Naomis Too

by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich

  Everyone asks that. It’s like calling attention to the thing I least like talking about. “My middle name, but I can’t stand it, so let’s just skip it. What’s your name?”

  “Edith,” she says.

  Oh, no.

  Not possible.

  “Your name is Edith?” I say.

  She nods. “People call me Edie. Why do you use the E if you don’t like talking about it?”

  “I have a sister and her name is Naomi too. Naomi Marie.”

  “Is she older or younger?”

  “Same age,” I say.

  Edie’s eyes bug out. “My grandpa told me there was this wrestler or something who named all his sons George. But I’ve never heard of sisters with the same name,” she says. “Why did your parents do that?”

  We’re supposed to ask five “getting to know you” questions, and I don’t want everything to be about the Two Naomis Show. I say, “It’s complicated. So do YOU have brothers or sisters?”

  She shakes her head. “Only child. Lots of cousins, though.”

  If I knew Edie better, I might tell her I still feel like an only child—I guess because I was one for so long—but now I’m an only child with two sisters. I’m pretty sure that would sound strange. “Do you know a lot of kids here?” I ask.

  Edie looks around. “Last year Ronak and Alessandra and Alp were in my class,” she says, pointing with her chin.

  “Do you have a favorite bakery?” I ask.

  She looks at me like that’s a funny question. Not in my new family. I can picture Naomi Marie standing behind Edie, making a face like it is so weird that you think this is a funny question, Edith!

  “I like this place called Yumi’s,” she says.

  “I know Yumi’s!” And how weird is it that I feel like both of us knowing the same bakery is a pretty good sign that we’ll be friends?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Naomi Marie

  I automatically held my breath when I walked into the cafeteria. I don’t love inhaling the aroma of Tater Tots, Clorox, and boiled shoes. But I realized that, surprisingly, Chisholm’s cafeteria smells . . . almost fresh. Probably because of the salad bar, which is another thing I never expected. The high school kids who work the salad bar all wear hairnets and gloves, but they still look cool. I’ve been curious, but haven’t gotten salad yet. (What if I get a black bean stuck on my tooth, and no one tells me, like Auntie Vonne at Christmas last year? She thought my cousin Wayne was just really happy, because he couldn’t stop laughing every time she opened her mouth.)

  “Step right up, folks, and enjoy the fruits of our labor!” says a girl, pointing to where I pick up a bowl and utensils. “Get it—fruits!” She laughs at her own joke while the kids next to her roll their eyes.

  “Just keep the line moving,” says the boy next to her. “And these are vegetables, so that doesn’t even make sense. Leave the bad jokes to Tracey.” He looks at me. “Do you have Tracey? You’re in sixth, right?”

  I guess it’s obvious. I stand a little straighter. “Yes, I am. Who’s Tracey?”

  “Sixth-grade art. Seventh grade dance. Tenth grade math. Oh, wait—you didn’t start electives yet. Anyway, if you choose art, be prepared.”

  “Oh, okay. Prepared for art jokes. Um, thanks.” Awkward.

  “I thought we were keeping the line moving, Jonathan,” says the bad-joke girl. “Stop scaring the little kids.”

  “Do you want romaine or spring mix?” asks Jonathan.

  A bunch of other kids are crowding the table now, and Jonathan just dumps some lettuce on my plate, so I guess it’s time for me to move on. I try to smile so that they will both remember me and then say hi in the halls so that other kids will see that I know high schoolers.

  The boy next to him points to bowls of peppers, carrots, and other stuff. “All grown by the first graders in our plots at Urban Green! Harvested by us tenth graders. Eaten by YOU.”

  “First graders made this?” I ask him. “Cool.”

  “Um, yeah, okay, it’s ‘cool,’” he says, smirking a little. “Are you new?”

  “Yeah, sixth grade,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I didn’t go here for elementary. But my sister does. She’s in kidnergarden—I mean kindergarten!” Ugh. Talking about losing my cool.

  “Welcome!” says the last girl, who’s presiding over the salad dressings. “Welcome, and good-bye. Sorry, but we really have to keep the line moving.”

  I don’t see Naomi E. anywhere, which maybe is good so we don’t sit together; we’re supposed to be “branching out” so that people don’t think we’re weird sisters. I look around for a girl named Gigi; she’s in a few of my classes and seems really nice. Momma says, “Be social! Make friends!” How am I supposed to just “make friends”? These are the questions I can’t ask, because I think I’m supposed to just know. Or if I do ask, Momma and Tom will sign us up for a workshop about it.

  While I’m trying to look for a corner table that’s out of the way but not too DESTINED TO HAVE NO FRIENDS, Jen comes up and taps me on the shoulder.

  “We’re over there,” she says, pointing. “Come on.”

  I hesitate, and she says, “My group has a lot of fun. I told them about you.”

  I smile. “Okay. . . . I haven’t gotten to meet a lot of people yet.”

  “Yah, some of us have been here since kindergarten, and then there are new people like you and your . . . sister, and so Carla is always talking about ‘mixing it up’ at lunchtime. You know, community building and whatever.”

  I start walking over with her, and she stops. “Oh, did you want to get anything else? You don’t have to just have salad, you know. There’s regular food too, like pizza and chicken nuggets over there. And everything is free now, so you don’t have to worry about people knowing that you’re free lunch.”

  . . .

  . . .

  She goes on. “So . . . do you want me to wait for you?” She points again. “The table’s over there. Maybe I’d better get back. I can save you a seat. Hurry up—lunch is short and we want to go outside too!”

  Huh? Free lunch? I don’t talk much during lunch, but Jen doesn’t even notice. She seems pretty popular; a lot of people join us, and they’re all laughing and talking about shows that I don’t watch. I notice that all Jen’s friends look kind of like her. Long, straight hair with a part down the middle. Crop tops that Momma would never let me wear. Jeans that got ripped before someone bought them. Even though I keep repeating “I’m NYE-omi Marie,” Jen introduces me as “Nay-Nay” to her friends, who nod and murmur “Awesome” without even looking at me.

  Nay-Nay?

  This is not my crowd.

  When we get outside, I kind of move away quietly and find a spot along the fence to sit. I take out Piecing Me Together and try to look like I couldn’t wait to get out here to read alone during recess. Jen reminds me of the character Sam in this book, like how she was nervous about going to a Black neighborhood even though she really didn’t know anything about it.

  “Oh! I love that book!” says a voice.

  I look up, and Gigi’s box braids swing down toward me. The day’s not over yet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Naomi E.

  You’d think now that I have so many parents, one of them might have thought to tell me that the first days of sixth grade last three months. At least that’s what it feels like.

  It’s not because we’re meeting all our teachers and getting new textbooks or any normal first-week-of-school stuff. It feels like we spent whole days getting to know each other. There’s going to be nothing left to learn about the kids in my Advisory! I already know that Pio auditioned for a toilet paper commercial. (He didn’t get the part.) Gabby spent the summer with relatives in Spain and came back with seven cavities. Halle goes to a summer camp for kids with stomachaches or something like that. I got to know Edie a little better too, and she seems pretty cool.

  On Wednesday she waits for me after our last class. And when we step outsid
e, wow. Being inside all day, except at the end of lunch, it was easy to forget it was summer. But out here it’s so sunshiny, and all I want is to get home to my barely better-than-nothing tomato plant. There was no time to plant a garden at our yellow house because we moved in July, and I never knew that moving—really, unpacking—could take so long. But I have one tomato plant in a big terra-cotta pot. And in the backyard, there are some rosebushes and other plants the house’s old owners used to grow. I need to see if that enormous tomato is finally all the way ripe.

  But wait. What? Why is my mom here? Talking with Valerie and Brianna? “There’s my mom!” blurts out of my mouth with way too much excitement for a sixth grader.

  Edie smiles. Then she surprises me by asking, “Which one?” Is that a joke? But she’s not laughing. Everyone says I look just like my mom. But I think Edie’s just trying to be careful, to say the right thing. And I appreciate it.

  “The one with two big bags on her shoulder,” I say. Mom’s always lugging costumes and fabric. We walk over.

  I want to hug my mom, but maybe not so much in front of Edie. Oh, no! I’m about to walk into an I-don’t-know-how-to-introduce-Valerie trap. But luckily that’s when Naomi Marie finds us. “This is Edie,” I say. “And Edie, this is Naomi Marie, the sister I was telling you about.”

  I can feel myself bracing. I’m not even sure what for. We don’t look like sisters, and it’s odd that we have the same name; but it just IS, and people have the weirdest reactions, like we’re the latest Nick Jr. show or something. Two sisters, black and white, with the same name? Tune in for Two Naomis, every day, all the time.

  Naomi Marie smiles at Edie.

  Edie smiles back and says, “Hi, Naomi Marie.” And that’s all.

  I turn to Brianna and say, “And this is my other sister, who’s in kindergarten.”

  “Is your name Naomi too?” Edie asks, and Brianna thinks that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.

  Edie says, “It’s really nice to meet you all. I have to go. Bye, three Naomis!”

  Brianna starts to correct her but then yells, “Bye! You can call me Naomi-Brianna!”

  “Brianna is plenty of name for you,” Valerie says.

  All around us kids are yelling and running. Ronak and Pio are walking toward the subway, kicking a soccer ball between them, around the people in their way. Without a parent.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally ask Mom. We have a funny way of saying this to each other, like on a bad TV show, with a big emphasis on YOU.

  “Valerie invited me to join you for first-week roundup.”

  Now that Edie’s gone, I still feel weird about hugging Mom in the school yard, but I do anyway. I’m so happy she’s here!

  We start walking toward the train. “What’s for snack?” Brianna asks.

  Valerie stops walking. “You may recall this is my first week too. How’s it going, Momma? It’s been a bit of a mess, thanks for asking.”

  Mom laughs and Valerie smiles at her. Then she says, “We’re going to Yumi’s. It’s not far from here.”

  “You-me, you-me, you-me at Yumi’s!” Brianna sings. She runs ahead of us, then turns and says, “Question. Can we get anything we want, no matter how big it is?” Her eyes are practically the size of the delicious black-and-white cookies they have at Yumi’s. I love those but feel funny ordering them now, like people might think it’s a joke or statement about my black-and-white family. It’s stupid, but it’s easier to just order something else.

  Valerie and Naomi Marie catch up to Brianna, and Valerie says, “Order anything you want—within reason.”

  Mom and I fall in behind the three of them—you can’t walk five across down the sidewalk, but it’s strange. Or maybe it’s not. Naomi Marie and Brianna are with their mom and I’m with mine. And we’re all together. Other than when my mom picks me up and drops me off, I don’t think this has happened before.

  Mom calls out, “Naomi Marie, could you stop a sec?”

  What could this be about?

  “Let me see that skirt,” Mom says with a big, impressed smile. “Wow. Did you do that yourself?”

  Naomi Marie nods and says, “I got the idea from a book.”

  “It looks fantastic,” Mom says.

  Naomi Marie smiles at both of us, and we all start walking again. I feel a big smile on my face too. Naomi Marie worked so hard on that purple skirt.

  When we get to Yumi’s, Brianna runs to the cake display. “No whole cakes, Brianna,” Valerie says. Brianna sighs but then starts jumping up and down as Digger (we have no idea why this is his name, but it is) brings out a tray of heavy-on-the-frosting cupcakes.

  “First-week-of-school special,” Digger says. “Two . . .” He looks at each of us, then says, “Or three for the price of one.”

  “I’m having caramel cake, but thank you,” Naomi Marie says.

  “I’ll have her cupcake,” Brianna says.

  Mom and I decide to share a chocolate-coffee cupcake and a double-chocolate cookie. “It’s not enough chocolate,” Mom says, “but it’s a start.”

  Valerie gets two lemon-cranberry scones, which is weird, and we drag over a chair so we can sit together, squished at one small table. Brianna takes a big bite of her cupcake, and as though no one ever told her not to talk with her mouth full (I know at least four people who have), she goes on and on. I have to say, her first week of kindergarten sounds a lot more exciting than my week was. “We’re going to have chicken babies! We get to watch them every day.”

  “That’s really cool,” Naomi Marie says. “I mean awesome. Or fun. Ugh, never mind.”

  “And we’re going to make butter. I love butter. But best of all: I HAVE HOMEWORK!”

  “Shhhh!” Naomi Marie and I say at the same time, which is doubly bad, as we have a strict no-shhhhing rule. Valerie thinks it’s rude.

  “That sounds good, Brianna,” my mom says. “And Naomi Marie? How was your week?”

  The bell tinkles just then as the door opens and my dad walks in. Valerie stands and gives him a kiss. Ew. I think Mom notices and looks away, but maybe I imagined it.

  “I got you a scone,” Valerie says.

  “I get to make butter in school,” Brianna says.

  “Every day, I hope,” Tom says. “Because I like butter on my toast every morning. And what about you two?” Dad asks, looking at Naomi Marie and me. “Hello, Sarah. I’m glad this worked out.”

  “I thought about bringing banana chocolate chip pancakes,” Mom says. “But first of all, ew, cold pancakes.”

  “Truth,” Naomi Marie says.

  “And also I think Naomi and I—Naomi E. and I—will have a breakfast-for-dinner tradition this year.”

  I squeeze her hand. I’m glad she didn’t forget.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Naomi Marie

  The parents talk about being FLEXIBLE so much, I should be Jordan Chiles by now. Changing classes sounded like it would be great, but it’s mostly been running up and down stairs and still getting a look from my teachers when I slide into my seat right after the bell. At home, more changes. Dinner used to be fun. Bri and I used to take turns telling stories about our day, but we’d make one thing up, like Two Truths and a Lie, and Momma would have to guess the made-up thing, and we’d play word games, and Momma would tell us about the new books that she’d got. Now we always have to find ways to be a new family; there’s no room for the things that my old family actually did.

  “We’re so excited to try all your home traditions, Naomi E.!” Momma keeps saying. I’m like, What, eating doughnuts and taking naps? We’re all pretty good at those already. And Momma’s always telling us to hurry up so that showers can happen. Five people and one bathroom feels like wayyyyy more than three. It’s like how Momma talks about my math homework. “I don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head. “Numbers haven’t changed, but I don’t understand this new math at all.”

  Tonight Momma’s really rushing through dinner because she has a conference
call, so she just rolls her eyes when Brianna talks about how since we call the adults in our school by their first names, maybe she should do that at home too.

  “Naomi E.,” says Brianna, holding up a sweet potato fry, “my best friend Kiyomi said that you have nice shoelaces.”

  “Uh, okay,” says Naomi E. “Tell her I said thanks.”

  “How did she even see your shoelaces?” I ask.

  “Remember how I had Bri’s lunch by mistake and brought it down to her classroom? Sometimes I see her class in the halls and they say hi. So cute!” She turns to Bri. “Tell your teacher to invite me for snack time.” Naomi E. elbows me. “They had about twenty-four boxes of Goldfish crackers in there!”

  “Twenty-three,” says Brianna. “Dougie forgot to bring his classroom supplies. He cried.”

  “He looked like a crier.” Naomi E. laughs, and looks at me like I’m going to laugh too. I try, but it comes out more like a cough. I’m still not used to Naomi E. acting like . . . another big sister.

  “It’s pretty amazing how much you’re expected to bring to school,” says Tom. “Cleaning wipes? Copy paper? Even toilet paper!”

  “Gross,” I say. “We don’t bring that in middle school.” I think about the bathrooms on our floor. “But we should.”

  “That’s the reality of our defunded public schools,” says Momma, because that’s pretty much what she says every time we talk about school. “This year, the PTA is actually paying for the part-time science ‘liaison’ in our school. We can’t say ‘teacher’ because the PTA can’t legally pay a teacher’s salary. But that’s the only way we’d have any kind of substantial science in the curriculum at all. Think of the schools where the PTA can’t come up with those resources.”

  We all sit and think of those schools for a second.

  Momma’s not done. “But of course there’s plenty of money flowing to and from these companies making money from poorly designed tests that don’t help us serve our students.” She sighs.

  Brianna says, “I played with the K’nect set at Choice Time, and some pieces were missing. Question: Can the PTA buy us a new one?”