Miss Scarlet in the Dining Room with the Lead Pipe

The moment Clark saw it, somehow, he knew. At first he had shoved it out of the way, along with the computer mouse and the stack of children’s books. Yet laying there next to the blender, it had just seemed too familiar. Now, as he stared at the box, he tried to convince himself that it couldn’t be. Yet, he knew it was too much to be coincidence. The words, “Can I help you, Professor Thomas?” awoke him from his trance.
“Uh…” He said pensively, “No thanks.” He stared at the young worker for a moment; vaguely recognizing him from some accounting class he had taught last semester. He realized how lost he must have looked. Yet there he stood, in the small appliance section, with a board game in his hand. He quickly put it back on the shelf. “I was just contemplating a purchase. That’s all.” He said, sounding more scholarly than ever. He always tried to impress his students.
The moment the young man was gone, Clark’s mind returned to the game. He picked it up and headed to the check stand. He gave the cashier her four dollars, and she replied with a friendly, “Clue is one of my favorites, too.” Saying nothing, Clark took his receipt and stormed off toward the car. Leaving the store, he stepped out into the damp parking lot. It had been drizzling on and off all day. Clark looked up at the sky to see a small ray of sunshine peeking its way through the storm clouds. The fact that it wasn’t raining now gave him some slight ray of hope. However, all he could hope for was that he was wrong.
In the car, he searched through the game just as he had done in the store, and sure enough all pieces were present and accounted for, except the lead pipe. He noticed the bent corner; he flipped over the card. Miss Scarlet. And then he knew. This was definitely it.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he took a quick glance at the Goodwill sign. Nothing good will come of this, he thought. The drive home seemed to take hours. The longest three blocks Clark had ever driven. The entire five minutes filled with questions . . . Could it be? After all these years, how could she? What would he say? He planned the whole thing out in his head. He would bring the game in and set it on the table. Then he would wait.
Seeing the game as she came into the kitchen, she would say something like, “Oh honey, I have to make dinner. Maybe we can play later.”
“Don’t treat me like a child,” he would say. He was always so much crueler in his imaginary arguments. “I don’t wanna play Julie. I want you to guess where I found our game.”
Denial would of course be her first tactic. He knew her well. She would laugh and say she hadn’t a clue, thinking she was the funniest thing ever. Then she’d make a few stupid guesses like the closet or the basement. “I told you I didn’t want to play Julie! You know damn well where this came from.” Then she’d cave in. She’d cry for sympathy which she wouldn’t get. Clark wouldn’t be budging this time. She had stooped low, but never this low.
As he turned the corner on to Silver Spur Avenue, he was abruptly snapped back to reality by the sound of children playing in the park. Rain or shine, they were there every Saturday. He noticed the boys, leaping around like super heroes, and the girls, prancing about as if they truly were the little princesses they were pretending to be. He recalled the days when it was so easy to pretend, a time when it was ok to lie to oneself. Back to days like yesterday, when he still thought Julie truly loved him. He could almost smell those memories of happiness. But looking at the game, they quickly faded back to harsh reality. Those days were over, he thought. There was no excuse for this.
He turned right and let his Honda Civic slowly creep up the steep driveway. Normally he parked in the garage but at the last minute he stopped his car and parked behind Julie’s Explorer. Just in case she tries to flee the crime scene, he thought. Opening the car door, he looked down at the lawn. It was far too long. Good thing it had rained or he would have been cutting the grass instead of running errands that afternoon.
The grass stealing his thoughts, he walked to the trunk of his car, and without thinking, there he left the game. He took out the purchases of his honey do list, a new blanket for Jake’s bed, a Swiffer duster, milk, eggs, and some orange juice. He headed to the house, all the while beating himself up because he hadn’t the courage to confront Julie about the game. And it had sounded so good in his head.
As he opened the bright red door, Clark instantly smelled it. The aroma of Julie’s mustard seasoned chicken invaded his nostrils like the Nazis invading Germany. She had made his favorite. This would make it hard for him to be mad at her tonight. He went to the kitchen and, while putting the orange juice in the fridge, stared at the oven timer. Thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds until Colonel Mustard’s chicken would be ready. He couldn’t wait. When he had finished putting away the groceries, he opened the Swiffer box and began to piece it together. That’s when his French maid came down the stairs.
Julie had her long brown hair pulled up in a pony tail. It bounced as she gracefully skipped her way down the stairs. She was a beautiful woman, despite her simplicity, or perhaps, because of it. Still in her pajamas, she looked as cute as ever. “Oh, you got the Swiffer? I love you, honey,” Julie said, watching his unsuccessful attempts at assembling the Swiffer. She walked to the oven and turned on the light to check on the chicken. Clark leaned so far back on his barstool, he hardly caught a glance at the chicken before falling flat on his back.
“Honey! Are you all right?”
“Yeah I’m fine. It’s this Swiffer. I give up,” he said as he picked up the barstool. “I can’t put it together.”
“Well don’t kill yourself over a duster. I’d rather have a husband than be a widow with a Swiffer,” she said jokingly. Clark faked his best laugh while holding back thoughts of the
widowed Ms.White. All he could think about was Clue, and she hadn’t a clue.
“Where’s Jake?” he asked, finally noticing how quiet it was.
“He’s at the park.” Surely he had been one of the capeless crusaders Clark had seen on his way home. “He should be back soon. I told him dinner would be ready at 5:00.”
“Well good, I’m starving and it smells delicious.” He told himself to stop being nice, but he couldn’t help it.
“I talked to your mother today,” Julie said, opening a can of green beans.
Clark stared at the can opener. “Mr. Clark in the kitchen with the can opener,” he said, thinking out loud.
“What?” she said looking up.
“Nothing. What did my mom have to say?”
“She wants to fly out and visit next month,” she said, after putting the green beans in the microwave. “She said she hasn’t seen Jake in months, and we don’t seem to be doing anything about it. So she’s coming out here herself.”
“Well did she say when?” Clark asked, without thinking. His thoughts were elsewhere. He could care less about his mother right now. Blankly staring at Julie his mind was in the game closet searching, scavenging through the disorder of games, desperately trying to find it; to convince himself she hadn’t really done it.
“Around the twelfth. We’ll have to plan something fun to do while she’s here.”
“Yeah. Fun. When was the last time we played a board game with Jake? When was the last time we even opened the game closet? I bet it’s a complete mess,” Clark replied.
“What? Oh. I cleaned it out last week. Jake wanted to play Chutes and Ladders, and he wouldn’t stop whining until I tore the whole closet apart to find it.” Julie was preoccupied with dinner, and Clark decided it was the perfect time to do a little investigation.
He walked across the kitchen, kissed his wife, and went upstairs to the bedroom. He could not believe what he had just heard. She had cleaned out the game closet? There was no doubt in his mind now.
He snuck across the hall to Jake’s room. He opened the game closet, half expecting his wife to be inside, waiting there silently, ready to shoot him with the revolver. Impressed with the tidiness of the closet, he almost smiled. Then he remembered why he was there. Scanning the games, he saw exactly what he had expected; Life, Scene It?, Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Connect Four, hundreds of others, but no Clue.
He told himself he shouldn’t have looked. He told himself there was a perfectly good explanation for all of this. He went to the bathroom where he splashed his face with cold water. It did nothing to calm his nerves, and now he was cold.
He stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs. Watching admirably as his wife hummed and danced her way around the kitchen, preparing his favorite meal. He was still quite impressed at the game closet. As he came down the stairs he looked around, and noticed the entire house was spotless. Julie had no doubt spent all day cleaning. “The house looks amazing, dear,” he said. Again he told himself he was being far too nice. The clean house certainly did not make up for what she had done.
As he entered the dining room, it was clear that something was wrong. “Are you okay hun?” Julie asked, “You seem a little tired.”
“I’m fine, dear. I was just thinking.”
“About what?” she asked. Then without giving him time to answer, she responded for him, “Certainly not about the bathroom sink. Weren’t you going to fix that this weekend?”
In his rage he had completely forgotten about the sink. He thought of the flooded mess he would have to clean up later. Yes, later. Now he had other things to do. “Oh. I was going to get a pipe for it this afternoon. I knew I had forgotten something.”
“Well, it would be nice if you could take care of it soon.” Julie said, taking the chicken out of the oven.
“You know honey, it’s our anniversary on Monday,” Clark said.
“Yeah.”
“Well I was thinking, maybe we should do something special. Ten years is quite an accomplishment.”
“What did you have in mind?” Julie asked.
“I was thinking we could have a little re-enactment of our first date. Wouldn’t that be fun? We could go to dinner at that old Italian place. What’s it called now?”
“Signore Verde’s?”
“Yeah. And then I was thinking we could go see a show down at The Regal. I think they’re doing Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare, just like our first date. And then after that we could come home and play a board game or something.”
Julie, who was now setting the table, looked up, surprised and confused. “A board game? What?”
“Yeah, you remember don’t you? Our first date, we went to dinner, saw Twelfth Night at The Regal, and then we went over to George’s and played games until three in the morning.”
“That’s right. I remember. We played Parcheesi and I beat you. I was so proud of myself,” she said, placing the chicken on the table.
“And we played Clue, too. Remember?” Clark said, trying his best to pay close attention to Julie’s reaction; however, she had distracted him with her chicken. He couldn’t think clearly. The sweet aroma of mustard was far too much for him to handle.
“Yes dear, I remember. How could I forget? You loved that game!”
“We still have the same game around here somewhere. We could play a little game of Clue. What do you think, sweetie?”
“Well if we can find it,” Julie said tensely, cutting up the chicken.
“But you just cleaned out the game closet. Didn’t you?”
“Well I guess it’s in there somewhere. I think it sounds wonderful, honey.” Changing the subject she replied, “We’ll have to get a sitter for Jake. Maybe I can take him over to Michelle’s, and he can play with Hayden.”
“It’s really coming down out there. Should I go get him?” Clark said, noticing the pouring rain. He watched it drip down the window. It reminded him of the blood he felt trickling down his back where his wife had just stabbed him. He stood up and started to put on his coat. That’s when everything went black. For a moment, Clark wondered whether he was conscious. Then he realized he was overreacting as usual. “Power’s out,” he said, mostly to convince himself.
As Clark fumbled his way back across the dining room, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, he took several deep breaths to calm himself. The front door flew open and a small, dark shadow crept its way into the house. After struggling to close the door, the shadow made its way down the hall. At the end of the hall it stopped. Wrestling with the light switch, it let out a shrill cry. “Mom? Dad?”
“The power’s out Jakey,” Julie said. She walked up and took his hand. “How was the park?”
“So much fun!” the enthusiastic four year old replied, his eyes lighting up. “We got all wet and we were throwing mud at Nicky, and she started crying. It was awesome!”
“Well, you be nice to Nicky. Now let’s take off your coat, and then Daddy will help you go wash up for dinner.”
Clark took his own coat off and put it back on his chair at the dining room table. He walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard above the fridge. He groped his way through the cupboard, pushing aside bowls and pans, finally wrapping his fingers around a candle. Opening the drawer to his right, he found the matches. On his third try, he struck the match, and as he lit the candle, it gave off a dim glow of light casting eerie shadows across the kitchen.
Julie finished with Jake’s coat. “There’s a candlestick on the living room coffee table Clark. I’ll go get it.”
Jake jumped at the crash of thunder. He clung to his father’s leg for protection. Protection Clark could not give, for he himself, was twice as frightened at the sound of the word candlestick. He took several more deep breaths as he tried to digest the irony of the situation. He had been fine with the mustard; the knife was merely coincidental; but now, a candlestick? He was now quite convinced that he wouldn’t get out of this alive.
Giving him little time to think, Julie quickly returned with the candlestick and two more candles. Handing Clark the heavy, brass candlestick, she took his candle to light the others.
He felt the weight of the candlestick in his hand. Staring at his wife, he thought of how innocent she seemed, even with her little candlestick and her knife. Yet, Clark knew the crime she had committed. His anger multiplying by the minute, he reminded himself that her innocence was all an act. Heavier than the candlestick, he felt the weight of what she had done.
Getting his candle back, Clark turned to Jake, “Okay come on, let’s go get you cleaned up.” He took his son by the hand and led him up the stairs. When they arrived at the bathroom, Clark noticed the puddle of water on the floor in front of the sink. “Maybe we’d better wash you up in the laundry room sink, huh?”
“Yeah Dad, the bathroom’s broken. Duh!” Jake said, laughing at his dad. “Daddy, what’s for dinner?”
“Chicken,” Clark replied. “Are you hungry?” he asked as they came back down the stairs and crossed through the dining room to the laundry room.
“Yes. But I want Spaghetti-Os,” Jake said as Clark picked him up so he could reach the sink.
“Well your mom has been working hard all day on her chicken. And I know she made a special little piece without mustard just for you.”
“Can we have Spaghetti-Os tomorrow then?”
“We’ll see Jake. Here, dry your hands buddy,” he said, handing Jake the towel and picking up the candlestick he had set on the washing machine.
Julie was sitting at the table waiting for them when they came back. They sat down and ate their dinner by candlelight. The entire night, Clark couldn’t keep his eyes off the candlestick or his mind off the game.

# # #

Monday morning came, and found Clark less than anxious to go to work; however, more than anxious to get out of bed. His alarm sounded at 6:45, an hour earlier than usual. He turned it off and immediately got up. Julie was still sound asleep. Sunday night, after finally calming himself down, he had decided on a plan.
The garage floor was cold against his bare feet as he tiptoed his way to the trunk of his car. Taking out the game, he placed it on top of his car and opened the box. He took out the revolver and the blue game piece. He opened Julie’s explorer and placed them on the driver’s seat. “There we are, Mrs. Peacock,” he said.
Quietly closing the car door, he returned to his trunk. He then removed the pipe which he had, in fact, not forgotten to purchase on Saturday, but had simply not brought inside. Not quite lead but it’ll have to do, he told himself as his fingers wrapped themselves around the cold, steel pipe. With the game in one hand and his weapon in the other, he was ready to solve his mystery. He returned to the kitchen. Setting the box on the counter, he took out his friend Colonel Mustard along with the knife, which he set on top of the microwave.
He stepped into the dining room, removed the candlestick from the table, and in its place, he set the candlestick from the game. Alongside it, the red pawn, Miss Scarlet. In the laundry room, on top of the dryer, he placed Ms. White with the rope. Admiring his own cleverness, he left the pipe and Professor Plum in the bathroom. Then, putting the wrench and Mr. Green in his pocket, he took the box back to his trunk.
Silently he hiked back up the stairs to the bedroom. In Julie’s closet, he put his last suspect, and his weapon, on the bottom shelf, next to Julie’s favorite pair of shoes. Then he got back into bed and went to sleep.
The alarm clock read 7:45 when it again screamed bloody murder. Clark got out of bed, showered, and got ready for work. Most days, Julie would get up to make him breakfast, but luckily, never on Mondays. At 8:15, he woke up Jake and got him dressed.
“What do you want for breakfast, kiddo?” he asked as Jake tried desperately to pull his sweatshirt over his head. Clark helped him and soon they were in the bathroom combing through Jake’s blonde hair.
“Daddy, what’s that?” Jake asked, pointing to the green pawn sitting next to the toothpaste.
“Just a little present for Mommy,” Clark said and with that he picked Jake up, put him on his shoulders and carried him down the stairs. In the kitchen Jake was surprised to see other presents for Mommy. “It’s a secret so don’t tell,” Clark told him. “Today’s me and your mom’s anniversary.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like a birthday, only for the day we got married.”
They ate a nice homemade breakfast of cereal and milk. Then they split a banana. At 8:45 they went back upstairs to say goodbye to Julie.
Before they left, Clark took a small envelope out of his briefcase and left it on the kitchen counter.
When they arrived at school, Clark told Jake the plan. “Now Hayden’s mom will pick you up from school today okay, little buddy? You’re gonna sleep over at his house tonight.”
“Is it because it’s your wedding birthday?”
“Yes,” Clark said with a smile.
“Why can’t I come to the birthday party? Will there be cake?”
“No Jake, there won’t be cake. So don’t worry. You won’t miss out on anything. I promise.” Clark said assuredly. “Now have fun at school.”
“Bye, Dad,” Jake said as he got out of the car. Clark watched until his son was safely inside the school.
When he got home from work, Clark was glad to see Julie’s car in the garage. He couldn’t wait to get inside and hear her confession. As he took off his coat, he was surprised to see that Colonel Mustard was still in the kitchen with the knife. He passed through the dining room, and found the red pawn, still sitting right where he had left it on the table.
Then he realized it was dead quiet and there were no lights on. “Julie?” he shouted. There was no response. Slightly worried now, he made his way back to the laundry room. He opened the door and just as he suspected, there sat Ms. White on the dryer, right where he had left her, impatiently dangling the rope between her little fingers, waiting for her victim which had never arrived.
Upstairs he found both suspects still armed and sitting in their assigned positions. There had been no murder here. What happened? Had Julie not seen them? Then he remembered the envelope; he had forgotten to look for the envelope. He ran back downstairs to look. He came downstairs and there she sat. His beautiful Miss Scarlet, at the dining room table, dressed to kill in a bright red dress. She held in her left hand, a clue card with all four corners intact. In her right, a miniature lead pipe.
A shiny, new game board laid spread out on the table. Next to it sat a large tin. On top of the tin, Clark read the words ‘Clue: 50th Anniversary Edition.’ Julie smiled and mischievously winked at her husband. “Hello Professor,” she said, and Clark knew he was a dead man.

Two Covers

I knew where it had been
All along.
Finding it only took a little help.
She told me she had seen it,
Somewhere
In the basement.
Right where I had left it,
Pages worn with time and wrapped
In a blanket of dust,
It now had two covers.

I sit.
Begin to read,
Losing myself in what was lost.
And then I knew
I could find
Anything.

Garbanzos

Pork, garbanzo beans
Potatoes.
A delightful Dutch oven dinner
I crack a joke.
They laugh.
They laugh a lot.
"You're funny," a stranger tells me.
As she snorts, her beans
Fall from her mouth.
They hit her plate with a loud plop.

I'm funny?
I hear the plop of garbanzos.
In that splatter of beans, I see
I can be.
Funny funny me.

Silence

Silence.
The absence of words.
Wishing, waiting, wanting.
Hating.
Silence.
Soundlessly the hours slip away.
To where?
I don’t know.
I try hard not to let it show how much
I’m trying not to care.
But it’s hard to hide it
With nothing but silence.

The tick-talking of time passing
Makes for such poor company.
My friends all pity me.
Their attempts to cheer me don’t help,
But merely make things worse.
I’d rather much prefer
The silence.
In it I sit,
Lost.
Somewhere between courageous and cowardly.
Confidence gone,
Like a coward, I cry.

Silence.
I never knew it was so loud.
I close my eyes, pretend to shout.
It helps a little.
To feel more real.
To feel
The silence.

A Naked Wrist

First I looked in all the obvious places.
Under the bed, behind the dresser.
The places watches like to hide.
Then I looked deeper. Everywhere.
The places one finds things they didn’t want to find,
But never what they’re searching for.
Now I look at my wrist,
Wondering the time.
I'll never know.
How long have I been searching?
Perhaps a few short minutes.
Perhaps a few long hours.
I wouldn't know the difference.
I’ll never know.
I'll never know without it.

Separated at Birth

I always wanted a twin. Even though I had siblings, I was born an only child. Completely separated by a seventeen year gap from my youngest sister, I was the only child at home since before I can remember. At the age of 38 and 45 respectively, my mother and father were yet again going to tackle the dangerous world of parenthood. I remember growing up my mother always told me she’d wished I had been twins. I realize now that was only because I drove her crazy with my constant pleadings for her to join me in jumping on the trampoline or in playing Nintendo.
I have a close friend who happens to be a distant cousin. My early memories of Julie are dreadful. I recall in elementary school how she would repeatedly tell everyone that we weren’t related and that our same last name “problem” was mere coincidence. I, of course, was quick to agree, I certainly didn’t want to be related to her either. In junior high, Julie and I stayed out of each other’s way for the most part. It wasn’t until our sophomore year of high school, in our Drama 1 class, that we realized it was okay to be friends.
It was around that same time we also learned that it was okay to be family. So we tried to figure out just exactly how we were related. One day Julie came to school and told me that she had investigated it. I was excited at the possibility of actually knowing what to say when asked how we were related. Listening intently and hoping to hear something along the lines of fourth cousin, I heard, “My great, great, great grandpa was your great, great grandpa.” This she said with a satisfactory smile. However, I was less than satisfied.
“So what does that mean?” I asked with a bewildered look on my face.
“Well we’re related.” Of course we already knew that. So how could this information really benefit us?
One afternoon while hanging out backstage during a long rehearsal for our high school musical, a fellow cast member asked if Julie and I were related, a frequent occurrence. To my surprise, Julie quickly responded, “Yeah, we’re twins.” I was shocked but the glance she shot me said, play along or I will kill you. So I nodded my head. Never before had this ingenious idea occurred to me. We were twins. It was a lie, but a beautiful one. And it was too easy—someone had already believed it.
There was a problem, however. Julie and I didn’t live together. We had different birthdays. Yet, these were only minor details. We quickly set in on devising a plan, writing a script, to strategically cover up any conflicting evidence. We merely divided the 28 days between Julie’s birthday and mine, and our new birthday was August fifteenth. Then we simply would explain how our parents were divorced when we were twelve. Julie had stayed with our father while I had moved out with our mother. Since then our parents had both remarried. Who wouldn’t believe that, right?
Obviously, there were those whom we couldn’t convince. One day at rehearsal I was trying to convince a friend. I was working alone, performing a monologue so to speak, while Julie was using the restroom. “You’re not twins!” she said.
“Yes, we are,” I argued, trying my best to keep a straight face.
“Then when is your birthday?”
“August fifteenth.”
Then she went to ask Julie. Of course this couldn’t wait until she was out of the bathroom. I nervously followed her as she marched down the long hall toward the girl’s room. She came to the restroom, opened the door and screamed, “Julie!”
“Yeah?” hollered back a startled and confused Julie from the toilet.
“It’s Gretchen. When’s your birthday?” she shouted without giving me any chance to tip Julie off as to what was happening. It seemed to take Julie forever to respond. Would she say August fifteenth or would she ruin all I had worked so hard for in those last five minutes? I could feel the sweat running down my forehead like blood gushing from an open wound.
“August second. Why?”
My heart sank. “Oh, just wondering,” Gretchen said with a sneer on her face. She walked away without saying a word. I waited until Julie emerged from the girl’s room, an uneasy look stretched across her pale face. Then I let her have it. I was pretty upset. I had played my part perfectly, all for her to miss a cue and ruin our entire production. We both agreed that our little act needed more rehearsal. We picked a few more people to practice on.
Of course, our close friends already knew the truth so we not only had to decide who we could convince, but who we could convince to help us. Casting our show was crucial, and many of our friends were in on our little scheme. We couldn’t have done it without them. However the biggest help in spreading our little lies was ironically, my mother. She worked in the school cafeteria. At first she thought it was just a joke, and she found it rather endearing when Julie would call her mom. Later, she realized that people actually believed we were twins. So she would play along. Nearly everyone knew she was my mother, so anytime we came across a doubter, we would simply tell them to ask the lunch lady.
My mom loved it. Who would have thought she’d have a knack for acting? One afternoon as Julie and I sat in the cafeteria talking with her, Max, the janitor, came in to take out the trash. He started talking with my mom about a messy chocolate milk spill down the hall, so Julie and I decided to take off. “Okay Mom, we’re going back to class,” I said.
“Oh are these your kids?” Max asked.
“Yeah, these are my twins,” replied Mom without skipping a beat. Julie and I stared in amazement. Her performance worthy of a standing ovation, we stood to leave.
“Good thing we’ve got her on our side,” Julie said as we left the cafeteria.
About this point, we began classifying everyone we knew as a believer or a nonbeliever. At times I felt as if we were the leaders of some apostate religious group, leading so many to believe what ever we wanted them to believe, whether it was true or not. Every time we met someone new it was far too easy to introduce ourselves as twins. We had become addicted. With each lie it became more and more fun. I found such pleasure in it. Each lie led me to a state of sheer bliss, complete joy which can only be compared to the feeling one gets when purchasing a new pair of shoelaces. I often asked myself if what we were doing was wrong, but at that point it didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was how many people we could actually trick into believing us.
Our junior year, we had a friend by the name of Ricky. Ricky was the firmest believer yet. He was constantly asking us questions about our childhood and what it had been like growing up as twins. We tried our best to steer clear of his interrogations so as not to divulge our secret. This was not always easy as the three of us had a class together. I recall one day in class conversing about Star Wars. Ricky brought up how Luke Skywalker had kissed Princess Leia without even knowing it was his twin sister. Since we were twins, he asked us what we thought about that. Our response? “They were both just actors.”
At the end of the year Ricky would be moving away. Our conscience getting the best of us, we decided we had to tell him the truth before he left. We came up with an ingenious idea to give our closing night performance at the yearbook dance. We figured there would be a lot of bright lights flashing—perfect for a curtain call. I signed in Ricky’s yearbook next to where Julie had signed and then wrote P.S. We’re not twins. We told him he had to read what we had written. He strained his eyes to read the book in the dark room. The music blasting, we watched as Ricky’s toothy smile slowly faded into a look of utter disappointment. This sad face lasted only a moment, and then he started laughing. He didn’t believe us. He insisted we were twins. We tried to explain to him that we really were not and that we’d been lying to him all year. He asked several of our friends. Of course, the little computer viruses we had programmed so well lied and told him we were twins. Julie and I felt guilty. However, we had tried. To this day I’m sure Ricky still believes.
Our biggest adventure was taking on the faculty. Of course we only tried convincing a select few. Julie’s English teacher was perhaps the hardest to convince, but definitely the most rewarding when we finally did. One day after school we were talking with her in her classroom, she asked Julie if I was her boyfriend, which of course we laughed at, “No, he’s my twin brother.”
“He is not! You don’t have a twin.” she said. After all Mrs. Peterson had taught Julie’s older sister and knew their family quite well.
We insisted that it was true. What sealed the deal was when Julie said, “Well you know our mom, from the cafeteria right?”
“Oh, that’s your mom?” Suddenly Mrs. Peterson’s eyes lit up! Her green eyes scanned back and forth making contact with Julie’s blue eyes, then my brown eyes. “Oh. Yeah, I can see it now! You look so much alike.” Brown hair being our only true mutual characteristic, I could hardly contain my laughter.
Toward the end of our senior year, our Musical Theater class performed a revue of sorts. Our Theater teacher made up a program with a short biography of each person in the show. She combined Julie’s and mine into one. The closing remarks of our bio read, They may seem like twins and in fact they’ll tell you they are. However, that just goes to show what great actors they truly are. We were outraged. There would be hell to pay. What was she thinking? When we confronted her, she said she had no idea that people actually believed us. She apologized but the damage was done. Several believers had seen the show and read the program. The truth was out, and our acting career in shambles.
Friends were coming up to us left and right, asking what it meant. We tried to write it off, comparing it to anti-Mormon literature. Yet our believers did not hold strong. Obviously they realized we had lied to them. What had been done was irreparable. There was no way we could convince anyone now that so many people knew the truth. We tried, but someone who we had duped into believing us, and had then found out the truth, always seemed to be around. Bitter about the situation, they would blow our cover every time.
Our freshman year at college found us yet again, in an Acting 1 class, needing all the training for our lies we could get. However, this time, no one knew either of us and this could be used to our advantage. While calling roll the first day of class, our professor got to our names, “Julie Gurney.”
“Here.”
“Trent Gurney”
“Here.”
“Ah...any relation?” he asked.
Just as if we’d memorized the line from a script, we spouted off simultaneously “Yeah, we’re twins.” Smiling innocently, I thought about how we had never lied to this many people at the same time before. Who knew what would happen. Yet, it was easier now, we no longer needed our divorced parents excuse. I recall one day in class Julie and I planned a conversation to be overheard by our classmates just to make sure they believed us. Needing something interesting to talk about, we made up some story about how our father had broken his leg. Wondering how Dad’s leg was doing, she would ask me whether I had talked to Mom the night before. We even performed a scene in class together about growing up as twins and always fighting.
In the dorm adjacent to mine lived a set of actual twins. Julie and I were ecstatic. We told them how we were twins too. Next we went to work on my roommates, then Julie’s roommates. Sooner or later our entire college life was a lie, one big act. Everyone we knew believed we were twins. It was much different than high school when only a handful of people actually believed us. There was no reason for them to doubt. It was easier than it had ever been.
One Sunday afternoon, Julie, another friend and I were taking a nap in my room. The three of us had crammed onto my twin size bed. We were only half asleep when my roommate and his friend came into the dorm.
His friend saw us and was surprised. “Does that kid have two chicks in there?” he asked my roommate.
My roommate poked his head in the room and looked at us. “Yeah, but one of them is his sister so it’s all right.”
Many times, it was hard for Julie and me to stay in character all the time. We nearly gave our game away several times. Many times, friends would say things to me like, “I saw your sister today.” My sister was thirty-six years old, married, with four children and lived three hours away. Naturally, I would look at them confused, wondering how in the world they had seen her. Luckily, I would always catch myself before it was too late.
Truly, it’s unbelievable that we were believed. I remember countless times we would be with a group of friends, Julie would start talking about her mom and I would say something about my mom. Of course, we were supposed to have the same mom. When Julie’s parents would call her apartment, our friends found it rather odd they would never want to talk to me since I was there anyway. We shrugged such discrepancies off, and luckily, so did our friends.
About this time, Julie started dating a guy. Eventually it got to the point where he was always around and it was far too much work to keep him convinced. We decided to fill him in. We were at Julie’s apartment and he was looking through some of Julie’s old pictures. Julie handed him her family picture, one he had seen countless times before. As he scanned the faces, he realized the problem. I wasn’t in it. He asked why.
“We’re not twins,” Julie said. Eventually he got the point. The look of horror and distrust on his face was priceless. However, James was into theater too, he was a techie. So naturally, he quickly joined our production team, introducing his friends to his girlfriend and her twin brother.
Sometimes, I just wanted to tell the truth. I constantly had to remind myself to lie. It was just so unnatural to me. Even though we had done it for years, that had only been for a select few people. I guess you could say I got stage fright. High school had merely been a matinee and now that we were into the actual run, I wanted out. There were too many people that I had to lie to. I kept up the facade mostly to appease Julie. With practice, I became better and better.
After some time, telling lies came more natural to me than storing acorns does for a squirrel. I did it habitually. There were no longer any close calls. Julie was my twin sister. We had been living the lie so long that the lie itself was now our life. I couldn’t imagine anything else. I would never have imagined calling her my cousin.
At the end of the year however, our conscience resurfaced. We felt like we should tell at least some of our closest friends that we weren’t twins. So we did. Surprisingly enough, many people, just as Ricky had done, refused to believe us. Those that did were angry. I felt like a fraud. I had betrayed people who trusted me.
After our freshman year, I moved to California for two years. The majority of my correspondence with Julie was limited to letters. Julie informed me she had kept the lie alive, telling roommates and friends she had a twin. Each time I got a letter from her someone would ask who it was from. For a short time, I too continued to feed the lie. Eventually I resorted to telling the truth, the letters were from my cousin. I’m not really sure when it happened, but I realized none of the believers we had convinced mattered at all if I couldn’t believe it myself. I felt like a kid, finally realizing for myself that Santa Claus was one great big lie. How could I have been so childish? I refused to tell anyone we were twins again.
When I moved back to Utah, Julie had transferred universities. Both of us now lived completely different lives than we had when I left. We were no longer into acting. Julie had moved on to nursing school. As for me, I still make up stories; I just write them down rather than act them out. I’ve found that it’s safer that way. Upon returning, Julie introduced me to her roommates, they asked jokingly if I was “the twin.” I smiled and said yes. Apparently someone still believed.