As a child, Rosalie was demonstrative.
It was a gorgeous summer day. One of those rare occurrences when the sun's powerful heat was welcoming and the stickiness of sweat was somehow a comfort as it seeped forcefully through your skin. Rosalie and I sat silently on the country club lake-front, each of us lost in our own thoughts
The grass that led to the waterfront was perfectly green, cropped short and silky smooth underneath my fingers. The trees that lined the land whispered softly to each other, their leaves swaying dreamily in an inaudible dance. Back and forth. Back and forth.
With Rosalie and I sitting in our pretty white eyelet tops and khaki shorts, I'm sure we looked like an image on a postcard; curly manes of hair sweeping to and fro in the gentle wind, perfectly at ease. I leaned back on my elbows, slightly in Rosalie's shadow, as she sat hunched over her bent knees, picking determinedly at her pale pink toenails. We'd both slipped our shoes off – Rosalie because she wanted to feel the grass between her toes, me because I always followed Rosalie.
Her brows were knitted together as she plucked violently at the chipping polish. Her mother had insisted that Rosalie have her toes painted at the shop in town, because according to her mother, she was now "a little women." I watched her grit her teeth and argue with her mom in the smelly shop for half an hour until she relented. As her mother sat across from her, chattering away with the lady doing her nails, Rosalie wore a similar expression to the one that now marred her pretty face. She was thinking, plotting.
"Kitty do you see that orange tree there?"
When Rosalie spoke to me, she rarely looked at me. No matter, I always answered. I knew better than to leave her questions unanswered.
"Yes Rosalie, I do."
I could see the side of her mouth quirk up in a smirk. These little signals; the half smirk, the narrowing of her fierce green eyes, the crossing of her lanky, powerful legs, meant, without question that Rosalie was about to assert her dominance.
"Go get one."
I looked back to the country club, hoping desperately that my mother would come declare it time-to-go, but knowing that she wouldn't. She was busy sipping Sangrias with Rosalie's mom and flirting with the bus boys on the outside cabana, thinking foolishly that Rosalie and I were out here playing "Tea Party" or "House," like normal little girls.
Smacking the dirt off of my hands and rubbing the temple of my head, I signed defeatedly as I rose to my feet, thighs weak, legs wobbly and padded to the towering orange tree.
"From the top Kitty."
She had yet to lift her eyes from the grime underneath her toenails.
She just kept picking.
I was never athletic or coordinated. Rosalie knew that I was too weak to climb the tree and too craven to negate her demand. As I looked to the top of the tree, with its' branches touching the sky, I saw Rosalie move in my periphery. She was leaning back on her elbows now, watching me, with challenging, amused eyes, bangs framing her face, freckles dancing around her cheeks.
With bare feet, I slowly started to climb the tree, oranges smacking me in the face, branches ruining my pretty, white top – brown on white. I could her snickering in the background, but I refused to look back. And of course, as I continued my assent, gangly and uncoordinated as I am, my foot lost its purchase on the scratchy wood and slipped. Hanging pathetically, from a lone branch, I gripped the wood with feeble fingers, digging into the branch. Rosalie didn't move – she just continued to watch me with same perverse enjoyment she had earlier. With no help and sight, I continued to swing. Back and forth. Back and forth.
As the sun beat down on my skin, no longer friendly or welcoming, I struggled fruitlessly to swing myself back to the trunk of the tree. After what seemed like forever, my mother and Rosalie's mom, trotted quickly down the lawn. They would have been comical in their kitten heels and pastel, linen pencil skirts, if my mind weren't so focused on the god-awful pain in my shoulder.
"Kitty's stuck in the tree," Rosalie called to out to our parents as the approached, as if they couldn't see me dangling. Now picking at the blades of grass on the perfectly manicured lawn, she looked bored with my predicament and slightly disappointed in me. Her monkey didn't dance well enough for her.
"Kitty, get down from there!" my mother called, waving her hands wildly around. She and Rosalie's mom grabbed my wrist and pulled me from the tree.
"Aww, look at your top, Kitten. It's a mess."
"I'm sorry mom," I muttered, head down, shoulder tingling.
"Never you mind, princess, I'll get Maria to clean it tomorrow." She dapped my nose with her long, triangular nail and padded my cheek. She swayed slightly as Rosalie's mom gripped her elbow and spun her round.
"Come Doris, let's get back to booze and the boys!" Rosalie's mom hiccupped.
Arms now linked, they drunkenly sashayed back to the cabana to continue their lunch date.
"I still don't have my orange Kitty?" Rosalie was still picking at the grass.
"No, Rosalie," I mumbled.
"From the top Kitty," she directed.
And so it went. Back and forth. Back and forth.