Doppelganger

chapter ELEVEN

“Chris, could I speak with you for a minute?” Ms. Simpson said as the bell rang that Thursday.

“Ooooo,” the class said as they picked up their books and backpacks and headed for the door. I just stayed in my seat wondering what it was all about.

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she said after everyone was gone. She came over with a few papers in her hand and sat down across from me.

“Okay,” I said, trying to get a look at the papers.

“I just wanted to see how you were holding up. I’m sure this hasn’t been an easy week for you.”

By the time I got back to school on Monday, everyone had heard I’d quit the team. For the most part, the kids didn’t really seem to know how they were supposed to react. I mean, Mr. Football giving it all up—it was ridiculous. As a result, just about everyone ignored me. My teammates, of course, were the most confused. And I could tell by the way Steve, Josh, and some of the others looked at me when I walked into school that first morning that they were pissed off and even hurt. I didn’t blame them. I even felt bad about it. But I didn’t bother to try to talk to them or pretend everything was okay. I just kind of kept to myself, and for the most part, aside from a few murmured comments, people left me alone.

The fact that we’d won the game helped. Since I’d taken Springfield’s two best players out of commission, Bakerville had had an easy time of it in the second half and won 37–16. Still, the season wasn’t over by any means. Play-offs weren’t that far away, and now they’d lost their star player. Which was me, of course.

The rejection was good, in a way. As the weekend went on, I’d started to worry that I was acting too much out of character—I knew Chris would never have quit the team—and I was afraid I’d drawn too much attention to myself. People might start asking questions. But now it looked like the opposite was happening—it was like, all of a sudden, I didn’t exist. I was a nonperson again, which was fine by me. Don’t get me wrong—I sort of enjoyed all the attention at first. All the looks from the girls and the high fives and salutes in the halls between classes. But that stuff gets old fast. Besides, I had other things to focus on.

Like Amber. She was one of the only people who didn’t ignore me. In fact, she seemed to pay more attention to me after I’d quit. When everyone else went to a different table at lunch, she sat alone with me. We even went to the movies one night. This time she asked me out. We were going to rent something and go to her house, but at the last minute she changed her mind and we went to a theater instead. It was fine by me—I wasn’t crazy about the idea of seeing her whack-job parents again anyway, especially now.



I don’t even remember what the movie was about. Some sort of romantic comedy, I guess. I just remember about halfway through brushing Amber’s hand, not on purpose, and then her brushing back and then the next thing I knew, we were holding hands. Her hand was warm, and her skin softer than anything I’d ever felt before.

It was more than enough to compensate for the cold shoulder the others were giving me. Still, I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t care at all.

“It’s been a little hard,” I said to Ms. Simpson. “But I’m getting used to it, I guess.”

She nodded. “Good, Chris. I’m glad to hear it.”

“Thanks for asking,” I added.

“Just so you know,” she said, “if you want someone to talk to, I’d be happy to arrange a meeting with the school’s counselor. Mr. Morovitch is very good.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. Why would I need to talk to anyone? Especially a shrink.

“No, I’m okay. Really. It’s just a game. I didn’t feel like playing anymore. That’s all.”

“All right,” she said. “I just didn’t know if there was something else. If your quitting was a part of something bigger. I don’t mean to pry, but I can’t help worrying.”

She seemed genuinely concerned. As nice as it was, I suddenly felt very nervous.

“You know,” she said, “when a person goes through a lot of changes all at once, they don’t always realize what’s going on, how it’s affecting them.”

“There aren’t any changes,” I said. “I mean, just football.”

“Perhaps. But I have to wonder about this.” She handed me the paper. It was my test from last Friday. The final test on Macbeth, the one I’d studied for.

“But I got an A,” I said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is good. It’s very good. This is better than anything you’ve done this year, by quite a bit. There’s something different about it, in the way you write. Even your handwriting is more legible.”

“I didn’t cheat,” I said.

“I know,” she said, “I watched you take the test with my own eyes.”

“I’m just trying to get better,” I said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, nodding. “I just haven’t seen anything like this before. So much improvement. And now that you’ve quit the team, and then the conversation we had last week—I just want to make sure things are okay.”

“Well, they are,” I said.

“Good then,” she said. She didn’t seem too convinced, but I could tell she wasn’t going to push it any further. “You know, I found your essay really interesting. You were the only one who said Macbeth wasn’t a tragic hero.”

“Well, I was reading over that handout you gave us, you know the one about Aristotle, and he was talking about how the tragic hero can’t be too evil, otherwise we’re just happy when he goes down at the end.”

“And I could see in your essay you think Shakespeare goes too far with Macbeth.”

“I don’t know—I just felt sort of relieved to see him die. He seemed relieved too.”

“Perhaps. But to say that he wasn’t a tragic hero is to say he lost his humanity for good. That he became a monster and never recovered from it. But that isn’t the case.”

“So my essay was wrong?”

“I think it was.”

I glanced over my paper. “But you gave me almost full credit on this section.”

“Because you made a good argument. I like to see students go out on a limb, even if I don’t agree with their conclusions. And I think there’s a case to be made for what you said.” She paused. “But I also see a man in act five who’s come full circle, who’s come to realize what’s happened to him, what he’s lost, and is utterly shaken, and more human than he ever was to begin with.”

I suppose she was right. But I couldn’t get over what he’d done. Maybe because it reminded me so much of what I’d done to Chris, to the old man, even to those guys on the Springfield team. I still remembered what Coach had said about me in front of everyone at halftime. It had been on my mind ever since.

“So you think that someone who loses themselves in all that rage can still come out okay in the end?”

“Careful now,” she said. “I’m not trying to say that Macbeth comes out okay in the end. And neither is he. You’re right, by the way. A part of Macbeth does long for it all to be over. I’m just trying to say he reclaims a part of that noble man he used to be.”

“I just wonder if it’s possible for people who’ve done awful things to ever redeem themselves at all.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “It’s not easy, though, and it doesn’t happen often. And it depends on two things—someone really has to want to change, and the other people in their life have to be willing to let them.”



I nodded.

“But that’s not what Macbeth is about,” she added. “Shakespeare’s not writing about redemption. He’s writing a tragedy, which is only a part of life, not the whole story.”

“Good thing,” I said, and stood up to leave.

“So did you figure it out yet?” she asked.

“Figure what out?”

“You know, what we talked about before, about Banquo being killed and Lady Macbeth not stopping it? You wanted to know what someone should do in a situation where, well, someone was being hurt.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. I still wasn’t really sure about the situation in Macbeth, but I remembered what I’d told Echo in the basement last week.

“I guess sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands,” I said.

There was a knock. I looked over my shoulder to see Amber standing in the doorway.

“Hi, Ms. Simpson,” Amber said, smiling. Amber had Ms. Simpson for English too. Only she had her third period instead.

“Come in, Amber,” Ms. Simpson said.

Amber took a few steps into the classroom. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“That’s okay,” Ms. Simpson said, getting up from the desk. “We were just finishing anyway. Right, Chris?”

“Right,” I said, standing up and grabbing my books.

“What do you need?” Ms. Simpson asked.

“Nothing,” Amber said. “I was just looking for Chris. Stacy said he was here.”

“Well, he’s all yours now.”



I headed for the door. “Thanks, Ms. Simpson,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’” she replied, and winked at both of us. Amber laughed and we turned to leave together.

“Oh, and by the way,” Ms. Simpson said. Both of us stopped. “Better watch out, Amber—your boyfriend got a higher grade on a test than you did.”

Amber looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I just shrugged as we left the room together.

“Got lucky, I guess,” I said.

“Damn right you did,” she replied.



“So where are we going?” I asked, lifting my head to try and catch something through the speck of light showing along the bottom of the blindfold.

“It’s a surprise. Don’t worry; we’ll be there pretty soon. And no peeking.”

“Right,” I said. I had been distracted enough by my talk with Ms. Simpson that I hadn’t really noticed Amber was acting funny until we reached her car and she pulled out the blindfold. That’s when I realized how quiet she’d been as we left the school, just walking beside me with a sort of odd expression on her face that was almost a smile, but not quite.

We’d been driving now for quite some time, maybe twenty minutes. And fast, too. I kept feeling myself being tossed from one side to the other, just like that first time I’d ridden with her on the way to the party. Only this time, with the blindfold on, I had no chance to brace myself.

“You scared?” she asked at one point. Same as last time. But one thing was different.



“No,” I said, “just a little sick, that’s all.”

She laughed. “Do you trust me?”

“I guess I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” she replied.

“Then I will anyway,” I said.

“Good.”

A few minutes later we stopped. Amber helped me out of the car and removed the blindfold. We were at a lake. It was a nice day, and though many of the leaves had fallen, there was enough gold in the trees to make everything glow. And it was warm, warmer than it had been for a couple weeks, as if the sun had been holding on to one last day of summer and decided that today was the day to let it go.

There was only one other car in the parking lot—it belonged to some old couple at a picnic table down near the shore—so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. We got out of the car and started walking down through the pines toward the water. The trees were far enough apart to be able to see all around. I could make out some hills on the other side of the lake and picnic tables scattered here and there, and everything was quiet as we stepped across the pine needles.

“It’s nice here,” I said. “I like this place.”

“I know,” she said, taking my hand.

As we walked down onto the sand, I suddenly stopped.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at cheerleading?”

“I quit,” she said, looking down with a smile. “I figured if you could do it, then so could I.”

“Great,” I said. “Now we can both be losers.”

She laughed. “That’s right. And why not?”



“Why not,” I agreed. It made me feel kind of strange. I had never caused anyone to do anything in my entire life—unless you wanted to count Barry punching his fist through the wall—or at least never gotten anyone to change something about themselves. It wasn’t the only reason why I loved Amber, but at that moment, it was the most important one.

We kept walking across the beach toward the far end. I was getting all kinds of sand in my sneakers, but I didn’t care—it just felt good to be holding Amber’s hand again. Even though we more or less walked side by side, I let her sort of lead the way. She seemed to know where we were going, and I didn’t have a clue. There was something familiar about this place, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Pretty soon we reached the end of the sand and entered a path that disappeared into the woods. Now I was really confused.

“Where are we going?” I blurted out.

She glanced over and gave me a look. “Funny,” she said.

I tried not to wince. I had to be more careful about stuff like that. I never got in trouble for things I didn’t say, only the things I did.

I kept catching glimpses of the water through the trees to my right and realized the path we were on basically skirted the edge of the lake. Pretty soon we came out into a clearing right by the water. I could see the curve of the beach across the way. I started toward the far side, where the path continued.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I turned to see her standing by a rock on the shore.

“Nowhere,” I said, coming back. “Just wanted to see if there was anyone else on the path.” I knew right away it was a stupid thing to say. But I was totally out of it. I’d never felt so happy and so nervous at the same time before.

“Yeah, like there’s any chance of that,” she said.

She sat down on the rock, and as I walked over to her, I suddenly realized where we were—this was the picture, the one I’d found in the card. I sat down next to her.

“Well, this is the place,” she intimated.

“It’s even better in real life,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, glancing at me.

“Better than the picture. You know, the one you gave me for my birthday.”

“Oh,” she said, looking down. “That’s right. I almost forgot.”

I started to ask her what she’d meant, but suddenly I knew that would be a big mistake. Something had happened here before. Something important.

“It feels like so long ago,” she said. “You know, when we came here.”

“It does,” I said. “Like forever.”

She wrapped her arm through mine and looked up at me. I closed my eyes for a second and just inhaled. The scent of perfume and oranges wreathed about her, and as I breathed in deeply through my nose, it felt like I was pulling her toward me, like I was almost drawing in her essence. And when I opened my eyes, I saw that it had worked—she was actually leaning in. All of a sudden, I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to kiss her. Only I couldn’t. For some reason, I froze. I mean, I’d killed two people, and now here I was, too chicken to kiss a girl.



The moment passed. To her credit, she didn’t seem to hold it against me. I could see a glimmer of surprise in her eyes before she looked away, but it wasn’t an angry kind of surprise. If anything, it was the good kind. Like when you suddenly realize something about another person, but it really makes you discover something about yourself. Kind of like how I’d felt a week ago when Amber dropped me off and I realized I was in love with her.

For the next hour we just sat on the rock and talked. We talked about school and parents and friends and all kinds of stuff. Actually, she did most of the talking. I didn’t have much to say about my own life, nothing good, anyway. So I asked her questions instead, about what she wanted her future to be, about the stuff that bothered her, that sort of thing. And it wasn’t just because I didn’t want to talk about me.

After a while the sun started heading toward the far hills. The last bit of light was on us.

“I’m glad you came back,” I said as we stood up to leave.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“That night, a week ago. You drove by me as I was walking. But then you came back.”

She snorted a little and nodded.

“So why did you do it?”

She shrugged. “Something in the way you were walking, I guess. I’m really not sure.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” I said.

She shook her head. “I think it does. Everything matters. Everything happens for a reason. That night when I drove you back to your house, I felt something. All the way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”



“Is that why we’re here?”

She nodded. “I thought about what you said to me that night a few weeks ago after the party.”

“About things being like they were before?” I asked.

“No,” she said, looking away. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I watched her shake her head. “I don’t ever want things to be like they were before, not even in the beginning. Not even when we came here. But that’s not what you said. You asked if we could start over.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” I asked. I could feel my heart pounding now.

“I guess it is,” she said. “I never thought it would happen. All week I’ve been wondering about it, trying to decide if you should get a second chance. To be honest, I’m still not sure if you deserve one.”

“Neither am I,” I said.

She stepped up to me, put her arms around my waist, and before I knew what was happening, she was kissing me, slowly at first, with little kisses, then with long, deep ones. Her mouth was soft and warm and her tongue felt strange and wonderful against my own. It was the most bizarre sensation of my life. For that moment I forgot about being a doppelganger, I even forgot about being Chris. The universe had been reduced to the point where our lips joined together. Nothing else existed.

Then she pulled back, and we smiled at each other. It was only when she turned away that I saw her smile fade, and in its place that look of confusion. She glanced at me for a moment, then took my hand and started down the path back to the beach. I didn’t know what to make of her bewilderment. I was feeling pretty bewildered myself, and too happy on top of it all to really care too much about it.

She was warm to me on the drive home but quiet, and I could tell she was thinking. Something had happened in the moment of our kiss, and in spite of the giddiness still coursing through me, deep down I couldn’t help but feel that there was trouble ahead.