The Banana Split Affair

“Thomas J. Turner! Why on
earth
should I let you kiss me? Every girl in the junior class knows what a flirt you are!”

The sound of Christine Pratt’s gay voice floated up to the second floor windows of her family’s house. It was followed by the slam of a car door and light footsteps hurrying up the front walk.

Susan, her twin, abandoned her watercolor paints and rushed over to the bedroom window. She was just in time to see her sister, Chris, flounce up the walk with a confident toss of her head. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled.

“I’m
not even sure I’ll agree to go out with you the next time you call me!” Chris called to her date with a playful grin before disappearing into the house.

Susan could only imagine Tommy Turner’s response as he drove away. Boys seemed to love it when Chris teased them. They were always coming back for more. The telephone at the Pratts’ rang constantly, and there was a steady stream of junior and senior boys lining up outside the house in their cars.

And all that male attention was always for Chris. Never for Susan. Most of the boys weren’t even aware that the vivacious, popular Christine Pratt had an identical twin sister.

Identical twin sisters. When the two Pratts stood side by side, it was almost impossible to tell that they were both versions of the same sixteen-year-old girl. Susan turned to face the mirror that hung over her dresser.

“Identical!” she said aloud, her voice scornful. “Hah!”

“Did you say something?” Her mother poked her head in the doorway of Susan’s bedroom. “Or have you started talking to yourself? Don’t tell me one of my sixteen-year-old daughters is already becoming senile!”

Susan glanced over at her mother and smiled sheepishly.

“Actually, I was talking to the mirror,” she confessed.

“That sounds interesting.” Mrs. Pratt came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She had been wiling away the leisurely October Sunday afternoon with a mystery novel, one of her favorite ways of relaxing after a long week of hard work. As she sat down, she folded over the edge of the page she had been reading and closed the book, preparing for a heart-to-heart talk with her daughter. “Is the mirror talking back to you?”

“Yes, it is, as a matter of fact.”

“What does it have to say?”

Susan sighed woefully. “It says that Christine and I are the two most unlikely girls in the world to have been born twins.”

“Why is that?” Her mother looked puzzled, as well as concerned. “You and Chris have a great deal in common. You’re both bright and pretty and interested in a lot of things....”

“But, Mother!” Susan wailed. “Just
look
at us! We look like Beauty and the Beast!”

“Susan, that’s not true!” her mother said sharply. “You seem to be forgetting one very simple fact. You and Chris are
identical
twins. You have the exact same faces! So how could either of you be prettier than the other?”

Susan knew that her mother was right. The twins did have the same features: high cheekbones, delicate coloring, cute ski-jump noses. They shared the same dark brown eyes and chestnut hair. Even their tall slender figures were similar

What was so different about them was the way they used their physical characteristics to express their personalities. Staring at her reflection, Susan decided that her looks were as plain as the quiet, bookish girl to whom they belonged. Her shoulder-length hair was always worn the same way, parted in the middle, hanging straight down. She rarely bothered to wear any makeup: A freshly scrubbed look was good enough for her. Her clothes were always neat and clean, but they bordered on drab. Pale colors, simple styles, small prints. Susan Pratt was basically a pretty girl, but it was as if she were doing her best to hide that fact from the rest of the world.

Chris, on the other hand, spent hours and hours on her appearance. She
wanted
to be noticed. It was true in the way she acted: outgoing, self-confident, sometimes even arrogant. And it was equally true in the way she looked.

She carefully applied mascara, blush, and lip gloss before leaving the house, even if she were just going to the corner store to pick up a fashion magazine.

“You never know who you might run into,” she would say.

Chris’s dresser was cluttered with the face creams and shampoos and special soaps she was constantly experimenting with. Her hair, parted on the side, was always held off her face with pretty combs or barrettes that matched her outfit, and she often wore it in tight braids overnight to give it soft waves during the day. While most of Susan’s allowance and baby-sitting money was saved up for books and art supplies, Chris’s went to stylish blouses or bright-colored tee shirts to go with the fitted jeans she liked to wear.

“If Chris and I are so much the same,” Susan pouted, still gazing at her reflection, “then why is it that she spent this afternoon going to the movies with one of her millions of boyfriends while I stayed alone in my room, painting?”

“You’re just a late bloomer, that’s all.” Her mother rose from the bed and gave her daughter a sympathetic hug. “People develop at different rates. Don’t forget, you’ve just turned sixteen. I’ll bet the boys will start hanging around you any day now.

“Besides, what about your artwork? You’re a very talented painter! Surely that must give you a lot of satisfaction. I bet Chris would give anything to be able to paint like that.” She motioned toward the sensitive watercolor of a beach scene in soft blues and greens, nearly completed, that sat on the desk.

“I doubt it,” Susan mumbled. “What good is being able to paint compared to having every boy at school dying to go out with you?”

Mrs. Pratt chuckled. “I think that’s an exaggeration. Chris herself would probably laugh if she heard you say that. She does have a lot of dates, but she’s hardly the social butterfly you seem to think she is. Besides, I doubt that she really cares very much about any of the boys she goes out with.”

From downstairs in the kitchen came the sounds of Chris turning on the radio and singing along with a popular song as she made herself a snack.

“I’d better go down now and make sure Chris doesn’t make a total shambles of the kitchen. In the meantime, why don’t you give some thought to what you’ve been mooning about? Nobody’s life is perfect. Certainly not Christine’s. You’re a very lucky girl, Susan. You’ve got an awful lot going for you. I just wish you could see that for yourself.”

As her mother started downstairs, Susan shook her head slowly and turned away from the mirror. She went back to her desk and the watercolor she had been working on all afternoon. As much as she tried to concentrate on mixing just the right shade of blue for the sky, she couldn’t stop thinking about her sister.

Susan would gladly have traded her straight-A average, even her outstanding artistic talent, for some of her twin’s flair with people—especially boys. If only she were bubbly enough to attract someone like ... well, someone like Keith West, the quiet blond-haired boy in her art class. But he was so shy that it would take a lot to get him to ask her out. It would take more courage than the bashful Susan Pratt could ever hope to muster up. So as far as she was concerned, the situation with Keith was hopeless.

I’ll never be like Chris, she thought sadly. It’s not even worth daydreaming about, since I’ll never get to experience life the way she does. We’re as different as night and day.

It had been that way for as long as Susan could remember. Even when they were little girls, Chris was the outgoing one. Whenever their parents’ friends came over, she was only too happy to sing and play the piano and charm strangers. Susan, on the other hand, would hide in the kitchen for as long as she could, terrified of meeting those same people. Once she was forced to come out to meet the guests, she would stand before them shyly, red-faced and so nervous that she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“How different your twins are!” people would exclaim to their mother. “Christine is so friendly, and as loveable as a puppy. But Susan is so quiet....”

“She’ll grow out of it,” Mrs. Pratt would assure them quickly. “Besides, she’s the smart one. Her father and I expect her to grow up to be a doctor or a scientist. Susan could read by the time she was four years old.”

Susan always felt as if her mother were making excuses for her. But it was true that she was brighter than her sister, so she worked hard to maintain the A average that differentiated her from her outgoing, popular twin. Besides, studying and doing well in school were much easier for her than forcing herself to overcome her shyness and talk to people.

So their roles were established almost as soon as the twins could talk. Chris was the personable one, the one who loved to chatter away and be the center of attention and make friends. Susan was the quiet one who was expected to do well at her studies and eventually become something important.

With a heavy heart, Susan returned to her watercolor, frowning as she tried to decide which colors to mix together to get just the right shade for the sky. Following her mother’s advice, she thought about all her good points as she watched the glass of water turn darker and cloudier as she cleaned her brush in it. She mentally listed all the positive qualities that Susan Pratt, Christine Pratt’s shy sister who did her best to fade into the wallpaper wherever she went, possessed.

But a few seconds later she heard her sister bound up the stairs. Chris would be anxious to share all the details of her Sunday-afternoon date with Tommy Turner, Susan knew. As usual, she would breathlessly report on where they had gone, what he had said, how she had flirted with him.

For now Susan’s painting would have to wait. Her shoulders drooped as she dropped her brush into the water. She was in no mood to hear Chris giggle and brag as she told her twin all about her latest escapade. But it was hardly the first time she had felt that way. And so she gritted her teeth and forced herself to smile.

Christine Pratt stood in front of the open refrigerator
and frowned. She was trying to decide what to have for a snack. She was starving after spending the afternoon out, running around with Tommy Turner. She hadn’t had anything to eat since popcorn at the movies, and that had been hours earlier

“Let’s see,” she mumbled, switching on the radio loudly and singing along with it. “I would
kill
for some of that apple pie left over from last night’s dinner. But if I keep eating at this rate, I’ll never manage to fit into my jeans.”

Chris dutifully reached past the pie and took an apple out of the bowl behind it. A piece of fruit was hardly the same thing as apple pie, but as long as looking good was her highest priority, it would have to do.

“Don’t eat too much,” she heard her mother’s voice warn. “Dinner will be ready in an hour or so.”

Chis whirled around to see her mother standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Oh, hi, Mom. What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken.”

“Yum. My favorite. And if we’re not eating for an hour, I have time to wash my hair before then.”

“Chris, how about going up to your sister’s room instead? She could probably use some company. She spent the whole day in her room painting. Besides, I think she needs some cheering up.”

“Sooz needs cheering up? How come?” Chris perched on a high wooden stool and bit into her apple. With a gesture that had become second nature to her, she reached up and smoothed her hair, making sure it was in place.

“She’s feeling a bit blue.”

A look of concern crossed Chris’s face. “Really? Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, nothing serious. But I think a twin-to-twin talk might be in order.”

“Okay.” Chris took another bite of her apple and hopped off her stool. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll even bring her an apple as a goodwill gesture. She’s probably dying of hunger after being holed up in her room all alone for hours on end.”

“Chris!”

“What?” Chris asked innocently, retrieving a second apple from the refrigerator “What did I say?”

“You make it sound as if there were something wrong with spending time alone.”

“There’s nothing
wrong
with it.” She shrugged. “I’ve just never been very good at it.” She paused and chewed a bite of apple.

“Come to think of it, that’s probably why I never did very well in school. And why I was never good at anything in particular, the way Susan is. Like art, I
mean. I just don’t have the self-discipline. I’m too busy running all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off.”

She thought for a minute, then added in an unusually pensive tone, “It’s too bad I’m that way. I’ll never be able to accomplish anything worthwhile. I guess I’m just not as lucky as Susan.”

Mrs. Pratt’s mouth dropped open. She was astounded by Chris’s comment. But before she could say a word, her daughter had skipped out of the kitchen and was headed for the stairs.

She ran up them energetically, two at a time. Breathlessly, she waltzed into her twin’s bedroom.