99 Percent Mine

by Sally Thorne

  “What can I say? My temper got the better of me.” I sip daintily.

  “Okay,” Tom half laughs as he turns on the kitchen tap. It splutters and sprays him, and when he turns it off, we hear a loud dripping. He finds the sink bucket in the cabinet underneath. “Aw, jeez.”

  His phone chimes, and he looks at the screen, a smile on the edge of his mouth. He texts back, probably something like, It’s okay, I arrived safe. Miss you, Megs.

  A hot feeling grabs me by the throat. I want to take his phone and flush it all the way to the sewage plant. I drink a mouthful of wine and it helps a bit.

  “So, the day I made Jamie very mad. Where do I start? We had been driving each other insane. Living in bedrooms next door to each other was easy when we were kids and we had you in a bunk bed to mediate.”

  But with no buffer, we were agitating and arguing. Jamie wanted us to move to the city. I wanted to stay. I couldn’t buy him out. It was a tug-of-war argument that I couldn’t win, because like Mom said, Loretta wanted us to tart up the cottage and split the money. Think of it as a little nest egg, Mom said, patting my heart.

  I told her that I didn’t want a nest egg. The way I’d earned it was too much for me to bear. Mom was gentle. I’m sorry, Princess. I know what she meant to you. This is her way of showing what you meant to her.

  “So there was a knock on the door one Saturday morning. Jamie was out jogging. It was early and I was very . . . tired.”

  His eyes move to my glass.

  “Okay, it was like eleven A.M., and I was hungover as hell. On the doorstep was some good-looking hotshot giving me his business card. I thought I was having a sex dream.”

  “So far this is matching Jamie’s version exactly.” Tom unlatches the kitchen window, lifts it a fraction, then jiggles it all the way open. Only someone who practically grew up in this house would know that little trick. “I always meant to fix that for her.” Sad eyes now. He never met his own grandparents. I’m glad he could share ours.

  “Loretta would have told you that window isn’t broken.” The wine is warm satin in my veins. I’m somehow pouring my third glass. Tom thinks it’s my second. Heh.

  “So you were possibly having a sex dream . . . ,” Tom prompts, and I realize I’m standing in the refrigerator light, staring at nothing. What am I going to give him for breakfast? A body like that needs protein. A Viking banquet table, mugs of ale, a crackling fire. An animal skin draped low on his hips. Me, lying boneless and spent in the crook of his elbow, still asking for more.

  I fill my mouth with wine and shut the fridge.

  “A sex dream,” Tom prompts again.

  I spray the mouthful of wine onto the fridge door. My overdue phone bill is now a watercolor.

  “Yeah, so he’s got me out on the front path. He’s telling me how sorry he is about Loretta, blah blah. He was talking like he knew her. Even though he was flirty, I knew it wasn’t a sex dream, because his clothes were still on. He was bumming me out about how bad the cottage looked. Then I realized. He was a developer.”

  “Douglas Franzo from Shapley Group, right?”

  “Yeah.” Jamie’s probably ranted this to Tom a hundred times before. Douglas fucking Franzo! The son of the CEO! Important! Rich! Powerful! “I asked him to leave.”

  “According to your brother,” Tom says on a grunt as he pulls the stiff window back down, “you went ballistic and he tore up the written offer. Then you chased his car down to the corner of Simons Street, barefoot, wearing nothing but a robe.”

  “So that’s a detail you remember, huh?” I try my alpha-dog eye-contact stare but he doesn’t look away this time. One second ticks into two. Three. I look down into my wineglass. “You know I hate when you compare our stories. Why even ask me if you already know how it went? Jamie came jogging around the corner in his sweatbands bellowing, What the fuck, and the rest is history.”

  I hope my twin didn’t finish telling it. World War III happened in this very kitchen. After he left, unable to trust himself to not kill me, I knelt on the floor and picked up the pieces of the Royal Albert dinner set we’d smashed. We’d thrown it at each other, plate after plate.

  Another beautiful thing the Barrett twins could not deserve. Who do you think you are, anyway?

  Tom gives me a don’t get grouchy look as he toes his boot around the skirting boards, wiggling and loosening everything he touches. “I don’t believe all the things your brother tells me about you. They always sound made up.”

  “Then you find out it’s true, and your illusions are shattered, yet again.”

  “I don’t know about illusions, exactly. I’ve known you a long time.”

  My third glass of wine goes down the hatch. “Jamie crawled around the front path finding the torn-up pieces of the offer. He taped it together. Can you believe that?”

  “Yes. There would have been a dollar sign motivating him.”

  “He set up a meeting with the guy, tried everything. He literally sent him a fruit basket. But I’d fucked it up.”

  “Knowing you, you don’t regret it,” Tom says. I watch his expression settle into thoughtful, and I lean on the broken oven and watch him move around the room. What’s he looking for? The one thing that is salvageable? “What’s your next big adventure, then?”

  “I’ll help pack up this place. Then I’m going to get on the first plane I come across.” I shrug when he looks dubious. “I mean it. I’ll probably just get a good deal on somewhere warm that doesn’t need a visa. And what’s your next big destination?” I can’t say honeymoon because it will come out like a burp. I picture Tom and Megan lying on a beach. Then I crop Megan out of the image.

  “I’ll find something cheap and flip it. That’s what I’m always doing next.”

  “Enough work! Make sure your hotel has a fabulous pool,” I suggest through my teeth. Teenage Darcy used to sit on the edge and count his laps. I’d lose count, hypnotized by his rhythmic gasps of air. It took me a few years to realize they gave me the stomach shivers because they were hopelessly erotic. “You’re still swimming, right?”

  He rolls his shoulders reflexively. “I haven’t had time. Not in probably two years. Where are you moving after this? Getting a rental?” His nose wrinkles. “Do me a favor, get a nice place.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only just gotten used to having a mailing address. I’ll put my stuff in storage and I’ll stay at the beach house when I’m back.” I hope that didn’t sound like, I’m traveling like a big spoiled baby forever, and when I’m not, I’ll be in Mommy and Daddy’s house eating breakfast in bed.

  “I rebuilt their back deck. It was too small for them.” Typical Tom, sweating for the Barretts whenever required. “I’m sure they’re out on it right now, kissing under the moonlight.”

  “Ugh, gross. Probably.” Mom and Dad have chemistry. I will leave it at that. “You didn’t even swim in the ocean while you were there?”

  “I didn’t even think of it,” he says, looking a little surprised. “Whoops.”

  “You belong in water. Next time, swim.” I go back into the living room and throw myself onto the couch. Patty hammers in from nowhere, louder than a T. rex, a pencil clenched between her teeth. I’ve got to ask the hard questions, to get them out of the way.

  “Where are you going for your honeymoon?” No answer. I’ll try again. “I’ve been everywhere. I can give you guys help with your itinerary.” He avoids my eyes and I slump down into the cushions. Maybe if I don’t agree to be his photographer, I’ll be lucky to even get an invite. I can imagine Mom explaining it to me now. Small. Intimate. Only their closest family and friends.

  Holy shit. That’s it. I’m not invited and he’s trying to work out how to tell me.

  Tom moves to the dining room and risks turning the light on. It’s my little photography studio now. Boxes of merchandise sit against the wall. “This is what you do these days?”

  “Yep.” I dig in my bag of marshmallows. Time to plug this aching void inside. I hit sh
uffle on Loretta’s retro stereo and the Cure comes on. The void gapes wider in a delicious way.

  “Mugs.” He says it doubtfully. “You take photos of mugs so they can be sold on websites? I definitely thought Jamie had made that up.”

  “It’s true.” I pack my mouth with sweet white foam and sip some wine to dissolve it all. “Not just mugs. Don’t look in that one,” I warn Tom when he goes to look in the boxes.

  “What is it?” He flips open the box lid. “Okay then.”

  “It’s surprisingly hard to get the lighting right on a ten-inch purple dildo.”

  “I’m sure it’s impossible.” He is scandalized to the core. It is adorable. He looks back down, unable to resist.

  “Don’t go digging in that dirty box, Tom, you’ll need brain bleach.” I have the strongest feeling he wants to.

  I’d give my left ventricle to know what he thought about all that silicone. Disgusting? Interesting? On par with what’s in his navy cargo pants? It’s so hard to tell when he looks up. He rearranges his expression into prim disapproval.

  God, such a good boy. I grin like a shark. “They let me keep stuff sometimes.” I watch as he skitters around the room off walls and furniture like a big pinball. Then I relieve him. “I’ve got so many mugs.”

  “Mugs,” he says again like it’s the cause of all that is wrong in this world. “I don’t think this is very . . . you. You’re an award-winning portrait photographer.”

  “Au contraire. Wistful portraits of sex toys are very much me these days.” I shrug at his expression. “Hey, I just shoot what they send me. I’ve personally taken every single product shot on the entire Internet.”

  My voice blurs drunkenly at the edges and I know he hears it. “No one thinks about who takes the photos. They just click and add that dildo to their cart.”

  I arch my back, unclip my bra, and sag back down with a groan. Out the armhole and I toss the bra onto the pile. Tom averts his eyes through the whole thing.

  Except somehow, I feel like he watched me do it.

  Chapter 5

  I can’t stop myself from pressing my little wound again. I don’t feel like Tom’s scolded me for it. I deserve a lecture.

  “Jamie said even Loretta would have said I was crazy to pass up that developer’s offer. Maybe I would have reacted differently if I knew I’d basically lose my brother over it.”

  Wow. I sounded completely normal saying that out loud.

  Tom says in such a kind voice that I want to cry, “You haven’t lost him, DB. You’ve just pissed him off.”

  “I’ve witnessed him ice out so many people over the years. I never thought it would be me. Remember that guy he worked with, Glenn? He made him repay a loan when his wife was in the maternity ward.”

  “Yeah. Because Glenn got the promotion he wanted. He’s so good to the people in his circle—”

  I huff. “And it’s a tiny circle.”

  “But if he’s crossed, or slighted, or he thinks he’s been ‘betrayed,’ he just turns into . . .”

  “Ice. He’s ice. Just like I’m ice.”

  “You’re fire,” Tom says back without thought. “You’re opposites.”

  There’s another tidbit. Another surprise view on me. Any man who saw me at work tonight would have said I was cold to the bone. “I want to be ice.”

  “Take it from me, ice is the worst. Please stay fiery.” He pauses and sighs. He’s sad about something. “Anyway, I don’t think you did the wrong thing. You’d be okay with an apartment complex here? And going against her final wishes?”

  “Of course not. Well, it’s never happening anyway now. I pissed that guy off so bad he just picked another street. Let’s just say I can’t go next door for a cup of sugar anymore.” I drink from my wineglass. “As a twin, the bigger issue was that I made a decision on my own. No consultation: the cardinal sin.”

  “You yanked his chain, big-time.” Tom knows my brother’s buttons just as well as me. There are three big ones, labeled MONEY, LOYALTY, DECISIONS.

  The wispy remnants of my heart medication, from whenever I last remembered to take it, are mixing with the wine in an interesting way. I’ve worked hard to build up a tolerance.

  I toe off my boots. “I’m still kind of drunk on the power of actually being fifty-fifty owners with Jamie in something. I don’t think it’s ever happened.”

  He moves to the wall and begins to press at the bubbles in the wallpaper. “Sure it has.”

  “Come on, relax.” I point at the armchair. He moves the bra pile and sits. He can be so lusciously obedient. “Jamie has never let me actually have half of anything. Even if Mom gave us a piece of cake as kids and told us to share . . .”

  Tom finishes my sentence. “Jamie would cut it sixty-forty.”

  “He said it was because he was bigger. He deserved more.” I eye Tom now, sitting there in that chair, looking like a piece of cake, or another beautiful photograph I’ll never get to take. The lamplight loves that face of his. I’m getting drunk but I can’t stop myself. “I never got to share you.”

  I watch him mull this over. He can’t deny it. Our entire childhood was spent at opposite ends of the dining table, my bossy blond brother always talking, laughing, dominating. Functioning as the line between us. Leave Tom alone was a common refrain. Ignore her. Sitting here with him alone is a novelty.

  We’re all shareholders in Tom Valeska: Jamie, Megan, and me. His mom and my parents. Loretta and Patty. Everyone who’s ever met him wants a piece of him, because he’s the best person there is. I quickly count up all of those people. I include his dentist and doctor. Maybe he’s only 1 percent mine. That has to be enough. I have to share.

  The wine is washing through my veins in a warm cuddly wave. “Why’d he have to be born first? I swear, if I was his big sister, everything might be different.”

  “Your dad always joked that Jamie was the prototype.” Tom’s sparkling with humor. “That means you’re the final product.”

  “Pretty crappy final product, complete with defects.” I clap my chest and my breast jiggles shamefully.

  “I was meaning to ask,” Tom says carefully, avoiding eye contact like he’s edging close to a silverback, “how’s your spool?”

  That’s what he calls my heart, since we were kids. It’s been too long for me to remember why. To him, inside my chest is a spool of cotton thread. This guy has so many methods to manage the Barrett twins, it’s truly impressive. His cute euphemism always untwists my knickers.

  “My spool is just fine and dandy. I’m going to live forever. I’m going to pour Kwench on your grave. Ugh. No way I’m going to explain that to elderly Megan. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll die first.”

  “I worry about you.”

  “I worry about big hot dorks who ask too many questions, who are stuck in a house late at night with me.” I stretch my legs and my tank slips off my bare shoulder. I wonder if my nipple piercing is doing what it does best, through my clothes: punctuating the obvious. Judging from the way he’s looking at me, the bras, and the darkness outside, he’s just realized that our eighteen-year friendship has finally hit a belated milestone.

  We’re alone.

  I look into his eyes and I feel that crackle in him again. Everyone else sees a mild-mannered sweetheart. What I feel, between us? It’s never quite human. “You know why this feels so weird, don’t you?”

  A door creaks open and we both jump. If anyone had a secret passageway behind a bookcase into this house, it would be Jamie.

  Loretta’s cat Diana walks in, huffy and annoyed, her green eyes trained on Patty. She’s another one of our inheritances. I dislike her on a personal level, but again I have to appreciate how animals can break tension like magic.

  I snap my fingers at her and she gives me a look like, You’re fucking kidding, right? “I hate to be cynical, but do you think Loretta had this cat to add to her mystical tarot-reader persona?”

  Tom shakes his head. “She wasn’t a scammer. She really believe
d in it.”

  He’s pretty much tried everything on Loretta’s menu. She was fascinated by his palm. Predictably, he has one hell of a heart line. Like a blade has cut right through you, she told him with a slicing motion. One big one. His little-kid face pinched in surprise as he looked at his hand like he was searching for blood.

  Loretta’s specialty was tarot, but she offered everything: tea leaves, I Ching, numerology, astrology, feng shui. Palms, dreams, and pendulums. Past lives. Power animals. Auras. Once when I came over as a teenager, I was halted by a Séance in Progress Post-it note on the door.

  I gesture around us. “I know. And I think she was the real deal. But holy shit, she backed herself up with a lot of ambiance.”

  The wallpaper is blood-red hyperreal hydrangeas. The curtains are fringed with jet-black beads that glitter in the light. The low coffee table transforms easily enough when a thick, sparkling cloth is put over it, even more so with the crystal ball.

  It’s like sitting inside a genie’s bottle. When the fire crackles in the hearth and the ruby lamps are on, you could believe anything in this beautiful room. The air is still heavy with Loretta’s signature incense: sage, cedarwood, sandalwood, and the faintest incriminating whiff of pot. In this room, I miss her the least.

  “That fireplace is in my top five favorite things in this world.” I tip my face toward it. “I can’t wait until it gets cold and I can light it again.” I mentally count forward the pages on the calendar. “Oh. Well, shit.”

  Tom links his fingers together and leans forward. “We can light it again before . . .”

  I nod and try to swallow the sad. “Just one more time would be great. I guess I haven’t completely thought about what I’m going to have to say goodbye to.”

  With a dismissive nose-wrinkle, Diana jumps up on the arm of Tom’s chair and Patty vibrates with outrage. These dear, sweet buffers.

  “I begged Jamie to take her.” I open a new bag of marshmallows, because the void is getting bigger. “Every evil overlord needs a fluffy cat to stroke.”