Switcheroo

by Olivia Goldsmith

  It took a little while. She heard some noise inside, a shuffling and a rattling. She knocked again gently. “Who is it?” a voice called out at last.

  “The exterminator,” Sylvie replied in a husky voice, and she didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt about the lie. It wasn’t a lie. She felt ready to rub out this insect.

  The door opened and a woman stood behind it, obscured by the comparative darkness of the living room. “I didn’t call for you,” M. Molensky—if she was M. Molensky—said. “Life is sacred. I don’t want to harm living things. I mean, since my stepdaddy died, one of those bugs could be him. I want him to live as a bug.”

  Sylvie pushed her aside and stepped into the shaded interior. “Actually, I’m Mrs. Schiffer and I’m looking for a rat. Does the name ring a bell?” It must have because M. Molensky retreated behind the door.

  “You’re married to Bobby?” M. Molensky asked from her spot in back of the door. “And you’re an exterminator?”

  Was she kidding? “Yes and no,” Sylvie told her. M. Molensky was holding the knob so Sylvie couldn’t pull it away. “It was a ploy so we could talk and then I could kill you. Or him.”

  “I didn’t know he was married,” the girl whined. “Ignorance is nine tenths of the law.”

  “No. That’s possession,” Sylvie corrected.

  “I don’t have any drugs here. Not even grass!” the girl protested. Then she stepped from behind the door, though she was still in its shadow. All Sylvie could see was that she was wearing a tiny robe in some cheesy material that clung. It was white with little roses on it and showed a lot of leg. Sylvie could see her legs were good, even though her feet were stuffed into big terry cloth slippers. M. Molensky took a step and then another out of the comparative darkness of the corner by the door. Then Sylvie saw her face, while the girl, for the first time, lifted her head up and looked directly at Sylvie. For a long moment they stared at each other, face to face.

  “My god!” Sylvie gasped. She was staring at her own face—but not. It was her face as it had looked a decade ago. The same wide forehead, the same even brows, the same blue eyes—though M. Molensky’s might be a slightly darker blue. But the shape was the same. The only real difference was the ten years of wrinkles missing on the girl’s face. Sylvie stared at M. Molensky’s nose. It was Sylvie’s nose, straight and long, narrowing just a little in the middle before the nostrils flared. But again, though the nose replicated her own, the girl was missing the lines that, on Sylvie’s own face, ran from the outside of each nostril to the outside of her mouth. “Marionette lines” Sylvie suddenly remembered they were called.

  And their mouths! Sylvie felt hers pucker into an O of surprise as she watched M. Molensky’s do the same. It was the eeriest feeling Sylvie had ever experienced, like watching herself in a mirror—but a mirror from ten years ago. They stared at one another, wordless and horrified. M. Molensky was seeing what she would become, and Sylvie was seeing what she had been. Sylvie stared at the girl’s chin. Yes, she had once had a jaw that taut, a chin that smooth. It hadn’t been so long ago. But time and gravity had softened everything. Instinctively, Sylvie moved her hands to either side of her face and, resting them against her cheeks and temples, she stretched the sagging skin up, giving herself a momentary face-lift. At the same time, her twin opposite raised her own hands and dragged her eyes and cheeks down. Bob, his betrayal, and her rage flew out of Sylvie’s mind. All she could see was the work of Father Time. She looked not at what she had, but at what she had lost.

  The younger woman’s eyes mirrored her own horror. In their blue depths Sylvie could see a fear as acute as the one she was experiencing. Why? Here was a girl who still has her youth and beauty. A girl, Sylvie suddenly remembered, who also has my husband, at least part-time. Yet, looking at her, it was obvious that she was as shocked and horrified as Sylvie. “I looked like you once,” Sylvie whispered. “Just like you.”

  “And I’m going to look just like you,” the girl whispered back and, letting go of her face, she burst into tears. She threw herself onto a chair and after a minute or two gestured that Sylvie should also sit down. Since Sylvie’s legs were shaking, it seemed like a good idea. “Momma always said each of us had a twin somewhere in the world,” the girl said, sobbing. “Then she used to say she hoped mine had more brains than I did.” She looked up, wiping her eyes. “I’ll bet you went to college,” she said, resentment in her voice. Sylvie nodded. “See? I have these kind of psychic feelings about those things. I’ll bet you finished. And you’re a Pisces.”

  “Right on the first, wrong on the second,” Sylvie answered automatically, still staring at her doppleganger, sprawled in the chair across from her. “I’m a Virgo.”

  “That would have been my next guess,” the girl assured her, nodding her mane of blonde hair. “Anyway, you probably have Pisces rising.” She had more hair than Sylvie, and it was very blonde. Was it natural? Sylvie wondered. But the face…it was just unbelievable.

  The girl, meanwhile, was staring at her. Sylvie didn’t have to be a psychic to know what she felt or the tragedy that all women experience. Sylvie realized that her feelings of loss were decimating, but this girl’s feelings of dread were just as acute. We’re in a no-win in our relationship with old Father Time, Sylvie thought. And it was no accident that he was a man. A mother wouldn’t treat her daughters like this.

  Finally the girl stood up, turned her back, and walked through the room. Sylvie followed her, peeking at the apartment of a mistress. There was a little too much pink, too many knickknacks and figurines, not enough real furniture—a brown carton served as an end table—but there were two dozen long-stemmed roses in a vase. They made Sylvie wince. Meanwhile, the girl had disappeared down a short hallway. Sylvie followed her through the bedroom—the bedroom, Sylvie reminded herself, where her husband had cheated on her—and into the bathroom. M. Molensky was staring into the mirror, her face again pulled down, aged by her hands.

  Sylvie stood beside her. “The wrinkles just crept in, like an invisible hand that wiped across my face,” she said. “One day I stopped squinting when I looked in the mirror and saw what was really there.” She looked at the young woman’s perfect, dewy skin. “What moisturizer do you use?”

  “Quince cream and super-blue algae. I swear by it.” She reached for two jars and held them up.

  “I used to…I used to look in the mirror at you,” Sylvie said quietly.

  “And someday…someday I’ll be looking at…,” the girl continued softly, but glanced away and didn’t finish the sentence.

  Sylvie turned from the mirror and looked directly at her rival. The light here was strong and white. Everything was mercilessly exposed. The two women circled each other, getting closer and closer. They studied each other’s faces: eyes, wrinkles, skin, hair texture. Everything. The most important thing on their minds was this incredible twinship, how much they looked alike. Bob had been pushed right out of Sylvie’s head for the moment. Then, “Did he tell you we were doubles?” Sylvie asked.

  “No. He said I was one of a kind,” the girl wailed. “This is really spooking me out.”

  “I bet he doesn’t even see it.”

  “I bet you’re right. I know all about this because it’s my own personal nightmare. But backward. You know, sometimes your dreams can tell you what your future is. Like my cousin Ray, he used to have this dream about a chain saw. And he would have it, like, all the time. And in the dream he’d cut off his leg with the chain saw.”

  “And did he?” Sylvie asked, fascinated but revolted.

  “No,” M. Molensky admitted. “He just wouldn’t go near chain saws. I guess because of the dreams. It was kind of like a phobia with him. But I’ll bet if he did, he would have cut his leg off. Anyway, I’ve got this kind of, like, phobia too.”

  “You’re afraid of chain saws?” Sylvie asked.

  “No. That was my cousin. I’m always scared a man is going to discard me for somebody newer and shinier. I call it the J
ohn Derek syndrome.”

  Sylvie was dizzy, both with the shock and the endless spirals of this girl’s logic, or lack of it. “I thought he was an old actor, not a syndrome,” she said.

  “He’s both. Remember how he started with Ursula Andress, then traded her in for that…you know. The one with the shoulder pads…the one with the Greek boyfriend who won’t marry her…”

  “Linda Evans?” Sylvie asked.

  “Yeah! Anyway, she looked just like Ursula. And then he wound up with Ten. Afro braids. You know, Bo. They’re all the same, only younger and younger. Clint Eastwood’s women all looked just alike: that freckled, sandy-haired thing, till this wife. Not even pretty. Johnny Carson did it, too. Remember? They even had the same name: Joanna, Joanne, Joan, Joanna, Joanna.” She paused and lowered her voice. “My theory is he did that because he was scared he’d yell out the wrong name in the middle of the night.”

  “But this isn’t Hollywood, it’s Shaker Heights,” Sylvie protested.

  “Hey, it’s an epidemic all over the country! Trump did it in New York. Marla for Ivana. And now I hear he’s got an even younger one. She looks just the same.”

  Sylvie was dumbfounded. The girl’s looks, her stream of consciousness conversation, the strange surroundings all seemed surreal. Next she’d see a melting clock. “Where did you come from?” Sylvie asked.

  “The sky…I’m a stewardess. I mean, a flight attendant. I met Bobby on a flight.”

  She remembered her anger. “Bobby! He lets you call him Bobby?” Sylvie asked, outraged.

  The girl ignored her question. “I really didn’t know he was married.”

  “Yeah. Like you asked,” Sylvie retorted bitterly.

  “…he didn’t even have a wedding band tan line,” M. Molensky said, trying to explain. “Don’t ask. Don’t tell. That was my motto even before the army stole it from me.”

  Sylvie couldn’t help but take a good look at the way this little piece of work was put together. She might be an inch or two taller than Sylvie, or perhaps it was just her willowy thinness that gave the illusion of it. And that hair! “I’ll bet you were a cheerleader,” Sylvie, jealous, said accusingly.

  “Do you have psychic tendencies too?” M. Molensky asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you’re close. I was a majorette,” she said proudly.

  “What’s the difference?” Sylvie snapped back.

  “Hey, there’s a big one, especially in the uniforms…sometimes I like to dress in uniforms,” M. Molensky admitted.

  “Oh, I’m sure you do. And what do you do, then? Play sex games with my husband? You know, like The Pilot and The Stewardess.”

  “Actually, he prefers—”

  Sylvie raised her hand, arm extended, palm facing the girl, before she could hear more. “Talk to the fist,” she said, clenching her hand. She didn’t want to know details, at least not now. “So this isn’t the first time that you were involved with somebody else’s husband?” Sylvie asked, her voice turning bitter. “Don’t you know how wrong adultery is?”

  “I don’t commit adultery!” M. Molensky said defensively. “I’m not even married.”

  “Don’t you think about the women who are? The ones married to the Bobbys?” Sylvie demanded. “How what you do makes other women suffer?”

  “No.”

  “It never occurred to you that you were making somebody’s wife suffer?” Sylvie asked, her voice raised high in disbelief.

  “You think I don’t suffer? Like I don’t spend Christmas and Valentine’s Day alone? Like I don’t always get my presents from Bobby late?”

  “Presents?” Sylvie shrieked. “Presents?” She refrained from smacking the girl, but it took all her willpower. Instead, she reached toward the mirror and, desperate to express her fury, she smeared M. Molensky’s image with a handful of the quince cream. M. Molensky’s eyes opened wide. (Sylvie couldn’t help but notice they didn’t have a single crow’s-foot.)Then, in retaliation, M. Molensky smeared over Sylvie’s reflected face in the mirror. Images blurred with the grease, they turned to face one another directly.

  “You’re the lucky one, you know,” the girl said. “I don’t have the comfort or security of a legalized relationship. And that’s because I don’t have anyone in this whole wide world to count on.”

  “What about your family?”

  The girl walked away from Sylvie. “What family? My mother left me on Santa Claus’s lap when I was four.” She shrugged. “Well, sometimes I do write to my brother, but he’s not great at answering. He’s probably real busy at the rehab.” Her tone sounded happier as she told her woes; then she continued, “So, as you can see, I’m the karmic victim here.”

  “No, I’m the victim. How can you talk about karma? You’re stealing my husband.”

  There was total quiet as the two women stared at each other.

  “It’s probably because of something you’ve done in your previous life. Like, I grew up in Presidential Estates Trailer Court probably because of being a Chinese empress in a previous life.”

  What? The girl made no sense. “You sure you weren’t a concubine?” Sylvie asked bitterly.

  “I don’t think you can be reincarnated as a vegetable,” M. Molensky said matter-of-factly. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you. Can’t we work something out? Like with kids. Joint custody. I could get him a couple of nights a week and vacations.”

  “Vacations!” Sylvie yelped and thought of Hawaii. “You’re not going anywhere with my husband! And…and…neither am I,” she admitted.

  “Oh yeah?…Well, Bobby asked me to go to Mexico.”

  Sylvie stopped dead, absolutely stunned. If that were true, her mother was wrong. This wasn’t just some bimbo who could be bought off. It wasn’t just sex if Bob was willing to travel with her. “He wanted to take you to Mexico?” Sylvie asked, then turned away and walked to the window, her back to the girl to prevent her from seeing this agony. She stood silent, hurt at her core. If she moved, she felt she’d crack.

  Sylvie felt a hand on her shoulder. “It was only because we went to this Flaming Fajitas restaurant,” the girl said, her voice soft. Her sympathy was worse to Sylvie than anything yet. “It was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” she continued. “I don’t think he was really serious about going. I mean, I’ve never seen tickets or reservations. And say, hey! Who wants to lay out in the sun and ruin their skin?”

  Sylvie went to the mirror and tried to see herself more clearly but her reflection was obscured by the quince cream. It made her look misty, à la Katharine Hepburn shot through Vaseline in the 1960s. In the smear beside her the girl looked misty too, not that she needed a filter. “I hope I looked as good as you do when I was your age,” Sylvie said.

  “I’m sure you did. I can’t believe how nice you are! Once before I was accidentally with someone’s husband and she came over and broke all my lamps.”

  They turned away from the mirror and looked at one another.

  The girl still stuck out her hand to shake. “By the way, I’m Marla.”

  Sylvia recoiled. “Marla? As in…”

  “Yeah. I used to love the name. But then she got dumped.” This Marla heaved a deep sigh.

  “I’m Sylvie.” Sylvie extended her hand. Marla took it. There was a moment of real bonding between them—until Sylvie focused on another vase of roses.

  “Are those also from…?”

  “I’d rather not say,” Marla admitted.

  All at once it was way too much. “I want to be the one who gets the roses!” Sylvie cried out. “And I want him to romance me. I want to be treated like a…” She paused. “Like you.”

  “Well, I wanna be you!” Marla said. “You think it’s easy, holding in my belly pooch forever? Ever since I was born I’ve wanted to be a wife.”

  “Oh, really? You’re looking at a wife. Does this look like a happy person to you?”

  “No,” Marla admitted.

  “When you’re married, you don’t even get
kissed on the mouth!”

  “When you’re single, you have to smell good twenty-four hours a day,” Marla retorted.

  She was infuriating. Sylvie suddenly realized why she had come here in the first place. “I want you to stop seeing him,” she demanded.

  “Try and make me,” Marla said, sounding half her age. Sylvie wondered for a moment what that would make her. Fourteen? Sixteen? “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “No, but I can tell Bob that this affair is over.” Sylvie saw the fear rise in the girl’s eyes. She pressed her advantage. “Do you think he’s going to give up his children? Do you think he’s going to give up the house? And his job?” Sylvie narrowed her eyes. “My father still owns the car lot. If he’s fired…well, men his age end up working part-time in the Wal-Mart automotive supply department. Without medical insurance. And, believe me, with his cholesterol, he’s going to need medical soon enough.”

  “He’ll stay with me,” Marla said, though she not only looked frightened, she sounded it. “He loves me. He’d give up everything. You just don’t remember what that feels like.”

  Tears sprang to Sylvie’s eyes. The blow was so dirty that she almost backed down, but then her anger welled up. She could fight dirty too. “You think so, huh? I’ll tell him you said that. I’ll tell him you called me. That you told me I had to give him up.” Sylvie put on an exaggerated sad face. “I’ll be distraught and fragile and so, so hurt. You’ll be the one who looks like the demanding witch.”

  Marla’s eyes opened wide. “But you came to me!” she gasped.

  “That’s what you say,” Sylvie sneered. “Who do you think he’s going to believe? His innocent wife of almost twenty-one years or a woman who has slept around?”