Twins

by Marcy Dermansky

  Chloe

  I was the star of my basketball team. I was named most valuable player and selected for the New Jersey all-star team. College recruiters came to watch me play. My grades were steadily slipping, but I was beginning to understand that if I had a high shooting average, my GPA would not matter to most colleges. It had been such hard, ungratifying work, doing well in school, and if I was honest with myself, I was not especially intelligent. It was like Sue said. I was average at school. My looks, I had to admit, were also average. I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror and see my horsey face. I had discovered my one true talent: basketball. All the signs were pointing to a glorious future in the game, but the only person that should have mattered to had lost interest.

  Mr. Markman was dropping me.

  He had continued to come to my games, and made sure to congratulate me afterward. He would compliment me on what I did well and mention opportunities I could capitalize on in the future, but he no longer asked about me, Chloe. Everything slowly started to change after we were shown together on the TV news. Mr. Markman had told me not to listen to the chatter in my head, but I never questioned him about what was happening in his. Without even bothering to explain why, he had dropped me without a fight. As if the time we spent together never meant anything to him. A month ago, nothing had been more important to him than instructing me on my footwork or improving my jump shot. Mr. Markman had held my knees while I did sit-ups.

  On the last game of the season, the night I scored fifty-six points, Mr. Markman left at halftime. I knew that he was gone, but I continued to play as if he was watching. I felt like I was on fire, like a force was running through my fingertips, carrying the ball to the hoop. I couldn’t miss. I closed my eyes, and I saw an explosion of fireworks shooting off beneath my eyelids. Impossible shots fell through the basket. I could be off-balance, double-teamed, in the three-point range, and still, the shot would go in. I felt like a force of nature: like an earthquake or a tidal wave. When the game was over, the crowd got up on their feet. This was a girls’ basketball game; no one got worked up about girls’ basketball. But I knew all along that Mr. Markman wasn’t there watching. He had left without saying good-bye. I had been playing for a ghost.

  Sue didn’t come that night either. It was the first time she had skipped one of my games. She was probably with Lisa. I made my way home in the dark, limping on an ankle I did not remember twisting, only to find an enormous pile of dog shit in the living room, and poor Daisy, under the living room table, nervously wagging her tail.

  I was exhausted. “Oh, Daisy,” I said.

  I sank down on the couch and contemplated the dog. The house had begun to smell of piss and shit. My mother had pretty much stopped coming home. First she went back to the office, and then she started working late, and before long, she began to spend her nights at my father’s midtown apartment. The client my father had left my mother for, the Asian investment banker, had reconciled with her husband.

  Daisy came over and licked my hand. She had not been fed dinner. Sue was supposed to feed her. I didn’t have time for Daisy anymore, and besides that, Daisy’s dinner was not my responsibility. She was not my dog. Daisy had always been Sue’s dog, from the day my mother brought her home from work and Sue proclaimed that the puppy loved her best. I was eleven years old. I had also wanted a dog. I wanted to pet the puppy and roll with her on the floor, but I let Sue have her. I did these things for Sue. I had ruined myself, I had gotten her name tattooed on my back. I had given up any chance of a normal adolescence to protect Sue from hurting others, from hurting herself, and I got nothing in return.

  “Sue will come home soon,” I told the neglected dog. “She will have to walk you. She will have to feed you. I can’t take another step.”

  Only Sue never did come home. I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for her.

  I woke up, shivering, in the middle of the night. My ankle had blown up, swollen to almost double its normal size. It hurt just to walk to the bathroom. I got up in the middle of the night to pee, and then I hopped upstairs. I checked Sue’s room to see if she had come in while I was sleeping. She wasn’t there. The room was the same as when I had moved out. I pushed her dirty clothes off my old bed and crawled under the covers.

  When I woke up again, it was morning, and she had still not come home. I did not go to school. I napped in Sue’s bed, resting on top of the blanket. I was still wearing my jeans over my dirty basketball uniform. I did not have the energy to change my clothes.

  I did not know anymore what Sue did while I went to school. I did not know what she did after school with Lisa Markman, or what she did at night for that matter, but she had always come home. Some nights she would juggle in the hallway, standing outside my door. The impact of the balls hitting the floor would shake the walls. No matter what, Sue always came home. She always came home.

  I called the Markmans. Lisa would know where she was. Or Mr. Markman might be willing to talk to me. He had left my game early, but once I told him that Sue was gone, that my ankle was sprained, everything would change. I had never been injured before. Certainly he would come over and help me ice my ankle. Maybe he would send his driver out to look for Sue. My heart beat fast as the phone rang, but no one picked up.

  I waited another day, and Sue did not come home. I called Mr. Markman’s house again, and once more, no one answered. I called the police station but hung up when someone answered. Daisy whined at me all day long. Finally, I called my parents’ office.

  The receptionist put me on hold, and then my mother came to the phone.

  “Chloe, honey,” she said. “I have been horrible, haven’t I? Staying out all night. Not calling to say when I’m coming home. I feel like a teenager all over again.” She started to laugh. “Just this morning, I ran into Bloomingdale’s to buy clean clothes for work. I bought everything new. New suit, new blouse, panty hose, and bra.” My mother giggled. “You don’t have a boyfriend yet, do you, Chloe?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  “That’s so surprising,” she said. “Given how beautiful you are.”

  I looked at Daisy, lying in the doorway, waiting with me for Sue. I absently touched my hair. The sweat from the game two nights ago had dried and hardened. Basketball was changing me in ways I did not like or understand. My hair was not soft and wavy like it was supposed to be; instead it was stiff and tangled and dirty, and I as sat on Sue’s bed, clutching the phone, I worried that if I was not careful, I could turn into Sue. I would wake up one morning to find that we had switched places.

  “Maybe,” my mother said, “it’s this basketball thing. I know it sounds terrible, but boys can be put off by a girl athlete. They want their women feminine.”

  “I am feminine,” I said. My voice sounded shrill. It scared me that my mother was thinking the same thing.

  “Of course you are, Chloe, honey,” my mother said. “I don’t know what I am saying.” She laughed to herself. “It is so wonderful that you called.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  I knew what I must have sounded like to her, like a whiny little girl, a bother, but I did not want to spend another night alone in the house. I wanted my parents to bring home Sue. I wanted my parents to sit me down with their tape recorder and the yellow notepad and advise me that it was not in my best interest to neglect my studies for sports. But I knew that these things were not going to happen. Sue had been right all along. Our parents had not contributed to our lives in any significant way for as long as I could remember. Instead, I had taken care of my mother when I’d gotten back from Hawaii. She lay in bed, watching public television, and I made sure that she ate her meals.

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “If you and Daddy are back together,” I said, “maybe you can both come home, and help take care of the house a little.” My throat was dry. “It’s a lot for me to handle on my own.”

  I wanted to tell my mother about Sue. Sue wa
s missing, I knew that she really and truly had disappeared, but a voice in my head wondered what, exactly, that had to do with my parents.

  “Oh, baby,” my mother said. I could hear other voices in the background. “When did everything get so complicated? Things are so busy at the office. Can I put you on hold?”

  Before I could respond, I heard classical music piping through the receiver. Priorities, I thought, a word I might find on the PSATs. I looked out the window as I waited. The sun had set, and it was turning dark outside. I had missed another day, waiting for Sue. I had not eaten or washed my hair. I hadn’t taken Daisy out for a walk. She looked at me expectantly. I had to pull myself together. I was an athlete, a strong and gifted young woman. After I got off the phone, I would feed her. I would walk her. Maybe, like magic, when I got off the phone, my ankle would no longer hurt.

  “Soon,” I said to Daisy. “I’ll be off the phone soon.”

  Daisy pounded her tail on the floor, but she was also too listless to get up. The receptionist picked up the line.

  “Chloe?” she said. “Your mother had an appointment she couldn’t be late for. She wanted me to tell you that both she and your father will be coming home this evening. You can expect them around nine o’clock.”

  I looked at my hands.

  My head was throbbing. I knew that I should eat. When I first started playing basketball with Mr. Markman, my headaches had gone away. He explained that proper diet and exercise had cured my problem, but I knew it wasn’t as simple as that. It was Mr. Markman, being near him, that had made me well. He had never left one of my games early before.

  Maybe Sue would be back by the time my parents came home. Maybe she had spent the last two nights camping in our backyard, spying on me through the window. My head hurt more than ever, my hair was dirty, and I smelled terrible. Daisy’s constant whining made me want to scream. Sue would be thrilled to see me this way, practically out of my mind.

  Sue

  You look punk rock,” Yumiko said.

  She loved that my head was shaved. I was god-awful ugly without my hair. I couldn’t understand why Yumiko was so pleased. But I was glad, anyway. I didn’t know what Yumiko would think when I showed up at her door. I hadn’t called before I got on a Greyhound bus. A homeless man at Penn Station gave me half of his tuna fish sandwich. “You look totally insane,” Yumiko said.

  I smiled, though I was not sure what she meant.

  Yumiko was wearing the same outfit she wore on Christmas, the white lace dress over jeans. She twirled the end of her braid around her finger, taking her time checking me out. She wasn’t a psych major anymore.

  “I’m studying art,” she said. “I couldn’t take the classes. It was nothing about the mind, just day after day of insidious lab work and statistics. You can’t believe how tedious it was. Look at you.” Yumiko held up my arms and then let them drop to the sides. “I can’t believe how tragic you look. I have to finish my portfolio for the semester. You’ll be the perfect subject. I feel as if I dialed you up. Like 1-800-Mattress.”

  “Here I am,” I said, feeling a little bit better. Yumiko had liked me from the start.

  She reached up to put her hand on my head. I had forgotten how little she was.

  “It’s so soft,” she said. “Like peach fuzz. I’m going to have such a great time with your head. You can stay for a couple of days, can’t you? You absolutely have to ride your unicycle for Smita,” she said. “In India, the streets are filled with circus performers.”

  Yumiko opened her door wide, and I followed her in, relieved, carrying my things with me.

  “I’ve got the best room on campus,” she said. She walked me to the window, which was actually a door that stretched from the ceiling to the floor. It opened to a small balcony overlooking a big, grassy lawn.

  “You know I dumped your brother?” she said.

  I had not talked to Daniel. He would laugh if he saw me.

  “You haven’t seen him yet?” Yumiko tilted her head. She looked at the knapsack I’d dropped on her floor, my unicycle leaning against the wall. “He fell in love with me. I could see it coming from the start. Poor boy. He wanted to see me all the time. He wanted to sleep over every night. He had no understanding of my friendship with Smita. He always thought he could join us for dinner. Just because he wanted to.”

  I stood at the window and looked across the lawn. There was a small pond at the far end. I saw a couple feeding ducks. I knew Yumiko was talking about Daniel, but everything she said made me feel sad.

  “Is that so bad?” I said.

  “That kind of devotion will kill any relationship,” Yumiko said.

  “It shouldn’t,” I said. “Not if it’s real.”

  Yumiko was describing what it was like to be in love. To be part of another person. It made sense that Yumiko would not want Daniel’s love. He was not good enough for her. But I was good enough for Chloe. I was the only person for Chloe.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”

  It had never occurred to me to call them.

  “I want to sculpt you.” Yumiko put her finger on my breastbone, pressing hard. I tried to stand up straight. I didn’t like the way she touched me.

  “No problem,” I said.

  “Will you pose nude?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  I felt myself blushing, remembering how Lisa Markman would use any excuse to get my clothes off.

  “It’s essential,” Yumiko said. “I’ll draw you right now. I’d like to see your line. I’d love to do a series of nudes. Flat-chested will be a new challenge.” Yumiko pointed to her desk chair. “You can sit there. We can talk while I draw you.”

  I sat in the chair in front of Yumiko’s desk. I took off my coat and the sweater beneath it and, when Yumiko nodded, the T-shirt.

  Yumiko sucked in air through her teeth.

  “I think you are actually concave,” she said.

  She was looking at my chest.

  “That’s bad?” I said.

  Yumiko reached for her pencil.

  “You are an incredible subject. I can’t believe you just showed up on my doorstep. Smita will have to come see you.”

  “How should I pose?” I asked. “How do you want me?”

  I grabbed a hairbrush and a stapler and held them over my chest.

  “No.” Yumiko shook her head. “No props. I need to see your figure. Clean lines.”

  I could hear her pencil scratch against the paper.

  “My adviser was distraught when I dropped out of the psych program. He didn’t understand.” Yumiko paused from her drawing. “But it wasn’t just the lab work. I realized I don’t want to give myself to others. I want to study the mind, but I don’t want to fix it. I don’t have the patience to sit and fix other people’s problems. That’s not me.”

  I nodded, as if I understood what Yumiko was talking about.

  “Don’t move your head,” she said.

  She squinted her already squinty eyes.

  I was good at holding still. My posture was good from riding the unicycle. From my seat in front of Yumiko’s desk, I could look out the window onto the lawn. I could see students walking by. Anyone who looked up could see me half naked. Yumiko told me to take off my pants.

  I bit my lip. I was hungry and tired. I slid out of my jeans.

  “Terrific,” she said, biting the end of her pencil.

  Yumiko looked down at her sketch pad, spit on her finger, and rubbed the spit around on her drawing.

  I posed for three long hours. Yumiko had started with drawing exercises. She drew fast to improve her technique. A drawing a minute. The stopwatch went off, and I would strike a new pose. I couldn’t move during that minute or Yumiko would get mad. It was hard. My nose would itch. There was a draft from the window. My nipples were stiff from the cold. Yumiko didn’t look at me like I was something she wanted to touch. It was not like with Lisa. I knew it was because of my
hair. I was ugly. Yumiko didn’t like me the way she used to.

  “You look so terrible.” She said terrible as if it was the best thing in the world. She made drawing after drawing until I could not hold myself still any longer. The room had turned cold. I was shivering.

  “You’re cold?” Yumiko sounded annoyed. “I guess we better stop. I did some great work tonight.”

  We got ready for bed. Yumiko wore a pair of blue flannel pajamas with white clouds and yellow and pink bunnies. I had not brought anything to sleep in. Yumiko gave me a pair of pink silk pajamas. I recognized them instantly as Chloe’s. She’d come back from Hawaii and, the very next day, accused me of stealing them. Chloe had put her hand on her forehead, looking at me like her head might explode, and demanded that I give them back.

  “You take the wall,” Yumiko said.

  Yumiko was so little, we fit perfectly in her little bed. She crawled in after me, and I could feel her breath on my neck. I started to breathe faster. I was beginning to feel a little better. Yumiko had once told me she liked me best. She liked me more than Daniel. She smelled nice, like grape bubble gum. For a long time, we pretended to sleep. I turned over, as gently as I could. Yumiko’s eyes were closed. I kissed her mouth, a quick butterfly kiss, but Yumiko didn’t respond. I put my hand on her shoulder, but soon she flipped over the other way and her breathing became more even.

  We met Smita in an art studio on campus. She looked distressed when I took off the black knit hat that Yumiko had lent me.

  “Wow,” Smita said, biting her lip.

  “I told you,” Yumiko said.

  “You did not give me an accurate idea.” Smita looked at the floor, as if she was embarrassed for me. “Actually.”

  Smita looked like she came from a royal family. She seemed stuck up somehow. Her skin was dark, and she had dark, heavy shadows under her eyes. Her accent sounded English. She wore long, dangling earrings that you could see past her hair, which was cut even with her chin.