propped on the bridge of her nose, string bikini showing off every inch of her tan, stroll along the edge of the swimming pool. She kicked out a lounge chair, away from the overhang and shade of the eucalyptus tree, then plopped down just as Maggie’s lungs, burning from her length of time under the water, forced her to swim frantically upward. Shooting through the surface, Maggie gasped, gulped in air, and tossed her wet hair out of her eyes.
“What are you doing?” her twin asked, the corners of her mouth turned down in flat-out disapproval.
“What does it look like? Underwater laps.”
“Why?”
“I’m gonna try out for the swim team.”
“Again?” Mary Theresa sighed dramatically and dabbed at the corner of her mouth where a canker sore dared show on her lips. “You know you’re not going to make it. Just like the last time you tried out when we were in high school. Junior college will be lots tougher.”
“But I talked to the coach. So did Mitch.”
Mary Theresa’s pouty little mouth acted as if it had been drawn together by purse strings, and she swatted at a bee that buzzed near her head. “You asked Mitchell to put in a good word for you?”
“Yeah.”
“With the women’s coach at the college?” Mary Theresa asked, as if Maggie was dense as tar.
Maggie flipped onto her back and started swimming backward. She didn’t need any of Mary Theresa’s crap. Not today. “Uh-huh.”
“Will wonders never cease?”
“What’s it to you?” Maggie knew she shouldn’t let Mary Theresa get to her, but she couldn’t help it. Mary Theresa had become more and more distant and it seemed to have started three or four years ago, about the time her sister’s breasts had developed into “round, ripe melons,” as Billy Norton had been so proud of saying when they’d all been in the eighth grade. Billy was a pimply-faced geek whose talent for math made him think he was God’s gift to teachers and all females on this earth.
“Your sister has the biggest tits in the whole damned school, and that includes Mrs. Nelson, so what happened to you?” He’d looked to his circle of friends for some support as they’d stood in the hallway near the library. It was just after lunch about two days before they’d graduated from George Washington Junior High. The other boys had sniggered loudly, but had been blessed with enough decency to look embarrassed. “I thought you were supposed to be identical twins.” Billy was always persistent.
“And I thought you were supposed to be smart. You figure it out,” she’d retorted angrily, though she’d been dying inside and had wanted to drop through the stain-covered carpeted floor. What was it about boys that found a girl’s breasts so fascinating? It was as if they’d been weaned too early and were, ever since, dying for a peek, or touch, or even grosser yet, a taste of some girl’s tits. The bigger, the better.
“You’re just jealous ’cause you got sold short,” he’d hooted.
“Tell me about it,” she’d said, then narrowed her gaze on his oversize shorts in the area where his alleged male anatomy had been hidden. She’d breezed off, wounded on the inside, her cheeks burning, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Around the corner she made a mad dash to the bathroom, where it took almost ten minutes to regain her composure. By the time she’d returned to the library, class had started. All the kids, sitting in their seats, had stared at her as she’d taken the only desk left, in the front of the room.
Mrs. Brady didn’t ask any questions, just scribbled on a yellow pad, and handed Maggie a copy without so much as faltering over one single syllable as she ranted on and on about the new computer system the school was supposed to get—if there was enough funding, of course. Money was tight in all the public schools, but Mrs. Brady was ever-hopeful. Maggie had clutched the tardy slip in her sweaty fingers, slunk to the desk, and prayed for the humiliating day to be over.
“Hey, what’s the difference between Maggie Reilly and a singer who’s off-key?” Billy had whispered loud enough for her to hear. She felt hot tears glistening in her eyes.
No one answered, and Maggie hardly dared breathe.
“Nothin’,” Billy said under his breath. “They’re both flat.”
More nervous chuckles. Maggie snapped her pencil in two. Mrs. Brady’s eyes, behind the shield of thick glasses, narrowed on Billy. A tear drizzled from Maggie’s eye, and she brushed it angrily aside before enduring the longest forty minutes of her life.
In the end, because of the tardy slip, she’d had to suffer through work detail, cleaning the hallways of litter before she’d been allowed to graduate.
Billy Norton hadn’t been one to let sleeping dogs lie. He’d found out what day her work detail was scheduled and, knowing she would have to clean it up, had spread the remains of his lunch—an uneaten sloppy joe and french fries drizzled in catsup—on the floor. To add insult to injury, he’d also filled a condom that was probably way too big for him with meat from his sloppy joe, then left the ugly mess in the hallway by the seventh-grade stairs. He and his gang had gotten away scot-free while Maggie had to pick up the icky thin sheath and discard it, along with the rest of the garbage, into a big plastic bag.
All because she had been blessed with smaller boobs than Mary Theresa.
What a joke.
Now, as she stroked easily backward through the sun-warmed water, she told herself not to let Mary Theresa bug her. Lately Mary had been edgy, restless, and secretive. Several times Maggie had come upon her sister and cousin Mitch, whom her parents had adopted before the twins had been born and after his mother had died. They just hung out watching TV or listening to tapes of the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. They’d been laughing and talking, pushing each other. Upon spying Maggie, they’d both shut up, smiled falsely, and acted like stone statues. They pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary when there were all sorts of weird vibes sizzling through the air.
It was as if Maggie was suddenly the outsider, when, for most of her time on this earth, she and Mary Theresa had considered Mitch a pain in the butt—the one member of their family who hadn’t fit in.
Mitch had worked hard to foster that separateness, not wanting his younger, dweeby cousins-cum-sisters anywhere near him from the time he’d entered kindergarten. He’d acted as if Maggie and Mary Theresa were strychnine, and his attitude had only gotten worse as the years rolled on.
When the girls had been in second grade, their mother insisted that he walk them to school. He’d grudgingly agreed, as he’d had no choice in the matter, but the minute they turned the corner and were out of view from the kitchen window, he’d ditched them and sworn he’d “beat the shit” out of them if either twin had the guts to rat him out to their parents.
“He’s a jerk,” Mary Theresa had decided.
“Who needs him?” Maggie had preferred to walk to school on her own anyway. “He’s just a pain.”
Mitch had gone to great lengths to show his disdain of the girls. He’d laughed at them with his friends, shown Maggie’s diary to anyone who wanted a peek, and put locks on the door of his room to make sure they wouldn’t violate his privacy and sanctuary.
But now things had changed. Mitch’s animosity
