by Betsy Haynes
That night I had a dream. It was about Mom and Pink. They were on lane six at the bowling alley. I was there, too, but I wasn't bowling. I was just sort of hanging around, and they didn't even see me.
Mom looked really happy. She kept smiling up at Pink. I had to admit that he was treating her pretty nicely, smiling back at her and applauding every time she knocked down some pins. I was beginning to think I had been wrong about him, until I noticed how he kept glancing toward the snack bar whenever Mom was taking her turn.
I also noticed that there was a girl working in the snack bar and she kept glancing toward lane six. She looked familiar, so I sneaked over in that direction for a better view. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Terri from To Have and to Hold!
I woke up with a start. I could still see Pink and Terri gazing at each other across the crowded bowling alley, and Mom, poor Mom, taking her turn at bowling as if nothing in the world were wrong. I knew I had to do something. I had to save her from a broken heart. But how? I lay there in the dark for a long time, trying to think up something to do. What would Samantha do? I wondered. But Samantha wouldn't be any help now. This weekend Mom and Pink would go bowling like they always do, and the soaps wouldn't be on again until Monday. By then it would be too late.
Then I got this great idea. I would do just what I had done in my dream. I would spy on Pink at the bowling alley! I could call one of my friends, probably Beth, and see if I could spend the night. Then we would talk her parents into dropping us off for an evening of bowling. At the bowling alley I could watch Pink and catch him red-handed, cheating on Mom.
My plan worked like a charm. I told Beth about it the next day, and she thought it was a great idea; but then I knew she would, since she likes to be dramatic. She talked to her parents, and they said they would pick me up at my apartment at 7:30 and take us straight to the bowling alley. The bad thing was that I was still home when Pink came to pick up Mom. Of course, she yelled to me to answer the door.
"Hi there, Jana," Pink said. He had just about the biggest grin I'd ever seen plastered all over his face. "It's good to see you. How've you been?"
"Fine," I mumbled as he pushed a warm pizza box into my arms. Pink always brings me a pizza when he takes Mom out for the evening. I had to admit that the pizza smelled heavenly.
Then Mom came into the room, and Pink's grin got even bigger, if that's possible.
"Hi, sweetheart. You look gorgeous tonight," he said, kissing her on the forehead. He turned to me again. "Doesn't she look especially gorgeous tonight, Jana?"
It was all I could do to keep from throwing up all over that heavenly-smelling pizza. Couldn't Mom see what a fake Pink was? That he was just like that cad Michael? But Mom was grinning back at him, and she did look especially pretty in her new beige and rust outfit.
After they left, I ate my pizza and waited for Beth, worrying about Mom and hoping, for her sake, that my plan would work. But as soon as we got to the bowling alley, I started to worry. It didn't look a thing like the one in my dream, and it was so noisy and crowded that we could barely move around.
"Let's look for the snack bar," I said, but Beth had already taken off in the direction of the lanes.
"We've got to find your mom and Pink first," she insisted. "If we don't know where they are, how are we going to keep out of their sight?"
I had to admit that what she said made a lot of sense.
"There they are," she shouted a minute later. "On lane six!"
I couldn't believe it, but there they were on lane six, just like in my dream! Deep down I knew that my dream had been a premonition and that coming to the bowling alley to spy on Pink had been the right thing to do.
Beth and I found seats behind two really big men in the observation section. We could peek around the men to watch Mom and Pink, and duck back behind them whenever we thought we might be seen. It worked pretty well, but it got to be deadly dull.
"First your mom gets up and bowls and Pink grins at her like it was a big deal. Then Pink gets up and bowls and your mom grins at him. Then your mom gets up to bowl . . ." Beth said. "Terminal boredom! When is Pink going to do something?"
I was wondering the same thing when I saw Pink say something to Mom and walk up the stairs away from the lane.
"There he goes!" I shouted. Thank goodness he was too far away and the place was too noisy for him to hear me. "Let's follow him and see what he's really up to. I'll bet he's heading for a rendezvous."
Slowly and carefully Beth sneaked out of her seat and slipped into the crowd. I was right behind her. Pink had been heading toward the back of the bowling alley. That must be where the snack bar was, I thought. The snack bar and his rendezvous.
Beth stopped for a minute to let a woman carrying a tray of drinks pass in front of her. "Rats!" she said over her shoulder. "Now I've lost him."
"Let's split up and look for him," I suggested. "We can meet again by the front door."
"Good idea," said Beth. "In fifteen minutes my parents are going to pick us up anyway."
Fifteen minutes. That wasn't much time. I charged through the crowd, more determined than ever. It was now or never.
Just then I spotted him again. I could see Pink's blond head above all the other heads in front of me. I slithered through the crowd, saying "Excuse me" every time I bumped somebody or stepped on a toe. I had almost reached him when a door opened and Pink disappeared inside. I've got him now, I thought triumphantly. Suddenly I was standing in front of that door. I couldn't believe my eyes. Right in the middle it said MEN.
I headed for the front door of the bowling alley feeling really depressed. Had Pink spotted me and figured out that I was tailing him? Had he ducked into the men's room to get away? I was sure he had, and I left the bowling alley thinking that Beth and I would have to come up with a better plan before Pink took Mom bowling again next Saturday night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
If I had known ahead of time what Monday morning would bring, I would have spent my weekend packing and getting out of town instead of spying on Pink and moping around about my twin. I would have headed for the Himalayas or stowed away aboard a freighter bound for Australia. I certainly wouldn't have gone to school and walked right into trouble.
My first warning came from Christie. She was waiting for me when I got to the school grounds, and she had a scared look on her face. My three other friends were with her, and they all looked scared, too.
"Jana, have you lost your mind?" she shrieked.
"Yeah, Jana. What's the big idea?" demanded Beth. "Didn't you know you'd get us all in trouble?"
"Would somebody please tell me what's going on?" I asked. I couldn't figure out what was the matter with them.
"You tell her, Christie," said Melanie. "You're the one who saw it."
"Saw what?" I insisted.
"The Mark Twain Sentinel, that's what," said Christie. "When Beth and I got to school this morning, we just happened to stop in the office for a minute—"
"She was trying to catch a glimpse of Mr. Scott," interrupted Beth.
Christie shot her a poison-dart look. "And the Sentinel was there on the desk, ready to be handed out during first period. Anyway, on the front page is your exposé of Taffy Sinclair, and instead of Curtis Trowbridge's by-line, it has yours!"
"Mine!" This time I was shrieking. "That's impossible! When I put it in Mr. Cagney's box it said 'by Curtis Trowbridge.' I swear it did. Nobody was ever supposed to know I wrote it."
"Well, whoever types up the stories for Mr. Cagney must have figured it out, since Curtis is out of town, and switched by-lines. After all, the first article about Taffy Sinclair had your by-line on it," said Katie. "What did you put into that story, anyway? Is there a lot of stuff about us?"
I didn't answer for a minute. I was wracking my brain, trying to remember. "Well, I put in how she used to flirt with Mr. Neal in fifth grade. I thought Mr. Scott ought to know a thing like that." I was sure that would make Christie feel better, but when I l
ooked at her, her scared expression hadn't changed. "And I put in how she uses body language to send messages to cute boys. And how conceited she is and how she brags to everybody all the time. I put in lots of stuff like that, but I didn't use any of our names," I said.
Suddenly I felt a jab in my ribs. It was Melanie, and she looked even more scared than before. "Don't look now," she whispered hoarsely, "but guess who didn't go into New York City for filming today and who did come to school?"
Taffy Sinclair. I couldn't help looking. She was here, and she was going to read that exposé along with everybody else.
Mr. Scott distributed the paper first thing that morning. Everybody was pretty quiet as they looked it over. I held my breath, and then I heard Taffy gasp.
"What!" She stood up and started screaming her head off. "'The Truth About Taffy Sinclair'! Jana Morgan, how could you! How could you write such terrible lies?"
The rest of the class was snickering and giggling and making crazy faces at each other. Everybody except me. I just sat in my seat, poker-stiff, looking down at my paper as if nothing unusual was going on at all. But I was cringing. I was cringing so hard I was probably shrinking.
Just then the intercom speaker crackled on, and I could hear Miss Graves, the office secretary, clearing her throat. "Will Jana Morgan report to the office at once," she said. "I repeat, Jana Morgan report to the office at once."
I was doomed. I knew that my life was over. I would probably be expelled. And the school would probably call my mother and tell her everything. I got up and shuffled out of the room with all eyes on me, thinking that it was Christie who should be expelled. Writing that exposé had been her idea in the first place. But deep down I knew that I was the one who had actually written it, and that it had been a rotten thing to do.
"Sit down, Jana," said Mr. Scott when I got to the office. I was sorry that it was Mr. Scott I had to see instead of Mrs. Winchell, Christie's mother. She might have been easy on me since I'm Christie's friend. Not only that, but it had been because Mr. Scott was tutoring Taffy that I had written the article in the first place.
The minute I sat down, he stood up. I hadn't realized how tall he was. He was so tall it looked as if his head were touching the ceiling, and he was glaring down at me angrily.
"First let me say that if Mr. Cagney had not been ill with the flu this weekend and had not okayed all the stories for publication without reading them as he usually does, your article about Taffy Sinclair would never have been printed."
Boy, did I wish Mr. Cagney had never gotten the flu. I wished he felt so wonderful he had read all the articles three times.
"But Mr. Cagney did get sick, and the article did get printed, and unfortunately no faculty member happened to read the paper before it was handed out first period," Mr. Scott continued. "And I can only say that I am both shocked and disappointed that you would be so jealous of your classmate that you would write such a thing."
Jealous! How could Mr. Scott think a thing like that? It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and telling him that I could never be jealous of Taffy Sinclair. She was a terrible person. What's more, she was a fake, and I had written my article so that everybody, especially Mr. Scott, could see her for what she really was. But I just sat there and stared at the floor. It wouldn't do any good to tell him, anyway. It was plain to see he was taken in by Taffy Sinclair, too.
"There is nothing we can do to correct the damage that has been done," he went on. "But I must insist that you not write any more stories for the Mark Twain Sentinel. If you give me that promise, you may go back to your class."
"Yes, Mr. Scott. I promise," I muttered without looking at him. As I left his office I kept reminding myself that at least he hadn't expelled me from school or called my mother. How could I have let myself get talked into writing such an article? I wondered. I should have known that letting other people see you for what you really are is a lot different than trying to get them to see the truth about someone else. I was so embarrassed I thought I'd die.
Just as I got into the hall, I had the feeling that someone was staring at me. I looked up, and there was Randy Kirwan coming toward me carrying the attendance report to the office. It was his eyes I had felt. He was looking straight at me.
"Hi, Randy," I said when he got close enough to hear. My heart stopped. He didn't answer. He didn't say one word. He just got a funny look on his face and walked on by.
I had lost Randy Kirwan. I couldn't think of anything else the rest of the day. I had blown it with that exposé of Taffy Sinclair. So what if everybody knew that Taffy was mean and snotty and a fake if Randy thought I was really the one who was the villain?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was so depressed that I didn't even want to watch the soaps when I got home. Instead, I threw myself across my bed facedown. My life was in just about the biggest mess imaginable. If ever there was a time to trade places with my twin, surely this was it. I closed my eyes and saw her as clearly as could be. This time she was all the way out of the fog and splashing and playing with me in the kiddie pool. She didn't think I was a villain. She liked me. I tried and tried to remember something else about her. What other things had we done together? But my memory started to get foggy again, and I felt even lonelier than before.
I thought of Julie on To Live, Perchance to Love and how much we had in common. Julie couldn't remember the hit-and-run accident or that she was married to Arthur. My heart began to pound as I raced for the television set and turned it on. I hadn't watched that show for days, and yet Julie was the one person in the world who would understand the way I felt when I couldn't remember my twin.
I had been lying across my bed longer than I thought. To Live, Perchance to Love was almost over, but Julie was there, just as I had hoped she would be. She was sitting at a kitchen table sipping coffee and talking to an older woman.
"Mother, it's so frightening not being able to remember things. It's like being all alone in the world."
I gulped hard and brushed away a tear that was starting to roll down my cheek. Boy, you can say that again, I thought. Julie's mother reached across the table and patted her hand.
"I know, dear. But you must keep trying. Poor Arthur. He desperately needs for you to remember that you love him and are married to him, and of course, that he had nothing to do with the accident."
"I'm trying, Mother. I really am. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to see Arthur and me together. I almost can, except . . ."
"Except what, dear?"
"It's like . . . like looking through a fog. I can't quite see his face because of the fog."
Fog! My heart swelled along with the organ music as the show ended. When I had first remembered my twin, it had seemed as if she were coming out of the fog. Now Julie was looking into the same kind of fog trying to remember Arthur. I was right. I really was remembering my twin. Julie had just proved it. I almost wished Julie was my twin since we had so much in common. At the very least I wished the show weren't over for the day. I could hardly wait to see if Arthur's face would come all the way out of the fog.
Taffy wasn't at school the next day. I was glad. I wasn't ready to face the consequences of the article yet, even though hardly anybody said anything about it. Most kids had forgotten already, except for Mona Vaughn. She stuck her tongue out at me in the lunch line. But Taffy wasn't on Interns and Lovers, either. The episode was all about Stephanie getting ready to go see Cynthia. She was packing and making arrangements. The show ended as she was getting on a plane.
I knew that I should watch To Have and to Hold for Mom's sake, but I just couldn't. Not today. I was too antsy to sit still. So I paced the floor, waiting for To Live, Perchance to Love to come on, thinking about poor Julie and whether or not Arthur would come out of the fog. But when the show finally started, Julie wasn't on it. The whole episode was about that awful Dierdre and how she was plotting to have Arthur convicted of the hit-and-run accident. Even though I felt sorry for Arthur, I couldn't help
being disappointed. I would have to wait another whole day to see Julie.
The next morning Taffy still wasn't in school. I couldn't believe it. I was beginning to worry. Did her absence have anything to do with my exposé? I couldn't help mentioning her when my friends and I met in the cafeteria for lunch.
"I wonder where Taffy Sinclair has been lately?" I said. I tried to act casual so they wouldn't notice that I was beginning to feel nervous. "She wasn't at school yesterday, and she wasn't on the show either."
"Isn't it exciting about Cynthia's twin going to see her?" said Melanie. "I cried and cried, and I just know I'm going to cry again when they meet for the first time."
"Yeah, but what about Taffy?" I insisted. I hated it when people changed the subject without answering the question.
"She's probably sick," said Katie. "There's a lot of flu going around, you know."
You're telling me, I thought.
"Maybe she went into the city yesterday, and it was the wrong day," suggested Beth. "Maybe she wasn't supposed to be on the show until today."
I decided she was probably right, but when I got home from school and turned on Interns and Lovers, Taffy was nowhere to be seen. This time the show was all about Cynthia getting ready for her visit from Stephanie. She was telling Chad and the doctors and nurses how excited she was. You would have thought she'd have told Taffy Sinclair, too, since they were in the same room. But I watched the whole show, and never once did the camera swing around to Taffy's bed.
Now I was really worried. I was so worried that I hardly even paid attention to To Live, Perchance to Love, even though it was all about Dierdre again. If Arthur didn't come out of the fog for a few days, nothing bad would happen.
But where was Taffy Sinclair? I couldn't sleep all night. The next morning when I saw my friends, I could tell that they were worried, too.
"What's happened to her?" whispered Christie. She was looking around to make sure nobody except us heard what she was saying. "Do you suppose she ran away from home after she read the exposé?"
