Chapter Four: The Skinny

Monday, August 9th
1:00 AM

“Just what the hell is going on here!!”

For just a moment Dara and Robert don’t know how to react. I don’t get all that mad anymore and when I do it’s usually more of a source of amusement for them than anything else. I even have to agree there. My infrequent fits are usually spoiled by laughter if I catch my reflection during one. This one is different and considering the events leading up to it, it feels good to vent like this. I may have to do it this way more often. There’s nothing funny about it. “I was looking forward to what looked like let’s get back together sex when I was summoned back here to deceive a woman who doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. Well? Robert, I can see doing this for the money but you, Dara?” On Robert’s face I see an odd look of outrage I’d suggest such a thing and wondering if he really would consider such a thing.

“What the fuck do you know? You got dumped in luxury and were forced to swig expensive booze and lie. Boo fucking hoo!” Warning, islanders! Hurricane Dara has arrived. “You didn’t have to hear Kathy screaming. Can you even picture that? Tough bitch Kathy screaming like a child in pain?” Tears reappear and there’s no stopping them but Dara stiff arms me to keep me from comforting her.

“Back off, ‘Mon. You don’t know what it was like.” Robert speaks in the quietest voice I’ve ever heard him use. It’s scary, boys and girls. Robert loves to be the center of attention and you don’t get it by being shy and unassuming. He should really try this way of speaking more. He’s never had so much of my attention at one time before. “Sure, we know now that wasn’t you on the ground. We know it was Other Simon but did we know then? Did we even know for a full twenty minutes? No. All three of us have always said how much we loved each other but me and Dara didn’t know the depth, you know? We found out exactly how much we loved you, big guy, when we felt that horrible, horrible pain of your loss.” Dara is still blubbering but she shakes her head yes maniacally. That’s gotta hurt.

“Maybe I started off on the wrong foot. Tell me. How was your day?”

The Skinny

It was a dark and stormy day. Well, okay. That part was still a little bit to come. It was a dim and drizzly afternoon. That’s just not what we call a classic opening line. Robert’s shift started at two and Dara’s at four. Dara had stupidly agreed to lunch with her parents so she was running late. That put her in a bad mood and in Kathy’s bad graces.

Kathy was in rare form it seemed. Under that mean and sarcastic exterior was a bitter and cynical interior. It was only when you dug deeper you got to see her heart of gold. Admittedly, it’s very small and seldom used but it is there. Kathy is also very good at denial but we’re happy for that. After all, catching her son Paul in compromising positions with Robert could have been disastrous for our working relationships without that skill.

Anyways, the bit about Kathy is what’s called a digression and you should be used to them by now. I just wanted you to have a better feel for the little Italian hellion. I should mention too that me, Dara, Dieter, and Robert are all Kathy’s favorite employees. Maybe it’s ‘cause we all decide we adored her even before we actually discovered she deserved it. Sound like a good thing? Ha! There’s one big problem with being on Mrs. Barney’s minuscule good side. Let’s call it anti-favoritism. If she likes you she’s harder on you than anyone else just to prove she’s not being unfair. True, that’s also unfair but it’s an unfair Kathy can live with. I didn’t mind it, Robert actually has fun with the situation, and Dara was only occasionally homicidal in reaction.

That’s how it came about that Dara would have to play hostess that afternoon. Anyone else but Dara could have been late that day and they’d just have a shitty section and maybe more than their share of the more annoying regulars. Dara had to hostess, a job that Kathy thought was worse than making the desserts. That suited Dara just fine. The way she felt, playing god with who got a good waiter and who didn’t suited her black mood just fine. It also meant that Dara got to be there when ‘I’ walked in.

“Simon! Why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming back early?” She pulled the poor guy down the hallway to the break room, him confused as all hell. “What went wrong? What did Michael do? He said it was over with that Billy skank so I knew him not coming clean was a bad idea.” At this point in the story I got a little distracted. Knowing Michael had been hot and heavy with Billy put a new spin on my week off. The fact we had not gone at it like bunnies went from sweet to ominous all of a sudden. Memories of Dara telling me the details of Simon insisting he wasn’t me probably couldn’t even be retrieved by hypnosis. I came back to the story just as Robert entered the fun. He was Dara’s first clue this wasn’t me. His reaction rounding the corner and seeing them was very wary. Maybe Robert just sensed he hadn’t ever been with this Simon. So much is about sex with the boy. That’s when a frustrated (and not a little wet from the drizzle outside) Simon produced his license out of frustration.

“Wow. If that wasn’t a different license from a different state I’d still think my Simon had come down with MPD or something.” All three of them were now confused and as a very rich man, Simon Douglas was getting suspicious. Robert went to his locker to take care of that.

“You gotta see this. It’s of me and our Simon when we went to Miami Beach a few years ago.” It was a sweet revelation that Robert kept a work a picture of our only vacation as a pseudo-couple. The trouble is that with what we’d learn about Simon it couldn’t have endeared Robert to him. The picture was taken at a gay bar after we had quite a few drinks. Simon was deeply affected by the picture as much for me being in it as the setting. “You guys are twins. There’s no other explanation. You sound alike, gesture alike, the whole package. Does a hot dog make you lose control?” Simon wasn’t excited by that news and Dara said the reference to the Patty Duke Show’s theme song went over badly too..

“Bullshit. There has to be a more logical explanation.”

“God, you even get pissed alike! Simon said he was adopted but no one’s ever known anything about his birth family. Could he be a Douglas too?” Robert says he wasn’t thinking of the money angle and I believe him. He knew how being disowned had made me feel and was angling to get me a new family.

“I sincerely doubt it. My parents had plenty of opportunities before they died to tell me if I had a brother they didn’t raise or if I were adopted. Surely someone would have mentioned it after the accident. I mean...” Dara and Robert saw at that moment Simon realized something. Maybe it was a turn of a phrase from some relative or a furtive look when he had said something at a family gathering. Whatever it was, it made Simon more receptive to what was going on here. “Is this friend of yours nearby? It might be interesting to meet him.”

“Simon’s down the shore but he’ll be driving back tomorrow morning. You could meet him then.” Simon didn’t like this news.

“Maybe we can schedule something later in the week. I have a meeting early tomorrow in Newark.” Dara says it was clear Simon was growing more interested in meeting me by then but Robert insists it was so well hidden he couldn’t spot it.

“No problem, Simon. The way your lookalike drives, he could be here by dusk. Can you stick around in the meantime? I want to get to know you a little better before you guys get lost in the ‘oh my god, there’s a guy who looks just like me here’ shock.” Dara insists she wasn’t flirting. Robert says she did the hair toss and the giggle and was seconds away from unbuttoning a few buttons on her blouse. Knowing me and Dara’s odd dynamic I think Robert is being more accurate. There has always been an odd undercurrent of attraction between us that Dara and I have never really confronted.

“It would be my pleasure, Miss McCray, but I’m afraid I got a little water logged on the way here. I’ll have to return to the Ambassador for dry clothes while we’re waiting.” Dara and Robert both suspected the man might take the chance to bolt and luckily had a plan.

“Nonsense. Your...well, let’s call him your brother until we know better...left a change of clothes here. Thank god I guess that I kept forgetting to drop them by his place.” Insert the ominous music here. Now starts the chain of events leading to tragedy and mistaken identity. “There in number sixty-eight. You change while we call Si.” Now the next part I know because I was the one called.

Dara and Simon stayed in the break room talking. Robert says the other me was trying too hard to act straight. My twin was either a closet case or as repressed as anyone Robert has ever seen. Dara apparently loved it and Robert thinks way too much. He said I should definitely read something into it. Just exactly what he wouldn’t say but something nonetheless. She even locked the door.

Robert’s had the easiest task: keeping Kathy, Susan, Victoria, and the others away from them. He figured it wouldn’t help the new guy’s mood if he had to go through the ‘gosh, you look just like Simon’ routine seven more times. It took stories ranging from woman troubles to a bad case of the trots but no one wanted to brave Dara’s company that afternoon. It helped that it was slow enough for Kathy to not mind having Dara off the payroll but busy enough no one else needed the break room. Finally though, an impatient Simon Douglas got up to leave.

“Oh, you can’t give up now. Simon won’t be much longer.” She was afraid Simon had finally freaked and it would be forever before she and Robert could get us together in the same room again.

“Oh, I assure you I’m not leaving. I just need my cell phone and PDA so I can get a little work done. This was partly a scouting a trip and I think I’ve found a new acquisition.”

Near as Dara and Robert can figure, Simon was dead less than a minute later. Five minutes later Kathy made her awful discovery. Twenty more would pass before my friends realized exactly who was lying dead in the parking lot. By that time the police had arrived and they decided to let everyone keep on thinking that it was really me lying dead as a, well dead thing.

It was just dumb luck that Simon had forgotten his room key and wallet in the break room. Weirder still was that Robert had forgotten his promise to me that he’d take my wallet out of my pants and it was on Simon Douglas as he was podded and poked. At this point, the only unanswered question is why they decided I had to stay dead and take over Simon Douglas’ life.