Three Black Swans Read online

  “Rick,” said Mr. Shemtov, “we have to interview these two girls. This is a crucial project even though it’s a biology topic and this happens to be physics. It’s too extraordinary to pass up, and you’re first in line.”

  Missy does like me, thought Rick. And now she owes me. She’s excited about this, even though poor Claire fell apart. Missy will cooperate in a research project. In fact, I bet that’s why she did it. Not to introduce Claire, but to show off how interesting she is.

  Rick was already full of ideas for what direction to take, eager to read other twin interviews. He yearned for the end of class and a few hours on his laptop.

  Lucie said in a slow contemplative voice, “You know what, Rick?”

  Rick adored Lucie, who never spoke to him except when necessary. “What?”

  “There’s a moment in your video where the viewer first realizes that these two girls really and truly are identical twins. I had the sense that it was the first time the two of them really knew. It was so emotional when Claire started to sob. Your video is so powerful.”

  My video, thought Rick.

  “Put it on YouTube, Rick,” said Lucie. “It’ll be the hottest video out there.”

  * * *

  Missy’s first class after the interview was gym, which had to be the world’s worst scheduling, because she got sweaty and disgusting before the day had even begun. She entered the girls’ locker room, wishing she had not chosen the pink cashmere sweater after all, and was assaulted by a chorus of questions and congratulations.

  “Missy, where’s Claire? I want to meet her!” “Missy, this is so exciting!” “Missy, how did you find each other, anyway?”

  Missy peeled off her sweater. The air-conditioning was defective in this locker room. She hid under the wool for a moment, wondering how to answer.

  “Missy, did you know already that you were adopted?” “Missy, that was unbelievable. You two were clones.” “Exact images of each other, even the way you held your fingers and tossed your hair!”

  The phrase “identical twin” was romantic and rare. The word “clone” was disturbing. A clone was an experiment. A test tube occupant. An aberration. Missy had never considered the idea of clones.

  “I thought Claire was attending class with you, Missy!” “I can lend her shorts and a T-shirt.”

  What was Missy supposed to do now? If she said, “Her dad is driving her back to her own high school,” everybody would want to know what high school, and what the dad thought, and whether Missy liked the other family. “Claire was a little shaken up,” said Missy finally.

  “A little! She was practically fainting.” “Those tears just poured out!” “You’d have thought she didn’t know what you were going to say.”

  And then standing in front of her was Rick’s sister Alaina, weeping.

  Was Rick in trouble? Trouble so bad that his sister had burst into tears? How could that have happened so fast? How could it happen at all? If anybody were to get into trouble, wouldn’t it be Missy herself? “What’s the matter, Alaina?” Missy asked nervously.

  “Nothing’s the matter. I’m crying for joy. I never saw anything so beautiful or so emotionally intense. Think of the odds against you two finding each other!” said Alaina. “And when poor Claire began to sob—my heart absolutely broke for her. Where is she? I’m dying to meet her. I want to see you two next to each other!”

  The gym teacher blew the whistle she wore on a lanyard around her neck and the girls chugged out onto the gym floor. Although Ms. Nelligan taught gym, she was not in good shape. Her nickname was Nelly Belly. “Where’s Claire?” cried Nelly Belly. “You are so athletic, Missy, and I am so interested to see if the two of you share athletic abilities the way you share facial features!”

  Even when the class divided to play two sets of half-court basketball, questions showered over Missy. No matter how many she brushed away, more fell.

  “What do your parents think?” “Did you already know that you’re adopted?” “Do you and Claire know who your real parents are?”

  Every morning when Missy left for school, her father would yell down the stairs from his home office, “Knock their socks off, Missy!”

  Missy had knocked the socks off every kid in school. A thousand teenagers were barefoot.

  * * *

  When Claire’s father dropped his daughter off at her high school, he had nowhere to go. House building ran in cycles. You had your terrific decade and then you had your lousy decade. You had too much work for anybody to do, and then you had none.

  This was a none time.

  Phil Linnehan mainly did rough framing on houses for which he was the general contractor. This fall, few new houses were being constructed, and those jobs didn’t need him. Usually in the afternoons, he coached. He’d started with T-ball back when Claire was hardly big enough to hoist a plastic bat. But this fall so many fathers and mothers were out of work that a large pool of adults was available for coaching. Phil was not needed.

  An ardent Yankees fan, he usually managed several games a year. Nothing compared to Yankee Stadium. This year he could not afford tickets. He was at the place where even in coffee shops, which he hit several times a day, he bought only a cup of coffee—no eggs, no donuts—and left a tip so small it embarrassed him.

  He was so proud of Claire. He loved looking at her and thinking about her. He loved watching her read or study, and oddly, he loved watching her send text messages. She adored her cell phone. There was no time when she wasn’t texting Missy. He dreaded telling her that he had to change telephone plans and that she would have to drop out of the texting scene. He really dreaded the possibility that he and Frannie could not send their daughter to the college she deserved.

  His wife worked harder than anybody he knew. An amazing number of women wanted to get their exercise in before work. Frannie led Jazzercise classes at six a.m. and throughout the day at the Y, the community center and a spa. Frannie still looked great in leotards. She had the cheerleader personality required to keep twenty or thirty women dancing, sliding and weight lifting for an hour.

  But Frannie was tired. She and Phil were close to fifty. She couldn’t keep this up. What would she do instead? What would either of them do?

  Phil sipped cold coffee from the bottom of his paper cup. He wondered vaguely what his niece had needed help with. Missy was not the type to need help. Tiny as she had been at birth, Missy had nevertheless yelled since she could talk, “I’ll do it myself.”

  He considered the coming weekend.

  Frannie didn’t have Jazzercise Friday evenings because nobody cared about exercise after twelve noon on a Friday. Friday evenings were special. If Claire stayed over at her cousin’s, Phil and Frannie would go out for dinner and a movie. They loved movies. They loved popcorn. They loved holding hands.

  Phil Linnehan didn’t have the money for a movie and popcorn this week.

  He hoped it was Missy’s turn to come here, and they’d all play board games—fitting them in around the girls’ texting, of course—and have fun without money, and he could last another few days without admitting to his family just how deep their troubles were.

  * * *

  When the passing bell finally rang, Missy sprinted out of the girls’ locker room and down the hall. Halfway to her next class, she ran into Jill, who had attended every birthday party Missy had ever had, and certainly knew Claire. Missy expected Jill to stalk up, roll her eyes and scold her. “Oh, please,” Jill would say. “That was your cousin. You thought you could fool us by wearing the same sweaters? What a hoax.”

  Sure enough, Jill raced up to Missy. But she flung her arms around her and whirled her in a wild excited dance. “Missy! I’m so stunned and thrilled and weepy! I mean, I can’t believe it. You two are absolutely totally identical. I didn’t know identical twins would be that identical! I mean, call me stupid, but I thought I’d be able to tell which one was you.”

  Missy gaped at her.

  “And here your co
usin is also named Claire! I mean, talk about coincidence. But they do say identical twins separated at birth lead very similar lives! Isn’t it spooky?”

  Missy was speechless.

  Wendy—who had also been to many a sleepover at Missy’s—Wendy, who had once shared a toothbrush with Claire—walked up and said, “I’m still trembling, Missy. Did you know that I’m adopted, too? If you ever need to talk about it, I’m here for you. It’s a wonderful thing, and you’re proud, because you sort of own the outlines of your life more than other kids do—since you’re a gift and a choice, the way regular kids aren’t.”

  Missy imagined Wendy’s parents repeating those lines. It was a little insulting, actually. As if “regular” children weren’t also a gift and a choice.

  “But still and all,” said Wendy, “sometimes you want to cry, because your real mother couldn’t keep you.”

  Missy felt damaged.

  “You two are so identical!” kids kept saying. As if there were varieties of identical and some twins were more identical than others.

  “Did you ever suspect you had a twin?” they asked.

  “Do you have the same hobbies?”

  “Did your paths cross before and you didn’t even know?”

  “Did your parents know that they adopted half of a set?”

  * * *

  Rick returned to the high school TV studio, copied the relevant sixty seconds of video and uploaded it to YouTube.

  He didn’t want his video just sitting there, unknown and unviewed. It had to get attention. Rick was a busy guy; colleges liked busy guys and Rick was determined to get into a terrific college. In a few weeks, he would mail his applications. He just had a couple more essays to write and then he was done. His friend list included every acquaintance from every activity, class or sport he’d ever been in. He sent the link to all of these people then, did the same with his e-mail address list.

  He imagined his video becoming the most viewed of the week and morphing into a future job in television journalism. He imagined Lucie asking for updates.

  “And your explanation for being in a room you don’t need to be in when you ought to be in class?” said Mrs. Conway, opening the studio door.

  Rick grinned at the vice principal. “YouTube,” he said, waving at the computer screen. “The identical-twin reunion.”

  “No, Rick. Not yet. Not unless it’s okay with the parents.”

  Rick did not know Missy’s parents, but the fact was, they weren’t her parents. Some other people were her parents. “I already did,” he told the vice principal. “See?” He played the video.

  Even Rick was shocked when he watched the video. The girls caught their breath in the same way. Turned aside to hide emotion at the same angle; displayed the exact same curve of cheek. Both had the same habit of yanking out and then remaking their ponytails. At the exact same moment, each girl’s eyes filled with tears. Claire’s spilled over; Missy’s didn’t.

  Lucie was right. This was wrenching.

  Rick exulted. Nobody would see this video and not forward it.

  * * *

  The high school Missy and Rick attended was a historic building, constructed long before anybody worried about wheelchairs and stairs. Elevators had been added later. Missy never used them. They were slow and Missy did not care for slow.

  Now her energy failed her. The biology lab on the third floor seemed as hard to reach as Canada. She felt like a windup doll that might achieve a final gurgle and a last twitch, then fall to the floor.

  Her classmate Devlin held the door for her. Boys rarely did that. It was disorienting. “I heard your new twin went on home,” said Devlin. “You look as if you should go on home, too. How are your parents doing?” he said, almost tenderly.

  Missy had guessed wrong about how this would play out. She had been mesmerized by the identical-twin aspect. Her classmates were mesmerized by the parents. Identical twins were exciting, reunited identical twins were thrilling, but the parent aspect was heartbreaking. Real parents had lost, or not wanted, or could not keep their own two daughters. Adopting parents, who would surely have taken both, had they but known, got one.

  “So there are actually six parents,” said Devlin. “Your adoptive parents, Claire’s adoptive parents, and the real parents.”

  Devlin had some nerve treating her life as public property. Then Missy remembered that she herself had put it in morning announcements. It was public property.

  The rest of the class was already seated. Every eye was on her. Mrs. Stancil clapped. “Missy!” she cried. “I am so thrilled for you. What an event! Identical twins are one of the most interesting biological twists in nature.”

  Normally Missy would have found that a hoot. She would have been texting her cousin: We’re twists, Clairedy.

  Mrs. Stancil stopped talking. Nobody spoke, moved, tapped a pencil or turned a page. They waited for Missy Vianello to talk.

  Missy had assured Claire that nothing could go wrong in sixty seconds. She had forgotten that plenty could go wrong after that. She had wanted one consequence, but she was getting a dozen. Her smile wobbled. “That was my hoax. Claire is my cousin. We don’t even look that much alike. There’s just a strong family resemblance. You were expecting us to look exactly alike because Rick fell for it, and you believed him, and so you believed me.”

  For a moment the silence continued and the faces were still eager. Then they became furious.

  “It was a scam?” said Carlotta, outraged.

  “That was incredibly rude of you!” snapped Kelsey.

  “I believed you, Missy. And all along you were a fake!” said Devlin, as if they had an ongoing relationship and she’d been deceiving him for months.

  “I thought you’d be on talk shows and become a celebrity,” said Angela resentfully.

  “Missy! You giggled at that TV camera and your cousin pretended to sob and all the time it was a joke?” demanded Emily.

  It had not occurred to Missy that people who got duped would be angry when they found out. “It wasn’t a joke,” she protested. “It was our assignment. Remember? The hoax assignment?”

  Mrs. Stancil, who always taught standing up, sat heavily on her desk. “Missy, how could you? I’ll have to tell the principal.”

  “You wanted us to do it,” protested Missy.

  Graham said in a belligerent voice, “Let’s run the video again. I believed it this morning, and I believe it now. You two are mirror images of each other, Missy.”

  Carlotta corrected him. “Not mirror images. That would mean, for example, that if Missy’s hair parted on the right, then Claire’s would part on the left, and so forth. They are not mirror images. They are clones.”

  “I am not a clone,” said Missy.

  “That’s what identical twins are,” snapped Carlotta.

  “Not precisely,” said Mrs. Stancil, picking up her cell phone. “Janet?” she said to the principal’s secretary. “See if I can have five minutes at the end of the period. Yes, the twin situation is exciting. It is also a hoax. They’re just cousins.”

  “You’re in trouble now, Missy,” said Kelsey gladly. “The principal will call your parents.”

  If Missy had had any exuberance left after her moment on live TV, it was over.

  What would her parents do? What would anybody do if they found out their only child had stood in front of a TV screen and claimed to an audience of one thousand that she had been adopted?

  Technically, Missy hadn’t claimed that. She had claimed to have found a lost twin. But every kid in high school instantly glommed on to the parent problem. Namely, who are the real parents? Not the ones Missy used to claim. And Rick had instantly assessed the other parent problem: Would Missy’s adoptive parents be okay with this revelation?

  Who could be okay? Kitty and Matt Vianello had built their lives around Missy. No. They wouldn’t be okay.

  Missy’s parents had home offices. They were tied to the house like dogs on leashes. Although their jobs were
unrelated, if one of them had to go out, the other would answer both phones. The family had a total of three cell phones, a landline for the house, two business phones and two fax lines. Something was always ringing or humming or buzzing, as if a dozen people lived there instead of three.

  It was an ordinary house. Her parents had the big bedroom with its own bath and walk-in closets, and Missy had the medium bedroom. The two tiny bedrooms were offices. All day long, her parents roved through the house, making coffee, working on the same crossword, reading the paper, jotting down lists. Against school rules, they texted Missy on and off all day. You were supposed to read messages at lunch or during passing periods, but Missy read them when they were sent, holding her cell phone under her desk.

  At home, there was constant dialogue. The Vianellos were never silent. Missy would walk in the door after school to hear her father yelling downstairs to her mother, “I used up the last of the milk. Put that on the shopping list!”

  “I’m not in the kitchen,” Mom would shriek. “Add it yourself when you’re down there.”

  “Missy, did you just come in?” her father would holler. “Write milk on the shopping list.”

  Unlike parents on TV talk shows or in women’s magazines, Matt and Kitty Vianello did not hold deep conversations. They held millions of trivial conversations. Nobody discussed truth or beauty. Nobody discussed politics or current events, except to say “Can you believe that?” or perhaps “I can’t stand it!” Missy did not use Twitter, but the word was perfect for her family—beautiful birds in a small cage, singing to each other, completely wrapped up in their twittery lives.

  Other families discussed things over dinner, but the Vianellos did not even sit down for dinner. They rarely cooked. They were users of delicatessens, caterers, salad bars at supermarkets and a slew of take-out restaurants. Groceries were delivered. They had a dining room, but used the table for packages and piles. Her parents could extend a meal for hours, nibbling at vegetables, picking at cheese, buttering a roll, returning an hour later to reheat an entrée in the microwave. Missy often filled a plate only to forget about it, wander back later and get something out of the freezer instead.