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Siena looked at the notebook on top. An airbrush-style unicorn in pinks and purples, with glittery stars scattered around. The other notebooks in the pack were all slightly different but similarly hued and themed.
For all of her baby sister’s life, the color wheel had begun and ended with pink and purple. She loved the colors so much her room was lit like the inside of a Pepto bottle and she found itcalming. They’d left a trail of pink glitter after their school-supply Target run in August. Siena was seventy-five percent certain Geneva’s change of heart had nothing to do with her feelings about pink, purple, or glitter and everything to do with shitty, shitty teenagers. She fucking hated that bullies could douse this sweet girl’s rosy light.
However, she didn’t want another fight, and she could tell Geneva wasn’t in the mood to be cajoled or encouraged. “What colors do you want?”
Siena watched her little sister pick plain black, grey, brown, green, and blue and put them in the cart. Her fists clenched, but she held her tongue.
“Okay. Is five enough?”
Geneva had the supplies list in her pocket, but she didn’t get it out now. She held up her hand and counted off. “English. Algebra. Biology. World history. Spanish. I need notecards for history and Spanish and pink, yellow, green, and blue highlighters for English. Can I get the good calculator this time?”
The ‘good’ calculator, the one the school ‘strongly recommended,’ was almost two hundred dollars, and that would make a dent in the bank account Siena would have to get creative to fill. She didn’t understand why ninth-graders were supposed to buy a calculator like that when the internet existed and students all had smartphones. Did the school think they were all going to be mathematicians?
“Didn’t it work last semester, borrowing the calculators Ms. Morrel has for students?”
The question earned her a decidedly adolescent huff of impatience. “She only has three. Sometimes there’s a line and I can’t get my work done on time. I’m the best in math and sometimes I’m the last one in the room—and sometimes I have to go at lunch to finish, like the dumb kids.”
“Don’t call kids dumb, Gennie.”
“The dumb kids call me names, so I’m calling them dumb. And don’t call me Gennie. I told you I want to be Geneva now.”
“Sorry. I’m trying to break the habit.”
Their mom, who’d never traveled farther than Vegas but had nursed a burning desire to see the world, had named her daughters after beautiful European cities. She’d always called Siena by her full name, and Siena had never thought to do anything else. But Geneva had been Gennie from before she was born, until last summer. As she prepared for high school, she’d decided she wanted to be Geneva.
Siena was doing okay-ish making the change.
“Alright, we can take a look at the calculators. If the one you want is on sale ... maybe.”
She tossed a four-pack of assorted highlighters into the cart. Geneva saw the notecards and dropped in two packs. Notecards were another outdated school supply. Who needed three-by-five squares of cardstock when you had a notes app?
Siena examined the contents of their cart: the dull notebooks, the highlighters, the notecards. Two boxes of mechanical pencils, two boxes of cheap ballpoint pens in blue ink. A multi-pack of tissues. A ream of printer paper and a black toner cartridge. A cute and discreet locker tote for tampons and pads, and a couple boxes of each; Geneva had gotten her first period over Thanksgiving weekend.
And hadn’tthatcompletely freaked them both out.
“Anything else on your list?” Siena asked, shoving away the various concerns about Geneva’s physiology that always rushed to the surface when she thought of her getting her period.
“I don’t think so.” Geneva took the list out of her pocket to double check. “Just the calculator.”
“How about clothes? I noticed your socks are getting pretty thin. And maybe a couple of bras?”
Geneva made a face at the word ‘bras,’ but she nodded. “Okay. Can I get new sneakers? Can I get Vans? Real ones?”
Real Vans were expensive. “Vans are pricey, especially for a girl who wants a two-hundred dollar calculator. I can’t do both. I don’t think Target sells Vans, anyway—but they probably have sneakers with that look. We could do that.”
Geneva was shaking her head before Siena finished speaking. “I don’t want fake Vans. Fake is worse than different.”
Siena couldn’t really blame her. She knew. High school was hard. But Geneva was being much more contrary and sullen than was like her, even in light of their crappy morning.
She grabbed her little sister’s hand. “Hey, mini-me. I don’t like how we are right now. Let’s go over and get Starbucks and talk. We can finish shopping after.”
Looking like she wanted to be contrary again, but also like she was very tempted by the thought of Starbucks, Geneva pursed her lips and stared across the store, in the direction of the coffee shop.
“Can I have a venti iced chai latte with whipped cream?”
Siena laughed. “Can you have pie in a cup? Sure. Come on.” She pushed the cart out of the office-supply aisle and smiled when Geneva came up alongside the cart and hooked her fingers in, like she used to.
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