Croak (2 page)

“Lex,” said Mrs. Bartleby, rousing her daughter from her maniacal fantasies, “your father and I are going to talk at you. And you are going to sit here and listen. Any questions?”

“Yes,” said Lex. “Are restraints really necessary this time?”

“You bet.” Her mother sharply tightened the tangled mess of jump ropes around Lex’s midsection, all the while struggling not to let her heartache show. Mrs. Bartleby, despite all current appearances to the contrary, loved her children more than anything in the world. Each double knot she made in the rope mirrored the increasingly gnarled lumps tugging deep within her gut.

“Isn’t this child abuse?” Cordy piped up from across the table, eyeing her writhing twin. “She’s not going to bite
us.
”

“She might, once we start talking. Note the absence of cutlery as well. There’s a darn good reason I made tacos tonight.”

Lex wriggled some more, but soon found that the ropes were tighter than usual. “This is insane!” she yelled, tearing at the knots. “Seriously, what the f—”

“Lexington!”
Her mother pointed across the room to a large pickle jar filled to the brim with dollar bills. “I don’t think I need to remind you that you’re already forty-two dollars in debt. You can’t afford to swear any more, my dear child.” Mrs. Bartleby loathed swearing, but was in fact beginning to secretly enjoy the small stash her daughter’s foul mouth had produced. She was thinking of using the proceeds to purchase a desktop Civil War cannon replica for her fifth grade classroom, as the only thing Mrs. Bartleby loved more than her children was American history and the spectacular weaponry it had produced.

“Can we get on with this?” Mr. Bartleby said. “The game starts in twenty minutes.”

“You and that infernal team, honestly—” she started, but then closed her mouth after receiving a harsh glare from her husband, who often asserted that anyone crazy enough to name her daughters after the first battles of the American Revolution waived all rights to accuse anyone else of being too obsessed with anything.

Mr. Bartleby took a deep breath and gazed across the table at his small but loving family. Storm clouds were beginning to gather in the murky sky outside, artfully adding the right amount of gloom to the situation.

“Okay, Lex,” he began, “here’s the deal. You’re our daughter, and we love you very much.” He briefly glanced at his tired wife, as if to receive verification of this fact. “But enough is enough. I don’t know what’s gotten into you over the past couple of years, but I don’t like what I’ve seen, and I definitely don’t like where it’s heading.” He scratched at his goatee, trying to think of how to say what he had to say next. His shiny bald head, shaved smooth every morning, gleamed in the dull glow of the dining room light.

He looked helplessly at his daughter with kind, sad eyes. “We think—your mother and I think—that it would be best for you to go away for a little while.”

Lex’s eyes widened. Cordy dropped her taco.

“Go where?” Lex said, doubling her unknotting efforts. “You’re kicking me out of the house?”

Her mother shook her head. “No, honey, of course not. We’d never put you out on the street.”

“Then what?”

Mr. Bartleby looked at his wife, then at his non-tethered daughter, then up, at nothing. Anything to avoid the squirmy, hurt visage of his troubled baby girl. “You’re going to go stay up north with Uncle Mort for the summer,” he told the ceiling.

Lex, who a second ago had been fully prepared to explode into a vicious rage and had even started planning some sort of dramatic dive through the plate glass window, chair and all, was for once shocked into speechlessness.

Mrs. Bartleby put her hand on Lex’s shoulder. “I know it’s a rather odd decision, but we think that a few months of fresh air could do you some good. You can get in touch with nature, lend a hand on Uncle Mort’s farm, maybe even learn something! You could milk a cow!”

Cordy let out a snort. “She’d probably punch the cow.”

“We’ve been thinking this over for a while now, and we really believe it is the best thing for everyone at the moment,” said Mr. Bartleby. “It’ll only be for the summer, sweetie.”

Lex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They were really doing it. They were kicking her out.

But they were her
parents!
Putting up with all of her crap was their official job—they couldn’t just wriggle out of it! She tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat. How could they do this to her? How could they not see past all the recklessness and beatings and remember the real daughter they had raised? She was still in there somewhere, deep down. Wasn’t she?

Almost as an answer to that very question, the inescapable anger arose once again. With one last tug at the knots, Lex stood up, slammed the untangled jump rope onto the table, and, well aware of how bratty it sounded, spat out the only thing her reeling temper could think of.

“I hate you!”

Her father sighed as she thundered upstairs. “I know.”

***

Lex flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She wished, as almost all kids wish at one point or another, that she could turn into a pterodactyl and fly away and never come back.

Cordy cautiously made her way into the room that she and her sister had shared for the entirety of their sixteen years together. It should be noted, however, that the mere word “room” could in no way convey the sheer dimensions of it all; it seemed, in fact, to bend the very fabric of space. A normal bedroom could not possibly contain this much
stuff.

Clothing littered every available surface. Schoolwork converged in a pile in the middle of the floor. Walls were no longer visible behind a plethora of posters, tapestries, and artwork. Cordy, who from the age of five had dreamed only of designing roller coasters for a living, kept a trunk full of engineering projects under the window; while Lex, who despite years of flawless report cards had yet to be struck by a single career aspiration, stored a graveyard of abandoned hobbies under her bed. Bowing wooden shelves held scores of books, candles, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, movies, snow globes, awards, and stale, forgotten pieces of candy. It was a veritable museum of useless crap.

But all of these treasures paled in comparison to the photographs.

Pictures of Lex and Cordy blanketed the room like oversize confetti, not an inch of blank space left exposed. An inseparable childhood, all summed up in an endless series of four-by-six-inch prints: several taken in the hospital nursery shortly after their birth, a few of their first steps, two featuring their matching pink backpacks on the first day of school, one taken on Halloween when they were eight and had dressed as salt and pepper shakers, and another taken five seconds later, as the cumbersome headpiece had toppled Lex to the floor. Birthday parties, backyard antics, school plays, soccer games—no event escaped diligent documentation.

And although the more recent photos implied the evolution of two separate, distinct species, the Bartleby girls were undeniably twins, through and through. The shared room was merely an extension of their shared lives, and Lex found her hands trembling as Cordy sat down on her bed. She couldn’t remember the last time they had been separated, because it had never happened.

“Hey,” Cordy said softly, “are you okay?”

Lex sat up and looked at the person with whom she had shared a womb, studying the contours of the face that was so very similar to her own. Though the girls were not identical twins, many features were still mirrored in perfect biological harmony: the small nose, the light olive complexion, and, of course, the large, almost black eyes that both sisters considered to be their best feature.

Unanimously agreed upon as their worst feature, on the other hand, was the dark, pathetic excuse for hair atop their heads: Lex’s a long, thick, wavy mop, and Cordy’s an irreparable mess of frizz and curls. Neither took any interest in this hopeless situation, which led to more fights with their mother than anyone would dare to count.

“What do you think about all of this?” Lex asked.

Cordy picked up a nearby rubber band and absent-mindedly tangled it through her fingers. “I don’t know. It sucks.”

“Yeah,” said Lex. Cordy wasn’t looking at her. “It’s just not fair,” she went on. “I mean, I know I’ve been a total sh—” She cut herself off, wondering if her mother could possibly be listening right outside the room, ready with the swear jar. “I’ve been a brat. But—”

“But
why
have you been a brat? Why are you acting like this?” Cordy narrowed her eyes. “You used to be a hall monitor.”

“Yeah, those were truly magical days. Nothing like the tyrannical power to give detentions to freshmen.”

“But now you give them concussions!” Cordy jumped to her feet, her face flushing red with anger. “I just don’t understand why you have to be this way! Do you realize how many times I’ve defended you, told people that this isn’t the real you, only to have it shoved right back in my face whenever you get suspended for breaking someone’s nose? Can’t you just stop?” she said, desperation straining her voice.

“I’ve tried!” Lex looked down. “You know I’ve tried.”

Cordy slumped. “Then go,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t want you to, but if Uncle Mort is the only thing that’ll keep you from decimating the school population, if that’s what it takes to bring back the old you, go.”

She crossed the room and sat down on her own bed. Lex watched, forlorn, unable to argue with her sister’s logic—until something occurred to her. She gave Cordy a funny look. “Huh.”

“What?” Cordy asked irritably.

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

“What’s weird?”

“That they picked Uncle
Mort.
”

“So? What’s wrong with Uncle Mort?”

“Cordy, come on. We haven’t seen him in years. Can you even remember the last time he visited?”

Cordy scrunched up her face. “Sort of. We were six, right? He brought those things, whatever they are.” She pointed to a pair of spherical glass trinkets on a nearby shelf. They featured a whirl of small lights inside, and smelled faintly of alcohol.

“Exactly. Other than the random crap he sends for birthdays, we barely know the guy. Half the time it’s like Dad forgets he even
has
a little brother. So why him?” She crept to the edge of the bed. “Why not Aunt Veronica, in Oregon? Or Uncle Mike? Or Mom’s cousin Dom—he’s a corrections officer!” She lowered her voice. “For all we know, Uncle Mort could be some dumbass hillbilly who lives off roadkill and drinks his own urine. How is spending two months in some disgusting shack in upstate rural hell going to turn me into an obedient young woman?”

Cordy furrowed her brow. “Mom and Dad must have their reasons. They wouldn’t just ship you off to a mass murderer. Maybe they want you to get to know him better. Maybe he’s a cool guy?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, you don’t make any sense either.”

Lex looked wearily at her twin, whom she had never once punched, smacked, bitten, or even noogied. “I’m sorry, Cordy,” she said. “I mean, I’m sorry that you’re a part of this. I can handle leaving the city, but leaving you . . .”

Cordy lay down and hugged her tattered plush octopus, Captain Wiggles. Lex looked at her sister’s watering eyes and sighed. How upset could they really get over this? They’d probably just be separated next year anyway, if they went to different colleges (if Lex managed to scrounge up the teacher recommendations to even get
into
college). They couldn’t stay kids forever.

Afraid that much more introspection would lead to a frustrated crying jag, Lex sniffed back her own tears and fell into her pillow. “I just can’t believe I’m really going,” she said finally, in what she hoped was a mature-sounding voice.

Cordy nodded. “It’s going to be so weird.”

Lex glanced at the bookshelf. There, nestled snugly between a softball trophy and a photo of the two girls grinning with finger paint smeared all over their faces, their arms wrapped tightly around each other’s shoulders, sat Uncle Mort’s strange glass contraptions, wobbling ever so slightly.

She raised a single eyebrow. “No kidding.”

Lex stared out the window of the Greyhound bus at the raging, apocalyptic storm. Ferocious winds whipped through the blackened sky, massive drops of rain pelted the glass, and every so often a lightning bolt would illuminate the entirety of the coach, repeatedly terrifying the man sitting behind her whose cocaine habit had become obvious to anyone within a five-seat radius.

Clearly, the weather was not the only foul element of this trip.

Lex was quite unhappily sitting next to a homebound college student. She was able to discern this by the sweatshirt he was wearing, which boasted a trio of Greek letters, and by his shirt collar underneath, which was unabashedly popped and sticking straight up. He resembled a preppy Count Chocula. And, as with most preppy Count Choculas, he had no idea how ridiculous he looked.

Deducing that any interaction with her fellow bus travelers would likely lead to some form of manslaughter, Lex had done everything in her power to avoid getting stuck with a seatmate. She had poured all the contents of her bag onto the empty seat beside her. She spread out her body and pretended to be asleep. And when the driver ordered her to give up the seat, she threw a shoe at his face.

All in vain,
she thought bitterly as she glared at the kid, who had put on his best “I’m a douchebag” face and tried to strike up a conversation the second he sat down.

“Hey there, cutie,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Lex rolled her eyes and turned toward the window. “Kill me.”

“Kimmy? I’m Steve,” he went on, undeterred. “So, are you in school? I go to NYU. Where do you go?”

Lex gave him the same look a cheetah makes just before devouring a gazelle. “Listen, I really appreciate your efforts to make my trip infinitely more torturous than it already is, but do you think that you could maybe just shut the hell up for the rest of the ride, lest I rip off those hideous sunglasses and start beating you over the head with them?”