Deadly Design (9780698173613) (3 page)

I know Mom and Dad thought they were doing the right thing. I know they were afraid that if they carried their perfect, laboratory-created, identical twins at the same time, they might lose us to yet another miscarriage in a long line of miscarriages. Don't put all your eggs in the same basket, as the saying goes. I lost the coin toss. I'm the one who got to be frozen. I guess I came in second then too.

If we'd been born together, today would be both of our birthdays. We'd both be eighteen, and Connor would be my best friend instead of a constant reminder that there is someone who exists in this world who will always be admired and respected and loved more than me.

We weren't born together. We never played “pass the umbilical cord” in the womb. We never lay side by side in a crib. While Connor was rolling over and then crawling and then walking and talking and getting farther and farther ahead of me, I was frozen. And sometimes I feel like I haven't quite thawed.

I
f calories could be absorbed through the skin, a person would gain ten pounds just from walking into Luigi's Italian Eatery. The air is thick with the aroma of pasta and garlic bread. Italian music plays over the speakers, and candlelight flickers in the center of each table.

“How's this?” the waitress asks, leading us to a rectangular table set for six.

“Would it be okay if we sat over here?” Cami says, taking hold of my arm and pulling me toward a table for two in the corner. Dad gives Mom a little grin because he didn't know Cami and I liked each other like that. He didn't know because we don't. But we're used to splitting off from the group, so to speak—the Connor and Emma group.

It's crazy how at least once a month, Cami and I get dragged along to a movie or, last month, a rodeo, because Connor and Emma both think we need to get out more. Cami's usually working at the grocery store, taking care of her little brother, or driving around in search of artistic inspiration. I, on the other hand, am usually trying to break records of my own on Xbox.

Emma always checks Cami's schedule first. If she isn't working or doesn't have to babysit, then she starts trying to force Cami to go, and Connor starts on me. They bug us until we give in and then it's like we don't exist. When Emma and Connor are together, everyone else becomes invisible. They're Romeo and Juliet, and the sun hasn't risen yet.

Cami isn't in love, and I can't have Emma, so we leave the star-crossed lovers alone and see who can get the lowest score at mini golf or who can shove the most Milk Duds in their mouth at one time.

Mom, Dad, and the golden couple sit down at the table, then the waitress takes two sets of silverware and brings them, along with two glasses of water, over to where we're sitting.

“So.” I fold my hands together like I'm about to conduct a very important business meeting. “You wanted to see me.”

She tilts her head and smiles at me like I'm the world's biggest pain in the ass. “As you are probably aware, today is May fifteenth. In approximately fourteen days, the love birds will be graduating from high school. They will continue to reside in their current homes throughout the summer months before moving to dormitories in Manhattan, where they will continue their educational endeavors at Kansas State University.”

I nod, my expression stern because she sounds like a secret agent imparting classified information.

“Do you know what this means?” she asks.

My eyes narrow. I look around suspiciously and shake my head only slightly.

“Think of Connor and Emma as the people who arrange your social calendar. When they're gone, who's going to come drag you out of the house? Make sure you get a little vitamin D once in a while?”

Wow. Like I don't get enough grief from Connor and my parents about hanging out too much in the basement. Now I'm going to get it from her too?

“I'm concerned,” Cami says. “I'm afraid one of these days your parents are going to be looking for you and they won't find you because you'll have been sucked into one of your games.”

I lean back against the chair. Doesn't sound too bad, actually. Especially if I could be sucked into the gaming system, instead of just one single game. I could battle aliens, kill zombies, and there's a hot blonde on one of my
Borderland
maps I wouldn't mind getting to know better.

She kicks me under the table to get my attention. “You need a life.”

“You need a boyfriend,” I say. “Then you can lecture him instead of me.”

“Why do guys always think that girls need a boyfriend? My life is quite fulfilling as it is.”

I pick up my glass of water and take a drink. “Then how did you get sucked into coming to this?”

She sighs. “Have you ever tried to say no to Emma? And she knows my dad doesn't work this weekend, so I can't use Josh as an excuse.”

“What does your dad do anyway?”

“He's a news producer for channel five. He makes sure stories are edited and ready to go and nobody cusses on the air. They're always switching his schedule around, so it's hard to know my schedule sometimes, since I have to take care of Josh.”

“Do you ever resent your brother?”

She shakes her head, surprised, I think, by the question.

“No. I don't mind. It's not my dad's fault that he fell for a pretty blond reporter. And it's not Josh's fault that she bailed on both of them when she got a chance to move to a bigger network. I was seven when my mom died. At least I got to know her, and I know she didn't want to leave me. Josh doesn't have a single memory of his mom. For him to know she doesn't want him—I can't imagine. I don't ever want him to feel like a burden. I want him to feel loved.”

I look at Cami. She's simple. She never wears makeup, but she actually looks good without it. I mean, some girls . . . face it. They need the stuff and lots of it. But Cami doesn't. Her eyes are large and brown and deep set. Her skin could be in an ad for Proactiv—the after picture, of course. She's pretty, not glamorous, but pretty. And she's a good person.

“Thanks.” I lift my glass, motion for Cami to pick up hers, and we tap them together.

Her eyes narrow. “For what?”

“For not wanting me to become one of those people who never leaves the house or throws anything away and ends up eating old discarded food and peeing in plastic buckets.”

“You're welcome.”

I look over at Connor and Emma, their shoulders constantly touching as they lean into each other. Cami looks over at the golden couple too. Emma is gorgeous. She's wearing a dress with inch-wide straps instead of sleeves. Her tan skin glows in the candlelight, and the low-cut fabric of the neckline gapes just above her breasts.

“Keep your eyes above her neck,” Cami says, giving me another little kick under the table. “You should try being a little less obvious.”

My face heats up. I am obvious, and pathetic. And the worst part is I think Emma likes it. It's like Connor's the first-string boyfriend and I'm eagerly waiting on the bench. That's why she smiles at me the way she does, touches my arm every once in a while, even offers to rub my neck if I look tense. She likes the power she has over the McAdams twins. But it's not like I'll ever get my chance. She'd never give up Connor. Why would she want an inferior version of him?

“Connor looks especially handsome tonight,” Cami says. “That thick, wavy hair of his is just inviting someone to run her fingers through it. And those piercing blue eyes and that strong jaw.” She sighs, glances in my direction, and then looks startled. “Oh, wait,” she says, like she's never seen me before. “You look just like
him,
only maybe not as ripe.”

“Ripe?”

“You know. You look like you need a little more time on the vine. Need to mature a bit. Maybe start appreciating what you see when you look in the mirror.”

I almost laugh. I mean, people never appreciate what they see in the mirror. We barely even acknowledge to ourselves that it's us reflected back. We just look to make sure our hair isn't too much of a mess or there isn't something stuck in our teeth or poking out of our nose, but we don't really
look
at ourselves. At least, I don't.

“How is everyone?” a booming voice asks. Luigi himself is standing beside the table where Mom, Dad, Connor, and Emma sit, and he's giving them his best Disney-inspired Italian accent. Lou's from Kansas City, not Rome, but he's sort of Italian. His great-grandfather came over in the early 1900s. He taught his daughter how to cook, and she taught her daughter, and her daughter refused to teach her son because, in America, men should be doctors or lawyers and shouldn't obsess about countries they've never been to. So Lou took an extended trip to Italy to learn how to cook, and he came back as Luigi. “Do you know what you'd like this evening?”

Actually, he sounds a little like an Italian version of Dracula.

“Wait,” Luigi cries just as my father starts to order. “I know what you want. I know what you all want. You want . . .” His eyes dart from side to side like he's waiting for something. “To celebrate!”

And then it comes. People rush out from the hallway leading to the kitchen and the bathrooms; others pop up from behind the long wooden bar where Luigi lets adult patrons sample different wines. Within seconds, the scarcely occupied restaurant is packed with people throwing balloons and holding signs that say
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
and
CONGRATULATIONS
and
STATE CHAMPION
.

I slouch in my seat and seriously think about slipping under the table. Cami reaches over and takes my silverware. She unrolls the white cloth napkin, removes the knife, and hands me back the fork and spoon.

“I wouldn't want you to . . .” She takes the knife and does a slicing motion across her wrist.

“I appreciate that,” I say and hand her my fork too.

“Wow. That bad? I can't even trust you with a fork?”

I pick up the spoon. “Looks like I'll be having soup.” Truth is, I don't want anything. Not minestrone, not lasagna or “b'sghetti.” I want to get away from the fans who have crammed themselves into the restaurant. I should slip off to the bathroom and call the fire department. I'm sure the fire marshal would have something to say about the hundred plus people crammed into a room that shouldn't hold more than fifty.

I feel a hand against mine. Cami's looking at me. She's the only person who is. Everyone is staring at Connor, talking to Connor, praising Connor. Dad's beaming, enthralled by the magnificence of his eldest son, while Mom dabs at her eyes with her napkin. She's touched, no doubt, by the idea that all these people would go through all this trouble to surprise them—to surprise Connor.

“He'll be going off to college soon,” Cami says.

I nod. “But the legend will go on.” I try to smile at her. Try to show that I appreciate that she's talking to me, acknowledging me. But I just want all of this to be over.

K
illing zombies is stupid. I mean, really. They're already dead; that's why they're zombies. So why does shooting them over and over again, or exploding a bomb next to them, kill them? I know they're
undead.
Like they were dead, then they became “undead” and now I have to make them dead again, so that I can move on to the next level and get better guns and scarier zombies. It's so stupid, but I'm so good at it. Like really, really good. I actually got invited to a tournament last month in Ohio. Only two hundred people in the entire United States got invited, and I was one of them. It's crazy to think they actually have scouts watching online players. Sometimes players even get sponsored; they get paid to play Xbox and go to tournaments.

What I really can't imagine is Mom or Dad missing one of Connor's sporting events or forensic tournaments to take me to Ohio so that I can play in a
Call of Duty
tournament. I never told them about the invite to play. I didn't want them to feel bad when they chose Connor over me.

I imagine that every zombie on the screen was at Connor's surprise party. I imagine them dragging their rotted limbs between the tables at Luigi's. I imagine them singing “Happy Birthday” out of rotted mouths, their words nothing more than mumbled, melodic moans. And I shoot them. I shoot them over and over and over. I let some of them morph into crawlers, so that they are dragging their legless bodies across the wooden floors and cracked sidewalks as I finish them off.

What would Dr. Phil say?

A monkey slapping those eerie little cymbals sits at the top of the stairs. It's just about to explode when someone knocks on my bedroom door. I pause the game. “What?”

The door opens. It's Connor. He's changed since we got home. He's wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. He hesitates, unsure if it's okay to come in. Like I've got landmines buried under piles of dirty clothes, just in case someone dares to enter my inner sanctum without my permission. I used to have a
DO NOT ENTER
sign taped to the door. The tape hardened like thin glass over the years and finally shattered. I'm not sure what happened to the sign, but by then I knew everyone had gotten the message, especially Connor. I can't remember the last time he came into my room. It's been a few years at least.

Connor's holding a package wrapped in balloon-covered paper.

“Nice place you got here,” he says and then he laughs. “How do you know when you're going to run out of clean clothes to wear?” He glances at the assortment of soiled socks, shorts, and underwear strewn around the room.

“It's easy. When seventy-five percent of the floor is covered, I know I'm down to two days' worth of clean clothes. That's when I gather it all up and head for the laundry room.”

Connor nods and smiles like he admires my organizational skills. He comes toward me and sits on the edge of my unmade bed. “I, um . . . got you something.” He holds out the package.

“It's your birthday, not mine.”

“I've been thinking—you should get presents on my birthday, and I should get presents on yours, or maybe we should pick a date right between our birthdays and celebrate then. We're not just brothers, right? We're twins. It just seems jacked up that we don't celebrate together.” He puts the present in my hand. “It's really more for me than you, anyway. Open it.”

I can already tell what it is from its odd shape. I don't want to unwrap the present, but I do.

“I thought maybe we could play together.”

I hand the new controller back to him. “No.” I nearly choke on the word, but I'm going to get this out. I'm going to say this, even if he doesn't like it, because I have to. “I don't want to play with you. You have
everything.
Everything out there belongs to you. I'm good at
this.
” I lift my own controller. “
This
is all I have. Can't you just—”

“I understand,” Connor says, cutting me off. “I just thought . . .” He takes the controller in both of his hands and stares at it like it's much more than a video game controller. And it is.

Connor's eyes turn even bluer as tears gather in them. Why does he care if I play with him? Why does it matter? He's had the most amazing day, a day like most people never ever get, and he's crying because I won't play stupid video games with him.

Connor leans forward, his elbows resting on his thighs. “Do you remember when we were little, and I'd build these towers out of blocks, and you'd knock them down as fast as I could build them?”

I try to remember, but I don't. “Bet it pissed you off.”

“No! Are you kidding? It was a blast. That's how it's supposed to be. Big brother builds 'em, and little brother knocks 'em down. It was all you could do to give me time to finish a few stories of blocks before you started throwing Hot Wheels at them.”

A spark of a memory comes to mind of Mom yelling and threatening us with a time-out if we didn't calm down. We were laughing, and pretty soon Mom was laughing too. She even knelt on the floor and helped Connor build faster so I wouldn't have to wait as long to demolish their crooked towers.

“I kind of remember.”

“How about when we'd go to the park? We'd pick up sticks and handfuls of dirt to throw down the slide?”

“And Mom would get mad because we'd go down and get all dirty.”

“Yeah.” Connor grins as a tear slips down his cheek. “I remember when it changed,” he says. “When we changed.”

I don't know what he's talking about. There wasn't a moment, an event when suddenly things were different between us.

“It was one of my first basketball games at the community center. I was in sixth grade, and I was on fire that game. I couldn't miss. All the parents started yelling and clapping. My teammates kept throwing me the ball because they couldn't believe it either. No matter where I shot from, the ball went in. I kept trying to pass the ball so somebody else would shoot, but they'd give it back to me. I got so scared.”

I do remember that game. All the moms and dads and grandparents were on their feet, like they were seeing something amazing. Like someday, years in the future, they'd talk about the day when the town realized that Connor McAdams was something special.

“What were you afraid of?” I ask.

“What if I missed?” he says, and I can't believe he thought that was even a possibility.

He stands, wading through my clothes like they're waves at his feet. He stares at the gaming posters on my wall and a petrified piece of pizza on my dresser. He looks like a psychic trying to get the vibe of a missing person, but I'm not missing. I'm right here.

“After the game, it was crazy. My teammates tried to pick me up and carry me into the lobby, but they dropped me and then all these adults were everywhere, talking about me and how someone should call the newspaper and ‘how many points did he make—it has to be a record.' I was just a little kid, and all of a sudden, I felt this pressure. I wanted to quit basketball, but Dad was so excited. And all I could think about was the next game and the game after that and the game after that. What if I bombed? What if people were disappointed in me? What if I let them down?”

Connor gives me that look again, like he wants something from me. Every time he looks at me this way, I feel like I'm disappointing him, because he wants me to be somebody I'm not. He wants a brother, and so do I. But I don't exist in his dimension. I don't belong on Mount Olympus, any more than he belongs in the basement.

“This isn't about me,” he says. “It's about what I saw after I stopped hiding out in the bathroom. I saw you on the court.”

I shake my head because I don't want to talk about this. I don't need to remember this.

“All the grown-ups were in the lobby or had already left. A bunch of kids were shooting around. You were holding a ball.”

Now my eyes are burning.

“You held it for so long and stared at the basket like everything depended on you making that shot.”

It did.

Connor made every basket. Every shot sailed through the air as if delivered by celestial hands into the net. He could do that, and we were twins. Identical twins, even if we weren't the same age. Mom and Dad were always amazed at how fast Connor learned to tie his shoes or skip or bounce a ball or read. Sometimes they'd look at me, and I knew they were wondering if I was going to be like Connor. If I was going to be exceptional, and just the fact that they were wondering told me that we could be different. He could be better.

I stood there, holding the ball that felt like a boulder. I remember staring at the basket and thinking that this would decide it—this one shot.

“I missed.”

“One fucking shot,” Connor says. “You missed one fucking shot. And everything changed. But who gives a shit about one shot? I just wish . . . I wish you'd taken another one. I bet you'd have made it.”

Maybe I would have. But it's too late now.

Connor gestures toward the screen. “Doesn't this shit give you nightmares?”

I look at the brown and gray images of bony zombies frozen in grotesque positions, and I have to smile because I'm really fond of them, of killing them, anyway.

“I suppose we could play for a while and see if it gives you nightmares.”

“Really?” Connor grins and jumps on the bed as I plug in the controller. “I've never played, so . . .”

I roll my eyes like teaching him is going to be a royal pain. And I hope it will be. I hope he's not a natural at aiming guns and placing bombs and building barriers. I hope he sucks. I hope he dies a hundred times, and I hope he loves it, because we're too old to build towers and knock them down.