Free The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross Page A

crate beside the record player he’d built himself, balancing the arm in a pool of glorious liquid mercury.
    My sisters tried out, too, and won parts as Hot Box girls. To everyone’s surprise, I was cast in the starring role of Sarah, the missionary who falls in love with a gangster. And to my pleasure and mortification, Sky Masterson, my romantic partner, wasplayed by Grey Munro, who had moved from South Africa in fifth grade, when we were new to the school together. Grey was tall and was redheaded, like me, and he saw snow for the first time at age eleven. We’d been talking about electricity and were taking turns at a board assembled by the window, trying to complete circuits in pairs to light a bulb. Odette was my partner, and she was working so quickly I just stared out the window. Silently she told me, I’ve got it; don’t bother.
    “It’s snowing,” I said quietly, wondering at the way the world was suddenly muted.
    “Snow?” asked Grey, knocking over his chair as he ran to the window. Any other teacher would’ve told him to sit down, to wait his turn, but Mrs. Carrigan, whom we all adored, told Grey he could go outside. By himself. Smack in the middle of the electricity lesson. We all watched him out the window as he held his hands up toward the sky, coatless, wearing brown corduroys and a striped T-shirt that made him look like a kid from ZOOM . His face was glorious with recognition, with joy and a tiny bit of fear as the snow kissed his face.
    “He’s weird,” said Odette.
    “That’s okay,” I said. She looked at me, recognizing something, but being honorable, not teasing.
    Grey’s eyes were very, very blue. I loved him from that moment.
    Unfortunately, there were two Sarahs and two Skys in our production of Guys and Dolls , and we’d each get two nights, one with each partner. And unfortunately, the other Sky was Gary Waters, who was shorter than me and always tried at lunch recess to snap my bra strap or steal my lunch or trip and catch me. Ididn’t realize until later that he had a crush on me as potent as my crush on Grey. Meanwhile, Grey had kissed one of the Clumps, a girl named Nicole, at a boy-girl party I hadn’t attended—though my sisters were there and offered thorough reports that made me wince and ask for more. Nicole was claiming she and Grey were boyfriend and girlfriend, though Grey didn’t seem particularly involved in this endeavor.
    My mother came to rehearsals and sat with her knitting, embarrassing me just by being there, by knitting, by wearing a dress she’d made herself with the Marimekko fabric left over from our couch slipcovers. Often, she missed mortifying me as she drove Odette and Olivia to matching Suzuki violin lessons, to figure skating and twirling, all of which I’d forgone after a lesson or two. After the show, I’d ask for voice lessons and study for three years with a divorced Princeton grande dame who’d been on Broadway for sixteen years before retiring to the suburbs. She wore scarves on her head and had scars from melanomas that had been removed—she’d been a serious tanner—and she smoked between lessons on her screened-in porch. I had already taken two years of school clarinet lessons—I knew outside lessons were expensive, and despite the house, despite the money, Mom still checked the Accounts every day; she still made slipcovers and her own dresses, so I couldn’t help worrying about money in concert with her silent obsession.
    I would be a fine singer, but I wasn’t good at clarinet. If I practiced, I got a perpetually chapped lower lip and a little improvement. If I didn’t practice, the sessions in the basement of the lunch hall were somewhat more bearable, as my teacher, the spindly and sweaty Mr. Peterson, would demonstrate for more of the half hourrather than sitting through my squeaks and cracked notes, wincing and encouraging, which consisted of patting my shoulder with his gigantic, blunt hand.
    Sixth grade was a year of