The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

Guy’s apartment. Maybe there’d been many women here. But then I’d had other boyfriends too. Hey, who was I to have a double standard? Then it occurred to me that everything had happened so quickly I hadn’t even thought about Guy’s family. I hadn’t been a part of a normal family life for years. In fact, I was so used to being alone I assumed everyone else was free of all ties like me. There was nobody left in the world that gave a damn about me. Dennis was long gone and Birdie was lost.

I was sure Guy’s hand trembled when I told him his father called. He slung his briefcase down and poured a large glass of wine. When he sat on the sofa, he glared at the crushed rug that still bore the evidence of my snow angel antics. His brow knit for a brief moment.

“He asked if I was the cleaner.”

“Sorry he can be a bit undiplomatic at times,” he said, gulping down the Pinot and wiping a hand across his mouth.

“You mean he’s a dick?”

“Whoah!” He frowned and smiled at the same time. “I get on with him well enough but he has his flaws.”

“Doesn’t everyone? Do you see him much?”

He leaned an elbow on the sofa arm and propped his head on his hand to direct a weary expression my way. “Okay. Since we’re living together, I guess you should know something about my parents.”

A slight fluttering of panic whirred in my ears, a hangover from childhood and too many foster homes that seemed perfect the first few days but then the world tilted and turned upside down and they became scary, nightmare places once the doors were closed, the curtains drawn and the social workers safely back in their offices.

Guy reached over, touched my hand and laughed. “I scared you. It’s nothing bad. It’s just that we’re more than a family, we’re a business as well.”

“Like one of those soap operas,” I said, thinking of last year when I’d sworn off guys and gotten into the habit of binge-watching The Young and the Restless. “The overbearing patriarch or matriarch and the gaggle of beautiful but parasitic children fighting for Daddy’s attention and a share of the family fortune.”

I regretted the words as soon as I’d uttered them. He almost choked on his wine.

“You’re so brutally honest. That’s why I like you so much,” he said, stroking my arm. “Dad – or Gord as he likes me to address him – is the prolific author of multiple textbooks on educational methodology, now standard reading in university faculties all over the world. He’s a consultant to government and business, a keynote speaker with a year-long waiting list, and now he’s developed a series of remedial software that’s taken off beyond his wildest dreams. In other words, he’s a driving force in the field of education.”

“And you’re following in his footsteps?”

“I’m the heir apparent.”

“You like that?”

He sat back and surveyed the glossy room with its designer lighting and polished surfaces. “I like this,” he said with emphasis. “You don’t get this on a prof’s salary.”

“He wants you to call him. He said ASAP.”

He plunked the wine glass on the table, spilling a little over the side. “Guess I’d better do that then.”

I could hear the low murmur of his voice from the bedroom where he’d taken the phone. It was strange he hadn’t talked about his mom. I made a point to ask him about her. ASAP. His dad, Gord, had talked in clipped tones as if reading the contents of a memo. Suddenly, I was sober. The heady buzz of the wine had receded into a dull headache and I remembered I had to be up early for a staff meeting the next day.

On the way to the bedroom I stopped at the windows and looked down at the city spread out below, twinkling like a field of stars. Beyond the magic of brightly lit shopping areas and glossy skyscrapers was the black gleam of the Mississippi River, snaking its way round shadowy, deserted banks and side streets where faceless men in dark cars cruised back and forth preying on the young and lost and vulnerable who’d trade their bodies for money.

Shivering, I went into the bedroom where Guy had fallen asleep, the phone still clutched in his hand. I covered him with a blanket and tucked myself in beside him, trying hard to forget the sick sense of fear that always crept in with memories of the past.

6

Birdie had been my sister, my confidante, my other self, my all.

She could feel what I was feeling and I could sense her every change in mood. It was all down to twin telepathy. I’d done some reading on that phenomenon. Hard-line scientists liked to dismiss it as merely anecdotal. No proof that it exists. Others were more open to the idea. They described it as a kind of coupled consciousness that is particularly strong in identical twins.

Birdie and I were fraternal twins but one study I read claimed that female fraternal twins have almost as close a bond as identical girl twins. I believed it. We’d spent nine months next to each other in the womb, our cells budding, then dividing at the same pace. Breathing in unison like two tiny frogs, our limbs brushing against each other, separated only by the membrane of our own amniotic sacs. This absolute closeness meant that once we wormed our way into the outside world, we were still interconnected, no matter how far apart we were. If Birdie’s electrons spun, mine did too. It was known as a field of interconnection. Crazy stuff, but I happened to believe it.

After she was gone, I’d been pretty much a loner. No close friends or confidantes. Plenty of drinking buddies and party pals, but no intimacy. No ties. That’s why I preferred eating lunch alone in my classroom. Mainly to get away from Sabrina, Daphne and the gossip crew that met every