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chic outfits would make me just a little bit like her. I wanted to be as unassailable as she seemed. But I was also shorter and stockier than Ash, and as soon as I had the dress over my head I knew I was in trouble. I heard a seam start to tear and I was angling desperately to get out of the thing when I stood on one end, yanked the other, and found myself upside down on the floor, naked except for the gown covering my head.
    “Ashley, did you—” Tabitha had come through the door, absentmindedly it seemed, before she realized that I was ass up on the carpet being suffocated by my sister’s fancy new dress. “Oh dear God, Megan! What on earth are you doing?”
    Did Tabitha think I had chosen to get myself caught up like that? I stumbled and stammered as she helped unhinge the dress from my head.
    “Megan, I’m very disappointed in you.”
    I was always the kid who borrowed Ash’s things, and I usually broke them. I never meant to. I just seemed to be far clumsier, more consuming than Ash was as a kid. It didn’t matter. Neither Tabitha nor Ash ever let me live the episode down, and many times throughout our teens Ash would accuse me of wanting to be her. The worst part is, I could never deny that. But that didn’t stop me from trying. Back then it felt like it would be a fate worse than death to have Ash know how desperately I wanted to be in her shoes. I was the ugly duckling, but I never woke up to be a beautiful swan.
    Just before I sneaked out of the cabana I looked up at the tree-shrouded, vine-covered balcony that jutted out from my room. I got this creepy feeling like I was being watched. A wave of guilt washed over me. I wondered if this was how I’d made Ash feel. She must have known I’d been watching her all summer, living vicariously through her. I told myself it didn’t matter. She probably didn’t even mind. In fact, I bet she got a secret kick out of it. I got the feeling she liked having an audience. I definitely did not.
    I slinked back to my room. I couldn’t help but feel jealous that Ash could disappear at will, while I was stuck here with Mr. and Mrs. Angry-at-all-hours, my binocular sunglasses, and a constant fear that nobody would ever love me the way everyone loved my sister.

    *

    I was bored and restless and tired of spending endless hours just waiting for Ash to come home so I could spend endless more spying at her and observing her world from my balcony. I knew I didn’t have to be there, watching her, but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to see what it was like close-up. But every time I went down there and even attempted to talk with Ash, she dismissed me like some twelve-year-old hanger on. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from trying again that morning. Since I could already see she was home, already in the pool half straddling an inner tube while floating in placid waters, I hoped the time was right for a heart-to-heart talk.
    “Hiya, little sis,” Ash crooned, sounding as flirty with me as she was with everyone else. “Coming down for a dip?”
    I was caught off guard by how friendly and accommodating Ash sounded. It was as if she was never absent, as if we had never fought, as if Tabitha and Father weren’t on the edge of divorce.
    “I, yeah, why not. I’d love to just hang out and chat.”
    “Sure thing, Magpie.”
    Ash calling me by my childhood nickname threw me. Neither she nor Father had called me that since eighth grade. Clearly Ash was stoned or drunk or in therapy or something.
    “I’ve been worried about you.” Demanding to know where Ash had been was probably not the best tactic. “Where do you keep disappearing to?”
    Ash looked taken aback. “I didn’t know you cared, little sis.” She smiled.
    “Ashley, of course I care about you. Why can’t we be like normal sisters, Ash? I feel like everyone wants to be with you, everyone is wrapped around your fingers, even Father and Tabitha.”
    A rather ominous chortle came from deep inside Ash. She