The fact that all my flat mates were out made my evening suddenly lonely. To fill in the downtime, I tried working on some of the designs for my project. The pending Skype call had me rather distracted, but I still did my best to cut, sew, and draw, even though I’d have to start everything all over again, because I was not concentrating at my best. Time passed extremely slowly. Every time I looked at the clock, only a few minutes had gone by. A few hours more to wait . . . fine . . . totally fine . . . I was fine . . . yes . . . fine . . .
So many questions were racing through my head. I guess I was mentally jumping for joy, because physically my body was warring between petrified and soft as a mollusk. I was eager to see if Samantha and I were alike for real, and if she could be my real sister, or if I had just dreamt it and wished for it too strongly. When I had seen her in her YouTube videos, I had started building a personality for her based on all her acting personas. I was also creating a character for her based on my own personality. We are twins, after all. It was like a dance of contradictions, salsa or a waltz—you put a foot forward and take it back, then you turn, but in the end, you stay in the loop.
Everything I was thinking, I was almost immediately taking back. She must be like me personality-wise—wait, no, this is stupid, you don’t even know if you are identical, or twins. Maybe you fantasized it. No, I did not. I will check on Facebook if she still exists. We were identical babies. Come on, have you seen our pictures? No. I am being schizophrenic. Oh, no, wait, she is real. Her Facebook is still there. Phew. Breathe. Okay. What time is it? It is two minutes later. Great . . . She was definitely small, as she had asserted in one of her videos, and I was really small, so that was a match. . . .
I had no idea what the Skype call would be like. I had agreed to let Samantha tape it, knowing she wanted to show it to her family. How long would the conversation last? How long would she want it to last? Was she as excited as I? Or was she just being polite with me? Will she be alone? Will she be interested in me? Maybe she will not like me . . . but if she’s my twin sister, she has to like me, because I already like her, even though I do not know her. Can I make a joke, or is it too soon? I should have made a list of subjects and organized them in the order of significance. Maybe she will be like a superstar actor and talk only about herself? What if she is a bitch? Nah, I am not one, so . . . But we are different people, and twins can be different. Will she think I am crazy? Will she be dramatic? Actors can be very dramatic, right?
Finally, at 12:29 a.m., two and a half hours after our scheduled call time, Samantha sent me a Facebook message that she was about to log on. Seconds later, I heard the little boink sound Skype makes when someone on your contacts list logs on . . . without a doubt, Samantha.
“EEEEE,” she typed in the message box.
Right, I thought, she is as crazy as I am. And, she likes to use onomatopoeia like me, too. She is quintupling her letters. She is anxious, and I have proof on my screen. These quick observations made me feel much more comfortable. This was going to be great. Argh . . . trouble with my Internet. Five, four, three, two, one. I was hugely relieved when I heard tuti du titu di tu di, the sound of a Skype call ringing!
Why is my Internet connection so slow?! It was definitely not working at normal speed. Maybe it was because Samantha was calling from L.A., so many time zones away. Something was coming into focus on my screen. I SEE MYSELF PIXELIZED! It was unbelievable. It was me, but wearing a white lacy blouse with short sleeves! Even pixelated, we look so identical. Wait, she is moving. Wait, she looks so nice. She is smiling. She looks happy. Oh, she is giggling. And so am I. I can’t believe it. This is really it. We are reunited!
Houston, I hear something! She is about to speak! Who will talk first? My Internet connection was failing me at the worst time ever. Just when I thought it was going to cut off completely, it stabilized. Thank God. I was about to start my end of the conversation with a swear word, which I wasn’t sure was appropriate. Although I’d soon find out anything goes with Samantha. We are very similar in our liberal use of cuss words.
“My connection is really bad,” I finally told Sam, making me the first to speak.
“Oh, my God, you’re European!” I heard her squeal.
I could even see her bringing both her hands to her face in disbelief. I guess my accent caught her off guard. And we both broke into giggles. I knew I was French, but it was funny to hear myself referred to as “European.”
The first few minutes of the call were surreal. I felt like I was floating on a cloud, like time had frozen around me, around us. Time and space did not matter anymore, because we were on opposite sides of the earth, talking at the same time. In the first moments, we were even talking in different languages. When Samantha asked me, “How’s it going?” I answered in French! “Ça va” came out without me even thinking about it. “This is a really weird experience,” I said.
“It’s sooooo weird,” Sam agreed, and we started giggling again. Our answers were almost time-delayed, because we were paralyzed in looking at each other. Sometimes I felt self-conscious, like I was talking to myself in the mirror and someone walked in on me while I was doing so. I was so blown away, it was difficult to remember all of the questions I had for her. Seeing her made me forget everything. On the other hand, I didn’t struggle for something to say, like I had feared. The conversation just went naturally, one question after the other. It made sense. We were talking like two people who knew each other and enjoyed spending time together. It was like building a relationship in an accelerated amount of time. From the outside, it could have looked like a video in fast-forward, but for me, time was suspended. I never wanted this Skype call to end. Never!
“I know this is really strange. I don’t know where to look,” I said to Sam, feeling awkward about looking directly at her.
“OMG!” I heard Sam exclaim. “This is so weird. We’re like The Parent Trap!”
“I know,” I giggled.
“What time is it there?”
“It’s midnight thirty,” I told her. “Yeah, it’s daylight for you, and it’s completely night here.”
We went through all kind of subjects—jobs, studies, life, childhood, boyfriends, how I had found her, tattoos (What? Who has a tattoo?), medical information, surgeries, freckles, small hands, food tastes, etc. I’d gone into the call completely exhausted from the long days I had been spending on my designs, but now, I was suddenly energized. I did not want to go to bed for fear Samantha might disappear, or that it would turn out that this was a dream and when I woke up, she’d be gone. On a funny note, I had to go to the loo badly, but I was fighting as hard as I could to hold it, because I could not detach my eyes from her. I will never let her go, I thought.
At some point, my flat mate Rory came home, at almost the same time as Samantha’s roommate Lisa. Rory was a bit embarrassed to be disturbing us, his mouth wide-open as he realized Samantha was on my screen. He tiptoed into the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and then tiptoed back to his room, trying not to be noticed. On Sam’s screen, I caught a glimpse of Lisa in the background. She even talked to me for a bit. Sam’s room looked nice, too, but a bit messy. My room wasn’t all that tidy, either. I liked her taste in fashion, too. Her blouse was something I would probably wear in the summer. Then I remembered, even though it was February, it was always summer in L.A. I was so satisfied that I could now picture her much more precisely.
Well, we had to hang up eventually. Sam was going to meet a friend, so we had to end our call. She said she had a headache and was feeling overwhelmed and tired, and I was drained, too. I had completely lost track of time, so I thought it was really cool that we had talked for ninety minutes . . . wait . . . more than three hours? I really had lost track of time. I had had an easier time talking with Samantha for three straight hours than I often had talking with friends I knew well. We reluctantly said our good-byes but promised to talk again the next day. I went glidi
ng and sliding into my bed, all emotions gone from my body. As much as I wanted to share this experience with my parents, it was almost four a.m., so it would have to wait for morning.
So much was happening in such a short time, eliciting all sorts of new emotions I had never felt before. I couldn’t even describe them, but my life had just changed, and any fear I had of not being able to make a connection with this stranger disappeared. There was no reason to be scared anymore; even though I didn’t have absolute proof, I had found my sister.
I had no idea what would happen next, but I felt I had just reached a huge turning point and was waiting to see how the elements would come together. My world was completely turned upside down. I had no landmarks, and I had just talked to my possible twin sister, at the other end of the planet. It was almost the next day in London, and she still had an afternoon to go through. Time and space did not exist. We were not just connected electronically anymore; we were humanly connected now. We had just proven to one another that we were each real, existing and breathing, moving around the same dimension and not living in parallel worlds at all. What was she doing next? Where would she go now? What would she eat? How was she feeling about all this?
At least now I knew I was not dreaming. As I let myself fall onto my bed, I was thinking . . . Right . . . so I am definitely not schizophrenic . . . I pinched myself a few times to be certain I was not fooling myself. I was sinking into my bed and was waiting for something to happen, my body to charge, my brain to load. It was like a video game . . . LOADING . . . you have just refilled your lives and are ready for the next level. Talking to Sam was like talking to someone you had just fallen in love with. After just three hours, I knew I loved her already.
8
SAM
faster than the speed of wi-fi
Seeing Anaïs on Skype was unreal. I mean, we had to be twins. I had never seen anyone who looked even remotely like me, let alone my exact mirror reflection. She had my laugh, my freckles, and that profile. When she turned to the side during that first Skype conversation, I was blown away. I stopped for a second and freaked out inside.
But what if we weren’t sisters? What would that mean? Would it mean that dinosaurs really walked the earth with Jesus? I mean, that’s how crazy it felt, right?! There was no way we weren’t related. But I guess there are no guarantees in life.
If we were sisters, then maybe Anaïs would have medical issues similar to mine. Maybe she would know where her freckles came from, and her dry skin, and her eczema! What if she was lactose intolerant?
Being adopted and being asked to fill out a medical history form at the doctor’s office was always sad in a way. I’d come to the part of the sheet that asked if I had any family members with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc., and I would draw a big cross on the section and write “N/A.” I had no medical history. I didn’t know if my mother had or has had breast cancer, or lung cancer, or sensitive skin, which meant I didn’t know to watch out for these things. I could never be prepared, and it made me a hypochondriac. Every time something was remotely wrong, I’d assume the worst . . . I’m dying. Then I’d go on the Internet and type in my symptoms, and it was confirmed. Instant death. It was so ridiculous. These websites were crazy. Headache? Check. Sore throat? Check. Stomachache? Check. Rash? Maybe.
Perhaps now I would finally have a medical history, or at least have someone to share my hypochondria with. It turned out that Anaïs and I had experienced very similar nerve disorders at around the same age. For me, it was during the fall of 2011, pretty soon after I moved to California, and I thought I was dying! For a time, I had phantom pains in my right foot, which was thought to be nerve damage in my leg. After much testing, it turned out to be nothing, just my nerves sending mixed signals to my body, which translated into pain. My body wanting attention—rude. Anaïs also had phantom pains, except hers were in her back and neck. The only conclusion to reasonably come to is that we are both insane.
Our Skype call really got us thinking about our similarities. Over the next few nights, I couldn’t wait for our calls to take place again. I was becoming an Anaïs Bordier addict—I couldn’t get enough of her, and I was getting the feeling that she couldn’t get enough of me, either. I guess you could say that we were becoming self-obsessed. All I did was talk about her to all my friends, which luckily didn’t seem to bore them, and I wouldn’t have cared if it had. Anaïs was my new focus in life, and thankfully everyone around me seemed to be just as excited.
Being in Hollywood, of course, meant that I got bombarded with suggestions of how to turn our story into a moneymaker. From the moment I first heard from Anaïs and told people that I might be a twin, my friends and agents started thinking, project! That first night, at my premiere of 21 & Over, all I heard was, “We gotta make a movie. WE GOTTA MAKE A MOVIE!” That kind of chatter almost overpowered the incredible event that was happening in my life! “You should record it, if you talk to her!” someone said. “Don’t miss that! You should record it!” said another. I wanted everyone to SHUSH! I agreed that making a movie about it would be cool, if it turned out that we were twins, but for now, SHUSH! I was going through something crazy, something insanely wonderful, and I wanted to be present in the immediate moment of ecstasy, not planning a project.
My manager told me to delay talking to Anaïs. She had some things she wanted to think through before the call took place. I, on the other hand, wanted the event to be totally private, Anaïs and I alone. I didn’t want our moment to be corrupted or exploited by intrusions, especially not by the business that provided my livelihood.
On the other hand, when I thought about it, I imagined how cool it would be to have the moment recorded, even if it was just for personal use. When I asked permission from Anaïs, and she said it was okay, I downloaded a recorder. I am so glad I did, so relieved. In real time, the moment we first “saw” each other has no words; it was simply indescribable. But, having recorded it, I can watch that moment again and again, and I can share it with my friends and family.
In addition to taping the Skype call, my friends and I were floating the idea of making a documentary. I was still up in the air about whether or not we should commercialize the whole crazy happenstance. I know how ugly Hollywood can get. There are some really bizarre reality shows that do nothing but exploit their subjects, and I didn’t want that for Anaïs and me. I especially didn’t want to scare Anaïs away. I started weighing the pros and cons and soliciting everyone’s opinions about it. Should Anaïs and I make a movie? Should I just write a screenplay about it, but not make a documentary? Should I really film our interactions? What could we do with all the footage? How would the documentary look? Would it be like old pictures of us and memories of our childhoods? We didn’t even know for sure if we were twins. Finally, Anaïs and I decided to go forward with the documentary idea, although we’d proceed cautiously.
Deciding to do something like a documentary with someone you had never met was strange. Essentially, I was entering into a business plan with someone across the world in order to share our most intimate moments with anyone who would watch. I mean, that’s weird, right? Why on earth would Anaïs and I take an important moment like this, tarnish it with cameras and cameramen, and then release it to the world? Well, being an actress and being in the business, I was very aware that the events unfolding before me were completely extraordinary. Doing the documentary was also doing something creative and possibly even therapeutic at the same time, which was a huge upside. In a way, it was giving us a means to express and process the crazy information that had come out of nowhere. Not many people have something this insane happen in their lives.
We decided we wanted to do a full-length documentary rather than something shorter. We would start by filming our getting to know each other, which would be through our video blogs, video diaries, and Skype conversations. The film crew would then follow us as we made preparations to meet in person for the fi
rst time.
We really wanted to capture our families on film, too. As much as Anaïs and I had been through, our families were going through their own emotions. Our parents were still very fearful that we might end up with an unfathomable disappointment, but they were also excited, knowing how identical we looked, and how we shared the same birth date and birthplace. They had a lot of questions, but they were totally willing to believe we were related and had found each other. My parents were fully on board for a documentary. My mother had been around the business since I was a kid, so she didn’t mind the cameras, and my dad’s a ham. Anaïs’s dad was the most reluctant about the project. The Bordiers are very private people and not accustomed to Hollywood voyeurism. They didn’t say they would absolutely not participate, but they were not enthusiastic. Anaïs knew her father was just being protective. French culture is very good about keeping people’s private lives private, much different from the disrespect for privacy in the United States.
As soon as we gave the project the green light, I got to work finding a production crew. I had just filmed a movie in Hawaii with Justin Chon, Kevin Wu, and James Yi called Man-Up! The three of them had been with me when I first heard from Anaïs on premiere night, and now they wanted to be on board for this project. Kanoa wanted to join in, too. Justin would be our executive producer, and Kanoa, James, and I would be producing. My manager also came on board as a producer. James set up a $40,000 budget to cover the small crew’s trip to London—housing, flights, and food; postproduction costs; and the camera equipment. Now we had to raise the money. We all knew the level of excitement the story could attract, but that didn’t guarantee big sponsorship. We reached out to a few private investors and organizations, but we couldn’t find anything substantial, and the last thing I wanted was to sell our life rights to some Hollywood studio that would turn our amazing story into the Asian Parent Trap. If we were going to share our lives, I wanted us to do it right and make it authentic, not embellished and not from the perspective of a Hollywood producer with dollar signs in his eyes.
Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited Page 9