by Cj Omololu
“Hey, Dad,” I answer, shoving the phone back into my pocket.
He places a tissue-paper-wrapped lump in front of me on the counter. “I forgot to give this to you when I got home yesterday.”
I pick it up and feel the liquid sloshing around. “You don’t have to keep bringing me snow globes. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Don’t remind me.” He’s smiling, but he still looks sad. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
I pull the tissue paper away to see a glass globe with the South African flag inside.
“I know it’s not the tacky plastic ones that you like, but you’d be amazed how hard it is to find a snow globe in South Africa.”
I shake it up so that the glitter fills the water. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”
“Listen, I was thinking that this spring break must have been pretty boring. How about we pick a week right after school gets out and go on vacation, just the three of us? Anywhere you guys want—Hawaii, Mexico, Paris … anywhere.”
As long as we’re not in jail by then. “Sure. That would be great.”
Dad pours himself a cup of coffee and leans his elbows on the counter next to mine. “Stop sulking, okay? I already told you that we’re going to fix this Stanford mess. I’m sure it was just a big mistake. I’ve got a call in to a buddy of mine who has some pull, to see what he can do.”
I can feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes. Dad’s been so nice about it since he got home, like it was Stanford’s mistake, not mine. “Once you get rejected from Stanford, that’s it. No reconsiderations.”
Dad winces at the word “rejected.”
“Probably just some overzealous administrator who didn’t know what they were doing.” He kisses me on the forehead. “Stanford is where you belong. We’ll get you there, don’t worry.”
“Hmm,” I say. Is it really where I belong?
I wait until he’s shut the front door behind him before I pick up the house phone. It beeps as I scroll through the call history on the handset, trying to remember what day the salon called. Just as I’m getting impatient, I see the call from Leon’s and a number. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to look up the salon on the Internet and get an address. I have only an hour to get there before Alicia’s appointment. Someone is pretending to be Alicia, and I have to find out who it is. Even if I find out that it’s Ava.
I follow the directions to a small strip mall in Solana Beach. Leon’s is wedged between a taqueria and a dry cleaner’s, and it’s easy to spot because of the blown-up photos of slightly out-of-date haircuts posted in the window. Ava usually gets her hair cut in the city at two hundred dollars a pop, and I can’t imagine her coming all the way out here, even if she’s trying to be incognito.
I sit in my car with a good view of the front door, watching people come and go. My stomach is in knots, and I’m not sure if I’m hoping that Ava will show up or that she won’t. Her car is nowhere in sight, but I’m not surprised—if she’s coming out here as Alicia, she’s not going to park her car right out front. Maybe she won’t drive her car at all. I put the speeding ticket in the top drawer of my desk. It was for a 2011 Honda. What would Ava be doing in someone else’s Honda? None of this makes any sense.
Watching the numbers on the clock change makes time drag, and I get to 4:20 before I’ve had enough. Nobody even remotely matching Alicia’s description has gone through the salon door. What if I missed her? Even though Ava is never early for anything, what if she beat me here?
I get out of the car and walk toward the salon. Having a confrontation here in front of all these people is better than not having a clue what she’s up to. I pull open the door, and the uniquely salon smell of hair dye and perm solution hits me right in the face.
“Excuse me.” A woman with a clipboard pushes past me to the reception desk. “Here’s my client card with all the info.”
“Thanks,” says the bored-looking receptionist. “Take a seat, and someone will be right with you.”
There are six chairs lining the styling area of the room, three on either side. Four of them are occupied by women in various stages of cut or dye jobs, but none of the women is Ava. Maybe she was right and it was a different Alicia Rios. I’m almost disappointed as I turn to go.
“Alicia!” says a woman who’s holding a blow-dryer to an older woman’s head. “Hold on one second.” She snaps the dryer off and leans over to tell the woman something, handing her a magazine off the counter in front of her. The stylist’s hair is a red color that is found nowhere in nature, and it’s piled on her head in stiff, messy curls. I wonder if she did this to herself or if it was a training exercise by a new employee.
She smiles at me as she approaches the front of the salon. “I’m sorry, hon, but when you didn’t show up today, I gave your time slot away.” She walks up to a big appointment book that’s spread out on a desk in the front. “Let’s see,” she says, flipping pages. “I’m booked up for the beginning of next week, but things free up starting on Wednesday.”
I’m totally caught off guard. I don’t know what to say. Has Ava been coming here in secret? “Um—”
The woman looks up and runs her fingers through the ends of my hair. “We’d better make it Wednesday. I can’t believe your hair has gotten this out of control in six short weeks. Looks like rats have been nesting in there. So Wednesday? At the same time?”
“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.” I grab a business card from the counter in case I need it later. I have one hand on the door when an idea hits me. “Hey, could I get a look at my client card? I got a new cell number, and I’m not sure you have it.”
“That’s right. I had to look it up on the Internet because the one we had wasn’t working,” the woman says, reaching for a small box that looks like it once held recipes. So much for high-tech. She turns it toward me and flips it open. “Alphabetical under R. Put your new address in there while you’re at it, okay?” She walks back to the woman in the chair.
I flip through the cards casually, in case anyone is watching me, and pull out the one with Alicia’s name on it. I don’t recognize the handwriting, but that doesn’t mean anything. It might have been filled out by someone who works here. It has a phone number written on it and scratched out, with our home number written over it, and an address in Oceanside. As far as I remember, we don’t even know anyone in Oceanside. Why would Ava use such a random address? I quickly punch the information into my phone and put the card back in the box. “Nope,” I call out. “It’s fine. I’ll see you next week.”
“Okay, Alicia.” She waves with her free hand. “See you Wednesday.”
The echo of the bell has barely faded when the room fills with the sounds of chairs scraping the floor.
“Alexa, can I see you for a moment?” Ms. Campbell calls just as I reach the door.
“Sure,” I say, hiking my backpack up and walking toward her desk. Ever since the email from Stanford, I’ve been letting things slip a little.… Fine—maybe a lot. I square my shoulders and look straight ahead. It’s not like I don’t know what this is about.
She pretends to look busy, straightening some papers on her desk. “I didn’t see your paper on Brave New World.”
I can feel my face get red, but I refuse to look away. “That’s because I didn’t turn it in.”
That gets her attention. She looks up at me. “Didn’t turn it in?” She repeats. “Have you been sick? Are there problems at home?”
I shake my head. I know what Dad keeps saying, but I’m not sure even he can change the collective Stanford mind. And if I’m not going to Stanford, AP English is feeling a lot less important. Once I got past the guilt, it’s actually been kind of freeing not to slave over seven hours of homework every night. “No. I just didn’t see the point.”
I try not to smile at the fact that Ms. Campbell is at a total loss for words. “The point? The point is to teach you how to think critically while you read, and how to consolidate those thoughts into a coherent essay, all things you’re going to n
eed next year at Stanford—”
“I didn’t get in,” I say. You’d think it would get easier each time I say those words, but it doesn’t. “I’m not going to Stanford.”
Immediately the annoyance in her eyes turns to pity. She wrote one of my recommendations, so she had a stake in it too. “I’m so sorry. But any other university is going to require this level of analysis as well.”
“Even if I can get in, I don’t want to go anywhere else,” I say. “Come September maybe I’ll get a job. Or maybe I’ll travel. Or maybe I’ll sit around at home doing nothing. Which is why I didn’t see the point of wasting my time with an essay.” I look away as tears fill my eyes.
“There are still so many options—” Ms. Campbell begins.
“Not for me,” I say, angrily wiping my tears on my sleeve. I’ve never missed an assignment, never failed a test, and being a crappy student is harder than I thought it would be. Not only am I a total loser academically, but I can’t help standing here and bawling like a baby about it. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I might as well not waste my time with papers and tests that aren’t going to do me any good.”
“You can still turn it in late,” she says, clearly not listening to me. “I’ll mark it down a grade, but it will still count.”
“Thanks,” I say, turning toward the door, knowing that missing this first paper was hard but the rest will come easy. “But I’ll be fine.”
I rush to AP Spanish but have barely taken my seat when I think I hear my name over the loudspeaker.
“Was that for me?” I ask the girl in the next chair.
She shrugs, but Zane slides into the seat on the other side of me and says, “Yeah. They called you to the front office.”
“What now?”
“Want me to come with you?” he asks, handing me my backpack, which was on the floor next to his feet.
“No—I’m sure it’s no big deal.” I shove my books into my bag and head into the quickly emptying hallway. I don’t see the cops until I’m about to open the office door. In that split second I start to panic, but I see Principal Forrester recognize me and say something from behind the glass. The rest of the room turns to look, so I take a deep breath and step inside.
“What’s going on?” I ask, trying not to sound as freaked out as I really am.
The men turn, and I see Detective Naito and two cops I don’t know. I hear a radio squawk and see a female cop sitting in one of the plastic chairs, talking into a radio that’s attached to her shoulder. Ava is standing next to the frontoffice lady, looking shaky and pale.
“They found Dylan,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “Outside the gym at the university.”
I look at all the serious faces, not totally understanding what she’s saying. “What do you mean, they found him?”
“Dead. Someone killed him, just like Casey,” she says, tears streaming down her face, and a look of fear in her eyes that I’ve never seen before.
“Alicia?” one of the men asks, turning toward us. He’s not dressed in a uniform but is wearing a black Windbreaker with a badge embroidered on the front.
“I already told you, there’s no Alicia Rios,” Principal Forrester says. “I told them they had the wrong girls,” she says to me, and I smile at her gratefully. “Alexa and Ava are two of our best students.”
Detective Naito steps forward. “If there is no Alicia Rios, then we have even more to talk about than I thought.”
I look at Principal Forrester and have no idea what to say. It feels like we’re in it deep. “It’s true. It was all a joke.” I go for a small smile, but nobody in the room smiles back.
Detective Naito’s eyes have lost all their friendliness as he looks from me to Ava. “There have been some further developments, I’m afraid.” He glances down at the screen in his hand and then back at me. “If you’re not Alicia, then what is your name?”
“I’m Lexi. Alexa.” The cops’ faces are serious. I force a small laugh. “All of this is a total misunderstanding.”
“That’s right!” Ava jumps in, wiping her cheeks with the palm of her hand. I can’t tell if she’s just acting or if she’s really this upset. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“There really isn’t an Alicia Rios. We made her up. And then we got her a fake ID,” I say, and then glance at the principal, who frowns. “Not for drinking or anything. Just so it would look more authentic.” I feel like I’m talking too fast, trying to cover too much ground in one sentence.
“And we didn’t want to get busted for that,” Ava jumps in. “So when you came to the house before, we just said Alicia was out so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”
One of the other cops looks at us. “I’m afraid you’re in a lot more trouble than just a fake ID.” He turns to the others. “What should we do here? Any ideas?”
Detective Naito looks down at his computer. “The warrant is for Alicia Rios.” He looks back at us. “I guess we should take them both in until we can get to the bottom of this.”
“Warrant?” I ask. I can feel this situation getting more serious. “What do you need a warrant for?”
The woman cop takes a step toward us. “We have a warrant for the arrest of Alicia Rios on suspicion of murder.” She puts her hand on her belt and fingers the shining handcuffs that are hanging there.
“Are you kidding me?” Ava says, putting her hands up and taking a step backward. I can see her whole body shaking. “I’m sorry Dylan’s dead, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Maybe we should take a trip down to the station to try to figure that out,” the tall cop with the glasses says.
“You can’t arrest me,” Ava says, her voice barely audible and tears streaming down her face. She isn’t even trying to stop her tears anymore. I follow her glance to the hallway, where people are starting to gather, looking in the windows like it’s some kind of show. “Not in front of everyone.” The last few words are reduced to a whisper as she chokes back sobs.
I see that Ava’s teetering on the brink of hysteria as the woman pulls the handcuffs off her belt and moves toward her. Ava’s breath comes in ragged bursts, and her face has gone completely white. I watch her hands tremble as the cop pulls one arm behind her back.
At this moment I see how vulnerable Ava is. Technically it’s her fault we’re in this mess at all, but I should have told the truth at the station that day. The only thing I know for sure is that I didn’t kill anybody, and that’s the best defense I have right now. I wish I could say the same for Ava.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ava insists as the cops look at each other, obviously unsure about what to do next.
“She’s right.” I step in between her and the cops. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Ava. I was with Casey that night. We went out to dinner and then down to the beach, but he was very much alive the last time I saw him. And I don’t have any idea what happened to Dylan.”
The detective puts out a hand to stop the cop from handcuffing Ava. “So it was you down at the police station the other day?”
“Yes. You took me into the room and showed me the surveillance photo of the girl in the red leather jacket.” I glance at Ava, but I can’t tell if she realizes what I’m saying. I’m not sure she even remembers the red jacket at this point, but I silently beg her to keep her mouth shut. The only way to keep us both out of trouble is to get the cops to take me. They can’t convict me if I didn’t have anything to do with the deaths. I know that the suspicion is mounting, but I need to find out if Ava’s involved before throwing her to the system. This is the last little bit of control I have. I concentrate on breathing slowly, trying everything I can to stay calm and in control. “I’m the one you want, not Ava. I’ll go with you.”
The woman cop hesitates, and I can see she’s not sure what to do. I turn to her. “Take me,” I repeat.
“But you’re not Alicia Rios,” the cop says, looking at me.
“And neither is she.” I point to Ava
. “You don’t get it. Alicia doesn’t exist.” I feel my frustration rising as nobody seems to be listening.
“Give him your IDs,” Principal Forrester says, nodding at the school tags that are hanging around our necks.
Detective Naito takes both of them and compares them side by side. “So you really are twins?”
“Yes!” Ava says, and I can hear the relief in her voice. “Twins. Not triplets.”
He holds my ID up. “And this is you?” he asks me. “Alexa? And you were with Casey the night before he died?”
“Yes.” I glance outside the doors to where the crowd is getting bigger, and I start to panic. “Let’s just go.”
Principal Forrester steps between me and the cop. “I can’t do anything to stop them from taking you. But I’ll get in touch with your father right away—have him meet you down at the station.”
“Thanks,” I say, glad at least that I don’t have to be the one to call Dad. I make a move toward the door, but the woman cop stops me. “You have to be handcuffed,” she says. “For everyone’s safety.”
I’m operating on autopilot as I turn around and feel the heavy metallic cuffs snap onto my wrists. I suddenly feel claustrophobic, like I can’t breathe.
“Lexi!” Ava cries. “What are you doing? This is crazy!”
I look her straight in the eye, relieved for the moment that it’s me and not her. I have to hold on to this one tiny victory. “It’s going to be fine. We didn’t do anything wrong, so there’s nothing to worry about.” I hope she knows enough to shut up and keep herself out of trouble.
Ava’s eyes fill with tears again as she searches for something else to say.
“Calm down. It’s going to be fine,” I repeat.
One of the cops holds up my backpack and turns to me. “May I?”
“Whatever,” I say impatiently. There’s nothing in there except my books and the lunch Cecilia packed me this morning.
Ava steps forward. “I’ll take it home for her.”
“We have to take it into evidence,” the cop says, opening it and rifling through the contents.
