Free Pieces of My Sister's Life by Elizabeth Arnold Page B

stared at her. “But it’s been forty years.”
    “Forty year and I still has his heart.” She slipped the ring back on her finger. “And he still haves mine, and I’s still waiting.”
    I studied her face, not sure what to say, whether to console or commiserate. In the brightness of her eyes I saw dreams once so real they’d been played in two minds, now vaporous as birthday wishes. And I suddenly saw myself in forty years, saw the creases at my eyes as I watched Justin, gray haired, with Leslie by his side. They’d raised children and grandchildren and still held hands. They talked about the past and were glad for all of it. And I saw myself watching Justin with his greater love and still waiting to win back his heart.

    I glanced at my watch. Two hours left. It was time to get dressed. I rooted through the closet I shared with Eve. I tried on and discarded an Indian skirt, a jeans skirt and peasant blouse, my tartan kilt. All wrong.
    I began to panic. My striped pantsuit? God no, I looked like a mix between a clown and a convict. The pink bridesmaid’s dress? It made me look like a Marshmallow Peep. My blue jumper? Way too conservative. Everything either made me look like I was trying too hard, or trying hard and failing miserably.
    I glanced towards the door, then pulled out the grape costume Eve had tried on the other day, remembering how it hugged her hips and breasts like a second skin. It might look too sexy for this particular occasion, but then again wasn’t sexy just what I wanted? I pulled it on carefully, looked in the mirror—
    —and nearly cried out loud.
    It was awful. My hair was frizzed with static, my face was red, eyes frantic. I looked like I was playing dress-up, like a little girl pretending to be a hooker.
    I pulled off the dress and threw it onto the floor. But still I could see the horror of my monstrous purple reflection. Next to Leslie’s pretty, perky perfection, I was like something that had been dragged up from the mud and left to rot.
    I reached for the jumper I’d discarded and slipped it on, then pulled my hair behind my ears. Now, even if I looked like a preschooler, at least I didn’t look like I was pretending to be anything else.
    I smoothed careful makeup over cheekbones, lips, eyelashes, then began to play with hairstyles. When I heard the front door open, I hurriedly pulled the purple dress back onto its hanger.
    Eve stamped up the stairs, calling down the hall. “Men are so freaking gullible.” Her voice trilled with laughter. “You’d think a cop would be beyond it, like when they put on the uniform they should get a little more sane, but he was like a walking hard-on.” She turned into the room and blinked. “Hey, what’s going on?”
    I slid a bobby pin into my hair. “Who’s gullible?”
    “Never mind. I thought you were sick.”
    “I was.” I shrugged. “I’m better now. You think this looks better with tendrils in my face or without?”
    Eve looked down at the pile of clothes on the floor. “With,” she said quietly. “What’re you doing?”
    I smiled. “Getting dressed for dinner.”
    “Dressed up?”
    “I’m having dinner with Justin.” At the sound of his name I felt my heart doing little flips. “Just the two of us. I’ve been cooking.”
    “For Justin? You’ve got to be kidding. Does he know about this?”
    “Of course he knows.”
    Eve made a face. “Really, Kerry, he’s obviously not thinking of it the same way. Besides the fact that he’s marrying Leslie, you have to realize he thinks of you like his little sister. If he dated you, it’d be like incest.”
    I didn’t answer her, but inside I was seething. Mostly because I knew what she said was probably true. I knew he didn’t sniff at my bottles of shampoo, pull my jeans from the clothes hamper just to touch where my legs had been. But I would change that. I would.
    “Stop being bitchy,” I said, and turned away before Eve could say any more.
    But as I walked from the