And so we finish year two of your stubborn radio silence. Okay, Ava. I get it. I’ll do my time, keep on writing you, wait for you to shake off your huff. Let you have your temper tantrum so that you can save face. It’s fine, I don’t mind; I’ve always been less proud than you. I don’t mind admitting that I MISS YOU and that I’M GOING CRAZY WITHOUT YOU. Do you think that will soften your brittle crustacean shell? Will it weaken your resolve to maintain this transatlantic muteness? I don’t know. You were a soft touch when we were girls, but maybe you’ve toughened up, ensconced yourself in some sort of emotional fortress. I remember you crying pitifully when we saw a homeless man begging in Watkins Glen. He was a raggedy-ass specimen, too tan and wilted, with his cardboard sign entreating us to HELP because HE WAS A VETERAN. As though his life was inherently more valuable because he had the bad luck (or, even worse, the misguided desire) to end up in the military. Oh, but you were moved! You tugged our father’s hand, pleaded with your very best Tender Ava eyes, and he gave you ten dollars to hand to the man. A testament to both our father’s complete inability to deny you anything and his endless profligacy in all things financial. The man chews through cash the same way he devours imported cheese (the two behavior patterns may be related). You gave the old vet the ten bucks along with your tattered spare change. And later, when we went for ice cream and you had no money, I bought you one.
But now you’ve seen something of the world, and perhaps you’re less fragile, more cynical. Maybe. I’d put money on not, though. Bet you’re still dropping euro coins into the hats of amputee hucksters who will unfold their hidden limbs at the end of the day and traipse off to the nearest bottle shop, living proof that the performance of suffering is worth money. A lesson our mother learned young. These days, however, it is a woefully unprofitable adventure, for her at least. I imagine the begging industry is still going strong. But Nadine seems to have run up against some empty coffers, and she’s not taking it all that well.
I fear that Silenus may be going under, dearest Ava. I know it won’t be too surprising to you, but perversely, I hope it keeps you up at night. I certainly toss and turn a bit these long dark evenings, before giving in to temptation and chasing some of Nadine’s fancy tranqs (tranks? How would you spell it?) with a glass of Scotch. Then I sleep like the dead; I wouldn’t wake up if I caught on fire, lolz! Bad for my hepatic well-being, but it’s the only way I can get spreadsheets of collapsing finances out of my brain. I’m getting ready for the spring bloom (mind that moisture!), but I know that this year might be the last, that if this season doesn’t go well, we’re fucked. Not what you want to hear. Or maybe you don’t care.
Your increasingly desperate twin,
Z is for Zelda
—
I leave the cop station with a feeling that resembles vindication. I knew something was going on, knew there had to be. But what, Zaza? What could this possibly achieve? I drive too fast, which is obviously a terrible decision, since getting pulled over will mean more than a speeding ticket for me. But I’m racing, and before I realize I have made the decision to go there, I’m pulling down the driveway where Zelda keeps her battered Airstream. She has so many places to run to, when she’s running from our mother. But all within the confines of the family estate. Zelda holds her ground—I’m the one who flees.
The trailer rests on a cobbled-together deck that Zelda built herself the summer we graduated high school. I could see her jaw growing tighter and tighter as that summer waned, and I, na?vely, thought she was nervous about starting college. We were both going to live at home, but I had gotten into Cornell and Zelda was headed to a community college in Ithaca; her grades the past two years had been appalling, and she hadn’t even bothered to apply to Cornell. I thought she was scared of growing up, that she wouldn’t be at home outside her circle of wild high school friends. But she was really afraid of losing her sway over me.
That whole summer she toiled away on the elevated plywood deck, eyeing me warily as I sat in a ragged lawn chair doing my summer reading. She circled me like a predatory cat, and I was blissfully unaware of her prowling, happily absorbed as I was in my stack of books (and the carafe filled with spiked lemonade that we replenished lavishly throughout the day, growing more heavy-handed with the vodka as the sun drew lower in the sky). I was happy, elated, caught up in my academic fantasies, while Zelda was growing increasingly anxious to devise a scheme that would keep me caught up in her drama. And boy, did she achieve that, though I wouldn’t know it for several years.
The door to the Airstream is ominously ajar. I slam the truck’s door and hop up the semi-sanded steps, an image flashing before me of Zelda with her orbital sander, cursing these steps. “Our fucking paterfamilias had to go and destroy the belt sander while he was wasted, and now I’m trying to sand the steps with this rinky-dink piece of shit.” She furiously lit a cigarette and stared malevolently at the off-kilter stairs. I looked up from Lolita and laughed at her, standing there in her cutoff shorts, engineer boots, and bikini top. Gypsy hair, wild corkscrews shooting off from her head, and her dark tan made her eyes look terrifying. I had slathered on coats of SPF 50 all summer long, and Zelda’s newly tawny skin successfully marked the two of us as distinct beings. That summer, we looked different. I washed my hair religiously, combing and straightening it so that it looked tame and silky, while Zelda’s raven hair was just short of dreadlocked glory. Her eyeliner was dark and messy, while I wore just a smidge of sedately hued eye shadow. All our lives, we had embraced our spooky similarity, opting for the same haircut, same makeup. Different clothes, always, but clothes can be swapped, inducing all kinds of Shakespearean identity mishaps. Not that summer, though. She had giggled right back at me and flopped onto the deck chair next to mine.
“Fuck this foolishness,” she declared. “We’ll all just have to deal with the splinters and drag them around as reminders of benevolent neglect. Mine and Marlon’s both. How does it go, something something beam in the eye?”
“You’re proposing that we all suffer through beams in our feet?”
“If that’s what it takes!”
“You’re drunk,” I point out.
“Judge not lest…”
“And you’re mixing your biblical references.”
“Yes, but they all address hypocrisy. So there. Take that. Come swimming with me, please. You’re sweaty.”
“Always telling me what I am,” I mock-complain.
“No, I usually leave that to you, boss lady.” I let her tug me away from my book and we ran down to the dock, close in step, our feet moving in pace. I imagine that if you saw us from the side we would have looked like one body moving together. Fillies in dressage. Running with her, I felt whole, as though I was what I was meant to be. In the water, we splashed happily until Wyatt showed up with beverage reinforcements and joined us, to romp in a cozy haze of vodka. And happiness.