Double Trouble
~One~

Holly Katherine Crane sat at her desk in the room she shared with her twin sister at the Weymouth-Hampsted Private Academy for Young Women—a fancy name for what it was: boarding school. She milled through her mail, separating out items of her sister’s that accidentally got put in her box. When her sister, Julia Rose, finally erupted through the door, shedding her uniform and flopping backwards on her bed, Holly looked up from her task.

“Honestly, Hollis,” Julia sighed, “I don’t know what Johnny Hotchkiss sees in you! Classes are barely over and here you are studying!”

Holly flashed a smile at her twin. “God knows, I’ve told him ‘no’ enough times!” she replied. “I don’t know what about me captivates him so. You’re the pretty one!” Julie knew it to be a lie. At seventeen—nearly eighteen—both were the spitting image of their mother, Ivy Crane, at that age. On the rare occasions when the twins and their mother were gathered in one place, people swore they had no father, so great was the resemblance between Ivy and her daughters. Naturally white-blond hair fell just past each of their shoulders, cut in the exact same way, for Holly and Julie still found delight in pretending to be the other.

Julie fell back on the bed once more. “What’s not to like about Johnny Hotchkiss?” she asked into thin air. “He’s rich, he’s good looking, he’s in college, he’s slobbering all over you, and he’s related to Gwen, who is still, by the way, going to escort us around for the New Year’s Eve Ball, despite what our dim-bulb brother did to her!”

Holly did not look up from the letter she was reading. It wasn’t very often that they received news from home. For some reason, their parents thought it best they remained in the dark about crises in Harmony.

“Hollis?” Julie called. “Hollis? You’ve got that thinking look on your face. What’s wrong?”

Numbly, Holly handed her sister the first of the multi-paged letter. “It seems Father has kicked Mama out of the mansion.”

Julie grasped at the page and read it quickly. “Why would Daddy do a thing like that? I mean, they never really got along well, but still!”

Holly handed the next page. “Father’s divorced Mama, and at the request of his fiancée, he’s kicked her out… And it seems as if your dream man is about to become our step-brother!”

Julie hurried to read over her sister’s shoulder. “No!” she said, ripping the letter from Holly’s hands, spilling several clippings from the folds. The elder by thirteen minutes picked up the scraps of newsprint as her sister finished reading the letter from their mother.

Hollis found the posted engagement announcement and passed it to her sister. “It’s true,” she sighed. “We’re going to have Rebecca Hotchkiss as a stepmother.” Julie groaned. “Wait!” Holly continued, scanning the assorted clippings, “They don’t have the whole picture in Harmony, but apparently Father has to get his marriage annulled before he can marry Rebecca. That makes no sense.”

Julie once again pilfered through her sister’s desk. “Here’s one showing that Ethan’s wedding has been pushed back. Let’s hope indefinitely!”

Holly picked up another clipping. “This one mentions an annulment from ‘the young wife Julian Crane married in Bermuda.’”

“Great!” Julie snorted, “Now we have some Island Queen for a stepmother.”

Holly grimaced at her sister. “Just like father, on the stroke of his divorce to ignore his supposed fiancée and lover, and get hitched to the first floozy that walks by!”

Julie rolled her eyes, and re-read their mother’s letter. “I get the sense that there’s something she’s not saying.”

Holly glanced at her sister. “Wasn’t there something in the letter when she told us that Aunt Sher died, that Julian had gone down to Bermuda and a whole bunch of people from Harmony followed him?”

“You’re the organized one,” Julie responded. “And don’t remind me about Aunt Sher. She made going home tolerable… well, now that Ethan seems to have dropped about a hundred IQ points.”

Holly knelt before her luggage trunk and fished around in it before emerging with a handful of letters from home. She scanned the one on the top of the pile. “Here it is. ‘And after wedding that wasn’t, Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald turned up missing. Pilar was inconsolable until she turned up in Bermuda, of all places! Ethan and his friends found her there, along with Rebecca—who couldn’t wait to get her paws on the Crane money—and Gwen in tow. And then there was the hurricane. I’m so very glad you girls are all right. Gwen told me later that it seemed as if Theresa had something to hide. I swear I’ll never forgive her for ruining my life! But I never spoke with her myself, being faced with your father serving me the final papers while I was recovering in the hospital.’” Holly looked up and Julia, and for a moment, they stared at each other, their fertile brains whirling in synchronization.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Julia asked.

“Do you think Father married that gold-digging tramp in Bermuda?”

“She wasn’t satisfied with Ethan, and saw bigger fish to catch?”

“So she ruined Mama’s life, and Ethan’s as an excuse to break up Mother’s and Father’s marriage…”

“So she could get at him right after his divorce was finalized, and seduce him into marriage?”

“I’ve seen pictures of some of the clothes she’s worn while she’s supposedly worked for Mama. I wouldn’t be surprised if, during all that time, she was chasing after Ethan, Father, or both!”

They stared at each other, their faces mirrors of the other’s anger. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Jules?” Holly asked finally.

Julia’s face broke into a huge grin. “I’m wondering which of us is the evil twin!”

Holly laughed. “At this point, I believe both of us are.”

“Yeah,” Julia smiled, “but to do anything, we have to be back in Harmony, and we can’t leave the Weymouth-Hampsted prison until the semester ends, and then we have to be back in January.”

One side of Holly’s lip twitched up into a lopsided grin. “Unless…”

“Unless?” Julie asked.

“Unless we graduate early,” Holly declared. Julia groaned. “Don’t give me that, Jules,” Holly chided. “For all that you play at being a dumb blonde, I know you have enough credits to graduate early, and the grades too. I’m sure Father and Grandfather would enjoy not having us in school another semester, and having us slaving at Crane Industries instead before we take off for College.”

“Hollis, I’m the one who comes up with the crack-brained schemes!” Julia protested. “I’ve never seen this side of you! I think I like it!”

“I’ve never had a reason to apply myself to going outside the regular channels,” Holly replied smoothly, “Don’t think I don’t know what’s out there. I’ve been living with you for how long?” The Crane sisters smiled at one another.

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