It turns out I don’t have to fake my reaction. The sight of my puny little, what is he, step-nephew lying hooked up to machines jolts me. Tarquin doesn’t look any bigger than when I last saw him, at Summer’s wedding, dressed in a ridiculous midget tuxedo. Back then he looked blooming and boisterous, barely a baby anymore, except that he still couldn’t walk. He crawled all over the place, getting into everything and rolling on the ground until his silly white shirt was covered with grass stains. Now he lies sickly still. His reddish hair hangs limp against his forehead, and his little limbs look cold and vulnerable.
This is serious. Tarquin might be a brat, but my sister loves him. He’s Adam’s son. And here they are stuck in a foreign country, with an extravagant yacht at risk, too. I’m glad I’m here to help. What if Tarquin dies while Adam and I are at sea? He’ll be inconsolable.
I must look upset, because Adam gives my shoulder a brotherly squeeze. “I know,” he says. “It’s a shock. This has been so hard for Summer.”
But where is Summer? Tarquin is alone in the stark room. He’s asleep or unconscious, but if he had woken up, no one would have been here for him.
And now cool, soft arms envelop me, and the hospital smell gives way to the mingled aroma of apples and the beach.
Summer is here.
“Twinnie! I’ve missed you so much. How can I ever thank you for coming?” Her voice tinkles like silver. I turn and meet my sister’s gaze. Her aqua eyes are steady and warm. She doesn’t examine me—my haircut and eyebrows go unnoticed—she just stares into my soul. I wonder, not for the first time, whether there’s anything I could ever do that wouldn’t meet with her instant, free-flowing forgiveness. She’s so trusting it kills me.
“I feel so bad,” she says. “I swore not to leave Tarky alone for a second, but you guys took so long. I was busting for a pee, and I thought you would never get here!”
Adam looms toward us, and I step back before I get caught in the spousal embrace. He kisses Summer on the lips, a soulful, ardent kiss. Is that tongue, while his son’s lying here in a coma? I can hardly bear to look. Then he lets go and gazes at his wife as though he’s seeing her for the first time.
Summer truly is a thing of beauty. She’s put on a kilo or two since I saw her in New Zealand a couple of months ago, but it’s gone on in the right places. She’s as curvy and golden as a peach and, as always, unconscious of her charm. She wears faded denim shorts and a cotton shirt that shows a glimpse of bronze midriff. Even in casual clothes, she looks like a girl in a catalogue; I feel overdressed in my red miniskirt and heels. Summer’s legs are muscled, tanned, flawless. Mine might be skinnier, but they must look wobbly and pale.
Actually, there’s one flaw. Summer leans over Tarquin’s still body, and I glimpse the long red S that snakes up her right inner thigh, disappearing into her shorts. I can never see my sister’s scar without a guilty pang.
Adam picks up Tarquin’s medical chart and settles into the bedside chair to read it. Uh-oh. Looks like we’re here for the night. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that the doting father will be able to tear himself away and set off across an ocean while his son and heir languishes at death’s door.
Why have I come here? They didn’t feed me enough on the plane, and hunger is putting an edge on everything. Is it gauche to ask for a bite of hot food and a comfortable place to lie down? Summer and Adam are whispering now, and all I can hear is Tarq, Tarky, Tarquin. Even if it weren’t the world’s most annoying name, you would hate it after you’d been in a room with this pair for five minutes. At least right now they have something real to worry about, instead of whether these organic rusks contain sugar or whether the moron needs yet another slathering of sunscreen.
It’s hard to say which is more disgusting, their simmering chemistry or their shared obsession with the little tyke. Summer has entirely forgotten that Tarquin’s not her own kid, although you would think the fact that he didn’t come with a hundred-million-dollar sweetener would be a constant reminder. Then there is the fact that he doesn’t look a bit like her. He takes after Adam, although his copper-colored hair apparently comes from Helen, a mark of her Aboriginal heritage.
Summer never had a chance to get to know Helen, who was busy dying of something or other while Tarquin fought for his little life in neonatal intensive care. Adam wouldn’t leave Helen’s side, so the first glimpse he had of his baby was a photo of Tarquin in a nurse’s arms that someone brought to Helen’s ward. Months later, Adam had that photo blown up and hung on his living room wall.
Because the nurse in the photo is Summer. That’s how she met Adam. She was nursing his baby while he watched his wife die. Afterward, she was so sweet on the motherless little rat that Adam asked her to be Tarquin’s godmother. They kept in touch after Tarquin was discharged from the neonatal unit, and then they started dating.
I don’t know what I was hoping to find in Thailand. I thought we would be partying as the adults did back in the day. But reality has bitten. Summer’s wrapped up in her own family. I slink toward the door. Maybe I can find a restaurant somewhere near the hospital. Or a bar.
“Sorry, Iris, we’ve kept you here far too long,” Summer says. “I’ve got a meal and your bed ready on Bathsheba. Let’s go.”
After one last lecherous kiss between her and Adam, she hefts my suitcase up, and we’re out of there.
Outside the hospital are bustling streets, full of lights and shops, foot traffic and motor scooters. Heads turn as Summer and I walk past, naturally falling into step. We are one set of identical twins who still get noticed whenever we’re together. Instant celebrity status. Summer is an it girl, a blond bombshell. And I’m her mirror.
When I tell people about Summer’s beauty, they always look at me funny. Is this my coy way of announcing that I think I’m a goddess? But it isn’t. I am identical to Summer, but when I’m apart from her, I’m no one special. I don’t turn heads. I’m just another reasonably pretty young woman who no doubt looks like she’s trying too hard.
Summer doesn’t have to try. Even in her nursing greens, hair tied back, face devoid of makeup, she’s got it. Everywhere she goes, she’s the sun in the morning sky. The first rose of spring. And I’m her shadow, her double, her ultimate accessory.
Summer finds a taxi. “Yanui Beach,” she tells the driver. The name is familiar, but I can’t think from where.
We zoom through the sparkling streets and I’m struck again by how much Phuket has changed. It’s like seeing a beautiful woman ruined by age.
Summer catches my look. “I know,” she says. “The Phuket we loved is gone. Adam and I can’t stand how crowded it is.” She squeezes my arm. “But it feels good to have you here. It feels . . . right. Like we can let go of our memories of this place together.”
My heart has been beating too fast since I don’t know when, and when she says this, it drops back into rhythm, slow and steady. Maybe my heartbeat is matching Summer’s now that we’re together. Something’s changed since the last time I saw her, but I’m struggling to figure out what it is. She was as kind to me then, in the Southern Alps, as she is here. Summer is always kind, always blind to any kind of rivalry, but it’s not grating on me anymore.