Double Trouble (36 page)

My father’s disapproval of those ways was more than clear. I looked at my boot toe, not really up to a public battle. Jimmy watched the exchange with undisguised interest.

“While Marcia, she with the American name, was always a good girl. She’s the one who did well in school and had nice friends, and got into no trouble at all. She’s the one who married and married well, and gave me grandsons, too.” He smiled at the boys, and Johnny smiled back at him.

Well, at least I knew where I stood. No surprise there. “You ready?” I said to Jimmy.

“I think you’ve got it wrong, Connor,” James said tersely. Everyone stopped. James glanced over his shoulder, looking right at me. His eyes gleamed and I knew that this wasn’t just a casual comment. “I think you named them exactly right, because what’s on the outside isn’t as important as what’s on the inside.”

“And what is that to mean?” My father was turning indignant, because he didn’t take well to having his rhapsodies corrected.

James held my gaze and I felt very warm. “Maralys is the one you can count on. She’s the one who doesn’t promise anything she can’t deliver, even if you’d rather hear otherwise. She’s honest, which is more than most people can say for themselves.”

He glanced to Jimmy. “Maralys is the one you can call. You know that no matter when you ask her for something, or what kind of a jam you’re in, or how much she grumbles about it, that she’ll come through for you.” Jimmy bit his lip and looked down. “And she expects nothing but maybe a little courtesy in return.” Jimmy’s neck turned red.

I had a huge lump in my throat at this defense of my character, but James wasn’t done. He turned to my father. “She’ll sacrifice her own time to be sure those she loves are safe and get good care. She’ll drop everything for you, just because you ask. She’ll check up on those she considers to be beneath her care. She’ll spend days and days of time she doesn’t have looking for a solution to please the most capricious of tastes.” My father colored and dropped his gaze. “And she’ll never blame you for it.”

James met my gaze again and a smile touched his lips. “Maralys will give anything she has for someone she’s protecting. She’ll even pay his tax bills. Maralys is the one who keeps her word, which has to be the most traditional value of all. I think you and your wife, with all respect, got your daughters’ names exactly right.”

I’m not used to men defending me. I stared at James, completely tongue-tied, and the other three stared at us. My father started to say something, then just cleared his throat and fell silent again. Finally I smiled and tried for a joke. “Maybe. Maybe not. I guess it’s all in how you present the information.”

James shook his head and his smile faded. “No, Maralys.
Res ipsa loquitur
.”

I remembered that one. The matter speaks for itself. James was looking at me, hard, as if he’d will me to say something or to believe something that I wasn’t nearly ready to process.

“Come on, Jimmy. Get your coat and let’s move it. Time’s a-wasting.”

“I said that I don’t want to go.”

“You lose. Come on. We’ve got an appointment.” Without any further explanation, I waved to the lot of them and strode back down the hall, feeling James’ gaze follow me the whole way.

I smiled two minutes later at the sound of sneakers behind me. Curiosity killed the cat. The kid and I were two of a kind, just as I suspected.

I had this small adult’s number.

* * *

We walked first to my dad’s house, to meet the realtor. He lived in the neighborhood, albeit in one of the stuccoed new monstrosities built where old houses like this one had been torn down, so he knew both the house and the area.

My dad had signed the contract that the realtor had dropped off the week before, so we finished the paperwork. We walked through the house to review a few things, then he headed off to pound in the sign and make the listing.

I stood and had one good look around, probably the last look, seeing my mother in a thousand places.

“Is this the part where you tell me how rough you had it as a kid?” Jimmy asked.

“No, but since you mention it, let me show you something.” I marched him to the back of the house and a very pink room. “Your mother and I shared this room until we were eighteen.”

There was still a magic marker line down the middle of the floor and Jimmy looked at it with a frown. “Is that the boundary?”

I smiled. “It was. I did it when she took something of mine and I nearly died for my creative expression.” He clearly didn’t understand. “Magic marker on the floor. Big sin. Right up there with tape on the walls and thumbtacks in the door.”

He looked around. “It’s not that big.”

“You said it, not me. I just hated the pink.”

He smirked, then laughed. “Mom loves pink.”

“I know. She loved this room. I think it scarred me for life. I can’t even chew bubble gum because of the color.”

He laughed again, then watched me a bit uneasily.

I smiled at him, deciding to keep him worried. “Come on. We’ve got things to see, people to do.” And I headed out of the house, locking the door behind me and taking my memories of my alive-and-well mom with me, thank you very much.

We walked down the street and I could nearly hear the neurons firing away next to me. Jimmy was looking at the neighborhood, really looking, perhaps imagining Marcia and I growing up here. We covered a lot of turf before he spoke up.

“What’s it like being a twin?”

There was no reason to be ambiguous. “I always thought it sucked. Everyone thinks you come in a pair and that you’re interchangeable with each other. That you should dress the same and look the same and talk the same way. It gets old.”

“And that you should share your stuff,” Jimmy added. I glanced to him in surprise. “That’s what Mom said once. That I should feel lucky that I don’t have to share my birthday with anyone else.”

“You feel lucky yet?”

He grinned, knowing that I was teasing him. “No.”

“Why not?”

“We were supposed to go to Jamaica this winter. It’s not fair!”

“My heart is bleeding for you here.”

“Dad always said I couldn’t learn to scuba dive until I was ten.”

“Ahh!” The light went on. “And you’re ten this year, but you aren’t on a beach with a bunch of scuba diving pros. I get it.”

“It’s a big deal, you know.” He trudged along in his unfastened sneakers, hands balled in his pockets. “If we don’t go next year either, then Johnny and I could be learning to dive at the same time, which would be so lame.”

“You like to be first.”

“I get to be first! I was born first! It’s not fair.” He kicked stones along the sidewalk beside me, glowering all the way. “Besides, all my friends all went somewhere cool. It’s like totally unfair.”

“Poor baby. How many times have you been to the Caribbean?”

“We go every winter. Except this one.”

“And I’ve never been. Trust me, kiddo, I’ve seen a lot more March’s than you have.”

“Don’t tell me I should feel sorry for you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I lived in Japan for three years and that, my short friend, is luck.”

“Did your dad pay for that?”

I laughed. “Right! I worked there. That’s what paid for it. Remember that moral about paying for what you want?”

He made a dismissive noise, but I wasn’t expecting much else.

“Here’s something else for you to think about. Your mom and I are twins, which meant that neither one of us was technically older.”

“Mom always said she was born first.”

“Yeah, she did. It’s not like she remembers.”

He snickered at that.

“But here’s the thing. You get an easy tag. You’ll always be the older one, no matter what happens. Your mom and I didn’t get any easy tags. Neither of us was older or taller or prettier. We were exactly the same. People mixed us up. It really bit.”

“I bet.”

“So, you end having to find something that makes you different from the other one. Something not so superficial as being more blond or being older or even being smarter.”

Jimmy was interested now, though he probably didn’t want to be. “Like what?”

“Well, like the good one and the bad one. That was what we went with. It has a certain simplistic elegance.”

Jimmy grinned. “I know who was who.”

“Well, duh. So did everybody. But you know, as a distinction, being the bad one has no legs.”

“Huh?”

“It can’t take you far. It’s cool as hell when you’re a teenager, but you get into your twenties and it’s not so cool. You either have to get really bad and take crime as your career choice, or you have to fake being bad, which starts to look pretty stupid. Either way, you end up with bad choices and fewer opportunities. See, I’ve been there and I’ve done that, and I think that a smart kid like you could come up with a better choice than being the bad one.”

He was skeptical. “Like being the good one?”

“Puh-leese! Think outside the box! What about being the artsy one? Or the technogeek? The history buff or the mechanic who can fix or build anything? What do you want to be? What do you want to do?”

“How do I know?”

“You don’t have to have the final answer. You just need a place to start.” We walked along and I liked the sound of his furious thinking. This was a good start.

“The astronaut,” he said, nodding firmly.

“And what do you need to do to be an astronaut?”

Jimmy blinked. “I don’t know. Go into space.”

“
Before
that. How do they pick who’s going to be an astronaut?”

He looked up at me, expecting an answer, but I shook my head.

“You’ve got an Internet connection at home. Find out. Why should everyone just give you the answers on a silver platter? Do you think astronauts have no initiative?”

“What’s initiative?”

“Taking things into your own hands. Doing what needs to get done without being told to do it.”

He got the same look his father has when he’s thinking hard. “I could go to the NASA site,” he said carefully. “Maybe they say what you need to do.”

“Maybe they have links to the biographies of the astronauts in their program.”

“What’s a biography?”

“Kind of a history of their life. A resume of what they’ve done and their education. You could look for the things the astronauts have in common.” He was busy with this one and I knew I’d gotten my foot in the door.

But I wasn’t nearly done yet. We were going to slam this lesson home, hard. “Let’s go talk to my old pal.” I caught Jimmy’s shoulder and steered him into the police station right beside us that he hadn’t even noticed we were passing yet.

Flaherty, of course, was waiting. He tried not to look as if he was waiting on us, but he failed miserably. He loved doing this trick. He’d told me on the phone that it was his contribution to society.

There’s a reason why Flaherty’s still a beat cop. He’s a good-hearted guy, but he is incapable of being unobtrusive. He’s great on the beat, dispensing breezy greetings and quelling glares. He’s also good at being underestimated, something that serves him well.

He was getting older and heavier, so I figured he was still scoring donuts somewhere. His hairline had receded, but his eyebrows were as furry as ever, if not more so, and now grey. They seemed to move independently, like caterpillars desperately trying to escape some sticky stuff that had been applied to his forehead.

“Mary Elizabeth O’Reilly!” he boomed. “And is this not a surprise!”

It wasn’t, but Jimmy didn’t seem to realize as much. On the other hand, Flaherty made an impressive sight as he rolled toward us, buttons nearly bursting. The kid seemed a bit taken aback. Flaherty was tall too—there was a lot of this cop to like. He gave me a quick wink, loving that he was going to fake out a kid on my express request, then scowled at my outfit.

“Did you learn nothing in all these years?” he demanded. “What is it that you’re doing to make your living these days, hmmm?”

“I’m a webmistress.” He blinked so I elaborated. “Computer stuff.” He took a breath to expound upon his view of the high tech industry, but I leaned closer and dropped my voice confidentially. “But you were right all those years ago. Bad blood will out, no doubt about it.”

“Yes?” He did his squinty-eyed cop look, the one that used to terrify all us kids and which now nearly made me laugh.

“This is my nephew, Jimmy.”

“Marcia’s boy!” Flaherty shook Jimmy’s hand with great ceremony. The kid had a tolerant look on his face that I hoped wouldn’t last much longer.

I shook my head sadly. “He steals, Flaherty.”

Pop
! The boy was shocked. “Auntie Maralys!”

“This fine boy? Well, it takes all kinds, that it does. What’d you steal?”

Jimmy stammered then named the toy.

Flaherty put out his hand. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Jimmy might have brought it along, but he pulled it out of his jacket and surrendered it.

Looking daggers at me all the while.

Before Jimmy could say boo, Flaherty had spun him around and handcuffed him. It was no accident that he had a small set at the ready, though I was impressed by how quickly he still moved. “Come along, young man. There’s only one place for a thief.”

“Auntie Maralys!”

“Hey, what can I do?” I shrugged and leaned against the counter, apparently indifferent to Jimmy’s fate.

They had some really lousy magazines in the waiting area, bad enough to make me wonder whether people who couldn’t be dentists became cops.

Flaherty came back whistling a few minutes later and perched on a chair beside me. “Scared him crapless,” he said with satisfaction. “We’ll give him half an hour.”

“Thanks. Thanks so much for this. I know it isn’t legal.”

“But it ought to be. Can’t put the fear of Jesus into anyone any more, and you’ve got to get them early even for a fear of the law.”

I fanned my magazine and chucked it back in the pile. “You’ve got some crummy magazines, here, you know?”

“Well, it’s not the library, is it?” He grinned. “Besides, we don’t want to encourage the lawyers to hang around.”

I laughed with him, then hunched forward. “Do you know who his dad is?”