I sat on the park bench crying my eyes out, stunned by the unreal encounter I'd had with my hospitalized father. In just one day he had gotten so much worse...

A dozen or so ducks had wandered up from the pond to come check me out. Quacking, shaking their little tails, unafraid, so darn cute. Now the ducks were making me cry.

"Sorry babies, I got nothin' for you!" I sniffed as I rummaged through my purse, hoping that somehow a bag of Duck Chow I hadn't realized I was carrying might appear in there.

Suddenly a flock of Canada geese---thinking my little friends were on to a handout---ran in and chased them all away.

"Oh," I gasped, "OH!"

And now the geese were in front of me instead, acting like I was supposed to recognize them as the more rightful recipients of whatever treats I had. I knew their type. Thugs. Schoolyard bullies. The alpha male reared his head, scornfully staring me down...

"Oh yeah?" I jeered, "I wouldn't give you nothin' even if I had it, you stupid goose. Damn right I'm talkin' to you! We're the only ones here, who else would I be talking to? Think your so bad don'tcha? Beating up on a these poor little ducks. Why don't you try picking on somebody your own size. Come on tough guy, right now! You and me!"

When from out of nowhere came a woman's voice: "Joy?"

PLAY . . NICE!
LAIKA PUPKINO ~ 2009
PART TEN: MOTHERSHIP DOWN

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[NOTE: THE EVENTS OF PART 10 DON'T TAKE PLACE AFTER THE CONCLUSION OF PART 9 BUT RIGHT ABOUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT SAME DAY. TO ME IT JUST WORKS BETTER THIS WAY...]
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||| THURSDAY OCTOBER 9 ~~~

After I saw my father this morning (but he didn't see me) I went to the park to cry.

Or it wasn't really anything so planned, I hadn't left the hospital with coming here in mind but had noticed this spacious expanse of green lawn sloping down away from me on my right at about the same time as I was realizing that I could hardly see, and shouldn't be driving. I found an entrance, the little road leading in toward the park's east parking lot, and pulled into one of the hundred or so slots in the herringbone array of white stripes. This being a weekday there were only five other cars here. Probably retirees or the unemployed, trying to catch whatever sorry type of fish dwelled in the park's four little lakes.

I found this table under a tree, on a little rise overlooking the smallest pond, and just let go. It was nice here. Much nicer than crying at the hospital. There was a tiny bit of a breeze, which took the edge off the unseasonable heat, and with no one less than a couple hundred feet away in any direction I had some privacy.

It was nothing new for me to be crying after a visit with my father, but there was something different about it today. Unlike those times when my tears had been brought about by Papa's cruelty, and that whole comedy of errors that surrounded my inhabiting Joy's body and posing as her, I wasn't crying in reaction to him so much as for him. It was more primal somehow, with a huge element of raw fear. The issues behind this were clearer, not dragging me into that morass of "what should I do?" About this there was nothing you could do!

I didn't want my daddy to die, or to become unreachably crazy. Much better for him to be unreachable by choice---hating me even---than to disappear into the black hole of dementia.

I supposed I could pray for him, but this hardly seemed like doing anything. People got sick, people died. Period. God might have "a plan for each of us", but over the long anonymous trudge of history it seemed like he has used most of us for fertilizer. Mama had been cut down, not even fifty yet, and now this. How utterly fucking helpless we all are eventually. Prisoners within our failing bodies, our dimming minds...

Like a tongue probing at an inflamed tooth I kept returning to dismal thoughts like these, knowing they would bring more tears.

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A dozen or so ducks had wandered up from the pond to come check me out. Quacking, shaking their little tails, unafraid, maybe even a bit smug, but in a way that I found endearing. Their faces, the lines of their beaks and their whimsical vocalizations always made me think of ducks as happy little souls, when they might actually be no happier than a flock of blank-eyed pigeons. Now the ducks were making me cry...

"Sorry babies, I got nothin' for you!" I sniffed, wishing like hell I did. Feeding them would be just what I needed right now, a real balm to my soul. I went rummaging through my purse, hoping that somehow a bag of Duck Chow I didn't realize I was carrying might appear in there. I could tell the ducks were hoping so too.

Suddenly a flock of Canada geese---thinking my little friends were on to a handout---ran in and chased all the cute ducks away.

"Oh!" I gasped, "Oh!"

And now the geese were in front of me instead, acting like I was supposed to recognize them as the more rightful recipients of whatever treats I had. I knew their type. Thugs. Schoolyard bullies...

"Get out of here you stupid geese! Don't! Leave her alone! Hey! HEY!" I shouted, clapping my hands at this big male who was thumping on a terrified little brown hen with his beak until she managed to break away. The bull turned and reared his head, scornfully staring me down.

"Oh yeah?" I jeered, "I wouldn't give you nothin' even if I had it, you asshole. You heard me, you're an asshole! Stupid asshole goose. You're damn right I'm talkin' to you, who else would I be talking to? Think your so bad don't you, beating up on a bunch of poor little ducks? You're four times their size! You wanna try me? We'll see how tough you are. Come on tough guy! You and me!"

When from out of nowhere came a voice. "Joy?"

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I yelled and jumped. The geese all scattered.

"Oh crap, you scared me!" I barked hoarsely, turning to see a tall redhead poised behind a baby stroller.

"Sorry Clyde," grinned my old friend. It was Jennifer Thurston, the girl that Joey had told me was living back in Princeton, staying with her mom after motherhood had cut short her dreams of being a stand-up comic and actress in New York. I hadn't spoken with her since my last trip back here...

Or no. It hadn't been during that rushed and hectic visit (which had been wholly centered on my mom's funeral...) but my previous one. Nearly a decade ago.

Jennifer's hair was shorter now and she'd dyed it red. Or it had always been red, but now it was this deliberately fake plastic-looking red, cut into a sort of mullet. Short on the sides, poufy on the top, like David Bowie on the cover of Aladdin Sane only minus the lightning bolt. And some---remembering the rich tones of her natural hair---might mourn such a radical step, but I thought it looked cool. The way it complimented or even flaunted her pouty-lipped androgynous beauty, which people often compared to rock legend Jim Morrison. This hairdo might have gone better with some equally flamboyant attire (a sleazy gold lamé caftan, a Barbarella-style space vixen's outfit...) than these casually funky clothes she had on, but Jennifer was on her own time here---taking her baby to the park---and not opening for the Dresden Dolls at CBGB's...

"Where'd you come from Jenny? You snuck up on me like a ninja!"

"Not really. You were preoccupied," she said with an impish smirk. She pointed to one of the packed dirt trails that meandered through the patchwork of grassy spaces and groves of trees, the maze of ponds and streams and graffitti'd little concrete bridges. "I was taking Edgar for a walk, when I saw you up here. Or I thought it was you anyway."

She looked down into the stroller and began joggling it by its handlebars. A tiny baby peered out at me with the sleepy befuddled eyes of a three-month-old before the rocking made his head tilt and his eyes close. His fair skin was velvety soft, as yet unmarked by the world he had so recently entered. In those tiny bright yellow overalls he was just adorable.

Jennifer smiled at the way I was looking him, glad that I didn't find her baby ugly. She said, "So Joy, what are you doing here clear across town? I mean besides fighting with geese. This is quite a ways on the bus."

My nemesis was still glaring back at me as they waddled away, as if to say that if this other human hadn't shown up to unbalance the odds he would've totally kicked my ass. Not even sure where to start describing this weird day I was having, I shrugged, "I was just, uh..."

"Not that I blame you. Those honkers can sure be obnoxious sometimes. So what were you trying to feed the ducks?"

"I wasn't," I admitted, "I was just checking. I thought I might have a couple of packets of crackers in here. This park, well it's near the hospital. My dad's in there."

"Yeah, your brother mentioned something about that."

"Really? So you've seen him?"

"No, he came by a few days ago and I wasn't there. He talked to my mom, and she fed him a couple of sandwiches while he wrote me this bizarre note."

"Bizarre?" I asked, imagining a half-dozen embarrassing things this might mean.

"Well for one thing his handwriting was really different. Used to be neat, like an engineer or somebody would have. Now it was in cursive and I could barely read it. It said some stuff about your father. Pretty bitter for Teddy, almost like your pops was getting what he deserved. And here I thought those two were getting along better."

"Papa hasn't been the best of patients. It's pretty aggravating visiting him when all he does is dump on you. Even Grandma Rosa's getting fed up with him."

"Oh, okay. But mostly it was all this, uh-" she laughed uneasily, "Saying how he knew he never used to be cool, and knew what a big dork he used to be, but now he was a lot cooler, and I'd be amazed at how much cooler and more fun he was!"

"You know my brother! He was kidding around, obviously. Like your 'Mr. Smooth' character..."

"If he was it was a pretty dry. More creepy than funny. But I sure hope he was, I'd hate for him to show up all 'Hey Baby' like that, with his shirt unbuttoned and a gold figa hanging around his neck. I liked Teddy just fine the way he was. But you know how tight we were! As much as I am with you, but in a different way."

"Tighter, it seems like."

She nodded. I'd said it, not her. "Well we did have a lot in common, being more on the, uh- the nerdy end of the spectrum than the kids you ran with. It's a shame me and him never managed to stay in touch..."

Seeing my friend again had already brightened up my day. She was brilliant, funny and just super fun to hang around with. And wow, did she love to talk! Back in high school we seemed to get a lot of the same classes; our study sessions at her house or mine turning into these epic gabfests that would only break up when a bleary eyed parent came in to announce that it was past midnight, and we were keeping them up, and who the hell cares about the Teapot Dome Scandal?

I was suddenly reminded of just how much I'd missed this girl. A woman now, but with all the same little mannerisms and turns of phrase. Her "Jennifer-isms", like calling everyone Clyde, (which our teachers used to hate when she did it to them, although there was no malice in this). Why had we dropped so far out of contact? I'd checked out her web site from time to time but never left a comment...

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The device she'd been pushing looked liked it was designed to go 90 miles an hour over over the surface of Mars. Expensive bicycle wheels, anodized tubing converging at weird angles to cradle the little rubberized acceleration couch, black accordion-pleated shock absorbers everywhere.

I pointed. "What is that thing?"

"That's a baby."

"I meant the stroller!"

"They're kind of new. You can run with these."

"So you still run?"

"Every day," she said, rocking on her white Nike Trailblazers, that had cute little ruffled socks peeking out from their tops. Like her magnificent tan thighs---which fairly burst from the frayed legs of her cut-off jeans---her calves were nice and buff, though not so muscled up that they were funny looking. And yes I was checking out her legs...

Jenny was one of those lithe, tall hipless basketball player-type girls, the sort that I sometimes felt glimmerings of sexual attraction to, which had made me wonder if I wasn't partly straight after all. The answer turned out to be no, not nearly enough; but she and I had had a modest amount of fun finding this out (she's a great kisser!); and our experiments in this direction hadn't damaged our friendship at all. As she had put it, "Well, we can't say we didn't try..."

And now she had me wondering if Teddi-with-an-I wasn't at least somewhat of a lesbian. Jennifer was proudly bisexual, so a new run of experiments wouldn't be inconceivable. Or at least if I wasn't happily and monogamously engaged...

Even with her recent pregnancy she couldn't have been more than eight pounds heavier than the last time I'd seen her, which wasn't much on her big frame. I said, "You look fantastic!"

"Not completely," she frowned, and flipped up the bottom third of her embroidered white cotton peasant blouse to reveal the deflated little pouch of her tummy. She gazed down at it in disgust, then dropped the curtain on it.

"But that's nothing! Of course you'll have that for a while. And in a way it's beautiful," I told her. Not that I had some stretch-mark fetish, but it didn't repulse me in the least, "I mean you know ....... what it means."

"Yeah," she said quietly. She knew what I meant.

She joggled the stroller some more, both of us watching as Edgar succumbed to sleep again. His thumb was curled inside his dainty little hand like he thought he had something in there. The way his red hair was coming in had given him a prominent tuft at the front almost like his mommy's.

I would have loved to be able to pick him up, but I'd known enough mothers with babies this young to know that when they're sleeping is Mama's time to relax and recharge her batteries. He'd be up and needing every bit of her attention---and then some---soon enough.

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"Hey, you want a juice? I've got carrot and I've got pomegranate," she said as she pulled two plastic bottles out of a pouch of rubber webbing on the back of the stroller's seat. I couldn't even remember what pomegranate tasted like so I tried that. It was tart, good.

Jennifer was studying me as we drank. I'd had the residual sniffles all through our conversation, and I knew my face must've been a mess. She indicated the damp wad of tissues that I still had clutched in my hand. "Rough day, huh?"

I slumped my shoulders dramatically, "Rough week! Like I say I've been going to see my father, and he hasn't been too receptive to my coming around. Or maybe you don't need to hear all this. It's pretty messed up!"

"Of course I want to hear it. We're friends, aren't we?"

Her dazzling jade eyes seemed to be looking right into me, and the loving concern in them brought fresh tears to mine. That's how much of a basket case I was today. Just a look could set me off...

I told her about my father's mysterious illness, and how rotten he'd been treating me, giving her some of the choicer examples; which at one point provoked her to call him "Father of the Year". This appellation just oozed with sarcasm; that burning protective anger that wells up in you when you learn of some abuse or injustice someone you love has suffered. Jenny had never much liked Papa, but now she absolutely hated his guts.

But when it came to the matter of WHY my sister had become a nonperson in our father's eyes, I didn't know how much Joy/Joey would want our friend to know. I hesitated.

"The abortion, you mean."

"Oh," I said. She knew.

"Hello? I was there, remember? You coming to stay at my little rat-hole apartment on Mulberry Street? Us talking half the night before I went to that place with you?"

"Oh yeeeeah," I crowed, like some dimwitted cartoon character, "My brains, I think I left 'em back at th' hospital there!"

"He must've really upset you then. What a bastard!"

"That's the thing though, he wasn't one. Or not to his daughter anyway. This wasn't like those other times, him calling me slut and a murderer and all that. This was from way out in left field, just so bizarre, so confusing ....... I'm still confused obviously, to forget how how wonderful you were back in December! So anyway, I went into his room, expecting all his usual invective; but-"

"Invective?!"

"Yeah, you know," I said, a bit baffled by this interruption.

"I know. It just surprised me that you'd put it that way."

"How should I put it?"

"It's not that. It's just ........ well to be honest it's just not a word I'd ever imagine you using."

"Joy's not stupid, you know!" I found myself blurting out. It was the first time in several days I'd screwed up about staying in character.

"No she's not," Jen responded without missing a beat, "Jennifer never said she was. Jennifer likes that Joy is using her whole vocabulary and not playing the tough little dropout for once. But she's troubled by this sudden shift to third person. Could Joy be dissociating?"

"Smart ass!" I giggled. "All right, maybe I am. It was so insane in there. It was ........ well words fail me."

She raised an unkempt eyebrow, "Which is really saying something. Because we've been talking here, and .......... Well like the way you described that fight with your father on Saturday! Like a Reuters war correspondent or somebody might tell it. It's like suddenly you're this whole different, more articulate person. It's nice, but it's kind of weird."

"What can I say? I get articulate when I'm confused."

The illogic of this earned me a Boing. She sent her hand flying out from the side of her head---as if her brains were exploding out of it---and went "BOING!" This was another classic Jennifer-ism, and I laughed as I remembered the way she used to do this; to show that she was baffled by some paradox or absurdity.

"Okay, I guess you do," she grinned. "Say, how's your Grandma doing? I saw her once right after I came home. She was driving past me, but I guess didn't hear me when I hollared. It couldn't have been anyone else, not with that white hair and that bright pink sari she had on. I just love that woman to pieces!"

"Grandma's doing great. And she loves you too. She talks about you. She always said you were 'destined for greatness'."

"Greatness? I don't think so. My glorious show business career is in shambles."

"For now maybe. But her prognostications turn out to be accurate way more often than not."

"Prognostications?"

"For God's sake, Jenny! Are you gonna do this every time I use a word with more than two syllables? It's making me self-conscious! I had a thesaurus for breakfast, all right?"

"Mmmmmm, wordy!" she droned, angling her head back and making an insipid gargling sound, like Homer Simpson after he's eaten something weird. "Okay, I won't do it again. It's just curious is all. You must be hanging out with your brother a lot since you two got here, you're totally acting like him!"

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Eventually I managed to finish telling her about today's visit with Papa. She laughed, cringing and shuddering- "That's HORRIBLE!"

We had both been laughing throughout this story, which had become grotesquely comical somehow in the telling (Of all the things he could've flipped out over it had been that strange kid's show!), with those blee-blee-bloo-bloos and all her astute interruptions and another 'BOING!' or two; and somewhere in there I'd begun crying again, laughing and crying at the same time, which Jennifer commended as "multitasking"...

And by the the time I finished I felt much better. Still scared shitless for my father's health and sanity, but feeling a whole lot less morbid and agitated than when I'd been sitting here ready to go Rambo on a bunch of dumb geese.

"Anyway, that's what I've been up to. So how about you Jenny? Besides creating this little sweetie pie here."

"Nothing really. To tell you the truth I haven't been doing anything besides taking care of him. Mostly just dealing with my abject failure as a professional stand-up comic."

"What?! You came home to have your baby. I'd hardly call that failure."

She shook her head, "I was giving up and coming home anyway. This just cinched it."

"What the hell? You're a natural! I've seen what you can do with a crowd."

"Back in school, you mean? I was also a varsity basketball player, but we both know I'd never make it in the pros..."

I started to protest, that she was better than 90% of those jerks you see on Comedy Central, when suddenly the air was filled by a desperate wailing!

"Uh oh! Somebody's up."

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Carefully she lifted the infant out of the pilot's seat and clutched him to her, "What's da matter Lil' Eggies? Huh? Oh, you say you just a liddle baby and dunno how ta talk? S'okay, Mommy's gonna figure dis out..."

Edgar wasn't at all appeased by this, but continued shrieking to wake the dead! It was strange how this piercing sound wasn't bothering me in the way it usually did [An intrusion into MY day that you had no right to subject me to; A nasty little first-impulse that I would always chide myself for in the next second, as I remembered that a.) The whole damn world doesn't revolve around me; and that .b) Babies are sort of necessary for the continuation of the human race...]; but rather his helpless cries had filled me instantly with an urgency to solve whatever the problem was and make Baby a happy baby again...

I'd been noticing these feelings in myself before, from just about the first night of this body swap, which could be triggered by the sight of dogs on t.v., a kitty cat sitting in a window, toddlers following their mother around the supermarket. And while I'd always felt a tenderness toward anything small and helpless, what made me think of these impulses as different---as maternal---was the enormous physical component they had to them. A body rush, a sweet ache of desire to hatch something out of me and love it forever. And what was frightening was how freaking powerful these impulses were! Like they might drive me to storm into a sperm bank with a Glock 9 in one hand and a turkey baster in the other: 'ALL RIGHT MOTHERMAKERS! THIS IS A KNOCK UP!'

"It's usually one of a few simple things," said Jennifer. She palpatated the bottom of his Builder Bob overalls and grimaced, "Yeah I thought so..."

I watched as she laid him on his back on the table, whipped a fresh diaper and a pouch of wipes out of a second hidden compartment in the Mars Rover and got to work on Little Eggies, undoing the clasps of his overalls and pulling them down to his ankles, and then all the way off after he started kicking and thrashing. I was spellbound. His little face was all red and shiny from screaming, and I marvelled at his perfect little nose---no bigger than the tip of my pinkie---until she bent forward, obscuring my view of him. Jennifer's own face was a picture of fulfillment and purpose...

"That should be me!" said a voice in my head, that sounded hurt and remorseful and quite jealous of my friend. Not like an actual audible hallucination, but more of a thought that wasn't mine, even though it was clearly in my own mental voice, which had more and more been taking on the pitch and timbre of the female one I heard when I spoke, as opposed to the Teodoro voice I had thought in right after the body swap. These emotional waters I found myself in felt like they were getting too deep and too swift for me. I would need to talk to Grandma about all this, and soon!

Joy's baby would be even littler than this if she'd had it. Just weeks old. Papa had said a grandson, but did anyone even know? What would it be like to be "Joy" for a month with a tiny baby to love and take care of?

Or would this body swap even have happened if she'd showed up at the house with a baby? Would Joy have settled right down and devoted herself to motherhood, as sometimes happens to irresponsible women that nobody thought would ever change? ("Sorry people, the party's over. I've got something much better now...") Or would entrusting my sister with a new life have been a collosal tragedy, the sort of astonishing negligence that you hear about on the news and wish you hadn't?

Or ........ might the swap have prevented a tragedy; as I stepped in and did what needed to be done, assuming what seemed suddenly like the most crucial responsibility and the greatest blessing in the world? If I wasn't a good mother it wouldn't be for want of trying!

But all these flights of conjecture and fantasy were pointless. Nothing could change the fact was that there was no baby, at least this side of Limbo...

Jennifer unvelcroed Edgar's diaper, lifted him by his feet and slid the nasty thing out from under him, looking around for a trash barrel. The nearest was quite some distance away.

"I've got it," I said. Stood up and took it from her.

"You sure? Thanks," she said, and began wiping greenish poo off of his bottom, off his tiny pee-pee and nut sack. "And here, wait for these. You're a better man than I am, Gunga Dinn!"

Edgar was quieting down now, knowing that his problem was being attended to. I held the diaper open for Jen to drop the poopy paper into- "Tenk you, Pukka Sahib!"
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That should be me, came the thought again.

But I knew I never would be. Ever...

I felt as lonely, barren and meaningless as the surface of the moon...
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"Thanks Clyde! Boy, aren't you glad you don't have to do this three, five, six times a day," grinned Jenny as she turned toward me. Then she saw my face.

"Oh shit! Oh I am soooooooo sorry! Hey wait! Where you going?"

I was already a good distance from her across the lawn, "Where do you think? I'm throwing this away. And then to the bathrooms there."

"Joy, I-"

"Don't worry about it, it's no big deal. Back in a jiffy."

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"Come on Teddy," I told my reflection in the bathroom's cloudy steel mirror as I washed my face, deliberately sticking the 'y' back into my name, "It wasn't your baby! You're not a woman. You weren't MEANT to be a mother! These are just Joy's instincts or something you're feeling. Like maybe this body's in mourning for the life it had growing in it..."

"Okay, it's all yours," I said to the woman who had started to enter the bathroom, then thought better of it when she heard me arguing with myself about my gender, like Steve Martin in All of Me...

I headed back, determined that this reunion with my good friend wouldn't keep being so damn focused on me and my troubles, my wingnut emotions. I would steer this conversation toward safer topics. Reopen our argument about whether prions are living organisms...

But as soon as was within earshot Jennifer started apologizing again, "Oh Thank God you didn't split! Damn it, I just wasn't thinking! To say that after-"

"Jesus, Jenny! I don't see what you're getting all freaked out about, or what you thought you said wrong!"

"And I know this is probably the last thing you need to see, but he's got to eat, and well they start to hurt if I don't get the milk out of them."

The top part of her blouse's front had buttons and opened just enough for her to slip her breast out, the fabric's taut edge holding it up like a little shelf as little Edgar---nestled in the crook of her arm---sucked contendedly.

To show her this didn't bother me, I sat down real close to her, leaning my elbow back on the table, casual as you please. "I know that, okay? And like I say but you don't seem to be hearing- it's FINE!"

"I saw that look on your face. That was pain, and it went deep! So don't try and tell me you're fine."

"I made my choice, didn't I? It'd be kind of pointless to have second thoughts about it now."

"Come on, Joy! You've been so honest with me today, don't go back into that cool little shell of yours. It was stupid of me to say that! It's just ........ the way you were talking the last time I saw you, going on and on about a relief it was, joking about it even on the way back to my place; well damn it I should've seen that you were trying too hard! Trying to tell yourself you were okay about the abortion when you weren't at all! And that's why you took off on me, isn't it? You knew I was planning to have my baby, and it must have really-"

"PLEASE! QUIT TREATING ME LIKE I'M FRAGILE!!"

"But you are fragile," she said softly, "You're an emotional wreck."

This was like that other sort of conversation we used to have as teens, not nearly as frequent but no doubt even more vital to our friendship; the ones that began with "What's wrong?" and "Nothing!" and ended with a long and much-needed hug. I should honor our history of honesty and mutual support by being as honest as I could within this mad tangle of truth and fabrication...

"You're right. Maybe I am. It's not every day my Papa turns into a raving loony tune and starts screaming 'Gooble Gobble Goo!!'"

"But it's more than that, or anything to do with him. It's obvious you've been going through some real changes. And what's weird is---'emotional wreck' or not---in some ways you seem stronger than I've ever seen you. Like what did you do after what happened at the hospital? You came here ......... you cried ........... you talked to me. You didn't-"

"Go score drugs?"

"Exactly! How long has it been?"

"It's been a week," I said.

"I knew you were clean," she gushed, "And that explains why you're so different! I love the way you're starting to face things now. Already you seem a lot more comfortable in your own skin."

"Not always Jennifer!" I laughed, sounding a bit insane.

"Of course not. You're feeling it when things that happens to you, probably for the first time in years. But you don't seem driven by all that stuff that was driving you before. All suspicious, and with that big old chip on your shoulder, and just plain mean sometimes!"

"Ouch!" I winced. "And so how do you like this new sober, honest, and more articulate me?"

"Are you kidding?! Let me tell you, baby girl, I've been praying for something like this. Literally, on-my-knees praying! You were so lost! I was worried sick about how you'd end up. But I couldn't even tell you that, because of the way you copped resentments over nothing, let alone anyone telling you that you might want to get help..."

"Sorry if I was kind of a bitch."

She rolled her eyes heavenward, "Kind of? Kind of?! There were times I just wanted to punch your lights out! But now, seeing you like this- Wait a minute!"

Baby Edgar had suddenly pulled his head away from her nipple, and from out of his mouth came a spurt of sudsy milk. Jennifer wiped his chin with a napkin.

"Looks like he's topped off there."

"Maybe," she said and moved him in toward her boob, "You want s'more, huh?"

He turned his head to the side, the intense rejection on his face reminding me of how my father had been acting for so much of this week.

"Okee-day! We done, done, done!" she said, bouncing him up and down in the air briefly, then held him out to me, "Here, take him a second."

"Oh no!" I yelped, knowing I might start blubbering again if I held him.

"Don't worry, he doesn't bite! And if he does he'll just gum you to death. You've gotta- yeah, like that! Support his head," she said, for somewhere in there I had reached out and received him, as I realized this was something she'd needed me to do for her right now.

"There's lots of things I've learned to do one handed, carrying him around, but this isn't one of them," she said as she slipped her breast back inside her top, then twisted and writhed as she pulled her sports bra back into place.

Sweet Edgar was lying across my shoulder while I cradled his back and rump, clinging to me with his delicate little arms. He was warm and smelled like baby powder.

"You two look good together. Who's that Eggies? Is that Auntie Joy?"

And that did it. Jenny tsk'd faintly at my cloudburst of tears, "Oh Honey..."

"I'm sorry!" I bawled, "Here, take him back."

"Just hold him. I want him to get to know his Aunt Joy."

"But he might think he made me cry."

This cracked her up, "Don't worry you're not going to traumatize him, put him on a lifelong guilt trip. If he can put up with my post-partum depression, this should be a walk in the park for him. Believe me, he lets you know when he isn't happy!"

Holding this baby was about the most bittersweet thing I'd ever experienced. The weight of him in my arms, the way he seemed to fit right there. Completing me somehow, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I freed a hand and dragged the back of it across my eyes, then the tissue Jennifer gave me.

"Listen Joy, I never went through what you did, so I can't say I know what it's like. But there's one thing I do know. Your life's not over. You're only thirty-one! And you didn't go get that tubal ligation you were talking about, did you?"

"I don't know," I started to mutter, then remembered Joey warning me not to get this body pregnant. "I mean no. I didn't."

"Well there you go! So that wasn't your last chance ever to be a mom. You're gonna meet somebody. Somebody nice. People will be liking you a lot better now. And guys, well just don't go looking in those same nasty bars. Or at the U.N.," she added wryly, which must have had something to with Edgar's father.

It was nice to have the vote of confidence, but factors known only to me and my brother and a few witches meant that holding Edgar here was going to be as close as I'd ever get. So I'd better make the most of this, I thought, and I held him up in front of my face, talking saccharin gibberish at him.

He responded by grabbing my nose and letting out a happy squeal.

"I think he likes me!" I groaned, and tried to hand him back to her.

"Of course he does. And he's gonna learn to love you. You'll be around, won't you? And come see us?"

"Here take him," I pleaded.

"You have to promise you'll come by," she said crossing her arms. The Chinese baby torture...

Joey had Joy's old high school friends, it would be great to have someone besides Grandma in my life. And how could I stay away from Edgar? "I will Jennifer, I swear! I don't know if I'll be in town after October, so I'll see you a lot when I can. You might even start to get sick of me..."

"Puh-shaw!" she responded, not a sputtering noise but two distinct flat nasal syllables, and finally held out her arms for him.

My hands didn't quite obey my order to relenquish him to her on the first attempt. I had to hold him to me one last time, a goodbye hug. Jennifer grinned at me knowingly. Girl, you got it bad!

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She lowered him through the roll bars and into the Mars Explorer, "All right, we should finish our walk. It doesn't look like six miles, but if you hit every trail it is..."

I glanced at the elegant little wristwatch I'd bought yesterday, surprised to see that it was after 3:00 already. "And I should be getting home too. Say, do you think you'd want to go to lunch with me and Grandma one of these days? She'd love to see you."

"Oh definitely! But when would depend on his Highness here, and when it'd be good for my mom to watch him. You know, she's coming here to get me when she gets off work at four. You don't have to take the bus home..."

I begged off, saying vaguely that I'd made provisions. Jennifer pulled her cell phone out of yet another of the stroller's hidden compartments, but when she went to enter my number into its memory found that the battery was depleted. I pulled a tablet and a stick pen out of my purse and jotted down my number, adding our address for good measure, tore it off and handed it to her, then wrote down her info.

"Wow! Even your handwriting seems like it's improved," she exclaimed as she glanced at it, then pocketed it and gave me her number and internet addy at g-mail, and opened her arms for a hug, "All right then..."

We embraced, and she took the opportunity to swat my ass, "Don't you run off on me again!"

"I won't, I swear! God, I've been such a shit," I sighed. The spank didn't excite me (I don't have any of stuff that in me that I'm aware of...) but the tight hug did somewhat, as did the way she dropped her head and pressed her forehead to mine.

She whispered, "I'm so glad I didn't give up on you like everyb- Like people do."

"Who told you to give up on me?"

"You don't want to know," she said, then told me anyway. "Everybody, Joy. Everybody ....... But they haven't known you as long as I have. They don't remember you from when you were fifteen and fun and full of life."

"Some pretty idiotic fun," I muttered, remembering Joy's shoplifting, the hit on Mrs. Pirelli's manger scene...

Her eyes were these immense green things peering into mine, "Maybe when you were showing off for your juvenile delinquent friends, Gordy and them. But you didn't act like that around me. Remember? Or when your Grandma used to take me and you and Teddy on those crazy field trips of hers. That's the Joy I remembered, and still saw somewhere under all the baloney. Or that night before we went to the clinic, the way we talked. So when people kept telling me you were bad news, I knew they were right in one sense, but..."

This pretending to be Joy was so fucked up! What would happen in November, when Joy was Joy again? Maybe I shouldn't be giving her all this hope. I knew what it was like to start having hopes for Joy/Joey, only to have them dashed...

"But those people are right!" I warned her, "I AM bad news! And I could revert back to my old self at any time! Today, next week, next month-"

"I don't believe that," she purred, "You're talking like your serum's gonna wear off and you'll turn back into Mr. Hyde, which is backwards anyway. I think it already did wear off, and this is the real Joy."

"But it's not!"

"Shoosh," she said, rocking me gently from side to side. Her lean muscular body was warm against mine.

Maybe I should do something despicable so she won't be so disappointed later. Insult her ugly retarded bastard baby, or start screaming "Get your fucking hands off me, you big dyke!"

Except I seemed to like this big dyke's hands right where they were. And I must have telegraphed something...

She kissed me on the lips, slow and sweet. It was more loving than passionate, but when my response blossomed into a horny need, her lips grew more aggressive, deciding Okay, sure. We like doing this too. We can do this!

I fought my way out of her grasp and turned away, hand on my throat and breathing hard.

"Oh shit I'm sorry!" she said, wondering how she could have misread the situation so completely, "I just- It seemed like you wanted me to."

"I did! You didn't do anything wrong."

"But I knew you were straight. I shouldn't have done that!"

"I am. Or mostly, I think ....... But today I've been finding myself attracted to you. And I didn't panic just now because we were kissing. The uptight little straight girl, loving it until she went- 'Wait a minute! If I like this I'll be a LESBIAN! Oh God, anything but that!!'"

Jennifer laughed. She and I had discussed this syndrome, and how trying to get involved with self-avowed straight people tended to be more trouble than it was worth...

"So this wasn't that," I said, "But that there's someone I'm pretty serious about. A guy."

"And you didn't tell me? Joy that's WONDERFUL! Who is it?"

"Nobody you know."

"So it's serious? And he's a good guy?"

"It is, he is! Not my usual type at all. So when we started kissing ...... Well I wouldn't want him to be kissing anyone right now!"

"That's fantastic. He sounds like a real catch. But don't beat yourself up over that. You're in a real discombobulated space, and really it was just a kiss. 'For old time's sake', you could call it, even though it was just that one time. Remember the movie we rented that night, Rubyfruit Jungle? I should've known something was up when you wanted to watch it twice. And then how you just happened to need a back massage ........ You Farraninos, I swear," she laughed in good-natured defeat, "Oh well. We can't say we never tried..."

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She grabbed the handles of the stroller, "All right. See you soon, I love you!"

"I love you Jen Jen! And bye-bye Little Eggies," I said, waggling my fingers at Edgar.

He flapped his arms wildly, but I don't think it was in response to me. He was eager to get moving.

Jennifer turned, "You know, I'm kind of surprised you never asked me who the daddy was."

I had been wondering about this, but was afraid that it might be one of those things that 'I' already knew about. I said, "I didn't know if it was something you wanted to talk about.."

"And tactful too! Jesus Clyde, this really is a new you! I do actually, but we shall speak of this anon."

"And on and on and on," I said as Jenny took off at a trot, pushing the stroller over the lumpy grass. I sat back down, deciding to wait until she was a ways down the hill before I went to my truck. Hard to explain why the new super-responsible Joy was driving around without a license.

I stared at a dandelion, wondering how long it would survive before the big lawnmowers got it. Thought about my father. About Jenny, about Joey, about babies ........ Maybe Ricky and I could adopt. Not in the state where we lived now, but if we moved to Vermont or someplace. He and I had discussed it once, as a crazy improbable fantasy that we both agreed would be wonderful...

When I glanced up Jennifer had stopped down on the red dirt trail, and was staring intently at the scrap of paper I'd put my address and phone number on.

And then I realized why. There in her hand, with its crossed Z's and 7's, was a small but perfect sample of Teodoro Farranino's handwriting.
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To be continued . . .

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