The Third Twin (6 page)

“Come on. We have to go,” Zane says, trying to pull me up. “The bell rang.”

“I’m staying here,” I say, pulling my knees up to my chest.

He looks around as everyone slowly walks away from the grassy area and into the two-story brick buildings. All of them still have their futures wide open. They’ll get emails from colleges in the next couple of weeks and celebrate by running down the hallway banging on lockers and shouting with excitement. I have nothing.

“We’re going to be late,” Zane says, and I hear the panic rising in his voice. He has no idea what to do next. “You hate being late.”

I manage a small shake of my head. “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “None of it matters anymore.”

A silky sequined shirt flies through the air and hits me in the face. I peel it off and toss it with the others next to me on Ava’s bed. I don’t even know why I’m in here right now, except that being alone gives me too much time to think about what happened. How I’ve failed. How everyone is going on with their lives. Everyone except me. Every time I look at my phone, it’s like that email is pulsing inside it, mocking me, but I can’t bring myself to delete it. Maybe I need the reminder, to read it over and over again, the words like a bad tooth that you just can’t keep your tongue from exploring, despite the sharp, stabbing pain.

“What do you think of that one?” Ava’s voice is muffled from inside her closet.

Maya picks it up and holds it up to the light. “I like it. What with?”

More clothes fly out into the room. “I’m trying to find that black skirt I wore to the party downtown,” she says before emerging with a crumpled black object in her hand. “Got it.”

Maya looks skeptical. “The two of them together is going to look like you’re trying too hard. It’s just a party. You’re not going to the opera or anything.”

Considering her options, Ava stops and looks at the debris that lies all over her room. “Maybe. How about with those black jeans and fuchsia heels?”

“Better,” Maya agrees.

Ava slips into the new clothes and, ignoring the mirror Dad installed behind her door, models her reflection in the full-length window that faces the back fence, because she says the window gives her a better “feel” for her outfits. Once she has examined it from every angle, she turns to me. “What do you think?”

It feels like I’ve been watching all of this on TV, like I’m not really in the room. I’m a little surprised that one of the characters is addressing me directly. “Whatever.”

“Come on,” she insists, turning to admire the bright pink top. “It’s for that party on Friday.”

I blink slowly, feeling Ava come into sharper focus. “It’s only Wednesday.”

“Exactly,” she says. “So, what do you think?”

I try to put my level of not caring into words, but I can’t seem to form that as a linear thought. “It’s fine.”

“You’re not still grinding on that Stanford thing, are you?”

I feel a flash of frustration pushing up through the nothingness. “Yes, I’m still
grinding
on it. My entire life is over. I’m sorry if that’s a problem for you.”

Maya leans over and gives me a quick hug. “It’s not over,” she says. “You can always apply again.”

“No. I can’t.” I knew they wouldn’t understand. “Once you get rejected by Stanford, that’s it. No second chances.”

“There’s always Cal or UCSB or one of those other schools,” Ava adds. “I’m sure you’ll get into one of those.”

I feel the tears push up through the backs of my eyes. “Not the same.” All I can think about is the conversation I’m going to have to have with Dad. How disappointed he’s going to be after all the work we’ve put in. How I’m a total failure. The one thing we always talked about was me following in his footsteps at Stanford and then getting my MBA. And now that’s all gone to hell.

“You’re being overly dramatic.” Ava kicks off her jeans and shimmies into the short black skirt. “There are plenty of other schools that would take you in a second.” She turns and admires her ass in the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling window. We’re basically the same height and weight, but somehow clothes look different on Ava, if that makes any sense. The same black skirt that hugs her curves makes me look Amish.

I lie down on her bed and grab her pillow. “A UC school,” I repeat. So not the same. Dad’s going to freak out.

Cecilia opens the door a crack. “Dinner, ladies.”

“I don’t want anything,” I say, burying my face in the pillow. Everything is starting to feel totally overwhelming—Casey’s death and now the Stanford email.

I feel the bed shift as Cecilia sits down. “Are you sick?” She brushes the hair off my forehead and feels for a fever.

“No,” I say without turning my head. I’m afraid that if I look at her, I’ll tell her everything, and I don’t want to talk about this right now.

“A boy?” she asks.

“No.” I push myself into a sitting position and glance at her. Cecilia’s wearing a concerned look on her face that rightfully belongs to Dad, and I wonder if he handed that expression over to her like a set of house keys the day she came. “It’s nothing. I’m just not hungry.”

“It’s chicken curry,” she says in a singsong voice. “The kind you like with the carrots and mushy potatoes.”

I feel my stomach rumble at the thought and wonder if she hears it too.

“You can eat with us,” she says to Maya.

“Thanks,” Maya says, already texting her mom. Nobody passes up an invitation to eat anything that Cecilia makes.

Cecilia turns to go, but stops and takes something out of her apron pocket. “I forgot—this came in the mail today.” She glances at the front of the envelope and frowns. “It’s addressed to Alicia Rios.” Cecilia looks from Ava to me. “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you? You girls promised.”

I glance at Ava, but I know she won’t tell. Maya I’m a little less sure of, but Ava gives her a look that would make anybody keep their mouth shut.

“Alicia?” I say, hoping that I sound at least a little bit innocent. “No.”

“You know that we haven’t done Alicia for years.” Ava reaches out and takes the envelope from Cecilia’s hand. “What the …” she says, ripping it open and pulling out the paper inside. “It’s a speeding ticket from a couple of weeks ago. But it was in a Honda.” She flips the paper over.

I get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s got to be a joke—someone who knows about Alicia. “Where was it?”

“On Rancho Santa Fe Road,” she says. “Going fifty in a forty.” She looks up at me. “It’s not even that fast.”

Cecilia’s looking at her, waiting for an explanation.

“This isn’t either one of us,” Ava says, waving the ticket at her. “Someone’s screwing around. I don’t even know anyone who drives a Honda.”

“Let me see it,” I say, taking the paper from her. It looks real enough. “We just have to tell them that it wasn’t us. This Alicia Rios must have given the wrong information, and the ticket came to our house by accident.”

“Identity theft is everywhere these days,” Maya says.

Cecilia shakes her head. I can tell she’s suspicious. “You’d better give that to your father to deal with when he gets home. You know he’s not going to be happy if Alicia’s back.”

“She’s not,” Ava says, sounding so indignant that even I almost believe her. She catches Cecilia’s stare. “I’ll give it to him, I swear.”

“Ten minutes until dinner,” Cecilia says, glancing around the room at the piles of discarded clothes. “And do something with this mess.”

“Okay, Ceyaya,” Ava agrees, and leans over to give her a
kiss on the cheek. Ava started calling her that when we were little and she couldn’t pronounce “Cecilia.” I think Cecilia secretly likes it. “What do you think of this skirt?” She twirls, showing flashes of her red lace underwear.

Instead of answering, Cecilia just crosses herself and backs out of the doorway with a sigh.

As soon as the door closes, I turn on Ava. “How do you explain that? Somebody knows about Alicia. What if this has something to do with Casey?”

“God, relax,” Ava says. Her face shows no emotion at all. “It’s not like the name Alicia Rios isn’t all that common. I bet if you Googled it, there would be thousands of Alicia Rioses running around. Maya’s right—you hear about cases of identity theft all the time. We should have picked something more exotic, like Amber or Amaryllis.”

“We were kids,” I say. “Not like we were thinking something like this was going to happen.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Ava insists. “Don’t be so dramatic. Maybe the cops looked up that name and put the address from the fake ID in the system instead of this girl’s real address.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “It’s a fake ID. How would they even have our address?”

“I don’t know,” Ava says. “They’ve got everything on their little cop computers.”

I shake my head. Sometimes Ava confuses even me. “So, what are we going to do about it? You know the minute Dad suspects something, he’s going to start sniffing around.”

Ava puts her hands on her hips. “We aren’t going to do anything about it. It was a mistake. We’re going to forget about it. He’ll never find out.”

“I thought your dad was home,” Maya says from her perch on Ava’s bed. “Didn’t he just come back from the Galápagos or something?”

“Yes,” Ava says, while I say “No” at the same time.

“No, he’s not home,” I repeat. “And the last trip was to India.”

“It was the Galápagos.” Ava stands up straight and looks at me, tossing the ticket onto a pile of papers on her desk. “He took that cruise on the small boat to fund some ecology studies.”

“Hang on,” I say. I walk into my room and pick up a snow globe from the bookcase. Dad’s been bringing me snow globes as a souvenir since I stole one from him when I was five. Now the bookcase is practically full. “See—the Taj Mahal. India,” I say, shaking it as I come back into the room. “This was from the last trip.”

Ava tips it upside down, and fake snow pours over the building inside the plastic dome. In a place where there’s never any real snow. “Oh. Maybe you’re right,” she says, examining it.

Maya’s eyes light up. “Hey! Maybe that’s it—you guys are from India! Maybe your birth mother was Indian royalty who was living here but got pregnant by a commoner, which is why she couldn’t keep you. Oh my God, that’s so romantic, like your dad made you his very own princesses or something.”

“One of us is a princess anyway,” I say under my breath.

Ava looks in the mirror. “Maybe.” She shrugs and turns sideways.

“You could always get one of those online DNA tests done. They’re not that expensive. It won’t tell you who your parents are, but it will tell you where you’re from,” Maya says.

“No.” Ava’s tone is sharp and final.

“But wouldn’t it …”

Ava turns on her. “I said no.”

Maya looks at me, but I just shake my head. I’ve had this argument with Ava before, and there’s no point. Dad adopted us when we were babies, and that’s all she wants to know. Any talk about birth parents, and she freaks out. I might do it, try to find out when I turn eighteen. I don’t know if I could keep it a secret from her, though.

Maya leans back against the wall and wiggles her feet, admiring the boots that Ava is letting her borrow. “So where is Mr. Rios off to this time?”

“South Africa,” we answer together.

Maya frowns. She hates any display of twindom, like we’re doing it on purpose. I pull my phone out and focus on the screen.

Ava and Maya are still arguing over clothes, when she comes over to see what I’m doing. “Really?” Ava asks, tipping the screen back. “You’re on Casey’s page again? Why do you keep obsessing over him? All that has nothing to do with you.”

I scroll through all of the new messages left by friends and old classmates. A lot of people have been posting pictures
of him from high school and even from elementary school, and it’s hard for me to picture the leering guy who didn’t understand the word “no” as the adorable blond kid on the swings. I feel bad about this version of Casey. “It does have something to do with me,” I say. “Twenty-four hours after I saw him, he was dead.”

Ava reaches over and grabs my phone. “Stop. Casey was an ass, and now he’s gone. Good riddance.”

I stare at her. Ava tends to skate across the surface—her highs never seem that high and her lows never seem that low, but this is pretty callous, even for her. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“I said it because it’s true. Everyone else is moaning about what a great guy he was, but we know better.” She turns to face me, and I see a flicker of pain cross her face. I’m instantly sorry I confronted her. If this is how she wants to deal with it, I should let her. She points to the fading bruise on my shoulder. “He wasn’t what he seemed to be, and he deserved what he got from the universe.”

“Fine,” I say quietly.

Ava looks like she’s gearing up to say something else, when her phone vibrates on the desk. “Huh,” she says, tapping the screen. She frowns at me with a puzzled look on her face. “Did you talk to Eli the other day?”

I shake my head. “No. I don’t know an Eli.”

Ava looks up from the phone. “Tall? Gorgeous? In a band?”

And then it all makes sense. The guy at the café. “Looks like he works at a gas station?”