Chapter 9 Lorna Is Nine
They move in with nana one summer when the honeybees are buzzing around the honeysuckle and the sprinklers run every morning. The wisteria in the backyard has gone wild, and purple blooms are everywhere, vines curling around fences and one dead tree.
“We get our own bedrooms,” Kristen says. “We’ll be next to each other so I can come in whenever I want.” Her tone is both menacing and loving.
Lorna loves her bedroom. It has a padded bench just below windows that crank open.
The boughs of an enormous oak tree brush against the side of the house when the wind blows.
The closet is dark and deep, and in the back, a little trapdoor leads to the attic.
“You should lock your closet at night so the ghosts don’t get in,” Kristen says soberly.
“There are no ghosts, Kristen,” her mother snaps. “Stop scaring your sister.”
But Lorna isn’t scared—she wants to see ghosts.
There are built-in corner bookshelves and thick crown molding. The carpet is worn but plush. It feels bouncy under her feet. “It smells like cat piss in here,” Kristen says. Her room is an exact copy of Lorna’s, but with three windows instead of two, and no attic door.
“No, it doesn’t,” Mom says. “Don’t let Nana hear you say that.” She takes out a cigarette and lights it. She sits on the padded window seat and blows smoke through an open window. She looks like she is staring at something in the neighbor’s backyard.
She looks sad.
Lorna knows her parents are divorcing. They didn’t tell her, but Kristen did. “It’s about time,” Kristen said when she informed Lorna. “They hate each other.”
“They do?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Kristen asked as she put on the lipstick she’d stolen from Mom’s purse.
Lorna doesn’t know what divorce means in practice, other than her dad is not going to live with them anymore. He promises her he will see her every week. She hasn’t seen him in at least two.
Lorna and Kristen have spent many nights in this house before, usually without their parents. Her mom’s presence makes it feel different. A little less fun, because Nana spends a lot of time with Mom.
She likes to sit at the top of the stairs where she can overhear Mom and Nana talking downstairs.
“He’s been running around with some bitch from work,” Mom says.
Lorna knows that word is bad. Why would her dad be running around with a bad person?
“That’s so typical of men,” Nana says, and Lorna hears liquid being poured over ice in a glass. She knows it is the stuff in the ice-blue bottle that Nana keeps on top of the fridge. Nana has been drinking a lot of it.
Kristen finds her and pulls her downstairs. She yells at Mom that they are going outside. The backyard is overgrown since Papa died.
“Watch out for snakes!” their mother shouts from the kitchen door.
“Ooh, let’s find some snakes,” Kristen says, excited.
They wander down to the fence to look for them, but there aren’t any.
Beyond the chain-link fence is a small creek with water running through.
The gate is overrun with wisteria and jasmine vines, so they can’t open it.
“We have to figure out a way to break out,” Kristen says.
Break out? Why would they want to leave this house? Lorna thinks it is wonderful. It’s big and rambling, with a lot of creaks and moans and weird things, like niches in the walls. She can’t believe she gets to live here all the time now.
“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, you know that, right?” Kristen adds as an afterthought, as if she is reading Lorna’s mind. She gives the gate one last tug. It won’t budge. “At least we don’t have to listen to them fighting anymore.”
“I hate when they fight,” Lorna says. Her parents yell so loud, and her mom throws things. Sometimes she and Kristen crawl into the same bed and pull the covers over their heads to hide from the shouting until Kristen says she is hot and throws the covers off.
Kristen doesn’t find a way to break out, at least not that day.
That summer, Lorna and Kristen find new life at Nana’s. They play in the sprinklers. Mom lets them walk to the corner store for popsicles. They watch TV, endless hours of cartoons and old sitcoms.
Eventually, Kristen befriends two girls who live down the street, Mary and Tanya.
They are a grade below Kristen. Kristen is tanned and blond and has a body like in the magazines.
Everyone likes her. Tanya’s brother Todd really likes her.
Lorna is tall and pasty-skinned with a mess of hair Nana says came from their crazy great-grandfather.
No one seems to notice Lorna when they are outside with the kids on the street. But everyone notices Kristen.
Their new friends come over to watch TV on very hot afternoons.
Mary is quiet and doesn’t say much. Tanya is the opposite—she talks all the time and copies everything Kristen does.
She wants to be like Kristen. Lorna knows this because she does too.
Tanya looks at Lorna and sneers. “Does she have to be here?”
Kristen looks at her sister, then at Tanya. “She has to be here because she is my sister. But you don’t have to be here, Tanya.”
Tanya sinks down onto the couch and pouts.
She tries to exclude Lorna all summer, but Kristen won’t allow it.
Kristen decides who stays and who goes. Lorna is allowed to watch TV with them, and she sits next to Kristen so Tanya can’t.
But Kristen explains to her that thirteen-year-olds don’t want to hang out with nine-year-olds, so she can’t do everything with them.
Lorna is grateful for anything she gets.
When school starts, there are too many kids at Lorna’s new school, but she does not go unnoticed in her class, especially without Kristen’s bright light to shield her.
Lorna is in the fourth grade and stands nearly as tall as her diminutive teacher.
One boy accuses her of being in the sixth grade because of her height.
She hates school. No one likes her. She tries to make friends on the playground, but no one lets her join in.
Sometimes she comes home in the afternoon to Mom screaming at Dad on the telephone about money.
Nana is always in the kitchen, always happy.
But Lorna has begun to notice the scent of her grandmother.
It smells a little like beer, but not exactly beer.
Nana makes pastries and bread for the girls, and they are so good. Mom says Lorna is eating too much and will get fat. Kristen says to leave Lorna alone. Mom never mentions food to Kristen, who remains slender and pretty no matter what.
Kristen has a radio in her room. At night, when they are supposed to be doing their homework, Kristen teaches Lorna all the latest dances.
They perform them for Mom and Nana, who always applaud.
Once, Mom tried to do the dance with them, and they all laughed until tears were sliding down their faces.
When Kristen’s friends come over—and there are more and more of them—she kicks Lorna out. But she always comes looking for her the next day.
One night, Kristen comes to her room, bored. Mom is on the phone fighting with Dad. She says Nana is passed out in her chair. She glances out Lorna’s window. “Let’s jump to that limb and climb down. Everyone is at the park tonight.”
“Who is everyone?”
“My friends. Come on, don’t be a chicken.
” Kristen opens Lorna’s window and climbs out onto the ledge.
She jumps, fearless. She almost misses the limb but manages to catch it and haul herself up.
She assesses her options and begins to shimmy down, using the long, twisting boughs as a stepladder.
“Come on, Lolo!” she shout-whispers. But Lorna is afraid she will fall. She won’t do it.
“You’re never going to do anything fun if you’re a chicken,” Kristen says, and disappears into the night.
Lorna falls asleep. Sometime in the night, Kristen comes home. She crawls into bed with Lorna and tucks Lorna’s favorite stuffed animal in with them. She smells like Nana. She is gone when Lorna wakes up the next morning.
The next afternoon, two police officers come to the house, looking for Kristen. She’s with her friend. The officers say some kids broke into a house down the street.
Mom and Nana are appalled. Mom is angry that the police have come to their door and insists her daughter had nothing to do with it.
“She was upstairs with her sister all night. Wasn’t she, Lorna?” she asks.
The police officers look at Lorna. She doesn’t know what to do. She thinks she should tell the truth, but what would they do to Kristen?
“Don’t let them scare you—just tell them,” her mother says again, sounding annoyed.
“Yes,” Lorna says.
After the police are gone, Kristen finally comes home, and Mom confronts her. “Did you sneak out? Did you break into someone’s house with your delinquent friends?”
“Not a whole house. Just the screened-in porch.”
Mom shouts, Nana cries. Kristen claims it was Todd’s idea and they all went along with it.
“So if Todd said to jump off a cliff, would you do that too?”
Kristen laughs. “Maybe.”
“Help me understand, Kristen. Were you drinking?” Mom asks coldly.
“No,” Kristen says, and sounds offended. But Lorna knows she was—she smelled it.
Her mother believes Kristen. She turns to argue with Nana about who was supposed to be watching who, and why didn’t she get the alarms like Mom asked?
Kristen winks at Lorna. Then she puts her hand in her shorts pocket and slowly pulls it out.
Behind Mom’s back, she shows Lorna what looks like one of Mom’s cigarettes, but without the filter.
Lorna doesn’t know what it is, but she knows it’s bad.
Mom calls Dad about the police. He is coming over to give Kristen a “talking-to.”
“No,” Kristen groans. “Call him back and tell him not to come. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
When Dad arrives, he and Mom argue. Mom says they will probably charge Kristen with trespassing.
Dad says she will have to make amends. He asks where Mom was when her daughter was out joyriding.
Mom turns red in the face and asks where he was.
They argue about whose fault it is that Kristen is like this.
Kristen and Lorna slip upstairs. “It’s not that big of a deal,” Kristen says. “They’re the ones making it into a big deal.” She opens Lorna’s window and then pulls the cigarette and lighter from her pocket. She lights it, and Lorna knows the smell. She’s smelled it in the park before.
“Was the door to the other house open?” Lorna asks.
“Nah. We had to cut the screen to get in.”
Lorna watches her sister for a moment. “Why?” she finally asks.
Kristen shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess because we could.”
“Kristen, get down here!” her mother bellows up the stairs.
Kristen puts out her cigarette and sticks it back in her pocket. “You should let your room air out for a little bit. Don’t let Mom in here, or she’ll freak.” She tousles Lorna’s hair as she goes out. “Stay up here. It’s probably going to get loud.”
Lorna sits at the top of the stairs. She listens to everyone yell at everyone else. Mom is the loudest, Dad is biting, Kristen is screechy about how no one ever lets her do anything. Nana is crying.
After some time, Lorna gets bored. She goes to her room and shuts the door. She changes into her nightclothes and crawls into bed. She is so hungry. No one made supper.