He bristles. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Another shrug. “You’re a writer. Writers make stuff up for a living.”
“Or they highlight the truth in subversive ways.”
She turns and gives him a mocking look. “That what you’re doing here? Being truthful and subversive?”
He smiles. He can’t help it; she’s so wildly inappropriate. She reminds him a little of Linda. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Did your editor send you? Or did Hal send you?”
He stares at her a long moment, trying in vain to read her shielded eyes. “Is that it? You’ve got a thing for Hal?”
“Do you?” she counters.
He stubs his cigarette out on the sole of his shoe and then tucks the butt into his pocket. “I asked you first,” he says, heart pounding.
Tara shrugs. “Nah. That’s my little sister. She wants to have his babies and shit.”
Luke laughs, but it’s hollow.
“What?” she says.
“Nothing. Just noticing the family resemblance.”
She frowns, starts to say something, but the door behind them opens.
Sandy pokes her head through. “Hal’s back,” she says. And then: “Oh, T, you’re awake. Breakfast?”
“Sure, Mom.” Tara flicks the cig down into the roses and sighs again.
~*~
In the kitchen, Matthew Maddox and Hal chug down bottles of lime green Gatorade, glistening with sweat in the lamplight and early morning sunlight. Dawn has come, and it creeps through the windows in sneaky white folds.
Someone new – the other daughter, it must be – sits at Luke’s abandoned place at the breakfast bar, daintily eating pancakes and staring at Hal. It’s obvious, as is always the case with enraptured teenagers and the objects of their affections.
If Hal notices, he hides it well. “Hey,” he says to Luke, grinning, and slings a sweaty towel at him from around his shoulders. “Making headway?”
The towel slaps against his face with a wet sound; it stinks of Hal and fresh sweat, and he frowns more than he ought to. “Ugh.” When Sandy reaches to take it from him, he hands it over. “Not really, no.”
The girl turns around on the stool, and presents a rounder, softer, cleaner version of her older sister’s face. She smiles and says, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Luke returns, because how can he not?
“Luke,” Sandy says, “this is our younger daughter, Madison.” In a wry voice, she says, “I see Tara’s already introduced herself.”
“Only sort of,” Tara says, sliding onto the stool beside her sister and nicking an orange from the bowl on the counter.
“Tara, eat real food,” Sandy says.
“I hate real food.”
“How’s Dad behaving himself,” Matt asks, scrubbing his damp hair with a white towel of his own.
“Uh…” Luke says, because apparently he’s too much of an idiot to have come up with a plausible lie.
Matt makes a face. “Yeah, I figured. He takes a while to warm up to people, so don’t be too discouraged. I’m sure he’ll be much more talkative tomorrow morning.”
