January 15, 2001
"Don't pull at that ribbon, baby, it'll come loose."
Valerie waved her son's hands away from the brightly-wrapped box on his lap. Her long glossy pink fingernails brushed for a second against his skin, and Matt wondered how she kept them so clean.
"I really think he'll like this present, momma."
"I'm sure you're right, Mattie. You're quite good at reading people, though you don't realize it yourself."
"What does reading people mean? Are people like books?"
Valerie frowned absently and scratched lightly at a non-existent speck behind her earlobe. "In a sense, yes. Imagine everyone has a real personal book, all about themselves. Getting to know someone is like... reading their book, bit by bit with their permission. You can't ever read the whole book, though - some parts are secret, that they read only by themselves."
"So you can never read it all the way to the end?"
"I guess not."
"Is reading people like reading their book?"
"You could say that."
Matt nodded, satisfied. Rain lashed at the street beyond their window, huge drops on the tinted-glass pane obscuring his view. The car was inching forward at a crawl and the driver, the second one this year, cursed under his breath in an unfamiliar language.
"Julio," said his mother in a soothing voice, and added another sentence using strange, similar-sounding words. The driver - Julio - nodded and replied at once, his tone apologetic.
"That was Spanish," Valerie said in answer to Matt's questioning look. "Julio is from a country called Venezuela, which is far south of here. He doesn't speak much English. In fact..."
She leaned forward and spoke again in Spanish, tapping Julio playfully on the shoulder at the same time. The lanky man suddenly beamed at Matt in the rear-view mirror and bobbed his dark head enthusiastically, his white, even teeth dazzling against the dusky hue of his skin.
"There," said Valerie, pleased. "He's going to speak to you only in Spanish from now on, so that you learn it. A fluent second language is imperative, Mattie." She kissed Matt lightly on the head. "Though you're so smart already, it amazes me."
Matt smiled. He knew that, already. Now if only she'd say he was much smarter than Jamie...
"Wake up, baby, we're here."
Matt had not realized he'd dozed off. He blinked and stared bleary-eyed out the window, catching fuzzy glimpses of a dark grey stone building through the pouring rain. "Already?" he said, unpleasantly surprised at the nervous lurches his stomach gave, but Valerie was already bundling Matt back into his coat and issuing swift instructions to Julio. Then, to his indignance, she picked him up - as if he weighed nothing! - popped open the door and made a mad dash across the sidewalk for the lobby entrance.
"There you go," Valerie said, dropping him gently but abruptly to the floor. She smoothed her hair and re-touched her lipstick as they stood before a gilt-framed mirror in the elevator, mumbling distractedly under her breath. "Don't judge me, sweetie, but I have to look better than her."
Matt shrugged. More troubling matters lay on his mind than his mother's trifling dealings with her assumed rival. What if, after all this, Michael didn't like his present? Matt felt strangely heavy as they moved smoothly and silently toward the 17th floor.
"I want to be an astronomer." It was a late evening sometime last summer; Michael and he had taken their tiramisus out onto Matt's balcony while the adults opened a bottle of champagne in the living room.
"Is that like an astronaut?" Matt had asked, swallowing a momentary resentment at having to ask the question.
"No, astronauts go to the moon," his brother said dreamily. "I don't think I'd be any good up in space. But Mom says astronomers learn all about the stars."
"I like stars." The sentiment was simple, Matt reasoned, but true enough.
"Me too." Michael gave him a broad, unexpected smile and reached for his hand, gently maneuvering Matt's forefinger to point at the sky. "Do you see the three stars in a line? That's Orion's belt."
Matt assumed no curiosity of Orion's identity, origin or sartorial accessories; he'd spent the last ten minutes licking cream off his fingers and they felt sweaty and sticky in Michael's grasp. He had barely a second to feel self-conscious before Michael mentioned the same.
"There's cake crumbs all over your fingers, Mattie." And he'd lifted Matt's hands to his lips; Matt felt them part, soft and warm against his skin and was presently aware of a small, wet tongue sliding over his fingers. Matt gawped, open-mouthed at the tousled blond head bent over his hand, too taken aback to respond otherwise.
"It's delicious," Michael said with a sigh, returning Matt's hand casually to his lap. "I wish I could eat it everyday."
Then the shock had faded as quickly as it had come. That argument made perfect sense. If the food was as scrumptious as this, it was therefore acceptable to lick it off someone else's fingers. His brother was staring out at the horizon as if this exchange had not even occurred.
"Do you see all those lights, Mattie?"
"Like the stars? Sure."
"No, I mean the buildings. Look, they go on forever."
Certainly, their penthouse balcony afforded a view like no other - the city streamed into the night like a brightly lit river.
"I guess," Matt said, perplexed.
"Can you believe each one of those lights belongs to a person? Do you think that maybe every star is a person up in the sky too?"
The thought had never occurred to Matt, and he conveyed this fact appropriately.
"Well, I think that'd be way cool. When I'm grown up, I'll be an astronomer and I'll watch the stars all day and all night."
Yet, as the elevator door whirred open, the memory of this conversation seemed amorphous, dreamlike, and a ludicrous inspiration for a birthday gift. Matt clutched the hem of his mother's coat as he padded quickly after her along a carpeted corridor, taking three little strides for each of her long ones. Valerie held the bulky box securely under one arm as she rang the doorbell for number 176. Well, the telescope was bought, and there was nothing they could do about it now.
All his apprehensions melted away, however, the second the door opened. A bright streak of pink flashed across the room and someone flung their arms around his neck, shrieking, "Mattie's here!"
Matt laughed and swung his brother around in a bear-hug, affection surging inside him like warm custard froth. "Happy birthday, Mikey!"
Michael pulled away, beaming like a sunrise and yanked him forward into the room. His shirt was the color of strawberry icing. "Everyone, this is my brother Matt. Matt, this is everyone." A group of nine or ten kids clustered about a dining table, oohing and aahing over a two-tiered butterscotch delight at the centerpiece. Michael waved away introductions as if names were a weak indulgence for lesser mortals. "It's cake time, everybody!"
Matt felt rather important standing beside Michael, the two of them wearing identical glittering gold party hats. The other kids got regular colors; his brother conspiratorially revealed that the terms of his birthday dictated this.
"Make a wish, Michael." Katherine Black turned the light switch off with a click. Matt's eyes did not immediately adjust to the murky hue of evening, and for a moment he felt an irrational fear as the world swam in the dim light of six sputtering candles. Then a hand found his in the dark, and five cool fingers threaded his own. An adult voice - Matt did not care whose - led the birthday song to which he mouthed along the words, unable to tear his eyes away from his brother's smile by the flickering orange glow. A puff later, the room was pitch black again. He clutched Michael's hand tighter and cheered with the rest as someone flicked the lights back on.
"Who gets the first bite, honey?" Katherine's tone was jocular as she deftly maneuvered the knife in her son's other hand, slicing out a neat square chunk of cake. Hair fell to her shoulders in soft golden waves. She was beautiful, Matt suddenly realized with a shock, and instinctively shot a wary glance at his own mother. Valerie Wynford stood erect in a corner, lips set in a single straight line, face betraying not a hint of emotion.
"You first, Mom." Katherine Black gave a wide smile eerily similar to Michael's, and took a small bite out of the cake crumbling in his fingers.
"Mattie," Michael said matter-of-factly. Matt followed Katherine's lead, and a smidge of yellow icing smeared against the corner of his lip.
"Aunt Val?"
Valerie started and said, "Huh?"; Katherine Black dropped the knife she was holding. A deep blush spread across her cheeks as she bent to pick it up, hair swinging to cover her face. Valerie moved swiftly across the room and kneeled beside Matt, wrapping an arm about him as if for support.
"Happy birthday, darling," she murmured through a mouthful of cake, and impulsively pulled Michael into a quick, tight hug. Then she remained in her son's vicinity as the festivities continued, looking acutely uncomfortable.
"Do you want to stay with Michael for a while, Mattie? I can come pick you up later."
Michael sat surrounded by ten boisterous children and a heap of unopened presents, but chimed in with an answer before one had even occurred to Matt. "Yes! Mattie, stay here with me! I have so many cool things to show you!"
Valerie laughed and ruffled Michael's hair. "Tell Katherine to give me a call, then, and Julio and I will swing by to get you."
One by one parents arrived as the evening progressed, half-drenched and harried to pick up their wards. When the last of them cleared out, a curly-haired girl whose name Matt had forgotten as soon as he'd heard it, Michael turned to him brightly.
"Let's go to my room," he said, and Matt found himself dragged across the apartment again.
"Play safe, boys." Katherine's voice seemed distant and insignificant as the bedroom door slammed behind them.
Matt had never seen a room like this before, not one belonging to a boy anyway. The wallpaper featured twisting vines of crimson roses that climbed to the pale ceiling, with silk sheets and pillowcases to match. The woodwork was light-colored, and reminded Matt of summer - even though frost lined the windowpane, forming a tenuous white web against uneven speckles of rain. It seemed congruous with his brother's personality, however, and this premise had lately made a lot of unusual occurrences surprisingly easy to digest.
Michael, in the meantime, had been rummaging fervently in the bottom shelf of his wardrobe.
"My cousin stayed with us last weekend," he was saying indistinctly. "She took me shopping, and you'll never guess what she bought me."
Immediately Matt's mind fled to the out-sized box that lay on the dining table outside - his own present lay unopened and forgotten. Resentment briefly colored his thoughts, but he was curious despite himself when Michael emerged triumphantly from the cupboard, wielding a Macy's bag.
"Look!"
So Matt flopped down on the floor beside Michael and upturned the cover, spilling its contents onto the carpet. For a moment he simply blinked, unsure how to process the assorted items spread around them.
"Well?"
"Uhm." Matt coughed. A variety of lipsticks, nail-polishes and other minuscule makeup artifacts lay before him, along with a pair of what looked like sparkling ballet flats - in Michael's size. "I think these are for girls, Mikey."
Michael clicked his tongue impatiently. "Cousin Tracie said guys can use this stuff too. And it's so cool, Mattie, check it out!"
Matt picked up a bottle of scarlet nail paint and turned it over irresolutely in his fingers, plagued by all manner of doubt. "Are you sure guys do it too?"
"Yes. Here, you can see for yourself."
Michael reached for a lipstick case, its salmon color visible through a translucent cover. He dabbed the glossy stick against the tip of his forefinger, staining his skin pink. In three brisk, practiced motions he had spread the vivid fuchsia tint across pursed lips, gazing at himself admiringly in the wardrobe mirror when he was done.
"It - doesn't look bad," Matt admitted, expecting to feel an inward cringe at the lie - and was startled when none came. The color, the idea became his brother; makeup looked as natural on him as it did any woman. Then Michael turned to him, and his eyes burned feverishly in his pale face, limpid and unsettling like sunlight breaking through a storm.
"Can I?" he asked breathlessly. Without waiting for an answer, he reached for Matt's face and traced a smooth, greasy fingertip across his bottom lip. Matt flinched but did not resist; fearfully he peeked at his own reflection and his suspicions were confirmed - he looked ridiculous. Out of politeness, however, he reiterated, "it doesn't look bad."
"It looks perfect," Michael said glowingly, holding his ballet shoes up - possibly to view and appreciate them from the best possible light. "Isn't this the best birthday present ever?"
"I got you a present too, you know," Matt muttered, rather crestfallen. He began aggressively shaking a bottle of varnish to keep up his cavalier appearance.
Immediately Michael's mouth curved into a horror-struck, almost comical 'O'. He leapt to his feet and tore out of the room to stagger back presently, half-carrying, half-dragging along the massive silver-wrapped box.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly, slipping off the wrapping paper.
For a few moments, Michael simply gazed at the box without speaking. Its white cardboard lid held a picture of a sleek silver telescope, the one Matt had spent hours picking out last week. Matt soon grew uncomfortable, and cleared his throat in what he hoped was an unobtrusive, but deliberate manner.
"Wow." With that word, the breath seemed to leave his body in one gust. Michael rose to his feet, eyes and cheeks still alight with the same fevered glow.
"You like it?" Matt said eagerly. His brother didn't answer, but stepped carefully over the box and knelt till the two of them were at eye level.
"Thank you. I love it. I will forever."
And then Michael's arms were wrapped around him, but he had never been hugged like this before. Their bodies were the exact same size; Michael's shape fit perfectly against his own.
"You're welcome," he murmured. It was not one heartbeat that thudded against his chest, but two. If Matt hadn't known beyond all doubt that they were born from different mothers, he'd have sworn they were twins - together from birth, born of the same blood and tissue and fiber. The term "half-brother" sounded shallow and weak-willed, and he vowed that he would never use it again.