MONDAY
It all started the way it all started. There was a tiny matter. And then it exploded.
Fig had gotten an A on her Big Bang diorama, so even though her fifth-grade science unit had been vague on a lot of details, she knew enough to know they were in really deep trouble.
Right before what happened happened, back when they were a hot, tiny ball of dense singularity, Fig’s family was just a family. Maybe people would guess that Fig and Jack left school in a limousine to eat lunch at a fancy restaurant every day and rode horses in their backyard and lived in a giant mansion, but really they went to school in a normal car and ate lunch in the cafeteria and lived in a regular-sized house.
Fig had never ridden a horse.
Fig’s mother was famous, but she wasn’t horses-in-your-backyard famous. And Fig and Jack didn’t go to summer camp. Fig’s therapist made her keep a list of things that scared her, and it included roasting marshmallows over a campfire, singing songs around a campfire, and scooting close to a campfire to avoid mosquitoes. Since most camp activities seemed to involve fire, Fig had nowhere to learn to ride a horse.
It was strange, given what had happened to them and given that they were twins, that Jack didn’t mind fire. He also didn’t mind other things people might not like about camp, like never taking a shower and whatever bug juice was. But Fig knew Jack wasn’t sad about not going to camp and staying home with her instead. She and her brother didn’t always like each other, but they did always like to be together rather than apart.
Being apart was on both of their lists of scary things.
Scientists—or at least Fig’s science teacher—did not know what caused the Big Bang, but they did know that billions of trillions of unlikely factors had to be exactly right for it to occur. If it had been fall or winter or spring, Fig and Jack would probably have been at school. If Fig hadn’t been afraid of fire, they would probably have been at camp. If she didn’t have to share a phone with her brother or even if it had been her turn or especially if Fig had been a different kind of ten-year-old, she might not have been reading the newspaper that morning. But none of those ifs came true. So conditions were unlikely, but unfortunately perfect, for their entire lives to explode.
1998
Whereas for Fig’s mother it all began, quite a bit after the birth of the universe, with Guys and Dolls.
India Allwood had been smart and well-read, even as a seven-year-old. Skipping second grade was fine when everyone else was eight or nine, but when middle school started she was only ten and a boy at her bus stop was already shaving. At least, he said he was. At school, girls she had once been friends with made fun of India’s teeth and boobs, some of which were too prominent, others not prominent enough, and how she didn’t have a father and her clothes and hair were both hopeless and her name was a country.
India’s mother’s teeth, hair, and boobs were fine, so India was hopeful that hers were merely still in progress. Her father hadn’t left them, which would maybe have been embarrassing, but had in fact never been anything more than a first-names-only fling at a work conference. It’s not like he took off because India’s breasts weren’t in yet. The right clothes maybe were cool but definitely were ugly, and she was willing to take a hit to her popularity to avoid a crocheted sweater vest every time.
But her name was her mother’s fault, and India held it against her.
To make India feel better, her mother bought tickets for them to see Guys and Dolls. India’s mother was named after the female lead, Sergeant Sarah Brown. The “Sergeant” part made the character sound like a badass, but she was actually a missionary with the world’s most boring name. India’s mother’s point was that she had gone the creative route and ensured no daughter of hers would get stuck with a boring name, and India should be grateful. This was not the point India took, however. She started crying when the curtain went up and cried straight through until it came back down again.
“You’re more congested than Miss Adelaide,” her mother observed on the way home. Miss Adelaide had a song in act one where she argued that her cold was caused by her boyfriend’s unwillingness to marry her.
“That was amazing!” ten-year-old India gushed. “So so soooo amazing.”
“That your grandparents could have named me Adelaide—interesting!—but instead went with boring old Sarah?”
“That’s what I’m going to do when I grow up,” India said. “That’s the only thing I want to do.”
“Run a gambling ring?”
“Be onstage.”
“Gambling’s more lucrative,” her mother warned. “And has better odds.”
“I have seen the future.”
“If that’s what you want—” her mother began.
“Not what I want,” India corrected. “When you see the future, it’s not what you want to happen. It’s what will happen. I am going to be a Broadway star. For sure.”
“Then you should thank me.” It hadn’t been her mother’s point, but she took it. “India Allwood is a great stage name. It’s a name people will remember.”
She had no idea.
MONDAY
“By the time we’re adults,” Fig was sorry to report from behind the unfortunate newspaper, “it’s going to be like eleven white guys with all the money.”
“I’m a guy!” Jack cheered. “I’m not white but—”
“All the natural resources will be gone. No rain forests. No trees. No clean water. Wildfires.”
“This is why I said no to the paper.” Their mother reached over and plucked it from her hands.
“Censorship!” Fig shrieked.
“The news is too old for you.”
“I’ll be circumcised.”
“Circumspect. And still no.”
“Just the Arts section?” Fig grabbed it from the bottom of the pile on the kitchen table without waiting for an answer. Then she read the very top headline. Then she folded up the whole section and sat on it.
“What are you doing?” Jack said out of the side of his mouth.
“Hiding the newspaper from Mom,” Fig said out of the side of hers.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Jack whispered.
Their mother stood in front of Fig with her hand out. “Give it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t circumcised enough.”
“Don’t worry about it,” their mother said.
Fig broke the news to Jack. “AHAM hated Mom’s movie.”
“A ham hated your movie?”
Fig knew a sentence teachers often began about her brother but never finished was Jack is not unintelligent but.
“Not a ham,” she said. “AHAM. Adoptee Healing and Mediation.”
Their mom’s new movie was called Flower Child. It was about a woman who got pregnant when she was a teenager and had to give her baby up for adoption. Their mom’s role was the woman twenty years later. She was still really sad about it. The baby wasn’t a baby anymore, but she was also really sad about it. This caused them both to do a lot of drugs. The article said AHAM said, on various social medias Fig and Jack were not allowed to look at, that the movie was inaccurate and offensive and they hated it.
“That’s mean,” said Jack.
“They’re angry,” Mom said. “It’s okay to be angry.”
“They’re most mad about the ending.” Fig read the rest of the article. “They didn’t like the big coincidence where the characters go to the same drug rehab program and get cured and live happily ever after.”
“I liked the ending,” Jack said. They had been to a special screening for families and VIPs a month earlier. There had been one of those hot fudge volcano machines.
“Me too,” said Fig. “They figured out they were mom and baby. They got off drugs and found health and happiness together instead.”
“That’s the problem,” their mom said.
“They overcame their problems.”
“Not their problem. AHAM’s problem. They wish the characters in the movie hadn’t gotten over their trauma and anger so easily.”
“They wanted more trauma and anger?”
“They wanted us to acknowledge that some people have good reasons to be angry. Remember how my character didn’t want to place the baby for adoption, but that doctor made her? Remember how the family the baby grew up with wasn’t very nice to her?”
Fig nodded. It was a sad movie.
“Real people would probably have a tough time finding their happy ending from there. AHAM wanted us to show that trauma like that is hard to move past.”
“Why didn’t you?” Jack said.
“One”—their mother started counting off on her fingers—“I didn’t write it. Two, I didn’t direct it. Three, movies are short.”
“So is Fig,” said Jack.
“Sometimes I wish I had an identical twin,” said Fig, “instead of an infernal one.”
“Fraternal,” said her mother.
“I was doing wordplay.”
“You only get about one hundred twenty minutes for a movie,” their mother said. “Sometimes you spend too many on the juicy bits, and then there isn’t enough time to fully explore the nuances of getting over them.”
“So they’re right?” said Fig.
“Not right. Not wrong. Mad and sad. That’s okay. Sometimes people are mad and sad.”
“What do we do?”
“Let them have their say, express their concerns. Listen. Learn something if possible.”
“They’re using capital letters.” Jack was looking at the social medias, even though they weren’t allowed. “That means yelling.”
But their mother wasn’t worried. “Ignore them and they’ll go away.”
That was when the tiny matter started drawing together and heating up.
It had been a long time since Fig’s mother had taken fifth-grade science, though, so that was probably why she didn’t notice.
Copyright © 2024 by Laurie Frankel
