I reached up and grabbed her ankle just in time to trip her. She went down like a sack of crisp cannoli.
She called me a bitch in Spanish. I called her the equivalent of a hooker in Slovenian. She kicked at me again and I slapped at her leg. Just before Brando and Travis decided to break it up, I screechedDovolj!in a tone extremely close to my mother’s.
A beat of silence passed, and then the four of us laughed and laughed.
After we stopped, the silence became loud. It dawned on me then that I had never laughed with my sister. Not even when we were kids. Instead of the moment bringing me joy, it brought heavy sadness that seemed to settle over me like a suffocating blanket.
Why did she have to hate me for what I was? I never asked for it. If I could have given it to her, I would have. Gladly. All this time we could’ve been close. It would have been nice to have her after Elliott died. Yet the distance between us only grew. He was the link that should have kept us together.
Footsteps sounded, along with the sounds of two people kissing, their breaths coming in shallow pants.
Paolo’sviolinohadcast a spell.
Brando glanced at me, then Travis, and then my sister. My sister was still on the step above, Travis one ahead of her, still crouched to help her up, and Brando and I were still in our lovers’ tangle on the landing.
“Amoureux.”The French word came out breathy and hot—lover.
Charlotte and I both groaned at the same time.
“Stop doing that!” she hissed at me.
“Doing what?” I hissed back.
“Copying me! People are going to think we’re close or something.”
“Hmph!”
“Who is it, baby? Collette and Romeo?”
“No! My mother and father!”
“Mymother and father!” Charlotte added unnecessarily.
Brando and Travis seemed to hit their funny bones at the same time. They both started laughing again.
“Oh!” my mother said when her heel hit Brando and me. She looked down, as did my father. They were wrapped in their own embrace. “What are you doing on the floor? And likethat?”
“Dying,” I said, my cheeks igniting into flames.
The four of us were at it again. It wasn’t until after we settled that I noticed my mother and father were giving us a peculiar look.
“What is it?” Charlotte asked, wiping her eyes.
“You two have never—”
“No,” my father said, interrupting my mother. “Let’s get to bed, Pnina. Leave them to it.”
Yes, please leave us to it, I thought. I wanted to be alone with Brando. Not my sister and her husband—our moment had ended before they came along—and definitely not my mother and father. The thought made me cringe when I thought of the way my mother had called himloverand his comment aboutlet’s get to bed.
Charlotte followed behind Pnina and Everett, but not before she jabbed me in the head once more with her filthy toe and not before I got a good slap in.
I sighed. “We should—”
“A minute,” Brando said, bringing us back to the moment before my rude sister had interrupted.
He was looking at me in a peculiar way. I put a hand on each of his cheeks, the strong bones underneath his skin like sculpted art beneath my palms. We rested that way for however long, the music playing, laughter and voices echoing, the air still swirling with whatever mystery Paolo had offered it to carry.
“Just say it,mio angelo,” I whispered.
