Blue Moon 5.1-5.5

by Donna Lamb

Jo went up to the third floor on the elevator then pushed open the door of the office where she had worked for the last four years. Her heart pounded in her ears, she felt pins and needles all over and she gasped for breath.

Sandra Tillotson, the blonde receptionist, sat at the front desk, smiling up at her. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Sandy, it's m-m-m...."

"Oh, Melody!" Sandy interrupted. "What did you do to your hair?" Reflexively, she fluffed her own hair. She frowned. "I don't think it suits you, hon. Makes you look too much like a boy."

"M-m-m-" Jo struggled to speak, stunned.

"Barry's not here," Sandy said helpfully.

Annoyed -- she hated it when people tried to finish her sentences -- Jo glanced at the desk on the right hand wall. It looked dusty (also a little blurry). Someone had turned it ninety degrees from the angle she remembered it being set at so that a person sitting there would be facing a wall instead of the room. Too, plastic dust covers hid all the equipment on top of the desk and in place of the large 17" monitor Joel had bought in December, the smaller lump under the dust cover indicated that no one had replaced the old 14" one. The half-partition marking off Joel's old workspace had also migrated to include one of Joel's file cabinets in Sandy's area.

"Do I w-w-w-" Jo began.

"Sure, you can wait for Barry. He should be here soon. Go on into his office if you like," said Sandy. She leaned forward, almost whispering, "Alison isn't here yet, either."

Jo glanced at the other desk in the front room, at the left end next to the door to the break and copy room. Alison Mohr, the office manager, didn't like extra people in the office. Jo wanted to bite her lip. She looked again at her own empty desk and struggled not to cry. "M-m-my...."

Sandy said, "We all miss your brother very much." She looked very solemn while she said it.

"M-my b-b-b-b-" babbled Jo, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She'd heard the expression, "someone walking on my grave" before but now she knew what it meant.

Sandy pointed at the door to the large corner office. "Go on in, hon. Is Barry expecting you?" The other smaller, inner office belonged to Laurence Dunveldt, the legislative assistant who traveled with Barry between Sacramento and Monrovia.

"N-no," said Jo, stuttering on a word she normally had no problem with. It had taken Joel six months to break Sandy of finishing his sentences and now.... Jo fled into Barry's private office to avoid screaming or crying. Joel's dead, I'm my own sister, and my name is Melody? Overwhelmed, she collapsed on the padded leather couch in front of the window.

After sitting for a several minutes trying to take it all in, she got up and sat behind Barry's desk to dial a number that she knew much better than the office number. After two rings, someone picked up.

"Messenger," said a familiar voice.

"M-mom?" Jo said.

"Melody, honey! Where are you? I've been worried sick!"

Before Jo -- or Melody -- could reply, the office door swung open and Barry Aronhaus rushed in with a briefcase in his hand. "For God's sake, Melody," he said, "what are you doing here? You're such a ditz!"

"Melody?" said the phone.

Six feet five of fifty-year-old, blond-but-slightly-balding, ex-quarterback strode across the room, blue eyes shining with alarm. Barry stepped around the desk, set down his briefcase, plucked the phone from Jo's hand and hung it up, practically all at once. "My wife's right behind me, sweetie," he said. Then he kissed her, with tongue, squeezed her ass in one large hand and hustled her toward a connecting door. "Hide in Larry's office till she's gone, would you, Cupcakes?"

He opened the door, patted her ass again and kissed her cheek, then pushed her through and shut and locked the door. Jo stood there, lips burning, breasts aching and with a peculiar warm, wet feeling in her crotch.

Larry, a slender older man entered his office and looked her over. "Barry's a son of a bitch, isn't he?" he said as if it were the beginning of a conversation he had had before. "I told him he couldn't keep his girlfriend and his wife in the same town. It's just asking for trouble."

* * *

Richard watched the tall redhead cross the parking lot with some interest. She'd let the big blond man off at the back door of the office building and driven the huge Mercedes SUV to park it in two parking spaces (it was that big) at the far end of the lot. Richard had taken the last oversize parking spot with the limo but he appreciated that she had gone far from the door before parking the German beast, thoughtfulness not often seen in the rich.

It also gave him more time to watch her walk. She had a long-legged style that actually made him think of Jo. Nearly the same height, taller in heels, slender but with more top and bottom than Jo, she wore her long hair in a thick red braid down the middle of her back. Richard enjoyed watching it swing. "Sweet mama," he said aloud since no one could hear him.

He'd just noted that she might be older than he had first thought -- maybe thirty-five or even forty, but that was no crime -- when it occurred to him that the big blond man had been Aronhaus. Without thinking about his sudden sense of urgency, he bolted from the limo and followed the redhead into the office building.

* * *

"Melody, isn't it? Do you need to sit down?" Larry asked.

Jo nodded and let herself be directed to the padded chair on the client side of the desk. "I don't w-w-w..." She paused, Larry waited patiently. "I don't w-work here?"

"No, dear, that would hardly be wise, do you think?"

She swallowed hard. What the hell is going on? she wanted to ask but restrained herself. "Did--did you know Joel?" she asked instead, wanting to find out what his co-workers thought of her former male self.

Larry nodded. "Very serious young man but he had a sense of humor."

I did? thought Jo.

"Of course," said Larry, "I'm a bit of a nerd, too. When he made a joke about growing tribbles to be made into toupees for bald starship captains, I knew what he was talking about."

Jo smiled, remembering. Larry and Joel had laughed about that one and the one about Klingon plastic wrap that couldn't be removed because after all, it wasn't called Kling-off.

Larry sighed. "I'm sorry you didn't get to know him."

Now what? thought Jo. If Joel was my brother, why wouldn't I know him?

* * *

"I'm not the only one that cheats, I see," said Sophie. She glared across at the seat at Ted the Clarence.

"You left her with no life, no existence in the world. It's not cheating to provide a minimal reality for her. And the memories of living people have not been changed back past the two month window you established, with one exception. And that one willingly, even prayerfully."

The Devil in Drag examined the life thread Ted indicated and snorted. "Well, that's no fun. Heartbreak into joy?"

Ted nodded. "Our stock in trade."

* * *

Richard caught up with the redhead in front of the elevators. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Once in the elevator he said, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what is that scent you're wearing?" He knew enough not to call it a perfume.

She laughed. "Want some for your girlfriend? It's called 'Mille et Une', from France."

He whistled. "Expensive?"

She nodded. "Pretty much."

He grinned at her, "Oh well. But I'd go as high as one hundred dollars for a half ounce. Of perfume, that is."

She looked at him. "It's only seventy. That's some girlfriend."

Richard nodded, sighing. "Yeah, she is," he said.

The doors opened on the third floor. "She's a lucky girl," the redhead said.

He grinned again, holding the door for her. "Let's hope she thinks so."

He followed her down the hall, until she looked back.

"I'm going to Assemblyman Aronhaus's office," he explained.

"What a coincidence, I'm Cherie Aronhaus and so am I."

He nodded and moved ahead of her to hold the office door. "I'm Richard," he said.

* * *

Larry looked at Jo and frowned. "Did you have a purse?" he asked.

* * *

When Joel's lifeless body had been pulled from the wreckage of the old car she had given him when he moved to Hollywood, Beverly Messenger thought her life had ended. Two days after Thanksgiving and her heart had been torn to shreds, again. God, she had decided, had it in for her. Jonathan, her husband of thirty years had died before his sixtieth birthday, shortly after Joel's college graduation, at least he'd gotten to see that.

And he hadn't had to bury their son. Too many tragedies in too long a life.

Late-born, she'd been thirty-five -- long after Jonathan and she had given up -- they'd named the baby, Joel, "God is willing" it meant, the rabbi said. They'd been so happy with their little man. And years later, another miracle, another pregnancy, but that one had not gone well, a premature, still-born child they'd been told. Heartbreaking but they'd had Joel, such a good boy, bright, thoughtful, well-mannered. They named the little baby girl they never got to hold Miriam on the headstone, "bitterness," and went on.

Then Jonathan died, his heart just gave out, then Joel, God punish all drunk drivers, and all three of them lay under the grass in the Jewish part of a very nice cemetery in the Valley, one beside another with the open place for her between the baby and Jonathan. She'd known she would be going there soon herself, because what did she have to live for? No children, no grandchildren, her sister's kids never came to see her and Joanna living in San Francisco now, so far away, that Chinese gentleman she'd married after her Gregory died had taken her to be close to his family.

And then, just days after she'd buried Joel next to his father, a girl knocked on the door and said, "I think you might be my m-mother." And she looked so very like Joel with her blond hair and green eyes, and she even had the same stutter, though she was so skinny, and so tall for a girl, almost as tall as Joel. But Jonathan's people had all been tall.

There'd been a mixup at the hospital, two tiny babies in incubators, so fragile, and one of them died. But it had been the wrong one. And her name was Melody Jo Thierry, she'd grown up almost in the same neighborhood in the Valley but had gone to different schools. And her foster parents had died the same Thanksgiving weekend Joel had and she'd been injured, had to have her head shaved to operate on it which is why she wore a wig but her hair eventually came back in and it was blond with that ginger cast the same as Joel's.

She couldn't remember much of her life, because of her injury, she'd been knocked about in the wreck herself with a broken arm still in a cast till after New Year's. But in the hospital, she'd found out she couldn't be the daughter of the Thierrys, who had surely loved her like their own and maybe never knew, because she had the wrong blood type. They were A and O and she was type B, just like Joel and Jonathan, and Beverly, too for that matter.

And then they'd had the most wonderful month and a half, discovering each other, and falling in love as mother and daughter. But she wasn't Joel, she was a little wild and headstrong, and she'd gone out to find the brother she'd never known, find out about his life, meet his friends, visit the places he had worked. She hadn't come home to Beverly in days, though she had another home of her own, the Thierrys', since legally she was their daughter still, but she didn't answer the phone there nor her cellphone, for two days.

Then suddenly a call from a very worried and stressed sounding Melody Jo who'd called her Mom, just like she'd started doing that first night they had found each other. Her baby had called her and lifted a stone off Beverly's heart again. She'd call back. Melody was a good girl, if just a little wild. She'd call her mother back.

Beverly Messenger waited by the phone, trying not to worry. She had a child again, and hope someday of grandchildren. Sixty-one wasn't old, with luck and God willing, she might live to hold the babies of Melody's babies on her lap. The girl would call, she loved her mother and Beverly wouldn't think of losing her again.

* * *

"Good God," said the Devil in Drag.

"Exactly," said Ted Clarence.

* * *

Jo frowned. "M-my p-p-purse?"

Larry smiled at her, enjoying the expressiveness of her finely shaped eyebrows. I'd love to get her to pose for a portrait, he thought, even better a full-length nude ... down, boy. The walls of his office bore evidence of his hobby, black-and-white photographs of various subjects from cats to canyons, but no nudes.

He waited, watching Jo puzzle out where she might have left her purse, marveling at the clarity of her skin because he could tell she wore no make-up. And that hair color had to be natural, she'd been wearing a much blonder wig on her previous visits, he knew. He thought the short, re-growing hair had an endearing appeal, though if she looked any more vulnerable he'd probably go in and sock his boss in the jaw. I bet she's photogenic as hell, he thought, lusting to get her in front of a camera.

"M-m-maybe I left it in the car?" said Jo, pretty sure, in fact, that she had not done so.

Larry looked bemused. He went to the door to the outer office, opened it and called, "Sandra, did Miss Thierry have a purse when she came in?"

Miss Teary? thought Jo. Self-conscious, she wiped at the tear tracks she imagined on her face.

"Yes, sir," said Sandy. "She took it with her into Mr. Aronhaus's office." Sandy, seeing Jo sitting in front of Larry's desk, smiled and waved at her.

Jo waved back, like a four-year-old in the back seat, waving at passing cars. She still felt stunned and a bit stupid. I'm dead, but I'm not dead. I'm just a girl and people think I'm Barry's girlfriend?

Larry frowned. "Mrs. Aronhaus is with Barry now?"

"Uh, no."

"Then...?" He motioned toward the door to Barry's office.

Sandy got up quickly and headed for the door. She'd run interference of this sort before. "I didn't know she was coming in today."

Glancing toward the glass door to the hallway, Larry saw Richard reaching for the door to hold it open for Mrs. Aronhaus. "Stay here, I'll be back," he said to Jo and stepped into the outer office, closing the door behind him. "Cherie, how are you this morning?" he said, welcoming Mrs. Aronhaus and allowing Sandy time to slip into Barry's office.

"Oh, I'm fine," said Cherie, smiling back. "Barry and I have a beefuss meeting at nine, so I came along to make sure he doesn't forget. Oh, this is Richard. Richard are you coming in?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Richard wondering where Jo might be. "I brought a friend here earlier...."

"Oh, you're Melody's friend, Miss Thierry's friend?" asked Larry. Guy looks like a wolf, he thought, Barry wouldn't be happy.

"Uh, yes?" Mystery Melody? Melody Mystery? "I'm Joel's roommate? Didn't Joel work here?"

"Oh, yes, and we miss him terribly," said Larry. He smiled, not having to fake sincerety, Joel had been his friend. "So you're helping Melody find her brother?"

"Um," said Richard, confused. Wasn't Joel supposed to be dead? If so, why would anybody want to find him? A brief but vivid image of a zombie Joel saying, "B-b-b-brains!" attacked his mental processes, distracting him.

Cherie Aronhaus started around the desks toward the door to Barry's's office.

Larry tried to think of something to say to delay Cherie a moment or two longer. "Sandy's in there," he said.

"So?" Cherie hesitated, catching a whiff of some unstated message.

Richard stared at Cherie's butt, wondering what he'd been wondering about. Why does she look sort of like Jo to me?

* * *

Inside Larry's office, the connecting door opened. Barry Aronhaus stuck his head through, saw Jo and lobbed an easy one to her. She almost missed it, even though Barry's toss would have put it right in her lap. "Be more careful about leaving stuff in my office, sweetie," Barry chided. "My wife is coming in." Then he ducked through the door and re-locked it.

Jo stared after him, clutching the bag in one hand. What the hell? she thought. Jo had suffered repeated shocks, struggled with denial, and now felt -- insulted. She glanced down at herself; yes, she was still an attractive young woman who had just been called "Sweetie," by her -- or rather Joel's -- old boss. She still felt a few odd tingles from Barry's earlier manhandling of her, too -- and what was going on with that?

She began to get angry. One thing Joel had always detested was having his intelligence insulted. Whatever had happened to her, with Joel apparently considered dead for some time and some doppelganger with her new face running around -- getting into who knew what! -- whatever had happened, despite the traitorous arousal of her new body, she knew she didn't like being called "sweetie" the way Barry had said it.

"Who the hell does he think he is?" She railed at the closed and locked connecting door. "Kissing me! P-pinching me! I am not his -- girlfriend!" Standing suddenly, she marched to the door to the outer office and flung it open.

Barry had just opened the door to his office to let Sandy out and Cherie in. Richard had just said to Larry, "I thought her last name was Messenger, same as Joel's. Terry? How do you spell that?"

"Richard!" said Jo.

"Jo?" said Richard, turning to look.

Taking only a moment to glare at Barry, Jo stalked up to Richard, put her arms on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe a bit and kissed him on the mouth. "Let's go home," she said. After another scathing glance at Barry, she added, "Sweetie. Okay, huh?"

* * *

Richard got Jo out of there as quickly as he could; he'd picked up on the byplay but wasn't sure if it were Barry or Larry who'd been the target of Jo's vengeance-kiss. He suspected Barry because Larry had looked too tickled by it and Aronhaus had ducked back into his office.

But that kiss.

In the elevator, Jo and Richard looked sideways at each other. Jo had her arms crossed and her fisted hands tucked under each opposite elbow. Why did I kiss him? she railed at herself. She'd kept it to just a peck on the lips but she'd leaned against his body to do it, and that had had some totally unexpected implications -- not to mention sensations.

"Why did you kiss me?" Richard asked once they were in the parking lot.

Jo had kept her distance. She sighed, rubbed her forehead and didn't look at him. "B-barry p-pinched m-my b-b-b-butt and called me sweetie. And Larry thinks I'm B-barry's girlfriend! And just what the hell has been going on b-behind m-my b-back while I w-w-was dead?"

"While you were dead?" Richard stopped, squinched his eyes tightly closed and reopened them. Joel had seldom used a word like hell, but Jo had reason he supposed -- still that question stonkered him, momentarily. "You're pissed," he noted, reaching for the handle of the limo's back door.

"No, I'm sitting up front this time," said Jo. She pulled the other handle, the weight of the front door of the limo took her by surprise and Richard caught it easily from her. She glared at him.

"What? Doors are sometimes heavy, that's one reason guys open them for girls."

"W-well, I'm still p-pissed so don't expect much of a thank you." She repeated the earlier lesson Richard had given her and slipped inside as if she had been doing it for much longer than just an hour. She didn't really recognize that her talent for kinesthetic memory seemed much greater than Joel's had been.

"You're welcome," said Richard. He closed the door before she could answer and sped around the car to get in the driver's seat.

"Can I use the ph-phone?" Jo asked.

He showed her how to use the built-in driver's phone, surreptitiously leaving it in hands-free speaker mode. Jo dialed.

"Hello?"

"M-mom, it's me again," said Jo. "Sorry, I got interrupted earlier."

Richard boggled but said nothing.

"Oh, that's okay, dear. I hadn't heard from you in a couple of days, so you know how I am, I got a little worried." Beverly Messenger sounded happy.

Richard stared at Jo, then started the car and wheeled out of the lot, heading toward the freeway. He could drive and listen at the same time.

"I'm f-fine, mom. Richard's p-playing chauffeur for me." Unexpectedly, Jo giggled. At least, Jo didn't expect it.

Richard grinned and Jo's mom, Beverly, laughed. "Well, where are you, hon? Could you come by for lunch, maybe?" She sounded just as anxious as any mother asking a grown child to visit her.

Jo glanced at Richard. "Jo needs to do some shopping," Richard said out loud. Oh, shit, is she Jo or Melody? They were calling her Melody at the office, too. "Uh, and I've got a fare in Burbank at eleven, so if I left her in Town Center could you run up and get her?"

"Well, sure," said Beverly sounding anything but sure. "Doesn't Melody live in Burbank, off of Sunset, there?"

"Uh? What's the address?" Richard asked quickly.

"Go ahead and tell him, M-mom," said Jo, grateful for the finesse.

She turned out to have a good excuse for not attempting it. "544 Via Buena Vista," said Beverly. "Are you having trouble remembering things again, hon?" she asked.

Startled, Jo nodded, then said. "Uh, yeah." It would be just too convenient a claim since she, in fact, didn't remember the details of Melody's life at all. Maybe I've fallen into a parallel world? But Melody's mom sure sounds exactly like my mom. She looked sideways. And Richard is Richard, why am I the only one who's a different person?

"Poor baby, keep your sunglasses on so you don't get one of those headaches again. How about you give me a call later and I can come there or you can come here? I'd love to get another chance to drive your little Cooper." Mrs. Messenger's giggle sounded just like Jo's. "And Richard? You must be on your carphone; you call Melody, Jo?"

"Uh," said Richard."Well, she reminds me so much of--of Joel?" He looked at Jo, shrugged then mouthed, You've got a Cooper? She shrugged. From the console, he produced a spare pair of aviators and handed them to Jo.

"Sure, and it is her middle name," said Mom.

Jo giggled again, now if I just knew how to spell my last name. She tried on the sunglasses, pulling down the mirror on the visor to look at herself. The headache she'd seemed to be developing began to recede. She smiled at Richard, feeling an odd warmth. The shades looked -- sexy on her and now Richard had a pair on, too.

"Which do you prefer, hon? Melody or Jo?" asked Mom.

"Uh. W-well, Richard started calling me 'Jo' and I kind of like it." Another giggle tried to bubble up but she suppressed it. "At least I can say it."

"Well, then, I'll call you that, too. And you can always keep using 'Melody' professionally, I suppose," said Mom.

* * *

"You had to give her a Cooper?" groused Sophie.

"It's a turbo," said Ted. "The Thierrys' never actually had children but when they were offered the chance to posthumously spoil a daughter retroactively, they jumped at it. Now what's this 'profession' joker you just slipped into the pack?"

Sophie giggled, pleased with herself.