Lucky Caller(4)

I guess it was our first family photo. Since we were going to be a family now, apparently.

We had visited my dad over the past summer, and there were Polaroids from that trip too: the beach, my dad’s house, elaborate ice cream sundaes. Sidney posing in front of a display at the zoo. My dad and Rose on rented bikes, making funny faces.

He had called earlier—of course he had. Outside of major holidays, he usually called every Sunday night. We always talked to him in turns, Sidney first, then me, then Rose, and my mom would round out the call sometimes, but not often. He had sent us money for Christmas, because “I never know what to get you,” he said on the phone to me tonight. “I feel like you’re all always changing what you like. I can’t keep up. Is it makeup this year? Do we hate makeup? Are sneakers in? Is green cool?”

“Was green ever, like, especially cool?”

“Is it uncool?”

“I mean, I don’t have strong feelings about it either way?”

“We’ll ask Rose, she’s the artist,” he said, and Rose later said it depended on the hue, and intensity, and saturation. There were too many parameters to make a definitive call.

This year, the Dantist had given us each a piece of jewelry—his mother’s jewelry, specifically. She had passed several years ago, and Dan told us he couldn’t bear to sell it.

It was the real deal. Rose got a necklace with a diamond pendant on it. Sidney got pearl earrings. I got a ring—a thin gold band with five small opals set into it in a row.

“I know it’s all a little old-fashioned looking,” Dan had said tentatively. “Not the most … current thing. But I thought maybe … well, I thought you might like it.”

“It’s really nice,” Rose had replied. “Thank you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and Sidney chimed in too, throwing her hair back and gesturing to one ear.

“Do I look glaaaamorous?”

“Very glamorous,” Dan replied with a smile.

I was still wearing my ring that night, and I rubbed at the stones absently as I lay in bed. The light filtering through the curtains from the street below caught the gold a little, glinted.

Sidney must have been watching me through the dimness, because she spoke:

“The Dantist’s presents were like something from Kingdom. Like he gave us magical relics. Gems with special properties. Mine would be for invisibility.”

Kingdom was a make-believe game we invented when we were younger. Rose and I were ten and eleven, and Sidney was just six. Only Sidney still mentioned it from time to time—I think she had the fondest memories of it, being the youngest. It was very involved and deeply embarrassing, as childhood make-believe games often are.

“Mine would be for making people quiet when other people are trying to sleep,” Rose said from her side of the room.

“The pendant of tranquility,” Sidney replied, and after a beat: “Say what yours is, Nina.”

“The ring of silence.”

“We can’t have overlap in our powers.”

“You can’t have earrings of invisibility.”

“Why not?”

“How would that even work? You have two earrings and two earring backs. Does it only work if you have both earrings? What if you only have one ear ring in? Are you half invisible? Which half? Top to bottom, or like, left side, right side? And it’s not even efficient anyway, like, what if you needed to go invisible really quickly? Like, gee, wait while I get both of these attached. Let me just fumble around with the earrings and the backs and like try to punch one through the closed-over skin if I haven’t worn earrings in a while—”

“Okay, fine, they’re not earrings of invisibility, they’re logic shields. They’re immune to your dumb logic. Invisibility is just a bonus side effect.”

“That doesn’t even make—”

“Rose!” Sidney squawked.

“Pendant of tranquility,” Rose said.

“You’re not even wearing it,” Sidney muttered. It was quiet for a little while, and I thought maybe Sidney had fallen asleep until she spoke again. “Why did we stop hanging out with Jamie?”

“Yeah, Nina, why is that?” Rose asked.

“Ring of silence,” I replied.

“No overlap!”

“Ohhhhhh my god.”

It was quiet for a moment. Maybe the ring actually worked.

“Do you guys feel weird?” Sidney said eventually. “About the whole … engagement thing?”

“Define weird,” I said, just as Rose replied:

“It’s okay to feel…” She didn’t finish. “It’s okay to feel. Whatever you want to feel.”

“I know that. But what do you feel?”

I swallowed. Rose didn’t answer, so I did.

“When there was that knock at the door … did you have like a split second, like, totally stupid moment where you thought that maybe it was Dad?”

“What, like busting in to stop it from happening?” Rose said.

“I don’t know.” A pause. “I said it was stupid.”

Neither of them replied.

“I’m happy for Mom,” Rose said eventually. “But also, yeah, it’s a little weird. Things are going to be different.”