The Double

ℱ𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉𝑒𝑒𝓃

I take the pants, the shirts, and the jumpsuit but say no to the dress. Taehyung lingers until the room is empty, and I try to forget he saw me two hours ago madly searching for my towel with half my face ripped off. When I was mostly naked.

"Art show tonight," he says. "Duna thinks you're ready."

"Duna's hardly even seen me as her." I ruffles my hair. "Where is it?"

"Don't you know?" He adjust his sleeves.

I shrug. I haven't been keeping track of what events are coming since Ira has been teaching me pretty much on the fly.

"The Museum of Contemporary Art."

"Am I buying some art?"

"No. You're interested in supporting local artists and you're there to admire. It's a private showing of a private collection."

"Will there be media?"

"Possibly. There's not much point in having expensive things and important people admire them if no one knows." He yawns. "I can deal with that."

"I can do it."

He looks like he's going to argue but instead checks his watch. "We leave in an hour."

Then he's gone before I can ask him for his key.

An hour. First I call the nursing home and they reassure me that Eomma's fine. Then I check my list, which is getting stressful and daunting again. what if I try sorting the tasks out by the time they will take? I spend a happy twenty minutes sorting and resorting the tasks from least to most time needed before deciding the value of the task was more important. Once they're listed, I realized I'd spent the whole time working on the list instead of doing any tasks. It could be because one of those tasks, call the lawyer, makes me so uncomfortable I have trouble seeing the words. My eyes skitter over them.

Not a good start to creating my own productivity method. I add "find a way to deal with disagreeable task" on the list.

At least I've left myself enough time to get ready. I stick the plastic disks Ira found to my boobs, impressed at their enhanced perkiness. I should wear these all the time. She left me with instructions about freshening my face, and I dab and shade and line like a soldier apply camouflage paint before battle. The jumpsuit, which Trish and Henry tailored with expert fingers before they left, slides over my skin like space-age armor, and I begrudge Taehyung slightly for having such good taste. I adjust my bangs.

When I look in the mirror, this time I'm Duna. Or Duna in cute comfortable shoes.

Ira ordered me to wait until Duna arrives home so there aren't conflicting reports of her being seen twice. I come out when I hear our adjoining door open and nearly exclaim out loud. If she looked beaten down that first day I saw her in the SUV, today's she's so drained she's transparent.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She rubs her forehead. "A bit tired."

This isn't regular physical fatigue. I normally have the emotional sense of a squirrel but Duna's entire being radiates a feeling I'm very familiar with. She's so tense she can barely move and so lethargic she doesn't want to. I think she's depressed. No sad. Depressed, with all the loaded meaning the term brings.

"Duna?" My voice is tentative.

She raises her head and tries to smile before her eyes widen. "Incredible. It's like looking at my reflection when you have on makeup. Where did you get that jumpsuit. I want one."

"Thanks."

"You need better jewelry than those little gold hoops, though. Red for some color." She calls to Ira, who appears in a few minutes and puts a pair of earrings and a bracelet into my hand.