One thing I appreciate about Harmony is that I don’t have to worry about encryption. Her immediate intentions are totally clear: She’s here to make me get religion. And not just any religion, of course, but hers. If I’m married along with the rest of her housesisters by the end of the month, I think she scores some major bonus angel points toward a heavenly set of wings or a halo or something. Despite her invitations, I know I’m not welcome in Goodside and it’s not because they fear HPSV. The Church is far more threatened by the possibility that I’ll infect their minds with sin. I could flash my lab results proving that the damage has already been done to my reproductive system and there’s no chance of catching the Virus from me, but they wouldn’t even care. I was shocked when Harmony told me that they don’t even test for the Virus in Goodside, because, as she explained, there is only one who can open and close the womb, and He flicks the switch from His heavenly throne. It’s no mere coincidence then, as she also explained, that there are more women pregging in their twenties and thirties on her side of the gates than on mine.
Well. How can you argue against that?
MELODY AND I CAME INTO THIS LIFE TOGETHER AND I’LL DO whatever it takes to see her in the next one. But, my grace, she’s not making it easy.
I was surprised that she didn’t even consider searching for her (our!) birthparents as soon as she came of age. That was my first order of business when I turned sixteen. She claims that she never sought the truth about our birthparents because it could bring more bad news than good.
“You weren’t the least bit curious about who brought us into this world?”
“I’ve got the YDNA test results, and that’s all I need to know,” she replied. “Ash and Ty made me the person I am today.”
I didn’t understand this reaction at all. I’ve always felt the need to know the truth about my birthparents. I thought knowing them would help me better understand myself. Please don’t think I’m disrespecting the Smith family by saying this. I don’t remember when I was told that I was adopted, I can only say that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know I was adopted. The Church has a long tradition of taking in the neediest infants—as it still does—and I was one of them. My parents were the angels entrusted with my care and protection and I’m forever grateful He chose them for me.
Always worried about my health, Ma never let me roughhouse and always lured me toward more meditative pursuits like baking and crafting. These skills, she knew, would serve me well when I turned thirteen and was picked for marriage in my Blooming. She taught me everything I know about what it means to be a good wife and mother, nourishing me with all the fruits of the spirit: joy, peace, kindness, faithfulness, and gentleness. What’s happened to me since then isn’t her fault. She did the best she could.
I wish more than anything I could tell her that right now.
Despite Ma’s efforts, I’ve never felt . . . complete. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I asked why my birthparents had surrendered me and I got frustrated with Him for not answering. Until I knew, I would always feel like something—or someone—was missing no matter how hard or long or often I called on Him for help. Finally, after a difficult and dark period in my early Blooming, Ma took me aside and told me something I’ll never forget.
“Prayers are answered in one of four ways,” she said. “Yes. No. I have something else in mind. And . . .”
She paused long enough for my impatience to show. “And what’s the fourth answer?”
“Wait,” she said.
I realized that maybe I wasn’t ready for the answers God had in store for me.
And so I patiently waited until my sixteenth birthday when it was legal for me to unseal my birth documents.
HARMONY DOE
Placement: SMITH
Born: 05-02-2020 (approximate)
Birth Father: UNKNOWN
Birth Mother: UNKNOWN
Relations: MELODY DOE [See: MAYFLOWER]
Notes: Infant twin females born at approximately 32 weeks; required NICU intervention for detoxification and other development issues associated with preterm delivery; anonymously given up to Princeton Medical Center professionals in compliance with the New Jersey Safe Haven Act with handwritten note reading: “Forgive me, Harmony and Melody”; placed into permanent custody by the Good Shepherd Family Placement Services.
I had a twin.
A twin.
The Heavens opened for me at that moment. A twin! What a revelation! I made a choice right then and there not to mourn for the unknown parents I had lost, but to celebrate the sister I had found. My whole life I thought I was praying for my birthparents. Suddenly I knew who I was really praying for: my twin. My sister. My other half. Though I didn’t know my sister named Melody, I loved her already. Ma and Pa were never told about Melody and were even more stunned to find out about her than I was. Ma saw an opportunity to spread the Word.
“This is your purpose in life,” Ma said. “Putting your sister on the right path for the next one.”
I’m taking Ma’s advice. Can I redeem myself if I bring Melody to Otherside to receive the sacraments? Despite her protests, I see the truth: Melody isn’t sure of her decision to go pro. I know it. And if she spends more time in my company, perhaps she’ll want to follow me in faith. And she, in turn, just might give me strength to be the wife and mother I’ve so far failed to be.
“Am I fertilicious?” she asks. “Or what?”
I love my sister unconditionally—even if she makes it difficult to like her. Watching her as she unabashedly admires herself in the mirror, I realize that I have a long, hard road ahead of me. If only my relationship with Melody was as effortless as my relationship with God. Talking to God isn’t a chore. I can let my true self shine in front of God.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO ELSE MAKES A BOLD STATEMENT?” Harmony asks.
“God?” I try.
“Inspired answer, sis—!” Harmony stops herself short. “Melody!”
It’s Harmony’s mission in life to put the “fun” back in fundamentalism. She’s never happier than when she’s bragging on God. I’m about to tell her that she might want to dose down a bit when the Babiez R U salesclerk ducks her head through the pink-and-blue gingham curtains. Name tag: TRYNN.
“You’re glowing!” Trynn gushes.
I caress my stretchy belly with pride.
“God-mocking,” chimes Harmony with cheery confidence.
Trynn is a skilled saleswoman and won’t be put off by Churchy negs on her trade. She puts two hands on my tumescent tummy. “Can you feel the kicking?”
I can.
“And you’ll note the tiny, tasteful stretch marks,” she continues, lifting my brand-new expandable-contractable MyTurnTee.
Trynn looks to Harmony. “Are you interested in trying something on?”
Harmony primly pats her shoulder-length veil. “It’s against my religion.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed,” Trynn says, stifling a snicker.
The clerk takes a step back to eye Harmony’s ivory veil, which matches the crisp cotton cap-sleeved ball gown with a sweetheart neckline and brush-the-floor train. She’ll wear a similar, if slightly fancier, gown on her wedding day, after which she’ll wear green gowns symbolizing fertility, followed by pink or blue gowns—depending on the sex of her first child—to announce the fulfillment of her “feminine promise,” as she put it.
Only engaged girls wear veils, which is supposed to deflect unwanted male attention. That might work in Goodside, but here it has the opposite effect. She gets more attention all covered up than I would if I went around flashing my breedy bits all day long.
“Oh, yes,” says Harmony from behind the tulle scrim. “I’m just visiting. . . .” She tugs on the elbow-length glove covering her left hand.
“Is there a ring under there?”
Harmony stiffens for a moment then says, “Of course I’m wearing a ring!”
“Can we see it?” Trynn and I ask simultaneously.
“No,” Harmony says curtly. It’s a voice I haven’t heard before. “Showing off is the sin of pride. . . .” Her voice trails off.
“What’s his name?” I ask, realizing just now that in our MiChats Harmony gushed on and on about God, but didn’t say one word about her fiancé.
“Ephraim,” Harmony says
“Ephraim?” Trynn asks. “That’s an unusual name.”
“Not where I’m from. There are four Ephraims in our settlement. It means ‘doubly fruitful.’”
“Like you!” Trynn points at my belly.
“Everyone calls him Ram.”
“Ram, huh?” Trynn licks her lips. “That’s a breedy name if I’ve ever heard one!”
I’m not sure if Trynn is mocking Harmony or not. The trubie gear makes her an easy target for anyone but especially for bitter obsolescents. Just when I’m starting to feel sorry for the salesclerk’s squandered reproductivity, Trynn says something totally barren to Harmony.
“That engagement gown is so pure,” she says gently. “But aren’t you, like, too mature to wear white? Shouldn’t you be in the pink or blue by now?”
Harmony yelps from behind her veil. I can’t see, but I imagine the blood draining from her face, until her pallid complexion matches her colorless dress. There’s no way Trynn knew about the color-coded gowns without looking it up on the quikiwiki. She did it just to be neggy.
My face glows red with anger, which is weird because I barely know Harmony. I mean, we don’t have anything in common, you know, besides our genetic material. I agreed to let her stay with me for a few days because Ash and Ty swear up and down that my heart-stopping story about long-lost twinbonding will help get me into Global U., a university so notoriously selective it makes Princeton look like a safety school. That’s the only reason I didn’t send her straight back to the farm this morning.
I know it’s a scandal to say something like that, with multis like us being so prized and all. But the more Harmony talks, the more it becomes clear that the Church isn’t giving much of a choice in the matter of marriage and motherhood. Zen says that she’s trapped by her own false consciousness, which, by the way, is the nerdish kind of comment that could get a guy’s ass kicked at our school—if that ass was anyone’s but Zen’s.
He’s the only one who knows I’ve been in contact with Harmony. For as much as he loves to talk, he is surprisingly tight-lipped when he needs to be. As such, he’s the keeper of many of Princeton Day Academy’s deepest secrets. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from privately warning me that coming into identical twinhood at sixteen will for seriously damage my fragile psyche or whatever. But it hasn’t. Harmony’s the one who stalked our bioparents. She’s the one having the identity crisis, not me. These days the majority of deliveries in this country aren’t raised by their bioparents, and they should all follow my example by having the same attitude.
Don’t fit me for a veil or anything because I can be sympathetic to Harmony and still have issues with her way of life. But before I have a chance to put the salesclerk in her place, Harmony breaks the awkward silence.
“I was engaged at thirteen years old.”
What?! She never said a word about her starter engagement! At thirteen I wasn’t even close to making my own commitment, no matter how much parental pressure I was under. Which was a lot.
“But God had another plan!” Harmony adds a bit too eagerly. “I keep telling my sis—” She stops herself. “I keep telling Melody that it’s not too late for her to get a husband. There are plenty of eligible bachelors in Goodside.”
I snort-laugh. Harmony is just too funny. Sometimes I wonder if Church leaders are slipping Tocin or some other prescription-strength love drug into the sacramental wine.
Trynn turns to me. “I assume you’re here for nostalgia’s sake,” she says, still hoping to make the sale. “Let me guess. You’re in between bumps and want to relive the best nine months of your life?”
I reluctantly flash back to Malia.
“The worst nine months of my life!” she howled. “For what?”
I hate thinking of her in that state.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
Harmony mutters another prayer and hooks an arm around my shoulder. And as much as I know that she’s doing this just to prove that she’s the kindhearted twin, I’m comforted by the gesture.
“My extra thirty is oh so flirty!” chirp voices outside the dressing room.
A tweenage trio comes swaggering into the dressing room. The tweens accessorize their sparkly Ts with matching First Curse Purses, the menarche must-have for stashing the pads and tampons they’ll need any minute now. The target demo for Babiez R U, they steal Trynn’s attention.
“I see you’re considering the Preggerz FunBump with real skinfeel and in-uterobic activity!” she says to the one with red hair holding up the fake belly she’s ready to try on. The front of the redhead’s T reads: DO THE DEED. As she hops around in excited circles, I catch the phrase on the back: BORN TO BREED.
Indeed.
“She’s wearing size Forty-Week Twins,” Trynn continues, pointing to my distended stomach. “That’s way too big for you! Size Twenty-four-Week Singleton is perfect for a girl your age. . . .”
I think of Ventura Vida’s adorable six-month bump and a wave of nausea rolls right over me. Harmony can’t pass up another opportunity to get preachy.
“When I was your age,” she offers, “I was leading my own prayerclique!”
The twelve-year-olds giggle nastily.
That’s it. I terminate. I skulk behind the curtains, strip off the Preggerz FunBump, and hang it on the wall hook. I had come here today hoping that the experience would help me feel breedier than I did before Malia’s meltdown, but all I’ve done is remind myself just how far behind I am. Unburdening myself of the fake belly does little to improve my state of mind. The MyTurnTee shrinks to fit my taut abdominals and my mood shrivels with it.
Harmony peeks behind the curtain. “Can we please head over to Plain & Simple now?”
“Sure thing.” And before I can stop myself: “Maybe there’s a sale on tasteful straitjackets.”
It was a for seriously pissy thing to say. I don’t know why I’m taking out my frustration on her.
Harmony clasps her hands and quietly sighs behind the veil. “Oh my grace.”
She lifts her veil so I can see her face. It takes my breath away whenever she does this. It’s surprisingly easy to forget that there’s another person on the planet who was born looking exactly like me, only frecklier. Harmony gestures for me to lean in closely to hear what she has to say.
“Pursue faith and love and peace,” she says in a quiet but confident voice. “Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.”
Harmony lets the veil fall back over her face, pulls the curtains together, and leaves me alone to consider her biblical wisdom.
The FunBump squirms against the back of the dressing-
room wall, and one of the twins’ elbows or maybe a knee pokes out of the bogus belly. What felt like an organic extension of my own body just moments ago now makes me more squeamish than my worst case of Sympathetic Morning Sickness. I stab my finger deep into the belly on/off button more aggressively than necessary and the FunBump goes limp.
“You’re knocked up,” sing the little girls along with the incessant Babiez R U theme song. “Ready to pop, due to drop.”
It’s hard not to get jealous of these nubie-pubies who—if they’re pretty enough, smart enough, and healthy enough—should already be getting wooed by RePro Representatives. Those were the best times, when I was still all promise and potential. Because right now I’m definitely not the most important sixteen-year-old on the planet. Not even ish. I’m just another prebumped girl dangerously close to wasting her prime reproductivity.
Since the nubie-pubies caught me by surprise, I check my MiNet. I’m not expecting to spot anyone I know when—gah!—I get a positive MiD.
br /> I’M BEING PATIENT, KEEPING AN OPEN HEART, FORGIVING Melody for her participation in the buying and selling of blasphemous synthetic blessings when she comes running out of the dressing room blind-wild as a beheaded chicken.
“I can be anywhere but here!” she cries in a mad dash for the door.
Praise the Lord. Could it be I’m already having a positive influence on her?
“Wait for me!” I’m struggling to keep up with her, briefly regretting my decision to wear this particular gown. It’s difficult to walk, let alone run. Such are the challenges when one is expected to serve as a powerful example of faith and female purity.
“Melody!”
I’m starting to think that I will never catch up when I hear a tenor voice behind me calling the same name.
“Melody!”
A whiplike figure streaks past me, quickly overtakes my sister, and stops right in her path. She screeches to a halt in front of an archway of red, white, and blue balloons. It’s clear even at a distance that this boy with big hair and even bigger grin has done what I couldn’t: made her burn with embarrassment.
I catch up to them at the patriotic display at the entrance to the U.S. Buff-A.
“The Meadowlands Mallplex has five million square feet of commercial enterprise and destination entertainment,” the boy says, waving his arms at the stores all around us. “What are the odds of me randomly stumbling into your facespace?”
“None.” She’s pressing her lips together to stop herself from catching the boy’s contagious grin. I’m smiling at him and I don’t even know him. “I haven’t seen you for, like, ever, and now all of a sudden you get stalky on me? How did you even find me here anyway? I blinded my MiNet.”