Two Naomis

by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich

  Dedication

  For all of my sisters, in spirit and in truth

  —ORP

  For my ever-growing, ever-evolving family

  —AV

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Two: Naomi E.

  Chapter Three: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Four: Naomi E.

  Chapter Five: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Six: Naomi E.

  Chapter Seven: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Eight: Naomi E.

  Chapter Nine: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Ten: Naomi E.

  Chapter Eleven: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twelve: Naomi E.

  Chapter Thirteen: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Fourteen: Naomi E.

  Chapter Fifteen: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Sixteen: Naomi E.

  Chapter Seventeen: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Eighteen: Naomi E.

  Chapter Nineteen: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twenty: Naomi E.

  Chapter Twenty-One: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Naomi E.

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Naomi E.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Naomi E.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Naomi Marie

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Naomi E.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  Naomi Marie

  “Third time’s the charm, right?” says Ms. Starr. She glances at the clock before she smiles at me. Sparkles at me, really, because she’s like that.

  The library is pretty busy for a sunny Saturday afternoon. The feeling that my little sister, Brianna, calls “the hopies” starts bubbling up inside me. I cross my legs for luck (but at the ankle, so I don’t look like I have to pee).

  “Do you have to use the restroom?” Ms. Starr asks.

  I uncross my legs. “Um . . . just practicing ballet.”

  “Wow, Naomi! I knew you did West African dance, but ballet too?” She sparkles some more. “On top of everything else? You are such an accomplished young lady!”

  I try to look accomplished while I make a mental note to ask Momma if I can take ballet. Then it won’t be a lie, just . . . practicing in advance.

  I change the subject. “I think the new neon-yellow flyers worked.” There has been a huge stack at the circulation desk all week, and now they’re gone. I grin and check out the Teen Gamez Crew over at the computers. Brandon Davis is there, even though he’s only ten, like me; he throws a smirk in my direction. Just wait, I think. You’ll be begging to join my club in about five minutes.

  Don’t get me wrong, I like video games and stuff, especially at Uncle Andrew’s, because my cousins have all the latest ones PLUS they have a basement playroom, which means it’s too much effort for Momma to check on me and make sure I’m not melting my brain. I tell her that my cousins don’t seem like their brains have melted (except for Wayne), but she’s still all, I Said No. So anyway, I like them, but digital games are nowhere near as good as laughing and talking and eating cookies during Apples to Apples or UNO or Mad Gab. Or doing a Tower of London puzzle. I do all that stuff when I’m with my dad, but now Ms. Starr and I are starting a Bored? Board Games! Club at the library, and even though no one showed up for the first two meetings, the flyers are gone—so it looks like this time they will!

  “Third time’s definitely the charm!” I say. “I’m going to set up.” Maybe we’ll even do this twice or three times a week. Then I can hang out here and play games when Momma’s friend who’s-a-man-that-she-goes-on-A-LOT-of-dates-(yuck)-with Tom comes over and Dad’s working. This morning, Momma announced that Tom will bring his daughter over for lunch one day soon, which probably means I won’t be able to hide in my room anymore, so I need this club to happen fast in case that becomes a regular thing.

  But that means people have to show up. The clock is working for once, so at 2:51 I go back out to Ms. Starr, who’s showing a line of people how to use the self-checkout machine.

  “Did we forget to put the time on the flyer?” I ask. “I thought we said two thirty, but it’s two fifty-one. . . .”

  “Yep, two thirty,” says Ms. Starr, trying to scan a chewed-up copy of Charlie Parker Played Be Bop before this baby totally loses it. “What time is—” She looks up at the clock. “Oh.” She isn’t sparkly anymore, but that could be because Charlie Parker Played Be Bop is kind of damp. After she hands it to the baby, she wipes her hands on her jeans.

  She looks at me. “I’ll tell you what, Naomi. As soon as this line goes down, I’ll play a round of UNO with you. I bet Ms. Howser will join us too.”

  I don’t want Ms. Howser to join us. She smells like corn chips and got mad at me once for eating a mint in the library. A mint! Anyway, what does she mean, a round of UNO?

  “Everyone’s just a little late,” I say.

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “That whole big stack of flyers is gone!” I say. “Maybe there’s a parade or street fair or something that’s making people late. There’s always a street fair.” That’s what we figured when no one showed up for the Books about Marine Mammals Club, and the Let’s Read in Alphabetical Order Club. Ms. Starr glances over to the Toddler Nook, which has beanbag chairs and allows goldfish eating (the crackers, not the real ones) and sippy cups. I follow her eyes—a bunch of little girls are coloring on sheets of yellow paper. Neon yellow, just like . . .

  “By this morning, when no one had taken a flyer, I gave some to the kids for coloring. I, uh, thought I’d put them to good use . . . reduce, reuse . . .” Ms. Starr trails off.

  Oh.

  “I guess everyone who was planning to come . . . ,” she says softly, “. . . is already here.” She finishes the last scan, and this time I can’t look directly at her because my eyes feel a little funny.

  “Hey! I’ve got an idea!” Ms. Starr sparkles again, which must be something they teach in librarian school, because Momma is like that too, especially these days whenever she talks about Tom. She’s almost as excited about Tom as she is about Poem in Your Pocket Day. “Let’s round up the Teen Gamez Crew for a good game of Life!”

  “Thanks, but it’s okay, Ms. Starr,” I say quickly, trying to sound as cheery as she does. “I have to go. Thanks anyway.”

  I leave before she can feel even sorrier for me. Now, in addition to ballet, I’m going to have to get my best friend, Xiomara, to come back here with me so Ms. Starr won’t think I have no friends. Which means I’ll have to watch Vocalympians! in return, on account of that’s Xiomara’s favorite show and she claims to be allergic to books, so she never wants to go to the library. Momma, always the school librarian, gives her books for her birthday, so I use my allowance to buy Xiomara secret presents that she actually wants.

  I walk to Dad’s apartment without even realizing I mean to go there. It’s been two years, and it doesn’t feel weird anymore having Dad live somewhere else, especially since somewhere else is only five blocks away. Sometimes we even run into him at the grocery store, and even though he and Momma don’t hug or anything, they are polite and not screaming and throwing eggs like I heard Meg Kelly’s parents do.

  Mrs. Hill-Davis steps out to sweep her stoop, but I know she’s really keeping an eye on me. I don’t mind, so I wave. Dad must have sensed I was coming, because he’s just picked up a chicken roti from Ali’s—good thing I got here while it’s still warm. It’s pretty big too, but rotis are kind of hard to share, so it’s also a good thing that I am very, very hungry. I stand at the counter and eat it
while he makes himself a peanut butter sandwich—well, really a half sandwich, because he only has one slice of bread left. He should plan better.

  “Good day?” he asks.

  “Sure, I was . . . hanging out at the library,” I say. I leave it at that.

  After we eat, we start the puzzle on the coffee table without saying a word. Momma would have asked me seventeen hundred questions by now: Who was there? Did I have fun? Did I pick up a book list and remember to say thank you? Dad is just ready with a seventeen-hundred-piece puzzle of the Brooklyn Bridge. I want to say thank you, but me and my dad tend to say a lot without really saying it; I smile as I pick up an H-shaped piece.

  “So how’s everything?” Dad asks after I send Momma a text to let her know where I am. She sends back smiley faces with a kiss, which I really need.

  I never know how to answer questions like that. What am I supposed to say if one thing was bad? Or two things were good, but seven were horrible? So I say, “Fine.” But then I remember. “Um, well. There’s one thing. . . .” I’m not sure how to say this. I mean, both Momma and Dad have been going on dates and whatever (gross), but now it seems like I should say something about Tom since he’s going to be sitting at our table and eating off the plates that Grandma Billie bought. “Well . . . Tom’s coming over for lunch or something. Maybe just a snack. And we’re going to meet his daughter.” I shrug as I say it, to show him how not-happy-but-not-going-to-be-rude I am, so he knows whose side I’m on.

  “Oh yes! Your mom mentioned that. I’m . . . glad it’s working out.” Yeah, right. He looks as glad as Xiomara’s dog, Shotsie, did when she had to wear that plastic cone around her neck for three weeks. I shrug again and finish a corner of the puzzle.

  “I am glad, really, Naomi,” he says after a pause. “Of course, I won’t say I’m glad that it didn’t work for your mom and me to be married, but I’m glad we can always be a family. In a different way now. I want to know that you’re okay with everything.”

  Ugh, parents and “everything.” But I’ve had lots of practice with this, because Momma asks me almost every day if I’m okay with “everything.” “I’m fine,” I say.

  He goes on. “And I’m especially glad that we can have these hangouts any time you want.”

  I hug him. Mostly, the “transition” has been pretty easy on me and Brianna; she was only two years old when Dad moved out, and everybody knows about the Terrible Twos—she didn’t care much about anything back then except touching my stuff and showing the entire world her “big girl” panties. Now she’s four and not much has changed, except the panties thing. Thankfully. Robbie Jenkins still eats booger cookies, and he’s seven.

  But still, the whole Tom thing is weird. Like I’m not sure how nice to be, on account of my dad. But I also don’t want Momma thinking I’m being rude to her . . . friend. From far away, Tom’s okay, I guess. I don’t hate him. He likes to tell jokes, and he doesn’t mind when you don’t laugh, because he knows they’re not that funny. But Momma looked so nervous and also excited when she was talking about him and his daughter coming for lunch that I could tell she’s starting to really want me to laugh at those jokes. And she kept saying how she thought his daughter and I would get along because his daughter is a checkers champ and I’m a chess champ, and I guess it isn’t supposed to matter that they are two completely different games.

  It’s probably a good thing that no one showed up at the library today. I’m going to have my hands full taking care of my parents. And that won’t exactly be fun and games.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Naomi E.

  “Why did your mom leave the no-head ladies here?” My best friend, Annie, and I are packing up what was once Mom’s sewing room. And what Dad promises will soon be our library/TV/music/relax-and-also-we’ll-be-allowed-to-eat-in-there room.

  “You can’t take no-head ladies on a plane,” I explain. “There are rules about what you can take on planes.” Mom, by the way, doesn’t call them no-head ladies. To her they are the mannequins. Or dress forms. Also, they aren’t only missing heads. They have no arms or legs either. She uses them when she designs costumes, which is her job.

  “I know about planes,” Annie says. “I went to North Carolina last summer, and they didn’t let me bring the milk shake I had just bought through that security thing, which makes no sense, because what problem is a milk shake going to make?”

  It’s a good question.

  Mom went to California three months ago because she was offered a great job making costumes for a movie. She had to get there in a hurry. She brought what she knew she’d need right away: sketch pads, her laptop, her lucky eraser. Months before that, when Mom and Dad got separated and then divorced, she wasn’t in such a hurry. And she still hasn’t moved all her sewing stuff out of our house. So now we’re packing it up to send to her, because it looks like she’s going to be in California for a while.

  Annie and I have been working for almost an hour, and the room doesn’t look any more like a library/TV/music/relax-and-also-we’ll-be-allowed-to-eat-in-there room than it did before we started. Well, one box is filled up with ribbons and material and thread and stuff—that one’s ready to be taped and labeled.

  “Gnomes, we should take a break.” Without waiting to see if I agree, Annie pats a no-head lady on the shoulder and heads toward my room.

  No one but Annie calls me Gnomes. To be honest, I always thought she was calling me Nomes, a pretty good nickname for Naomi, which is a really hard name to nick. But one time she handed me a note, and she’d written “Gnomes” because she thinks those ugly little elf things some of our neighbors have on their small front lawns are actually cute. Whenever she says it, I hear it as Nomes. Because Nomes is better.

  “Wanna ‘read’?”

  “Reading” is different from regular reading. It started when Annie’s grandparents sent her family a huge box of books. Annie and her brothers were excited—there were so many books! But they were all in German—which no one in her family speaks. Annie never figured that one out. But it was the beginning of our “reading” tradition: Annie takes a book with lots of pictures and tells the story of the pictures. She does it with our English-language books too. It’s why I kept so many of my old picture books.

  She moves my old stuffed animal Lambikins and slides a book out of my bookcase. “This,” she says, “is the story of a mouse in a dress and red shoes beneath a banana tree.” I know that’s NOT what the story is, but she’s right—that’s what the cover shows.

  I smile.

  “A baby mouse sleeps in a crib beneath a duck. And sleeps some more. Then lots of things happen that aren’t interesting.”

  She starts laughing, because this is one of our favorite books from when we were little, and everything in it was incredibly interesting to us then. And the thing about Annie is that she never laughs a little. I know I’ll be waiting awhile for her to continue, and even though I try to keep a straight face, her laughing makes me laugh too.

  She tries to get it together. “The girl mouse writes a word over and over and then dances with three butterflies.”

  That sets me off, because the butterflies are just in the art and have nothing to do with the story. But then she drops the book, says, “I’m hungry,” and is off.

  Annie has the refrigerator door pulled open and is staring inside, like she lives here. I love that. She should live here. She’d be my perfect sister. And she’d definitely rather have me for a sibling than Leo and Chase because, ugh. Her brothers are gross.

  Dad looks miserable, with envelopes and letters spread all over the table. Then he piles the papers up and shoves them into a big folder. “Hungry?” he asks. Because of the refrigerator hint. And because we’re in the kitchen. And because Annie is always hungry.

  “Wait. Naomi, did we have lunch? Were we supposed to give Annie lunch?” We don’t go hungry, my dad and me, but I’m pretty sure there are some days when we have five meals and some when maybe we have two or even one and
also a lot of snacks. Dad and I are champions of snacking.

  “I’m fine,” Annie says, straight into the refrigerator. “Ate before I came over.”

  “I had an apple,” I say. I don’t mention that I cut it and arranged the pieces around a big puddle of chocolate syrup, because Dad thinks apples and chocolate don’t go together, which is all kinds of crazy.

  “You know what you should do?” Dad asks. He doesn’t care that we don’t answer. “You should go outside.”

  Annie is still standing in front of the open refrigerator, looking in, not moving.

  “It finally dried out from all the rain. You can take a break from packing up Mom’s stuff. Or are you done? Is it ready to go?”

  I shake my head no and gently close the refrigerator, pulling Annie out of the spell she seems to have fallen under. I grab a bag of popcorn from the pantry and say, “Come on.”

  My backyard is tiny, but I love, love, love it. Our house is attached to another on one side—it’s called a row house—but it’s also on a corner, so it gets a lot of sun. It has an old swing set that Annie and I have played on forever, and everything about it fits us exactly right.

  In the back corner, where the sun shines for most of the day in the summer, I have my own garden. Last summer I grew strawberries and tomatoes. I loved picking them when every last bit of green faded away and they were the perfect shade of ready-to-eat red. When they’re ripe, you almost don’t have to pull—they practically drop into your hand. It makes me so happy to watch tiny little plants with a few leaves grow into . . . food! And I love the way the big leaves on a tomato plant smell like tomato even before there’s the tiniest little tomato growing there.

  Annie grabs a soccer ball (it’s hers, but she keeps it at my house) and kicks it in circles around the tree. Yes, our tiny perfect backyard has a tree. Only one. But in the spring, in just a few weeks, it will bloom with pink blossoms, and two years ago there were actual apricots that were beautiful. They tasted awful, but they were great to look at.

  “Next weekend, on Saturday, do you want to come over?” Annie has what I call soccer feet. She usually can’t keep them still. But now she stops the ball and lies on her stomach on the swing next to mine. Like a little flying superhero, she pushes up. “It’s Chase’s birthday party so we’re skipping soccer, and Mom said you could come.”