Seedlings by Jody Lisberger

The day I caught my twin sister Eliza kissing Danny Quinn, I never stopped to think they had a secret. Is that how the kiss felt to her? Like she already knew they were both gay?

On that warm afternoon near the end of third grade, as the three of us kicked stones from the school bus stop to Danny’s house, I wasn’t thinking about whether Eliza and I would lose something I’d never get back. As I kicked my stone and tried not to stare at the scratches running down Danny’s face, I was thinking only about my own secret.

“So, what happened on the playground?” Eliza whispered, sidling close to me as we crossed over the bridge to Great Island, where we all lived near Point Judith. You could hear the tide sucking out underneath the narrow bridge, exposing the mudflats where we sometimes went clamming with hooked rakes that could cut off your foot or arm, if you weren’t careful.

I pulled my lips together and shook my head. How I loved keeping a secret from Eliza. As she must have loved keeping secrets from me. All mine for a change. Even if I kept it for only a short time. And even if I knew we were forever bound to help each other, to love each other, to make sure, in the end, we both made it out okay.

“Tell me,” Eliza whispered again.

Once more I sealed my lips. I would wait to tell my secret until I could get something in return from her. And maybe I’d never tell, I smugly thought to myself. Maybe Eliza would never know what I’d seen when the new girl at recess ran beet-faced after Danny, her fingers like claws, her feet churning like paddlewheels as she chased him to the baseball diamond, where all the boys were playing. Except for Danny. He didn’t play baseball. He was a figure skater. Not that any of us, in 1963, thought twice about that. Nor did we wonder why the girls felt drawn to Danny, and Danny to the girls. His skin as white and smooth as Eliza’s and mine. Except he had freckles, blond hair, and smelled of baby lotion, about which I never dared ask—did he get that sweet smell from his baby sister or use those pink bottles himself?

As we made our way along the road to Danny’s house, I eyed the scratches on his cheek. No longer bleeding. But didn’t they still hurt?

Earlier that day, Eliza hadn’t been out for recess with me and Danny. She was in a different third grade class, just the way our mother always wanted it. The two of us never in the same classroom. Never sharing friends or getting too close. As if by separating us, even though we looked nothing alike as twins, she could keep us from feeling for each other in the deepest parts of our beings. All our lives.

But with Danny, things were different. Our families had known each other for years. Big sisters in the same schools and scout troops. Mothers in the same sewing group. Fathers, both engineers. Until our father died in April of that same third-grade year, poisoned by carbon monoxide while helping a friend unload fish from the hold of a boat. He died the same day MLK got shot. For years, Eliza and I thought the black crepe paper strung along people’s porches was also for our father.

That April was when Danny’s family started inviting me and Eliza over a lot. Not our big sister. “Just the twins,” Eliza would say, putting her hands on her chubby hips and imitating the words our mother used to bemoan to everyone. The twins are such a handful. The twins never listen. One of these days, the twins will be the death of me.

When we got to Danny’s house and sat under the big maple, Mrs. Quinn came out with cherry popsicles and a washcloth to dab off the scratches on Danny’s face. Eliza and I loved going to Danny’s house. Mrs. Quinn laughed a lot and never hit us. As she patted Danny’s face, I sat very still, taking in every inch of her tenderness. I’m sure Eliza took it in, too. Not that Eliza would ever admit to such a thing. Eliza, who never let herself cry. Crying is for sissies. But okay. I would take it in for the two of us. Would even keep quiet when Mrs. Quinn mentioned the principal’s phoning to tell her about “the incident” with the new girl. Not the way the girls said it at recess. I see Paris. I see France. Or the way they pointed at Danny and laughed when our teacher scolded him in front of everyone and made him stand in the corner with his back to us. Shame on you, Danny Quinn, for being such a bad boy. Not that I did anything to stop their pointing, their laughter, when he started to cry.

‘Hey, let’s play circus,” Danny said when we were done with our popsicles. I suppose if I’d been older, I might have hesitated. Not that anything truly bad happened that day to me or Eliza. But as Danny scooped up a handful of shiny green maple seedlings, threw them in the air, and said, “These can be our money, no—our tickets!” his voice bubbled up so happily, I couldn’t wait to join him.

“You, Becca, can be the Horse Lady,” he said. He knew how much I loved horses. Every day at recess, he played horses with me. Twirling and galloping around the blacktop. Except that day, when I’d invited the new girl to hang on the high bar with me and have a contest. Who could hold on the longest. 

“And you, Eliza,” he boomed, puffing out his chubby chest as he swept his arm toward her like all the ringmasters we’d seen on Disney, “You can be Mr. Cannon Man!” He swept his other arm toward the wooden swing set his father had built in the corner of their yard, a rickety platform on top. 

I didn’t expect the protest that rose up inside me. Why couldn’t I be Mr. Cannon Man? After all, unlike Eliza, I’d seen a real Mr. Cannon Man last fall when Daddy took me to the circus, all by myself. Eliza had had strep and couldn’t come. 

But already Danny was puffing out his chest one more time. “And I—” He paused to scan the yard, his gaze settling on the old canvas tent set up for years in another corner. “I will be Mr. Charmer,” he proclaimed, “and you will collect tickets to get into the tent to see me!” He did one of his championship skating spins right then. Like the ones we always clapped for when he was on the ice. “But first,” he said when he landed, “I need to get something.” 

As he ran into the house, I wondered what he needed to get. A riding crop for me? A cushion for Eliza to land on after she shot through the air? But Eliza was already stuffing seedlings into the pockets of her blue sailor suit. Just like the one I had at home but didn’t wear that day. Not, our mother said, if Eliza was wearing it, too.

By the time Danny came out of his house, I’d gathered my own two piles of seedlings, one for each hand. My pleated skirt and white puffy blouse didn’t have pockets. Danny was swinging two hats, a tall black stovepipe and a black bowler. I smiled. One for me and one for Eliza. But when he got close, he snugged the tall hat onto his own head and pressed the bowler onto Eliza’s head. So low and tight across her brow, it made her short brown hair—nothing like my long curls—stick out like Bozo the Clown. “Hey, where’s my—?” I began to protest just as Danny bowed to Eliza, took her hand, and pretended to kiss it. I lowered my eyes and giggled with relief. Fine. No hat for me. No stupid Bozo hair, either.

“What’s so funny?” Eliza asked, jerking back her hand.

I looked up to meet her glance, so cutting it could have sliced me in two. The same glance as that morning when our mother had called us downstairs (“Get down here on the double, you two”) to see which of the twins had neglected to empty the ashtrays for our chores. “Not me,” I’d said, faster than the blink of a snake’s eye, starting to cry as my mother grabbed Eliza’s wrist, yanked her close, and slapped her hard. Wasn’t I next?

“C’mon, let’s get on with the circus,” I said, wishing Eliza would stop glaring at me. Could I help it if I’d been spared that morning? “My money’s ready.”

“It’s not money,” Eliza said. “It’s tickets, Dummy. Didn’t you hear Danny?”

“Well, mine is—”

But Eliza wasn’t listening. She was gazing at Danny as he swept his arms in another grand circle and boomed, “Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the Three Wonders of the World. Miss Becca Rose! Mr. Cannon Man! And in the tent,” he took a big breath, “the one and only Mr. Charmer! Now, to your places,” he commanded with such a flourish of his hand, I couldn’t wait to spring up, hold my reins high above the pummel of my saddle (tickets begone!), and prance my fine arching step as I snorted and whinnied, leapt over jumps and gullies, stretched through fiery rings, and loped sidesaddle around the lawn. Whenever the spirit moved me, I did somersaults and arabesques and twirls, jiggling on my horse’s back, then leapt off, cracked my whip, and reared up on my hind legs. Horse and rider, both—I would show Eliza and Danny how great I was.

But I also kept my eye on them. Danny as he disappeared into the tent and Eliza as she scurried up the wooden ladder, rose onto her perch, spun around, and cast her tickets into the air, making her arms twirl and flutter as if she were a whirligig herself. At one point she wrapped her arms tight around her chunky body and leapt right off the edge, waiting to spin to the earth. Only she was heavy and lopsided as she went down, landing with a graceless thud on her side in the dirt. The bowler flipped off her head.

I held still. Was she hurt?

“You okay?” I whinnied, tossing my head up and down, feeling my heart race. What would our mother do if Eliza were hurt on my watch? 

Slowly Eliza pushed to her knees, rubbed her hands together. Clapped the dirt away.

“I’m fine, Dummy!” She glared as she stood up, brushed off her legs, and walked toward the ladder.

“You shu-shu-sure?” I whinnied again, tossing my mane. Was she really okay?

Without another word, she grabbed the first rung. Then the next. Hoisting herself up. Of course, Eliza would keep going. For both of us, she would keep going. 

Or so I thought, until halfway up, she stopped and looked toward the tent. Not a single sound or motion had come out of there. Where was Danny’s voice, inviting both of us in? A shiver ran up my spine. Had he suffocated for lack of air? Would I let Eliza go in and see? First?

As if I had a choice. Eliza, born two minutes before me, always went first when it came to taking turns. First to try a new toy. First to serve herself ice cream. First, even, to get a shot at the doctors. And yet, I heard myself whispering permission as she jumped off the ladder, tiptoed across the lawn, and knelt by the zippered canvas door. Whispering the same way I’d whispered to the new girl that morning as we climbed onto the jungle gym. Yes, you go first.

“Oh, Mr. Charmer!” Eliza called out, her voice in a funny warble. 

Silence. 

“You in there, Mr. Charmer?” she asked again. I held my breath. 

It seemed like forever before Danny’s voice rang out. ‘“Yes, my leetle much ado about somezing. Come in!” 

I laughed with relief. Silly Danny. Playful Danny. Ever so much alive. Pretending to be Pepé le Pew, the cartoon skunk we all loved. Yes, You go first, Eliza, I whispered to myself. I would stay right here and wait my turn. Would let her clear the way for me.

But as she crawled into the small tent opening, her feet trailing then disappearing like the tail of something forever slithering away, I couldn’t wait. I dismounted. Tiptoed over. Held my breath as I hovered by the door, feeling the pull of a twin to be close to her twin. To be there to protect her. To see though her eyes what I was sure she’d be seeing: Danny sitting at the far side of the tent, his freckled legs crossed like an Indian’s, his arms folded over his chest, his eyes closed as he leaned toward the upside-down stove-pipe hat, set at a distance in front of him, muttered magic words, and curled and uncurled his arms—like a figure skater and a charmer of snakes. I pressed my ear to the canvas. Listened for the scuff of Eliza crawling toward the hat. Giggling under her breath. Wanting to know what was in there. 

But why so quiet? Why didn’t I hear Eliza moving forward? “Hey,” I shouted. The loudness of my voice startled me. “Can I come in?” I pounded my fist against the door. 

“There iz zomeone here right now, Madam,” Danny sang out. “You vill need to vait your turn. You have teeket?”

I looked down at my hands, forgetting they were empty. But Eliza’s stash was at my feet. I reached for a seedling. A double one, for good measure. 

“I do! I do!” I shouted.

“Then come in, Dummy,” a voice said, not from deep inside the tent but from right below me where Eliza’s head popped out through the small opening, her wavy hair tickling my legs. She reached out to pry herself free, stood up, and took a deep breath of fresh air. 

I could barely wait for her to step aside so I could shimmy in to where I’d already pictured the light splicing through the canvas stitching, dividing into a million rays of stardom. There, indeed, was Danny, sitting on the far side of the tent, his legs crossed, his arms folded, the upside-down stovepipe hat midway between us. I got ready to crawl over, as clearly Eliza had not. I would look inside that hat for both of us. 

But the air was clammy. If only we could unzip the window. I reached up.

Danny cleared his throat. Shook his head. “Come and zee my znakes, Madam,” he said in a low rasp, beginning to wiggle his fingers along the rim of the hat. I moved closer. What was in the hat, really? I just needed to look in the hat. To crawl close enough to peer inside the hat. 

“Leetle girl.” He leaned forward as I got close, his mouth nearly touching my head. “You’re ruining the show, Leetle girl,” he rasped, his eyes narrowing. 

Instantly I backed up. “Sorry,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. Danny didn’t sound like the playful Danny I knew. But just as quickly, he cracked a smile and started to weave his arms again. Just like Danny. The greatest of showmen. Undulating his arms. Muttering. Pattering his fingers along the hat’s rim. Ready to pounce into the hat.

But suddenly he wasn’t pattering the hat. He was tickling my legs. Calling out and laughing, “Here come zee snakes!” 

No! I wanted to call out as I rolled onto my side and curled up. These are spiders, not snakes! I wanted to correct him as he skittered his fingers along my legs and arms, up to my neck, then leaned over and whispered into my ear, “I am Dracula, and I have come to zuck your blood.” He opened his mouth just as I shoved him back, scrambled to the window, unzipped the canvas, and pressed my nose and mouth against the mesh, my heart throbbing in my cheek. “Phew, we need air!” I said, sure he would come sit beside me. Be like our usual selves again. 

He was still laughing as he stretched out on his side and flashed his eyes at me. “You not like zee show, my leetle much ado about somezing?” He made his blonde eyebrows jerk up and down. 

“C’mon, Danny,” I giggled as I trembled. He really could carry on.

“You not like what I do? Zat is really—” 

On my knees, I scrambled for the door, making sure to tuck my skirt between my legs. When he grabbed my ankle, I yanked it free and in one final lunge thrust myself through the opening just as his words rang out in the quiet. “—Zat is really a shame!” he screamed. And again for good measure. “A shame!” 

Breathless and trembling, I stood up, expecting to find Eliza by the door, waiting for me, making sure I was alright. But she wasn’t there. She was on her platform, her body silhouetted against the blue sky as she spun and threw maple seedlings in quick succession, furling and unfurling her arms with each throw.

My heart racing, I took a big step back. Pressed down the pleats of my skirt. Looked at my feet to make sure Danny wasn’t reaching out. All was quiet. Nothing to hear but my own pounding shame that I’d deserted my friend, Danny, today, by playing with the new girl. No wonder he’d pulled down her underpants. And by staying quiet. No wonder he cried.

In the stillness, I fixed my eyes upon Eliza, willing her to notice me. To call my name. Ask me to come up. I would endure her cutting glare one more time. A hundred times. Anything to have her call out, “Come up, Becca, and be with me.”

But if she saw me, she didn’t let on. Not even as I walked over to stand beneath her platform. Still shaking, I listened to her clattering feet and watched the stream of seedlings spinning down, until finally I found my voice. “Hey, can I come up?” I looked over at the tent. How soon before Danny comes out?

“Can I come up?” I called louder, knowing how ridiculous it would look to tuck my skirt into the bottom of my underpants. But I was willing.

Eliza peered over the edge. “What?” she said. She grinned. “You scared?” 

To me, any word from her was an invitation. I clambered up the ladder.

“You got ants in your pants?” she asked as I stood beside her. She let loose another handful of seedlings. Spun herself around. 

If I’d been an adult, I might have known this was the moment to apologize to her, too. For this morning when our mother struck her. For every morning, when our mother pitted us one against the other. But being a child, I tried something else. 

“Hey, guess what happened at recess this morning.” I made my voice sound important. 

She threw another few seedlings. Spun around. 

Okay. I’d tell her a little more to entice her. “Danny pulled down the new girl’s underpants at recess today, while she was hanging on the high bar.” I cupped my hand around my mouth as if this were the most exciting secret in the world. And maybe it was because Eliza stopped spinning and turned to face me.

“He did what?” 

There. I had her. Mine now. All mine! 

But her eyes didn’t open wide in astonishment. Her mouth didn’t drop open. 

“He pulled down her underpants!” I said again, realizing in that moment how much I wanted Eliza to adore me. To admire me. To say again and again, How valuable you are to me! How irreplaceable! 

 “And guess what else?” I said, knowing this detail would really grab her attention. Not that I was the reason the new girl was hanging there in the first place. I’d never tell her that. But something else I knew would make her grin in amazement. “Her underpants had little red hearts on them!” One of our cardinal rules. Never hearts on your underpants. Or bows. Or lace.  

“He did what?”

Why wasn’t Eliza hearing me? Why wasn’t she listening? I looked toward the tent. Was Danny coming out? 

I made my voice louder. “He pulled off her underpants!” I felt the grin of astonishment come across my face. “And when she let go,” my breath nearly caught in my throat, “her dress flipped up, and we all saw—”

“What?” Eliza said louder. But she wasn’t asking what we saw. Not that I could have spoken that forbidden word in that moment. She narrowed her eyes. Wrinkled her face in puzzlement, maybe even scorn. “You think that’s funny?” she said. “To have someone reach up under your dress and—?” 

“But that’s not what I meant,” I said, not sure why I’d deviated from the part of the story she’d be most caught by. 

“Hey Eliza!” I heard the zipper unzipping.

I leaned close to her face. “Guess what happened in the end?” 

“Eliza!” Danny’s voice rang out. “C’mon. “It’s your turn to see Mr. Charmer!”

Eliza stood very still and glared at me. Then she shook her head and started down the ladder. 

“Don’t you want to know what happened?” I said, grabbing her wrist to keep her from descending, hating her in that moment.

She looked up at me. “No.” 

“Yes, you do!” I said with the biggest swagger I could summon as I felt her pulling against my handhold. Would I tighten my grip, order her to Get back up here on the double?

As she climbed down, something else spewed out of my mouth. “I’m never again going to tell you my secrets!” I taunted. 

“Fine!” she called up from the ground. “But you better be careful.” She stepped out from under the platform, grinned, and pretended to tuck a skirt between her legs. “Mr. Charmer is out.” Then she turned toward where Danny stood at the entrance to the tent, waving her over.

“But Danny cried,” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “In front of all the boys and girls, he cried!” Surely this news would stop her in her tracks. 

 And I was right. She stopped, whipped around, and gave me the most killingest glance I’d ever gotten from her. “So. Look who’s talking,” she said, grinning. Then she pivoted, ran to the tent, and slipped inside with Danny like she might never come out.

For what seemed like a long time, I sat like a dumb old rock on the rickety platform. Stupid seedlings, I thought, flicking them one-by-one over the side. Why did Eliza always have to do that to me? Make me feel so small it was almost as if I wasn’t there. Maybe I would just sit on this platform forever. Maybe, then, she would miss me. 

But soon the quiet, the birds chirping, the seedlings twirling down to the ground with the sun lighting up their tiny veins like dragonfly wings soothed me. I loved how the seedlings spun slowly to the ground, as if they had all the time in the world. No wonder Eliza had been lured into jumping. 

But as I listened to their distant voices, I couldn’t stand it. To be so alone up here. So far away. I tiptoed down the ladder and over to the tent. Crouched and barely breathed as I pressed my eye to the opening in the door, expecting to see Danny sitting behind his hat on the far side. Eliza would be sitting beside him, like she was a charmer, too. 

But they weren’t there. They were sitting cross-legged, knee-to-knee under the open window, the top of a single nylon stocking stretched over each of their heads and faces, flattening their noses and lips and matting their hair. Together they swayed and murmured as they each took the toe end of their stocking, stretched it upward, and pretended to curl and weave it together. Like snakes. Without a sound, I watched. Watched as they whispered something to each other and pulled off their stockings. Watched as Danny stretched out on his side, rested his head on Eliza’s lap, and closed his eyes while Eliza ran her hand gently down the scratches on his cheek before she bent over to kiss him first on his cheek—the same place we kissed our mother at night—and then, ever so lightly on his lips. “Shhhhh,” she said as she began to sing very quietly the song our father used to sing to us. “Bushel and a peck, bushel and a peck, you bet your purdy neck—”

By the time they came out of the tent a few minutes later, I’d gone to sit under the maple tree where I was splitting open a pile of seedlings, staring at the hard white seed in each pod, and wondering—if I were to plant this seed right now, right here, would the tree be huge by the time Eliza and I were old? 

It was Eliza who popped her head out first. “Hey, Becca,” she called. “Danny says we can have another snack.” 

“Yeah, Mr. Charmer’s hungry,” Danny said, shimmying out right after her.

I eyed them carefully. “You guys look a little pink,” I said, trying to hide my anger or my jealousy or my hurt. I wasn’t sure which. Not that I wanted to be kissing Danny in the first place.

“Yeah, well it’s hot in there, Dummy,” Eliza said as she came over, gave me a hand, and pulled me up. 

That was all Eliza said. She never told me—and I never asked—about her kissing Danny. Or about her loving women. Something I always chose to believe (though never told her), was surely an extension of her love for me. Nor did she tell me she’d stayed in touch with Danny who, twenty years later, at Eliza’s funeral after she died of lung cancer, took me into his arms—the same sweet-smelling arms—then stepped back, introduced his partner Michael, and took me into arms again, holding me tight while I cried and cried, grateful that Mr. Charmer had been the first of our many complicated secrets.

*

Jody Lisberger’s stories have been published in Fugue, Michigan Quarterly Review, Confrontation, Louisville Review, Timberline Review, and Jabberwock Review, among others. Jody recently retired from the MFA fiction faculty at Spalding University (Louisville) and the University of Rhode Island, where she was an Associate Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies. She lives in Rhode Island. She has a Ph.D. in English and an M.F.A. in Writing (Vermont College).