Page 5 of On the Ropes
Tabitha
As the taxi pulled away, I hefted my bag onto my shoulders and faced the busy brightness of the Italian Market.
I stepped around people haggling over the prices of produce, iced trays of fish and clams, giant racks of beef hanging in windows. I dodged honking cars and trash cans lit with fires. I walked past clumps of tourists waiting in line for cheesesteaks, past locals speaking Italian, Spanish, and Mandarin. Tortillerias and taquerias sat cozy against shops selling pasta made fresh in the window.
Curving around Seventh Street, I turned down the block where my big sister lived. Kids raced past on the narrow streets on bikes. I waved to a few neighbors hosing down their front stoops and watering window boxes.
I hadn’t been home for any real amount of time in more than nine years.
My phone buzzed with a text from my dad: Are we a go, or what?
I stopped on the sidewalk and grinned. Almost there, I sent back. Hold your freaking horses.
My sister’s row home was red brick with light blue shutters and Juliet’s chalk drawings decorating the sidewalk like a painted garden. I paused to study the green tendrils and rainbow-colored hearts spilling out across the pavement. Dropping my pack to the ground with a sigh of gratitude for my aching shoulders, I smiled again when I realized how much Juliet’s drawings looked like Alexis’s when we were little.
My smile faltered. Alexis had stopped coloring our stoop when our mom told her they were ugly. That it made our house look trashy.
“Pssst.”
I looked up and immediately disregarded the memory. My dad was peeking through the front window looking like he’d just won the lottery.
“Go inside,” I whispered, trying not to laugh. “You’ll ruin it.”
“I’m too excited,” he whispered back.
Rolling my eyes, I wiped chalk from my knees and dragged my pack to prop it against the side of the house. As I crept up the stairs, I could hear an old Smokey Robinson song that was a family favorite, my stepmother Kathleen singing along. I didn’t want to risk checking my appearance in the reflection of the window—besides, I knew I looked unwashed, rumpled, and sleep deprived after my red-eye from California.
I knocked three times. Stepped back with my hands to my mouth, hiding the squeal trying to get out.
I could hear Alexis as she approached. “…know who it is? Could be a package, I guess.”
She pulled open the door. There was a dishrag over her shoulder and Cheerios in her short blond hair. And the moment she saw me, she screamed and jumped into my arms.
I threw my head back and cheered. I’d prepared for her to do what she’d done since we were kids—leap onto her much taller little sister like a baby koala bear.
Alexis was shrieking, “What are you doing here, what are you doing here?” as I spun her around. Half the block came out to investigate, of course.
“Surprise,” I said, hugging her tight. She slid down my body and took a step back, grabbing my arms like I was a mirage she worried might vanish.
“But we video chatted last night,” she said.
“I know.”
“You were at the airport and told me you were flying to Miami.”
I winked. “I was lying to you the whole time.”
Her eyes widened. “Because you were coming here?”
“You got it.” I propped my hands on my hips. “I took a red-eye all the way from Sacramento. Dad and Kathleen helped me plan it.”
I nodded at the man standing behind her in the doorway. He and I shared the same auburn hair, freckles, and dark brown eyes.
“Dad, you sneak,” she said.
“Did you tell her the best part yet?” he asked.
We were interrupted by my stepmother, Kathleen, pushing past my dad and sweeping me into her arms.
