4
Inferno
“Ordinarily, I would never go to one of these places,” Ava began as she drove us away from the house Friday night. I was so excited and happy that I could barely breathe, much less talk. I could see she wanted me just to shut up and listen anyway.
First, I was up and out later than I had ever been. We didn’t get started until nearly ten. Second, she made surprising changes to my hair and my makeup. From eight to ten, she oversaw my dressing and preparations. At the start, I thought my curly hair bothered her as much as it did me, but she showed me how to get it more fluffy, so that it had what she called “the bedroom look.” After that, she taught me how to do my eyes and, for the first time, let me wear some glitter. I thought we’d never get off the choice of lipsticks. She had brought in a good part of her own makeup kit. She didn’t want me wearing anything she was wearing, however.
“We want to stress differences between us,” she said, “not similarities.”
“Why?”
“It’s most important that none of the men we meet knows we live in the same house and are sisters.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll learn all this very quickly,” she began, “but when a young man chooses whom he will come on to, he thinks about the girl who’s with her.”
“Why?” I really felt like a little girl driving her parents crazy with the why questions, but I couldn’t help it.
“She could be something to overcome, an obstacle. He’s wondering, will these two separate tonight? Can I go off with one? Will she be willing to leave her girlfriend behind? Most girls feel guilty about that sort of thing. They make it almost mandatory that the guy find someone for their girlfriend first, and most times, that proves to be very difficult, if not impossible. While many men come alone to these places, almost no girls do. When one does, and when she’s attractive, she’s like a stronger magnet.”
“That’s why you always go out alone?”
She grimaced and shook her head. “Think about what you ask and say, Lorelei. How can I, can you, really ever have a girlfriend going out with us, much less have a girlfriend, a girl pal?”
I nodded.
I knew in my heart that we couldn’t, but I asked the question more out of hope that there was some way to have a trusted companion. So many girls in my school had best friends, and just watching them together made me jealous.
“I guess there’s no one else out there like us,” I said. I couldn’t help it. It came out like a complaint.
“I didn’t say that,” Ava replied. I looked up quickly. “There’s no one else like us around here. We have our territory; others have theirs.”
“We can’t ever be friends with them?”
“No. It could be very dangerous for all of us.”
“Do they ever get too close to us or we to them?” I asked. I felt I could get some answers from her now, now that we were going out together. I sensed I had reached a new plateau, one that would be filled with new trust and new answers.
“Sometimes.” She turned. “And that’s not something we want to happen.”
“That’s something Daddy senses occasionally, right? He can tell when they get too close.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Is that why we move so much?”
“Sometimes, yes. Never mind all that,” she said, back to her characteristic annoyance. “You’re getting us sidetracked with all these questions. Concentrate only on what I’m telling you. I’m telling you that if you think about what I just said, two sisters are more formidable for a guy. It’s one thing to separate friends but quite another to separate sisters.”
“Choosing one over the other would cause sibling rivalry,” I said.
“Yes, that would play into it, too. Now you’re thinking. The one left behind might be so upset about it that she would say something at home, something that would get her sister in trouble.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Some of it Brianna taught me the way I’m teaching you. Some things I read. Most of it will come naturally to you, just being out there among them.”