The Rapunzels ONC 2024

3: Your Precious Grandmother is a Whore

 "Do you ever wish you could go outside, Lexi? Outside beyond the walls of our home?" Lulu is lying on her bed. Her long legs are propped up on the wall. There are tiny yellow flowers on the wallpaper and from time to time, she pokes at them with her toes. Lulu's skirt fans around her. It's pale blue, like the sky when there's summer in the distance.

From the desk on the opposite side of the bedroom, our eldest sister, Alexis, looks away from her drawing and makes a sour face. "Are you insane?" She shakes a coloured pencil at Lulu. "Have you been taking crazy lessons from Fia again?"

My sister, Lexi and I are not exactly best friends. We do not hate each other, exactly, but if she were on fire it would be a good minute before I dropped the marshmallows and got a hose. We do our best is tolerate one another. My sister and I also make sure Tyrone doesn't kill one of us when he is in a mood, like when he loses his temper because we looked at him with a stink-eye as he calls it, or someone has aggravated him at NASA, especially if they lost a chunk of the white powder needed to fuel the rockets.

"Shut the fuck up," I mutter under my breath and roll over on Lulu's bed so I'm laying closer to her.

Lulu pokes me when I swear and we both giggle. Shut the fuck up, she mouths. We slap our hands on the other's faces as Lexi hurls erasers at us.

"Outside is dangerous to people with long hair, you nincompoops. You know what mother and father say. Only when our hair is short can we ever leave this place. And that may never happen."

"Poop, poop," Lulu chirps, which further aggravates Lexi. An eraser lands on Lulu's cheek.

I roll on my tummy and glance at the desk. I wonder if there is a tool one can use to make their hair short. Would fire work? Perhaps something sharp? We have matches and butter knives but neither sounds like a wise solution.

"If you two want to go outside and face any monster or worse," Lexi pauses for dramatic effect, " such as a man who could do all those..." her voice drops to a whisper, "horrid things men do to women, then go ahead."

As Lulu continues to giggle, I think of Blanche. Is it all men? Blanche seems to think there are men—many of them—out there who deserve to be in her arms, who deserve love.

The clock on the wall ticks softly and pulls me out of my thoughts. It's a quarter to six. Soon we'll be having a visit from the other set of grandparents. This time it's the grandmother Lexi is named after. Grandmother Colby-Carrington.

I tap on my watch before hurling an eraser back to my eldest sister to get her attention. "Fifteen minutes, Lex," I say. I mock pour a glass of wine and chug it.

Lexi rises and straightens out the invisible creases on her lilac skirt. She tips her nose up slightly and looks down at us. "I cannot keep neither mother nor grandmother Alexis waiting."

Lulu rolls her eyes and tosses her hands over her head. "Your precious grandmother is a whore."

The gasps escaping Lexi come from the core of her existence. "You jealous little ninny!" She stomps her foot. Her fists are balled at her sides.

I carefully lift my eyes to her and notice her face turning pink. "My grandmother is a stylish, stunning, sophisticated —"

"Slut," Lulu interrupts her and swiftly curls into a ball a second before Lexi begins hurling whatever is on the desk at her.

Before I can roll completely off the bed, we are both covered in notebooks, a calculator, three rulers, and a whole lot of coloured pencils.

I land on the floor and pull the covers over my head. "Boo." I want to piss my sister off even more. It's something Lulu and I enjoy doing and we usually do it well.

I hear Lexi storming over then I feel a foot come into contact with my hip. "Ow." I toss the covers off and glare at her. "Uncalled for."

Lexi has her hands slapped over her mouth. Her eyes are buggy. "I'm so sorry." Her voice is a wisp of syllables as she kneels before me. "I didn't mean to." She shakes her head over and over. Moving her hands from her mouth, she presses them against her throat. "I'm not him. I swear to God."

She didn't kick me hard and I know she didn't mean it. "I deserved it," I utter.

"No." Lowering her hands so they are millimeters from mine, she looks down briefly. "You didn't, Fia. You can hit me back if you want."

I look at her hands. They are so close to mine but she doesn't bring them closer. I arch my fingers and they spider-walk to hers. Her skin is warm. "It's nearly time, Lexi. Your grandmother will be waiting."

She doesn't say anything about the touch but her gaze lingers there momentarily. Then as the clock chimes six, Lexi rises and leaves Lulu and me alone.