Three Black Swans (10 page)

“I don’t know if it’s anything to celebrate, Gen.”

“Genevieve,” she reminded him. “If you come into the library
with me, Mr. Varick will let us sit together at a computer. You’re Scholar Number One, you know. Librarians always submit to the will of Scholar Number One.”

At the library, Genevieve stopped tap-dancing, because the library was carpeted and because Mr. Varick was a man without humor. They had no library passes, but Jimmy Fleming saluted the librarian and said, “High School Bowl. Fact-check.”

Mr. Varick merely nodded.

The large room was almost empty. In a few minutes, the classes signed up for this period would dribble in, but for now Genevieve Candler and Jimmy Fleming were alone among the ranks of computers. Jimmy sat down at one, typed in his student code, logged on to the Internet and went to YouTube.

He looked up at Genevieve, his expression a match for her parents’ faces last night. Apprehension. Maybe something worse.

Abruptly Genevieve was afraid. Her parents had failed to deny it when she’d accused herself of crimes.
Were
there crimes?
Had
she done something hideous? Had a video of her crime surfaced?

Jimmy brought up a video. He did not touch the Start arrow. He stood. He gestured for Genevieve to sit down.

Genevieve no longer wanted to know why her parents had exchanged their Dark Look. She wanted out of here. She wanted to be running into the nursing home, where the aides would already have GeeGee and the others heading for the warm shallow pool. Where she would pull off her clothes—on water aerobics days, she wore her two-piece suit as
underwear—while half a dozen ancient people looked longingly at her body. They too had once been lithe and supple. She would slip into the water and coax them in after her.

She actually heard Jimmy swallow. She stared at the black rectangle where the video would appear. She clicked the Start arrow. The video began.

A boy sat at a table. A blown-up photo on the wall behind him showed the front entry to his school. An American flag and a plastic tree flanked the table. The boy was cute and friendly-looking, with chunky glasses and a shirt that had been ironed. He was setting down a sheaf of paper. “That completes our morning announcements. And now we have a special event. I want to introduce Missy Vianello.”

The camera shifted. It focused on a girl.

The girl was Genevieve.

She was looking at herself. In Connecticut.

Herself smiled and then giggled.

Genevieve’s giggle.

Herself said, “Hi, everybody. I’m Missy Vianello. I’m a sophomore here. And I have the most wonderful, amazing, beautiful thing to share.”

The voice was Genevieve’s voice.

The gesturing hand was Genevieve’s hand. Genevieve had the same tendency not to relax the middle joint of her fingers. She watched her own stiff fingers toss a ponytail over her shoulder. Her ponytail. Not sleek and shiny, which was desirable, but fat and fuzzy. The Genevieve on the screen yanked
the elastic off. A black cloud of puffy hair surrounded the pale triangular face.

Genevieve’s hair.

Genevieve’s face.

Herself in another school in a different state talked on. “My identical twin just surfaced. We just found each other! Can you believe it? I have a long-lost identical twin.”

The camera now displayed two girls.

Genevieve was both of them. They were both her.

Genevieve felt like a Dalí painting. Her eyes popped out the sides of her head, while a clock lived in her throat. An insect crawled through her brain and a pie slice was missing from her neck.

“And this,” said the Missy one, touching the other girl’s shoulder, “this is my twin, Claire.”

But they were neither Missy nor Claire. They were Genevieve.

The Genevieves stared at each other and the Claire one began to cry.

What was going on? Who were these girls? Were they her?

Was she actually in Connecticut with them?

Was she one of them?

The Claire one said, “We shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have agreed.”

The Missy one turned back toward the TV camera. “Claire’s going to attend school with me today,” she said, “and this seemed like a good way to let everybody know who she is and why she’s here.”

Sobbing, the Claire one removed her mike and stepped out of view.

Herself said to the announcer, “I guess this wasn’t such a great idea after all. Rick, just cut our segment, okay?”

The camera returned to the boy at the desk. He was still cute, but now he was pale, his speech slower. “This is live, Missy. We can’t cut anything. But we welcome you, Claire, and we’re thrilled for you both, and this has definitely introduced you to the entire high school. It’s seven-fifty-five, people. Have a nice day.”

The video stopped. Genevieve stared at the silent screen. After a while she played the video again.

When her Missy self appeared, Genevieve paused the video. She could not pick up the pieces of her brain to make anything fit. She played the rest of it. Her Claire self appeared.

In the video, her two selves beamed or wept.

Who were these girls?

Who was she?

*  *  *

The third time Genevieve played the video, she managed to have a thought: If three girls look exactly alike, perhaps they are triplets.

How could Genevieve Candler be one of triplets? Only by adoption.

Had she, Genevieve Candler, been adopted?

Impossible. Ned and Allegra Candler didn’t even like children. They wouldn’t adopt one.

And yet, Genevieve remembered something now. Only a few months ago, in August, Uncle Alan had made one of his rare visits to the nursing home. When he found his niece leading a water aerobics class, he said, “You’re pretty young to be so conniving.”

“GeeGee loves the water,” Genevieve had said, wondering if she had the wrong definition of “conniving.” “They aren’t allowed to go in unless there’s somebody here. So I’m here.”

Uncle Alan snorted. “Your parents taught you well. You’ll be number one in that will. Ned and Allegra only had a baby to please Grandmother, anyway. That’s why you were named Genevieve. To get closer to the cash. And there’s still cash, believe me. The old bag didn’t run out. She just doesn’t want to share it.”

How dare he refer to her wonderful great-grandmother as “the old bag.” How could GeeGee—who was good, funny, nice, cheerful, generous—have a grandchild like Uncle Alan, anyway? Genevieve couldn’t stand thinking about ugly people and their ugly thoughts, especially when they were related to her. When Uncle Alan left, she managed to forget about it. After all, nobody had a baby just to get an inheritance.

Or did they? Could Ned and Allegra be just as ugly as Uncle Alan?

Had there been a set of triplets available for adoption? Had Genevieve’s parents adopted a girl child in order to name her
after the older Genevieve? Had they expected GeeGee to die sensibly at eighty or ninety, leaving baby Vivi her money, which they would then control and spend? And then GeeGee had had the nerve to live long enough to use up the money?

Maybe that’s the Dark Look. Uncle Alan was right. I failed to achieve my real purpose. And now I’m going to cost even more. I expect to go to college.

I can’t be adopted. I’m GeeGee’s great-granddaughter. Her sunshine. Her pride and joy. Her sweetness and light. Or a player in a sixteen-year deception.

She examined the other two Genevieves again.

What a feeble word “triplet” was. Like insignificant music. Or a small fall.

I must be adopted, she thought. There’s no other way I can have identical—

This time the word “triplet” did not come to mind; it was too infrequently used. It was alien. The real word was “sisters.”

A beautiful, shocking word, one that had never had a use in Genevieve’s life.

Those two girls could be my sisters? I could have had company all these years when I was home alone? I could have laughed and shared and argued and shopped with
sisters?

Genevieve’s body had dried out. She could not wet her lips or swallow. She could not blink or speak.

The school day would be over soon. Her great-grandmother would be waiting for her. Nobody could enter the pool unless a certified swim instructor, familiar with life-saving techniques, was present. GeeGee and her aide would sit patiently, awaiting
Genevieve’s arrival. Patience was a required skill in a nursing home.

When she was a girl, GeeGee used to swim in Long Island Sound for miles, from one sandy beach to the next. Now she used a plastic water-wheelchair to get down the ramp into the pool, and wore a flotation device that the aide strapped around her middle. The water at its deepest was three and a half feet. Using a pink foam noodle to support her arms, GeeGee would dog-paddle a few strokes.

In normal water aerobics, the water splashed and roiled as people kicked and jumped. In GeeGee’s class, the surface of the pool remained flat, because Genevieve’s group mainly rested on their foam noodles, watching her exercise but not really exercising themselves. They loved to hear about her classes and friends and activities, and were befuddled by references to Facebook or texting.

Genevieve did not have parents to emulate; she just had parents. Instead, she strove to be like her great-grandmother. It was GeeGee whose life, voice, heart and zest Genevieve admired. She was proud of being Little Genevieve.

What if I’m not? What if I’m somebody else?

Jimmy Fleming said, “You okay, Gen?”

G
ENEVIEVE COULD NOT
recall her last class. Had she attended it? Had she spoken to Jimmy again? Or just staggered out of the building? She stared at her great-grandmother’s nursing home. A high wide portico allowed ambulances to drive right up to the entrance, safe from rain and snow. What would it feel like to live in a building where you planned to die? What would it feel like to the older Genevieve Candler when the younger one said, “Guess what? I’m not yours after all.”

Genevieve glanced at her watch. Minutes and hours were meaningless now. The time that mattered was sixteen years not shared. Sixteen years when she could have had sisters.

A quick sharp wind showered her with tiny yellow leaves from a thin graceful tree. She caught one in her hand.

Even if I’m adopted, GeeGee will still love me. It’ll be a different love, but it’ll be just as deep. Adoption won’t cancel how much we love each other. Or will it?

Genevieve did not want to be here. She wanted to park herself in front of that video and watch it over and over until she had her other selves in her bones.

On weekdays, her mother did not get home before seven.
She could not remember her father’s schedule. But both parents were easy to avoid. Genevieve had the upstairs of their little house, a narrow, low-ceilinged set of tiny rooms and closets, which her parents grandly referred to as “Vivi’s suite” and which Emma called “the starving poet’s attic.” They never bothered her up there.

It had become popular to send e-mail questions among her friends. Not dull questions like “What is your favorite color?” but disturbing questions like “What do your parents do that you wish they wouldn’t?” Genevieve never replied, although she did read other people’s responses. “I wish my mom wouldn’t run around the house in her underwear,” wrote one girl (quite an image if you knew the mother). “My parents are just right,” wrote another girl—sweet and perhaps true, but perhaps a way to stay in the game while avoiding the question. A few weeks ago the question had been: “On a scale of one to ten, how glad are you to have the parents you have?”

Genevieve had slammed her mind shut and deleted the e-mail.

Now the question rushed up like an icon bouncing at the bottom of the desktop, filling the screen of her mind, shouting,
You don’t have to worry about the parents you have! Because you don’t have them! You are adopted!

A dreadful thing happened in Genevieve’s heart. She rejoiced.

That’s the secret, she realized. Ned and Allegra adopted a child by mistake. They aren’t the parent type.

She forgave Ned and Allegra a thousand affronts and lapses.
They were not her parents! Whoever the parents were, she shared them with the Claire girl and the Missy girl.

Her restless legs had walked her indoors. The woman at the desk cried, “Gen! How lovely you look today! They’re all waiting! You’re a speck late.”

Genevieve resented being told that she was late. I’m a volunteer, she wanted to say sharply. I’m here because I’m a good person. If it takes me a few more minutes today than it did last time, I am not late. I am on time whenever I get here, thank you. Out loud she said, “Hi, how are you?”

The receptionist pushed the guest log toward her.

I’m a guest, marveled Genevieve. Even in my own family, I’m a guest. Because I’m not theirs.

She floated down the nursing home’s long halls, buoyed by the strange and terrifying thought that she was not descended from Ned and Allegra. She arrived at the pool room. When she opened the door, the distinctive scent of chlorine and the hot dampness of evaporating water would envelop her. Genevieve would play ballet with her class. “It’s
Swan Lake!”
she would cry. “Arms sweep up! Arms curve down.” For a moment, all motion would be graceful. “It’s
Coppelia!
We’re mechanical dolls! Tiptoe forward! Tiptoe back!”