Hemingway once said that it was never his practice to drink while writing or after dinner.

I don't know why that pops into my head as the cafeteria line inches forward. Maybe it's because the best vacation we ever had was in Key West. Two sisters having the time of their lives. No commitments. No responsibilities. Or maybe it's because I was the one who gave Jessie her first Hemingway novel, To Have and Have Not. I found it at a thrift store. She was doing so well in English class, I wanted to reward her.

I wish I was in Key West right now. The sun beating on my face as the salty sea licks the sand. But I am stuck here, buried in concrete and florescent lighting, where even the food is gray. I flinch as the woman behind me steps on my heel. But I don't look back. I don't ever look back.


"Did you know he only wrote five hundred words a day?" Jessie asked me once after her sixth martini. We were at the Blue Bar on the Upper East Side, where once I had worked and my sister still did.

I didn't go out with her that night. I was plugging away on my thesis. Dillon, the manager, called and asked me to come pick her up. He told me she fell off the bar stool and was arguing with customers.

I was always picking Jessie up. Like when she was five years old and our father kicked her down the stairs, I picked her up. Or at twelve, when my mother left her at a crack house, I picked her up. Even the day she was born--the child of rape--I was the one who wrapped her in a blanket, and picked her up when she cried.


The cafeteria worker, Hattie, likes me. She smiles as she spoons an extra portion of Jell-O onto my plate. This makes the woman behind me angry.

"You don't never give me more! What this white bitch slipping you- the slimy snake?" She wiggles her tongue at Hattie.

Hattie looks at the woman and clamps her mouth shut. The woman charges her fork towards Hattie, as if she intends to poke her eyes out.

Hattie says nothing. I fade from the line.


"I did it! I sold my first story!" Jessie said to me that time at the little diner near the apartment we shared.

She was twenty-two then. I was twenty-eight. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back and her blue eyes watered. Happy tears. So few of those in her life. I was proud of my sister. After all she had been through, she really was going to succeed. I could feel it.

I reached across the Formica table and squeezed both of her hands. "I am so proud of you," I told her.

Then she frowned. "Are you sure I'm doing the right thing? You know, he started out as a reporter. He always felt that made him a better writer. Maybe I should do that. Go back to school and get my degree."

She was talking about Hemingway again. She was always talking about him. He was her hero. After I bought her that first book, she devoured every word he ever wrote. Tried to emulate his writing, his style, his whole fucking life. Thank god she didn't want to run with the bulls or join the service. But she did insist that every trip we took paid some homage to him. Oak Park, Key West, Spain. I hated that.

I wanted her to find her own voice, her own way. But I also wanted her to grow her own wings, so I didn't push too hard. "Jessie, you're a beautiful writer. Fiction is what you write. But if you want to go into journalism, then nothing should stop you." I searched her eyes for a sign of confidence, wishing I could bottle some up and pour it all over her.

Jessie didn't answer me. She shrugged and dunked a French fry into a cup of mayonnaise, shoving the whole thing into her mouth. She could eat anything, drink anything and never gain weight. It was the only thing about her I envied.

But that was her curse, that she could gorge life to excess and never see the effects.


I sigh now as I look at my gray food on an orange plastic tray. It even smells gray. I stab the wilted salad and pretend it's a French fry smothered in mayonnaise. The woman from the line nears me and I ignore her, eating faster, chewing harder. In three bites the lettuce, tomatoes, and croutons are gone. She walks by and elbows the back of my head. I still have the Jell-O.


The first time it happened, the phone call came at 2:30 in the morning.

"He left me," Jessie slurred.

I didn't care who she was talking about. I knew that sound in her voice. She was drowning. "Where are you?"

"I don't know."

"Are you at a bar?"

"I'm in a phone booth." The sobs came then. Uncontrollable, wrenching tears coughed out between deep breaths.

"Jessie, listen to me. Look around. What do you see?"

"Nothing. I see nothing." Her voice fading. Then, a crash.

"Jessie?"


The sound of horns honking, people yelling.

"Jessie!"

"Hello?" A stranger's voice. A man.

"Who is this?" I demanded.

"I was just walking by. There's a lady passed out in the booth and I saw the phone dangling. Jesus! She's pretty banged up. Looks like she cracked her head. Hey, miss are you okay?"


"Where are you?" I asked. He told me the cross streets.

"I can be there in ten minutes. Would you please wait with her?" A stranger in the night. Better than nothing. Better than where she came from, where she was headed.

Later, at the hospital, they shaved her head and sewed it back together. Her body always recovered. Physical scars healed. It was what was inside that remained broken.


Lunch is over now and I am walking outside into the sunlight, pretending the guard towers are palm trees. The rays sting my eyes and burn my skin, but I like that feeling. I know I am alive. The pain reminds me that my heart is still beating and that I won't be here forever. Then, both of us will be free from prison.


"Uncoveted," Jessie said over the phone. "That's the name of the book." She sold her first novel and couldn't stop gushing. "I wish you were here to celebrate with me."

I wanted to reach through the phone and squeeze her until it hurt. "Why don't you come up north for a visit?" I said. "You haven't seen Amanda in ages."

"How is my niece?"

"She misses you. We all do."

Jessie snorted. "I'm sure Brad is dying to see me again." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She was referring to my wedding day. When she could barely stand to make the toast and then threw-up on my groom. She was never a mean drunk. Just, sloppy.

"He loves you, Jessie. We all love you."

"Guess how old Papa was when he sold his first novel?" Avoidance. Her favorite defense mechanism.

"Well, gee, I'm going to say...twenty-seven?"

"Bingo." The same age she was at the time. I sometimes wondered if that was the reason she drank so much. To be more like him. Did she get ideas when she was loaded? Did she find courage at the end of a bottle? That I could understand. That I could explain away.


The sun is still pounding as I sit on a bench and tilt my head toward the sky. Behind me two women talk about their daughters. They swap stories about grades, sports, boys. My arms ache and I can't wait to hold Amanda--Amanda, whom I wake for every day. Who waits for me every goddamn day.


"They hate it! They hate me!" Jessie sobbed. I was in the city for her book-launch party. Standing at the sink in the ladies' room, she unloaded her purse onto the countertop, mascara streaking her face, her dress rumpled.

She plucked newspaper clippings from the pile and shoved them in my face. I scanned the articles. Bad reviews about her first novel.

"Jessie, who cares? Everyone gets a bad review now and then. Even Hemingway. The books are still selling and you have a room full of people out there cheering you on."

She looked at me, her face painted with anxiety. Her wine glass shook in her hand. I set my own wine down and hugged her.

"I can't go back out there. I can't," she told me. Her shoulders shook with anxiety. I read somewhere that writers write because they have to. It's in their blood. I think drinkers drink for the same reason. For Jessie, it dulled the pain, the ever-present fear, the bruises of not being wanted.


I grabbed her arms and squeezed. "Yes you can. You have to. Here." I snatched a handful of paper towels from the counter and rinsed them under cold water. Then I dabbed her face.

She let me wash her makeup off. Let me wipe the tears away like I did when she was little.

She took a deep breath, her chest heaving. "Go," she said. "Tell Tyler I'll be out in a minute for more signings."

"I'll wait for you."

Jesse sniffed and shook her head. "I'll be alright. Please, just cover for me for a minute."

I grabbed my wine glass and left my sister in the bathroom, staring in the mirror.


The laundry room is musty with cement walls and floors. The soft hum of the dryer calms me. The circular flow of the linens is a welcome pattern I depend on. I fold towels and sheets, neatly stacking one on top of the other. I notice a bloodstain on a blue pillowcase. Stubborn blood that refused to be washed away. The fabric is soft but the stain is stiff. I fold the fabric so that I can touch the faded brown blotch.


"Where the hell is your sister?" Tyler asked me at the book-launch party. It had been thirty minutes since I spoke with Jesse in the bathroom.

I scanned the crowd. "She hasn't come out yet?"

"No and I need her in there." He pushed his wire-framed glasses back up his nose, which had produced a bead of sweat. I told him I would look for my sister. Promised I would find her and bring her back.

I ducked into the ladies' room. Surveyed the buffet. Checked the bar. No Jessie. Brad was casually standing near the long table lined with copies of Uncoveted. His blonde hair caught the light from the neon bar sign, casting a red glow across his forehead. He was flipping through a copy of the book, smiling as he scanned the pages.

"Have you seen Jessie?" I asked him.

He looked up from the book. "She said something about needing her lucky pen. Said she'd be back soon."

She never had a lucky pen. Never had a lucky anything.

I circled the room again--just to be sure--but she was gone. I grabbed my purse and flew down the stairs.

I tried calling her at first, but got nothing. I walked up and down the streets, ducking my head into every bar for eight blocks. It was an hour later when I spotted her. Yelling and waving her arms wildly. I got there just as the cop shoved her towards the street, causing her to stumble and slam her head into a light post.

Maybe it was the three glasses of wine I drank. Maybe it was the frustration that I didn't reach her sooner. Or maybe it was the instinct that became a part of me the day she was born- to always protect my sister. Whatever it was, I didn't think before I attacked the officer and broke his nose. The blood on my hands didn't stop me from barreling down on him. And that was it. Instant felony.


In my cell tonight, I think about Jessie. I think about the night both our lives changed forever. She stopped drinking after that. Started going to AA meetings regularly. She put her book tour on hold for a few months. Spends time with Brad and Amanda. Brad is glad to have her there, helping out while I am in here. He says he doesn't blame her, but I know he does. I have debated if I do. Was it worth it? Trading a few months of my life for the rest of hers? I'm not sure.

Tomorrow, she picks me up.



About the author:
Barbra Annino began her writing career as a technical writer before realizing she was allergic to pantyhose and florescent lighting. Since then she has worked as a staff writer for Illinois Magazine, where she wrote a monthly humor column, and is currently freelancing for various publications. Her first novel, UNCOVERING AMETHYST, will be shopped soon and she is hard at work on her second novel, OPAL FIRE. Visit her at www.barbraannino.com.

© 2009 Word Riot