Page 13 of Hot Mess
“You’re way too nice,” Dani informed me. “I would’ve called the cops on her, like ages ago.”
“You want me to call the cops on my best friend? Because her alarm comes through the paper-thin walls in this place?”
“I would. Teach her a lesson. Oh, don’t look at me like that. With Taylor’s luck, the cops would be hot.”
“Hate to break it to you,” I said, “but the police have more urgent things to worry about in this neighborhood than a girl with a Metallica fetish whose only crime is not being a morning person.”
“Just one more reason to move,” Dani muttered as she rooted around in the drawers under my bed, searching for the earrings she wanted. “A-ha! You little shits.” She’d found them, apparently.
Then she started digging through the antique wardrobe next to my bed, sifting through my clothes.
I kind of shook my head at her, but smiled a little as I poured boiling water over my favorite chai tea. I really couldn’t start the day without one. A little caffeine, yummy spices. Dani’s bagel had popped, so I tossed it on a plate. I slathered some blueberry cream cheese—full fat—on one half and dug in.
Next time I looked over at my sister, she was bent over in her panties, her skirt around her ankles.
“You realize you don’t actually live here, right?” I said as she kicked her skirt aside.
“This is so perfect…” She wiggled into one of my skirts, ivory lace and slim-fitting. “Oh, good. It’s stretchy.” She smoothed the skirt over her hips—which were slimmer than mine—and her perfect butt—which was smaller than mine.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it’s a real blessing the fashion industry invented stretchy clothes. So all you waif-like twins, who are a half-size smaller than your identical sisters, don’t have to slog around in the gargantuan potato sacks we call clothes when you raid our closets.”
“I’m afullsize smaller,” she informed me. “And you have nothing to complain about. You got the voluptuous rack.”
Right.
I wasn’t surevoluptuouswas the right word. I had, at best, the conservative end of a C-cup—except for when I gained stress weight. Unlike my sister, I was a stress eater. For example, the summer Stevie Eldridge broke up with me and I went a little too crazy on the barbecue chips with ranch dip.
The only enjoyable thing I got out of that painful situation was a temporary increase in cup size.
It was true, though, that my twin sister couldn’t have filled my bra cups if she’d eaten all the barbecue chips on the northwest coast. She just didn’t keep weight like I did.
Though maybe that was due to her ability to resist binge eating every time life kicked her in the crotch?
Or maybe it was because she didn’tletlife kick her in the crotch…?
Just a couple more of the many differences between us.
I watched her putting on my mascara, bent over as she studied herself in the mirror over my antique vanity/desk. I had no idea what had happened to her mascara, but like so many things over the years, she seemed to have decided that mine equalled hers.
“You know, voluptuous racks are overrated,” I informed her. I meant it, in her case. Though she was, genetically, my identical twin, Daniella was probably the prettiest girl I’d ever met. When I looked at her, it wasn’t like looking in a mirror. I didn’t see me or a reflection of me.
I saw what I aspired to.
My sister just exuded a certain brand of confidence that I’d never had. I wasn’t exactlyunconfident, but I hadn’t been born with the same unshakable self-assurance. It was in the set of her slim shoulders, the lithe ease with which she carried herself.
In my eyes, it had always made us look like two very different people.
No wonder she’d caught the eye of Ashley Player… An edgy, gorgeous rock star who could have any girl he wanted.
“Nice try,” she said, just as the front door opened and Taylor stumbled in. “You ask any dude whether he’d rather have the skinny girl or the girl with the massive rack, I guarantee you he’d take the tits.”
“True story,” my best friend said, pointing a finger in Dani’s direction. Her eyes were half-open as she staggered through my kitchen in a whirlwind of unfairly sexy bed hair and baggy sweats, grabbing the bag of bagels and the dill cream cheese—her favorite.
It was only then that I realized “Master of Puppets” had finally stopped.
Taylor whirled right back out again, waving at me over her shoulder from the door. “Love you!! I’ll bring booze later.” And she was gone.
“You just let her waltz in and eat your food?” My sister threw me a disapproving look.
