DupliKate (2 page)

I glared at the empty space where Jake used to be and a new personal statement idea formed in my mind. Yep. “The Time I Killed My Physics Lab Partner and Got Away With It, at Least Until I Wrote This Essay” definitely had potential.

“GO TO BED, WOMAN.” MY MOM POKED HER
head in my bedroom door. “It’s nearly midnight.”

I sighed and leaned back in my desk chair. I was clad in flannel pajama pants and a hoodie, my hair pulled back into a messy “study mode” bun. I’d slogged through all my homework, plus an extra credit French essay to make up for the A-minus I’d gotten on a quiz last week, and two practice SAT math sections. I’d also taken a halfhearted shot at my personal statement, but as usual hadn’t gotten any further than typing a few new titles. Not that “Highlights or Lowlights? The Brunette’s Dilemma” was going to be a winner.

“Why should I go to bed if you’re not?” I asked, swallowing a yawn. I had been wired on three cans of Diet Coke and some leftover chocolate toffee cheesecake, but by this point “wired” had turned into “barely conscious.”

“I am as soon as I finish reviewing these,” my mom answered, holding up a thick black binder. She was wearing her reading glasses, and her dark, wavy hair was held out of her face with one of my plastic claw-shaped hair clips. “Which will take less than half an hour, because I am the smartest lawyer ever. So go to bed.”

“I will,” I said. “Right after I take another crack at this Yale essay.”

My mom came farther into the room to peer at my computer monitor. “Write about your wonderful mom,” she said.

“Paul already suggested ‘write about your awesome boyfriend,’” I answered, smiling.

“Damn, that kid is smart.”

“Yeah, I may just get him to do the whole thing for me. Wanna help?” I asked. My mom got her BA and PhD from Columbia, and then went to Harvard Law. Which made her great to look up to and impossible to live up to. Not that she would ever point that out.

“Would if I could, kiddo,” my mom said dryly. “Well, good luck.” She kissed me on the forehead and then left, closing the door behind her.

Beep.
An IM popped up on my screen from Paul that said, Hey sexy. Oh wait, that’s me.

I laughed, then grabbed my cell off the dresser and called him.

“Aha,” Paul said as soon as he picked up. “You want nothing more than to hear my soulful voice.”

“No.” I sighed. “I want nothing more than to be asleep right now, but that’s not an option.” I flopped onto the bed, tucking my feet under one corner of my green and white striped comforter. Nothing in my room matches. The carpet is pale blue, the wallpaper yellow flowers, the furniture a mix of Ikea and oak. But it’s cozy and spacious at the same time, and I love it.

“Aw, poor baby,” Paul said. “So go to bed. You’re probably done with your essay by now, right?”

“Nope. Blank page. No words. Very sad.” I glanced at the clock and sighed. “Plus I have to read through this entire physics assignment since I know Jake’s not going to.”

“No kidding. I hate that you have to work with that kid.”

“Oooh, jealous?” I teased.

“Of a guy I could break in half?” Paul laughed. “No, but be careful or he’s gonna drag your grade down.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, trying to convince myself. Actually, it probably wasn’t going to be fine at all, but I’d complained to Paul enough lately.

“Too bad you couldn’t choose partners. Then you could’ve just worked with Anne.”

“Yeah…” I agreed, even though I didn’t. Anne’s really smart—she’s got a 4.07 and is also applying to Yale—but
she’s more Paul’s friend than mine. Actually, she and Paul dated freshman year. It was only for a few weeks, and it was long before he and I got together, but the fact that they’ve stayed such good friends is…well…annoying. Especially since it’s obvious—to me, at any rate—that she still has a thing for him.

“Well, I should get back to work,” I said, trying to sound chipper.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” I answered, getting up and stretching. “Boost my mood and self-esteem by whispering sweet nothings in my ear.”

Paul laughed. “Oh, I’ll whisper stuff. I’ll whisper sweet
somethings
.”

A few minutes later we hung up and I looked at the clock. Now it was well past midnight. So if I stayed up until two, then woke up at six, I’d get four hours of sleep. Which, sadly, was about average lately. I looked at my computer monitor. A blank white Word document stared back at me. Ugh. I minimized the window, quickly checked cuteoverload-dot-com (awww, an extremely fat kitten!), and then stared at my computer desktop. Icons of barely started essays were scattered haphazardly across the screen. I closed my eyes and the icons swirled around, taunting me.

“Go away,” I muttered. I started deleting the icons—
no point starting an essay with a messy desktop, right? Ah, productive procrastination. I erased “volleyball essay” and “library essay” and “friendship essay” and “killing Jake essay.” I had started that one right after I got home from school, although it fizzled at the three-sentence mark, at which point I’d already used the word
douchebag
four times.

Click-drag. Click-drag. Click-drag. My desktop got cleaner by the second as I started deleting old shortcuts and random downloads. It felt cathartic, and the methodical task helped wake me up. Maybe there was something in here to write about, something about a blank slate, or starting from scratch, or…My mind whirled as I deleted.

I sat back to admire my work. Yay! Or boo, since now I had to start writing. Dammit. I pointed the cursor at my blank word document again, then noticed one last icon, a colorful little script “SL” with a smiley face on it, in the corner of the screen.

“Don’t know what it is, don’t need it,” I said, and moved it to the trash.

It bounced out of the trash and went back to its former spot.

I put it back in the trash.

It bounced right back out.

“Oh, come on,” I muttered. I highlighted it and hit “delete.” Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. I trashed
it again, and suddenly a window popped open that said, “Welcome to SimuLife!”

Sigh.

I tried to close the window, but a weird, tinny music cue sounded and the program stayed open. The noise was jarring in the late-night silence of my room, and I winced and turned the computer speakers down.

What the hell was SimuLife still doing on my computer, anyway? I vaguely remembered playing the game back in the day, but I hadn’t touched it in years. I made a mental note to tell my mom that this was yet another reason I needed a new computer, then wiggled the mouse. The whole screen was frozen. I checked the clock; Paul was definitely asleep by now, and I didn’t want to wake him just for computer help. I looked over at my crappy old laptop lying on the floor by the closet. It would have to do.

I turned back to my computer and hit control-alt-delete in a last-ditch attempt. Once, then twice.

Nothing. The SimuLife window was still stuck open.

Screw the laptop, I was going to bed. The universe clearly didn’t want me to work on my essay. For once the universe and I were in agreement.

TO-DO LIST

• Essay!
  
• SAT practice—
  at least 2 sections
  2 MORE SECTIONS
  
• AP Euro flash cards
  
• Bio
  lab questions,
  go over project notebook
  
• French vocab, memorize dialogue, extra credit essay
  
• English—get copy of THE SOUND AND THE FURY, return Paul’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
  
• Physics
  final—practice problem sets
  STUPID $%#!$@! ROBOT
  
• Prom committee crap (
  location rental,
  food/drink ideas, talk everyone out of hiring lame band, etc.)
  
• Volleyball flyer designs and e-mail Coach Tate re: freshmen
  
• Yearbook superlatives, list possible categories—MEETING FRIDAY MORNING
  
• Christmas—tree? presents (Mom, wallet; Paul, sweater??? Mix CD for Kyla et al.)
  
• Essay, and I really mean it this time!
  
• Other people’s essays for Renner (oh, the irony)
  

REMINDERS!

• * Fix computer; if not fixable, call school IT guy
  
• * Purple vitamin water for Paul bball practice
  
• * Get blank CDs
  
• * Run w/Kyla, return her blue tank (wash it first) (or maybe don’t bother since she didn’t with my cords)
  
• *** WRITE. STUPID. ESSAY. DAMMIT. ***
  

FWAMP. FWAMP. FWAMP
. I REACHED TO SLAM
the snooze button on my alarm clock and realized that both my arms were completely tangled in the blankets. I wiggled around to free myself and finally turned off the alarm, then snuggled back under the covers. I was just drifting back to blissful early-morning half-sleep when I heard a voice.

“Don’t you think you should get up already?”

“What? No,” I said, not bothering to open my eyes. “There’s a snooze button for a reason.” I was halfway asleep again when I realized that the voice did not belong to my mother.

There was someone in my room.

I’m not gonna lie, I shrieked bloody murder. Then I scooched backwards across my bed as fast as I could and scrunched up against the wall, my body in an upright fetal position, my heels on one of my pillows. I held another pil
low in front of me, like that would save me, and struggled to keep myself from breathing either way too hard or not at all.

But the stranger in my room was a teenage girl. About five six, wavy dark brown hair falling just past her shoulders, brown eyes, a decent complexion. Couple freckles on the cheekbones. She was smiling, and she wasn’t holding a gun or a knife. All in all, if there was going to be a random stranger in your room, this was not a bad person for her to look like.

Except that she looked exactly like me.

“What the hell?” I screeched. “Mom!”

“She left for work,” the girl said sunnily. “Hi!”

“Hi?” I replied, surveying my room frantically. Everything looked the same as usual: piles of books on the floor, clothes draped on every surface, random pens and pencils scattered on my desk and dresser, the edge of my computer monitor covered in Post-it notes. The door to my walk-in closet was open, which was weird because I always closed it at night, and the overhead light was on even though I hadn’t left my bed yet, but otherwise everything looked normal.

Except for the girl. Who looked like me.

“I’m hallucinating,” I said out loud. “This is why one should always say no to drugs.”

But I
had
said no to drugs!

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded. I was still backed up against the wall, and the girl happily settled herself at the foot of my bed, sitting cross-legged and hugging one of my pillows. “Don’t touch my stuff,” I added. She put the pillow down.

“What, seriously? You don’t know?” the girl asked. “I’m Rina!”

I stared at her blankly.

“Rina,” she repeated. Another blank stare from me. “Nice to meet you,” the girl continued. “Or me, I guess.” She giggled.

“You’re not me,” I said. Except that she kind of was. Actually, she totally was, except for the fact that instead of flannel jammie pants and a T-shirt, she had on a fuzzy pink tracksuit and a ton of lip gloss. And body glitter. Her cheekbones and the backs of her hands were completely covered in body glitter. Ew, tacky.

When in doubt and fearing for your own sanity, be rude. “What kind of a freak name is Rina?” I demanded.

“Um, the freak name you gave me ’cause you thought it was a cooler nickname for Katerina than Kate,” she said. “I couldn’t believe you signed on last night! Finally! It’s been forever!” She pointed happily at my computer. I looked too. It was still frozen, the “Welcome to SimuLife!” window stuck open.

Oh no. Wait. The wheels turned in my head…. Sim
uLife—what kind of a game was SimuLife? And what did it have to do with this girl in my—oh.
Uh-oh
.

She was the version of me from the game. In theory, it made no sense, but the reality sort of made sense. Leave it to my hallucination to sort of make sense. “So…you’re my SimuLife self?” I asked shakily, blinking a few times in a mixture of confusion and horror.

“Yeah!” Rina nodded happily. “I knew we were smart! Thanks for busting me out. The last time we saw each other was what, eighth grade?”

“I didn’t bust you out,” I snapped, relaxing enough to sink down onto one of my pillows instead of staying slammed up against the wall. “I clearly have dormant schizophrenia and it’s just manifesting itself at the most stressful time of my life.”

“No, we’re sane,” Rina said cheerfully, the light reflecting off her glittery cheeks. She crawled toward me, stuck out a finger, and poked me in the stomach.

“Ow! What the hell?!” I yelled, shrinking away.

“You’re not hallucinating.” She looked around. “So now what?”

“What do you mean, now what? I have no idea.” I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down, even as I freaked out again at the sight of me sitting across from myself. She was even twisting the ends of her hair with one hand like I do, curling the waves into loose ringlets. “There has to be an
explanation for this,” I said. “A perfectly reasonable, rational, scientific explanation.”

“Why?” Rina asked.

“Because this isn’t the way the world works!” I exclaimed. “If it is, then there might as well be superheroes. And zombies. And goblins and talking plants and magic lamps that grant wishes—”

“Maybe there are,” Rina said. “Oh my God, how cool would that be? I would wish for a new car, and a bunch of new clothes, and—”

“Me too,” I said without thinking. Rina looked at me, delighted that I’d agreed with her, and I slapped myself on the forehead. What was I doing? We stared at each other for a moment; then my alarm clock went off again. Thanks, snooze button. The repetitive blare gave me a sudden moment of clarity.

I jumped off my bed, walked over to my computer, and yanked out the power cord. Ta-da! The screen went black. Goodbye, SimuLife! Goodbye, weird girl in my room!

I turned around. Rina was still there.

Dammit.

“Okay, I can’t deal with this right now,” I said. “I’m about to be late for school. I haven’t showered, none of my stuff is together—” I started walking around the room, picking books and papers off the floor and cramming them
into my book bag. I had to get out of here. Maybe outside the house, everything would be normal.

“Can I come to school?” asked Rina, getting up from the bed as I went into the closet to figure out what to wear.

“What?” I asked, kicking off my jammie pants and pulling on some jeans. “Of course not! Are you completely insane?” I started putting on a long-sleeved T-shirt and noticed through the window the sprinkling of snow on the lawn, then pulled on one of Paul’s Red Sox hoodies instead.

Rina made a sad face at me. God, it was so, so weird looking at her; not like looking in the mirror, but more like looking at a photo come to life. I mean, was my hair doing the same thing as hers? One piece on the left side was kind of sticking out. I reached toward my head. “Your hair looks good,” Rina said. “Oh, but is there something wrong with mine?” She ran her hand through her hair in the exact same motion I’d just made. Great, this was getting even weirder.

I sighed and looked at the clock. “Look,” I said, “If you’re still around later—”

“Of course I’ll be around!”

I sighed again. “Okay, just—just stay in here. I’ll be back at, like, three, and we can figure out what to do then.”

“I have to stay in our room? I can’t even go downstairs?” she asked.

“First of all it’s my room, not ours, and no, you can’t.
Watch YouTube or iTunes or something. You’ll have to plug the computer back in. Just promise you’ll stay here.”

Rina shrugged. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, made a wish, and opened them again. Rina waved at me.

So much for that. I picked up my book bag and started for the door.

“Hey Kate?” Rina asked.

“What?”

“The last time you played SimuLife was in eighth grade,” she said.

“So?” I asked.

“So isn’t it great that we grew boobs since then?”

I almost laughed before catching myself. “Yeah, I guess,” I said, smiling a little at the hilariously contented look on Rina’s face. “Okay. I’m leaving now. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Okay. Bye Kate!” Rina waved enthusiastically.

“Bye.”

I went downstairs and picked up my car keys from the front hall table, wondering whether it was a good idea for a clinically insane person to drive herself to school. Maybe I should head to the emergency room instead.

Nope. Too much work to do.

“Have a great day at school!” called Rina’s voice from upstairs.
My
voice. Granted, it sounded like my voice when
it’s on voice mail, so it wasn’t exactly what I heard in my head. But it was still way too familiar to be coming from anywhere except my own mouth.

“Kate?” Rina’s voice repeated. “Have a great day at school!”

Something told me she would just say it again until I responded. “Thanks!” I finally called back.

“Can’t wait to see you later!”

I couldn’t say the same.