High Country Fall

“Huh?”

“Right before we came back here in August, we put Band-Aids on our faces so they couldn’t see May’s scar —”

“—and we challenged Mom and Dad and Phil to say which was which—”

“—and they couldn’t,” both girls chorused, reminding me all over again how attuned to each other’s thoughts they were.

“There was wine,” said June.

“Mom got a little tipsy,” said May.

“And she confessed that she used to mix us up when we were babies.”

“Then Dad said he had, too.”

“And even Phil said he used to switch us in our high chairs just to see if Mom would notice. Sometimes he forgot to switch us back.”

“So for all we know,” said May, “I might really be June.”

They didn’t seem to be very upset about the possibility.

“Oh, well,” I said. “‘What’s in a name?’”

“Credit cards?”

“Driver’s license?”

I had forgotten how literal-minded they could be.

“‘That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,’” I quoted.

They looked at each other blankly.

“Dickens?” May ventured.

“Don’t tell me you never read Romeo and Juliet,” I said.

June’s face brightened. “Shakespeare!”

May shrugged. “I think we were sick that day.”

I laughed. I had never been a scholar, but compared to these two?

“So why are y’all up here goofing off instead of studying in the library down at Tanser-MacLeod?” I asked, getting serious for a moment.

“We’re not goofing off,” June said indignantly. “Mom and Dad are paying us to paint the place.”

“I hope they’re not paying by the hour,” I said. “Those brushes have been in that bucket so long that at least an inch of water has evaporated since the last time they were touched.”

“We’ve been really, really busy.”

“Studying.”

“Midterm exams.”

“Yeah, and papers were due.”

“But we were going to get on it this weekend—”

“—only something came up.”

“Some thing or some one?” I asked.

“Um, well … see, we’re earning extra money by waiting tables up here.”

“But we don’t want Mom and Dad to know because they think we should spend every minute hitting the books,” June explained.

I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m not up here to rat you out.”

“So why are you here?” asked May.

I told them about the judges trying to swap courts for a week and how I’d been asked to substitute for the one who was subbing for the Beaufort judge, only he—They started to look blank again.

“Never mind,” I said glancing at the clock. “It’s late. I want to be down at the courthouse by nine and you need to get to bed, too, if you’re going to make your first class.”

“It’s not until ten,” May said hastily, “but you’re probably tired. We’ll be quiet tonight if you’ll be quiet in the morning.”

“You’re spending the night here?”

“Yeah, late as it is, we’d just wake up everybody in the dorm if we went back now.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said. “Somebody named Carla left a message for y’all to call her.”

“The phone’s fixed?” asked June.

“Cool,” said May. “It hasn’t been working since Friday night.”

I decided there was no point in telling them it always helps to put the receiver back on the hook rather than on the floor.