Lily Kairis

Advanced Fiction Workshop

Short Story, draft 1
EVANGELINE (chapter one?)

“She was like that, excited and delighted by little things, crossing her fingers before any remotely unpredictable event, like

tasting a new flavor of ice cream, or dropping a letter in a mailbox. It was a quality he did not understand. It made him feel

stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see. He looked at her face, which, it occurred to him,

had not grown out of its girlhood, the eyes untroubled, the pleasing features unfirm, as if they still had to settle into some sort of

permanent expression. Nicknamed after a nursery rhyme, she had yet to shed a childhood endearment.”

— “This Blessed House” in Interpreter of Maladies

So here’s how it happened. 


Teddy calls me one evening in late July — I think it’s a Tuesday — as I’m riding my bike

home from the Paramount lot after another day spent sorting mail, sweat glue-sticking the

inseams of my white jeans to my thighs. I have to pull up to the Starbucks drive-thru to dig into

my fanny pack (my mother made me buy it when she knew I’d be biking through the “corruption

wasteland of California”, give me a fucking break) and press accept. He’s uncharacteristically

deadpan. 


“We need to visit Evangeline.”

“We — what?” I’m breathless, the drumbeats of blood reverberating against my

eardrums. I was out of shape that summer; filling my post-breakup emptiness with bubble tea,

overpriced acai bowls, and Korean BBQ. Teddy keeps talking, but I can’t hear him over the

blood and the cat-eyed girl at the Starbucks window, who’s waving her pointer finger in circles

and yelling at me to move the fuck out of the way so real paying customers can be served.

There’s an orange Lamborghini three feet behind me, spewing exhaust out its oversized nostrils

like its one hiccup away from running me over (fuck the pretentious Hollywood executive snobs,

I swear), so I pedal over to the bike rack on the corner and choke out, “Can you repeat that?”
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
“She’s having a baby, Clara. And mom and dad don’t want to be there.”

“They… She…?” This always happens, when I’m hit with emotion; I lose the capacity to

formulate real sentences. It’s like I’m regressing into infancy. I hate it. Like, wouldn’t it be nice

if my mind and my mouth were on the same team, for once? 


“I know she’s difficult, I know it’s not going to be fun. But she’s our sister. It doesn’t

matter anymore whose fault it was, what she said, why she hasn’t come to visit — I don’t really

care. It’s been four fucking years, and I want to meet my nephew. Don’t you?”

My throat tightens, as if in self-defense.

“Of course I want to meet him. It’s just — why so urgent?”

“She’s having a baby, Clara.” He says it so earnestly, I feel guilty for arguing. I feel guilty

for everything. Teddy starts ranting about our summer schedules (we’re both on the West Coast;

it’s much more expensive flying from Boston; we’ll have to fund this ourselves, you know, mom

and dad won’t support it; it’ll just be for the weekend), but my mind’s gone cacophonous with

thought, whirring, catastrophizing, drowning him out.


“I’m gonna need to call you back.”

Later that night, when I’m tucked into my rented room on McCadden Drive, where I

board with a squeaky-voiced French widow who works at the Chinese Theater every night until

1AM, and who makes me crepes with raspberry jam when she hears me crying — I pull up a

folder on my laptop labelled, “Sentimental Shit: DO NOT OPEN UNLESS FEELING

MASOCHISTIC.” Evidently, I have excellent self-control. It’s full of poems I’ve written, in

reverse chronological order — about my ex, about depression, about sexuality — but I scroll past
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
these. Tucked away at the bottom, there’s a sub-folder: “Sister.” I click. Twenty-two files. Ten

photos: us as kids holding hands at Disney World; us painting each other’s faces at the family

barbeque; us both standing up and cheering in the front row, embarrassing Teddy at his middle

school choir recital. Then the videos. Evie and I used to make home movies together, mainly

fake tabloid news segments of us interviewing our beanie babies about their fictional acting

careers. Occasionally, per Evie’s request, Teddy would make a special guest appearance as the

weatherman (because that makes total sense). At the bottom of the folder, there’s a single 20-

page document, entitled, “When She Left.” My cursor hovers over it like a threat. But I don’t

click. Instead, I call Teddy back.

“Let’s do it.”


He starts talking about Greyhound times and expenses, and yet again, my brain drifts

away, thrumming with a panic I’d gotten so skilled at repressing. Really, I should have

recognized this day would come. It’s been four fucking years. 


I guess I have to explain. 


Our sister, Evangeline, left home when she was twenty, the same age I am right now.

Back then, I was sixteen, a junior in high school. I remember the exact moment I heard. I was in

3rd period study hall, sardined in a small corner of the chemistry lounge, watching Drake music

videos and sharing Jolly Ranchers with Nisha Morenas as she reported news of the day’s

promposals. “And then Neelam opened her car, and like, a thousand rainbow ping pong balls

poured out into the parking lot…” 


 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
That’s when I glanced down and saw the text from my sister: “Finally did it. I’m free. On

my way to Nevada.” She attached a 5-second video, showing the sun hanging low over rocky

mountains, speeding by through a foggy bus window. Five minutes later, I vomited, and ended

up spending the rest of the evening in the Nurse’s office.

But — that’s not the whole story, of course. Her leaving had been a long time coming.

Evie was always what mom called, “a precocious child.” She was imaginative and

bursting with energy. When the three of us were kids, Evie was always the ring-leader. The

game-maker. She dreamed up elaborate worlds for the three of us to inhabit, running through the

woods behind our house and imagining we were dragons searching for time-bending crystals; or

kings and queens of our own royal kingdoms of beanie babies. She was constantly moving;

constantly story-telling. In elementary school, the problems first developed — she began fighting

with the other kids, refusing to participate in group lessons, and having tantrums when she was

punished. My parents asked a child psychologist for help, and the woman simply said: “Your

daughter is eccentric.” What an idiotic word.

In the years afterwards, Evie only got worse. High school came and her tantrums didn’t

end, as they usually do with age. She developed a habit of long-held obsessions (for a year at a

time she would talk exclusively about one topic — the ‘80s band U2, the Swahili language, the

TV show Merlin, World Cup soccer), and when we didn’t talk about her fixations, she had a

tantrum. When we played anything but syncopated music in the car, she had a tantrum. When

dad impatiently told her, You’ll never get a job if you keep behaving like this. This behavior

doesn’t fly in the real world, she’d scream until her vocal chords crackled, barricade herself in

her attic bedroom, and refuse to exit for days on end. Mom and dad would search the room and
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
find scrunched-up pieces of paper, scattered like space debris, saying things like, One day I’m

going to call the police on them. One day they’ll get what’s coming.

Mom and dad put her in therapy again in 2015, after she flunked out within six months at

the University of Connecticut. She went for two weeks, then claimed, The therapist is crazy,

she’s out to get me, and wouldn’t go back, no matter how earnestly and gently mom pleaded. It

was that year, the summer of 2015, that Evie started her worst obsession of them all: a religious

sect called the “theosophia,” who claimed that angels were going to come down from heaven,

snatch up the sinners, and give the chosen few their chance at eternal life. To Evie, of course, our

parents were the sinners. I’m not sure where Teddy and I fell on the spectrum.

As you might expect, this was the year she left. It happened in a rush — by that time, I’d

grown distant from Evie, plummeting myself into the routines of high school and attempting to

ignore the shitshow at home. Mom stopped telling me what was going on. It was only after the

text, in 3rd period study hall, that I learned the catalyst: Evie had been stealing money from our

parents, in an effort to camp out and meet with the angels. She’d stopped worrying about

consequences. She wanted to leave, at any cost. So mom and dad didn’t fight her. According to

mom’s psychiatrist (who she started seeing herself when Evie refused), this was The Right

Thing. “She needs to go off on her own and fail, and fall down, and witness herself how hard it is

to pick herself back up again. And then, that’s when she comes running back to you.” 


The thing is, she did not come running back.

It’s been four years and I haven’t seen my sister. I try not to think about it.
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
We book the Greyhound tickets that Tuesday, and leave the next week. It’s July 31st, I

remember because it’s three days before my ex’s birthday, something else I try not to think about.

I awaken at 4:30AM, as per Teddy’s instructions (One early morning won’t kill you, Clar. You

can sleep on the bus), wave goodbye to Marie the French widow, who is already up brewing

coffee, and Uber to Teddy’s apartment in Downtown LA. He’s sandwiched between the Flower

District and the 6-by-6 block of homeless people sleeping in tents that they call “Skid

Row” (Teddy had denied my mother’s offers of support money—maybe we can find you a better

place, sweetheart, somewhere with A/C?—with the prideful self-determination he’d delicately

groomed since Evie left). The last time I went to Teddy’s neighborhood, for his birthday dinner,

two men shooting heroin in the alley behind Ruthie’s Roses spotted me waiting on the steps.

They wolf-whistled in sickening harmony before one called out, “You wanna be my fourth

wife?” So this time, I asked Teddy to please for the love of God be standing outside when I

arrive. Sure enough, there he is, chest puffed-out with machismo, nothing but a camping

backpack slumped on his shoulder.

“You ready?”

I’m not. But I agree. I don’t ask if his tiny bag is enough, knowing he’d launch into some

tirade about environmentalism and minimalism and really, neither of us needs that, right now. We

walk the six minutes to the station in relative silence, taking turns humming the opening bars to

Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” The past few years, I’ve begun to realize — Teddy is one of few people

who understands when I need silence. It’s a rare connection.

We’ve been through the same shit, I suppose. No one but Teddy and I understand what it

felt like — or, feels like — to be related to Evangeline; to be eight and twelve, respectively,
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
watching our thirteen-year-old role model slowly spiral out of control. Only Teddy and I were

watching in the back of dad’s beat-up station wagon when Evangeline announced, fifteen

minutes before our scheduled departure for the annual ski vacation of 2010, that there was no

way in hell she was getting in the car with a man who didn’t respect her privacy. That was the

third year in a row she’d attempted to back out of a family vacation in the last hour, and Dad was

furious. In a chain of events that both Teddy and I have forcibly blocked out of our minds, he

attempted to shove Evangeline into the car, grabbing her so roughly he exposed her plump, pale

flesh, bare underneath the purple zip-up Land’s End fleece she hadn’t washed for months.

That’s something we don’t talk about.

Anyways.

Though Teddy and I have been through the same shit, we never had the same reactions to

it. I have always been reactive and hypersensitive; too invested in Evie’s moods for my own

good. As she fought with mom, I would stand at the top of the stairs, crying, peering down with

masochistic curiosity, while Teddy would lock himself in the basement and blast Modest Mouse

to drown out the noise. When Evie would knock on our bedroom doors after nightfall, longing to

discuss her religious theories, I would let her in, cuddle underneath my blankets, and allow her to

show me YouTube videos of senile preachers until her energy waned. Meanwhile, Teddy would

mumble impatiently, “I don’t have time for this,” and return to his apparently very pressing game

of World of Warcraft. When she finally left for Nevada, mom and dad put me in therapy to deal

with what they called “the trauma of my abandonment.” Teddy was already in college, at the

time, engrossed in his own burgeoning adulthood, accepting her absence without question.
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
He’s a rock. When we were little, Evie and I called him “Stonehenge Sam,” which is a

rather silly nickname, in retrospect. He hated it. But to be honest, I never used to pay him much

mind. Evie took the focus of my attention. It was only after she was gone that I really began to

confide in him, to ask him for advice on dating and self-confidence, to watch his plays at U-

Chicago and see my once-Stonehenge Sam come alive onstage. In a strange way, our sister

leaving brought us together. Yet, there were still topics we avoided. Of course. We still so rarely

talked about Evie. Until — well. I’m getting ahead of myself. 


At the Greyhound station, Teddy gives me a run-down of the night’s plans: he texted Evie

that we’ll arrive at 6:10PM and meet her at the Starbucks next to the train station, she’ll drive us

to our hostel, we’ll quickly drop our luggage off, and then head out for dinner — Evie

recommended a Mexican place on Reno’s main street. I’m wary of what exactly “Reno’s main

street” entails, but what choice do I have? I tell Teddy that sounds perfectly acceptable, and he

sighs and pulls out a cigarette. I haven’t seen him smoke before.

“Since when?”

He fiddles with the lighter. “Um… 2015?”

“Why do I not know this?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Clar. We don’t hang out that much.”

“Yeah we do!”

“Like, in family settings, sure. At holidays. But it’s not as if we’ve gone out to bars or

concerts together. It’s not as if you’ve bonded with my friends.”

I frown. “It’s not as if you’ve bonded with mine.”

 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
“Exactly.”

“I don’t understand what the point of this is.” Teddy can be unnecessarily argumentative;

a trait that only really arose in the years after Evie’s departure, as if he was over-compensating

for his former stoicism with very important opinions that we all needed to hear. It always

bothered mom, especially when he chose to debate at dinner. She’d press her fingers to her

temples and say, “You’re giving me indigestion, Teddy.” I don’t think your stomach works like

that, but whatever.

We’re conveniently cut off by the security guard, yelling his boarding call for Bus 206 to

Reno. Teddy steamrolls through the crowds, holding my hand. “I’m not four,” I mumble under

my breath, but he isn’t paying attention. Secretly, I appreciate it.

Teddy guides us to two seats in the third-to-last row of the bus (close to the bathroom, but

not close enough for you to smell it) pulls out his frayed copy of Milan Kundera’s Immortality,

and plugs in his headphones — then pauses. “I only smoke when I’m stressed. It’s not a big

deal,” he says. I nod. We drop it.

The bus ride is twelve hours long, and as shitty as you would expect a twelve-hour

Greyhound bus ride to be. My butt falls asleep on hour two. On hour five, the twins in the back

of the bus wearing matching Minnie and Mickey pajamas start throwing applesauce at each

other, then sobbing violently when Minnie gets applesauce in her eye. On hour seven, we stop in

San Jose for a bathroom break, and Teddy buys us a bag of almonds and two apples from the

general store, claiming “Your body will thank you.” We stretch together on the expanse of grass

behind the parking lot (both of us are excessive fidgeters) and discuss music. We’re

commiserating about the crappiness of Arcade Fire’s newest album when Teddy gets a call.
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
“Ev?” He shouts into the phone. “I can’t hear you. There’s a lot of background noise.” He

wanders away, still shouting. “Yeah! That’s better. That’s so much better.” He spends four

minutes on the phone, leaning against the lamppost by the gas station, barely speaking except for

the occasional, “Yeah, yeah… I hear you, okay.” When he finishes, he heaves an overdramatic

sigh, strutting back towards me. “Damn, that chick can talk.”

“Yep,” I mumble. “I remember.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just… She didn’t want to talk to me, I guess.”

“Aw, well. You could have asked!”

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t want to.”

Teddy gives me a searching look, his chestnut eyes wide with questions.

“It’s fine.” I repeat.

“Okay.” He reaches over to squeeze my shoulder, and I relax into him. Even when I’m

trying to be tough, my damn body can’t help its love for physical contact. “C’mon, let’s head

back in.”

We arrive, just as Teddy had predicted, at 6:10PM. Reno is, just as I had predicted, utterly

anti-climactic. A desert wasteland of casinos, fast food, and 60s architecture. We wait in the

Starbucks next to a family sharing a bucket of KFC and arguing whether they should watch the

first or second installment of Agent Cody Banks. Thirty minutes pass. Teddy tries to call Evie

four times, but she doesn’t pick up. We both begin to panic — Was her baby delivered early? Did

she get in a car accident? — when suddenly, at 6:42PM, the door swings open, and the
 Lily Kairis
Advanced Fiction Workshop
Short Story, draft 1
unmistakable silhouette of our older sister is standing in the entryway. The first thing I notice:

she looks terrified.

She’s wearing a baby blue button-down over a white t-shirt and a tie-dye Maxie skirt. Her

golden-brown hair has lost its former curls. I can tell she brushed it. Funny, because in the three

years before she left home, she stopped doing anything to her hair except an occasional rinse in

her bathroom sink, proclaiming: “Obsession with hygiene is a symptom of capitalism.” But she

looks, honestly, hygenic.

Teddy waves her over. “Evie!” She registers us. Her smile is half-baked, just the corners

of her lips twitching upwards.

“Hi.” She doesn’t move, so Teddy breaches the distance, and engulfs her in one of his

bear-strength hugs. She laughs over his shoulder. “Wow… wow… Ouch.”

He lets go. “Sorry, did I hurt you?”

She’s still giggling. It’s a dainty laugh, a laugh I don’t recognize, the laugh of someone

raised in etiquette classes and ballroom dancing. “Only a little.”

She looks at me, then. I hug her before we can maintain too much eye contact. “It’s great

to see you,” I say. It sounds rehearsed, and I wish it didn’t.

“Aww, you too.”

“I mean it. And — you look great.”

“Aww. Thanks.”

Teddy clears his throat. “Shall we?”