Of course, none of the physicians had any faith in Carlynn’s gift, and she made her rounds not in any formal capacity, but merely as a visitor. The soldiers knew that when she touched them, though, something happened. There was magic in her touch, they said, and in her words. Her voice was soft and even, and occasionally it rang out with laughter. The anguish that the solders’ war experiences had left inside them seemed to dissipate during Carlynn’s visits. The doctors, though, joked that any girl as beautiful as Carlynn was sure to have a healing effect on young men deprived of women’s company for so long.
Lisbeth knew, probably better than anyone, that it was truly Carlynn’s touch that made the difference to those men. She possessed the same voice as her sister, and except for her weight, a very similar beauty, yet she knew that if she were to walk through the VA hospital, enter those rooms, touch those men, she would not have the same impact on them. She would be useless. That was how she felt much of the time. Useless. Invisible. At least, in everyone’s eyes save her father’s.
Franklin did not like Delora drawing so much public attention to Carlynn’s gift. He knew his daughter’s healing ability was real; he had seen too many examples of it to deny it. She had once cured an excruciating case of shingles that had cropped up on his back. He would never allow her to heal his colds or headaches because it seemed wrong to him to accept the gift from his own daughter. But the shingles had made him desperate, unable to sleep or even sit in a chair without gritting his teeth against the pain, and he would have done anything to end that anguish.
But Franklin worried the outside world would see Carlynn as mentally ill or, worse, as a charlatan, and he was also concerned that Lisbeth suffered from spending so much time in her sister’s shadow. The girls still attended separate schools with qualitatively different activities and benefits, and he sometimes worried that the way he and Delora were raising them was akin to an experiment: take two identical twins and treat them differently, giving them different life experiences and different schooling, to see what would happen. What had happened was that Carlynn was confident, outgoing, and an outstanding student, while Lisbeth was quiet, unsure of herself and barely scraping by in school. She was not fat, exactly, but pudgy in all the wrong places, and he knew that she ate when she was sad, which was much of the time. It tortured Franklin that he had allowed this to happen to the daughter who had been the one he had named, bottle-fed, bathed and cuddled.
The twins were planning their sixteenth birthday party, to be held in the mansion, with different levels of enthusiasm. Carlynn was excited; Lisbeth, apprehensive. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, one of their housekeepers teased them several days before the party. The adage held true for Lisbeth, but not for Carlynn, who had written her boyfriend’s name at the top of the guest list, hoping that she’d be able to drag him into the cypress trees for more of those delicious kisses.
Carlynn’s guest list had twenty names on it, all of them friends from her posh high school, but Lisbeth had added only four names to the list, four quiet wallflowers, much like herself.
The night of the party, the living room and dining room of the mansion were decorated with reams of colored crepe paper and helium balloons, and popular music played on the phonograph.
Carlynn introduced her friends to Lisbeth, one by one. How obvious it was that Lisbeth hated introductions! She wore a frozen smile on her face as Carlynn’s friends marveled over the duplicate of their classmate, though they quickly saw the differences in their personalities. They were nice to Lisbeth after their initial stunned surprise, asking her questions about being a twin, but when the questions stopped, Carlynn could see Lisbeth had no idea how to prolong the conversation. She grew quiet and uncomfortable and eventually she and her four girlfriends drifted into one corner of the living room, where they could listen to the records and watch the world go by.
Carlynn’s boyfriend, Charlie, was there, and at first Carlynn could not take her eyes off him. She thought he looked like a rugged Gregory Peck, with dark hair and tanned, smooth skin, and when Nat King Cole started singing “I Love You For Sentimental Reasons,” Charlie held her very close as they danced in the living room. Carlynn, though, was no longer thinking only of going off into the cypress trees with him, because her eyes and her thoughts were on her sister. Lisbeth’s lack of poise in social situations was both annoying and embarrassing, but Carlynn could not help feeling sorry for her. She wished shyness were something she had the ability to heal.
They were dancing to Perry Como’s “Prisoner of Love” when a scream came through the open French doors leading from the living room to the terrace. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look in the direction of the sound.
Suddenly, Jinks Galloway appeared on the terrace. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, a smear of dirt across the white fabric, and his blond hair hung damply over his eyes.
“Penny’s hurt!” he said. “She fell.”
Everyone rushed toward the moonlit terrace, Carlynn in the lead. Reaching the edge of the terrace, she carefully peered over the side. Penny Everett, Carlynn’s closest friend from school, was about ten feet below, lying precariously on the broad crown of a Monterey cypress. She was awake and alert, but grimacing with pain. Her blouse was entirely unbuttoned, her bra almost luminescent in the moonlight, and her blond hair was spread around her head like the arms of an octopus.
“What’s going on?” Franklin, who had been kindly staying out of the way of the party, must have heard Penny’s scream and was now walking onto the terrace.
Carlynn leaned far over the edge. “Button your blouse, Pen,” she whispered, and Penny managed to get one button through its buttonhole before Franklin got a look at her.
“How’d you get down there, Penny?” he asked, then turned to Carlynn. “No one’s drinking here, are they?” he asked.
That had been part of the agreement, and Carlynn quickly shook her head, although she wouldn’t have put it past Jinks to have smuggled in his own bottle in his jacket pocket.
“All right, Penny,” Franklin called down to her. “Hold still. I’ll come around the house and see if I can get you from below.”
Penny nodded. “My leg…” she said.
Her leg was twisted into an awkward and unnatural angle against the nearly black branches of the cypress. Probably broken, Carlynn thought.
Jinks and Charlie accompanied Franklin around the outside of the house until they reached the area where Penny was stranded. The tree on which she’d fallen was low to the ground, and after a few minutes they were able to jostle her free, although not without eliciting cries of pain from her. Gently, they rested her in the small clearing near the house. By that time, nearly all the guests were in the yard observing the scene, and Carlynn rushed toward her friend, dropping to her knees at her side.
“Penny,” she said, taking her friend’s hand, “does anything hurt besides your leg?”
Penny shook her head. Her blouse was still only partially buttoned, and Carlynn was certain her father had figured out that Penny and Jinks had been petting at the time of the fall. She was relieved to see, though, that Penny’s leg now lay flat and straight against the ground.