Ellen James - Christmas Babies

Kristine had committed the ultimate heresy in the Ferris clan—she’d married a lawyer instead of becoming one. According to the family view, it was mandatory for the Ferris girls to achieve success on their own. They weren’t supposed to drop out of college one semester before graduation, meander from one job to another and then elope with a scandalously wealthy man ten years their senior. But that was exactly what Kristine had done.

“All right, forget Ted for now,” Danni muttered, the anger washing over her again. “Let’s discuss Bryan McKay instead. Let’s talk about the fact that no matter what’s going on in your marriage, you have no excuse for using my name, my identity to…what? Have an affair? He talked about last night as if…” Danni couldn’t finish.

“Relax. It hasn’t gone that far. Not for lack of wishing, though.” Kristine drew up her knees and clasped her arms around them. She looked like a woman contemplating adultery.

Danni sank down on Kristine’s sofa, the one upholstered in wild geometric shapes. It was like Kristine herself—vivid, excessive, yet rigidly structured.

“All right,” Danni said, “you’d better tell me the whole story from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”

Kristine made an attempt at a careless shrug. “Surely you’ve figured it out by now. A couple of weeks ago, when you said you couldn’t make that big event because you were too busy…I went in your place. It seemed harmless enough at the time. I needed…I needed something to forget my own life….I told myself it would only be for a few hours. An escape for just a little while. But then this perfectly gorgeous man came up to me, and he thought I was you…and I didn’t know how to tell him otherwise….”

Danni remembered telling Kristine about the Partner to Partner gala, and how sorry she was that she couldn’t attend. She’d never imagined, though, that her sister would use the opportunity to play the old game. It was the kind of thing Kristine had been guilty of at twelve, or sixteen. Trying to escape whatever trouble she’d been in at the moment…pretending she was Danni. She ought to have outgrown that tactic long ago.

“How many times have you seen Bryan?”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Kristine mumbled.

“How many times, Kris?”

“Hardly any. The night I met him. And then twice afterward, if you count last night.” Kristine was starting to get her defiant look—the one she always got when she realized she’d gone too far but wouldn’t admit it. “I didn’t plan on any of this, you know.”

“Nothing you could do about it, I’m sure,” Danni remarked sarcastically. “It was totally out of your control.”

“Don’t be so damned superior,” Kristine snapped back. “You know why we’ve switched places before. It’s a chance to slip out of your own life and into something more…bearable.”

Admittedly, there had been times growing up when Danni had played the game, too. She’d longed to be someone more daring and reckless and so she’d pretended to be Kristine. But they were both adults now, thirty years old, and the time for pretending was long past.

Now Danni studied her sister. “Is your life really so bad,” she asked, “that you have to escape?”

Kristine stood and moved to the impressive row of picture windows. Night had fallen, but the moon cast a glimmer on the beach and rippled across the ocean waves beyond.

“What could be bad?” she asked, her voice hollow. “Everyone thinks I have the most wonderful husband in the world.”

“Kris, what is going on with you and Ted?”

Kristine folded her arms, and her face got a closed-in look. “Let’s talk about you for a change. Is your life so fantastic that you don’t want to change it—you don’t want to escape?”

“My life,” said Danni, “is perfectly fine.”

“Oh, right. You have a job you hate. The only reason you keep it is because Mom and Dad are thrilled one of their daughters is finally a corporate success. And then there’s your love life. Basically, you don’t have one.”

Now Danni stared out at the restless ocean waves. “I date,” she said.

“Ha. You never get beyond the first date with anyone. You haven’t had anything serious since Peter. And, by the way…let’s not forget you stole Peter from me.”

Danni shook her head. “You know it wasn’t like that. Why do you keep saying it?”

Kristine, stubborn as ever, didn’t answer. Danni thought back to four years ago, when her sister had been seeing Peter Mackland. But then Ted had come along, Kristine had fallen madly in love and eloped with him…and afterward Peter had turned to Danni. At first she’d offered him friendship, nothing more. It wasn’t long, however, before she’d convinced herself that she was in love with him.

“What if,” Kristine continued finally, as if Danni hadn’t spoken. “What if you hadn’t snatched Peter away from me? You were always the one he preferred. I could see it. But maybe…maybe if I’d felt that he truly loved me…I wouldn’t have been so susceptible to Ted….”

“Oh, Kris, stop,” Danni said in exasperation. “You always distort the truth. You dumped Peter, remember? I was just the consolation prize. Besides, he turned out to be an ass. You got Ted—definitely the better end of the bargain.”

“I married Ted,” Kristine said in a clipped tone. “That was my first mistake.”

The two of them had once seemed so in love, lost in their own special world. What could have happened to bring the bitterness to Kristine’s voice, the heartache to her eyes? Danni wondered.

“Don’t ask,” Kristine muttered. “Just don’t.”

It wasn’t the first time Kristine had read Danni’s thoughts. They were twins. They were close…no changing that, it seemed.

“Look,” Danni said. “You have a habit of running away from your problems. And this time—this time you’ve really done it, Kris. If I weren’t so damn furious at you—”

“It’s not like you want Bryan McKay,” her sister interrupted. “Or then again…maybe you do, and you just don’t know how to show it.”

“What I feel or don’t feel about Bryan has nothing to do with it.” Danni was making a supreme effort to stay calm and in control. “You’ve done something very wrong, Kris, and you’ve got to stop.”

Kristine swiveled away from her. “Don’t you think I know that? But I need something. I need the way Bryan makes me feel—”

“No. What you need is to work things out with Ted. After you’ve told Bryan the truth.”

“All I want is a few more days,” Kristine said in a low voice. “Only a few. You can’t deny me that much. After Peter…you owe me.”

Danni battled a growing frustration. “No way,” she said. “Forget it. You refuse to see things the way they really are, Kris. You spin fantasies, you cling to half truths—”

Kristine turned back and gave her a hard look. “If you’re so against deception, why didn’t you tell Bryan the truth yourself?”

At first Danni simply couldn’t answer. She stared out at the moonlit night, remembering this afternoon…remembering the way Bryan McKay had taken her into his arms and kissed her. Just thinking about it, her skin tingled with warmth.

“He is rather hard to resist, isn’t he?” Kristine remarked.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Sure,” Kristine said. “Nothing.”

Danni curled her fingers against her palms. Why hadn’t she told Bryan the truth, once she’d realized what her sister had done? Instead she’d pulled away from him, mumbled some incoherent excuse, and rushed out the door. It had all been so embarrassing and undignified. Why couldn’t she have handled the matter with some authority?