At the coffee shop where the friends discussed to perform "Jesus Christ Superstar," Alison Hendrix and Sarah Stubbs had a nice discussion about life, but mainly about Alison's change in hair styles.
"I know I said this ages ago, but I love your new look, Allie!" Alison gave a cute grin; her fangs replacing her bangs. "I must confess - I'm glad you cut it, since you have a tendency to...hit folks. You'd turn around sharply, and boom! The ponytail would smack us in the face." Alison almost choked on her drink, as she heard. She giggled, then apologized.
"Sarah, listen. I...invited you to not just talk about what's happening in the theater, but to tell you something important." Sarah heard the seriousness in her friend's voice. She was getting ready for the worst.
"Oh no - you're sick."
"No! No, no, no...I'm not sick. Far from it."
"Donnie? Your kids?"
"No one in the family is sick," she assured her friend, and held her hand. "This last year or so has been interesting, to say the very least. I have some...additions to my family. It's because of the additions, and the actions therein, that made me get a change in my look."
This puzzled Sarah. "Additions? What? You got a dog or something?"
"No. I...God, this is so tough to say."
Sarah beamed. "Okay. Remember the theater training - use the diaphragm. The breathing. If you have to, sing out what you have to say." Alison closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She held it in for five seconds, then opened her eyes. "Okay. I try not to make a big deal of it, but you know my mother went through in-vitro fertilization to have me, right?" Sarah nodded. "Well, I was contacted by someone who is like me." She tittered knowingly at her own words. "She was a birth via IVF, and it turns out we came from the same person."
Her friend gasped. "Oh! So...you have a sister?"
"To say the least."
"What's her name?"
"Yeah...that's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's one thing to tell you, but you need to see this. I wasn't ready to show, but I think I am now. She's at the house. Follow me; you know where I live."
Alison got in her car, nervously. Sarah was confused.
Alison was psyching herself up, about to show her best friend what was going to be a mind-blowing event. "Holy doodle! What am I doing?! What am I doing?! Sarah is going to be fine. She can understand that I'm a - mercy - a clone. I doubt she'll call the cops. If she does, Art can take care of this. But she'll be cool. She's cool." She looked in the side mirror, to see her friend was still behind her. "She's gonna be cool. Please let this work out."
They arrived at Bailey Downs, and the two lock their respective vehicles. Sarah noticed another vehicle was in the driveway, one wasn't familiar with. It looked like an old truck. Alison unlocked her front door, and took a deep breath. "Right, so...I'll just let you know what's going on. There were other ladies in 1983 who had an IVF treatment, and some of them - well, a lot of them - came from the same source. And they went...global." She opened the door to the back yard, and yelled at the garage "Sarah? I need to see you."
Sarah Stubbs was confused. "What do you mean? I'm right here."
"Oh. You'll see."
A very cool, confident version of Alison walked into the house, wearing a "Clash" t-shirt.
"What's up?" Sarah heard Alison's lookalike use an English accent. "Sarah? I think I can remember that name. I'm Sarah Manning." She grinned at Stubbs, and the same grin that Alison had, with the cute fangs, was there.
"Sarah, do you think you can bring in...you know..."
"Oh. Do you think your friend is ready for that?"
"We've gone this far, so we may as well."
"Alright. We'll be back in a moment." Sarah left for the garage. Meanwhile, Sarah Stubbs was a bit stunned.
"Are you okay? Do you need to lie down?"
"I'm...I'm fine. I know you said that you had a sister, but I didn't expect the resemblance to be that good. And she's English! Wow. Can you imitate her?" Alison nodded, and proceeded to imitate Sarah Manning.
Alison then said "Okay, get ready. This is Sarah's twin sister, Helena." Sarah Stubbs was shocked to discover a third woman who looked like Alison but with bleached blonde curly hair. "Pleasure to meet you. You have the same name as my twin sestra."
Stubbs went "Wait...huh? Twins? You don't look or sound alike."
"Oh," said Manning, "we were both born in England, but she was taken to a Ukrainian convent. That's how she also got her bleached look."
Alison chimed in. "There's another part of our little group - her name is Cosima. You've met her before. Remember when I was running against Marci Coates? Well, during the speech before the election, she had to fill in for me. The majority of the speech was done by her." Helena noticed that Stubbs looked overwhelmed. "Would you like water, or lemonade?"
"Water, please," said Stubbs. After she drank, she looked at Alison, who had a silly, sheepish grin on her face.
"You've had this secret from me this whole time?"
"Yes. Circumstances have happened, so now it's...safe to tell you. You're my best friend, so I had to tell you. I wanted to get this off my chest. Are we cool?" Stubbs nodded, and gave a smile. "Yeah. It's a lot, but...I'm cool."
"I know Cosima would say this, but she's trekking around the world now - long story - so I'll say it in her place: Sarah Stubbs, welcome to Clone Club." She hugged her friend, unaware that behind her back, Sarah Manning gave the thumbs up sign, and Helena gave a twisted grin. Sarah Stubbs hugged Alison back, then sat down to get to know Alison's "sisters" a little better.
