1 Hi, I’m Orie, And
DAY 1
I am on a beach in Fiji about to be voluntarily marooned on an island to prove a point.
I’m here alone. I don’t do things alone. I don’t take pictures alone. I don’t eat alone. I don’t go to the movies alone. I barely shower alone—my dog insists on being in the room with me.
The producer examines the orange clipboard she’s holding. Wild red hair billows around her face, tangling in her headset. A cameraman looms over her shoulder, his giant professional-grade lens aimed straight at my face. I shift over the rock I’ve been positioned on. I’m so anxious, I can’t feel my hands. I keep looking down to make sure they’re still there. (They are.)
Yes, I auditioned for this. But did I think it would actually pan out? No. Not in a million years. Why would it? Nothing else in my life has. I thought I would fall madly in love with my best friend and get married straight out of high school. I thought I would be excited to graduate college. I thought AcroYoga would just be a fun activity I do to spend time with my sister. I thought by this point I’d be … living happily ever after.
I’ve always pictured Happily Ever After as a linear spectrum, and somehow, I’d deluded myself into thinking I was feet away from the finish line. If you stand at Happily Ever After, spin around, and squint really hard, I’m that moving dot in the distance you can’t quite make out, waving frantically from atop a rock in the middle of the ocean. Happily Ever After is a space station, and I’m Blake Lively in that random movie with the shark.
I’m supposed to introduce myself to the camera when I’m ready. I’m still debating what to say. Hi, I’m Orie, and I spent the last ten days alone in a hotel room, scream-singing pop punk songs from 2004.
The films I grew up on make weaving a happy life look so much easier than it actually is. The random person the protagonist bumps into within the first twenty minutes is always their perfect match, and within two hours, all their problems are solved, and would you look at that, they’re also getting married. I spent my childhood striving for that. I consciously placed myself in a romance trope. I followed the beats. It didn’t work.
2 Lectures with Lark
DAY −90 | THREE MONTHS EARLIER
The screech is out of my control. It spews out of me like steam from a screaming teapot. I’m possessed by pure, unadulterated, body-function-freezing terror for twenty-three seconds before my mom comes tearing down the stairs and bursts into my bathroom.
“Jesus, Orie, where is it?” she bleats, exhausted.
I point to where the evil, possibly blood-sucking demon spider is hovering over the toilet, waiting to drop down and murder me when I least expect it.
My mom grabs two tissues and smashes it midair before the thing even registers the need to flee. I exhale, my hands falling from their en garde positions, smashing up against my cheeks à la Home Alone.
“Thank you,” I squeak.
Mom sighs, drops the carcass in the toilet, and flushes it. “You have to stop doing that.”
“You don’t understand. They’re out to get me, Mother.” I watch as she instinctively starts picking up in here, refolding my towel, straightening out my various skin products. “They have an elaborate plan to steal my firstborn child, turn her against me, and send her back to kill me in my sleep.”
“The spiders want your specific child?” She’s crouched next to the tub now, going through my shower products, shaking them to see what’s empty that she can purge from the area.
I lean against the sink. “Yeah, they left a threatening note in the shower steam once. They’re very impressed with my AcroYoga. A child with my skills could be the new Spider-Man.”
Mom smiles, chucks an old bottle of conditioner into the trash, and stands up. “Well, you don’t have any children, so there’s nothing to fear.”
She walks out of the bathroom. I follow her into the den where she folds the blanket sprawled out on the couch.
“They’re on a quest to lay eggs in my makeup. It’s an elaborate plot to gain access to my insides and control me via my organs like kids do in the biology episodes of cartoons.”
“What if the makeup eggs turn you into Spider-Man?” She artfully drapes the blanket and heads into my room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom. They would never give me that kind of advantage. They wish me compromised.”
Mom snorts, straightening out my comforter. “Orie, you’re gonna give me a heart attack. You have to stop screaming.”
“You say that like I’m doing it on purpose. I don’t want to do it, but I’m like a werewolf, and spiders are the moon. I’m overcome with guttural fear. Can we get a bug guy back down here?”
“Orie—”
“Please? It’s definitely been over three months. I’ll pay for it. Lark and I have a pretty steady flow of income now. I can pay for it.”
Mom takes a seat on my bed, frowning as she catches sight of the chair in the corner of my room currently buried under a mountain of the colorful new yoga sets I tried on for a sponsorship today. She pulls back the front of her strawberry bob, yanks the band off her wrist, and secures her hair into a tiny bun. “Aren’t you supposed to be outside with Lark and Dad?”
“I am!” I start backing out the bedroom door. “I just have to pee. Now that you’ve slayed the Antichrist, I can do that in peace. Thank you for your service.”
“Go.”
* * *
“Okay, hold it!” Dad urges, kneeling with his camera in his Levi’s and light blue button-up. He’s concentrating on the shot, face pressed up against his DSLR as he focuses through the viewfinder, the setting sun bouncing off his white hair.
Rob Lennox is an artsy guy. He’s an uber-passionate creative, constantly raving about his latest ideas and inspirations, and as far as dads go, he’s pretty great. He fully supports our obsessions. This man sat next to me on the couch and watched an infinite number of Hannah Montana episodes through my elementary school years. He took me to Miley Cyrus concerts. He played her CDs in his car. I was shocked when I learned that other kids’ dads didn’t also know all the words to “The Best of Both Worlds.”
My mom’s pretty great, too. I’m one of the rare modern-day young adult humans with still-married parents. Mom and Dad are soul mates—real-life proof that romance books are accurate. She’s open and patient but disciplined when she needs to be, and she brings those traits out in all of us. Dad’s eager, impulsive, buzzing with energy and innovations. He builds us up, and Mom calms us down. Dad works nights and weekends; she works normal hours during the week. They’re the perfect team.
“Hold it!” Dad says again.
“We are holding it.” I press out from my precarious base position supporting Lark as she arches over my extended legs. “My eyes are burning!” My back presses against a cold blanket of grass, and my arms quake with the strain of the pose. It’s a warm day for October, but not quite warm enough for skintight athletic wear.
Lark shakes slightly. It’s rough holding these for more than fifteen seconds.
“Why are your eyes burning?” Lark hisses.
“I don’t know. I think some of my glitter must have shifted.”
“One more second, just want to try one last angle,” Dad shouts from farther down the driveway.
“How many times do I have to lecture you about wearing glitter during a shoot?” Lark huffs.
“I like when my eye makeup is shimmery in our pictures, and our followers like it. I did a poll.”
“You’re not going to see our eye makeup in this pose!”
“I’m not wearing my glasses, so you’ll see it enough to think, ooh, cool, she matched her eye makeup to her outfit.”
“Got it!” Dad strolls back toward us.
We are blessed to have a former photographer father to shoot our sponsored content.
For years AcroYoga (acrobatic yoga) was a thing the two of us did for fun. I used the word “content” ironically, and Lark handled the @LennoxSisters AcroYoga Instagram on her own. But seemingly overnight five months ago, it became our job. We went from 70,000 followers to 670,000 within a matter of weeks.
We do these short sister-sister flow videos; imagine AcroYoga as a dance. Lark choreographs a two-minute yoga routine to a popular song, we do it, and she posts it. One of our more impressive flow videos, set to the new Taylor Swift song, went viral. Then all our other sister-sister AcroYoga flow reels started to gain traction. Before we knew it, we had half a million people watching. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
Before this summer, Lark would pick up a sponsorship for us here or there, but nothing like the companies and opportunities popping up in our emails now. She’s been lining things up for us, one after another, week after week, leading all the way up to Christmas. It’s been a strange combination of thrilling and terrifying. I never imagined I would be flying out to different cities to host yoga retreats as part of my job.
Lark gracefully dismounts off my feet and folds over her legs to open up her lower back. I shift onto my knees and into an arch to stretch out my pecs.
My sister’s five foot nine and willowy. Her chestnut pin-straight hair is always pulled into a perfect high ponytail. I got Mom’s strawberry-blond hair, which is fun, but it doesn’t tame easily like Lark’s. Mine needs product and tender blow-drying care so as not to become a nonsense nest of frizz.
And Lark’s got these big green doe eyes that trip everyone up. People can’t help but fall in love with her. Through high school, there was always this disconnect when people learned I was her little sister. The compact athletic girl, full of hard angles, who enjoys constantly switching out her glasses and wearing over-the-top colorful glitter makeup to school every day is related to the popular, graceful, perfect president of the senior class? I was the tryhard. Lark was the innately cool smart girl who everyone wanted to date.
But these last few years, that imbalance has shifted. Since we embarked on this AcroYoga journey and started to grow together—I’ve felt less “less than” and more like an equal member of a team. An integral part of a valuable duo. People like both of us. People follow my individual Instagram on top of our sister account. It’s been so incredibly validating to be considered just as crucial and viable a human specimen as she is after feeling subpar for so long.
“That was beautiful, girls. I’m going to get these onto the computer!” Dad crunches over dead leaves as he heads back in the house through the sliding glass door to the basement.
“Thanks, Dad!” Lark and I say in unison.
I’m fairly certain Lark is my parents’ favorite, and I can’t blame them. She’d probably be my favorite, too. She’s so on top of her shit. She decides things, and then before you know it, those things are happening. And she’s not just doing the things she decided on; she’s killing the things. She’s a finisher.
Lark turns to me. “Earlier, I sent over a Drive link of your new reel for the Nike campaign. Did you get it yet?”
I roll back onto my shoulders and lift my legs in the air, prepping for plow pose. “Oh thanks! I haven’t seen it yet. I was at Wes’s this morning, but I’ll download it as soon as we go back in.”
Wes should be here soon. He’s grabbing Lark, my dad, and me iced coffee from the Tea Shop on his way over to join us for dinner.
Lark stands and grabs my ankles. She lifts them until I’m in a full handstand. “Or …” She hesitates for a moment.
“Yeah,” I say, upside down.
Lark exhales. “Are you ever going to dig into an editing program so you can put these things together yourself?”
“The reels? I thought you liked editing?” I step out of the handstand and rise to full height so I can look Lark in the eye. I’m only three inches shorter than her, but I feel much smaller when she asks pointed passive-aggressive questions like this. Lark is a complete control freak. She’s never expressed any interest in sharing that particular workload.
“I do, but we’re getting busier, and it’s become … a lot to do all our individual account reels and TikToks and handle our shared one. You’re depending on me for everything.”
“I’m … depending on you?” I cross my arms. “You never asked me to do anything.”
“Don’t get upset.”
I bark out a humorless laugh. “I’m not upset. I’m calm!” I focus on the clouds above her head and blow out a breath.
If I know Lark, and I do, she’s about to lead me into a seemingly random argument about something she’s been stewing about for weeks. We almost never argue, but when we do, it usually starts with Lark saying don’t get upset and ends with me in tears.
Lark never gets outwardly emotional. She’s cool, calm, and collected, even when she’s mad. When she’s angry, anxious, scared, or hurt, she can be cutting, witty, logical, and pensive. Meanwhile, cast me into any heightened emotion, and I’m incoherent, weepy, loud, and sweaty.
Lark serves me an exasperated look. “Do you think we can have an adult discussion about your role in our business?”
I shove my hands onto my hips. “I don’t depend on you for everything.”
“Okay, sorry, correction, you depend on me and everyone else for everything. You’re a codependent person, Orie.”
Hurt slices through my chest. Wow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t do anything yourself! You literally don’t do anything without Wes, Mom, Dad, me, or our audience holding your hand.”
I stare at her, speechless for a moment, before pivoting and power walking toward the house. I tug the sliding glass door open and shove it closed behind me. My toes curl into our fluffy basement rug as I try to calm my nervous system. Must remain chill so I can speak like an intelligent member of the human race.
Our sandy wheaten terrier, Stanley, comes barreling down the steps to greet me. I manage to give him a few pets before the glass door slides open again, and Lark comes in.
“I read by myself!” I spout defensively.
Lark sighs behind me. “Yeah, the books Mom brings you.”
Damn, I didn’t think she’d be able to swing that around.
I spin to face her. “Well, Mom gets free books. Why wouldn’t I read those?”
“You never go get your own books!”
“How would I know which to buy? There are so many options, Lark! Why would I waste my money on one I might not like! Mom knows which ones are good.”
Lark smacks a hand to her face. “You could use that thing we work on—the internet.”
“I trust Mom.”
“Ugh, Orie! You’re missing the point. You have this job because I needed an AcroYoga partner, and I’m our manager, so you continue to have this job because I manage it for us. You still live with Mom and Dad, so you don’t have to pay rent—”
I throw my hand up. “I do pay rent!”
She crosses her arms. “How much?”
An annoyed sound escapes my throat. “An amount.”
A very reasonable $400 a month because Mom wants me to save money for my own place and won’t let me pay a normal rent, even though I’m fairly certain they could use the money. The restaurant’s not doing well. It’s closed for the winter, and Dad is concentrating more on photography, which is not normal. I’ve been offering to start paying them a price-appropriate rent every month since graduation, and Mom continues to turn me down.
Lark rolls her eyes. “Mom still does your laundry and picks up after you. Dad cooks your meals. You’re still on the family cell phone plan. You use their internet. Wes brings you coffee every day and goes with you literally everywhere—”
“I don’t have a car!”
“And you don’t have your license!” she snaps.
I flail my arms about. “Where is this coming from, Lark? How is this relevant?”
“You can’t go anywhere without another person! And I edit your video content on top of fielding all our emails. What do you do for this business, Orie?”
I gape at her, feeling like she just punched me in the throat. “I’m sorry, what do I do for this business? What are you trying to say? I’m here! I’m always on time. I’m your base! I follow the exercise regime you set up! I go to the gym to weight train twice a week with Wes, on top of all our practices, so we can do cooler poses! I … plan out the outfits for all our shoots!”
“You send me five options and make me choose. And when I don’t choose, you take a poll on Stories. You’re incapable of making your own decisions.”
Copyright © 2024 by Christine Riccio
