Twins

by Marcy Dermansky

  Twins

  Marcy Dermansky

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Sue

  Chloe

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise for Twins

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Sue

  I wanted tattoos for our thirteenth birthday. Chloe didn’t. Chloe refused. I told her I did not know what I would do if she kept saying no.

  “Tattoos are dirty,” Chloe said.

  Chloe was four minutes older. She was an eighth of an inch taller. She was smarter. She was prettier. We were identical twins, but Chloe had turned out better. She was the better twin, she had the better name, and I was desperate to hold on to her. Horrifying girls like Lisa Markman were inviting Chloe to their parties and offering her cigarettes and beer and birth control.

  My childhood had passed in a golden bubble of happiness. I adored Chloe and Chloe adored me. We didn’t need our parents; we didn’t need our brother or friends or parties or separate bedrooms. Chloe and Sue. Our hair was blond, our eyes were blue. For twelve perfect years, Chloe and I lived and breathed each other. We took baths in the same bathtub, shared the same rubber bath toys. Now Chloe took constant showers, all by herself.

  We needed tattoos.

  “I won’t,” Chloe said. “You can’t make me. No one in the eighth grade has a tattoo.”

  She was right. No one did. We were from the suburbs. I hated every single person in the eighth grade. They were all morons, out to steal my sister. Chloe was much too good. She was too eager to please.

  I sat on my bed, staring at Chloe, waiting for her to crack. Chloe wanted her own room, but there were no extra rooms in the house. It was a stupid idea. We were meant to share a room. We were identical twins. We had no secrets. Chloe picked up a hairbrush and started brushing her hair. She was obsessed with being clean. Chloe was always taking showers, smoothing her hair, washing her face, washing her hands, looking at herself in the mirror.

  “You want to be like everybody else,” I said. “But they’re all boring.”

  “Who is boring?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Everyone?” Chloe said.

  I reached for her hand. Chloe laid down her hairbrush on the bed and squeezed my fingers.

  “There is no one like us,” I told her.

  “Everyone is boring?” Chloe repeated.

  I picked up Chloe’s brush and threw it against the wall.

  Chloe bit her lip, looking down at her hands.

  “Our tattoos won’t be dirty,” I said.

  I’d explained it to her. I had found someone who didn’t care that we were underage. I had paid in advance. Everything was planned. Our tattoos would be simple. Chloe would get a SUE tattoo. Mine would say CHLOE. If Chloe ever got lost or made friends with someone who was not me or had sex with some strange, awful man, she could never forget who we were. Who we belonged with. It wasn’t enough that we looked the same. Chloe could put a rhinestone barrette in her hair and she became someone else. She would get upset with me when I put a barrette in my hair too.

  Chloe looked at her brush. It had left a dark mark on the pale pink wall.

  “I can’t get a tattoo,” she said.

  “You have to,” I said.

  Chloe shook her head.

  “We could get our ears double-pierced,” she whispered.

  “No,” I said. “Tattoos. It’s all planned. It’s already paid for.”

  Chloe crossed the room, picked up her brush, and started brushing her hair again. She was so beautiful. Wherever we went, people stared at Chloe, they stared at us. I knew that I looked like her. Technically I was beautiful too. But when I wasn’t next to Chloe, I didn’t feel right. I tripped on my shoelaces. My hair tangled easily.

  “Three letters,” I said. “To make sure we are never apart. No matter where we go. You won’t do that for me?”

  “It’s enough to be twins,” Chloe said. “It’s practically tattooed on our faces. We look the same. Why isn’t that enough?”

  We had been having the same conversation for days. Chloe wanted friends, boyfriends. She wanted to blink her eyes and imagine me gone. I sat down on the floor and cried. I cried until my chest hurt and then I coughed. Snot dripped down my face and my head started to ache. Chloe sat down next to me and put her hand on her own head, like it hurt her too. For a while, she did nothing, just watched me cry. I’d blink through my tears, wipe the snot on to my sleeve, and watch her, watching me.

  “Sue,” she said. “Why do you do this?”

  And then Chloe wrapped her arms around me. She rocked me like I was her little baby. I was miserable, but I felt wonderful, rocking. We rocked back and forth. Chloe and I were miserable together. It was the middle of the night. I could hear our older brother, Daniel, in his room down the hall, strumming chords on his guitar.

  “We are underage,” Chloe whispered. She kissed the top of my head. Our age didn’t matter. The appointments were made. The tattoo guy had taken my money and told me how to come in the back door. I had been slipping twenty-dollar bills from my father’s wallet for months.

  One day, Chloe would be glad. One day we would be old, we would be thirty, and Chloe would thank me.

  Chloe’s interest in other girls was temporary. It was adolescence. The tattoos, I knew, would keep us safe.

  “We could get a computer,” Chloe said. “Or leather boots.”

  “No,” I said.

  I stretched across Chloe’s lap and reached over to open her schoolbag. I took out her pencil case and removed a freshly sharpened pencil. Chloe liked her pencils sharp. She loved multiple-choice tests, filling in the small circles with all the right answers.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  I stuck the sharp tip of the pencil into my arm. A bubble of blood spurted from the spot. It was more brown than red. I touched the blood with my finger, smearing it over my skin.

  “Why do you have to be so dramatic?” Chloe said.

  If I was lucky, the lead from the pencil would make it into my bloodstream and I’d die an early death.

  “Stop crying,” Chloe said. “You make my head hurt.”

  I wanted to die. Chloe was the better twin and I was not necessary. She did not need me and soon, any day now, she would pretend she did not know me.

  “You should clean up your arm,” Chloe said. “You’re bleeding.”

  I shook my head. I hoped the lead would spread quickly. I closed my eyes. If I was dead, Chloe would no longer be an identical twin. She could cut our pictures in half, and no one would know I had ever been born.

  She got up. I could hear her walk into the bathroom, hear the water running from the sink. She was washing her face, scrubbing her hands. That’s what Chloe did. But then she came back to the room with tissues, a Band-Aid, antibiotic cream. She wiped the tears from my face. She put the cream on my cut. Chloe was a good nurse, but she wouldn’t become a nurse. She’d be a doctor, a neurosurgeon. I prayed that she would not want to be a lawyer, like our parents. Our parents were miserable shits. Our parents were raging bores. They were divorce lawyers.

  “Stop crying,” Chloe said. “Please. Please stop crying.”

  I would not stop crying.

  “Are they safe?” Chloe
said. “Tattoos? Are they hygienic?”

  I nodded, still crying. I was winning. I knew I had won. “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

  Chloe bit her lip.

  “Everything is sterilized?” she said. “Clean?”

  “Of course,” I said. “One hundred percent clean.”

  I didn’t know. I had no idea. For all I knew, we would get hepatitis B and die. That would be fine. We would die together.

  “I want mine to be pink,” Chloe said.

  “Fine,” I said. “Pink.”

  I hated the color pink. The walls of our bedroom were pink. Most of Chloe’s clothes were pink. Most of mine were too. I didn’t care. I reached for Chloe’s hand. I squeezed it tight.

  She looked sad. She shook her hand out of my grip, but I couldn’t stop grinning.

  “You are such a drama queen,” Chloe said.

  Our parents had left for the office when we woke up on our birthday. No note, no presents. It was a Saturday, but it didn’t matter. They were always working. Their office was in New York City, and we lived in New Jersey, so they liked to leave early to beat the traffic. They also liked to work late to miss the traffic. Even on the weekends. Maybe they were okay lawyers, but they were useless parents. My father liked to dictate idiotic rules into a tape recorder.

  “They forgot?” Chloe said, staring at the empty orange juice container in the trash can.

  “Wowee,” I said, thrilled. “Not bad.”

  I loved my parents’ screwups. The bigger, the better. More ammunition for me. The next time my father accused me of raiding his wallet, I’d remind him about the time he forgot our thirteenth birthday. I’d never had any interest in my parents. They dressed in matching suits and never smiled or got down on the floor to wrestle with our dog, Daisy, a standard poodle who loved to be wrestled with. They were the most boring, irritating people alive and, like I was always reminding Chloe, entirely unnecessary. Chloe would do her homework without being told. She brushed her teeth and folded her clothes. She didn’t need any parenting. She was already perfect. Chloe and I had each other. We were never lonely.

  Our older brother, Daniel, sat at the kitchen table; he was eating chocolate pudding, reading a book about Nazi war criminals.

  “You ever hear of Josef Mengele?” he said.

  “No,” Chloe said. “Who is he?”

  She opened the refrigerator, shook her head, and then turned to look out the kitchen window. The driveway was empty. No matching Mercedeses, no parents. Gone. One day Chloe would learn.

  I felt giddy. Today we were getting tattoos.

  “He performed experiments on identical twins during the Holocaust.”

  “You’re lying,” Chloe said. “That’s disgusting.”

  She smoothed her hair.

  “Nope,” Daniel said, smiling. “It’s a fact.” Daniel was a creep, always watching us. We didn’t need an older brother. I wished he didn’t exist. “He did all sorts of sick shit. Instead of killing the twins like he did with the other Jewish kids, he set them aside and performed all sorts of cruel and twisted tests. He tried to change their eye color and performed surgeries just for the heck of it. He would stretch their limbs, or would take out their organs, try putting them back into the other twin.” Daniel held up his book, pointing to a photograph of a blond man in a laboratory. “He’s world famous for his experiments on twins. You can see for yourself.”

  “It’s our birthday,” Chloe said.

  Daniel ate another spoonful of pudding.

  “The Bobbsey Twins turn thirteen,” he said. “I know. Happy birthday.”

  Daniel had always hated us. We were twins. We were blond, we were movie star pretty, and he was a dark, ugly boy. Who cared about his made-up Nazi doctor? Not me. Daniel didn’t matter. Chloe and I were off to get tattoos.

  “This book is for you both,” he said. “For your birthday. When I’m done reading it.”

  “We have to go,” I said. “We’re going to be late.”

  Chloe looked at Daniel.

  “There was really a doctor who performed experiments on twins?”

  Daniel grinned. “Sick, twisted shit,” he said.

  Chloe opened her purse and removed a small tortoiseshell comb. She started to comb her hair.

  “Walk the dog before you go,” Daniel said.

  I gave Daniel the finger.

  “I’m sure as hell not going to walk her,” he said.

  If Daisy went in the house, we’d clean it up later. We couldn’t be late. Daisy had been part of a settlement my mother had gotten for a client, only the client hadn’t actually wanted her; she had wanted to spite her husband. Daisy had always preferred me over Chloe. She was a good dog. She loved to wrestle and to chase after tennis balls.

  “Fuck off and die,” I said, grabbing Chloe’s hand and pulling her out the door. I wanted to get to the tattoo parlor fast, before Chloe could change her mind.

  “I hate it when you curse,” Chloe said, pulling her hand away from mine, running her fingers through her hair.

  “I’ll never curse again,” I said.

  “You will too,” she said. “You always do.”

  The air felt good, warm and cool at the same time. Like spring. Summer would come, and then there would be no more school. Just Chloe and Sue, free to do what we wanted. We were identical twins. It was us against Nazi doctors and mean older brothers and boring, rotten parents and popular girls who dressed like sluts and tried to steal my sister. We were Chloe and Sue, off to get tattoos. We loved each other best. Everything was all right.

  Chloe had hers done first.

  She wanted the tattoo on the small of her back. She wanted to cover it with clothes, but I didn’t care. The tattoo would be there, even if no one could see it. Chloe undressed shyly, folding her T-shirt and handing it to me. Then she climbed onto the table, where the tattoo guy told her to lay flat on her stomach. She balled her hands up into fists, closed her eyes. I looked at the pretty, smooth skin on her back, the thin strap of her pink cotton bra.

  “Twin number one,” the tattoo guy said. “Ready, aim, fire.”

  I wished the tattoo guy didn’t have to touch Chloe. He was the ugliest man I had ever seen. He wore a black bandanna over his bald head. He had a red dragon on his arm and wore a leather vest. He had said it was illegal to work on minors and charged me double the regular price.

  The tattoo gun made a loud, steady buzz; a tiny drip of blood bubbled on Chloe’s back. I had no idea there would be blood. The tattoo guy wiped it off with a clean white cloth and kept working. My leg started to shake. Chloe closed her eyes.

  “Does it hurt?” I said, petting Chloe’s hair. “Does it?”

  She didn’t say anything, just shook her head. She kept her eyes closed. There were beads of sweat on her forehead. The tattoo guy hummed to himself while he worked. He kept on wiping off her back with the cloth, now stained pink and red. As he started on the last letter of my name, I could see the S and U inside a curvy red scab.

  “Done,” he said. “I’ve never tattooed twins before.”

  He smeared Vaseline on her back.

  “Not so bad,” Chloe said with a small, fake smile. She sat up slowly, looked at me for a long time before she hopped off the table.

  “It looks amazing,” I said.

  Chloe shrugged. She reached for her T-shirt, but the tattoo guy told her to let the skin breathe. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  The tattoo looked horrible. Chloe’s skin was puffy and red, and pink dye oozed from the letters.

  “It really looks amazing,” I told Chloe.

  The tattoo guy snorted. “Twin number two,” he said. “Get your butt up here.”

  I took off my pink T-shirt, the same as Chloe’s, and looked at my beautiful twin sister as if it were the last time. It was crazy how much I loved looking at Chloe. It felt sort of creepy to be standing in my jeans and a bra in the back room of a tattoo parlor. A disgusting tattoo guy was about to touch my skin.

  �
�I’m ready,” I said. I was scared. I wondered why Chloe hadn’t been scared.

  The tattoo guy laid his cigarette in the ashtray.

  “La-di-da,” he said. He wasn’t in awe of us the way most people were. I wanted Chloe to hold my hand, but she opened her book bag, pulled out her fancy comb.

  “Ow,” I said. My eyes started to tear with the first prick of the gun. “Ow, this hurts. You didn’t tell me.”

  I thought my spine was going to pop through my skin.

  “Chloe,” I said. “This hurts like hell.”

  Chloe sat on the plastic chair, brushing her hair, while the pain kept on coming. I couldn’t see her. I looked straight ahead to the sample sheets of tattoo designs pinned against the wall. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Betty Boop, a bald eagle. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I knew from watching Chloe get hers done. I could picture the bubbles of blood on my back.

  “What letter are you on?” I said. “Tell me.”

  “C,” the tattoo guy said. “I just started, for fuck’s sake. Stay quiet so I can concentrate on my work.”

  “Drama queen,” Chloe said from her chair. “I didn’t cry. I didn’t complain.”

  I tried to be quiet, but my whole body started to shake. I could feel the tattoo gun jump off my back.

  “Yo, identical twin,” the tattoo guy said, calling out to Chloe. “I need your help here.”

  Chloe came to me. She held my shoulders down on the table so that I would lie still and not ruin my tattoo.

  “I should never work on minors,” the tattoo guy said. “Knock it off, so I can finish this damn thing.”

  “Can’t you suffer just a little?” Chloe said.

  “No,” I said. “This hurts too much.”

  “The back is practically the worst place for this,” the tattoo guy said. “Less body fat than any other part of the body.”