End of Day (Jack & Jill 1)

McGraw shook his head. “Enough, you two misfit psychos. Out! Good riddance. Utilities are due on the fifteenth. I’d say try to stay alive, but you’re not the ones I should be concerned about. So don’t kill anyone but yourselves.”

The Knights stepped out of the vehicle that sped away the moment their doors slammed shut. They stood in the two-stall driveway, making a 360-degree survey of their new neighborhood: grey cookie cutter homes in groups of two and three, each with a small, staked maple tree in the front yard.

In that moment they were reborn.

“Kansas?” Jackson asked.

“Omaha … Nebraska.” Jillian nudged his shoulder, a snicker vibrating from her chest.

“The Cornhusker State?”

“Yes.”

“Warren Buffet?”

“Yes.”

“Malcolm X?”

“I don’t know, Jack. You’re the geek.”

He looked down at her, pushing his Clark Kent glasses high on his nose. She ripped them off his face and snapped them in two.

“What the hell?”

Jillian tossed them over her shoulder. “You have twenty-twenty vision, and if I have to give up my everything, it’s not going to be to stare at you in geek glasses that make me want to punch you squarely between the eyes.”

The bitter sister with a penchant for snark opened the front door to their three-bedroom fully furnished ranch. “Yeah, no one will ever find us here. After all, who voluntarily enters the gates of Hell? I bet the bathroom is wheelchair accessible.”

Jackson feathered his hand along the floral wallpaper that plastered every inch of drywall like geriatric graffiti in the story-and-a-half great room. Jillian eyed the polished brass fixtures, none more nauseating than the gaudy crystal chandelier over the dining room table.

“McGraw is going to die.”

Jackson nodded. “I won’t be getting laid here anytime soon.”

“Not unless she’s blind. Then again, I think you could manage to get laid in the front pew of a Baptist church during communion.” Jillian wrinkled her nose, walking toward the master bedroom. “It even smells like old people.”

“And what is that smell?”

The bedroom was a replica of a 1980’s Motel 6 room, complete with a dusty rose bedspread and a brass-framed knockoff of Monet’s Blue Water Lilies over the white wicker headboard.

“You know … Bengay and carnations.”

“What’s in the garage?” Jackson walked past her.

“I told McGraw a Harley Davidson for me and something sophisticated like a BMW or Mercedes for you. I miss my bike, I miss …”

Jackson turned, giving her a sad smile. “It’s okay. I miss Dad too. He would be pleased to see that your love for his hobby was genuine.”

Jillian nodded as he opened the door to the garage and flipped the switch for the florescent lights that flickered in protest with their last bit of life.

“So. Fucking. Dead.”

Jillian squeezed past him. “Oh God.”

“Yup.” Jackson chuckled until it grew into a full-out hysteria-filled laugh.

She didn’t share his humor. Her eyes flitted with disbelief between the pink Vespa with a cream seat and chrome mirrors and the eggplant PT Cruiser with wood panels.

“I’m calling him Woody.” Jackson opened the driver’s door and slid down into the tan leather seat, hands clenching the steering wheel. “You should call your motorcycle Candy.”

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “It’s not a motorcycle and you know it. I wouldn’t be caught dead on this thing.” She made a full-circle inspection without touching it. Jackson and his friends used to call her a tomboy because she liked motorcycles and tools. She hated that stereotype. There was something in between a frilly girly girl and a tomboy. Jillian called it badass sexy.

Jackson climbed out, shut the door, and leaned back against Woody, arms crossed over his chest. “I think not being caught dead is the point.”

She riffled through the contents of the red, five-drawer Craftsman tool chest she requested. “No, the point is to fit in, not look like a Mary Kay consultant.”

“I think they drive Cadillacs.”

The daughter with her father’s temper slammed the drawers shut and balled her hands at her hips. “Look at us.” Her emotions warred between laughing and crying, but Jillian Knight didn’t cry, or maybe she did. She didn’t know this Jillian woman well enough to say for sure. Years of repressing her true feelings and hiding any weaknesses had left her emotionally disoriented.

“It all sounded so easy. New identities, new appearances, new location, new professions. But I can’t … I can’t let go of that life. Thirty years. It’s too much to just forget in six months. Hell, it’s too much to forget in a lifetime.”

Jackson shared a pained smile. “You don’t have to forget, but you do have to let it go. Those caskets … they represent that life. It’s dead, but we’re not. We have each other. I still get to look at you and see my sister, and that’s enough for me to move on.”

“How can you look at me and see anything? Have you looked in the mirror? You have a disturbing mess of dark hair sprouting from your head with gel in it. You haven’t had hair in over a decade. And this…” she held her long platinum blond hair out from her ear “…my IQ went down ten points in one hour at the salon.”