Twins Read Free Page A

had no return. “I have a different us now, MreeLee,” she said. “You are not to interfere.”
    Mary Lee could not think about this Jon Pear, this different us . It was too huge and terrible. In only a few days she would be back at boarding school. She had to make Madrigal understand her desperation. “Madrigal, please visit me. Spend a long weekend with me. It would help if you came just for a little while.”
    “I’m busy,” said Madrigal. “I have Jon Pear now, MreeLee. You’ve got to adapt. You even share the same ski slope with the boys’ school. You ought to be able to meet someone cute. Trust me on this one. What you need is a boyfriend. Just pick one.”
    If she could pick, it would be Van. But she could not pick, for she did not go to the old high school, and would soon be shoved back on a plane and shipped away to boarding school. She could not pick there, either, where her uselessness hung around like negative ions.
    Madrigal lost interest in Mary Lee’s problems and left the house, and where she went, Mary Lee did not know, and could not feel; and when she came home, Madrigal did not tell.
    “I hope you’re happy,” sobbed Mary Lee to her parents. “We’re no longer identical. We’re no longer a mixture. We’re two instead of one.”
    “We aren’t happy,” said Father, “but we are right, Mary Lee.”
    A strange foggy sorrow seemed to envelope her parents. They hugged her, but distantly. It went way beyond giving her away, they acted as if they had sold her into another world. Made a pact, a deal, and she would never know the terms. “What is happening?” she said brokenly. “Why are you doing this to me?”
    “We are doing this for you, sweetheart,” said her mother. “You must trust us.”
    Trust them? She actually laughed.
    Christmas vacation ended.
    Mary Lee was once again flying through gray skies with a gray heart.
    Jon Pear, she thought. What is he like? And if he loves Madrigal, would he not love me exactly the same? For are we not exactly the same?
    I wish, she said to the invisible stars behind the featureless clouds, I wish for Madrigal’s life .

Chapter 2
    “I ’M COMING,” CRIED MADRIGAL on the telephone. “We’ll go skiing! We’ll have a lovely lovely time. I’ll meet all your friends and gossip and we’ll show off and be us .”
    “Mother and Father said you could come? Mother and Father said you could telephone?” whispered Mary Lee.
    “No. They did not. But I love you, twin of mine, and you need me, and so I have arranged it in spite of them.”
    Oh, Madrigal! Mary Lee had given up hoping for a visit. Her heart had grown as cold as the February outdoors, and she had thought that only the arrival of summer vacation could end her loneliness.
    She began laughing, planning, hoping. She pirouetted around her dorm. “Mindy, guess what! My identical twin is coming!”
    Mindy had long since ceased to try with this annoying personality-free roomie. “Give me a break. You don’t have a twin.”
    “I do, I do! You’ll love her.” Mary Lee could not stop laughing. She felt thinner and lighter and giddier.
    “You remembered this twin in February , ML?” Mindy exchanged skeptical looks with the ceiling. “Right.”
    “Right!” laughed Mary Lee.
    The next day at meals, she assaulted tables and gatherings that she had ignored long enough that they now ignored her. “I’m an identical twin!” she cried. “And my twin is coming to visit for the three-day weekend!”
    The popular girls exchanged long looks.
    “It happens at this time of year,” said Marilyn with a shrug. “Too much winter. The useless ones get crazy. They start believing in identical twins.”
    Mary Lee flushed.
    The popular girls laughed, their mouths gaping. “So, Mary Lee,” said one of Bianca’s buddies, “if your supposed identical twin is really identical to you …” — A cruel smile flickered on the pretty round face — “like — who cares?”
    “Stop,” said Bianca,