When she was a babe, there was a mother and no father. By the time she was four there was a brother and no mother.
Five years pass and in that time she'd been a saintly child, a lost brat, a pick pocket, a ballerina and even a courier girl. Each role about as authentic as the last. Each coming and going with ease, dropped once it was no longer serviceable.
Thirteen years she'd lived on this earth, eleven years spent leaning how to smile and twirl her hair in just the right way. Cute for the kindly old crones and families on the street, desirable for the scum that only barely kept all their brains in their heads and hands out of their pants.
By fourteen the girl with six hundred different lives picked another.
With a bounce in her step and a grin on her face she took that brother of hers and ran. Pulling him off of the bug infested mattress, throwing aside the scratchy blankets in the dead of night and leaving with what little they owned. Bleary eyed and barely conscious she pulled her brother away from that dreadful place. Leaving behind the third orphanage they'd settled in.
This time the stage she'd found was a quite literal one.
Free boys and girls to work were always in high demand and after laying down her cards correctly she managed to become the bosses favorite novelty. Dance deftly on dirty feet, singing a sweet tune from lying lungs – catching the attention of a performance man. Earn their keep, work their way to the stage and when the time was right, step into a spotlight.
Theater appealed to the freshly named Jackie. Up on the stage she could preform any number of lies, sell them to the crowd who cheered at the deception. Craved it nearly as desperately as a drowning man did air. They buried themselves into her act, drowned themselves in her pretty smiles and delicate laughter. Each one happy to accept the sweet lie she provided. Not one felt betrayed when the performance ended, not one chased her with the cries of liar or thief once the curtain was pulled back. Instead they cheered, smiled, paid their dues and left with the promise of a return in the near future.
Then behind the stage, peeking out around the corner a little face with sharp eyes watched her slip out of the lie, becoming Jackie once again. A sweet smile traded for a mirthless grin. Dancing off stage Jackie approached that little brat, and in an instant had him gathered up in her arms for an excited hug.
Her brother, only barely a decade old and already so much better than any of the common rabble that gave themselves over to her act. The one good thing she kept close, the one thing that came before the mark, before the act.
The lights of the stage had left her skin prickling, overheated and buzzing. The many eyes keeping the blood in her veins pumping and the smile on her face beaming. Once, twice she spun, pulling her indulgent brother along for the ride until she stopped with a breathless laugh. "Lets see it. How's my favorite little brother done tonight?" She asked, setting Frank back down on his own two feet.
And oh wasn't she just the proudest big sister when he produced a collection of wallets and loose jewels.
Jackie sneered at the sight of the goods. "Well, if they don't try harder to hold onto it, they can't have wanted them all that badly." She snickered, giving her brother's head a little pat. The two siblings grinned together behind the closed curtains, awaiting the next show. Jackie preformed her part on the stage and as the slack jawed masses watched, her brother was relieving them of their earthly goods.
The theater owner put her on stage and her brother to work out back. But they both learnt one another's trades quickly enough. Her brother was quite the little actor himself and Jackie delighted in hearing the different voices that could fall off his tongue after some practice.
Oh but there were greater joys than the simple talent of picking pockets and playing a role. While her brother had becoming rather good at the practice, age brought with it new opportunities.
No longer a child, now nineteen years of age things had to change. The stage too small, her brother too tall. Jackie mulled this over backstage, watching as Frank set out preparations for that night's show. The stage boy part of his act showing in how sturdy his body had become.
Grown so quick that one. Her once cute little brother was already catching up to her in height, how unfortunate. Jackie was going to miss being able to pick him up at her leisure.
Glancing carelessly towards the glow of the stage, Jackie's mind began to turn. Her brother would be old enough soon, old enough that when he spoke other men would begin to listen. She would never have quite the voice he did, men didn't listen to her words any further than their own desires were concerned.
So she twisted them with her movement of her body and the look in her eyes – allowing them to believe they were the ones controlling her until the precise moment the world fell out form under them. It would be the curse and blessing of her gender to be overlooked by all men. They'd think little of her, underestimate how sharp her wit and hatred could be until she used it to slit their throat.
Oh but not her Frankie.
Soon he'd be big enough, speak loudly enough and people would stop to heed his words. Jackie could not have been more pleased by this thought. If a man was to wield a voice, he might as well be one as clever as her brother.
"Frankie." She spoke to him in that way he must have recognized. The slight tilt to her words, the mischief she did not attempt to smother when it was just the two of them. "Moonlighting again are we?" He went stiff before seeming to remember precisely who he was talking to, that expression of alarm melting into one of frustration. "Cheeky, thought I wouldn't notice did we?"
"What gave me away?" Frank asked, abandoning the box of props he'd been shuffling off to god only knows where. To steal something or to set it up for the stage – Jackie didn't care.
Peevishly Jackie leant forward in her seat, no longer lounging about lazily, to point up into her brother's face. "That smile." She told him with a wicked one of her own. "You never look that happy unless you're running another job."
Knowing he'd been caught Frank shrugged, wholly unrepentant and now openly excited. Without the need to pretend otherwise he was once again free to talk excitedly about his new job. "It was supposed to be a surprise." He began, tone just shy of accusing but the excited glint in his eyes didn't dampen in the slightest. "A bit of extra scratch."
Her brother's excitement was satisfying enough that Jackie didn't actually care much about the job itself. Were it anyone else she would have been furious out of mistrust, but her little brother did not fall into the same category as everyone else. Family came first every time. So she listened with a steady smile as Frankie explained this new game of his. Not nearly as fun as her own but he seemed to prefer playing the illegal gambling scene far more than the stage. He mapped out the new system, the new last name he was working under and the fake age he'd been giving out. Jackie listened, feigning most of her interest in the subject itself. He could have talked for hours about Frank Wiston's interstate bookmaking scheme and she would have listened without caring about the subject in the slightest.
She worked people in a different way to her brother. He played more keenly on business, greed and the folly of clever men. Jackie preferred her marks to be almost purely emotional creatures. But she had to admit, her little brother did drag in quite the impressive wage at the end of the day.
Certainly more than pickpocketed goods.
"Frankie." She called just before her brother vanished for what she guessed would be the rest of the night. Pausing Frank turned back to glance at his sister and was greeted with the usual smile. "Keep your wits about you, kiddo."
Her brother's answering grin was a near match for her own. "Not much of a kid anymore." He replied before stepping out of the theater and leaving his older sister to scoff.
"Not a kid he says." She mused, expression softening slightly now that Frank was gone. "Idiot, don't he know little brothers are always kids?"
Beyond the curtain the crowd was getting restless and Jackie knew it was about time she got up and remedied the situation. What she saw on the stage that night was another young girl, dancing and smiling in that saintly way to the audience. Jackie waited and watched as the girl did her bit and then took a bow under the praise of every idiot in the place. She worked them beautifully.
Jackie stayed behind the curtain as the little angel pranced off stage, pausing for just a moment to glance up at Jackie. The kid looked like she was only fourteen years old.
Then she sneered and what could Jackie do but grin right back.
…
…
"Got yourself in too deep have we, kiddo?"
"Just help me get these fucking papers forged!"
"Gorland is it now? Christ, little brother, couldn't you have picked a less horrendous name?"
Jackie saw her brother's shoulders sink; shaking with what she guessed was some horrible concoction of terror, rage and frustration. He'd never had a job go pear-shaped quite like this before. It was a good lesson for him to learn, although she would have preferred he not learn it on his twenty first birthday.
He brother did not deal with failure well.
Clapping Frankie on the back, his big sister offered him the usual beaming grin. "Schmucks ain't going to know what hit them, kid."
Still enraged by his own failure, Frank took a few moments longer to calm enough to register the small level of support he was shown. He'd always get it from his sister, a rare constant among a life lived a fluidly as a river. Names would come and go, backstories built and dismantled – but his sister was always there with a bolstering word when it was needed.
Thinking for a couple of seconds, Frank recalled a fellow he'd met by chance earlier that year. A gambler who just so happened to own a bit of land and have an absolutely terrible run of luck. He might just be in need of a loan, Harv, wasn't it? "Say, sis." Frank began slowly, a steady confidence returning to his voice. "Ever wanted to own a bar?" He asked and she grinned.
By the end of the night Frankie Wiston was gone, in his place was Frank Gorland and that was that.
…
…
It was all perfectly legal. Jackie sat back and watched as her brother made the pitch. Played the right voice in just the right way, smiled when appropriate, offered a sympathetic hand where believable. Before long Harv Merton was balling something fierce and signing a loan with "Hudson Loans". He shook Frankie's hand with a grateful smile and off he went.
Slinking up behind her brother, Jackie curled over his shoulder looking down at the mockery of a loan agreement in his hands. "Oh brother, I almost feel back for the poor soul." She crooned, eyeing the false signature her brother had whipped up for this occasion. Far too pretty to actually belong to Frank.
Chuckling Frank glanced back at his sister with a faintly admonishing look. "No you don't." He said simply and Jackie didn't even attempt to defend the lie, merely shrugging with a sly smile. "Before the month is out The Clanger belongs to us."
Jackie corrected him without hesitation. "To you."
"Now what kind of brother would I be if I didn't share?"
"The regular kind."
"Ain't never been one for 'regular'." Then as if to solidify the thought Frank asked. "What type of music do you reckon, sis?"
True to his word the bar passed hands a month later as a decidedly less thankful Harv Merton was forced to hand over the keys. His debt hadn't been paid and the interest was more than enough for the bar alone. This particular role suited both siblings a little too well. At the bar Frank pulled out fake names in his own establishment, cleaning cups and listening to the drunken babble of foolish gamblers that didn't pay attention to the man filling their cups.
While Frank indulged himself with the bets and rigged races, Jackie was left to her own devices. The bar was a perfect place she thought; on a quiet night she got to fill cups and make chatter with anyone that came on by. But what was the most fun for Jackie were the energetic nights, the ones were the bar was packed and the screams for entertainment grew so thunderous she was sure they'd returned to the theater. On nights like that Jackie got up, demanded the spotlight again and sang until her voice was raw.
The saintly songs of an angel faced girly replaced with raucous swell of cabaret music. Words of sweet love and virginal gals traded for debauchery and things that would send nuns rushing for their confessionals should the tainted words so much as cross their mind.
It was messy, feverish and likely the most energy half these poor saps had seen and felt in the better half of their lives. Saturday nights spent making a mess of the bar, getting all kinds of people calling out, signing with voices too rough and unpolished to be used for such a thing. Each accepted with the burn of straight alcohol and a building overflowing with hearts breaking, broken and just waiting to break.
This was the trade off Jackie decided once the doors closed on another night and she collapsed boneless on the lounge upstairs where she and her brother now slept. Her dress a mess, hair even worse but her face still alight with the glee of a night well spent. She was far beyond buzzed, a bottle of vodka half empty and still clutched in her hand as she grinned hazily up at the ceiling and its flickering light.
Jackie's eyes flicked to the side as the cushions of the lounge dipped down under the weight of her brother. As he sat, pulling his tie loose with a weary sigh, looking every bit the exhausted worker, Jackie crawled back upright and gestured for him to lay down. For a moment Frank regarded her skeptically and Jackie laughed, lifting her bottle of alcohol as a kind of peace offering. Frank gladly accepted, laying himself down with head in his sister's lap.
Handing over the drink Jackie fell back limp against the back of the lounge, fingers tangling in her brother's blonde hair gently tugging here and there. "Looking a little thin there brother." She teased, earning herself a faintly annoyed grunt.
"Don't ruin this, sis…" Frank groused, peering past the neck of the bottle as his sister.
As a second peace offering Jackie relented and when she opened her mouth next something kinder came out. Just because she knew how tired her brother was an how much he enjoyed the odd moment of tenderness. If she recalled correctly he liked this particular song.
"Why do I just do as you say?" Jackie began to sing more softly, voice worn ragged from a night of joyous screaming. "Why must I just give you your way?"
"Didn't know you could sing like that." Frank teased before taking a gulp of the burning liquid, cringing a bit as it ran down his throat. "Thought it was all piss and vinegar in there now."
"Hush now." Jackie chided his little brother gently. A night of partying and dancing sapping the fight from her bones, leaving behind a gentle touch and quiet voice. Quiet down Frank did, listening to his sister drawl the familiar song, one she didn't give to the bar crowd anymore. It'd be a waste to sing sweetly for them.
"Some others I've seen might never be mean. Might never be cross or try to be boss, but they wouldn't do. For nobody else gave me a thrill."
Jackie was no lyricist. She sung the works of others, played the parts of other's desires. She didn't create things like her brother did, didn't make new people from thin air and no script to follow. But as she sang those words and gave Frank a playful nudge she very nearly left the script. Nearly altered the words she sang so they fit her brother more perfectly.
"With all your faults, I love you still."
Maybe one day she would, but for tonight she sang the usual words and distantly dreamed for the lyrics she might someday trade them for.
"It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you"
Before long the fatigue was catching up with them both. Jackie's singing became softer with every word but she continued to hum even after the final verse had been sung. Looking down at her little brother who was not quite so little anymore. Frank was the first to fall into sleep, the bottle slipping out of his fingers as his exhaustion took the last of his consciousness and Jackie was awake only long enough to chuckle quietly at the sight.
For Jackie this would have been just fine. As a child she dreamt big, imagined all the wealth in the world, power and respect. She imagined people dropping to their knees at her feet, begging she grace them with so much as a glance. She imagined being in a place where she was safe, adored, never hungry, never cold and never scorned.
But those childish whims had faded over the years. Those desires changed as Frank grew older. Now she dreamt of the years passing, still never cold or for want of food, but less frivolous. A roof over their heads, a ready supply of entertainment and one another for company…that would have been enough for the rest of her days.
Oh, but Jackie knew better. That would never be enough for her little Frankie. She could be content being with just him, but he still dreamed large. Still looked to the sky with eyes that said he wanted more and Jackie would gladly give it all to him. If he wanted to take the world, she'd not stop trying until he had it.
"Family first, kid." She mumbled the familiar phrase before letting sleep come up to claim her next. In the morning they'd both be incredibly hung over and likely in foul moods – but for that moment the world was nothing other than wonderful.