Sisters like Us

There is a doll. There are three photographs. There is a pink hat. There is one unused lipstick and one I bought her. Both are red. There is an iPod, but we have lost the charger. There are straighteners with stickers on them, two of the Jonas Brothers. There is a bitten pencil.

She liked the doll because it looked like her. Well, that is what people said. It has green trousers that you can take off and put back on — the velcro is worn from this. The top is purple, with a star on the front; and the doll’s skin is brown. The twisted hair that never stays put, that’s its best feature. She called it her, Shantel doll. I told her that this was narcissistic — but without using the word because I didn’t know it.

Not that any of this is important. What is important is that it is September and birds are singing.

I say this because Hannah (a counsellor) told me to look out for things like this — seasons and birds. She seems to think that they are important. I wanted to tell her that her opinions are often trash, but she also says that I am confrontational and I would hate to prove her right.

What season is it where you are? What are the birds doing? Maybe you care.

I am only looking out of the window to distract myself from looking inside. Tamir is hanging around the street again in his new car: silver this time, no roof this time, loud music as all times. He is the most beautiful man that I have ever seen. You would agree if you saw him. He’s like Adam in the garden just as God curled his final eyelash. His skin is so dark you might expect to look up from it and see the moon.

He slides from the car, arms bare. Mmm, M’ama look at him. He’s going to see Kophie who lives across from us. She’s skinny, pretty — if you’re into that sort of thing.

This would be a much better day if he was coming to knock on my door; but I don’t have any beautiful men for you. I wouldn’t even have any food for you, or a drink, so you’d have wasted your visit. We couldn’t go into the kitchen see ’cause my dad’s in there. Normally there’d be fried pie, biscuits, okra, ice-cream, corn bread all the good stuff. But now there’s just him with his clothes on from yesterday, making this noise like a dog being repeatedly kicked.

But I’m not looking inside.

Kophie has come to the door. She’s wearing a leather skirt that only just holds her in and shiny hoops. I like her braids. Her boobs got so much bigger this summer that Shantel said she must have got them done. Shantel was always saying things like that; for once, Tamir had taken her for a drive, kissed her, and never texted her again. The following week he started seeing Kophie — who Shantel thought was her friend — so she hates Kophie, hated — doesn’t matter.

Tamir waits on the step, lights a blunt. Kophie comes back with what looks like lemonade.

Our mum came to the funeral (the lemonade reminded me). But to understand why that was significant I’d have to tell you other things, sad things; and I already have so much sadness that I keep thinking the floor will fall through for the weight of me. Maybe the ground is used to sadness. That’s what Dyani says. She says that it sucks it all up, but that one day, when no-one’s looking, it will spit it back out.

I’d rather talk to Dyani than Hannah; but the Church is paying for Hannah and my aunt says I have to go because when people are nice it’s best to be nice back. I say when people are mean is it okay to be mean back, and she says no. But before she says no she gets this look in her eye like she wants to kill someone.

Eurgh come off it. Kophie and Tamir are sucking on each other’s faces like they’re zombies in the apocalypse.

‘Miriam, Miriam.’ That’s my dad calling me.

‘Yeah,’ I shout back.

‘Miriam would you…I can’t find her…’

I watch the kitchen door. He keeps shouting my name then not wanting anything.

‘Dad?’

No reply. The door doesn’t move.

They’re still getting off. Maybe if I stare at them long enough they’ll stop. By the power of Professor X I’ll — shit. Tamir’s staring at me. He’s standing and staring at me staring at him. He takes a step off the porch onto the grass. Shit. Kophie’s saying something to him and making a face but he ignores her and keeps staring. What should I —

He starts to wave. Slowly, hesitantly. Then he tries a smile but stops, moves his palm over his chest, over his heart. He looks like he’s trying to speak.

He’s so beautiful and what he’s doing is so strange that I feel funny inside. Not the sort of funny that you’d expect when the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen is paying you attention; but a sort of funny that makes me want the ground to spit back all of its sadness. Right here. Right now. (Only I’m looking.)

I duck down, under the windowsill. Count to ten. By the time I look back he’s gone, as is Kophie; but the two glasses are there so it must have been real.

The night that Shantel went for the drive with Tamir she wore this yellow dress and looked so pretty. The sort of pretty you look when you like someone and you think they like you, and it’s like anything in the whole world can be yours.

I lie now with my stomach flat on the couch, my face in a pillow. That’s enough of outside. That’s enough of inside. That’s enough of everything.

I don’t know why I’m talking to you like you care. I know you’ve only found me by accident. My aunt said that everyone cared about Michael Brown when he got shot in Missouri. There were media reports, then reports on those media reports. It was all over Facebook. People were angry at the cop that shot him, people cried.

‘We’re only one state over from Missouri,’ said my aunt, with that look her in eye. Well, actually Shantel had been on the state border when it happened. She’d been on the state border, speeding (they said).

I turn my face into the room. There is a blue notebook that we haven’t opened. There are denim shorts. There is a textbook on Algebra. There are hair clips still in their plastic.

I don’t know why my dad keeps taking things out of her room and putting them on the carpet. I think I will ask him to stop. The doll is in the middle of it all. Keeps staring at me.

Reminds me of this this day, a hot day, when Shantel and I had gone into a shop, both of us sucking on ice pops. She ran over to this stand, so excited because there were other dolls of the same brand. All these dolls with hair that didn’t stay put. She stared at them for a long time with her eyes all squinty, then left the shop and said that it was silly because she couldn’t be all of them. At the time, the only thing I thought was important was my ice pop; but now I think other things. I think about how, if she hadn’t looked like all those dolls, on hot days I’d still have someone to suck ice pops with. I’ll just never stop thinking about this.

Dyani says that if a spirit is angry they may stay around and haunt the place. Shantel had a big temper so yesterday I went to her favourite shop at the mall, but she wasn’t there. Today I’ll go and see if she’s at the park. I’ll sit on the swings ’til dark if I have to.