In the gallery’s workroom Tara was stringing metallic beads for a complicated necklace her mother had designed and wondering if Brooke ever realized how connected they were. Not just as sisters. But in how Brooke’s reckless persona made Tara appear sensible and calm.
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
Brooke took wild risks, got smacked around, and criticized. Book-smarts saved her from being entirely written off. But thanks to Brooke, Tara watched from the wings, safe from the line of fire.
They protected each other—their parents being too self-absorbed and dull-witted to bother. Nobody but Brooke realized that Tara wasn’t so much calm and quiet as muted and shy. True, Tara didn’t get carried away like Brooke. She was stubborn and cynical and didn’t dare go flying off like Brooke.
Selecting larger, beveled beads for the center, Tara flicked on another halogen lamp. Truth was, though, Tara was way more star struck than her sister. She had memorized Matthew King’s movies, even the really lame ones like “One Size Fits All.”
She shifted her weight on the stool, because her butt and legs were sticking to it even though the day’s heat had barely kicked in. Settling down again, the phone vibrated furiously inside her front pocket.
Brooke said, “Hey, Tara.”
Tara bitched about being stuck in the gallery workroom and stopped. A pause so long she wondered if Brooke was still there. And then Brooke was saying out loud the words Tara, for weeks, had fixed one after another to the brightest beads sliding down silk string. Matthew King wanted them both to babysit.
“Wait. Really?”
“Dexter and Ivy don’t play the same games anymore. And Matthew doesn’t want them getting bored, especially since the mother has left. Can you come now? Ride your bike.”
An hour ago Tara and Brooke’s mother was minding the store but now an old guy named Chase with a bleached pony-tail to his waist was working in front. He sold stuff well, remembering customers’ names and figuring out their preferences. But he was incapable of telling Connie where Tara had gone. No matter how well Tara explained it to him, Chase seemed to go blank. And Connie didn’t carry a cell because she still believed they caused cancer more than just being alive seemed to. So Tara left a note.
Last night after her first long day at Matthew King’s, Brooke had come home saying, Matthew this and Matthew that, her voice soaring and dropping, on and on.
Today, at the farmhouse path, she was waiting for Tara, her long legs straddling her bike. A straw hat covered her head, two fat blue ribbons flowing above her dark hair down her back. Again her voice swooped and rolled and her face gave off an exalted quality that made Tara smile and wonder. And also sting with jealousy.
“What?” Tara asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Except Brooke relayed such heightened excitement that Tara asked, “Are you high?”
“What?”
“Are you on drugs?”
They had been riding side by side on the narrow path and Brooke stopped, almost falling off her bike. “Don’t ever ask that, Tara. It’s malicious. I never do drugs. Nobody here does.”
“Sorry.”
Rolling in sync again, Tara finally began to understand what Brooke was blathering about. “Matthew’s not doing another comic romance. Or an extravaganza that might bomb. He’s waiting for the right project. But even if something happened yesterday he’s still five years out of play.”
Tara said, “So you’re babysitting him and I’m babysitting the kids.”
“Don’t be like that. He’s gotta talk one-to-one with someone real. Nobody deals with him straight. It’s all power trips. So it’ll be good for him being around me and you. With adults and teenagers, age is the only differential. Not money or talent. Not who and what’s the next big thing.”
“You mean he never wanted to be in the movies? Who knew there were stakes?”
“Tara, if you’re not gonna be nice you better go back and string beads.”
“I’ll be nice. But it might help to stop acting like you’re stuck in an X-box.”
“You and me don’t know what it’s like, do we? Come on. Leave the bikes here.”
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