Casey's Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

downstairs. I would have
said it was impossible for anyone to sleep through the barrage of sound, except
that on the other side of the room, my fourteen year-old sister Lee snored
slightly, her mouth open.
    Though
we had more money than most families in Florida, my father thought it was
healthy for sisters to share a bedroom. This was in keeping with an unproven
but powerful notion he had that children were actually born spoiled and it was
his job to spend the next eighteen years making sure we understood the value of
everything. Sharing our room bred a natural sense of camaraderie, he claimed,
and a need for teamwork. Mostly, it led to a great deal of bickering over whose
stuff was where. Lee usually won, being older and neater. I was always
encroaching into her space, while she never managed to work her way into mine.
    Still,
when necessary, Lee and I could band together and form a plan. Earlier that day
we had begun the begging. We had hoped to be allowed to stay up for the party.
We were absolutely convinced that we were missing something magical, some sort of
shimmering adult world where things happened. What those things were, we didn’t
actually know, but we were certain they must be exciting. Otherwise, why ban
us?
    Lee
worked the edge of my mother’s dressing table, talking about how pretty she
looked in her red dress, how her black hair gleamed in the lamplight. They
tried the same lipsticks and giggled together, and I watched from the bed,
reluctant, but filled with yearning to join them. Lee was so like my mother, so
easily female, while I struggled with my gangly body. I seemed to lack her
ability to move with grace, to get my hair to sweep back from my face in the
thick waves so popular with Lee and her friends. It was obvious to me that I
was lacking something, some girl-gene that made it clear where blush went and
how to sit with my legs neatly crossed at the ankle.
    As
my mother separated long straight strands of hair from around her face, she let
Lee roll them onto the curling iron. My mother kept one hand constantly
touching her hair to be sure it hadn’t burned, although my sister knew exactly
how long to leave it there. Eventually, feeling useless in the face of an
extended lesson on eye shadow selection, I ventured downstairs to help my
father mix up his secret, much-coveted barbeque recipe.
    After
a little coaxing, he let me stir in a dash of something, cautioning against
overdoing it as he sprinkled herbs gleefully beside me. He was inordinately
proud of his sauce. To him, barbeque was a manly thing, like having the best
chili in the neighborhood, or being able to bench more than his body weight. I
could, I suggested, pass out plates. He said he’d consider it, and I returned
to Lee triumphant, sure this time we would be allowed to stay. But when the
doorbell rang for the first time, we were bundled off to bed without a second
thought, despite the fact that the sun was still setting.
    No
matter how raucous the party became, we were not allowed to go downstairs. It
was a rule, and in our house rules had the finality of written law, as if my
father could whip out Life’s Rulebook and cite page twenty-six, paragraph A.
Which he might have done, if one had existed.
    Lee
stirred briefly in the bed beside mine, pulling a pillow over her head without
waking. The sound of something breaking rose over the music, followed by a
scream and then more crashing. It was irresistible.
    “I’m
going downstairs to get a soda,” I announced to the room. “I can’t sleep
through this.”
    Lee
slowly opened one eye and examined me, peering out from beneath her pillow,
critical even when half asleep. Already she had developed a certain crispness,
as if she could bring a logical order to our childhood with simple strength of
will; the Mary Poppins of our family.
    “You
can’t do that. You know we’re not allowed.”
    “Why
are you whispering, Lee? We could shout if we wanted. See?” I said, pushing my
voice