The Opposite of Me

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “How long?” Alex asked.

  “A little while,” I hedged.

  Alex pinned me down with a stare. “I know you’ve researched everything,” she said. “That’s what you do. So tell me. How long?”

  Maybe I should’ve lied to her. But I guess I thought that would make things even worse. Alex would’ve known I was lying; it has always been impossible to slip anything by her. From the time she was a little girl, Mom would complain that Alex always knew when Mom was trying to trick her into going to bed early, or was secretly taking her to the dentist to get a cavity filled.

  Another missed clue, I thought. Another sign we all overlooked.

  Alex was waiting for my answer. If she caught me in a lie, I’d lose her trust, on top of everything else. “Your face is going to be swollen for a while,” I said. “The steroids will make you puffy.” She closed her eyes. “But you only have to take them for a couple of months,” I said quickly.

  “A couple of months,” she said. “How many?”

  “Two,” I said. “Maybe less.” Maybe more, I thought, if you need radiation.

  Alex’s red-rimmed eyes opened again. “I just started taking the steroids,” she began slowly. I knew what was coming, but I was powerless to dodge the question.

  “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?” she said. Her voice was almost matter-of-fact. This time I was planning to muster up a lie and pray Alex wouldn’t see through me, but I didn’t have a chance. Her quick mind had jumped ahead to the inevitable conclusion; all the protective barriers her brain had put into place before her surgery were crashing down.

  “It’s temporary,” I said feebly.

  Alex looked around the room, and I followed her gaze. I could see a cluster of bright balloons in a corner, its dangling tag imprinted with the NBC logo.

  “Do you think they’re going to put me on the air looking like this?” she said. “Do you think anyone’s going to hire me for a shoot? Like I’m going to model bathing suits when I look like a fucking linebacker?”

  “It’s temporary,” I said again, wishing I could think of something, anything else to say.

  “It’s not just going to be for two months,” Alex said. “It’ll take me forever to lose the weight afterward. It’ll take my hair two years to grow back.”

  Alex turned to me, and something in her face changed. For the first time, she seemed to see me. “Look at you,” she said in her hoarse, unfamiliar voice. Surprise seemed to cut through her misery—surprise and something else.

  I hadn’t thought about it; I’d just grabbed the clothes in the front of my closet and yanked them on after Bradley’s call. Now I glanced down at my new jeans and boots and fitted top. I couldn’t see my hair, but it was much longer than usual, and I knew it had probably dried in its natural loose waves in the car.

  “You look . . . pretty,” Alex said. She tried to smile, but her lower lip wobbled and a fresh wave of tears rolled down her cheeks.

  I knew how she felt. I knew it; I felt the truth of it all the way to my core. Alex was jealous of me. Of my looks. In the space of a day, Alex and I had switched identities, just like those two little boys in our old elementary school. But we wouldn’t be able to trade jackets or backpacks to turn back into ourselves. Nothing would be that simple, not ever again.

  “Alex, I . . . ,” I started to say, but I didn’t know how to continue. What could I say? Maybe I’ve been there? I know what it’s like to be so jealous of your sister’s looks that you can barely breathe? But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it—even if you’ll never completely get over it?

  “I’m tired,” Alex said, and she closed her eyes once more. But this time she didn’t open them again.

  “Mom and Dad want to come in,” I said.

  “Later,” Alex said.

  “Bradley wants to see you, too,” I said.

  “No,” Alex said. And the way she said it—the finality in her tone—was like she’d shut a door and slammed home the dead bolt.

  I left the door cracked open as I eased out of the room, feeling like I’d made everything worse. When Bradley approached in the hallway, I just shook my head. His face sagged, and he stopped walking toward me.

  “How is she?” Mom asked.

  “It’s going to take a little time,” I said, somehow managing to give my parents a reassuring smile. “It’s all kind of a shock to her. Her face is still pretty swollen.”

  “Maybe we should get her something from the gift shop,” Dad said. His forehead wrinkled, and I knew how helpless he felt. “Do you think she’d like a box of chocolates?”

  “That sounds good,” I said, patting Dad’s arm. “Let’s let her rest for a while, then you and Mom can visit her.”

  “Can I go in now?” Bradley asked in a low voice as my parents headed for the elevator.

  I shook my head.

  “Doesn’t she know?” Bradley asked in an anguished voice. “I don’t care how she looks!”

  It was the truth, and the irony was almost unbearable. My sister, the most beautiful girl I knew, had fallen for the only guy in the world who didn’t care about her looks. And now that she’d lost her looks, she was pushing away the only guy in the world who still found her beautiful.

  “Give her time,” I said to Bradley, echoing those vague, useless words I’d used to try to comfort my parents. God, how had the world become so complicated that I was comforting the guy who’d broken my heart? How was it possible that I was counseling him on his relationship with my twin sister?

  “She just needs a little time,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  But time only made things worse.

  Days turned into weeks, and Alex left the hospital and moved into her old room, after Dad and I hastily carried out his desk and files and books. Mom went shopping at Macy’s the day before Alex came home and bought her a new comforter, a pretty one decorated with sprigs of lavender, and a new nightstand and lamp. I scrubbed the walls and sprinkled fresh-smelling baking soda into the carpet before vacuuming it back up. I made sure a good selection of books was on her nightstand, and I put a pretty pitcher and glass for holding ice water there, too. But Alex didn’t even seem to notice the changes. She just crawled into bed and lay staring into space. When I left for work every morning, Alex was still in bed. When I came home in the evenings, she’d only have ventured as far as the backyard, carrying a wide-brimmed hat and a book. She refused to leave the house other than to take long, aimless drives once the doctor cleared her to do so. But Alex only went out at night, when she could hide in the shadows.

  “All those years of dieting,” she said one evening. She looked down at the tray I’d brought into her room when she hadn’t come out for dinner. She picked up a fork and flicked at the baked sweet potato I’d piled next to a grilled chicken breast and buttered rolls.

  “I was hungry for ten years,” she said. She lifted up a big forkful of potato and swallowed, but she didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the taste. “I had this game I played. If I was really good—if I limited myself to thirteen hundred calories a day—I let myself eat four bites of dessert once a week. I could make a forkful of cake last five minutes.” She began methodically eating the rest of the potato. “Four fucking bites,” I heard her whisper.

  “She sounds clinically depressed,” Matt said one night when I phoned him.

  “Maybe,” I said, speaking softly so Alex couldn’t hear me, on the off chance that she’d ventured out of her bedroom. “But isn’t it normal for her to be depressed after what she went through?”

  “Sure,” Matt said. His voice was low and reassuring. I felt it wrap around me like a soft blanket as I leaned back on my bed and pressed the receiver to my ear. “It’s probably scary as hell for her,” Matt continued. “She had a brush with mortality, and now she probably feels like she lost everything. Her career, her looks, her boyfriend.”

  “So what should I do?” I whispered.

  “Just be there for her, I gues
s,” Matt said. “And if it doesn’t get better, try to get her to see someone. Maybe she needs medication.”

  “I doubt she’d leave the house to see a shrink,” I said.

  “Is it really that bad?” he asked.

  I flashed back to the sight of Alex. When I’d gotten home from work, she was sitting on the couch, wearing a pair of navy blue sweats she’d bought online at Old Navy. None of her old clothes fit anymore. She’d been alternating those sweats with a pair of almost-identical black ones. Her fingers were so puffy she could no longer wear rings, and her face still looked swollen. When she took off her scarf, I could see her hair was starting to grow back, but it was just a bit of peach fuzz. But worst of all was the lifeless expression in her eyes as she stared at hour after hour of television.

  “It’s pretty bad,” I said. “I was thinking of calling her doctor. But I’m worried she’ll be mad if she finds out.”

  “Call,” Matt said without hesitating.

  I heard Pammy in the background asking something about a bottle of wine. They were probably about to share one. I’d wanted to tell Matt about the IQ tests and Bradley and everything else, but suddenly I felt self-conscious. It was a Friday night, and he was with his girlfriend. He probably wanted to get off the phone.

  “I should let you go,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Matt said.

  “No, really,” I said. “Besides, Jeopardy! is on. It’s kind of a big deal around here.”

  Matt laughed. “Call me after you talk to the doctor, okay?”

  I hung up and lay there, staring at my ceiling. A few minutes later, a text message arrived via my cell phone:

  Cheryl arrested for indecent exposure; implants quarreling over defense strategy. Right implant threatening to defect and join Pamela Anderson’s body.

  I laughed and snapped shut my phone, finally feeling a little bit better.

  The next morning I laced up some old sneakers—not the wildly expensive leather pumps I used to wear in New York, and not the flirty heels I’d been wearing recently—and I put on old jeans, too, a soft, faded pair I’d owned since grad school. It was a bit chilly for April, so I topped a plain white T-shirt with Dad’s navy fleece jacket. When I finished dressing and pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I looked into the mirror. Today I wasn’t the brainy workaholic, or the pretty matchmaker who liked to shop and laugh and fix up strangers. It was as though I’d called a temporary truce between my warring identities by dressing neutrally. Today I was . . . just Lindsey.

  I headed for one of my favorite places on Earth: the wooded Capital Crescent Trail that links downtown Bethesda with Georgetown. Just a few blocks away, cars whizzed by and buses belched gray clouds of exhaust as they lurched down the busy streets, but here on the trail, it was like being in a shady, tree-lined oasis cutting through the middle of the city. I walked for hours as bikers flew past me on the path, shouting, “On your left!” and dogs with their tongues lolling out trotted by, dragging their owners behind them. I passed women pushing kids in brightly colored jogging strollers, and couples holding hands as they sauntered along. It was easy to lose yourself on this woodsy trail, to blend in with dozens of other people in sneakers and fleece jackets out for some fresh air on a Saturday.

  After a while I began to search the faces of the women who passed me, at least the ones who looked around my age. What about those two friends power walking together, their arms pumping in unison? Were they happily married? Or was one of them secretly pining for the old boyfriend she believed she should’ve ended up with? And that tired-looking woman with the tiny baby strapped to her chest—was she happy? Had she given up her career to stay home with her child, or was she guilt-ridden but anxious to go back to work? Had she made the right choice? And how about the gorgeous dark-haired woman in the biking shorts who was arguing with the guy walking next to her? Had she moved to Bethesda to be with him, and was now regretting it?

  How did you know which life was the right one for you when there were so many to choose from? I wondered. How did you know if you were in the right place, or whether there was somewhere else entirely you were supposed to be?

  I’d thought my destiny was to run a top ad agency in New York. I thought I’d work seventy-hour weeks and command a staff of a hundred from a corner office with a private granite bathroom. Then, when I came home, I suddenly decided that I was supposed to end up with Bradley.

  Now I had to rethink everything I once knew about myself. I wasn’t supersmart. I wasn’t successful, at least by my old standards. I wasn’t destined for greatness. Six months ago, that would’ve devastated me. Now it just felt strange, and a little scary. I felt hollow and sore inside, as though some vital part of me had been surgically removed and I was feeling its phantom pain.

  I wasn’t the girl Bradley loved anymore, either. I had to keep telling myself that as often as possible and hope the pain would dim. Maybe if that elevator hadn’t broken, or if Alex’s engagement photographer hadn’t canceled at the last minute, or if a million other little factors hadn’t fallen into place just so, I would’ve ended up with Bradley after all. Maybe.

  A troublesome thought squirmed into my brain. I’d tried to push it away before, but it kept returning: I hadn’t thought about Bradley much while I was living in New York. So what had finally sparked my interest in him? Could it have been knowing that Alex liked him?

  I rolled the thought around in my mind, testing it out, but I already knew the answer: No. That wasn’t the only reason I wanted Bradley, I realized with a rush of certainty. He wasn’t some prize in a competition; he was too good for that. My feelings were real and complicated and deep—but maybe, just maybe, they’d been ignited because of Alex’s interest. I had to concede that possibility.

  But in the end, what did it matter? A life with Bradley wasn’t the one that was waiting for me, either.

  So how did I find the right life? I wondered, watching a white-haired couple pass by, the man throwing a stick for his golden retriever, and his wife watching and smiling. How did I know which way to move from here? How did anyone?

  I loved my job with May, but if I were being brutally honest, deep down it still made me feel like a bit of a failure. I made less than a quarter of my old salary. My title wouldn’t impress anyone. Was the happiness I felt enough to compensate for losing all that? Or a few years from now, would I have regrets? Not knowing what to do was one of the hardest things I’d ever faced. I’d always known what to do, how to fix problems, which way to go. And I’d liked that part of myself, the part that was always certain of what to do next.

  The day was beginning to warm up. I pulled off my fleece and tied it around my waist, then I resumed walking. Ahead of me the path curved. Even though I couldn’t see beyond another hundred yards or so, I knew that if I kept moving, I’d reach my favorite point on the whole trail, an old covered wooden bridge. I’d turn around there, I decided. Then I’d walk back along the shady path until it abruptly ended and spilled into the heart of Bethesda, where the sun shone brightly over the coffee shops and bookstores and galleries that crowded every inch of streetfront. Where people milled around, eating ice cream cones and clutching green plastic bags from Barnes & Noble and nursing glasses of wine under the awnings of sidewalk cafés.

  Funny how you could be in one place and, a split second later, be in another place entirely, I thought, pushing my hands deeper into my pockets as I picked up my pace.

  Twenty-eight

  “SO NOW YOU’RE THE pretty one, and Alex is the smart one?” May asked. She was sitting across from me in her favorite overstuffed chair, and she’d put on a new Andrea Bocelli CD for us to listen to as we worked. Normally this was my favorite time of day: The sun streamed in through the big picture window behind us, the dogs were curled up by our feet, and I had a cup of warm, sweet-smelling tea in my hand. But for one of the few times in my life, I hadn’t been able to keep my mind on work. Whenever I tried to read through a client’s file, I saw the words on those IQ
tests flash by instead.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said. I sighed and looked away from the file I was resting on my knees. “Alex is going to be beautiful again, but she might not be able to lose all the weight. Some people don’t. Her hair might come in looking different. I feel like she’s not going to be happy until she looks exactly the same, but that might not happen. Ever.”

  “That would be hard for anyone,” May said. “But especially someone like Alex.”

  “And I can’t help feeling like I was duped,” I said. “It’s not as bad for me, but I kind of know how Alex feels. Only you can’t see what I lost. My whole life was a fraud. Everyone kept telling me how smart I was. My parents, my teachers—they kept talking about my potential like it was this amazing thing without any limits. But I’m just kind of ordinary.”

  “You’re a very smart woman,” May said loyally.

  “But nothing”—I paused—“special.”

  “I’d disagree with that,” May said. She got up, sliced the loaf of banana bread she’d taken out of the oven a few minutes ago, and brought a generous piece over to me. I breathed in deeply; there isn’t anything that smells better in this world than fresh-baked banana bread.

  “Mmm,” I mumbled through a greedy mouthful. “If you’re trying to distract me, you should know I’m not that cheap. I require at least two pieces.”

  May smiled at me. “Have you told Alex about the IQ tests?”

  “Not yet,” I said. I swallowed my mouthful. “I was going to, but now I think I should wait until she feels a little better. She’s dealing with so much already right now.”

  May nodded, then her forehead wrinkled in thought.

  “There’s another way to look at all this,” she said slowly.

  “Tell me,” I said. “My brain is exhausted from everything that’s happened. Of course, my brain is a lot smaller than it was rumored to be.”