Double Take

by Melody Carlson

  As she dug for her notes, Anna wondered how Madison was doing with Uncle Daniel. Had she tried to engage the silent man in conversation? It would be futile. Anyway, they should be nearly home by now. What would Madison think of Aunt Rachel? Would she be disappointed?

  Now, it wasn’t that Anna didn’t like her aunt. She did, but she just didn’t understand her. Anna had grown up hearing whispered things about Aunt Rachel—words like too lazy, too fat, too old, too clumsy . . . she’d never find a husband. As a result, Anna had probably lost some respect for her aunt. Then being in Aunt Rachel’s home and seeing that her housekeeping skills were sloppy at best, her cooking just so-so, her children ill-behaved . . . well, Anna had come to her own conclusions. Still, she had wondered why Aunt Rachel hadn’t tried harder to make friends within her community. Or perhaps she had tried. Perhaps the other women simply didn’t like her. But this wasn’t Anna’s problem today. Right now she needed to get ready for her own challenges. She opened up the notes and started to read.

  Soon after, Anna heard a jangling sound. It seemed to be coming from Madison’s purse. She opened it to see the little purse phone all lit up. She picked it up and stared, trying to figure out what to do. Hadn’t Madison meant to take it with her?

  One of the little squares said talk, so Anna pushed it and said, “Hello?” Perhaps it was Madison, calling to tell her that she’d changed her mind.

  “Madison?” a male voice said.

  Anna bit her lip. “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” Anna glanced around to see if anyone was looking at her. She felt so strange talking into this tiny purse phone, not even knowing who she was speaking to.

  “You don’t sound okay. Are you still mad at me?”

  “No,” Anna said slowly.

  “I told you I’m sorry, Maddie. Really sorry. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She’d been taught from an early age to forgive everyone, but she suspected this was Madison’s boyfriend, Garret.

  “Can’t you give me one more chance?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Where are you anyway?”

  “On a bus.” She looked out the window where the countryside seemed to be changing or getting tighter, because the houses were closer and the fields were smaller—or was it simply because the bus was going so fast?

  “A bus? Where are you going?”

  “New York.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  She told him the name of the town they’d just passed through, and when he asked why she was there, she got nervous and confessed she’d been in Allentown, but that only increased his curiosity. What had Madison said she should do about Garret? That she should dump him out? That didn’t sound quite right, but her notes were folded up and zipped in a pocket of her purse right now. “I am very busy, Garret,” she said crisply.

  “So you won’t forgive me?”

  Anna frowned. Really, what could it hurt to forgive someone? “Yes,” she said slowly, “I do forgive you. Now I must go.”

  “You sound kinda weird, Maddie. Are you really okay?”

  “Yes. I said I am fine. Now I need to say goodbye.” She pulled the phone away from her ear, wondering how to turn this thing off.

  “Wait—wait!” She could hear his voice still calling to her.

  She put the phone back to her ear. “What do you want now?”

  “I want to make it up to you, Maddie. What can I do?”

  Anna remembered now that Madison had said Garret was persistent. “Promise to never do that again.”

  “Sure, of course I won’t. But I need to do something else.”

  “You need to say goodbye,” she told him. She pulled the phone away and looked closely at the buttons. Although she could still hear his voice, she pushed the one that said end. That seemed a good choice. End the conversation and end the relationship with the cheating boyfriend—end of story.

  Thinking about boyfriends sent her mind straight to Jacob. She looked at the purse phone still in her hand and wondered if this might somehow help her to find him. Was it possible that he had a phone too? If so, how did one go about finding the right number? How did one go about locating someone in a big city like New York?

  She looked out the window and was surprised to see that she was no longer in the country at all. Now there were buildings of different shapes and sizes clustered together with barely any room between them. She saw roads filled with cars, red taillights strung together in a long line. The bus must be coming into the city.

  She pulled out her notes, trying to organize them so she could study them, perhaps even memorize some things. Why hadn’t she done this already? She hadn’t realized the bus would be so fast. She looked at Madison’s watch to see that it hadn’t even been two hours, yet she had a feeling she would soon be there. To come so far this quickly made her feel dizzy.

  She stared at Madison’s handwriting, memorizing the numbers of the building where Madison lived, the name of the housekeeper, phone numbers. She wanted to plant them like seeds in her head. She would need them.

  But as she looked out at the buildings, which seemed to be growing taller, she knew it was impossible. She would be lost in this huge maze of cement and bricks. How did Madison do this day in and day out?

  Anna closed her eyes. It was something she’d taught herself to do as a child whenever she felt overwhelmed. Not that it happened too often, but if a school test was too difficult, or if a sewing project seemed impossible, she would simply close her eyes and imagine clear blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and she would breathe deeply. That would calm her. With eyes closed, that is what she envisioned now—blue sky, fluffy white clouds rolling gently, a summer breeze, the sound of birds.

  She was startled back to reality when she realized the bus had stopped moving. The woman across from her was already gone. Others were gathering things, making their way off the bus. She knew she needed to do the same, and she should have felt glad to escape this big, fast, moving bus, but that meant she’d have to do something else completely foreign to her, something equally frightening—she would have to ride in a car. Worse yet, a taxi car driven by a complete stranger! Oh, why had she agreed to this?

  The driver was standing now, looking at her. “Isn’t this your stop?”

  “Yes.” She stood, clinging to the strap of Madison’s purse. “I will get off here.” With trembling knees, she made her way to the door and down the steps to where lots of people were walking around. So many people . . . It reminded her of the time she’d poked a stick into an anthill and all the little creatures had gone in all directions, some even climbing up the stick, which she’d thrown. At the time she’d wondered if they’d all find their way back home, but now she knew ants never got lost. Still, she wondered how all these people would find their way in such a big, busy city.

  As she walked through the bus terminal, she noticed a mom with a baby in a pack and a toddler in a stroller. The young woman didn’t seem worried about all these people, so Anna decided perhaps she should relax a bit too. She began to watch other people—people of all ages, sizes, and colors—and all of them seemed unconcerned about getting lost. In fact, many of them seemed quite happy to be here.

  Then she noticed a man sitting on a bench who seemed to be staring right at her. He had grimy clothes and a dirty face, and when he smiled at her, she saw that his teeth looked dark and rotten. He reached out his dirty hand toward her, and she jumped back in fear, turning to walk in the other direction. What did that man want from her? Was he a beggar? She’d never seen a real beggar.

  “Madison!”

  Anna paused. Had the beggar man called out that name? If so, why would he know her—or Madison—or whoever? She looked over her shoulder as she continued to walk the other way.

  “Madison!” the voice called again.

  This time she looked to see a young man waving at her. Smiling brightly, he hurr
ied toward her—and her heart leaped to see those big brown eyes. Jacob! Waving eagerly, she rushed toward him and then realized he had called her Madison—not Anna. She stopped suddenly. This was not Jacob.

  “Madison!” He threw his arms around her. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I, uh, I didn’t hear it.”

  “I decided to surprise you,” he said as she tugged away from him. “I looked up the arrival time on your bus and figured out that you’d—” He stopped speaking, peering curiously at her now. “I still don’t get why you’re riding on a bus. And why you were out by Allentown.”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, remembering how she’d read that line in a book once.

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Well, you can tell me at dinner. I made reservations at Palo’s.”

  Suddenly Garret—at least, she assumed it was him—was leading her onto a very busy street with vehicles everywhere and lots of honking and people and noise. He waved to a shiny black car, which somehow managed to squeeze past the other cars, pulling right in front of them. Garret helped her into the back of the car. It was roomy, similar to a wagon, only much nicer, and the seat was very comfortable—softer than a bed. The next thing she knew, she was actually riding in an automobile. Thanks to all the other cars clogging the street, they weren’t going very fast.

  “I assume you’ll want to change.” Garret leaned back and smiled at her.

  “Change.” She nodded as she tried to absorb his meaning. She had already changed from Anna to Madison. But she suspected he meant her clothing, that she would want to exchange it for other clothes, something suitable for dinner. How strange this all was. “Yes. I want to change.”

  “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time. I know how you don’t like to be rushed.”

  She looked at Madison’s watch and nodded. She needed to get into this role better. Having him pop up like that had caught her off guard.

  “So you didn’t go to Tuscany.” He sounded pleased about this. “You didn’t go to Palm Beach or Boston either, so . . . what does that mean?”

  Anna had no idea what that meant. She just shrugged and opened her purse as if something in there was highly interesting. She wanted to pull out her folded notes and study them closely, but she knew that would only make him curious. Thus far, she felt he was so pleased about being forgiven that he was slightly blinded—or maybe he wasn’t a very observant fellow. If so, that was good.

  He leaned over, gently placing his hand on the side of her face. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look?”

  She felt her cheeks grow warm as she pulled away. Somehow she had to slow this down with him. “Just because I forgave you does not mean I—”

  “I’m so glad you did forgive me, Maddie. Do you know how hard this has been on me? You know how much I love you.”

  She snapped her purse closed and looked evenly at him. “We have gone through a rough patch,” she told him, again using words she’d read in a book. “For that reason I want to take things slow now. If that’s not accept—”

  “That’s fine, Maddie.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Why are you talking weird like that? You sound so different.”

  “Maybe I am different.” She stared directly at him now, almost as if to challenge him to question her real identity, but he looked baffled.

  “Okay, I get you.” He frowned slightly. “You’re acting all prim and proper just to keep me at arm’s length. You probably expect me to prove myself to you. Right?” He looked at her with those big brown eyes so much like Jacob’s—puppy dog eyes.

  She nodded. “Right.”

  “That’s what I plan to do.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. “You’ll see.”

  Anna turned to look out the window. She had really meant to observe everything as she rode through the city. Perhaps she’d even imagined she would spot Jacob walking by, that she would tell the driver to stop, and she would jump out and call his name and they would embrace and all would be well. But as she watched people and cars and buildings moving past her, she began to question the likelihood of a scene like that actually unfolding.

  “Here we are,” Garret said as he reached across her to open the door. “Want me to walk you up?”

  She considered this. It might simplify things to have his help finding her way through the building. But what if she forgot the doorman’s name or needed to pull out her notes to help with the security code in the penthouse? “No thank you,” she said.

  “The reservation is for nine,” he told her.

  She turned away to hide her shock. Dinner at nine o’clock? Her family would be asleep in bed by then.

  “Can you be back down here by, say, 8:45?”

  “Yes.” She forced a smile as she got out of the car. “8:45.” She hurried up to the building, under the awning that was just as Madison had described. She smiled at the doorman. “Hello, Henry.”

  “Good evening and welcome home, Miss Van Buren.” He smiled back at her as he opened the door.

  Beyond the glass doors, she stepped into a space as big as Daed’s barn, but instead of dirt, there was a shiny floor made of some kind of stone and an enormous, elegant carpet, plus several chairs and a huge hanging lamp overhead that would easily fill Anna’s entire house. Anna tried not to look too stunned or overly impressed at what Madison had explained was a lobby—a place to wait or just pass through—as she went over to what she assumed were the elevators.

  “After the lobby, you go to the narrow part of the building,” Madison had told her when Anna had questioned how she would possibly recognize an elevator—unless it was a grain elevator, which was not the situation. “There you’ll see three sets of brass doors and buttons that are lit up. You use the elevator that’s on a wall by itself, then you push up for up and down for down.”

  At the time, Anna had giggled, thinking that it all sounded rather obvious and easy. Now she was glad Madison had been so specific. Push up for up, she told herself as she pressed the button next to the single set of doors.

  “When you’re inside, the doors will close—”

  “By themselves?” Anna had asked.

  Madison laughed. “Yes. They open and close by themselves. When you’re inside, you slide this card”—she showed her a silvery card—“into the slot until you see a green light, and then you push the button with the number 26 on it.”

  Now that Anna was inside, she looked around for a place to slide the card. After some time she found it, and after two tries she saw a green light. Then she pushed the number 26 button and waited, wondering why everything was so complicated here.

  Suddenly it felt as if she were shooting straight up into the air. She reached for a rail on the wall, clinging to it as her head grew lighter. Did anyone ever faint in an elevator? There was a whooshing sound, and after a few seconds the doors opened, again by themselves. As she got out, she felt a strange popping inside her ears. This was all very odd, and she was thankful she’d asked Garret to wait downstairs. He would have thought she was crazy if he’d witnessed her just now.

  As Madison had explained, Anna emerged into a foyer, which was another place to wait. This space had no windows, but it had a black leather couch and a black-and-white chair as well as a big, strange painting on the wall. There was a pair of big red doors off to the side. “Punch the code numbers into the keypad by the red doors,” Madison had instructed.

  Anna had tried to memorize the code numbers, but so much had happened that she didn’t trust her memory right now. She pulled the pages out of her purse and looked for the numbers, then carefully pressed them in. She heard a clicking noise, then she tried the door, and—just like that—it opened. She had made it—all the way to New York City, to Manhattan, and into Madison’s penthouse!

  “Ah.” She closed the door, leaned against it, and sighed joyfully. “Home sweet home.”

  “Miss Madison?”

  Anna stood up straight as if at attention.

&nbs
p; “You are all right?” A short, stout, dark-haired woman in a neat gray dress looked curiously at her.

  “Yes.” Anna nodded, trying to get her bearings. This must be the housekeeper. What was her name?

  The woman came closer now, peering curiously with dark brows furrowed. “You are all right?” she repeated, a bit more firmly this time.

  “Yes.” Anna forced a smile. “I am fine.”

  The woman still looked troubled. Or maybe she was suspicious.

  “I need to get ready for my date,” Anna said in what she hoped sounded like Madison. She headed toward the left hallway. She knew Madison’s bedroom was down that hallway and her mother’s room was down the opposite hallway. But there were two doors in the left hallway. Anna glanced over her shoulder to see the housekeeper still watching her. Wanting to escape those dark, prying eyes, Anna nervously opened the first door but was dismayed to discover it was not a bedroom. It was a small bathroom—the powder room. Even so, she went inside, closing the door behind her. As ridiculous as it seemed, she thought perhaps she could pretend that was where she’d meant to go.

  Anna’s heart pounded as she turned on the shiny silver water faucet, allowing the water to go to waste down the sink, which looked like a giant glass bowl. This was her sad effort to appear to be using this pretty powder room. She had a feeling the housekeeper—what was her name?—was out there waiting for Anna to emerge for further questioning. After all her hard work, Anna could not believe she was about to be found out by the housekeeper. Perhaps she was on the phone right now, calling Madison’s mother and alerting her to the intruder trying to pass herself off as Madison Van Buren. Worse yet, perhaps she was calling the police!

  7

  To Anna’s relief, the housekeeper, Nadya (whose name she discovered by searching her notes), was nowhere to be seen when Anna finally exited the powder room. This time Anna went straight for the other door, but as soon as she went in, she thought she’d made another mistake. Because this room, on first impression, didn’t look like a bedroom. At least not like any bedroom Anna had ever seen. Then she noticed there was indeed a bed—a big, beautiful bed with soft blue and gold bedding that looked fit for a queen. Not that Anna had ever met a queen, but she’d read about one once. This room seemed prepared for royalty. Was it possible that Madison was actually a princess?