Scrabbled

“So where is your apartment, Uncle Caleb?” Gillian asked. I think she loved the whole ‘Uncle  Caleb’ thing, she used it all the time.

“I don’t know myself,” Caleb said. “A friend rented it for me, and gave me directions. When we get to town we need to look for  a road called ‘Reine’.”

“That’s a funny name,” Jenny said, leaning over the seat and looking at the map I was holding. “Look, I see it on the map,” she said, “It is almost the first street.”

“Oh, look,” I said, “there it is, and it goes uphill. Oh, Caleb, are we up on the hill?”

He grinned, “Yep. Now look for the next street, it is called ‘Blanche’.”

“They do have funny names,” Gillian said, “How far up is it?”

“Quite a ways,” Caleb said, as the road wound up.

“There it is,” Gillian shouted, and we turned, right, onto the street. It was a short street, and the apartments were off to the left of it.“

“What number, what number?” Asked Jenny.

“Four oh five,” Caleb said.

“There’s one oh five,” Gillian said, “it must be on the fourth floor?” She added, looking up.

“Yep. About the best view in the building, my friend tells me.”

“Oooh,” Jenny said, as we piled out of the car,and my heart glowed. Caleb knew how I loved the view from the college, and even our treehouse. He must have done this for me! Oh, how I loved him.

“No stuff, this trip,” Caleb said, “We will be spending tonight in a hotel. We will just check it out, and then go to a furniture rental place. Last one up…” He said, racing for the stairs.

It was totally unfair. They all had on pants, and even if I hadn’t been handicapped by my skirts, I still wouldn’t have had a chance against those girls and my husband.

“Last one up, what?” I said, when I arrived, panting, at the  top.

“Has to kiss me,” he said.

“Well, if I must I must,” I said, and then,

“Can we get in now?” Jenny said, plaintively, almost a minute later. Caleb didnt’ stop, however, but fished the keys out of his pocket, and the girls went racing in. Then, still kissing me, he bent us down… and picked me up!!

“Oh!” I said, startled out of all countenance, and then laughed as he carried me over the threshold, the girls giggling wildly at the site, my skirts all askew, I felt like a fool! But a happy fool.

Then, to add injury to insult, he dropped me on the floor, and I fell with a shriek. “Get up, woman,” he said, grinning wildly, ’We need to do something about this house!“

“Yes, sir,” I said, groveling at his feet, while the girls shrieked with laughter. Then, finally, I got up and saw my first ‘house’.

I was standing in what would be the ‘dining’ room, with a small kitchen right off to my right. It was part of the same room as the ‘living’ room and I walked through it looking, into the door at the far end. The bedroom. Our bedroom. Off to the right, a sink area, then a toilet/shower room. “Oh, Caleb, I love it,” I said, hugging him.

“It’s small,” he said, “When we have been here for a while…” but I shut him up with a kiss.

“Enough of this kissing stuff,” he said, “We need to get some furniture.”

The girls raced back down to the car with as much enthusiasm as they had shown coming up, but I was reluctant to leave. “I love it, Caleb,” I said, standing at the living room window, from whence I could see all the way down the valley and the mountains opposite, “I love it, I love you. Even if we just have this time together, it will have been worth it.”

He hugged me fiercely, and we went down together.

—

“Can we do one with a pool again?” Gillian asked.

“If there is one,” Caleb said, giving me a teasing glance. We had finished the furniture thing early, and they had said they would come out first thing the next morning to deliver us the furniture, giving us the rest of the day to ‘play’. We had eaten lunch at Denny’s, and had just gotten back in the car.

“There!” Jenny yelled, before I could say anything, “that one has a pool, look, it says ’heated indoor pool and jacuuzi’!!”

Caleb pulled into the hotel, and jumped out, while I glowered. The parking lot was full, though, so maybe there wouldn’t be rooms.

“Well, good news and bad news,” he said, coming back, opening the door and poking his head in, “they had a room, but only one, so we will have to share. Is that OK with everybody?”

The girls squealed their approval, and I nodded. If I was going to have to wear a bathing suit, it was  only justice that he would have to share a room. He went off and came back in a minute or two.

“Room 312,” he said, “A suite, actually. Two queen sized beds and a living room.”

The girls squealed again and I moped. It was so unfair!

“Hurry up, Hurry up,” the girls said, dancing around me in their suits while I pulled mine on. Caleb had gone to the bathroom while they changed although, after two days on the road, they hadn’t really even noticed or cared. Gillian tended to do the whole ‘towel’ thing anyway, with her back turned to the rest of us. Her bathing suit was a very modest one piece with a skirt, and she still tended to wear a T-shirt and walk to the pool with her towel wrapped around her waist.

My suit ‘on’, I grabbed my robe and we went to the pool… which was a madhouse. Caleb pulled me aside, “I’m sorry, love. I had hoped that we would be alone. If you don’t want to swim….”

“I want to swim,” I said, putting my robe down on the chair where the girls had  piled their stuff, “And I need to get used to this. Tell me you like the way I look, and I will try to ignore everyone else.”

He pulled me close, “I love the way you look,” he said, and kissed me with everyone watching. Blushing I hurried to the pool and dove in. The water would hide my embrassement, of both sorts. I came up and stood in the shallow end, watching the bedlam. Mostly kids with their parents. Probably they had come to ski and such, and gotten cold and wanted to come swimming.

Suddenly I felt myself go under water, pulled by several hands. Fighting back I stood up and, grabbing her by the waist and bottom, hurled Jenny through the air. Gillian proved harder to catch, but I eventually tossed her a short distance as well. But by that time Jenny was back, and the battle was joined. It was weird doing this as a girl. I had loved doing this in camp, as a boy. And Jenny and I had always done this. But now, as a girl, I was so weak, it took all I could do to throw her.

Suddely, with a shreik, she sailed over my head from behind, followed in seconds by a flailing Gillian. I tried to turn around only to find myself lifted and thrown! And thrown far, too, far into the deep end. Thrown by my enourmous husband who stood, legs firmly planted, laughing at me! At me!

I came up spluttering, with Jenny and Gillian on either side of me. “Come on girls,” I said, “We need to stick together and get him!”

But, try as we might, he couldn’t be moved. In the end we roped in several kids, but my husband, my strong husband, could not be moved. Of coruse, it wasnt’ like many of us got to try at the same time; we were always being thrown around, and could never really gather.

“Listen, guys,” I said to group of kids that were, like me, in temporarily exile after being thrown, “one thing about my husband. He is ticklish!”  This caused an outbreak of grins and everyone moved forward.

“What are  you all up to?” Caleb said, noticing our grins even as he threw Jenny over my head.

“You’ll see,” I said, as we descended on him.

I must say, even being tickled he did well. But we had him down for the first time a minute after we attacked, and routinely after that.

“OK,” he said, “Game done! The girls are getting tired.” We shreiked at this perjury, but desisted, and we went off to the jacuzzi.

“Feeling better?” he asked me, and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t worried about my non-costume for the last hour.

“I still don’t like it,” I grumped, and then grinned, getting into a chat with the lady in the jacuuzi about how embrassing womens swimsuits were, including a discussion of several of the suits in the pool. I even leaned forward and told her, in a whisper, what had happened with my first suit, and she laughed.

“Boys,” she said, “don’t think about such things,” she said, and I agreed.

Eventually we went  back to our room, tired and content.

“Did you girls enjoy swimming?” Caleb asked from the bathroom.

“Oh, yes, thank you Uncle Caleb,” Gillian said, from where she was struggling with her towel. “This has been a great vacation, even so far!” She said.

“Well great,” he said, “you all decent?”

“Sure!” Said Jenny, causing Gillian to shriek and Caleb to laugh.

“I’ll wait, Gillian,” he said. “Where do you guys want to eat?”

“I want to eat at that Japanese place you showed us,” Jenny said, struggling into a long woolen dress.

“You can come in now,” Uncle Caleb, “Gillian said, pulling her dress over her head, ”I’m mostly dressed.“

Caleb came back in, and said, “OK, Japanese it is. Let’s go get in the car.”

—

“There they are!” Gillian shouted from the Balcony, “I see them.”

Jenny raced out and Caleb took the opportunity to close the door to our bedroom and kiss me.

“Caleb,” I said,  “The furiniture is here!”

’It will take them a minute to get up the stairs,“ he said. ”It isn’t every guy who has to go on his honeymoon with two kids dragged along.“

“Caleb!” I said, but then he closed my mouth with his.

“Bobbi!” Jenny said, bursting in, “They are bringing up the couch!” She looked at us, “Should I tell them to bring the bed next?” She giggled, and I grabbed at her and she ran away. then I laughed.

“Oh, well,” I said, “it is our honeymoon.”

—

“What do you think, girls?” Caleb said, surveying the living room with it’s new furniture, “Shall we sleep here tonight or back at the hotel?”

Gillian was silent, but I think Jenny must have seen my face, “Oh, here, Caleb, of course. We want to sleep in your new house!” she said, dancing around him. “We sleep in the living room, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Caleb said. “Bring up your stuff and change for dinner. I hear there is a great steakhouse in town.”

“I have practically nothing left to wear,” I said.

“It’s not a fancy place,” Caleb said, laughing, the idiot. “Ok,” he said, throwing up his hands, “I’ll get  your suitcase and we’ll see what you have. I’m sure you have something interesting.”

Men! He went down to get the suitcase, anyway, along with the girls. And I followed them, I was sure there was more that Caleb could bring up.

I struggled up the stairs, my arms full of baggage, following the girls and Caleb. I swear, I had nothing to wear.

“Shut the door, Uncle Caleb!” Gillian said, as the girls opened their suitcases.

“OK, girls,” Caleb said, laughing. “so, my love, let us look. What do you have?”

“Nothing,” I said, pulling my clothes out of the suitcase. “Nothing at all.”

“Well, that would be good,” Caleb said, pullling off his shirt. “How about that dark blue shirt with the denim jumper?”

Mom had put that jumper in. It was clean, I wouldn’t have worn it. But, he was right, it was the only thing I had, and, well, it wasn’t really a dress, was it?

I pulled off my other clothes (while he watched and leered at me) and put on the shirt then, with a deep breath, pulled on the jumper, moving over to the mirror. No.

I went back and pulled off the jumper and undid my shirt. “What’s up?” Caleb asked, pulling on his pants.

“I am going to try the white shirt,” I said, changing out my bra. The dark blue one would not work under the white shirt.

“There!” I said, examing myself in the mirror, “That…”

“Bobbi! Can I come through to the bathroom?” Jenny asked.

“Of course, Jens,”  I said, and she came in. She stopped and looked at me quizically. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I… um… I have to go…” She said, the strange look never leaving her face.

“Well, I like it,” I said, and went to get my shoes.

“So do I,” Caleb said, swatting me as I bent over and causing me to shriek. I heard a giggle from the door, and looked up to see Gillian, who also had a denim jumper on, but with a plaid shirt underneath it. She apparently had found my shriek amusing. But Caleb started toward her, and she disappeared with her own shriek.

—

“A good day?” Caleb asked me, as we lay in bed together that night.

“A very good day,” I said to him.

—

“Girls,” I said the next morning, coming out of the bedroom while Caleb showered, “Let’s get breakfast on.”

In seconds the girls and I were making eggs, bacon, and toast, and soon had it on the table, just in time for my wonderful husband to come out and sit with us.

“Well, your brother needs to go to work,” I said, “but we need to do some shopping. This is a very nice apartment, but it is hardly furnished. Luckily I married a very rich man.”

The girls were excited, and we had fun all morning. We had made three trips to the car already, when we decided to go to the food court. I had gotten my food, Chinese, and was sitting waiting for the girls, when, “Hello, Bobbi!”

I jumped, almost spilling my food. Jervis! What was he doing here.

He pulled up the chair next to me and sat down, taking a bit from a slice of Pizza and looking at me curiously. “What are you doing here?”

Just then the girl came back, chattering loudly. Jenny looked at Jervis, appalled, and Gillian stared at everyone with a confused look on her face. “Sit down, girls,” I said. “We, my husband and I, just moved here.”

“Oh,” he said, “what does he do for a living?”

“Carpentry,” I said, proudly, “He installs cabinets and things inside house. Built in bookcases. You know.”

“I see. And what brings him way out here?”

“He has some friends here and, you know, we just got married and it is a two days drive from the folks,” I said, appalled at the idea that we would have wanted to move this far away from either of our wonderful parents.“

“Well, and girls, what are you doing here? Jenny?”

“We, they just moved and we came with them,” Jenny said, “Just for fun and to be with them.”

“Well, are you having fun?”

“We were until you came,” I said, “now, if you would excuse us. Or do you plan to arrest us for eating in a public place.”

“I like you,” he said to me, sending shivers down my spine. But he did pick up his tray and move on.

 

“Are you awake, girls?” I heard Caleb say, and I rolled over. He was on the phone. “Oh, well, good. Come over then.” He rolled over and looked at me, “Better get up, love, the girls are ready,” and went off to the shower.

“Morning  girls,” I said from where I hid behind the door as they came trooping in with their luggage, “how long have you all been up. Oh, just a sec,” I said, closing the door and going to my cell phone which was frantically ringing.

“Hide your eyes, Girls,” Caleb yelled from the bathroom, emerging in his towel to hunt for his clothes, while the girls, giggling, covered their faces.

“Hey, Mom. Yeah, we’re up,” I said. “No, we just went to bed. Yeah, the girls are fine. We just got up, Caleb is getting dressed and I am about to get in the shower. OK, love you too.”

I hung up and dashed off to the shower. It was kind of awkward getting dressed, afterwards. Everyone else was finished and all they had to do was watch me; Caleb with frank admiration and the girls with impatience. It was cold out so I grabbed this wonderful wool skirt that Mom had given me, all in plaid, along with a long sleeved white shirt. Eventually, none to soon for the girls, we were trudging through the new snow to the car. “Turn the heater on,” I said. One problem with skirts, even wool ones, is that they let cold air blow up between your legs, and I was freezing. The girls, more sensible than me, were wearing jeans over long underwear, with nice warm shirts and sweaters. And of course Caleb was never cold, with his large frame, but his heavy jacket didn’t hurt.

“Just a sec, love,” he said. “If I turn it on now, it will blow all cold.

We sat there waiting for the car to warm up and the windows to defrost, and I decided to pop on the

Good Morning Johnsonville. This is your KHTS morning show, bring you a mixture of news, weather, and local gossip. On that latter page we read that George Gregson has finally popped the question to Susan Meadows! Congratulations George! We were wondering if you would do that before she started to draw social security!

Now, for the news, as read by yours truly because we are too cheap to get one of those fancy news feeds. More news from the great ‘Time Travel’ escapade. And not good news, either, sorry folks. A sister of one of the kidnapped… that’s right, we used the word, ‘kidnapped’ her, anyway the sister of one of the kidnapped victims of the escapade was re-arrested after she gave an interview to a talk show. Although she gave the interview with her voice all altered like they do with secret witnesses, the government apparently figured out who she was anyway and, in a dawn raid, picked her up from her apartment in Seattle. When will we get it, folks? Liberty is dead…

Caleb reached forward and snapped the radio off. “What shall we do today?” He asked, tension in his voice. “I know you all were looking at the travel guide. What museums have you got all picked out for us?”

“Uncle Caleb,” Gillian said, “I saw something. There is this planetarium…”

As Gillian told us about the planetarium, and Jenny told us about an outlet mall on the way to the planetarium, I looked at Caleb, whose face was set and serious. We were not off the hook. The government had not given up. This trip was wonderful, but it was an illusion. We had to… we had to get Roberta back and erase this thing or we would always be in hiding. Caleb reached out and took my hand as the tears flowed freely down my face. “That sounds good, girls,” he said, to cover me, “where would you like to go for breakfast? Pick us somewhere in about an hour.”

“Wow, that was really great,” Caleb said, as we emerged from the planetarium. He was holding my hand on one side, and Jenny’s on the other, while I held Gillians. There had been quite a crowd in the planetarium, but the show had been well worth it. “Let’s go find a hotel.”

This time I decided to bite the bullet and go in with him. After all, I had been “Mrs. Jones” for two weeks now, it was time for me to get over being embarassed about it. But it almost wasn’t worth it as the clerk seemed to smirk at the names ‘Jones’, only losing his silly grin when Caleb presented his drivers liscence as ID.

“You say you wish adjoining rooms?” The clerk asked.

“Yes, if you have them. We are traveling with two teenage girls, and want to keep an eye on them.”

“Very wise,” the clerk said, and I warmed to him a bit. “I can give you room 102 and 103. They are right down this hall here, and right across from the pool, which should be conveinient with teenage girls.”

“A pool!” I said. I hadn’t thought of swimming on this trip. Caleb took the keys, and said,

“Well, with a pool we will have to do some shopping. Is there a WalMart near here?”

“Girls!” I said, “There is a pool. Did you bring your suits?”

Gillian had, but the other three of us would need to buy suits.

I swear to you that it wasn’t until we were already in the departement that I realized what I had let myself in for. I was having a great time being immodest in private, but my public persona was very modest. And if there is anything less modest than a swimsuit on a girl, I have no idea what it is. Boys wear swim trunks that cover them from their waist to their knees, but even the most modest girls swimsuits are the equivalent of being stak naked and covered with paint.

“What, what would you like me to get?” I asked Caleb finally. Whatever it was, I was going to feel horrible in it, so I might as well please him.

“Well, what do you like?” he asked. I pulled him aside, the girls busy finding something for Jenny.

“I don’t like anything, but I love to swim. I would like to swim naked, just us. But I can’t in public. So just pick something you like, and at least I will know that you like it.”

“OK,” he said, a grin on his face. And it wasn’t twenty seconds before he was back.

I took what he handed me, and gulped. That’s what happens when you let a boy pick, I guessed.

“Are you read to try on?” Jenny asked, coming up to me.

“I guess,” I said, doubtfully, and the three of us went off to the changing room.

I was still getting  undressed when Jenny had hers on. She had chosen a bikini top with little shorts, in orange of all things, but they set her off nicely. Then the girls turned to me, and giggled wildly.

“What?” I said, insulted, then turned toward the mirror, “Oh.” I took them hurridley off. “Gilllian, go tell Uncle Caleb that, until his wife has done quite a bit more shaving, he can’t get his wish. Help him pick out something with shorts.”

Gillian, still snorting wildly, dashed off, and came back seconds later. I looked at her.

“He already had it picked out. I think he was teasing you, with that other,” she said.

I sighed. Even this, once I put it on, was not anything I felt comfortable with, but what could I do? He had picked something that matched Jennies almost perfectly, in a nice blue. I started to take it off, and Jenny said, “Aren’t we going to go out an model them for him?”

“You can if you want,” I said, getting dressed red faced, “but as for me I am going to go from the hotel room to the pool, and that is all that people are going to see of me.”

Jenny sighed and changed as well.

“Did you like it?” Caleb asked me when we came out.

“It fits.” I answerd, “If something like that can be said to fit,” I grumped, and he laughed and took my arm.

“You can wear a shirt if you want to,” he said, “and I know lots of women that wear a robe to the pool.”

“You really are a great husband, you know. I was sure you would be upset that I didn’t come out and  parade around.”

“Hey, I get to see all I want in our room. Not many husbands can say that, from what I hear.”

He really was a great husband. I was going to miss him.

As it turned out I hadn’t needed to worry. We were the only people in the pool when we got there, and Caleb and I headed straight for the hot tub while the girls played wildly in the main pool. I dropped my robe at the last second and sank gratefully into the warm water, watching them, “This is great,” I said, “it really let’s them get out some energy.”

“Me too,” he said, reaching for my leg underwater, causing me to jump, and squeal. “You know,” he added, “if you don’t like the suit, I could take it off for you..”

“Caleb!” I shrieked, “Stop that, Caleb!!”

In the end we got much more excercise than I had planned. I kept my suit (Caleb was only kidding. I think.) but I had to fight hard for it. Luckily he is very ticklish, and that helped me.

“You two having fun?” Jenny said, as she and Gillian splashed into the tub. I must have looked a sight, my face all red, my hair wet…

“Always,” Caleb said. “Your aunt wanted to go skinny dipping, and I was struggling to keep her clothes on her.”

“I beleive that!” Jenny said with a smirk. “Hey, I wanted to thank you again…” she began, but Caleb splashed her into silence.

“Yeah, Uncle Caleb,” Gillian said, “It was really nice of you to…” But she was too ticklish, and I was too good a tickler, for her to finish the sentence. I knew that Caleb hated to be thanked. It embarassed him.

“Are you going to read to us again, Uncle Caleb?” Gillian asked.

“Sure, you all ready to go back to the rooms?”

It was nice having adjoining rooms. Gillians parents had been very concerned about hotels, with the TV’s and all in them. They were very conservative and hated TV with a passion, but knew that Gillian might be a bit inclined to ‘go along’ with us on the trip, so had been thrilled when we said there would be no TV. As Caleb and I showered and changed we could hear the girls going on in the next room, until eventually they came rushing in… Jenny wearing pajama bottoms  and Gillian a pajama top. I did a double take, and they grinned at me. They were wearing the same pajamas! I grinned back. I had on pajama bottoms too, it was a bit cold for just panties.

“Ready girls?” Caleb said, coming out of the bathroom, the girls jumping up and down on their knees in answer.

 

 

My parents discussed it  with us, and they decided to let Jenny and her friend, Gillian, come with us in our car instead of waiting till Christmas. Some of their teachers weren’t thrilled, but my father could be persuasive,  it was a small town, and some vague rumor of my difficulties had reached everyone, so the last barriers were soon down.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Gillian said, “How long will the trip take?”

“Two days,” Caleb said. “And we will be staying in a hotel the first night we are there, too.”

“Oh, cool,” she said, and the two girls fell to giggling.

“This is soooo, wonderful,” leaning over on my husband. My wonderful husband. We drove out of town and over to the interstate. I looked at the clock. We had gotten an early start, with the girls staying overnight in the Jones’ spare room, and it was a minute to eight oclock, so I flippped on the radio for the news.

In a breaking news bulletin, it has been announced that the families detained as part of the investigation of the so called ‘time travel’ investigation are being released. The government is not making…

I missed the next part as the two girls in the back seat were too busy shrieking for me to hear,

“Quiet!” Caleb commanded, and his deep voice silenced them instantly.

They are being released over the next few days, and all are said to have signed agreements holding the government idemnified against any thing related to their incarceration. Our legal analyst, Judge Jackson, weighed in earlier on those agreements:

In one sense the agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.  They were obviously signed under duress, and cannot possibily have been fully informed. And the actual victims of whatever this was are not being released, so each family has, in a sense, a hostage still held by the government. However, in another sense, as has been proved over and again recently; it is the government with the guns and the  tanks, so they can and will enforce whatever they please.

Gillian started crying, “So they aren’t letting them all go?”

“No, not all of them,” Caleb said, “but some, and for that we can be thankful. Bobbi, call your folks and tell them. Perhaps they can get more info from Fox.”

“Mom, this is Bobbi. Fine, but Mom, you need to turn on Fox, right away. No, we haven’t been in an accident. Just turn on the news. I’ve got to go, Dad is calling.”

“Hey Dad. Yes, we heard. I called Mom. Call us if you hear anything more.”

“Well, they know at home,” I said. And it will be an hour before the next news.“

“See if you can find a talk radio station,” Caleb said, and I fiddled with the dial until I found some local guy. He didn’t know much more than we did, though, and the girls were getting bored.

“Let’s play scrabble,” I said, and the girls eagerly got out the travel kit.

DRMAEED

“Wow,” I said, “I can make all seven!”

“This is why I hate playing with her,” Jenny said, passing me up the board and leaning over the seat the girls watched me put my word on. “I’m next,” she said, grabbing the board while Gillian wrote up my score. I listened to the radio,

Hostages! That’s the word for it, all right. Can you imagine the position those people are in? We will let you go, but you can’t tell anyone what happened here, or complain. What kind of country do we live in nowadays? What would Thomas Jefferson say about this? Tom in Smithville, you’re on.

“Well, Bill, I wonder just what is going on. What have they found out, and what are they going to do about it? Are they going to start changing the rest of us? Does anyone know?”

“Not me Tom, but we have a guest coming on the next hour from the physics department at the university…”

Your turn, Bobbi, Jenny said, and passed me the board back up. I saw they had added ‘STRANGE’ and ‘HELP’. I guessed that Gillian had added that latter, as Jenny was good at words. “Pass me the box with the letters,” I said, and drew,

BTHGEIH <fix>

“Well,at least she didn’t use all seven this time,” Jenny said when I passed it back.

Caleb turned down the radio, and put his hand on my leg, “Let’s listen again  next hour,” he said, and I nodded. “Are you OK?” he asked, as I leaned up against him.

“As good as can be expected. It is great for the families, anyway. Or partially great. I can’t imagine what it must be like for them.”

“Here you go, Bobbi,” Gillian said…

So, for this hour we have professor Johnson from the Physics department. Welcome to KATS, proffessor. Have you been following this whole controversy, proffessor?

Well, Bill, I must say only partially. The original reports seemed extremly bizarre. I mean, the time travel idea was just bizarre. Even assuming, for the sake of arguement, that there is some way of  influencing time, and I must say that I have never been very excited about that idea, how on Earth could they keep their original memories? It seemed to me much more likely that the time travel idea was a cover for something else.

And, besides that, Bill said, if you changed anything in time, then everything else would change, too, no?

Well, not quite. Certainly lots of things would, and more and more as time goes on. Especially things that could be easily influenced by the first thing. But it isn’t like if somebody sneezed then the Atlantic would empty or anything.

OK, so what do you think happened?

Well, my first thought was that it was a gigantic hoax. I work with college students, and they are fond of their pranks, you know.But that idea was rather blown away when they all got arrested. If they had been joking, I am sure they would have admitted it the second they or their family was arrested. So I was forced to think that something had indeed happened.

We listened for a couple of minutes, and then Caleb turned the radio off again. “He doesn’t know any more than I do. In fact he probably knows a lot less.”

“Say,” I said, “Anybody want a Coke? I have to pee.”

—

“That resteraunt was great, Uncle Caleb,” Gillian said. We had decided that she should call him that for the trip. Two weeks was a long time for him to be ‘Mr Jones’, and yet she needed to learn to obey us… her parents had made that clear.

“Well, great. Now we find a hotel.”

I found it totally bizarre to be checking into a hotel as ‘Mr and Mrs Jones’, and I let Caleb check us in, while I waited in the car with the girls. It had gotten too dark for Scrabble, so we were playing a word game out loud.

“OK, we’re in,” Caleb said, bouncing back down onto his seat. He seemed really excited. I guess he likde traveling and strange beds. I was looking to getting to ‘our’ home and ‘our’ bed, even if it would be new. “We have rooms 212 and 215.”

I looked at him, “Sorry, they didn’t have adjoining rooms. But girls, as soon as you have showered and gotten in your PJ’s, come over to our room.”

“OK Caleb,” Jenny said, and the two dragged their suitcases off to their room.

“That doesn’t give us much time,” I said, grinning at Caleb.

But I was already in the shower by the time I heard the girls pounding on the door, “Come on in, girls, and have a seat on the bed,” I heard Caleb say, and then, “Are you almost done?” He asked me, coming in the bathroom.

“Sure,” I said, stepping out and grabbing a towel.

“OK, girls,” he said, walking back in the other room, “I promised you a story. Now I got this series which you might have heard of, called ‘Island Peoples’…”

I dried off and dressed watching him read to the girls, who drank up the book. Probably more because he was reading it than anything about the book, which was pleasant enough, but no Tolkien or Lewis.

“Ok, now, right to bed, OK?” He said, when he had finished.

“OK, Caleb,” Jenny said, coming and kissing him, then kissing me. Gillian looked very awkward, but, with Caleb just looking at her, she came bashfully forward for a kiss,

“I guess since you’re ‘Uncle Caleb’ now,” she said, presenting her cheek to him, then quickly came over to me and kissed me enthusiastically.

When they had left, I looked at him. “That went really well,” I said. “they really seemed to like it.”

“Well, it’s a good book,” he said, getting up and getting undressed for the shower.

“No, silly, it was who read it that was important, not what you read. Now, hurry up.”

 

“Did you tell everybody? Everybody back home, that is?” I asked in the shower the next morning. We weren’t the first to put two people in one of these showers, but it was my first time certainly, and I felt that everyone in the entire bathroom was staring at us through the walls of the stall.

“Only my mother,” he said. “I didn’t want her to worry.”

Everyone was back in the room when we got back from the shower, including  Grace and Becky, and we had to endure constant teasing, including several calls for a private performance (which Caleb rewarded only by a passionate kiss), before they would turn their backs so we could get dressed. River never did turn her back, instead making critical comments about Caleb’s physique while he dressed. He didn’t seem to mind, tho, being too busy leering at me.

“Bobbi? Is something wrong… Oh, Bobbi, Caleb!!” She said, suddenly realizing what my stupid grin indicated and running forward, “Oh, I will have to call the pastor. He told me I had to, right away. Your pastor that is Caleb. He said something about a feast. Oh, I’m so excited.”

We went upstairs and started packing, getting rather distracted. “Well, I’ve… oh,” said mother, backing out into the hall.

“It’s OK, Mother, we’re just kissing!” I laughed.

“No, dear,” she said, coming back into the room, “I have done that, and it isn’t ‘just kissing’. But I didn’t mind, I was just leaving you alone. Do it all over the house, for all I care. I have waited so long for this.” She hugged me, then stopped, startled. “But, oh, would you like me to leave ou alone? I could go next door, I mean, you were in the dorm last night, and then the train…” she stopped when she saw my look, and then said, “In the dorm? With two roomates? Well, in my day…” she said, and wandered off.

“Should we tell her?” I asked, and Caleb shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said, “now, where were we?”

An hour later we had some of my stuff packed up and made a trip over to his room. His mom greeted us, “Oh, Bobbi, I am so glad he finally decided to take you to his bed. I understand why he couldn’t before, but still, I don’t know how he did it. The pastor called, dear, he says the ‘feast’ will start at six o’clock tonight, here. And they are calling everyone, so you don’t need to, Bobbi.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, and kissed her.

“I think we will go put this stuff away now, Mom.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, “And I will stay downstairs until you come back down.” Caleb blushed, but, well, he is a boy.

The party was exhausting. I had found parties hard when I was a boy just being myself, but having to act as a girl was incredibly difficult. And I was fantastically embarassed. I mean, everone knew why this party was today, and where I was going tonight.

“Hey Bobbi,” Jenny said, finding me in a corner, “enjoying the party?”

“I don’t think I am supposed to Jen’s. I think it is supposed to embarass me.”

’Oh, poor sister. Getting the boy of her dreams, and she has to put up with some little party.“ I stared at her, at the challenging look in her eyes.

“Hey, I think I want some of those delicious wings,” I said, “And I have hardly talked to Grace all evening. Want to come with me?”

It was three hours later, and people were starting to leave, when Jenny said, “Hey, I have to go, anyone want to come with me?”

“Sure,” I said, along with a couple of other girls. When it was my turn I said, “Oh, no!”

Everyone turned to look, “Oh, poor Caleb!” One of the girls said, and,

“Do you have your pads?” asked Jenny.

“They’re in my backpack, in Caleb’s… in our room,” I said. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Caleb said, when the last guest had left and we were back in his room.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Well, it’s not your fault,” he said.

“We can still kiss,” I said. And we did.

“What are you doing?” He asked, the next morning.

’Getting dressed for breakfast,“ I said, puzzled.

“Why?” He asked.

“Well, because…” I looked at him, “you mean you want me to…?”

“Of course.”

“But your father..”

“Will be  in his underwear, I will be in my underwear, and my mother, well you know what she wears. Besides, I already told them.”

“You did?” I said, turning pink.

“Yes, now let’s go.”

Well, the good book said, ’submit and obey, so I did.

“Good morning dear,” His mother said, kissing me.

His father looked up from his paper, but said nothing. He never was much of a morning person.

“So, have you told her, dear?” His mother said.

“Told me what?” I said.

“Well, in a couple of weeks we are going to move.”

I nodded my head. I had expected as much. I knew he had plenty of money, and so would probably want for us to have an apartment in town… “Hey Jens!” I said, as she came bursting through the back door. She waved at me excitedly,

“I’m here,” She said to Mrs Jones… the older Mrs Jones, I thought, blushing to myself, “What can I do?” Jenny asked.

“If you would do the toast, dear.”

“Ok,” Jenny said.

“Come for breakfast, Jenny?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, Mrs Jones asked me last night. She said she thought you could use the company.”

“You were saying, dear, Mrs. Jones prompted Caleb.”

“To Colorado.”

Jenny’s coming had so  interuppted my train of thought, that I didn’t catch what he meant. “What about Colorado?” I asked.

“We are going to move to Colorado.”

Jenny and I both stared at him in shock. “Colorado?” I said, “Why”.

“It’s where the group is, now, and we are ready to move into trials.”

“Trials?”

“We think we have the physics of what happened figured out, and we are ready to start, well, testing it. I can do my carpentry as well there as here. And then we will be closer for when…”

I fled upstairs, to his bed. I think I would have fled across to my house if I had thought of it in time. I threw myself on the bed, sobbing. Jenny was the first to come up.

“Oh, Bobbi,” she said, laying next to me and crying, “Oh, Bobbi, don’t go!”

I hugged her, and we lay together for a long time before I heard a voice, saying “Bobbi?”

I rolled over, sat up, and dried my tears. “Bobbi?” He said again. My husband. My poor, hurt husband. I got up and hugged him, smashing my breasts against his chest… my breasts that belonged to some other girl somewhere.

“But Bobbi,” he said, my ever logical and stupid husband, “we have to try. Our parents and our freinds won’t be safe. And we don’t know what happened to… to the others, and if they want to come back.”

“I know!” I screamed, “Do you think I don’t know that! Haven’t we discussed it, day after day? I know, we know. It is what we have to do. But it is so hard! I’m a girl, remember, we cry when we face issues, but then we go on. Now, I’m hungry. Are you hungry, Jens? By the way, I  thought you were eating breakfast dressed like me now?”

It almost made up for the shock to see her face turn quite so pink. Caleb took pity on her and said, “Maybe next time Jens.”

“I hear they have lovely weather in Colorado,” His mother said, “At least it is beautiful. I don’t know that I care for all that snow.” We all laughed, the speech was so typical Mrs.Jones.

“Jenny,” Said Caleb, leaning over the table, “I have plenty of money to fly you out. Would you like to come for Christmas with us?”

“Oh, could I?” She asked, “Oh, that would be wonderful. My friends will be so jealous.”

“Bring one,” Caleb said, and she went excstatic.

“Thanks,” I said, leaning over to Caleb.

“No problem,” he said, “she’s my sister now, too. And she always was my best friends sister.”

 

26 Quite an Evening

 

Everyone came down for the play. Caleb had offered, several times, to come to rehearsal, but he was always refused, “My dear chap,” Craig said, “You are perfectly free to practice on your own. It is a free country, and a liberated one. None of us will stop you. But you have already proven such a natural for the part that there is no reason wasting the rest of our time watching you. And besides, I am jealous. She was supposed be my girl, you know. And here I won’t even get a kiss out of it.”

I leaned forward and stuck out my cheek, which Craig laughingly pecked at.

So, anyway, it was only the week before that he even got his costume, and saw where he was to stand and all. He beckoned me over, but some of the cast, laughing, held me back.

“And so, my deah,” Psmith said, “Could I ask you for the honor of a kiss in celebration?”

“Very well,” I said, and he walked off the stage and, just as if he had come around the corner himself, I saw Caleb walking toward his mark behind the curtain, and the lights dimmed. I walked forward, and we kissed, and the crowd cheered, and cheered. Our lights went out, and the cast went forward but, as we had planned, we stayed kissing. The lights, including our flood, went back up, and the crowd cheered and laughed simultaneously. We did three curtain calls, and for each I leaned farther and father back, until at the last I felt I was going to fall on the ground.

“Oh, my dear Alice, and my dear Caleb, that was simply wonderful! Psmith had such a wonderful idea. I am going to publish it, you know, as an alternate ending. I have already talked to the publisher, and I will send them our video. Oh, you were too marvelous.”

Jenny came up next, “Ooooh, Bobbi, that was great! I so loved it. I just adored Psmith. You will have to introduce me.”

“I have a fan?” a fake British voice said from behind Jenny… who squealed, then turned totally red.

“Jenny, this is Craig. Craig, this is my sister, Jenny.”

Jenny managed to turn around, “I, uhhh…” but Craig ignored her stuttering and took her hand, bending over in an old world fashion, taking her hand, and kissing it.

“Enchanted,” he said. “And what year are you in?”

“I, ummm, I’m still in high school!” she squeaked out.

“Ah, what a loss!” Craig said, and then bowed again and left.

“I… he… He will tell everyone and laugh at me and….”

“No, no he won’t,” I said. “Craig is very nice. Where is Ralph, by the way?’

“I think he is over there, by the refreshments. He was going to get me some punch, but I think he go caught up with those little drummettes. He’s always hungry, Ralph is.”

“And he stays so skinny!” We both laughed. And then he showed up around this really fat lady, carrying two plates of drummettes and two drinks and we laughed again… causing the poor boy to look very confused.

“Thanks for coming!” I said to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek and causing him to turn beet red.

—

“Well, that was quite an evening,” I said, hours later, tiring hours later, as Caleb and I finally made it back to my room. “I need a shower.” I announced to the world. “I have to get the rest of this makeup off, and I simply dripped under the floodlights. Do you want to come watch, Caleb?” I asked.

“Yes, I think I will,” he said, and the other girls and Stan all laughed, and River whistled.

He did watch, too, and more than watch, never really leaving me alone in the shower but ‘helping’ me with the soap and shampoo. If he was going to make a habit of ‘helping’ I was going to have to leave more time for showers. Of course, he was going back to town in the morning, and I had finals all next well, so I probably wouldn’t see him much.

I chattered on and on about the play. It had been so wonderful. Everyone was wonderful. I had no idea how many people knew now. The government hadn’t arrested anyone new in weeks.

“Thank you so much for staying,” I said to him as we walked back. “It would have ruined the evening if you had had to go back with Jenny and the folks.”

“I quite agree,” he said, as I opened the door and stepped into an empty room.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, and felt his hands taking my robe off.

“They wanted to watch,” he said, “but I bribed them to find somewhere else to sleep.”

“But finals!” I said, as he started taking his clothes off. Now that the moment had actually arrived I was suddenly very reluctant.

“Finals only affect your grade, not what you’ve learned. Since you are dropping out of college and coming to live with me,” He said, bringing me up close against him, “I don’t care about your grades.”

 

25 Pale and Vulnerable

 

But the furor was so huge that the feds seemed to back off completely. We didn’t trust them, tho, and kept our security high as we finished our interviews.

“I have all the data, my love,” Caleb told me one afternoon. He had come down on the train early, not having a job that afternoon, and we were sitting at a table outside the student center eating. He had even dressed up for the occasion, a nice button down blue shirt and newish Jeans. I hadn’t known he was coming until I had come back from class, and was wearing the dark blue skirt and a college T-shirt under a heavy sweatshirt. It had gotten much colder. “We’ve put together a select group of sci-fi buffs who are also physics majors and we are going to be sharing the data with them. We will be meeting,” he laughed, “at a Star Wars convention in Minnesota. Our pastor has been arranging for donations, so we can afford to pay some of them to work full time on this. He didn’t have to work hard, either. People are really steamed.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess this means you won’t have to come down so often.” I said, clinging to him.

“Yes, unfortunately. But Jenny will be pleased. She has been dying to come, like we told her she could. And you can settle down to just classes.”

“Not quite just classes,” I said. “I still have to pretend to be something I’m not. And my excuse,” I said, holding up my cast, “Is wearing a bit thin. I had a couple of girls look at me incredulously the other day when I said something about one of our friends.”

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I’d rather not say,” I said, blushing, “it was a girl thing.”

“OK. Boy you sure have come a long way from that girl who insisted that her sister tell me all about how she had her period,” he said, wryly.

“Yes, I have come a long way. I sometimes go a whole day without remembering any of my old life. But I remember the trouble I am in, all the time.”

—

“Hey, Bobbi, nice drawing.” A boy said, looking over my shoulder. I was enjoying drawing class. I had always enjoyed drawing, but drawing as a girl was very different. I saw the object differently, somehow. It was less of an individual thing and more connected to it’s environment.

“Thanks,” I said. He sat down next to me with his sketch book and we drew in silence for a while. Our drawing teacher ran a rather relaxed class, and people would occasionally wander around like this, looking for a new view or a new partner to chat with.

I glanced at him occasionally. Tallish, jeans, green turtle neck, hair just a bit long for a guy. His drawing wasn’t bad, either… a bit ‘stiff’ as my teacher would say, but technically good.

“So, did you draw much in high school?” he asked me. I had the feeling he was looking me over and I blushed. I wasn’t really comfortable with this bra (pink) under this blouse( white) but our washing room in the dorm had had plumbing issues, flooding all over the place, and these were about all I had left. Tess was back at the dorm standing in line with our stuff in a big line with a dozen other girls and some guys. But I was stuck with it now.

“Oh, yeah.” I said, turning slightly away toward the pile of books and stuffed animals on the table, “Not like this tho. I picked up some techniques, but this class is really great.”

“Yeah,” he said, focusing back on his drawing. It was funny, I didn’t remember him being in this class when it started. Probably a transfer student.

—

“Eating in the Student Center, eh?” He asked, putting his tray besides me at lunch the next day. He was dressed exactly the same as yesterday but I, luckily, was now decently dressed, with a blue bra underneath a blue shirt which, according to Tess, was not at all visible.

I glanced up at him from my hamburger. We were given a certain credit in the student center if we ate there instead of the dining room. Sometimes I ate here when I wanted to be alone, or when I just wanted something from the grill. Today I had wanted both, but wasn’t getting it obviously. I was a little perplexed by his behavior. The ring on my finger was obvious enough, wasn’t it? In spite of my cast?

“Yeah,” I said, “You? He had a Reuben sandwich on his plate, which made me jealous. They were more expensive than hamburgers, but I loved them, especially the way they made them here.

“I often eat here,” he said, “I like watching people, and this place is better for that. More coming and going, different things going on.”

“That’s true,” I said, handling my burger awkwardly with the one hand and finally getting a bite.

The next class he sat next to me again and we had a nice chat. He told me all about his hometown of Bremerton, a town near Seattle, and I told him about living in the college town nearby. After class he walked me back to my dorm room. It was nice. Since becoming a girl I hadn’t really had any good guy friends… except for Caleb, of course.

“Who was that, Bobbi?” Jenny asked. It was Friday and she had come out on the train after school to spend the night.

“His name is Richard, and he is in my drawing class.”

“I didn’t know you had drawing class today,” Jenny said, as I emptied my backpack of my books. We were going to go hiking in the woods, just a short hike. With all of these classes I really needed to exercise, and I couldn’t use the school pool with my arm in a cast.

“No, I don’t. He has a class nearby and he walked me home.”

“Bobbi?”

“Oh, it’s not like that. He’s just interesting to talk to. Are you ready to go?”

“Almost,” she said, looking at the mirror and applying some lip gloss. “There. Let’s go.”

“How is it going with your boyfriend?” I asked Jenny.

“Oh, OK. You have made me really jealous.”

“Me?” I asked. “You mean, kissing and all?”

“Oh, no. Not that so much. I mean, it would be great, but not that. No, it is just that Caleb is so, together, compared to Ralph. He is nice enough, but never seems to quite get it. I can’t imagine him handling this whole transformation thing, for example. He has gotten rather confused when mother and I have gotten ‘caught’ a couple of times talking about your situation.”

I looked at her, concerned, “Oh, don’t worry,” she said, “he hasn’t a clue. I passed it off as girl talk that he wouldn’t understand, and he seemed glad for the excuse not to worry about it.”

I laughed, “Caleb is quite a catch.” I looked at her, “We’re you trolling for him?”

She looked at the floor, “If it hadn’t been obvious that you were all for him I would have. But I have known for years that that would never be, so I learned to let it go.”

I took her hand, “I… did Roberta know?”

“I hope not. I tried to hide it.”

“Wow, so I caught something that a real girl didn’t?”

She stopped, and her voice got almost hard, “Bobbi, you are a real girl, and a good one. I know it must be hard for you, but you have been doing great. Mom and I were talking about it, and she is incredibly proud of you, and pleased that you treat her like your real mother. Dad too, although he doesn’t say much. We all really admire the way you have just plunged in and got engaged at all, although the thought of sex must be hard for you.”

“Oh, Jenny. I must be doing a bad job of communicating.I don’t have any problem that way. I just have boy memories, not boy drives. I am looking forward to sex, and enjoying what we are already doing.”

“Oh. I knew that you were at least pretending to enjoy it…”

“No, Jens, no, that part’s all real. Hey, you hungry? Should we eat in the dining hall or the center?”

“Oh, the dining hall if you don’t mind. I mean, I can go to a hamburger joint at home, but going to the dining hall feels like ‘real’ college.”

“OK, darling sister,” I said, swinging her hand with mine and turning us toward the dining room.

Sleeping with Jenny was very different from sleeping with Caleb. For one thing she was smaller, and for another she was more comfortable ‘snuggling’ without either feeling awkward or either of us getting all turned on. She was a much more awkward sleeper, and I woke feeling bruised.

“Shall we shower?” River asked, standing beside my bed with my robe in hand. Jenny sat us and rubbed her eyes.

“River helps me with my shower,” I said, “this cast makes it awkward.”

“Oh,” she said, leaping up and then turning her back on Tess’s bed where Stan was studiously facing the other direction. “Let me grab my stuff.”

“So, you use makeup and your sister doesn’t?” River stood behind Jenny at the long mirror, where Jenny was applying something to her eyes. We had finished my shower and were finishing up our morning routine.

“Bobbi used to. I don’t know why she stopped.”

“Because, perhaps, her fiance doesn’t like it?” River asked. “She is very old fashioned, our Bobbi.”

“I heard that,” I said, my mouth full of toothpaste. I spit and said, “So, Jenny, what are you going to do this morning? I have play practice. You can come to that but it might be a bit boring.”

“She shall come with me,” River said, imperiously, “I have a private session.”

“River!” I said, but Jenny said,

“But what would I do?”

“Draw me, of course. As everyone else will be doing. Come, I could use the company.”

“Bobbi?” Jenny said.

“River,” I said, “you promise me that it will be just you who models?”

“Oh, Bobbi, truly you are so reactionary. Have no fears, your sister will return in her virgin purity, with no boy… well, no boy except for Caleb, your father, Stan, and any of the suburban boys with binoculars… no boy having ever set eyes on her nude body… oh, and anyone who helped change her diaper, if you count that.”

I laughed, “You make it sound like half the world!”

“Come, Jenny,” she said, “we must go.” And I watched my sister, wide eyed, go off to her private ‘life drawing’ class, and chuckled quietly. My little sister was growing up. I had never been this close to her as a boy, and I was enjoying it.

“Hey, Jens, did you keep your clothes on?”

“Yes, Bobbi, although…” I looked at her.

“Well, I almost thought I might like to try it, once, you know, with all girls.” She added, hastily. “Just to, you know, see if I could do it. She can hold so still, River can!”

She was funny, talking really fast, and her face was a bright red which went well with her bright blue shirt and jeans.

“Well, we can have you do it at the room, and River and I will draw you.”

“I… uh…” she stammered, and I laughed,

“I guess I forgot about Stan, eh?” I said. “Never mind, I was just teasing you. Love you, sis,” I said.

“I love you too Bobbi,” she said, squeezing my hand. “What’s for lunch?”

“Get dressed, Jenny,” I said, “we need to get on the train!” She had taken her shirt off to do something with her face at the mirror, Stan politely turning his back.

“Coming,” she said, pulling on her shirt, “Now where did I put my purse, and do you have my bag?”

“Yes, and I have your purse too, I put it in my backpack, now come. I don’t want to miss this train!”

We ran down to the train together, her bag clattering around after her. We just made it, the doors closed just as we took our seats.

“Jenny,” I asked, as we got in the train, “Do you remember when I started wearing high heels?”

“Yeah, I think you were a junior in high school, why?”

“Well, I can’t figure out,” I looked around, we were alone, “I can’t figure out why I would have started wearing them. You and Mom don’t wear them much, Dad really doesn’t like them, Caleb has never said anything to me about them…”

“Oh, but he did,” she said, giggling, “you invited him over when you got your first pair. He and I sat on your bed and we laughed at you, trying to walk in them. But you seemed so proud.”

“So,he liked them?”

“Oh, no, he said they made you look silly. But you didn’t care what he thought then much. He was just changing, and really awkward and everything.”

“Did I start wearing makeup then, too?”

“Oh, no, that was earlier. I remember you crying about it when Mom tried to teach you. You were funny. I really wanted to start, but you didn’t like it. I remember Mom saying, over and over, ‘Big girls wear makeup, Bobbi, and you will just have to learn.’”

“Well, so I guess she is really upset that I don’t wear it now?”

“No, actually, I think she is relieved. I get the impression that she made you do it because it was ‘the thing to do’, and when you had… your current problem and she was able to justify your dropping it, and was glad to do so.”

“So when did you start wearing it?”

“Oh, about the same time. I started changing earlier than you, you know. Not actually earlier, just at an earlier age. You were rather miffed, especially because my breasts grew and I got tall, taller than you even, and yet my period started really, really late. You called that horribly unfair.”

I laughed. “You grew up to be my big sister, eh?” I said, taking her arm, “Well, I am so much shorter than I was as a boy that I really don’t care that you are an inch or so taller than me.”

“How is the play going?” she asked.

—

I walked into the room, “Am I late, or am I early?” I asked, breathlessly.

“You’re the first, Alice, but we won’t wait. Jane, will you bring the tea into the drawing-room…

As we walked through the scene, I almost giggled. This was such fun. And I had such a fun part. I had been worried about acting like a real girl but, the more I got into the part, the more I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be a real girl. My part, Alice Hallliday (the original name had been ‘Eve’ Hallilday, but some prudish American publisher for the play had, no doubt worrying about the overtones of ‘Eve’, changed the name to ’Alice’) was this charmingly impecunious girl who met and was swept off her feet by a delightful impostor by the name of ‘Psmith’. However, as an imposter, his name was ‘McTodd’, and he was a Canadian poet… which gave Craig the opportunity to do both a British and a British-trying-to-sound-Canadian accent, which he loved.

“That was marvelous,” Richard said. I am so glad I came to see it. “You do very well,” he said, reaching out a hand to help me down the steps.

“Thank you,” I said, and then, “Are you going to the Student Center? I’m hungry.”

“Of course,” he said, and we went off together.

“Say, he said, as we neared the end of our hamburgers, I wonder if you could do me a favor?”

“Sure, what?” I said, but he laughed, “No, don’t agree to it that quickly. Listen, you know I am in life drawing as well as your class?”

I nodded. I had taken life drawing in high school… and an embarrassing thing it had been, too, no matter how good for my drawing skills. My mother almost hadn’t let me take it, but she had relented when the teacher herself had called her. I had hesitated to plead for it, of course, you know, a boy getting to look at naked girls!

“Well, you know we need to do a certain number of private out of class drawings, and we need to use real models, not each other. I think it is stupid, myself. We are all in the same boat, we could just take turns. But anyway, so we need to get a model. But they are kind of pricey, so we always get together in small groups. Our group tonight, well, one of them is sick. We could each just pitch in more for the model, but we are all dirt poor, so we are trying to find some more people, at least one more, to come.”

“How much is it?” I asked. I wanted to help him if I could, and I was sure it would be good for my drawing skills… and of course drawing some naked girl wouldn’t nearly be the torture for me now that it had been when I was a boy… but I hadn’t all that much money myself. I knew it wouldn’t be River, as she had a ‘date’ tonight. Caleb would give me any money I needed, of course, but I didn’t like to spend too much of his hard earned cash.

“Well we each pay ten dollars, but if you didn’t have that,” he said.

“Ten dollars is OK,” I said.

“Great,” he said, looking relieved. He looked at his watch. “We need to get going, actually, the session is supposed to start in a few minutes.”

So we rushed across the campus toward the art building. “I don’t have my drawing things,” I said.

“That’s OK, you can borrow mine,” he answered, pulling me on.

We got there, and, panting, I stepped through the door. How odd. Everyone had all of their easels up, but it was three other boy artists, with another boy, in a robe, in the front ready to model. We had used boys to model, of course, but it seemed odd to me that four boys would deliberately choose a boy model for a private session. Even the girls tended to prefer girl models. I mean, let’s face it, boys are ugly naked.

Seconds later something else hit me, something undefinable in their attitude, and I turned to Richard. But he had closed the door, and stood between me and it. “It is a good thing these rooms are so private,” he said, and one of the boys reached up and put a cloth over my face.

I woke up some minutes later, tied to a chair, with wires leading over to a machine, and a tube leading into my arm. My head was spinning, and I felt bruised.

“Well, my darling, since you all won’t let us do this the right way, we will do it this way. Feeling good?”

“Dizzy,” I said, “Head all dizzy.”

“And are you scared?” He asked.

“No, not scared, just confused and dizzy,” I said.

It seems to be working fine, he said, “Let’s get started.”

“Ok,” I said, and the boys all laughed.

“Now,” said Richard, “Let’s get a baseline. Is your name Roberta Michelle Smith?”

“No,” I said, because it wasn’t.

“I thought you said it was working,” the boy at the machine said, laughing. “Better turn up the dose.”

A boy next to me turned something on the tube, and my head got dizzier.

“Now, is your name Roberta Michelle Smith?“ Richard asked again.

“No,” I said again, wondering why he asked twice. I had told him, hadn’t I?

“This isn’t working,” the other boy said, “I am getting flatline. Is she on drugs or something?”

“Do you take drugs?” Richard asked me.

“Yes,” I said. I still took my pills faithfully, in case anyone should check the bottle. And they were good vitamins anyway.

“What drug… no, she may not know… when did they give you the drugs?”

I held up my arm, weakly, showing him my nice pink cast, “Right after they gave me this,” I said.

“Oh, bother. Pain pills. Narcotics. They will totally ruin our readings. And we had better turn off that drip, they might interact! Her breathing is slowing way down already.”

“What? How much did you give her? You idiot! Why did you give her so much?”

“It wasn’t working…”

But I heard no more, as the darkness washed over me.

“Bobbi! Bobbi! Wake up!”

I heard the voice and struggled to obey, “River?” I said.

“Bobbi, oh Bobbi, we were so worried. Your parents and Caleb are coming.”

Why? Would they be coming to help me wake up? I wondered.

I sat there, feeling pale and vulnerable in a skimpy hospital gown, while my family and roommates all stood around me, Caleb and Father looking like they were going to kill someone. I realized that the doctor was speaking. “It was touch and go. They had given her far more of whatever drug it was than they should’ve, and her kidneys had almost shut down trying to handle it. If someone hadn’t found her when they did, a few more minutes, and she would have died. As it is, I think she will be fine. The kidneys, well, you know sir, the kidneys usually bounce back fine if they bounce back at all. And we have most of the drug out of her system. She should be dizzy for a couple of days, but then fine.”

“Thank you doctor,” Father said, and the doctor left us alone. Everyone turned toward me as Father said, “Well, they must not have found out anything, or they would have taken her. I can’t figure out why they didn’t.”

“They asked me my name,” I said, and giggled. “They asked me if I was Roberta Michelle Smith,” I giggled.

Everyone looked blank for a minute, and then laughed. “Of all the questions they could have asked,” Dad said, and even Caleb looked slightly amused.

“It isn’t, you know,” I said, my words still slurring, “It’s.. it’s…”

“Robert,” Jenny said.

“No, silly sister. I’m a girl now. No, it’s ‘Roberta Michelle… Jones’,” I said. “I went down to the courthouse, all by myself, to get it changed.” Then I cried, “Oh, I was going to tell Caleb alone first,” I said. But the look on his face made me think I had done OK anyway, and I went back to sleep.

“My Alice, my Alice,” Mr Grummann said, rushing up to me, “Should you be lying down, my Alice?” He asked me. “First you get engaged, then you break the wrist, and then you have the fainting spell and fall down the stairs.”

This was the story we had let get out. A girl, whom we had sworn to secrecy, had found me at the bottom of our dorm steps, and River and Tess had rushed me off to the hospital.

“I’m fine, Mr Grumman. I might have to sit down during the rehearsal a bit…”

“A chair, a chair for my Alice,” he said, rushing off, and I got to do rehearsal sitting down.

“They took off your cast,” Grace said. She had come to rehearsal and was walking home with me.

“Yes, the doctor there took it off. It was almost the time it should have come off anyway, and we were right there.”

“You still don’t talk completely like a girl, you know,” she said. “At least, not to me. But then I remember you so well.”

“Well, my roommates cottoned on quickly enough as well. But as you say, they knew me well. I fooled Richard, it seems.”

“If only he knew. No one else had such a big change, not anyone we heard of anyway.”

“I suppose… I suppose if they had a big enough change they might not even be here. I’ve had a lot of chance to think about this. They might be in the hospital or even dead; or in some home. They might have woken up with some defect, or downs. Or they might have died as a child from pneumonia.”

“I never thought of that,” she said, sobering.

I took her hand, “I’m sorry,” I said. “It is just awful. We need to lose what we love, in order to help other people. And I am always haunted by the thought of poor Roberta running around in my old body.”

“Oh, she’s probably sleeping around and having a great time,” Grace said.

“Not with my father,” I said. “Not and come home afterward. My father would have killed me. Not for sleeping with them, but, he would say, ‘The first girl you sleep with had better be the last girl you sleep with, or dead.’”

“Dead?”

“You know, like ‘Till death do us part?”

“Oh. Oh, well, OK. I always wondered why you wouldn’t sleep with me.”

I looked at her. “You never would tell me. Had you slept with anyone else?”

She hung her head, “I couldn’t tell you, it was so stupid. I went to camp. And there was this guy, and we just did it. It didn’t even mean anything. It was just camp, and the kids weren’t there, and it was late at night, and we were sitting in his cabin talking, and all of a sudden I wasn’t a virgin anymore.” She cried and I hugged her. “And then he wanted it every day after that for the rest of camp, and I was so scared he would tell someone that I went along. After camp I kept hoping he would write, or call. Not that I loved him, or even really liked him. But it seemed like, since we had done it all those times, we should get together somehow.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said.

“Does it make a difference?” She asked. “I mean, if…”

“It makes a difference,” I said. “But not the difference. It will be a bit harder, always thinking about that other guy, but I am… would be… committed to you.”

We walked on, and I asked Grace, “How about now?”

“You mean, are we sleeping together? Oh, yes. But my folks know, and are OK with it. I never even told them about the guy at camp, although I think my mom guessed. They thought we were sleeping together too, you and I, no matter how many times I told them we weren’t.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. I didn’t know whether to be jealous, or disappointed.