The Caryatids

"Yes, I am dark inside. So sue me."

"All right, so what's eating you today, Glyn? Why are you being like this? I guess it wasn't my performance." Radmila laughed. "You know why I aced all that? Because she wasn't watching me. Just for once. She's really gone! I never felt so free!"

Glyn sent a half-riotous crowd of fans stumbling down the street in a cavalcade of glowing dots. "I finally figured out what to do with myself."

"You got any gin in here?"

"I will never marry," Glyn told her somberly. "I will never have a child. Because I am a monster. I cannot bear to have Toddy's children with Toddy's spare body."

"You got any performance drinks? Maybe a little taurine, some vitamin B?"

"No. No, and hell no. And also, hell no, shut up and listen to me."

Radmila sat down to listen. She put her cheek in her hand.

"Given that fact," said Glyn, "that I will never marry and I will never leave the Family...and given the fact that you married into the Family and you can't leave it, either...well, we have to do something big. She built this huge tradition, and now she's gone. We are her heirs. That means it's all up to us."

"I'm listening to you," Radmila said.

"It's too bad that you can't stand your husband anymore. That's a big drawback."

"I can stand John," Radmila protested. "John is the smartest guy in the Family. He's smarter than you."

"Yes, John is smart," Glyn said, "but John's always in the Adriatic, or he's in orbit, or he's doing a charity tour of refugee camps, or he's working late hours at the bank, or he's in bed with one of your sisters. John is never going to be there for us. Anyway, John is not a star. John can't do the things you can do."

"John's a knight in shining armor. John is gallant to the ladies."

"John is a poor little rich boy who wants to rule the world. He's a mess inside."

"That is not true," Radmila said stoutly. "There were two years-well, twenty months-when I was delirious about him. I don't care if I live for two hundred years, I'll never love like that again. If I'd been burned into ashes and thrown out the airlock and scattered into orbit, it would have been worth it to me. I was so completely happy. It was worth my whole life, every heartbeat, just to learn that love was possible."

Glyn silently rolled her eyes.

"Of course," said Radmila, "then John did figure out some things about me."

"Men do that," said Glyn.

Radmila was suddenly blanking with raw fatigue. She had just spent two hours rehearsing and dancing. Her bones were numb.

"You got a new boyfriend?" Radmila said clumsily. "You never act this strange without a new boyfriend."

"My mother just died," Glyn said patiently. "That's what's new for me. Toddy's worse than dead, and she's not even my mother...I'm not Toddy, I was never Toddy. I do have one quality, though, where Toddy and I are just the same. I have ambition."

"Uh-oh."

"So, we take over," said Glyn. "You and me. That's what I want, that's my big plan. That's what I'm telling you. You play the major Family star, and I am your tech support. It's very traditional. I make you our dynasty's Queen of Los Angeles. All the older people: they're our investors and backers. They still matter, because they have the capital-but you and me, we're the executive directors. We are the directorial team: because you're the only one who understands me, and I'm the only one who understands you. That's right, isn't it?"

"Of course that's right, Glyn." Radmila loved everyone in her Family, but Glyn was the one she loved best. Except for Mary.

"We both know how to work," said Glyn. "Because she trained us. So, from now on, we do all the work."

"That makes you happy, Glyn? I want you to be happy."

"Shut up! This isn't a theme song, so stop talking like some blitzed out drama queen! This is not about our being happy, that's not the way to frame this. We are the players. We take power because we belong in power. You're the graphic front end, and I am the back operation. The Family-Firm is our bank. Are you cool with all of that? I get tired of repeating myself."

"Can we really get away with doing that?"

"Yeah, we can," said Glyn. "I will tell you how. They will give it to us if we ask for it in the right way. Every night, we go in for the Family dinner. We put all the toys and machines aside, there's no calls, no prompts, no nothing. It's just us. People. We all sit there together and we eat. And at the head of the table-there was Toddy. But there's nobody sitting there now. There's a ghost there."

"Yes. That's very true."

"Well, either somebody sits in that chair at the head of the table...and the others let her sit there-or else we stop meeting for dinner. In which case, the Family dies. Because, although we're a huge corporation, we're also a human family. We need a warm body with a heartbeat to cluster around. Or else we all scatter. You understand what that means, right? If we scatter?"

"Of course I understand that!" Radmila said. "I'm Family! It's breaking my heart."