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CHAPTER ONE

She was ironing her blouse when the doorbell sounded. Joan Pierce mumbled under her breath as she rested the steam iron on the board and flashed a glance at herself in the mirror.

Her blond hair was up in curlers, there was a smudge of paint on the tip of her nose—she’d been antiquing that bookcase that fitted so perfectly in the corner of her tiny apartment—and her shirt was spotted. She was in no mood to receive visitors.

With a sigh of resignation she moved from the kitchen through the hall and to the front door. There would be no delivery man with a package, no telegram was likely, and she had no boyfriends.

“Who is it?” she called suspiciously.

Even though she lived in a reasonably swank apartment in the East Eighties, one had always to be on guard. Sometimes the doorman slipped up, or wasn’t at his post.

“Open up and see,” caroled a melodious voice with a hint of laughter in it.

She loosened the chain, unlocked the door, flung it open.

She stared at her own reflection, or what she wished her own reflection would look like, if she could have her druthers. A sylph of blond loveliness stood before her, radiant in a powder-blue pantsuit by Dior; a Gucci scarf, casually tied, but with the effect of absolute royalty; and hair as golden as her own, dropping in a fall about her shoulders. A ranch-mink jacket held casually by an arm.

Blue eyes half-hidden by long lashes twinkled delightfully.

“Joan, my darling! Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Rhoda! What on earth are you doing here?”

“Stopped by to say hello and ask you to do me a favor.”

Her twin sister swept in with an aura of Joy perfume and an air of quiet confidence. She put her cheek to Joan’s and then moved away with that swing of hips that Joan had always envied. When Rhoda walked, it was as though she strode over crushed rose petals tossed before her by an adoring public.

Her eyes went about the room as she dropped the mink over a chair, pausing here and there while Joan closed the door, feeling once again that sense of inferiority that always came over her whenever she was within a few feet of her twin.

“I thought you were in Europe,” she said.

“And I was. Oh, I was! Busy, busy, busy. Writing my column, always scurrying around to find new sources of gossip. You know how I am. I just can’t sit still for more than two days at a time.”

She was too strident, Joan thought. Rhoda had been restless since they were two, forever finding new things to do, daring to climb trees with the boys, challenging anyone and everyone to try to beat her in one endeavor or another.

But now, well . . . there was something more than this.

Excitement? Yes. More than that, even. Joan could not put a name to whatever it was about Rhoda that troubled her.

“Do sit down,” she urged.

“I can’t possibly. I’m too tense. I have far too much to do to let me relax. But I love it, Jo. I really do. Keeping busy, I mean.”

“I know you do.” She smiled. “But you used to like tea. What do you say to a cup right now?”

“Nobody can make tea like you, Jo. It’s been so long. Yes, I would like some.”

She was pulling off her gloves, tossing them on a lamp table, forever walking, touching a jade elephant that had been her gift to Joan when she had come back from Thailand, moving to straighten a copy of a Winslow Homer painting. There was something on her mind, very definitely.

Joan walked into the kitchen, waving a hand. “Don’t mind the mess. It’s Saturday, and my only time to do anything about my clothes.”

Rhoda had followed her into the kitchenette, stood in the doorway, hands together, watching her with those blue eyes that were the match of Joan’s own. She did not speak, she just looked on as Joan busied herself with tea and lemons.

After a moment, she became aware that Rho was studying her much too closely, her stare going up and down her body, seeing the snagged nylons, the patched skirt, the paint-stained blouse. Joan squirmed mentally. Darn! Why did Rhoda have to drop in when she was looking her absolute worst? Didn’t she have any sense of timing?

She eyed her sister out of the corners of her eyes. Yes, she was looking at her, but not in disapproval; rather in speculation. Maybe she wasn’t noticing the frayed blouse, the old shoes.

“You said something about a favor,” she began cautiously.

“Indeed I did. And you’re just the girl to do it. The only one, in fact.”

Rhoda giggled at her expression, that was blended of anxiety and caution, worry and trepidation. Joan knew the favors Rhoda always wanted. They usually cost her, Joan, embarrassment or that awful feeling of I’m-going-to-drop-down-through-the-floor-and-die.

“I don’t know, Rho. I’m busy myself, and—”

“Busy? Doing what? Grubbing as a secretary for some old business tycoon who’s off playing golf and leaving the running of the corporation to you?”

Joan squirmed uncomfortably. Sometimes she did get those thoughts about J. Randolph Draper. They paid her well, she had no objection to that, but she did the job that properly belonged to Draper, and it was true that he was away from the office more than he was there.

But she protested, “It’s a good job. A very good one. I make good money.”

“You’re underpaid and overworked.”

Joan set the teacups at the kitchen table, moving the ironing board, folding it, and putting it in the closet. She poured the tea, the lemon juice, added the one Sweet and Low that Rhoda permitted herself.

“You’re making a pitch, Rho.”

Her twin squealed delightedly. “You can see right through me. I’ll bet you keep that corporation on its toes.”

Joan smiled faintly. “You’re evading the issue. That’s not like you.”

Rhoda said, “It’s a big favor.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Now, don’t look so distressed. I want you to be me for a week.”

Joan was sipping hot tea as Rhoda spoke. She choked, felt tea running down her chin, and reached frantically for a napkin. As she wiped her chin, she let her suspicion creep into her eyes.

“Why, Rho?”

Her twin waved a hand. “I’m onto a big thing. I want to be in two places at the same time. If you pose as me, just for a week, I’ll be able to crack a big story.”

“You know I can’t do that. What about my job?”

“You get a vacation—you wrote me that you were now getting three weeks off.”

“Well, yes. But I’d planned on—”

“Forget your plans, Jo. Please! For me.”

Joan stared at her. Was this Rhoda, actually pleading?

“Look, you’ll get to wear my clothes. You know what I spend on clothes! I bought some new duds in Paris that ought to fracture you. You’ll eat at all the best places and charge the bills to me. Now, how about it?”

Her first inclination was to say no. How could she leave J. Randolph Draper when he needed her so badly? Still, if she called in and pleaded sickness for a week, what harm would be done? Molly Simmons could take over for five days, the corporation wouldn’t go broke.

Her sister saw her hesitation and reached out to squeeze her hand. “It isn’t very much I’m asking. All you have to do is pretend to be me. It’s a free ride, it won’t cost you a red cent. You can have the time of your life.”

“What will I have to do?”

“Just that. Just be me.”

Joan studied her sister. “I’d need a new hairdo, one to match your own.”

“We’ll have it done this afternoon.”

“I shouldn’t. Something tells me I shouldn’t.”

“But you will, darling. Say it. Say you will.”

They had traded places before, but long ago. There was that time when Rho had gotten her first job, and when she got sick, Joan (being jobless) had taken her place without anyone being the wiser. And when Rhoda had stepped into a better job, Joan had kept her old one.

Oh, she could do it, all right. She had mimicked her sister often enough to pass for her. She had done it in jest at those other times, but something inside her told her that this time might be deadly serious.

She needed some time off, she really did. She was worked to a frazzle, day after day and week after week. She got good money, but that didn’t help when she came home nights so beat that she had no energy to cook a meal and just enough to get out of her clothes and tumble into bed.

A week off, playing Rhoda.

Glamorous Rhoda, who stayed at all the finest hotels, who ate only the finest meals that the best chefs could produce, who wore elegant clothes even to go to the store—did Rho ever shop for anything other than clothes?—and who led an absolutely fantastic life. It would be fun.

“Well...”

“Promise! Cross your heart and hope to die, and if you don’t, eat humble pie!”

She laughed at that old saying. It was a tradition between them, such a promise. Whoever made it must live up to it. It was a matter of faith and honor just between the two of them.

“All right. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, and if I don’t, eat humble pie.”

Rhoda leaned back smiling, and her relief was obvious. Her relief was so great that all Joan’s suspicions came flooding back. She scowled and began to wonder just how bad a mistake she had made.

Rhoda was fumbling in her handbag, bringing out an airplane ticket and flourishing it. Sunlight danced on her very red fingernails.

“Here you are, you’ll need this. It’s a ticket to Florida, and—”

“Florida!”

“My bags—your bags now—are at the airport, waiting for you. I’ve made all the arrangements. You’ll be leaving on the ten-o’clock flight from La Guardia tomorrow morning. All you have to do is change clothes with me, and off you go.”

“Now, wait a minute, Rho!”

“You promised, Joan.”

She scowled. She had given her word, and she had always lived up to it. But just the same, Rho could have told her about this angle. Of course, if she had, Joan would probably have refused to do it. Rhoda had been sly, as she always was. She got the promise before Joan knew what was entailed.

“What’s in Florida?” she asked darkly.

“Your husband.”

Joan leaped up so suddenly that the chair on which she had been sitting toppled over and skidded across the floor. Some of the tea spilled over onto the tablecloth.

“Husband!” she screamed.

“Well, almost. I’m going to marry him in a week.”

Joan could scarcely believe her ears. “And you want me to go down there, to Florida, with this man—and take your place? And you getting married to him in a week?”

“You can do it, I know you can.”

“Have you lost your marbles, Rho? I won’t hear of it”

“You promised.”

“Before I knew what an asinine thing I was agreeing to.”

“You can’t go back on it.”

Her twin was desperate, Joan saw. Her blue eyes pleaded with her, as Rho had never begged in her life.

Joan smothered the angry retort on her tongue and scowled blackly. “But a guy you’re going to marry?” She hesitated, then went on darkly, “I suppose you’ve been to bed with him?”

“Never. Cross my heart and all the rest.”

“How could you ask such a thing of me? What am I getting myself into? I just can’t do it. I can’t, Rho. It would be dishonest. Not fair to him or me.”

“For me, Jo? Please?”

She could never resist Rhoda when she begged. It was a character weakness, she guessed. She stewed and fretted, but she knew she would go. If only to get away from those pleading eyes.

“The fates deliver me. I should have known, I should have.”

Rhoda smiled her delight.

She’s tricked me again, and she knows it. A sullen anger burned in Joan. She was of half a mind to tell Rho to forget the whole thing. But she had made that promise.

She groped for the fallen chair and righted it. She mopped up the spilled tea. She was aware that Rhoda was watching her carefully, yet seeming not to do so.

Joan muttered, “You might as well tell me all about it.”

“You’re wonderful, Jo. You really are.”

“A wonderful nut.”

“Oh, you’ll like Ray.”

“Who’s Ray?”

“The man I’m going to marry, of course.”

She swallowed hard. In for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well put her best face on. She had made her promise; she would abide by it. After all, a week in Florida at this time of winter wasn’t to be passed over lightly. Especially as it wasn’t going to cost her anything.

Rhoda said, “I met him a year ago when I was down in Miami at a shindig at the Racket Club. He’s rich, Jo, and handsome—he’s everything a girl could want.”

Joan sighed. She herself had no boyfriends at the moment.

“He sort of swept me off my feet, if you can picture that. Trips in his cabin cruiser, parties, dinners at places like the Captain’s Table and Hidden Harbor, going dancing at night, the whole bit. ”

It must have been something to affect Rhoda. She was used to the finest cuisines, the most glamorous hotels. She felt the very best was only her due.

“And he proposed,” Joan murmured.

“On a moonlit night aboard his yacht. Naturally, I accepted him.”

“Why ‘naturally’? Won’t he interfere with your career?”

Rhoda fiddled with the handclasps of her bag, eyes downcast. “I told him a little fib, darling. I said I worked for J. Randolph Draper.”

Joan laughed. “And when he sees your name in the Miami Herald over your column, he’ll break the engagement.”

“My column isn’t in the Herald. No, I’m safe enough there. And I may retire from newspaper work.”

Joan hooted. “A fat chance of that. Not you, it’s your lifeblood, this traveling around and seeing important people of the world, interviewing them, and reporting back on what they say. I know you.”

“You know me, but you don’t know Ray.”

“He must be something, all right. More tea?”

She busied herself at the stove, but her mind wasn’t on what she was doing. She was thinking of Florida and this strange man named Ray. She turned from the stove to eye her sister coldly.

“This Ray you seem so keen on. He won’t expect me to crawl into bed with him, will he? Because if he does—”

“Of course not. He’s a perfect gentleman.”

“I’ve met some of those,” Joan hinted grimly.

Rhoda’s laughter floated out. “Darling, relax. I suppose you may have to kiss him, but—”

“Not on your life.”

“It’s for me, Jo,” her twin said gently.

“I don’t go around kissing strange men,” Joan yelled.

“You ought to know that.”

“I know, I know. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes.”

“Now, listen!”

But Rhoda was out of her chair and beside the stove, clasping both her hands, and Joan could find nothing inside herself to withstand the pleading of those intense blue eyes and that soft voice.

“You made a promise. You have to be me, don’t you understand? Not you. Me! It won’t be you kissing Raymond, it’ll be your sister, your other self.”

“Some other self,” Joan grumbled.

Rhoda hugged her, bringing with her embrace a sense of her own softness, her femininity, her beauty. Joan sighed. She was putty in those red-nailed hands that always looked as though Rho had just had them manicured.

“You can kiss him—I give you my permission—but nothing more, mind. Ray Slater belongs to me.”

“Oh, Rho. Honestly!”

Rhoda pealed laughter. “You silly. You’re the one girl in the entire world I’d trust to do this thing for me. I know you won’t go batting your eyes at him, you won’t flirt. My only real worry is that you’ll turn him off before I’m able to get down there.”

“I may do just that. Serve you right.”

Rhoda stood back and studied her sister. Her eyes were sharp, bright, intelligent. Joan felt as though she were under a microscope. Finally Rhoda nodded.

“You’ll need touching up, but you’ll do. There’s a quality about you—I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s your honesty—but Ray will like you. I just hope he doesn’t fall in love with you.”

“You’re out of your skull.”

“No, I mean it. We’re the same person on the outside. Even Mom and Pop have trouble telling us apart. Our voices are the same, our bodies are identical, or almost. It’s just that our natures are different.”

Joan said, “I’ll try to be you. I promise. It’s a crazy thing, but if I can help you, I will. Besides, I could use a week in Florida. It might even be fun.”

“Of course it will be fun. Make up your mind to that. Now, what about that tea?”

They sipped and talked, making their plans. When Joan wanted to know what was so important to Rhoda that she would turn over her fiancé to her own sister for a week, Rhoda was adamant.

“I can’t tell you that, but it’s big. Real big. You just go on your way and forget about me until it’s time to marry Ray. Then I’ll show up, I’ll telephone you, you can meet me at some hotel, we can change clothes, you’ll fly back on my plane, and I’ll get married.”

“Why can’t I stay and see you married?”

“It would give the whole thing away. I have it all planned, so don’t go making objections.”

Joan glanced at the kitchen clock. “If I’m going to my hairdresser, I’d better make an appointment. He’s awfully busy on Saturdays.”

Pierre could crowd her in—he’d had a cancellation. Joan ran to change her clothes, only to find Rhoda with her.

“You might as well put on my things, darling. Get used to them. What’ve you got for me to wear?”

In half an hour Joan was in the powder-blue pantsuit, learning to tie the Gucci scarf as Rhoda did. She was rather attractive, she supposed as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. If clothes make the man, as the saying has it, they most certainly make the woman.

She ran, not to be late for her appointment.

Pierre fussed when he heard what she wanted. He could do it, of course, but it was not her, not Joan Pierce, not the businesswoman whose hair he had been setting for the past three years.

“You weel be vairy deeferent,” he threatened morosely.

“That’s what I want.” She laughed.

She was different, all right. She felt a shock when Pierre finally held a mirror up for her. She was not Joan any longer, she was Rhoda.

“You see?” Pierre asked, disconsolate.

“It’s perfect. Perfect,” she enthused.

Pierre brightened.

Rhoda squealed when she walked into the apartment. She had been sitting reading a newspaper, but as Joan strolled across the rug, she put it down and gave her approval.

“You are me,” she said. “Ungrammatical, but true. Ray will be certain it is my charms he is holding in his arms tomorrow.”

“Hmmmm. Don’t keep harping on that subject. I’ll have to develop a cold.”

She tried a few sniffles as Rhoda beamed. “You will fool no one, darling. You are too honest to be a good actress. Now, I must coach you.”

“Coach me?”

“But certainly. How would it look if you step off the plane and see Ray and not know him? No, no. I have pictures to show you. You must learn faces. And names. It is very important to this role you will be playing.” Rhoda sighed. “I hope I’m doing the right thing. If Ray should ever discover this little trick we’re playing on him, he might be very angry and not want to marry me.”

Joan felt fright flicker to life inside her. “He won’t learn through me, Rho. I promise that. I’ll be Rhoda every inch of the way.”

“You should get a reward.”

“My reward will be that week vacation. Oh! What about my job?”

“I’ll call in for you and excuse you. No . . . I’ll excuse myself. I’m not as honest as you, my dear. I can have a cold you wouldn’t believe.”

She laughed and pulled Joan down on the sofa and reached for her bag. Pictures came out, and with them a lecture on what she had done in Florida before and after she had met Ray.

Joan stared down at a suntanned man in a white swimsuit. He had a fabulous build, with muscles all over him, a deep chest, and very wide shoulders. His hair was sun-bleached almost to the color of cotton. His face was frank, handsome, as Rho had said. He seemed very much at ease, leaning against the handrail of what must have been his yacht.

“Its name is Pretty Lady. He told me he named it with me in mind, but that was just a bit of blarney, since he’d named it before he ever set eyes on me. Now, here’s a man you must know. It’s Jimmy Blades, and he’s one of Ray’s best friends. He’s married to the girl in the picture.”

The lesson went on and on, until it grew dark and Joan rose to turn on the lamps. She was hungry, she realized, but when she suggested they go out to eat, Rhoda shook her head.

“I don’t want anybody to see us together. Nobody. It’s better that way.”

Joan stared at her. “But Ray won’t be here in New York. He can’t possibly see us.”

“Just humor me, love. You have a very lovely shell steak in the fridge, and some chicory and endive. I’ll make the salad dressing. It’s something I learned from a very old chef in Paris—it’ll make your mouth drool when you taste it.”

Joan laughed. “You peeked. Well, I was saving that steak for tomorrow, but you’re on your own, then. We’ll feast tonight.”

“And while we do, I’ll show you pictures and you’ll give me names.”

Joan got out the broiler and plugged it in. Rhoda brought the steak and set it on the grill. When Joan would have helped with the salad, her sister pushed her away.

“You go look at those pictures, and leave the dressing to me.”

Joan was letter-perfect about the pictures as they ate steak and salad and drank instant Sanka. Rhoda would not permit her to have coffee, telling her that she must go to sleep early, and coffee might keep her awake.

“You need to be at your most glamorous for Ray, who’ll meet you at the Fort Lauderdale airport. I want you to be sensational, darling.”

“Since I am you—in a manner of speaking.”

“Never mind that manner-of-speaking stuff. You are me. From now on, until the wedding.”

“Oh, yes. About that wedding. When’s it to be?”

“Saturday. I’ll be there in plenty of time for it, don’t you worry about that.”

Joan muttered dubiously, “There’ll be a lot of parties, I suppose. It won’t be easy, playing you.”

“There won’t be any complications. Trust me.”

They undressed and slid into their pajamas, after which they sat and talked in the bedroom until ten. Then Rhoda winked and reached for the night-table lamp.

“Time for all good girls to get their beauty sleep.”

“Aren’t you going to join me?”

“I’ll be sleeping on the couch. You need all the rest you can get.”

Her words sounded ominous to Joan, but she probably didn’t mean them the way they sounded. Joan pulled the covers up about her and closed her eyes, thinking about her trip.

In a way, she was thrilled, naturally. A week off in Florida, being squired about by a handsome, rich man, was any working girl’s dream. The one drawback was that she was there under false pretenses. This was not her vacation, but Rhoda’s. It would be Rhoda whom Ray was dancing with, hugging, and kissing (no doubt), and going over plans for their wedding.

Joan scowled. An inner voice whispered to her that she was being silly, if not downright stupid. She was going to get a sample of what life would be like if she were her twin sister. She hoped she didn’t develop a taste for it. That would make coming back to her job worse than ever.

She yawned, and her eyelids felt heavy.

No sense in fretting over it, she had given her promise. She was Rhoda, for the next seven days. Not Joan. Accept what was coming, have a good time, and forget about it when it came time to fly home.

She slept, and dreamed of hordes of handsome young men all begging her to marry them, against a backdrop of hot sunlight and palm trees. She went from one to another, and each was so lovable she was having a very difficult time saying no, she was not their dream girl, she was someone else, someone who should not be here at all, she was an interloper.

She woke cuddled under blankets, warm and content.

“Hey, lazybones. Up and at ’em.”

Rhoda was standing over her, smiling down, cute and tousled from her own deep sleep.

Do I look as beautiful as she does when I wake up? If I do, my mirror lies to me. Joan smiled back and stretched, wriggling. “I smell something good,” she muttered.

“Eggs and sausages. I haven’t forgotten how to cook, even though I don’t do much of it anymore. You going to get up, or do I have to pull back the covers?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Are you going to be a tyrant like this to Ray when you’re married?” Joan laughed and slid her bare feet out from the blankets, fumbling with them for her slippers. She ran to the bathroom, was in the shower and out of it in a matter of minutes. Bundling herself into a woolen robe, she moved into the kitchen, discovering that Rho was already putting her eggs and sausages and toast on a plate for her.

She discovered she was very hungry. She would have to watch that; she didn’t want to put on any weight. It wouldn’t be fair to Rho. She giggled.

Her sister eyed her warily. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking. Suppose I gained ten pounds down there, and then you appear thinner than ever?”

“You’d better not. You won’t fit into my things.”

They laughed together and chatted. Now that Joan was almost ready to go, the excitement of the idea was getting to her. Despite her breakfast, an emptiness in her middle told her that she was really looking forward to what was to come.

She dressed in the powder-blue pantsuit and tied the Gucci scarf as Rhoda had taught her. She looked pretty good, she decided, viewing the mirrored reflection. Nobody would know she wasn’t Rhoda.

The idea scared her a little.

And then she got another thought. Suppose she fell in love with Raymond Slater herself? She’d better not That would only make matters worse.

Rhoda was at her elbow, extending a hand. “Here, you’d better put this on now.”

Joan stared down at what must have been a ten-carat diamond, blue-white and flawless. Rhoda was saying, “Go on, take it. It’s your engagement ring. Or rather, mine. But you’ll have to wear it.”

As she slipped it on, a coldness came into her that told Joan she was marching straight into trouble. Bad trouble, at that.