She almost tripped over a pair of black engineer's boots in the hallway, next to a battered hard-shell guitar case. Jo's door was shut.
Shit!
She stumbled to the end of the hall, past Jo's door and David's damn guitar, past her own door and into the john. She shut the door. Leaned her head against the cold mirror. Stared cross-eyed at the freckles that looked like they were painted on white paper.
The night's load of shit had totally driven David out of her mind. He'd been as close to a boyfriend as she'd ever found in years. She'd forgotten he would probably come over, after practice. And go to bed with Jo.
Jo.
David.
Bedroom.
Goddamn whore.
Goddamn man.
The teakettle whistled in the kitchen, snapping her out of her misery. She must have been leaning there for a couple of minutes. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, flushed the toilet for camouflage.
Walking back past the bedroom door and the evidence, a muffled giggle slapped her in the face. She heard bedsprings creaking.
Brian had shuffled around in the cabinets, had two mugs out and the box of Earl Grey. Now he waited for her to pour, like a gentleman. Maureen swallowed a scream.
"I think you'd better leave. I don't feel so good, all of a sudden."
He stood up and touched her cheek. She flinched.
"I understand. You've had a rough night. Try to get some sleep. Can I call you in the morning, make sure everything's alright?"
Maureen gritted her teeth, forcing herself to behave like a halfway-normal woman. "Phone's in my sister's name. I'll write it out for you."
She turned away, pulled a piece of paper off the phone pad and scribbled against the refrigerator. She could feel his warmth behind her and squirmed away, practically crawling up on the kitchen counter.
Their fingers touched as she handed him the paper. She desperately wanted to wash her hands, scrub off the touch. Goddamn nutcase. It isn't his fault!
His eyes searched her face. "You don't mind if I call you? I can see you again?"
"Fine," she snapped. "Just leave. Call me in the morning. If you don't get out of here fast, I'm liable to puke on you."
"Maureen, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, goddammit! Just, if you come to see me, don't go to bed with my fucking sister!"
He backed away and the door clicked between their faces. She set the bolt and chains and leaned her forehead against their metallic coldness. Her gut still churned its mix of hatred and longing. Half of her, mind and body, wanted to rip the door open and chase down the stairs after him. The other half of her remembered his resemblance to Buddy Johnson.
The kettle screamed on, behind her, and she turned to shut off the gas. It subsided into a serpent's hiss and then crackled quietly as it cooled.
She wondered how much Jo had heard, how much David had heard. They were awake. Probably deaf to the world, thinking any noises were the earth moving under their bed. Then they'd try another position and see if the stars fell.
She put one of the cups away, grabbed a bottle, and filled the other one. She gulped, and straight whiskey etched her throat. She wanted to heave the bottle across the room, watch the golden liquid splatter and hear the glass explode into little transparent knives. Walk on them, cut her feet, leave bloody footprints in the snow as she ran away into the storm. Disappear into the night, into the cold, into the sleep of winter.
She still had thoughts like that. One time in high school, she'd stabbed a tattoo into her left arm with an art pen and India ink. She ran her fingers over the faint scars left by the cosmetic surgery. Self-mutilation, the shrinks had called it, itemizing another symptom. They hadn't liked what the message spelled out, either.
She took another swallow. Fire slid down her throat and burned in her stomach. Maybe it would cauterize the wounds.
Dammit, David had been hers!
She'd met him after a set when his neo-Celtic group played in a local bookstore, for Chrissake, worked up her courage for a month, talked to him again and again. He was thin. Quiet in a strange intense way. Gentle. Patient. Insane subtle sense of humor. Delicate strong guitar-spider hands. An obsession with music that defused the whole man/woman scene and made him safe.
Everything Buddy Johnson wasn't. Maureen had invested three months in letting David past her boundaries. He'd come over, and the three of them would talk music, and Maureen would chisel another brick free from the wall around her, working on opening a door. And Jo wiggled a finger in her sexy way and took him.
Bitch.
She stared down into her cup, following the patterns the whiskey traced along the surface of the porcelain.
Patterns. Jo wanted something, Jo took it. That was Jo--confidence personified. She took clothes, took books, took food from the refrigerator, took makeup. Sisters were supposed to share. They were the same size, same color, enough alike to look at, they might as well be twins. Only difference was Little Mo's screwed-up head.
It was all her own fault, anyway. She couldn't blame David. Two identical women, one with a psychic chastity belt and the other who'd drop her pants at noon in the middle of Haymarket Square. Which one would any normal man choose?
Neither. A normal man would run away and hide from either of you.
You're drunk, said the cup. You're a drunk, said her empty cup next to her nearly empty bottle.
Come by it honestly, answered Maureen. Maureen's a weepy drunk. Jo's a sluttish drunk. Dad's a mean drunk. Grandpa O'Brian was a happy drunk.
She remembered how her brain had pulled Grandpa's voice out of the night wind. Maybe that had been the connection. She thought she was twelve again and terror haunted her dreams
