Chapter 1

I love my grandfather, but he's really old fashioned. He grew up in the fifties and I guess back then they had all these traditions and stuff. Like having supper together every night, all sitting around the table. At the same time! Get a life! You know? That was just one of the things he talked about them having to do all the time too.

Anyway, that was all just borderline interesting until my Mom got T-boned by this guy who ran a red light and it totaled the car and really fucked her up. What was worse was that it happened in St. Louis, where she was attending a conference. So Dad had to fly out there to be with her because she was too banged up to be transferred closer, and they were going to have to do surgery on her and stuff.

Which meant that my twin sister and I were given over to the tender care of Grandpa Bob, who we are both named after. My name is Robert, like him, but I got the nickname Bobby, 'cause he already had Bob sewed up, even though we call him "Gramps.". Roberta, my sister, is known by Robbie, unless she's in trouble. I haven't heard the whole story, but I know it has to do with the fact that my dad was off in Alaska at the Army's Northern Warfare Training Center when something went wrong and Mom went into labor way too soon. Gramps didn't wait for an ambulance and just took her to the hospital himself and somebody told her he probably saved all three of us. So we got named after him.

Some twins are inseparable and all that. Not us. I have no use for my sister, because all she ever did was get me in trouble.

Well ... to be honest ... I had no use for her ... until something happened that we weren't planning on, and it kind of changed everything. That's what this story is all about.

It happened fast, so fast that I still have a hard time believing it. So I'll try to slow things down in the telling, because that way maybe I can grasp it better myself.

It all started when we got home from school and Gramps was there waiting for us. Dad had already gone. Gramps sat us down and told us what he knew about mom. He promised to keep us "in the loop," which is the way he talks. He was in the Army too, and he and dad both use language that's funny to most of our friends. We never lived on post, or went to Army schools. That was something Gramps recommended to our parents.

Anyway, he said Dad had asked him to look after us and then laid down some rules. He said they were non-negotiable, and that we didn't have to like them, but did have to follow them, or we wouldn't like the outcome. Grandma had been the same way before she got sick and died. Having spent lots of time at our grandparents' house, and having broken their rules before, we both knew what he was talking about.

One of the rules was that we had to be at the table every night for supper. No TV allowed. No phone calls accepted. We had to spend supper together, with no distractions.

That was the second week of October. The thing that happened that would change everything was on only the third or fourth night we'd sat down for the mandatory supper. Neither of us liked it. We had better things to do, you know? So we hadn't been very chatty, just eating as fast as we could get away with and then asking to be excused, which was another one of his old timey rules. Geesh!

So out of the blue Gramps suddenly asked what we're doing for Halloween.

"There's a dance," said Robbie. She went on eating, like she thought that would satisfy him.

"And where is this dance?" asked Gramps.

"At school, of course," said Robbie. She took another bite.

"Is it a costume party?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. She really thought she could get away with short answers. She's always been stubborn like that.

"And what are you going as?" he asked. He sounded really interested.

"I don't know," she said.

"I think you'd make a great Xena, Warrior Princess," he said.

We both stared at him. Xena was on one of the cable channels, but we both knew it was ancient history.

"I don't think so," said my sister, carefully. But he'd hooked her. "Why do you think that?"

"You've got the body for it," he said calmly.

She blushed. My sister actually blushed!

"I didn't mean it like that," he laughed. "I meant you have an athletic build. You could pull off looking dangerous."

"Oh," said Robbie. She sounded funny, like she was a little disappointed about something, but I couldn't tell for sure. We don't read each other's moods like a lot of twins, either.

Well ... we didn't used to anyway. Now...

Anyway, he kept interrogating her until she said she wanted to go as Alice in Wonderland. He thought that was a great idea. Then he turned to me.

"And what are you going as?" he asked, assuming I was also going to the dance.

"A jerkoff!" blurted Robbie, laughing at her oh, so funny joke.

"Oh really?" Gramps attention was back on her as she stopped laughing. "And do you know what a jerkoff really is?"

She blinked. "Well sure," she said, but she didn't sound too convinced. Gramps had this way of asking questions that kind of told you there was something wrong. Usually you didn't know what it was. But he always made sure you got educated.

"Why don't you tell me," he said.

She looked at me, but I just sat there. "You know," she said. A pain in the butt."

Gramps shook his head like he was sad. "That's a jerk. You said a jerk-off. That's not what jerk-off means, Robbie."

She blushed again. "I know that, she said hurriedly. It was just a slip of the tongue. I meant he's going as a jerk ... because that's what he is..." She kind of tapered off to nothing, because her cutsie little joke hadn't worked out very well.

"That was mean," said Gramps.

"It was just a joke!" moaned Robbie. "Gees, Gramps."

"Would it be a joke if he said you were going as a slut?"

She looked shocked. Don't ask me why, but I got a false sense of security.

"No, she's not a slut," I said. "That would be her best friend Tiffany." I thought I was pretty clever. "She could go as a skank, though." I grinned.

He looked first at me, and then at Robbie, and then back and forth a couple of times.

"You two aren't very nice to each other. That makes me sad."

We just sat there, wondering what was going to happen.

"I suppose you both have dates to the dance," he said suddenly. He stared at Robbie first.

"Yeah," she said uncertainly. Then he turned to stare at me.

"I'm going to ask this girl I know," I said carefully. I had to be careful, because if Robbie knew who I was going to ask, she'd sabotage it for me if she could.

"Hmmmmm," said Gramps. "I'll have to think about this."

"What do you mean?" asked Robbie, suddenly alert.

"I mean I'm disappointed that you two, who have a chance to forge a friendship that can last a lifetime, are turning your backs on each other. You have all the comforts life has to offer, but are cruel to each other. You're wasting something precious, and that's not acceptable. I'm not sure you should be allowed to do fun things like going to this dance, until you learn how to behave towards each other."

"You're not our parents, Gramps!" said Robbie, suddenly tense. "We have rights!"

"The first part is true," he said, smiling a smile that made a chill go down my spine. "But I am responsible for you until your parents get back. And as sad as it may seem to you, living in this great country, which has given you advantages most of the world could only dream about, minors have very few rights. I have a power of attorney, signed by your father, that says I get to make the decisions, whether you like it or not."

"Come on, Gramps," moaned Robbie. "We were just fooling around."

"First you're jerking off, and now you're fooling around?" Gramps could make his eyebrows go up an inch.

"Gees, Gramps," moaned Robbie, blushing again.

"So do you fool around on your dates?" he asked interestedly.

"Gees, Gramps!" she whined.

"Well that kind of thing seems to be on your mind a lot," said Gramps, looking innocent.

He looked at me. "So ... are you still a virgin too?"

I was right in the middle of swallowing, and started to choke.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said calmly. "Good. I approve."

Having managed to finish supper and get away from the table, we were both headed to our rooms.

"What the hell was all that about?" asked Robbie from behind me.

"I was just joking," I said. "You're not a skank. I was just getting even."

"Not that," she said. "Gramps! Can you believe he said that?"

"Believe what? He said a lot of things."

"About him asking us if we were virgins. Can you believe that?"

"He only asked me," I said.

She punched me. "You know what I mean. He assumed I'm one and then actually asked you!"

I looked over at her. "So are you?"

She stared at me, and her mouth looked like Fluffy, who was a goldfish we had one time. We only kept him alive for three weeks, so he was our last fish.

"Of course I am!" she spluttered. "Not that it's any more your business than it is Gramps'!" She stopped and her eyebrows rose. "Was he right? Are you really a virgin?"

I almost laughed. "Who would I get it on with? You make sure I can't even get a girl to go out with me once!"

"I do not," she said, looking guilty.

"Some of them have told me you ... um ... explained things to them," I said. "Shawna Weaver even said she doesn't go out with boys who are classified as perverts by their own sister."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think they'd all listen to me."

"Well they do," I said. "Which is why I'm not telling you who I'm asking to the dance." I frowned. "If we even get to go, that is."

"He can't do that," she said.

"He can do anything he wants to. Just ask him," I said back.

"I'm calling Daddy!" she said.

I followed her to her room and watched her pick up her cell phone. She flipped it open and punched the speed dial for Dad's phone. She looked mad, which I should have been used to seeing, but her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was kind of messed up. She has pure black hair, but it's fine, not heavy like most black hair, and it flies this way and that. She was breathing faster than usual too, and I caught myself watching the front of her shirt expanding and contracting. She was my sister, but she was a girl too, you know?

Anyway, he answered and she complained to him about Gramps and made it sound like he was Hitler or something. Then she stopped talking and listened and went kind of pale.

"Okay," she said. Then "I promise. I love you too."

She flipped the phone closed.

"He's worried about Mom," she said. "He didn't yell at me, but I know he wanted to."

"No slack with Gramps, huh?" I said.

"None at all," she sighed. "We are to do whatever he says and bite the bullet, period."

"Shit," I said.

"If Gramps hears you say that he'll probably wash your mouth out with soap," she warned.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

She looked at me.

"We're going to get along until mom and dad get home," she said.

It all sounded good, you know. Like "I'm going to get more exercise and eat right and get in shape." It's easy to say, but the doing of it doesn't come that simply.

We did make an effort to be civil to each other, at least in front of Gramps. One of his other rules was that he wasn't our housekeeper, which meant we had to pick up the slack when it came to the routine things mom and dad did around the house. Who would have thought they had all that to do? It was like all we had time for when we got home from school were chores, supper and homework!

Before this we had tried to get each other to do everything. We tried to make deals, or get Gramps to award some chore to the other by making some complaint. But now we decided we'd just do everything together, so it got done quick and both of us did the same amount of work. It wasn't bad, actually, because things did go more quickly.

But her little comments to me didn't change. She had been calling me "jerkoff" for so long that I think it was just ingrained in her brain, and she kept doing that. Except when Gramps was around. Now that I look back on it, I realize she was thinking about it, because she could control it when Gramps might hear her.

But it was a source of friction. I never had a nickname for her for some reason. Don't ask me why. But when she pretended to be all sweetness and light in front of Gramps, but kept calling me "Jerkoff" in private, it called for some kind of response. You know?

So I nicknamed her "Titless."

I know, it was stupid. I mean she did have tits. And she had pretty good ones too, from what I could see, which wasn't much. But I knew that Tiffany and Ashley, her two best friends, were bigger than her in the chest department, and I had already learned that that seemed to matter to girls. And it did get to her too. It got to her from the very first time I said it.

I don't remember what we were doing, but I do remember her stopping and turning to stare at me. "What did you say?"

"I called you titless," I said, smiling confidently. "You call me jerkoff, so I get to call you something too."

"That's just plain stupid," she said pushing her chest out at me. "I have tits!"

"Yeah," I said confidently. "But they're tiny compared to Ashley's."

"You're a prick!" she hissed at me.

"Hence my propensity to jerk off ... hence your nickname for me ... hence the validity of my nickname for you!" I grinned.

Her eyes narrowed. "You know something? Ashley said she hoped you'd ask her to the dance. I told her I'd think about it, but now I'm going to tell her it would be a huge mistake and to stay as far away from you as possible!"

"Where do you come off "allowing" a girl to go out with me?" I gasped. "Who do you think you are?"

"I'm the girl who's going to make sure you're still a virgin when you're thirty!" she yelled.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," came a voice from the end of the hall.

We both turned to see Gramps standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. He'd obviously been standing there a while.

We just didn't know how long, or how much he'd heard.

We were both sitting on the couch. Gramps was standing in front of us, looking as huge as he did when we were little. He's a muscular guy.

"You have two choices," he said firmly. "You can go to the dance as each other's date, or you can elect to invite some friends to do some public service, after which you can have a get together of some kind here."

"That's not fair!" wailed Robbie.

"I didn't say you had two fair choices," said Gramps. "I'll add in a third, though. You can do nothing that night ... just treat it like any other night and stay home. That's fair, I think."

I think Robbie and I both thought of the fourth possibility at the same time; that Gramps would arrange something for us to do. That might even be more disastrous than what was already on the table. We sat there, afraid to say anything. I finally hazarded a question.

"What do you mean by public service?"

"I was thinking of the haunted houses that civic clubs put on, or one of those safe, alternative events for little kids they have at the YMCA or at churches around town."

"You mean volunteer to work at one of these things?" asked Robbie. "How are we supposed to get our friends to do that, instead of going to the dance?"

"I didn't say your friends had to do it. I said you'd have to invite them to do it. Only the two of you would have to do it. I suppose you could still have a party afterwards, but it would be a lot more fun if everybody volunteered and then had the party. That's what I think anyway. It's just one of your options." He looked at us for a few seconds. "Or you could go to the dance together. I'll let you two negotiate for a while," he said, and got up and went into the kitchen.

"Look what you did now!" growled my sister.

"Me? What did I do?"

"You called me titless!" she hissed.

"You called me jerkoff!" I shot back.

"Shhhhh! He'll hear us and who knows what he'll do then," she warned.

We sat there for a while.

"I'm not going to the dance with you as my date," she said, finally.

"Duh," I replied.

"Dave Moss asked me to the dance," she said. "There's no way he'll come to a party here, at our house. Not when he finds out it will be chaperoned by a geezer with a zillion rules."

"Would Ashley come?" I asked.

She turned on me with murder in her eye, and I backed up.

"I was just asking," I said, trying to hide a smile.

"Why do you do these things to me?" she asked, looking like she was actually going to cry.

"I don't do anything to you," I argued. "Things just happen between us, that's all."

"You're ruining my life," she said dramatically.

"Oh, give me a break," I said. "You're seventeen. Your life has barely started. A year from now you'll be off at college doing what you want, when you want, with whoever you want. I'll be off at some other college doing the same thing and you'll never have to see me again in your whole life!"

She blinked, and stared at me for so long I thought she was thinking about something else completely. Then she frowned.

"Gramps!" she called out.

He came back into the living room with ice cream cones for us both. His own was half eaten, and ours were beginning to drip down the sides. He sat down.

"Before you tell me your decision, I feel it's only fair to tell you that, if you go to the dance as each other's date, I'll volunteer to chaperone the dance ... just to make sure you actually spend time together."

Robbie acted like she hadn't even heard him. "We'd like to do the volunteer thing and have a party here," she said.

"Wait a minute!" I said.

Robbie turned to me and put her hand on my thigh. "Please, Bobby," she said. It actually sounded like she meant it. That "please," I mean.

"Whatever," I said. After all, I hadn't asked anybody yet, and the girls I was really interested in were her friends, not that that would ever work out. But there it was. It didn't really matter to me.

"You two have to plan it, and get everything ready," said Gramps.

"We know," said Robbie. I stared at her. It was like she had done a complete one-eighty.

What was going on here?

We were smart enough to go into Robbie's room this time, so he couldn't sneak up on us.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Language," she chided.

"What the fuck, then!" I snapped.

"Come on, Bobby, we have to work together on this."

"Because you decided we would?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And who made you boss again?"

"Nobody," she said. "Nobody is boss. We got into this mess together, and we're going to get out together. That's all. Do you really want people to see us come to the dance together and dance together while Gramps stands with the teachers and watches us?"