Duet
by Trey R. Barker

3 AM, raining.

"I went," she said quietly on the phone.

"Ash?"

She told me where she was and while I drove I remembered being seventeen, a new driver who drove his sister everywhere. She had loved to drive with the window down. "Take me to Disneyland," she would yell. Always asking for Disneyland. And then she stopped asking.

Five months after it happened, Mom and I stood in a small house outside of town. A dark-skinned older lady with a slight mustache let us in. Scratchy pictures adorned the dingy walls: little girls and life-sized dolls who matched them dimple for dimple, each adorned in pastel dresses and topped with winking tiaras. "Hola," she said. "I know why you're here."

Surprise flashed through me. I saw no TV, so she couldn't have seen the news reports. Maybe she had read it in the paper. Ash--my sister Ashley--had been a locally famous beauty queen.

"You know?" Mom asked.

"Si. You want a doll, everyone does."

"Oh." Was Mom disappointed the woman didn't know how famous we were?

"Lots of dolls," the Hispanic lady said.

Mom handed her a picture. "Ashley. Somebody took her."

And the sheriff found shit. No torn clothing, no ransom note, no blood. After three months the leads were dead, and the sheriff had other crimes to worry about. I was left alone to watch Mom cradle one of Ash's pictures to her chest as though it had grown into her skin.

I hated that picture. Blond swirls, piercing green contacts giving lie to her washed-out gray eyes, a fixed smile of concentration. That picture wasn't my sister. It was a girl who didn't know what her personality was until she was handed the corresponding costume.

"I can make you a new hija, one that looks just like your Ashley." The woman's shoulders flared proudly. "And sounds like her. My son works at the TI plant, makes computers. He puts a dig-i-tal voice chip in every doll, makes 'em talk. And batteries so they move pretty good."

Mom handed the woman $300.

"Come."

We went to a bedroom and when the woman opened the door, my head spun. The room was lined with shelves. Sitting on those shelves were body parts. Heads, arms, legs. Lined up neatly, a flesh factory.

"I make them all. They look just like the pictures." She swept her hand toward the pictures hanging on her walls. "One week...two if you want it special good."

On the way home, Mom fidgeted. "I can't wait. It'll be a tribute to Ashley. I can set up her trophies, maybe put some costumes out."

"A tribute to Ash?"

Mom glared. "Her name is not 'Ash,' it's Ashley. Ash." She spat the name. "Makes her sound burned-up."

"She liked it," I said quietly.

"Wrong, mister, she hated it."

Had she? I remembered her talking to people on the sidewalk, "My name's Ash, what's yours?"

When we got home, we sat in the driveway. "I had a tough job, Michael, getting her to all those shows and rehearsals on time."

"She wanted to play outside."

"She had to focus. I was trying to help. It's tough for a single parent. I had to think about her college money." She thumped my thigh. "And how much of her money are you wearing? Those shoes weren't cheap."

"Yeah, but...," I stammered. "Ash wanted to buy these for me."

"Yeah, all for you," Mom said.

Angrily, I climbed out of the car. Ash had wanted to buy me those things, just like she wanted to hand-make me a Valentine's card every year, and had named her favorite stuffed animal after me.

I Ioved her but I had never tried to rescue her. I knew she hated the pageants, but instead of trying to get her out of them, I had tried to make them bearable. I sometimes slipped into her bed on cold nights and curled up against her, trying to warm her a little, trying to ease her torment with a hug or a soft word. Like when I walked her to and from school, or took her for an ice cream. Always holding hands, always touching, just trying to keep the demons out.

Mom spent the next week in Ash's room. Going through Ash's costumes, hugging her trophies, looking through photo albums and press releases. We had been, maybe still were, white trash. With Ash and her pageants and her press clippings, we had climbed partially out of the garbage can.

But now Ash was gone. There would be no more pageants or fame.

"Mom," I called one night after getting home late. She was sitting in the den Ash had used for a dance studio. The stereo played Ash's dance tape. Upbeat jazz followed by sultry blues, topped with a waltz. "Mom? You okay?"

She smiled hugely. "She's here."

She sat on the couch, head cocked as though listening to Ash's music. Synthetic smelling hair, not fruity like Ash's. Smooth skin, but cold. Blazing green eyes. I almost cried wanting to take her for a ride.

But she wasn't Ash. She was plastic. She was ceramic. She was a doll.

"It's Ashley," Mom said. "I went back to the lady...gave her more money. It's been two weeks." Mom looked at me defiantly.

Disgusted, I shook my head. "That's not her."

"Sure it is." She picked the doll up gently. "I mean-- I know she isn't Ashley, but she's close."

Sadness washed through me. The months had buried our hearts under mountains of disappointments. Months of leads gone nowhere; months of calls unreturned from Ash's detectives who were now working on other cases. Ash was--most probably--gone forever and Mom had slipped over the edge. From here on out, she would show a pleasant face to the world, but at night with the curtains closed, she would pretend everything was fine while she played Ash's tape and danced with the Ash-doll.

But I wanted to pretend, too. I wanted to dance and tell stories and walk to school and go to pageants. I desperately wanted that doll to be Ash.

Two nights later in the studio, it almost was. "Hi," it said. "My. name. is. Ashley." A digital voice, but with the timbre of Ash's voice. "I. won. first. place. at. Midland's. Little. Royal. Miss."

I nodded. Ash's dancing had been inspired that day.

"I. won. first place. at. Tiny. Miss Beauty. Do you. think I'm pretty?"

Mom had touched up the doll's make-up. She seemed more like a young girl and less like a department store dummy.

And she danced. The kicks and jumps, the spins and bows. Mechanical, stiff, artificial, but it stole my breath. It was almost like seeing Ash dance. A touch more pout in the lips, a bit more eyeshadow, more lipstick, but the same face. I watched her like I had Ash.

"I. love to. dance."

The jazz slid into the blues and still I watched, a current of excitement running through me. When Ash did the blues bit, her eyes always seemed to be on fire, her lips just at the edge of sexy.

"I love to. dance."

Ashley danced with the sort of full-blooded soul Ash had only hinted at. This was the kind of dancing that would have gotten Ash to the top, to the high paying contracts. Jesus, if she could have done this in front of the judges, we'd never have had to worry about money again.

I watched her dance until she misstepped and fell. I dashed across the studio and helped her up. "That was great," I said, hugging her. Her skin was flushed. Warm breath tickled my neck.

"I fell."

I nodded. "Yeah, you did."

We both laughed as Mom came in.

"Well," she said. "Good to see you two getting along."

Staring at Mom, I dropped the doll and backed away. Jesus Christ. Ashley had been so warm, so...inviting, something Ash had never been. For a long, delicious moment, I had wanted nothing but Ashley. My voice shook. "It ain't Ash, Mom, it's a doll."

"No, she is Ashley now," Mom said firmly. "And we're going back on the circuit."

There it was. The circuit, the pageants. Mom had done nothing because of grief, but because of the lights and the cameras, the prize-money. She wanted to regain the spotlight as the mother of a beauty queen.

I was speechless. I stomped out while she talked to the doll, "Don't worry about him, Ashley, I love you and that's all that matters." I slammed the front door and stormed the streets, losing myself in my driving.

So it began again. That little doll did the routines and sang the songs. She grinned and pranced and Mom constantly murmured to her, "I love you. I love you and we'll go to the top this time."

Mom and her new Ashley started at county fairs. It was just like when she and Ash had started years ago. And just like with Ash, they won enough small shows to convince Mom to head for the big ones.

They did well and got noticed. A handful of local interviews, a few minutes on the news. It was small, granted, but regional wins would lead them to state contests. From there, they'd move to the national circuit. This was the spotlight Mom had always wanted but that Ash had never quite found. Ash had been good at the fairs, but at the state level, there had always been other girls just as good.

But now things were different. Ashley danced better than Ash ever had, better than I would have imagined, and the new costumes, ever more revealing, complimented her fiery dancing.

Late one night after a show in Wichita Falls, I walked Ashley to her hotel room. "Good job tonight," I said quietly, my eyes unable to see anything but her. Her dance costume fit snugly and her make-up sat delicately on her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said sweetly.

In the room, she disappeared into the bathroom and returned a while later, scrubbed clean and wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She fell to the bed with a giant sigh. "Goodnight, Michael."

"Goodnight," I answered. I watched her for a moment, then laid down next to her. Fully dressed, I pressed against her the way I had with Ash. But it felt different this time. I was more aware of her, not--like I had been with Ash--as my sister, but as a woman. Her hair tickled my nose with the fruity twinge of her shampoo, and I could smell perfume that Ash had never worn.

Uneasy, ashamed of myself, I left the bed and sat in the chair. For most of the night, I watched her, unable to keep from wishing her a few years older.

The next months were good. Pageants and phone calls and making deals. But as well as things went, Ashley never won any big shows. There was always something: a misstep, a missed note. Second or third, but never a winner.

And just as Mom began to taste desperate sweat on her lip--would her daughter ever win her way into the national spotlight?--Ash came home.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, thin, dirty, her favorite blue dress now decorated with rips, a bag of Oreos in her hand. "Christ, Ash, you're back."

"Disneyland anyone?"

My mouth dropped open. "Are you okay? Sit down." I took a deep breath and tried to get myself under control. "Christ, I'm glad you're back." Actually, I was ecstatic. She was my sister, my love, the other half of myself.

"Yeah." She was as casual as if she had simply gone outside to play.

"Where have you been?"

"Around."

"That's it?"

"What do you want me to say?" she asked angrily. "I been somewhere great? Well, yeah, Michael, I have. Went to England, hung out with the Queen. She's a bitch but it don't matter 'cause she's got the run of the castle."

I stared at her, surprised. This was my Ash who had left a year earlier?

Mom came in. She stopped in the doorway. "Michael?"

"Ash," I said. "She came back."

Mom said nothing for a long moment. Confusion seeped across her face like blood across a wound. "But that's...that's not--" She swallowed audibly. "That's not Ashley. Ashley's in the shower."

"What?" I asked.

Ash stared at Mom. "What are you talking about?"

Mom turned and left. "Get to bed, Michael, school tomorrow."

Ash and I sat there, surprised, confused, angry.

"Crazy bitch," Ash said.

I nodded. Was Mom so wrapped up in the pageants she had forgotten her little beauty queen was a doll?

Ash shook her head and stood. "Whatever. I'm going to bed."

A few minutes later, she stood in the middle of her bedroom. She stared at her stuffed animals, lined up the way she had left them. Then she opened her window and threw them out.

"Hey, whoa, wait, Ash, what're you doing?"

"This is stupid shit."

"But--"

She glared at me and I shut up. She wasn't like any twelve year-old I'd ever known. She was older, rougher. "I ran."

"I kinda figured."

In the silence, we heard the shower running. A tiny voice floated above the running water, singing one of Ash's songs.

"Why'd you come back?"

"Wasn't anything else." A small, strained laugh slipped out of her. "Hell, I thought I was lost here. I was more lost out there. Texas is a damn scary place when you got nowhere to sleep."

From down the hall, Mom's voice was clear. "Ashley? Finish your shower, it's time for bed." The shower fell silent.

Ash stared at me. "I guess you better explain something to me."

How the hell was I supposed to do that? How could I tell Ash someone had taken over her life and was doing better at it than she had? More than that, how could I explain to her I had done nothing to try and stop it?

"It's like this," I began.

"Michael," a voice said. Quiet, digital.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Ash whispered, going to Ashley. "She's me."

The new Ashley grinned. "Are you Ash? Nice to meet you."

"Michael? What the hell is this? She looks just like me."

"Ash, listen, she--"

"I am you," Ashley whispered.

Ash's face was a riot of confusion and fear, anger and disgust. "What the shit is this?"

Ashley began to sing. High, sweet as honey, pure as a summer afternoon.

Wide-eyed, Ash ran from the room.

"Ash." I ran after her. "Ash, come back, listen to me."

She ran through the kitchen and outside, into the alley. I followed and caught her after a block and a half. "Ash, listen."

"To what? To why you've got somebody else sleeping in my bed and singing my songs?"

"It's not like that."

"Yeah? Then what's it like?"

I had no answer and she knew it.

She patted my cheek, gently, tenderly. "I should'a never come back."

"Ash, please--"

"I was going to Disneyland," she whispered. "Figured it would be like a good drunk: giant mouse, giant duck."

A drunk? Since when did an twelve year-old know about a drunk? Her words sent a cold bang through my body. I put my arm around her and walked with her.

Hours later, we got home, she quietly confused, me loudly silent, unwilling to try and explain something I couldn't. I took her to my room and put her to bed. I watched for a few minutes, then laid down next to her. She felt different than Ashley. Where Ashley had become warm and subtly inviting--so much more than she had been when Mom had picked her up from the Hispanic woman--Ash had become cold and scared. She wouldn't allow me to hug her or simply wrap myself around her.

"Someday I'm going to be a grown-up," she said.

"Someday," I agreed.

"And then I'm getting out of here forever."

I hesitated. "You wanna do that?"

"Yeah."

I thought about the money. "How would you live?"

"Same way I have been."

Cold, hard granite words.

"We got a little money now, Ash. Mom's got her eye on moving to Dallas."

Ash snorted. "A big house, I'll bet."

I shrugged. "Well, not yet, but maybe, yeah.... Ashley has a personal designer now. Things are just starting to take off. If you leave...." I paused. "Stay for a little while, Ash. Get some of that money when it comes in. Then, if you still want to go, I'll drive you. We'll go to Disneyland."

She looked at me. "Since when did you care about money?"

"Things are different now, Ash." I forced a hug on her. "Don't leave me again. I love you and I miss you. Please, promise me you won't leave."

"Michael, I--"

"Promise."

Finally, she did and I pressed up against her.

Every time I woke up that night, Ash was awake, staring out the window, and I could hear Mom walking up and down the hall, mumbling.

Mom's word. Early in the morning, she had come into my bedroom, suddenly joyful at Ash's return.

"I love you," she said, hugging Ash very tightly. "My poor little baby girl, my given-up twin, my poor Alicia."

Stunned, I sat on the edge of my bed.

"You're crazy," Ash said to Mom. "I'm not Alicia, I'm Ash. I'm the beauty queen, not that damned doll. Can't you see? I'm Ashley."

Nodding knowingly, as though everything were fine, Mom left the room. A moment later, we could hear her on the phone, calling her agent.

Ashley and Alicia, a duet in which Mom called Ash Alicia and I begged Ash not to leave.

A duet that performed in pageants and landed contracts galore. Convenience stores, department stores. Even hardware store ads where they both wore hardhats and talked about PVC pipe and storm windows. Money ran in raging rivers and I smiled as I drowned. A new house in Dallas, new car, long vacations. It was great.

Except--

Ash got thinner. Every new contract seemed to take more out of her. I knew someday I'd wake up and she'd be dead, shriveled to nothing.

Mom disconnected. She told us bits of old stories and halves of memories. She was drowning, too, but not in money or fame, she was drowning in the water of the lie of two daughters. She hated to see them together. Except for pageants and photo-shoots, she kept them separated.

Things went like that for months. Ash got more depressed and gaunt and quickly began to age beyond the ageless Ashley.

"Damnit, Alicia," Mom yelled at Ash. "You have to eat this food. What about all the starving kids in China?"

"Send the shit to them."

"Don't talk to me that way, you nasty little girl. You pay attention and do what I tell you." Mom jammed a spoonful of cereal against Ash's closed mouth. Ash turned her head. Mom slapped her.

"Hey, whoa," I said, surprised. "Hang on there, Mom."

"What?"

I shrank. I was eighteen, the man of the house, but her glare could still make me feel like a baby. "Come on, Mom, don't hit her."

She looked at Ash. "Are you trying to hurt me? Do you dream up ways of hurting me?" She pointed a finger at Ashley. "She never does that shit. She does exactly what I tell her, and when I tell her. Why can't you be more like her?"

Ash looked at Mom, then at me, then at Ashley, her eyes filled with exhaustion and tears. "I'm sorry, I'll do better."

"Good," Mom said firmly. "Now finish your breakfast, we've got a shoot for Sally's Western Wear at ten." With a satisfied nod, Mom left the kitchen.

On the way out, Ashley stopped near Ash, and said, "Why did you come back, you bitch? Things were fine until you came back." She glared for a moment, then left Ash and me alone.

"I love you, Ash, you know that, don't you?" I reached for her hand but she pulled away.

"I'm tired, Michael."

What could I say? For six months I convinced her to stay. She performed well, she learned new routines, and smiled gracefully for photographers. But Ash was falling apart. She had fallen in almost every pageant since she came back. Her grace was gone, her eyes empty.

"I can't do this anymore, Michael."

Licking my lips, I said, "How about I cut out of school early, come get you and we head down to Pete's? Some greasy burgers and fries? We can talk things over then."

"Yeah, let's do that."

"Great," I said.

I went to my bedroom, grabbed my homework, stopped by the bathroom for a quick piss, and went back to the kitchen.

Ash was gone, the kitchen door open, her spoon in the cereal bowl.

I ran into the yard. I shouted her name until my throat hurt. I ran through the alleys and the streets, looking between cars and at the bus stops.

She had vanished as quickly and easily as she had the first time.

"I love you, Ash," I said loudly. Maybe she'd hear it. "And I'm sorry."

I took a ten count, trying to let my anger cool. It didn't work. I ran back home. Mom was sitting on the couch with Ashley. I grabbed Ashley and slapped her.

"Michael! What are you doing?"

"Ashley made her leave," I shouted, landing another hard slap against Ashley's face. My fingernail tore through her skin. Red smudged across her cheek.

"Michael, stop it!"

Surprised, terrified, furious, I pushed Ashley down. She fell against the bricked fireplace and got tangled up in the stand of fireplace tools. Blood welled from her busted lip and nose. It both surprised and didn't surprise me.

"What are you talking about?"

"You," I yelled. "You and Ashley--that fucking doll. Ash is gone--again."

Mom checked in the kitchen, then dashed back and grabbed the phone, but didn't dial. In her face I saw it all: she couldn't call 9-1-1. That would bring cops and detectives and media. This wasn't a disappearance in a small Texas town, this was a celebrity disappearance in Dallas.

"Call them," I shouted.

"No," she said firmly.

"Then I will."

"Only if you're tired of all this. Because if you do, all of this will end."

I stared at her, my anger a fiery lump in my throat. After a moment, I stormed out of the house. Mom followed.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm getting out of here."

"Fine, leave."

I spun toward her. "Don't you see? Ashley is just a doll."

"But I made her live," Mom said. "I loved her enough."

"Bullshit, the Hispanic lady made her live; waved a wand, said a spell and she lived. You don't love her at all, you just want the fame and money."

"Fine, I want that, but I loved her, too. You don't know anything, Michael. I did it because I love Ashley and wanted to remember her."

"Whatever." My hands shook with rage. I had gotten caught up in the madness, in the promise of money and cars, interviews. Mom had shown me the path and I had gone willingly. Not only that, I had dragged Ash with me. "You could have just thrown the doll away when Ash came back."

Her eyes cleared for a moment. She nodded. "I should have, I'm sorry. I just got lost."

"No shit." So had I.

Ash was gone...again. I never saw Mom or Ashley again, either. When I came back later that day, Mom was gone. She had burned all the photo albums and cleaned out most of the bank accounts. After a few weeks, I shrugged and tried to get on with life. The house was just about paid off with prize money. I dropped out, knocked around working odd, shitty little jobs. Between me and my girlfriend, we made just enough to get from one day to the next.

She left me just after Michael, Jr. was born, said she couldn't live with a crazy man and didn't want to hear me talking to Ash and Ashley and Alicia in my dreams anymore.

"Fuck off," I told her. "We don't need you."

But we did need her job. Odd jobs don't feed a small, beautiful child.

Now I'm broke. Everything I had when Ash worked the circuit, when Ash was gone and Ashley worked the circuit, when Michael, Jr.'s mother was here...gone.

And there is nothing I can do. Again. When Ash had been on the circuit and had hated it so badly, I had done nothing to save her. Now my son is hungry and wearing Salvation Army clothes. I'll be damned if I'll do nothing this time. I am going to save him.

I drove as fast as I could after Ash called. I found the room and chuckled when I saw the empty Oreos packages. I quit laughing when I saw the empty pill bottle and the small Disneyland pennant.

She had gone, she said on the phone.

She had gone to Disneyland, but it--just like her brother--had failed her.

I took her home and now she's in the downstairs freezer.

Ashley is in this house--my mother's old house--somewhere, I know it, I feel it. I can smell her skin, soft and tender. I can smell her fruity shampoo. And I think I've heard her singing Ash's old songs.

How many places can a life-sized doll hide?

Is she still alive? Maybe, maybe not. But the Hispanic lady is only a six hour drive away. I can take Ash and Ashley to the woman and she can bring them both back to life. She did it once, she can do it again.

Michael, Jr. is five years and old. He doesn't look exactly like Ash did at his age, but close. Actually, he looks like Ashley. And he's got five or six years before he'll begin to age too much.

A trio.

I am my mother. I see it in the mirror, my face so much like hers. I feel it in my soul. But where Mom did everything for herself, I am doing it for my son, for my sister. I have the power, in their singing and dancing, to save them.

I will save them.

A trio. Surely the promoters will take notice of a beautiful trio.

Trey R. Barker's fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared or will appear in nearly five dozen publications, including: "Desperadoes," "100 Clever, Little Cat Crimes," "Noirotica 3," "Terminal Fright," "Midsummer Night's Terror," "Epitaph," "Night Terrors," "Talebones," "CemeteryDance," and many others. His work has been listed in the honorable mention sections of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and the upcoming 14th editions and has been nominated several times for both the Stoker and Nebula awards. He has served two years on HWA's Board of Trustees and a year as chairman of the Board.