by Cj Omololu
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?”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s mean.”
I’m always surprised to find where Ava draws the line. “Fine,” I say. “Looks like he should be on a gas station calendar? With his shirt off?”
She smiles a little wistfully. “Exactly. Where?”
“I was studying on the back patio of Café Roma, and he showed up. Thought I was Alicia.”
Maya is watching the two of us, eyes darting back and forth like at a tennis match.
“He’s been gone for so long, I almost forgot how cute he is.” She grins and twirls a piece of hair around her finger, remembering. “And you know how I am about guitar players. Especially guitar players after a show, when the tips of their hair are a little bit damp from all the sweating, and they’ve been baring their soul onstage, with ev
ery girl in the place wanting a piece of them.”
“So why don’t you just go out with him?”
“I told you, I’m exploring other opportunities right now.” She piles her hair up on her head and makes a face in the mirror. “Opportunities named Dylan Harrington. Plus, Eli drives a pickup that must be at least fifteen years old.”
I try not to picture Eli in my head. How cute his canine teeth were when he smiled. How easy he was to talk to. I can’t do this again. I shouldn’t. “Let me introduce you to a new word. It’s called ‘no.’ As in no more Alicia. Not after what happened.”
Ava turns back to the closet. “Eli’s nothing like that, I can tell.”
“You sure couldn’t tell last time,” I say.
“Maybe it’s good to try it again,” Maya adds. “You know, get back on the horse and all that.”
I turn to her. “The last guy Alicia dated ended up dead. If the date had been twenty-four hours later, I might have been with him.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Ava says.
“I don’t want you going out with Eli,” I say. “Not as Alicia.”
“Don’t worry so much. It’s fine.” She tosses her phone to me, and it lands in my lap, the text from Eli still on the screen. “Besides, I’m not going out with him. You are.”
“No. I’m not.” I toss the phone back to her.
She taps the screen a few times, then looks up at me. “I already told him that Alicia would love to see him again.”
“Then you’ll just have to tell him the truth.”
“Look, you’ve had a rough week. You could use a nice night out. Just do it one last time, and if you still want to quit, then fine, I’m with you. Think of it as your big farewell,” Ava says, sensing my resolve crumbling. “Just stay in public places. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise. What have you got to lose?”
That question hits me in the gut, just like she knew it would. Because she’s right. There’s not much left to lose.
I’m calm as I sit watching the restaurant from the front seat of my car. Alicia doesn’t worry about this stuff. She knows that all guys want her and all girls want to be her, and acts accordingly. I take out a small mirror from the clutch that Ava loaned me and check to see that the heavy eyeliner and lip gloss she helped me apply are still in place. As I move, the big, diamond-encrusted pendant around my neck catches the fading light. I actually hate this pendant—thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds set into a big gold A is a stupid gift for teenage girls, and as proof, I lost mine a few months ago, and Dad had to get it replaced—but it’s Alicia’s trademark, so I’m wearing it.
My phone vibrates on the seat next to me, and I jump a little, but it’s only Ava and Maya texting to see how it’s going. I answer that it isn’t yet and shut off the ringer completely. I’m thinking that I don’t even remember what Eli looks like, when I see him walking toward the restaurant wearing a leather jacket and jeans. I take in his slightly floppy hair and easy smile and have to admit I was wrong—I’d recognize him anywhere.
I get out of the car and carefully smooth down the skirt that is way too short for Lexi but for Alicia is just perfect. I’m not a skirt person, but Alicia is. Plus it goes with the ridiculous high heels that Ava picked out. One thing’s for sure—nobody would ever mistake me for Lexi at the moment. I can’t help but notice that if the zombie apocalypse should happen sometime during this evening, Alicia would be one of the first people caught and converted into a walker, because no way can I run in all this stuff.
I walk slowly and carefully toward Eli, aware that his eyes are on my body as I approach. I’m not in any hurry because guys always wait for Alicia.
“Hey,” I say as I get closer, inwardly congratulating myself on the casual spin I manage to put on that one word. Like I just happen to be walking by this particular restaurant and am pleasantly surprised to find him here too. As he approaches, I wonder if he’s going to give me a kiss hello. Ava said they went out twice, but I have no idea how far things got. What’s the protocol for a third date?
“You look great,” he says, leaning in smoothly to give me a kiss on the cheek. Friendly with just a hint of something more. Interesting approach. “I’m glad you came.” His leather jacket creaks slightly as he moves, and there’s a musky, spicy smell that lingers for the smallest second as he pulls away from me.
I give him just a hint of a smile and look up at him through my lashes like I know Alicia would. She’s shameless when it comes to stuff like that. “I’m glad you asked.” I inwardly gag just a little, but his returning smile tells me I got it right. Being Alicia is basically doing and saying the opposite of everything I normally would. Easy.
Eli tilts his head and gives a little laugh—not mean exactly, but now I’m confused.
“What?” I run my hand over my hair, wondering if something’s out of place.
His smile is unreadable. “Nothing.” Eli glances up at the restaurant’s sign. “So I know I told you to meet me here, but I was thinking we might be able to do something a little more fun.”
“Like what?
“It’s a surprise. Feel like going for a ride?”
The thought freezes me, and my mind flashes back to the last time I was alone in a car with a guy. I look back at Eli’s easy smile. “Okay. But I’ll drive.”
Eli looks like he’s going to say something, but changes his mind. “Great. It’s not too far.”
He walks to the passenger side of my car and squints at the hood. “I thought your car was silver?”
Crap. I didn’t even think that he’d seen Ava’s car. Dad gave us each the same car when we turned sixteen, but mine is white. I try my best to look casual. “Nope. It’s always been white.”
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “Must have been the streetlamps outside the club that made it look silver.”
“Yeah. Must have been.” I hope that sounds more convincing than I feel.
He gives me some directions as he slides into the passenger seat. It’s uncomfortably silent for the first few minutes. “So I think I totally embarrassed myself in front of your sister last week.”
I think back to his expression when the seagull stole his fry, and suppress a smile. “Oh yeah? How?”
“Well, for one thing, I thought she was you.”
I shrug, keeping my eyes on the road. “That’s not embarrassing. People think I’m Lexi or Ava all the time.”
I can feel him staring at me. “You really do look a lot alike,” he says. “I’ve had friends who were identical, and I could always tell them apart, but I see why you get mistaken for each other.”
“Hand me my phone,” I say, when we get to a red light. I scroll through the photos until I come to the right one and hand the phone to him. “There’s a picture of all three of us we took last year.” It’s really a picture of the two of us at our cousin’s wedding, with an extra Ava added in with Photoshop. I glance over to see if Maya did a good enough job to fool him.
“Wow,” he says, studying the picture. “This is you on the left, isn’t it?”
We’ve got on matching hideous purple satin dresses. I wonder if he just got lucky.
“Right! How can you tell?”
“I can tell,” he says mysteriously, and hands it back to me.
I laugh and twirl a strand of hair around my finger, something I’ve seen Ava do a million times when she’s talking to a guy. It feels so fake, but his eyes follow my movements. “At least we don’t dress alike. Lexi doesn’t exactly make an effort,” I say. “We’re always on her to trade in that nasty sweatshirt for something nicer, but she really doesn’t care.” The light changes and I keep driving toward the freeway.
“You think so?” Eli asks with a frown. “I liked talking to her, but she’s really …” He trails off like he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence without being rude.
“Nerdy?” I volunteer. “Plain? Boring?”
“I was going to say ‘serious.’ Or ‘intense.’ You’re pretty hard on h
er.”
I sit back. “Lexi brings it on herself.”
“She’s definitely focused on going to Stanford,” he says.
I flinch, remembering my favorite Stanford sweatshirt that is now at the bottom of our trash can. I couldn’t even bear to put it into the donation bag. “She didn’t get in,” I say, biting my lip to keep my emotions steady, glad I can look at the road, because I don’t want to look at him. It’s the first time I’ve actually said that out loud.
“Really?” He looks surprised. “Well, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”
For some reason I don’t want to kill him for saying that. Coming from Eli, it sounds almost reasonable. Not meant to be—like a good parking spot at the beach or the last sesame bagel at Roma on a busy Saturday morning. Or a future.
“Maybe you’re right.” I’m feeling like this conversation is circling uncomfortably close to my real life. “So, how’s the band going?” Ava told me what his band is called, but I’m totally blanking on their name at the moment.
“Good. We’re putting out a demo sometime next month. Adam’s got a studio going in his garage, so we’ve been recording there as much as we can.”
“Is that what you want to do? Play music?” I can hear the challenge in my voice and realize I sound just like Dad. Next I’m going to be telling him that he needs to have a backup plan and an English degree so that he can at least teach when his music career goes down the toilet.
He raises his eyebrows and looks amused. “Is that a problem?”
“No. It’s just that only a tiny percentage of musicians ever make it.” I shrug, wondering why I even started in on this. Not like Alicia would care if he ended up some broke musician living out of his dented Econovan.
“Well, someone has to be successful,” Eli says with a confident grin. “Why not me? Why bother doing anything you’re not passionate about?”
I have no idea if he’s any good or not, but at this moment, I’m not sure it matters. I try to push all of the Lexi responses out of my head and figure out how Alicia would think and feel. Lexi knows that he’ll probably end up playing in dive bars for seven drunk people who won’t even notice he’s there, long after he should have been discovered, but Alicia … Alicia might just believe in him. She’d be able to picture Eli at the front of a stage that overlooks thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people, all screaming in unison for the first notes from his guitar.
