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"The blonde one's Mamie, the redhead's Melinda."
"How long have you had them?"
"How old are they? Seven months. Bu they've been with me nine more, so."
"So they were born in... October, right?"
"October eleventh."
A pause.
"This one's got the nose."
"Oh, Watcher. Yeah. I'd hoped it wasn't that obvious."
"It's not really. I just noticed because the other one's nose is smaller." A change in address. "You're gonna have a real fun time in middle school." Back. "I'll beat that fuckwad up. For real."
"Please don't. It's really fine. He sends money. And even if he didn't, we get on comfortably enough. If you run into him somehow just... tell him he's missed."
Another pause.
"So."
"So."
"What've you been up to?"
Grandma Coral and Grandpa Herb give her a car for her eighteenth birthday, which is a gift so extravagantly uncalled-for she can only take it as a hint to leave.
She packs her stuff and what she needs in the dead of night. That early-morning is her first time at a rest stop with fishing gear next to the snacks. She has to spend money on an energy drink to use the bathroom and ask the guy behind the counter how to work a gas pump.
Dirk takes her to a basement wall. His dad used to paint on it, and his mom would watch. Some of his art is still up, good enough to stay uncovered. Pretty, detailed, mural-type stuff. It's safe enough to make a picnic with their fast food, down there. She doesn't know what to paint, so she paints a generic diamond in an un-generic red. Dirk calls it "so deep."
He brings his video camera, she brings her bass. Their first time, the footage is blurry and the audio is stop-and-go, so they try again until the memory card's full.
She sells her box of posters to a group of tryhard poser kids loitering outside a grocery store, even the x-BAND poster with all the autographs that Darren gave her.
For the first time in her life, she knows the location of every item she owns.
Finding someone who needs a roommate is as easy as checking a lamppost. Getting a roommate costs a promise to taxi them around wherever and whenever, barring the work hours she's totally set up to get.
Dirk buys her one of those Love Day bouquets the school's newspaper club sells. Everyone in homeroom sees the delivery girl in the cheap angel wings put it on her desk. She slips a pen drawing of a lounging, lingerie'd freezer bunny into his locker - with some "you don't suck"-style cool platitude in orange highlighter. The next time she stops by, she sees he's hung it up with one of his nice magnets.
She makes some eyeliner money driving the little old man on the first floor to and from his dialysis appointments. Within walking distance of the clinic she finds a record store selling that same old x-BAND poster for ten times the amount she sold her whole box for, except this poster doesn't have the autographs.
She considers shoplifting a new set of bass strings so she can maybe try busking if the weather gets less hostile, but the room is small and so are all of her pockets. She notices the handwritten flyer on the wall and tries not to come off as desperate when she asks if they're hiring bass tutors.
She gets an interview.
She stops wearing the stupid c-shaped paperclip bit she'd been passing off as a nose ring when it becomes clear the illusion only works on people who don't know what a real nose ring looks like.
Darren starts mentioning industry connections - art schools and galleries - during their carpools, since Dirk's late to the party in getting his permit. Dirk doesn't know what he wants to do after school, but he knows he's never getting kicked out of his bedroom, even if he invites a girlfriend to live with him.
Angela stops wearing her cheer uniform on spirit days.
She tunes out all mention of electoral politics wherever and whenever it's playing, but she can't help it if her ears pick up at the sound of her last name.
She switches tampon brands.
One of her coworkers invites her to an actual, genuine, real-life goth club, and she doesn't want to admit that she doesn't know where people get fake IDs, so she says she prefers the intimacy and focus of house parties and concerts.
Despite it all, Lilith can graduate. Not one day of military school or truancy court.
On the first day that Angela's absent, the school secretary calls her to the front desk. She has to pick up three weeks' worth of schoolwork. The entire rest of the year, sorted by class into six thick folders. She has to say that she doesn't live with Angela anymore, and Dustin would be a better option.
She leaves school with the weight of a near-bursting backpack. The folders get to her old house's porch.
One of her coworkers invites her to a houseparty on the condition that she drives a few other guests. She doesn't speak a word to her carpoolmates other than the requisite names and confirmations to make sure they are them and she is her. They agree without her to meet back outside at 1:30 am even if they're staying over or going home with someone else, for safety.
The music inside is strange and kind of annoying, and she wonders if this was what her dad heard from the other side of the wall.
She watches a guy do tattoos in the kitchen, where the light's good enough to actually make out people's faces. He's goat a good stack of cash going. There's a lull in business during a particularly danceable string of songs, so she asks if she can do something on herself. Just a little one. He checks she's not tipsy and gives her a new pair of latex gloves. She inks a little skull by her left ankle, with devil horns. He calls it "not bad for a first try."
The fights with Dirk start soon after. He doesn't deserve it. It's not his fault that every time things are really looking up for one twin, the other has to suffer. It's not his fault that every time one twin is suffering, things usually start to look up for the other.
She joins a protest against some new tough-on-crime policy, and shouts from the sidewalk while those on the street are taken away. She'd join them, but it's her turn to clean the bathroom tomorrow.
For the first time in her life, for some reason, she celebrates Lunar New Year. It's by herself, but she has good takeout. And red makeup, at least.
She stops getting chances to talk to Darren. It's for the best. She doesn't want to see him see her. Grandma Coral and Grandpa Herb see more of her. They don't get her. They've never seen anyone cooler or more out-of-control than her. They wouldn't know good art if it threw up on their socks. No one but her ever sees the truth of things until it's old news. They think everything's fine when it's not and everything's a mess when it's great. When she leaves, when she's not the angriest teenage girl in town anymore, they'll see. Maybe. Or maybe their brains will be to fossilized for that, but she'll know, she'll see.
She gets kicked out of the building. The vandalism fine's too much.
So, she goes back to Pleasantview.
And there she is.
"Lilith."
"Hey."
Angela's built a little house near the beach. The least luxurious building on that side of town, but it has gables and lace curtains and spring yellow siding and a yard big enough for a garden and blanket. All that and no driveway. Maybe she thought they would grow apart in age, like that hypothetical with the high-speed rocket. Angela had been all set for Sim State. Tri-Val. But she's still what she sees in the mirror before eyeliner, after concealer. She still looks just about as old as her. Though it's hard not to look older when you're sitting next to a couple of babies.
They don't have any inside jokes, or a cute little tradition to do when they see each other after a while apart.
The blonde one makes noises and tries to reach out for her, though.
The fence gate's lock is broken.