Violet and Daisy by Sarah Miller

Author:Sarah Miller [Miller, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2021-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Now that they were in charge of their own lives, the Hiltons had to learn to harmonize in new ways. There were more opportunities than ever for their wishes and desires to differ. As they had done for so many years already, Violet and Daisy managed to unite two opposing qualities into a surprisingly cohesive whole: compromise and independence.

“In almost all human relationships,” they said, “friendship, love, marriage, even business, one person rules. In our relations, neither dominates.” That was true in the sense that neither bullied the other. Compromise remained a solemn point of honor between them. From the outside, though, it was apparent that Violet had the more forceful personality. She was the one who was apt to take charge. Daisy, despite her impulsiveness, had always been the more docile, the more naturally inclined to comply with another’s wishes for the sake of smooth sailing. Yet Violet did not have free rein to pull Daisy along any way she pleased. “When we were eight years old,” Daisy said, “we shook hands and decided that neither one would make any decisions that the other was against.” Though she did not exercise it as often, Daisy always had the right to object, as did Violet. Rarely did one flat-out refuse to accommodate the other. “We just saw that tolerance would be absolutely necessary if we were to have any happiness at all in life,” Daisy explained. If she wanted to go shopping, for instance, and Violet had a headache, Violet made a promise to go the next day. “Having once given her my word, nothing will stop me—at least, nothing has,” Violet said.

They had always thought of themselves as distinct individuals. “All this talk about ‘identical’ twins is just bosh,” they insisted in spite of their undeniable physical resemblance, “because we’ve never liked the same things—food, clothes, or people.” Now they could indulge in new ways of proving that point. They began experimenting frequently with different hair colors, dousing their “horrible brown” with shades of red and auburn. Platinum blond became Daisy’s habitual favorite, while Violet grew partial to black. Offstage, they quickly abandoned the habit of dressing identically, as outward evidence that “each of us has an individual personality.” Their reading habits were just as polarized. Violet leaned toward “sweet romantic stories”; her books were nothing but “trash,” according to Daisy, who favored “sophisticated literature.” Both of them continued to relish a steady diet of detective and crime stories, though their tastes in plots and authors diverged predictably—old-fashioned stories for Violet and modern ones for Daisy. The one thing that required mutual agreement was going to the movies. If there wasn’t a picture both sisters were interested in, they didn’t go at all. “It’s a big bore to sit through a movie you don’t want to see,” Violet said.

With freedom came the opportunity to exert deeper, more substantial independence from each other. “So we decided early on that each would make her private life her own,” Daisy said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.