“We wouldn’t have much to say to them anyway,” she told me. “Especially the boys.”
She also surprised me by wanting to practice our piano duet every day so we could play for Darren Paul and make Mother happy. Haylee didn’t put up any argument or even look upset at the thought of us wearing the same dress. Mother stood by, watching and listening to us play, a broad smile on her face. With the dinner she was making and the way we were contributing, she was happier than I
had seen her for some time.
On Friday, Darren arrived with two bottles of wine and another bouquet, this time bigger and with mixed roses.
“I wasn’t sure of the menu, so I brought a white and a red,” he said.
“Like a good Boy Scout,” Mother said. “Always prepared.”
Haylee laughed. Darren looked like he wasn’t sure it was a compliment, but Mother didn’t add anything more.
She handed the wine and flowers to us. Haylee and I had set the table with our best dishes and silverware, water and wine glasses, and linen napkins. We put the bouquet Darren had brought in the middle. When they had their cocktails, Mother permitted us to have a taste of the martinis she had mixed for herself and Darren, and for the first few minutes, we sat and listened to him talk about his jewelry-store expansion. I was surprised at how interested Mother appeared to be. She was never this interested in Daddy’s business details.
Both Haylee and I were polite, but after a while, we were quite bored, because he was going into his business and accounting details as if they were the most exciting things in his life. Either he was nervous, or he just liked the sound of his own voice. Both of us were happy when Mother finally interrupted to tell him we had prepared a piano duet just for him.
We went to the pianos. As if he hadn’t noticed it before, he commented on the fact that there were two pianos.
“Unusual,” he said. “I mean, I’m sure they could have alternated lesson days, right?”
“Of course not,” Mother said a little sharply. “Whatever they’ve done in their lives, they’ve done together.”
“But two pianos . . .” he said, almost stuttering.
“There is two of everything they own,” she said.
“Everything?”
“Down to their socks,” Mother declared proudly.
He looked at us as if seeing us for the first time, his gaze moving from Haylee to me and back to Haylee.
“Do they always dress alike, too?”
“Generally, yes,” she said. “My girls are unique.”
“That’s for sure.”
“If you should ever think of bringing them something, be sure it’s the exact same thing for each,” she added.
He looked at her with a slight smile frozen on his lips, like someone who was waiting for a joke’s punch line.
“Girls,” Mother said, nodding toward the pianos.
We sat and began the duet. When we finished, Darren and Mother clapped.
“Very impressive,” he said. “They seemed to be equally proficient.”
“Of course they are,” Mother said.
“You make it sound as if that’s true for everything, but I’m sure each of you has something special,” he said to us.
I looked quickly at Mother. Her eyes seemed to harden. “What’s special about them is that they are identical,” Mother said, pronouncing each word clearly through clenched teeth. “They have the same talents and interests and do equally well in school. They even have the same friends.”
He nodded and cemented his lips. He wasn’t going to say another word about it. Mother broke the deep silence by declaring that it was time for dinner. He tried very hard to win back her favor by complimenting everything, down to the way the napkins were folded.
“They do that,” Mother said when we served the salad. “Each one did two.”