It was good news, but she sounded dispirited, and Steve’s elation was checked. “You don’t seem as pleased as you ought to be.”
“He has an alibi for Sunday.”
“Shit.” His hopes sank again. “How can he? What sort of an alibi?”
“Watertight. He was at the Emmys in Los Angeles. There are photographs.”
“He’s in the movie business?”
“Nightclub owner. He’s a minor celebrity.”
Steve could see why she was so down. Her discovery of Wayne had been brilliant—but it had got them no further forward. But he was mystified as well as downcast. “Then who raped Lisa?”
“Do you remember what Sherlock Holmes says? ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, what remains—no matter how improbable—must be the truth.’ Or maybe it was Hercule Poirot.”
His heart went cold. Surely she did not believe he had raped Lisa? “What’s the truth?”
“There are four twins.”
“Quadruplets? Jeannie, this is getting crazy.”
“Not quadruplets. I can’t believe this embryo divided into four by accident. It had to be deliberate, part of the experiment.”
“Is that possible?”
“It is nowadays. You’ve heard of cloning. Back in the seventies it was just an idea. But Genetico seems to have been years ahead of the rest of the field—perhaps because they were working in secret and could experiment on humans.”
“You’re saying I’m a clone.”
“You have to be. I’m sorry, Steve. I keep giving you shattering news. It’s a good thing you have the parents you have.”
“Yeah. What’s he like, Wayne?”
“Creepy. He has a painting that shows Salina Jones being crucified naked. I couldn’t wait to get out of his apartment.”
Steve was silent. One of my clones is a murderer, the other is a sadist, and the hypothetical fourth is a rapist. Where does that leave me?
Jeannie said: “The clone idea also explains why you all have different birthdays. The embryos were kept in the laboratory for varying periods before being implanted in the women’s wombs.”
Why did this happen to me? Why couldn’t I be like everyone else?
“They’re closing the flight, I have to go.”
“I want to see you. I’ll drive to Baltimore.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Steve hung up the phone. “You got that,” he said to his mother.
“Yeah. He looks just like you, but he’s got an alibi, so she thinks there must be four of you, and you’re clones.”
“If we’re clones, I must be like them.”
“No. You’re different, because you’re mine.”
“But I’m not.” He saw the spasm of pain pass across his mother’s face, but he was hurting too. “I’m the child of two complete strangers selected by research scientists employed by Genetico. That’s my ancestry.”
“You must be different from the others, you behave differently.”
“But does that prove that my nature is different from theirs? Or just that I’ve learned to hide it, like a domesticated animal? Did you make me what I am? Or did Genetico?”
“I don’t know, my son,” said Mom. “I just don’t know.”
45
JEANNIE TOOK A SHOWER AND WASHED HER HAIR, THEN MADE up her eyes carefully. She decided not to use lipstick or blush. She dressed in a V-neck purple sweater and skintight gray leggings, with no underwear or shoes. She put in her favorite nose jewel, a small sapphire in a silver mount. In the mirror she looked like sex on a stick. “Off to church, young lady?” she said aloud. Then she winked at herself and went into the living room.
Her father had gone again. He preferred to be at Patty’s where he had his three grandchildren to keep him amused. Patty had come to pick him up while Jeannie was in New York.
She had nothing to do but wait for Steve. She tried not to think of the day’s great disappointment. She had had enough. She felt hungry; she had kept going on coffee all day. She wondered whether to eat now or hang on until he got here. She smiled as she remembered his eating eight cinnamon buns for breakfast. Was that only yesterday? It seemed a week ago.
Suddenly she realized she did not have any food in the refrigerator. How awful if he arrived hungry and she could not feed him! She hurriedly pulled on a pair of Doc Marten boots and ran outside. She drove to the 7-Eleven on the corner of Falls Road and 36th Street and bought eggs, Canadian bacon, milk, a loaf of seven-grain bread, ready-washed salad, Dos Equis beer, Ben & Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch ice cream, and four more packets of frozen cinnamon buns.
While she was standing at the checkout she realized he might arrive while she was out. He might even go away again!
She ran out of the store with her arms full and drove home like a maniac, imagining him waiting impatiently on the doorstep.
There was no one outside her house and no sign of his rusty Datsun. She went inside and put the food in the refrigerator. She took the eggs out of the carton and put them in the egg tray, undid the six-pack of beer, and loaded the coffee machine ready to start. Then she had nothing to do again.
It occurred to her that she was behaving uncharacteristically. She had never before worried about whether a man might be hungry. Her normal attitude, even with Will Temple, had been that if he’s hungry he’ll fix himself something to eat, and if the refrigerator is empty he’ll go to the store, and if the store is closed he’ll get drive-through. But now she was suffering an attack of domesticity. Steve was having a bigger impact on her than other men, even though she had known him only a few days—
The doorbell sounded like an explosion.
Jeannie leaped up, heart pounding, and spoke into the entry phone. “Yes?”
“Jeannie? It’s Steve.”
She touched the button that unlocked the door. She stood still for a moment, feeling foolish. She was acting like a teenage girl. She watched Steve come up the stairs in a gray T-shirt and loose-fitting blue jeans. His face showed the pain and disappointment of the last twenty-four hours. She threw her arms around him and embraced him. His strong body felt tense and strained.
She led him into the living room. He sat on the sofa and she switched on the coffee machine. She felt very close to him. They had not done the usual things, dated and gone to restaurants and watched movies together, the way Jeannie had previously got to know a man. Instead they had fought battles side by side and puzzled over mysteries together and been persecuted by half-hidden enemies. It had made them friends very quickly.
“Want some coffee?”
He shook his head. “I’d rather hold hands.”
She sat beside him on the couch and took his hand. He leaned toward her. She turned up her face and he kissed her lips. It was their first real kiss. She squeezed his hand hard and parted her lips. The taste of his mouth made her think of wood smoke. For a moment her passion was derailed as she asked herself if she had brushed her teeth; then she remembered that she had, and she relaxed again. He touched her breasts through the soft wool of her sweater, his big hands surprisingly gentle. She did the same to him, rubbing the palms of her hands across his chest.
It got serious very quickly.
He pulled away to look at her. He stared into her face as if he wanted to burn her features into his memory. With his fingertips he touched her eyebrows, her cheekbones, the tip of her nose, and her lips, as gently as if he were afraid of breaking something. He shook his head from side to side slightly, as if he could not believe what he saw.
In his gaze she saw profound longing. This man yearned for her with all his being. It turned her on. Her passion blew up like a sudden wind from the south, hot and tempestuous. She felt the sensation of melting in her loins that she had not had for a year and a half. She wanted everything all at once, his body on top of her and his tongue in her mouth and his hands everywhere.