When You Don't See Me (26 page)

I followed her, maneuvering the cart to catch random items as she hurled them back at me: a loaf of Italian bread, a bag of gingersnap cookies, a box of coffee cake. I missed the coffee cake and it broke open, flying all around me.

“Hey!” I shouted.

Morgan turned around, saw the carnage, and sighed. She selected another coffee cake and gently placed it in the cart.

“At first, I thought you and Bailey just looked alike,” I said. “With millions of people around, it's always possible to see someone who looks like somebody you know.”

“Most everybody I see looks like a Neanderthal,” Morgan mumbled.

The man behind the butcher case looked affronted. He turned to the guy next to him and said, “You help them. I'm going on a break. Stupid holidays. They bring out the worst in everyone.”

Morgan rolled her eyes and asked the other guy for two pounds of ground beef.

“Then I thought the two of you might be cousins,” I persisted.

“Who?” Morgan asked.

“You and Bailey.”

“This is the woman you work with, right?”

“Yes. Your sister.”

“How did we get from being cousins to twins?”

“Ha!” I exclaimed. The guy behind the counter jumped in surprise and ground beef flew into the air, sticking to the ceiling. He swore in Spanish and started weighing more beef.

“Ha? What are you shrieking about?” Morgan asked.

“I didn't say anything about you and Bailey being twins. You just admitted it!”

“I admitted nothing. You said something in the produce department about my being a twin.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, feeling stupid. Today's karmic lesson was that I wasn't cut out to be a detective.

“For God's sake, Nick, get a grip,” Morgan said. She took the ground beef, thanked the butcher, and pulled the cart toward the dairy section. I watched her select cottage cheese, grated Parmesan, and ricotta. I followed her through the store, trying to pretend Bailey was there instead. It was next to impossible. I couldn't imagine Bailey in a vinyl nurse's uniform.

I did my best to let it go. I stopped questioning her. On the walk home, we laughed every time one of us slipped and almost fell on the icy sidewalk. I confessed to laughing at her when she fell earlier, surprised when she admitted she'd have done the same in my place. I didn't think she was able to laugh at herself.

“I'm sure I looked like a water buffalo on skates,” she said.

“No. It wasn't like that. It was like watching a movie where the high-and-mighty hot girl finally bites it and does something human.”

Morgan paused on our building's stoop and said, “Did you just call me a hot girl?”

“I spoke without thinking,” I said. “I meant to call you a horrible wench.”

“That's what I thought.”

“I don't know why you always hide your body under lumpy clothes. When we get upstairs, find a mirror and look at yourself in that outfit. You look good. Guys have been checking you out the whole way home.”

“Shut up.”

“It's true!”

“No, really. Shut up. There's a hot guy checking me out right now. Go up without me.”

“I don't know how to make a lasagna. We'll starve.”

“Fine. Nurse Boyardee to the rescue.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I'm thankful.”

“Like the man said, this holiday brings out the worst in everyone.”

Upstairs, Morgan put away the groceries and prepared the lasagna while I washed vegetables and made a salad. I braved another question, asking her about the second job.

“Student loans,” she lamented. “I hate being in debt, and I owe so much money. It's frightening. I don't have the winning personality required for waiting tables, or other part-time jobs in the service industry. I tried to work at a herp shop—”

“A what?”

“Reptile dealer. But people are so freaking stupid that I'd talk them out of buying snakes. Not exactly a path to success. When I saw the HELP WANTED sign in the S&M shop, I thought it might be a strange place to work—”

“But maybe the customers would be happy to take your abuse,” I guessed.

“Exactly.”

I put the bowl of salad into the refrigerator and said, “I'm surprised. I never thought you worried about anything. You always seem so in control. Of everything.”

“That other cucumber? The one I didn't choose? Part of it was rotten beneath its skin.”

“I don't think you're rotten. I know I've acted—”

“Let me finish,” Morgan snapped, slapping a spoon on the counter as if it were Red Kitty's riding crop. “You don't know me. You make assumptions. If you'd taken the time, you'd have realized the one cucumber had a big soft spot. It's okay, though. I do the same thing sometimes. I know how I come across to people. I know I'm a hard-ass bitch. Whatever. I'm glad I got to see today that you're not the immature drama queen I thought you were.”

I was about to protest the drama queen label when the door opened and Roberto surprised us both.

“What are you doing here?” we all chorused.

Roberto's mouth was actually hanging open. I couldn't tell if he was shocked to see us because we were all supposed to be somewhere else, or if he was amazed to see Morgan and me in the kitchen at the same time without brandishing weapons.

Or maybe it was the nurse's uniform, because Morgan was still wearing it. He stared at her, then at me, before he passed me a plastic bag filled with containers of food.

“Can you put this in the refrigerator? It's all stuff my mother made. Is that lasagna?”

“Not enough time to cook turkey,” I explained.

“My mother made turkey. It looked really tender.” He gestured to the fridge and said, “Help yourselves, if you want.”

“Looked tender? Didn't you eat?” Morgan asked.

Roberto shook his head and said, “No. My stomach's been upset all day. It was too crazy at the house. Every one of my brothers has friends over. I came back here for some quiet.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“No, it's cool. I'm glad to see you guys. Make all the noise you want. I can sleep through anything.”

That wasn't why I was sorry, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Go take a nap. Dinner won't be ready for a while. Maybe then you'll feel better, and you can join us,” Morgan said.

“Doctor's orders?” Roberto teased.

Morgan looked down at her outfit and said, “I need to change.”

“I've been waiting to hear you say that for months,” I joked.

“Stick that in the oven and bake it for forty-five minutes,” she ordered. When I picked up the pan, she added, “I was talking about your head.”

 

Roberto looked better after his nap. The three of us had just settled around the table in the living room with the lasagna, the reheated Mirones food, and a bottle of Morgan's wine when we heard the door open, then a flurry of footsteps in the dark hall. Kendra stopped short in the doorway, stifling a scream when she saw us.

“She
says
they're harmless,” I said, gesturing toward Lucifer and Hugsie, who were winding their way around the TV, which was off.

“They're not—you're not—what are you
doing
here?” Kendra demanded.

“Eating,” Morgan said. She got to her feet, grabbed the snakes, and disappeared into their bedroom.

Kendra still hadn't moved when Morgan came back with another plate and silverware, so Roberto said, “We have a boatload of food. But you probably already ate with your family. Did you get there in time to make the salad?”

Kendra stared at the food. I could have sworn she was salivating. “Oh, come on,” I said. “Eat. We know you didn't go home. We all got busted today.”

“I went to the Bronx,” Roberto protested.

“You went there long enough to pick up food,” I said. “Morgan—well, never mind what Morgan was doing.”

“They both know,” Morgan said, spooning lasagna onto her plate.

“Know what?”

“They know where I moonlight.”

“Everybody knew but me?” I asked, giving Roberto a dirty look.

“That's where I met her,” Kendra said. She took off her coat and flopped down between Roberto and me. “I used to work there, too.”

“Don't tell me, let me guess. With your excellent housekeeping skills, you were the Rubber Room's French maid.”

“Rubber Right,” everyone corrected me in unison, and Kendra added, “I was more the literary one of the bunch.”

“You were a teacher? A nun with a ruler? A schoolgirl in uniform?” I speculated.

“Little Red Riding Hood. Heidi. Bo Peep. Goldilocks. I got my best sales as Puss in Boots.”

“And then she got fired as Tinklebell,” Morgan said.

“It's Tinkerbell,” I said.

“Not for Mr. Pee-On-Me, it wasn't.”

“I thought you were just selling the stuff,” I said.

“We were,” Kendra said, frowning as she picked cucumbers out of her salad. “He wanted more. When I turned him down, he threw a fit, accused me of a bunch of stuff, and I got fired.” I stared at her so long that she shifted uncomfortably and said, “What?”

“I think that may be the first time I've heard the end of one of your stories. And it sounds like one of mine.”

“So now you know our big secrets,” Morgan said. “Let's move on.”

“I don't think working at a fetish shop is the biggest secret at this table,” I disagreed.

Before Morgan could respond, Kendra shrieked, “Okay! I lied! I don't have a family to go home to. My parents got divorced when I was a little kid. My grandmother owns a horse farm in Kentucky. She paid my mother to move back to Trenton with me and stay away. My father got remarried to some Louisville debutante and they have three perfect blond daughters. My mother and her boyfriend usually start drinking early on holidays and they're passed out by dark. Now you know. Happy?”

We all gaped at her. I finally said, “Is that where you got the money to pay me back? From your father?”

“My grandmother,” Kendra said. “All I have to do is threaten to come for a visit and she'll wire me money. I must not be allowed to ruin the
guhls'
opportunities.”

“So your pot-smoking granny—that must be your mother's mother?” I asked.

“No. It's the one in Kentucky,” Kendra said.

“Have you ever met your sisters?” Roberto asked.

“A few years ago. They're actually kind of sweet,” Kendra admitted. “There's just no place for me in that world. Unlike the rest of you, I don't have a family to go home to.”

“Am I not sitting here with you?” I asked. “It was just like Roberto said. I couldn't deal with my family, so I canceled my trip.”

“At least you tell the truth about yourself to your family,” Roberto said. “All I do is dodge questions from my brothers. ‘When you gonna bring a girl home?' ‘When you gonna get married?' Or my mother. ‘When you gonna find a nice girl and make a
nieto
to call me
abuela?
' ‘I'm only nineteen,' I say. ‘You too ashamed to bring a girl here?' she asks. My family gives new meaning to the Spanish Inquisition.”

“You should take Adalla to meet your mother,” Kendra said. “She comes with a baby already.”

“She's met Adalla, and I'm not making up shit about a girlfriend. But I can't tell her the truth.” When nobody said anything, he went on. “It would kill her to find out I'm HIV-positive. And JC would kill me long before I ever get sick with AIDS.”

“Ohhhhh,” Kendra said in a long moan and dropped her head.

Roberto met my eyes, then looked at Morgan, who reached over, thumped his arm with her fingers, and said, “Nice try. I'm not getting back in the nurse's uniform for you.”

He laughed, and Morgan looked almost coquettish as she smiled at him. It scared me, but fortunately she immediately turned to me with her usual deadpan expression and said, “I didn't know Thanksgiving was a day of confession. Must be some church I never heard of. Fine. Bailey's my twin.”

“See, now I don't believe you,” I complained. “You're humoring me. I'm starting to think you're my imaginary friends. You're each a projection of my own fucked-up life. Roberto has a secret from his family and no kids in his future. Kendra has a family that throws money at her to keep her away. Now
you
have an estranged twin.”

“I never said we were estranged,” Morgan said. “Bailey and I get along fine. We're just totally different people who live separate lives.”