“Exactly,” she said gloomily. “Nobody’s looking for a mahogany breakfront china cabinet for their third-floor walk-up apartment.”
I nodded. “Too large.”
“Too old-fashioned.” She slid an empty plate in front of me. “Kind of a shame, really, because the hand carving is gorgeous. I’m going to take more pictures today, see if I can attract some buyers.”
She sat opposite me, at the scarred kitchen table where we used to do our homework. It was good to be back where nothing ever changed, not the wallpaper or the salt and pepper shakers shaped like birds or the clock on the wall. I wanted to pull the past around me like a quilt and never go out.
“Just like old times,” I said.
Amy speared a piece of cantaloupe with a fork. “Almost. Meg and Jo aren’t here.”
“Like when we were in high school, then. After they went away to college.”
“We didn’t hang out together in high school.” A twist of a smile. “We should have.”
We could have. We were in the same grade. I was sick so often after our father deployed that the school had held me back a year.
I smiled. “You were way cooler than me.”
“I was a hot mess.” Amy wagged her fork at me. “And you were Daddy’s little angel.”
I winced.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I’d had another text from Colt that morning.Hey, Angel. Missing you.And a picture—snapped by one of the roadies?—of Colt singing with Mercedes, both of them smiling, her hair shining under the stage lights, her shoulders shimmering with Sharla’s magic powder. She looked fantastic.
Amy put a piece of melon on my plate. Cantaloupe, fleshy and juicy and orange.
The shadow closed its bony fingers around my throat. “I’m not hungry,” I said again.
“One bite,” she said, like Meg coaxing DJ.
“Even one bite shows on camera.”
“Like you have to worry,” Amy scoffed. “What are you, like, a size 2 now?”
“Numbers don’t matter,” I said.
But of course they did. Theydid. I picked up my fork, using the side to cut the melon into smaller pieces.
“Anyway, even the fashion industry is becoming more bodypositive,” Amy said. “A lot of major brands are more inclusive now. There’s such a thing as being too thin.”
“Not according to Aunt Phee.”
“Appearances aren’t everything to Phee.” Amy grinned. “It just looks like they are.”
I smiled. “You don’t need to worry about appearances. You always were the pretty sister.”
“Ugh. Why do we do that?”
“Do what?”
“Pigeonhole ourselves. The responsible one, the smart one, the good one, the pretty one.”
“I don’t know. Maybe for the same reason you count pictures on the fridge?”
