In Stereo Where Available (2 page)

“Crummy.”

I poured myself a bowl of Honeycombs. “Why crummy?”

“Not my type. He’s a political consultant. And he has a tattoo.”

“Where?”

She turned her arm over and pointed to the underside of it, halfway between her elbow and wrist. “A sun.”

“Must be a Democrat.”

“Yeah. It was a waste of time. I really
hoped
, though. Everything else was perfect. Age, zip code, education, hobbies, you name it. He’s got a master’s degree, and he bikes.”

“What about his personality?”

She shrugged. “Fine. He opened the car door for me. I can’t do the tattoo thing, though. That’s okay. I’ve got another date next Saturday.”

“Who is it this time?”

“A computer programmer. He’s thirty-four, and he likes sci-fi. We’ll see.”

“That sounds a little scary.”

“Yeah, but he’s a Libra. He lives in 20740, plus he’s a Dog and I’m a Rabbit. So there’s potential there.” She picked up her coffee mug and pointed to a picture on the newspaper beneath it. “Hey, look. It’s Madison.”

I picked up the newspaper and scanned the page quickly. Madison’s face, framed in a wet circle from Lauren’s mug, hovered above an italicized headline.
“Local Girl Bleats Her Way to Stardom
,” I read.

Lauren winced. “Ouch.”

“Maryland’s own Grace Kassner is still holding most of her fifteen minutes of fame in escrow after her comedic interpretation of ‘America the Beautiful’ on Tuesday night’s episode of
Singing Sensation
.” I sighed and handed the paper back to Lauren. “Couldn’t they be just a
little
nicer?”

“Nice doesn’t sell papers.” She studied the photo, ignoring the coffee ring that was slowly trickling down the page. “Are you
sure
you’re identical twins?”

“Yep.” I drank the milk from my cereal bowl and scooted my chair back. “Except for the nose, the boobs, the starvation diet, and the hair, we look exactly the same. Take my word for it.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.” I threw my school bag over my shoulder and picked up the stack of files from the breakfast bar. “Except that I’ve got a better singing voice.”

But it bothered me more than I let on. Naturally, she should look exactly like me: light brown hair, flattish nose, a body that felt too small on the top and too big on the bottom. Average-looking, inoffensive but not exactly pretty; we attracted attention when we were younger, but only because we were twins. Madison, however, had modeled since she was eighteen, and she’d always done well enough to get by. Little jobs—catalog work, the bikini photos for tanning salon ads, a couple of commercials, an extremely small part in an extremely softcore
Playboy Fantasies
video that our parents still didn’t know about—but still, she could honestly say that she was a model. It was interesting, seeing who I might become with a little deprivation and a few thousand dollars here and there. It could also be a little disorienting when people pointed out what a knockout she was, after a lifetime of hearing,
Why, I can’t even tell you two apart!
I tried not to find it insulting.

Grace Kassner
. I couldn’t ever remember calling her that, although I suppose I must have, once. She hadn’t become Madison until we’d watched the movie
Splash
when we were six and she had insisted on naming herself after the mermaid. If I forgot and called her by her real name, she pinched me. She made mermaid tails for our Barbies out of green construction paper and staples, and took long, frequent baths, hoping for fins to appear. It went on for two years until she changed her mind and decided she wanted to be a horse. That stage was shorter and a little less obsessive. Our mom put her in riding lessons, and after a few months of helping shovel out the stable, she lost interest. After that she settled for covering our walls with pictures of unicorns.

So far, Grace Kassner had won not a single credited role that she had auditioned for, and she was starting to get a little desperate. I wasn’t surprised she was willing to do some win-the-man reality show at this point. She had lived in Los Angeles for five years until she ran out of luck and money, and although she was proud to tell people she’d been in three top-grossing blockbuster movies, she was tired of being an extra. She was tired of traveling aimlessly and losing touch with friends and being in debt up to her eyebrows. And, like me, she was twenty-nine. It was about time.

I slid into the seat of my Plymouth Horizon and dropped the folder of corrected math papers on the seat beside me. My cell phone turned on with an impersonal little buzz, and I set it on top of the folder, then started the car. Just as I pulled out of my space it chirped, letting me know I had voice mail. That was a little unusual. Maybe it was Bill. I put my foot on the brake and dialed my own number to retrieve it.

“Hey, Karen, it’s Jerry,” said a nervous, unfamiliar voice. “I, uh, I met you at the teachers’ conference last week. Look, if you get this message tonight, give me a call and maybe we can get together. Okay. Thanks.” He left his number and hung up. Just a wrong number. No more messages. No call from Bill. Oh, well.

The best part of the day, always, was walking into my classroom first thing in the morning, before the kids came in, before anything was taken out. I liked the order of it—the dollhouse perfection of each chair turned upside-down over its desk, the carpet sample squares in a stack by my rocking chair, the easy-reader books tidily arranged in their plastic bins. For half an hour or so I would move around the room, arranging the words to add to the Word Wall that day and the materials for the science lesson, taking the time to write the date neatly on the chalkboard. Without the chaos of my kids around me it felt peaceful, anticipatory, perfectly organized. Naturally, I
loved
the kids. I loved to teach them, to watch them have fun and struggle and wiggle with joy when they sounded out a word they had thought they couldn’t read. But in the constant motion of the day, there was no time to reflect on anything bigger than the moment at hand. That was what the morning was for.

Hearing a knock at my door, I turned from setting up the tapes at the listening station. It was Antonia, the kindergarten teacher whose classroom was next to mine. She was short and shy, with long dark hair that fell in rippling waves from its center part; you could tell that, if she cut it, it would instantly curl up into an unmanageable frizzy mess. She was the third of six children in a big Italian Catholic family, and she matched every stereotype Lauren had for middle children. Watchful. A good listener. A peacemaker. I saw her only occasionally outside of school, but within our workday together she was the closest thing I had to a best friend. She was probably the only person in the world, for example, who knew that I was a virgin. Even my own mother and twin sister had long since assumed otherwise. Even my
father
. He cracked jokes around me that I didn’t get. Antonia understood. She’d had the same problem, but then, she’d been married at twenty-four. Even
she
felt a little sorry for me.

“How did your sister do on
Singing Sensation
?” she asked softly.

I set the headphones beside each of the tape players. “She got eliminated.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. She’s got another job already. That’s Madison for you. She’s always got something on the horizon. The next big thing.”

Antonia smiled. “I thought
she
was the next big thing.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling back. “She’s been the next big thing for almost twelve years.”

“They’ll discover her one of these days. They have to.”

“I hope so. Nobody works harder than she does to get noticed. If it never happens for her, at least it won’t be because she didn’t give it her all.”

Antonia came a few feet farther into my classroom, stopping at the fish tank to play with the goldfish through the glass. “How are things with Bill?”

“He dumped me. I think.”

“Oh, no. I should stop asking you questions. It’s all bad news today.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m kind of bummed about it, but it’s really not that big a deal. He was kind of annoying. And he was always working on his degree.”

“You’ll meet somebody better. There’s someone for everyone.”

I thumped the side of a stack of worksheets against the table. “Says who?” I asked teasingly.

“Don’t you think it’s true?”

“I think it’s kind of like your mother telling you you’re beautiful. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. People aren’t like a bag of plastic Easter eggs, where all you have to do is find the matching half.”

She twisted a piece of hair around her finger. “Don’t be pessimistic.”

“I’m not. I’m only being realistic. I’m at peace with it.” I smiled. “More or less.”

From down the hall came the slow roar of kids being let in from the first bus to arrive. Antonia grimaced and hurried back toward her classroom. “See you at lunch,” I called after her.

When I’d told Antonia that I was at peace with being alone, I’d lied. That evening I rifled through the recycling bin until I found one of Lauren’s printouts of potential men, each covered with a red X. At the top of the page was the Web site’s address:
Kismet.com
.
Find romance with Kismet!
read the banner ad.
Free $50 profile!
Well, it was worth a try.

Lauren came home from the gym while I was filling out my free $50 profile. She had on a black leotard, Juicy Couture yoga pants, and a sweatband that said “Seasonale.”

“Are you really wearing the name of your birth-control pill on your forehead?” I asked her, clicking on my answers to the personality-test questions.

“Beats wearing your heart on your sleeve,” she answered. “Hey, you didn’t answer that one right. You do
not
‘generally make decisions quickly and decisively.’“

“Yes, I do. I teach first grade. I make snap decisions a thousand times a day.”

“Not in your personal life, you don’t.”

“It doesn’t
say
personal life. It says—” I clicked the “next page” button and a string of men’s photos appeared. “Who are they?”

“They’re your matches. They’re all customized to your personality profile and zip code.”

I scrolled down the screen.
“Two hundred and eighteen
of them? All perfectly matched? Seriously?”

“Yep.” She pointed to a picture of a shy-eyed, brown-haired guy. “He’s cute. Click on him.”

I read aloud from his profile. “‘I enjoy movies, hiking, and taking my dog, Sally, on long walks through the park. My ex-girlfriend says I’m thoughtful and romantic.’ He sounds nice.”

Lauren shook her head. “Thumbs-down. Never go out with someone who mentions their ex or names their pet. He’s already got two women in his life.”

“Oh.”

She pointed to a dark-haired guy with a sexy, all-white smile. “Try him.”

“‘Hey, ladies, what can I say about myself?’“ I read. “‘I’m an average guy. I like the Redskins, the Orioles, the Capitals, and the Wizards. I’m looking for a—”

“Don’t worry about what he’s looking for,” Lauren said quickly. “He already told you he won’t respect you in the morning and he’s unavailable fifty-two Sundays a year. Move on.”

“He said that? No, he didn’t. That’s not what he said.”

“Read between the lines, Phoebe.”

I sighed and clicked the next page. “You and Madison. Maybe you should come on dates with me as a translator.”

Lauren patted me on the shoulder and sipped at the straw in her iced latte. “Don’t worry, Fee. I can get you through this. I’m a professional.”

Madison spent her few days back home signing autographs for the neighborhood kids and posing for pictures taken by their excited mothers, a celebrity just for the two minutes she’d spent singing badly and getting cut down by a bigger celebrity. That Friday, on the way to the airport, Pepper ran back and forth in the backseat of my car, bumping hard against the doors with every turn. She wasn’t much of a car dog. Pepper was a purebred Maltese, one of those dogs with straight white hair that falls all the way to the floor, making her look like a well-groomed dust mop. She had a yappy little bark and a prissy little walk, and whenever I fed her, I got a guilty sort of feeling that I should be serving her dinner in a crystal goblet like they do in those TV commercials.