Original Work: You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home, Chapter 3, Part 3

thefinalgirl (62)in #writing • 8 years ago

Chapter 3, Part 3

I had been right about the kitchen being severely underused. After Garth and I returned to the house to find that Emilia had locked herself in her room and Linda was sitting, defeated at the kitchen table, only to become reenergized when she saw me once more, Linda ordered takeout without even bothering to see what was on hand. I poked around while Linda was on the phone, only to find that there wasn’t much of anything in the refrigerator or in the pantry. I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite books, where the narrator muses of his house full of condiments and no food. This was exactly the situation I was facing at the moment.

“I’m glad you decided to stay.” Linda said when she got off the phone, giving me a brief hug. Music pounded from Emilia’s room, suggesting that she didn’t feel the same way. “I’m going to be with you every step of the way, helping you out. Things will get better.” I hoped so, because I didn’t think I’d like to see how things got worse.

While waiting for dinner to arrive, Garth showed me up the stairs toward the second level, where my bedroom would be. The carpet was incredibly plush and I was sure I sunk down at least an inch or two every time I walked. Everything else on the upper level was neat and immaculate and looked almost like a miniature shrine to Emilia and all her accomplishments; on the wall hung her platinum records, pictures of her at various awards ceremonies and with an assortment of celebrities, not to mention several framed magazine clippings about her career. Everything here was geared toward the success Emilia had had and not toward the sudden downslide. There was a cabinet at the top of the stairs filled with awards and trophies, objects I’d only seen on television. It was surreal to think that, for the time being at least, I could pretend they were mine.

My bedroom was at the end of the hallway, the door several feet away from Emilia’s own. Surreptitiously, I checked the knob; yep, there was a lock.

“Make yourself at home.” Garth instructed, remaining in the doorway. “I’ll let you know when dinner’s here.” He closed the door shut softly behind him and for the first time since getting the car to head toward the airport, I was completely alone.

I stood by the door for a minute, taking in the room that stretched out before it. It was twice the size, if not more, than my room back in Independence and had it’s own adjoining bathroom, which didn’t connect to Emilia’s, which was a blessing all on it’s own. I couldn’t imagine having to fight her for bathroom space as well.

A canopied bed stood in the middle of the room, the sheets white and flawless and I would have been surprised to learn that they had actually been used before. A cherry-wood dresser was pressed against the wall closest to the door but the surface was devoid of any personal touches. There was a closest that would make even Carrie Bradshaw envious and a smaller space that seemed to be just for shoes. There was a window seat, fitted with plush and inviting cushions, the white curtains pulled back to offer a view of the spacious backyard, with its sparking pool and perfectly manicured lawn. A dog lounged on the grass and the sight of the canine made me feel a little more at ease, like this place wasn’t just for show but that people and animals had actually made a home here.

I put my suitcase on the foot of the bed and went to sit on the window seat, pressing my forehead against the glass, gazing out across the backyard. I couldn’t imagine living here all the time, couldn’t imagine this is my actual room and not just somewhere I was staying for a few weeks. Or months. That was one of the only things still unsettling me: I had no idea how long I was going to be here. My teachers had agreed to enroll me in a pseudo-online schooling system and my dad had insisted I meet with Emilia’s tutor at least three times a week. All these arrangements seemed to have a finality to them, like I would be pretending to be Emilia for the rest of my life and I felt a sudden stab of homesickness. I actually missed Luke tearing up and down the hallways and Zach practicing his guitar (horribly) down the hall. I thought my sister in the next room but figured that she might as well be a stranger.

Turning away from the view out the window, I studied the room once again. Everything was so white, clean and perfect I was afraid to set one foot off the window seat and risk messing something up. Even the empty hangers standing ready in the closet were all lined up perfectly, level with their neighbors and they’d no doubt looked that way since they’d been taken out of the package. I was sure that not many guests were allowed in the Thompson household, lest they return with an interesting angle to sell to the press.
I figured that sitting and staring at the strange, new surroundings around me wouldn’t be a very good way to snap out of the sudden homesickness and doubt that I was feeling. Garth had said make myself at home and I was sure that Linda would insist on it as well; Emilia might not like the sight of all my clothes in the closest or makeup on the dresser because it might reinforce the idea that this new solution was a serious one, but I figured that if I worried about what Emilia wouldn’t like, I’d have a long list to consult.

Getting up from the cushions on the window seat, I unzipped my suitcase and starting taking out the carefully folded clothes, laying them out on the bed so I knew what to hang up and what to put in the dresser. Subconsciously, I guess I had packed under the assumption that this wouldn’t be a short trip, because nearly everything I’d owned had been stuffed into my suitcase, which had been straining to contain all the weight. But it still didn’t look like a very big wardrobe, which reminded me of Garth’s promise that looking like Emilia would allow me to reap many fashion rewards.

By the time I had finished hanging up my clothes and laying out my hair and beauty supplies on the top of the dresser so it didn’t look quite so empty, the sun had finished its descent in the sky and my stomach was rumbling. Almost as if on cue, there was a quick rapping on my door and when I opened it, I found Linda standing expectantly on the other side, a smile on her face. “Hey Scout, takeout’s here, would you mind answering the door while I find my purse?” She questioned, overly casual.

I agreed and headed down the stairs, thinking I might have over-thought the tone in Linda’s voice until it occurred to me that maybe this was the first step in my assumption of the role of Emilia. What if Emilia was always hideously cruel to the delivery boys? What if I was abut to get mushu pork thrown in my face the second I opened the door? If that happened, I was using another one of Emilia’s dresses to wipe off the mess.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and put a smile on my face, figuring that it would be hard to throw Chinese food at someone who was smiling. The delivery boy was no older than myself and judging by the expression on his face he didn’t have a personal vendetta against Emilia and was probably thinking that this was the luckiest day at my life. Just like the clerk at the airport newsstand, the delivery boy thought I was Emilia and his mouth fell open slightly, his eyes growing wide. “I…uh…I…here.” He thrust a bag full of takeout containers in my direction. “Your…food…” He must have been star-struck, because my rumpled sweat-pant, riding on a cross-country flight attire sure wasn’t matching up to Emilia’s usual beauty standards.

I took the bags and smiled once more. “Thanks a lot, I’m starving.” It was the same thing I would say to any of the delivery boys back home but the words seemed to take this boy completely by surprise, as though he couldn’t imagine someone like Emilia Thompson (or her identical twin sister) chatting with him in such a friendly manner.

Before I could start to worry about the state of the boy’s health, because he was doing a lot of opening and closing of his mouth like a fish gasping for air, Linda appeared with money in hand. “Thanks Emilia.” She said to me as casual as if I really was her pop starlet daughter. The address took me by surprise and I briefly wanted to correct her, the way I had always imagined doing if I had really grown up with a twin sister but I managed not to say anything with the boy standing right there.

Wordlessly, the boy took the money she offered and turned away, stumbling back down the walk toward his car. Linda closed the door behind him and turned toward me with a pleased smile on her face. “See, easy as pie, no one can tell the difference between you two.” She assured me, heading toward the kitchen with me in tow. “And now that boy is going to go back to his friends and tell them he met you and how nice you were.” She seemed very pleased with this idea, because it would probably be the first time that anyone would ever share anything more than a horror story after meeting Emilia Thompson.

“His friends would never believe it.” I pointed out, setting the food on the kitchen counter. “They’d never believe that Emilia was actually nice.” I raised an eyebrow.

Briefly, Linda frowned, but quickly recovered. “Not yet they won’t, but soon their attitudes will change.” She assured me, conviction in her voice.

For that to happen, I had to play my cards exactly right.