Almost Identical #1 Read online

  We sat down on the floor, and everyone put the makeup they had brought in the middle of our circle. Jillian brought the most stuff: rhinestone bobby pins, about twelve pots of lip gloss in all different colors and flavors, a bunch of different shades of purple nail polish, makeup brushes in every size, and tons of long, dangly earrings with different sparkling stones. She said she had seen on Teen Beauty Secrets that dangly things were in this season. The stuff Lily brought was great and so creative: necklaces with colored beads that she had collected in thrift stores, scarves to tie up our hair that she had made from old dresses she had outgrown, and black eyeliner for creating what she called a “Goth evening look.” Brooke’s mother gave her all of her old blushes, and she had an entire shoe box full of them.

  “My mom’s really pale.” Brooke laughed as she dumped about thirty blushes onto the floor.

  Lauren’s mother supplied the rest: headbands, eye shadows by the handful, eyebrow pencils, bronzers, lip liners, little bottles of lotions that smelled like peaches and roses and lavender, and body powder that sparkled gold when you puffed it on.

  “Let’s hold hands in a circle for a minute,” Jillian said, “and say how grateful we are to have all this makeup to put on.”

  “That is so corny,” Brooke said.

  “No, it’s not,” Jillian answered. “I saw them do it on Real Teen Makeovers. It made me cry. I loved, loved, loved the circle.”

  “I think it’s a nice idea,” I said. “I’ve been in something called an acceptance circle. Everyone in the circle agrees to accept one another just the way they are. It’s extremely cool.”

  “And extremely weird,” Lauren said.

  I looked over at Charlie and knew she wanted me to drop the subject. So I did. I didn’t really want to discuss the acceptance circle with these girls, anyway.

  There were six of us there, so we divided up into makeover teams of two. Lauren and Charlie were one team. No surprise there. They were practically in love these days. I wanted to team up with Lily because I thought she had the best style and would create a look for me that I liked. But she picked Brooke because she wanted to give her a “soldier look”, so she’d go even better with the General. That left me with Jillian. Everyone said we went well together because we were both into circles. And I don’t think they meant that in a nice way.

  We spent the next hour decorating ourselves. Jillian painted my fingernails and toenails a purple so dark, it looked almost black. When she did my makeup, she put it on and took it off at least a million times. She tried green eye shadow and thought it didn’t do anything for my brown eyes. She dabbed on purple, but thought it made me look like a vampire. She thought gold was too slutty, gray was too ladylike, blue was too bright, ivory was too pale, magenta was too flashy, silver was too glowy . . . I have never heard anyone with so many opinions about eye shadow. By the time she settled on copper, my eyelids were so sore, I was begging her to move on to lip gloss.

  But she did the same thing with lip gloss. Cherry red made my teeth look yellow. Plum was too dull. Coral was too nothing. Blazing Pink was too babyish. Radiance was too shimmery. Natural was too plain.

  I can’t even describe what happened when she got to the blush question. Let me just say that by the time she had tried at least ten colors of blush, my cheeks were bright red from her rubbing them with the Kleenex. The last thing I needed was more color in my cheeks. What I needed was medical attention!

  For the whole hour, no one talked about anything but makeup. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good makeup conversation, but by the end of the hour, my mind rebelled. It was on makeup conversation overload.

  “Does this smoky-gray eyeliner make my eyes pop?” Brooke asked.

  Why would you want your eyes to pop? I thought. That would be so totally messy and gooey.

  “If you put blush on the end of your nose, will it make it look shorter?” Lauren wondered.

  Who knows? I thought. Why don’t you ask Pinocchio?

  “Do you think this soldier look is too overboard?” Lily asked, stepping back to examine Brooke’s eyes.

  Yes, she looks like Count Dracula himself.

  “Will mascara run if you cry?” Charlie asked Lauren.

  Beats me, my darling sister. But I’ll tell you this: I want to run away from here right now.

  By the time we finished, I was so bored with the makeover talk that I couldn’t wait to leave. Unlike Truth Tellers, which just whizzed by, this was the longest hour of my life. And to top it off, I didn’t even look that good. The eyeliner made my eyes itch and I just wanted to rub them. Jillian had combed my hair into this sophisticated updo that succeeded in making my face look really fat. My almost-black fingernails and toenails looked like I had developed some sort of fungus rot. And I think we’ve discussed the red, irritated cheek look, which wasn’t all that flattering.

  All the other girls looked very glamorous. Lauren couldn’t look bad if she tried, and neither could Brooke. Lily had this modified Goth look that was unique and quirky. Jillian had taken over from me when I pooped out on new makeup ideas and made herself into a flashy, glittery starlet, which thrilled her to no end and suited her, too. And my sister, Charlie, looked great—with a velvet headband and pale-blue eye shadow and eyeliner that actually did make her eyes pop, not in that squirty way, but in a very nice way.

  As we piled into Lauren’s mom’s SUV and drove to meet up with the guys at Chilly’s Frozen Yogurt in the mall, I wondered why I was the only makeover failure. Was I just pathetic or what? Where was that person who had felt so free and comfortable at Truth Tellers and with Alicia? The one who felt so fantabulous in her own skin?

  And then it occurred to me. That girl didn’t need a makeover. She was already fantabulous just the way she was.

  She was the real me.

  Ranked

  Chapter 11

  “Hit it to the fat one. She’s got lead in her feet,” I heard the girl in the blue tennis skirt whisper to her partner. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, but I did.

  It was late Sunday morning. Charlie and I had recovered from the makeover party and spent the whole day before hitting tennis balls with our dad. According to him, we were ready, in shape, and primed to start our first match of the day at the Sand and Surf Tennis Club qualifying tournament. If we won, we’d earn our ranking. We had just met our competition, two girls from the Malibu Racquet Club. One was Kimberly McCall, and the one in the blue skirt calling me fat was Nicole Dennis. We had played them before, and they were tough competitors.

  Charlie heard Nicole say it, too, and saw my face turn beet red with anger.

  “You have to put it out of your mind,” she warned me.

  That was easy for Charlie to say, weighing 105 pounds. She didn’t understand that when you’re overweight, every fat insult stays in your memory forever.

  “I can’t,” I whispered to Charlie. “She makes me so mad.”

  “Good,” she answered. “Then use it. Show her you’re not slow. Make her eat those words.”

  Charlie and I won the racket spin, which meant we got to serve first. Our usual strategy is to have Charlie serve the first game because she’s got a killer serve. But this time she said to me, “You serve first, Sam. Show her your stuff.”

  I looked up in the stands and caught sight of our family. They were hard to miss because GoGo was wearing her floppy, purple hat with a big, flashy, silver pin on the front. When she made that pin, she said the design was a combination of S and C, our first initials. She always wears it for our special occasions—I have pictures in my scrapbook of her wearing it at my kindergarten graduation. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave Ms. Updegrove, the best kindergarten teacher in the world.

  When GoGo saw me looking up in the stands, she put both her hands in the air and gave us a double thumbs-up. My dad was sitting next to her w
ith his face straight ahead, staring intensely at us. He does that on purpose when we play, his dark-brown eyes boring into us like lasers. He calls it the Super Focus Look, and he actually believes he is beaming us the motivation to concentrate. It was working today, because I was feeling all of my powers focused on beating Nicole Dennis. I wasn’t going to let her call me fat and get away with it.

  I was so focused, in fact, that it didn’t even bother me that Lauren was there. Ryan had invited her, and she was sitting next to him. I did notice that they were holding hands, in front of my dad and everything! I guess that made it official. They were doing the boyfriend-girlfriend thing, which did not make me happy.

  Not now, Sammie. Focus. Nicole Dennis called you fat. You have to beat her bony little butt.

  It’s totally amazing what the desire to get revenge can do to your tennis serve. My first serve to Nicole was so good, I could actually hear a murmur from the crowd in the stands. And the second one, which I directed right to her backhand, zoomed by her so fast, she didn’t even get her racket on it. I could see her looking over at Kimberly with a what-the-heck-has-gotten-into-this-girl? look.

  Macaroni and cheese. That’s what’s gotten into this girl. Power fuel.

  They didn’t score a point the first game. Or the second or the third. I played like my feet were on fire, springing, pouncing, lunging like a tiger chasing an antelope . . . or whatever it is tigers chase. I could hear Ryan cheering for me in the stands.

  “You go, Sam-I-Am!” he called, standing up to do an in-place robot move. “You’re blazing!”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see my dad pull Ryan back down to a sitting position. Tennis competitions are kind of old-school, and you’re not really supposed to scream and yell, and for sure there is no robot dancing allowed in the stands. As usual, Ryan couldn’t have cared less about the rules.

  “Wow,” Charlie said to me after we won the first set six games to one. “Where have you been all summer?”

  “In hibernation,” I said. “But the bear is back. Hear me growl.”

  And then I roared. You heard me. I roared like an actual grizzly bear. I hoped Nicole Dennis heard that.

  I heard another roar from up in the stands. I looked up and saw Ryan standing on his seat, pounding his chest, and roaring back at me. Then I saw Lauren pull him back down into his seat. She looked embarrassed. Obviously, roaring in public was not high on the Sporty Forty list of acceptable things to do.

  It felt good to be playing so great. The truth is, I hadn’t been fired up about tennis for months. Maybe it was because I had gained the extra weight; it’s hard to run your butt off when you can feel it jiggling behind you. Or maybe it was because our dad is so intense about tennis that it makes it hard to pursue other activities. The more I got interested in new things, the more I had been drifting away from tennis. But I can tell you this: Nicole “The Mouth” Dennis had certainly gotten my attention back on the game. I hadn’t played like that in forever.

  We beat Kimberly and Nicole in straight sets, six–one, and six–love. When they came to the net to shake hands after the match, I smiled at Nicole.

  “Fat girl makes good,” I said.

  “You just had a lucky day,” she answered. “And by the way, you could still lose a few pounds.”

  My dad practically flew down to the court to congratulate us.

  “You did it, girls!” His smile was so big, you could probably see all thirty-two of his teeth. “Charlie, you were incredible at the net. And, Sammie, wow. You reached into your inner tennis player and pulled out championship-quality moves.”

  “I’m so proud of you both,” GoGo added, handing us some blue Gatorade, which I needed because I was oozing my usual twenty gallons of sweat.

  “Yeah, you chickadees owned the court!” Ryan said. “Diamonds rule, don’t they, Lauren?”

  Lauren nodded and threw her arms around Charlie to give her a hug. Then she went to hug me, but after looking me up and down, hesitated.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m pretty damp. I wouldn’t want to hug me, either.”

  We gathered our things and walked off the court together. At the clubhouse, we had to stop to fill out a bunch of forms that put us officially on the circuit for ranked players. Now the tournaments we’d play in would be with only the best Under-14 players, and after each tournament, our ranking would go up or down depending on how we did.

  “So, girls,” my dad said as we headed to the parking lot. “Now that you’ve got your ranking, the next goal is to make it into the top ten. They call it the Top Ten Club, and trust me, it’s where you want to be.”

  “Rick, for goodness’ sake,” GoGo said. “They just got into this club, now you want them in the next one. Give them a minute to enjoy it.”

  “You don’t get ahead by resting on your laurels, Phyllis. If they get ranked in the top ten in the state, college scholarships are going to come pouring in.”

  College scholarships! Gee, Dad, how about if I just pass Algebra I first?

  “We start tomorrow, girls. School’s over at three. Home by three thirty. Grab a high-protein, low-fat snack, and we’re on the courts at three forty-five.”

  Oops. Not so fast.

  The next day was Monday. I had promised Alicia I’d go to Truth Tellers. Even more important, I had promised myself I’d go to Truth Tellers.

  “Uh, Dad? I can’t make it tomorrow,” I said quietly.

  “Excuse me?” he said. “I must have misheard you because it sounded like you said that you can’t make it tomorrow.”

  “I did say that.”

  “Oh boy,” Ryan commented to Lauren. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “There’s something I have to do after school,” I continued. “A new activity.”

  “What activity could possibly be more important than tennis practice?” My dad’s voice crackled with irritation.

  I looked at Charlie and Lauren. Did I dare say the truth? Charlie knew that I had gone to Truth Tellers, but I know she hadn’t mentioned it to Lauren. Would she die of embarrassment if I told everyone? And what about Lauren—would she think I was the biggest geek in the world? I could lie and say I had to go to study hall to catch up on math homework.

  Wait just a minute, Sammie girl. You’re going to Truth Tellers and you’re actually considering not telling the truth? Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.

  Okay, I thought. I’m going to take a risk. Let’s see what the truth feels like.

  “Well, now that you asked, Dad,” I plunged in, “I’m joining a club at school that meets every Monday. It’s called Truth Tellers, and it’s really cool. We do monologues and public speaking and tell the truth about our feelings.”

  He stared at me like I had suddenly started speaking in Swahili or Greek or Mongolian or some other foreign language.

  “And this activity will help your tennis game how?” he asked.

  “Actually, it has nothing to do with tennis, Dad. It’s just something I’m interested in and makes me feel good.”

  He stared at me with that laser look. I felt like his eyes were burning a hole in my forehead. It was Lauren who broke the silence.

  “Ewww, Sammie,” she said. “Don’t you mind hanging around with all those weird kids?”

  Thank you, Lauren, for adding your two cents, which, if you ask me, weren’t even worth that much.

  “They’re not so weird, Lauren, once you get to know them.” I looked over to Charlie for support. “Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  She paused and I could tell she didn’t know what to say. I had put her in a tough position. Finally, she managed to say, “Well, Alicia’s pretty nice.”

  “You mean whatshisname’s daughter?” Lauren asked. “The cleanup guy?”

  That did it for me. “His name is Candido,” I s
narled. “And Alicia is practically my best friend.”

  “Since when?” Charlie asked, clearly surprised.

  “Since you seem to have found a new best friend,” I snapped back at her.

  “That’s not the way I see it, Sammie.”

  “Then maybe you should get glasses, Charlie.”

  “Girls, girls,” GoGo said, putting her arms around both Charlie and me. “You’re both tense from the match. Now I say you sit down together and talk this out, just like you always do. I think you’re due for a Pizza Bonding session, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Pizza Bonding?” Lauren said. “Sounds fun.”

  “It’s something the girls have done for many years after every match,” GoGo explained. “There’s nothing like a good talk and a cheesy pizza, that’s what I believe.” Then, in a voice that sounded a little firmer than usual, she added, “It’s always just the two of them. Right, girls?”

  I was half expecting Charlie to ask if Lauren could come, but she didn’t. She knew that would have seriously hurt my feelings.

  Lauren left with Ryan. They were going to walk down the beach to the Sporty Forty. It was a long walk, about two miles, but I figured it would give them lots of time to hold hands. GoGo took us back to the club where we called our mom, took showers, and changed. Then she dropped us off at Barone’s.

  “Talk it out, girls,” she told us as we climbed out of the car. “That’s what sisters do.”

  As we sat at our usual booth at Barone’s munching on our sausage and mushroom pizza, Charlie and I actually did have a good talk about what had happened. I told her I didn’t like Lauren criticizing my friends and looking down on Alicia.

  “I know those kids seem different,” I explained to her, “but they’re so much fun. I think you’d really like them if you gave them half a chance.”