Three Black Swans

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Genevieve figured that after such an exciting identical twin reunion, the school might have a press release. It might tell her enough about Claire to locate her too. She did not want to call Missy without calling Claire. Triplets should reunite at the same time, not one at a time. “I’m from the New York Post,” Genevieve lied. “We’d like to interview the newly discovered identical twins.”

  The secretary laughed. “You and everybody else. Please don’t follow up. It was a hoax. The girls are cousins. They have a strong family resemblance. There are no identical twins. It was their idea of a joke.”

  * * *

  Genevieve stood in the kitchen while the cereal softened in the milk and the orange juice grew warm.

  There were no twins.

  Nobody was identical.

  Nobody was adopted.

  Nobody was a long-lost anybody.

  Sobs wracked her body.

  She could not climb the stairs. She kept tripping on the long sweeping robe. She slid out of it and carried the puddled satin to her room, and couldn’t make it stick to its special velvet hanger.

  A hoax.

  She dressed slowly in the dullest clothing she had and then pulled a large plain gray sweatshirt over it all. She needed room in there for a pounding heart and shivering skin.

  She ran a brush through her hair, shook her head, caught the hair in her fist, put it in a black elastic and was dissatisfied. She tugged her hair out and repeated the process until it was right. Not too tight, not too loose.

  FRIDAY

  Genevieve Candler’s high school

  THE LOSS OF her sisters was physically painful. Her first class hurt. Conversation hurt. Chairs hurt. The clothing on her body hurt. She had difficulty responding to greetings. “Headache,” Genevieve kept saying. “Migraine.” She had never had a migraine, but girls who used that excuse were always pitied.

  After an assembly, Jimmy Fleming detached himself from a group of friends and trotted over. “What did they say when you called them?”

  “I called Missy’s high school first. It was a hoax, Jimmy. Those two girls are cousins with a strong family resemblance. There are no twins. There are no triplets. The fact that I look a bit like them is accidental.”

  “Get out!” said Jimmy. “They’re you, Gen. You’re them.”

  She tried to be lighthearted. “It was fun, though. Being an identical triplet for a day.”

  “No.” Jimmy was firm. “I’ve been studying that video. We were not hallucinating, Gen.”

  “It’s a hoax,” she repeated.

  Jimmy Fleming shook his head. “More likely, the hoax is a hoax.”

  This sentence had no meaning. Genevieve was relieved when Jimmy walked on. Her friends clustered around, assuming that Jimmy was interested in her. “Jimmy Fleming?” they said excitedly. “He’s awesome!”

  He wasn’t interested in Genevieve. He was interested in her circumstances. She shrugged. “He was asking about a research project we’re doing.”

  Ellen frowned. “For what class?” Since Ellen was in all Genevieve’s classes, she knew that Jimmy Fleming was in none.

  “High School Bowl.”

  “Oh, that.”

  The Bowl team rarely had a student audience. People who were interested joined.

  I can fake conversations in school, thought Genevieve, but GeeGee will see through me. I don’t ever want her to know that I rejoiced at the thought of being adopted.

  She phoned her great-grandmother. “I can’t stop by today after all, GeeGee. I’ve got so much to do. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll miss you, darling, but how lovely that you have lots to do. That’s what it is to be young. Now enjoy every minute, and since this is Friday, and I don’t always see you over the weekend, save up your stories and I’ll see you next week.”

  “I’ll be over Saturday or Sunday.”

  “Nonsense. I’m fine. You’re a teenager, not a nurse’s aide.”

  In her next class, Genevieve was tempted to watch the video on her cell. But what if a classmate or teacher asked what she was looking at? She played it in her head.

  If it had been a joke or a hoax, then Claire had been acting. But in her mind’s eye, Genevieve saw no acting. Claire had been in a state of shock. When those tears spurted out, Claire hardly knew she was weeping; she seemed almost afraid. It was almost Allegra’s Dark Look. What was there to be afraid of?

  And then Genevieve knew: Claire was afraid that Missy was telling the truth. The video captured the split second in which Claire Linnehan realized that she really was an identical twin. Whatever the school administration might think, what Claire learned was that she and Missy were not cousins after all.

  Jimmy’s right, thought Genevieve. It’s the hoax that’s a hoax. We’re all three adopted.

  Ray had given her the solution last night; she just hadn’t been paying attention. Facebook was the answer. She would friend Missy and Claire, and Facebook would simultaneously deliver the message to each girl. When they went to her page, they would stare at her picture the way she had stared at theirs. They would draw their own conclusions and take their own actions.

  Or not.

  Claiming a migraine again, Genevieve went to the girls’ room. From her Smartphone, she added Missy as a friend. A tiny space opened on the screen. It asked, “Do you want to add a personal message?”

  She had to do this right. It was a matter of life and death.

  No, a matter of life and birth.

  Genevieve composed her message. Facebook informed her that Missy and Claire were now pending friends.

  Wrong, thought Genevieve, giddy with joy and fear. They are pending sisters.

  * * *

  FRIDAY

  Missy Vianello’s high school

  MISSY WAS YELLED at by people who had not wanted that cute little identical twin reunion to be a hoax and yelled at by people who insisted that she and Claire were identical twins and that there was no hoax.

  Jill and Hannah showed up with photographs of old birthday parties at Missy’s house. They handed around pictures of big tall Cousin Claire having cake alongside shrimpy little Missy. Missy imagined Jill and Hannah sitting down grimly with their mothers’ old-fashioned albums, flipping through every page, determined to unearth proof. “You shouldn’t play con games on your friends, Missy!” snapped Jill.

  “I’m sorry,” said Missy.

  The kids who didn’t yell teased her instead. “Is this Missy standing before me, or her evil twin Claire?”

  In math, the teacher worked with a group having difficulties with a particular equation. Missy was not having difficulties. Her group was supposed to finish an advanced worksheet. Missy finished quickly and opened her phone. She had an e-mail from Facebook. A Genevieve Candler had added her as a friend. Missy had never met a person named Genevieve.

  “Melissa!” said her math teacher. “Put your phone away or give it to me.”

  Missy jammed the phone into her pants pocket. “Sorry,” she said.

  An hour and a half passed before she could check her phone again, and by then she had eleven texts and two voice messages waiting, all more tempting than an e-mail.

  * * *

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Claire Linnehan’s high school

  WHENEVER A TWIN MOMENT had arisen in the past, Claire found it easy to dismiss. It was fun, cute and meaningless. Aside from the fact that she did not have the same parents as her cousin, she was eight weeks older.

  Now Claire swam in a vision of herself, too little to be born but big enough to elbow Missy out of the good space. She saw herself kicking away, getting limber and strong, while Missy was literally curled in fetal position, unable to exercise. She saw herself popping out first, getting a nice lungful of oxygen and opening her eyes to enjoy the world, while Missy emerged blue, with little folded-up lungs that barely inflated.

  For Claire, the shock of school on Friday was that nobody knew she’d had a shock. School was ordinary, friends were ordina
ry, classes were ordinary.

  So is my life, she told herself. Even if I am adopted, that’s still ordinary. No matter who my biological mother is, Mom is still my mother.

  Usually the texture of a Friday was woven into the weekend. Friday classes seemed shorter, and the kids louder and less careful. On an ordinary Friday, Claire daydreamed of being with her cousin, the way a dieter might daydream of an ice cream sundae. She could feel the essential loneliness of the week ending, her heart opening up, ready to share … my soul, thought Claire. Do we share souls?

  It was a terrifying thought. But identical twins definitely shared more than blood types, fingerprints and hair.

  At lunch, Claire and her friends hurried to the cafeteria line, filled trays and dropped into chairs, acting as exhausted as marathon runners. Everybody whipped out cell phones at the same time, synchronized as dancers, and they were all talking, eating and laughing while they sent texts. The five girls with whom she sat had been close friends for years. Micayla, Carter, Steffie, Baillie and Elizabeth were all flutists in marching band, as was Claire. They all took advanced art. Baillie and Claire were in Math Club while the other three girls had attended tennis camp with Claire. She cherished their friendships. But they were incidental compared to Missy. Sometimes the depth of her friendship with Missy frightened Claire as much as it frightened her mother.

  Now she thought, Missy has never been my friend. She has never been my cousin. She has always been my identical twin and my heart always knew and I always turned my back on it. On her.

  Claire ran her eyes over the list of waiting text messages. The usual set from Missy, which she knew she must answer but couldn’t. The usual from various friends, including every girl sitting right at this table. She checked e-mail. Just one. A friend request from Facebook.

  Claire loved her friend list and was always willing to expand it. But right now she just wanted to go home. She wanted to talk to her parents about construction jobs that weren’t there and Jazzercise classes that were too hard. She wanted to be part of her parents’ decisions and their worries. She did not want, now or ever, to be part of a deception begun at birth. Maybe before birth.

  Her need for Missy battled with her fury at Missy.

  After lunch came math. The teacher was demanding and there was rarely a moment to flake off. Perfect for today’s shuddery mood.

  Claire always chose a desk close to the window. She loved light and sun. Today she didn’t even notice the sun. The unread messages from Missy preyed on her mind.

  The math teacher began going up and down the aisles making sure everybody had written out the entire problem and its solution, not just the answer. Claire’s row was checked first, giving her a few minutes of freedom. She and everybody else on the window side opened their cell phones.

  Claire’s pulse was racing. She felt as if her legs would begin to race too. Her body would take off, a human jet driven by Missy’s awful stunt. To put her mind on other things, she opened the Facebook e-mail asking her to confirm Genevieve as a friend. Then she read the message sent by the unknown Genevieve Candler.

  We have to talk. Here’s my cell number. It’s a matter of life and birth.

  Didn’t you usually say “a matter of life and death”? Who would refer to a matter of life and birth? And who would write such a peculiar thing anyway?

  A scream rose in Claire’s throat. She shut her phone fast and hard. She shoved her chair backward. It screeched against the floor. The teacher turned around. “Claire,” she said reprovingly.

  “Spiders?” asked one of the boys.

  “Claire, are you all right?” asked Steffie.

  Genevieve Candler must be referring to the video. If Aiden had seen it, a million people had seen it. Only one would think that a video featuring long-lost identical twins was a matter of life and birth: the birth mother.

  What awful words. A female who was the mother only in the moment of giving birth, like a reptile or a fish.

  I don’t want a birth mother! I want my mother! If there is a birth mother, I don’t want to meet her, not even online. I don’t want an introduction, let alone a relationship. I hate her already. I hate Missy. I’m never doing a sleepover again.

  “I’m fine, thanks, Steffie,” said Claire.

  “You look as if you saw a ghost.”

  Could that be what identical twins were? Ghosts of each other?

  * * *

  FRIDAY

  The Vianello house

  MISSY’S MOTHER HATED to be asked what she did for a living. Even her husband and daughter hardly knew what she did. The shortest explanation put people in a coma.

  Kitty Vianello had to break up her workday with little excursions, or she too would have been comatose. She would abandon her office to dart downstairs and check snail mail, boil potatoes for salad, do a load of laundry, fill the bird feeder or knit one row. She would coach herself out loud. “Come on, you can do it! You can work another half hour!”

  Her job was to read vast amounts of material from regulatory committees in Congress and summarize it for an online newsletter: fifty pages of changes in OSHA regulations, and Kitty condensed it into two.

  Before Missy was born, Kitty had taught fifth grade. Elementary schoolkids were delightful. In her memory, all her students had been brilliant and cooperative, all other teachers fun and interesting and all parents eager to help. But newborn Missy had been fragile, often sick and more than once back in the hospital, and Kitty had wanted to be with her baby girl twenty-four hours a day. She left teaching and went home to live with fear. She was afraid of every illness Missy suffered. There had been more than one night when she and Matt and Missy really had stood at death’s door.

  When Missy became a toddler, demanding to do things by herself, marching around the house like a tiny soldier, assaulting the rules that kept her down, Kitty found herself with a different fear. Missy was perfect. If the birth mother knew, she would come to the door, and Kitty and Matt would have to give Missy back.

  Matt was equally afraid. He wouldn’t even confide in a lawyer.

  When Kitty tried to talk it over with her sister, Frannie was annoyed. “There was no crime.”

  “We don’t think there was a crime.” Kitty hated to repeat the rats-chewing-on-her-gut fear that Missy had been stolen.

  “You’re irrational,” her sister would snap. “Missy had hospital staff twenty-four/seven for weeks. They never saw anything wrong. And you and I had the same obstetrician. It’s a mess, but it isn’t a crime.”

  Easy for her sister to say. Her adoption was legal.

  On the same Friday morning that Genevieve Candler trembled, Claire Linnehan braced herself, and Missy Vianello repeated the word “hoax” over and over, Kitty Vianello raced down the stairs once more, hoping the exercise would keep her body as trim as her writing. But every excursion ended in front of the refrigerator. Stuck to the front of the refrigerator with magnets Missy had made in first grade were the latest photographs of the cousins.

  The photographs were terrifying.

  Kitty leaned against the cool door of the fridge, her mind on a shopping bag with a ribbon still curly after all these years, sitting on a shelf in a rarely used closet in the dining room, hiding the terrifying evidence from a long-ago purchase in a scrapbook store. Kitty had been seduced by the beautiful paper, and had decided to make a scrapbook of the life of her daughter. She and Matt had taken thousands of pictures of Missy. Kitty remembered or didn’t remember to pick them up once they were developed. The pictures lay around the house in their store envelopes, finding their way to a kitchen drawer needed for spatulas and slotted spoons. Missy was nine then, dangerously distant from babyhood, and Kitty was starting to forget when and where all those photographs had been taken.

  Many photographs were from the Friday-night sleepovers. Tiny Missy and tall Claire played together with an intensity that made the adults laugh. Missy bore a comical resemblance to her cousin and imitated Claire in everything.

&nb
sp; One Saturday morning, when Phil and Frannie came to get Claire, they stayed for lunch. The men played pool in the basement family room, while Kitty and Frannie took over the dining room. With Frannie as her cheerleader, Kitty felt that today was the day. By dinner, she would have a scrapbook. They sent the girls outside and faced a table strewn with years of photographs. Step one was to get them in chronological order.

  An eerie problem surfaced.

  Frannie and Kitty couldn’t always tell which photographs were of Missy and which were of Claire. At first it was funny. Missy was a lot smaller, and therefore wore Claire’s hand-me-downs. It was not surprising that there were pictures of Claire at age five in a beautiful blue Sunday dress, and Missy a year or two later in the same blue dress.

  What was surprising was that their very own mothers could not tell which girl was which.

  “This must be Missy because it’s our sofa,” Kitty would say.

  “It could be Claire visiting,” Frannie would point out.

  The photographs they could not label because they did not know whether the child was Missy or Claire became a stack.

  It stopped being funny.

  In life, the two mothers saw completely different children. Claire was not a bit like Missy. Claire was sober; Missy was bubbly. Missy smiled a lot and widely; Claire smiled less, and rather carefully. Claire had a large vocabulary and used it; Missy was apt to skip speech in favor of dance or tantrums. Missy was fearless, and threw herself off things and on things and into things. Claire waited.

  But in photographs, no difference was visible.

  The little girls in these pictures were not similar. They were identical. One of them just had a smaller footprint.

  Kitty whispered the terrifying thought. “Did we adopt twins, Frannie?”

  “Impossible!” Frannie’s arms were folded across her chest as if to protect herself from the mere thought. “Our Claire is older than your Missy.”

  “We don’t know that, Frannie. We only know what Dr. Russo said. And he contradicted himself.”

  “They’re not twins!”

  Downstairs their husbands were laughing. On the front porch their daughters were giggling.