I. Eight

Tina’s gaze shifted back, and forth, and beyond me, as I stood next to asthmatic Becky, lightly braising in the July heat.  
“Becky,” she said.
Becky slid forward and joined Team Tina, accepting a blue bandana.  I stood scuffing my sneakers through the drought-edged grass, pretending that the sun had gotten into my eyes.  Tina had promised, in front of Mom and Dad and baby Jessica, who didn’t really count but who had gaveled her sippy cup on her high chair tray just the same.  I’d even taken the last piece of liver to spare Tina – Mom had refused to allow her to scrape into the garbage.  But though the effluvia of organ meat lingered in every inhalation and belch for two days, I contented myself with knowing that Tina would spare me another trial before the Lord-of-the-Flies court of neighborhood opinion.
“Mary?” Jim’s resigned selection of me as his final teammate.  I considered whether retreating to the air-conditioned living room with a book “borrowed” from Tina’s shelf might not be the better part of valor.
I watched a caterpillar take a deep bite out of a leaf.  No doubt Tina would vivisect me in her diary later.
“Mary.”  Tina’s voice contained a faint-but-heady whine of embarrassment.  A rarity for the uncontested captain of the under-12s, and she was just ten.
“Let’s go,” said Jim, unnecessarily.  What I lacked in height or strength I atoned for with a cultivated sleight-of-hand.  I had even snagged that coveted, tattered strip of polyester flag out from under Jim’s nose during the neighborhood’s last matchup.  And I would have gotten back, free and clear, a heroine for the day, if Tina hadn’t caught my pigtail.
“Are you just going to stand there wasting everyone’s time?” Tina demanded.  
I couldn’t even tell Mom that Tina had reneged on her promise, because she had agreed not to tell Mom about that afternoon last week when I hadn’t quite gotten to the bathroom in time, and Mom had threatened biblical vengeance if that happened again.
And then: Tina’s little cat lips curled upward.
I walked toward her, where she stood beside Jim, and spat in her face.
She wiped it off, and carried on.

II. Fifteen

Tina’s gaze shifted back, and forth, and finally landed on her blue dress conveniently crushed between the witch costume Halloween I’d worn four or five years ago, and the taffeta “junior bridesmaid” dress I’d worn to Aunt Tracy’s wedding six months before.  Tina, for undisclosed reasons, had declined the honor at the eleventh hour.  I graciously agreed to step in.  Mom unleashed a box of safety pins and her thanks on me.  Tina had curled her lip.
“What the hell, Mary?” she spat.
“Tina.”  Mom paused in our doorway, a laundry basket perched indignantly on her hip.  
“She stole my dress!” Tina retorted. The garment in question – a navy skater dress, but made of finer stuff than usual – made me look as waifish as the ice dancers frolicking on TV. I had, in point of fact, gotten a date with Jim, who had transformed from capture-the-flag fanatic into an adorably lanky track star.  I may have alleged a horror movie marathon with my friend Heather on the night in question.  
“Is that true, Mary?” Mom asked.
I had carefully stockpiled the details of the real story for a scenario of mutually assured sororal destruction.  This seemed likely, per annotations in a certain cerulean journal (volume three) stashed between the mattress and the box spring.
Anyway.
I stood listening to Jessica banging on her makeshift drums in the driveway, as I debated which iteration of the story of that night to share.  
The version including Jim and me wrestling cheerfully for possession of my B-cup strip of in the back seat of his Mom’s Toyota polyester failed to pass muster.  The hall clock struck six.  “Tina’s night to make dinner,” I announced.
“Mom!” Tina cried.  Her skin had flared in the last week or so, and she had avoided the prying eyes of the neighborhood by (allegedly) making her way through Shirley Jackson’s collected works.
“That chicken won’t roast itself,” I said.
“Wash it and give it back, Mary,” sighed Mom.
“Mom.”
But she had, accidentally or otherwise, drifted out of earshot.  
“You are a complete waste of space,” she hissed.  
“You should probably just let this go,” I suggested, gesturing her toward the kitchen. “Stress just makes acne worse.” 

III. Twenty-two

Jessica’s garage band had long boasted a cult following in the neighborhood, but now she’d made it into the state finals for some youth music competition.  Middle-of-Nowhere State was only two hours away, so I came home for the weekend.  Despite my looming finals.  
“Tina’s late,” I announced, as Mom chivvied me toward the car.  
“She said she’ll meet us there,” Mom replied.  “And, Mary –”
“What?” I asked, stiffly.
Mom bit her lip.
“Traffic’s going to be a nightmare,” said Dad.  “Jessica’s on in an hour.  Let’s go.”
The high school had made its theatre available for the event.  Eventually Tina slouched into the mustard-tinted seat on the other side of Mom and Dad.  She had put on a fair amount of weight since I’d seen her at Christmas, when she and Dad had gone another ten rounds about her having left college, sans plan / diploma.  Her hair fell in greasy chunks around her face.  But she looked none the worse; instead, she exuded a glow I’d never seen in her, the kind usually confined to lottery winners between the realization and the endless tele-requests.   
“What?” I asked Tina.
“Jessica!” Mom called, leaning forward, waving toward the stage.  Jessica, unperturbed, continued with her finishing touches.  
“Well?” I said.
“You still off to Chicago after graduation?” Tina asked.
“Yeah,” I said.  I had landed a paid internship, with a strong possibility of ensuing hire.  “You?”
“Shh!” said Dad, gesturing stage-ward.
We watched Jessica slay the competition like a succession of inadequate dragons; we applauded her ensuing coronation.  Then we hustled down to hug her and bask in her success.  
Mom and Dad insisted on taking pictures with Jessica; Tina and I dangled beside the exultant cluster.  “So?” I said.
“I’ve got a book deal,” she said.  “All those old diaries,” she mused.  “Great practice.”
“So it’s about me?” I demanded.
“Mary,” she said, apparently in sadness and not in anger, “you waste a lot of energy.”
Then Mom wrapped her arm around Tina. “You told her?” she asked.  Then, to me: “They’re having this big launch party in New York – during your internship, unfortunately – she’ll sign the books, and take photos – and they’ll be giving out these bright blue t-shirts…”
For the space of a breath, I wondered what it would be like, to wear my sister’s colors.