by Ryan Somma
My clone was a precious treasure.
She looked so adorable standing on the sidewalk outside the school. Her mouth was all pouty and a stack of textbooks were pressed to her still-flat-at-16-years chest. I still hadn’t given up on convincing her to use a book bag. The right book bag could really accessorize a young lady. I was so proud of my book bag in high school. I even had a very stylish lunch box for the meals I made myself.
Edea climbed into the car, sweeping her plaid skirt under her as she sat down in a very lady-like manner. Then she propped her steel-toed boots up on the dashboard and belched in a very tomboy manner. I just sighed at my adult-in-training.
“Where’s that knitted cap I made you?” I asked, pulling a dreadlock out of her eyes and tucking it behind one ear.
Her eyes popped at me, “You’re kidding, right?”
I popped my eyes right back at her, “It’s cold out. Or does your knitted hairstyle keep your brain warm?”
“That hat was a crocheted sprawling suburban nightmare,” Edea said, checking her makeup in the jetta’s vanity mirror.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away from the curb. “Please clue me in to your hip teenage dialect.”
“It’s conformist,” Edea was adding even more black mascara to her eyes.
“Oh,” I mocked comprehension. “Conformist. Yeah. I see.” I gestured to the other kids hanging around outside the school. “Just look at all those crocheted winter caps…”
“Mom…” Edea began, rolling her eyes.
“…a veritable plague of high schoolers wearing winter caps their mothers knitted for them…”
Edea looked at me, “Mom…”
I looked right back at her, “I think you mean that you don’t want to be non-conformist, snuggles.”
“Fine,” she shrugged and went back to her mascara.
“You’ll catch cold if you don’t keep your head covered,” I said after a moment.
Edea rolled her eyes at me again. Why was that the universal method for teenagers to communicate contempt for their elders? Was there some convention of teenagers long ago where they decided on the eye-roll as “Insolence Gesture of Choice?” Although, I had to admit, Edea wore it well.
“There is absolutely no scientific basis for that claim, Mother,” Edea explained in her best approximation of adult authoritarianism. “Cold weather does not cause colds.”
“Why do they call them ‘colds’ then?” I challenged.
“Because our ancestors thought cold weather caused them,” Edea quipped.
“Because people got colds when it was cold outside,” I said cheerfully.
Edea responded with increased contempt, “Right, but only because people were shut up inside together, breathing the same air, and spreading germs to one another.”
I reached over and pinched Edea’s cheek, wriggling it, “My little smarty-pants!”
“Ow!” She pulled out of my reach and shook a finger at me. “Bad Mother!”
We drove on in silence, Edea in consternation, me in glowing amusement.
“And the cold weakened their immune systems too,” I said after a moment.
“No,” Edea asserted. “Cold weather has no affect on people’s immune systems.”
“Hmmm…” I intoned pleasantly.
“Don’t,” Edea warned. “Don’t go there.”
“There was a message from boy on the answering machine,” I ignored her warning.
Edea rolled her eyes, “You can delete it.”
“I think he wants to ask you out to prom,” I grinned warmly. “He’s got a nice voice.”
“I’ll delete it when I get home,” Edea said, picking her nose absentmindedly.
“You know,” I said as we pulled into our neighborhood, “when I was your age, I was wearing heels.”
“These have heels,” she gestured at the boots.
“I see that,” I nodded. “They also have steel toes too, right? Those Doctor Martins?”
“Doc Martins,” Edea corrected, “and yes, they are real shit-kickers.”
“My little rebellious angel!” I cooed and reached over to pinch her cheek again.
She slapped my hand away, but gently, and asked, “Is Joe still coming over for dinner tonight?”
“Yes,” I muttered without enthusiasm. “Your father’s still coming over.”
Edea seemed to cheer up though, “Cool. He’s not my father, but that’s cool that he’s coming over.”
“Where do you think you get the whole tomboy thing?” I joshed, poking Edea in the side playfully.
“You.” Edea said this last with enough seriousness to make me change the subject.
“So how was detention?” I asked.
“Don’t spoil your dinner,” I told Edea when we got inside, where she immediately started browsing the refrigerator.
“Not,” she muttered.
I came up behind her, waiting patiently for my turn at the fridge. She was sipping skim milk straight from the carton as she browsed the refrigerator’s contents. She opened a zip lock bag of shredded sharp cheddar and stuffed a hefty pinch of the stuff into her mouth like it was chewing tobacco. Then she put the cheese back and opened a jar of mustard. She scooped out a dollop of the stuff with her forefinger and popped that in her mouth.
“I’ve seen enough princess,” I announced, taking both her arms to gently set her aside. “I’ve got to make dinner.”
“One sec,” she reached back in to grab a half-carton of strawberries.
“No. No. No,” I waved my finger at her. “Those are way too old.”
I made a grab for them, but Edea pulled them out of my reach, and turned to shield them from further attempts, “They’re fine, just a little fermented.”
“You’ll get salmonella poisoning,” I warned.
“From strawberries?” she muffled through a full mouth. “You can only get that from chicken.”
“It’s not healthy,” I said, returning to the fridge to pull out the ingredients for tonight’s meal.
“Of course it is,” Edea chomped into another strawberry and made an obnoxious sucking sound. “Old food is covered with germs. Germs keep immune systems healthy. That’s why I never get sick.”
I started washing the vegetables in cold water, “Don’t come crying to me when you get intestinal distress, princess.”
“We’ll see who gets what,” Edea said, wandering out of the kitchen. “That anti-bacterial soap you’re using is creating an environment for the nastiest bugs to thrive.”
I turned on the pleasantness again, “That’s my little rebel.”
“So what are you rebelling against?” Edea demanded unexpectedly, rounding about to march back into the kitchen.
“Rebelling?” I paused in my chopping. “Who? Me?”
“Yes mommy-dearest,” Edea used her favorite sarcastic tone of voice with me. “What are you rebelling against?”
I frowned, confused, “I honestly don’t know what you mean, schnookums.”
“I mean this whole model housewife bit you play,” she waved her hands around, gesturing at my precious kitchen. “I’m rebelling against you by rejecting all this traditional nonsense. What non-traditional nonsense are you rejecting?”
I shrugged and started dicing the now deskined cucumbers, “I really don’t know dear.” I brightened up then, “What do you think I’m rebelling against?”
Edea closed her eyes and her face showed signs of frustration, but I really had no idea what this was all about.
“Grandma was a chemist, right?” Edea asked.
“Yeppers,” I set to peeling carrots.
“And you majored in…?”
“Home Ec.”
Edea frowned, “Come again?”
“Home Economics,” I said, slicing the carrots long-ways into thin strands.
She came over to stand beside me, but I stayed focused on my careful slicing. “What is that? Like a Bachelors of the Arts?”
“It should be,” I swept the soft mound of carrot
mulch into the salad mix and set to grating the Parmesan. Parmesan cheese should always be grated off of a large block to preserve the flavor. “Being a mother and maintaining a house is a full time job. Learning how to do that should be worth a degree of some sort.”
“So grandma got her Ph.D. in chemistry and you got a high school diploma with a concentration in homemaking,” Edea leaned on the counter and popped another strawberry into her mouth. “So what are you rebelling against?”
I took out a fresh zip-lock baggy, put the block of cheese inside it, and tossed the old zip-lock into the trash under the sink.
“Well?” Edea prompted.
“I’m thinking,” I said, writing today’s date on the fresh baggy in permanent marker before putting it in the refrigerator.
“What was grandpa?” Edea asked then.
“Man of the house,” I replied, and began tossing salad.
Edea frowned, “But I thought—“
“You think?” I mocked shock. “I thought you knew everything?”
Edea didn’t bite, “You told me grandpa—“
“So you do listen to me occasionally,” I set the now properly mixed salad aside, and went to pull the roast beef I had set to marinating the night before from the refrigerator.
“Don’t change the subject,” she still wasn’t biting.
Normally I would have made the salad after getting the roast started, but Edea was disrupting my standard cooking operations. “Now sweety,” I said. “I’m all about you playing mental doctor, but I’m very busy right now.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not patronizing you, bunny rabbit,” I said simply, poking the roast with a fork to make sure it was tender enough.
“Yes you are!” Edea’s voice got that urgent squeak of frustration that meant her emotions were getting the best of her.
I put my hand over my heart, “I’m really not sweety-poo.”
“The only reason you would call someone ‘sweety-poo’ is to be patronizing.”
“It’s a term of affection,”
“It’s a term of placation.”
I slammed my hand down on the kitchen counter, “Would it kill you not to act like such a bitch all the time?”
Edea’s eyes were as wide as mine probably were. Was it really me who had just said that? It felt so unreal, like for a moment I wasn’t myself and the swear word was something said in a dream.
“When I was your age,” Edea said with a smirk, “we showed respect to our betters.”
I swallowed, but managed to smile, “I’ll tell you when I meet some.”
“Watch it lady. Don’t get snippy with me,” Edea said sarcastically and folded her arms over her chest. “I could easily whup your ass.”
“That’s sweet deary,” I patted her cheek, “but no you couldn’t.”
“Being clones makes it mostly equal,” she said, “but I’ve got youth on my side.”
I smiled at her and said innocently, “That’s to your disadvantage kitten.”
Edea was confused, “I’ve got more energy and muscle tone.” She pulled up her sleeve and made a little muscle.
My smile got warm and fuzzy, “I’ve got age and treachery silly.”
Edea was even more confused.
I resumed my roast-poking and caught myself. The thing was ready, so I put it in the oven. “I’ll stab you in the back or throw sand in your eyes, or worse things I can’t tell you about,” I said in my sweetest tone of voice.
“Things too horrible for words?” Edea smiled.
I smiled even wider, “Things I don’t want you to know are coming.”
“Evil Mommy,” Edea shook her head, smiling in return. “Pure evil.”
I set two pots out on the stove and poured filtered water into each one, getting back into the groove. I could have the baby carrots ready for steaming and the potatoes peeled before the water started boiling. Then I could enjoy a glass of wine--once I got a certain someone out of the way.
“You know punkin,” I squinted at Edea, “your face looks a little shiny… and did you remember to wear deodorant today? You’re a little ripe.”
Edea frowned, but did push off from the kitchen counter. She would now go spend the next hour bathing and polishing her combat boots for Joe. She wasn’t so much the rebel she thought she was.
“Although I’m sure your father won’t notice,” I called after her, and reached into the fridge for my half-consumed bottle of white wine.
Mission accomplished. Moment of peace and quiet engaged.
Did he come here straight from work? I thought, looking at Joe standing at the doorstep.
Joe was wearing dirty overalls, work boots, and a big cheesy grin. I could see his truck parked out on the street. It was the same beaten up pickup he’d been driving for years. I shook my head. The passenger-side seat was probably covered in discarded fast food wrappers.
“Heya Lizzie,” he chuckled.
“Sweety,” I called back at Edea, “you’re father’s here,” stressing the word ‘father.’
“Eat me mom,” Edea called from her room.
“I guess the apple can fall pretty damn far from the tree. Eh Lizzie?” Joe asked with that infuriating smirk of his.
“Take your shoes off before you track your feet across the carpet. I just had it steam cleaned,” I said
Joe grunted and shook his head in disapproval, but he did stoop down to untie his work boots, “A house should just be a place where ya keep stuff while you’re out living life.”
“Is that what you were doing when you were sleeping around on me?” I asked. “’Living life?’”
Joe winced satisfactorily, but did come back with, “I wasn’t the one keeping you in the house.”
Edea came into the foyer, smelling of soap and perfume. Her dredlocks were pulled back and her makeup was toned down. She beamed at Joe in a way she never beamed at me, and came up on her tip-toes to give him a hug.
“Hard to believe your mother was ever this tiny,” Joe remarked as he looked Edea up and down.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, folding my arms over my chest.
“Ah hell Lizzie,” Joe waved off my offended demeanor. “I wasn’t remarking on your weight. You’ve still got the figure of a sixteen year old.” He gestured at my clone, “It’s just looking at Edea’s like looking at an old photograph of yah. Yah know? She’s really a sixteen year old version of yah.”
My brow darkened and my lips pursed. He wasn’t making things better.
And he knew it. Joe clapped his hands together and inhaled deeply, “Wow that smells great! What’er we having?”
“Roast,” Edea chimed in, taking Joe’s hand and pulling him towards the dining room. “Mom’s been marinating it since yesterday.”
I followed them to the dinning room table, where Edea pulled a chair out for Joe, and scooted it under his ample butt when he sat down. I had already set the table; so all that was needed now was a beer for Joe and a third glass of wine for myself.
“You need to wash your hands,” I said to Joe, sitting down at the table to his side. “Sorry I don’t have any industrial strength cleaner.”
“No bulk-sized containers of bleach?” Joe mocked surprise. “I thought you had the stuff delivered here by the truck load?”
He reached across the table for the roast, but I slapped his hand, and placed a bowl of fresh greens in front of him, “Salad is the first course.”
Joe just stared at it.
“Is something wrong?” Edea asked, slightly concerned.
Joe leaned over to her with a mischievous grin and whispered loud enough for me to hear, “Which fork was it for rabbit food again?”
They both broke into laughter.
After dutifully eating the salad, they moved on to the main course. Conversation lagged at this point in the meal as everyone set to stuffing themselves. This was my favorite part, the symphony of lip-smacking appreciation for all my hard work.
; “Mmph,” Joe murmured with pleasure and licked his lips. “I do miss your cooking Lizzie.”
“Maybe you could come over for dinner every Sunday?” Edea offered. “We could make it like a family ritual.”
“He doesn’t get the milk if he won’t buy the cow,” I said before Joe could schmooze up to the idea.
“You’re mother’s right,” Joe acknowledged after pretending to immerse himself in his plate a moment to figure out a political response. “Although, I certainly do appreciate the free sample.” He winked at me.
I knew what that wink meant. “Food’s the only free sample you’re getting,” I whispered. “You don’t get the milk—“
“If I don’t marry the cow,” he nodded furiously. “I got ya Liz.”
“If you don’t re-marry the cow,” Edea chimed in with a grin.
“Speaking of livestock,” Joe said with a full mouth. “Edea here is quite a mule. I was thinking she might want to work with me on some construction sites.”
An uncomfortable knot twisted in my stomach at the thought of my baby working construction with all those sexual predators. I stopped chewing the bit of roast I had in my mouth and swallowed it down hard.
Please. Please. Please, I thought, staring at Edea, my eyes pleading.
“That would rock!” Edea exclaimed.
Dammit.
“I’ll gitcha a tool belt this Friday,” Joe was saying. “Maybe you could come help out on some jobs on the weekends till school finishes up?” He looked over at me, “With your mother’s approval a’course.”
Edea rolled her eyes.
“If it doesn’t interfere with her school work,” I said too quickly despite myself.
“Uh,” Edea’s disrespect turned to astonishment at my acquiescence. “Okay. Great. That’s great mom.”
“It’ll be… character building,” I forced a smile.
Edea blinked at me, confused, but said, “Cool,” without enthusiasm. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and stood up, “S’cuse me.”
Joe and I watched her go off to the bathroom. I knew she was going to make a serious assessment of how shiny her face had gotten since she last powdered it 20 minutes ago.
“I’m shocked Lizzie,” Joe said. “I never thought for a minute you’d concede that. I’m impressed.”
“Just not enough to come back.”
Joe just looked at his plate.
“I don’t get it,” I dropped my fork and knife onto the table. “I’ve done everything to make this work. I’ve kept this house pristine. I’ve made the most elaborate meals every time you come over. I even made homemaking the focus of my high school studies.” I met Joe’s eyes, “I’m a professional at this, but you can’t stand to live with me.”
“Lizzie,” Joe began, “it’s just that—“
“No,” I put my hands up. “You’re reason changes every single time I get like this. I need to know really why you left, not so I can get you back—I’ve given up hope of that—but so I can fix it for when the next soul mate comes along.”
Joe was silent in a way that told me he was thinking about how to properly break the truth to me.
“Am I too much of a busy-body?” I prompted. “Is that it?”
“It’s not that. You’re a fantastic, however infuriatingly anally-retentive homemaker,” Joe said. Then he leaned in close to me, his voice hushed, “Why did you have to go and get yourself cloned for?”
“What do you mean?”
Joe shrugged in that way that meant he didn’t want to talk about this, “I mean, it made things all awkward between us.
“Meaning?”
“Are you sure you want to get into this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Joe was silent for a long time, frowning.
“I felt like a damn pedophile when we were making love,” he grunted at last. “Playing with Edea, I kept seein’ the similarities a’tween you an’ her. It wasn’t right. I had to either be a father to Edea or a lover to you. Ah made the noble choice.”
“By deserting both of us,” I said.
“Ah can’t help not being around more often, but I provide you all this,” he gestured at the house, “an’ I don’t get nothing in return for it. I know Edea ain’t mah blood.”
“I can’t help that,” I pleaded.
“Having Edea was a choice,” Joe countered.
“So was me having an abortion when we were first dating,” I said, leaning across the table at him, “at your prompting, remember?”
“That’s not—“
“Edea may have been my choice,” I said, “but it’s not something I can take back.”
“I’m not saying it’s something you can take back,” he held up his hands for peace. “You’re the one who was looking for something to change for your next lover.”
“Then this conversation is over,” I hissed, “because I’m not going to let you make me regret having Edea!”
“Cripes,” Joe muttered, throwing his napkin onto his plate.
We sat in silence until Edea returned. Joe picked at his teeth, and I cleared the table. Joe and Edea talked through dessert, while I sat on the sidelines. Finally, mercifully, a full bottle of wine later, the night came to a close.
Edea walked Joe to the front door. Her eyes were bright and admiring as they looked up at him. She loved him. I loved him. We were two women with the same body, in love with the same man, but with different kinds of love. Hers was for a father. Mine for a husband.
I looked around the dinning room table at all the leftovers. My eyes settled inevitably on the wall across from me, displaying my favorite family photos. As always, my attention was drawn to the photo in the center, of myself, my mother, and my father before he left. The peripheral photos all took place long after that centerpiece.
There were none of just my mother and I.
“Night Lizzie,” Joe called from the front door.
I bolted up out of my chair, swiveling around behind my seat to pull the lunchbox-size Tupperware container from the appropriate cabinet. “Hold on just one second Joe!”
I then scooped man-sized portions of mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, and roast beef into the compartments. My hand paused at the leftover bowl of mixed greens. I shook the idea from my head. Joe would just feed them to his pet iguana. I marched through the living room and into the foyer.
“Here,” I pressed the container into his barrel chest with both hands.
“More free milk?” Joe joshed, and swallowed at my lack of amusement. “Thank you Lizzie.”
“It’ll spare you one trip to the fast food restaurants,” I shrugged.
“When I was your age,” I said to Edea after Joe had left and we were washing dishes and putting them into the washing machine, “women looked for more high-profile jobs than just manual labor.”
“Construction is skilled labor,” Edea countered. “I’ll be learning a trade.”
“Okay,” I conceded, “but remember how I said it would be a ‘character-building experience?’ I meant that it would scar you for life and encourage you to get a desk job in an air-conditioned office.”
“Thanks,” Edea said. “Really.”
I noticed the blinking light on the answering machine, and nodded Edea’s attention to it, “You should at least call to politely reject him.”
Edea frowned and shook her head, “He’s a jerk. I overheard him telling another girl in class that it was tradition to give up your virginity after prom.”
“Oh,” I was shocked, but thought of Joe again, frowning. “Then screw him—I mean… uh… not literally. Only share your love with someone who’s worthy, upstanding, has some goals in life. Your first should be special. You never forget your first,” I dutifully repeated what I’d heard so many times before and caught myself, crumpling my eyebrows. “Come to think of it. You never forget any of them.” I scrunched my mouth and looked at Edea, “What kind of a woman forgets that sort of thing?”
“Gee, you look fami
liar,” Edea went cross-eyed and put her finger to her lips mockingly, “Did you ever have your penis inside me?”
We broke off into peals of laughter that seemed to go on forever. When it dwindled away, leaving us with residual giggles, I noticed that familiar feeling of warmth filling that old emptiness inside me. I pushed down the nostalgic feeling accompanying it. This was not Joe making me feel this way; this was deeper, more meaningful, and more committed.
After a pause, Edea asked gently, “Why did you have yourself cloned?”
I took a moment to process this. If she had asked any other time, my answer would have been completely different, but in the context of the night’s events, I knew why I had Edea and made her a clone of myself.
“When Joe and I got married,” I explained, “I thought I had won, you know, beaten the game of life. That I’d won. I wanted to preserve that perfect state of happiness forever, give it to you so you could give it to your clone, on and on forever.”
There was silence, and I bit my lip.
“Mom,” Edea said, shaking her head into her hands, “you are so naïve.”
“Funny,” I perked up. “That’s what your father always said.”
“Joe’s not my father,” Edea countered.
“I know.”
Edea did a doubletake, blinking at me.
I just looked at her, “I know he’s not your father. He was never around enough. He didn’t raise you, I did. He just turned you against me.”
“I’m not against you,” Edea muttered uncomfortably, turning away to slip a stack of pristine plates into the dishwasher.
“Yes you are,” I asserted. “You’re rebelling against me.”
“Well…” Edea shrugged a little, “yeah, but…”
“You think I drove Joe away,” I continued, “and you think that by acting nothing like me, you’ll keep him around.”
“Just like you and grandma,” Edea noted with more insight than I had ever given her credit for.
“I guess it’s just another one of those quirks in our genetic design,” I said softly with a slight shrug.
“Quirk in our Evolutionary Strategy,” Edea corrected.
“No,” I countered, smiling again. “I’m the evolutionary strategy, you were cloned by design.”
“Obviously the evolutionary strategy is for us to clone our perfect genes,” Edea noted.
“And then rebel against them,” I said, “like scales that never balance.”
“Don’t worry mom,” Edea said, wrapping her arms around me, “I’ll get it right.”
“The only way you’ll do that,” I said, returning the embrace, “is to not care about men at all.”
“That’s what I meant,” she smiled, “when I said I’d get it right.”
alfred’s clone