Two Much!

6

“You must be Betty,” I said, though I knew better.

“Not on your life,” Liz said. “But I suppose you’re Bart. Come on in.”

I stumbled slightly on the threshold. Damn glasses, how does anybody see with them? All my perceptions were just slightly off; objects I looked at were either a bit too close or a bit top far away, or in any event slightly distorted. It was like living in a Dali painting.

“Watch your step,” Liz said.

She led me into the living room. Without its party it seemed cozier, with comfortable chairs grouped around a stone fireplace. Portraits on the walls were undoubtedly Mom and Pop; he looked like the sort of fellow who makes illegal campaign contributions, and she looked like a Grahame.

I have never been in this house before, I reminded myself, and said, “Nice place you have here.”

“Sorry,” she said, “we already got a buyer.”

“Oh, yes. Art told me you’re selling.”

She gave me a sardonic look; I wasn’t being any fun. “I’ll tell Betty you’re here,” she said, and left before I could thank her.

What was happening to me? I paced around the room, frowning inside my glasses. Usually I’m fairly good at casual chitchat, but just now I’d done a very good imitation of that entire party from the other night All I do is put on spectacles and I suddenly become a baby Frazier; why?

I suppose partly it was the physical unease caused by the glasses themselves. If you’re constantly afraid you might lean just a bit too far to the left and do half a cartwheel you really can’t devote full attention to bon mots. And also there’s a certain tension involved in facing a girl you’ve recently screwed in the upstairs closet and convincing her she’s never met you before.

Well, probably it was all to the good. I hadn’t thought in terms of a personality change when I’d decided to have a go at being Bart, but why not? It could only reinforce the physical changes I’d wrought.

An oval mirror in an ornate frame hung on the wall near the dining room arch, and in it I studied again the new face I’d made for myself. The glasses made me seem more serious, perhaps a bit older, and I’d combed my hair straight back to reveal the receding hairline I usually camouflage. I am thirty now, and for the last year the hair has been retreating from my temples like the tide going out. Never to come in again, unfortunately.

“Well, hello.”

I turned around, and Betty had entered, wearing the same white dress and the same hostess smile as the other night. “Now,” I said, “you must be Betty.”

“Why, you don’t look like your brother at all,” she said, and through the artificial smile it seemed to me I detected disappointment.

“You look a lot like your sister,” I said. I tell you, I’d never been funnier.

“Oh, she’s prettier than I am,” Betty said, adding artificial coyness and artificial demureness to her artificial smile.

“Not at all,” I said. “You’re a terrific-looking girl.” I admit I wasn’t being exactly brilliant, but you try complimenting a twin.

We chatted on in that sprightly way a bit longer, and then Betty said, “Well, shall we go?”

“After you,” I said, with a little bow. Christ!

Liz did not reappear, which was just as well. Betty and I strolled along the dark lanes past the quaint old-fashioned streetlights — imitation gas lamps, very pseudo-London — and did not hold hands. How to proceed? Glibness now would not only be out of character for the persona with which I’d saddled myself, but would also be inappropriate for this Senior Prom beauty tripping along at my side. I was here to ball her, not terrify her.

In point of fact, just why was I here? In order to get away from Candy and Ralph for a while, to some extent. And because the impersonation was a comic challenge that appealed to me. And because I’d suddenly realized I’d always wanted to fuck twins. And because they were rich orphans.

Let’s not downgrade that final consideration. I’ve never been familiar enough with money to feel contempt for it, so I wasn’t about to kick a girl out of bed for being rich. Money and those who possessed it had always held a certain appeal for me. My one descent into marriage, to a bitch named Lydia whom I’d met in college, had been based partly on the mistaken notion that my bride’s family was well off. A publisher, I’d thought, is a publisher is a publisher; but not, it turned out, when the things published were four weekly newspapers in rural areas of New England.

So I was here to amuse myself by rubbing against a rich body. Which meant we were now in the seduction scene. Of course. I was the male lead in a Doris Day comedy. Simplicity itself. Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. “It’s charming here,” I said.