Read Online Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) by Yona Zeldis McDonough - Free Book Online
Authors: Yona Zeldis McDonough
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legs.
Justine wandered into the bathroom and back out again. Portia slumbered on. Ordinarily Justine would have woken her twin, and together they would have found a way to make this day bearable. But right now Justine was actually glad of the time alone. She had a few things she had to work out before the wedding of the century unfolded tonight, and for once she was not letting Portia in on her plans.
This was a departure from form, and a radical one. Portia had always been her partner in everything. When they were little, they had their own language, which they called
twinspeak
. It had driven everyone within earshot crazy—much to their mutual delight. More recently they had had to deal with their parents’ stupid and messy separation, and try not to take sides, which was pretty impossible. They pooled their intellectual resources to do their schoolwork (Portia was better in math and science, while Justine was the literature/history/politics maven) and they resolutely defended each other against mean girls, bumbling administrators, boring teachers, jerk-off guys—in short, the world as they knew it.
But lately Justine had felt subtle tremors, the sort of occurrences that might signal an earthquake or a tsunami, beneath the tectonic plates of her bond with Portia—this was exactly the sort of metaphor Portia would have employed. Justine could not really put a name to it; every time she tried to analyze it—What exactly were signposts of the change? What between them was actually different?—she failed.
Maybe the problem was not Portia at all, but Justine herself. She was the one who had changed. That was the nasty little secret she’d been trying to push away or ignore. Lately she had been prone to these—What to call them? Moods? Trances?—that descended on her out of nowhere. She was powerless to predict when they would arrive or with what intensity, but when they came, they ruled. The
dread reds
made her seethe with a low-level but deadly kind of anger: at her parents, at her circle of friends and their petty concerns, at her teachers, who encouraged their asinine ruminations. If, in the throes of this thing, she could have banished them all permanently with a blink to some unseen parallel universe, she would have done it.
Then there were the
moody blues
, when the smallest thing—a news account of someone shot and killed in a holdup, the sight of a dead pigeon in the street—could make her eyes flood and her chest heave with hiccupy sobs so that she could not catch her breath; she’d have to curl up alone in the dark (light was intolerable when she felt like this) until the sensation passed. The
mean greens
were similar though not identical to the dread reds; when she was in the grip of them, she was compelled to commit small, spiteful deeds, ones that she hoped would go unnoticed. She’d yank a button off a coat that someone at school had left hanging over a chair; she’d steal something dumb, something she didn’t even want—dental floss, a gross wad of beef jerky—from a store as her pulse roared in her ears at the possibility of being caught. Afterwards she’d feel sick with shame, which in no way prevented her from doing it again when the urge seized her.
She looked over at Portia, still sleeping, oblivious to her sister’s turmoil, and she felt simultaneously furious and bereft. Better to get out of here now, before she was tempted to wake Portia and tell her everything after all.
Justine emerged from the media room and went quietly up the stairs. She could hear the activity coming from the kitchen. They had all been instructed to take their breakfast in the breakfast room, where food would be laid out for them, but Justine wanted to do a little scouting around first.
A television—tuned in to a weather channel—was announcing the possibility of a thundershower this afternoon. Could she detect the sound of someone—her grandmother, possibly—moaning, or was she imagining this? There
Justine wandered into the bathroom and back out again. Portia slumbered on. Ordinarily Justine would have woken her twin, and together they would have found a way to make this day bearable. But right now Justine was actually glad of the time alone. She had a few things she had to work out before the wedding of the century unfolded tonight, and for once she was not letting Portia in on her plans.
This was a departure from form, and a radical one. Portia had always been her partner in everything. When they were little, they had their own language, which they called
twinspeak
. It had driven everyone within earshot crazy—much to their mutual delight. More recently they had had to deal with their parents’ stupid and messy separation, and try not to take sides, which was pretty impossible. They pooled their intellectual resources to do their schoolwork (Portia was better in math and science, while Justine was the literature/history/politics maven) and they resolutely defended each other against mean girls, bumbling administrators, boring teachers, jerk-off guys—in short, the world as they knew it.
But lately Justine had felt subtle tremors, the sort of occurrences that might signal an earthquake or a tsunami, beneath the tectonic plates of her bond with Portia—this was exactly the sort of metaphor Portia would have employed. Justine could not really put a name to it; every time she tried to analyze it—What exactly were signposts of the change? What between them was actually different?—she failed.
Maybe the problem was not Portia at all, but Justine herself. She was the one who had changed. That was the nasty little secret she’d been trying to push away or ignore. Lately she had been prone to these—What to call them? Moods? Trances?—that descended on her out of nowhere. She was powerless to predict when they would arrive or with what intensity, but when they came, they ruled. The
dread reds
made her seethe with a low-level but deadly kind of anger: at her parents, at her circle of friends and their petty concerns, at her teachers, who encouraged their asinine ruminations. If, in the throes of this thing, she could have banished them all permanently with a blink to some unseen parallel universe, she would have done it.
Then there were the
moody blues
, when the smallest thing—a news account of someone shot and killed in a holdup, the sight of a dead pigeon in the street—could make her eyes flood and her chest heave with hiccupy sobs so that she could not catch her breath; she’d have to curl up alone in the dark (light was intolerable when she felt like this) until the sensation passed. The
mean greens
were similar though not identical to the dread reds; when she was in the grip of them, she was compelled to commit small, spiteful deeds, ones that she hoped would go unnoticed. She’d yank a button off a coat that someone at school had left hanging over a chair; she’d steal something dumb, something she didn’t even want—dental floss, a gross wad of beef jerky—from a store as her pulse roared in her ears at the possibility of being caught. Afterwards she’d feel sick with shame, which in no way prevented her from doing it again when the urge seized her.
She looked over at Portia, still sleeping, oblivious to her sister’s turmoil, and she felt simultaneously furious and bereft. Better to get out of here now, before she was tempted to wake Portia and tell her everything after all.
Justine emerged from the media room and went quietly up the stairs. She could hear the activity coming from the kitchen. They had all been instructed to take their breakfast in the breakfast room, where food would be laid out for them, but Justine wanted to do a little scouting around first.
A television—tuned in to a weather channel—was announcing the possibility of a thundershower this afternoon. Could she detect the sound of someone—her grandmother, possibly—moaning, or was she imagining this? There
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