“Meg,” he said, his voice quiet. He put an arm up to shade his face, curling his hand in a mask to cover his eyes. “Can you switch spots with me?”
Greta slid out of the booth and moved to the other side, do-si-doing with him in the narrow walkway between the coffee bar and the table. She saw the reason for expediency. Soon, very soon, she would be close enough to the counter to see his old seat very clearly, but the spot facing away would be far less visible. “She’s not alone,” Danny murmured, which Greta saw too. Saw very clearly, in fact, as the couple approached the counter to pay.
“That’s my office mate,” Greta said. “Oh God. She’s with Max.”
It was noon and the lunch crowd stood in an orderly line, waiting. Meg held a pint of strawberries from the farmer’s market and stood with Max. The two chatted, leaning their heads together in the rising tide of lunchtime conversation.
As if Meg could feel Danny’s eyes on her, she turned slowly. Her mouth became a little “o” of surprise, but she adjusted it into a smile before she reached their table. “Hi, Danny.”
Danny seemed ready to respond, but Greta couldn’t imagine what he would say. After a second, he cleared his throat and left, pushing past Max’s shoulder and spilling iced tea over the rim of his glass. Max stepped backward to avoid the splash. A second later, the chime of the door sounded. Danny moved so quickly that the chime came long after him, like a movie with a frame cut out.
“Is he okay?” Meg asked. Her gaze tracked the door after Danny left through it.
“He was,” Greta said. She sharpened her tone enough to make Meg look at her. She did, finally. Max didn’t, his glance on the spilled iced tea spots on the floor.
Was it her own fault? That day over chocolate cake, him loading her into the car. Jesus, had she set all this in motion? She gestured to the pair of them, matched in their preppy clothes, standing there like salt and pepper shakers. “How long has this been going on?”
Max stammered, “This isn’t anything.”
“Looks like something.”
He wasn’t used to her sharp edges, her hate, like Meg was. He’d only seen her in a lab or the bar. New variables in the wild. “We’re friends,” Meg said. Greta didn’t believe her. Meg’s word was garbage, a growing pile of garbage that included Max’s word too.
“I could not care less.”
“Greta—”
Before either of them could say anything else, Greta packed her bag and left.
* * *
The Fourth of July dawned even hotter than the day before, and Greta’s temper matched it blow for blow. She chewed her breakfast so hard that she nearly bit her bottom lip along with the toast. Danny didn’t eat at all, pressing his head against the table as though he hadn’t slept all night. “Okay,” Greta said, “we need some fireworks therapy.”
Greta saw the inflatable gorilla before she saw the tent itself. The twenty-foot-tall ape always graced the mall parking lot during fireworks season, its arms stretched above its head like an angry ballerina’s. The tent was just opening for the day. It wasn’t until Greta locked the car door behind them that she realized how stupid this idea was. They could have gotten their usual choices at any gas station. Danny, just like when he was ten, chose a box of snakes instead of black cats. It comforted her that he always hated the Fourth of July and that this year was no different. Greta grabbed some sparklers, even though she was unsure if Danny would be awake late enough to use them. And where would they? On the lawn in front of the apartment building, stealing space from the neighbor kids?
On the way home, Greta rolled down the window and felt the inrush of oven air, barely cooler than the inside of the car. In fireworks selections and pretty much everything else, Greta mused that people never change from their childhood selves. Sure, she was taller, broader, and smarter than herself at age ten or twelve, but she still sensed that kernel of adolescent insecurity as keenly as a hangnail. Hangnails are easier to clip off; insecurities gestate.
Danny had always been the favorite child. Greta accepted that. He was a latte, and she was day-old coffee. Supposedly, their differences started at birth. Though he had never slept much, he didn’t cry much either. Greta had been a screamer, in love with her own loud voice. Maybe, Greta thought, he knew colors from birth and could see them drifting above him like shadows on the wall. Maybe he could hear colors in the voices that spoke and sang to him. He cooed, he watched, he sang.
Though he was half of her, Greta had hated him.
At five, Greta had decided to pack up and run away. Danny had taken her things again, and Dad had done nothing to stop him. Danny had made Martha laugh again, and Greta didn’t know how to compare. Her suitcase, as she remembered it now, was an old grocery bag. Inside she put her Rainbow Brite doll, her Beatrix Potter collection, two pairs of clean underwear, and a fresh pair of suspender pants. She had told Martha, “I’m running away,” and Martha, who hadn’t known that Greta didn’t have much of an imagination, took it for a game. If she’d told her Dad, he would have stopped her. Her Dad was like Greta—he knew she meant what she said.
She’d only gotten as far as the neighbor’s house down the block. One of the neighbor kids was a year younger than Greta, a frequent playmate, and she’d welcomed her. Greta liked this house—they had a dog and a cat. Martha was allergic, so they’d never had pets.
The neighbor kid ushered Greta inside like she had been expecting her and offered her a home behind the couch in their den. Greta unpacked. The dog nosed open her book of stories, and Greta paged through a few while her neighbor friend ate lunch in the kitchen. The house smelled like hot dog water, and Greta’s stomach growled. She tried to read to make the time go faster. She liked Beatrix Potter because the pictures looked like real animals, not wide-eyed cartoony imitations. Although she couldn’t read most of the stories by herself, she could sound out “The Story of the Bad Rabbit.” It was shorter than the rest. The good rabbit got a carrot from his mother, and the bad rabbit scratched him. In the end, the bad rabbit loses its tail and whiskers to a man with a gun. The good rabbit, Greta noticed, didn’t get the carrot back, though, and she thought about hitting Danny to see what happened, but never did.
Good rabbits wouldn’t think about that.
Good rabbits wouldn’t have run away.
Sitting in their apartment, which still didn’t have working air-conditioning, Greta set up the dominos along the table. She watched Danny take some for himself. Decades later and he was still the good rabbit. Did there always have to be an evil twin and did she always have to be it? “You can go first,” she said.
He clicked a tile in formation.
“You’re quiet today,” she said.
He grunted, then rose to get a glass of water. When he returned, he didn’t notice the way she’d cheated in his absence.
“Earth to Danny.” She waved a hand. “Anyone home? Too many people home?”
“Sorry. Money.”
She believed and didn’t believe him all at once. She, too, had seen the hospital bill that had arrived the day before. He’d torn it from its envelope and returned it back, like putting it to bed would prolong the inevitable. “Money’s overrated.”
“My last disability check came, and now I should be prepping for the fall, but …” He shook his head, his hair flopping.
“I thought the noise was gone.”
He sighed and placed another domino. Snake eyes. “I’m so tired, Gret. So tired. I get up, try to play a little music, and it takes all my effort not to want to go lie down again. My head hurts by the end of the day. I mean, I got headaches before everything happened—you can’t be around a middle school band and not—but now? And medication doesn’t touch it.”
The shelves of medication, he meant. Some, blood thinners. Some, antidepressants. Some, pain. Their apartment was a regular Walgreens these days.
The summer after their freshman year of college, she had gone home to find everything in the trailer moved to a different but b
etter place. Danny had been home for a week before her, and things were tidied up, put away. He could always see where things belonged. If only he could hold up a mirror to himself to see where he belonged now. “Maybe you’ll find something else you love to do.”
He laughed, but it was bitter. “I’m starting to worry that things that I love change on me, so why love anything?”
“I love you,” Greta said, but she knew she didn’t say it right. In the movies, a touching family moment would have hugs, voices dripping with sentiment. The revelation should be heavy, but her voice sounded like she checked things off a grocery list. More Cheerios. More milk. We’ve got plenty of eggs.
“I’m glad,” he said. A grin tweaked his lips, and his voice echoed some of that heartfelt moment they were supposed to be having. Leave it to Danny to pick up the slack.
“I’m sorry I was a bitch to Meg when there was a Meg,” Greta said.
“There’s still a Meg.”
“You know what I mean. She has a habit of breaking it off with fiances. You deserve better. You’re Danny, for shit’s sake.” You’re supposed to be the favorite, she thought. You’re the good twin.
“When you meet someone, just someone so perfect—”
Greta’s tiles were gone. The dominoes made a road of white dots across the tabletop. As kids, they used to line them up like this and drive matchbox cars over the top. “There’s a song in that,” Greta said.
Danny laughed, a real laugh now. “Sure there is, but I can’t hear it.”
“Do you need help with the bills?”
“You don’t have any money,” Danny said.
“I know, but I figured I’d at least act like a sister and ask,” Greta said, grabbing the envelope from the hospital on the counter. Her eyes moved up and down the list of charges, balances paid out by insurance, remaining funds due. “The hospital must think an awful lot of your life to charge that much for saving it.”
“I’m honored. Truly.” Danny’s voice mirrored Greta’s then. Twinned it. It hurt her to hear sarcasm in his voice.
She’d always been bad at being a sister. After Martha left, Greta should have taken better care of him. Better care of them, but she hadn’t seen what they needed. Maybe if she’d forced him into the bathtub, the social worker wouldn’t have visited. Maybe that little bit of stress built the clot that ended their father’s life eventually. Parallel universe. But she had a chance now to try, at least. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “Whatever it is.”
“Maybe lightning will strike twice,” Danny said, tapping a finger to his head.
“Don’t.”
“Or I guess it’s a third time?”
“Danny.” He scared her now, this dark hint behind his voice. “It’s going to be okay.”
He ran a hand across the tabletop and shoved the dominoes back into their box.
Things didn’t get better or worse after Greta had run away and come back; they only got different. Danny became more imperfect as he got older, and Greta did quiet things that delighted her parents. She would always be first in birth order. Ten minutes. She strived to be first at home whether in reading or learning to play soccer. He still laughed louder, joked more, picked up music like a first language. She would never be the outgoing one, the popular one, so she made sure, at least, she was the one whose ant farm didn’t break. She made sure she got perfect grades to compare to Danny’s failure in handwriting and consistent “C’s” in English. She collected his failures quietly and glued them together into a shell over her insecurity.
The time when Greta had run away, she’d kept waiting for someone to come knocking. She’d waited so long—through lunch and most of the afternoon—that by the time her friend remembered she was there, Greta had fallen asleep on the open book of Beatrix Potter. Even as a runaway, she was easy to forget. Finally, after a few hours, some action. A phone call woke her up, and the friend’s mother, still unaware of Greta taking up residence behind her couch, made surprised noises and offers to help. Jackets were grabbed from the front closet, and Greta’s friend was tugged out by the hand and loaded into a minivan, which pulled down the driveway.
Alone in the house, Greta decided to requisition some supplies. A gallon of milk and a cup. A box of cereal. A pint of fancy ice cream, the kind Greta’s family usually only bought for birthdays. Two spoons—one for cereal and one for ice cream.
Greta’s friend must have spilled the secret, because forty minutes later the minivan parked, and several sets of heavy footsteps thumped into Greta’s new residence.
“Greta,” her Dad’s voice boomed from the front hallway. From behind the couch, she could picture his expression. He was not happy, and when Dad was not happy, the face behind his beard turned red so that his yellow facial hair looked like threads on a crimson sheet. “Greta Ann Oto, you get out here this instant.”
Her stomach, full of ice cream and Captain Crunch, emptied itself onto the hall carpet before he had a chance to finish his tirade, and her mother swooped in with her hands open, as if to catch it, to save it from the floor. Her mother had just graduated from nursing school, freshly trained and so proud of her unflappability. Mess or not, nothing deflated anger more than vomit. Tears could be ignored, but vomit required teamwork and action. Apologies from Martha, sudden concern from her father.
“Why?” her Dad had asked later, when she was home and clean in the tub.
“Because of Danny,” she had said, as if it didn’t need any more explanation than that.
“Don’t you like him?”
“There can only be one good rabbit, and it’s not me.” This logic made sense to five-year-old Greta.
She went to bed without dinner, without a story, but her father appeared as she tucked herself in, and he kissed her on the forehead. “It’s always better to be with family and a little sad than alone and happy,” he had told her. That thought burrowed inside and hibernated.
Greta put the lid on the dominos box. “You going to talk to Meg?”
“You going to talk to your office mate?”
“Fair question. You first.”
“No.”
“That goes for me too.” But she knew she would have to, and soon. She had classes to teach in the fall—thank the registrar gods for that—and Max did too. Just like on a starship, there wasn’t enough room to ignore each other at the university. Their online lives, the lives that had intersected so much before, ran in two parallel tracks. She didn’t “like” his posts on Facebook anymore. He stopped e-mailing her stupid cartoons and jokes. Her work e-mail today only contained work-related things now; she missed the small amount of junk that Max had imposed on her life.
If Dad had been caretaking, he would have sucked it up like he did every other slight and injury, hidden it under his layers of practical jokes and things he never told them. Carrying the woes around on his back, guarding them. She had never seen that Dad had always been a little sad—maybe more than that—with them. Maybe she should have. Maybe, all things considered, Danny’s demeanor seemed familiar. A way of focusing on nothing, at least nothing that Greta could see. A way of clenching his hands on the tabletop.
She wasn’t the bad rabbit; she understood that as she got older. She was an ordinary one.
Danny was never good at being ordinary, but he’d never minded it until now.
By dinner, his eyes drooped and he kept checking the time. Still, she made him stand on their narrow balcony and light the snakes. The tablets unrolled, tarry and wiggly. “They look like shit,” she said.
He laughed, but she knew he was humoring her. He went to bed at eight, and she sat on the living room couch, with her knees pulled up to her chest, watching the sun set outside Danny’s window.
Two years ago, she might have made out with Brandon in the back seat of his car and pretended he wasn’t leaving, pretended there was something there. A few months ago, she would have drunk a wordless beer with Max and pretended that they were real friends. Pretended that he wouldn’t
be the type to want Meg.
It wasn’t quite dark yet. It wasn’t the end of the Fourth just yet.
Greta pulled out her phone and sent a text to Brandon. “You watching the fireworks anywhere?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The flask had something sharp in it that smelled of nail polish remover. Greta passed it back to Eden after faking a pull and leaned back in the lawn chair. She, Eden, and Brandon sat with the other hundred people on the lawn by the middle school, staring into the empty, dark sky. It was like waiting for a curtain to come up. The other bodies near hers emitted smoke and sweat, and memories of summer camp bonfires rushed back to her. She had always hated camp. Girls squealing over spiders in the tents, girls making stories and friendship bracelets, girls everywhere and no solitude anywhere. Brandon’s body in the chair next to her didn’t remind her of camp, though, unless it was of the horses. Wide shoulders, long legs. She stopped herself from thinking about riding and accepted the flask from Eden on the next pass. The sip stung all the way down.
She sat between Eden and Brandon as though they were sharing her. The placement seemed purposeful, the lawn chair empty when she arrived. Both had gazed at their phones, faces lit up from beneath. Eden had looked her way first, shooed her into the chair and started talking to her immediately about a leggings company she patronized. Greta found, strangely, that she missed Meg at that moment. Meg’s conversation was always a give-and-take. She pried pieces of you out in it, forced you to reveal your interests. She was curious. Eden spoke in an excited avalanche of give-give-give. The minutes ticked by, and the crowd hushed together as the start of the fireworks show approached. When the start time came and went, the conversation started again until the sudden flower of light appeared above them with a pop.
Greta couldn’t stop the grin that hit her face. Before, when Danny saw colors with music, Greta always pictured his synesthesia like this. A rosette, a sudden shock of pink and gold against a black background. The idea had made her jealous. While Danny always hated the Fourth of July, it was her favorite holiday. If she ever got married, she wanted it to be on the Fourth so that she could have fireworks, endless fireworks, without having to pay for them.
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