Doppelganger (4 page)

The strangest thing in the room, though, was the frog. There was a terrarium in the corner of her room with a big green frog in it. It seemed like a funny thing for a girl to have. I went over and knocked on its glass, but the thing never moved from its rock in the corner of the glass cage. It just blinked its eyes a few times and that was it.

The parents' room was dark with the shades drawn, so that I had to turn on the overhead light to see. The first thing I noticed was a picture of Elvis on the wall above the bed—I recognized him right away in his rhinestone suit and flower necklaces. There were a few bottles of perfume on the bureau beside a cardboard box of jewelry and some photographs, including one that lay facedown. I picked it up to see what was in the frame—a wedding picture—and noticed the dark rectangle underneath where there wasn't any dust. I put the photo back down on its face and moved on.

It was while poking through the father's underwear drawer that I found the gun. If he was trying to hide it, he
hadn't done a very good job. The pistol was wedged against one side, held in place with a pile of boxers, and I spotted it as soon as I opened the drawer. I pulled it out and studied it. I was pretty excited. I'd seen all kinds of guns on TV before, and now here was one in real life. I remember being surprised at how heavy it was. And at the smell—that strange mix of metal, oil, and powder. After fiddling with it awhile, I managed to get the clip out. No bullets.

The living room was plain: TV against the far wall. No books to speak of. A desk in the corner stacked with bills and other papers. I noticed some burn marks on the plaid couch, and there was a pile of newspapers and a dirty ashtray on top a frail-looking coffee table. The dog lay curled up on a gray comforter like it was just another piece of furniture, watching me out of the corner of its eye.

“Just you and me today,” I said to it.

The dog sort of sniffed and looked away.

“Come on,” I said, “don't be that way.”

I went over to pet it, but as I drew closer, its ears flattened, its eyes flicked up toward me, and the lowest murmur rumbled in its throat. Not quite a growl, but I decided not to take any chances.

“Another time then,” I said, backing away.

I found out later that the dog's name was Poppy. Old Poppy never did warm up to me. Maybe he knew what I'd done.

I turned to the desk and looked through some of the papers, mostly money stuff—bills, a few paycheck stubs, things like that. I learned that Chris's father's name was Barry and that he worked at a plumbing supply store. The mother's name was Sheila. She worked at Wal-Mart.

The only part of the house I hadn't explored yet was the basement. I found the door to it in the kitchen and headed down the wobbly steps. The heavy odor of concrete filled the space, and the two naked bulbs at either end cast a feeble light. The air seemed thick. There was the furnace and water heater in one corner. A freezer chest, washing machine, and dryer in the other. The third corner was full of messily stacked boxes and bins. I didn't feel like going through them.
Later
, I thought.

The fourth corner was blocked off by a pair of sheets hanging from a clothesline nailed to the joists. I poked my head in and saw a tiny table with chairs around it. Some of the chairs had stuffed rabbits and bears in them, a few were empty. There was a little lamp in the corner next to a toy carriage and beside the carriage was a box full of toy tractors, dump trucks, bulldozers, and cars. I turned on the lamp and looked through the box. The toys inside were all pretty beat up, but neatly arranged. In fact, the whole corner was tidy, with everything, even the chairs, symmetrically ordered. There were some pictures on the wall that I guessed Echo had drawn. They were cute—pictures of her stuffed bears and her frog, all playing in a field with the sun shining down, a big yellow circle spiked with orange. Other scenes were at night, with the bears dancing beneath the moon. The whole thing was kind of weird, but so far it was my favorite place in the entire house.

I turned the lamp off and headed upstairs. All in all, I wasn't sure what to make of the Parkers' house. I'd seen plenty of family homes on TV, especially in the sitcoms, but this was different. It wasn't so much the clutter, or even the smells all stirring together. There was a dingy feeling
about the place, as if a layer of some kind of poisonous dust had fallen over everything in the house: invisible, but palpable. I don't know what I'd been expecting, but somehow the whole place seemed less real than the homes I'd gotten to know on all my favorite shows.

I went back to Chris's room for some daytime TV.
Gilligan's Island
was on (of course), but I didn't watch it. There was a football game on one of the sports channels, so I watched that instead. I decided I should bone up. Who knew what position Chris might play? It felt good to study the game, to take note of what all the players were doing. I was getting a grip, taking control. I could do this.

At halftime I flicked to a local channel in time to catch the news flash. The caption in big letters along the top—“Body Found”—made my heart start to pound. The anchor was talking, and beneath the caption was a box showing footage of police carrying a blanketed stretcher. I turned up the volume and listened.

“…today recovered the remains of twenty-six-year-old Jill Vitelli, last seen on Friday. Her body was discovered this morning outside of Springfield by a fisherman along the banks of the Killmartin River. There is no word yet on whether foul play was involved, but local police have begun an investigation. Channel Six News has learned that Vitelli's car, a 1998 white Subaru Legacy, is currently missing, though police at this time have not officially confirmed this. We will, of course, follow up on this breaking story at the six o'clock hour. Now, back to
One Life to Live
.”

I lay back and breathed a sigh of relief. Springfield was a ways away from here—the train had brought me through
there a few days ago. I flicked back to where the game had restarted, but I just couldn't pay attention. The news still had me rattled. I suddenly thought of my mother. An image of her driving down the road in a Subaru flashed through my head, and I wondered where she was now, what she looked like.

I heard a noise outside and looked out the window to see a big yellow school bus pull up to the curb across the street. A minute later it drove away, leaving behind a whole crowd of kids. I spotted Echo in the group. She was talking to a few other girls as the others dispersed. Pretty soon it was just Echo and another girl, and then that girl left and Echo was all alone. She poked around on the sidewalk for a few minutes, looking smaller now, with her black jacket tucked under her arm. Finally she crossed the street and let herself into the house, coming in through the back door like I'd done last night.

I turned the TV's volume down and listened to Echo bustle around in the kitchen. Part of me wanted to go out there and talk to her, maybe feel her out a little bit. What kind of brother was I? How was I supposed to treat her? What did she call our parents? What did she think of them? But I held back and closed the door instead.

A half hour later, there was a knock. I could hear Echo call my name, but I just got into bed and pulled the sheets over my head until she went away.

I know. I'm a real coward sometimes, but there was still something about Echo that bothered me. The image from this morning of her standing in the doorway came back into my head, and I suddenly realized what it was. It was
that girl, the one I'd seen on TV back when I was Echo's age, the one whose form my mother had taken on, whose schoolbooks became my schoolbooks for the next year. Echo looked just like her—not so much the face, but the hair and the clothes, the backpack. It was all so familiar. Those parents probably never found their daughter, just like at some point Echo's brother would disappear and she and her parents would never find him. It was only a matter of time. And I was the only one who knew it.

Of course, my mother would have a different take. “
You're overthinking things
,” she'd probably say. “
Just become the form. Forget about your own miserable self for once
.”

And she would probably be right.

 

Later that evening Echo knocked, then poked her head in. I hit the mute button.

“Supper's ready,” she said. “Mom told me to get you. She made yellow meal.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering what “yellow meal” was. I got out of bed and followed Echo down the hall.

“Yellow meal” turned out to be frozen fish patties heated in the oven, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and canned corn. Apparently it was my favorite. To be honest, it was pretty good, if a bit monochromatic, and I was hungry, too, having eaten only half a can of beans in the last two days. Still, I was supposed to be sick, so I poked the food around the plate a bit at first. I figured sick people weren't supposed to seem too eager.

“Still not feeling great, huh?” Sheila asked, watching me. “By now you've usually inhaled your first plate and reloaded for seconds.”

Before I could answer, she turned and hollered into the living room.

“Barry, get in here! Your supper's getting cold!”

A minute later Barry came in, the smoke from the last drag of his cigarette still trailing from his nostrils. He swigged the remnants of his beer and set it down next to the two other empty cans on the counter.

“You left the TV on, Dad,” Echo said. Barry turned to her but didn't say anything, and after a second Echo looked down at her food.

“How was work?” Sheila asked.

“A bitch. Big delivery in the morning, then a bunch of pipes broke at the hospital and I had guys coming in all afternoon looking for this and that. I told Mitch, another day like that and he could find himself a new manager.”

“Careful,” she said, “he might take you up on it.”

“Funny, Sheila,” he said. “He knows he could never make it without me there to run things for him.”

“I suppose,” she replied.

“No supposing,” he said.

Then nobody said a word. We all just ate, staring at our plates, glancing up from time to time to see if anyone else was glancing up, and then ducking our eyes back down. Finally Barry broke the silence.

“And what about you?” he said, turning to me. “Is the little pansy going to be feeling good enough to go to school tomorrow?”

“Barry, stop it,” Sheila said.

“Well, the game against Waterbury's coming up this weekend. I don't care how good a linebacker he is, if he
misses another practice, coach might not start him.”

“I'm feeling better,” I said.

“Well, start acting like it. You know, you look kind of funny. All pale and everything. Jesus, no wonder Amber doesn't call anymore.” He started laughing.

“Barry, leave him alone,” Sheila said. “Things are going fine with Amber. Isn't that right, Chris?” She turned and looked at me expectantly.

“Swimmingly,” I said. I'd heard people say it in the movies before, and I always liked the sound of it. Unfortunately it didn't go over well with Barry.

“Swimmingly?” he said, scrunching up his face. “What are you, a faggot or something?”

“No,” I said. “I just meant things were all right, that's all.”

“Swimmingly,” Echo said, then giggled to herself. She liked the word too.

“Shut up, Echo,” her father barked.

“Swimmingly,” Echo said again, laughing harder.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, getting up. He grabbed his plate and went back into the living room. Sheila sighed and shook her head.

“Swimmingly,” Echo murmured, smiling down at her plate.

“God, Echo, would you just shut up,” Sheila said, slamming her fork down. Echo jumped at the noise, and I admit I did a little too. We watched as Sheila got up from the table with her plate, went over to the sink, and started doing the dishes, her face set hard.

Echo and I finished eating dinner alone. Neither of us spoke until the end.

“By the way,” Echo said, “Amber did call. This after
noon.”

“She did?” I said, snapping to attention.

“I tried to get you, but you wouldn't open your door.”

“So what'd you do?”

“I told her you were sick.”

“What did she say?”

“She said ‘good.'”

 

As I lay in bed that night, I thought back over my first day as Chris Parker. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. Not so much with myself. Things hadn't gone perfectly—or even swimmingly, for that matter—but I thought I'd held my own. It had more to do with Chris's family. I know. Who was I to be disappointed in anybody? But as much as I hated killing Chris, a part of me had hoped to find a home, join a real family like the ones I'd seen on TV, even for a little while. Kind of sick, I guess. But the truth sometimes is.

Problem was, I didn't really like my new family, and they didn't seem to like me. In fact, I didn't think
any
of them liked each other. Lying there in bed, I looked out the window at the half-moon hanging in the sky.
Maybe I should just leave
, I thought. Why stick around? Part of me wanted to bolt.
You don't owe them anything
.
Get back on the road
. But part of me knew it didn't matter whether I owed them anything—I owed it to myself to stick it through, to challenge myself, like my mother would have wanted.
So the Parkers aren't your dream family,
I could hear her say.
Big deal. Life is full of disappointments. Suck it up.

In the end I couldn't bring myself to leave. Not for any high-minded reason or anything like that. I just didn't have
the energy. It was funny—I didn't go anywhere or do much of anything that first day, but for some reason I was exhausted. Maybe it was from more than just today. Maybe it was from everything that had happened the day before, or the week before, or ever since my mother kicked me out. Maybe it was my whole life.