Freaky in Fresno

by Laurie Boyle Crompton

  “It’s only a little past nine,” Mom says. “I was letting you sleep in, hoping you’d feel better for the drive-in tonight.”

  “Right!” I say. “The reopening tonight is super important!”

  “You’re going to that, Lana?” Mom asks me. “Don’t you have some appearance to do in LA?”

  “Digifest!” Lana wails. “Digifest is less than twelve hours away! And it takes three hours to get to the venue so that means I need to leave in, like, less than nine hours! And now on top of everything else I need to fit in an emergency manicure.”

  My mom tilts her head at Lana with confusion. “Ricki, I didn’t know you were following your cousin’s career so closely. Or that you cared about your nails. At all.”

  “Why are you calling me Ricki?” Lana asks.

  Mom holds up the pom-pom key chain. “I’m serious, girls. I will take that car. Now tell me why I can’t call you Ricki all of a sudden.” Mom hates “funny-business,” but I think she mostly wants the pink Skylark for herself.

  Thinking quickly, I say to Lana, “Oh yeah, we forgot to tell your mom you’re going by your full name again.”

  Mom and Lana say in unison, “Lyric?”

  They both burst out laughing at the same time. Lyric is my actual name, given to me because when a person is a baby nobody can tell that they won’t be able to carry a single note when they get older. My mom and my aunts all sing, and of course Lana has a gorgeous voice, but once I got old enough to try belting out actual “lyrics,” my part-time nickname, Ricki, became my name, and Lyric became a family joke.

  “No, really,” I say. “She’s gotten better at singing, watch!”

  Mom looks expectantly at Lana and Lana looks at me in confusion. “Come on, Lyric,” I say. “One and two and . . .”

  She obediently opens her mouth and starts to sing, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .” with such melodic beauty, my mom is utterly speechless.

  “Ricki, er, I mean, Lyric,” Mom says. “You’ve found your voice.”

  My mother has actual tears in her eyes, which makes me realize just how important my being able to sing has been to her. I feel bad for giving her this false hope, especially since on top of still being tone-deaf, I’m also out of my mind now. Literally.

  I notice Zelda has jumped onto the bed and is wagging her tail now as she sniffs Lana. Which of course looks like she’s greeting Ricki without growling and snapping for the very first time ever. With a snuffle, Zelda actually tucks into to my cousin’s neck and starts licking her face.

  I instinctively reach over to pick her up before she tastes the Ricki-flavored skin and attacks.

  Zelda growls at me, and I pull my beautiful Lana fingers away just as her teeny teeth loudly snap at the air.

  Lana reaches over to comfort the evil Chihuahua and Zelda kisses her cheek. Apparently, it’s not the face she hates. It’s just me.

  “That’s odd,” Mom says to Lana. “Since when does Z prefer you to Lana?”

  Lana looks at my mom in confusion and I know I need to get my mother out of here before we all end up spending the day stuck in some psychiatrist’s office. Today is too important to waste, because no matter what else happens, I’m still determined to get my magical kiss from Jake at the Starlight tonight.

  I grab the gray throw blanket from the bottom of my bed and use it to pick up Zelda. The dog immediately goes wild, growling and trying to bite me, but I hold her out away from my body as I hand her to my mom.

  “You should maybe get her to the vet, Aunt June,” I say. “She’s acting very strange.”

  My mother takes the small white vessel of evil from the blanket and Zelda immediately calms down. Mom looks back and forth between Lana and me for another long moment while petting her Chihuahua. Finally, she says accusingly, “I don’t know what you two are up to, but I know it’s something. And I don’t like it.”

  She turns to go, and I give a sigh of relief before she spins back around.

  “No more screaming.” Mom holds the pink pom-pom key chain up in the air. “I’m going on a little test ride to check how the car drives, but any more funny business and that Skylark is mine for the rest of the day.” Her eyes sparkle as she adds, “Imagine everyone’s reaction if I pull up to book club driving that.”

  As soon as my mom and Zelda leave, Lana turns to me. “What is going on here?” she says. “Why do you look exactly like me?”

  I stand and pull the small mirror off my wall, careful to aim it at the floor as I walk back over to the bed. I look Lana in the eyes. “Remember. No screaming.”

  I raise the mirror up to Lana’s face. She takes a deep breath and I quickly clap one hand over her mouth.

  She screams into it hard.

  As Lana runs out of scream and begins hyperventilating, I loosen my grip on her mouth. A small whimper escapes as she looks with sorrow at my face reflected back at her in the mirror. When I drop my hand she says, “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “All right, already,” I say. “No need to be insulting.”

  Lana’s expression turns to anger and she shoves the mirror away. “Right, because of course you’ll make this insane situation all about your hurt feelings.”

  “You’re the one acting like it’s only happening to you. I’m just saying you don’t have to act like you’re completely deformed.”

  “I’m not allowed to have a reaction?” She points to her/my face. “This sucks!”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure this is all your fault. If you hadn’t tried to trick Aunt May into giving us the Skylark, we’d probably be in our regular bodies right now.”

  “Our fight over the Skylark!” she says. “Back at the drive-in.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Something must’ve shifted when the screen started flashing and we got shocked.”

  Lana springs out of bed. “Wow,” she says. “Other than the mental break from reality, I feel really good right now. Do you feel good? Like maybe getting switched gave us a jolt of, I don’t know . . . expectation?”

  I look at her a moment and think about the weight I noticed sitting on my chest when I first woke up. It’s shifted to more of a dull ache, but it’s still there. Like my heart is made of stone. “I actually feel kind of tired.”

  “Yeah, maybe you didn’t sleep well or something? That body is used to sleeping in pretty hard during the summer.”

  “Or maybe the hopeless feeling in my chest is a sign that something’s wrong.”

  “Something’s obviously wrong, cuz,” Lana says. “And we have less than nine hours to get ourselves back into our proper bodies, or my career is over. Do you know how many beauty gurus would kill to be in my position?”

  “Lana . . .” I say calmly, but the panic in her voice only increases.

  “There’s this top icon who calls herself Her Highness, who has been in an online war with me and would love to watch me tank tonight . . .

  “Lana!” I say louder, and she finally looks at me. I sigh. “Your mom told me your channel has to support you financially. And that she didn’t quit her job, she got laid off.”

  Lana bites her bottom lip so hard it turns white.

  I ask, “Why would you two keep that a secret?”

  She closes her eyes and her head lolls back. “My mom didn’t want the family to know,” she says. “Everyone tried to tell her she was wasting her talent at that firm, and it turns out they were right. She didn’t want her sisters judging her.”

  Lana tucks one of her newly dark curls behind her ear and I’m hit with a pang of sadness for her. “She should’ve at least told my mom.”

  “Right, sure,” Lana says. “Because your perfect mother needs a yet another way to rub her perfectness in my mom’s face.”

  “You know my mom doesn’t do that,” I say. “And she’s not perfect. Just mostly perfect.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if my mom didn’t feel like she was always seen as a screw-up for her past mistakes, she co
uld be more open and honest.” Lana frowns. “Maybe even ask for help.”

  “The two of you are lying to everyone because your mom is worried about her sisters’ opinion of her?”

  “Yeah, but it backfired anyway,” Lana says. “Your mom thinks she’s super selfish for purposely putting all this financial pressure on me, so I guess there’s no escaping being judged in this family.”

  She fidgets with her hands and I have an urge to cover them with one of mine. She must feel so alone in this. “I’m sorry our moms have a screwed-up relationship,” I say.

  I look at her, waiting for her to apologize for rejecting me. She could easily blame our breakup on our moms, and I can feel myself softening toward my cousin.

  “Ugh, the worst.” Lana flattens one hand and examines her nails. “How do you live with these nailbeds?”

  Or not. “Okay, so let’s maybe deal with our mom’s sisterhood issues after we’ve figured out how to switch our bodies back. Any ideas?”

  Just then, the back pocket of my romper starts vibrating and I jump straight into the air as if I’ve been goosed. “What the . . . ?” I didn’t even realize the shorts had a back pocket. “Why is my heinie vibrating?”

  “Oh, my phone!” Lana says. “I can’t believe I haven’t even thought about it all morning.”

  “You just woke up five minutes ago.” I pull the phone from my pocket. “Also, you sleep with your phone?”

  “You don’t?” Lana says. “Give it here. I have the do not disturb set until after nine thirty.”

  “How is it nine thirty already?”

  But Lana ignores me as she scrolls through her phone.

  “Maybe this is just a ‘wait until it ends’ sort of switch,” I say. “The ones in movies are usually over in one day.”

  Lana continues looking at her phone but says, “There’s that old Disney one with Katherine Heigl where she and her sister switch for a whole week.”

  “Can you please put that thing down?” I snap. “We need to figure this out because even if it’s just a twenty-four-hour shared psychotic break, we’re both doomed for tonight.”

  “Fine, I’ll focus.” Lana puts her phone into the pocket of my comfy flannel jammies. “Any ideas?”

  “No,” I say quietly. “And I don’t know that Katherine Heigl movie—what’s it called?”

  “Wish Upon a Star.”

  “Is it good?” I ask.

  “No, it is not,” Lana says matter-of-factly. “But it’s also not bad. It wasn’t particularly original or creative, but it was loads of fun. Fluffy popcorn movie through and through. I’d give it three and a half stars rounded up to four for being mildly funny.”

  “Nice review,” I say. I know the value of a clear movie opinion. I don’t care much for social media, but I do have an IMDb presence where I’m known to write occasional passion-fueled and maybe even ranty movie reviews.

  We’re both quiet for a long moment. “Hey,” Lana says. “How about that hand slap game we played all the time as kids? I remember we’d get going so fast it felt as if we were sharing a brain.” She gives a sharp snap. “Maybe it could spark a connection and switch us back.”

  “Down-down baby?” When we were younger we’d recite verses and make up our own complicated hand motions for hours on end. I say, “It’s worth a shot.”

  The two of us stand on my carpet facing each other and awkwardly start, failing to connect palms at first and slapping at the air. It takes us a few tries to remember the moves, but we gradually get it together, and the next thing we know we’re slapping and clapping faster and faster.

  “Shimmy, shimmy cocoa pops, shimmy, shimmy pow,” we recite together as we stomp and clap and snap and slap.

  As we pick up speed we begin moving together more intuitively, like our muscles are remembering the repeated sequence we made up as kids. I feel the slightest flutter in my chest, like the heavy weight that’s been pulling down on me ever since I woke up is finally releasing a hint of pressure. I look over at my cousin, who’s smiling with the triumph of mastering each move, and wonder if the fluttering could be the start of us changing back.

  We go faster and faster until it’s impossible to keep up and we just start trying to slap each other, which is actually the way the game has always ended.

  We chase each other around my room, swinging and ducking until I catch Lana and slap her so hard across the heinie it makes my hand sting.

  “Ow! That actually hurt,” she says, rubbing her butt.

  “Sorry.” I grin. “Guess I don’t know your own strength.”

  “Well, that was a bust.” Lana gestures to our still-swapped bodies.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It felt good to release a bit of pent-up frustration.”

  “Yeah, on my heinie.” Lana rubs it again and lunges to smack mine hard.

  “Ouch! This isn’t helping anything,” I say, and give her another sharp smack. “Ha!”

  “Wait a second.” She holds up both hands in truce. “I think I might know what could switch us back.” Her eyes widen with excitement. “And you’re going to hate it.”

  chapter 10

  The next thing I know, I’m looking into the mirror over Lana’s shoulder as she puts the finishing touches on making her/my face look absolutely glamourous.

  “And how exactly is a makeover supposed to switch us back?” I ask as she dabs a small brush along my blood-red lips. They are literally blood-red since Lana only had my monster special effects makeup to work with, so they’re covered in fake blood. She’s used bruise makeup to create a dramatic smoky eye and somehow managed to manipulate skeleton contour to change the shape of my whole face.

  “I thought that maybe making you gorgeous was my quest,” she says, dramatically gesturing to her handiwork.

  “Your quest was to make me look like I’m sucking in my cheeks and giving kissy lips,” I grouse. “Yeah, right.”

  “So maybe I have been dying to accent these cheekbones.” She points to one. “Just look.” I have to admit she’s not wrong about the enormous-seeming cheekbones.

  “Wait a minute, maybe the curse is just waiting for me to make up your face,” I say.

  “Great idea! Do you want some help?” she asks.

  “Oh, no. I’ve got this.” I get to work while Lana opens my closet, releasing the pile of laundry I recently shoved inside.

  “I have to get out of these frumpy pajamas,” she says and starts rifling through the clothes on hangers. “Why on earth do you own so many hunting outfits?”

  “They’re not for hunting—I just like layers.” I get to work on my elaborate face makeup. “Don’t wreck my closet.”

  “Your closet was a wreck before I got here,” she says. “A fashion train wreck.” She laughs at her own joke.

  I ignore her as I work quickly. I know my cousin’s face so well it looks odd to see it reversed in the mirror.

  “Oooh, wait! LBD! LBD!” Lana shrieks excitedly as she pulls out a short black dress. “And are these actual . . . Prada heels in your closet?”

  “A little fancy, don’t you think?” I say. “That’s my junior prom dress from last year. And my mom bought me the heels as wishful thinking. I wore sparkly Doc Martens with the dress instead.”

  Lana slides the heels onto her feet and she is instantly six foot three. “I’m so tall!” she says with amazement. “And these shoes are gorgeous. I can’t believe you never wore them.” She holds up the dress and poses in the mirror that hangs on the inside of my closet door.

  “I can’t walk two steps in those things,” I say.

  Lana gives a few expert stomps toward me and stops short when she gets a look at my face. “Really, Ricki?” She’s furious.

  “What?” I say innocently. “You gave me a makeover and so I gave you a makeover.” I snarl at my reflection and a sick-looking zombie girl snarls back. I adjust a strategic bit of rot on my left cheek and spin around to grab at my cousin. “Braaiins!”

  Lana flinches. “That’s so
creepy and disgusting!”

  “Thanks.” I smile, showing off blackened zombie teeth.

  Lana slips into the black dress and tries to convince me to change the sleep romper I’m wearing. But this romper is super comfortable. I point out that nothing in my closet will fit Lana’s tiny body anyway.

  We’re still arguing over belting options when there’s a quick knock on the door and my mother opens it without waiting for our response. Zelda struts in behind her.

  “Aunt May was so right about that car being magic.” Mom’s hair is windblown, and she has a wild look in her eyes as she swings the key chain around her finger.

  Lana and I look at each other. “The convertible must hold the key,” Lana says.

  Mom quickly shoves the key into her own pocket and looks at Lana. “You look amazing, Ricki!” she says and then turns and startles at my zombified face. “Oh! And, wow, look at you, Lana. Just . . . look at you.”

  I ignore her. “That Skylark is definitely magic,” I say. “We need to get in touch with Aunt May right away.”

  “That’s sweet you want to thank May,” Mom says, “but you know your aunt. She’s can be tough to track down—probably off hiking through the California wilderness without a care in the world.”

  Aunt May uses a primeval flip phone, and insists her yurt and truck remain zero-tech, Wi-Fi–free zones. Plus, most of her time is spent hiking with her wolf dogs in out-of-range places.

  Sure enough, when Lana dials her, it only takes a moment before she growls, “Straight to voice mail.”

  “And she never responds to texts on that fossil she calls a phone,” my mom says.

  “Let’s just go see if we can catch her at home,” I say. “It’s only an hour and a half away, and this could be really important.”

  Lana is still distracted, scrolling on her smartphone, and Zelda sniffs my ankle like she’s looking for something to nosh on. I hook my foot to slide the Chihuahua neatly underneath the bed.

  “Let’s go!” Grabbing Lana by the hand, I head for the door and give my mom a quick peck on the cheek as I move past her.

  “Wait,” Mom calls as she steps into the hallway after us. She holds up my phone. “You left this charging, Ricki.”