Finding Ruby Starling

by Karen Rivers

  He paused. And then he said, “At least, I think so….” Then his voice trailed off like the drippings of a melting Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar that was falling off its stick, and he said, “It was a closed adoption … ,” and he dripped away again. “I mean, we didn’t ask about …”

  Then he said, “Really, that IS strange how much you resemble each other. Plus, you look to be the same age. But then again, when you think about all the ways eyes and noses and mouths can be arranged on a face, you’re bound to have a double or two. They’ve even found identical snowflakes, you know. And you have to consider the idea that you found these photographs on the Internet, and you can’t trust things you find on the Internet. My patients always think that blah blah blah etc., etc.” (Dad’s über-favorite topic of conversation is “Mass Hypochondria Created By The Plethora Of Medical Information Available On The Web Today.” TRUST ME when I say it is a totes boring paragraph and I have deleted it here for the sake of your sanity.)

  Then he laughed in a way that suggested he didn’t think anything at all was funny and began staring out the window with an expression of extreme sadness mingled with confusion, sort of like how Caleb looks when he loses his stuffed mouse, Jaunty.

  So I said, “Dad? Dad?” and tried to get his attention by waving my hands in his face. I accidentally hit his left eye, but not hard enough to hurt as much as he made out it did. “Dad,” I said patiently, “can you call the agency and ask them if I had a twin? Can you threaten to sue them and scare them into telling you? Do anything! Do what you have to do! This is the most important thing that’s happened ever in my whole entire life!”

  He stared at me with his eyebrows raised and said, “This is a real mystery, Ruth.” Then he got quiet and stare-y again.

  The thing is that I know all about the details of my adoption, from the sudden, out-of-the-blue urgent phone call from Dad’s old college roommate from medical school, to the orange vinyl seats in the waiting room, to the way that Mom cried when they found out they were getting me and had gooey mascara all over her cheeks, and the lady in charge gave Mom a tissue, but then — IN SPITE OF THE BOX OF TISSUES ON HER DESK — the lady turned her head to the side and sneezed directly into Dad’s coffee. (This detail seems paramount to my dad. “DON’T THOSE PEOPLE KNOW HOW VIRUSES TRAVEL?”) If he can remember that, surely he should remember more important details, like, say, the parts about you.

  “Dad!” I shouted. “Dad! Are you in there? Answer me!”

  Instead of answering me, he touched his face. Then his phone rang. A patient emergency, and SHAZAM! Before I could say another thing, he’d leapt out of his seat, out the front door, and into his car, and he had zoomed off in the direction of the hospital — which is five blocks away, and really, he should walk, as it would be better for his heart, and he of all people should know this!

  I made a peanut butter sandwich because I believe that peanut butter is a perf (and delish!) food, and then carefully analyzed all that I know so far, which is:

  1. I exist.

  2. You exist.

  3. Dad touched his face.

  I know from the mighty Internet (Wikipedia!) and from reading mystery novels when I was young that people touch their faces when they lie. They also do it when they have a mite or other small bug on their skin, or have recently received an accidental eye injury. We can’t be sure which one fits this scenario!

  This is completely crazy and exciting, isn’t it? Exciting and also terrifically upsetting, like being punched in the gut by a clown holding particularly interesting balloons. I actually hate balloons. They have so much potential to pop and be startling, causing your heart to stop from the shock, killing you instantly! As such, I can’t imagine why ANYONE would give one to a small child or old person. Or me.

  Coincidentally, I have this thing on the Internet that’s called nopoppingballoons.tumblr.com, where I sometimes put up my poems. You can look at it if you want. I know what you’re probably thinking: Who writes poems? Who reads poems? No one, that’s who! But I like poems. I’m kind of a little crazy about them. I have about a hundred different books of poetry on my bookshelf and not really any novels because I just like poems. Reading them AND writing them. For me, writing poems is kind of like when you stick a needle into a blister so that the goo can run out of it before it becomes infected and spreads to your whole body, eventually killing you. I.e., they can save your life.

  Mostly when I’m writing a poem, I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I just start typing and BAM, next thing you know, there is the heavy weight of sadness pulling me underwater, or whoooosh, suddenly I’m light like feathers, floating up. And like magic, there are all these words on the screen. When I read them afterward, I sometimes don’t even exactly remember writing them. Is that super weird? Jedgar says that maybe I’m channeling the spirit of a dead poet, but Jedgar can be insanely imaginative and also believes enthusiastically in ghosts and channeling and pretty much every other thing that most people don’t believe in, such as the Loch Ness Monster and sasquatches. He’s crazy, but ALSO an amazeballs animator and creative genius, so I cut him some slack. You should see another of his movies, Butterfly Death Squad. So beautiful AND creepily terrifying! Google it!

  I have never ever ever told anyone that I have a tumblr, except Jedgar, but best friends don’t count. (Sometimes I feel like I know Jedgar so well, it’s like he’s an extra organ, like a bonus spleen or an extra set of kidneys. Of course, then he does something upsettingly weird, like wanting to kiss me. Then I think he is not at all like a spare lung, but much more like ringworm or something you can only get rid of with a lot of ointment.) Anyway, the tumblr is private, in the way that things are private when you post them on the Internet for anyone to see, but only if they know where to look, and of course, no one does. So it’s like a secret that isn’t a secret. Like a secret that someone could find, if they really wanted to.

  I thought you should see it. You know, without having to actually find it by guessing. Because you are me. And I am you. Science says so, so it must be true.

  Love,

  Ruth “Not A Weirdo Internet Stalker Or Other Creepy Bad Guy” Quayle

  Hey, so I came to your house and no one was there so I let myself in with the key that was under the mat. I left some clay on your desk. Caleb kept licking me, so I thought he was probably hungry, so I gave him some cheese. But then I remembered how cheese gives him diarrhea, so I put him outside in the yard so you wouldn’t get in trouble if he ruined your mom and dad’s carpet again. Sorry. He really likes cheese! No wonder he’s so huge.

  Can you make a bunch of SHORCAs with the clay? Because it turns out sculpting is totally hard for me. I can’t make them look like actual shark/orcas, so I drew some (attached) so you can see what I need. You’re good at stuff like that. Way better than me.

  I don’t know if SHORCA! needs dialogue or if we do it like a music video, cartoon-style, but with voice-overs. The dialogue you wrote sort of didn’t work. At all. (And I get it about the boyfriend-girlfriend thing, so don’t mention it like EVER AGAIN, thanks, not even in the script. If I got embarrassed about things like that, I’d be embarrassed, but actually, I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.) Can you write the stuff for the narrator to say, like we talked about? I’m going to draw the backgrounds like I did with Zippy so it doesn’t matter where we film the water parts. We can use the bathtub, or the toilet, if it needs to look like a whirlpool, which might be cool.

  Mike and Spike are having a farting contest in my room. It’s like living in a cage at the zoo where bonobos are flinging their poop and laughing. How are they my brothers? If you glued their brains together, then in total, they’d have the same IQ as one of these LEGO guys that they just threw at my screen.

  …

  Oh, great. So then right after I typed that, they dragged me to the bathroom and flushed my head in the toilet. I nearly drowned. I probably have botulism or whatever you get from toilets. Why is this my life? They will regret this wh
en I’m a famous moviemaker. I have to go dry my hair. CALL me when you are home. I want to get out of here. Did Ruby Starling answer the email yet?

  Waiting is

  the worst

  hardest

  thing.

  Time stretches

  and yawns,

  lazy,

  a dog lying

  on the couch,

  wiggling his

  back leg

  in a dog dream

  that just goes on

  and on,

  no end in sight,

  no matter how

  much the dog

  tries to force out

  his sleep-muted

  frantic

  barks.

  It’s hot.

  I’m waiting.

  The dog sleeps.

  I scream

  impatiently,

  but only

  on the inside,

  while

  my hands make

  whole pods of whales

  out of clay.

  Dear Nan,

  The crash was a big canvas falling over in Mum’s studio. It was the painting that we always called the Big Baby. I know that anything could have tipped it, like a spider dropping on it from the ceiling and just weighing enough to topple it over. Or an earthquake! We don’t get those, but we COULD. (I don’t think any one part of the planet gets to say, no, sorry, earthquakes just aren’t for us.)

  But that picture was propped up there for yonks, for as long as I could remember! Why would it suddenly tip?

  I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it and I was just lying here and counting carrots in my head, like you taught me to do when I couldn’t sleep, because carrots are much more boring than sheep. And while I was counting, I was sort of thinking you knocked that painting over right when you did because you were answering what I wrote, weren’t you? I know you did it just like I know anything that I know, like how I know Nate is the One and how I know what Mum means to say even when she forgets to say anything at all.

  You did it on purpose. I know you did. Because I picked it up and propped it back on the stand and it fell down AGAIN.

  It can’t have happened twice, just like that. Not without the paintings all around it tipping too. It doesn’t make sense!

  It’s scaring me a bit, that’s the truth. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. I’m sorry I’m so thick. But I promise I’ll keep trying to figure it out, maybe instead of counting carrots. But in the meantime, could you please stop crashing things about? Mum’s still not home and I can’t call Fi because if her dad answers, well … He already thinks I shouldn’t be alone, even if the neighbours are close and I’m 12. It’s totally legal. And I am completely fine with it, and — like you used to say! — very grown-up for my age. You’d probably be disappointed if I got all babyish and weepy just because a picture fell (TWICE!), especially if you did it on purpose from the Other Side and I was just too daft to know why.

  Maybe Fi’s dad is right and I should take self-defence. But I don’t like hitting and kicking and those sorts of things and I don’t think you can hit or kick a ghost. Besides — and I’d never tell Fi this — I think the Mole fancies me. Because of … well, you know, I s’pose, if you’re a ghost and can see everything. And Nan, it was just a mistake. He’s a total minger. I know he’s Fi’s brother, but she’d agree. Why do such awful boys always take an interest in me and none of the cute ones? I’m not boy-crazy, not half, but still, it might be nice if someone I liked actually liked me back. Not that it matters, I suppose, because I do know that Nate is the One. My One, that is.

  I don’t know why I’m still writing. I should get back into bed and keep trying to fall asleep, just to be able to stop thinking, just for a bit, especially about what you might have been trying to say by dropping the Big Baby. I know you never liked it, because you said it was sad and grey, and who would want to stare at that above their fireplace all day when they could have a pretty sunset or a jar of sunflowers or the like? But you’re wrong about that. It’s a nice one of Mum’s, even if it’s a bit creepy with all the dust and cobwebs painted up in the corners, and then in the centre, me, lying there in my cot, all lovely and cosy, and another version of me crawling out the door, all skinny and strange looking.

  Oh!

  NAN.

  Another one of me!

  A double.

  A TWIN.

  Nan. I’ll be back in a minute. I have to stop writing and think properly. I can always sleep tomorrow.

  Love,

  Ruby

  Dear Nan,

  Now it’s morning. Mum must have stayed up all night, working in town. I’ve been sitting here, listening to the sounds of things bumping and the house creaking and feeling frightened, but also a bit less alone now that I think you’re actually here. And I may be slow to even WANT to understand, but I know you are trying to make it as clear as the second baby in the painting that this ‘Ruth’ is telling the truth! It can’t be a coincidence that there are scads of paintings and sculptures and things where there are almost always two of me.

  I just don’t quite want to believe it, Nan.

  My stomach is going funny. If it’s true, then it means that Mum knows. You can’t have two babies pop out of you and not know. But you were there when I was born! So you knew too. You KNEW. You both did.

  So it’s … true?

  It’s true.

  I can’t explain why, not really, but I do feel like it’s true. That’s such a strange thing to say, and I’d never say it aloud, but I daresay writing to a dead person is as much a secret journal as anything. It’s true. Not just because she looks exactly like me, but with a not-very-good haircut. Not just because she’s right about the birthday and the hospital and that. But it’s true because when I saw her picture, something settled inside me, like something small shifting and clicking into its proper place. I think I was hoping it was a stalker because that seemed less complicated. I don’t like things to be complicated. I like them to be simple. Then I can cope, and so can Mum.

  But Nan, mostly I’m FURIOUS. It just isn’t the sort of thing you hide from a person, you know! A twin? It just isn’t. What is wrong with both of you?

  I am 12. And even though Mum took me to that lecture on “How to Cope With Unexpected Stress” last May for our mini-break in Scotland, I have no idea what to do with this! I’ll look at the notes from that, in case there really are useful tips after all, but I think the point was that some things you just can’t cope with, and Nan, I don’t think I can cope with this.

  Don’t try to tell me anything else. Please don’t. I don’t want to be scared out of my wits when you knock over the microwave or push me down the stairs.

  Ruby

  PS — Still love you and miss you, though, Nan. So much.

  Ruby Starling hasn’t answered my reply to her rude brush-off. I am super upset. Should I write to her again? Should I see if I can somehow find a phone number for her and call her? Should I totes freak out? Or tell Dad that I actually wrote to her and demand that he do something?

  This is the craziest thing that has ever happened to anyone ever at any time in the history of all of mankind! How can I go on, knowing my twin is OUT THERE and not answering my heartfelt notes? WHAT DO I DO NEXT?

  Anyway, I’m home now! Come over ASAP. Climb the trellis, like always — do NOT use the front door. And knock on the window four times fast and four times slow, so I know it’s you. I’m making SHORCAs like crazy. All these thoughts careening around my head are giving me as much energy as that time I drank a cappuccino at Starbucks just to see what it was like. I’ve already done four! How many do you think we’ll need?

  Hi Sweetie!

  I am so sorry, I have to stay a couple of extra days here in Beantown to meet with the media. This is getting more attention than I thought! Hope it turns into grant money. (I bought you a great Harvard decal for your skateboard!)

  Did you hear me on NPR? I thought about yo
u listening, which is why I made that joke about T. rex. But now I suspect all the news agencies will focus on T. rex, and again not on the Luffster. I can’t get grants if no one cares about the Luffster specifically. Poor Luffy. Why don’t they see how cool he is? And how cool cloning is? At least, of dinosaurs. They all want to talk about people-cloning, and the ethics of that, which makes me crazy because it’s nothing to do with dinosaur cloning, which could be an amazing, amazing breakthrough, for obvious reasons! I’m sure we’re only a decade away from being able to clone anything in a lab, but no one is going to ever go for the human angle, I don’t think. At least, I hope not. That’s up to nature to take care of, with monozygotic twins, which really — if you think about it — are natural clones and not so very different from what we’re doing, apart from …

  Oh, you don’t care about this either, do you, Ruth? You’re 12! Sometimes I forget that it would be completely age-appropriate for you to care way more about things like friends and boys and your other hobbies and interests than about cloning prehistoric animals for science. (Although, tell Jedgar that if he could make a dinosaur movie about the Luffster, I’d really appreciate the rise in its popularity!)

  Do you want to have a spa day when I get back? I know you think manicures are “totes lame,” but it could actually be fun if you give it a chance. We could have facials. I’ve never had one because I hate the idea of a stranger rubbing her hands all over my face, but the in-flight magazine said beauty rituals are a great mommy-and-me activity. Maybe you and I should do more of those things and less talking about my job, which should be on the periphery of your life and not take over everything (including the dining room!) for your whole adolescence. Do you remember when you were little and you used to leave food out for Luffetta every night? That was so cute. We eventually had to tell you to leave dog food because Caleb was eating it all and getting terribly overweight, the pig.