I pull out the casserole dish and place it on the table. He’s picked out the wine—he does that every time. I love the way he orders for me and picks the wine and makes everything work together to bring me the best.
He’s a twelve, and I’m at best a seven. If you took my crappy job into consideration, I’m a five. His job makes him a fifteen or seventeen.
The cooking is like icing on the awesome cake.
He’s tall, six foot two, and almost no body fat. He runs and lifts and eats low carb. He lives like he wants to live forever. His dark-blond hair is always styled nicely, but he doesn’t look too groomed. He has that California glow, regardless of being from the East Coast. He drinks weird infused waters and always takes his vitamins. It’s annoying.
We are polar opposites. My dark hair and puffy lips make me look like I might be a touch ethnic, but I’m not. My father was English, and my mom was Scottish. I’m short, five four, and curvy. My body fat is probably near the low twenties, and when I run, I cramp up. I never run, I hate it. And by some small miracle, he doesn’t care. He kisses every curve and loves every inch, and I never feel like I’m not enough. I know I’m not enough, but he would die if I told him I thought that. He loves with every ounce of himself whereas I don’t know how to give any part of me. He doesn’t even care that I don’t know anything that has happened beyond three years ago. He reminds me who I am and what I like, and helps me find myself.
It’s much more like dating a nun or a saint. Only he’s sexy and likes giving oral sex too much to go in either of those directions. I do love that man, though. I love his heart and his way of giving me everything without my ever asking for a single thing.
I lean my face over the plate, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. The first bite is incredible. The basil and Parmigiano-Reggiano swirl in my mouth, enhancing the slightly sweet marinara sauce against the perfectly crisp chicken. I am in food heaven.
When I finish, the name Samantha Barnes is still bouncing around in my head like a Ping-Pong ball. Drumming my fingers against the mahogany table, I push myself back and walk to the computer to Google her. The name comes up a hundred times on Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. I click on “Images” instead of words, scrolling past all the different varieties of Samantha Barnes there are. There’s a chef, a celebrity, a model, and a schoolteacher. The most intense has to be the bodybuilder Samantha Barnes—she’s so ripped. I rub my food belly, gawking at how hardcore and rippling with muscle she is. I scroll down, stopping the moment I see the reason Ronald stopped me on the road. It’s so shocking my eyes are torn from the bodybuilder chick.
I click on the black-and-white thumbnail photo of me as my jaw drops.
She can’t be me—she grew up in Alabama, in a town I have never heard of. She went to Berkeley but it doesn’t say graduated, and she died in some place called Fairhope. The resemblance is so uncanny I cannot believe I’m not looking at a picture of me with blonde hair.
The fact that an identical girl named Samantha Barnes exists is one crazy moment for me, but that’s not the craziest part. For me, the most peculiar aspect of it is that she died six years ago in a fiery car crash. I was in a fiery crash three years ago. How odd!
I click on the newspaper article to read more.
Sunday night as the sun was setting on Fairhope, the owner of the Simple Pleasures Book Shop, Samantha Barnes, died in a car accident described by witnesses as horrific. Police Chief Langley speculated that her SUV was being driven too fast for the wet road conditions. He mentioned the car might have slid on a newer section of asphalt.
It took fire crews several hours to get the blaze under control as the flames incinerated the car and several trees nearby, including the large oak that the car struck.
The mayor of Fairhope had this to say: “It is a sad and tragic day. Sam was one of the upstanding citizens of our quiet town. She will be missed and always remembered fondly.”
Barnes leaves behind a cat named Binx that her friends have adopted.
A cat named Binx?
A car accident?
A girl with my face and eyes?
I don’t know what to say, and even if I did, my throat is tight with confusion. It’s so parched it feels as if I haven’t drank in a month. I click on the next link, finding comments from local townsfolk about the tragedy. Many people still sought answers as to who the other person in the car was. Some comments mention a man from another town. Reading it all makes me oddly uncomfortable, like I am bothered by the loss of a look-alike of me. The interviews with the townspeople make it seem as if she didn’t have any family. She was single and died with a stranger who is still unidentified, even though it’s six years later.