Scott Turow - Identical

But no matter how big a lipstick lesbian she was, she’d never imagined being attractive to someone as glamorous as Heather. Beauty came to Heather in the same effortless manner in which Evon had excelled at sports. Heather was naturally fit, despite seldom working out, and never restricting what she ate. She was a true ash blonde-she boasted to Evon the first time they had dinner that the rugs matched the drapes-and was actually more beautiful with the swollen sleepy look she had in the morning.

And Heather was fun, carefree and blazingly funny. For the first several months, Evon found her endlessly amusing, even though Heather’s impulsiveness seldom took account of what Evon wanted. Awake in the middle of the night, Heather became entranced by an infomercial about Brazil and while Evon was asleep rebooked a vacation they’d planned for months. One evening, Heather walked into the apartment and waved her hands at the furniture she had spent months choosing. ‘This is all wrong,’ she said. ‘The sofa has to go.’ The sofa was crimson mohair and had been special-ordered at a cost of several thousand dollars. Evon nearly reeled at the waste, but was delighted at the same time to have exceeded the boundaries that had confined her all her life. When Heather returned to the store, she ordered a full second living room and asked them to hold it, awaiting the day she would change her mind again. Evon had roared when she heard.

But naturally the humor faded. Watching her girlfriend toss out an expensive top she’d worn only once, Evon retrieved it from the can. ‘Give it away, at least,’ she told Heather, who flicked a hand at the bother. With time, Evon began to see beneath the beautiful mask. Heather worked hard on the exterior because what was inside was often beyond her control. Black funks frequently gripped her and made her impossible and bearish. She drank too much, too often, and in that state was lacerating. And she was frustratingly fickle. Their plans had been to make a day out of getting ready for the wedding, go for spa treatments and mani-pedis. Instead, Heather slid out of bed at 8 a.m. and announced she had to work. Her principal client, Tom Craigmore, ever more demanding, wanted an all-day with his creative team for the line of athletic clothing he was going to launch in the fall.

“Where did you change?” Evon asked Heather now.

“The office.”

Heather had left the apartment without a bag, which meant her dress had been on a hanger at work and that she had known for some time their plans for today were doomed. Why not say something earlier, why put off being the source of disappointment? Heather was a baby that way. She’d come from a crazy messed-up home, a philandering father who’d killed himself eventually and a mother who’d never really touched the ground long enough to notice that her children were in distress. Heather as a result was afraid to face disapproval.

The ceremony began. It was a wedding with an asterisk. Francine and Nella had gone to Boston last weekend to be legally married. What was taking place here, in the presence of friends and family, was all that local law allowed, a religious commitment ceremony.

The officiant, an Episcopal priest who was a longtime friend to both women, blessed their union beautifully.

“Life,” he said at one point, “is much too cruel to go through it alone.” The remark pierced Evon like an arrow. Yes. That was true. She took Heather’s hand and squeezed it hard.

And on the power of that observation, it turned into a great night. A few years back, at the age of fortysomething, Evon had found out that she loved to dance. The music, especially the seventies tunes of her teens-“Stairway to Heaven,” Springsteen-liberated her as liquor or drugs did other people. Heather and she danced until they were a clammy mess, requesting four separate run-throughs of “Born To Run.” The club personnel shooed everybody out at 1 a.m.

By the time they arrived home, Heather was caught up in the inebriated fantasy of the wedding she would make. She had a thousand ideas: walking down an aisle lit by floating candles, in doubled crystal globes also containing orchids, the ceremony conducted on a mat of fresh lavender.

“And I want Cartier,” Heather announced. “My kisses do not begin with Kay, and if you come home with Zales, I don’t even know your name.” Heather was laughing when she said it, but there was a knife blade buried in her eyes.

When Heather left her to shower, Evon, who’d had far more to drink than usual, felt a stark mood shadow her heart. Heather’s talk of marriage, her regal demands, left Evon feeling how remote the chances were. Her doubts had little to do with her skepticism about whether same-sex marriage would ever be legal in this state, or even whether she had shed enough of a closeted person’s anxieties to be able to refer out loud to anyone as her “wife.” Something else concerned her, even if all the champagne made it impossible for her to be more precise. It was a shock to find herself dubious, because the story of the relationship had been that she pursued Heather, put up with her, forgave her. And it was true that she still craved Heather, loved her zany side and terrific sarcasm, and had touched something strong and good in herself by doting on her. In the past several months she’d realized she was basically Heather’s mother, which was not as bad a deal for Evon as putting it that way made it sound, because she enjoyed-no, relished-being a kinder, more patient and understanding person toward Heather than Evon’s mother had been to her. She wasn’t prepared yet to give any of that up.

But she was starting to lose faith in the myth or the legend or the fairy tale, whatever you called it, by which she’d been operating, the belief that Heather would ‘calm down,’ as Evon put it to herself, and love Evon as she wanted to be loved. Life was much too cruel to go through it alone. So she was here. And tomorrow when she awoke she’d believe it all again. But for now, the last glass of champagne had made her feel like a seer or an oracle who looked through the smoke called the future unable to make out any comforting shapes.

Tim saw the first of Hal’s ads about Paul and the murder Monday afternoon, when he put aside his book of myths and turned on the early news at 5 p.m. He’d given up on the local TV journalism years ago-it was all about Chihuahuas hunting lobsters, or Jesus appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich-but he was excited to find himself with a role in current events. At his age, he was accustomed to feeling irrelevant.

Paul’s lawsuit had made headlines for a couple of days, and now Hal was hitting back. Tim watched the commercial in amazement. A piece of paper that could have just as easily been obliterated by the seepage in his basement was now made to look like holy writ. The camera zoomed in sideways on the police report, then jumped first to the header that read “Greenwood County Sheriff’s Police,” then the date and finally “Paul Gianis” in the box for “Witness.” The words attributed to Paul blackened to boldface and then rose off the page, all while some unseen woman with a scolding voice asked if we wanted a liar for mayor. Tonight the commercial was shown again a minute later as part of the news. Tim turned away from the screen with a small turmoil in his gut. Not a word in the ad was untrue. But he still didn’t feel quite right about it.

Tim was reconsidering all of this as he looked between the little leaded darts of stained glass in his bayed front window, already bundled in his woolen overcoat and wearing a felt hat. The BMW pulled up to the curb and he locked up and lumbered out.

“All of four blocks,” he told Evon, putting on his seat belt, “but the newcomers don’t shovel their front walks. I’m too damn old for mountain climbing.” There had been a serious snow last week, the first in a couple of years. When Tim grew up here, it got to twenty below for days in the winter and snowed like hell whenever it warmed up. No more. Right after the flakes stopped falling, young Dorie Sherman across the street had been out with her little guy, showing him the drifts, which he’d never seen.