You jackass, he thinks. If there was a way to sound more pathetic, I don’t think you’ve found it.
He looks back at the window, runs his hands through his hair, and briefly wonders if he can pay Dwash twelve hundred bucks to push him off a building. When the thought sounds too tempting he gets up and walks to the hotel closet and hangs up his sports jackets. All three of them hang there perfectly, each about an inch apart, and barely look as if they’ve come all the way to Asia from Canada. For a brief moment, Steven smiles and is a little bit proud of his nice clothes.
“It’s like living with a butler,” he can hear Robin saying. “I might as well call you Jeeves. You with your pressed shirts and your perfect jackets. I feel like I live with Frasier Crane.”
The thought of her saying that makes his head start to hurt a little and, just to prove he can be whomever he wants, he takes the jackets out of the closet and tosses them together onto the bed. He’ll leave them there for the next couple of days, just lying on top of one another, folded in half. Just like any other casual guy would do.
He reaches into his suitcase and pulls out his Dopp kit. Unzipping the leather Hugo Boss case, he removes his manicure set and walks over to the window. He lets out a long sigh of relief and—finally—feels like he can relax a bit. It’s quiet here, and he likes the view. He starts filing his nails and looks at the Christmas decorations smothering the city down below. This is probably a very nice city, and he probably would have enjoyed it if he’d come here when Scotty was alive. But now it just makes him miss Toronto, and he just sees it as the place that killed his brother.
Looking over his shoulder, he catches his reflection in the mirror. His hair is barely out of place, despite his temples being a little dark from the sweating. His shirt still looks nice on him, even after the long flight. His glasses are clean and straight. Here he stands, a well-groomed man filing his nails while looking out the window.
Christ, he thinks. I really do look like a butler.
He puts the file down and sits on the edge of the bed. Again he finds himself wondering if Robin is right—that he’s a snob. He’s too stuffy, and he possibly has OCD. Maybe Scotty had the right idea all along. Scotty’s home was wherever he hung his hat, and he liked to toss that hat wherever it would land. Scotty would have tossed his sports jackets anywhere he pleased. He probably never packed two different colors of the same type of shoe.
But Scotty is dead at the morgue, and I’m sitting in this nice hotel room, Steven thinks and, for just a second, feels guilty. He knows he shouldn’t think that way, not with Scotty gone now and not being here to defend himself. But people always acted as if he should envy Scotty when Steven always thought they had it all wrong. He’s also not sure why Robin thinks she has it so bad being with him. She might complain about his stuffiness or his cleanliness or any number of things, but she would have hated being with Scotty. He never could have taken care of her the way Steven does.
He looks at himself again in the mirror and thinks he’s got pretty nice hair. There isn’t any gray yet, and he still has a full head of it. His glasses aren’t nerdy; they’re actually quite stylish. People at the restaurant have been telling him for years that he’s handsome.
A few moments later, he picks up his sports jackets and hangs them back up in the closet. When he does, a slip of paper falls to the ground. He picks it up and realizes it’s the message from the hotel desk. There’s that name again: Dwash.
Who the hell are you and what kind of name is that? he thinks. He picks up the phone and is about to call the number, but he hangs up instead. It’s middle of the afternoon and, although he’s tired, he knows exactly what he really has to do before he calls this Dwash person. He picks up the phone and dials the front desk again.
“Yes, Mr. Kelly?” the voice returns.
“I need a taxi, please.”
3
If not for the Mandarin writing beside all of the English writing on all of the signs, the morgue in downtown Singapore City would look just like any they show on all the TV shows. Steven is struck by how much it looks just like the one he had to go to fourteen years ago. That was the day he had to identify his parents’ bodies. It was just before he went to the hospital to visit Scotty while he was recovering. Scotty was asleep for a couple of days after the accident, and didn’t know their parents were gone.
Steven thinks it’s weird. He almost had to do this with Scotty all those years ago. There was no airbag in the old Buick, but the seat belt kept Scotty from flying through the shattered window and into the guardrail. Their parents had never liked wearing seat belts.
Back in Toronto, Steven owns a nice BMW. He’s had it for five years, and it was barely two years old when he bought it. Although he and Robin live right in midtown and walk a lot, he mostly drives the car to and from work every day, especially during the winter. For over a year after the accident, Scotty couldn’t stand to be in a car. When he finally did get back in one, he insisted on sitting in the backseat for the next several months. He absolutely refused to drive. As far as Steven knew, Scotty never did again.
He remembers telling Scotty that their parents were gone and how his brother never cried. He didn’t break down or anything like that, but everything in his eyes had looked so dead. It was as if he looked right through Steven while he was talking. Even at the funeral, while Steven gave the eulogy, Scotty never broke down. His face always looked the same. He had that same expression for months.
“Are you ready?” the coroner asks Steven, who has been staring at the same Chinese symbol on the wall for the past few minutes. He’s trying to figure out what it means, since there is no English translation anywhere to be found. Here’s this one, small poster hanging on the wall behind an examination table, and on it is only one symbol. He wonders if it’s actually just one word or a complete sentence.
“Yes,” Steven says, and his voice comes out raspy. The phlegm in his throat has built up, and he coughs a little bit to clear it. He’s suddenly very cold and is sure he looks very pale. He can feel it, can actually feel his skin getting whiter. For the first time since he got the phone call about Scotty, this all suddenly feels real. He’s so nervous, he barely notices the distant humming sound coming from an appliance or a computer somewhere in the background.
The coroner walks into another room that latches like a meat locker. Steven feels sick when it dawns on him that that is exactly what the other room is. A tall, slightly overweight, white-haired man, the coroner has no expression on his face. Behind his very thick glasses, his eyes show no emotion. Steven figures it’s probably for the best that the coroner acts that way. When surrounded by dead bodies, it’s probably healthy to shut out all the feeling. The old man returns seconds later, pushing a metal cart. On that metal cart, underneath a very clean white sheet, is a body.
Scotty, Steven thinks.
“Are you ready?” the coroner says again. Steven nods his head as he stands over the metal cart. He feels his hands go numb, and that iciness that is in the air runs up his arms. He blinks for a second and feels his eyelashes soak up the moisture of what he won’t let become tears.
The sheet comes back, and there is no doubt: Scotty is lying there.
Steven recognizes him immediately. It’s that face. It’s his face. The one almost identical to his own, right down to the bone structure and shape. A sick feeling churns through his entire body, as if he’s going to be ill, but there’s no vomit inside of him to come pouring out onto the floor. For a brief moment, Steven feels as if he’s not standing over Scott, but just slightly removed from it all. It’s as if he’s watching all this while hovering above the table, looking at his own body lying there. It makes him a little dizzy, seeing his reflection lying cold in front of him.
He blinks and feels one heavy tear roll down the left side of his face. He quickly brushes it away and looks back down at Scotty. For a brief second, he almost expects his brother to look up at him, open his eyes, and smile. That seems like something
Scotty would do.
Scotty’s hair is even longer than it was the last time Steven saw him. Steven looks him over and can’t remember if he had that many tattoos or if some of them are new. Besides that, Scotty looks about the same. A long-haired, tattooed photocopy of Steven, lying on a metal table. Steven feels that churning in his stomach get even heavier.
“Do you recognize him?” the coroner asks.
Steven nods. “Yes. That’s my brother. That’s Scott.”
The coroner moves to pull the sheet back over Scotty, but Steven raises his hand. “Wait.”
The coroner stops in his tracks and looks up at Steven, an expression of curiosity on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Do you need a moment alone?”
“No,” Steven says. “What’s that on his face?”
“Bruising. He fell down.”
“Because of the aneurysm?”
The coroner nods. “He fell down and hit his face.”
“That’s what happened?”
“That or he hit his face and then he fell down.”
“Which is it?”
“Either way. He had an aneurysm, and he fell down. Either way, he hit his face.”
Steven stares at the bruise on Scotty’s face. Right along the left side of his forehead, all the way down to his jaw. It’s not terribly puffy, but it’s noticeable.
“He hit the ground very hard?” Steven asks.
“Yes,” the coroner says. “He didn’t break his fall. He was dead.”
Steven nods and feels another tear find its way out of his eye and onto his cheek. He looks up at the Asian symbol on the wall again, trying to keep the waterworks from coming. He thinks again about how Scotty acted when their parents died. Right now, Steven wants to be just like that. He doesn’t want to even blink.
“He looked like you,” the coroner says, pushing Scott back into the freezer.
“We’re twins,” Steven says, staring straight ahead.
“I can tell. I almost didn’t have you identify the body. I could tell he was your brother by looking at you when you came in.”
“That happens all the time,” Steven says, only just now realizing that it never will again. He can’t even call Scotty and tell him just how ridiculous this whole thing was today. Normally, that’d have been one of the first things he did.
“Yes, well”—the coroner shrugs—“policy states you had to do it. You understand?”
“Of course. What now?”
“Now?”
“His body?” Steven asks. “What do I do with it?”
“Up to you. We can have it put in a casket, and you can fly him home.”
Jesus, really? Steven thinks. He knew he had to do something with Scott’s body, but this is the first time he realized it meant actually checking him like luggage and shipping him home. It all seems so creepy, he wonders if he can just leave him here.
“No, no, no.” Steven shakes his head. “Nothing like that. What else can we do?”
“We can have him cremated. Give you the ashes.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes, of course.” The coroner clears his throat. “For a fee.”
“That’s fine. I’ll do that.”
“Fine, we will take care of it. Do you want to take his remains back to Canada? There is a lot of paperwork you will have to fill out. Things like that.”
Steven shrugs. “I guess so. I don’t know what else I’d do with them.”
“Some people have them buried,” the coroner says. “Some people choose to keep them somewhere at home. In an urn, perhaps.”
“Christ, no.” Steven looks at the coroner as if he has two heads. “Nothing like that. I—I don’t know. I’ll probably scatter them somewhere or something like that. Toss them into the ocean or something.”
“Many people do that. Although it really isn’t legal.”
“Even better. That sounds just like something Scotty would do.”
Steven almost smirks, still holding back the tears in his eyes. Scotty would do exactly that, in fact. It would be just like him to scatter ashes at the beach or in a park or something crazy, something ridiculous and pretentious and illegal. It’s just like something Scotty would have loved.
“Very good, then,” the coroner says, and Steven realizes the old man probably doesn’t really care. One way or the other, he has to get Scott out of here, and he can’t be concerned with where he winds up.
Steven looks down at the empty space where the table was just a minute ago. He realizes that right there, on that table, was his twin brother who he’ll never see again. For the first time, he is hit by the fact that it was just a minute ago that he saw Scotty for the last time, and it was to take a long look at him lying lifeless in that cold, awful room. Part of Steven wishes he’d taken that moment with Scotty that the coroner offered him. He stops fighting the tears and lets them fall to the floor. The coroner understands and starts to walk out of the room.
“I’ll be just outside,” he says as he writes some notes on a file inside a manila envelope. Steven stands there, looking at the wall.
“What is that?” Steven asks, pointing at the Chinese symbol he has been staring at since he first walked in the room. “What does it mean?”
The coroner looks up over his thick glasses and glances over at the poster. “It means peace.”
4
The Internet connection in the hotel costs him fifteen dollars per day just to use it, but Steven doesn’t really care. He feels cut off from the rest of the world, and figures reading the news from back home might make him feel better and a little less homesick. Other people would be out seeing what Singapore City has to offer, at least in terms of food. Instead, he’s trying to pretend he’s not even there.
Plus, he keeps hoping to hear from Robin.
She hasn’t left a message, hasn’t texted his phone, and hasn’t even dropped him a quick e-mail. He figured by now he would have heard something. Apparently she was angrier than he thought. After all, it was just more of the same problems anyway. It wasn’t anything new or some enormous fight that sent her storming off into the night, just more of the same.
He doesn’t know why it really bothers him. Robin is pretty, and she’s smart enough, but they’ve never had much in common. She’d just as soon guzzle down a cheap cosmopolitan as enjoy any of the superior wine he brings home. Her taste in nice clothes is the only thing they really share. Her love of terrible music certainly has never been endearing. As much as she harps on him about being a neat freak or for being too anal about cleanliness, he could easily be giving back exactly what she doles out. Her tendency to leave a mess in the washroom; the way she leaves her clothes anywhere she feels like it. For all her talk about how fussy Steven is, he knows he could easily call her a slob.
But he would never do that.
The truth is, he knows he’s not easy to deal with. He knows that he doesn’t compromise enough and that he’s very particular in what he likes and what he wants. He knows that he can be crabby in public, especially whenever confronted by the sounds of people eating or any of the number of little things that drive him up a wall. Some people might be snobby and never realize it, but Steven always does. That’s why he cleaned up that mess she made with no argument, even after she deliberately broke a five hundred dollar bottle of wine. He knows he’s not easy.
He sighs. Either that or I’m too much of a coward to just break up with her and tell her to get the hell out of my condo.
He remembers when the two of them met. She was pouring wine at a tasting, and he was there trying to find new additions for the wine list at the restaurant. The same height as he, she had to wear flat shoes to keep from towering over most of the other people there that night. The ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel had been converted for one night into the site of a huge gathering of sales reps and vineyard employees and sommeliers and restaurant managers. In the midst of all of this was Robin, pouring wine and smiling brightly to everyone.
�
��This will knock your socks off,” she had told him as she poured some cheap Malbec into his glass. She was right, but it knocked his socks off for all the wrong reasons. He spit it into the bucket not so much due to tradition as he did to get it out of his mouth. “Perfect, right?”
“It’s very nice,” he lied as he dabbed his mouth with a cloth handkerchief he always kept in his front pants pocket.
“You’re a bad liar,” she said, and shot him a sexy look with her very green eyes.
He laughed and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in earshot. “You agree?”
“Everyone agrees,” she said, and leaned in to almost whisper. “I’m not paid to like it. I’m paid to pour it.”
“Slumming it” is what she called it: her part-time job working for the Matthews Vineyard. She wanted to do interior design but, until more work came her way, this was what she was going to be doing. She wasn’t really much of a wine drinker, she admitted, but she looked good pouring it and flirting with sales reps. She was good at the flirting and, because of that, she sold a ton of wine. Scott would have been tempted by her enough to buy a few cases. Steven wasn’t so fooled. That might have been why Robin liked him to begin with. They were sleeping together within a week.
She loved the restaurant, too. Being the sommelier at The Flat was a nice job, but more than a few women had no idea what it meant or how lucky Steven was to be doing it. People in his profession weren’t coming out of the woodwork, but neither were the jobs. Being at a place that was casual but pricey was a good thing. Some women he dated just didn’t even know what a sommelier was. There was one who had simply called him a “wine waiter.” She didn’t stick around very long.
One thing Robin never liked was the hours. It wasn’t a nine-to-five kind of job and, once those became the hours she was working, Steven’s changing schedule began to bother her. On top of that, she tended to love the food at The Flat, but was not at all a fan of the people. She called the general manager “Mister Snooty” or “Felix” behind his back. She hated the waitresses and always complained to Steven that they were obviously trying to sleep with him.
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