Three Black Swans

by Caroline B. Cooney

  The real test was blood. There were as many as eighteen possible blood tests, and their combined result had a .001 percent chance of error.

  Missy not only had no way to check these, she had no need. Claire was eight weeks older. Twins had to be born on the same day. Well—maybe one could be born at 11:59 p.m. and the other one at 12:15 a.m. the next calendar day. But no mother gave birth to Baby A and eight weeks later delivered Baby B. Definitively, Missy and Claire were not twins.

  Still and all, Missy could not let go of her twin research.

  Girls dream of boyfriends and love, college and careers. They do not dream of being identical twins. If Missy had told anybody about her biologically impossible daydream, they’d probably want to deprogram her.

  All through August and into September, Missy did not share her research even with Claire. She tried to match what she knew of her parents’ lives with what she learned.

  Matt and Kitty taught elementary school and had always spent every vacation traveling. They’d been in each of the fifty states, towing a tent-style camper behind them and staying at parks whose slots they reserved a year in advance.

  The day came when they wanted kids and nothing happened. Years passed. No baby. Conception was chaotic for identical twins, but failure to conceive was just as chaotic for the sad, desperate parents. During those same years, Aunt Frannie and Uncle Phil had also had trouble getting pregnant.

  Years ago Missy had overheard her aunt exchanging pregnancy stories with a friend. The friend was very emotional over the story of sisters who had managed to get pregnant within weeks of each other. “Oh, the power of sister relationships!” cried the friend. “All that hormone communication and empathy!”

  Even then, Missy knew that sisterly empathy did not result in a baby. And yet, the friend was correct. After years of dashed hopes and failed attempts, two adult sisters did have babies at almost the same time.

  “Almost” was not “exactly.” Twins had to be born at exactly the same time.

  And then had come a moment in a dry cleaner’s and a few lines on a radio. As talk show topics went, it was predictable. Who didn’t wonder what it would be like to have or to be an identical twin?

  “Sometimes,” said the voice on the radio, “parents do not realize that twins are identical because the babies faced environmental differences. The environment is the mother. There are two babies inside her, and sometimes one baby has less room and less nutrition. One is bigger and stronger at birth and therefore looks radically different from its smaller, weaker twin. It does not occur to the mother or the doctor that her twins are identical. Intriguingly, when identical twins are different in size and weight at birth, the little one almost always catches up to the bigger one, and they will end up identical in weight, height and bone structure after all.”

  When they were toddlers and throughout elementary school, little Missy had worn Claire’s hand-me-downs. But in that dress shop at the mall in August, Missy had shared a dressing room with a cousin who fit perfectly into the exact same clothing. Their bone structure, size and weight were identical.

  What if I was the smaller, weaker twin? thought Missy. What if I finally caught up to my bigger, stronger twin? Then my birthday is a lie. What if our parents got away with that lie because I was so small? No one could look at the two babies who were Claire and Missy and see any similarity.

  But who would lie about their daughter’s birthday? And why? Adoption doesn’t just happen. There are documents and decrees, social workers and judges. Every piece of paper, every court hearing and every result requires a name and a date of birth, doesn’t it?

  Or had the Vianello and Linnehan families skipped all that? Had they acquired a set of twins and divided them? How had they gone about this? Legally?

  Missy walked into her house. By now, the school would have contacted her parents.

  * * *

  At 5:45 that Thursday afternoon, Claire’s mother came home carrying two pizzas. One was red, with sausage, bacon, onions and garlic. The other was white, with fresh tomatoes, caramelized onions and capers.

  Claire loved pizza. She loved watching her parents eat pizza. They were thin-crust people. Her father folded his wedge and ate it from the inside tip to the crust. Her mother cut off the crust, ate the triangle and then nibbled the leftover edge as dessert.

  Claire told herself that Missy was a jerk, and there were real things to worry about now, namely her father’s joblessness. She did not want to blurt, “So I found out by gossip that you aren’t working.”

  Her dad wasn’t doing anything wrong; it was just wrong to have left her out. Maybe it was a form of protection. A “my little girl doesn’t need to worry her sweet little head” act.

  I’m almost seventeen! she thought. Don’t protect me!

  Her father folded his pizza, took the first satisfying bite and grinned through the cheese. There was no happiness like hot pizza happiness.

  Mom talked. Frannie Linnehan loved her Jazzercise clients, whose lives were her own personal soap opera. She updated Claire and Dad on women they had never met and never would: June had lost another five pounds; Olivia was going to Tuscany; Suzie had taken up bird-watching and spent a lot of money on binoculars but was bored now; Kate’s bridesmaid dress was tangerine, which looked awful on her; Emily had gotten her figure back three years after the birth of baby Austin.

  “Emily’s blog,” said Mom, “has photographs of Austin being toilet trained. Icky, icky, icky.”

  Claire had to laugh.

  “And guess what. Emily’s expecting again. She’s thrilled, thrilled, thrilled, but afraid she’ll gain fifty-seven pounds this time too.”

  On Claire, that would be half again as much flesh. As impossible as turning into identical twins or being adopted. “How much weight did you gain with me, Mom?”

  “Let’s not think about pounds. Especially not when I am contemplating dessert.”

  “I can have dessert,” said Claire’s father. “I worked hard today.”

  Claire almost said, “No, you didn’t.”

  But she kept silent.

  You aren’t a family if you aren’t sharing problems as well as triumphs.

  Maybe we aren’t a family.

  * * *

  Rick’s father was furious with him. “You had to know it was a hoax. Identical twins don’t drop out of the sky. You saw through Missy. You just did it anyway. Here you have this terrific record of running that studio flawlessly and you do a stupid thing like that.”

  “Dad, I don’t think it was a hoax.”

  “They wore the same sweater, that’s all. They have the same black hair cut the same length.”

  “No, Dad. They are identical.”

  “They were using you,” said his father.

  “For sure,” said Rick. “I don’t know why. And yes, Missy admitted it was a hoax. In fact, she insisted. But it isn’t. Just look at the video, okay, Dad?”

  In Rick’s house, computers were never turned off; they just slept occasionally. Rick played the video for his father.

  His father gasped. “Those poor parents,” he breathed.

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them. Missy’s. Claire’s. The biological ones. Your physics teacher is right, Rick. You’ve got to follow up.”

  * * *

  At Missy’s house, Dad had reached dessert, Mom was still on cheese and crackers, and Missy, having nuked some leftovers and decided against them, was having an ice cream sandwich. Her tongue scooped out the ice cream close to the edges and she was nibbling the chocolate cookie.

  Her parents hadn’t seen the video. The school hadn’t called. This seemed impossible to Missy, whose cell phone rang continuously. There was only one ring tone she wanted to hear: Claire’s. Claire didn’t call. All afternoon, all evening, Claire didn’t call. They weren’t going to talk about how they might actually be sisters? Claire wasn’t going to ask what had happened when Missy walked into biology? Claire didn’t care whether people bel
ieved the hoax? Claire wouldn’t think to herself, Maybe it isn’t a hoax?

  Missy’s father had dropped into his favorite chair and was reading more of his paper. Matt Vianello worked on his Wall Street Journal the way some people work on a cup of coffee, sipping and savoring. Missy couldn’t imagine why he didn’t read it online, since he sat in front of the screen all day, but he liked it on paper.

  Missy was supposedly doing her Language Arts homework, which was about similes and metaphors. She had to fill in the blanks. “The first day of school is like a ______________” and so on.

  “Hey, Miss,” said her father. “You still doing similes and metaphors? Here’s one. It’s poetic.”

  “Poetic?” asked Missy’s mom. “The Journal?”

  What was the opposite of poetic? Missy imagined saying to her unsuspecting parents, “I want proof. Give me your blood.”

  “‘The future,’” read her father, “‘isn’t a hat full of little shredded pieces of the past.’ Instead, this guy says, the future is a whirlpool populated by black swans.”

  “What a pretty thought,” said Mom. “Although I think in our hemisphere there are only white swans. Australia has black swans. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. Maybe a train trip through the outback. What was that movie, do you remember that movie? Ever since I saw that movie I’ve wanted to go to Australia.”

  “‘Black swans,’” her father explained, paying no attention to his wife’s travelogue, “‘are events that are hugely important, rare and unpredictable, and explicable only after the fact.’”

  “I wonder what the airfare to Australia is. Wouldn’t that be a good vacation? Of course it would be such a long flight. I wish we were rich and could fly first class.”

  “Great metaphor, huh, Miss?” said her father. “I think, since it’s the Journal, the black swan refers to the economy.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Missy was shaking. She went to her room. Shut the door. Called her cousin. “Hi, Claire.”

  “I hope you’re happy,” said Claire. “There’s a video. Aiden already saw it. He said he understood why I sobbed. Missy, how could you do this to me?”

  I did it for you, thought Missy. For both of us. “You agreed to it.”

  “But I didn’t understand! And how are our parents going to understand? And what are we going to have to understand after they understand?”

  “Maybe that we really are sisters?”

  “Oh, come on, Missy! You set Mrs. Stancil up. You talked her into that hoax assignment. You staged this. You wanted me to face your theory in public. Why didn’t you just say to me Wednesday night on the phone that you don’t think we’re cousins? That you think we’re identical twins?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have taken it seriously, Claire. You always say we don’t even look alike. You laughed at the saleswoman at the mall when we bought the same earrings, just like all the other times we’ve ended up with the same stuff. I even had you wear the earrings today to remind you. It didn’t mean a thing to you. We convinced the whole school, Claire. Every single person believed us. Even Jill thought it was amazing that my new twin has the same name as my cousin.”

  “It is not true,” said Claire. “Our mothers are right. You and I are on some crazy mental cliff. You’re trying to pull me off the edge with you. We should have stopped this sleepover nonsense back in middle school. We’re stopping now, Melissa. I’m not coming over tomorrow night and I don’t want you coming here. I will not be your toy twin.”

  MIDAFTERNOON

  The same Thursday

  Long Island, New York

  THE WINDOWS OF Genevieve Candler’s high school were not designed to open. With the air-conditioning turned off for the season, the soft warm sun had turned the building into a sauna. Sleepy from the heat, Genevieve drifted down the hall toward her final class.

  Normally Genevieve was good at school—academics and friendships, sports and cafeteria dynamics came easily to her.

  Today—nothing. She could not get her mind off dinner last night.

  According to her best friend, Emma, Genevieve had the least involved parents in New York State. Emma’s parents were the opposite. They won the award for most involved. They texted Emma, for example, every passing period to ask how the previous class had gone. Emma could hold lucid conversations while thumbing to a parent, B-plus on quiz. Must look up unicameral legislatures.

  Genevieve would have been thrilled if her parents even once a year noticed what was going on in her classes. Or that she had classes, for that matter.

  Ned and Allegra Candler were pleasant to their daughter, as if she were a foreign exchange student who would be leaving in a week or two, and for whom a committee was responsible.

  And yet Genevieve always hoped.

  Last night her father had shown up with a white paper bag from one of the best delis on the Island. He had produced Moroccan spiced lamb, veal Toscana with leeks and mushrooms, grilled salmon pasta salad, coconut chicken with mango salsa, roasted asparagus, Gorgonzola salad with walnuts and bacon, long narrow golden loaves of bread, an assortment of giant crumbly cookies and gelato in three flavors.

  Her parents ate out or didn’t eat at all, being extremely concerned with staying slim. Genevieve couldn’t remember the last time her father had brought actual food into the house.

  Even more amazing, her mother had set the table. The Candlers almost never sat down together. What a treat to see her mother dance around, searching for place mats and napkins for the little round table in the breakfast area, a description they used in spite of the fact that none of them ate breakfast. Her mother even fixed a tiny centerpiece, lit a small fat candle and set a pretty yellow bread plate in front of everybody. Then she poured puddles of rosemary olive oil in the center of each plate and cut thick slices from the golden loaves.

  Genevieve dipped her bread in oil, reveling in the presence of both mother and father at the same time.

  As usual, Ned and Allegra were looking at each other. They might be distant parents, but they were not distant partners. “What’s our schedule for the weekend, Ned?” asked her mother.

  Genevieve’s father was in charge of giving away the charity dollars from his corporation. It wasn’t a highly paid management position, but it was fun. People were always giving him tickets to golf tournaments and basketball play-offs, rock concerts in huge arenas and chamber music groups playing to six people in the library, museum fund-raisers and historical society lectures. He had his choice of New Year’s Eve galas and Fourth of July picnics.

  Mom had an immense wardrobe and was beautifully dressed for every occasion. She was the perfect guest. She never forgot who was the chairperson or past president or who had created the delightful favors for some party five years ago.

  Rarely did Genevieve’s parents ask her to join them at these events. She didn’t mind missing an awards dinner at the Chamber of Commerce, but it would have been fun to go to the big tennis tournament with the famous players.

  From the bread on her dish, Allegra Candler ate literally a crumb. She worked for a cosmetics and fragrance company in New York and looked like a walking advertisement. She was still a size six.

  Emma’s mother, on the other hand, had left size sixteen behind and was now shopping at stores where they skipped sizes in favor of letters. She basically bought a variety of tents and swathed herself in glorious fabric instead of trying to lose weight.

  Genevieve sometimes wondered if the conditions were related: were skinny adults also skinny with love?

  Her parents discussed clothing and weather, which of their cars to take and whether they could come home and change between commitments or needed a wardrobe bag. They would be at events Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, while Dad also had an important golf game on Saturday morning.

  Over the years, Genevieve had had many babysitters, but her primary refuge was her great-grandmother, for whom she was named. Right up until her ninetieth birthday, the elder Genevieve Candler had
had her own beach house, her own sports car and her own ideas about things. Then she’d fallen down the stairs, broken some bones that didn’t heal and gotten old. A minute later, or so it seemed, GeeGee was in a nursing home.

  Before that, Genevieve had spent most weekends at her great-grandmother’s. GeeGee was always ready to host a sleepover or take Genevieve and a friend into the city, or to the movies or shopping. But when GeeGee entered the nursing home, Genevieve had to stay home alone when her parents went out. She expected it to be fun, but it wasn’t. Nothing on TV was appealing when she sat alone in front of it. It was hard to buckle down and do homework when she was alone, hard not to be bothered by sounds and shadows. In ninth grade, and to a degree in tenth, Genevieve managed to spend weekends with friends. But now, during her junior year, it exhausted her to make arrangements; to beg, to impose, to feel babyish because she wanted company and ashamed when friends exclaimed, “Your parents are gone again?”

  If Genevieve implied that her parents didn’t pay enough attention to her, Ned and Allegra would snap back. Other parents might coddle, smother and spoil their children, who would grow up to be failures as adults, pathetic specimens at work and play. But Ned and Allegra were giving their daughter wings to fly.

  Genevieve felt she had been flying since she was six weeks old, when they had turned her over to the nanny. A little time in the nest with Mommy and Daddy would be nice.

  At least she still had time with GeeGee.

  Even at ninety-three, the older Genevieve Candler had the most beautiful smile in the world. When her great-granddaughter walked into the nursing home, GeeGee would cry, “Hello, sunshine!” “Hello, sweetness and light!” or “Hello, pride and joy!” Then she would have a hundred questions. “Tell me everything, Vivi. How is your crush on William coming? Is Meghan speaking to you again? Did Tess stay captain of the softball team in spite of her grades? What did the history teacher think of your essay? How did you do on the chemistry questions for High School Bowl?”