Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin

drops.
    “Well, go on. Get up there!” Michelle exhorts.
    I start to walk away, but Andy steps in my path. “You coulda said you’d started college—never lie.”
    My phone buzzes.
    “Logan Wade,” I answer, eager to get away.
    “Logan! I found Logan!” my mother calls to my father as I chastise myself for not checking the caller ID.
    “Mom, hi. I’m so sorry I worried you.” I watch Andy hustle down the hall with Michelle.
    “Worried sick.”
    “I was just waiting to tell you—I’m in Europe.”
    “Europe?” she says.
    “I have a new job. There’s a lot of traveling involved.”
    “Doing what?”
    Andy’s words spin me. “I’m Kelsey’s assistant.”
    There’s a pause. “Kelsey, your cousin ?”
    “Yes.”
    Silence.
    “Mom?”
    “Why? Why would you do that?”
    “It’s a great opportunity.”
    “I don’t understand—”
    “I’m helping run the tour, and it’s amazing—can’t you just be happy for me?” I ask. “Please?”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “I could have just lied to you, Mom—is that what you want?”
    “You’re a test.” Her voice shakes, “God sent you to test me.” She slams the phone down as the floor starts to vibrate.
    I murmur apologies as I inch along the aisle of the VIP box and take the chair Andy insisted I have beside Terrance, who sits with his fingers tented in front of his face, waiting to be wowed. “Andy and Michelle coming, Cousin Logan?” he asks.
    “Momentarily.”
    “They’re good people. They’re on it.”
    “Yes, they’re great managers.”
    “They’re not her managers.”
    “Oh, I thought, they’re so—”
    “Not formally, no percentage. But they run the show.”
    “Right, yes, no, that’s what I meant, they run the show.”
    The usher retracts his flashlight just as the bass slows to a booming pulse and the stadium goes black. My stomach makes that familiar, slithery U-turn as my mother’s cutting words reverberate. People in the seats below start to clap and then to scream as—pulse—the lights come on in the living room of the three-story dollhouse set. Duane, dressed like a Ken, stiffly reads a paper, while one of the other dancers woodenly moves a vacuum. Pulse. The kitchen lights up, and Pita mimes carving a turkey while his Barbie sets the table. Pulse. A kids’ room on the floor above them lights up, and a dancer reads a large storybook to two others in their twin beds. Pulse. The master bedroom beside it lights up, and a Ken and Barbie exchange a prim good-night kiss and reach for their bedside lamps. Pulse. All of the dancers look up. The audience is standing, screaming, stomping. Pulse. The house is backlit, and a bare bulb turns on in the attic. Kelsey, the rebel doll, stands defiantly at its center. The crowd around me erupts to full throttle. She hits her first note, somehow staring penetratingly out into the eyes of every one of us. Holding our gaze, she struts down the stairs through each floor, gathering the other “dolls,” who tear off their ties and aprons to dance behind her. Charisma electrifies her face, blown up on the Jumbotrons. Her eyes demand the singular attention of the twenty-eight thousand people singing right along with her.
    Reaching the stage floor, she kicks off into the first gymnastic sequence. Michelle squeals, and my attention is momentarily pulled from the stage as Andy gives her neck a quick kiss. I realize that she’s changed back into the navy sweater she wore this morning. “I feel so much better!” she says to me.
    “Oh, good.”
    “I left my nude bra in the bathroom in Bratislava, and I’m sure the lights were going right through that knit to my white one, uch.” She shakes her head.
    “Is that why you didn’t want to wear it?” I ask. “I wish you’d just told us—”
    “Oh, no.” She squeezes my shoulder. “I didn’t want to bother y’all.” She turns back to enjoy the show. I stare at her for a moment, seeing my mother, allowing myself in the dark, surrounded