Twins

by Caroline B. Cooney

  She felt faintly sick studying this new closet, this gathering of clothes she must now wear. How quickly, how completely, how vividly, Madrigal had tossed off what they had shared for so long! Whereas Mary Lee had clung obstinately to everything, blocking herself from friendship and pleasure.

  A tiny betrayed part of Mary Lee remembered how Madrigal had shrugged when Mary Lee was sent away. She put the memory away, on a mental shelf where she would never have to look at it again.

  The Separation had made it all too clear which twin spoke and which one echoed, who strode and who imitated. I must not echo, she thought, for there is no one else to speak first. I must not imitate, for there is no example to follow. I am Madrigal now.

  The radio blared. Mary Lee sang along for a few measures to be sure that she still had a voice, was still a person. She drove into the student parking lot only to realize that she did not know where Madrigal’s assigned slot was. Fear of being caught turned her hands and spine to cold jelly. She circled the lot and finally chose the Visitors Only slot. Appropriate. Rarely had a student so completely been a visitor.

  It was a human fantasy to remain on earth after death. To see what it was like when you no longer existed. See how people had felt about you. Measure the space you left behind.

  A thrill of guilt and fear made her breathe faster, less steadily.

  She was also, she reminded herself, in love. With Jon Pear. How did a girl in love act? What if she acted wrong? Why on earth had Jon Pear not come to the service? How could he have chosen to stay away from the funeral of the identical twin of the girl he loved?

  Were he to discover she was a trick, a substitute, a mere stand-in for the real thing, what would he do? Hate her? Hit her? Expose her? Stomp away from her?

  The high school was immense. Its original brick building had graceful white columns and a center dome that glistened in the winter sun. It was now engulfed by several additions.

  Engulfed, she thought, and then she was. Drowning in running feet and panicked hearts and screaming silent voices. She shook them away from her, like a Labrador shaking away water.

  She looked out the car’s windshield and calmed herself by studying the architecture of the school. Each addition was in the style of its time. I, too, must be in style, she thought.

  Madrigal’s style had changed. Mary Lee must do it perfectly, and do it constantly, or her new life would dwindle away.

  She tilted the visor down to check herself in the mirror glued to it. The sympathetic hazel eyes looked gently back, and the thick, questioning brows were black velvet against the dark skin.

  She was stunning in an outfit meant to catch the eye and keep it.

  That was the thing. To keep the eye.

  If only she knew whose eye!

  He would expect her to know everything, and she knew nothing.

  These things she knew: Her stride must be longer; she must possess the halls and floors. Her chin must be higher, and her eyes not linger. Above all, she must never hesitate. Hesitation is weakness.

  The moment she entered the first class, her nervousness would be visible to Madrigal’s classmates. If she hesitated, if she floundered, they would turn on her like feral dogs at bare ankles.

  Even worse — what if nobody suspected, but she failed anyhow? What if she was such a faded copy of Madrigal that people lost interest?

  I am Madrigal, she said to herself. And then out loud. “I am Madrigal. I own this school. And I own Jon Pear, whoever he may be. Once I walk the halls, it will be made clear to me.”

  She was arriving at ten in the morning. School, of course, began at eight-thirty. But Madrigal would make an entrance, because Madrigal had remained an Event.

  If I make mistakes, thought Mary Lee, I’ll dip my head, hide the tears behind my tumbling forward hair, explain that death has confused me.

  It would not be a lie. Death, especially this death, was quite confusing.

  She (whoever she was; at this instant she herself had no idea) held the car handle as she held her two selves. Carefully. Cautiously.

  Jon Pear might be watching. It must begin now. Every motion and thought must be Madrigal. She slammed the car door shut at the same moment she took the first step toward the school. Madrigal had connected her Events, whipping from one to the next. Mary Lee stalked up wide marble stairs that led to the front hall, and entered the high school under the frosted glass of the central dome.

  “Madrigal,” said the principal immediately, scurrying out of his office to take her hands. “Poor poor Madrigal.” He was in late middle age, and had lost most of his hair. That hair he had left was combed desperately around his baldness. “We had a Remembrance Service here at the school, of course,” said the principal, hanging onto her like a suitor.

  A Remembrance Service, thought Mary Lee, almost pleased. I wonder what they said about me. I wonder who spoke. I wonder what poems and prayers they used.

  “And the next day,” added the principal, “we had a Moment of Silence.”

  A moment? Mary Lee had died and they gave her a moment? She pulled her hand out of his greasy clasp and wanted to wash with strong soap.

  “You’re upset, Madrigal,” the principal said, putting the same hand on her shoulder, resting it on the hair that lay on her shoulder. Her hair could feel his sweaty palm; she had always had hair like that; hair with a sense of touch. “It is an unusual situation,” said the principal, “and none of us can possibly understand the depth of your emotions. I just want you to know that we understand.”

  “You can hardly do both,” she pointed out. It was Madrigal’s voice speaking, for Mary Lee would never have ridiculed an adult. “Either you understand or you do not, and in this case, you do not.”

  He flinched. “Of course,” he said quickly. “Of course, Madrigal.”

  He was afraid of her. His smile stretched in a queer oval, like a rubber band around spread fingers.

  “Walk me to my class,” she commanded.

  He moved like a good little boy and walked nervously ahead, turning twice to be sure she was still there. The creases in his charcoal suit wrinkled with each kneebend.

  The first hurdle was over. Because she did not know, of course, what nor where Madrigal’s class was.

  She kept her stride long, but measured; setting the pace, allowing the principal to dictate nothing, and yet following him, because she had to. It was an art, and she was good at it. It came from twinship, she supposed, the constant struggle both to lead and to follow.

  Struggle. A word she had never used. Had she and Madrigal been involved in a struggle, and only Madrigal had known?

  Down the hall, so far away he seemed framed by openings, like a portrait with many mats, was Van. One hour, one dish of ice cream — did that a crush make?

  She wanted to run to him, crying, Van, it’s me, Mary Lee! The one you flirted with that afternoon, before they told me I had to leave. Van, I don’t have Madrigal now, and I need somebody, because nobody can be alone! Please, Van, be mine.

  But Van, who must have recognized her, simply stood there, his posture oddly hostile, feet spread, hands out, like a deputy in an old western, ready for the duel.

  She caught herself. She was not Mary Lee. Van thought that he had buried Mary Lee. Besides, she was expecting Jon Pear. She must stay within her new life, lest her story dissolve.

  The principal halted at an open classroom door, and Mary Lee stopped just before treading on his heels. She forgot Van in the face of so many new problems. For no teacher’s name was printed on the door. No subject title was given, no clues passed out.

  They walked in. The room was unadorned with equipment. Therefore the subject was not science.

  She glanced at a sea of faces, could focus on none of them, and desperately surveyed the front of the room instead. The blackboard was covered with French verbs.

  New problems leaped up and assaulted her plans. How good had Madrigal been at French? Where had Madrigal sat? Had she acquired the correct accent?
Did she do her homework? Did she get along with the French teacher? Did she come for extra help?

  “Madrigal is back,” said the principal in a low voice.

  “Ah, Madrigal,” said the French teacher, clasping her hands prayerfully in front of her flat bosom, “Je suis tellement désolé.”

  How could you be desolate? thought Mary Lee. You didn’t even know me.

  She remembered, as if she had had an entire hour to relive it, her hour with Van Maxsom.

  Is Van désolé? Did he think sad thoughts of me during the Moment of Silence? Is he sorry that I am gone? That he cannot even visit my grave, because there is none?

  Then why didn’t he come up at the service and tell me how sorry he is that my wonderful sister died? Why didn’t anybody speak to me? I mean, to Madrigal?

  She could have responded to the teacher in French, but did not. “Thank you,” she said. There were empty desks. But with whom would Madrigal have sat? Who were her friends?

  Not that she and Madrigal had had friends. They had needed no friends. They were each other.

  The loss of it was suddenly so immense, so terrible, that she could not maintain control after all, neither of time nor space nor soul. She held everything in her body absolutely still, but it was not protection; the tears still came, soaking her cheeks.

  Madrigal! Come back! Please be alive! I love you so!

  My twin is cut away. I am severed. The stem without the blossom.

  “Poor Maddy!” cried one of the girls. “We’re so sorry. What a blow it must have been! And you saw it happen. Poor, poor Maddy.”

  The class chimed in, sounding rehearsed, each student flinging out a short consolation. “Madrigal, we’re so glad you’re back,” they chorused. “We’re so glad you’re all right.” They did not mention being sorry the dead girl was not all right.

  I left no space, thought Mary Lee. Rest in Peace, Mary Lee. Nobody will miss you.

  She walked to the back of the room where she sat alone. She wanted to break down on this old marred desk, rip her hair, wear it loose and messy, and scream at these people who could not be bothered to mention her name. She wanted to beat her fists on her chest, rend her clothing, and crash her car.

  “Continuez, Madame,” she instructed the French teacher.

  The French teacher did not call upon her.

  Madrigal would have volunteered answers to establish that she was not rocked by catastrophe. But Madrigal’s replacement could not find the voice with which she had practiced in the car. And she did not even know for whom she felt the most grief: the dead girl or the living. Doesn’t anybody miss me, too?

  Her heart said to itself: I will be friends with anybody who utters my name. Anybody who says “Poor Mary Lee,” I will love that person.

  French class drew to a close.

  One minute before the bell, she allowed her eyes to drift.

  He was there.

  Watching her.

  It had to be him.

  It could be no one else.

  Yellow flecks, like gold beneath the waters, glittered in his eyes.

  Jon Pear.

  His red cheeks grew redder, a rising fever for her. His breathing was too fast, and his wide chest rose and fell like a signal, forcing her own pulse faster. Next to him the other boys, even though they were seniors, were mere reeds, without muscle or brawn. He was a man.

  He was so handsome! And yet not handsome at all, but roughly crude, a mix that gave her the same sinking dizziness she’d felt when she entered the school.

  Jon Pear, she thought, and the two words of his name seemed precious and perfect. Jon Pear. And now he’s mine. I have it all!

  But she said nothing to him. She could think of nothing to say. She knew not one single thing with which to start a conversation.

  His smile broke, like thin ice over black water. Like danger.

  Mary Lee would have fallen in love with somebody quiet and loving, somebody sweet and endearing. With Van, in fact. But Jon Pear’s look was not romantic. Not affectionate, but fierce. Their eyes locked as if in combat.

  She was afraid of him. Slowly she made a partial turn away from Jon Pear, pretending to hear the French assignment.

  He slowly winked, slowly shifted his own gaze, slowly bestowed upon her the corner of a smile. It was only a wink but it was sickeningly violent. And completely sexy.

  Her blood pounded in her ears.

  The bell rang.

  It startled her heart.

  People leaped up. Mary Lee would have leaped up, too, but she was Madrigal. Madrigal, of course, showed no such childish eagerness, but rose gracefully, and stacked her books by size.

  He was next to her.

  She shivered with extraordinary heat, and felt herself glow.

  He touched her cheek in an unusual way, dotting it vertically with the very tip of his fingers. She thought the touch would penetrate right into her brain, and give her away. Through the pads of his fingers he would discover somebody else’s brain living in that identical flesh.

  But it did not happen. “Did you miss our little gifts to each other, Madrigal?” he whispered.

  No time to feel safe. For this was a test. She could not know what little gifts he had given her.

  Earrings? Madrigal had an enormous collection.

  A book of love poems? There had been one by the bed.

  A museum scarf? One lay carelessly draped over the chairback.

  What to answer?

  Between people in love, there could be only one answer.

  “I missed everything,” she whispered back.

  How he laughed! His laugh hurtled over her, a stream in spring, full of melted snow, flooding her. “I knew you would,” said Jon Pear. He moved her heavy black hair away from her forehead and kissed the skin beneath.

  She trembled violently, for it was her first kiss. But he had no knowledge of her inexperience. Nothing told him the skin that brushed his lips belonged to Mary Lee.

  Courage grew in her. “Come,” she said. “Walk me to my next class, Jon Pear.”

  His eyes were like a tiger’s, the pupils vertical. “You want to do it again, don’t you,” he said to her.

  “Of course,” she said, heart beating wildly, wondering what it was.

  “I am Jon Pear,” he said softly, as if beginning an incantation. As if he were an emperor reminding his subject who he was. She found it difficult to believe that Madrigal had ever been anybody’s subject.

  He cupped her two cheeks in his two hands, and she felt eerily possessed. As if she were not a person, but a china souvenir to grace a mantel. An object that could be dusted and cherished. Or thrown against the wall.

  Was he toying with her? Had he introduced himself because he knew that she was Mary Lee?

  “Jon Pear,” she repeated, perfectly matching his emphasis. She was, after all, a twin; she could match with the best.

  His shadowy eyes seemed old and distant, having nothing to do with his clear childlike skin. He was a combination of sweet and rough that had neither age nor gender.

  Take risks, she said to herself, fly alone in this empty sky. She withdrew from Jon Pear’s touch and exited alone from the room.

  His emotions were as readable as a twin’s — they rushed and flushed with strength. She was amazed at the force of his feelings. He did not like her leaving without his instruction, not one bit.

  What if she had ruined it? Should she whirl around and rush back to him, and let him —

  She had been correct.

  He followed. He begged. He said he needed her. He said he was sorry he had asked for so much so soon.

  She could not recall that he had asked for anything.

  They had had a secret language, those two. She burned with jealousy, and with grief.

  She and Jon Pear were strangely alone in the crowded hall, and yet strangely under observation. She saw in her peripheral vision a hundred students lining the walls, slipping past in single file, or standing at a distance, staring. W
hat a great impression Madrigal and Jon Pear must have made! Why, she and Jon Pear were ringed as by autograph-seeking fans. By people thirsty to see and touch and have inside information.

  They’re envious, thought Mary Lee, because I have him and they don’t.

  “Jon Pear,” she repeated, tucking his name into her own heart, knowing already that nobody ever called him by just one of his names, or by a nickname.

  He took her hand, and it seemed that their hands merged and became one. He looked into her hazel eyes, and his yellow eyes focused for her as if, from now on, she would see only what Jon Pear saw.

  She felt herself rising to meet him, rushing to fall in love with him. It really was a falling sensation, and yet also rising, a tornado of excitement, spinning up and spinning down at the same moment, until she was nothing but a whirl of emotion.

  The ring of listening students leaned forward, wanting to overhear. She recognized friends of friends: Geordie, Kip, Kelly, Stephen, Katie, Courtney.

  “Shall we choose again?” he said, his voice cracking like ice. Black ice, perhaps, that drivers never saw until it was too late, the car out of control before the driver knew there was trouble.

  Her hair, which had always had feelings, prickled beneath his palm, each strand fighting to be free. Whatever choice Jon Pear meant, it was not love, and not nice. Evil soaked his speech.

  She wanted to be away from him, to merge and blend with the students along the wall. Instead she was an exhibit at some sort of side show. And what was the show? The choice? What had Jon Pear and Madrigal done on the side, that frightened and drew people?

  Fear riddled her, like a shotgun burst in the chest.

  Jon Pear laughed again, and this time his laugh was low and musty. It crept beneath things and saw behind things. His gold-stained eyes and white teeth smiled in unison.

  Madrigal loved this person? But he is frightening. I am afraid of him.