Twin tides, p.21
Twin Tides, page 21
“I’m okay with it if you are.” Both Aria and Caliste utter the phrase at the same time, and there is an awkward silence for a few seconds.
“Freaky,” Philip says.
Caliste sighs, but she’s smiling now. “I’ll go ring the front desk. Aria—you shower. Boy—get your dirty socks off my yoga mat, thank you very much.”
* * *
“What was your GPA?”
“Three point nine eight.”
“Not bad. Criminal record?”
“None. What is this? Am I being investigated?”
“No questions yet. What’s Aria’s favorite snack?”
“Shrimp chips.”
“Okay. What about her favorite movie?”
“Kung Fu Panda Two.”
“Really?”
“Hey!” Aria says, interrupting the rapid game of twenty questions between her sister and Philip.
They’ve settled around the fireplace in their suite, the gentle flames swirling and casting the room in a warm glow. Caliste is sitting nearest to the fireplace, wearing plush pink slippers. A fuzzy throw pillow shields her shoulders like some royal robe. Pointedly, her right hand is lingering a few inches shy of a brass poker.
Philip is sitting on the cot that was rolled into their suite, its metal frame and thin mattress buckling ever so slightly from his weight. When he jolts upward, the cot squeaks and startles Aria.
“I almost forgot!” Philip exclaims and moves toward his backpack that’s sitting on the floor. He rummages through it before taking out a beat-up orange folder. Aria recognizes it as the one he used for SAT prep.
“The photo!” Aria says as Philip carefully takes out a torn photo from the folder. It’s the picture that was hanging in the laundromat, the other half of the photo Paul gave them earlier.
“This is so weird…” Caliste’s voice trails as she moves next to Aria. “We look the same…”
“Well, we should,” Aria says.
“Thanks, smart-ass. Where’s my dad’s photo?”
“It’s on the bed. Philip, can you grab it?”
Once he returns, Caliste takes the other half of the photo and puts them together. The tear splits the photo perfectly in two. On one side is their mom, with Aria hiding behind her pants, and a petite Asian woman Caliste doesn’t recognize. On the other, a beaming Caliste stands between Paul’s legs. Caliste is holding a praying mantis, which appears to be the reason Aria is scared. They are in matching outfits: gingham rompers with ruffles on the sleeves.
“Did you have to ask Mrs. Kim?” Aria asks Philip. She sniffles, blinking away the slight tears that developed after looking at the completed photo.
“Is this Mrs. Kim?” Caliste interrupts, pointing at the other woman in the photograph.
“Yeah. I also asked her what she knew,” Philip replies.
Aria nods, handing the photos back to Caliste, who brings them closer to her face to scrutinize.
“I guess this was when you were, like, two? You visited my aunt’s restaurant and met her for the first time there. She thought you both were so cute that she asked for the photo.”
“Did she know we got separated?”
“Yes. When Aunt Thu reached out to her, my aunt helped her get a job locally. She never asked, but I think she guessed something awful went down. My aunt also kept the secret from you, Aria. I’m sorry,” Philip says.
“Nothing surprises me anymore.” Aria yawns but quickly moves to fan it away. She’s not ready for bed yet. It feels like a slumber party…one she and Caliste would have had together had they not been separated. She can’t help but imagine the Aria that would exist if she’d been in Caliste’s shoes. Would she be less of a mess?
“It’s way past your bedtime. Even on nights when you’re doing someone else’s homework,” Philip teases. He falters as Aria glares at him. The tiredness is now completely gone from her body.
“Other people’s homework?” Caliste asks, an eyebrow raised in Aria’s direction. She gingerly places the photos back down on top of Philip’s orange folder and focuses her gaze on Aria.
Aria doesn’t make eye contact, turning her burning face away from the fire.
“It’s…a side gig. Sometimes kids pay me, and I write their papers. Stuff like that. It’s not a big deal—”
“ ‘Not a big deal’? Are you joking?” Caliste’s voice rises. Whatever playful cadence she had with Philip is gone now.
“Whatever. Chill,” Aria snaps back, turning to Caliste. “What’s done is done. Are you actually going to lecture me right now?”
Caliste holds her gaze for a second longer before sighing.
“You must be joking. I can’t believe you would do something like that.”
“What?” Aria says, indignation rising in her chest. Maybe it’s because she’s that tired, but she feels angry at Caliste. Another first in their relationship.
“It’s such a huge risk. And for what? To help some rich kids who don’t care about you?”
“Rich kids like you?” Aria asks. Caliste’s mouth snaps shut at the retort.
“Hey. Let’s…” Philip tries to intercept, and Aria glares at him in warning.
“Fine. You’re right. I’m just some rich girl who posts pictures of her abs on the internet. Ignore me.” There’s something hard in the way Caliste says this. Aria feels guilty for throwing Caliste’s own drama back in her face.
“I’m going to bed,” Caliste says, her voice flat. She rolls from being cross-legged to standing up without using her hands.
Aria wants to apologize or say something to dissipate the tension in the air. But she doesn’t. Caliste walks away from their seats in the living room and lets the bedroom door slam behind her.
“Crap. Why did I do that?” Aria says under her breath before groaning.
“You’re tired. And have been through a lot,” Philip says, scratching behind his ear and hopping off the cot. The metal squeaks, free from his weight, and the mattress bounces back to a somewhat parallel position.
Philip moves, dropping to his knees and sliding in close to Aria.
“And? So has she. But I’m the one being a jerk, not her.”
“You’re allowed to be a jerk. You’re too nice, so you’re going to apologize tomorrow anyway.”
Philip bumps his shoulder into Aria’s, forcing her to flash him the smallest smile.
“Aunt Thu was doing okay when I left, by the way. My aunt’s taking care of her, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Mrs. Kim? Jeez. They must be about to strangle each other by now.”
“They’ll survive. I’m more worried about you.”
Aria pulls her leg as close to her body as she can manage.
“Philip…” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“I have a family. I had a family…It’s…”
For the first time during this whirlwind week, Aria confronts the meaning of having a sister. It’s soul-mending and soul-breaking at the same time. At once she’s full and completely empty. She has a sister, and she was left by their father. Both realities live inside Aria.
“Hey.” Philip turns toward Aria and wraps her pathetic little fetal form in a hug.
“Aunt Thu…she and my dad apparently decided it would be easier to split us up. They…let us choose who to go with. Like we were choosing toys. Or a channel to watch on the television. Not who we would stay with for the rest of our lives. And neither of them said a word for fourteen years. How wild is that? I had a whole family, and Aunt Thu…” Aria’s voice falters before she can finish the sentence. She wants to say:
lied.
deceived me.
tricked me.
made me believe she was all I had.
But she can’t quite speak her resentment aloud.
In another world, Aunt Thu would have been all alone. A dead sister, dead parents, and no other family to speak of. Aria wanted to blame Aunt Thu for being so selfish and shielding her from the truth. But Aria understands somehow. She understands somewhat that if their dad had taken both her and Caliste, Aunt Thu would have no one to chide, no one to change her dressings, no one to split a grilled pork bánh mì with at night (Aunt Thu always complained that the pork bánh mì they got from the bakery in Eden Center were too large).
“It’s okay. Let it out.” Philip’s arms are still wrapped around her, and Aria can’t stop shaking. She stifles her cries so they don’t disturb Caliste, snot and tears bubbling up inelegantly onto the cotton knit of Philip’s T-shirt.
“I’m mad at her. But I’m mad at myself, too. God…and that punk Tyler? He…”
“Who is Tyler?”
“The kid who invited us to that party. The kid who died. He tried to kiss me, and I…” Aria’s voice breaks before she can finish the sentence, recalling her pure panic and disgust at the lake. “If only I weren’t like this…”
“Stop,” Philip says. “Nothing that’s happened is your fault.”
She’s mad at Aunt Thu for lying. But she’s madder at herself for squandering away all her aunt’s sacrifices. How much did she give up for Aria to have a shot at Georgetown? And now Aria has screwed it all up.
Philip kisses her forehead, which only makes her cry harder.
He doesn’t leave her side, not even when she begins to snore on his shoulder.
Caliste
Pretending to be asleep, Caliste counts the contours of the various antiques around their bedroom as Aria cries quietly on the other side of the door. She so badly wants to burst out and ask what’s wrong, but she has a feeling that would be absolutely the worst thing to do.
Caliste doesn’t share well, or at least, that’s what one of her elementary school teachers noted in her class evaluation. What was hers was hers.
It wasn’t until Caliste got older that she rationalized this. She shares her dad with his company. Her grandmother adores Dylan and not her. She eventually shared her nanny, Priscilla, with Paul. She has nothing to herself. Now…she has a sister. Aria. Her twin. The only person genetically identical to her. They were meant to share the world before it was taken away from them, or they from it.
Caliste wants to bask in this new reality, a discovery that changes everything. But when Philip’s face appeared on the other side of their suite door, the change in Aria was palpable. She immediately relaxed. She was at ease.
And that is annoying as hell for Caliste.
Maybe that’s why Caliste pissed Aria off. She still thinks she’s right…but does she have the right to share opinions like this? Aria’s right, too. She’s lived an entirely different life…one that Caliste can never understand. While Caliste was jetting off to Bali and being emo about her dad, Aria didn’t even know her dad and struggled.
“Is she sleeping out in the living room with him?” Caliste asks the air, allowing the annoyance to come to the surface without an audience to judge her.
Restless, she stands up and steps carefully toward the bathroom to avoid triggering the squeaky floorboard and alerting Aria and Philip to the fact that she is awake. The bathroom’s light flips on, flickering before it settles.
“God. I need sleep.”
Caliste runs her hands down her face and stares at her reflection in the mirror. She hasn’t had eye bags this bad since the all-nighter after senior prom.
She shuffles through her pile of beauty items on the left side of the counter until her fingers brush a tube of eye serum. Running the cold metal of the applicator under her eyes, Caliste thinks back to what Philip said.
You left it open.
Aria lied earlier. She isn’t the one who had the keys last; it was Caliste.
And Caliste fucking swears she locked the door.
“I’m losing it,” Caliste huffs.
When she moves to place the tube back among her beauty stockpile, she notes something is off.
The space next to her eye serum is empty.
She owns a bottle of Chanel Chance Eau de Parfum.
Her perfume is missing.
Chapter Twenty
Caliste
“Are you going to eat that?” Philip asks, pointing his fork at the last sausage on Caliste’s plate. Caliste raises her eyes to scan Joe Joe’s Diner. It’s far busier than when they were here with Paul before. In a way, the clamor of families and children running amok provides a nice reprieve. It’s unlikely anyone will hear them over this noise.
“No…”
“All righty then,” Philip replies before swiftly spearing the piece of meat and shoving it into his mouth.
“Philip!” Aria reprimands, but it’s too late.
“I didn’t eat your sausage. Calm down.”
Caliste doesn’t have the energy to react to the squabble, although she thinks it’s cute. Aria being the cute one. She can take or leave Philip.
At some point, Aria and Philip ended their little nighttime chitchat, and Aria stumbled into bed at whatever ungodly hour it was. Caliste, for her part, couldn’t stop thinking about that goddamn bottle of perfume. When it was reasonable to expect Aria to be awake, she’d asked her.
No. Aria hadn’t seen her perfume.
The question of where it went gnaws at Caliste. But she can’t tell Aria about her suspicions…not until she has proof.
“Okay, so…it’s time to share my findings,” Philip says.
“Your findings?” Caliste asks, her mind finally breaking from the perfume bottle’s spell.
“Aria asked me to research the letters she’s been receiving,” Philip says quietly, leaning close to them across the table.
“Oh.” The letters. The creepy-ass correspondence Aria’s apparently been receiving her whole life. “What makes you so good at stuff like this, anyway?”
“For one, the bizarrely-good-at-recognizing-patterns bit,” Philip quips. Aria smiles as he repeats her exact phrasing from last night. “I used to be into true crime before it made me feel gross. You know, the human theater of it all.”
“All right, Sherlock. Take us away,” Caliste says.
“Well…Aria, you received twelve total over time. The earliest was a year after your mom disappeared, and the latest one you received was, like, three weeks ago, right?”
“Right,” Aria affirms with a hint of apprehension coloring her voice.
“They’re written by two different people.”
“What?” Both Aria and Caliste blurt out the question at the same moment.
“It’s hard to explain. Basically, you can kind of tell a difference in cadence. Rhythm. You know how you like that god-awful literary writer from Michigan, Aria?”
“Low blow.”
“I’m being serious. You could tell that dude’s writing style from a mile away, right?”
“Sure.”
“Well, these letters also have their own distinct writing styles. The first and the last letters are definitely written by two different people.”
Philip taps his knuckle on the edge of his ceramic plate, which is full of maple syrup, before turning to shuffle through the backpack he’s brought. He slides out two photocopied letters, both the penmanship and the original paper’s texture showing through in the printed ink. He’s highlighted and annotated all over both pieces of paper.
Leaning in, Caliste peers at the lines Philip is pointing to. The colors correspond to words or stretches of sentences he’s identified.
“The vocabulary is different. It’s subtle, but the way each speaker words things is distinct. Kind of like Ernest Hemingway versus, I don’t know…a writer who is not Ernest Hemingway.”
“That’s a deeply unhelpful comparison,” Caliste says. “Do you think they did that on purpose?”
“Maybe. But there are some other weird things, too. Did you ever notice any changes, Aria? Even something as minute as how they used punctuation?”
Aria is wringing her hands under the table so Philip won’t notice.
Caliste reaches and squeezes Aria’s left hand.
“…I thought I was maybe imagining things, but…”
“Yes?” Philip asks. Gone is the slightly excited edge to his voice. He brought himself back down, immediately faced with Aria’s trepidation.
“The letters became more distant. The tone…I felt like they were mad at me or something when before they were gentle. I don’t know…like how I imagined a parent would talk to their kid? God, it sounds ridiculous.”
“I mean. All this is ridiculous, to be fair,” Caliste says. But she is worried. If there are multiple letter writers, were multiple people responsible for their mom’s death? Were multiple people taunting one of her daughters?
Philip points to sections highlighted in pink. “One obvious example is here.”
Do you have any ambitions to travel, Ariadne? Washington National is quite close to you…
“The airport?” Caliste asks.
“It’s minor, but the first weird inconsistency I noticed since we live in the DC area. The airport was called Washington National Airport until 1998, when it was renamed Reagan National.”
“So? It’s just an airport name,” Caliste asks.
“Ah…” There’s an odd cadence to how Aria exclaims this. “People around our age just call it DCA or Reagan National…”
“But people who lived there or knew it from before call it Washington National. The letters switch. I definitely think they were written by two people, and specifically two people from entirely different generations. And the switch happens around here…”
Philip pulls out another letter. This one was sent five years ago.
If this was the time before—the normal times, when Caliste was not someone trying to solve a life-and-death mystery—she would’ve called Philip’s guess a flimsy stab in the dark.
