22 Can you answer a few questions?

22 Can you answer a few questions?

 

Not having to act around my roomates was a blessed release. Knowing how poorly I had done, on the other hand, was not. I now worried that everyone on campus knew that I wasn’t who I was pretending to be.

“So, part of your change is a new dress code, eh?” River asked the next morning as I emerged from the sheets, checking to see that I hadn’t leaked on them.

“Yes.” I said. It didn’t seem I had leaked today, for which I was profoundly grateful. Washing them out at home had been bad enough, but here?

“Well, I like it anyway,” She said, “and I am sure Stan would if he would stop turning his back on you.” It was funny. Stan ignored Rivers continual nakedness, and leered at Tess when she was topless, but he modestly avoided looking in my direction when I paraded around in nothing but panties. River stretched, “Come on, let’s get you into the shower and plan our day. What time do you think we should start?”

“Well, I’m free from about ten thirty till two.”

“Ok, I can do that too. Tess? Stan?”

“I can’t,” Tess said, from under her covers, I have a class that goes till noon. I can come after that.“

“I can be here the whole time,” Stan said, as he combed his hair at the mirror, “but I don’t think I would do well on the phone.” He added, turning to face River and looking concerned.

“No, I don’t suppose you would,” River said with a grin. “We will use you to run the statistical analyses.” Stan brightened at this, turned back to his hair, and River and I went off to the shower.

“Well, all I can say is you are lucky. I never stop that fast.” River said, when I took last nights pad off and told her I didn’t think I needed one for today. “You had better wear a light one just in case.”

I bowed to her superior knowledge and put on the pad she handed me.

Stan was gone when I got back and, after some thought in my closet, I decided to wear my brown skirt with the off-white blouse. I put on a brown sweater as well, as the mornings were definitley getting chilly. I sat down to do my hair and watched Tess emerge. “Sleep well?”

“Like a log,” she said, stretching hugely. “I don’t know how you two do it, just leaping out of bed in the morning.”

“Stan does OK,” I offered.

“Stan is a perfectionist,” she said. “You have seen the way he sits there and combs his hair, which is so short that all he would have to do is run his hand over it. He utterly hates to be late for class.”

“Well, so do I,” I said, finishing my hair and struggling to put a hair dealy in it. “So I had better get to breakfast.”

I went through the line, where another nice young man offered to carry my tray. It was waffles, and, together with the delicious strawberrry syrup they served, I was definitely going to have to watch what I ate. I found a table alone, having no desire for company after the events of last night, and struggled to cut my waffle with just my fork.

“Good morning, Bobbi.” I looked up with a gasp. It was Jervis. Whatever I had seen in him before was gone, and all I felt now was an icy anger and disgust. He put his tray down next to mine. “Early class?”

“Yes, biology lab,” I said, trying to focus on my waffle while my heart pounded out of my chest and I felt like being sick.

“Yes, I remember you said you were in pre-med. Not something I could do myself.”

“No compassion?” I asked, coldly.

“Now, is that nice?” He asked, laying his hand on my cast, “Here I am trying to help…”

“Don’t touch me!” I squealed, pulling my hand sharply back. I had said it louder than I had intended, and so I followed through with the rest of ‘the scene’, “You are a cold unfeeling monster!” I shouted at him, causing him to pale and look about a bit nervously. “I can’t believe you don’t see how evil it is, what you do!” I finished, bursting into tears.

Three boys I didn’t know brought their trays over to our table, and sat all around Jervis, while I moved over to another table and allowed myself to be comforted by some girls I also didn’t know, and who cast poisonous glances at Jervis.

Biology lab. if I hadn’t been in such a bother, would have been really enjoyable. We got to slice various plants and animals and draw them from what we saw under the microscope. I had a twit of a lab partner, I don’t see how they let her out of kindergarden, but with me directing the whole thing we managed. She could draw relatively well… I guess they teach that in kindergarden.

“All of the Sopranos, please go over there, and all of the Altos over here,” our voice teacher said. I had seen this teacher around campus and was looking forward to working with her. She looked to be well into her sixties, but very active. She had wonderful grey hair, which she wore rather long (for an older woman), and she was in a long beige dress made of some fabric that snicked when she walked, which she did continuously. “Boys, and it is a shame that there are so few of you, why don’t boys ever want to sing, Tenors please line up behind the altos, and Basses, behind the sopranos. That’s right. Now, I know all of you can sing, or you wouldn’t be here. So mostly, we are going to have fun, and while doing so, learn some new techniques and increase your range and power. Warmup’s first. Sopranos…”

As we went through the warmups I relaxed slightly. I had gone to the teacher before class and explained about the drugs that I was on. “Well,” she had said, “I have no idea how that drug will affect your voice at all. Just do your best, dear, and don’t strain. If you are on pain medication, that shoudl make it easy to strain you voice without noticing, so don’t strain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I had said, and that, I hoped, would be that.

“Alto’s!”

Warmups were wonderfully easy, and I enjoyed pushing my voice to the edge of it’s range. “Bobbi!” The teacher called, “You be careful. You’ll hurt your voice.”

“Bobbi is on pain medication,” she said the class, “and I have no idea how it will affect her. Now, Tenors.”

I got nostaligic listening to the basses. I really did enjoy that part. It was neat, tho, that with me being an alto, our family could now sing all four parts, with Mom at the piano. And Caleb was such a marvelous Tenor, especially on hymns, which is what he knew the best.

“OK, now, class. We are going to learn a simply wonderful African song that I saw the other day on Youtube(1). I sent away for the arrangement, and I think you will really enjoy it. We don’t have enough basses, of course, but I will ask some of the girls to play the drums and other percussion. And I have talked to Georgetta, and she has some very interesting ideas for uniforms tha should really emphasize the African song. Here, let me play it for you.”

Wow! What an incredible song. It was going to be really fun to sing. And the alto part, on this song, was better than the bass. And it wasn’t hard, either. Not the notes,anyway. The voice production would be tricky, but I knew I could do that.

The time passed so quickly that I was shocked, and disapppointed, when the teacher said, “Well, that is all for today. Practice your parts for all three songs, I will be giving you three more on Thursday, and that will be enough for our first recital.”

I hurried off to our room, where River and Stan were already sitting, waiting for me and chatting. “I got one of my boy friends to mess with the phones,” River said, while I undressed, “and these phones are now attatched to some lines that are supposedly cut off. After we are done, right at two, he will switch them back. It is all a physical thing, he tells me, and there is no way for it to be detected. He was glad to help. I didn’t tell him why it was, but he guessed part of it, obviously, and everyone is really, really upset with these Feds. They interviewed several people today, and some girls came out crying.”

“Shall we start?” She asked, and picked up the phone.

Good morning. I am working on a survey for my sociology class, and I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time. Thank you. I will be asking you for your reaction to various names and combinations of names, asking you what comes to mind when you hear the names? Ok? Then I will ask you whether you actually know anyone with that name, or combination. OK? Great. Ok, first,

Maye Beth? Oh, that is interesting. Now, do you know anyone by that name? No. OK. Next name.

Tom Jones? Ok. Yes, I have it. Now, do you know anybody by that name? OK, next name.

Robert Michael. Thank you, yes, that is just the kind of thing we are looking for, perfect. You don’t? OK. Now,

John Christopher….

I finished four other calls before I tried the number I really wanted, and didn’t want, to call:

“Hello,” she said, and my heart almost stopped, but I carried on…

Robert Michael, I said, and her gasp she gave told me all I really needed to know. But she carried on, and I did too…

Loyalty? Thank you miss, Now, do you know anybody by that name? You do? Thank you. Now, my next name…

I got done, and I cried. I shouldn’t have done this. Oh, my Caleb, I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have found her. Now you will be able to figure out what happened, and I’ll have to leave…

We met, our little team, for just a few minutes, after my drawing class. “Well, I certainly think we have discovered something,” Stan said, as we sat around on my bed and he looked at his summary paper. “Not counting Bobbi’s… Robert’s girlfriend we have twelve students who had a rather emotional reaction to the name, along with four others who said they knew the name but didn’t seem to react to it.”

“How about my roomates?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Stan said. “But five of the students who did react were on your floor,” he said, “ and of the others most seem to be biology majors.”

“I have to go, thanks Stan, everybody,” I said, and hurried off to European History.

The professor in European History was the first to react at all visibly to the Federal agents announcment in class, giving him a poisonous glance from where he was standing just behind the man’s right shoulder. And he waited until the agent was fully out of the class before he began, “I am going to start this class with an announcement of the term paper subject,” he said. “It will be, ’The Death of the European Civilization. Our class will cover all of European History, but many of the assignments will focus on recent history. I will expect the term paper to include elements from all of this…”

“You did what?” Caleb asked, when I called him after Euro History.

“I think we found some of them… the others like me,” I said.

“Get off the phone,” Caleb said. “I will see you at the station in an hour.”

“Not in an hour. I have play practice.”

“What time will you be done?”

“About eight o’clock.”

“I will be there by then, then. I will meet you at the play rehersal.”

“OK, everyone, gather over here. I hope you are all ready for de play.”

We loved our director, and his wife. He was a withered old German who dressed in suspenders and a bow tie. He had a seemingly inexhaustible store of energy. He was full of strange passions and strange oaths. Even the students who had studied German couldn’t tell what he was saying when he got truly upset.

“Today we will do the run-through only of course, with the scripts. And remember, my fine young Americans, this is the British comedy, the musical comedy, and it must be done with the British accent. Today, however, we will use our regular voices and we will work on the lines, and who come in where, and all of that.”

He could hardly speak a word of our language correctly, but he could do accents wonderfully. And the run-through was a joy. I wasn’t the only person to leave my script by the side of the stage. My counterpart, Psmith, was terrible with his lines but, we all knew, was the best actor amongst us. He never seemed to get his lines until the last moment, and then performed flawlessly. And the boy they had playing Lord Emsworth was a delight to work with as well.

The only real problem came when we were officially done. I hadn’t had to even think of kissing Psmith during this rehersal, of course… we were hardly even going to the right places on stage. But I needed to tell the director.“ Mr. Grummann, sir?” I called, as soon as he waved his hands the last time, “Mr. Grumman?”

“Yes, what is it Miss Alice?” He asked me, hurrying over. He always called us by our stage names during the entire play season, which could cause some interesting looks if he happened to run into us elsewhere on campus. “And what have you done to the wrist? He is broken, the wrist? Does he hurt?”

“Yes, Mr. Grummann,” I said, realizing ‘he’ was supposed to be hurting. I held it up in front of me, “Yes, it is broken and yes, it hurts, but I need to tell you something.”

“Yes, what is it you have to tell me?” He asked, several other of the cast members gathering around and listening curiously.

“Sir, I have gotten engaged,” I said, causing some girls to gasp and come closer to look at the ring, which I held out to them.

“Ah, then the congratulations are needed, he said, coming up and kissing me on both cheeks effusively.

“Well, yes, but about kissing…” I said, “You see, my fiance, he, welll….”

“Ah, I have a jealous rival, do I?” Psmith put it in. “I quite understand, the Psmiths are gentlemen, always. If I could be permitted, however,” he said, bowing and kissing my hand.

“He understands but I do not,” Mr Grumman said. “What is it she is saying, this engaged Alice of mine?”

“She is saying,” Psmith said, dropping the accent and speaking American, almost, “that she has got herself engaged and her fiance won’t have his filly kissing me on-stage at any price.”

“But the kiss, she must happen! Or the play is ruined!” Mr Grummann said, shouting and waving his hands. His wife came running from the back where she had been measuring students for their costumes and had to have the whole thing explained to her.

“But, Bobbi,” she said, “Didn’t you explain to him that it just a stage kiss, and Craig wouldn’t really be enjoying it?” She said, grinning slightly.

“Well, there, you try me perhaps a bit to highly,” Craig said. “I have been busy, the entire break, dreaming of kissing the lovely Miss Bobbi. Alas, it is not to be. But have no fear, we Shropshire Psmiths are ever inventive. Mr Grumman,” he called, more loudly and breaking off the flow of German invective… if invective it was. Some of us thought he merely recited Bible verses in his home dialect for effect. “I have an idea. I think it is a good idea, if I do say so myself. Greg!” He shouted, “Bring a sheet up will you? And one of those stage lights?”

“Hey,” said Caleb, taking my hand. “They told me you would be here. What’s up?”

“I don’t quite know,” I said, just as Craig bustled up,

“Is this him? My rival for your hand?” He said, “Congratualtions old chap,” he said, shaking Calebs hand furiously, “Congratulations. The best man won, and all that. Shocking disappointment for me, of course, but I quite understand. I would never let me kiss her if I were you, if you see what I mean. Altho, of course, if it were me kissing her and I was you, then it would be all right, wouldn’t it? Wonderful timing anyway. Come over here you two. Stand right there. Now, everyone in front,” he shouted, then when all of the crew had moved down into the audience, he yelled at the stage crew,“Dim the lights, that’s right, all but the flood, There, what do you think?” He said, turning to Mr Grumman and the other actors.

“What is it? I don’t understand,” Mr Grumman said, and,

“Kiss her you fool,” Craig said and Caleb, with a shrug and a grin, complied.

“There you see,” Craig said. “We can do the kiss like in an old fashioned movie. You can stop now. He can come behind the screen just after I go off-stage… I said you could stop now… and then she will go behind the curtain while the choir sings and the kiss will happen in silhotte… are they never going to stop kissing? The play will get an X-rating if they continue too much longer!”

“Kill the flood,” someone suggested.

“Now, tell me this again,” Caleb said when we were outside again and I had recovered my breath. “You did what?”

“We found some of them, the other changed ones.” I answered.

“How on earth did you do that?”

I explained about our phone calls. “Do you see? Anyone who knows my name, which doesn’t exist here, must have known me, the old me. And if they knew me, that means they were changed too!”

“But you have risked everything!” He said, paling.

“Are you angry?” I asked.

“No, no love… just scared. And.. jealous. In a bizarre way.”

“Don’t be,” I said, grabbing his hands. “If I go back to Grace, it will be because I am no longer me, no longer Roberta. It will mean you got your Roberta back. But as long as I am I, I am yours.”

He laughed, “The grammar was odd in that, but I appreciate the sentiment,” he said, kissing me again.

“Oh, I stopped him, ”there is something else I need to to tell you.“

1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saJmOw0GGyI&feature=PlayList&p=872DF26D871A83CE&index=71)