Here She Lies

also told me that today she had an important conference call with a client in a country where our today (Saturday) was their yesterday (Friday), a workday, and thus her availability was unquestioned. I stood in the doorway separating her bedroom from her office, feeling dense to have forgotten about this call. Therewas a lot of money involved, she’d told me, and many people were to be included in the meeting.
    I shut the door as quietly as I could and stretched out on Julie’s neat white bed, getting comfortable, as I waited for her to finish her call. Sinking into her spot, I wondered if her mattress’s space-foam memory would mistake my body’s impression for hers, the way people in town had lately been mistaking us for each other. I shut my eyes and tried to rest.
    “What is it?” Julie was standing in front of me, still wearing the headset with its male end dangling.
    “Finished?”
    “No, they put me on hold. I have, like, one minute, so what is it?”
    “It’s fine. Go back to your call.”
    But I knew Julie. She was an epic multitasker and if anyone could handle an international conference call on a Saturday-that-was-still-Friday and at the same time solve someone else’s trivial problem, it was my sister.
    “Just tell me. Quick.”
    I spit it out as fast as I could. “I have to pick Bobby up at the airport, but I don’t have a license so can I borrow a credit card so he can pay for a taxi?”
    “A cab from the airport’s going to cost a fortune.”
    “I know, but he’s waiting—”
    “Use my license and borrow my car. And take a credit card until yours comes.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. Annie, you look exactly like me. No one will know and I’m giving you permission.”
    “Julie—”
    “Just do it, okay?”
    “Thanks. Should I wake Lexy from her nap so you can work?”
    “Bring the monitor up here; I’ll keep my ears open. I’ll be done with this soon.”
    She hustled away, back to her call. Downstairs in the kitchen I opened her wallet and saw what she meant. No one would know the difference if I borrowed her ID for a few hours. Trading identities was a skill we’d practiced, for fun, as teenagers. We had even mastered each other’s signatures. I slid out her driver’s license, her car registration, her insurance card and one credit card just in case. Her keys were on a hook by the kitchen door. And her car, well, it drove like a dream.
    I found Bobby waiting calmly on an airport bench, reading the well-thumbed copy of The Stone Diaries I had recommended to him. It had been sitting on his bedside table for months; he must have started it after I left him. I loved novels that ambled and leapt and created drama purely from character, but Bobby was more a history buff, so I knew he was reading the Shields novel as a way of holding on to me. Because he missed me. His legs were stretched out long and crossed at the ankle beside his carry-on suitcase. When he saw me coming he stood up so abruptly the suitcase fell over and he lost his place in the book.
    “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.
    “No problem.”
    I hugged him. He smelled delicious, like an accidental whiff of a wood fire on a chilly day. I took another breath and was transported to last autumn, beforeLexy was born, cuddling on the couch in front of our fireplace at home.
    He zipped the book into an outside pocket of the suitcase and rolled it behind us through the parking lot to the car.
    “You drove Julie’s car?” he asked.
    “I am Julie today.”
    He couldn’t resist taking the wheel of this beautiful car and I didn’t mind letting him ( his driver’s license being one of the few things I had not had to cancel). Steering with one hand, he operated the sound system with the other and still got us to Great Barrington in under an hour. Bobby made things seem so easy. I loved being encapsulated with him in the car with the road humming beneath us, pretending everything was okay. I assumed he had the Infidelity File in his suitcase. Neither of us mentioned it.
    When we got back to the house Julie had lunch waiting. She had closed up shop (the other side of the world having finally tipped into Saturday) and there was an air of celebration; our days had grown so quiet that Bobby’s arrival was an event. Julie welcomed him with hugs and hellos, seating him at one end of the dining room table. We sat on either side of him and he held Lexy in his lap. In the center of the table Julie had arranged a bouquet of