Page 55 of Malibu Rising

“And I don’t want to wear a tight dress,” Kit spit out. “Or high heels or any of that. That’s not me.”

Nina considered her little sister. What a gift it was to know soclearly what you were not, who you did not want to be. Nina wasn’t sure she’d ever asked herself that question.

“Well, OK. Whatdoyou want to wear? Is there a particular way you want to look?”

Kit mulled it over. She thought of the girls she’d been drawn to in high school. Julianna Thompson, the captain of the soccer team, who wore bell-bottoms and plaid shirts. Or Katie Callahan, the valedictorian, who always wore that headband and ribbons in her hair. Or Viv Lambros or Irene Bromberg or Cheryl Nilsson. But she never wanted to be those girls. She could never really see herself wearing their dresses or their skirts or anything. She just liked them, admired them. She didn’t see herself in them. Maybe that was part of the problem. That she could never really see this side of herself in anyone yet.

“I don’t know,” Kit said. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“All right, never fear, my dear,” Nina said. “I know exactly what to do.” She opened the top drawer of her vanity and pulled out a pair of scissors.

“Give me your jeans,” Nina said.

“Excuse me?” Kit said.

“Your jeans,” Nina said, reaching her hand out. “Hand ’em over. Trust me.”

Kit unbuttoned her pants and slipped out of them. She gave them to her sister and stood there in her underwear.

“I’m basically naked now,” Kit said, uncomfortable.

“There’s no difference between standing there in your underwear and standing there in a bathing suit, which you do every day,” Nina said as she got to work. “Relax. I have this under control.”

With two swift cuts, Kit’s favorite jeans were now her favorite shorts. Nina had created an angled edge to them, shorter in the back, a bit longer in the front. The pockets hung lower than the hemlines. Nina pulled at the newly shorn edges, fraying them.

“There you go,” she said, handing them back to Kit.

Kit stepped into the shorts and buttoned the fly. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her long, tanned, muscular legs looked good.

“Give me your shirt, too,” Nina said.

“You’re gonna cut my shirt?” Kit asked.

“Not if you don’t want me to,” Nina said.

“No,” Kit said, intrigued. “Go ahead.”

Kit lifted her shirt off and handed it over. She was standing in just her bra and the shorts. Kit could feel herself narrowing, curving her back, trying to hide her chest from her sister. Nina looked over at her.

“Don’t stand like that. Stand like this.” Nina stood behind Kit and grabbed her shoulders, pulled them wide. Kit’s chest popped out.

“You’ve got a great rack,” Nina said. And Kit laughed because she’d never heard her sister talk like that before.

“It’s true,” Nina said. “Us Riva women have great boobs. Mom had great boobs. I have great boobs. You have great boobs. Own your birthright.”

Kit started blushing and Nina felt both gleeful and sad. Kit had never been willing to let Nina in in this way. Nina had always hit a wall trying to talk to Kit about boys and sex and her body. But she should have pushed her further earlier. They should have had this conversation earlier. It was Nina’s job to make sure Kit learned how to be herself, all sides of herself.

Nina had been so worried about making sure Kit was safe and protected, making sure Kit never felt like an orphan, that she’d babied her. Nina knew that. She was trying to stop. It just … wasn’t that easy. To let go.

But Kit was an adult now. There wasn’t much left for Nina to do. In fact, maybe the only true parenting left was to make sure Kit understood this very thing: how to be whatever type of woman she wanted.

Nina took the T-shirt and considered cutting the neckline,chopping one of the shoulders off. But no. “Are you OK showing your stomach?” Nina said.

Kit looked down, assessing.

“I think you would look good showing it off,” Nina clarified.

“I guess,” Kit said, going along. “Sure.”

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