Sister Swap

Pia’s playing collapsed into laughter and fractured rhythm and thumping keys, and Dr. Madison sank sideways against her little shoulder in an exaggerated parody of breathlessness and exhaustion after a race.

“There! Whew! Fabulous! Thank you! It’s not nearly as much fun playing ‘Chopsticks’ on my own. Do you remember what this note is called, Pia?” She touched a key, and the sound of a single note vibrated from the instrument.

“Middle C,” Pia said.

“That’s right. Now if I shut the piano lid and open it again, can you still find Middle C?” She did as she’d described, and Pia’s finger went straight to the right note. “Very good!” She stood up, closed the lid once more, and turned to Gino. “We’re ready. I’m sorry, I felt I should—”

“No, that’s fine. You’re right. You needed to finish properly. Pia, Dr. Madison is going to show us her plans for the garden, now.”

Crunch time, Roxanna thought.

She’d decided to wing it without Rowena’s written and sketched-out plans, because she knew that her sister would have had the whole thing locked down in her memory the way Rox had locked down the lyrics and music to all her favorite songs. Without those comforting scrolls of paper clutched in her hands, however, she felt like an actress caught without a vital prop.

Gino was dressed down today, in a white Polo shirt that showed off the natural tan on his arms and on that very nicely shaped column of neck appearing from inside the Polo collar. He wore his hair short at the back, but not too short; just the right length for a woman’s fingers to run through—not too prickly, not too soft.

Rox happened to be an authority on exactly what this length was, because she’d never convinced Harlan to let his hair grow to it. He’d always kept it as short as cornfield stubble.

After she’d retrieved some of Rowie’s notes from the office, Gino led the way outside, and asked her about what she’d been doing with Pia. “Was it a lesson, or just fun?”

And that was a much safer subject than either garden restoration or the best length for a man’s hair, so she snatched it up.

With too much enthusiasm, as usual.

“Lessons and fun should be the same thing for a four-year-old, I think, especially with something like music, if you don’t want to put them off for life. So it was both, really. And she was very responsive. She was great!”

“Really?” He sounded skeptical, as if he didn’t dare to hope for too much where his daughter was concerned. And that was just ridiculous!

“Gino, she’s a very bright, creative little girl, hungry to learn. She latched on to what we were doing incredibly fast, and she loved it. I think you should consider music lessons for her.”

He thought about it for a minute, then shook his head. “When she’s older.”

Oh, okay, right.

Older.

You mean, when she’s snowed under with schoolwork. When that great big spark of joy and curiosity has been completely snuffed out by gray dresses and repressive tantrum control. When you can hit her with endless scales and finger exercises, and toss poor old Beethoven’s trampled-on “Fur Elise” at her like tossing a bone.

Makes total sense.

But, as we discussed yesterday, it’s none of my business, so I’ll keep my trap shut.

“You’re very talented at music, by the way,” he added, distracting her.

“Oh…not half as talented as I’d like to be. I love it, but, no, I’m coming to realize—”

That Harlan is probably right about my voice.

Oops, and that Harlan has nothing to do with any of this, because I’m pretending to be my twin sister.

“Gardens are my real love, of course,” she quickly added.

“Talk me through the whole plan,” he invited her.

Examination time.

Half an hour later, she was pretty confident she’d earned a passing grade. When you had to do all your exam preparation the night before, jet lag did have its advantages. Walking around the extensive and beautiful but dilapidated and overgrown old gardens, only part of which had yet been cleared under Rowena’s supervision, they managed the odd snatch of polite but slightly more personal conversation, also, which made Rox relax more than she’d expected to.

She asked Gino whether he had any kind of a garden in Rome, and he told her, “Only the one in the oil painting on my wall. It’s from the French Impressionist school. Not by a world-famous artist, but pretty.” He asked her why she’d chosen to go into a field like this. The combination of dry historical research and outdoor work was unusual, wasn’t it?

And since Roxanna knew her twin sister so well, she could find an answer that was true for Row and true for herself, as well. Something about how you can appreciate and enjoy something more when there’s more than one layer to it. A seven-foot-high Harrison’s Yellow rosebush in full bloom is beautiful all on its own when you’re standing in front of it on a gorgeous day, but when you also know that pioneers on the Oregon Trail packed the same rose in their wagons to plant out west… Well, that adds something, doesn’t it?

She didn’t express it very well. Rambled on a sentence or two too long, no doubt. Reasons Number One and Two, by the way: “You’re always so (expletive deleted) enthusiastic,” and “You never know when to stop talking.”

But this morning she was supposed to talk, so she did, and Gino listened, while Pia played in sunshine that definitely felt as if it were part of spring today.

“Impressive,” Gino said, when Rox had finished.

Was that an A grade?

Sounded like an A.

She relaxed a little too much, and that mouth of hers opened right up and she said, “Of course, if it were me, I’d do it the other way around.”

Gino looked at her blankly. “But it is you.”

“I mean, if it were my garden, if I weren’t working for you, the client. Fulfilling your—”

Help, help, help!

Why did I say it?

“Tell me what you’re talking about.” He frowned, sounded impatient. “The other way around?”

They stood at the end of a long, south-facing wall that marched along the side of the formal part of the garden, edged by a gravel track and overlooking a sloping field of vines that were just showing the first hints of green growth. Pia was throwing bits of gravel toward the vines. It was a very pretty spot, but since they were on the far side of the wall, it wasn’t visible from the main garden, the terrace or the house.

Rox had just finished dutifully describing to Gino how she—i.e. Rowena, as per Rowena’s plans—envisaged a single line of roses growing all along the wall, chosen not for their heritage value, like those in the main garden, but for other features, such as color and scent. And now, instead of leaving it at that, Rox had gone and blurted out her own opinion.

Harlan’s Reason Number Three: “You have an opinion about everything.”

“Well…” she said cautiously. Was there a way she could get out of this? Backtrack? Fob Gino off? No. She’d already put one foot in it. She had no choice now but to jump in with both. “I just mean that, even though, historically, the antique roses would obviously have been a part of the main garden, I think it could work better to have them along this wall instead.”

“Yes?” Gino said, indicating that she should please continue to insert her feet even deeper.

“Um, you see, initially, conforming to…uh…what I thought the family wanted, I attempted to combine the…uh…botanical-historical dimension of the main garden with the…uh…aesthetic dimension, but in some ways this may well mean that neither goal is effectively fulfilled. Whereas—”

She took a breath.

A very large, shuddery and somewhat desperate breath.