Nancy recommended a couple of hangover cures, which required ingredients the dining hall didn’t have, but I made up a makeshift with orange juice and hot sauce, which took my mind off the hangover if it didn’t cure it.

“Are you regretting changing schools and majors?” she asked.

“No. I still think this is the right thing to do. I’ve been volunteering at the hospital when I have time to spare from studying, and the more I do that, the more sure I am that I want to be a nurse.”

I was distracted all afternoon, worried about the fallout from last night’s disaster. Would Alice tell anyone, and if so, how would the rumors mutate? How would Emily react?

“We know they like being us, or they wouldn’t keep taking jekyllase. We just have to point out that they’ll get more benefit from being us if they change at a convenient time for us to meet up.”

“If you could be Jennifer all the time, would you want to?”

 

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I like being me, too, but if I had to choose between never being Jennifer again, and always being her... I think I might choose Jennifer.”

“Then maybe it’s something else. Some feminine side that you’re not letting yourself express... could you maybe be a transsexual?”

 

“A what?” The term “transgender” wouldn’t be coined for decades yet, and “transsexual” wasn’t exactly a household word. I’d never heard of it.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m, uh — I’m fixing to turn into Jennifer, okay? So if you could not look this way while I’m changing clothes, that would be good.”

 

“Sure, man,” he said. “You got some chick threads at some point?”