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“Come,” she says as she pulls back, nodding, all business. “Let’s get started, shall we? The Morelli girls are already on their second glasses of champagne.”
“Morelli?” I ask Valentina as we shrug out of our winter coats. A young woman appears from nowhere, like a very quiet and polite ghost, to take the coats from us.
“I thought I mentioned them,” Valentina says, kicking off her winter boots. I do the same, both of us putting our boots on the mat by the door. For a second, I wonder if Curse will ignore that and clomp right in there in his snowy black boots. But surprisingly, he doesn’t. Without a word he takes them off, putting them down carefully and very precisely beside ours. Then, he locks the door behind us.
“You mentioned Giulia and Lucia,” I say. “I didn’t realize they were related to the doctor.”
“Oh! Yeah. They’re Doctor Morelli’s daughters. Identical twins. You’ll see.”
I don’t see anyone from here, at least not yet. But I can hear voices from beyond a wall that juts out towards the back of the shop. Past that wall, there is a big white sectional couch facing a pedestal with three full-length mirrors ahead of it.
As Valentina and I round that wall, two dark shapes on the white couch become blurs of motion. They glom onto Valentina like one entity, enveloping her in a giggly, shrieking hug. It’s only after they disentangle themselves from the hug that I can get a look at them.
And, wow, Valentina wasn’t kidding. They really are identical.
I knew two other pairs of identical twins in school growing up, but I never found it too difficult to tell them apart. They always had a tell – one would have a slightly more rounded face than the other, for example. But even after staring good and hard at the two women before me, I can’t find a single difference between them. They’re dressed differently, but their faces are shockingly identical. They have the same olive skin tone, same brown eyes and dark eyebrows, same tumble of thick, black hair down their backs.
“I’m Giulia,” says the one on the left, the one in the white T-Shirt.
And then, with a voice so eerily the same I’m surprised to see it come from the other woman’s mouth, “I’m Lucia.” Lucia is wearing a University of Toronto sweater.
“Hi. I’m Deirdre,” I reply. “Deirdre O’Malley.”
“Oh, trust me, we know,” says Lucia, beaming at me. “We’ve been dying to meet you.”
“Yes! The Irish girl who snagged Elio Titone when he doesn’t look twice at anybody else. Seriously. I have so many questions for you!” Giulia says. “Starting with, how the actual fuck?”
“Giulia!” chides Lucia, shaking her head.
“Sorry. It’s the champagne. But still!” Giulia says. She flops back down on the white couch, soon joined by her twin and Valentina. Curse stands behind us, a dark and silent sentinel. I stand awkwardly in front of all of them, not sure if I’m supposed to sit down or what.
“I had the biggest crush on Elio when I was a teenager. He’s got that whole dark-eyed scarred thing down pat. My God,” Giulia says, grabbing a half-empty flute of champagne from a small glass coffee table in front of the couch. “We used to come over and swim and I’d wear the tiniest bikini you could imagine just on the off-chance I might run into him. But no matter what I did, he didn’t give a fuck.”
I gawk at her, completely at a loss as to what I’m supposed to do with that information. And, with horror, I realize I even feel a little bit of jealousy.
“Giulia,” Lucia says again, this time a groan. “Can you not talk about how you used to want to bang her fiancé? Deirdre just met us. She’s going to think we’re insane.”
“Oh! No,” Giulia says quickly. “Don’t worry. I’ve long-since moved on. And like I said, he never looked twice at me. Never really seen him look at anyone. It’s why I’m so surprised he’s engaged, and not to somebody his family arranged.” Giulia leans forward, staring at me over the edge of her glass. “Seriously. How did you pull it off?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” I say with a shaky laugh. I don’t know how to handle all the attention being heaped on me right now, but there doesn’t seem to be any envy or malevolence in Giulia’s gaze. She just looks sincerely curious, like she’s been confronted with some kind of phenomenon she’d always believed to be impossible. Like I’m a flying pig or something, and she’s simply asking me about the physics involved.
“Well, I bow before you,” she finally says, “because getting that man to agree to a wedding is some goddess-level shit.” She hoists her glass higher, then gives a mock bow.
“OK. Enough out of you,” Lucia says, snatching her twin’s champagne and putting it back on the table. I still can’t detect any differences in their faces or their expressions, but slowly, some subtly contrasting characteristics are emerging. Lucia seems a little bit quieter, softer, more worried about being polite than her bolder sister. She’s almost motherly in the way she seems to reign Giulia in. I wonder if she’s the older twin. They look like they’re around my age, or maybe a year or two older.
When Lucia smiles at me, it’s a little more serene than Giulia’s grins.
“Congratulations,” she says, and I think she means it sincerely. “Getting married is such a beautiful thing to be celebrated!”
I’m saved from having to reply to that by Donata sweeping into the space with her assistant, both of them carrying what look to be a pile of gowns in their arms. They go to an empty rack and begin to hang the gowns before Donata turns to me.
“A truly custom gown will be near-impossible on this timeline,” she says matter-of-factly. “I can do it, of course, but it’s going to be tight.”
“There’s no budget,” Valentina pipes up helpfully. My gaze cuts to her, finding her waving a shiny black card in the air with Elio’s name on it.
“Oh, please,” I stammer. “You don’t have to make something custom!”
I can’t even imagine how much that would cost. The fact that it’s Elio’s money doesn’t make it any less nauseatingly stressful.
