Page 3 of Misadventures With The Mistaken Twin

With the engine off, the heat was gone inside the van and my breath came out in a white cloud. I turned in my seat, leaned one arm against the steering wheel and asked, “You don't know who I am, do you?”

He turned his head and looked me in the eye. “Violet. Veronica.” He closed his eyes for a second and shook his head, slowly. “I never could.”

Exactly. He never could tell my identical twin and me apart. Jack and I had hung out together our senior year. A lot. Then he got up the nerve to ask me out on a real date, not just talking in the hall, being partners in Biology.

Turned out, he hadn't wanted to date me. He'd wanted Violet. I set him straight back then, of course. Straight to Violet, whom he’d slept with on the first date. Not that I was bitter or anything. Nope.

“Well, I'm not going to tell you now,” I grumbled, sounding like a seventh grader. So much for the high road.

No way was I going to make it easy for him. He could figure out which sister I was all on his own. But I did feel a little bad about knocking him out. Just a teensy, tiny bit. Enough to drag his sorry ass to the ER. “Let's go, before we freeze to death.”

Jack handed me the bag of peas. “I'm already freezing.” He picked up a scrap piece of PVC plastic pipe from the floor. “Maybe my brain did get whacked a little too hard because I swear we're in a plumbing van.” He dropped the piece with aclunk. “No way in hell are you coming in with me, whoever you are. I'm going to have to explain why my body temperature is close to hypothermic. I'm also going to have to explain how I don't know who did this to me, and I'll end up with a CAT scan. They're never going to believe there are two of you. If that's not enough, I have to tell the doctor I got knocked out with this.” He picked up the pieces of the paddle he’d brought along. “What the hell are you, a dominatrix or something?”

I glared at him, snatching the pieces from his hand. “Yeah, something.”

He undid his seatbelt and opened the door. Looked back at me and winked. “Kinky. I like it.”

Appalled, my mouth dropped open. “You are such a?—”

“So, pickup? I guess you'll come and get me later?”

I bit my lip, holding in what I really wanted to say to him, counted to ten. “I've got to run to Goldilocks and then I'll?—”

“Goldilocks?” He smiled broadly. “Like I said, kinky.”

If steam could come out of my ears, it would've right then and there. I gripped the steering wheel to keep from hitting him again at his comment. Just because I worked part-time at an adult store didn’t mean I was into...stuff.

“Never mind. No need to come get me. Who knows how long I'll be with an injury like this.” His words dripped with sarcasm. “I've got the key to get in later. Thanks for the ride,” he added, then slammed the door shut and stalked off through the automatic doors of the ER.

3

Ten minutes later I walked into Goldilocks, broken paddle in hand. I pulled the door closed behind me, shutting out the frigid air. I stomped my boots on the mat, not so much to remove snow as to get out my frustration.

“You're never going to guess who's back in town!” Goldie called to me from behind the counter. Goldie was my seventy-year-old boss, owner of Goldilocks, the only adult store in Bozeman, Montana. She'd opened it in the seventies and kept the town supplied with erotic toys, lingerie and adult videos ever since. I’d started working part-time for her in college and hadn't left yet.

“Jack Reid,” I replied angrily as I walked up to the counter and placed the paddle pieces down next to the register. I peeled off my gloves and hat.

“How'd you find out?” Goldie eyed me over her rhinestone encrusted reading glasses, clearly surprised. She was like your favorite snack, salty and sweet. She often irritated you—like salt in a wound—with her incessant meddling, but was well-intentioned and sweet enough that you forgave her. Over andover again. It was hard not to strangle and kiss her at the same time.

Tonight, her almost-blonde, but mostly-gray hair was teased within an inch of its life and held in place by a bright lavender headband. I must have been staring because she said, “Like it? I got it in the mail. It's one of those Bump Ups or Bumpers or something. It's this little plastic thing you put under your hair and voila! Instant poof.” She patted her hair as if checking to make sure it hadn't de-poofed.

“Instant something, all right,” I told her. Poof definitely came to mind. To match the headband, she had on a purple V-neck angora sweater, fluffy and soft like a baby bunny. I couldn't see her lower half behind the counter but I imagined some kind of black pants and boots. Goldie didn't go for subtle when full-on bling worked better.

I liked to look nice, wear makeup every day and do all the fancy girl stuff, at least when I wasn’t working. But Goldie took the gold medal in the high maintenance category.

It was quiet for a Saturday afternoon. No customers at the moment. Goldie was unpacking a shipment of videos and organizing them alphabetically to arrange on the rental wall. From the selection, it appeared to be girl-on-girl action. “Don't distract me with my new hairdo, young lady,” she said, her voice crisp with authority. “Jack Reid. Explain.”

No matter how angry I was at the jerk, I relished the moment. Goldie loved a good story and this was a doozy. Telling it to Goldie was going to be a much better experience than Jack would have sharing the same details with the ER staff. I smiled wickedly at the thought.

“Jack Reid walked into Violet's house, unannounced. I'd just gotten out of the shower and thought he was an intruder. I knocked him out with this”—I picked up a piece of the broken paddle—“and had to take him to the ER.”

Goldie stared at me for a minute, probably debating if I was serious or not. Then she started laughing, making her bangle earrings swing. “That explains why your hair looks like it got tangled in a hay baler.”

I felt my head and rolled my eyes. I'd shoved my hair up into the winter cap still wet and uncombed and I could feel it sticking out every which way. I picked up my hat and shoved it back on my head. “If you'd been naked and had to knock a guy out, you wouldn't be thinking about your hair either.”

“If I was naked, had a paddle like that”—she pointed to the broken one on the counter— “and had a man as attractive as Jack Reid on the floor, I wouldn't want him unconscious.”

I raised my eyebrows. Shocked. A little confused. “Jack hasn't been back to town in over ten years. How do you know he's attractive?”

---