Whisper Me This(55)

“Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea,” he says, between songs. “You’ve had a rough week. Can you eat something?”

No. The answer to that is vehemently no. My stomach is raising a rebel army. There will be no eating. And no more drinking of anything but water. When the pizza arrives, I start mouth-breathing, unable to tolerate the smell of garlic and tomato sauce.

Mia and Elle drift over to inhale a couple of pieces, then disappear down the stairs to be closer to the music. It doesn’t take long before the two of them are right up front and center, dancing. I can’t help wondering how Marley can miss the fact that the adoring tween beaming up at her is family. Blood. Maybe she feels the draw, because for a minute there, she seems to be singing directly to Elle.

For me, the concert lasts an eternity. A thousand times I flow back and forth between the decision to talk to Marley after it’s all over or just slip away without saying a word.

Not that Elle would let me. In the middle of the last song, she runs upstairs to get me, face aglow with excitement, her hair sweat-curled around her face, cheeks flushed.

“Come on! They are almost done! I can’t wait to meet her.”

Tony raises his brows in a question.

“We are going to introduce ourselves to the singer, apparently. If you don’t mind waiting?”

I’m hoping maybe he’ll tell me that he can’t wait, that he has an urgent appointment or has to be at work and we need to leave right this minute.

Instead he smiles at Elle. “Cool. I’ll wait here. Mia is going to be forever anyway.”





Chapter Eighteen

Marley, coiling up cables on the stage, hears us walk up behind her. She turns, ready with a professional smile, probably expecting a fan.

I open my mouth to tell her who I am. Some version of, “Hey, guess what? I’m your long-lost sister!” but my voice box freezes.

Her eyes travel from me to Elle and back again. Her lips flatten out into a thin, compressed line. It’s Mom’s displeased expression, perfectly replicated on a stranger’s face.

I swallow. “Hi, my name is Maisey and—”

“What do you want, an autograph?” She turns her back and continues coiling up a power cord, looping it around her hand and elbow.

“No, I—this might sound weird, but I’m your sister.”

“I know who you are. The fabled Maisey. And Maisey Junior, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You know about me?” Somehow, this seems worse than my not knowing about her.

“Trust me. I know plenty.” Her voice is hard, dismissive, as far from the warm friendly tone she’d used on the crowd as I am out of my comfort zone. “What I don’t know is what you’re doing here.”

Elle stiffens beside me and my anger sparks. “Go find Mia,” I tell her.

For once she doesn’t argue.

I follow Marley across the stage. “How?” I ask her. “How could you possibly know about me?” Dropping the cord into a box, she swings around to face me. Her feet are planted shoulder-width apart. She’s a little shorter than me. Her eyes are the same shade of blue-green as my own, but manage to be decisive and calculating.

“I’ve always known about you, from Grandma and from Dad. You were always my mother’s favorite. Spoiled and cosseted. She left us and took you with her, and there we are. He still keeps a picture of her on his bedside table, God only knows why. What do you want from me?”

“What? Nothing! I just—”

“This chick bothering you Marl?”

It’s the sound guy. Up close he’s a mighty muscle machine, all testosterone and tattoos and intimidation. He plants himself beside her, feet spread, arms crossed. And then his face changes as he gets a good, long look at me.

“She looks like you, Marley,” he says. “Same eyes, anyway. The rest of her, not so much.”

“She’s my sister. My twin sister, to be precise.”

His tough-guy persona dissolves with these words, and he forgets all about me. “You have a sister?” He sounds like a little kid who has just figured out Santa Claus is a lie.

Marley doesn’t even look at him, her eyes still burning a hole into me. “It’s no big thing, JB. Trust me. Go help the guys pack up. I’ll just be a minute.”

He hesitates, then walks away from us, but he looks back over his shoulder at her, at me, and what I see is more hurt than hostility.

“When I was a little kid, I had an imaginary friend,” I blurt out. “Her name was Marley. We did everything together. Played games. Read books. I used to set a place for her at the table.”

Marley’s face could be carved from stone for all the softness I see in it.

“When I was a kid, I’d have been beaten half to death over stupidity like an imaginary friend. I made towers out of empty beer cans and stole books from the library. Glad to know I was having fun somewhere.”

The words pulse between us, ugly and full of rage.

“What are you pissed at me for? I didn’t even know you were real.”

“And now you know. What were you expecting? Some sort of happy family reunion?”

“Answers, maybe,” I tell her, which is true, but not the truth. I wanted my sister. I want the imaginary Marley, the one who loved me. The one who knew all the good words and had all the good ideas. The Marley who would know what to do about Mom’s secrets and Dad’s disintegration.