Prologue
Haylee
My mother’s dinner date, Simon Adams, stepped out of his car right after Mother started screaming at me. She had practically leaped out of the car before he came to a stop when she saw me standing there alone. I had waited as long as I could to walk out, so that I would be one of the last to leave the theater. No matter what my twin sister, Kaylee, thought or what anyone else would think, I couldn’t be exactly sure what would happen after she had left to, as she believed, meet my Internet lover and make my excuses. I had a pretty good idea, though. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent her.
The movie theater we had gone to as part of my plan was one of the few that weren’t in a mall these days. Most of the stores on the street in this neighborhood were already closed by the time the movie ended. People scattered quickly to their cars in the nearby parking lot or on the street as if they were worried that it was a dangerous area. Maybe it was. I had no idea what it was like. We had never gone to a movie or shopped here before.
“What are you saying? What are you saying?” Mother shouted after I began to explain Kaylee’s absence. “What do you mean, she’s not back? Back from where?”
I started to cry, always a good touch. Mother hated to see either of us cry, always expecting that the other would soon start, too.
“Where is she?” she demanded, stamping her foot.
“I don’t know,” I said. I kept my head down.
Only hours ago, Mother had seen Kaylee and me go into the movie theater, and now, when they drove up, she saw only me standing there looking around frantically. I was sure that my face was full of enough concern and panic to impress her. I had planned how I should look and sound. When you think ahead to what a scene would be like, it’s like rehearsing for a play. Mother wasn’t doing or saying anything I hadn’t expected. I could have written her dialogue, too.
I glanced behind me and saw the cashier, a woman probably in her sixties, and an usher who was probably no more than twenty, gaping at us. We were probably better drama than the movie now playing. Some other people walking in front of and near the theater paused on the sidewalk to look our way.
“How could you not know where your sister is? Maybe she’s still in the theater. Is she in the bathroom?”
“She’s not in the theater bathroom.”
“You checked?”
“I didn’t have to, Mother.” I took a deep breath. “Kaylee left to meet a man very soon after we got here, but she was supposed to return before the movie ended,” I blurted, and continued to cry.
“What? What man?”
“What’s going on?” Simon asked, hurrying up to us. He looked at the theater entrance. “Where’s the other one?”
The other one? He wasn’t sure which twin I was. I nearly stopped crying and started laughing.
Mother looked at him, annoyed, but ignored him. I couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t exactly what anyone would describe as a strong-looking, take-charge man. He had lost his wife about a year ago in a traffic accident, and either the tragedy had made him meek and helpless or he was always that way. I had called him Mother’s charity date, because she had told us she was his first date since his wife’s death and that she was going to take extra care with him. I had told Kaylee it seemed more like emotional and psychological therapy than a romantic evening. Mother had gone out with at least half a dozen men since her and our father’s divorce, but none of them was good enough for her to continue dating. I doubted Simon would be.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on? Where is she?” Simon asked again.
“I’m trying to find out. She says Kaylee left the theater to meet a man,” Mother told him.
“A man? Who? What man? Did you know about this?” He grimaced, making it seem like it was her fault.
“Of course not! That’s what Haylee was about to explain.” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Stop crying and talk,” she said.
I took a deep breath, wiped away my tears, and began with “I’m sorry, Mother. I should have told you, but Kaylee would have hated me.”
“What are you saying? What should you have told me? Hated you for what?”