Gemini (9 page)

“What's going on?” I asked. “That's an awful lot of stuff you're taking home.”

“Yeah, I'm getting ready for this interview. There's this program over the summer, in San Francisco. Did you hear about that? It's like a summer intensive with real working artists. Three whole weeks at Golden Gate Arts. I'm going down to show them my portfolio in a couple of weeks, and I thought I'd bring some stuff home to start going through it.”

He tilted his head to one side and looked thoughtfully at his canvas, then stuffed it back into the portfolio. Without quite looking at me, he said, “You should come too.”

San Francisco. Real art professors. And Alek.

You know how people put Mentos in Diet Coke and it makes the whole thing explode? And it's pretty spectacular? I felt like my heart was the Diet Coke, and each of those things was a Mentos: San Francisco. Art professors. Alek.

But I just nodded, pretending that he had described something mildly interesting at best. “San Francisco, huh?” I stole a quick sideways glance at Clara. There was no way she would ever consider it. And no way that our mom would ever let us go.

Dad might be on my side. But it wasn't likely to do much good. Not when we were up against the hard wall of Mom and Clara.

“Yeah,” Alek said, “you stay in the dorms on campus.”
His gaze flitted over to Clara. “Um, would that be a problem? The dorm rooms?”

Some of his hair fell into his eyes. A weird thought popped into my head. I wished I could reach up and brush it away for him. I wanted to see his eyes, which in this hazy October light would be so dark, they would look almost black. And I wanted to touch his hair.

I shrugged. “I don't know. We might be able to manage it.” I cocked my head toward Clara. “We could probably live in a dorm room for a few weeks, don't you think?” I knew it was impossible. I didn't know why I was even asking her, when the mere thought was bound to give her a heart attack.

Clara answered tightly, “They probably only have twin beds.”

Ironically, we cannot sleep in twin beds.

“Maybe they'd make an exception,” Alek said, brushing the hair out of his eyes himself. “They could let you live off campus or bring in a bigger bed. Or maybe they have some special rooms to accommodate people with different needs.”

His words jolted me.
Accommodate. Different needs.
Not that there was any better way to say it.

He was probably right. The art school had probably never had to
accommodate
conjoined twins before, but they'd probably had plenty of
different needs
come up in the past. I didn't normally think about being part of some larger group of disabled people, those with wheelchairs or canes, hearing
aids or service dogs. But there was no reason why I shouldn't.

“Seriously, Hailey,” Alek went on, oblivious, “you should really come. I know you'd get in for sure. My cousin did it two years ago, and she said it totally turned her art around. I mean she was good to begin with, but afterward she was—well, still not as good as you, but close. Of course I'm also applying for the fall, but I'm not sure if I'll be going then.”

For some reason he looked toward Clara as he asked, “You guys are going to Sutter next year, right?”

Clara gave a slight nod, but I was the one who spoke. “I'd love to go to art school instead, but the thing is, and I don't know if you ever noticed this about me or not? But I'm actually a conjoined twin.”

Alek laughed. His laugh was low-pitched and musical, and I immediately wanted to hear it again. “And here I thought the two of you were just really close.”

“Yeah, no,” I said, feeling warmer now and more hopeful, “and the thing about it is, my sister hates art. She is such a huge pain in my backside, if you know what I mean?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I can see how that might be inconvenient from time to time. Though to be honest, I always thought it must be kind of cool, too. Like, how many people can say there's another person who understands everything about them?” He looked straight up at his eyebrows and added, “Or am I just making a complete corny ass of myself?”

“No,” I said slowly, “you're not completely wrong.
Except for the part about how sometimes I don't understand that crazy chick who's stuck to my butt at
all
.”

Other people had said these things to us before. Usually it seemed like they were trying to put a really fakey-assed smiley spin on something that, deep down inside, they believed was unimaginably horrifying.

But Alek wasn't doing that. He wasn't the type. He really did see that there was something valuable about being what we were.

And that was when I realized that the time was now.

I grabbed Clara's hand and squeezed it. There was some sweat and coldness going on back there, and a slight tremor. I couldn't tell if it was coming from her hand or mine. But I did feel her squeezing back, and I decided to take it as an encouragement rather than a warning.

“Sometimes,” I said to Alek, “it does get in the way of things.”

“Well, of course I noticed that you're not on the soccer team,” he said, smiling. He seemed comfortable; he showed no sign at all of getting ready to turn and run away.

I gazed at him, and he gazed back. And then, gripping Clara's hand harder, I said, “And dancing. We never dance. But you know, there's that Sadie Hawkins dance. . . . Would you go with me, Alek?”

It was hard to say how long he stood there, not saying anything. There were sounds of students all around us,
walking through the outdoor hallway and in and out of the gym, talking and laughing, but it was all a blur. This must be what it felt like to jump from the high dive, and realize only in the moment of jumping that actually, you never meant to do this, and you don't even know how to swim.

He was about to say no.

Alek cleared his throat, and he opened his mouth to say something, but I was already speaking, blurting out, “As friends!”

I cleared my throat too, an echo of the sound he'd just made, and added, “Obviously.”

He searched my face. Again it seemed to last forever. I tried to think of what else I could say to erase the last five minutes from time and space.

Finally Alek said, “I've never been to a school dance before.”

“I haven't either,” I said, with a tiny, pained giggle that didn't even sound like me at all.

“Sorry,” he said, “I was just having trouble picturing it for a minute there.”

I started backing up, push-pulling Clara along with me, away from Alek. My grip on her hand loosened; my whole body had begun to deflate.

Maybe Clara had been right all along. Maybe I'd been wrong to even try.

“I mean myself at a school dance,” Alek went on, and
there was nothing rushed or embarrassed about the way he said it. Either he was really good at covering himself or he wasn't even covering at all. “All these years, even at middle school, I could never picture myself going to one, with all those . . .” He gazed up at the cloudy sky, looking thoughtful, like he was just trying to figure himself out. “Not that I have anything
against
those people that go to them, but I'm just, you know, not . . . They must play a lot of pop music, right?”

Pop music. God. Of course. He would hate that.

“Never mind,” I said, backing away farther. “I'm sorry. It was a stupid idea.”

I hoped my black eye makeup and pale foundation were thick enough to disguise the mess of emotions that I couldn't seem to tamp down. An impenetrable mask of
whatever
. That was what I needed.

Over his shoulder I noticed Gavin and Max coming out of the gym and then walking in our direction. They weren't looking at us, just chatting with each other. And then Clara was pulling at me in a confused, erratic way, as if she wanted to flee but didn't know which way to go.

“No, no, wait!” Alek grabbed my free hand, and his was so warm and dry that it actually made me halfway relax.

“You see how stupid I am?” he said. “I'm making you feel bad because I'm not paying enough attention to what I'm saying. I was just thinking about the dance part of it. I
never thought about going to one before, but there's a first time for everything, right?”

I stared at him, uncomprehending.

Max and Gavin stopped near the edge of the grass, continuing their conversation but no longer walking. Max looked toward us, then away. Behind me Clara was quietly freaking out.

“Hailey,” Alek said, holding on to my hand, “I'm trying to say yes.”

“You'll have to tell me how these things work,” Alek said as he let go of Hailey's hand. “Do we go out to dinner first? Can I pick you up, or should we meet somewhere?”

“Ah, I actually hadn't thought about any of that,” Hailey said.

My mind was reeling—
Had a real live boy just accepted a date with my sister? Did this mean that he must really be a serial killer or parent-murderer, or was it still conceivable that he could be semi-normal? If he was, would that suggest that my entire theory of the universe suffered from some fundamental flaw in its basic underpinnings? Also, were they going to DANCE at the dance? And what was I supposed to do while this was going on?
—but all that dropped away when my gaze wandered over to Max.

Our eyes met for just a moment, and then he quickly looked away. I'd caught him staring.

Gavin walked off toward the gym. Max looked my way again. I held his gaze.
Let them look,
Hailey had said.
So what?

But then he started walking in my direction, and I kind of started hyperventilating. Alek and Hailey were saying things to each other, but I didn't hear a word of it. Max looked at me as he approached. What could he possibly have to say to me, and what would I conceivably come up with to say back? Part of me hated him, part of me felt total sympathy for his fear of me, and another part—well, another part just wanted to throw up.

Max walked right up to me. “Hey, ah, Clara,” he said. “And Hailey. Hi there.” He nodded at Hailey and Alek, who nodded back before returning to their own conversation.

“Um, hi,” I said, frowning, but not failing to note that Max had gotten our names right. He glanced at Hailey. She was whispering something to Alek, whose head was bent close to hers.

Max cleared his throat. “I'm sorry about yesterday.” It was there again, that clipped precision that I'd heard at the Sandwich Shack, like he was pronouncing each word a little more carefully than the average person. It made his words seem unnatural and forced, like a coerced apology from a preschooler or a politician.

I shrugged. “We didn't exactly make it easy on you. I'm not sure what got into Hailey and Juanita.”

“It was my fault. They were just having fun. So, ah, I'm sorry about that. And, mmm . . . Maybe another time on the observatory?”

Alek and Hailey said their good-byes, and Alek turned away, heading toward the parking lot with his portfolio.

Alek had really said yes to Hailey. He hadn't mocked her, laughed, shouted at her, or called her names. The world hadn't stopped spinning.

And in my mind I heard myself saying the kinds of things to Max that I would normally say in a situation like this:
Sure, another time.
Or:
Sounds great.
Or:
Yeah, just let us know when you're up for it.

But it was all a pack of lies. Max wasn't ever going to the observatory with us, and we both knew it, so why did we feel the need to pretend otherwise? And why did my friends feel the need to tell me that asking Max out was a good idea, when they had to know it wasn't? And why did Alek feel the need to tell Hailey that he would go to the dance, as if it were a real date, when of course he couldn't mean it to be? And why did my mother keep insisting that our lives were normal, and why did our teachers pretend that we were going to choose our own careers, as if we had the same opportunities as their other students? And why, why, why was I pretending that I wasn't offended by Max's fear of me? Why was I letting him off so easily?

And I thought all of that, and I told my mouth to say,
Sure, great, some other time,
but my mouth just didn't want to listen.

And so instead I heard myself saying, “Nope. Friday's your last chance.”

He cocked his head to one side. “It is? Why's that?”

I shrugged. My heart started beating so loudly and so fast, it was like the whole school marching band was doing a drumroll right inside my ears. But I just plunged ahead. I actually tilted my head and said in this voice that was weirdly maybe a little bit flirty, from what I could tell over the sound of the drumroll:

“I don't know, it just is. I'm a nice girl—well, some of the time, anyway—and I'm pretty smart and sometimes slightly interesting, and I'm actually not that bad-looking if you look at me from the right angle, you know, like the angle where you can't tell that I've got another one of me growing out from the back. So I assume that all kinds of guys would actually be really excited to go to the observatory with me. I mean, I can't think of one single reason why they wouldn't be. Can you?”

I looked right up into his eyes, my head angled to one side, my eyebrows raised. A lock of hair fell into my eyes, and as I tucked it back behind my ear, I felt, somehow, like some other girl. Like a girl who knew what it was to be a girl, talking to a boy.

He didn't look away. In fact, he cracked a smile, and I watched as it slowly widened, as glorious as ever, but somehow this time it didn't make me feel so much like I was under his power; instead I felt sort of victorious. I had
made
him smile.

“Nope,” he said, “not one single reason.”

Behind me, Hailey gave a barely audible squeal of delight.