Switched

by Jessica Wollman

  “I’m serious.”

  “Sorry, sorry. I will never ever squeeze the Charmin?”

  “Willa.”

  “Fine,” Willa said, thrusting her lower lip forward in a full pout. “I will speak only when spoken to.”

  Laura shook her head. “That’s only part of it, remember? When you walk into a client’s home, you’re invisible only until—”

  “Until they see me and not the other way around.” Willa yawned. “I know.”

  She and Laura had both been surprised at how easily she’d memorized Laura’s fall cleaning roster and other vital bits of information. But Laura kept on harping on how this was a “service-oriented field” and Willa was getting sick of it.

  “Do you really?” Laura turned the car into the train station and looked at Willa, her eyes dark. “Because this is really, really important. It’s a job. It’s what my mom and I do to pay rent. And we can’t afford to lose a single one of those houses. You have to be professional. You have to work hard and stay focused. No matter what.”

  The words bounced off the walls of the car like an echo. A job. She, Willa Pogue, had a job. Several, in fact.

  Shame flushed through her body. She’d been so busy celebrating her own freedom that she hadn’t really thought about what was at stake here. Laura was right. This was not a game.

  When she’d screwed up all those other times, she’d been the only person affected.

  What have I done? I’ve never been successful at anything in my entire life. Why should this situation be any different?

  Willa looked down. Her hands were shaking slightly. “Laura, I’m not sure—”

  “Yes, you are,” Laura said as she pulled into a parking space and cut the ignition. Her voice was gentle but strong. “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out. We’ve gone over everything, Willa. You know this. I know you won’t mess up.”

  “I won’t,” Willa repeated, tilting her head back and exhaling deeply. I can do this. She felt her panic melt away, like a Hershey’s bar in the sun.

  “So now that that’s settled, I feel like I should officially welcome you to the world of the invisible,” Laura said. She laughed. “It’s pretty incredible, actually.”

  “What do you mean?” Willa frowned. Laura had given her a spiral notebook filled with homemade cleaning concoctions and secret tricks of the trade. She’d been studying it religiously, but she didn’t think her brain could handle any more new information.

  “It’s not something you can explain. But you’ll find out soon, don’t worry.”

  The morning air felt thick against Willa’s skin. She looked around the deserted parking lot and shivered. The quiet of the place was overwhelming. They’d purposely arrived two hours early so that nobody would see them together, but Willa hadn’t planned on the discomfort factor.

  “Do you want me to hang out a little?” she asked as she helped Laura carry her bags onto the platform.

  Laura sat down on the trunk. “That’s okay, thanks. You should probably get over to the apartment as soon as possible. So you’re there before Angie.”

  Willa shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. She wondered what a complete stranger would think of this scene. It was normal enough: two sisters—identical twins, maybe—taking a vacation.

  It wasn’t far from the truth.

  “Have fun being me,” Laura whispered.

  “You too,” Willa said, reaching out for Laura’s hand. It was an impulsive move—completely out of character—and she was surprised by how natural it felt. As their long fingers intertwined, Laura’s skin was smooth and cool against her own.

  And it was impossible to tell where one girl ended and the other began.

  17

  Less laundry, more life

  —Maytag

  As the cab reached the gates of Fenwick Academy, the butterflies in Laura’s stomach flew higher, tickling her throat.

  “Turn here, right?” the driver shouted from around his cigar.

  “Yes.”

  Laura peered through the window as the taxi wound its way toward the school. She resisted the urge to clap like a three-year-old.

  She was in heaven.

  Fenwick was even prettier than the glossy pictures in Willa’s information packet. Green lawns sprawled for miles; trees swept the campus; the brick and wooden buildings dated back to the eighteenth century. Everything was perfectly maintained. And it was all huge. The library alone—a magnificent stone structure covered with columns and gargoyles—was twice the size of Laura’s old high school.

  When they reached her dorm, Hubbard House, Laura paid the driver but didn’t go inside. She stood in front of the building and stared out at the quad, trying to lock down the moment forever. All around her, the campus buzzed with life: kids were tossing Frisbees, shouting to one another from windows, unloading cars filled with their belongings. An unfamiliar ripple of school spirit swept through her.

  She was a student here.

  Sort of.

  She turned and lugged her suitcases up three steps and onto the dorm’s wraparound porch. She knew her room number and that she had a single—all upperclassmen did—but all other details were a mystery.

  As she glanced down at the wooden beams under her feet, Laura’s pulse accelerated. The rooms in this place were probably amazing, very Pride and Prejudice. Most of the dorms had, at one point, been private residences. She closed her eyes and pictured a slightly smaller version of Willa’s bedroom at Pogue Hall. The dorm looked like it might have been built around the same time. Hopefully, there’d be a window seat looking out over the quad.

  Laura opened the front door, which screeched loudly, and slid her things down the hall toward room 112. The dorm room was wide open—ready and waiting.

  And completely disgusting.

  The carpeting was some sort of rough Astroturf that stank of mildew—which made sense because it was slightly damp. It made Angie’s filthy zebra skin seem luxurious. A single, naked lightbulb was screwed into the ceiling, encircled by a dirty ring where a fixture had once hung. There was no window seat—there was no room for one. There was barely room for the graffiti-covered desk and the flimsy metal twin bed.

  Laura tilted her head sideways, then up. Wait, how could that be? The room was slanted. Everything—bed, desk, window—sagged toward the right. Laura felt like she’d stepped inside the set of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She leaned sideways and the room instantly righted itself once again.

  “I can’t believe this,” Laura muttered as she eyed the stained mattress (didn’t everyone know the baking soda/peroxide trick? Honestly). “This school costs thirty-five thousand dollars a year, how do—”

  She froze, horrified at her indignation. She’d been on campus for about ten minutes and already she was acting like a spoiled debutante. True, she’d read the brochures. And yes, Fenwick did cost thirty-five thousand dollars. But it wasn’t her thirty-five thousand dollars. This—none of this—was hers. And that meant it was not hers to judge. She was in no position to make demands, either. She had to try to remember that.

  It was important not to lose perspective. Again.

  Besides, she was miles away from her vast collection of cleaning supplies and Angie. She could enjoy the next four months without any near-death experiences. Wasn’t that what this was all about?

  Laura pushed her luggage into the room, opened her suitcases and ran her hands over the clothing Willa had lent her for the semester. Laura still couldn’t get over the way the expensive fabrics felt against her skin. The finely spun cashmeres, cottons and silks—even Willa’s expensive jeans seemed to rest on her hips differently than her own from Old Navy.

  I have to stop treating everything like it’s new, Laura reminded herself as she started to unpack. It’s a dead giveaway that I don’t belong here.

  Willa had given her a crash course in boarding school behavior, imparting a few nuggets of wisdom, such as: wealth is important but understated, sloppy is stylish bu
t dirty is gross (hence Willa’s overwhelming unpopularity) and it’s okay to be smart but don’t be a suck-up.

  Unfortunately, that advice was barely enough to get Laura beyond the first week of school. Willa, by her own admission, wasn’t exactly a boarding school success story. She had, in fact, semiseriously counseled Laura to “just do the opposite of anything I’d do and you’ll be valedictorian by October.”

  Basically, Laura was on her own.

  “Willa? Am I interrupting?”

  Laura looked up and realized she’d left her door wide open. A young woman stood in the doorway.

  “Uh, no,” Laura said, trying to muster her best “I’m-nice-but-please-don’t-bug-me” smile.

  “Great.” The woman moved breezily into the room and plopped onto the desk, which creaked in protest.

  Laura bent over her suitcase, pretending to fold a shirt but instead studying the woman. She was tiny—and her short, straight brown hair was streaked with gray. She wore a white tank top under overalls, and her bare feet were tan. A small ruby stud winked at Laura from her left nostril.

  “So, how do you like Fenwick so far?”

  Laura shrugged. “It looks great. I mean, I just got here a few minutes ago.”

  The woman fingered a silver chain around her neck. “Well, I just wanted to come down and introduce myself. I’m your dorm advisor, Jenna Palmer. You’re supposed to call me Ms. Palmer but I hate that, so around the dorm you can call me Jenna. I teach dance at Fenwick—I’ve been here for about ten years—and I’m actually an alum myself. Class of ninety-three. So if you have any questions, please feel free to knock. I’m upstairs in two thirty-four.”

  “Thanks. I will,” Laura said, relieved she wasn’t living on the same floor as this woman. It could pose a threat to her anonymity. Plus, she hated when adults told you to call them by their first name. It was impossible to remember and they always got annoyed when you forgot, because then they felt old.

  “Great. Listen, I gotta go. I’m making my ‘welcome’ rounds today.” Jenna hopped off the desk and stretched, then slid across the room, her tiny dancer’s feet barely making a sound on the cheap carpet. “Nice meeting you, Willa.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  Laura shut the door and leaned against it, lost in thought. Ms. Palmer had thought she was Willa, so she’d obviously pulled this off. One person down, an entire campus to go.

  Someone was knocking on the door.

  Laura’s pulse rose, her breath coming in uneven spurts through her mouth and nose. It was Ms. Palmer. Definitely. She’d come back with the authorities. Campus police. Or worse—the Pogues. Laura had lasted ten minutes at Fenwick.

  Laura opened the door, steeling herself for the very worst.

  She blinked. She blinked again. Then she realized that she was still holding her breath and was beginning to feel a little light-headed, so she focused on breathing. She still felt dizzy but that had less to do with oxygen and more to do with the boy who was standing in the hallway.

  He somehow managed to be tall and thin but athletic-looking at the same time. Laura’s eyes traveled across the planes of his face, over the strong jaw and high cheekbones, absorbing his deep blue eyes and the short, light brown hair.

  It was, she realized, too good to be true. Guys who looked like this never knocked on her door. They asked her for help in chemistry but then didn’t bother to apologize when they jostled her in the hallway. They saw her without ever really seeing her.

  But to repeat: this guy had knocked on her door. This boy was standing in front of her. Right now.

  “Uh, hi,” he said, his eyebrows wrinkling slightly. He looked mildly surprised. “Willa?”

  Once again, Laura waited for the apple effect to overwhelm her cheeks. The real Laura Melon couldn’t talk to guys—especially cute ones—and when she absolutely had to she said something embarrassing and then tortured herself about it for months.

  But she wasn’t Laura anymore. And somehow, her body could tell. “I am,” she said smoothly. There is no doubt in my mind that I am who I say I am; that I should be here, talking to you.

  “Oh, great.” He looked relieved. “I’m Caleb—Caleb Blake. You, uh, don’t know me or anything but our parents are friends and my mom asked me to introduce myself. She was kind of dead set on it, actually. I tried to call over the summer—did you get any of my messages?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I had kind of an intense summer, getting ready for school and everything. I know it was rude—I’m sorry.”

  Caleb laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who should be apologizing, really. I felt bad calling so much, but my mother kept making me. She gets something into her head and she kind of can’t let it go. . . . Anyway, mind if I check out your room? I’m a little jealous you’re in Hub. I was going to live here last year, but then did a study abroad in Italy and had to give up the room.”

  “Wow, Italy.” Laura stepped aside, wondering if they were breaking some sort of coed visitation rule. Willa hadn’t mentioned anything about it since Laura wasn’t supposed to be receiving guests—male or female. And Laura couldn’t ask since she was supposed to be a seasoned boarding school student.

  “Yeah. Fenwick has a program in Florence. A lot of the students go. It was pretty amazing,” Caleb said, glancing around the room. He whistled. “Whoa, this is sweet. You really lucked out.”

  Laura stared at him. He was joking, right? Where was his dorm room? Guantánamo Bay? She waited for his laughter, but there was none. He was serious.

  “It’s great,” Laura agreed, trying to keep a straight face. “I know.”

  Caleb leaned against the wall and grinned. Laura smiled back, appreciating the way his eyes caught the light.

  Would it be rude to ask him to stand there for the next four months? she wondered.

  “So,” he said, “will you please do me a favor and ask me a few questions about Fenwick? That way maybe my mom will finally leave me alone.”

  Laura laughed. “Actually,” she said, grabbing her course guide out of her bag, “I do have some questions.”

  Caleb glanced down at the book, which was paper-clipped, bookmarked and covered with Post-it notes.

  He grinned. “I’d better have a seat.”

  “Oh, please,” Laura said. She pulled out the desk chair and watched as he settled in. “But actually—well—I guess I should’ve asked this from the very start, but, do you like Fenwick? I’ve been reading a lot about the school over the summer, but I was wondering . . .”

  “You were wondering if you’ll want to hang yourself from a gargoyle by Thanksgiving break?”

  Actually, she was more interested in knowing if every boarding school kid shared Willa’s attitude toward academia, but she’d start wherever Caleb wanted to.

  “It’s pretty cool here,” he said. “I mean, for a school. They do kill you junior year—I’m just warning you. It’s rough. Even in Italy, it was bad. But I have to say, I never thought about transferring.” He laughed. “Don’t tell anyone but I might even miss this place next year.”

  “You’re graduating?” Laura asked. She found herself wondering where he was applying to college and what he wanted to major in, but then remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be getting to know Caleb.

  The thought suddenly struck Laura as tragic.

  “Uh-huh,” Caleb said. He reached for her course book. “Okay, what did you want to know?”

  Twenty minutes later, they wove their way through the quad, toward the dining hall. “Thanks so much for all your help,” Laura said. She meant it, too. Caleb had given her the lowdown on all the teachers—which one’s courses to take and which ones to steer clear of—and now her schedule was pretty much complete.

  “No problem,” he said, giving a good-natured shrug. He stopped suddenly and turned to look at her. “You know, you’re a lot different than I expected. I mean, my parents told me a little about you, but you’re so completely—I don’t know.
You’re into your classes and interested in school.” He shrugged again. “I guess I’m just surprised.”

  Laura swallowed. She’d done it again. She couldn’t completely stifle herself—it was impossible. She didn’t want to, either.

  Okay. You pulled this one off the last time. You can do it again. He believes you. Just stay with it. If you believe, he will too. You can go anywhere as someone else.

  “You know, I did a lot of thinking this summer,” she said. “Remember, that’s why I didn’t have time to call you back?”

  Caleb laughed. “Well, then—”

  “Hey, handsome!”

  A small auburn-haired girl suddenly fell into step beside them and grabbed Caleb’s hand. Upon later reflection, Laura would redefine the move as a hand-snatch.

  “Oh, hey, Courtney.” Either Caleb had decided to ignore the lilliputian’s rudeness or he was simply too mellow a guy for that sort of thing to even register.

  Laura’s heart was sinking slowly in her chest. Please don’t say it, she thought desperately. I’ll know, okay? But you don’t have to say the words out loud.

  “Laura, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Courtney Wilton.”

  18

  Elite women typically do not describe themselves as privileged or see their early childhood socialization as having been vastly different from that of girls in other social classes.

  —The Power of Good Deeds: Privileged Women and the Social Reproduction of the Upper Class

  Diana Kendall

  Willa drifted through Laura’s apartment, noting the comfortably worn furniture, the stucco walls and the soft, frayed area rugs. She had to memorize the whole thing—rooms, knickknacks and cabinets—by the time Angie arrived, or else her cover would be totally blown.

  Kicking off her shoes, Willa flopped onto the living room couch and sank into the softly worn cushions. She leaned her head back slightly and from this position was able to study the entire room.

  The mismatched furniture and cheerful walls were so cozy, so inviting. And everywhere you looked there were pictures of Laura and her mother from various stages of their life together. In every single one, they were laughing or hugging.