Some Kind of Magic

“Don’t even bother knocking on the door. Elsie won’t be able to answer it so you might as well just walk in,” Robbie said to me through the phone on Sunday evening while I was clipping my earrings on and trying to find something pretty but casual to wear. I settled on a red and white summer dress and grabbed a light black sweater to go on top of it in case it got cooler during the night. I had no idea how late I’d be staying, but I didn’t want to test it.

“And why’s that?” I asked him.

“You’ll see when you get here. Which reminds me, when are you getting here?” he laughed.

“I’m leaving shortly, so give me half an hour,” I said.

“Sheesh, you’re slow.”

“Oh shush. Do you know how difficult it is to get dressed and hold a phone to your ear at the same time?” I mumbled, knotting together the ties of my dress at the back of my neck and keeping the phone at the side of my head using only my shoulder. I was surprised my cheeks didn’t surprise-call someone else whilst in the middle of a conversation with Dylan because the shoulder concept never really worked for me. The phone was falling, and was now pushed against the whole left side of my face.

“I don’t because I use logic and put the phone down until I’m finished. Or I just avoid calling someone ‘til my hands are free.”

“Hey, you called me—”

“Stop your arguing and move your behind,” he said and hung up. I rolled my eyes and put the phone down on my dresser, taking one final look in the mirror to make sure I looked okay and then walking out of my room with my purse and sweater in hand. I met Blade at the bottom of the stairs where he stood leaning against the wall spinning his keys around on his fingers. When he noticed me, he looked up and smiled.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” I grabbed my flats and slipped them on, smoothing down my dress. Blade called out to my parents to let them know we were leaving before he held the door opened for me and let me pass. I stepped outside and breathed in the smell of the freshly cut and watered grass, beautiful flowers and, unfortunately what ruined it all, the neighbor’s son as he ran around their yard with his father, covered in mud and obviously refusing to shower. I went to Blade’s car and got in the passenger’s seat, pulling on my seatbelt. He hopped in right after and put his own on, then started the car. The best things about getting Blade to drive me somewhere when I needed a ride were how he did it voluntarily, and he wasn’t a pain in the ass. Ever. He was probably the best driving partner anyone could have, but I was still waiting on those driver’s lessons he had promised me on my birthday.

It took us just over twenty minutes to get across town to Elsie’s house and even though I considered myself early, the driveway was packed with cars and little kids running around while their parents sat in the garage and laughed over beers and other beverages. I gave Blade a kiss and thanked him for the ride, then jumped out and walked up to the house. A woman with short black hair and a friendly smile came up to me and took my hands.

“You must be Isabelle,” she guessed and when I nodded, she laughed. “Elsie’s told us all about you and we were so excited to get to meet you. Wow, you’re just as pretty as she said.” I blushed, flattered but a little embarrassed at the same time.

“Thank you.”

“Dylan! Can you come here for a minute?” she called and out he walked from the garage. He smiled at me.

“Hey! You made it.”

“Can you show her where the others are?” the woman, who I could only assume was Elsie’s mother because of their resemblance, asked him politely. She looked at me again. “I’m sure you don’t want to hang out with us. We’re not as fun as the teenagers are, according to my daughter.” She gave a dramatic roll of her eyes and walked away to collect a little kid who had ran off into the street to chase a basketball. This left me with Dylan.

“Come on. They’re inside,” he said and walked up the pathway to the front door. I followed him into the house and took my shoes off, hanging up my bag and sweater, and spotted Robbie and Elsie in the living room. Robbie was reclining comfortably on the couch watching cartoons on mute while Elsie was yelling quite brutally into her house phone.

“No I will not press one!”

“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting down next to Robbie with Dylan on my other side.

“Elsie’s three-year contract expired unexpectedly, so a normal twenty dollar phone bill turned into three hundred and she had no idea. And as you can see, now she’s mad,” Robbie explained.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since she started yelling,” he replied and looked at his watch. “So like, eight this morning.”

“In other words, he slept over and woke up to her yelling,” Dylan said and smirked cleverly at his brother. I looked at Robbie, my eyebrows raised in anticipation as I was unable to hold bad my smile.

He frowned. “I will kill you both with a spatula if you don’t turn those eyes away from me right now,” he said. We laughed at him.

“No, I didn’t say that! You just said—no, but . . . oh, you bet your ass I’m going to press pound for more options!” Elsie screamed and took the phone away from her ear to press more buttons. She looked over at me and gave me a nod. “’Sup, Isabelle?”

“Not much,” I said, holding back the urge to say it back to her but she was obviously busy because maybe a second after speaking to me, the phone was back up beside her face and she was broadcasting her complaints to the poor innocent victim on the other end of the conversation. None of us could tear our eyes away as she muttered and mumbled harsh threats under her breath. “I’m going to kick his ass,” she said to us. “He knows I can kick his ass. I swear, if he doesn’t fix this, I will curb-stomp his face.”

I looked at Dylan, my eyes wide. “She’ll what?”

He lifted a hand in the air, waving it off. “Don’t even worry about it. Elsie’s got some of the most comical threats known to man. Of course, she’ll never act on them because she’s too nice.”

I pointed my thumb over my shoulder at her. “That’s what you call nice?” I asked, referring to what she had just said. Dylan only smiled.

Emma and Broderick stepped into the house together about twenty minutes later. Emma looked adorable in her short yellow summer dress with an empire waste, v-neck lining and very thin straps. She also wore the black necklace I had gotten for her last Christmas. The two of them asked us what was up with Elsie, which we kind of expected because they had no idea and she was still yelling. We just told them she was having phone problems. Elsie’s mother popped her head in through the screen door leading to Elsie’s backyard.

“Guys, we’ve all moved to the back if you want to come out here,” she said and disappeared again. I could head the kids screaming and some splashing but I was more concerned with verifying that that woman was in fact Elsie’s mother. If she was someone else, I needed to know just in case I let something slip accidentally, and it came out the wrong way.

“That’s Elsie’s mom, right?” I asked Dylan when we all stood up and Elsie finally let go of the home phone long enough to walk to the back with Robbie, Emma and Broderick. Dylan nodded.

“They look alike, huh?” He pointed to some pictures over the fireplace and I stepped forward to look at them. There was a photograph of Elsie’s mother and what I could only guess was Elsie’s father as well, but in it they were only teenagers. Elsie was the spitting image of her mother at that age and for all I knew, it could have been Elsie. The only difference was that her mother’s skin was slightly darker, as well as her hair.

“That’s amazing,” I whispered. “I don’t look anything like my mom but they could be twins.”

He smiled. “You’d think. Come on, they’re waiting for us,” he said and I followed him to the backyard. My four friends sat on the porch under a green canopy on brown wicker chairs with cushions that matched the pattern of the cover. Robbie had his feet up on the center table, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed.

“This is my kind of relaxing,” he sighed. I sat down across from him and folded one leg over the other, looking out at the yard. There wasn’t a single patch of grass in sight. Elsie’s family had an in-ground pool the shape of what I could only guess was some sort of demented eight. At the far side was a hot tub connected to the pool but bricked off, and that was where about five adults sat to watch their kids. Half of the yard was covered in tiled concrete surrounding the pool and creating room for pool chairs and small tables between them. The little fraction of land that wasn’t already occupied was turned into a beautiful garden of reds and oranges and pinks, which just seemed to complete the whole yard. It really was very glamorous, but nothing like I had expected. The landscaping alone could have been featured in a home décor magazine.

“Can I get you guys something to drink?” Elsie’s dad asked us all, popping his head around the curtain. I recognized him from the picture.

“I’ll have an iced tea, please,” Emma said.

“Oh, that sounds nice. Can I get one too, please?” I asked, holding up a finger.
He smiled. “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

“And you, honey?” He looked at Elsie and tilted his head to the side.
“Water’s fine,” she replied.

“Me too,” Broderick and Dylan both said.

“What about him?” her dad asked, nodding to Robbie.

“He’s out of it. Don’t worry about it,” Elsie said, waving it off. He nodded and stepped into the house.

“Your family’s so nice,” I said to her, smiling.

“They’re very accommodating,” Emma agreed.

Elsie looked at Robbie very obviously suddenly, for all of us to see, but Robbie seemed to be in a dream state which made her actions or any actions invisible to him. She wiggled her eyebrows in Dylan and Broderick’s directions and they exchanged smirks, before standing up and grabbing both of Robbie’s arms. His eyes shot open and he frowned.

“What are you guys doing?” he demanded but they ignored him and pulled him off the couch, then began to drag him across the concrete pathway.

“What are they doing?” I asked Elsie, turning in my seat to watch them.

She grinned mischievously. “You’ll see.”

“Oh God,” I heard Robbie say as he approached the edge of the pool. His eyes went wide and everyone in the water already began to scream and laugh, encouraging them to shove him in. And that was exactly what they did. Dylan and Broderick bent down to grab his legs and while he struggled to get free, it was useless because they dumped him into the deep end and he disappeared under the water. Emma, Elsie and I all burst out into a fit of laughter, Emma nearly curled up in a ball as she tried to control her breathing and Elsie covering her mouth or wiping the tears out of her eyes. Dylan and Broderick high-fived each other, pleased with their work while everyone else applauded. Robbie emerged at the surface again and chuckled.

“You guys are jerks,” he said, running his hands over his face and then pushing them through his hair to get it off his face. “You do this every year.”

“It never gets old,” Dylan said.

“Apparently not.”

“That’s cruel,” I told Elsie and Emma but couldn’t hold back my giggle of amusement. Mr. Vega came by with our drinks on a tray and placed them on the table before going to join his wife again.

“I knew that was coming too. At least I was actually prepared this time.” And with that, Robbie went to the pool steps, unbuttoned his jeans and tossed them to the side where everyone had placed their clothes and towels. This left him in his swim trunks. Then he pulled his shirt over his head and threw that away as well. My eyes widened involuntarily. No wonder everyone thought Robbie was so attractive and if Dylan was anything like that under his shirt, than the theory that twins were alike in more ways than one definitely wasn’t incorrect. Robbie dove back under the water and called for us to join him. I just smiled and turned back around. I picked up my glass of iced tea and took a sip from it. Then suddenly, a light tap of someone’s finger hit my shoulder and I looked up behind me. Broderick stood there, smiling in a way that told me what was following wasn’t going to be good.

“Isabelle,” he sang.

“Yes?”

“You’re next.”

“I’m what?” I blurted but both of my arms were taken by him and Dylan, but since I was a lot lighter than Robbie was, my struggle against them wasn’t nearly as significant. “No!” I screamed when we approached the edge. “Not in a dress! Elsie, a little help here?!”

She laughed. “Think of it as a rite of passage!” she called and Emma winked at me.

They picked me up and tossed me right in, but where they threw me was also where Robbie happened to be swimming. He looked up at me and I screamed long and loud as if that was going to help but with a painful slap against the water, and the skin-on-skin contact with a wet boy, I went under and immediately resurfaced with a gasp for breath. Broderick and Dylan both came down to my level, snickering and enjoying their own selfish pleasure.

Robbie laughed. “Are you okay?” he asked, helping me to get my hair off of my face. I coughed because my landing had resulted in me swallowing way too much chlorinated water.

“You guys really are jerks,” I said to them with a glare.

“You’ll be all right. Do you want to get out?” Robbie questioned, putting his hand on my back.

“Well a dress isn’t exactly the best thing to be wearing in the pool. This was the only thing I brought so I need to dry off,” I said. “Can you help me with something first?”

He looked at me, curious and when my eyes shifted to Broderick and Dylan, Robbie took notice of just how close they really were to the pool. He and I both took a dive for Broderick and grabbed his arms, yanking him in with us. He went in head-first and when he came back up, he was coughing severely.

“That was uncalled for,” he said.

“So was what you did,” I replied and looked at Dylan. He had already stood up and stepped back though, which made him out of our reach but luckily, Emma and Elsie had snuck up behind him and decided to shove him in as well. I covered my eyes when he hit the water and looked up at them, my vision blurry from the earlier splashes.

“What about those two?” Robbie asked, wiping his mouth.

“We’re safe, obviously,” Elsie said with a smile.

“Not quite.” And her dad, being the strong guy he was, used one hand on each of their backs and pushed them in right next to us. They shrieked for the few seconds they had before they hit the water, and the looks on their faces made me feel a lot better.

“Nice bra, Emma,” Robbie laughed, pointing to her breasts. Her dress didn’t do well to conceal the bright pink bra with green polka dots but she just shrugged.

“It’s my bathing suit. See, I came knowing exactly what I was getting myself into,” she said, poking me in the nose to tease me. I snorted.

“Nobody told me anything,” I pointed out. “Now I have to go dry off.” Robbie snagged my wrist and I looked at him over my shoulder.

“You can use my towel if you want. It’s in my bag at the door,” he said and I nodded.

“Thank you,” I returned, swimming over to the steps and getting out. A few of the pre-teen boys in the pool whistled at me and I looked down, noticing that my dress was even more see-through than Emma’s was. I blushed, humiliated and horrified, and tried to cover myself up but it was no use. I might as well have just been standing there in my underwear. How embarrassing!

“Sweetie, use this,” Elsie’s mother said, coming over from the barbeque and wrapping me in a towel.

“Thank you,” I replied gratefully. “Is there somewhere I can dry off?”

“Elsie!” she called but her daughter was already emerging from the water. She pulled off her shorts and t-shirt and tossed them aside, leaving her in her black bathing suit. “Can you show Isabelle where your bathroom is? And give her a blow dryer to use as well,” she said, ruffling her hair. Elsie scowled at her mother and took my hand.

“Come on,” she said, pulling me inside the house. “I’m sorry about that. Shoving each other in the pool has been a tradition since we were young. Dylan and Robbie did it to me all the time whenever they came over. Of course, then it was just to bug me because our parents were friends and . . . well, I’m sure you’ve heard the story.” She walked up the stairs and I followed her.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind hearing it again,” I smiled.

“I have an idea, because we’re probably going to be spending some time in the pool and you’re the only one who hasn’t brought a bathing suit with you.” She opened a door and waved me inside, revealing a large purple and grey colour scheme for her bedroom. Every section of her house that I had left uncharted always seemed to be so stunning when I finally got to see it, and this was one hell of a bedroom for a teenager. She went over to her dresser and opened one of the drawers, digging through piles of clothing before she found what she was looking for and pulled it out. She held up a two-piece red bathing suit and smiled.

“What do you think?”

“Wow, that’s really sexy swimwear,” I pointed out in a joking tone. “Are you changing or something?”

She laughed. “No, it’s for you!”

My eyes went wide. “What?”

“Go on, try it on!” she said, handing it to me and shoving me toward the bathroom connected to her room.

“Isn’t that a little . . . unhygienic?” I asked, biting my lip.

“Don’t worry about it. The price tag’s still on and everything. I bought it a couple of months ago but never got around to wearing it. You should use it!” she said. “Now go on. I’ll wait for you and when you come out, we’ll throw your clothes in the dryer for like, thirty minutes. You have to wear something.”

“Are you sure it’ll fit?” I asked, dangling the top piece off my finger and looking at it with doubt. Only someone with big boobs and really obvious curves could fill this thing, but that was not me. I had average breasts, and my curves weren’t anything miraculous—not to say I didn’t have any. I just wasn’t as hourglass-shaped as the bathing suit required from me. Elsie could work it, but I couldn’t.

“It’ll be fine. We’re about the same size anyway. Now go! Stop stalling,” she giggled, giving me one last push inside and closing the door. I opened my mouth to yell something to her but changed my mind and dropped the towel on the floor. I slipped my dress and clothes off, pulling out my earrings and placing them in a tissue. I put the bathing suit on and clipped it together at the back. Thankfully, it wasn’t one that required tying because those always freaked me out. It wasn’t a bikini style either; it was straight across so when I actually put it on, it wasn’t nearly as nerve-wracking as I had thought it would be. However, that didn’t stop me from feeling naked. I folded my clothes and hung up the towel on the back of the door, before stepping out holding all of my things. Elsie turned around with her arms folded and grinned.

“That really works for you! Red’s obviously your colour,” she said. “Ready to go?”

I nodded, handing her my clothes when she extended her hand. I walked down the stairs with Elsie behind me and went over to my bag to put my earrings away. Elsie walked into the laundry room and turned on the dryer for thirty minutes, then waited for me at the back door. When I turned around though, I bashed into a very firm chest.

“Ouch,” I said, putting a hand on my forehead. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay,” the person said and I looked up. A tall dark-skinned boy with jet black hair and perfect teeth smiled down at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, and then realized how rude I was being. “I’m sorry, I’m Isabelle.”

“Armando,” he replied and took the hand I had offered him to shake. I knew I had heard his name brought up in a conversation before but right off the bat, I couldn’t remember. But then when Elsie came running over and tackled him in a hug, I recalled where I had heard it; Armando. He was the one Broderick looked about ready to kill, and he was only talking about him. I didn’t want to see his face when Armando walked into the backyard and Brod laid his eyes on him.

“You made it!” Elsie observed, slapping him on the chest. “You’re late.”

“Sorry, I got held up at work,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “But I’m here now and ready to swim. Where can I put my stuff? I brought food, not that you’re short of any.” He nodded to the kitchen table where everyone had piled their containers and bags of food on.

“Everyone’s put their things outside on the patio, so you can just leave it there. And I’ll take that from you,” she said, taking the food he had shown her. She walked into the kitchen and Armando looked at me, smiling.

“So, I don’t recognize you,” he said. “I know almost all of Elsie’s friends but I’ve never seen you before. You’re new, I take it.”

“I just met her on the first day of school,” I replied, crossing my arms because I felt the need to cover up in front of a complete stranger. “She’s really great though. You’ve got an awesome cousin.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool,” he said. “Would you like to go outside?”

I nodded and followed him, meeting Elsie at the door. We all stepped into the backyard and I looked around, trying to spot Broderick and when I found him, he was sitting under the canopy again but now all of his clothes were tossed in the pile everyone had made and he only wore his swim shorts. He looked up when we came outside and smiled at me, but it quickly disappeared when he noticed Armando was right behind me.

I got a whistle from one of the twins but both of them were still wet from the pool and now looked completely identical. It was impossible for me to notice a difference until Robbie started laughing and I knew it was him. Emma kicked him in the ankle.

“Stop it. You’re embarrassing her,” she said, obviously noticing the pink tint my face took on when I realized that all three boys, not counting Armando, were staring at me in Elsie’s very revealing bathing suit. I felt like what I could only imagine Mackenzie did every day; slutty. It wasn’t a nice feeling. “Take this.” Emma tossed me her white towel and I grabbed it, giving her a thank-you nod and sitting down next to Dylan on the couch.

“Emma! Come here for a second, I want to talk to you,” Elsie said, waving her over. Emma stood up, no longer in her dress and walked toward her. “You remember Armando, don’t you?”

“Hey,” she said with a smile directed at him. “It’s good to see you again, how have you been?”

I looked at Broderick and saw him frown, then he picked up his water and took a long drink from it to distract himself.

Great, I thought to myself. Another complication.