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“Hey, you,” Lena said as I opened the door, the almost-identical blue eyes to mine shining back at me cheerfully. It was the only thing that was identical, though. Her curly bright-red hair and icier demeanor were polar opposites from my jet-black hair and generally good-natured sarcasm. It set us apart our entire lives, and often people said we had our personalities reversed from our looks—whatever that meant.
“Howdy,” I said.
“Howdy?” Lena laughed, coming into the room with much more grace and excitement than I had seen out of her in a long while. Granted, I hadn’t seen her in a couple of months, but still. She wrapped her arms around my neck for a tight hug and I hugged her back.
“I don’t know. I’m just trying stuff now. I might have to be here, but I don’t have to act like I’m from here.”
“Oh, because you’re from New York now?” Lena jabbed.
“Nah,” I said. “I just don’t want to be from here, either.”
Lena shrugged, and I was sure she was about to sideways mention my accent again. I had done everything I could to lose it, while my sister reveled in it. The last time we saw each other, she went on and on about how I spoke like I’d learned English from watching soap operas. Then she wouldn’t stop until I said “pisser,” with the inflection making it sound like “piss-ah.” Then I had to “wahk” the “dahg” down to “tha pahk” before she got bored and downed a few more shots.
“Whatever,” she said, adding the traditional “ah” to the end of any word ending in an ‘r’ sound. “I got Caroline ready to meet us. She’s down for anything. She’s hoping for dancing, but I told her you’d probably just want to eat and drink tonight.”
“You do know me so well,” I said.
“Sistah, Sistah,” she said, holding out her pinky for me to hook mine with. I did, and she laughed.
“So, where are we going, then?” I asked.
“Wherever you want. Unless it’s Angelo’s. I’m not going to fuckin’ Angelo’s.”
Silence filled the room for a moment, and those deep blue eyes, ones if you only could see them, you wouldn’t be able to tell if they were hers or mine, widened.
“No,” she said. “Sis, no. Don’t make me go there. Don’t make me see him tonight.”
“I’ve been in New York all this time with people who say they make the best pizza on earth, Lena.”
“I know, but, sis, not there. Anywhere but there. I don’t want to see him again.”
“We are going,” I said, dismissing her protest. “If you want me out of this hotel room and in something other than pajamas, we are going to Angelo’s.”
“Man,” she said, exasperated. “Can we at least just stick to the bar side? They have a dance floor now.”
“A dance floor? At an Italian restaurant?” I asked.
Lena shrugged. “Lots of people have receptions there after weddings. It was either build a dance floor or have some drunk-ass people knock over your tables, because they were going to dance anyway.”
“Fair,” I said. “Alright, we will stay on the bar side. But I reserve the right to sit at a stool and not do anything. You feel me?”
“I feel you,” she said. “Now let’sgo. I’m starving.”
“You and me both,” I said.
As I sat in the back of the rideshare, Lena on one side of me and Caroline on the other, the surrealness of the situation started to settle on me. Much like the dream I had in the hotel, there was a familiarity to this moment, both comforting and annoying, routine and boring all at once.
Caroline was my best friend. I loved her dearly. Witty, goofy, and fun, she was the silly one of the three of us. And the one who got the most attention from boys. She got boobs first, she wore perfume first, she wore lipstick first, and she had the first real boyfriend. Not just a boy who held hands twice in the halls of our middle school, but a real boy, who kissed her and took her out on dates and touched her butt over her jeans once that he swore was an accident but neither of them seemed upset about it.
She was the catalyst to taking me out, too. In her mind, this was like old times had come back again. We were going to be nineteen and sneaking drinks from the bar to pre-game before going clubbing. Or twenty-one when I came home for the summer and we essentially spent the entire season in heels, dancing with boys, and in Caroline’s case, sometimes girls, and getting absolutely hammered on overpriced cocktails.
For me, it was something different. I was home, yes. I was in a car with my sister and best friend, yes. But nothing was normal about this. I was a different person. Inside. I felt like I was the Incredible Hulk. On the outside I might be the normal, old Bruce Banner, but inside, I was a big, green scientist monster. Or something. I didn’t really pay that much attention to the movie.
The point remained. I was someone else inside that they didn’t seem to see. They saw old Jules. I felt like New Julia. And something was going to have to break. I was worried it would be my brain.
We arrived at the restaurant-turned-club and I tipped the driver in cash. I had done my share of rideshare driving, approximately two days of it, before quitting. I had driven people from La Guardia to their hotels or vacation houses and made not enough money to cover the gas. It was enough to make me briefly consider stripping before I found myself at another bar in the Bronx. I put myself through college that way, thinking that the last drink I served to some hipster shmuck up there was the last one I’d ever have to serve.
Then the bar burned.
