The Makeover of James Orville Wickenbee Read online

  Alex smiled. It’s not easy to hide your true feelings from someone you once shared a womb with. Alex knew I was as touched and amazed by what had transpired at our school as he was. My brother and I had been reading each other’s minds for just about as long as I could remember. And maybe that’s why I suggested he come with me to Michelle’s for a haircut. It had become pretty obvious to me that he was anxious to get to know her better.

  Chapter Twenty- Two

  •••

  Dolly Devonshire, Lyla’s old sidekick, was one of those who’d jumped full force onto James’s “A Kinder, More Moral School” bandwagon. In fact, she’d been one of the first. Some of the jocks complained when she began coming to school in much more modest shirts, her hair smoothed down, and her makeup more subdued, but by second semester, her pants were no longer glued on and she actually had some room to walk normally. Dolly, who had worn a tight, short skirt and midriff- baring top in the fashion show the year before, chose a striking two- tone top and a mid- length, feminine skirt for ours.

  The fashion show, I have to say, went superbly well. We’d gone ahead and opened up participation to girls of all sizes and I was proud of the confident, happy way they’d walked down that ramp. It’s always been my contention that any height is fine as long as you stand up straight, and that’s what I assured them.

  “Walk tall and you’ll feel tall no matter what height you are.” I told them. I also helped all the participants with their posture just as I had with James. I let them know that an extra side benefit to standing straight is that you also look seven to ten pounds slimmer as well. “There are many different body types,” I reassured them, “and they’re all okay as long as you stay fit and healthy.”

  “Right, uh- huh,” said Carla Panduski, who had a few pounds to lose, “but why can’t I be fit and healthy and have your body type instead of mine?”

  I smiled patiently. I’d put in a lot of time and effort into looking the way I did and I opened my mouth to preach a little about nutrition and exercise when I realized she’d turned to look in Dolly’s direction. “Or better yet, Dolly,” she said. “Why can’t I look like Dolly?”

  “Or Shereen,” said someone else.

  “Let’s not start this,” I said. “We’re all better off as ourselves.”

  I could tell Adriana was a little put out she hadn’t been mentioned and she frowned as she stared at Dolly.

  Yes, Dolly had always looked as though she were bursting with good health, as they say. In fact, in the past that saying had been pretty literal as she’d looked fit to burst out of her clothing. Now that she was dressing more suitably, it was still obvious she was in good health, but she looked oh- so much more approachable and appealing. People looked at her face now and were actually beginning to listen to what she had to say.

  “You looked beautiful in the fashion show,” Michelle said to her when she stopped by our table the day after our event. “I’ve noticed you’ve been looking really nice in general now as well. I love your new look.”

  The others, even Sadie, agreed. In fact, Cassie agreed with so much energy that Dolly had to back up a step. “Lady, you’ve been looking amazing these days!” she boomed out for the entire cafeteria to hear. “Doesn’t she look amazing, Jana!?”

  I politely agreed. “Dolly did a good job for us last night.”

  “And you and Adriana did such a good job putting that show together, Jana!” Michelle added, repeating what she’d started to tell me when she first got to the table. “It was unbelievably well done.”

  “Amazing!” boomed Cassie again.

  “You really did do an amazing job, Jana and Adriana,” Dolly bubbled enthusiastically. “Thanks, you guys! It was really well organized and really, really fun!”

  “Things ended up working out,” I said. “With a show like that, you’re never sure it’ll all come together smoothly but luckily we had some good help. I give a lot of credit to Adriana, who actually got Talbot’s to work with us.”

  “Wow, good job, Adriana,” several people said.

  My friend lifted her hand in objection. “Oh, stop with the compliments! No more!” At the same time she was doing the “tell- me- more” sign with her other hand.

  I chuckled and nodded. “We’d better not tell her how great she is about five more times,” I said.

  The girls chuckled, but then as Dolly turned to leave, I narrowed my eyes at her with suspicion. Only an hour or so before lunch, I’d seen her at James’s locker for the second time that day. Oh, she’d come to James’s locker before to talk about various projects and activities— but never several times in one day.

  “What’s going on with Dolly Devonshire?” I asked Alex that night.

  “Quite an improvement, huh?” Alex said without looking up from the calculus homework which he had once again put off until the last possible minute.

  “Well, yes, but I’m wondering why she’s made these major style changes.”

  “Probably the same reason as everyone else. She’s taking the ‘A Better Fairport Begins with a Better You’ theme to heart,” said Alex.

  “I’m not buying it,” I told him. It had taken me pretty much all evening to catch up on my homework myself. I hate being behind. Now I tapped my pencil. Ninety- eight percent of the female population of Fairport had been looking at James with new eyes now that he’d proven himself to be an amazingly successful and inspirational school president. The year before, yes, I’d wanted every girl in the school to take notice of James so that they’d vote for him. But that was a long time ago. The votes had been tallied and the election was long over. “You know what I think? I think Dolly’s been doing this just to impress our superhero.”

  “Hey, people change. Accept it,” said my brother.

  “Not that fast, they don’t.”

  “James did.” It was getting late and, holding the pencil between his teeth, Alex reached down and untied his shoes. He sat back up, took the pencil back out, and said, “James made a switch in about thirty seconds flat.”

  “Well, not quite that fast.” At least at the time it hadn’t seemed that fast. It was true that, in retrospect, James’s transformation

  did seem like a twirl through a revolving door, but there was a

  significant difference. His had only been a surface transformation. There’d been no changes required in regard to his inner strength and quality. In fact, I hoped beyond hope that who he was inside would never change.

  Yet, I also recognized how challenging it had to be to continue staying humble with all the attention he’d been getting that year. It was one thing to win an election, but then to actually follow up by becoming a successful and influential leader of a huge and prestigious high school like Fairport was pretty heady stuff. How could it not affect a person’s ego when popular, good- looking people, some of whom had once even ridiculed you, were now tuned in to your every blink.

  It bothered me immensely that so many others had discovered what Alex and I had known for much longer— that there was something far beyond appearance that was exciting about James, that there was something about James that made you feel better about life and yourself. I should have known that once he became president of the school, other people would see it.

  As a twin, sharing had never been a big issue for me and I knew it shouldn’t become one. James wasn’t mine. We were just good friends who had been through some interesting times together and who played chess on Saturday afternoons and okay, had some fascinating discussions about just about everything, but that was all it amounted to and everybody knew that that was all it amounted to. We’d both made it clear all along that nothing else was on the agenda and that we certainly were not an item. But the huge amount of fanfare and attention James continuously received was beginning to wear on me nevertheless.

  I especially didn’t like Dolly and her cheerleader friends pouncing on him all the time and taking up every extra minute he had. In fact, even Adriana and her friend from the dance compa
ny, Darcy Glick, were hanging around James all of a sudden. Other cute girls also turned and smiled and said “Hi” with that puppy dog look whenever he walked by. My stars! Girls were following James around the halls even more than they followed my brother! It was as though James was playing some kind of magical flute.

  I felt like saying to them, “Hey, Ladies, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have noticed James. Do you really think you would be drooling at him with those droopy eyelids if he still looked like he did before I helped him last year?” I’d even seen Katrina Utley, of all people, nod and smile ever so slightly as she passed James in the hall a few days before. Even she seemed to be coming around! It bothered me so much that for a couple of nights I went against everything I preached and ate about three pounds of pistachio nuts and downed them with four Dr. Peppers.

  -B-

  Just after the Heart to Heart Dance—where James, as usual had been the center of attention—I once again ranted to my brother about all the people who’d made turnabouts. Alex said, “Change can be good. Mom’s made changes; I’ve made changes too.”

  “That’s right,” I snorted. “Mom’s into genealogy now and has been having us haul those huge bags of grain downstairs. I tell you she’s becoming positively Mormonized.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Alex said quietly. “In fact . . .” He leaned through the kitchen door and called toward the study. “Mom, come in here a minute!”

  I stopped opening the package of Wheat Thins that I’d just pulled out of the pantry and tilted my head at my brother and then at our mother as she came into the room with her cup of whatever tasteless drink she’d concocted this time.

  “We have something to tell you, Jana,” Alex said solemnly. “I’m sure you can guess.”

  “What do we have to tell her?” Mom was as confused as I was but then seemed to grasp what Alex was referring to. “Oh, you mean . . .” She lifted her chin in sudden understanding. “Oh . . . yes . . . yes.” She set her cup down on the counter very carefully. “Yes, we do have something to tell you, Jana.”

  Even now I’m not sure why I didn’t immediately grasp where Alex was heading when I knew my brother as well as I did and when he and Mom had been attending all kinds of Mormon meetings and activities. They had been spreading out clues like jam on white bread. So why didn’t I know what they were about to say when it was the very thing I’d been so fearful and concerned about the year before?

  Granted, I’d been swamped with not only my chess studies, but the fashion show and the Future Businesswomen of America’s luncheon, and the National Honor Society elections were coming up. Nevertheless I still felt I should have known.

  I’ve recognized since that part of the reason I didn’t see it coming was more than likely due to the fact that Alex and Mom had been taking lessons and having study sessions for so long that I was probably lulled into believing they would just continue on this course forever and nothing would ever come of it— that things would always remain status quo. But mostly, I suspect, I didn’t see it coming because I didn’t want to believe it was coming.

  “Noooo!” I responded after Alex said the words: “We’re going to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints.”

  “Oh, honey, come here.” Mom tried to hug me and Alex tried to take my arm. I took several steps back from both of them.

  “She’ll be okay,” my brother said. “She had to know it was coming. You’ll be okay,” he said to me.

  “Noooo,” I repeated when he added that because the next few months were jam- packed with activities, they wanted to be baptized right away. The baptism was scheduled for that Thursday.

  For the next few days I did all I could to talk my mother and brother out of making what I considered a huge mistake. I felt now that ignoring the situation had been my mistake and that I should have gone with my brother to these meetings to offer rebuttal. With hard- to- resist Michelle on one side and a stellar friend like James on the other, what chance had Alex had? I told him as much.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Alex let me know. “I’m not doing it for Michelle or James. I’m doing this because God has let me know it’s true. There’s no doubt in my mind. The only reason we’ve waited as long as we have is because we kept hoping that you’d—”

  I shook my head with rapid little jerks. “Never!”

  “Yes, that’s what we finally realized— that there was no use waiting. And that’s why we’re going to go ahead and do this. And you know what I’d really appreciate? I’d appreciate your support in this decision. I’m asking you to come to the baptism because Mom would be devastated if you didn’t. It wouldn’t make me feel too good either.”

  “I hope James is happy,” I said Wednesday evening to my invisible friend Uncle Bartho. “He has an entire school eating out of his CTR lunchbox. He has cheerleaders and dancers literally flipping around their lives for him. Couldn’t he have left my family alone?”

  Chapter Twenty- Three

  •••

  I don’t remember a great deal about the baptism. I remember that there were quite a few people there I didn’t know and I remember that Aunt Nadine had had to carry Reggie out as he shouted, “I want to be bath- tized too!” (His affinity for water had apparently remained intact since Ruthie’s wedding.) I remember that both Dolly, looking elegant in a dark navy top and matching skirt, and Shereen, looking equally beautiful in a dress that complimented her golden- brown skin, were right there in the center of the action. I remember that quite a few other people from school came and that everyone seemed genuinely happy for my mother and brother.

  Several groups of people invited me to sit with them, including an attractive woman who said she was the leader of the young women in the ward, but I remained alone in the back where I could feel properly miserable. Only when I saw Mom’s jubilant face when Uncle Phil lifted her from the water did my lips twist into a partial smile.

  Several people chuckled when James had to lower Alex under the water a second time and this time make sure his foot got immersed along with the rest of him. That gave me an excuse to shake my head. Trust the Mormons to be such sticklers, I thought. So what if his foot didn’t get immersed? Would he limp around spiritually for the rest of his life? Still, when my brother emerged the second time, I found the corners of my mouth lifting again in response to his jubilant face. It wasn’t easy to remain upset when he and Mom seemed so happy. Nevertheless I felt an obligation to go home early in protest and deny myself cookies and red punch. And that Saturday I felt obligated to say something to James.

  -B-

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to proselyte,” I snapped at James at our chess match that Saturday.

  “I said I wouldn’t get up in front of our school and preach church doctrine, but I never said I wouldn’t share what makes me happy with my friends, especially when they ask,” James replied calmly. “How can I not let close friends know what I believe and who I am?” My friend paused. “And Alex wanted to know, Jana.”

  You’d think with my debate training I would have been able to think of a good comeback, but what could I say when James was just telling the truth? My brother had wanted to know. Alex had made that clear from the first. Nobody had twisted his arm. Had James not shared the information with him, Alex would have found someone who would: Michelle, Phil and Ruthie, maybe even Cassie.

  “I still wish you’d let me tell you more about what we believe,” James added then, very quietly.

  I had an odd feeling then— one of those emotional spasms you get sometimes. But who could help feeling funny inside when those clear blue eyes looked at you so sincerely and with such intensity?

  “Thank you, but no!” I lifted my hand as I had several times in the past. “Please!”

  Generally the only tension I felt in James’s comfortable living room was when my queen or king was in jeopardy and James was once again about to defeat me, but now the tension was thick. I really wanted to be angr
y at James and it was irritating that I had no good reason to take it out on him.

  On the way home, however, I had no choice but to quietly acknowledge again what I’d learned last year— that Alex and I were not and never had been conjoined at the brain and heart. Maybe I didn’t like it, but my brother had the perfect right to his own opinions and the right to follow up on them and make his own decisions. So did Mom. Well, so do I! I thought as I pulled into our driveway and turned off the engine.

  I had the opportunity to exercise my rights the very next day when my mother brought up the subject of the Mormon Church once again and asked— actually pleaded— with me to go to church with her and Alex. “Oh, Jana, you don’t know how sad it makes me that you’re not feeling this intense joy that Alex and I are

  feeling.”

  “Mom!” I said, my eyes bulging. “I’m happy you’re happy, I honestly am, but how many times do I need to tell you I’m not interested?”

  And I wasn’t nearly as polite with Alex when he invited me once again to learn more. “Look, I’ll say this just one more time,” I told him. “I do not want to hear any more about it. I’ve told you and James and Mom before: I’m just not religious. I’m not one of those people who keeps running from idea to idea. I’m me. I’m not like Dolly Devonshire or her friends. I’m not about to investigate this or take those lessons or whatever they’re called because of you or James or anyone else. I can’t be one of those people who says, ‘Let’s see, this person impressed me, so I’ll be a Buddhist! Now I like this person so I’ll be an evangelist. Oh, he’s a Jew? That sounds good, I’ll become a Jew!’ Remember Ida?” I asked, referring to one of Aunt Ruthie’s closest friends. “Ida got baptized so much that she didn’t even need to shower. I like to think I have a little more depth than Ida or Dolly.”

  “We’re not talking about Ida or Dolly,” Alex said. “We’re talking about you.”

  “Exactly. And I’m asking you once and for all to leave me alone.”