The Banana Split Affair (9 page)

It was a difficult question and one that Chris wasn’t quite ready to tackle. So she put Keith West out of her mind and instead focused her thoughts on the dismal piece of artwork that sat before her.

* * * *

“Three days down, eleven to go!” cried Chris, stretching her legs across the floor of her bedroom, where she was lying on a mass of pillows.

“I’d say we’re doing quite well for ourselves, too, all things considered.” Susan sat on her twin’s bed, her legs crossed, clutching the faded, threadbare teddy bear that had lived in Chris’s room for as long as either of them could remember.

“I’ll say! And not only are we having a blast by managing to convince everybody at school that I’m you and you’re me, either. Even though I went into this thing just looking for a good time, I’m learning an awful lot about the world. And about you, too, dear twin.”

“I know what you mean. With all due respect, I’m finding out the hard way that being Christine Pratt is not all fun and games.”

“Odd that you should say that.” Chris grinned. “I was just going to say the exact same thing about you.”

“That reminds me.” Susan weighed her words, not quite sure of how to begin. “I wanted to ask you about Richard Collier.”

“Oh, yuck! Mr. Creep-o Sleaze-o himself!”

“Chris! If that’s the way you feel, why is he so convinced that you think he’s God’s gift to women?”

Chris paused to think about her sister’s question. “Because I led him to believe I thought he was an okay guy—”

“But
why? 
I just heard you say that you can’t stand him!”

Chris rolled over onto her stomach and rested her chin in her hands. Without meeting her twin’s eyes, she said, “Sooz, let me teach you Lesson One about being popular with the important kids at school. In fact, I’m surprised someone as sharp as you hasn’t already figured this out. When you make an effort to be accepted, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. Go places you don’t want to go to—maybe even places you’re afraid to go—-just because all the other kids are going. Do things you don’t exactly feel terrific about. And be nice to people you can’t stand, just because they have some kind of power within that group.”

“Richard Collier is considered powerful? I can’t imagine why. Do your friends really like him?”

Chris shook her head. “No, not really. To tell you the truth, most of them can’t stand him. They put up with him and humor him and let him belong, the way I do.”

“But what on earth for? If no one can stand him, then why do they go out of their way ...”

“Because his older brother owns a liquor store, that’s why.” Chris sighed, sounding as if she were getting impatient with her sister’s questions. But the reality was that she hated talking about this. She hated the fact that even though she knew what she was telling Susan was horribly wrong, she had accepted it just to fit in with the rest of her crowd.

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand....”

“Look. The kids I hang around with have parties a lot, and the main purpose is for everybody to get drunk. They think it’s cool or something. They like to pretend they’re grown-up.” Chris grimaced. “Grown-up! What usually ends up happening is that the boys go outside and fight with each other and the girls throw up all over their pretty party clothes. The boys go home with black eyes and the girls go home crying. And the next day everybody calls up everybody else and starts carrying on about the terrific time they had.”

“I’ve never seen you do that. I mean you usually come home early. And in pretty good shape, too.”

“I know. That’s because I never really drink. I pretend to, that’s all. I carry around a glass of Coke all night, and whenever someone asks me what I’m drinking, I make a big deal about how drunk I am.”

“But
why,
Chris?” Susan’s voice was tight. “Why put yourself through all that? People you don’t like, like Richard, and pretending to get drunk and watching all your friends get sick or start fistfights ...”

“You’ve seen for yourself how great it is to
belong.
To walk down the corridors at school and have everybody know you. Have everybody
like
you. The class president, all the captains of all the teams ... Don’t you see, Susan? It makes me important!”

“You mean it makes you
feel
important,” her sister returned in a scolding tone. “There’s a big difference there. If that’s what you have to do to be accepted by those kids, I think I’d rather go back to being a nobody.”

“That’s a choice everybody has to make. You do what you want. As for me, I still think it’s worth it to go along with a few things that I’m not crazy about to reap all the benefits of being popular.”

Even as she said those words, Chris could hear her voice wavering with uncertainty. Keith West’s face popped into her mind, smiling that shy, funny smile, his cheeks tinted pink as he talked to her.
There
was someone who didn’t run with her crowd yet was perfectly nice.
More
than nice. Maybe even a little bit special.

She realized that there was a dreamy smile on her face, and she immediately snapped back to reality.

“That reminds me. I have something else to report on Keith West.”

“Oh, really?” Susan chirped, leaning forward and hugging her sister’s teddy bear even tighter. “What happened? What did you say? What did
he
say?”

“Hold on! Let me catch my breath!” Chris repeated the brief conversation she had had with Keith that day in art class. The two girls laughed over his comment about her ability to capture the essence of primitive art, shrieking hysterically until they had to hold their stomachs so they wouldn’t feel as if they were about to burst open.

“If he only knew!” Chris cried, gasping and rolling on the floor “Primitive! If he only knew how primitive I really was! The reason I paint like a kid is because I was six years old the last time I held a paintbrush in my hand!”

“Ladies! Ladies!” The sound of their mother’s voice and her sudden appearance in the doorway of Chris’s bedroom calmed them down. “Can you two stop laughing like wild hyenas long enough for your poor mother to deliver a message?”

The twins covered their mouths to keep from giggling.

“Sorry, Mom,” said Susan. “We didn’t realize you were there. I’m afraid we got a little carried away.”

“That’s the understatement of the year! I hate to interrupt all this girlish glee, but there’s a telephone call for Susan.”

The girls exchanged glances. “I guess I should get that,” Chris said, wriggling to a standing position and starting for the door “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. One of you women’s countless admirers. I didn’t ask his name. I can’t keep them straight anyway.”

The real Susan was growing increasingly interested. “Well, go find out, for heaven’s sake! I’m dying to know who’s calling me!”

“You’ll be the very first to know,” Chris called over her shoulder, running to the phone.

“Hello?” she said softly, turning on her Susan personality.

“Hi, Susan?” The caller cleared his throat as if he were very, very nervous. Chris still couldn’t recognize his voice. “This is, uh, Keith. You know, Keith West? From Mr. Smith’s art class?”

“Keith! How nice to hear from you!” There, that sounded like the kind of thing Susan would say, didn’t it? “How are you?”

“I’m fine. How about you?”

“Fine, thanks.”

There was a long, painful pause. Is this why he called? Chris thought impatiently. To ask how I was? To ask how
Susan
was?

“Well, uh, I guess you wonder why I’m calling.”

Another pause. This time Chris was more understanding. After all, this was Keith West, the boy she had admired for his gentleness and shyness that was somehow charming. He wasn’t one of the brash boys she usually went out with. Besides, she assumed he had called her merely to ask a question about the art class assignment or something else related to school. So when he blurted out his next question, she was shocked.

“Susan, would you like to go out with me this weekend?”

Chris could feel how difficult it was for him to ask a girl out. He must have really like her—or Susan, or whoever he thought he was talking to—to get up the courage to call. Chris had heard dozens of boys ask her that same question, yet never had she been so flattered.

“I’d love to, Keith! Where would you like to go?”

“Terrific!” He sounded surprised and relieved. Even grateful. ”There’s a new movie at the Kensington that sounds pretty good. I thought we could go there.” Then he added, “You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“To be perfectly honest, Keith, I haven’t been to a movie in ages,” Chris lied. “It sounds like fun.”

“Okay! How about Saturday night? I’ll come by for you about seven-thirty.”

“Great.”

Another long pause.

“Well, okay then, Susan. See you then. Oh, yeah, I’ll see you in art class tomorrow, too.”

“Right. Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling. I’m really looking forward to this weekend.” That was a very Chris thing to say, but this time she meant it. She really, really meant it.

“Yeah, me, too. ‘Bye!”

Well, how do you like that? Chris thought triumphantly, continuing to stare at the phone long after she had hung up. I actually got bashful Keith West to ask Susan out.

As she hurried back to her bedroom to tell her sister the good news, she felt torn. She was happy for her sister, because after the two weeks of the Banana Split Affair were over, she would still be going out with Keith. But she felt a twinge of regret, too. Here she had managed to match her twin up with the boy
she
had developed a crush on! How could she possibly be expected to feel good about that?

Oh, I wish I were Chris again, she moaned to herself.... I want to go back to being myself!

But then you never would have even met Keith West! another voice inside reminded her

Now I don’t know how to feel! she thought mournfully. But as far as her sister was concerned, she was determined to act happy for her. After all, it was Susan who had been interested in Keith first and for a long time, besides. So she swallowed hard and put on her biggest, most sincere smile.

“Susan!” she cried, waltzing into her bedroom, where her twin sat waiting. “You’ll never guess who that was!”

Susan sat stiffly in the front seat of the car, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes directed straight ahead. As the car swerved around a corner at seventy miles per hour, just missing a trash can, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. Counting sometimes had a calming effect on her, but that night even that had lost its magical powers.

I wish I were anywhere but here, she thought. How did I ever let myself get into this?

Aloud, she said in what she hoped was a nonjudgmental, conversational tone of voice, “Gee, Richard, do you think maybe you could slow down just a little bit? I don’t want to be the first one to arrive at Slade’s party.”

Richard Collier cast her a sidelong glance. “Relax, Chris. What’s the matter with you tonight? You seem awfully uptight.”

“Who, me?” Susan tossed her head in what she hoped was a devil-may-care, Christine-like way. “I’m fine. It’s you who’s acting strange. What’s with the wild man act all of a sudden?”

“Hey, come on, Babes. You know I have to get to Slade’s before the other kids. Got to check on the booze supply. Make sure there’s enough to go around, you know?”

I’m sure there will be, Susan thought with chagrin. From what Chris told me about these parties, it sounds as if not having enough liquor is the least of their problems.

Susan remained silent for the rest of the ride to Slade’s. A tight knot had formed in her stomach that made it impossible for her to make pleasant conversation with Richard, whom she was finding increasingly boorish the more time she spent with him. Agreeing to go to Slade’s party with him had been Chris’s idea.

“Of course you have to go! In the first place, it’ll look funny if Chris Pratt doesn’t show up. I’m a regular at those parties.

“And in the second place, the whole idea of the Banana Split Affair is for us to see what it’s really like to be the other twin. If you start choosing where you want to go and what you want to do, that defeats the whole purpose of the experiment!”

Chris was right, she supposed. But still, if she had known she would have to go on a date with Richard Collier—and to a wild party, no less, where she didn’t know a single soul and absolutely anything could happen—she wondered if she would have been so eager to change places with her twin.

Then again, an evening like this did manage to impress upon her that her sister’s life was not as glamorous as she had always imagined. Chris didn’t like Richard Collier any better than she did, and she thought the idea of having parties at kids’ houses where their parents weren’t home and getting so drunk they couldn’t handle themselves was ridiculous and childish. Yet she did it all the time, because it was part of the price she had to pay for her popularity.

Popularity! Susan thought scornfully. Now that I know a little bit more about what it’s all about, I realize that I’d much rather stay at home on weekend nights and paint or read a good book!

True to Richard’s prediction, they were the first to arrive at Slade’s house. Slade, she discovered, was a senior at Pointersville High. When she learned that, she became excited.

“Do you happen to know a student at Pointersville named Jason Simms? He’s a senior, too,” she asked him eagerly as she emptied countless ice trays into a big bowl that was to serve as an ice bucket. She and Slade’s girl friend, who had also been a student at Pointersville before she dropped out to take a job as a receptionist at a small factory, had immediately been sent to the kitchen to get things ready for the party. Slade and Richard, meanwhile, carried carton after carton from the garage.

“Yeah, I’ve seen him around,” Slade answered without much interest. “Why? That creep isn’t a friend of yours, is he?”

“Oh, no,” Susan assured him quickly. “I just ... ran into him once. The only reason I even mentioned him is that he’s the only person I know at Pointersville.”