Gill took the tablet from Nicole and squinted at it. “Can you change my profile picture? I look too old in mine.”
“That’s because you are old.” Sam took the tablet from him. “You did brilliant, Tabs.”
“Thanks,” her sister said, grinning from ear to ear.
Nicole leaned across the table and reclaimed her iPad. “Yes, it’s a good thing you came back. You were wasted down in Bondi.”
Tabby glared at Nicole and Sam felt tension ripple across the breakfast table. Her sisters had been doing a semi-decent job of keeping their opinions about each other’s lives to themselves, but the cracks were showing. Sam suspected they were one poorly worded comment away from an argument.
“How’s the social media stuff?” Noah asked and Sam could have kissed him for changing the subject.
Tabby stopped glare-chewing, long enough to swallow. “Yeah, we’re gaining ground. Four thousand on Insta and I’m updating Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat every day.”
“How’s the response?” Sam asked.
“Pretty good, still a lot of cunts on Facebook telling us we’re shit, but they’re getting drowned out by the nice stuff. Noah’s pictures are getting the most likes.”
Everyone around the table stopped eating to stare at her.
Sam pointed at the brick shithouse sitting across from her who alone was continuing to fork mattress-sized pieces of pancake into his mouth. “Noah? As in, that Noah?”
“Nah, I mean Noah from the story about the big fucking boat. Yes, that Noah. He’s hot and mean and buff. Girls are into it.”
“What about me?” Gil yowled with predicable outrage. “I’ve been lifting for three months. I’ve gained two kilos of muscle.”
Noah made a tiny snorting sound.
“I mean it!” Gil said. “Come in when I’m working on Alisha this afternoon and take a picture of me on my left side—”
“That’s Satan’s side,” Tabby interrupted. “Anyway, I could take a picture of you making out with Tom Holland and it wouldn’t get as many likes as Noah tattooing that girl’s thigh, because she’s trying to cover up her car-crash scars. That situation has everything. Muscles, sympathy, the power of recovery, muscles—”
“Yeah okay, that’s enough. Let’s talk about something other than Noah’s muscles.” Sam looked at Nicole, wondering why she wasn’t bringing the meeting to order the way she always did when Tabby went off on a tangent. She didn’t appear to be listening, she was staring vacantly at her tablet and her cheeks were bright red again.
Sam rolled her eyes. Clearly she was going to need to be the Nicole in this situation. She shoved both fingers in her mouth and whistled. Everyone stopped talking and stared at her. “No one wants this meeting to go on forever, so can we get back on track, please? Nix, what’s next on the agenda?”
Her twin fumbled with her tablet. “Um…marketing, maybe? How we can use our social media accounts to translate into more sales, because right now none of our interactions are translating into profits.”
“Seriously, can you change my profile picture?” Gil asked.
Tabby threw a paper towel at him. “Stop seeking.”
Gill’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“It means attention seeking,” Sam explained. “It’s something Tabby came up with when she was a kid. Nicole has a good point, though. We’ve got all these people following us and liking pictures of Noah’s biceps, but we’re not getting any asses in the studio.”
“We just need more time,” Tabby said cheerfully. “Once I get our Insta account up to ten thousand, we should see some solid business. Besides, once you’ve won Fadeout, sales will boom.”
Sam exchanged an uneasy look with Noah. Of everyone who worked at Silver Daughters, he seemed to be the only one who knew how difficult it would be to get a last-minute slot at Fadeout—or how hard it would be to win even if she did get a guernsey.
“I don’t want to act like Fadeout’s in the bag,” she said. “What’s our strategy if I don’t get in?”
“I’m thinking a bare-ass, fully naked Noah tattooing a hot pink kitty onto a breast cancer survivor?”
“Tabby!”
“Soz.” Tabby tapped her fork against her chin, leaving small golden streaks of honey. “Well, the other thing that’s doing good is the feminist angle. Not as popular as Noah’s biceps, but close.”
Sam frowned. “Feminist angle?”
“Yeah, like how you’re a hot chick running a tattoo parlour with her sisters and you don’t take shit from anyone.”
“How do people know I don’t take shit from anyone?”
A snigger went around the table.
“I mean it,” Sam protested. “How are the wider public supposed to know I don’t take shit from anyone?”
Gill shook his head. “You’re a classic, have you even looked at the studio snapchat?”
“No.” Sam glared at Tabby. “What have you done?”
“Nothing,” her sister said innocently. “Anyway, what do you think about leaning into the girl power? I could hone in on the fact that it’s a friendly, female-run business with two highly qualified lady tattooists on staff.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because then girls can feel safe that we won’t grope them even if they’re getting an ass tattoo or an under the boob tattoo.” Tabby’s eyes lit up. “Ooh I should take a photo of the three of us, like all the sisters. People would love that.”
Sam looked to Nicole. “What do you think?”
Her twin smiled. “That sounds—”
“Hold up,” Gil protested. “Let’s go back to the fact that I wouldn’t grope anyone, even if I had the chance.”
Tabby rolled her eyes. “Yeah, good for you, Gil. Gold stars all round, but don’t act like you haven’t heard the stories.”
“What stories?”
“Um, the stories about artists groping girls on the table or saying creepy shit about their bodies or asking them out while they’re holding a fucking needle and not thinking ‘hey, maybe this affects their ability to say yes or no in any meaningful way?’”
Gill frowned. “That shit always gets blown out of proportion. I’ve never seen it happen. And I shouldn’t be cut off from female clients just because I’m a guy.”
“Ah,” Tabby said wisely. “The hashtag ‘not all men’ defense. Love it.”
“We’re not cutting you off from any women who want to see you,” Sam said, glaring at her sister. “We could just make it clear we’re a female-friendly company.”
“Women do seem to like the idea of seeing a female artist,” Nicole said. “I’ve been here less than a fortnight and I’ve had girls call reception asking if Sam does finishing work because a guy who started their tattoo turned out to be a pervert.”
“Okay, so you go all feminazi,” Gil said hotly. “Where does that leave me and Noah?”
“You can tattoo the dudes,” Tabby said. “Truckers and old guys, especially.”
“I don’t wanna just tattoo old guys,” Gil said, clearly missing the joke. “Noah, help me out here?”
Noah put down his fork, his expression impassive. “It’s a dangerous world. Women should do what they need to do to feel safe, and men shouldn’t take it personally.”
He looked right at Nicole as he said this. On a practical level, that made sense. Her sister was always scurrying past him as though he shanked those who paused before him. On an impractical level, it kinda felt to Sam like he was reassuring her, which was weird. Noah had never expressed any interest in reassuring anyone, before.”
“Yeah, but men get hurt, too,” Gil said loudly. “And if I only wanted to tattoo men, you’d say that’s discrimination. The way you girls talk about guys is sexist, too. It’s more sexist because—”
“Gil?” Noah said.
“Yeah?”
“Stop seeking.”
Tabby burst into hysterical peals of laughter and Nicole stopped blushing long enough to dismiss the meeting amidst general ill will and the sense
that nothing had been accomplished—a typical meeting experience in a nutshell. Everyone headed downstairs to open Silver Daughters, but Sam stayed behind to help Nicole clear the breakfast things.
“What happened to you in the meeting?” she asked. “You went all quiet and left me to deal with Tabs and Gil.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Nicole lifted a bowl of yogurt and carried it to the kitchen counter.
Sam frowned. It wasn’t like Nicole to be coy about what was upsetting her. “Is everything okay? Is it Aaron?”
“No. He’s not happy about me staying here for another week, though.”
Sam’s longed to say ‘fuck him,’ but she’d promised to be more civil about the lying, cheating cunt. “Sorry to hear that. Is that what’s wrong?”
Nicole pulled a tube of plastic wrap out of the kitchen drawer and stretched a sheet over the yogurt bowl. “I don’t want to talk about it, is that okay?”
“Yeah sure,” Sam said, surprised. “Just uh, know that I’m here if you need me.”
Nicole smiled sadly. “Will you be here if I need you? Or will you be arrested for drawing more lady-parts onto the faces of sleeping men?”
“I promise that was a one-time thing. I’m too close to running a successful business, thanks to you.”
Flattery with the intent to distract had never worked on her sister. Nicole was a perfectionist, but she wasn’t vain. “I mean it, what happened? All you said last night was that you drew on Scott’s face and things are ‘complicated,’ which, I mean, duh. What’s happening? Did he call?”
Sam licked her lips. Blue was what the DaSilvas always called depression, because that was what their mother had called her depression. A sweeter metaphor for debilitating sadness than ‘the black dog’ or ‘the call of the void.’ “I’m not blue.”
“You’re not okay, either. You didn’t eat any of the bribery breakfast.”
“I like how you don’t even bother acting like it’s not a bribe.”
“What would be the point? Come on, just tell me how you’re feeling.”
Sam pictured Scott, lying on his fancy hotel bed, fully clothed with a vagina on his cheek. She remembered him sitting next to her in the police station, tall and pale, saying he didn’t want to press charges. She saw him above her last night, his black eyes locked on hers, asking if she trusted him. “Do you think I’m a suspicious person, like a needlessly distrustful person?”
Nicole’s expression was all she needed, a slight flare of her nostrils and an ‘oh shit what am I going to say’ panic in her eyes. “I…uh…”
“Yes?”
She flashed an apologetic smile. “I don’t think it’s your fault. You’re the oldest, and when mum left, you kind of decided everyone except me, Tabby and Dad were scum.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Okay, you didn’t.” Nicole strode back over to the table and picked up a half empty fruit platter.
Sam watched her go, defensiveness pricking at her insides. “Okay, so maybe I got a bit paranoid after mum left and I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to us ever again…”
“Realistic.”
“Thanks…and maybe pranking Scott was a part of that, but by the time we graduated I wasn’t like that, anymore.”
“No,” Nicole agreed. “You were a borderline alcoholic who lived to take risks.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “We just turned eighteen!”
“That had nothing to do with it.”
“Then what did?”
“You’re not allowed to get mad at me for saying this, but I’m pretty sure you were just upset about Scott leaving.”
Sam stared at her twin, too surprised to be offended. “What?”
“You were never the same after he left for London. You liked a drink and you liked to go out but once Scott left, you were unstoppable. You just fell into this hole of partying and drinking and dating and trying to have the most fun ever, all the time.”
“And when did I get out of this hole?”
Nicole turned away, stretching plastic wrap over the fruit salad.
“You think I didn’t get out! You still think I’m trapped in a well of vodka-party tears!”
Nicole sighed. “Sam…”
“I mean it, tell the truth.”
“Okay.” Her twin walked over to the door and closed it. “Okay, I don’t think you got out of the vodka-party hole. You got lonely, Sam. You had more friends than I’ll ever have, more guys chasing you, more adventures, more everything, but it was never enough after Scott left. You were never satisfied.”
Sam swallowed, scared but needing to ask the question. “Is that why you left for Adelaide?”
“No, well…” Nicole gave her a sad smile. “Maybe a little. I wanted a fresh start, but it was hard to know where my place was with you. You needed me so badly sometimes, it stressed me out. I didn’t know how to help you and eventually I realised I couldn’t. You had to learn to help yourself.”
There was a long silence. Sam walked over to the dining table and put the lid on the small gold tub of cream. She didn’t want to think about what Nix had just said, but there was truth there and on some level, she’d already known it. “I’m sorry for pressuring you.”
“It’s okay,” Nicole said. “I think you’re more balanced now and you’re working hard, but this Scott thing is confusing. I thought you were going to be mature about him, not, you know, keep pranking him.”
“I know.” Sam fiddled with the cream lid. “You know, I used to think my whole life was in front of me, then a year ago everything changed. I saw all these people from school getting married or moving away and Marina has five kids now.”
“I saw them on Instagram. They look like potatoes.”
Sam smiled, but it was only a reflex. “It’s scary, looking at the world and seeing I’m not young, anymore. I know I’m not old, but I’m not some kid, either.”
“And where does Scott come into that?”
“He means something to me, but I have no idea how to deal with it.”
“Why not?”
She looked up at Nicole, feeling a cold dread settle in her belly like smog. “We just have all this baggage, I don’t know how to get past it.”
“Is he still mad about the drawing-a-vagina-on-him thing?”
“No, he was good about it, but then he asked me if I trusted him and I couldn’t say I did. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. It felt too big and like, I was too…” She picked at her fingernail, trying to force the word out. “Broken. He makes me feel broken. Like I didn’t realise how messed up I was until I had him reflecting it back at me.”
“Oh, Sam, you’re not broken.” Nicole strode around the kitchen counter and hugged her. A spontaneous show of affection was rare and Sam soaked it in like a flower, wrapping her arms around her twin and squeezing her tight. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” Nicole pulled away, looking thoughtful. “You know, after everything that happened when we were kids, it makes sense that you wouldn’t trust Scott, but I don’t think he stole my photos. At the time I latched onto it because it made the most sense but afterward, I realised Scott knew exactly where our bedrooms were and he wouldn’t have wanted my pictures. He was only ever in love with you.”
“You mean he had a crush on me.”
Her twin shook her head. “The guys who used to drive past the house every night had crushes on you. Scott was…devoted. Like he took a vow to look after you, or wait for you or something.”
“Isn’t that kind of fucked?”
“I don’t know. I think when it comes to romance, only the people inside the relationship can say what’s fucked or not. Either way, it happened. You know, once when we were fifteen, I got up to pee and I saw Scott sitting in the tree outside your window.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t looking at you,” Nicole said quickly. “He was reading with a torch. It was like he just…wanted to be near you, or protect you or something.”
Sam looked
down at her hands, trying not to think of virtuous knights guarding princesses’ sleeping chambers. “Right.”
“You know, a lot of people had weird twin fetishes about us. Anyone could have climbed into our house and stolen those pictures. Or your underwear.”
“I know. I just don’t know what believing that means.”
“I think it means you can trust him, at least enough to give him a proper chance and see where things go.”
Sam screwed up her nose.
“What?”
“I don’t know, he’s so posh, and corporate and British and—”
“And you’ve never dated anyone who’s challenged you,” Nicole countered. “You’re always falling in with guys who worship you or try to control you, but you’ve never been with someone who made you feel vulnerable the way Scott does.”
“He doesn’t make me vulnerable!”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “Of course, no one has. You know, you walk around with your loud voice and your tattoos and your drinking, and most people don’t realise what a coward you can be, but I do. I know when you’re running away from something, and you’re running away from Scott.”
They stared at one another and as she looked into her twins eyes, Sam felt her anger transmute into an ache high in her chest. “You’re cutting me deep today, Nix.”
Nicole’s mouth softened but her eyes remained hard. “Someone should. I think you and Scott deserve that. Can you tell me something?”
Sam blew out an impatient breath. “Yeah, okay, what?”
“What do you like about him?”
“I don’t know, he’s cute and smart—”
“That’s surface stuff. Think about it, if you had to tell someone what the best thing about Scott is, what would you say?”
“Umm…” Sam closed her eyes and thought about it. She remembered the way Scott had calmly dispatched the gang of drunk teens, how he’d talked to Toby when they were playing with the puppies, how when they were ten, she’d seen him pick up a footpath snail and gently place it on the grass.
“He’s good in a way that other people aren’t. He’s legitimately kind and…I don’t know, honourable.”
“Like a knight?”
“Hey, have you read Le Morte d’Arthur? Most of the knights were pricks.”
So Wild Page 24