Mid-June
Key West
FLORIDA
When the plane finally touches down in Florida, I text my family in Michigan to let them know I’ve arrived safely, then elbow my way to the front, unconcerned with the grumbles from the other passengers I barge past. My sparkly flip-flops smack in rhythm as I head to baggage, where I see Dani, Duke, and Dad standing with a huge glittery sign that says, “Welcome home, Della!” My heart breaststrokes into the same spot in my throat where it was when I said good-bye to my family in Michigan.
In one day I left home and came home, and my happiness and melancholy twist together in an uneasy wrestling match that’s one of my most familiar feelings.
“Dad! Dani! Duke!” I bellow, sprinting to them as quickly as my impractical footwear allows. I hurl myself into Dad’s arms, squealing as he swings me around like I’m seven instead of seventeen. Duke and Dani crowd on either side of me, sandwiching me in a tight hug.
“Look at your hair,” my sister gushes, holding out a long, dark strand. “Please tell me you want to leave it long this summer? It’s so beautiful!”
I pop my bottom lip out. “I thought the best stylist in the Keys could hook me up with an inverted bob and some hot pink in the back?”
Dani closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “How about a cute lob and some deep purple?”
“Oh my God, can we please talk about anything else?” Duke moans.
I reach out and press down on his crazy curls. “Um, are haircuts a hot-button issue right now?”
“Wouldn’t he look so handsome with a nice undercut?” I can practically see Dani’s hands itching to take a razor to our brother’s hair. She sighs. “He says he doesn’t have time. The university is around the corner from my salon!” Dani squeezes Duke’s cheeks in her hand so his lips pucker out. “With my help, you’d need a bat to keep the girls away.”
“I don’t hab a probwem wit da girls. ’Cept maybe dat dere’s too many chasing me,” he says through his squashed lips, and we all laugh.
“We gotta drive by the salon. You’ll be blown away, Dell,” Dad declares, kissing my temple, then Dani’s. He looks at her with total pride in his eyes. “Can’t even believe this one owns her own damn salon at twenty-one.” He lets out a low whistle, and Dani blushes.
“Dad, seriously, you act like I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and did it all alone, when that’s so far from the truth. I couldn’t have done it without a million different people helping me.” Dani raises her eyebrows as our dad shakes his head. “Dad, c’mon.” She ticks off her fingers. “You cosigned my loan. Ms. Laverne passed me an enormous client base when she retired, after she taught me basically every trade secret in the book. And Nan Sunny left me the seed money—” My sister’s voice catches, and Duke and I both move closer to her, like we’re trying to protect her.
Dani is the AJ of the Beloise sibling group, but just because she calls the shots doesn’t mean Duke and I aren’t there to back her up anytime she needs us.
I take her hand. “I’m sorry, Dani. I know how much you still miss her.”
Her hand flies up, and she closes a fist around the locket she’s worn since Nan Sunny died. I still miss the sweet, funny woman who treated me like her own grandchild and helped Dani and Duke after their bio mother, Allie, passed. It’s weird to realize that I was just about Lilli’s age when she died. Looking back, that Key West summer felt gloomier than a Michigan February.
Dani was especially brokenhearted—I remember trying so hard to make her laugh and take her mind off things, but it was like she was totally checked out. We were all super relieved when she threw herself into cosmetology school and dual-enrolled at the local university like Duke did; even if she was keeping ultrabusy just to avoid the pain of her grandmother’s passing. But it all worked out perfectly. She wound up with so many credits, she graduated early and went straight to work doing what she loved. Her mentor took her under her wing and transferred forty years’ of Key West’s most loyal salon patrons to Dani when she retired.
Dani is my idol. She basically epitomizes hustle, and she’s done it all her own way. I only hope I’ll be half as cool as she is one day.
“I’m dying to see Dani’s salon. Hey, there’s my suitcase now! I’ll grab it, and we can go,” I say, but Duke grabs my bag off the carousel and throws it on his shoulder as Dad leads us to his old, banged up CJ-7 Jeep. I pat the dented metal of my dad’s ancient, cool ride and jump in the back, where there is a Dr Pepper Cherry and a bag of tropical Skittles waiting for me—the same snack I’ve had on my way home from the airport since I was sitting in a booster seat between Duke and Dani.
We fly along the highway with the top down, our hair wild in our eyes, Creedence Clearwater Revival blasting on Dad’s crackly speakers, the Florida sky bright as a scoop of rainbow sherbet. I stretch my lungs with long breaths of salty air and smile at Dani, who gives me a nearly identical smile back. When I hit my sixteen-year-old growth spurt, Dani and I started getting asked regularly if we were twins. I lean my head on her shoulder and breathe deep, the way Lilli did to me at the airport. My sister’s sun-kissed skin smells like jasmine with a tangy hint of sea salt... I wonder how I smelled to Lilli.
“I’m sorry we missed your big end-of-the-year debate.” Dani strokes my hair, working the tangles out without even realizing she’s doing it. I close my eyes and let my big sister take care of me. “I know we’re far away, but we’re always rooting for you. You know that, right?” Her voice is quiet enough that the guys don’t even hear us from their seats up front.
“Of course I know that. And, trust me, you didn’t miss anything. I haven’t thought about the debate once since the last day. I lost my prime position to some brownnosing transfer from St. Genevieve’s, so I was basically a benchwarmer. Honestly, I just needed to stick with it for the season so I could slap it on my résumé. No big deal.”
I spent so much time at debate club, so many hours wrapped up in something I couldn’t care less about. I lost my spot to a transfer because the coach could tell my heart wasn’t into it. Why did I devote so much time to something that I knew I had no interest in? Lex’s words from the big end-of-the-year bash echo through my brain: Do you actually like any of your twenty thousand after-school activities? Nah. You just like the shiny trophies and all those bullet points on your college résumé.
“It really is a big deal.” Dani, the perpetual sunshine-bringer of our family, sounds defeated. “I mean, you’re nearly out of high school. So much is happening for you...and I feel like I miss most of it.” It feels like every knot she undoes on my head transfers straight to my stomach. At moments like this, I realize exactly how much my dual life sucks. “You’re so smart, and I know your mom is a great support, but when I was your age, I would have loved to have an older sister to lean on... Maybe I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes.”