Sisters

I’m in the kitchen at Lisa’s. Her little sister Leeza enters, her pale, freckled face redder than usual. “Liza is the bossiest sister..,” Leeza says, slamming the cupboard door after grabbing a box of Fruity-Pebbles-cereal like she’s choking the life out of it. Lisa enters from the hall, her jaw set with tension, she waves her “La Mer” makeup bag, wildly, letting its very existence, there in the kitchen, function as angry exposition. “YOU,” she practically screams and then shaking with outrage, she begins more calmly. “You can’t use someone else's makeup and ESPECIALLY not their brushes!!” She had begun under control but with each word her message grew emotionally. “I didn’t hurt anything!” Leeza answered venomously back, giving as good as she got. I lean with my butt against the waist high kitchen island, slowly letting myself slide down to where I’m not visible, into a sitting position on the floor, as the fight quickly escalates. Have you ever been a guest somewhere, when there’s a sibling fight or other parents start yelling at a friend? All you can do is try and become invisible - or pretend to text on your phone like you can’t hear the turmoil. I catch a motion out of the corner of my eye, it’s their mom, Barbara, motioning me, with a side-bob of her head, into the living room. I quietly, crouchingly exit the kitchen - the fight reaching full, nuclear bloom. I join her on a white sectional, breathing a sigh of relief. We’re far enough away from the action to feel uninvolved. I like Barbara a lot. She's warm, open and always seems to be suppressing a smile when watching her girls. She’s a lawyer. “You’re officially part of the family,” she says, as she takes a sip of coffee, “they don’t fight in front of company.” I grin. Somewhere just below the tumult, I hear a dad’s deep, male voice, ”Excuse me?” he says, and the fight is instantly over. There is a moment of deafening quiet. “It’s nothing,” both girls say, a second later, in perfect, synchronized, bored-sounding unison.