3

 

The door to Randy’s house was opened by Andy.

I haven’t mentioned her, have I?

Andrea was Randy’s fraternal twin, and so inevitably everyone called her Andy. When they were growing up, they seemed inseparable—in some ways almost uncannily so. Everyone knows how close twins are—intellectually, emotionally, psychically—but Randy and Andy carried their similarities to unusual lengths. Let me be clear that Andy wasn’t in any sense a tomboy: as a little girl she was radiant, wide-eyed, and doll-like, and she matured into a young woman whose beauty of face and figure would have attracted men of every stripe; but she seemed intent on restricting her interest and devotion to her twin brother.

And that’s why it cut her to the quick when, as they both entered puberty, Randy began to show a transparent and at times cruel discomfort with and contempt for Andy, finding her constant presence a nuisance as he sought to emphasize his nascent manliness by hanging out with his male friends and eyeing the girls in school (including myself) with unabashed carnal desire. It was probably more than just this painful rejection by her twin that caused the emotional problems she subsequently suffered, but the upshot of it was that her schoolwork suffered so much that she was “held back” a grade, falling a full year behind Randy.

In high school, when I paid attention to her at all, I found her a strangely disturbing and unwelcome presence—a female echo of the man/boy who had chosen me for his sexual attentions. In spite of the emotional distance he attempted to establish between himself and her, they still seemed unnaturally close—rather like two facets of a single personality. Incredible as it may seem, she and I hardly spoke more than a few sentences to each other in all the two years that Randy and I were involved. Part of that had to do with the fact that he and I spent most of our time at my house, when we weren’t out on the town. His own parents—stern, humorless, God-fearing folk—made their disapproval of our involvement abundantly plain; but so long as our shenanigans weren’t occurring under their roof, they didn’t seem overly concerned.

So it didn’t entirely surprise me to see that Andy had, by default, now insinuated herself back into Randy’s life. No doubt she had finished high school in as undistinguished a manner as she had entered it, and now that the major obstacle between her twin and herself—me—was out of the picture, she could re-ingratiate herself into Randy’s affections. I don’t mean to suggest there was anything calculated in all this; she was too naive for that. It was just that she couldn’t imagine any kind of life that didn’t involve her brother at the center of it.

When she saw me standing at her doorstep, her eyes widened momentarily in surprise and alarm, then returned to their habitual cowlike placidity. She may have been taken aback at seeing me, but I suspect she felt (correctly) that I was in no way a threat to take Randy away from her again. Seeing her at the door, I thought she seemed more like Randy’s young wife than his twin sister.

“Alison!” she said. “It’s good to see you.” After a pause she added ingeniously and without malice, “I didn’t think you’d ever come back here.”

“I didn’t think I would either,” I said frankly. “But this is the first chance I’ve had to see my mom after…what happened to my dad.”

She bowed her head mechanically in respect and said, “I’m sorry about that.” It was as if she felt some personal responsibility for my father’s passing.

“Thank you,” I said. “Is Randy here?”

“Yes. Yes, of course he is.”

And she opened the door more widely and let me in.

Their house was small and, to put a kind spin on it, cozy: a living room with obviously used and somewhat woebegone furniture, a dining room that scarcely had room for a square table that could seat no more than four people, and a kitchen that seemed right out of the 1950s. It seemed to have only one bedroom, and a shudder went through me at the thought that brother and sister had gone back to sharing a bed as they had done when they were children. I very much doubted that any sexual irregularities were going on: maybe Randy magnanimously slept on the couch in the living room, although it didn’t seem big enough to accommodate his lanky frame comfortably.

Randy himself was, to my surprise, in the kitchen washing up after dinner—something I never recalled him doing in high school. Of course, his mother did that work, but somehow I figured he’d have insisted on his sister taking over that role in this peculiar household. In any case, he had no doubt heard the door open and chatter of female voices, so he quickly washed his hands on a dishrag and came out to see who had so unexpectedly invaded his home and hearth.

When he saw me he stopped in his tracks for a second, his face blank; then he shuffled slowly in my direction. I saw that he had to swallow hard before he could speak a word to me.

All he said was, “Ali?”

In that single word—that nickname that no one else used—I could sense the confusing mix of hurt, disappointment, anger, desire, and futile expectation that summed up our relationship, or at least his understanding of our relationship. In that moment it became crystal clear to me that he had not sought out any other woman for his favors after I had abandoned him, and my sudden and unexpected return seemed to kindle in him a faint flicker of hope that I had, after four long years, seen the error of my ways and now yearned to return to his embrace. I think he knew even then—and knew even after what subsequently happened—that this was a pipe dream, but there wasn’t much else in his life to lift him out of the treadmill of drudgery into which he had already fallen.

“Hi, Randy,” I said neutrally. “It’s good to see you.”

We approached each other like a divorced couple who had unexpectedly run into each other at some public event and had to maintain at least the semblance of civility. He rubbed suddenly sweaty palms against his rough jeans and took me gently in his arms, holding me as if I were a piece of porcelain that would break upon the slightest pressure. When I did not in fact break, he held me a little tighter, enjoying the press of my breasts against his chest. For my part, I wasn’t about to throw my arms around his neck in typical lost-girlfriend fashion, but held him awkwardly around his waist until he finally let me go.

Randy was, of course, inhibited in his display of affection by the presence of Andy, who peered at us with an unflinching gaze and an unreadable expression.

“You’re looking good,” I said. “Both of you,” I added, casting a glance at Andy.

The remark was largely formulaic. In fact, Randy wasn’t looking so good—he already had the eternally dusky, beaten-down look that miners of twenty years’ standing seem to get, and the fact (I assumed it to be a fact) that he wasn’t enjoying even the primitive if redeeming pleasure of regular sex made him appear more sullen and glum than usual. Andy, on the other hand, had blossomed into a really beautiful creature—her fresh, open countenance, trim but shapely figure, and a rudimentary skill at applying makeup made her seem like one of those perfect housewives out of a 1950s commercial, doing housework in high heels while keeping every strand of hair in place. That hair of hers—jet black, lavishly styled in something close to an archaic beehive, and accentuating her oval face with its flawless and gentle features—was striking, but no more than so than the rest of her. It would be cruel of me to say that she had attained her heart’s desire: to keep her beloved twin brother attached to her apron-strings in as close to a pseudo-marriage as two siblings could manage.

Randy wasn’t impressed by my remark. Hardly casting his eyes in my direction, he said, “You’re looking good too.”

They led me to the sofa, where I sat down. Randy pointedly did not sit next to me, but lowered himself heavily into a frayed easy chair near the fireplace. It was Andy who sat demurely at the other end of the sofa, as if forcing her brother to compare the relative charms of the two women in his life.

“How’s work going?” I said, just to have something to say.

Once again Randy didn’t take the bait. “It’s going,” he said, scarcely opening his mouth.

Andy jumped in. “Randy’s really working hard at the mine!” she chirped in her flute-like voice. “He comes home so tired, he hardly has the energy for anything.” The implication was clear: Certainly no energy to go out on the town and bed down with unwelcome females.

Randy didn’t seem to appreciate Andy’s comment and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. “Why’ve you come back?” he said bluntly, with no little tinge of hostility and resentment.

“Well,” I said, trying to keep my tone even, “this is the first chance I’ve had to come here since my father died. I just wanted to see how Mom was doing. I don’t expect to stay long.”

Randy digested this with a kind of weary resignation. I could tell that Andy was also hanging on to my every word.

“That was too bad,” he said dully.

“Yeah, it must have been,” I said. “Maybe you can tell me about it.”

The request seemed to take him aback, and he looked up at me sharply, gazing into my eyes for the first time. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said evasively.

“You don’t?” I said, surprised. “Surely you were at the mine when it happened. My mom—”

“I wasn’t!” he shouted at me.

There was a cavernous silence.

“You weren’t there?” I said uncomprehendingly. “How is that possible? Were you sick that day?”

Randy suddenly leapt to his feet and started pacing the room, making sure to keep as far away from me as possible. He made a fist with his right hand and started punching it into the palm of his left.

I was beginning to wonder if he would ever say another word, so I said, “Randy, can you—”

“It was at night,” he interrupted.

“At night?” I said, astounded. “Nobody works at the mine at night. Maybe they did once, but certainly not when my dad was there. How—?”

“I don’t think he died at the mine,” Randy almost whispered.

This was going from bad to worse, and I was starting to get dizzy and confused. There was a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach.

Randy was still walking around furiously, looking for all the world as if he were trying to find some reason—any reason—to bolt from the premises. I got up stiffly and went over to him. I made him stop his relentless pacing by putting my hands on his shoulders. Then I made him look me in the face and said:

“Randy, please tell me what you know. I can’t get anything out of Mom—she claims not to have the slightest idea about what happened. I need to know, Randy. Please tell me.”

With each word I had gotten more choked up, until toward the end I could hardly speak. My eyes were filled with tears, and I desperately blinked them away.

Randy could only gaze at me with a bizarre mix of terror and frustration in his face. He himself looked as if he were on the verge of bursting into tears—just as he had done years ago in my bedroom when he had taken my virginity. He bit his lip so hard that I thought he might draw blood; then finally he said almost inaudibly:

“I don’t know what happened. There was something strange…We only heard about it the next morning. Even then none of the foremen told us—it got around by word of mouth. I can’t remember what anyone said. I think someone mentioned”—and here he paused, looking away from me as if fearful of my reaction—“he was burned.”

“Burned?” I said incredulously. “How’s that possible? Was there a fire in the mine?”

“I don’t know, I tell you!” he almost shrieked, coming close to breaking out of my grasp. “It’s just what someone said.”

“You didn’t see the body?”

“No, of course not. It was taken right to the funeral home.”

Knowles Funeral Chapel was the only such establishment in the city. Given the town’s aging population, I imagine it did a brisk business.

I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t get it. Surely there must have been some kind of announcement by the overseer—”

“There wasn’t,” Randy interrupted truculently.

“—or some investigation by the Bureau of Mines? I mean,” I said with ever-growing exasperation, “a person can’t just die in a mine and nothing happen!”

We were now staring at each other, breathing stertorously as if we were two boxers taking a break from a particularly arduous confrontation. Andy was gazing up at us with a stunned expression, wondering who would prevail in this bizarre conflict of words.

“I don’t know,” Randy said, looking away from me in a kind of defeat, as if he were taking the blame for the whole perplexing situation.

I continued to glare at him, hoping that I was not creating the impression that I was holding him personally responsible for what had happened to my dad—and, more, the inexplicable aftermath.

“I think we need to look into this,” I said tartly. That “we” was, as I well knew, more than a little bit of wishful thinking. My mother had made it clear that her ignorance of the matter was willful and inveterate, and Randy really didn’t have the time, interest, or resources to help me. Maybe he wanted to—chiefly as a way of rekindling his interest in me, or rather of hoping that my interest in him might be rekindled—but neither he nor I could see what he could actually do.

I already had some ideas, and I vowed to put them into action the next day.

I didn’t stay much longer at Randy and Andy’s house. I will frankly say their place gave me the creeps: their living situation was not healthy, and Randy seemed not to have the slightest perception that his twin sister had cocooned him within her own orbit in a way that might make it impossible for him to break away and form anything approaching a healthy relationship with another woman. So far, Andy did not regard me as a threat, taking at face value my affirmation that I wouldn’t remain in town very long. But if she detected any wavering from that resolution on my part, I had little doubt that she would turn her venom on me with all the ruthlessness of a mama bear protecting her cubs.