With drops of Jupiter in her hair
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s a time to change
Since the return of her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and talks like June
- “Drops of Jupiter” by Train
“And this,” Zora speaks as we enter a room in the far back of her house, “is now your room.” She flickers on the light and I’m amazed to see the recreation of my childhood room - growing up, I had a fascination with the poet and author, Maya Angelou. She was my hero. I had always wanted to hide away somewhere with just the collections of her work but my mother wouldn’t allow me to read her work, claiming that I wasn’t supposed to be praising someone outside of my own race.
Oh, did I mention my parents are somewhat on the racist end? They will deny this till they are blue in the face - but the fact is my mother doesn’t like to see anyone beyond her race get ahead in life, in any way, and my father…he just goes along with her. Of course none of my sisters or do I share this sort of feeling that my parents do.
Anyway, since I wasn’t allowed to read her work, Zora would go to the local bookstore and buy me paperback copies of her work and hide it in her room since my parents never dared searched her belongings. And when they were away, I would read Maya till I had memorized every historic line that she had ever written - I secretly desired to write like her one day.
But now I look in the room to see a bookshelf full of her work and of others I admire - I instantly smile. It warms my heart that Zora would remember such things. I walk into the room and glance over the various books before me, I am in love, really, I am.
I glance behind me to see her brown eyes sparkling, “You like?” She asks, stepping into the room and fixing a picture of myself and my sisters when we were all under the age of ten.
I clasp my hands together and nod my head. “I love it.” I pull a book from the shelf and sigh when I see that it is The Invisible Man. “How did you pay for all of this?”
Zora rolls her eyes dramatically, sitting down on the full-size bed that I guess is mine now. “I’m freaking loaded, little sis.” She grins and pats the empty spot beside her; I hold the book in my hands as I join her on the bed. “Paying for this is like nothing to me, besides I knew it would make you happy - make you feel at home.”
Truth be told, this is the most I’ve felt comfortable staying somewhere since I don’t know when. I rest my head on her shoulder and she wraps her arm around me, “Thanks, Zora.”
She snorts. “Yeah, you’re welcome and yada-yada-yada.” She looks to her watch on her left wrist and sighs. “It’s the last day of school today….damn, I hate summer vacations!” She looks to me, “What you plan to do this whole summer without working?”
I shrug my shoulders. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Most likely, if I didn’t get a summer job, I was going to just be sitting around the house keeping to myself. Yeah, that’s what I always do. “I don’t know.”
She drops her arm from my shoulder and stands up from the bed. “I’d suggest that you help out at the office at my job but I’m not sure if you want to be around Maria and Patrice.”
I look to her. “Do they know I’m back in town?”
Zora nods her head slowly. “I told Maria and of course she told Patrice - they want to see you, but I told them that it had to be your decision for that to happen.” I open my mouth to speak and she reads my mind. “No, I haven’t heard from Jade. That bitch just keeps in touch with our folks - I haven’t heard from her since she left which was like ten years ago.”
I remember the day that Jade had left town. I had to be about twelve and she was nineteen. She had big dreams - she wanted to be bigger than Julia Roberts (yeah, right) so when she left, she promised to keep in touch with us all. I had admired her because she was the first of us to get away from our family and I had somehow wished that one day she would come for me and my sisters and whisk us away from our horrible parents. Didn’t happen.
I’ve seen her in commercials and she’s played small parts in movies but what has made her a household name is the role of Savannah Davenport on the soap opera Every Road Leads to You. I was flipping through the channels one day in my dorm when I saw her face and instantly I became drawn to the television - my sister has that sort of appeal about her - once you’ve seen her, you instantly become drawn in to her beauty.
Since then, if I have the chance, I watch the show because I know that this is the only way I’ll ever be linked to my eldest sister ever again. Zora is bitter towards her because just like me, she admired our sister - but I think it was more crucial for her because everyone pegged her to follow in Jade’s footsteps.
Zora and Jade are almost identical to one another. Zora would tell me stories of her walking in the grocery store and people would stop to ask for her autograph, thinking that she was our famous sister.
“Oh.” I say now. I don’t know what else to say.
I’m guessing she notices this because she grins at me once again and then heads to the door. “I’m heading out to pick up Kyle from school but feel free to make yourself at home - this is your place, too, now.” She leaves my sight and I am left to my thoughts.
I’m frightened knowing that I will have to face my parents - maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but it is inevitable. I don’t know what I would say to them or how they will perceive me. I know that my mother will look at my physical appearance and shake her head in disappointment.
Out of all my sisters, I am the biggest and what they call the most unattractive. Jade and Zora have the obvious beauty which they get from our mother while Maria and Patrice are exotic looking like our father - they have the brown hair, hazel eyes and deeply tanned skin. I am the oddest one of the bunch - I look like no one and I am incredibly out of shape, and I’ve been this way all of my life. As a child, my mother would sometimes not feed me on purpose and force me to jog three miles on the treadmill in hopes that I would lose the extra fat on my body, but to no avail.
My natural hair color is a sandy red but I’ve dyed it to a light brown since I’ve moved away - my eyes are just plain brown and don’t get me started on my body. I wear a size twelve and sometimes I can barely fit into that. My mother calls my body ‘fabulously out of control’ while my sisters claim that they envy my curves and wide hips. I seriously doubt this.
I wanted my mother to like me so I resorted to her crazy crash diets and her ridiculous routine of exercise but when I left home I finally realized that I wasn’t meant to be the size of my sisters and I wasn’t going to be the pretty girl but I was me and that was all I could be. I’ve learned to accept my body and love it - I don’t diet and I don’t exercise unless you count walking up the stairs on an occasion to get somewhere an exercise. I’m chubby and I know it but I don’t care.
My father never cared for how I looked, he’s not really the judgmental kind (except for when he learned what I wanted to do as my profession) - but he has to stand by my mother at all times so he just agrees with everything she says or does. When he found out that my mother wouldn’t let me eat anything when I was about thirteen, he would sneak me a sandwich and some chips when Mabel went to sleep, and for that, I don’t hold anything against him. It is my mother who I try to stay away from because she has done nothing but brought sadness to my heart and soul.
I like being alone and the reason I do has mostly to do with her…she suffocated me as a child because she wanted me to be more like my sisters. She invaded my privacy and didn’t allow me to do anything but go to school and come home, well that is until my junior year when she had forced me to join my school’s varsity cheerleading squad (which I absolutely hated).
And now, I can only picture her look of disgrace. I don’t care to think about it any longer because it’ll only bring my self-confidence down.
* * *
Zora had called and said that she was taking Kyle to the office with her and that they would be home later on that night - she told me to get anything I wanted out of the fridge and take her other car keys and drive wherever I pleased.
The only problem to this is that I had nowhere I wished to go. I know every place in this town but I have no desire to go anywhere around here. It is the death of me here. It is so boring.
I’m not hungry so I decide to get underneath my bed covers and curl up and read a book that focuses on famous quotes said by famous people. It is then that I feel my cell phone vibrate in my back pocket - I place the book beside me and retrieve my phone out of my pocket.
I notice the number immediately and reject it. I place the phone down on my bed and intend to grab the book again but my phone starts vibrating, again. I sigh loudly and countdown to five before finally answering the phone. “Hello?”
“Why did you reject my call?” I hear Michael Vega speak. It isn’t what you already might assume - Michael and I were colleagues in Austin. We shared some of the same interests and he was a good person to hold a conversation with. We had talked briefly on the phone with one another but mostly we conversant online.
It was one day that he began expressing his desires to take our friendly conversations to the next level while we were online - at the time I actually thought he meant he wanted us to try to become friends but in reality, he wanted to engage in sexual intercourse. Immediately, I cut all ties from him and he would call continuously to say that he had been joking but if he really knew me at all, he would know that I don’t take “jokes” like that lightly.
“That’s how you answer someone when they say hello?” I ask, brushing loose strands of my hair from my face, “And to answer your question, I wish you would get the message that I don’t want to talk to you, anymore.”
He groans over the phone. “I apologize for what happened, Sadie. I went too far.”
“And I forgave you, Michael. I just choose not to associate with you anymore. So please leave me alone.” I flip my phone close then and place it on my side dresser beside my bed.
He is the first of the opposite sex to even pay a little bit of attention to me. When he had first asked me for my number, I was internally excited with the thought that someone might actually like me, so you can imagine how embarrassed I was to find out that he just wanted to be homework buddies.
I’m so clueless when it comes to the opposite sex - maybe I need to be a client for my sisters’ business? I shake my head. I will never resort to anything like that.
That is just ludicrous.
* * *
Kyle Kennedy is the epitome of my father - he has the dark brown hair and gray eyes with the deeply tanned skin - he doesn’t look like my sister, at all. When he sees me sitting in the dining room, eating a bagel, he rushes to my side and wraps his arms around me.
My heart warms. I love children. When Zora gave birth to Kyle, I had decided right then and there that I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to make an impact on someone else’s life. I return the embrace, “Hey kiddo! Long time, no see.”
He nods his head against my chest and pulls back from our embrace; a widened smile reveals a dimple in his left cheek. How cute. “I know! Mommy said that you’re going to be living with us now! Is that true?”
I nod my head and he squeals, happily. He pulls me to my feet and I leave my bagel on the plate on the table as he drags me into his room and I see nothing but toys, toys and more toys. Zora really spoils him. “I want to show you something!”
I watch in silence as he mumbles through a desk drawer and when he finally finds what he is looking for, a tiny picture, he hands it to me. When I realize what it is, tears cloud my vision. It is me the day of Kyle’s birth.
I had been so scared for Zora because she was just a baby and she was going to be alone because Kyle’s father had ditched her a few months before she had went into labor. But she had proven me wrong when she gave birth to her son, she instantly took control of the mother role and even though she was still a child herself, I was amazed at her courage.
The picture is me holding my newborn nephew in my arms and Zora is in the background, grinning from ear to ear. When I felt him in my arms, a new sense of faith was restored in me that day - I knew I had to go out and achieve something for myself because that way, I could come back and help Zora - but who would’ve thought that she would’ve never needed my help? She had made an empire for herself.
Kyle’s voice interrupts my scattered thoughts. “I want you to have it.”
My eyes gleam with pride. “You do?”
He nods his little head and bounces on the balls of his tiny feet. “Mommy says I ain’t supposed to be greedy.”
Zora’s voice follows to the room, “What did I tell you about the word ’ain’t’, Kyle?”
Kyle’s eyes find mine and he whispers, “I think I made a boo boo. I’m sorry, Auntie Sadie.”
I run my fingers through his spiky brown hair and lean over, “It’s okay, hon. Whenever she’s not around, you can say ’ain’t’ as much as you like, all right?”
He nods his head. “I HEARD THAT, SADIE!” Zora yells then and I chuckle softly. She is like a vampire - she can hear everything.
Kyle rolls his eyes dramatically and looks to me apologetically. “Mommy is real tough on good grummer.” He is still whispering.
I smile. “Grammar.”
He snaps his little fingers. “That’s what I said.”
He is so adorable. I’m going to love living with him. “Yeah, I know kiddo.”
* * *
