Chapter 3 - "Do You Still Remember How We Used To Be?" - Tweedle-Tay's
Story
April 6th, 2000 - Tulsa, Oklahoma
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I slammed my hand down on my alarm clock and looked at the time. 7am. Just early enough to talk to Alisha before she went to school. I hadn't called her yesterday and I didn't want her to think I didn't like her. I rolled out of bed and put on a pair of jeans and a black Aerosmith T-shirt. I walked quickly down the hallway to the loungeroom and picked up the phone. 0-1-3-9-3-7-0-4-2-7-0. I punched in Alisha's phone number and waited for someone to pick up. "Hello?" a voice said.
"Hi Gorgeous!" I replied.
"Well hello Damian!" It was Alisha's older sister.
"Uh, can I speak to Alisha?" I asked.
Alisha's sister groaned and said something about how the stupid bastard Damian never called. Within a few seconds another voice was at the phone. "Hi Gorgeous!" I said again.
"Huh? Oh hi TJ," Alisha said. She sounded tired.
"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned. "You sound sick...."
There was a pause. "No TJ, I just stayed out a little too late last night and now I'm reaping the consequences....."
Alisha had gone out drinking again. "You went out on a school night?" I asked incredulously. "What are you going to do today?"
Alisha sighed. "Take a Panadol and face the teachers I suppose. My parents will kill me if I truant. They don't know I went out last night and if they found out they'd slit my throat."
"Well you do sound sick so maybe you could pass it off as the flu," I suggested helpfully.
Alisha laughed. "Maybe, but my parents have seen me hungover before..... It must be costing you a heap of money to call me long distance every day. Why don't you just give me your phone number? We can split the cost," she suggested.
See how sweet Alisha was? How could Michaela think of someone so lovely as a bitch? "Oh no Alisha, that's okay. I don't mind doing all the calling."
There was a pause. "Where exactly are you honey?" Alisha asked sweetly.
"I'm visiting my brother. He's been in a bit of trouble...." I said.
"Yes, but WHERE are you?" Alisha persisted. "If you're there for a long time I might want to go and see you."
Alisha was going to come and see me? That would be so great. "I'm in Tulsa."
"Your family lives in Tulsa?" Alisha asked.
"Yeah," I replied. I actually wouldn't mind that much if Alisha knew who I really was. It wasn't like it would ruin my life or anything. It might even make her like me more.
Alisha laughed. "No wonder you and your sister moved to LA!"
I smiled to myself. "We didn't move away from Tulsa because we didn't like it, we moved away because of..... family difficulties."
"Right," Alisha said. "Well I might come and visit you -"
"Tweedle-Tay!" Michaela hissed. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She'd obviously been listening in for some time.
"Talking to Alisha," I replied.
"TJ?" Alisha asked.
"Just a sec -" I said covering the phone.
Michaela groaned. "Tweedle-Tay! Your obsession with Alisha is bad enough without you telling her our family secrets. I went to Junior High with her - and elementary school! She's not to be trusted."
Michaela was really pissed off. What was her problem with Alisha? Why was she being such a bitch? She wasn't acting like herself, she wasn't acting like the Michaela I adored. She was always either depressed or pissed off. I took my hand off the phone. "Alisha, it would be great if you'd come and visit, but I have to go now. I'll call you soon, okay?"
Alisha sighed. "Sure TJ...." she said. "Bye!"
"Bye Lisha!" I said, hanging up the phone.
Michaela had left the room and gone into the kitchen, where she was making herself a bowl of cereal. I picked up an apple and began to eat. "Michaela, what is your problem?" I asked.
"With Alisha?" she said, looking up at me. She poured milk onto her cereal and went to sit down at the table. I followed her.
"Who else?" I asked.
Michaela whined. "I'm trying to like Alisha," she said. "But you have to understand that this is very hard for me. I try to like Alisha, but I really re -" Michaela cut herself off. She shrugged. "Don't....."
"Why not? She's never done anything bad to you!" I protested.
Michaela shook her head. "You don't know that! I mean, she hasn't but.... I can't talk about this Tay," she frowned. "This is really hard for me to say."
I threw the apple core into the bin from across the room. "Well Michaela, you're changing. You're not the Michaela you used to be. You're not the sweet, happy, fun, Michaela anymore. You're just the miserable, bitchy, let's-depress-everyone, Michaela."
Michaela's lip began to quiver. "Well I WANT to be 'happy Michaela'. But, but, I can't tell you why I don't like Alisha."
"Why not?" I pressed.
"Because you're not supposed to love Alisha!" Michaela said loudly. "You're supposed to love....." Michaela frowned. "Oh what the hell! Go fuck Alisha! See if I care!"
"I'm not fucking Alisha!" I protested.
Michaela started to cry. "I'm so sick of this! Why do I always have to be the perfect one? Everything would be okay if it weren't for Alisha. Every one has someone to love and someone who loves them except for me. I'm supposed to your favourite girl - not Alisha!"
Michaela thought she was my favourite person? Well, she used to be, but not anymore. Lately she'd been a boring bitch. "Well, maybe if you were a little nicer I would like you more!"
Michaela screamed. "Okay, okay! I'm trying to be nicer and more happy but it's not easy when your own brother doesn't like you...... So now I'm going to try and like Alisha - will that make you happy???"
"Yes. It will," I said, walking back into my room.
Michaela and I spent the rest of the morning in our respective rooms, totally ignoring one another. Grubbery was still sleeping. He must have been tired after his ordeal. Finally, at about lunch time, I got bored with sitting in my room by myself and went out into the lounge room to watch TV. Unfortunately Michaela had the same idea and was curled up on the lounge watching 'Ricki Lake'. I had nothing better to do so I sat down next to her. She looked over at me. "Hey Tay," she said sadly.
"Hi Michaela," I replied.
"I'm really, really sorry about what a bitch I'm being. I'm going to try to like Alisha and be nice to her. Everything else in my life is quite okay. I guess I was just......" Michaela paused and made a face. "Jealous of her." She sat up on the lounge so that I'd have more room.
I scooted along the lounge to sit closer to her. "That's okay Michaela. Now that you know why you hate Alisha and have admitted it we can try to fix the problem." I put my arm around her. "Just because I love Alisha doesn't mean I don't love you. She's my girlfriend and you're my sweet, bubbly sister. Or at least, you usually are." I laughed and Michaela gave a little smile. "I can love you both in different ways."
Michaela smiled. "I hope so."
We sat back to watch Ricki. It was really funny! They were all dancing around showing us their underwear. And they weren't exactly attractive women, either. It seemed that no intelligent, good looking people ever went on talk shows. I remembered the studio audience when I went on Oprah and shuddered. Ick!
"Hey...." a sleepy voice said. "What are you watching?"
It was Grubbery. "Ricki Lake," Michaela said cheerfully. "Do you want me to get you some breakfast?"
"Yeah, that would be great," Grubbery said. We all walked out into the kitchen. Michaela fixed Grubbery some breakfast and we all sat down at the table. "So, what happened to you guys after the parents sent you away?"
"They didn't send us away, they put us in the attic," Michaela replied.
"I know," Grubbery said, "But what happened?"
Michaela and I looked at one another. "Well, when we first went up into the attic we thought it was only going to be for a few days, until our mother convinced our father that the band couldn't survive without me," I began.
"Which it couldn't," Grubbery said bitterly.
"Mmmm," I continued. "Anyway we stayed there for about a month until we were temporarily let down into the rest of the house because you and Neuton went on tour. The house was locked, so we couldn't get out."
"And we were too stupid to think of bashing our way out the window," Michaela added.
I frowned. "Because we thought we'd be back in the family soon," I explained. We didn't want to make ourselves look bad. "The tour failed, as I'm sure you know and as soon as you guys returned we were sent back up into the attic."
"Tay went into a deep depression because there was now no possibility of him going back to the band and becoming a teen idol again. After a few weeks we got back to normal and started working on painting and writing and our school work. We knew we wouldn't be in the attic forever and wanted to make the most of the time we spent there," Michaela said.
"Our parents gave us a television set for our birthday," I added. "After that the days didn't drag on as much."
Michaela laughed. "Tay liked to watch sex shows! You should have seen -" Michaela cut herself off.
Now was not the time to tell Grubbery about our little...... thing. "Anyway, Michaela had been going through our family history for some time when she finally found out the family secret," I said.
Grubbery laughed. "Family secret??"
Michaela frowned. "It's not funny Grubbery, it's gross." She paused. "Okay, remember how I used to live with an adopted grandmother?" Grubbery nodded. "Well it turns out that she's our real grandmother," Michaela took a deep breath in. "Annabelle Morgan married Roger Manson and had fraternal twins named Fergie and Skipper."
Grubbery gasped.
"Well, obviously they fell in love and got married," I continued, "When they gave birth to fraternal twins who looked so alike," I said, pointing to Michaela and myself. "They decided to get rid of the daughter so that history would not repeat itself. That's why Michaela went to live with our rich grandmother."
Grubbery frowned. "And did history repeat itself?" he joked.
Michaela and I looked at each other. "Nope," she said.
"Not at all," I added. "Not with us."
"So when you guys went on your family holiday last year, Tay and I took the chance we needed and escaped," Michaela took up the story again. "We moved to my old house in LA and went to San Fernando Valley High School. I met these girls who I thought were nice and started to date this guy on the basketball team called Rod. Anyway, Rod tried to have sex with me and when I wouldn't he spread rumours about me around the school."
"Michaela's been really depressed lately," I explained. "Because of the attic."
"Well that's understandable," Grubbery acknowledged. "Even in the summarised version...."
"I started dating this girl called Alisha. She is really beautiful and lovely. You'll really like her," I said.
"If I meet her...." Grubbery commented.
"We found out about you on Entertainment Tonight and here we are now," Michaela said.
"What's been happening to you?" I asked Grubbery.
Grubbery frowned. "After you went up to the attic, Neuton and I tried to keep the band going. We made the Christmas album, went on tour, but everybody hated us. They knew something was up. No one really believed that you'd gone off to live with your 'girlfriend', they all thought we'd murdered you."
"Which was sort of true," Michaela said wryly.
Grubbery nodded. "Anyway, we came back to Tulsa and went back to living our lives the way we did before Manson. But it wasn't the same at all. I really missed the two of you, especially Tay - because I knew him better - and something weird was going on with our parents. Our mother would disappear every night at the same time - to feed you I suppose - and there was something different about our parent's attitude. It was although something evil had been awakened in them. By the time my thirteenth birthday came around I was a totally different person - I was into grunge and stuff and I wasn't getting along with the rest of the family at all." he paused. "Especially Elizabeth," he added, "She is such a little bimbo."
I smiled. "Isn't everyone at that age?"
Grubbery frowned. "I wasn't. I wasn't weird and hyperactive."
"Whatever, Grub," I said, letting it go.
"So when I found out that you guys had been in the attic everything got worse. I was the only child in the family who'd figured it out. Neuton may have known, but he was pretending he didn't, probably to preserve his perfect image of our parents. I've been giving our parents hell about what they did to you for the past year."
"Good," Michaela said. "It's nice to know we're not the only ones being punished."
"No you're not," Grubbery said. "And things are going to get worse for them, much worse."
Story
April 6th, 2000 - Tulsa, Oklahoma
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I slammed my hand down on my alarm clock and looked at the time. 7am. Just early enough to talk to Alisha before she went to school. I hadn't called her yesterday and I didn't want her to think I didn't like her. I rolled out of bed and put on a pair of jeans and a black Aerosmith T-shirt. I walked quickly down the hallway to the loungeroom and picked up the phone. 0-1-3-9-3-7-0-4-2-7-0. I punched in Alisha's phone number and waited for someone to pick up. "Hello?" a voice said.
"Hi Gorgeous!" I replied.
"Well hello Damian!" It was Alisha's older sister.
"Uh, can I speak to Alisha?" I asked.
Alisha's sister groaned and said something about how the stupid bastard Damian never called. Within a few seconds another voice was at the phone. "Hi Gorgeous!" I said again.
"Huh? Oh hi TJ," Alisha said. She sounded tired.
"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned. "You sound sick...."
There was a pause. "No TJ, I just stayed out a little too late last night and now I'm reaping the consequences....."
Alisha had gone out drinking again. "You went out on a school night?" I asked incredulously. "What are you going to do today?"
Alisha sighed. "Take a Panadol and face the teachers I suppose. My parents will kill me if I truant. They don't know I went out last night and if they found out they'd slit my throat."
"Well you do sound sick so maybe you could pass it off as the flu," I suggested helpfully.
Alisha laughed. "Maybe, but my parents have seen me hungover before..... It must be costing you a heap of money to call me long distance every day. Why don't you just give me your phone number? We can split the cost," she suggested.
See how sweet Alisha was? How could Michaela think of someone so lovely as a bitch? "Oh no Alisha, that's okay. I don't mind doing all the calling."
There was a pause. "Where exactly are you honey?" Alisha asked sweetly.
"I'm visiting my brother. He's been in a bit of trouble...." I said.
"Yes, but WHERE are you?" Alisha persisted. "If you're there for a long time I might want to go and see you."
Alisha was going to come and see me? That would be so great. "I'm in Tulsa."
"Your family lives in Tulsa?" Alisha asked.
"Yeah," I replied. I actually wouldn't mind that much if Alisha knew who I really was. It wasn't like it would ruin my life or anything. It might even make her like me more.
Alisha laughed. "No wonder you and your sister moved to LA!"
I smiled to myself. "We didn't move away from Tulsa because we didn't like it, we moved away because of..... family difficulties."
"Right," Alisha said. "Well I might come and visit you -"
"Tweedle-Tay!" Michaela hissed. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She'd obviously been listening in for some time.
"Talking to Alisha," I replied.
"TJ?" Alisha asked.
"Just a sec -" I said covering the phone.
Michaela groaned. "Tweedle-Tay! Your obsession with Alisha is bad enough without you telling her our family secrets. I went to Junior High with her - and elementary school! She's not to be trusted."
Michaela was really pissed off. What was her problem with Alisha? Why was she being such a bitch? She wasn't acting like herself, she wasn't acting like the Michaela I adored. She was always either depressed or pissed off. I took my hand off the phone. "Alisha, it would be great if you'd come and visit, but I have to go now. I'll call you soon, okay?"
Alisha sighed. "Sure TJ...." she said. "Bye!"
"Bye Lisha!" I said, hanging up the phone.
Michaela had left the room and gone into the kitchen, where she was making herself a bowl of cereal. I picked up an apple and began to eat. "Michaela, what is your problem?" I asked.
"With Alisha?" she said, looking up at me. She poured milk onto her cereal and went to sit down at the table. I followed her.
"Who else?" I asked.
Michaela whined. "I'm trying to like Alisha," she said. "But you have to understand that this is very hard for me. I try to like Alisha, but I really re -" Michaela cut herself off. She shrugged. "Don't....."
"Why not? She's never done anything bad to you!" I protested.
Michaela shook her head. "You don't know that! I mean, she hasn't but.... I can't talk about this Tay," she frowned. "This is really hard for me to say."
I threw the apple core into the bin from across the room. "Well Michaela, you're changing. You're not the Michaela you used to be. You're not the sweet, happy, fun, Michaela anymore. You're just the miserable, bitchy, let's-depress-everyone, Michaela."
Michaela's lip began to quiver. "Well I WANT to be 'happy Michaela'. But, but, I can't tell you why I don't like Alisha."
"Why not?" I pressed.
"Because you're not supposed to love Alisha!" Michaela said loudly. "You're supposed to love....." Michaela frowned. "Oh what the hell! Go fuck Alisha! See if I care!"
"I'm not fucking Alisha!" I protested.
Michaela started to cry. "I'm so sick of this! Why do I always have to be the perfect one? Everything would be okay if it weren't for Alisha. Every one has someone to love and someone who loves them except for me. I'm supposed to your favourite girl - not Alisha!"
Michaela thought she was my favourite person? Well, she used to be, but not anymore. Lately she'd been a boring bitch. "Well, maybe if you were a little nicer I would like you more!"
Michaela screamed. "Okay, okay! I'm trying to be nicer and more happy but it's not easy when your own brother doesn't like you...... So now I'm going to try and like Alisha - will that make you happy???"
"Yes. It will," I said, walking back into my room.
Michaela and I spent the rest of the morning in our respective rooms, totally ignoring one another. Grubbery was still sleeping. He must have been tired after his ordeal. Finally, at about lunch time, I got bored with sitting in my room by myself and went out into the lounge room to watch TV. Unfortunately Michaela had the same idea and was curled up on the lounge watching 'Ricki Lake'. I had nothing better to do so I sat down next to her. She looked over at me. "Hey Tay," she said sadly.
"Hi Michaela," I replied.
"I'm really, really sorry about what a bitch I'm being. I'm going to try to like Alisha and be nice to her. Everything else in my life is quite okay. I guess I was just......" Michaela paused and made a face. "Jealous of her." She sat up on the lounge so that I'd have more room.
I scooted along the lounge to sit closer to her. "That's okay Michaela. Now that you know why you hate Alisha and have admitted it we can try to fix the problem." I put my arm around her. "Just because I love Alisha doesn't mean I don't love you. She's my girlfriend and you're my sweet, bubbly sister. Or at least, you usually are." I laughed and Michaela gave a little smile. "I can love you both in different ways."
Michaela smiled. "I hope so."
We sat back to watch Ricki. It was really funny! They were all dancing around showing us their underwear. And they weren't exactly attractive women, either. It seemed that no intelligent, good looking people ever went on talk shows. I remembered the studio audience when I went on Oprah and shuddered. Ick!
"Hey...." a sleepy voice said. "What are you watching?"
It was Grubbery. "Ricki Lake," Michaela said cheerfully. "Do you want me to get you some breakfast?"
"Yeah, that would be great," Grubbery said. We all walked out into the kitchen. Michaela fixed Grubbery some breakfast and we all sat down at the table. "So, what happened to you guys after the parents sent you away?"
"They didn't send us away, they put us in the attic," Michaela replied.
"I know," Grubbery said, "But what happened?"
Michaela and I looked at one another. "Well, when we first went up into the attic we thought it was only going to be for a few days, until our mother convinced our father that the band couldn't survive without me," I began.
"Which it couldn't," Grubbery said bitterly.
"Mmmm," I continued. "Anyway we stayed there for about a month until we were temporarily let down into the rest of the house because you and Neuton went on tour. The house was locked, so we couldn't get out."
"And we were too stupid to think of bashing our way out the window," Michaela added.
I frowned. "Because we thought we'd be back in the family soon," I explained. We didn't want to make ourselves look bad. "The tour failed, as I'm sure you know and as soon as you guys returned we were sent back up into the attic."
"Tay went into a deep depression because there was now no possibility of him going back to the band and becoming a teen idol again. After a few weeks we got back to normal and started working on painting and writing and our school work. We knew we wouldn't be in the attic forever and wanted to make the most of the time we spent there," Michaela said.
"Our parents gave us a television set for our birthday," I added. "After that the days didn't drag on as much."
Michaela laughed. "Tay liked to watch sex shows! You should have seen -" Michaela cut herself off.
Now was not the time to tell Grubbery about our little...... thing. "Anyway, Michaela had been going through our family history for some time when she finally found out the family secret," I said.
Grubbery laughed. "Family secret??"
Michaela frowned. "It's not funny Grubbery, it's gross." She paused. "Okay, remember how I used to live with an adopted grandmother?" Grubbery nodded. "Well it turns out that she's our real grandmother," Michaela took a deep breath in. "Annabelle Morgan married Roger Manson and had fraternal twins named Fergie and Skipper."
Grubbery gasped.
"Well, obviously they fell in love and got married," I continued, "When they gave birth to fraternal twins who looked so alike," I said, pointing to Michaela and myself. "They decided to get rid of the daughter so that history would not repeat itself. That's why Michaela went to live with our rich grandmother."
Grubbery frowned. "And did history repeat itself?" he joked.
Michaela and I looked at each other. "Nope," she said.
"Not at all," I added. "Not with us."
"So when you guys went on your family holiday last year, Tay and I took the chance we needed and escaped," Michaela took up the story again. "We moved to my old house in LA and went to San Fernando Valley High School. I met these girls who I thought were nice and started to date this guy on the basketball team called Rod. Anyway, Rod tried to have sex with me and when I wouldn't he spread rumours about me around the school."
"Michaela's been really depressed lately," I explained. "Because of the attic."
"Well that's understandable," Grubbery acknowledged. "Even in the summarised version...."
"I started dating this girl called Alisha. She is really beautiful and lovely. You'll really like her," I said.
"If I meet her...." Grubbery commented.
"We found out about you on Entertainment Tonight and here we are now," Michaela said.
"What's been happening to you?" I asked Grubbery.
Grubbery frowned. "After you went up to the attic, Neuton and I tried to keep the band going. We made the Christmas album, went on tour, but everybody hated us. They knew something was up. No one really believed that you'd gone off to live with your 'girlfriend', they all thought we'd murdered you."
"Which was sort of true," Michaela said wryly.
Grubbery nodded. "Anyway, we came back to Tulsa and went back to living our lives the way we did before Manson. But it wasn't the same at all. I really missed the two of you, especially Tay - because I knew him better - and something weird was going on with our parents. Our mother would disappear every night at the same time - to feed you I suppose - and there was something different about our parent's attitude. It was although something evil had been awakened in them. By the time my thirteenth birthday came around I was a totally different person - I was into grunge and stuff and I wasn't getting along with the rest of the family at all." he paused. "Especially Elizabeth," he added, "She is such a little bimbo."
I smiled. "Isn't everyone at that age?"
Grubbery frowned. "I wasn't. I wasn't weird and hyperactive."
"Whatever, Grub," I said, letting it go.
"So when I found out that you guys had been in the attic everything got worse. I was the only child in the family who'd figured it out. Neuton may have known, but he was pretending he didn't, probably to preserve his perfect image of our parents. I've been giving our parents hell about what they did to you for the past year."
"Good," Michaela said. "It's nice to know we're not the only ones being punished."
"No you're not," Grubbery said. "And things are going to get worse for them, much worse."
