Beep.
Beep, beep.
Hooooonk!
I know the light’s turned green; I know the other drivers are mad. But I don’t tell him to move. Instead, I say:
“I love you, too.”
At the post office, Sean parks in the spot farthest from the door and then reaches back and grabs a box. He opens his door, then looks at me.
“Wanna wait here or come in?”
“Let’s go.”
The line is long and narrow; Sean stands behind me with a hand on my hip, whispering weird things into my ear to pass the time.
“Do you think Ella and Betsey will fall in love with me, too, since you did?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say, laughing. “You’re not that awesome.”
“Funny,” he says. “Hmm… I wonder if the Original will inexplicably fall in love with me, too?”
I roll my eyes, not justifying that one with an answer.
“Hey, what if your mom lied about there being an Original and she just cloned herself?”
“We don’t really look like her,” I whisper.
“What if you’re a clone of a famous person?” he says quietly.
“You’ve lost it,” I say a little too loudly; the surly postal worker gives me a look. I turn around and smack Sean, because we both know it was his fault.
Finally it’s our turn and of course the mean lady is the one who helps us. She says a total of five words through the whole painful transaction. When we’re finished, we grab hands and rush away from the counter. Sean heads toward the IN door instead of the OUT; I yank him in the right direction.
“Can you actually read?” I joke as we step outside.
I’m watching Sean laugh instead of looking where I’m going when I almost bump into someone.
“Elizabeth Violet Best!” a voice hisses.
And that voice belongs to my mother.
I’m completely quiet the entire ride home, and for the duration of the twenty-minute “conversation” I have with Mom once we arrive. When it’s nearly over, when I’m ready to just hear my punishment and go hide in my room, Mom notices that I’m not wearing the necklace. She screams at Ella and Betsey to come to the living room, then tells all three of us that we’re grounded.
“What did we do?” Ella asks, looking her most innocent.
Mom narrows her eyes at her. “You three live one life; if Lizzie’s stepping out of line, you all know about it. You’re accomplices.”
“That’s crap,” Betsey says.
“I see you’re wearing the necklace when Lizzie should be,” Mom counters. Betsey shuts up. For some reason—maybe it’s because we all want to believe we’re on the brink of something with Petra and want to see how it plays out—none of us mentions that we know about Mom’s secret life.
“So, what does that mean, exactly?” Ella asks in true Ella style. She wants ground rules.
Mom looks at Betsey, “First, it means that you will quit your job. There’s no reason for it other than an opportunity to socialize and make spending money for clothes and music, which you will not be purchasing anytime soon.” Betsey’s shoulders slump. “You’ll continue with night class,” Mom says.
My stomach seizes up the second before she narrows her eyes at me.
“And Lizzie, here’s what being grounded means to you,” she says. I brace myself for losing the car, being forced to take the bus. What she says next never enters my mind. “Ella is taking school full-day.”
“What?” I shout. “You’re not letting me go to school?”
“Oh my god,” Ella groans. Now she has to go back to cheer practice with Morgan, the boyfriend thief.
“That’s right,” Mom says, crossing her arms over her chest, almost like she’s proud that she’s hit a nerve. “Until after Thanksgiving holiday, Lizzie is completely housebound. If I catch her out of the house, the time is extended.”
At this point, she’s not even looking at me. Everyone’s quiet, wondering if there’ll be more or if that’s the end of it. Finally, after seemingly millions of ticks of the clock, Betsey asks, “Can we go?”
Mom nods. We three move toward the doorway, but before we’re in the clear, she speaks again.
“Oh, and I’m taking your cell phone, too.”
I’ve never been angrier in my life: I feel like I could scream down buildings or throw a car or cause a tornado if I was allowed out of the house. I know Ella and Betsey are just as mad as I am, and it’s probably making me madder. I can feel their rage mixing with mine and turning all three of us black inside.
As much as I’ve deceived Mom, it’s nothing compared to what she’s doing to us. I pace like a lion in a cage, and consider confronting her with what I know. Then I realize that doing so right now will only make it worse. I’m trapped in the house: She can easily lie to me and extend my punishment. And this weekend, Betsey will talk to Petra. So instead of saying anything, I vow to find out what’s going on once and for all.
I decide that it’s time to take back my life.
twenty-two
The second day of my punishment, Mom moves my computer to the kitchen island. She announces that she’ll be changing the password daily, and I can only use it for two hours for homework when she’s there to supervise my online time. Three-plus weeks of my prison sentence ahead of me, when she actually looks over my shoulder as I Google a vocabulary word, I shove back and tell her that I’m boycotting homeschool.
“It’s not like it matters,” I say. “Ella’s the one getting the real grades.”
“That’s your choice,” Mom says, talking to me from the entryway as I storm up the stairs. “But for every assignment you fail to complete for homeschool, you add another half day to your punishment.”
I continue up the stairs and slam my bedroom door so hard it rocks the house. But later, I finish the assignment. I may be fraught with lava-hot fury right now, but I’m not a moron.
I’m not about to add to my sentence.
“Are you all right?” Sean asks the third night; we’re on the spy phone, my last remaining link to the outside world. Mom’s at work, but I wouldn’t put it past her to come home to check on me, so I’m on the floor of my bathroom with the door locked and the fan going.
“I’m a prisoner,” I groan. “It’s not like I was really all that free to begin with, but this is ridiculous. I mean, I can take missing school. I can handle being without my computer… mostly. But…” I’m quiet.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Does it make you feel any better to know that I’m miserable without you?”
“A little,” I say, smiling weakly.
“Just a little?” he asks. “Come on.”
I laugh out loud, and the jolt of it makes the tears I’ve held back fall from my eyes. Suddenly, I’m laughing and crying at the same time. “I miss you,” I say when I catch my breath.
“I miss you, too.”
I wipe away my tears and sniff loudly; there’s a break in the conversation before Sean speaks again.
“Lizzie, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I really think we should tell someone,” he says gently. “I’ll talk to my mom; I’ll tell her not to do anything about it without your permission. I just feel like someone needs to know. She might have some good advice.”
“No, Sean, don’t,” I say forcefully. “Really. I’m serious.”
He huffs. “Are you seriously going to keep defending her? Saying that she gave up so much for you? I mean, for god’s sake, you’re locked in your house.”
“I’m fully aware of where I am,” I say, growing angry. “But if someone outside our family is the one to call Mom on her shit, she’ll freak and possibly move us again. Do you want that?” I’m glad for the fan at the end; my voice is loud.
“Of course I don’t want that,” he says in a gentler tone. “But I want you to be safe. At first, it was just the schedule. Then the dating. Now you actually can’t leave the house. I’m afraid for you; I’m afraid of what
’s next.”
“She’d never hurt us,” I say. “She honestly believes she’s protecting us.”
“From what?” Sean asks.
I’m quiet for a few seconds. “I’m not sure at this point,” I say finally. “All I know is that Betsey, Ella, and I need to be the ones to confront her directly. And if we can do it with a DNA test that says we know the Original is alive, plus the address of her secret office and the knowledge that she doesn’t work at the hospital, we’ve got so much proof that there’s no way she can lie anymore.”
“And then what?” he asks, sounding worn down. “What will come of it?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I say. “I think if it comes down to it, we need to trade our silence for identities.”
“You’re going to blackmail your mom?”
“Sean, you’re the one who’s always pushing me to get out of this situation,” I say. “I mean, we’ll try to reason with her. But if it doesn’t work—if she won’t listen—then yeah. We might just have to scare her into freeing us.”
The eighth day, I’m in the rec room watching TV when I see out of the corner of my eye Mom go into my room with a laundry basket. I could help her—my room’s a disaster area—but instead, I turn up the volume and scrunch lower into the couch.
Two hours later, when I decide to change out of sweats, I walk into a room that barely looks like mine. The clothes are gone from the floor; the bed is made hotel perfectly; the curtains are drawn and the window is open. My vanilla candle is lit on my desk and it smells so nice. I smile for maybe the first time since I saw Mom outside the post office, wondering if this is her version of a peace treaty.
But then I walk into the bathroom and see an empty tampon box on the vanity, and I know without checking for sure: She found the spy phone.
My connection to Sean is gone.
twenty-three
When Mom goes out on Saturday, Betsey, Ella, and I run to my room. Bet dials the number scrawled on a piece of scrap paper and sits down on the desk chair. Like kids at story time, Ella and I sit cross-legged at her feet. We hear the cell ring once, twice, three times….
“Hello?”
“Petra?” Betsey says. “It’s Betsey. From Twinner?”
“Oh, hi!” the girl says. Everyone around me has the same voice, so I could be wrong, but hers sounds a lot like ours. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” Bet says. “Just hanging out. How about you?”
“I’m good,” Petra says. “But I thought you were going to call a little earlier. I might have to cut this short; I’m headed out to a birthday party.”
“Oh, cool,” Betsey says, and I can hear in her voice that she’s disappointed. “Yeah, sorry for not calling earlier. I was doing some stuff for my mom… you know, your long-lost mother.” Betsey fakes a laugh and I hear one on the other end of the line.
“She’s probably better than my real birth mom,” Petra says.
“You know her?” Betsey asks. Ella and I look at each other excitedly.
“I’ve never met her,” the girl says. “I just have this whole made-up persona in my mind. In my imagination, she had me as a teen and was way too young to handle a kid, so her parents made her give me up.”
I feel sad for her in that moment: having to make up the backstory to her own life.
“Anyway, I’ve gotta go,” she says. “I can’t be late to my own party.”
“Oh, it’s your birthday?” Betsey says.
“Well, not until next week, but yeah, it’s my party,” she says. “Sweet sixteen.”
“Well, happy birthday,” Bet says, “and maybe I’ll call you in a few days.” Bet missed it, but Ella heard: I know because her face looks as disappointed as I feel.
“Okay, great!” Petra says. “Have a good afternoon. Bye!”
Bet hangs up and looks at us: It’s not until then that she notices our expressions.
“What?” she asks.
“You really didn’t hear what she said?” Ella asks. “Betsey, she’s sixteen.”
The realization visibly registers; Betsey slumps in the chair.
“But she’s a senior,” she says. “She looks older than us. And she sent me her senior picture. How can she be younger than us?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe she skipped ahead—you said she’s really smart. And you’re right, she does look older. But you don’t need to call her back. If she’s younger, there’s no way she’s Beth. I guess…”
Ella sighs hard and finishes my thought. “It’s over.”
twenty-four
It was only one of several secrets, but for some reason, taking the Original out of the equation also takes the wind from my sails. I guess in some way I was starting to hold out hope: Hope that there was someone sort of like family out there in the world. Hope that if she was living a normal life, we could, too. But all that this exercise with Petra did was remind me of cold, hard reality. I was created in a lab from a dead girl’s DNA. I was created illegally, and because of that, I am destined to be hidden.
For a full forty-eight hours, I stay in bed. I fall into an abyss of depression, not eating, not sleeping, not answering when Sean goes so far as calling the landline, ignoring Ella and Betsey when they ask if I’m okay. Staring at Mom like I can see through her when she comes in to get laundry. Then Monday evening, the others pull me out of it.
I’m lying on my bed, staring at the bugs in my light fixture, commiserating with them because they’re trapped, too, when Ella comes in and flops down next to me.
“Have you actually been wearing that shirt for three days?” she asks.
“Four,” I mutter, still looking at the bugs.
“You’re sort of disgusting,” she says with a small laugh that I don’t reciprocate.
“No reason not to be,” I say.
“Well, actually, yeah, there is,” she says, rolling to her side and propping her head in her hand. “Bet’s got class tonight and Mom’s gone, and I set it up with Sean today. You’re riding along and hanging out with him on campus until class is over.”
I turn my head so sharply I think I pull a muscle in my neck.
“No way,” I say. “Mom would go ballistic if she found out. I’m just stuck here in this cage.”
“No, you’re not,” Ella says. “And she won’t find out. Now come on, I don’t like seeing you like this.” She pauses before adding, “I don’t like smelling you like this.”
This time, I actually do laugh a little.
“Lizzie?” she says seriously. I raise my eyebrows at her. “Bet and I have been talking a lot about what to do since that whole thing with Petra. We’re fed up, and we need answers. We decided the best time to do it would be Thanksgiving holiday, when Mom’s home from work… whatever work is to her.”
“The best time to do what?” I ask.
“Break into that office and see once and for all what she’s doing there,” Ella says. My eyes widen; I mean, I’ve thought of doing it, but coming from Ella, it’s like permission. “One of us will make up a reason to be out of the house, and the other two will keep Mom distracted while the first one breaks in.”
“I’m going,” I say.
“Since you know where the office is and have Sean to help you, that would obviously make the most sense,” Ella says, “but you’re grounded. She’ll never let you leave.”
I can feel the fire returning to my belly; I sit up straight on my bed.
“Then I won’t leave,” I say. “You or Betsey will.”
“Me,” Ella says definitively, getting it. “You’re better at pretending to be me.”
I shower and Ella helps me flat iron my hair, then Bet and I take off with me lying down in the back of the sedan just in case Mom’s out on the roads somewhere.
“Ella told me you want to be the one to do it,” Betsey says as she makes a left.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been to the office, so I won’t waste any time getting there. Plus… I don’t know: I sort of
feel like I started all of this. Like I should be the one who ends it.”
“Mom started it,” Betsey says, “but I get what you’re saying. It’s fine by me.” Bet pauses for a second. “In fact, I’ve got the whole thing choreographed in my mind.”
“I can’t wait to hear all about it,” I say, laughing.
“Later,” Bet says, turning up the country music. “They’re playing my song.”
When we pull up to the college, Sean’s lounging on the steps of the redbrick classroom building. He’s looking at his phone and doesn’t see us, but when Bet goes over and points out where I am, he stands quickly and puts the phone away. Feeling like I haven’t seen him forever, I’m as nervous as that first night at the football game when he starts walking in my direction. His hair’s shaggy tonight without styling products, and he’s wearing a dark thermal shirt that’s fitted but not too tight. He’s got a light jacket on, and halfway across the lot, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks down and away.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Sean look nervous.
But when he reaches the car, when he gets in the backseat next to me, when he turns toward me and I can see how much he’s missed me, the nervousness is gone. We crash hard into each other and kiss like we haven’t seen each other in years, not days, his hand winding in my hair and my arms gripping tight around his neck. I don’t think about how much I hate my mother; my only thought is that I love, love, love this guy.
When a rent-a-cop circles the parking lot for the third time, Sean and I decide to get out and walk the campus grounds. I lock the sedan and Sean takes my hand; we walk onto a dimly lit path around a little pond.
“I’m really sorry things didn’t work out with that Petra girl,” he says quietly. “I know you were hoping they would.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Really, I’m not sure what I was hoping for. Just… something.”
“Answers?” Sean says. I shrug. “I mean, if I were you, I’d want answers. Your life is so… strange. It’d be easy to get caught up in wanting to know where you came from. All you have is what your mom’s told you, but now, knowing that she’s lying about a lot of stuff, it’s probably easy to think she lied about that, too. I can see why you wanted to believe that Petra was the Original.”