A Switcher Tale...

I came out of the UCLA Student Financial Services building in my wheelchair and saw the girl throwing up on the sidewalk. I started toward her without really stopping to think. She looked like she needed help.

Closer up, I realized she was younger than I had thought. Barely five-feet tall, in platform high-heel sandals that made her look taller, and a bomber jacket that gave her some bulk—she might be as young as eleven, and most likely not much older.

So, probably not a university student. She wore long, straight, dark hair, and cheap jewelry, with her skinny legs in a miniskirt. It's not that cold in LA in November, but she must have been freezing with the wind coming off the mountains above the city.

"Miss?" I called out. "Miss, do you need help? Should I call someone for you?" I had my phone in my lap, using both hands to maneuver my chair.

A police car pulled to the curb, and an officer got out. "Do we need medical transport here?" he asked.

"I don't know?" I said. I moved closer to the girl, but I didn't want to get splattered with what she was spewing. It looked nasty.

She still hadn't said anything, but that changed when she suddenly straightened up, screamed, and collapsed onto the pavement, lying in her own vomit. The policeman and I reached her about the same time, he being more agile on his feet than I with my wheels, but me with a closer starting point.

I don't remember if I said anything. She opened her eyes and reached toward me, and I stuck out my hand. The next thing I knew, the world had exploded in light, sound, and pain. My muscles convulsed, and I felt myself being cast into some sort of abyss.

*

When I came to—I didn't feel I'd been out long—the cop was standing over me, smiling—with a gun in his hand. "Get up," he said, holding out his other hand.

I didn't realize I had fallen to the pavement, but that's where I was. I tried to explain that I had a bone disease that had collapsed my spine, and my legs were too weak to hold me up. He simply reached down and pulled me to my feet, and I was standing for the first time in more than a decade.

I looked down at myself,--but first I realized there was a third person in our tableau: a familiar-looking old man in a wheelchair who seemed to be just waking up. "Wha-wha-wha?" he said.

The policeman pointed the gun at me. "Run," he said. "Run, 'cause if they catch you, they'll put you in a cage and never let you out."

I stared at him, knowing I could not run. I was disabled, a cripple, in a wheelchair—but no, I wasn't. I looked down at myself and recognized a bomber jacket, a black miniskirt, and skinny legs wearing high-heel sandals.

"Run!" screamed the cop. Then he turned the gun and shot the old man—who might have been me—through the head. The noise, so close, was incredible, and I felt sure I had been splattered with bits of bone and brain and blood.

I ran. I stumbled several times, but I did not fall down, though I did bounce off a light pole and a tree before I heard another gunshot and the whhhp!-crack! of a bullet passing over my head.

"Run," the cop shouted. "Run, cause when they catch you, they'll cut you apart to try to find out how I did this!"

Completely panicked now, I ran, seemingly pursued by the cop's laughter. I don't know how far I ran or even what direction. Just away from the financial services building where I had worked for more than twenty years.

*

After I exhausted myself running, I hid in some bushes in someone's yard. I breathed in huge gulps of air and coughed out bile and snot. My heart thuttered against my chest, my lungs and throat burned, and my side and legs cramped. Everything farther than a few feet away looked blurry and doubled. I blinked several times and rubbed my face with the sleeve of my jacket.

It didn't help because the sleeve was spattered with…. I didn't want to think about it. I smelled like vomit, and I wasn't sure I hadn't shit and pissed on myself, too. I was rank. I lay under the bushes for some time, sobbing. What had happened to me?

I'm a methodical person, basically an accountant, so I tried to take an inventory of my situation. No one seemed to be chasing me, though somewhere a dog was barking. I was in a residential neighborhood, presumably somewhere near the university, lying under a pyracantha bush in a wide green yard in front of a two-story house.

I looked at my hands. Small and slender, the nails were painted black but partially worn off and broken. My nails? The hands certainly felt like they belonged to me, and one nail, in particular, ached and burned, a split hangnail. I used my teeth to pull the broken part free and squealed with the pain.

"Jesus," I heard myself say in a thin, impossibly high-pitched voice, "what the hell did I do that for?" I sucked on the finger. It tasted of dirt and blood and I discovered that I had something else in my mouth besides teeth and tongue. A little exploration made me think I might have a tongue piercing. "Fuck," I said.

I checked my ears. I had several piercings in each one, including a pair of long, dangling ones that almost reached my shoulders. I also discovered my straight, dark-brown hair well past my shoulders. "I'm that girl," I thought wonderingly. I was wearing the bomber jacket. The miniskirt had ridden up during my running and bunched around my waist.

I tried to pull it down, but it wasn't budging in my position under the thornbush. How the hell had I gotten into the little depression near the trunks of the hedge without getting stabbed a dozen times? Could I get back out?

I waggled my ankles and saw my feet at the end of my too-skinny legs, still wearing the platform, high-heel, buckle-on sandals. I'd been running in those? But I had been running….

I hadn't been able to run in more than twenty years. Just like I hadn't been able to quit my job in all those years and forego the rather generous insurance I had through the university.

Well, that problem seemed to be solved, I thought, distracted from my plight by a brief internal leap of joy that I never again had to sort through applications for financial aid or write another letter of denial.

Anthony Garibaldi, TonyGaryUCLA online, had quit his job and run away, leaving his wheelchair behind him. A sudden image of the cop putting a gun to the head of an old man, and pulling the trigger brought another retching sensation, and a taste of bile to the back of my mouth.

If...

If I was now the girl.... And the cop had shot the old me.... Then?

Then some of the mess on the sleeves of the jacket….

There were impossibilities I didn't want to think about, my brain skittering away from them like a spider that has fallen onto a hot griddle.

Dead. I'm dead….

But there I lay in the dirt, smelling loam and vomit and.... Damn, I did shit on myself, didn't I? "I was scared," I said out loud.

Damn right, I was scared. Some monster cures me of paralysis, shoots me in the head while I watch, threatens me with some mysterious 'they,' takes shots at me to force me to run.... And now I faced life as a teenager in a miniskirt? Terror was the only reasonable response.

*

I discovered that it was as easy to get out from under the thornbush as it had been to get in due to one fact. I'm so damn skinny that just by flattening myself against the earth, I only had to worry about my head as I slithered like a snake out of danger with only a few strands of my hair caught on twigs and thorns.

That was bad enough, though. It took me some minutes, crouched there, saying, "Ow, ouch, oh, damn it all," and "fuck me" to get my hair untangled.

I had suffered only one wound, on the upper left side of my butt, which itched like hell. I resisted rubbing it. "You don't know where it's been," I told myself, trying for a quantum of humor.

Freed from my fettering hair, I was finally able to stand up and pull my skirt down to cover my ass, which was the only part of me with real substance — not my head, which was entirely unhinged by the thought that I was wearing a skirt.

Not my shoulders, either, those were lost inside the bomber jacket. I sighed, shrugging to keep the jacket from slipping off my skinny inconsequence. And I tried not to think about the consequences of being a teenage girl now. Those worries could wait.

I could only marvel that no one seemed to be noticing me. It was what? Mid-morning? I'd been leaving work to make a ten a.m. doctor's appointment. It couldn't be as late as eleven yet, could it? I crossed the street and sat down on a service box of some type, probably phone or cable TV. Time to finish my inventory.

There were no pockets in my skirt, but the jacket had several, most of which had zippers, so this did take a while. I did find a phone which wouldn't turn on, but I found several other things as well — fourteen dollars in cash, some change, and several cards.

Perhaps because of some blurring, with the card held almost at the end of my nose, I struggled to read an expired CA ID in the name of Margaret Hoa Robert with a picture of a pretty young woman with long dark hair, amber eyes, and vaguely Asian features. The home address was in Fountain Valley, miles away from West LA, down in Orange County.

Me? Must be. A business card seemed to be for a nail salon in Westminster and didn't tell me much, so I looked at the ID card again.

The birth date listed would make me.... I did the math. I did it again because I didn't like the answer I'd gotten. "Fuck me!" I said. Margaret (My name is Margaret?) wouldn't be sixteen until January 6, next year? Which was only about eight weeks away, but still.

Another card in that little packet was a worn-looking prepaid debit card for Margaret H Robert. The sort of thing you give to a student, so they have access to money, but you control how much they can spend by preloading the card. Almost useless without the PIN, and did it have any money on it in any case?

I investigated more pockets. Lipstick, mascara, a compact, and other makeup supplies. No clue what to do with those. When I opened the compact, it turned out to have six different shades of eyeshadow in it—but I could get a glimpse of my new face in the tiny mirror.

A worried, starved-looking face, so very disheartening to look at. I could see fear in my amber eyes. I put the compact away, my hands shaking a little, and looked through more pockets.

Most of them contained the assorted junk you might expect of some teenage girl who used her jacket as a purse. One was a slender white tube: a tampon. I hoped I wouldn't have to use it. I knew what one did with such a thing, but not the precise how of the task. Yeesh. The implications were disturbing.

Several combs, hair barrettes, bobby pins, a pack of tissue, another of panty liners (!), a fingernail clipper; I used the last to neaten up the nail I had torn, making little ouchie noises as I did so. Then I dragged a wide-tooth comb through my hair with more ouches getting rid of tangles.

I had tons of thick heavy hair, down to my waist, so it took some time to comb. The balding old man inside me was vaguely amused at having so much hair now. The act of combing it seemed to soothe my nerves, so I stayed with it until I had all the tangles out.

I felt better. Amazing what a little attention paid to oneself does for one's sense of well-being. I dug out the compact again and took another look at my face. My mascara had run, which I hadn't noticed before, but it left black streaks down my face. "Dammit," I said in my squeaky new voice.

I got a tissue out of the packet, wet it with spit, and scrubbed away some of the black marks left by my terror and confusion. A better clean-up would have to wait for more resources and repair to my makeup—my makeup!—might be beyond my expertise. It had been many years since my involvement in community theater, and that kind of makeup is not at all the same.

I went back to taking inventory. Nothing else useful in that pocket. But in the next, I did find a depleted pack of menthol cigarettes with a Bic lighter. Oh, joy. As Tony, I had never picked up the habit. I could only hope Margaret wasn't a tobacco addict. Or any other kind, for that matter. I blinked, another worry I didn't have time to worry about.

I resolved to toss the cancer sticks as soon as I found a trash bin, but the lighter might be useful — last pocket, inside the jacket: six foil-wrapped rubbers in two different sizes. I would have said, "Fuck me," out loud again, but it seemed too damn likely that someone had been doing just that.

I rubbed my head in frustration. What the hell had this girl been doing with her life? A girl gets a tongue stud for basically just one reason…. But it's all impossible anyway, I told myself. What did I know about being a teenage girl? Clearly, not much. Was I stuck like this? Well, there was no going back to being Anthony, that body was dead.

My hands wouldn't shake so much if I were really dead, I told myself as I put everything back into the same pockets it had come out of. Maybe I needed a nicotine fix, but I wasn't going to do that. Maybe I needed some other drug, but the less thinking about that, the better.

And I hadn't found a charge cable for the damn phone—not that I had a place to charge it.

A Switcher Tale...

I still had trouble dealing with what had happened to me. I'd been switched into the body of a teenage girl and seen my old, male, middle-aged, crippled body brutally killed. After running in panic away from the murderous monster who had done this, I'd finally regained some equilibrium.

I needed a lot of coping skills, and I seemed to be failing to find them. Taking inventory of what items my new self carried in her jacket had felt like a good idea, and maybe it did help.

Maybe not. My hands didn't stop shaking even after I made sure all my tiny treasures were safely back in my pockets. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I zipped up the front for lack of something better to do. Or maybe the heavy leather felt like armor.

The mood-boost I'd gotten earlier from combing my hair seemed to have dissipated, and the enormity of what had happened threatened me with terror and panic again. I tried some yoga breathing exercises I had learned for when the pain in my back wasn't responding to the morphine pump I wore.

Tony's back. Had worn. I tried to dodge that thought but it persisted. Tony is dead and all his health, job and personal problems are dead with him. Margaret can't possibly have as much baggage as the old man was dragging around, she's too young. I'm too young. And healthy. Okay, maybe I'm a bit crazy, and I may be a drug addict, a prostitute, or a street kid, or all of the above….

I did more yoga until I felt some calmer. My emotions were on a hair-trigger, it seemed, with panic being already locked and loaded. I needed to stay calmer, consider problems one at a time, and not let the enormity of what had happened overwhelm me. Maybe being young and female now had something to do with my emotionality.

Maybe. Otherwise, being a girl seemed like a problem I could worry about later. First, I'm filthy, I thought, I need to clean up. Wherever I went, if I needed to interact with other people, they'd notice. I knew I smelled terrible; people weren't going to want to be around me. I needed at least a public bathroom.

I sat on the Telco utility box beside the sidewalk, sobbing for several minutes. I fisted tears out of my eyes, repeatedly, but more sobs caught in my throat. I wept as silently as I could. This isn't helping, I thought. But curiously, it did. I cried for at least two minutes, maybe twice that long, then I felt enormously better. The resilience of youth, maybe?

I wiped my eyes with the heels of my palms. So, I'm a teenage girl now, apparently on the run and maybe living on the street. But I'm young; I have the use of my legs, I'm in LA where I won't freeze to death. Could be worse. "Could be raining," I said aloud to finish the quote.

Snickering—well, more of a high-pitched tittering—I surveyed the neighborhood I found myself in. I thought I had run east, through the parking lot and a screen of trees. The homes I saw would fit in that rather upscale area. I didn't know the layout personally, but there wasn't a single straight line curb in sight, all the streets here curved.

There was nothing but expensive houses, not a convenience store or fast food place visible. Where could I go to get a bath, or at least access to a sink and some paper towels? And maybe a change of underwear? Ick. In terror and panic, I'd had an accident—it was part of why I knew I smelled bad.

I didn't want to knock on doors. Someone would call the cops, and right at the moment, I was afraid of cops. One of them…. I veered away from that mental image, wrapping my arms around my new physical self.

Focus, Margaret, focus, I told myself—deliberately trying to think of myself as the teenage girl I now was. I'd learned her name from papers in her pockets. I needed an identity, and hers would be useful. But where am I? What do I do now?

The campus stretched out west of me, I felt pretty sure, but in the middle of an overcast day, I had no idea which way was west. An odd feeling that—I'd always had a pretty strong sense of direction but, I realized, I may have left that behind with my male brain.

Another odd impossible thought. It wasn't like I'd had time to pack any mental equipment I thought I might need. No-oo. It'd been like one of those old cartoons with the sheriff at the door with an eviction notice. I squeezed my lips closed on the probably hysterical giggles trying to get out. I tapped the side of my head with a knuckle. You're not a blonde, Margaret, don't be a ditz, I told myself.

Breathe in, two, three, four. Breathe out, two, three, four. Repeat.

Which direction had I been running when I went to ground under the hedge? No clue of that, either. I tried to get a glimpse of the tall buildings on campus over the roofs of houses but no luck. Everything that far away was all blurry and sometimes doubled. I did a lot of squinting, but I didn't see anything that might be big buildings. Sighing, I picked a direction at random and started walking.

Five minutes later, I spotted what I took for the UCLA Medical Center and figured out that I was heading south. The outline was distinctive despite it being seen through the persistent blurring. Why hadn't I found any glasses in my pockets? Maybe I'd been wearing contacts that I'd lost while crying in panic. But wouldn't I have had… I didn't know, and I couldn't know.

Back to the present reality, Margaret, I scolded myself. Oh, God, am I a ditz or a moron? A slightly hysterical-sounding giggle appalled me as evidence that I just might be one or the other or both. Nervously, I unzipped my jacket, zipped it back up, and then down again.

Focus, Margaret, focus, I reminded myself, and a giggle at the pun escaped. I kept calling myself Margaret as a matter of policy. Tony was dead, and it was best not to think about him.

West is that way. I pointed toward where I had seen the Medical Center roofline. Just south and west of the MC would be Westwood Village: shops, fast food, theaters, groceries, and a Target. I tried to pick turns at intersections to angle off in the direction I wanted to go. I got lost, wandered around, found the tops of the MC again, and finally emerged on streets I recognized, only two blocks from Target.

Being lost had been a scary feeling, and I had to wipe tears of relief out of my eyes when I emerged from the residential wilderness. I put my arms inside my jacket and hugged myself. It did feel weird, but it was also some sort of comfort. Tits, I thought inanely, I've got tits. Small ones, but still….

*

I felt conspicuous as hell as I made my way to and inside the discount department store. But no one paid me the slightest bit of attention — just another skinny girl, presumably a student. Skinny and short, I noted. Even with the platform heels, I didn't make it up to what seemed to be average height for the women I saw.

Five-foot-nothing, probably, I mused. Before my spine collapsed, I had topped six feet by an inch or two. Big change—I'd reached five feet back in middle school, I thought but wasn't sure. No wonder I'm wearing high heels. It seemed astonishing that I had no trouble walking in them, but maybe body memory could account for that.

I knew enough about brains to know that movement, especially practiced movements that have become almost automatic, are handled in the cerebellum. And whatever had happened to me had likely not touched that part of my brain, or I wouldn't be able to move at all, probably.

But I didn't waste time wondering about just how consciousness of myself had been displaced into another body. I didn't know, I couldn't know, and according to the monster who had done this to me, somebody was willing to carve me up to try to find out. I clamped my jaw on a surge of fear, then had to clamp unfamiliar internal muscles on a fierce need to piss.

Just that little bit of thinking had scared me so bad that I sort of shuffle-ran, looking for the signs for the restrooms. I barely made it, remembering at the last moment to go into the women's room. It was empty, so I picked a stall, got inside, pulled up my skirt and down with some grotty underwear before remembering to turn around and sit.

After finding some relief, I dabbed around the dampness down there before kicking off the filthy panties I'd been wearing. Mildly freaking out, I left the stall and barely glanced at the mirrors before taking some paper towels, several of them dampened under the faucet, back with me into the same stall. I really wanted to get cleaned up.

First thing, I cleaned up my jacket, trying not to think about what some of the bloody mess might be. I took it off and hung it on a hook. Underneath, I wore a simple pink tank-top with some words on it that I didn't pause to figure out. No bra, but I hardly needed one.

Looking inside my shirt, I decided I wasn't much more than an A-cup. Real breasts though, not the cookie-and-gumdrop confections of a girl barely into puberty. I didn't have time to be fascinated or repulsed. They looked weird being on my chest, skinny, bony, and narrow though that chest was.

Did I have an ounce of extra flesh on me anywhere? Well, my ass seemed plump enough for two girls my size. How embarrassing to realize that I probably got more looks walking away than I did from in front.

After the jacket, I cleaned my face, hands, and arms, then my skirt, including inside it, using up paper towels at a crazy rate. Like the jacket, the skirt was a well-made item, real leather, very black, lined with soft, candy-striped cloth. It was super tight across my bottom and fit closely at the waist with a bit of a flare where it covered the top few inches of my skinny legs. Stylish? I had no fucking clue.

I even undid my buckles, took off my shoes, and washed my feet. Cute shoes, too. Cute? Yeah, cute was the right word. It was obvious from my clothing that I was not a street kid. I had a home somewhere, well, Margaret did, and people who cared enough about me/her to buy good quality clothes. Unless I had bought them myself.

Me, myself. I was deliberately thinking of this girl as being me. Well, I'd always been the practical sort. I'm stuck being Margaret, and the sooner I adjust to the impossible fact of my own existence, the better I can see what needs doing.

Like what to do about the part of me covered by my skirt--I was naked under there now, having discarded my soiled panties. I didn't even want to wash them out in the sink. The fabric had been stiffening up between my legs and feeling really gross, if teenagers still use that word. But what if I had to do more running, and my skirt rode up to my waist again?

I blushed to think of that. But it wasn't likely to happen unless I ran off in panic again. Still, messing around with the intimate parts of a young girl just didn't feel right. "I'm only fifteen," I said out loud in my new tiny voice. Forty-three years of living gone in an instant, but the attitudes and inhibitions created remained.

There were things I didn't want to think about regarding Margaret's situation. I pressed the tongue stud I'd discovered earlier against the roof of my mouth. "I'm jailbait," I muttered, and someone somewhere probably should go to jail. But that would mean dealing with the cops, and right now, I didn't want to do that. Even good results would likely end with me locked up in juvenile detention.

I had to clean up down there, though. I got clean paper towels again, including dampened ones. It was every bit as weird and embarrassing as I had imagined. I seemed to have all the requisite feminine parts and none of the masculine ones. I hadn't had much use out of those for years, so why did I feel their loss so particularly agonizing?

I started sniffling again. "Oh, grow up, Margaret," I told myself. Trying to wrap my head around my new identity was painful in an entirely different way, and I used it more or less as a distraction.

I finished up, discarding most of the paper towels and the soiled undies in the trash receptacles in two different stalls. Not the toilet bowl a real fifteen-year-old might have thoughtlessly used.

I did feel much better. Being grimy and nasty had been hard on my psyche. I paused now in front of the mirrors and dug out my comb and brush — time to deal with my hair more thoroughly when I could see what I was doing.

Before beginning, though, I stuck out my tongue and looked at the silver ball sitting there. Thankfully, I hadn't discovered any other body piercings, and no tattoos, thank god. How does a teenager get such a thing done? Weren't such piercings for children illegal without parental consent? There were probably ways to do things if you were a rebellious teen.

And…worry about that later.

I sighed and went to work on my hair. It was gorgeous stuff, actually, and the rich brown seemed to be its natural shade. Long, thick, healthy, shining--I could do shampoo commercials. I wondered, this being LA, if Margaret had done such work. Too bad, I couldn't ask her.

I stopped suddenly. Panic loomed again. Where was the real Margaret? Her mind? Because it seemed probable that the monster who had stolen my body and then that of the policeman had taken hers first. Where was she? And who was she now?

A Switcher Tale...

I got control of myself before I ran out of the bathroom and went screaming down the aisles. Since I didn't have any undies on, if my skirt rode up again, I would be giving a free floor show. Not that I thought of that at the moment. I wasn't used to thinking about skirts at all.

If I ran, where would I go? Where should I go? Not back to my apartment, Tony's apartment, the cops would be there now or soon: Tony was a murder victim. I needed to stay away from the authorities.

When my heart stopped pounding, and I stopped clenching my teeth and rolling my eyes, I wondered what was wrong with me?. I must have ridden the roller coaster from terror to depression two or three times already. Women are supposed to be more emotional, but this was ridiculous.

Then again, I had been through some really—bizarre!—experiences in only a few hours. I thought about that. It might have been less than two hours. At most three hours ago, I had been Anthony, thinking about my doctor's appointment. Now Anthony was dead…. Stop it!

I needed something else to think about, quick — my phone! You're not quite alive any more without your phone — not the right way to say that. If I can get my phone charged, then maybe I could call those numbers on that business card for the nail salon in Orange County. Better.

With enough presence of mind recovered, I yoga-breathed myself into coherence.

But what would I tell them? They'd be complete strangers to me. And me a stranger to them, but they wouldn't know that. They might really be strangers. I was only assuming they were relatives, and that just because it was a nail salon, a business dominated by Vietnamese immigrants, and Margaret had a Vietnamese middle name.

I could tell them my story, but they wouldn't believe me. I had trouble believing it myself. Maybe I could play sullen teenager long enough to figure out who was who.

Oh shit! I'm fifteen, and it's the week before Thanksgiving—I'm supposed to be in school! I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity. I clamped my teeth on the laughter; I didn't need hysterics any more than I needed panic.

Distraction. Something. What have I got in my hand? A brush…. Oh, yeah. I'd been standing there, staring at the mirror with a brush in my hand. Take a deep breath, brush hair…. Brush. Brush. A hundred strokes seemed excessive, but wasn't that the folk wisdom? Too bad, I forgot to start counting.

Eventually, I'd done about all I could with my hair and felt much calmer. Odd how soothing taking care of your hair is, even if it's hair you didn't have a few hours ago.

I put the comb and brush away. My long, dark hair was lovely (lovely?), and I looked cute (cute!) with it hanging down my back. I made a face at the mirror. Did I want to be cute? I might get it cut, but somehow, I already doubted that. It would be a pain to have to take care of it, but being in a wheelchair for ten years had taught me a few things.

You have to find something about yourself to love, or just doing the daily routines of living gets tedious. And I loved my new hair. It may have helped that Tony had started going bald years ago. But it was also useful as a mood lifter, apparently. I moved my head from side to side, feeling it swish against my neck. I smiled, and the girl in the mirror smiled, too.

That's me, I told myself. That has to be me, because the other me is dead. Shut up. I'm a cute, tiny half-Asian girl named Margaret Robert. No 's' on the last name. I rolled my eyes at my image. I'd probably had to tell a thousand or more people how to spell my name. Margaret had. I had. Margaret is me.

When I'd been washing up, I'd discovered that the gold chain I had around my neck had a cross pendant hanging down my back. I didn't know if it had gotten turned around during my panic, but I now had it hanging in front. It was a fairly sizable cross, too, though I wasn't confident on judging sizes in my new body.

As Tony, I'd never been very religious, but Dad was Catholic, and Mom was Lutheran, so they had compromised and attended Episcopalian services, Christmas and Easter. Dad was gone now and Mom lived in a retirement home in Arizona. She didn't remember why I was in a wheelchair the last time I visited her. She wouldn't know me at all if I showed up now.

If Margaret was wearing a cross, she was probably a Catholic. Lots of Vietnamese were. If she had hidden it down her back, she might be conflicted about her faith. I sighed, closing one of my tiny new hands around the cross. I actually felt some comfort from doing that, and I realized Margaret had probably done the same when she was scared and lonely.

Damn. I was more scared and lonelier than Anthony could have imagined.

*

Leaving the bathroom, finally, I wandered the aisles in Target for a while. I needed underwear and a charger, and I only had fourteen dollars. I checked the chargers first. The cheapest cable I found was $9, and the cheapest wall-wart was $5. I probably didn't have enough change for the tax. I felt discouraged until I noticed the in-store Starbucks cafe.

What I'd thought of might not work here, but there was a real Starbucks in the Village only a few blocks away. I'd have to try there, and it would probably work. College kids are helpful to each other, and I was tiny and cute. Someone would loan me a charging cable.

I thought about going back to the mirrors to practice looking cute and helpless, but the idea was too embarrassing. I kept blushing when I remembered that the other thing I needed was clean panties.

I wandered until I found the women's underwear tables. I steeled myself to buy something like what Margaret had been wearing: silky, lacy and black. The pair I had thrown away had been marked XS so I did know my size. But I hadn't realized there are like eight different styles.

I picked something called a boy-short, for the irony, but also, it looked most like the pair I remembered. One nice, lacy boy-short in something called micro-fiber cost $5. That would put buying a charger even further out of reach, but the draft I kept feeling was making me crazy. I had breezes touching me in places I hadn't had places before.

Besides, I had another idea. Before I went up to the register, I pulled out my ID card and the business card and memorized all the numbers on them. Reading the cards wasn't easy, working with what an extremely poor-sighted friend of mine had once called 'nose-braille.' Where were my damn glasses?

I settled on Margaret's birthday as being most likely, 0106, and approached the checkout with the debit card in hand as well as my purchase. I figured I could make two tries at guessing the PIN and if that failed, I could pay cash. I didn't want to fail three times in a row, that might lock the card.

The bored clerk hardly looked at me. I put the card in the reader and punched my first guess into the numbers. No joy. I tried 0601, and that didn't work either. The clerk said, "Forgot your PIN number?"

"Uh, huh," I said. I didn't need to fake a whimper. Also, I didn't need to mention that the N in PIN stands for number, but it amused me enough the whimper didn't turn into tears. I smiled at her, trying out a cute and helpless look.

"You got an ID with the same name as the card?" she asked.

I blinked but pulled out my ID. She glanced at it, not looking long enough to see that it had expired last January. "I can try running your card as a credit card," she offered.

And that worked! Lordy, it's not supposed to for prepaid cards, but some banks are sloppy about the rules. Such a tiny victory and I felt over the moon about it. Calm down, Margaret, calm down. "Thank you very much!" I gushed.

The clerk winked at me, saying in a lowered voice. "Going commando because you had an accident? Been there, done that."

Blushing, I headed back to the bathrooms. I hadn't heard the phrase "going commando" since Tony's college days, and I heard myself giggling. Then I almost went into the wrong bathroom.

*

The undies went on as soon as I got into a stall. They fit, and their silky softness felt nice on my nether bits. I could have bought a cheaper pair, but all of Margaret's things were good quality, even expensive. The jacket alone might have cost hundreds of dollars, real leather with a lining, six pockets, and a zip-in hoodie.

I left the bathroom feeling a bit more confident. Funny how underwear affects you that way. "Going commando" was not my style. Not even Margaret's apparently, despite the tongue stud.

I wandered some more. I couldn't think of anything else I needed besides a charging cable, and I didn't have enough money. I could pull the credit card thing again, but it might not work, and besides, I had a cheaper option.

I headed for the in-store cafe but didn't see the kind of crowd I thought might work with what I had in mind. Also, they didn't have a charging station with USB plugs, so I'd have to borrow not only a cord but a wall-wart. If they even had standard electric plugs, which I didn't see either.

I wandered on out to the parking lot because one middle-aged guy kept looking at me funny. Like I was a snack. Creepy. I wondered how much of that I was going to get. I knew what I looked like: attractive, even pretty, but no raving beauty.

Two blocks over was a real Starbucks, so I headed that way. Everyone on the street seemed larger than me, even the women. I had five inches of extra height with my platform sandals, but even so, I was looking girls and women right in the mouth or nose. I revised my estimate of my own height at five-foot-nothing down an inch or so. This might be as hard to get used to as being female.

And I was getting looks. Mostly smiles. Women, in particular, smiled at me, and older men. Young guys smiled too, but often it was a beat or so delayed. While they checked me out, I supposed. I need a sign, I decided. Big letters. JAIL BAIT. That made me giggle, and I collected even more smiles.

I noticed something. If I smiled at people, they always smiled back. Always, if they noticed me. I'm like a ray of sunshine, I told myself and heard another of my giggles. I must be cute as hell, I thought. This is going to work.

*

I'd been in amateur theatricals before, during, and after college. So, I constructed a character I could play. Little Margaret is sweet and sassy, a charmer, but doesn't take herself too serious. She's worried because her phone is dead; she thinks her family may have been trying to call her.

I could fill in more later. I reached for the door to Starbucks, but someone inside pushed it open for me. "Thank you," I said as I passed the guy. I smiled and he smiled. Hey! That was kind of cool in a way I hadn't expected.

I stopped out of the way of the door and looked around the room while I dealt with a new complication. That guy—I glanced back at him, and yup, he was still looking at me—that guy smiling at me had been different. I enjoyed his smile. Why was that? I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it.

Time for my act. I took my phone out of my pocket and held it up. "Has anyone got a phone charger I could use? I need to call home, and my phone is, like, totally dead." Maybe I was a little too far into character with that stupid "like," but with my squeaky voice, it probably added some authenticity.

It worked. Three guys and a gal offered me a cable. One of the guys was the one who had opened the door for me and whose smile had caused a reaction in me. I took the gal's offer. "Thank you very much," I gushed. "I'm Margaret," I added.

"I'm Joan," she said. "There's a charging box beside the condiments, so all you need is a cable. Yours isn't an iPhone, is it?" She held out a wire with a standard phone connection.

"Uh, no, thanks." I took the cable and went to plug it in, telling Joan as I did so. "Don't forget this if you leave before I do. Just take it, someone else will loan me a cord if I'm not finished."

"Uh, huh," she agreed, going back to the books she had spread out in front of her.

Two other phones were being charged, but Starbucks had four USB plugs on each end of the condiment table. I checked to be sure mine was charging; it was, but it still wouldn't come up yet. If it were totally dead, it might take several minutes to boot.

A clock above the order counter showed the time as 1:35, the numbers large enough for me to read at a distance if I squinted. More than three hours since I had left my office and had my life turned inside out. That didn't seem right unless I had been just wandering aimlessly for a time before I came back to myself under the thorn bush. Could be, I admitted. Panic is like that.

The guy by the door was still sending me glances, and I realized that I was still glancing at him. My God! Am I flirting with him? I looked away.

A Switcher Tale...

The chairs closest to the charging station were occupied, but I couldn’t just stand around, being in the way of people who wanted to add cinnamon to their cappuccino. I could afford a drink myself, I decided. The menu might as well have been invisible, but I had been in this very Starbucks as Tony many times.

At the counter, I ordered a short coffee, a size that is not listed on the menu, anyway, but at eight ounces, it’s plenty, and you can drink it before it gets cold.

Damned if when I turned around, I didn’t look at Door Guy and see him smiling back at me. Was I smiling? Yeah, dammit. He moved some books off a chair and nodded at me that I should take a seat. Why am I doing this, I wondered as I moved to sit down. It was the closest empty chair to the condiment table. Still.

“I’m Nathan—Nate,” he said as I sat. “Nice jacket.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s got lots of pockets, that’s what I like about it.” Okay, I’m being friendly, but did I have to giggle?

I took a sip of my coffee and almost spit it out. Strong, bitter, and so hot, it was almost chewy. What the hell? I glared in the direction of the serving counter, had they given me something instead of regular coffee? Espresso maybe? No, not for the $1.65 I’d paid for a short.

“You drink your coffee black?” Nate asked.

I looked down at the steaming cup in my hand. Anthony drank his coffee black for simplicity, avoiding having to reach up from his chair to get at stuff on an elevated table. I’d even come to prefer it that way. But what fifteen-year-old girl drinks black coffee?

“That’s what’s wrong!” I said. “Excuse me.” I got up, careful not to spill any, and went to the condiment table to add sweetener and a dash of skim milk. I tasted again and added a packet of real sugar. Better.

Nate was chuckling at my ditziness. I was annoyed. It made me look like I was so interested in him that I forgot to doctor my drink. I checked my phone, nose against the screen, 2% charge. I left it there and went back to sit across from Nate.

“I don’t usually drink coffee,” I said, making my excuse as lame as possible by giggling again.

“Coffee is good when it’s cold out,” he said as if agreeing with me. “Are you a student at the U?”

I shook my head. “University High, I’m a sophomore.” Letting him know I was underage. I probably didn’t attend Uni-Hi, if my family lived in OC, but it was nearby and made a convenient lie.

“Uh, huh,” he said. He glanced at the clock. “You out early?”

“Uh.” I tossed my head. “Long story,” I said. “Stayed all night with a girlfriend and we overslept and… like I said, long story.”

He nodded. “I didn’t hear your name?” he asked.

Margaret sounded too formal and too familiar at the same time, and all the nicknames I could think of for Margaret were, like, gag me. Thinking that made me giggle. “It’s Hoa,” I said.

“Wha?”

“Hoa,” I said, giggling one more time. Oh, Jeez! “It means…” —did I know what it meant? Yes, I did, some student applying for aid had told Tony!—“flower, it means flower.”

He smiled back, and something punched me in the heart. What the fuck was going on here? I took a sip of coffee, but it went down wrong, and I coughed. I put the coffee down quickly before I spilled it and coughed again.

“Careful,” he said. “You, okay?”

I nodded. “‘Scuse me,” I said and headed for the bathrooms. Starbucks had two bathrooms, both unisex, so I hid in one while I got the coughing under control.

I tried to explain things to myself. Sitting across from the guy…. Like three feet away…. And I’ve been scared and lonely…. His smile felt like a lifeline. That was it. But why giggle?

No way was I attracted to his muscles, his three-day beard, his long eyelashes, his surf-colored eyes, that smile…. Fuck. I’m a fifteen-year-old girl, and my hormones are out of control. And I’m thinking with a female brain. I’m probably as boy-crazy as…. I didn’t want to finish that thought.

“Going to have to deal with this,” I told myself out loud. And the sound of my tiny, girlish voice reinforced the truth. I would have to deal with boys and men, as a teenage girl with hormones that made her crazy. Me crazy. I said that aloud too. “Me crazy,” I told the girl in the mirror. She nodded.

Eventually, I had to go back out to the dining room; my coffee was getting cold. But first I went and checked on my phone, 6% charge. I stared at that number for a while. It was booting up—I could probably make calls. I chickened out, went to ask Joan, “We still good?”

She nodded. “You chatting with Nate?” she asked, grinning.

“Yeah, well,” I said. “He seems nice, and there was an open chair and….”

“Uh, huh,” she said. “He is nice. How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” I said. We both looked over at Nate, and he grinned at us. I felt myself blush and hoped my skin was dark enough it didn’t show.

It probably did because Joan laughed. “He’s okay,” she said. “I don’t have any classes with him, but I see him around.” She nodded. “If he was a predator, I’d probably have heard.” She nodded again, this time indicating the chair holding her books. “You want to sit here instead?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks. And my phone is still charging. I’d like to get it to 20% or more.”

“Uh, huh,” she said. “I’m going to be here,” she looked at her own phone, lying beside her books, “another 20 minutes or so.”

“Okay,” I said. I went back to where I had been sitting and took a sip of coffee. Still warm, so I took a bigger sip, being careful it went down the right way.

“Hey,” said Nate, looking up from his books. “Phone got enough charge to make calls now?”

I nodded.

He looked toward the phone. I squirmed a bit. “You wanted to make calls?”

“Uh, huh,” I said. “But….” A reason to delay occurred to me. “I’m pretty sure someone is going to want to chew me out.” It did seem likely. Here I was, a high school kid, wandering around a college campus in the middle of the day. I frowned. What the heck was I doing here?

Then something else occurred to me, and I felt a cold chill. Why was no one talking about the shooting that had happened three hours ago, less than a mile away? A cop shot a guy in a wheelchair…it would be national news, wouldn’t it?

What had caused me to think of the shooting was looking out the window at a University Police patrol car turning at the corner. Not a city police car, it looked just like the one the cop this morning had gotten out of. The cop that had shot my old body in the head and then shot at me—Margaret me—as I ran away.

What had the cop said when he threatened me? “Run, ‘cause if they catch you, they’ll put you in a cage and never let you out. They’ll cut you apart, trying to find out how I did this.”

“They” were whoever had the means and a motive to cover up a shooting on campus. And that had to include the cops. No one was talking about the shooting of a wheelchair-bound old man because the cops had not reported it….

They must be looking for me. That fact wasn’t really evident, did they actually know about me? I had run from the murdering policeman but…. But nothing made sense anyway—impossibilities piled on impossibilities…

I had to get away. And I had to do it quick because I could feel myself teetering on the edge of the sort of fear, terror, and panic that had already gripped me more than once.

I’m a coward, I thought. A physical coward—when I’m afraid, I do stupid shit. Well, I’m small and weak and female, it’s not completely irrational…and I’m in an irrational situation.

While my mind buzzed, I drank the rest of my coffee, grabbed my phone, put the charging cable down in front of Joan, and waved a very nervous goodbye to her and Nate. “Gotta run, just ‘membered….” Then I hit the door and almost fell on my ass. When did they start making doors that weighed a ton?

Nate was up and had the door opened for me before I could brace myself to try again. He was smiling at me.

I smiled back, stuttering, “Th-thanks.”

He replied with a string of numbers. What the hell? I paused, panic mysteriously on hold for a moment, to recite the numbers back to him, and he nodded. “Call me if you need anything,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. Then I ran. I recited the numbers as I ran, but I was in the wind. Ten digits, it was a phone number. If I need anything…. Anything?

I need my head examined, I thought. But then I remembered that there were people out there that wanted to do just that…with a saw and a set of dental picks, probably. “310-555-6873,” I said, over and over and over.

Anything I need…? I kept running.

*

Running was not my best idea because it triggered my panic into full terror. I didn’t stop running until I was completely out of gas, gasping and panting and horking up some of the coffee I had drunk. I didn’t get any on me this time, at least.

I had to stop because the alternative was face-planting on the pavement. I slowed down, stumbled, caught myself by grabbing a fence, then sank to bend over a hand-width of grass on this side of the barrier. I trembled in every limb—my knees and ankles could not sustain my posture, and I ended up squatting down on my heels.

I looked around. At least I knew where I was this time. I’d run north from Starbucks, past the Village Theater, and apparently made a left turn I didn’t remember to go down an alley behind In-N-Out Burger. It was a disappointingly short distance for me to be so exhausted from running it.

The drive-thru and by-pass lanes were right there beside me, and several of the patrons were peering out of their cars at my ass. Well, not literally, I was sitting on that part. But they seemed keenly interested in me. I saw a window go down and a guy leaned out of the passenger side window.

“Hey, chickie,” he called, “you want a burger?”

I shook my head. I had to get out of there, too. I just threw up, and he thinks I want to put a burger in my mouth? I looked away, hoping he would ignore me for being rude.

I was drawing too much attention, and I was positive the cops were looking for me. Somebody might be on a phone reporting the suspicious young woman in the leather jacket to the authorities. I clambered to my feet, feeling exhausted but determined.

The little area of grass I had crouched beside had been fenced off for some unknown reason. Perhaps just to keep people from parking on it, which they surely would have done. I walked on down the driveway toward the street, turning north again. At least, I thought it was north.

My internal map of the campus village seemed a bit tattered and worn, but I did not want to go the other direction because it would lead back to where I had seen the police car like the one that had been present when this whole disaster began.

I needed to get out of the area quickly. And I needed somewhere I could sit down and use my phone. Up ahead, I saw two buses standing at the same bus stop. Just like cop cars, they came in both city and university markings, one of each.

I hurried and managed to climb aboard the city bus before it started moving. I paid my fare and moved to the middle seats, though the bus was not crowded. The driver was an older woman who had only nodded when I fed a bill into the fare meter, and the other passengers were an assortment of urban and university types. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me.

I sat down and pulled out my phone. Only 11% charge. Dammit. I’d have to be careful. First thing though, I entered the number Nate had given me, hesitating only over the last digit, had it been a two or a three? I made an ‘oo’ and an ‘ee’ with my mouth and decided it had been a three.

I marked the number as belonging to Nate and meant to save it but instead hit dial. Understandable, since I was working with the phone right up in my face. But…. Should I let it ring through?

Nate answered. “Hello?”

“Um, just checking I remembered the number right,” I squeaked. A giggle escaped.

“Hoa?” he asked.

I thought he had started to say ‘what’ and hesitated before answering. But Hoa was the name I had given him. “Uh, huh,” I said, a little late. “I gotta go, but thanks….”

“Wait,” he began, but I had already hit close, just as I started to giggle again. Fuck. Now he had my number, I realized.

He’s way too old for you, Margaret, I told myself which was absurd enough to get me past overthinking the situation. Another brief giggle and I could focus on my real problems and not worry about teenage angst.

Part of my problem seemed to be that in concentrating on getting myself out of the jam Margaret was in, I was becoming Margaret for real. Already, some of Tony’s life seemed like a movie I had seen.

Tony would never have noticed that Nate was cute. But Margaret sure did. I rolled my eyes when I heard myself giggle.

A Switcher Tale...

The bus continued to travel north along the edge of the campus with rows of apartment buildings on the left side, including mine, or rather Tony’s. And sure enough, there were three police cars parked on the street plus a van right out of the CSI television shows.


I shuddered to think I might have gotten into that mess if I had tried to go back to my apartment. Tony was dead, but he was killed over near my office on the other side of the campus. Why were the cops here? Even though I had predicted that very thing, it still shook me up to see it happening.

My hands were shaking again as I tried to distract myself from the fallout of my own murder. I’m just a fifteen-year-old runaway with a nearly dead phone. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’ve got other problems.

We made a turn and continued along a more parklike route for a bit. Trees and grass on one side, lawn and—headstones?—on the other. Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery, I’d forgotten how near it was. I looked away. I didn’t need to see more dead people.

This was a city bus, and I wasn’t familiar with where it might be headed, but I didn’t get off at any of the exits, passively allowing fate to pick a destination for me. I especially didn’t want to get off the bus near the cemetery.

What other numbers did I have in my phone? I hit the Recent button and looked at that list. The two most frequently called numbers were West LA exchange, identified as Garth and Lila’s. I looked at the info page on both. Lila’s had a nearby address and appeared to be a business. 

Garth had three phone numbers and two addresses. The frequently called number was identified as mobile, and the other two were home and work, and attached to appropriate addresses. Home was, at a guess, one of the apartment buildings nearby. Work had a University exchange number, and the address would be the School of Theater, Film and Television.

Uh, oh. I puzzled over that for a bit. Was Garth my boyfriend? Did I live with him? Was he a student, an administrator, a faculty member, or just an employee? I didn’t call him, just then, but instead looked to see what other numbers I had under Favorites. 

One jumped at me — Mama, with a 714 area code, which would be Orange County. I looked at history. I hadn’t called that number in two months. What kind of daughter doesn’t call her mother for two whole months? Mama had called Margaret a few times, missed calls, but not in several weeks.

I started crying, and I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t know this woman, and she might think she knew me, but she really didn’t. Before I thought it through, my agile little thumbs had hit the dial button. I struggled to stop crying, searching in my pockets for the packet of tissues.

A woman answered. “Now you calling?” she snapped. She didn’t have a real accent but a sort of non-native flavor to her voice, and she left out articles and helping words.

“Mama?” I said. Her voice had the strangest effect on me. I knew it, but I didn’t know it.

“You in trouble? That why you call your mama?” Her voice was sharp, angry, but also called up smells I halfway recognized—hot spicy soup, strong chemicals, and clove cigarettes.

“Uh, huh,” I said. What the heck had Margaret done to piss off her mother that she was still mad after two months?

“Good!” she said. “Maybe you learn something. You need money? You run out of six hundred dollars you stole? Your boyfriend kick you out?”

“Um.” This was a strange conversation. I had stolen money from my mother and ran away from home? “I’m sorry, Mama.” My eyes were burning.

“You damn right, you sorry,” she said. Then she unleashed a stream of Vietnamese. I presume it was Vietnamese, full of hisses and tones and the choppy gutturals that make it different sounding than Chinese.

“English, please, Mama,” I said. I sounded whiney, and I was sure I had said something similar many times.

“You never like talk chyeng-wet.” She paused, and I heard a noise like maybe she had blown her nose. I took the empty space to blow my own.

“You not my Margie any more? You run away, and you break my heart. His name, Gordon? What is it? He call you Marla? Take picture of you, make promises. You not even that pretty!”

More Vietnamese. I waited it out. The bus was making a wide turn, I think onto Sunset Ave. Where did it go from here? A few people had gotten on and off at stops as we went through the campus, but it was no more nor less empty than before.

Mama spoke English again since I didn’t answer when she spoke her own language, even though meaning for me seemed just out of reach. “You get enough to eat? You have clothes to wear? Place to sleep?” Her concern came through her anger. “You on drugs?”

I still didn’t answer. I was wearing good clothes, but I didn’t know any other answers, even to her English questions. My face hurt.

“I not call police this time,” she said suddenly. “You tell them lies. You tell them I beat you! Why you busting my balls, con-guy? Ha?” Con-guy was daughter, how did I know that?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, weeping now. Had I tried to get her in trouble with the police? I’m a terrible daughter!

“This your father’s fault,” she said with even more venom. Then another stream of angry Vietnamese.

“I’ll call back,” I said when she paused to make gulping sounds. “My phone is dying.” Anything to get away from this conversation.

“Mep yow con, way nya,” she said. It didn’t sound angry, just hurt.

I didn’t know what that meant, but I could guess. Something like, “I still love you, come home.” I hung up.

*

The bus seemed more empty now, hollow. It took some time to manage to stop crying. 

That woman, I didn’t know her name —Mrs. Robert— she was not my mother. Was she? She didn’t know me, but she thought she did. Tony’s mother, Mrs. Garibaldi, in the rest home in Arizona, she didn’t know me anymore, either, even when I was in my old body.

And I’m Margaret now—now and for the rest of my life. Mrs. Robert is my mother, if I even have one. Dammit, I have to stop crying.

A middle-aged woman across the bus aisle, the only other female passenger, watched me with obvious empathy. I turned away to look out the window to avoid seeing her hurt with my pain that I could not justify, even to myself. Was this Margaret’s distress coming through, crowding into my existence?

I hadn’t had time for existential considerations. How in the world could it be that I existed at all? My whole mind and memory, transplanted in a moment into another body? It didn’t seem possible, and I don’t just mean in some mechanical way—it didn’t seem at all consistent with how I thought reality worked.

Not just, what mechanism could operate with a touch to gather memories, thoughts and feelings, identity itself, and move this gestalt whole from one physical body to another—while at the same time moving another such construct the other direction—not just that, but also why? Why would there even be a capability built into reality to make such a thing possible?

It made the next question necessary—is there such a thing as a soul? And if so, what is a soul made of and how does it fit into a universe of subatomic particles and all the rest. I’m no physicist, but I once had a broad education, and I’ve read a lot of science fiction. 

The kind of world where what had happened to me could happen at all was not a world of hard science, but rather one of science fantasy. Magic. And the problem with magic is that if magic is real, then what does reality even mean?

And what about the leakage from Margaret’s memories I seem to encounter sometimes? I’m thinking with her brain; it would make sense if some of her remained in odd corners of the gray matter. In fact, that made more sense than what seemed to have actually happened.

Was it comforting or scary that Tony seemed to have overwritten Margaret, and yet—while I thought I was him—I seemed to act and feel more like her.

And where the heck is this bus going? We were pulling into the Brentwood Village Mall parking lot. We stopped, and two people got off, but no one got on and off we went again, heading south this time, if I wasn’t completely turned around. And I might be, I wasn’t thinking with the brain I was used to using.

Existential questions were all well and good, and I’d love to be Tony sitting in a bar somewhere bullshitting about the whichness of what with the guys I went to college with over a few beers—but I wasn’t. I was Margaret, sitting in a bus to nowhere, having heart palpitations.


*

No, wait. That’s my phone, I must have it on vibrate, and I put it back in my coat pocket. I pulled it out and stared at it. Was Mrs. Robert calling me back? I put the phone up close to my face so I could read the name. Garth.

Time to find out who he was. I pressed answer and put the phone to my ear. “Hello,” I said.

“Marla,” he said. “Where the fuck are you?”

“On a bus,” I said. His voice, too, sounded familiar.

“You ain’t back from Wilshire yet?” he asked. “You were gonna meet me at the studio at one.”

“What time is it?” I asked. I didn’t need to know, but it was something to say.

“Almost two. Hey, he sent the money. Come to the apartment. I’ll go by the bank and have something good for you, hanh?” He chuckled.

By the time I had blinked twice and began to say, “I—,” he’d hung up.

I had tons of questions. What had I been doing in Wilshire? That’s almost all tall office buildings, not where you would expect to find a teenage runaway. Also, he who? And what money? And most of all, what should I do now?

The phone made a rude noise, warning me it was running out of power. I quickly shifted to the info page for Garth and memorized the address that looked as if it might be an apartment building. Then I clicked the phone off to save what little battery I had left.

Marla? Did he call me Marla? Hadn’t Mama said something about my boyfriend calling me that? My hands were shaking, and I knew I might be close to panic again. But there’s nowhere to run on a bus.

I wasn’t sure I was doing the smart thing, but I got off the bus at the next big stop, another shopping mall, and decided to wait for one going the other way on the same route. I got a cup of water and a taco from one of the fast-food places, the water to rinse my mouth out, and the taco because I was suddenly starving.

Eating seemed to help the shakes I’d been having, and I remembered the cigarettes I had found in my pockets. I got rid of those. “Don’t say I never saved your life, Margaret,” I told myself.

There were two lonely outside tables near the bus stop, so I sat at one of them and huddled inside my jacket, waiting. My legs got cold when I stopped moving, but the top half of me was warm, and that seemed like enough. The oddest thing was I felt calmer than I had since the terrible things that had happened. I had somewhere to go and someone expecting me, and it was—comforting?

What was Garth going to be like? His voice was the only clue I had. He’d sounded like an adult, but not like a faculty member or even someone who might work in administration, like Tony. Janitor, groundskeeper, what the heck? How had he ever hooked up with Margaret?

With me? I’m Margaret. Could I trust him?

Too many questions and no answers at all.

Suddenly, though it probably happened more gradually and I just noticed, now there were more people around, teenagers. Kids my age, that is. I remembered there was a high school nearby. It must be the end of the day for some of them. Good, I wouldn’t stand out so much.

Two guys took up places at the other outdoor table with bags from the taco place. I became aware that they were watching me. It felt weird. I kept my knees together, consciously, with my feet directly under me, not facing the table but looking out at the bus stop. This felt weirdly comfortable and safe.

I didn’t look at them, and after a bit, I realized they had stopped looking at me. Body language? Maybe. Something to remember.

The bus came, and I paid another dollar to get on, but the driver glared at me. “S’posed to show your student ID,” he growled. I gave him a big-eyed look and felt my lower lip tremble. “Take your seat,” he snapped. When I did, a girl grinned at me and I smiled back. 

I wanted to giggle, but I resisted it. Another arrow in my feminine arsenal, I thought.


*

The address I had memorized was a two-block walk off the bus route, and 457 Memorial Way turned out to be a four-story pile of beige blocks with an iron-barred security gate.

Something occurred to me, and I dug in my pockets and found what I was looking for—an utterly nondescript piece of green plastic the size of a credit card with a stylized triangular arrowhead at one end. I put it into the slot of the card reader next to the gate, arrowhead first, and heard the lock snap open.

I pushed my way into the courtyard. Apartment 217 came to mind. But was that Tony’s apartment number, where my dead self had lived? Or was it my boyfriend Garth’s place? I didn’t feel certain either way, but it felt especially odd to contemplate having a boyfriend.

I started up the iron-and-concrete stairs, the green keycard still in my hand.

A Switcher Tale...

I knocked on the door to 217 then rubbed my knuckles. That had hurt, I had to remember not to knock so hard. I glared at my tiny, soft hands. I looked around, but no one seemed to be in sight.

No answer. I used the keycard to use to rap on the door a second time, with my left hand because the knuckles of my right hand still hurt. I sucked on them, feeling pouty — stupid flimsy girly hand.

Still no answer. I turned around to look out over the courtyard, squinting a bit. The apartment doors were on balconies that surrounded the courtyard with stairwells at the corners and in the middle of the long back side. There were at least two elevators, one near the entrance and one next to the stairwell in the back.

Middle of the afternoon, no one in sight except there might be someone on the fourth-floor balcony in the far back corner smoking a cigarette. Maybe not, my eyes weren’t good enough to be sure. I turned back around, tried the keycard in the slot above the door handle, and heard the lock snap open.

The door, a massive oak and metal thing, swung open easily for which I felt grateful. I stepped inside, closing it behind me. “Garth?” I called out. No answer, not a sound, in fact.

The floor just inside the door was some kind of rough tile, marking an entryway. To the left, a narrow door probably opened on a coat closet. To the right, lay a kitchen with smooth-tiled floors and gleaming counters. The sink and stove were a burnt orange color that reminded me that the building had probably gone up in the 1970s. But someone had replaced the refrigerator with a black and silver modern model with through the door ice and water dispensers.

Straight ahead, a carpeted living room remodeled into a miniature gym held all kinds of exercise equipment, including one of those electronic equivalents of an old Nautilus machine. Racks of free weights sat next to a sixty-inch flat-screen television along an inner wall.

The place had the odor of a gym, too; clean, but smelling of old sweat and disinfectant. Windows and a glass door showed the existence of an outer balcony. I walked over and pushed a drape aside for a glimpse of the building next door and some greenery between. All the apartment buildings on this street had basement parking, I remembered.

I let the drape close and turned back. The extension of the kitchen formed a dining alcove, and a hallway opened off that. I headed that way. The first door was a three-quarter bathroom, with a shower large enough for two people to share. I skipped a closer examination and went down to the next door.

Probably originally a bedroom, this was set up as a home video studio, or maybe a cut or two above that — lots of expensive-looking equipment for both still photography and video. A large bed occupied the middle of the room. I backed out of there in a hurry. There were photos pinned to one wall, and I did not want to look at them.

The last room held an even larger bed that was sort of half made-up after use, the bedclothes pushed down, the pillows looking rumpled. A stuffed unicorn almost as big as me stood on all fours in the middle of the bed. A smaller stuffed tiger cub and a goofy looking kitten sheltered under the unicorn.

The whole room seemed to have a perfumed smell but especially near a large dresser with one of those lighted mirrors above it. It had an assortment of jewelry boxes, make-up tools, and potion bottles on its top surface, while a neighboring chest of drawers was covered in the male equivalent. Another door led to a sybaritic bathroom complete with huge spa.

Closets with mirrored doors covered one wall, and another set of glass doors and windows lead to a balcony on the outer wall. I opened the nearest closet door and saw that it contained mostly men’s clothing. There were three more doors.

The second door seemed devoted to shoes, women’s shoes. Some kind of shoe organizer took up half of the space, every cubby, hook, and pocket full of shoes. All of them I could see had heels—even a pair of shower thongs had three-inch heels. “I’ve got a thing about being short,” I said out loud.

The top half of the shoe corral had scarves and purses on hooks and little plastic hangars with a few jackets and tops at one end. Hats and more shoeboxes sat on a shelf above everything else.

The next closet door revealed another closet organizer with two rows of tops and shorts and a few pants. A longer section on one side had dresses, and I pulled one out, just to see. It was a long, golden thing with big blue and rose flowers that would probably hang to Margaret’s ankles. It felt soft and silky on my hands.

I found the label, and after moving into better light, I confirmed what I suspected, a boutique with a Beverly Hills address. I put the dress back, only slightly curious about what it would look like if I wore it. Margaret appeared to have taste. I’d have to psyche myself up to try on a dress, though.

The last closet was full of swimsuits, ski pants and parkas, and other things that didn’t look like they got worn that often. More shoeboxes covered the floor of this section, and a pair of bright red, thigh-high boots stood in the corner, looking like something out of a movie. I rolled my eyes.

But everything in the apartment agreed, the people who lived here were not afraid to spend money, and they knew how to buy the good stuff. Heck, the yogurt in the refrigerator would probably turn out to come from Gelson’s, the grocery chain for the rich. But if you were rich, why live in an apartment next to the UCLA campus?

I had a key to the place, did I live here? I glanced at the unicorn tableau and toward the closet space. Someone about my size lived here.

I heard the snick sound of the front door unlocking.

*

I went down the hallway far enough to see who came through the front door. The man who entered would have made three or four of me. Six-foot-three or more, probably two hundred and fifty pounds, mostly muscle, he wore his sandy, thinning hair in a brush cut and decorated his upper lip with a cookie duster mustache the same color.

He grinned at me, balancing a paper box from some take-out place in one hand while putting his keycard away with the other. “There’s the little money-maker of this operation,” he said. “I got us sushi and teriyaki to celebrate. Ya wanna grab a couple beers from the fridge?”

He came straight toward the dining table, so I ducked sideways into the kitchen and opened the big silver and black refrigerator. The door held an assortment of IPAs and other craft beers. I picked a Dogfish Light Ale for myself (I’m probably a total wuss beer-wise, I decided) and something a little more robust for him, an Epic IPA.

“You look like you’ve had a hard day, cupcake,” he noted. “Pulling in the big bucks frazzle your nerves?” He started laying out a feast: three bento boxes and a couple of cartons of soup. It smelt heavenly.

But what the heck was he talking about? “I guess,” I hazarded. “I’ve been riding buses all afternoon,” I said. I got a little closer and put the beers down on placemats.

He looked at me and cocked his head sideways. My God, up close, he was huge! His biceps were almost the size of my waist. But he showed real concern in the wrinkles around his watery gray eyes. “Did you think you were being followed?” he asked.

“Uh, huh,” I admitted. “I got real paranoid, like thinking someone was chasing me. I rode a city bus almost to the beach and back.”

He laughed, but not like he was amused, more like he was trying to cheer me up. “You are the oddest mix, baby. Bold as anything when we make plans, and a real chickenshit when you have to face anyone.”

“Hey!” I said. I glared at him. “You said he sent the money? How much?” I had no idea what was going on, but I felt the need to probe a bit.

“All of it,” he said. “One hundred kay, right into the Hermes account. I moved some of it around, sent the boss his cut, and took out five hundred cash. Oh, I put two thousand on your little card.” He separated the food into two servings, pouring soup into bowls, providing chopsticks beside plates.

I tried not to boggle at the money amount, to treat it as if that was only what I had expected. One hundred thousand dollars? And two thousand added to my card? Now I really needed to figure out the PIN. The big man continued getting our meal ready, very nonchalant, even whistling through his teeth, but I needed to sit down.

I guessed that the smaller helping, a quarter as much as the other one, must be for me, and I plopped myself into the chair in front of it. Teriyaki vegetables, a California roll, rice with red beans, the soup, and the beer: I actually wasn’t sure I would be able to eat that much, but I welcomed the distraction.

He leaned over and kissed me right on the mouth before I could even react, then he sat down at the other place he had set. I hadn’t been kissed by a man since my grandfather died when I was eight. I touched my fingers to my lips.

He’s my boyfriend. I’ve got a piercing in my tongue. We share a closet and a bedroom. He called me the money-maker. My stuffed animals are on his bed. We must be involved in something big and probably illegal. I should run away, now.

Panic threatened to bubble up all over again. I took a breath, counting it in and out.

I didn’t want to keep running. I reached for my canned beer and tried to open it, but I couldn’t get the tab to come up. I whimpered and showed him the can.

He laughed. “You never can open these things, you and your flimsy little fingers.” He popped the top and handed it back. The beer can looked tiny in his paw.

I took a sip, a little fruity and sweeter than I expected. “Yeah, well,” I said. “I’ve got other talents, don’t I?” What the hell was I saying!

He already had a slice of tuna rolled around rice and a pepper halfway to his mouth when he laughed even bigger. “That you do,” he said. “Holzmann said when he saw you sitting on the roof of his Mercedes with your feet on the hood, he almost shit bricks.”

I nodded, trying to look smug, exactly as if I knew what he was on about. I nibbled at my California roll. The avocado was so ripe, it was almost as soft as that creme they put inside eclairs. The rice was sticky, sweet and nutty, the fish (it wasn’t crab), totally fresh-tasting with the cucumber bite standing out the way it should. Was there a dab of chipotle mayo?

“This is great,” I said. I moaned as I finished the roll, then I dipped an asparagus spear in sauce and nibbled on that next.

“Toldja I’d bring you something good,” he said. “Japan-I-zation,” the name of the sushi place, “is always good.” I’d eaten there as Tony but always in the fusion restaurant front half—things like tofu enchiladas—but this meal had come from the expensive sushi bar in back.

“Mmm,” I said. It was good, and I’d eaten more than half what he gave me, but I was full. I watched him eat for a bit. He wasn’t just shoveling it down, but he ate with enthusiasm. I took another sip of beer.

He was a huge guy, and he didn’t get any smaller with me sitting there looking at him. Meat and muscle and bone, his clothes kind of stretched onto him. He looked back, too. He had a brow ridge almost as massive as a Neanderthal’s, covered with a forest of dark brown eyebrows.

He stopped chewing, swallowed, and smiled, and his expression reached his eyes too. He had long dark eyelashes that first narrowed his eyes then widened them. I discovered I was smiling back. What was I thinking?

“What are you thinking?” he asked, echoing my own thoughts.

I shook my head. Under the table, his size twelve gym shoes pushed my tiny feet around, trapping them in between. I felt something I had never felt before, my nipples getting hard. I don’t think I’d ever before been aware of any sensation there before.

Well, one girl in college had wanted to suck on them, but I hadn’t liked it. This, this was different. It felt great.

I stood up suddenly and moved away from the table. “Can you put any leftovers away?” I asked. “I want to take a bath. I feel grungy, like maybe I smell bad.” Did I want to take a bath? I’d be naked in the same apartment with this huge guy. A twinge went through my nipples at the thought. I’m only fifteen, I reminded myself.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” he teased. “But, hey, if you get cleaned up, maybe you could wear that red dress, and we could go somewhere to celebrate.”

“Finish my beer?” I said, heading for the hallway to the bedroom and the huge bath there. Where could he take a fifteen-year-old to celebrate?

“‘Course,” he said. “You never drink all of your beer. Damn fruity, soda pop beers,” he complained. “Hey, did you ever get over to see the doctor?” he called down the hallway after me.

I paused at the bedroom door, looking back at him. “Huh?” I said intelligently.

“You know,” he said. “About you throwing up every damn morning for the last week. If it’s what I think it might be, you’ll have to get that taken care of.”

Oh. Shit.

A Switcher Tale...

I felt my knees turn to jelly, and I sank to the floor. It wasn’t a faint, but it was a near thing, and I ended up kneeling beside the door with my right hand still on the doorknob, almost the only thing keeping me from going all the way down. I heard a roaring noise and the edges of my vision turned dark.

I gasped, and that got Garth to look at me. “Honey?” he said to me. “Are you okay?”

“Huh-uh,” I grunted a negative. “I hadn’t—I didn’t—I’m not?” I tried to pull myself up, but I didn’t have the strength.

Suddenly he was there beside me, lifting me, picking me up — one arm behind my knees and one under my shoulders. “Now,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.” He somehow opened the bedroom door and carried me inside.

I felt tiny. I put my arms up and around his neck. I’d been so scared earlier, and now, this big hulking guy was holding me, carrying me, like my father had held and carried me when I was five.

“You’re freaking out a little,” he commented as he lay me down on the bed. “Have you been doing this all day?” He handed me my —Margaret’s— stuffed unicorn and wrapped one of my arms around it. “You didn’t go to the clinic because you didn’t want to know?”

I sniffed. “There was another reason,” I said. I thought about where I had first seen the girl throwing-up beside the sidewalk. She could have been heading the same direction I was, to an appointment at the Medical Center, though hers might have been a walk-in. The vomiting might have been significant, too; it had been a few minutes before eleven…

…and Anthony, the man I had been, had had only a minute or so to live.

My body shook, and suddenly I was wailing. Garth sat on the bed and pulled me into his lap, making comforting noises. On some level, Anthony was still rational and checking off boxes on an inventory. Morning sickness, check. Mental fog, check. Emotional rollercoaster, check. After all, I’d had experience with pregnant students for years.

On top of that, witnessing my own murder and being threatened by a monster who claimed to have been responsible for what had happened. I was probably going to be dealing with that trauma for the rest of my life, and…who could I tell?

“There, there,” Garth repeated for what might be the fortieth time. “You’re okay, and we can deal, it will be all right.” He had me wrapped up in his arms now, me sitting in his lap and the unicorn in mine. I rubbed my face on the fuzzy mane but stopped when I felt snot running out of my nose.

“Need tissue,” I said, almost gasping.

He reached a long arm across me to snag a box off the dresser and put it in my hands. I used wads to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. He kissed me on top of my head and then peered around to look into my face. “Better?” he asked.

“Gary,” I began then stopped. Did Margaret call him Gary? How did I know?

“Hmm?” he said. He kissed me above one eye.

“I saw somebody killed today,” I said. How was I going to tell him the rest of this without sounding stark-staring mad?

“You what?” he asked, his face distorted by surprise and the angle I was looking up at him from.

I recast what had happened with myself in Margaret’s role as first-person witness to a murder. “I was on the east side of campus, about eleven,” I told him. “I think I was on my way to the clinic.” Not a lie considering the flat out impossibility of what I was reporting. “I had to throw up, in the grass, next to the campus shuttle stop.”

He gave me a little squeeze, looking concerned. It was comforting, even though I couldn’t work out how I actually felt about being held by a man.

I tried not to cry again. “An old guy in a wheelchair came out of the big building there. A cop car stopped on the corner, and the cop got out.” I swallowed hard. Margaret’s terror and my own almost overwhelmed me again. I made a dry sobbing sound, like a painful hiccough.

“Shh, shh,” he whispered. “You don’t have to tell me if it hurts.”

“It hurts, but I need to tell someone,” I said. “I’ve been—I don’t—It’s not….”

He pulled me in closer and rocked back and forth. I made a sound that had no words, just not doing anything for a moment. Being held like this made me feel…safer?

I had gotten turned sideways in his lap, which made it easier to look up at him. I put a hand up to his chin. While it looked smooth, it felt coarse and stubbly. “Gary?” I said again.

“Mmm, hmm?” he murmured soothingly.

“I blacked out for a moment,” I said. “Then, I mean. The two guys were coming toward me, and they were asking if I was all right. Because…because I was throwing up? Then I woke up on the ground…and…and the cop was standing there with his gun out.” I swallowed hard, remembering. “He made me get up and told me to run, and he pointed his gun at me.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Garth. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not.

“He said the cops would lock me up if I didn’t run away,” I whispered.

Garth moved, shifting me on his lap again to where he could look me in the face.

I blinked at him.

“Did you run?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not at first,” I said. “But then, the guy in the wheelchair, he…he? I think he said something? And the cop just…and the cop just turned his hand with the gun and shot the old guy in the head.”

I buried my face in Garth’s chest. I felt so small, and he was a huge guy, and it seemed to help. I remembered being afraid, being terrified. At the time it happened, in that instant, I hadn’t known who I was or who the old guy was.

“What the fuck?” Garth said.

“The cop was yelling at me,” I said with my face still hidden. “He was waving the gun around and threatening to cut me to pieces if I didn’t run. He pointed the gun at me again. So I ran….”

“Ho. Ly. Hell,” said Garth.

“I think he shot at me or over my head while I ran,” I whispered. “I don’t know. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore and I hid under some bushes.” I grabbed more tissues and wiped my face and blew my nose again.

Garth took the tissues and threw them into the trash can by the vanity table. “Three points,” he said, making crowd noises. “Whu-u-uhh!”

I looked at him and giggled nervously. I still couldn’t tell if he believed me.

He took me off his lap and laid me on the bed with him still sitting there beside me. I still had my shoes on, and that bothered me. Some voice inside told me in a strident voice that I should keep my shoes off the bed. I struggled to sit up, but Garth put a gigantic hand on my stomach.

“Just lie there for a minute, okay?” he said.

“My shoes,” I said, pointing at my feet.

Smiling, Garth pulled the high-heel platform sandals I was wearing off my feet without undoing the buckles on the straps. “You should have called me,” he said. “I was at the studio waiting for Holzmann to call. I didn’t know where you were.”

I still didn’t know who Holzmann was, but I shook my head. “My phone was dead, no charge.”

He glanced at the dresser top where a wireless charging station was plugged into a power strip. “You forgot to charge it last night. Dummy.”

I blinked. He didn’t say that with a mean tone, more like he was teasing me. “I didn’t have a charging cable with me, either.”

“You never do,” he mentioned. “If I didn’t tighten the bolts in your neck every day, your head would fall off.”

I giggled again at his silliness. “You believe me?”

“Huh?” he said. “You didn’t make that all up, did you?”

I shook my head.

“So, what did you do?”

“I wandered around, rode some buses, got scared, did some more running. Got my phone charged.” I swallowed hard. “I was so freaked out, I called Mama.”

“Your mom? Down in OC?”

“Uh-huh,” I said miserably. “That didn’t go well.”

“Your dad wasn’t there, was he?” Garth’s voice sounded hard. I looked up at him, and his expression had hardened too.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She said something about blaming him for me running away.”

“Yeah, well,” he said. “You shoulda called me. H-man called about two. He’d got the money together and put it into the special coin account. You hadn’t called, so I called you.”

I sighed. That money worried me, but how could I ask? Maybe I should just admit that I’m not Margaret. But I am Margaret, because if I’m not her, I’m not anyone at all. I looked at him. He didn’t seem to have a clue that I wasn’t the same Margaret, or rather Marla, he had said goodbye to this morning.

And where had she gone? I was here, thinking with her brain, and there were little crumbs of her memory left. Sometimes I remembered things Tony could not have known, like calling Garth, Gary. And apparently I moved and spoke like Marla, not like a middle-aged man who had spent a decade in a wheelchair. But where had she gone?

Some of her remained. I almost smiled. As Marla, I thought of Tony as being an old man, but he’d never really gotten old. For a teenager, though, late forties is not just old, it’s ancient.

I guess I’d been staring off into the distance because Gary said, “Earthman to space chick, come in space chick.” He reached out one of those big hands and tapped a finger on my forehead.

I looked at him and smiled shakily. “I guess I did space out, huh?” I said.

He nodded. “I’m used to it, but maybe you had more excuse than usual. This cop that chased you, you haven’t seen him again, have you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve seen a few cops, and they freaked me out, but none of them were him.”

“Were they looking for you?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure, I was real paranoid and—and I think I just reacted like they were. But—but Gary, what we do? Uh—the money—uh, we’re criminals?”

He put a fingertip on the little triangle of hair under his lower lip, same color as his mustache, and rubbed it back and forth. “Technically,” he said, “yeah, I guess. But we’re taking the money off guys who are a lot worse than us, you know? The boss says they deserve it, and that’s good enough for me.”

He made a big gesture like he was taking in the whole apartment. “Besides, we live good, don’t we?”

That did not reassure me. Who was this boss? Another question, I couldn’t figure out how to ask. And did we deserve to live well?

We were sitting on the bed now, side by side facing the mirror. His feet in his big old shoes were flat on the floor, but my bare feet lacked a couple of inches of reaching. I wiggled my toes. The nails were painted red, though the nails on my hand were black and terribly chipped.

Was it some kind of scam? Or maybe a badger game with me as bait? Or a shakedown since I was underage? Some variation on all of the above?

Garth put an arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “Still time to go to the clinic,” he commented.

Oh yeah. And I may be pregnant.

I shivered and wrapped my arms around me. “I’m not going anywhere alone. And the clinic is, like, four blocks from where the cop shot that guy.” Like? Sheesh.

He nodded. “You want a bath? Then I could take you? I got some stuff to do—and maybe I can look on the internet, see if there’s any news.”

“I didn’t hear any when I was in Starbucks,” I said. I frowned. “If cops are going around shooting people, maybe they’re covering it up?”

“Was it a white guy that got shot?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, old white guy, older than you. Maybe fifty. In a wheelchair.”

He nodded. “They might cover that up, all right.” He grinned at me. “But fifty isn’t old, baby darlin’.” He had a drawl when he wanted to use it.

I pushed at him, hopping down off the bed and putting Yoonie the Unicorn back in the middle of the bed. “Older than you, and you’re old enough to be my dad, ain’t ‘cha?”

He winced. “Barely,” he said. “But I don’t think I would have had the nerve to fuck your mom when I was in high school.”

I laughed at him. Standing there, me barefoot and him sitting on the bed, I was hardly taller. Looking at him, a mountain of muscle with a cuddly-looking mustache, he made me feel funny. But I wasn’t afraid of him at all.

“Go get your bath,” he said. “You smell like wet dogs fucking.”

“I do not!” I protested with absolutely no justification or confidence. I knew I probably reeked.

He waved me away, standing up. “I’m gonna go surf the ‘net, look for this insane cop.”

I felt a chill and nodded.

I started toward the big bathroom, and he headed toward the hallway. “Don’t get your hair wet,” he warned me. “They could solve global warming by the time you got it dry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Don’t give me a hard time, old man. You’d have a conniption if I ever got it cut off.”

He paused at the door, looked at me and grinned. “Got that right, baby,” he said. “Remember, I promised to paddle you if you ever did.”

I made a face at him. I wasn’t worried. Somehow I knew Garth had never lifted a hand to hit me and never would. I felt safe with him, but there were plenty of other mysteries.

A Switcher Tale...

I went through the bedroom into the big en suite bathroom. Big spa-type tub, separate huge shower stall, too. Water controls like the big hotels in resorts have. That’s one thing I had done as Tony, I traveled and stayed in nice hotels. I didn’t have a wife or family to spend money on, not even a girlfriend, and my major expenses were medical and paid for by my excellent university insurance. 

Which was also why I hadn’t quit or looked for another job. I liked my job, helping people get an education, but there were times it was pretty soul-killing. All the paperwork and bullshit that had to be dealt with. And if the administration or government agencies weren’t jerking me around, then the students or the parents were giving me grief.

I had had no one else to spend money on except myself. And that was all gone—that whole life. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at the bathroom fixtures. I felt very cold. Tony was dead, and there was someone out there who wanted to cut me into pieces. I began shivering, and I couldn’t seem to stop. I turned and ran back to the hallway, wailing, “Gary!”

“In here,” he said from the room with all the camera and electronic gear. I went in there, running on bare feet with my arms wrapped around me, crying.

“I’m scared, I duwanna be alone,” I whimpered, trying to burrow under his arm and into his lap, but he was sitting too close to the computer desk. I had no dignity at all. He was big and safe and strong, and I needed that just then.

“Sh, sh,” he said, pushing the chair back to give me more room. He pulled me into his lap and cuddled me. “I thought you were…. Hmm?” He turned my face up and kissed me gently on my forehead, then my nose, then my lips.

I gasped. This should be disgusting and scary, but it wasn’t. I’m only fifteen. He’s twice my age. This is wrong, I told myself. But I needed someone to hold me. I pulled my face away from his, then just rested my cheek on his chin.

“Hmm?” he murmured. “I thought you were going to be okay.”


“I thought—I did—I mean?” I took a breath. “B-but I got into the b-b-bathroom, and it was cold and all that metal and p-porcelain, and two or three doors between us. I got scared.” Where was this coming from, I wondered? As Tony, I’d never been prone to such frights.

He laughed softly. “Babygirl,” he said and him calling me that sent a shiver through me but not a cold one. “Do you need me to come watch you take a bath?”

“Um?” Put like that, I kind of had to say no. “Not really, but if you were just in the next room?” I knew I must be blushing because my face felt hot enough to fry an egg. “I’m such a coward,” I whimpered.

“Sh, sh,” he said. “No coward would be up to what you’ve been doing with these assholes we’ve been ripping off? Huh? Would a coward have climbed on top of Holzmann’s car where anyone in the world could see you?”

I pulled away so I could stare at him. Just what the heck had Margaret been doing?

“You really did witness a murder, didn’t you?” he asked.


I nodded, biting my lip. I felt myself begin to tremble again.


He lifted a big hand and stroked my cheek. His face was huge, too, and so close to me; the way I was feeling, it should have been scary. But it wasn’t. I felt Margaret’s trust in this man, and it confused me.

“I forget sometimes that you are just a kid,” he said quietly.

“Should I start calling you Daddy?” I asked, making an effort to tease him.

He laughed softly. “Better not,” he said. “I know all your ticklish spots. Besides, if you are pregnant, we know it isn’t mine.”

“Huh?” I said. How would we know that? I’d felt pretty sure that Margaret’s relationship with Gary was sexual. Had I been wrong?


“And you’ve been using condoms with our—uh, clients? Right?”


I swallowed hard. “I—I—,” of course, I didn’t know.


He sighed. “Not every time?”


“I dunno,” I admitted. “I don’t remember.” I felt miserable, like I’d let him down, but I wasn’t sure if it was Margaret feeling guilty or just me being confused. It did begin to look like we were pulling some sort of badger game on guys like Holtzman.

I was still sitting in his lap. He kissed the top of my head and said, “Sh, sh,” again. He picked me up and set me on my feet. “Get your shoes and fuck getting a bath. We’re going to the clinic tonight.”

*

Gary had a monstrous SUV parked in the underground garage, a big black thing that looked new. I stared at it. I’d put those ridiculous platform sandals back on, and they didn’t lend themselves to clambering up such a surface.

But Gary not only opened the passenger side door for me, he picked me up and put me in the seat, which startled a giggle out of me. I’d been wondering how I was going to get up the side of the beast without ropes and pitons. 

He laughed at my reaction, then closed the door and quickly ran around to get in on the driver’s side. Seeing him sitting there, I realized why he owned such an oversize vehicle.

“What?” he asked, noticing me staring at him, as he started the engine.

I giggled again. “You’re such a big guy, sometimes I forget how big.”

He grinned. “That’s what she said,” he joked. “Fasten your seatbelt, blondie.”

Blondie? Oh. At first, I wanted to protest that my hair was almost as black as hair can be, but I realized that this was some sort of running joke between us—Margaret and Gary, that is. I could probably expect to get called ‘blondie’ any time I did something stereotypically blonde, like forget to buckle up.

The funniest thing about that, of course, was that Tony had had dark blond hair. Worth a giggle? Okay, I giggled. The relationship between us still amazed me. And did Garth’s remark that we knew any hypothetical pregnancy was not his mean that we weren’t doing the bunny hop together?

Well, so far, the evidence was equivocal, if not downright confusing. I did remember that kiss. There’d been a bit of tongue….

*

We parked at the far end of the parking structure for the UMC, and Garth helped me down from the huge vehicle. I noted that he had a faculty sticker in the window of his beast, so he would not have to pay to park. We could have walked the eight or so blocks, of course, but we were both true Californians—it was our birthright not to have to walk more than a block anywhere.

“I’m not going in with you,” he said when he put me down. “You okay with that?”

I thought about it. I could think of many reasons for him to avoid going in. The lights were on everywhere on campus, but the dark sky outside and the huge buildings made me feel a bit anxious. “W-walk me to the door?” I suggested.

“Sure,” he said.


*

The Women’s Health Center is on the second floor, and I knew it had a separate department for Reproductive Health and Family Planning, so that was where we headed after checking the directory on the ground floor. Garth watched me get in the elevator, and I gave him a babygirl wave as the door closed.

I giggled nervously because I didn’t know why I did that.


I couldn’t remember either of me ever having been on this floor, so it took me a minute to find the right room number. I went inside and found a wide waiting room with wall screens, a couple of lecterns with built-in tablets, and a reception desk behind a glass wall. There were three positions at the counter, and a light above one said, Start Here.

Since I was a new patient, I was given paperwork to fill out and also told to go to one of the lecterns and follow the directions to check-in. There were the usual sorts of questions, and some of them, like Margaret’s medical history, I couldn’t answer. There were others I could skip if I wanted to maintain privacy, so I left a lot of the form blank.


Under name, I wrote Marla Anthony, figuring that I was more likely to answer to the second than the first. I lied about my age, too, saying I was eighteen and giving a birthday in March. I didn’t fill out any ID numbers, checking the box to request privacy instead. Under reason for visit, I put “pregnancy test,” even though part of me wanted to howl in protest at the very idea.


It asked when I’d had my last period, and of course, I didn’t know, but Gary and I had talked about this on the way over. He didn’t remember noticing any signs, or me mentioning one since I’d moved in with him in early September. I put down August with a sinking sensation. I did the math. More than ten weeks without a period was not a good sign in a healthy young woman.


They asked about symptoms, and I marked the boxes for morning sickness, mood swings, and anxiety. Boy, was I anxious.

I turned in the paperwork and took a seat in the waiting area. Half a dozen women were waiting, all but one of them alone. Other women, I guess I should say. I nibbled on the pads of my fingers while I sat there; it must have been a Margaret habit. At least I didn’t chew my nails.


Twenty minutes later, I got called into a small examining room where a blonde Physicians Assistant with a tablet asked more questions, took my vitals, and weighed and measured me. I’m so tiny, just over 4’10” and only 88 pounds, if I did the conversions from metric right: 148 cm and 40 kg.


I was there for another half hour, wearing one of those paper gowns, getting an examination from another PA, having blood tests done, and waiting for results. Finally, a woman whose name tag read Dr. Nablonsky came in and did the most embarrassing examination of all. After she helped me down from the table with the stirrups, she told me to sit down.

I sat. “Why are those things you use to look so cold?” I asked her, stalling.


She laughed softly. “Everyone asks, and I can’t tell you. They’re just room temperature, honest.” She glanced at my chart. “But Miss Anthony, you must suspect what I’m about to tell you.” She didn’t pause. “You’re pregnant, about ten weeks along according to the blood test.”


The earth reached up to the second floor and swallowed me, but I was still sitting in the plastic chair in a paper gown. The doctor was standing over me with a hand on my back, saying, “Lean forward, put your head between your knees.”

When I had more presence of mind, I discovered I was crying. Dr. Nablonsky handed me a wad of tissue as I sat up. “Thank you,” I murmured.

“Not planned,” she said, a comment, not a question. “But you have options. It’s too late for the overnight pill, but it’s early enough that a termination procedure would be very low risk.”

Low risk to me, I thought. I sighed, and for some reason, I groped for the crucifix around my neck. “I’m Catholic,” I said, remembering that Margaret was. Tony was dead. I didn’t have Margaret’s faith, but did I need to respect it?

She nodded. “I don’t know your circumstances, and you don’t have to tell me. But we can find you counseling, perhaps housing if you need it, other resources. Some of these would require you giving up a measure of privacy, but providers are prepared to work with you.”

She talked some more, but I had pretty much stopped listening. One thing seemed forefront in my mind. I’m going to have a baby. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about that unexpected fact. Excited, but in a quiet way, described it best, perhaps. I knew I wasn’t frightened, or angry, or sad—or happy for that matter.

Perhaps every little girl dreams of being a mother, but I hadn’t because I had never been a little girl. I wondered if Margaret had such dreams. I wondered who the father was. Ten weeks ago…where had Margaret been living? With her parents in Orange County? Or just with her mother?

When and why had she gotten involved with Garth, and what seemed to be a very profitable project?


The doctor had stopped talking and simply waited for me to speak. I made some sort of noise.

“You have options,” she repeated. “And perhaps the best one right now is to realize you don’t have to rush into making a choice.”

I think she had said that before, as well, but I hadn’t been listening. I nodded. I tried to imagine myself getting large with a pregnancy. The funny thing was I could picture it as Margaret, but for Tony, it just seemed like a bad joke. Or a bad movie with Arnie Schwarzenegger.

But I knew that having a baby would hurt — a lot. And then I would have to take care of it because I’m the mother and that’s my job. Nursing a baby seemed bizarre. So did changing diapers, staying up nights, watching another person grow. Why was I smiling?

Dr. Nablonsky pulled me out of my strange reverie. “If you know who the father is, you have to decide whether to tell him.” She’d said that before too. She must be repeating herself because she knows I’m not listening, I thought.

But thinking led to scary thoughts. I blinked. Ten weeks back, Margaret had not been living with Garth, so he was right; it wasn’t his. Then whose was it?

A certainty seized me then, frightening in its sudden conviction. The room with its clinical atmosphere and medical professional droning on about vitamins, and exercise, and family situations, and appointments for counseling and ultrasound and other valid options faded away. 


They all disappeared into the maw of a devouring truth that both Margaret-me and Anthony-me agreed on — this baby was mine.