Mirror Image

do?”
    “Hell, no.” She flopped back down on the bed and began vigorously shaking the bottle of nail polish. “Do whatever the hell you want to. Just do it someplace else besides my room.”
    Avery was on her way out when she reconsidered. Turning back, she approached the bed and sat down. Taking the silver earrings, she pressed them into Fancy’s hand and folded her fingers around them.
    “Why don’t you keep these? I would have loaned them to you if you had just asked.”
    Fancy flung the earrings as far as she could throw them. “I don’t want your goddamn charity.” Her beautiful blue eyes turned ugly with dislike. “Who the hell are you to offer me your sorry leftovers? I don’t want the earrings or anything else you’ve got.”
    Avery withstood the verbal attack. “I believe you. It’s not the earrings or any of this stuff that you wanted,” she said, nodding down at the possessions she had gathered. “What you wanted was to get caught.”
    Fancy scoffed. “You’ve been out in the sun too long, Aunt Carole. Don’t you know the sun’s bad for your plastic face? It might cause it to melt.”
    “You can’t insult me,” Avery returned blandly. “You don’t have the power. Because I’m on to you.”
    Fancy regarded her sulkily. “What do you mean?”
    “You wanted my attention. You got it by stealing. Just like you get your parents’ attention by doing things you know they’ll disapprove of.”
    “Like fucking Eddy?”
    “Like fucking Eddy.”
    Fancy was taken aback by Avery’s calm echo of her cheeky question. She quickly recovered, however. “I’ll bet you nearly shit when you saw me coming out of his hotel room. Didn’t know I was anywhere near Houston, did you?”
    “He’s too old for you, Fancy.”
    “We don’t think so.”
    “Did he invite you to join him in Houston?”
    “Maybe, maybe not.” She sprayed fixative on her scarlet toenails, then waggled them as she admired her handiwork. Hopping off the bed, she moved to a drawer and took out a bikini. She peeled her nightgown over her head. Her body was marred by bruises and scratches. Her shapely buttocks were striped with them. Avery glanced away, a sick feeling rising in her stomach.
    “I’ve never had a lover like Eddy before,” Fancy said dreamily as she stepped into the bikini trunks.
    “Oh? What kind of lover is he?”
    “Don’t you know?” Avery said nothing. She didn’t know if Carole had slept with her husband’s best friend or not. “He’s the best.” Fancy hooked the bikini bra, then leaned into the mirror, selected a lipstick off the dressing table, and spread it across her mouth. “Jealous?”
    “No.”
    They made eye contact in the mirror. Fancy looked skeptical. “Uncle Tate’s still sleeping in that other room.”
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “Doesn’t matter to me,” she said with a malicious grin, “as long as you don’t try and take up the slack with Eddy.”
    “You sound very proprietary.”
    “He’s not sleeping with anybody else.” She bent at the waist and, flipping her hair forward, began pulling a brush through the thick, dark-blond strands.
    “Are you sure of that?”
    “I’m sure. I don’t leave him the energy to screw around on me.”
    “Tell me about him.”
    Fancy swept her hair to one side and slyly looked up at Avery from her upside down position. “I get it. Not jealous, just curious.”
    “Maybe. What do you and Eddy find to talk about?”
    “Do you chat with the guys you’re balling?” She laughed out loud. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any grass, would you?”
    “No.”
    “Guess not,” she said, sighing with disgust as she came erect and threw her hair back. “Uncle Tate went berserk when he caught us smoking that time. Wonder what he would have thought if he’d caught us sharing that cowboy?”
    Avery blanched and looked away. “I… don’t do things like that anymore, Fancy.”
    “No shit? For real?” She seemed genuinely curious.
    “For real.”
    “You know, when you first came home from the hospital, I thought you were faking it. You were Miss Goody Two Shoes all of a sudden. But now, I believe you really changed after that airplane crash. What happened? Are you afraid you’re gonna die and go to hell, or what?”
    Avery changed the subject. “Surely Eddy’s told you something about himself. Where did he grow up? What about his family?”
    Fancy propped her hands on her hips and regarded Avery strangely.