Role Play by Susan Wright Page A

Saturday, and found myself chatting with shoppers a lot more than usual. And I hung out in the break room with the other girls during lunch instead of going to eat in Bryant Park or on the library steps. Usually I loved to watch the world pass by, enjoying the city. But not today.
    I was lonely. A girl could only study so much. Those nightly hours without anyone to talk to were getting to me. For weeks Lola had been staying away more and more, until she rarely came home.
    Facing another empty Saturday night with nothing to do, I called my mom. Usually a text once a month was all she wanted, but mom was chatty tonight because my brother Mark was getting married and his fiancé got along well with mom. I had only met her once, but she seemed nice enough.
    I wished I had girlfriends I could hang out with, but I had always hung out with Lola. As a kid, my best friend, Amy, had lived next door. Amy’s mom had fed me and Lola, and done some of the things a mom would do if our mom had been around more, like putting on band-aids and helping with homework.
    But when my mom and dad got a divorce, that house and that world had disappeared. My brothers moved in with their dad, while we lived in a series of small, stifling apartments as mom struggled to make ends meet. Lola and I needed each other to get through school—we went to several overcrowded, rough schools where the fights got physical far too often. We closed in on ourselves, always on the defense to survive. I barely spoke to anyone in my classes after I saw girls lash out at someone just for smiling or talking to them. It was then that I dived into books to disappear from my real life, and found out there were a lot of other ways to live.
    Lola got by with a string of boyfriends who protected her to one degree or another. She had a few fights in school, again over boys. But she mostly stayed in the shadows like me. It wasn’t until she graduated, with my help, and we moved to the city together that she busted out.
    After another long night alone, I woke up to face my day off with no enthusiasm. It was a beautiful day, so I was determined to go out. I decided to check out Lola’s performance in the park to see what my sister was up to this time.
    I put on a baseball cap—which I never wore—and tucked my hair up underneath. With big sun glasses and a baggy shirt, I didn’t think Lola would recognize me. It gave me a certain satisfaction that I could pull one over on her.
    The summer festival in McCarren Park in Williamsburg was a home-spun affair. People from all around brought their dogs dressed up for the Pets on Parade contest. There was a marching band strutting around playing funky music accented by the tuba and rhythmic beats of the base drum. Kids were running around everywhere, and there were face-painters, balloon-twisters and street performers.
    I felt happier as I wandered around. Anything was better than sitting alone. I bought an ice cream and actually laughed out loud at the dogs doing tricks in a corral for the judges.
    When I found Lola, my sister was kissing Martin. They were behind a tree, making out for all they were worth. It reminded me guiltily of Victor, and how we must have looked necking in the bar. Just off to one side, June and Spike were sitting on a blanket sorting through their gear.
    I backed away. Seeing Martin up close and in the daylight, his skin looked even more ravaged. He was too thin for his height, and his hands and feet were too big. There was nothing good-looking about him. But Lola was all over him.
    When Transcendence began their show, Lola wasn’t in it this time. Her sole job was carrying around a hat to cajole donations from the crowd. She was wearing a multi-colored taffeta petticoat with motorcycle boots and a black tank top, nothing like her usual clothes. June was dressed similarly in a camouflage skirt as she twirled a baton lit on fire, throwing it high into the air to admiring exclamations from the crowd. Then Martin