“Worried our mother might be following?” I asked.
“You bet,” he said. “She looked tough enough to give me a ticket if I broke the speed limit.”
Haylee laughed harder than I did. I sat back, smiling. We were, somehow, going to have a good time.
Jimmy was expecting that, too. The Jacksons had a custom-built ranch-style house on a lot half the size of ours but with more elaborate landscaping, lighting, and fountains. There was a three-car garage and a driveway lit with beautiful pewter lanterns. When we stepped out of Matt’s SUV, we heard a dog barking.
“That’s his mother’s Pekingese, named Chin,” Haylee said. “Jimmy told me that she loves her dog more than she loves him. He also warned me that Chin can nip, so don’t try to pet him if he’s running loose in the house.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Matt said. “I’ve grown fond of my fingers.”
“There’s a big media room, five bedrooms, and a home office his father uses,” she continued as we walked to the front door.
“You sound like you’ve been here before,” Matt said.
“No, she hasn’t,” I said.
“Maybe I have. Maybe you don’t know everything I do, Kaylee.”
“Well, when could you have done that?”
“Maybe when you and Mother were sleeping, I sneaked out,” she replied. Before I could say anything more, Jimmy opened the door. He was holding the dog in his arms so he would stop barking.
“Keep that monster away from me,” Matt joked.
“My mother made me promise I wouldn’t lock him in the laundry room or something. He can scratch up a door and bark until his throat gets so hoarse, you could put a saddle on him.”
Haylee laughed as if he had made the best joke she’d ever heard. His smile widened, and he stepped back for us to enter. I didn’t think Chin was as nasty as Haylee claimed Jimmy had said. If anything, the dog looked happy to have someone else in the house.
“Hi, Chin,” I said, and held my hand close enough for the dog to smell it, my fingers turned downward.
We had always wanted a pet, either a cat or a dog, but Mother opposed it, even when Daddy offered to get two of the same breed from the same litter. She was probably afraid that I would spend more time with them and they would take to me more than to Haylee, creating jealousies that would be very damaging to our personalities.
After sniffing my hand, Chin licked it, and Jimmy looked surprised and happy.
“Here,” he said, handing the dog to me. “You’re in charge of him tonight.”
I held the dog gently, and he seemed to settle comfortably in my embrace.
“You want to hold him, too?” Jimmy asked Haylee.
“No!” she said.
“He senses it,” Matt said. “He can easily tell the difference between the two of you.”
“Oh, I think Jimmy can, too,” Haylee countered, and put her arm through his. “Give us a tour of the house, and then lead us to the pizza.”
He laughed and brought us into the living room. There were always little things about other people’s homes that intrigued me, even when I was only four or five. In our house, there were only a few pictures of Mother’s parents and Daddy’s with his brothers and their families. Most of the framed photographs in our home were of Haylee and me, but there were no pictures of either of us alone. When the school photographer took individual shots of us, Mother placed ours side by side in a bigger frame. Haylee wanted to have pictures of herself, especially in her own room, but Mother didn’t permit it. Any picture we had with Daddy always included both of us, too.
So it was the family photographs that intrigued me in other people’s homes, especially those who had pictures of great-uncles and great-aunts and great-grandparents. There was more of a sense of family. The pictures proved their lineage, their history. It made our classmates seem more like somebodies. Perhaps I felt this way because there were no other twins in our family heritage, or at least any Haylee and I were told about. It all made me feel like a planet without a solar system, out there floating through the darkness.
Family photographs gave my classmates’ homes a warmth that ours didn’t have. There were always so many hand-me-downs, clocks, needlepoints, figurines, paintings, and artifacts of all kinds that had some history attached to them. “This was my great-grandmother’s.” “This was my father’s uncle’s.” Our house was pretty and well decorated, but it wasn’t until I visited homes of my classmates that I realized that ours was a showcase, a model yet to be embellished with the familial warmth and love that made a house a home.
The Jacksons’ living room was almost as large as ours but without a fireplace—not that we used ours very much, especially lately. Daddy had always been in charge of it. Mother was thinking of cleaning it out and putting flowerpots in it.
This living room had large wall mirrors beautifully framed in the same cherry wood that the curved settee, the coffee table, and the armchairs were made of. The family photographs and knickknacks were on shelves. A glass-doored armoire contained beautiful figurines that drew my attention.
“My mother’s Lladró collection,” Jimmy said.