When Shopping Goes Sideways

There’s a JCPenney store somewhere that still has a slightly bent sign on a pillar near the cash register.

That’s my fault. And I’m sorry. It was 2014, and I’d like to say I remember it fondly. I don’t. I remember it the way you remember most humiliating experiences — in vivid, slow-motion detail, with full sound effects included.

I’d ridden with my twin sister to the mall. Now, you have to understand something about twins. We’ve been side by side since before we were born. We’ve shared a birthday, a bedroom, and approximately four decades of each other’s company. You would think by now we’d have developed a kind of seamless synchrony — finishing each other’s sentences, moving through the world in quiet harmony.