Two Naomis

by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich

  “YAY!!!” She rolls into the room. “Can you braid Rahel’s hair?”

  “Yeah,” I answer. “Cornrows again?” Brianna nods. Xiomara stands up slowly.

  “Well, I guess I should go. . . .”

  “Okay, bye,” I say. Then I look up. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Momma gives Xiomara some brownies to take home to Kwame.

  “Do you want to do homework at the library tomorrow?” Xiomara asks.

  I look away. “Sure,” I say.

  “I’m really sorry,” she says again.

  “I know, it’s fine,” I say, and I give her a hug plus our special best-friends hand squeeze.

  “NAOMI!” shouts Brianna from the bedroom. “I made a braid myself!”

  “You and your sister need to start getting ready for bed,” says Momma after I say good-bye to Xiomara and close the door.

  “Can we have banana splits first?” I ask. Momma looks at me. “Worth a try,” I say, and I give her a hug too.

  “You know, I was thinking,” she starts. “Why don’t we have Tom’s daughter, Naomi, come over here next weekend after your workshop. Maybe she can even sleep over. That might be fun.”

  Oh my goodness, MOMMA’S MAGIC. I knew it.

  “Were you eavesdropping?” I ask. “Because that’s not cool, Momma.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I’ve been thinking about it, but as you well know, I am not concerned with being cool, and you shouldn’t be either. I hope that if there was something important going on, you would talk to me about it—and why do you ask that anyway? Were you girls talking about having her over? That’s wonderful, Naomi Marie. I’m so glad. I knew you would warm up!”

  Did she even take a breath? And what’s with calling me Naomi Marie? Is she mad, sad, glad, or what?

  “Um, I’m still kind of cold, Momma,” I say. “I mean, she seems okay and all, but why so much togetherness? It’s not like we have to be play cousins or something. I mean, Tom’s okay, but . . . he’s not my dad.”

  She touches my cheek and leads me to the couch; I don’t even see her wince when I sit on her lap. I lean all the way back onto her, like I’m little again.

  “Going to the library tomorrow?” she asks. “What do you and Ms. Starr have planned next?”

  “We had talked about a Sequence tournament. But since I can’t do the board game club anymore . . . ,” I say, leaning back on her.

  “Oh, honey, I know Girls Gaming the System changed that.” She hugs me a little tighter. “Maybe you could do something with board games on Saturday afternoons instead?”

  “I’ll ask Dad,” I say. “He’ll understand.” I’m not sure if she heard me put a little extra attitude in there, but she doesn’t say anything. We had the word disrupt on the vocabulary test last week, and it feels like that word has moved into my life for good. I think about the last time I was at Dad’s. We were playing Sequence, and I was winning until Brianna spread the pieces all over the board and messed it up. Dad and I made up a whole new game and built a tower with the pieces. We laughed, but I was also still a little mad that we never really finished the game.

  “Ms. Starr said we’re going to have to try something else anyway, since . . . um, not that many people seem interested. Miyuri and I thought about a current events book club; she watches Newshour with her parents too. But then we’d have to pick sad books, and they just make you feel worse.” Last night, I started listing every time Gwen Ifill mentioned racism, guns, poor people, angry people, sick people, wars . . . and then I stopped writing.

  “I agree that the news these days is pretty depressing,” Momma says. “But sometimes sad stories help something good grow out of the sadness—they illuminate,” she says. “And remember the news stories about Johari Osayi Idusuyi?” She smiles. “She literally used a book to make something good out of a very sad situation. You guys can turn your sadness into action.”

  I smile too. “Ha, that’s true. . . . Thanks, Momma.”

  “. . . And maybe after you and Tom’s Naomi finish this workshop, you guys can start a coding club at the library.”

  “There’s already Teen Gamez Crew,” I say. “And she doesn’t go to our library.”

  “Well . . . think about it. I bet Ms. Starr would be interested.”

  I picture myself doing a DuoTek demonstration for the Teen Gamez Crew. Their mouths are hanging open, and I smile and pretend not to notice. That would be cool.

  “Maybe I’ll show Dad what I’m learning,” I say.

  “And they don’t live that far away, Tom and his daughter,” she continues, like I never said anything. “I bet she’d like to meet Ms. Starr.”

  Back to that again. That girl is going to take over my whole life if I’m not careful!

  “That would be weird, Momma” is all I say.

  “Well . . . think about it. And you could introduce Xiomara too. Maybe the three of you can have a playdate.”

  If Momma is magic, it’s not the good kind that gives you your heart’s desire.

  And that Naomi Marie’s still bugging me.

  “Why did you call me Naomi Marie just now? I’m not in trouble, am I?”

  “What do you mean? Of course you’re not in trouble.”

  “Well, usually you say that when you’re mad.”

  “I don’t always do that. And I don’t get mad . . . I get concerned,” says Momma. “Sometimes deeply concerned.” She smiles and pokes me. “Anyway, I don’t know. I guess now that there are two Naomis in my life, that’s how I think of you. My own special Naomi Marie.”

  I used to just be special as Naomi, though.

  Brianna comes into the living room, holding up Rahel. “I did it!” she says. Rahel has some lumpy-looking knots in her hair that look like they’ll never come out. And she’s sporting my blue-and-purple butterfly clip.

  “She looks beautiful,” I say. I look at Momma, and we both push back a laugh. I move over. “You can sit on Momma’s other leg if you want.”

  Momma hugs us both to her. “You girls are growing up! Sometimes I wish I could freeze you in time.”

  That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Momma. Just keep things like they are. Stop moving the pieces all over the board!

  Momma looks at her watch. “Oh, how about a banana split?” she asks.

  “Yay!” yells Brianna. She jumps up and down, and I hug her for no reason except that she’s my sister and she’s little and she’s happy and she doesn’t understand everything.

  I want to cheer too, but something gets caught in my throat. A banana split dinner is supposed to mean a celebration. I think I’d feel better if Momma just made us go to bed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Naomi E.

  “The no-head ladies got there!” I say when Mom’s face appears on the computer. They’re behind her. I’d say they were looking at her, except that no heads means no eyes.

  She looks confused for a second—she doesn’t call them that. “Oh! Yeah. The box got here on Thursday,” she says. “Thank you for sending it.”

  I try to notice details about the room she’s in, but all I can see is that the walls are pale yellow, and there’s a lamp behind a flowery chair in the corner. It is so impossible and weird that she’s living in a place I’ve never seen.

  “Are you working all the time?” I ask. That’s what she said it would be like in California. When she lived here, she did costumes mostly for plays, and it was crazy for a month or two and then she’d have lots of time to do stuff with me. But this job is lasting longer. She didn’t know what it would be like when she first went there, but she’s really good and people keep offering her new jobs. Right now, she’s working on a movie, but she said she might be starting on a TV show as soon as the movie’s over.

  She smiles at me. Well, at the camera. But at me. “It feels like it, yeah. So tell me about this class that changed our talks to Sundays. Or is it a club? I wasn’t clear—”

  “It’s this coding class at the Y. DuoTek? Making computer games
and stuff. Dad calls it a club, but it’s just a class.”

  She’s quiet for a minute, looking at my face on the screen. “Interesting,” she says.

  And then she does this thing that I somehow almost forgot about. She says the exact opposite of the truth with a very straight face. “You’ve been a student of computer science for a very long time.” She nods, looking very serious. “If I recall correctly, your interest began when you were three months old.”

  I picture myself dressed in a onesie, a baby bottle by my side, pounding on a keyboard, and it makes me laugh.

  It used to drive Dad crazy when we talked like this. He always thought there was a little meanness in it. But he gives me privacy when I Skype with Mom, so I don’t worry about him overhearing. “I begged Dad to sign me up because computer games are my passion!” It’s funny, because I never play computer games.

  She laughs, but there’s a question in it.

  “Why are you doing it?”

  I think of a truth that won’t hurt her, because I don’t know if Mom knows about Valerie. “Dad’s friend’s daughter is in the class. And he really wants us to be friends.”

  “Do you like her? Is she fun?” It reminds me of the way Mom and I used to talk at the kitchen table, the way she was curious about everything that happened to me, where Dad seems fine with whatever I tell him.

  I try to find the right words. Does Mom even know I’m talking about Dad’s female friend’s daughter? But I say, “It’s a six-week class,” which doesn’t answer her question at all.

  “Listen,” she says. “Sometimes I’m stuck with people I wouldn’t choose to work with. Remember Joshua, the production designer on Pilgrims’ Pets: The Musical?”

  “Yeah, I think. He was super-bossy, right?”

  “Well, there was a lot going on, but yeah, you could say that. But I thought about that interview with Edith Head we watched, and it really helped. Do you remember?”

  “The one that showed Audrey Hepburn?” She was so beautiful.

  “Yes. And Edith talked about how she starts each new project. She said something like ‘The first thing I do is get to know the actress. I actually study her.’”

  I think about the way Mom reads and rereads a script before she begins designing. “Wait, don’t you mean the character she’s playing? Not the actress?”

  “That’s what made Edith Head different. She would study the actress, see how she stood, walked, moved. To learn as much as she could.”

  “So you think I should study her? To learn . . . what? I mean, why?”

  “It’s a way of getting to know someone. To think about it from a different angle, or a few angles. The way a director might.”

  All of a sudden, I’m hit with a wave of missing Mom. “Do you know when you’re coming home?” I ask.

  She nods, and I feel so much hope. But then she says, “I need to talk to your dad about some things.”

  “Okay,” I say. And then I say, “He’s very organized. I keep him in charge of my schedule because he’s so organized.”

  We both laugh again.

  “I miss you like nobody’s business,” Mom says.

  Don’t cry.

  “I need to see you soon, Mom,” I say. “This is too long, it’s been too long, and it’s too hard,” and then, shoot! I start to cry.

  Mom’s eyes tear up a little too. “I’m going to talk to your dad. I was thinking maybe it’ll be better if you come out here for the first visit.”

  Is that hope or excitement or something else that flips like an in-my-stomach seal? “Really?”

  “Not right away, but yes. When you have no school and I have some time off.”

  I’m still hurting from missing her, but the tears stop. A trip to California sounds perfect! I could escape that stupid Girls Gaming the System class AND see my mom.

  “Do you want to talk to him now?” I ask, ready to run and get him and the school calendar so it can all happen this exact instant.

  But Mom says, “I have to go now. I have some sketches I need to finish, and I need to meet with my team, but—”

  “On a Sunday?” I say.

  “On an every day. I know. It’s crazy. But I’ll talk to your dad during the week. We’ll figure this out, Naomi.” She smiles and blows me a kiss.

  “I love you,” I say, and then the screen closes.

  After I talk to Mom, I usually feel the way I do after a good meal, like the conversation is all I need to fill me all the way with her love. Once I tell her what’s going on in my life and hear about hers, it’s like everything’s okay. But today it feels like there are holes, and the stuff that keeps me feeling like me is spilling out a little. Part of it is I’m mad at my dad, and also I don’t know when I’m going to see my mom. It’s too much, and it’s too hard. I picture the way most of the pellet-y stuffing came out of Lambikins when Mom put her in the washing machine when I was four.

  Dad sticks his head into the room. “Good. You’re off. I was hoping you could show me some of what you learned yesterday. I don’t know the first thing about DuoTek.”

  I’m not sure what I want to do right now, but I know it’s not that. I don’t even want to think about that class right now. And then I realize what’s been missing from this weekend—an easy thing to do that might make me feel a little more normal. “Can we go to Morningstar?” I ask. I can almost picture the croissant I’ll eat. Or the bagel.

  “I thought maybe we could do that next week,” Dad says. “With Valerie and her girls, after we get you at the Y.”

  “I don’t want to sound mean, Dad, but can’t we ever do anything with just the two of us anymore?”

  “Don’t you like them?” he asks. There’s a sadness in his face that I haven’t seen since those long, hard months when he and Mom went through that awful separation.

  “Can’t we do both? Go now and then go again next week?”

  “I’m not that hungry,” he says. I forgot how small his voice sounded then. Like it sounds now. “Are you?”

  It’s not about hungry. It’s about wanting to do what we do. About wanting to go to Morningstar with just my dad. But I can’t stand to see him like this.

  What I really want to say is “Of course, Dad. I don’t want a delicious buttery croissant one bit! All I want is to show you what I learned to do with your girlfriend’s daughter. Who stole my name. I’ve always hated croissants! And bagels.”

  But like I said, Dad does not find the way Mom and I talk funny. And he looks so sad. So instead I show him how to move a cat around a screen. And try to remember why I was going to be nicer to the other Naomi.

  But I know the answer. Not only did I feel bad that she has an annoying little sister, but I almost like her. She’s super-smart. But I really don’t like the way Dad’s pushing me toward her.

  At all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Naomi Marie

  “This town ain’t big enough for the both of you,” Tom says in a fake-growly voice, and everybody groans, even the Other One.

  Momma frowns at him. Now? she mouths, like all of us can’t lip-read a word like now. Come on, parents.

  “What Tom means,” says Momma slowly, “is that we should talk about our . . . name situation.”

  “Do we really have to talk about this now, right before we go in?” asks the Other Naomi, and I nod because, Come on, parents! At least someone understands. If I didn’t have to take this class with her and she wasn’t who she was and she wasn’t already trying to steal my life starting with MY NAME, I might invite her to visit my book review club at the library. As a one-time guest.

  Right now, I don’t want to work anything out except our project. This week we’re finishing up this really cool minigame that’s based on old arcade games like pinball. Then we want to make a trivia game, with questions about our favorite books. Actually, her taste in books is pretty good. The cool thing about DuoTek is that we can each see when the other person updates the project. On Monday, I saw that she listed The Tr
ouble with Half a Moon and Breadcrumbs in the Brain Dump section. So I added a sticky note that said, “Cool!! I love those books too!!!” I spent a long time deciding how many exclamation points to add, and I put in a smiley face, but the one that doesn’t show teeth because I thought she might think the teeth one is stupid. But she never responded. I checked every day when I added ideas to the Dump.

  “Work it out, Two Naomis, work it out!” sings Bri, dancing in a circle.

  “Well, we can, um, work this out quickly—Tom and I already have an idea,” Momma says, and then I realize that they must have planned this, just like this, so we wouldn’t have time to think. Again: Come on, parents!

  “Since we have this coincidence here, with both of you named Naomi and all,” starts Tom.

  “We thought that one of you could use your middle name,” finishes Momma. Then she looks straight at me.

  Wait, what? “What are you looking at me for?” I ask loudly. I point to the Other One. “She’s got a middle name too. A perfectly . . . uh, actual one.” I don’t want to make fun of her name because that’s not cool, even if she is obviously kind of embarrassed about it. And I mean: Edith. That’s kind of old school, like one of those shows Nana likes. Some people in my school would probably have a lot to say about it, like Mikey, who always has some annoying comment to make. I sneak a quick glance her way. She’s not looking at me, but I learned last Saturday that when she gets mad, she bites her lip kind of hard, and she’s about to draw blood right now.

  Momma and Tom look at each other. “Please, honey,” Momma says. “It will just . . . make things easier.”

  What would make things easier is if my parents could have made it work like they always want us kids to do, and if Tom wasn’t kind of nice even though he’s the Enemy, and if the Other One didn’t have a secret middle name that she maybe hated and I didn’t get called Naomi Marie when Momma’s mad, and if I could just be at the library with Xiomara and Ms. Starr and play games with my dad and Brianna could have extended days at school.