The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

At one time I thought Birdie might have come here, drawn by the tinsel and lights and glamor. I searched for her face among the girls in thigh-high skirts, even on the billboards of vans that cruised The Strip offering Hot Babes Direct to You.

Guy’s arm circled my waist, propelling me along, past a faded looking Elvis with ratty toupee and sideburns dripping blackish sweat. He posed next to a hollow-eyed Marilyn Monroe in white halter-necked dress. It cost ten bucks to pose with both of them, but tourists passed by without a glance.

The pulse at the side of my temples throbbed. I breathed mouthfuls of hot, dusty air. Riding the escalators that led to the overpass, I could barely touch the sunbaked rail. At the top, a row of panhandlers begged for money. One with a soft-eyed lab puppy sipping from an ice-cream carton filled with water. At the bottom of the escalator an old woman lay beside the scrubby hedge, head thrown back, a frothy stream of spittle dribbling from her mouth. Two calloused feet stuck out, one bare, the other dangling a broken sandal. A crowd had gathered, staring, wondering if she was dead, until her husband, a stringy-haired old guy wearing a stained T-shirt and ragged, plaid shorts rose from his sleep behind the bushes and started to yell, Whaddya want? A picture or something? With his hands clenched into fists, he began to dance around like a boxer.

Guy propelled me away. “Low life panhandlers,” he hissed.

A sour taste filled my mouth. “Don’t judge. You don’t know what circumstances brought them to this,” I snapped. But I didn’t want to start a fight. Not on my first day of marriage.

His hand slipped into mine. “You’re such a sensitive soul and I don’t appreciate you enough for it, Mrs. Franzen.”

Head buzzing and aching to get back into the cool sanctuary of a hotel or mall, I forced a smile and held out my cheek for him to kiss. A trio of topless showgirls, their nipples topped with shiny red tassels giggled at the sight of us. Guy insisted that he get his picture taken with them. They stood, one foot in front of the other, one hand resting on a tiny hip, the other held up in a dancer’s pose. Guy grinned as I clicked the camera and I imagined that his hand slipped low enough to pinch the pert bum of the youngest one. I snapped the picture again and decided it was just a trick of the sunlight.

Birdie always loved to pose. If she wasn’t pirouetting on a table, she’d be standing in front of a mirror practicing poses. In the group home she’d steal lipsticks from the older girls’ rooms, plaster it on her already pink lips then turn her face sideways and pout at her reflection. I’d tell her she was just slapping stinky whale grease on her mouth and besides it was toxic and carcinogenic. She’d just shrug and tell me not to be such a grouch. Why don’t you just try to enjoy yourself, she’d say, live your life instead of griping all the time and picking out the bad, scary things. That’s how you get to be popular.

Remembering those words coming from her smudgy lipstick mouth made my throat catch. I swallowed hard.

“We done?” said Guy, his smile looking strained. I snapped back to the present, but not before a blurry impression flashed across my mind. The white glare of a camera flash illuminating Birdie’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes. A crudely tattooed hand trying to wipe away smudged mascara. I gasped at the impact of the vision.

“Anna, snap out of it,” said a voice on the periphery of my consciousness. Then, just as my legs threatened to give way beneath me, a pair of strong hands held me up.

“Must be the hangover,” I said, feeling Guy’s arms grip me tightly. “Or maybe the heat.”

At the airport, Nancy towered like an elegant giraffe above the knots of friends and relatives. Chic and untouchable in a white windbreaker, she provided a glaring contrast to Gord’s shiny, spray-tanned face hovering above the bunch of white roses clutched to his chest. He thrust them at me, then grabbed me round the waist and kissed both cheeks as if we’d known each other for years. Nancy swooped in on Guy, kissing his face, stroking his hair, and clinging to him as if he’d been away for weeks. Then, as if she’d just remembered I was standing there, she turned and gathered me to her, crushing my face into her narrow bosom.

“I’ve always longed for a daughter and now here she is,” she said, tears misting her eyes as she held my shoulders to look at me. Jarred by her scrutiny of my naked face, I looked away. My mouth felt like sandpaper and tasted like stale airline coffee.

“Don’t be shy now. Show me that ring.”

I held out my hand in the way I’d seen the girls do it on TV, arching my wrist to allow the diamond to twinkle and catch the light. It was a beautiful stone. Probably the most expensive item I’d ever owned. We’d shopped for it in the mall at Caesars Palace once my hangover had receded.

I wiggled the finger, loving the tiny rainbows of light that sparkled from each facet of its perfect surface, even though a niggling voice in my head kept saying this could never last. That somehow, I’d aimed too high and would eventually get my come-uppance. But I knew I’d wanted this. Wanted it so badly, and for a long, long time.

Nancy held on to my hand long enough to glance from her own diamond ring to mine as if comparing their size. “Quite, quite lovely,” she said, pasting on a furtive smile and dropping my hand. “My son always had great taste.”

Gord slapped Guy on the back. “It’s a rock, son,” he said,