The Year My Sister Got Lucky Read Online Free

regular school why ballet is “such a big deal” to my family. I’m not sure that kids who have ordinary American mothers could ever understand. In Russia, ballet means so much — it’s more than just tutus and little girls wanting to look pretty. It’s considered thehighest of high-art forms, and there, nobody would beat up a boy because he decided to wear tights. I’ve only been to Russia once, and I don’t even speak the language, but sometimes I like to imagine myself there, wearing a fur hood, and running tragically across a stone bridge in toe shoes while a beautiful boy-dancer named Sasha chases after me. Maybe it will happen one day.
    “So it’s true, then,” I say to my mom as she ushers me and Michaela to the door. Deep down, there was still a lingering piece of me that hoped Fir Lake was all a giant misunderstanding. Perhaps our parents had decided to purchase a vacation home there — not that we have the money for that sort of thing — and Michaela had interpreted it all wrong. But Michaela isn’t like me; she doesn’t invent stories.
    “This is a dream opportunity,” Mom tells me briskly. “You’ll see how much happier we’ll all be, once I have a higher salary, and we have more space, and —” she lowers her voice and glances over her shoulder — “it will be nice for your father to have a change of scene, to write his books in the fresh air.”
    “We’re happy here,” I protest, looking around our small, cluttered living room, with its modernist paintings on the wall, towering bookshelves, and view onto the bars and restaurants of 1 ST Avenue. Dad writes in the bedroom or in Starbucks, Michaela and I loungein our room, Mom has her office at NYU. Who needs fresh air?
    “There’s even a dance school in town,” Mom adds, her eyes intent. “We made sure of that.” She kisses Michaela on the cheek as my sister leaves the apartment, and she quickly kisses me, too, but the gesture feels meaningless and mindless — like an afterthought.
    “Mom and Dad can’t stand me,” I announce once Michaela and I are walking toward the Astor Place subway station. Pounding the pavement all around us are young women in strappy heels, clutching sweating cups of iced coffee; guys in blue button-down shirts arguing into their cell phones; rope-thin models trotting along in chunky platforms; a grungy-looking man playing a harmonica while jingling a hat full of change.
    Michaela rolls her eyes. “Please, Katie. You don’t see it, but you’re so their favorite.”
    “You are,” I reply automatically. This is an old, old debate. And though I let Michaela win sometimes, I know I’m always right. Someone deaf, dumb, and blind could see how much our parents — especially our mom — prefer Michaela.
    “I’m not in the mood today.” Michaela cuts the discussion short as we pass by the skater kids and pierced punks loitering around the cube near St. Mark’s Place. But then she links her arm through mine, to show that she’s not really mad — just worried about being late.
    Stink and steam are rising up from the garbage bags heaped on the street corners — a real New York summer smell — and I take a deep breath, gross as it is. I feel like I’m looking at everything harder and closer this morning: the silver skyscrapers glinting in the distance, the yellow taxicab traffic inching toward Broadway, the chattering crowd of girls in black leggings and wedge heels standing outside the Public Theater. They must be lining up for Shakespeare in the Park tickets. I fight down a lump in my throat and remind myself that we’re not leaving this minute.
    A cloud of heat envelops us as we descend the steps into the subway. On the platform, Michaela and I walk past the newsstand guy, who waves at us. He has no idea what our names are, but he “knows” us, the way that people in the city know each other. I’m sure he thinks of us as the ballet sisters, since we’re always walking by him in our tights, with