Twice As Nice (3 page)

Everyone but me.

“Tournament day,” Sammie said the next morning, shaking my shoulder to wake me up. “As Dad would say, ‘
Up and at 'em
.'”

I yawned and stretched in bed. It was weird having Sammie be the one who was up first. Usually, she's the one who never wants to get out of bed.

“So what do we think, Charlie?” She pulled my tennis outfit out of the drawer and tossed it on the bed. “Are you going to play another match of who-cares tennis, or is today the day you're going to perk up and show a little fight?”

She was right. For the past few weeks, I had been playing the worst tennis of my life. I have to admit, part of the fun of playing competitive tennis is the respect it brings from the people around you. “
Wow, Sammie and Charlie just got ranked tenth in California,
” people say. Or “
Charlie served eleven aces in that match. The girl's a
star
.” It feels good to hear that. But when the SF2s kicked me out, all their praise for my tennis evaporated, too. Ever since, it's been hard to get motivated. At our tournament last weekend, Alicia and her friend Sara Berlin showed up to root for Sammie, but no one was in the stands rooting for me. Not one friend.

“Our first match is at ten,” Sammie told me. “We're up against Fritz and Fernandez from the San Diego Racquet Club. They're supposed to be monsters.” She made her orangutan face and stalked around our room like a monster, faking serves and growling like a beast. I just rolled over in bed.

“Come on, Charles. Dad's out there cutting up a million orange slices and loading the car with giant water bottles. We're going to be so hydrated, we may have to play the match in the girl's bathroom.”

She laughed and looked over at me, hoping I would join in.

“Could you maybe crack a little smile?” she coaxed. “I'm working hard here to cheer you up.”

Being my identical twin, Sammie always knows what I'm feeling. I knew she could feel my sadness, almost as if she were experiencing it herself. I'm the same way with her. So even though she's never been a fan of the SF2s, she knew how much I had wanted to be part of their group, and instinctively felt bad for me. I appreciated her efforts to lift my spirits, I really did, so I managed a weak little smile.

“Wow,” she said. “Is that the best you can do?”

I nodded. She reached down and gave me a Sammie hug. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but let's just say it's big and long. When Sammie hugs you, you definitely know you've been hugged.

“I wish I could fix things for you, Charles,” she said.

“You and me both.”

“Well, since I can't, you have no choice but to get up and face the day. I don't want to have to carry you out to the car. Even sisters have their limits, you know.”

I got dressed in the same outfit that Sammie was wearing. We never dress alike, except when we're playing doubles. Dad says it throws off the opposition to see two more-or-less identical people on the other side of the court. Makes them think they're seeing double.

We got our gear together and walked into the living room, where our Dad was jangling the car keys in one hand and holding the largest plastic bag of orange slices you've ever seen in the other. It could have hydrated all of Australia.

“Come on, girls,” he said. “GoGo's already in the car with Alicia and Sara.”

“Oh, I didn't know your friends were coming,” I said to Sammie.

“I couldn't stop them. They wanted to be there to support me. Uh, I mean
us
.”

Alicia is the sweetest person in the world, but I have to confess, I don't exactly get Sara Berlin. She's really tall and has a huge head of curly hair that sticks out like a lion's mane. Sammie says she's earthy, but to me, she always looks like she's just come back from living in a hut somewhere in the Amazon. Like, she wears jewelry made of sea shells, and peasant shirts with puffy sleeves, and the only kind of shoes she wears are sandals or boots, nothing in between. Today she was wearing black lace-up boots with a long flowered skirt that looked like it used to be couch pillows.

Wow, I thought to myself. She is really going to stand out at the Sand and Surf Tennis Club where the tournament was being held. It's a very straitlaced place about two miles up the coast from us. Most of their members wear some combination of navy blue and white. The only couch-pillow material you see there is on the couches. But since Sara was being nice enough to come and watch us play, I felt it was my duty to be nice to her.

“Cool boots, Sara,” I said as I wiggled into the backseat next to her. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, it's so great to have supportive friends,” Sammie said as she climbed into the way back.

My dad started the car. “Just don't let the presence of your friends distract you girls,” he warned. “You're participating in this tournament to win, not to socialize.”

And win we did, but just barely. We finally beat Fritz and Fernandez in a tiebreaker that seemed to go on forever. Sammie played strong and steady, and it was her consistency that got us to the tiebreaker. But it was me who hit the two winning shots—a passing shot that whizzed right by Hailey Fritz, and a match-ending drop shot that Eva Fernandez couldn't get her racket on. I have to confess, it felt great to win. I had been feeling like such a loser lately, so the rush of emotions that came with that victory was thrilling.

After the match, Sammie threw her arm around my shoulder and said, “That's the old Charlie. Way to go. We'll have to go out for our victory pizza later.”

We had actually skipped our last victory pizza dinner, a tradition we've been observing since we were ten. It was my fault. I didn't go because I had plans with the SF2s.

“One large sausage and mushroom and two Vanilla Cokes, coming right up.” I smiled.

“Yup. The mighty Diamond twosome is back,” she said, and that felt good.

The whole group stopped at Chilly's Frozen Yogurt on the way home, and everyone was in a great mood. I was feeling so loose, I even got the large cup of chocolate-vanilla swirl and loaded on the rainbow sprinkles and white chocolate chips, something I would never have done with my SF2 friends. They all get a small cup of low-fat vanilla with no toppings because it only has 150 calories.

When we arrived back at the Sporty Forty parking lot, Dad and GoGo went into the club while Alicia and Sara helped Sammie and me get our gear from the car. Sara was telling this really funny story about a time she slow danced with Will Lee, a boy so short he only comes up to the bottom of her boobs. When they were dancing, he didn't know if he should look up, look down, or look straight into them. There was something about the phrase “bottom of my boobs” that sent us all into a fit of laughter.

We were still giggling when we pushed open the gate and entered the club. Sitting there at the table closest to us was Ryan, his laptop open in front of him. He was surrounded by Lauren, Jillian, and Brooke, who were looking unhappily at a pile of papers in front of them.

I immediately felt embarrassed to be seen having such a good time with Alicia and Sara. All I could think about was that Alicia was the daughter of the groundskeeper and that Sara was wearing a skirt that looked like a couch pillow. Would Lauren and the other girls think that I had given up wanting to be an SF2 and had suddenly joined the Geek Patrol? I know it wasn't the nicest thought in the world, but it's the truth.

“We were just at a t-tennis tournament,” I stammered, as though that explained why I was hanging out with these girls.

“I know,” Lauren said, barely looking up from her papers.

“Wow, word travels fast. Who told you?”

Lauren put her arm on Ryan's.

“Your dad called Ryan to say you guys won. And you know Ryan, he tells me
everything
. We're so close.”

“You are? Does Ryan know that?” Sammie asked, an edge in her voice.

“As a matter of fact, he does,” Lauren snapped. “Which is why he volunteered to help us fill out our application for Junior Waves. He wouldn't do that for just anyone. Isn't that right, Ryan?”

“Well, I wouldn't exactly call it volunteering,” Ryan explained. “But watching these girls try to fill out the form was driving me nuts, so Captain Ry-Guy and his trusty laptop stepped in to save the day.”

Lauren laughed like Ryan had just said the funniest thing in the world.

“Your brother is so totally hysterical,” she said. Ryan looked pretty pleased with the compliment and Lauren shot me a look that practically said, “See, I told you he has a crush on me.”

“Well, I need to use the computer after lunch to work on my history paper,” Sammie said. “So how long is this application thing going to take?”

“Maybe forever,” Jillian groaned. “They want to know everything about us. Not just our grades, but our extracurricular activities, and community service, and hobbies, and awards and honors.”

“I do a ton of community service,” Brooke said. “Just the other day, I gave a little kid on the beach my sunscreen because his shoulders were getting all red.”

“I think they mean real community service,” Alicia said. “Like, I work at the food bank, and Sammie tutors a first-grader, and Charlie cleans up litter on the beach.”

“
Eeuuwww
,” Brooke said, wrinkling her nose at me. “You mean touch other people's trash? That's not sanitary.”

“I wear rubber gloves,” I said, which only made her say “
Eeuuwww
” even louder.

“Well, I was just telling Ryan that I have an honor that would really impress the principal,” Jillian said. “I auditioned for
Teen Super Model,
and the producer said she'd call me if I got the part.”

“Did she call?” Sara asked her.

“Not yet. It's only been six months. They could still call.”

“Good luck with that one,” Sammie snickered.

“Ease up, Sam-I-Am,” Ryan said. “You can't blame the girls for trying to come up with things that sound good on the application. Not all of us are like you and Charlie, who can get good grades and be tennis champs at the same time.”

As he said that, I noticed that Lauren took her legs off the table and sat straight up in her chair. She turned and looked at me, as if she were just seeing me for the first time. I smiled at her, and then I noticed that Sammie was watching Lauren carefully. She was squinting, the way she does when she sees something she doesn't like.

“Come on, guys,” she said to Alicia and Sara. “Let's go inside. GoGo said she'd make up a bowl of guacamole and chips.”

“Did someone say guacamole?” Ryan said, jumping to his feet. “I'm there.”

He leaped out of his chair and sprinted toward the kitchen.

“But what about our application?” Jillian called after him.

“Guacamole first. Chips second. Application third,” he called back to them. “I'll be back. You girls talk among yourselves.”

Knowing that I wasn't welcome to hang out with them, I turned to follow Ryan and Sammie into the kitchen. I hadn't even taken two steps, when I heard Lauren say.

“Hey, Charlie, can you hang back for a few minutes?” Lauren asked. “We want to talk to you.”

I felt my heart leap.

“Sure,” I said.

Sammie stopped and took me by the arm.

“Don't do it, Charles,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You know what they're after.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I whispered back. “Listen, you guys go inside. I'll join you in a few minutes.”

As soon as they left, I dropped my tennis bag and pulled one of the red cushioned deck chairs up to the table.

“We've missed you,” Lauren said, putting her hand on my arm.

“We have?” Jillian asked.

“Jills, let me talk,” Lauren said to her. Lauren is in charge of the SF2s, and when she talks, everyone listens. Turning back to me, she went on. “I was just about to say to the girls that we should ask you to come back to the group.”