Almost Identical #1 (9 page)

“Uh . . . Justin Bieber called and is coming here for dinner.”

“Better!” She laughed.

“Okay. Justin Bieber is coming for dinner and he's bringing Zac Efron.”

“Even better than that!”

“I give up, Charlie. There's nothing better than that.”

“Oh, yes there is. Lauren called. And we're both invited to a makeover party at her house this Friday night!”

She grabbed my hands, squealed like a wild boar I saw once on the Discovery Channel, and twirled me around again.

“Tell me, Sam, if that isn't the coolest thing ever?”

She was so happy that there was no way I was going to tell her that I would have
much
preferred Justin Bieber stopping in for dinner.

“Girls, your mom wants to say hi,” Dad said, sticking his head in our room. “Who wants to go first?”

“Sammie, let me tell her the news, okay?” Charlie said. She grabbed the phone and bolted into the hall, chattering so fast, even I could only barely understand what she was saying. I turned and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. OMG! Why hadn't anyone told me? My T-shirt was covered with liquidy blobs of mushed-up tamale. It looked like Ramon had wiped his face on me.
Nice work, Ramon.

I burst out laughing.

Well, maybe the party invitation was a really good thing. I could certainly use a makeover, that was for sure.

“Come on, Sammie. We're late. I promised Lauren we'd pick up the pizza before everyone gets there.”

It was Friday evening, and I was rushing around, looking for a little bag of makeup that GoGo had given me. It was a purse-size, patent-leather bag she got for free from the makeup counter at Macy's, and it had samples of different colored lip glosses and eye shadows in it. She had given one to Charlie, too, but Charlie had already opened hers since she decided to start wearing makeup to school. I'd rather sleep the extra ten minutes in the morning than have to get up early to put on makeup, which just comes off in PE, anyway.

We were heading over to Lauren Wadsworth's house for the makeover party. All week, she had been telling Charlie how it was the SF2 girls' favorite party. Everyone started with a mani-pedi, and then each girl would give a makeover to another girl. Everyone brought all different kinds of makeup and hair accessories so they could experiment with new stuff. At the end of the evening, everyone went to get frozen yogurt looking totally glammed out.

Alicia and I had talked on the phone every night during the week and had been spending some time together in school, too. One day at lunch, I even left the SF2 table and ate with her. Her grandmother had sent a Tupperware container with two tamales in it and told Alicia one of them was for me. That afternoon, I asked Charlie to ask Lauren if I could bring Alicia to the makeover party. I thought if we all could hang out together, they'd see how great Alicia was and she'd get to see their good sides, too. But Lauren told Charlie I couldn't bring her, because there were already six of us, and her mom was paying for us to get mani-pedis and one more person would be too expensive. That made sense.

As I searched every drawer in my dresser, I could hear my dad honking the horn outside. He was driving us to Lauren's and picking us up at ten sharp to make sure we got to bed on time. Charlie and I were playing in another big qualifying tournament at the Sand and Surf Tennis Club that Sunday, and he wanted us to practice all day Saturday and be well rested for the tournament.

“You can't have a winning mind-set if you're tired,” he reminded us.

Thank you, Dad. Oh, and by the way, what exactly
is
a winning mind-set? Is it anything like a Vulcan mind meld? I saw one of those on TV once.

My dad gave another impatient blast on the horn, and I decided I had to give up looking for GoGo's sample makeup bag. Just as I grabbed my purse and headed out, I found it. Guess where? No, you'll never guess. It was in Ryan's hand, which was behind his back. He was lurking in the corner of my room and had been there the whole time I was frantically searching.

“Looking for something?” He smirked.

“Ryan, you turkey leg! You had it all along, didn't you?”

“Come and get it,” he said, holding the bag high above his head. “Let's see if Sammie can jump.”

The truth is, I can jump, and I did. I ran up to him, sprang probably a foot in the air, and snatched the bag from his idiot hand.

“Whoa, you should give up tennis and go out for volleyball,” he said. “Nice elevation.”

“See you later, Ryan.”

“Yes, you actually will. Lauren asked if I wanted to meet all you glamour-pusses for yogurt after the makeup bash. I'm bringing two friends. They're dying to meet the gorgeous Brooke.”

“Forget it. She's dating the General.”

“Maybe you didn't hear me, Sam-I-Am. I am bringing two
eighth
-graders. They're practically grown-ups.”

“Oh, like you? Half the time you act like you're in kindergarten.”

“So not true,” he answered, sticking his tongue out and wrinkling his nose at me.

Yeah, I rest my case.

The honking horn reminded me there wasn't time to continue this conversation, so I shut up and hurried out to the car where Charlie was fuming. She had started to go nuts if we were ever late for anything with Lauren. It was like she was afraid that if she kept Lauren waiting, Lauren would change her mind and disinvite her. We were new to the SF2 group, and it wasn't like we were so “in” that we couldn't suddenly be “out.”

We stopped at Barone's and picked up the two vegetarian pizzas we had ordered. Well, actually, we had asked Dad to order sausage and mushroom, but he said a certain someone didn't need to be eating fatty sausages. Duh, I wonder who he meant. The vegetarian pizzas were okay with Charlie, though, because she said the other girls would probably prefer vegetarian. Everybody was watching their weight.

So I assume those buttery, garlic rolls are out of the question? I'm sorry. Forget I even thought about the word
buttery
. Or
roll
.

You would not believe Lauren's house. It was at the top of a canyon a few blocks from the beach, with a view out over the Pacific Ocean all the way to Catalina Island. There was a circular driveway in front, with three very shiny, black cars parked in it—one SUV, one convertible, and one fancy sedan with blacked-out windows. In the middle of the driveway was a fountain, which had a stone cherub boy peeing up into the air and big goldfish swimming around in the pond below. Call me crazy, but if I had a stone fountain in front of my fancy house, I would have something different in the middle, like an angel or a bunch of lilies, or maybe even dancing ladies. I mean, who wants to look at a boy peeing every time you come home? I think we can all agree that's not the first thing you want to see.

Charlie and I rang the doorbell, and the most adorable little girl opened the door. She had curly, blond hair and big eyes that were so dark blue, they almost looked purple. She must have been three or four years old. At first she was smiling, but when she looked us up and down, she burst into tears.

“There's two of them!” she screamed, crying at the top of her little lungs. “Mommy, help! They're scary!”

Within a second, Lauren's mother appeared at the door. I recognized her from the club: She was tan and slender and always wore pearls. The little girl clutched her mommy's leg and hid her face so she couldn't see us.

“It's okay, Amanda,” Mrs. Wadsworth said, picking her up. “They're twins. That's why they look so much alike.” She took Amanda's hand and reached it out so that she touched our faces. “See, honey? It's two different girls who just look very, very much alike.”

“I hate them,” Amanda whined, jerking her hand back from our faces like she was touching a poisonous rattlesnake.

Mrs. Wadsworth shrugged, then smiled at us.

“She's never seen identical twins before,” she whispered. “It'll take her a little time to get used to the idea. Then she'll be fine.”

All the other girls had gathered in the entryway and were watching this humiliating scene unfold. There we were, Charlie and I, standing with two leaky, grease-stained pizza boxes, our dad's beat-up Toyota rumbling in the driveway, while the little stone boy shot pee five feet up into the air and the little beautiful girl sobbed at the very sight of us. Let me put it like this: It wasn't the best way to kick off the evening.

“Don't mind Amanda,” Lauren said, showing us into the house. “She cries at everything scary.”

Wow, I didn't know we were scary. We should charge admission. Step right up, folks, and for only two dollars, you can get a glimpse of those terrifying Diamond twins.

The inside of the house was huge, with pink marble floors and a crystal chandelier and large paintings of green and orange triangles on the walls. Not to be rude, but it looked like the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which I've visited several times with GoGo. I was half expecting to see a uniformed guard strolling around, telling us not to touch the furniture.

We went into the kitchen where, to my total shock, I ran into Esperanza, Alicia's mother. At first, I was thrilled. I thought maybe Lauren had changed her mind and Alicia was coming to the party and Esperanza was just dropping her off. But then I realized that Esperanza was working.

“Esperanza works for you?” I whispered to Lauren.

“Just on Fridays when the regular housekeeper is off,” she said.

Esperanza took the pizza boxes from my hands, set them on the table, and then got busy putting out plastic plates and paper napkins.

“Thank you, Esperanza,” Mrs. Wadsworth said. “Just finish loading the dishwasher, and I'll have Mr. Wadsworth drive you to the bus stop, unless Candido is coming to pick you up.”

I was so uncomfortable, I wanted to shrivel up and melt away. The last thing I wanted was to have Alicia's mother
waiting
on me.

“Hi, Esperanza,” I said to her as the other girls grabbed slices of pizza and headed over to the stairs. “It's so nice to see you.”

That was lame. It's nice to see you cleaning up the kitchen after me? What am I saying?

“My Alicia, she likes you, Sammie,” Esperanza answered. And then she whispered, “Not so much these other girls.”

“Sammie, grab a slice so we can get started,” Lauren called out. “We're doing our makeovers in my mom's bathroom because it's loaded with mirrors.”

I turned to Esperanza. “Could you do me a big favor?” I asked her. “Don't tell Alicia you saw me here. I don't want her to feel bad.”

Then, without waiting for her answer, I turned and ran toward the stairs.

“I thought we were going to do the mani-pedis first,” I said.

“We are. We're doing them upstairs, too.”

“But I thought your mom was paying for someone to come and do them here. Like a professional person.”

“Where'd you get that idea?” Lauren asked.

While everyone headed up the stairs, I wedged my way over to Charlie. She didn't look up, just stared down at her paper plate like she'd never seen a slice of pizza before.

“You made up that whole mani-pedi thing, didn't you, Charlie? So you wouldn't have to invite Alicia?”

“I'm sorry, Sammie,” she whispered back. “I didn't have the nerve to ask Lauren. I will next time, I promise.”

I was so angry; I could feel my whole neck and face turn hot and red. She had lied to me. And for what? So she didn't have to feel embarrassed about asking if Alicia could come? She could have just told me, and then I would have asked Lauren myself.

Or would I have? Maybe I would have chickened out, too. Besides, what if Alicia had come and then had to watch her mother setting the table for us and loading the dishwasher? That would have been horrible. This was all so confusing. Maybe Charlie had done the right thing after all.

Lauren's mom's bathroom was the size of our bedroom. I'm not kidding. Two people could sleep in there—not that anybody really wants to sleep in a bathroom, but you get the picture. There were mirrors on all four walls and a shower that had six jets coming out of the sides, plus a huge, round showerhead above. If you took a shower in there, you didn't even have to scrub—you could just stand there like a car going through a car wash.

We sat down on the floor, and everyone put the makeup they had brought in the middle of our circle. Jillian brought the most stuff: rhinestone bobby pins, about twelve pots of lip gloss in all different colors and flavors, a bunch of different shades of purple nail polish, makeup brushes in every size, and tons of long, dangly earrings with different sparkling stones. She said she had seen on
Teen Beauty Secrets
that dangly things were in this season. The stuff Lily brought was great and so creative: necklaces with colored beads that she had collected in thrift stores, scarves to tie up our hair that she had made from old dresses she had outgrown, and black eyeliner for creating what she called a “Goth evening look.” Brooke's mother gave her all of her old blushes, and she had an entire shoe box full of them.

“My mom's really pale.” Brooke laughed as she dumped about thirty blushes onto the floor.

Lauren's mother supplied the rest: headbands, eye shadows by the handful, eyebrow pencils, bronzers, lip liners, little bottles of lotions that smelled like peaches and roses and lavender, and body powder that sparkled gold when you puffed it on.

“Let's hold hands in a circle for a minute,” Jillian said, “and say how grateful we are to have all this makeup to put on.”

“That is so corny,” Brooke said.

“No, it's not,” Jillian answered. “I saw them do it on
Real Teen Makeovers
. It made me cry. I loved, loved, loved the circle.”

“I think it's a nice idea,” I said. “I've been in something called an acceptance circle. Everyone in the circle agrees to accept one another just the way they are. It's extremely cool.”

“And extremely weird,” Lauren said.

I looked over at Charlie and knew she wanted me to drop the subject. So I did. I didn't really want to discuss the acceptance circle with these girls, anyway.