When Irish Eyes Are Sparkling

by Tom Collins

  I gulped. Oh. Wow.

  He was playing a sizzling, half-Irish, half-rock version of Can’t Help Falling in Love, his fingers performing a wild, midsummer’s jig over the strings. Jesus! I was stunned. He was good!

  Jill, the aqua-haired waitress and Liam’s roommate, was standing beside him. She had one of those wide, hand held Irish drums and was thumping away on it. The keyboard player, at the edge of the stage, rippled his fingers from one end of his instrument to the other. I assumed he was Liam’s brother, as he looked a lot like him, only broader and heavier, his black hair curling rather than silky straight. His green eyes were more hazel, less large, but they had those same thick lashes.

  Which made me suddenly wonder—why hadn’t Liam ever introduced me to Brendan?

  The crowd was deeply into the music, those close to the stage on their feet, bouncing and rocking. I was blown away. I felt like I was seeing and hearing Liam for the first time. His voice was clear and powerful, his playing fast and adept. I had no idea he was such an amazing musician.

  Which, oddly, felt wrong to me, though I couldn’t understand why.

  More than that was his sheer energy. I’d seen this kind of energy from him at the water park, in bed as well, but usually Liam was languid and dreamy. Even when he played competitive sports like basketball, he moved like a dolphin in the ocean. Playful, not aggressive. When he sketched he went as still as a deep, quiet pond. It always astonished me how cool and quiet he could remain whether drawing or reading or resting in my arms. This Liam, on the other hand, moved like a raging fire: skipping across the stage, spinning, jumping up high on sandaled feet.

  I’ve never had sex with this man, I found myself thinking, and, it rang true. Odder still, I didn’t know if I wanted to. Hot he might be, but I had the scary feeling that he and I would burn each other up.

  Besides, he didn’t want me.

  I felt a chill of dread. Liam’s eyes were sparkling the way they did when he looked at me, only they weren’t looking at me. They were looking at her, his drummer. Blazing with desire for her, and hers were blazing back even as her strong feminine voice harmonized with his masculine tones.

  I remembered how Liam had playfully tangoed with Jill the first night I saw him. This wasn’t like that. These two—these two weren’t playing. They were making love on stage. Passionate and unfettered, a couple who knew each other so well they could anticipate moves and musical shifts and match them, taking them both to greater heights.

  I didn’t understand. If Liam had this kind of a relationship with Jill—I couldn’t imagine why I’d gotten a second look. The man on stage belonged to that girl utterly and completely, he couldn’t be more deeply into her if she was making his heartbeat instead of a drum. Likewise, she was utterly his. Those fingers on the guitar might as well be strumming soaring music out of her.

  So why had he wooed me? Maybe—maybe he’d wanted to bring in a third party? No. That had to be wrong. I couldn’t say why, but this—this wasn’t Liam. Not the Liam I knew. But it was, down to the silver ring on his left middle-finger, the one with the heart held by a pair of hands and topped with a crown. There was Liam’s soft, shiny black hair, his boyish smile, his handsome features, his large, green eyes; no mistaking eyes that large and green.

  He finished up the Irish rock. While the audience applauded, he exchanged the electric for a mandolin. Jill set aside the hand drum and seated herself behind a regular set with the band’s name and logo. The audience began to shout out requests.

  “Something you can actually play!” one heckler suggested.

  Liam perked. “Oh-ho!” he said into his microphone headset, and his arm came up to swing like a dial. “And the sarcasm meter says…BEEP! Sorry, that was tired. Try again later. If you’d like, I can give you my cell number after the show so you can call me if you think of something witty.”

  The audience laughed and my heart sank. That was Liam all right. I stared at him in anguish as he settled on a stool and tuned the strings. It made no sense. Liam was trustworthy. He was honest and true. His eyes sparkled when he looked at me and I could swear—had sworn—that he cared about me.

  Except. Except that I’d never been sure I was completely real to him. What if I’d been a work of art, not a man? A gay fling, not a potential lover? I hadn’t doubted what I’d been seeing in him all these weeks, but I couldn’t doubt what I was seeing right now either; the love in his eyes as they flicked toward his drummer girl. Had he wanted to learn techniques to pass on to her, or did they get off on the idea of him making love to a man? Did he plan on eventually asking me to into their bed—?

  I felt myself go numb at the idea. Completely numb. It hurt like hell, and yet I knew that if he were to ask me to, I’d do it. Anything if it would let me stay in his life. Without question or hesitation.

  Shoot me now. It was too late for me. It’d been too late from the moment I’d taken him home after our day at the water park. I was in love with Liam O’Shaughnessy. Hopelessly, and the sad, awful truth was that I couldn’t leave. I was the sort to stick by those I adored like an unwanted pet. Until, of course, they got into their trucks, let me know that I’d ruined their lives and drove off.

  The audience was still shouting out requests. Liam glanced around for inspiration. His eyes passed me by, then came back, lighting up with recognition and excitement, which was strange in itself. That’s not Liam, I thought again. That was his mischievous grin, and there was carnality in his expression as if he was interested in me, but it wasn’t him. His gaze had never been that rock solid; it was always drifting, as if floating on clouds.

  But who else could it be?

  “Wehehehehell, if it isn’t Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free.”

  His voice echoed over the amplifier, and I felt my heart go cold. I wasn’t sure of anything in that moment, not even who that was up there on stage with the mandolin. I only feared, with a dreadful certainty, that I was about to be outed and publicly mocked—and I didn’t know why.

  Maybe I just hadn’t been enough fun?

  Chapter Nine

  *Liam*

  Brendan went on gleefully, “Listen, everyone…most of you know my big brother. He’s the devilishly good looking fellow,” he finger-combed his hair back as he said this, flashing the audience his best Buzz Lightyear grin, “worming his way through the crowd tonight, bringing you your Heinies and halibut.” Most of the customers were nodding, and some were actually pointing at me in case some newcomer couldn’t tell I looked exactly like the chap doing the talking.

  “Yeah, you know him,” Brendan said as Oliver scanned the room. “Well, someone special just walked in. This fellow over by the door,” he pointed and every head in the place turned to stare at Oliver as his eyes settled on me. I gave him a little finger-wave and a sheepish grin, feeling like a complete jackass thanks to Bren. I didn’t know how Oliver would take being publicly embarrassed by someone who looked exactly like me—and whom he didn’t know existed two seconds before.

  “His name is Oliver, of course, Liam calls him Ollie because it bugs him,” Bren barreled on. “Not that it matters any. What is important, is he’s Liam’s flame—no pun intended—and Liam asked us to learn a special song just in case he came in tonight.” My head whipped back to Brendan as he traded the mandolin he’d picked up for his twelve-stringed acoustic. I had no idea what he was talking about, but would Oliver believe that?

  “So, without further ado,” he pointed at Jill inside her drum kit. She struck up a light beat on the cymbals, giving Erin the tempo. He came in on his keyboard with watery, tenor and bass counterpoints. A couple beats later Bren joined them on his twelve-string, double-picking out low, tenor notes that followed along with Erin, while becoming the main theme. He sat on his stool, body drifting with the music. It seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  It wasn’t until I heard him sing the opening lines, “You can take…all the tea in China…put it in a big brown…bag for me,” that my heart stuttered.
I couldn’t believe he was singing Van Morrison to my boyfriend, in my voice, as if I’d asked him to.

  He hit the chorus and I began sweating. My gut clenched, knowing what was coming. His gaze shifted from the crowd, nearly all of whom were moving with him and the music, to Oliver, so Bren could sing directly to him, “He’s as sweet as tupelo honey; he’s an angel of the first degree.”

  That was enough to start me slithering through the press of people to get to Oliver in hopes of disclaiming any responsibility for whatever it was a grinning Bren, Erin and Jill—who wasn’t in on the joke, I was sure—were playing.

  I reached him just as Brendan got to, “Men with insight…men in granite…knights in armor bent on…chivalry.”

  I laid my hand on his forearm, he blinked at me and I shook my head saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do this. We find publicly humiliating each other the height of humor. It’s kind of how we say, ‘Love ya, bro.’”

  I laughed through my nose, glancing at Bren as he sang. He’d done a masterful job this time. I was more embarrassed than ever before, and a little scared. I couldn’t tell how Oliver was feeling about all of this, but the deep flush didn’t bode well. I’d avoided a shit-storm a few days ago by the skin of my teeth—perhaps literally—and now, I could be staring into the brown eye of a shit-nado.

  “Look, ummm…Why don’t we step outside,” I suggested, leaning in close to his ear so he could hear me. “I imagine you’ve probably got some questions right about now, and I’d rather not have our first fight in public…if that’s what’s about to happen…?” I let the question hang as I reached past Oliver to open the door and usher him out as smoothly as possible, blessedly cutting off the sound of Bren singing, “He’s as sweet as…tupelo honey; just like honey, baby…from the bee,” and some girls in the crowd tittered.

  I walked him around to the side of the building where the pub’s basketball hoop hung, thinking it would be more private. I was brainstorming, trying to think how to make him understand why I would leave out the significant fact that my brother wasn’t just my brother—that he was, in fact, my other self—when Oliver interrupted my train of thought.

  “He’s right handed.”

  “Say what?” I rejoined with wit.

  “From the moment I saw him, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t you. There were other things—how he moved and…and looked at the girl, but I didn’t see it ‘til now…he’s playing right handed…which you might, but…no; and you don’t have calluses either. Anyone who plays like that would have callused fingers. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew both of those things. I knew he wasn’t you.”

  “See? It’s not that fucking hard to tell us apart! You’re right though, nicely spotted. We’re monozygotic mirrored-twins. That is, he’s a mirror image of me, so he’s reversed from how he ought to be.”

  “Amazing,” Oliver sounded amazed too, “but how do you know he’s the one who’s reversed?”

  “‘Situs inversus viscerum totalis,’ they call it,” I replied. “It means—”

  “That all of his organs are positioned the exact opposite of norm,” he interrupted. “No shit?” I had the feeling he’d like nothing more than to go back inside and examine the interesting medical anomaly that was my other self. “Totalis, you say—including dextrocardia?” I nodded, knowing that meant the heart lay to the right instead of to the left in the chest.

  “Everything, even his veins and arteries are backward, which means I’m the original child that he split off…not unlike a Mogwai…” I rolled my eyes, thinking of him in there grinning like a canary-fed cat, “so he’s my mirror.”

  “Mogwai?”

  “Don’t you remember that old-as-fuck movie, Gremlins, from like the mid-eighties? You know, you get them wet and they split like amebas or something? ‘Gizmo, caca!’ and all that?”

  “Oh, yeah, right. So, you resent him?”

  “No, never. I love him more than anyone in the world and I can’t begin to imagine life without him. We honestly don’t know how you soloists do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Exist in singular. We don’t understand how you manage to do and be all you could be with only one body. I could be a musician, too, and he could paint, but we’d be less than half as good at either if we both did both. Having two bodies lets us develop all of our talents to their fullest potential. It’s not always easy though, as tonight demonstrates.”

  Oliver was staring at me hard, as if I were a strange, extraterrestrial specimen that he’d assumed was a reptile, but had now proven itself to be a mammal. “I’m…trying to absorb all this,” he murmured into the pause. “This is a whole other part of you I didn’t know anything about and I…don’t know what it means.”

  “It’s a lot to absorb, I know, and I know you have every right to be hell’n’pissed at me for not telling you that Bren and I are identical, but, please, it would kill me if you hated him. It was me he was aiming at, not you, and I earned it, believe me. You just caught the backsplash without his meaning it. See, singing you a love song in my name killed two birds with one stone for him. He got the opportunity to embarrass me in front of most of our family, and loads of regulars who’re like family, while doing something special for you at the same time, you know?”

  “Wait,” Oliver stopped me. “I thought…I thought you, maybe, didn’t realize you hadn’t told me Bren was your twin, or thought your uncle had mentioned it. Are you saying you deliberately kept it from me?”

  I swallowed. I nodded. He didn’t hit me.

  “I mean, I wasn’t actively hiding him from you…I just…omitted that one piece of information.”

  He nodded agreeably, as if he respected my decision. “You didn’t trust me. I understand.”

  “What? Not trust you? Oliver, you’ve had my nads in your mouth and your dick in my ass. Man, if that’s not proof of trust I don’t know what is.” Now he looked confused. “It’s so deep a reason that it’s really hard to verbalize, so I don’t know if I can make you understand.”

  He gestured for me to go ahead and crossed his arms, waiting. It was eerie how much he reminded me of Uncle Gabe in that moment.

  “First off, you have to understand that I love my brother and could never be without him. That’s part of the problem though, because I can never be without him. I am never alone, even when I’m the only one in the building and he’s clear across town, we’re still together. We’re not telepathic, that’s not what I’m saying, but he’s always at my side, like a shadow, and it’s there for everyone to see.

  “Every time I walk into a room with people who know me, I see the question in their eyes, ‘Where’s the other one?’ Even the girls I’ve dated—in high school and college—every one of them met the both of us or had seen us around campus before I started dating them. Sometimes I had the feeling they wondered if they’d picked the right twin. So even when I had a girlfriend it was like…well, like she knew she was getting half of a pair. It’s been that way our whole life, and we’re mostly okay with it, but then there you were, looking at me; seeing me, not us.

  “It was like a revelation. Suddenly, someone in the world saw only me. I was unique to you and you never wondered where Brendan was because you didn’t know. For once in my life, I was Liam. Not Liam-Bren, just…Liam.

  “I know I was lying by omission, but I didn’t think it would matter because I knew it wouldn’t last long. In fact, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. I thought you would encounter each other before now, or that Uncle Gabe would mention it, or something, but it just never happened.”

  His mien did a subtle shift from patient listening to suspicion. “Hang on…if we’ve never met how did he recognize me in there?”

  I knew what he was thinking, that we’d been playing the switcheroo game. This was something else I was used to. I don’t know how many times I’ve been accused of being Brendan pretending to be Liam to get into my “brother’s” girlfriend’s pants.

  “Oh,
from the picture I did of you.”

  “That painting?” His face wrinkled.

  “No, the sketch.” His brow beetled, “Of you in bed…?”

  His eyes bugged and his mouth fell open. “You showed him that?”

  Oh, crap. Had that been wrong? It was obvious he was upset; what wasn’t obvious was why.

  “Well, yeah…of course,” I replied with hesitance. “We share everything with each other.” His mouth snapped shut with a clacking sound. “Well, not everything,” I hastened to amend. “There are two things that are too personal to share physically, even with my other self; lovers and underwear to be specific.”

  *Oliver*

  “Yeah, of course,” Liam said blithely, “We share everything with each other.”

  My teeth clashed together as my mouth shut. Ohmygod. Liam looked a little chagrined, but his airy tone showed not a hint of concern. “Well, not everything,” he amended. “There are two things that are too personal to share physically, even with my other self; lovers and underwear to be specific.”

  Meaning he wasn’t going to ask me to engage in a threesome with Brendan, however intriguing my hindbrain found the idea. That, however, wasn’t the “everything” that had my stomach in knots.

  “You told him about me,” I murmured, “Everything I told you about myself?” Brendan had nailed me with how I disliked my nickname and my preference for antioxidants; the song he’d sung told me he knew some mushy things like Liam making me brown bag lunches and how our eyes had met as Liam sucked on a honey coated finger. But surely—surely Liam hadn’t told him everything.

  Liam blinked those great, green eyes at me, innocent as a child. “Of course. He’s my twin, and there was so much to tell. I mean, the girls I’ve been with have made for pretty repetitive tales, but you and me, our lovemaking and your interests and your family—I mean, wow!”