Close Encounters Read online

THE MOVIE VERSION OF MY LIFE

  IN THE MOVIE VERSION OF MY LIFE I will play myself unless I’m not available. In that case, Scarlett Johannson or Christina Ricci or—for the more finicky Midwestern markets, Kate Hudson—will suffice.

  The movie version of my life will mirror my own all-American story, in which an ordinary Polish girl from a blue-collar neighborhood of Baltimore (or perhaps a Native American—no—child of Indian immigrants in the city of liberty and brotherly love, Philadelphia) decides she wants to become a writer. She writes short stories on the back of takeout menus from her father’s Indian restaurant—tales of love and adolescence and identity that runneth over between CHICKEN VINDALOO $10.95 and CHICKEN TIKKA MARSALA $9.95 and TEN-DOLLAR DELIVERY MINIMUM.

  In the movie version of my life, I attend a mid-Atlantic, second-tier liberal arts college (but let’s just say Brown or Columbia or Harvard for audience-recognition purposes) through a combination of Pell grants and student loans (actually, a full scholarship, earned on the strength of my entrance essay, about the trials of an Indian living in a North Philadelphia ghetto that was written entirely on the back of an Indian Palace menu). I come into the possession of a fake ID, experiment with drugs, declare myself a lesbian, a bisexual, and finally an anything-sexual, am placed on academic probation once, and change my major three times—from English Lit to Russian studies and back to English Lit. However, the script may want to focus on the fact that although I had multiple partners of both sexes during college, I eventually fall in love with and marry a wholly unconfused, faithful Midwestern economics major, who will allow me to become the safely edgy Diane Keaton housewife model over ten years’ time in addition to popping out a few well-rounded children (read: no art or goth freaks). It will also be emphasized that I didn’t actually inhale.

  In the movie version of my life, I will graduate with my BA, meander aimlessly for a few years in service-industry jobs replete with Clerks and Reality Bites jokes and characters, and then settle down as a community events reporter for a mid-circulation local newspaper that pays in the upper twenties. For a dose of realism, however, perhaps it should be rewritten so that I actually fall into a cushy job as a columnist for a magazine in New York that pays in the upper fifties. And my editor, a strikingly handsome man, looking very much like Dylan McDermott or Ben Affleck, discovers the first draft of my memoir in my desk drawer while searching for a takeout menu for the Indian place on 45th. It is a draft, looking very much like this one, that will take the publishing industry by storm. Editors will salivate: she’s edgy! She’s eclectic! She’s ethnic!

  In the movie version of my life, my big fat Indian book advance will allow me to leave my job at said cushy New York magazine to work on my follow-up book somewhere in the liberal Northeast. It is then the that pivotal scene in the motion version of my life emerges. Do I stay with the faithful Midwestern economics major or leave him to share samosas at lunch with that ruggedly handsome Affleck character, who now stares wistfully at me from the window of his office in Manhattan three-hundred miles away, opening his desk drawer during a particularly heart-wrenching instrumental and staring with soft, sad puppy eyes at the takeout menu that simultaneously created and destroyed the two of us?

  The movie version of my life will soon be playing at a multiplex, stadium seat theater near you. Take your book club, which has undoubtedly read my Oprah-recommended bestseller, or watch me on “The View” next Tuesday. I’m also doing a tie-in with McDonald’s called the McChutney, a delicious all-beef patty topped with mango chutney and, perhaps, if we can get my facial features right, a doll by Mattel, complete with sari and menu. After all, I’m a stickler for realism.

  IN FETU

  THERE WERE ALWAYS TWO, even as they all thought we were only one, even as you listen incredulously and think, no, there is only one, one voice, one story. Although it is true that sometimes it is one voice or the other, or one story or the other, please be clear: this is our story.

  But perhaps it is easier to start at the beginning.

  We were born as one to our parents and placed on the single trajectory that we would call our lives. It was innocent enough, the mistake of it all, the oneness, for there was no evidence of twoness: one egg, one heart, one mind, one name. Just as we have always known that there were two, it was thus only natural to us that there were two. It could be no other way, and all the complications that came with the inconceivability of two were, for us, merely the nominal struggles of life.

  Yet when our mother heard us playing in our room, she would find it strange that we would argue over which clothes to put on the doll, whether to paint or whether to build blocks, or whether to eat the snack cookies now or save them for later, when we were really hungry.

  “No need to struggle, Julia,” she would comfort us, and we thought she understood also, understood the inherent struggle between us who were both Julia but were not one Julia. “You do whatever you’d like, OK? No need to beat yourself up over it, dear heart. Don’t fuss so.”

  But she did not understand, nor did our father. Although they used the words conflicted, struggle, torn often enough in describing us to our grandparents, friends, pediatricians, it was as if they were eclipsing the tip of the iceberg. They talked in figurative, metaphorical terms when, in reality, the situation was much more literal than they could ever expect.

  The cusp of the problem began to dawn on us when we learned to speak and comprehend others. We did not understand why they thought of us as one when there was so obviously two of us that communicated, albeit at different times. There was no rhyme or reason as to who spoke; rather, it was who could get their thoughts out the loudest, the fastest:

  “Mother, I don’t want to wear the green dress. I hate green dresses!”

  “Mother, it’s really all right; you know I think the green dress is lovely.”

  “Mother, I shall tear a hole in the dress if you put it over my head!”

  Although we drove mother to tears with our bickering, she began to think of it as a game, which calmed her, in a sense, but infuriated us.

  “Which Julia has come to play?” She would muse when we’d join her on the porch. “Naughty or nice?”

  “Momma, why is there only one name when there are two of us?”

  “What do you mean, dear?”

  “We are as different as night and day and yet you speak to us as one person. How come you only talk to one of us and not the other?”

  “Because you are still my Julia, sugar or spice.” Mother would envelop us in her arm, and we could smell the honeysuckle of her perfume.

  “Which one of us, Mommy, is sugar and which one is spice?”

  “Who, dear Julia, who?’’

  Our father perceived the situation differently.

  “You must tell your friend Julie-Ann to behave,” he explained gently after we had acted up again. “Or she’ll have to leave. Imaginary friends are guests in this household at our discretion.”

  “She’s no friend, papa; we’re sisters!”

  “Well, regardless of what you consider Julie-Ann to be, she must abide by the rules of this house, just as Julia does.”

  “Sometimes it’s Julia who doesn’t behave! Sometimes Julie-Ann is a perfect angel!”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Julia; you should work with Julie-Ann together as a team to be the best you can be.”

  And so our father christened us: Julia and Julie-Ann. But who was Julia and who was Julie-Ann? Our father had delineated us clearly along the lines of good and bad, when obviously we were a little of both in each our own way.

  As we became older and attended school, it dawned on us even more clearly that the others were one, not two.

  “What is your other’s name?” We would ask our friends, puzzled that they were simply Rebecca or Robin.

  “What other?”

  “The other inside you, of course.”

  At times we were comforted that there were two of us—the ones didn’t want to be friends with us. They t
hought we were strange, crazy perhaps, and teased us mercilessly.

  “When you say two, Julia, whatever do you mean?” Ms. James, the school psychologist, would ask. We wondered whether her question was a trick, whether there was a right answer. We glanced down at the pictures Julie-Ann, the artist, had drawn of our family at Ms. James’ request. In thick, crude strokes of crayon stood the soft, pale auburn-haired woman who was our mother, and beside her a tall, fair man with a beard and short-cropped hair colored in laboriously with yellow. We stood between them, our fair hair, blue eyes, and our smile. We held each of their hands, a happy unit, a triptych of four.

  “We mean there is more than one. There are, as our father says, Julia and Julie-Ann.”

  “Well, Julia, since I’m fairly well acquainted with you, why don’t you tell me about Julie-Ann?”

  “But you’ve been talking with me the whole time. Wouldn’t you rather talk to Julia for awhile?”

  It irritated us that no one could tell the clear differences that existed between us. Julie-Ann, obviously, was good at the arts and writing, whereas Julia excelled in math and science. We even spoke differently, felt different, and had crushes on difference classmates.

  “To whom am I talking now?” Ms. James peered at us over her glasses, a slight frown stretched across her face. Clearly, we had given the wrong answer. “Julia or Julie-Ann?”

  “Julie-Ann.”

  “How will I know, dear, to whom I’m speaking?”

  And yet it seemed simple enough to point out that she knew the difference between Allan and Gerard, and Patricia and Leah, even if they were just ones, not twos. Like us, they were as different as night and day. Julie-Ann doodled on our paper again..

  “Who is drawing?”

  “I am.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m Julie-Ann. How many times do I have to tell you, you horrible cow!”

  The tests were psychological at first, with different psychiatrists; our dreams, our nightmares, whether father touched us inappropriately, how mother disciplined us. We became increasingly disinclined to talk, whether as the result of the monotony in this line of questioning or the knowing fear that something was wrong with us, and if they could put a name to it, they would aspire to eliminate it.

  Julie-Ann felt it was in our best interests to mount a full disclosure of our twoness.

  Maybe they will be able to help us, she pleaded. Maybe they can cure us.

  And how do you suppose they cure us? Julia demanded. One cannot live without the other.

  I don’t know, Julie-Ann pouted. I’m just so tired of the questions, the probing. Why don’t they just let us be!

  Julie-Ann’s plan won out by the nature of her perseverance, but it was not the relief we expected. Our parents were devastated, confused, angered, that there were two.

  “How can there be two of you?” Our mother held our arms and stared deeply into our eyes as if to isolate the both of us, as if we were two flies crawling around the edges of our eyeballs. “There’s no mental illness in our family!”

  We understood, from eavesdropping on our parents, that if the medicine didn’t take effect and make us “one” again, we would be sent away. But where? We wondered. And for what?

  Oddly, despite her stubbornness, it was Julie-Ann who was affected the most by the medication. She began to fall asleep during school. I tried the best I could to keep up in subjects that were deemed Julie-Ann’s forte, but I soon fell behind. Our parents didn’t care so much; they were elated by our “progress” and suddenly the visits to the doctors became less frequent.

  And I, I began to like being just Julia, the quiet of only my own thoughts or lack of them, my own interests pursued at school (like the science fair and not some silly drawing competition), my own relationship with our parents. They would kid that Julie-Ann had “gone to sleep” and that I should be careful not to wake her up. Apparently this meant no running and dancing, eating sugary and spicy foods, or other seemingly normal activities my parents felt might agitate awake the sleeping beast that was Julie-Ann. I wasn’t much interested in physical activity, but I did pinch the occasional chocolate bar from the cupboard.

  It was true, as I said, that Julie-Ann slept during the day. However, she began waking at night, when I was tired and my defenses lowered. My thoughts would blur as I began to yawn, and I would hear her, distantly at first, indecipherable, then louder and clearer until she was right beside me as always. For a few hours we were two, just as we always were, and I did look forward to it, as we were sisters, and being without her for so long could be unbearable at times. But then, as I drifted off to sleep, she did not.

  I was initially upset that Julia got all the attention, but mostly I liked it. I didn’t have to attend that stuffy school and deal with those crotchety old teachers. I didn’t have to do homework. I could write and draw in my bed in the darkness of night with only a flashlight to guide me; I could sneak out in the yard and do cartwheels on the dew-covered grass; I could eat all the ice cream and pizza I wanted and watch late-night television. Best of all, I could do all these things without Julia at my side, warning that we shouldn’t do that, do that. Bullocks, Julia—you never did know how to live.

  Mom and Dad soon became aware of my nocturnal hours and wanted the doctor to curb what they viewed as my “mania.” However, they were equally intrigued by my creative output after nine o’clock at night and began to pretend they did not notice my “full day at the office.” In their eyes, I was too much girl for one body. I don’t think they ever realized the truth of it.

  I began to get bored, being alone like that in the night. I was always the more social one, Julia with her nose in the books. I needed to be out in the sunshine—I needed to feel the light on my face, touch the skin of others, laugh, hear my voice aloud, feel my vocal chords vibrate with laughter, with sorrow, my ears ring, my limbs tire from a long day of activity. I began to sleep at night too.

  She began to invade me—Julie-Ann, I mean. What began as a few hours in the evening before bed, extended into early morning, when I awoke, and then through second period and beyond. Her incessant chattering continued in my ears while I tried to listen to our instructor. Her excitement was over the changes that had occurred at school, around town, with our classmates while she had hibernated that refreshing year, which was our fourteenth together. Was she becoming acclimated to the medicine? Did she need a higher dose to stay repressed in the folds of quiet while I worked through the day, made a good name for us at school? And it was my name on the papers, on the term cards, on the honor roll, wasn’t it?

  I begged her to go back to sleep, but she was bored, she said. She was lonely. She needed stimulation. She suggested we trade off days, but I was skeptical. We would be out of sync, too tired. It would be too difficult to catch up. Besides, I was firmly entrenched in the school hierarchy: debate team, science club, math club, swim club. And my friends, Sissy and Carol and Janice—Julie-Ann thought they were terrible bores. It would be like her to hang out with the loose girls, the smokers, the art room malcontents and ruin our reputation forever. I had to stand my ground.

  Julia was totally against us switching off days at school, but what right was it of hers to decide? We were both here, sharing this body. Just because her name was on everything was, well, chance. I could just as easily have been Julia (not that I would want to). I decided on an ultimatum. It was true Julia was good at school and, to be honest, it quite bored me. My proposal was thus:

  I would sleep for a little while.

  A few years, maybe. Enough so that Julia could get us through high school, college, medical school, established, whatever. And then I would awake for good and Julia would go to sleep. We could each live our own lives: Julia our life’s morning, and myself, our life’s afternoon. It was perfect, right? And it would keep us out of the damn loony bin, that’s for sure. If the psychiatrists weren’t diagnosing us with multiple personality disorder or strapping electrodes to our head, they wer
e feeding us pills, black and pink, green and yellow, white and chalky. I could dream a decade or so of delicious dreams, and Julia could tinker out the details of waking life.

  I couldn’t believe that Julie-Ann was so generous. I missed her terribly, to be sure, and would often spend the afternoons in tears, calling to her, wanting to know her opinion on my new boyfriend Jared (although I can tell you without hesitation that she would have been able to stand him) or the pantsuit I got at Wellston’s (although I can tell you she would hate it). Gradually, over time, however, it wasn’t so bad. I began, in my ways, to understand the appeal of oneness even as I mourned my loss of twoness. Although I was still a big stickler for cooperation and teamwork in my outward life, I savored the ability to make the only and final decision on everything,

  Julie-Ann became a memory as the years folded quietly into one another and, like pages in a scrapbook, my vivid photographs of her became tempered and faded the further along I got in the book. I began to wonder whether I had made her up, if in fact she weren’t something I’d created entirely to overcome loneliness, or boredom, or mother’s suffocation, or father’s sexual advances. My fiancé Michael, whom I had met in a psychology class at the university (where we were both studying child psychiatry), tended to agree. Only there was the sticky proposition that Mother or Father had abused me in some horrible, unspeakable way—mundane, normal old Mother and Father, who read the paper and warmed up the sticky buns when Michael and I stopped by. Quite impossible, I’d have to think.

  I began my practice in ripe anticipation of finding another child like myself. I ran across a few cases of multiple personality disorders, but the children were severely abused and, as a result, severely disassociated. In addition, their personalities never existed simultaneously—in fact, they didn’t even know of each other. The imaginary friends of my cases similarly lived outside of their bodies, separate entities. Despite my research and my experience at the clinic, I never ran into a case of twoness.

  “Let’s face it, Jul, you’re an extremely bright girl who probably had an extremely overactive imagination,” Michael coaxed me as we sat in bed, massaging my shoulders as I flipped despondently through another medical journal. “And so will our kids, I suppose.”