Her sweater marks her an easy target, fuzzy pink like a child’s toy, nails polished and blunted in a salon. My sister would have eaten her alive. Unfortunately, she’s my problem, not Mina’s. Credit where credit is due—she comes in swinging, brandishing the copper pan like a sword, lipstick smeared on her two front teeth. “I want to return this,” she spits at me, literally spitting, freckling my face. I suppress a shudder.
“If you’ve already begun to use the pan, I’m afraid we can’t issue a refund.”
“It’s tarnished,” she says, rapping the hated object on the counter for emphasis.
I’m not surprised; she doesn’t seem like the kind of person to collect cookware for anything other than making a kitchen look lived-in, but we don’t offer refunds for an imperfect image of domesticity. If it works, it works.
“I’m afraid we can’t issue a refund,” I repeat, locking eyes. Go on, ask for my manager, do it.
“I’d like to speak to the manager, then,” she announces smugly, like someone who’s just played their winning hand.
“I’m the manager,” I shoot back. Being able to do this is the biggest perk from becoming store manager last month. Second-biggest is the pay raise, obviously.
Emmy can tell I’ve pulled another I’m-the-manager stunt by the self-satisfied grin still plastered all over my face when we meet for lunch. “That’s obscene,” she says, pointing at my smile. I warp the corners of my mouth into an exaggerated frown. “Better. More you.” She hands me her sandwich, offering an unasked-for taste. I nibble. “What is this?”
“Curried egg salad,” she replies, and I wrinkle my nose. She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, heathen. Hand it back if you’re not going to appreciate it.”
“We can’t all be dating cuisine-obsessed French weirdos,” I say, and bite into my own food-court fare. The sandwich combinations are weird, but Frederic packs her lunch every day, which is tooth-achingly sweet. I live alone.
I’m reminded of that again as we clean up, me balling wax wrappers in my fist, her winding the little lavender bow that tied off her lunch-sack around her fingers. We stand up to hug, the fake pearls on her sweater snagging on the rough wool of mine, and return to our designated areas. She gets the designer clothing store, spending the day tripping about in heels and holding daringly cut dresses out for rich women to caress, and I get the kitchen goods store, nauseated by the smell of novelty chocolate-drizzled popcorn many days past stale. People drift in and out, purchasing impractically-shaped cookie cutters and exorbitantly-priced serving dishes, until finally the clock strikes time to go home.
Go home I do, but it looks like I won’t have a relaxing night either, because a straight-backed figure is seated at my table, a silhouette in the dark. I close my mouth around a scream, fumble with the lights and Mina is there, drumming her lavender-colored talons on the counter, a color inappropriate for nails that can only be described as clawlike.
“Ami,” she purrs, perfectly painted lips pursing in the shape of my name. No one I know has more elegantly applied lipstick than Mina, not even Emmy, whose smile sometimes cracks under pressure, lines of her natural lip showing through the shellac.
“Why are you here?” I ask. To torment me further? I keep the second statement to myself, sick with shame just thinking about how we left things last time.
She folds and unfolds her carefully moisturized hands, runs a finger along the grain of the table. “I need help.”
That stops me short. Mina’s never asked for help once in her life, doggedly accruing debts and injuries and maladaptive coping mechanisms on her quest to do everything absolutely by herself. I’ve never met another person who took the adage ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ as she does. As I watch, Mina’s armor of beauty unfolds, a line appearing between her eyebrows, and her head droops. Instinct moves me forward, until I’ve got my hands hovering just above her shoulders. “Mina. Look at me. What happened?”
She sniffs. “It’s my boss.” Of course, Andrew, he of the gleaming pearl teeth and the butterscotch hair, the clean-shaven jaw and the dancing hazel eyes. He has an image just boyish enough to be trustworthy, just manly enough to be desirable. He’s the ridiculously photogenic boss to Mina’s unnaturally beautiful assistant, a couple that would almost certainly be on a crash-course for love in a romantic comedy. It’s almost too cliché to think they’ve been sleeping together, but Mina confirms it. I rock back on my heels. “He tossed me aside,” she says emphatically, mascara streaming down her cheeks in improbably straight lines.
“Are you...fired?” I ask tentatively. Mina’s liable to fits of emotion, bursting through at unpredictable times like a firework, nearly as destructive. But she doesn’t react with ire, only nods and slumps a little farther in her chair. Her posture is usually so straight, I didn’t even realize her back could bend this way.
There’s an awkward spate of silence, and then we speak simultaneously. “I’m sorry we had such a difficult relationship,” she tells me, just as I ask, “Do you want some tea?” She beats me to the punch, “You go first,”, just a little bit of the steely old Mira coming back. I repeat my question and bring her a mug. My one indulgence is expensive tea brands, an unfortunate habit picked up from my workplace. It seems a little dissonant to serve my posh sister posh tea in a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not mug, but allows me to set it on the table before her without a word. “What were you saying?” I prompt her.
“Things fell apart between us. And I apologize for that.”
I’m dumbstruck. There’s blame to share, of course, but I figured Mina would have to be on her deathbed to apologize to me. I did cause trouble last time we were together.
Growing up, the two of us had squabbled like any siblings might. It was only when I left for college that things began to go sideways. For our single father, love (in the form of money) stretched only so far. Her success meant my failure, and vice versa. The two of us were in a race for best daughter, and, with her real estate job, I had about considered her the winner. She wasn’t the most gracious about it, deriding the state of my apartment, my love life, my finances, my sartorial choices, anything she could. Eventually, I stopped speaking to her altogether. Until half a year ago.
She’d invited me out for dinner, with a rare offering to pick up the tab. In the past she’d defaulted the restaurant choice to me, claiming I was the ‘foodie’ of the two of us, but this time she picked a ritzy new Mediterranean place. Over plates of hummus, spiced lamb, and tahini-drizzled vegetables, I told her the little joys of my life: Emmy, my bread-baking hobby, so on. For all the fancy dinners she must’ve been having, she’d never dropped the habit of licking her fork’s tines after taking a bite, something I found disgusting and slightly endearing. She kept silent most of the meal.
“What’s on your mind, though?” I asked, folding a piece of pita in half.
She deflected, giving me a conspiratorial little smile. “Oh, busy, busy. Speaking of, I have to go check out a house near here. Would you mind walking there with me? I’m enjoying this.”
“Sure,” I said, a little pleasantly surprised. We split an exorbitantly priced baklava, half-heartedly argue over who’ll pick up the tab, then head out. I suspected something was up right around the time she started making sweeping gestures with her arms and announcing, “Isn’t this neighborhood lovely?” which is almost immediately after we step onto the sidewalk. By the time we reach the new apartment, I’d about figured out her game. She gushed about the place, pointing at the velveteen sofas and flower-patterned wallpaper. “Charming, right? So what do you think? Actually...this is kind of up your alley, right? It’s, like, exactly your design aesthetic. It’s not on the market...yet...so there aren’t any prospective buyers, but there will be plenty soon,” she prattled on. “What did you say your budget was again?”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re a terrible actress.”
“What?” she asked, smile still lingering around her mouth but already gone from her eyes.
“Are you trying to sell me an apartment right now?” It hit me. “The restaurant wasn’t even a sister thing. That’s something you do with clients. I’m just another paycheck to you.”
“I knew it!” she fumed, composed veneer finally splintering. “I knew you’d react like this. Don’t you see I’m trying to help? I’m giving you an out on that little mouse-hole apartment you’ve got. You could live somewhere actually nice, and I might even be able to haggle the price down special for you. But no, you’re as ungrateful as always.”
“I don’t need your help!” I shot back, anger prickling at my skin. “I’m perfectly autonomous. So what if my apartment's small? So what if I work in a kitchen goods store? I’m doing fine, aren’t I?”
“We’re family,” she whined. I want to get married someday, and what’s everybody going to think when you show up to the wedding with a thrifted bridesmaid dress? None of my coworkers even know you exist, and I want to introduce you to our world. And you can’t really start living until you get a nice home and a real job and an actual life. I just want to help.”
“If you think I want the same things as you, you’re dead wrong,” I seethed. “You’re just embarrassed by the fact that I live small-scale. At least I got my job and my apartment on my own dollar, not Dad’s.” I continued, “You didn’t even pick this place with me in mind. This looks like a senior citizen’s home.”
Her face twisted. “Fine, live in your shithole forever. See if I try to help you again.” She stormed out, nearly breaking a heel in the process. With the ornately ugly door’s slam, I was alone again. I looked around the hideous room and felt the anger swelling in my chest, a little monster needling at me with its claws. Before I could stop myself, I reached into my bag, prepped to throw something at one of those huge Victorian mirrors, when my fingers closed around a red Sharpie. A bad idea crossed my mind, and without a second, more rational thought, I uncapped the pen and strode over to the wall, scrawling in huge red letters, SOMEONE WAS MURDERED HERE. Might as well warn the poor idiots coming to look at this for-sure-haunted apartment next.
My cheeks burn with shame at the memory. I put my forehead against the cool surface of the table. “I was rude,” Mina continues. “I was embarrassed by you, but I shouldn’t have been that way.”
“I shouldn’t have written on the wall like that. It was childish,” I answer. “And...thank you for trying to help. I guess I was too stubborn to accept.”
She gives me a real smile, not the polished kind she practices for clients. “Maybe I should’ve offered in a nicer way.” We share a laugh, the first together in many months. When she tips her head back, the lamp’s shine plays over her face, and I realize something’s off about the mascara tears. They look oddly thick from where I am. The low light in my apartment had made it hard to see, but something trickles from her hairline, above her right ear. She flinches away from my outstretched fingers, and I catch my breath. “He hit you.”
Her silence confirms it, and the old, familiar anger roars back to life. “That bastard.” I leap up. “I’m calling 911.”
She holds out her palms. “Just...can I have a hug first?” Caught off guard, I embrace her awkwardly at first, but the familiarity returns, her head in the crook of my shoulder, my chin pressed against her hair, one girl in two bodies. My eyes start to burn with tears well. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this. After an eternity, she releases me. I reach for my phone, and she starts toward the bathroom, presumably to wash up. “Tell the police to go to his house,” she instructs. “He’s there now.” I nod and dial, press the ringing phone to my ear. Mina pauses in the doorway of the bathroom, light silhouetting her figure, attired as always in a pencil skirt and blazer. She leans her head against the doorframe. Her features are in shadow, so I can’t tell, but I think she’s smiling. “I love you.”
My heart twists. “I love you too.” The operator picks up with a tinny ‘911, what’s your emergency?’ and she slips inside, shuts the door.
“I want to report a case of domestic abuse,” I tell them. I give them Andrew’s address, his description. I warn them he’s violent. “They’re on their way, Mina,” I call to the bathroom. I settle into my chair and sip Mina’s untouched tea, pulling a face at the lukewarm temperature. I dump it down the sink and am brewing up a second pot when I get a call. “Hello?” I ask, propping the phone on my shoulder.
“You are the one who called about Andrew Lawson?” asks a gruff male voice.
“Yeah,” I reply, catching my breath. “He attacked my sister.”
“Would you be willing to come down to the morgue and confirm the body is your sister’s?”
Air leaves my lungs. An enormous hand has wrapped itself around my ribcage and squeezed. “The what?”
“The body of the woman we discovered in his apartment. Asian, early thirties, bludgeoned. The face is intact enough to identify, but we’ll need a positive confirmation for the eventual trial.”
His voice is drowned out by the thumping noise in my ears, growing louder and louder. Dimly, I register that it’s my heartbeat. The phone drops to the ground. Moving of their own accord, my legs walk to the bathroom. My hands turn the doorknob; Mina never even locked it. It’s exactly as I left it this morning. The only face in the cabinet mirror is mine. My knees give and all of a sudden I’m sprawled in a heap on the floor, my world narrowing to nothing beyond the th-thump, th-thump in my ears. A high-pitched shriek cuts through the beating, extending one long, discordant note. The teakettle is boiling.