The Third Twin (3 page)

Jeannie’s serve was dynamite and her two-handed cross-court backhand smash was a killer. There was not much Jack could do about the serve, but after the first few games he made sure she did not get many chances to use the backhand smash. He played a sly game, conserving his energy, letting Jeannie make mistakes. She played too aggressively, serving double faults and running to the net too early. On a normal day, she reckoned, she could beat him; but today her concentration was shot, and she could not second-guess his game. They won a set each, then the third went to 5–4 in his favor and she found herself serving to stay in the match.

The game went to two deuces, then Jack won a point and the advantage was to him. Jeannie served into the net, and there was an audible gasp from the little crowd. Instead of a normal, slower second service, she threw caution to the winds and served again as if it were a first service. Jack just got his racket to the ball and returned it to her backhand. She smashed it and ran to the net. But Jack was not as off balance as he had pretended to be, and he returned a perfect lob that sailed over her head and landed on the back line to win the match.

Jeannie stood looking at the ball, hands on her hips, furious with herself. Although she had not played seriously for years, she retained the unyielding competitiveness that made it hard to lose. Then she calmed her feelings and put a smile on her face. She turned around. “Beautiful shot!” she called. She walked to the net and shook his hand, and there was a ragged round of applause from the spectators.

A young man approached her. “Hey, that was a great game!” he said with a broad smile.

Jeannie took him in at a glance. He was a hunk: tall and athletic, with curly fair hair cut short and nice blue eyes, and he was coming on to her for all he was worth.

She was not in the mood. “Thanks,” she said curtly.

He smiled again, a confident, relaxed smile that said most girls were happy when he talked to them, regardless of whether he was making any sense. “You know, I play a little tennis myself, and I was thinking—”

“If you only play a
little
tennis, you’re probably not in my league,” she said, and she brushed past him.

Behind her, she heard him say in a good-humored tone: “Should I assume that a romantic dinner followed by a night of passion is out of the question, then?”

She could not help smiling, if only at his persistence, and she had been ruder than necessary. She turned her head and spoke over her shoulder without stopping. “Yes, but thanks for the offer,” she said.

She left the court and headed for the locker room. She wondered what Mom was doing now. She must have had dinner by this time: it was seven-thirty, and they always fed people early in institutions. She was probably watching TV in the lounge. Maybe she would find a friend, a woman of her own age who would tolerate her forgetfulness and take an interest in her photographs of her grandchildren. Mom had once had a lot of friends—the other women at the salon, some of her customers, neighbors, people she had known for twenty-five years—but it was hard for them to keep up the friendship when Mom kept forgetting who the hell they were.

As she was passing the hockey field she ran into Lisa Hoxton. Lisa was the first real friend she had made since arriving at Jones Falls a month ago. She was a technician in the psychology laboratory. She had a science degree but did not want to be an academic. Like Jeannie, she came from a poor background, and she was a little intimidated by the Ivy League hauteur of Jones Falls. They had taken to one another instantly.

“A
kid
just tried to pick me up,” Jeannie said with a smile.

“What was he like?”

“He looked like Brad Pitt, but taller.”

“Did you tell him you had a friend more his age?” Lisa said. She was twenty-four.

“No.” Jeannie glanced over her shoulder, but the man was nowhere in sight. “Keep walking, in case he follows me.”

“How could that be bad?”

“Come on.”

“Jeannie, it’s the creepy ones you run away from.”

“Knock it off!”

“You might have given him my phone number.”

“I should have handed him a slip of paper with your bra size on it, that would have done the trick.” Lisa had a big bust.

Lisa stopped walking. For a moment Jeannie thought she had gone too far and offended Lisa. She began to frame an apology. Then Lisa said: “What a great idea! ‘I’m a 36D, for more information call this number.’ It’s so subtle, too.”

“I’m just envious, I always wanted hooters,” Jeannie said, and they both giggled. “It’s true, though, I prayed for tits. I was practically the last girl in my class to get my period, it was so embarrassing.”

“You actually said, ‘Dear God, please make my tits grow,’ kneeling beside your bed?”

“Actually I prayed to the Virgin Mary. I figured it was a girl thing. And I didn’t say tits, of course.”

“What did you say, breasts?”

“No, I figured you couldn’t say breasts to the Holy Mother.”

“So what did you call them?”

“Bristols.”

Lisa burst out laughing.

“I don’t know where I got that word from, I must have overheard some men talking. It seemed like a polite euphemism to me. I never told anyone that before in my life.”

Lisa looked back. “Well, I don’t see any good-looking guys following us. I guess we shook off Brad Pitt.”

“It’s a good thing. He’s just my type: handsome, sexy, overconfident, and totally untrustworthy.”

“How do you know he’s untrustworthy? You only met him for twenty seconds.”

“All men are untrustworthy.”

“You’re probably right Are you coming to Andy’s tonight?”

“Yeah, just for an hour or so. I have to shower first.” Her shirt was wet through with perspiration.

“Me too.” Lisa was in shorts and running shoes. “I’ve been training with the hockey team. Why only for an hour?”

“I’ve had a heavy day.” The game had distracted Jeannie, but now she winced as the agony came flooding back. “I had to put my mom into a home.”

“Oh, Jeannie, I’m sorry.”

Jeannie told her the story as they entered the gymnasium building and went down the stairs to the basement. In the locker room Jeannie caught sight of their reflection in the mirror. They were so different in appearance that they almost looked like a comedy act. Lisa was a little below average height, and Jeannie was almost six feet. Lisa was blond and curvy, whereas Jeannie was dark and muscular. Lisa had a pretty face, with a scatter of freckles across a pert little nose and a mouth like a bow. Most people described Jeannie as striking, and men sometimes told her she was beautiful, but nobody ever called her pretty.

As they climbed out of their sweaty sports clothes Lisa said: “What about your father? You didn’t mention him.”

Jeannie sighed. It was the question she had learned to dread, even as a little girl; but it invariably came, sooner or later. For many years she had lied, saying Daddy was dead or disappeared or remarried and gone to work in Saudi Arabia. Lately, however, she had been telling the truth. “My father’s in jail,” she said.

“Oh, my God. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay. He’s been in jail most of my life. He’s a burglar. This is his third term.”

“How long is his sentence?”

“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be no use when he comes out. He’s never looked after us and he’s not about to begin.”

“Did he never have a regular job?”

“Only when he wanted to case a joint. He would work as janitor, doorman, security guard for a week or two before robbing the place.”

Lisa looked at her shrewdly. “Is that why you’re so interested in the genetics of criminality?”

“Maybe.”

“Probably not.” Lisa made a tossing-aside gesture. “I hate amateur psychoanalysis anyway.”

They went to the showers. Jeannie took longer, washing her hair. She was grateful for Lisa’s friendship. Lisa had been at Jones Falls just over a year, and she had shown Jeannie around when she had arrived here at the beginning of the semester. Jeannie liked working with Lisa in the lab because she was completely reliable; and she liked hanging out with her after work because she felt she could say whatever came into her mind without fear of shocking her.

Jeannie was working conditioner into her hair when she heard strange noises. She stopped and listened. It sounded like squeals of fright. A chill of anxiety passed through her, making her shiver. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable: naked, wet, underground. She hesitated, then quickly rinsed her hair before stepping out of the shower to see what was going on.

She smelled burning as soon as she got out from under the water. She could not see a fire, but there were thick clouds of black and gray smoke close to the ceiling. It seemed to be coming through the ventilators.

She felt afraid. She had never been in a fire.

The more coolheaded women were snatching up their bags and heading for the door. Others were getting hysterical, shouting at one another in frightened voices and running here and there pointlessly. Some asshole of a security man, with a spotted handkerchief tied over his nose and mouth, was making them more scared by walking up and down shoving people and yelling orders.

Jeannie knew she should not stay to get dressed, but she could not bring herself to walk out of the building naked. There was fear running through her veins like ice water, but she made herself calm. She found her locker. Lisa was nowhere to be seen. She grabbed her clothes, stepped into her jeans, and pulled her T-shirt over her head.

It took only a few seconds, but in that time the room emptied of people and filled with fumes. She could no longer see the doorway, and she started to cough. The thought of not being able to breathe scared her. I know where the door is, and I just have to keep calm, she told herself. Her keys and money were in her jeans pockets. She picked up her tennis racket. Holding her breath, she walked quickly through the lockers to the exit.

The corridor was thick with smoke, and her eyes began to water so that she was almost blind. Now she wished to heaven that she had gone naked and gained a few precious seconds. Her jeans did not help her see or breathe in this fog of fumes. And it did not matter being naked if you were dead.

She kept one shaky hand on the wall to give her a sense of direction as she rushed along the passage, still holding her breath. She thought she might bump into other women, but they all seemed to have got out ahead of her. When there was no more wall, she knew she was in the small lobby, although she could not see anything but clouds of smoke. The stairs had to be straight ahead. She crossed the lobby and crashed into the Coke machine. Was the staircase to the left now or the right? The left, she thought. She moved that way, then came up against the door to the men’s locker room and realized she had made the wrong choice.

She could not hold her breath any longer. With a groan she sucked in air. It was mostly smoke, and it made her cough convulsively. She staggered back along the wall, racked with coughing, her nostrils burning, eyes streaming, barely able to see her own hands in front of her. With all her being she longed for one breath of the air she had been taking for granted for twenty-nine years. She followed the wall to the Coke machine and stepped around it. She knew she had found the staircase when she tripped over the bottom step. She dropped her racket and it slid out of sight. It was a special one—she had won the Mayfair Lites Challenge with it—but she left it behind and scrambled up the stairs on hands and knees.

The smoke thinned suddenly when she reached the spacious ground-floor lobby. She could see the building doors, which were open. A security guard stood just outside, beckoning her and yelling: “Come on!” Coughing and choking, she staggered across the lobby and out into the blessed fresh air.

She stood on the steps for two or three minutes, bent double, gulping air and coughing the smoke out of her lungs. As her breathing at last began to return to normal, she heard the whoop of an emergency vehicle in the distance. She looked around for Lisa but could not see her.

Surely she could not be inside? Still feeling shaky, Jeannie moved through the crowd, scanning the faces. Now that they were out of danger, there was a good deal of nervous laughter. Most of the students were more or less undressed, so there was a curiously intimate atmosphere. Those who had managed to save their bags were lending spare clothes to others less fortunate. Naked women were grateful for their friends’ soiled and sweaty T-shirts. Several people were dressed only in towels.

Lisa was not in the crowd. With mounting anxiety Jeannie returned to the security guard at the door. “I think my girlfriend may be in there,” she said, hearing the tremor of fear in her own voice.

“I ain’t going after her,” he said quickly.

“Brave man,” Jeannie snapped. She was not sure what she wanted him to do, but she had not expected him to be completely useless.

Resentment showed on his face. “That’s their job,” he said, and he pointed to a fire truck coming down the road.

Jeannie was beginning to fear for Lisa’s life, but she did not know what to do. She watched, impatient and helpless, as the firemen got out of the truck and put on breathing apparatus. They seemed to move so slowly that she wanted to shake them and scream: “Hurry, hurry!” Another fire truck arrived, then a white police cruiser with the blue-and-silver stripe of the Baltimore Police Department.

As the firemen dragged a hose into the building, an officer buttonholed the lobby guard and said: “Where do you think it started?”

“Women’s locker room,” the guard told him.

“And where is that, exactly?”

“Basement, at the back.”

“How many exits are there from the basement?”

“Only one, the staircase up to the main lobby, right here.”

A maintenance man standing nearby contradicted him. “There’s a ladder in the pool machine room that leads up to an access hatch at the back of the building.”

Jeannie caught the officer’s attention and said: “I think my friend may still be inside there.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman of twenty-four, short, blond.”