The Girls

by Lori Lansens

  And now there was this stool, which Rose called a behemoth, staring us in the face, and Rose was feeling like she let Aunt Lovey down. Aunt Lovey wouldn’t have been let down, though.

  Rose just sat there for the longest time. Then she said, Shit! Like she dropped something. Like she just realized she lost her keys or something. It was very strange.

  I asked her to try the chair, but she refused to try the chair, even when I begged. She got out her computer and made herself comfortable, not really paying that much attention to my comfort, and she started to write, which is all she ever wants to do these days. I asked her what she was writing about, and she said the trip to Slovakia, which may explain a few things about her recent depression.

  Normally when Rose is writing, I don’t bother talking because she’ll get snippy or she won’t answer me at all, but before I knew it I just flat out said, How about we leave the whole thing to the library? The whole thing. The money from the house, the farm, the land, everything. Rose stopped typing. God only knows what part of the Slovakia story she was at—there’s not much of it I like to remember.

  Rose said she thought it was a good idea to leave some of our estate to the library. Then she said, What about leaving the farmhouse to the Historical Society? It could be a new home for the Leaford Museum. How’s that for a great idea?

  (One day I heard Nick tell Rose, Don’t leave anything to Nonna that might end up with me. He said whatever it was, he’d pawn it or piss it away in some bar. He said the only thing keeping him sober was being broke.)

  We didn’t talk for a while after we agreed about putting the library in our will and giving the farmhouse to the museum, and then I couldn’t help myself and I said, I wish you wouldn’t write about Slovakia because I think it would hurt Uncle Stash. The Slovaks don’t come off looking so good in parts. But she said she couldn’t write the story of our lives and not say what happened in Slovakia, and I guess she’s right. I asked her not to include some embarrassing details about me.

  She said we shouldn’t be talking about our chapters anyway, but then she went ahead and said, I hope you’re not writing about medical stuff. I hope you’re not writing about the aneurysm. I hope you’re not describing my decline. What a word to use. And besides, it’s our decline. Then she said, What are you writing about anyway? And I had to laugh because I couldn’t tell her.

  My sister couldn’t believe that I can’t remember what I’ve written. It’s not like I’m gonna go back and reread it.

  Rose said she hopes that I’m not just rambling, because no one’s gonna want to read rambling. She said it’s really important for me to read what I’ve written so far because I might be repeating myself. I just laughed harder. Of course I’m repeating myself. That’s what people do.

  She said I should have a plan before I start to write. Like a theme or a subject. Like how she’s writing about Slovakia. She said I should write down some things I know about the Neutrals and reasons why I’m so interested in the past. Oh my God—Does she want me to write an essay? She said she finds that stuff interesting, and other people will too. And she said if they don’t, some editor will just cut it out.

  Rose talks like she has real experience with publishers and editors, when really she doesn’t. Maybe I will write some stuff about the Neutrals, though. Maybe I’ll write down Aunt Lovey’s story about the contest between the Indian brothers, which happened about half a mile from our farm.

  I wrote the story down for composition class when I was in high school, the only time I ever got an A in English. Rose said it was cheating, but Aunt Lovey said it was fine. Aunt Lovey hadn’t dictated it to me exactly. I remembered it on my own, and she said that meant I was interpreting it. That qualifies as art.

  Here’s the story, which I copied out from my essay (which I still think is pretty good).

  Once upon a time, before electricity or plumbing or even roads in Baldoon County, there was a nation of Native Indians called the Neutrals who were traders, and who set up temporary fishing camps along the mighty Thames River. One of the camps was just east of Leaford, on the Thames. The Neutral Indians spoke a dialect close to Iroquois and were not at war with anyone.

  Among this nation of travelers and traders lived a girl named Abey (which means “plant” or just “leaf”). Abey was beautiful and smart, and all the young men in the nation were in love with her. But none so much as a set of twin brothers, who were also her best friends. The twins had been in love with Abey since they were little boys, and Abey told them that she could never choose one of them over the other. They had to decide themselves which brother would have her as his wife. Eventually it was time to marry, and the boys still hadn’t chosen which of them would wed Abey. One of the brothers suggested a contest of endurance to decide who’d be the groom. A swimming competition. The twin brothers went to the widest place on the Thames River, near the bend where the church is now.

  There was much cheering as the twin boys dove into the muddy brown water, as everyone had come to watch the contest. A few of the earliest settlers from farms nearby came down to the river when they heard the ruckus and stayed to see the brothers test their endurance.

  The twin boys were strong swimmers and kept perfect pace with each other from one bank of the river to the other. But after fifty laps across the river, the brothers were starting to get tired.

  Abey, who’d been watching the contest with interest, not knowing which brother to root for because she loved them both the same, began to worry. Another ten laps and another ten, and the boys began to wilt. She tried to call them out of the water, but they wouldn’t come. It was starting to get dark.

  The crowd began to cheer, hoping the race would be over while there was light enough to see who won. The boys, though slowing down with each stroke, continued to drive toward the riverbank. The crowd cheered their fortitude as Abey blushed at their commitment.

  The twilight drifted away and the boys continued to swim, growing more and more tired, their arms barely rising from the water and their feet barely kicking. They made it to one bank. Then back to the other. Soon they were nothing but blurs of dark movement that the people squinted to track.

  When the boys could no longer be seen, but only their movement heard in the black water, Abey cried to the boys again to please come on out. She said that she would decide who to marry. She cried that she had been wrong to pit brother against brother. She shouted to the boys that she was not worthy of their devotion, which got the interest of her peers, but the twins continued to swim, still keeping pace with each other, as could be heard in their splashing. People built fires, knowing the swimmers would need to be warmed when it was over. Some of the farmers cut back through the bush to bring oil lamps and blankets from their homes.

  Standing alone in the blackness, Abey listened for the sound of her suitors breaking the muddy water. Abey shouted again that she wasn’t worth the brothers’ love. She shouted for them to come out of the water. Then she cried out, though it wasn’t true, that she had been unfaithful. Thinking she was on to something, Abey began to shout out many terrible things about herself, all of them untrue, hoping to make the boys give up the contest and come out of the water.

  The boys did not stop swimming, though. The boys did not hear Abey’s terrible lies about herself. But the rest of her nation did. And she sounded so convincing they believed her and put it together that she was a very wicked person and had tragically cursed the twins. Abey heard her people in the dark, leaving her and the still-swimming boys.

  In the morning, Abey sat cold and shivering on the riverbank. Her people had moved their camp in the night. She didn’t need to look behind her to know she was alone. She didn’t need to look at the river either, because she had heard one brother slip under, and then the other, seconds later, in the night, when only she and the moon were watching.

  Abey thought she was dreaming, feeling the weight of the warm blanket on her shoulders. But when she turned around, there was a handsome white man w
ith kind eyes offering a pretty pink peach from the palm of his hand. Abey took the peach and didn’t feel afraid. She’d seen this man, waving from the riverbanks, when they passed by the summer before. She never imagined then that she was looking at her future husband.

  Aunt Lovey would always pause there and say, as if it needed to be said, And that is how my great-great-great-great-grandfather Rosaire met my great-great-great-great-grandmother Abey.

  Before I wrote out that story about Aunt Lovey’s Indian forebear, I was talking about when Nick brought the stool. So, later, after we talked about what I was and wasn’t writing in my yellow legal pad, Rose decided she wanted to eat one of the cannolis that Roz had picked up for us at the Oakwood Bakery. But the cannolis were in the kitchen, and she didn’t feel like moving. I said, Let’s try the stool. If we don’t like it, we’ll tell Nick thanks, but it’s not comfortable. I was really happy when she said she’d try. It’s hard for Rose to admit that she’s not as strong as she used to be.

  Getting me into the chair was a bit of a big deal, but that will get easier. Wheeling down the hall felt good. Better than good. Amazing. I felt like I had legs. Not like I was borrowing my sister’s, but like I had my own. The vibration of the wheels on the floor shot up the steel legs of the stool and right into my spine.

  We made it to the kitchen and back in half the time it’s been taking us, because Rose stops so much now and likes to be close to a wall (in case she falls, I guess). We made it back to the couch with the box of cannolis in my lap and we ate. Just a nibble, really, because neither of us has that much of an appetite, but we felt much better. Cannolis can do that. Then Rose found the remote phone and called Nick and said, Come watch us try the chair.

  If there were more craniopagus twins like us in the world, Nick could get rich. He should be an inventor—that’s how good this stool is. Our hallway is fairly wide, so Rose and I went back and forth and back and forth in the hallway, getting faster and faster. Even Rose liked the stool. She doesn’t complain a lot, but I know her back aches, worse now than ever. Nick watched us, kinda laughing, but not at us. He even clapped a couple of times. And Rose blushed.

  We won’t be able to use it outside on the sidewalk because bumps are a problem, which we found out the hard way. We can use it at work, though, which is where we have to do most of our getting around now, and the kids’ll love it.

  I am warming up to Nick, though he is still more Rose’s friend than mine. I think he felt pretty proud of himself because of the stool. He went into the kitchen and made a pitcher of lemonade from a mix in the cupboard. Nick says if he drinks lemonade in a highball glass, he feels like he’s having a G7 (Gilbey’s gin and 7Up), which was his poison of choice. He brought out the lemonade, and there was a knock at the door, and we’re all thinking, Who could that be? because we don’t get many visitors.

  It was Nonna. She had no clue who Rose and I were and she asked for Aunt Lovey, and she would not accept that Aunt Lovey wasn’t home. Then she started crying, which just breaks your heart. To see an old lady who you love, and who has always been one of the people to take care of you, to see her crying is just the saddest thing. I didn’t tell Nonna that Aunt Lovey was dead because she’d have keeled right over. But Nick had to take Nonna home. Rose and I both felt sick about seeing her like that. We just poured the whole pitcher of lemonade down the sink.

  It’s September 19. Late for lemonade anyway.

  We sat on the porch a little after dinner. Nick was driving out of town. He was vague about where, but said he’d be back in the morning and to call Ruttle or Emergency at Leaford if there’s a problem. Why be all mysterious about where he’s going? How annoying! Plus, why would he leave Nonna alone, even if she did have a sleeping pill?

  This is the first time that Rose and I are writing together. She’s working on her laptop right now. It feels strange and kinda nice to be writing at the same time. Though we are not writing about the same things.

  Rose has slowed down. Walking. Moving. Shifting. Everything. Even writing. When she first started this book five months ago her fingers flew so fast on the keys, a hundred miles a minute, a hundred pages at a time. Now she’s slow. Slow, but steady. She never pauses much or stops for long. I get the feeling that when she closes her computer at the end of the night it’s because she can’t write more. Not because she doesn’t have more to write.

  A long time ago my sister said that when the book is done, so is she, so I think she’s trying to give us more time by making the book take longer. Rose thinks she can control things. Like if she wears her disgusting brown sweater her sports teams will win. It’s really very arrogant.

  Everyone knows about the aneurysm now, and it’s so much easier. Rose and I hate it when people pity our situation, but pity for dying isn’t so bad. It isn’t really pity anyway; it’s empathy. Not everyone can relate to being joined at the head, but anyone can relate to dying.

  People have just kind of stepped up for us. Really. Roz has brought a few casseroles for the freezer. Whiffer and Lutie dropped some groceries off (Rose and I had a laugh at how freaked they were about our house of mirrors). People are being nice and optimistic, which is good, because fatal is fatal, but it doesn’t have to be all downhill.

  This is the first time I’ve gone on writing after Rose has fallen asleep. She has been complaining about my snoring our whole life, and she has no idea she snores too. She says my snoring is a pig-snorting sound. Hers has a whistle at the end. It doesn’t bother me. Nothing about Rose really bothers me. Nothing physical anyway.

  Earlier tonight Rose and I talked a bit about things we don’t like to talk about, and Rose said we should call our lawyer friend and see about a will, and that we should go to the archaeology museum sooner rather than later. And that we should bring the stool.

  The stool doesn’t fold up, which is a minor design flaw. But Nick’s got a big enough trunk and he’ll be driving us, so that’s okay.

  I’m excited to go to the Indian museum. We haven’t been there since before Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash passed away. There’s an old man who works there called Errol Osler. He is quite a character. Always happy to see Ruby and me. We first met Errol Osler when Rose and I were about ten years old, when we stopped at the museum on our way home after some appointment with a specialist about my gut.

  We’ve seen him just about every year since, up until a few years ago, and it was just too sad to think about going without Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash. Plus, it would have meant the bus, and that can be a problem for me with my car sickness, which has gotten worse as I’ve grown older.

  I remember when we first walked into the outdoor part of the museum in London. I felt this incredible déjà vu, which was different than the feeling that I’ve been here before. It was more like the feeling that I’ve been here before and I never left. Sometimes I wonder about my past lives, and if I ever lived my life as a Native Indian. Maybe even as Abey.

  I do believe in reincarnation. I have dreams sometimes, and these little visions that just kind of pop into my brain, where I’m me but also someone else. I have one dream where I’m an English lady wearing an old-fashioned gown, and I’m walking in the meadow arguing with a man who’s my husband, only the man is Rose. Rose—but a man. I’ve seen myself as a fish gutter on a ship, and nothing but black ocean as far as the eye can see. I’m working beside my uncle, and he’s my best friend. But he’s Rose too. And, in fact, Rose is in all my visions and dreams about lives I’ve lived. Sometimes she’s my wife, and sometimes she’s my cousin or my brother, or even my mother. I know that sounds flaky.

  I was not good in school, but I remember once a science teacher saying how energy cannot be created or destroyed, and I got the goose shivers. And I still get the goose shivers when I think about energy, because that’s what I think reincarnation is. I think our souls are energy, and they aren’t destroyed when we die. They have memories of the other lives, but the memories are in this locked cabinet, and every once in a while the cabin
et is accidentally opened and a few things fall out—the visions and the déjà vus. Rose says it’s absolute horseshit when I try to talk about reincarnation with her, but Aunt Lovey always knew what I meant. Aunt Lovey said that when she was a little girl, she used to try to tell her mother about her other life and her other family, and her two older brothers. But her mother, Verbeena, just thought she’d been climbing the peach tree and had fallen on her head again. Aunt Lovey had a lot of déjà vu, and she said some of it could be low blood pressure.

  When Rose and I first started working at the library, a mother came in with her twin four-year-old boys. They were so cute and so funny, and Rosie and I just fell in love with them. Their mother was very nice to us, though she was a little spooked when she first walked into the children’s section and asked Rose for help and didn’t quite notice, because of how Rose was standing, that I was there too. I saw right away how the mother could tell the twin boys apart, and that was because one of the boys had a large round strawberry birthmark below his left eye. The brother of the boy saw me looking at the birthmark and blurted out that he shot his brother with a bow and arrow. The mother laughed and said the child had been telling people that he shot his brother with a bow and arrow since he could talk, but he’d never even seen a bow and arrow. And when I heard that, I got the goose shivers again. What if that boy’s remembering something that happened in another life? What if he’s lived all of his lives with his brother? Just as I’ve lived mine with Rose? I believe in supernatural things, and I think that some people have extrasensory perception. And I swear to God that, when I walked into the Museum of Indian Archaeology that very first time, when I was only around ten years old, I had some kind of strange feeling. Like a weird trembling feeling and a knot in my stomach (but a good kind of knot), and this feeling that I wanted to cry (a good kind of cry).

  Errol Osler came over and didn’t make a big deal about Rose and me being conjoined twins; he just came over and looked at me, like he never questioned I was my own person, and he said a lot of people get choked up in churches and museums. He said people get touched in the most mysterious ways. I liked the way he talked and the way he understood how I felt.