Harmony

Melody swears that when she has kids–no more and no less than two–she’ll pass on the curse of owning one half of a matching set of names. April and May, Jack and Jill, or her best idea so far: Fahrenheit and Celsius. Every now and then, without warning or provocation, she’ll remind me what a pain it is or how tired she is of hearing, “Do you have a third sister called Rhythm?”

Harmony doesn’t mind it so much.

She got here an hour ago with her new boyfriend in his electric blue two door. He’s told Melody the make and model before, unprompted, but it fell on deaf, spiteful ears.

Every Christmas, Melody’s parents hosted an office party at their new mansion in the hills. Every Christmas, Melody and I eventually found ourselves sitting in the bed of her truck and playing cards in the cold of her long driveway. It was better than inside, where Melody couldn’t handle being suffocated by the “family friends” that were really just employees at her parents’ food lab asking her all sorts of questions about school. Will she go into Microbiology like Dad? Or maybe Food Science like Mom. In the first act of this show, she is routinely cornered by zealots while I set off on my annual quest to the cheese and cracker table.

Harmony’s always there, too.

“Try these,” she recommends each year, not waiting before clawing at an array of fancy cheeses on the wooden platter with a pair of clear plastic tongs. She drops them on my plate like a lunch lady might.

I always enjoy whatever she recommends. Up until recently, I thought that was because of her good judgment. I have often found myself thinking that Harmony would make an excellent sample giver at Costco.

Melody shoots me a look from across the room, her eyes already forming bags. Harmony laughs beside me. “I do not envy her.”

Clockwork.

As the closing act of this routine, it occurs to me that no one is asking Harmony anything at all. She offers me a beer. I forget until next year.

This year, I expect to see Harmony with her new boyfriend at the cheese and cracker table, but I don’t. With Melody held hostage and no cheese recommendations to be had, I venture into the backyard, where I find them.

The blue light of the pool makes them look sickly as they kiss on the patio furniture. He’s Harmony’s first boyfriend, despite her being twenty-two. They’re sipping from red plastic cups, a concoction of Harmony’s inside, no doubt. The Boyfriend recoils at the taste and dumps the red liquid into the crystal blue of the pool the family just had redone in Fall. Harmony takes a step toward the pool, as if preparing to scoop up the murky red water in her bare hands, but then stops.

Neither of them see me.

Later, Melody and I nest in the back of her dusty Tacoma, warming our freezing hands on hot cocoa we smuggled outside. This truck was her sister’s first car, too. On days where my mom was out of state taking care of her parents, Harmony used to drive me home from band practice in this heap of scrap. On rainy days, the water would seep through the broken window and soak my backpack. She must’ve gotten it fixed before passing it to Melody, because my backpack hasn’t suffered a single blow this wet Winter.

Parked next to the sapphire eyesore that was Harmony’s new taxi, the Tacoma was a carriage of Cinderellian proportion.

I disliked The Boyfriend because Melody hated The Boyfriend. We took turns sharing a common enemy, as angry teenage girls do, and The Boyfriend happened to be this month’s unlucky guest on the chopping block. He was an easy target for Melody’s scrutiny being jobless, inconsiderate, and generally reeking of marijuana.

“I saw your sister with him in the backyard.”

Her fingers tense around the hot mug. “What was he doing?” She’s accusatory, like a police officer taking accounts from a witness. He had to be doing something?

“Nothing. The two of them were just sitting.”

I don’t know why I lie for him. If I had just told her about the spill we would have added it to the list of things he’s done to upset Melody, right beside not taking his shoes off in the house or neglecting to put his dishes in the sink.

On any other night I might add to the prattle– God knows I’m not above it. But tonight I don’t, because both he and I are here, at someone else’s family’s Christmas party.

“I can smell the weed from his car,” she says. I can’t see how that’s possible, his windows are up and I don’t smell anything myself.

“Maybe we’re too mean to him.” I say softly, pressing my hot chocolate mug to the inside of my wrist.

“What, do you like him now?”

“No. But he’s her first boyfriend. Do you remember what that was like?”

“It’s different. She’s twenty-two.”

Melody looks forward, unwilling to meet my eyes. She’s got a horrible case of being the youngest daughter of a wealthy family who loves her dearly. A symptom of her frightful condition includes a recurring, frustrating lack of empathy.

“They aren’t all winners,” I offer unhelpfully.

“I can’t believe she brought him tonight.”

In all honesty, I can’t either. It took years of friendship with Melody before I earned my first Christmas party invitation. In the years after my arrival, Harmony had no one to whisk her away to the driveway and sit in the trunk with. I’m not sure Melody can imagine what it's like to be without.

She holds the hot mug to her pale cheek until she’s startled by a faraway noise and splashes the warm liquid onto her skin. She yelps and I press the back of my freezing hand to the burn to soothe it.

“Shit, are you okay?”

Her eyes aren’t on me.

There’s a wooden creak of a gate opening in the distance and the both of us stop moving.

“Don’t walk away. Hey! Don’t you walk away from me!”

A squirrelly man’s voice punctures the safety of our nest.

We duck below the walls of the truck bed and cover our heads with the blanket. For just a moment we feel like little girls in a blanket fort at a sleepover, hiding from our parents, until I can hear the shouting and swearing and all of a sudden we’re not little girls, but soldiers keeping their heads below the trench.

They seem to be making their way towards Harmony’s SUV parked on the opposite side of Melody’s truck. They get close enough for us to make out a red mark on Harmony’s cheek through a crack in the tailgate.

“He hit her.”

I don’t know what possesses me to say such a thing aloud. We don’t know that’s the case, and it’s not as if the thought hasn’t already crossed Melody’s calculated and judgemental mind. I half expect Melody to jump out from under the blanket and wring The Boyfriend’s skinny neck out, but she doesn’t. She’s silent except for her quieted breaths. I don’t need to tell her to stay still, the two of us are already petrified. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Melody so motionless, so non-reactive. Just beside her head, I notice a scratch on the truck I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

The sound of his voice is muffled by the thud of my heartbeat in my ears and the soft pink blanket that covers our heads. The yelling subsides.

“Let’s just go back inside, okay?” The Boyfriend prompts.

I don’t ever hear Harmony speak.

Just as we seem to be running out of air, we hear retreating footsteps. I come up for a breath, but Melody stays below the wall of the truck. The pink mark on her cheek from the hot cocoa is turning a deep crimson now, another way the sisters match.