Surviving Kendra

Keeping up with Kendra

The red recording light on my Android is set to on as I try to concentrate. All right. Here goes. Plastering the biggest smile I can muster, and taking a deep breath, the rehearsed words slip from my lips on cue.

"Hey y'all! I'm Kendra Jones and you're watching..." Out of the corner of my eye a spider appears. Its spindle thin legs creep across the nearby wall. My mind blanks. "You're...uh...watching..." My thoughts go into a tailspin, heart races, breath quickens. I hate spiders. No, not just hate them, I'm terrified of them. I ease away from the wall, counting numbers backward in my head, just as my therapist had advised me to do in moments like this. I make it to seven when a loud slap sends me racing to the other side of the room.

"There. Got it." Freeze frame. That's my sister, Malia. Svelte. Beautiful. Intelligent. Fearless. She flattened the spider with my recent issue of Vanity Fair magazine and is now standing triumphantly by the wall in her silk camisole and tan linen pants. All she needs is a matching designer cape and a gust of wind in her long hair to make it cinematic. "Kendra, calm down. It's just a spider." She says with a roll of her eyes. Add bossy to her many attributes.

Just a spider. She knows I hate them! Nothing's ever just with me. I'm a walking fear factory when it comes to creepy crawlies, slithering serpents or anything that doesn't stand on two legs and have a first and last name.

Momentum gone, I sigh, switching off the camera but staying a healthy distance away from the wall with the squashed bug. "Would you clean that up?" I ask. No way I'm spending the night in this apartment with that thing staring back at me. Besides...it's nasty.

"Calm down, Ken. Unlike you, I have a black belt in home cleanliness." It's true. Malia's place is immaculate, it's also in one of Chicago's best neighborhoods. I live in an eclectic part of the city. A place with character, diversity, and... "By the way, when are you moving out of this dump?" Malia interrupts my thoughts as she returns to the living room with a paper towel and spray cleaner and clears away the remaining bug carcass.

"It's not a dump. I mean, it's not Lincoln Park. But it's nice enough for the price." I sigh and flop onto my lumpy futon to stare into space. With my focus on the blank television screen across from me, I wonder if this is the end. Of everything. "Okay. This. Sucks."

I sense Malia watching me, those judging eyes needling my skin. She's giving me the look--you know the one that reads, I can't believe you're just giving up. Rubbing my hands against the denim capris I'm wearing, I contemplate what to do next. "If I can't record a stupid video for Instagram, how do I expect to get anyone to check out my work?" Wait. Did I say that out loud? Shit. I didn't mean to. My head swivels to find Malia staring back at me with a knowing look on her face. Here it comes. Another you give up too easily lecture.

"Well, you're never going to get anywhere if you give up on everything. You have to persevere."

See what I mean?

"Life doesn't always go as we plan. We have to adjust and roll with the punches. I mean, if I'd just given up when things got hard at Law school, I wouldn't be where I am today." Where is that exactly? Is what I want to ask but don't. Malia sells herself short, big time. Working for less than she's worth with a bunch of privileged men that hit on her all day and dump all their work, and their failings on her when they fuck shit up. Sure, that's exactly where I want to be. But I know better than to interrupt Malia when she's on a roll.

"I believe in you. If you'd just believe in yourself. You're a phenomenal artist with talent that deserves to be shared on a bigger platform than Instagram."

Why doesn't she take her own advice?

I finger the purposeful tear in the knee of my capris, looking down at the floor, waiting for the lecture to end. It does; sooner than expected. Malia's eyes bore through me as they connected with mine. Brown on Brown, hers a shade lighter but still prominent and angular like my own. Staring at my sister can be like looking into a magical reflection of who I could've been in another life. Her rich, earthy skin-tone reminds me of our father, while I'm on the lighter side and tan like our mother. I'm petite and curvy, she's lissome and statuesque. Her hair falls to her shoulders in big soft, sophisticated curls, where my curls are short and cut in a funky hipster style. We both have full lips, but Malia's are a perfect bow like the pop star Rihanna, while mine are lush like the actress Meagan Good. Cute, but round, matching noses and high cheekbones average out our features. We're alike in some ways. But in others, a world apart.

She discards the magazine and puts the used paper towel into the wastebasket that I keep in the living room and then takes a seat beside me on the sofa. Lecture on pause, the close presence of her rattles the last of my resolve. It may seem like our differences would keep us at constant odds. But my sister is everything to me. All I ever want to do is make her and my parents proud. Tears press against the corners of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I dare a look at Malia and the sympathy in her expression kills me. Before I can stop them, a torrent of tears springs forth. She wraps her arms around me and in between sobs I press my nose to her camisole inhaling her floral scent. For some unknown reason, it makes me bawl harder. Why does she have to be so goddamn perfect all the time?

"Hey...Hey. It's okay," She coos, rubbing small circles along my back. "You just need an opportunity. That's all. Something to give you a boost of confidence."

After a brief time, my tears taper off. I draw away from her and dab my eyes dry with the bottom of my tank top. But when I look at Malia, she has that familiar, faraway look. The kind that assures me she has a plan already in the works. My belly clenches because if there's one thing I know, Malia never does anything in half measures and there's a lot more out there to fear than creepy crawlies.