Come Clean
Terri Paddock

To my sister and all other Straight survivors

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgement

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

You, Joshua, had a problem.

Joshua had a problem, many problems; Joshua was problematic – this was what everyone said, as they looked to me, their eyes formed like question marks, curving into pointless concern.

Joshua is a problem, and, God forgive me, I listened, nodded, agreed. Which, by association, must mean I’m a problem too.

CHAPTER ONE

I’m busy in the swimming pool, dreaming of you and me under water, gripping on to each other’s chubby wrists, our cheeks big and round with stored breath, our eyes big and round and locked on each other, the chlorine on our skin, bubbles ringing our faces and our feet kicking out behind us. And when I rise reluctantly to the surface, away from the water-mottled laughter, the heartbeat in my head and the hum of trying not to breathe, I’m dry and nowhere near the pool.

I don’t hear the alarm or any other sound. On a Sunday there should be bustling about – Dad shouting for Mom to find his tie with the blue stripes, Mom shouting for Dad and everyone to hurry up, the smell of brewing coffee that Dad drinks by the mugful to stay alert during the minister’s sermon. There’s nothing.

I attempt to pry my eyes open but my lashes have bound themselves together. I rub at my lids. I’m in the rollaway bed again, in your room, looking up at walls and ceiling, blinded windows, bed frame. The clock face looms somewhere on the night stand above my head. 10:47 a.m. We’re cutting it fine. I should bolt out of bed immediately, but…

I let my head fall back into its hollow in the pillow and try with all my might to lie very, very still. But the stillness only draws attention to the trouble spots. My head’s exploding. My mouth is completely coated in a foul-tasting furry substance, my tongue swollen, glued to my teeth and the roof of my retainer. My muscles ache, my skin feels tight and goosepimply at the same time, the hairs on my arm stand up like the bristles of a brush. Down below, my stomach burbles, daring me to make any sudden moves.

I turn my nose into the pillowcase for comfort. It hasn’t been washed since and I can still smell you there. I sink into that smell.

Footsteps pound heavily along the hallway overhead. They’re on the stairs, avalanching down. I hold my head as the door swings open, banging hard against its stop at the back. Mom flicks the light switch and the brightness makes me wince.

‘Get up.’ She’s wearing her navy woollen dress and already has her hair combed and sprayed into place, her nose powdered, navy pumps buffed.

I whimper.

‘Get up. Now, Justine.’

‘Mom, I don’t feel so good. I think I might be sick.’

She makes a noise. ‘You’re not sick. That’s not sickness you’re feeling and you know it.’

‘But Mom, we’re not going to church, are we?’

‘Suddenly you’re too good for praying?’

‘We’ll be late, you hate ducking in late.’

‘We won’t be late. Not if you get a move on.’

‘But Mom…’

‘But Mom nothing. Get up, I said. Do you hear me? Now! Get!’

Her voice has the edge. I prop myself up unsteadily on one elbow.

‘We’re going to church and then we’re going to the mall. We’ve got errands to run, lots of errands. We’re leaving in ten minutes and I expect you to be dressed and ready.’

She yanks the door to on her way out, my head cracking between the hinges. Ten minutes. I throw back the sheets and swing my feet to the floor, but as soon as I pull myself erect, my stomach lurches. Vomit rises in my throat as I dash to the bathroom.

I crouch over the bowl there. The porcelain’s cool, smooth like vanilla ice cream against my cheek, and the nausea subsides.

Delicately, I get to my feet, brush my teeth and retainer, scrub my tongue and splash water on my face, then stagger back into your room to dress. There’s no time for a shower or even to venture upstairs to my closet for a decent outfit. The blouse I was wearing last night is soiled with God-knows-what and my pantyhose ruined from a shoeless midnight sprint across the muddied football field. I dump them in the trash can. My tartan skirt’s wrinkled but passable and, thankfully, long, and I find an old turtleneck at the back of one of your half-empty drawers.

By the time Mom returns, I’ve buckled on my Mary Jane shoes and tied my hair back, just avoiding tearing the scalp from my screaming head, and have started rummaging in the medicine cabinet for that blasted Tylenol and where, oh where, has that water glass got to?

Mom gives me the tip to toe once-over and clucks disapprovingly. ‘This is how you dress for church nowadays?’

‘I only had ten minutes.’

‘Where on earth are your pantyhose?’

‘They had a run.’

‘Every pair? Oh for heaven’s sake.’ She checks her purse for lipstick, tissues and Tic Tacs as she shows me her back. ‘Get your coat, your father’s starting the car.’

At last, the Tylenol. I dump two out and pop both down my throat, but still no water glass. I slurp direct from the tap but can’t get a good angle, can’t sluice my mouth enough. The pills lodge halfway down my gullet, trapped in the furry sludge. I cough, grab my coat and a pair of sunglasses and follow Mom out to the garage where Dad glowers behind the wheel of the Volvo.

As Mom settles into the passenger seat, Dad motions for me to hit the garage door opener. The chain overhead creaks, the garage murk dissipates as the midwinter light crawls in through the widening opening. I don the sunglasses before it can reach my line of vision and try to catch a parental eye through the windshield. Dad’s already pulled down his visor and Mom’s staring straight ahead to where the lawnmower’s stored. Her face is splotched and extra puffy, but her eyes are dry, hard and glassy like marbles.

‘Come on, dammit,’ Dad grumbles. I scramble into the back seat next to his neatly folded overcoat and buckle up in double-quick time.

Dad eases the car out of the garage, checking his path in the rear-view mirror in case the rose bushes bordering the driveway are in a mind to scratch his paintwork. Once clear, he reaches to the visor for the garage door remote. He clicks, nothing happens. Click, click.

‘Goddammit!’

I know he wants to order me to get my ass up and shut that frigging garage, but for some reason he doesn’t. He leaps out, the car door hanging open and dives into the garage himself.

I take advantage of the opportunity. ‘Mom, look, I’m sorry, really I—’

‘Shut up.’

‘But—’

She doesn’t move her head one inch in my direction. ‘Shut up, shut up!’

The garage door begins its descent and Dad shimmies out beneath it just in time, the rubber seal catching the back of his suit jacket and leaving a smear of dirt that he doesn’t seem to notice as he climbs back into the car.

This is bad. Worse than the time you and I trapped the neighbour’s cat in the mailbox, worse than when we got picked up by the cop for loitering in the Kmart parking lot, worse than when you brought home the report card with two ‘D’s and I tried to forge Mom’s signature, worse even than when we skipped fifth period so Lloyd Taggart could drive us and Cindy round the block in his Dad’s Audi, even though he only had a learner’s permit and we hadn’t even started our semester of Driver’s Ed. I shiver and wish I’d gone upstairs for a new pair of pantyhose, wish I’d remembered my gloves.

I start coughing again and swallow hard to force the Tylenol down but the pills won’t budge. I cough until my nose runs. ‘Dad, please can we stop at the 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp of Diet Coke?’

‘You know the rule, Justine. Or have you forgotten that one too?’

‘Just some water then.’

‘No drinks allowed in the car. Now quiet.’

I lock my jaw to contain the coughs, my nose still dripping like a garden hose. I’d like to ask Mom for one of those tissues of hers, but I make do with the cuff of your old turtleneck.

We coast through the neighbourhood. Past Cindy’s house with the peeling green shutters, past our old elementary school, past the playground where you knocked your two front teeth out on the jungle gym. At the lights, we right-turn-on-red on to Route 5 and join the stream of Sunday brunch traffic. Dad speeds up and thumps the wheel if the lights threaten to stop him – as they do, one after another.

‘Damn timing mechanisms are way off,’ he mutters. We switch lanes, manoeuvre round slowpokes and honk at other roadrunners. As we crest one steep hill and then another, my stomach drops away, and I have to cover my mouth with my hand and bite back the bile.

‘Dad, I’m gonna be sick. Pull over.’

‘You know the rule. Scheduled breaks only.’

‘Dad!’

Twisting round now, Mom takes a good look at me. ‘I think you’d better stop, Jeff. She’s pretty peaked.’

Dad sighs, flicks on his blinker and gestures at other drivers. There are two lanes to cross to the shoulder and I’m not sure we’re going to make it. I’ve flung the door open and am familiarising myself with the gravel before Dad’s got the hazards on. Please, please, please. My stomach convulses, jolting my whole body. I feel wetness at my eyes but nothing else is coming up. Cindy told me last night I should puke before I went to bed: hurl, drink two great big glasses of ice-cold water, swallow three Tylenol, then pass out. It didn’t work. I wretch dryly a few more times and then get back into the car.

We drive on. Outside, Route 5 slips by – and before long so does the turn-off by Tastee-Freez for the road that leads to the cul-de-sac where our church is.

‘Aren’t we going to church?’

‘We’re going to the mall first.’

I consult my Swatch. ‘But church starts in fifteen minutes. We’ll never make it in time.’

‘We’ll go to the later service.’

A truck driver behind us leans on his horn, heralding another wave of nausea to crash over me. ‘Dad, please pull over again.’

‘Not on your life.’

‘I’m gonna be sick.’

‘You’re not going to be sick.’

My stomach rolls, pressing me forward into my knees. ‘I am.’

‘You’re not going to be sick.’

I heave again and here comes the long overdue foulness, spilling out into the well behind Mom’s seat. It splashes up on to my shoes and the grey leather upholstery.

Mom gasps, ‘Dear Lord.’

Our car swerves as Dad’s head whips round, the trucker’s brakes squeal, and the sudden motion only makes things worse. ‘Holy shit!’

I spit to get the lumps and acid burn off my tongue, but then another eruption flecks my loosened locks of hair and my skirt and your turtleneck, spattering on to my shins as it drums on to the floor mat. I grope for something to wipe my mouth and my hand lands on Dad’s overcoat. The belt droops into the vomit as I pull the coat to my face.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Dad flails at me with his right arm, the car veering into the adjacent lane to the blaring protest of other drivers.

‘Sorry.’

‘Dear Lord, I’m so ashamed,’ wails Mom. ‘First Joshua, now you. What’s the matter with you, Justine?’ She’s got a whole clutch of tissues unpursed now and is dabbing at her eyes.

‘Do you see what you’re doing to your mother? Did you think about that when you were gallivanting around last night?’

‘I wasn’t gallivanting.’

‘Don’t talk back to me, young lady.’

‘I wasn’t talking back.’

‘I’m warning you.’

‘Oh, Lord, Justine. How could you?’

‘Mom, it was one time, just—’

‘Just nothing.’

‘I mean—’

‘Quiet! I can’t bear to hear another word out of your mouth.’

Dad rolls down the front windows to dispel the vomit stink. Mom hates driving with the windows down at any time of year, but despite the cold not even she’s going to kick up her usual fuss. She flips her visor down to determine the havoc the wind’s wreaking on her hair and shoots me an evil eye care of the vanity mirror.

The wind cyclones through the car, turning my bare legs blue. I try to appear contrite but am pretty busy feeling cold. I fold my arms and cover my lower half with Dad’s coat. I would sell my Michael Jackson collection for just one sip of water to get rid of this post-puke taste in my mouth. I slip out my retainer and gross myself by inspecting the bits clinging to it. No question, the thing needs a rinse. I use the lining of Dad’s soiled coat to swab it clean, but it still looks too disgusting to insert in my mouth so I stash it in the flip-out ashtray in the door. No one’s ever smoked in this car – that’s another one of the rules – so it’s as hygienic in there as anywhere.

I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes. I’m exhausted. If it weren’t so cold, if my head didn’t hurt so much and my bangs weren’t slapping so ticklishly around my cheeks with the wind, I might be able to doze off. It’s good to have the glasses on so Mom and Dad don’t know if I do.

As it is, I do drift. I can see myself last night. In the gym bleachers, too morose for words, with Cindy at my side. Beth and Kelly are there too but they aren’t my best friend so they don’t know what to do and sit there acting awkward, like unnecessary appendages. Cindy isn’t too certain what to do either. So she produces a brown paper sack from her backpack, scans the area for teachers, then furtively extracts a can of Milwaukee’s Best from the sack and presses it into my hand.

‘You need it. Take your mind off all this family shit, just for tonight.’ I don’t even like the taste of it, but Cindy assures me that if you drink real fast you can hardly taste it at all. What does Cindy know. She also said the Wrigley’s Spearmint would mask the smell, she said our parents had better things to do than wait up for me, she said the beer – then the pineapple wine cooler then the rum – would make me feel better. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

When I open my eyes, we’re on the interstate. Cars zoom past in the opposite direction, loud as dying insects.

‘I thought we were going to the mall,’ I shout.

‘The one across town,’ Dad shouts back.

I close my eyes again and then I must doze, because when I reopen them, we’re off the interstate and the wind chill has tapered some. Mom still has her visor down and is eyeballing me through the mirror as she reapplies her lipstick. According to my Swatch, half an hour or thereabouts has passed.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Your dad’s lost.’ She touches the corner of her lips then applies another coat. ‘It’s not bad weather for February, is it? What do they say about weather in February, Justine? It’ll tell you if you’re going to have an early spring? Or is that Groundhog Day? Maybe Groundhog Day is in February? I don’t know. Is it? Maybe it is.’

This is the most she’s said all morning. ‘What do you think, honey?’

Honey? She’s talking to me? ‘Errr, I don’t know, Mom.’

‘I never can remember those minor holidays. What’s the point in declaring a day a holiday anyway if you’re not going to give people time off, I ask you. Justine?’

‘Dunno.’

For a millisecond, I think maybe I’ve actually made it through the worst. Maybe something magical happened when I was napping and now all’s forgiven. But then I see Harvey’s Shrimp Shack.

You know Harvey’s Shrimp Shack, how could you forget? That falling down old barn of a building with a neon sign tacked to the front that flashes ‘All You Can Eat Shrimp – $5.97’. The Shrimp Shack is not a chain, it’s a one-and-only, but we’ve passed by it before, too many times. And every time I pass it I wonder, why on earth $5.97, why not $5.95 or a round six bucks? I don’t consider the conundrum this time, though, because there’s just a single thought spooling through my mind: the Shrimp Shack means one thing and one thing only.

Then a few other thoughts occur to me, too. One, there is no later service than eleven thirty; two, the mall across town closed down a month ago; and three, Dad never gets lost.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Where the hell are we going?’

Mom winds down her lipstick, careful not to catch the edge – she must be wearing about 112 coats by now – and she replaces the cap. ‘To the mall, of course.’

I swore – said hell to our parents as loud as you please and she didn’t bat an eye. I clutch my hands together, squeeze hard till all I can feel is bone. ‘What’s going on, Mother?’

‘After we finish the errands, maybe we can go to that new frozen yoghurt stand. It’s a funny concept, isn’t it? Frozen yoghurt? I never have liked yoghurt, I imagine there aren’t many people who’d claim to be yoghurt fans. Just the thought of it, just the word – yoh-gert. It’s a funny sounding word, foreign sounding, rather unpleasant, a funny food. But freeze the stuff, and people can’t get enough, you’ve got a craze on your hands. Amazing. And they do have such inventive flavours, don’t they? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Justine? Pay a visit to the frozen yoghurt stand? We can get one of those waffle cones with the sprinkles on top. You’d like that.’

‘The yoghurt stand is at the other mall.’

She brushes nonexistent hair out of her eyes and flicks her visor mirror closed so I can’t see her face any more. ‘I’m sure they’ll have one at this mall, too.’

‘We’re not going to the mall, Mom. You know we’re not.’ My voice rises. The 7-Eleven slides past our open windows, the Hardee’s with the kiddies’ playground, the David’s Son motorcycle repair shop, the Green Valley block of low-rent town houses. ‘Why are you going on about the damn mall?’

‘Of course we’re going to the mall. We’re going to the mall to do some errands.’

‘What errands?’

‘What errands? Oh, you know, the usual things.’

‘I don’t know.’

Mom hesitates. ‘Well, we’ve got to go to the dry cleaners for one. And, then there’s the, uh, we’ve got to stop off at JC Penney’s because I need some blue thread for my sewing kit. And, well, while we’re there we should probably buy you some new pantyhose because you don’t appear to have a pair left to cover yourself with. And—’

‘Mom, there are no errands.’

‘Of course there are, why else would we be going to the mall?’

‘Stop it!’ I snap, trying desperately to retrace the route in my head, in case it comes to that. ‘That mall closed down over a month ago. There is no Penney’s, no yoghurt stand. They’re all shut.’ Cindy will have to steal her sister’s car or get Lloyd to drive. And she’ll need directions. You get on to the interstate heading north, I’ll say. Then how far do you go? What exit do you take? Is it a left or a right after the lights? How many miles do you drive? How many minutes? Look for the Shrimp Shack, the Shrimp Shack’s the marker.

Our mother’s pint-sized head moves about in juttery starts the way it does, like a bird. Tilting from side to side, bobbing down repeatedly as she inspects her lap, her cuticles, the contents of her purse. Peck, peck.

‘Mom. Where are we going?’

She punches Dad in the arm. ‘Jeff, why don’t you say something? Am I the only one here?’ She punches him harder. ‘Jeff, say something dammit!’

Our mother swears this time. Our mother never swears.

Maybe I should jump. How bad could it hurt after all? We can’t be going more than 35 mph. I will my hand to the door, my fingers glance the handle. Just yank then tuck and dive, like a gymnastic exercise that Mr Zarrow or Ms Loy or whoever taught us in PE class, nothing more. I screw up my eyes and squint at the tarmac, whizzing by. It’s hard, black, gravelly. No.

Dad slams the blinker and turns into that road. There’s no reason to say or do anything now. I cast about frantically for a road sign, but can’t locate one. Why don’t I ever know the names of roads? Warehouses flank us on either side. Strictly business trade. Look for the warehouses, I’ll say, there’s the Caterpillar tractor warehouse, the Billy’s Printing Supplies warehouse, the Dutch Tulips warehouse. Half a dozen others, all locked up, Sunday-quiet and stacked full of bulbs, books or heavy farm equipment. All corrugated iron and identical from the outside except for the choice of potted shrubbery, the executives’ initials on the VIP parking spaces, the company logos.

Only one warehouse is logo-free. It’s even more nondescript than the rest. This is where we’re going. Of course it is. No logos, no shrubbery, no signs, no initialled spaces. But it is open for business. There’s a smattering of cars in the front lot and I can see lights and the manned reception desk through the glass of the double doors. Dad eases into an empty space a few yards from the entrance, kills the engine and leaves the keys dangling in the ignition. The fob – in the shape of a miniature, but perfectly formed, set of dentures – knocks against the steering column.

My knuckles are white and taut, my veins braided like blue-coloured macramé beneath the surface of my skin.

Dad lumbers out of the car. ‘I’ll go and tell them we’re here.’

Mom keeps nodding even after he’s gone and out of sight. She fishes in her purse for Tic Tacs: I can hear mints clattering against plastic.

‘What’s going on, Mom? Tell me. Please.’

‘It is cold, isn’t it? I think we ought to roll the windows up now, don’t you? I just hate driving with the windows down.’ She leans over and notches the key enough to power the internal electrics then presses fingers on the automatic up-buttons for all four windows. The planes of glass hum until we’re sealed in.

‘That’s better, isn’t it? I think so, too.’

‘Why are we here?’

‘Tic Tac, Justine?’ She rattles the box.

Laughter springs up within me even as my eyes wobble. I unfasten my seat belt. ‘This is no time for mints, Mom. Listen, I know I was bad last night, but it was just once. I was – was…stupid. I promise, Mom. It’ll never happen again. Can we go home now? Please.’

‘Oh. That’s right, you’re thirsty. You don’t want a mint, you want some water. How silly of me. Let me go get you a glass.’

‘Are you listening to me, Mom?’

‘Certainly, Justine. Mommy’ll bring you some nice cold water.’

She snatches the dentured key ring and darts into the building after Dad. Probably I should make a run for it then and there. But, like our parents, I’m not thinking clearly. We all need a chance to come to our senses.

By the time they return with another woman – and without any water – I’ve thumped all the car locks down. Our father realises this when he tries to open my door.

‘Open the door, Justine.’

I pretend I’m stone. Like when we were little and used to play statues.

‘I said, open the door.’ Ferociously, he jiggles the outer handle. ‘Helen, the keys. Where are the keys?’

Our mother delves back into her handbag. The bag is on the small side and it’s a big ring of keys, but they appear to have gone missing nonetheless. Her hands tremble, like my own. One by one, she removes the familiar purse contents and places them on the kerb. When the purse is empty, Dad seizes it from her, rips the lining pockets inside out, tips the whole thing upside down and shakes it, lint and stray pennies go flying.

Then Mom discovers the keys in her coat pocket.

Dad brandishes the dentures fob like a mad prison warden. The keys for the Volvo jingle heavily against those for the house, which domino the ones for the practice, the spare set for Mom’s VW and the little skeleton one for the cabinet where he stashes the Novocaine and other anaesthetics. ‘We’ve got the keys, Justine.’

‘I can see that, Dad,’ I holler.

Still I don’t open the door. Dad marches to the driver’s door and inserts the appropriate key in the lock. The button pops up. He grins triumphantly, but I pound the button back down quicker than he can lift the handle. His grin turns to grimace. After a few more tries, me punching the button down each time, he scurries round to the passenger side. I’m there before him too and we rerun the same routine.

‘Helen, get the spare keys.’

Mom stands, flummoxed, with her purse disembowelled all over the pavement.

‘Where are the spares, Helen?’

‘In the key cabinet, Jeff. At home.’

Dad removes his tie and circles the car a few more times, until he’s panting. That’s when the other woman steps in.

She places her hand on his elbow. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr Ziegler.’ She’s pretending to talk to our dad, but her eyes are trained on me so I glare straight back. ‘Justine knows she can’t stay in there for ever. She’ll come out when she’s ready.’

I grit my teeth. I’m not sure whether or not I’m scared shitless or angry as hell. I bead up my eyes and fix them on her. Her own eyes – small, grey and widely set – hold my gaze. She’s nearly as tall as Dad and there’s too much of her body, too tall, too wide, too much. Around her neck hang two cords. At the end of one is a discus of keys, fobless and even more crowded than Dad’s; at the end of the other, a whistle.

I recognise this woman. Her name is…Hilary, I think. I’m pretty sure she’s the director of this place, the big cheese. I don’t know her last name – they never use last names – but I know her. She sat in on my sibling interview soon after you were admitted. Your intake, that’s what they called it. Barely uttered a word then, just watched me like she’s watching me now. I didn’t like her. Didn’t like her then, don’t like her now. I would say hate, but Mom told us never to say you hate on first impressions. Hate’s a thing that needs time to grow.

Ten minutes pass, maybe less, maybe more. I press the spot on my forehead just above the bridge of my nose until I glimpse stars. Twenty minutes. I unbutton my coat. Thirty minutes. There’s no air in here. Forty minutes. The smell from the vomit is horrible. Forty-five minutes. The smell’s overpowering, it flavours the air. I pinch my nose and take short, sharp, shallow breaths so I don’t have to taste the wretched stuff all over again. Fifty minutes, it must be fifty minutes. I consult my Swatch for the 2,367th time. I’m hyperventilating, my head is ratta-tat-tatting. I may pass out. If I pass out, they’ll get me.

What would you do in this situation?

An hour later, I open my door and puke at Hilary’s feet. She doesn’t move, just blows her whistle until four new feet bound into my field of vision.

‘Very good, Justine. Now you can accompany us inside of your own accord or Mark and Leroy can assist you.’

I raise my eyes to Mark and Leroy who are standing, stonyfaced, legs apart, arms folded, shoulders swelling. They should be visiting college football recruiters, and arguing with our dad about who’s likely to make it to next year’s Rose Bowl, not witnessing me wring my guts out.

‘Your choice. What’s it going to be?’

CHAPTER THREE

A week late, dragging along an uninvited guest. That’s how we arrive in this world. It’s that time of day where people don’t know whether to call it night-time or morning and Mom’s been in labour for going on ten years. She alternates between a shade of puce and a white so white you could lose her on the gurney if you crossed your eyes. The doctor shouts at Mom to push and she pushes and pushes and pushes.

‘I can see the head!’ bullhorns the doctor. Then, in a motion that might seem sudden if everyone hadn’t been congregating so long round Mom’s nether regions, you slide out.

‘It’s a boy!’

You’re holding on to your winky and wailing. Mom throbs in strobe-light fashion, one constant pulse of pain, but still reaches out to draw you to her bosom. ‘A boy.’ Her lips flutter into a feathery smile.

‘Here comes another one!’ announces the doctor.

‘Another what?’

‘Eh?’ The doctor’s clearly half deaf. How else can his missing that second heartbeat in the first place be explained?

A fresh contraction doubles Mom up as one of the nurses wrenches you from her. And then here comes me, follow-the-leadering you right out the trap door, a little soggier, a little quieter, with nothing to hold on to but Mom’s umbilical cord, which I let go of pretty swift-like.

That’s how we imagine our birth, anyway. We can’t say for sure. Mom never told us particulars. When we got to an age of wondering after such things, she’d answer vaguely. ‘It was such a long time ago,’ she’d say. Or, ‘They had me so drugged up, kids, I didn’t know who was coming or going.’ Or, if maybe we’d been why-ing her for awhile already, she’d just snap, ‘Because,’ even though it wasn’t a ‘because’ kind of question in the least, or, ‘Does it really matter?’

This is what we know for sure: we were born sometime in the morning (5:00 a.m.? 11:52 a.m.?) on 25 August at the University Hospital in Piedmontville, North Carolina, home of the Central State University, where Dad was finishing up his dental degree. You came out first and, seven and a half minutes later, I appeared.

We’ve never had it confirmed but we strongly suspect Dad was nowhere in the vicinity of the hospital when we made our grand entrance. We figure he arrived later, at a respectable hour, the sun high in the sky. Maybe he’s been taking an exam or memorising a textbook or practising with his drills. Or maybe he’s late because he’s picked Grandma and Grandpa Shirland up from the airport. Grandpa’s still alive at this point though already ancient and doddery, gone soft in the head with age. He clings to Grandma’s arm and stops to let his heart slow down after the excitement of the doors that whooshed open and closed all by themselves.

Meanwhile, Dad barrels past the nurses’ desk unannounced, his leather soles dog-whistling along the swept salmon-and-lime-speckled tiles. He heads the wrong way, striding purposefully towards geriatrics until some doctor or orderly or whoever it is at the hospital on glad tidings duty recognises him and steers him in the right direction while attempting to share said tidings. Dad listens with one ear and nods his understanding, but all he hears is ‘boy’ and ‘twins’. And his mind adds those two words together in an equation that goes boys + twins = identical = two sons. Because twins mean identical, right, and identical means, if nothing else, same sex. Right?

You’d think they would have taught him otherwise at some point in all that expensive medical education of his. But what do budding orthodontists know? Dad knows twins are identical and boys are little creatures who grow up into men who carry on the Ziegler name. He hauls up at the viewing station and shoulders his way through some other newborn-gawkers to the front of the glass so he can size us up. We’ve been stashed in the same crib and, to be honest, we’re not too impressive. Downright tiny, only five pounds apiece and drowning in hospital regulation cotton. And we’re yellow, shrivelled and flaky – overcooked, as Mom used to say – these are things she remembered to tell us. But we’re men-to-be. Dad eyes his progenies and, without consulting Mom who’s got many days and weeks of drugged-out-ness ahead, he decrees us Joshua and Justin. He tells the nurse or orderly to write it down. And they keep shtoom, do as they’re told and write down Joshua and Justin Ziegler.

‘How adorable,’ coos Grandma who’s just caught up, towing Grandpa behind her like a badly hitched trailer.

Then Grandpa judders to a halt and follows Grandma’s finger to where it crooks at us through the glass. Just a bundle of baby under a single snowy blanket. He lowers his chin, squints and peers through his Norman Rockwell bifocals. ‘Amazing, Jeff,’ he says to Dad. ‘How on earth did you and Helen manage to have a two-headed baby? Ain’t that funny.’

That last bit is true, Grandpa really did say that, or words to that effect. Grandma Shirland has been telling us that story for years and others around the family have been retelling it to their neighbours, their friends, mailmen and each other until it comes full circle back to us and they tell us again like we never heard it before.

And the naming thing was also true, though Dad didn’t let that one get round quite so far. I imagine he was pretty disappointed when he realised I didn’t have a winky. He tacked an E on to my name on the hospital form, wrote it in himself, a big messy capital letter that didn’t match any of the pretty orchid-like penmanship that blossomed across the rest of the page. And I became Justine.

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