“So what else is new?” says Pooh Lewis. I look at her face to see if she is mad or sad about being called wrong, but she does not look like she minds. “About what?”
Mab tells her about the moving vans at my library and how there was a new student at school and how that new student’s name is River Templeton.
Pooh Lewis says, “Oh!” She claps her hand over her mouth which means surprise or shock, but I can see under her hand that she is smiling which means happy which is weird. When she stops smiling and holding her mouth, I think she will ask what is he doing here or what does it mean that River Templeton has moved to Bourne or what happened when he was introduced at school. But instead she says, “So! What does he look like?”
“That’s what you were wrong about.” Mab is bouncing a little bit. “When you said real life isn’t like the movies anywhere? He looks just like a movie star. It is exactly like the movies out there.”
Pooh Lewis makes a noise like a squeal and claps her hands. “That handsome?”
“Not handsome. More like…” Mab does not finish saying what she is saying.
“What? What?” Pooh is very impatient. I know how she feels.
Mab says, “Well lit.”
Pooh says, “Well lit?” because she does not understand what Mab means which makes me feel better because I also do not understand what Mab means.
“Glowing like,” Mab says. “Shiny.”
“Greasy?” Pooh is guessing because Mab does not make sense. “Radioactive?”
“Healthy,” Mab says. “Whole.”
“Ahh,” Pooh says to show she understands. “Well, sure. He must be rich.”
Which makes me feel glad to have something to contribute to the conversation. “It is not accurate to ascribe a correlative relationship between being rich and being pretty,” I inform them. Mr. Beechman is very big on the difference between correlation and causation.
“I don’t know what that means, honey,” Pooh Lewis says, “but being rich has everything to do with being pretty.”
“There are many ugly rich people,” I point out.
“Name one,” Pooh Lewis says.
I cannot name one, but I cannot name any rich people, ugly or pretty.
Pooh Lewis says, “If you have money, you can get your hair curled or straightened, darkened or bleached, thickened or removed. You can get the fat taken off your ass to fill in your wrinkles. You can get your teeth pushed in if they’re pushing out, straightened if they’re crooked, whitened if they’re beige. Clothes, nails, shoes, jewelry.” She waves all up and down herself. “You can replace the whole damn thing if you have enough money.”
This is a weird thing to think about. I do not have any money. But if I did, there are a lot of other things I would do with it.
But Mab is not thinking about that. “He’s sixteen,” she says.
Pooh Lewis snorts like a horse. “You’d be surprised what rich people let their kids do.”
But Mab is shaking her head no. “It’s more like he’s been … I don’t know—”
And Pooh Lewis fills in the end of her sentence. “Drinking clean water?”
I do not know what this has to do with being rich or being pretty or being River Templeton, but Mab’s eyes get big and Mab’s cheeks get red and Mab whispers a whisper and her whisper is this: “That’s it, Pooh. That’s what it is. That’s it exactly.”
I look at my sister’s face, but I cannot say if she is happy or surprised or mad. Mrs. Radcliffe says these are very different emotions, and it is easy to tell them apart if you remember to look. And even though happy, surprised, and mad are like the points of an equilateral triangle—all far apart from one another—I think Mab might be all three.
Three
“I’m never going to get to sleep.”
I knew she was awake still—Monday too—but I’m relieved to hear Mab’s voice in the dark.
“Muh,” I say. Me neither.
“It is not accurate to say you are never going to get to sleep,” Monday says, “because people who do not sleep go insane or die, and you are not insane or dead.”
“Not until they stop sleeping.” I don’t know why Mab bothers arguing with her. “So the fact that we are sane and alive now just means that we’ve slept in the past, not that we will in the future.”
This is the kind of logic Monday usually likes, but now it sends her into a panic.
“You cannot be insane or dead! How will I survive alone?”
Mab sighs. “One night’s not going to kill us.”
But Monday can’t take that chance. “Hush little baby do not you cry,” she sings. “Two is going to buy you a hook and eye.”
“That’s not right.” My Voice has that one saved because it applies in so many conversations.
“Please stop,” Mab begs, but she’s laughing, maybe at Monday for concluding all that stands between us and madness is a good night’s sleep and all that stands between us and a good night’s sleep is a lullaby. Or maybe at herself for imagining she can head off this lullaby before three more verses at least.
“And if that hook and eye will not hook, Two is going to let you borrow a book,” Monday sings in the third person. Actually, come to think of it, that song is always in the third person.
“It’s okay to be worried”—my Voice has this one saved as well—“but there is no immediate cause for concern.”
“And if that book is overdue, Two is going to hit you with her shoe.”
“And angry,” Mab adds. “It’s okay to be worried and angry—when we have such good reason to be worried and angry—without having our ears assaulted.”
“Because keeping books beyond their due date is not nice, therefore when you do you have to pay the price.”
“Truth or dare?” my Voice says, and Monday stops mid-inhale.
“I’m too tired,” Mab whines.
“Lie!” Monday declares. We have upped the Truth or Dare stakes by merging it with Two Truths and a Lie. “You just said you could not sleep.”
“Just because you can’t sleep doesn’t mean you’re not tired. When you can’t sleep you’re more tired.”
“Truth or dare, Mab?” my Voice clarifies.
We play this game like comfort food, like other sisters drink mugs of cocoa or gorge themselves on mac and cheese and chocolate-chip cookies.
“Dare,” Mab tries, pointlessly.
“I dare you to stick your foot in the toilet.” My Voice has had that saved for years.
“Germs!” Monday shrieks. Every time. “I dare you to wash your feet in the bathtub with warm water and soap for at least one hundred and twenty seconds and then wash your hands that washed your feet for another one hundred and twenty seconds.”
So, “Truth.” Mab changes her mind. As she always must.
I type. “What did you think of River?”
“Asshole,” Mab says instantly.
I would like to say “asshole.” Saying “asshole” seems like it would make you feel better. Whereas typing it—or tapping the folder of curse words I’ve saved and titled “I Swear”—is completely unsatisfying. My Voice is such an asshole.