hotel.
“Please, ma’am?”
Claire willed her head to turn and somehow managed to switch her gaze a bit to the left. A small Thai maid, no more than fifteen, knelt on the black wooden floor. She held up a silver tray covered with a stack of neatly folded telephone messages. Her head was bowed—she was reluctant to disturb ma’am. Especially this ma’am, who often threw things and broke things when she was unwillingly disturbed.
“Please, ma’am? Messages for you. Man call many times. He say very urgent.”
With supreme effort, Claire swung her feet over the side of the bed. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Ouch. Reaching out for the messages, a sudden surge of nausea made her freeze momentarily. She muttered some words under her breath and waited a moment for the feeling to pass. The maid bowed her head lower, as if to avoid a blow.
Claire took the messages. She muttered thanks in Thai.
The little maid bowed deeply, then stood and started to shuffle backward out of the room.
“Make a bath for me!” Claire remembered to call, then winced as the words reverberated inside her pain-racked skull, making it feel like all the little blood vessels in her brain were leaking. “Please make a bath,” Claire whispered again, adding the word bath in Thai.
Claire glanced at the first message. From Daedalus. She tossed it on the floor and looked at the second. Daedalus. Onto the floor. The third one read, Get your ass to New Orleans, damn you. She laughed and tossed it after its companions. The rest were just more of the same, just old Daedalus playing mayor, wanting an audience so he could pontificate about nothing, blah, blah, blah.
Claire reached over, found a bottle by the bed with a few inches of a pale yellow liquor in it. She took a swig, winced, and drew her sleeve across her mouth. Time to start the day.
Thais
I didn’t remember getting back to Axelle’s. The whole surreal day swam through my consciousness like bits of a movie I’d seen long ago. For six periods I’d dealt with stares and whispers, dealt with seeing Clio again and again as we passed each other in the hall, both of us jerking in renewed surprise. Thank God for Sylvie. In her I sensed a true friend—she treated me normally, helped me get my bearings, told me where classes were, how to meet her at lunch.
Clio was going to talk to her grandmother. So I had a grandmother too, for the first time in seventeen years. Doubt was pointless. It had been overwhelmingly obvious that Clio and I had once been one cell, split in two. Now that I knew I had an identical twin, I somehow felt twice as lost, twice as incomplete as before. Would that feeling go away if we became close? I had family now, real blood family, but I still felt so alone.
Dad hadn’t known. I felt that instinctively. Never in any way had he ever revealed that he knew I’d been a twin. Which was a whole other mystery in itself.
I’d managed to get on the streetcar going downtown and got off at Canal Street, the end of the line. Like a trained dog, I found my way to Axelle’s apartment. For just a minute I rested my forehead against the sun-warmed iron of the gate. Please, please, let Axelle not be home. Or Daedalus or Jules. Please.
I passed the small swimming pool in the courtyard and hesitated before I unlocked the door. How had Axelle gotten me? Who was she, really? Had she even known my dad? Because just as surely as I knew Clio was my sister, I also instinctively felt that I had been brought to New Orleans on purpose, and part of that purpose must be Clio. I paused for a moment, my key in my hand. Oh my God. Had Axelle caused my dad’s death somehow? The timing was so . . . I took a deep breath and thought it through.
I didn’t see how she could have done it. Remembering it was a fresh pain: my dad had been killed when an old woman had a stroke at the wheel of her car. It had jumped the curb and crashed through the drugstore window. My dad had been in the way. But
“Please, ma’am?”
Claire willed her head to turn and somehow managed to switch her gaze a bit to the left. A small Thai maid, no more than fifteen, knelt on the black wooden floor. She held up a silver tray covered with a stack of neatly folded telephone messages. Her head was bowed—she was reluctant to disturb ma’am. Especially this ma’am, who often threw things and broke things when she was unwillingly disturbed.
“Please, ma’am? Messages for you. Man call many times. He say very urgent.”
With supreme effort, Claire swung her feet over the side of the bed. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Ouch. Reaching out for the messages, a sudden surge of nausea made her freeze momentarily. She muttered some words under her breath and waited a moment for the feeling to pass. The maid bowed her head lower, as if to avoid a blow.
Claire took the messages. She muttered thanks in Thai.
The little maid bowed deeply, then stood and started to shuffle backward out of the room.
“Make a bath for me!” Claire remembered to call, then winced as the words reverberated inside her pain-racked skull, making it feel like all the little blood vessels in her brain were leaking. “Please make a bath,” Claire whispered again, adding the word bath in Thai.
Claire glanced at the first message. From Daedalus. She tossed it on the floor and looked at the second. Daedalus. Onto the floor. The third one read, Get your ass to New Orleans, damn you. She laughed and tossed it after its companions. The rest were just more of the same, just old Daedalus playing mayor, wanting an audience so he could pontificate about nothing, blah, blah, blah.
Claire reached over, found a bottle by the bed with a few inches of a pale yellow liquor in it. She took a swig, winced, and drew her sleeve across her mouth. Time to start the day.
Thais
I didn’t remember getting back to Axelle’s. The whole surreal day swam through my consciousness like bits of a movie I’d seen long ago. For six periods I’d dealt with stares and whispers, dealt with seeing Clio again and again as we passed each other in the hall, both of us jerking in renewed surprise. Thank God for Sylvie. In her I sensed a true friend—she treated me normally, helped me get my bearings, told me where classes were, how to meet her at lunch.
Clio was going to talk to her grandmother. So I had a grandmother too, for the first time in seventeen years. Doubt was pointless. It had been overwhelmingly obvious that Clio and I had once been one cell, split in two. Now that I knew I had an identical twin, I somehow felt twice as lost, twice as incomplete as before. Would that feeling go away if we became close? I had family now, real blood family, but I still felt so alone.
Dad hadn’t known. I felt that instinctively. Never in any way had he ever revealed that he knew I’d been a twin. Which was a whole other mystery in itself.
I’d managed to get on the streetcar going downtown and got off at Canal Street, the end of the line. Like a trained dog, I found my way to Axelle’s apartment. For just a minute I rested my forehead against the sun-warmed iron of the gate. Please, please, let Axelle not be home. Or Daedalus or Jules. Please.
I passed the small swimming pool in the courtyard and hesitated before I unlocked the door. How had Axelle gotten me? Who was she, really? Had she even known my dad? Because just as surely as I knew Clio was my sister, I also instinctively felt that I had been brought to New Orleans on purpose, and part of that purpose must be Clio. I paused for a moment, my key in my hand. Oh my God. Had Axelle caused my dad’s death somehow? The timing was so . . . I took a deep breath and thought it through.
I didn’t see how she could have done it. Remembering it was a fresh pain: my dad had been killed when an old woman had a stroke at the wheel of her car. It had jumped the curb and crashed through the drugstore window. My dad had been in the way. But
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