One Brother Shy

by Terry Fallis

  “But Gold is off your plate now. You’ve done your time on it. It’s good to go,” she said.

  “That’s what I told her, but still she’s…”

  “I know, a whacked-out wing nut with several bolts loose, with a whole lot of venom looking for a home,” she interjected.

  “Right,” I agreed, and then made sure I was making eye contact. “Um, Abby, it meant a lot to me that you were there yesterday. Thank you. I mean it.”

  She smiled and put her hand on my arm.

  “It’s okay. That’s what you do for friends,” she replied. “I know you’d be there for me.”

  I hadn’t actually realized that we were friends. But I’m starting to get it now.

  “But more importantly right now, what’s your plan? In fact, why the firk are you even here, anyway? You’re supposed to be tracking down your twin bro. Come on. Get on it! The next time I see you, I want to see two of you.”

  Funny you ask. It seems I just found him.

  “Well, I just found him – my twin brother, I mean,” I said. “I found him.”

  I hadn’t planned on telling her. It just kind of happened in the moment. I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “Wait, you found him already?” she asked, her eyes assuming a cartoonish diameter.

  “I did.”

  “Shut the frank up!” she said in a voice better suited for saving ships from shoals.

  I jumped in my chair and, after landing, looked around furtively.

  “Sorry. Shut the frank up!” she whispered. “What are you talking about?”

  I leaned in closer to her.

  “I found him.”

  “Where is he? Ottawa? Toronto? Canada?”

  “London, England,” I replied.

  “England? But how did you find him?”

  I just pointed to the mock-up for the new Beta Gold branding pinned to my bulletin board. It took a few beats.

  “No fracking way! You didn’t!”

  I certainly fracking did.

  “I did.”

  “And it really worked? Show me. Show me!”

  I turned my MacBook Pro towards her and flipped back over to the Gold beta platform. My first simulated short-hair bathroom photo filled the screen.

  “Hmmm, I like the brushed-back shorter look. You should cut it that way,” she said.

  No way. Gabriel and I prefer longer hair. But thanks anyway.

  I just shook my head.

  “And you got a hit on this shot?” she asked, still looking at my photo.

  I just nodded.

  “Yeah, well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she urged. “Let’s see him. Come on! I’m dying here.”

  She was rubbing her hands together and had an almost gleeful look on her face. To heighten the impact of the moment, rather than showing her the listing of photo matches, which included lots of shots of the real me, I turned the computer so that only I could see the screen. I flipped back to YouTube and cued up Matt Paterson’s London keynote address. Then I handed Abby one earbud while I inserted the other in my own ear. This worked fine because we were so close together. I turned the screen towards her and started the video.

  It was interesting to watch her face when Matt appeared and started talking. It freaked her out a bit. She pushed her chair back and away from the screen, yanking the earbuds from both our ears.

  “No way! No way! This is not happening,” she said.

  Then she rolled back in close, took both earbuds for herself, and concentrated on Matt.

  “You’re messing with me. This is you, right? This is you before you became, you know, who you are now, right?”

  What do you mean before I became who I am now? Are we that different?

  “No. I’ve never been to London. I don’t do a lot of conference keynotes, as you might imagine.”

  She knew I was speaking the truth. She knew.

  “Other than the accent, you sound identical. You look identical, except he’s got way better hair. You could look like that,” she said. “It’s just so surreal looking at this. Oh, did you see what he just did with his right hand? Back it up. Stop. Go. Okay, right there. Did you see what he did?”

  Matt had just said something and emphasized it with a hand gesture that looked like he could have been cradling a small bird, but he wasn’t.

  “You do that! You do that when you’re making a point,” she said.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever done that,” I replied.

  “Trust me. You make that move. That’s your move. It’s the same move,” she insisted. “This is flarkin’ freakin’ me out.”

  I returned one earbud to my right ear, then I moved the cursor to the 5:42 mark of the YouTube video.

  “Listen,” I said.

  I played my twin brother’s three sentences for Abby, and then played them again. After the second time, I hit pause and said, in my own voice, but in Matt’s accent:

  “In this era, earning the social licence to build massive infrastructure projects is not just an option, not just recommended, not just preferred, it’s absolutely essential. Public engagement, scaled digitally, to secure social licence, has become the new corporate imperative. Ignore it at your financial and reputational peril.”

  Then she stared at me for quite a long time, apparently stunned.

  She signalled with her right hand. I understood and performed the lines a second time.

  If you don’t close your mouth soon, barn swallows just may nest in there.

  “I’m out of frickin’ words! That was amazing. You are amazing. Great accent. You and he are one and the same,” she said. “Okay, after that, I’m done. I’m all in.”

  We watched a few more videos and then I showed her the Innovatengage website with Matt’s photo and bio. She studied the photo intently, for quite a long time. Then she put her hand on my knee, shaking her head, still looking at Matt on the screen.

  “You never knew? Never knew anything about him? Nothing?”

  You think I’d spend half the night with Gold searching if I knew about him?

  “I had no idea. None.”

  Then she turned in her chair so we were face-on to one another. She took hold of my hands in hers. I looked down at our coupled hands. The cuff of her shirt had ridden up her wrist a bit, revealing on the inside of her right forearm a tattoo of what looked like a fountain pen. It was small but intricately detailed, and quite beautiful.

  “Look at me,” she instructed.

  I looked at her.

  “You really must find him,” she said. “I’m an only child. All I ever wanted was a sister. I still want one. You must go right now, and find him. Do you copy?”

  What do you think I’m going to do? I’m not an idiot. Well, not often. Of course I’m going to find him. What else is there to do?

  “I know. Yes, I copy. I’m going. That’s what I was just explaining to Simonesaurus Rex in her office.”

  “Wait, you told her about, you know, Matt?” she asked, looking a little hurt.

  Are you deranged? Of course not! In her current state, her head might have exploded.

  “No. No. I just told her it’s an important family matter related to my mother’s death.”

  Abby nodded in relief, still holding my hands.

  “You have to find him. I mean it.”

  “I know. I will,” I replied.

  “And you have to keep me in the loop every step of the way,” she said. “Wait, maybe I can come with. I have some vacay coming to me.”

  No way. I just found out we’re friends. Let me get used to that idea first.

  “I’m afraid you have to stay here in case UX or Design modifies anything on Gold that means changing some code or writing some new lines. You being here is the only way I can go,” I replied, tilting my head towards Simone’s office.

  “Okay, but you let me know where you are, and what’s going on. I’ve got a stake in this now that you’ve told me. I’m in this thing, right?”

  “Right. I’ll k
eep you updated, often, I promise,” I said.

  We sat there in silence still holding hands for a few seconds. It was kind of weird, but it was also kind of nice.

  “So, I was thinking of emailing Matt or calling him, you know, just as a first step. Maybe Skyping him?”

  She looked up in thought. I’ve noticed that’s what Abby does when she thinks. She looks up. Eventually, she looked back down at me and shook her head.

  “No. Don’t,” she said. “Think about it. It’s weird. Someone calls and says ‘I think I might be your identical twin brother.’ Or worse, puts it in an email. It’s a nonstop express ticket to a restraining order. Even Skype isn’t quite right. You’re too far away. He won’t believe you until he’s looking at you in the flesh, up close, until you’re standing right in front of him. You kind of need that element of surprise for him to believe it. So no calls, no emails, no letters, no texts, no Skype. You have to go to him, physically, in person. Methinks that’s the only way.”

  My thoughts exactly. Besides, I hate calling strangers on the phone, even if we were womb-mates for nine months, twenty-five years ago. On the other hand, I don’t exactly like meeting new people in person, either. But if he’s looking at me right in front of him, I think I’ll be okay.

  “Okay. That’s it then.”

  She released my hands. I was kind of sad when she did.

  I loaded my laptop into my backpack. On a whim, I slipped the Facetech Gold portable hard drive into my pack as well, breaking a boatload of company internal security rules. Then I nodded at Abby and left.

  As I drove home, I found myself steering the car towards Dr. Weaver’s office. Made sense. I needed to fill her in and let her know I’d be gone for a bit. It was just past 10:00 a.m. by that time. I knew Dr. Weaver didn’t start seeing patients until 10:30, so I took a chance.

  Her waiting room was open and empty when I arrived. She’d heard the door and came out of her office.

  “Alex? I don’t have you down for this morning,” she said. “Again, I’m so sorry about your mother. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m okay, but I do have some rather shocking news, and since you’re kind of in charge of my mental stability, I thought you should know about it.”

  She waved me into her office.

  “We’ve got a bit of time before my first patient.”

  It took me only fifteen minutes to lay it all out for her. Having explained the story to Abby, I was more efficient when telling Wendy Weaver. I trotted out the safety deposit box photo. I showed her the facial recognition software on my computer. Then I played her Matt’s keynote YouTube video and mimicked the three lines as I had with Abby. Wendy didn’t need any more convincing.

  “Truly extraordinary. There can really be no doubt. I don’t know what to say. I’m flabbergasted,” she said. “I know now is not the time to talk about this, but you’re so good with accents. I really think we should revisit the theatre therapy idea we’ve been discussing.”

  “Yes, we can do that later. But I have a higher priority right now.”

  “You mean, meeting Matt Paterson?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t you think you should take some time to think this all through, to consider all the options, and only after that make a decision about next steps? I can barely get my head wrapped around what you’ve just told me. It must be even more shocking for you. Why not take your time, be cautious, and not rush into any decisions?”

  “I know that sounds sensible, and it probably is sensible, but I think my course is clear. Yes, I know this only happened about four hours ago, but I actually feel quite calm now, and I think I know what I have to do.”

  “Alex, I don’t want to rain on your parade or trample your enthusiasm, but sometimes these reunions don’t play out as expected,” she cautioned.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you saying I shouldn’t pursue it, pursue him?”

  “No, no, of course not. I’m just suggesting you contain your expectations. It’ll be a shock to your brother if he doesn’t already know.”

  “What do you mean ‘if he doesn’t already know’? How could he know about me and not try to find me? Come to think of it, if he’s like almost everyone else in the world, he’s probably already seen me in my big moment. He just didn’t know who I was.”

  “Well, let’s just think it through a bit. There are a few possibilities,” Dr. Weaver explained. “Maybe he knows, tried to find you, failed, and gave up looking. Or maybe he knows but is scared, or just doesn’t want the cataclysmic upheaval in his life.”

  “No, I don’t think so. That really doesn’t sound likely to me. I’m pretty sure he has no idea he has an identical twin living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.”

  “You may well be right. Okay, you’re probably right. But just prepare yourself for the full range of reactions you might get when and if you meet Matt Paterson.”

  We talked for another ten minutes until we heard the waiting room door open. It was time to go.

  When I got home, I spent the rest of the day making arrangements. It really is amazing what you can accomplish on the Internet. I had two calls that afternoon from Abby pining for updates. I told her everything that had happened since leaving the office. It didn’t take long. I found it easier to talk with her over the phone, but I kind of missed her habit of touching me on my arm or hand or knee when we talked. I didn’t read much into her tactile approach. I’d seen her do the same thing with other colleagues at the office, and even with Malaya when we’d dropped her off after the interment ceremony. Still, it was nice. She said Simone had been locked in her office most of the day dealing with something that may or may not have been related to the Gold beta launch.

  Speaking of the Gold beta, I plugged in the portable hard drive again and opened the program. Another idea had just hit me. The software had already worked once for me that day, maybe it would work a second time on a different target. I started by going to YouTube and typing a single word in the search bar. I clicked on the first video that came up. I knew it well – painfully well. I moved the time cursor along to the 11:38 mark and then froze the frame. Using a few keystrokes and my mouse, I put a virtual border around the pixelated face of a young woman in a red dress, seated in a crowd. My computer made the familiar camera-clicking sound to signal I’d just taken a screen shot from the video. It was not a good photo. Quite blurry, actually. But it was the best I could get. The video was shot long before the days of high-definition home video cameras. Besides, the young woman was not really in focus to begin with. After all, she was not the star of the video. She was just part of the background. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth trying.

  I loaded the photo into Facetech Gold as my “base face” and hit the big green Start button. As it had many times already that day, my heart started beating faster in anticipation of the results. In less than ten seconds, the “Base Face Failure” error message flashed on the screen. Shit. The shot I’d lifted from the video was just too blurry for the software to work. The nodal point measurements simply could not be made. I tried again with the same result. Oh well, one missing-person search at a time.

  An hour later, I was all set. I was nervous, perhaps even terrified, yet knew I was doing the right thing for the right reasons. I hadn’t felt this confident about anything for quite some time. I went to bed around midnight, but just lay there for a while watching more videos of Matt on my iPad. I couldn’t really stop. I woke up at 3:09 a.m. in the grip of a vivid dream. Simone Ashe had been choking me, her hands working my neck at full throttle. Awake in a sweat, I found my iPad resting on my neck and pressing up against my throat. I pushed it aside to permit normal respiration, and in that instant was struck by a terrible thought. I leapt out of bed and searched our apartment – my apartment – from stem to stern.

  It had taken me about an hour and three-quarters to find my twin brother. But I found him. It took me two hours and seven minutes to find my passport. But I found it. Then I slept.


  I heard them all gasp below in unison, and then felt the currents and eddies of their simultaneous exhalations wash over me.

  CHAPTER 6

  I landed at Heathrow Monday morning. It was drizzling. Though I’d never ventured across the ocean, my mental image of England always featured grey skies and rain. It was no longer just a mental image. I was nervous at passport control though I need not have been, because I passed through without incident. When the officer asked the purpose of my visit, I kept it short and sweet but one hundred per cent true. “Visiting family” was all I said. She welcomed me and waved me on.

  I didn’t sleep much on the flight. The man seated next to me made sure of that. He slept the whole way but snored to beat the band. And I don’t use “beat the band” as just a metaphor. I tried listening to a Rolling Stones concert available on one of the in-flight audio channels, but the snoring juggernaut next to me drowned out Mick and the boys – and that was quite an achievement. I tried reading a book but that didn’t work. I tried watching a movie. No dice. So I reclined my seat, closed my eyes, and just thought about the preceding several days. It had been less than a week since my mother had died. Man, how the world could change in such a short time.

  I was convinced my mother had been about to tell me about Matt. If she had not been so fatigued that last night, she would have told me. I was sure of it. How else could you explain the envelope in my name and the key inside? But why had she not told me earlier in my life, say, when I was ten, or fourteen, or seventeen, or twenty? Perhaps she was ashamed about giving up Matt as a newborn, if that’s what happened. Perhaps with each passing year, the thought of explaining it all to me – that I had an identical twin brother – became too heavy, the burden too great. The accumulation of time? The accumulation of guilt? Of shame? Who knew? But she’d given me all the pieces. Now I just had to put my family back together again.

  It may not come as a shock that London Bridge Hotel is located near the south end of the famous bridge that spans the Thames in the heart of London. (I was able to confirm that contrary to popular belief, London Bridge is actually not falling down.) I arrived around 10:00 a.m. An attractive young woman checked me in, smiling the entire time. I was lucky my room was ready, given that it was not even lunchtime. We’d just about finished the paperwork when I remembered.