I stepped out of the car and took my first look at the twins.
You will like new neighbors, Ma had said. They have boy and girl your age, and mother is nice German lady. Like us. That last bit was sarcasm. She didn’t expect I would ever grow up to be nice, let alone a lady. But, to be fair, Ma really did want me to like them.
And, boy, she sure succeeded in setting my expectations. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the boy wore lederhosen and the girl was in pigtails. When my new neighbors actually did appear, I wasn’t surprised as much as I felt kinda bad. I was looking at them the way so many of the mean kids had looked at me.
Seriously, though, it wasn’t just me being…bitchy. I hated even the thought I might be judging and, okay, they weren’t like cartoon Germans. The boy, Ellis, was huge for sixteen. Very nice looking if you liked the pretty type. Pale skin with jet black hair. Ellen had the same general look with infuriatingly straight hair that probably had been cut with kitchen shears.
And their clothes! Nothing like that was available in any store, anywhere. Poor Ellis’s pants were at least an inch too short. Ellen’s sweater would have been cute on a toddler.
And all the while, with me gawking and gaping, the twins were smiling at me like it was Christmas morning.
“She’s here!” Ellis announced. “It’s Ronnie.”
“We don’t know if we can call her that, dummy,” Ellen said.
“You can definitely call me that,” I said. “Only teachers call me Erika.” I was relieved we had broken the ice. Strangely, in spite of their clear enthusiasm for my arrival, they were standing in front of their garage door like I might rush past them to get in. I was about to say something when Ellen comically cleared her throat.
“Ah, sher gut,” Ellen said with exaggerated formality in native German. “I am Miss Samantha Ellen Foster, and this is my fine six-minutes younger brother, Samuel Ellis Foster.” She finished her formal statement with a grin and a little mock curtsey. “We go by Ellis and Ellen,” she added in English.
“You have to tell Mom we said all that,” Ellis said somberly.
“I promise,” I said. Laughing would’ve been totally wrong, but all I could think of was that Ma, thick-headedly European as she was, wouldn’t have given two shits how I introduced myself. Switching to German, I added: “I am Miss Erika Veronika Del Norte Zeigler, and very glad to be your neighbor.”
The twins still seemed so absurdly happy to see me, I had to tell them that my nickname was little troll, and they could call me that if they wanted. I mean, I have always been the little troll. I was your generic homely brown girl who stopped growing at five feet. I only cut my frizzy hair when it reached my butt. Still, Ellis looked shocked that a girl would call herself that. Ellen obviously liked having another girl around who didn’t wear makeup.
“So what’s in the garage?” I asked. That floored them. They still hadn’t budged, standing in front the door like Ali Baba was inside. I conspicuously peered at the the family car, a Dodge Durango, parked in front.
“Did you see our Halloween signs?” Ellis asked, pointing to what had to be three dozen yard signs and decorations that no one could possibly have missed. “Dad made one for you.” Oh?
“He made all of them,” Ellen said. She clearly admired her Dad. “He’s a studio set designer.”
“He won an Oscar,” Ellis added.
“Wow,” I said, not insincerely. I knew that in L.A., being part of the movie industry was a serious big deal. Even people from Chicago knew winning an Academy Award was super important. And with my only “class” of any interest to me being theater, my only real worry was getting into the Sherman Oaks High theater department five weeks into the semester. If I did get in, I’d be assigned to the stage crew.
So Mr. Foster was essentially the highest level of stage crew out there. Hmm…probably nothing, but the twins were so obviously concealing something. There were no coincidences here until I found out what it was. That was how my mind worked, always.
“Let’s show her the sign,” Ellen said.
Okay, got it. We’ll lay off the garage for now.
Okay, it was a great sign. All of them were. Ellen and Ellis were past the trick-or-treating stage – I hoped – but this house would attract the little buggers from blocks around. The sign he made for me was a tough-looking girl blasting a monster. It read Happy 16thBirthday, Ronnie!
“The sign is very sweet,” I said sincerely. “My actual birthday is on the thirty-first.” But they probably knew that. In a very compressed two weeks, Ma had found time to babble in German with Mrs. Foster. Talking quite a bit about me, I was sure. Oops. The twins were looking my way, clearly afraid I would disapprove. “Your dad is amazing!”
See? Sometimes the little troll knows the right thing to say. I felt bad all over again for kinda judging them for being dorks. It was pretty obvious they were shunned at school. At snobby New Trier, the kids would be merciless. Unlike me, Ellen and Ellis didn’t have a natural collection of theater kid weirdos to hang around with. They were lonely.
We walked back toward the garage. And I tried again.
“You can tell me what’s in there,” I said. “I’m your new neighbor. I’ll find out anyway.”
They looked at each other, considering that bit of logic. But they were saved when the front door flew open. A tall and beautiful woman in her thirties burst onto the scene and swept me into an embrace. She was so much taller my head squashed her boobs. It was the mom. Mrs. Foster greeted me as My little Ronnie in wildly exuberant German.
“Oh, we are so glad to finally meet you and welcome you here,” Mrs. Foster gushed. “We are going to be such good friends. Did my children properly introduce themselves, tell me truly, Ronnie.” Mrs. Foster released me, looking down with a serious expression.
“They did,” I confirmed. “Absolutely.”
“She is so cute!” Mrs. Foster exclaimed. The twins had the decency not to look embarrassed. In no language am I cute. But Mrs. Foster wasn’t done.
“And she is so well spoken! Her parents are from Berlin, too.” Well, my mother was from Mexico…another time, maybe, or maybe not.
Mrs. Foster hustled us into the house. We passed through her kitchen. It was stocked with industrial-sized gray-green kitchen equipment. The huge cake mixer was stamped GDR. What was that again? Oh, yeah. East Germany. Jeez, there was enough pots and pans here to feed East Berlin. Or whatever it was now. As she ushered us through her sanctum, I caught sight of a little room. The sewing machine was the same drab color.. The source of the odd clothes.
We got seated in the Fosters’ den, sinking into an enormous leather couch that practically collapsed under Ellis but kept Ellen and me safely upright. They broke out an old Atari and we watched Ellis play. He was quite good and it freed up Ellen to give me some lowdown on my new high school. She meant well, but her perspective on the lousy selection of A.P. classes and decrepit labs meant very little to someone who read at a sixth-grade level. Ellis didn’t say anything, but I got the sense that he was, like me, mired firmly in the world of Remedial classes.
Mrs. Foster brought us lemonade and soft pretzels. She had made it all herself, including baking the pretzels. This embarrassed Ellen, though.
“Mom makes everything,” Ellen said. “We never get anything good.”
“You have to be kidding,” I said. “These are the best pretzels ever.”
Ellen shrugged. Both of them shrugged a lot; I figured that was a twin thing. Ellen ate six of the pretzels she disapproved of so much while me and Ellis managed only four each. Ellen was one of those. A real stick, she had to be six inches taller but not even twenty pounds heavier.
And, an hour into our little party, helping Ma long since forgotten, Mrs. Foster returned. She looked positively joyous.
“I have wonderful news,” she said, still having uttered not one word in English. “Portia has agreed that Ronnie can have dinner with us!” Once again, the twins reacted like it was Christmas all over again. They looked over at me, Ellis eager, Ellen wary.
“It’s meatloaf,” Ellen said worriedly. “Mon, can’t you make something better?” I laughed inside. From the look of the kitchen, poor Mom had been working all day on the meatloaf (and cake for dessert). Looked like there was enough for ten.
“I love meatloaf,” I lied. “I’d be glad to stay.”
Wow, what a reaction. I wasn’t quite getting what the big deal was about having a guest for dinner. Ma certainly didn’t care. If I was eating out of a dumpster, she’d tell me to be more respectful of private property. But the twins were acting like their mother had negotiated Reunification.
Maybe an hour later, five minutes into my turn at the game, Ellis stood up. He moved incredibly efficiently, like he was a gymnast, too. But I didn’t think he was.
“It’s Dad,” he announced. “And he brought Manny!” Ellen jumped to her feet.
“Manny!” they squealed together. It was a sort of ritual, and a twin thing, like the way both of them shrugged and how they held their elbows while eating. I notice things.
We ran to the front door. Dad was a fiftiesh, balding guy with a mustache. Kinda exactly what I’d pictured. Manny was right behind him. Now it’s starting to look like The Land of the Giants, and Manny is the biggest giant of all. Manny had a wide grin and a hat on his bald head. Mrs. Foster took the had and squeezed her husband. He pulled her close. Okay, they had the real thing going. Another thing I could always tell. It wasn’t anything like a certain marriage arranged by Orthodox rabbis in Berlin I could think of.
“‘Course I had to bring Manny,” Mr. Foster said. He had a sly grin, like Pa did. But I didn’t think Mr. Foster was anything like Pa.
“Hello, my darlink,” Mrs. Foster said, kissing his cheek. Seriously, she really did say darlink. Okay, it was a weird sight, the two of them, him so much older. But, like I said, it was real.
Mr. Foster gave me a look. “Well, so you’re Ronnie,” he said. “Didn’t recognize you without the wand.”
The twins groaned, but I thought it was funny. He was funny.
“You’re gonna tell her the story, aren’t you?” Ellis said.
“Nah,” Mr. Foster said. “She’s probably too tired.”
You never heard two sixteen-year-old kids wail so loudly.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” Mrs. Foster said. Other than darlink, her first words in English. “You keep that story civilized for my little Ronnie.”
The twins wailed even louder.
I thanked Mr. Foster for the sign. It was only about twenty minutes later that we all sat down to eat. Okay, there was no way he was the genetic father, but, man, did the twins need someone like him. Mrs. Foster was sweet and probably a great mom for the most part, but she threw a heavy blanket over things.
The meatloaf was really good. Ellen asked again about the story, using the term Daddy with, thankfully, some self-awareness.
“You can’t blackmail me with ‘Daddy’ anymore,” Mr. Foster said. “Manny, you ready to tell them how we dragged Claudia out of Communist Europe?”
“Wait until we clear,” Mrs. Foster said. “I will be monitoring closely.” Sure. Mrs. Foster didn’t seem to really care if the story got a little carried away. Ellis helped her carry immensely heavy cast iron skillets off their trivets to get the table ready for that cake. The meatloaf had actually been really good, and there were no leftovers. I got another look at the kitchen. Why on Earth did they smuggle out all those clunky East German pots and pans? And the appliances…the infamous sewing machine…
An hour later, the three of us were in Ellen’s room. I was still thinking about the story. It seemed like Mr. Foster didn’t expect me to believe it, but I’m pretty good at knowing when people are bullshitting. Even grups. The story seemed true, but a lot of things were left out.
“You can see the movie yourself,” Ellis was saying. “All that and was in a park in East Berlin. The Tiergarten.”
“Okay, so the director wanted your Dad to find sand. And no one would sell it.”
Ellen nodded. “That was the GDR. Petty people, and a lot of them didn’t like the idea of an American studio…but anyway, our Grandpa Schultz had a quarry.”
“But you guys said he was even meaner than the Communists,” I said. As they told it, a younger, dashing Mr. Foster drove up with Manny and charmed a seventeen-year-old, pregnant-with-twins Claudia Schultz…charmed her out of a few truckloads of sand. I totally believed that he got the girl. But the idea that he got the sand – that didn’t ring true. How could their grandfather do something the government didn’t want him to do? Another weird detail to put on the pile of strange things the Foster twins brought with them.
Before I could follow up, Mr. Foster hollered from downstairs.
“Ellis! Is that door closed in there?”
Ellis kicked Ellen’s door open. “Sorry, sir,” he called. “I’m getting to my homework now.” Ellis got up and told me how nice it was to meet me and scooted out to his room like he was on fire.
“Sir?” I whispered to Ellen.
“He’s afraid of Dad,” Ellen said. “My brother…did you, um, notice how he looked at your nails?”
“My nails?” I just painted them because I liked pink. It clashed with my skin but I didn’t care. If someone ever wanted to marry me, it was going to have to be a pink diamond or no deal.
“Do you think guys normally notice things like that?” she asked.
“Nails? Jeez, I dunno. Maybe. I know for sure they notice things I haven’t got,” I said. I thought it was funny but Ellen didn’t laugh.
“Anyway, just wanted to let you know he noticed them right away.”
Huh?
“Oh,” I said brilliantly. “That’s…good.”