Double Trouble

by Deborah Cooke

  In the Nick - ha ha - of time.

  Lydia arrived first, as usual, as befitted one unanimously acknowledged as punctuality princess. She brought a box of Godiva’s truffles, the big box, angel of mercy that she is, and about a hundred Day-Glo condoms.

  “You’ll know where he is,” she said by way of greeting, pushing a dozen into my hand.

  That made me smile. “I’ve a new theory for you.”

  “Oh, good, I could use some cheering up.”

  I didn’t take the bait, not wanting to encourage confessions too early. “Golf is God’s plan for a universal contraceptive in America.”

  “Not bad. It’s the plaid, isn’t it? I mean plaid is one thing, and not a very good thing in quantity anyhow, but those southerners get hold of it and suddenly it’s tangerine plaid.”

  “Knickers,” I added and we both faked a convulsion.

  “If only they would wear kilts.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be a contraceptive.”

  “True. I like it.” She shook a finger at me. “My newest plum theory is that the popularity of the soul patch is utterly responsible for the sudden outbreak of chastity among post-pubescent women.”

  Discussion was curtailed by the arrival of Khadija, with three big Cadbury Caramilk bars “from England” and Tracy with a box of Turtles. Phyllis wasn’t far behind, toting her usual no-nonsense contribution of a Black Magic box of assorted.

  “It’s half milk chocolate and half dark,” she explained as she always explained. “Something for everyone.” They had all been there often enough to find their way around - and really, you’d have to be blind to not be able to find your way around a big damn-near-empty box like my loft. I started pouring soda waters and the usual symphony of diet beverages.

  I know. It makes no sense. Gorge on chocolate but drink diet soda. Leave us our illusions, please.

  Cellophane was torn off the boxes, which were arrayed on what passes as a coffee table in my place - two monitor boxes, shoved together, tablecloth overtop - and they fetched chairs from every corner. The Caramilk bars were broken. It was dark outside, the sky pushing hues of navy and purple against the glass bricks. I lit about a thousand candles, then answered the bell again.

  “I want those mules,” Krystal said when the elevator disgorged her moments later.

  “They’re mine, all mine.”

  “Then let me know when you get tired of them.”

  “Manolo Blahnick.” I modelled them just to feed her envy. “I will never get tired of them.”

  “Then put me in your will, dahling.” She grinned and sailed into the room. “Thank God none of you are wearing jeans.”

  Tracy was with her - they sometimes shared a ride - and smiled shyly as she passed me a sock of Hershey’s Kisses. Krystal contributed a box of some Belgian seashells then waved to everyone else as she moved into the loft. Tracy trailed right behind her, like a quiet shadow who found us slightly intimidating.

  Goodness knows why.

  Gwen shouted up from below, demanding the elevator PDQ as she needed to use the facilities. I laughed and closed the door so it would descend, imagining her tap-dancing down below. She was tap-dancing when she got out, too, taking just a moment to drop the Ferraro Rochers into my outstretched hand before making her beeline to relief.

  Antonia was last, no surprise, an enormous bag of M&M’s under her arm. “Goddess, but I love this place, Maralys. Anytime you need a roomie, you let me know.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “I’d never know what you’d do to the place while I was asleep. I could wake up in the middle of Art.”

  “That’s part of the adventure.”

  “Adventure I can live without.”

  She smiled briefly, then her gaze searched mine and her smile faded. “You okay?”

  “No. But thanks for asking. Come on in.” She left it there and so did I, the chatter of the others quickly filling the loft. Antonia was watching me though and I knew that she’d come back to her question when she decided the moment was right.

  I tried to get those damn shields up fast.

  * * *

  Antonia’s moment didn’t take that long to turn up. We had talked about Khadija’s trip to the U.K. for a conference - she was flushed with the flattery she’d had on quality of information on her site - and commiserated with Krystal that her most recent ex-boyfriend was indeed a rat. I had brushed off inquiries in my direction quite diligently, I thought, until I noticed that Antonia was getting that laser-eyed look. I was starting to squirm.

  That had nothing on my full throttle squirming when the phone rang.

  I realized too late that I’d left it in the mode where you can hear whatever message is being left. I was going to get up, but Antonia had a catty little “aha!” smile, so I sat back down, hoping for the best.

  “Maralys, it’s James.”

  So much for hoping. I lost.

  There was much laughter after that, everyone tried to do the polite thing of talking loud enough that they couldn’t hear the message.

  Even as they were straining their ears to do just that.

  “Nice voice.”

  “Umm hmm. What does he look like?”

  “As if that’s important.” I felt myself blushing despite my will to the contrary.

  “Give me a call if you have a chance,” James continued, then chuckled under his breath. “He suggested optimistically.”

  “Oh, he’s got your number.”

  “And about last night…”

  Eight women were as silent as mice, straining their ears for every nuance of sound. We even froze. I was looking for that gaping hole in the floor to open up and spare me from mortification but knew it wouldn’t happen.

  And I did want to know what he said.

  “I think you should let your father miss you for a few days. I went to see him this afternoon and he’s doing well. They’re cutting back his drugs and Dr. Moss wants to send him somewhere other than home alone by the end of next week. I’ve got an idea about that and we should talk before they check him out.” There was suddenly a smile in his voice. “Yes, Maralys, that would be both some slack and a deadline. Take care.”

  And with a click, he was gone. The Ariadne’s exhaled as one, then looked at me.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” Antonia asked quietly.

  I could barely catch my breath. “Me? No. Why?”

  They passed a glance around like a hot potato, then all looked at me again. Antonia seemed to have been silently appointed spokeswoman, because no one else said a word.

  She leaned forward and held my gaze. “Look, Maralys, we know that you’re a really private person. We all managed to pick that up and that’s okay. Everyone here has shared a story, except you…”

  “Keeping score?”

  “No. We just want you to know that it’s okay. We’re here, whenever you need us, even if you don’t need us. The choice is up to you. We just want you to understand that we understand, either way.”

  My breath was coming in big shaky chunks. Because it’s true - if you don’t invest anything, if you shelter yourself from the world and other people, then you’ve got nothing to lose. You are nothing but alone. I’ve been there and done that, and the view is really no hell.

  Maybe it was time to make the trust club a little less exclusive than it had been to date. Maybe I didn’t have to think that I had to save the world - and defend mine - all by myself. I knew what I had to do, I knew that this was a safe place to put my trust, but still. Old habits die hard.

  “You know already that anything said among us goes no further,” Antonia added.

  “Absolutely,” Phyllis said with force.

  They were all watching me and not trying to hide that. They were the most honest and trustworthy group of people I’d ever had the good luck to know.

  And I’d never told them so.

  Antonia seemed to guess that I was on the verge. She eas
ed out of her chair in that catlike way she has and picked up the golden Godiva box. She offered it to me and smiled. “Take one for fortitude.”

  I picked a truffle and bit into it, meeting the steady gaze of each Ariadne in turn. “You’d better all take one. This is a helluva story.”

  They did and when the box was back on the table and the chewing was done, I took a deep breath and began. The first words were hard, and the ones I chose surprised me when they fell out of my mouth.

  Later I realized that they were exactly perfect. Maybe it was the only way I could have told the story.

  One thing was for sure - I had the best audience anyone could have hoped to have. That scene with the candles flickering and the ceiling out of view, me surrounded by seven women attentive and concerned, will always be etched in my mind.

  It was the night I told the Ariadne’s about James and Marcia and the baby and me.

  It was the night that I let the Ariadne’s really be my friends.

  * * *

  “Once upon a time, there were two sisters who looked exactly alike. Pearls fell from the mouth of one and frogs from the lips of the other…”

  You see how it is. Twos fare badly in the language stakes. Twosomes exist to draw attention to contrasts, to not only identify but to add a moral judgment of opposing ends of the spectrum. You can even look at the words themselves to see the truth of our bias:

  Bi-polar disorder. Double Trouble. Two-faced. Terrible twos. Double dealing. Two left feet. Two-timing. An odd couple. Two-time losers and two-bit lawyers, neither of which you want to date. A two-edged sword makes for a tough choice, with neither one a winner.

  Once bitten, twice shy.

  Duplicate: a copy of an original, the implication being that the copy is inferior by the very fact of not being the original. How else could duplicity mean deceptiveness?

  Duodenum, a particularly horrible place to get cancer. But then, I suppose there are few good places to get cancer. Perhaps there are places more successfully treated than others, but good and bad? It’s not that easy.

  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.”