Almost Identical #1 (6 page)

“We sit over there under the pavilion,” Lauren told me as we wandered out to the yard after fourth period. “That's our table.”

I had run into Lauren after Spanish while I was trying to get my new locker open. She held my backpack while I fiddled with the combination, which was a big help because I am not a gifted locker opener, and it took both hands and all my concentration to get the stupid thing open. I was actually very surprised that Lauren mentioned lunch to me, since I thought she had only invited Charlie to join them at their table. I said sure, I'd sit with them, knowing that Charlie would be extremely happy to see me keeping my promise about being friendly. I wanted to meet up with Alicia, too, but I figured I'd find her somewhere.

The cafeteria at Beachside is indoors, but you have your choice of eating inside or outside. It smells like cafeteria food inside, so if the weather is good, which it almost always is, most kids choose to eat outside. The best tables are located under the pavilion, which is this green, metal tent-kind-of-thing that provides a shady area so you don't have to sit out in the hot sun to eat. It's also the area closest to the cafeteria, so kids can buy a hot lunch or pick up something from the quick-serve window and then just head outside to their table. Of course, the SF2 table was under the pavilion, right smack in the center. The best spot for seeing and being seen.

As I followed Lauren over to their table, I saw that the whole area was swarming with kids. Some were lined up in the cafeteria with trays, waiting to pay for their lunches. Most of the others were buying a sandwich or a yogurt at one of the two quick-serve windows. I noticed there weren't many kids with brown-bag lunches. Almost everyone at my old school brought their lunch, but it didn't seem to be the thing to do at Beachside. I made a mental note of that.

Uncool Thing Number One: Brown bags.

Uncool Thing Number Two: That lip gloss smudge I am just noticing over my right boob. How did I manage to get lip gloss there of all places? It looks like I kissed my own chest.

I tried to rub out the glossy, pink splotch over my boob without Lauren noticing. Needing a little privacy for this move, I purposely lagged a little behind her as we passed the tables farthest away from the pavilion. It was where the sixth graders sat. I had just been in sixth grade last year, but suddenly those kids looked so young to me. There they were, making a ton of noise, talking with food in their mouths, the boys and the girls sitting at separate tables. And suddenly, here I was, going to the best table at the school, where good-looking boys and pretty girls sat side by side and talked about music and movies and parties. I confess, I felt extremely cool—well, except for the mess going on over my right boob. That was definitely not cool.

When we reached the table, I sat down next to Lauren.

“Oh, that's so cute,” Lauren said, noticing the brown bag I placed on the table. “I used to bring my lunch when I was little. My mom would put applesauce in those little Tupperware thingies.”

I closed my eyes and prayed that I had no little Tupperware thingies in there. It was bad enough that I had the bag. I reached in and pulled out a turkey sandwich on wheat (in a plastic bag) and a nectarine.

Thank you, oh protector of the nerds, for saving me the embarrassment of random Tupperware thingies.

One by one, the SF2s gathered at the table. Ben, of plaid pants and glasses fame, arrived first. I learned from listening to his conversation with Lauren that his name was Ben Feldman, he was turning thirteen in November, and he was having his bar mitzvah party at Dodger Stadium.

“You're kidding,” I said to him. “You're taking over a whole baseball stadium?”

“I wish,” he said. “We're just renting the restaurant there called the Stadium Club. Still, it's a pretty cool place. You'll see.”

I will? Does that mean I'm invited? Oh wow, since when did I become a popular girl?

I was still racking my brains for the next thing to say to Ben when Jillian arrived, full of complaints and conversation. Complaints about how stupid it was to have to study different weather systems in science because, really, she was never leaving California where it was sunny all the time. And conversation about which reality show was her favorite:
Real Teens
,
Teen Beauty Secrets
, or
Teen Chefs
. (I'll spare you the details, but you probably won't be surprised to know that
Teen Beauty Secrets
won big-time.)

I was so relieved to see Charlie coming out of the main building and walking to our table. As much as I was flattered to sit at the SF2 table, I really wasn't comfortable with them and was dying for my sister to get there. She was walking between Jared and two other guys in long basketball shorts. Lauren whispered to me that they were the stars of the seventh-grade basketball team. In fact, Sean, the guy on the left with the buzzed, black hair, played three sports—soccer, basketball, and baseball—and was All-City in all three. I was extremely intimidated when he slid onto the bench next to me.

“Hey, your sister says you guys are awesome tennis players,” he said, unwrapping his sub and taking a giant bite almost before he had finished the sentence. “I'm starving.”

“We were ranked players last year,” I said. “We're still working on getting our Under-Fourteen ranking, but it's much harder than . . .”

I stopped talking midstream because I realized Sean wasn't listening. In fact, he had turned his back to me and was grabbing a bag of chips from Jared while fake-punching him in the stomach.

“Gimme some of those, punk. I love those barbecue ones. Crave 'em, man.”

I looked down and took a bite of my turkey sandwich like it was the thing I most wanted to do in the world. I was desperate to look like I didn't care at all that Sean had turned his back on me.

Between you and me and the turkey sandwich, that couldn't have been less true.

Charlie sat down across from me.

“Hey, Sammie. Did your morning go okay?”

“Fine. I couldn't understand anything my Spanish teacher said, but we got to pick Spanish names for ourselves, and I chose Guacamole.”

I thought Charlie would laugh because I myself thought it was hilarious to be called Guacamole. But she didn't laugh. I could see her eyeing my turkey sandwich and nectarine. She shook her head disapprovingly.

“Sammie Diamond, get rid of those,” she whispered, and nodded her head in the direction of the trash can.

“But I'm hungry.”

“Eat later. Nobody else here has a bag lunch. Do it now, Sammie, when no one is looking.”

She turned to Sean and Jared and distracted them with her A-plus smile as I slid out from the table and shuffled as inconspicuously as I could over to the trash can. I was just about to toss my lunch in when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, girl, I've been looking for you.” It was Alicia. She was standing next to the tall girl with the poofy hair and black boots. “Sammie, meet my friend Sara Berlin. Berlin. Bermudez. Get it? We sat next to each other all through grammar school.”

“Back in the good, old days of alphabetical seating,” Sara said. “We had this teacher named Mr. Oscar—remember him, Allie? We used to call him Oscar the Grouch. He looked like this.”

Sara crossed her eyes and puffed up her cheeks and pulled some of her poofy hair over her upper lip to look like a mustache.

“Children, shame on you!” she said in a gravelly, male-type voice. “You are acting like children again!”

Alicia cracked up, and I did, too. Even though I had never met Mr. Oscar, I knew exactly what he looked and sounded like.

“Charlie and I had this fourth-grade teacher named Mrs. Fish,” I said, when I had recovered from laughing. “And she looked just like one. No kidding.”

I sucked in my cheeks and made my famous fish face, which I had spent the whole fourth grade perfecting. I can even make a little bubble-blowing sound when I do it. Alicia and Sara burst into laughter.

Just then, Ryan walked up to us. “Hey, Sammie. I saw you doing your Mrs. Fish imitation. I haven't seen that in a long time. It's ace.”

He turned to Alicia and Sara. “Hello, girls. I don't know if you're aware of it, but Sammie here can do an amazing imitation of a baby. Show them, Sam-I-Am.”

“It's nothing,” I said. “No big deal.”

“No, we want to see,” Alicia said.

“Okay, but it's definitely silly.”

“Definitely silly is how we roll,” Sara said.

I held my nose and stuck my tongue out and squinched up my eyes so you could hardly see them and made this little baby wail. I don't know how I learned to do it, but what comes out of my mouth truly sounds like a baby. Once I was practicing it in the stall of a bathroom at school, and somebody called the principal because they thought someone had left a baby there.

“That's unbelievable,” Alicia said, holding her sides from laughing. “How'd you learn to do that?”

“I'll let you in on a little secret,” Ryan said. “She really
is
a baby. Don't tell anyone, but she still sucks her thumb at night.”

“I do not!” I protested, but it didn't matter, because Alicia and Sara didn't believe him, anyway. They were both laughing and giving Ryan flirty looks. It's amazing. He is a total girl magnet without even trying.

“You're both such naturals,” Sara said. “Really talented.” Then, turning to Alicia, she added, “We should get them to come to Truth Tellers.”

“Truth Tellers?” Ryan said. “Whoa, that sounds serious. What is it?”

“It's this kind of drama group that meets after school,” Alicia said. “Sara and I are in it, and a bunch of our other friends.”

“You do plays?” I asked.

“No, it's not that kind of drama. We do sketches and monologues and scenes about our lives. We try to tell the truth about things, ‘express our true selves,' as Ms. Carew says. She's our sponsor.”

I recognized her name from my schedule. “Oh, she's my English teacher. Can anyone join?”

“Anyone who's interested.”

“Well, that leaves me out,” Ryan said. “No offense, ladies, but it sounds way too weird for me. My true self doesn't have all that much to say.”

“What about you, Sammie?” Sara asked.

Before I could answer, I heard Lauren's voice next to me. I hadn't seen her approach, but apparently she had just come from the quick-service window because she was holding two peach yogurts.

“I got you some lunch,” she said to Ryan. “You coming to our table?”

“Sure,” Ryan said. “You didn't happen to get a cheeseburger or anything, did you? Not that yogurt doesn't look delish, but I'm what you call a meat eater.”

“Well, come on, meat eater,” she said, flashing him a strawberry-scented smile. “Someone at the table will have some caveman food. Let's go. You coming, Sammie?”

What I wanted to do was stay there with Alicia and Sara. It was so easy to be with them. We were having fun. I hadn't realized how much energy I was exerting to talk with all the kids at the SF2 table until I felt how easy and natural it was to be with these other girls. I didn't feel like they were judging me. We were just all being us.

“Come on, Sammie,” Lauren repeated as she and Ryan walked away.

All right, Sammie. Stand up for yourself. Tell her you're not going to the SF2 table. Tell her those kids make your armpits sweat.

“Hey, Lauren,” I called out. “I think I'm going to—”

Lauren turned around, interrupting me. “Sammie. Everybody's waiting.”

I stood there for a second, and then I made a decision. Actually, it wasn't even a decision; it was more of a reflex, the kind of thing you do before you even have a chance to think about it.

I went. I don't know why, but I did.

I said a quick good-bye to Alicia and Sara and followed Lauren to the table. When I got there, I sat down next to Ryan, who promptly announced that I would do my baby imitation in exchange for somebody giving him something with meat in it. Jared gave him half of his second meatball sub and I was on.

“Do it, Sammie,” Ryan urged. “You guys, this is going to blow you away. Watch this.”

I held my nose, stuck out my tongue, squinched up my eyes, and let out one of the funnier baby wails I have ever done.

But you know what?

No one laughed.

“Now that you've had a week to adjust to the new school year, we are happy to announce that after-school activities will begin today,” Principal Pfeiffer said over the loudspeaker. “The Chess Club meets in Room Fourteen with Mrs. Zajak, the Film Club in the auditorium with Mr. Walsh, the debate team in Bungalow Three with Mr. Boring, and Truth Tellers in the Patio Room with Ms. Carew. Los Amigos meet in Room Six with Senor Zaragoza, and Study Hall is open in the library until four thirty.”

I was sitting in homeroom, trying to finish a Spanish worksheet that I hadn't completed over the weekend. Since Charlie and I were playing in another tournament the next weekend, Dad had us practicing nonstop, which meant we had to leave all our homework until Sunday night. Wouldn't you know it, that was the night GoGo had asked Charlie and me out for sushi. Charlie said no because Lauren was calling to review the science project they were working on together. I said my homework was all done, which it wasn't, and went with GoGo to her favorite sushi restaurant where you can sit at the counter and watch the sushi chefs carve cucumbers into fans and carrots into flowers.

While we were waiting for our sushi combo to be delivered, I told GoGo all about school: about the SF2s, about our lunch table, about Alicia and Sara and the Truth Tellers group they belonged to. I had been thinking about that club all week. It seemed so different from anything I had ever done, yet somehow it really interested me.

“That sounds like something I did in college,” GoGo said. “It's called improvisation, and it's kind of drama, but you make things up as you go along. We did exercises that taught us to express ourselves. I found it to be excellent preparation for my career.”

“But, GoGo, you design jewelry. I don't see how making stuff up in front of an audience helps you make silver earrings and bracelets.”

“Anything you do that frees the mind and heightens your creativity is good for you, Sammie.”

“But the kids in this group, they're kind of weird. I mean, I like Alicia a lot, but some of her friends are—”

“Let me stop you right there, my darling granddaughter. If there's one thing I can teach you, it's to have an open mind. Some of the most interesting people I've met might be considered weird, but when I got to know them, I found them fascinating.”

“Was Grandpa weird?”

“No.” She sighed. “Maybe that's why we divorced.”

After that, the sushi came, and while we ate I tried to explain to her how Charlie and I had become friends with the SF2s and how they'd all think it was geeky if I joined Truth Tellers. She said exactly what I knew she'd say.

“Follow your heart, my darling. That's the only sure road to happiness I know.”

Not so easy when you have a sister who's obsessed with becoming friends with Lauren Wadsworth.

“Is that what you taught Mom, GoGo? To follow her heart?”

“It is. And finally she got the courage to go to culinary school and follow her dream of opening a restaurant.”

“I miss her.”

“Of course you do,” GoGo said, giving my hand a squeeze. “But when she returns, she'll be complete. She'll have her beautiful family and work she loves. Who could ask for more?”

But back to homeroom. As Principal Pfeiffer read the list of after-school activities, I found myself writing down
Truth Tellers, Patio Room
. Just in case. Lauren, who was sitting at the desk next to mine, saw me do it and shook her head.

“Don't even think about it,” she whispered. “It's not for us. Besides, we're going to the Third Street Promenade after school. I got a gift card to Starbucks for my birthday, so the Frappuccinos are on me!”

It was amazing how quickly Charlie and I were becoming accepted by the kids from the Sporty Forty. Over the weekend, Lauren and Brooke had come to the club with their parents and stopped by the courts to watch us practice. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that Ryan was hitting with us. Every time he made a good shot, he'd toss his racket up in the air and catch it by the handle, and Lauren would jump up and down like a cheerleader. She had a supermassive crush on him. Jared and Sean came to the beach with us to do some boogie boarding, and afterward, we all sat around and had chips and dip.

Oh, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, I had veggies and dip. No chips for Miss One Two Six and a Half.

“I think it's great that you girls are making such nice friends,” Dad had said at dinner that night. “It makes me think we did the right thing by moving to the club.”

Charlie smiled happily. “I love it here. And I love Beachside. I didn't know school could be so fun.”

There was a silence and Dad looked over at me.

“You feel the same way, Sammie?”

I hesitated. Then I glanced over at Charlie. She was waiting for my answer.

“Sure,” I said. “What's not to like?”

Both Charlie and my dad seemed happy with that answer. “I think living at the Sporty Forty is good for your game, too,” he went on. “Lots of court time. I'm predicting good things for the tournament this weekend. That is, if a certain someone can keep her focus.”

I didn't answer or look up, just concentrated on not taking a second portion of mashed potatoes.

Later that night as we crawled into our beds and switched off the lights, Charlie turned to me with a big smile.

“I'm really feeling like a teenager now,” she said. “It's so awesome, isn't it? At Culver, I felt like a little kid. We never talked to boys unless we were playing tennis with them. And I didn't even know what a Starbucks was.”

And then, just the very next day, we would be going with Lauren, Brooke, Jillian, and Lily for Frappuccinos at Starbucks. Charlie was right. Things had changed fast; so fast I hardly knew where I was
.

The only class I shared with Charlie was fifth period English. Lauren and Lily were in class with us, too, so after lunch at “our table,” the four of us always walked over to Ms. Carew's classroom together. It was called the Patio Room because it had sliding, glass doors that opened onto a little, red-tiled outside area.

“I found the greatest dress over the weekend,” Lily said as we walked. “I got it at the Salvation Army store for only three dollars.”

“Ewww,” Lauren said. “I can't believe you bought an ABW dress.”

“Who's ABW?” Charlie asked cautiously. “A hot designer I haven't heard of yet?”

Yet? Like you know a whole lot about hot designers? We are the girls who wear tennis skorts, remember?

“ABW stands for Already Been Worn.” Lauren frowned as she said the words. “None of us can believe that Lily doesn't mind wearing other people's toss-outs.”

“I prefer to call them vintage clothes,” Lily explained. “If you add a cool belt or some cowboy boots or interesting jewelry, you get your own look. Not like the Gap stuff that everyone else is wearing.”

“I think that's great,” I said.

“Well, I think it's unsanitary,” Lauren snapped back.

Before Lily could answer, we had reached the Patio Room.

Our English teacher, Ms. Carew, had become my favorite teacher over the course of the first week, not that Mr. Boring with his daily reading of school rules gave her much competition. She was young and pretty, with close-cropped black hair and big, colorful earrings that were made in Africa. She had been to Africa over the summer to try to find her ancestors there, but she said she had better luck finding earrings.

“Hello, girls.” Ms. Carew greeted us with a warm smile as we walked into class.

“Great earrings,” Lily said as she passed by. Today Ms. Carew was wearing long, dangling, yellow-and-black, beaded ones.

“Right back at you,” Ms. Carew said, noticing the hoop earrings Lily was wearing that looked like a snake coiled up into a circle.

“They're ABW earrings,” Lauren remarked.

“The best kind,” Ms. Carew answered.

Every day, Ms. Carew wrote a thought for the day on the board. I liked reading them. As we took our seats, she went to the board and wrote
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it
. I liked that quote and wrote it down on the inside cover of my notebook.

“Our thought for the day is from the American poet Maya Angelou,” Ms. Carew said after the bell rang. “And we're going to use this quote as the basis for our writing assignment.”

“Ick,” Charlie whispered to me. She hated writing assignments. Unlike me, she loved subjects like math, where your grade was based on how many answers you got right or wrong. When we did our homework together, I always helped her with her writing, and she helped me with my math. Like our dad always says, we're two halves of a circle.

“I have an interesting assignment for you today,” Ms. Carew was saying as she walked up and down the aisles, handing out a sheet of pale-green paper. “On one side of this paper, I want you to write one thing you like about yourself. On the flip side, write one thing you don't like about yourself. Write something that you feel comfortable sharing with your classmates.”

“What's this have to do with English?” Sean called out.

“English involves learning to be writers,” Ms. Carew said. “You can't be a writer unless you understand yourself first.”

“Is this graded?” the General wanted to know.

“No, Dwayne. This is an exercise in understanding, not in judging.”

“His name is Dwayne!” I whispered to Charlie.

“No wonder he calls himself the General,” she whispered back, and we cracked up.

Ms. Carew turned out the fluorescent lights and asked us to reach inside of ourselves and tell the truth. I had never had an assignment like that. Mr. Yamazaki, my last English teacher, was always too worked up about proper punctuation to care about what we were actually writing. As long as it had the commas in the right place, he was happy. Give the guy a semicolon, and he was over the moon. So I had to really think hard about what I wanted to say. It was easy to think of what I like least about myself, which I believe we all know is my weight. What I like best about myself was much harder to think of.

After a few minutes, Ms. Carew turned on the lights and had us go out onto the little patio that adjoined her room. My old school certainly didn't have any patios where students could meet outside, but Beachside was a beautiful campus with all sorts of tucked-away green spaces. We sat down in a circle on the red tiles and read what we had written. Ms. Carew said no one was allowed to comment. She told us to just listen, and listen with our hearts.

When she said that, one of the boys made a farting sound with his mouth, and a couple of his buddies laughed, including the General and Jared and Sean. Ms. Carew frowned at them and told them there would be none of that in her class. She said we were there to be true friends and writing partners, and no one was to make fun of anyone else.

She called on Charlie to go first. I was so grateful that she didn't pick me.

Charlie said the thing she liked most about herself was her tennis stroke—forehand, of course, because her backhand was inconsistent. It sounded like my dad had invaded her brain like some alien creature in a sci-fi movie! Then she turned into the real Charlie, saying what she liked least were her toes, because her third toe was longer than her second toe and she felt toes should go in descending order. She looked over at me for approval, and I gave her our secret love sign, three taps on the chest right over your heart.

The redheaded guy with the drumsticks in his pocket (whose name, I learned, was Bernard) said he liked his rhythm best. And the thing he liked least—well, it was a tie between his cheeks and his freckles, so he was going with both. Lily said the thing she liked best was her knack for doing creative things with belts. And the thing she liked least was that she bites her nails when she is nervous. Alicia's friend Sara, who wasn't wearing her boots but was wearing some equally strange sandals decorated with seashells, said what she liked best was her hair. That was amazing to me, since her hair looked like someone had whipped it up with an egg beater. And what she liked least was that she gets impatient with her little brother, who has autism. Wow, that was a brave thing to say. A guy named Devon said what he liked best was his swagger. And the thing he liked least was that, deep down, he actually liked Lady Gaga's music.

It was an amazing experience. Everyone was really trying to be honest and deep. Well, everyone but Lauren Wadsworth, that is. She said the thing she liked best about herself was the way her hair looked just after she washed it. And the thing she liked least was that she could never decide which tank top to wear under which shirt. And, of course, there was Sean, who said the thing he liked best was his collection of All-City trophies, and the thing he liked least was nothing.