Gemini

by Sonya Mukherjee

  The way Hailey scowled up at Alek through all that dark eyeliner and mascara, she actually looked a lot scarier than he did. “Of course I’m still applying. What did you think, I was doing it for you or something?”

  Dad set the plate down in front of Alek and lingered at the edge of the table, not too far from Alek, looking back and forth between him and Hailey.

  “Well, good,” Alek said. “I guess that’s it then. Except, um . . .” He took a deep breath, looking down at his hands, and then finally back up at Hailey. “Well, what about the dance? Are we still on for that, too?”

  Hailey bugged her eyes out at him. “What, are you kidding me? No, we’re not going to the dance, you fraudulent frog-faced Frodo!”

  My dad, perhaps belatedly realizing that he ought to play the role of bouncer, took a step toward Alek.

  “Honestly,” I said to Hailey, “what did the poor guy say to you last night?”

  Alek backed slowly toward the door, his hands held up, palms out, as if to show that he had no weapon. Other than the hatchet in his head. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s not what he said,” Hailey confirmed.

  Alek stopped and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  “Put it away,” Hailey said.

  “I just wanted to show your—”

  “I said, put it away!”

  He said, “She was mad because I—”

  Hailey stood up abruptly, yanking me with her, and my leg slammed into the edge of the table. By the time we were four years old, we had learned not to do stuff like that.

  “Hailey!” I snapped. “Seriously!” But I knew she could feel the impact, just as much as if my leg belonged to her.

  “Alek,” she said, “get out of here, and don’t you ever bring that up again. To either of us!”

  “But you don’t understand. It wasn’t a wish! All those paintings I do, they’re not—”

  She pointed at the door. “OUT!”

  Dad gestured toward the front door, making a sweeping motion with one arm, as if urging Alek in that direction; and finally Alek followed him to the door and walked out.

  22

  Hailey

  At 1:24 a.m. Clara nudged me awake. “Bathroom. Sorry.”

  I groaned but clambered out of bed with her, groggy from the deep sleep I’d been in. We trod quietly down the carpeted hallway, leaving the lights off.

  As we passed our parents’ bedroom, we heard some muffled sounds. Couldn’t tell what they were. Did not want to think about it.

  But on the way back from the bathroom, the sounds were a little louder, and I realized what it was: Mom was crying.

  Without discussing it, Clara and I paused in the hallway.

  I heard Mom’s voice through the door, too quiet and muffled for me to make out the words.

  Then Dad. “They’re going to be fine. They’re only asking us to take them for the interview. That’s not asking so much.”

  Mom said something, but again I couldn’t hear.

  “Well,” Dad said, “would that be the end of the world?”

  My heart rate accelerated. What could he mean? Was he talking about letting us go for the summer? For the whole six weeks?

  I pressed my shoulder against Clara’s in the dark. Reminded myself that it didn’t matter what Dad said. Between Clara and Mom, there was no way a thing like that was going to happen.

  “I know,” Dad said, his voice clear through their thin wooden door. “Of course. You were right about not separating them. You were probably right about that, and you were probably right about raising them here. But—”

  “Probably?” Mom demanded, her voice louder now.

  I grabbed Clara’s hand. I hadn’t even known that it was Mom who had insisted on these things, these choices that they’d made for us. They always put up such a united front. But I should have known, should have been able to tell that the front they put up was always hers. He was always the one who went along.

  “Probably,” Dad said evenly. “All those things I said back then, about the things they might miss out on, that’s all still true. So it’s hard to say. But even assuming that you were right—”

  “I was right,” she said forcefully. “I am right. If it weren’t for me, you’d have had them separated, even if it had left us with only one of them.”

  This knocked the wind right out of me. And out of Clara, too. I could feel it.

  “Maybe,” Dad said. “I don’t know what I would have done. I needed time to think about it. I needed a few days to be sure. You convinced me, and you were right, and I’ve never looked back at that part. The part about living up here isn’t quite as clear to me.”

  “This is about you,” Mom said, a sharp edge entering her voice. “This is about what you gave up for them, isn’t it? You’d like to think they would have done just as well in LA, so you could have had the career you planned.”

  “No, Liza. No. Come on. We’ve talked about this. I don’t regret any of that. I like Sutter. I like being able to focus on the actual teaching. Not every minute of it, obviously. But on balance it’s turned out to be good for me, even though it’s not what I originally thought I wanted. Anyway, you gave up a lot more than I did.”

  “No,” she said. “As soon as we saw that ultrasound, I knew I would give up work. So moving up here didn’t matter for me in that way. And I do like it here.”

  “Me too,” he said. “And I know there have been a lot of advantages for the kids. But things change. They’re nearly grown. It’s up to them now.”

  Yes. Yes. Please.

  “But this is what we always planned,” Mom said, her voice rising in shrill desperation. “This is what we agreed on.”

  “You and I agreed,” Dad said. “They didn’t.”

  “If they leave Bear Pass,” Mom said, “then we could leave too, if we wanted. Are you sure that’s not what this is about?”

  “I’m sure,” Dad said. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to travel sometime, but we can do that even if they stay. I’m not looking to move or change jobs. Unless you are. I promise.”

  Mom started crying again, or maybe had been crying all along.

  Clara squeezed my hand. Pressed her shoulder against mine. But I knew she must have been feeling something very different from what I was. I wanted so badly for Dad to make Mom understand that she was wrong—wrong to limit us, wrong to think that she still knew what was best for us in every situation. But what did Clara want? To be held carefully, forever, in this cocoon?

  “I know you’re scared,” I could hear Dad say, through the door. “I get that. I do.”

  “And you’re not?” Mom demanded.

  “Maybe I am. Yeah. Thinking where this could all lead. I’m just not sure that’s a good reason to hold them back.”

  “I’ve been scared for so many years,” Mom said, her voice raw. “Do you know how exhausting it is to be so worried about so many things, for so long? All the things that could happen to them. Even now.”

  There was a long pause. Did he know? Did I ? No. I didn’t know, couldn’t know her fear, her need to protect us. What that felt like. I could only guess. And maybe Mom couldn’t know what it felt like to be me, to feel like I was suffocating here and needed so badly to break away.

  But wasn’t it her job to try? Wasn’t it?

  And then my dad’s voice came through, as clear as if there’d been no door between us at all. “Liza. I’m sorry. But I think you have to let them go.”

  “I have to? Have to?”

  A much shorter pause this time, and then, “Yeah. I think you do.”

  • • •

  When I was finally sure that Clara was asleep, I pulled out my phone and started looking through all the video clips that everyone had been sending at my request.

  Art school wasn’t going to happen. Leaving Bear Pass wasn’t going to happen. But some kind of change. That had to happen, even if it happened right here, in place.

  If I was going to apply
to Sutter’s film school, I had to send in a sample film by December 1. That gave me just less than a month, and all I had done was collect some material. I had some general thoughts and ideas but nothing coherent; basically, I had no idea where I was going with any of this.

  Luckily, I already had around thirty clips to start working with. I’d put out the call to a few friends, but the files were coming in from unexpected places too. Even people I no longer wanted to speak to, like Gavin and Josh.

  I’d glanced at a few of these clips before, but I was always rushed, trying to hide them from Clara, and always with the sound off. Now I reached carefully for a pair of headphones and took my time, still lying on my side and barely moving so I wouldn’t disturb her.

  A new clip had just come in from Juanita a couple of hours before, with a message attached.

  What are you doing with all this? Film project for that art school in SF?

  I answered quickly.

  No, for Sutter film school.

  Since it was the middle of the night, I didn’t expect any response to this until morning. But before I could even open the clip, I got her reply.

  Good. Ironic if I stay in BP and you leave.

  I rolled my eyes and replied.

  You’re not staying. What are you doing awake?

  Same as you, I guess. Don’t you think a house together sounds fun? Like Bridget was saying?

  Of course I did. The truth was that these two ideas—trying out film school and living in an apartment with friends, instead of at home with our parents—had given me a surge of hope about the near future. Where these coming years had looked so grim and suffocating, without any space to grow up and out of our old enclosures, now they were offering at least a taste of change. Enough to seem like a time when maybe, in some small way, a little bit of me could bloom.

  And if part of me also felt just a smidgen of relief at the idea of staying, well, it didn’t matter. Nobody even had to know.

  I responded to Juanita. Superfun. Wish you could be there. We will miss you when you’re off at Harvard and we’re partying at Sutter.

  Ha-ha. Can’t get rid of me so easily.

  Shut up and go fill out your FAFSA.

  Already done.

  I stopped and thought. Could she really not scrape together the cash for even one or two college apps, without her parents interfering? I wasn’t sure about the mechanics of how you paid, but I supposed you might need a credit card or a bank card so you could pay online. Maybe actual cash was beside the point. Though there must be some way you could use cash. Should I offer to pay? Ask Mom if we could loan Juanita the money?

  I opened a browser and typed in can’t pay college application fees.

  A minute later I sent Juanita a link to a website describing how you could get the fees waived if you couldn’t afford them.

  She responded after just a couple of minutes.

  I don’t qualify. Anyway, it’s not the point. My parents could pay the fees if they really wanted to. They just don’t want me getting my hopes up.

  I nodded against my pillow, though she couldn’t see me. I probably should have known that.

  I know you don’t believe me, she wrote, but I’m okay with this. It makes sense in the long run. Starting at a four-year college is money down the drain.

  I closed my eyes. I had this weird claustrophobic feeling, like the three of us—Juanita, Clara, and me—were trapped in a tiny dark cave together and we were never going to get out.

  But then I thought of the house. Living on our own with Juanita and Bridget. No Mom to take care of us or tell us what to do. Of course she would call every day and text us constantly and stop by without warning. But we still wouldn’t be living at home, right under her wing.

  I opened my eyes and felt like maybe I could see a little sliver of light just shimmering into view on the horizon.

  Will it really work for us to live together? I typed out, feeling half-sick with the selfishness of my hope—my weakness in letting Juanita give up on her own dreams and stay here with us.

  No, I reminded myself, she wasn’t giving up. She was just postponing. And who knew? Maybe that was all I was doing too. Maybe eventually Clara would agree to let us, too, move away from here and on to other things. When she was ready.

  Not too much money? I typed. Or too far from the community college?

  I think it will work. Still a lot cheaper than four-year college, and I’ll have flexibility to work a lot at the same time.

  Do you promise to transfer to four-year after?

  When I have the credits. I promise.

  I nodded again, looking into the darkness but seeing something bright inside it. Feeling my lungs expanding with new oxygen. Maybe all of this wasn’t so terrible. Maybe this place, this tucked-away part of the mountains, could really be an okay place to live and study and begin to grow, for all of us. For now.

  Okay. Good night, Juanita.

  Good night.

  I opened her video clip. It was from Halloween two years earlier, when Clara and I had been Batman and Catwoman, posing for the camera with a series of goofy postures and expressions. That made me smile.

  I scrolled through the others. Mostly, everybody had sent clips of me and Clara doing obvious, everyday things. There we were, walking down the school hallway, in our sort-of-funny, not-that-graceful little shuffle. There we were at our desks, always together but always turned away from each other.

  There we were in the girls’ bathroom, the main one next to the school library, angling back and forth as we took turns washing our hands in the scratched-up little sink, each of us looking up into the mirror under the subtly vibrating, blue-tinged fluorescent light. Always feeling each other’s presence but mostly just seeing ourselves.

  Me, leaning in toward the mirror to examine a blackhead swelling up through my makeup, while behind me you could see Clara in a forty-five-degree profile, distant, just far enough away and just blurred enough by the video’s middling quality that it smoothed out her skin and obscured her flyaway hairs, making her seem like an almost flawless version of me. You could see my blackheads, but you couldn’t see hers.

  Come to think of it, I’ve never seen hers.

  And farther back on the screen, Vanessa’s reflection caught just at the edge of the mirror, a glimpse of her walking out of the bathroom, removed from us just enough to look as glossy and smooth-edged as a Photoshopped girl in a magazine.

  Vanessa pretty much always looked like that. But then again, when had I ever stood face-to-face with her, leaning in until I could see her from just an inch or two away, as I did with myself at the bathroom mirror every day? When had I ever inspected Vanessa’s pores?

  Not that she would ever allow me to.

  Not that I had ever thought to ask.

  But even Clara. Even my own twin, who was never apart from me, whose legs and feet were like a part of my own body—even now I could feel the sheets, cool against the skin of my sister’s legs. But even with her, there were close-up things about her that I couldn’t see, and things in her mind that I would never be able to feel. And as for me, there were things about myself that I would never be able to see directly, as others did. Things that I could only see through the limited, distorting lenses of cameras and mirrors.

  I watched the clip again, and then I watched it a third time.

  23

  Clara

  I wanted to stay home from school on Monday, but Hailey wouldn’t let me. As we walked to our first-period English class in the early morning fog, I kept my head bent low, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. I could hear groups of kids talking, whispering, laughing. Even with my head down, I couldn’t avoid seeing what seemed like dozens of couples holding hands or walking arm in arm, their hips pressed into each other.

  My brain knew that none of this had changed since last week, but my stomach didn’t know it. My stomach believed that all the whispers and not-quite-heard conversations were about me. My stomach was sure that all the ot
her students were staring at me and Hailey and thinking, Disgusting. Horror show. Get away. And that was why my stomach was clenched and nauseated.

  I really did feel sick enough to stay home, but I understood that it wasn’t a virus. I was just sick of being myself, and that wasn’t the kind of thing you got to stay home for.

  I stared at my shoes as we walked into class, and I managed to get out my things and arrange them on my desk without ever looking up.

  I knew when Max walked in, and when he passed by me on the way to his desk. My peripheral vision couldn’t avoid him entirely. But I didn’t look up. All through class I was focused on not looking his way, and also trying not to think about him—though this was laughable, because he was all I was thinking about.

  I wanted to hate him. I wanted to believe he was an idiot, a bigot, a complete and utter asshole for talking about me the way he had. For thinking of me the way he did. I would have given anything to have believed that, if only I could.

  Without discussing it, Hailey and I lingered a couple of minutes after class, taking longer than necessary to put on our jackets and pack up our bags. But when we finally walked out, with my head bent as low as it would go, the first thing I saw in the hallway was Max’s giant sneakers.

  I sucked in my breath, and barely stopped myself from looking up.

  “Hey, Clara. Morning, Hailey.” His voice was easy this morning. Whenever his voice was relaxed, it was deep, warm, and low-pitched, with tones that were somehow vaguely soothing, even now. After all those things he’d said about me, his conscience apparently wasn’t bothering him enough to cause him any tension at all.

  I stopped walking, my head still down, but Hailey stepped forward, pulling me along. Max fell into step with us. Hailey stopped.

  She drew in her breath to speak, and I silently urged her with my mind, Don’t tell him off. Don’t tell him off. Please be quiet. Just ignore him. Just keep walking.

  If she told him that we’d heard him talking about us at the party—if she even hinted at it—our humiliation would be so much worse. And it was already more than I could handle.