A Million Miles Away(2)

Ingrid draped a long arm around Kelsey’s neck and spoke in the terrible British accent she always adopted when she had been drinking. “My deah, I see an extremely attractive college fellow in the corner. I believe he belongs to you.”

Kelsey searched the dim room. Davis’s parted sweep of dark hair was towering above a couple of baseball players and the yearbook editor.

She could hear snatches of his baritone. “And I was, like, gimme the hammer. You’ve obviously never held a hammer in your life.…”

Kelsey maneuvered toward him. Michelle’s security emergency could wait.

Everyone was down here, anyway; even Michelle’s friends, who were standing in the corner, looking like anthropologists studying a youth species from under their asymmetrical haircuts.

But no Michelle, nor her boyfriend. Not boyfriend. More like object-of-temporary-and-obsessive-lust. Kelsey had even offered to pick Michelle and what’s-his-abs up after the game, but she never answered. Because of him, Michelle didn’t even respond to the Facebook invite for a party at her own house.

Davis caught Kelsey’s eye, flashed a smile. “And then I walked out of there with a free shelf. Hello.”

He bent to Kelsey, all other conversations now over.

“Hello, handsome,” she replied. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. His skin smelled like he’d been partying. “When did you get here?”

Davis lifted her up and pulled her into a piggyback. “Just now. All the frat row parties were, like, if you don’t have a girl, you can’t come in. So.”

“Lucky for me!”

“Lucky for you.” Davis advanced, causing her to accidentally kick a cheerleader or two.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Beer Land!” Davis called.

Hannah T. stood swaying near the keg, sipping water. She looked at Kelsey on Davis’s back, to her arms around his solid chest, and back to Kelsey. “Who is that?”

Kelsey laughed and took on a late-night radio DJ voice. “My lover.”

Hannah T. shrugged, half of her mouth lifting in a lazy, incredulous smile. “Why do you have, like, the best life in the world?”

“She bought it on sale at Sears,” Davis said.

“Please don’t tell people I shop at Sears.” Kelsey slid down to the floor, winked at Hannah, and gave Davis her Solo cup. “Refill me, please? I have to go do damage control.”

The sisters’ rooms were a recent addition to the Maxfield house, after Michelle had given Kelsey a bruised rib, fighting over the remote when they were fourteen. As soon as their parents were sure Melody was tenured and Rob’s second restaurant was going to survive, they had knocked off the back upstairs wall and built the girls adjacent dwellings, complete with locks on the doors and a back porch. Kelsey used her side of the deck to tan; Michelle, for drying the hyperreal paintings she did of their neighborhood, perfect replicas except for the colors: Everything was neon or reversed or slightly out of focus. Kelsey didn’t get it, and she liked it that way.

Once at Michelle’s room, she would have to lock her sister’s door from the inside, exit through her balcony door, and climb through a barrier of small trees that acted as a “fence” between the two sides.

But when she got to Michelle’s door, it was already locked.

“Yo!” Kelsey called, banging on the still-unfinished wood.

No answer. Movement. Laughter. It sounded as though someone was using Michelle’s room as a temporary brothel.

Kelsey banged on the door again. “Hello! It’s Kelsey.”

More laughter. Still, the door remained shut.

“Hey!” Kelsey called. She jiggled the handle.

Lost cause. This would have to be a rescue mission. She stepped through her own dark room, over piles of discarded leggings and sports bras, and opened the screen door to her side of the deck.

Light poured onto the wood on Michelle’s side of the porch. Slipping between the trees, Kelsey looked through the glass to see her sister stretched out on the bed. A sandy-haired dude in jeans sat in her desk chair, bent over a book. He was reading aloud.

Kelsey yanked open the screen. “Oh,” she said loudly. “Interesting.”

Michelle turned her head, brushing the same lumber-colored hair out of her eyes. “Oh,” she said, echoing Kelsey. “Hey.”

Michelle’s new boyfriend closed the book and smiled at her. “Wow, you guys really are identical.”

“Yeah,” Kelsey said, still looking at Michelle. It was probably better she didn’t see his face up close, as she was going to have to forget it anyway. “Come out in the hall for a sec, please.”

“Okay.” Michelle was doing that thing where she talked and moved slower than necessary just to piss Kelsey off.

When Michelle emerged, Kelsey closed her sister’s bedroom door with a bang.

“Is he sleeping over?”

“Yeah, he has to. He’s on his way to ship out from Fort Riley. Can you believe it?”

“I don’t know! Why didn’t you respond to my texts?”

“I was busy.”

“You could have at least come down and said hi. Some of your townie friends are here—”

“Hi!” Michelle said, giving Kelsey a double wave. Her dark eyes lit up with fake enthusiasm. Something was different about her sister. She was wearing mascara. Kelsey’s mascara. “Can I go now?”