Terry’s Double

It's half past lunchtime on a Saturday pm. I'm having lunch at the bar. On my right is my neighbor, Alton. Alton has sharp eyes - not much gets past him. You can walk up to me and bump into me and I still don't see you. I don't know where I am sometimes, but it's definitely not here. Not so for Alton.

So we're sitting there and Alton says, "There's your friend Terry." Terry is a bartender and waitress and one of my favorite Applebee-ers.

"Where," I say, looking around the room. "I don't see her."

"Coming in the door," says Alton.

I look and sure enough, there's Terry walking toward the front entrance. She's wearing a white shirt, which isn't unusual. It's normal for the wait staff to come to work in "civvies" and change into a uniform after they get to work. I watch her approach the door. But she doesn't come in. Instead, she turns away from the door and takes a few steps, looking down into her pocketbook. She is turned partly toward me and I can still see her face plainly through the large window beside the door. I look away from the window for a few seconds and when I look back I don't see her. Nor do I see her in the room. I figure she's gone into the mall to shop.

Around five pm I get a craving for a burger, so I go back to the restaurant. Terry's there, and I say to her, "Terry! I saw you at lunch today!"

Terry has a "what are you talking about" look on her face. "I just started work," she says.

"Not at work," I say. "I saw you outside earlier, wearing a white shirt."

"No," Terry reiterates, "I just started work."

"But I saw you today. It was lunchtime, about twelve-thirty or one."

"I didn't leave the house today until four," Terry replies.

Okay, mistaken identity is one thing. We've all done it. But I saw that woman very clearly, and Alton saw her, also. It was Terry. Only -- it wasn't.

The Germans have a word for it: doppelganger. My dictionary defines doppelganger as a ghostly counterpart of a living person. I asked Terry if she happened to have an identical twin. But no. She has no twin and she was at home until four.

They say everyone has a double. I don't know if that's true. But Terry certainly has one.