He was John Jepperson and she Lauren Smith, their parents covering their first and middle names with all the surnames of relatives with money. Someday, it may pay off. Who knows? Estates happen.
Although they were different genders, and so classified fraternal twins, they were identical in appearance - same color, hair, everything. As they grew older, Jepp grew taller and Lauren lovely. He became lean and muscular, she slender and quite female. In fact, by the time she was in double-digit years, her looks were startling; she had willowy, almost fragile beauty that became much stronger when she smiled. That was often.
By the time they were teenagers, nobody could tell they were twins unless they were together, side by side, and then the resemblance was so astounding nobody could remember why they ever doubted it. Their sheer "twin-ness" so enchanted a grandmother that she tried to dress them alike when they were very young, but her daughter-in-law, their mother, overruled it, leaving many feathers ruffled and holidays huffy. Mom had read a book that professed dressing children as a set could bobble their psychological circuitry. Besides, it was hard to get exactly the same clothes for boy and girl.
Jepp was a couple of minutes older than Lauren. He was, and always would be, her big brother. From the time he was two days old, he'd been Jepp, although his grandfather favored Jack. Nobody called him John.
Lauren was mom's favorite, the girl she always wanted. And nobody ever called her anything but Lauren. A few hick relatives tried to saddle her with Smitty, but even as a toddler she'd stamp her foot and demand to be called by her proper name. She was teased for that, but she stuck with it. Lauren grew up with a special distaste for ridicule - especially when she saw it aimed at someone else. All her life, everyone in school knew they could talk to her, she would be friendly, and she'd never betray them, regardless of where they stood in the merciless caste of childhood.
When he was around, Jepp would protect her. The first time their mother saw them toddle to the kindergarten door, she saw him put his arm on Lauren's shoulder, and almost wept. She knew her little girl always would be safe with him. So, Jepp spent their early school years protecting her from taunts. ...Both of them, really. Frequently, identical twins of opposite sex are targets for childhood cruelty in a way few others are. They were beautiful children, especially as they grew older, so often jealousy fueled the taunts.
Jepp was Lauren's hero, and almost through middle school, she worshiped him. She would defer to him, and seek his shelter when anything bothered her. More than their parents, he was her rescuer and exemplar. If she thought he'd look good in shining armor, she'd imagine him as her own rangy knight. But silvery metal wasn't his color; she was a girl who knew all about that.
Then, in eighth grade, things began to change. Lauren became more independent. She even began a kind of natural sibling hostility toward him, dismissing her past adoration by calling him "hero" and, sometimes, "little man" ...Never behind his back, or even cruelly. Mostly, it was her answer to his "your majesty" and "girlie-girl", which she especially despised. Lauren was one - and liked it.
In high school, she was more popular than he, a cheerleader and all-round class leader. Straight-A student and overachiever, Lauren had mapped out her future, and by junior year had dumped a string of boyfriends she deemed insufficiently mature, or, as she saw it, of doubtful promise. She was serious about the success she intended her life to be, and didn't mix long with boys she thought too frivolous or juvenile; it was as if she believed her drive might be diluted by sheer proximity of indolence.
This applied especially to her brother Jepp. A star athlete in his first years at high school, he dropped off the football team after the second game of his senior year. He'd begun to hang with a different crowd. Some of them were school musicians, some wannabe punks. A lot of them read - too much of it for pure entertainment. All of them smoked weed and slacked their way through school in a kind of aimless drift, waiting for life to deliver to them some sign, a map for proceeding - or snuff them out. Some of Jepp's friends took anti-depressants; some had attempted suicide.
Life was becoming, for all of them, much more serious.
Lauren ripped Jepp to shreds over what she saw as fall from grace. She upbraided him for his apathy every chance she got. He would merely look at her and drawl some soft riposte like, "Go get 'em, tiger."
She didn't really like anything about him, including his girlfriend, tough girl Dena, who called her "princess". Once, after a diatribe against everything Dena was or touched, she finished with, "I don't see what he sees in her. And she's so totally unlike him." Her friend Jane listened half-interested, waiting for the chance to dump her own problems, and said, "Well... she's not so different from you. In fact, you and she are just alike." Waiting for Lauren to calm down after that bombshell, Jane continued by noting they were both driven - for different things, sure, but endless energy was there in both of them. "I think both of you like change. You're always moving on to the next goal. And Dena... dyes her hair six colors a week."
One anonymous, chilly day in late fall, Lauren saw just ahead of her Mike Finder, walking alone and slowly. Mike had been a close childhood buddy of hers and Jepp's. Then, in that way adolescence brusquely sorts status and desire, he... receded. He was still part of the crowd Jepp hung with, most of school's misfits were; people like Mike stuck there, never rising above that marginal social tier.
Something about him caught her eye, and she walked a little faster to catch him. When he didn't respond to her, she jumped ahead of him. Her smile of greeting melted away when she saw the ugly shiner around his eye.
"I'll give you a ride, Mike."
He didn't want to look at her. When he finally did, seeing her face, flush and healthy, the wind gently blowing her hair in filmy tendrils around it, something tore in him. At the look of concern in her eyes, tears welled up in his. He wiped at the wrong one and winced in pain from the bruise.
"C'mon, Mike," Lauren said, touching his arm. "I'll take you home."
It was her nature to take in strays, to show kindness to someone who needed it, but just outside the school grounds, as Mike slumped beside her in the seat, Lauren found herself growing surprisingly angry.
"Who was it?"
"Jockhead and John Fitini," Mike answered.
"Why do you let them do it to you, Mike?" Her free hand was across her brow, and her eyes were narrowing.
"Strong rule the weak."
"There's nothing about them that's strong, Mike. You should know that by now. They bully you because they know they can bully you. They make you feel weak and they look strong. They make you look worthless and they feel important."
She swerved into a turn so sharply, her tires squealed. "That's delusion of every bully. There's nothing strong about them. They're weak and violent and stupid. They wouldn't pick on you if they thought you'd fight back."
"...Whoa, there, Danica Patrick. We don't have to go all Starsky and Hutch emergency ward. Let's be happy in the thought somebody will shoot them someday."
