Gemini (24 page)

And Mom—if we'd been regular babies, regular twins even, would she have kept working? If she hadn't needed to spend so much time taking us to those childhood medical checkups, to physical therapy and the occupational therapy that we used to do when we were small; if she hadn't needed to spend so much time at our school, creating a path for us there, and running all those playgroups to get people used to us, and modifying our house, and forever readjusting
all those clothes that we kept outgrowing, would she have been a tenured professor now too?

Hailey went on. “Not to mention all the other places they might have wanted to live or things they might have wanted to do. They could have signed up for the surgery when we were babies. It probably would have made their lives easier, no matter how it turned out.”

My heart ached. What could I say to that?

“Clara?” said Hailey. “Tell me you'll forget about this. Okay?”

I didn't answer.

“Clara?”

“Okay,” I said quietly. “Okay.”

But I lay there blinking in the darkness, my mind zinging all around.

And finally, when I was sure that Hailey was asleep, I pulled my phone under the blankets and searched for the name of the surgeon who had separated those twins in San Francisco. With just a little bit of detective work, I found his email address, and I sent a message.

And when that was done, I found that I could sleep.

As we opened the front doors of the high school gym, I heard the shrill, unmistakable voice of Lindsey Baker. “Seriously, are you kidding me? I can't be hungover tomorrow, and you guys can't either. It's our first game, and it's Los Pinos. We have to crush them!”

She stood near the back of the gym's front entryway, beside a cluster of blue and silver balloons. Vanessa, Jasmine, and two other girls surrounded Lindsey, all wearing dresses so tiny that they couldn't possibly intend to sit down in them. They wore elaborate hairdos with little sparkly gems and glitter, and masks of thick makeup. As we walked in with Alek, they all turned to stare.

Well, let them look.
We looked good.

Back in San Francisco, I had eventually convinced Mom to take us shopping. We had gotten through the mall without causing anyone to faint or scream—not even Clara!—though nearly everyone had stared at least a little, often followed by an all-too-obvious looking away, hushing of
children, or speedy exit. A few had made comments or asked questions, most of them sounding well intentioned, a few less so. I'll grant you, the whole thing had been about as pleasant as having them pelt us with rotten fruit. But, per the agreement that we'd made just before arriving, we had all steadfastly ignored them. It had been a compromise between my strategy of screaming at them like a fishwife and Clara's strategy of fainting like a Victorian lady.

Most important, we had found the perfect dresses, and Mom and her sewing machine had made them look great on us.

I wore a long black gown, strapless and formfitting, flaring out slightly at the bottom, plus elbow-length black satin gloves and strappy sandals with a chunky three-inch heel. My hair was freshly hot pink and sleek, my makeup dramatically glamorous.

Clara's outfit was a combination of “contrasting good girl” and “don't upstage the contestant.” She wore her hair in a French twist, her makeup softer than mine. Her dress was creamy white, sleeveless, draped, and she wore white chunky heels. Neither of us had ever worn heels before, but we'd spent some time practicing at home, and we were only a little bit shaky now.

And then there was Alek. In a black suit, black shirt, and black tie, he was devastating. As we walked in, he actually took my hand. His felt so warm and strong, I felt like I
wanted him to hold on to me like that for as long as possible.

“Hey, Lindsey,” I said, trying to be friendly. “Does basketball really start tomorrow? I didn't know that. You have some new cheers for it?”

She gaped at me, almost as wide-eyed as on the first day she'd seen us, back in sixth grade.

“Soccer,” Vanessa said, looking me up and down with a vaguely confused scowl. “Girls' soccer. We're not cheering. We're playing. Soccer starts in November. Basketball doesn't start until December.”

“Oh, right.” I probably should have known that.

Lindsey grabbed Vanessa's arm. Though she was staring at my hand—the one that was clasped in Alek's hand—and looking positively frightened, she was plainly talking to Vanessa when she said, “Hey, didn't you have something to show me? Inside? Right this second?”

Vanessa followed Lindsey into the gym proper, the other girls streaming behind them, though two of them turned to stare at us as they went.

“Well,” Alek said when they were gone, “that could have been worse.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You sure you're not worried about it? You sound a little worried.”

We had talked on the phone the night before, and he'd assured me that he didn't care what anyone thought about him coming to the dance with me, didn't care what they
said to him or how they acted. “I'm used to weird looks and rumors anyway,” he'd said then, but I wasn't sure if he really knew what he was getting into. Or if any of us did.

He smiled now. “I'm not worried. I was never worried. I admit I'm a little relieved so far. But not worried.”

I nodded; it might not be logical, but it was basically the same way that I felt myself. “Let's walk in slowly, to give them a head start,” I said. “Which shouldn't be a problem in these heels.”

Inside, the gym was decorated in an underwater theme. The collapsed bleachers were hidden behind some kind of gauzy fabric, with cutouts of fish, shells, and mermaids; in front of these a few cardboard cutouts of coral stood propped up on the floor. The back wall featured a huge mural of a sunken pirate ship, while layers of blue and silver balloons covered the ceiling. The overhead lights were off, but smaller blue and white lights shone down along the edges of the room, partially illuminating the dance floor.

Beneath it all, I was sure I could detect, however slightly, the leftover smells of sweat and stale popcorn.

A DJ in one corner, set up with a laptop and a sound system, played a slow song. Only two couples danced. Others clustered in groups around the edges of the dance floor, or near some small tables at one side of the room. Some of the tables were already piled with evening bags and red plastic cups.

As we walked through, I could feel people's eyes on us—watching us but always quickly looking away as soon as they thought we were noticing their stares.

Our classmates didn't usually act like that. But we didn't usually have a date. Funny how such a little thing could turn us back into strangers and freaks, right here in our hometown.

I gripped Alek's hand more tightly. He held mine firmly but not in a tight squeeze. He really did seem relaxed. I could tell Clara was a little more rattled, but she didn't say anything. She was trying.

“Let's go put our things down,” I said.

As we headed for the tables, I spotted Juanita talking with Amber, Tim, and Kim, and I waved to them. This was a surprise, because just that morning Juanita had told me that she wasn't coming to the dance.

Juanita hurried over, her face flush with excitement. She was wearing a dress that she'd worn to another dance the previous spring, but of course it looked amazing on her.

“What happened?” I asked. “You decided to come at the last minute?”

“Yes! I just decided, like, an hour ago.” She grabbed my hand, and then she grabbed Clara's, too. The three of us formed an odd shape, but both Clara and I could face her, more or less.

“You guys,” she said, with a little bounce on her toes,
“I had the best afternoon, and it made me so excited that I had to come out and dance with all my friends. I got some financial aid estimates, and I went over them with my parents, and they agreed to let me apply to all of the four-year colleges on Pletcher's list. Nothing is for sure until we get the final offers, but, you guys, I think they're going to let me go!”

“Oh my God!” Clara shouted, and she threw herself into Juanita's arms in a giant bear hug, twisting me away from both of them. “I'm so happy for you!”

I was glad I was facing away from them. I felt shaky and flushed, and in an instant, tears had sprung up into my eyes. I rapidly brushed them away, hoping that no one was looking in my direction or noticing my reaction.

I was happy for Juanita. Thrilled for her. This was what I'd been wanting, what I'd been pushing for with all my might.

So why was my whole body trembling? And why did I have to concentrate so hard on steadying my breathing? On holding back the tears that suddenly felt like they wanted to start overflowing?

As soon as I was sure that I wasn't crying, I twisted toward her. “Congratulations,” I said, giving her a big hug too. “That's wonderful news.” I breathed in through my nose and blinked a couple of times. “What do you think it was that changed their minds? Was it just getting more information?”

“I think so. I've been researching and gathering stuff, but then I—”

Clara drew her breath in sharply, and Juanita interrupted herself midsentence to ask, “What is it?”

Clara shook her head. “Nothing, sorry. Go on. So you decided to show them?”

“Yeah, but—seriously, Clara, what's wrong?” Juanita asked. She started looking around the room, and I followed her gaze. It took a minute before I spotted the issue.

Near the back wall, beside the refreshment tables, Gavin was tossing popcorn at Josh, one kernel at a time. Josh was bobbing and weaving to catch each piece in his mouth. And right next to them, watching but not smiling, was Max.

I tried not to look toward Max, but I couldn't help it. In his perfectly fitted black suit, white shirt, and blue tie, he looked so handsome and so fully formed, as if those last traces of boyishness had, for the moment, disappeared. Even as Juanita and Hailey resumed talking about Juanita's college plans, and I tried haltingly to join the conversation, my eyes kept going back to him. My brain couldn't do anything about it.

I couldn't tell if he was hanging out with Gavin and Josh or if he just happened to be standing near them. He had seemed so genuinely angry about the way they'd talked that night, at the Halloween party, I hadn't thought they would be friends again so soon. Or maybe they'd never actually stopped being friends? I tried to remember if I'd seen them together recently at school, but I drew a blank.

He looked in my direction, and I turned away immediately, reflexively. Hailey and Juanita were laughing about something; I smiled, pretending that I'd heard them.

Then I looked back at Max.

He was still looking at me.

But then Lindsey walked up to him, and he turned toward her, smiling.

I flinched.

Lindsey leaned in close to Max, beaming up at him. She said something, and he nodded and followed her out to the dance floor, gazing down at her with the slightly dazed expression of a guy who had been drugged by his own testosterone.

They were here together, then. I shouldn't have been surprised. I really shouldn't have.

But I was.

I forced myself to look away, not wanting anyone to see me staring. Bridget was walking toward us with her date. As tiny as ever in a pair of ballet flats, she wore a gauzy green dress that made her look like a brunette Tinker Bell. Her date—a blond, shaggy-haired guy named Dan—towered over her.

We scuttled in their direction, and as soon as we were close enough, Hailey, Juanita, and Bridget started complimenting one another on their dresses.

“You look beautiful too, Clara,” Bridget told me. “I bet every guy here is wishing you were his date.” She looked at Dan, and when he didn't say anything, she whacked him in the arm.

He laughed. “You've got me in a tight spot,” he pointed out. “There is no possible thing I can say to that.”

Bridget had asked Dan to the dance only a few days earlier, and I had thought her choice seemed almost arbitrary; but as she gazed up at him, blinking her eyes and seeming to harness a smile that wanted to be a giant grin, I realized that she actually liked him.

“Of course, I meant every guy except you,” she told him. “But you know what? You should definitely dance with Clara.”

He looked uncertain.

“That's okay,” I said quickly. “I don't want to dance.”

Bridget looked at Hailey and Alek, who seemed to be conferring quietly together. Bridget leaned in toward me. “But what if
they
do?” she whispered loudly.

Amazingly, the slow song segued into an even slower one.

“Clara,” Hailey said, looking out at the dance floor, “I think . . . we . . .”

I nodded. “All right.”

Max was out there with Lindsey, his hands on her waist. Josh and Vanessa joined them, and Jasmine pulled Gavin toward the dance floor. A few other couples had begun dancing too.

Bridget nudged Dan, tilting her chin in my direction.

After a very noticeable pause he said to me, “I'd love to dance with you!”

“Um . . .” I supposed I would have to go out there, one way or the other. Better to dance with a semi-willing partner than to be on the dance floor with Hailey and Alek behind me, and me just looking out at the crowd—at Max and Lindsey, really—as I swayed, with nowhere even to put my hands.

I nodded. “All right.”

Alek took Hailey's hand again; Dan walked beside me and a little behind as we approached the dance floor. A handful of couples swayed together. Bright little spots of light twisted around them.

I looked up at Dan, not sure whether I should mention that I'd never done this before. There were so many strange things about this moment. I'd never danced at all, let alone with a guy, and in front of other people. I'd never been to a school dance, even just to watch and linger on the sidelines. And then there was the question of how Dan felt about the whole thing. I didn't even know how he felt about Bridget, let alone about dancing with her freak friend.