“Why are we spending our birthday in Grassley?” I whined abruptly. “I have loads of money, and we’re twenty-one. We should go to Atlantic City!”
“Nah. Let’s go to Vegas. I’ve always wanted to go to Vegas.”
“You have?” I immediately started to plot how I could get us there as soon as possible.
“Yeah, I have.” Minnie nodded thoughtfully. “I want to dance in one of those shows where the girls wear feathers on their heads—”
“And nothing on their chests?” I interrupted, sitting up so I could grin down into her face.
“I think it would be very freeing!” Minnie protested. “Just dancing and kicking my legs—”
“And shaking your ta tas,” I interrupted again and jumped up on the bed, kicking and shimmying and bouncing her around.
“Everyone looks exactly alike under all that makeup and all that bling. Nobody would know which boobs were mine.” She giggled, flailing helplessly as I jumped as high as I could.
“I would! Your boobs look just like mine!” I shrieked, laughing.
“Ha! Not anymore.” Minnie lifted up her shirt and looked down at her shrunken chest, and I stopped jumping, my legs suddenly weak, my laughter gone. I fell down beside her on the bed, horrified and grief-stricken and unable to hide my reaction. I looked at her. At all of her. And I saw what I’d been refusing to see. She was right. Her br**sts looked nothing like mine. Her body looked nothing like mine. Even her face, impossibly angular with her weight loss, looked different from mine. And I wanted to cover my eyes and break every mirror so I could keep the image of us the way we were fresh in my mind. She was being ripped from me, piece by piece.
“Minnie. Oh, Minnie May.” I put my arms around her, and I couldn’t stop the tears. “I’ll take you to Vegas, baby. I’ll take you when your ta tas grow back, and you and I will dance topless with feathers and high heels, and Gran will be so scandalized.”
Minnie didn’t cry with me—she just let me hold her, and she laid her head on my shoulder as I rubbed her back.
“She’ll be scandalized. But if we’re any good, she’ll be the first to call the press. Anonymously of course,” Minnie whispered, and I laughed wetly, the truth simultaneously hilarious and tragic. Minnie let me hold her for a few minutes longer, and then she pulled away and met my eyes seriously. Hopefully.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Bonnie Rae. I actually feel pretty good. You’ll see. I’m getting better. The next time you come to Grassley, I’ll have the biggest boobs you’ve ever seen. You’ve got Dolly hair, but I’ll have Dolly boobs. And I forbid you to get them too. No twinner boobs! I want everyone to be looking at me and only me when we go to Vegas.”
I would be in Vegas tomorrow. And Minnie wouldn’t be with me. I wouldn’t be dancing topless with a feathered headdress alongside my sister. I would be dancing sister-less, like a feather in the wind, a spinning top, the world around me like a colorful stream of nothing.
I closed my eyes, suddenly impossibly dizzy. And Finn reached out and touched my face.
“Where did you go, Bonnie Rae?” he said softly.
“What do you mean?” I liked the way his fingers felt on my skin and leaned into his palm. The dizziness abated instantly.
“Sometimes you’re right there, right on the surface, full of life and so crazy and beautiful that it makes me ache.”
His deep voice was melancholy, and I hated that I had caused it.
“Then there are times, days like today,” he continued softly, “when you’re buried deep, and your beautiful face is just a house where you live. But the lights aren’t on, and the windows and doors are locked down tight. I know you’re in there, but I’m not with you. Maybe Minnie’s with you. But I don’t think so. You’re alone. And I wish you would let me in.”
I climbed over the space between our seats and slid into his lap, laying my head on his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could, breathing him in. I lifted the blinds on my metaphorical house, the one he described so well, and I gave him a glimpse inside. He continued driving, left arm wrapped around me, right arm on the wheel, and he settled his lips on my forehead.
“Our birthday is tomorrow,” I said, placing my mouth by his ear so I didn’t have to speak up. “Sometimes I miss her so much, that dark corners and locked doors are all I can manage.”
“Ah, Bonnie. I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Are birthdays hard for you too?” I asked.
“Fisher and I were born two hours apart. Fish was born first, on August 7th, at around eleven pm. I was born on August 8th, a little after one am. So we each have our own birthday. But, yeah. Birthdays suck.” Finn was silent for several heartbeats. “So when you’re sad like this . . . and quiet, it’s because of Minnie?”
“Today is hard because I’m thinking about tomorrow. And I’m thinking about what I’ve lost. But I had days like this even before Minnie died. Days I just checked out. Gran says it’s just the blues. Everybody gets the blues. Maybe that’s all they are. But they feel more like grays than blues, and more black than gray sometimes. It’s always worse after I’ve been working too hard, singing night after night, pouring myself out all over the stage so people can lap me up. I love it, the singing, the performing, the people, the music, but sometimes I forget to save something . . . the something that is essentially me, and my light goes out. Sometimes it takes a while to get it burning again.”