When I mentioned we left Cali "almost out of nowhere", I'll admit I was playing fast and loose with the phrase. The truth is, we moved two months after my older sister was killed in a car accident.
Janie, luckily named after Dad's favorite herbal supplement and not "The Good Book”, was the coolest human being that ever lived. Ever. First, she looked like Ariel (except without weird cartoon cleavage and p.s., no wonder us girls are doomed!) with gorgeous fireball hair, fair skin, a cinnamon dusting of freckles over her nose and a perfect Colgate grin. I swear when she smiled, you could see one of those little commercial stars and you'd hear "ding" as it twinkled. She was a tennis player by the time she was four, a prodigy by eight and was the only freshman on the varsity team at Venice Beach High. Janie would win Wimbledon one day, you could ask anyone.
And then there was the "good kid" thing. After she died, people kept referring to her as, “…so tragic, she was such a good kid.” But it was true, she was. Janie babysat for the whole neighborhood, half the time for free, got straight As, volunteered at the dog pound and best of all, was the most incredible big sister in the world.
From the moment I was born, she made me hers. She called me "Gigi". Seriously, there was never a kid sister more loved than me. She colored with me on Saturday mornings, braided my hair whenever I wanted the fishtail kind (she called it her "Mermaid Magic Braid") and got me my first boogie board for my tenth birthday. Even when she was in high school, she never let her friends call me annoying or push me out of the way. She was the sun and moon, and not just in my world but our parents' too. I was adored because I was THE baby, but Janie was even more adored because she was THEIR baby. She was an only child for five years and even though I knew I was loved, if it hadn't been for Janie, I definitely would've felt like I had crashed the party.
On Saturday morning, April 24, 1993, I traipsed groggily down the stairs of our artistic bungalow to find Mom heaving and wailing into Dad's chest. I knew before they even looked up that it was about Janie. I felt it, she was gone. I ran straight back upstairs so I wouldn't have to hear it. I wanted more time not knowing. More time with Janie alive. I laid back on my bed, put my Walkman on and played Ordinary World by Duran Duran, Janie's favorite song, over and over for hours.
Finally, Mom and Dad both came up, eyes so puffy they were practically swollen shut and told me that Janie had been in a car accident the night before. There was a head on collision with a strawberry truck on Pacific Coast Highway up near Malibu. The truck driver was fine but Janie and her best friend Carey were killed instantly, their little convertible totalled. They were each just seventeen. It had been Carey driving.
Carey Andrews, our next door neighbor and, yes, Jason's sister.