Дэймон Найт - Orbit 11

I got out of the car with her to stretch my paralyzed legs. An attendant made his way toward us through the clutter of hosing spread across the cracked concrete.

“Why, Shirley girl,” he said, “ain’t seen you since the hotel burned down. Where you been keeping yourself?”

Shelley glanced at me. She seemed scared. But all she got from me was a helpless gesture.

“The guys said you cut out of town, Shirl,” the attendant said.

“I’m not Shirley.”

“What? This a joke? You kidding?”

He appealed to me with a look. I had a helpless gesture for him, too.

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Shelley said, her voice icy.

“You’re not Shirley Graham who used to—”

“No. I. Am. Not,” Shelley said, low-voiced but hitting every word with a sledgehammer.

“Ma’am, you look exactly like Shirley Graham. Spitting image. Same face, same hair, same voice even—”

“My God, can’t you get off it?” Shelley exploded. Her hands were trembling.

The attendant apologized.

Since I’d never seen Shelley so agitated before, I watched the incident in several roles:

Concerned husband, grabbing a hand to steady her.

Student of human nature, attempting to interpret the radical change in the behavior he’s just observed.

Debonair madcap, filing away the moment until later when it can be extracted for a good joke.

Sensualist, thinking of all the sexy dividends such fury might furnish.

Coward, glad that it wasn’t his embarrassing moment.

As we returned to the car, someone shouted at us from across the narrow main street.

“Hey, Shirley!”

Shelley jumped into the car, rolled up her window, and locked her door. The caller ran across the street to me. He was a fleshy nice guy type, the kind you meet regularly stocking shelves in supermarkets.

“Hey, what’s the matter with Shirley? She never snubbed me before.”

I tried to explain that Shelley definitely was not Shirley. During the conversation Shelley knocked frequently on the window and gestured nervously for me to get into the car. With exaggerated reluctance, the guy finally believed me.

“Mister,” he said, pointing a chubby finger toward Shelley, “if that ain’t Shirley, she’s her split-egg twin.”

“I’ve gathered there’s a striking resemblance but—”

“Jim, quit talking to him,” Shelley interrupted angrily. She had rolled down the window. “Get in the car, get us out of here.”

Shelley had never raised her voice to me before. I can’t even remember a time when she used the imperative mood three times in a row.

As we passed Union City’s last rusting gas pump and headed for open country, Shelley sat stiffly. Her usually placid hands moved all over her body, straightening her skirt, brushing back her hair, scrubbing her forehead, hunting for buttons to toy with. Her abrupt change in temperament confused me and I was perturbed by her tension. Yet, sorry to say, there was a miniature Sherlock Holmes just waking up in my brain, just breathing off the smudges on his magnifying glass, just donning his stalker’s cap.

Slick icebreaker that I am, I attempted to alleviate the nervous silence.

“Well, Shirley,” I said, “you almost blew our cover dat time, kid.”

She looked at me, eyes fearful, mouth trembling. “Stop it, Jim. Not even in fun, please.”

I think she needed faith from me at that moment, or at least silence. But I, discomfited by the unexpected flaw in my universe, made the wrong choice. I rebuckled my armor, sure that truth was purity, that the soul should be cleansed of deceit, and proceeded to slay the maiden instead of the dragon.

“Shelley, I don’t understand why you got so upset.”

“Drop it, Jim. Please.”

“No, it’s inconceivable to me that a simple case of mistaken identity—”

“But that’s it, don’t you see? Just mistaken identity, that’s all. All.”

“Shelley, I want to help but I simply don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry but. . . but. . . okay, that’s it. Who ever said understanding was a gift? Just forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“Please, Jim, I can’t keep this up.”

Stopped at a traffic light in Waterford (a town I don’t remember at all), I began a new tack. “Honey, you’ve indicated clearly enough that there’s a buried meaning to what superficially seems an everyday incident. I mean, hell, people are mistaken for other people all the time. It’s not even unique for you. Last year, when we were in Denver, some waiter told me you looked exactly like some friend of his—”

“Waiter?” she said. The frightened look came back into her eyes. “Where in Denver? When?”

The light changed and we happily left Waterford, off on the road to Erie.

“Just a waiter. I don’t even remember which restaurant. The one with the red velvet walls, I think.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t remember why. I don’t even remember that I didn’t tell you.”

“You didn’t. You should have.”

“I forgot, that’s all. What are you anyway, jealous that your beauty’s not unique?”

“Oh, Jim—”

I looked over and saw that she was crying. (But of course I’d never let anything as sentimental as tears stand between me and Truth.)

“Jim, let’s please just catalog this as our first and only quarrel, and you tell me like always all the touristy AAA-endorsed fun we can have in Erie.”

“Shelley, there’s this—”

“I’ve run out of synonyms for shut up, Jim. Please, let’s find a motel along this godforsaken road, and we can cool off with airconditioning, and watch soap operas all afternoon in color, and—if you’re sweet—I’ll let you put your thing in my thing and we’ll see if something develops.”

She composed her face in a parody of the usual enticing smile. Around a curve we came upon a construction gang tearing up the road.

“Your offer is generous,” I said, as we came to a stop. “But I don’t appreciate the casual use of seduction only as a ploy to divert me.”

She gave a little cry and looked away, watched a truck dump some dirt.

“You know I’m stubborn,” I continued, “that I follow every task I assume to its conclusion. Sorry, but it’s a part of my nature. Why don’t you settle with me and clear the air? And then we go to the motel.”

She sighed in despair, conveying with a gesture her decision to abdicate from the argument. The flagman waved us on. We managed a few silent miles.

“I’m snowed by the whole thing,” I resumed. “So you have twins in a couple of places, so what? So you’re not the only edition of your model in this—”

“Model? What do you mean, model?”

I could have sworn the timbre of her voice was one step away from hysteria.

“Model,” I said. “Type. Your beautiful, gorgeous type. Did you think when they made you they broke the mold?”

She gasped and her eyes widened in terror. We hit a long stretch of highway. In the distance I could see another road gang.

“Shelley, I’ve never seen you like this. Just because I mention you have duplicates around the—”

“Jim, please!” The intensity of her voice sent shock waves through me.

“Jim,” she said more softly, “I can’t go on with this.”

“I don’t really dig your overreactions. I feel like I’ve uncovered some sort of conspiracy of lookalikes that—”

“I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to get out.”

“What is it, Shelley? Is there some real connection between you and this Shirley Graham?” Up ahead the man with the red flag began waving it in the stop signal. I began to decelerate.