Twelve Nights (8 page)

The Chinese district was closer to downtown than Angela had
hoped, but even on a rainy Saturday it teemed with a jostling mix of tourists
and vociferous Chinese. She and Aggie ducked into the nearest restaurant and
were greeted with comforting indifference, even when Angela took off her coat
and their identicalness became obvious. The menu was written almost entirely in
Chinese characters, with only a few undescriptive English words scattered
throughout. Aggie asked the waitress to bring them something hot but not too
exotic.

A huge bowl of hot noodles with spicy chicken and thin
slices of green vegetables filled Angela and her sister to abundance. The total
bill came to an unbelievable $4.25 Canadian. No wonder Chinatown was a tourist
mecca. As they left the restaurant, Angela was careful to pull the hood back
over her hair even though the rain had dropped to a thin mizzle. No need to
take risks.

The young women spent the afternoon browsing the shops of
Chinatown. Aggie bought a Buddha figure in the first store they entered, then
learned that it was actually a Bodhisattva in the second. She explained to
Angela that a Bodhisattva was a Buddhist who decided to forgo entering nirvana,
or heaven, until he had helped everyone else on earth to become a Buddha.

They toured the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden and
learned that it was built near where Sun Yat Sen had stayed when he visited
Vancouver. The garden was a replica of an ancient scholar’s home and had been
painstakingly built by Chinese hands of authentic materials. Angela felt a
welcome peace steal into her spirit as she listened to the patter of rain on
bamboo leaves outside the master’s study. Water dripped off the red tile roofs
and formed a lacy curtain hiding and then revealing the pebbled courtyards and
glossy green foliage. She wanted to stay in the garden forever, but eventually
she and Aggie moved on.

Angela bought a concealing silk scarf with a red dragon
motif. Aggie loaded them down with a teapot in the shape of a pig, a pair of
large straw fans and books on Buddhism, the garden, the history of the Chinese
in Vancouver and Chinese cuisine. By the time they arrived back at the hotel,
again entering through the basement, Angela felt closer to her sister than she
had since childhood. The emotion was a double edged sword.

Unluckily, the hotel didn’t have room service. The
receptionist explained over the phone that there was an excellent restaurant
right next door. Angela pleaded a headache to avoid going with her sister to
the restaurant for dinner. She asked Aggie to bring her back a doggy bag. They
spent the evening watching old movies on television and laughing over childhood
memories.

By the end of the weekend, Angela’s headache was real. The
constant skulking around the hotel preyed on her nerves. Though they spent the
day Sunday on the skytrain and had lunch and dinner far from downtown, the
coming explanation was never absent from Angela’s thoughts. She knew Aggie was
suspicious. Her sister had grown quieter as Sunday progressed, and when Aggie
slammed the hotel door behind them Sunday night, Angela knew the moment of
revelation had arrived.

“All right.” Aggie grabbed Angela’s arm and dragged her
toward the living room. She pushed her down into a chair. “Spill.”

“Okay. Promise me one thing. Don’t kill me until you hear
the whole thing.”

Aggie didn’t think her sister’s attempt at a joke was funny.
She flopped onto the sofa and stared at her twin.

“Is it that bad?”

“I’m a prostitute.”

Angela’s words hit Aggie like a baseball bat between the
eyes. She felt the trust of twenty-eight years shatter like fragile crystal.
How could Angela not have told her?

“You really were hurt,” she stated. “When my wrist was sore,
you were in trouble. You were hurt, weren’t you?”

Angela nodded and slipped to the floor to sit at Aggie’s
feet. Aggie watched detached as her hand moved to caress her sister’s hair. Her
twin’s head lifted and Aggie hardly recognized the hard eyes that had once been
her mirror image.

“I have to get out,” Angela stated calmly.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I went to what I thought would be a normal trick,” Angela
began.

“Normal,” Aggie whispered.

“You detach,” Angela explained. “But this john was a real
bastard. He wanted to make me feel bad, to humiliate me.”

“What did he do?”

“He handcuffed me.”

Aggie rubbed her wrist.

“He sodomized me. He bit me. I got a tetanus shot in case he
had rabies.” Angela’s laugh was bitter. “Then he wrapped the money in a condom
and shoved it up my ass. That was it, the last straw.”

Aggie felt the wetness on her cheeks before she realized she
was crying.

“You have to help me get out,” Angela pleaded.

“Of course,” Aggie agreed. “You can come live with me in
Cincinatti. You have a degree. I’m sure you can get a job.”

“A degree in art history isn’t very practical.”

“Just come live with me.” It was Aggie turn to beg.

“I have a plan.”

Aggie stifled a groan when she heard her sister’s words. She
knew the plan would be something weird or her sister would have told her
outright. She also had an intuition that it would involve her active
participation. She pushed her doubts into a corner. Better to let her sister give
an unprejudged explanation.

“What’s the plan?” she asked in as neutral a voice as she
could manage.

Her sister must have heard or anticipated her reluctance, for
her voice was defensive as she replied.

“I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I want you to listen
to the end.”

“Agreed.”

“Okay.” Angela’s chest swelled as she took a deep breath.
She stood up and walked into the hallway. When she returned, she held a scrap
of paper in her hand. “A few weeks ago a man put this ad in the New York
Times.”

Aggie took the ad from her sister’s outstretched hand. She
read the simple words and immediately thought of herself. She was exactly what
the man was looking for. Angela wanted her to prostitute herself for this man
and then share the money.

“I won’t do it.” Aggie thrust the paper back at her sister.

Angela sat in an armchair. “You don’t know what I’m going to
ask you. Aggie,…”

“No!” Aggie interrupted.

“No, Aggie!” Angela interrupted back. “I said you had to
listen to the whole explanation before you decided. Now you’re jumping to
conclusions and I haven’t even started explaining.”

Aggie recognized the justice of her sister’s words, though
she couldn’t image another more acceptable explanation. She nodded for Angela
to continue.

“I answered the ad. I used your name and circumstances.”
Aggie nodded tightlipped and Angela carried on. “About a week later I got a
letter asking me a bunch of questions. Everything was getting too complicated
already and I sent back the letter with kind of a nasty note.”

Aggie could imagine her sister’s words. Though Aggie had the
hotter temper, once Angela was angry, she was deadly. She smiled and her sister
continued, her voice more optimistic.

“A few days later a man called me.”

“You have an unlisted phone. I couldn’t even find you.”

“This man must be really wealthy to offer $120,000. I used a
box number. I guess he bribed somebody. I don’t know.”

“Keep going,” Aggie prodded.

“Okay.” Angela took a deep breath. “The man on the phone was
Danny, the brother of the man who advertised. He said the lawyer was suspicious
of me and had rejected my letter when I wouldn’t answer his questions. Do you
follow me?”

“So far.”

“Danny said he knew I was the right one for his brother. He
didn’t say ‘thought’. He said ‘knew’.”

“And…”

“So here we are in Vancouver. The man lives here.”

“And you want me prostitute myself for twelve nights and
then share the money with you so you can get out of prostitution.” Aggie couldn’t
suppress her anger. She stood and paced the short length of the room.

“NO!”

The horror in Angela’s voice couldn’t have been faked. Aggie
stopped and turned to her sister, her eyebrows raised.

“All I want you to do is go to the initial interview with the
lawyer, convince him you’re on the level. Then I’ll do the nights. I can fake
innocent in bed. I just don’t think I can fool a lawyer.”

The proposition was so much simpler, so much less painful
than Aggie had imagined, she almost laughed in relief. Her sister didn’t want
her to sell her body. She just wanted her to pull another twin stunt. No wonder
she had cut her hair to match Aggie’s. No wonder she had tried to fool their
father and Mary. All the pieces dropped into place and Aggie laughed.

“You’re too much, Boo.” Aggie held out her arms to her
sister. Angela rushed into her embrace and knocked them both back onto the
sofa. Angela was crying in loud gusts.

“I knew,” she sobbed. “I knew when you understood… that you
would understand.”

Aggie squeezed her tight.

“Stop crying, Boo,” she advised her older sibling. “You’re
not making any sense.”

Angela sat up.

“You’ll help me, won’t you?”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Angela? This man may be
as bad as the last one. He could be worse.”

“I can handle anything for twelve nights. Hell, pregnancy
lasts nine months. This has to be easier than throwing up every morning.”

“You don’t throw up for nine months,” Aggie reminded her.

“You know what I mean. I have a goal, Aggie. I really,
really need to get out of prostitution. I need the money.”

An awful possibility occurred to Aggie. “You’re not hooked
on drugs, are you?”

“No.” Angela stated flatly. “I’ve never touched anything.
Not that they aren’t around. That’s not why I want the money. I just want to
make a new start.”

“You can do that without $120,000.”

“Can you see me in some poky apartment drudging every day at
some stupid job?”

“Is that how you see my life?” Aggie asked, surprised and
hurt.

“No, stupid. You have a house and a good job. You were smart
and got a degree in library science. I was the stupid creative one. Now I’m not
fit to do anything real. I thought maybe I’d go back to school, become a lawyer
or something.”

Aggie couldn’t argue. Angela had always been smart in a
careless way. Aggie had gotten the better marks, but Angela’s B’s had come
easily. If she had the determination to go back to school, Aggie was sure she
would be successful. She made one last try to dissuade her from what she saw as
unnecessary self-degradation.

“Come to Cincinnati and live with me while you go to
school.”

“I can’t be that dependent.”

“Then get a college loan.”

“I can’t be that poor. Starving graduate student doesn’t
appeal to me much more than prostitute.”

Aggie knew her sister well enough to agree. She couldn’t
think of any more arguments, so she capitulated.

“All right. I’ll do the interview.”

Angela grabbed her sister in a breath-stealing hug.

“I love you!” she screamed. “I’d love you anyway, even if
you said no, but …”

“Stop crying,” Aggie admonished her sister for the second
time that evening. “You’re not making sense again.”

“I don’t care,” Angela sobbed. “This has to work, Boo. It
just has to work.”

“I’ll do my best, Angela,” Aggie cautioned as her sister sat
up and dried her eyes. “But he’s probably interviewing lots of people. Wait a
minute.”

Aggie stared at her sister.

“You said the lawyer rejected your letter. Why do you need
me to go for an interview with him?”

“I never told you the rest of the story. Danny said to come
to Vancouver anyway, and he’d figure out a way to get me in to the interview. I
picked up a note from him at the Vancouver Hotel…”

“Ah,” Aggie interjected.

“Right,” Angela agreed. “We were supposed to stay there. He
rented the Queen Anne suite for us. Sounds posh, doesn’t it?”

“Why aren’t we…” Aggie paused as she figured out her
sister’s reasoning. “We can’t be seen together. He can’t know there are two of
us. No wonder you’ve been so nervous the last two days.”

Angela nodded. “I have the room key, so he doesn’t know
we’re somewhere else. Anyway, the note said to meet him at ten o’clock tomorrow
morning in the lobby of the hotel. We don’t have much time.”

Aggie felt her heartbeat quicken. Anticipation of the coming
encounter made her feel more alive than she had in years. Since her sister
moved away, she realized. Angela could do that, make the colors of life more
vibrant, the days more fun. Aggie had almost forgotten the surge of adrenaline
that foamed in her sister’s wake. She thought back to the personal ad. The man
might have written it directly to her. Mingled with pure adventure was the
tingle of sexual anticipation. If her sister hadn’t needed the money so badly…
She suppressed the subversive thought. What about Andrew? Screw Andrew, she
realized with a guilty shiver. One way or another, she was going to at least
see the man who had placed the ad. She turned to her sister with a smile.

“Let’s get started.”

“What criteria did you use to select these women?” Jimmy’s
voice boomed over the speakerphone.

“Exactly what you said in the ad, Jimmy,” Richard replied.

Jimmy heard no apology in his lawyer’s voice, but only a
resigned weariness. Jimmy mentally accused and then quickly acquitted him of
deliberately choosing unappealing women. Despite his good looks and
intelligence, Richard found the female sex even more an enigma than Jimmy did
himself.

“So far I’ve met an obvious gold-digger. She was fake
everything, boobs, hair, eye color, probably had liposuction too.”

“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” the lawyer did apologize now. “I didn’t
think to ask for a medical history. That was an oversight.”