Chapter 25
L
acey grudgingly had to admit that Monica was fun to have around. And she provided Lacey the perfect excuse to take time off of work. She needed a little break. Who wouldn’t approve of Lacey taking time off to get to know her long-lost twin?
They took the dogs for walks in all her favorite neighborhoods, grocery shopped at open markets, and scribbled notes on the porch in their pajamas, filling in the cracks of their lives.
How old were you when you got your period?
Both age twelve, around Halloween for Lacey, Christmas for Monica. Monica’s aunt Grace took her out to dinner to celebrate. Margaret gestured tampon insertion instructions in a crowded bus depot bathroom.
Margaret:
| “Stick it up the hole!”
|
Lacey:
| “Which one?”
|
Biggest fear?
Bats,
for Lacey.
The woods,
for Monica.
Favorite holiday?
Monica asked.
Hate them. All of them.
Why?
Group home. We’d be paraded around the community, given gifts by people we’d never met, baked dry cookies by old ladies, dragged to church, reminded we didn’t have real families.
Monica was crying again. So Lacey told her about her one bright spot, Miss Lee. She could’ve been a Mrs. Lee; Lacey didn’t know for sure, or really care. She knew enough. Miss Lee was tall, and funny, and beautiful. She always made an effort to encourage Lacey, made her feel special. Every holiday Lacey got some little gift from her. That was something, it wasn’t all bad.
Halloween,
Lacey wrote.
I also like Halloween.
Our birthday!
It was true, the twins were born under a full moon, in a night filled with witches and broomsticks, and buckets of candy. What their life might have been. Two little girls in disguise. Trick or treat. Monica felt bad for bringing up birthdays. After all, she had celebrated every single one with her parents.
Don’t forget she collects lace,
Monica wrote.
She keeps it all over the house. Lace, lace, lace.
Who?
Mother.
Lacey was asleep on the sofa. Lying on her side, arms hugging a green silk pillow, mouth slightly open, a stray dark hair snaked across her upper lip. Rookie was curled up in the space between her stomach and the sofa’s edge. Snookie was nestled at her feet.
They both like Lacey better,
Monica thought as she watched her sister sleep. It was now or never. Even though she knew Lacey couldn’t hear her, she still crept up the stairs. It wouldn’t take long; there were only two rooms and a bathroom on the second floor. She was staying in the guest-room-slash-office to the left; the room on the right was Alan and Lacey’s. The closet in her room offered nothing but Alan’s suits and a few high heels that Monica could only hope belonged to Lacey, as she’d already tried those on. She slipped into the bathroom. She’d start with the medicine cabinet first; that was hardly a crime.
Toothpaste, dental floss, Q-tips, tampons, shaving cream, deodorant, men’s cologne, perfume. No prescription pills, not even a bottle of pain reliever. Monica’s pills were in her suitcase. She hadn’t carried them in her pocket lately. When was the last time she’d even thought about them? A pair of jeans were slung over the towel rack. She loved how Lacey dressed: casual, artistic, confident. Before she could talk herself out of it, Monica slipped off her tan dress pants and slipped on the jeans. A perfect fit. She took her socks off and looked at her feet. Just plain old pink polish. How mundane, how utterly ubiquitous. She opened the cabinet underneath the sink.
There it was, a basket filled with polishes, every shade under the rainbow. Monica closed her eyes and tried to remember which colors her sister had on her feet. She picked the colors out of the basket, sat on the toilet, and propped her foot up on the edge of the tub. Red, she was sure, for the big toe. Red, green, yellow, blue, purple. Right foot, then left. She put the polishes back in the basket and was about to close the cabinet when she noticed the makeup bag next to it. She slipped it out and stood in front of the mirror. The glasses had to go. She’d taken them off when she visited Lacey and Alan at his job site, but soon the need to see won out over vanity. Now, though, she hated them again. Did Lacey wear contacts? Or did she get deafness while Monica got the poorer vision?
Monica took her glasses off, shook out her hair. Lacey’s hair was longer; there was nothing Monica could do but let it grow. Lacey wore a dusky eye shadow, a trace of brown eyeliner, black mascara, and at times a shiny copper color on her lips. Monica did the same. Then she added a freckle near her chin with brown eyeliner. Except for the hair, and the way-too-conservative blouse, she dared anyone to tell them apart now.
She tossed her dress pants and socks over the towel rack and padded into the bedroom, careful not to mess up her toes. She headed straight for the closet. It was a shame she didn’t have time to try everything on. She took off her blouse, threw it on the bed. She picked a billowy cream-colored blouse with colorful flowers. It was low-cut, with strings that could be tied in a bow. She left them hanging down, as she imagined Lacey would. She found a pair of brown flip-flops, perfect for showing off her new toes. She found a group of perfumes gathered on the dresser, sniffed each one until she found one she liked the best, a soft vanilla fragrance, and sprayed. She opened the dresser drawer. She avoided Lacey’s rings but put on a pair of gold hoop earrings and a small gold bracelet. The transformation was complete.
It’s amazing how easy it was, how suddenly she wasn’t herself anymore. She was sexier, way more confident. What would Joe think? Would he throw her down on the bed, take her right here, right now? But it wasn’t Joe she imagined ripping off her clothes, it was Mike. Michael Dawson, sculptor. She could feel his lips on hers, his arms holding her, crushing her, as if he couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t take her clothes off fast enough; then, he’s on top of her, inside her, all about her. Could she do it? Could she go to the studio and surprise Mike over the weekend? No. Because no matter how she looked on the outside, inside she was still the same old boring, conservative Monica.
She crept back downstairs, stood next to the couch, and listened to her sister breathe. She was very loud. Just like she chewed loudly, and tapped pencils to a beat she couldn’t hear, and sometimes shuffled her feet noisily along the sidewalk because she couldn’t hear herself walk. Would Monica have told her these things about the hearing world if they’d grown up together? Would Lacey have wanted her to, or would she have hated her for it? Just like she might hate her for going against her plan to dump her parents. Because nothing was going to get resolved until they all met face-to-face. Monica would do it; somehow she would get them all in a room together. They were a family. Whether they liked it or not.
“Okay,” Lacey said. “Tell me about our parents until I say stop.” Monica glanced at Kelly Thayler, who was perched across from Lacey, ready to interpret and offer comfort as if she were the sister here. Why did she even have to be here? They were doing fine on their own. And it was just rude of Kelly to always sign back and forth with Lacey without telling her what she was saying. Weren’t there already enough barriers between them without adding her to the mix? Just because they spent a couple of years together as children, years that should have belonged to Monica—that didn’t give her the right to storm in and take over. Although she did like hearing stories from when Lacey was a girl, stories that should have never happened, stories that should have been both their memories.
Lacey was a hellion at school, she learned. Always playing practical jokes, always breaking the rules. Once, at Lacey’s insistence, she and Kelly tied their bedsheets together and slid out the window.
“We were only on the second floor,” Kelly laughed.
“Where did you go?” Monica asked. Wishing it had been her and Lacey sliding down the sheets together.
“We collected lightning bugs,” Lacey said. Monica loved watching her sister sign. She could see the lightning bugs brought to life before her very eyes, flying and blinking, then being trapped in ajar. Lacey even bugged her eyes out as if she were the one who’d been captured.
“That’s right!” Kelly said. “You snuck into the kitchen and poured an entire jar of spaghetti sauce down the drain just to get the jar to put them in.”
“Ragu,” Lacey said. “Margaret was furious. She didn’t let me eat spaghetti sauce for an entire year.”
“Bitch,” Monica said. “Total bitch.” How could her parents have done this to her?
“It was no big deal,” Lacey said. “It was worth it.”
“It’s so easy to picture,” Monica said. “And of course I know exactly what you looked like as a little girl. Exactly like me.”
“You two don’t look exactly alike,” Kelly said. “I can easily tell you apart.”
“Care to put that to a test?” Monica said. Monica had been practicing “changing into Lacey” every day she could get away with it. She was getting good at it. She doubted Little Miss Interpreter could tell them apart.
“We’re not trying to look alike,” Lacey said. “I don’t want to look like anybody but me.”
It’s too late,
Monica wanted to shout.
You do look like me, I look like you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Lacey was, of course, a different person. Monica was shocked her sister rode a motorcycle, jumped out of airplanes, and didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her. Monica wished she were more like her.
“Back to the subject,” Lacey said. “Tell me about our parents until I tell you to stop.”
Monica started with the Colonel. He was very tall, dark hair, blue eyes. They definitely had more of his genes than their mother’s. He grew up in Savannah, Georgia, with his sister, Grace. They came from money. He learned to fly airplanes when he was just sixteen—
“That’s where you get your sense of adventure from,” Monica said, interrupting herself. “From our father.”
“No,” Lacey said. “I got it from being abandoned. Alone. Having to fight my way through the world.” Lacey stared Monica down, daring her to say otherwise. Monica felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach, but she didn’t argue the point.
“When Dad and Grace were little, their mother, our grandmother—”
“Stop,” Lacey said. “Grandparents. I never thought about grandparents. Aunts, uncles, cousins. I never thought about any of that.” She leapt off the couch and began pacing. This time it was Kelly’s turn to give Monica a dirty look. It was true. A whole world had been taken from Lacey. Gifts, and kisses, and hugs. Birthdays and Christmas and—
It wasn’t just her parents who’d kept this secret, it was an entire family structure. Everyone lied. Why? How could they have possibly convinced them to keep quiet? Was that why they hardly ever visited their relatives? Had her father set some kind of condition, complete with punishment if anyone ever opened their mouths? He probably had.
Grandma and Grandpa Bowman were very old. They died when Monica was seven. She supposed it wasn’t their place to tell a seven-year-old what her parents had done. Her mother’s parents lived in California. And although she’d begged many times, Monica was never allowed to stay with them alone. At the time they said it was too far, she was too young. But was it really because they were afraid if she were alone with her maternal grandparents, they would tell her about Lacey? They should have. Somebody should have.
Aunt Grace. Monica’s favorite. She’d finally done it—but look at all the years that had gone by. Could she even look at Aunt Grace the same again? Her parents were first on the list, but Aunt Grace wasn’t off the hook either. Monica was going to confront her too, hopefully with Lacey at her side.
“What’s your first memory?” Lacey asked. Monica thought about it. She closed her eyes, hoping, praying a memory involving Lacey would come to her. But there was nothing. Nothing.
“Playing on a blanket on the grass. At the cabin,” Monica said. “I think it had Peter Rabbit on it.”
“Cabin?” Lacey asked.
“Our summer home,” Monica said. “Moosehead Lake. An hour from Portland. We went there every summer. Mom and Dad are there now.” She stopped, as if venturing any further would set off a land mine. But Lacey seemed calm, taking it all in. “We should go there,” Monica said. “We should go there right now.”
“Moosehead Lake,” Lacey repeated. She headed for the stairs. “Come on,” she said. Monica and Kelly followed without even asking why. Soon they were standing in front of the computer in the guest bedroom. Lacey brought up Google Earth. “Show me,” she said. Monica entered the address for the cabin. Soon they were hovered over it, zooming in close. “Wow,” Lacey said. “It’s huge.”
“It’s more like a hunting lodge than a cabin,” Monica said.
“Her father makes guns,” Lacey told Kelly.
He’s your father too,
Monica thought.
“Air guns,” Monica said out loud. “For target practice. For fun.” Soon the screen filled with the faraway image of the cabin, then zoomed closer and closer until it loomed so large they felt as if they could have put one foot through the screen and they’d be standing on the wraparound porch.