We’ll die. Of course we know that. We aren’t deluded. But there will be no violent deaths, not us in a car cruising through the streets of our childhood, heads bobbing, out of tune voices singing along and we’ll never be royals, our eyes meeting at the line, it’s in our blood, and be pulled over, faces slammed onto the boot; no guns will be pulled, no stray bullets, no cases of mistaken identity.      

On the off-chance such a thing does happen, our wounds will be cauterized, we won’t bleed out on the asphalt, the dull glugging from the puncture keeping time with the thudding in our heads, one final pulse before silence.

We’re beyond the small indignities. No one follows us around stores, forcing their May I help yous and sales on us, their lips smiling wide, taking in everything about us but our Louis Vuitton purses (okay, yes, from four seasons ago, but the real LV), because we’re two wrinkled women who look alike, though one of us has hair an unnatural shade of purple-gray.

We didn’t lose our money in a recession everyone knew was coming, and to pay the mortgage, pawn our watches, carry around the little yellow ticket month after month, until one day we picked it out of the dross, and wondered what this worn yellow card shedding softened paper chips into the lining was doing in our handbags, and threw it out with the old waxy lipsticks, and even older coupons.

We’ve never been overdressed. Diamonds are vulgar, pearls are never out of place.

Our houses aren’t the kind to be cleaved by earthquakes, it doesn’t matter that we live on fault lines. Worth it for the view.

We haven’t lost our grip on sanity, have to be hospitalized, given ECT, have it work, then fail, and find ourselves in a stupor by the end of our thirties.

Our flights are never delayed.

Rumors may circulate—like stale air, we said—of us vying for the same man, plumping our lips, flashing our platinum Amexes, spiking each other’s drinks to ruin a date. But we never broke a heel chasing either of us down the street, away from our bed, away from the man in question. No, our weddings are perfect, they don’t, cannot blow up into fiascos—no fights-at-the-altar stories growing longer and coarser with the years at the mention of our names.  The only rain might have been a shower the morning of, a light drizzle clearing the sky, and greening the earth, and bringing us luck. Not that we needed it.

In our twenties, we are reckless and lie on tanning beds too long, turn our skins the color of a Bengal tiger, ride the subway at all hours, and yes, we always get seats.

We don’t miss spring break for one national calamity. Shootings happen at other colleges. Epidemics can’t touch us.

No muggings. No assaults. Not even the college-date-rape kind.

Our parents never divorce. There’s no staggering in late at night, no allegations or excuses, shards of broken glass on the stairway landing that we’re afraid to step on. You pull my arm and tell me, us, not to be so dramatic, of course we won’t get hurt.

There is no question of us being ugly. We have large eyes and good white teeth, and our acne is a thing of one summer.

We aren’t the high school bullies renowned for creating and circulating the list of Nobody Would Even Fuck You, _____ _____ to which each week names are added. First and last so that everyone knows which particular Sarah or Michael is on the list.

We never rip our nine-year-old knees on the playgrounds (not a jagged metal edge to be found on our immaculate swings and slides), tiptoe to the bathroom, and clean ourselves up, no one the wiser.

We aren’t born late because the ambulance is held up for fifty minutes at the street corner as a result of an overflowing sewer, almost killing our mother with our size, and the shock of two for one.

You and I, hatched in the same womb, we breathe the same air, and think the same thoughts, and get the same tattoos, and love the same men. You and I, we never steal each other’s toys or identities. Never hurl petty accusations that end with a broken collarbone, stains on the beige carpet that’s never been sullied, and a felony charge that follows us the rest of our lives. You and I, me and you, we’ll never be them, they’ll never be us, no they’ll never be us, not us (here?) in our unmarked graves.