Twins

by Francine Pascal

  Ed cupped his sizable hand behind her head and ran his finger gently along the back of her ear. He made sure to match her deadpan expression. “You always have to be right, don’t you?”

  The sudden pounding at Ed’s front door snapped Gaia backward. It was echoing through her head—like one of those infernal New York City jackhammers.

  “Jesus, who is that?” Gaia backed herself up against the headboard.

  Ed’s face washed over with puzzlement as he stared at Gaia. “It’s just the door …,” he said.

  They wouldn’t stop pounding. Pounding as if they were trying to break the damn thing down. Sinister images from the other side of that door were flashing through Gaia’s head like lightning. She could actually see them. Like psychic visions, she could see them. All of the Joshes waiting on the other side of that door. Waiting for Ed to crack that door open so they could break through with their silencers and their hunting knives and punch an endless amount of bloody holes in Ed like they’d done to Mary. Like they’d done to Sam. Ed was all she had left in the world, and now they were going to take him and gouge out his eyes and leave his hollow body on the living-room floor. The angels of death, following her no matter where she went.

  Ed grabbed for his crutches, but Gaia tugged him back to the bed. “You can’t go out there, Ed, get it? Do not answer that door.”

  Ed gave her that strange look again. “Gaia, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s just the door. It’s probably a FedEx for my folks or something. Relax. I’m just going to see who it is.”

  “Ed, don’t. Can’t you hear the way they’re pounding out there?”

  “Gaia, they’ve knocked twice gently. What are you talking about?”

  “They’re murderers, Ed. Cold-blooded murderers. And they’re here to kill us both.”

  Ed’s expression changed from puzzled to something much more along the lines of deeply concerned. He leaned back to her and placed his hand on her forehead. “I want you to lie down, okay?” he said. “I think maybe that fever is acting up. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t,” she begged one last time. “Please don’t.”

  But it was no use. Ed was already out the door. He was already gone.

  TOM

  HOW could anyone in his right mind deny that there is a force on this earth greater than ourselves? I’ve never understood that. Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the existentialists. But let’s be honest. They’re only telling a part of the story. Because if we really bear the sole responsibility for all our choices and actions in life, then how on earth do you explain “chemistry”?

  Chemistry between two people. It’s simply not something we choose. It chooses us. What man or woman hasn’t felt that indescribable electric connection after sharing only a few sentences with a complete stranger? Or even with someone who, for all rational reasons, they should despise?

  We can’t be held culpable for these uninvited electric connections. We can’t be. Because if we were, then I would have to give in to the mountain of guilt that’s threatening to come tumbling down on me like an avalanche at any moment.

  What is this undeniable electricity with Natasha? I can’t understand it, and controlling it has grown more difficult in only a day’s time. All I find myself wanting to do is apologize.

  To you, Katia. I feel this overwhelming need to apologize to you for this connection I have not even asked for or created. Do you think perhaps she’s some kind of substitute for you? A substitute mother to Gaia, a distant member of your family? Could that explain the adolescent burning in my chest when she smiles at me? If it weren’t for me, you and I would still be together, and all these selfish, inappropriate questions would be moot.

  That’s what I feel right now, Katia. Disgustingly selfish and inappropriate. It’s bad enough that I would have these trivial feelings that betray you—you, who have been living in my heart and my thoughts any moment I’ve stopped to stand still. But to let these feelings distract me from Gaia—Gaia, who needs my undivided attention now more than ever—that, to me, feels unforgivable. Is it, Katia? Is this vague feeling I’m having unforgivable?

  God, I wish we could just go back in time. Back to that first moment in that little overstocked Village bookstore when you and I first met. First spoke. First fell in love. Back to the brilliant simplicity of innocent young love. Do you remember that feeling? That feeling of knowing you’d found something you never wanted to give up? Of knowing that at that moment, you were exactly where you were supposed to be? I miss that feeling, Katia. I miss it very much.

  planet ed

  She had more important things to worry about, anyway. Like whether she had set her VCR to tape tonight’s “very special Friends.”

  Insulting Consolation

  “WHO IS IT?”

  Heather was startled by the harshness of his tone. He sounded like he was growling. “Jesus, Ed, it’s just Heather. Can you chill?”

  There was a long pause before she heard him unlatch the door. God, was it that hard a decision? He finally opened the door. But he didn’t open it all the way. He stood in the doorway and held his arm behind the door, totally blocking her entry. Nice. How very inviting.

  He looked like he’d just climbed out of bed. His hair was all piled up on one side, and the center of his T-shirt was totally crumpled up like he’d been clinging to it all night. He couldn’t have looked any cuter…. It was a little depressing.

  “Did you have any plans to go to school today?” she asked, looking him up and down and then checking her watch.

  “Do you need something?” he asked impatiently.

  Heather widened her eyes, making sure she’d made it clear how offensive his reply was. She waited a beat before speaking. “I see that you, and your hair, seem to have awoken on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  “Look, I had a really rough night, okay? I’m not trying to be rude. Can we talk later?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Heather said, crossing her arms. “That’s much less rude.”

  “Heather.” He groaned. “Come on.”

  She paused for a moment, trying to swallow how much it genuinely hurt to be brushed off this thoroughly. She couldn’t believe this conversation was still taking place in Ed’s hallway. Maybe he’d be a little kinder when he heard why she’d come. “Fine,” she said, dropping her eyes. “I just wanted to know if you’d heard from Gaia yet. I wanted to know if she was okay.”

  “She’s okay,” Ed said. “Everything’s okay now.”

  “Really?” Heather squeaked. Heather was still surprising herself with how genuine her own concern for Gaia had become in the last forty-eight hours. The news came as a real relief to her. “Have you seen her?”

  “I have. Let’s talk about this later—”

  “Well, where is she now?” Heather asked.

  Ed’s eyes darted behind him for a split second. “She’s here,” he said.

  “She is?” Heather found herself rising slightly on her tiptoes to see past Ed into the apartment.

  Right at the end of his living room, at the corner of the hallway that led into his bedroom, was Gaia. She had a very odd expression on her face. Like she was either very frightened … or maybe confused. And although she was fully clothed, she, too, looked like she’d just climbed out of bed.

  Heather felt nauseated. Or was it infuriated? Or just incredibly sad? She looked into Ed’s eyes. “Did she sleep over?” she asked, barely opening her mouth.

  “Heather, can we talk later …?”

  She found herself searching Ed’s eyes for any memory of the way the two of them used to be. Before this awful year. Before Gaia Moore existed. She found nothing.

  Fine. That was fine. She had put her life on the line for Gaia, and now she hadn’t even been granted apartment-entry privileges. She was struck with a nagging need to cry, but she wouldn’t show an ounce of it to Ed or his new roommate. She’d turned over her new leaf. And she refused to be petty. No matter what.

&nbs
p; “Well …,” she began, being sure to literally keep her chin up. “I thought maybe you guys could use some coffee.” Give him the big smile, Heather. The big smile. “Do you guys want to stop at Starbucks with me before school?”

  Ed looked back at Gaia. Heather could see her give him a quirky little smile. He turned back to the Heather in the hallway. “Maybe not this morning, okay?” He followed up his statement with the most insulting consolation smile.

  Heather smiled right back, though—feeling like her face might crack. “Okay,” she said, as intensely bubbly as she could muster. “I guess I’ll just see you guys in school, then.”

  “Sounds good,” Ed said, already beginning to close the door.

  Heather turned toward the elevator and took a few steps, but she turned back. “I’m glad Gaia’s okay.”

  The door was already closed. Fine. No problem. That was no problem.

  She didn’t let the tears flow until she’d gotten halfway down the block. She kept trying to remind herself of her new leaf as she approached Starbucks. She didn’t want to resent Gaia, but God, wasn’t she at least allowed to be jealous? Just flat-out envious? Envious of any love affair, for God’s sake, not even just Ed and Gaia’s?

  Heather Gannis had never—repeat, never—gone this long without a boyfriend. Not since boys stopped being gross in the fourth grade. No, even then she’d had a boyfriend. Seth Weinstein.

  But thanks to Gaia Moore—not that Heather was resentful, what with her new leaf—but thanks to Gaia, Heather had lost two boyfriends in a row. Now she couldn’t even get her ex-boyfriend to go for coffee. Even if he could bring his new girlfriend. That was depressing.

  Heather hurled her shoulder against the door of Starbucks and stepped up to the counter to order herself a double espresso. If she couldn’t have a boyfriend, then at least she could have enough caffeine to make a buffalo stand up on two legs.

  She tapped her foot impatiently at the pickup counter as she ran a continuous image of Gaia’s quirky little smile through a mental loop. What did that smile mean? What was their little “special connection” all about, anyway? New leaf, Heather. New leaf. Who cared? Not Heather. She had more important things to worry about, anyway. Like whether she had set her VCR to tape tonight’s “a very special Friends.”

  “Double espresso!” the Starbucks barker announced.

  Heather snatched up her hot beverage, ripping the top off to get to that caffeine buzz ASAP.

  But maybe she’d been a little too eager. Because when she ripped the top off, she proceeded to spill the entire boiling-hot cup directly onto another customer. Another extremely cute customer. To be more specific, on the crotch of the extremely cute customer.

  “Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

  The poor guy folded himself inward, trying to pull himself away from his own clothes. “It’s okay,” he said, laughing.

  “I am so, so sorry,” she repeated at least four more times.

  “It’s fine,” he assured her. “Please, I’m fine.”

  Heather grabbed a mile-high stack of napkins and ran at him. She thrust them toward the stain before remembering that she couldn’t exactly wipe off that particular area. He laughed loudly as he made a few useless attempts to do something with the huge brown stain on his jeans. “Good aim,” he joked.

  “I guess so,” she said nervously. “Oh God, I am—”

  “Sooo sorry, I know,” he said. “Have I by chance mentioned that it’s okay?”

  “Yes.” Heather giggled, dropping her head in her hands, shamefaced. “Yes, I believe you have.”

  “Well, good,” he said with a smile. No, not “a smile.” More like the most heart-stopping smile Heather had ever seen. She wasn’t even sure if she was giggling from embarrassment or just from pure schoolgirl awe at how drop-dead gorgeous he was. Everything about him. A face chiseled from stone. Jet black hair and crystal blue eyes. Taut biceps peeking out from his loose T-shirt.

  “Look,” she said, trying to avoid getting her eyes stuck on him in a trancelike state. “Obviously you have to at least let me pay for the cleaning bill.”

  “Cleaning bill? They’re jeans. Please don’t tell me you dry-clean your jeans.”

  “O-Okay…,” she stammered. “I don’t know, then let me wash them for you.”

  “Now you’re going to do my laundry?”

  “Well… What can I do? Look, here’s my number. Just call me with the bill, okay?”

  Heather jotted down her name and number on a napkin and handed it to him.

  “Ahhh,” he exclaimed as he took the napkin. “You’ve caught on to my ingenious ploy to collect phone numbers from beautiful, clumsy girls.” He flashed her his smile again, and she felt her toes melting. Whole body soon to follow.

  “Okay, whatever.” Why had she regressed into the persona of a giggling twelve-year-old? Could it have something to do with the fact that he’d just called her beautiful? “I have to go, okay?”

  “Where?” he asked.

  Don’t say to school Do not say that you have to go to school.

  “I just have to go,” she said, trying to locate the door. He pointed it out to her. “Right, that way,” she mumbled. “Okay. Okay, ’bye now. So call me about that bill, right.” Heather spun around twice more before she finally made her way toward the door. She stopped once more. “And did I mention how totally sorry I was for—”

  “It’s fine,” he interrupted, glimpsing the napkin with her number. “Heather. Don’t worry about it, Heather. We are going to be just fine.”

  “Okay,” she agreed with a smile, taking one last look at his unreal face as she backed out the door.

  She walked three full blocks in a daze before she realized she hadn’t even asked him his name.

  A Nice Rubber Room

  “I’M REALLY SORRY ABOUT BEFORE,” Gaia said, keeping her eyes low as she poured her third bowl of Froot Loops. Thank God Ed was always fully stocked on Froot Loops, because they were just about her only solace right now, after that ludicrous freak-out with Ed’s door. Obviously she’d been way too optimistic about the sudden disappearance of her symptoms. After all, it wouldn’t be her life if it was that easy. She tried to do her own little therapy session in her head while Ed toasted himself an everything bagel.

  The best she could come up with was this: It was kind of like someone who’d been blind their whole life regaining their sight. Or a deaf person getting one of those cochlear implants. The shapes must look so totally insane to the blind person at first. The sounds must be so loud to the deaf person. If you’d grown up only knowing nothing, wouldn’t even the smallest thing seem like too much? At least at first? That had to be what was happening with her fear response. Gaia was so unaccustomed to being startled that now everything was startling. Her introduction to being startled just felt like a terrifying nightmare.

  That was one theory. The other was that she’d lost her freaking mind.

  Crunch, crunch. Don’t look at Ed.

  “Gaia, you don’t need to be sorry,” Ed said, bringing cream cheese and tomatoes over to the counter. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, I’d be worried about you, too, if you thought a knock on the door from Heather was actually triplet murderer ghosts coming to kill me.”

  “What?” Ed asked.

  Jeez. Did I say that out loud?

  Gaia was already getting used to this new expression on Ed’s face. The one where he would squint and his head would shake ever so slightly as he searched Gaia’s eyes, trying to gain a modicum of understanding. It was the face that said, “I’m sorry, when exactly did you become a raving lunatic?” “Yesterday morning,” she wanted to say. “It started yesterday morning, Ed.” But she said nothing. She wasn’t about to attempt to explain everything her uncle had told her or done to her. It was almost too complicated for Gaia to understand, and Ed certainly didn’t need to hear it.

  Gaia just needed to find some way to control what was happening to her. Because if
it was going to hurt Ed in any way, then she’d rather put herself in a nice rubber room now, get a walloping daily dose of Thorazine, and spend her days drooling with the rest of the psychopaths. Ed couldn’t be damaged in any way, shape, or form. That was the only remaining rule in her life.

  She looked up and locked eyes with Ed across the kitchen counter. “Ed… don’t listen to me for a while, okay?” she murmured. “I’m not making a lot of sense right now, you know, from my fever and everything.”

  There was the look again. Ed’s you’ve-gone-psycho glance. Even the request to ignore her insanity had come out sounding insane. But his eyes relaxed into a confident stare.

  “Sure,” he said. “I ignore most of the crap you say, anyway.” Ed smiled at her as he bit into his bagel.

  Had he always been this cute?

  Yes… she supposed he had. But his morning cute… hair-even-more-of-a-mess-than-usual, collar-of-his-black-T-shirt-stretched-out-way-too-far-on-his-muscular neck morning cute… that was a whole new level of cuteness.

  “What?” Ed asked, speaking with his mouth full as he froze midchew.

  “What?” she asked defensively.

  “What are you looking at?” he replied. “Are you seeing me with the head of a lizard or something?”

  Gaia paused to give Ed the evil eye. Then she dug her hand into her bowl and created a Froot Loop ball that she successfully hurled in his face.

  Ed let the Froot Loops cascade slowly down his cheeks. “I can’t believe you just did that.” He wiped his face clean.

  “Yeah, well.” Gaia smiled as she looked down at her bowl and began crunching on her breakfast again. “You may be cute, but you’re still an asshole.”

  “Aha!” Ed bellowed, lunging across the table and pointing his finger in Gaia’s face.

  “What?” Gaia demanded.