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“Why do I have to share my birthday with Dee?”
Dennis stands next to Helena, the twins’ longest-standing nanny, in the kitchen. Stands below her, really- the top of his head barely surpasses her knees. She’s stirring a bowl of cake batter with a spatula Dennis hope’s she’ll let him lick clean when she’s done, and she smiles.
“Because you both came into the world on the same day.”
“Oh,” Dennis pauses, contemplating this with his freshly five-year-old intellect. “Why?”
“Sometimes these things just happen.”
“A mistake?”
Mistake, the newest word in Dennis's rapidly expanding vocabulary, learned after he’d heard his mother hurl it at his father in a string of other words he isn’t allowed to repeat. Helena turns away from the bowl, resting her spatula against the edge, and tuts at Dennis as she lifts him onto the counter next to him. She makes a little noise, an ough , at the effort of lifting him. He knows the day will come when he’s too heavy to be lifted, and he hopes he’s big enough to climb up by himself when it does.
“Not a mistake, my peach-” her nickname for Dennis, to match Dee’s my plum . “-a miracle. Two angels instead of one. That’s not a mistake.”
Because you’re sweet, and you come from God's earth , Helena had said, when Dee and Dennis asked about the nicknames.
Dennis had never heard a grown-up talk about the two of them like that, like things to be cherished rather than shut away upstairs until they could act as well-dressed & humanizing pieces of furniture.
“What’s a miracle?” Dennis asks.
“A surprise gift from God,” she tells him, giving her batter one last stir, before she starts to pour it into the two readied pans next to her.
Dennis’s dad had laughed at him when Dennis asked what god was, after Helena explained the necklace she wears tucked under her shirt to him. He never did answer the question, but Helena tells him that God is always watching, to make sure that nothing bad happens to Dennis and Dee.
Dennis trusts Helena, so he trusts God.
“Can I have the spatula?” Dennis asks, when she’s done with the cakes. She’s putting them into the oven, blue and white spatula left to make a goopy mess of where she’s set it on the counter.
“I’m giving Dee the bowl if I let you have it,” Helena says.
“That’s okay.”
Dennis doesn’t like his hand being sticky after he puts it in the bowl, anyways. Even if the bowl has more batter than the spatula.
“Sure, then. But stay in the kitchen. I don't want a mess.”
Dennis nods, and she scoops him off the counter and sets him down on the floor, before she passes the spatula to him.
“Dee!” she calls, and Dennis can hear her thumping up the basement stairs as he licks the spatula clean.
“Dennis, what do you want?”
Dennis is perched in the doorframe of Dee's bedroom. She makes eye contact with him in the mirror she sits in front of, hand paused in the middle of swiping eyeshadow across her lid.
“What are you doing?” Dennis asks, ignoring her question.
“Fuck off.”
“ You fuck off.”
Dennis has been fifteen for a little more than twenty-three hours. He doesn’t care about words he isn’t supposed to say, or god, or cake batter.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she rolls her eyes and goes back to her eye shadow. “Seriously, Dee, what are you doing? It’s almost midnight. You’re wearing hello kitty pyjamas, you obviously don’t have plans.”
“I could say the same to you. Dirtgrub and Ronnie The Rat didn’t wanna go get drunk and kick dogs with the birthday boy?”
“You say that like Fatty Magoo is here right now so the two of you can have a celebratory make-out-sesh with the human anatomy chart in your bio textbooks right now.”
“What do you want, Dennis?” she asks, again, dropping her brush as she turns to face him, voice sharp and annoyed.
“To know what you’re doing.”
“If it’s so goddamn important to you, I'm practicing.”
“Why? Do you think nobody’s gonna notice the brace if you’ve got gold shit on your eyes?”
Dee scowls, expression a direct translation of you’ve hit on something, but I'm angry that you did and I'm pretending you’re wrong.
“Dennis, go away,” she says, a more dangerous kind of annoyed than she was before, which, fuck , was not what Dennis was going for. He needs something, and knew he had a chance at it when he heard the clatter of brushes on his way back from the bathroom. Loosening her up with a bit of arguing seemed like the way to get there, but they’ve gone in the opposite direction now.
He doesn’t leave. He opens his mouth to respond, but shuts it again.
“What?”
He still doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure how to. Dee’s face softens slightly with recognition, and she rolls her eyes.
“C’mon, then.”
He hesitates, momentarily, before grabbing the metal and vinyl chair from next to her dresser and pulling it over so he can sit next to her. His ears strain for the car he knows won’t return for hours pulling into the driveway. Just because they haven’t been caught yet doesn’t mean they never will be.
She takes the brush she’d been using moments earlier and taps it into the same gold shade, turning to face Dennis.
“Close your eyes,” she says, and he does.
“This one is three dollars cheaper. A broom’s a broom, dumbass. Let’s get the cheaper one and be done with it.”
“ A broom’s a broom? Are you kidding me? Dee, I'm not skimping out to save a measly three dollars, only for my piece of shit broom to fall apart in two years. This one is clearly superior in quality, we’re getting it.”
“Oh, you only think that because you very conveniently ‘forgot your wallet’ and I’m-”
“-I don’t see how it’s convenient for me if it means I end up with some piece of shit broom because you-”
“-if you were paying and I tried to suggest that-”
“Excuse me?”
They both cut off abruptly, and snap their heads toward a fearful-looking hardware store employee, no older than seventeen, name tag reading Hi there, I’m Ellie! is looking at them.
“I’m really sorry,” she continues, though she sounds less sorry for her words and more for the fact that she’s the one who has to say them, “but you’ve been yelling at each other for almost ten minutes, and you’re being pretty vulgar. We’re going to need you to leave if you aren’t buying anything.”
“We’re obviously here buying a broom,” Dennis snaps, and Dee glares at him.
“Don’t snap at her. What did she do to you?”
“Fuck you. I’m an American, and I’ll snap at who I want to goddamn snap at. What are you, my mom?”
“No, because mom would commend you on yelling at minimum-wage employees that have done nothing to deserve your shit.”
“Well, mom knew what she was fucking-”
“Could I help you with something?” Ellie interrupts. “Maybe help pick out a broom?”
“We’re two grown adults. I think we can pick out a broom,” Dee says.
“What do we even need the broom for?” Dennis asks. “We have a perfectly good broom. Charlie was literally using it when he sent us out.”
“It’s a distraction, dumbass. You didn’t notice Mac jazzing around the bar like the two of them were about to pull off the caper of the century?”
“Of course I fucking noticed. How would I not notice? He and Charlie were planning the party at a regular speaking volume in a booth eleven feet away from us the other day.”
“I know. It’s bleak.”
“Is there a problem?” says a voice, and they both turn to see another employee. Peter , his name tag reads, and he’s significantly taller and older than the high school student he sent over to do his dirty work. Dennis could probably take him, but he doesn’t want to.
“You think they’re done yet?” Dennis asks Dee, ignoring him, save for a single glance.
“Probably. We could get coffee on the way back, though, to give them extra time?”
“Good thinking. I don’t wanna deal with Mac getting all depressed because we show up early.”
“Look, you guys need to leave if you’re not buying anything,” Peter says.
“Relax, buddy,” Dennis says. “We’re leaving.”
“Yeah. Don’t get your panties all twisted, you might damage the lace.”
“Nice,” Dennis says, appreciatively, and he reaches his hand back for her to high-five as they walk away from the employees.
Dee buys him coffee. He honestly did forget his wallet, left in the pocket of the jacket he also forgot about as Mac and Charlie ushered them out the door, but the happy twenty-fifth, dick, as she hands it to him is nice anyways.
“I think I'm gonna buy a houseplant while we’re there.”
“Dee, are you fucking kidding me? You’re not- we’re on a very tight schedule here. We don’t have time for-”
“No, I'm buying it. It’ll take me, what? Ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes? Are you kidding me? We do not have ten minutes for you to-”
The tinkle of music from the cupholder cuts him off, and Dee holds up a single, bony, infuriating finger to silence him as she answers her phone.
It’s bad enough that Dennis has to spend his birthday on a scheme, but being holed up in his car with Dee all day as they go from mall to mall is downright torture. Unfortunately, it’s time-sensitive, and the only thing more effective than one person currently turning thirty-five is two people currently turning thirty-five.
“Hello?”
The distinct squeaking of Charlie Kelly can be heard from the other end, even where Dennis can’t make out the words, and he mutters a sharp fuck as he pulls up to a red light. For the light, for Dee, for Charlie- for everything, really.
“Yeah, I know. Yeah, i-” she pauses, looking at Dennis and pointing to the phone as she mouths It’s Charlie.
“I know it’s fucking Charlie!”
Dee rolls her eyes to indicate she thinks he’s overreacting, even though there’s honestly no underreacting with any of the gang, since none of them can take a single thing seriously.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Dee continues, her and Charlie seeming to be mostly speaking over each other, much like the gang’s usual in-person conversations. “Yeah, he’s- no, I know -he’s being a total bitch, all day just-”
She makes a garbled sort of squeaky noise, and taps her index finger and thumb together on the hand not holding the phone, even though her conversation with Charlie does not have a visual component.
“No, Charlie, seriously. He’s- huh?”
There’s a long silence from Dee, and the sounds of Mac yelling on the other side of the phone fill the car as the light in front of them changes. Charlie’s voice reappears, also yelling and frantic.
“You what? Charlie, are you fucking- why was he driving?”
Charlie screeches something back to her, and Dennis spares a concerned glance to the phone.
“Because the man can’t fucking see, let alone drive, you dumb asshole! He- what? How is this my fault?” there’s a beep , indicating that Charlie hung up on her, and she throws her phone to her lap. “Oh, godammit!”
“What the shit was that?”
“Frank crashed the goddamn car!”
“How did Frank manage to crash the car?”
“Because the only two people stupid enough to let him drive wanted to take a break and look at the map, but didn’t have time to stop.”
Dennis rolls his eyes. “So, what? Is it totalled?”
“Yep. they’re not going anywhere,” she huffs. “Plan’s off, I guess. We can’t do it without them.”
“I know we can’t do it without them,” Dennis snaps, but he’s more annoyed with the guys than he is with Dee, which she seems to understand when she doesn’t respond.
Dennis can see the entrance to the strip mall they’d been headed to, their fifth stop of the day, just up ahead.
“Can you drop me off, though? I have time to get a plant, now.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“Thanks.”
Silence. Dennis spares a glance to Dee, biting her thumb nail and staring out the window without really looking at anything.
She’s annoyed about the scheme, he thinks. It was her idea, and a damn good one. He’d taken credit for a reason.
“Shame about the plan,” Dennis says, and she turns to him, face stuck between surprise and a small smile.
A birthday gift, of sorts. He hasn’t gotten her one of those since he was seventeen and drunk with Mac at the gas station and stole a bag of m&ms for her.
“Yeah, well. It was bound to fall apart at some point. At least it’s only two- we didn’t waste the whole day.”
Dennis hums, and pulls into the parking lot. Dee opens her mouth to say something, hand already poised on the door handle, before-
“I need a toothbrush,” Dennis blurts.
“You- what?”
“A- a toothbrush. I need one. You’re supposed to replace them every, like, year and a half, right?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s every six months,” Dee says, wrinkling her nose.
“Oh. Well, anyway, I need a new one.”
“Uh… good luck?”
She stares blankly at him, still frozen in position to get out of the rover.
“I'm saying I'm coming with you, Dee. Jesus.”
“Oh! Okay,” she opens the door, swinging her purse over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“There.”
Dennis starts slightly, as Dee slams an envelope down on the bar in front of him.
“ There what?”
“Present. For your birthday. Our birthday. Your half of the birthday.”
“I didn’t get you anything,” Dennis says, immediately, just in case she’s somehow forgotten the last forty-four years.
“Of course you didn’t. Would you just open it? Actually- hold on,” she turns to where Mac is leaning against the pool table, talking to Charlie as he mops an unidentified blue puddle. “Mac!”
“What?”
“Come here!”
Mac rolls his eyes, but comes over anyway.
“It’s kinda for Mac, too.”
“Some fuckin’ birthday present,” Dennis says, as Mac comes up next to Dee, leaning against the bar.
“Birthday present? Since when do you guys get birthday presents for each other?”
“We don’t,” they say in unison, envelope still sitting on the bar notwithstanding.
“Open it, then,” Dee says, gesturing to the envelope, before leaning over the bar to grab herself a beer. Dennis watches her warily, and she gestures to it again when she resurfaces.
“What is it?” he asks, picking it up.
“Jesus Christ, you’re bad at this,” Dee says. “It’s a surprise . You’d know what it was if you just opened the damn thing and stopped bitching about it.”
Dennis, with one last reproachful glance toward the envelope, opens the flap and slides its contents into his hands.
“Pictures?” Mac asks.
It’s a relatively thick stack of four-by-eleven prints, held together with a rubber band. The top one is a picture of Mac, Charlie, and Dee outside of Paddy’s. Dee’s pointing up at the sign, looking straight at the camera, but Mac and Charlie are a blur next to her as Charlie falls to the ground and Mac tries to grab him.
Dennis remembers the picture- he’s the one that took it. It was the second time they’d been to the bar since buying it, and the first time they’d brought Dee. Mac and Charlie had both insisted on Charlie being on Mac’s back in the picture, despite the many times Dennis and Dee had told them it was a bad idea. It wasn’t even a matter of Mac’s strength- though his muscle mass was definitely lacking back then -Charlie just couldn’t stay still long enough to be stable. They’d fallen just as Dennis was taking it, and then the four of them went inside to ice the bump on Charlie’s head and check him for a concussion.
“It’s all old shit. I got copies made of most of what I have, and then asked around to the few people we used to hang out with that will still get within thirty feet of any of us. I know you guys lost most of your pictures in the fire, especially since we all thought we were too cool to back anything up online until, like, 2012, so...”
Dennis stares down at the picture. The sweatshirt Dee’s wearing in it used to belong to Dennis, but he’d gotten bored of it quickly and given it to her. She wore it until it was essentially falling off her, and then got Charlie to help her stitch it up and wore it more. Dennis found it at the bottom of a drawer when he and Mac were living there, though she (thankfully) doesn’t wear it anymore.
He clears his throat.
“Thanks, Dee.”
“Yeah, I mean,” she sounds embarrassed, like she’s been caught doing something humiliating instead of nice. “No problem.”
He pulls off the rubber band, and wordlessly passes the bottom half of the stack to the grabby hand Mac is making at him. They both flip through them, occasionally showing something interesting or funny to the others. Dee drinks her beer.