Twins Read online

  “I’m surprised you don’t,” he said.

  “I’m thirteen years old,” I said.

  Daniel smirked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I get the feeling you’re going to get into lots of trouble.”

  I shook my head. Daniel didn’t understand me at all. I wasn’t a bad girl. I didn’t want to be a juvenile delinquent. I wanted to be in bed, asleep, like Chloe. Chloe was driving me insane. We hadn’t even made it to high school.

  Lisa Markman invited Chloe to a party at her house.

  “No way,” I said. “We won’t go.”

  Lisa Markman invited Chloe, not me. She didn’t get that we were a package deal. It was ridiculous for her to think that Chloe would pick Lisa over me. That Chloe would go anywhere without me. We were identical twins. Chloe wanted to go. “Everybody goes to parties,” she said.

  Getting ready, she put on more makeup than I had ever seen her wear before.

  I told my parents we couldn’t go because Lisa Markman’s father, the professional basketball player, took drugs and gave them to the kids. “Cocaine, ecstasy, speed, pot, Xanax, acid, anything you want so long as it doesn’t require a needle.”

  Mr. Markman had been in the local newspaper that morning. He had granted some wish to a dying child.

  “Xanax?” my mother said. “Could you bring some home for me?”

  She had been putting in longer and longer days at the office; she complained that celebrity divorces were exhausting. I stared at her, confused. I couldn’t tell if she was joking about the pills. She forced a laugh.

  “Mr. Markman puts all the pills in a big punch bowl and kids gobble them down like M&M’s,” I said.

  Chloe shook her head. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”

  My parents believed Chloe, of course. They always did.

  My father looked up from a stack of file folders.

  “Daniel will drive you.” He opened his briefcase and removed a new folder.

  “You take us, Daddy,” Chloe said, but he shook his head.

  “Work to do,” he said.

  On the ride to Lisa Markman’s house, Chloe and I sat in the backseat. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked Daniel.

  “Many, many things,” he said.

  He didn’t. He was lying. Daniel had no friends, no identical twin. All he did was read books and play his guitar. I could pretend, at least, that Daniel was the chauffeur, that we didn’t know him.

  When we got close to the house, Chloe brushed her hair one last time. Then she looked at me and sighed. She reached over to fix my hair too, but I pushed her hand away.

  “This will be fun,” Chloe said.

  Daniel shook his head. “Every event I went to in the eighth grade was a swell time,” he said.

  The palms of my hands were sweaty. I hated parties. I closed my eyes, imagining a terrible car accident that would stop us from making it to the party. I could see the car in flames, Chloe screaming in pain, broken legs. Blood everywhere. I shivered and put on my seat belt.

  “Put on your seat belt,” I whispered to Chloe.

  “We are two blocks from the house,” she said.

  “Please,” I said. “Chloe.”

  Chloe put on her seat belt.

  Daniel pulled in front of the Markman house. Kids at school called the place a mansion, but it wasn’t. It was just a big house, a house made out of bricks that was bigger than other people’s houses. Mr. Markman was bigger than other people. He needed a big house. So what? I unbuckled my seat belt. Chloe begged me with her eyes. She wanted me to be good. To behave. I didn’t know why she needed this, to go to other people’s parties. We were identical twins. We never ever had to be alone.

  “You can come home with me, Sue,” Daniel said.

  I pretended not to hear this.

  Together, Chloe and I walked to the front door. Before Chloe rang the bell, she took her brush out of her purse and ran it through her hair one last time. I shoved my hair back into a ponytail. Lisa Markman opened the door. She was taller than ever. She wore purple stiletto heels, a short black dress, bright red lipstick. Hooker clothes, a Halloween outfit.

  “Is this a costume party?” I said.

  Lisa put her arm around Chloe’s shoulder and led her into the house. Every single thing in that house was big. The potted plants were more like trees, the paintings took up entire walls, the TV was more like a movie screen, and the leather couch seated six eighth graders. The closet, because Lisa Markman decided to show us the downstairs closet, was large enough to hold a full-length mirror, two fur coats, a shoe rack full of basketball sneakers, and a red-velvet chaise lounge.

  “I lost my virginity right there.” Lisa pointed to the velvet chair.

  Chloe nodded. I felt my heart beat fast. We had to go home. Chloe would not lose her virginity. Not here, not tonight. The idea was too awful to consider.

  “Is your father home?” I asked.

  Lisa Markman looked at me like I was a cockroach. “What do you care?” she said. “He’s upstairs.”

  Lisa Markman had shown us the closet because that was the place for her party game: two minutes in the closet. “Kissing games?” I said. At the party Chloe made us go to the year before, it was all girls and they smoked cigarettes, crowded around an open window. “You can do a lot in two minutes,” Lisa said, winking at Chloe. Chloe’s face turned red. But she smiled at Lisa, her Goody Two-shoes, eager to please smile. Chloe would drive me crazy with that smile.

  Lisa showed us the table with the refreshments. I grabbed a chocolate cupcake. Melanie Meyer and Brittany Lopez ran over to greet Chloe. Brittany had on the same stupid shoes as Chloe. “I just bought four new pairs,” Brittany said, giggling. Melanie sneered at my high-top, canvas sneakers. I watched Chloe pop open a can of diet soda. I shoved the entire cupcake into my mouth.

  “That’s really disgusting,” Brittany said.

  Chloe got a napkin and cleaned off the chocolate frosting from my face.

  I reached for another cupcake.

  Lisa Markman was on the other side of the room, on the couch with the boys. She was sitting on some guy’s lap. She pointed at us. Chloe reached for the cupcake in my hand and put it back on the table. The boys, the same boys who did not talk to me at school, started chanting: “We want twins.”

  They were drinking soda, but they seemed drunk. Drunk and loud and dangerous. I shook my head. I would not be an identical twin for some boy.

  “I’m not playing,” I whispered to Chloe.

  I looked at Chloe, blond and soft and lovely. I didn’t want her to be kissed. I felt myself shaking. Chloe reached for my hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “They like us.”

  “You’re kidding?” I said.

  “We want twins!”

  Lisa Markman waved her hands. I saw a rum bottle being passed back and forth.

  “Shut up,” she hissed at the boys. “Will you shut up?”

  The room got quiet. Lisa Markman was taller than all of them.

  Mr. Markman appeared at the top of the stairs. “It’s getting loud down here,” he said. The rum was stashed under a cushion in the couch.

  Lisa shifted her weight on her heels.

  “We’ll be quiet,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Are the twins here yet?” he said. “The famous twins you talk about.”

  Lisa frowned. Chloe smoothed her hair. I touched my tattoo. Lisa Markman had no right to talk about us.

  “Chloe and her sister are here,” she said.

  Mr. Markman put his hands on his hips.

  “I’d like to meet them,” he said. “The famous identical twins.”

  Mr. Markman descended the staircase. I had seen him before at school plays and at a bake sale, but I had forgotten how ridiculously tall he was. The enormous staircase didn’t seem as large with Mr. Markman on it. Even his hand, resting on the thick wooden banister, seemed enormous.

  Chloe took my hand, and we stepped forward, as if he was
the Wizard of Oz.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Markman,” she said. “Thank you for letting us come to your house.”

  Mr. Markman whistled.

  “You certainly do look alike,” he said.

  I was pleased. We had dressed in completely different clothes. Chloe’s T-shirt was pink, tucked into a short skirt. I was wearing a black T-shirt, baggy black carpenter pants, and my hair was pulled back. But to a stranger, we were still the same thing. Identical twins.

  “I am an eighth of an inch taller,” Chloe said quietly.

  “That much closer to the hoop,” Mr. Markman said.

  Chloe liked to point out our differences. She did not look taller than me when I stood up extra straight.

  “I am delighted to meet you both,” he said. He held out his hand. I took a step back. I had no interest in befriending Lisa’s famous father. Everyone at the party had gathered around us, trying to get near him. I was not impressed. Of course he was a famous basketball player. There was nothing else a man that tall could possibly do.

  Chloe put her small hand into his large one.

  “That’s enough, Dad,” Lisa said.

  “You kids be good,” Mr. Markman said. “Or I’ll have to stay down here and chaperone.”

  Lisa moaned. “You promised you would stay upstairs,” she said.

  “Be good,” he said.

  Chloe nodded. “We will,” she said.

  “Good clean fun,” Brittany Lopez called out, even though she also looked like a slut in her tight, skimpy party clothes.

  Mr. Markman headed back up the stairs.

  I hoped he’d trip and fall.

  “Game time,” Lisa said.

  The boys stopped chanting. The dice rolling began. Doubles got you into the closet for two minutes. A double six meant an extra minute. I passed when the dice came to me. Chloe rolled a double three.

  I looked at her. She shrugged.

  “Todd?” she said, pointing at Lisa’s brother. He was two years younger, only in the sixth grade.

  They walked off into the closet. Lisa Markman started her stopwatch.

  “Go, Chloe. Go, Chloe,” she said, moving her shoulders as if she were dancing.

  “Oh, wow,” I heard one guy say. “Chloe in the closet.”

  It was a long two minutes. The boys poured rum into their Coke cans. So did Lisa Markman. Everyone in the circle was drinking rum in their Coke except for me and Brittany Lopez.

  “I’m a Christian,” Brittany said, puffing on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out the window.

  I didn’t have a reason I could say out loud. I would not experience anything for the first time with this group of people.

  “Hey, Sue. Are you jealous?” Lisa said, so that everyone looked at me. “Look at how she touches her back.”

  I didn’t realize I had been touching my tattoo. I gave Lisa a mean look. I sat on my hands. Then the two minutes were up. Chloe looked at the floor as she walked back into the living room. She sat down next to me on the couch and held my hand. “It’s fine,” she said, but I wasn’t sure. The palm of her hand was sweaty.

  Todd was beaming. He joined the group of guys. His back got slapped. He looked around and then poured some rum into his Coke.

  In the next hour, Chloe was picked five times for the closet. She kissed four different boys, going in twice with the ninth-grade track star. Every time she came out of that closet, Chloe looked the same. Her hair still smooth, her lip gloss still gleaming. She giggled when the boys called her name. She practically skipped across the room.

  “You are burning up,” Lisa Markman said to me. “Mad with jealousy.”

  I looked at my shoes. I couldn’t attack Lisa in her own house. There wasn’t a thing I could do. Guys kept on rolling doubles. Melanie Meyer and Brittany Lopez both got picked once. Lisa twice. Otherwise it was Chloe, every time. Once Chloe became the popular closet choice, she ignored me. She didn’t sit next to me anymore; she didn’t look at me, though I stared at her, desperate for her attention. Lisa Markman hooted. When a boy rolled a double, it was Lisa who cheered, “Chloe, Chloe,” pumping her fists, flaring her nostrils. I found myself staring at Lisa, her made-up face and her smooth, light brown skin, her long arms and big hands. I wondered if Lisa’s long arms were long enough that if I grabbed them and pulled, I could wrap them around her neck so she choked herself.

  Todd, Lisa’s brother, rolled a double two.

  “Chloe,” he said, pointing.

  Lisa laughed. “Don’t you corrupt my little brother.”

  Chloe shrugged, smiling. She seemed glad. Todd practically raced toward the closet. I stared at the second hand on the enormous grandfather clock in the hallway. That clock must have been eight feet tall. The seconds passed slowly. I knew no one could see Chloe’s tattoo in the dark and understand that she was mine. One of the guys who had kissed Chloe whispered into the ear of another guy who had also kissed Chloe. The second guy spit up his drink, laughing, and then they high-fived each other. It was time to go home. I slid off the couch to the floor, making my way to the closet.

  I knocked on the closet door.

  “We have to go home,” I said.

  “Please,” Chloe said. “Sue. Not now.”

  I put my ear to the door. It was silent.

  I knocked again. “I am leaving,” I said.

  “Don’t forget your coat, psychopath,” Lisa Markman called.

  I grabbed my coat and I left. It felt good. Opening the heavy wood front door, slamming it behind me. It was straight downhill going home. I had gotten three blocks from the house when Chloe raced up from behind and put her arms around my neck.

  “You didn’t wait for me,” she said. Her cheeks were pink. She was out of breath.

  I dragged Chloe for a couple of steps. I didn’t understand what had happened to us. She had spent the night in a closet, getting kissed by gross boys who didn’t love her, when we could be together, dragging each other through the streets.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered into my ear. “Kissing. It’s kind of nice.”

  I dragged her some more. We would go home. We would eat ice-cream bars and watch TV. I started walking faster.

  “It’s fun,” Chloe said.

  “Fun for you,” I said.

  “They’ll kiss you,” she said.

  “I don’t want to kiss stupid boys.”

  “We’ll switch,” Chloe said. “No one will ever know the difference.”

  Chloe had not let me switch since forever. Chloe was the one who pointed out the differences. Who was ready to tell Mr. Markman she was an eighth of an inch taller. But we were the same. Same hair, same weight. Same eyes, same face.

  “Do you promise?”

  Chloe touched the spot on my back where we had the tattoo. I shivered inside. Chloe tried to deny me, but she couldn’t. She wrapped her arms back around my neck, and leaned her weight to the right, a signal for me to turn left, and she kept leaning, dragging her feet until I completed a U-turn. Chloe led me back up the hill, back into Lisa Markman’s big, ugly brick house and into the outrageously big bathroom. The whirlpool bathtub was practically big enough for the party. The seashell soaps in the soap dish seemed extra big. Chloe and I switched shirts. She put on my black carpenter pants. I put on her short skirt. She wore my sneakers; I felt unsteady in Chloe’s platform shoes, naked in her baby doll T-shirt. Chloe looked pale in my extra-large T-shirt. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and then she brushed mine. She brushed my lips with her lip gloss.

  “Relax your face,” she said.

  We looked at each other in the mirror. I had Chloe’s hair, Chloe’s eyes, Chloe’s face, but I looked like Chloe only when I wore her clothes. I did not want to kiss these boys.

  “Relax your face,” Chloe repeated. She smiled. I smiled back. We stared into the mirror. Chloe slumped. I stood up straight. She looked like me. I looked like Chloe.

  “Let’s go home,” I said.

  “This is fun,” she sa
id. “The boys are scared in the dark. We have all the power. I swear to you.”

  I went quietly into the living room and sat down on the couch next to Lisa Markman. Chloe stood in the corner, watching, like I had done before. “Chloe in the closet, back in action,” Lisa said.

  “Here I am,” I said.

  Lisa Markman touched my hair. I wanted to punch her. I sat on my hands.

  I watched the dice roll. Lisa went into the closet with the track star. He came back with lipstick on his teeth. My turn came. I rolled a double six. I stared at the dice.

  “Chloe, you slut,” Lisa said. “That’s an extra minute.”

  “Pick me,” Todd said. “Pick me.”

  I didn’t look at Chloe. Chloe wouldn’t look at me if the situation was turned around. I liked being Chloe, having people think that I was Chloe.

  “Sure,” I said. Todd was younger. “Why not?”

  I smoothed my hair.

  Lisa Markman winked at me.

  “Three minutes.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Or maybe it was Chloe who shrugged her shoulders.

  I followed Todd into the closet. I walked slowly, looking at my feet the whole time. Platform shoes. I wasn’t comfortable walking. Todd closed the closet door behind me. I put my hand on the wall and went over to the chaise lounge. I could hear Todd breathing, standing next to me. He put his hand on my waist, and I opened my mouth to be kissed. For Chloe, I would try. Only Todd didn’t kiss me. He reached with his hands up under Chloe’s pink shirt, slipped his fingers under Chloe’s pink bra.

  “Aren’t we supposed to kiss?” I said.

  Todd put his lips on my neck and started to suck. He pressed his pelvis into mine, put his hand on my chest. Was this what Chloe did in the closet? Four different boys. All of them pressing and panting. She told me she had all the power. Power to do what? I grabbed the back of Todd’s head, pulled him off me.

  “I love you, Chloe,” he said.

  I punched him in the stomach. No one else got to fall in love with Chloe.

  Todd sat down on the chaise lounge.

  “That really hurt,” he said.

  I sat down next to him.

  “I’ll hit you again.”

  “It’s almost time,” he said. He was breathing hard. “Kiss me.”