“Don’t.” She pulls Carrie’s hand away. “And water doesn’t have sides, and an ice cube is water so as usual you’re full of shit.”

“Am I?” Carrie kisses her, and their faces disconcertingly mirror each other.

“Don’t,” Lucy says.

Both of them have sharp features, keen eyes, strong jaws, straight white teeth and extreme agility and gracefulness. It’s not surprising. Benton says Carrie is the classic narcissist who falls in love with herself, moving from one image of herself to the next. The world is a mirrored room filled with her own projections, and she met her match with Lucy. Benton describes Carrie as Lucy’s doppelgänger, her evil double.

“Don’t, Carrie. No.”

They’re both exquisitely toned like Olympic runners, five-foot-eight with ample breasts, narrow hips, six-pack abs, and chiseled arms, quads and calves. They easily could pass for sisters.

“No!” Lucy pulls back from her. “Stop!”

“Why did you say it?” Carrie doesn’t take her eyes off her. “You know you can’t possibly leave me.”

“I’m going to dinner and when I come back you’d better not be here.” Lucy’s voice trembles, and she sits on the edge of the desk and starts putting on socks and black leather trainers.

“Tell Marino happy birthday.” Carrie stands aggressively close to her. “I hope you have fun at the Globe and Laurel. Be sure to tell him why I’m not there.”

“You’re not invited. You never were and shouldn’t have expected otherwise. And you wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it but I understand. He should be surrounded by his favorite people at his favorite hangout.” Carrie’s eyes are cold blue steel. “I’ll give you money to buy him a round of drinks or a special dessert with a candle on it.”

“He doesn’t want you there and he doesn’t want your money.”

“It’s not nice though. Not inviting me to the big birthday party,” Carrie says. “Watch out. A poison apple may follow.”

“You know damn well you can’t have dinner with us.”

“Let me guess whose idea it was to exclude me tonight. Not Marino’s. It was your precious Auntie Kay.”

“It’s true she has the lowest opinion of you that she could possibly have of any human being I’ve ever been with, will ever be with.”

“Don’t be so boring.”

“You’re really pathologically controlling and competitive.” Lucy is pacing the room, getting increasingly agitated.

“And you’re immature and tedious, and when you’re like that you’re boring.” Carrie says it in a dead voice as she stands perfectly still, perfectly calm near the desk. “I hate being bored. I might just hate it more than anything. Except I wouldn’t want to lose my freedom. Which would you hate more, Lucy Boo? Being dead or being in prison?”