We would be….Famous.

Brigitte’s voice grows small and uncertain.  My silence is hurting her, deflating her ambitions. She begins to sound the opposite of confident.  She sounds like a little girl begging her big sister to let her borrow an expensive dress.

“Please, Loren,” she wheedles.  “I need this.  We all do.  Spence is barely hanging onto the ranch, Ava wants to give her boy something better than a slum life and I can’t even get a screen test for a B level slasher flick.  People hear my name and they sneer for god’s sake.  They do!  You can tell what they’re thinking.  ‘The Savages, aren’t they all dead yet?’  This is probably the only shot we’re going to get and I know it might be tacky and vulgar.  I know that!  I know they will edit the shit out of everything we say and make us look even more ridiculous than we are.  But it will also put us on the map.  Loren, we’ll be those faces who get showered with several grand just for showing up at some wannabe’s party in Malibu.”

I close my eyes.  My sister is counting on the fact that I don’t have it in me to refuse her.  She might be right.  “Monty?”

She pauses.  “Not yet.”

“Does that mean he doesn’t know or he’s refusing?”

My inscrutable big brother has been keeping himself out of reach since he took a ten-month tour of the California correctional facilities.  Assault, complicated by cocaine possession in large enough quantities to be considered intent to distribute.   But Montgomery Savage doesn’t tolerate being needled in a shoddy bar by some random asshole with a beer gut so he answered with his fists. Unbelievably stupid, considering what he had in his pockets.  His sentence could easily have been much longer.  And it would have been, except some big name ambulance-chasing celebrity attorney who’d gone to prep school with my father had taken the case pro bono.  That was the last time a Savage had been newsworthy and Monty has been keeping quiet down in San Diego since his release.  All the gossip says he’s shacked up with some has-been soap opera cougar.  He refuses to confirm whether or not it’s true.

But Brigitte evidently hasn’t run her plans past the eldest Savage sibling.  She exhales dramatically.   “Montgomery has expensive habits and a deep affection for his baby sister. Besides, Monty isn’t stupid.  He’ll understand that it’s a better option than whoring himself out indefinitely to some withered, graying snatch and her dusty Emmy collection.”

I wince over the imagery.  “Better we all whore ourselves out in prime time living rooms across the nation, huh?”

Brigitte lets out a little hiss.  “Cut it out, Ren.   Negativity etches permanent wrinkles you know.”

“Yes, Lita.  I know.”

She ignores the insult, pretends I’m not mocking her by comparing her to our mother.  “This is a legitimate business venture.  An entire brand will be forged.  The Savages.  We can remake ourselves.”

“Those aren’t your words.”

“So?  That doesn’t mean they are untrue.”

I’m out of bed now, pacing the room.   It’s a small room so it only takes three short strides to get from one end to the other.  My apartment is sparsely decorated in a sleek contemporary modern style, courtesy of Ikea.  There is a bed, a dresser, a couch and a small dinette.  It’s neat and clean and boring.  It suits me well.  After switching on the single overhead light I perch on the edge of the memory foam mattress, the last vestiges of sleep gone. There’s no use in pretending that I’ll be returning to my Ferris wheel fantasy nap after Brigitte finishes with me.

“Look, I need some assurance that Lita stays the fuck away.  I won’t even talk about it unless that’s a sure thing.  No maternal surprises for dramatic effect, like we’re sitting down to dinner and she rings the motherfucking doorbell. I don’t want to hear a word about her or I swear I’ll walk.”

Brigitte is ready with an answer.  “Oh god, she knows nothing.  She hung up the phone when the producers tried to call her.  She doesn’t want anything to do with us.  Apparently she’s still playing house with the stroke patient she married, probably busily researching the best way to make him choke on a pillow.”

“I’m serious, Bree.  It better be written into the damn contract.  No Lita.”  My headache has grown.  I scrabble around in my nightstand for the bottle of Excedrin and swallow two pills without any water.

“I swear it, Ren.  On my honor as your sister.  I’m not all that excited to see her ever again either.”

My mouth twitches.  Brigitte sounds so earnest.  Brigitte is a fantastic actress.  “You might have spent a big chunk of your honor when you appropriated my sole pair of Manolo Blahnik’s and broke the left heel.”

“You’ve a memory like an elephant.  That was years ago.  I apologized.  I swear I still have some honor remaining.  Consider it yours.”

“Does it have a name?”

“What, you mean the show?”

“Yes, I mean the show. What do they plan on calling it?”

“Born Savages.”

I should have swallowed the pills with at least one mouthful of water. I can feel every centimeter of their slow slide.   For a second they pause. I imagine they are caught somewhere close to my heart.

“Clever,” I cough.   “Who spent years getting an expensive degree for the right to think that up?”

“I think it’s cute.  It works.  I told you who’s producing it, right?  Gary Vogel.  He’s behind all the classier projects, the ones broadcast on the Biz Network that are centered around real names, not these cheesy game shows that cast common folk nobodies.  He’s got the Kingston sisters signed on to live on a goat farm in Vermont during shearing season.  Stop laughing!  It will be quite artistic from what I hear.  And get this.  Gary happens to the producer for Bastion Brats.”

I groan.  “You shouldn’t have reminded me.  That thing is a tawdry disaster.”

“It’s one of the highest rated shows in the country.  Wait, didn’t you used to be friends with Bitty Bastion like a million years ago in grade school?  Before her exotic journey into twelve rounds of rehab, that is.  Anyway, Bitty and Becky already have their own talk shows and the rest are swimming in more offers than they can keep track of.  If those moon-faced morons can get that far, think of what we can do.”

“I’ll bet Gary told you that.”

“Does it matter?”  She sounds excited again.

When Brigitte was a little girl she used to bounce maniacally on her toes whenever she got nervous or excited.  It was endearing then.  I picture her doing the same thing in her dumpy apartment.  It’s still endearing.

“So you’re in, right Ren?  I knew you wouldn’t hang us out to dry.  Ava’s such a pessimist.  She was terrified to even ask you.”

Once I say it there’s no taking it back. “Just the five of us, right?  No other Savages.”

I can hear the smile in her voice. “What other Savages could there possibly be?  We’re the only ones anyone is interested in.”

“Okay.”

“Clarify that ‘okay’, please.”

“You know you’ve got me, Bree.  I won’t help you with Monty though.”

“Monty will be easy.”

“Monty is the opposite of easy.”

“Trust me.  I’ll have Monty signed and sealed before you can say the word Arizona.”

Outside a siren wails and then surges into the distance toward some unknown disaster.  “Arizona.”

The word brings out strange feelings in me.  Of a place, of a time, of a boy….

“What other Savages could there possibly be?”

The question has haunted me long before my sister ever casually uttered it.

CHAPTER TWO

OZ

In this group two, are beginners and two are not.  The woman worries me.  She blinks weirdly fast and chews on the inside of her mouth while casting quick glances at the man beside her.  They’re a couple, plainly still in that early uncertain phase.  She’s too freaking eager to please him.  It’s obvious to me that she’s not the underground type of girl.  She’s the kind that breaks a nail flipping the tab of a beer can.  I can do that; sort women out with ease.  I’m almost always right.