21

The best part of Rachel’s day was the morning, when her brother dropped her off at work. It was fun to ride in the car that she never got to ride in otherwise, seeing as all three of them—her and Mom and Tommy too—couldn’t possibly shoehorn in. And Tommy’s car was such a super-nifty car too. All the girls at the office told her so: Wow, that car your brother drives you in is awesome!—It’s just about the coolest thing we’ve ever seen!

That’s what they’d said even before they saw her brother, but once they’d seen him close up—that one time when she’d dragged him in to meet everybody and say hello—Well, that’s about all they talked about ever since. How cute he was, how much they’d like to get to know him better. And she’d told all that to Tommy, but telling him was a mistake. After that, he’d never gone in with her to say hello again. But when they drove up every morning, she knew all the girls were looking out to get a peek at him, although they stayed far enough back from the window that Tommy couldn’t see.

“So how come you never want to meet any of the girls I work with? They all would like to get to meet you.”

“You know, Rach, I’m only here for a few months in the summer, and there’s not much point in getting involved with someone when I know I won’t be around for very long.”

“Yeah but, just to, like, go out and stuff. Don’t you get lonely not even going out?”

“I don’t know. I guess it would be nice to meet someone special, but you and me—we’re both young still. Both of us have loads and loads of time.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve got loads of time.”

“You do though; trust me, you do. Just going out with somebody you don’t really care that much about isn’t fun for you, and it definitely isn’t fair to the other person you’re going with. Believe me, I know.”

“You mean like that Candi you used to go out with last year?”

“Yeah, her, and some of the other girls I dated in the past.”

“Lainie—that girl Lainie—she was nice.”

“She was nice. Very nice.”

“So why did you stop going out with her? Mom really liked her too.”

“I don’t know why. Things just worked out that way, I guess. People go out, and then sometimes they get tired of going out. You’ll see one day. You’re going to meet a lot of boys who are nice, but just not special. When you meet the special one, believe me, you’ll know.”

“And how about you? You never met a special girl yet?”

“Not yet. I’ll know it when I do.”

“OK so—if the girls you went out with weren’t special, why did you go out with them in the first place?”

“Different reasons. Most of the time, they wanted to go out with me, and you can hurt somebody if you keep saying no. But the problem is, eventually you’ve got to say no, and you wind up hurting them anyway. So that’s why I work on cars during my summers back home and leave the girls alone. Hurting people is about the worst thing you can do to others—and to yourself as well.”

Yep, Tommie could be a real pain in the you-know-what from time to time, but he was awesome as a brother, and he gave her money to buy CD’s and stuff. Mom gave her some too, but Tommy kind of spoiled her in a way. If she really wanted something, he’d see that she got it; but she wasn’t one to take advantage. After all, he worked really, really hard for what he earned.

“OK, Rach, have you got a ride home?” This was a downer part of her day, going from the nice car to the not-so-pleasant office. Once she got in there and had to answer the phone and type appointments into the computer screen, that was the lamest, dumbest, boringest part of all.

“Uh-huh, that Ellie that I introduced you to when you came in that day—you know who I mean?”

“Umm, not exactly.”

“The redhead.”

“OK—so is she going to drive you home? Otherwise, I’m done at the dealership a little after five and I can pick you up then if you need me to.”

“No, Ellie can drop me off. She goes that way.”

“OK, so—have a nice day, OK. You’re my favorite girl, remember that.”

“OK, bye,” she said.

Ellie was just inside the door when she came through. And Laura and the other girl—the new one—they were just behind her. They must have left their instruments in the autoclave and run up front to see Tommy again, although they couldn’t have gotten a very good look where he was sitting in the car.

“That’s a Corvette, isn’t it? An old one?”

“Uh-huh. It was our Dad’s car, and my brother fixed it up. It’s a classic, a ’73. It’s got four on the floor and a big block, so it’s worth a lot of money, but I’m pretty sure that Tommy wouldn’t ever sell.”

“How come he doesn’t ever stop and say hello?” asked Laura. She was a little older—too old for Tommy anyway. She’d been a hygienist in Dr. Barkey’s practice for probably about five or six years, way longer than Rachel had been a receptionist there these past two summers. Laura was a real old pro.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s kind of busy with his job and stuff. And he won’t be in town too long anyway. He starts back at college toward the end of the month after next.”

“Too bad,” they said, almost in unison. “That brother of yours is, like, really, really cute.”

“Hey, Tommy!” It was Sandy again. She almost always caught him on the way in to say hello, but today she looked a little more eager than she usually did, a little more—how would you put it?—purposeful.

“Hi, Sandy. Anything special going on?” He asked that question in reference to the work orders coming in that day, but she seemed to have something other than work orders on her mind, for she answered:

“Hey, there is something special, as a matter of fact. Look, can I talk to you for a couple minutes? I got something to show you you’ll be interested in. I guarantee.”

How about later? he suggested. But no, Sandy was insistent and she said: nope, right now, this minute—well, if you don’t mind, that is. Hey, he got paid mainly by the job, not only by the hour, so what did it matter if he got to some brake job or tune-up a few minutes late?—He couldn’t put her off forever, not in fairness, not the way he usually did. And so he let her take him by the elbow and lead him back into the storage room where the smaller parts were kept. There was a desk in there and a couple of chairs, and she sat him down on one while she took the other and picked an envelope off the desk—something she had left there that morning, obviously—And she opened it, and took something out—a computer print-out photo, it seemed to be. But before she had him look at it, she told him:

“OK, so you remember when I took those pictures of you the other week?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And remember what I told you they were for?”

“Uh-huh, the website that matches people up, right?—Actually I looked it up on the Net and checked it out. It looks like an interesting concept. So what happened? Did you get anything back?”

“Lots back. I got a bunch of matches back within a day or two, but they weren’t very good. They looked a little like you, but not all that much. Then I got some others that were better—they send some almost every week—But then this other one came yesterday, and—Wow! you gotta see it, Tommy. It’s amazing. Did you know you had an exact identical twin?”

“Not really. So they found someone who looks like me?”

“No, not someone who looks like you—someone who is you—Exactly! So—you wanna see?”

“Sure. After that kind of introduction, who wouldn’t want to see. So—that’s it? That’s him?”

She smiled, turned the picture face-up and placed it in his hands, and….

“Jeez-oh-Man! You weren’t kidding, were you? This guy does look like me; he really does? Where did you get it from?—No, I didn’t mean that—I know where you got it; you just told me—But where is he from, this guy? Do you know anything about him? Like where he lives and what he does for a living, and….”

“No, not yet. I don’t know much about him yet. All they gave me was his contact information—which is handled through the site—so I wrote to him through them, and if he answers me back, we’ll find out some more.”

“Man, this is amazing!—Do you think that maybe I ought to write to him myself and send a picture?”

Sandy shook her head admonishingly and grimaced: “No, Tommie—Jeez!—he already has a picture—remember? I sent half a dozen of them in, and they probably sent them all to him when they sent his picture to me. That’s the way the program works—You get it?”

“Yeah, that’s right; that makes sense. So what do we do now?”

“Nothing much we can do but wait. If he writes back, I‘ll let you know right away. Hey, if you woulda asked me out, I never woulda found out about the guy in the first place, so maybe it’s better that you didn’t. But you know,” She batted her eyes in that sultry way of hers, “there’s always time.”

“Not that much time, Sandy; I head back to school in a couple of months. But if you still like me, it looks like you’ve got a pretty decent substitute, and if things work out the way you want them to, I wish the both of you a long and happy life.