Double Trouble (27 page)

Twos get the same kind of bad rap in the realm of folklore and fairy tale. Every good sister has a wicked one. Every fairy godmother requires an evil stepmother. Every wish is matched by a curse. Every hero needs his villain. You have to wonder, in the end, why the good guys are so insecure that they need a foil to show themselves to advantage.

Opposites may attract, but we certainly don’t give them much chance to even get together. We define qualities with extremes, one end of the scale or the other. Black and white. Extrovert or introvert. Tall or short. Angelic or demonic. Up and down, in and out, north and south, positive and negative, heads or tails.

It seems that we love contrast.

What we really love are simple answers. Simple parameters make for simple choices, and often for simplistic solutions. Because if life were simple, we’d all be a lot better at making our choices. There would be a lot fewer of us screwing up the game of life so brilliantly, if there was always a right answer instead of just a best—or even a less bad—answer.

But we cling to our preconceptions, allowing only black or white in defiance of our experience. Is she nice? Is he handsome? Are they good kids?

Worse, we cling to this in direct opposition to our daily experiences, despite the data streaming back to us that says it’s wrong. There are countless shades of grey in our hearts, in our bodies and in our lives. There are hues of all the colors of human qualities within each of us: some in greater quantities and some in lesser, it’s true, but none totally present or totally absent.

I can switch my computer display from black and white to 64,000 shades of grey. A flick of the wrist and I’m closer to the truth.

It’s all those shades of grey that complicate things, that make the game more nuanced and more interesting. I argue in favor of shades of grey—no good children or bad children, but children with both good and bad in them, but in varying proportions. Better children and worse children, maybe. Children more or less inclined to make a good choice over a bad one, even better.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are alive and well, but not in their wild opposition. It’s all their subtly differentiated cousins, who are tenants within each and every one of us, who really run the show.

Even the most angelic children have a bit of wickedness inside them.

Or they should.

Because anyone who appears totally good is probably hiding something from the casual gaze. Something more dreadful that might be assumed. Nature abhors simplicity, though we address this inconsistency again with the extremes of twos.

Dopplegangers and body snatchers, the double that isn’t really a double deep down inside. The understudy. The body double. Literature is full of characters who aren’t what they seem to be—and so, in fact, are jails. We don’t want to know that the surface can be deceptive, for that would make our world not only more complicated, but far more dangerous.

Light and dark. Day and night. Sunlight and shadow. Shhh, there are some things better left alone.

And so it was that I won Whore by default, because Madonna had been claimed by Marcia. There were no other roles being cast; it was one or the other. You can’t have two Madonnas, either in the religious or the pop culture sense. It’s unthinkable. You can have lots of whores, but that’s another issue altogether.

I have been the bad apple all my life, from the moment I made my first yell. I was louder, badder, rougher and wilder. I was the demon seed, the rebel, the nonconformist, the one who dropped out of university, the one who got pregnant at the wrong time then didn’t get pregnant at the right time. The one that my mother’s friends shook their heads over. “Isn’t it too bad? You know, she’s always been the troublemaker.”

The one my mother didn’t recognize at the end.

I was the one who fled the country, the one who made bad choices, the one married a charming loser who ought to be in jail, the one found herself within a hair of bankruptcy, and then the one who occupied a hot seat down at the IRS. I am the one who cannot be redeemed, the one who is going to hell, the one who causes nothing but disappointment. I am the one who has fulfilled every dire prediction of my future, the one left to sink or swim.

I am the one who knows better than to ask for help.

I am the one who has picked up the pieces, the one who does not deserve to be thanked, the one with no expectations, the one who has learned to rely only on herself, the one who has become convinced that love and happiness are things bestowed upon other people.

People who are not wicked. Or perhaps, people who snagged the better role early and held on to it for dear life.

I have my flaws, but I am not the evil twin. I may have dressed the part, but you should be smart enough to not take everything at face value.

I am not the whore. I am not the bad girl. I am not the troublemaker. I am not the one beyond hope. I am not the one who got what she deserved or the one who made her own bed. I am not the one unable to take responsibility. I am not the one who is a burden upon others. I am neither the selfish one, nor the shameless one. I am not the insensitive one. I am not the wicked one.

I am not the evil twin.

I am not the evil twin. Say it twice and make it so.

* * *

I ended up somehow on the futon, my face wet with tears, Khadija on one side and Krystal on the other.

“Make the world a better place,” Krystal suggested, then handed me a tissue. “Lose what’s left of your eyeliner.”

“Got it.” I did as I was told. Krystal had her arm around me and everyone was silent, coming to terms with what I’d confessed. Lydia passed the box of truffles, insisting that I take two.

“That sucks,” Gwen said and we all nodded agreement. Phyllis sighed, then pushed to her feet. She strode off to the kitchen and came back moments later bearing a mug of tea.

She plunked it down in front of me with a stern look. “This is the sum of my maternal instincts. Consider yourself hugged.”

“Thanks, Phyllis.” I picked up the mug and wrapped my hands around it, even though I didn’t really want it.

Antonia sat opposite me. She had her feet curled under herself like a cat, her unswerving gaze also reminding me of a curious feline. “She must have known,” she said abruptly.

Phyllis barked a laugh. “His asking after the mole would have been a big clue.”

“No, no.” Antonia unfurled herself slightly. “Before that. I bet she knew from the beginning.”

“You’re joking,” I said but there wasn’t much indignation I could muster up.

“Think about it! What would he have said when he met her? Something like ‘oh, it’s great to see you again’ if not a mention of your night together. Marcia knew you were twins, even if James didn’t. She must have done the math right from the beginning.”

I stared at Antonia, hating how much sense it made.

“Ewww!” Tracy shuddered. “You mean she tried to steal her sister’s boyfriend? That’s so mean!”

Antonia rolled her eyes. “Be serious. Women do it all the time.” She snapped her fingers at me. “Didn’t you think it was weird that you never got to meet the boy wonder?”

“No. I was too busy barfing my eyes out every morning, while trying to be sure that my mother of the bionic ears didn’t hear what was going on. When I wasn’t barfing, I was praying that James would call. When I wasn’t praying that he’d call or barfing, I was trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do.” I sipped my tea. “You could say that I was kind of distracted at the time.”

Antonia leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Don’t you remember, Maralys? When we were kids, we called Marcia ‘Little Miss Gimme’?”

“I haven’t thought about that in years.”

“Maybe you should have. I sure remember. She wanted everything you had. I don’t know how many times I heard her explain that she was born first and that you two weren’t supposed to be twins, as if you’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and belonged to another family.”

“There are no twins in our family that we know of. We used to tease my mother that she got too close to the heavy water in the lab.”

“She was a scientist?” Tracy asked helpfully.

“She was a cleaning lady.” My friends chuckled, but I didn’t. “It was less funny when she got sick.”

“Cancer?” Lydia asked quietly.

I nodded, not really wanting to go there.

Antonia was on a mission and didn’t mean to take a detour. Good and bad. She was practically hanging out of her chair. “What did Marcia look like when she showed you that picture?” she asked. “Can you remember the expression on her face?”

I closed my eyes and sat back, comforted despite myself by the warmth of the mug of tea. I really didn’t want to consider that Marcia had played a big role in this, despite all the things we’ve said to each other over the years.

But I remember exactly what Antonia suspected.

“I remember wondering why she was so pleased with herself, then figured it was because such a good catch, as my mother liked to say.”

Antonia eased back. “A good catch, if your sister had snagged him first. A particularly tasty one if Ms. Gimme stole him from you. He can’t be a dope, Maralys. She must have deliberately tried him. She must have lied.”

“Then why was she so angry about the mole?”

Tracy cleared her throat. “Maybe it started out badly but she really loved him and thought he really loved her when they got married.”

“That would be a cruel blow,” Gwen suggested and we all nodded.

Antonia shook her finger at me. “But you ran away. You big wuss, Maralys! I never thought you had it in you. I always thought that you had the balls to fight for what you wanted.”

“I was young and pregnant and confused!”

Antonia lit a cigarette, which she knows I hate, took a long draw and exhaled. “Then what’s your excuse now?”

“What excuse? We’ve aired our differences and can move on. Phew! I’m glad that’s behind me.” I reached for the chocolate.

Antonia started to cluck like a chicken.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re still chicken.”

We glared at each other across the room. The others had never seen us annoyed at each other and it had been years, but Antonia couldn’t just poke around with my nerve endings to amuse herself. “You’re just trying to stir me up.”

“Enough to react, yeah. Afraid to be happy, Maralys? Afraid to fall in love?”

“No, I...” I began furiously but Antonia cut me off.

“You are afraid to fall in love because you’re afraid to lose control. You don’t really trust any of us, Maralys, and you really don’t trust James.” She dragged and exhaled again, her gaze knowing. “But if you spend your whole life managing everything yourself, then you’re going to spend your whole life alone.”

“Maralys was married!” Tracy protested, defending me in her naiveté.

“To a little boy who wanted a mommy,” I corrected quietly. “I could control him and fix his life, well, I thought so anyway.”

“And when you couldn’t save him from himself, you paid his debts anyway,” Phyllis’ tone was hard.

“I should have seen it coming!”

Antonia bowed low, her hands stretched out in front of her. “Oh, touch me with your infinite wisdom, omniscient Maralys.”

I should have been insulted, but it all made too much sense. “This is really not fair,” I grumbled. “I’ve worked so hard to keep you from knowing all about me and so you’ve gone and made up a bunch of stuff. It’s true that James and I had history, it’s true that we had to vent, but it’s also true that it’s done now. Over and out. Case closed.”

Antonia grinned, unconvinced. She smoked and watched me, and my heart skipped around like a wild thing.

I swallowed, then took a scalding sip of tea.

“We often have to sacrifice something to gain something greater,” Khadija said quietly. She squeezed my shoulders and I looked into her dark eyes, seeing all the sacrifices that had brought her to her current success. Here was a woman who had lost her child, due to the lack of a simple preventative measure. One that she had not known about and evidently neither had her doctor.

“You never talk about your daughter.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Maybe next time.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But I would have been very happy to never acknowledge what had happened. Her disability and subsequent suffering was at least partly my fault. I had to find some goodness in what she went through, if just to ease my guilt. Preventing even one baby from developing that disease is all I ever wanted.”

I was humbled by her bravery. “Do you talk to your other daughters about her?”

Khadija smiled and one of her tears slipped free. “All the time.” Her voice was hoarse. “I think every day of what she might have become. And then I wonder whether there was a divine plan for what happened.”

She shook her head, marveling. “We have raised so much money for research and spread the word of prevention to so many expectant mothers. All because I said “my baby died” when I would rather have not done so. I never imagined that out of grief could come such success.” Her grip was urgent on my shoulders. “Take a chance, Maralys, and you may be surprised. Life is too short to cower.”

Life is too short to cower. I liked that. I looked at each of them in turn, their expressions expectant, and I loved every one of those women with painful intensity. I knew that they would be there for me, that they had always been there for me, even though I had never had the grace to trust them before tonight.

Even though they’d twisted what I said into something it wasn’t. They meant well and I was touched by their concern.

“All right,” I said, then spoke more vehemently. “That’s enough advice for Maralys. I’m new to this stuff so go easy on me. And please, don’t tell me that we have to have a group hug.”

They laughed and we had a celebratory gorge of chocolate, chattering like magpies all the while. When they left in the wee hours of the morning, carefully carpooling so that no one was on the evil streets alone, each one hugged me tightly.

Individually.

“Call if you need me,” Antonia said and nearly broke my ribs.

“I will.” And to my amazement, I meant it. “Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. I forget to tell you. I’m having a party and you all have to come.”