Bright Before Sunrise

Chapter 8 - Brighton - 3:28 p.m. ---- 21 hours, 32 minutes left

Brighton

 3:28 p.m. ---- 21 hours, 32 minutes left

 I roll the bottle of It’s Raining Luck between my palms and let my eyes drift over the other colors lined up on the neat racks. I tune out the chatter and background noise in the spa and breathe in the dizzying scent of Friday afternoons: aromatherapy oils mixed with nail polish and acetone.

“Really, Brighton, I don’t know why you even stop and look. We both know you’re going to get Pointe-Shoe Pink like every other week.” Mom takes the bottle from my hand and laughs as she replaces it on the wall rack. “Green glitter? Who would wear that? Take off your ring, Mina’s waiting.”

 I stick my ring in the front pocket of my purse and take the chair next to my mother’s, across the counter from Mina. She has my polish ready, a pale wash of pink half a shade darker than my bare nails.

 “Evy’s flight lands at five thirty. We’ll go pick her up from here,” Mom announces while settling herself into her chair and paying Mina and Pearl so she won’t have to handle money with wet nails. “Your sister is going to be the death of me.”

 “Why? What’d she do this time?” Freshman year she’d organized a naked race around campus on the last day of finals.

 “She was almost mugged last night,” Mom answers as she dips her fingers into the bowls of warm water and beach stones Pearl has set before her.

 “What happened? Is she okay?” I ask shrilly. Mom gives me a don’t-cause-a-scene look.

 “She’s fine. Honestly, Brighton, what kind of mother do you think I am? Would I be here if she wasn’t?” She gives me a look of pure exasperation.

 “Sorry.”

 “Now, this is Evy’s version of the story, so you know it’s exaggerated, but according to her, she turned to them, told them they’d picked the wrong girl. She told them she was a black belt—which we both know is not true, unless she spent her spring semester in a karate studio, and even then, she would’ve told us about it in detail. And she screamed at the two would-be muggers until they backed down. Then she got in her car, locked the doors, called the cops, and followed them until the cops arrived.”

Mom removes one hand from a bowl and rubs her temples—leaving watery streaks in her foundation that roll toward the collar of her crisp white shirt, but don’t drip; like they know stains aren’t tolerated in Mom’s world. “Your sister has far too much ‘fight’ and not an ounce of ‘flight’ or common sense.”

 “What am I?” I ask. “Fight or flight?”

 Mom smiles indulgently at me. “Baby, you’d manage to make friends with them. But, barring that, flight. You hate conflict.”

 “And Evy loves it.”

 “Evy’s more like me. You’re just like your father.”

 “How so?” I lean forward, sloshing water over the edge of my bowl and causing Mina to tut and tug on the hand she’s jabbing with cuticle scissors.

 I need this—concrete answers to this comparison every- one keeps making. I want to know more than we had the same eyes, or we both ran Key Club. I need to know real things. I feel like I’m forgetting everything that matters.

 Mom’s face softens to sadness and I backtrack, “You don’t have to talk about that, sorry.”

 She nods a little and stares down at the wet hand that’s creating a damp circle on the fabric of her skirt.