Twins

by Marcy Dermansky

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Sixteen,” I said. “Almost seventeen.”

  Smita lit a cigarette.

  I started to take off my clothes.

  “You don’t have to undress. If you’re not comfortable,” Smita said.

  Yumiko shook her head.

  “Sue posed for me all of last night,” she said. “I told you. She doesn’t mind. You can’t get a sense of her line with the clothes.”

  Smita frowned. Worse than Yumiko, who didn’t seem to connect me to my naked body, Smita looked at me like I was something disgusting. I saw her wince when I took off my underwear. I pretended I didn’t care. This was what Yumiko wanted. She quickly set up her easel and her sketch pad and charcoals, but Smita took a long time taking the lens off her camera.

  “I’m not sure about this,” she said.

  “I made the best drawings last night,” Yumiko said, waving her arm at Smita. “Maybe the best I’ve ever done. There’s so this fantastic quality about her. It’s like her skin is actually translucent.”

  “About Sue, you mean,” Smita said. “She’s not an object. And by translucent, you mean that you can see her veins.”

  Yumiko nodded. In the studio, she had a drawing pad three times as big as the one in her dorm room.

  “I want to take my drawing to another level,” Yumiko said. “With every one I do, I can feel them getting better.”

  I took off my socks.

  “Why don’t you lay on the blanket?” Yumiko said.

  But before I could sit down, Smita walked around me. She held the camera up to her face. “You have a tattoo?” she said.

  Yumiko stopped drawing. “I told you about the tattoo. I told you. Sue is an original piece of work.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s a tattoo.”

  “Chloe is your twin sister?” Smita asked. She squatted down to get a closer look. It was hard to believe that I was running away from Chloe so I could be asked such idiotic questions.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Her identical twin sister,” Yumiko said. “I told you.”

  I closed my eyes. I had to will myself to stay still. Part of me wanted to kick Yumiko’s easel over. But I couldn’t do that. She had taken me in. I had remembered liking Yumiko better than this.

  Smita got on her knees.

  “Do you mind?” she asked. “If I photograph your tattoo?”

  “Go ahead,” Yumiko said. “Sue will do anything!”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not true.”

  “What won’t you do?”

  I shrugged.

  “She broke a girl’s nose,” Yumiko said.

  I looked at Yumiko’s tiny face. She wasn’t the way I remembered.

  Smita circled around me. She took pictures of the tattoo from different angles.

  “Don’t you want to get her from the front?” Yumiko chewed on the end of her pencil. “She has the best pelvis.”

  Yumiko flipped her page over and started the next sketch. She was a frantic drawer, the pencil scratching loud on the page, her arm moving like crazy. She seemed all over the place, totally unlike Chloe when she played basketball, who always seemed like she was floating on a cloud.

  Smita set up a light fixture behind me. She finished one roll of film and put another into her camera. “Would you mind stretching your arms over your head?” she said.

  Smita took two more rolls of film. I concentrated on the click of her camera. When we were done, she shook my hand.

  “I would like to thank you,” she said. I felt as if I should curtsy, grateful for her kindness, but I felt funny shaking her hand without any clothes on. I was sick of posing nude.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  Yumiko looked bored. I turned away from them, got dressed quickly.

  “Do you feel all right?” Smita asked me. She handed me my coat, helped me to put it on. “Do you eat proper meals? Perhaps we should head straight to lunch.”

  She opened a red beaded purse and handed me a bottle of multivitamins. “Take two.”

  I swallowed two of Smita’s vitamins. They were big green pills, but I was used to big pills. Mr. Markman’s Percodans were about the same size.

  I put Yumiko’s knit cap over my head. My head got cold without any hair.

  “It would be terrific,” Yumiko said, “if we could get Chloe up here. Sue’s twin sister. Do a study of contrasts.” Yumiko looked at me. “Chloe hasn’t cut her hair, has she?” Her voice was worried.

  I shook my head.

  “Sue used to have long, luxurious blond hair.”

  “I don’t know if this is okay.” Smita wrapped a black scarf around her neck. She spoke to Yumiko as if I wasn’t standing right there. “Have you spoken to her brother?”

  “You’re such a hypocrite, Smita. You know you got great pictures.”

  Smita pursed her lips.

  Yumiko laughed. “Sue is tough as nails. She takes care of herself.”

  Yumiko and Smita glared at each other. I had thought they were best friends. Yumiko told Smita we were too busy to go to lunch.

  Smita kissed me on both cheeks.

  “You should come to my house for dinner,” she said.

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  I really was hungry. Yumiko had not offered me anything to eat since I’d shown up the day before. I had bought a Snickers bar from the candy machine down the hall when she went off to the dining center for breakfast, but I threw it up so that I wouldn’t look fat for the modeling session.

  Yumiko lent me a lace dress to wear over my jeans and we went to a party.

  “I hate parties,” I said.

  Yumiko didn’t care. She wanted to show me off. I could tell that Smita hadn’t given her the reaction she wanted. She brushed thick mascara onto my lashes, lined my eyelids black. “You look Goth,” she said.

  There was a guy Yumiko liked at this party. He had short blond hair and blue eyes and wore a green silk shirt that was unbuttoned so I could see the curly hair on his chest. He was vile. His name was Matthias.

  “Don’t you know anyone with regular names?” I said to Yumiko.

  “It’s a common German name,” Matthias said. He had a strong German accent. He sounded stupid. He poured me a shot of tequila. “You’re a runaway,” he said, handing me the drink. “I’ve seen it in the movies. Runaways always end up trashed in the Dumpster. They’ll do weird shit for money. Subject themselves to the worst humiliation.”

  I didn’t like Matthias. I reached for Yumiko’s hand, but she brushed mine away.

  “Have you ever run away?” I said. “What the fuck do you know?”

  Matthias cut me a slice of lime. He taught me how to lick my hand, shake some salt, shoot the tequila, bite the lime.

  “I don’t need to get wasted,” I said.

  I choked swallowing the tequila down.

  Yumiko laughed. She was wearing her hair loose. She wore gold eye shadow, gold glitter on her cheeks. A real glamour girl. The second we walked into the party, guys started flocking around us.

  “Where is Smita?” I asked.

  Yumiko snorted. “Smita hates parties. She thinks that if you go to a party you’re going to get raped. She thinks that if you drink too much at a party, you instantly turn into an alcoholic.”

  Matthias handed me another shot.

  “Go ahead,” Yumiko said.

  Yumiko had no idea. She thought I was a baby innocent, but I had spent the last few months wasted on pills. One time Mr. Markman found Lisa and me on the couch in a blissed out stupor, not watching the TV that was on at full volume, our fingers touching. Without asking us any questions, he took us into the kitchen and made us hamburgers on his George Foreman grill. They were the best thing I had eaten in forever. I was jealous because I knew that Mr. Markman must cook delicious hamburgers for Chloe all the time.

  Yumiko put Matthias’s hand on my scalp.

  “She used to have perfect yellow hair,” she said. Yumiko s
hook out her beautiful, shiny black hair. “Spun like gold.”

  All of Yumiko’s friends touched my scalp.

  “She looks like a baby bird,” one guy said. “The way they come out of the shell with big eyes and no feathers.”

  I drank three more tequila shots. One two three. Boom boom boom.

  Yumiko laughed, watching me.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll draw you hungover,” she said. “The circles under your eyes will deepen.”

  She put her arm around my waist. She does like me, I thought, closing my eyes. I knew that she liked me. I felt Yumiko’s fingers at my side. I felt the floor swaying under me. Yumiko let me go. I could feel her move away. I opened my eyes, and there was my brother, Daniel, staring straight at me. I had almost forgotten he went to this college. I waved at him. I was drunk. Daniel didn’t wave back. I figured, Why not say hello? I was drunk. He was my brother. I walked over to him.

  “Look at you,” he said. “Bald.”

  It was impossible to look at me and not notice my head. I felt horrible. I remembered why I never wanted to talk to Daniel.

  “I am ruined,” I said sadly.

  “It’s just hair,” he said.

  I felt my head. It had been touched all night. I wondered why I had let them touch me. I looked like a sick baby bird.

  “You look stupid in this,” he said, touching Yumiko’s dress.

  “I do?”

  “You definitely do.”

  Daniel and I stared at each other. I was supposed to have something to say. Why I was there. What I was doing. But all I could think about were baby birds. How the bird mothers chewed their food and then threw it up so that the baby birds could eat their vomit. I knew some things. I wasn’t stupid just because Chloe thought so.

  Daniel put his hand on my back. I wondered if I was passing out.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “You’d never mistake me for Chloe, would you?” I said. “Not now.”

  “No chance of that.” Daniel shook his head. “What are you doing here? You came here with Yumiko? When did you get here?”

  I remembered everything. I had come to Daniel’s college to see Yumiko. Yumiko, who had taught me that perfect was pus and guts. That terrible was extraordinary.

  “I came here with Yumiko,” I said.

  “She won’t talk to me.” Daniel sipped his beer. “She hates me. I thought she would be here tonight. I wasn’t expecting to find you.”

  “I’m staying with her for a while.”

  “You’re what?” Daniel said. “You’re staying where?”

  I knew I couldn’t trust Daniel. I had to keep far away from him. Gripping the wall, I made my way back to Yumiko. She was my friend, she was like no one else. We had been arrested together. She was sitting on a futon with the shiny, sexy shirt guy. Matthias, the slimeball. Mr. Big Head. He had his hand on Yumiko’s silky black hair.

  “Are all Germans Nazis?” I asked him. “I’ve never met a German before.”

  He looked at me, speechless.

  “Are you trashed?” Yumiko said. “Do I need to get you out of here?”

  I looked across the room at Daniel. I wasn’t surprised he was watching me. I hated that he always watched me.

  “You can’t talk to people that way,” Yumiko said.

  “Why not?” I said. “They did experiments on twins, you know. Nazis. They tortured them for science.”

  Matthias put his feet on the table.

  “She’s something else, Yumiko,” he said. “You’re right about that. But I wouldn’t want her hanging around me for too long.”

  “I want to leave,” I said, pulling on Yumiko’s sleeve.

  Yumiko noticed Daniel.

  “He’s a real creep, your brother,” she said. “He comes to these parties and watches me.”

  “No,” I said. “He’s watching me.”

  “Wrong. Daniel doesn’t want to sleep with his sister.”

  “Ha,” I said. Sometimes Yumiko didn’t know what she was talking about. She was just a pretty doll. She said something to Matthias, and then she grabbed my hand. We left the party. I could walk straight by using her head like a crutch. I took a handful of her hair and pulled it hard.

  Yumiko slapped me away from her. I fell on the pavement. “Are you crazy?” she said.

  “Do you like me,” I said. “Even a little bit?”

  I got back up but then I tripped over a curb. Walking drunk was like learning how to ride a unicycle.

  “You are not as interesting as I once thought,” Yumiko said.

  In the morning, she shook me awake.

  “All right, you have to go,” she said. She dumped my knapsack on the bed. “You know you can’t be a runaway in today’s society. It’s so Holden Caulfield, Sue, and the world is a much crueler place these days. It’s not an economically feasible plan. I can’t take care of you forever.”

  Yumiko went to her bookshelf, got a book, and threw it at me. Catcher in the Rye. It was always that same stupid book. The murder handbook. Teachers at school insisted we read it. There was that guy who had killed John Lennon because of it. I wasn’t interested.

  “You should read it, Sue,” Yumiko said. “You won’t be interesting if you’re not well-read. You’re only interesting for now, because you are so young and tragic. But dejected twin will only take you so far.”

  I threw Yumiko’s book back at her. It hit her on the shoulder. She looked at me.

  “Don’t throw my things,” Yumiko said.

  We glared at each other. Yumiko had those slanted, almond eyes. They were hard eyes, dark and mean. The braids and the bunny rabbits and the lace dresses were a trick. Yumiko was not sweet or nice or easy to push around. Suddenly, I wanted Chloe. As much as I had ever wanted her. I felt a wave of nausea.

  Yumiko got my unicycle from out of the closet.

  “Hey, Sue,” she said. “Your problems are too big for me. Go say hello to your big brother.”

  “Daniel doesn’t care about me,” I said.

  I looked at my feet. Yumiko was waiting, tapping her fingers on her desk. I put on my shoes, Chloe’s first pair of basketball sneakers; the rubber soles were almost worn through.

  “You have no idea,” Yumiko said. “Daniel is crazy about you.”

  Her voice sounded almost sad. Even Yumiko wasn’t happy like she used to be. She had seemed so self-assured last Christmas, talking to my mother about her divorce. Yumiko wasn’t happy at college the way she was when we got arrested. She had leaned her head against mine in the jail cell. That had been one of the best days of my life.

  “Don’t you need me to stay?” I said. “Don’t you want to sculpt me?”

  Yumiko hadn’t finished her art project, but she was still kicking me out. From her big picture window, I could see that it was pouring. I didn’t have an umbrella. I didn’t have a raincoat.

  Yumiko handed me my unicycle.

  “Matthias is going to pose for me,” she said.

  And that was it. Yumiko was done with me. She opened her sketch pad and handed me a drawing. I glanced at it quickly, taking in my flat chest, my pelvis bones, my head too big for the rest of my body. I crumpled the drawing, let it fall to the floor. Once upon a time, not long ago, I had looked like Chloe. I washed my hair and wore clean clothes. I had been almost perfect.

  I’d left home without thinking. I hadn’t even searched my parents’ room one final time. I raided through Chloe’s things and then I took off for the bus station. I barely had any money to start with. My dad had canceled all the stolen credit cards. My mother never kept cash in her wallet. I hadn’t swiped any of Lisa Markman’s pain pills. Instead, I had a useless leather jump rope and a pair of basketball sneakers. A stuffed polar bear. Chloe’s things.

  I couldn’t go back home. Chloe didn’t want me. She hadn’t tried to find me.

  I rode my unicycle around the main quad of the school in the rain. I couldn’t show up at Daniel’s door crushed and defeated. I didn’t even
know which dorm was his. I couldn’t go home to Chloe with my bald head. I had to let my hair grow. The quad made a perfect lap, and I rode it again and again and again and again. The pavement was slick, a maze of wet leaves. I rode through puddles, hard and fast, going for the biggest possible splash. My bald head was freezing cold.

  Why had I let that bitch Lisa cut off my hair? I was ruined. Why had I done it? I had been blessed to look like Chloe. Now I was a lonely, skinny, sad sack, ugly girl. I was the ugliest girl on the planet. I slipped on a patch of wet leaves and fell, ripping the knee of Chloe’s favorite jeans. I looked at the blood on the fabric and did the thing I was best at. I started to cry. But I also got up and kept riding. I had nowhere to go. I could feel the muscles in my calves. I could ride with a torn-up knee. I could ride in the rain. I could ride with tears streaming down my face. I was a fucking marvel, the way I could ride. I hopped up a curb and jumped back down. The campus was deserted, a quiet morning in the rain. I saw a woman under a big black umbrella. I watched her approach me from a distance, coming steadily my way.

  It was Smita.

  When she saw me, she lifted her hand to wave. She called out my name, and I rode to her, pedaling as fast as I could. So fast that I couldn’t stop. I crashed right into Smita, knocking her down on the grass. I was breathless from crying, from riding freezing in the rain. I started to laugh. I felt like maybe I had finally gone crazy.

  “I was looking for you,” Smita said. She dropped her umbrella and put her hands on my cheeks. “Yumiko told me you went to your brother’s. I was going there now. You’ve got eyes like a wild animal.”

  I couldn’t say anything. I was still trying to catch my breath.

  “Drama queen,” I could hear Chloe say.

  But it wasn’t true. That wasn’t me. I didn’t want drama. I wanted me and Chloe, together forever. I didn’t mean to knock Smita down. I never wanted to hurt anyone.

  Chloe

  They looked like they were dressed for a party. My mother was wearing red: red lipstick and a red dress, a red silk scarf wrapped around her neck. My father’s red tie stood out from his gray suit. He wore a red-and-white polka-dot scarf draped around his neck. They seemed almost giddy, bounding into the house, carrying a stack of gift-wrapped boxes. “Presents for my baby,” my father said.