“Don’t,” Angela agreed. “Too exotic for your virgin ears.”
Aggie glared. Angela was saved from her blast by a knock at the door.
“Dad and Mary,” she commented as she got up. “You just rest.”
She opened the door to a tall, thin young man with pale blue eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The man looked stunned.
“Who is it?” Aggie called.
Angela thought the young man might faint. She grabbed his arm and dragged him into the apartment. Aggie staggered into the hallway and then groaned.
“Andrew.”
“This is Andrew?” Angela asked. He looked so young.
“What’s going on?” The boy whimpered. He seemed too dazed to walk, so Angela half-carried him into the living room and sat him in an armchair.
“It’s okay, Andrew,” Aggie explained as she fell back onto the sofa. “This is my twin, Angela.”
“You look the same,” he commented, still sounding dazed.
“That’s the idea,” Angela agreed. She smirked at her glaring twin then crooked her baby finger and waved her hand in the air. “We were separated at birth, you see.”
“Angela!” her sister protested. “We were not, Andrew. You knew I had a twin.”
“But,” Andrew seemed to be recovering his wits. “I can’t tell you apart.”
“Lots of people can’t tell us apart,” Angela agreed, her finger still crooked.
Another knock sounded on the door. Angela let in the next wave of visitors.
“Angela!” Their father rushed to the sofa and pulled Aggie into his arms. Andrew turned white and Angela dissolved in giggles. Aggie made room for her father on the sofa by sitting up.
“I’m Aggie, Dad,” she explained hoarsely. “Angela’s better now.”
The color returned to Andrew’s face and then flamed high. He was cute in a boyish nerdy way.
“Dad, Mary, meet Andrew,” Angela introduced.
“Andrew Stollen,” Aggie added.
Andrew stood and extended his hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Trout.”
Angela giggled again then quieted as she caught her sister’s eye.
“Who wants coffee and bagels?” she offered.
Within minutes the five sat awkwardly around the small room. Besides herself, only Mary seemed at ease. She began to appreciate more and more the soothing influence of her new step-mother.
“Well,” her father began heartily. “Shall we all go out?”
“Aggie’s sick, Gordon,” Mary reminded him.
“Right,” he agreed. “Well,….”
“What are you doing in Vancouver, Andrew?” Aggie asked.
“I came to see you,” he answered.
Angela wondered meanly if perhaps he was a little simple. She thrust the unworthy thought aside. He was uncomfortable, that was all. She set herself the task of small talk and soon had the room under control. Andrew became more likable as he explained his research and congratulated Gordon and Mary on their recent wedding. Aggie relaxed back into the sofa and nursed a hot cup of tea laced with honey. Her father ate three bagels with butter and jam. Eventually Angela’s invention of topics faded and the room slipped back into silence.
“Maybe we should leave Aggie and Andrew to talk,” Mary suggested quietly. “I’m sure they’d like a chance to catch up their news.”
Angela felt renewed gratitude to the thoughtful woman. Her suggestion was exactly right. She jumped off the arm of the sofa where she had been perched.
“Let’s go.” She clapped her hands.
“You certainly are cheerful today,” her father commented.
“Must be the sunshine,” Angela explained and winked at her twin. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“English Bay looks beautiful,” Mary agreed. “Why don’t we walk on the seawall? You know, we ran into the nicest man this morning.”
Angela was afraid to look at Aggie. Afraid her twin’s face would mirror her own dread.
“His name was Jimmy Buko,” their father added. “He lives in the last building down the block.”
Angela worried that her sister would faint.
“Let’s take the seabus to the North Shore,” she suggested quickly. They would worry later about the potentially disastrous meeting. Aggie sighed and nodded. Angela walked to the sofa and kissed her twin on the forehead. She whispered, “Don’t worry, Boo. We’ll figure something out.”
By the time Angela, her father, and Mary came back, some color had returned to Aggie’s face, though she was still wan from not eating. Andrew appeared settled in to stay. It seemed he hadn’t booked a room of his own but had assumed he could stay with Aggie and her sister. Besides, he didn’t have much money. It was time for Aggie to lose the boy wonder and find a real man. Angela waited to hear the magic words, ‘get lost’, but Aggie didn’t speak. What were they going to do with an extra male body in the apartment? Angela left her father and Mary to entertain their new house guest and dragged her sister into the bedroom.
“He can’t stay here,” she whispered as she closed the door.
“What am I supposed to do?” Aggie whispered back.
She looked so weak, Angela eased her back to sit on the bed then perched beside her.
“What about tonight?” she asked. “Jimmy will be back from his trip.”
“It’s the same as we thought it would be last night,” Aggie said softly then blew her nose.
“He expects you,” Angela persisted. “He doesn’t like me at all.”
“I’m sure he’d like you if you weren’t trying to be me,” Aggie offered.
Angela shrugged.
“Maybe,” she agreed. Then she blurted, “What do you see in Andrew?”
Tears formed in Aggie’s eyes.
“I hate to hurt him,” she whispered.
“But you don’t want him anymore?”
Aggie shook her head. “After Jimmy….”
“You have to tell him to leave.”
“Just one night, Boo,” Aggie asked. “I’ll tell him to leave tomorrow. You won’t be here anyway.”
“I don’t know if I can pull this off any more,” Angela admitted, tacitly agreeing to Andrew’s presence for one night.
“I want to see Jimmy again,” Aggie said through a sneeze. “Just let me get well and I’ll take over the contract. I’ll still give you the money.”
“What about Richard?”
“Once Jimmy knows it’s always me, he won’t send Richard any more.”
Aggie had missed Angela’s concern by a mile. The older twin didn’t explain that it was she and Richard that she was fantasizing about, not Richard and her sister. But Richard was a forlorn hope, a true lost cause. Once he found out she was a prostitute, once he unraveled her scheme to get Jimmy’s money, the only place he’d want to see her would be in court. They’d had one fantastic night. That would have to be enough.
Angela brought her mind back to task. If Aggie could get the money, she wouldn’t need to steal the Giacometti. Prostitution had been soul-destroying enough. The more she thought about it, the less Angela wanted to become a real criminal.
“What about Dad and Jimmy?” Aggie’s whisper interrupted Angela’s thoughts.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ll try to keep Dad and Mary away from here as far as I can, but they like to go out on their own.”
“What if they meet again? What if Dad pulls out his famous wallet photos?”
Angela blanched. She hadn’t thought of the photos and their father’s pride in his identical daughters. Her spirit wilted for a brief instant with the growing complications. Then she rebounded.
“I’ll get the photos out of Dad’s wallet,” she offered.
“I bet he already knows,” Aggie lay back on the bed. “I bet Dad introduced himself as Gordon Trout.”
“Jimmy would have picked it up in a second.”