Twins

by Marcy Dermansky

  “You are scowling,” James said.

  I nodded.

  “I can’t see it anyway,” I said, ending the conversation. I leaned over and kissed James on the lips. He pulled me toward him, untying the string that held up my bikini top. I still loved kissing James, his face and his lips and the way that he held me. I wanted us to take off our clothes and skinny-dip in the pool. Carefree Chloe would do wild and crazy things just like that. I imagined the two of us making out in the sunshine, my wet hair, James’s hand on my bare back, the picture that would make.

  “Hey, kids,” Jamal said. “Get a room.”

  James and Jamal came home from shopping with bags and bags of food and a pretty black girl named Tashika. “We’ve got steak,” James said, holding up a package of bloody meat. “We’ve got rum.”

  Tashika’s short hair was frosted blond. Her red fingernails were so long they curled under. She leaned over and touched my hair. “I would kill to have this hair. Is this your house? I like it.”

  Tashika grabbed Jamal’s hand, and they went upstairs. I noticed a suitcase leaning against the wall in the hallway. I felt my head starting to hurt.

  “What’s going on?” I asked James.

  I followed James into the living room, where he put on some reggae music. I followed him into the kitchen, watching silently as he made strawberry daiquiris in the blender.

  “You are scowling again, Chloe,” James said. “Nothing’s going on. We’re having dinner. It’s like a dinner party. A double date. Did your parents leave some fancy dishes in some hidden cabinet we can eat on?”

  I shook my head. I had grown tired of doing all of James’s and Jamal’s dishes. They were messier than Sue. The dishwasher had broken, and we had started to use paper plates.

  “Ah, who cares?” James shrugged.

  I followed him out to the grill and stood next to him as he cooked the steak. He kept his arm around me, humming to himself while poking the meat with his free hand. I concentrated on drinking my tall, pink drink, trying not to think about Jamal and Tashika upstairs in Daniel’s bedroom. I wanted them to leave and never come back. The ice was cold against my teeth, making my head ache. I knew that I was failing miserably at being carefree Chloe. I knew, even though he never said so, that James was disappointed in me. He did not like it when I got quiet.

  When I finished my drink, I poured myself another.

  “I’m going to get drunk tonight,” I told James.

  “Way to go,” he said, smiling. “I knew you’d love these girlie drinks. I made them just for you.”

  Later, I lay in the grass while James and Jamal and Jamal’s new girlfriend, Tashika, ate steak. I had drunk four strawberry daiquiris. My head was spinning, my teeth were numb, and my stomach felt bloated. I didn’t come when James called me over to eat. From the grass, I watched them eat. I watched them pass around the bottle of rum and take long swigs. It was my house, which almost made it my party, but I felt like I didn’t belong there, with these people. They were taking advantage of me. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, James was sitting in the grass beside me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me.

  “Great time,” I said, nodding. “I am having a great time.”

  Tears were streaming down my cheeks. James leaned over. He lifted his T-shirt, rubbed it across my face, drying the tears.

  “I think I am drunk,” I said.

  I had passed over the fun part of being drunk and gone straight to feeling sick. “Is Tashika going to live here now too?”

  James shrugged.

  “This is your house, Chloe. You make the rules.”

  “Do you love me?” I said.

  James seemed surprised.

  “You don’t know?” He held my face in his hands. “You are the most gorgeous, smartest, most serious girl.”

  “You love me?” I said.

  “Sure, I love you.” For a second, James looked upset. Then he kissed my forehead. “You’ve had too much to drink,” he said.

  I figured that this was when I was supposed to tell James that I loved him back.

  “I’m drunk,” I repeated.

  I got up, unsteady, and walked to the bushes. I knelt down in the grass, put my finger down my throat the way Sue once taught me, and threw up. James pulled my hair back from my face.

  “Poor Chloe,” I could hear Jamal say as if from a great distance. He was laughing. Tashika came and stood next to me, watching me vomit.

  “The girl has got to learn to hold her liquor,” she said.

  “It happens to the best of us,” James said.

  I woke up in the bedroom with James leaning over me, running his hand up and down my leg. “Hey, girlfriend,” he said. He bit my shoulder.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m sick.” I closed my eyes, falling back asleep.

  James shook me gently awake. “Please, Chloe,” he said. I could see his clean white teeth, feel his hands on my body, and I was reminded of Sue, always relentlessly needing me. I gave Sue everything she wanted and it was never enough.

  “I want you so bad,” James whispered.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of all of the things I had done for Sue.

  “Please, Chloe,” James said.

  I must have nodded my head, though, because James climbed on top of me, and I moaned because he was heavy, but James didn’t seem to understand, and then we were having sex. My head ached, and I knew that I smelled bad. I could smell the vomit in my hair, and James’s breath tasted terrible, like rum and cigarette smoke, and it hurt having him inside me. I tried to move beneath him so that he would finish faster. I kept thinking about Sue, wondering where she was now.

  Sue never had any interest in boys.

  Sue

  Daisy loved me. I walked her every day. I petted her hard, scratching beneath her chin the way she liked, and I gave her treats, dog biscuits and chocolate chip cookies. Smita said standard poodles were smart dogs; Daisy had forgiven me for hitting her. I found an empty field not far from Smita’s house where I could let Daisy off her leash. We’d run, we’d wrestle, I’d throw her tennis balls and she’d chase them down. Daisy would run at my side while I rode my unicycle. We would fall into a perfect rhythm. I never fell, not even when Daisy tugged at the leash when she saw something, a squirrel or a cat or a car to chase after. I’d hop off of the unicycle and still be in perfect control of my dog.

  On a beautiful day toward the end of summer, for no reason at all, I pedaled back to Smita’s as fast as I possibly could. We wove through traffic, the wind whipping my face, ignoring the waves and cheers of admiring onlookers, as Daisy pulled me faster and faster. When we reached Smita’s house, I fell off my unicycle onto the lawn. I was panting, out of breath. Daisy jumped on top of me. She licked my face.

  “You crazy Daisy,” I told her. She would not stop licking my face. I laughed and laughed, and then suddenly I could see us, like a picture framed on the wall. Me, Sue, pretty, healthy, happy Sue and her dog, Daisy, a standard poodle, on the front lawn of Smita’s magical house. I could see my short hair, my denim jacket, and Daisy, wagging her tail. I decided right then that I would call Chloe. I would call Chloe, and I would explain things to her. I would tell Chloe that it was all her fault. Everything. The way I used to be. Those years when I ate nothing but Häagen-Dazs bars. The depraved sexual things I did with Lisa Markman when Chloe was at basketball practice. The constant misery from years of wearing pink.

  It was all Chloe’s fault. I had to let her know.

  I rushed inside the house. I felt great. I was going to tell Chloe everything straight. Only a stranger answered the phone. At my house. It wasn’t Chloe. The voice wasn’t even female.

  “I told you,” he said. “Jamal’s not here.”

  I hung up the phone. My legs started to shake.

  I dialed again. Slowly, making sure I got the number right.

  “Have some dignity, girl,” the same strange male voice said. “I’ll tell him to call you when he gets h
ome.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest. I didn’t know who Jamal was. Chloe didn’t know any guys. She knew Mr. Markman, but he was not the voice on the telephone. I looked up the stairs toward Smita’s room. Her door was closed. I could hear Smita’s laugh. Daniel’s car was parked outside. Daisy had gone into the kitchen, I could hear her lapping up water from her bowl. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wanted to know who’d answered the phone. I needed to know where Chloe was. Where was she? I was still holding the phone, my legs were still shaking. I dialed Lisa Markman’s number. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Bonjour,” she said.

  I said nothing. I had not meant to call Lisa Markman.

  “Is this Marcus?” she said.

  I had nothing to say to Lisa Markman.

  “Marcus? Hello? Is anyone there? Is this a sick and twisted stranger? A pervert? Do you want to know what I am wearing? I am wearing tight leather pants. These pants are so tight that I have to hold my breath just to put them on they are so tight. Does that turn you on? Do you want to know what kind of underwear I’m wearing?”

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “Tell me about your underwear.”

  “Oh, my God,” Lisa said. “It’s the psychopath. It’s you. Where the fuck are you?”

  “Far away,” I said. “Amherst.”

  I looked back upstairs. If Smita and Daniel were in the bedroom, they probably wouldn’t be listening to this phone call. Smita did not need to know about Lisa Markman. She would not like Lisa Markman, who was vain and boring and stupid. I wanted to hang up the phone. I wondered if Lisa knew the guys who were staying at my house.

  “I give you one bad haircut and you disappear.”

  “It wasn’t just a haircut,” I said.

  I hadn’t planned on calling Lisa Markman. She was part of the misery that came with being Chloe’s identical twin. That was ancient history. It was stupid to call. Chloe could rot away with Jamal and the girl who was after him. I had my own life. It was Chloe’s fault I had called Lisa Markman.

  “You know, I didn’t mean to laugh at you the way I did,” she said.

  I remembered. She had held the shaver over my head, holding long strands of my hair in each hand, and she had laughed at me. I was ruined, and Lisa laughed.

  “You didn’t?” I said.

  But I didn’t care if Lisa was sorry. Fuck her. I had three inches of soft, pretty, wispy blond hair. I rubbed the pretty silver elephant necklace around my neck. I wore it every day.

  “I was nervous, you know? I felt horrible after I cut off your hair. Right away, I wished that I could take it back. I didn’t mean to laugh. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Lisa Markman had never apologized to me before. Not for anything.

  “You disappeared,” she said.

  I kissed my knee. I didn’t know I could feel guilty about Lisa Markman. We were never friends. I never even liked her.

  “So what are you doing wherever you are?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I live here now.”

  “Give me your address,” she said. “Where’s Amherst? Is that in New Hampshire?”

  “Massachusetts,” I said, and without thinking, I told Lisa my address. “Are you going to write me a letter?”

  Lisa laughed, but it was a nice laugh. I remembered Lisa’s laugh. We would take hydrocodone and lie on the rug in her room, and just about anything I said would make Lisa giggle.

  “No, psychopath,” she said. “I got a car for my birthday.”

  Smita and Daniel came downstairs, flushed, their hair wet. They had sex all the time. I hung up the phone while Lisa was still talking.

  Lisa Markman showed up the next day, driving a red convertible.

  I was vacuuming the living room when I saw her from the window. She parked in front of Smita’s house. I watched her look at herself in the dashboard mirror, put on lipstick. I hurried outside before she could get out of her car. I had given Lisa an address, the name of a street and a number, and there she was. She was wearing leather pants.

  “This is the farthest I have ever driven,” she said. “Four hours and twenty-two minutes. I was speeding like crazy. I was going like eighty-five miles an hour for this long stretch of road. I was freaked out that I was going to get a ticket. I love to drive fast.”

  Lisa’s cheeks were red. Her new nose looked just right on her face. I opened the door to the car, and sat down next to her. It was a fancy, shiny car. Lisa smiled at me. I touched the creamy leather interior.

  “Do you know how many cows sacrificed their lives to fulfill your selfish needs?”

  “What?” Lisa Markman looked at me like I was out of my mind.

  “Leather,” I said. “Your pants. The inside of this car. They kill cows for this stuff.”

  “So?” Lisa said. She shook her head at me. “You’re still a psycho. You look good, though. I like your necklace.”

  She reached out to touch my hair. “It’s gotten so much longer,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  Lisa slapped the side of my head. “Is this where you live?” She pointed to Smita’s pretty house.

  “Show me where you live already,” Lisa said.

  Lisa could not go inside. Smita and Daniel were home, upstairs. The door to Smita’s room was closed, but that would only last so long. I put my feet up on the dashboard. Daniel would remember Lisa Markman. He would remember the day when I broke her nose with a tennis ball. He would remember, and worse, he would tell Smita. Lisa frowned at me.

  “I got engaged,” she said.

  She held out her hand, showed me an enormous diamond ring on her finger. “I told you about Marcus. I could not say no to this ring. I had to have it. My father wants to kill me. Listen to this, Sue, my father wants me to go to college. The deal was I finish high school and then I could start working again. I’m already past my prepubescent look.”

  Lisa sighed.

  “Asshole,” she said, and then she leaned toward me, and I looked at her, and I saw that she was going to kiss me. I was not going to start that over again, I thought, but she put her hand in my hair, her tongue in my mouth; we were kissing. We were kissing, slow and nice. We hadn’t taken any pain pills. Chloe was not downstairs in Mr. Markman’s gym, practicing her jump shot.

  I pulled away.

  “Why are you here?” I said.

  “Stupid psychopath,” Lisa said. Her voice was tender. “I missed you.”

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  Nobody missed me. Chloe didn’t miss me. She had never tried to find me. She never called. My parents certainly couldn’t give a shit. They sent Daniel money, and I spent it. I wasn’t missed. For all I knew, Chloe could be dead. That strange man who answered the phone could have killed her, buried her body in the backyard, and moved into the house. Maybe it didn’t mean a goddamned thing to me anyway. I had tried calling the house a couple more times, and no one had answered. I didn’t care. I was a brand-new person. Smita had saved me from myself. I ate regular meals. I had regular periods. I never threw up. I had learned how to defrost a refrigerator.

  “You drove all the way here?”

  Lisa nodded her head.

  “Have you gotten stupid?”

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  “Fuck you.” Lisa gripped the steering wheel. We sat in her car, looking straight ahead. I wished that we were still kissing. Smita wore canvas sneakers. She might not talk to a person who wore leather pants.

  “That was all bullshit,” Lisa said, looking straight ahead. “My saying that I hung out with you because I was bored. Or because you looked like Chloe. I was messing with your head. You practically saved my life. I felt horrible after you left. I drove more than four hours to get here. I almost got into an accident with an enormous truck. I’ve never driven on a highway by myself. I risked my life to get here. I got into these insane fights with my father when I was learning how to drive. I’m surprised we didn’t kill each other. Do this, check
that, look both ways, slow down. One time he reached for the wheel and I tried to hit him. I jumped a curb and crashed into a tree.”

  I had no idea Lisa Markman could get unhappy. I wanted to look at her. I was amazed. She twisted the diamond ring on her finger.

  “Is he still with Chloe all the time?” I asked. “Your father?”

  “I wish.” Lisa sighed. “No, he doesn’t see Chloe anymore. His career is over, so now he wants to be a father. That’s why I got this car. Emotional bribery. We go to family therapy. He makes me and Todd talk about our dead mother.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes.

  “You can’t believe how bad it sucks at home.”

  “Therapy?”

  “I used to be this model, Sue. In Milan? You can’t believe the time I had. Walking the runways, wearing these clothes you could not believe, everyone always fussing over me. Telling me that I was gorgeous, that I was sexy. I went to parties in villas. I went sailing on Lake Como. Now my life is bullshit. I do homework and I eat turkey sandwiches my father packs me for lunch. You just fucking left, you bitch.”

  “You wanted Chloe,” I said. “Not me.”

  Lisa looked straight ahead.

  “That was just a game,” she said.

  But I hated Lisa Markman. I had hated her for years and years, long before the day I broke her nose. I reached for her face. I turned her head, kissed her again. I didn’t know what I was doing. I looked up at Smita’s house. Her blinds were still pulled.

  “I like your nose,” I said.

  Lisa touched the tip of her nose. She closed her eyes and smiled.

  “I love my nose,” she said.

  We made out on the couch.

  Lisa slid her hand up my shirt.