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ryn Lefèvre grabbed the doorjamb, pivoting her long, slender body on one foot. She swung through the open doorway into the bedroom with the lithe grace of flowing water. Across the threshold, she stopped, scrutinizing her twin reflection.
She saw a pleasing oval-shaped face, with high cheekbones and a pronounced jaw line. Beautiful auburn hair, her best feature she thought, framed and softened her face. Like a waterfall, her hair fell in wavy tresses over slender shoulders. Deep brown eyes flecked with gold, like sunlight refracting through tiger’s eye stones were partially hidden by smoky lenses of wraparound VirTV glasses. A graceful nose curved to meet lips that she thought were maybe just a little too thin. The heritage of the robust life led by her French peasant ancestors, shone through in a ruddy complexion. Even farther down her family chain, were ancient Franks who had conquered most of
She continued to regard the image before her while she absently combed bangs away from her face. Then, she smoothed her hands over her hips, tugging to adjust her tight, black leather pants. To complete the ensemble, she wore a matching leather jacket over a white tube top. Tawny, snakeskin boots covered her feet.
Goulash, the family malamute, cocked his head looking at her with glazier blue eyes. His tail thumped a welcome at the foot of the bed.
She looked one more time and sighed. “Just what I’ve always suspected: pretty, rather than beautiful,” she said aloud.
“Huh? Do you want something?” Eryn’s identical twin, Elissa asked, removing the VirTV goggles and throwing them on the bed. She unfurled long legs from a lotus position. She’d been sitting on the bed with Goulash, watching holoVH1. She hadn’t noticed Eryn until she had spoken.
“Just talking to myself, I guess.”
Elissa let out a low whistle. “Wow. You look wicked hot, Sis. I know that outfit looks good on me, but who’d ever thought that you’d look good in it?”
“Oh, ha ha, very funny. Besides, everyone knows I’m the good looking twin,” Eryn said, one eyebrow arching a bit higher than the other to punctuate her riposte.
“Touché ma sœur,” Elissa cooed in her native French.
Eryn looked nervously from Elissa to the VirTV lying on the bed. The concave side of the wrap-around was partly facing her. She glimpsed kaleidoscoping lines of laser color arcing and intersecting along the interior surface of the glasses forming fuzzy holographic images. She also heard tinny sounds coming from the attached audio headband, a type of sound laser.
Sound waves from left and right earphones combined across neural connections forming interference patterns to produce the illusion of being in the middle of the music. However, when the sounds combined outside a neural net, such as a human nervous system, the result was flat, static sound.
“I just stopped by to see if you’d mind if I wore your ‘biker’ leathers. And, if I could use your Beamer tonight.”
“No. Take them off right now. And, did you ever hear of public transportation?” Elissa answered in English.
Eryn’s face scrunched up in a frown of surprise and rising anger.
Seeing her sister’s reaction, Elissa grinned. “Eryn, stop having kittens. I’m kidding. I don’t mind. The keys to the bike are hanging in the kitchen, next to Mom and Dad’s set for the Jag.
“What about DC?” Elissa asked, scratching Goulash behind the ears. Now that Elissa was no longer sitting quietly, he thought it was time to get some attention from his mistress. Goulash, while friendly with all family members, was Elissa’s dog more than anyone else’s. That suited Eryn just fine. She didn’t really like animals.
“I thought he was coming over tonight,” Elissa asked nonchalantly.
Oh, shit. Eryn visibly grimaced. DC stood for Danny Christopher: Danny Christopher Shaughnessy—sixth generation Irish-American, son of
* * *
She had met Danny in Carch, just before spring break at MIT. They had met at a busy coffeehouse in
Although identical in appearance, Elissa—the happy twin—always had more boyfriends than Eryn. Some boys, who only wanted a quick tryst after a few drinks, thought Eryn too intense and complex.
She entered the café and saw her sister at a table across the room. Seated at the table with Elissa and her boyfriend, were two boys she didn’t know—strangers. One of the boys appeared stranger. One of them had turned around in his chair and was staring at her with that glassy stare men use when thinking with their genitals, a look she was all too familiar with having directed at her.
She began wending her way through the milling crowd, sidestepping a person here, running into snatches of disconnected conversation here and there.
Presumably, from what she could see, the other boy, not the jerk, was a friend of
Nearing the table, she had the uncanny feeling that she was the topic of conversation. It turned out she was right. Elissa, the helpful darling, her I-am-going-to-have-to-kill-you-for-this sister, had volunteered the information that Eryn wasn’t currently seeing anyone on a regular basis.
After a round of introductions, she learned that the jerk’s name was Danny. She sat down and ordered a coffee. Despite first impressions, she found herself liking him. There was a little boy or lost puppy quality about him that totally had disarmed her.
By the end of their second date, he had confidently proclaimed that someday they’d be married.
Why had there even been a second date? Eryn mused remembering that their first date hadn’t exactly been a success. He had always been too much in awe of her. For instance, on that not-so-great-first-date, Danny had arrived at her doorstep in
The rest of that evening hadn’t been much better. He’d spent most of it falling over himself trying to be chivalrous, stepping in front of her to open doors, constantly asking her if everything was all right. He had just been too eager to please her.
* * *
Eryn likened Danny to a piece of gravel among pearls.
He certainly wasn’t a polished Bostonian like some of the other boys in her classes at MIT. Danny wasn’t like them in the least. He lacked pretentiousness, and seemed uncomplicated, honest, and tender with her. And, he had made her laugh. He always could, with that guileless charm of his.
Maybe he was what she needed. Maybe he could take away the pain from her past. Maybe, but not right then. She needed to get away. Eryn needed to escape for little while, to immerse herself in the undertow of her passions. She wanted to feel the delicious surrender of sinking beneath the surface into a languid green-blackness of forgetfulness, running free through the night, letting her anxieties fall away from her like a wet towel, while her passions washed over her as if she were swimming naked in warm ocean water. Eryn wasn’t sure she could ever feel that way again or even if she’d ever been able to after that night in a darkened Parisian alley.
After that night, so long ago, a dangerous undertow pulled at her. Old ways and an old life tugged at her. A life that seemed decades ago yet was only two years in her past.
She needed to escape from her problems at school. Her parents expectations, and Danny’s constant wheedling to marry him. Exhausted from a grueling 22 credit-hour semester at MIT, and worried that if she didn’t take that programming course she needed during the summer session and which she’d probably not get into in the fall, her schedule would be affected without that class. She felt helpless and trapped, as if everyone was living her life—everyone except her.
All she needed was to spend the summer with a bunch of plug-n-play ‘bitheads’ while her sister spent the summer lounging on the private beach in front of their Cape Code summer home she thought ruefully. What she didn’t need was Danny, and another proposal of marriage.
She wasn’t sure exactly what troubled her about marrying Danny. She thought she loved him. However, part of her, the part that bent in shame under her mother’s accusations of “demimondaine” after the incident which nobody in her family would talk about, told her that she didn’t deserve to be happy with any man. Maybe she wouldn’t be—ever. Maybe she would never be happy again after that night long ago.
Danny seemed to need her more than she needed him. If she loved him, how could that be true? Shouldn’t the need be mutual and reciprocal? It bothered her that she didn’t seem to need him the same way.
“‘Lissa,” she said, (It was the name that Eryn had used as a little girl because she had trouble pronouncing Elissa). “I need a favor from you.”
“Yeah, what?” Elissa looked up from the bed, frowning slightly.
“I’m just not up to seeing Danny.”
“So call and cancel,” Elissa said.
Eryn looked down at her Rolex. “He’s probably already left on the ferry from
“So send him home when he gets here. Just tell him you’ve a headache or something. Besides, what’s your problem? It’s not as though he’s a geek. In fact, he seems like a pretty nice guy. You must think so too, as much time as the two of you spend together.” Elissa turned away and reached for the VirTV to put back on her head.
“I know,” Eryn replied, looking down at the hardwood floor, examining the wood grain. “He is a nice guy and doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.” Eryn felt a cool breeze on her right cheek while the left one burned with a spreading blush. She heard waves breaking and gulls calling from outside Elissa’s open window. “That’s why I was wondering if you’d—”
Elissa jerked upright, brown eyes flashing like summer cumuli, raising a finger, and pointing it at Eryn. “I know where you’re going with this. Don’t even think it.”
“C’mon,” Eryn shrugged in frustration, lightly stamping her right foot. “Help me out here ‘Lissa; I’m feeling a little overwhelmed tonight. I need some peace and quiet time. I don’t want to hurt Danny’s feelings; but I’m not up to seeing him. I’ve all this pressure on me; and I need a little time to think. I need to clear my head; so that I can make a decision, and—” Nearly in tears and breathless, she took a deep breath and looked imploringly at her sister when Elissa looked up at Eryn.
“OK enough. I’ll do it, but please stop whining,” she said.
“Thanks big sister.” It was a standing joke between them that Elissa was her “big” sister since she was the older by 16 minutes. Eryn rubbed red puffy eyes. She sniffed, wiping her nose.
“Yes, and I’ll always be older than you. You’ll never catch up. Now go fix your face.”
Eryn smiled weakly.
“But you know, every time we pull this switching stunt it blows up in our faces. And if it does, Mom and Dad will probably see to it that neither of us gets any older,” Elissa said when Eryn turned to leave.
“What do I do if he wants to… You know.” Elissa said.
“Just do what I’d do.” Eryn tossed back over her shoulder to a wide-eyed Elissa.
Eryn turned to face her sister. “I mean, take him into P’town to a movie. Stop at ‘Firehouse Ice Cream’ for a black and white, then a quick goodnight kiss and then it’s back to the dock. By the time he gets here, he’ll only have a few hours before the last ferry leaves for
“Gee, should I give the him some candy and pat him on the head too as he boards the ferry?” Elissa asked sarcastically.
“You two have, well, you know. Done it. Haven’t you? He’s not that wholesome is he? I mean, I thought I heard funny noises coming out of your room the last time Mom and Dad were gone on that business trip.” Elissa put up her hands then pushed her embarrassment away.
“You mean had sex?” Eryn replied.
Elissa nodded.
“Well, but only a couple of times.” Eryn said softly with a light shade of red on her cheek.
“And?” Elissa’s voice trailed off with unspoken curiosity.
“And, that’s none of your business.” Eryn playfully pushed her sister backward onto the bed. She walked over and gave her a hug when she sat up. “Thanks again. I owe you.”
“Big time. And, don’t forget it either because I intend to collect in full,” she smiled up at Eryn.
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