“We don’t know how, or why or how long. We just know that we are like this, and we have agreed to play the roles until we switch back. We thought you could help.”
“Help how?”
“Well, you know Jake really well. You can help me in case I start to say or do something wrong. We have to be able to convince everyone else that we are each other. You can back us up.”
“So who else are you going to tell?” Mike asked.
“Nobody! And you have to promise not to tell anyone,” I said sternly.
“Seriously? Who would believe me? But, you’re not going to tell any of your friends?” he asked me.
“No. My friends don’t live in science-fiction. I would have zero chance convincing any one of them.”
“That should probably offend me,” Mike quipped. Yeah it probably should.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I offered.
“You didn’t,” he said laughing. “So, what do we do from here?”
“Jake and I have a lot to do before tomorrow, so we are going to leave now. Tomorrow, pick me up at Jake’s house like you usually do…if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. This should be fun.”
“Yeah, it’s been a real blast!” I said with heavy sarcasm.
“A constant party,” Jake added, also thick with sarcasm.
“Burn that piece of paper,” Jake said as he and I headed for the door.
“Right,” Mike agreed.
“That didn’t go too bad,” Jake said cautiously, as we headed to the car.
“No, it could have gone much worse. So…what did you guys write on the paper?” I said, trying to sound playful.
“Not in a million years,” he said with finality.
“Oh, come on. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?”
“No, it couldn’t. But it could, and I’m not saying.”
I grumbled as we both got in the car and drove off.
“Oh, I almost forgot to ask how things went last night and this morning. It looks like you survived.”
“Yeah, I survived. It was different. Before I forget, your friend Jessica called your cell. I didn’t answer, but I noticed that you had a bunch of missed calls and voicemail messages.”
“Oh great, you haven’t been checking my phone?”
“Well, I did after we got the other phone for you, but then I put it away and forgot about it! I’m not used to having a phone, and I wouldn’t know what to say to your friends anyway.”
“They must be worried. It’s not like me not to answer or return calls. I can’t imagine what they are thinking.”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to take a chance making a mistake. We haven’t really even discussed your friends. I mean, I think I know who most of them are, but I don’t know much of anything about them. I don’t know how you talk to them…”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “You probably did the right thing. We’ve been so busy, I honestly haven’t thought much about my friends. We need to fix that, though, so they don’t start worrying or getting suspicious.”
I grabbed my purse from the floor where Jake had placed it, and I pulled out my cell phone. Ten missed calls and voicemail.
“Do you know how to check the voicemail?”
“I didn’t know your password.”
“You don’t need a password. All you have to do is hold this button down and it will log you directly in to the voicemail. The voice prompt will give you options after each message.”
I listened to the messages and relayed them to Jake. “First message was from Saturday. Caryn called to see if I was feeling better and said that she, Jessica and Meredith had a good time at her house Friday night. We do that a lot of the time on Fridays. We take turns staying at each others’ houses.
“Second message was from Jessica. She called on Saturday to say she was on her way to drop off my homework.”
“Which she obviously did,” Jake interjected.
“Third message was from Jessica again. She called Saturday afternoon asking me to call her to let her know I’m okay. Does this qualify as okay?” I asked smiling, waving my hand between the two of us.
He laughed. My laugh, but different. “Not my idea of okay, but I guess we’re okay by her standard.”
“Maybe so,” I replied. “Fourth message was Jessica again. Saturday night. She’s definitely worried.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t call your house.”
“Well, we don’t really use our house line. We all have cell phones, so the house line doesn’t really get called. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have the number.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t she come by your house if she were really worried?”
“She did, though. Did she leave my homework with you or my mom or at the front door?”
“I don’t know. Your mom put it in your room. She didn’t say how she got it.”
I checked the last message. “Okay, Jessica called again and said she’s coming back over if she doesn’t hear from me by Sunday afternoon. She left that about an hour ago.
“You’re going to need to call her now,” I continued. “Tell her you misplaced your phone and just found it. Apologize for making her worry. When she asks where you’ve been, remind her you weren’t feeling well. I have all of their numbers programmed into my phone, so you just have to look them up by first name.”
I dialed Jessica’s number and handed the phone to Jake. He hung up the phone and looked at me. “I can’t. I don’t know what to say!”
“I just told you what to say,” I said, trying to sound patient.
“No, I mean I don’t know how you talk to them. What to say to them is very different from how I say it to them.”
“Just keep it short. Speak, not formal, but close. I’m more grammatically correct with them, but sometimes we are silly…less formal. You should be able to get a feel from them. Once you apologize for not calling, and tell her you’re not feeling well, she’ll let you off of the phone, or she’ll do most of the talking. Either way...”
“Okay, I’ll give it a go.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
Jake dialed Jessica’s number and waited for her to answer. She must have started in on him right away because he skipped the pleasantries.
“I’m sorry, I misplaced my phone, and I just found it. I didn’t realize you had been trying to get a hold of me. You wouldn’t believe the weekend I’ve had.”
He winced after he said it, knowing that would prompt Jessica to ask what exactly happened this weekend. He listened for a bit and then replied to Jessica’s questioning.
“No, no, I’m actually okay. I’ve just not been feeling very well and I’ve been resting and trying to catch up on my studying.”
I could hear Jessica talking in his ear. I couldn’t make out the words.
“Mmhmm...no really, I’ll be okay.”
Silence.
“Yes, I’ll be at school. I’m sorry you worried.”
More silence.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. P.E., right,” he said glancing my way. “Okay, bye.”
A new chill ran down my spine. I had managed not to give much thought about P.E. since our last discussion. Another thing we needed to discuss.
“So, that seemed to go okay,” he said, hanging up the phone.
“Good. So, she’s calling off the dogs?” I asked.
He laughed. “Yeah, she seemed fine when we hung up. She said she’d see me in P.E.” His, well, my face turned red.
“Yeah, Jake, about P.E. We still need to work that out.”
“Work what out? There’s not much we can do about it.”
“Well, maybe we could just skip P.E. until we switch back.”
“You’re not serious, are you? I mean, we have no way of knowing how long that could be.”
“No, you’re right, but we can’t just go in and shower with each others’ friends. I mean, it’s bad enough you get to see me naked. I’m trying
my best not to freak about that. But, to see all of my girlfriends naked isn’t right.”
“Maybe not, but that’s the way it is. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to be staring, and it’s not like I’m going to be taking pictures. I think you are making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be.”
“Well you may be comfortable with this, but I’m not. I don’t even like showering in the girls’ locker room, but to just march into the boys’ locker room and pretend all is well…”
“Look, you just need to mind your own business. If you pretend you belong there, you’ll be fine. Just make sure you don’t stare.”
“Oh please! As if I’d stare.”
“Then you should be fine,” he comforted.
I didn’t know what to say. I figured I was fighting a losing battle on this one. Please, please, please let us be changed back tomorrow.
“So…we still haven’t talked about how last night and this morning went.”
“This morning went fine,” he said. “I’ve never been to church before. Even with what you told me yesterday, I still didn’t know really what to expect. I was a little nervous at first, but everyone was so nice, and I liked the music. I did have a little problem with the songs.”
“What kind of problem?” I asked.
“Well, at one point your dad leaned over and asked me why I wasn’t singing the songs. I didn’t know how any of them went. Are you a good singer?”
“I guess. I mean, most people compliment my singing.”
“Yeah, well that didn’t seem to come over in the transfer. I tried singing after your dad asked me why I wasn’t singing, but I didn’t know the songs or the words. I’m sure I was terrible and your mom and dad were looking at me funny. So, I just stopped and motioned that my throat was sore.”
“It sounds like you handled that okay. We can work on that later, but that’s a low priority. Just don’t sing in the meantime.”
“Got it. I’m not really a good singer, so you’ll have your work cut out for you,” he offered.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine but, like I said, it’s not really a priority. How did last night go?”
“Well, I was saving that for last.”
“Why?” I asked in a nervous tone.
“No, nothing too bad. I just felt awkward. I don’t think your parents think I’m, oh I don’t know, like another person,” he said smiling, “but they looked at me a few times like they were trying to figure me out. Like I didn’t belong.”
“What did you do last night?”
“We did everything you said. Your dad came up to your room and told me it was time for dinner. We had dinner and cleaned up the dishes. After that, we went to the family room and watched Twilight.”
“Did you guys talk at dinner?” I asked.
“Yeah, your mom and dad both asked me about my day. Your mom asked about my new friend Jake.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked if you were the same person that I had gotten in the argument with the other day. I told her you were and that I decided to try to get to know you.”
“And?”
“And I told her that she was right…you really are a great guy…and I thanked her for her advice.”
I rolled my eyes. “Way to work it a little for your favor,” I said smiling.
“What? You know, I happen to think I am a good guy,” he said defensively.
“Yeah, I actually think you’re a good guy, too. I’m just sorry we started off the way we did. I should have been nicer to you.” Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
He smiled at me.
“So, how did the movie go?”
“It went fine. I didn’t sit next to your dad. I sat down in one of the chairs and he brought me a blanket. We watched the movie, and talked for a few minutes after the movie. Your dad didn’t really like the movie, because he didn’t think it represented the book very well. Your mom didn’t think they did too bad with the movie. She seemed to like it alright.”
“What about you? Did you like it?”
“Yeah, I thought it was good, but I saw it in the theaters, so this was my second time seeing it. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know how it compares.”
“Oh, you should really read the books,” I said. “If you liked the movie, you’ll love the book. Breaking Dawn was my favorite of the four. I have them in my room, if you want to read them.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
“So, anything else I should know?”
“No, that’s pretty much it.”
“Good. See, I knew you could handle it. Okay, so it occurred to me that we have a problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” he asked nervously.
“It occurred to me last night that we have no idea how to pull off each others’ handwriting. I don’t have any clue how you write, and you don’t know how I write.”
He thought for a minute, processing what I just said. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem. How do we fix it?”
“Well, I think we are going to need to spend most of today working on it. We can start by doing our own homework in the classes we have together. Then, we can start trading.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t it be better to just switch cold turkey?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you do your homework in your handwriting, and then I go into class tomorrow, and I can’t replicate it, we have a problem. But if we work on each others’ handwriting from the start, and then I do your homework and you do mine, if we are questioned about it, at least we will be able to duplicate what we did in our homework.”
“I didn’t really think of that. But, they are going to notice that our handwriting doesn’t match what we’ve handed in previously.”
“Well, we can just say that we’ve been trying different writing styles out. We are both really good students. Do you really think teachers are going to question us that much?”
“Jake, I’m impressed! That’s pretty good reasoning.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Maybe I am, a little. Mainly, I’m just disappointed I didn’t think of it.”
“You can’t think of everything,” he consoled me. Apparently he’s right about that, too.
We arrived at my house, ready to get to work. My mom and dad were both home, so we went to say hello. My dad was in his office. I motioned to Jake for him to do the talking.
“Hey, Dad!” he said.
“Oh, hi Pumpkin. What’s up?”
“Not much. We’re going to go upstairs and study.”
He looked at me with an awkward, fatherly smile. I’ve seen it before, and it usually corresponds to me bringing any guy, friend or more, to my house.
“Hello. You must be…Jake?” he said, hoping he was assuming correctly.
“Yes, sir!” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Please, call me Keith.”
“Keith,” I repeated.
“So,” he continued, “you have been studying a lot this weekend.” There was something underlying in what he said, like ‘Why are you really spending so much time with my daughter this weekend?’
“We have,” I confirmed. “I think we’re both just trying to catch up from a crazy week, and since we have a few classes together…”
“Oh really? What classes do you share?” he asked.
“We have English…well, actually it’s AP Literature and Composition, and then we have physics right after that.”
“Hard classes. Are you a good student, Jake?”
I think he’s a good student, but I didn’t exactly know. Fortunately, Jake chimed in. “Uhh…he’s an A/B Honor student, aren’t you Jake?”
“Well,” I said hesitantly, “yes, that’s true.”
“And modest,” my father said with approval.
“Thank you,” I said. “Well…it was nice meeting you, Keith.”
“Nice meeting you too, Jake.”
We found my
mother in the family room reading.
“Hi Mom,” Jake said.
“Oh, hi Nikki. Hello Jake,” she said turning her attention to me. “More studying today?”
“Hello, Sara. Yes, lots to work on this weekend.”
“Okay, well enjoy your studying kids.”
We went upstairs and headed into my room.
“You know,” Jake said, “I don’t think your parents like me a whole lot. I mean, they’re being nice to…well, you, but…”
“Yeah, that’s interesting since I’m you. I think they are just curious because you’re a guy and I don’t bring guys over to my house this often. Hmm…maybe we should spend the next couple of days at your house, just so they don’t get the wrong idea.”
“Okay. By the way, I noticed your mom calls you Nikki.”
“Yeah?”
“So, who all calls you Nikki, and who calls you Nicole?”
“My mom usually calls me Nikki, but my dad usually calls me Nicole. Some of my friends call me Nikki and some call me Nicole. To everyone else, I go by Nicole.
“You can call me Nikki if you like,” I said, in case he was unsure what category he fell in.
“Thank you, but is it okay if I call you Nicole?”
“Oh, okay. You can call me Nicole.” I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that.
“Don’t take that the wrong way. I just think Nicole just sounds more…mature, or…sophisticated maybe.”
Oh. I hadn’t really considered that before. Hmmm. “Nicole is good,” I said, smiling.
“So,” I said, shifting thoughts, “I don’t really even know how to start with learning handwriting. I guess maybe one of us should start by writing and having the other try and duplicate it?”
“Yeah,” Jake confirmed, “I think that’s a good idea. Would you like to show first or learn first?”
“I’ll learn first. Why don’t you start with your signature.”
He signed his name on a lined sheet of paper and moved it in front of me.
“Well,” I said, “the good news is that I think I can learn your handwriting pretty easily.”
“Why is that?” he asked.
“Your handwriting is pretty much standard cursive. It’s neat, structured and follows all of the rules.”
“So,” he followed, “the bad news must be…”
In My Shoes Page 10