Two Naomis (6 page)

The little one, Brianna, reaches out to hold my hand, and before I even know it, the other Naomi and I are swinging her the way Mom and Dad used to swing me on my way to Kinder Kinder (which almost rhymes with
finder splinter
, but everyone calls it Kinda Kinder) when I was little. It's weird to be the older one, the big one. I've never been the one who swings before. It's fun, but only for about a minute. And it seems like Brianna would like us to keep swinging her until our arms fall off our bodies.

And she won't stop singing!

Everyone else is pretending it's adorable. The other Naomi sometimes chimes in—in harmony. Dad might even be— Yes, he is. Dad is singing along.

We turn left at the corner instead of going straight, the direction of Morningstar. “Dad!” I call out. He and Valerie got far ahead of us because they don't have to swing a four-year-old.

He turns and smiles.

“Dad, Morningstar's that way,” I remind him.

Valerie, who I wasn't talking to, answers. “We thought it would be fun to try someplace new.”

“Shelly Ann's?” the other Naomi says. “I think we might
really
need her caramel cake today.”

“Today we're trying Yumi's,” Valerie says. “It opened two weeks ago.”

I'm not going to act like a brat, but I feel like one inside. Because all I want is to be at Morningstar. I kind of
need
the way everyone smiles at Dad and me when we walk in. And the table in the corner that's almost always waiting for us. Plus a bagel. Or a croissant. It's almost like our home away from home, especially since Mom left.

I stop swinging my arm, but Brianna pulls my hand back, trying to force another swing. The other Naomi and I do one more quick swing and then I drop Brianna's hand before she can try for more. We've been swinging her for two whole blocks already!

“Everything's good at Shelly Ann's,” Brianna sings in the same way she was singing that “Sally Go Round” song, but the words don't fit the melody. “We'll go there next time because it's the best bakery in the wor-er-er-erld!”

“You're something else, Brianna,” Dad says, laughing.

Finally, we stop in front of a storefront with a little blackboard
easel sign out front that says Open for Business. It's new looking and cute, and when we open the door, a delicious buttery-cinnamon-apple smell greets us. There's something about it— Oh. Ow, oh. It smells like the apple crisp my mom makes. She says it's the one recipe she's never messed up, and it makes me miss her in a really big way. Shoot, my eyes are tearing up and everything. From a stupid smell!

“Dad,” I whisper, “do you think there's a bathroom here?” I don't want to cry in front of everyone.

“It may be only for the people who work here, but I can ask.”

“Naomi! LOOK!” Brianna runs over to the display case. “They have the biggest cookies! That one is bigger than Rahel!”

A bald guy who's lining up cupcakes on a low shelf stands up. Whoa. He's very tall, and his smile somehow makes me feel better. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, relieved no one saw.

“What can I get for you?” he asks.

“Your bathroom?” Valerie asks.

I always forget that I'm a lousy whisperer.

“I'm okay,” I say. “Thanks.” I smile at her. Dad looks so proud that I have to look away.

Which isn't hard, because I'm in a bakery! Cookies with sprinkles, black-and-white cookies, chocolate chip, oatmeal chip, five kinds of cupcakes, brownies, blondies.

Brianna's putting her fingers all over the display case, making marks—something I feel like I was born knowing not to do.

“Are you going to have a bagel or a croissant?” Dad asks me.

“We don't sell bagels,” the bald guy says. “Can I get you a croissant?”

I see them in a little basket. They don't look all buttery and delicious.

“Could you tell me what's making that smell? That, like, apple-y–cinnamon thing. Is it a crisp or a tart or—”

“Our famous sunny-apple-morning muffin.”

“Muffins are cake shaped like breakfast!” Brianna says.

“Can I get you one?” the man asks.

Before Brianna can start singing about a muffin man, I blurt, “Sure. A muffin sounds great.” I regret it right away. A muffin? I ordered a muffin?

The other Naomi makes a face like I ordered stewed turtle or something.

The man—is he Yumi?—puts the muffin on a plate, and I take it to a table with four seats. The table wobbles when I put my plate on it, so I stand to move to another but not before Valerie sits next to me. “Tell me what you thought of the club,” she says. “Did you have fun?”

Over her shoulder, I can see the other Naomi and Brianna pointing at brownies and cookies. Desserts! And I'm eating a stupid breakfast muffin. A muffin's better than, I don't know, toast. But it's definitely not cake shaped like breakfast. Which is wrong anyway, Brianna. It's breakfast shaped like a cupcake. Why didn't I get a cookie?

“Well, I didn't know anything about DuoTek before the class, so I definitely learned stuff. The teacher, Julie, was nice. It
was okay, I guess.” But it wasn't about liking or not liking the class. It was about
not
liking being tricked into doing it. I didn't like that at all, and I know I have to wait until Dad and I are alone before I tell him. For now, though, I have to eat a stupid muffin. On a wobbly table.

The tables at Morningstar don't wobble.

Brianna races toward the table and nearly breaks her plate when she slams it down. “I call I get to sit between the Naomis. Naomi, you sit there,” she says, pointing at her sister and then at the chair on her other side.

The other Naomi takes a deep breath. “I will sit where I want to sit, Brianna.” Then she sneaks a look at her mom and sits in the chair Brianna is pointing at.

“Want anything, Val?” Dad calls from the counter. “Maybe split a doughnut?”

Who splits doughnuts? Dad could eat three doughnuts in one sitting, easy.

Valerie has the same idea. “Why split? Let's get two and share.”

He comes to the table with one chocolate doughnut and one jelly. Valerie stands and offers Dad her seat.

“Val, please sit,” Dad says. “I'm happy to stand.”

“So am I,” she says.

Neither of them sits.

“What did you get?” I ask the other Naomi.

“I got a butterscotch cookie,” Brianna says.

“She was talking to me,” the other Naomi says, but she says it in a calm voice. One that sounds used to an interrupting little
kid. “I was going to get caramel cake. But this place doesn't have that, so I got a triple-chocolate cookie.”

“Triple?” I say. “What's the third?”

Brianna starts singing something about triple being the most chocolate. Naomi talks over her. “There's the cookie, the chips, and then there's chocolate frosting on top. Want to try it?”

I shake my head.

We're all quiet. I pull the top off my stupid muffin and eat it, trying not to think about all the better things I could be eating.

“So, Naomi, tell us about Girls Gaming the System,” Dad says.

I don't say anything, because I already told Valerie. And Dad and I can talk about it for real later, when we're home. But the silence grows, so finally I say, “It was fine,” at the exact same time the other Naomi says, “It was okay.”

Brianna cracks up. And doesn't stop.

“I'm going to get some tea,” Valerie says, walking to the counter. “Does anyone else want anything?”

I want to trade in my tastes-nothing-like-my-mother's-apple-crisp muffin for a triple-chocolate cookie, but I'm too embarrassed to ask.

“I'll have a cup of coffee,” Dad says. “I need to dunk this in something,” he says, holding up the tiny bit of doughnut he has left.

“You two Naomis always think everyone's talking to you,” Brianna says, looking at her sister and then at me. She's still staring at me when she asks, “Do you have a middle name?”

I feel myself blushing. I don't like talking about middle names. Because I hate mine. Well, I love the
reason
for my name. I'm named after one of the most famous costume designers of all time because Mom is obsessed with her. This woman won eight Academy Awards! EIGHT! And she was brilliant, but unfortunately, her name was not Ruby Head. Or Violet Head. Or Anything-Other-than-Edith Head.

I'm Naomi Edith.

Which Dad knows I like to keep secret. So it's hard to know why he blurts it out right as Valerie's coming back to the table with two mugs in her hands.

“She's Naomi Edith. And you're Naomi Marie, right?” Dad asks.

I open my mouth to object and to ask how he already knows the other Naomi's middle name. But I don't want to make it even worse in front of this whole other family. What's he going to do next? Talk about the time I threw up on the escalator when he took me to see the Harlem Globetrotters?

“EDITH?” Brianna says, way too loudly.

“I think it's a nice name,” Valerie says.

“It's for a costume designer,” I say. “She designed those gorgeous clothes Audrey Hepburn wore in
Roman Holiday
and
Sabrina
.”

Valerie nods. “Edith Head,” she says. Which is really surprising, because hardly anyone has ever heard of her.

“That's cool,” the other Naomi says. Then she looks at my plate. “Don't you like your muffin?”

“I'm not that hungry,” I say.

She smiles and hands me a piece of her cookie. Which is the most delicious thing I ever ate.

And I decide right then that I'm going to try to be Kinda Kinder.

I'm acting like I'm cool with this whole Momma-and-Tom thing. I have to admit, it's making Momma more free and easy, like when she lets Xiomara come over for a playdate during the week, and she lets us watch TV so we settle in for
Vocalympians!
, which is not so much a perk because A LOT OF PEOPLE CAN'T SING and also Brianna thinks it's a sing-along show; but we laugh and pretend to have our own show anyway. Even doing homework together is fun, and I feel a teeny-tiny bit like it's okay for
some
things to change. But I'm not saying that out loud.

“You should sign up for this DuoTek workshop,” I say to Xiomara. “Then we could be partners.”

“I thought the whole idea was for you to be partners with the Other Naomi,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. She was almost okay at that bakery, which I might possibly go to again, because that cookie was good. “But I can tell she's not going to take it that seriously; she mostly looks bored while she watches me do the work. I don't want the teacher to think I'm a slacker.”

“And I thought you didn't even want to do it,” says Xiomara.

“I didn't,” I answer. “But now that I am, I want it to be good. There's even a showcase! Remember when we had to work in groups for our Lenape projects? And Jenn Harlow and Orchid Richardson didn't do anything, so I finished their wampum belts for them? And Mr. Mack assumed that they had done all the work because Orchid went on and on about how she'd gone to the American Indian museum over the weekend,
and
she brought Mr. Mack a frybread mix? Talk about fake.”

“Yeah, I remember. You bring it up a lot. You should have told your mom,” says Xiomara.

I never tell Momma about school stuff, because it would get too weird. I try not to act all like MY MOMMA WORKS HERE, because sometimes the kids say that I only get check pluses because my mom is a librarian and probably does all my work. They're the ones who think that I'm not that smart and that I know every hip-hop dance. I know for a fact that Jenn's mom is a Rich Person and hires people to do Jenn's work. But nobody cares about that.

“You should have us both sleep over next weekend,” says
Xiomara, smoothing the stickers on her science folder.

“You and
Jenn
?” I ask, confused. “Um, are you feeling okay?”

“No, duh, me and the Other Naomi. That would be fun. Can she sing? I wrote a new song, and we could be like a trio. What did you say her middle name was again? Agatha?”

“Er, no, it's Edith,” I say. I'm not sure I was supposed to tell that. Well, okay, I'm pretty sure I wasn't. “She's named after a famous costume designer, and actually she does dress pretty nice.” There, that makes it better. “But I don't know if she can sing.”

“That's okay; you can't either,” says Xiomara, giggling. I throw my LOVE pillow at her as Brianna barges in.

“Can I play?” she asks. “It's my room too, and privacy's not fair.”

“MOMMA!” I call.

Brianna runs out of the room, and I close the door behind her, a tiny bit hard but not a real slam. She's always trying to break the Playdate Privacy Rule. I get one sister-free hour in here, and I'm using every minute of it.

“Let's play Life,” Xiomara says. “Kwame never plays with me.” Xiomara's brother, Kwame, used to be so nice; but now that he's thirteen he burps, sweats, and ignores me.

We set up the board. “A sleepover wouldn't work. Brianna would be in our faces the whole time, and she's an only child, so she wouldn't get it.”

“I know! We could go to your dad's!” says Xiomara.

“Come on,” I say. “I can't bring
her
to my
dad's
. That would be . . . so rude.” Xiomara claps a hand over her mouth. “I'm so sorry! I forgot who she is! Are you mad at me?”

YES
is what I want to shout. “That's okay,” I say, but it's not. “Anyway, I already spend Saturday mornings with her, I don't know if I want to do a sleepover too. She looks like she snores.” And just like that, all the fun is sucked out of the day, like I'm still sitting in the tub after the bubble bath has drained out. “I don't want to play Life; it's boring.”

Xiomara's looking at me like she's about to cry, and I know she feels bad, but I don't say anything; I just put all the game pieces back in the box. Then I yell, “Briaannna! You can come play!” and open the door. She's sitting right there, with her Rahel doll and purse full of Country Corner Critters.

“YAY!!!” She rolls into the room. “Can you braid Rahel's hair?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Cornrows again?” Brianna nods. Xiomara stands up slowly.

“Well, I guess I should go. . . .”

“Okay, bye,” I say. Then I look up. “I'll walk you to the door.”

Momma gives Xiomara some brownies to take home to Kwame.

“Do you want to do homework at the library tomorrow?” Xiomara asks.

I look away. “Sure,” I say.

“I'm
really
sorry,” she says again.

“I know, it's fine,” I say, and I give her a hug plus our special best-friends hand squeeze.

“NAOMI!” shouts Brianna from the bedroom. “I made a braid myself!”

“You and your sister need to start getting ready for bed,” says Momma after I say good-bye to Xiomara and close the door.

“Can we have banana splits first?” I ask. Momma looks at me. “Worth a try,” I say, and I give her a hug too.

“You know, I was thinking,” she starts. “Why don't we have Tom's daughter, Naomi, come over here next weekend after your workshop. Maybe she can even sleep over. That might be fun.”

Oh my goodness, MOMMA'S MAGIC. I knew it.

“Were you eavesdropping?” I ask. “Because that's not cool, Momma.”

“No, I wasn't. I've been thinking about it, but as you well know, I am not concerned with being cool, and you shouldn't be either. I hope that if there was something important going on, you would talk to me about it—and why do you ask that anyway? Were you girls talking about having her over? That's wonderful, Naomi Marie. I'm so glad. I
knew
you would warm up!”

Did she even take a breath? And what's with calling me Naomi Marie? Is she mad, sad, glad, or what?

“Um, I'm still kind of cold, Momma,” I say. “I mean, she seems okay and all, but why so much togetherness? It's not like we have to be play cousins or something. I mean, Tom's okay, but . . . he's not my dad.”

She touches my cheek and leads me to the couch; I don't even see her wince when I sit on her lap. I lean all the way back onto her, like I'm little again.

“Going to the library tomorrow?” she asks. “What do you and Ms. Starr have planned next?”

“We had talked about a Sequence tournament. But since I can't do the board game club anymore . . . ,” I say, leaning back on her.

“Oh, honey, I know Girls Gaming the System changed that.” She hugs me a little tighter. “Maybe you could do something with board games on Saturday afternoons instead?”

“I'll ask Dad,” I say. “He'll understand.” I'm not sure if she heard me put a little extra attitude in there, but she doesn't say anything. We had the word
disrupt
on the vocabulary test last week, and it feels like that word has moved into my life for good. I think about the last time I was at Dad's. We were playing Sequence, and I was winning until Brianna spread the pieces all over the board and messed it up. Dad and I made up a whole new game and built a tower with the pieces. We laughed, but I was also still a little mad that we never really finished the game.

“Ms. Starr said we're going to have to try something else anyway, since . . . um, not that many people seem interested. Miyuri and I thought about a current events book club; she watches
Newshour
with her parents too. But then we'd have to pick sad books, and they just make you feel worse.” Last night, I started listing every time Gwen Ifill mentioned racism, guns, poor people, angry people, sick people, wars . . . and then I stopped writing.

“I agree that the news these days is pretty depressing,” Momma says. “But sometimes sad stories help something good grow out of the sadness—they illuminate,” she says. “And remember the news stories about Johari Osayi Idusuyi?” She smiles. “She
literally
used a book to make something good out of a very sad situation. You guys can turn your sadness into action.”

I smile too. “Ha, that's true. . . . Thanks, Momma.”

“. . . And maybe after you and Tom's Naomi finish this workshop, you guys can start a coding club at the library.”

“There's already Teen Gamez Crew,” I say. “And she doesn't go to our library.”

“Well . . . think about it. I bet Ms. Starr would be interested.”

I picture myself doing a DuoTek demonstration for the Teen Gamez Crew. Their mouths are hanging open, and I smile and pretend not to notice. That would be cool.

“Maybe I'll show Dad what I'm learning,” I say.

“And they don't live that far away, Tom and his daughter,” she continues, like I never said anything. “I bet she'd like to meet Ms. Starr.”

Back to that again. That girl is going to take over my whole life if I'm not careful!

“That would be weird, Momma” is all I say.

“Well . . . think about it. And you could introduce Xiomara too. Maybe the three of you can have a playdate.”

If Momma
is
magic, it's not the good kind that gives you your heart's desire.

And that
Naomi Marie
's still bugging me.

“Why did you call me
Naomi Marie
just now? I'm not in trouble, am I?”

“What do you mean? Of course you're not in trouble.”

“Well, usually you say that when you're mad.”

“I don't
always
do that. And I don't get mad . . . I get
concerned
,” says Momma. “Sometimes
deeply
concerned.” She smiles and pokes me. “Anyway, I don't know. I guess now that there are two Naomis in my life, that's how I think of
you
. My own special Naomi Marie.”

I used to just be special as Naomi, though.

Brianna comes into the living room, holding up Rahel. “I did it!” she says. Rahel has some lumpy-looking knots in her hair that look like they'll never come out. And she's sporting my blue-and-purple butterfly clip.

“She looks beautiful,” I say. I look at Momma, and we both push back a laugh. I move over. “You can sit on Momma's other leg if you want.”

Momma hugs us both to her. “You girls are growing up! Sometimes I wish I could freeze you in time.”

That's what I'm trying to tell you, Momma. Just keep things like they are. Stop moving the pieces all over the board!

Momma looks at her watch. “Oh, how about a banana split?” she asks.

“Yay!” yells Brianna. She jumps up and down, and I hug her for no reason except that she's my sister and she's little and she's happy and she doesn't understand everything.

I want to cheer too, but something gets caught in my throat. A banana split dinner is supposed to mean a celebration. I think I'd feel better if Momma just made us go to bed.