“What are you looking so uptight about?” Greg had been watching her as she thought, and she was wearing an ominous frown. She usually looked like that when she was plotting against some poor slob she had the hots for. But she only shook the long red hair back now, and shrugged. She hadn't told anyone what she was going to do. They would just give her a hard time. Greg would try and talk her into being a physical therapist, or an acrobat, or getting a dumb athletic scholarship somewhere, Vanessa would try and talk her into going to school in the East with her, Lionel would have some other dumb idea, like going to UCLA because he did. Mom would make speeches about education, Dad would tell her how bad makeup was for her skin, and Anne would look at her as though she were a freak. She knew all of them too well after sixteen years of living with them.
“I was just thinking about last night.” She lied and he lay back in the hot sun again.
“Yeah … it was the best.” It occurred to him then to ask what had happened to his date.
“Dad took her home. She almost threw up in his car.” Val grinned and he laughed.
“Christ, he didn't say a word.”
“Lucky it wasn't one of us, he'd have had a fit.” They both laughed and Anne wandered by on her way to the swing with a book.
Where you going, squirt?” Greg squinted at her in the sun, noticing what a trim figure she was getting in a bathing suit. Her waist seemed to be shrinking by the hour and he could have gotten both hands around it, and her breasts were almost as big as Val's. Their little sister was getting all grown up, but she wasn't the kind of kid you could say something about it to. She was the most restrained of all of them, and she never gave him the impression that she liked any of them much, except Lionel of course. It seemed to Greg that they had barely heard her speak since their older brother moved out. “Where you going, kid?” He repeated the question as she walked past them expressionlessly. She never had anything much to say to Greg. She had never liked sports and she always thought his girlfriends were dumb. And she had her worst fights with Val, who glared at her ominously now. She thought Anne's bathing suit looked suspiciously like one of her own, but she wasn't quite sure, and Anne could feel her eyes examining her.
“Nowhere.” She walked past them without saying another word, holding tight to her book, as Greg whispered to Val once she was past:
“She's a weird kid, isn't she, Val?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Val wasn't interested. She had just figured out that the bathing suit wasn't hers. Hers didn't have a yellow stripe down the sides.
“Growing up a lot though. Did you see those tits?” He laughed. “They're almost as big as yours.”
“Yeah? So what?” Val sucked in her already flat stomach as she stood up and pushed out her breasts. “She's got short legs anyway.” And she didn't look like any of them. Her looks had never been as striking as the other four. But Val looked at her own legs now, trying to decide if she had taken enough sun for one day. If she took too much, she'd burn, although she had more tolerance than most redheads. She noticed that Greg was already starting to fry. “You better watch out. You're turning red.”
“I'll go inside in a little while. John said he'd come by, and I want to go downtown to get extra floor mats for my car.”
“What about Joan?” She had been the little blonde her father had had to escort home the night before. She had the biggest boobs Val thought she'd ever seen. They were almost gross, and everyone in school said she was an easy lay. And that seemed to suit Greg perfectly.
“I'm seeing her tonight.” He had been sleeping with her for the last two months, ever since they'd heard about his football scholarship to the University of Alabama.
“Are you doubling with John?” She knew he had no special girlfriend, and she was always hoping to be asked to be his date, but Greg had never suggested it, and neither had John.
“No. He said he had other plans.” He glanced at Val. “Why? You got the hots for him, little Sis?” He was the worst tease of all, and in years past they had had some almost lethal fights. He loved to bait her, and she always went for it, as she was about to now.
“Hell, no. I just wondered. I've got a date.” She lied again.
“With who?” He knew her better than that.
“None of your business.”
“That's what I thought.” He lay back with a grin and she wanted to strangle him, as Anne watched them silently from her distant hiding place in the old swing. “You don't have a date with anyone, smartass.”
“The hell I don't. I have a date with Jack Barnes.”
“Bullshit. He's going steady with Linda Hall.”
“Well,” her face was bright red and not from the sun, and from the distance, Anne could tell she had just told a lie … she knew them all so well, better than they knew her, “maybe he's cheating on her.”
Greg sat up and stared at his sister carefully. “Not unless you're putting out the way she is, Sis. Which brings up a question I've been meaning to ask … are you?”
