by Tamar Myers
I parked my jalopy in the shade of an enormous sugar maple. I unrolled the window two or three inches, but there was no need to lock it. Not that car.
“You be good for your mama,” I cooed to Dmitri. “And if I’m not back in twenty minutes unroll the window some more and fetch the cops.” Dmitri looked at me and then closed his eyes in contentment. He was purring loud as a lawnmower. Cream of liver pate definitely agreed with him.
I had to ring the doorbell three times before I got a response.
“Yes?”
On less than a handful of occasions in my life someone—always a complete stranger—has mistaken me for someone else. These confused souls claim to know, or have met, someone who looks exactly like me. I find this a preposterous claim, since anyone who looks exactly like me has to be my height, and all the females my height are in the fifth grade. I do not look like a fifth-grader!
The only difference between this woman and myself (that I could see) was that she was wearing a mint-green terry bathrobe and a matching towel around her head, whereas I had a test for mental stability imprinted on my buttocks in grease.
“Uh—uh,” I finally said.
My mirror image smiled. “I know, we look alike. Well, sort of. You want to come in?”
I nodded and was ushered into the same spartan room in which I’d sipped tea from a mason jar the day before. This was not déjà vu, nor was I dreaming. I pinched myself just to make sure.
“Ouch,” I said. Apparently my fall at the Mini-Mart had left me a tad bruised.
“Please, sit,” she said. I sat on the same walnut rocker. Even the needlepoint seat was the same, which confirmed the pinch test. My dreams may have scope, but they never have much detail.
“My name is Abigail Timberlake,” I said. “But you don’t seem very surprised to see me.”
“Oh, I am, all right, but you might say I was forewarned.” She stuck out her hand. “My name is Adrienne Wheeler.”
I shook it. I had the feeling that if I squeezed it too hard, I’d be the one wincing.
“You see,” she said, “my girlfriend Marsha in Bedford called and told me you were on the way.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She smiled and seated herself on the dinette chair. “Well, not to this address exactly, but to Hernia. Marsha works at the Mini-Mart.”
“Oh! Your spy.”
My counterpart laughed. “Marsha couldn’t believe her eyes. I was just about to step into the shower when she called. She wanted me to cruise around town looking for you. I told her that was silly. But Marsha has this theory that someday my sister and I will be reunited.”
A shiver ran up my spine. “Your sister?”
“My twin. We were separated shortly after birth. It was a custody thing. My dad got me, and my mom got her.”
“What is your sister’s name?”
She shrugged. “It was Gabrielle, but it could be anything now.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Harriet.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “My mother’s name is Mozella, and I look exactly like her—only younger, of course. And the only sibling I have is a brother. His name is Toy.”
“Did you say Toy? That’s very interesting because I once had a poodle I named Toy. Isn’t this exciting? It’s just like those studies on identical twins raised apart—you know, where their spouses and kids have the same names. Sometimes they even name their pets the same thing!”
“I didn’t name my brother, dear.” Trust me, I would done a better job. If he had been given a normal name like Robert or David, he wouldn’t be off in California parking cars and pretending to be an actor. Of course my parents didn’t mean to name him Toy either, but Troy. Troy Hayes Wiggins, to be exact. But the typist at the Rock Hill records department had sliced her left index finger peeling onions and depressing the “r” key immediately after the “t” key was just too painful. When the error was discovered everyone thought it was cute, at least while he was a baby. Unfortunately my brother has never outgrown his name.
My mirror image giggled. “My birthday is February ninth, when is yours?”
“September twenty-first. Listen, dear, I know there have been cases of twins born on separate days, even separate months, but this would have been a long pregnancy for our mother.”
She was undaunted. “What’s you favorite color?”
“Green,” I said. I was being flip. We were wasting time, which was the same as wasting money. Lots of nice green money.
“Oh, me too!” She leaned forward, propping her face on her hands, her elbows on her knees. She was unabashedly staring at me.
I rocked nervously. “Well, I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here—”
“Blonde,” she said emphatically.
“Excuse me?”
She whipped the towel off her head. Her hair was bleached a pale, straw yellow.
“You’d look better as a blonde, you know.”
I saw conclusively for the first time that I would not. “It doesn’t suit my skin tone, dear.”
“Oh piffle! It suits me fine.” She thrust an arm at me. “We have the same skin, don’t we?”
“Well, I—”
“Blondes really do have more fun. You really should try it.”
I promised to think about it.
“So, what can I do for you, Abigail?”
“I came to see Leona Teschel,” I said quickly. That woman could change subjects faster than a cornered teenager.
“Oh, Leona. Well, she isn’t here.”
“But she does live here, doesn’t she?”
Who knew that when I laughed my eyes crinkled? “Ha! That’s a good one. Leona Teschel living here!”
I didn’t like that sound of that. “Yesterday I sat on this very chair and sipped ice tea from a mason jar, dear. Leona lived here then.”
“My mason jars? I was growing my lab culture in them!”
I swallowed hard. “What lab culture?”
“I teach biology and home economics at Hernia High. I was trying to demonstrate the importance of sterilizing jars before canning. I wanted my students to see how much bacteria buildup there can be on what seems to be a clean surface.”
“Lord have mercy! How much is there?”
“You’d be surprised. But don’t worry, Abby—may I call you that?—because most of it is harmless. The healthy person should be able to handle it. But if those jars had been filled with food and the culture permitted to grow—well, have you heard of the Ebola virus?”
“Your twin sister is twenty years younger and her name is C. J.,” I snapped.
Her small face scrunched into a replica of a squeezed sponge. “What did you say?”
I made a vow to practice my emotional responses in a mirror as soon as possible. “I was just being silly, dear. But tell me, if you really are a teacher, then why aren’t you at school right now?”
It was interesting to watch myself blush. “Oh well, I may as well come right out and tell you. You see, we get ten paid sick days, and the since the school year’s almost over and I’ve used only three—well, you get the picture.”
“A picture of someone playing hooky?”
Her color deepened. “You won’t tell, will you?”
“Not if you tell me about Leona Teschel. You do know her, don’t you?”
“Of course I know her. What’s this about you being here with her yesterday?”
“I went to the cemetery for her son’s interment. She was there alone and needed a ride home. Here’s where she brought me.”
“No shit?”
Being the lady that I am, I flinched at her profanity. “This very place.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. She has her own key, of course, but the nerve of her!”
“So she owns this house?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t live here. She’s my landlady. I live alone—ever since my husband Buff moved out.”
I jiggled my right ear with my pinkie. “Di
d you say your husband’s name was Buff? Was that short for Buford by any chance?”
“No. The rat’s real name is Clarence. We call him Buff because he’s always working out.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The universe could barely handle another me. It for sure couldn’t take another Buf-ford.
“Financial problems?”
She waved at the empty room. “You mean that? Nah, he was just being greedy. The only thing he didn’t want was that old junked car out there that he was always planning to restore. No, it was just middle-age crisis, I guess. He traded me in for a younger model.”
“No kidding! The same thing happened to me.”
“Yeah, but I bet your replacement wasn’t named Canary.”
I nearly fell off my rocker. “Her name is Tweetie!”
We laughed so hard, I was beginning to wish that Adrienne really was my sister.
“So tell me,” I said finally, “why on earth would Leona Teschel bring me here and pretend this is her house? Doesn’t she have a place of her own?”
“Ha, I’ll say she does! She lives in the biggest house on Elm Street. I don’t remember the number offhand, but you can’t miss it. It’s one of those Victorian gingerbread things—you know, really fussy. Ugh. Now I’m sounding jealous, aren’t I?”
“Green is your favorite color, dear,” I said kindly.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t set my sights on living in a dump like this. But Hernia teachers get paid next to nothing, and—”
It was time to interrupt. “About Leona—does she make it a habit of letting herself into your house?”
Adrienne shuddered. “I sure as hell hope not. That woman gives me the creeps. She’s supposed to be blind, but I always get the sneaking suspicion that she can see me.”
“Well, for some reason she wanted me to think that she lived here.”
“What time was it?”
“Mid-afternoon. You might have walked in from school any minute. I guess she was taking a big risk, huh?”
“Not if she knew I was at track practice. I’m the girls’ track coach, too—no, it doesn’t pay any more—and we’re gearing up for our final meet of the year. The track practice schedule is published in the Hernia Gazette.”
“Hernia has a newspaper?”
“Don’t tell my journalism class that. I’ve spent all year holding that drivel up as an example of what not to write and how not to write it.”
“Remind me not to cross you, dear.”
She sighed. “Okay, I guess that’s not really a fair thing to say about a five-page bulletin of community events written by volunteers. They mean well.”
It was nice to know that my alter-ego could be gracious, if pressed. I decided to press while the getting was good.
“Did you know Leona Teschel’s son, Billy Ray?”
“Everyone in the community knows the Teschels. They’re the meanest, drunkest—hey, she didn’t send you here to get an earful, did she?”
“No ma’am.”
“I mean, this place might not be much, but it’s dirt cheap. I don’t know what rent is like where you come from—”
Time to cut her off at the pass again. “So, then you know his brother, Tommy Lee, don’t you?”
Her face clouded. “Yeah, I know him. I was married to the son of a bitch.”
18
“You’re joking!”
“I wish I was. Tommy Lee was my first husband. We were married less than a year.”
“What happened?”
“He hauled off and popped me, so I dumped him. Kicked him out on his bony ass. I wasn’t about to wait for it to happen again.”
“You go, girl.”
“Well, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.”
I rocked. “Did you live in this house then?”
“Yeah, it was sort of a wedding present. Unofficial, you might say. After we got divorced, Leona let me stay on.”
“That was mighty generous of her, considering.”
“Yeah, but I had to start paying rent. And she doesn’t keep the place up, as you can see.”
I wisely refrained from suggesting she scrape and paint the house herself. She seemed to read my mind.
“Buff wasn’t into maintenance—except for himself, of course. That he did real well.”
“Really,” I said. I wasn’t about to let my twin sister get away with bad grammar, not when she was a teacher, for pity sake.
“Yeah, real well. That was part of the problem you know. All the women drooled over him.”
I was the only fool to drool over Buford. It was our money Tweetie drooled over, not Buford’s bod.
“About Tommy Lee, dear—”
“Hey,” she said, “why all the questions about the Teschels? Oh, I get it, you’re Billy Ray’s girlfriend from Georgia.”
I blinked. “How did you know?”
“Your accent. You’re not from around here. Hey, I’m sorry about Billy Ray and all. That was terrible what happened, even to someone like Billy—” She clamped a hand over mouth.
“Go on, dear, you can say it.”
She shook head.
“Billy Ray and I had broken up,” I said. Well, that was half true, wasn’t it?
My eyes, the ones in her face, widened. “He pop you too?”
“He robbed me blind.”
She nodded. “That sounds like him. But you still came all the way up here for his funeral?”
I had to think fast, something which I’m admittedly not good at. I have begged Susan and Charlie to give me dissembling lessons, but they always seem to have some excuse handy.
“I came to spit on his grave,” I said, thereby shocking myself.
My other self smiled. “Lead me to his grave, sister, so I can get a piece of the action.”
“I take it you didn’t like my ex?”
“I told you, hon, all the Teschels are mean, rotten sons of bitches. It’s in their blood.”
“But Leona—”
She raked my fingers through the blond hair to fluff it while it dried. “It’s like a virus. You can catch it if you hang around too long. And that woman caught it good. She’s the devil with breasts, make no mistake about it. I hate her guts, and she hates mine.”
“Then I don’t get it. Why does she rent you this place, and why do you put up with her as your landlady?”
She glanced at the door and back. “Leona Teschel is my children’s grandmother.”
“Your children?”
“Twins. When Tommy Lee left—or should I say, when I gave him the boot—I was three months pregnant. She may be the devil with breasts, but she’s got a soft spot when it comes to her descendants.” Adrienne looked around the room. “Not too soft, of course.”
“Forgive me for asking, but—”
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking. It’s that blood thing, isn’t it?”
“Well, you did say…”
She glanced at the door. “Yeah, well, they really weren’t Tommy Lee’s kids, see? He was always accusing me of sleeping around, but I wasn’t. Not really. Not until after he started accusing me, and then it was just that one time.”
Believe me, I already knew far more about my double than I wanted to, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Besides, I hadn’t had a chance to watch “All My Children” since leaving Charlotte.
“How can you be so sure they’re not his?”
She laughed, and I reminded myself not to crinkle my eyes. “I’m a biology teacher, remember? Tommy Lee’s blood type is O negative, mine is O positive, and the girls have A-positive type blood. They’re identical, you know. Anyway, it’s not possible for Tommy Lee to be their father.”
“Identical twins! How nice. What are their names?”
“Suzanne and Charlaine.”
We established that my Charlie was the same age as Suzanne and Charlaine. The twins were just finishing up their first year at Indiana University, which, to my surprise was located in Indiana—not the state, but a town in Pennsylvani
a. Adrienne’s children had a lot in common with mine. All four of them were experts at begging for money, sighing, and rolling their eyes while saying “Oh, Mama, get real!” Although as Yankee children, the twins called their mother “Mom.”
I wouldn’t say that Adrienne and I bonded in that short period of time, but we had enough in common so that a foundation for a possible friendship was laid by the time I got up to leave. Adrienne, I’m sure, felt even closer to me, since she believed we had both been abused by Teschel men.
She accompanied me out to the car in her bathrobe, babbling about how remarkable it was that we even walked the same.
“We both put one foot forward at a time,” I agreed.
“Right!”
“Otherwise we’d be hopping.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing, dear.”
“Anyway, Abby, I’m hoping you’ll do a tremendous favor for me.”
“That depends,” I said sagely. Believe me, I have agreed to some horrendous sight-unseen commitments.
“Please ask your mother if she might have had another baby girl she gave away. You never know, maybe I got my birth date wrong.”
Before I found myself agreeing to such a silly request, I decided to perform a little maternity test of my own. Unfortunately there was no way I knew of to prove conclusively, on the spot, that Adrienne was indeed a Wiggins, but there was an approximately fifty-fifty chance that I could prove that she wasn’t.
“Do you like cats, dear?”
“I adore them.”
My pulse raced. “But you don’t own any cats, do you?”
She hung her fake blond head. “My second ex took them. As if the furniture wasn’t enough.”
“Well, I’ve got one in the car,” I said.
Dmitri is a better judge of character than I’ll ever be. He’s pure mush in the hands of a true cat-lover, indifferent to those who are indifferent to him, and outright hostile to cat-haters and those phonies who only pretend to like cats.
“Oh, goody!” she squealed, in same voice we Wiggins women use in moments of pure ecstasy.
I opened the passenger side car door. “Dmitri, dear, we have company,” I called.
But my buddy was gone.
We searched the neighborhood for over an hour. We called until we were hoarse, but as any animal lover knows, cats are far too intelligent to come when called. They listen for the sound of an electric can opener or, in some cases, the rattle of tasty morsels against a paper bag.