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Author's Chapter Notes:

The girls have a plan . . . Enjoy! TAG


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Chapter 10 - A Brilliant Idea!




Quinne handed back Qianna’s laptop with a smug grin. “There. I’ve imported all your music to our new Python database. With all the music from the five of us, we’re going to have an awesome music library once the project is complete,” she announced proudly.


Qianna just nodded, not nearly as interested in the coding project they were supposed to be working on that week as her sister was. She’d always found coding to be a bit dull - it was so rigid and dependant on following set rules, that it grated against her creative nature. She WAS looking forward to the final results of the project their group had chosen - which was to put together a combined database made up of all the downloaded music each of them had on their various devices and make it available to all of them through a shared API - but was happy to let Quinne take the lead on the majority of the tasks.


Meanwhile, Qianna was busy reading through the most recent email from Quinne’s father. The family back in Pittsburgh had thrown a big shindig the prior weekend, complete with a backyard barbeque and swimming. Everyone looked like they were having the best time. Qianna was jealous.


“I think I love your family,” Qianna announced with a huge sigh. “It’s not fair that you got to grow up with all these people and I got Hairy Alex.”


Quinne giggled at that assessment. “They aren’t always that fun to be around. Trust me. Having a huge extended family full of nosy busy-bodies can be a pain in the ass. Some days I’d be happy to trade.”


“Well, it sounds like heaven to me,” Qianna maintained, scrolling through the pictures again. “Help me out here, Q - I know the tall guy in the middle is your dad, you’ve shown me lots of pics of him, but who are all the rest?”



Quinne sat down next to her sister on the narrow dorm room bed so she could look over Qianna’s shoulder. “The guy on the end in the brown jacket is my Uncle Ted,” she pointed one by one to the people in the picture. “Ted’s the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet but he also has the most biting sense of humor, so you don’t want to get on his bad side. Then, that’s my Grandma Debbie - I’m so glad she stopped wearing that awful, cheap old red wig of hers and has decided to just go with her natural grey - she looks so much better. My dad, of course, trying to look stylish and hip. And the guy on his left is my Uncle Ben - Ben’s married to my Uncle Michael, who’s Debbie’s son. Looks like the picture was taken on the back patio at Britin. We’ve had some major parties out there, like you wouldn’t believe.”


“‘Britin?’” Qianna asked, catching the odd name. “You guys seriously named your house? Don’t you think that’s a little pretentious?”


“No idea where the name came from - everybody’s always called it that, though. Who knows. It’s an old house and probably came with the stupid name,” Quinne dismissed the anomaly with an easy shrug.


“Who’s this woman?” Qianna asked, pointing to a tall blonde in another picture.



“That’s Lindsey. She’s one of Gus’ moms.” Qianna swiped at the screen to bring up the next picture and before she could even ask, Quinne volunteered the next name. “And that’s Gus himself. Obviously trying to look older and cooler than he really is. Good picture though - probably taken by my Pops, who fancies himself a photographer on the side.”

 


“Damn, he’s cute!” Qianna gushed, practically drooling over the picture on her phone.


“Gus? No. He’s annoying, is what he is,” Quinne corrected, sounding like every younger sister describing her brother. “Besides . . . Ewww! . . . You’re not allowed to think my brother - who’s sorta your brother once removed - is hot. You’ll give me nightmares.”


Qianna had to laugh at that, but conceded it was a little icky, so she’d have to keep her drooling to a minimum. Instead she just finished scrolling through the rest of the pics while Quinne went back to her own bed and starting looking through her own email messages. They spent the next five or ten minutes in a comfortable silence as each pursued their own thing and dealt with her own correspondence and social media posts.


The peace and quiet was only broken when Quinne sat up and started yelling at her tablet. “NO! No, no, no, no, no! That’ll mess up everything!”


“What’s wrong?” Qianna demanded, looking around like there was some physical danger she should be aware of.


“Hairy Alex is going to ruin all the wedding plans your dad and I have already set up!” Quinne complained while furiously typing away. “He’s being a total bitch. We already signed a contract with the venue we decided on and now Alex is demanding that your dad invite about fifty more people than we’d planned on. The venue can’t hold that many, so it means we’ll have to find someplace else and it’ll probably at least double the price.” She kept typing away at the tablet, obviously communicating something with Justin. “No! You can’t just give in to him like that! Argh!” Quinne tossed the tablet aside with an expression of disgust. “I’m seriously pissed at your dad. He keeps letting Hairy Alex get away with stupid shit. I wish I could fly out there and kick that prissy little Bride-zilla’s ass.”


“Which one is the bride-zilla? My dad or Alex?” Qianna asked, trying to hold back her laughter.


“Both!” Quinne growled. “Well, mostly Hairy Alex. But your dad keeps allowing him to get away with it, so I’m kinda mad at him too. I don’t understand what that lumbersexual loser has going for him that your dad doesn’t just tell him to take a hike already. I really am tempted to go tell Alex what I think of him in person and save your father’s ass in the process. To hell with this stupid wedding.”


Qianna, who had been going through the pictures from Pittsburgh one more time while listening to her sister's ranting, sat up and turned to face Quinne with a look of unadulterated inspiration on her face. “That’s a BRILLIANT idea, Q! You should do it! You should go to San Jose and I’ll go to Pittsburgh in your place! That way you can take care of Hairy Alex for me and dad and I’ll get to meet all your family.  


At first Quinne was inclined to laugh off this suggestion, thinking it was just Qianna indulging in some wishful thinking. But looking over at her sister’s eager intenseness, it was clear Qianna was serious. She could tell how badly her sister longed to be a part of the big, sometimes chaotic, sometimes intrusive, but always supportive group that Quinne thought of as her family. At the same time, Quinne herself had become rather fond of Justin, and truly felt bad for him at the way he was seemingly being taken advantage of by his fiancé. If she were there in person, she felt sure she'd have a better chance of corralling Alex’s incessant demands while still being a supportive assistant to Justin. So maybe it wasn't as crazy as it sounded.


“Okay. I’m game. I’m assuming you mean after camp is over, right? Cuz, I’m not sure I’m up for running away in the middle of the night just to show up on your dad’s doorstep at 2:00 am without an invite.”


“Well, duh,” Qianna laughed at the mental image of the two of them stealing away from the dorm in the middle of the night just to show up at each other’s homes.


“But won’t your dad want you home right after camp is over?” Quinne asked. “I mean, there’s only a couple weeks between camp and his wedding. I’m assuming there will be lots of shit you’ll need to do, like dress fittings and stuff. Not really a great time for a child swap, QiQi.”


“It’s the perfect time. I don’t want ANYTHING to do with that wedding, Q. I know my dad is going to regret this, probably as soon as it happens, and there’s no way I want to be complicit in helping him ruin his life. If you don’t go there and take care of Hairy Alex for me, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to go home at all,” Qianna asserted adamantly.


“Fine. But why would your dad even listen to me? I’m just some strange girl he knows nothing about. Wouldn’t you have more of a chance at stopping the wedding than me?”


“He’s been listening to you for the last two weeks, Q.”


“Yeah, but that’s only because he thought I was you,” Quinne pointed out.


“So, just keep being me,” Qianna suggested, looking at her sister with an impish glint in her eye and a wry smile.


“Uh, yeah, right,” Quinne scoffed with a shake of her head. “How is that supposed to work? I know we look a lot alike but you don’t think your dad will realize he has the wrong daughter?”


Qianna just shrugged. “I’m sure we could pull it off. It’s only when we’re standing side by side that you can really see the differences. Random strangers seem to think we’re identical. Remember that lifeguard at the Broadmoor a few weeks back?”


“That was a stranger, not one of our fathers,” Quinne maintained. “And even if our faces do look pretty similar, you don’t think your dad will notice that his daughter now has dark hair and grew about an inch taller?”


Qianna simply giggled. “He’ll probably compliment me on my new hair do and, even though he might secretly hate it, tell me how much he loves the color. And then he’ll exclaim about the huge growth spurt I had over the summer.”


Quinne had to concede that point. Based on what she’d learned about Justin so far, that sounded like him. She was now starting to seriously consider her sister’s outrageous plan and wondering if they really could pull it off. It might be fun, actually. She didn’t think they’d be able to get away with it forever, but maybe they could fool Justin at least long enough to get her to California. It might help that Justin seemed so entirely caught up in all his wedding plans that he wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. But, still, it was a stretch to think he just wouldn’t notice he had the wrong girl.


“Okay, but what will we tell MY Pops? He’s not going to just let me go off to California to stay with someone he hasn’t seen in more than a decade. Especially if whatever broke up our dads was as bad as we suspect. At a minimum he’s going to want to talk to your dad and confirm that everything’s okay, which would completely give us away.”


“So we don’t tell your father either,” Qianna suggested, making it sound like the easiest solution possible. “If you’re going to pretend to be me, I can just as easily pretend to be you.”


Quinne rolled her eyes, sure that this was going to be the sticking point of their plan. “My Pops isn’t usually easy to fool, QiQi. He also hates to be lied to more than anything else in the world - when we eventually get caught, he’ll go ballistic.” Then she thought of the one other glitch in the program. “And it’s one thing for me to convince your dad I grew over the summer, but how are you going to explain to my father that you shrunk an inch?”


“No problem,” Qianna answered with a stubborn insistence. “I’ll just let him buy me all the platform pumps he wants - the bigger the better - and get heel lifts to boot. He’ll be so happy to see you finally wearing the shoes he buys that he’ll forget about everything else.”


That declaration caused both girls to laugh, because it was so true. Brian’s biggest weakness was his love of expensive footwear - an obsession that his daughter had long fought him about - and he probably would be blinded to everything except her shoes. At least for a while. Maybe this crazy idea really could work?


“I know we can do this, Q,” Qianna urged. “Please. I really don’t want to go home to my father and Hairy Alex’s happy homo hookup ceremony. I want to go meet all these people.” She turned the phone screen around again and showed Quinne the photo of Brian and the family that she was now using as her lockscreen pic. “That way, even if you can’t stop my dad’s wedding, I won’t have to be a part of if AND I’ll get a few weeks of fun before I have to go back to sharing a home with my new Step-Yeti.”


Quinne, who was starting to warm a bit to the idea, responded, “well, it WOULD be kinda fun to see if we could get away with it. I have always loved a good prank. Even if we only make it as far as each other’s homes, and then get caught, it would be pretty hilarious. Can you imagine?”


“Totally! And, while you’re working to stop Hairy Alex, I can pump your dad and the rest of them for the skinny on what happened to break up our dads’ marriage and how the surrogate fits into things,” Qianna promised.


“That would be great. But if we really are going to try this, we’ll have to do more than just LOOK alike. You’re going to have to become me in every way, and vice versa. We’ll need to know EVERYTHING about each other’s lives. Otherwise they’ll catch on before we even get to the airport.”


“Piece of cake,” Qianna asserted. “We’ve still got almost a month to plan and prep. By the time we leave camp in August, nobody will be able to tell us apart. This is going to be EPIC! I can’t wait.”


Quinne sighed, still unconvinced they’d be able to pull it off, but intrigued enough by the challenge to at least give it a try. She knew they’d either be found out or have to confess so that they could eventually reclaim their proper lives. But perhaps they could help each other out and solve their own personal mystery before that happened. What did they have to lose?


“Okay. Let’s do this!” she capitulated, receiving a happy squeal of delight from her excited sister in return.


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From that point on, the sisters began an intensive study program that had nothing to do with the coding lessons they were getting that week in camp. Instead, they started studying each other’s lives. They’d already learned a lot, having been together almost 24/7 for over a month, but this was different.


Quinne set up a spreadsheet showing the five main areas of their respective lives which they’d need to have down pat to pull off their charade: Family, Homelife, Behaviors, Language, and Appearance.


The ‘Family’ category involved memorizing every single fact they could about the other’s family. This wasn’t going to be that difficult for Quinne, since she only had to learn about Justin, Justin’s mother Jennifer, and Hairy Alex. But for Qianna it was going to be the most difficult part of the entire endeavor since Quinne’s extended family was so extensive. Quinne listed them all in her spreadsheet, along with the most pertinent facts about each, and included pictures of all of them so there’d be no mistakes. Then they spent every spare minute they had telling each other stories about every one of their family and friends.


The ‘Homelife’ category was almost as voluminous. This involved both girls learning everything they could about the homelife of the other. Qianna created architectural diagrams of both family’s homes, friends homes and even their respective father’s workplaces, so that neither would seem out of place in what should be familiar environments. They also studied maps of the surrounding areas so they wouldn’t get lost going from one locale to the next. And, just to be on the safe side, they even spent time on Google Street View, guiding each other along usual routes and explaining anything important that they might need to know along the way.


The ‘Behaviors’ category was probably going to be the most difficult to master. This area included basically everything that encompassed each girl’s daily lives. What each’s daily routine was like, what each preferred to do with freetime, food likes and dislikes, mannerisms and quirks . . . It was so much that they feared this would be the one part of the plan that inevitably tripped them up. But, to the extent that they’d already been living together for a month, they at least had some idea of the other’s personality and how to mimic those aspects. Quinne started off listing these items in her spreadsheet, but when the section became too huge, they gave up. All they could do was hope for the best, try to prepare as best they could, and trust in luck and their individual acting skills to cover any potential faux pas.


In comparison, the ‘Language’ component would be relatively easy. There were lots of little things that characterized each girl’s mode of speaking that had the potential to give them away, but most were simple to correct. For instance, Quinne referred to most soft drinks as ‘Soda’ whereas Qianna referred to those drinks as ‘Pop’. They corrected each other constantly throughout the day but by the end of their first week had almost mastered this part of their transformation.


The ‘Appearance’ aspect of the plan needed to be, by necessity, as simple as possible. They wouldn’t be able to keep up any masquerade for long if they didn’t pull off the identical twins thing. They’d already figured out how to explain the major differences in their appearances, but to truly fool their families they needed to go even further. They’d have to make sure they copied the other’s makeup, hair, and clothing techniques. Every little trick they could think of to enhance the deception needed to be pursued and applied to make the switch more believable.


It was a lot to have to learn in just over a month’s time, especially since they were still kept pretty busy with the camp’s activities, but once they’d committed to their plan, both girls dug into the project with zeal.


“Remember, you have to refer to my father as ‘Pops’. I never call him ‘dad’,” Quinne reminded her sister as they were going over the plan again that first weekend.


They were sitting in the very back seats on the bus which was taking them to the Space Foundation Discovery Center for that week’s field trip and had decided to use the travel time for a short review session.


“Sorry. I keep screwing that up,” Qianna scrunched up her nose with self-disgust. “But don’t worry - I’ll be perfect by the time camp’s over. I promise.”


“I know you will,” Quinne replied with an encouraging smile. “Now, here’s a tough one - what’s his middle name?”


Qianna really has to stop and think for a minute before a neuron in the back of her brain fired up and supplied her with the needed information. “It’s ‘Aiden’ but everyone teases him that the ‘A’ really stands for . . .” Qianna looked around to make sure no one was listening in before finishing her statement in a hushed voice. “. . . Asshole.”


Quinne chuckled at her more demure twin. “You’re going to have to get comfortable with cursing, QiQi. Everybody in the family curses like a sailor, including my grandma, who’s actually worse than almost anyone except for maybe my Pops.” Qianna grimaced and pretended to be shocked, which only evinced a chuckle from Quinne. “Pops and I still laugh about the day he got called in by my kindergarten teacher and was given a lecture asking him to talk to me about appropriate language. It seems I’d told her I didn’t need her bullshit lessons because I already knew how to read.”


“Oh my God! I can’t believe you said that to your teacher!” Qianna exclaimed, tittering like a maniac.


“That’s another thing; nobody in our house ever refers to ‘God’. Pops is a raging atheist. He gives us shit if anyone even says that word in his presence. He always told me that any oath or exclamation you might want to use containing the word ‘God’ can always be replaced with the word ‘fuck’.”


“Sheesh. My dad would have a coronary if I cursed like that,” Qianna responded as she tried to wrap her mind around such an unconventional upbringing.


“Well, get used to it. If you’re going to be me, you’re gonna have to be able to curse when appropriate,” Quinne advised, waggling her eyebrows salaciously at the other girl. “And you’d better start practicing now if you want to be ready by the end of the summer. So, until further notice, I want you to greet me with a curse word every time you see me.”


“Jeeze, Q, I don’t know if I can . . .”


“Correction: Fuck that, Q. Go to hell, you bitch. I’ll do what I want and won’t take shit from anyone, so get off my ass,” Quinne coached, her revision causing Qianna to laugh out loud.


“I know I probably shouldn’t have been listening in,” Stella interrupted, looking back at the pair from the seat in front of them, “but why are you cursing at your sister, Q? Are you guys fighting again?”


The twins just laughed in tandem at their confused friend. “No, we’re fine. Q was just giving me some swearing lessons,” Qianna explained, before turning back to address her sister. “How’s this? When the hell are we getting to this fucking museum?”


“Ooooookaaaaayyyy . . .” Stella clearly thought they'd both gone nuts and turned back around, determined to mind her own business.


“Excellent!” Quinne approved.


And then she spent the next ten minutes giving Qianna tips on the finer points of bad language usage.

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Chapter End Notes:

10/12/18 - So, I’ve finally got them to the point where they’ve hatched their plan to swap fathers. Was the reasoning logical enough? I didn’t want it to seem like they were just coming up with a stupid idea out of the blue... What else do you suggest the girls will have to practice for the swap? Come by the online doc and leave me a note or list any suggestions you have in a comment and I’ll happily credit you! TAG

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