Between Sisters

Meghann huddled closer to Claire, holding her baby sister tightly. Mama stumbled into the trailer’s small, cluttered living room, wearing a clinging red-sequined dress with silver fringe and clear plastic shoes.

“I’ve brought Mr. Mason home with me. I met him at the Wild Beaver. You girls be nice to him now,” she said in that boozy, lilting voice that meant she’d wake up mean.

Meghann knew she had to act fast. With a man in the trailer, Mama wouldn’t be able to think about much else, and the rent was long past due. She reached down for the wrinkled copy of Variety that she’d stolen from the local library. “Mama?”

Mama lit up a menthol cigarette and took a long drag. “What is it?”

Meghann thrust out the magazine. She’d outlined the ad in red ink. It read: Mature actress sought for small part in science fiction television series. Open call. Then the address in Los Angeles.

Mama read the ad out loud. Her smile froze in place at the words mature actress. After a long, tense moment, she laughed and gave Mr. Mason a little shove toward the bedroom. When he went into the room and closed the door behind him, Mama knelt down and opened her arms. “Give Mama a hug. ”

Meghann and Claire flew into her embrace. They waited days for a moment like this, sometimes weeks. Mama could be cold and distracted, but when she turned on the heat of her love, it warmed you to the bone.

“Thank you, Miss Meggy. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ll surely try out for that part. Now, you two scamper off and stay out of trouble. I’ve got some entertaining to do. ”

Mama had read for the role, all right. To her—and everyone else’s—amazement she’d nailed the audition. Instead of winning the small part she’d gone up for, she’d won the starring role of Tara Zyn, the space station’s microbotanist.

It had been the beginning of the end.

Meghann sighed. She didn’t want to think about the week Mama had gone to Los Angeles and left her daughters alone in that dirty trailer . . . or the changes that had come afterward. Meghann and Claire had never really been sisters since.

Beside her, the phone rang. It was jarringly loud in the silence. Meghann pounced on it, eager to talk to anyone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Meggy, it’s me. Your mama. How are you, darlin’?”

Meg rolled her eyes at the accent. She should have let the answering machine pick up. “I’m fine, Mama. And you?”

“Couldn’t be better. The Fan-ference was this weekend. I have a few photos left over. I thought y’might like a signed one for your collection. ”

“No thanks, Mama. ”

“I’ll have m’houseboy send you one. Lordy, I signed s’many autographs, my fingers ache. ”

Meghann had been to one of the Starbase IV Fan Conference weekends. One had been enough. Hundreds of starry-eyed geeks in cheap polyester costumes, clamoring for photographs with a bunch of has-beens and never-really-weres. Mama was the only cast member who’d had a career since the show was canceled, and it wasn’t much. A few bad made-for-TV movies in the eighties and a cult horror classic in the late nineties. It was reruns that had made her rich and famous. A whole new generation of nerds had latched on to the old show. “Well, your fans love you. ”

“Thank God for small miracles. It surely is nice to talk to you, Meggy. We should do it more often. Y’all should come down and visit me. ”

Mama always said that. It was part of the script. A way to pretend they were something they weren’t—family.

It was understood that she didn’t mean it.

Still . . .

Meghann took a deep breath. Don’t do it. You’re not that desperate.

But she couldn’t sit alone in this condo for three weeks. “I’m taking a vacation,” she said in a rush. “Maybe I could come stay with you. ”

“Oh. That would be . . . fine. ” Mama exhaled heavily; Meghann swore she could smell smoke coming through the phone. “Maybe this Christmas—”

“Tomorrow. ”

“Tomorrow?” Mama laughed. “Honey, I’ve got a photographer from People magazine comin’ over at three o’clock, and at my age I wake up lookin’ like one o’ those hairless dogs. It takes ten women all day to make me beautiful. ”

Her accent was getting pronounced. That always happened when her emotions were strong. Meghann wanted to hang up, say forget it, but when she looked around her empty, photo-free apartment, she felt almost sick. “How about Monday, then? Just for a few days. Maybe we could go to a spa. ”

“Don’t you ever watch the E! channel? I’m leavin’ for Cleveland on Monday. I’m doin’ Shakespeare in some park with Pamela Anderson and Charlie Sheen. Hamlet. ”

“You? You’re doing Shakespeare?”