«Now you've done it,» said Cindy.
«You've done nothing, » said John.
«I've got a degree in organic chemistry,» said Krista. «That's the study of molecules containing carbon.»
«Thank you, Madame Curie,» said John. «What about you, Cindy, what do you have a degree in?»
«Hot nourishing lunches,» Krista inserted quickly.
«I have a degree in nutrition. Florida State University, class of '97.»
«Phone the Nobel Committee,» said Krista.
«Krista, just can it, okay?»
«So what are you two baccalaureates doing in a fuckhouse like Melody's? There must be test kitchens all over America begging for a team like you two.»
«Very amusing, Mr. Johnson,» said Krista. «We both want to act. In high school I did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — in drag, no less.» John's heart was sinking. «I'm good. So's Cindy. And this kind of thing just pays the bills.»
«Look,» said John, «you've gotta know that if you hump one of us producer guys, you've humped all of us — which means there's probably all kinds of other junk you've done that the Enquirer 's going to zoom in on like a smart bomb the moment you get a walk-on part in a cable-access slasher. You won't even get a job as a body double in a Cycle dog food commercial.»
«We'll take that risk.»
«Okay,» said John. «You guys want to do some acting tonight?»
Cindy winked at Krista: «Sure. And by the way,Bel Air PI was great. I saw it three times in a row in Pensacola this spring after my wisdom teeth got yanked.»
«How do you want us to act, Mr. Johnson?»
«Oh Jesus. How about normal. »
This remark drew a blank.
«Normal?» Cindy asked. «Like housewives? Like people who live in Ohio or something?»
«No. Be yourselves. Talk to me like I'm a person, not a customer.»
«We can do that,» said Krista, communicating with Cindy in what appeared to be their personal Morse of winks. «Yes — let's.»
And so the three of them sipped drinks and watched the city lights for a moment or two.
«My panties feel too tight,» said Cindy.
«And my sweater's too hot,» added Krista. «I'm so hot. I'm going to have to remove my sweater.»
«Cut!» John was upset. «I don't mean normal dirty talk. I mean normal. Like we're talking in a restaurant and there's no possibility of sex.»
The twins had heard rumors at Melody's about some of John's kinkier scenes. Maybe this was how they started out.
«I'm going to freshen your drinks,» John said, «and then you're going to tell me about yourselves. How you got to where you are now. Your life if it was a movie.»
«More like a beauty pageant,» called Cindy as John jiggled with bottles and crystal glasses.
«I was Miss Dade County,» said Krista.
«And I was Miss United Fruit Growers,» added Cindy.
«And we were both Junior Miss Florida Panhandle,» continued Krista. «One year apiece, one right after the other, but because we're twins people weren't sure if we were technically the same person.USA Today did a thing on us. It's real scary how evil the pageant circle is.»
«Tell me,» John said, returning with the drinks.
«Oh! Where to begin?» said Cindy. «At birth, I guess. The important thing is to have a hungry unfulfilled mother who needs a piece of herself up there on the winner's dais being bathed in adulation. There's no such thing as a child star by herself. Child stars exist only in conjunction with a stage mother. Earth and sun.»
«We really lucked out in that department,» said Krista. «In her sophomore year at U. of F., Mom got the heave-ho from Godspell, and she vowed to wreak vengeance on the state of Florida. We're her weapons.»
Said Cindy: «You have to have a mother pushing you the whole way from, like, two onward. For most of us show dogs, we're not even aware of how distorted and grimly fucked up we are until it's too late. They have to get you when you're young.»
«And your mom has to buy and make you, like, a thousand little outfits a year,» said Krista, «and your mother has to make you dress like a stripper at the age of, like, five.»
«Some parents will do anything. There's this actress out there — Susan — oh — what's her name, Kris? She's in the Where-Are-They-Now? file — the one who disappeared for a year.»
«Colgate. Susan Colgate,» Krista answered.
«Yeah. In junior high her parents moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, just to improve their chances of being able to represent an entire state in the national competitions. Yeah — Miss Wyoming. Ha!»
«Missed her,» said John. «I don't pay attention to TV. It turned to trash in the eighties. I stopped watching it, period.»
Music then swirled through the room's air — horns and jazz, and the lights dimmed to candle strength. «The lights are on a timer,» John said, but it didn't matter, because the room became smaller, the air charged like summer's eve, and the three of them clinked the ice that remained in their glasses. The sisters began to remove their angoras. «No, don't,» John said. «No. Let's keep it perfect.» And the girls said, «Fine.»
«Come work for me,» he said.
«What?» came the reply in stereo.
«Be my assistants. I need help right now.»
There was a pause. Krista said, «I don't know, Mr. Johnson.»
«No. No. It's not a sex thing. I swear, no sex. You guys are smart and ambitious,» John said.
«Is that what you look for in assistants?» Krista asked.
«Fuck, yes. Smartness, hipness, alertness, greed and speed.»
Krista continued: «Is this how you normally hire assistants?»
«Nahhh. What I normally do is put ads in the paper advertising Eames furniture at ridiculously low prices.»
«That's that 1950s stuff, isn't it?» asked Cindy.
«Bingo. It's this furniture designed for poor people, but poor people never liked it, and the only people who know about it or care about it are rich or smart. So anybody who answers that ad really quickly is de facto smart, alert, greedy and hip.»
«What's Melody going to say?» asked Cindy.
«Mel has two ugly little brats I helped put through Dartmouth and Neufchâtel. She owes me.»
«But then what about, say, the salary?»
«See — I was right. You're a little bit greedy,» at which point the girls quickly huffed up and their spines straightened. «Relax. In the film business it's a compliment.»
«So what do you want?» Cindy asked.
«Truth be told,» John said, «the one thing in this world I want more than anything else is a great big crowbar, to jimmy myself open and take whatever creature that's sitting inside and shake it clean like a rug and then rinse it in a cold, clear lake like up in Oregon, and then I want to put it under the sun to let it heal and dry and grow and sit and come to consciousness again with a clear and quiet mind.»
The CD player clicked and purred as it changed albums, and Cindy and Krista kept their bodies still. Cindy said, «Okay. I'll work for you.»
Krista said, «Me, too. I'm in.»
John said, «Good,» and music came on, Edvard Grieg, a flute solo. «What's going to be your next move then — John?» asked Krista.
«I'm going to liquidate myself.»
«Like going offshore or something? Taxes?» asked Cindy.
«No. I'm going to erase myself. I'm going to stop being me.» John saw the look on the twins' faces, and it wasn't fear, but neither was it comprehension. «No. Not suicide. But suicide's cousin. I want to disappear.»
«You've lost me,» said Cindy.
«I'm going to start my own witness relocation program.»
«Help us out here, John.»
«It's easy. I don't want to be me anymore. I think I've gone as far as I can go in this body.»
«In this body?»
«Yeah.»
«Who gets your money?» Cindy asked.
«Probably the IRS.»
«Who gets your residuals and your copyrights?»
«I don't know. Crack babies. Jerry's Kids. Something like that. That's a detail. Think of the bigger picture here.»