It never ceases to amaze me how much my sister and I embody the term mirror twins. When we dress identically, even our parents have trouble telling us apart, but as far as career choices and taste in men goes, we are total opposites.

Maddie works for a realtor, so she puts on a conservative, mid-calf business skirt to go to the office; I'm a bartender, so I throw on a pair of jeans and a Mickey’s tee.

All day long, Maddie talks to money: brokers and escrow officers, men who dress up in a suit and tie to earn their livings: the kinds of men I like. At the bar, I meet a lot of tradesmen, men that work outdoors, with their hands. These are the types that Maddie likes. So, every now and then, Maddie and I put on the clothes and mannerisms that the other sister shows to the world, the persona that attracts just the kind of man that the other sister likes. I’m not saying that I never date men that work with their hands, and that Maddie never dates businessmen. There have been one or two of those. But the ones that we really like – it always seems that we wind up going out with them through the old switcheroo. It just seems that Maddie and I know at a glance which ones will appeal the most to our sister.

Sometimes, there's one that's just all-around, physically attractive, so we wait for a few dates to pull the scam. There was Mike, for example.

I have always preferred a long, thin, straight-haired blondie. I love to run my fingers through all those different shades of yellow, dark at the roots then brightening out to that tow-headed platinum glory at the ends. A blue-eyed blondie never fails to catch my attention, but the ones with green eyes – dark like emeralds, the eyes of a cat; or pale like the curious, deadly glance of a praying mantis – even a homely, green-eyed blonde will make me stop in my tracks and turn around for a second look.

And lean Mike certainly fit the bill. He was fine, even if he did sport two sleeves of way too colorful tattoos, even if he did play video games, even if he was between jobs when he sauntered into the bar and immediately gave me his best line. He wasn’t wearing a suit - he wasn't even remotely the type I usually like - but he was very cute, and I was in a mood. So that weekend, I broke all of Mom’s rules.

But I couldn’t stand the fact that he played those insufferable games if I left the room for a millisecond, so I tired of him quickly. The next time he walked into my bar, still out of work, but still as fine and sexy as a summer day, I told him that I had gotten a new phone number, and gave him Maddie’s digits.

I told Maddie that Mom’s rules were shot, and that Mike would be calling her for Round Two. Maddie giggled and agreed. He was a little thinner than she liked, and blonde, which was not her type – but still she enjoyed him for the weekend. He came into the bar a few times after that, but since Maddie and I were done with him, I made sure I was always busy, and eventually he gave up and moved on to greener pastures.

Then there was Neil, who was dark and clever and single, who'd waltzed into ReMax one Friday afternoon, looked at a few of their property listings, and then had just swept Maddie off her feet. She called me and said that she’d had a little too much to drink, and asked if I could hide out when she came home, because Neil was making her forget Mom’s rules, also.

“He’s a little too free with the info on how much money he makes,” she told me. “But I’m dying to see if he’s as confident and clever in the dark.”

Apparently he was, but Maddie just couldn’t get past his constant bragging about his well-padded finances. So after a sisterly midnight confab, when the two of them left to take the flyer to Catalina early Sunday morning, it wasn’t the two of them at all, but Neil and Maddie’s twin sister. It was a three-day weekend, and I was more than happy to take him off her hands and enjoy a little sun and shopping on Catalina, as well as whatever restaurant and hotel Neil had booked for himself and the secretary from his realtor’s office. And I was definitely happy to enjoy him.

Neither Mike nor Neil had a clue that there were two of us.

Maddie and I shared a few other men in the same manner, but mostly I just sent her the welders and ironworkers, and she sent me the project managers and accountants. No one was the wiser. None of them was the one, anyway, so what did it matter if we had a little harmless fun?