaps, drunk on male attention. Her hair’s slicked back with lime paint.
This uninhibited public display of affection is what I cannot have with Arjun, and it makes my stomach twinge with envy.
“Hey, I’m Zack,” he says, because the two of us have never spoken.
“Hi.” Even looking at Zack feels as though I am intruding on something personal, private.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask, indicating that I don’t want Zack as an audience member. He gets the hint and backs up, giving us some space.
“What are you doing here?” Tovah asks when he’s out of earshot, raising an orange-blue eyebrow.
Humiliating myself. “I, um. Thought we could hang out here. At the carnival.”
She blurts out a toneless laugh. “Seriously? And do what, listen to you complain about how lame it is, like at Great Skate? Judge me for even more things you don’t understand? Yeah, no thanks.”
She spins back around and falls into step with Zack again. As they head back into the gym, snippets of their conversation mix with the insipid carnival music: “Everyone’s gonna laugh at us” and “I don’t care; you look adorable.”
The gym doors bang shut, and I am so stunned I stagger backward until I’m against the cold metal of a locker, then let myself collapse to the floor, shaking.
She could at least wait until I’m gone—from this carnival and later, from this earth—to parade her Technicolor life in front of me.
I was wrong. Tovah will bring me zero relief. If she and I grow close again, she will be a constant reminder of everything I am missing out on. It’s because we are twins that it will hurt so much, seeing her experience things that I cannot, knowing I am so close to them but unable to grasp them. I will watch her graduate college and become a surgeon and fix people and get married and maybe have children. I will watch her plan an entire fucking future without worrying about an impending death. I will watch her mull over choice after choice after choice.
Maybe life is better without her.
I’ve never liked my English class. I don’t mind reading, but all our assigned books are written by dead privileged white men. I can’t stomach how my privileged white Hemingway-worshipping teacher, Mr. Bianchi, touts their supposed literary genius.
So I simply stop going. Instead I spend second period in the empty orchestra room, or in the library, or in the abandoned east stairwell. A couple days I even skip first period and sleep late. There’s no need to spend my precious hours reading about the heroic struggles of white males. A
nd sometimes no need to waste brain space with special right triangles or Newton’s Laws of Motion either.
It is my first small rebellion in what is sure to be a long list of rebellions.
I drag a box cutter over my index finger as I’m opening a new shipment of sheet music at work. It is an accident. I think.
My manager, Oscar, glances over my shoulder. “Adina, you okay? I’ll get the first aid kit.” He returns with a small white box, from which he produces a Band-Aid. “No more sharp objects for you.”
“It slipped.” Did it? Suddenly I’m not sure. I am never clumsy. I’ve never even nicked my legs while shaving.
Red beads spill out of the slit in my skin. I stare at my finger, wondering what my relief will feel like. Maybe it will hurt, this small cut multiplied by one thousand. Maybe it will feel like nothing. I likely have several years or more to ponder how I’ll do it. Whatever method I choose, it’s better than what awaits my mother. I need to control it. I cannot simply succumb to genetics or the universe or God or whatever is out there. Nothing poetic like that.
Next year I’ll have to help pay for school, and for my plane tickets if—when—I hear back about auditions, so I’ve taken extra shifts at Muse and Music. I have spent the rest of my time perfecting the pieces I’ll play. My calluses get married and have babies with nearby calluses. A turtleneck sweaterdress hides the pink viola hickey on my neck. An audition will make all this worth it. Conservatory and life in a new city are the only steps for me if I want to go professional. It has always been my goal, but now it has become a requirement.
Oscar banishes me to the cash register, and since it’s a slow afternoon, I spend it refreshing my e-mail. Hattie Woo from youth symphony was already rejected from Juilliard, so sad, and Meena Liebeskind is starting to consider music programs at state schools.
“Excuse me,” someone says, and I glance up from the register. The man looks vaguely familiar. “I’m sure what’s on your phone is really important, but I need to return something.”
I shove my phone underneath the register. “I’m sorry about that. What can I help you with?”
He holds up a viola case and hands me a receipt. “I think you sold this to us. It was for our daughter, but she lost interest pretty quickly. Said it was boring.”
Foolish girl. Guess she wasn’t as much of a natural as her parents thought. “Since it’s been more than thirty days, we can only buy it back on consignment.”
“She barely played it. Is that the best you can do?”
