Lawson hesitates. The twins shove him onto the set, where he stands frozen for a second while the twins take formation behind him. The twins begin dancing wildly. Pelvic thrusts. Pantomiming drawing revolvers from invisible holsters, shooting them, and blowing away the smoke. They jump at each other and chest-bump. Lawson finally gets into the groove a little bit, but then all at once he starts this series of alternating high, strong kicks. The twins whoop and holler encouragement. We make (what I assume is) eye contact, because he kicks harder and higher, jumping and spinning, when I give him a thumbs-up. He’s doing great, especially considering he’s wearing a black robe and a mask.
He’s clearly an inspiration because behind him, one of the twins cups his hands for the other twin to step on to try the backflip again. The flipping twin over-rotates, lands on his heels, falls, and rolls backward off camera. Someday one of them is going to crack open his head and flood the studio with whatever noxious gas is inside.
Lawson looks back, motions for the remaining twin to move, and then executes a textbook backflip, landing perfectly and doing a jumping spin kick. We cheer silently.
There’s no reason Dad shouldn’t love our show the way he loved the Dr. Gangrene, Zacherle, and Svengoolie episodes he watched while I was growing up. I mean, we have people doing karate moves and backflips. We’re not terrific, but we’re unterrific in the ways he always loved.
Lawson comes off set flushed and glowing. He nods quickly to me, and then looks to Josie for approval. She gives him a thumbs-up, and he beams.
Another dude who loves Josie. Color me shocked. I’d comfortably estimate that of guys who meet Josie and me simultaneously—and who are in the mood for love—approximately one hundred percent go for Josie. Almost all have been guys I didn’t care about at all, like Lawson. But I choose Josie over any dumb boy, and plus, I’m used to rejection. Maybe that’s what they see in me. Even more than Josie’s flawless teeth and Scarlett Johansson voice and long, curly hair that’s the color of a jar of dark honey in front of a candle and the couple of inches of height she has on me, I think it’s that they can see there’s nothing with her they need to fix. No baggage. Whereas with me? Mechanic’s special. No one wants the sad girl. Whatever.
“All right, next segment,” Arliss says. He turns to the twins and Lawson and motions with his thumb toward the door. “Leave.”
They drop their costumes in the tub.
“Can I stay and watch?” Lawson asks. He keeps glancing in Josie’s direction. “I’ve never seen a TV show filming.”
“Nope. Too distracting. This job requires tremendous concentration and care,” Arliss says, his voice dead.
“But we were here during—”
“Too. Distracting.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
The twins scurry for the door. They’ve never once been interested in staying a minute longer than necessary.
Lawson waves. “It was nice to meet y’all. Good luck with the show. When’s it on?”
“Saturday nights at eleven,” I say.
“Cool. Bye, Delia. Bye, Josie,” he says. “I guess we’re in-laws or something now that our dogs are married, right?” He blushes and laughs awkwardly.
“Sure,” Josie says, straight-faced.
Lawson starts toward the door, giving a whistle. “Come on, boy.” Tater trots after him. As Lawson opens the door to leave, he turns once more and waves clumsily to Josie. She gives him an okay this is really the last one wave. Then he’s gone.
“I’m ready whenever y’all are done teenaging,” Arliss says.
“Whatever,” Josie says. “You’re teenaging.”
“You are.” Arliss does a mocking, coquettish wave.
“I was being polite.”
“Polite would be not wasting my time with sassmouth so I can get to what I really want to be doing with my Friday night, which is sitting on my back patio with my dog and listening to the new Jason Isbell album.”
While they’re talking, I see my phone light up, buzz, and skitter in a semicircle on one of the chairs off set. I run over and check it, my guts quivering. Nothing. A coworker texting to ask if we can swap shifts next week. There’s nothing in this world worse than a phone notification that’s not for the thing you need.
“It does too sound boring to a normal person, right, DeeDee?” Josie calls to me.
I put my phone back down. “What? Sorry.”
“Arliss’s Friday-night plans sound super boring, and we’re way more fun.”
“For sure.”
Arliss snorts. “I’ve had pieces of popcorn stuck in my teeth that I enjoyed more than doing this show. All right,” he says with a clap. “Let’s roll.”
“We love you, Arliss,” I say. I’m not lying. Try as he might to push us away, Josie and I both think he’s terrific and want to be his friend, even though he hates us. The more he doesn’t want to be our friend, the more we want to be his. If coolness is doing your own thing and not caring what anyone else thinks about it, then Arliss is pretty cool.
“I warned y’all once about sassmouth,” Arliss says.
* * *
•••
I don’t remember exactly when we started roasting some of our letter writers, but I know that it came out of necessity to keep our sanity. As two young women working in a field whose audience contains its fair share of middle-aged dudes with endless appetites for inconsequential minutiae, we get explained at a lot. Actually, the basis for the Dracula lore is blah blah blah…Actually, in Lovecraft’s mythos yakity yak yak…Actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster herka derka diddly dee. That last one we get constantly. Arliss inserts an old-timey car horn aoooooogah sound now after we read one. We have a bit planned for the next time we get one of those.
Still annoying but somewhat more flattering (because at least they’re paying attention) are the letters complaining about the continuity errors in our show’s universe: On the episode that aired on June 21, Delilah said that you were both 200 years old, but two months later, in August, Rayne made reference to your being 250 years old. Which is it? (Who-gives-a-pair-of-shorn-yak-nuts years old is the answer, by the way.)
And then there are the pervs. Use your imagination. No, really. Almost anything you can conceive of. And more, if you have a bad imagination. We don’t read their letters on air. We should really give them to the cops. We used to yell at them on the show, until we figured out that some of them were getting off on that too. It’s fun being a girl. Josie gets it the worst.