1
Charlie
Apanicked call from my sister in the middle of the night.
I‘d ended the call, thought about my course of action for a hot minute, and then I’d thrown a bunch of things together, knowing in the back of my mind that I might not be back in Boston for a while. If ever.
And then here I was, on the highway to New York state, at seven-forty in the morning.
Call it serendipity.
I was on my second large cup of gas station coffee, and I’d already eaten two bear claws. Between the caffeine and the sugar, I was pretty buzzed. I didn’t normally indulge in junk food like this, but I wasn’t normally woken up at three in the morning by a hysterical sister begging me to come rescue her…from what I wasn’t entirely sure.
I called Lexie again once I was on the freeway, headed to Sarah Lawrence College where she was a student—I’d managed to talk her into going back to bed and getting some sleep, but still hadn’t gotten any kind of concrete details from her about why she was so upset.
So, to recap, at 3 a.m. my middle sister, Lexie called me, sobbing hysterically and begging me to come rescue her. This was unusual in many respects, as Lexie simply did not cry, ever, no matter what. She never ever asked for help, no matter what, and she would not accept help from anyone, about anything, ever. She was vehemently, obstinately, comically independent, and had been since she was a little girl. She’d broken her ankle on the trampoline once, when she was seven or so, and had refused Dad’s help—she climbed down off the trampoline, gritting her teeth as hard as she could, refusing to even sniffle. She had hobbled on her own to the car and had refused a hospital wheelchair. At no point had she allowed so much as a single tear to fall. My second sister, Cassie, was much the same, but she was a little less stubborn about it than Lex. Cassie would show emotion, but explosively. She pent it up and kept it shoved down until one little thing would set her off, and she’d rage and stew, and then it would be over.
Lex? She was pure ice, all the time, at least when it came to pain, whether physical or emotional. She had very few moods: she was either happy and cheerful and energetic, or angry in an ultraliberated hardline feminist righteous kind of way, or even-keeled and focused, or a hypersexualized take-what-I-want party animal sort of way. Sad, scared, worried, nervous, frustrated…none of these applied to Alexandra Goode.
So, this call from her, sobbing and outright scared and borderline nervous breakdown? This was apocalyptic and very worrying.
And she refused to tell me a single thing over the phone.
Not one single detail.
A dozen scenarios ran through my head—most of them centered around the possibility of her being pregnant. I couldn’t think of anything else that would cause this kind of panic in her. She was…adventurous, sexually, to say the least. Just don’t use the “shame” word around her though, or she’ll verbally flay the skin off your bones. She could make grown men cry with just a few words.
Mere mortals should stay away.
So, the point here was that she did what she wanted and god help anyone who even thought of judging her.
Mom and I both have always worried that despite how careful she was about birth control and contraception she would eventually turn up pregnant. So that’s where my mind was focused as I drove.
But I didn’t want to assume—I couldn’t afford to. If I were to show up at Sarah Lawrence with a brain full of assumptions Lexie just might, in her current state, disown me.
Or worse, unload both barrels into me, and I was dealing with my own crisis of identity and future, and I just didn’t think I could handle a Lexie Goode tongue-lashing.
So I did my best to just focus on staying awake and getting to Sarah Lawrence in one piece with an open mind.
I finally arrived and navigated my way through the picturesque East Coast campus. As I got closer to where I vaguely remembered her dorm building being, I turned down the radio so I could see better. Ha ha.
I recognized her building—I have a pretty excellent visual memory, and this looked familiar. I’d only been here for a few minutes, once before, when she first transferred here from U-Conn.
I parked, consulted my message thread with Lex for the building and room details and verified I was in the right place. I grabbed the coffees I’d purchased at my last pit stop, and headed inside. At her door, I knocked, three times, firmly.
A long pause.
A raspy voice. “Who is it.” This, despite the peephole in the door.
“Lex, it’s me.” I peered at the peephole. “Charlie? Your big sister? The one who just made a three-hour drive in record time,withstops for coffee and pee breaks.”
The only response was the sound of a lock clicking and the handle twisting, and the door opening a crack. A single mocha-brown eye peered at me.
I snorted. “What is this, Lex? You’re acting so weird. Like, did you borrow money from the Mafia or something?”
“Shut up,” she snarled. But she opened the door and allowed me inside.
I stepped in and she slammed the door shut, locked it, and her eyes went immediately to the coffee in my hand.
