“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she said. She sat on my bed. “I was high, too, when I pulled that joke. I didn’t mean to spoil your fun.”
I still didn’t lift my eyes from the page, but I wasn
’t reading anything.
“You’re right about Jimmy, too. What boyfriend would tolerate his girlfriend doing what I did? He’s an idiot. I used him, and as I said, I don’t intend to be with him much longer. It’s just that I don’t see many boys I like at our school, including all the seniors. They’re all . . . so immature.”
“Not all. I really liked Matt,” I said. “He is different, more responsible. At least, that was what I had hoped. Now he’s probably afraid to look me in the face or look at himself in the mirror.”
“He’ll get over it, Kaylee. Believe me, he didn’t suffer.”
“Thanks for that. That really helps.”
“I know. I’ll apologize to him. I promise.”
“I think it would be better if you didn’t speak to him at all. If he’s really ashamed of himself, he’ll only feel worse.”
“Okay. Maybe you’re right. I’ll stay away from him completely, and if Jimmy spreads any stories, I’ll deny them. I’ll tell anyone who asks that it was you, not me.”
“Don’t tell anybody anything, Haylee! No one has to know our personal business, especially something like this.”
“Right. Yes, that’s right. If anyone asks, I’ll say it’s none of their business. But you’ve got to help, too.”
“Me? What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t act mad at me, or everyone will suspect something and believe anything Jimmy says, especially after I dump him. We’ve got to be as close as ever, and then who would think I had done that to you and you would still be as close to me? Right?”
“So you want me to pretend we’re close?”
“No, not pretend. I want you to forgive me and be my sister. I want you to mean it. I mean it when I say I’m sorry.”
“Right,” I said. I couldn’t help smiling to myself. She would always figure out all the angles. “I’m tired of thinking about it.”
“Me, too. We’ll just have a fun night together tonight while Mother goes on her hot date,” she said, rising. She walked over to me and hugged me. “I really didn’t mean to hurt you. Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said, before giving me a peck on the cheek, and leaving.
For the first time, I began to wonder if Haylee was the more vulnerable of us after all. She went after friends, whether they were girlfriends or boyfriends, with more desperation than I did. She had more of a need to be popular. She would hate to hear me say it, but I now believed that I was the one with more self-confidence. Mother dreamed of having two daughters who would never suffer from sibling rivalry, but Haylee was and probably would always be afraid that people would like me more than they liked her. She flaunted the attention boys gave her. She emphasized anything she could do better than I could. She was a more aggressive athlete and often let me know it. Now she was stressing how much more sophisticated she was. After all, she knew more about sex and drugs.
Maybe my feelings toward her should be more in line with pity than anger, I thought. It brought a smile to my face thinking how angry she would be if she knew I had even considered it.
I returned to the homework. As usual, I would have it done before she would, and she would copy most, if not all, of it. It was only the essays we had to write for English that she had to do on her own, but I usually read her work and repaired the grammar and syntax. I still studied with her for exams, and although she wasn’t keeping up with my grades, she was close enough to keep Mother from making it an issue.
Just after six, she returned to my room, wearing the dress Mother had chosen for us.
“I feel like someone’s Barbie doll. She’s going to treat us like two storefront displays for the rest of our lives,” she said, as I went to put on my dress. “She’ll press buttons to make us smile simultaneously and will want us to say the same things at the same time, too. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Maybe we should make it sound like a question. ‘Pleased to meet you?’ Think she’ll put us in the pantry if we do that?”
“Don’t toy with her about this, Haylee. It obviously means a lot to her. She’s been in such a dark fog since she discovered what Daddy was doing. If she’s happier, we’ll be happier,” I pointed out.
“You’re right. You’re always right,” she said, grimacing for a moment and then smiling again. “Luckily for me, I have you as my twin sister. We each provide what the other needs, right?”
“Haylee-Kaylee,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm that she either ignored or didn’t hear.
“Kaylee-Haylee,” she replied, as if it was something automatically triggered, maybe in both of us.
Despite everything, how could I hate her? Mother was probably right about that. It would be like hating myself or at least a big part of myself. We all went through valleys and over hills. Who else could really be my best friend or hers, even though she might not realize it as much as I did?
“Okay, let’s get down to the stage,” I said.
Mother was waiting in the living room. She looked more nervous than I had seen her lately. “How do I look?” she asked us.