Two Naomis (15 page)

“Your library's pretty cool,” I say. “But it would be even better if they let us eat in there.”

She looks at me in a way that makes me think I proved myself to be an even better person than she ever imagined. “Exactly!” she says.

Dad and Valerie are smiling as they watch us say good-bye to Ms. Starr. Brianna spots us and starts wiggling and jumping up and down, covering her mouth like she can barely hold her words in. As we get closer, she uncovers her mouth and starts whisper-singing the word
surprise
as though it has five syllables.

“Sorry,” Naomi Marie says, not sounding sorry at all. “This is not a surprise. We knew you'd all be here.”

Brianna doesn't stop mini-jumping but says, “That's not the surprise!”

Valerie says, “Brianna doesn't know what the surprise is. She simply knows there
is
a surprise.”

When we step outside, a strong breeze blows Brianna's braids around her face. She swats them away and sings, “Where are we going? Where's my surprise?”

“It's not your surprise, Brianna,” Valerie says.

“We're getting a Zipcar later! Surprise!” Brianna says. “See? I kept the secret,” she says to her mom.

“Why do we need a car?” I ask.

“Are we going back to the park?” Naomi Marie asks. I think about how we screamed at each other until we cried there. But then we laughed and laughed. Still, I wish I could go back a few weeks and be a better DuoTek partner to Naomi Marie. I know I already apologized, but I keep thinking about it. I don't like how I acted.

Dad and Valerie share a look and say, “Let's talk.” I wonder if the only surprise is that we're getting a Zipcar today or if there may be some chocolate in my future.

“This is a big moment for all of us,” Dad says.

Valerie reaches for her girls' hands and then looks at me with an expression that says
I wish I had another hand, but I don't
. Dad puts his hands on my shoulders like we're playing a sport or something and coming up with our game plan. Then they make a weird effort to join our two strange circles, but instead we're standing next to each other with my hip touching Naomi
Marie's. We must look crazy to anyone watching.

“Right here, right now,” Valerie says. “We are all going to always remember this.”

Incredibly, Brianna doesn't start singing the words
right here, right now
.

“We're getting married,” Valerie says, smiling. Naomi Marie's mouth opens a little, but no sound comes out. Brianna breaks out of their hand-holding family circle and starts shouting, “Wedding! Wedding! Flower girl! I'm flower girl because I'm youngest!”

“Really?” I say. “Wow. I didn't think. I . . . I didn't know.”

“How is that even possible?” Naomi Marie asks. “We don't have enough rooms—and they don't . . . How could we all fit?”

“We've been looking together for a while now, and we think we've found the perfect place for us to all move into together. We want to show it to you! It's a beautiful house—a warm butter yellow, with a backyard and a little garden on the side.”

“Can we get a pony?” Brianna asks, and somehow, instead of that being annoying, it makes me and Naomi Marie start to laugh.

But it's just a quick laugh, and then my brain creeps back to this news. A wedding, all of us living together. I had no idea this could happen so fast.

“When will the wedding be?” Naomi Marie asks in a very quiet voice.

“In about a half hour,” Tom says.

“WHAT!?” Naomi Marie and I say at the exact same time.

“We got our marriage license last week,” Dad explains.

I am pretty sure if I ask why it's happening so fast, that will be considered rude. So I'm very relieved when Naomi Marie asks, “Why's it happening so fast?”

“We didn't want a big wedding,” Valerie says. “We had been planning to do it in the fall, and last week we realized this summer would be a great chance for us to all be together as a family. And then that house showed up, and it felt like a sign; there was no reason to wait. All we want, all we really need, is to have you three girls with us.”

That's a lot to think about. But then I think of the really important question that hasn't even been mentioned. “But what about wedding cake?”

Everyone laughs, and then Dad says, “Let's get going. The office closes at four thirty.”

We start to walk toward City Hall.

Before we even reach the corner, Brianna starts singing, “Momma and Tom sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
. First comes love, then comes marriage, then—”

“Brianna, please stop,” Naomi Marie and I say—at the exact same time, of course.

“Oh great,” Brianna says. “Now I'm going to have two big sisters named Naomi telling me when to stop and what to do.”

Sisters! These girls are going to be my sisters? In a half hour? There should be some special quiet-space building we could go to and all sit and think about this before we march over to City Hall.

Naomi Marie says, “Naomi E. asked an important question. What about wedding cake?”

“We thought of that,” Dad says.

“When we leave the city clerk's office, we're going straight to the bakery.”

“Shelly Ann's?” I ask, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“Morningstar?” Naomi Marie asks.

“Which one?!” Brianna asks. “I want Shelly Ann's!”

“Well, that's the thing,” Dad says.

Valerie stops walking and turns so she's facing the three of us. “It's not going to be this or that, girls. We promise you that. We're bringing two families together. It's not about choosing one. It's very much going to be this AND that. The traditions of both our families, celebrated and honored together.”

“I don't get it,” Brianna says.

“I think she means Shelly Ann's
and
Morningstar,” I say.

“Two bakeries? In one day?” Brianna asks.

“And then we're going to get our car and drive up to Bear Mountain for a big picnic dinner,” Dad says.

Naomi Marie doesn't say anything, but her eyes are open very wide. As we start walking again, I'm worried that she's going to say something about not wanting to live with Dad and me. I'm not sure that what I'd choose would be to live with these two girls and their mom, but I can see it's what is going to happen. Like when Mom and Dad got divorced—it was happening, and
there was no changing it. I need more time to think about this, but I do like the idea of
and
instead of
or
.

“So there
will
be some chocolate on this day,” I say, because it's what jumps to my mind. And it makes me happy.

Naomi Marie smiles, a small one. “Probably a lot,” she says.

In the city clerk's office, Brianna sings for everyone in the waiting area, and Valerie shows Naomi Marie and me pictures of the small, perfect wedding cake waiting for us at Morningstar and Shelly Ann's caramel cake decorated with a bride, groom, and three smaller people standing on top.

It's a super-fast ceremony, Dad looking into Valerie's eyes and Valerie into Dad's, all of them wet with tears. It isn't easy to watch—because even though it's not about her at all, I keep thinking about my mom—but I do. I watch the whole thing.

And when Naomi Marie reaches for my hand, I squeeze hers gently. I hope that's what sisters do.

When the ceremony is over, we stand together in a five-person hug back in the waiting area. Ten minutes ago, I was an only child. Now I have two sisters.

Outside, I spot Dad's friend Loofie with his camera. I run over to hug him. “You missed it,” I say. “They already got married.”

His camera's hanging around his neck, but he holds it up and says, “I'm here to take pictures.”

I look down—so do Naomi Marie and Brianna. “But we don't have fancy clothes,” Brianna says, sounding sad.

“That's the point,” Valerie says. “We wanted some pictures
of us at the start, as we are, as we begin our lives together.”

We crowd together with City Hall behind us, and Loofie starts snapping.

I think the other Naomi and I see it at the exact same time. “Wait a minute,” I say as she is saying, “Be back in a sec.”

I'm glad I grabbed that ten dollars I found in my sock drawer this morning.

There's a man with a small cart selling bouquets of flowers. We race over and then stop, look at each other, and laugh.

“What's your mother's favorite color?” I ask.

“Momma says she doesn't have favorites, but she always wears bright colors.”

I point at the huge yellow flowers. “These?”

“Perfect,” she says.

“Are you getting married?” the man asks with the kind of smile that might mean he likes joking with kids.

“In a way,” I say.

Together, Naomi Marie and I run back to Dad, Valerie, Brianna, and Loofie, and hand the flowers to Valerie.

“We got these for you for the pictures,” Naomi Marie says.

“Happy wedding day,” I add.

Valerie smiles, and as she pulls us both into a hug, I think I see tears in her eyes.

Loofie works fast, shooting pictures from different angles, and doesn't even take any pictures of only Dad and Valerie. Every single picture has all five of us in it.

After I hug him good-bye, as we're getting ready for our
bakery-to-bakery road trip, I stop Naomi Marie, because there's something I need to say.

Brianna's already climbing into her booster seat, and Dad's starting the engine, so I blurt it out. “I really am sorry I didn't help you on the DuoTek contest.”

“I know,” she says. “You already said so.”

“Okay. Good. I've never had a sister before. And I want—I just want it to be good.” I know she already has a sister and doesn't really need another one. I might have been a little scared she was going to say that to me.

“Oh, we're good,” Naomi Marie says. “And I think we'll get even better.”

Something that has been pulled tight inside me lets go, like a flower opening its petals toward the sun.

“I'm going to ask you a question,” she says. “And I want you to tell me the truth.”

Uh-oh. I nod.

She's looking right at me, even though the sun is in her eyes. “That thing you told me to try with Orchid Richardson. Where you study someone to figure them out, the way your mom does, to come up with their costumes. Did you do that with me?”

I feel my lips moving up into a smile. “Did you try it?” I ask. “What costume would Orchid Richardson wear?”

Dad sticks his head out the window like he's going to tell us to hurry up and get in, but when he sees us talking, he pulls his head back in and puts the window back up.

“I'm still working on it, but it's definitely an awful shade of
pink. And I'm almost positive it's really uncomfortable. Should I ask what costume I'd be wearing?”

“Sure,” I say. I look at her, trying to think of her as my sister; but it's still pretty new to think of her as my friend, so that will have to do for now. “It would be some kind of beautiful sundress you made yourself. You probably dyed it blue and yellow at a museum workshop. It would be exactly, perfectly you.”

She smiles at me. Before she can climb into the car, I ask, “So are you happy or scared about all this? Our, you know, new family.”

She smiles and says, “It's not
or
, right? It's all about
and
.”

Happy
and
scared. She's right.

“We've got this,” she says as she climbs into the car. I wonder if she believes that or is just wishing it.

But of course it must be both.

Believing it. And wishing it.

Happy and scared.

But really, right now, what's most important: Shelly Ann's AND Morningstar!

Erin Murphy remembered an early attempt at this book and mentioned it at the exact right time to the exact right person. That we all three met on the same day is some kind of wonderful SCBWI miracle.

Kristin Rens has to be the most clear-eyed and encouraging editor in all the land. She never panicked, even when drafts lacked . . . focus, among other things. We thank you wholeheartedly for knowing just what needed doing and trusting that we were up to the task.

Our deepest appreciation to everyone at Balzer + Bray for supporting our Naomis from the very start.

And to our families and friends and our families' friends and our friends' families, thank you for lifting us up when we got low, for calming us down when things went awry, and for making sure we kept ourselves pointed in the right direction. For cheering us on, for believing in the power of stories, and for celebrating with us every step of the way, we are humbled and grateful.

And to our readers: thank you for spending your time with us and our stories. Be the fullness of who you are, and take every opportunity for Shelly Ann's AND Morningstar. (And maybe Yumi's too.)

Photo by DJ Johnson

OLUGBEMISOLA RHUDAY-PERKOVICH
is the author of the middle grade novel
8th Grade Superzero
and has contributed to the website Brightly and the books
Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices
and
Break These Rules: 35 YA Authors on Speaking Up, Standing Out, and Being Yourself
. Like Naomi Marie, she enjoys showing her leadership skills to her younger sister and wishes you could eat cake in the library. She lives with her family in New York City, where she writes, makes things, and needs to get more sleep. Olugbemisola loves to visit with readers and writers like you; until then, find her online at
www.olugbemisolabooks.com
.

Photo by Jacob Vernick

AUDREY VERNICK
is the author of more than a dozen books for young readers, including the picture books
Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?
and
First Grade Dropout
and the middle grade novel
Water Balloon
. Like Naomi E., she adores a good bakery and is not fond of her middle name. Audrey enjoys visiting schools to speak with young readers and writers. She lives with her family near the ocean in New Jersey. Visit her online at
www.audreyvernick.com
.

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.