The Double

by Susan Gregersen

  “We’ll have to either color it or go with wigs,” Andrea commented. Gino agreed.

  “Can we try the wigs first?” asked Kay timidly.

  Andrea retrieved a pile of hair and straightened it out while Gino worked to flatten and pin down Kay’s hair. They pulled the wig over her head and by the time they were done fluffing the hair around the edges you couldn’t tell it was a wig.

  The effect was stunning! Suddenly Kay almost looked like the First Lady! She stared at the reflection of herself. Gino and Andrea busied themselves among the cosmetics along the counter. They held samples and pictures next to her face and compared them, then changed to something else, and finally had an array of make-up spread next to Kay.

  Watching them, Kay felt her stomach lurch. It was like going in for surgery, she thought. She shook her head at her own silliness, then tightened up again as they came toward her with bottles and brushes and sponges.

  Gino and Andrea worked and talked as one. “Hmmm, a little darker here. Let’s bring this out and up. Oh, this is good. Yes, more on the cheek bones. I’m going to age these eyes now and give her some crow’s feet,” they murmured.

  Kay had to smile at how much make-up was designed to make women look younger, and these two were working to make her look older. At least the First Lady took good care of her skin and looked younger than her age. That made it easier for the make-up artists working on Kay.

  Finally they stepped back and whirled the chair so Kay could see herself in the mirror-covered wall. She knew it was her face that her eyes were looking out of but she didn’t believe the head she saw in the mirror housed her inside of it.

  She stood and walked toward the mirror. She stopped two feet away and raised her arm, reaching out to touch her reflection, then her own cheek. “Hi,” she whispered. “I’m Madeline Jackson, First Lady. Wife of President Henry Jackson.”

  “Good!” Andrea said approvingly, coming up beside Kay. “Get to know her. Let her become you. It’ll become so natural you’ll be able to move back and forth between being ‘Kay’ and being ‘Madeline’ with ease.”

  “Isn’t that like induced Schizophrenia?” Kay asked jokingly.

  “Only if you start to believe you’re the First Lady!” Andrea laughed. She held up an evening gown. “How about slipping into this?”

  “Oh my gosh! I recognize that!” Kay cried. She continued in a hushed voice. “She wore it at the inauguration!”

  “She did indeed, my dear! Now, lets see how you look in it!” Gino said. They led her to a changing room and left her there.

  For a moment Kay just stood in the dressing room and stared at the gown on it’s hanger. Her mind ticked away and she tried to get a sense of reality. She was looking at a dress the president’s wife had worn. She, Kay, was going to be wearing it in a minute. This dress, that millions of people across the globe had watched that gracious woman wear, was going to be on her body in a moment. Hers. A farm wife from Ohio.

  She changed as though she was in a dream and stepped back into the bigger room. Gino and Andrea were there in a flash, pulling at the cloth and walking around her, doing their murmuring thing again.

  “She’s a bit thinner than Madeline. Her breasts seem to be the same size. Hips just a touch wider but I don’t think anyone will notice. Feet… well, doesn’t matter, a little smaller but we can stuff wadding in the shoes.”

  Gino looked up into Kay’s face. “Would you mind gaining about ten pounds?”

  Kay looked at him incredulously. He was serious, she thought. “What women wants to be fatter? Of course I would mind! Couldn’t the First Lady go on a diet?”

  Gino was speechless. He was used to blind adoration and obedience by doubles. “Um… well… think of it as a compliment that you can afford to gain some weight!” he finally said lamely.

  “Well, how about we meet in the middle? I’ll gain five and she can lose five!” Kay offered.

  “It’s going to be interesting working with this one!” Gino said, shaking his head.

  Kay was intrigued. “How many doubles have you worked with? And for who?”

  “My lips are sealed,” he said, exaggerating his accent so it sounded like ‘leeps’ instead of lips, and he rolled the ‘r’ in ‘are’. To Andrea he said, “call in Peter for the photo shoot.”

  Before Kay knew it, she was being turned and posed by a photographer, and the flash popped all around her. As quickly as he’d swept into the room, Peter and his cameras were gone.

  Agents Smith and Jones had come in with the photographer and stayed when he left.

  “How does it feel?” Agent Smith asked her.

  “Unreal. Amazing. Weird. I don’t know,” she said.

  “That’s normal. It takes a while to get used to it,” he said.

  “You’re still wearing those stupid sunglasses,” Kay said.

  “I’m used to it,” he answered.

  “We even sleep in them,” Agent Jones said seriously.

  Kay laughed. “I believe that!”

  Gino swept back into the room. “Okay, young lady. Back into your own clothes.” He opened the door of the dressing room for her. She walked in and removed the gown and put her own clothes back on.

  Gino and Andrea carefully took the wig off her head, then brushed and styled her hair back to what it had looked like when she left home this morning. They washed the make-up off her face and she watched with interest as she looked younger again. A lot of women would pay big bucks for that, she thought.

  “What now?” she asked as she left with the two Agents.

  “Hungry? It’s well past lunch time and early enough to grab something before taking you home,” Agent Jones suggested. His stomach growled loud enough the other two could hear it in the elevator.

  “Sounds good to me. Just remember, I’m a farm wife. I don’t eat salads. I eat real food,” Kay said. She couldn’t read their expressions. Remembering the sunglasses in her pocket she pulled them out and put them on, then stared blankly back at them. She thought she saw them smile slightly.

  When they stepped out of the elevator they turned the opposite way as they had that morning. At the end of the hallway it opened into a large sunroom filled with tables. Along one wall was a serving line of food, laid out buffet style.

  “I’m sure you can find something you like here,” Agent Jones said dryly.

  They each picked up a tray and plates, and walked along the line. “Wow!” Kay said. She helped herself to a chicken breast, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni & cheese, spaghetti, a dinner roll, a piece of cornbread, jello salad, and a piece of peach pie.

  Agents Smith and Jones eyed her tray. “And Gino said you didn’t want to gain ten pounds!” Agent Smith said, shaking his head. His tray was piled with spaghetti and he was adding some salad to one side.

  Agent Jones had piled ham and potato salad onto one plate, and another plate with a piece of pie, a piece of cake, and two cookies. The three of them walked to a table near the window and sat. Kay glanced out the window and laughed. On the wall of the building across the courtyard someone had spray-painted “Your taxpayer dollars will pay to clean this wall”.

  “That’s been there a while,” Agent Jones told her. “They’ve spent more money trying to decide who should pay for removing and refinishing the wall than it’s going to cost to do the job.”

  “Isn’t the government just the government?” Kay asked.

  “Oh, no. The bookkeeping is very precise, and the funds that are used for anything must be approved. There’s a fund for maintenance and a fund for improvements and renovations, and both departments push it back to the other. Maintenance doesn’t have to be pre-approved, but improvements and renovations do,” Agent Smith explained as he wound spaghetti around his fork. He shoved it in his mouth, then slurped the last strand of spaghetti into his mouth.

  Kay watched him with raised eyebrows, then handed him a napkin for the line of spaghetti sauce that ran down his chin. He quickly dabbed it off and laid the na
pkin down. “Thanks, Mom,” he said churlishly, then grinned.

  They finished eating, dumped their trash and put their trays on the stack, then headed to the parking lot. The drive to the airport seemed quicker than it had this morning. Agent Smith called ahead and let the pilot know they were on the way, and the jet was ready for take-off when they got there.

  Once in the air Agent Smith put his seat back and slept. Agent Jones looked over at Kay. “Wanna play ‘War’?” he asked, holding up a deck of cards. She smiled and nodded her head. He lowered the seatback tray and she slid across the aisle. They played the card game for the rest of the flight.

  As the plane’s wheels touched the runway Agent Smith woke up. He watched them for a minute, then asked, “who won?”

  “I did,” they said at the same time.

  “Did not! Look, my stack of cards is taller than yours!” Kay said indignantly.

  “Yes, but I won more of the battles when we both laid down the same number!” Agent Jones insisted.

  “That doesn’t count!” Kay said.

  “Does too!”

  “Does not!”

  “Children, children!” admonished Agent Smith. “Pack it up and let’s get going! We have to get this lady home to her family!”

  “So, what happens now?” Kay asked as they climbed into the pick-up truck for the ride back to the farm.

  “We wait. The pictures will be reviewed by upper staff and the President and his wife. Gino and Andrea will give their report,” Agent Smith said.

  “If you’re approved then you’ll go for the training to learn how to be the First Lady,” added Agent Jones.

  “Can you at least give me a ballpark idea of how long that takes?” she pressed.

  “Usually about a week, but don’t hold me to that. And you didn’t hear that from me,” Agent Jones said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he handed to her.

  “What’s this?” Kay asked, turning it over in her hands.

  “Your pay for today,” he replied.

  “My pay? I get paid for today? But… I didn’t do any work today!” she said in amazement. She tore the envelope open. A check for $10,000 stared up at her. “Oh, come on! No wonder we have such a huge national deficit. This is ridiculous!”

  “We can’t take it back. Donate it if it makes you feel better,” Agent Smith said with a shrug. “Or tear it up and flush it down the toilet.”

  Kay sighed. She never thought she’d feel so good and so bad about having a large sum of money.

  When the truck stopped in front of the house, Kay jumped out. The kids came running from the back yard, and Dan came out of the house.

  “Whoa, Mom! You got shades like they do!” “Nice sunglasses” “Can I wear them?” shouted the kids. Kay had forgotten the mirrored sunglasses. She pulled them off and handed them back to Agent Smith. He shoved them in his shirt pocket and climbed back into the truck. With a wave, they were gone.

  “What did you do today, Mom?” “Did you have to scrub any toilets?” “Is it true that they have toilet seats made of gold?” The kids jumped around her as she walked to the porch. Dan held his hand to her and they sat on the porch swing, where they had started the day.

  “Let Mom breathe for a minute, okay? She looks like she had a hard day at the office!” Dan joked.

  Kay smiled. “Well, it wasn’t a lot of work, but the flight made me feel tired--”

  “FLIGHT?” the kids yelled. “You went on an airplane???”

  Kay groaned inwardly. That was dumb, she thought, trying to think of a way out of that one. “Well, um… they wanted me to clean the airplane, but they had to take it for a test flight, so I got to work while they were flying.” ‘Lame, lame, lame!’ she chastised herself.

  “But Mommy…If the plane didn’t pass it’s test does that mean it would have crashed with you on it?” her youngest child, 3-year old Amanda, looked at her with wide eyes, her little lip quivering.

  “Oh, sweetie!” Kay said, pulling the trembling little girl into her arms. “It wasn’t that kind of test! They had put new, um… lights on the plane and wanted to see if the men in the airport tower could see them.”

  “You mean the flashy lights we see when they fly over sometimes?” she asked.

  “Yeah! Those ones!” she said. “And the airport people said they could see them a long, long ways away.” It went against everything in her to make up lies for her kids.

  ‘But some lies are for the good, aren’t they?’ she argued with herself. She decided not to resolve the issue right now. “I’ll go start dinner.”

  “Oh, no, we made dinner for you!” said David, the 15-year old. “Come on, you’ll love it!” The kids excitedly led her into the house. She sniffed the air and tried to guess what it was.

  “Meatloaf!” Samantha cried. “And potatoes and corn!”

  “Wow, it smells delicious, and it looks great. I’m starved,” Kay said as she sat down. A few minutes later she said, “mmmm, and it is delicious. You did a good job. Thank you, kids!”

  The kids smiled and basked in her praise. After dinner she and Dan went for a walk again, and she told him about her day.

  A week later the phone rang. Kay had been on the phone with someone who was going to call her right back, so she didn’t check Caller-ID before picking up the phone.

  “This is Agent Smith,” a flat voice said in her ear. “You’re in. Be ready tomorrow. Bring whatever personal things you’ll need for a few days, and a couple changes of clothes for your off-time.”

  Kay opened her mouth and tried to think of what to say, but the phone clicked in her ears as the connection was ended. “Oh!” she said out loud as she hung up the phone.

  “What?” asked her 17-year old son, Danny, as he walked by.

  “Nothing. Wrong number. It just surprised me because I was expecting Gloria to call.” Kay grimaced as she thought, ‘I’m really becoming a liar!’

  Kay walked out to the barn and found Dan and told him about the call. He hugged her and reassured her that he still supported her decision.

  “Yes, but I’ll be gone a few days this time. Are you sure you’ll be okay?” she worried.

  “We’ll be fine. Besides, after this training time you might not get a ‘job’ for months. Didn’t they say it was only occasionally?” Dan said.

  “That’s true. Well, I better go pack a few things, and I’ll tell the kids at dinner,” Kay said. She headed back to the house.

  The next morning the old pick-up truck turned into the driveway again. Agents Smith and Jones stepped out and stood by the truck, mirrored sunglasses facing the house. Kay had already hugged the kids and Dan, and made sure they were all at the breakfast table in the rear of the house when the agents came. She couldn’t stand an emotional good-bye. She might change her mind and not go.

  Overnight bag in hand she walked to the truck. Tossing it casually in the back she hopped into the truck. Agent Smith pulled out a pair of sunglasses and held them up. She took them and slapped them onto her face. “Let’s do it!” she said firmly.

  They retraced the route to the airport. The same pilot helped her aboard and they took off into the cool morning air. An hour later they landed and walked to the black car that was waiting nearby.

  They didn’t go to the same building this time. She couldn’t really tell where they were, but they pulled up to a guard booth and a uniformed guard with a big gun on his belt bent down and peered inside the car. Satisfied, he walked back to his booth and he and another guard each typed in a set of numbers.

  They drove through the gate and into an underground parking structure. Exiting the car they took an elevator down another floor, then walked along a hallway for what seemed like a few blocks. There weren’t any doors along here and Kay was wondering where they were going.

  Finally they stopped by an elevator door that was so well concealed she hardly realized it was there until Agent Smith punched a button. They went up, then stepped into a dimly-lit hallw
ay with a red carpet.

  Up a short flight of stairs, then they stopped by a desk. Both men showed their ID and laid their hands on a palm scanner. The woman behind the desk went to a locked cabinet and removed a small wallet-type folder and handed it to Agent Smith.

  Agent Smith turned and handed it to Kay. “It’s your ID,” he said. She flipped it open and there was her picture on one side, and one of the pictures of her disguised as the First Lady on the other side. Another flip and there was all of her information. She wondered where they got it from but was scared to ask.