Rabbit Ears Read Free Page B

pavement, and gone. You wait a bit longer in the silent night; then you creep back onto the road and start the long walk home.
    Other girls don’t do that, you’re guessing. They don’t take rides with strangers who want to have sex with them. They don’t exchange oral sex for taxi service. Well, you didn’t do that either, you think, as you put one sore foot in front of the other.
    As you walk, ignoring blisters and scratches, you think back briefly to the moon shining through the water, reaching its light into the depths to touch you. You don’t deserve that clean beauty, you think.
    And with the thought comes a sort of black satisfaction. You are, you really are,
that
girl.
    Beth
    Mom is turning the fridge inside out, no sign of breakfast, when I come down at eight thirty with my arms full of sheets. She has a big mug of coffee on the go, almost certainly cold. And she’s in a state.
    So much to do. Ferry leaves in two hours.
    We won’t be catching that one, I think. Mom always sets her sights on the impossible and then is furious when the impossible is just that.
    “I’m capable of helping, Mom,” I say as I head for the washing machine in the pantry. It’s already running, so I dump my armload on the floor and head back to the kitchen. “I’m always helping.” I know I sound whiny, but I can’t help it. “Do you think I could have some breakfast first?”
    Mom gestures broadly. “Help yourself,” she says.
    And I look around at the chaos. Ah, granola. And there’s the milk on the counter.
    First few bites consumed. “Kaya’s the one who really should be helping,” I say, tempted, oh so tempted, to tell Mom about my early morning vigil. It was two o’clock when I crept back into bed. Two!
    “Shall I go wake her?” I ask, but Mom doesn’t even glance in my direction.
    “Kaya’s not much good in the morning,” she says, as if I don’t already know that.
    I finish my breakfast and go upstairs to pack my own room, feet banging on the stairs. I shove Kaya’s door open as I pass. A grunt from her tangled bed rewards me. What did happen to her out there? How did she get those scratches?
    I don’t care, I tell myself. But not caring is hard work.
    I’m quick with my own stuff, and with the broom and dustpan on the wide wooden planks. Bag and broom thump down the stairs behind me. Back to Kaya’s door.
    She sits up as I walk in. Sybilla is up on the bed with her, her huge collie bulk nestled against Kaya’s legs. Kaya isn’t supposed to let her up there, but she does, every night, and Mom knows it. How did it happen that that dog became all Kaya’s anyway?
    “Leave me alone,” Kaya says. “I’m up.”
    “What happened to you last night?” I say. It’s a direct question, and my mouth stays open, lips pulled back on the
t
, surprised at itself.
    Her eyes meet mine for an instant. “Nothing happened. I went out. I came back. And found you where you shouldn’t have been.”
    I look at her, hair knotted, skin grey instead of brown, eyes squinting. Unlike me, Kaya is a beauty, but you’d never know it to look at her now.
    “I was worried,” I say. Or whisper.
    That beaten-down face fixes itself into a sneer. “What?” she says.
    I back down, as usual. “Nothing,” I say. “Just get ready. Mom wants to catch the noon boat off the island.”
    Kaya glances at her wrist and shrugs. “Mom always wants things she can’t get,” she says.
    I leave then, anger and shame battling each other deep in my belly, and turn my attention to sweeping and scrubbing the bathroom, which is spotless by the time I’m done.

CHAPTER TWO
    Beth
    Back home. September. Kaya’s first day of high school. I keep an eye out. Who’s she going to talk to? Where’s she going to go between classes?
    I see her at the start of lunch, her head up and back, that little self-satisfied sneer plastered all over her face, strutting—like, actually strutting—her way out to the breezeway. Ten minutes later, I catch a