Like A Charm

'They walk alike, they talk alike,' the ugly boy sang.

'That was Patty Duke,' the other girl corrected him. 'What's your name? Where are you from? Maybe you're distant relations and you don't even know it.'

'I'm Kate,' I said, using the shorter version of my real name. My parents had named me Caitlin. It was the year everyone was naming their daughter Caitlin. Only my mother, being my mother, had spelled it Katelyn. I had shortened it to Kate when I was in high school and the crisp, sharp sound fitted me much better. Hard and sharp, like me. 'And I'm from around here, more or less.'

'Well I'm from New York,' Maya said. 'And I have to say, I really don't see it. I mean, we have dark hair and green eyes. So what? Do you see it?'

Her look at pretty boy said: You better not.

'No,' I said. 'Our bone structure is completely different.'

And I almost ran to the kitchen, heart pounding. It's not easy to give bad service to your only table of the night, but I managed it that evening, hiding in the kitchen as much as possible. They stiffed me on the tip, but they probably would have anyway. Besides, the last thing I wanted was for them to come back, bring other students interested in slumming for a night. If Maya wanted to disavow me, then I was just as anxious to deny her. Although, by all accounts – judging from her clothes, her averred preference for Boodles, and especially that bracelet dangling from her wrist – she had done just fine, better than me. Better than I.

The next week, I checked the freshmen face book from her year in an idle moment at the library. She had gone to a private school in New York City. The last name didn't mean anything to me, but maybe she used her mother's name. She was majoring in art history, with a minor in dance, a sure tip-off to how wealthy her family must be. No one who was worried about getting a job ever majored in art history.

I should have left it there, and I think I would have, but one of the boys from the bar came into the library one afternoon while I was working. 'Hey, it's you,' he said. 'Maya's twin. Kay.'

'Kate. I think I remember you, too.' He was the sort-of cute one.

'I'm Clay, by the way. Why are you working at that bar if you've got a gig here?'

I shrugged, hoping it seemed devil-may-care, I do it for the experience, my good man. Not everyone at Not Quite is rich, but even the average kids seem kind of sheltered. I had heard a few stories that made me realize that not everyone's life was glossy perfection - the loss of a parent, a sibling's drug problem. But I hadn't heard anyone yet confess to being on intimate terms with the 911 dispatcher, or knowing the code for a domestic. Hey, nothing's ever a complete loss. The Fraternal Order of Police gave me $500 towards my tuition.

'I still think you and Maya look alike,' he said. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say you were long-lost sisters.'

'Maybe we are,' I said, trying to keep my tone light. 'Was her father the mailman?'

'See, that's the fu

'Are you her boyfriend?'

'More of a friend,' he said swiftly, as if sensing an opportunity. But I'm not sure the opportunity was there, not when I asked. Two hours later, I was letting him screw me in his dorm room. His roommate came in not long after we finished, while I was putting on my socks, and said, 'Hey, Maya.'

'Hey,' I said, my voice sweet and tinkly, not at all my own, and Clay didn't bother to correct his roommate's notion of what happened. And if I had been trying to make trouble, wouldn't I have made sure the roommate, ugly boy, knew I wasn't Maya?

It wasn't a big deal, by the way. My generation, whatever our problems, we're level-headed about sex. It feels good, and dorm life provides a lot of opportunities. I've been with guys and I've been with girls, and it's more about warmth than anything else, like puppies in a pet shop window, piled together in a heap. Plus, N.Q.U. is in this boring Rust Belt city where there isn't a lot to do. (Are you getting it yet? First choice of pre-meds, the Great Glass Library, big on lacrosse, Rust Belt city, a college with a two-word name? Look, I'd name it outright, but they have some scary lawyers, men who are very keen that the school's name not be co

But sex with Clay was one degree of separation from Maya, and it made me feel as if I had, I don't know, permission to remove that one degree, to talk to Maya one-on-one, figure out if I was right about what I suspected. We didn't have any classes together, her being a year ahead and a dilettante art history major, but it was a small enough campus to cross someone's path, if you really put your mind to it.

I put my mind to it.

'Hey,' I said, coming across her as she left a rehearsal one night. It was early spring now, just a month after we first met, warmer but by no means balmy. Still, all Maya wore was a pair of sweats over her skimpy leotard. I've got a nice body, too, a body very much like Maya's - long legged, small-boned - but I don't walk around in my track shorts, showing everyone my ass.

'Yeah?' she asked, not looking up. She was bent over her wrist, fastening the charm bracelet. I guess she couldn't wear it when she danced, loud as it was.

'We met at Long John's that one time? Remember? Those crazy guys thought we looked alike.'

'Oh, sure.' Sizing me up now, still trying to decide if the comparison was an insult.

'I like your bracelet,' I said, then hated myself for sounding as if I were sucking up. 'I mean, they're very fashionable right now, aren't they? Charm bracelets.'

'Are they? This was a gift from my father, so I wear it all the time. It's an odd story – he found it in a cab.'

'Was he the driver?'

'No.' She laughed as if the idea of a cab-driving father were something quaint. But my dad had driven a cab once upon a time, although I had never heard of him doing it in New York. Then again, my dad's life had a lot of gaps, even the parts I knew about were filled with gaps. 'He just found it in the back seat. Normally, he would have handed it over to the driver, but the guy looked kind of shady. So my dad called the cab company and told them what he had found, and they said they would turn it over to him if no one claimed it. No one ever did, so he kept it, and gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday.'

It sounded like the sort of story my dad would tell, except it had a happy ending. I put a deposit down on the most beautiful bike, baby, but the guy sold it from under my nose. I went to the toy store, baby, but they didn't have the doll you wanted. I meant to have something for your birthday, honey, but I got held up at work and all the stores were closed. Until I was ten, I believed it all. That was when I found out about the two things that kept us so broke - Daddy's poker habit and Daddy's other family.

'I'm going for coffee. You want to come?' Again, I could have kicked myself for sounding so needy. But Maya said yes. I don't know why. Maybe she wanted a cup of coffee. Maybe she liked me, in spite of herself. Maybe she wanted to know more about this strange girl with her face. We went to a place just off campus, Grounds for Life. That was the year when all the coffee places around Not Quite U. had grounds in the name. Grounds for Life, Urban Grounds, Common Grounds. Only the last one made sense to me.