TWINSBURG, OHIO. If I had to say what creeps me out the most about identical twins—and my views on this question have been coming into focus all day beneath a midwestern sky as inscrutably blue as the fake sky in the fake painting on the fake wall of a fake child's bedroom at Ikea—I'd probably end up going with The Sight of Them in Conversation. I'm sorry, but I just don't see what twins have to talk about. Unless centuries of folklore have led me seriously astray, each twin knows what the other is thinking and feeling without his having to open his mouth, so what's left to discuss? I'm forced to conclude that the conversation's being staged for my benefit, as cover for the deeper telepathic exchange. Perhaps they're comparing notes on their mutual body—knees are feeling pretty good today, don't you think?—a prospect that I don't think I'm alone in finding deeply creepy.
Earlier, at the Twinsburg Hilton (there really is one), the receptionist confessed that what creeps her out the most is twins' preference for matching clothing. That and the way they always . . . shh, here come some now. She clammed up and bent toward her computer, while I made a show of examining the paper wallet that housed my key card, as an idling minivan disgorged two fresh pairs ofidentical people, in identical clothing, who rolled up to the desk in a honeymoonish froth of giggles and demanded a pair of undoubtedly pretty similar rooms.
