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"Why should I be happy for you, Sam?" She looked at her older brother, his strong, tan arms resting on the steering wheel as the pickup idled at the stop light.

"You're signing your life over to them," she said.

He only grinned. "Isn't that a bit melodramatic, Liz?"

She stared out the windshield, into the glare of the hot afternoon. Jason Sand was waiting for them at their house. She recalled how, on his last visit, the senior partner in the law firm had graciously flattered their mother, his secretary of fifteen years. "You must feel incredibly proud, and rightfully so, raising two exceptional children, alone... Sam has impressed everyone... I've never seen such enthusiasm among the partners for awarding the scholarship... Sam will make everyone in the firm proud..."

The traffic light turned green but Sam let the truck idle. The driver in the car behind them tapped on the horn. Sam, with that expression of attentiveness that made everyone think they were at the center of his thoughts, continued to watch her. She propped her elbow in the opened window and rested her chin on her hand so he would not see the muscle in her jaw that was twitching.

The light turned red. Two horns blared behind them. She turned and frowned hard at Sam, but he just made his easy grin.

"Maybe we won't go home, just yet," he said.

The chance that he might give in made her feel a conflicting urge to smile, and to cry.

Sam put the truck in gear, but did not drive. "I mean, Mr. Sand is hardly going to yank the scholarship if I'm a little late for signing the papers. Right, Lizzie?"

She would not smile. "Go home, Sam. You know you want to. But drop me at Janet's first. I'd rather not watch you sign away your life."

"Liz. Why is everything black and white to you? What am I supposed to do? What about all the people who have helped me? What about Mom? If I didn't take this scholarship it would crush her."

"Is that how you want to live? Just going through life without disappointing anyone, without hurting anyone? Even if it means giving up your dream?"

"Liz, do you have any idea what college costs? And law school? Wake up, Liz. I don't dream of being an actor. Not anymore. You dream of me being an actor."

She rushed to answer, not letting herself hear the meaning of what he had said. "Do you honestly dream of being a lawyer?"

The shock of loud horns from the line of cars behind them made her flinch. "Drive! The goddamn light is green."

Sam made his easy smile. "Well, so it is."

He let out the clutch and drove. They went through the center of the town, not speaking, but when Sam did not make the turn to their house or to Janet's, she asked, "Where are you going?"

When he winked, but wouldn't answer, she felt a pulse of excitement, a desperate hope that he was finally seeing how wrong it was for him to give up his dream of becoming an actor.

She imagined Jason Sand spreading glossy brochures in front of their mother. She heard the lawyer's bland voice praising the university that the law firm had chosen for Sam, and explaining the long path being opened for Sam, being smoothed for Sam, leading Sam to his career as an Associate in the firm.

They were two miles outside of town when Sam turned onto a winding, rising road. The few houses they passed were large and set far back from the road on square lots carved out of the forest. Liz squeezed her hands into fists, wanting to bang them down on the dashboard in exultation: Sam was driving to the reservoir.

She imagined herself going home triumphantly, tearing up the slick brochures and shouting happy obscenities at the stunned lawyer.

"Tired?" Sam asked.

She turned aside to hide a smile. "I'm whipped."

"Yeah. Right."

"Really. Three hours of tennis practice in this heat. I'm spent."

"Not too spent to beat up on your brother."

Now she let him see her smile. "Here's what you do, Sam. Take their scholarship. After a semester or two, start taking all the theater courses you can. Then you--"

"It doesn't work that way. There are strings attached."

Her smile twisted. "Chains."

"The deal is I go pre-law. If and when--"

"Just do it, Sam!" She slammed her fists down on the dust covered dashboard. "Once you're at the university, getting your usual genius grades, they wouldn't dare take back the scholarship."

"Liz!" He was laughing. "You never-never-never give up!"

She moved close to him, laying her cheek on his shoulder and simpering in a perfect imitation of the girls at school who followed her good looking brother in the halls. "Oh, Sammy! Three hours of tennis under the hot sun! If you cared even the teentsiest bit about your little sister, you would have brought her a cold beer!"

While steering the truck with his left hand Sam used his right hand to open the sliding window behind them. He reached through the open window, popped the lid from the red cooler bolted to the bed of the truck, and pulled out two bottles of iced beer.

Delighted at his feat, she laughed and opened the bottles. Together, they chinked the bottles, gulped the beer, and smacked their lips. "Ah-h!"

Downshifting to go up a steep hill, Sam shouted, "Music!"

She slid a CD into the stereo and they drove fast along the shaded road, the music loud in her ears, the beer cold along her parched throat, the hot wind drying her damp hair.

Soon they were bouncing up the long dirt road, a cloud of dust billowing behind the truck. Just as the song was ending, Sam spun the truck into the large clearing with the panoramic view of the valley. Liz snapped off the stereo. The soft sounds of the woods filled the vacuum created by the sudden end of the loud music.

They stared down over the blue reservoir encircled by a forest of green pines. She whispered, "Perfect."

On the trail, deep inside the fragrant, cool forest of pine trees, when Sam went around a bend in the path, Liz stopped. Alone, she looked up through the pine spires, and the bright of the sky hurt her eyes.

A sudden understanding made her unable to move: Sam would take the scholarship. He would do with his life what was expected of him, what made sense to everyone, everyone but her.

"Liz." Sam had come back to look for her.

"Do you feel it all, Sam? The way the water smells, the pine trees, the earth spinning?"

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Every time we've come here, since we were kids, before dad... I can't explain. I feel so alone. It hurts. But not in a bad way. Not here."

They went to the edge of a rushing stream and sat on a sun warmed rock. With her chin resting on her knees Liz dropped handfuls of dried brown pine needles into the frothing white and green water.

After Sam looked at his wristwatch, and a minute later, looked at it again, Liz's shoulders tensed. Uncannily, Sam reached over and put his hand on the tightness in her shoulders. She held back a sob.

"Liz. People change. When I wanted to be an actor, I was a kid. It isn't realistic, now. It isn't what I want anymore. I've changed, even from a year ago. Why don't you let go of what's past?"

"I can't." She stared into the water.

"I need you, Liz."

"No, Sam. You don't." Her face burned from anger, from the shame of refusing him.

"What I don't need, or want, Liz, is to be your hero anymore. I can't keep up the act."

She looked at her brother; his voice was different.

"I'm scared, Liz. Why can't you let me be scared for once?"

She watched him, uncertain. "Scared of what, Sam?"

"I don't want to be--" He worked to control his voice. "When I think about trying to make it as an actor... the way we used to talk about it all the time, I feel-- I feel I'm suffocating. I would be so alone all the time."

"Sam, I would visit you every chance--"

"God-damn you!" His voice echoed off the trees. "I don't want to be poor! I don't ever want to be poor!"

He stood over her. "Can you see Mom when I walk in and say: Well, gee, thanks for all your help, Mom, all you've ever done for me. But I don't want the scholarship. No. What I really want is to live in a slum, in New York or Los Angeles. I want to be a waiter. Yeah, a waiter. I want to scrounge around for work and prance in auditions and maybe if I'm really lucky, really tal-en-ted, I'll get to play a sleazy lawyer in a soap opera!"

She could say nothing.

"Would you be proud of me then, Liz?"

"Don't…"

"I'm not going to be humiliated. Not for you, Liz. Not for anyone."

He jumped from the rock, ran along the path and disappeared in the forest.

It was a long time before she could make herself stand. She walked, faint-headed, every breath hurting, but she was too exhausted to cry.

When she reached the truck Sam was waiting. She got in and he started the engine.

"If he's not at our house, Liz, I'm going straight to his office. I'm going to apologize. And I'm going to sign every goddamn paper he puts in front of me."

He drove fast, the truck jolting on the dirt road, its springs screeching.

When they reached the paved road he accelerated, not looking at her, not speaking. She watched her brother drive, controlled, concentrated, graceful.

The sun was nearly down. The wind rushing into the truck was cool with the approach of evening.

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