.

.

.

"Ok, what's next?"

"The Johnny Knoxville interview is scheduled for five minutes, plus ninety seconds for his Britney Spears clip."

"Just five minutes?"

"Have you ever seen him live? He's a bit of a doofus. Any more than that and people are going to start changing the channel."

"All right then, people. We've got an eight minute hole to fill on Tuesday. What have we got?"

"Oh, oh, has anyone seen that bubble babe video? There's been millions of hits on it. You know, the one where this girl with a broken arm pulls someone out of a fire."

"Right... that Boston thing. Has anyone done anything with her yet?"

"I don't think anyone's bothered. Everyone's worried that the whole bubble thing is still a little too touchy."

"The good Samaritan hero angle is different."

"I like it. Any ideas on who she is?"

"The newspaper in Boston did an interview with her. I could look up the reporter and..."

"OK, Rachel, you're on it. You've got forty-eight hours, track her down. Erica, I want you go down to the Laughfactory tonight and catch Valerie R's show. She's a good kid; ask her to do five minutes on Tuesday in case Rachel bombs out with the bubble chick. OK folks, Wednesday. Did Matt's people call back?"

-----

The mild throb in my arm woke me up, but I just lay there with my eyes closed for a couple of minutes. I was surprised I hadn't had trouble falling asleep, what with a dozen things conspiring to keep my mind whirling. George's condition, my chat with Jessie, seeing myself on television with the Governor, the tiny little baby doll that I wore to bed... But just like the cliche says, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Slowly opening my eyes, I let them get used to the morning light oozing through the closed curtains. It felt so good to wake up in my own bed. Kind of a secure, everything-is-good-with-the-world feeling. As much as I just wanted to lie there and wait for the alarm, I knew that if I didn't get up and take a pill, my arm was going to start yelling at me. I got up and arched my back in a stretch, then paused to look at myself in the mirror. I think my heart skipped a beat... girl, you look good in lilac. Shit, with that smile, you'd probably look good in a burlap sack.

I tore myself away from the mirror and took care of the three P's; pee, pill and put-on-the-kettle. I had just sat down to work on a half finished crossword when the phone rang.

"Hello."

"Hi, Aunt Lora?"

I rolled my eyes. "Good morning Terry. You're up awful early."

"Wait, wait... I love saying that. I've gotta do that again. OK, ready? Here goes... Hi Aunt Lora."

"OK, are you done?"

"Umm, no. One more time." She cleared her throat. "Hi Aunt Lora. Yup, that's it, I'm done."

"Maybe I should have picked a different name."

"Like what?"

"How about Onio."

"That's not a name."

"Sure it is. Say good morning to me again, but use that name."

"OK. Good morning Aunt Onio."

I chuckled. "Say it a little faster."

"Good morning Antonio"

"Buon giorno, bella."

"You know, it's not just your body that's changed. Uncle Lenny was weird, but you're weirder. Can I ask you a serious question?"

"You could try, but I really don't think you know how to be serious. But go ahead, give it a shot..."

"Could you hear it when your mind snapped? I mean, was it loud?" She giggled at her own joke. "Here, Brenda wants to talk to you."

I heard her hand the phone to her sister.

"Hi Aunt Lora." There was a smile in her voice.

"Here we go again... Good morning, Brenda. You're up awful early."

"Could you do me a favor? My friend Emma slept over. Can you give her a ride home when you pick us up?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"Does Emma live in Nebraska? Because I'm not driving to Nebraska. I hate trying to get through the traffic in Chicago."

"No, she lives in Scotland. You could drop her off and be back by, oh I don't know... next Friday."

"Oh, all right. But I've gotta stop at Loch Ness. I want to round out my collection of mythical sea creatures."

That finally got a giggle out of her. "What time will you be here?"

"Does eight-thirty sound good? I'd like to get an early start."

"You boy!"

"What?"

"Only a boy would expect three girls to have breakfast and be ready to go in an hour."

"OK, I guess I'll just have to go shopping by myself. I'll get by somehow..."

"You won't go without us... you'd have to tie a string to the door to find your way back out of the mall."

I laughed. "All right, all right, nine o'clock."

"Bye, Aunt Lora."

"You girl!"

She giggled and hung up the phone.

-----

I had started sorting through my clothing the night before, trying to figure out what was useful and what should go to charity. After about a half an hour of going through my men's clothing, I realized I that I really didn't want to do this yet. Almost none of it was of any use to me now, but I just couldn't make myself let go of the idea that I might wake up tomorrow as a man. I just put it all back in the drawers.

Surprisingly, I had the same problem looking at my women's clothing. I found that anything stretchy still fit me pretty good; most of the underwear, lingerie, leggings, a few T-shirts. I even had a clingy "little black dress" that looked phenomenal on me. But a lot of it was good for nothing; shoes, boots, jeans, all of my outerwear... not to mention all of my wigs, padding and silicone. I put it all away, just in case "Lenny" came back and wanted to look pretty some day.

The exercise wasn't a total waste of time, though. After all, I did end up wearing that cute baby doll to bed.

After a quick shower, I pulled on a clean T-shirt, underwear and the rest of the clothes that Kelly gave me the day before, hopped in the car and went to pick up the girls.

-----

"Shotgun."

That one word out of a teenager shuts down any arguments. Brenda took the front seat while Terry and Emma slid into the back. The three normally bubbly girls were unusually quiet as they piled into the car.

"Good morning, ladies." Not a peep out of any of them. "What?"

From the back seat, Terry piped up with, "See, I told you."

I thought I knew what was going on. "Oh, I get it." I looked in the rear view mirror. "Hey there, Emma. Am I the first person you've seen who was changed by the bubble?"

"No, my cousin was there, but she only lost a bunch of weight. She's pretty happy about it."

"Well then Terry, what's the see-I-told-you all about?"

"She didn't believe you were the girl in the video."

"Oh, that. Yeah, well, that was me." I tried to change the subject as I started backing out of the driveway. "So Emma, Terry tells me you live in Scotland now."

"Huh, wha... no." Emma was every bit as forward and outgoing as my nieces; I suppose that's why they were friends. She completely ignored my redirection attempt and plowed on with her line of questioning. "Brenda says to call you Lora. Is that OK?"

"Sure, that's fine."

"Cool name. Is it OK to ask you about what happened?"

"That depends on what you want to ask."

"Why did all those people come out of that tent and leave you two in there?"

"A big piece of metal fell on us and knocked us down. I guess nobody saw us."

"Is the other girl OK?"

"I hope so. She's still in the hospital."

"Did you know her?"

"Yeah... she's a good friend of mine. Listen, can we change the subject."

"Can I just say something first?" I didn't say no. She reached up and touched my shoulder. "I gotta tell you, what you did was just friggin amazing."

"Thanks Emma." She got me thinking about George; I could feel a lump forming in my throat. I knew that if we kept talking about this, I was probably going to start crying. I'm pretty sure the three of them could sense something, because the rest of the drive to Emma's place was filled with small talk.

I pulled into her driveway, and after a round of goodbyes and see-ya-laters, I asked the car in general, "So where are we headed?"

"Natick" was the response, in perfect two-part harmony.

-----

As I shut off the car, I decided that I better lay out a few ground rules.

"I want to have a talk before we go in there, OK?" I turned so that I could see both of them. "I need you both to understand something... this is going to be the first time I've been around a lot of people looking like this. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be fine with it, but if I say we gotta go, then we gotta go. OK?"

"Sure."

"Uh-huh."

"OK. And I know you're both probably dying to get me into Victoria's Secret or whatever, but it's not gonna happen. OK? All I need today is a few basics to get me through the next week or so. Clothes that I can get in and out of with one hand. Got it?"

Before Brenda could agree, Terry asked, "What about the restaurant?"

Immediately, Brenda chimed in with, "Yeah, you're gonna need something to wear at work this afternoon."

They were right, I hadn't thought about that. "We'll figure something out." With a nervous smile, I took a deep breath and said, "OK, let's do this."

-----

"Oh, this is cute."

I looked over at Terry. She was grinning and holding up a pink spandex micro-mini that said "Babe" across the butt.

I put a look of fake eagerness on my face. "Sure thing. I could wear that at work this afternoon."

Brenda held up a little white tube top. "Yeah... that skirt, this top and a pair of killer pumps. Business would triple."

Grinning, I shook my head. "Basics, ladies... remember, I said I need basics."

Terry countered with, "Oh come on Lora, you'd have no problem getting in and out of this with just one hand. That seems pretty basic to me."

That brought a nod of agreement from her sister. These two were a force of nature. When Brenda had called me the night before to cajole me into going shopping with them, I put up a show of resistance. But the truth was that I had hoped this would happen. I knew that they were going to do their level best to get me to be a girly-girl like them, and everyone knew that I had never been able to resist giving in to them. So if I suddenly appeared wearing things that weren't even remotely masculine or dowdy, it would be easy to blame it all on them.

"OK, you two, let's make a deal. Besides what I have on, I have practically nothing. So if we spend the next two hours concentrating on things like plain old jeans, T's, sweaters, shoes and underwear, then I'll put myself totally into your hands for half an hour. Deal?"

All it took was a glance between them before they looked at me and chorused, "Deal." That was almost too easy, as if they already had something planned. But it did the trick; by noon, the three of us were back at the car, throwing arm loads of bags into the car. I had what I came for and now it was their turn. The slam of the trunk lid seemed to be the signal they were waiting for. Without a word they each latched on to an arm and started marching me back into the mall.

"You don't have to take me captive, you know."

Brenda tried to explain. "It's chilly out here. We're just being cosy."

I countered with, "...said the spiders to the fly."

I expected to be tugged back into one of the many youth type clothing stores. But they didn't even glance into any of them as we appeared to be making a bee-line for the food court. Just as I was thinking they were only planning on having lunch, we headed up an escalator and wound up standing at the Piercing Pagoda. All three of us knew the power they had over me, so they weren't surprised when I didn't even try to resist.

"OK, just once. I don't want ten holes in each ear, OK?"

A thirty-ish looking woman read my hesitation and took control of the situation. "OK, honey, just pick out a pair of studs and we'll have this done in no time."

I looked at the girls. "Go ahead and pick something. Just nothing gaudy or goth, OK?"

Since birth, the twins had always been a pair of cute little attention magnets. So all morning, everything seemed perfectly normal whenever I caught someone stealing a glance at us. That had always happened whenever I was out anywhere with the two of them. So it surprised me when the woman working there seemed to be paying no attention at all to them.

After a minute of pretending to fuss about, she finally worked up the nerve to ask, "You're Lora Williams, aren't you?"

I couldn't place her; I was thinking that maybe we had met at the hospital. Curious, I answered, "Yup, that's me." When she didn't immediately go on, I asked, "I'm sorry, but I don't remember where I know you from."

She seemed embarrassed by that. "Oh, no, you don't know me. I read about you in the paper yesterday."

Now I was the embarrassed one. The twins interrupted their stud-hunting and turned to us. Terry smiled and poked Brenda in the ribs. "See, I told you."

I looked at Terry. "Told her what?"

Brenda explained. "She said people have been recognizing you all day, but I wasn't sure." She handed a pair of studs with little pink gems to the attendant. "She'll take these ones."

She took the studs from Brenda, scanned them and turned to me. "I thought it was you when you were walking up, but I wasn't sure until I saw the cast. Would it be OK if I took a picture with you?"

This definitely felt surreal, but I decided to just go with it. "Sure. Ah... what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Natasha."

"OK, Natasha. I guess it'd be best to take one now. I'm not sure if I'm going to be in the mood to smile after you pop a couple of holes in my head."

She laughed nervously, stuck her head beside mine and snapped a shot with her cell.

-----

Have you ever chipped a tooth? You know there's this little, sharp pointy spot on one of your teeth, but no matter how many times your brain tells your tongue to stay away from it, your tongue always ends up going back there anyway. My hand was like that with the little pink studs embedded in my ear lobes.

On our way across the parking lot, Terry stopped walking, crossed her arms and gave me an "angry mother" look. "Will you leave it alone, you're going to get that ear infected."

"I am so glad I only promised you two half an hour. Any longer, and I'd probably have one of these in my navel right now."

As if on cue, they both sang out, "There's always next week." Sometimes it was spooky how they seemed to act with a single mind.

Before I had a chance to respond, my phone started ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Lora?"

"Yes it is."

"This is Donna, George's daughter."

"Oh hi. How are you?"

"I'm doing OK. I just called to let you know they woke Dad up this morning."

"How's is he?"

"Well, he's responding to questions... and he understands what happened to him." There was a relieved little flutter in her voice. "Lora, it looks really good. The doctor says that we can probably expect a full recovery."

"Oh, Donna, that's fantastic news. You must be so relieved. Do you have any idea when I can come see her?"

"Her. You know, I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that. My Dad is a her. Oh, but listen to me... if anyone understands that, it's you right?"

"You can say that again." I chuckled. "But anyway, can I come see your Dad?"

"Oh, right. They want to keep him where he is for another day or two, so no, not just yet. But he asked about you. At first, I was worried that he was not quite with it... he was asking about his friend Lenny. It took me a few minutes to realize he was talking about you. I told him that we met, and about your arm. He was more worried about you than he was about himself."

"Your father is one special person, Donna. You need to make sure you call me the minute it looks like I can come and see him, OK?"

"Count on it."

We said our good byes and hung up. I had been so wrapped up in the phone call, I didn't even notice that I'd followed the girls right back to the car.

"That was my friend George's daughter. He's awake and it looks like he's going to be OK."

The two of them seemed a bit confused. Brenda asked, "Is that the girl from the fire?"

"Oh, yeah. Her name is George. I feel like I've known her forever; I forgot you never met her."

Terry cleared up the confusion. "You were saying he and him. It didn't sound like you were talking about a girl."

"I suppose it's going to take a lot longer for some of the affectees than it will for me. Not everyone has a pair like you to do an instant girl-ification on them."

Brenda wrung her hands together, doing her best imitation of an evil mad-scientist. "Girlified? Bwa-hah-hah... you ain't seen nothin' yet."

I felt a few butterflies in my stomach at that. I just couldn't tell if it was from excitement or terror.

-----

"Well don't you look spiffy? I love the blouse." Jessie kept chopping carrots while she looked at me. It was amazing how she could do that without chopping off her fingers.

"Pretty puffy, isn't it? It wasn't easy finding something with sleeves big enough to get over the cast."

"Where are the girls?"

"I dropped them off at home about an hour ago. Ben said he'd get them here by four."

Jessie moved to put the tub of chopped carrots in the fridge. "I see you let the girls talk you into getting your ears done. I like the pink."

"Please don't make me feel self-conscious about this, Jess. I'm jumping in the deep end here, and I'm not sure I can swim."

"I'm just saying... honestly, you look good, OK?"

I smiled and took a deep breath. "OK. Thanks Jess." I started heading for the office. "I've got a week's worth of paperwork to catch up on. If it gets busy, you know where I am."

"Sure thing. Oh, and Lora..."

I turned to look at her.

"Nice legs."

I rolled my eyes. "Jess, please?" She smiled and pulled her finger and thumb across her lips, zipping her mouth closed.

-----

Having a broken arm, I wasn't good for much of anything around the restaurant except greeting the guests, seating them and making sure they had menus. But with Saturday evening being our busiest time of the week, this was a job that definitely needed doing. It wasn't the first time I'd done this job, but it was the first time I'd done it as a hostess.

I didn't really expect to see anyone who would recognize me, but I only managed to seat three tables before a familiar face came through the door.

"Well hello there, Ken Donelly with one N." I was a bit on edge at being seen in a blouse and skirt by someone who knew who I was a week ago. I decided to deal with my nervousness by hiding it behind a smile mixed with a little bravado. "Are you here to get more 'perspective', or are you moonlighting as the Herald's food critic?"

"There's a rumor going around town. Folks are saying there's a friend of the Governor working here. I just had to see for myself."

It almost sounded like he was more nervous than me. "Don't believe every rumor you hear. Can I get you a table?"

"Actually, I just need a few minutes of your time. Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"Sure, just a second." I flagged down one of the twins. "Brenda, can you take the door for a few minutes?"

"No problem. Hey there, Ken with one N. You here to make my aunt more famous?"

He looked a little startled. "Something like that."

While he was following me back to the office, I caught sight of him in the mirror behind the bar. I could tell by the way he was staring at my backside that he didn't mind seeing me in a skirt. It was a strange sensation... I wasn't sure how it made me feel, but I knew I could learn to like it.

As soon as we were sitting down, he pulled out his cell phone. "I got a phone call from someone who's been trying to track you down." He held up his phone and asked, "Do you mind talking to someone?"

"Can you tell me who this mystery caller is?"

"I could tell you, but I'd really like to see the look on your face. Do you trust me?"

I took a good look at him. He didn't seem like he was trying to pull anything over on me. "Sure, what the hell."

"Great." He punched a button on his phone and put it to his ear. "Hi, Ken Donelly... Yeah, she's right here." He handed the phone to me.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Miss Williams?"

"Yes."

"Miss Williams, my name is Rachel Bextor. I'm an assistant producer for the Jimmy Kimmel Live show in Hollywood..."

==========================

Hi folks, Lora here.

I honestly believe that I'm having more fun writing this than anyone is having reading it.
I have these characters in my head so much that when I'm writing, I feel like I'm visiting old friends.
I wouldn't be writing this if no one was bothering to read it, so a big thank you to all of you.

Gotta run... chapter nine is rattling around in my head, and I'll go nuts if I don't let it out.

Oh, and please remember to punch the good story button on your way out. (and maybe leave a comment?)

:-)