Paper Dolls Read online

  Fuck. I didn’t drink but damn if I needed one now. Whiskey at 8 a.m. didn’t sound half bad. I kept sneaking glances over to Salem, now flicking through one of the magazines from under the coffee table that I think Flick must have left one time.

  As I poured the water into the mugs I watched the granules dissolve under the heat, turning the water to mud. I added milk to mine, disguising the darkness, and left hers black. The spoon dinged sharply into the thick silence broken only by the rustle of pages.

  Salem is back.

  I tried that again, saying it slower in my head.

  Salem. Is. Back.

  She came back to me. I let her down. But she still came back to me. I gave up on her. But she came back to me.

  I carried the two coffee cups over to the living area, walking slowly, trying not to spill the contents or my sanity onto the carpet. Salem dropped her feet from the table and threw the magazine aside. It skidded on the side table before coming to rest, partly flopped over one edge.

  I sat her cup down on the low table, placing my own aside hers, twin red mugs, one with the lip chipped from that time it was knocked down, hers rolling with steam.

  I sat down on the other side of the couch, grabbing one of the cushions to place in my lap and began to play with one of the corner fringes, the space between us, like the last three years, yawning open like a canyon.

  She nudged her chin towards her mug. “Thanks, Rosey.”

  Rosey. I hadn’t heard that nickname in years. When we were children she started calling me Rosey because my cheeks would turn into red roses whenever I got embarrassed. They still did. Salem never had that problem. Nothing ever embarrassed her.

  Something crawled up my spine and seized my chest. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe, my lungs held in an iron grip. Everything over the last three years bubbled up into a thick hot mess and I couldn’t hold it back. I began to cry, my vision blurring with tears so that I could barely see the outline of my twin sitting before me, my Salem, sitting on my couch.

  I heard her tsk as if my tears were a nuisance but she shuffled up to my side and slipped a gentle arm around my shoulders, shushing me like she used to do when we were kids. “It’s alright.” Her soft lips pressed a kiss to my forehead. “No need to cry.”

  I leaned into her, resting my head in the warm crook of her neck, ignoring her harsh cloying perfume and letting the comfort of her presence wash over me, easing the tightness in my chest and brushing down the source of my tears like a sandcastle returning to nothing under the persistent wash of waves.

  She began to hum under her breath. It was a song that Mama used to hum to me when I was sick or upset. It calmed me. I remember the tune, “A Sailor’s Lullaby”, lilting and soft like an old ballad. When Mama died, Salem took over humming to me. I was safe. She would protect me. Always. And from anything. I wasn’t alone anymore.

  For some reason, Clay’s face broke through into my mind. You weren’t alone anymore.

  My sobs subsided and her humming faded. We just sat there, my sister and I, leaning into each other.

  “I…I missed you,” I squeezed those words out of my constricted lungs. “I missed you so much.”

  “Missed you, too, sis.”

  I pulled back, wiping under my eyes, and my twin’s image became clearer. Her arm stayed around my shoulders and I treasured the weight of it. I studied her face and her sharp grey eyes stared back at me. The last time I had a chance, a real chance to study her face, we had been fifteen.

  God, it was like looking in a mirror, but…not. She wore more eyeliner than I ever would, and her mouth wore a permanent scowl. She had no extra scars, no new piercings that I could see, and she still wore her hair long and loose like I did.

  She wore waist-high skinny jeans, which her slim legs looked great in, a midriff top that came just to her beltline, giving me flashes of her slim pale waist. I knew she was studying me too, seeing how I’d grown, seeing how we now differed after three years apart.

  “Where have you been?” I tried not to sound so needy. I’m not sure I succeeded.

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Around.”

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I know.”

  “You knew?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Although you stopped looking, didn’t you?”

  I swallowed down the knot of guilt. “Why didn’t you come back sooner?”

  She shifted and her arm drew back to lean instead along the back of the couch. “I had some stuff I had to do. Didn’t want to involve you.”

  “But…you’re my best friend, Salem. We do everything together.”

  “Not everything,” she said, and I swear I could hear the hint of bitterness in her voice. “I see you gotta boyfriend now.”

  Clay. She’d seen Clay in the store.

  My cheeks flushed and a tiny flutter of happiness fluttered in my chest. Clay’s smiling face, his gorgeous lips and the sexiest dimple ever became clear in my mind. “I don’t know if I’d call him my boyfriend.”

  “I would.”

  We did kiss in the woods. And we shared more kisses since then. Like the one yesterday as he crushed me against my front door and knotted his fingers in my hair and my body became a furnace and my legs became so weak I nearly slid down to his feet. I was lost for a second in the memory of his mouth on mine.

  Salem’s voice broke through that, “You wouldn’t share him with me, would you?”

  “No!” A fierce possessiveness stabbed through my body and the material of the cushion in my lap strained against my fists.

  “Calm down, it wasn’t a suggestion. I was just making a point. We don’t share everything anymore.”

  It was true. Salem and I had grown up. We were no longer joined at the hip, no longer mirror-dressing shadows of each other. We had grown apart, into two adults, with two lives and…our own sets of secrets.

  “You gonna tell me about him or what?”

  I had wanted to tell Salem all about Clay since I met him. I ached to tell her. I dreamed of sharing my growing happiness with her. But now that she was here right in front of me, I felt…hesitant. And I wasn’t sure why.

  “His name is Clay. Clay Jagger.” I paused.

  What was wrong with me? This was Salem, my sister, my twin, my soulmate, the other half of my soul. I could tell her anything.

  I used to tell her everything.

  A lot had happened in three years. People can change in three years.

  “Is that it?” She leaned back to study me. “All I get is a name?”

  I shuffled on the couch. It suddenly came to me, the reason why I didn’t want to talk about him. He was mine. He was the first thing I cared about in my life that I wouldn’t share with her. When it came to Clay and me, Salem was on the outside. And I knew she would hate that. “What do you want to know?” I asked, just to stall.

  “Is he good to you?”

  “He’s wonderful.”

  “So far.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugged. “What’s Mr Wonderful like? Apart from, obviously, wonderful.”

  This was ridiculous. This was Salem. I could tell Salem all about Clay and she’d be happy for me if he made me happy. I forced myself to speak, “He’s…very sure of himself. In fact, apart from you he’s the most confident person I know. He’s a deeply passionate person, which can get intense sometimes. Too intense for some people but for me, it’s perfect. He has a killer sense of humour. He makes me laugh all the time. And…” It struck me that I could have been talking about Salem. I felt lightheaded all of a sudden. Wasn’t that so funny, that Clay and Salem were so alike.

  “And?”

  “Oh, um. And he likes to play games.”

  “Games?” Salem gave me a look.

  I flushed. “Not like that, not kinky games if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Since when do you know what I’m thinking anymore?”

  Touché. “I mean, silly games, word games,
little competitions.”

  “Like we used to play.” Was it just me or did Salem’s voice tighten?

  I brushed this off. “He…he makes rash decisions. Impulsive. But when he wants something, when he really wants something, he won’t stop…” I swallowed hard, “until he gets it.” Like he did with me.

  “Sounds like a keeper.”

  “He is.”

  “Do you love him?”

  I laughed because my nerves jangled. “You can’t ask me that.”

  “I just did.”

  “What does love even mean?”

  “It means…that it doesn’t matter what they have or haven’t done, who they are or aren’t, you’ll be there for them anyway.”

  Like Salem. She loved me. And I loved her.

  But she wanted to know if I loved someone else other than her.

  I studied her face, searching for the repressed jealousy, the buried accusation that I may have found myself someone like her to replace her, the hidden anger that I may have made something of a life for myself without her. I couldn’t see it. At least, I didn’t think I could see it.

  “He’s someone I could love,” I said truthfully.

  She cracked a half-smile in the ‘I care, but not so much that it’s uncool’ way that she had perfected. “Good for you.”

  I let out a soft sigh of relief. She wasn’t mad. She didn’t hate me.

  I reached out, taking my cup in my hands and sipped, tasting warm sweet milk with a hint of coffee. I didn’t know how Salem could drink hers black. I glanced at her cup still sitting there. She hadn’t even touched it.

  “You gonna invite me to stay or what?”

  “Here? But I only have one bed.”

  “We used to share a bed.”

  “I know…” But that was years ago when we were just kids.

  “You don’t want me to stay?”

  “No, it’s not that…”

  “Spit it out. What’s your deal?”

  “Are you…? Are the police…?”

  She scowled and a familiar darkness clouded her face. I hated when her face would look like that. “Nobody’s going to come busting in here into your perfect little world, if that’s what you’re worried about.” There it was again. The hint of bitterness in her words. The shard in her tone. Or was I just being paranoid?

  “My life’s not perfect.”

  “Nice place, wonderful boyfriend, decent job…looks pretty perfect from where I’m sitting.”

  “I’m not worried about the police. I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “How could I not? Salem,” now my voice was rising, “you ran away, no note, no goodbyes, nothing.”

  Her voice became hard like bullets. “There were some extenuating circumstances, if you remember?”

  Pieces of that night flashed across the backs of my eyes and I flinched. I remembered. I didn’t want to, but I remembered. How could I ever forget that night? “But you disappeared for three years. I looked for you for three years, chasing after you for three years. Now you just knock on my door and waltz back into my life, no explanations and expect me to just accept it?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m asking you to do.” She stared levelly back at me, the air between us buzzing like an angry cloud of wasps.

  I let out a long slow breath, my frustration leaking out. Salem never withheld anything from me before. “Don’t I deserve some answers?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

  “No.” I grabbed her arm, stopping her from standing. Maybe I was being too hard on her too soon. Maybe she just needed time before she told me what she’d been doing all these years, and what she was hiding. I just needed to give her time. “Stay.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”

  “You wouldn’t. I want you to stay.”

  She inhaled then exhaled slowly. “I suppose I could stay for just a little while.”

  I almost laughed. Somehow in the space of thirty seconds she had gone from asking me for a favour to making me feel like she was doing me a favour. Some things never changed.

  “I’ll go make some space in the cupboards for you.” I eyed her duffel bag. “Is that all you have?”

  “It’s all I need.”

  I stood up but this time she grabbed my arm before I could walk away. She stood, facing me, her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t be thinking of…turning me in, would you?”

  “How could you even think that?”

  “I notice you haven’t denied it.”

  I yanked my arm from her grip and faced her front-on so she could see me. Here I am Salem. I’m the same girl you left behind. I’m not hiding anything. You are. “I’m not going to turn you in. I’m insulted you’d even suggest it. But if you think I will, then you should go. The door’s right there.”

  She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. I recognised the mild surprised on her face at the way I stepped up to her challenge. “You’ve changed, sis,” she said softly.

  Maybe I wasn’t the same girl she left behind. “You haven’t.”

  * * *

  When I left for work later that morning I was surprised to see that Clay wasn’t waiting for me as usual until I remembered that he said he had a deadline. I felt partly naked as I walked without him at my side. But I almost didn’t mind today. I missed him, yes, the way I always missed him when he wasn’t around. But today I was almost glad to walk alone to work. Alone with my thoughts, alone with my delirious knowledge that Salem was back.

  Salem was back.

  My other half was back. I couldn’t help the lightness in my step.

  “Damn, girl,” Flick said, as I strode through her boutique to the back room to drop off my bag, “are you actually smiling?”

  I grinned, showing my teeth.

  “Oh my God,” Flick’s mouth dropped open.

  “What?” I glanced around me looking for her source of shock. When I looked back at her she was staring at me.

  “You got laid last night.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Trust you to go straight to sex.”

  Flick grabbed my arm. “Spill it. And don’t leave out a single sordid detail.”

  I couldn’t help the bubble of happiness that tumbled around inside me. “Oh Flick, everything is just perfect.”

  Just perfect.

  I had my sister back, after three years of being apart. And I had Clay, the most wonderful man in the world.

  Everything was just perfect.

  * * *

  “Hey, sis,” Salem called to me from the bedroom after I had gotten home from work that evening. My stomach fluttered with butterflies at the sound of her voice. My sister was here waiting for me.

  I called back a greeting as I locked the door behind me. Before I took two steps in, my eyes rested on the coffee mug in the living room. It was her coffee mug from this morning. She hadn’t even bothered to even take it to the sink.

  I walked over to it and saw it was still filled to the brim, now cold. She hadn’t even taken one sip of it even after I had left the house, late because I had been making space for her in my room.

  I wouldn’t clean up after her. She was an adult now. I left the cup even though it nagged at my consciousness, and I walked to the open doorway to my bedroom − our bedroom. She was lying on her stomach on the bed reading a magazine. I spotted her duffel bag still on the chair, unopened, unpacked, exactly where I had placed it up out of the way this morning before I ran out for work. She hadn’t even bothered to unpack. What the hell had she been doing all day?

  A roll of agitation went through me. I opened my mouth to say something but… I snapped it shut and spun, walking into the living room instead. I couldn’t get mad at her the very first day she was back. It was her first day back. So what if she didn’t tidy up her cup. Or unpack. Right?

  “How was work?” she called from the room. “Sell any plastic dicks today?”

  “Work wa
s fine,” I called back to her, dropping onto the couch and leaning back against the cushions, my irritation easing. It was good to hear her voice again. It was good to have her to come home to again, to tell her everything about my day again. I shouldn’t be getting annoyed at her. “We had a girl in who couldn’t get her vibrator to work so I had to lend her a hand, pardon my pun. It got a bit messy. But all in all, a good day’s work.”

  She appeared from the corridor. “You what?”

  “Kidding,” I sang out. I noticed her peering at me strangely. “What?”

  “You’ve developed a sense of humour.”

  I snorted. “Gee, thanks.”

  “And a bit of a backbone. Nice work, Rosey.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Trust you to make a compliment sound exactly like it’s not.”

  There was a hard glint to her eyes. “So this is loverboy’s influence, is it?”

  My cheeks warmed as Clay’s face came to mind. A giggle bubbled up out of me as I thought of the last few months that I had known him. “Yeah,” I said around a breath, “I guess so.”

  * * *

  Later that night, Salem and I stood in my room staring at the double bed that we would share.

  “Which side are you going to take?” I asked her.

  She nodded to the far side of the bed where my mobile phone charger and side lamp sat. “Your shit is on that side so I guess I’ll take this one. Nearest the door. That was my usual spot, wasn’t it?”

  My body turned cold. All that old guilt, cold and weathered with age, began to seep back in. “I can take this side if you−”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She shrugged as if it was nothing, but she didn’t meet my eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

  We changed into bedclothes in silence. I couldn’t help but sneak glances at her out of the corner of my eye. Her body had grown into a woman’s body, just like mine: modest breasts, slim hips and legs, auburn hair between her legs.

  It surprised me that she hadn’t gotten any tattoos or piercings. For some reason I had always expected that she would go down that route. She had always been the more rebellious one. Then again, Salem was never one for standard acts of defiance. She would more likely not get tattoos because everyone else was doing it.