David and Ameena by Ami Rao

Author:Ami Rao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairlight Books
Published: 2020-11-04T14:01:21+00:00

2.13

Daylight came.

In some other city, the birds chirped.

Outside the apartment, the sirens blared. Inside, the buzzer rang.

Peggy answered the door and almost keeled backwards at the sight of the pair standing in front of her.

‘Sorry,’ she said immediately, ‘wrong apartment?’

She was just about to shut the door when one of them interjected politely.

‘Howdy, miss,’ he said in that charming Bill Clinton accent, ‘this is apartment 15B isn’t it? We tried to buzz from the street…’

‘…but the intercom’s broken?’ finished Peggy.

He smiled and nodded. ‘We’re here to transport some artwork to the…’ he looked down at a piece of paper in his hand ‘…Suzy Lipskis Gallery? Lips? Kiss?’

‘Oh,’ Peggy exclaimed, opening the door wider, ‘right! Well then come on in.’

Ameena, lounging in the kitchen with a morning cup of Earl Grey, had caught only bits of the conversation, but knew that Suzy had arranged for packers to wrap and transport her artwork across for the show.

‘Is it someone for my art?’ she called.

‘Uh. Yup,’ Peggy replied, in what Ameena thought was a very odd voice.

She had just started to walk towards the door to introduce herself when she stopped short with her mouth open and her eyebrows raised all the way up, making her face look somewhat like a caricature of itself. With that same expression, she turned to look at Peggy, who, at that moment, was attempting to suppress a giggle with a long, endlessly troublesome cough, for standing in the entryway, looking at them with identical boyish grins, were her art packers – a duo sporting matching muscle t-shirts, blond spiky hair and faces so similar that only a mother could tell them apart.

She clamped her hand over her mouth and squeezed herself wordlessly between Peggy and the wall to give them room to pass. ‘Good Morning,’ one of them hollered cheerily as he walked past her, looking enquiringly around the apartment, then at her face. ‘Bedroom?’

Ameena looked at Peggy and Peggy looked at Ameena and both girls carried an expression on their faces that told them instantly that if either one had the temerity to start laughing, neither would be able to stop.

Peggy coughed again. Ameena said, ‘This way, follow me please,’ in a funny high-pitched tone and led the way to her bedroom, where she had stacked all the paintings in a neat pile next to the door the night before.

Then she came back out, closed the door behind her, and instantly burst into a fit of giggles.

‘Oh my GOD,’ Peggy whispered, ‘Tweedledee!’

‘Tweedledum!’ Ameena countered.

‘Double trouble!’ Peggy said, wiping her eyes.

‘TWO hot!’ Ameena shrieked.

And so, two genetically identical sets of exceptionally muscular arms wrapped thirty pieces of artwork expertly in bubble paper, packed them into wooden cartons and brought them to the front door and as they were leaving, the brothers smiled affably and said goodbye in that laconic southern drawl, their biceps bulging with the weight of the boxes they carried.

Then when the blond one with the spiky hair said, ‘All done! Down yonder then, to

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