Beautiful Lies (17 page)

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I slammed the door shut behind me, leaving my things behind. I ran down the empty hallway to the girls’ bathroom and locked myself into a stall, sitting on a closed toilet lid with my knees pulled against my chest. The smell from the classroom lingered all over me: it was on my clothes, in my hair, like an invisible layer of sludge. I stayed in the bathroom until the end of the period, and I didn’t go back to the room for my things until the end of the day.

That night in our bedroom, my sister and I sat quietly at our desks. We were supposed to be doing our homework. Rachel chewed absently at a string of black licorice as she worked on a sheet of algebra equations. My bookbag was on the floor across the room, untouched since I’d come home that afternoon. I had no plans to do any actual schoolwork. Instead, I concentrated on a sketch. It was a pencil drawing, the same one I’d been doing over and over again for months by then. My hand gripped my pencil as I drew the features of a young girl’s face. She was pretty, probably in her late teens. She had long, straight hair, wide-set eyes, and a smile—like she was sharing a secret. Her appearance was marked by a gap between her two front teeth; that, and the fact that she wore earrings made from tiny blue feathers, like something you’d find in a Native American store.

I had no recollection of ever meeting the girl in my sketch. I didn’t even know if she was real. But she was in my head
almost every day, her image so clear that she might as well have been standing right in front of me, begging to be drawn over and over again.

“I heard what happened in bio class today,” Rachel said, still doing her homework.

I felt a flutter of embarrassment at her words. “You did? How?”

“Holly told me.” My sister put down her pencil, pushed away from her desk, and pulled her legs against her chest. “Why were you so upset? Was it because of the worms? They’re already dead. They don’t feel anything.”

“I know that. I know.” I shook my head, frustrated. “I’m not sure what happened. I just couldn’t do it. I felt awful. It was like … like a violation. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

She squinted at me. “Like a violation,” she echoed. “A violation of what, exactly?”

I stared at the hardwood floor of our bedroom. It was dark and shiny with lacquer-filled grooves in the thick planks of wood. More than a hundred years ago, when the house was new, the third floor used to be the servants’ quarters. That fact never bothered Rachel or me in the least; we knew we had the best spot in the house. Servants should be so lucky. We’d been begging to move up here since we were ten years old, once we’d grown comfortable enough around our aunt and uncle to start asking for the things we wanted.

“I’m not sure,” I told her. “Life? Their dead bodies? Cutting them open seemed … oh God, I don’t know. It felt wrong, okay?”

Absently, she reached into her open mouth with an index finger to probe a piece of licorice stuck in her back teeth. Then she nibbled at the end of the same finger. She knew how much I hated black licorice—she thought it was funny. “It’s because you’re so sensitive,” she said, wiping her hand on the back of her jeans. “Isn’t it?”

I shrugged, pretending to brush away the label with indifference, but Rachel and I both knew better; by then we had plenty of evidence that I was most definitely
sensitive,
at the very least.

“You’re like Mom,” she continued. “You’re like Grandma too. It runs in the family, but not with me.”

I shook my head. “Aunt Sharon doesn’t think so. She thinks Grandma’s just crazy.”

Rachel gave a dismissive wave. “Maybe she is. So what? That doesn’t mean she can’t be special too.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud. I loved knowing that I was similar to our mom and grandma. It made me feel like I belonged somewhere, like I was a part of something bigger than myself. Our gift was something that couldn’t be explained, but it was real, and it bound us together permanently—nothing could take it away. Even then, I felt an urgency to hold it close, to nurture it as much as I could. I felt like I’d been entrusted with our family’s legacy, and it was my responsibility to preserve it.

Rachel’s gaze drifted to the sketch on my desk. I knew she’d noticed that I’d been drawing the same girl over and over again for weeks, but she hadn’t mentioned it yet. She didn’t mention it now either. Instead, she said, “I have an idea. I can help you with bio class.”

I could hear strains of the
Jeopardy
theme song playing from downstairs, the sound drifting through the kitchen and up the secret stairs. My uncle watched it every week-night. He was good at answering the questions—even better than most of the contestants. I imagined the three of them sitting together on the living-room sofa with all the lights dimmed, captivated. It was like that sometimes, no matter how much they tried to include us. The three of them were a family. My sister and I were mere interlopers.

I shrugged at Rachel’s idea. “You don’t need to help me. I’ll probably still pass with a D.”

“But you can do better.” She took another big bite from her licorice stick. I could smell her breath from a few feet away. “You could get a C. Maybe even a B.”

“No, I couldn’t. I’m not smart like you.”

“Stop it. Don’t say that.” She continued to chew. She was still squinting. Our room was only lit by a few floor lamps in the corners, a small light on each of our desks, and a night-light beneath the front windows. The night-light’s cover was a pink-and-gold butterfly, hand-painted onto a translucent ceramic cover by our mom. It had been in our bedroom ever since we were infants. “What if you let me help you?” she asked.

“What do you mean? Like, with my homework? I don’t care, Rachel. It’s not important to me. It’s just school.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. What if … what if we switched?” There was a glint of excitement in her eyes as she spoke the possibility out loud.

The idea seemed ridiculous to me. Twins switching places was something that happened in movies and on TV—not in real life. “Come on, Rach. We’d never get away with it.”

She took another bite of licorice, chewing with enthusiasm, leaning forward in her chair as she spoke. “Yes we would. We could do it. I know how you are—how you walk, how you talk, everything. All I’d have to do is wear some more makeup. And you could be me. Alice, it would work. I’m certain it would.”

“I don’t know.” I stared at the drawing of the gap-toothed girl in my sketchbook. Maybe I’d meet her someday. Maybe I’d be walking down the street, and our paths would cross. It wouldn’t be the oddest thing that had ever happened to me. And then what would I do? Take her to my house, show her all my drawings of her? She’d think I was insane.

“Why would you want to do that, Rachel?” I asked. “It won’t matter if I get a C or a B in bio. My grades are still awful. And you’d have to pretend that you hadn’t studied too much, and that you didn’t care about school, or people would figure it out. So why even bother? What do we have to gain from it? We’d just be deceiving everyone for no good reason.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not true. There are good reasons.”

“Oh yeah?” And I pulled my knees to my own chest, in a movement identical to what Rachel had done just a few minutes earlier. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true: sometimes being with her was like staring into a mirror. It wasn’t something I ever got used to, not completely. “What are they, these reasons?”

“You suffer all the time,” she said. “You remember everything that happened that day. Don’t you?”

Her words gave me the shivers. She didn’t have to explain what she was talking about; we both knew she meant the accident that killed our parents. As close as we were, neither one of us ever brought it up directly.

I stared past her, gazing at the night light glowing just above the floorboard, the paint in the butterfly’s wings flaking from so many years of proximity to the heat of a tiny bulb. “I’m fine.”

Her tone was gentle and understanding. “But you’re not, are you? You weren’t fine today in class. And what about next week, when you dissect a pig’s heart? How are you going to feel? Will you be able to stand—”

“Let’s say we do it,” I interrupted. “Say we do it, and it works, and nobody figures it out. Maybe it helps me some. You’re right, I don’t want to dissect a pig’s heart anytime soon.” I looked at her. “Why bother, Rachel? What does it do for you? Why would you want to be me, even for a little while?”

Her eyes—which had sparkled with excitement only a moment ago—seemed to deepen in color as she shifted her gaze toward the floor. “Because I love you.”

I shook my head. “That’s not a good enough reason.”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “It is.”

“…”

“…”

“Okay,” I said. “I have bio fifth period. What do you have?”

She let go of my hands and pushed herself away. Finally, I could look at her again without having to smell the licorice on her breath. She gave me a wide grin. Giggling, she said, “I have study hall.”

So we did it. And it was amazing. The first time I became my sister—even though it was only for a few hours—it felt like so many years’ worth of pressure, coming from somewhere deep within me, had finally been released. I forgot who I was for the day. Obviously, I was still myself physically, but it was like parts of me that were usually illuminated, at the forefront of my mind’s stage, suddenly went dark. They were there, in the background, but they didn’t rule me like usual. Not while I was Rachel.

My sister was happy to do it too—at least I always thought so. There were plenty of times when she volunteered without me even having to ask, whenever I was faced with something she thought might be unmanageable. Dissection. Punishment. Rachel seemed to feel like it was her duty to
protect me from myself, to do whatever she could to ease my suffering. My gift, she believed, was too much of a burden for me to shoulder on my own. Rachel could help me carry it; allowing me to become her offered me some temporary relief. She did it for me all the time. She never said no, not once. She never showed any sign of reluctance, but somehow I knew that it must be draining her. How could it not?

She did it because she loved me, and for so long I believed that was a good enough reason. I let it keep happening, because after we’d done it once, I was hooked. I should have known better. It’s the kind of thing everyone hears over and over again, about any act or substance that alters your mind: it’s never as good as it was the first time. Maybe I understood that from the beginning, maybe not. It didn’t stop me from trying. And Rachel kept giving herself over to me, again and again, because she knew how desperate I was to escape from myself. I took so much from her, I realize now. Maybe it was too much. And even if it wasn’t, the fact remains: I never gave her anything in return.

I’ve been sitting in the stairwell for what feels like hours, waiting, listening to the sounds of my aunt getting ready upstairs. It’s almost impossible to tell exactly how much time has passed, but I know it can’t be as long as it feels. She told me at breakfast that her meeting was at nine a.m. My aunt is always on time, which means she’ll have to leave the house by 8:45 at the latest to drive to the museum uptown.

Faintly, I can hear her moving between her bedroom and bathroom, her steps on the carpet muffled and barely audible. I don’t worry for a second that she’ll decide to take the secret stairs into the kitchen; my sister and I are the only ones who ever use them.

As I wait, I go over my plan for the day in my mind. Obviously I’m not going to school; instead, once my aunt leaves, I’m going to walk to the police station. It’s probably at least two miles away, but I don’t care. Once I’m there, I’ll demand
to speak to one of the officers from yesterday, and I’ll find out what they’re doing to look for my sister.

I hear footsteps on the stairs. The sound of my aunt’s heels against the hardwood floor, her light steps heading down the hall, toward the kitchen. She moves around, going back and forth, coming close to the wall nearest me and then walking away, doing—what? There is the sound of glass clinking, probably a dish or cup, followed by water running. I’m holding as still as I possibly can, barely breathing, so afraid she’ll sense my presence behind the wall.

It dawns on me that she’s probably making herself a cup of coffee before she leaves. For her birthday last summer, Charlie saved up the money he earned working at the Yellow Moon to buy her one of those single-cup coffee makers that are so popular. I can hear it whirring to life as the heater kicks in, followed by the steady drip of water being forced through the machine, filling her cup. She sighs, waiting, and I imagine her leaning against the counter in one of her typical poses: tired but ready for the day, well dressed and smiling, with only a hint of weariness to her features.

The phone rings. It’s the house phone again—and like I said, almost
nobody
ever calls that line. It’s only for emergencies, and also to provide a connection for the security system that’s wired throughout the house, hooked up to all the outside doors. Every so often, Charlie will wander away. He never goes far—he usually ends up in one of the neighbors’ yards or at Mr. Morelli’s house, which isn’t a big
deal—but my aunt and uncle try to keep the alarm set all the time now, so they’ll know if he leaves.