Even with twins, there are certain differences. Betty was a trifle thinner than Liz, and somewhat less imaginative. She was also a lot harder to bring off; in fact, I’m not sure I did. However, she seemed well enough pleased, and afterward, as I lay on the rug like a trout in the bottom of a boat, she wetly kissed my ear and whispered, “I’ll make you a nice breakfast.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. She had whispered because it was romantic, but I did so because I didn’t have the strength to talk.
She started away, then came back to whisper some more. “Now, if Liz comes in, remember we’re going to keep it a secret.”
A secret. Screwing? I wasn’t up to any response other than a bewildered squint in her general direction.
She was about to become hurt again. “Now,” she said, no longer whispering, “you’ll tell me you didn’t forget our engagement.”
“Oh, our engagement! Well, naturally I know about that. I just didn’t know what you were talking about”
She considered me briefly, but finally decided to let it go, for which small kindness I hope she was given full marks in heaven. She left the room, and slowly I made it to a sitting position on the floor. I spoke aloud. “I’m engaged,” I said, and then I giggled.
It wasn’t until some time later that I thought of the world’s third largest supplier of wood and wood products, and the several other firms including a television station in Indiana.
9
Sunday morning I took the ferry from Point O’ Woods to Bay Shore, stepped into a phone booth, and called the Kerner house. I knew it was Betty who answered, since Liz hadn’t been around all weekend, but I said, “Hi, is this Liz?”
“No, it’s Betty.”
“Oh, hello. This is Art Dodge. Is my brother there, by any chance?”
“Oh, you just missed him! He just now took the ferry.”
“Drat,” I said. “Well, I’ll call him tonight in the city. Is Liz around?”
“Not right now,” she said doubtfully. She wasn’t about to tell Art the hair-raising stories she’d told Bart, about Liz disappearing routinely for two or three days at a time. “Could she call you back?”
“Sure,” I said, and left Candy and Ralph’s number. Then I walked across Maple Avenue and took the Fair Harbor ferry, which wasn’t at all in the same league as the boat from Point O’ Woods.
Yesterday, after my hangover had ebbed a bit, and after Betty and I had committed sacrilege after all upon her father’s bed, I’d called my Fair Harbor hosts to tell them not to worry, I was more or less safe and sound. Happily, it was Ralph who answered, and he’d understood at once. “Go get ’em, Art,” he’d said, and I could just see him doing that little punching gesture.
Which left Candy still to be heard from.
She wasn’t home, I’m glad to say, but the kids were there, spreading peanut butter and jelly on the kitchen counter. I took my damn glasses off, popped my lenses in, changed into bathing trunks, grabbed a towel, and headed for the beach. After a night and a day and a night of romping with Betty in a Liz-less house I was ready for some restorative rest.
But I wasn’t to get it I hadn’t been lying there on my back twenty minutes when somebody kicked sand in my face. Squinting upward, I saw at first nothing but a blue-swathed crotch above tanned legs. Then Liz dropped to the sand beside me and said, “Hello, lover.”
“Hello, yourself.”
“Your brother came sniffing around,” she said.
I glared, “After you?”
“Hah,” she said. “You never saw a couple that belonged together like your Bart and my Betty.”
Had I been that bad? Grinning in relief, I lay my head back on the towel and said, “Well, that’s all right then.”
“So there you are,” said another voice, and when I looked up this new crotch was swathed in yellow. It dropped down toward me, and there was Candy sitting on my left, baring her teeth across my chest at Liz. “And this must be your new friend,” she said.
“Liz Kerner,” I said, “this is Candy Minck, my hostess.” And then, because one or the other of them would surely now say something that would blow the twin bit forever, with nothing I could possibly do about it, I rested my head back on the towel, closed my eyes, and folded my hands on my breast.
LIZ: “I recognized your voice from the phone. It’s so distinctive.”
CANDY: “You don’t look at all the way I pictured you.”
LIZ: “Really? You look exactly the way I thought you would.”
CANDY: “Oh? How’s that?”
LIZ: “Oh, I don’t know. Sort of cute and matronly.”
CANDY: “What a sweet thing to say. But Art has told us so little about you. Do you have a place of your own here, or do you just come over for the day?”
LIZ: “I have a little house in Point O’ Woods. Not as... casual as yours, of course.”
CANDY: “Yes, you have seen my place, haven’t you?”
Opening my eyes, I cautiously lifted my head. Claws were dug into the sand on both sides of my rib cage. I said, “Where do you suppose Ralph is?”
Candy, her eyes still fixed on Liz, waggled impatient fingers toward the ocean. “Drowning.” To Liz she said, “I want you always to feel free to drop in at my house just any time you want.”
“That’s so nice of you,” Liz said. “It’s so relaxing to be in a place where nobody cares about housekeeping and all of that.”
“Say,” I said, with a big friendly smile, “why don’t we have a drink?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Liz said.
Candy was already on her feet, wiping sand from her ass which just accidentally fell on my head. “We’ll all go to my place,” she said.
So we left the beach and strolled along the boardwalk toward Candy’s house. There was blessed silence for a minute or two, and then Candy said to Liz, “Do your people at Point O’ Woods give you many days off?”
“Not many,” Liz said. “Since I inherited my father’s estate it’s just business business business all the time.”
“Oh, are you an orphan, poor dear?”
I said, “Liz has a twin sister. There’s just the two of them left in the world.”
“There’s another one at home like you?” The idea seemed to daunt Candy slightly.
“You never know where you’ll run into twins, ha, ha,” I said, then pointed and said, “Isn’t that one of the kids on the roof?”
“Wha?” Candy squinted, she shielded her eyes from the sun. “I don’t see anybody.”
“My mistake,” I said. “For a second I thought I saw somebody there.”
We walked on to the house. If only Liz had to go to the john, I would take Candy to one side, explain the twin scam to her briefly, assure her my intentions toward the Kerners were strictly mercenary and that my dishonorable intentions were still centered on her own sweet self, insist that my motive was Kerner investment in Those Wonderful Folks, and beg her connivance in the plot. The idea should appeal to her; Candy had a natural love of the underhanded.
Unfortunately, when we entered the house it was Candy who headed immediately for the john, while Liz stood at the kitchen counter, touching the peanut butter and jelly with a hesitant finger and waiting for her usual. I called after Candy, “And what’s yours?”
“I’ll make it when I come back.”
Vodka-ice. Rum-and. “Cheers,” I said, and we both drank.
“You have a true taste for the gutter, don’t you?” Liz suggested.
“What, Candy? She’s my best friend’s wife.”
“I took that for granted.” She strolled around, looking at the furnishings. “It’s hard to believe people still live like this.”
“We are the people,” I told her. “The salt of the earth.”