chapter 2
Heather grabbed her bicycle out of the garage under her apartment, tucked her Chihuahua Taco into the basket, and set out for her sister’s place, stopping on the way to pick up two cheeseburgers, fries and sodas.
Her sister didn’t live too far away, but the neighborhood deteriorated rapidly as she left the residential area she lived in. When she turned her bike onto the main drag of the commercial district, Heather marveled at the decent dwellings next door to uninhabitable ones. Of course, Tiffany lived in the latter.
She knocked on the door. Then she used her own key to enter the apartment, calling out to her sister.
“Tiffany?” She noticed the bag of food was still in the same spot on the kitchen counter where she'd left it two days ago.
“Tiffany? Where are you?” Heather walked from the kitchen to the living room, Taco’s tiny claws clicking on the floor at her heels. A lump of blankets on the sofa gave away her twin’s location. Heather yanked the blanket off her sister. “Have you left the sofa since I was here last?”
Tiffany shrugged, revealing bony shoulders.
Heather tried not to get angry, but she almost couldn’t help it. She appraised her sister, “You have got to do something about yourself. You know that, right?” Heather grabbed the burger and fries that she’d gotten and started eating, tossing the bag with the remaining food at Tiffany.
“Yeah, Mom. Okay. I get it.”
Heather didn’t respond. Instead, while she ate, she studied her sister. They were identical twins, but you couldn’t tell by looking at them. Not anymore. Tiffany’s addiction to pills and meth had so radically changed her appearance that Heather barely recognized her. Where Heather’s hair was shiny and silky, Tiffany’s was oily, frizzy, and looked like it was coming out in clumps. Her frame was a bag of bones covered in splotchy skin, and her face was a complete mess. She had lost so many teeth that her cheeks were sunken, giving her a skeletal appearance. Heather felt a pang of longing to have her old sister back. Not that she could really remember much about her old sister, she'd been an addict for so long.
“Here’s the deal. I have been paying your rent, because I can afford it. Barely. But I’m not going to keep enabling you, Tiff. You’ve got to go into rehab.” Trying to keep her voice calm, Heather had a hard time stifling her frustration.
“I will, soon. I just need to get myself together first.” Her sister's noncommittal voice came from the foreign body sitting in front of her.
“That’s what rehab is for, honey.” Heather reached over to smooth her hair.
“I need an intervention.” Tiffany mumbled into her pillow.
“You need to get yourself there. You are responsible for yourself, Tiff.”
“I need somebody to make me go.” The whiny tone grated on Heather's nerves. This was all part of the justification of the addiction. If somebody forced Tiffany to do it, then she could blame them when she didn't succeed.
Heather sighed with irritation. “So you can say that you don’t want it? You’re giving yourself an out, Tiff.”
“No, I’m not. I do want it. I just can’t make myself go.”
“You have to.”
“Why can’t you do it, Heather?”
Heather remembered the last time she had tried and the reason she had vowed not to force her sister again. Tiffany had morphed into a raging beast, kicking and screaming. It had shocked Heather, because Tiffany said she wanted to get clean, and they were just following a plan already set in place. Now she didn't trust her sister to be cooperative. “Because last time I tried to make you go, you broke my arm, and I couldn’t dance for two weeks. And I didn't make any money for almost a month after that. Nobody wants lap dances from a girl in a cast.”
Tiffany looked at her sister with pain in her eyes, before she burst into tears. “I’m so sorry that I did that, Heather. You know you’re the most important person in the world to me.” Tiffany threw herself into her sister's arms. Heather smothered the urge to vomit from the overwhelming smells of body odor and urine. And underneath that was the smell of drugs and death -- that was something she wished she couldn’t identify.
“You’re killing yourself, Tiff.” Heather said, quietly.
“I know, but I can’t stop it. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Yes, you do.” Heather said reassuringly. “Go to rehab. Get yourself clean.”
“I can’t!” Tiffany pulled away from her. “I should just end it. I’m no good to anybody, anyway.”
“Shut up, Tiffany.” Heather pulled her back into a fierce hug. “Don’t say things like that. You don’t mean them.” She had heard it before, and Heather knew her sister was too chicken to actually take her own life. Still, hearing the words made her panic a little. Heather could only imagine the level of hopelessness the drugs gave Tiffany every time she hit the low point in the cycle.
“Yes, I do. I hate living like this.” False bravado steeled Tiffany's voice.
“Tell you what. I’ll try to get somebody to help me come get you. I love you to death, but I don’t trust you anymore with this whole intervention thing. Not after last time. Okay?”
“I don’t want all of your stripper friends to know what I am.”
Heather sighed heavily. “I won’t tell my stripper friends. I was thinking of Robbie, one of the bouncers. He’s got experience handling belligerent people.”
“No. I want it to be just us. The Invincible Identicals.” She said softly.
“I can’t do it alone, Tiff. I’m sorry.” She watched her sister carefully for the explosion that she expected to come.
“Then get the hell out of my apartment.” Heather sighed. This was the cycle they went through, each time she came to visit her sister. It wasn't always pretty, but at least it was predictable. Tiffany would ask Heather for something that she didn't have the power or the will to give and then get angry with her for not succumbing to her whims.
“Okay. But promise me you’ll eat something, okay?”
Tiffany mumbled something unintelligible as she covered herself back up with the blankets.
Heather grabbed Taco and let herself out.
After leaving Tiffany's place, she took Taco to the park, a daily ritual that she loved almost as much as the Chihuahua. As she walked around watching Taco chase birds and lift his leg on anything that he could, she thought about her sister.
There wasn’t much that she hadn’t done for her. She paid the rent and utilities in that abysmal building so that her sister wasn’t homeless. She took food to her regularly. Heather tried everything she could to get her to go to rehab. The only thing was, her sister wouldn’t take responsibility and go on her own. Heather knew that addiction was awful, it was a disease, and her sister needed help. She had been to the Al-anon meetings and she knew what they taught. But she couldn’t help feeling helpless when it came to Tiffany. She wanted her sister back not this shell of a human being that was wearing out her body.
Memories of childhood with a sister that laughed, drew pretty pictures, and made up secret languages forced themselves to the surface. Heather sighed at the thought of the Invincible Identicals, remembering the times they had switched roles for various events. Their mother had always gotten mad, spouting things about abusing trust, while their father had chuckled good-naturedly at their antics. Heather missed her sister, and wondered, yet again, how different her life would be if Tiffany hadn't turned to drugs to get through the dark times.
Trying to think of something happier, Heather turned her thoughts toward last night and the men at the club.
Usually, men at the Bottom's Up were faceless individuals, customers that merged together in her memory. But last night, there had been two there that had stood out. The other girls had even talked about them in the back.
Neither one of them wanted a Showtime, which was odd. Guys always wanted at least one girl to dance just for them. Neither one of them had tipped any of the girls at all, except the waitresses who brought them drinks. The dark man had scotch, and the light man had water. Water!
They had both stared at her intently as she danced, and the other girls just noticed how bored they both looked, even almost repulsed in the case of the blond man. To Heather, they both seemed very interested indeed.
The blond one hadn’t seemed interested in the right way, though. Not for a club like Bottom’s Up, anyway. The dark guy was almost entirely in the shadows, but Heather had definitely gotten a carnal vibe from him, which was normal. But the other guy, with his shock of blond hair falling into his electric blue eyes, had turned her tummy into a white-hot flame.
Something about him kept her away, though. She couldn't put her finger on what it was. The dark man had definitely given off a creepy vibe, and she'd learned to listen to that vibe. The light man hadn't given her that sense, though. Still, she'd left him alone, and she wasn't sure why, but she was questioning herself about him, now.
Deciding that they were a one-time phenomenon, Heather whistled for Taco, who'd been digging up something in the bushes. A lot of men were curious about clubs like that, and while their interest in specific women was low, they still went to check it out. It was weird that they were there at the same time though, because it was rare that a man went to the club just to watch, never giving in to the desire to touch.
Realizing how late it was, Heather put Taco back into his basket on her bicycle and returned home to get ready for work. Maybe the blond guy would come back for another look.