My Double Life

by Janette Rallison

CHAPTER 2

  The next day I didn't see Trevor until physics class. I expected him to turn around at his desk and talk to me, tell me his answer about the dance. Maybe even rib me about the fall of the Roman Empire books. But he didn't look at me. So was that a no as far as Sadie Hawkins was concerned? Didn’t I deserve an official answer? In the mayhem of the library, could he have possibly forgotten that I’d asked him?

  When class ended, I leaned over my desk and tapped him with my pencil. "Hey, Trevor," I said, keeping my voice light. "I was too busy flinging books at people yesterday to hear your answer about the dance. Did you want to go or not?”

  He scooped his books off the desk, his expression guarded. "Oh, that.” For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he gave a really slow "su-u-u-re,” as though he might talk himself out of it sometime during the answer.

  “Great," I said. I didn’t mean it.

  Clearly his excitement level about our date ranked somewhere near being swarmed by hungry mosquitoes. And now I was not only going to have to pay for this date, I would have to endure his lack of enthusiasm during it. I smiled at him, said I'd give him the details later, then spent the rest of the day wishing I’d never asked him.

  Lori came over that night to cheer me up. She flipped through my closet deciding what I should wear to the dance. "So Trevor has reservations about going—that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. Maybe he’s worried that dating will put your friendship in jeopardy.”

  I sat on my bed watching her and didn’t answer. What had put our friendship in jeopardy was his pained answer.

  Lori said, "Maybe he’s nervous about taking things to the next level."

  The next level. As though dating were a computer game.

  "Maybe he was hoping someone else would ask him," I said.

  Lori reached the end of my closet. She slid the door closed with a thud. "I think you need to go shopping and buy something new. Something really stunning.”

  "Like that’s going to make a difference."

  "It will. It’s nature's way of attracting a mate. Peacocks have the bright feathers. Fish have the long tails, women have the mall.” She made a sweeping motion in my direction. "It's time you wow him with some style."

  Which is how I ended up wandering around the mall for the next week, looking for wow. As it turns out, wow is really expensive.

  Mostly I was just overwhelmed by all the choices. I didn’t know which textures went together or how to accessorize. I'd spent my life wearing blue jeans and T-shirts.

  Finally I put together an outfit that didn’t cost a lot. I still had to buy dinner, tickets, and pictures. I also splurged on some new stuff to wear to school. I shouldn’t have. My college fund was already bleak, but every day that Trevor flirted with me in physics then ignored me at lunch sent me right back to the mall, looking for wow.

  Theresa was pointedly nasty to me whenever she saw me, and I’d already found out about the picture she’d put on the Internet. So when the phone rang one afternoon and a professional-sounding woman’s voice said, “Hello, may I speak to Alexia Garcia?" I had my suspicions.

  "This is she,” I said.

  "Hello, Alexia, this is Maren Pomeroy, Kari Kingsley’s manager."

  Right. I knew it was Theresa crank calling. She and the Cliquistas had done this sort of thing before. Theresa had figured out we didn’t have caller ID, and that made our house an easy target. Still, I let her go on and waited for the punch line.

  The voice said, "I saw a picture of you, and I must say you look uncannily like Kari. I’m calling to see if you would be interested in pursuing a job as her double. But you’ll need to keep this strictly confidential—do you think you can do that?"

  "Oh, sure," I said. "I’ll eat the phone after our conversation so no one will be able to trace the call.”

  She laughed like she wasn’t quite sure how to take my comment and went on. "Kari needs the position filled immediately, and you would have to move out to California, but you’d be well compensated—somewhere between ten and twenty thousand a month. Of course, you’d be required to go through an interview first—"

  And the interview no doubt would consist of questions regarding my IQ and if I thought Shakespeare was something a jungle native did before an elephant hunt. Then I would hear laughing in the background and a click.

  Instead, I beat her to it. "Theresa, why don’t you grow up?" Then I hung up the phone. Some people can be so immature, and I didn't have to deal with that.

  I went to the family room and sat down next to Abuela. She wore a plaid housedress and ate Triscuits and guacamole while she watched the end of one of her telenovelas. She oc-casionally shook her head and called out instructions to the characters. "Don't trust him, Consuela! He carries a gun for a reason.” Then to me she said, "Never date a man who carries a gun. They’re all criminals. Without exception.”

  "What about policemen?"

  She dipped a Triscuit into the guacamole. "They don't make enough money. Who wants to date one of them?"

  "I don’t know. How cute is this policeman we’re talking about?"

  She waved the Triscuit at me. "Teenagers. All you think about are looks. If you were smart, you would date ugly people. They'll be grateful and treat you better.”

  Mom says that Abuela is getting opinionated in her old age. Except she isn’t that old, and to tell you the truth, I never remember her being anything but opinionated.

  In sixth grade when we had grandparents’ day at school, the other kids’ grandparents came to the classroom to oooh and ahhh over their grandchildren’s projects. My grandma ended up cornering Mrs. Hochhalter by the world maps and complaining that schools shouldn't teach that Columbus discovered America. "You can't discover a country if someone is already living on it. That’s like me saying I discovered your minivan in the parking lot.” Abuela held up one hand. "I discovered it! Give me the keys or I’ll give your entire village smallpox!”

  My mom came home not long afterward. She worked as the housekeeping supervisor at the Waterfront Place Hotel but also took classes three nights a week to get her business administration degree so she could, in her own words, "finally get a job that doesn’t require wearing a polyester uniform." This night she came inside carrying a white garbage bag. Booty from the hotel.

  It's not that she stole towels or anything—although we had plenty of those too. When the towels got too old to use, she took them home instead of throwing them away. Ditto for the broken soap bars they couldn't use in the rooms. I’d spent my entire life washing off with soap that had been pieced together.

  Antonio, the chef at the restaurant, also kept her supplied with leftovers from conventions and food that would otherwise go to waste—being single and pretty does have its perks in the hotel business.

  Mom set stuff on the kitchen table and turned to me.

  "Lexi, the school called me about that picture of you—the one where you look like Kari Kingsley."

  Technically, I look like Kari Kingsley in all my pictures. I had no idea what she meant. "What?" I asked.

  She opened her purse, took out a color copy of the picture, and handed it to me. It was the one where I was wearing my NHS T-shirt by the high school sign, but my hair was blond, and a caption underneath it read "Morgantown High: home of the great thinkers." Someone at school must have copied the picture from Theresa’s blog and turned it into a slam of Kari Kingsley and Morgantown High. After all, Kari Kingsley was the patron saint of blond jokes.

  "You did this?" Mom asked. "You posed for this picture on purpose?”

  "It was supposed to be a yearbook photo.”

  "It didn’t end up in the yearbook,” Mom said, her voice tense. "It ended up all over the Internet. Kari Kingsley's manager called the school to complain about them defaming her client. When the school told them it was an actual student in the picture, the manager asked for your name and contact information. The school called to see if I wanted to give it to her." Mom took the picture from my hands. “
I had no idea what they were talking about, so I had them e-mail me the picture.” She put her hand on her hip. "I can’t believe you posed for this right by the school sign. Now anyone who sees this will know where you go to school.”

  I couldn’t muster much fear of Internet predators right then. I had just realized that Kari Kingsley's manager really had called me for a job interview. I sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs with a whimper. “You should have warned me that you gave our phone number to them,” I said. “Her manager called, and I thought it was a crank call."

  Mom blinked rapidly. "I didn’t give her our phone number. I told the school I didn’t want her to contact us."

  “Well, she got our number somewhere,” I said. Which wouldn't have been hard. In such a small town, anyone could have given her my number. "She asked if I’d be interested in a job interview, and”—I put my hand over my eyes—“I hung up on her.” This was really not the best way to impress future employers, but if I explained ... I looked up at Mom. "Can you get her contact information from the school so we can call her back?”

  Mom turned to the cupboard and took plates out. "No. Definitely not.”

  "She said I'd be paid between ten and twenty thousand dollars a month.”

  Mom’s mouth dropped open. "To do what?”

  "Be Kari's double. She didn't say exactly what that was, just that I’d have to move to California. She wants to hire someone immediately.”

  Mom shook her head and slid the plates into their places on the table. "You can’t move to California. You’re not done with high school.”

  "I could work something out with the school.” At least I hoped I could. All the zeros in the salary danced around in my mind. "You know how I've said, 'If only I had a dollar for every time someone tells me I look like Kari Kingsley’? Well, I think this would cover it.”

  Mom let out a grunt and went back to the cupboard for glasses. “Celebrities. They think they can buy anything they want, even people. Well, you’re not for sale.”

  Her reaction didn't make sense to me. "It’s a job,” I said. "You’re supposed to get paid.”

  Mom put the glasses next to the plates. "Lexi, you don't understand about stars. They're pampered, selfish tantos— with egos so big they need extra luggage to carry their self-importance around.” Without giving me a chance to say anything, she turned toward Abuela and called out, "Tell your granddaughter it’s a bad idea to take money from celebrities. Rock stars, especially, should be avoided like lepers.”

  I expected Abuela to agree. It had always bothered her that I looked like Kari Kingsley. She would find Kari Kingsley pictures in grocery store tabloids just to complain about them. She especially hated one where some buff shirtless guy draped his arms around Kari. "Mira esta chica,” Abuela had said with scorn. "Boys see that girl doing those sorts of things, and they’ll think our Lexi is no better.” Abuela did a lot of head shaking. "Somebody ought to smack that girl good and hard with a Bible.”

  Leave it to my grandma to use the holy book as a weapon.

  But this time, instead of her usual Kari Kingsley commentary, Abuela gave my mother a knowing look. "You had a different view of singers once.”

  Mom glared at her and jangled the silverware onto the table.

  Which made me remember—when Mom was my age, she'd been wild about this country-western band—the Journey Men. She wanted to drop out of school and become a roadie. Seriously. She still had a couple of their posters on the top shelf of her closet. She also had every CD they'd ever made, and I had to endure listening to them whenever Mom felt nostalgic for her high school years.

  But what I wanted to do wasn't the same as dropping out of school to become a roadie, because I’d be paid a lot more.

  "It's time for dinner," Mom said in that tone parents use to tell you the subject is closed.

  I didn’t want to let the subject drop, even though I knew it was pointless to argue right then. She was too upset about it—though I didn't understand why. Wouldn't most parents think it was cool to have their daughter make a lot of money doubling for a star? I tried to make sense of her response while we waited for Abuela to pull herself off of the couch and shuffle over to the table.

  Probably the thing that upset Mom was the idea of me dropping out of high school and working. College was a sticking point for her. She hadn’t gone because she’d been pregnant with me. She'd moved to DC with my aunt, my tia Romelia, and gotten a job with a hotel there. She'd spent the last twelve years taking a class here and there, until she was finally at the point where she was almost finished with her degree. She'd always told me to do it the right way. Four years straight through.

  But what did it matter if I left high school a few months early or put college off for a year? I'd still get my degree. She should know that.

  Abuela sat down at the table. Mom stared at the food and held a fork in her hand, tapping it between her thumb and finger.

  Abuela glanced over at her. "Stop worrying, Sabrina.”

  "Who knows how many people have seen that picture?” Mom said. "Anyone could have seen it.”

  "Yes, but what are the chances that he'll recognize her for who she is?"

  Mom didn’t answer. She turned to me and said, “Lexi, would you say the prayer?”

  I looked back and forth between Mom and Abuela. "Who's he?" But as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew the answer. "Oh. You mean my father.”

  My mother had never told me who my father was. She always said we’d have a talk about it once I graduated from high school and went out on my own. She thought then I’d be mature enough, and if I wanted to contact him, it would be my choice. Which I didn't think was fair. A person should know who her father is all along. I'd grown up feeling like I didn’t really know who I was, like a big chunk of me was missing.

  Here is the sum total of what I'd been able to squeeze out of my mother in all of my years of trying: My parents met the month before she graduated from high school. He was very handsome—tall, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and I did look like him, even though I inherited Mom's brown hair and brown eyes. She thought she loved him. They had a very short relationship and were never married. Mom insisted she hadn’t kept his identity a secret because he was a convict, a lowlife, or something else that I would be horrified to find out about. She kept his identity a secret because she thought it was for the best.

  The only other thing she’d told me about him was that he didn't know I existed.

  When I was young, I’d fantasized about him showing up one day out of the blue. I used to imagine him holding the reins of a tawny brown horse with a pale tan mane—a gift for all the years he’d missed in my life. He would smile, excited to meet me. As I grew older, his gifts became other things, but the smile and the dream remained the same. He was out there, looking for me, finally wanting to be a real father. I knew it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true, but still I wanted it.

  So I’d heard almost nothing about my father from Mom. Abuela knew things about him too, but she remained surprisingly quiet on the subject. I'd been able to get some information from her because keeping her mouth shut was not her strong point—but Abuela put her own spin on everything, so I wasn't sure how much of it was true.

  According to Abuela, my father had money and Mom had contacted him to tell him she was pregnant. She was brushed off, though, told she was a gold digger. Mom decided not to press the matter after that. She had her pride. She would raise me on her own. We didn’t need handouts.

  Since Mom’s and Abuela’s stories didn’t exactly mesh, I went back and forth as to which I believed. Mostly I wanted to believe that any day a nice man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes would show up with my horse.

  1 looked at Mom across the dinner table. "Why do you care if my father sees the picture? I thought he didn’t know about me."

  Mom stopped tapping her fork. "Lexi, please say grace.”

  "Do I look so much like him that he'd recognize me from a picture?"
r />   Abuela folded her arms and let out a martyred sigh. “I'll say grace. Otherwise we’ll starve.”

  She shut her eyes without waiting to see if Mom and I followed suit. "Our Father, we thank you for this food and ask you to bless it. We also ask you to bless Lexi and keep her far away from those trampy girls who live out in Hollywood, where sin lies like a lion waiting to devour them all. Amen."

  I glared at Abuela, but she picked up her fork and ate without paying attention to me. I turned to Mom. "If I worked for Kari Kingsley for a year, I could go to any college I wanted, not just a state university."

  Mom pushed rice pilaf around on her plate. "There's nothing wrong with going to a state university, and besides, if you needed the money for college that badly, I would track down your father and ask him for it. But you can make it on your own. What you don’t get in a scholarship, we can finance. You’re bright and talented, and you don’t need to take money from people who’ll treat you like a second-class citizen. You're better than that.”

  "You don’t know that Kari Kingsley would treat me that way,” I said.

  Mom gave me a half grunt, half laugh. And okay, I admit she had dealt with a few celebrities when she worked at an upscale hotel in DC. I used to love hearing her stories about them. The singer who insisted on having rose petals put in her toilet every morning. The actress who wanted someone to spray her brand of perfume around her room before she checked in.

  But still.

  I held out my hands to Mom. “Ten to twenty thousand dollars a month. I can put up with a celebrity for a few months for that much money.”

  "Your self-respect shouldn't have a price tag.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up one hand to stop me. "Your school gave me this Maren Pomeroy’s contact information. I’ll e-mail her tonight and tell her you’re not interested. That way we won’t have to worry about her calling again.”

  I simply stared at Mom. How could she be so unreasonable about this?

  She ignored my stare and continued to push food around on her plate. "Larry and I are going out tonight. We're going to a chamber orchestra performance.” And just like that, our discussion was over.

  Larry worked as an accountant for the hotel and was about as much fun as a ledger full of numbers. He insisted on taking Mom to things in which she had no interest whatsoever, and for a reason I never fully understood, this did not bother her.

  I didn’t comment, though, because I was not speaking to her. Ever again.

  "Orchestra.” Abuela repeated the word like it had a bad taste. “You should go dancing. What’s wrong with this man that he doesn’t know how to dance? He’s aburrido." Boring.

  Mom let out a grunt. "I've had my share of flashy, romantic men. It never works out. Stable is good. Boring is even better.’’ Mom took a sip of water. "Boring men hardly ever dump their girlfriends. It takes too much effort. Plus, they make good fathers because they have no outside hobbies."

  I didn’t want to even think about the possibility of Larry being my father.

  I pushed away from the table, walked to my bedroom, and slammed the door. Then I threw myself down on my bed. I didn’t have a headboard, footboard, or the canopy bed I’d always wanted when I was little. I looked at the dresser that Mom had picked up at a garage sale, and my closet filled with clothes I'd bought at thrift shops and clearance sales. All of it came into sharp focus.

  I'd never held it against Mom that I didn’t have a big house like my friends or that we didn’t take expensive vacations like their families. Mom couldn’t afford to buy me a car, let alone one like Theresa and the Cliquistas' fleet of sports cars.

  And then there were the little things-—how I always had to pretend that I didn't like movie theater popcorn when I went out with my friends because I couldn’t afford the ticket and the junk food—how I never had the latest or the nicest of anything. But this? This wasn't fair.

  I thought about her statement that if I really needed money she would ask my father for it. Had she not noticed the way we’d lived for the last eighteen years?

  Eventually the doorbell rang. I heard Larry's and Mom's voices out in the living room and then a couple minutes later Mom opened my door.

  "I’m leaving now. Make sure Abuela doesn't get into trouble while I'm gone.”

  I knew she wanted me to laugh. I didn't even look at her.

  “Look, I'm sorry you're disappointed about the job, but trust me about this, Lexi. It isn't right for you."

  She shut the door, and I thought about my summer jobs at McDonald’s. Apparently those were right for me. I was a flipping-burgers type of girl.

  But I didn’t want to be anymore.