Two Naomis (7 page)

“The no-head ladies got there!” I say when Mom's face appears on the computer. They're behind her. I'd say they were looking at her, except that no
heads
means no
eyes
.

She looks confused for a second—she doesn't call them that. “Oh! Yeah. The box got here on Thursday,” she says. “Thank you for sending it.”

I try to notice details about the room she's in, but all I can see is that the walls are pale yellow, and there's a lamp behind a flowery chair in the corner. It is so impossible and weird that she's living in a place I've never seen.

“Are you working all the time?” I ask. That's what she said
it would be like in California. When she lived here, she did costumes mostly for plays, and it was crazy for a month or two and then she'd have lots of time to do stuff with me. But this job is lasting longer. She didn't know what it would be like when she first went there, but she's really good and people keep offering her new jobs. Right now, she's working on a movie, but she said she might be starting on a TV show as soon as the movie's over.

She smiles at me. Well, at the camera. But at me. “It feels like it, yeah. So tell me about this class that changed our talks to Sundays. Or is it a club? I wasn't clear—”

“It's this coding class at the Y. DuoTek? Making computer games and stuff. Dad calls it a club, but it's just a class.”

She's quiet for a minute, looking at my face on the screen. “Interesting,” she says.

And then she does this thing that I somehow almost forgot about. She says the exact opposite of the truth with a very straight face. “You've been a student of computer science for a very long time.” She nods, looking very serious. “If I recall correctly, your interest began when you were three months old.”

I picture myself dressed in a onesie, a baby bottle by my side, pounding on a keyboard, and it makes me laugh.

It used to drive Dad crazy when we talked like this. He always thought there was a little meanness in it. But he gives me privacy when I Skype with Mom, so I don't worry about him overhearing. “I begged Dad to sign me up because computer games are my passion!” It's funny, because I never play computer games.

She laughs, but there's a question in it.

“Why
are
you doing it?”

I think of a truth that won't hurt her, because I don't know if Mom knows about Valerie. “Dad's friend's daughter is in the class. And he really wants us to be friends.”

“Do you like her? Is she fun?” It reminds me of the way Mom and I used to talk at the kitchen table, the way she was curious about everything that happened to me, where Dad seems fine with whatever I tell him.

I try to find the right words. Does Mom even know I'm talking about Dad's
female
friend's daughter? But I say, “It's a six-week class,” which doesn't answer her question at all.

“Listen,” she says. “Sometimes I'm stuck with people I wouldn't choose to work with. Remember Joshua, the production designer on
Pilgrims' Pets: The Musical
?”

“Yeah, I think. He was super-bossy, right?”

“Well, there was a lot going on, but yeah, you could say that. But I thought about that interview with Edith Head we watched, and it really helped. Do you remember?”

“The one that showed Audrey Hepburn?” She was so beautiful.

“Yes. And Edith talked about how she starts each new project. She said something like ‘The first thing I do is get to know the actress. I actually study her.'”

I think about the way Mom reads and rereads a script before she begins designing. “Wait, don't you mean the character she's playing? Not the actress?”

“That's what made Edith Head different. She would study
the actress, see how she stood, walked, moved. To learn as much as she could.”

“So you think I should study her? To learn . . . what? I mean, why?”

“It's a way of getting to know someone. To think about it from a different angle, or a few angles. The way a director might.”

All of a sudden, I'm hit with a wave of missing Mom. “Do you know when you're coming home?” I ask.

She nods, and I feel so much hope. But then she says, “I need to talk to your dad about some things.”

“Okay,” I say. And then I say, “He's very organized. I keep him in charge of my schedule because he's so organized.”

We both laugh again.

“I miss you like nobody's business,” Mom says.

Don't cry.

“I need to see you soon, Mom,” I say. “This is too long, it's been too long, and it's too hard,” and then, shoot! I start to cry.

Mom's eyes tear up a little too. “I'm going to talk to your dad. I was thinking maybe it'll be better if you come out here for the first visit.”

Is that hope or excitement or something else that flips like an in-my-stomach seal? “Really?”

“Not right away, but yes. When you have no school and I have some time off.”

I'm still hurting from missing her, but the tears stop. A trip to California sounds perfect! I could escape that stupid Girls Gaming the System class AND see my mom.

“Do you want to talk to him now?” I ask, ready to run and get him and the school calendar so it can all happen this exact instant.

But Mom says, “I have to go now. I have some sketches I need to finish, and I need to meet with my team, but—”

“On a Sunday?” I say.

“On an every day. I know. It's crazy. But I'll talk to your dad during the week. We'll figure this out, Naomi.” She smiles and blows me a kiss.

“I love you,” I say, and then the screen closes.

After I talk to Mom, I usually feel the way I do after a good meal, like the conversation is all I need to fill me all the way with her love. Once I tell her what's going on in my life and hear about hers, it's like everything's okay. But today it feels like there are holes, and the stuff that keeps me feeling like me is spilling out a little. Part of it is I'm mad at my dad, and also I don't know when I'm going to see my mom. It's too much, and it's too hard. I picture the way most of the pellet-y stuffing came out of Lambikins when Mom put her in the washing machine when I was four.

Dad sticks his head into the room. “Good. You're off. I was hoping you could show me some of what you learned yesterday. I don't know the first thing about DuoTek.”

I'm not sure what I want to do right now, but I know it's not that. I don't even want to think about that class right now. And then I realize what's been missing from this weekend—an easy thing to do that might make me feel a little more normal. “Can we go to Morningstar?” I ask. I can almost picture the croissant I'll eat. Or the bagel.

“I thought maybe we could do that next week,” Dad says. “With Valerie and her girls, after we get you at the Y.”

“I don't want to sound mean, Dad, but can't we ever do anything with just the two of us anymore?”

“Don't you like them?” he asks. There's a sadness in his face that I haven't seen since those long, hard months when he and Mom went through that awful separation.

“Can't we do both? Go now and then go again next week?”

“I'm not that hungry,” he says. I forgot how small his voice sounded then. Like it sounds now. “Are you?”

It's not about hungry. It's about wanting to do what we do. About wanting to go to Morningstar with just my dad. But I can't stand to see him like this.

What I really want to say is “Of course, Dad. I don't want a delicious buttery croissant one bit! All I want is to show you what I learned to do with your girlfriend's daughter. Who stole my name. I've always hated croissants! And bagels.”

But like I said, Dad does not find the way Mom and I talk funny. And he looks so sad. So instead I show him how to move a cat around a screen. And try to remember why I was going to be nicer to the other Naomi.

But I know the answer. Not only did I feel bad that she has an annoying little sister, but I almost like her. She's super-smart. But I really don't like the way Dad's pushing me toward her.

At all.

“This town ain't big enough for the both of you,” Tom says in a fake-growly voice, and everybody groans, even the Other One.

Momma frowns at him.
Now?
she mouths, like all of us can't lip-read a word like
now
. Come on, parents.

“What Tom means,” says Momma slowly, “is that we should talk about our . . . name situation.”

“Do we really have to talk about this now, right before we go in?” asks the Other Naomi, and I nod because,
Come on
, parents! At least
someone
understands. If I didn't have to take this class with her and she wasn't who she was and she wasn't already trying to steal my life starting with MY NAME, I might invite her to visit my book review club at the library. As a one-time guest.

Right now, I don't want to work anything out except our project. This week we're finishing up this really cool minigame that's based on old arcade games like pinball. Then we want to make a trivia game, with questions about our favorite books. Actually, her taste in books is pretty good. The cool thing about DuoTek is that we can each see when the other person updates the project. On Monday, I saw that she listed
The Trouble with Half a Moon
and
Breadcrumbs
in the Brain Dump section. So I added a sticky note that said, “Cool!! I love those books too!!!” I spent a long time deciding how many exclamation points to add, and I put in a smiley face, but the one that doesn't show teeth because I thought she might think the teeth one is stupid. But she never responded. I checked every day when I added ideas to the Dump.

“Work it out, Two Naomis, work it out!” sings Bri, dancing in a circle.

“Well, we can, um, work this out quickly—Tom and I already have an idea,” Momma says, and then I realize that they must have planned this, just like this, so we wouldn't have time to think. Again: Come
on
, parents!

“Since we have this coincidence here, with both of you named Naomi and all,” starts Tom.

“We thought that one of you could use your middle name,” finishes Momma. Then she looks straight at me.

Wait, what? “What are you looking at me for?” I ask loudly. I point to the Other One. “
She's
got a middle name too. A perfectly . . . uh, actual one.” I don't want to make fun of her name because that's not cool, even if she is obviously kind
of embarrassed about it. And I mean: Edith. That's kind of old school, like one of those shows Nana likes. Some people in my school would probably have a lot to say about it, like Mikey, who always has some annoying comment to make. I sneak a quick glance her way. She's not looking at me, but I learned last Saturday that when she gets mad, she bites her lip kind of hard, and she's about to draw blood right now.

Momma and Tom look at each other. “Please, honey,” Momma says. “It will just . . . make things easier.”

What would make things easier is if my parents could have made it work like they always want us kids to do, and if Tom wasn't kind of nice even though he's the Enemy, and if the Other One didn't have a secret middle name that she maybe hated and I didn't get called Naomi Marie when Momma's mad, and if I could just be at the library with Xiomara and Ms. Starr and play games with my dad and Brianna could have extended days at school.

“But you only call me Naomi Marie when I'm in trouble!” I say. “I'm going to always feel like you're mad at me!”

I am NOT going to cry.

Momma hugs me, but I squirm away. Brianna stops singing and holds my hand.

“Oh honey—you're right. Let's talk about this later,” Momma says. “I didn't realize . . . Well, we just thought . . .”

“It's my fault,” said Tom, which, DUH! YES I KNOW THAT. “And you're absolutely right. Talking about something like this right before you go in probably isn't a good time.”

I look away from them both, until the Other One says, “But maybe we do need to work something out, Dad, because
I'm
the one who said that about it being right before we go in. I guess it's soooo hard for you to tell us apart!”

I was wrong. She doesn't bite her lip when she's mad; she gets really red. Really. But the idea of anyone not being able to tell us apart is kind of . . . funny. Before I realize it, I let out a giggle.

She looks straight at me. And grins.

We don't talk about it at all. We both know it's weird, and there's too much to do anyway. And I'm doing most of it. As usual. But I don't mind so much, because this is actually more fun than I'd expected, thinking of ways to make a digital game that's exciting like a real game. And this time the Other Naomi doesn't just watch; even though I still do all the work on the computer, she seems interested in my ideas for a book trivia adventure game, and we find out that we both had to read
The Great Wall of Lucy Wu
for school and we agree that it was AWESOME.

As we're packing up, she says, “So . . . they'll be back soon. What's our plan?”

“Plan?” I ask. “Um.” I'm not sure what to say. We look at each other for a minute; then I add, “Parents always do stuff like that. They think they can just trick us into doing what they want.”

“I know,” she says. “My best friend Annie's mom asked her to sing in front of everyone at Thanksgiving dinner last year. The whole family was there, even her cousins who are teenagers. Her
mom blurted it out right after she told Annie that she could have an extra slice of pie instead of Brussels sprouts. Annie almost died. Literally.”

“Whoa!” I say. “Wait till I tell Xiomara that one, though she probably would have whipped out her personal microphone and spotlight. She's obsessed with
Vocalympians!
”

“Who's Xiomara?”

“She's
my
best friend,” I say.

“Oh. Well, so do you think we should present a, um . . . united front?”

I pause. “I guess so. But . . . well.” I stop.

“I know. It's . . . your name.”

“Yeah . . . yours too,” I say. “It's cool that you're named after that lady. Are, um, your parents really into costumes?” I wonder if they all dress up for Halloween.

“My mom is a costume designer,” she says, not looking at me. “She's working on a big movie, with lots of stars. In California.” She closes her mouth like she's never going to open it again.

I wonder what it's like to have your mom so far away. I wonder how I would feel if my dad wasn't right down the street. I wonder if all this wondering is going to make things even more complicated.

I can see Momma and Tom outside the door. “Okay, the plan . . . ,” I say. “The plan is . . . I'm not sure yet. But, look . . .” I nod toward Momma's and Tom's big smiles and waves. They're practically jumping up and down.

We look at each other and sigh.

“Here's an idea. . . . We thought we could all go to the beach!” says Momma as we walk out to the sidewalk.

“It's not summer,” the Other Naomi says, which is both a good point and also
Shhh, Other Naomi! They said we're going to the beach!
But then she says to her father, “And since when do you like the beach?”

“We thought we'd try something that would be fun for all of us,” Tom says. “A little celebration to, uh, thank you both for being so mature, and . . .” He trails off.

“Nobody agreed to anything yet,” says the Other Naomi, and I'm glad she said it and not me. She's giving her father some kind of stare. I wonder what that's all about.

“What about me?” asks Brianna. “I was line leader yesterday. Mrs. Cullen says I'm very mature!”

I roll my eyes, but I don't say anything.

“Let's just celebrate all of us being mature!” says Momma, and she and Tom look at each other, all happy. I look away—right at the Other Naomi. I can tell she sees the big, hopeful smiles too. We look at each other and that mad-at-her-father thing melts, and we smile too. Small smiles. But even though they're small, they're real. Because, parents.