The Invisible Twin

 This is the prologue of the novel I'm currently working on. Let me know what you think.

1983

            The 1980s. It felt like a new beginning to some, coming out of the chaos that the 1970s had felt like. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the choices of the grownups: The Iron Lady and the Cowboy/Actor.

            But to the youth of the time, music told the tale. Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, Genesis, Wham, Flock of Seagulls, Bryan Ferry, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, and the like breathed something different to a new generation. Even older rockers, like The Who appeared to have seen a new day.

            Boys wearing guy-liner, girls in leg warmers and shoulder pads, all of them sporting big hair held in place with hairspray, danced with abandon to a new age of pop music and pop culture.

            The Evans twins, Brynn and Christopher turned 15 at the beginning of the decade. Their older sister, Amanda was months away from entering Uni, and all was right with the world. The fact that they were twins may have had a small bit to do with their popularity – at least Kit believed that about himself. The boys were about to enter sixth form the following school year, and two years of prep for Uni themselves.

            Identical twins, but not identical in personality: Brynn was good at sports and played on the school’s football team – what the Americans called soccer. Kit spent his spare time with his guitar, singing, and learning the songs from the radio.

            While Kit’s friends were mainly from the music and theatre people at school, Brynn’s were more likely to be athletes, although neither was exclusive to those groups, and their closest friends mingled in both. Brynn could usually coax Kit into going to parties or simply hanging about with his set. But Kit never tried to convince himself that he was any sort of athlete.

            Kit saw Brynn as the talented one: the athletic one, who painted amazing watercolors, wrote prolifically – although Kit’s written work, when he got around to it, was far better technically – and made friends as easily as smiling. Kit, on the other hand, tended to be shy around people he didn’t know well, unless he had guitar in hand and a microphone in front of him. He could be found more often engrossed in a book, albeit up in a tree, than getting up to some of the antics of his brother.

            It was surprising that now, two and a half years later, the nearly 18-year-olds were headed to a party given by Kit’s theatre friends on a Friday night in early March, one where Brynn would be the relative stranger.

            Brynn and Kit were in high spirits. The party had been discussed for weeks among their friends in anticipation. As usual, Brynn joked and made witty comments about their friends. He was never mean. The subjects of his comments would laugh at what he had to say as much as Kit did.

            Kit ran a hand through his dark brown hair, and it flopped on his forehead. Brynn didn’t dare touch his own hair. He wore it sprayed as many of the pop stars did. It wasn’t unusual in 1983 for boys to use hairspray. Kit often did the same, but he’d been running late, and didn’t have the time to get it just so. Besides, he’d heard a certain young lady at the party liked the look of his deep blue eyes looking out from under his tousled feathered haircut.

Looking good for the ladies might be the goal of the evening, but both boys had plans for university in another few years.

            “Your turn is two streets up,” Kit said.

            “Great,” Brynn replied, continuing along the main street.

            Oddly, considering Brynn was the more outgoing of the two – the first born – Kit knew more of the people who would be at the party than Brynn did. But Brynn wouldn’t be a stranger by any means.

            All of the side streets had stop signs, so it was a clear run to the street where they needed to turn. As they started across the one before it, another car raced toward the intersection. The lights caught Kit’s attention.

            “Brynn, watch out!”

            Brynn turned his head and slammed on the brakes a second too late. The other car, ignoring the stop sign, slammed into the driver’s side of the car, slamming it into a light pole that hit just forward of Kit’s door.

            “Brynn!” Kit said. He started to reach toward his brother, but pain in his side and his arm made his breath catch.

            He didn’t like the angle of his brother’s head. Something looked off. He waited for Brynn to make noise, shake himself, or groan, at least.

            No sound came. Kit was afraid to move, not wanting the pain, not knowing what else might be wrong.

            “Brynn!”

           

            Brynn!” His shout turned into a howl as he sat bolt upright in bed.

            The bedroom door opened, and his grandfather entered. He grabbed Kit, who stared into the darkness like one blind, and gradually calmed him down. He sat on the side of the bed stroking the boy’s hair.

            “Is he all right?” the boy’s grandmother asked from the doorway.

            “Nightmare again,” her husband replied.

            He knew well the effects of PTSD – battle fatigue they called it when he was in the war.

            “It’s all right, boy,” his grandfather said gently.

            “It was the accident again?” his grandmother asked. Her husband nodded.

            Mr. Evans was good at getting his grandson calmed enough to sleep. His wife left him to it.

 

            “This was the first one in a long while,” Mrs. Evans said when her husband returned to their bedroom.

            “I was hoping it had stopped for good. I can’t imagine how he’ll get on at university with this still lingering. It would drive any roommate mad.”

            “He still has a few months before he has to decide. And another year wouldn’t hurt.”

            “He’s been anxious to go. I think even suggesting he wait another year would hurt him. We’ll have to see what his doctor recommends.”

            The conversation was put to rest for the night. The morning always made things easier to decide.

What Do You Do in Your Spare Time?

 

Not long ago, one of the kids I work with was telling me about something he recently got. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was talking about, so I asked what it was.

“It’s for my Nintendo,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t have one of those,” I replied.

“You don’t? What do you do in your spare time?”

What do I do? How long have you got?

He was about eight or nine. I thought about what I did at his age.

Of course, having grown up in the Pleistocene Era, we didn’t have the electronics children have today. (Just the other week I had to explain to another child what that curly cord thing was on a phone in a picture.) “Operation” was about the most electronic game anyone had, and I was pretty sure this boy didn’t have the fine motor coordination to play that. But I didn’t have one of those, either.

Electronics and mechanical devices didn’t interest me. I used to ask for “dolls that didn’t do anything.” The only exception was Chatty Cathy, but my dad said we had one, so I didn’t get that, either.

When I was a child, I spent every available moment outside, as long as it wasn’t raining.

What did I do? I rode my bike, roller skated, ice skated, climbed trees, or played on my swings, sliding board or sandbox; jumped rope, played hopscotch, tag or hide and seek.

In summer, if I wasn’t in someone’s pool, I was probably swimming in the creek (called “the crick” where I grew up), hunting for frogs and tadpoles with my brother, hiking in the woods, picking blackberries, or inventing adventures in our tree fort. If it rained, I read, colored or played with my dolls.

These things are beyond imagining to the sedentary Nintendo generation. Of course, they were raised to fear being taken by a stranger – or even a non-custodial parent – not to mention they often don’t have quiet streets to play on, or woods to wander in. And if they do, they have to worry about predators in those woods. The worst we had to worry about was poison ivy or whether or not that snake was poisonous.

I remember waiting my entire childhood for the much-warned-about stranger in the shiny black car to drive up and ask if I wanted to go for a ride so I could scream, “No!” and run away. I never knew the real predators were likely to be people you knew.

I feel sorry for today’s kids. With all of their technology, they’re often “bored.”

I think their bodies are bored, craving the kind of movement my generation took for granted.

But what do I do in my spare time now? I read, or write stories. In nice weather I ride my bike. On snowy days I shovel a path for the dog to be able to get out of the house. I know, that’s not a fun leisure time activity, but I don’t mind it in small doses. I certainly don’t count doing housework as leisure time.

During pandemic lockdown, many things I once did have been curtailed.

Movie theaters are closed.

A day at the Renaissance Faire isn’t a possibility because it’s closed. Ye Olde Social Distancing isn’t possible in the crowds watching jousts, living chessboards and “Shakespeare, Bloody Shakespeare.”

Steak on a Stake, Nachos of Nottingham, and tiny shops selling everything from swords to hand-made jewelry and leather armour don’t have the capacity for social distancing. Six feet distance would put you in the next shop.

Of course, the pandemic could lead to a new feature at the Renn Faire: the peasant pulling a cart and shouting, “Bring out your dead!” for those who don’t follow distancing and mask requirements.

Having lunch with a friend in a restaurant, or even wandering at will at the local shopping mall is difficult if not impossible – or at least unsafe.

Being a bit of an introvert, I didn’t have much difficulty adjusting to lockdown. I have a pool in my back yard, and spent most of last summer in it.

I also rode my bike both for enjoyment and exercise. I can ride quite alone, without coming into contact with anyone. The greatest trial last year for me was when my bike was in the shop for a month getting the derailleur fixed.

The negative for me is that many things I could do in my spare time that would be enjoyable and good for my health aren’t available to me because of the pandemic.

Gyms and other forms of workout are either closed or have limited access that I still find too risky, even after my second dose of the vaccine.

My favorite activity is traveling. I’ve already had travel plans cancelled with no idea when I might be able to reschedule.

What I do in my spare time, especially in the winter, has become more sedentary. I read. I write stories. I spend less time on Facebook probably because my non-spare-time (work) is spent online. As an OT, I’m very much hands-on, and being forced to proceed virtually is making me look forward to retirement.

Recently, I reconnected my Wii Fit, my most techy “toy,” to try to undo the effects of the forced sedentary lifestyle. It welcomed me back after 1287 days. I was touched. It had not only kept track, it was pining for my return!

Maybe I do understand that student’s excitement over his Nintendo, after all!

 

A Day at the Beach

 

A huge wave washed over him, tumbling him down. He popped up above the water in its aftermath, laughing for sheer joy. He hadn’t experienced sheer joy in some time. His being began to breathe.

Sunlight danced over him. He knew, no matter what precautions he took, he’d likely be burned by the end of the day. The fair-skinned boy wouldn’t take cover under a beach umbrella. He preferred to play in the water, jumping in the waves.

He hadn’t been a boy in years. Still a young man, tenuously hanging onto the “young” portion of the phrase, he didn’t care what people thought of a lone wolf playing in the waves.

His wife, Lily, and her friend, Rose, sat on beach chairs under the umbrella and talked about life, their children, whatever else it was women discussed when they hadn’t seen one another in some time. Lily had craved feminine companionship, and he had nothing to contribute to the conversation, so he braved an ocean they thought too cold and too rough. Away from the cares and worries of the workday, he could believe he was a lad again.

The ladies had stood at the edge of the shore letting end waves lap their feet and ankles, spraying wet sand onto their legs and swim suits, their feet sinking deeper each time into the sand. An occasional bolder wave would catch them off guard and unbalance them. Once, Rose fell, and the undertow pulled her out a few feet, where gravelly sand and broken shells formed a barrier between the shoreline and the softer sand under water. Another wave battered her before she regained her footing, and she nearly lost the oversized sunglasses that both protected her eyes from the sun and kept others from fully reading her expression.

That was when the ladies had retreated to the safety of the beach chairs. Liam had been farther out in the water when Rose toppled over, and he couldn’t reach her in time to help. A wave hit him in the back of the head as he tried to reach Rose, and he was sucked under and pulled back out. Unhurt, he emerged above the surface again, but the girls were gone.

Liam returned his attention to the ocean, letting the ladies tend to themselves. Off in the distance, a tourist cruise ship floated across the horizon. Closer to the shore, children and teens with boogie boards tried to anticipate the breaking waves to ride in to the beach. Liam tried to avoid the sections where the boogie boarders were, and felt much like a child himself as he jumped and dodged.

He tried to keep himself between two life guard towers so he wouldn’t drift too far down shore from where the women had set up the three chairs. He chuckled to himself about the chairs. He wasn’t one to sit on the beach when there was a perfectly good ocean to splash in. Perhaps the fact that he’d been a teenager before he’d ever set foot in an ocean caused him to have little appreciation for hot sand.

His childhood memories did not include building sand castles and filling their moats with buckets of water. He hadn’t spent hours being buried or burying friends in the sand, leaving only the head free.

His only attempt at lying on the beach for a suntan had resulted in sun poisoning with its contingent of large and small blisters rupturing, sending trickles of water down his back. He had spent sleepless nights in pain, feeling as if his skin would rip. When his skin had finally molted, the new skin was patterned with freckles.

Although his wife and her friend sat under a large beach umbrella, he couldn’t imagine they were comfortable. Between the sand, and the sun beating on the umbrella, they essentially baked as they enmeshed themselves in girl talk.

Once, when he turned back toward the beach, he saw Lily and Rose standing at the water’s edge, bending to scoop water onto their arms. It made him think of something his mother had one cold him about macaroni: after it was finished cooking, she had to rinse it with cold water to get rid of the extra starch and stop the cooking process. He thought it was representative of what the ladies were doing. Their smiles indicated their previous solemn conversation had ended.

Liam dutifully approached them.

“Coming in?” he asked.

“It’s still rough, although it’s not as cold as it was before,” Rose said. Lily looked like she wanted to move farther in.

“Once you’re in it, it doesn’t feel cold at all. It’s quite refreshing,” Liam replied.

They smiled as if to say, “Foolish boy,” but Lily’s smile carried a tinge of regret.

Standing a little farther into the water, Liam felt the pull of the undertow, and had to work to maintain his balance. As Rose resumed her conversation with Lily, Liam felt as if he’d been dismissed. He dove into a wave and let the undertow carry him back out to where he’d been before. When he looked back, the ladies had once again retreated to their chairs.

Left alone in a thin crowd of wave seekers, Liam watched the low-flying planes trailing advertisement banners move above the area. He didn’t care what they advertised; they were part of the experience of the shore in this part of the world. He’d been to the Mediterranean once but it hadn’t dawned on him until he returned that the “missing piece” he’d felt while there was due to a lack of advertisement planes.

The waves came in farther and higher now as the tide began to come in. The beach rose steeply from the water line to the part where the sunbathers sat. Now, waves that had slowly crept up the incline before were breaking over the top, sending rivulets under feet and between chairs. Few of the water-lovers were out much beyond the gravel line.

He looked up at the blue of the sky whose only clouds were the thin contrails of passing jets. The sun was farther west, and the lifeguards were beginning to pack up their gear.

He decided the women would likely want to leave sometime soon. Liam turned to let the waves wash him shoreward, and saw Rose and Lily standing and chatting in ankle deep waves. He continued to wash in. When he reached the gravel line he stood – or tried to. A large wave crashed into him, sending him sprawling. The resulting undertow dragged him along the sand, back into the water. He laughed and stood, going out a little farther to rinse off the sand, then returned. The ladies were splashing themselves with the sandy water washing up in the shallows. He couldn’t imagine how that did anything but coat them with sand.

He stood with them for a few moments, waiting for an opening in the conversation. Rose’s grandson had evidently been getting up to some antics last time she saw him, as three-year-olds do, and her youngest son, Jim, was still a worry.

“You know, Jim  needs to start getting more responsible,” she said. “Glenn is a constant worry with his health, and I need to know someone will take care of Glenn and me in our old age. Let’s face it, we’re getting old.”

Old age! Liam was the same age as Lily and Rose, and he certainly didn’t feel or think of himself as old. He didn’t intend to worry about someone taking care of him. He’d take care of himself and live his life until old age snuck up and sabotaged him. Until that time, he would act and do and live his life as independently as he ever had. Life was what you made it, and he didn’t intend to make it a long, slow process of dying. It pained him to see Lily nodding her head in agreement with Rose.

Did she feel old? Was she looking for a caretaker in their son? Liam didn’t believe that was Dylan’s purpose in life. He had his own hopes and dreams. He didn’t need his parents to become an albatross.

“Have you had enough of swimming?” Lily asked.

“That will never happen, but I am hungry,” he replied.

The ladies nodded and Rose mentioned a place she knew on the island that had marvelous food. They trudged up the incline to where their chairs waited under a multicolor umbrella along the flat, level expanse of sand embedded with shell shards.

Rose and Lily only had their hands and legs to dry. As Liam ruffled his towel over his hair and face, he felt the sting of sunburn on his cheeks. He dried off, draped the towel over his shoulders and folded the chair he hadn’t used. Once the girls had folded towels and chairs, put towels, hats and cell phones in beach bags and closed the umbrella, the threesome marched up the beach to the road.

A bench at the entrance to the beach allowed them to sit and dry the remnants of sand and surf from their feet before they put on flip flops and headed to the beach house.

Rose’s house was lovely, more so since the post-hurricane renovations. Each year she invited them for a weekend. Often others who had also gone to school with them would come. This year the others couldn’t make it, and Liam felt more of a fifth wheel. Even though the others were also women, usually one or other tempered the conversations so they didn’t all sound like doom and gloom prognosticators of imminent old age. Perhaps next year, if the others didn’t come, Liam would suggest Lily go on her own for a ladies’ weekend with Rose.

Once they had all showered and changed, they went to the restaurant. Liam enjoyed the beachy feel of the place. Since it was walking distance from the house, they didn’t need to drive. That meant they were all able to order drinks.

Rose realized Liam had not been part of the conversation all afternoon, and tried to turn it to subjects in which he might participate. Rose was a good hostess, despite the fact that she constantly denigrated her abilities as being disorganized.

Liam didn’t really mind being left out of the conversation most of the time. The girls were fast friends who seldom got to see each other, and he didn’t want to interrupt their catching up.  Over crab cakes and baked potatoes, Rose asked Liam about what he’d been doing since she saw him last.

“I finally published that book last year, and I’m waiting for my artist friend to finish the cover for one from a different series.”

“Are you writing anything now?”

“I’m between things. I’ve been trying my hand at short stories based on prompts I found on a website. It’s kind of fun. If a prompt doesn’t speak to me, I let that one go and wait for the next week’s prompt.”

“Do you enter them in a contest or anything?”

“No, I usually don’t find inspiration before the deadlines. If something looks like my kind of prompt but I don’t have an idea at the moment, I write the prompt in a notebook I just started keeping. Maybe at some other time I’ll have an idea for it.”

He stopped, noticing the absence in her eyes. She wanted to chat with him for a moment or two, but she wasn’t a writer, and didn’t know how to maintain interest in something so foreign to her sensibilities. He understood. He could go on for hours about writing or about his characters, and it usually bored most people to tears. Lily often reminded him not to go on and on about it before they went anywhere.

He’d kept it brief, he hoped. He’d participated. Now it was someone else’s turn.

The conversation turned to Rose’s husband and inevitably, to his health. The last time Liam had seen Glenn, he seemed all right. Glenn spent a fair amount of his time discussing his health issues.  Liam would attempt to turn the conversation to something else, but inevitably it returned to Glenn’s health. That was often because Liam had touched on an interest Glenn could no longer participate in because his vision was “off” as he put it. Sometimes the discussion involved food, which would also return the conversation to health issues. Glenn was diabetic.

Liam never noticed until he was with the “flower girls” – Lily, Rose and their other childhood friend, Heather – that he enjoyed exceptionally good health. He hoped that wasn’t a portent to a sudden death at an early age. He never entertained such thoughts unless he was among the flowers.

After dinner the ladies lingered over coffee. Liam lingered over a glass of wine. Usually the designated driver, he often had to forego the drinks. Tonight he was in a position to enjoy.

He was actually enjoying his third glass of wine, the ladies’ conversation swirling around his head like a fine piece of music: one he knew well, but didn’t have to pay close attention to. It crossed his mind briefly that he might embarrass himself by staggering on the way home. He didn’t think he was that far gone, though.

The waiter fluttered around them, offering the check, asking if there was anything else they wanted, as if he were in a great hurry to see them gone. There was no reason.  No crowd waited for seats, and there were a few hours until closing. Besides, they were still finishing their drinks.

Liam studied the check and pulled a credit card out of his wallet. He left the card sticking partly out of the check wallet at the edge of the table. The waiter swooped in to take care of it, and was back moments later with the receipt for Liam to sign. Liam scrolled his signature, and contrary to what the waiter deserved for trying to hurry them on their way, left a generous tip, closed the folder and ignored it at the edge of the table as he enjoyed his remaining wine.

Rose noticed the exchange between the waiter and Liam.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked.

“Don’t be absurd. You’re putting us up for the weekend. This is the least I can do.

She had the grace not to argue. This was the dance they did every year.

When they had finished, they strolled down the main street, a cool breeze making the evening pleasant. A fair number of people congregated at the ice cream stands and candy shops. A surprising number of people, both teens and adults, rode bicycles in the semi-darkness.

Liam would have enjoyed a stroll on the beach at the water’s edge, but he knew what sort of response that suggestion would get. He contented himself with the walk back to Rose’s house.

They played a board game when they arrived at the house. There was an unwritten rule whenever they visited that computers and televisions were off limits. Weekends at the shore were disconnect weekends. Even mobile phones were only to be checked once or twice in a day.

The game, Trivial Pursuit, brought groans as well as gales of laughter. The three acknowledged one another’s areas of expertise and their own weaknesses. It took well over an hour before Lily won the game.

They went to bed after that, having made sketchy plans about what they would do the next day before they left for home.

“That was very nice of you to pay for dinner,” Lily said as they undressed.

“What else would I do?”

“Did you have a good time today?”

“I did,” Liam said. “I was surprised the two of you didn’t get into the water. You usually do.”

“I would like to have gone in, but Rose kept saying it was too cold and too rough. Of course, I imagine she has lots of opportunities to swim in the ocean, so it’s not a big deal for her.”

“All that old talk,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Since when are any of us old?”

“I suppose because Glenn has so many health issues, she feels more in touch with reality. He’s a bit older than we are. And they married younger,” Lily said. “I hope you don’t mind that she and I chatted so much.”

They climbed into bed and he kissed her.

“Not at all. We don’t see her that often. The two of you need to catch up.”

“It’s a shame Heather couldn’t come this time.”

“Mm,” he said, sleep weighting his eyes and turning his mind to mush.

In the morning they’d dawdle over breakfast, and take a walk out by the lighthouse before packing the car for the drive home. There would be the usual round of pictures to document this year’s get-together, promises made to have an outing before next summer that would never come to fruition, and Liam and Lily would be off, warm in the afterglow of a pleasant change from the weekend as usual.