Almost Identical #1

by Lin Oliver

  “Not now,” she whispered as she yanked me into our room.

  “Why? He deserves it after that hair remark.”

  “Because Lauren likes him and we want to make a good impression on her.”

  “We do? Why?”

  “Because she’s Lauren Wadsworth.”

  “So?”

  “So we’re the new kids and she’s really popular, and it would make everything so much easier at school if we could be friends with her.”

  “But we don’t even know if we like her yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Sammie.”

  “I see.”

  “Of course you do. We’re twins. We agree on everything, right?”

  I nodded, but deep down I wasn’t nodding. I actually didn’t agree with what Charlie was thinking. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be friends with Lauren Wadsworth, and even more important, I wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with me.

  The Party

  Chapter 3

  “Please tell me you’re not seriously wearing that,” Charlie said as I came out of our room.

  We had spent all afternoon discussing what to wear to Lauren’s party. After trying on everything she owns, Charlie decided to keep it simple: white shorts and a pink tee with a peace sign in purple rhinestones. I was clearly going to wear jeans instead of shorts. Finding out that you officially weigh one two six and a half doesn’t exactly make you feel confident enough to show off your thigh region to a bunch of kids you’ve never met before.

  At first I put on a red knit top, but after staring at myself in the mirror for at least twenty minutes, I concluded that it showed too much boob. I’m still not entirely used to the fact that I have boobs at all, so I for sure didn’t want to flaunt them. I figured that since I was meeting all new kids, I didn’t need to introduce my boobs to everyone before anyone even knew my name.

  So off went the red top and on went a black-and-white striped top. I checked out that look in the mirror and decided that black-and-white horizontal stripes made me look like an overweight zebra. Definitely not the look I was going for.

  Finally I put on a loose T-shirt that I bought earlier in the summer when we took the backlot tour at Universal Studios as a going-away celebration for Mom. It’s your basic black tee, except across the front it says I Do All My Own Stunts. I was so amazed at the Universal Studios stunt show, at how all those cowboys threw themselves off the tops of buildings and those race car drivers slammed into walls of flaming fires, that I just had to buy a souvenir. It’s like after we took this amazing hike down into the Grand Canyon, I got a T-shirt that said Mules are for Sissies. I thought of that hike every time I wore it.

  “What’s wrong with this shirt?” I asked Charlie. “I think it’s cool.”

  “It’s just so weird, Sammie. Why would you wear a souvenir to a party?”

  “It’s a good conversation starter. I bet everyone who sees me will ask what stunts I do, and then I can say something clever.”

  “Such as?”

  Oops—I hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was definitely not good to wear a conversation starter that you couldn’t converse about.

  “I’ll come up with something at the appropriate time,” I reassured her. “Don’t you worry. You look great, by the way.”

  Charlie adjusted the purple headband in her hair. With her hair pulled away from her face, you could really see the freckle just over her left eyebrow. I have the exact same one, but mine is over my right eyebrow. Even though they’re just plain, old, regular freckles, GoGo calls them our beauty marks. She has a way of making you feel good about everything.

  “Okay,” I said, taking Charlie’s hand and starting down the wooden path to the beach. “I guess it’s time to make our entrance.”

  “Sammie, are you nervous?”

  “Why should I be nervous? Just because we’re meeting all new kids who all know one another and are all going to think we’re weird for crashing their party? Of course I’m nervous.”

  “Good.”

  I stopped in my tracks and gave her a look.

  “That sounded horrible,” Charlie apologized. “I didn’t mean it’s good that you’re nervous, but good that we’re both nervous so I don’t feel so bad about being the only one who is really nervous. You know what I mean?”

  “The question is, do you know what you mean?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” she said, and we both laughed. A nervous laugh.

  As we passed outside the kitchen, I could see GoGo through the window arranging vegetables around a big bowl of ranch dip. She loves to arrange food, and since she’s so artistic, she makes everything into a beautiful design. I could see her standing up the broccoli like little trees and arranging rings of red pepper into a necklace surrounding the dip.

  “You look adorable, girls,” she called out as she saw us walk by. “Have fun!”

  Easier said than done when you’re crashing a party and don’t know a soul.

  The tennis courts are on one side of the wooden beach path and the Sporty Forty members’ deck area is on the other. It faces the wide Santa Monica beach and usually has chaise lounges and umbrellas set up for the members to lie around and sunbathe and talk on their cell phones. But all the furniture had been cleared away to make a dance floor for the party. A deejay was playing an old Beyoncé song and a few kids were dancing. At the far end of the dance floor was a huge banner that said Happy Birthday, Lauren! Out on the beach, a few boys were tossing around a Frisbee, and my dad was there lighting tiki torches. Or at least trying to light tiki torches. He was having a tough time because the wind kept blowing them out, and I could tell by the way he hunched his shoulders that he was annoyed. No surprise there. He’s the king of being annoyed. But everyone else seemed to be having a great time laughing and talking and hanging out.

  Charlie and I walked up to the edge of the dance floor and stopped.

  “Now what?” I whispered to her.

  “Now two really cute guys come up and ask us to dance. That’s the way it happens in the movies.”

  Charlie looked around and put her best smile out there for anyone who was interested. No one was. Not only did no one ask us to dance, no one even came up to say hi.

  “Wow, this is awkward,” I said. “Let’s go back inside.”

  I was seriously considering running back to our room when a familiar voice called out from the far end of the dance floor.

  “Come on out here, Charlie. Yo, Sammie, show everyone your moves.”

  It was Ryan. He was dancing with Lauren, smiling and laughing like all her friends were already his best friends.

  “Let’s show them how we Diamonds do it,” he called, and then went into his robot dance routine that he practices nonstop in front of the mirror.

  A bunch of kids turned to see if we were going to join Ryan.

  Not me. I would rather die. Maybe that Diamond doesn’t mind making a spectacle of himself, but this one does!

  Ryan went through his robot routine, then he dropped to the floor and launched into a scissors kick and backspin. My brother has about six dance steps, or as he calls them, “power moves.” They’re all pretty bad, but the amazing thing is, he pulls them off. He’s just got this confident attitude that what he’s doing is cool, and before you know it, it is! Obviously, I didn’t inherit that quality.

  “Do you want to dance?” someone asked from behind us. I whirled around to see a cute, redheaded guy smiling and holding out his hand. I was just about to answer when I realized that he wasn’t asking me to dance, he was asking Charlie.

  “Do you mind?” she whispered to me.

  “Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  The truth is, I wasn’t fine. As I watched Charlie follow him out onto the deck, I felt like a total nerd standing there by myself. I stared dow
n at my feet, and when I looked up, what I saw was everyone else dancing. I tried to pretend I was having a great time and plastered a frozen, fake smile on my face. When I couldn’t hold that smile a second longer, I turned and bolted out to the beach where some boys had organized a game of Frisbee football. Maybe joining in a Frisbee game was the best way for me to break the ice.

  “Anyone want to toss me one?” I asked.

  “This is a serious game,” a boy in plaid shorts and glasses said. “Notice how you don’t see other girls out here.”

  “Maybe they can’t catch,” I shot back, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “Try me. I’m going long.”

  The boy in the plaid shorts looked at the other guys and shrugged. I took off running down the beach, and he tossed a long throw in my direction. It was over my head, so I sprinted as hard as I could and had to jump high off the sand to just barely catch the Frisbee by the rim. But I caught it.

  “Nice grab,” the boy with the glasses hollered. “Is that one of your stunts?”

  Okay, Sammie. Time to say something clever about the T-shirt. Here’s the moment you were waiting for.

  “Sure is,” I called out. It was all I could come up with and not exactly a brilliant conversation starter. But at least someone answered.

  “Where’d you learn to catch like that?” one of the guys asked.

  “My brother, Ryan. I’ve played catch with him since I could walk.”

  I tossed the Frisbee back to one of the guys—with dead-on aim, I might add—and jogged back to join their group.

  “Oh, so you’re Ryan’s sister. He’s a great dude.”

  “Fun guy,” another one agreed.

  “I’m Sammie Diamond,” I said. “Short for Samantha.”

  They went around the circle and each guy introduced himself. There was Ben in the plaid shorts and glasses, Jared in the long basketball shorts, Spencer in the jeans and white T-shirt, and the General in the camouflage pants. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his real name, but I said, “Nice to meet you, General,” anyway. And then I saluted.

  “At ease, soldier,” he said, and we all laughed.

  This is a good beginning, Sammie. Everyone’s laughing. Laughing is good.

  As the laughter died out, there was an awkward silence. They didn’t seem to be inviting me into their game, so I thought maybe they wanted to just talk instead.

  “My sister, Charlie, and I are starting Beachside on Monday,” I began. “Seventh grade.”

  “You’re both in seventh grade?” Spencer asked. “How does that work?”

  “Yeah, did one of you get left behind?” the General said, and everyone laughed.

  “No, we’re twins. She’s over there dancing.”

  The kid named Jared looked over at Charlie, who was still dancing with the redheaded guy.

  “Yeah, I see her. She’s the hot version of you.”

  Ouch. That hurts. Why do boys always say things that hurt?

  I tried to make a joke of it. What else was I going to do? Cry?

  “She’s from the hot side of the family. I got the mac ’n’ cheese gene.”

  I gave an awkward, little laugh, but no one else did.

  “Sucks to be you,” Jared said.

  Then they all laughed again. Honestly, it wasn’t even funny. It was just mean. I couldn’t laugh along with them. I just wanted to run away and hide. So without even a good-bye, I turned and ran down the beach toward the water, far enough away from them so they couldn’t see my face and I couldn’t see theirs. When I reached the last of the tiki torches that my dad had finally gotten lit, I flopped down in the sand and took a deep breath, trying to hold back my tears.

  “I hate them,” I muttered to myself. “I truly hate them.”

  “They’re just being guys,” said a voice.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had thought I was totally alone there on the sand, in a quiet spot except for the sound of the waves lapping the shore. But when I whipped around, I noticed a girl standing in the shadow of the tiki torch. She was really pretty, with shiny, black hair that reflected the flickering flames from the torch. I was so embarrassed that she heard what I said. She was probably best friends with all these kids, and here I was being Miss Negative.

  “I didn’t mean hate them as in real hate,” I said. “Just kind of hate, like the temporary kind.”

  “I get it,” she said with a smile. “That’s cool.”

  Wow, could this actually be someone being nice to me? That was a welcome change.

  I noticed she was wearing a beautiful white top with orange and blue flowers embroidered all across the front.

  “That’s a great shirt,” I said.

  “Thanks. It’s from El Salvador, where I’m from.”

  “Oh. When did you come here? I mean, your English is really great.”

  “I was born there, but my parents came to California when I was three. I’ve been speaking English for a long time.”

  I nodded. She was really friendly.

  “My name is Alicia, by the way. Alicia Bermudez.”

  “Hey. I’m Sammie Diamond.”

  “I know,” Alicia said. “My parents work with your dad.”

  “So your parents are . . .”

  “Esperanza and Candido. My dad is the groundskeeper here, and my mom comes twice a week to clean.”

  “Oh, Candido! He’s your dad? He always stops by to watch us practice tennis. When he’s taking a pineapple break.”

  “He loves pineapple. I’m surprised he hasn’t sprouted leaves on the top of his head.”

  We both laughed. She had the biggest brown eyes that crinkled up at the sides when she smiled.

  “So how do you know my name?” I asked her.

  “My father told me about you and your sister. He thinks we should hang out. You know how parents are, always thinking kids should hang out together.”

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed. “That’s what I’m doing here. My grandma thinks Charlie and I should hang out with Lauren Wadsworth and her friends. You can see how well that’s working out for me.”

  “But your sister seems happy,” Alicia commented, glancing up to the deck where Charlie was now dancing with Ryan. They were both doing the robot, and I have to confess, she looked pretty cute doing it. She’s a way better dancer than he is. Ryan couldn’t have cared less how he looked, but still, there was a group of girls gathered in a circle around him, anyway, clapping and stuff. Girls just like him. And I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he was probably the only eighth-grader there.

  “My sister and I are different,” I said.

  “That’s funny, because you look so much alike.”

  “On the outside. But lots of things are easier for her. Social stuff, especially.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Alicia said, but in a really nice way. “If you want, you can hang out with me tonight. I’m going to help my father with the barbecue.”

  “So you’re here to work?”

  “Not really. Lauren invited me to the party, but I think mostly because I was here at the club when her mother was telling my parents how to move the furniture and hang the banner. She’s not a bad person, and I’m sure she felt sorry for me.”

  “Felt sorry for you? You’re great. Why would anyone feel sorry for you?”

  “I’m not really part of their group at school. That’s okay, though. I have my own friends who are pretty cool.”

  “So these kids have an actual group at school?”

  Alicia nodded. “They call themselves the SF2s, as in Sporty Forty, second generation. It’s not an actual club or anything, but ever since last year when we started middle school, they’ve gotten pretty tight. They’ve grown up together, and their parents are all friends.”

  O
ur family had moved three times, four including the move to the Sporty Forty. Each time Charlie, Ryan, and I had to make all new friends, and I always envied the kids who had known one another their whole lives. Their relationships were so easy and comfortable. But then, I’ve always had Charlie, who’s not just my sister but also my best friend, so that made the moving not so hard.

  Alicia and I stood on the beach and watched the kids dance for a while. She told me about some of them.

  “Dan, the redheaded guy, is the star pitcher on the school baseball team. He’s sweet. Brooke Addison, the blonde with the great body—every boy in school is in love with her. She goes out with a guy they call the General.”

  “I met him,” I said. “And saluted.”

  Alicia laughed again.

  “Jillian Kendall, the one with the silver star on her T-shirt, is obsessed with reality TV shows and thinks she’s in one. She’s always posing.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her on the beach here. She’s very into tanning.”

  “And Lily March, with the dark, curly hair and the extralong legs—she’s already modeled for the Gap catalog.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Are any of the SF2s just regular?”

  “Nope.”

  I watched the kids some more, thinking about what Alicia had told me about each of them. I assumed everyone at school wanted to be them.

  Soon the Frisbee guys went up from the beach to join in the dancing, doing some crazy kind of line dance that looked like they had made it up. They moved in unison, and I could tell that they had been doing that same goofy dance together for a long time. They were having fun in the totally comfortable way kids do when they’ve known one another a long time. Everybody being themselves, nobody having to make a first impression on anyone.

  I have to confess, it seemed really fun. And there were Ryan and Charlie in the middle of it. But Charlie’s not the kind of sister who would leave me out. I could see her looking around for me, and when she saw me standing with Alicia out on the beach, she jumped off the deck and ran out to us.