“You wouldn’t be this excited about it if you ate it every day,” I said. “Maybe your mom’s doing you a favor, teaching you to appreciate it properly.”
“Ha,” she said, not bothering to look up from her food. “You are hilariously, incredibly wrong. The only thing I appreciate is that now I don’t have to try to smuggle my tray out of the cafeteria and into the theater. The lunch ladies have eagle eyes.”
“Did you always eat in the theater before?”
Sarah briefly tore her gaze from her pair of English-muffin pizzas with their chunks of sausage and dollops of bright orange grease and shrugged. “Mostly. Occasionally, I’d sit with some of the other kids on track, but half the time one of the guys would try to talk to me about how hot my mom is, which was just so gross I couldn’t take it.”
“I always ate with Anna.”
“I know,” she said, wiping up some extra sauce with the edge of one of her pizzas. “I remember thinking it was funny how the two of you talked so much when you were together, yet on your own you were both pretty quiet—you in a kind of hostile way, her in more of a friendly way.” She paused. “I’m sorry, is it weird to talk about her?”
“No, it’s okay.” I said.
“Cool,” she said. “I mean—not cool, cool….You know what I mean. I didn’t want to upset you by bringing her up, but then I kinda worried I was being an asshole by not.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to tell you if you’re being an asshole.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate that. I think.”
For a minute, we concentrated on our food, and then my curiosity got the better of me.
“So what else did you notice about us?”
“You and Anna?”
I nodded.
She stirred her chocolate pudding and considered.
“I don’t know. It was like you both got lighter around each other, like you sped up. I swear, sometimes it was like you guys were talking in code or something—she’d say two words to you and you’d start cracking up. She was more self-conscious about the twin thing, though, I think.”
“Self-conscious?”
“Not in a bad way, just less comfortable drawing attention to it.”
“How so?” I asked.
Sarah raised a finger, closed her eyes, and ate a spoonful of pudding. Then she put down her spoon.
“Remember back in middle school when you guys both wore gold headbands one day?” she asked. “And how Chris Marset made fun of them, saying you guys were too old to do the matching thing anymore?”
I nodded.
“Well, Anna took hers off immediately, but you left yours on the whole day.”
I loved that headband. I probably still had it somewhere.
But, thinking back, after that, Anna never again wanted us to get two of anything, had been sensitive about us wearing anything that matched, no matter how small it was. Sometimes she’d even change if we accidentally got dressed in clothes that were too similar. I’d assumed she just didn’t want to deal with people teasing us. Maybe it wasn’t that, though. Maybe she’d been embarrassed about being a twin. Or maybe, more specifically, she’d been embarrassed about being my twin. I pushed the thought away.
“Chris Marset was an idiot,” I said.
“Correction, Chris is an idiot.” She offered me part of her brownie, having polished off her pudding.
“I wouldn’t have expected you to notice all that,” I said as I accepted the piece of brownie.
“You were identical twins—everyone noticed you guys. Even if you pretty much ignored the rest of us.”
“Anna didn’t ignore people,” I said.
“No, she didn’t,” Sarah said with a laugh. “I meant you as in you, Cutter.”
“None of you liked me,” I said. “I was just ignoring you all back.”
“That’s your version of it,” she said. “I bet a lot of people would say you never gave them a chance.”
Some nights after we left the bar, the road would feel unsteady, the asphalt almost liquid beneath the wheels of the car. I’d close my eyes and pray that we’d make it back safely. In those moments, all I wanted was to curl up next to you, fall asleep listening to your breath. Wake up centered again, on firm ground.
Once I got home, though, I’d always go straight to my own bed. Because I knew if you woke up to the stink of smoke on my skin, alcohol on my breath, you’d make me explain.
And if I did, you’d tell me to stop.
MR. MATTHEWS AND I HAD settled into a rhythm.
Well, I had. He wasn’t exactly aware of it.
Twice a week, I’d follow him home. I couldn’t stay that long, usually only an hour. Occasionally, I’d do a weekend visit, but it was easier to go during the week. Plus, part of me felt like he should get the weekend off.
Most days followed a similar pattern: he made himself something to eat and then settled down to either read a book or watch some television. He also drank a lot of tea, always letting it steep for exactly five minutes. He set a timer. I approved.
One time, he ate quickly, took two aspirin, and then disappeared into a room I couldn’t see into because the window had blinds that extended past the bottom of the pane. That day I left early. I wanted him to call someone, have someone over, go somewhere other than right home—anything that might yield something more conclusive. That hadn’t happened. I’d only heard him talk to his cat, asking it if it was hungry (it always was) or if it wanted him to rub its stomach (its responses were more variable).
I wondered if this was what life was like for most people who lived alone. Quiet, contemplative, a little sad. I wondered if it was how it had always been for him. Wondered who that second wineglass had been intended for.
—
WHEN YOU START PAYING ATTENTION, start watching someone, it’s hard to turn it off, even when
