I’ve envied Katie’s life for years, wanted to be her for almost as long, and now here I am with skinny, freckled, pale arms and stick-straight hair and big green eyes that take everything in. I look like a dorky little kid in my red sparkly glasses and cutoff jeans shorts but that’s okay. Better than okay, actually: it’s perfect. I’ve dreamed of being a dorky little kid all summer. What could be more fun?
When Katie and I were younger we spent whole afternoons chalk drawing on the sidewalk and making mud pies and digging holes and skipping rope. Back then our moms drove us to the beach, where we chased waves for hours, wading through knee-deep water, scrawny chests puffed brave in the face of danger. At the first hint of the crash, we’d run back to our moms, screaming our heads off, collapsing into fits of giggles.
We built elaborate sand castle villages with moats and seaweed bridges and pebbled walkways. We raced up and down sand dunes and goofed off until our tummies ached from hunger. Then we crammed warm PB&Js into our mouths, laughing because even though the peanut butter was creamy, our sandwiches still somehow packed a crunch. We had the life, wiping our mouths with the backs of our tan, sticky hands, our shoulders freckling as the sun beamed down. Seagulls circled over our heads, eyeing our food.
More than once, those pesky birds—flying rats, Katie called them—made off with the better parts of our lunches and we cried real tears, heartbroken because stolen potato chips and Oreos were our biggest problems in life back then.
We didn’t care about boyfriends. We didn’t care about boys, period.
These days my mom would rather be stabbed in the eye than pack me any kind of food that does not come directly from an organic garden. Katie and I are too old for sand castles and splashing in the surf. Now, we bask in the sun and go for walks and talk, but summer continues to be magical and delicious. I wish for the season to start over every year in the wishing tunnel, holding my breath and crossing my fingers and my toes and squeezing my eyes shut so tight I see bursts of blue and red behind my eyelids, but to no avail.
Except for this year.
This year my wish was a little bit different.
This year I yearned with every inch of my body to start the summer over as Katie. And she must’ve wished for the exact same thing at the exact same time because it totally worked.
We’ve switched places!
“How awesome is this?” I ask Katie—the real Katie, who is currently occupying my body.
We’re off the bus and in the parking lot and I’m so excited I’m jumping up and down. In Katie’s body I feel lighter on my feet and freer, too. I can bounce around without worrying about random leering guys.
Katie is completely still and silent. She stares down at herself and then at me.
I pull her away from the crowd filing off the bus. “Katie?” I whisper. “It’s you in there, right?”
“I’m Melody,” she says as if in a trance.
“Yup,” I say, grinning like mad. “You look like me and you even sound like me. But you’ve got your own brain. Isn’t it awesome? I told you the wishing tunnel would work if we wanted something badly enough.”
Katie shakes her head, stubborn as always. “That’s impossible. People don’t switch bodies in real life. This has got to be a dream. I must’ve fallen asleep on the ride to the beach. I just hope I’m not snoring or drooling. Or what if I’m snoring and drooling?”
I can’t help but laugh at this. For all of Katie’s faults, she’s often hilarious. “You think you’d be this neurotic in a dream?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. She’s not even paying attention to me. Instead, she’s pacing across the parking lot, talking to herself like a crazy person.
“If Ryan and Reese witness that, they’ll never let me live it down. And what if Kevin sees? How much mortification can one girl take?” She throws up her hands.
“Will you stop worrying,” I say. “This is great news. We got exactly what we wanted and we can totally pull this off.”
She ignores me. “Except, wait. I’m an extremely light sleeper. Always have been. If I drooled on myself I’d totally wake up. Same goes for snoring—I’d hear myself loud and clear.”
“See,” I say, grabbing her hand, so she’ll finally pay attention, “this is no dream. Let’s go!”
I pull her toward the beach. Crescent Moon Bay is stunning as always. I kick off my sandals and sink my feet into the warm sand. I wiggle my toes. Katie’s toes. They’re painted red with sparkles. We gave each other pedicures the night before. Katie loves everything red and sparkly—that’s what she always goes for. But I like to mix things up. Last night I chose pink with white polka dots to match my dress. Then, on my big toenails, I made white hearts outlined in turquoise. They look pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
But who cares about nail polish when we’re finally in Malibu. The water is so blue, so endless and wild it makes my breath catch in my throat. The crashing waves are music to my ears, my favorite sound. I breathe in deeply. The air smells like summer and possibility, that magical combination of saltwater and coconut sunscreen, hot dogs and French fry grease.
“It feels so real,” Katie marvels, holding her free hand in front of her face.
“That’s because it is real,” I reply, wondering how many times I’m going to have to tell her.
“Oh wow. Look at Kevin,” Katie says, squeezing my hand.
As Kevin walks by with his green backpack slung over his shoulder and his surfboard tucked under one arm, I feel a little queasy. Kevin is the last person I want to see right now. He’s the reason that Katie and I aren’t talking. Weren’t talking, I mean.
Now that it’s the beginning of summer, I’m confused.
We’re talking now, obviously, but in our old reality, back at the end of summer? Well, that’s a long and complicated story. And it’s Kevin’s fault. Kind of, in the sense that if he didn’t exist then we wouldn’t be having this problem. Okay, I guess I need to take some of the blame, since I did sneak around a bit behind Katie’s back, but I never meant to hurt her. I kept him a secret because I didn’t want her to get upset. But obviously my plan backfired.
“Are you still mad at me?” I ask.
My best friend looks at me. It’s weird staring at her, staring into my own eyes. It’s not quite my mirror image because she’s a real flesh-and-blood person I could reach out and poke in the stomach, not that I would.
“I’m not going to waste this totally amazing dream being mad at you,” she says.
I bite my bottom lip, happy we’re not fighting but still nervous. “What if this isn’t a dream?” I ask.
“It’s day one of summer,” she says with a shrug. “We’re starting over. Today is the first time we see Kevin but neither of us actually knows the guy, right?”
I nod and say, “Um, right.”
Except as soon as the words leave my mouth I regret them. The problem? I lied again. Katie thinks we both met Kevin for the first time on the Fourth of July. But actually I met Kevin way sooner, over Christmas vacation when he was visiting his dad. Except I kept it a secret. And that’s what got me into this mess in the first place: Kevin and lying and lying about Kevin.
It started out innocently, I swear. I thought I was telling a small fib, but then it grew. And grew. And grew.
It’s just like that web of lies my dad used to warn me about. You tell one lie and then you have to tell another lie to make that first lie plausible. And then you have to tell another one to cover for yourself, and then another and another and soon your lies are piling up on top of one another and you’re in a big sticky mess, caught like a fly.
I am a fly in that web. Stuck. And now we’re back in time. And I got myself stuck all over again.
I wasn’t expecting this now that I’m Katie. Life should be easier, less complicated. That’s the problem with boys. They complicate things.
Like with Kevin. As soon as Katie laid eyes on him she told me she was in love, that she was going to go out with him. And
we agreed that she could have him because she called dibs first, except we didn’t actually agree. Katie simply decided for the two of us.
That’s how it’s always been with me and Katie. She makes the rules and I follow along. We’ve operated like that for the past ten years. That’s how long we’ve been besties. Since before we could even speak in complete sentences. But things have been different lately. I’m different—or at least I want to be. We’re going into middle school and I don’t want to spend all of seventh grade following Katie around. I actually don’t even want to spend another day following her around.
Of course, even though I made that decision, I never actually got around to telling her. Maybe that’s part of the problem.
KATIE
K Surprise!
I look like Melody and I feel kind of like Melody, too. Even though body swapping does not happen in real life, I’ve already wasted too much time freaking out over the switch. I may as well enjoy this dream.
“Let’s find a spot near the water,” I say, picking up Melody’s pristine white tote bag and slinging it over my shoulder. The towel inside is rolled neatly. It’s pink-and-turquoise striped, plush, and expensive-looking. Nicer than my old towel, but I am not surprised. Of course Melody’s got the nicest, prettiest towel in Malibu. Her tote bag, too, is brand-new. Inside are four pouches in different, coordinating colors—light pink, dark rose, baby blue, and lavender. I’ve never seen them before and Melo probably hadn’t, either.
Melody’s mom is a big shopper. Practically every salesperson in town knows her by name. Plus, boxes from Barneys and Bloomingdale’s and stores I’ve never even heard of appear on her doorstep daily. Melody has so much new stuff I can’t keep track of everything. She can’t either sometimes.
I take out the light pink pouch and unzip it. Inside I find carrots, celery, and jicama sticks. Nice! Melody’s mom packed me a snack. Packed Melody a snack, I mean. And I’m Melody. This was so superthoughtful of her, even though, rummaging around in the bag, I can tell that she forgot the dip.
I can’t complain, though, because my actual real-life mom never has time for stuff like that. She’s a public defender who’s superbusy with work and with the process of officially adopting Ryan and Reese. They don’t have another mom, for reasons too sad for me to get into right now. And I’m proud of my mom for stepping up, but I’m also acutely aware of the fact that without me, she and Jeff and the twins would be the perfect nuclear family. They look like they belong together, too. The twins already call her Mom and the three of them have reddish-blond hair and big blue eyes.
And me? When I’m not dreaming about being Melody, my eyes are green and my hair is straight and dark brown like my dad’s, who was essentially my mom’s starter husband. In other words, I’m basically a living, breathing reminder of that giant mistake she made.
When the five of us go out together, I know I look more like the twins’ babysitter than their stepsister. And that’s how I get treated sometimes, too. As hired help—except I don’t actually get paid. Taking care of the twins is something my mom makes me do for free because that’s what big sisters do, she says. But why focus on that now, when I get to be Melody?
The blue pouch is labeled sunscreen. I unzip it, peek inside, and find the SPF 60 along with a note from Melody’s mom: Don’t forget to reapply every hour and when you get out of the water. You’ll thank me when you’re my age. No one loves a prune face!
She signed it Love, Mom with a happy face. I love the happy face. It’s supercute and sweet.
I wonder why Melo never told me about the note or the sunscreen. Maybe she didn’t want to rub in the fact that her mom is always so thoughtful, while my mom is so, well, not.
It’s too bad because on the real first day of summer I ended up turning lobster red and it took me days to recover. The physical pain was bad enough, but then there was the annoyance of having to listen to my stepdad lecture me about the dangers of excess exposure to UV rays and the links between sunburn and skin cancer. Plus, I had to wear a giant floppy hat for the rest of the week and I look terrible in hats.
I will definitely make sure that Melody (in my body) applies the SPF 60, even though this is merely a dream. That’s how good of a friend I am.
I’m about to tell her, but then I notice she’s walking ahead of me.
“Hurry up,” she calls, with a quick glance over her shoulder. Melody is walking fast, arms swinging, practically power walking like the grandmas in our neighborhood and looking just as ridiculous. All she’s missing is the warm-up suit and the little pink two-pound weights.
I worry about my image for half a second but then remember that none of this actually matters. None of this is real. It’s fantasyland and come to think of it, I should be having more fun.
Like, for instance, how cool would it be if this turned into one of those dreams where I could fly?
And who’s to say it can’t?
I jump up and thrust my arms into the air in my best imitation of Superman. I close my eyes and will myself to fly, but nothing happens.
“Um, what are you doing?” asks Melody. She’s stopped in her tracks and looking at me as if I am crazy.
I don’t blame her, but I also don’t care.
“Purple spaghetti and flypaper sandwiches,” I yell, since these are the first words that pop into my head.
I figure Melody will spew something equally ridiculous, or at least give me a double thumbs-up, but instead she looks at me all concerned and asks, “When are you going to accept that this is actually happening?”
“It can’t be.” I shake my head. Then I yell, “Fly,” and leap toward the sky again. This time I throw my whole body forward.
I land in the sand, facedown.
Ouch.
My knee hurts. There’s sand in my eye and it stings, badly. Also, it’s not exactly dream pain, winking and theoretical and fuzzy around the edges. This pain is real. I rub my eyes except my fingers are sandy, too, so I only make things worse.
Aack!
As I climb to my feet I hear a familiar voice from behind me. “Hey, are you okay?”
I look back with my one good eye. Some surfer dude is running toward me. Except he’s not just some surfer dude. He’s Kevin.
“I’m fine,” I say, brushing the sand off my elbows.
I’m not sure what to do next. Talking to Kevin always leaves me flustered.
He’s closer now and he’s got his wet suit only halfway on, exposing a tanned, beautiful chest. “Um, that looked bad. Did you trip? Are you okay?”
Kevin is right next to me and we have never been this close. I am not about to tell him I injured myself while attempting to fly, so I stay silent. My eye is watering and it stings. I go to rub it, again, but Kevin grabs my hand.
“Wait, don’t do that. You could scratch the cornea,” he says. “You need to wash your eye out with fresh water. Hold on.” He lets go of me, kneels, and starts rummaging through his backpack.
I stand there, stunned, my hand still warm from his touch.
Moments later he holds up a blue water bottle triumphantly. “Okay, sit down and tilt your head back and try to keep your eyes open,” he explains as he unscrews the cap.
I do as he says and now my head is resting in his palm. I feel safe, taken care of. This is the best dream I have had in my whole entire life and I don’t want to wake up. Not until a blast of ice-cold water squirts me right in the eye.
“Yikes!” I scream, and stand up, blinking and rubbing my eye furiously.
Kevin is laughing. “Hey, you weren’t supposed to move. Remember?”
“You never told me that,” I sputter. My face and hair are sopping wet and my eye is sore, but the sting has been replaced by a dull ache. Much improved but not perfect.
“Sorry. Is it gone?”
“It’s gone,” I say, blinking. “Thank you. Um, you really know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah,” he says, putting his water bottle away and zipping up his backpack.
“I’m a volunteer EMT.”
“A what?” I ask.
“An emergency medical technician,” says Kevin, meeting my stunned gaze with a curious head tilt. “A junior one, anyway.”
This information surprises me. “Really? That’s, like, a thing?”
He laughs as he stands up and brushes the sand off his knees. “It is back in North Carolina.”
“Oh, is that where you live?” I ask, shading my eyes with my hand, pretending like I don’t already know.
He stares at me with this strange, uncertain smile and speaks to me as if I were a three-year-old child. “That’s where I used to live, but now I’m in Braymar. I thought you knew—”
“Hey, that’s where I live,” I say, cutting him off.
“Did you hit your head on that fall, too?” he asks.
“Nope,” I say. “Um, welcome to California. I’m Melody.”
He looks at me like I’ve said something crazy. Except I haven’t—not since the purple spaghetti thing and no way could he have heard that.
“You are a trip, Melo,” he says, as he picks up his surfboard and heads for the water.
My knees feel weak and not because they are bruised from my fall. Kevin has this effect on me.
I am confused by our conversation, and also by the fact that he knows my nickname. But I decide to let it go because dreams are weird and who cares when Kevin is so dreamy. It’s funny describing someone as dreamy while I’m in a dream. Of course he’s dreamy. This whole scene is. I watch his tan back fade into the distance, wondering if I should’ve kissed him while I had the chance.
“Are you ready to go?” Melody asks me, using my heart-shaped, sparkly glasses like a headband to pull back her hair. My hair. She’s got one hand on her pushed-out hip, her elbow as sharp as the point of an extra-pointy knife. She seems nervous, but I don’t know why.
“Sure,” I say.
We settle on a spot about a hundred yards from the lifeguard stand. I spread out my towel, shrug out of my cardigan, and peel my sundress over my head. Normally I’m super self-conscious of my body. My legs are pale and scrawny and I have three moles the size of quarters by my left knee and they make me look part Dalmatian.
If I Were You Page 2