by Robbi McCoy
That same face appeared on the other woman, but as a grotesque distortion. That woman was dressed in an Elizabethan costume with a fitted dress of blue silk, a gold braided cord wrapped around her waist, its tassels hanging loose in front. She wore a garish red wig, all brassy curls hanging down over her shoulders, and her eyes were enhanced with thick false eyelashes and dark violet eye shadow. Her lips were made fuller and more pert with a gaudy application of crimson lipstick. She was taller than her double by no more than two inches, but the shape of her face, her nose and the color of her eyes were identical. As appealing as the features were on the one woman, that was how repulsive they were on the other.
It was no wonder Sophie had been staring at this remarkable pair. On the left was a nightmare and on the right, a dream; yet they were twins.
Suddenly they both flew to her side, the pretty one clutching Sophie’s bag.
“Are you all right?” asked the beauty, her bottomless sienna eyes overflowing with concern.
“I think so,” Sophie answered, untangling her legs and taking stock of her condition. She felt a twinge in one elbow, but it wasn’t much, probably just a bruise.
The woman reached down to catch hold of her hand. Sophie’s fingers folded around the soft and delicate offer of support. No sooner did the woman start to pull than she was displaced by her ugly sister, who said, “Let me help you up.” Her voice was as distorted as her face, strangely low and grating. She stood in front of Sophie and grabbed both her hands in her large, hairy-wristed ones, and pulled her to her feet. As Sophie stood facing the ugly sister, she saw, beneath the thick makeup, dark stubble and an unmistakable Adam’s apple.
Suddenly, it all became clear to her. The ugly sister was a brother! His version of that face, which seemed bizarre and unattractive on a woman, was perfectly agreeable on a man. As her mind made the transition, she decided he was probably a handsome young man under all the makeup.
“Thank you,” she said, acutely embarrassed. “I’m such a klutz.”
“This is yours, isn’t it?” asked the lovely woman, holding out Sophie’s bag.
She took it. “Yes. Thanks.”
The woman smiled and her eyes lit up with a radiance that took Sophie’s breath away.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked.
Sophie nodded. “I’m fine.”
Satisfied, the curious twins walked off toward the theater. After watching them for a moment, Sophie turned and continued on her way to her hotel.
Coming into town always had its diversions. Ashland, Oregon was a smallish town, but a sophisticated one, its focal point being the Shakespeare Festival. Bohemians and stoners, street musicians and schizophrenics, sometimes schizophrenic street musicians, disenchanted exiles from California and enchanted visitors from Nebraska, winemakers and winos, fortune tellers and wandering minstrels all coexisted peacefully on these streets. It was a town that was a perpetual festival of art and the byproducts of artists’ colonies everywhere—leftism, homosexuality, Unitarianism, free love and freer thought, good wine, environmentalism, activism of many flavors, organic gardening and, fortunately for Sophie, a larger than standard appetite for goat cheese.
Today, apparently, the diversions included an unlikely pair of twins whose faces continued to haunt Sophie as she walked along Main Street past the tourist shops, restaurants and art galleries.
She passed a fiftyish woman holding a sign above her head: My Body, My Choice, My Drugs. Sophie noted that the woman was close to her mother’s age, but she couldn’t quite picture her mother protesting for legalizing recreational drugs. An Ashland native, Olivia Ward had never been a part of this bohemian scene. Maybe she just hadn’t had the leisure time for it. She had been a single mother of two girls, Sophie and her old sister Dena, with a full-time job, driving the school bus mornings and afternoons for thirty years. Now, Sophie thought with satisfaction, her mother was enjoying her early retirement. Even with all of her newfound free time, she wasn’t likely to be doing or promoting drugs, especially not with her recently acquired devotion to healthy living. The most dangerous thing Olivia put in her mouth these days was Danish pastry. Ever since her stroke two years ago, she’d become a health fanatic.
Having grown up here, Sophie was used to the spirit of this town and found it fun. She was glad to have a reason to come into town now on a regular basis. The farm, her childhood home, with its quiet, even bucolic atmosphere, had seemed like the perfect refuge two years ago when she’d returned to it to nurse her mother back to health. It had been her relief from the fast-paced, frenetic lifestyle of an investment banker in Southern California. A respite too from life as Jan’s significant other, a role that had provided more than enough drama all on its own. It was like a vacation, she’d thought at the time, anticipating a stay of a few weeks until her mother could manage on her own again. Yet, two years later, here she still was.
The once a week dose of crazy she got in town was just what she needed. This was her day to visit friends, eat out and shop as she made her deliveries to her handful of customers, the restaurants featuring Tallulah Rose chêvre. The farm suited her now, much more than it ever had as a child when her raging imagination had fueled a wanderlust for greener pastures and sparkling roads paved in gold. She’d seen the world and had learned for herself the lesson about all that glistens.
Sophie’s attention was suddenly grabbed by a twenty-something girl in a filmy green, nearly sheer, form-fitting nylon bodysuit, standing on a low wall playing a mandolin. She looked like she was wearing a gigantic green stocking, so thin she may as well have been naked. Across the front, hanging from her waist, was a jagged piece of green cloth, covering her most private region. Sophie tried not to stare at her erect nipples or the dark line between her buttocks as she bent over to bow at a man dropping a dollar into her cup.
She reminded herself to stop walking if she was going to stare or she’d end up on her butt on the ground again. So she stopped and decided there was nothing wrong with staring. If the girl didn’t want people to stare, she wouldn’t be standing on a wall displaying herself. Along with a few others who were brazen enough to take the challenge, Sophie stood on the sidewalk pretending to listen to the girl’s tune while regarding her sinuous curves encased in their green sleeve. The song she played was a traditional folk song, something Sophie vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a title to. But as the girl began to sing, Sophie recognized “Annie Laurie.”
“Her brow is like the snowdrift,” sang the girl. “Her neck is like the swan; her face it is the fairest that er’e the sun shone on.” The girl’s voice was untrained, but pleasant. “For bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me doon and dee.”
As Sophie watched, the girl’s face seemed to change into that of the young woman who had returned her overnight bag a few minutes before. The wide brown eyes, the freckled cheeks, the disobedient bangs, the vulnerable looking mouth. Moments into this fantasy, the face transformed again into the grotesque mug of the brother with its white stage makeup and violet eye shadow and thick masculine eyebrows. Sophie shook herself to dispel the image, then put some money in the mandolin player’s cup before continuing on, singing quietly to herself. “For bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me doon and dee.”
CHAPTER THREE
Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon!
Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.
—The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV, Scene 2
Wren stood by herself outside the theater as her brother Raven changed into his street clothes inside. She reviewed the photos she’d taken of him on her phone, choosing one to email to her parents back home. He was in his costume, fully made up with the red wig, dress, the whole bit. She included the message, “Your lovely son, Beatrice.” She smiled to herself, thinking what a kick they’d get when they saw it. She hoped they’d make it up here sometime this summer to see him perform.
Raven would be hilarious if the dress rehea
rsal was any indication. Tonight was opening night and he was understandably jubilant. Suddenly, things were going great for him. He’d landed this plum role with a major theater company and he had a handsome new boyfriend, Kyle, who seemed surprisingly palatable. Wren actually liked him, which may have been a first among her brother’s partners. She hoped he would be long-term, but they’d only known one another six weeks, so they were very much in the throes of passionate novelty. It made her happy to see her brother doing so well and not just because he was so much easier to be around when he was happy.
She leaned against a lamppost, watching people pass, and her mind turned to the woman who had fallen on the sidewalk a half hour before. Wren had been thinking about her ever since, remembering her in vibrant detail. She was tall and sinewy with tanned, muscular arms. Her face was unblemished and unadorned, with high, pronounced cheekbones and a thin nose. Her hair was abundant, ash blonde, parted in the middle. She had a natural, wholesome look about her, casual and approachable, even while sitting on the ground in a state of flustered embarrassment. But it was her clever eyes, blue-gray, direct and riveting, that had made the most lasting impression. The way she’d held Wren’s gaze as she bent over to offer her a hand had communicated worlds to her, worlds of possibility.
She watched a young man ride by on a unicycle. This town had its allure. It was a welcome diversion from San Francisco. During the week she’d been here, she had found it totally charming. She had always thought of herself as a city girl. But there were certain small towns, like this one, that had a city kind of personality without the city kind of isolation. Why was it, she thought, that the more people you lived among, the more alone you felt?
But Ashland, like San Francisco, wasn’t all fun and games. There were a handful of derelict people on the downtown streets, making their living off soft-hearted tourists. One of them stood nearby, accosting theater patrons on their way to and from the box office. She was a woman with long, ratty hair, wearing a well-worn and voluminous brown cape that covered her completely from her neck to the ground, perplexing attire for a summer day. Her face was arresting, pale and gaunt with dark circles under her deep-set eyes. She was speaking to passersby, but Wren was too far away to hear her words.
Wren was well accustomed to homeless people. There were so many of them in a big city like San Francisco they became part of the landscape, sometimes tragically unseen. San Francisco, like Ashland, had a large tourist population and Wren had sometimes observed visitors photographing the street people as if they were another of the many attractions, like a sea lion or sidewalk musician. Of course, it wasn’t always easy to tell the difference between a weekend street performer and a homeless person. In fact, Wren was beginning to question her initial assessment of the odd woman she was watching. Her arm gestures were theatrical. She didn’t seem to be begging for money so much as putting on a show. She raised a closed fist above her head and shook it emphatically. Maybe she was a religious nut, haranguing the crowd like those obnoxious end-of-the-worlders preaching at the captive audience at Powell and Market streets back home. An unfortunate hazard of waiting in line for a cable car ride.
Then, just as Wren thought she had the woman pegged, she took hold of a man’s hand and traced a line on his palm with her finger. A fortune teller?
Wren considered moving closer, as her curiosity was now piqued, but as she took her first step in that direction, a tall woman in a smart black dress burst out of the theater and hurried toward the cape-wearing woman, yelling plenty loud enough for Wren to hear every word.
“Get away from here!” she commanded, making shooing motions with her arms. “I told you never to set foot on this property again. Leave immediately or I’ll call the police. Better yet, I’ll have one of my boys throw you in the river!”
The woman from the theater was obviously angry, not just in a general indignation sort of way. She was livid, barely able to control herself. She continued the shooing gesture as the other woman began to move off. “Out of my sight!” she screamed.
The woman in the brown cape turned Wren’s way as she made her unhurried exit, appearing unruffled. She stopped for just a moment, looking directly at Wren, her pale eyes boring intensely into her. Wren was surprised to see the woman was young, her own age.
She reached out a long, bony index finger, pointing at her. “While you here do snoring lie,” she breathed in a melodramatic and menacing voice, “Open-ey’d conspiracy his time doth take. If of life you keep a care, shake off slumber, and beware.”
The theater woman was now stamping her feet and screaming. “Get out of here, you crazy witch!”
Wren stood frozen on the spot, as if the woman’s pointing finger had control of her motor function.
“Awake! Awake!” exhorted the woman. She then lowered her arm, releasing Wren, and scurried off down the street.
The other woman now calmed herself and made a general apology around the courtyard. She pushed her long black hair back from her face with both hands and Wren noticed for the first time that she had a narrow white streak through it, possibly natural, in the style of Lily Munster. As she disappeared into the theater, Raven came out. He walked up to his sister, his face all smiles.
“All ready!” he announced.
His makeup was gone, his own dark hair slightly damp and well tempered. He wore jeans and a turquoise T-shirt with the theater logo on it.
“Sorry,” he said, taking hold of her arm. “Did I scare you? You look terrified.”
“Uh, no.” Wren shook herself. “It wasn’t you. We just had a bit of a ruckus. There was a strange, homeless woman. Or a lunatic. Not sure. A Shakespeare-quoting homeless lunatic. Kind of scary, actually. That woman who just passed you, she chased her away.”
“Cleo? She’s our artistic director. Plus all-around bouncer.” He laughed. “She’s not afraid of anybody, but I’m surprised you’d be frightened by a homeless person.”
Wren laughed, shrugging off her anxiety. “I know! Silly. It was nothing, really.” She hugged his arm closer. “I want you to know I’m having a fabulous time and I’m really happy to be here to share your success.”
“‘The world’s mine oyster!’” he quoted, then grinned, his boyish face full of joy.
Wren was always aware that they were twins and as much alike in appearance as a boy and girl could be, sharing the same dark brown hair, the same brown eyes with their long, thick eyelashes, the same small nose. They were very nearly the same size. He was five-six and she was two inches shorter. Raven was fine-featured and somewhat girlish, especially when it suited him. If they dressed alike and had similar haircuts, Wren suspected most people would have a hard time telling which of them was the man and which the woman. That had been more true when they were kids, before the manifestations of hormones took over, when they really could be and sometimes were mistaken for one another.
As often happens with twins, Wren and Raven had always been close, had often been one another’s best friend, and felt one another’s absence or presence keenly depending on their circumstances. For the past few years, they had been separated by geographical distance as Raven wandered in his search for the things young people everywhere search for: fame, fortune and love. They hadn’t seen one another much in the meantime, but kept in touch with phone calls and frequently found themselves calling one another at the same time to find one another’s line in use. After being separated for so long, Wren was delighted Raven had gotten a gig so close to her for the summer. She hoped it would turn into something more permanent.
Suddenly a pixie appeared beside Raven, a cute impish boy with coarse red hair completely covering his ears, freckled cheeks, long, thin limbs and a generous mouth that stretched across the entire bottom half of his face. He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt under a colorful paisley print vest with a navy blue tie tucked into it.
“Hey, Raven,” he said in a thin voice, bouncing on his toes.
Raven laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Max, this is
my sister Wren. Wren, this is Max, my understudy. He also appears in our play as A Boy.”
Max reached a long arm out and shook Wren’s hand firmly. “You look just like Raven!” he remarked, his eyes full of spark. Max looked no more than twenty, with a slender build and delicate features.
“We’re twins,” Wren said, then realized that was an unnecessary explanation.
“I’m going shopping for tonight’s after-party,” Max said. “Do you want anything?”
Raven opened his wallet and handed over some money. “Yeah. I’d like some fruit juice. Orange, grapefruit. Something to rehydrate. Thanks.”
Max took the money. “Where are you off to?”
“I’m taking my sister to lunch at Sprouts. See you later.”
“Right. Break a leg tonight.” Max skipped away.
“Sprouts?” Wren asked.
“It’s great. Vegetarian. Fresh, local produce. Your kind of place.”
“Perfect. Your understudy seems very young.”
“Twenty-six. I know, he doesn’t look it. He’s a good kid. Very green, very eager. And not likely to get his big break this summer.”
“Not unless you literally break a leg.”
Raven laughed. “Not going to happen. This is my big break too.”
They proceeded to Main Street with its red and gold theater banners hung from lightposts and the occasional half-timbered building reminiscent of sixteenth-century England. This was the district of Ashland’s Shakespeare Festival where shops sported names like Ye Olde Tobacconist or Covent Garden Tearoom. Any anglophile would be happy stopping into the Boar’s Head Tavern for fish and chips. A life-size wooden statue of William Shakespeare stood outside the Stratford Inn, one hand on his hip, the other thrust upward in front of him in a classic actor pose. Wren jumped up next to the statue and posed so Raven could take her picture.
