Lenore stares, sucks her cheeks in slightly, lets them out, and says, “Ike, you could choke the enthusiasm out of anything.”
“Look, Lenore, it’s the same old argument. You never think about the future. About security. You don’t have a dime in the bank, right? You make good money, but you don’t save a thing. You want to buy some expensive weight machine. You want to buy a new car. You want to buy another rifle. Now it’s a Caribbean vacation …”
“All right, all right,” she cuts him off. “It was just an idea. Forget it. It was just a thought.”
Ike sees an opportunity and before he can think too much he says, “You know, sis, you are right about me being a pain in the ass about things like this …”
“I didn’t say—” she interrupts.
“No, no,” he interrupts, “you’re right. I mean, you might be a little, I don’t know, impractical. But I’m just way too cautious. It’s the truth. I mean, even at work, you know, it’s a problem. It can be annoying.”
“You’re just a little too …” She looks for the word. “Conservative. Restrained.”
“No, it’s the truth. I admit it. On the money.”
“You’ve just got to loosen up a little, Ike. For your own good.”
“Absolutely right,” he says.
They stare at each other, silent, Ike’s head sort of bobbing nervously inside the collar of his powder-blue shirt. He runs a finger around his lips, as if he were some skier applying antichapping gel. He says, “No, you’re right. I’ve been thinking about this. Got to open up more, right? And I was thinking, you could help me on this, Lenore. And it could prove pretty beneficial to you as a bonus.”
She gives him the same look she uses on informants when she hates their story.
“What I was thinking, you know, there are ways of supplementing your income, okay, there are things we could do. Together.”
Lenore pulls her mug from her lips and spills a big puddle of it onto the table. She’s laughing again, shaking her head, holding up her right hand in a “stop” sign, trying to swallow, breathe, and talk at the same time.
“Oh no,” she finally manages. “What? Tell me. Amway? I’m not selling Amway, Ike. No way. You’d be hiding in the other room watching TV while I was writing up orders for discount soap, right? Unh-uh.”
Ike gets a dishrag from the sink and slowly mops up her coffee.
“It’s not Amway,” he says very slowly, letting her know he’s a little hurt.
“Okay, good,” Lenore says. “So what, then? You’ve been staying up late watching those guys in the polyester suits on those weird cable stations?”
“What guys?”
“You know. Those guys. There’re all those guys. And they buy all this time on cable at like three A.M., right? They list them as ‘paid commercial announcements’ in TV Guide. They’ve all got a gimmick and usually it’s got to do with real estate. Like buying up foreclosed properties at government auctions and stuff. Though I guess they’re branching out, ’cause I’ve seen them do shows on like getting fifty credit cards and tapping them all for cash advances …”
“You watch this stuff,” Ike says, straightening up from the table, incredulous, the dishrag hanging from his hand.
Lenore hesitates, then says, “Well, if I can’t sleep …”
Ike interrupts. “Lenore,” he says, genuinely astounded by her, “you get like twenty hours’ sleep a week, you know. I mean, you work ridiculous hours. So when you get to come home, I can’t believe …”
She’s defensive. She says, “Yeah, well, it’s not always so easy to fall off, Ike. I mean, I’m not like you …”
“I don’t sleep that great, believe me,” he says.
There’s quiet again. They both stare at the floor until Ike says, “I still don’t get the credit card thing. I mean, you’ve got to pay all the cash advances back, right? So how does that put money in your pocket?”
“I think it’s what you do with the money before the bill comes. It’s like some fast turnover, some quick thirty-day investment or something. I don’t know. It’s not like I pay attention.”
Ike considers this, then says, “It’s just, I think you could find a cooking show or something. Even the religious channels …”
Lenore rolls her eyes. “Oh, for Christ sake, Ike, I’d rather watch a nature show on snakes or rats. The religious channels, Jesus.”
“They can be pretty interesting,” Ike says, “you pick the right one …”
Lenore’s not about to give on this point. “They’re all scumbags,” she says. “Every one.”
“I guess,” Ike says. He knows that now it’ll be close to impossible to sell her on the crime-novel idea.
“What day are you off this week?” Lenore asks.
“Don’t know yet. Ms. Barnes hasn’t done the schedule yet.”
Lenore’s eyes bug out of her head. “Ms. Barnes,” she repeats, making the name sound ridiculous.
“Give me a break,” Ike says, walking to the sink to wash out the rag.
“Ms. Barnes?” Lenore says louder, more sarcastic.
Ike turns around and folds his arms across his chest. “Well, what the hell should I call her?”
“Well, God, Ike,” she says, “it sounds like she’s your third-grade teacher, c’mon. Jees, it sounds worse than that. It sounds like she’s your third-grade teacher and you’ve got a crush on her, you know.”
Ike breathes in and out through his nose and says, “Yeah, well, it’s getting late, okay?”
“Okay, all right,” Lenore says, smiling, pleased with herself. “I’m sorry. But you’ve got to admit … Ms. Barnes. C’mon, Ike.”
“So what do I say, ‘the supervisor’? ‘My supervisor’? That sounds worse.”
“No,” says Lenore, “it doesn’t sound worse. What’s her first name?”
Ike clears his throat and says, “Eva.”
“Eva,” Lenore repeats. “I like that. Why wouldn’t you call her Eva?”
“Yeah,” Ike says, “why don’t you just call Miskewitz Henry, right? You just don’t. God, Lenore, why don’t you call Zarelli Franny? That’s his name, right? But you don’t.”
“I call Miskewitz Lieutenant,” Lenore says.
“Well, we don’t have ranks, you know.”
“I guess,” Lenore says. She’d like to press this Eva thing, dig a little and find out what makes Ike so touchy on the subject. But it’s getting late and she wants to choose her seat at the conference table before the rest sit down.
“Listen, Lenore,” Ike says, “about this extra-income thing …”
She waves him off and gulps down the rest of her coffee. “Save it for dinner, okay? I’m running late.”
She jumps up from the table like someone had sent a jolt of electricity through her spine. She moves toward the back door like her feet were on fire, kisses Ike on the forehead, pulls open the door, and steps outside. She starts to walk around the house to her car, then stops for a second.
Inside, Ike hears her yell, “Say hi to Ms. Barnes for me,” in a sing-song, laugh-choked voice.
He whispers to himself, “How can we possibly be related?” and pushes the back door closed with his foot.
He moves to the counter, bobs his tea bag. He thinks it wasn’t that long ago that Lenore felt like a real twin. Someone must have really known who was older, who came out first. But Ma would never tell, always pleading ignorance. Knowing always mattered more to Lenore anyway. Ike was content, happy even, being half of a set. And he liked the paradox, even as a kid, instinctively, so connected, but so tremendously different. Not in the classic sense, not any light or dark deal, where one of them was the evil twin. That’d be too easy. It was more like a division of qualities. Lenore, Ike thought, came into the world, for whatever reason, with strength, power, conviction. Ike always thought her abundance of these traits derived from his lack of them. She got his share. But in their wake there were other things. Some awful, like chronic doubt and indecisiveness, but others desirable, like an easy ability to listen and observe. In some ways, Ike thinks, he’s a perfect spy. He’s almost invisible to most people, but he hears every word they speak, sees every muscle contract or expand. And he can remember it all. He’s got a memory like some flawless Japanese camcorder. Both auditory and visual.