Twins Read Free Page B

obeying the roommate rule. You stick up for your roommate even when she’s a dork. “Leave Mary Lee alone.” (A skill, of course, that everyone was now pretty good at.)
    Madrigal arrived.
    She stalked onto that campus, and it was hers. She was the Event Mary Lee had longed to be. She overwhelmed the girls in Mary Lee’s dorm and made them her own possessions. By the end of the very first evening, the twins were sitting at the very best table, among the most desirable girls. But it was Madrigal and Madrigal alone to whom they spoke.
    Maddy, they said affectionately, come to our room and listen to tapes. Maddy, sit with us. Ski with us tomorrow, Maddy. Have hot chocolate with us, Maddy.
    In spite of the identical look that had confused people for seventeen years at home, the girls on Third were able to tell Mary Lee and Madrigal apart. Mary Lee was shocked. Back home, she was always answering to Madrigal and Madrigal answering to Mary Lee. How could Bianca and Mindy and Merrill and Marilyn so easily know which dark skinned dark haired dark eyed beauty was Madrigal?
    Madrigal had personality.
    Mary Lee, whose school this was, remained wallpaper.
    This visit for which Mary Lee had had such high hopes was the most horrible weekend of her life. She was taught a terrible and unwanted truth: It is not the surface that matters. For the surfaces of the twins were identical. In five months of living with them, she had displayed nothing to these girls. Twenty-four hours with Madrigal, and they had a best friend.
    I am not identical . She is better . And everybody but me knew all along . It’s why I was the one sent to boarding school — Mother and Father knew — Madrigal is the worthy one . I am nothing but an echo .
    She tried to twin-wave this dreadful thought to Madrigal, so Madrigal would sweep her up in hugs and love, understand completely and deeply. She needed Madrigal to deny it and prove the silly theory wrong.
    Madrigal, however, did not notice. The twin who should have instantly comprehended the situation was simply enjoying herself. Laughing away, having a good old time.
    And at night, in the dorm, Madrigal on a lumpy guest cot — she refused offers of bunks — Madrigal entertained them with stories of high school. Of handsome wonderful Jon Pear, and their exciting wild dates. Of Jon Pear’s romantic escapades and his crazy insane ideas.
    It didn’t even sound like home to Mary Lee. Mother and Father, who all but fingerprinted the kids their little girls played with, letting Madrigal go out at any hour of the day or night with this wild-acting Jon Pear? There seemed to be no curfews, no rules, no supervision.
    Supervision. She remembered that word. Mother had claimed to keep Madrigal at home for “supervision.”
    “Wow, you get to do anything , don’t you?” said Bianca enviously. She brushed Madrigal’s gorgeous fall of black hair, playing with it and fixing it, as if this were an incredible treat, as if Mary Lee, with the same hair, had not been around all year.
    Sunday was the final day of a too long and too lonely visit. Mary Lee said to her sister, “I’m not going to ski today. You go on with Bianca and Mindy. I’m going to work on my report.”
    They were fixing each other’s hair as they often had, a perfect reflection of the other without mirrors. Mary Lee stared at her lovely self; and at the self who was actually somebody else. Those hazel green eyes, so clear and true — so deep and unreadable. That rich olive skin, like a curtain between them. The long black lashes, finer than any mascara, dropping like a fringe to separate their lives. Each girl had caught her heavy black hair back twice, high on top of the head, and again low at the neck.
    Who are you? thought Mary Lee. I don’t even know you!
    “Of course you’re going to ski,” said Madrigal. “That’s what’s across the street. A ski slope. So you ski. Don’t be such a baby, MreeLee.”
    “I’m not as coordinated as you are,”