Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 22

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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God said, "Who told you that you were naked?"

— Genesis 3:10

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Maybe the way I'm telling all this is giving the wrong impression. I have the feeling that I'm presenting myself, for the most part, as calm, level-headed, more-or-less in command of myself... which is not to say that I didn't bumble and fumble in some decisive moments. As a ready-to-hand example, if I really was clear-headed, I would have — quick as thought — clicked the swapper at my new self (Deeny) and my old self (Mason) and fixed the mix-up. Click, click: That's all it would have taken.

And yet, even if I had managed to keep cool and swap us back, it wouldn't solve the problem. Or problems, plural. Sure, Deeny and I would each be back where we belonged, living in our own bodies, but then what? I'd be the one flying off to a smelly zoo in the sky, while Deeny would be left here, shivering, naked, in the desert.

Who would be worse off?

Would my leaving and her being left, somehow be more fair?

There wasn't any win-win to be had. There was no way either of us could be a winner.

At least Deeny *wanted* to leave. To leave Mariola, specifically. Now, she had her wish... in a perverse genie-in-the-lamp fashion: where the genie grants your wish in the most literal, most unsatisfactory manner possible. Deeny didn't want to return to Mariola? Okay, fine: you don't want Mariola? Easy! Just forget about the entire planet. Bye!

Maybe I was rationalizing. Maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I was trying to justify the feeling that I'd cheated somehow. I did feel horribly guilty about not being taken to the zoo, about Deeny being taken in my place, but I was certainly better equipped than Deeny to navigate my current situation — that is: no clothes, the desert, the night. Deeny would have no idea where she was (although she might remember that I mentioned the desert near Robbins) and why she was even there. She'd have no idea how far she was from the highway, or why she'd been left standing next to a car whose battery was spent.

Would she even realize that she should wait for dawn, so she could follow the tire tracks out?

Granted, she had a good chance of arriving at that idea. Obviously, Hugh's car was pointing this way, which means it came from that way. She ought to get that far on her own.

But one thing I had, that Deeny didn't, was knowing Mayda's experience. I had that in spades. I *understood* what happened to me; it wasn't a total surprise. In addition, I had an obvious, if rudimentary, strategy, which was to fit myself into Deeny's life. How hard could that be?

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. While it's true that these thoughts automatically spilled out, rolled, and churned in my brain, I had an overriding physical need that required an immediate solution: For my basic survival, I had to get out of the cold! I couldn't *see* the color of my feet, but I could *feel* them painfully turning blue while the rest of me shook like an old jalopy clattering down a bumpy hill.

My hands trembled so uncontrollably, I needed both of them to pull open the driver door: each hand to steady the other; two hands to pull together. I leaped inside and slammed the door shut behind me. I yelped when my naked bottom touched the cold leather seat. I wiggled and twisted, whimpering the entire time, and in the end lifted my hips off the seat. This left my shoulders pressed against the seat back, but my shoulders were far less sensitive than my butt.

Without expectation of success, I turned the key. Nothing. No groan, no cough, no click. It was dead. I pumped the gas and tried again. Nothing. Swearing, I tried it three times more. Same result each time: nothing. Shivering like mad, but trying my best to not be frantic, I ran my hand across the dashboard. I opened the glove compartment and looked inside the console between the front seats. I stuck my hands in the door pockets. There was nothing helpful. All I found was material for cleaning the car: sprays, wipes, special cloths and tiny brushes.

I pulled the trunk release and heard it clank open behind me, but before going there, I crawled into the back seat and gave it a thorough search. It didn't take very long. Hugh kept his car so freakishly clean, there was little to find. There was NOTHING under the front seats, nothing in the seat-back pockets, nothing in the door pockets, nothing on the shelf under the rear window. Nothing at all.

The trunk was another story.

Before we were swept up by the aliens, Hugh mentioned that he had "supplies." They were all in the trunk. He had a six pack of water bottles — the large size — and an unopened box of twelve power bars. There were also two vacuum-sealed bags: one containing a blue wool blanket, and the other a full set of clothes. I noticed that he didn't have any actual safety equipment, such as flares or reflective triangles, an air pump, a flashlight, or a first aid kit.

No matter. I grabbed a bottle of water, the wool blanket, and three of the power bars. I slammed the trunk shut to keep at least some of the cold out of the car. By that point, I couldn't endure the frigid temperature for a single moment longer. My feet were in such pain that dancing didn't help. It felt as though knives were stabbing my feet on every side.

Also, as foolish as it sounds to say it, I felt very exposed out there in the desert, in the dark. I'm not talking about being naked. I'm talking about wild animals. I kept seeing/hearing a replay of my Aunt Hanna, counting off on her fingers the animals that (in Charlotte's telling) consumed Ross' corpse: crows, vultures, coyotes, wild dogs, wolves, and hyenas.

I knew full well that there are no hyenas in the United States, but it didn't stop me from being scared of them.

I closed myself in the car, in the back seat, and wrapped myself in the blanket. I held my feet in my hands, to warm them. It didn't seem to do any good: They felt like blocks of ice, and they hurt like mad. I nearly wept from the pain.

Soon, though, the wool began to do its magic. I stopped shivering. Now I was only shaking, and not that hard. I gobbled down the three power bars, one after the other, and drank a third of the water, cold as it was.

Once I was able to stop shaking and whimpering, I did something that made me laugh. After all those hours of intestinal distress, I kept catching myself putting my hand on my belly. What a relief! I did regret that poor Deeny was somewhere in space carrying a load of Pizza Alright inside her. Hopefully it'll pass through her digestive system soon, and that she, Hugh, and any companions of misadventure won't have to put up with those dreadful farts for long.

At the same time, running my fingers up and down my current stomach, I had to compliment Deeny on her abs. I don't know what sort of workout she's done up to now, but I decided then and there to find out what it is, learn it, and keep up with it.

 

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Once my feet finally stopped hurting, I found a more-or-less comfortable way to lie down in the back seat, curled up, knees bent. I lay on the blanket, wrapped it around me and tucked it again underneath me. Picture me as a big blue, woolen burrito.

The wind was constant. It gently plyed over the car, making a constant whooshing sound that resembled running water. Like a toilet whose handle needs jiggling. The air current wasn't strong enough to rock the car, thank goodness. The only effect was white noise.

I locked all the doors and lay there, wrapped up, silent, alone, in the middle of nowhere. I don't often think about God, but I wondered in those moments what He, She, or It would make of me if they looked down from their stately palace in the sky. Would they know my thoughts? My emotions? My fears and hopes? My guilt and denial? Could they key into my state of attention, to the way I listened to every sound outside and around the car? Cocooned in blue wool, I had only my face exposed, though occasionally I lifted my head to expose my ears, in case there was something I needed to hear, like an animal pawing or sniffing. I couldn't shut out the mental image of a bear, poking around the car, full of curiosity.

Of course, again, there were no bears in that desert. Except in my imagination. Still, I listened for them.

Hearing is a passive activity: sounds come *to* us; we don't need to hunt them out. And yet, my hearing had never been more acutely, actively aware. Without wishing or wanting to, I reached out with my auditory sense to its farthest radius. Someone in a movie said, "No one can sneak up on you in a desert." I don't believe it. If you walked softly, came from downwind, sure... you could sneak up on someone. I couldn't help but keep my guard up. Way, way up. I'm sure that in a city I wouldn't be able to extend the reach of my senses as far as I did that night.

With all I'd been through, and with my nerves on high alert, I didn't expect to sleep. That was for sure. I wasn't tired. I wasn't wired, either. I was fully awake, simply that. Maybe it was simple paranoia, or possibly I was full of adrenaline. Maybe my negative imagination was working overtime. Out there, literally in the middle of nowhere, I expected someone to come upon me, to knock on the car, to try the handles, some time tonight.

Absurd, maybe. But that's where my head was, while my body was wrapped up and lying there.

I took an inventory of my current self, my current state. Even if my new body was unfamiliar to me, there were a few things I could tell. One I've already alluded to: Deeny was in good shape. She took good care of herself. Another, probably related fact was that — whatever else Deeny had done tonight, she hadn't consumed much alcohol. In fact, she probably hadn't had any. She hadn't taken any drugs, either. My body felt clean; my mind was clear and sharp. At least, as far as I could tell.

Now that I settled my big, immediate issue — which was how to survive the night and the cold, I ruminated over my real big question: how do I go about fitting myself into Deeny's life? It shouldn't be hard, right? After all, I had the price of admission: Deeny's body, her DNA, her fingerprints. Her history (for good or for bad) was mine now. I simply had to recover it.

Even though I only had two clues (the name Deeny and the town Mariola), it shouldn't be difficult to find out who she is, or was: How many Deenys could there be in Mariola (or anywhere for that matter!)? How many Deenys in Mariola broke their engagement last night? How many Deenys in Mariola broke their engagement last night and disappeared soon after?

I'll bet I could simply walk into town and people would know who I am, where I belong, and what they expect of me. Mariola's not that big a town; about on par with Amsterholt, where I grew up.

It sounded like the start of an old Western film, something like High Plains Drifter where a stranger ambles into town, right up the main street... but he's not really a stranger at all.

No, I wanted to walk in a little better prepared. I wanted to know what sort of hello I could reasonably expect.

It would help if I knew her last name. But I don't. I don't really know her first name, either. Deeny: that's all I have to work with. It must be be a nickname, but for what? Claudine? Nadine? D'neen? Shardeen? Aberdeen?

It could be anything. Once I got back to civilization, I could go to a public library and do all sorts of internet searches. Figure it out.

Maybe I could ask the police to help me. Would they? How would I explain that I didn't know who I am?

Amnesia? Not likely.

No one would ever believe anything that far-fetched. Besides, there's no way I could pretend to have amnesia. I'm not devious enough. I'm not a good liar. I always get caught out. Better stick to the truth. Or as close to the truth as possible.

Anyway, I doubt that amnesia ever happens in real life. It's like quicksand. You only hear about that kind of thing on old TV shows and soap operas.

The best plan, I concluded once again, just before I fell asleep, was this: find the Robbins library, look up my name, and get in touch with my — with Deeny's — family. Hopefully, they'd help me get back to Mariola.

That would be the beginning of my new life.

 

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Once the sun came up, things got hot pretty quickly. I threw off the blanket and threw open the doors. Last night I was shivering; now I was sweating.

The first thing I did was try to start the car again. Of course, it was still dead. The battery hadn't miraculously come back to life. The engine didn't even acknowledge my attempts to turn it over.

So! Time to start walking! Before the sun got too high in the sky.

But first, I gobbled down three more power bars and drank a liter of water.

My nakedness was a different kind of vulnerability during the day. At night, my only problem was keeping warm. By day, I had several problems, different problems, mostly due to the intensity of the sun. Out here there wasn't the barest whisper of shade, and what rays didn't hit me directly, reflected up at me from the ground. It was hot. Damnably hot. I had to be careful to not get dehydrated or severely sunburned. Going barefoot was still a problem, but in the opposite direction. While last night, the ground was too painfully cold to walk on, soon it would be hot enough to roast the soles of my feet.

One last problem, a social one: Now that I was heading back to civilization, I needed to cover my nakedness.

I tore into Hugh's bag of emergency clothes — neatly vacuum-packed, no less! After ripping it open, I pulled out everything: shoes, socks, underwear, pants, and a t-shirt. The shirt, of all the colors it could be, was black. Not the best color for keeping cool!

Everything was extra-large. Hugh is, after all, one big guy. The t-shirt fit me like a minidress. Everything else was too absurdly big for me to use. The shoes were like boats; my feet slid around in them. They wouldn't stay on my feet.

In the end, I went off wearing Hugh's t-shirt and his socks. I used the clothing bag to carry two bottles of water and the remaining six power bars. In my other hand I held another of Hugh's "emergency supplies": a large black umbrella, which effectively kept off the sun, although at the same time it radiated a good bit of the heat its blackness absorbed.

There was one item I wished for, over and over, and that was a watch, or other some way of telling time. My phone, Hugh's phone, and (I'm guessing) Deeny's phone, were all up on the flying saucer, doing no one any good.

I walked. And walked. And walked. I'm guessing that I walked for three hours, but honestly I have no idea — which is why I wanted a watch! The entire way I kept calculating and re-calculating. I couldn't help it. I knew that last night, we drove for about twelve minutes from the highway. I'm sure we didn't go faster than 30 mph, so we covered six miles tops.

I figured I could reach the highway in two hours, if it wasn't so homicidally hot and I wasn't barefoot.

If I had a watch, I'd be able to estimate how far I was from the highway. Knowing me, I'd keep figuring best and worst case estimates, the entire way. I'd have a range of expections for when I'd see the highway.

I took my time and tried to stay calm. I didn't want to get overheated. I took occasional sips of water. I kept squinting my eyes, walking with my eyes closed to slits to try to deal with the intense sunlight.

The socks didn't serve me for very long. Even though (at first) they protected my feet from the hot ground, they were way too big. They shifted around on my feet. Once a hole appeared, the hole rapidly expanded. I turned the socks to present a fresh, unbroken face toward the ground. Soon, I ran out of ways to turn them; the socks were done. Consumed. Maybe they were cheap socks, I don't know. It doesn't matter. What I do know is that I reached a point where wearing them was worse than being barefoot.

At that point I did my best to keep to the scrub grass. If I stepped there, it wasn't so bad. My feet were getting blistered, yeah, but the scrub grass wasn't burning me.

Eventually I reached the highway. I remembered that left was east; left was Robbins. So I dashed across the road (God! was it hot!) and watched for traffic. Didn't see any.

Up ahead, on the other side of the road, was a sign that warned DO NOT LEAVE HIGHWAY. Damn it. I wish I'd seen it before running across the hot asphalt. Still... I made another mad dash and stood with my feet in the shadow of the sign. I crouched down under the umbrella. It was hard to get comfortable, but at least I wasn't walking any more. I'd arrived. I just had to wait for someone heading to Robbins.

Of course, if someone came along, heading for Aldusville, I'd happily accept a ride in that direction. Anything to get back to civilization.

I considered things for a moment, and realized I had to be about midway between Aldusville and Robbins.

Not that the relative distances mattered, once I was inside a car, but it suddenly occurred to me that I could shorten my plan — my plan to fit into Deeny's life — if I went straight to Mariola. Why not? Deeny certainly didn't make it sound very attractive, that could be due to her attitude, couldn't it. In any case, what choice did I have? What exactly did I mean to do, after all, when I landed in Robbins? I'd be looking for a way to get to Mariola.

Then again, there was something waiting for me in Robbins: the money Aunt Hanna had given me! Most of it was locked in the safe in my room at the Good Old Inn. The car she gave me was there as well, sitting in the hotel parking lot. So there was that: two reasons to go to Robbins.

In the midst of this idle musing, it suddenly occurred to me that I could have, and maybe should have, taken Hugh's keys from the ignition. It hadn't occurred to me at the time. I could get his address from the car registration, and that would give me someplace else to go in Robbins: a third reason. I had the impression that he lived alone. He never said so, but he had that vibe. At Hugh's house I could shower, dress the blisters on my feet, drink gallons of water, and find another enormous t-shirt to wear.

Oh, well. I was not about to go back. For a set of keys? Keys of dubious value? I wasn't about to subject myself to another barefoot trek through the desert, going and coming.

So I waited. I shifted when the sign's shadow shifted. Imagining the signpost's shadow as the indicator on a sundial, I figured I'd been there an hour, and hadn't seen a single car.

I remembered the words of the gas-station owner in Aldusville: "Eventually one of the State Troopers will find you. Just make sure you carry plenty of water." I still had some; about a third of a bottle, a third of a liter. I'd been pretty careful with it so far.

More time passed. I got bored with waiting, but there was no point in walking. I spotted a patchy clump of scrub grass across the road, so I made a third mad dash and sat on the grass. I examined my feet. They weren't too bad. I'd need to wash them and disinfect the broken blisters, but I'd come off pretty easy.

I finished the water. Then I got thirsty. I played with the bottle for a while, crinkling and popping it, the way a kid would do, to distract himself. Then, at that point, I somehow got turned around. Probably because of dehydration. I couldn't see the spot where Hugh turned off the highway, and somehow I wasn't sure how many times I'd run across the highway — not that it mattered really. I'd take the first car that showed, even if it was heading straight to Hell.

Oddly, in all my thinking, considering, planning, the one thing I didn't give much thought to was my new body. I was so wrapped up in the heat, in the walking, in which direction I was going, that I didn't have the energy to fuss about being female, being Deeny. Each time my mind driftedto the events on the spaceship, I turned away from those memories and thought about something else.

Then, finally, I saw a car.

While he was still miles off, not much larger than a dot, I started waving at him. I closed up my umbrella and shook it like a big flag. He flashed his lights at me and honked his horn to signal that he'd seen me.

After a seeming eternity he pulled up next to me and rolled down his passenger-side window. "What happened?" he asked.

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed. "What didn't happen? Can you give me a ride?"

"Yes, of course," he said. While we were talking, I didn't mean to be rude, but I kept flipping the door handle, trying to open the door. It was locked, though, and the guy didn't unlock it. "Don't open that door," he instructed. "You need to get in back. The front seatbelt doesn't work."

He had to repeat the same thing to me three times before it finally registered with me. Again, it was probably the effect of dehydration. In any case, I opened the back passenger-side door and climbed in. "What happened to you?" the driver repeated. "Did your car break down? Don't you have a phone? What on earth are you doing out in the desert, dressed like that?"

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed. "Long story. Long, complicated story. Hey — which way are we headed now? What town is up ahead?"

"It's Robbins," he answered, sounding a little puzzled. "Like your shirt."

"My shirt?"

"It says Robbins Police Department. Is that you? Are you a cop?"

"No, heh. I wish, though! But no, this isn't my shirt."

"Okay," he said. I was shifting around restlessly, and noticed he was watching me. His eyes were glued to the rear-view mirror.

"My name's Amos," he told me. "What's yours?"

"Uh— it's— uh, Deeny," I said, almost forgetting my new name. "I think I'm pretty dehydrated, Amos. Dangerously dehydrated. Do you have any water?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "There ought to be a bottle or two back there, rolling around." With that he swept his arm behind him, touching the floor between my feet, stretching to search under the front passenger seat. "Somewhere," he added. As he stretched his arm, his body followed, and his head turned completely around. He looked me full in the face, then his eyes dropped to my bare knees. His left hand (the hand on the steering wheel) followed the rest of his body, pulling the car to the right.

"Amos! Amos! Eyes on the road!" I exclaimed. "Eyes on the road!"

He quickly glanced forward and pulled the car straight. "Heh, sorry there!" he chuckled. "No worries! We're fine; we're fine."

"You almost drove off the road!" I pointed out.

His swerving caused a small bottle of water to roll out from under the driver's seat. I picked it up and showed him. "Can I drink this?"

"Sure! Sure! I think there might be more back there..." His hand continued to grope the floor near my feet, touching my ankle twice. He turned again to face me. "So where are you headed?"

I was busy making quick work of the water, so I didn't notice at first that he was staring between my legs.

He asked, "Do you have a place to go, when you get to Robbins?"

"Yeah,- my— uh—" I still had trouble thinking, and lapsed into silence for a few beats. "My hotel," I murmured.

"You want to go to a hotel?" Amos asked, grinning.

It was only when I said the words "my hotel" out loud that I understood something... something I should have understood earlier. There was no point in going to the hotel. They wouldn't know me. I wasn't Mason any more. If I were, even without my identification, I could have convinced them to let me into my room, but that wasn't possible any more. Alternatively, if I still had the room key, I could get into the room, take a shower, drink water, etc., and recover my money. Unfortunately my room key was now in the lost-and-found bin on an alien spacecraft...

No, everything in my hotel room was lost to me, unless I could break in and open the safe. Not very likely.

Aunt Hanna's car was lost to me as well. The key, after all, was up in the spaceship.

I couldn't call a locksmith; there was no way I could demonstrate ownership. I didn't have any money to pay a locksmith, anyway. So, goodbye, car!

"No," I said. "Never mind. No hotel. There isn't any point."

He seemed disappointed.

That's when I spotted the other car, up ahead. Amos didn't see it. His eyes were glued to the rear-view, looking at me as though I was a dish of candy. His arm was stretched back, his hand now touching my foot, his forearm resting against my calf, while he pretended to search for water...

"Amos!" I exclaimed. "Eyes on the road! God damn it! Eyes on the road! Come on, man! There's a car up ahead!"

He glanced at the car heading toward us. It was still a ways off. Amos jerked the wheel right, causing the car to wiggle and swerve into place. "We're fine," he repeated, and his eyes jerked back to the mirror. His car started drifting left, then right.

"God damn it, Amos! Keep your eyes on the road! There's a car coming, damn it! Watch that car!"

Finally he got a little anxious, but not enough. He did another slight course correction, wiggling the wheel.

We went through the same silly pantomime one more time, until I grabbed his head, turned it forward, and shouted, "LOOK AT THE ROAD!"

BAM! was the first noise, followed by crunches, metal squealing, glass breaking. There came a thousand small snaps and cracks, and the strange slow-motion non-sound of a car pivoting up in the air followed by the boom when it returned to earth. After all that, came the rhythmic crunch-and-release as the car did a full side-to-side rotation, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, and then repeated the roll a second time. I was thrown forward, then backward. Upward against the inside roof of the car, and down again.

I don't remember getting hit in the head. I don't remember being thrown from the car. All I remember is the noise stopping, all at once. Followed by hissing and dripping and the roar of a car engine.

Suddenly, nothing made sense at all.

I landed on my butt in the desert, in a daze, looking around me, knowing nothing.

 

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"And that's where I come in, isn't it," Wade commented. "I guess I know the rest."

"Yes, I guess you do," I agreed, surprised that I'd manage to reach the end of the story. It seemed at times that I'd have to keep talking forever.

"I will say this," Wade told me, "You tell it well. You certainly have the sincerity bit down pat. Big points on that score."

"Does that mean you believe me?" I asked.

He scoffed. "Are you kidding? Of course not! I don't believe a word!" After a pause, in which he regarded the two empty drink glasses on the table before him, he added, "I believe the real parts... the parts that could be real, I suppose. But the chunk that you cribbed from the Iodine Story is just... a non-starter. It's ridiculous and unoriginal. It's a big no from me."

He ran his finger along the rim of his glass. "There's really only one question I have to ask you. And not just me— I'm sure the police will ask you this as well: Did you really have amnesia? Or was that just an act?"

My jaw dropped. I stared at him, offended and surprised.