"Wouldn't everybody want to go to the FIRST one?" I asked.
"I dunno," Dad replied in a joking tone. "When you're number two, you try harder."
I was twelve. It seemed like the world was full of things that made no sense. Consequently, I was full of questions.
It was the Friday before Christmas, and we were driving to my grandparent's house. They lived in a small Yankee town, as New England as New England could be, small houses set apart from one another, snow everywhere, fences, steeples, big old leaf-less trees, and here and there a scrawny soul, bundled up in bright plaids and oversized boots, trudged through the snow, going who knows where.
"For a small town, they go all out for Christmas," Dad noted.
"You say that every year," Mom replied.
"It looks like no one wants to be outdone," Dad went on, and Mom (who knew all his phrases by now) finished the sentence with him: "but at the same time, they want to be understated."
He laughed. "Sorry to be so predictable."
I was beginning to half-know the way, and as we turned down the aptly-named Church Street, I knew what we would find: two identical churches, each of them long and white, like an old schoolhouse with a steeple. Each had a nativity scene out front. For the first time I noticed that the church on the right side of the street was the FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH and the one on the left side of the street was the SECOND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. I pointed this out to my parents and asked them why.
"I don't know," Mom replied tersely, in a tone that said, Please stop asking questions.
Dad, on the other hand, stopped the car and backed up. He looked from one to the other, scratching his chin.
"Wouldn't everybody want to go to the FIRST one?" I asked.
"I dunno," Dad replied in a joking tone. "When you're number two, you try harder."
Mom gave him a look and said, "How long are we going to sit here?"
Dad replied, "Look at the nativity scenes — they're practically identical." His head went back and forth, like a man watching a ping-pong match. "Except for a couple of figures, they're the same." Mom shrugged. "Do you know, Tony," Dad said, turning to look at me, "Your mother and I got married in church number two over there."
"Why not number one?" I asked.
"Your mother's family went to number two," he replied, and put the car back in gear. "You know who could tell you about the churches, if you really want to know, is your Grandpa. I'm sure he'd be glad to tell you."
Just before the car started moving away, I called out, "Wait!" There were words written in Gothic letters over the door of the Second Christian Church, but the script was so ornate, I couldn't read it. "What does that say?" I asked.
"Come out from among them. 2 Cor 6:17," Dad replied.
"What does the two-core thing mean?" I asked. Mom sighed loudly, so I let it go.
By the time we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house, I'd forgotten all about Church One and Church Two. My grandparents fussed over me, got me out of my winter clothes, and then fussed all over my mother. She was their daughter, of course. Grandpa shook Dad's hand and Grandma gave him her cheek to kiss.
After lunch, which was followed by Grandma's amazing apple pie, the adults pretty much collapsed into the comfort of the living room. All except Grandma, who was "straightening up" the kitchen, which was something she did after everything was already clean. I wandered into the dining room to look at my Grandpa's nativity scene.
Most people I know who have nativity scenes bought them at a store. But my Grandpa's family comes from Naples, Italy, and there, people make their own nativity figures. Every year Grandpa adds a new character, and by now the figures he adds have nothing to do with the original story. He has a baker, a pizza maker, and a man carrying a big smoked ham. There is a policeman and a Salvation Army woman with a bell and a bucket. He even has a grown-up Jesus, with a stiff robe all wavy to look as though it's blowing in the wind. He carries a great big walking stick, and looks like an action hero. He usually stands somewhere apart from the manger, distant from the baby version of himself. Doctor Who would have said that Jesus couldn't cross his own timeline, and that made sense to me.
Grandma saw me looking at the figures, and she stopped "straightening" to look at me. It was a funny moment, because I was looking at Grandpa's little people and thinking how special they were, and there she was, looking at me in just the same way.
I think she was waiting for what happened next, because when I gasped in surprise, she walked over to ask, "What is it?"
"I just realized that the three wise men are all women," I told her. "Were they always that way? Or is it new this year?"
"It's always been that way," she said. "You were just too little to realize before."
"Oh!" I exclaimed. I bent to examine them carefully. I knew better than to touch them or pick them up. Grandpa would have blown a gasket, and there was no way that I could put the figure back exactly where he'd placed it.
"Grandma!" I exclaimed in soft surprise, "One of them looks like you!"
At that, Grandma stiffened and stood up tall, drawing a long breath as she did so. She didn't say a word, but I felt her pull away. I looked from her face to the figure's face. It was a speaking likeness. I didn't know what to make of it, so I asked her why Grandpa made the little wise man look like her.
"You'll have to ask your Grandfather," she replied in a frosty tone, and went off to straighten up the kitchen a second time.
I wasn't alone with Grandpa until late that afternoon: Grandma was making dinner and chatting with my Mom, who sat at the kitchen table. Dad was snoring on the couch, the victim of a pair of beers. Grandpa asked me to help him make a bed on the back porch, where he was going to sleep. He did this every time we visited, though I never understood why.
When we were done with the bed, I asked him why his three wise men were women. He looked surprised. "Have you never heard that story?" he asked. I shook my head dumbly. "Well!" he exclaimed, and then, after carefully checking that Grandma couldn't overhear, he told me the following.
"Now, Tony, you may find this hard to believe, but ten thousand years ago, when there still dinosaurs in this neighborhood, your grandmother and I were your age. And we lived in this very same town, although we all lived in caves back then, and dressed in animal skins.
"That year, we were both fourteen—:
"I'm only twelve," I interrupted.
"Ah," he said, caught short for a moment. Then he went on, "Well, back then twelve was fourteen and fourteen was twelve. So we were both your age.
"Now anyway, it was Christmas, and of course we had to have the Christmas pageant. They chose this cute little girl with dark brown hair to be Mary, and a skinny little boy to be Joseph. And of course there were kids to play lambs and cows, and shepherds and angels and so forth... and just like every other year, they wanted the three tallest boys to play the wise men."
"Was one of them you?" I asked.
"No," Grandpa said, thinking for a moment. "I believe I played the mailman.
"So anyway, Your Grandmother and her two best friends they got to thinking and talking and confabulating, and they announced — or rather, your Grandmother announced — that she and her two friends wanted to be the Three Wise Men.
"Miss Percival, who ran the whole affair, wanted none of that. She told your Grandma that none of those three girls were Men, and that if they wanted to pretend they were, that they couldn't very well be Wise, either.
"Your Grandma right away pointed out that the boys Miss Percival wanted weren't MEN either, they were boys, and 'If they have to pretend they're men, well, we can do the same!' and then she pointed out that the three girls all did better in school than the three boys.
"Miss Percival told her, 'Being wise ain't the same as being smart' so your Grandma came back with, 'At least we won't be picking our noses or scratching ourselves in places we oughtn't!'
Grandpa laughed. "And of course, at just that moment one of the three boys was scratching himself, one was picking his nose, and the third was doing both."
I laughed.
"They argued back and forth, and for every objection Miss Percival had, your Grandmother went her one better. Finally, the three boys got fed up and said they didn't want to do it anyway, and left, so Miss Percival had no choice."
"And Grandma got to be one of the Wise Men?"
"Yes, she did," Grandpa agreed. "She certainly did."
Then he fell silent, and ran his hand across his face. His nascent beard gave off a rasping sound as his dry fingers passed over it.
"That's such a funny story!" I commented, laughing.
Grandpa looked at me a moment, then sighed. "Yes, I guess so. *That* part is certainly a funny story. But what came after isn't quite as funny. Some of the parents, and some of the people who weren't parents, got VERY upset when they saw three girls playing the Wise Men, and they made quite a stink about it."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because they thought that women shouldn't try to take a man's place," he said. "Or some such foolishness."
He was quiet for a few moments. Until now, Grandpa's tone had been joking, laughing, mocking, silly, but now he was serious. "In fact, some people were so offended, so scandalized, that they did what every good Christian would do: they split off and made their own church."
I frowned, trying to make sense of it all. I wasn't sure whether Grandpa was making everything up, or whether any of it really happened. And I knew, that being a kid, I had almost zero chance of finding out whether it was right and real, or all made up.
"Have you noticed," Grandpa said, "When you come onto Church Street, there are two Christian Churches? Well, that's why. The First Church had the female Wise Men, and the Second Church couldn't bear it."
© 2013 by Kaleigh Way
by Kaleigh Way
Today the theme of my ribbing was that I belonged back in camp with the “other women.” I should be clear: the women working the field were never mean to me. It was the men. My so-called friends.
One of the women quietly -- and even kindly -- suggested that I might be better off working in the camp. Her remark was the spark that lit a firestorm all around me, until at last I threw down my shovel and said, “Fine! I’ll go! Anything to get away from you assholes!” And I stormed off to find Commander Bleecker.
I found him kneeling beside a stream near his cabin. He was taking water samples and studying a group of tiny frog-like creatures native to the planet. “Hallo, Norris,” he called as he caught sight of me. “Goedemorgen.”
“Come on, Bleecker,” I replied, irritated. “You know that I don’t speak Dutch.”
Bleecker sighed. “Come on yourself!” he retorted. “Goedemorgen,” he repeated. “Good morning. Is that so hard? It wouldn’t kill you lot to learn a few words of Dutch.”
“Why would we do that?” I replied. I was still pretty angry about my humiliation in the fields.
“It would be nice for me,” Bleecker said. “Also, learning languages is good for the brain.” He dropped the subject and invited me into his cabin, where he poured two cups of steaming tea.
“This is brewed from a local plant,” he said, with a pleased smile. “It tastes almost exactly like dandelion.”
I had no idea what dandelion tasted like. “Isn’t dandelion a weed?” I asked as I sniffed the tea. “How do you know this is safe?”
“I’ve seen the animals eat it,” he replied. “And they’re fine. Also, I’ve been drinking this tea myself for a few weeks, and I don’t show any ill effects. The flora and fauna on this planet are quite remarkable.”
Bleecker would have gone on in that vein for hours if I didn’t head him off. “I’m sorry, Bleecker, but I didn’t come here to talk about plants and animals. I need to change my work assignment.” And I told him how things were going for me in the fields.
“So you want to work with the women here in camp?” he asked.
“Yes, I do."
"You, among a bunch of women," he said. "Are you sure you want to do that?"
"There are women working in the fields, so why can’t a man work in camp?”
“Why indeed,” Bleecker said with a nod. “Well, you can certainly try it. But, oh, by the way, do you know an old Norwegian folk tale called The Man Who Would Keep House? It’s just come to my mind, for some reason.”
“Why would I know any Norwegian folk tales?” I retorted, my face reddening.
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” Bleecker said. “This man, he gets angry about working the fields while his wife is at home, having -- he imagines -- the easy life--” Bleecker broke off suddenly, as he realized why the story had come to mind. But after a pause, he went on. “So, I can’t remember all the details, but he makes a mess of everything. As I recall, he ties the butter churn to his back, and all the butter goes down the well when he bends to draw water. He puts the cow on the roof so he doesn’t have to take her out to pasture--”
“Why would he put the cow on the roof? And how--”
Bleecker waved his hands dismissively. “The house is up against a hill, so he leads the cow across a plank. It’s a sod roof, so there’s grass up there for the cow to eat. But anyway, he’s afraid the cow might fall, so he ties a rope around the cow and drops the other end down the chimney. He goes into the house and ties the free end of the rope to his leg…”
“What an idiot!” I exclaimed.
“Of course the cow falls off, and the man goes halfway up the chimney. He hangs there for hours, waiting for his wife to come home and rescue him.”
I sat in angry silence while Bleecker chuckled to himself. Then I asked, “So what are you saying? That I’ll make a mess of things in camp?”
“Oh, no, no! Nothing like that!” Bleecker protested. “But I did have a point in there somewhere…” and after musing for a moment, he said, “Yes, I've got it! Now I know what the point is: it’s about your attitude.”
“THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MY ATTITUDE!” I shouted.
“Ah, just so,” Bleecker said in a conciliatory tone. “I’m only saying that you need to try to not carry your negative feelings from the fields into the camp. I agree that you haven’t been treated well out there, but you need to leave your resentment behind or it might poison your experience here. Remember, with the women in the camp, you’re starting more or less from zero. You don’t want to carry a negative balance of feelings with you. If they see you walking in with a chip on your shoulder...”
I grunted in half-hearted assent.
“And,” he said, his eyes glistening with ill-concealed excitement. “I have something that might help you with that. It’s just a drup of something.”
“A drup?” I repeated. “What on earth is that?’
“Give me a break!” he cried. “A drup, a druppel, a druppeltje! It’s a drop, a droplet, a tiny drop!”
“A tiny drop of what?”
“It’s a preparation I’ve made from a local plant. It should calm you, help you feel less frustrated. Let me show you.” He took a very clean, clear vial from a drawer, and a glass tube with a tiny tip. He dipped the tip in the liquid, lifted it up and gave the other end a light tap. The tiniest drop possible fell from the tip back into the vial. “Just a drup,” he repeated.
“How can anything that small have any effect…” I began to say, but then I stopped. I recalled that my grandmother was a great believer in homeopathy. Whenever we were sick she’d give us a few tiny white pills, or two or three drops of a liquid like that. “Is it homeopathic?” I asked.
Bleecker gave me a guarded look. “Will you feel better about it if I say yes?”
“Yes, I guess so,” I replied. “My grandmother used to give us homeopathic remedies.”
“And did they help you?” Bleecker asked.
“Yes, I think so,” I replied. “Grandma used to say, At worst, it will do nothing, but at best, it will help you.”
“A wise woman, your oma.” Bleecker commented. After a moment, seeing the look on my face, he sighed and said, “Oma means grandmother.”
I nodded and smiled. Remembering my granny, picturing her wrinkly, smiling face, had put me in a good mood. Bleecker seized the moment and asked, “So… are you saying yup to the drup?”
Oddly enough, I did find the drup calming. Almost instantly, it seemed to change my entire attitude, so I went to find Josie Weydert, the camp foreman, and she put me to work immediately, changing beds. She helped me strip and remake the first three beds, then watched me do the next three by myself. “Will you mind working by yourself, just for now?” I said no, of course not, and spent the next two hours changing beds alone. It was wonderful. It was the first time I’d been by myself since we landed on this rock, and I could feel my poor frayed soul reknitting itself inside me.
Josie came to call me to lunch, and found me smiling and singing to myself as I worked. She took a quick look at two of the beds, and complimented me on my work. As we walked to the mess hall, she said, “It takes almost three days to change all the beds. Two, if you’re quick. Will you mind finishing all the beds before I put you on another task?” I agreed, smiling, and she commended me on what an agreeable and positive attitude I had.
“Honestly,” she said, “I was a little worried when you came over today, because I’ve heard that you complain a lot.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m sure I did.”
“What was bothering you? The kind of work? Having to work all the time? What?”
I searched my mind for an honest answer. Was it me? Was it the people I worked with? At last I said, “I think I was in the wrong place, and I let it get to me.” Josie nodded. “Also, to tell the truth, Bleecker gave me a drup of something, and that helped a lot.”
Josie stopped in her tracks and looked at me in alarm. “A what?”
“A drup, a drop, a droplet. It was really tiny.”
“Was it some kind of drug?”
“No, no -- it was made from some local plant.”
Josie swore. Then she asked me, “Are you sure you’re okay to work?”
“Oh, yeah,” I replied. “I’m glad to work.”
Josie rubbed her face as she thought. “Okay, let’s go to lunch. Don’t tell anyone else about the droop thing, okay? No one. After lunch, check with me and if you still feel okay, you can go back to making beds. And I’m going to have a talk with Bleecker.”
At lunch, I sat at a table with some of the women in the camp. They glanced at me and said hello, but they didn’t make me part of their conversation. It was fine. I still kind of wanted to be alone, but it was nice sitting with them. I saw Josie corner Bleecker. She grabbed him by the arm and took over a entire table so she could talk to him alone.
After lunch, Josie came and put her hand on my shoulder. She led me outside, where Bleecker was waiting for us. There was no one else around, no one to overhear. Josie nodded to Bleecker and said, “Now tell him what you told me.”
“First of all,” Bleecker said, “How are you feeling?”
“I feel really nice,” I said. “Very peaceful, very happy.”
“And is your mind working okay? If I ask you what is 13 times 14, what do you say?”
I laughed at first, but after a moment, “182.”
“These questions are meaningless!” Josie hissed. “Tell him what you gave him!”
“Okay,” Bleecker agreed. “What I gave you was an extract of a plant that grows on the edge of our stream. It first appeared after we discovered the spring. The seeds were probably latent in the earth.”
“And what is special about this plant?” Josie prompted.
“The little frog-like creatures sometimes eat the fuzz that grows on that plant.”
“And what happens when they do?”
“It has no effect on the females, but --” Bleecker hesitated a moment -- “but it turns the males into females.”
My face went pale, and if Josie hadn’t caught my arm, I would have fainted. “But… but.. why did you give it me?”
“I thought it would calm you and improve your mood. Also, you were going to be among women, I thought it might augment your -- ah, feminine hormones.”
Josie swore darkly. “Bleecker, you are an idiot!”
“You must admit his mood has improved!” Bleecker protested.
“But am I going to turn into a woman?” I asked, my voice rising into a wail.
Bleecker actually started laughing! “Of course not!” he chuckled. “What a silly question!”
“How is that a silly question?” Josie demanded. “I was just about to ask the same damn thing!”
Bleecker huffed with impatience. Then he explained, “The frog-like creatures are very simple, very plastic lifeforms. They change easily: if they lose a limb, it regrows very quickly. If you compare their anatomy to ours, it’s like comparing a bicycle to a spaceship.”
We stood in silence for a few moments, then I said, “Well, I want to get back to work to take my mind off all of this, but I have one more question -- and please do not laugh.”
“Okay,” Bleecker agreed.
“How long does it take for the frog to change sex?”
Bleecker blinked. “Seven days. A week.”
Josie huffed in anger. “Don’t worry, Norris,” she said. “We’ll keep an eye on you. And no more droops! Understand, Bleecker?”
Bleecker’s eyes twinkled. “It’s drup,” he corrected. Then, as Josie began to say something else, Bleecker acquiesced: “Okay! Okay! I promise! I swear!”
The week that followed was the most frightening week of my life... AND the nicest week of my life. I never felt more relaxed, or more at peace with myself and the people around me. At the same time, I lived in constant fear that the drup — as wonderful as it made me feel — was going to alter me in some irreversible way… even to the point of turning me into a woman, or some strange thing that was neither man or woman or maybe even human! Each morning when I got out of bed, and each night before I got into bed, I checked myself as thoroughly as I could. I checked my chest, to make sure I wasn’t growing breasts. I checked my genitals, to make sure that nothing was changing down there. Happily, each day I was physically the same, at least as far as I could tell.
My work went along much better. After finishing with the beds, I moved on to cleaning and laundry. Josie told me that next week I’d help prepare meals.
Finally, the night of the seventh day arrived, and I was still myself. On the morning of the eighth day, though, there was a very disturbing change.
It was my attitudes, my frustration, my negativity. They all returned in full force, as if they’d picked up exactly where they left off when I took the drup.
This was a change I never expected, and it filled me with dismay. I’d just begun fitting in with my new work colleagues. At first the women had looked at me askance; like Josie, they’d seen me complaining. They knew I didn’t get along with others, and they didn’t expect to get along with me. Still, by the end of the week they’d begun to soften toward me, and were on their way toward accepting me. I was so upset by my reversion, that I didn’t bother to check myself physically. I quickly dressed, and ran to Bleecker’s cabin.
“I want another drup,” I told him.
“I can’t,” he protested. “I promised Josie. And it’s probably not wise.” But he didn’t throw me out, and he listened while I went through my reasons. When I finished, he sighed.
“I can see you’re all agitated again,” he admitted.
“Like a week ago,” I prompted. He nodded.
“And you’re sure -- dead sure -- that you haven’t seen any physical changes?”
I swore up and down that I was still the same man.
“All right, then!” he softly exclaimed, rubbing his hands with excitement. “So… you’re saying yup to the drup?”
“Yes, I am,” I enthusiastically agreed. “I mean, yup, yes, yup.”
He dropped another tiny drop on my tongue, and I immediately felt the change.
“I can see how that relaxed you,” Bleecker commented.
“Hey,” I said, in a conspiratorial tone, “what do you say to giving me two drups?”
“No,” he replied in a flat tone. “You see how strong this stuff is. Besides,” he added in a joking tone, “it might just make you too wonderful to bear.” And he laughed a little at his own joke.
“Would that be so bad?” I asked.
“Look,” Bleecker said in a serious tone. “Do you know about the Law of Diminishing Returns?”
“Oh, no,” I protested. “You're not going to tell me a story, are you?”
He scowled me into silence, then asked, “Have you ever been to Amsterdam?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, one of the best treats on earth is poffertjes. They are little fluffy pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar, and the best place to buy them is from an Amsterdam street market vendor. You get a little bag, and you gobble them down, and they are so so good.
“Then you might say to yourself, those poffertjes were so delicious, I think I will have some more. So you buy another bag, and you eat them as well.” Bleecker’s mouth was watering as he spoke, and he licked his lips before he went on.
“Now, you might think nothing could be better than a third bag, then a fourth, and let’s say a fifth, but at some point, they aren’t going to taste as good, and if you keep eating eventually you’ll get sick and vomit and spoil the excellent experience that you started with.”
I let Bleecker enjoy the recollection of his fluffy Dutch pancakes for a bit, and then I said, “But two bags, that was still good, right?”
He groaned. “That was NOT my exact point. It's not a perfect analogy.”
But in the end, he gave me a second drup.
My second week in the camp was even better than the first. I was not only happy and full of peace, I was also very confident, outgoing, and empathetic. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t overdoing it. I decided to let Josie be my judge, and went to ask her how I was doing.
She told me, “In the beginning, you know, I had my doubts about you. I told you that right at the beginning. And then that business with Bleecker and his droops -- oh my God, Norris, you really scared me. I thought you might die, or turn into some awful freak, or something worse.” She stopped a moment and smiled. In a low voice she said, “I knew it was impossible -- that you could never turn into a woman. That's just ridiculous. You know that. Still, those droops were not a good idea at all.” I nodded. “But you’re fitting in really well. You’re a good team member. You take initiative, you help without being asked, and you are extremely reliable. When you say you’ll do something, I know you’ll do it, and I know you'll do it the way you’ve been asked to do it. I’m really proud of you, and I'm glad you’re on my team.”
And THAT put the cherry on top of my fantastic mood.
I was in such a great mood, that I only checked myself once that entire week. It was clear that my body hadn’t changed. It made me laugh to think that I once believed I might actually change.
Again, on the morning after the end of my second week, I woke in a terrible mood, full of anger, resentment, and frustration. It was like all my bad feelings had gone to sleep for a week and woke up, surly and combative. I trudged over to Bleecker’s cabin and without too much trouble, got him to give me two druppels. He didn’t fight very hard when I asked for a third. Surprisingly, the third drup didn't push me higher; it seemed to even me out. I didn’t feel all peaceful and positive like the previous weeks. I just felt normal. I wasn’t negative about anything. I just felt the way a person ought to feel. Just plain. On an even keel. Later Josie commented that it seemed that I’d “settled in,” and that seemed to sum up how I felt.
On the morning after the end of my third week, I woke up still feeling normal. I wasn’t peaceful and I wasn’t angry. I was just me, normal me. I lay in bed for a while, just experiencing the normalness. I was surprised that I didn’t need to run to Bleecker for another drup. I decided that I must have made a transition internally, and that all my bad feelings were finally behind me. I drew a deep, happy breath, and then for some reason, I rubbed my forearms with my hands and got the shock of my life.
The skin of my arms was wonderfully smooth. And do you know why? It’s because all the hair on my arms and hands were gone. It was gone from my chest and legs as well.
I leaped out of bed, and was shocked to see that my sheets were sprinkled with short, black hairs: the hairs from my arms and legs and chest and shoulders and back. They had all fallen out.
The hair on my head was fine, though. My eyebrows were there, and my pubic hair was still intact. But the rest of it was gone, even from my face.
Alarmed, I checked my chest and genitals, but everything seemed right in those departments. I tried to look myself over in my tiny mirror. As far as I could tell, the body hair was the only change. I decided to keep this to myself.
When no one was looking, I shook out my sheets and swept up the stray hairs from the floor.
Then I got dressed and went about my work. Bleecker didn’t ask me whether I wanted another drup. I think he felt relieved that I hadn’t asked, and even though (as I found out later) he was extremely curious about my experience, he decided to wait for me to bring it up.
During the day, a woman touched my arm and exclaimed how soft my skin was. She asked whether I was doing anything special to make it that way. I told her that I wasn’t, and shrugged.
That night, I started checking myself again, night and morning, to see whether I was experiencing any other changes. It wasn’t as easy as you might think. I had the feeling that my testicles were slightly smaller today. But how could I be sure? It wasn’t like I’d actually ever measured them.
My fourth week went like that: thinking that I’d changed slightly, then convincing myself it was only in my head.
On the night of the end of my fourth week, I had a dream that Bleecker came to me while I was sleeping. He leaned over my bed to put drup after drup on my tongue. Then he whispered, “There is an old folk tale from the country to the north of Norway about a man who kissed a frog-like thing and turned into a girl. Do you know that story? Do you know that man? Have you ever been to the country north of Norway? They know all about you there.”
I woke from the dream with a start and was so shaken by it that it took me a long time to realize that it hadn’t actually happened. In fact, even after I understood in my head that it wasn't real, I was still upset with Bleecker for the things he’d done in the dream.
The sun hadn’t come up yet. It hadn’t even begun to glow behind the horizon, but I got up, checked myself, and got dressed. I went for a long walk to help me think, and then I went to see Bleecker. I had to wake him up, but he didn’t seem to mind. He brewed some of his dandelion tea, and poured two cups. He waited for me to begin.
“Bleecker,” I asked, “what is the country north of Norway?”
“Is this a riddle?” he replied. “There is no country north of Norway.”
“Did you ever give me a drup without my knowing? Like in my tea or while I was sleeping?”
He scowled. “Of course not! How can you ask such a thing?”
I told him about my dream. He found it interesting, but couldn’t explain any of it. I told him about my hair loss, and he said that he’d noticed it already. “Josie has noticed it as well,” he said. “She spoke to me about it.”
“What did she say?”
“She’s worried about you. So am I. It was really stupid of me to give you those drops.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “Does she know that you gave me more than the first one?”
He shook his head no. Then he asked, “Have you experienced other changes?”
I explained how my moods had evened out, and he nodded. “Yes, I could see that. I was glad you didn’t come back for more.” We both sipped our tea at the same moment. Then he asked, “Have you seen any other changes?”
“Uh, yes,” I replied, “but only just this morning. My balls have shrunk to maybe a quarter of their normal size, and my scrotum has tightened up as well. I’m not sure about my penis. It’s more difficult to tell.”
Bleecker dropped his teacup, and it broke to bits on the floor. He looked at it for a silent moment and took a deep breath. It was one of the few objects he’d brought from earth. But he let it go and looked at me. He put his hand on mine. “I've done you a great wrong," he said. "I know it doesn't help, but I can only say how sorry I am.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told him. “We did this together. Even after I knew what it was, I wanted more. And I pushed you very hard.”
“Still...” he objected, and made a vague motion with his hands.
I asked him not to talk to Josie, except to say that we’d talked.
I kept the next set of changes to myself: after another week, my balls were entirely gone, and a full week after that, my scrotum smoothed out and disappeared as well. As my penis grew thinner and shorter, my groin began reshaping itself into a pair of soft mounds.
However, once my breasts and butt started growing, and my shape began to look more like an hourglass, I couldn’t hide or pretend any more.
Each night and every morning, I’d touch myself down there, until one morning after many months, the soft lips parted and my vagina opened, moist and warm and ready.
The sun was still hiding below the horizon, but I quickly dressed and ran to wake up Bleecker. I was sure he’d want to share in my discovery.
"It's a strategy," he joked with reporters, "makes people think I have *two* vice-presidents!"
"Or two first ladies!" a reporter quipped.
As a candidate for president, Brody had to make a lot of decisions. Probably the easiest and quickest decision he ever made was choosing a running mate.
Brody's primary campaign was strong. None of the other contenders in his party could compete with Brody's charisma or his testosterone-based personality. He was strong and smooth. Powerful and fascinating. He was a ruthless, handsome man on his way to the very top.
Once the party lined up behind Brody, and the convention approached, it was time to put together a ticket. A vice-presidential candidate was needed. Brody's people assembled a list.
They rooted out those with skeletons in the closet.
They discarded those with money problems or questionable finances.
They tossed out the ones with ideas or personalities.
All they wanted was a spare: a bland, invisible guy who'd hang around just in case... a guy who could stay on the shelf, out of sight. Someone who would keep out of trouble, keep his nose clean, not cause any ripples, and stay off the radar.
Above all, he couldn't upstage the president. The Big Man has to have all the light.
The president must be Number One. The vice president, on the other hand, had to know from the get-go that he wasn't even number two. He wasn't the second-most powerful man on Earth. He was just the spare.
And so, during an off-moment on the campaign bus, while Brody was changing his shirt, an aide spread five photos in front of the president-to-be.
Brody asked, "What's this for again?"
"Running mate," the aide replied.
Brody swept his eyes over the five faces, then pointed with his chin. "Him," he said. "The guy on the end. No, I meant the one on the other end, but fine, take that one."
"You're sure?" the aide asked. "Final answer?"
Brody grinned. "Final answer. I assume they all check out —"
The aide waved his hands dismissively. "They're all good. No skeletons, no hot shots."
"Perfect!" Brody replied. "Now where the hell am I going tonight? Oh — and what's that guy's name? The vee-pee-to-be?"
"MacKenzie," the aide replied. "Allen MacKenzie. Ever heard of him?"
Brody shrugged.
"Then he's perfect."
Allen MacKenzie sure didn't feel perfect. Sure, when asked if he'd be Brody's running mate, he was on cloud nine! Everything was wonderful, everybody loved him, everyone wanted to shake his hand. Brody was a shoo-in, which meant that MacKenzie was sure to be the next vice president of the United States of America.
Then reality began to set in. He never got to see Brody or talk to him. No one listened to any of his ideas. Instead, the Brody camp assigned a handler to coach him on what he had to do and say.
MacKenzie felt as though he'd stepped on a moving walkway, and that walkway was moving mighty fast. He never had a chance to sit down and think, to get his bearings, because he was constantly on the go. As soon as he'd get an inkling of where he was now, he'd be swept off to his next destination.
But the worst moment, the absolute worst, came the day after the convention.
Some bastard on the internet took two pictures from the convention and placed them side by side. The photos weren't doctored or photoshopped or altered in any way. The simple juxtaposition was the whole joke.
One picture showed Brody standing with his wife on the stage. Brody had one hand on her shoulder while he waved with the other. His wife was waving as well, her other arm around Brody's back.
The second photo was almost identical. Brody, with his hand on the other's shoulder, the two of them waving... exactly the same pose.
The problem was: the second photo was a picture of Brody and MacKenzie.
If the pose itself weren't bad enough, there was the hair: Mrs. Brody had worn her hair short for more than fifteen years, and her color and style weren't far off from MacKenzie's.
And if the pose and the hair weren't bad enough, there were the clothes: Of course MacKenzie wasn't wearing the simple skirt and jacket that Mrs. Brody wore, but the color, the cut, the feel were all the same.
No one — not in Brody's camp or elsewhere — had ever seen the resemblance before that day. No one had ever spotted the uncanny likeness between the vee-pee-to-be and the next first lady.
The headlines ran: "Tess Brody and Allen MacKenzie: twins separated at birth?"
"You think you're upset?" MacKenzie's handler asked him. "You should hear Tess Brody! She's spitting bullets!"
Brody, wisely, chose to laugh it off.
"It's a strategy," he joked with reporters, "makes people think I have *two* vice-presidents!"
"Or two first ladies!" a reporter quipped.
Brody laughed, and the clip was played endlessly.
Late-night TV and standup comics fed off it, grateful for the easy laughs.
Brody himself appeared in a couple of sketches on Saturday Night Live. In one (that soon became a running gag), he kept getting into trouble because he couldn't tell his wife from his vice-president. It was howlingly funny to everyone on Earth except for two people: Tess Brody and Allen MacKenzie.
Even MacKenzie's wife sometimes called him "Tess," just to tease him.
At last, one morning, when his handler was reading the day's campaign schedule, MacKenzie said, "Listen. Somewhere along the way, today I have to get a crew cut."
"Your hair's not long," the aide replied. "Polls show that people like the way you look. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"It's the same goddamn style as Tess Brody!" Allen replied. "I'm tired of people mixing me up with that damn bitch!"
"Whoa!" the handler cautioned, and ran to shut the door. "Down boy! If she ever hears you say that, you're dead meat. Any woman hears you say that, you'll lose Brody the female vote. A lot of men won't vote for us either."
"I'm sorry," Allen repented, red-faced. "I'm just so frustrated. Everybody in the country is laughing at me. Even my wife!"
"I know, I know," the handler replied. "The thing is, they're going to laugh you right into the White House. Do you understand? It's giving us an incredible amount of free press. It's TV time we could never afford to buy. And people like you. They love this separated-at-birth business, and the American People know that if you don't get elected, the joke's going to stop. So guess what: everyone's going to vote for you.
"Another thing that I *shouldn't* have to tell is this: You're a public figure. You need to have a thick skin. If you don't have one already, better get busy and grow one.
"And another thing: if people start laughing at you, the *worst* thing to do, the one thing you should never do, is try to make them stop. You just have to let that wave go by and run itself out. Like I said, it's working out for us."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Allen asked. He didn't see how being a clown was helping the cause at all.
"Every time somebody makes one of those jokes or shows those convention pictures, our numbers go up."
"Hmmph."
"You can't argue with that."
Unfortunately, Allen knew that the handler was right.
"AND," the man continued, "if you go and get yourself a Marine buzzcut, you know what's going to happen? Everybody's going to laugh at you anyway, because they'll know why you did it. You'll make it clear that it bothers you, and *that*, my friend will signal a feeding frenzy. It will end your political career. And you'll bring Brody down with you. So if you think you're going to get a haircut, well–" the handler couldn't think of how to finish, but a flash of inspiration came:
"Just remember what happened to Samson."
The remark about Samson stopped MacKenzie cold. It got him thinking. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite sure who Samson was, or why the handler had mentioned him.
So he called his wife and casually worked it into the conversation.
"By the way, hon," he said, "You know who Samson was?"
"Samson?" she replied. She hesitated a moment, then said, "Oh, you mean the Samsons from North Carolina? What about them?"
"No, no," he said. "Not the Samsons. Samson, singular. The man Samson."
"Oh, Samson and Delilah!" she said. "Sure!"
"What was his story?"
"Well, he lost his power when he cut his hair. Why?"
"Oh, uh, I was thinking about getting a haircut," he naively replied. As the words left his mouth, he tried to call them back, but it was too late.
Mrs. MacKenzie was already laughing.
"Look, we're doing what we can," the handler told Allen.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, uh, we're coordinating outfits, making sure you don't wear anything that looks like one of Tessa Brody's outfits, and, well, vice versa. I guess you could say we're un-coordinating."
"Of all the muffa luffa fuffa!" Allen MacKenzie exclaimed.
"Good gravy!" Jackie MacKenzie said, when she joined her husband on the campaign trail. "You act like it's the end of the world! Think of poor Tessa Brody!"
"Why?" Allen demanded. "What about poor Tessa Brody? Is she poor Tessa Brody because she looks like me?"
"No, you knucklehead!" she chided, and in a softer tone added, "She's lucky there. It's just that this whole business has ruined her marriage!"
"It has?" MacKenzie exclaimed, astonished. It wasn't so much the news that shocked him; it was the fact that his wife was in the know, while he didn't have a clue.
"Oh!" she scoffed. "You're so caught up in your own little drama! That's why you haven't heard! Your handlers would have told you if you knew to ask."
"They would?"
"Of course they would!"
"Is that how you found out?"
"No," she said archly, "I have my own sources."
"So what's it all about then?"
"When Brody went on Saturday Night that first time, she asked him not to go. But of course, he went anyway. If that wasn't bad enough, he went back twice more. She was livid.
"They don't sleep together any more, and she won't even talk to him, except at public events, and only if she can't avoid it."
MacKenzie sat down. He wasn't sure how, but he felt partly to blame. After all, he was an intrinsic part of the tragedy. Wasn't he? Was he? He couldn't wrap his brain around it.
"You, on the other hand," his wife went on, "... for you, it's a wave that's carrying you into the White House. If anything happens to Brody, you'll be president, and partly because everybody's laughing about your resemblance to Tess.
"For her, it's a disaster. For you, it's pure luck."
Allen MacKenzie let out a deep and heavy sigh. "I guess luck is not always an easy thing to bear," he said, in what he felt was a sage and thoughtful tone.
Jackie went off in a gale of laughter, much to his irritation.
The Brody/MacKenzie ticket won the election in a landslide. It was the biggest majority in history, and everyone agreed that the novelty and oddity of the separated-at-birth story paid no small part in the victory.
"The first thing I'm going to do as vice president is get a haircut!" MacKenzie declared.
"Ah, negative on that, sir," his handler replied. "Ixnay on the aircut-hay. You can't get a haircut before the First Lady. And then, only after a certain waiting period, so no one connects your haircut with hers."
"What the hell?" Allen replied. "And how long is that certain waiting period?"
"We don't know, sir," the handler replied. "That's To Be Determined."
"Great jumping catfish," he sighed, feeling defeated.
He *did* like his official residence, the Admiral's House at the Naval Observatory. Jackie loved it, and soon made it feel like home.
Allen was looking forward to the next four years: hanging around the White House, influencing policy, helping the country — all of that good stuff.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be none of that.
"You and the president cannot be in the same place at the same time," his handler explained. "In fact, it would be best if you weren't in the same city at the same time, but we're not going to be strict about that..."
"What the hell did I get to be vice president to do?" Allen cried out to the universe at large.
But he knew the answer already: he was the spare. His job was to sit on the shelf and be ready.
He did some traveling. He spoke at a few elementary schools. He even cut the ribbon at a mall opening. He never felt more useless in his life.
One rainy day in August he was at home, reading. An aide brought him a snack, and let out a startled gasp.
"What's wrong?" Allen asked.
"It's nothing," the aide replied. "I didn't see the glass in the fireplace until now. It's nothing. I just didn't expect it. I'll send someone to clean it up."
"What glass in the fireplace?" Allen said, rising to look. He saw the shards of a crystal wine glass littering the hearth.
"What the..." he began.
"Oh, so you didn't do this, sir?"
"Of course I didn't do this! What do you think I am, a —" A what? A person who breaks glasses in fireplaces? Was there a word for that? In any case, who would do such a thing, in *my* house of all places?
"Oh," the aide said. "It must have been the First Lady!"
"What!?" MacKenzie shouted, as if stung. "Are you mocking me, boy?" The idea that his own aide could say such a thing... as if he were saying It wasn't me, it was my evil twin...
"Of course not, sir! It's only that she was here last evening... and ah..." the aide looked at the litter of shards, which told the rest of the story.
"Well, I like that!" Allen exclaimed. "She just barged in here, free and easy, like she owned the place, and tossed a glass into the fireplace? What next? What next?"
"No, sir, it isn't like that at all!"
"How the hell did she get in? Why was she let in? And why wasn't I notified?"
"We thought you knew, sir. She comes here quite a bit."
"She WHAT?"
"We thought your wife would have told you," the aide replied in an embarrassed tone. "The First Lady comes to visit Mrs. MacKenzie."
In fact, that very night Tessa Brody came to visit. She was quite casual: wore a pair of jeans and a sweater, and she brought a video that the two women planned to watch together.
"What is it?" Allen asked when he walked in on them. The film was already underway.
"Oh," Jackie said, "It's called Fired! It's about people who lost their jobs."
"Sounds awful," he replied.
"No, it's a hoot," Tess told him. "Grab a seat. Pull up a glass."
The two women had already been drinking. Jackie not so much, but Tess had put away more than her share. She poured Allen a generous glass and said, "You have to help me. If you don't drink it, I will. Be a good Christian and help your neighbor." She gave a vulgar laugh, which grated Allen's nerves, but he took a sip.
"Good stuff," he commented.
"You sound surprised," Tess said. "We're far above the usual pigswill now." She laughed. "Not like last year."
The movie didn't look interesting. A group of people sat on folding chairs on a little stage. One fellow got up and talked about working as a Ronald McDonald. The job sounded abysmally awful. On account of the oversized shoes, he fell on his face during the job interview, and *that* was probably the best moment in his burger-clown career.
Allen listened in shocked commiseration as the man cataloged the indignities that made up the job. The two women howled in laughter, as did the audience on screen.
As soon as the man finished, Jackie hit the PAUSE. "I've got to visit the little girls room," she announced, and trotted into the hall.
Allen's first impulse was to leave the room as well, but he realized it would be incredibly rude. So cleared his throat instead and took another sip of wine.
"You weren't laughing," Tess observed.
"It wasn't funny," he replied.
"How was that not funny?"
"It was a horrible job," he told her. "How could I laugh? How could you laugh?"
"What makes it funny is that it happened to someone else. Not to Jackie, or me, or you."
"But it did happen to me," he found himself saying. "That man was describing *my* job."
"Oh," Tessa said, getting it. Her oh floated on a long, wine-scented breath. "You feel like Ronald McDonald?"
"Do you know my first official act as vice president? I presided at a mall opening in Montana, for Christ's sake! I go around speaking at elementary schools! The only thing I'm missing are the big shoes and the red wig!"
Tessa grinned uncomfortably. As she set down her glass, she knocked the cork from the wine bottle to the floor. She stood up to retrieve it, and Allen noticed for the first time that Tess was wearing jeans. Tight jeans. For a fifty-something, she had a fine pair of legs.
When she turned and bent for the cork, he was surprised to find that she had a backside you'd expect on a much younger woman, and thanks to the cut of Tess' jeans, Allen had an easy time picturing her naked. It was quite a picture.
His excitement rapidly died away when he recalled that nearly every person on Earth regarded Tessa as his virtually identical twin.
She straightened up and looked at him. Tess was good at reading people, particularly men. She knew her feminine power; she could tell when a man found her attractive, and she saw a battle in Allen's face. A lost battle.
"You're thinking about all that twin crap, aren't you?" she asked.
When he nodded, she said, "Yeah, well, maybe it's been a bad thing for you, but it's been one of the best things that ever happened to me."
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Not that it's any of my business, but I heard that it pretty much killed your marriage."
"Yeah," she laughed thickly. "That's what's so great about it! I mean, it was an *awful* marriage! I never realized it until it was over. It sucked, literally."
Allen wondered whether she knew what "literally" meant.
She continued, "You're lucky. You're a good looking guy. Jackie says you're great in bed. That's no small thing, you know. Most guys don't know whether they're coming or going."
Allen stirred uncomfortably. He was no prude, but her frankness disturbed him. Oddly enough, she seemed unaware of the double meanings in what she'd said.
"Yeah," Tess said. "According to her, you pretty much licked your way into her heart."
"She said that!?"
Startled, Tess realizing she'd been rambling, and she'd crossed a line. Quickly backpedalling, she said, "Oh, not in so many words... you know... anyway, the point is, that you're the exact opposite of Brody. All he wants to do is take, take, take. He doesn't give a damn about my needs or my pleasure or the goddamned American People!"
Allen wondered how much wine Tess consumed before he'd arrived. As if reading his thoughts, she said, "I know I'm drunk. I'm not *very* drunk, though. Just enough. Enough to make me honest. In vino vekkitass — in wine, truth... you know."
She took a small sip and rolled it around her mouth before swallowing. "So anyway, I told him that if I was going to do all the work, the least he could do was keep his hair trimmed down there, but oh-no!"
"Ah, I don't think —"
"Oh, I know, I know," she said, waving her hand. "I'll stop. The thing is, you and I, we have the same problem: we're supporting actors. We're not the stars. It's hard to be a supporting actor because it kills your ego. I don't have a big ego; neither do you. But still, it's bad to kill even a little thing..." Her eyes filled with drunken tears, but she brushed them away.
"Whew! I'm getting carried away!" she laughed. "See, it's tough, being First President or Vice Lady. I mean, First President Vice Lady." She huffed loudly and gave up. "Oh, I'm drunk. I *am* drunk. I don't usually get this bad, Allen, believe me. Drunk as a skunk in a bunk."
Allen said gently, "Maybe I should go," but before he could rise from his seat, Tessa put her hand on his arm.
"No, please," she said. "Can you wait? If you go now, Jackie will think I drove you away."
It was from that exact moment that Allen began to like her, to genuinely like her as a person and as a friend. It was the first time they connected, and somehow, it was a great relief.
Jackie returned a moment later, carrying popcorn and apologies, and Allen politely took his leave.
Before he'd gone two feet from the couch, his foot caught on the edge of the carpet, and he felt flat on the floor with a loud slap! It sounded alarming, but he didn't hurt himself at all.
Tessa quipped, "It's those great big shoes, Ronald," and the three of them laughed.
Allen didn't realize it, then or later, but it was the first time he'd laughed at himself in a good long time.
It was also the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
It was like a dam broke. Jackie, Tess, and Allen became the best of friends.
Ironically, Tess became Allen's key to the White House. Whenever the president was away (and that was surprisingly often), Tess invited the MacKenzie's over. Together they roved through the building, which was much bigger than any of them ever imagined.
The MacKenzie's used the bowling alley, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, took turns posing for pictures in the Oval Office, and playing games of hide-and-seek with the Secret Service (much to the agents' chagrin).
Allen honestly didn't know when he'd been happier. Jackie told him that he was much more "human" than he'd been since they were married. Their love life improved, and Allen licked his way to his wife's heart once more.
Best of all, Allen MacKenzie grew to love being vice president. It was a position of pure prestige, and if there was little power, well, there were few responsibilities. Brody held tight to the reins of power, and shared none of it with his vice president.
Once MacKenzie relaxed, he enjoyed his endless executive vacation. He loved being the spare.
One day, at the White House's indoor pool, Tess and Allen stood back to back and side to side while Jackie compared them in detail.
Of course, there was the obvious difference of gender, but the other differences were not so great.
Allen's shoulders were slightly wider. His head was slightly bigger, and his hair a trifle coarser. His hips and eyes were a bit narrower, and his chin a tad squarer.
Their eyes and hair weren't exactly the same color. His abs weren't tight like Tess' and the skin of his face wasn't as smooth.
But that was it. The differences weren't that great.
"Why don't you grow a beard?" Tess asked him.
Allen blushed by way of response. Jackie explained for him.
"See, the thing is, he used to have an awful beard. It was like a bristle brush. So I convinced him to laser it off."
"She said I looked like Nixon," Allen interjected.
"I didn't mean you resembled Nixon," Jackie said. "I meant you had a five o'clock shadow."
"What's a five o'clock shadow?" Tess inquired.
"It means that he always looked like he needed to shave. He could shave five times a day, but those thick, dark hairs always showed. So he lasered it off."
"Oh," Tess commented. She leaned closer to Allen as asked, "May I?"
When he nodded, she ran her cool fingers over his face. "Smooth," she said approvingly.
Sometimes the three of them got pretty silly when they were together. Even so, Tess was drinking less, and Allen was smiling more.
And then, little by little, they found themselves going down a funny little road.
It started one day when Allen and Tess were sitting next to each other. Jackie stood behind them to compare their hairstyles in detail. She was playing with Allen's hair, pulling it that way and this, finding all the ways the two were different.
Even so, she was able with her fingers to brush his hair into an approximation of Tess' cut.
It was surprising and a little disturbing, because it made the two look much more similar than they already did. Allen took it well, though. Entering into the spirit of the foolery, he left the new style there until they heard someone coming. At that point, he dove into the pool to flatten out his hair.
It was a small step, but it was the first step.
The next step was quite a bit bolder, but again, it was just a step.
There was some talk of getting retinal scanners at the White House. Tess pointed out that she and Allen had similar eyes, and doubted that the scanners could tell the difference.
Jackie said, "You don't have similar eyes. They're different colors."
Tess disagreed. "It's only because I wear eye makeup. It brings up the blue in my eyes. If I wasn't wearing it, we'd have the same color."
Jackie and Tess argued the point. Allen tuned them out. His new-found liking for Tess made the topic of their similarity much easier to bear. While he didn't laugh at the "separated at birth" jokes, they irritated him much less.
He realized that the women were waiting for him to respond.
"What?" he asked. "Sorry, I was daydreaming."
"Tess was going to take her eye makeup off," Jackie explained, "so we can settle the point."
"So?"
"She'd have to redo her whole face afterward, so we thought you wouldn't mind..."
"Just your eyes," Tess said. "We'll smear on some of my color, take a look and wash it right off."
"Ah..." Allen hesitated.
"It will take all of five minutes," Tess explained. "If I take off my face and have to put it back on, it will be 30 to 40 minutes at least."
"Ah..." Allen repeated.
In the end, he let them do it.
Just the eyes.
On and then off.
But the effect was dramatic.
Jackie was right: their eye colors *were* different. Even so, the eye makeup made him look more like Tess than ever.
"Whoo, spooky!" Tess said. "You could be a spare for me, too! One day we ought to do up your whole face."
Allen good-naturedly passed on the offer that evening, and washed the eye makeup off as soon as possible, but a week later, on a dull and rainy evening, the women proposed a makeover.
"Just your head," Tess said. "I'll do my routine on you and see how it looks."
"Last time you said it would only be my eyes," Allen retorted, laughing. "This time it's my head. Next time you'll want me to wear a dress!"
Well, it wasn't the next time. It was three times after. "Just to see!" the women cried.
The dress didn't quite fit. The women laughed at his hairy legs and arms, and recoiled in horror at the sight of his armpits.
A few sessions later, after a shave in the bathtub, and wearing the right foundation garments, the dress looked the way it should, and Allen got his first taste of high heels.
"I'd never get the hang of these things," he growled, and kicked them off.
Finally, one day, as more of a dare than anything else, Tess came to visit, armed with all the fixings. She and Jackie spent the morning making Allen over, and after a light lunch, Jackie and Allen visited the White House.
Tess had taken the precaution of pretending to have laryngitis, so Allen, as the fake First Lady, wouldn't have to speak above a whisper.
Tess had dared them to make their way to the Oval Office, where Jackie would take a digital photo of "First Lady" Allen standing near the Presidential Seal.
Allen's heart was pounding. "What the hell I am doing?" he hissed to Jackie as their heels click-clacked down a long hallway. "If anyone —"
"Oh, no, Tess, I'm sure you're wrong," Jackie said loudly. In a whisper she added, "It's too late for second thoughts now. Nobody's going to guess. Just relax and do it!"
It wasn't hard to get into the Oval Office. As Allen posed by the Presidential Seal, wearing Tess' lovely gray dress, he suddenly put something together.
"Jackie," he hissed. "Do you remembering hearing a helicopter earlier?"
Jackie got it in one. She snapped one more picture, dropped the camera in her purse, and the two of them made for the door.
Unfortunately, the door burst open, and a swarm of Secret Service agents flowed into the room.
"We have Queen Bee and Mrs. O in the room," one of the men reported into his headset.
"Am I Mrs. O?" Jackie asked.
"Guess so," Allen said.
"You must be Queen Bee," Jackie whispered.
"No," Allen whispered back, "I am shit out of luck."
President Brody burst into the room, looking suspiciously at Tess. His expression changed when he saw Jackie. As abusive as he could be in private, he was always the picture of kindness in company.
"Tess," he said. "Nice to see ya, hon."
Allen cleared his throat. His eyes filled with fear.
Brody, seeing that, moved closer and said, "Don't worry. I don't mind that you're in here. You can come in here as often as you like. As long as you pay the toll."
Toll? What toll? Allen asked himself, but the question was immediately answered when Brody grabbed him around the waist and shoulders, swept him slightly off balance, and gave his supposed wife a deep soul kiss.
"I swear his tongue rubbed against my tonsils!" he told Tess and Jackie later.
Brody savored the kiss as if it were a steak, working his lips and tongue with gusto, sucking out all the flavor and warmth he could find. He pressed his strong frame against Allen's slim body and rubbed his presidential power against the false First Lady's thigh.
When he finally let go, he asked the breathless MacKenzie, "So what do you say to that, Tess? I'm in town tonight. Surprise! You could make this my President's Day. What do you say?"
Allen gulped and tried to clear his throat. His eyes were huge. His mind was full of fear.
Jackie jumped in, "Mr. President, Tess has laryngitis. She can't talk."
Brody almost dropped the imitation Tess. "Laryngitis!?" He repeated in disgust. He looked at her as if she were a leper. "Why didn't you tell me that before you laid that kiss on me?" He wiped his lips, tongue, and the inside of his mouth with a hankerchief, then dropped the hankerchief in the trash. "What are you trying to do?" he said. "Make me sick? Do you know who I am? I'm the President of the You-Effin-Nighted States! I don't have TIME for laryngitis."
Brody growled to one of the agents, "Get these women out of here," and then, in an incongruously sweet tone said, "Nice to see ya, Jackie. Tell MacKenzie I said hello."
The agents herded the women out of the office and away. They weren't unkind or brusque. They were efficient and irresistible, and once out of their hands the MacKenzies made their way to Tess' car.
"You've got to drive," Allen told Jackie. "I'm too... too... I don't know what I am, but I'm too upset to drive."
Predictibly, the real Tess thought it was a hoot and an unqualified success.
"Well, done, Tess!" she crowed, and hugged MacKenzie. "Hey, Jackie!" she called, "Take a picture of me and my twin sister here!"
"No!" Allen quickly said, and moved away from Tess. "If there's a picture showing two of you, then one of those you's is me."
"Right," Tess agreed, seeing his point, but Allen could see that she really wanted the picture.
To tell the truth, so did he.
After his initial fright, and his horrible "first kiss," Allen developed a taste for playing the First Lady.
They tried to dress Tess like Allen, but the impersonation didn't work in that direction.
It was easier to squeeze his waist and create breasts and hips where there were none. Hiding all her feminine flesh and filling out her waist was more of a challenge, and no matter what they tried, Tess always ended up looking like a butched-up Tess. She never looked like the Vice President.
And so it happened that once or twice a week, depending on circumstances, Allen and Jackie would go on outings as the "First Ladies."
Allen was pleased to find that he got more attention, and a better quality of attention, as Tess than he ever did as MacKenzie.
With the help of the ladies, he worked on his voice, and after a while was able to do a passable imitation of Tess. It always broke down in the long run, but as long as he stuck to short phrases, he was fine.
The next big challenge came when Brody asked Tess to stand at his side for an important Press Conference in the Rose Garden.
Tess didn't want to do it, but she *had* to do it, and she knew it. Brody also knew it, and had taken advantage of that fact to be particularly nasty. Somehow it pleased him to feel the intensity of her hate while compelling her to appear as The Loving Wife.
Tess asked Allen to go in her place.
He told her that he couldn't.
She begged him, with tears in her eyes.
Do it for her, Jackie silently urged.
"I can't," Allen said. "Look, I'm not even supposed to be in the same city as him, and there'd I'd be, standing right next to him. Suppose something happened? Suppose something happened to both of us? I'd go down in history as the first transvestite vice-president."
In the end, the tears and pleading prevailed, helped by his own ever-increasing desire to dress like Tess.
He stood by Brody's side, played the admiring, sustaining wife, and let Brody drape his arm around his shoulders as they walked from the Rose Garden back into the White House.
Once inside, Brody's arm immediately slid down to the imitation Tess' butt and rested there.
MacKenzie swallowed hard. Even Brody's hand felt muscular and hot.
"You did a great job, baby," Brody said a low, thrilling tone. He moved his head closer to hers and whispered, "The cameras are still on us. They can see us through the curtains, but we're going to pretend they can't." He looked into MacKenzie's eyes. "Do you understand?"
Allen looked at Brody with big helpless eyes. He'd been so sure before he came here that he'd be able to escape another kiss, but now he could see there was no choice. Playing the docile wife, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Brody held the false Tess and leaned her back, slightly off balance, so she felt more helpless than before.
Again, Brody's mouth and tongue worked as though he was eating, as though he was devouring her. His hands passed over her body, her back, her buttocks, as though he was hungry, as though he wanted all of her, through and through. MacKenzie felt Brody's presidental power grow large and hard, and he felt as if he was losing his breath.
Brody broke the kiss, but he held her in his arms, helpless as a ragdoll. MacKenzie was panting. Tess had coached him, so he knew what was coming and how to get away.
"You did a great job, baby," Brody repeated. "There's another job you can do for me. You know the one I mean. You could make this my President's Day. What do you say?"
The pretend Tess fixed her eyes on Brody's. Now it was time to play the offended wife. "You know that I didn't want to be here. Nothing has changed between us. Do you understand that? Nothing has changed."
Brody's gaze hardened, but MacKenzie saw some fear in there as well. Tess really does have something on him! he realized, so he felt bold enough to say the rest: "This is how we're going to play it. You're going to let me up, and I'm going to skip away and give you a cute wave. Then I'm going to my room and you're not going to bother me. Are we clear?"
Brody turned his head so the cameras couldn't see his face, and gave a look of pure hatred at his supposed wife. "We're very clear," he said. Then he erased the horrible look, turned his profile to the camera and smiled. He gave her a quick, soft kiss, and let her up.
As the fake First Lady turned to go, Brody gave her a resounding slap on the backside. It made MacKenzie skip a few steps and put his hands to his stinging behind. He turned, his mouth in an oh of surprise, to see Brody laughing. "See ya upstairs, honey bunch!" he called, and blew a kiss. MacKenzie did his best to smile, and trotted out of the office.
He spent the night alone in Tess' bedroom with the door locked and a dresser in front of the door. After a few hours of fitful sleep, he went back home, still dressed as Tess, driving Tess' car.
He thought Tess would be furious at the photos and the newsclips of the event, but all she said was, "Thank God it wasn't me. I would have killed him."
Jackie and Tess treated him like a wounded hero, but Allen was strangely happy and excited. He had an enormous sense of achievement and pride at what he'd done, but he kept that as a secret for himself.
In Brody's second year of office, a ball was planned for Presidents Day.
Tess had quit drinking almost entirely by then, and was spending more and more time away from the White House.
At the same time, Allen was spending more and more time at the White House, playing the part of Tess. He made public appearances, went to meetings, attended fund raisers, while the real Tess stayed with Jackie.
Sometimes Allen wondered what the two did with all their free time, but it was just an idle question.
Tess hoped that Allen would attend the Presidents Day Ball, and Allen had the same hope.
A beautiful and expensive gown was chosen. With the help of some stick-on body parts and some physical training, by the beginning of February, MacKenzie had the body to go with the gown.
After nights and weeks of practice, he could walk and dance in heels, and play the part of Tessa Brody to perfection.
When at last the day came, MacKenzie was as excited as a woman on her wedding day, or as a girl on the night of the prom. He'd spent the night at the White House, had his hair and makeup done by professionals, and was dusted, perfumed, dressed, and accessorized to a degree of perfection that few mortals ever achieve.
When he looked at himself in the mirror, he felt that he'd reached the pinnacle — not only of his own life — but of life itself.
The ball was a huge success. Dignitaries and eminences from literally all the world were there, and they all wanted to kiss Tess' hand, and if possible to dance with her. She was admired and photographed, and Brody himself was nearly struck dumb.
"If I'd never met you before tonight," he told her, "I'd fall in love with you now. You've never been more beautiful."
MacKenzie smelt the scotch on his breath, and knew that Brody was speaking from his heart as well as his desire. "Tess, I know I've been an ass. An incredible ass." He went on, apologizing, pouring out his heart.
Tess had warned MacKenzie that this would happen: "He'll say he's changed; that he's sorry, he was wrong. He'll say all the right things, and he'll make you believe him. He'll say that it's love, but it's all coming out of his pants in one way or another. Don't believe him and *don't* accept his apology."
In spite of all that, the false Tess felt like a princess. Maybe even a queen. In any case, on top of the world.
With the social success, the universal admiration and acceptance, the kisses on the hand and cheek... the false First Lady knew she looked good, and felt the power of her attractiveness and appeal.
And here, before her, was the Most Powerful Man In The World, practically on his knees, begging for forgiveness, for a single kind word...
So when he asked, with tearful eyes, "Tess, darling, can you forgive me?"
MacKenzie couldn't help but say, "Of course, darling, I forgive you."
The two of them bathed in the joy of that electrical moment, until Brody caught the pretended Tess around the waist and pulled her body against his own.
"So we're good then?" he asked with a hungry smile.
"Uh, yes, right, we're, uh, good," MacKenzie stammered, uncomfortable in Brody's strong embrace.
"Good. Because I've been missing you. And tonight we're going to celebrate the real Presidents Day. I'm not going to let go of you until we do. What do you think about that?"
"Uh, um, oh," MacKenzie said, as his eyelashes fluttered and his cheeks colored slightly.
"I don't know how you did it," Brody said, "but somehow you just got even more beautiful."
He bent to kiss her as a sea of photographic flashes exploded and erupted all around them.
© 2008 by Kaleigh Way
"Is there any way," I asked, "that we can talk about this subject so that *I* can understand it? without a lot of malarkey?"
"I don't think so," he replied. "You can have incomprehensible or you can have nonsensical. Those are the choices."
"The problem," Surinam was telling me, "is that there are only two ways to talk about this subject. The first way is to use mathematics: endless volumes of numbers and symbols and equations. That approach, to put it bluntly, is nothing but an immense quantity of incomprehensible rubbish, leading, with painstaking precision, exactly nowhere."
"It may be incomprehensible to you," Hacksworth grumbled. "But that doesn't mean SOME of us don't understand it."
Surinam ignored the comment and went on: "The second way is to use mystical doubletalk. That approach is loads of fun, but is totally lacking in any scientific — or even philosophical — rigor."
Chatterly protested, "That's hardly fair! At least it gives us a way to discuss it on the macro level."
I groaned and resisted the urge to bang my head on my desk. "Is there any way," I asked, "that we can talk about this subject so that *I* can understand it? without a lot of malarkey?"
Surinam licked his lips and pretended to consider my question. "I don't think so," he replied. "You can have incomprehensible or you can have nonsensical. Those are the choices."
"Then we're in trouble," I told them. "Big, big trouble."
I looked at the four faces before me: Hacksworth, Chatterly, Surinam, and Bean. They smiled at me — smiles of child-like simplicity and absolute trust. I wanted to smack them all silly, but what good would it do?
"Look, boys," I said to them. "We've been spending–" and there I paused. It wouldn't do to tell them a number, any number, because then they'd go off on all sorts of irrelevant mental calculations and completely miss the point I was trying to make. "Well, we've spent a boatload of the government's money, and tomorrow somebody's coming to see what we've been up to."
The four men continued to smile happily at me. The geniuses just didn't get it.
"What am I going to tell them?" I demanded.
"We can show them the swimsuit," Bean suggested.
"I am NOT going to show anyone this silly swimsuit!" I told him, struggling to stay calm. "Look: tomorrow, three representatives of the Government Accounting Office are going to be here. They have the authority to go anywhere, look at anything, ask any question they like — and I have to give them an answer, I might add — an answer that satisfies them. IF — IF — IF I can tell them what we've spent the last year doing, and IF they like what they hear, then we'll be in business for another four years.
"On the other hand, if they DON'T like what I tell them, if they don't think we've done anything worthwhile, they can shut us down and throw us out on our ears."
Surinam opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "If you're going ask me how they're going to make sure we land on our ears, I swear to God I'll get out this chair and show you how."
He closed his mouth and kept silent.
"Do you geniuses understand that, come tomorrow, we could ALL be out of work? Do you get that?"
They sure didn't look like they got it.
I made an effort to breathe deeply, slowly, in a regular rythmn. I needed to get a grip on my anger and frustration. "What I need," I told them in the most even tone I could manage, "is a story. I need something I can tell them. And I don't have a goddam idea of what to say."
Bean, the most practical of the four, cleared his throat and said, "Honestly, chief, we think the swimsuit is going to almost literally blow their minds."
I dropped my head in frustration. If I didn't need the four of them so badly, I swear I would have fired them all on the spot.
I'm not a mathematician or a scientist or even an engineer. I'm a glorified project manager. Even that's not the right word for what I do.
Four years ago, the federal government launched a wide-open, blue-sky, pure-research micro-initiative.
What that means in plain English is that they threw piles of money at small groups of scientists, and told them: "Do whatever you feel like doing. Work on whatever you think is important. We'll come back later and see if you've got anything. NO PRESSURE! Okay? Bye!"
Our little group, my four geniuses and I, got a big fat check every month, no questions asked.
I was hired as the administrator, and at first I tried to keep track of what the four were up to, but it didn't take long before I gave it up.
I couldn't understand them. Not a word.
These guys were so far out, they made theoretical physics seem like kindergarten. I've got some basic understanding of modern physics and all its weird particles. I get the uncertainty principle and I could probably explain to you why quantum physics sounds so crazy, but these guys... they left me in the dust.
Like one time, I overheard them talking about "putting a black hole into a pair of underwear," and I laughed. I mean, you would have thought it was a joke, right? But they all looked at me like *I* was nuts.
Surinam chided me, "There could be some practical application!"
Bean jumped in to remind them that the idea "had started out as a joke" and after that, they quit ribbing me.
Sheesh.
Still, I began to get the impression that all their theoretical, cosmological, ontological ideas and all the projects they proposed somehow managed to include a salacious or scatalogical element. They seemed hell-bent on involving their sexual immaturity in everything they did.
Not that it was ever a problem. They *were* doing science at the same time. At least, that's what they told me.
After a while, I realized that Bean, out of the four, was the one who lived closest to the real world, so I began to have lunch with him once a week. With some struggle on both our parts, he managed to help me get some sort of picture of what they were doing.
Unfortunately, the other three scientists got jealous, and *they* wanted to lunch with me as well.
So every week, the understanding Bean built up on Monday was eroded by his colleagues on the days that followed.
It wasn't that they tried to confuse me. They were just talking: making jokes, explaining things, thinking out loud.
The problem was that these guys were world-class geniuses, and my poor brain didn't have the same wiring as theirs. From Tuesday to Thursday, every week, at precisely 1:15, I'd sit down at my desk with my mind fully and properly blown. And by "blown", I mean blown out, empty, devoid of content, circuits fused, relays burnt, wires melted, brain pan fried.
Fridays, when the weather was nice, I'd go the park at lunchtime and feed the ducks. It helped me feel that I had at least some kind of grip on reality... or that there *was* a reality out there to grip.
Even so, with all of that, it was the best job I ever had. Good money, no one over me... honestly, I had nothing to do but show up and make sure my boys showed up.
Until the day of reckoning, when the Government Accounting Office, the GAO, informed us that we were having a review. Tomorrow. No warning, no preparation.
"Nothing formal," they said. "We just want to see what you're up to. And, you know, make determinations for future funding."
"What that means," I told the four clowns seated in front of me, "is that they could shut us down."
"That's not what they said," Chatterly pointed out.
"They will make determinations for future funding," I repeated. It was amazing, the things you had to explain to people, especially to geniuses. "Funding means money. The future is... tomorrow and the days after. Determinations means they will decide something. Add it all together, and it means they are going to decide how much money they're going to give us."
"They could give us more," Surinam offered hopefully.
"Why would they do that?" I asked. "They'd be more likely to give us less."
"They can't give us less," Surinam countered.
"Less would mean any number between what they give us now... and zero," said Hacksworth, thinking aloud. He is, after all, the mathematician of the group.
"Zero?" Chatterly repeated. "If they give us zero, why, that's... that's... nothing!"
I slapped my hands over my face. "God help me," I muttered. "Any day now..."
"Don't worry," Bean told me. "We have the swimsuit."
"So let me get this straight," I said. "You're telling me that this swimsuit is made out of superstrings?"
"Well, no," Hacksworth replied, adjusting his glasses as he tried to suppress a smirk. "That would be impossible. I mean, superstrings don't even exist!"
"Oh, don't go there!" Chatterly cried.
I held up my hands for quiet. They settled down.
"Bean?" I prompted.
"It's like this," he began. "You can call it resonance, or sympathy, or entanglement—"
"None of them being the right word," Hacksworth threw in.
"— or some other thing, but what it comes down to is this: if someone puts that swimsuit on, the wearer will be attuned to, or commune with, or simply BE the same..." he searched for the word "... power —"
"Let's say entity," Surinam put in.
Bean scowled, but accepted the word. "... entity which — for want of a better description — creates, sustains, and perhaps even destroys the entire universe."
The others were silent, for once.
I set the suit carefully on my desk.
"You can touch it all you want, chief," Hacksworth said, grinning. "It's completely inert until someone puts it on."
"What kind of sense does that make?" I asked. "And, look here: you guys said that you made this outfit, but the tag is still on it!" It was a women's Speedo Hydrasuit: one of those slick one-piece outfits that racing swimmers wear.
"And why the hell," I continued, "Why in the name of holy hell did you pick *this* swimsuit?"
"A two-piece swimsuit doesn't have enough material," Hacksworth replied. "By 'material' I mean cloth. And a man's swimsuit has even less."
"Why did it have to be a swimsuit?" I demanded.
The four of them looked at each other. It appeared to be a question that no one had thought to ask.
"Please don't tell me that you knuckleheads thought we'd bring a model in here to try this on for you."
Four sets of eyes blinked at me in the worst imitation of innocence I'd ever seen.
"You can forget that! What do you think the chances are of getting a security clearance for... oh, never mind!"
I looked at the swimsuit for the umpteenth time. "It just looks like lycra or whatever they normally use," I said.
"It is," Bean said. "We've treated it, but it's treated in ways that are undetectable."
"Can we say theoretically undetectable?" Chatterly asked.
"Sure," I said. "So how did you make it?"
"Uh," Bean began, searching for words. He glanced at the others, then told me, "Let's say that we supercooled the beams from several types of lasers in a very particular kind of magnetic field."
Hacksworth scoffed. "That is a ridiculously oversimplified—"
I cut him off, saying, "It's good enough for government work." I wasn't going to tell them, but I finally felt like I had a grasp on what they'd done, or said they'd done.
"So you just blasted it with energy, and that was that?" I asked.
"No, no," Surinam said. "Not 'just like that'. It took months of painstaking adjustments, alignments..."
Chatterly put in, "It was very painstaking work."
"I already said that," Surinam pointed out.
"Could they be mass produced?" I asked, but the chorus of hysterical laughter was answer enough.
Bean told me, "This baby may be one of a kind. We had some lucky accidents—"
"It wasn't luck," Hacksworth contradicted.
"The point is," Bean concluded. "I don't know if we can make another. This may be the one and only... never to be seen again."
"But... we do have this one. We can use it over and over—"
"Oh, no," laughed Surinam. "This suit is strictly single-use!"
"What!?" I shouted. "What the hell kind of sense does that make? So what happens to it when it's done?"
"It reverts to being an ordinary swimsuit," Bean said.
"Hmmph," I said. The whole thing was absurd and unbelievable, but oddly enough, I was beginning to feel a little better. At least now I had a story for the GAO.
Unless...
"You guys aren't pulling my leg are you?"
They all looked offended.
"Okay, sorry. I had to ask. Well, look. There's just one piece missing for me. What happens when somebody puts the suit on?"
"I already told you," Bean said. "It kind of puts you in control... you kind of sit at the, uh, center of creation, and pull the strings."
"Or the superstrings," Hacksworth joked.
"And what could you do? And how would you know how to do it?"
"We think it would be clear in that moment," Surinam replied. "It should be intuitively obvious. It would be a sort of mystical state, you could say, in which you'd be in touch with the universe, the one and the many, the all and the nothing, and you could remake it all in the blink of an eye."
"You're shitting me," I told him.
He shrugged. "That's what we think it does, and we're pretty smart guys."
I thought for a moment. "Okay," I said. "But suppose you want to change something. What could you change?" I looked around my office. "Could I change the color of the walls?"
Bean had a bemused look. "Sure, but it would be kind of a waste. You could do *that* with a bucket of paint."
I thought for a moment, but no other questions came to mind. "Alright," I told them. "I think I have enough to tell the GAO. I think I get it. Enough, anyway." I wanted to stop while I had a clear idea. I knew from experience that if they kept talking, they'd confuse me all over again.
"So, are we done here?" Surinam asked.
"Yeah, sure," I replied. "Meeting over. You can go. Uh, good job, guys."
And then an odd thing happened. All four of them looked at their watches, and THEN Surinam asked, "What time do you have?" The other three responded, "3:24," one after the other. Surinam nodded, and they all trooped out.
Once they left, I did the most managerial thing I know: I stretched my arms, interlaced my fingers, and put my hands on top of my head. I leaned back in my chair and cleared my mind. It didn't take much: the four geniuses had pretty much blown it out earlier. After a minute or two I stood up and walked in front of my desk.
"A man's butt wasn't made to sit that long," I observed, and moved my hips around to get some circulation going.
I looked out the window at the parking lot. It wasn't a pretty sight. Our building was an reconditioned radio assembly plant, and it was just as old and rundown as that sounds. I wished for the umpteenth time that we'd gotten offices in a better location. At the same time I knew we didn't have that luxury. It was an old beef I had with myself, and I didn't feel like arguing it out with myself again. It was the best choice, given the nature of our work.
Our work, I echoed, laughing to myself. Nice work, if you can get it.
I really ought to do something constructive with my life while I'm here, I told myself, but before I could settle on just what that might be, the door flew open, and Surinam burst in, looking all around. When he saw me, he looked disappointed.
"What's the big idea?" I asked. "Don't you know how to knock? What in the world do you want?"
"Oh," he said, obviously at a loss for what to say. "I forget."
"You forget?" He nodded. "Then get the hell out of here! I've got some important work to do!"
He mumbled apologies and left.
Geniuses! These four were supposed to be geniuses, but — excepting Bean — they barely had an ounce of sense between them.
I began thinking about the GAO review. What was the worst-case scenario? Obviously, they could shut us down. That would be the worst case. But would that really be so bad? I'd saved up enough money that at this point I could take a year off, if I wanted to. That's how much money I'd been making. I didn't even try to save; the money saved itself.
At the same time, I wouldn't mind having the whole thing stop. Just stop; come to an end. I could get a new job; a real job. A job where I'd be *doing* something, contributing to society.
I moved a chair into the corner, to a spot where I could look out the window and see mostly sky. It seemed the right place to contemplate my future, to try and figure out what I could do to make the world a better place. I put one of my feet up; I found it was conducive to reflection.
I'd gotten about as far as remembering the first and last names of some girls I knew in high school, when my office door suddenly flew open, and Hacksworth burst into the room. I was so startled that I jumped to my feet with my right foot still resting on the short file cabinet, and I nearly fell to the floor. Nearly, but not quite.
"What the hell is this!?" I bellowed. "Burst-into-my-office day? What is it with you guys?"
"Uh... uh...," Hacksworth hemmed and hawed. "Sorry! I thought it was... uh... the door to the men's room."
"The door to the men's room!? Are you out of your mind? Do I need to tell you that it isn't? Get the hell out of here!"
He mumbled his apologies and left.
What was going on with those nitwits? Were they playing a practical joke on me? I stood on my desk and looked on top of the fluorescent lights. Nope: no time-release cups of water or confetti. I looked under my desk for wires. I stood where I could see behind the books on my bookshelves. Nothing there. I took out all the drawers in my desk and searched behind them. Nothing.
I lifted the pictures on my wall. I rifled through my wastepaper basket. I turned over all the chairs; examined my floor lamp, desk lamp, and pencil sharpener. I gave the room as thorough a going-over as I knew how, and man! did I know how. Years of practical jokes from those... uh, jokers had taught me to expect the unexpected.
"Actually," Bean had pointed out when I made that boast, "You've enlarged the area of what you regard as expected. The unexpected, whatever that is, remains unexpected."
"If you say so," I replied.
I glanced at the clock. It was almost 4:10. Again, the door burst open, and I found myself face to face with Chatterly.
"Now you?" I asked. "What gives?"
Chatterly clearly looked disappointed, and a little confused.
"So?" I asked him. "What's your excuse?"
"I, uh, wanted to see whether I'd left my hat here."
"You don't wear a hat!" I told him.
"Oh," he said, "then I must have left it somewhere else."
"Yeah," I said, "you must have. Like inside your head!"
Chatterly frowned at my (admittedly) lame reply, but "at least he left," as I told myself after the door closed.
Now that I was alone AGAIN, for the fourth time this afternoon, I looked at the swimsuit. Might as well get ready for the GAO, I told myself, and began doing just that by snipping off the price tags. I was surprised to find that the suit had a zipper up its back. Probably it helped keep the suit tight against the swimmer; made less resistance. After all, in racing, seconds count.
What to do, what to do, I mused. Maybe one of the auditors would be a woman. She could try on the suit and... No. It was improbable that an auditor would be a woman and the right size and willing to try on the suit. She'd probably be insulted and leave. And cut off our funding.
What to do? Well, maybe someone else could wear the suit. And then what? They could change something. Maybe they could change something that would wow the GAO. But what could that be?
According to the four wise men in the other room, once the person put the suit on, they'd know what to do. It would be intuitive. The wearer would be in touch with the very heart of the universe, as it were.
I wondered whether there was a woman I knew that I'd trust enough to wear that suit.
And what could I ask her to change?
Then it hit me: there was something that could be changed. I could have the woman change the swimsuit itself! She could change it from the single-use model that the boys had created. She could turn it from a single-use to a multi-use outfit — one that would work every single time that someone put it on!
Now that was something that would wow even the four geniuses themselves.
"Surprised they didn't think of it," I laughed to myself.
Now who could wear it? Who could I trust to do the right thing?
I admit I'm not the smartest man in the universe — or even on earth — and definitely not the smartest man in my building. So I'm sure that most of you have already figured out that *I* was going to wear that swimsuit myself.
After all, it should only take a moment. No one would see. Maybe I didn't even need to zip it up.
I chucked my clothes on the chair in the corner and wiggled my way into the outfit. It was just about my size, if I were a woman. The waist was pretty goddam tight, but I got in there. I slid my arms into the arm-openings, and pulled it on, good and tight. Once I got my arms in, it kinda almost snapped onto me, but that wasn't any kind of super-scientific magic. It was just the way the swimsuit fit. And whoo, let me tell you: it was tight everywhere. Man, it was squeezing me all over.
But as far as changing the universe, nothing happened.
Okay, then: looked like I'd have to zip the zipper. I reached behind and pushed it halfway up. I bent my other arm but found it didn't go any higher. I reached behind my head, and found that with a bit of dancing and pushing on my elbow, I managed to grab the zipper and hoist it all the way up.
As soon as I did, everything changed.
And I mean everything. I've heard people describe hallucinogenic states, but this wasn't anything like that. It wasn't like a mystical experience, either.
It was just like... well... it was just like now. Not "be here now" — it was just plain NOW. I mean "now" — lowercase, without the quotes. Everything was the way everything always is, just more so. I could hear everything, see everything, smell everything, and even though none of it was pretty or good or nice, I loved it because it was perfect. Not "perfect in its own way," either: just perfect. Just plain perfect, with emphasis on the plain.
Plain, I realized. The universe is just PLAIN perfect. And it was. It is. It will be. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. And we are all plain. Very plain.
I stood there, admiring the crappy old linoleum that was coming perfectly to pieces under the perfectly fake veneer of my thrift-store-reject desk. It was a good buy, though. The desk, I mean. No one — no one in the universe! could deny that now. I was sure. I knew, with precise, all-encompassing knowledge, that *that* desk was a good buy. A very good buy. And a good buy it would forever remain.
I spread my arms, and my knowledge grew. It expanded out, embraced the globe, invaded the internet, and soaked up television waves from the ether. And yes, there was an ether. Limitless, undetectable, flowing.
As my consciousness expanded, I realized a simple fact: the earth is not the center of universe. Neither is the sun. So, what is, where is, the universal center? The navel of the universe, if you will? It's a point, a small, empty non-space, off, way off, way way off, down there. At that moment, I could have pointed it out to you, and you would have seen it. I would have caused you to see it, that little empty voidless void, off in the voidness of the void void void...
I began to find that exploring the universe was tiring work. Very tiring work. My legs began to feel the strain of standing and supporting all the connections and flexions and fluxions and formations that filled and filed and flashed through my whole-body consciousness.
And then... I felt the strings, and saw that it was just as Surinam had said. I knew exactly what to do, how to make it work, and what the implications would be. I could change whatever I liked. If I wanted, I could push all the continents of earth back together as one. I could bring Atlantis up from the sea. I could make it so mosquitos had never existed, not even in anyone's memory or imagination. I could grow grass on the moon, or hair on a billiard ball. Whatever I wanted, I could do.
At the same time, I saw the danger of the swimsuit. It was wrong to make it multi-use. The universe couldn't bear to be made, unmade, remade, over and over again. Even now, just by looking, I was putting a enormous strain on the fabric of matter, energy, and some third, nameless thing in all their manifestations and forms. I had to stop — and soon! — or the universe, multiverse, omniverse, would fray and stretch and come apart at the seams.
But first, I had to change something. Something small in order of things, something that wouldn't tax the infinite order of connections and dependencies, something that wouldn't change history, destiny, or free-market economy — yet something that would render the suit inert once I was done.
I remembered my joke to Bean, about changing the color of my office walls. That would do it, but it wouldn't satisfy the GAO.
What if I were to change one of the pictures on my wall? I was sure I could create something so extraordinary that the GAO would be left breathless, and sure to renew our funding indefinitely. An image that amazed and satisified the mind: something never seen or imagined on earth before now.
My memory opened like a huge library, and I scanned image after image of all the things that ever took my breath away.
Suddenly, among all the assorted wonders, I saw a poster... a movie poster... from the distant past of my teenage years. It was a poster for one of the first movies I saw by myself: One Million Years B.C. It was the image of Raquel Welch as Loana the Fair One, in her fur-trimmed bikini and fur boots, her auburn hair falling past her shoulders.
An iconic image, if ever there was one.
Perfection, I thought, Here is perfection. I abandoned the idea of a picture. Now I knew what needed to be done, and in that now I did it.
Once the change was made, the superstrings relaxed and disappeared from view. My senses contracted, retracted, and lost their super-acuity. My consciousness let go of the edges of the universe, lost its grip on the invisible, and fumbled its way back inside my head. I became once more a normal, simple human, and everything around me looked and sounded and smelled just as it had this morning, yesterday, and the day before. My linoleum was no longer perfect: it was just crappy old linoleum.
The desk was still a good buy, though.
As I stood there, looking at the clothes that no longer fit me, shivering in the air-conditioned room, I realized that fur may be warm, but I'd need a lot more than a fur bikini before the GAO arrived. Hell, I'd need a lot more clothes than I was wearing if I wanted to make it home tonight.
Almost as if on schedule, my office door burst open for the fourth time that afternoon. This time Bean came in, and when he saw me, he smiled. He didn't seem surprised, but he certainly looked pleased.
"Wow! That's quite a change, chief."
I shrugged in mute agreement.
"You *are* the chief, aren't you?" Bean asked.
"Yes, I am," I said, trying out my new voice for the first time.
Bean's eyes scanned me, up and down. I cleared my throat so he'd look me in the face.
He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with satisfaction. "Let me say, you made an excellent choice, chief! An excellent choice! Excuse me, but I have to tell the others."
He left my office without closing the door. As he walked away, I heard him shout, "Ha! I won the pool, you losers! Time to pay up!"
© 2008 by Kaleigh Way
"I have a lots of Barbies," the girl offered, "and we can play dress up."
"Okay," I agreed — but not because of what she said! I was going to go along with her anyway.
"Eddie, I need your help with something," Hayley muttered in an undertone. "Come with me." And with that, she darted up the stairs, two at a time, shouting a hello to my parents as she ran. I quickly followed her.
Hayley was was wearing what I wished *I* was wearing: shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers — simple, easy clothes. She looked as much a boy as me. Although at the moment, I was wearing something a bit more complicated: nice "slacks" (as my mother called them), a blue polo shirt, and a pair of uncomfortable dress shoes that I had to be careful not to scuff.
I followed her into her room, where she gestured to three sundresses laid out across her bed.
"This is it," she told me. "My mother and I had a huge fight, and as punishment, I can't go to dinner or the fireworks if I don't wear a dress."
"Huh," I said. "I've never seen you wear a dress."
"Yeah," she agreed. "I never wear one except in cases of force majeure."
I didn't know what force majeure meant, but I got the idea: she had to be compelled to wear a dress. A couple of times when Hayley and I were small, her mother and mine thought they could physically force her into a dress, but the two of them were no match for a struggling, desperate girl who wanted "pants or nothing."
Recalling that, and knowing my cousin, I looked from her to the clothes on the bed, but there was no way I could guess what she wanted. There were two things I was sure about: *she* didn't want to wear a dress, and *I* would never wear one. So why was I here?
"Look," she said, waving at the clothes as if they were so much trash. "These are the three choices my mother laid out. I want you to pick the one I have to wear."
I frowned. "What? Why? What does this have to do with me?"
She huffed in exasperation. "Because I'm not going to say that I picked a dress, or that I chose a dress. It's bad enough I have to wear one; I'm NOT going to go downstairs and hear my mother say, Oh, is that what you decided to wear, honey? So, YOU pick it. Then it will be obvious that I had no choice."
"Okay," I said. "But what if I pick wrong? What if I pick one that you don't like?"
"I don't like any of them," Hayley retorted. "So I don't care which one you pick. They're all ugly and stupid and wrong."
"Okay," I said, and examined the choices.
The first was mostly white, with lime-green paisley tear-drops on it. It was definitely the prettiest, but also (no doubt) the hardest to keep clean. Hayley was a super-active tomboy, and I knew she'd have that dress as black as an old shoe-rag in no time. So the white one was out.
The second was also mostly white with little blue diamonds that resembled tiny woodblock prints. Around the hem were dark red woodblocked flowers. All of that was fine, but it was ruined by its two big, fat shoulder straps. It looked like something a six-year-old would wear, and it would look asinine on Hayley. So that eliminated number two.
The third one was actually pretty nice. It was dark: it had three shades of purple arranged in horizontal stripes. The material was cotton, and the skirt flared just enough to give it some interesting waves.
And since this dress was a sundress, it left the shoulders bare, but it had two spaghetti straps that tied above each shoulder.
Hayley grunted at my selection. I took it simply as an acknowledgment that the choice had been made; she had zero interest in making any sort of fashion statement.
"Okay," she said, and began pushing me out of her room. "Give me a minute to throw this stupid thing on, and then we can go outside and do something."
"No, wait!" I said. "My mother won't let me go out in these clothes. We're all going out to dinner tonight, so she says I have to keep them nice."
Without missing a beat, Hayley said, "That's alright. Just tell them I have something you can wear."
"Just as long as it isn't a dress," my father laughed.
"I don't want you running around in girls clothes," my mother added, a concerned look on her face.
"Don't worry," Aunt Daphne told them, and she reddened a bit as she spoke. "To tell the truth, almost all the clothes Hayley owns are boys clothes. She insists on shopping in the boys department."
I went back upstairs and found Hayley in the purple sundress. Instinctively, I wanted to tell her that she looked nice, although it wasn't true. She looked like a boy in a dress. In any case, she wouldn't have wanted to hear me say it, even if it were so.
"You can wear those," she told me, gesturing to the shorts and t-shirt that she'd just taken off. They were lying on the floor, still warm. It actually disgusted me a little to put on clothes she'd just been wearing, but I did want to get out of the house, so I carefully laid my dressier things on her bed, put on her clothes and then...
"Hey," I called to her through the door. "Do you have some sneakers I can wear?" When she came back in, I realized to my surprise that she was still wearing the battered running shoes she'd had on earlier. With a odd expression on her face, she pulled a shoe box from the back of her closet and told me, "Sorry, but this is all I can give you."
I took a surprised breath when she pulled off the lid. "Pink sneakers!" I exclaimed.
"Yep," she replied.
"Girls shoes," I said. She shrugged.
"No way," I said.
"Then wear your own shoes," she said. "This is all I've got."
We made it out of the house without the adults seeing us. Aunt Daphne wanted to "see how lovely Hayley looked" and my mother wanted to make sure I wasn't wearing my nice clothes, so the two of us burst out the kitchen door and tore across the backyard into the trees before our mothers could have that satisfaction.
Once we were out of sight we stopped to laugh and catch our breath. I loved being with Hayley when she was this way: I mean when she wasn't giving me a hard time. Usually she's a terrible tease and sometimes she's aggressive and mean. You have to understand: I'm not saying that she doesn't like me. Last summer, when we were on vacation, a bully was picking on me, every day. He'd push me around, call me names, and take my stuff. He was so much bigger and stronger than me that all I could do was take it and wait for him to stop. One day Hayley was with me, and she was acting like a jerk. Then the bully came up. He knocked my hat off and gave me a shove. Hayley shouted "Hey!" and told him to leave me alone. He laughed at her and started calling her names. She walked right up and smacked him in the face. Then she hit him again and gave him a black eye. He was so astonished and hurt that he sat on the ground and cried like a baby. She told him, "Don't ever touch my cousin again or I'll REALLY give you something to cry about! Do you understand?" Afterward, we were alone, I thanked her, but she slapped me on the back of the head and called me an idiot. She said, "You should have stuck up for yourself!" I guess she figures it's okay for *her* to pick on me, but nobody else can.
In other words, she has a weird way of expressing her affection.
That's why times like these, when she includes me in her conspiracies, are so welcome.
We tramped through the woods, twigs snapping underfoot, and I asked where we were going.
"To Charlene's house," she replied. "She's got this perfect tree in her backyard, but her parents never let me climb it. It's my Mount Everest."
"And so...?"
"They went away. They always go to Philly for the Fourth of July."
"Uh, okay," I responded, but I was still confused. "But won't you ruin the dress?" I pictured Hayley energetically pulling herself onto a tree limb, tearing the front of her dress — and neither noticing nor caring.
"No," she replied, "the dress will be fine."
And so, to cut to the chase (if you haven't already guessed), once we got to Charlene's house, Hayley pulled me into their garage and told me that we were trading outfits.
"No way!" I said. "No way I'm wearing a dress!"
"Hey," she retorted, "I don't like wearing a dress any more than you do!"
"But you're a girl!" I protested. At that, her eyes caught fire and her right hand cocked back into a fist aimed directly at my face.
But she caught herself, shook out her fist, and swallowed her anger.
"Listen," she said, "This tree is amazing. It's the highest tree in the neighborhood, and I have to climb it. Do you understand? Charlotte's parents are idiots who worry about insurance and liability and stuff, and they go on and on about my being a girl. But I'm telling you: I will die if I can't climb that tree.
"I'm asking you to do me a favor. I understand that you don't want to. I know that dresses are stupid, and if my mother wasn't so hung up on them, I'd already be up the tree. But here we are, and I'm asking you. Eddie, I will owe you one. A big one. I don't know what I can do for you, but some day when you ask me for something that's important to you..." She gestured helplessly. "Eddie, if you do this for me, I..." and there her words failed her. I almost thought she was going to cry. But she didn't.
Anyway, she convinced me. I didn't want to wear the dress, but I took a look at the tree and I understood. It was a pine tree, and probably not too hard to climb, but it was high, impossibly high. It was so high that the top swayed a couple of feet in the wind, and it wasn't even that windy.
"No one will see you," Hayley assured me. "Nobody is home."
Switching clothes took a matter of seconds. I took off the shorts and t-shirt and draped them over a lawnmower handle. She pulled the dress over her head and handed it to me. By the time I'd pulled it over my head and straightened it on my body, she was already dressed.
"You look like a girl," she assured me.
"Oh, goody," I said, full of sarcasm. "I always dreamed—"
She didn't let me finish. She pushed me out of the way. Not roughly, but like someone who had a mission and knew that the clock was ticking.
We left the garage and approached the tree. An old swing hung from it, so I brushed off the seat and sat down. As I half-heartedly began to swing, Hayley took a leap and grabbed a branch. She pulled herself onto it and began ascending. Pretty soon she was out of sight, and a few moments later I couldn't even hear the sound of her rustling the branches as she climbed.
A few minutes more, and the silence began to worry me. There I was, alone in a strange town, in a stranger's backyard, wearing a dress. Add to that the fact that I wasn't 100% sure of the way back to Hayley's house. I found myself wondering whether Hayley was still in the tree: Could she have jumped off without my seeing? I stood up to look for her, but couldn't make out anything but branches and pine needles. I walked around to see whether a branch hung over a garage or another yard, where Hayley might have made her getaway, but it didn't look likely at all.
I wanted to call out to Hayley, to ask her to come down, but I doubted that she'd hear me. Besides, I definitely didn't want to draw the neighbors' attention.
Of course, I couldn't climb the tree myself to look for her. Aside from ruining the dress, there was the matter of reaching the lowest branch. Hayley can jump higher than I can, and even for her, it was a stretch to jump and grab it. I tried it anyway, but my jumps didn't come close at all. And even though no one could see, I was embarrassed by having the dress sail up to my armpits.
I began to wonder whether I could find my way back to Hayley's house alone. I hadn't paid attention when we walked over. I didn't even know the general direction. And even if I did get back, would I be able to get into the house without being seen? The two of us had slipped out quickly so our mothers wouldn't see us, so they'd be likely to be on the lookout for our return.
Every step of the way was uncertain: Could I find my way back? Could I get in the house without being seen? Once inside, could I get upstairs before someone saw me? If only I could change back into my own clothes, everything else would be fine. Problem was, I didn't see how it could happen.
I got so engrossed with various scenarios of how I'd get my clothes back — or somehow find some boys clothes that fit, that I didn't hear a pair of kids come walking up. It was a boy about my age and a girl a few years younger. The boy was maybe two inches taller than me. And the girl, though younger, was about my height. She looked at me quizzically.
"Who are you?" she asked. "I've never seen you before." The boy just grinned. He clearly could not have cared less.
"I'm ah... I'm ah...," I stammered, taken completely by surprise.
"Her name is Ima," the boy joked. The girl frowned.
Just then, there was a noise — a racket — somewhere in the tree above us. It sounded like a rock, a huge rock, was hurtling to earth, striking every branch as it fell. In reality it was Hayley, who was simply in a hurry to get down as fast as she could. We all looked up, waiting, and in a few moments, Hayley appeared and dropped to earth, landing on her feet, grinning, obviously and immensely pleased with herself.
"I went all the way to the top!" she announced. The boy nodded in quiet approval. He was impressed. The girl, on the other hand, looked Hayley up and down with a judgmental expression, seeing every smudge, every smear of pine resin. But she didn't say anything.
"This is my cousin Melanie," she told the two newcomers, pointing at me with her chin. I opened my mouth to protest, but before a word came out, the boy said to Hayley, "I'm going to Jackson's house for some b-ball. Trey will be there. If you come, we can play two-on-two. Are you in?"
"Hell, yeah!" Hayley exclaimed, and the two of them ran off, leaving me with my mouth hanging open and an angry little girl.
"He does this all the time," she told me, disgusted. "He's supposed to watch me, but he always runs off."
"Do you know how to get to Jackson's house?" I asked her.
She looked at me as though I'd asked her to fly to the moon. "I have to go home," she said as if it were obvious. She waited to hear what I was going to do, expecting me to say the same thing she'd just said.
"I don't know what to do!" I exclaimed, more to myself than to her.
"Can't you go home by yourself?" she asked.
"I don't know the way," I replied, reddening.
She considered that for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to come to my house?"
"I don't know," I repeated. "I need to find Hayley."
"I'm going home," she repeated. "You can come if you want. My mother can call your mother."
Oh, that's the last thing I need, I told myself, and I considered the possibilities: if I stayed by the tree, there was no telling whether Hayley would come back. She might go to this girl's house. Still, neither option seemed more likely than the other. In any case, if I got tired of waiting, I could try to head back to Hayley's house alone — if I could find my way — and try to get in without being seen. If someone did see me, I was pretty sure that Hayley would get into more trouble than me. And that fact ought to make Hayley want to find me.
"I have a lots of Barbies," the girl offered, "and we can play dress up."
"Okay," I agreed — but not because of what she said! I was going to go along with her anyway.
And that's how I ended up spending two solid hours with Adria, dressing Barbies and acting out scenes of Barbies shopping at the mall or Barbies visiting friends. It turns out that to make a Barbie talk, you need to speak her lines in a soft, high-pitched voice and bounce the doll as if you were making ink spots with a pen. I also learned that Barbie's clothes don't fit every Barbie. Some are different enough — a slightly longer leg or wider hips or what have you — that they can't always share clothes with each other.
Adria's mother was understandably quite curious about who I was and whether my mother knew that I was out by myself. I told her that I was Hayley's cousin Melanie. That seemed safe enough, but it didn't stop the cross-examination, and soon she settled the fact that my mother was Hayley's Aunt Darcy.
"But then you would be..." she began to say — but she stopped herself and said instead, "Oh no, my mistake," and that was the end of the questions. It was quite a relief.
She gave me and Adria lunch and left the two of us to play undisturbed while she talked on the phone. She came in once or twice to look in on us, and while she did, she stared at me as if she was trying to read some small print written on my face, but then she'd say, "No, it's fine" (to the phone, not to me) and leave the room.
When it got to be two o'clock, I'd had my fill of playing Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and Apples to Apples, so I decided it was time for me to go. Of course, at just that moment, Hayley arrived. She couldn't stop smirking at me, and after we left, she wanted to hear every detail of my time as a girl. She'd ask a question and roar with laughter at my answer. Then after promising not to laugh, she'd ask me for more and set off laughing again.
After I'd told her everything, she stopped and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She drew a huge sigh and thanked me. "I'm sorry for laughing at you," she said, "and I didn't mean to run off and leave you. You really did me a big favor by wearing that stupid outfit, and I won't forget it."
We went back to Charlene's garage to change clothes once again.
Unfortunately, their next-door neighbor caught us, gave us an earful, and chased us off before we were able to make the switch.
That left us to do a risky exchange in the woods behind Hayley's house, but thankfully no one saw us.
"I hate putting this damn thing back on again," Hayley protested as she pulled the dress back over her head.
It was a good thing I hadn't tried to get back in by myself, because our mothers were both lying in wait in the kitchen. They were obviously there to catch us, to see what we were wearing. Hayley got off easy, in spite of the pine resin on her arms, legs, and hands, because the dress was still perfectly clean.
I, on the other hand, got a good and proper grilling.
"Is that what you were wearing?" my mother demanded.
I boldly lied. "Yes," I told her. "Why do you ask?"
"You didn't... change your clothes while you were out?"
I frowned and asked her, "How would I do that?"
She examined my face, looking at me from several angles, and I knew she was looking for the lie. "When you said Hayley had something for you to wear, I was... a little concerned."
I laughed, and I dare say it came off pretty natural. It didn't sound like a nervous laugh to me. "Did you think I'd wear a dress?" I asked her in a scoffing tone.
"I didn't know what to think," she said, and after a moment in which neither of us knew what to say, I ran upstairs and put my nice clothes back on.
Hayley lives in a small town, so their Fourth of July celebration isn't big or elaborate, but it's pretty nice. Families spread their blankets on the hill in the park. Local bands play and people dance. Once it gets dark, the fireworks start, and once the fireworks are done, everyone goes home.
Hayley and I shared a blanket, and as we lay on our backs watching the colorful explosions and flaming designs high in the air, I said, "This is a good spot to see the show."
"Yeah," she agreed, "But do you know where I'd rather be watching it from?"
"No, where?" I asked.
"From the top of the tree," she replied. Then she gave my hand a strong, painful squeeze, and let it go.
© 2013 by Kaleigh Way
I nodded, so he went on. "You ever watch reality TV, Lou?" I shrugged. "You ever seen the cake shows?"
"Cake shows?" I repeated, puzzled.
In the world of laundry, one red sock can change everything.
I didn't know the sock was there; it was left by the person who used the machine before me, either by accident or as a joke. In any case, I didn't see it. I just shoved my white load into the machine, burying the red sock until later, when I dug it out of the wet, twisted mess of pink sheets, pink towels, and of course pink underwear.
I found the damn sock, and it wasn't one of mine. I carried it right past the Lost and Found bin and threw it in the trash, so no one else could be pranked.
It wasn't the first time I'd had an unpleasant surprise at the laundromat. Once I left with bleach burns on the seat of my jeans — the ones I was wearing! Another time, the drier melted flakes of a weird rubbery stuff all over my shirts and pants. It took hours to pick it all off.
But this time was different. This was the first time I got angry. As a matter of fact, I was furious.
I can live with pink sheets and towels. I can even deal with pink underwear. After all, nobody gets to see any of that stuff but me. So I didn't care about that. But there was one thing in my white load that absolutely has to be white. It's not an option, it's a requirement.
And that one thing is my gi, my karate uniform.
My gi! Yesterday it was brand new: stiff, crisp, and white. I'd only worn it once. Now, my pride and joy was a silly joke, and I had no other: As soon as I bought this new one, I tossed out my old raggedy suit, which meant that now the only thing I could possibly wear to karate class today was this pretty pink karate suit. In desperation, I turned to a woman in the next row of machines.
"Excuse me, do you think I can bleach this out?"
She drew a slow, hesitant breath. "You want to bleach it back to white?" I nodded. She shook her head. "You can try, but you'll probably end up ruining it. It might turn gray or yellow, and it'll probably get bleach burns. At least now, it's all one color."
"But I can't wear it like this!"
"Sorry, hon. The safest bet is to get a new one." Then, after a moment, she added, "And be more careful separating your colors."
I huffed at that, but didn't bother explaining that it wasn't my fault. I didn't have the time. I heaved everything, pink as it was, into one of the big, hot driers and sat down to wait. My feet danced in impatience, and I kept looking at my watch. A dozen times I calculated whether I could catch the bus to and from the martial-arts supply store, and still be on time for karate class.
A dozen times I admitted there was no way I could make it. And a dozen times I reminded myself that I won't get paid until Friday, and won't have money for a new gi until then.
I chewed my nails and fretted. I couldn't miss karate. Pink uniform or no, I *had* to be there. I love karate! It's my life! I've been taking classes since I was seven years old, and I practice every day. Every single day.
Unfortunately, I'm not very good at it. I can't understand it. If wanting was enough, if effort was enough, I'd be a tenth dan. That's the highest you can go. Instead, I only have a blue belt, in spite of twelve years of constant practice, and real passion and devotion. For some reason, I haven't been able to pass the test for brown belt. But I haven't given up! I'm sure that one day I'll have my breakthrough. Persistence is the key.
Of course, the other guys in class rib me. It's good-natured, and it doesn't hurt. It makes me stronger, standing up their stupid remarks and the humiliation of not being very good.
I tell myself, Sure, I'm not so great... yet. And that yet is what keeps me going.
So, a pink gi? Was that going to stop me? I should say not!
When I got to the locker room, just to show that I didn't care, I pulled my uniform slowly and dramatically from my bag. I didn't try to hide it. I didn't explain or act embarrassed — even though I felt like a complete jackass.
As soon as the other guys caught sight of it, they began hooting and making catcalls. I may as well have been wearing sexy lingerie, for all the noise they were making.
"Oooh, looking good, Lewis!" one laughed, and another said, "No, that's not Lewis, boys — that's Lois!"
I laughed with them at first, but when one of the guys cooed, "Oh my God, Lois, you look so pretty in pink!" I blushed to match my clothes, and they laughed all the more.
"Very funny," I said, hoping I sounded nonchalant, but my fingers fumbled badly as I tried to tie my belt.
It seemed to take ages before I was able to get out of the locker room and into the dojo. It was still a little early. Students were scattered around the room, warming up with kicks and stretches. None of them bothered to look at me. I began to feel better: being here was well worth the ribbing I'd taken.
Sensei stood in front, straight and tall, watching everyone. He frowned when he saw the color of my uniform, and he gestured for me to come. I trotted over and bowed to him. There was a stranger standing next to Sensei; a stranger dressed in street clothes. I realized that I'd never seen a man dressed in a jacket and tie in the dojo before. Sensei gestured at me and told the stranger, "This is one I told you about." To me, he said, "What's with the pink gi, Louie-chan? Are you trying to tell us something?" He gave a barking laugh, then told me, "Show this man your flying kicks." With that, he walked away, leaving me with the stranger.
"Hey there," the man in the tie said. "You're Lou, Louie? Lewis, right? I'm Jack. Jack Bernus. I hear you're the man for flying kicks. Is that right?"
"Yeah, I'm Lewis. And yes, I am pretty good at flying kicks."
Jack gestured at Sensei, who was now on the other side of the room. "Boss man says you're the best."
"Really?" I replied, genuinely surprised. "He never told me that."
"Well, he told me," Jack said, rubbing his hands together. "Can I see 'em?"
The fact is, no one in my dojo takes flying kicks seriously. And I mean no one, Sensei included. They all say the kicks are too complicated and take too much of a wind-up. It's easy to see them coming. They say that flying kicks are silly and impractical; that you could never use one in a competion, let alone in a fight.
What they don't say is that flying kicks are difficult to do. For all their scoffing, most people can't do them. They can't stay in the air long enough, or spin fast enough and hard enough. For some reason, as much as I suck at the rest of karate, I can do pretty much all the flying kicks, but I don't get any respect for it.
I showed the guy my tornado kick, which is one of the 540-degree kicks. I showed him the lazyboy, where you put your hands behind your head while you spin and kick in the air. I showed him the jacknife: a crescent kick with one leg and a heel kick with the other. Then I did a butterfly twist, where I pretty much lie down in the air and spin. I followed that with a flying back kick. Then I thought I'd throw in a Hong Kong Spin, but he stopped me.
"That's enough," he said. "You sold me. You're the flying-kick man. I've been driving all over the damn state trying to find somebody who could do one of those kicks, and you've got the whole frickin' MENU!"
I was more than pleased. In fact, I was over the moon! It was rare that I had a chance to show off. Having any kind of audience was a treat, and I'd never had such an enthusiastic one. So it didn't occur to me to ask *why* Mr. Bernus ("Call me Jack, please!") was looking for flying kicks until he asked if we could go have some coffee and talk.
Class was just beginning, and though I'd never missed a class — not even when I was sick — my curiosity (and my vanity) were just too much for me. I dashed back to the locker room, changed into my street clothes, and nearly fell over myself rushing to join Mr. Bernus — Jack — at the coffeeshop down the street.
I found Jack sitting at a table in the corner. Once again he complimented me on my kicks, and then he got down to business.
He leaned forward and in a low voice said, "What I'm going to tell you is in the strictest confidence, alright? You can't tell ANYONE: not your mother, not your girlfriend — or your boyfriend, as the case may be. No one. Nobody. Is that absolutely clear?"
I nodded, so he went on. "You ever watch reality TV, Lou?" I shrugged in reply. "You ever see the cake shows?"
"Cake shows?" I repeated, puzzled.
"Yeah, there are six of 'em right now, not counting the competition shows. The biggest ones right now are King of Cakes and Cake Mafia. Then you've got World War of Wedding Cakes, Wild Wedding Cakes, and Get Your Cake Off."
"For real?" I said. "I never heard of any of them."
"Yeah, they're real," Jack assured me, a little offended at my ignorance. "And they're big!"
"Okay," I said. "So why are you telling me? I'm not a baker. I don't know anything about cakes, except how to eat them."
Jack laughed. "Yeah, me too. But I'm launching a brand new show — a totally new concept. It's going to piggyback on the success of all the cake shows. The show is called Cakeboxer. Get it? It's like Kickboxer, except with cakes."
I scratched my head. "No," I said. "I don't get it."
"Okay," Jack said, laughing. "Get this: our show, each week, opens with somebody—" he gestured at me "—ordering a cake. A big cake, with layers, you know, like a wedding cake — tiers, you know? So the cake, it's like, high, you get it? Three or four tiers high, so it's like—" he held his hands apart to measure the distance "—three feet high. At least."
He chuckled to himself before continuing. "And THEN, when they go to deliver the cake, it's always a tense moment, right?"
"Why?"
"Because they've got this tall, fragile cake, and it's sitting on a board, right? And it's heavy. On these shows, they make super-elaborate cakes. So you figure like a wedding cake, but with all sorts of decorations, figures, flowers, colors... it's like a panorama or something. And the more complicated the cake gets, the heavier and more fragile it is. It takes two people — two strong guys — to carry the finished cake out of the bakery, set it in the back of a van, and drive it to... to wherever."
I was still confused. "I don't see where this is going."
"Look, Lou. The cake... it's easy to break. If the van hits a bump, if they brake too hard, if they take a turn too fast... if one of the guys trips or stumbles, if they tip the board ever so slightly, they could lose the cake. If anything falls off, if it gets even the tiniest ding, the whole cake is ruined. So the moment of highest tension is when they carry the cake to the van. Got it?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Okay: so two of them are struggling with this big, heavy, fragile cake... they're being super-careful, right? And then—" Jack began to laugh. His laughter built until he couldn't talk. I waited for him to stop. What else could I do? After half a minute, his laughter subsided to a chuckle, and he went on. "And then, out of nowhere, you come running in... you leap into the air... and you kick the cake to bits!" Then he was overcome with laughter.
I sat there in silence, watching him cry and hoot and wipe his eyes. My silence made him laugh all the harder. "Don't you think it's funny?" he wheezed. "You come running in," he repeated, "You leap into the air, and you kick the cake to pieces!"
I frowned and shook my head. "No," I told him. "It isn't funny! I mean... the poor cake people! Aren't they going to be angry? They went to all the trouble of making the cake—"
"Yes, yes," he interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. "Of course they'll be angry! They'll go through the roof! And, oh! Won't they be surprised! and shocked! It will be hilarious!." He took out a handkerchief, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. "This is what people want! This is reality TV at its best: people going nuts... passion, heat, strong emotions." He looked at me, expecting me to understand, but instead I shrugged.
"I don't get it," I said, in an apologetic tone.
"Yes, I can see that!" he countered. "You don't get it, Lou; you don't even know how wrong you are. So, so, wrong. Listen to me: Yes, the 'cake people' will be angry. Yes, they will be upset. They will hate you for kicking their cake apart. But at the same time, for the same reasons, they will *love* you! The 'cake people' will love it! Because... think about it: What is it they want most of all?"
He waited for me to answer, but I drew a blank. So he answered his own question.
"They want to be on TV! That's what they want! And our stunt, our show, will put them there. Everybody will come to talk to them. Reporters will stick a camera in their faces and ask them how it feels to have their cake kicked apart. And it won't just be TV. It'll go viral. The scene where you kick apart their cake, where they start screaming, that moment will explode all over the internet. It's the best kind of publicity: and it's a kind that money can't buy!"
"Publicity for you or for them?" I asked.
"For both! It's a win-win-win!"
I shook my head. It still didn't make any sense.
"Anyway," he said, moving on, "Here's the thing. Even if I haven't managed to convince you, I have convinced one of the networks that it's a good idea. I gave them the pitch, and they gave me enough money to do the pilot. With the pilot, I'll get money to do more shows... hopefully an entire season."
"And you want *me* to be the one who kicks apart the cakes?"
After that, we talked for about forty minutes. He talked about SAG. He told me about scale and residuals, and soon (to my surprise) I found myself agreeing to do the Cakeboxer pilot.
"Great!" he said. "Great! There's just one little thing. It's a little thing. A little, little thing. I... I don't think it's going to be a problem... but there is just one little thing."
"So what is it?" I asked. "What is this little, little thing?"
"See... when I gave the pitch to the network... the people who put up the money for the pilot, you know — and hopefully the show... well, they expect the cakeboxer to be a chick." His voice dropped abruptly at the end of that sentence, so I didn't quite get what he said.
"What?" I asked, leaning forward.
He coughed, then quickly said, "The cakeboxer is supposed to be a girl."
I shrugged. "So? You tell them I'm a guy. What's the big deal?"
For once Jack was tongue-tied. He opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but nothing came out. He made some gestures, but... he was obviously uncomfortable. There was something he couldn't bring himself to say. He gave me a pleading look.
Suddenly I understood. "No," I said. "I won't do it. No frikken way!"
"Listen, Lou..."
"No," I repeated, in a firm, decisive tone. "I am not going to dress like a girl!"
"Hang on," Jack said. "Just listen for a minute. Will you? Will you please listen for a minute? When I pitched this show, I had the girl: she was cute, petite... honestly she couldn't do the kicks half as well as you, but she was pretty damn... good. Hell, she was hot. Smoking hot. Dammit! She was my girlfriend, see? and that's where the problem came in. We had some... uh... some, uh... speedbumps in our... ah... relationship, and uh... and... well, the long and the short of it is, she walked. She walked out on me, and she walked out of Cakeboxer. The network knows that she's gone, and they've given me a little time to find a replacement. I already tried to pitch this other guy I found — and he was nowhere near as good as you, by the way — but they didn't even want to look at him. They told me flat out: it has to be a chick."
"Again," I repeated, "no frikken way!"
"Look," he said, "I understand your objections, but please hear me out. I know this is not your problem, but when I said that the network gave me a little time... well, today... tonight... now, basically, that time is up. If you won't do this, there won't be any Cakeboxer. Which, of course, is not your problem. So, anyway... what I want to say is this: When I saw you in that pink karate suit, and — wait! wait! — I'm sure it was just an accident. A laundry mishap. But you... you had the balls to put that thing on anyway. Am I right? You didn't care. You love karate. You weren't going to let a stupid red sock stand between you and your passion. Am I right? Something like that?"
"Yeah, something like that," I agreed.
"And look," he went on, gesturing at his paunch, "I'm obviously not a karate guy, but there's something I've picked up on while I was out looking for you. What I've seen is this: people don't respect the flying kicks. They can't do them, and yet they turn up their noses at them. Am I right?"
"Yes!" I agreed. "They're pretty hard to master, but—"
"—but you don't get any recognition for it."
"Exactly!"
"All right," Jack said, and he swirled the cold coffee in his cup as if it were a glass of fine wine. "But you know what? The irony of it is, that every karate place I visited — every... dojo, right? — when I asked about flying kicks, they'd scoff, but they wouldn't let me go until I saw *their* flying-kick guy. After this happened like five or six times, I got it. They were embarrassed about him, but as soon as somebody said, hey, flying kicks... guess what. All of a sudden, they were proud. This is our guy, they'd say."
I was quiet. Jack was exactly right. I didn't want to talk; I was afraid I might cry. All the work I'd done, all the practice, all the effort, for all those years, and the only thing I had to show for it was flying kicks.
Jack leaned in close, and in a low, serious, confidential tone, told me, "I have to tell you Lou — no matter how it goes with Cakeboxer, I don't care — but you have to know: none of the guys who do flying kicks, not one of them, could touch you. None of them were even close."
We talked for another half hour; a very emotional half hour. I didn't cry, but I sniffled and blew my nose a few times. Jack convinced me that I really was the best flying-kick guy he'd ever seen, and that if I wanted respect for what I could do, I needed to "stand up and represent."
And in the end, after wiping my eyes and blowing my nose one last time, I agreed that if I really wanted to be the flying-kick man, I had to be his cakeboxing girl.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
After a bit of silence, Jack said, "Anyway, they're great people. I arranged for you to stay with them while we're shooting. I think you'll find it more convenient, and it will be a hell of a lot easier for you to stay in character."
He stopped in front of an old house on a street lined with old houses, and shut off the engine. My hands were folded in my lap and I was looking down, mulling over what Jack had said. I asked him, "In character means wearing a skirt?"
Everybody's had that dream: you know, the one where you're being chased, but for some reason your legs don't work... you can't run, or you run and run but you don't get anywhere. And then there's the dream where you're far from home and you're naked, or wearing your pajamas...
But how about this one: Have you ever had the dream where you're far from home, and you're wearing a dress — and not just a dress, but a wedding dress — and even though it's a wedding dress it's impossibly short... You look down, expecting your legs to be clad in beautiful white embroidered stockings... or even naked legs and bare feet, but instead discover that your legs are liberally smeared with white buttercream frosting. Stuck in the frosting are chunks of light yellow wedding cake and blue and red cake decorations. You're a mess, but you can't stop to clean yourself because someone is chasing you... you can hear them, and it isn't one person — it sounds like an angry mob. They're yelling and screaming, and dogs are barking. It's terrifying! You run and run. You're out of breath but you can't stop... and the frosting on your legs is slowing you down.
In the dream you see an alley that looks like the perfect place to hide. So you dash in there and press your back into a doorway. Finally you can try to catch your breath! Your breasts are heaving under the beaded bodice of the lovely white wedding dress... and you think that maybe you got away...
... until you happen to look at the ground and what do you see? A trail of footprints — your footprints — the perfect image of your pretty bare feet in cake frosting, as if Hansel and Gretel had a pastry bag instead of pocketfuls of crumbs...
And just then, one of the dogs, a big German Shepherd, appears at the head of the alley and looks straight at you. The big dog locks his eyes on yours, and you freeze.
In the dream, you can't move. All you can do is watch as he slowly moves his big-muscled body toward you. You realize for the first time what the word animal means — four legs, solid muscle, speed, power, danger... You wait, unable to draw a breath. His tongue hangs from his open mouth, and he is panting... You feel his hot breath on your thigh...
... then he dips his head and runs that big, long tongue of his up the length of your leg. He's licking the frosting off your legs in long, broad strokes, and you don't dare move a muscle. In fact, you just stop breathing entirely...
... and that's where you wake up.
You've had that dream, haven't you? No? No? No! Of course you haven't! I know you haven't. But I have. I've had that dream for three nights running.
When Jack told me, "If you really want to be the flying-kick man, you have to be my cakeboxing girl," it made sense. I mean, it made sense then. I guess you had to be there, but at the time it seemed to make perfect sense to me.
It still made sense the next day, when I signed the contracts. I was surprised by how many papers I had to sign. Jack told me, "Don't worry, it's boilerplate. It's all vanilla. Trust me, I know these docs. You can just sign 'em. It's gonna take forever if you read them, and you won't understand them anyway."
I trusted Jack, and I felt he was sincere, but one of the few things my father told me — something that I never forgot: "Never sign anything you haven't read." This was the first time I ever signed a contract, so I read every single word. Jack was clearly irritated, but I did it anyway. He kept trying to rush me, but I took my time and read it all.
That was Friday. I felt pretty good about the whole business until Monday morning.
I met Jack at his office. "Hey there, Lewis, how ya doing? Had breakfast yet? Can I get you anything?" I declined, but he poured himself a cup of coffee and helped himself to a glazed donut. "Today it gets real," he told me, as he munched on the donut. "I mean, it was real already: we've got the money, the crew is lined up for next Monday, but today we have to work on you: your look, your moves... we gotta see if the camera likes you. I'm sure you'll be fine; I have a good eye for that, but we need to do some test shots." He went on chatting until he finished his donut.
He brushed the flakes of sugar off his fingers and said, "But first, we have some paperwork." To make a long story short, he wanted me to sign the same pile of contracts I'd signed on Friday all over again — this time with a different name.
"Isn't that illegal?" I asked.
"No," he said, and a big smile appeared on his face. He pulled a single sheet of paper from a folder and laid it in front of me. "This makes it perfectly legal."
The sheet listed the contracts I'd signed Friday, but it said "This affirms that in the documents listed below, signed on [today's date], that Lois Larkspur is an alias for Lewis Kesterly, and used exclusively by him, blah blah blah blah blah, strictly for legitimate professional purposes and has not been used, is not now being used, and will not be used or allowed to be used for the purpose or furtherance of fraud, tax evasion, or any other illegal act."
I stared at that sheet for a long time. Jack sat quietly waiting. At long last I sighed and said, "I wish I could ask a lawyer about this."
"Sure," Jack said. "I'll call one for you if you like. But I can tell you that a lawyer drew that up, and consequently there's nothing wrong with it. All it does is say what it says."
"Lois Larkspur?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's you. Do you like it? Sorry I didn't get a chance to ask you first, but I had to move fast, and I had a lot of the paperwork ready on this name."
I frowned. "You had it ready? Why did you have it ready?"
Jack hesitated, as if he'd been caught... in what? A lie? No, but there was something embarrassing him.
"Emm, ah..., okay, this was going to be the name... the name, ah... that my... my ex was going to use, back when she was going to be the Cakeboxer. Her real name is kind of complicated, so..."
"Will she mind if I'm using it?"
"No," Jack said, deflating a little. "She won't give a fuh... she won't care. It was never her name. She never used it."
Despite my misgivings, I signed the sheet. Jack's assistant Denise immediately notarized it. She took her seal out of a small velvet-lined box, and with it she embossed the sheet. I thought that was pretty cool. Then I signed the pile of contracts all over again, but this time as "Lois Larkspur." I messed up the signature on three of the documents, but Denise didn't bat an eye. She just printed the pages again and put them in front of me. After I was done, she flipped through the entire stack to check that they'd all been signed correctly. She pulled out one "Lois Larkspur" that looked different from the others (I didn't have time to practice!). She printed that sheet out and had me sign it again, and then she checked them all a second time.
The whole time, Denise only said a handful of short sentences, like, "Sign this one here" or "You need to sign this one over again." Her detachment made a strange situation even stranger, but soon it was over and Jack came back in, rubbing his hands and smiling.
Anyway... that was when it started getting hazy. By "hazy" I mean sketchy, weird... I started having doubts about the whole thing.
After all, what could I do after being a cakeboxing girl? What sort of stepping stone was that? After putting on a skirt and kicking cakes apart, where could I go? What good could that possibly lead to? It seemed more like something I'd need to forget and deny, and hope no one ever found out.
I didn't have much time to dwell on my uneasy feelings. As soon as Denise was done checking my signatures, Jack hustled me out of the office and into his car. "I'm taking you to meet Jane and Marcus. They're in the business."
"What business?" I asked. I was thinking Monkey business.
Jack's eyes actually twinkled. "Show business. What other business is there?" He laughed a short bark of a laugh. "You'll love them. Just don't mention Hamlet or Shakespeare or anything remotely connected to Hamlet or Shakespeare."
"Why not?"
"Because Marcus will get right up in your face and unload To be and not to be..., Now is the winter of our discontent..., Is this a dagger I see before me?— he's got 'em all loaded, primed, and ready to go." Jack caught my blank look, and explained, "Shakespeare soliloquies." He shook his head. "Great if you're in the mood... but if you're not, and you've got a crazy, bug-eyed man, right in front of you, demanding your attention..." his voice trailed off.
After a bit of silence, Jack said, "Anyway, they're great people. I arranged for you to stay with them while we're shooting. I think you'll find it more convenient, and it will be a hell of a lot easier for you to stay in character."
He stopped in front of an old house on a street lined with old houses, and shut off the engine. My hands were folded in my lap and I was looking down, mulling over what Jack had said. I asked him, "In character means wearing a skirt?"
"Yeah," Jack confirmed. "Jane and Marcus are going to get you all dolled up, and work on your mannerisms, your walk, your voice... you know, things like that. We're going to start shooting a week from today, and you need to be passable by then."
"Jack," I said, and my voice twisted into a croak, "I don't think I can look like a girl. I don't want to make a fool of myself... especially in front of a camera, on TV."
Jack took a deep breath. He turned and looked at me with a serious face. He ran his eyes over me, down the length of my body, then back up again, scanning me up and down my body and settled on my face. He tilted his head and said, "I never said you'd be beautiful. I just said you need to be passable. Don't worry! We'll make you look good."
Jane and Marcus really were nice people, just as Jack had said. The only thing was that they were a bit... stagey. Marcus moved around the room with his head up and his chest high, as if he were performing to a matinee crowd. When he spoke, I always felt he was delivering lines. Jane was the more natural of the two, but she was constantly dropping names (of celebrities I'd never heard of) or referring to plays with outlandish names. The pair of them would break into song at almost any provocation — which was fine, except that they would direct their song at me, making (and holding!) eye contact all the way through to the end.
After Jack introduced me, he left. The moment the door closed behind him, Jane and Marcus, wasting no time, and dove right into my makeover.
They took pictures of me as I was then, as Lewis. They took all sorts of measurements, and Marcus jotted it all down in a small notebook.
Then they tried, the pair of them tried, to squeeze me into a corset. At first it was only weird. Then it became uncomfortable. As they made it tighter... and tighter, it began to hurt. At last, after Marcus gave one desperate tug, I actually screamed. Jane immediately loosened it and took it off me, saying, "Too much too soon," and settled for a stretchy garment that squeezed me, but in a way that seemed a lot more rational, particularly after the corset.
Next they tried different sizes of breast forms on me. I ended up being a 34C, which I found pretty unwieldy, although both Jane and Marcus agreed it gave me the best proportions.
"Your butt is kind of big for a guy," Jane commented (much to my embarrassment), "but it saves us from having to add anything down there."
Next came some tight white underwear to keep me all tucked in below. Over that, a pair of panties that made me blush just to look at, let alone wear. It was all covered by a girl's kilt and a black t-shirt. The kilt's tartan was very pale, closer to orange than to pink. They gave me a pair of white wedge sneakers that had three-inch heels and four straps across the front. If they weren't made of white canvas, you'd think they were ankle boots.
Jane washed my hair and styled it, then she did a quick pass with some light makeup.
Marcus popped his head in the door to ask, "Ready?"
Jane looked at my nails and hesitated. Then she looked at my face and picked up a few strands of my hair. She sighed and said, "There's a lot left to do, but this will have to be enough for now."
I looked at myself in the mirror, and Jack's word passable came to mind. "What's left to do?" I asked. "I think I look alright."
Jane twisted her lips in disagreement, then said, "If nobody looks too close or too long, I guess, but you're in serious need of a haircut, and we ought to color your hair. Your eyebrows are too bushy and we need to put some thought into what you need on your face. AND you're lucky that you aren't too hairy on your legs and arms, but we'll need to do some waxing."
"I guess that is a lot, then," I offered.
"And I've forgotten to mention your nails, which are horrible, and your teeth, which need whitening."
Marcus stepped into the room and picked up the theme: "...to say nothing of your posture, your facial expressions, the way you move, and the way you talk."
"Wow," I said, taken aback. "Is there anything good about me?"
"Yes, darling," Marcus said, patting my hand, "You're here."
It turned out that they'd hurried through the makeover so they could take me out to lunch. The idea was to throw me, ready or not, as much into life as possible.
"You're not going to learn anything sitting in a room with Janey and me," Marcus explained. "You've got to go out and make a complete ass of yourself. It's the only way to learn."
"I don't want to make a complete ass of myself!" I protested.
"Oh!" Marcus replied. "Then you're in the wrong line of work. Perhaps you should run for Congress instead."
Frowning, I gave me my most offended look. Marcus waved it off. "We don't have time to argue," he said. "I'm telling you now: you have to expect to make mistakes. Hopefully you will make your biggest mistakes this week instead of next week. But do you want to know something? Ordinary people, people who aren't actors, they make mistakes too. They get mortally embarrassed, too. But no one has ever died of embarrassment. You have to learn to carry on even when you're blushing the most glowing neon red. Remember, an actor needs three things: sincerity, humility, and a beautiful heart."
"How can I be sincere when I'm pretending to be something I'm not?"
"Sincere is the way you treat people. You have to mean what you say. When you tell people your name is Lois Larkspur, you have to own it. It's your name, and you want to share it. You're not telling people you're Lois so you can screw with them or cheat them."
"And what the heck is a beautiful heart?"
Marcus smiled. "In your case, I mean a heart like a Disney princess."
I spent the rest of the day interacting with people, all of them strangers. Marcus or Jane would choose a person, give me a "motivation" and send me off.
"Just think of it as improvisational theater," Jane told me.
What they did that day, and the rest of that week, was to throw me into life... in a skirt. They had me asking directions. They made me ask people what time it was. They sent me into stores to ask for items the stores were sure not to have. They sent me into restaurants to get and hold a table for ten during the lunch rush (and of course, there was no party of ten, there was only me!). They sent me into a shoe store where I had to try on literally two dozen shoes, look around for fifteen minutes more, then leave without buying a thing.
It was torture... but it was fun, too.
Sometimes they'd put a recorder in my purse. Sometimes they'd go in ahead of me and observe. Afterward, they'd debrief and critique me, and after three days, I began to get it: I began to separate myself from what I was doing. It was all an act, so I didn't need to feel embarrassed, and if I did, I had to make my embarrassment a part of the act.
At the same time, Jane and Marcus helped me start to get a real feeling for Lois Larkspur.
"Lois Larkspur isn't just a name," Marcus told me. "She's a person. A living, breathing girl."
"Who is she?"
"Yes!" Marcus declared. "Who is she?" He stared at me, as if waiting for my answer. I sat silent, in confused silence, until his look got more insistent. At that, I shrugged and shook my head, lifting up my empty hands to show I had no answer.
"Not good enough!" Marcus insisted. "Who is she?"
"I don't know who she is!" I shouted.
"She's you!" he retorted. Then he looked at my fake breasts and smiled. "She's you with some... improvements. Some additions." He grabbed a wooden chair, turned it around backwards, and sat down in front of me. "Lois Larkspur," he said quietly, holding his hands as if cradling... something. "Lois Larkspur," he repeated, "must be something concrete. She must be real. As real as you are. Are you a real person? You must make her just as real."
"How do I do that?"
"You build her. You build Lois out of pieces of you, out of the life you'd have if you'd been born a girl."
Janey called it building a character: working out, feeling out, who Lois is and what it means to be her. Marcus called it growing into the part, and I liked the process.
Everything was going great until Friday. On Friday morning, they sort of gave me the day off. They let me have the morning to myself: no assignments, no motivations. Just me and the world. I was free to wander, to explore, to enjoy myself. "You can do whatever you like," Marcus said, "but whatever you do, stop and reflect at times... take a mental photograph. Sit by yourself in the library if that's what you want to do, but see that it's you, Lois, in a skirt, with naked legs, and a pair of wobbling tits hanging off you." Jane socked him in the arm, but agreed, saying, "He's right, even if he says it badly."
"I understand," I told her, smiling.
They dropped me off in the downtown area of a nearby city — a place where I was unlikely to run into anyone I knew. For safety's sake, I had my cell phone — in case I got into trouble, but I didn't think I'd need it.
I roamed and rambled, my heels clicking on the sidewalk, my skirt moving slightly in the breeze. I got a cup of coffee and a croissant and ate it on a bench. I chatted with a nice old man. I window shopped, and eventually I stopped in front of an odd little store. It was a novelty shop, a magic shop, a place where they sold idiotic practical jokes and magic tricks that didn't work. Their window display was dated and dusty and the window itself needed cleaning. They obviously hadn't touched the display for ages. At first, I had no idea why I'd stopped. I just stood there, staring at the bizarre items: the finger prisons, the decks of marked playing cards, the big magic rings, the wands that turn to flowers, and all the other crazy standards that don't fool anyone... They even had one of those silly buzzers that you wind up and put in your palm when you shake hands. I stood staring at it, wondering whether it ever startled even one single person, or made a person laugh... or even whether it did anything at all...
... until I realized why it caught my eye.
The whole dusty collection, all the goofy nonsense in that ancient window display reminded me of something. Well, not something... someone. One of my oldest friends is a guy named Ronson. Ronson is a great guy, he really is, but is an enormous pain in the neck. Ronson is addicted, fatally addicted, to practical jokes. They are always irritating and never funny, and often they are very very inconvenient. Once, at a friend's party, he covered all the toilets in clear plastic wrap. A couple of people pee'd on themselves or the walls, and left the party early and embarrassed. Another time he shut off the electricity in a friend's house and left a fake letter, supposedly from the electric company, saying that they were working in the street. These friends put up with cold water, no lights or TV, etc., for three whole days, until they called the electric company for an update.
Honestly, the only person who thinks that Ronson is funny is Ronson himself.
And then, not a half hour later, in one of life's weird little coincidences, who should call me, but Ronson himself?
"Hey, buddy," he said. "How're you doing?"
"I'm good," I said. "What are you up to?"
"Oh, nothing. I wanted to see what you're up to. Tell me, what are you wearing?"
I froze. I jerked my head up and looked all around me, my eyes darting everywhere, checking every corner, every window and doorway, every angle. Was he there? Could he see me? If he was, I couldn't spy him. "Why do ask?" I replied, in a guarded tone.
"Are you wearing anything... pink?" he asked.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing that kilt again, but as I said, it was more orange than pink. "Uh... no," I replied. "Why do you ask? Why would I be wearing pink?"
"Hey, I was hoping to run into you last week after you did your laundry. I shoved a red sock into one of the legs of your karate outfit. Did you find it? Or did you go pink?"
Did I go pink? I saw red. "You goddam son of a dog!" I shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Hey, hey," he laughed. "No harm done, right? It's just a joke! No animals were harmed in the making of this prank. I just wish I could have been there when you pulled your lovely pink laundry out of the washer." He erupted in laughter. My jaw tightened in anger.
"Anyway, don't be mad," he continued. "I figured I was doing you a favor. I thought that pink would look good on you. I thought it might even get you going in another direction, if you catch my meaning—"
I abruptly hung up and turned off my phone. I was steaming! I could feel my face burning with anger. So that damn red sock wasn't an accident! It was that stupid Ronson and his stupid pranks. He knew when I'd be doing my laundry — I'm very regular in my habits. And he knew I'd be stuck with my pink karate uniform... and no time to get another.
I stopped in front of another shop window. This window was clean and dark, like a black mirror. I could see my reflection quite clearly: my short kilt, my big round breasts, my girlish haircut, the makeup, arched eyebrows, the nails...
"Ronson always tries to make me look like an idiot," I fumed, and then I stopped. I stared at my reflection and whispered, "Oh, no. Oh, no!" Was all of this Cakeboxer nonsense one of Ronson's pranks?
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
"Am I supposed to act all flustered and nervous and all that?"
"No," Jack replied. "No offense, but I don't think you're that good an actor. But not to worry, we've already given them the story... And they've been told that you're kind of a ditz."
I was so angry I could spit. Here I was far from home, dressed like a girl, hobbling around on three-inch wedges, bare legs in the cold. Ronson had really gone too far this time! Practical jokes are not "jokes" at all. They aren't funny. I've told him countless times, but he never listens, and the fact that people (people like me!) get angry and offended only seems to encourage him.
Still steaming, I called Jack. His assistant told me that Jack was on another call, so I asked her to have Jack call me as soon as he could. While I waited for him to call, I paced back and forth in front of the blacked-out storefront, looking at my reflection, muttering to myself, full of indignation, rehearsing all the outrage I wanted to pour out on Jack, Ronson, and everyone else involved in this travesty.
A few people walked by. They all gave me a wide berth and tried to avoid making eye contact. I must have looked quite insane.
Then, a young mother and her little girl came walking toward me. Everyone else had hurried past me, but the little girl was moving slowly, distracted by... well, distracted by everything. She kept stopping to touch things or talk about things, and kept saying, "Mommy, look at this!" Her mother kept prompting her to come along, and the girl would — for a few steps. Then she'd stop again, fascinated by something else. The girl was adorable, dressed in pink and white cable knits. She was only two feet high, and as she walked she shook her head to make the pom pom on her hat dance around. She looked up at me, smiled, and said, "Oh, look, Mommy! Look at the pretty lady!"
The mother replied with something non-commital and pushed the little girl past. She had seen the fierce look on my face, even if her child had missed it.
But that did it. That cute little girl made me smile. And as I smiled, my bad mood melted, and in the few moments before my cell phone rang, my wrath completely evaporated.
In spite of myself, I was happy now. It was a little irritating; I wanted to be angry, but couldn't. I smiled as talked with Jack, and now that I was calm, I wasn't quite as sure that Ronson was behind the whole Cakeboxer business.
Jack listened to me for a bit, then said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Not a clue. I don't know any Ronson except the cigarette lighter, and I haven't seen one of those for ages. Believe me, I wouldn't waste my time on a prank. In fact, if it helps to convince you, I've got your first paycheck in my hand. Do you want it? Or do you think that's a prank, too?"
"Oh, no, I want it," I replied. "Please."
"Okay," he said, "I'm going to swing by now and leave it with Jane or Marcus. But first, you have to do something for me."
"What's that?"
"Say I believe."
"Oh, Jack, I'm sorry. I just lost my head for a minute."
"Say it."
I sighed. "Okay. I believe."
"Who is my Cakeboxing girl?"
"I am," I replied in a low tone, as if I was afraid someone would hear.
"What's that? I can't hear you. You must not want this check."
"I am," I repeated more loudly.
"You are what?"
I glanced around me. No one was there. "I am your Cakeboxing girl."
"That's good enough for now," he said, "but I'll tell Marcus you need to work on your acting."
The rest of the week was bootcamp. Marcus and Jane hardly gave me a moment to myself, and when they did, they either had me reading Brides magazine, or Brides Guide, or Martha Stewart Weddings (which I grudgingly found myself liking best), or watching recordings of bridal-themed reality shows.
"I don't want to rush you," Jane told me at one point, "but you need to pick out a dress."
"A dress for what?" I asked. "For kicking the cakes? I thought I was going to wear that kilt and black shirt."
"Top," Jane corrected. "Girls wear tops. I'm talking about your wedding dress, silly. That's the dress."
"Why? I'm not getting married."
Jane bit her tongue and looked at me. After a moment she said, "You need to make people believe that you're getting married. You have to play the part of a bride. And what do brides talk about? What do people ask them about?"
"Uh... the dress?"
"Oh, good guess!" she said, laughing. "And what else?"
I thought. "The honeymoon?"
"Maybe. So where are you going for your honeymoon?"
"Hawaii?"
"Okay. You don't sound very certain. You need to have in your head, very clearly, a few things." As she spoke, she counted with her fingers. "What does your dress look like? How much did it cost? What is your fiance like? Where did you meet? Where will you get married? How many people in the wedding party? Where is the reception? How many people are coming? What do your bridesmaids' dresses look like?"
"Oh my God!" I cried, "That's too much! I'll never keep all that straight!"
"Yes, you will," she replied. "You just need to believe it. And you need to be concrete. For instance, who is your fiance?"
I shrugged.
"Come on," she coaxed. "This isn't real. You're just building a character. I'm going to ask you again, and I want you to tell me the name of the first male friend who comes to mind. Who is your fiance?"
I started to open my mouth and say it, but stopped. Jane gave me a look.
"I'm sorry," I said. "The only name that comes to mind is Ronson."
"The practical joker?"
"Yes."
"Well, he's perfect!"
"No, he's not. He drives me crazy!"
"Is he good looking?"
"I guess... but he's a big pain in the butt."
"And yet, he's your friend." I nodded. "Where did you meet him?"
"In high school. Friend of a friend."
"Awww, high school sweethearts!" Jane cooed, laughing. I turned red. "Perfect!" she repeated. "Look, when people ask about your fiance, you describe Ronson... exactly the way he is."
Then Jane coached me through describing the church I attended as a kid. She asked me about my parents and Ronson's parents, and whether they got along. "Our parents are pretty wary of each other," I told Jane, who replied, "Perfect!"
She ended by telling me that she'd set up some appointments to look at dresses, but although we probably couldn't do it this week.
I had the dream again, with variations, almost every night. Sometimes the location was different: once I was running through the church, but mostly I found myself on streets of towns I'd never seen before. What I was wearing was always different, but always bridal: once I wore a huge gauzy veil and nothing underneath but a brilliantly white lace body suit, full of frills, thin white ribbons, and tiny white bows. Sometimes my hair was elborately put up. Other times cascades of curls spilled over my shoulders. What was the same every time was that angry people were chasing me, and that my legs and feet were speckled and smeared with bits of wedding cake. Just before I'd wake up, I'd fall, or run into a dead end, and cats or dogs — or one time, ferrets — would lick at the cake on my legs.
That's where I'd wake up with my heart pounding. After I'd catch my breath and my pulse stopped racing, I'd wonder what the dream meant. Was my subconscious trying to tell me something? Did it mean I was doing something bad? Was I doing something wrong?
Jane and Marcus also had me practice cakeboxing. Not with cakes, though... just with boxes.
We didn't do it much, but we did it every day. I think it was the one part of my training that bored Marcus and Jane, and if Jack didn't insist, I'm pretty sure they would have skipped it altogether. Marcus and Jane would hold a plywood board between them, and I'd stack boxes on it to approximate a wedding cake. Then, I'd choose one of my flying kicks, and knock the boxes all over the backyard. If Jane and Marcus were impressed, they never showed it. They simply stood there while I gathered the boxes, stacked them, and kicked them down, over and over again. Once Marcus commented that, rather than aim for the lowest tier of the cake (as I had been doing), that striking the center of the cake was more likely to have the desired explosive effect.
But that was the extent of their involvement in the kicking part of things. They were much more interested in the development of my character: they worked on my gestures, the way I spoke, the things I'd say, and my facial expressions. They often quizzed me on my back story. It took me a long time to realized that they were more interested in how I responded than in what I said.
"You must believe!" Marcus shouted in frustration. "You have to care! If you're going to be an actor, you have to make it real! You need to feel it!"
I didn't see how I could cook up that sort of emotion on demand, and yet, on Friday, I had a breakthrough.
Jane and I were washing dishes, and she kept asking me about the reception — in fact, right there she interrupted and said, "You say *the* reception. It's not *the* reception, it's YOUR reception. You need to feel that it's yours." — But anyway, she was asking me who wouldn't sit with whom and how many tables and on and on. I was bored and tired, but I honestly tried to come up with good answers. Then she moved to the table settings, and finally she got onto the wedding dress. She wanted to know if I was attracted to one style over the others.
"Do you see yourself as a princess? Would you want a ball gown? A big skirt? A long train? Or would you go for a sexy, form-fitting mermaid, to bring out all your curves?"
I had an answer ready there, and was just about to tell her that I was going to go for a A-line, when I suddenly recalled a dress I'd seen in one of the magazines.
"Jane," I said, "I know this is crazy, and I could never really wear it, but I saw a picture of a dress..." I stopped washing and turned to face her. "It was a pale, pale blue, like a sky blue so light it almost looks white. And it's got a sweetheart neckline and the top is super-form-fitting—" here I blushed and swallowed hard "—and I know it's impossible..."
Jane waved my objections away and motioned for me to go on.
"So... it's got this..." I waved vaguely at my torso "... ruching? am I saying that right? where it's all gathered and wrapped and... and just so cool. Then the skirt is chiffon flounces, all the way to the ground. It looks like water... like a waterfall or... I don't know what. But it's beautiful."
Jane nodded, then a smile appeared on her face. I couldn't help but smile back.
"See?" she said. "You're excited. You're feeling the part. With that emotion, you could wear a pair of dirty overalls and people would still know you're about to be a bride."
On Monday, we started shooting the pilot. Our first target was Cake Mafia, which features an Italian-American bakery that — at least on TV — is a highly volatile environment, full of yelling, misunderstandings, drama, and hot tempers.
The wardrobe mistress put me in a dangerously short beige pleated skirt, a tight black top with puffy shoulders, and a pair of black leather boots criss-crossed with straps. To top it off, she gave me a white beret. The hair person set my hair in tiny curls, and I have to say: I looked pretty damn good.
I did have reservations about the boots at first. Even though the heels were only two inches, they didn't feel that stable. "I'm not sure I can do my kicks in these," I said. "I'm going to have to practice."
The wardrobe mistress shook her head. "You won't do any kicking until Sunday, when they deliver the cake. I've got a pair of sneakers for that." She held up a pair of cute pink sneakers. "Better? Will that work?"
I smiled and nodded.
When I emerged from hair, makeup, and wardrobe, my energy was high. I'd never had so many people fussing over me, trying to make me look good. I felt like a star, radiating light and happiness.
The first person I ran into, was Jack. It was no surprise; he had obviously been waiting for me. Before he opened his mouth, I started peppering him with questions.
"Hey, Jack! I was wondering... aren't the bakers going to wonder why I'm ordering my cake a week before the wedding? Don't most brides order their cake weeks or months ahead?"
"Uh, yeah...," he replied. "The story is, a friend of yours was going to make the cake, and then she flaked out."
"Oh! So am I supposed to act all flustered and nervous and all that?"
"No," Jack replied. "No offense, but I don't think you're that good an actor. But not to worry, we've already given them the story. And they've been told that you're kind of a ditz."
I frowned. "What do you mean, they've been told? I thought we were going to prank them."
"We are, but don't you think they'd wonder about the cameras following you? ... and the retakes and all?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I was going to ask you about that, too."
"We've told them that you're in a new reality show about brides who are not... um... not very... well, not very organized, let's say."
"Hmmph," I said, feeling a little offended. "Does this supposed show have a name?"
"Yes. We told them it's Weddings That Almost Weren't."
I told him it wasn't a very catchy title, but he just shrugged.
I frowned, digesting this news. I could see how it let me off the hook for almost anything, but still I felt a little offended. Then I remembered another question I had. "Hey, will our camera guys go into the bakery? Will we see them working on the cake?"
"No," Jack said. "They won't let us. There isn't room. We will have a lot of cameras in the alley when you kick the cake, but for all the stuff inside the bakery, we have a deal where they'll give us their dailies. The ones about you and your cake, anyway. You know, if they talk about you or work on your cake."
The two of us fell silent, and for the first time I realized that something was bothering Jack. In fact, he'd been looking uncomfortable the whole time. As I watched, he wrung his hands, and it struck me that he'd done the same thing several times during our conversation.
"Is everything okay, Jack?" I asked.
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Everything's great. I always get nervous before we start shooting. Once things get going, the butterflies will pass."
"Okay," I said, and the two of us returned to our awkward silence, until Jack cleared his throat.
"So, uh, are you comfortable?" he asked me.
"Yes," I replied, smiling. "The boots took a little getting used to. I mean, the heels, you know. But I've been practicing the kicks all week, so I think I'm good."
Jack laughed nervously. "That's, uh, great, but it wasn't what I meant. I was talking about the skirt, the tits, the whole... you know, the whole girl thing."
"Oh, that! Maybe last Monday I had a moment... but Jane and Marcus had me so focused on making it work... I dunno, I kind of forgot. I forget. And I found it's actually easier to do the kicks if you're not wearing pants."
Jack's eyes widened. "You forget? You forget that you're all dolled up? and that you've got those two mamambas hanging off your chest?"
I shrugged. "I don't feel very girly."
"Well, you look pretty girly. Don't be surprised if the guys on the crew start hitting on you."
"Seriously?"
Jack looked down, and the uncomfortable look returned to his face. Was I making him nervous? But then he reached into his pocket and took out a little box.
"Listen," he said in a small, quiet voice. "There's one more... thing you need, before you go order the cake." As he opened the tiny box, I saw that it held a ring, and when the sunlight caught the stone, I realized it was an engagement ring.
"This is real," he croaked, "so don't lose it." His face reddened as he slipped it over my knuckle. I could barely hear him as he said, "This is the ring I was going to give my girlfriend. The one who was the original Cakeboxer."
"It's beautiful!" I said. I didn't mean to say it. It just came out. But it really was incredible. Unreal. I'd never seen a diamond before. At least, not this close. Looking into that perfect crystalline surface was like looking into another world. I had no idea diamonds could be that extraordinary.
"Yeah," Jack said, and he nearly deflated as he said it. He gripped my hand hard and shook it tight. "Don't lose it!" he repeated, and head down, like a beaten dog, he turned and walked away.
As he disappeared, a girl with a headset and a clipboard approached me. "Oh, good, you got the ring!" she observed. "Look, when you get in that bakery, you've got to remember what you want to do in there. What is it?"
"Order the cake," I replied.
"NO!" she shouted. "You want to show off the ring! Whatever you do, wherever you go, you want people to see THE RING. You point at something, you use your left hand like this—" and she pointed her left hand, tilting it so the ring finger was up. "When you're at the counter, you rest your LEFT hand on the counter... but, like, unconsciously, see?" And she mimed resting her left hand on something. "You hand somebody something, you use your left hand and you turn your hand this way, see?"
She ran through a few more notice-my-ring scenarios. "You have to remember, you want EVERYONE to see the ring, so you're OBVIOUS, okay? Really in-your-face. You're like this—" and she made a vacant expression while she held her hand to her face. "Remember, hon, this is one thing that's impossible to overdo. In fact, it's all about overdoing it."
"Okay," I replied. I practiced a few arm poses and vacant looks until she laughed and said, "You've got it."
At the bakery, there were three young women behind the counter. I was quite sure they'd heard the ditz story, because all three had a barely-hidden smirk.
In spite of that, they were very nice. Without any prompting, they oohed over my ring, told me what a pretty bride I'd be, and wanted to hear the story about my friend who was supposed to make my cake, but didn't. I didn't tell it very well, and we did five takes before the director was satisfied. (Yes, they do retakes on reality shows!)
No one seemed to mind, though. Everyone took the retakes as a matter of course.
But what really stopped me dead was when they asked what sort of cake I wanted.
"Uh... tiers," was all I could say. In all my preparation, no one had coached me about what sort of cake I wanted, and all I could think was make it high so it's easy to kick. So I said, "Make it high."
The women smirked at that. They asked how much I wanted to spend, and I didn't know that, either. I had to fumble through the wad of money Jack had given me. He had cautioned me that some of it wasn't real (it was stage money), so in my fumbling I had to separate the real from the fake. After what seemed like five minutes I gave them an answer that seemed to please them, and they pulled out a binder filled with pictures of cakes.
They kept asking me questions, trying to draw out some sort of fanciful theme or dream. In the end, I picked a five-tier white cake decorated with white ropes and flowers and a big white bow. They assured me it was all edible. I asked them to not put the little couple on top. I don't know why I did, but they shrugged and agreed.
The rest of the week was pretty quiet. We shot some scenes in the neighborhood around the bakery. Wednesday we drove to a dojo in a nearby city where I put on my pink gi and practiced my kicks for the camera.
Thursday I went back to the bakery to ask if I could taste the cake they were making for me. It all seemed spontaneous, but it was arranged by the two producers. The bakers made a tiny cake for me and decorated it. I sat at a little table and ate it, surrounded by chubby bakers. I could feel their eyes on my legs and breasts. I never *really* understood the term sexual tension before that experience.
At long last, Saturday came: the day I'd kick the cake. I couldn't wait. The wardrobe mistress dressed me in a shiny, short red skirt that moved with the slightest bit of air. I was glad I wouldn't be wearing it long, because it covered so little and moved so easily, it was almost worse than no skirt at all.
I also wore a drapey, white long-sleeved top and the pink sneakers I mentioned earlier. My hair was tied with two long red ribbons. I felt like a girl in a sexy Japanese comic.
It was pretty damn uncomfortable. I'd never dressed in such an overtly sexual way before, and it was embarrassing, exhilerating, and frightening. It was worse than being naked: although all my private parts were covered, I felt completely exposed and more intensely vulnerable than I ever felt in my life.
Jack seemed to sense what I was feeling, so he said, "I want to show you something that might take your mind off what you're wearing."
"Or not wearing," I added.
He led me to a white SUV, and the two of us sat in back. It was a very luxurious vehicle. The seats were as comfortable as arm chairs, and there were small TV screens in the seat backs. Everything was new and clean and slick. "This is nice, Jack," I began to say, "but I don't think—" Jack shook his head. "It's not the car. It's this," and he tapped on the little screen in front of me. "Run it," he said. "I don't know how to run it," I replied, confused. "I wasn't talking to you," he explained, and the screen suddenly came to life. I recognized the Cake Mafia bakery, and the three women behind the counter. "I know them," I said, and then a young woman entered the bakery. She was wearing a white beret... it took a moment for me to recognize myself. Do I really look that good? I thought. And then Do I really look that bad? and then something happened to make me forget both questions.
I was watching the scene when I ordered the cake. At the time I thought those girls were so nice. I was nervous, and they were very encouraging. They made me smile and feel good. I remembered how happy I felt when I walked out.
But that's not what really happened. Those three, who I thought were so nice — well, they were laughing at me the entire time! Whenever I turned my head, the one I couldn't see would shake her head, roll her eyes, make rude gestures, or laugh silently. As I fumbled with my money, they made faces at each other and mouthed, "Do you believe this one?"
When I didn't know what kind of cake I wanted, one of them put her hands on her head and dropped her jaw. Another one mimed knocking on the back of my head, as if to show it was hollow.
"I didn't see any of this when it happened," I commented.
"Oh, no, of course not," Jack said. "They were careful to do it all behind your back."
"They make me look like a complete, empty-headed jackass!" I exclaimed. "They act like I'm stupid!"
Jack raised his eyebrows and nodded. "It gets worse," and he pointed me back to the little screen.
After I left the store, one ran to the window, and the moment I was safely out of sight, the three of them started hooting and laughing and exclaiming over everything I'd done.
"Did you believe that girl?" one shouted, wiping her eyes.
"When she pulled out that wad of money, I nearly fell over," another said. "It looked like she'd never seen money before. How can you NOT KNOW how much money you've got?"
"What I can't believe is that she had NO IDEA what kind of cake she wanted. NO IDEA! What kind of cake was her friend going to make for her? I can't imagine."
"A pile of Twinkies on a plate." They all laughed. One wiped tears from her eyes.
"I've never seen anything like that!"
They dissected every single detail they thought they knew about me: the way I walk, the way I talk, my lack of planning...
"No way that girl's ready to get married," one commented. "She needs to go back to nursery school."
"God bless the poor schmuck that's marrying her!"
"Some guy's gonna have his hands full with that one. She doesn't know whether she's coming or going!"
"And what is this show she's on? How I Effed Up My Wedding?"
They howled and screamed with laughter. Jack gestured with his head, and the screen went dead.
"Oh!" I growled. "I am so MAD! They were so MEAN and FAKE! Didn't they know they were on camera? What jerks! What a-holes! And I thought they were so nice! Ha!" I shouted, "Oh, those effing bees!" My blood was hot. I was boiling mad. I shouted, I fumed, I balled my hands into fists and clenched my teeth.
"Yeah, they're not very nice," Jack agreed as the car came to a halt. "But hey, look: here's where you kick their cake apart." He pointed across the street to an alley, where a Cake Mafia van was parked, its rear doors open wide. "I'd suggest you get down there, in front of the van, and wait for them to come out that door with the cake. As soon as you see them, zip around, line up with the cake, and do your magic. Okay? You ready?"
"Yeah!" I replied fiercely, "I'm ready. I'll going to kick the hell out of that cake."
Jack stopped me as I reached for the door handle, and said, "After, we'll be around the corner that way, okay? After you kick the cake, take off. Turn right out of the alley and right at that corner, and that's where we'll be. Right, right. Okay?"
I nodded, and jumped out. I was mad. I was really mad. Any reservations I had about kicking the bakers' hard work apart were gone. The way I felt, they could line up every cake they had in the whole damn place, and I'd gladly kick them all to pieces.
I took my place in front of the bakers' van and waited. I watched Jack's white SUV, my getaway car, roll out of sight and away. Glancing around, I saw cameras mounted here and there, and then I tried to ignore them. I wanted to focus on the cake, on the kick, on the moment of truth.
It didn't take long to arrive. The door burst open with a bang, and two fat bakers came lumbering out, moving slowly, talking the entire time, telling each other in scolding tones to be careful. I ran around the van, and suddenly my heart started pounding like a rapid-fire hammer in my chest. Behind the bakers, still inside, was a cameraman. There was another down the alley. I'd have to pass him to get out.
I stood alongside the bakers, and seeing me, they stopped too. I lined myself up with the cake. It was taller than I expected, and prettier.
"Hey," one said slowly. "I know you. This is your cake. What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be getting married? Like right now?"
I didn't say a word. I just wound up, threw myself in the air, and did a flying back kick. I could feel it: I'd judged the distance perfectly, and my foot sank halfway into the cake.
"What the frikkin' fah—" one of the bakers shouted. "Quit that!"
The kick was flawless, but the cake was still standing. The only difference was a foot-shaped depression in one side. It wasn't what I expected. I thought the cake would be more solid. I figured the tiers would fly apart, like the boxes I practiced on, and the whole thing would just... explode! Instead, I only mushed it. Sure, I ruined the cake, but the idea was to send cake flying.
The bakers weren't moving yet, and the cameramen just kept filming. While the bakers were still frozen in surprise, I figured I had time to fire off another kick. As quickly as I could, I lept into a spinning hook kick, and this time I lifted pretty far off the ground. It was an excellent kick. My butt was as high as the bakers' heads, and my heel plowed right through the cake.
Again, this time the cake didn't come apart. It didn't explode into pieces or fall off the board. It just collapsed, and it collapsed toward me, falling on my leg as it cut through the cake. When I put my foot back on the ground, my left foot, the one I'd done the kicks with, it slid. My sneaker was covered in white cream frosting, and my leg, all the way up to my knee, was smeared with frosting, bits of cake, and fragments of decorations.
While I was looking down at myself, puzzled and surprised, the two bakers, as one, let go of the board. It landed flat on the ground, with the cake on top, and it made a loud, menacing crash. Some more cake bits and frosting splattered on me. "Get her!" one of the bakers growled, "Get her!"
I took off running.
It was hard going, what with one frosted foot. I couldn't get much traction on my left side. The cake kept my foot slipping back. So I took to hopping and skipping and jumping on one leg. Sometimes I'd put my left foot down, trying to wipe the frosting off. Unbelievably, I got to the end of the alley before the bakers got their fat fingers on me. Turn right; turn right, Jack had said. So I turned right.
The two bakers were pretty out of shape, but they were closing in. I took off toward the corner, going as quickly as I could, trying every few steps to smear some cake off my shoe. In spite of running on one leg and trying to clean my shoe, I managed to reach the corner a few yards ahead of the bakers. They were huffing and puffing and coming up slow, but they kept on coming. For them, running was not much faster than walking, and neither of them could walk very quickly. But they were determined, I could see it in their faces. But now I was safe. The white SUV would be here... right here...
... but it wasn't. There was no sign of Jack or anyone from Cakeboxer. I swore, I hesitated, but only for a moment. I couldn't let the angry bakers catch me, so I took off hobbling, hopping, skipping as fast as I could, and midway in the block I spotted an alley, so I took it. I figured it would meet up with the bakers' alley, and I could circle the half-block again. But just as I turned into the alley, one of the bakers rounded the corner. He'd seen me take the alley!
Still, even if he hadn't seen me, I was leaving a pretty easy-to-follow trail of frosting and fondant behind me. They weren't exactly footprints, but every time I put my foot down, I'd make a creamy white mark.
And then, guess what: the alley turned out to be a dead end. There was a fence at the end, and the fence had no opening.
I looked behind me. The bakers hadn't reached the alley yet. I still had hope. I could scale the fence... or...
I spotted a door in a building, and that door was ajar. Normally I wouldn't dare, but I didn't want to find out what the bakers had in mind. Sure, they weren't butchers — they didn't have knives — but they were bigger than me, and they had plenty of friends. They wouldn't have any trouble rolling me in flour and stuffing me into one of their ovens, if they felt like it.
I hopped over to the door, pushed my way inside, and shut the door behind me. There wasn't any way to secure it, to keep it shut, so I leaned against it while I waited for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness.
A short flight of metal stairs led down to a dirty, industrial-looking space. Beggars can't be choosers, I told myself, and hopped down the stairs as quietly as I could. When I reached the bottom, a man stepped out of a doorway and asked, "Who are you? And what's your business here?"
"Some men are chasing me," I said, panting a little, and I'm sure I looked and sounded scared. He looked at the door, then down at my leg. "What happened there?" he asked.
"I guess I stepped into a cake," I quipped, laughing weakly.
"Must have been one deep cake," he replied, and said, "Well, come on, we can hide you and get that leg cleaned up." And with that, he literally swept me off my feet and carried me down a dark, dirty hallway. He kicked open a door and brought me into a room.
"This is the break room," he said as he set me in a chair. I looked around me.
The room was clean, if windowless. There was a small, outdated television set, a card table and some folding chairs, a small fridge, and a sink. The only decoration was a plastic fern that sat atop a small, unpopulated bookcase. It had that dry, musty, basement smell.
The man pulled one of the folding chairs near me, but not too close. He pointed down at my left foot. "Is there a shoe under all that frosting?"
I laughed and said yes.
He laid a piece of newspaper on the ground under my foot. "Well, let's wash that shoe off and then see about the rest of it," he said, and without so much as a by-your-leave he gently but firmly took hold of my leg and pulled my sneaker off. He dropped it on the paper, then pulled my sock off and dropped it next to the sneaker.
He smiled at me, and I smiled back. Honestly I was scared as hell, but so far he hadn't hurt me or given any indication that he would. In fact, he seemed pretty friendly and helpful.
The man glanced at the frosting on his fingers, and looking me in the eye, he gave his hand a big lick. And I mean a big lick. He ran his tongue all the way from the tip of his thumb down and then up his index finger, all the way to the tip. I laughed nervously, because that was creepy. Then he did the same on his other hand.
"Have you tasted it yet?" he asked me in a soft voice.
"Uh, no," I said. "I, uh, haven't had a chance."
"Here's your chance," he said, gesturing at my leg. "It's pretty good."
"Uh... I think I'll pass," I said.
He shrugged and smiled. "Suit yourself. I think we've got some towels here, clean ones. If not, there's plenty of paper towels." He rummaged in a cabinet, and came back holding a roll of paper towels. I was just thinking how it would be easier to run, now that I was rid of the slippery sneaker, and what a good idea it would be to start running right about now — when he knelt down in front of me, on one knee.
"What pretty feet you have," he said, as he took my heel in his hand.
"Please don't," I said. "I think I'd better go."
"Don't worry," he said, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I just want to clean you up."
"I can clean myself up—" I began to say, but I'd hardly gotten the words out of my mouth when he bent down and ran his tongue slowly up my leg, starting at my ankle, licking up the frosting and kissing up the bits of cake, all the while sending an electric alarm through the core of me.
"HEY!" I shouted, "DOWN, BOY!" and I pulled back my arm, cocking it for good hard blow to his head.
"Whoa!" a familiar voice shouted. "No, Lois! Stop!"
It was the girl from Cakeboxer, the one with the headphones and the clipboard. She seemed to pop out of nowhere, and the man at my feet didn't seem surprised at all to see her. "Whoa! Whoa!" the girl called to me. "Don't hit him! He's just an actor."
The man himself looked up at me, startled — and seemingly hurt (!) — by the blow I was ready to strike. "Hey, now, I just did what they told me to... it was supposed to be funny!"
I swore quite graphically, and suddenly Jack and a handful of others were there as well, all from Cakeboxer.
It was a setup, Jack explained, to spice up the pilot. "We figured if we moved the SUV, you'd end up in the alley."
"What if I didn't?" I countered. "What if the butchers — I mean the bakers — got their hands on me?"
"But they didn't!" Jack crowed. "I knew you'd come through. There was a challenge, and you rose to it!"
"Hmmph!"
"We were ready," the girl with the clipboard told me. "We wouldn't have let them hurt you."
Jack patted me on the back. "You handled it like a champ!" he exclaimed. "It was great! Just great! Putting the reality in reality TV! That's what I'm talking about!"
One of the crew pointed out to me where the cameras were hidden, but I couldn't see them.
"I think we can call it a wrap, folks," Jack announced, rubbing his hands happily. "The second team is getting reactions from the bakery people, and with that, we're done. AND we'll end with a freeze of you, Lois, getting ready to smack Tom in the head..." He lifted his arm back in imitation of me, he started laughing.
"Great," I said. "Is every episode going to be like this?"
"Oh, no," Jack said. "Every episode will be different. We're not going to repeat some gimmick. We'll have new surprises every week. It will be GREAT!"
"Mmm," I said. "We'll see. But in the meantime..." I looked down at Tom, who was looking, without any trace of shame or guilt, right up my skirt. "Yes?" he asked in a musical voice.
"You can let go of my foot now."
"Are you sure?" he replied, his eyes twinkling.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
"No," she said. "Get it: I'm dead. I'm a ghost. For real. Can you understand?"
I turned and looked at her. Then, pointing my finger, I slowly and gently poked her in the arm. She was soft to the touch, much softer than I expected, but she was no ghost.
"You're real," I said. "You're not a ghost."
She scoffed and in a scornful tone said, "Oh, and you know all about ghosts, I'm sure!"
I bit my tongue for a moment, then told her, "I will drop you wherever you want to go, but I will not play this game."
Any other day, I wouldn't have stopped for her.
She was hitchhiking on the east end of the Gatling Bridge. Her right hand, her hitchhiking hand, was bent back to her shoulder. The other hand clutched her tiny black skirt, which fluttered dangerously but didn't flip up. Her heels were at least three inches high, and she was perched on the barest margin of road. The shoulder by the bridge is so thin, that if she took even the tiniest half-step backward, she'd tumble head over heels down the embankment.
Above the flimsy, shiny skirt, she wore an equally shiny top. It was white with black polka dots. A deep vee exposed the entire valley between a pair of very round, very full, very soft-looking breasts. Her legs and arms were bare. Her lips and nails were done in a red so heavy it was nearly black, and her eyes were dark and overdone, like a raccoon's mask. She looked as if she'd just emerged from a nightclub, or as if...
... as if... Honestly, my first impression — and it was a hard impression to shake — was that she was a prostitute, left on the road by her last client.
I didn't want to judge... and I didn't want to stare, but traffic was at a near standstill, so I didn't just glance at her; I had a full fifteen minutes to study her in detail. Not that I wanted to, but there wasn't much else to look at beyond the rusty bridge girders and the back ends of trucks. I did my best to not look at her. I was very careful to avoid eye contact, but her arms, her breasts, and especially her thighs, kept drawing my gaze. Her hair, too, kept grabbing my attention, the way it was pulled back from her forehead, then exploded in a mass of tight, light-brown curls. I'd turn my head away, but my eyes kept sliding back. I fought it. I tried to pretend I didn't see her.
I know I'm going to sound cold and mean, but there was no way on earth that I was giving that girl a ride. I absolutely did NOT want her in my car. I refused to get involved in whatever she was up to. I mean, what if she was carrying drugs, and the police stopped me? Or what if she really *was* a prostitue and they arrested me for soliciting sex? Sure, I'd say that I only gave her a ride, but no one would believe it. They'd take one look at her, and call me a pervert.
To top it off, she had a bored, sullen look that I've seen before. I've never experienced anything but rudeness and distain from a woman with that look. It spells trouble; trouble with no upside. It's all pain and no payoff.
As my car moved slowly closer, inch by quarter-inch, I realized — much to my chagrin — that I was going to be sitting right next to her for several minutes. Add to that the fact that there weren't many passenger cars in line for the bridge, which meant I'd be one of the few drivers at her eye level.
Still... I didn't have to give her a ride. I didn't! There wasn't any law. Why was she out there, anyway? She wasn't my responsibility. She couldn't expect me to pick her up.
In fact, dressed the way she was, standing the way she was, she couldn't wait for more than a few moments... if she really was looking for a ride. Any truck driver would scoop her up the moment he saw her.
When at long last, I came to a stop near her, she glanced at me. She must have sensed my disinclination, because the moment our eyes met, her mouth twisted and her face took on this expression that said: Yeah, I get it: You're not going to pick me up. I felt embarrassed and guilty, but at the same time relieved. Her gaze turned to the drivers behind me. My shoulders relaxed. The danger had passed.
And then I found myself shouting, "Hey! You need a lift someplace?"
I've been kicking myself ever since.
The ride was uncomfortable, but uneventful. We didn't talk much. I asked, "Were you out there long?"
"Forever," she replied in a flat, dismissive tone.
I told her I was on my way home from work; that I work nights. She gave me a look of disinterest, so I dropped the subject.
I asked her what she was doing out there by the bridge. She gave me the sort of look you give a dead rodent, and told me, "You know what I was doing out there? None of your business. That's what I was doing out there."
"Hey, I didn't mean anything..." I began, but she cut me off saying, "Nobody ever means anything."
In other words, she was exactly what I expected: rude, spoiled, disdainful, dismissive. And irritating! I mean, what she said made absolutely no sense at all. But who cares? So what? I understood. She was telling me to shut up, so that's exactly what I did.
I dropped her at a address on a bad stretch of Unionway Street — not that there's any good part of Unionway. It's a neighborhood I usually avoid. She disappeared while I was doing a K-turn. I shook myself, locked my car doors, and got the hell on out of there.
I never expected to see her again, but two days later she was standing there again, at the east end of the bridge! Once again, the traffic was at a crawl. My heart sank. If I could have zoomed past her, I would have shot right by. Instead, here I was, stuck again, determined to not look at her and ABSOLUTELY to not give her a ride.
This time, though, she was determined to get in my car.
She didn't wait for me to roll up next to her. Instead, the moment she saw me, she came walking up the line of cars, her heels wobbling on the narrow strip of gravel. She looked directly at me, right into my eyes.
I was uncomfortable, to say the least. For some reason I was even afraid, and started looking around as if there was somewhere I could run, or to find something I could use to ward her off.
But of course there was nowhere to go. And she kept coming, not even looking at the other vehicles.
I shook my head in a slow, very deliberate NO.
When she saw that, her lips compressed to a tight straight line. She looked angry. And I'll admit, that made me feel a bit more afraid. After all, she could pick up a rock and scratch and dent my car... she could bust my windows, if she felt like it, and there was little I could do to stop her.
She stood at my passenger door, glaring at me. She tried the door, rattling the handle insistently, but I'd already locked it. She pounded on the door.
"Go away!" I said. "I'm not giving you a ride!"
"Come on!" she shouted angrily. "You *have* to! Come on! Open this door!"
"I don't *have* to do anything!" I shouted back. "Leave me alone! Get away from my car!"
I turned to look at her, and in that moment her hard, angry look fell apart. Her lip trembled, her shoulders slumped, and she looked as if she might cry. "Please?" she asked. Her voice struck me in the heart. She sounded like a little lost child.
I set my jaw and looked straight ahead. I would not. I could not. There was no frickin' way. I was not going to fall for her crocodile tears. She was NOT getting in my car ever again. I did NOT want to get involved, even minimally, in the life of someone like her.
She knocked on my window with her ring. The sharp sound made me turn my head, and when I did, she looked me in the eyes. "Please!" she pleaded. "Please!"
Now she looked afraid, even desperate.
I sighed, reached over, and opened the door. I only opened it a crack and let her do the rest. I wasn't being rude; if I pushed the door too far, she'd fall down the steep embankment. As she gingerly slipped inside, I braced myself for the smell. She was wearing the same clothes from last time, from two days ago. They had to be pretty rank by now.
To my surprise, they weren't. I mean, she wasn't. I mean, I didn't smell a thing. Not even perfume.
Once she settled inside, I couldn't help but exclaim, "Why in the world are you out here... again?"
She glanced at me, then down at her hands, which were clenched in her lap. She looked miserable. In a whispered groan, she answered, "I was waiting for you."
Oh no. Oh no no no. I was not falling for this! I was not going to pity her. She was not going to weasel her way into my feelings, my life, my bank account, or my apartment! There was no way! So I laid it out straight: "I can give you a ride," I told her. "Today. But that's it. I am not going to pick you up every time you end up at the bridge. I don't care what you do or why you go there. I'm sorry if you're in trouble, but I don't want to know anything about you. I don't know what you want from me, but you're not going to get it. I am NOT interested. Sorry."
"I don't want anything from you," she said in a cold tone.
"Then why were you waiting for me?" I shot back.
"Why are you so hostile?" she asked in a tone of offended surprise.
"Why am *I* hostile?" I repeated in disbelief. "The other day, I gave you a ride, and you wouldn't even give me the time of day. I tried to make polite conversation, and you were nothing but rude! You didn't even say thank you!"
"Thank you," she said in a small voice, taken aback.
In spite of myself I laughed. It was ridiculous. But she wasn't laughing. She looked deathly serious.
"I'll tell you why I was waiting for you," she said. "You're the only person who can see me."
I scoffed.
"Look at me," she went on. "How long do you think I'd wait for a ride, dressed like this?"
I glanced at her bare legs and arms, and her nearly naked breast. Hell, any guy with a half an drop of testosterone would pick her up in...
"Half a minute," I replied. "Tops."
"I was there for hours before you came. Hours! Nobody even honked at me!"
In my mind's eye I remembered her there, waiting, two days ago and today, and I realized she was right. I'd expect the truck drivers to hoot and holler and honk, but there was none of that. All you could hear were truck engines idling. Not one toot or shout. Just as if she wasn't there.
"So nobody noticed you—" I began, but she cut in: "No! Not *notice*! See! NO ONE *SEES* ME! NO ONE!" Then she added in a quieter voice, "Only you."
"I'm the only one who gave you a ride—"
"No," she said. "Get it: I'm dead. I'm a ghost. For real. Can you understand?"
I turned and looked at her. Then, pointing my finger, I slowly and gently poked her in the arm. She was soft to the touch, much softer than I expected, but she was no ghost.
"You're real," I said. "You're not a ghost."
She scoffed and in a scornful tone said, "Oh, and you know all about ghosts, I'm sure!"
I bit my tongue for a moment, then told her, "I will drop you wherever you want to go, but I will not play this game."
She didn't answer.
"Shall I take you to same place as yesterday?"
"Only if you stay," she answered.
"No way," I said. "Look: I am not going to be a part of... whatever scam you're running. I don't care what you want from me or think you need from me—"
"I told you: I don't want anything from you," she countered. "I don't need anything from you!"
I fumed in silence as I headed toward Unionway Street. Suddenly, my stomach growled.
"That's it!" she cried. "Let's go somewhere for breakfast!"
I shook my head. "I'm not going to buy you breakfast."
"You won't," she said. "You can't! You have breakfast. I'll just stand there. If anyone can see me, I'll walk away and leave you alone." She was intense now, focussed like a gambler.
"Okay," I said slowly. I considered her proposal. There had to be a trick in it somewhere, but I couldn't find any possible snag. In fact, her suggestion suited me pretty well. Of course I knew that other people would see her, but that didn't matter. I didn't expect her to keep her word. Whatever happened, whatever she'd say happened — and even if by some wild, crazy chance no one could "see her" — as soon as we got to a coffee shop, we were done. The minute she stepped out of my car, I'd make damn sure she'd never get back in.
I pulled another K-turn on Unionway and headed across town toward the University district.
We drove in silence, both of us looking straight ahead, until she suddenly said, "My name is May. Like the month."
"I'm Ben," I replied, "like the uncle."
There were a few coffeeshops I knew in that area... places I used to frequent a few years back. I stopped in front of one I used to like: a short brick building that used to be a tiny single-engine firehouse. The new owners had done minimal improvements, but it was clean and charming, and their muffins were exceptional.
There was a handful of small metal tables and chairs outside, but the cool weather kept the customers inside.
May trotted in ahead of me and stood in line next to me. A moment later, a petite blonde, dressed in pale earth tones, followed us in and took her place behind us.
I glanced at May and noticed for the first time that she wasn't carrying a bag, a wallet, or anything. Her skimpy clothes were unlikely to have pockets. I sighed, and informed her in an impatient tone, "I'm not going to get you anything, you know."
The blonde behind me frowned. "I don't want you to get me anything," she said with a little sniff.
It was my turn to frown. "I didn't mean you," I told her. "I meant her," and gestured to my right. A woman sitting at the table behind May gave me an strange look. She raised her eyes quizzically at the blonde, who responded with a cautious shrug.
"They can't see me," May explained.
"Phffft!" I replied. The blonde and the woman at the table exchanged big-eyed glances.
When I got to the counter, my manners got the better of my resolve, and I asked May, "Do you want anything?"
The girl behind the counter looked amused and told me, "No, I'm good."
"Not you," I said. "Her!" I pointed directly at May.
The girl behind the counter bit her tongue. I glanced from her to the blonde and back again. "Are you telling me that you don't see this woman here?" They both shook their heads, with a very wary look.
"You're putting me on!" I exclaimed.
"You better pay for your stuff," May said helpfully. "They're starting to think you're nuts."
I handed the girl a five and picked up my coffee and muffin. I stepped out of line and was about to go, when I stopped. There were seven people sitting in the little cafe, and they were all looking at me, waiting to see what I'd do next. So I said, "Don't mess with me, people. You all see this girl standing next to me, right?"
There was silence. I looked from one person to another, incredulous. "Nobody?" I demanded.
There was one guy in the place. He cleared his throat and asked, "What is she wearing?" His girlfriend gave him a look and punched him in the arm.
"Phffft!" I responded, walked out the door, and sat down at one of the tables near the curb. It had to be an elaborate joke, I realized, but I couldn't see how it was done. Sure, May had suggested breakfast, but *I* chose the place.
"How did you trick me into choosing this place?" I asked. "Is this some TV prank, or something?"
May rolled her eyes and glanced at the people inside. "Do you have a cell phone?" she asked me.
"What does that have to do with anything? Do you need to make a call?"
"No," she replied, "but if you put your phone next to your ear, they won't think you're talking to yourself."
"Screw that!" I replied, and she shrugged. I bit angrily into my muffin, and burned my lips a little on the coffee, but I didn't care. May smoothed her skirt and waited patiently. I made the effort to pull my eyes up from her thighs. My glance got stuck on her breasts until I wrenched it away and looked at the empty tables nearby.
"I can see you," she chided.
"Sorry," I said, but I wasn't.
Oddly it seemed that the more I ate, the hungrier I felt. I was considering getting a second coffee and muffin, when the door of the cafe opened, and the blonde who'd been behind me came out. She looked at me in a funny way, as if she was trying to decide something.
May's eyes scanned the girl from foot to head, and I could see from her expression that she was not impressed. Turning to me, she said, "You're covered in crumbs. You look like a slob."
She was right. Blushing deeply, I fluttered my fingers over myself, sending the crumbs flying. May rolled her eyes and shook her head.
The blonde hesitated another moment and then she walked over. "Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked. And as I was saying yes she added, "... and ask you a few questions?"
She put her hand on the chair, then stopped. "Oh, your, uh, friend isn't sitting here, is she?"
"No," I replied, "She's over there," and gestured to my right. "But seriously, you can drop the act. I know that you can see her."
May sighed heavily. "She can't see me," she explained impatiently. "How many times do I have to say it?"
The blonde shook her head no, and said, "Sorry." She hung her bag on the back of the chair and pushed her long straight hair behind her ear. "My name's Claudia," she said, "what's yours?"
"I'm Ben," I replied, shaking her outstretched hand, "and this is May."
May huffed loudly in exasperation. "Get with it, Ben! She can't see me!" She fidgeted for a moment, then tilted her head to look at Claudia's bag. "She can't see herself either, obviously."
Claudia was almost cute, but she had this business-like act that ruined the effect. She crossed her legs, took a sip of coffee, and asked, "How long have you been seeing May?"
"All told, less than two hours," I said. "I gave her a ride Tuesday morning, and I picked her up about a half hour ago today."
Claudia raised her eyebrows. "What do you mean when you say you gave her a ride?"
I frowned. "I picked her up in my car. She was hitchhiking. What else could I mean?"
"I don't know," Claudia replied. "I just wanted to be sure."
"You know she thinks you're nuts, right?" May put in. I gave her a look.
"What was that?" Claudia asked. "Did May just say something?"
"You know she did," I replied. "She said you think I'm nuts."
"Do you think you're nuts?"
"No, I know that I'm not." I was getting a little heated, but hadn't lost my temper yet.
"Then how do you explain that you're the only one who can see May?"
"I'm not the only one who can see her. You can see her, too."
"What do I have to do to see her?"
May huffed loudly in exasperation. "She can't see me! I'm a ghost! I'm dead!"
"If you're dead, how come *I* can see you?" I shot back.
"I don't know!"
Claudia's head jerked back and forth between me and May. "May is dead?" she asked.
"No, she's not dead," I said. "She says she's dead."
Claudia made a strange little noise that sounded like an amazed coo. "This is SO interesting! I mean, a person might say they see a ghost when they're really hallucinating, but you insist that she's not a ghost! I don't know what to make of that!"
I scratched my neck. "What are you, some kind of amateur psychologist?"
She looked offended. "I'm a graduate student in psychology," she countered. She was about to say more, but I jumped to my feet. A policeman was walking around my car, shaking his head. I ran over as he pulled out his ticket book.
"Is this your car?" he asked me.
"Yes, officer," I replied, "Is something wrong?"
"You got an expired inspection sticker," he said, pointing to my windshield. "It expired the end of May, and here it is June."
"Huh!" Claudia exclaimed. "The End of May! Isn't that fitting?"
May scoffed loudly.
"Oh my God," I said to the cop, "I didn't notice."
"Well, look," he said. "You're in violation now. I could put a hook on this car and tow it away. Then you'd be looking at the cost of towing, the impound, and the ticket."
"I'll get it done, I promise."
"That's not good enough," he said. "Any cop that sees you could stop you and take your car. You've got to get it done now and hope nobody stops you on the way."
I looked up, and realized that there was a garage across the street that did inspections. "What if I pull in there right now?" I asked, pointing. "And get it inspected this minute?"
The cop glanced behind him and back to me. "That works," he said. "But if you don't do it, and I see you again with that sticker, I'm going to seize your car. Okay?"
I thanked him effusively as I fumbled for my keys. The policeman stayed there until I'd left my car with the mechanic. I told them I'd be back for the car at five. They told me they would call if there were any problems.
Claudia was still sitting at the table, eating her croissant. May was nowhere to be seen. I didn't bother looking for her. I didn't even glance up the street. One more cup of coffee, I told myself, and then it's home to bed.
While I waited for my coffee, I looked through the window at Claudia, outside. There was something about her that I liked. Regardless of her role in the prank about May, I decided that I wanted to get to know her better. So I brought my second muffin and coffee outside and sat back down. "You still want to talk with me?" I asked with a grin.
She shivered and replied, "Yes, but could we do it inside? It's kind of cold out here."
After we sat down inside, I got her a fresh coffee.
"Where is May sitting now?" she asked.
I shrugged. "She's gone. I couldn't care less where she is sitting or standing or whatever."
Claudia pondered this as she sipped. Then: "Were you worried about the safety of your car?" she ventured.
"No, why?"
"No reason," she lied.
Our conversation stumbled along until she finally understood that I didn't want to talk about May. Once she got off that line of questioning, we suddenly clicked. I don't know where the time went, but we ended up talking for an hour and a half, and it was the most interesting conversation I ever had in my entire life. The only reason we stopped is that my energy began to seriouly fade. I explained to Claudia that I work nights and needed to get to bed.
She gave me a ride home. She told me her last name. She gave me her phone number.
She didn't give me a kiss, but she did give me a smile that I will never forget for as long as I live.
Yes, life was beautiful until Claudia drove off and I entered my apartment building and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
May was sitting, her legs curled under her, right in front of my apartment door.
"No," I said, in a very firm tone.
May huffed and frowned at me.
"You're not getting into my apartment," I told her. "In fact, if you're a ghost, how come you're not already inside? Why didn't you just float through the door? Or better still, the wall?"
"I did do that, Mr. Smarty Pants," she retorted, "but then I realized you'd get all upset if you saw me in there, so I waited for you out here instead."
"Oh, bullshit!" I replied.
At that, my neighbor's door flew open, and Mrs. Laverty put her head out. She was an older lady... not grandmother old, but old enough to think she could tell me what to do.
"Was that you swearing, Ben?" she asked.
"Yes, Mrs. Laverty, that was me."
"I'd don't appreciate that sort of language, Ben, and I'd like to ask you to stop. What on earth are you swearing about, anyway?"
"It's not a what, it's a who," I replied, gesturing at May.
"For the love of God, Ben!" May shouted. "She cannot see me!"
"Who what?" Mrs. Laverty asked.
"What?"
"There is no who," Mrs. Laverty replied. "There is me and there is you, and I certainly hope you aren't swearing at *me*!" She gave me a sharp look, then went inside and closed her door.
"Can I come in?" May asked me.
"What the hell," I replied, exasperated. "You might as well."
Mrs. Laverty knocked rapidly on her door. "Benjamin!" she called, "Language, please!"
"Oh fuck me," I said in an quiet undertone, to which Mrs. Laverty replied, "I can hear you!"
May giggled, and seeing her smile... well, I almost liked her in that moment.
Once she got inside, though, I began mentally kicking myself.
"How did you know where I live?" I asked her.
"I read your address on your registration at the car place," she replied.
"After I left?"
"No," she said. "When you handed it to the man. I don't know why, but I was invisible then."
"Right," I said. "Invisible."
She didn't reply, so I said, "Look: you can't stay. I need to get some sleep."
"It's okay," she said. "Now that I know where you live. I got some things I need to do."
"Cool," I almost said, but the end of the word stuck in my throat as May faded, then vanished, right in front of my eyes.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
I tried to think of what I knew to be true, and my first thought was of Claudia...
the solid sense of her reality, of our conversation together...
but then I realized that May had seemed no less real. After all, I'd poked her in the arm.
She shut the door of my car after getting in. And she opened it when she got out — didn't she?
I couldn't quite remember. But it didn't matter: if I was the only one who saw her,
then everything she did and said could easily be figments of my imagination.
For several minutes after May vanished, I stood stock still, my mouth hanging open, my hair standing on end. I'd spent the morning debunking everything May had said, and now my world flipped upside down. I still felt pretty sure that Claudia at least was wrong: I mean, I know that I'm not crazy. On the other hand, until a few moments ago I was sure there was no such thing as ghosts.
I sat on the edge of my bed and ran my hands through my hair. God, I was so desperately tired, but I needed to sort this out. Was May really a ghost? Or is something seriously wrong with me?
The moment I asked the question, a wave of fear swept over me — or at least it started as fear, but grew quickly into a feeling of utter terror that poured into every corner of me. It was overwhelming... to the extent that, if I wasn't already nuts, my growing panic could unhinge me forever.
I can say without exaggeration that I have never been so afraid in my entire life. What if I'd gone crazy? Would I even know? No, of course not! I'd be the very last to know, if I ever knew at all. Even if I were stark raving mad, my wildest thoughts would make perfect sense to me.
I tried to think of what I knew to be true, and my first thought was of Claudia... the solid sense of her reality, of our conversation together... but then I realized that May had seemed no less real. After all, I'd poked her in the arm. She shut the door of my car after getting in. And she opened it when she got out — didn't she? I couldn't quite remember. But it didn't matter: if I was the only one who saw her, then everything she did and said could easily be figments of my imagination.
Claudia, on the other hand, had given me a ride home. Could I have imagined that? No, I didn't think so.
In the end I decided that Claudia had to be real: the other people in the coffee shop had seen and interacted with her. But May? No one had seen May but me. May could well be imaginary from start to finish.
And maybe in the end, I was just overtired. Maybe May was nothing more than a waking dream.
I lay down fully clothed on my bed. How could I sleep? Adrenaline was coursing through my veins, giving me the shakes. Even so, I clasped my hands behind my head. I took slow breaths and tried to calm down. And I did start to relax, at least a little. As I did, something came floating up from the depths of my memory. Something I'd forgotten long ago; something my grandfather told me.
"Ben," he said, "Seeing a ghost is like love at first sight. You can only believe it if it happens to you."
I was twelve at the time, and I reacted like any teenager would: I scoffed.
But now... both things had happened to me, on the very same day.
At twenty past four in the afternoon, my eyes snapped open and I was wide awake. Claudia was coming to pick me up so I could get my car. I hadn't slept anywhere near as much as I should, but I felt great. Later tonight I'd be dragging for sure, but right now I was all systems go.
I didn't remember falling asleep, and yet here I was, lying on top of the covers. I didn't remember getting undressed either, and yet here I was, naked. Still, being naked saved me a few moments: I stepped into the shower, did a quick shave, and brushed my teeth. I pulled on some clean clothes, and dashed downstairs just in time to see Claudia drive up in her old Corolla. She was smiling, I was smiling, and spontaneously, without a thought, we had our first kiss. It was electric. There was an amazing physical chemistry when our lips touched, and when her skin touched mine. It was like the sun coming out. It was warm, it was magnetic, and I wanted more, but she put her little hand on my chest and said, "I have to drop you at the car place and go, remember? I've got an evening class."
As we drove, Claudia gave me a playful nudge and asked, "May's not in the back seat, is she?"
I gave a careful look behind me, and said, "Nope!"
Claudia, her eyes on the road ahead said, "Let's hope she's gone for good."
"Oh, yeah," I agreed, and decided to keep May's fade-out to myself. There was no point in making myself seem any crazier than I had already.
Later, I realized that Claudia had decided to treat the whole May episode as a joke.
I didn't see May again until the next morning. She stood in the very same spot, on the side of the road just before the bridge. This time there was no traffic. I had to stop to let her in. A truck driver behind me nearly blew my car off the road with his powerful horn.
"Why are you always there?" I asked her.
She made an irritated face. "No reason," she said. "I'm just there." She shrugged and shook my question off.
"Anyway," she went on, as if I'd interrupted her, "I wanted to see you because I need your help. It's something simple. Simple for you, but important for me. And then I think I can leave you alone."
"Forever?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure," she replied, turning her head away and looking out the window. "Forever and a day."
She wanted me to drive her back to Unionway, to the address where I first left her. "I need to get into my house," she explained.
"No," I said. "I'm not breaking into anybody's house."
"You don't have to break in," she said. "There's a key behind a loose brick. And it's not anybody's house — it's mine."
"Why can't you get in?" I asked. "Can't you just walk through the wall or the door or whatever?"
"No, I can't. I don't know why. I've tried different times, but it doesn't work."
"Can't you pick up the key yourself and use it? You've opened and closed my car door."
"I don't know!" she replied, exasperated. "I don't know. Nobody gave me a rule book or a manual when I died! And I can't ask any other dead people." She folded her hands in her lap and looked down. In a small voice she said, "The only person I know now is you."
I let out a long heavy sigh, then said, "Okay. But the moment anything looks or sounds fishy, I am out."
"Fine."
May pointed out the loose brick. I got the key, unlocked the door, then wiped the key off and put it back behind the brick.
As soon as the door was open, May dashed inside. I didn't see where she went. I entered more cautiously, looking around, trying to not touch anything, but it was obvious — much to my relief — that this really was May's house. There were pictures of her everywhere. None of them were pictures of herself alone: it was always May and someone else. Most of the pictures featured May and two other women: from the resemblance, they had to be her mother and her sister. Other photos were from family vacations or events like birthday parties, a wedding, and so on.
As I looked at one picture after another, it struck me that the May in the photos was always happy, sunny, and smiling. The May I knew was never that way.
And the May in the pictures wore a lot more clothes than the May I knew: I didn't see a single one where she bared as much cleavage or showed as much leg as she did now. She must have died in the most provocative clothes she owned.
Then, from another room, came the sound of May stamping her foot. "Damn!" she shouted. "Damn it! Damn it to hell!"
"May?" I called, quickly making my way through the rooms until I found her in her bedroom. "May, what's wrong?"
She was sitting on her bed, crying. The closet was open, and so were the two top drawers of her bureau. From what I could see, most of it was a lot more modest than the clothes had on: jeans, cotton shirts, and dresses she could have worn to church.
"May, what's wrong?" I repeated.
"These clothes!" she cried. "My clothes! I wanted to come here so I could change my clothes! I don't want to wear these all the time..." she gestured, waving her hand at the clothes she had on.
"So what's the problem?"
"The problem is, I can't change!" To show me what she meant, she ran to the closet and tried to take out some pants and a top. It was the weirdest, most unsettling thing to watch. Her hands scrabbled desperately at the items, but the clothes didn't move at all, and as hard as she tried to close her hands on something, she couldn't get a grip. It was the same with the shirts in the drawer. I lifted a t-shirt and tried to place it in her hands. In a creepy, indescribable way, it slithered over her hands and fell to the floor.
"See?" she sobbed.
"Is this what you were wearing when you died?" I asked.
"Yes."
"May?" I paused for a moment, feeling the delicacy of the question, and unsure if I dared, but then I went ahead and said it: "How did you die, May?"
She stopped crying immediately. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. First she said, "I don't want to talk about it." Then she added, "Let's get out of here."
I followed her back to the kitchen. There was a woman standing in the doorway, and I was sure she wasn't a ghost. She was in her thirties, had platinum blonde hair, and wore skin-tight jeans and four-inch heels. Her body was amazing, but her expression was ice cold, and she was holding a telephone in her hand. Her thumb rested on the SEND button.
"That's Ms. Krylova," May explained. "She's my neighbor."
"Hi," I called to her. "Are you Ms. Krylova? I'm a friend of May's."
"You're friends with May?" she asked. "I never seen you here before."
"Well, I'm here now," I said. "I'm looking for May. Have you seen her?"
Ms. Krylova wasn't entirely convinced. She kept a wary eye on me, but she replied, "I haven't seen her since Monday."
Monday. And the first time I picked her up was Tuesday morning.
"Maybe she finally went to Chicago with her boyfriend," Ms. Krylova offered.
At that, May, who'd been standing by in silence, sat down at the kitchen table and fixed her eyes on one of the photos there. It showed her and a skinny, slick looking man who I disliked at first sight. I grabbed the picture.
"Hey!" May protested.
"Is this the guy?" I asked Ms. Krylova, who nodded.
"What kind of person is he?" I asked. "Do you know anything about him?"
Her face took on a flat expression. She looked me in the eyes for a moment, then said, "I know that he is a man. And men? You can't trust any of them."
"He didn't kill me," May told me as I was driving home.
"Who didn't kill you?"
"My boyfriend," she said with a sigh.
"What's his name?" I asked.
"What do you care?"
"Does your family know you're missing?"
She made a vague gesture.
"Can your family see or hear you?"
"No," she said. "I tried for two days to get them to see or hear. But they don't. I tried friends. I tried this card-reader my mother likes. But nobody sees me. Nobody but you."
"Why?" I asked her. "Why me?"
"I don't know," she said, and she sounded exhausted. She sounded emotionally drained.
We drove in silence for a ways, and then she said, "Can I stay with you tonight?" Before I could answer, she added, "I was there last night. I was so scared and so alone, I just wanted to listen to your breathing. I felt like it was the only thing on earth that kept me sane."
"Mmm," I said. I could understand that... and then I had a strange idea.
"May?" I asked. "Did you undress me while I was asleep?"
She looked at me with a complete lack of embarrassment and shrugged. Then she said, "I was curious."
I wanted to ask, Curious about what? but I couldn't get the words out. Her answer sounded strange and wrong and very clinical, although I don't know why I thought of that word at that moment. In any case, it gave me the creeps — and yet, I still brought her home with me. I didn't see how I could keep her out anyway, and I was beginning to feel very sad and sorry for her.
Four days followed in pretty much the same pattern: I'd pick up May at the bridge on my way home in the morning. She'd sit in a chair or look out the window until I fell asleep. She'd be gone when I woke, and I woke up naked and uncovered. Then I'd go see Claudia until it was time to go to work.
I didn't mention May to Claudia, and I didn't bring Claudia home.
The fact that May undressed me each night was weird, but not any weirder than May's being a ghost. I didn't mention it to Claudia. It was just a strange little thing that was part of my life. That's how I looked at it ... at least until I realized that I wasn't sleeping very well.
It was Tuesday that it finally came to a head. Tuesday, a week from the first time I'd picked up May by the bridge.
I was achey and stiff. I had funny pains everywhere, even on the soles of my feet. I wondered whether I was getting the flu or something, because I felt nauseous in a weird way, almost as though someone had kicked me in the balls. I didn't have a fever or chills or sniffles or any other signs of infection.
So, anyway, it was Tuesday morning. I was heading home from work. I picked up May at the bridge and brought her home. I was so tired that I didn't bother getting undressed. I thought with some irritation that May would do it for me anyway.
Feeling utterly spent, I fell onto my bed and immediately dropped into a heavy, unrestful sleep.
After a while I started to dream. I dreamt that May had just finished getting my clothes off, and she was naked, too.
In my dream, she was rolling me onto my back. I could see my face. It was tense and pained, even in sleep.
Then May did the most creepy and bizarre thing. First, she lay down next to me, all the while murmuring softly, "Sleepy sleep, sleepy Ben. Stay asleep, sleepy sleep..." She went on and on like that, oh-so softly and ever so quietly. It was such a hypnotic drone that I nearly fell asleep inside my dream.
Then in a sudden moment May's body flattened out. Flat, like a piece of paper. I was terrified, but I couldn't wake up. I was watching the two of us from above, seeing me looking up, seeing her flattened out, as if a steamroller had squashed her flat, like in a cartoon.
Then May slid underneath me and her smooth, flat body turned into a cold white pool, like quicksilver, if quicksilver could be white, or latex, if liquid latex could be cold. I felt the icy liquid sensation of her underneath my back, my butt, my legs, and the backs of my arms. And then that white quicksilver began to gather and rise and flow up my body, covering my sides, creeping from the edges to cover my belly, my chest, my head, my face.
All the while, May kept up her hypnotic murmur: "Sleepy sleep, sleepy Ben. Stay sleepy sleepy sleep..."
My body wiggled and tried to fight, but it was no use. Gradually the whiteness covered me completely, so that I couldn't hear or see or speak. And all I could do was whimper. And all I could see was the white film that covered my eyes.
I felt myself get up. The film that covered me was May herself, and she was forcing my body to move. I walked, making a few turns, then stopped. Then tiny openings appeared where my eyes are, and I saw that I was standing in front of the mirror, the full-length mirror mounted on my closet.
As I watched, looking at the fear in my own eyes, I saw and felt what May was doing. She was pulling at her skin — and mine underneath it. She was trying to make cat eyes, pulling up the outside corners of my eyes. It hurt, but not too badly.
I looked horrible. My body, my head, was covered in May's pale skin. The only openings were two tiny dots for my nostrils and two for my eyes.
I wanted to scream and cry out, but all I could do was make noises in my throat, sounds something like a gargling whimper. It wasn't loud at all. I couldn't move my jaw, which was covered by the tight, skin-like covering.
"I'm sorry," May told me, "But I can't stop. This is the farthest I've gotten, and I need to try. I need to get this right."
That's when she began to tighten her grip on my body. She tried to mold me, to make me look like a girl. You have to understand that it was hopeless: I look nothing like a girl at all.
She began with my midsection: squeezing first like a vise, then like a corset, constricting my waist down, pushing the little fat I carried up to my breasts and down to my hips. It was so relentless, so forceful and unyielding, that I could barely breathe. I was afraid I was about to faint, when she suddenly stopped. She then tried squeezing my legs to make them slimmer, gave that up as well.
I could hear May grunting with effort as she tried to mold the spare skin and small amount of fat on my chest into a pair of breasts. It hurt like hell to have my skin pulled like that, and the result was not very good. The breasts she tried to mold were tiny, far apart, and nothing like a woman's breasts.
But the worst was yet to come. She pushed my testicles up inside me, pressing without any sense of the pain she was causing. It hurt so bad that tears came to my eyes. She flattened out my penis, kneading and pushing and trying to shape it into something that vaguely resembled a vagina. The pain was excruciating.
In my mind I was screaming at her, screaming at the top of my lungs, sending her the violent, pain-filled message, "May! MAY! For the love of God, stop! May! Let me go!" But I realized that she couldn't read my mind, and I set to screaming, making noise in my throat just as loud as I could (which was not loud at all), and I fought with every ounce of my strength, pushing, resisting, and straining to break free.
"Stop!" May told me. "Stop fighting! I need to do this! I need to try! If I can do this, I can wear my clothes and talk to people!"
"No, May, No!" I screamed in my throat.
"Stop fighting!" she pleaded, her voice filled with desperation. "I NEED to do this! Please, Ben, please don't fight me!"
But fight I did. I struggled to get free, until at last I blacked out from the pain.
I knew nothing until I woke the next morning, exhausted, aching to the bone, and scared almost literally to death.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
"No, Ben, No. There are no ghosts in real life. It's only pretend. Ghosts exist only in stories and movies, never in real life."
I sighed. "Okay, then. Let's talk about a story. Let's say we both just started reading a story, a ghost story. And in this story a man named Ben sees a ghost named May. Not in real life; just a story. In that story, what would Ben do?"
Claudia's lips tightened, and she looked angry.
Without bothering to shower or shave, I hurriedly pulled on the clothes that lay in a pile by my bed — right where May dropped them. They were wrinkled and dirty; they were the clothes I wore yesterday; but they were closest to hand, and I had to get out and away as quickly as possible.
Even in my hurry I couldn't miss seeing the bruises on my sides and hips, and the painful scrape marks on my chest where May had tried to pull my skin into a breast-like shape. I hurt all over. I hurt in ways I'd never hurt before. There didn't seem to be an inch of me that wasn't in pain. I whimpered as I pulled on my shoes. I didn't bother to tie them. I hobbled downstairs, got in my car, and drove to the coffee shop where I'd first met Claudia.
The two of us were still meeting in public places. I hadn't yet been to her place, and she hadn't been inside mine.
"My God, Ben, look at you!" Claudia cried in alarm."What happened? Did someone beat you up?"
I lowered myself into a chair slowly, like an old man. Once I settled into what seemed the least painful position, I began to tell her what had happened.
As she listened, Claudia's face went white, then red, and white again in turns, as she was shocked, dismayed, upset, or frightened.
You have to understand that neither of us had mentioned May for a week, and Claudia was doing her best either to forget what happened or to treat it as a joke.
Now that I looked like a victim of torture, she could see there was nothing funny about it at all.
Stupidly, I told her everything: the visit to May's house, the conversation with Ms. Krylova, May undressing me each night, and her nightmarish attempts to transform me. I suppose if I hadn't been in so much pain, I would have thought about how it would sound to Claudia — or I would have realized, seeing the expressions on her face — but the effort of sitting upright in my chair took so much out of me that my brain could only run on minimal power.
Once I started talking, I couldn't stop. It poured out of me. In retrospect, I should have told her that May was still appearing to me, and stopped there. That fact alone would have been quite bad enough from Claudia's point of view.
Claudia was already afraid that I had some sort of psychological issue, and everything I told her confirmed that opinion and locked in her conviction that I desperately needed help. In her mind, my injuries, my bruises, my difficulty sleeping, and even my belief that May was real, were all caused by my own inner conflicts and illness. The more I had to complain about, the sicker I must be.
After I'd finished talking, I did something that topped all my stupidity so far: I showed her my bruises and scrapes. Claudia was horrified. She was devastated. It took several moments before she overcame her shock and was able to speak.
"Ben," she said in voice that was cautious and tender and yet extremely frightened, "Do you understand how far out you've gone? Ben, you *have* to see someone. You have to see some one today."
"I'm already seeing May," I lamely joked, but of course she didn't laugh.
"Ben, look at you. Can't you see that you're a danger to yourself? And you broke into that house... who knows who really lives there, and what they would have done — or what you would have done — if they were home? I'm frightened, Ben. I'm really frightened. And I'm not just frightened for you, I'm frightened for myself. How do I know you wouldn't hurt me, too?"
"Claudia!" I protested. "I would never! May doesn't tell me what to do."
"And yet, look at what you did to yourself," she replied, choking on the words. She sniffed and wiped a stray tear off her cheek, and then she began to cry in earnest. She bent over, put her face in her hands, and cried. I reached out my hand to comfort her, but she pulled away from my touch. I took my hand back, hurt more by her fear of me than by anything May had done.
"You really need to see someone," she repeated. "Today. Today. I need to draw a line, Ben: As hard as it is to say this, I have to. If you don't get professional help, I will not see you any more. Not at all. You're ill and you need help. You need a kind of help I'm not qualified to give. If you don't get it, I will make a clean break from you. Otherwise, you'll drag me into your—" she paused, searching for a word "—your pathology. It will hurt me and it won't help you. It won't help you at all."
I suddenly realized how easily she could cut me out of her life. I don't mean emotionally; I only mean physically. Separation would hurt her just as much as it would hurt me, but she would do it. It wouldn't require much of a change: All she had to do was stop meeting me. I didn't know where she lived. I didn't know where she went to school. I didn't know whether she had a job. I hadn't met any of her friends or family.
Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much distance she'd been keeping. I was too busy worrying about her coming to my place; too concerned about keeping her and May apart.
I was crushed... crushed and humiliated. But the worst was yet to come.
"... and another thing," Claudia said. "I had no idea that you want to be a girl."
"I don't!" I cried, as if I'd been stung.
"It must be a really strong desire if you've pushed it off onto May."
"What!?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What are you talking about?"
"I wondered why you pictured May so sexy and provocative. You told me that she looked like a prostitute—"
"I was wrong!" I interrupted. "She isn't that way at all!"
Claudia waved her hand and shook her head. She didn't want to hear it.
"I don't know whether we have any future at all," she told me in a low voice, heavy with emotion, "But I know that you need to get help."
We both fell silent as the weight of her words sank deeply into both of us. She sounded like a judge pronouncing sentence. I didn't dare speak or move — or even breathe! — for fear I'd make things worse. I swallowed hard, looking down, thinking as hard as I could. There was something I needed to say, something I needed to ask her. In spite of what she said, I did need her help. But how could I begin to ask her?
The silence was suddenly broken by the ear-splitting siren of an ambulance that burst out of nowhere and tore down the street. As its wail faded in the distance, I cleared my throat and spoke.
"Okay," I said. "If you give me the name of someone, I will go see them. Today."
Claudia lifted her face and looked into my eyes, but she didn't show any emotion. "Good," she said in a flat, neutral tone.
"But first I have to say something, and I'm begging you to hear me out. I want to make it clear: I'm desperate. I've already agreed to see whoever you choose. Today. But please listen to one little thing."
I licked my lips, which were very dry, and swallowed hard. Claudia handed me her half-empty water bottle, and I drained it.
"Okay," I said. "Let's say — just hypothetically — that May is real—"
"No," Claudia said with finality. "Stop. May isn't real. There are no such things as ghosts."
"Are you so sure?" I asked her. "Do you really know that? Can you prove it? That there is not one in the entire world?"
"No, but..."
"Please, Claudia. Just wait for a few moments and hear me out, okay? What if—"
"No, Ben. I'm not going to listen to any what-ifs. This is just a sidetrack: a way to avoid getting help."
"No, it's not." I said. "I've already agreed to get help. Today. I'm going to go. But I've got one mental knot that maybe you can help me untie. Can you humor me for just five minutes? Afterward, no matter what either one of us say, I will go see a mental-health professional and follow their advice."
She looked at me and said nothing. When I saw she wasn't going to speak, I began again. "So... just hypothetically, if there really was a ghost—"
"No, Ben, No. There are no ghosts in real life. It's only pretend. Ghosts exist only in stories and movies, never in real life."
I sighed. "Okay, then. Let's talk about a story. Let's say we both just started reading a story, a ghost story. And in this story a man named Ben sees a ghost named May. Not in real life; just a story. In that story, what would Ben do?"
Claudia's lips tightened, and she looked angry.
"Please, Claudia: talk to me, just for a little bit. Take this obstacle away from me. What would Ben do in the story?"
She covered her face with her hands and made a small stifled scream of frustration. Then she took a deep breath and uncovered her face.
"Okay," she said. "If this was a ghost story, May would be around because she had some unfinished business, and Ben would have to help her with it."
"What kind of unfinished business?"
She frowned. "I don't know! Maybe she has to tell somebody something. Maybe it's something about the way she died!"
Something about the way she died. That made sense. May never talked about how she died. Not that I often brought it up, but every time I did, she'd flatly refuse to discuss it.
"Okay," I said. "So let's say — in this story — that it's something to do with how this person died. How does the guy in story find out what the problem is?"
As I said that, Claudia's expression abruptly changed. It was as though a light came on. Her mouth opened slightly, and she turned her head slowly as an idea took shape. Then she looked me in the eyes. I waited, watching the wheels turn inside her head, until I couldn't wait any longer.
"Claudia?" I asked.
"I've got it," she said. "I've got it! Listen to me: if May is a real person who died on Monday night, then the police must know."
"Yes, I guess they would," I agreed.
"And if there is no such person, they would know that too! I mean, if she doesn't exist, they wouldn't know about her."
I shrugged and scratched my head.
Claudia pulled out her cell phone and looked through her contacts. "My cousin Walter happens to be a police detective," she said, and punched a number. She smiled and sat up straight.
"And so?"
"He will be able to tell us for sure that there is no May," she crowed, "and then you'll see: she's only a figment of your imagination!"
"Wait," I said. "Be careful what you say. If you tell him that I know about May, he might think that *I* killed her."
Claudia rolled her eyes and told me not to worry.
Walter answered, and Claudia became all bright and chatty. She act as though she'd called on a whim, just out of the blue. Walter seemed to have time to talk — or listen at any rate — as Claudia filled him in on family news and gossip. Then she told him about school, and just when I thought I couldn't bear any more, at long last she asked how things were with him. After listening for a bit, she threw in, "And do you still like being a cop, Walter? You're not working on any murders or kidnappings or anything horrible like that, are you?"
I couldn't hear his answer, but whatever he said wiped Claudia's smile right off her face. "Really? Seriously? What's the girl's name?" she asked, and when Walter replied, her face went white.
Claudia listened for a little while longer, but every moment Walter spoke only added to Claudia's nervousness. When her agitation grew to the point that she was trembling, she signed off, making a poor show of seeming nonchalant and cheery. She folded up her phone, dropped it into her bag, and sat in stunned silence. I waited for her to say something, and at last she said, "What's May's last name?"
"I don't know," I replied. "I never asked. Why?"
"Because a girl named May Repton has disappeared. Her family reported her missing last Tuesday."
Of course, the first thing I wanted to say was, "See? I'm not crazy!" but I resisted the urge. Instead, I asked about May's boyfriend.
"Yeah," Claudia said. "He's gone, too. He ran. The police were going to pick him up for check fraud... forgery... check kiting — whatever that is. They think he took off for—"
"Chicago," I interrupted, and she said "Chicago" a beat after I did. She gave me a look that unnerved me: the sort of look you'd give a creepy, scary stranger who comes too close.
"Yes," Claudia agreed in an uneasy tone, "That's what Walter said. The Chicago police are on the lookout for him, and hopefully May will turn up when he does."
"She won't turn up," I said. "You know she won't."
Claudia lifted her face and looked me in the eyes. It was a look I'll never forget; a face written on my heart with a searing knife. At the time I didn't understand it, but now I do. It's the look someone has in the moment before they close a door... a door that they will never open again. Her eyes were big and liquid. Her nose was red from sniffling. Her lips were parted and moist. She never looked so beautiful, but I'd never seen her in such pain.
"Claudia," I said softly, "Now you know that it's true."
She swallowed hard and sniffed. She fixed her eyes on me, as though she was memorizing my face, and then she set her jaw and spread her hands, fingers wide, palms facing me. It was a gesture of total refusal.
"I don't want to know," she whispered. "Ben, I do not want to know." She abruptly stood, knocking her chair over. She let out a single, high whimper followed by a sniff. I thought she was about to cry, so once again I reached for her, and once again she recoiled from me in fear.
"Don't call me, Ben," she told me in a fierce whisper. "Don't call me, ever."
She ran to her car, revved her engine wildly, and drove off as quickly as she could.
I never saw Claudia again.
In the weeks ahead I felt the pain of it, but at the moment I was feeling something else entirely.
A burden had been lifted off me. A knot had been untied.
Her cousin had confirmed that May was real. Not only that, but he confirmed that she had disappeared on Monday night, the night before I first saw her at the bridge! It was a vindication, a liberation. I wasn't crazy! I didn't have to be afraid any longer. All the things I'd done with May were real!
My sense of relief was indescribable.
And then another sensation hit me: I had to pee like mad! I'd run out this morning without using the bathroom at all.
I sighed as I stood at the urinal, and for some reason that was the spot where it all came together. Now the whole thing made sense to me. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit together. I knew what happened and why. I knew why May had appeared to me and no one else. There was one thing that I did every day: one thing that I did and no one else.
I drove across the bridge. Every day. *That* was the key.
And so, right now there was only one thing to do. I had to deal with May's unfinished business. I got in my car and headed for the bridge. This time I didn't cross over. I parked my car on the west side. There is no space for that on the east side of the bridge; where I'd met May there was barely room to stand.
I trudged across the bridge alone, the wind from the big trucks pounding me like fists. I thought May might appear and keep me company, but I guess the place was too painful for her to bear.
As I walked, the picture of what happened became clearer. May's boyfriend had to run. The police were about to nab him. He wanted May to come with him, but she didn't want to go. They'd argued; he stopped the car and shouted at her. He couldn't understand why she wouldn't leave with him, but May... May just couldn't go. She couldn't leave her family. She couldn't go so far from her mother and her sister and all the rest of them. Upset, confused, frustrated, and afraid, May got out of the car, barely thinking where she was. And there, on that tiny margin of roadway, on those high tiny heels, she either fell or was pushed. I never knew which it was, and I never cared. The boyfriend, when he was taken, said he hadn't touched her. His fingerprints on her left shoulder weren't proof enough...
... and that was the end of May.
A few yards from the east end of the bridge, I saw her. Not the hitchhiking ghostly May, with her skirt fluttering dangerously in the wind. No. It was her crumpled broken body that I saw, lying part way down the rocky slope where she'd fallen... or been pushed. I called 911, and a police car came at once. I told them I was looking for something that I'd lost... something that I'd left on the roof of my car before I started driving.
And no surprise: I never saw May again.
But I did meet the two women in her pictures, the two people she wanted to talk to: her mother June, and her sister April. They came to find me, to thank me for finding May's body. I had enough sense to not mention that I'd met May; that I'd known May in a strange and twisted way. Instead of talking, I just listened, and heard about the May they knew — a May I wish I'd known: A funny, sunny, happy girl, full of life and love; a girl who died too soon.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
This is a response to one of Melanie Ezell's Challenges,
number 24: Build Your Own Body.
"What's so funny?" the nurse asked with a smile.
"Oh, everything!" I exclaimed. "The room, the curtains, the bed, this tasteless food... my funny little body with its breasts and—" I stopped and looked down at my lap.
"Hmmm...," the nurse said. "You are a funny little girl, aren't you?"
That was so wrong it made me laugh even more.
Coming back to consciousness after an operation isn't the same as waking up. It's not like you were asleep; it's more like you were turned off. When it's all over, the doctor turns you back on.
When they put me under, they told me I'd wake up in the same place, in that high gurney, on those crisp, starchy sheets, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling beige curtains.
I opened my eyes for a moment and saw it wasn't that way at all... there were curtains, but they were yellow, of a rough material... the cheap, shabby kind that you find in a cut-rate hotel. And I wasn't lying on a gurney, but in a bed. The sheets were softer and less starchy, but they didn't have that snappy, blazing white, germ-free feeling of hospital sheets.
All of that was strange. And yet, there was something even stranger: The funny thing was, I didn't mind. It was all wrong, but it only made me smile. Weird, yeah... and I knew that it should bother me, but it didn't.
"Are you awake?" a soft female voice asked. "Would you like some water?" She gently put a straw between my lips, and I drew on it, tasting the icy cold water. It was too cold... but again, I didn't mind.
The anesthetic was still strong upon me, so I kept my eyes shut. The nurse took my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. She flashed a tiny light in each of my eyes in turn. She asked me to grip her hands for a moment, and then she ran something up the soles of each of my feet. I wanted to ask her what was going on, and I especially wanted to know what on earth she was doing with my feet, but all I did was lick my lips.
She gave me a few more sips of water. I shut my eyes and heard her make a phone call to my doctor. Then I fell asleep.
When I woke up later, I was alone. My head was a little less fuzzy. I shifted around in the bed. Dear lord, every part of me felt different. My skin, of course, was younger, softer, more sensitive. I expected that; at least that was as it should be. On the other hand, my body felt different — but different in a wrong way. A *very* wrong way. I felt slinky, flexible in an unfamiliar way... Sure, I was supposed to lose my pot belly, but my waist felt small, way too small.
I lifted my head and took a look at the outline of my body, covered by the sheet.
"Oh, you're kidding me!" I exclaimed breathlessly.
My chest was too small in one way and too big in another. My whole body was absurdly narrow, like a young girl, and I had a pair of breasts stuck on the front of me. By churning my feet, I worked the bedclothes off of me, and tugged the hospital gown down. Sure enough, two fleshy mounds were fastened to my chest! What the hell!?
I was busy trying to push them off of me when the nurse walked back in.
"Hey, hey, hey, now! What are you doing?" she said. "Let's cover you back up! You'll catch your death of cold that way."
"It's all wrong," I told her. "I've got breasts."
"Of course you've got breasts," she said. "We've all got breasts."
"Ohhh," I murmured, slurring my words a little, "That doesn't make it right."
A few hours later, when the doctor arrived, I was sitting up, drinking broth and eyeing a block of wiggling Jell-O. "How's my patient?" he asked, rubbing his hands and smiling.
"Everything's wrong," I told him with a smile. "I'm not in the hospital and I'm not a woman. I mean, I am a woman, but I'm not supposed to be. I'm not supposed to look like this."
"That's a very common reaction," he told me. "But I can assure you that you very painstakingly chose to look the way you do."
"I did?"
"Yes," he assured me. "You and I — and several specialists — went over *every* detail of this new body of yours. Several times. Up to the last moment, in fact."
"Huh," I replied, but I knew he was wrong.
"Aside from that," he asked, "How are you feeling?"
"A little groggy, but otherwise fine," I said. "One thing, though... and this is really strange... but... uh..." What I wanted to say was slipping away from me, but I caught it again. "I feel like... like everything's fine. You know? Like I should be upset, but instead I feel that everything is fine. Isn't that bizarre? Have you ever had laughing gas? It's kind of like that. Everything makes me smile, even if it shouldn't. I feel like I'd say yes to everything."
"Ah, well, you don't want to do that, do you?" he replied. "Or do you?" he joked. He picked up a clipboard and started writing. "I've given you a healthy dose of a drug called a euphoric. I'm sure I told you this before the operation."
"Oh, yes, I remember now," I said.
"I have heard that comparison to nitrous oxide — what you call laughing gas — but the euphoric has a more thorough and predictable effect. It will gradually wear off, but you may feel the effects for a day or two. Maybe even three."
"Okay," I said. "But seriously, I'm sure I'm in the wrong body."
"I was quite sure you'd say that," he told me. "You changed your mind several times a day before the operation. But at this point, I am relieved to say, the die is cast."
"Huh," I replied again.
The doctor glanced over his shoulder at the nurse, who had her back to us. Then he pulled an envelope from his pocket and slid it under my pillow. I gave him a puzzled look and pulled it back out to look at it. Alarmed, he hastily shoved it back under, took my hands away from the pillow and crossed them over my belly, and whispered in my ear, "WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE ALONE!"
Right after he left, the nurse went into the bathroom. Full of curiosity, I pulled out the envelope. It contained a blue index card that had the name and address of a bank, along with the time 11:00 am, and the words "ALONE - NO NURSE." I stuck the card somewhere in the middle of Gideon's Bible, and fell back to sleep.
By evening, I'd gone to the bathroom by myself, walked all around the room, and did a few dance steps. I sat in a chair and ate a white meal: boiled fish, boiled potatoes, boiled califlower. I don't know why that was the menu. I felt fine; I could have eaten anything. Of course, it made me laugh.
"What's funny?" the nurse asked with a smile.
"Oh, everything!" I exclaimed. "The room, the curtains, the bed, this tasteless food... my funny little body with its breasts and—" I stopped and looked down at my lap.
"Hmmm...," the nurse said. "You are a funny little girl, aren't you?"
What she said was so incredibly wrong it made me laugh even more.
The next morning I told the nurse I was going out. She insisted on coming with me, but I refused, telling her I was fine and that I wanted a little time to be alone. She acquiesced, but told me over and over in various ways to "be careful."
"You're still under the influence of the euphoric, remember, and you've got a good chance of doing something silly."
"I will," I told her. "I mean, I won't. I know what I'm doing; it's just that it makes me laugh."
The woman at the front desk called me a cab. I arrived at the bank a full 20 minutes early, but the doctor was already there, waiting for me. He wore dark glasses and slouched down in the driver's seat of an old Toyota.
He gestured me over, so I climbed into his car.
"Where are we going?" I asked as I fumbled uselessly with the seat belt. He stared at me as though I was insane.
"We're going into the bank," he said. "You know this."
"No, I don't," I replied.
He swallowed hard, and looking very sternly at me, in a very tight, tense voice he said, "Listen, Mrs. Mozzicone: we've gone to a lot of trouble to set this up, and I expect to be paid for my trouble. If you're not going to pay me what you owe, I'm sure I can point your husband's friends in your direction." He was trembling as he spoke, fighting to keep his voice from breaking. "Maybe they would pay me double... or more!"
I felt my face break into a huge smile. That damn euphoric was still inside me!
I took a breath and got a grip on myself, and in the most serious tone I could manage I told him, "Doctor, listen to me carefully because this is not a joke. I'm not Mrs. Mozzicone. My name is Arlo Henson, and I'm not supposed to be a girl."
He huffed in disbelief. "Please, Mrs. Mozzicone. Don't play games with me. Don't insult my intelligence."
"I'm not playing games. I'm telling you the truth. My name is Henson. Arlo Henson. Two days ago I was a white-haired, pot-bellied man with bushy eyebrows. I was an electrician. You and I argued about what age I ought to be. You wanted me to be a kid and I told you I wanted to be at least 33. In the end we settled on 29. Do you remember?"
His jaw fell open. "Oh, my God!" he cried, and ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"
"I told you yesterday that it was all wrong. I'm not supposed to be a kid. I'm not supposed to be a girl. I'm supposed to be an adult male. You've obviously mixed up me and Mozzicone. The wires got crossed, more likely than not."
The doctor fumbled to pull out his phone, and in his haste he dropped it on the floor. He was so nervous he couldn't pick it up without dropping it again. I reached down, grabbed it, and put it into his shaking hands. He went to dial, and dropped it a second time. Again I picked it up and closed his hands around it. This time he managed to hold on. He hit a speed dial.
"Hi, Jen. This is Dr. Veerecks. Did Arlo Henson wake up yet?" His body shook at the answer, but kept his voice cool. "How was his recovery?" He listened, saying yes, yes at intervals, and a soft oh my God. After a few more comments and questions, he hung up. He swallowed hard enough to send a baseball down his gullet, then sat in unblinking silence for half a minute.
"Okay," he said at last. "He — or she — or he — signed herself out AMA... got a little belligerent, but that's often a side-effect of the anesthesia." He looked at me. "But he did make some remarks about being in the wrong body."
"So... can you switch us?" I asked.
"No," he said, showing some professional irritation. "That's a popular misconception, but it doesn't work like that. The transfers are one-way. We'd have to grow a second new body for each of you, but it doesn't sound like Mrs. Mozzicone will wait around for that. She's gone."
"But I can still get the body I paid for, right?" I asked.
"Hang on a moment and let me think," he commanded, and covered his face with his hands.
"Alright," he said. "This is what we'll do." He reached into the back seat and pulled an actual manila folder from his briefcase.
"Wow," I said. "I didn't think anybody used those things any more!"
"What?" he said in a distracted tone. "Oh, this... yes, we use paper records for the more... sensitive cases. Shred them, and you know they're gone. Digital records have a life of their own. You never know where they can go."
I assumed the file was Mrs. Mozzicone's record. The doctor copied a sixteen-digit code, numbers and letters, onto his business card. "Take this card," he said. "Don't lose it, if you want to get out of that body. Without it, they won't even talk to you. Now—" he paused to swallow again, with difficulty, and went on. "We've booked you a room at a nice motel near the hospital. You stay there, at the motel, until the euphoric wears off. Give it another day or two. The day after tomorrow, give a call Build-A-Body and tell them this case number. Tell them a mistake has been made and they need to fix it. Someone will come and get you and give you the body that you ordered.
"Alright? Okay? Good. That takes care of you.
"NOW," he went on, "we need to take care of me. Mrs. Mozzicone owes me a certain amount of money, and you need to go in the bank and get it for me." He handed me a key.
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Is this going to be illegal?"
He frowned, then said, "Frankly, yes. Is that going to be a problem?"
"No," I said, "Not while I'm on this nutty drug, anyway." Then I laughed.
I showed my key and my new drivers license to a man in the bank. He very politely showed me to a small, windowless room. There, I unlocked a tiny box in the wall, like a post-office box. Inside, I found two envelopes, one marked YOU and the other marked DOCTOR. "This is a day for envelopes," I said out loud. Mine contained a business card for a storage place. Three sets of numbers were written on the back. I tucked it into my bra. It seemed like the safest place.
Outside, the doctor tore open his envelope and found a similar card. He drove to the storage place. His card also had three sets of numbers: The first opened the front door of the building. The second was a floor and locker number, and the third was the combination to that locker.
The locker was a little five-by-five room, empty except for two big white paint buckets, the five gallon size. They had no lids; the contents were covered by white cloths. He lifted the cloths, and...
"Holy crikes!" I exclaimed. "That's gotta be a million dollars!"
"Shhh!" he hissed. "Yes, of course — It *is* a million. It better be."
"A million in each bucket?" I asked.
"Will you keep your voice down?" he whispered. "Please, stop shouting. Help me carry one." He replaced the cloths and picked one up. I grabbed the other, and struggled behind him. Surprise! My new body wasn't as strong as my old one.
The doctor took me back to where we'd met, outside the bank. He reminded me to wait "at least two or three days" before calling Build-A-Body. "Not before Thursday, anyway. I need time to get the hell out of Dodge. But that's not your concern. Don't worry, when you call them, they'll fix you up. Just tell them the case number and say that there's been a mistake. Don't mention the name Mozzicone; that's not in the records. They'll only know her by the case number."
I smiled and waved as he drove off. For some reason, the back of his car looked highly comical.
Across the street from the bank was a nice-looking diner, and I was feeling hungry. I went in and — though it was nearly noon — I ordered breakfast. The hostess placed me at a table by the front window, with a great view of the bank. I really need to sit and think this out, I told myself.
I'd had gone to Build-A-Body to start my life over. Because... let's face it: I never had much of a life. From the time I was a kid, I worked, even when I was small. Sure, I had friends, family, vacations. And I'm not saying that I suffered. It isn't that. Like anyone else, I had my share of troubles and joys. The thing is, I got to feeling as though I'd been put on a train the day I was born and all of a sudden the ride was nearly over. In the end, I outlived my wife, our son, and everybody else I knew. At the age of 86 I was all alone. So I sold my house, my car... everything I owned. It took pretty much the whole pile to buy myself a new body, a new identity, a new life. It was all perfectly legal. Everything was registered with the appropriate state agencies. I spent some time choosing my new body: healthy, of course; strong... good-looking, of course, but without exaggerating. Good teeth, good digestion, solid nerves, quick reflexes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
HOWEVER, unlike Mrs. Mozzicone, I didn't want to start out as a kid. I wanted to be a full-fledged adult, and to me that meant at least the thirties. Doc and I argued, as I've said: he pushed for a lower age — so I could get "more bang for your buck" as he put it — and in the end we compromised on 29. That meant that Mrs. Mozzicone was running around as a good-looking guy in his late twenties. A guy with a dazzling smile and a full head of dark hair. I hope she didn't mind. At least — from what the doctor said — she hadn't bothered to wait around to fix it.
That seemed like an important fact.
I, on the other hand, was in the body she chose: an eighteen-year-old cutie with a perky body and a name out of a romance novel. In my mind, it was the dumbest name ever, but it didn't matter. I was going to change it, and soon.
I knew who Maria Mozzicone was — or at least who she used to be. She was married to a mobster, and after more than forty years together, she killed him... brutally... for reasons that were never made clear. Greed, maybe. Jealousy, possibly. In any case, there was a lot of anger involved: news reports said that he died in a lot of pain and his corpse was viciously mutilated before, during, and after. Pictures of the scene were never shown to the public; they were judged to be too shocking.
Her trial was highly publicized, and she was always heavily guarded, even in prison, to protect her from her dead husband's associates.
Then a few months ago, she abruptly disappeared.
Some people believed she was dead. I had always suspected — and now knew for sure — that she was in the witness protection program. She must have testified and given evidence against her husband's criminal associates. She must have really delivered, because this went far beyond relocation and a new name: the government used Build-A-Body to quite literally give her a whole new identity.
They obviously wouldn't let her keep any criminal gains, so she must have set up this transfer with Build-A-Body's doctor. She stored the money, and had him pass her a key that he couldn't use.
So what was in "my" locker? I mused as I munched my last bit of toast and sipped my lukewarm coffee. If she gave the doctor two million... what kind of a tip do you give for that kind of service? Ten percent? Twenty? Were there ten or twenty million in my locker?
If I was going to do something, I was going to have to do it quickly, before the real Maria Mozzicone found out where I'd come to life.
It didn't take long to make up my mind.
In retrospect, I can see I made my mind up earlier, back at the storage place, when I stopped myself from checking the other locker. In spite of my light-headed state, some instinct warned me not to let the doctor know what he could have had.
I won't pretend... let me be clear: I knew I was about to do something wrong — morally wrong, legally wrong... badly, drastically, seriously wrong — and not only wrong, but reckless,. I dabbed my lips with a napkin and thought, There isn't any doubt: this is absolutely the stupidest, craziest, most dangerous decision I ever made in my life.
Then, the euphoric in my system made me laugh and say So what?
I paid my bill, left a twenty percent tip, and ran outside to flag a cab.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
"You live alone too," I countered.
"Yeah," she said, "but not the way that you do. You're like that girl in the movie.
You've got a shadow behind you. There's some guy out there in the dark who worries you."
Okay... trying to stay calm... fighting to breathe slowly and make my heart stop racing... God! It feels like it's going to fracture my ribs from the inside out!
When I woke up in Maria Mozzicone's new body, I never really intended to stay in it. I'm embarrassed to say that I let myself be seduced by the money she'd hidden away. And I'm ashamed to have to admit that I stole the money from her.
I suppose I pretended that there wouldn't be any real consequences; that I'd never be caught, never pay the piper; and above all, I let myself believe that there was nothing wrong with stealing from a thief.
The truth is, it's worse to steal from a criminal, because they don't stop at legal remedies. There's no limit to what they'll do.
Beyond all that, by stepping into Mrs. Mozzicone's life, I potentially became a target for the people who were looking for her. Namely, her husband's business partners... not a very law-abiding bunch, to put it mildly.
But I'm getting ahead of myself... I meant to tell you how my big reality check arrived.
The scene was a downtown bar, a nice place, an establishment I'd come to like and often went to twice a day. Not to drink, mind you. And the food was pretty good, but I didn't go for that, either. The main reason I went there was to talk with Laurie, the bartender.
She was a tall, smart blonde in her late twenties. I'm not sure what she thought of my visits, but I spent as much time talking to her as she could stand. The thing was, not having grown up as a girl, I didn't have the slightest idea of what on earth I was doing. There was so much to figure out, so much to learn!
Take hair, for instance: not only did I not know how to style it, I didn't know how to figure out which shampoo and conditioner to use. And did I need other products? How could I tell? Some of that stuff my hair looking greasy and limp, and others dried it out like an old bird's nest. Then, cosmetics... where to even begin! A woman at Macy's made me up one day, explaining as she went. I bought all the powders and sticks and other goop that she used, and tried my level best to imitate what she'd done, but Laurie's brutal honesty let me know I was missing the mark, and missing it badly.
Worst of all were clothes! Heels are hell, I soon discovered, but flats weren't always a smart choice either. The whole business of what to wear when, of what goes with what... it was all so immensely complicated.
I pored over women's magazines, but a lot of what I read was arbitrary and contradictory. Sometimes I felt I'd gained some insight... but never more than once an issue, but more often my reading left me more confused than before.
"You keep looking for rules," Laurie told me. "It's not about rules. It's about knowing what looks good."
"I know what looks good," I protested. "The problem is, I don't know how to get there."
What I really needed was a mentor, or at least a model, and that's what Laurie was for me, whether she wanted it or not. After all, I figured, she's a bartender, and it was her job to be nice to me, or at least to tolerate me.
For my part, I became a very heavy tipper. That, of course, helped to grease Laurie's wheels.
I'm not sure how Laurie explained my ignorance to herself, but she caught on quickly to what I needed. As soon as I'd walk in, she'd give me a quick critique on how I looked: if something didn't "go" or if I was missing something, she'd tell me right off, then make a constructive suggestion or two. Then she'd stop.
After that, she'd talk about herself. She saw I didn't share my own past, and that I didn't have a present life to speak of, so she told me about her own past and a little bit of her present. I listened closely, taking copious mental notes. I needed to learn about the world of women. What choices to make, what things to avoid, and above all, how to handle men.
In fact, on the particular night that I'm telling you about, she said to me, "Listen, honey, I saw that J-Lo film on TV last night — Enough — have you seen it?"
"Uh, no," I scoffed. "I'm not big on chick flicks, really. And I heard it wasn't very good."
She gave me a good-natured frown and raised her hand in a joking threat. "I'm gonna smack you if you say chick flick one more time! This isn't a chick flick anyway. Listen, girl: it sent chills through me, and the whole time I was watching, I kept thinking of you, living alone the way you do."
"You live alone too," I countered.
"Yeah," she said, "but not the way that you do. You're like that girl in the movie. You've got a shadow behind you. There's some guy out there in the dark who worries you."
I was surprised by her perception, but I wasn't about to own up to it. "I'm alright," I told her. "I'm a careful person."
"I know you are," she said, "but face it: you're young, pretty, small, and alone. If some big bruiser comes after you, all you've got is your charm, and that might not be enough to save your skinny little butt.
"You know what you ought to do? You ought to do what she did in the movie. You need to learn to defend yourself. You ought to learn what she learned — it's called Krav Maga. I'm telling you, that movie really shook me up, and I'm going to learn it myself." She slid a colorful brochure across the bar to me. "It turns out they teach it at the Y, right around the corner. You're a woman on your own, you need something like this."
The brochure had several photos of women fighting with much larger men. I had to admit; it made an impression on me. To my surprise, one of the guys looked a lot like the body I'd chosen for myself, the one that Maria Mozzicone was now living in. He'd be nearly a foot taller than me, and he'd have 80 or 90 pounds on me. All of it muscle. I swallowed hard.
"Hey," Laurie said, "Hey! Hey!" She snapped the brochure out of my hands.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "I want that!"
"I didn't mean to scare you!" she said.
"You didn't scare me," I replied. "Did I look scared?"
"Oh my God, yes! You were as white as a sheet, and you didn't hear me talking to you. Forget about this stuff... just forget it. Get yourself a great big dog. A great big dog that bites."
Okay... okay... take a deep breath. So far, all I'd done was frighten myself, with Laurie's help. It was all in my head. Her advice wasn't bad, but there wasn't any immediate danger. I needed to be cautious, not afraid.
I'd just about quieted my anxiety, when something else, something real, scared the bejeezus out of me.
Above Laurie's head, behind whatever she was saying to me, was a TV with the sound on low. Even so, one unusual name came through, and I heard it loud and clear.
"Laurie!" I said, interrupting her, "turn it up! The TV! Turn the sound up, quick!"
The image told us nothing at all: it was a ramshackle house surrounded by tall grass. The television camera was obviously high above, in a news helicopter. You could see police cars, trucks, and black SUVs parked around the house. A dozen people were looking through the grass, going in and out of the house, all of them busy: police, FBI, plain clothes, search dogs....
The newswoman gave a quick summary. "At this point, police have not given an official cause of death, but they have informed us that the murder was particularly brutal and vicious. The victim has been identified as Dr. Bartholomew Veerecks, a medical doctor who worked with the Build-A-Body Corporation..."
"Will you look at that?" Laurie said, "I wonder what the FBI is doing there?" Then she glanced at me. I was shaking and I couldn't stop. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Did you know that man?"
I nodded dumbly.
"Good God, girl!" she cried and put her hand firmly over mine. "You look like you're going to fall out of that chair! Hold on! Stay with me!" With one hand she smacked down a shot glass in front of me and filled it with Jameson's. "Toss that back!" she ordered.
She didn't need to tell me twice. I threw it down my throat, shuddered and sputtered, and shook like a wet dog, but it brought me back to myself. Laurie poured another. "That one, you better sip," she said. "If you need it."
I sat there, blinking and coughing, with her eyes on me the whole time.
In a low voice, she asked, "Was he a friend of yours?"
"No," I croaked. "I... knew him. I met him... a few times. But it's a shock... I knew him..." I trailed off vaguely.
After that, my dinner arrived. Eating helped to calm me somewhat. I caught Laurie trying to stealthily change the TV channel. I told her I wanted to hear the news as it emerged, and the other patrons at the bar were interested as well. They wanted to talk about it; a few had quite strong opinions, and I was amazed how certain and well-informed some of them pretended to be, given how little any of us knew.
Of course, there was one thing I knew, that I wasn't going to share: I knew who the murderer was, and who his next target would be. It had to be Maria who killed Dr. Veerecks, and next she'd come gunning for me.
Why me? Because I had her money. It was a lot of money. Not the kind of money anyone would walk away from. Especially when that "anyone" was a maniac like her.
"Listen, honey," Laurie confided, breaking through my dark ruminations, "If you need to put your feet up, just go upstairs. On the third floor back there's an office with a couch; you can go lie down."
"Thanks," I said, "but I'll be fine."
"You look like you're in a state of shock."
I nodded, and she moved down the bar to take care of some other customers. I returned to my thoughts.
Exactly how hard would it be to find me? I wasn't sure, but I'd done my best not to leave any tracks.
I had changed my name right away. The very first day, in fact. I'd sifted through death notices at the library. There were a fair number of girls who were born 18 years ago, so I could have made more of a... well... more of a sane choice, but you have to remember that my brain was a bit addled at the time. Long story short and believe it or not, a husband and wife had named their baby girl Whimsy Carter. Even though I laughed so hard that the librarian asked me to leave, I was convinced that I'd found the most perfect, the most absolutely fitting name I could ever dream of having.
Now, of course, I wish I'd chosen something something a little less odd and a lot less memorable. I still shake my head and wonder what on earth her parents were thinking, and pity that poor dead girl who once bore the name.
Laurie, in fact, could never bring herself to call me Whimsy. She called me "Honey" instead, as if that was my name.
In any case, I'd gone back to the storage place, rented a locker as Whimsy, and with the help of a big cart moved all the money from Maria's locker to my own.
It turned out that Maria had socked away TWENTY-NINE MILLION DOLLARS: twenty-nine identical bundles, each wrapped in black plastic and duct tape.
I didn't take it all. I left two million in Maria's locker, along with a scribbled note, which I'd found taped to the wall:
Dear Mom,
Thanks for trusting me to hide your money. I'm sure you must have wanted me to have some of it at least. So I took some. Don't be mad!
You can't pretend you'd even miss it, with the big malloppo you have.
So don't be mad! You know I love you. If I ever see you, I'll buy you dinner, then we'll be even, right? (JUST KIDDING!)
Remember what you always said to me: "You're young! You have your whole life ahead of you!"
Now I'm telling you: You're young! You have your whole life ahead of you!
I'm going to miss you.
Tanti baci
Why did I leave the two million? At the time, it made me feel less greedy. I could always say that I didn't take it all. And the note? Well, it wasn't addressed to me.
In retrospect, leaving it was a little smart: it might confuse the trail. Maybe Maria would think her daughter took the money. Then she'd have two targets to find, and if her daughter... what was her name? Vanessa? No, that wasn't it... Denise? No... never mind, the name would come. Anyway, her daughter took at least a million. She might have left the country. At the very least, if she didn't hide from her mother, she'd have to hide from her father's people, wouldn't she?
Or would she?
Rita! That was the daughter's name.
So anyway... I went back, boxed up the money, and took it away, using a car I bought in another town. The only way they could pick up my trail would be if they looked at the storage rentals after I woke. I noticed that the facility had no security cameras, which meant that no one would know exactly when it was cleaned out, or even that I ever visited at all.
So what did Maria know? She knew what I looked like. What else? She almost certainly interrogated the doctor... but what could he tell her? He only knew two things: where I first woke up, and the location of the storage facility.
Aside from what she knew, Maria had three other things on her side: time, money, and persistence.
She'd have the doctor's two million, plus the two I left her. With that kind of money she could do anything and go anywhere. She could even hire help: private detectives, thugs... whatever she needed. And since she was clearly a homicidal maniac, I had to figure she'd spend every waking moment hunting for me.
Okay... scary, sure. I needed to be ready, I needed a plan, but there was nothing I could do right now.
I took a deep breath and picked up the second shot of whiskey. I took a tiny sip and swallowed it. When the alcohol hit my stomach, it gently warmed me, like a little sun rising inside of me. The feeling of well-being spread through my whole body. I relaxed and smiled. Laurie looked over and gave me a smile and a thumbs-up. I grinned and waved back. I was feeling much better.
So: How to get ready for Maria? What choices did I have? I could keep running and stay ahead of her. Or... I could find a place where she could never find me. Neither option sounded safe or smart. Or possible.
On the other hand, I could go back to Build-A-Body and ask for a new body. The only problem was that Maria probably had somebody working for her there; someone watching for me. She'd already corrupted a Build-A-Body employee once — the late Dr. Veerecks — there was no reason she couldn't do it again.
Which meant that Build-A-Body was not an option.
But... I had a glimmer of another idea... I definitely had another choice. A risky choice, for sure — a crazy, one-shot choice — one that required some serious planning and preparation, but—
My eyes drifted up to the TV, and I saw Maria's face— or my face— I mean the new face that I had chosen, the one Maria was using.
Maria had been sloppy. She was in a hurry and she didn't care. Maybe she believed her current body was temporary; that once she found me, she could take mine back. Or maybe she was just plain nuts.
Either way, it didn't matter what she thought or why she didn't cover her tracks: the police had no trouble identifying her as the murderer.
"Nice looking guy," a voice commented beside me. Startled, I looked up to see a vaguely familiar face: not someone I knew, but someone I'd seen, though I couldn't think how or where. She was a big-boned woman in her forties, a bottle blonde with the raspy voice that comes from smoking and drinking. Her clothes were expensive but gawdy, and she moved in an aggressive cloud of Chanel No. 5. My eyes teared, and I gave a quick gasp, seeking oxygen.
Her jaws were working on a piece of gum while her eyes searched my face. She stopped chewing and she asked — so quietly that I almost didn't hear — "Are you mad at me?"
"Mad at you?" I repeated, mystified. I looked into her face and was shocked to see hurt and even fear in her eyes, as if she thought that I might somehow hurt her— and then the light dawned. "Rita!" I softly exclaimed. It was Maria's daughter! How on earth had she found me?
I'm sure that the whiskey I'd drunk helped a little with what I did next. The thing was, this great big woman, who was older than me, stronger than me... was so obviously afraid of me, that it made me feel sorry for her. It brought out the father... or mother... in me. She stood there, clutching her wrists, trying to squeeze herself small in front of me. I realized, to my great disgust, that Maria Mozzicone must have been a awful mother. She must have terrorized this girl something fierce.
I turned to Rita and smiled a half-smile. "Did you come here to buy me dinner?"
Her face lit up a bit at that, but she was still uncertain.
I stood up. Even in heels, my face only came even with her breasts. I tilted my head back, looked up to her, and opened my arms. "Come here," I said.
"Really?" she asked, still uncertain.
"Yes, really." I said. "Come here."
She grabbed me, the way a starving man would clutch at a crust of bread. She wrapped her arms tight around me. Too tight. My feet left the ground, and I had to twist my head so I wasn't smothered against her massive chest. I did my best to get my arms around her, too, but I could hardly move them. She held me for a while, shaking, until I patted her and said, "Okay... okay..." a couple of times.
"Wow, Mom," she whispered, her voice full of emotion. "You're so different!" and she pressed a finger into the flesh of my upper arm.
I climbed back on my stool. She sat to my left.
"I know you told me not to look for you, but I just had to see," she said in an excited tone, and took my upper arm between her thumb and index finger. "Gosh, you're just a tiny little thing! And you're so SOFT!"
"Yeah, I know," I said. "I feel like a whole 'nother person."
Rita nodded to me. Then Laurie arrived. "Whatcha drinking?"
"Whatever she's got," Rita answered, nodding at me. Then she looked down, and scoffed in disgusted disbelief. "Forget that!" she corrected. "Give me a white russian, and make it a double."
"Did you have a hard time finding me?" I asked. I hoped she couldn't tell how hard my heart was pounding.
"Eh," Rita replied with a shrug. "Not really. I put a webcam with a motion sensor in the locker. Well, *I* didn't do it — I got that moron Petey to do it. When you cleaned the locker out, I came to this town and started looking."
"Why here?"
"There's only three towns a day's drive from that locker, and this one's the farthest." She tapped her head knowingly.
I stared at her a moment, dumbfounded. She made it sound so easy, I felt a complete idiot. After a moment I said, "I guess it's time I moved on, then."
She shrugged.
"Rita, if you can find me, someone else can, too," I told her.
"I dunno know about that. Nobody else knows what I know."
"There's Petey," I reminded her. "Is there anybody else who knows I'm here?" As I asked, as if right on cue, the front door opened slightly, and a man in a short-sleeved dress shirt slipped in. He looked like he'd stepped off the cover of a pulp detective novel: his wide chest and big biceps stretched his shirt to the limit, and his chin was the strongest, squarest chunk of bone I'd ever seen. He was very careful not to look at anyone in the room. He didn't look for a table; he didn't look for a friend. He just stepped in and stood by the door. My heart started pounding and I felt myself trembling.
"Naw," Rita repeated. "Nobody knows but me."
"Are you sure? What about that guy by the door?"
Rita glanced over and swore.
"If I was looking for me," I told her, "I'd keep my eye on you."
Rita gave me a fearful look. "Oh, God, Mom! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
I grabbed her hand. "Stay calm, Rita. We need to keep our heads."
"Mom, mom, mom, I'M SORRY!"
I looked at her, uncertain of what to say. It was incredibly stupid of her to come find me. She led her father's friends right to me, although...
"Rita, listen. They can't be sure that I'm you-know-who."
At that, she relaxed a bit. "Oh, that's right!"
"But... I'm sure they're going to want to take me somewhere to... talk to me."
"Right," she agreed. "Let's slip out the back."
"No," I said. "The reason we see the guy at the front door is to make us go out the back."
"Right!" she slapped herself on the forehead. "Oh, God, Mom, I'm so sorry!"
"It's okay," I told her. "We're not dead yet." I looked around the back of the restaurant. "Just do what I say. Right now, lean forward, onto the bar. A little more. I don't want to stiff the bartender." Rita looked surprised at this, but did as I asked. While she blocked me from the view of the man at the door, I tucked a few twenties under my plate. "Now, let's head toward the bathroom. Just follow me."
I walked around the tables, heading for the ladies, and then calmly went up the stairs. I didn't look, but I was pretty sure the man in front missed our little detour.
By the time we reached the third floor, Rita was huffing and puffing. "What are we doing up here?" she wheezed.
"Taking the high ground," I said. "I need a little time to think." I pushed open the door to the office in the back. The light was off and the window was open. Outside was a fire escape. I looked at Rita and put my finger to my lips. Carefully easing my head out, I peeked down. There was a beefy man standing near the back door, smoking a cigarette.
"You know him?" I whispered. Rita nodded.
"Hey, Ma," she whispered. "There's something you should know." I nodded, and she went on in a hoarse rasp. "You know there's a price on your head, right?"
A breeze suddenly came through the window, and the blood within me froze. Was Rita hoping to collect on her own mother? It was pretty clear to me that having Maria Mozzicone for a mother was like having a picnic in hell. Could anybody blame Rita if she wanted revenge?
I wet my lips, which were suddenly quite dry. "I figured as much," I whispered back.
"Now it's dead or alive," she hissed.
"Good to know," I commented, and looked around the office. "Listen, Rita. I'm going to ease out on the fire escape, and when I tell you, I want you to hand me that plant. But don't make a sound!"
I slipped my shoes off and slid out the window. The metal grate of the fire escape hurt my feet, but I ignored it. Carefully setting my shoes down, I looked over the edge. The man was almost in the right spot. I gestured to Rita, and she handed me the potted plant, wrapped in a napkin she'd found on the desk. "Fingerprints," she explained helpfully. "I'm going to go wipe off the door knob and the sill. They's the only things you touched."
While she disappeared inside, I eased my way back to the edge of the escape and looked over the edge. The man below was restless. He kept walking to the door and back. He took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, hesitated, and put it back. He shifted back and forth until finally...
I let go of the pot. It struck him square in the head, and down he went. I listened for a moment, but didn't hear any reaction. "Come on!" I said to Rita, and the two of us made our way down the metal stairs. We made a hell of a racket, but no one seemed to hear.
Once on the ground, I ran to the man on the ground and touched him. Then I pulled back in startled revulsion. "Oh, my God!" I whispered. "He's dead!"
Rita looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. "Of course he's dead! What did you think?" she asked.
"I only meant to knock him out."
She scoffed. "Jeez, Mom, you really are soft!" But she smiled.
I got over my shock and quickly went through the man's pockets.
"What are you looking for?"
"Car keys," I said as I fished them out. Straightening up, I pushed the button on the fob, and a Escalade tweeted.
"You taking his car?" Rita asked.
"Yes," I said. "I can't risk going around front to get mine. Where can I take you?"
"Take me?" she asked, puzzled.
"Yes, take you," I said. "Your car is out front too, isn't it?"
Her jaw dropped. Her face lit up as though she was having a religous illumination. "Oh my God, Ma! Are you worried about ME? You're worried about ME?"
"I don't want anything to happen to you," I told her.
"You DON'T?"
"No, of course not," I replied.
"Oh, Ma!" she exclaimed, and taking me by the arms, buried her head in my shoulder. She sobbed for what seemed like an hour. I needed to get out of there, but the glimmer of an idea that I had in the bar was beginning to crystalize. Rita might be exactly the help I needed in neutralizing her mother for good. So I held her, swallowed my impatient fear, patted her head, and made sympathetic noises. At last she let me go, leaving my sweater soaked with tears and smeared with makeup.
Rita sniffed and wiped her nose with the heel of her hand. "Oh, Ma, this is the best night of my life!"
I nearly laughed, it was such an insane thing to say, but instead I told her, "I'm glad, hun. I'm really glad. But now we have to go. Where can I take you?"
"You don't need to take me anywhere," she said. "They're not looking for me. They're looking for you. Once you leave, I'll smoke a couple cigarettes and go back inside."
"Then why did you come up the stairs with me and do all that?"
She gave me with a helpless look and spreading her hands wide said, "I just wanted to be with you."
I had to smile. But, "I have to get the hell out of here, Rita. I've got to run."
"Where are you going to go?" she asked. I couldn't believe she was asking, but it was too perfect. I had to tell her.
"Ames, Iowa," I replied. It was the first name that popped into my head. Almost any place would do, and I didn't think Maria had any connections there.
"Are you shitting me?"
"No, Rita, I'm really going there. Hey, do you have a pen?" When she nodded, I held out my hand for her to write on. "Give me a phone number where I can reach you."
She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth to help her concentrate, and excitedly scribbled the numbers and "Rita!" with a heart dotting the i.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way
I had to set my trap in Iowa and set myself into that trap, as bait.
I didn't go very far when I stole the dead man's Escalade. I drove away from the bar, and took a very wide berth of it, but my large circuit brought me back toward the entrance. I parked two blocks away, in front of a much wilder and more infamous bar. I left the keys in the ignition and the rear passenger window down.
Hopefully someone else would take it for a ride and muddy my trail, at least a little bit.
Then, I did something that might have been a little daring, but I figured that no one but Maria and Rita Mozzicone knew what I looked like. I clip-clopped very deliberately into the parking lot, directly in front of my bar's front door, and got into my car. My heart was pounding so hard, I could feel it in my whole body, and my knees were so wobbly I'm amazed they didn't give way.
No one stopped me. I checked my makeup in the rear-view, and touched up my lipstick, before I started the car and drove back to my apartment.
The thing was, if I'd abandoned my car, it would have served as an enormous signpost pointing directly to me. Not only for the bad guys — who'd now be looking for me — but also for the police.
When I locked my car in my garage and stood in the silent night, it hit me: I killed a man. I did it. I decided to do it, and I did it. Who knows what life that man had, what family, what friends? Yes, he was a criminal — or at least, Rita told me that he was — but he could not have been alone on Earth. I hadn't just ended *his* life. I'd damaged the lives of others, the people who'd miss him and mourn him, forever.
True, another part of me admitted, but remember what Rita told you: dead or alive. If you hadn't taken him out, you'd be at his mercy now. He could be the one killing you.
I shook myself hard and climbed the stairs to my apartment. Whatever the case, whatever the truth of it, I had to get moving. There was no way of knowing how much time I had before Maria showed up in Iowa. I had to have my trap ready. The business of what I done in that alley would follow me for the rest of my life. I didn't have time to examine it now.
... but I did have time later that night and into the morning.
It was a long train ride to Ames. The fact that I was alone with my heavy conscience made it longer.
Outside the window, in the moonless night, there was nothing to see, nothing to distract me. Only shadows. Boxy shadows of buildings, black silhouettes of trees, black fences... dark mirroring puddles shone like hematite, reflecting the dirty gray clouds in the monochrome sky.
Bad judgment, I admitted to myself. Bad choices.
When Dr. Veerecks handed me that key and admitted that what he asked me to do was illegal, I should have handed the key back and refused to participate.
And then, once I understood the situation, I never should have taken Maria's money. It was greed, pure and simple. I could pretend that it was the euphoric's fault, but it wasn't true. I knew right from wrong, and I chose to do wrong. If I hadn't touched the money, Maria wouldn't care at all about me. But once I took it, I painted a big red bull's eye on my back.
... and Dr. Veerecks would still be alive. If I hadn't taken the key, he wouldn't have gotten his money. He would have waited for Maria to contact him. Well, wait — that wouldn't have worked. She'd probably have killed him anyway, then come looking for me so she could use the key.
... or maybe not. She might have just called Rita and gotten the money. But Rita wouldn't have known who she was, so... the result would probably be more violence.
So, I made two crappy choices. But there were no good ones. Maria would still be coming after me, no matter what. This way, at least I had resources, and I knew she was coming.
The idea I had in the bar was a good one, I thought, and it could have resolved everything. But not any more. The death of that man complicated everything. I thought my situation was full of peril before, but now it had more than doubled. Now not only was Maria after me, but potentially her husband's criminal associates, and even the police. If I was caught, the FBI would have to assume that I was Maria Mozzicone, and I'm sure they'd be angry about having put me (I mean Maria) on Witness Protection.
My strongest impulse, while in the grip of that guilt and fear, was to give the money back to Maria. I hadn't spent that much. It was surprisingly hard to spend, especially when you don't want to attract attention. Would that solve my problem? If I gave it back, she'd still want to kill me, wouldn't she?
In the end, I had to cling to my idea. At the very least, it would take Maria out of circulation. I had to set my trap in Iowa and set myself into that trap, as bait.
I shifted in my seat, trying to get comfortable. I couldn't sleep. I fought the urge to look around the car. No one could have followed me. I had to be careful to not seem guilty or afraid. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my feelings. Beneath and all around me, containing me, the train barreled on, never stopping or slowing, rocking me rhythmically, and in spite of all my complex fears and volatile feelings, I fell sound asleep.
When I got off the train, I took a hotel room. I was dying to sleep, to shower, to eat. But as funky and tired and hungry as I felt, I started calling real estate agents. Three of them didn't understand what I was asking. A fourth tried to talk me into something I didn't want. The fifth listened, asked a few questions, and told me, "I don't know any properties like that, just off the top of my head, but if you'll give me a half an hour, I'm sure I can find some possibilities."
I thanked her, and while I waited for her call, I took a shower and changed.
The two of us drove all over Ames. It took several hours to visit all the properties she'd found. None of them were close to what I was looking for. But the agent paid attention, and knowing that I had cash ready to plunk down, she promised to show me better prospects tomorrow.
In the evening, I searched the internet for safes.
The next day, the agent had a longer list, and the first few were promising, but not quite right. The sixth one was perfect. It was a one-story concrete building, sitting on the line between an industrial zone and a residential one. The building had served, at different times, as a store and a workshop. There was a lot of space, a small loading dock on the side, and a big room in the back that could serve as my bedroom. The bathroom was equipped with a shower.
I was prepared to buy, but the owner decided he didn't want to sell. I ended up signing a two-year lease, which worked out much better, because it let me move in two days later.
That same day, I had a huge safe installed. At least, it appeared huge. It was ten feet wide, with two massively heavy doors that were nearly six feet high. Inside it was only two feet deep. But that was plenty for me.
As soon as the workmen left, even before dusting or cleaning or finding a bed, I got to work. I had a trap to build.
It took 18 hours, during which I didn't sleep or bathe. I ate trail mix and energy bars. I drank water and coffee. The hard part was getting the switch right. The harder part was figuring out how to test it.
When I was finally done, I curled up on a dirty dropcloth and slept for twelve hours.
The first thing I did when I woke up was to test the trap again, to be sure I wasn't dreaming that I'd finished. It looked good. Now I could relax -- or at least, not work. Now, all I had to do was wait.
I took a shower. I had some good hot food delivered. Then I ordered up the rest of my life.
I needed to stay close to my trap. I wasn't going to leave the building until Maria came for me.
There was a good grocery store that accepted phone orders and delivered the food. I got TV, phone, and internet hookups. Then I went on an ordering spree, and soon my loading dock was filling up with deliveries and packages: packages containing a vacuum cleaner, exercise machines, bed linens, curtains, and paint; deliveries of all the ordinary household appliances, a bed, cabinets, and other furniture.
My days were spent assembling things, arranging things, fixing things. I had to order tools, nails, screws. I got so busy creating my little world that I — quite surprisingly — often forgot about Maria completely.
Often, I wanted to call Rita. My mind kept going back to our exchange in the alley behind the bar: Her astonishment that I cared about her, the way she clutched at me, and how desperate she was for affection. And, above all, the way she cried, This is the best night of my life! It was heartbreaking. Had she never known a parent's love?
Unfortunately, if I called Rita, it wouldn't just bring Maria. It would bring the whole posse of criminals who by now would want my hide whether I was Maria or not.
After two weeks, time began to drag. I sunbathed on the roof. I worked out with dance videos. I adopted a kitten who wandered mewing onto the loading dock. I started leaving the TV on most of the time, for company. When I wasn't watching anything in particular, I'd turn to the news stations. Might as well stay informed.
One amazingly sunny day, I was doing two things at once: searching for my kitten (she was under a cabinet) and dancing around the place, barefoot, wearing a pair of shorts and a cutoff t-shirt. I was enjoying the sun, the sensation of the newly-cleaned floors, calling to my kitty, laughing and happy.
In the midst of my sunny joyful searching dance, a photo of Maria's face filled the TV screen.
I learned that Maria hadn't come for me because Maria had been busy. Very busy. She'd was down in Florida, where she'd lived with her husband. What was she doing there? She was killing people. Specifically, she was killing her late husband's business associates.
She must have known about the price on her head; maybe she wanted to bring the fight to them. Or maybe she had old grudges. Or maybe she was just plain crazy. In any case, she was still sloppy, not hiding her tracks. She left fingerprints, spittle, hair, footprints. Above all, the style of the killings was always the same: brutal, vicious, violent. The police couldn't help but connect the new murders with Dr. Veerecks' death, and then with Maria's husband's murder.
That Maria, and only Maria, had killed her husband, was certain. The modus operandi on this new killing spree was identical. I was sure it was her. For the rest of world, for the agents of law enforcement and the newspeople, it wasn't as clear. At the very least, there was a connection between this killer and Maria.
Surprisingly, there was no mention of Build-A-Body. I was sure that Build-A-Body had provided the picture I'd seen on TV. I was glad for the omission, though: the Build-A-Body connection would inevitably lead investigators to believe (incorrectly, of course) that the murderer was Arlo Henson.
And even though there was no one left on earth who knew me as Arlo, I still wouldn't want to see my old name dragged through the mud. My old life would be dissected, analyzed under a microscope, and in the end I'd forever be labeled as a cold-blooded, vicious killer.
Luckily, it didn't happen.
I took advantage of Maria's activity to get outside for a bit. I know this sounds grisly, but she was killing at least one person a day for over a week. Each time I heard of a new murder in Florida, I'd run out of the house. I went clothes shopping, I visited the art museum and the Reiman Gardens. I went to day spas. I walked around and struck up conversations with strangers. After being cooped up, I needed people.
And then one day, the news had no murder to report, so I stayed home. The weather changed in an appropriate direction: it turned overcast and dark.
I tested my trap. It was still working fine.
The next morning when I woke, he was sitting in a chair next to my bed, smiling.
"I was watching you sleep," he said. "You look amazing."
I made an odd squeaking noise in response. I was paralyzed with fear.
"Let me look at you," he said. He grasped the bedclothes and whisked them to the end of the bed, leaving me uncovered. I was lying on my side, wearing a white babydoll.
He ran his hand up my leg. "Oh, how smooth!" he sighed.
The touch of his hand on my leg was electric. His skin on my skin... there was some kind of palpable chemistry there.
"You feel it too, don't you," he said. It wasn't a question, but I nodded mutely.
"I did a good job on your body," Maria said. "Just like you did a good job on mine." He punctuated the mine with an open-handed slap on his chest. It made a resounding, solid thunk. He was a big, strong man.
"Mmm, I did a real good job on you," Maria went on, taking one of my butt cheeks in her hand. She was exploring, examining, and she liked what she found.
The strange and horrible thing about it — something I never expected and absolutely did not want — was that Maria was turning me on. In a big way. That body... here, now... was hot. Really hot. I wanted him, and he obviously wanted me.
"When I broke in here," Maria told me, "I was going to slap you awake. I was going to toss you around, just for fun. And after I got my money, I was going to kill you." I blinked and tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. Very dry.
"Then I saw you," he went on, "and I couldn't believe it. You are so absolutely... delectable... edible... I just want to kiss you all over and gobble you up! Do you know why?"
"Wh-why?" I managed to croak.
"We are the perfect couple. Think about it. You are my ideal woman, and I am your ideal man."
I looked at the swelling in his pants, and I knew how long that cock was going to be. I'd ordered it, I asked for it, and now there it was, pointing in my direction.
"Did you have a hard time finding me?" I asked.
Maria scoffed. "Are you kidding? You were stupid to tell Rita where you were going. As soon as she told me, I called a PI. It took him all of two hours to get your address." He shrugged.
"Where is Rita now? Is she okay?"
He scowled. "She's in the car, the damn ungrateful bitch."
"In the car?"
"Yes, safe and warm in the trunk." When Maria saw my horrified expression, he made a dismissive gesture. "It's not the first time she's had to ride back there."
He stood, and his face turned ugly. His right arm began to tense, and I braced myself for the blow I was sure was coming. "Do you know what that idiot said?" I shook my head. "When I told her that *I* was her mother... she said..." he curled his fingers into a fist "... she told me that she wanted you as her mother."
I watched him closely, wondering if I could manage to duck that fist. It would be hard, since I was lying down.
Then Maria looked at me. Her gaze traveled up my legs, over my hips, to my breasts and finally my face, and the anger dropped from his expression. His fist opened and relaxed. He leaned forward and in a hoarse whisper told me to take my clothes off.
He devoured me with his eyes, and said, "You know what? Maybe you can be her mother. If you play your cards right. If you're a good girl and do exactly as you're told. The three of us can go play house someplace warm..." He stopped. His chest heaved. He grunted, "I can't wait any more" and pulled his clothes off, dropping them on the floor.
The image of him standing there, naked, full of desire, is forever stamped on my memory.
I wish I could say I resisted, but I didn't. I wanted it bad. I wish I could say that he wasn't good, that he didn't last, and that I didn't feel a thing — but none of that was true, either.
God help me.
To tell the unvarnished truth, I had the most profound, earthshaking sexual experience of my life. I never had sex like that before, and I doubt I ever will again. It reduced me to a quivering, silent, empty, spent, wordless, utterly satisfied pile of warm flesh and mussed hair. There was nothing more to wish for. He fell asleep on top of me, his weight trapping me completely. One of my legs and half my hips were pinned beneath him. I tried to push him off or wriggle my way out, but there was no room to move and nothing left in me. The series of orgasms had blown out everything I had in me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, just to gather my strength, and the next thing I knew, a fully clothed Maria was shaking me awake.
It wasn't gentle or tender, but she didn't hurt me.
"Now to business," he said. "I want my money."
"Oh, yes!" I replied, pushing myself up with my elbows. "Let me open the safe for you!"
He laughed. "Oh, no. No, no. Did you think it would be that easy? You'll pull out a gun and shoot me. No thanks. *I* will open the safe."
He grabbed my upper arm and led me, still naked, into the room with the safe. After pushing me into the corner farthest from the door, he asked me the combination, and punched the numbers one by one into the keypad. When he hit the last digit, the lock beeped three times and a green LED glowed.
Maria chuckled and grasped the handles. As soon as he pushed down on them, two thousand volts of electricity shot into him. His body vibrated in a horrible, jolting dance, until at last he fell and let go of the handles.
There was no money in the safe. There were batteries, wires and electrical equipment. The safe was effectively a huge taser, and nothing more. I ran from the room to grab a broom handle and a notecard. I used the wooden stick to reach inside the safe, hit the off button, and break some connections. Then I tucked the card inside the neck of his shirt.
"I don't know whether you can hear me," I told him, "but this is where your money is. I'm sorry I took it. I was wrong to do that. But I didn't spend much. I hope you can forgive me and leave me alone."
The sex was great, though, I added mentally, as I jumped into some clothes and fled the building.
I hesitated at Maria's car. I couldn't hear a thing, but I believed her when she told me that Rita was inside. I wanted to let her out or at least knock on the trunk and tell her things were going to be okay.
But I didn't. It had to be this way. I ran off. I called a cab and left her there.
That night on the TV news in my hotel room I watched the FBI take Maria into custody. An anonymous tip (mine, of course) had led the lawmen to the storage facility.
Of course, there was no money there. Just as there was none in my safe.
The television news also reported that Maria had a woman locked in the trunk of her car. The woman wasn't identified, but they said she was unhurt (at least physically).
They never reported the connection between the murderer and Build-A-Body, and the names Maria Mozzicone and Arlo Henson were never mentioned either. Thank goodness.
Once the story fell out of the news, I gave Rita a call. She didn't answer. I tried repeatedly. I left messages, but she never responded. So I went to Florida and looked her up.
She was miserable. She was overjoyed to see me, but she was still miserable. The lifetime of abuse from her mother, capped by the kidnapping, had broken her spirit. I could see that she was sliding into depression. If she went far enough into that abyss, she would never come out.
I moved in with her, and she liked that. She called me Mom and clung to me like a child. Sometimes she cried when I left her, even if I was only in the next room.
Normally, children don't choose their parents, and parents don't choose their children. In our case, I felt — and Rita obviously felt — that somehow I was her mother, and she was my daughter.
I don't mean I became her mother. I just was her mother. I don't know how to explain it, but something happened in that alley over that dead man's body.
Once I had that thought — or realization — it brought an idea into my head. The more I thought about it, the more compelling it became. Finally, I called Build-A-Body to ask if it was possible. After four calls and two consultations, they agreed that it was possible. It took a few more calls for them to agree to actually do it.
I very gingerly sketched the idea out to Rita, and she lit up like a Christmas tree. She was pounced on the idea, with tears of joy. She wanted it more than anything.
So we went, with a pile of Maria's money, back to Build-A-Body.
It took months of preparation. I had to get shots to prepare my body. Rita had to undergo countless psychological and legal sessions to be sure she understood the procedure, the cost, the risk.
They told her over and over, "We can't guarantee that your memory or personality will survive intact. Your current life might seem like a dream, or a previous incarnation. But the most likely result is that you won't remember it at all."
"Sounds like heaven," Rita would always reply, "sign me up."
At last they did. They prepared a tiny little body, using her DNA and mine, and transferred her consciousness, her memories, her personality, into a three-month-old embryo, which they implanted in my womb.
That was five months ago. She's been living under my heart ever since, and I can't wait for her to be born into her new life.
I'm going to name her Renata.
© 2012 by Kaleigh Way