Some Extremely Boring Drives by Marguerite Pigeon

Author:Marguerite Pigeon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: NeWest Press
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

MAKEOVER

I spotted myself at a Japanese hotdog stand. Me. Exactly as I am. No toppings on the dog, as I prefer, eating greedily, as I do. She shoved in the last bite with such recognizable eagerness that I can’t say if it was disbelief or familiarity that stopped me cold. A taxi nearly ran me down before I stumbled across the street towards her—towards me.

“How?” I tried to say, but I couldn’t speak. I stepped up onto the sidewalk and clutched the stand’s cool metal edge. One of the young people staffing it bent down, his round, red hat on a tilt. “Hotdog?” he said, cheerfully.

This other person who was me—I’ll call her “the other me”—was still only half visible. It was lunchtime and a popular spot. I could see her face, framed by short dark hair, like mine until recently (I had added highlights and was growing it out). She wore no makeup, as I normally did not. The skin around her eyes showed the precise signs of age that I had seen in my own features just minutes before, standing in a department store mirror down the block, asking myself if I needed to start using cosmetics. I had decided that I did and had allowed a salesperson to apply a faceful of them. I could still smell the powder she’d applied to my cheekbones while looking at me like a half decorated cake.

Then several people shifted out of the way and I saw the rest of her. My double. Sameness in the torso, the stance. Sameness in her wariness, which I could feel even at that distance. But there was one important difference: this woman’s free hand was holding a stroller handle, pushing it gently back and forth. I stepped closer, incredulous, looking between the other me and her buggy.

She saw me. Our eyes met. Hazel on hazel. I thought I would freeze again, but now my shock was mobile. I circled slowly, as if before a mirror. I became momentarily lost in worry about my mental health. I saw myself in the straitjacket and padded room of movies. I saw my elderly father visiting me, wiping away my drool, trimming my toenails. He would resent every minute.

Someone gasped. I turned and could see people around the hotdog stand staring. Several more who were seated on a low brick fence nearby had stopped eating entirely, hotdogs horizontal, midair. The movie-like images in my mind switched to a montage of zombie horror. This crowd would become a mob. The young vendor would throw down his hat as he righteously dove forward with his long BBQ fork to pierce the hearts of each of us… aberrations.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to speak loudly enough to be overheard. “I. . . didn’t expect to see you here. Shall we get lunch?... Like we enjoy doing? As twins.”

The other me was still pushing her stroller back and forth in an automatic fashion. Her face was blank—her own version of shock, probably.

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