Two Naomis (8 page)

When I used to go to the beach with Mom and Dad, we'd get a car and drive out to Jones Beach on Long Island, which is the best. There are these huge parking lots, and sometimes you walk through tunnels where your voice echoes over and over and it all smells like rainbow sherbet. Mom always said it reminded her of when she was a girl, and it made her happy. And that made me happy.

But it never made my dad happy. Going to the beach actually made him miserable. He always complained about the sand coming home with us, how long the drive was, everything! And yet here we all are, on the subway, going to the beach, and Dad's all smiley. There's only one seat, and Valerie takes it and
pulls Brianna onto her lap, so Naomi and I grip a pole on either side of my dad.

“It was supposed to be a beautiful day,” Valerie says, looking out at the gray sky when the subway comes out of the tunnel.

“It was,” Dad says. “But it'll be fun, because we're all together.”

Really?

“I'm going to build fourteen castles and be the ruler of them all,” Brianna sings. The people sitting near them smile at her and then at Valerie. An old lady with a thick accent—Russian or German or something—says to Valerie, “She is absolutely precious.” Valerie smiles, and Brianna sits up tall and straight, like a super-proud bird or a statue.

I switch from holding the pole with my right hand to my left so I can turn and face away from them.

At the last stop, we get off the train, and Dad takes the two bags Valerie's carrying and puts one over each of his shoulders.

I remind Dad how much I love the boardwalk, which is the only good thing about going to the beach in Brooklyn.

“I went with Xiomara last summer, and her brother, Kwame, won three basketballs,” the other Naomi says.

“Did he give you one?”

“Of course not,” she says. “But then when we got soft-serve ice cream, he got green. Green! It's pistachio, I think, but who chooses green?”

“Good question,” I say. “Dad, can we maybe do the boardwalk too, because it's a little cold but not too cold for walking and definitely not too cold for ice cream and—”

“Naomi, not today.” The voice he keeps using with me is not one of my favorites. I can tell I'm getting on his nerves. I wonder if he knows he's kind of getting on mine too. Last night when I asked him if he had talked to Mom about when I could go to California, he complained to me about leaving messages for Mom and missing calls like it was all my fault. I just want to see my mom!

Once we reach the beach, it feels so weird to slide off my shoes and socks and put my feet in the not-at-all-warm-like-it-usually-is-when-I'm-at-the-beach sand. It smells like beach, like, I don't know, maybe seagulls.

Brianna drops to her knees and starts digging with her hands. “Hold on, Brianna,” Valerie calls. “We have blankets. And once we're all set up, I have shovels and pails. Just slow down.”

Brianna lets out a big sigh and flops down on her butt. “Fine, I'll wait,” she says.

Valerie hands the other Naomi a big colorful blanket and says, “Can you and Naomi lay this neatly on the ground?”

We each take two corners and spread the blanket out in the air. It's a beautiful blanket, blue and green, and like pretty fabrics always do, it makes me think of my mother. I remember what she said about Edith Head, how she studied people to get to know them. I watch Naomi as we slowly lower the blanket to the sand. She reminds me of a teacher. The way she stands with her back so straight. Maybe
confident
is the right word. Edith Head would make the other Naomi confident costumes, for sure.

Before we even finish smoothing the blanket out, Brianna
throws herself on it, getting sand all over everything and making the blanket wrinkly and messy. “I call that this is
my
blanket, and you can sit on it if you help me. I'm building fourteen castles, and I might need help with the goats and—”

“Goats?” I ask. “Your castle has goats?” She doesn't know this, but I LOVE goats. Especially baby goats. A castle with goats sounds interesting. . . .

Brianna rolls her eyes at me in a way I've seen the other Naomi roll her eyes. “Every castle has goats. It's like a big swimming pool that goes around the castle with goats swimming in it.”

The other Naomi shakes her head. “It's a moat. I've told you. Moat. Not goat.”

“Well, I'm going to need water, so where are the pails for getting water?”

Valerie smiles but doesn't look happy. “Why don't we sit here for a while? Maybe eat a little something. Before you run off, Brianna, I thought we could all sit and talk—”

“Could I please have a shovel? I need to start. Fourteen's a lot of castles.”

“Come on, Brianna,” Dad says. “Let's go get some water. I know you have a lot of work to do. Fourteen
is
a lot of castles.”

I watch as Dad, holding Brianna's hand, walks toward the ocean. I'm trying to not think about how not-nice-about-going-to-the-beach he always was. A lot of times Mom and I went without him.

I wish I could stop looking, but I can't.

If I studied Brianna to create a costume for her, it would be every loud color, and it would have arms and antennas reaching
in every direction like a sea witch. Or a bright storm-cloud octopus.

I'm so grateful when Valerie asks if I want a cupcake, because yes, I do. And it helps me pull my eyes away from Dad and Brianna. As Valerie's reaching for the box, I notice that the other Naomi is busy writing something in a little notebook. She sees me staring and puts the notebook down and slides her leg over it.

Maybe she's been studying me just like I've been studying her.

She looks like she got caught doing something wrong, and I can almost see her brain thinking of something to say. “So, what do you think about that project?” she asks.

“What project?”

“The one Julie talked about. Remember? She said now that we know how to use DuoTek, we can start creating our game. And the best one will be in that contest?”

I look in the cupcake box. I do not want to end up with disguised coconut again, so I take a chocolate-chocolate one. Can't go wrong with that.

“Solid choice,” the other Naomi says. “I'm having this one. It looks like vanilla, but I'm pretty sure the cake is coconut.”

I knew it.

“It's delicious,” she says, “and I can't believe I'm getting it before Brianna, because she—” And then she stops talking.

I see why. Dad and Brianna are walking toward us, looking like great buddies, each carrying a bucket with water. Brianna's water is sloshing out of the bucket, and she's already wet. Dad is smiling and asks, “And where should I put it, your Royal
Highness? Where will you be building your fourteen castles, m'lady?”

I turn back to the other Naomi. “Is that what you were writing down in your notebook?” I ask. “Stuff about the DuoTek project?” She seems really into our class, like maybe she'll grow up to be a woman gaming the system.

“No. I was working on a list. I . . . write a lot of lists.”

“What about?” Maybe I was right! She
is
studying me!

“We have the Geo Challenge at school this week, and I want to remember to get some books at the library.”

Brianna plops down between the other Naomi and me and starts digging.

“Why do you have to do that right here, Brianna?'

“To make it easy for you to help me.” She turns to me. “And you too.”

Two little boys and their parents walk past us with a ton of beach toys and spread out close to the water. The boys take off their shoes and walk slowly toward the ocean and start screaming as they turn and run away from the small waves. The mom takes pictures of them with her phone while the dad runs with the boys, also screaming.

Or maybe the dad is a friend. And the boys aren't brothers. Maybe one belongs to each parent. Maybe they're both named Isaiah.

I ask the other Naomi, “Did you ever make a list about names? And what we should do about that? Because, I mean, look at us. It's like impossible to tell us apart, right?” Yeah, it's a
joke I already made, but she seemed to like it.

“Impossible,” she says with a small smile. “But no, I just write a lot of lists. And yeah, I also wrote about that DuoTek contest, mostly a bunch of different ideas I thought might be fun to work on.”

“I guess I wasn't really listening,” I say. I take a bite of the frosting and, oh, oh, is it good! “We all have to do it?”

“Yeah,” Naomi says, like it's obvious.

Brianna throws her sandy shovel on the blanket. “I'm going to make people instead!” She stands and runs toward the water and starts to make stick people in the sand, using her foot. The boys near the ocean stop what they're doing and stare at her. She looks like she could take over the whole beach if she wanted to.

“Is there anything you like to be called?” I ask, thinking about how Annie calls me Gnomes. Or Nomes. But I wouldn't want anyone other than Annie to call me that—it wouldn't even make sense. “I mean, any nicknames?”

“Nope,” she says, licking her fingers.

“You do too,” Brianna says, running toward the blanket, sand flying. I had no idea she was listening. “I call you Queen of All the Queens sometimes because you're so bossy. You could of lived in those castles if I built them, Queen of All the Queens.”

The other Naomi looks mad. And embarrassed. Like she wants to pinch her sister's arm. Really hard.

It has to be hard, being Brianna's sister. I want to help.

“So about that project. Do you want to maybe do it together?”

“I had an idea for a world explorer adventure game,” I say. “We can have cats give the clues.”

“I don't know how that would work with my fashion dash idea,” she says. “And we did cats already.”

“You never told me your fashion dash idea,” I say.

“That's because it's in my head.”

And that's how it's been going all morning. We are not Girls Gaming the System; we are Girls Who Will Never Finish Making Their Game Because We Can't Agree on Anything. Even those girls who sit in the back and look at videos that show you how to put designs on your fake nails are probably further ahead than us. I tell my so-called partner that, after Julie comes to our table
and says those kind of fake-encouraging things adults say when they think you're hopeless.

“We're kind of running out of time,” I say. “We only have two classes left until Presentation Day, and that's the deadline, remember?” I usually hand in my school projects early.

“It's not only about the showcase, you know,” says NAOMI EDITH. I would call her that out loud if I was feeling mean. But I just want to get our work done. I don't like not getting our work done. I want Julie to tell everyone that we could probably teach the workshop if we wanted to, and then we'd smile and kind of look down because we're being humble.

Yesterday at school I lost the Geo Challenge to Jenn Harlow, who just came back from missing a week of school for a family vacation in Jamaica. When she came back, she walked right up to me with her new blond cornrows and told me her father said that Jamaica would be nothing without tourists. I was so mad!
That's
why I lost the Geo Challenge. Not because I don't know where Rose Hall Plantation is. We go by it every time we visit Aunt Alga, and we say a prayer of remembrance for all the enslaved Africans who were forced to work there. Jenn's family goes to lunch there once, and all of a sudden she's Miss Jamaica.

And now here I am with this
contrarian
(ooh, good word!), who shoots down every suggestion I make but doesn't have any of her own. And the game that was going to be a cool library scavenger hunt/talent contest/pinball/maze is one big mess. It's not even going to be as good as Pong, this “classic” game my dad tried to show me from the olden days that looks like something
a doctor would use to hypnotize you so she could sneak a shot or something.

“I know that,” I say, “even though you were the one who suggested we work together, remember?” At first it seemed like this was going to work. She was a little bit nice at the beach; plus, I found out she wanted to go to the boardwalk too. And this coding thing is almost okay. It's neutral ground, so we don't have to pretend to like each other's favorite everything. She tells pretty good jokes, sometimes. Before we left the beach we made a list of ideas, and when I slept over at Xiomara's, I didn't even mind her bugging me about wanting to meet “the Other Naomi,” which, to be honest, is starting to sound weird to my ears. I even actually thought about bringing her to the library to show Ms. Starr and those bighead Teen Gamez kids what we've been doing, like, BAM. But
now
all I can picture is HER saying a big fat NO to all my ideas, and then Xiomara trying to make us hug it out, or worse,
sing
it out.

“I'm not saying this to be mean, but . . . you're kind of grouchy today,” I say as we pack up and go outside to wait for Momma and Tom, who I suspect are late on purpose to give us extra “bonding” time.

“Whenever people say they're not saying something to be something, they really mean to be . . . something,” she says, not looking at me.

I don't like people not looking at me. I'm right here.

“. . . yeah, that's
usually
true,” I say, turning to face her full on, “especially when it's a frenemy like Orchid Richardson.
But not this time, okay?”

She looks up. “How bad is Orchid Richardson?”

“Worse than the worst in every way.”

“My mom taught me this thing, this way to help deal with people . . . who are maybe hard to deal with, how you can study them, to figure out what costume they would wear. But it's a really good way to help get through time with people you don't really want to be with.”

I hope she's not putting me in that category. I wonder if she talked to her mom about me. I remember the expression on her face when Tom was walking Brianna down to the ocean. I wonder if I looked the same way, because I was thinking Dad should be the only father holding Brianna's hand.

“Your mom?” I'm not sure where to go next. Her face closes up, and she looks away again.

“I mean . . . is there something wrong?” It's like when I think I've found the right puzzle piece, and I keep trying to make it fit because it's so
close. “Are you mad about coming over to our house?” I ask. “Because it wasn't exactly my idea, you know.” I stop myself. “Not that you're not welcome, though, I mean . . .” I stop. There is nothing I can say to make this string of words get any better.

She shrugs, and now I realize why Momma hates it when I do that.

Fine.

Great. This is going to be great.

Momma gives us a plate of the chocolate-butterscotch cookies that we made last night. Now I'm not so sure I want to waste them on NAOMI EDITH THE GROUCH, but if I don't, I won't get any either. She eats three of them really fast, without speaking.
And
she gets up from the table without asking to be excused. And Momma doesn't even say anything, because she's too busy saying everything to Tom. I'm almost too mad to eat, but luckily, I come to my senses and sneak another cookie as Bri leads her to our bedroom. I follow, slowly.

“What should we play-ay?” sings Bri. She doesn't give us a chance to answer. “Family! They're going to the bathroom,” she adds, totally unnecessarily, and runs out of the room.

NAOMI EDITH shrugs, looking around the room at my posters of the Williams sisters and Malala, the Muppets collection that I inherited from Dad, the gold cape Momma made me last Halloween, and the tower of board games. I can't tell what she thinks.

Bri comes back, carrying an armful of dolls. “They were taking a nap,” she says, which in Briannese means that she was playing with them in the bathroom when Momma said it was time to leave, so she threw them in the laundry basket. Blech. She looks at NAOMI EDITH, who is sitting on my bed (without asking permission). “Did you bring any dolls?”

“Um, no,” she answers. I guess she's talking now. “I don't really . . . play with dolls anymore.”

“Neither do I,” I say quickly. I laser-eye Bri as she opens her mouth, then closes it. “But it's something that I do, you know, as
a big sister.” Bri is looking at me like she doesn't know who I am, so I grab the Rahel doll quickly and start fluffing her hair.

“Well, we only have Brown dolls,” says Bri, looking worried, “so I don't know if you can play with them.”

Naomi Edith makes a face. “What do you mean? I'm not allowed to play with your dolls because they're Brown?” Now she looks more than grouchy.

“We only have Brown dolls in this house,” says Bri in her talking-like-Momma voice, “because they are a re-fek-shun of our beauty.” The other Naomi looks at her.

I speak up. “Everybody's allowed to play,” I say. “Bri means that . . . if you don't want to play with Brown dolls, you'll have a problem.” I hug Bri's shoulders. “And it's
re-FLEC-tion
,” I whisper, but in a kind, big sisterly way. I keep hugging Bri close. I'm like Delphine in
One Crazy Summer.

“What kind of dolls do
you
have?” Bri asks.

“Like I said, I don't play with mine anymore.” Then she goes quiet for a minute, like she's thinking about something she never thought about before. “But I guess . . . you'll need to bring yours when you come to my house.” She points to Livia, whose soccer uniform is a little ripped. “Can I have her?”

“
Have
have or play-with have?” asks Bri, putting her hands on her hips like she thinks she's me.

“
Play-with
have, silly,” we both answer. Then we look at each other and roll our eyes. Kids.

Bri's version of family is basically Bri telling these really long stories and saying stuff like, “Okay, now you put her HERE, and then YOU put HER here,” so as long as you move the dolls around the way she wants, it's pretty easy to have a totally different conversation at the same time.

“Those cookies were good,” says Naomi Edith after a while. “Did you get them from that bakery you like?”

“We made them last night,” I answer. “But Shelly Ann taught me how.” I look up and add, “Thanks.” I'm pretty sure that was an apology for being grouchy, because I do the same thing sometimes.

“Do you . . . like to cook?” I ask. Momma was all “Get to know her! You might have more things in common!” so I'm trying, but I bet it's more of the
you-play-chess-she-plays-checkers-look-you're-BFFs!
kind of thing.

“Kind of. My dad and I aren't so great about meals,” she says. “My mom makes the best French toast! She used to—” She stops. Bri decides that all the dolls are now going to live in a longhouse, mostly because she wants to touch my Lenape diorama. I tell her she can, but that if she's not careful, I get to keep Rahel forever.

“Um, so about your mom . . .” I'm not sure I should bring this up again, but I'm not sure I shouldn't either. “I mean, like, do you talk to her a lot?”

“Yeah, on Skype,” she answers. “I'm going to visit her soon.”

“Oh, that's good,” I say, even though I know that “soon” doesn't mean she can just walk down the street and hang out at
her mom's house any time she wants. And I can tell she knows that too—really, really well. She's looking around the room again.

“So do you have any posters of . . . Edith Head?” I ask.

She smiles. “Even better. I have these sketches she made of dresses she designed for Audrey Hepburn. Well, they're really my mom's, but they're still in our house.”

I've heard of Audrey Hepburn. My nana said she was almost as glamorous as Lena Horne.

“But even people who weren't, like, obvious movie stars—Edith Head could create the perfect costume, and they'd be all glamorous just from putting on a dress.”

“She kind of took her name and made it cool,” I say.

“Are you saying Edith isn't a cool name?” she asks, and even though I can tell she's half joking, I don't want to get on the other half's side.

“My friend Xiomara wanted to come over.” I change the subject.

“Is she nice?”

“Um, well, she's my
friend
, so she would have to be. . . .” I raise my eyebrows. “Unless you think
I'm
not nice.”

She kind of shrugs again, but this time I can tell it's totally joking, and we both laugh.

“We can do a World Explorer Challenge,” she says, and it takes me a minute to remember that she's talking about our game. “With cats.”

“Or dogs,” I answer. “Poodles who like fashion.” I start
giggling. “
Poodle
is such a funny name!”

“How about wombats?”

“Aardvarks!”

We spend a few minutes throwing out weird animal names until Bri yells at us for not paying attention to the fact that now the dolls are Arctic explorers. My Venus and Serena dolls are sharing a pair of baby doll socks.

“Maybe one Saturday we can go to Morningstar and my friend Annie can meet us there,” Naomi Edith says. “And Xiomara too.”

“Maybe,” I say as Bri comes over carrying Clue, which she is terrible at playing.

“And Orchid Richardson,” she adds.

“That's not even funny,” I say, until I realize she's joking. “Very funny.”

She grins and shrugs, this time like
Who, me?

“One game,” I say to Bri, “and then let's play something different. Something that none of us has ever played before.”

By the time Momma calls us back into the living room, we've played three rounds of Be Friends, which is a game that Auntie Helen gave me last Christmas but I never played because it's one of those cooperative games that my neighbor Feather plays at Urban Wholechild School, and those are always boring. The Other Naomi and I made it into a trivia challenge game, and Bri was happy as long as she got to ring the little bell that was in the box.

Momma and Tom are all smiley at the door, and I feel a little shy all of a sudden; but I smile when I say bye, and I don't stop Bri from giving the Other Naomi a hug.

“Ciao for now, Brianna and Naomi Marie!” Tom says, and he waves.

Excuse you?

“That was nice, wasn't it?” says Momma, in a telling-not-really-asking voice. “Let's relax for a little while, huh? Just the three of us.”

I'm quiet as Bri lines up my wizard chess pieces for entry to a dollhouse party. Momma stretches out on the couch.

“It's not everyone who can say she loves bringing her work home,” she says, picking up a book. “You'll love this one—I'll let you read it before I take it to school.” She pats the seat next to her. “Want to join me? Did you finish reading
The Jumbies
already? Was it scary?”

“Momma, Tom called me Naomi Marie,” I say.

“He did?” she says, not looking at me.

“Yes,” I say. “He did.” And the way I say it makes her put the book down.

“Did it bother you?” she asks slowly. “He's heard me saying it, and I guess it's also the way we were hoping to, uh, resolve the whole, um, name situation.”

I can feel a pout coming on, which is so babyish, but it's better than— Never mind. I'm crying.

“Oh, honey!” Momma pulls me into her arms and waits for
me to get to the sniffle stage. “Do you really think I call you Naomi Marie only when I'm angry? I'm pretty sure I say it when I'm glad too.”