Hannah
There is no triumph in my return home.
“Five years this freakin’ door has been half off the hinges!” I throw my hip into the crooked back door on a grunt, then my sister and I add in unison, “Stupid door.”
It’s a twin thing that is equal parts fun and annoying.
The faint scent of cigarette smoke fans the flames of my irritation as we step inside.
A year ago, our father promised he would quit smoking in the house.
To celebrate his commitment, Brigid and I spent a whole weekend scrubbing the nicotine stains from the kitchen walls, then re-painted in a cheerful lime green with white stripes.
I note the window above the sink standing open, allowing the hundred and five-degree heat in and there’s a cigarette shaped burn mark on the crisp white paint of the windowsill.
With gritted teeth, I toss my messenger bag on the counter, scaring Puddles, my three-legged Calico, from her sleeping spot on the chair.
“Sorry, Puds,” I murmur, offering an apologetic ear scratch, then proceed to brush the errant ashes from the sill with one of our custom tie-dyed magenta-colored dishrags.
“The director didn’t even give you a chance,” Brigid says.
“Right? I took like one step inside the audition room. Sorry, you’re not what we’re looking for. Next.”
“That whole set up was super sketch. Girl Laying Down makes it sound like porn. And I wouldn’t want you laying on any of Larry’s Discount Mattresses anyway, even for a commercial. Did you see them piled up? They probably all come pre-infested with bed bugs.”
“Maybe it’s a sign. I’m not going to be the next Margot Robbie.”
Brigid bends over, pressing her palms to the floor; knees locked. Her raw linen tank top slips up her back as she presses her nose to her calves. A moment later she releases her stretch, moving into an effortless Dancer Asana.
The closest I get to yoga—or working out at all—is watching MMA rounds on YouTube.
What can I say? The brutality relaxes me. I can’t explain it and I don’t want to. It’s my guilty pleasure and if watching bloody, sweaty men beat each other until they look like raw hamburger gives me a moment of peace, everyone just mind ya business.
Brigid meets my eye, holding the pose with annoying ease. “If it’s a sign of anything, it’s that Larry doesn’t know a good actress when he sees one. Next time, you’ll kill it. You know Dino DeLaurentis called Meryl Streep an ‘ugly thing’ in Italian at the audition for King Kong? Did she quit?”
I shake my head. “No, she didn’t.”
“Damn right she didn’t,” Brigid says with an encouraging smile.
She’s mothering me. I do the same for her when it’s called for. Our twin-ness is strange. We are opposites in looks. She’s lithe and sophisticated with her thick auburn hair and show-stopping emerald eyes. Totally worthy of a cover shot on Town a three-hundred-pound Lothario complete with open shirt and balding head. “Twenty-grand upfront, and twenty-grand on Monday once the deed is done. All she’s gotta do is pretend to be this guy Hawk’s daughter so that his mark believes it.”
“That’s it? For forty-grand?” Dad’s voice approaches falsetto. “Hannah? Or—”
“Brigid. Brigid’s perfect. That look she has. It’s rich. Distracting but natural. And, a little bit…I dunno, like more of a pushover.”
Brigid screws up her face, her cheeks turning to deep crimson, and even though I wouldn’t want the job, jealousy pangs in my chest.
It’s always Brigid.
Every. Single. Time.
“This isn’t an ask, Denny.” Greg’s voice hardens and my sister’s words come back to me.
Both legs.
“Don’t worry.” Dad slaps his palms together with a vigorous rub.
“These community theater bullshit deals aren’t gonna cut it.
Time she grew up a little. Both of them, for that matter.
I know Hannah is trying but she’s gonna have to dump that volunteer gig because this house is filling up like Noah’s fucking ark.
I raised those girls on my own and now, I gotta bring them back down to Earth. Brigid will do this. I’ll make sure.”
Heat rises through my core and blazes over my skin. He doesn’t even know who this guy is. Or how dangerous he might be. Or really anything besides some vague notion that there’s forty grand to be made. Brigid is a sacrificial lamb to the end game.
Money.
Always money.
Which is ironic since we never seem to have any.
“Don’t crush their dreams, Denny,” Greg says. “Brigid got a boyfriend?”
“Uh, why? What does that matter?”
Greg looks back at his phone and shrugs. “No reason. Guy just asked. Wants to be sure no jealous boyfriends are gonna show and fuck things up.”
“Okay, no. No boyfriends.” Dad’s momentary concern evaporates. “So, forty grand…”
I push by Brigid and through the door, throwing my hands up tossing a disgusted glare at my dad, then Uncle Greg.
“Hannah Banana!” Greg bellows with that Tony Soprano charm, arms swinging wide. “Hug for your uncle?”
Brigid follows me but stalls a few feet inside the door.
“The hug bus has left the station,” I snap as Greg’s mask of charm slips.
I turn to my Dad. “We heard you two muffin heads. You don’t think Brigid should decide if she wants to do this?
And, come on,” I press my fists to my hips, taking a long breath, attempting to restrain my temper. “What kind of name is Hawk?”
“It’s called a nickname, Hannah Banana Montana. You always take everything so seriously,” Greg says from his place beside the plastic chair under which sleeps my most recent furry acquisition from the shelter.
“Someone has to be serious in this family.” I toss a fiery look at my dad who is inspecting his feet and pretending to choke. Apparently, I’m the only adult in the room, so I steady my breath and press my palms to my blazing cheeks, eyeing Greg. “And don’t call me that. I hate that name.”
Brigid pulls her perfectly porn-plump lips into a tight smile as she meets my eyes. “It used to be funny.”
You’re not the one that got called Hannah Montana from second grade on.
Greg puts a hand over his heart then says, “You’re like family. I wouldn’t let anything happen.”
“Family doesn’t break family’s legs.” I huff, turning toward my sister for support. “You want to weigh in on this? It’s you they’re selling.”
“Nobody’s selling anybody and nobody’s breaking anybody’s legs. Let’s just calm down.” Greg closes his eyes on a horse style snort, his gold and diamond pinky ring glinting in the dusty streaks of sunlight peeking through the front shades.
My pseudo uncle stands silent with a flat look, his lips pressed tight, the shiny top of his head traversed by a pitiful amount of black comb over.
He’s wearing a slick blue suit with a white shirt open at the neck.
A thick rope gold chain with a crucifix is tangled in his exposed black jungle of chest hair.
Even at six feet three, he’s put a dent in some all-you-can-eat spreads for sure.
Dad comes over, grabbing my forearms. “Who knows, this Hawk might have LA connections. That would help out.”
You mean it’ll help you out.
I huff, shaking his hands away.
He swats at the buzzing fly which now has taken a strong interest in his forehead, then turns to Brigid. “This is your decision. Not mine. Not Hannah’s.”
Brigid tugs at her bun, then runs her hands down her face curling her shoulders forward. “Yeah. My decision.”
She gives me a helpless look, her atomic green eyes full of indecision.
When we were little, if we went for ice cream, or out to eat, she always waited for me to order, then said, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
“Please, Brigid,” Dad begs, using prayer hands and bent knees, looking more like he needs the bathroom than he needs the forty-grand. “It’ll be over before you know it. And you might even have a good time!”
“It’ll be over before you know it and you might have a good time…” I repeat in a mocking tone, adding, “Sounds like what everyone says about losing your virginity.”
Greg’s the only one that reacts, with a nod and a snort.
“What do you think?” Brigid turns her pleading eyes my way. “With forty-grand we could get our own place, a car… some more dogs…”
Right on cue my blind and deaf seventeen-year-old Pomeranian, Oscar, wakes from his place under the chair, stretches, then bumps into my dad’s leg. He pulls back his lips, baring his four remaining teeth on a growl. He hates men. Especially my dad.
“Wait!” Dad hops on one foot with his attention now more on Oscar than pity-guilting Brigid into the acting job.
“No more dogs and—” Oscar nips at the back of his sandal as he hops away, lowering his voice, flicking his eyes back at the dog who is now wagging his tail at the wall. “Baby, I need that money.”
“I was joking,” Brigid says, rolling her wide, Bo Derek eyes.
“He could be here inside of an hour for a little audition,” Greg chimes in, heading the ship into shore, flashing a cripplingly white smile that shows off his new veneers.
Even if Brigid says no, the rest of the day will be filled with Dad brow-beating her until she gives in. Because with me, he knows that won’t work, but with her?
She’s got soft spots where mine have calloused over when it comes to our father.
A yes right now will just save time.
“Okay.” She sighs, throwing up her hands as I do the same on a huff.
“Thank you, thank you,” Dad says, then fist bumps Greg. “This is going to be great, just trust me, girls. Have I ever let you down?”