Gemini - 6. Preparations

Josh

Around ten Saturday morning, I headed back to the clearing in the park where Jacob was already waiting for me. I had brought some soda and he had brought homemade chocolate muffins. I guess it’s not a surprise that I loved those just as much as he did.

“This whole thing is so exciting,” I told him, after he had given me a brief hug. “It’s kind of an interesting idea to have something like a second identity.” After I started working on the details the day before, I got really upbeat about the idea of not being the person who I normally was, if only for a day.

“Yeah, I almost feel like there is this part of my life that I didn’t know about and now I’m going to explore it,” he agreed just as enthusiastically.

We sat together and exchanged our papers. Both of us had created complex profiles of our family members and most important ones with photos and lots of background information.

I didn’t have many persons to describe. There were profiles about my mother, my father and Philip, then a paper with a short summary about my other relatives, in case something like that was mentioned, one profile about Parker and one about Mr Fisher. I had gotten photos of the last two from the yearbook. Then I had photos from all around my house and a map of my school. I had also written down everything from my past that could come up with my parents and created a detailed schedule about what I did at what time of the day and all the habits I could think of.

I felt I was like an agent from some intelligence agency that was investigating himself. It had taken half the night and I still couldn’t believe that I had written so much in such a short time. I should have been tired this morning, I had slept for four hours at best, but I was too busy with thinking about our plan.

“I did some research,” I informed him as I handed him my folder. “If we really are identical twins, then we can pretty much swap identities as we please, that is, until we apply for a driver’s license. Our DNA should be exactly the same, the only thing we can be told apart by is our fingerprints. Once we apply for a driver’s license, they will need a fingerprint. Well, or if one of us breaks the law and gets busted by the cops. Then they create a file with fingerprints, but we should avoid that one anyway,” I grinned.

“That’s pretty cool, good to know,” he grinned back, before he started looking through my folder.

I took his folder and started to go through the papers. He must have worked like a maniac. There were detailed profiles about his family members and a summary of his uncles, aunts and cousins. Then there was a ton of profiles about people from his school and one for each of Ethan’s and Sarah’s families. He explained that he had to share a computer with his siblings so he couldn’t do much about the photos without being too obvious. He had one of his family and then he gave me a yearbook from his school for the pictures of teachers and students.

He had also made a map of his house and school, but explained that I shouldn’t worry about school since Ethan was in most of his classes. I should just follow him, he would protect me from any possible problems and show me where to go. As I looked at the first pages, I noticed that his handwriting was the same curvy, elegant one that I had. A teacher would not be able to see any differences; one thing less to worry about. Some pages further into the folder, had a totally different handwriting, though.

“Ethan helped me with the profiles, that’s why some papers have a different handwriting,” he told me, as if he had read my mind. “Without him I would’ve never been able to make all this in such a short time.”

I grabbed the other bag I had brought with me and pulled out a complete set of clothes. Jeans, a shirt, socks and even underwear. He did the same and grinned. “Wanna get a feel of being me?”

“Yeah. Can’t hurt to start practising, can it?” I replied.

Luckily the clearing was pretty far away from the paths, so nobody would come by here. We quickly exchanged the clothes we had brought for each other, turned around, and started to get changed.

When we were done and turned back around, I pulled out a pair of brand new shoes and gave them to him. He took them and gave me me the ones he had been wearing in exchange. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you an extra pair of shoes,” he commented. “I can’t afford a second pair.”

“It’s alright,” I replied. “I’ll go to the mall and buy some later.”

When I turned around and saw him the experience was surreal. “Dude, you’re me now,” he said excitedly and we grinned at each other. I sat down and pulled a brand-new iPhone 3G out of my backpack, with charger and all. When he saw it, he just looked at me with big eyes.

“It’s yours. If you want to pretend you’re me you need to have the right accessories, don’t you think? It’s already charged,” I informed him.

“But… we could just swap phones, that would be so much easier and cheaper,” he objected. “It’s just too much.“

I grinned at him and shoved it into his hands before he could even react. “I know, but I’ve already bought it and it might come in handy if we ever need to claim both of us are the same person. Like if my parents figure out I’m gay. That would be a great way to get away from them until they calm down, don’t you think? They can hardly beat me up if I’m you, or if both of us are me.” I grinned.

“I would have never thought of that, but you do have a point. Thanks!” He said enthusiastically. “How can you afford this, especially without your parents noticing anything?”

“Well,” I replied. “One thing I don’t really have a lack of is money. My parents give me some every now and then and I started to put aside as much as possible when I realized I was gay. I knew that if things went wrong I would need some sort of backup plan. I can’t buy everything I want, but for something this important I can spend a little bit of money.”

He looked like a kid on Christmas morning when he put his SIM card into his new phone and started checking out the apps. After he had overcome the initial excitement, both of us lay on the lawn and went over all the information. Except for some occasional questions for additional detail, we worked silently, side by side, like two maniacs concocting an evil plan.

After around three hours I decided to take a break. I told him I would go to the mall next to the park to get a pair of shoes like his. We were lucky that his last shoes had been so ripped that he had bought new ones only a month before. He told me where he had them from and I jogged over to the mall while he stayed in the park. We had decided that it would be better if we were seen together as little as possible. If someone from one of our schools saw us together, it would blow our secret.

I was lucky and managed to get a new pair of shoes and a mobile phone, both exactly of the same model as his, all in less than half an hour. Then I grabbed lunch for us at Burger King and walked back to the park while programming all the new names into my contacts.

“Ethan will come by later,” he informed me when I got back. “He doesn’t know about us swapping clothes. Let’s see how long he will take to figure it out.”

I gave his shoes back to him and put on the ones that I had just bought. Then we started to exchange contacts on our phones, so I had the ones of his friends and family and he had mine.

By 5pm we were completely exhausted and leaned back to talk and chill. “Tomorrow you can come check out my place,” I informed him. “My parents are gone and our help doesn’t work on Sundays.”

“That’s a good idea,” he agreed. “You could take Ethan with you and go to my place while I do that. That way he can show you around the apartment without it being obvious. My brothers will probably be out and if we’re lucky so will my mother and sister.”

“After that we could go over to my place. As long as we don’t walk in or out at the same time we should be alright,” I suggested. “Have you ever eaten at fancy restaurants or the like?”

“Nope, good point. If I ever eat with your parents I’m gonna need to know how to act. We definitely need to practise for that,” he noted.

Shortly after we had started our break from the papers, Ethan arrived.

“Hey J,” he greeted both of us.

“Hey Ethan,” we replied in unison and started laughing.

“So you’ve been practicing on being twins,” he observed.

“Yeah, it’s amazing how good it works, don’t you think Josh?” I asked Jacob.

“Yeah,” he grinned back.

Ethan didn’t seem to notice our role reversal at all. He plumped down between us.

“So you’ve given up on the history test on Monday and decided this is more important?” He asked me. Jacob had told me that he had a history test on Monday. His last chance to save his B. But there was no use in studying for it anyway, he said, he would fail either way.

“It’ll be alright,” I replied casually. I’d never thought I’d say something like this in my life. I just didn’t see school that casually.

Ethan shrugged. “So be it. I guess I can’t do more than to warn you,” he told me.

Then he turned to Jacob. “So how’s it going, Josh. How are you?” he asked.

“Uh, I’m fine, thanks,” Jacob replied shyly. “How about you?” Damn he was good. Did I really look at the ground like that when talking to Ethan? I had to watch myself better.

“I’m fine, but,” Ethan sniffed. “Something ain’t right here,” he stated.

He leaned over and sniffed at me. “Josh, if you’re trying to be Jacob then you have to use his deodorant, too,” he said, almost like he was chiding me.

“Damn, you got us.” Jacob exclaimed, and the three of us cracked up.

“If he detects us this easily, this whole thing will never work.” I said dejectedly.

“Dude, don’t give up so quickly.” Jacob contradicted me. “He has a really good nose and he knows about us being twins. With people who don’t know it’s gonna be easier. Even if you fuck up at school, they will probably just think I have a weird day or something.”

Jacob the optimist! I wasn’t as positive about this as he was, but earlier or later a secret like ours was bound to be revealed in a city this size. Albany wasn’t small, no doubt, but it wasn’t like there lived a million people here either. It was actually a wonder that we hadn’t met earlier, considering that we lived so close. The only reason it didn’t happen before was probably that I was so antisocial and spent most of my time at home.

However, if people were to find out anyway, then we might as well enjoy it. Also, Jacob did have a point. How could someone figure out that we traded places, if they didn’t know about us having a twin in the first place?

We bullshitted for a while and then decided to call it a day and head home. Jacob and me turned around to change again and then we said our goodbyes and left. When I got home, I went straight to my room and spend the rest of the day and half the night reading through Jacob’s folder.

♊

We met early Sunday morning in the park again.

“My brothers are out playing basketball and my parents should still be at the church by the time you get to my place,” Jacob informed me.

We swapped our clothes and I gave Jacob directions to my place, my keys and a scrap of paper with my computer password on it. After Jacob had given me his keys we parted and Ethan and I headed to Jacob’s place.

“What if I make a mistake and fuck it all up?” I worried.

Ethan looked over me. “You will do alright, don’t worry. There is not much you can do wrong. They’re not even home,” he reassured me.

After unlocking the door to the apartment and stepping in, I looked around. “How can six people live in this place? There is not even enough space to breathe!” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“Well, you gotta make do with what you have,” he told me. “It’s quite a different world for someone like you, ain’t it?” He added.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t believe that money buys happiness but I guess I didn’t really get what he meant when he said there was not much space here. Some money sure would make things easier,” I replied.

“Hell, they don’t even have a living room, and only one bathroom,” I observed, as we went through the rooms.

The room Jacob and his brothers shared was the largest in the apartment, but still, with three cupboards, the bunk bed and a third bed, it seemed awfully small. I looked into the cupboards and noticed that none of them had all that many clothes inside. After that, I checked out the kitchen and the bathroom carefully, so I knew where everything was.

We were about to leave when I heard someone unlocking the door to the apartment. I panicked for a few seconds but quickly caught myself and just ignored the door while I put my shoes on.

“Hey Ian,” Ethan said, as a tall, ripped guy came through the door. ‘So this is Jacob’s one-year-older brother’, I thought. ‘No wonder he thought he was adopted. I would’ve never thought they could possibly be brothers.‘

“Hey guys,” he replied. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” I replied nonchalantly. “Didn’t you wanna go play basketball?”

“Yeah, I forgot some stuff, so I had to come back.” he explained. “We still need a few players, wanna come along?”

“Thanks for asking, but we’ve already got plans. Maybe next time,” I told him. He just shrugged and we said our goodbyes.

“Told you not to worry,” Ethan said to me, as we made our way out of the building.

I felt elated and grinned at him. “I still can’t believe it. It’s quite a weird feeling to pretend I’m someone I’m not.”

We made our way over to my place and I rang the doorbell. After a while Jacob opened and invited us in. As soon as we had the door closed behind us, Jacob started talking excitedly.

“Dude, this place is the bomb. You have twice as many bathrooms as persons living here, that’s just crazy. Everything looks so expensive. Does your dad really need three cars? You know, each of them is worth way more than what my parents earn in three years.”

We took off our shoes and walked further into the house, but Jacob was not done yet. “Ethan, look at this TV, it’s not a TV; it’s a damn home cinema.” And so he went on commenting on everything as we walked through the house. I couldn’t help but grin. This was so normal to me, but to Jacob it was as unusual as his apartment was to me.

When we finally ended up in my room, he turned to me. “I feel like I’m in this story by Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper, you know? The one with the poor boy who looks exactly like the prince and then they swap clothes and…”

I interrupted him. “Well, let’s hope they let me back into my house at the end of the day then,” I joked, referring to how the guards didn’t believe the prince that it was him because he looked like a pauper.

“I’ll tell them not to, I like it here,” he joked back.

“Be careful what you wish for,” I told him. “You haven’t met my parents yet.”

“Touché,” he grinned, and gave in.

We decided to order Italian; pizza, pasta and a few other things. I set the table and explained everything important about how to eat at fancy places to Ethan and Jacob. Eating with my parents was like eating at a fancy place.

Once the food arrived and we were eating I gave them a few more pointers. Ethan’s parents weren’t rich, but they went to restaurants every now and then, and considered this important, so he knew the basics. Jacob, however, had a hard time holding the silverware correctly. It took him a long time before he got everything right and it didn’t look awkward anymore. Ethan and I had a lot of fun laughing at him and annoying him about it, but he knew it was all good-naturedly. After we were done with eating, we sat back and relaxed.

“You think you’re up to take my history test tomorrow?” Jacob asked me.

I almost choked on my drink. “Already? Isn’t that a bit early?” I challenged.

“Nah, it will work out. It’s only for the school time. We can meet in the park right after school and swap clothes. I think family is a bit more difficult but school should be easy.” he said confidently.

Then he added. “Also, I need a good mark on that test. I didn’t study at all, so if I write it myself I will totally screw it.”

“Ok ok, I will do it,” I relented.

We finished our meals and after Jacob and Ethan left, I spent the rest of the day once again rereading the notes Jacob had made about his school and his classmates. I also spend a great deal of time mentally preparing myself to be Jacob. ‘It’s not you the people will see, it’s Jacob. Be self-confident, like him! Enjoy the attention. You don’t need to worry what people will think about you, because they see Jacob, not you.’

The chapter is a bit slow, I guess, lots of preparations for what they will do next. I hope you still enjoyed it.