The Bad Twin

by Avery Scott

  This time, Abby knew that the words were true.

  Abby watched until the car disappeared at the end of the street before she turned to go back inside. Her hand was on the doorknob when a flash of movement caught her eye. She tilted her head to see a line of construction trucks pulled up in front of her neighbor’s house. The lettering on the side of the vans read, “Colin Construction.”

  At first, she assumed that the workers had come to begin demolition of the house. Mr. Saint had been explicit that his buyer intended to snap up the entire neighborhood. No doubt the mysterious purchaser intended to knock down the old houses and throw up monstrous apartment blocks instead. Abby took a crumb of sadistic pleasure from the fact that her refusal to sell had cost them the opportunity to take over the entire street. Then again, she hadn’t refused exactly.

  Abby frowned when she thought about the fact that Mr. Saint’s buyer had never bothered to contact her about the house. Obviously, they had been interested. Otherwise, why would they have made the original offer to Mr. Saint? “An offer he couldn’t refuse” was mentioned. Abby expected to hear from the developer as soon as the paperwork settling their debt was final. She was dreading it. She couldn’t shake the fear that the offer might be so attractive that Gabrielle would pressure her to sell. In the end, no contact was ever made. Abby was curious about the omission. She was even more curious when she noticed that the workmen at the house next door were carrying planks of wood into the house.

  It didn’t make any sense. Abby didn’t believe her own eyes, and she watched for several minutes to make sure that she understood correctly: drywall and wood were being taken indoors, not out. She couldn’t figure out what was going on. Sure, a buyer might flip the homes for a quick profit, but that could never net anywhere close to the amount of money they could make by leveling the single-family homes and replacing them with flats.

  Eventually, her curiosity was too much to bear. Abby walked down the steps and over to the rickety fence that separated her yard from Mrs. Kingley’s rickety shotgun cottage.

  “Excuse me,” Abby said to one of the workers. “What are you doing?”

  The laborer stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow, seemingly happy for the distraction. “Just starting the reno on this place. It’s the first one on the block.”

  “You’re not tearing it down?”

  “Nah…parts of it are a gut job, but the boss wants us to preserve as much original as we can.”

  Abby was shocked. “You said the first one on the block. Does that mean you’re renovating some of the others?”

  “All of the others,” the worker replied. “Except for that one, I mean,” he gestured toward the Levesque house. “It’s going to be part of a planned development. This is all getting remodeled and sold. Then we’re going to start on the commercial buildings on the cross street, and they’re putting a park in that empty lot where the old bakery burned down.”

  “Won’t they lose a lot of money?”

  The worker flashed his yellow teeth. “This guy doesn’t need the money.” A whistle from inside the house captured his attention. “On my way!” he yelled, before turning back to Abby. “Sorry. I gotta get this inside.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  Abby retreated to her own porch, still puzzling over the new information.

  By late afternoon, she had another distraction. A representative from the art gallery dropped by to deliver a box full of invitations for Abby’s exhibition.

  “I really only know a handful of people,” Abby said apologetically, pushing the enormous carton back. “I only need ten or 12.”

  “Nonsense! We want you to send one to anyone who ever looked at you: your dentist, your dentist’s dentist, your babysitter when you were in the first grade, the man who rings up your groceries at the bodega…”

  Abby nodded her head while inwardly groaning. She could send invitations to all those people and there would still be a giant stack of invitations left over. Still, she supposed she owed it to the gallery to make a good effort. After all, they had spent a fair amount of money to stage the exhibit and to have promotional material printed up. Sending out invitations was the least that Abby could do.

  She spent the next hour going through the contacts in her phone and handwriting the names and addresses as neatly as possible. She managed to come up with twenty-five whole people to send invitations to. Twenty-six if you counted the one that lay unaddressed sitting off to the side. It was meant for someone special, but Abby had been struggling to find the nerve to finish writing it out.

  Gabrielle’s voice popped into her head. “Just do it already! You know you want to.”

  “Fine,” Abby said with a sigh and finally picked up the card. She flipped it over on the back and scribbled a note before stuffing it in the envelope and sealing it. She had to do it quickly before she could change her mind. On the front, she carefully printed the address:

  Mister Hudson Quinn

  c/o Quinn Holdings

  The Quinn Building

  425 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10101

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hudson shook Mr. Fougere’s hand. “I’m so happy we could do business together.”

  The elder Frenchman released Hudson’s firm grip and agreed. “I can barely believe it myself, to be honest. You surprised me with that phone call. At first, I thought maybe it was a cruel joke. This money will give new life to Marché d’Été. We will be…how do you like to say it? ‘Bigger and better’.”

  Hudson nodded in agreement.

  When Hudson first called Mr. Fougere about a month before and said there was going to be another change in plans, the Frenchman lost his mind. It took several minutes for Hudson to get him to calm down and stop cursing him out in French long enough to listen. Hudson didn’t know many French words, but there were a few that didn’t really require translation. Once Hudson got a chance to put a word in and explain that this was an even better deal, Mr. Fougere quickly came around. Quinn Holdings became a silent partner with Marché d’Été. Their money would allow the market to expand and even offer internet sales to give their artisans a broader market reach.

  “I look forward to working with you in the future, Hudson. This is an exciting time.”

  “Actually, you’re going to have to deal with my dad from here on out. Today is my last day with the company.”

  “No! How is that possible? I thought Quinn Holdings was a family business. Did you have a falling out with your father? Perhaps he is unhappy with this new direction?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Hudson laughed. “I’m actually getting into the property development business. I guess I have you to thank for that in a way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “France was a revelation for me. There was something special about immersing myself in the culture and looking at the business from the ground level. Until you sent me out to your warehouses, I had never really stopped to think about the people that my decisions affect. It changed something in me. It may sound silly, but I don’t want to chop things into pieces anymore. There was something about Paris too…when I think back to the architecture and the history it preserves…well, it was inspiring. I want to build something or preserve something. Something that lasts.”

  “A Legacy.”

  Hudson remembered Mr. Fougere mentioning that word before. He hadn’t understood at the time what the Frenchman meant. A legacy was about more than just money or personal glory. A legacy was a connection between the future and the past.

  “I wish you the best of luck and I hope our paths cross again someday. Perhaps you will visit France again soon?”

  “Perhaps,” Hudson agreed out of politeness. He couldn’t imagine going back there now. It would remind him too much of Abby.

  Hudson said a final goodbye to Mr. Fougere and then headed back to his office at Quinn Holdings for the last time as an employee.

  All his personal effects had been packed up and taken
to his apartment more than a week earlier. He and Imogene had been going through his business correspondence since then. The process was slow and meticulous as they sorted through more than a decade of his professional life, piece by piece. He finally whittled everything down to a few manageable archive boxes. Now, the only thing left to do was to set an “Out of Office” message on his e-mail and tell his staff goodbye. It was bittersweet. He was excited about the idea of a new adventure but this place, this office, had sheltered him during the hardest time of his life. It was the place where he learned both to hate and to love his father. Walker Quinn pushed him beyond the limit at times when he was younger, but it helped make him the man that he was today. Of course, Hudson was still part of the family. He would still meet his mother on Sunday’s for brunch and talk to his father on the phone. They would still spend the holidays together, but it would be strange not to see his dad every morning at work. It was harder than he thought it would be to move on.

  Hudson walked into his office, intending to spend a few brief seconds on the computer and then go, but a small white envelope in the middle of his desk caught his attention. He specifically remembered that the desktop had been completely empty before he left to meet with Mr. Fougere.

  Hudson squinted at the paper. He noticed the address was handwritten, without a return address. It was unusual for this sort of letter to make it up from the mailroom, but perhaps the staff was simply in a hurry to pass the mail along before Hudson left. He tore it open, surprised to discover that it was an invitation to a gallery opening. The event was two weeks in the future, and it featured, per the words on the card, “a remarkable new talent, Ms. Abagail S. Levesque.”

  Hudson froze for a moment when he read the name in silver embossed script. He was completely unprepared for the announcement and against his better judgment, he allowed a smile to creep across his face.

  “She did it,” he whispered into thin air, marveling at the revelation that Abby was finally chasing her dream. Hudson went to toss the invitation in the trash. He didn’t trust himself to keep any reminders of his former assistant nearby. He didn’t want to be happy for her. He didn’t want to feel anything at all. She had lied to him. She had manipulated him. She wasn’t supposed to still be able to get under his skin. Hudson focused on the pain that reading her name had triggered. With each thought, his anger began to simmer again. He was about to tear the invitation in two when he noticed a handwritten note on the back that made him stop. There were two short lines, written in black ink.

  If I could take it all back, I wouldn’t.

  Because then I never would have met you.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Abby stood behind a curtain that shielded the back room of the art gallery from the main exhibition space. She peered around the other side and wrung her hands anxiously. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this!”

  It was the night of her debut and she still couldn’t believe that the gallery had come through the way that it had. Abby was originally worried that they wouldn’t be able to fill the room, but there were at least a hundred people at the event already and it had barely started. She didn’t recognize anyone, but the show appeared to be going well. Everyone was mingling, drinking champagne and admiring all of Abby’s paintings.

  The gallery director burst through the curtain and grabbed two bottles of champagne. Abby tried to shrink back into the shadows but wasn’t fast enough. The woman spied her and gestured in relief. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. You’re going to have to go out there soon! Everyone is waiting to meet the artist. They’re saying that your work is ‘riveting’. At least that’s the word I’ve heard thrown around the most. Look, do you see that guy over there?” The woman poked a bony finger outside the curtain and gestured toward a pompous looking man clad all in black. “He writes for the Arts & Entertainment section at the Times. Make sure you're on your best behavior if he corners you. In fact, why don’t you corner him? I heard he likes to make artists suffer, but his opinion carries some weight in this industry. And that guy over there, he’s a critic for the Post. Make sure he likes what he sees or you’re practically done.”

  “I know you’re trying to help me out, but I’d really rather stay here.” Abby looked at the other woman with desperation in her eyes. “The paintings are…personal. I really don’t want to hear what other people think and I don’t want to answer questions about them.”

  Instead of offering sympathy, the director rolled her eyes. “Do you honestly think you’re the first artist with an insecurity complex? Trust me, you aren’t even close. I know it’s nerve-wracking, but this is part of the business. It takes a lot of talent to break through, but I’m afraid that marketing is important to. You don’t want to be just another girl painting pretty pictures, wallowing in obscurity, do you?”

  Obscurity didn’t sound bad when the other option was to expose herself to a room full of strangers. Abby opened her mouth to say so but was interrupted.

  “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t care.” The words weren’t harsh, but they were firm. The woman reached to adjust the tag peeking from the top of Abby’s fitted black shift dress.

  Abby had debated whether she should wear one of the dresses that Hudson bought in Paris. Part of her wanted to keep the clothes in their boxes, untouched, as a museum to the love that might have been, but she didn’t have anything of her own that was befitting the occasion, and she had always longed for an opportunity to wear the cashmere Chanel sheath and the four-inch black peep-toe stilettos from Louboutin. She was pleased with the dress. It skimmed perfectly over her body, lengthening her slender frame, but she was regretting the heels. It was going to take all her concentration not to tip over. How was she expected to carry on a conversation at the same time? On the outside she looked amazing, poised and confident. On the inside she was dying.

  “You look great. Now, get out there.”

  Sensing that there was no escape, Abby squared her shoulders and stepped forward into the room.

  She would never admit it, but the mingling wasn’t as bad as she expected. Since she was so new to the industry, no one recognized her as the artist. She was able to circulate under the cloak of anonymity, revealing her identity to a select few.

  The people that Abby spoke with were positive about her work and seemed genuinely excited to meet her. She wasn’t usually good with making small talk at parties. At the gallery, however, everyone wanted to talk about art, something that she could manage without any effort at all. She actually caught herself enjoying some of the conversations, especially the one she had with the Post critic, an older gentleman who devoted his life to art and its history. He had met her grand-mère once when he was just starting out in his career and spoke of the old woman fondly.

  Almost before she knew it, it was ten PM. The gallery director started making the rounds, inviting a select few customers to an after-party at a club uptown. The evening was almost over. Abby’s heart sank. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t secretly been stealing glances at the door whenever it opened, wishing against all odds that Hudson would come. It was foolish to get her hopes up. Caught up in preparations for the exhibit, she had honestly been obsessing about Hudson less than normal, but when she woke up that morning, he was the only thing she could think about.

  Abby’s phone buzzed and she excused herself from the critic.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to take this. It’s my sister.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  Abby accepted the call and dashed into an alcove in the corner.

  “Gabrielle?”

  “Hey! How is the opening going?”

  “It’s almost over. There were a ton of people here!”

  “That’s good, right? I’m so sorry that I couldn’t make it back.”

  “It’s okay, I completely understand.”

  Abby had to give her sister credit. Gabrielle was taking her new job seriously. Most of the event
s she organized took place during the weekends, so she wasn’t able to fly back to New York for the show. Abby was still grateful that her twin remembered to check-in.

  “I promise I’ll make it to the next one! I just figure I should be here a few months before I start taking time off.”

  “Look at you being the responsible twin!”

  “Yeah…hopefully it’s just a phase,” Gabrielle replied and both sisters laughed.

  Abby was grateful that her twin didn’t ask about Hudson, although Gabrielle was probably dying to ask if he had shown up.

  After the call ended, Abby slipped back into the dwindling crowd. Now that she was over her initial bout of anxiety, it was fun to eavesdrop and hear what people thought about her work, especially since the reviews were all favorable. She felt a surge of adrenaline every time someone complimented her use of negative space or raved about the fluidity of her brush strokes, but the comments she treasured most were the ones that noticed the “emotional pull” of the work.

  Grand-mère always said that colors, composition and other fundamentals were important, but the only thing that really mattered was if you could connect with an observer. Could someone relate to the work and what kind of impression did it leave them with? Those were the things that transformed a craft project into true art.

  Abby walked close to one of the gallery assistants and overheard him discussing one of the paintings with a potential buyer.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We can put you on a list to preview the artist’s future work. Unfortunately, none of these pieces are for sale.”

  “Oh yes they are,” Abby interrupted. The guest jumped back, startled by the announcement.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Abby.”

  The lady looked at her with confusion.

  “Abigail Levesque. The artist.”