A fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose, in which they describe navigating life and romance in a non-conjoined world.
Part 2 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 5: New hires
We applied for a permanent position as a junior policy analyst at the Human Rights Commission where we had interned the previous summer, and were easily hired. As we expected, we had to deal with a bunch of headaches related to two legal persons occupying a single body being employed full-time for a single position. The singleton world just never knows what to do with us.
They weren’t going to pay us two salaries, which we understood, but they needed to put both of us on the payroll. They tried to classify us as job-sharing, each only working 20 hours per week, so that they could pay each of us half of the salary for the position. But as part-timers, we wouldn’t be eligible for health insurance or other benefits, and that wasn’t right. Besides, neither of us was only going to work half the time; they were getting two brains for the price of one. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be right for us to have to each pay full fare for health insurance or for medical costs like copays and deductibles when we share a single body, either.
Since this was the agency that was supposed to be all about protecting people from being discriminated against, the irony was not lost on them, and to their credit, they worked hard to overcome all of these issues and make things fair for us. That had a lot to do with why we chose to work there; we knew they’d go to bat for us like that. We did have to pay twice for dental and vision and mental health insurance coverage, but that makes sense since we do have two noggins, each with its own set of choppers and peepers.
After our sophomore year, Gabi and we had moved out of our dorm and rented an off-campus apartment together. Now, we were working for the state government and Gabi would be starting law school at the state university in the fall, so we continued sharing the apartment. We were free from having to constantly study and had plenty of free time, but Gabi was spending the summer at an internship in Washington, D.C. Once law school began, she’d probably have less free time than ever. It was time to find other people to do things with.
Our friend Cassie had also graduated and gotten a job in the area, so we started hanging out more with her. She had a business degree with a concentration in human resource management and a new job with the state government’s Human Resources Department. She had decided to stay in the area because there were a cluster of women with gigantomastia not too far away.
Anyway, one time when we were together and enjoying each other’s company, we shared with her all of the headaches we’d experienced trying to get hired as state government employees and getting fairly priced health insurance, knowing she would have a professional interest. “I think I heard about your case from people in my office,” Cassie replied. “I didn’t realize they were talking about you. I should have put two and two together. They were not happy about all the extra work you caused them, and are still causing them, I think. They created exceptions for you manually, but they still have to make changes to the computer system for your situation.”
We told her to pass on to them that we appreciated their efforts on our behalf. I, Rose said, “We know the HR people in our office moved mountains to get this resolved. They were probably the ones pushing your co-workers to figure out a way to make it happen. Granted, they’re not likely to get another set of conjoined twins working in state government, but there have to be other people with their own unique situations where the usual policies just don’t work or aren’t fair. If they didn’t have people pushing to get exceptions made like we did, they probably either got screwed or just gave up trying to work for the state at all. It shouldn’t have to be this difficult to make exceptions for extraordinary situations. I would think at least some of these poor people would conclude their rights were being violated and would go through the Human Rights Commission to try to get resolution. This is maybe an area where the human rights and human resources offices could collaborate to find ways to make this easier in the future.”
Cassie replied, “I hear what you’re saying, and it’s a good idea, but I’m brand new there and have no clout. I’ll talk to my boss about it, but of course I can’t promise anything.” I, Rose, agreed, “We’re just as new as you are, but we’ll do the same. Who knows, maybe we can make something happen. And if not now, maybe later when we do all have some influence.”
I, Lily then said, “If you think it would help any, or if they’re receptive to the idea, we could pop in and introduce ourselves. Maybe they’d feel better about it if they could actually meet the people they’re helping.” Cassie said, “I think that might be a good idea. I’ll suggest it and see what kind of reaction I get.”
So Cassie and we talked to our respective bosses. Our boss was receptive to opening lines of communications and improving relations with HR, but Cassie didn’t get anywhere with her boss. She sensed that they didn’t like other state agencies telling them what they needed to do, and that’s how they perceived the efforts to get our issues resolved. There were apparently some hard feelings from that. However, her boss thought it would be a good idea for her office to meet us. It would make it seem more worth the trouble if they could see that real people with real problems were being helped by their efforts.
Cassie coordinated a mutually agreeable time between her office and the two of us, and our boss had no objection to us going there while on the clock. Her boss scheduled a staff meeting for that time, but had Cassie come down to the lobby to meet us and escort us to the conference room. By the time we were within earshot, the boss was already addressing the staff.
“… and some of you really had to jump through hoops and get creative to figure out how to accommodate the special needs of those two new hires. I want to thank you for your efforts, but I think maybe it would be more real to you if you heard it from those new hires themselves. It just so happens that Cassie knows them personally, so we’ve arranged for them to be here.” Cassie was standing in the doorway, and we were behind her, out of sight. The boss then turned to Cassie and asked her to introduce her friends.
Cassie motioned us to stay out of sight until she called us into the room. We stood where we could see her but not anyone else in the room. She then addressed her co-workers. “I know I’m still new here, but I can imagine special requests like the ones you had to deal with just seem like extra work with nothing in it for you, and you might even come to resent the people involved. I thought if you could actually meet the people you helped and hear their story, it might make it all seem worthwhile. You already know their names from having worked their cases, and I believe you know that they’re twin sisters. But I’m not sure if you really understand why they needed such unusual accommodations. The best way to do that is to meet them, so I’d like to introduce my friends, Lily and Rose Barrett.” Cassie motioned to us to join her.
As we entered the room, we could hear several people audibly gasp, and see several people wide eyed with their jaws hanging open. They were clearly unprepared to see us in the flesh, which meant they truly had not understood why they had had to do all that extra work. The shock of seeing us was powerful and effective. We had their rapt attention.
We introduced ourselves, explained our condition in some detail, and then explained why it was necessary for the special accommodations and how we would be harmed if we couldn’t get them. We thanked them profusely for going the extra mile for us. Then we made another pitch for our two departments working together to accommodate future special requests from employees with extenuating circumstances throughout state government. We sensed that everyone present was far more receptive to that idea than they had been before we had entered the room. When we were finished speaking, everyone in the room rose to give us a standing ovation.
We hung around because everyone wanted to meet us and talk to us personally. They instinctively extended their right hands to shake Lily’s (right) hand, and she helped them understand that they also needed to separately shake Rose’s (left) hand as well. We both knew that pointing out that gaffe and helping them correct it drove home the point of how unique the two of us are; that it’s not fair to us to treat us like everyone else. Several people apologized to us for having a bad attitude when working our case, even though we had never previously communicated with them directly, and they told us how much they appreciated meeting us; that they finally understood why our agency had made these seemingly crazy requests on our behalf and had been so insistent about it.
Cassie told us later that after that, she had the respect of both her boss and co-workers not ordinarily given to a new hire. Her career was off to a great start. In addition, her boss got back with our boss and indicated a willingness to explore ways the two offices could work together for the good of state employees with exceptional circumstances. That certainly didn’t hurt our career any, either.
Chapter 6: Coffee for three
A few days after we addressed Cassie’s co-workers, she texted us and told us that one of her male co-workers was asking lots of questions about us, especially regarding whether we were in relationship(s), our sexual orientation, and the like. He was very interested in seeing us socially. Cassie asked us what we’d like her to tell him.
We, Lily and Rose, briefly discussed this with each other. Were we interested in dating at all at this point? Were we ready to try jointly dating the same man and see how it went? We agreed that we might as well. But we needed to know more about him before we could give Cassie an answer. We needed to have some idea that he wasn’t a creep and didn’t have any deal breakers or red flags.
We texted Cassie back and told her it wasn’t fair that he knew all about us and we knew nothing about him. She called us and filled us in on what she knew about him, which wasn’t a lot. His name was Nick Spencer, he’d been working there for about three years, and he was well-liked and well-regarded by his peers, male as well as female. She added that she thought he was good looking, too.
Cassie wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, or else we would have suggested a double date. (Or would it be called a double-and-a-half date in our case?) Since we didn’t know him, we weren’t going to go on a real date without someone with us who we knew and trusted, so we suggested that we meet him for coffee on Saturday morning and just get to know each other a bit. Cassie let him know and he was agreeable.
We’re regulars at that particular coffee shop, so the workers all know us, as do many of the other regular customers. We don’t get stared at as much there as we would somewhere new. We got there early because we didn’t want Nick to try to pay for ours. This wasn’t a date; it was just a meet-and-greet. We got our drink and sat down and waited. He came in right on time, spotted us (we’re hard to miss), came over and introduced himself. He then excused himself and went to the counter to order, then came back and sat down.
“I really appreciate you agreeing to meet me,” he said. “I think it was a great idea to do something casual like this in broad daylight. If I were a girl, I think I’d be careful about meeting strangers, too.”
We said to him (well, not both of us, but we’re going to write in the plural when one of us spoke for both of us), “So tell us about yourself, Nick. Cassie apparently told you a lot more about us that she told us about you.” We won’t bore you with the details, but it was all pretty ordinary stuff. So we moved on to bigger questions.
“So what made you interested in getting to know a pair of conjoined twins? Are we your type or something?” We knew full well that some guys have fetishes about people like us, even if they don’t know that we really exist. Nick replied, “I didn’t even know there was such a type until the other day. But seeing you up there talking – I was fascinated. I was mesmerized.” He paused. “So do I understand correctly that each of you can only feel and move one side of your body?” Rose said yes as Lily took a sip. “So everything you do that takes two arms or two legs has to be coordinated? That’s amazing. You make it look so effortless.”
“Well, you haven’t seen us do much yet. Just walking into and out of that conference room. And we have walking down pretty well. We’ve been doing it almost our entire lives. We can’t feel each other’s leg, but we can feel how the other moving her leg moves our entire body, meaning the half we can feel. So we can each tell by feel, indirectly, what our sister is doing with her half. We’re pretty good at running, too. In fact, we were on the track team both at high school and college, and it wasn’t unusual for us to win our races.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. I would have never imagined that you could run well enough to be competitive,” he said. We just replied, “We’re full of surprises. Stick around and you’ll see.”
Nick did a pretty good job making eye contact with both of us. Not everyone can do that.
He said, “I see you’re sharing a single coffee. I would have expected you to each have one.” We replied, “We share single drinks and single meals nearly all the time. Otherwise, we’d be really fat. We may have two mouths, but we only have the one body to feed, so our total calorie intake has to be about what a singleton’s would be.” “Singleton?” he asked. “A non-conjoined person. We call them singletons,” we explained.
“In many ways, you’re two people, but in many other ways, you’re one person,” he said. “I wasn’t working your case, but I can see why you can’t be considered either one or two people as far as the personnel system is concerned.” “That about sums up our life,” we said, “except for the way you worded it. We never say we’re one person. We say that we have one body or that we share a body. To us there’s a huge difference.”
“I’m so sorry!” Nick said quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you!” “It’s okay,” we told him. “We know you didn’t. Being around us just takes some getting used to, and we get that. But your assessment was spot on. Everyone, everything, everywhere assumes one body means one person, and two people means two bodies. Then we come along, and no one knows what to do with us.
“Just one example: When we go to the movies, we never know if they’re going to charge us for one admission or two. Usually the poor person at the ticket window doesn’t know what to do. So they call the manager over, and the manager doesn’t have a clue, either. It’s not in the procedures manual. It’s like that almost everywhere we go.”
“It must be exhausting, having to fight those battles every day for the most mundane things that we singletons take for granted,” he said. We both smiled that he used the word ‘singleton’ correctly, and it was nice to hear someone acknowledge that. “We’re used to it; we expect it, but yeah, it does get old,” we said. “We tend to go to familiar places, because once they figure out what to do, it’s less likely to be an issue again.
“We only want to be treated fairly. But it’s often hard even for us to know what’s fair. Take the movie example. We’re only occupying one seat, but there are two sets of eyes watching the movie. It’s easy to make a case for either one ticket or two tickets. It’s hard to know what’s right. Probably paying the equivalent of one-and-a-half tickets would be reasonable, but they simply aren’t equipped to do that. Another possibility is to charge us for one adult ticket and one child ticket. But since neither of us is a child, they usually won’t consider that, and it’s kind of demeaning anyway. But it does at least make sense cost-wise.
“Now consider this, because it’s work related. We always knew we’d get paid one salary, not two. The reasoning is that we’re working together to perform a single job. If we tried to perform two different jobs simultaneously, we couldn’t do it productively. We’d each have to use a keyboard one-handed, for example. And we’d often have to be in two different places at the same time, such as if Lily’s project had a team meeting and Rose’s team didn’t and was expected to be at their desks working.
“So we’re getting paid the equivalent of one salary to do one job. But we have to pay twice for a lot of things. Movie tickets sometimes, and other things sometimes, but we have to pay twice for dental insurance and vision coverage, since we have two sets of teeth and two sets of eyes. It only makes sense. But all of those double expenses add up, and it means life is more expensive for us. Is that fair? Well, yes and no.
“Now we’re hoping that once we’ve been in our job for a while, we can show that we’re more productive doing that one job than a singleton would be, and get paid accordingly. We can multi-task more effectively with two brains than someone with only one brain, for example. But even if we could make that case, we know it’ll just open another can of worms with the personnel system.
“A good part of the reason we went to work for the Human Rights Commission was to be better able to advocate for our own rights. But we might be the only pair of conjoined twins in the entire state, so that sounds selfish. We want to advocate for the rights of anyone who doesn’t fit the mold, for whatever reason. But it’s not going to be easy. The state’s position, and every employer’s position, and everyone else’s position who could be sued for discrimination is this: We don’t discriminate against classes of people protected by law. That would mean racial minorities, disabled people, and the like. But they never say they won’t discriminate against people or classes of people not protected by the law, such as conjoined twins. Or obese people. Or people under age 40. Or you name it. Cassie is a good example of someone who could be legally discriminated against because of her oversized boobs. Not that we think she is presently, or anything.
“That’s who we want to advocate for: people who are being legally discriminated against. We want to change the paradigm so that they won’t be discriminated against because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether the law allows it.
“I guess we should shut up and let you get a word in edgewise, huh?” we said after realizing we had been on a rant.
“It’s okay,” said Nick, smiling. “I can tell you’re passionate about this. But I would think Cassie would get preferential treatment if anything. We’ve all heard the cliché where the boss hires an unqualified bimbo for a job just because she’s eye candy.”
“What are you implying?” we asked in mock horror. Nick was immediately embarrassed by his mistake. “Nothing, I promise! That came out wrong! But my point is still valid.” “Yes,” we agreed, “but it could just as easily go the other way. Some boss could decide to banish her to work in a broom closet because they think her mere presence is causing a distraction in the workplace.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” said Nick. “But I’m not so sure conjoinment isn’t a protected class. Wouldn’t it be considered a disability or something?” We replied, “Good question. It’s not specifically listed as a disability, and we’re not aware of any court ruling that would apply. We ran track. We don’t need any physical accommodations made for us. We’re not disabled; we’re just different.”
Nick replied, “Please don’t take offense, but I think you could make a strong case that you are disabled since you are two people, not one. As individuals, you each only have one arm and one leg. As individuals, neither of you can physically do much without the assistance of another person, meaning the one you’re attached to. If that’s not a textbook definition of a disability, I don’t know what is.”
“You’re thinking like a singleton,” we said. “Yeah, but you’re living in a singleton world according to singleton rules,” he responded. “You might as well use them to your advantage.”
“Perhaps,” we said, feeling a bit defensive about being called disabled, but seeing his point. “But what would that gain us? Again, we don’t need physical accommodations. Our issues are when it’s assumed we have separate bodies or when we’re treated as a single person. How would being classified as disabled resolve those?
“Anyway, enough of that,” we said, changing the subject. By now, we had all long since finished our coffees, but Nick didn’t seem to care, and neither did we, and no one was glaring at us for lingering. We went on to discuss things we each enjoyed doing and our tastes in music and movies and video games and the like. Eventually, it was well after noon and we were getting hungry.
We were really enjoying talking to Nick, and decided to invite him to join us for lunch at a place we knew within easy walking distance from the coffee shop. But Nick begged off, saying he had other things he needed to get to that day. We got the impression that he really wished he could join us, so we suggested meeting again at the coffee shop the following Saturday. He eagerly accepted that invitation, and asked if we could exchange phone numbers. At this point, we were comfortable doing that.
If you were wondering, we share a single phone, and we carry a single purse, which we take turns carrying. We just have to check that we haven’t both assumed that the other has it. Only very rarely do we wish we had our own phones so we can do different things on them at the same time. Otherwise, there’s no reason to have two. Nobody ever wants to talk to just one of us anyway. If we both want to hear a voice call without putting it on speaker, we just hold the phone between our two heads.
Nick texted us that evening and told us how much he enjoyed getting to know us, and was already looking forward to next Saturday. We replied likewise. He was clearly at ease with us, and we were with him as well. We could feel there was chemistry between us.
Cassie texted on Sunday and wanted to know how it went, and we filled her in. She was happy for our sake, and it seemed, pleased with herself for helping us to meet. We asked her to let us know what Nick had to say about us when she saw him at work on Monday. She did, and he pretty much told her the same things that we did.
The following Saturday, we met Nick again at the same time and place. This time we were determined not to dwell on how the world is unfair to us or the things we struggle with. We wanted to come across as more positive and happy, which we generally are.
We again got there ahead of the appointed time, got our coffee, and sat down to wait for Nick. He arrived a few minutes early, got his own coffee, and joined us. We exchanged greetings and made small talk for a few minutes.
Then we said, “We want to apologize for going off on a rant last week about how life’s unfair to us. We know it put a damper on what was otherwise a pleasant conversation. That kind of stuff is just something we have to deal with, but we’re really not obsessed with it or bitter about it. We’re really going to try to keep things more positive today.”
“No apology necessary,” said Nick. “I didn’t think anything of it. You were just telling me about your life, and life’s not always sunshine and flowers. Yeah, I noticed how you say ‘life’ and not ‘lives’. Anyway, to keep things positive, tell me something you like about being conjoined.”
“Very observant of you to notice that,” we replied. “You’re right; we do say ‘life’, because we experience the same things all the time, so our lives are essentially one.” We were about to add that when the time came, we would both die within minutes or at most hours of each other, but remembered we were trying to stay on pleasant topics.
“So what do we like about being conjoined? Where do we start? Aside from the occasional frustrations that we talked about last week, we love being this way. Of course, it’s all we’ve ever known, so we can’t really compare it to anything based on firsthand experience.
“The best thing is that we’re never, ever alone. We always each have our best friend in the world literally only a kiss and a whisper away. Now, singletons tell us that that would drive them crazy, but it would drive us crazy not to be this close. It seems like being a singleton would be unbearably lonely.” Nick shrugged and said, “I guess it’s all a matter of what you’re used to.” We conceded the point.
We continued. “Another great thing is that if we’re trying to figure something out or make a decision, we have two brains working on the problem, and we talk it through. We think we consistently come up with better solutions that way than if we only had one brain or the other. When we’re driving, we have four eyes on the road almost all the time, but on the occasions when we do have to look away, such as to select something on the touchscreen, one of us will do that while the other still keeps her eyes on the road. So we think we’re probably safer drivers than any singleton could be.”
Then Rose said coyly, “There are also some benefits to being conjoined that we can’t say in polite company.” I, Lily, shouted “Rose!” and smacked her on the leg for even saying that much. Nick just cracked up laughing, both at what Rose said and my reaction to it. He looked around and then leaned in and said, “I don’t see any polite company here. Go ahead and say it!” Of course, neither of us would. I’m sure she gave him a lot to think about that night.
We didn’t really have anything more to say on that topic, so Nick asked a new question. “Okay, here’s something I've been wondering, but it’s kind of personal. I’m not exactly sure how to word it, so please bear with me. When you get involved with guys, do you each have your own or do you share one?”
“It’s a fair question, especially since you’re a guy who seems to be taking an interest in us. In the past, meaning in high school, we’d always double date, so we’d go out with two guys at a time. One would be Lily’s date and the other would be Rose’s date. If a guy wanted to go out with us and didn’t have a friend, he was out of luck. Then we went to Capital Women’s College, where the opportunities to meet guys were pretty limited, and so we just didn’t bother.
“As adults, we’ve reconsidered how we want to get involved with men. We think we should probably try to share one guy between us. At least that’s the plan, anyway. We haven’t actually had the opportunity to do it yet, and we’re not sure how we’ll feel about it once we do. It’ll be an experiment.”
Nick pondered that for a moment. Then he said, “In that case, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and volunteer to be your guinea pig. I would like to ask the two of you out on a real date.” We, the twins, glanced at each other and smiled. We could tell we were both thinking the same thing. “All right,” we said. His face brightened. “You’ll go out with me, then?” he asked, not sure if he had heard correctly. This was going to be fun, to mess with him a bit. “Not yet,” we said.
“Wait, I’m confused. First you said you would, and then you said you wouldn’t,” he replied. We turned to each other, and said to one another, “Is that the way you heard it, sister?” “No, that’s not how it happened at all, sister.” “I didn’t think so, either.”
Then we both turned back to Nick. “You’re outgunned, Nick. Remember, we have twice as many ears and twice as many brains.” The poor guy was completely baffled, and we were having fun at his expense. It was time to explain. “First you said you wanted to ask us out, and we said ‘all right’, meaning that it was all right to ask. We were expecting you to ask, but you never did. Then you asked if we had agreed to go out with you, and we replied ‘not yet’, because you hadn’t asked us yet. We’re still waiting for the actual invitation.” We both chuckled at how clever we were.
Nick chuckled, too, which was good. If he were thin-skinned or thick-skulled, he would have gotten upset at our mind games. “All right, you got me,” he conceded. “You’re right, I didn’t actually ask. Will you go on a date with me?” “Maybe,” we replied, still stringing him along. “What did you have in mind, and when?”
Nick rolled his eyes in mock disgust. “Boy, you’re not making this easy, are you?” he said with a smile. “We were messing with you before, granted. And so as not to completely discourage you, yes, we would like to go out with you, Nick,” we replied with as we both smiled back. “But those were legitimate questions. What did you have in mind, and when? We can’t say whether we’ll actually accept without hearing some details.”
“Fair enough,” he replied. “But this was a completely spur of the moment invite, so I don’t have any details.” “Okay,” we said, still smiling at him. “That’s understandable. So we can do this one of two ways. We can tell you to try again when you have some details, but that would be pretty bitchy of us. Or we can work with you and make a plan together. We’d rather do that. We like you, Nick, and as we said, we would like to go out with you.”
“Are you free this evening?” he asked. Yes, we replied. “Would you like to go to dinner?” That sounds wonderful, we told him. And in a few minutes we had everything worked out. We gave him our address and agreed on a time.