The Third Twin (2 page)

Alicia started as a joke. The ultimate imaginary friend, our pretend triplet was handy to have around when we were little. All of Cecilia’s warm chocolate chip cookies disappear? Alicia did it. A bunch of expensive games get downloaded onto Dad’s phone? Just blame Alicia. They both went along
with it back then, figuring it was just some quirky twin thing, but if Dad found out that we were still pulling the Alicia business after all this time, he’d kill us. Now that we’re seniors, Alicia’s the first one into the pool and the last one to leave a party. Ava resurrected her a few years ago when she gave Alicia’s name to a guy for fun, and I play along sometimes just to blow off some steam. I don’t date. At least, that’s what everyone thinks. Dad likes to brag that I’m too busy with school, clubs, and volunteer work to worry about boys. And he’s right, mostly. But every now and then it’s fun to get dressed up and go out, no strings attached. At least, it was until tonight.

I unfasten the necklace and lift it off my skin, the diamonds in the thick script
A
pendant catching fire in the glow of the recessed kitchen lights. As I coil it on the countertop, I can feel the last remnants of Alicia fall away until I’m just Lexi again, sitting on a kitchen stool in baggy sweatpants listening for Ava’s key in the lock.

“Hey,” she says with a giggle when she finally lets herself in through the kitchen door. “How did it go? Isn’t Casey cute?”

“Jesus, you can really pick ’em,” I say, downing the last of the cold coffee in my mug. It’s almost two a.m., way past the curfew that Dad imposed but doesn’t enforce, and the whole place is quiet. His wing of the house is far enough away from the rest of us that he never hears anything even if he does happen to be home.

“What are you talking about?” Ava says, and I don’t miss the slight slur in her voice.

“How much did you drink tonight?” I ask. I know she’s going to get annoyed, but I can’t help myself. My mind flashes to the very earliest photo we have, of right before Dad adopted us, the one of the two of us on an old-fashioned flowered couch. We’re already six months old, and I’m sitting up grabbing my feet, but Ava’s so tiny that she still seems like a newborn propped up against one of the pillows, the feeding tube taped to her cheek, and her arms grasping at thin air. I look like a hulking giant next to her. There isn’t any evidence of us earlier than that—no newborn pictures, no plastic hospital bracelets pressed into a photo album, no cards with imprints of tiny feet dipped in paint—it’s like we materialized right at the moment he found us on his restaurant steps.

Ava reaches absently for a glass and pours herself some water from the fridge. “None of your beeswax,” she says, like we’re four years old again. “I was good—Maya drove.” I can smell the beer on her breath when she talks.

“So, what happened with Casey?” She grins a little wistfully. “Maybe not the smartest guy in the state, but definitely easy on the eyes.”

Casey. Just the name alone leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I slide off my stool at the counter and walk over to the espresso machine on the wall. Might as well make some more—not like I’m going to get much sleep tonight anyway. “Does this look easy?” I ask, and pull at the neck of my sweatshirt so that she can see the deep purple bruise he left with his teeth.

“Oh my God! What happened?” she asks, suddenly looking
a lot more sober. “Casey did that? I totally thought he was a nice guy. He never pulled anything like that on me.”

“Lucky you,” I say coldly, shrugging my shirt back on.

“Where were you?”

The dim orange glow on the asphalt flashes through my mind. “In his car in the Cheesecake Factory parking lot.” My eyes start to tear up. “Everyone else was already gone.”

“Did he …” She searches my face, her green eyes full of worry. “You know …”

“No,” I say. I sniff and take a deep breath, trying to get myself together. “He didn’t. But not because he didn’t try.”

Ava wraps her arms around my neck, and I relax a little. That’s usually all it takes, and she knows it. I’ve never been able to stay mad at her for long. “I’m so sorry,” she says. She pulls back and looks into my face, and I know she’s seeing a version of what I see looking back at her—the same curly brown hair and green eyes, but it’s nothing like looking into a mirror. Ava’s the beauty and I’m the brains, and it always amazes me when people can’t tell us apart. It’s not just the fact that I’m an inch taller—that’s only noticeable when we’re standing next to each other. Because she was so sick when we were babies, Ava seems so delicate, so fragile. Two words I can’t imagine ever being said about me.

Her eyes lock on mine, and she pulls the serious face she wears when she wants me to really listen. “I never would have asked you to go if I thought in a million years it would end like that. I know Casey’s working again tomorrow night. We should go kick his ass.” She gives a waist-high kick that’s
impressive, not just for the fact that she’s bombed but also because she’s wearing sky-high heels and an insanely tight skirt.

I allow myself a tiny grin. “Well, he might actually need some stitches on his face.”

“No way.” Ava looks at me in disbelief, and I’m almost offended that she thinks I can’t take care of myself. “Did you hit him?”

“Better.” I hold my fist up. “Keyed him like they taught us in self-defense. It actually worked.”

Ava shakes her head. “You could have been killed! They also said that the first goal is to walk away.”

“I know. I got lucky. But I started thinking about what Alicia would do, and decided that she wouldn’t let it end without a fight. No matter what happened after.”

Ava lets out a low whistle. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You should have called me.”

“I did,” I say, staring at her. “I tried you a million times, but you never picked up.”

“Oh. Right.” She takes a sip of water, and her face goes instantly red.

For the first time I notice the matching diamond
A
pendant around her neck. Oh, crap. “
You
were out as Alicia too? I thought you said you had to go to a surprise birthday party.”

Ava puts a hand on the pendant, knowing she’s been caught. Rule number four is that only one of us can be Alicia at a time.

“I did! For Maya’s sister’s friend. Out near the university.” The grin on her face is a dead giveaway.

I’m not letting her get away with it. “What’s his name?”

“Why does it always have to be a guy?” She goes for a hurt look, but I’m not buying it. Whenever Ava does something stupid, it’s always about a guy. “Okay, fine. His name is Dylan Harrington,” she says excitedly. “Tall and ripped—plays basketball on the college team.”

I sigh. “You knew Alicia was already out with Casey. What if someone figures it out?”

The guilty look on her face tells me all I need to know. Ava follows rules when they serve her purposes. Everything else is merely a suggestion. “I’m sorry!” she whines. “Except for Maya, nobody we know was there. I swear. I went to the party as me, but then he showed up.… I just couldn’t let him go. It was an Alicia emergency.”

“So what’s wrong with him?” So far, he sounds like a guy Ava would keep for herself.

“He’s from Bakersfield,” she says, her nose wrinkling. “I swear I could still smell cows on him.” She looks wistful. “But his arms … Oh, man. So it looks like Alicia’s going to be extra busy for the next few weeks.”

Which gives me just the opening I need. “I’ve been thinking,” I say, watching her out of the corner of my eye. “Maybe we should quit Alicia. We’re going away to college soon, and it’s time for Alicia to disappear before she gets caught. Or worse.”

“No! I don’t want to quit Alicia.” Her face registers shock and betrayal, just like I knew it would. “Come on,” she says, her voice softer, with a singsong lilt she uses to get her way,
even though she knows it doesn’t work on me. “It’s all just for fun.”

“Does this look like fun to you?” I pull at the neck of my sweatshirt again so she can see the mark Casey left. For a split second I see his face hovering above me, his eyes shut tight in ecstasy or anger. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. “It’s stupid. And dangerous. We’ve been lucky so far, but what if one of the guys finds out you’ve been lying to him the whole time?” I reach around and grab my wallet out of the bag that’s hanging on the back of the chair. “Here.” I slap Alicia’s fake ID onto the counter and slide it toward her. Ava got it made last year because she almost got caught with her real license by one of Alicia’s dates.

Ava’s hand slides over the card just as Cecilia shuffles into the room in her robe and slippers.

“What are you girls doing up so late?” she asks, yawning. Her brown hair is puffy on one side, and she has sheet marks on her face.

“Sorry. Did we wake you up?” My heart races, and I know I look guilty. Cecilia must really be tired, because she doesn’t call me on it.

“No,” she says, heading for the cupboard. “I fell asleep reading and I need some water before I go to bed.”

Ava’s eyes widen at me when Cecilia’s back is turned, and I shrug. To the rest of the world, Cecilia is just a housekeeper, but to us, she’s as much of a mom as we’ve ever had, and just as guilt-inducing. Cecilia looks at Ava’s outfit while her water fills at the fridge. “Ava, tell me you’re not just getting home.”

“No, I’ve been here for ages,” Ava says with a straight face
that makes me jealous. I’ve never been able to lie like she can. “We were just hanging out.”

Cecilia nods and then turns to me as she takes a sip of water. “I didn’t even hear you come in. Did you get your English project done?”

It was hard enough lying to her about where I was going tonight. I don’t want to have to continue it now. “Mostly,” I say. I take my cup to the sink and keep my back to her while I wash it out.

“Well, as long as everyone’s home safe. Good night, girls.” Cecilia gives us a wave and disappears down the hallway.

“You don’t think she heard anything?” Ava says quietly as soon as we hear Cecilia’s door shut.

I shake my head. Cecilia always calls us out if she thinks we’re up to something.

Ava glances down the hall and then leans in close to me. “I still say we can’t let Casey get away with it.”

Picturing Casey’s leering face sends the same shiver of fear and regret down my spine and I wish I’d never even heard his name. “No—drop it. It’s done, and I don’t ever want to see him again,” I say. “But I think we should quit Alicia while we can. Before someone really gets hurt.”

“Alicia!”

I’m sitting on the patio of Café Roma when I hear that name, and my heart starts to pound.
Don’t look up. Don’t even glance his way. Pretend you didn’t hear him and he’ll think it’s a mistake.
I focus on the laptop in front of me and hope the guy goes away. He shouldn’t be here. This is exactly why we don’t do Alicia close to home.

“Alicia?” The guy says it softly this time, with more of a question on the end, like he’s not exactly sure anymore. That little catch in his voice is what makes me finally look up.

I take a deep breath. I don’t know what I expected—Casey, or someone even worse, but this one looks fairly harmless. I guess they all do at first. It takes only one glance to figure out why Ava must have given him the Alicia business. With dark brown hair and light blue eyes, he’s cute enough, but everything’s just a little “too” for him to date Ava—hair a little too
long, jeans a little too worn, edges a little too rough. He looks about our age, maybe a little bit older, but everything about him screams punk rock, not premed. Not what my sister would think of as a keeper.

I reach for my latte and give him a sad smile that goes with my slightly stained Stanford sweatshirt. “Sorry. No.”

I can see the light in his eyes dim a little as he studies me, and I glance down to see what he sees—three-year-old sweats and scuffed UGGs, never mind a serious lack of makeup and my hair piled into a messy bun. He must not know Alicia very well if he thinks I’m her—Alicia doesn’t leave the house unless she’s camera-ready. We work hard to make Alicia look effortless. I just don’t make much of an effort.

The poor guy looks so confused, I almost feel sorry for him. “I’m Lexi,” I say, wondering how much of this I’m going to have to explain before I can get rid of him. How much did Ava tell him, anyway? “Not Alicia.”