A Minority Of One : 1 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one. — Thomas Carlyle

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I groaned as I woke up. My head hurt and my mouth was as dry as sand.

“You’re finally awake!” a woman’s voice said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I have the world’s worst hangover,” I replied. “Like somebody hit me with a steel beam and my head rolled down a long flight of stairs. Uhhh! Where am I?” I opened my eyes a crack, but only for a microsecond: the light pieced my brain like burning poison daggers.

“Could you turn the lights down?” I asked. “Why is it so fricking bright?”

“The lights are as low as they go,” the woman gently replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. You just woke up.”

My throat was so parched that it hurt to talk. My tongue was like sandpaper; it rubbed rough against my dry, chapped lips. I open my eyes for another quick moment, and caught a quick glance of the woman. She was a nurse. At least, she was dressed like a nurse.

I was lying on an exam table, with one of those ridiculous paper sheets underneath me. I was dressed in a hospital gown that came down to my knees and — thankfully — was closed in the back. I was covered by a thick, warm cotton blanket. The nurse put a cup of water in my hands. I took it like a blind person and drank it like I’d spent a month in the desert.

“You’re dehydrated,” she said. “Sorry about that. All the darts are the same strength, so you got a full adult dose. It put you out longer than the others, and it’s harder on your body.”

I drank, and liquid never felt so refreshing. It seemed to penetrate every part of me the instant I swallowed. She held my hand still and filled the cup twice more. I drained it each time. My headache dimmed a little, and the light was slightly easier to bear, but my head didn’t clear. It was cloudy inside my skull. Very cloudy. Even so, I couldn’t help but pick up on a number of things that jarred me. For one, we were in a room with no windows. I couldn’t tell whether it was day or night. I had no idea where we were. It didn’t appear to be a hospital, or even a doctor’s office. The walls were painted a bleak industrial green: the ugly non-color they use at military bases and government buildings. The color comes out of the bucket already dull and muted, and yet, after another quick look, I was ready to bet these walls were done back in the fifties.

“Do you think there’s lead in this paint?” I asked.

She looked surprised at my question, then gazed at the walls. She shrugged. “Yes, probably,”

“So, where am I?” I asked again. “And... you said darts — was I shot with a tranquilizer dart?” My memory was fuzzy, but I seemed to remember that much.

“Yes,” she replied, as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence. “Do you remember? Don’t worry if you can’t recall right now. It will all come back to you.”

“Another thing you said — you said that I got a full adult dose. Why did you say that? Am I not a full adult or something?” I chuckled mirthlessly. It wasn’t that funny, honestly.

“Speaking of that,” she said, side-stepping my question, “Can you verify your name and birthdate for me?”

“Leo Blisten,” I replied. “May 25, 1978.”

“Um, so… 42 years old.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Can you tell me what’s going on here? Like, where are we? Why was I shot with a tranquilizer dart? Who shot me? And again: WHY? Where are my friends? Were they shot as well?”

“They’re here, too. And yes, they were shot with darts as well. Somebody’s going to come and explain everything to you,” she replied. “I’m sorry, but that’s not my… um, but tell me, how much do you remember?”

“I was in my backyard,” I recalled. “Uhhh… is the tranquilizer still in my system? I feel pretty whoozy.”

“Yes, it will take several hours to completely work its way out of your system. You might even experience the effect into tomorrow evening. Don’t be surprised if you feel unusually calm and serene — that’s not a bad thing, right? — and you might have trouble focusing your attention. So, no driving or operating heavy machinery.” She laughed nervously at that, for some reason. “But don’t worry. It wears off soon enough. Drinking plenty of fluids will help, and don’t over-exert yourself.” She handed me a larger cup of water, which I took in sips.

She was right. My brain was packed full of fuzz and static, and I was aware of a certain disconnect… so I asked her, “I feel like I should be upset or angry, but I’m not. Is that the drug as well?”

“Yes. Didn’t I just tell you that? You’ll have to be careful for the next day or so. We’re going to keep you here for the night, and hopefully by the time you leave tomorrow you’ll be back to normal.” Then she coughed, as if the word normal caught in her throat.

“So, yeah,” I said, picking up the thread I’d dropped, “The last thing I remember… I was in my backyard. With my friends — my next-door neighbors.”

“Can you tell me your friends’ names?”

I hesitated. “Can I see my friends first?”

“You can see them in a little bit. As soon as you’re able.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, no, of course not. Not at all.”

“Where am I?’

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, okay… You have to — uh — I’m not here for… to… um.” She sighed heavily. “Just, um, just hang on. I’m going to call… someone… the person… who will explain everything to you.”

“Why can’t you explain?”

At that, she lost her patience. “Because it’s not my job!” she told me, in a voice full of frustration and irritation. She turned her back to me, picked up a phone, and in a low tone, as if she didn’t want me to hear, said, “Can you send someone to do the briefing? I’m getting peppered with questions here. Yes. Yes. Didn’t I just say? YES! Are you listening to me? Send… the person… right away!” She listened for a moment, then: “When I say ‘right away’ I mean RIGHT NOW, do you understand? ASAP! I don’t know how many ways I have to say it!” Then she abruptly hung up the phone, while the other person was still speaking.

When she turned to look at me again, her face was a little flushed. She was obviously trying to shake off her irritation. “How do you feel now?” she asked.

“I feel light,” I said. “Weirdly light.”

“Like you’re high?”

“No, like…” I laughed. “Ooh. My voice sounds light too. It’s like I just lost a hundred pounds or something. Isn’t that funny?” She smiled and laughed with me, polite laughter.

A moment later there came a knock at the door. The nurse opened it, and a thin, nasty looking man entered the room. He was dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved white dress shirt. He carried a tablet, which he was reading as he entered. He didn’t say a single word of greeting. He didn’t even nod hello. He simply glanced at me, at the tablet, then back and forth again. His eyebrows danced in what I took to be surprise.

Still, without acknowledging my presence, he turned his back to me and spoke with the nurse. I couldn’t hear his voice, but I heard the nurse say that she’d gotten “identity confirmation.” She also told him that I was still recovering from the tranqullizer dart, but didn’t need any other medical attention. He nodded, then gestured at the door with his head, and she left. It was all a bit rude. I was 80% sure that I didn’t like this guy.

He sat in a chair and pulled it close to the exam table I was lying on. “Hello there,” he said. “I’m a Special Agent with the FBI, and I’m here to explain things to you. You’re not under arrest; you’re not under suspicion. You haven't broken any law. So why are you here? I’ll tell you: The reason you’re here is because you were, unfortunately, caught up in a very complicated international case that’s extremely inconvenient for everyone concerned. That includes you. We’re going to clear up your part in this as quickly as possible so we can let you go. We’ll have to keep you overnight, but I promise that you’ll be out of here tomorrow, as early in the day as possible.”

I blinked and squinted.

“Does the light hurt your eyes?” he asked.

“A little, still,” I replied. “It’s passing.”

“Good.” He paused and looked at his tablet. “So… Leo, right?” He said it with this smirk, as if it were somehow funny. Now I was 90% sure I didn’t like him.

“Yeah,” I replied. “My name is Leo. Is that some kind of problem?”

He raised his eyebrows and made a face like he was biting his tongue.

“Look,” I said, “Can you please cut to the chase and tell me what the hell is going on here? I feel like I’m in some kind of guessing game.”

“Right,” he agreed. “You’re right. I will do exactly that, but first, can you tell me how much you remember? Then I’ll fill in the parts that you don’t know. It’ll be quicker that way.”

“Okay. So… I was in my backyard. I was… grilling some steaks. I was on my feet. I had a glass of wine in my hand. My wife was there, and another couple. They were sitting down, also drinking wine, eating appetizers…”

Again he glanced at his tablet. “Can you tell me your friends’ names? And your wife’s name?”

“Why?” I was getting suspicious.

“Just to confirm your memory.”

“The other couple was my friends Max and Meredith Shearpen. They live right next door. My wife’s name is Theresa Bliston.”

Again he smirked. I wanted to slap him, but I resisted the urge. It was more important to find out what was going on.

The agent asked, “And then what happened?”

“I was talking…” I said. As I spoke, the memory came drifting back, like a mist blowing in and taking shape. The picture grew clearer. I could almost feel and see it, as if it was happening now. “I was talking, and—” in my recollection, I could see her: the girl, crouching— “I realized there was this girl... on the other side of the gate. It was strange… like she was listening… like she was spying on us. It bugged me. It really rankled me. I set my glass down and took a step toward the gate. I remember… I wondered how long she’d been there, listening, wondered how much the girl had heard... when all of a sudden she stood up… straightened up. Like she didn't care at all about being caught. In fact, she opened the gate and walked right in.” I sniffed in disdain. The emotions were coming back along with the memory. "That really bugged me. So arrogant, like there was no problem with her eavesdropping or walking into my backyard uninvited." I shrugged. "She just walked in, like she owned the place."

“What did she look like?” the FBI man asked me, and his face was dancing, as if this was somehow funny. Again, I wanted to slap him, but — for the sake of getting this stupid interview over with, I went on with my story. Each detail pulled another.

“She was a kid, about thirteen or so. I remember thinking how skinny her legs were. She was wearing jeans, and her legs where like toothpicks. Her sneakers were this ugly orange color…" Now I could see her, in my mind's eye. "She was a skinny kid with black hair. I don’t know. I can’t remember much else.” For some reason, my heart started racing. The memory somehow seemed dangerous… or wrong, somehow. “I walked over to her. I was about to grab her by the arm, but she smiled and said she was looking for her dog…”

“She was looking for her dog?” he repeated.

“She said she was looking for her dog, but it sounded like a lie. And then what? Well anyway, there was no dog, anywhere. So it was total BS.” I paused, like I was watching a movie that I didn’t understand. My lips suddenly felt dry, so I licked them, and frowned, trying to remember. I took a sip of water and went on with my story. “So I grabbed her arm, and at that same moment, it was like somebody socked me in the gut. Like, really hard. It wasn't the girl, though; she didn’t hit me. She didn't even move. I didn’t see who or what it was, but I doubled over, like a steel fist out of nowhere got me right in the stomach.” I took a deep breath. What was happening to me? Why did this memory seem so disturbing? “After that, boom! There were people everywhere. People with guns, people yelling, people popping out of every corner. And all the guns were pointed directly at us... Ah! That’s when I was shot with a dart! Was that you guys?” Involuntarily I put my hand to my butt, where the dart had struck me.

“Yes, and on behalf of our team, I apologize. That was us. But in a moment you’ll understand why.” He leaned back in his chair. “Okay, thanks for your story. There isn’t any more, correct? Good. What you’ve told me tallies with everything your friends have already said. Now I’m going to explain what’s behind all the things you experienced, and what you missed while you were unconscious. I know that at first you’re not going to believe what I tell you, but unfortunately, it’s a fact. We’ll go over this again a couple of times, and eventually you will accept it as such.”

I frowned at that. He gave me a smile that was meant to be reassuring, but I didn’t find it reassuring at all..

“To put it briefly, there is a man named Ron Simon. He’s a thief, a murderer... probably a psychopath… from the UK. His story is long and complicated, but for the moment I’m going to give you the briefest summary, so we can get you processed and out of here. I'll tell you all you really need to know, in any case. So! In a nutshell, Simon got access to a discovery that allows him to switch identities with anyone he touches. That girl you met… she was actually Simon. A grown man in a young girl’s body.”

I was about to protest, but he put up his hand. “Just listen. Soon you’ll have more proof than you’ll ever need. Maybe more proof than you'll every want. So just listen. Let me finish. Simon has been jumping from body to body across Europe and now the US. He’s left a trail of chaos, confusion, and crime, and he’s nearly impossible to stop. In several countries, various police agencies are hunting him, trying to catch him, but he can jump from one person to another faster than thought. Just imagine, the policeman who’s about to arrest him is suddenly Simon. Who would know? The trusted bank employee who just held up the bank — Simon again. That’s why we tranquilized all of you immediately. We had no way of knowing who was Simon and who was an innocent bystander.”

I mulled this over. “And what happens to the people he switched with? Do you use the, uh, discovery or invention or whatever it is, to switch them back?”

“No, Simon destroyed every trace of that technology, and killed the scientist who discovered it.”

“Huh,” I said, taking it in. “So how do they switch back? The people who got switched? Do you bring them together and poof! they’re back to who they were? Like a Freaky Friday kind of thing? Or does the switch wear off after an hour or a day or something?”

“No. It never wears off. Nobody switches back. Ever. It’s a one-way ticket. Everyone who got switched is stuck. They’re stuck being whoever Simon was when he touched them. Forever.”

I struggled with the idea. “But… so… who is… Listen, let’s say you were Simon, and you switch with me. Then who are you?”

“I’d be you,” he said. “And you’d be Simon.” After a pause he added, "On the inside. Understand? If I was Simon and I switched with you, you'd be stuck in my body, and I -- Simon -- would be living in your body."

“But then I could switch back and we’d be like before.”

“No. Apparently Simon can only switch once with a person. It’s like being vaccinated. You can’t get it again. Don’t ask me why.”

“So, if I was in your body, and Simon was in mine… and I -- Simon -- switch with someone else… like the nurse… then Simon would be in the nurse's body, she would be in mine, and I would be in yours. Did I get that right?”

“A hundred percent.” He nodded.

“Forever,” I added.

“Yep.”

“Wow,” I said. “That would really suck.” I considered the implications. It would certainly suck, in a very big way.

There were still some pieces that didn’t fit yet. I frowned, trying to work it out. Then I asked, “So… that girl. She was Simon, right? Who is that girl now?”

The FBI man smiled. Not a nice smile. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. The punchline, the payload. He paused a moment for dramatic effect. Then he told me. “That would be you, Leo.”

My mouth fell open. At first I was speechless. Then I sputtered. I lifted my arms and legs to protest, and saw them for the first time. I was wearing a hospital gown, and covered by a sheet, but I could see how skinny my arms and legs were, how short I was, and how pale my skin had become. I actually had lost at least a hundred pounds. No wonder I felt lighter. “I’m the — she’s the — what!? No!” I exclaimed, fumbling my phrases. “NO! NO! NO!”

The asshole sat there smiling, clearly enjoying my confusion and surprise. He didn’t make any effort to hide his glee. He sat there like a bastard and smirked while I flipped out. My eyes, my hands, frantically explored my new body. Yes, skinny was the operative word. Somehow, I was now a skinny teenage kid. My hair was mercifully short, but unnaturally black.

“Switch me back!” I shouted. “Switch me the hell back!”

He shook his head and waited for me to quiet down. Then he consulted his tablet and told me, “I had to make a diagram to keep track of who’s who.” He was clearly loving this. By now, I was well over 1000% sure that I didn’t like him at all.

He turned his tablet toward me. He actually had a slideshow that illustrated every move Simon made. "The circles are the people. The arrows are the switches. At the start, the girl was Simon. She switched with you. So now the girl — you — is Leo. Then Simon jumped to Theresa, so Theresa is now in Leo’s body. Then, switch, switch, Meredith is in Theresa’s body, and Max is in Meredith’s body.”

“And Simon?”

“Simon is in Max’s body.”

I frowned. I couldn’t follow the new who’s who. As soon as he told me the changes, I forgot them all.

I asked, “Did you catch that asshole? I would love to kick his ass.”

At that, the agent burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but that’s just too rich. With that tiny little foot of yours? He wouldn’t even feel it.”

I fumed, and balled up my fists, but I knew that losing my temper wasn’t going to help anything. I opened my fists and sat on my hands. Swallowing my bile, I asked, “But you tranquilized everyone, you said. Everyone includes Max, so you must have caught him.”

“No,” the agent said. “Max — or Simon now — jumped your back fence before our agents swarmed your yard. We didn’t know he was there, so we didn’t know he was missing. In fact, we had no idea that he’d gone until he was well away. We figured that one of you was Simon, and that we’d finally caught him. We didn’t give chase because we didn’t know anyone was running.”

I sat there in silence, marinating in all this new information. In retrospect, I can see that the tranquilizer dart helped me keep my cool. Otherwise, I would have been screaming, raving, punching and kicking. The agent gave me a few moments to take it in.

“Do you have any questions?” he asked with a smirk.

“Yes,” I said. “Did anyone think to turn off my grill?”

“Your grill?” he repeated, not understanding.

“Yeah, the grill in my backyard.”

We looked each other in the eye for a few seconds, until he got it. As an expression of hostility it was pretty weak, but it was the best I could do at the moment.

“Oh, yeah, your grill. Uh, probably, yeah,” he nodded. “In any case, I’m sure the steaks are done by now. I’m sure they’re WELL done by now.”

He laughed, but I didn’t.

 

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The agent called the nurse back. She arrived carrying some nondescript clothes. The agent stepped into the hall while I dressed. The clothes were kind of big on me, but the pants stayed up, which was the main thing. The agent escorted me to a different room, where a tired-looking lawyer was waiting for me.

He shifted some papers on his desk and asked, “Bliston, Leo?” I nodded. “This session is being recorded. Please respond verbally yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“Born May 25, 1978?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Now, you may have been told that the woman who was your wife, Theresa, now inhabits your old body, and that her body is now inhabited by—” He consulted his tablet— “Meredith Shearpen. Also, your friend Max Shearpen is now in Meredith’s former body. It’s a real mess.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Yes, and I have to tell you, that — from my experience — each person is likely to feel that they’ve drawn the short end of the stick. Your friends were given the option of assuming new identities, but as a group, they’ve decided to keep the identity of the body they now inhabit. After some discussion, they came to the conclusion that it was the easiest thing, albeit somewhat mind-bending and uncomfortable.”

“They’re going to have to make some serious adjustments,” the FBI agent commented with a smirk. The lawyer and I ignored him.

“I asked several times, in various ways, whether any of them would be willing to take you into their care,” the lawyer continued.

“Why would you ask that?” I interrupted. “I can take care of myself.”

The agent scoffed. The lawyer shot him a look.

“No, you can’t,” the lawyer contradicted. “I’m not surprised that you haven’t considered some of the more immediate consequences of your change, but the fact is, you are now a minor. That’s an important, determinant fact. Physiologically, you are thirteen years old, no matter how much life experience you’ve accumulated. When you leave this facility, no one will vouch for your previous age or identity. You will be a new person, and as that new person you have to consider your options.”

“None of my friends wanted me?” I asked, both offended and surprised. “None of them?”

The agent laughed. “No, not one of them! They didn’t even need to think about it. Especially your wife! She sounded good and glad to be rid of you, although she was more than a little miffed to find out that she’s you now.”

“We are helping them with some small adjustments and counseling…” the lawyer began, but the agent interrupted again.

“I don’t know whether you understand how much your so-called friends dislike you,” he continued. “The way they tell it, you’ve screwed up each of their lives to a significant degree. Did you know that your wife has been planning to file for divorce? She’s been working on it for months. Did you know that?”

Actually, I didn’t know that. Still, it was none of his business. “Hey!” I shot back. “You don’t get to talk to me like that!”

“Why? Are you going to cry, little girl? What are you going to do about it? File a complaint? Who’re you going to file it with? You going to write a letter to the newspapers, or tell the world on Twitter? You might as well put in a letter to Santa Claus! Nobody’s going to believe you. Think about it: this place doesn’t exist. The lawyer, the nurse, me — none of us exist. You don’t know our names. You have no idea where you are. But you know what? We’ve seen dozens of people just like you. Dozens! We clean them up, put them on their feet, and send them out of here. That’s all we do. That’s all we can do. You’ll be out of here tomorrow, and once you leave, you'll never come back, and none of this have ever happened. Do you understand?

“Besides, I think your friends would be happy to know I’m telling you all this. They were pretty tired of putting up with your shit.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” the lawyer said. “I have to get out of here, too, you know.” He shuffled some papers for emphasis, and the agent gestured that he was done talking. The lawyer continued.

“As I said, you’re a minor. Right now, you have two possibilities. The first is that you go into the system, become a ward of the state. Some family could foster you, hopefully a nice family with a nice home. You might even get adopted. That’s door number one.

“Door number two, on the other hand, is that you live this girl’s life, the way your friends are living each other’s lives. You pick up where she left off. You take her name, her identity, become a part of her family. The girl’s parents are coming. They want to talk to you. They’ll be here tomorrow. They’ll meet you, talk with you, maybe offer to take you in.”

I scoffed. I couldn’t help it.

“If I were you,” the lawyer said, “I’d make a serious effort to make nice with the girl’s parents. You’re better off in a settled, stable situation. With them, you’d have the added advantage of their knowing who you really are. If you go into the system, you’ll be just another teenage orphan. If you start telling people that you’re really 42, they’ll think you’re nuts. This family, on the other hand, will understand… as far as they’re able.

“You’ve got tonight to think it over. The parents will be here after breakfast.” He straightened his papers into a single pile and put them in his briefcase, along with his tablet. Then he looked me in the eye.

“From what your friends said, you don’t sound like the nicest person. In fact, you sound like a con man. A shyster. Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t try to con this couple. Be sincere and truthful, even if it’s difficult. You don’t want to bullshit them, because I think they’re on their last—” He stopped himself, and considered for a moment.

He shook his head before continuing. “I shouldn’t be telling you their story. You’ll find out when you meet them. It’s as much their decision as it is yours. I suggest that you listen to them. If you’re smart you’ll make up your mind to go home with them. If they take you, they will literally be giving you a second chance at life. If you want to stick to your old ways, if you want to be a cheat and a con and an asshole, then tell me that you want to go into the system. Roll the dice. On the other hand, if you want to start clean and new and make something worthwhile out of your life, go with the girl’s parents.”

A Minority Of One : 2 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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Men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things. — Zane Grey

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When I left the meeting with the lawyer, I had a lot to think about. I could kind of understand that Theresa might see me as an “asshole” — I mean, we were married for twenty years! You can’t live with anyone in such proximity without irritating each other! You get to notice things… little things… like the way that Theresa says “consequently” a thousand times a day. I’ve never said anything to her about it, but it bugs me. Still, I’ve never made a big deal out of it. When you’re married, you have to let things go.

The FBI agent was walking at my side, smirking like the jackass that he was. He stopped abruptly, struck by a thought. “Hey,” he said, as if reading my mind, “It really bugs you that your friends didn’t want to adopt you, doesn’t it? Maybe there’s a way you can fix that: you can tell them that, now that you’re pint sized, they can spank you whenever you misbehave.”

I gave him a look of disgust. “That is SO inappropriate, man. Grossly inappropriate.” He let out a short bark of a laugh, and started walking again.

I was just about to ask him what time it was, where we were going, and whether I could get something to eat, when we turned the corner and ran into the nurse.

“Hi!” she said, with a smile at me. “I was coming to get you. I’ve got something for you to eat, and then I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. How’s that sound?”

“Great,” I replied, and the two of us looked in silence at the FBI guy until he put up his hands and said, “Okay, okay! I’m leaving,” He turned and walked away.

The nurse led me to a small, nondescript break room. There was a fridge, a microwave, a sink, and a table with four chairs. I sat in a chair while she fetched my “dinner” from the fridge: three plastic-wrapped sandwiches, an apple, and — believe it or not — a half-pint carton of milk.

“Gee, thanks, Mom!” I said, in a chirpy, teen-girl voice. She burst out laughing.

“There’s cake if you’re good — but only if you eat all your dinner,” she replied, in a joking version of a “Mom” voice.

“Is there really cake?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s cake,” she said. Then, hesitating, she added, “Seeing as how today is your birthday — in a way — I thought about giving you the cake first, but if you eat the cake, you won’t eat the sandwiches.”

I was about to contradict, when my stomach let out a loud rumble. I sighed with resignation and tore open the sandwiches. The choices were tuna salad, chicken salad, and bologna with cheese. Whoever made the sandwiches leaned heavily on the mayonnaise. “Now I know where I am,” I told her. “This has to be the Mayo Clinic.”

She made a puzzled frowned, silently repeating Mayo Clinic. When I lifted a slice of bread to show her the generous slathering of thick, white sauce atop the orange cheddar, she got it. “Hmm,” she observed, “That *is* a lot of mayo, but I you might want to leave the Dad jokes behind when you start your new life.”

“Hmmph.” If the FBI guy had said it, I would have been angry, but I knew that the nurse was nothing but kind. She was probably right, as well.

I took an experimental bite of the chicken salad. It wasn’t bad. The tuna sandwich was a little soggy, so I ate that first.I couldn’t deal with the bologna-cheddar-mayo combination, even after wiping most of the mayo off.

The milk? Well, it tasted milky, the way milk does. “I haven’t had a glass of milk in what? Twenty— thirty years?” I mused. The strange incongruity of my remark caught the two of us up short. We looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, then let the awkward moment pass in awkward silence.

After I finished the sandwiches and the apple, she produced a large slice of a beautiful multi-layer cake. There was chocolate icing between the two bottom layers and raspberry icing between the two top layers. It was covered with a white buttercream icing. I took a forkful, and found it superb.

“I can’t believe this cake came from the same kitchen as those whack-ass sandwiches!” I exclaimed, and got up to grab a second half-pint of milk.

“It’s not from the same kitchen,” she confessed. “It’s actually the last piece of Ron’s birthday cake. I kind of stole it.”

“Who’s Ron?” I asked. She didn’t answer, she just let a half-smile dance on her lips. I got it in one: “He’s the FBI ass—”

“Ah-ah-ah!” she cautioned, cutting me off with finger wag and a smile. “Now that you’re this size and shape, you’re going to have quit swearing. If you don’t, it will make you stand out, and not in a good way.”

I shrugged and dug into the cake, which was now doubly excellent.

 

---

 

In spite of the sugary cake, I was tired when I finished eating. The nurse brought me to a dorm room. Like every other room in this place, it was painted the same dull, institutional green that gave a definite “prison” vibe. There were four sets of bunk beds bolted to the floor. The door was locked, but there was a phone on the wall next to the door. It had no dial or keypad, but the nurse told me that if I took the phone off the hook it would ring at the security desk down the hall. The room had an attached bathroom fitted with two showers, two sinks, and two toilet stalls.

She gave me towels, sheets, a pillow case, and a blanket. When I stared at her blankly, she sighed and made up the bed closest to the bathroom.

"Hey, where are the others? My friends? My so-called friends."

"We don't put kids and adults together," she replied.

"Got it." It made sense. In my particular case, maybe they kept us apart so they wouldn't have a fight on their hands.

After she left, I realized I had no idea what time it was. I wanted to know, but didn’t seem important enough to pick up the phone and ask. It was strange, not knowing — I mean, I didn’t even have a general sense of which part of the day it was: Day or night? Morning or evening? Did I just eat lunch or dinner? Or was it a midnight snack?

Of course, I had no sense of how long I’d been knocked out, and consequently how long I’d been in this place. There were no windows, so there was no light from outside. The lights in the hallway dimmed after the nurse left, so it felt like night.

The nurse suggested I take a shower before bed (“It’ll help you relax, and you are a bit stinky”) but instead I curled up in the blanket and lay on the bed fully clothed. I didn’t even bother to take off my shoes until I half-woke later in the apparent night and kicked them off.

It took a long time to fall asleep. Sure I was tired, and I still felt sleepy and fuzzy-headed from the tranquilizer dart. Unfortunately, everything else militated against my drifting off.

First of all, the crappy food. My stomach hurt. Maybe that was down to nerves, or the way I gobbled them up. I had eaten with unusual speed. Maybe that was part of having a teenage metabolism.

On the other hand I had to wonder whether this girl — this girl’s body — was lactose intolerant. Did mayonnaise have lactose? Or worse, was she gluten intolerant? Did mayonnaise have gluten? Anyway, either of those intolerances would suck. Having both would suck even more. If she did have some intolerance, would it mean that I’d wake up with diarrhea? (Spoiler: I didn’t.)

Second, the creepy surroundings. I had no idea where on earth we were. It seemed like a military base, but I wasn’t aware of any military base anywhere near home. Did that mean we were far away? Or was this a secret urban base, hidden in plain sight? Or deep underground somewhere? Did secret underground bases even exist in this country? There was no way of knowing — they’d be secret! At the same time, this place didn’t need to be very big to accommodate the handful of rooms I’d seen. For all I knew, we could be in a basement at an industrial park.

Third, wherever I was, I was certainly a prisoner. They assured me that I wasn’t; they told me explicitly that I wasn’t under arrest or in any kind of trouble, but it sure felt like captivity. I mean, I couldn’t leave, right?

Which led to the fourth thing: when they DID let me go, they’d have to give me to someone. I was a minor, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t live on my own except as a runaway. Unfortunately, running away wasn’t a viable option. Even if I managed to (1) get away, and (2) cook up a fake identity with (3) a fake ID, there was no way I could pass for an adult: I was flat as a board; obviously pre-pubescent. And I was small — which was an issue in itself. Being pint-sized was was even weirder than being a girl. As Leo I would have filled this bunk. I would have found it cramped and small. Now, no matter how I lay, there was space below my feet and above my head. Another kid my size could fit in next to me without crowding. And — as the FBI guy had observed — if I needed to kick someone in the ass, these little feet of mine wouldn’t make any impact. If I balled up my little fists and gave someone a punch in the gut, even if I put every ounce of strength and every atom of weight behind it, they’d laugh it off.

My point being, I couldn’t survive on my own. Not in this body.

And so, oh boy, there was a *fifth* item to add to the list of disturbing stuff to keep me awake: In a few years — by the way, how many years would it be? —I’d start having the monthly blues — or reds, really. How messy was THAT going to be? I tried to mentally gather everything I knew about menstruation. It didn’t take long: I knew next to nothing about it. I mean, I understood the process on a vague, textbook level, but what was it like to experience a period? Would I be an irrational bitch half the time? Without any effort, I could call to mind a dozen times that Theresa lay into me, shouting, even screaming, over nothing whatsoever. All on account of good old Aunt Flo. Great. Now I’d be doing that, too.

And didn’t cramps come with that as well? And headaches? I wasn’t sure about those items, but one thing I *was* sure about, was the mess.

It would be nice to know how much warning you get, before it comes. Maybe I could get the lowdown on all that from the nurse in the morning.

Strangely though, of all the things I had to grapple with, the one item that was clearest and most concrete was the whole Switcher business, with this Simon guy. That part — the craziest, most far-fetched part — was the easiest to believe. I didn’t need a mirror to know what I’d become: I could feel it. And I could see it, simply by looking down at myself. I was living in a different body. I was somebody else, somebody different, now. No doubts; no fuzzy uncertainties. I couldn’t question the evidence of my senses. That would be insanity.

From there, my thoughts drifted inevitably to my wife and friends — each of them in their new bodies. At least in their cases, they already knew their new selves. They already had history with the person they had become. I pictured each of them and mentally swapped the personalities with the faces. It could be comical, like a wacky sitcom. Whatever. I’m sure they’ll get used to it.

Which was a sixth thing! Right? I was up to six things, so far, that were keeping me awake, yes. And what a thing! Why did Theresa suddenly hate me and want to toss me over the side? She always wanted a child, and here I was, ready made: the child she never had.

Yes, sure — there was a bundle of sensitive issues there… It would be weird as hell, but the two of us had history together. Big history. How could she, when things got a little strange, give me a flat NO, right out of hand? How could she throw me off the train, so to speak? How could she abandon me? Involuntarily I pictured Theresa and me: the two of us together, as mother and daughter — but only for a moment. My mind rejected the image. The picture was wrong, anyway: I imagined Theresa as she used to be: a woman, living in her own body, and me as I am now — a little girl. But that’s not how it would go. Theresa was me now — Leo. She was a great big guy. We’d be father and daughter, not mother and daughter. We'd be like Gerard Depardieu and Katherine Heigl in My Dad The Hero. Okay, I had to admit: it would be very awkward. It would be awkward as hell.

Alright. I could see that she wouldn’t want me as her child — let alone daughter! — but divorce? Why on earth would she divorce me?

Then again, who would she really be divorcing? Let’s see — Theresa was now me. Meredith was now Theresa. So… in reality, Theresa would be divorcing Meredith. That made some kind of sense.

And Max? Max would be all alone, as Meredith. Oh man, what a fate! Not that Meredith was bad-looking. I mean, she was okay. Although I couldn’t picture Max being interested in guys. And what would he do for a living? Max was a big-time computer programmer — he couldn’t just show up at his office out of the blue as Meredith and say, “Hey, everything that Max could do, I can do now!”

He’d have to pick up Meredith’s Maid Service — her home and office cleaning business.

And THAT pulled in yet another consideration to really keep me awake: the job, the heist.

When that goddamn girl walked into our yard, I had just begun to outline a job: a con, a major theft — one that couldn’t work without Meredith’s business.

I nearly let the cat out of the bag about that, when I told the agent that I “wondered how much the girl had heard.” If the agent wasn’t so intent on smirking at my situation, he would have asked, “Heard about what? What were you talking about?” Then, no matter what I answered, he’d go ask the same question of my three friends.

I’m not sure, though, how much they'd be able to tell him. The heist is still only an idea. A lot of key pieces were still missing, a lot of details that I didn’t know. It isn’t workable yet. The basic idea was sound, though. I hate the phrase “the perfect crime” — I’m not sure that there *is* such a thing. A perfect crime is a one that no one notices. A perfect crime is like a perfect game in baseball: it seems like nothing happened. No one realizes a crime has been committed at all. That’s what makes it perfect.

However, an unreportable crime comes in as a very strong second to “perfect,” and my idea was in that category: there was a way to steal millions, literal millions — maybe even half a billion — from someone who was a thief himself. He wouldn’t be able to call *any* branch of law enforcement without exposing his own crimes. In fact, after the heist, his best move would be to go on the run himself, which had the added benefit of leading everyone to believe that he took all the money himself, including the money we stole.

It was good, really good. It was tantalizing. The excitement of it kept me up at night. Even so, the plan had too many holes: I needed a lot more information. That was the point of the barbecue: I wanted to float the idea to the others, and talk it through. I needed input from Theresa and cooperation from Meredith. Max was just a bonus — if I could hook him, I figured it would make it easier to interest the two women.

My spirit fell again… I had assumed that my friends — if they were my friends — would be willing to discuss the idea, at least as a hypothetical. I felt sure that they’d want to help me work out the rough spots, fill in the gaps, but maybe I was wrong.

I knew they weren’t criminals, but this was an opportunity that could tempt anyone. It certainly tempted me, almost to the point of obsession.

Let’s say that they took in enough of what I did manage to say… let’s say they grasped the basic idea. From there, they might be able to work out what was missing, how to do it. They wouldn’t need me. Certainly I brought a certain expertise to the table, even in my present form, but they’d have to be willing to listen, to give me a chance.

Unfortunately, though — if the FBI guy was to be believed — my “friends” didn’t want to hear anything from me. They were angry and offended and glad to be rid of me.

I wiped my nose on the edge of the blanket, and frowned to myself. I’d covered all the topics that were keeping me awake, and pretty much put them to rest, or least set them to the side for now. The only ones that still rankled were the divorce and the badmouthing.

The FBI guy claimed that my friends bitched about me, and said that I’d “ruined” their lives. But was that really how the conversation went? Let’s say that Theresa was angry, upset, and frustrated — among other things, about this Switcher business. Okay. So she looks in the mirror, she sees my face, and out of force of habit, she fires off a few old complaints about me. Standard stuff: everything is Leo's fault. The FBI guy, who is clearly a loser, is already salivating at the idea of mocking me for ending up as a little girl. Now, he hears Theresa airing old, shop-worn complaints. For him, on the other hand, it’s dirt he’s never heard before, so he thinks it’s a bright, new, juicy revelation.

Meredith is there. She’s Theresa’s best friend, almost to the point of being servile. Okay. So, as Theresa’s BFF, Meredith would go along with anything Theresa said. She’d echo Theresa’s complaint, and probably amplify or extend it a little. That made sense: that’s what always happened. Theresa bitches a little, and Meredith jumps on board. She’s that kind of person. If Theresa said something absurd, like “I hate pizza!” Meredith would pipe up and say, “I hate pizza, too! I’ve ALWAYS hated pizza! What’s up with pizza, anyway?” Of course, neither of them actually feel that way. It’s just a thing they do.

All the while the stupid FBI guy is there, soaking it up, thinking he’s hearing something I haven’t already heard a hundred times or more. He’s listening and smirking.

Then there’s Max. Max is my friend. I love him to death, but he’ll do anything to get along. He absolutely hates confrontation. The man has no backbone. He’ll lie down and let Meredith walk all over him. If Meredith says, “Pizza sucks” Max will say, “Oh, yeah. I was just about to say that.”

Let’s be clear about one thing, though: they all love pizza. None of them have ever said a word against it. It’s just a made-up example. And — they all love me. In spite of the things they might have said, or things the FBI clown misunderstood.

Okay, so that settled that.

There was just one thing left: something the nurse said, that needed checking out.

I stuck my nose inside my shirt, inhaled, then sniffed my hair. Whoa! I wasn’t just “a bit stinky” — I reeked. Badly. I was a real stink bomb. I sighed, a loud, heavy sigh. Then, on purpose, I let out a REALLY loud, exaggerated sigh. I was all alone, so what difference did it make? And so what if I was stinky? There was no one here to smell me.

I took a whiff of myself again and groaned. It was bad. Like dead-animal bad. The thing is, I didn’t want to take a shower. Not for anything. I could reek until morning, as far as I was concerned. The problem with taking a shower was, if I took a shower, I’d have to take off my clothes. If I took off my clothes, I’d see myself naked, in my new body. I wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t deal with it yet. If I saw myself naked, I’d be crossing the Rubicon. There would be no way I could pretend I was still the same person, not even inside. I was somebody else now. Everything had changed or was going to change. But not tonight. I could hold everything off for one night. I’d take my shower in the morning, and THEN everything could change.

Tomorrow, I’d see my friends, Theresa, Meredith, and Max. Now that I’d thought things through, I wasn’t angry with them. I was hurt, for sure, but I understood. I resigned myself that when it came time to say goodbye, I’d do my best to leave on good terms. I could forgive them.

And did I really have to say goodbye? We’ll see.

After that, I’d meet this girl’s parents. They’d probably want to see if this could work… if they could take me, as if I was their actual daughter. My heart sank. How could they possibly want me? I wasn’t her. I couldn't be her; I knew nothing at all about her. I took a breath, and accidentally sobbed, a single sob. Or something that sounded like a sob, a little sob. I wasn’t crying.

But, face it: My own friends didn’t want me, and they know me. This couple, this girl's parents, not only didn’t know me from Adam (or Eve), but I wasn’t their daughter. I couldn’t begin to pretend to be their daughter. Why were they even bothering to come? There wasn’t any con or charm to work on these people. One look at me, and it would be over. Everything about me, every word I said, every facial expression, every gesture, every tone, every movement — every everything would scream I’M NOT NOT HER!

I started to cry. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. My nose ran like a dripping wound, and — like the asshole that I am — I wiped my runny nose on the clean blanket again. I blew my nose copiously on the pillowcase and flipped the pillow over. Sorry, but I wasn’t getting out of bed just to find a tissue. I curled up in my blanket-cocoon, miserable and stinking, and cried like a lost little girl.

 

---

 

The next thing I knew, someone was gently shaking me. “Wake up. Wake up, Leo. Time to wake up.”

I blinked into the light. It was the nurse, from yesterday. She was holding her nose and waving her hand in front of her face.. “You didn’t take a shower, Leo! Why didn’t you? You smell bad! REALLY bad.”

“I didn’t want to,” I mumbled.

“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I didn’t want to,” I said, this time clearly.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want— I didn’t want to see myself naked.”

“Ohhh!” she exclaimed, getting it. “Okay,” she said, speaking gently. “What if I help you, and you keep your eyes shut?”

I considered it for a moment, then declined. “No, I’ll do it,” I said. “I have to get over it — get it over with. Bite the bullet, whatever. One thing that might help, though, would be a small shot of a tranquilizer dart, if you still have one.”

Of course she didn’t have one. She wouldn’t give me one, even if she did. I only was joking, anyway.

While she waited, I stripped, and saw my pale, bony frame for the first time. I conceded myself a single sigh, then got down to it. I shampooed my hair, I soaped up and washed every part of me. I felt forlorn, helpless, and alone. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the sink. I looked like a drowned cat. Even so, I didn’t stop to soak in self-pity. I kept going. For a second time, I shampooed and soaped up all over again to make sure I got the stink out. I had to try and make a good impression on the girl’s parents.

Once I was dry, dressed, and had brushed my teeth (twice!), and combed my hair, I felt a lot better, although I wasn’t optimistic on my chances with the parents.

“Can I see my friends now?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “I’m sorry, but they’re gone. They left. Once they worked out their legal stuff, they were escorted out.”

“Without saying goodbye.”

She hesitated, then after a look at me said, “Actually, they *did* want to see you. They wanted to confront you — particularly your, ah, ex-wife. In her exact words, she wanted to really tell you off. She wanted let you have it, once and for all.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“When she and the others saw you sleeping, she lost the heart to do it.”

I frowned, not understanding, so the nurse explained, “You’re forgetting: you’re a little girl. You look quite angelic when you’re asleep.”

“Huh.”

“Your wife was embarrassed. REALLY embarrassed. She turned all red, and left, and once we were out of earshot, she couldn’t stop talking about how she’d feel like a monster laying into you now, and so on.”

“Okay,” I said. “I get the picture. So when do this girl’s parents arrive? And what is this girl’s name, by the way?”

“Celine Morsten,” the nurse replied.

“Where is the real Celine Morsten? Who is she now?”

“Um… she was shot dead by police in a separate Switcher incident.”

 

---

 

After breakfast, I met with the lawyer again. He repeated that I would leave in one of two ways: I’d either be accepted by the Morstens as their daughter, or go to child protective services as an orphan. “Those are your only possibilities,” he said. “If the Morstens don’t want you, you’ll be out of here as soon as we issue your new documents. You might start thinking of what you’d like to call yourself, if the Morstens don’t want you.”

“What I’d like to call myself?” I repeated stupidly.

“Yes, you’ll need a name. A whole new name. First name, last name… middle name, if you like. You ought to start thinking now, because if the Morstens say no, you’ll be gone as soon as your documents are ready. If you don’t have a name right then, one will be chosen for you at random, from a list.”

At that, I drew a blank. I sat in a chair for a half hour, waiting for the Morstens. All I could think about was my name. Your Name Here. Who could I be? First name, last name. Something, Something. Hi, I’m — something. My name is — Bond, James Bond. Dent, Arthur Dent. Fine, but I needed a woman’s name. Hello! My name is “fill in the blank.” Could I be “Celine Morsten” even if they didn’t want me? Probably not.

Names flowed through my head. None of them were any good. They were either (1) stupid names (like Bertha Twins or Tess Tickles), (2) names of people I knew, or (3) names of famous people. For a few minutes I actually believed that it would be cool as hell if I called myself Rebecca De Mornay. Sure, it’s the coolest name ever, but it wouldn’t work. They probably wouldn’t let me choose it, anyway. Then, some ridiculous part of my subconscious threw up the name Monalisa Heggadeggaden. I don’t know where it came from, but like a stupid song that gets stuck in your brain, once that idiotic name came into my head, I couldn’t shake it. I struggled to find a plausible name to drive it out, but it resisted.

It was so persistent, in fact, that when I finally met Mr Morsten and shook his hand, I almost said, “Hello, my name is Monalisa Heggadeggaden,” but I managed to squelch the impulse and just say, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m pretty overwhelmed, honestly,” I confessed. Then I noticed that he’d been crying: his eyes and nose were red. He looked pretty damn tired, as well. So I asked, “How are you doing?”

“Not very well,” he said. “All of this Switcher shit… on top of everything else...” he let the words trail off. He was a big guy, six-three maybe, 230 pounds? He was built like a linebacker. He didn’t look like the type who cried very often.

“So, your name is Leo, is that right?” he asked me. “I mean your real name, who you were before.”

“Right. Leo Bilsten.”

“Leo, I’m Ken.” He took a breath, and began. “So here’s the deal, Leo: My wife and I have lost our daughter.”

“I know, I heard she was shot.”

He winced at the word. “Yes, she was. She was. But did you know that she provoked the shooting?”

“What?”

“Yes, Celine was… wild. Feral. She had zero impulse control. She was destructive, violent.” He paused and looked off before confessing, in a low, intense tone, ”My wife and I, we were afraid of her.”

“Think about that,” he said, letting it sink in. “Think about being afraid of your own child. I’m not a fearful man. I’m a cop, I’d like to say that I’m not afraid of anything, but that little girl scared the hell out of me. The shit she pulled nearly destroyed us, a few times over. I’ve had to leave my job, pull up roots, and move three times, on account of stuff she’s done. And she was never sorry. Never.

“I’m not going to get into her life story, except to say that we just moved, just one week ago. I’m supposed to start a new job, in new place. Then this Switcher business happened. That Simon guy, after he took her identity, he came along on the move and actually lived with us! For a little over a week. We thought Celine had finally turned over a new leaf, but instead it was that murderous psychopath laying low. A policewoman who’d seen the switch finally helped track Celine down. That was yesterday, when the switch was pulled on you.”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t quite follow the details, but I let it go.

“Here’s the deal, Leo: We talked with your friends. They told us a lot about you. They said you’ve committed fraud, you’ve conned people and gotten away with it. You’ve stolen and cheated and never held an honest job. Is that true?”

I looked him the eye. I wasn’t going to lie. I didn’t expect this to work out, and after seeing his distress, I figured the best thing I could do was to try to make it easy for them to say goodbye. If I made it clear that I only looked like their daughter, maybe they’d have a chance at moving on.

So I said, “Yes, it’s true. I’m not an honest person. I’ve never held a real job. I’ve used the people around me… It’s all true. I don’t know what my friends have said, but I’m sure that whatever they told you is accurate.”

Ken nodded. “On the other hand, your friend Max or Meredith, however you want to call him or her, said that you have a good heart and that if we offered you a second chance, you might use it in the right way.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t want to make promises. I found myself saying, “I appreciate Max’s vote of confidence.”

Ken nodded again.

“Here’s the deal, Leo: our daughter Celine put us through hell. We don’t miss that, but she was our daughter. We loved her and we miss her. Here is my offer: if you come with us, *you* will be our daughter. We know that you’re not Celine. You won’t have to pretend with Lois and me. You can talk about being Leo, if you need to — and that’s not something you’ll be able to do if you go into the system.

“We want a second chance at raising our daughter. We’d like to see it turn out right for a change. We’ll treat you right, and we expect you to treat us right. Remember though: it’s a two-way street. If you want us to trust and respect you, you’re going to have to trust and respect us. It won’t work if it everything only goes in one direction, the way it did with the real Celine.

“You have to understand viscerally that we are damn fucking tired of living in hell. If you engage in criminal activity, if you take drugs, if you drink before you’re legal, if you lie or steal, if you even try to commit fraud, if you behave in any way that makes our lives difficult, we will disown you and make sure you end up in juvie or in jail, whichever is more appropriate. And believe me, by now I know how to make that happen very quickly.

“We want a normal, quiet life. If you want that, too, then we can try to do this together. We’ll get a second chance with Celine, and you’ll get a second chance as Celine.

“But only a second chance. There won’t be a third. If you fuck up, you’re done.”

“What do you say, Leo? Should I call my wife in, so the three of us can talk? Or should we call it quits right here?”

A Minority Of One : 3 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

The difficulty, the ordeal, is to start. — Zane Grey

---

 

Once Ken was done, his wife Lois, Celine’s mother, came into the room. She didn’t shake my hand. She didn’t greet me, not even with a nod. She gave me a look that chilled me to the bone, after which she sat down and, without preamble, began to speak in a low voice, nearly devoid of emotion.

“There’s something that no man can understand,” she said, “and that’s the connection between a mother and her daughter. That body that you’re living in--" here she pointed at me-- "grew inside me for nine months. I held… you… when you were a defenseless infant, and I fed you from my own breasts. Of course, not you; it was Celine, but you — the physical you, comes from me. You came out of me. That is the strongest fact in my life. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the strongest tie in the universe. Do you understand?”

Although I had no idea what to say, I opened my mouth to speak. Lois didn’t wait for my reply.

“I’m going through the worst, most twisted emotions you can imagine. Even before she was born, my daughter was part of my life — for good and bad, she was part of me. Then we find out that all last week, it wasn’t even her — it was that psychopath, living inside her like a parasite! And now she’s gone — dead!” A sob fought to emerge from her throat, but she choked it back down, and kept going. “She was shot — like a common criminal. And now, there’s you.” She gestured at me.

“Whoever you are, you’re not Celine. I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m Leo—”

She interrupted. “I wasn’t asking you. I’m talking because I’m trying to make you feel what I feel. You’re my daughter, but you’re not my daughter.” She shook her head. Tears welled up, but she didn’t cry. Her tears never left her eyes.

I cleared my throat and spoke. “Look, Mrs. Morsten — Lois. Maybe the best thing for all three of us is for me to walk away right now and leave you. I’ll ask them to send me someplace far away, so you’ll never see me, even by accident. I’m not her… I can’t pretend to be.”

“That won’t work,” she said in a flat, dismissive tone. “Do you have any children?”

The absurdity of the question wasn’t lost on us, but I knew she meant as Leo. I shook my head, no.

“When you have a child, they are part of you, forever. Every birthday, every anniversary of her death — those days will darken my heart until the end of my life. And you — If you walk out of this room and enter the system, if we never see you again, I will think about you every day. I won’t want to, but that’s what will happen. Every moment, I’ll wonder where you are and what you’re doing. Even though you’re not her, I’ll worry about all the bad things that could happen to you. I’ll wonder whether you’re alive or dead, sick or well. It will kill me not to know anything about you.

“I know you’re not Celine, inside. You don’t have her soul or her mind, thank goodness, but you have the part that we made. To tell the truth, I don’t want you in our home. It disgusts me that that Simon creature lived with us for a week.” She turned to face Ken. “All that long drive here, it was him in the back seat.”

She fell silent for a moment. Then she went on:

“It’s not that we want Celine back. She made us suffer in ways I didn’t think were possible. I didn’t think she would live to see her eighteenth birthday, and I was right.”

While Lois talked, Ken twisted his hands, one in the other. He kept taking deep breaths and looking away. Sometimes he squirmed and moved his chair an inch one way or another.

While Ken struggled physically with his emotions, Lois barely moved. She’d lift her head to look in my eyes. She’d lower her head to look at the floor. At times she’d make a gesture, but for the most part, she was stock still. Her clothes hung loose upon her, like a scarecrow. Clearly she was burned out. She had no more emotion to give. First Celine, then Simon, had drained her dry.

Even so, she wanted a win here. She was not going to walk away with her hands empty. There was one last thing she refused to let go of, and that “something” was me. Or at least part of me.

“I know you’re not a good man,” she told me, looking me square in the eye. “At least, that’s what your friends have told us. And I know that if we don’t take you, you’ll be a ward of the state, an orphan. If that happens, you won’t be able to talk to anyone about who you really are and how you came to be.

“The same is true for us: the way we lost Celine — it will always be a shameful secret. If you don’t come with us, the State will say she died. They’ll give us a fake death certificate and a story to tell, and that will be the end.

“If you *do* come with us, at least we’ll have that much in common, like three random survivors of a shipwreck, washed up on shore together. We’ll help you learn to live as a teenage girl, and on the outside we’ll look like any normal family. But when we’re alone, we’ll talk sometimes about the horrible things we’ve seen in this life.”

When she looked at me, she looked into my eyes. It was a soulless look that I’ve never experienced before. It wasn’t disgust or anger or sorrow that I read in her eyes. There was a wasteland behind her eyes: a black, burned-over landscape, with no sign of life between here and the horizon. Honestly, the woman terrified me. Her suffering was a black hole; sitting so close to her made me feel I was perched at the very edge of an abyss, and I was afraid I might fall in and never return.

And yet, in spite of Ken’s physical agony and Lois’ vast, cold, boundless depression, they wanted me to come with them. As warped as it seemed, I felt I understood. In spite of who I was inside, I was all that remained of their daughter. I was like the discarded wrapper that once contained a treasure. Now the treasure was gone. If they didn't take the wrapper, they'd have nothing.

Ken and Lois had already made up their minds.

And what about me? How did I feel about Ken and Lois?

The most obvious downside was the emotional turmoil they carried with them — they had just lost a child, after all. Worse than that, they could see her live and move — knowing all the while that she was dead. That had to be a unique kind of horror to have to live.

And yet, as awkward as it might be, negotiating an emotional minefield wasn’t exactly new to me. Theresa went through a year of depression, and it was no picnic. However, after a year she came out of it. Lois would probably do the same, right? I imagine that depression is something like the flu. It hits you and sticks with you until it’s done with you.

There was my other option to consider as well: becoming a ward of the state. At least there I wouldn’t have to masquerade as someone’s dead daughter. I’d be alone, though. And once I turned eighteen, the state would drop me. I’d have to fend for myself. Of course, I’d plan for that day, save what I could, make whatever arrangements I could manage…

Clearly, life would be easier with the Morstens. If I took the role of their daughter, my eighteenth birthday wouldn’t be a drastic cutoff. I’d have more slack in the timeline of creating and establishing my independence.

It struck me that when I considered where my life could go after I left this room, I was still seeing myself basically as Leo. The idea of being someone else, someone new — and of all things, a girl — it hadn’t really penetrated very far into my view of the future.

To tell the truth, I can’t say that I wanted a fresh start, or a new life. I was pretty happy with the life I had as Leo. Also, knowing how I am, how my mind works, could I sincerely promise to live an honest life? Certainly not forever, anyway — but on the other hand, I felt pretty sure that I could lie low for five years with the Morstens, until I was eighteen. After that, all bets were off. Life with the Morstens would be a damn sight better than bouncing around as a foster child. They looked to be in their early thirties: Lois was probably 21 when she had Celine. As it happened, Ken was a cop, yeah, but he didn’t look like an asshole. In the spite of all she’d been through, Lois had a young, hip look that appealed to me — for instance, she had one of those short, asymmetrical hair styles that usually I found strange, but on her it looked good. Her makeup was light, subtle, almost invisible, which I also liked. Her clothes were tasteful, not showy. For sure, I needed to learn all the feminine arts, and Lois looked like the right person to teach me.

In any case, there wasn’t any real choice to be made: I’d either be adrift in the system, utterly alone, or living with a stable couple who knew the score, and... who couldn’t live without me.

 

---

 

The three of us were bundled into the blacked-out back of a van. As I adjusted the straps on the jumpseat, I saw once again how small I am now. I could only just touch the floor with my toes. I wasn’t even half the size of Leo. I pulled the straps as far and tight as they go, but it wasn’t tight enough. “Hang on!” the driver called. “We’re moving out!!” I clutched the straps with both hands, and the van barreled forward.

After an hour of bouncing, braking, and turns, we were let out in a Target parking lot

“Another minute in that van and I would have vomited,” Lois announced. “I think they drove badly on purpose.”

“They didn’t want us keeping track of turns and distances,” Ken explained.

After the van drove off, I asked, “Now what do we do? Take a bus? Call a cab?”

The van had dropped us next to a gray Prius. Ken patted the car and smiled.

“I didn’t think a cop was allowed to drive a Prius,” I quipped.

Ken smiled. “When you’re a tough guy, you can drive whatever the hell you want.”

“Oh, please!” Lois laughed, rolling her eyes.

“Listen,” Ken said. “I am starving! What say we cross the street and hit the Cheesecake Factory before we head home?” Lois and I agreed, and as we walked together, I asked, “Where *is* home, by the way?”

“Lambeth,” Ken replied.

“Lambeth, Connecticut?”

“Yup. The one and only. Do you know it?”

“Um, yeah. That’s where… Leo Blisten, uh, lives.”

“Hmm. Is that going to be a problem?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, unless we, like, live right across the street or two doors down or something.”

“Once we order our food, let’s look up your old address on the map.”

We were all pretty hungry. I ordered a burger, fries, and a milkshake. Then, out of habit, I reached for my phone. Lois noticed my movement. “We’ll get you a phone, hon. You’ll need it.”

Ken took the cue, and consulted his. “Well, we’re both on the North Side, but in pretty different neighborhoods. I wouldn’t say we're close at all.”

Lambeth is located on a long hill just north of the Fifth Connecticut Lake. Rich people live on Lakeside, which is (obviously) the side that faces the lake. The rest of us, the working and middle class, live on the North Side, the part of the hill that faces north, away from the lake. My old house and Max’s were up the hill a bit, so they were marginally more expensive, but it was still North Side. Ken and Lois’ house was on the flat land below the hill. It was a fair hike from the Morsten’s to my old house, and they were in completely different neighborhoods.

“We’re not likely to run into each other,” I observed.

We were all a bit relieved at that, although it did put an idea in my head that I’d have to run by Ken.

After our small talk petered out, and we were simply sitting, waiting, hungry, Ken, suddenly remembering, told us in a low voice: “Listen. New rule: no Switcher talk in public. At all. Agreed?”

We all agreed.

Our food arrived, and we fell to. I didn’t realize how hungry my ordeal had left me, and my food was nearly gone before I realized how quickly I was eating. Having a teenage metabolism probably had a lot to do with it. I swallowed the milkshake in a series of gulps, groaned my way through brainfreeze that followed, and THEN asked, “Hey, I’m not lactose intolerant or gluten intolerant or anything like that, am I?”

“No,” Lois said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” I said, and unexpectedly released a loud, frog-like burp that echoed in every corner of the restaurant.

Blushing like a stop light, I apologized. “I had no idea that was even coming out.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ken assured me.

“While you pay, I need to use the little girl’s room.” Lois announced.

I watched Lois work her way through the restaurant, and as soon as she was out of sight, Ken said, “What’s on your mind? Since you finished your food you’ve haven’t quit squirming.”

“Really?” I said. “Wow. I thought I was still as a statue.”

“Nope. Remember: your energy level is much higher than your old self. Plus, your teenage hormones might be kicking in. AND, keep in mind that Celine was always kind of jumpy. Your face and body are probably not as still and unreadable as you’re used to.”

“How do you know what I’m used to?”

“I’ve met the old you — at least, your old body. It doesn’t have the same range of expression you’ve got now.”

I nodded. “Good to know.”

“So, what’s eating you?”

Good question. What was eating me was a stash of money I’d hidden back at my old place. It wasn’t a fortune, but it wasn’t money to throw away. Behind a panel in my home office, I had a little over twenty thousand dollars. Theresa didn’t know about it. It came from various sources over the last five years.

So… yeah, I’m not surprised I was squirming. It would be nice to get my hands on that money, but how? Then it came to me. My father’s books.

I said to Ken, “I know I shouldn’t do this, but I want to go by my old place and pick up some books of mine.” Then I added, “And I want to say goodbye. For good. I didn’t get a chance. I actually haven’t seen my friends since the… since the event.”

Ken simply said, “Okay.” Surprisingly, he didn’t even think about it. Just “okay,” right out of the gate. He unpeeled a toothpick and got busy jimmying the thing in and around his teeth. He stopped for a moment to ask, “Will we need boxes or bags or anything?”

“Oh, yeah — one wine box ought to do it.”

 

---

 

We dropped Lois back at the house. Ken told her, “Celine and I have a little errand to run.” Lois nodded, but didn’t have any other reaction that I could see.

“Move up to the front seat, Celine,” Ken told me, and when I stepped out of the car, Lois stood in my way. “I need to give you a hug,” she said. “I’ve been dying to do that, all day. Come here.” She embraced me. She just… held me. She hung on to me. At last she let go, and with a sad smile said, “Celine — the old Celine — would never let me do that.”

I climbed into the front seat, and it seemed enormously wide. Again, only my toes touched the floor, and I had to hold onto the diagonal part of the seat belt to keep it from crossing my face.

After Lois had gone inside and we were moving again, Ken asked me, “Am I going to have to fight anybody once we get there?”

“No,” I replied, surprised by the question. “I just want to pick up some books.”

He nodded. Ken didn’t look at me. He was the kind of driver who kept his eyes on the road.

We pulled up in front of my former home. It looked bigger to me. I glanced at Max’s house, next door. It also looked considerably larger. “I wonder when this Land of the Giants feeling will pass,” I wondered aloud as I rang the doorbell. Ken tilted his head and looked at me. I wasn’t sure whether he understood. Then, of course, when Theresa opened the door, I had to look up at her.

Now, who was Theresa now? “Uh, Meredith?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she admitted, with a sheepish smile, as if it were some sort of dopey joke. She greeted Ken and shook his hand. “We met earlier at that… place.” Ken nodded. She looked down at me. “And you — what do we call you now?”

“Celine.”

“Nice name.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Listen, I don’t know if it’s okay to invite you in. Let me go get Leo — Theresa — oh, you know who I mean!”

Theresa, now in my old body, came stomping up the hallway, scowling, angry, both hands actively clenching in fists. He looked as if he was about to kick my ass into next week. I heard Ken shift his stance, but I didn’t look away from Leo. Ken already met Leo, I remembered. That’s why he asked if he’d have to fight. I never realized how scary I looked to other people. And if I had to tilt my chin up to gaze into Theresa/Meredith’s smile, my head had to go all the way back to meet Leo/Theresa’s scowl.

“Well, look who it is,” she snarled. I half-expected her to spit on me. She gave a dubious glance at Ken and asked him, “You decided to go through with this? Really? In spite of everything we told you?”

“Yes,” Ken replied. He didn’t add anything. He didn’t justify himself. He only said a simple “yes.”

“Hmmph,” Leo snorted, then sneered down at me. “Look at you now: you’re just a skinny little runt! Maybe now, now that you’re not so big, people will finally get to knock some sense into you.”

“Hey!” Ken barked. “That’s enough of that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Leo countered. “Is it enough? Is it? Look at the mess I’m in. I can’t get a job, because this asshole has no work history, no resume, no job skills to speak of. I used to be an accountant, a controller, a person in a position of responsibility! Now I can’t do that any more, because that’s Theresa’s life, not Leo’s.” His jaw worked, as if he was chewing on his anger. “Even if I WAS still Theresa, this jerk got me FIRED with his scams and with his… with his crooked shit!”

Now I understood. The light broke upon me. After twenty years of living together, I finally, suddenly, realized that I’d never seen our relationship from her point of view. From my point of view, everything was fun, all fun, all good — even now, I’m pretty sure most of it was — but at the same time, I destroyed her career. None of us went to jail, but yes, I was trying to work a scam on her last employer. They couldn’t prove anything, and they didn’t lose any money — which is why (as I said) neither of us went to jail. However, Theresa had to resign. And yet, as bad a setback as that was, I thought she was okay with it! After all, *I* wasn’t worried about it: we had money in the bank... and I was working some possibilities...

This was it: this was the problem, in a nutshell. I was sanguine, happy, full of hope. My view of life was always optimistic. Things were always going to get better. In Theresa’s eyes, on the other hand, the whole mess had already gone to hell. Even before the Switcher got involved.

Why didn’t I see it before? Because I was in there! I was Leo. I was the big man. I was going to make everything right. I had it all in hand. I was going to make it work. But now SHE was Leo, and she had no idea how to begin.

It was clear in that moment what I had to do.

“There’s money,” I said.

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR STORIES!” Leo shouted. “Your big idea is full of shit! Do you understand me?”

I had to be cautious. I didn’t want Leo to say any more about that “idea.” I don’t know whether the plan was still possible, but there was no point in throwing the possibility completely out the window.

Also because I didn’t want to screw up my place in the Morsten home, I did NOT want Ken to catch even the slightest whiff of my plan.

“It’s not a story,” I assured her. “There’s real money, hidden in the house.”

Leo stopped shouting. He was still breathing hard, as he looked down at me with a fierce red face. His expression was full of hate. I couldn’t help it, I started shaking.

That never happened to me as Leo: I never had attacks of nerves. Now, my legs were wobbling — so much so, that I was afraid they might give way, and I’d fall down.

And then, something magical happened.

Ken put his hand on my shoulder.

As soon as he did, I stopped shaking. I took a big, deep breath, and I wasn’t nervous any more. It was as though the warmth in his big, strong hand let his strength flow into me.

Once again I tilted my head all the way back, so I could look Leo in the eye. I told him, “Let me show you where it is. There’s a secret panel in my office. You won’t find it by yourself. I’ll show you, and then I’ll leave.”

Leo gave me a suspicious look, but he stepped back and gestured for us to enter. I went up the stairs first, then Ken, then Leo. Ken was carrying an empty wine box we’d picked up on the way.

“What’s the box for?” Leo asked suspiciously.

“Books,” Ken said.

“My dad’s books,” I explained.

When we got to my office, I immediately felt something was wrong.

“Did you, uh, did you mess with the papers on my desk?” I asked.

Leo clenched his fists and shouted, “Seriously? Seriously? You’re going to ask me about your fucking papers now? NOW? I can’t believe you! But, no — I didn’t touch your precious papers. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry! Okay, look.” I picked up a ballpoint pen. “There’s a screw here in the wall — see how it’s shinier than the others? Here.” I handed Leo the pen. “Push on that screw with the capped end of the pen. Um, push a little harder.” He did so, and with a soft, muffled click!, a panel in the wainscoting opened slightly. Leo opened it a little more and swore.

“It’s not as much as it might look,” I said, “But it should help, at least a little.”

While Leo was hypnotized by the contents of the secret cache, Ken asked, “Which books are we taking?”

“The Zane Grey and the C.S. Forester novels,” I said. “They were my father’s.”

Ken got busy packing the books in the box. Leo shut the panel. “I’ll count it after you go,” he said.

I glanced at Ken, who had his head down. I couldn’t help but steal a look at the papers on my desk. Leo saw me looking, and his eyes narrowed with mistrust. I shook my head and turned my back to the desk, so that I was facing Ken. Ken fitted the last two books in place, hefted the now-filled box, and stood up.

I told Leo, “That’s it. Don’t worry, I won’t be back, but if there’s anything I can do—”

Leo cut me off. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“Okay,” I said, and walked downstairs.

Before he closed the door on me and Ken, Leo bent down, close to my face, said growled, “Don’t imagine that this comes anywhere near to making us even.”

I opened my mouth to say something — I don’t even know what — but Leo shut the door and threw the deadbolt. The finality of that gesture was not lost on me. I stood there on the walkway, staring at the door, feeling the weight of her rejection. I couldn’t take it in.

What I was feeling was worse than divorce, I was sure. Leo/Theresa had dropped a gravestone on our marriage, on our relationship, on *everything* that ever existed between us. There was no resurrection to come; there was nothing to hope for — no reconciliation or forgiveness: just a rupture, beyond any possible repair. It felt like death.

 

---

 

I managed to hold it together until we got home. The three of us sat down in the Marston’s kitchen. Ken placed my box of books on the floor, next to my chair. After washing his hands, he brewed a pot of tea and put some cookies on a plate.

“These are my favorite cookies,” Lois told me with a smile. “Le Petit Ecolier — the little schoolboy. It’s a butter buscuit with a piece of milk chocolate on top.” I’d seen Lois smile while we were at the restaurant, but this was the first she smiled while looking at me.

“They are good,” I said, after taking a bite. I looked at the cookie and saw that I’d bitten the boy’s head off. “They’re really good with coffee.” Then I wondered, “Hmm. Did Celine like coffee? Will I?”

“No, she didn’t,” Lois said. “That’s something you can look forward to, as you grow up — developing the taste for it.”

I looked around us. Aside from the big appliances — the fridge, stove, and dishwasher —- and the cabinets, the room was full of unpacked boxes.My box of books was just one more carton in a room full of cartons. Lois bent down and picked out one of the books. She read the title: Riders of the Purple Sage.

“I’m sure I’ve heard of this one,” she said.

“That’s the only one I’ve read,” I told her. I reached down to pick another at random: The Trail Driver, by Zane Grey.

I held onto the book, unconsciously clutching it to my chest, while Ken recounted to Lois our adventure at my old house.

“Was it difficult?” Lois asked.

“I never knew how hard it was for her,” I replied.

“For who? Your wife?”

I nodded. I sat there and drew a long, heavy breath. “I mean, I thought everything was great. I was happy and hopeful. I assumed she felt the same. Now I understand that for her, it was completely different. For me, it was an adventure, a life full of thrills. For her, it was like she was trapped in the backseat of a car being driven by a crazy man.”

“That money…,” Ken began, “When we went there, your original idea was to keep it for yourself, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I confessed, and unaccountably, tears began running down my cheeks. I couldn’t understand why. The tears wouldn’t stop. I sniffled, and the tears started flowing faster.

Ken moved next to me, put his arm around my shoulders, and let me cry.

“I’m sorry,” I told them, once my tears subsided. “I’m really not a good person.”

“I’m not sorry,” he said. “I’m going to tell you two things: one is, that if — IF — this new little family is going to fall apart, we’d rather see it go to pieces sooner than later. Am I right, Lois? We’ve had enough heartbreak and bullshit, and we won’t stand for any more. And if our new little nucleus is going to break and fail, it would be better if it happened privately, between the three of us. We don’t want to have move again, to start our lives all over again. Am I right, Lois?”

I blinked and sniffled and turned my eyes to Lois, who nodded grimly. “Damn straight,” she replied, and she handed me some tissues.

“What’s the other thing?” I asked.

“In the end, you did the right thing, didn’t you?”

“I guess so,” I said. “But if it was the right thing, why does it feel so bad?”

Lois put her hand on my thigh and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “I’ll show you your room, and you can set your books down. Then I’ll give you the grand tour, okay?”

A Minority Of One : 4 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“Pards, are we in hell?” shouted Tex, huskily. “Or are we out? Boys, it’s passed away. We’re alive to tell the tale.”
— Zane Grey, The Trail Driver

---

 

Lois gave me the “grand tour” of the house. I’d already seen the kitchen. On the whole, the place was dated, but workable. It wasn’t awful. The backyard wasn’t huge, but there was enough space to set up a grill, to entertain, and to have a respectable garden. The garage, which was separate from the house, was in good repair. The house itself was a decent size, and didn’t need any obvious repairs. It had three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a clean and usable attic space, and a half-finished basement. By “half finished” I mean that the previous owner had begun work on a mother-in-law apartment, but stopped halfway. There were the beginnings of another bathroom, pieces of a kitchenette, a space that would be a laundry room once the walls were up, and a large empty space whose destiny seemed undecided.

The house was bigger, and in better shape, than I’d expected. I don’t keep up with houses and property values — that was always Theresa’s thing — but I did know that the Morstens’ house wasn’t in a very desirable neighborhood. This part of town was considered blue collar/working class. It had some decent old houses, like this one. The tradeoff was that your nice-looking, good-sized house, bought on a cop’s salary, was located in a not-so-nice part of town.

Another drawback: you couldn’t count the house as an investment. The market in this part of Lambeth was dead, and barring an economic miracle, it wasn’t coming back.

On the other hand, as far as the neighborhood was concerned, “not-so-nice” didn’t mean dangerous. It might seem scary if you didn’t know the neighborhood; which had partly depopulated after a load of factory jobs left town. The state of the houses could vary wildly on any given block: a pretty, well-tended house could sit next to a house that was boarded up, abandoned, and surrounded by an ugly chain-link fence.

To live there, you either had to take a long-shot bet on the future or learn to live with the contrasts of beauty and ruin.

Ken, I think, could manage it — if only Lois could. It wasn’t clear whether she was able.

Admittedly, they’d only been in the house for a week or so, but none of the boxes were unpacked, and there were boxes everywhere. You couldn’t walk through the living room at all. The beds weren’t assembled; the family had been sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

My bedroom, like Lois and Ken’s, was piled with boxes. There was a bed, unassembled, leaning against one corner. The mattress lay on the floor. I stepped into the room. The window had a view that included a piece of the house next door and a portion of the street. It was a nice size for a teenager’s room. I spotted a laptop on the floor, plugged into the wall. “Is that Celine’s laptop?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lois sighed. “Simon was pretty busy on that while he was here. He changed the password, but Ken should be able to reset it for you.”

I nodded, and we returned to the kitchen. “You know,” I told Lois, taking a page from the TV home-improvement shows Theresa loved to watch, “I don’t think either of these walls are load-bearing. We could blow them both out, and have a nice open-concept on this floor. Put in a big island here… and over there, a pair of french doors that open to a deck…”

“Yes,” Lois agreed. “I’ve had all those same thoughts. If we did some soundproofing and finished the basement, we could turn it into an income property.” She spoke about the improvements in a jaded tone, without enthusiasm or interest.

I very nearly opened my mouth to respond, but I bit my tongue just in time. I knew from the TV shows that (1) the zoning laws might not permit an income property, (2) there wasn’t enough daylight down there, (3) an apartment would need a separate entrance, and most of all (4) the rental market was as dead as the home-sale market. I didn’t say anything more, because I didn’t want to bring Lois any further down.

Lois was pretty far down. It’s not as though she never smiled, but generally she seemed utterly worn out. She wasn’t just tired; Lois was clearly depressed. If I couldn’t read it from her face and manner, the story was clearly told by the mass of unpacked boxes.

So all I said was, “It’s a nice house. It’s big. On the one hand, it has lots of potential, but at the same time it’s fine as it is.”

“It’s nothing like our last house,” Lois confided. “I loved that place. For me, it was our forever home. It had everything. Unfortunately, Celine pulled some pretty extreme sh— stunts.” Her face blanched at the memory. “We had to run out of town. Literally. We lost so much money when we sold that place. It was a fire sale, if you know what I mean.”

I did know what she meant.

Lois looked in my eyes and said, “I really appreciate the fact that there’s an adult in there, who knows what I’m talking about. You know, actions and consequences. Real estate values. Selling in a bad market.”

“I get it,” I assured her.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering. “In the bathroom upstairs, the bottom drawer is yours. All the stuff in there is Celine’s. I don’t know what you want to do with it — with her toiletries. There are three toothbrushes in the rack above the sink. The red one is yours.”

I must have made some kind of face, because Lois smiled slightly and said, “If it’s weird for you — using Celine’s toothbrush — we can get you a new one this afternoon.”

“Yeah…,” I said. “I guess.. I mean, I know it shouldn’t matter… technically we have the same mouth, the same germs, but… even so, I’d feel like I was using somebody else’s toothbrush. And it wasn’t just Celine’s, it was Simon’s, too. I— I just couldn’t do it. I’d really prefer my own.”

Lois laughed. “Did you ever read No Exit by Sartre?” I shook my head. “It starts off like this — a guy ends up in Hell, and the first thing he asks for is a toothbrush.”

“Um, I don’t feel like I’ve landed in Hell,” I told her. “I hope you don’t feel that way.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “God help me, sometimes I do.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. She shrugged.

“It is what it is,” she replied. “I’ve always hated that phrase. It’s so inane. You might as well say potatoes are potatoes, but now — somehow— that stupid phrase fits exactly the way I feel. ‘It is what it is.’

“Celine had us on a downward spiral for years. Lately that spiral was turning faster and faster. Maybe now it will finally stop. I sure hope so.”

I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I figured I’d try a “girl” thing: I set my book down and offered a hug. She shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said. “Really, I’m fine. You know what? Let’s go back upstairs. I can show you some of Celine’s — some of your stuff. Clothes and things. Then we”ll see if you want to keep any of her toiletries. That way, we’ll know what we need to get later.”

I’d ready seen Celine’s room — my room. It didn’t have much character. There weren’t as many boxes as the other rooms. There were a few pieces of furniture: besides the unassembled bed, there was a desk, a bureau, and a little bookcase. I pointed to a door in the wall (blocked by boxes), and asked, “A closet?” Lois nodded. There was nothing on the walls — no posters or photos. There weren’t any knicknacks or stuffed animals or books or souvenirs lying around. Nothing that gave an idea of who used to live there.

The boxes were mostly marked “Celine clothes.” I opened one. I’ve never been interested in clothes, so it just looked like a box full of different colored cloths to me. One box had “Celine shoes” written on it. Another read “Celine boots,” “Celine winter,” “Celine sports”...

“Was Celine into sports?”

“No,” Lois scoffed. “She liked buying clothes. She liked stealing clothes. She didn’t care much about wearing them, though.”

My eyebrows went up at that. Lois quickly amended her statement: “I mean, she didn’t run around naked. That’s not what I meant. She just wore the same ugly things over and over. I’d show you pictures, but one day she burned every photograph we owned — not just pictures of her, but my wedding pictures, old family photos…”

“Did you have any digital photos?”

“Yes, but she blew those away as well. She had a lot of energy for her… for her projects, if you can call them that.” Lois shook her head.

“Someone told me that it had to do with her self-image, but I think she just didn’t care. She was an anarchist by nature: she didn’t value anything.” Lois stopped for a moment. “No — that makes her a nihilist. She was a nihilist and a narcissist, and maybe even a psychopath, if we’re handing out labels.”

I had no idea what to say, so I didn’t respond. Lois looked into my eyes and said, “What a lovely thing for a mother to say about her daughter, eh?”

I shrugged and offered, “If that’s what she was…”

“...that’s what she was,” Lois said, completing my phrase.

I looked at the computer. “I’m surprised that the Feds didn’t take that laptop.”

“Oh,” Lois said. “Nobody thought about it. We didn’t mention it.” She hesitated for a moment, then confided, “I don’t think that any of those people know what they’re doing. They don’t seem to care, and I don’t think they’re making the right kind of efforts.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, thinking of my experience with smirking Ron, the FBI agent.

“I’ll be interested in looking at the browser history,” I told her. “I’ve been wondering why and how Simon settled on me and my friends as targets.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to answer,” Lois said. “You weren’t targets at all. It was random. I mean, think about how they knew that Simon was Celine.”

“I don’t know how they knew,” I told her.

“Sorry, I thought that the Feds had told you everything. Okay… it went like this: When Simon switched into Celine, there was a cop who saw it. No, let’s take a step back. Simon was… Simon was inside some man. Some random man. I don’t know his name or what he was up to. I’m sure Ken knows, if you’re interested. Anyway, this man had a gun. Again, I have no idea what led up to the moment, but here was Simon in the body of this man, holding a gun. This happened a few days before we moved here. There was a policewoman. She was chasing the man. She didn’t know anything about the Switcher or Simon or any of that. For her, this was just her ordinary line of duty — dealing with a threat to the community. She ran one way, her partner ran the other way, so they could head this guy off. And then, she cornered him. The policewoman had her gun drawn, so Simon shot her. Celine happened to be there, completely by accident, so Simon switched with her. Now Celine was in the body of the gunman.

“The shot knocked the policewoman down, but it didn’t kill her. She had… her bulletproof vest. It saved her. She witnessed the switch, but she didn’t understand it. In fact, when Simon, in the guise of Celine, ran off, the policewoman was glad. The little girl was out of danger, or so she thought.

“Now, the policewoman was lying on the ground, looking up at what she thought was a gunman, and fearing for her life. She fired at Celine and missed. Celine, for whatever stupid reason, fired back. More than once. The policewoman was shot four times — three of those shots were from Celine. The policewoman’s partner arrived on the scene, saw his partner on the ground, and Celine standing over her, shooting. Celine aimed her gun at him, so he shot her twice and killed her.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. What else could I say?

“Yeah,” Lois acknowledged. “I have to hope that in some way, that part of her is at peace somehow. If that’s at all possible. Sins forgiven and all that.” She swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. Then she looked back at me and said, “We’ve all had our shocks, though, haven’t we? Even you — it’s like your old self has died. In a way, anyway. Somebody else is living your life, and not the way you’d live it.

“We’ve all got to pick up whatever pieces we have and try to go on.”

I shrugged and gave what I hoped was an encouraging smile. I guess it worked, because Lois smiled back at me. The she glanced at her watch and gave a soft exclamation of surprise.

“I didn’t realize how late it was,” she said. “I’m going to start on dinner. Do you mind staying up here until it’s ready? I need a little time alone. I’ll call you when it’s ready. Ken will be coming home. You can just put your feet up, look through her stuff — your stuff, I mean. You can try to unpack, read your book, whatever you feel like doing.

“After dinner we’ll stop by CVS and pick up whatever you need — toothbrush, shampoo, all that.”

I nodded, but then I stopped her. “Wait — you said you didn’t think Simon targeted me and my friends, but I don’t see why you say that.”

“Oh, right! I didn’t finish. The Feds followed up on the shooting, a few days after the fact. They were on Simon’s trail. Actually, I think they’d already lost his trail, but something about the shooting fit a pattern. Well, the policewoman couldn’t give a good description of Celine, but a security camera caught the switch and the shootout, and a street camera caught Simon fleeing the scene as Celine. The Feds had a pretty easy time identifying her, because Celine was well known to the local police.

“Even so, each of those things took time. It was a week before the Feds got here. They were heading here, to the house. She spotted them and took off on her bike. They chased her through the streets. She was running, looking for someone to switch into. I guess Simon is good at running — I mean evasion — and on a bike he could cut through alleys and footpaths. The Feds were in cars.

“That’s why I don’t think that Simon targeted you. It was opportunistic. He was just running. He saw the barbecue smoke, smelled the steaks, knew there’d be people…”

“I guess so,” I agreed. “Still, I’m sorry for what happened to you and Ken… and to Celine as well. No matter what she was like, or what she did, she didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Lois nodded and looked away for a moment. Then she said, “Simon got Celine killed. He hurt all of us: the three of us, your friends, that man the police shot… Oh my God, this Simon guy… I thought Celine was a terror: but she was an angel compared to Simon.”

I nodded, and Lois turned and went downstairs. I found that I was still clutching the Zane Grey novel to my chest, like a security blanket. I didn’t feel ready to start looking through clothes, so I lay on the mattress on the floor, and started reading.

My father used to love Zane Grey’s stories. He read them over and over, and tried unsuccessfully to get me to read them. After he died, my mother insisted that I take them all. “Read one, at least,” she said. “It will help you understand your father, as a person.” With that motivation, I read Riders of the Purple Sage. I remember that I liked it well enough, though it didn’t stick in my memory. It sure didn’t tell me anything at all about my dad.

This book, though, The Trail Driver, was different. I fell into it. Time disappeared. I honestly forgot where I was and who I am, I was so engrossed. When Ken appeared at my door and said, “Dinner’s ready,” I almost jumped out of my skin. He chuckled.

“Good book, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It started off a little hokey… he tries to write in this Texas accent, so you have to ignore that. And the racial stereotypes… But once this mysterious character, Reddie Bayne, shows up, the story gets a lot more interesting. There’s some kind of secret about him… about his life before he joins the cattle run.”

“Sounds like you,” Ken commented with a smile. “Mysterious, interesting, a secret past.”

“Aw, shucks, pard. I don’t know nothin’ about horses, though!”

 

---

 

We ate in silence — at first. I could see they were both suffering. It was clear that Celine’s wildness and her death had beaten the life out of both of them. Lois was no longer smiling; she was in a state of melancholy. Neither of them could find much to say, so I tried tossing this ball into the air: “In that book I was reading, these cowboys are driving cattle, and they’re near a stream. One of them asks for help getting his boots off. He says he hasn’t taken them off in a week. Do you think that’s possible?”

Lois clicked her tongue and said, “Back in those days, I guess a man could wash himself once a month and count himself quite hygienic.”

“Those days?” Ken repeated with a laugh. “Those days are still among us. If you’d ever smelled a policeman’s locker room, you’d know that.”

“Wow,” I said. “It’d be tough having a partner who wasn’t clean.”

“Tell me about it!” Ken rejoined.

“This reminds me of something I read once… where was it?” Lois chimed in. “This woman couldn’t get her little boy, her son, to wash himself. They’d have terrible fights. She tried everything: punishments, promises, treats… but nothing worked. Finally, one day she gave up. Completely. She stopped trying, stopped talking about bathing... Just stopped.”

“Then what happened?”

A smile briefly appeared on Lois’ face. “After a few days, the boy came home from school crying. The other kids told him that he stank. From then on, she never even had to ask. He took showers every day, on his own.”

We all laughed.

Well, sure, it wasn’t the most scintillating conversation, but it got everybody talking, and by the end of the meal, Lois was smiling, Ken was relaxed, and I was beginning to think that I’d landed pretty well.

“Do you have any tools?” I asked. “I think, after I clean up here, I can put our beds together. It won’t take long.”

Lois said, “If that’s the case, I’ll do the dishes!” Ken fetched his toolbox, and forty minutes later, both beds were assembled. Lois found the sheets and bedspreads. I offered to help her, but she pointed out, “You’re all dirty and dusty — both of you! Get cleaned up and — oh! ready for bed!”

“It’s too early,” I said. “Could I take a shot at setting up the TV?”

After an hour, I had to give up. I couldn’t find the cables. Also, with all the boxes around, there was no good place to put the TV or to sit and watch it. To say nothing of the fact that there was no way to see where the cable hookup came out of the wall.

“Okay,” I said to Ken. “I give up. You get the first shower. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the kitchen.”

“I think you better take the first shower,” Ken replied. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

He was right. I was running on fumes. Once he said it, I felt an achy tiredness all over.

I trudged upstairs, got in the shower, and turned on the spray. It was glorious. I loved the hot water. I loved getting clean again. And the moment I slipped between the clean sheets, I felt myself sinking into dreamland.

On my way down to the world of dreams, a sudden realization hit me. Somewhere in the back of my brain, the dots connected and a picture emerged. In my mind’s eye I saw Ken’s hand, holding his phone, and on his phone was a map. On that map were two pins: one for my old house, and one for the Morsten’s house. My old house is nowhere near my new house, I observed. If the Feds chased Simon from here, on a bike, he would never have gone that far, if he was simply looking for a new victim.

Simon had targeted us. He wasn’t running at random; he made a serious, concerted effort to reach my address. It was an uphill ride; it ran against the grain.

I lay on my back, mouth open, astonished. It wasn’t supposition: it was a the clear fact. But what did it mean? Why would he target me? Or any of the four of us? None of us were famous, none of us were known, not even locally. I didn’t even have a police record. It didn’t make much sense. In fact, it made no sense whatsoever.

I was so tired, though, that my thoughts grew fuzzy and confused.

A moment later, sleep washed over me like a wave, and I slept until morning.

A Minority Of One : 5 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“But, Reddie, don’t you want a man to be honest?”

“Not— not when he knows too much.”

— Zane Grey, The Trail Driver

---

 

As Leo, I was a late sleeper. Up late at night, up late in the morning. It suited me, since (as my friends rightly said) I never held a regular job. Maybe it was laziness, maybe it was metabolism. Whatever it was, it worked for me. I never believed that old saw about the early bird catching the worm. Who wants to catch worms, anyway?

However, that morning I discovered that as Celine, I was an early bird. Ken and Lois didn’t warn me. I’m sure it didn’t occur to them to tell me, but at 5:30 exactly, my eyes popped open, and I was wide awake. So awake that there was no falling back to sleep. After a visit to the bathroom, I discovered that Lois had laid out an outfit for me to wear: shorts, a top, underwear, and flip-flops. She must have fished them out of the boxes while I was sleeping.

I appreciated the gesture. The world of “girl” was so new to me, I didn’t feel ready to grapple with clothing choices. If left to my own devices, I would have grabbed the first thing that I happened to see. My wardrobe as Leo was very casual, and everything “went with” everything else — at least as far as I could tell. I’m pretty sure that I never spent more than fifteen seconds deciding what to wear. The business of color choices and finding “the right thing” seemed like a huge waste of time. If Lois was going to choose for me, so much the better.

Sure, I’ll need to learn about clothes eventually. Maybe next month? At any rate, it wasn’t at the top of my to-do list..

After getting dressed, I quietly descended the stairs to the kitchen. Happily, the stairs didn’t creak or squeak, which is always great. Once in the kitchen, I ate a handful of granola and swallowed a few mouthfuls of milk, right out of the carton. (Don’t tell anyone!)

My intention was to get a few calories into me while I looked into making a real breakfast, but to my surprise, the small amount I’d eaten took care of my hunger entirely — an unexpected benefit of being so much smaller than I used to be!

I sat at the kitchen table and returned to reading The Trail Driver. Reddie, the enigmatic character I mentioned earlier, was in torment. He had a secret, a terrible secret that he claimed “always ruined everything” once it became known. On account of this secret, Reddie was always on the run. And yet, he seemed like a perfectly good person; a likeable, honest, dependable person. What could this secret be?

At last, unable to bear it any longer, he confessed to his boss, Mr. Brite (Note: I’ve corrected the spelling to make it more readable):

"Mr. Brite, I— I'm not what I— I look— at all."
 

"No?— Well, as you're a likely-lookin' youngster, I'm sorry to hear it. Why ain't you?"
 

"Because I'm a girl."
 

Brite wheeled so suddenly that his horse jumped. He thought he had not heard the lad correctly.
 

But Bayne's face was turned and his head drooped.
 

"Wha-at?" he exclaimed, startled out of his usual composure.

I, too, was taken completely unawares. I didn’t jump like Mr. Brite, but I did exclaim “Whoa!” out loud. Then I burst into laughter. Honest and truly, I didn’t expect it at all. I knew Reddie had a secret, but never in a thousand years would I have guessed that the young, good-looking cowboy was really a girl. I had no more suspicion than Mr. Brite had.

Who knew that a western novel would have a twist like that!

Ken came into the kitchen, dressed in his police uniform, just at that moment. “What’s up?” he asked, full of curiosity.

I showed him the cover of the book, to give him some context, and explained that Reddie, that enigmatic character, was actually a girl disguised as a boy, and not only disguised, but working as the “horse wrangler” on a huge Texas cattle run.

“Huh,” Ken grunted. “That sounds about as confusing as our lives are, right about now.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “that’s so.”

A smile played on his lips. “Maybe that book will give you some insights, Celine.”

“Maybe so, Dad,” I answered playfully.

He came back in the same vein: “Celine, your mother wants a hot breakfast: pancakes and eggs and so on. I’m going to stop at Big D’s to get it. Do you want to come with me? That way, I can drop you back here with the food and head on in to work. Save me a little time.”

“Sure!”

“Just one thing—” he hesitated. “What did you say Reddie’s job was? House wrangler?”

“No, horse wrangler. I said hawse because it’s spelled that way in the book.”

“Huh. Why on earth would they need a horse wrangler on a cattle run?”

I shrugged, put my bookmark in the page, and followed him outside.

After we pulled out of the driveway, Ken thanked me for assembling the beds. “Things like that, they make a big difference. Sleeping on the floor — even on a mattress — that’s survival-level. Sleeping in a bed is civilized.”

“We did it together,” I pointed out.

“True, but until last night I haven’t had the energy or inclination for it,” he confessed. “Once you started, it was easy. It’s that way with a lot of things: getting started is the hardest part.”

After a short silence, I told him, “You know, before, in the kitchen, I was being ironic — I was trying to be funny — when I called you Dad.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just as strange for me to call you Celine. You look like Celine, but aside from the physical, you’re nothing like her at all. Still, we have to keep calling each other those names until it’s second nature.”

“Okay, Dad.”

We both smirked, but the funny had already gone out of it. Just that abruptly, it wasn’t ironic any more. Already, it was who we are now, the roles we’d been dropped into.

After we fetched the food, he left me at the end of the driveway. I waved goodbye to him as he drove off. Then I smiled hello at the old man next door. He was in his front yard, watering his flowers, watering his lawn. “That your Dad?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“He’s a cop?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I’m Mr. Waters,” he said. He gestured with his hose. “See? Waters. You’ll never forget my name.”

I fought the urge to call him Mr. Hoser — It would be rude, especially after he was being nice. Plus, there was no point in offending him: he was our neighbor. He also wasn’t stupid.

“I saw what you were thinking there,” he told me, and we both laughed. “I’m glad you folks moved in. I was afraid that house was going to stay empty, like so many others. Such a nice house! And you look like nice people.”

“I think we are,” I said. “We try to be. You have to excuse me, though. I want to get this food to my mother, while it’s hot. It was nice to meet you, Mr. —” I hung fire, until he laughed, and raised the hose a bit, as if to spray me. “I’m Celine, Mr. Waters. We’ll be seeing each other a lot, I’m sure!”

It was funny, wasn’t it, how behaving like this, playing the part of a teenage girl, suddenly seemed so natural. Still, I’d only interacted with adults so far. I doubted that interacting with other kids would be as simple.

Lois hadn’t yet come downstairs, so I put the food on plates, and poured the coffee into a mug. I couldn’t find a tray, so I awkwardly carried the food upstairs. On a box near her bed I managed to lay out the food without spilling anything. The flatware clanking woke her.

“You’re hired,” she said, and smiled.

“I went with Dad to get this for you,” I told her.

“Dad,” she repeated, deadpan.

“Yes, Mom,” I replied, in a tentative tone.

“Ohhh,” she sighed, and put her hand to her chest. “It’s going to take a while to get used to that. It’s still an effort for me to call you ‘Celine’. Hopefully, soon, my heart won’t break each time.”

I couldn’t help myself. I mugged, rolling my eyes and groaning, “Oh, Mom,” the way any teenage girl would, reacting to her mother’s melodrama.

She didn’t laugh or even smile. She fixed her eyes on me and said, “Don’t play me.”

“I’m not!” I protested. “We have to get used to calling each other these names.”

“Yeah,” she acknowledged. “I know we do. Doesn’t make it easy.” She tapped her finger on the impromptu table, considering, and in a gentler tone told me, “I think — at least for me — it’s way too early for jokes.”

I left her to her breakfast and went back downstairs to the kitchen. The exchange with Lois reminded me of Theresa’s bouts with depression. Sometimes she’d be normal, happy, even upbeat, and soon after she’d be hostile, suspicious, angry. She was convinced that her depression was strictly internal, self-contained — that it was a state affecting only her — but that was never the case. Desolation oozed out of her, like a dark miasma. It seeped into everything. It followed me, clung to me, like a cold, thick, dirty fog.

I was determined to not let Lois’ leaden state affect me, the way Theresa’s had. I shook it off before the negativity got under my skin. Seriously, I literally shook myself, the way a dog shakes off water. I wasn’t fool enough to think I could fix Lois, but at least I could work on the environment. Improvements in the home would help all three of us.

I’ve never done much cleaning in my life, but I have watched other people do it. That’s how I knew that the first thing to tackle was the fridge. I tried to pull it out of its niche. It wouldn’t come. I knew I wasn’t very strong, but the fridge was on wheels — it ought to roll forward. I tried rocking it. I pushed, then pulled. I tried to tip it backward to unstick it, but it didn’t shift, not even a micron. Sitting on the floor, I faced the refrigerator, spread my legs, and braced my feet on the wall to either side of it. After hooking my fingers underneath, I pulled with every ounce of strength in my skinny, thirteen-year-old body. Nothing happened. It didn’t budge. Not even a little.

I was still struggling, grunting with frustration and effort, when Lois came downstairs. Our combined strength, and her better leverage, got the fridge away from the wall. The floor behind was dark and filthy. The back of the fridge itself was matted with dust. Lois got the vacuum and went after everything that could be sucked up while I took a bucket of water and cleaner and washed the outside of the box. Standing on a chair, I scrubbed at the grime on top. I had to keep changing the water, it became murky so quickly.

“I don’t think they ever cleaned back here!” Lois exclaimed. She scrubbed the floor behind the fridge until it was so clean, it looked new. Then we pushed the fridge back in place. I was about to attack the inside of the fridge, when Lois stopped me. “Let me do that. You can vacuum the tops of the cabinets, then the insides. You can stand on the counter. We’ll wash that later. If we put the vacuum on a chair, the hose will reach all the way up.” I pulled one of the kitchen chairs over toward the cabinets, and slipped out of my flip-flops. Lois caught sight of my feet, and stopped me by putting her hand gently on my arm. She said, “Wait! Go wash your feet… Celine.”

There was a long pause before she got my name out. I could hear the effort behind it.

“My feet?” I asked.

“They’re filthy,” she pointed out. I looked at my feet, and the soles were black.

“When did that happen?” I asked. “All I did was—”

“All you did was walk outside. Go sit on the edge of the tub and wash them. Then you can stand on the counter. I’ll wipe off the chair you stood on earlier.”

We spent the entire day cleaning that kitchen. The stove took even longer than the fridge. I mistakenly believed that everything was essentially clean before we started. In my estimation, an hour (at most!) of wiping things down would have been enough, and by now we should have finished putting all the pots and pans and dishes away. I couldn’t have been more wrong! We didn’t get as far as putting anything away! All we managed to do was clean the fridge, the upper cabinets, and the stove.

This became the model for our early days, the first few weeks: They were days of cleaning and unpacking. I’d go with Ken to pick up some breakfast. I’d chat briefly with Mr. Waters. Then Mom and I (yes, she didn’t wince any more when I called her ‘Mom’) would clean and put things away.

Somewhere in the middle of the fourth day, we took a break. I’d been cleaning windows. It took several tries before I learned to do it the way Lois wanted. At first, our ideas of clean were widely divergent. Then I came to understand that I never really knew what clean was — until now.

During our break, Lois asked me, “Did you ever clean house before this?”

“Why? Am I that good at it?”

“Well, no, honestly, you’re not. You have the tendency to stop before you’re done, but that’s not what I meant. I’ve never seen a teenager who cleaned without being asked, and I’ve never seen a teenager who didn’t mind being corrected.”

“Well, you know I’m not really a teenager.”

She shrugged, as if that were obvious. I thought for a moment, and told her, “It isn’t as though I like cleaning, but I feel the need to contribute. The thing is, the more we clean, the more I see that needs cleaning. Like, I’m cleaning the windows, and on the third window I realize that the whatchamacallit — the sill? The flat part between the outside window and the inside window — it’s filthy. So I clean that. Then I see that the blinds are dirty… It’s like it never ends.”

“Yep. That’s how it is,” she agreed. “It never ends.”

We hauled the winter clothing, the Christmas decorations, and other seasonal items up to the attic. That was a huge effort for me. It was difficult, getting used to how little strength I had now.

Lois consoled me. “Sure, you’re not as strong as you were as Leo, but you’re pretty strong for a girl your size. You’re wiry. And you’re fast. At least, Celine was fast… so you must be fast.” She faltered for a moment, looking down, but she quickly recovered. “You ought to go out for some team, you know, when school starts. Some sport. Have you played any sports in the past?”

I hadn’t. Neither had the real Celine. So, in an attempt to see if I had any aptitude or inclination for any sport in particular, the three of us went to the park early Sunday morning. We brought all the sports paraphernalia we could get our hands on: tennis rackets and balls, a basketball, a baseball and gloves, and a soccer ball.

It was an uncanny, disturbing experience. I’ve touched all of those things as Leo: I’ve played games of tennis and basketball. I’ve played in softball games. I wasn’t particularly good at any of them, but they were familiar to me. I’ve kicked a soccer ball once or twice, but now all of those things were foreign to me. There was zero muscle memory. Admittedly, as Leo, I didn’t have any great skills to start with, but the tiny bit that I *did* have didn’t transfer to my new body.

Ken and I started off playing catch. I hate to say it, but I threw like a girl, and I couldn’t catch to save my life.

When I tried to dribble the basketball, it kept bouncing back higher than my head. The ball seemed to have a mind of its own; it moved more than I meant it to.

It was pretty confusing, and more than a little frustrating. “It’s like I’ve never done any of these things before!” I exclaimed. “But I have done them before! All of them!”

“Not in this body, hon,” Lois said.

“Don’t worry,” Ken told me. “You have plenty of time to learn whatever you like, and with practice, you can be good at any of them. Celine was always quick and coordinated.”

Lois added, “Keep in mind that these aren’t your only choices. We can take a look at what else your high school offers.”

“My high school?” I echoed. The blood drained from my face as I said it. I’d kind of blocked out that part of my impending destiny.

“Yes. They probably have track and cross-country… field hockey…”

Ken chimed in with “Lacrosse, swimming, gymnastics…”

Lois added, “Maybe they have a dance team — do you think you’d like to dance?”

Ken finished up, with a teasing grin, “Of course, there’s always cheerleading.”

“Oh, come on!” I protested.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Lois suggested. “It’s a great way to meet boys.”

“Boys?” I repeated weakly.

“Or girls, as the case may be,” Ken added helpfully. Lois shot him a cautioning look, and he gave her a shrug.

To make a long story short, the only sport we tried that seemed like fun, the only sport I didn’t totally suck at, was soccer. I can’t say that I was good. I certainly wasn’t a natural, but it somehow seemed to make sense in a way that the others didn’t.

“We’ll see if there’s a summer soccer team. Would you like that?” Lois asked

“Yes, I think so,” I replied. “I’d like to be good at that.”

“It will also give you a chance to meet some other girls your age before school starts,” she said.

I froze for a moment. Spending time with Ken and Lois was good. Talking with Mr. Waters was fine. But socializing, making friends, blending in with girls my age? That seemed a step too far. For sure, I couldn’t talk with “girls my age” about property values, or “blowing out the walls to make an open concept design.” They weren’t likely to want to clean house with me.

“What do girls my age talk about?” I asked.

“Oh, hey,” Ken interjected, as if he hadn’t heard. “What’s happening in that book of yours? How’s Reddie doing?”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. "Right now there’s a bad guy after her. He wants to marry her.” For some reason, I blushed as I said it.

“Mmm,” Ken said. “Girls your age talk about stuff like that.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure whether he was teasing me until he finished the thought: “Maybe you could visit the library and ask them what books a girl your age might like. That could give you some conversational material.”

Lois said, “Unfortunately, we’re out of touch with that world. Celine was never interested in the things that other girls do.” She smiled and ruffled my hair. “Oh my God, look at you! You’re scared to death, aren’t you!”

“I’m not scared,” I lied. “I’m just a little worried about fitting in.”

“So is every other girl your age,” Lois replied. “Don’t worry — you’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. All you need is one friend to help you find your way in.”

I nodded, but I was still nervous. Weird, huh? As a child, I never experienced that kind of anxiety. I never had the dream where you find yourself at school in your pajamas.

I can’t say that I always felt ready for everything. I can’t pretend that the weight of anticipation never bothered me. And yet, I never felt this kind of anxiety before. Even so, facts were facts: I was now a thirteen-year-old girl, nervously fearing high school, as if it were a completely new and unknown world for me.

When we got home, it was still morning, about a quarter to eleven. Ken decreed that today there would be no cleaning, unpacking, or anything remotely resembling work, so I decided to take a bike ride before lunch. Ken had recovered Celine’s bike soon after Simon ditched it, but I hadn’t tried riding it yet. I had to get used to riding again: it was awkward at first, but soon I was wheeling around town like a pro. It was a very enlightening ride: Even though I’ve lived in Lambeth for twenty years, this part of town was unfamiliar to me. All the streets, houses, and trees were new to me.

Just when I judged that it was time to head back, I came upon Hertford Hill: a long, straight, gentle downhill slope. The street was smooth, in good repair, and there wasn’t a car on it. Perfect for flying! I pulled onto that street and let myself coast. It was simple, beautiful. It put me immediately in the zone. Gradually I picked up speed, with zero effort on my part. I felt free, unencumbered. I forgot all about the Switcher, I forgot about being a little girl, I forgot about high school and fitting in. It was just me and the hill and the rushing air. It was everything.

A woman on a bicycle suddenly wheeled up a side street. How irritating! If she pulled out, she would break my momentum, interfere with my perfect downhill glide. She had come up quickly, but she stopped abruptly so she wouldn’t cut me off. She put her feet on the ground, which made it clear she was staying put for a moment. How considerate! She sat there on her bicycle, and looked up at me. I saw her jaw drop open, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to recognize her. Honestly, I didn’t really look at her at all. I shot past her like a bullet, and left her farther and farther behind, going faster and faster, until I heard her shout, “Leo! Uh — Celine! Leo — Celine, wait!”

It was Meredith. Damn it! Not that I didn’t want to see Meredith — or the Max inside her — I just didn’t want to stop. My first time on a bicycle in how long, and she has to stop me? Now that I was flowing and flying, I didn’t want to stop and turn back. Why was she just sitting there? Why didn’t she roll down to meet me?

Swearing like the man I used to be, I gently applied the brakes and carefully squealed to a stop. I stepped off the bike and walked it back to where she was.

“Hey, what time is it?” I called to her. “I don’t have a watch.”

“Twenty to twelve,” she said. “And hello to you, too.”

“Hello, yeah, sorry! The thing is, I need to get home before noon. Can you come with me, but stop just before we get there? We can talk on the way.”

Meredith frowned. “Do you not want to see me? Are you not supposed to see me? What’s the deal here?”

“I do want to see you and talk with you,” I told her. “But I need to get home for lunch. I’m trying to be on time. Also, I don’t know how Ken and Lois feel about my seeing you. I’m going to have to ask them.”

“Are you shitting me?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re 42 years old! You don’t need to ask your so-called parents. Seriously!”

“I’m thirteen,” I retorted, “in case you hadn’t noticed. By the way, have YOU looked in the mirror lately, Mrs. Shearpen? You’re not a forty-year-old man any more either!”

Meredith sighed. “I know, I know. I get it. Believe me, I get it.”

“So, yes, I have to ask my parents. I don’t want to screw things up with my new family. They’re good people.” I looked at her. “Are you okay, though? Are you adjusting?”

“No, Leo, I’m not ‘adjusting.’ I’m not adjusting at all. I can’t handle this. I can’t deal with being stuck like this — as a woman — and not just any woman, but Meredith, specifically.”

I shifted uneasily. Meredith wasn’t moving at all, and I really did need to get home. So I told her, “Hey, um, we really have to move while we talk. I’m not going to be late: I need to get home before lunch. And another thing — don’t call me ‘Leo’ — my name is Celine, okay?”

Meredith looked at me as though I’d asked her to do something that was utterly insane and completely outrageous. Also, she hadn’t budged an inch.

“I’m going to start moving,” I told her. “If you want to talk with me, you have to pedal, too.”

She scoffed, but turned her bike around and quickly caught up with me.

“Where is everyone living now?” I asked. She scowled. It was a little disconcerting. Max had always been a very positive, smiley guy. So far, he was turning out to be a pretty grouchy woman.

“Meredith — or Theresa — is mostly at your old house, with Theresa — Leo.”

“Look, Meredith—” I interrupted. “Just call each person by the body they’re in. I”m Celine. You’re Meredith. Otherwise we’ll get all mixed up, and we’ll end up saying crazy things in front of people who don’t understand. Okay? So you’re saying that Leo and Theresa are living together? Or is Theresa just spending a lot of time there?”

“She’s pretty much there all the time,” she answered, morosely. Her tone made me glance at her in surprise. Meredith caught my look and read the question on my face. “Don’t ask me whether they’re in a relationship. I don’t know who sleeps where, and I don’t want to know.”

“You’re at your house, all alone, then?”

“Yes. And I don’t like it. Everything is too complicated. I want to simplify things.”

“Simplify how?”

“I need to get rid of all the distractions, and start simple: me, in a small apartment, alone. I need to be able to concentrate and focus on my future.”

“You can’t focus on your future now?”

“No! Like I said: everything is complicated! Even the things that should be the easiest! I mean think: Now that Meredith — Now that Theresa and I are both women, we can’t be married.”

“Sure you can — if you want to.”

“I don’t want to! I’m not a prude, but right now the idea of what kind of sex I could be having, or should be having, and with who, it's too… well… it’s too… Let’s just say that as a concept I can’t deal with it.”

Meredith was reacting so physically to the topic, that her bicycle was wobbling badly. I tried to throw her a life line by changing topic. “So you want to get a small apartment, all by yourself?”

“Yes. That’s the best thing to do. I want to sell my house and everything in it, split the money with Theresa, and the three of us could move in together.”

“Move in together? You just said that you want to live alone.”

“Just until we can work out all the legal and financial stuff.”

“Are Leo and Theresa up for that?”

She scowled again. She was doing that a lot. “It’s hard to talk to them about it. It’s hard to talk with them about anything! They’re pretty strongly in denial.”

I almost said something about the pot calling the kettle, but I bit my tongue instead. It wouldn’t be helpful to say it, even though Meredith clearly didn’t have much of a grip on the situation herself.

“Why do you want to live with them?” I asked. “I mean, after all, they’re right next door.”

“I don’t want to live with them!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you listening to me? It’s a temporary step! I want to get the two of them settled, and then I’ll get the hell out of here! Lambeth is a dead end! I want to divide my assets with Theresa. Everything. Then I can leave with a clear conscience.”

“If you want to leave, why didn’t you just leave when we were all in that military base? They would have given you a whole new identity and whatnot. Wouldn’t they?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, yes. Yes, they would have done what you said, but I couldn’t just walk away from my life and from — from — my wife’s life.” Her face was working, betraying an emotional struggle that I didn’t quite understand.

“Also,” she continued, “what the Feds were offering was a pittance. It wasn’t a generous resettlement at all. As Meredith, I get a hell of a lot more from from Max being dead.”

“What do you mean ‘dead’?”

“They declared Max dead,” she said. “I’m the beneficiary on the insurance policy, the 401k, all of his — my — assets.” I blinked several times, but said nothing.

We pedaled in silence for a few blocks. I asked the time once again.

“Also, the cleaning business,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Did I mention that? As Meredith, I own that. I want to turn it over to Theresa. Completely. As things stand right now, I have to help out. I have to talk to clients. And I have to CLEAN, if you can believe that!”

I nodded, but I didn’t let on that I’d been cleaning all week, myself. Voluntarily. “Can’t she hire some help?” I asked.

“She *has* help,” Meredith agreed. “She can hire more, if she needs to. She’s already got fifteen employees, didn’t you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know. I thought it was just her and Theresa. When she talked about the Ponzi guy’s house, she said it was just the two of them.”

Meredith stopped. “Okay, first of all, he is not ‘the Ponzi guy’.”

“Theresa said he was running a Ponzi scheme.”

Meredith hesitated. “Okay — Okay, yes, she did say that. But his name isn’t Ponzi.”

“What is it?”

Meredith, red-faced with irritation, replied, “It’s Shushamusha something! I don’t know! Sha-sha-whatever! It’s some kind of foreign name, Italian, I think. Who cares?”

“Sorry!” I said, my hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to hit a nerve!”

“Anyway, okay: So... for that house… The problem with that place, and that guy — okay, let’s call him the Ponzi guy — is that he runs his business from his home. It’s a financial firm, so he requires background checks on everyone who sets foot there. Right now, only Meredith and Theresa are authorized to enter, so I have to go. And it’s a lot of work! The place is enormous! We go there three times a week.”

“Three times a week?” I repeated. “Does it get that dirty?”

“No, it doesn’t. The thing is, the guy has loads of money and he likes to think he’s a clean freak. But he’s not. He just likes to spend money. So we go there five hours, three times a week.”

“What’s this guy like?”

“I don’t know — he’s just some guy. I haven’t actually seen him. I never met him. It’s always his assistant — or whatever she is — who talks to me. He leaves me alone. I think he’s afraid of people, or something. He’s — uh — he’s — well — sweet — he’s sweet on Theresa.” The last four words came out in a rush. Meredith glanced at me, probably thinking I might be jealous. Oddly, I didn’t feel a thing.

“Does that bother you?” she asked, watching my face closely.

“No,” I told him truthfully. “Anyway, now it’s not Theresa any more, not really. It’s Meredith. Does that bother *you*?”

I probably shouldn’t have said it. It was a reflex. His remark about Theresa was a jab at me. Mechanically, I took a jab back at him. I wish I hadn’t. It really ignited a fire in Meredith. She looked at me, jaw set in anger, then struck back with, “Yes! Yes, it does bother me! It bothers me a lot! But did you know that when Theresa was Theresa, she and the Ponzi guy were screwing? Did you know that? Does that bother you?”

I didn’t answer at first. Her question seemed to have come from another life, another world. Almost as if it was simply a movie I’d seen, or someone else’s life — not a life I’d recently lived. Honestly, though, I felt like I should be angry. I ought to feel betrayed. But I didn’t. I felt something nebulous and vague that I couldn’t name, a feeling like déjà vu, but weaker, more distant.

“I’m more worried about high school,” I found myself saying. Meredith scowled and shook her head. She took another shot, from a different direction.

“Did you tell your new mommy and daddy about your scheme?” she asked in a sneering tone.

“What scheme?”

Meredith scoffed. “You know what I’m talking about! Your scheme! The scheme that you wanted to talk about at the barbecue.”

A chill ran over me. “No, that was just an idea. It wasn’t all there. Did you guys tell anyone…?”

“Nobody mentioned it to the FBI, if that’s what you’re worried about. But Leo told Ken and Lois that you were cooking up something big and bad.”

Damn! “Well, in any case, that idea is stone-cold dead,” I interrupted, dismissively.

“Still, you were working on some kind of scam, weren’t you?”

“It was half-assed, half-baked,” I told her, “And I don’t want to talk about it. I’m focusing on my future, like you said. Also, I notice that you complain about having to clean, but it’s only been three times so far, right? Fifteen hours?”

She looked at me in exasperation. “Fine! Yes, fifteen hours. Still, it’s house cleaning! I’m a high-level programmer! I shouldn’t be wasting my time doing that shit! But it isn’t just ‘fifteen hours’ like you say. I have to clean my own house as well! Meredith — I mean, Theresa — is always popping in and ragging on me about the state of our house, so I’m cleaning nonstop. Seems like I’m doing nothing BUT cleaning!”

“Hmm,” I said, “She’s really cracking the whip, huh?” I fought to keep the smirk off my face, but I could see from her reaction that I didn’t succeed.

My house came into view, so I stopped in my tracks. Meredith stopped and stared at me, red faced.

“You were working up some job,” she insisted. “Some kind of scam. It was all about that Ponzi guy, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I admitted in a low voice. “But this isn’t the time or place… not that I want to talk about it — at all! Anyway, it was very vague. It wasn’t viable. It was full of holes; it was unworkable. Besides, what do you care?”

Meredith shrugged. “Just curious,” she said, and let the question drop. I absolutely did not want to talk about it. It was exactly the kind of thing that could ruin my situation with the Morstens. Talking with Meredith about it, especially out here on the street, was a terrible idea. She was so incautious, anyone could overhear. I really didn’t need or want that complication.

“I think you better turn back here,” I told her. “That’s my house right up there.”

She gave me a wounded look. “Are you ashamed of me or something? You know that I met them — your parents. I think they liked me.”

“I just have to ask first.”

“Would you? Please? It would be nice if I could come over and talk to someone else about all of this. Someone normal, someone who knows what’s going on! I’m losing my mind, and the other two aren’t helping at all.”

I promised I would, and she turned her bike around. Before she pedaled away, she said, “Don’t call me, though. You’re still persona non grata with Theresa — I mean, Leo. A call from you at the wrong moment could touch off a raging volcano.”

I shrugged, not sure how to respond, so she said, “I’ll get in touch with you.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

I watched her pedal away, then pushed my way toward home. Our conversation was pretty surprising. It seemed that, in dealing with our four new lives, I was coming out ahead.

A Minority Of One : 6 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Le mauvais goût mène au crime. [Bad taste leads to crime.]
— Stendhal

---

 

I jumped off the bike the moment my wheels hit the driveway. Mr. Waters was sitting on his stoop, smoking a cigarette. His watch was so large, I could see the hands pointing at five to twelve. I was still on time.

I called out, “Hey, did you change your name?” Mr. Waters frowned, not getting the joke. So I added, “Are you Mr. Smokes now?”

He laughed, gestured with his cigarette, and shrugged.

“Have you made any friends here yet?” he asked.

“Aside from you?”

“That’s nice,” he said, “but no — I meant friends your own age. Listen, the reason I ask is that my sister’s coming for a few days, and she’s bringing her daughter — my niece. She’s about your age. Thirteen, right? Maybe the two of you can keep each other company. What do you think?”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Will she have a bike to ride?”

“I’ll call my sister and make sure she does,” he promised.

 

---

 

Over lunch, the three of us talked about Meredith. Ken and Lois were quite interested, and I noticed their energy got a visible boost at the prospect of helping someone else.

“She’s having a LOT of trouble adjusting,” I told them. “She was pretty touchy and grouchy.”

“It must be difficult,” Ken observed.

“Poor thing!” Lois exclaimed. “I liked her. I felt she was genuine.”

“Yes, she was the best of the bunch,” Ken threw in.

Lois added, “The other two, Leo and Theresa, they have a bad dynamic. There’s some really negative energy happening there. I felt they were quite toxic. Theresa — she’s in Leo’s thrall. It’s not a good thing. I’d hate to see Meredith get sucked into that.”

I had to bite my tongue. They didn’t seem to remember that “Leo” was my ex-wife, and also my ex-me.

“Do you want to invite Meredith over for dinner tonight?” Lois asked.

“Oh thanks! I would, but she doesn’t want me to call her. She said she’ll reach out to me.”

Lois shrugged, “It’s an open invitation, then,” she said, and started clearing the table.

I cleared my throat, and very tentatively, as walking on thin ice, announced, “There’s something else I have to tell you.”

From the moment Meredith pedaled away, I knew I had to come clean with Ken and Lois, and I needed to do it as soon as possible. I had to follow the Rom-Com Rule: if you want to have a good relationship, you have to tell your secrets right away. In romantic comedies — not that I was living a romantic comedy — but in those movies, someone holds off telling something important, and it screws everything up. You watch the film, and find yourself shouting, “Just say it! Just tell her!” but they don’t. It’s always “the wrong time.”

Now *I* was in that situation. It wasn’t “the wrong time,” but, boy! I sure didn’t want to say it. The only way to get through it was to blurt it out. So I said, “I don’t know how you’re going to feel about what I’m going to tell you, but I don’t want to have any secrets from you.” Unexpectedly, my face burned as I spoke. Was it shame I felt? That was a new emotion for me.

Lois set the dirty plates down and returned to sit at the table.

“So… here's the thing: when the Switcher came to my house, we were having a barbecue,” I told them. “The other three didn’t know it, but I had a very specific reason for wanting them there. I had an idea for a heist that I wanted to pull…”

Ken and Lois stiffened slightly. I had their complete attention. It almost seemed they weren’t breathing, they were so silent.

“I have to say that none of the others are... criminals. They don’t… break laws. They’re good people, but — with the amount of money involved, I thought they might be tempted. Also, I didn’t get very far with my explanation before Simon burst in and switched us all around.”

I looked down at my lap, then nervously lifted my head. I had to try to keep my eyes on theirs, to show sincerity. After clearing my throat three times, I continued.

“Theresa — the real Theresa — was an accountant, but after I caused her to lose her job, she started working with Meredith in Meredith’s cleaning company. One of their clients was a guy with a complicated name that I can't remember. He’s also a guy with a lot of money, and Theresa happened to mention she was convinced he was running a Ponzi scheme.”

“What is a Ponzi scheme?” Lois asked.

Ken explained, “It’s like what that Bernie Madoff character did. You pretend you’re investing your clients’ money, but you really keep it for yourself. If one of your clients needs to withdraw their money, you pay them with money from new investors.”

Lois shook her head in disbelief. “What if all your clients ask for their money at the same time? I mean, at some point, people need their money.”

“At that point, the scheme falls apart,” I said. “And it doesn’t need all the clients wanting their money to break the scheme; just enough to exhaust whatever cash he has on hand.

“Another thing Theresa mentioned was that he keeps his money in cash, in his house, in a huge, room-sized safe. From her description, I estimated that there could be at least two hundred million there.”

“Dollars?” Lois gasped. I nodded.

“It could be more. Much more. She didn’t see the entire room. She only got a glimpse. Supposedly his firm manages $1.7 billion.”

Ken’s face went white. “And your idea was to steal that money.”

“Half of that money,” I corrected. “We’d leave him enough to run away with. And he’d have to run away — the Ponzi scheme would be broken.”

“Why would you want—” Lois began, puzzled, but Ken got it: “You wanted him to run so people would think he took the money — that he took ALL the money.”

“Yes,” I said. “Also, because of the sheer volume of the money — We wouldn’t be *able* to take it all. Meredith’s van can only hold so much.”

The two of them were ashen-faced, in shock. We sat in silence for a full thirty seconds. I know, because I watched the minute hand on the kitchen clock as I felt my heart pounding in my throat.

Ken sighed. “And now?” he asked.

“Meredith just asked me about the idea,” I said. “I think she was only curious, and she wondered whether you two knew. In any case, I told her the truth: it wasn’t a plan yet. It was simply an idea. There were too many holes in it.” My face was glowing red like sunburn. “That was the whole purpose and point of the barbecue. I thought they’d be tempted. I figured they’d help me fill in the holes.”

Lois loudly let out all her breath, and slumped forward. “My God!” she exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” I told them.

“Leo told us that you had some scheme cooking,” Ken said. “I had no idea…”

Clearly, they were both stunned. Lois gave me a searching look, and said, “Please tell me that you don’t still want to do this.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I don’t want to do it. I want nothing to do with it. I want to forget about it. But I had to let you know. I had to tell you. I didn’t want you to somehow hear from someone other than me.” Someone like Meredith, I added mentally.

Ken and Lois exchanged a glance. Then he told me, “I think we’re going to need some time to digest this, and... uh… we’ll talk about it again.” After a moment he added, “I’m glad that you told us,” although he didn’t look glad at all. He looked like he was in pain, like he had a terrible stomach ache. He took a deep breath, forced a smile, and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Now, why don’t you run upstairs for a little while and... read your book or something.”

“Okay,” I whispered, and quietly climbed the stairs.

 

---

 

At first, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. All my life, I never liked coming clean, confessing, owning up to something. I didn’t like the way it left me: feeling open, vulnerable, powerless. Although it made no sense, I was frightened that Ken and Lois might sue me or have me arrested. I heaved a heavy sigh. Is this what honesty feels like? I asked myself. Of course I knew the answer; the question was rhetorical.

New life, new feelings. It seems like doing the right thing is sometimes awkward and uncomfortable. Hopefully, it wouldn’t always feel this way. Still, I had to do it. I had to tell them.

I felt pretty sure they wouldn’t throw me out because of what I’d just told them. This is how you build trust, I assured myself. Anyway I hope this is how you build trust.

Eventually I heard Lois pad slowly up the stairs and into her room. I watched my door, ready to sit up the moment she opened it.

But she didn't come upstairs so she could talk to me. I heard her heavy footsteps recede into her room. The sound of her door closing felt like a fifty-pound weight dropped on my chest.

I had shocked them. I really shocked them. I think the detail that hit them hardest was the one about forcing the Ponzi guy to run. In retrospect, I had to admit: it was pretty cold-blooded.

After a while I picked up my book and read some more of Zane Grey’s The Trail Driver. It struck me, each time I picked up the book, how much I identified with Reddie Bayne. In reality, we were nothing alike: she was sixteen; had been wrangling horses (whatever that meant) ever since she was a child; could rope and shoot, and rode a beautiful horse: “It was a magnificent animal, black as coal, clean-limbed and heavy-chested, with the head of a racer.”

None of that was me. What was similar, though, was that from the start she was certain that things weren’t going to work out. Once people found out who she really was, she’d have to leave — or so she thought. At bottom, I still felt that way, as though the ground under my feet could give way at any moment.

Reddie was ahead of me, though: At this point in the story, she had already negotiated her way into a group of cattle drivers. She was accepted by them *before* revealing herself as a girl, and then a second time, *after* they knew. She managed to worm her way into the group twice, as two different versions of herself. She was a walking contradiction: a young girl doing a grown man’s job. She was a child, really, and as she shed her male identity and grew as a woman, she learned how to deal with attention from men.

I felt that my experience of high school would be somewhat similar.

Of course, I don’t mean literally. I was quite sure that the local high school wouldn’t have us pushing Texas longhorns across a rushing river in the middle of the night, or require us to shoot rustlers before breakfast.

What I found compelling about Reddie was her uncertainty, her moments of feminine power and feminine weakness, and the unexpected bonds of love. Would I end up feeling those same awkward, tender feelings for some gawky high-school boy? Or some gawky high-school girl?

So far, I didn’t sense any hint of that. I figured that my hormones weren’t firing yet. They weren’t active, so I wasn’t drooling after anyone, or lying awake, wondering whether they liked me. I was like Reddie in that I’d escaped from a bad situation, but had no idea where life was taking me.

 

---

 

Without meaning to, I slept for a half an hour, and woke at 2:30. The house was quiet. The sun was not yet halfway down the sky, and I felt like going for another bike ride. It seemed like a good idea, getting out of the house for a little while. This time I’d fly all the way to the bottom of Hertford Hill, and see where it takes me.

At least, that was my plan.

What actually happened was that as soon as I left the house, I caught sight of someone in the street, about a block and a half away. They didn’t seem aware of me. They were looking around, stopping and starting, the way a person does when they don’t know where they are.

I moved forward a few feet toward the end of the driveway, and the click-click-click of my bicycle gears caught his attention. He turned to look at me. Our eyes locked, and in that moment I recognized him:

It was Max — or rather, Simon, still in the body of Max!

I froze when I saw him; my mind did somersaults. My instincts, my memory told me that Max was standing there, a block and a half in front of me, but I knew it wasn’t Max at all. The real Max was Meredith now: he’d become Meredith when Simon switched with him.

This “Max” who stood in the street, frozen in place just as I stood frozen, had to be Simon.

Or did he? This person, who had every appearance of being lost, could just as easily be another harmless, innocent person who’d been uprooted by Simon, divested of their own body and left in that of a stranger.

In fact, that was more likely to be the case, wasn’t it?

Ken’s car wasn’t in our driveway, which meant he wasn’t home. If he were, I would have called him to come and help.

Instead, I pedaled forward, toward the man, slowly, so as not to alarm him. Unfortunately, he got spooked right away: with a look of alarm, he dashed off to the left, to the alley behind the garages. My heart sank.

Every block in this part of town has the rather unsettling feature of being bisected by an alley that ran behind every lot. Most people’s garages opened on the alley. It was also where the trash was collected. These alleys always left me uneasy, even when I was Leo. I suppose they reminded me of some film I’ve seen, where something awful happened in those narrow, concrete-paved corridors. When it came down to it, the alleys gave me the creeps. Even more so now that I was a half-sized skinny female.

Even so, I raced the block and a half to the point where “Max” had disappeared. As I skidded to a stop, I looked down the alley. There was no sign of him. The alleys were a good place to lose someone: you’d have dozens of spots where you could pop into someone’s back yard, or sneak into an unlocked garage. For that matter, you could simply step into a recessed doorway, and no one would see you until they were right on top of you.

“Max” could have easily done any of those things. So I rode along slowly, the click-click-click of my bicycle gears announcing my presence. I wanted to call out Max’s name, but that would have done no good at all. So I said, “Hello! Hello, are you there? Hello? I want to help!”

There was no response.

About a third of the way down I saw him. Through an open gate I saw him standing in someone’s backyard, trembling. His fearful demeanor assured me: this wasn’t Simon. This was another of his victims.

“Hi,” I called to him in a gentle voice. “Are you okay? I think I can help.”

“I’m afraid,” he said, and he certainly looked afraid. It seemed like he was trying to fold himself into something tiny, invisible.

”I’m not me!” he whispered, eyes wide.

“I understand,” I told him. “The same thing happened to me.”

He looked confused at that, so I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Charlie,” he replied brightly. “I know it sounds like a boy’s name, but I’m a girl—” He faltered, and looked down at himself. “I’m not OLD!” he wailed. “I’m not OLD! I’m a GIRL! I’m a girl!”

“Hey, hey — it’s okay,” I assured him, setting down my bicycle and entering the yard.

“What do you mean it’s okay?” he croaked. “It’s NOT okay. It’s definitely NOT okay.”

I approached him slowly, with open hands, and once I got close enough, I laid my right hand on his arm. He winced at the first touch, but once our eyes met, he grew calmer. “Can I hold onto you?” he asked. “I mean, hold onto your arm? I think it will help me... help me know I’m not crazy. Please?”

“My arm?” I repeated, a little confused by his request. I didn’t want him to hold my arm — it sounded a bit weird, honestly — but he was in such evident distress and emotional pain. So I said, “Yeah, I guess so—”

Almost before the words left my mouth, his hand closed on my left forearm. “Ow!” I exclaimed. “You’ve got a strong grip there! Do you mind—”

“Brilliant,” Max said. His anxiety left him in an instant. His face relaxed. His mouth broke into a broad smile. His voice changed completely. I looked into his eyes and saw the same look Celine once had — in that moment when she was Simon, when she walked into my yard.

“Do you know, it’s been driving me mad,” he said. “Not being able to touch people.” Then he laughed, and I was sure.

“Simon!”

“In the flesh! You know, I almost wasn’t sure I’d be able to take you in! But look at us now! It appears I have complete command of the American accent!” He gestured with my captive arm, as it were his trophy.

“Over here,” he commanded, tugging my arm behind him as he walked. “There’s some lovely lawn furniture just here. Let’s have a seat, shall we?”

“Um, yeah — sure. Do you mind letting go of my arm, though? It actually hurts quite a lot.”

“Oh, no! No, of course not! Of course I mind! I mind a great deal! If I let go of you, you’ll be gone in a flash. And then where will we be?” He dragged me like a rag-doll toward the lawn chairs. After sitting in one chair he pushed me into the other. “And please,” he added, “Don’t scream or cry out or any other asinine thing. If you do, I’ll be forced to punch you in the throat. If you’ve never experienced it, let me assure you, it’s very unpleasant. Let’s have a sit-down and chat for a bit, just you and me. Be a dear and open one of those beers for me, will you? You’ve got two hands. The opener’s right there. You can have one yourself if you like.”

On the ground near my feet sat a six pack of beer and a bottle opener. I lifted one of the beers from the pack. “It’s warm,” I told him.

“It’s fine,” he said, with a slight eye roll. I shrugged, popped the top, and handed it to him. He took a sip and let out a very satisfied sigh.

“I have to say, this is very civilized, don’t you think?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No, of course not. No chance of that. What? No beer for you? They’re quire lovely: Samuel Smith, Nut Brown Ale.”

“Yes, it’s a good beer,” I agreed, “but I’m too young to drink.”

“Oh, yes, I imagine you are — with that policeman for a father! Does he make you blow into a breathalizer when you arrive home? Has he tasered you yet? Has he read you your rights?” He laughed, though none of it was funny at all.

“What do you want?” I demanded. I was both irritated and afraid. “You can’t switch with me — I don’t think you’d want to, anyway. I have nothing you could possibly want. Why don’t you let me go? I won’t tell anyone I’ve seen you.”

He smiled and looked me in the face. “You were probably a wonderful liar when you were Leo Blisten. Unfortunately, although Celine Morsten was as wicked a child as she could possibly be, she had no skills whatsoever as a liar. Every thought and feeling you have is written on that silly little-girl face of yours! That’s how I know that the moment I let you go, you’ll get on the phone to the feds or the mounties or whatever you call the competent authority in this backwater.”

“So what DO you want?” I repeated.

“Exactly this,” he said. “A quiet garden, a pleasant beer, served at the proper temperature, and a little conversation.”

“With me,” I prompted dubiously, not buying his palaver at all.

“Why not you?” he asked. “You’re a man of the world, in spite of your current appearance.” He sipped his beer, relishing it. “To go back to something you said, you’re spot-on: I can’t switch with you, and that’s exactly why we’re here. I can touch your arm. I can talk with you. You can understand my plight.”

“Your plight?” I repeated, incredulous. Then a terrible suspicion struck me. “But — wait — no. Listen to me: if you have any notion of having sex with me, you can forget it—”

“Are you insane?” he replied, recoiling a little. He appeared highly and sincerely offended. Still, he never loosened his grip on my arm, not even for an instant. “I may be many things, but one thing I am not, nor have I ever been, a paedophile.” He winced in disgust..

“That’s not why you’re here,” he said, still shaking his head. “Not at all!”

“So… ever since you gained this… this power, you haven’t been able to have sex, or even kiss someone?”

“No, not at all — although recent developments,” he smiled a sly smile here, “recent developments have shown me a way to do exactly that.” He nodded to himself with a satisfied air. “I’m quite looking forward to it.” Then he laughed, although there was nothing to laugh at.

“Have no fear — it doesn’t involve you in any way. I’ve got a pair of switches in mind that will make it possible for me to cavort with a full-grown, adult woman — a willing adult woman, who will have given her full consent.

“But, as I was saying — You, of all people, must understand my plight. I’m like King Midas, if you will: whatever he touched turned to gold. He couldn’t eat; he couldn’t live a normal life. The same is true for me. It plagues me — It drives me mad — this not being able to touch people. If someone bumps into me, boom! I’m him or her.”

“You have no control over it?”

“No,” he said. “Don’t you see? It’s tragic! I’m very much a victim here. What I’m lacking, what I’m missing, is human contact. Company. Companionship. Conversation.” He paused, then lifted my arm as an example as he said, “Touch.” He lowered my arm, then said, “It’s precisely because we’ve switched that I sought you out, so I could, for once, have a few moments of conviviality.”

“Me, in particular?”

“Yes, you in particular. Of all the people I’ve bumped into here, you’re the only one who has cultivated a taste for crime.”

“Not any more,” I said.

“I see. In my own god-like way, I’ve given you a second chance at life — How very good of me! And you’ve decided that you want to be a good girl, this time.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I have. I will.”

“Hmmph! Haven’t you heard? The leopard can’t change his spots.”

“You, of all people, should know it isn’t true.”

“Oh, really? I’m quite sure that it *is* true. Think of how many times I’ve changed! Think of all the times you resolved to reform — if ever. You have schemes and scams cooked into your very soul. You can’t leave them behind like an old raincoat. Look me in the eye and tell me that you’ve left all your scheming and your scamming behind you forever.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “Besides, what do you care?”

He didn’t answer. He took another sip of beer. So far, he’d had less than a third of the bottle. He was taking it very slowly.

When he didn’t answer, I decided to give my question a try. “There’s something bothering me.” I told him. “You targeted me. You *wanted* to switch with me.”

“Did I?” he said, in a noncommittal tone. “I’ll admit that I knew who you were. When I ended up in this alternate Lambeth, I had a look around to see if there was anyone interesting in the neighborhood. Think for yourself: how many people in Lambeth rise out of the ordinary, out of the herd? Leo Blisten, con man, scammer — you were the most alive person in this absurd little burgh.”

It didn’t ring true for me. “What — did you do an internet search for criminals living in Lambeth, and you found me? I don’t believe it. I don’t have a criminal record. I’m not well-known. I’m not known at all, not even in Lambeth.”

“It sounds like you don’t spend much time online. There are accounts on Facebook — and other sites — where people talk about you. People both named and anonymous — people who worked with your wife at her last job. They felt that she’d been unfairly fired, and they laid all the blame squarely on you. Oh, the comments! It was a virtual inquisition! If those people could, they would have had you tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered. In a word, They would make you pay." He laughed. "They examined you, took you apart, detailed all of your sins! Those silly do-gooders righteously ripped you a new one! I’m surprised your ears weren’t burning! I have to say, it was so scathing, so full of indignation, that I was quite intrigued.”

He drew a long, slow breath, and let it out. “And now you tell me that you’ve abandoned your life of crime. You turned into a policeman’s daughter, and found you like the role.”

“I do.”

“That’s sad. Sad and stupid. Such a waste! All that talent and experience, thrown away. Well, let’s see whether I can tempt you back to the dark side. When the police told you about me, did they happen to mention how many banks I’ve robbed?”

“No, the subject didn’t come up.”

“What a shame! I’ve lost track myself; it would have been nice to hear the actual number. In any case, the moral of the story is this: I’ve always managed to get the money I need by myself, but I’ve come up with a plan that requires a helper, and you would do perfectly.”

I huffed in exasperation. “I told you: I’m not interested!”

He continued to smile, as though he was dangling a juicy bit of steak in front of a hungry dog. But I had NO intention of biting.

Then it occurred to me: I might as well listen. I could tell Ken; and we could tell the feds. If I pretended to go along, it might provide the opportunity to catch him and contain him for good.

I could feel my face betray me, my muscles jerking in weird ways. Still, I could give it a try.

So I told him, “You know what? Convince me. Tell me what I’d have to do, and what I’d get from it. Go on, lay it out for me.”

Simon didn’t go on. He didn’t lay anything out. Instead, his eyes narrowed. He paused and drew back a bit.. Perhaps he really could read my face and see what I was thinking.

“Not so fast,” Simon replied. “Not so bloody fast. I’m beginning to think this whole business sounded much better in my head. You’re not the right person anyway. You're not the person I thought you were.” He scoffed and shook his head.

“It’s so disappointing. You are such a disappointment. I expected a partner in crime — or at least an accomplice. Instead I found an empty-headed thirteen-year-old girl. That’s all you are now: a pathetic little child, with a cop for a father and a would-be suicide for a mother.” He dropped his half-full bottle on the lawn. It landed with a soft thud! in the uncut grass. “Right, then! Off you go, you little brat! Run off to your policeman-daddy and your tragically-morose mummy! Grow up to be another gray old cow! See if I care!” He let go of my arm with an angry toss. I couldn’t help but stop to rub the raw red ring he’d left on my forearm. Then I bolted — back to the alley, where I retrieved my bike. I clumsily climbed aboard, shot home like a flaming arrow, and ran inside.

 

---

 

The feds met us in the Target parking lot, across from the Cheesecake Factory. The location was Ken’s idea.

He told them, “I don’t want a crowd of law-enforcement types swarming my house. I don’t need that kind of attention, that kind of notoriety.”

The feds were clearly miffed. One of them was downright furious. “Do you know how much time you’ve wasted? You should have called from your home and stayed there!” After a few minutes of fruitless recriminations, they directed us to follow them to an office nearby. We were given NDAs to sign. I was interrogated by four different people. All four asked me the same questions. I demanded that Ken sit in on the sessions, to see fair play. Ken, in turn, insisted on Lois joining as well. The feds asked me ten times to identify a photo of Max. They ran through my conversation with Simon from every possible angle — even going through it backward — until they were sure it was as close to a verbatim transcript as possible.

By the time they were done with me, Ken, Lois, and I were exhausted and hungry, so we did the obvious thing and ate at the Cheesecake Factory again. “If I have a beer, can you drive?” Ken asked Lois. She nodded.

It might seem like an overreaction, but the three of us felt quite battered by the experience. Maybe it tied too easily and too quickly into our earlier experiences with Simon. Maybe that’s what made it so hard.

“I’m really fed up with that crowd of Feds,” Ken commented darkly. “They have no regard for us as people. Did you feel that? They acted as though talking to us was a huge inconvenience for them.”

I nodded. Lois was silent.

After dinner, in an effort to comfort ourselves, each of us ordered a slice of cheesecake of a different flavor. While we were digging into each other’s portions, one of the Feds came in and sat down with a confidential air.

“We put up a net around the block where you saw Simon,” he told us. “We figure he’s probably living in one of the empty houses. We can’t go knocking on every door, so we’re going to wait a bit and see if ‘Max’ pops up.”

Ken nodded. “I guess that’s all you can do.”

The agent handed Ken a card. “Call me if anything new develops, or if he contacts this one again.” He gestured at me as he said this one.

Once the agent left the restaurant, Ken said, “That bunch couldn’t catch a dead dog! Anyway, by the time Celine ran home, Simon was already long gone.”

“Let’s hope so,” Lois commented.

 

---

 

After we returned home, I went to my room and sat on my bed. The room was pretty different from when I first saw it. All the boxes were gone. My laptop sat on my desk. Everything was orderly, clean, uncluttered. There was still nothing on the walls, no pictures, no posters, but they would come.

I sat there, waiting for my mind to catch up with everything that had happened today: seeing Meredith, telling Ken and Lois about the heist, being grabbed by Simon, and finally getting interrogated over and over by the Feds.

While I sat there, Ken stuck his head in. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m still digesting everything that happened today,” I told him. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “Mind if I sit down for a minute?” I nodded. He took the chair from my desk and turned it to face me.

After he sat down, he asked, “Was there anything you didn’t tell the Feds? About Simon?”

“No,” I replied honestly. “I gave them everything I had. I mean, you were there. I don’t think I made myself sound very good, but I didn’t hold back at all.”

He nodded several times, then asked, “What do you think he wanted? I know the Feds asked you that—”

“—and I said that I didn’t know—”

“Yes, you did. But do you have any kind of suspicion?”

I gestured vaguely, then told him, “Maybe he was looking for a fall guy. Maybe he was looking for a shill. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was fishy as hell.”

“Yeah,” Ken agreed. Then he rubbed his hands together as if trying to warm them. He glanced at me, and said, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions about that scheme of yours — the one you told us about earlier?”

“Sure, of course.”

“How did Theresa know that this investor guy was running a Ponzi scheme?”

“Let’s see. The main thing was guaranteed returns. He promised his investors at least 12% return on investment. In the real world, no investments are ever guaranteed. It's impossible. So that was a BIG red flag. Another was that he had so much cash on hand. Also the fact that he showed it off to her. If he was really earning these big returns, the money would have been invested somewhere, not sitting in his house.” I thought for a minute, trying to remember what else Theresa had said. Then it came to me: “Oh, there was one more thing. The whole company was just him and his assistant. She said that was suspicious. I don’t know exactly why. And she said that they never traded. Again, I don’t know how she knew that, but that’s what she said.”

I thought for a moment, but nothing else came to mind. “Maybe there were other things, but that’s everything I can recall.”

Ken nodded again. Then he asked, “You said there were holes in the plan. What were they?”

“Okay,” I said, warming to the subject. “One obvious problem is the safe. What’s the combination? We’d have to find that out. Also, I didn’t know anything about the house. I’ve never been there. Are there security cameras? Is there special security for the safe?

“And then a big one: would Theresa and Meredith help me? If they wouldn’t, there was no hope of pulling it off. Meredith’s van was the best, most invisible way of carrying the money away.

“Another big unknown is that I needed to know from Theresa when the Ponzi scheme was about to break. Would she be able to tell? The best time to pull the heist would be just before he was about to run himself. At that point, he'd have the most cash on hand and he'd be primed to run.”

“Okay,” Ken said, taking it in. “Now, I have one more question for you: How do I know that you won’t up and try to rob the Ponzi guy one day? Either by yourself or with others?”

“Well…” I have to admit, the question made me uncomfortable, but not because I wanted to do the job. Now, at least for me, it was all about trust between him and me. This was another of those awkward moments when doing the right thing (in this case, telling the truth) felt awful.

“Okay, again there’s the issue of the safe and the house, security cameras, etc. But there are two huge problems: one is that I can’t drive.” Ken laughed at that. I continued, “Also, hauling that money takes muscles that I don’t have. Another problem is: how can I protect myself — and potentially, others — from the Ponzi guy? What resources does he have? How far would he go to get revenge and get his money back?” I smiled uneasily. “I mean, I’m not a big, scary guy any more. I’m a skinny little kid.”

Ken stood up to go. He was nodding, more to himself than to me.

“Oh,” he said, “Something you said… What was it? Oh, right! About the safe. If you didn’t know the combination, how were you going to get in? You’re not a safecracker, are you?”

This time, I laughed. “No, I’m not a safecracker,” I told him. “And I don’t know anything about explosives. I would have asked Theresa and Meredith to install tiny cameras at different angles around the safe, to watch him do the combination.”

He nodded.

“Are you worried by what I told you?” I asked him.

“No, I think I’m okay. Lois was pretty shocked though. I think she’ll need a little time to recover. But she’ll be okay, too.” He tried to give a reassuring smile, and almost succeeded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This won’t undo us. As long as we can be more or less normal from here on out, we’ll be good.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. Normal it shall be.”

A Minority Of One : 7 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“Child, you’re a boy no more,” he said, wistfully. “You’re a girl — a lady.
And no one who knowed you would want to see you go back now.”
— Zane Grey, The Trail Driver

---

 

When I woke up the next morning, I looked to see which outfit Lois had laid out for me. In this short span of days, it had already become a habit. Each night — often after I’d fallen asleep — Lois would choose an outfit for my day, an entire outfit: everything from a top and pants or shorts to my underwear, socks, and shoes. I really appreciated not having to decide. I’d just slip into the clothes, and knew that they were right: everything “went together,” was appropriate for the weather and the day’s activities, and all that.

Today there was no outfit.

Maybe Lois was just too tired last night. Yesterday was long and emotionally draining. She was entitled to skip a day, especially after a day like yesterday — a day that featured Simon (again) and the awful Feds (again).

Still, I couldn’t help but feel that Lois hadn’t laid out any clothes for me because she hadn’t gotten over my confession. The absence of today’s outfit made her alienation from me palpable. The sense of her disappointment hurt me, weighed on me. It was worse than a slap in the face. I’ve never been a sensitive person. Theresa often said I lacked empathy. She was probably right: this feeling of suffering was all about me, wasn’t it. I wasn’t sure. In any case, Lois, like Theresa, was capable of creating a bleak, frozen distance between us that I had no idea how to navigate or even approach. With Theresa, I came to ignore it. I got to the point of welcoming her cold shoulder: her silence was infinitely preferable to her shouts and recriminations.

With Lois, though, I felt dismay. It was a new feeling for me. Dismay, guilt — even sorrow. I’d hurt her, when she was already hurting. Without meaning to, I brought that awful Simon back into her life — the man responsible for her daughter’s death, at least in part. And after her death, he ghoulishly animated her body (as I was doing now).

There was no reason to think Simon would visit me again, but then again, there was no reason for him to come today.

Why on earth had he come? It was absurd to think that he’d want an accomplice. Wasn’t it? It had to be something else.

I didn’t know why, but after mentally turning our conversation over in my mind, I came to feel certain that I’d meet Simon again.

What a mess! Simon was the first person I ever met who I had no idea how to handle. His power to switch was beyond my comprehension, but worse, far worse, was the fact that he was a psychopath. I’d never met one before, and it was seriously creepy. As if you touched someone and found their skin as cold as ice and their pulse as dead as a piece of marble. And yet, they move and talk. They’re happy to inflict pain as a whim. I didn’t fool myself into thinking I was some sort of exception. He regarded me as a stepping stone, nothing more.

Or maybe, a potential stepping stone? Whatever test he subjected me to, I failed, and I was glad I’d failed.

In the end, meeting Simon, talking with Simon, was disturbing. But what disturbed me far more than that, was how I’d let Lois down. I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. I was trying to be honest, to take responsibility. After all, she and Ken asked me to be honest with them.

Unfortunately, at least so far, every time I tried to be honest, I ended up feeling bad.

This time, I left Lois feeling worse.

I let out a resigned sigh. After I made my bed, I went to the closet. I needed clothes. As I opened the door, the first thing that struck me was how many dresses I had. It threw into highlight the fact that Lois had never set out a dress for me to wear. Was she being considerate? Did she think I might be uncomfortable wearing one? Who knows?

At the same time, it struck me that choosing a dress would be a far simpler outfit choice, since I’d only be choosing *one* thing: I wouldn’t need to coordinate (or attempt to coordinate) a top and shorts or pants. Or skirt, for that matter.

It seemed safe to assume that all the dresses would fit me.

So how could I go wrong? I looked at the colors and chose a pale blue. When I pulled it from the closet I saw it was pale blue with white flowers. Pretty. Light cotton. I spotted a pair of sneakers that were also blue — not exactly the same blue as the dress, but still blue. Underwear and socks, also blue.

Choosing closthes wasn’t so difficult after all!

For breakfast I ate a big spoonful of yogurt right out of the container, two handfuls of granola, and two big glugs of milk from the carton. I felt like a pioneer.

Then I sat down to read some more of The Trail Driver. The story was pretty close to the end — they were almost at Dodge City, which was the end of the trail. It was there that the cattle would be sold, the cowboys would be paid, and everyone would go their separate ways. The pace of the book had picked up considerably: most of the adventure and action was packed into the last quarter of the book: the shooting, the stampedes, the wild weather, the chain lightning, the massive hailstones…

After an hour I closed the book. The house was so silent that I feared for a moment that Ken and Lois had run off and left me alone. I quietly padded to a front window, and found the driveway empty. Ken’s car was gone, and presumably Ken with it.

I tried to quiet my anxiety, and thought I’d wait another hour before peeking into their bedroom, to see whether Lois was still here.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to. When I returned to the kitchen, Lois was there, studying the contents of the fridge. I said, “Good morning,” but she didn’t answer or turn. Okay. Give her space.

Lois turned, eyed me up and down and said, “That’s a cute dress. I could never get Celine to even try it on, let alone wear it.” I smiled. She didn’t smile back.

“It was a gift from my mother,” Lois added, watching me for my reaction.

“Oh!” I said. “It never occurred to me that there were more people in this family!”

“Yeah,” Lois said laconically, “if you stick around, you may meet them.”

I scratched my cheek. Emotionally, she was like a wall today: leaden. I couldn’t blame her, but the situation was distressing. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. Did she need to yell at me? Did I need to leave her alone?

“So, you decided to take a day off from cleaning today?”

“Um, no. Why do you say that?”

“That’s too nice a dress to clean house in.”

“Oh, um, well, I can change.”

“No, don’t bother.”

“I was going to tackle the basement.”

“No. No. Not in that dress.”

“Where’s Ken?”

“He went in early today.”

I was at a loss. She wasn’t even moving. Not a single muscle. She was responding to what I said, but in a way that was so neutral, so devoid of expression. She ended every back-and-forth by letting the conversational ball simply fall to the ground. The phrase flat affect came to mind. It was like talking to a robot. Her lifeless demeanor left me in dismay.

“Well, maybe I’ll go out for a walk,” I said.

“Be careful where you walk and where you sit,” she told me. “You don’t want to get your pretty dress dirty.”

“Should I change?” I asked, uncertain. “I — I can run upstairs and change.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t bother. The dress survived Celine, I’m sure it will survive you as well.”

Almost without knowing what I was doing, I turned and left the room. I walked out the front door, gave a wordless wave to Mr. Waters, and kept going in a straight line. I needed to put some distance between me and Lois.

When I first started walking, there were only houses around me. I didn’t come across a single store or office. Just house after house. After maybe half an hour, the houses thinned out, and I began to see more warehouses, garages, storage units, and the like. There were people around: not many, though, and they were all minding their own business. Here, the town was petering out. If I kept going straight soon I’d see empty lots and woodland. So I turned left, walked a few blocks, and turned left again, heading back toward — well, not toward home, but toward life, civilization, commerce, people. I kept going straight until the neighborhood improved. Every few blocks I’d take a right and a left, to shift over one block. I wasn’t familiar with this part of Lambeth. I didn’t know where I was headed, but I didn’t want to go home.

My throat began to get dry. I stopped for a minute to think. I realized for the first time that I didn’t have any money or phone or really anything at all, except for the clothes I was wearing. I was too young to have a drivers license. It was still two months before school started, so I didn’t have a school ID. I wondered whether I should be carrying a health insurance card. In any case, I had nothing. If I was in an accident, it would take a little time for the police to figure out who I am. At least I’m wearing clean underwear, I told myself, with a wry smile.

Time to take stock of where I found myself. Up ahead, the hill that defines Lambeth stretched across the horizon. At the bottom of the hill was a church tower that I recognized. If I headed in that direction, eventually I could find my way to the Kenderley neighborhood. The main library was there — a good place to stop and rest. Once there, I could get a drink of water and find a clean chair to sit on.

Once there, once I was sitting down and hydrated, I could try to figure out what to do. It really looked as though I’d blown it with Ken and Lois, with my stupid Rom-Com Rule. Honestly was clearly not always the best policy.

I’d been walking for a while, but the church tower didn’t seem to be getting any closer. A sudden refreshing breeze cut down a side street and flowed over me, and in that moment I realized that I didn’t *need* a plan or a strategy. I didn’t have to find a move to make: it was all on the the Morstens. If they didn’t want me, if they were through with me, they would have to send me away. Lois couldn’t ice me out. She could make me uncomfortable, but she couldn’t make me leave. I was the minor here: they were responsible for me. They couldn't simply cut me off and push me out. They couldn't do it with the real Celine, after all. They were stuck with me.

Oddly, that realization was a relief. It took all the weight off me. I’ll just keep living there until they get rid of me, I decided. As perverse and backward as it sounds, that resolution allowed me finally to stop worrying.

I didn’t need to do *anything*. I couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t my move to make.

Feeling lighter, unburdened, I walked a few blocks farther and came to a busy intersection. While I waited for the light to change, a police car pulled up next to me. “Hey, Celine,” a familiar voice called.

“Dad!” I exclaimed. (I almost slipped and called him Ken.)

“What are you doing so far from home?”

“I just felt like walking,” I said. “Just to give… Mom some space.”

“Ah.” A thoughtful, concerned expression flitted across his face, and then, after a glance at his partner, he asked, “Are you hungry? We were just about to stop for lunch.”

“Lunch would be great!” I said. As a matter of fact, I was hungry. I must have been walking for hours.

A few minutes later the three of us were settling into a booth at the Lucky Diner.

“That’s a pretty dress,” Ken observed.

“Yes, it’s a gift from Grandma,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it is,” he said. “I didn’t recognize it at first. Um — first time you’re wearing it.”

“Right.”

Ken’s partner, Dave, asked. “Where were you heading?”

“The library,” I told him. “I want to see about getting a library card.”

“How about that!” Dave exclaimed. “My son tells me that books are obsolete nowadays. That’s his excuse for not reading.”

“Libraries have other services besides booklending.”

“Oh, my gosh, Ken, listen to this one! Booklending! She talks like an encyclopedia! Listen, Ken, Celine — my son, he *never* cracks a book if he can help it. To him, homework is torture. Torture! I try to tell him that procrastinating prolongs the agony, but does he listen? Then, on the other hand, here you are — you up and decided to go to the library, all by yourself!”

I shrugged. “What does your son like to do?”

“Baseball. He’s all about baseball. Shortstop. Good stats. He’s about your age, maybe a little older? He’s thirteen.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“How about that? What a coincidence! Are you going to Tallmadge High this Fall?”

I glanced at Ken, who helped me out with an almost imperceptible nod. “Yes,” I said.

“You know, you could come watch him play some time! He’s in a summer league. If you two get to know each other, it won’t be all strangers for either of you, first day.”

At that point, the waitress came to take our orders, then Dave got up to use the restroom.

The moment we were alone, Ken leaned forward, and in a low voice asked, “Did something happen between you and Lois?”

“I just wanted to give her space,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said. “You know she’s depressed, right? Mood swings are a part of it. You never know which Lois you’re going to meet.”

“I got that,” I said. “I went through all that with Theresa. There isn’t much you can do but wait it out.”

“There’s one important thing you can do — that WE can do,” he said. “And that’s to not give up on her. Don’t give up on Lois, Celine. She needs us. Both of us.”

I wanted to protest. I wanted to say, She needs us? *I* need her. I’m the kid in this situation! Of course, I didn’t say it. I’m selfish, but not THAT selfish. I knew he was right. Then he asked me, “You don’t have a phone, do you?” I shook my head. “Money?” I shook my head again. He pulled out his wallet and handed me a $20 bill. At first I wasn’t sure where to put it, then discovered that the dress had pockets!

“Thanks,” I told him.

“We have to get you a phone, and I guess we should talk about allowance.”

“What did you give Celine?” I asked.

He laughed. “Celine was a thief,” he replied. “You don’t need to give money to a thief.”

Dave returned. “It hit me, while I was in the can: I didn’t tell you my boy’s name. It’s Alfie.”

I almost asked why? but instead said, “That’s an unusual name.”

“Yeah, my wife picked it.”

I sang the first few bars of What’s It All About, Alfie? and Dave’s jaw dropped. “How do you know that song?”

I realized I was in danger of play the smartass, the girl “wise beyond her years” so I dumbed it down in my reply. “Is that a song? Wasn’t it on a commercial for something?”

Then, to forestall any more talk about his son, I threw out a joke, the first one that came to mind: “Hey — Who is bigger? Mr Bigger or Mr Bigger’s baby?”

Dave gave a barking laugh and slapped the table. “I know this one! The baby! The baby is a little Bigger.”

I laughed — more at his excitement than anything else. For the rest of our lunch, Dave ran though every joke he knew, or so it seemed.

A long time ago, I found that if you get other people to do most of the talking, they feel a lot better about the conversation. Still, Dave wasn’t stupid, and I hadn’t completely put him off his goal. I hit a joke that flopped, and Dave pulled out his phone and found a photo.

“See? This is my kid. Alfie. The red-hot babe is my wife.”

I had to admit, Alfie was a good-looking guy. A nice-looking guy. An interesting mix of both his parents’ features, although he favored his mother. He was wearing a shirt with the number five on it, which struck a chord in my memory. Who did he remind me of? It came to me in a flash, and I found myself exclaiming, “He looks like Aidan Gallagher!”

Dave shook his head. “Who’s that now?”

“Aiden Gallagher. He’s an actor. Do you know The Umbrella Academy? He plays Five.”

“He plays five what? Is that his number?”

“Five is his name.”

“Ehh — never heard of the Umbrella — thing.. Is it a movie?” He had a dubious look.

“TV show. It’s very cool.”

“So… in other words,” Dave said, smiling, “Alfie’s not bad looking, right?”

I blushed like a stop light and looked down at the table. “Right,” I admitted in a quiet voice. What a surprise! How did I get ambushed like that? Look at me: having feelings and attractions and all that...

Dave nodded and put his phone away. He had the sense to not pursue his advantage and make me feel more awkward.

Dave paid. We left. I waved as they drove off.

From there, I made a quick stop at the library, to ask about getting a library card.

“You need proof that you live in town,” the librarian told me. “That could be as simple as a postmarked letter addressed to you. Or, you can come with one of your parents. In that case, they will need proof of address: a utility bill, a postmarked letter addressed to them, or a drivers license showing an address in town.”

Outside the library, I stopped at a kiosk that displayed a map of town. Although I’d walked a long way, at least an hour, my path showed on the map as a long, narrow V. Although I'd walked for nearly three hours that morning, it only took me fifteen minutes to get home.

“Where were you?” Lois said. Her manner had utterly changed. “You've been gone for hours! I was worried!”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “But I left without money, and I don’t have a phone. I thought that Ken would call you?”

“No,” she said. “Your dad didn’t call. Why would he?”

“I had lunch with him. And his partner,” I told her. She noticed my blush when I mentioned the partner, so she wanted to hear all about it. When I was done, and she’d ferreted as many details about Alfie as possible, she gave me a big hug.

I’d say her hot-and-cold behavior was confusing, but as I’ve said (more than once), after a year of living with with a depressed person, I’d learned it was best to roll with their mood. There wasn’t any point in questioning why the sun was shining. Anyway, Ken had it exactly right: You never knew which Lois you were going to meet.

So… we were friends again. Mother and daughter. For right now, anyway.

 

---

 

After Lois had squeezed all the my-little-girl-is-growing-up juice out of my surprising attraction to Alfie, she had some news to share with me.

While I was out walking, Mr. Waters, our next door neighbor, had stopped by to talk about his daughter’s visit. She was arriving on Tuesday and leaving Friday. When Mr Waters first spoke with me, I kind of expected to have one or two sleepovers with his granddaughter Daphne, and spend time with her during the day, but the plans had changed.

“As it happens, Mr. Waters has two grown daughters, and the older daughter lives in Mystic. She’s got three kids. They’re all just a little bit older than you. They’ve got all four days planned out, and from the sound of things, it will be non-stop fun.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted in disbelief. “Non-stop fun?” The phrase itself boded exactly the opposite. “Mystic, Connecticut does not sound like a hotbed of non-stop fun. Have you ever been there?”

“No,” Lois replied. “Have you?”

“Well, no, but come on — it’s Mystic Seaport. It sounds like a great place to watch the paint peel off a bunch of old wooden boats.”

Lois laughed. “I guess Mr. Waters suspected you might have such a jaded, old-man-like reaction, so he printed these out for you. And for us as well.” She laid them out on the table.

There were two pages about Mystic Seaport, about the aquarium, the various museums, and the old town. Then came the real payload: ten pages about — among other things — Fields of Fire, a huge park featuring climbing platforms, paintball, ziplines, and other amusements, and Fearless Flyers, where we’d get to try circus acrobatics, such as tightrope walking, the flying trapeze, and much, much more.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t expect anything like this!”

“Yeah, pretty boring, huh,” Lois said, laughing.

I was surprised by how excited the trip made me. I wanted to pack my bag right then, right now. Lois was delighted. “Look what a teenager you are! You can’t wait!” And she hugged me again. I bit my tongue to keep from making snarky comments. I didn’t want to ruin Lois’ good mood. She was really enjoying my teenage embarrassment and awkward feelings. This was exactly what she missed with the original Celine. I had to let her revel in it.

And Lois’ vicarious delight was far from over! Ken called with the news that his partner Dave had invited the three of us over for a cookout that evening.

“Obviously, he wants you to meet your new boyfriend,” Lois teased. “And Ken and I get to meet your future in-laws.”

I groaned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lois said. “It’s okay if he kisses you, but if he tries anything else, sock him.”

I gave another inarticulate groan. “I’m not ready for boys.”

“No one is ever ready,” Lois said. “It’s always a baptism of fire.”

 

---

 

I don’t know why Lois said that thing about a “baptism of fire.” It wasn’t that way at all. It was just one step after another. Nothing was sudden or unexpected or unwanted.

Lois helped me pick out a dress. She asked, You do want to wear a dress, don’t you? And, yes of course I wanted to wear a dress. Together, we settled on a navy gingham shirtdress. (She had to decode that designation for me: The fabric was white with navy-blue checks, about an inch square. It almost gave a school-uniform vibe, which was just the slightest suggestion of sexy, but not any more sexy than a girl my age should be.

“Do you want some lipstick?” Lois asked.

“Uh, no,” I responded. “Do you think I should?”

Lois shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

“I better not,” I decided. “I might smudge it all over my face or do some other stupid thing.”

 

---

 

On the way to the barbecue, Lois asked, “What’s the wife’s name?”

“Pamela,” Ken replied. “And the family name is Mustone.”

“Dave, Pam, and Alfie Mustone,” Lois said to herself, and repeated it twice to be sure.

“Are we the only guests?” I asked.

“As far as I know,” Ken replied.

We were the only guests. When we walked into the backyard, Dave did a six-second introduction, pointing to each one of us in turn and saying our name. Then he said, “Alfie, get Celine a Coke or whatever she wants. I’ll take care of the adults.”

I walked over and joined Alfie while Dave chatted with the adults, making them welcome, getting their drinks. Alfie lifted his head to look at me, and a shock of full, dark brown hair swept down across his forehead. My breath caught in my throat — luckily, that was my only awkward moment. For the rest of the evening, our conversation ran smoothly, all by itself. It all just happened, as naturally as you like.

“We have Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite,” he told me. His voice was a little shaky. I couldn’t tell whether he was shy or trying to be cool.

“Wow, a full-service bar,” I quipped.

“We aim to please,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

I looked at the selection and asked for a Dr. Pepper. “Huh,” he said. “I didn’t mention that one because I didn’t think you’d want it. You know what they say about girls who drink Dr. Pepper?”

“No,” I replied, taking the drink from his hand. “What do they say?”

He stopped for a moment, took a sip of his Coke, and said, “I don’t know. I don’t have a follow-up. I kind of thought you’d have a comeback. It just sounded funny. To me. Until I said it.”

I shrugged. “It was funny enough.” Alfie was wearing pale blue shorts and a light gray t-shirt. The logo on the shirt was a cartoon goat’s head.

“What is the goat munching on?” I asked him, gesturing to his shirt. “It looks like a brown carrot.”

“It’s a baseball bat!” he explained. “This is the logo for the Hartford Yard Goats.”

“Is that a minor league team?” I asked.

His eyes lit up. “Yes! There’s no major league baseball in Connecticut, so I go to as many of the Yard Goats games as possible.”

“Are they good?”

“It’s live baseball,” he replied evasively. “They play with a lot of heart.”

I nodded. “Your dad said you’re a shortstop.”

“Right,” he said, “It’s a demanding position. I like it.”

Just as I was about to wonder whether we’d be stuck talking about baseball all evening, he asked me what *I* liked, what I was into. I was at a loss. What was I into?

So I told him that I liked to read. He asked me what I was reading, so I told him.

After I’d pretty much told him the whole story of The Trail Rider, I stopped.

“Oh!” I said. “I’ve been talking a long time. You shouldn’t have let me do all of the talking!”

“Did I?” he asked. “I was interested. I like listening to you. That’s why I kept asking questions. Why did you choose that book? Do you like Westerns?”

“No,” I laughed. “I don’t. I’m reading it because my fa—” I stopped. My father. My *father* liked Westerns. But my father isn’t my father any more. Ken is my father. So, I finished the thought: “My grandfather liked Westerns. I have a bunch of his old books.”

He nodded. “Cool.”

We ate. We talked. I asked whether he’d seen Umbrella Academy (he hadn’t). We talked about TV shows, movies, the Avengers.

“Hey,” I said, remembering, “Your father said that you wouldn’t know anybody at Tallmadge High. Why is that? You’ve lived here all your life, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “The reason is embarrassing, but I’ll tell you. All my classmates are going to private high schools. I can’t, because my grades aren’t good enough and because it’s too expensive.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry!”

“I’m not,” he said. “The public high school has a better sports program. They’ve also got a better music program, and I want to learn an instrument.”

“Which one?”

“Sax, I think. But I’m open.”

At one point, after the sun had set, the adults went inside to have a look at the house, leaving me and Alfie alone. At some point, he took my hand. “Your skin is so soft,” he said, and turned his face toward mine. In a kind of magnetic moment, I moved my head a little toward his, and he moved his head a little towards mine. I moved a little, he moved a little, and by slow, cautious degrees we arrived at a kiss.

It was soft and nice. The only awkward part was that neither of us knew when it was okay to stop. We were saved, I guess, by the return of the adults. We heard them and separated before they could have seen us.

“I’d give you my phone number,” I told him, “but I don’t have a phone.”

“Neither do I,” he confessed with a smile.

Ken, Lois, and I went home soon after, but not before Alfie invited me to a baseball game he was playing tomorrow.

 

---

 

It wasn’t as though I made a decision to like boys. In fact, I don’t know whether I like boys in the plural, but I know that Alfie and I hit it off. We were like gears that instantly meshed. It wasn’t exciting or awkward or embarrassing. It was natural. We were simpatico. We were simply friends. Friends who kissed sometimes.

That night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I thought of Reddie, who started off in disguise, dressed as a boy. Then she revealed herself as the girl she always was, out in the open, known, recognized — and soon she was courted by one of the cowboys. When she lay in her bedroll, underneath the stars, she was tormented by the uncertainty of Does he like me? Does he respect me?

I didn’t suffer that torture. It was pretty clear that Alfie and I were on the same wavelength. A cool, quiet wavelength. It wasn’t passionate, but it sure was nice. Would it last? Would it survive the immersion into high-school life and the high-school population? I didn’t know. I wasn’t worried. I was probably too young to have a boyfriend. I certainly didn’t plan it.

In the end, I figured that it was Celine’s body, Celine’s inclinations, that responded so warmly to Alfie.

Then I wondered how long I’d think of “Celine” and Celine’s body as somehow separate from me. At some point, I'll just *be* Celine, won't I?

 

---

 

Lois was only too glad to help me pick out a cute dress for the baseball game. Although she wore a pleased smile, she surprised me by not asking any questions or teasing me. I appreciated her discretion.

The teams were still warming up when I arrived at the baseball field. There were boys everywhere, but Alfie and I spotted each other right away. I smiled and gave him a low-key wave hello, but some sharp eye on his team saw our mutual smiles, and soon they were all ribbing him, chanting: “Alfie’s got a girl-friend! Alfie’s got a girl-friend.” He was embarrassed, and so was I, but I couldn’t help but smile.

Luckily, they didn’t know my name, so they couldn’t resort to singing Alfie and Celine, sittin’ in a tree…

I stood there like an idiot, smiling and blushing, looking back and forth. Somehow I couldn’t figure out where to sit. Alfie came over to say hello, accompanied by hoots and calls from his team.

“I’m glad you came,” he told me. “Just ignore those morons.”

“I’m not going to ignore them,” I told him. “I like it.”

He laughed at that, and then I said (surprised by my own boldness), “Why don’t you kiss me, so we can hear what kind of sounds they make?”

He put his hand on my shoulder and came in for a kiss. The bench went wild. They were hooting and cheering and shouting, “Go, Alfie! Go, Alfie! Go, Alfie!”

At last we broke off — we were both laughing too hard to keep our lips together.

 

---

 

Of course, now that I was beginning my first relationship as a girl, I had to go away. Sunday was the cookout. Monday was Alfie’s game. Tuesday I left for four days with Mr. Waters’ family, visiting Mystic, Connecticut.

It was a great trip. I really needed it. The adults planned it very well. “The adults” in this case were Mr. Waters’ two daughters and their husbands. Each of them took turns shepherding us kids. “Us kids” being me, Daphne, and her three cousins: a sixteen-year-old boy named Tim, and a pair of fourteen-year-old twins, Esme and Hazel. Most of the time, we were on the go: swimming, hiking, climbing, taking ziplines… We only spent one day in Mystic itself, mainly at the Aquarium.

I think I’d be hard pressed to find a time — even in my own childhood — when I had that much fun. Honestly, there hadn’t been much fun — much joy — in my life for a long while. The past ten or fifteen years, at least. My life had become an endless struggle, and one I wasn’t very well suited for. The emotional battles with Theresa were exhausting, and her year-long bout with depression was soul-killing. But here and now, on the other hand, I had people looking out for me, people whose mission (if you could call it that) was to make sure I was safe, fed, and happy.

Also, the fact that we were so physically active made it easy for us kids to get along. I didn’t worry even once about fitting in or knowing what to talk about. I realized that Lois’ suggestion that I join a sports team had a lot of merit. It could be like this trip, where everything was physical, concrete, very much in the moment. It was glorious.

I’m sure that Lois and Ken needed a break from me as well. I lay awake on Thursday night, my last night away, reflecting on all the recent upheaval in their lives. I made a list:

1. Celine pulled a stunt that was severe enough to force Ken to find a new job in a new town
2. The abrupt move meant selling their dream home, their “forever home,” at a loss
3. They bought a house in one of the least desirable parts of town
4. They found out that their daughter had been shot dead after provoking the police
5. The person they believed to be their daughter, the person they traveled with and lived with, was actually a body-swapping psychopath
6. The person now living with them as their daughter was a 42-year-old con man

Did I leave anything out? Oh, yes: Lois’ depression. She started out depressed before everything on my list, and none of it helped her, not in the slightest. Each element only made things worse. Oh, and there were three more things:

1. Before the con man became their daughter, he was planning a major heist
2. All the elements of that heist are still in the field
3. The psychopathic body-swapper had sought out their current daughter, for reasons unknown

Would Simon come back? What did he want with me? Did he even plan to swap with me in the first place? He said he had little control over switching.

I puzzled over those questions. I didn’t think Simon would come back, but then again, I never expected him to look for me at all.

My mind replayed the scene with Simon in that backyard, when he held my arm. As I got closer to sleep, the world of dreams wrapped around my thoughts, and the scene with Simon became fanciful and complicated in ways impossible to articulate. I had the mistaken impression that I somehow understood Simon’s intentions and plans, but it was only the onset of a dream As my mind opened in wonder, I drifted into the depths of sleep.

A Minority Of One : 8 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception
of his own smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and
of appreciation which is in itself a proof of nobility."
— Sherlock Holmes , The Sign Of The Four

---

 

When I arrived home on Friday night, I was tanned, happy, and full of the energy that only teenagers are capable of. One glance at Ken and Lois told me that my absence had done them good as well. Ken had his arm around Lois, and they were both VERY happy. I wanted to observe that somebody got some! but given my place in the family dynamic, I doubted that the remark would be welcome. So I was silently happy for them, and happier still when they folded me into a three-way family hug.

I couldn’t help but start babbling about all the things we’d done on our trip, when Lois gently interrupted me, making a “slow down” gesture with her hands.

“Just a quick thing,” she told me with a smile, “Your friend Meredith is coming over for dinner tomorrow night.”

Her announcement stopped me dead. I blinked three or four times, and stood there with my mouth hanging stupidly open. Luckily, I stopped myself from asking Why? — It would have sounded awfully selfish of me. Instead, I said, “Uhhh… good! That’s real good.”

“She and I have been talking,” Lois shared.

“On the phone?” I asked.

“Of course on the phone, silly!” Lois laughed lightly. “I feel like I’ve found a friend here.”

“I’m really happy for you,” I told her. “Max— uh— Meredith! They’re a really nice person.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Her eyes twinkled.

“Um,” I said. It was all I could manage to say. Obviously, there was nothing wrong with Meredith and Lois becoming friends. Or maybe, there was nothing obviously wrong with it. On the face of it, it made perfect sense: Max, like me, had been switched into a female body, and Max — now Meredith — didn’t have the luxury that I had, of being able to literally grow into the role. Meredith was thrown into the deep end, as an adult. It made sense that she’d reach out to Lois, who was the only adult female who could understand and be willing to help.

Oh, except maybe Theresa. But from what Meredith told me on our bike ride, Theresa wasn’t very easy to separate from Leo, and Leo wasn’t very easy to talk to now.

“Why don’t you head upstairs and take a shower, honey?” Lois suggested. “Wash the trip off you, relax a bit. Don’t make the water too hot, though — it will feel good, but it will make your sunburn worse.”

“Right,” I said, still a bit stunned by the idea of Meredith coming over.

“And when you’re settled, Meredith wants you to give her a call.”

“What? Me? She said not to—”

“I know all about that. I’ll call her and then I’ll hand you the phone. Okay?”

I trooped upstairs with my bags, and stood frozen in place, like a marble statue, in the middle of my room. After a few moments of standing stock-still and stupified, I realized that I was still holding my bags. I opened my hands and let them drop to the floor. Then I went and took a shower.

Why did Meredith’s impending visit bother me? It felt like an invasion, like an interruption. I had the feeling she was going to jam a stick between my spokes.

I took a deep breath. There was no point in pretending that I didn’t understand. I knew very well what the problem was — or part of the problem, anyway. It was this new dynamic, my new role. Things had changed. I wasn’t an adult in a kid’s body any more. I was just a kid now — no matter who I was inside. If I hadn’t gone with the Marstons, if I’d become a ward of the state, things would have been this way right from the start. It was different (up to now) with the Marsons because Ken and Lois knew the score. I had a bit of a honeymoon period with them, but now the honeymoon was over.

Before the Mystic trip, I was Leo-who-looked-like-Celine. Now, I was the new Celine.

This new reality keyed into something that happened on the trip, on the second night.

It was actually one of the themes of the trip for me, but it really came to a head on Wednesday night.

Nobody in Mr. Waters’ family knew my inner reality. For them, I was just the thirteen-year-old who lived next door. When the adults would say, “Come on, kids!” or “Dinner’s ready, kids!” they were including me in that call. Like the other kids, I’d respond.

That much was new. That much I expected. It was an adjustment in any case, but I could deal with it. I just had to ignore the little voice of protest inside me, the one that whined I’m not a kid!

There were other things, too: like the park worker who checked my climbing harness, to make sure I’d done it right, or Daphne’s father, who asked whether I’d buckled my seat belt, and looked to be sure after I’d told him I had.

When we were in Mystic, walking around the Old Town, Daphne’s aunt actually bent down and tied my shoe when it came undone. I was just about to do it myself, but she got there first! It wasn’t like I was helpless or anything! While she was doing that, people walked by, glanced at her, glanced at me. I knew what they were thinking, so I cried out, “I *do* know how to tie my own shoes!” It came out with more dismay than I meant to express.

Daphne’s aunt straightened up, smiling. “I know you do, honey. I just want to make sure it doesn’t come undone again. You don’t want to trip and fall, do you, sweetie?”

All day long it was like that. Strangers would call me “little girl” or “honey” or “sweetie.” One older Southern woman called me “baby girl” and I felt something wilt inside me.

Still, all of that I could handle. I handled it all day long.

It had more of an impact when the adults said, “Okay, kids, time for bed!” and when they’d tell me to be sure to brush my teeth.

I never protested any of this. I knew it was all well meant. I knew what I looked like. There wasn’t any point in trying to make assertions or try to claim rights based on who I used to be.

A lot of how we see ourselves is conditioned by the way people treat us, and for four solid days I was treated like a little girl. At times it felt like everyone — even people we passed on the street — were building a box around me: a box that was the exact size and shape of a thirteen-year-old girl. It wasn’t as though I wanted to break out of the box — it’s just that I found it disconcerting to have to face, over and over, just how thoroughly and completely I’d been transformed.

The event that drove my new reality home occurred on the second night of our trip. All of us kids had gone to bed at ten, and Daphne, who shared a room with me, quickly dropped off to sleep. I lay awake,excited, happy, looking forward to tomorrow. I could hear the adults talking downstairs. Because the bedroom door was closed, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were pretty lively. It sounded like fun.

I had to get up to pee, and when I came out of the bathroom, the adults’ laughter came rolling up the stairs. I couldn’t help but smile. Their laughter was infectious. Daphne’s aunt was talking about “Ronnie,” a boy they all knew back when they were in high school, and she casually mentioned that he was particularly well-endowed. Her statement was greeted with hoots of disbelief and pretended shock, and of course the others wanted to know how she knew “what he had down there.”

Without thinking, I slowly made my way down the stairs, one step at a time, taking in the story.

Daphne’s aunt had the floor: “Remember Jane Chatpern? Her parents had a house in Rhode Island. In the summer after graduation, a bunch of us went out there so we could spend the day on the beach. It got to be seven or so, and we were regrouping, getting ready for dinner. I needed to wash the sand off me, and the shower in the house was busy, so I went to use the outdoor shower. I didn’t know that Ronnie was already in there. It was all completely innocent! The latch didn’t really work — it was loose, you know? So it didn’t really lock. He was in there, facing the door, about to turn on the water, buck—” she abruptly froze, a little shocked at seeing me there on the stairs.

Daphne’s mother called out to me, “Is something wrong, honey? Can’t sleep?”

“No,” I said. “I heard you laughing and talking, so I wanted to come down hang out with you guys.”

A series of glances shot back and forth among them, and Daphne’s father said, “That’s nice, sweetie pie, but some things aren’t for little ears.”

“Um,” I began, not sure how to explain. “No, uh — it’s okay.”

“No,” Daphne’s father countered in a very firm tone. “It’s *not* okay. I’m sure your parents would want you in bed right now, not discussing adult topics with people you barely know.”

Daphne’s mother stood and came over to me. My hand rested on the bannister. She placed her hand over mine, looked up at me, and smiled. “Listen, sweetie. You run back upstairs and hop into bed. I’ll come up in a minute with some warm milk with honey. It’ll help you sleep. Then I’ll tuck you in, night-night.”

I opened my mouth in mute protest, but I could see I had no hope of prevailing here. I’d made a tactical blunder. There was nothing to do but retreat.

As I turned to go upstairs, Daphne’s father suggested, speaking to his wife, “Maybe you could quietly read her a story while you’re up there?”

“No, I’m good,” I replied, embarrassed. “Thanks for asking, though.”

“She might be a little homesick,” Daphne’s uncle suggested. “Is this her first time away from home?”

A few minutes after I settled back in bed, Daphne’s mother came quietly into the room. She put her finger to her lips. “We don’t want to wake Daphne,” she whispered. She sat on the edge of my bed and placed a warm mug of milk in my hands. “Drink up,” she said with a smile. “Are you sure you don’t need a story?” She was holding a copy of Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book, and touched the end of a bookmark so I’d know she’d already chosen one.

I shook my head no. I was so mixed up inside, I couldn’t get any words out.

“You’re not scared or homesick, are you?”

Again, I shook my head no. She put her hand on the bottom of the mug, gently tipping it to make me keep drinking.

“You know, sometimes adults talk about things that children shouldn’t hear—” she began

I cut her off, saying, “I didn’t hear any stories. I just heard you guys laughing when I came out of the bathroom. I wasn’t up here listening.”

She smiled in relief, and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “Finish up,” she prompted. “Drink it all down, honey.”

I finished, and held the mug so she could see it was empty. She dabbed at my lips with a napkin, took the mug, then kissed me on the forehead. “NIghty-night, Celine,” she said to me.

“Nighty-night,” I repeated. Then she slipped silently from the room.

I lay there for a half an hour, feeling as embarrassed and humiliated as I’ve ever felt. Then, listening to Daphne’s slow, rhythmic breathing, I dropped off to sleep.

This was my new reality. I wasn’t a 42-year-old man in a little girl’s body any more. I was just a little girl.

That new reality didn’t follow me home from Mystic. It was already here, waiting for me.

Ken, Lois, and Meredith were adults, and as such, they had a latitude and power utterly beyond my reach. They lived in a different world from me.

I was just a kid. The others had no reason to continue to treat me as an adult. I mean, I *look* like a kid. I guess I *act* like a kid most of the time. I assume and expect things, the way that children do: I expect that adults will help me and take care of me.

When I became part of this family, I had no problem letting go of all my adult responsibilities. I didn’t even think about it. Most of those responsibilities I wouldn’t be able to manage, anyway: things like earning a living, paying the bills, driving places, shopping for food, maintaining a serious lifetime relationship…

I didn’t think much about it as it was happening, but by now things had gone so far, it became existentially embarrassing. I was a dropout! I’d dropped out of adult life. I didn’t feel guilty. I felt foolish and exposed. I was living off the Marstons. It wasn’t as though I had a choice, though! Back at that military base, they couldn’t let me leave on my own. They had to give me to someone: to either the Marstons or the state. I’d have to wait five years before my life was my own again.

Given all that, there was no way I could expect Ken and Lois to treat me as though I was the third adult in the house.

And *that* was the problem with Meredith coming over, or with Meredith talking to Lois. I was irrelevant. I had zero control, zero choice. Meredith could say any crazy thing she liked about me. She could spill all my secrets, my past misdeeds, my problems with Theresa… She could even make things up out of whole cloth, if she felt so inclined, and there was nothing I could do about it. Meredith had plenty of darts she could casually stick into me. She might stick me badly without meaning to, or even realizing that she’d done so.

She was such a different person now. Her transformation from Max to Meredith was an upheaval. Her life was now a mirror image of what it used to be. As Max, he was totally predictable and habit-driven — at times he was downright boring. He was methodical, conventional, slow and dependable… As Meredith? My brief encounter with her made me very uneasy. She seemed to have slipped her moorings. She was dangerous, unpredictable, volatile, like a hand grenade with a loose pin, rolling around, just out of reach.

Still, there was one topic Meredith couldn’t use against me: the idea for the heist. For the first time, I was glad that I told Ken and Lois. Luckily, I’d disarmed that landmine, but who knows what other explosives Meredith could casually drop?

As soon as I was clean, dry, and dressed in my PJs, I came downstairs to the kitchen. Lois, still smiling, called Meredith, and after a brief exchange, handed me the phone.

“Hey, Meredith,” I said. “How’re you doing?”

“Better,” she said. “With Lois’ help, and some… other stuff.”

I frowned, not understanding. Lois, still smiling, left the kitchen.

“What other stuff?”

“Ohhh,” she said, with a soft sigh, “I mean sex. Sex is the ‘other stuff.’ Let me tell you, it’s so much better as a woman. You’ll see. You’ll find out.”

“Are you talking about sex… I mean, are you having sex with men? Or did you go the other way?” I asked in a low voice.

“With a man, with one man — so far. It’s the Ponzi guy.”

My jaw dropped. My eyes popped in surprise. “Uhh, okay,” I said, more than a little shocked. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“It can’t be bad, because it feels so good,” she said. “It’s *better* than good. It’s wild! He puts his hands all over me. He touches me everywhere, and I love it. He makes me scream — in the good way. Oh my God, how he loves to touch me.” I was about to say something, but she cut in: “Oh, Celine — when I said it was wild, I mean ‘wild’ in a good way.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Meredith let out of a sigh of pleasure. I’m sure she meant it to be sexy, but it only irritated me.

“That’s great, Meredith,” I said, but my tone said, I really don’t need to hear this. “Do you talk to Lois about all this?”

“Oh, yes! And she’s a great resource! You’ll see. When you’re older. When you need guidance… in the intimate things... in the world of… in the female world, the feminine world.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned, involuntarily.

“Listen, Celine: I can see that you’re too young to hear about these things, and honestly, I don’t want to offend your sensitive ears…”

“Yes, good. Please don’t. Remember — seriously — I’m a child, a minor. Spare me the intimate details. Don’t make me cover my ears.”

“Okay.”

“Can you just skip ahead to the punch line? Why did you want to talk with me?”

“Okay, yes. You know I’m coming over for dinner tomorrow. What I was wondering is that maybe you wouldn’t want to be there?”

“What?” She really threw me for a loop there. It was a twist I never saw coming.

“Well, your mother said you have a boyfriend now.”

“Uhhh,” the words caught in my throat.

“And I thought, maybe you’d like to have dinner with him, instead of an old lady like me. I mean, you’ve been away for a week, right?”

“Four days.”

“So you’ve been counting the days. See?”

“Meredith, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to suggest—”

“I’m sure Lois has worked out the details. She just wanted you to talk with me so you’d know I was cool with it.”

“Uh—” Again, she’d caught me up short. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t as though I gave a toss about whether Meredith would mind, but when she put it that way, she shifted the ground and threw me off balance.

“Look, Celine: just talk with Lois now and see, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Great! I owe you… a great big hug! Bye, now!” And with that, she hung up.

A great big hug?

Lois came in and saw my look of confusion. “This is so weird,” I said. “And awkward.”

“It’s only awkward if we make it awkward,” she told me. “Meredith needs to spend time with grown-ups. Preferably not the ones next door — Leo and Theresa.”

“True,” I agreed.

“It will be easier for her if you’re not there.”

I gave a acquiescing shrug. “Okay, I get that. But please, tell me that you didn’t call Alfie’s parents.”

“But I thought you *liked* Alfie, don’t you?”

“Sure, I like him, but I’m not ready to marry him. We’re only thirteen, both of us. I barely know him.”

“Okay, but listen: his mother is going to the flea market in Lakeside tomorrow. She’s bringing Alfie to carry her things. If you go along, Alfie won’t complain like he usually does. And she says the flea market is a lot of fun.”

I grunted. I’m not sure what my grunt was supposed to mean, but at the very least it signalled that I’d heard.

“And then dinner afterward. Dave and Ken will be working the evening shift, so it’ll just be you three.”

“Oh, God,” I moaned.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she said. “I’m sure it will be fun.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. But, hey — can I step out of my role as a teenager for a moment, and ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Meredith told me that she’s having sex with the Ponzi guy—”

“Right.”

“— and you know that he — the Ponzi guy — was having sex with Theresa up to now?”

“That’s over now.”

“Okay, but do you know whether he’s screwing his assistant as well?”

“Oh… I didn’t know he had an assistant.”

“Mmm, yes, he does.”

“Hmm! That could be a delicate question, but I’ll see whether I can find out.”

“Okay, I don’t actually want to know the answer to that question. I’m just thinking about Meredith.”

“Okay,” Lois said. “And, Celine? Please don’t let me hear you use the word screwing again. It’s indelicate.”

 

---

 

Saturday morning at ten, Mrs. Mustone came to pick me up. The flea market was, as I said, in Lakeside, which is the part of Lambeth that faces the lake; the part where the rich people live. I’d heard of it, but in all the years I lived in Lambeth, I’d never ventured there.

“Isn’t it funny that the flea market is on the rich side of town?” I said.

“Yes,” Mrs. Mustone agreed. “There are a lot of things that are classy if you’re rich, and trashy if you’re not.”

“Like what?” Alfie queried.

“Being bilingual, for one,” she replied. “Owning chickens, for another. Or.. let’s see… living in a ‘little house.’ Hmm. I’m sure there are others.”

“Okay, Ma! That’s plenty!”

“Well, you asked me!” she protested.

We parked at a big parking lot at the western end of Lakeside. Honestly, it was Lakeside in name only. There’s Lakeside, then this parking lot, and then a huge, flat field, which was now full of canopies, tables, and little roped-off areas.

“The best thing about this place,” Alfie told me, “is the Mexican Street Food stand. Did you ever have beef tongue?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well you can have some of mine, if you like,” he said, and when his mother wasn’t looking, he stuck out his tongue and waggled it at me, smiling as he did so, and watching for my reaction.

“That’s very bold of you,” I said. I tried to sound neutral, but couldn’t manage to hide my amusement.

We didn’t hold hands, but every so often our hands touched and we gently bumped into each other.

Again, I was struck by how easily I’d fallen into this, the boy-girl thing. It wasn’t a decision. There wasn’t any point where I said, “I’m going to like boys now.” It just seemed to happen, to start and grow, all by itself. I was glad once again that Reddie had blazed a trail for me, so to speak. At least conceptually, I had a model for someone who had once been a boy and became a girl, and then found a man who suited her perfectly.

While we wandered, I thought about Meredith. I was glad she had Lois to talk to, and I was VERY glad that I wasn’t going to be part of their dinner conversation. I was happy to get out of her way. Hopefully, she wouldn’t muddy the waters for me while she sought her own clarity.

I scanned the crowd, looking for familiar faces, but didn’t find any. I wondered whether the Ponzi guy might be here as well, but I had no idea what he looked like.

Surprisingly, Alfie and I had a lot to talk about. I asked him what he knew about Tallmadge High, and it turned out that he had a lot of useful info. Growing up here as he did, he’d been to the school building a number of times for local events, so he had a sense of the physical layout. Also he had an older cousin who was entering junior year. It turned out that Alfie had been asking questions of his cousin, trying to get ready — exactly as I was — and Alfie was happy to share what he knew so far.

After we exhausted that topic, Alfie asked me where we’d lived before Lambeth. Luckily, I’d prepared for exactly that question — I’d done some reading about Cincinnatti, which is where the Morstens lived last. I also had stories and recollections I’d gotten from Ken.

“You make it sound like a wonderful place!” he exclaimed. “Why on earth did you ever move?”

His question caught me up short. Why indeed? I remembered how wistfully Lois had spoken about the forever home they’d left behind. And the stories I told? As I said, they were Ken’s stories, and without thinking, I rendered them with all the warmth and affection that Ken expressed when he told the stories to me. That was where the feeling of wonderful came from, the emotional background that Alfie perceived and reacted to. I mimicked it in my retelling, and he naturally took the feelings as my own.

“Why did we move?” I repeated aloud, and internally asked myself, How did Ken and Lois manage to leave the place they loved?

Alfie smiled. “Yeah, why did you?”

“Oh, I screwed up,” I told him, and felt my spirit deflate a little. “I did something bad. Something really bad.” My voice sank to a lower register as I spoke.

“I can’t believe that,” he said, still smiling. He took my hand.

“I wasn’t a very nice person,” I told him. As I lifted my face to look into his, a huge tear welled up in my left eye. It was true: I wasn’t a nice person. Leo Bliston was not a good man.

Suddenly my life and Celine’s collided, meshed, and merged into one thing. She and I — me and her — we had stolen the lives of the people around us, the people who loved us most, the people who were closest to us — and we burnt those lives down. We exploited our friends, used them, carried them along for our own purposes, and devastated their own plans, their own joys. We were selfish, self-centered, and never stopped to consider how we affected the people around us. Not only did we lack empathy, neither of us had a sense of right and wrong. Well, I’m sure we did *know*: We knew right from wrong, but wrong and bad were a lot more exciting than right and good. Even more than that, wrong and bad were a hell of a lot easier and a lot more satisfying.

As these awakenings, these stabs of conscience and memory passed through my mind and washed across my face, Alfie — who waited and watched, began to feel confused — and a little worried. “I can’t believe that,” he repeated. “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

That did it. Once he said those words, loaded with his sweet sincerity and trust, I couldn’t hold back any more. The fat, round tears that had gathered in my eyes rolled down my cheeks, and my body shook with silent sobs.

In spite of being startled by my sudden transformation, Alfie had the consideration and presence of mind to take me by the shoulders and guide me behind the tent-like booths to a spot where no one could see us. He held me while I cried, and let me soak his t-shirt with my tears. I clung to him and wept like a child. I had no choice; it I couldn’t stop.

Alfie drew the line, though, when I began to snuffle. He pushed me a little away from him and pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, which he unfolded and put in my hands. I blew my nose and dried my eyes.

“Wow, you’re a real gentleman! You actually carry a handkerchief!” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

“Uh, yeah.”

I sniffed. “Sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Seemed like you needed to let it out.” He grinned and kissed my cheek. “Sometime you’ll have to tell me what an awful person you are. I’ve got to say, you hide it well.” He smiled as he said it.

“I was,” I insisted. “I was awful, terrible. I really was.”

“Right, sure,” he said. “Can we go find my mother now? Are you okay to go back out there? And, um, you can keep that handkerchief.”

 

---

 

We wandered for five minutes before we found his mother. She was staring at a bunch of paintings. Well, not actual painting paintings. They were framed posters of old works of art. There was a wide variety of styles, from Leonardo da Vinci to Andy Warhol.

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” Mrs. Mustone asked me, drawing me close to her and putting her arm around me. Clearly, she could tell I’d been crying. “Do you see any that you particularly like?”

I ran my eye over the display, still feeling the aftereffects of my weepy emotional release.

One of the paintings did strike me. Once I saw it, none of the others compared. It was a Renaissance painting of a woman sitting in a chair, looking — well, I want to say she was looking into the camera even though it’s not correct. She has a baby on her lap, and another child standing next to her.

“I like that one,” I said.

“What do you like about it? What is it that draws you?” she asked me, sounding surprised.

“Her face,” I said. “She’s beautiful… but she looks a little tired and a little sad. She looks real. It’s like she doesn’t want her picture taken, but she lets it happen anyway. Do you know what I mean? What is this painting?”

The vendor said, “It’s the Madonna della seggiola by Raphael Sanzio. Twelve bucks.”

“That’s a pretty good price,” Mrs. Mustone said to me. “Would you like it?”

“Um, yeah, I guess I would,” I said. I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted it, but I felt I’d been put on the spot. In any case, there wasn’t anything hanging on my bedroom walls, so this would be a start. I fished in my pockets for the money Lois had given me to spend.

“No, let me get it for you,” Mrs. Mustone said. “Let it be a little present from me to you. Okay?”

 

---

 

The rest of Saturday was pretty low key. It was nice. Mrs. Mustone was really sweet. Dinner was great — manicotti, salad, garlic bread.. After dinner we watched The Irishman, starring Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. None of us liked it. We were all bored, colossally bored, but no one dared say so until the entire three hours of it were over.

Then Alfie stood up, stretched, his arms high over his head, and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ! That was sooo long! Way too long! Oh my God! And nothing happened!”

“Alfie, language,” his mother said gently.

“Why did they talk so much about that fish at the end?” I demanded.

“Why was it called The Irishman?” Alfie demanded. “He could have been German or Greek or anything! They could have called it That Guy Over There.”

“The whole thing could have been shorter,” Mrs. Mustone admitted.

“It is what it is,” Alfie said, imitating de Niro.

“And it’s not what it’s not,” I added, in Pesci’s voice.

“Well, now we can say we watched it,” Mrs. Mustone concluded. “At least we have that.”

 

---

 

By the time Mrs. Mustone drove me home, I was pretty beat. It was eleven, which was early for me when I was Leo Bliston, but late for Celine. My metabolism and my inner clock were drastically different now. Alfie and I sat in the back seat and held hands in a loose way. When we arrived at my house, he walked me to my front door. We had a quick kiss, and I smiled at him as I closed the door behind me.

I have to say, I was liking the way things were going. It was simple, uncomplicated. I liked the way we held hands — loose, sometimes barely touching. I never liked the palm-to-palm grasp that I grew up with. My hand always got sweaty, and I never knew when I could let go. With Alfie, our hands would brush, touch, and only sometimes give a brief squeeze. It wasn’t a commitment or a declaration to the world. It was for us, like a private ping: I’m here. Are you there?

My mother and Meredith were still talking excitedly in the kitchen. They hadn’t heard me come in. In order to avoid explaining my picture, I set it down in the entryway, leaning it against the wall. After taking a deep breath, I stepped into the kitchen, so I could tell Lois that I was home.

When I entered the room, the two of them looked up quickly, as though I’d caught them in the middle... of something; who knows what. They were probably deep into a topic that “wasn’t for little ears.” It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. It was kind of cute. Whatever it was, it was fun and funny for them.. The table had the remnants of apple pie and coffee, but it was clear from the empty bottle on the counter and the particular way they smiled, that they’d both had more than one glass of wine. Neither of them appeared drunk, but their faces were flushed with alcohol, shared secrets, and the excitement of a new friendship. Whatever they were saying when I entered, they abruptly stopped and stared at me, grinning, mouths slightly agape.

“Hi, I’m home,” I said.

“Oh, there she is!” Meredith exclaimed.

“Hi, honey, come over here and give your old mom a hug,” Lois said, with more warmth than usual.

I dutifully trooped over and submitted to a hug, first from Lois, then from Meredith, and then gave in to a group hug that was awkward, but mercifully brief.

“How did it go?” Lois asked.

“Did you have a nice time with your boyfriend?” Meredith teased, almost singing the last word.

“It was nice,” I said. “It was great. Except that we watched The Irishman. *Not* recommended.”

“Which Irishman?” Meredith asked. “What was he doing? Why were you watching him?”

Lois, laughing, swatted Meredith gently with the back of her hand. “The movie, silly!” They both laughed.

Then Meredith queried, “Which movie?”

“The Irishman!” Lois shouted, shaking with laughter. Meredith shrugged, puzzled. I had to get out of there.

“Okay, now I’m home, but I’m really beat. Do you mind if I go up to bed?”

“Yes, yes, honey!” Lois exclaimed. “Go to bed. You need your sleep to help you grow.” Then she jumped out of her chair and hugged me again.

As I was leaving the room, I almost warned Meredith to drive safely, but I realized it would sound awfully precocious, coming from a thirteen-year-old girl. So I just said, “It was nice to see you, Meredith.” Then I took my painting and went up to bed.

 

---

 

That night I had the deepest, most refreshing sleep since I became Celine, and maybe for a long time before. I even slept late! For the first time, my eyes didn’t snap open at 5:30. Today I didn’t wake until nine.

When I sat up on the edge of my bed, I spotted my new picture. It didn’t look the same to me as it did yesterday. If anything, the woman looked even less happy at having her picture taken. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “Things will get better.”

I padded downstairs, still in my pajamas, and heard my parents talking. It was mostly Lois, describing her conversation with Meredith. She was still happy, excited, positive. It was nice to hear her sound so alive for a change.

Hopefully, it would last.

“I’m surprised she told you all that,” Ken was saying. “That’s pretty private information.”

“Oh, it’s just money,” Lois said, in a breezy way.

“A million dollars is a lot of money!” Ken exclaimed.

“That’s just her — his insurance policy! That doesn’t count the house, or the 401k!”

I walked into the kitchen at that point, and Lois beamed at me. “There she is! Hello, sleepyhead!”

“I hope we didn’t wake you,” Ken said with a smile.

“No, I’m surprised I slept so late. This is the first time.” Usually I just jammed a handful of granola into my mouth at breakfast time, and drank some milk from the carton, but today, Lois made pancakes, so I sat at the table and ate like a civilized person. The pancakes were very fluffy and very tasty.

“Max had a million-dollar insurance policy?” I asked.

Ken and Lois looked at me askance, so I said, “Am I not supposed to know?”

The two of them glanced at each other, then Lois laughed. “I’m sorry, honey! Do you know, I think I’ve finally settled into seeing you as a teenage girl. I just don’t expect certain things to come out of your mouth.”

“Yeah, me too,” Ken said. “When you asked that, my first reaction was that’s not something a kid should know.”

“Don’t worry — I won’t repeat it,” I assured them. “When I ran into Meredith on my bike, she mentioned some of that stuff. Is she still set on dividing all of Max’s assets with Theresa?”

“Yes,” Lois answered, but in a strangely cautious way. I figured this was more of the not for little ears territory, and after the mega-dose I received on my trip, I found it a little galling.

More to Ken than to me, she said, “Meredith’s having some trouble selling the house, though. That’s a big hold-up.”

Intent on reclaiming some of my lost adult status, I spoke up and said, “Regardless of how the housing market is doing, I know Max got a great deal when he bought that house, and he paid it off years ago. Meredith may not make much of a profit, but it isn’t like she’s underwater. If she wants to get out, she ought to consider anything she gets as money in her pocket.”

“It isn’t that,” Lois told me. “It’s held up in probate.”

“Oh,” I said, deflating a bit. I don’t know anything about probate. Lois, as if reading my mind, and rubbing it in, asked me, “You don’t know anything about probate, do you?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Mmm,” Lois said, nodding.

I scratched my eyebrow, then I sat on my hands. To break Lois’s gaze, I glanced at Ken, who had a weird, abstracted look on his face, as though he was about to sneeze.

It wasn’t a sneeze. He was trying to remember something. It suddenly came to him, and he nodded.

“Now I know what this reminded me of! All this talk about Meredith providing for Theresa — it reminds me of Breaking Bad.”

“Is that the show where Bryan Cranston makes meth?” Lois asked. “Believe me, Meredith is NOT going to be doing that.”

“No, no — it isn’t that! What I remember isn’t the meth — it’s what I realized after. When I’d seen the whole thing, all the episodes, it suddenly hit me that the motivation for everything he did, was to provide for his family. He thought he was going to die, and he didn’t want to leave his family in the lurch. It was his suburban-father ethos, but he went to an extreme.”

Lois’ face changed. Her excitement and happiness stopped, stock still. “Hmmph,” was her only comment, but her smile disappeared. Ken recognized his misstep. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done, but he knew he’d broken Lois’ mood. So he tried a different tack. He asked me, “What are your plans for the day?”

“Um, I guess I ought to clean my room,” I said. “And I have a picture to hang. Mrs. Mustone got it for me at the flea market yesterday.” They wanted to see it, so I ran upstairs and brought it down. I tried to explain what I saw in the woman’s face, but I could tell they didn’t get it.

Ken and Lois exchanged a quick glance, and he asked, “Are you religious, Celine?”

“Religious?” I repeated, and burst out laughing. “No, why?”

He mutely gestured at my picture.

“This?” I said. “It’s just a picture.”

“It’s a Madonna.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I guess it is.” I looked at it again. “For me, though, she’s just a woman. I like her face. I’m intrigued by her expression.”

“Okay,” Ken said. “But if you ever feel the need to attend some kind of church or whatever—”

“No, no,” I assured him. “I don’t. I won’t. Don’t worry. It’s just a picture.”

“Did Mrs. Mustone choose it for you?”

“No, *I* picked it. In fact, she was surprised that I liked this one. I think she expected me to choose something more modern. She asked me what I liked about it.” I studied the face while I spoke.

“So what was it you liked about it?” Ken asked.

“It looks like she didn’t want her picture taken. I know it doesn’t make sense. That’s what I like. And besides that, I want a picture on my wall. There are no pictures on my walls.”

 

---

 

After the conversation in the kitchen, I briefly considered hiding the picture in my closet, but I took another look. This time it seemed as though the woman was protecting something. Obviously, the baby… but also herself. And maybe something else. She looked like she had a secret. Like Reddie Barnes, I thought. Like me. So I drove a nail into the wall and hung the picture on my otherwise empty wall.

 

---

 

I cleaned my room. It didn’t take long. I opened the window to freshen the air. Then I changed my sheets, vacuumed, and dusted the furniture. I was just about to turn on the computer and get started with social media, when Lois stuck her head in.

“I wanted to get back to you on something,” she said in a low voice. Clearly she didn’t want Ken overhearing. “You asked me whether the Ponzi guy was having sex with his assistant. He’s not.”

At first, I wanted to interrupt and say that I didn’t want to know, but when I heard the whole thing, I was puzzled, and had to ask, “How do you know?”

“Because she left. The assistant left. She quit, or was fired. In any case, she was gone before the Ponzi guy took up with Meredith.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”

Lois didn’t respond, but before she walked away, she gave me a knowing smile, a somewhat superior look, as if to say You don’t know everything!

It rankled me. In the first place, I didn’t care about being right or wrong. I was simply concerned — or at least curious — about Meredith. It sounded like she’d fallen head-over-heels for the Ponzi guy — a man we all knew was a criminal. If he was monogamous (albeit serially monogamous), that fact didn’t make him a saint.

In addition, I felt that my contribution and concern wasn’t being given much weight because of my apparent age. It’s not that they didn’t want to hear from me; it’s just that I’m only thirteen, so what could I know?

I looked at my Madonna. Now she looked coy and secretive. “Are you some kind of Rorschach test?” I asked her out loud. “Are you going to change every time I look at you?”

Reddie Barnes was more my speed, I told myself. She was just a little ahead of me. This Madonna, on the other hand, exists in another world. All I can know of that world is what I’m able to read in her face.

I sat down at my computer, and after thinking for a bit, I created an email account. They asked me for my cell phone number, which I couldn’t give them, but I was able to create the account anyway. I considered whether I should get a Facebook account. I dithered for a while, then decided that when school started, I’d see whether the other kids had Facebook accounts. I’d wait, and decide then.

I made a Twitter account, and by the time I was done with that, I was feeling lost. I’d never concerned myself with the internet at all, let alone social media. I took a look at Instagram, but they too asked for my phone number.

It sucked to be thirteen. Well, not really. What sucked was not having any money. If I were still Leo, if I needed a phone, I’d just go buy one. Sure, right now I could go downstairs and ask Lois when we were going to take care of that, but I didn’t feel like talking to her at the moment.

So, planning ahead: I figured I could spend a few hours each day on Twitter until I understood it. Once I had a grip on that, and once I had a phone, I could work on Instagram. In the meantime, I could ask Alfie which apps kids around here used. That is, if Alfie knew. He was a jock; I don’t know whether he spends any time online.

After an hour and a quarter at the computer, I’d had enough. On a scratch pad I wrote Video games? Computer games? — Weren’t they a part of a teenager’s social life? I added another line to my scratch pad: Look online for articles on how teenagers spend their time.

I also jotted Music. Magazines? Movies? TV shows?

By now I wasn’t just tired of staring at the screen. I was also getting a little hungry. Time for a snack.

I was on the third or fourth stair from the top when I realized that Lois was on the phone. Her voice was happy again. Excited, even. It didn’t take long for me to realize that she was talking to Meredith. It quickly became clear from her remarks that Meredith was talking about sex.

I sighed and went back to my room. From there, I could hear Lois’ voice but not make out what she was saying. I sat on the floor with my back to the wall, waiting. Every so often my stomach would rumble. I was pretty hungry, and the hunger and the waiting made me irritable and impatient.

After five minutes that seemed like an hour, I decided to go downstairs and quietly make myself a sandwich or something. I’d just have to block out Lois’ phone conversation.

To my relief, I heard her goodbyes as I descended the stairs, and she hung up the phone before I set foot in the kitchen.

“Well!” Lois said, beaming.

“Well, well,” I replied, nonsensically.

“Meredith is doing really well,” she said. “Really well.”

“Oh, no,” I groaned. “You’re not going to tell me about her sex life now, are you?”

“What? No! Of course not!” Lois said with a laugh.

I opened the refrigerator and stared inside, waiting for inspiration. Lois gave me a coy look, which I found unnerving.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” I asked.

“Well, if you *must* know,” Lois replied, “Meredith and I were talking about your plan.”

The blood drained from my face in an instant.

A Minority Of One : 9 / 9

[ Melanie Brown’s Switcher Universe ]
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“Such terrible things seemed no longer incredible.”
— Zane Grey , The Trail Driver

---

 

“No,” I said. “You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.” My legs felt weak. I closed the fridge and dropped into a chair. My hands were trembling.

“Yes, we did!” Lois countered. “And calm down, will you? Seriously! We were only talking! No one is going to *do* anything. We’re not criminals, Celine. All we did was walk through it. A conversation. We were only playing, you know? Using our imaginations. It was like writing a mystery novel. We did the whole thing, from beginning to end. We worked out all the weak points. We filled in all the parts that were missing.”

My heart started pounding. “You’re not thinking of doing it, are you?”

Lois frowned and shook her head. “No, of course not! Aren’t you listening? I’ve already told you, I don’t know how many times! We were just… intrigued. We were curious. It turned out to be pretty exciting! And a lot of fun! Like writing a screenplay, you know? For a movie. The perfect crime.”

“It’s not a perfect crime,” I told her. “Even if you filled in all the holes and ironed out all the kinks, it still wouldn’t be a perfect crime.”

“Maybe it wasn’t before, but it is now.”

I could see that Lois was getting a little irritated by my resistance. She put her hands on her hips and demanded, “Do you think you’re the only one who can have ideas like this? Meredith is pretty smart, you know. She’s a computer programmer. And I’m no slouch, either!”

“Of course,” I said. “I know that. But I also know that between you and Meredith, that *you* are the sensible one. Are you sure that she isn’t thinking of doing this herself?”

“No, why would she? She doesn’t need money. Plus, she’s got that Ponzi guy wrapped around her little finger. She’s leading him around by his you-know-what! I wouldn’t be surprised if they got married. Or at least ran off together.”

My breath caught in my throat. Things were getting crazier by the minute. So far, my protests had done nothing but rankle Lois. I had to proceed with caution. Right now, the most important thing was to make certain that NO ONE tried to pull off the heist. In this exact moment, everything else was secondary. There was no point in getting pedantic about what constitutes a “perfect” crime. And it wouldn’t help if I made Lois angry or ruined her good mood. I didn’t want her storming off, or sulking off, before we were done talking. Clearly, now was not the moment to point out that if Meredith and the Ponzi guy ran off together, it would be a crime in itself: they’d be running with stolen money.

Lois scoffed. “And do you know something else, Miss Smarty-Pants? it’s not as hard as you make it out to be. Meredith could do it. All by herself.”

Again I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Look,” I said. “She’s not a criminal. There are things she hasn’t considered. There are things I don’t think she’ll be able to do.”

“Such as?”

“For one thing, how will she open the safe?”

“That’s the best part! She already has the combination! She was cleaning his office one day, dusting his desk, and she lifted up his desk lamp. There it was! Written on a piece of paper and taped to the bottom of the lamp. It was a series of numbers. She tried it on the safe, and the safe opened! She quickly closed it, but now she knows it works! Meredith says that people often do that with their passwords. She says if you ever need somebody’s computer password, the first place to look is on the underside of their keyboard.”

“Oh!” I was quite surprised. “I didn’t know that. You have to admit, though: it was a stroke of pure luck.”

“So what? Why does that matter? She *has* the combination. How were *you* going to open the safe?”

“I was going to ask Meredith and Theresa to install tiny cameras at various angles around the safe, and watch him type the combination.”

“Hmmph! That doesn’t sound very likely!”

“It’s a known method,” I countered, aware of how lame it sounded. “That’s how crooks get ATM codes.”

Lois shrugged. “What else do you think Meredith can’t do?”

“Meredith might get greedy and try to take all the money.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Two things — The first thing is the capacity of Meredith’s van. Based on the amount of money Theresa saw in the safe, the van can’t hold it all, and if you *did* fill it, the van wouldn’t be able to haul it. It would break down from the load. The second thing is that the Ponzi guy has to be left with enough money to run with. If he has a big enough pile of money, he will disappear. Everyone will think he took *all* the money, and no one will look for Meredith. But if she leaves him with little or nothing, he will have no choice: he’ll blame her for everything, and put the police on her trail.”

“Interesting,” Lois said, but she didn’t seemed convinced. She also seemed to have lost interest in the topic — or at least, she was done talking to me about it. However, there was still one more point I had to make, in case Meredith had serious intentions.

“One last thing is that Meredith will need to stay in town and sit on the money. I don’t know whether she’ll be able to do that. If she gives a significant amount to Theresa and Leo, it will multiply the problem.”

“What problem?”

“If she runs off with the money, it will be an implicit confession of guilt. That’s why she has to stay here. She has to know where to hide the money, and she has to know what to *do* with the money.”

Lois huffed with impatience. “What to DO with it? That’s easy! You spend it!”

“No, you can’t! You can’t put the money in the bank, and you can’t make big purchases.”

“Then what’s the point of taking the money in the first place?”

“If you’re smart, you can parcel the money out, and never have to work again. Over time, you can employ money-laundering schemes to make the money appear legitimate.”

Lois stood silent for half a minute. Again she said, “interesting” in an uninterested way. After a long pause, she said, “You know, you’ve spent a lifetime inventing ways of lying, cheating, and stealing from people. I hope, in the future, you’ll be able to use that mind of yours for something constructive. Something lawful and good. So Ken and I can be proud to say that you’re our daughter. Try to think about that.” Then she left the kitchen, went into the living room, and turned on the TV.

I sat there, stunned. This was bad, very, very bad. I was scared, and for once I was scared for someone other than myself. If Meredith stole that money — if Meredith tried to steal that money, it was bound to end badly for her.

Another thought came to me, one that made me feel far worse: If Lois relays my objections to Meredith, would they prevent Meredith from committing the crime? Or would they make her feel better prepared? Or worse, would she feel angry and try to pull the caper just to show me up?

I put my head in my hands. Something else occurred to me that I was sure they hadn’t considered: How vengeful was the Ponzi guy? If Meredith pulled off the heist, and took all the money, his best move would be to go after her. And even if Ponzi *did* run away, how much effort, money, and time would he put into hunting Meredith and getting his money back? What lengths would he go to? How badly would he try to hurt her?

 

---

 

In the end, the only way I could calm down was to try to convince myself that Lois was right: It was only a thought experiment, a fictional crime. I felt 100% sure that Lois herself had zero inclination to break the law. I could see that she wasn’t tempted in the least. The idea of a huge pile of money didn’t make her salivate. The fact that it was someone else’s money, money she hadn’t earned, money she had no claim on, took it completely out of any consideration.

Meredith, on the other hand, had become a person I no longer knew. Then again, did I ever really know her? Even when she was Max? For all I knew, his boring, predictable personality was only a patina that hid a chaotic hedonist. Maybe Max was only good because he never had the opportunity to be bad.

In any case, Meredith might be seriously tempted. She might be reckless enough to want to do it, but was she stupid enough to actually try?

I wanted to say no to that question, but it was a matter of fact that one of my last acts as Leo was to try to tempt my friends (including Max) into the heist: to not only try, but to succeed in extracting that pile of money. Back then, the possibility of Max, Meredith, and Theresa helping me steal seemed a viable possibility.

Drawing a shaky breath, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I told myself over and over, They were only playing a game. It was nothing but talk. They aren’t criminals. They would never do anything wrong.

 

---

 

A week went by, pretty much without event. It was a busy week for Alfie, though: he had three games, one of them away. I went to all of them. One of the unexpected benefits of becoming a baseball fan was getting to know Claire, a girl my age who also came to all the games. Claire was a pretty girl with long straight hair. She came from a family with money: if her clothes and accessories didn’t make that clear, her conversation and behavior certainly did.

The first thing I learned from her was the wisdom of bringing your own cushion to the games. “The seats are so hard,” she explained, “And you don’t know who sat there before you.”

“Are you worried about cooties?” I asked, with a teasing grin.

She hesitated and looked me in the face before responding. I think she was trying to determine my exact intention: Did I say it to mock her? Did I want to offend? Was it possible that I was so immature that I actually believed in cooties?

She decided I was trying to be funny (and failing), but she couldn’t miss a chance to tell me something I CLEARLY didn’t know.

“Cooties?” she repeated. “Hardly. Unlike some people, I like to keep my clothes clean. Consequently, I’m careful where I sit.”

I nodded. She was right. Beginning with the very next game, I always brought my own cushion. She acknowledged it with a nod and a little smile, and the nature of our association was defined then and there.

Claire had zero interest in baseball, but she had a very active interest in James, who pitched for Alfie’s team. Claire liked to talk, and as I was her only possible audience, she arrived late and planted herself next to me at every game. She couldn’t hide the fact that she was a snob, but as none of her peers were there, so she had to make do with me.

Baseball had never held my interest before, so I was surprised to find I’d somehow, in the course of my life, absorbed most of the rules. Claire talked the entire time, either to me or on her phone, but even while we were talking I kept an eye on the game.

Completely unaware of how it might offend, Claire cautioned me to not speak to her while she on the phone. In fact, I shouldn’t make any kind of sound. “If you’re going to shout and cheer, move down there,” she said, waving her hand down the empty bleacher row. “I don’t want to have to explain who I’m here with.”

On another occasion, she mistakenly thought she spotted one of her friends walking a dog on the road near the baseball field. Horrified at the idea of being seen at a baseball game — and even worse, being seen with me — a girl outside her social class — and worse yet, being friendly with such a girl — she gave me a shove and hissed, “Move down the bench! Move down there! Go! Go!”

When it became clear that the dog-walker was not her friend at all, she said, “You can come back now, but be ready!”

I didn’t mind. Once summer ended, I doubted that I’d see her again. She and James were attending a private school far from Tallmadge High, where Alfie and I would go. It would have been nice to be her friend, but being Claire’s audience suited me just fine. Claire was my window into the world of girls my age. I made mental notes of things she mentioned. Sometimes I made actual written notes, on the palm of my hand, for things I was sure I’d forget. She found this oddly amusing, as if it were a primitive activity she happened to observe while slumming.

I soon came to realize that I regarded her in a similar way: as a native of a foreign culture, a practicant of unusual rituals, a holder of obscure, yet parochial, knowledge and know-how. We were so different, we might as well have come from different planets.

When she feigned surprise that we “only” had one house and one car, she asked whether we at least had a boat. “Where do you go in the summer?” she asked, bewildered. I shrugged, because I had no answer. It was summer now, and we were at home.

In a way, both Claire and I were like anthropologists. We had a mutual otherness. I came to know that her friends called me “the girl who writes on her hand,” just as she came to know that Alfie’s teammates called her “the rich girl with long hair.”

So far, I had three guides into teenage femininity: Reddie Barnes, my Rorschach Madonna, and now Claire.

Reddie Barnes’ active presence in my life ceased once I finished the last page of The Trail Driver. My Madonna had begun to look the same each time I’d see her. Somehow she lost her Rorschach quality — now, she was a girl who was a little tired and a little coy, who was used to being stared at, but didn’t want her picture taken. I still liked the painting, but it wasn’t as alive as when I first saw it.

Claire was my new guide, and she was pleased to be in that role. She enjoyed explaining the relative merits of various brands of shampoo vis-à-vis the various types of hair, the cultivation of perfect nails, and the effects of various foods on one’s complexion. She was full of practical tips, such as how to deal with acne and unwanted facial hair. (“Not that I have either problem!”) She also had a lot of things to say about boys — what they want, how they think, and so on.

Principally, though, what I looked for and learned from her was how she talked, how she spent her time, what music she listened to, what apps she had on her phone.

She often made comments on what I was wearing and what I could do with my hair. She once pointed out the difference between our shoes. NOT, however, how much better and more expensive hers were than mine, but how much cleaner hers were. Mine were splattered with mud and dirt. Hers were pristine, as though she’d just bought them, taken them from the box for the first time, and put them on at that exact moment.

“We’re in the middle of a baseball field!” I exclaimed. “How can your shoes be that clean?”

“I’m a girl,” she said. “I have to be careful where I walk.”

I’m a girl, too! I told myself, and from that moment, I too, was careful where I walked.

As you might imagine, Claire sometimes got on my nerves. One day, she was talking about cosmetics, comparing brands. At one point, I asked her whether the items she described as “the essentials” were expensive.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “Does it matter?”

My answer was a scathing look. It alarmed her; she was taken aback. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

Later, when my mood had passed, I gave her a playful nudge.

“Why did you do that?” she exclaimed in alarm. “Why are you shoving me?”

I burst into laughter at her response. At first she looked puzzled and a little irritated, but then she smiled. “I like you,” she said, in a soft voice, as if it were a secret. “It’s too bad we can’t be friends.”

Yes, she was a snob. Maybe *I* was a kind of a snob myself. I knew I needed someone like Claire, but I wished it was someone else, not her. Someone more on my level. Then again, a girl who was more on my level wouldn’t have as much to teach me. In any case, I could see I was acquiring a kind of pantheon: a collection of girls I could contemplate and eventually understand. Certainly Claire belonged there, alongside Reddie Barnes and the Madonna, but just because she belonged there didn’t mean I wanted her there.

And yet, all in all, things were going pretty well. I’d gotten comfortable being a young girl. It wasn’t a role any more — at least most of the time. Lois and Ken became Mom and Dad. Meredith became my mother’s friend. Claire was my peer, whether she’d admit such a thing or not. I still felt a bit strange and half-naked when I’d wear a dress, but that feeling grew smaller as the days went by.

Then, one Sunday afternoon, about a month after my becoming Celine, a weird wrinkle appeared. Lois gave me a ride to Alfie’s house. We chatted about one thing and another. After I got out of the car and was standing in Alfie’s driveway, Lois lowered her window and said, “I nearly forgot to tell you: Meredith moved in with the Ponzi guy.” Then she drove off, leaving me with my jaw hanging open, blinking and shaking my head.

 

---

 

Two weeks went by without event. Meredith and Lois continued their giddy friendship. Occasionally Meredith would stop by and hang out with Lois. By now, my presence hardly registered with Meredith. She seemed to have forgotten that I was ever Leo. Now I’d been demoted to being her best friend’s daughter — which was fine with me.

She and Lois spent an inordinate amount of time talking about sex. Meredith was constantly looking for “ways to spice things up,” which, in the context of her already overheated sex life, seemed about as needful as spraying gasoline on a burning house. Twice, when the weather was so stormy that I couldn’t leave the house, the two of them talked so loud and so explicitly, that I had to put my fingers in my ears and go la la la la la. In the end, I put on some headphones and listened to music, loud, until I heard Meredith leave. There was no room in the house where I could escape from their talk. I would have hidden in the attic, but it was far too hot up there.

In the end though, it was Meredith’s constant pushing of the sexual envelope that finally drove a wedge between her and Lois.

One Tuesday morning, Ken was driving me to Big D’s to pick up breakfast. While we were alone, I had to ask him.

“Dad, did something happen between Meredith and Mom?”

He gave me a cagey look. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Meredith hasn’t been over in a couple of days, and I haven’t heard them on the phone together.”

Ken sighed. “I”ll tell you, but you have to keep it to yourself. Do NOT mention it to your mother.”

I agreed.

“Meredith asked your mother if she was up for a threesome with the Ponzi guy.”

”What!?”

He glanced at me before continuing, “Or a foursome.”

“Wow!”

“It was too much for Lois. We’re not made that way.”

I fell silent, considering what he’d said. There was nothing I could say.

Ken took a deep breath. “She said she wanted to surprise the guy. Lois, of course, gave her a frosty ‘no’ and asked her to leave the house. They haven’t spoken since.”

My eyes widened. It was too bad. Meredith needed someone to ground her, someone to help her, and Lois was the only person who could fill that role.

At the same time, Lois needed a friend, and this rift left Lois out in the cold.

I felt the heat of the pancakes penetrating the bag on my lap, warming my legs. I blinked and asked, “Were you flattered that she asked?”

Ken gave a bark of a laugh. “Flattered? Hardly. We’re the only people she knows. Who else was she going to ask?”

 

---

 

Another week passed. It was Sunday morning. Ken was working. Lois and I were in our kitchen, trying to decide what to do with our day.

The phone rang. It was Meredith: contrite, apologetic, calm for the first time. She and Lois spoke for a few minutes, tentatively at first, then after some mutual efforts at mending their friendship, Meredith got to the point of her call: she invited the two of us, Lois and me, to the Ponzi guy’s house at two that afternoon. She gave us the code to open the gate.

“That’s odd,” I observed after Lois hung up. “I thought you couldn’t get in that house without a background check.”

Lois shrugged and said, “Now the question is: how do we get there?”

Our neighbor, Mr. Waters, was happy to give us a ride. “I’m never on that side of the hill,” he confessed. “It will be a little adventure for me. I can drive around and look at the houses.”

He was right: an adventure it was! The houses in the Ponzi guy’s neighborhood were enormous — or at least strikingly beautiful. All the houses were conspicuously well cared for, with beautifully manicured lawns and topiary bushes. Occasionally we’d see fountains, sculptures, and enormous, curved driveways. Ponzi’s house was a contrast: it looked more like a bunker — albeit an expensive one, hidden behind a high wall. The only entry was through the driveway gate.

Mr. Waters dropped us off, then drove slowly away. He was going to do some more sightseeing before returning home.

Lois punched in the code, and the heavy, wide gate slowly swung open, almost without a sound. The two of us followed the drive as it curved and descended. The house was very angular, with hard-lines, clearly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. As we rounded the corner of the house, Lois gasped. Suddenly the landscaping and the walls opened to a magnificent view of the lake.

“Can you imagine living here?” she whispered, nearly breathless.

The driveway continued to dip lower, ending on a level below the back yard. The garage was open, and at first the only vehicle visible was Meredith’s van, with its logo (“Meredith’s Maid Service”) displayed happily on the side. As the van came more completely into view, I noticed how low the carriage sank. It was inches from the ground.

“Oh, no!” I groaned. Clearly, Meredith was going to try to pull the job herself, and just as clearly, she’d already screwed it up by overloading the van.

“What?” Lois asked, stopping in her tracks and looking to me.

I took another two steps before stopping myself, and saw, behind Meredith’s van, a car that I knew very well. “Crap!” I softly exclaimed. “That’s Leo’s car! This is going to be bad.”

“Okay,” Lois said. “Let’s try to project positive energy. Meredith clearly has something in mind. Let’s give her a chance and see if something good can come of this.”

“Nothing good can come of this,” I told her, and pointed to the van. “Meredith is trying to do the heist. The van is already loaded, over its capacity.”

Lois’s body stiffened and her face went white. She froze on the spot, one arm slightly raised in a gesture of helplessness.

“Should we leave?” she whispered.

“Let’s go in and see if we can stop her,” I suggested. Lois nodded. I took a deep breath, and saw her do the same. She gripped my hand, hard, and we walked into the house together.

We entered the garage and found Meredith standing there smiling, along with Leo and Theresa. Theresa also greeted us with a smile, but Leo scowled like a thundercloud. “What is that brat doing here?” he demanded.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

Angrily, Leo growled, “Of course I don’t!”

So I told him: “Meredith is trying to rip off the Ponzi guy.”

Meredith’s jaw dropped in surprise. “How did you know?” she exclaimed.

Leo, shocked and offended, shot a look at Meredith, then at me. He turned to Theresa and said, “We’re out of here.” He grabbed her roughly by the arm and started stomping toward the exit. When he passed close to me, he pushed his face next to mine and said, “You’re still screwing up people’s lives! Are you ever going to stop?” Then he went to his car, still dragging Theresa behind him. She shrugged apologetically as she went, smiling and waving goodbye.

Once they had driven out of sight, I said, “Meredith, this is a terrible idea. You have to put the money back. All of it.”

Meredith struggled to find her words. “How did you even know?” she asked again.

In answer, I gestured at the van. “Look how low that thing is hanging! It’s way over capacity! You took ALL the money, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said, blushing. “Not all.”

“You took as much as you could fit.”

She nodded mutely.

“You can’t drive that thing! It’ll break down! You could snap an axle. The tires could give way. It’s going to be harder to drive, harder to steer. You could even tip over! And, besides all that, the police will stop you for driving over capacity.”

“That isn’t a real thing,’ Meredith scoffed.

“Yes it is a real thing. It carries a fine. Overloaded vehicles damage the roads. That’s why the cops watch for it.”

“Hmmph,” Meredith said. She put her hands on her hips in a petulant gesture. After a short inner struggle, she said, “All right. Will you guys help me put some of the money back?”

“No!” Lois shouted. “Neither of us are touching any of that! We don’t want to be involved! We don’t want our fingerprints on anything here!”

“Okay,” Meredith said in a small voice.

“Look,” I said. “The only thing you can do is put all of the money back before the Ponzi guy finds out. Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s in New York for the weekend,” she replied sullenly. “He won’t be back until lunchtime tomorrow.”

“Then you have enough time to undo it,” I said.

Meredith stared at the ground, sullen. Lois, shaken, said, “Meredith, I don’t understand how you could ever imagine I’d want a part in this.”

“We talked,” Meredith replied, weakly. “You were so happy about the idea.” Then she raised her head and looked at me. “But look: I can still do this, can’t I? If you two leave, and I dump enough money to make the van lighter, I can go, and everything will be fine. It will be your perfect crime!”

“No, no, no,” I told her. “You’ve already screwed this up, badly. You never should have invited Leo, Theresa, Lois, and me. You’ve involved all of us.”

“You don’t have to tell,” she whined, white faced.

“We don’t need to tell! Look, I counted four security cameras on the walk down here. Who knows how many are inside the house? If the police — or the Ponzi guy — look at the footage, what will they see? You. Us. Leo and Theresa. Who do you think they’ll come after?”

Lois groaned, as if in physical pain.

Meredith, visibly upset, told us, “I can fix the cameras. I’ll delete the footage and shut them off.”

“Do you know where the control room is?”

“I guess so,” she said. “There are only two rooms we aren’t allowed in. I just have to get his keys.”

“Don’t forget to check whether the feeds go to an offsite repository,” I warned her. She nodded, her face bloodless and frightened.

“Can you wait for me to get back?” she asked plaintively. I looked to Lois, who nodded.

After Meredith disappeared into the house, Lois whispered, “What a shit show!”

“We’ll get out of here as soon as she comes back,” I promised.

After what seemed an eternity, we heard Meredith shouting for help. I picked up a cloth (to avoid leaving prints) and opened the door. Meredith was stumbling down the hallway, helping, half-carrying another woman. They were both crying, full of fear.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Ponzi’s assistant,” Meredith explained. “She was tied up in one of the rooms.” In fact, raw red marks were visible on her wrists and ankles. She must have been tied tightly, and struggled against her restraints.

“No,” the woman contradicted. “Not her. Schiaciata. Emris Schiaciata.”

Meredith’s face convulsed in horror. She screamed, let go of the assistant’s arm, and convulsively her body jerked. She jumped away from the woman, not wanting to touch her. Without Meredith’s support, the poor assistant tumbled to the ground, crying helplessly. She obviously hurt her knee in the fall.

“Meredith! What is she saying?”

Meredith was trembling so violently that she could hardly stand. “It’s the Ponzi guy! The Ponzi guy! His name is Emris Schiaciata.”

I still couldn’t make sense it. “What? What about the Ponzi guy?”

“He said he’d change me back!” the women wailed from the ground. “I told him everything! He said he’d change me back!”

Then whole thing hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyes widened, my jaw dropped. Every hair on my body stood on end. Simon had worked his malevolent magic here. As Max, he’d switched with the assistant, then, as the assistant, he’d switched with the Ponzi guy.

The Ponzi guy — wherever he was — was now Simon, the Switcher.

This woman who lay crying on the garage floor was the *real* Ponzi guy, yet another victim of Simon’s switching.

My mind flashed through a dozen odd facts, all of them unconnected until now: the messed-up papers on Leo’s desk, the strange visit from Simon when he held my arm, Meredith’s description of the Ponzi guy’s obsession with touching her, the assistant “leaving” before the Ponzi guy took up with Meredith...

As the dots connected for me, I looked up to see Meredith’s face abruptly distort into a mask of terror. She was trembling so violently, she could barely stand. Her right arm lifted; she gestured mutely at something behind me before she fainted dead away. Her body went limp, and she hit the concrete floor with a sickening slap, like a marionette whose strings were abruptly cut.

When I turned to see what had frightened Meredith so badly, I saw a man I’d never seen before, yet I immediately knew who he was: Physically, he was the Ponzi guy. Internally, he was Simon, the Switcher.

Simon had chosen his victim well: The Ponzi guy was very fit and very good looking. He was of medium height and build, with a full head of wavy, dark-brown hair. He was dressed well and expensively. He carried a gun in his right hand, but held it loose, not pointing at anyone. The woman on the ground cried out when she saw him, and began whimpering, “Please! Change me back! You told me that you’d change me back! Please, I’m begging you! I’ve done everything you asked!”

Simon, with a look of disdain and irritation, raised his gun and shot her. Just like that, as casually as if he was swatting a fly. I recoiled in horror and disgust as blood spurted from the woman’s forehead. Lois clutched my arm, and we both looked away.

“I hate whinging,” Simon said, as if in explanation. Then he smiled and asked, “So how is everyone doing today?”

The offhand murder and the callous quip afterward triggered a rage in me that I’ve never experienced before or since. I felt as though I was on fire, angry, offended to the core. I felt full of power and strength, as if I’d been transformed into the Incredible Hulk. I’m sure the fire was also fed by my weeks of dealing with my new life, the life of Celine, which Simon had thrown me into.

I shook off Lois’s hand. I balled up my fists and walked slowly toward Simon, shouting, “You asshole! You unmitigated asshole! What is wrong with you, you psychopath?”

At the word psychopath, Simon’s head jerked back, and his lips tightened. Lois cried out my name and said, “Stop, Celine, stop! He’s got a gun!”

At that point, I stopped walking. I was three feet from the man. The recklessness and foolishness of what I was doing hit me. Yes, Simon had a gun, and my anger didn’t make me bulletproof. He looked down at his weapon, then passed it from his right hand to his left.

Now, with his right hand free, he swiftly raised his arm and gave me a slap, right in the face. I’ve never been hit so hard. It made my legs buckle. I stumbled a few steps, but I didn’t fall. I put my hand to my face, wondering whether he’d dislocated my jaw.

“Ohhh!” Simon sighed with pleasure. “You have no idea how deeply satisfying that is to me. So often — so often — I’ve met someone who — just like you — deserved to be richly and roundly slapped in the face. And I would gladly have been the one to slap them — but I’ve restrained myself.” He smiled at me.

“You understand, Celine, that normally if I slapped someone, I’d switch with them right away, and then I’d experience the pain I’d given them! It’s an absurd injustice, reserved only for me! What a trial my life can be!

“But you — I’ve already switched with you, and so I’m free to give you all the slaps you’ve earned.” He thought for a moment. “And, why not? The slaps I couldn’t give to others. Or kicks and punches. There’s no need for restraint, is there?”

With that preamble, he gave me a back-handed slap that sent me flying. I landed at Lois’ feet.

“Stop it!” Lois shouted. “Stop hurting my child!”

Simon gave her an amused, mocking smile, and mouthed the words my child. “Aren’t you forgetting, Lois dear, that I was your child, too? Don’t you care about me?”

“No, I don’t!” Lois said. “You’ve taken my daughter from me twice. I’m not going to let you do it again.” She stepped over me, and placed herself between me and Simon.

Frowning, Simon mouthed the word twice? made a show using the barrel of his gun to count on his fingers. He mimed confusion, then gave it up with a shrug.

“Don’t worry, mummy. I’m not going to hurt your little, middle-aged girl. I need her conscious, to do one little thing for me before I can leave. Celine, come here. I have a little gift for you. I’m not going to hurt you. Come. Come! The sooner you do this, the sooner I’ll leave you in peace. If you dawdle, I’ll kill you all. See, I’m being kind: I’m giving you a choice. Come here now, or the shooting starts.”

I got to my feet shakily, and — my face hurt and burning from his slaps — I approached him cautiously, full of mistrust. He reached in his pocket and pulled out four black cable ties.

“Now,” he said, “take these and tie up mummy — wrists and ankles. Do it quickly, and do it well. I’m going to be watching. And don’t say no; I can see the word written on your face. If you don’t tie her up as quickly as you can, I’ll put a bullet in her head. Mummy, face down on the floor, hands behind your back.”

Lois lay on the concrete. I bound her ankles with one tie. “Tighter,” Simon instructed. “Tighter.” He wanted to see the tie biting into her flesh — which brought to mind the wounds on Ponzi’s assistant. Then a second tie on her ankles, and two for her wrists.

He had me lie on the floor about six feet away from Lois. Clearly, he didn’t want to touch her and accidentally switch with her. Before he knelt to bind me, he said, “Any tomfoolery, and I shoot mummy first. Then I’ll put a bullet in your leg so you can live with what you’ve done.”

I didn’t resist, and soon I, like Lois, was painfully restrained.

Simon quickly checked Meredith, who still lay on the floor, unconscious.

Then — he kissed her!

When he rose to his feet, he said, “I’ll miss this house, and all the good things it brought me.”

With that, he got into Meredith’s van and very slowly drove it out of sight. He kept the transmission in its lowest gear. The engine struggled and whined. I expected it to break down before he reached the street, but it didn’t happen while I could see it. After it turned the corner, I couldn’t hear it any more. Aside from the sound of the trees rustling in the wind, there was silence.

Lois said, “We need to wake Meredith!” She turned on her side and wormed her way across the floor until she could nudge her friend with her head.

Meredith soon came to.

We called Ken. Ken called the Feds, who noisily and ineffectually showed up thirty minutes later. Ken, on the other hand, appeared on the scene in minutes. His shift was over; we caught him on his way home.

The Feds brought Meredith, Ken, Lois, and me back to their base, the place where this story began, and questioned us repeatedly. They made us stay the night, and in the morning they interrogated us all over again.

They also picked up Leo and Theresa, but kept us separate for obvious reasons.

At last, breakfast done, and interrogations over, they brought us all together in a conference room: Feds, friends, family, and others. One of the agents — someone I hadn't seen before — stood in the front of the room and said, “For the sake of our team, and as a courtesy to our guests, we’re going to lay out the sequence of events for everyone, as we understand them now. Please save any questions or corrections until I’ve finished.”

He consulted his tablet before beginning. Then, with a look of uncertainty, he pulled a large piece of paper from his pocket. I could see it was a diagram, consisting of boxes, arrows, and names. He cleared his throat, and jokingly commented, “You really need to make a diagram to keep it all straight, don’t you?”

He took another look at his tablet. “I, um,” he said, sounding uncertain. His looked up, and his eyes rested on me. He approached another agent, and gesturing at me, whispered, “Is she the one who...” but I couldn’t hear the rest. After the two had a brief discussion, the agent approached me, and said, “Would you mind — do you think you could — um, can you kind of summarize what happened here? Starting from your barbecue? Would that be alright?”

I shrugged and nodded, then stood up in front of everyone. This is what I said:

“One thing you need to know in order to understand what happened, is that I used to be a 42-year-old con man named Leo. I had an idea for a heist, a way to steal a sizable amount of money from a man named Emis Schiaciata. Emris was running a Ponzi scheme, and had a vast amount of cash in a safe in his home.

“Before the barbecue that your agent mentioned, Simon had taken over the identity of a thirteen-year-old girl, Celine Morsten, who had just moved to Lambeth with her parents.

“Through the internet, Simon discovered that I recently tried to defraud my wife’s employer. She lost her job, but I wasn’t charged with any crime, and this made him curious about me. But as yet, he knew nothing of my scheme to rob the Ponzi guy.

“However — he did know where I lived, and when you Feds were on his tail, he ran to my house. He — still in the guise of Celine — had a little time before you caught up with him, and in that time he overheard me try to tempt my three friends — my wife and the couple next door — to help me with my heist.

“My explanation didn’t get very far for two reasons: one, you were hot on Simon’s tail and he had to switch fast, and two, my plan was still just an idea: an idea full of holes.

“After Simon switched with each of the four of us, creating maximum confusion, he got away in the body of my friend Max. As Max, he jumped over a fence and hid out — maybe in Max’s house — until you Feds left. At the time, you didn’t know that Max was missing, so no one looked for him.

“Once everyone was gone, Simon returned to my house and had a good look around. He found my papers, including my notes on the heist, and soon he knew everything that I knew. He had plenty of time to look, to read, because the rest of us were here, being questioned and getting oriented to our new lives.

“A week later, when everyone expected him to be long gone and far away, Simon came to find me. He didn’t reveal his real purpose, but I now believe he wanted to know whether I was still planning on executing the heist — even though I was now the thirteen-year-old daughter of a policeman.

“When he saw I no longer had any interest, he went ahead with the heist himself.

“First, as Max, he switched with the assistant of the Ponzi guy, Emris Schiaciata.”

I paused for a moment. “I heard that you found Max’s body at the assistant’s house.”

“Yes,” one of the agents replied. “His throat had been cut. By the way, the woman you call ‘the assistant’ — her name was Connie Deffermil.”

“Okay, thank you. Now, in the guise of Connie, Simon got access to the house and switched with Schiaciata himself. He lied to Schiaciata, promising that he’d switch him back, restoring his own body, if he told him everything about the Ponzi scheme, the money, the safe combination, and all that.

“Of course, Simon’s promise was nothing but an impossible lie, but Emris had no way of knowing that. In any case, Emris had little choice.

“At the same time, my friend Meredith gave into temptation and decided to steal the money herself. Simon, in the guise of the Ponzi man, watched her, manipulated her, and in the end pretended to go away for a weekend. She used that opportunity to load her van with money.”

“Meredith found Connie tied in a locked room. Once we realized she was really Emris, everything became clear: above all the fact that Emris was now Simon.”

I stopped and looked around the room. “Is everyone following this?” A few of the listeners glanced at each other, not wanting to admit to being the only ones who felt confused.

“Don’t worry,” the first agent assured me. “We’re recording this, and — uh — we’ll make a diagram to go along with it.”

“Okay,” I said. “In the end, Simon shot Connie in cold blood, tied us up, and drove off in the van full of money.”

I paused again. “That’s all I know. Now, can somebody tell me how Simon got away? I expected that van to break down before it left the driveway.”

The same agent answered. “Simon had a flatbed tow truck. He loaded Meredith’s van onto the flatbed, covered it with a tarp, and hauled it away. We managed to work that out from security cameras on the street. We haven’t found the flatbed or the van yet.”

I nodded.

I saw Ken shift in his seat. He bristled.

“So he got away.” Ken said. It wasn’t a question. “Simon got away again.”

 

---

 

I had hoped to say goodbye to Leo and Theresa. It would have been nice to leave on good terms, but clearly that wasn’t meant to be.

Leo and Theresa decided they wanted a clean slate and a clean start, somewhere far from Lambeth, as husband and wife. The Feds wouldn’t fabricate new accounting credentials for Leo, but they did find him a job keeping the books for a large construction company. I sincerely hoped that the new life improved Leo’s mood and demeanor.

Meredith also asked for a fresh start, but she didn’t get one. She had to make a plea deal with the Feds, and was held as a material witness in the case against Schiaciata’s investment company.

Before we left the facility, one of the agents led us to a small windowless room, where he asked us to wait. “Someone wants to see you,” he explained with a smile. We sat there, impatient and curious, for five minutes. When the door opened, I jumped to my feet. It was the nurse I met when I first awoke here, when I first became Celine.

“Hello!” I exclaimed, and ran to wrap her in a hug. “It’s so nice to see you again!”

“Hello, yourself,” she replied. “I heard you were here, and wanted to see how you were getting along.”

“Aside from several crises, it’s just been a day at the beach,” Lois joked.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s been good. I think I got the best deal in my bunch.”

The nurse nodded. “I’m glad,” she said. “I had a good feeling about you!”

 

---

 

After that brief, friendly visit, we were once again bundled into the back of a blacked-out van and bounced around for an hour. They let us out, once again, in the Target parking lot.

After they drove off, Ken observed, “I’m pretty sure we just came from the industrial park we visited last time. It’s only fifteen minutes in that direction.”

“What now?” I asked.

“I, for one, am hoping for a whole lot of nothing,” Lois declared. “I’d like to find out what it’s like to not have adrenaline running through my veins. Do you think we can manage to be a boring, suburban family for at least a few months? It would be nice to know what that’s like. It would be a new and welcome experience for me.”

“Sure,” Ken said. “We can take a crack at that. Or we can sit down and let it happen. Whatever it takes.”

“Um, yes, absolutely,” I agreed. “A boring life sounds fine, for now. But really what I meant was: what are we doing right now, at this moment? Are we going home? Or are we going to hit the Cheesecake Factory?”

“That is our pattern,” Ken agreed, “And I could definitely eat something.”

“Yeah,” Lois agreed. “I’m sure that food would help knit up the raveled sleeve of care.”

“Shakespeare?” I asked.

“You know it, hon,” she replied, and stepping between me and Ken, linked arms with both of us. “And now, let’s go demolish some big, bad burgers!”

“I’m in,” Ken grinned.

“I see cheesecake in our future,” I predicted.

“And how about a long journey?” Lois asked. “Do you see that in our future as well?”

I looked up at her, puzzled, and she explained, “Before school starts, it would be nice if you could visit your grandparents, wouldn’t it?”

My face lit up, and we stopped so we could wrap ourselves in a true family hug.