Hard Girls by J. Robert Lennon

Author:J. Robert Lennon [LENNON, J. ROBERT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2024-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

The drama club did three one-act student plays that winter, one of which Lila had written. George told her that this was a rare honor for a sophomore. It was a murder mystery about two sisters, serial killers of rich, abusive men whose alibis depended upon nobody realizing they were twins. Of course they played the twins. The play was a hit, particularly with audience members who didn’t see the twist coming, and even though they were fraternal, not identical. “Close enough, if you’re good enough,” George had told them, “and you are.” He embraced them in the wings on opening night, told them they were “sexy and dangerous.” His hand lingered on Jane’s bare arm—the play had ended with her wearing a black silk négligé that she altered by hand, to meet the principal’s standards for modesty.

George was hot for her. The possibility had occurred to her early in the fall semester. At the time, it disgusted her, but as the semester wore on, she got used to the idea, began to savor it. She thought often of how enraged their mother would be if she ever saw the way George looked at her: intimate, knowing. Understanding had passed between them, and he had judged Jane to be her mother’s superior. “You’re so controlled, so mature,” he’d told her during rehearsals for the one-act, during a smoke break in the parking lot. “You’re not dominated by your emotions. It’s powerful, it’s attractive.”

“Thanks, Georgie,” Jane told him, blowing smoke in his face. “Better not let the other kids hear you say that.”

“They already know you’re the best, and they know I think so.”

“You’re supposed to treat us all like we’re equal.”

“I’m supposed to,” he said. “But you’re not.”

Now, backstage at the one-acts, she realized she wanted to sleep with him. Lila knew immediately. “Oh my god, Jane, no,” she said, as George slunk off and the girls headed for the bathroom to change.

“I’m not going to actually do it.”

“He slept with Mom. And probably Crissy, and Amber. And Sara.”

“Not Sara!”

“No?” Lila said.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe he took what he wanted.”

“Come on, Lila.”

The bathroom was full of girls talking excitedly. Nell Timmons saw them and rolled her eyes. Jane stuck out her tongue at her. “She disappeared from school,” Lila said, her voice low. “Then she moved away, never contacted a single one of us again. What the hell else could have happened?”

Jane shrugged off her costume, pulled on her jeans. “Her dad got a new job, I’m sure.”

“Her mother was the one with the powerful job. I think her dad just worked at the guitar shop.”

“Whatever. She didn’t like us, that’s why she never got in touch. Anyway, don’t worry, I’m not going to bone him, I’m not an idiot.”

Until this point, their parents hadn’t seemed to notice that they were acting in plays. Neither had asked where they were every evening; it was assumed that they had their own lives, their own friends, and didn’t want to be bothered. Their mother had been home since a few days before Christmas, which passed without acknowledgment.

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