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A Fine Bouquet

by Evelyn Arvey

 

     They looked like me, I gave them that. Same size and shape as me. Same age. Same crooked left incisor, same faint scar under my lip from when I fell of a long-ago bicycle, same lumpy, knobby knuckle on my right-hand middle finger. The three clones standing on my porch were even dressed like me: tee-shirts and leggings and Birkenstock sandals. “I don’t want them,” I said to the young man standing at their side. “I never ordered clones. Take them away.” I started to close the front door, but in my peripheral vision Clone Number One glanced at Clone Number Two. In tandem, they shrugged their shoulders in the exact same way I do when I don’t want people to know my feelings are hurt. I knew that shrug intimately; I hadn’t known it was so obvious.

     It hurt my feelings to witness their hurt feelings; the oddest sensation I’d ever had. “I don’t want them,” I repeated, feeling terribly off-kilter.

     The representative of CloneNation was called Linus, according to his blue-and-yellow nametag. Linus didn’t notice how upset I was. “I love this part!” he said. “Delivery day is so fun. Don’t you just adore them? They’re you. Exactly as promised. They’re you, right down to that little mole on your cheek. Oh. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Of course I shouldn’t have said that. But you can see it, right? All three of them have that mole in the same place you do.” He paused, gazing from me to the clones and then back again, shaking his head. “Wow. We do fabulous work, don’t we? But why did you get three clones? Most people only order one. Seeing as how they’re so expensive. Oh! I probably shouldn’t have said that, either.”

     “I didn’t order three. I didn’t order any.”

     Clone Number Three was gingerly touching the mole on her cheek with an index finger; I clenched my hand into a fist to stop from doing the same. Clone Number One clenched her hand too.

     “Amazing, aren’t they?” Linus repeated, “Absolutely amazing.”

     “Ab-so-lutely!” I echoed, drawing out the word, mocking his enthusiasm. “Now, take them away. I don’t like them. They make me nervous.”

     Clone Number Two smirked at me. Clone Number Three flipped me off behind Linus’ back. I sucked in my breath.

     Linus shook his head. “Can’t do that. They’re yours.”

     Clone Number One sneezed three times in quick succession. Which made me feel like sneezing three times in quick succession. “No,” I said. “They are not.”

     “Wait a second.” Linus rattled the paperwork he’d been trying to get me to take. He took out a single sheet. Held it up for me to see. “Right here. Says you are the legal guardian of three BodySculpted Clones for the next five years, and I quote: ‘after which they shall petition for full legal adult status and shall be eligible to leave your guardianship’. It’s legalese, but that’s the gist of it. See? It’s been notarized and signed by a judge.” He held the paper out to me, but I didn’t take it. “Most people turn around and order another clone when the original one leaves, but that’s beside the point.” He studied the sheet. “You are Rose Marie Doppler, of Seattle, WA, right? You came to our clinic about a month ago, on June tenth, right?”

     “For a paid beta test!” I squealed. “Not to get clones made.”

     “But you were there.”

     I clutched the door frame, feeling suddenly out of breath. “For a beta test! The technicians ran a beta test on me inside this fancy new scanner. CloneNation paid me five hundred dollars for my time. I have the receipt!”

     “No,” he said, frowning. “That’s not right. It wasn’t a beta test. It says you had a head-to-toe electro-resonance scan for the creation of BodySculpted Clones. That’s not a beta test. You had the full scan.” He gestured toward the clones. “They wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.” He paused. “Your test, it took like four hours, right?”

     I nodded slowly, not wanting to admit to anything.

     “You gave a vial of blood?”

     “It was part of the whole thing. It was worth an extra hundred dollars. Why wouldn’t I?”

     “And then you ordered and paid for three clones. Of the most expensive style.”

     “I did not!”

     “It says here that you ordered them to be grown, processed, and delivered within thirty days, which cost you extra. See? You signed and put your initials all over this page.”

     “I did no such thing. Here. Let me see that.” I snatched the papers from him. All three clones leaned in closer so they could see too, exactly as I would have done in their place. “Ha!” I said, jabbing at the document. “That isn’t my signature. I didn’t sign this. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t me.” I looked beyond him, to the clones. I blinked, remembering that June day, remembering how I’d turned around and spent my six hundred dollars on new chairs for the kitchen, thrilled because my salary as a librarian didn’t cover such things. My eyes were drawn to the clones, and I saw they were studying me also. It should have been obvious, but seeing living, breathing clones of oneself was not at all the same as looking in a mirror. Was this how I appeared to other people? It made me feel dizzy, flushed, as if I were on the verge of getting a nasty cold.

     And then it came to me: maybe I did have an idea who had signed those papers.

Linus’ buoyant mood had vanished. He peered warily at me. “They’re paid for. The clones are yours...they’re you,” he started, then fell silent, a question on his face. “What is it?”

     “I’m…ah…I’m remembering something.”

     He tilted his head. The clones waited.

     There was another woman. In the waiting room with me. The receptionist had thought she was there for a beta test, like I was, but no, apparently, she wasn’t. I could hear her raised voice as I was called to the back room where the scanner resided. I could hear her staccato ire as I disrobed and padded with bare feet to the rumbling maw of the new machine. I could hear the receptionist, and then another person, and then two more people – a veritable crowd – trying to placate the woman as I wriggled my naked body onto the sliding shelf that would go inside the scanner as it rotated around me. How incompetent was this company, anyway? Had they mixed up our two visits? Had CloneNation scanned me, and beta-tested her? Had they made clones of me that had been meant for her? Which she had then somehow paid for? I shuddered to think of extra versions of her out in the world. Which made me realize that the world now had three extra versions of me, which seemed worse.

     But it wasn’t my problem. CloneNation would have to deal with it.

     I told Linus all this. He wasn’t impressed.

     “They’re here. They’re alive. They’ve been through our accelerated training program. They’re people. And you’re their legal guardian,” he said over his shoulder as he scuttled to his car, leaving me and my clones watching in identical postures of disbelief, until I shifted my weight to my other foot so as not to look so much like them. “Our part is over upon delivery,” he added. “They’ve been delivered. You are responsible for them from now on.”

     “But I don’t want them!”

     “Maybe you can petition the court for a termination decree.” Linus opened the car door, then turned back to me, to us. “But that would take time and money, and you’d still be responsible for them until your case is heard, which could be many months … or years. Look. I’m sorry. Nothing I can do.” The clones and I stood forlornly on the porch, watching him drive away.

As I held the door open for them to pass into my living room, it occurred to me I knew nothing about these so-called people. If there was a user’s manual – The Care and Handling of New Clones, or some such ridiculous title – it had gone to that other woman; Linus had left me with nothing but the legal documents. Could the clones talk? Could they read? Did they have any education, or would I be compelled to enroll them in elementary school? Did they need special attention to their diets, to their mental health, to their new bodies? Were they able to go to the bathroom by themselves? (God, I hoped so!) Did they have my memories and talents and bad habits as well as my physical mannerisms?

     It wasn’t fair, to be saddled with all this. I lived alone, and I liked it that way; I didn’t know how to live with other people, much less with three of them. This was all happening too fast: One moment I was slathering butter on broccoli for my lunch and in the next the doorbell rang and – whoops! I found myself custodian of three full-grown women. No, not custodian. Linus had said guardian. I was to be their guardian, but how was I supposed to do that? How was I supposed to squeeze them into the (very small) home my mother had willed to me for the next five years? How was I supposed to take care of them, feed them, entertain them, accept them as if they were family, as if they were my own children? I couldn’t. I didn’t have the money for it. I didn’t have the people-skills. It was too much.

     Clone Number Three followed the others inside. Alone for perhaps the last time in the foreseeable future, I hesitated on the porch. In a fleeting moment of indecision, I considered closing the door behind them, locking it, jumping in my car, and then driving and driving and driving until I ran out of gas.

     I couldn’t. As Linus had said, they were me. And I couldn’t leave the only home I’d ever known. So I sat them around my kitchen table, on the new chairs I’d bought with the six hundred dollars I’d received for inadvertently giving them life. The four of us faced each other, hands folded on the tabletop, the paperwork between us. The clones had identical looks of trepidation on their faces; I probably did as well. “Like it or not, here we are,” I began. “What are your names?”

     The clone seated directly across the table fixed me with a level gaze. “Like it or not, here we are,” she said, mocking me, matching my intonation, right down to the note of resentment in my voice, “What is your name?”

     At least they could speak. That was good. This clone exhibited a certain insolence I approved of. And recognized; I’d wielded it on Linus not that long ago and had gotten much satisfaction from doing so. “I’m Rose,” I said. “Rose Doppler.”

     She regarded me.

     I regarded her.

     “My name is also Rose,” she announced finally, staring at me from under knotted eyebrows. “Rose Doppler.”

     The clone to my right slapped her hands on the table, making me jump. “I’m Rose Doppler.”

     “Hey,” the last one said loudly, belligerently, “My name is Rose Marie Doppler too. Don’t even try to call me Rosie or you’ll regret it.”

     They stared at me, waiting to see what I would do.

     I blinked at them in awed disbelief, then a single great sob of a laugh escaped me. Well played, I thought, Well played, Ladies. I covered my mouth, trying to contain myself. It didn’t work. I tried not to look at them. That didn’t work either. Before I knew it, the four of us were howling with laughter, our identical moles on identical cheeks wet with identical tears. I hadn’t laughed this hard since I was a child. Perhaps I never had. I wasn’t prone to fits of giggles.

The clones might not be so bad after all. They obviously had my abrasive manner and my offbeat sense of humor, both of which had made others shy away from me for as long as I could remember. These clones, they threw my weirdness right back at me! They got me!

     Right. They got me because they were me.

     “So,” I said after a while, “I really want to know. What are your names?”

     “You’re supposed to give us names,” said the clone across from me, serious now. She’d unknotted her eyebrows and looked more approachable because of it, a fact I took careful note of. “We’ll share your last name, Doppler, but you need to choose given names for us. That’s what Linus told us.” She paused. “But that’s stupid. I’d rather name myself.”

     Of course she would. It was what I would have wanted.

     “Okay,” I said, “Go for it.”

     She named herself Lilly. The next selected Violet. The last one wanted to be Iris.

     “Iris?” I cried, my voice thin and scraggly-sounding. “Iris? Is that what you said?”

     She nodded. “Iris.”

     I clenched my hands to my waist, feeling like I wasn’t getting enough air, like I couldn’t get a handle on myself. This whole encounter with the clones had been a roller coaster of weirdness from the moment I’d opened the front door, and now I felt like I might break into a thousand pieces. I was not used to breaking into a thousand pieces; I was used to keeping a rigid hold on everything in my life, including myself.

     She’d named herself Iris. My mother’s name.

     I allowed my shoulders to sag and my body to slump forward onto the table, where I buried my head in my arms. My mother had adored purple irises. She’d planted them in glorious droves around the house. Some of them were still alive, even though she wasn’t.

     There was silence around the table. And then, a whisper: “Is she crying? I think she’s crying. Why is Rose crying?”

     “I’m not crying,” I whispered, trying not to. And failing.

     Lilly touched my arm. “Rose? What’s wrong?”

     “She’s upset,” said Violet, coming to stand behind me. She put her arms around my shoulders for a hug, and I felt the sturdy warmth of her, the beating of her heart, the personness of her.

     Iris came to me too. She patted my head, gently tugging strands of my hair through her fingers. Exactly like my mother had done when I was little – exactly like I’d never done to anyone, ever, not in my whole life, because there was no one in my life, and I had made it that way. I looked up at Iris, not caring that my nose was dripping. She smiled down at me. Also like my mother.

     “Rose?” said Violet, “Tell us what’s wrong. Please tell us what’s wrong.”

Iris knelt at my feet and put a hand on my knee. “Is it my name? I can change it. I want you to be happy.”

     “Yes,” echoed Violet. “That’s what we all want.”

     “You’re us,” said Lilly, stressing the word us.

     Iris nodded. “We’re you…and you’re us.”

     These clones – these women – had my caustic streak, but they were clearly also capable of compassion, and of showing love, real love. Lilly and Violet and Iris were clones of me, which meant that I must have everything inside me that they did; but where was my compassion, my empathy, my ability to love? Had I buried my feelings so deeply I didn’t even know they existed anymore? Could they help me find them?

     I took Iris’ hand in mine, threaded my fingers through hers. “Iris is a beautiful name, a family name. My mother was named Iris, that’s why I reacted the way I did. I’m glad you chose it.” I took a deep breath. I swiped a few wayward tears from my cheeks. I managed a smile, for them, for me, for us. “I’m okay now. But, hey, I just realized something. My mom? I guess she was your mother too.”

     They nodded solemnly, all three of them. “Yes,” Lilly said softly. “She was.”

     “I’ve always wanted a mother,” said Iris wistfully, which ought to have struck me as amusing, seeing as how she’d only been alive a matter of weeks, only it didn’t.

     “Tell us about her,” urged Violet.

     “We want to know,” said Lilly.

     “Please,” added Iris.

     So I told them – words falling out, spilling, cascading, tumbling, surprising me. I told the clones about my mother’s rolling laugh that sounded like bells to my childhood ears; about her lifelong disgust of Brussels Sprouts and about how once, as a twelve-year-old, Mom had lobbed the hated vegetables one by one from her dinner plate at a cousin who’d been pestering her; about how each winter Mom sewed matching holiday nightgowns for herself and for me, and then made us pose in them for our annual picture; about how Mom stayed up late with me all through high school, helping me figure out my math homework; about how she would pick armloads of roses and dahlias and iris from her garden and say, Rosie, come look, isn’t this the best bouquet ever? But most of all I told the clones how it was Mom and me, just the two of us, for all those years, because there was no one else.

     I stopped talking. I was getting to the hard part. I looked down at my hands.

     “More,” they said. “We want more.”

     Of course they did. I would have wanted more too. “You’re insatiable, you know that?” I poured myself a glass of lemonade from a pitcher in the refrigerator, then poured for them too.      “But fine. You deserve to know.”

     I told them the hard part. I told them about the car accident five years ago, about how Mom, while bringing holiday presents to me, had skidded off an icy road in a snowstorm and hit a tree head-on. I told them how she’d died instantly of a traumatic brain injury. And how, a week later, the police had dropped off three black garbage bags of “material effects” tied shut with yellow caution tape, and how at the bottom of one of them I’d discovered, wrapped in red-and-white polka dot paper, the last pair of matching nightgowns Mom would ever make.

     I fell silent, remembering.

     “I wish I’d known her,” said Violet after a while.

     “She would have liked you,” I said. “All of you. She would have got a kick out of this. I mean, for real. She would have thought the four of us were hysterical together. A matched set.”

     “You miss her,” said Iris.

     “Yeah,” I said softy. “Every day.”

     “You know what?” Violet tilted her head. “I think you’re lonely. As in really lonely. As in shipwreck lonely.”

     I didn’t answer, just looked at her.

     Iris put both hands flat on the table. “You won’t be lonely anymore. You have us now.”

     I glanced at the paperwork in the center of the table, then at the clones. “You’re right. I sure do.”

     It was the irony of all ironies. I’d gone in for a beta test to make a few dollars and had come out with them. It had only been a couple of hours since they’d arrived, and already it was hard to believe that I’d been horrified by them, that I’d demanded Linus take them away. I was just now beginning to understand how very lucky I was; the woman who’d ordered and paid for my clones had probably done me the biggest favor of my life. I leaned back in my chair, balancing on two legs. “Yep. That’s settled. Now, listen up, clones.” I grinned at them. “You better not be pestering me at all hours of the day and night.”

     “Then you better not be making us do all the housework,” said Lilly, without missing a beat.

     “I’m not cooking,” Iris announced. “I hate to cook.”

     I snorted. “No way am I taking that job. I’m not cooking for everyone!”

     “I categorically refuse to do dishes,” said Violet.

     “Me too,” said Lilly.

     “Did you know lots of people have clones made just so they will do the dishes?” Iris said, turning to me. “That’s the gossip at CloneNation.”

     “And to do the laundry,” added Violet. “And change diapers. And scoop the cat litter.”

     “I don’t even have a cat. I won’t ask you to scoop cat litter.”

     “We’re good then,” announced Iris. “I guess we’ll stay.”

     I laughed. They laughed too, and their laughter matched mine in pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration, as was right. My clones and I lingered at the kitchen table as the afternoon faded and the streetlights winked on. I didn’t want to leave them, not to make dinner, not to answer the doorbell, not even to go to the bathroom. We laughed, we hollered, we made silly faces at each other. We were exquisitely comfortable with each other, even though we’d been together for less than half a day, even though we were feeling twinges of something that felt suspiciously like family.

     Lilly, Violet, Iris…and Rose. A fine bouquet.

     A fine bouquet indeed.

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