Take a Lemon

I couldn’t believe it. Vicky? My old girlfriend Vicky was a victim as well? Had we volunteered together, talked about it? I didn’t remember. But if anyone would remember the old me, Vicky certainly would.

I thanked Ian and Luke and promised to help out in any way I could, then I hurried back to my room. I wanted to be in a comfortable, quiet place to call Vicky. Then I dialed the number I remembered, silently praying that it hadn’t changed. I couldn’t believe just how eager I felt. I had nothing but good memories of Vicky, now. I still couldn’t believe that I had been so foolish as to break up with her, and the minute I changed back to Marshall, I was going to let her know. Seeing her this way would be… oh, forget it, seeing her any way was going to be terrific.

Too late, I realized that I had not planned out what I was going to say. I didn’t want simply to say something like, “Hi, remember me, your old boyfriend? Guess what? I’m a girl now!” so I decided to play the mystery route. She’d always enjoyed puzzles and surprises, and boy did I have a surprise for her!

She answered on the fourth ring, her voice being about the greatest sound I had heard in a long time.

“Vicky Gordon?” I asked, as though I didn’t really know.

“Yes, this is she.”

“I wanted to talk to you about… Marshall Steen.”

“What? Marshall Steen??” she exclaimed. “Wait? You know him? You know where he is? Who is this?”

“Could we please meet at the Grill in about… ten minutes?”

“Wait! Can’t you first answer-”

“I’ll be wearing…” I had to look down to see what I had actually put on that morning. “… a green dress with a white collar. I’ll meet you near the western entrance.”

“Oh… a mystery woman, huh? OK, mystery woman. You’re the first person I’ve spoken with in weeks who even knows Marshall’s name, so I’ll meet you there. I’ll be wearing jeans and a purple school sweater. You’ll know me because I’ll be the one not carrying a flower.”

Smiling to myself at her familiar sarcasm, I headed eagerly to the Grill. I didn’t see her, so I bought myself a cup of tea and sat at a small table near the entrance and waited. She came in a few minutes later, spotted me, and came over. The change in her was very minor. She was still clearly the girl I had dated, but her her formerly button-nose was now slightly larger, and her eyebrows were a bit more delicate. Her auburn hair seemed a couple of shades darker, and her chin was slightly sharper. Only somebody who had studied that face as intently as I had for half a year would probably have been able to tell.

“OK, Mystery Woman,” she said as she sat down. “How is that you know Marshall when as far as everybody else is concerned, he never came to Piques at all? I called his dorm room and his roommates say they’d never heard of him.” She studied my face for a bit. “Are you his new girlfriend? Last I saw, he was sniffing after Lee Ann Taylor. Or are you maybe a relative? Hmm… you look like a relative. A cousin, maybe?”

I smiled. With my acting background, I couldn’t resist the dramatic reveal. “Not exactly, Vixy,” I replied, using my pet name for her.

She sputtered nicely in surprise. “Vi-? Wait – how…? Where…?” Then she got it. “Marshall?! Oh my God! Marshall? Is that you? Oh my God! What did they do to you?”

“Actually,” I replied, “my parents named me, ‘Marsha’ in this timeline.”

“Oh my God!” She started to scream, but cut it off as nearby heads turned to stare. “How can you be so calm?” she hissed. “You’re a girl!”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. Good thing, too, huh? I’d look pretty stupid wearing this dress if I weren’t.”

“But… how… I don’t…”

“Relax, Vixy,” I said, grinning at her. “This is just temporary.”

“What– what do you mean, ‘temporary’? How is this ‘temporary’?”

“I promised my sister I wouldn’t do anything about it for a while, but right after New Year’s, I’m going to tell them to change me back.”

She sat back at that, giving me a very intent look. “How are you planning on doing that, Marsh? Do you know where they are?”

“Well, I remember that they were in the physics building somewhere. I haven’t found them yet, but it’s just a matter of time.”

My answer made her sag visibly. “Oh, Marshall. My poor Marshall. They’re not there, Marsh. We’ve looked and looked. They’re not there.”

That’s what Ian and Luke had said, but I had dismissed that as part of their paranoid fantasies. “Of course they’re there. Where else would they be?”

“You haven’t really looked, have you? There is a Professor Davis in the physics department, but it’s not the one who did the experiment. That one’s office is empty. His lab has been reassigned to somebody else. He’s listed in the old hardcopy course catalog, but we can’t prove it’s not the one who’s there. There’s not even a mention of the other guy anywhere in the Physics building directory or the department web site. The administration disappeared him, Marsh.”

“Hold on. What are you talking about? Who’s Professor Davis?”

“Oh, Marsh…” she sighed. “About a week after we split, I woke up with this new face… and a couple of days later I saw a flyer on one of the kiosks. If I hadn’t known about that experiment and hadn’t had this experience I wouldn’t even have noticed it, probably. There’s this group, Marsh. We call ourselves, ‘Strangers in the Mirror’ and about twenty of us showed up for a meeting about a week or so before break and compared notes.

“We went to the administration, and when they stonewalled us, we went searching around the Physics building. About half of us remembered the professor’s name, and some of us remembered where his office was, or his lab… when we couldn’t find him, we went to the Messenger, for all the good it did us. Everybody thought it was a hoax. I think Cracraft believed us, but he got lots of grief for that article, so he stopped talking to us.

“We’re stuck, Marsh. There is no going back for us – for any of us. Some students are handling it better than others. For me, the change was mostly minor. My life is pretty much the same as it was, even though I barely recognize my own face in the mirror any more.”

“You’re still beautiful, Vixy,” I told her, sincerely.

“Thank you, Marsh. You don’t know how much that means to me. When I realized that I was stuck, I took stock of where I was and where I wanted to be. That’s when I realized that breaking up with you was such a mistake. So I tried to call you to tell you, but your cell number connected to somebody else, your roommates denied knowing you…”

“I’m actually rooming with Lee Ann, now,” I said. “How’s that for irony?”

She smiled in appreciation. “I’ll bet that was a shock for you!”

“Yeah, and you know what? Apparently she wasn’t going to break up with her old boyfriend, after all. What a jerk I was. I never should have let you get away.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. Then she looked uncomfortable, wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Marsh? Um… I can’t help still feeling for you, but… you understand that I’m really not attracted to other girls?”

“It’s OK, Vixy. Apparently, neither am I, now. And that’s why I can’t stay this way. I’m… I no longer seem to be attracted to girls. I’m totally asexual. That’s fine for the next couple of months, but after that? No way! He’s got to be still around. You made a mistake in his name, or he’s just moved to a different office, or… something. I’m not staying this way for the rest of my life. That’s not an option, Vixy. It’s just not an option!”

“I understand, Marsh. I… maybe you’re right. Maybe we missed something, but…” she seemed really reluctant to point it out, “… but I don’t think so. We were really thorough.”

I had just gotten over a crisis with my guitar playing. I was not going to repeat that now. “There’s no real option, Vix. I’m going to find them, and they’re going to change me back. I’m your guy and you’re my girl and that’s the way it’s got to be.”

“Oh, Marsh, I really hope you’re right. I want that, too. I really do. For now…”

“For now,” I informed her, “We’re friends. We’re very close friends. We still care about each other, don’t we? We still… love each other, even though there’s no physical attraction? We’re not so shallow as to need that, right? Besides, I need you. You’re the only one who remembers the old me.”

“Seriously, Vixy. You don’t know what it’s been like. Everything is different, almost. I told Tina and I told Chad, and they mostly believe me, although Chad wasn’t sure that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. He’s the one who told me to talk to Cracraft, and that’s how I knew you would remember me. My guitar is gone, Vix. My cousin got it, and ‘Marsha’ never learned to play. My hands… look at my hands, Vix. These aren’t guitarist’s hands – they’re seamstress hands.”

“They’re what?”

“Seamstress hands. I have Mom’s old sewing machine, and I’m making money doing clothing repairs and alterations. Well, not alterations, yet, I’m still learning how to do that, but I’m picking things up really quickly.”

She stared at me, and then laughed. “I just cannot picture you with a sewing machine, Marsh. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking, Vix. I’m a seamstress; or, an aspiring one, anyway. I can’t play the guitar to save my life, and I need an income. So I sew.”

“Oh my God. This is… different.”

“You have no idea, Vix.”

“And… why the dress? Most girls on campus wear jeans or…”

“You know how my Mom and sister dress, Vix. Apparently, so does ‘Marsha’ – me. I don’t even own jeans. We’re kind of old-fashioned, that way.”

“Yeah. But… I’d have thought you’d be trying to act as unfeminine as possible.”

I laughed. “That had been my intention. But I sort of boasted to Tina that I could act the role of Marsha so well that nobody would notice that there was something wrong. This is how Marsha dresses, so…” I shrugged.

Vicky gave me an understanding smile. “Still the focus on acting. I guess that’s a useful approach to all of this.”

“Oh, and by the way,” I added. “I’m acting in Alvin Tomlinson’s Mousetrap.”

“You were cast in a Tomlinson play? That’s great, Marsh! I know how much you wanted… Wait. You were cast as a girl?”

“Well… um, yeah.”

“OK, this is too much. What are you playing?”

I had to laugh. “I’m the female lead.”

“No! Oh that is just too funny. I wouldn’t miss that for the world. Oh, man. It really is good to talk with you again, Marsh. You have no idea how much I’ve missed…” She started to tear up as she continued. “Oh God. I just can’t bear that you’re… do you know how much I’ve been dreaming about you holding me in your arms again, and…”

“I know, Vix. I know. It’s going to happen again. Trust me. I refuse to accept this as permanent. Somehow, somewhere, I have to find those guys. But at least I can talk to you again and we both remember us.”

“That simple, huh?”

“No,” I admitted. “I know it’s not that simple. But It’s going to happen. There’s no alternative. None.”

She gave me a look that wasn’t quite as trusting and worshipful as I could have hoped. “So, how do we do this? We’re not going to… date, or anything like that, are we?”

I laughed. “I guess not, especially given that we’re not actually attracted to each other. But friends can spend time together. I’m pretty busy, with the play and dealing with this whole sewing thing, but I can always find time for you, Vixy.”

“And I’ll find time for you, too, Marsh. I was sort of in the middle of something when you called, but when you mentioned ‘Marshall,’…” She stood up. “So… we’ll be in touch, OK?” Then she gasped as I stood up as well. At 5’6”, she had been five inches shorter than I was. Now she was three inches taller. “You’re so… um… petite!”

“I’m short, you mean. I’m 5’3” – I’ve lost eight inches, Vix.”

She started to look sympathetic, then suddenly snorted with laughter.

“What?” I demanded.

Her eyes were squeezed tight, as she was apparently trying not to laugh, although apparently not very hard. Finally she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You never had eight inches, Marshall!”

I gaped in outrage for a moment. How could she joke about that? Then I saw the humor as well, and we laughed together before sharing a good-bye hug. It was just so nice to have her back in my life again.

I was practicing my chords and getting very frustrated, when my phone rang. The ring tone told me that it was from a number with caller ID blocked, and since none of my friends or family did that, it meant that a stranger was interrupting me. As a result, I was possibly a bit abrupt when I answered.

“Marsha Steen?” said a male voice in what was almost a whisper.

“Yes, this… this is she,” I replied, trying not to let the frustration show in my voice.

“Do you see a stranger when you look in the mirror?”

“Do I what?! Who–?” I caught myself as I realized the implications of the question. He had to be one of the people who had gone to the paper! “Yes, yes I do,” I said eagerly. “Who is this?”

“I have a question for you, Marsha,” the caller continued, ignoring my question. “Do you remember the opening performance of the welcome back concert at the beginning of the school year?”

What an odd thing to ask. But I certainly did remember; I had been the opening performance. “Yes,” I responded. “I– I mean, I remember a guy playing the guitar. Why?”

At that, the caller’s voice became actually friendly. “What dorm are you in?”

“Laramie Hall.”

“Fine,” he said. “Meet us outside in about five minutes.”

I scrambled. I pulled on a sweater, checked my hair and makeup in the mirror, and ran out the door. When I got downstairs, I realized that my sweater wasn’t really adequate for the blustery November weather, and dithered a bit about whether I really had time to go back up to get something heavier. I finally decided that I didn’t want to take the chance on missing my caller, and simply sat outside, my arms wrapped about myself and shivering.

As I waited, I thought enviously of the body I had worn just a month ago, which would have shrugged off this cold easily; I just wasn’t yet used to having to dress more warmly.

My phone rang again.

“Hello?”

It was the same caller as before. “Look to your left.”

I did, and saw two guys waving at me, standing between the two entrances to the dorm. I waved back, and they walked over to me.

One of them put out his hand to for me to shake. “I’m Ian Carter,” he said, and this is Luke Granger.” He indicated the other guy with a nod of his head.

“I’m Marsh Steen,” I said.

“Yes, we know,” Luke said, shaking my hand as well. “Let’s don’t talk here. You never know…”

“Never know what?” I asked.

“Somebody could overhear.” And he looked around, cautiously.

Terrific. I finally find the people who might have the link to my reality, and they’re paranoid nuts.

“So where are we going to talk?” I demanded.

“Shh.” Ian warned me. “Follow us. Be careful.”

So I followed. I followed them as they ducked around Danby hall, dodged in one door and out the next, and – to my intense discomfort – crawled alongside a low wall. As I stood and brushed leaves off my dress, I saw them preparing to wade a stream.

“Hold on!” I said. “I’m not going through that!”

“We have to make sure nobody’s following us,” Luke insisted, fingers to his lips.

“That water is at least two feet deep,” I pointed out, “and my dress comes down almost to my ankles, and I’m not hiking it all the way up to cross. There’s a bridge right over it. Why can’t we go that way?”

“We might be seen,” explained Ian. “Shh” And then suddenly, he picked me up and waded across with me in his arms. I don’t know if it was the shock or just my fear of being dropped, or of having them decide to have nothing to do with me if I struggled or yelled, but I didn’t manage to say anything until we got to the other side.

“Are you out of your minds?!” I hissed when he put me back on my feet. “What is this, some kind of spy thriller? We are college students, not… not… I don’t know!”

Luke spread his hands as if to calm me. “It’s OK. We’re here.”

“Here” was the back of another dorm, which I recognized as we walked around to the front.

“This is about two minutes from my dorm!” I snapped at them. “Why did we have to run that obstacle course?!”

“We just wanted to make sure nobody saw us,” Luke said quietly.

I withheld the scathing remark than came into my head next, since it was scornful of the entire male gender; I must have been about to repeat something I’d heard from one of my friends – it certainly wasn’t my thought.

“Why does it really matter…” I started, but Ian held up his hand as well. “Wait until we get inside.”

So I waited. The two were apparently roommates, and they dropped all of the stealthy mannerisms once we got to their room.

“Sorry about all that, Marsha,” Ian said, “But we have to be careful.”

“Why?!” What exactly are you afraid of?”

“Well, you spoke with Cracraft. Did he tell you about what the college is doing?”

“Only that they were trying to shut the whole thing up.”

“Yup. They’re trying to make this whole thing go away. To pretend it never happened. I mean, they actually threatened the reporter over this. We just don’t know how far they might go, and we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Well, what do the guys who did the experiment have to say?”

The two of them looked at each other. “You haven’t tried to contact them, I take it?” Luke asked me.

“I’ve been looking, but I haven’t found them.”

“And you’re not going to. They’re gone. The administration disappeared them.”

“Oh come on! What do you think this is? Russia? Why would they do that?”

He looked at me sympathetically. “Because they don’t care about us. Because they have interfered with our bodily integrity and they don’t want us going to the authorities. They’re waiting for us to make one false move…”

“I don’t believe this,” I said, standing and getting ready to leave. These people were just nuts, and I didn’t see how I was going to get anything useful out of them. “I don’t believe any of this.”

“You don’t?” Luke continued. “You’ve looked in the mirror, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t it obvious why we call ourselves, ‘Strangers in the Mirror’? How can you possibly say that you don’t believe it? You’re living it, aren’t you?”

“I mean, all the paranoia. So many of my friends don’t believe this even happened…”

“Which is what they want, Marsha,” Ian explained. “They want us doubting ourselves. They’re hiding all the evidence, so that we won’t be able to do anything to them.”

“Do anything? What are we supposed to be able to do?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. But that’s not good enough. They were asking Cracraft about us. They want to know who we are.”

“And what would they do if they found us? This all makes no sense!”

“We don’t know; that’s the point. They could be sending spies to try to follow us, to try to infiltrate us. That’s why we have to be careful. Why we have to be sure.”

“OK,” I said impatiently, “and why did you trust me? How do you know I’m not a spy?”

“Because you remembered the guy playing the guitar. That’s something we figured out pretty quickly. Everybody we’ve found remembers him. Everybody we’ve asked who wasn’t in the experiment remembers the first performance being a girls’ trio. So that’s our test.’

“Oh,” I said, sitting down. “Oh. That makes sense.” Obviously, in this timeline I hadn’t performed, so they had to have used somebody else. I remembered the trio, too, as they had come on right after me.

“So,” I asked. “What do you do, you know, when people find you?”

“We mostly just talk and support each other. Try to find ways to prove things. There’s got to be something we can do, something the administration is afraid of.”

“Hmm,” I agreed. Then something else occurred to me. “What… kind of changes happened to people?” I was particularly curious about how many people had changed sex, and how they were handling things.

“Well, I guess you read the article, right?”

I nodded.

“The ones mentioned there – Ben loosing height and Kim losing bustline – were the most drastic. For most of the rest of us, it was mostly a question of identity. I look about as much like my old self as my brother does, for example, and that seems to be the rule, pretty much.”

“So your lives are otherwise pretty much unchanged?”

“You mean aside from not recognizing myself when I look in the mirror? That’s pretty major, Marsha. What about you?”

“Oh… I more or less look like… like I could be my own sister.”

Both of them nodded. “Pretty upsetting, isn’t it?” Ian suggested.

“Oh, yeah.” So either I was the only one somehow, which seemed really odd, or the others were just being close-mouthed, as I was.

“Do you by any chance have a list of people in the group?” I asked, as though it didn’t really matter to me.

They were instantly suspicious. “Why do you need that, Marsha?”

“I… “ I had to think about how much I could tell them. If sex changes weren’t common, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to give my secret out to a couple of strangers. But at the same time, I really did want them to help me. I took a deep breath. “The thing is, my change actually did change my life a bunch. I have different roommates, and different clothes, and even a different name… and I was really hoping that I could find somebody who remembered the old me.”

They looked at each other again. “I don’t like it,” Luke said, sounding a bit suspicious. “She remembered the guitarist, but maybe the administration found out about that?”

“How?” argued Ian. “The only ones who know that he’s at all significant are the people in the group. And if one of them tells on us, we’re done.”

“But we can’t give out the list. It puts everybody in the group in danger,” Luke insisted.

“What if we let her have a quick look? If she really knows somebody, she’ll be able to spot their name right away, but she won’t be able to memorize the whole list.”

“Unless she has a camera.”

“I don’t have a camera!” I yelled. “Come on, guys, if I were a spy, I already know your names and where you live, right? Look, do you need to search me or something?” I wasn’t exactly crazy about letting a guy touch my body, but I really wanted those names.

“We’re not going to search you, Marsha,” Ian said firmly. “Are we?”

Luke shook his head, reluctantly. “We’ll let you see the list for just a few seconds. It’s not that long, so you ought to be able to recognize any friends on it. Is that enough for you?”

“I hope so,” I agreed, but my hopes were already flagging. “If there’s not that many names, my chances aren’t all that great, but I really want to see if I can find somebody.”

Luke left us and went into another room, presumably his bedroom. When he came back, he was holding a folder, which he placed, closed, on a table. “Now come over here and get ready. I’m going to give you a slow five count then open it for another five seconds. Are you ready?”

The whole thing was feeling really overly dramatic, but I nodded.

“OK. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

He opened the folder and I looked at the revealed list as quickly as I could. There were about two dozen names there, most of which I didn’t know at all. Ben’s name was there of course, as were a few people I knew by reputation, but not personally. But one name jumped right off the page at me. The third name from the bottom of the list. Somebody I knew very well.

My old girlfriend. Vicky Gordon.

I awoke the next morning to find a reminder on my computer. It said, simply, “tampon.” Shaking my head, I dug one out of my dresser drawer. After my disastrous first experience with a period, I hadn’t wanted to take a chance on recognizing when the next one was starting, so I had set up a reminder for myself. I figured it wasn’t likely to start less than twenty-five days after the last one, and that time had just come up.

The insertion process was more embarrassing than difficult, forcing me to confront once again the reality of the body I was wearing much more intimately than I cared to, and stripping from me once more my comfortable but increasingly insupportable illusion that I was simply wearing an elaborate costume of some sort. It was particularly troubling to me, since I had now spent an entire fruitless week exploring the physics building, and the students who had gone to Cracraft had not called me. I had considered asking Ben, but he didn’t know me, and from Nikki’s description, it didn’t sound as though he would be particularly open to talking about the experience with me, much less helping me find other victims.

So when my cell phone finally rang, I jumped for it, eagerly. I had it to my ear and had squealed out a “hello?” before realizing that the ring tone indicated a call from home.

It was Tina, and she was crying. “Miss Pumpernickel Pastry,” she sobbed, “Take a lemon!”

I didn’t have to think. Even though she couldn’t see me, I automatically mimed taking dictation and quietly responded, “Yes, Ma’am,” while wondering what might have happened. A problem with her boyfriend? A poor test score?

“To the world at large, casting division,” she continued.

Casting division?

“It has come to my attention that the roles of Julie, Carrie, and even Nettie have been assigned to other girls. I have further been informed that this was not the choice of the director, but was the result of parental meddling. That my sister and I were resented after getting the lead in the school musicals for five straight years, and that the director was ordered not to give me one this time.”

“What?!” The partner isn’t really supposed to react at this point, but I was incredulous. How could Tina have been denied a lead?

“But I will rise above this,” she said in a determined voice, her tears starting to ebb. “I’ve been assigned the role of Mrs. Mullin, and I will do my best with it. I will show that I can act as well as anybody else in the cast, and that I can be a good supporting actress. I will hide my resentment and try again next year, when they won’t have this excuse. And I will earn the lead next year and the year after that!”

“Good for you, Teen,” I said softly. “But… Mrs. Mullin? That’s not even a singing role! How did everybody else react when the cast list went up?”

She sniffled, and her tone turned angry. “It hasn’t, yet. Mr. Condrin is posting it on Monday. He just called me; he’s really upset at being told whom he could cast and whom he couldn’t, and he apologized to me. He said that I really deserved to do Carrie, but he wasn’t allowed to cast me. People said that ‘the Steen girls have gotten the leads for five straight years and it’s time for somebody else to have a chance.’ He said that he was ordered not to let me sing any solos in the play so that I wouldn’t show up the girls who were cast instead of me.”

“That’s really horrible, Teen. That’s not fair. Just because– ” Then I suddenly realized the implications of what she had said about ‘the Steen girls.’ “Wait. Marsha got leads all four years in high school?”

“Yes, Marsh,” she said, annoyed. “You had the lead four years in a row, and when you graduated, I got the lead the next year.”

“But… wait, are you saying that Marsha was a good singer?” Then I realized what I was doing. I was making this about me, not Tina. “Never mind,” I said. “Forget I asked that, OK? It is absolutely outrageous and unfair of them to prevent you from getting the role you wanted, when the director felt that you were the best for the role. Do you think anybody else will notice?”

“Marsh, of course they’re going to notice! You know how the auditions go; lots of people heard me sing. And of course, now they’re going to blame poor Mr. Condrin.”

“Well, I think you’re handling this very well, Teen. I’m almost surprised that you’re not angry at me – I mean, Marsha, for–”

“Why would I blame you, Marsh? It’s not your fault. You earned those roles; I was just expecting to follow in my big sister’s footsteps.”

Hearing that felt weird. I suppose in the sorrow and anger over being denied a good role, Tina had forgotten, or was at least ignoring, my reality. She and Marsha had had quite a bit more in common than she and I had; certainly, I hadn’t blazed any trails that she would have been interested in following. It wasn’t a thought I really wanted to pursue.

Instead, I simply asked, “So what are you going to do now, Teen? I mean, aside from just doing a great job with the role you got?”

I could almost hear her shrug. “There isn’t much I can do, is there?”

“I mean, about the politics involved. You know, when people start asking why you weren’t cast?”

“I have absolutely no idea. You worked with Mr. Condrin for four years, Marsh. Tell me what to do. I don’t want to make things worse.”

“But I–” never had a lead, I had been about to say. But now was not the time to remind her that I wasn’t really Marsha, and it didn’t matter all that much anyway, just now. As a mere chorus member in the musicals, and playing supporting roles in the straight shows, I might never have been the focus of attention the way that Tina – and Marsha – were, but I had been in a position to observe.

It also gave me a chance actually to play big brother again, advising my little sister on how to handle something. “The biggest danger, Teen,” I suggested, “is that some people will want to use you to get at Mr. Condrin for giving in, or at the girls he had to cast over you.”

“I figured that much.”

“’Cause they’ll assume that you’re resentful–”

“Of course I’m resentful!”

“… and that you want to get even.”

“Oh!” She hesitated. “Well, I don’t want to hurt Mr. Condrin, of course. But I wouldn’t mind seeing Marnie Woodcock look bad over this.”

“She’s the one who got Carrie?”

“Mm hmm.”

“But you can’t, you know. This is between Mr. Condrin and the administration. They’re the ones who have to have pressured him, and if you show that you’re resentful, it will just disrupt the show.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I know. You were cheated, and you just have to deal with it. As you said, you have to hide your resentment. And you need to tell your friends that, too – not to talk about you being cheated. I mean, you can let them know that you’re upset and all, but not to tell anybody else.”

“If I tell them, Marsh, they’re going to tell their friends. You know how that works.”

It took me a moment to catch on, but then I remembered Maddy telling me about how she had told just two friends a secret and later found out that dozens of girls knew it. I wasn’t quite sure how that worked, or why, but it gave me a sudden chill. Surely Nikki wouldn’t tell anybody about me…? Maybe I had been too open with her? It was yet another thing I didn’t want to think about.

“Marsh?”

“Oh, sorry, Teen,” I said, forcing myself out my reverie. “In that case, you’re going to have to pretend with your friends, too. You’re going to have to convince them that you’re a little disappointed, but not resentful at all. That you think it’s perfectly fair that, um, Marnie, got the role, and that you look forward to the acting challenge of doing Mrs. Mullins. Um… because it’s not the kind of role you’re used to, or something like that.”

“You know they’re not going to believe that.”

“You’re an actress, Teen,” I insisted. “I have to pretend things in real life now. You’re going to have do the same. Or at least be so consistent about it that they really understand that you don’t want them telling everybody else that you’re upset and angry. Mr. Condrin knows how you feel, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’ll appreciate the effort you’re making, when it’s obvious nobody can get a rise out of you. And you have two more years. There’s no way he’ll let them do this to you again.”

She took a moment before responding, and when she did, she sounded optimistic for the first time in our conversation. “Marsh, you’re right! And he’ll make sure I get the right roles in the next show…”

“… because he’ll know that you’re a team player. Acting is a team exercise, and you have to be willing to contribute, even if you’re not happy with your role.”

“Right. And if I sulk about a lot, he might not want to cast me again?”

“Maybe. But you can always call me when you want to complain about this. I’ll be here for you, Teen. It’s safe to tell me anything you want.”

“Marsh, thanks. And you know you can call me when you’re upset, too, right?”

“Oh! Sure, Teen. Of course I know that,” I claimed, while actually knowing nothing of the sort. I was the big brother; I wasn’t supposed to show weaknesses like complaining to Tina.

But she must have picked up on something in my voice. “What’s wrong, Marsh?”

“Nothing, really,” I insisted. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You…” Then she hesitated. “I called you Marsha, didn’t I?”

“No,” I admitted, “but you treated me like her. I didn’t get leads, Teen. Not one. This role I’m doing now? It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten to do one. You’re the one who always got leads. Not that I resented you, or anything,” I added hastily. “I was proud of you. But I hate that Marsha seems to have been better at so much than I was – I mean than I am.

“And what’s worse,” I went on, “I’m starting even to doubt who I am. I went looking for the guys who did the experiment–”

“I thought you were going to wait,” she said softly.

“Not to ask them to change me, Teen. Just to be sure they’re there. To be sure that there is a way back. To be sure I really am who I am. I’m not sure that Chad believes me, not completely. I can’t play the guitar, Teen. I’ve tried. I’m horrible at it. Almost ten years of practice and it’s all gone. But I can sew. Can you believe that? I mean, it’s great that I can sew, since I need the money, and it’s kind of fun and all, but it’s not me, it’s Marsha. And I thought that I could find somebody who might remember me as me, but the stupid reporter won’t tell me who they are. I’m not sure you really believe me, sometimes. And when you kept insisting that I got all those roles and calling us, ‘the Steen girls…’”

“Oh, Marsh, I’m sorry. That must feel terrible.”

“It’s like I’m fading away. I have one friend, Nikki, who figured things out. I mean, at least she believes that I was a boy…” I had to stop. It was as if there was something in my throat or something.

“I believe you, Marsh,” Tina said quietly. “And I’m really sorry that I treated you like Marsha.”

“No, it’s OK, Teen. You were upset and you had a right to be upset. I’ll manage. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll manage. It’s my job to be here for you.”

“And it’s mine to be here for you, too, Marsh,” she said. “After all, we’re si– siblings, right? We have to look out for each other. “

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “OK. I’ll look out for you…”

“… and I’ll look out for you. You know? I think this is about the best talk we’ve had since you were home. I feel better, Do you?”

I had to think about that a minute. I didn’t feel a lot better. But sharing my pain had been kind of nice, so I told her, “Yes. I think I do. I feel a bit guilty, though for talking about myself when you were doing ‘take a lemon,’ but…”

“No. Marsh, if you’re in pain, you’re allowed. Seriously. I’d feel horrible if I couldn’t listen to you because of my own problems. And you helped me, Marsh. You really did. I just wish I could help you, too.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Teen. I really appreciate that.”

“So? What are you doing this weekend?”

“Well, I have rehearsal tomorrow, and I have a bunch of sewing jobs I’m almost able to tackle. I’ll have to ask Nikki for another lesson. The last one sort of got cut off because I freaked out about not being able to play her brother’s guitar.”

“I’ll bet that felt horrible.”

“Yeah, and she wound up lending it to me so that I could sort of teach myself.”

“That’s great!”

“So I’ll probably be doing that for part of the weekend. That’s about all I have planned. Oh, and I’m hoping that one of the other victims of the experiment actually does call me. I just want to be sure…”

“… that somebody remembers you as Marshall.”

“Yeah. That’s about it for me. What about you?”

“Well, Danny and I are going to a movie tonight, and I have homework. That’s about it. I’ll probably look for some videos of Carousel on YouTube to see if I can start figuring out Mrs. Mullins.”

“Great idea,” I told her. “Um, that’s all I have.”

“Me, too… it was really great talking to you, Marsh. Take care, and be sure to call me, OK? Let me know if you find somebody who remembers Marshall.”

“Will do,” I promised. “’Bye, Teen.”

“’Bye.”

Thanks to Phil, I arrived at the Messenger’s offices around 1:30 and immediately asked the receptionist if I could see “Mr. Cracraft.” Told by her that “an attractive young lady” was calling on him, my target came to the receptionist’s desk fairly quickly. He was a bit older than my father, and his carefully trimmed and elaborate gray moustache added a slightly debonair touch to an otherwise plain appearance. When he learned my name, however, he was somewhat less eager.

“Miss Steen,” he said severely, “I told you via email that I couldn’t help you.”

“I was hoping that I could at least speak to you about the article,” I said, whimpering slightly.

He rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine. Why don’t you come back to my desk? I’ll give you ten minutes.”

Seated demurely in his extra chair, I told him how distraught I had been at finding my life turned upside down, and how I had been forced to get used to a completely new group of friends, none of whom had known the old me. It wasn’t completely true, as both Lee Ann and Sheila had known me as Marshall, although of course now they didn’t. I shed a tear as I explained how the one friend in whom I had confided had suggested that it all a delusion, and that the old self I remembered was a complete fabrication.

“And I just hoped,” I said, starting to break down into tears, “that if one of my old friends had also been subject to this… this horrible experience, that she might remember me and we could comfort one another.” I was effective, and I knew it, and he was clearly affected, although trying to maintain professional detachment.

“Miss Steen,” he reminded me, “a reporter owes a bond of confidentiality to his sources. If we gave out their names, we would soon lose their trust, and we would not have important information available to print, and our readers would lose out.”

“But–” I protested.

“The students who came to me relied on my journalistic integrity not to give out their names. In this case, they could well be in a lot of trouble with the school administration, which has tried to pester me to find out who they were. I don’t know if there was any real experiment, or if the whole thing was a hoax; that’s for my readers to decide. What I do know is that the school administration clearly wanted it silenced.

“Now, if it was real, you may well be the damsel in distress that you appear to be. If not, you could be an administration spy, trying to get around me. In either case, I cannot tell you how to contact my sources. It is not my place to make that choice and possibly put them at risk.”

“So you can’t help me at all?” This time, I didn’t need to act to sound upset. I had been so certain that he would fold; this was my last chance to prove my identity, if only to myself. “I… I really need this. I know I’m who I think I am, but I can’t prove it, and I’m starting to doubt myself. I’m… kind of going crazy. Isn’t there any way you can put me in touch with them?”

“As I was saying, I cannot place them at risk; however, there is one thing I can do for you. I know how to reach some of those who came to me. If you will give me your phone number, I can pass it along. If they choose not to contact you, that’s the end of it. I can do no more. If they do contact you…”

Feeling utterly defeated, I gave him my cell number and returned to school. Either somebody would contact me or they wouldn’t. I didn’t know what I would do if they just ignored me. There had to be some other way; I just couldn’t think of one.

In the past, when I’d felt this much at a loss, I’d generally sat and played my guitar. The best I could do now was to practice my chord progression: D7 – G – A7. I played it over and over again until my fingers ached and I had to stop. This was going to take forever, but it was all I had. I needed to find that lab. I spent another fruitless hour searching for it, and dragged myself back to my room for more studies.

Yeah, I was feeling sorry for myself; I knew that. I just didn’t have a great solution. And to think that just two days ago, I had been elated at being able to kiss a boy convincingly.

So it was actually a bit of an up for me when several of “us” girls went out that evening. It turned out that our destination was a sort of concert a few of the student rock bands were giving on the basketball court. At the very least, I’d get a chance to see how some of the other guitarists on campus were doing. I remembered some of them, although of course they wouldn’t remember me as a fellow musician.

Sheila and Lisa met us at our room after dinner, and Terry was with us as well, making five. There was a fairly decent turnout, probably close to two hundred students, and we found seats about halfway up the bleachers where we had a good view, but wouldn’t be blasted if the bands didn’t know how to work the volume control of their amplifiers.

The first band called itself Wet Smoke and played an odd mix of punk and metal. It seemed that they were still experimenting with their sound, and not really impressing anyone, although their bassist had a very good command of his instrument and a decent voice, which I felt was showcased too little. The girl who was their lead vocalist didn’t do justice to the few original songs they played, although she was competent on the covers. If they had asked me, I would have dumped her, had the bassist do the singing, and added another instrument. There were a number of boys sitting in the two rows behind us, and they seemed a lot more interested in trying to pick up Lisa and Sheila than listening to the music. One of them made a play for Terry, which she deftly rebuffed.

Mercifully, the set was over after about forty-five minutes, and we got up to stretch while the second band set up. The boys behind us introduced themselves as Carl, Umberto, Scott, and a couple of others, whose names I didn’t actually catch; I didn’t really want to get into conversations with them, lest they think I was flirting with them. It was just so much easier for me to talk with guys who already knew Marsha either as a friend or fellow actor.

The second band was much better. They had dubbed themselves Debt and the Midterms, and played a classic rock style, mostly covers. Both their bassist and their guitarist were quite competent, although not quite up to my standard. Their music was very danceable, and Lisa, Terry, and Sheila were on their feet fairly quickly, swinging their hips and generally rocking out to the vocal appreciation of the boys behind us. They were clearly having a blast, and Lee Ann joined them, leaving only me of our group sitting. Of course, my friends weren’t going to permit that, and Terry and Lisa each grabbed one of my arms and pulled me to my feet.

I started to sway very tentatively, aware that there were guys staring at my body, but then I remembered something that Mr. Condrin had said: if you are timid, you will look foolish and your audience will know that something is wrong, but if you act as though you know what you are doing, any laughter will be with you, not at you. So I took a deep breath and started to imitate my friends. It was kind of fun, actually. I felt the rhythm and just let it took hold; my hips seemed to be made for this kind of movement. It felt feminine, to be sure, but I was playing a role, so it was really OK, and as a performer, I reveled in the reaction that we were getting from our private audience. The adrenaline rush wasn’t too bad, either.

We wound up not staying for the third band; the boys talked my friends into coming back to their dorm to party. I objected, but was easily outvoted. It was not until we got to our destination that it occurred to me that there were five of them and five of us, meaning that we were probably going to be expected to pair off – something I had absolutely not bargained for. Fortunately, Lee Ann wasn’t particularly interested in the idea, either, so we wound up sitting together on a couch, with Scott and Carl seated separately on either side of us, and just talked.

The music the boys were playing was fairly soft, so that we didn’t have to raise our voices, and Terry and Sheila were slow dancing with two of them. I didn’t see Lisa, and didn’t particularly care to know where she and the other boy had gotten to. Carl was interested – or at least pretended to be interested – in the play, and promised to attend. I’m sure he thought that he would get a more hospitable welcome if he did. The thing is, I was quite familiar with what the boys were doing – I had done it myself many times, and with no little success. It would not have surprised me if at least one couple formed as a result. Of course, they didn’t know that three of us were effectively off limits; Lee Ann and Terry seemed to be enjoying some harmless male attention, while I just tried to keep my own situation under control.

I can’t really say that Carl did or said anything inappropriate. It’s just that, as a guy, I knew what he was thinking, in a way that girls almost certainly didn’t. Vicky and Jackie and… I guess I’d have to include Maddy as well, had all seemed so innocent about male motivations. It was as if they had expected all guys to be like me – primarily interested in a relationship, and seeing sex as something that made sense as part of it. I knew from conversations with my buddies, though, that most of them would have been quite happy to jump right to the sex part, relationship be damned. Lisa had apparently already succumbed to this.

I was quite relieved when Terry decided it call it a night after about an hour and a half, and collected our crew – all except for Lisa, that is. It was my first real experience at fending off male advances (I didn’t count Jared’s inept proposition), and I was quite relieved to have managed without any hurt feelings or harm. It made me wonder – had I always been as considerate of girls I had chatted up at parties? I would really hate to have thought that I’d made them as nervous as I myself had felt. Of course, in most cases, the girls I’d been speaking with had been interested in boys and presumably wouldn’t have minded having advances made, right? Surely I had never been so insensitive as to force myself conversationally on a girl who simply wasn’t interested?

It was a vexing question – how would I have known? What should I have done to make sure? And what should I have done tonight to make sure that Carl knew I wasn’t really interested in anything beyond conversation? I’d always thought myself something of an expert at all of this courtship stuff – yet I seemed to have found some blind spots. Suddenly, I didn’t feel as confident as before. It was one more thing to worry about when all of this was finally sorted out.

After Nikki demonstrated to my chagrin that neither of us was strong enough to carry the amp, she called Alvin to help. I really shouldn’t have been surprised after my experience with the suitcase when I returned to school, but I had been so used to hauling my amp around at will, that finding myself too weak to do it now was disheartening. Still, the prospect of being able to practice, of actually having a guitar in my arms once more, more than made up for it.

When the three of us arrived at my dorm room, my cradling the guitar like a beloved child, Lee Ann was sitting in the common room, reading. “What’s this, Marsh?” she asked.

I indicated Alvin. “Lee Ann, this is Alvin Tomlinson, my director, and Nikki’s boyfriend. Alvin, this is my roommate, Lee Ann Taylor.”

I watch enviously as Alvin shifted the amp to one hand and shook hands with Lee Ann with the other. I used to be able to do that.

“Nice to meet you, Alvin,” Lee Ann greeted him. Then she looked back at me. “I mean the guitar, Marsh. What are you doing with a guitar?”

“Oh. I’m borrowing it. I’m going to teach myself to play.”

“Aren’t you already kind of overwhelmed as it is?” She looked at Alvin and Nikki. “I think we should talk… when you’re free. And isn’t that going to be a bit noisy?”

“I’m going to plug headphones into the amp. I promise you won’t hear anything.”

“Marsh, why don’t I just put this in your room?” Alvin interjected.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, aware that I was ignoring him. “Lee Ann, let me just–”

“No, it’s OK,” she replied. “We’ll talk later.”

“OK, this way,” I instructed Alvin.

After we had dropped off the guitar, amp, and of course the appropriate cables, I walked Alvin and Nikki to the door and thanked them. Then I returned to Lee Ann.

“I know it seems like a lot…” I started.

“It’s OK, Marsh,” she stopped me. “You’ve been talking about your grandfather and his guitar for some time. It’s obvious you’ve wanted to learn. I just worry that you’re avoiding things. I don’t believe that you’re really OK ignoring boys. Maybe this Jeremy thing isn’t going to go anywhere, but there are still lots of nice boys around. Don’t just lock yourself in your room all semester.”

“I… I’m not,” I protested. “I just really want to play the guitar.” She eyed me doubtfully. “I’m serious, Lee Ann. That’s all this is.”

“So you’re coming out with us this weekend?”

“Sure. Absolutely.” I remember some of the girls discussing an outing of some kind, although I hadn’t paid an awful lot of attention. At this point, though, I was ready to agree to almost anything to get Lee Ann off my back; I really didn’t want her trying to ‘fix me up’ or anything of the sort. This had seemed like another girls’ night out, which should be pretty safe.

I finally managed to escape back to my room. I had told myself that I needed to deal with the reporter, and my failure to play the guitar in Nikki’s room made that all the more dire. So far, I had failed to find the experimenters, failed to play the guitar, failed in fact just about any test that could demonstrate that I was really Marshall. This was probably my last chance. If I couldn’t find somebody who remembered me that way… I just didn’t want to think that through.

My idea was simple. Cracraft had called me, “Miss Steen,” which suggested that he was possibly an older gentleman, and didn’t care for the title, “Ms.” I figured a man his age would have trouble resisting a sobbing teenage girl, so I was going to go see him in person, and if he wouldn’t help me, I was going to cry. After all, I might as well make use of the tools I’d been handed. So first, I needed to figure out where the Messenger was located. But that guitar was calling me…

I really couldn’t resist. It had been so long. I plugged everything in and started with a simple chord progression: D7 – G – A7. This used to be as easy as breathing for me, but now it took real effort. Each change took me about a second, and I had to watch my fingers to get them to go into the right place, and I had to concentrate to make sure that each finger was actually pressing down on the string enough so that it would sound when I plucked it. I didn’t have a pick, so I used a quarter; I could check to see if the bookstore had picks tomorrow. I practiced those chords for about fifteen minutes before my fingers hurt too much to continue.

It wasn’t much, and it was depressing to hear how bad I was, but it was a start. It was a connection to my past, to the real me, the one nobody knew… unless Chad’s idea worked out. And it was enough to get me willing to work on that idea, now. I found the office location pretty easily; according to the online map, though, it was about eight miles from campus. Clearly, I was going to need a ride or to borrow car. Somebody in our group should have one, surely.

At dinner, I waited until most of our group was seated before making my request. Unfortunately, that included Jay, and even more unfortunately, he was already in a testy mood over something. But I was a man with a mission – well, in my heart, anyway – and I wasn’t going to let him deter me.

“I need to go into town tomorrow afternoon,” I announced. “Would somebody be able to lend me a car or give me a ride?”

Phil was the first to respond. “Where do you need to go, Marsh?”

“I… I wanted to go to the newspaper offices,” I said, and I couldn’t help glancing at Jay as I did.

“Why?” Sheila asked, sounding just a bit curious.

But I should have known that Jay would be suspicious. “Oh for crying out loud!” he raged. “She’s still on that time travel kick. Marsh, how can you –”

“Let me try, Jay,” Sam interrupted him. “Marsh, don’t you say that the whole story is impossible?”

“No,” I said, a bit impatiently. “Why is it impossible? Just because Jay doesn’t believe it?”

“It’s not a question of belief –” Jay started, but Sam cut him off again.

“Look at what they said,” Sam pointed out, patiently. “They found themselves changed, right?”

“Yeah?”

“But look at what they didn’t say. They didn’t say that everything else was different. If somebody went back in time and changed something, everything should be different. Not just their bodies, but also all of their friends, and their clothes, and school, and… everything! Right, Jay?”

But Jay didn’t give Sam the affirmation he was evidently expecting. Instead, he looked even more aggrieved. “No,” he stated flatly. “No, no, no!”

“Sure it should,” Sam insisted. “Because a lot of those depend on random happenings, and if you run a random event over again, you’re almost certainly going to get different results.”

“No,” Jay repeated, glaring at both Sam and me. “Look, you picked a really bad day to try this with me, because I just sent half an hour arguing with this idiot over the same idea.”

“Time travel?” I asked.

“No, the idea of random events.” He took a deep breath. “This moron was insisting that science inherently conflicts with religion, because it describes how things happen from the creation of the universe and through evolution of species, and works through random processes plus selection.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Fred commented. “After all, what do you need God for if you can explain everything scientifically?”

“Because when scientists say that something is ‘random’ that doesn’t mean that anything could happen, or that all of the choices are necessarily undetermined.”

“Then what does is mean?” Sam challenged him.

“A more precise term might be ‘uncorrelated.’” And now Jay’s tone took on the sound of a lecturer. His words sounded almost rehearsed. “Look, science is all about predicting future observations based on past ones. If something is inherently non-observable, it is also irrelevant to science. So, for example, we think the Big Bang was a singularity. If so, then it is impossible for anything that might have preceded it to affect our universe, and so we ignore it. Similarly, the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that the universe splits whenever an event happens, but once again, if we cannot observe these hypothetical other universes, whether they exist or not may be interesting to philosophers, but is irrelevant to science. They cannot affect us.

“When we say that something is ‘random’ all we are saying is that we cannot correlate it with something that happened earlier; we cannot predict it. But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be some more basic reality that we cannot observe that could determine it.”

“You mean, like God?” somebody suggested.

“Maybe,” Jay continued. “Maybe God controls all the dice, all the random events, and just makes them happen with the right frequencies to make us think that they happen randomly – randomly as most people use the word. Maybe they do happen randomly and if you could run them again, they would all happen differently. Maybe some of them would happen the same and others wouldn’t. The point is, we have absolutely no way to tell, because we cannot rerun an individual dice roll. All we can do is roll the dice again and again and see how they behave in the aggregate.”

“If you had time travel, you could do the experiment,” I pointed out.

“Yes, we could,” he said, hotly. “But we don’t. Time travel is impossible, not because some reporter didn’t describe a chaotic effect, but because it conflicts with some really fundamental things we know about the Universe. Things like conservation laws.”

“But don’t physicists change their ideas of laws when they learn new facts?” I insisted. “Why wouldn’t you just rewrite the laws if somebody could prove time travel?”

“Because…” he sighed in exasperation and threw his hands up. “Look, just trust me on this one, Marsh. You’re a science major. You know how science works. There are some basic things that you know aren’t going to have to change. Some things we can be pretty damn sure about.”

“And we decide all of this via evidence, right? We’ll, I just want to explore the evidence. I want to see what the reporter learned that he didn’t report. I want to find the people who made the claims and see exactly what happened. That’s the scientific way, right? Going to the evidence rather than just taking things on faith?”

“Fine. Fine,” he said. “Go ahead and waste your time. I’ve tried to help you get off this kick. You won’t listen. You can apologize when you wind up with egg on your face.”

“I don’t think I will,” I said, calmly. “I just need a way to get to the newspaper office.”

“What time did you want to go, Marsh?” Phil asked quietly, once Jay had turned away from me and assiduously attacked his dinner.

“My last lab tomorrow ends around two-thirty, and I’d like to leave soon after that. I don’t want to miss him if he leaves early on Fridays.’

“No problem,” he smiled. “Why don’t you come over to my room when you’re done and I’ll lend you my keys?”

“Finally got up the courage to ask her back to your room, Phil?” cracked Fred.

We both ignored him. I might not be interested in dating Phil, but he was showing himself to be a good friend to have.

Before I could deal with the reporter, I had to keep an appointment I had made with Nikki. I got to her room a few minutes ahead of schedule, and knocked on her door. She lived in one of the older dorms in the middle of campus, Johnston Hall, which had been build with lots of stone on its exterior; fancy column shapes against the wall, and even a couple of what I presume were supposed to be gargoyles, although they were shaped like horse heads.

Her door was one of four rooms on the third floor of a section of the dorm reachable by its own stairway, and she answered almost immediately when I knocked. Apparently, it was a single dorm room, but had a small anteroom separate from her bedroom. She had her sewing machine and clothing rack there, along with a couple of wooden chairs, but what drew my attention was an electric guitar sitting on a stand.

It was a fairly new Fender Stratocaster, painted red with a sunburst pattern, and I could feel my fingers itching for it. “I didn’t know you played the guitar,” I commented, almost as soon as she had let me in.

She gave me a pained look. “I don’t. It’s actually Ben’s, but in the life he remembers, he never learned to play, and now says he can’t bear to see it. Actually, he told me to get rid of it, but I used to love to listen to him, so I’ve just kept it in hopes that he’ll change his mind.”

“That’s kind of a nice guitar, Nikki. It’s got to be worth about a thousand dollars. You definitely don’t want just to ‘get rid of it.’” I hesitated, just because it seemed a bit presumptive to ask of someone who wasn’t actually the owner. “I… actually used to play in my old life, but I don’t own a guitar. Would you mind if… if I tried this one?”

“You play the guitar? Please, go right ahead.”

I’d tried to avoid thinking about my own guitar, now lost to me, and I hadn’t played in weeks. It was yet another sure connection to my old life, my real life, and I’d missed it. Now I could prove to myself, and to Chad, and to Tina, that I was real. I could prove it by playing that guitar in a way that Marsha never would have been able to.

I think I was even more nervous and eager as I reached for Ben’s guitar than I had been the night Cindy and I had lost our virginity to each other. The guitar felt a bit strange in my arms, mostly because I was smaller, now, so it felt larger. I plugged it into the amp and sat down with it in one of the chairs. My fingertips hurt a bit as I checked the pitches, since I didn’t have calluses on my fingers.

“It’s in good tune,” I noted. “Your brother must have taken good care of it.”

“Yes, he was never great at playing, but he was very conscientious about maintaining it. He really loved it, and it just breaks my heart to see him set it aside.”

“Well,” I said, confidently. “Let’s just see if I can’t do justice to this instrument.” It all felt so familiar, and so comfortable. It had been so long, and I wanted to savor the experience. Experimentally, I plucked a few strings, drinking in the feel of the vibrations so close to my ear. I took a breath, and launched into the rhythm line from the Beatles’ All My Loving.

Or at least, I tried to. Something seemed to be wrong with my left hand. I was strumming with my bare thumb, as I hadn’t seen a pick, and the chords were way off, and some of the strings weren’t fully depressed, and the whole song sounded nothing like what I had intended. I stopped in shock. What in the world was going on?

I looked carefully at my left hand. By paying attention to it, I could get it to finger the chords correctly, but the minute I looked away, they went bad again, and it was only with painstaking concentration that I could make the chords happen – and I couldn’t change them fast enough to play in tempo. It was almost as though I were a complete beginner again. I knew the theory – I just couldn’t execute.

And it wasn’t just the lack of calluses, which were causing me pain in my fingers, or even the size of my hands. I couldn’t play. I knew what playing meant, but I couldn’t make it happen. I was used to thinking, “G7 C Cmaj9” and knowing that my left hand would automatically do the proper fingering. But it wasn’t happening.

It was only my long years of discipline that kept me from throwing the guitar away from me in frustration. Instead, I shakily put it back onto its stand. But then, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything. All along, I had known that I was an expert guitarist. It was the core of my being. It was what made me, me. It was a major part of what me Marshall, not Marsha. And it was gone. It just wasn’t there.

I couldn’t breathe. I just stood there, with the hands that didn’t know chords, in the body that was way too short and the wrong sex and wearing a stupid dress and forbidden to curse and just totally…

Dimly, I could tell that somebody was speaking. Somebody was holding me, saying words I couldn’t understand, giving me an anchor. Somebody was keeping me safe, trying to bring me back from wherever I had gone. Somebody was… Nikki. I knew her. It was Nikki. My friend, Nikki. No, wait, she was Marsha’s friend, not mine. No! She was my friend. Marsha wasn’t here, so Nikki had to be my friend. I was the one who needed her. Not Marsha. Never Marsha. I’m Marshall. I’m…

As the haze began to lift, I noticed that I wasn’t actually standing, but kneeling, and Nikki was kneeling next to me, her arms around me. My face seemed to be wet, suggesting that somebody had been crying, but it hadn’t been me. It couldn’t have been me, since guys don’t cry, and I’m a guy. OK, it was a little bit hard for people to see that right now, and I did remember crying before, but that when I was pretending to be Marsha, but this body I was wearing was only temporary. Inside, I’m a guy. I’m Marshall.

“Are you OK, Marsh?”

Finally, I could understand the question. Answering was a bit difficult, since somebody still seemed to be using my mouth to cry, so I just nodded and clung tightly to my anchor.

“I wasn’t sure what happened. You seemed to be having trouble with the guitar and then you just started screaming something. You said something about a marshal wearing a dress and cursing. I couldn’t follow you, but you were in hysterics about it.

“Oh my… goodness. I mentioned ‘Marshall’?” I was able to force words out. I rested my head on her shoulder. “Nikki, I think I finally understand what your brother is going through. I thought I could handle all of this – I knew what was important. I knew my core, and thought I still had it. Now I’m not so sure. I… I just made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t, Marsh.” She helped me to my feet, had to pull me up, since I just didn’t have the strength to move. “I know that this whole time warp thing has been hard for you, and I think you’ve been holding up very well. Apparently, you just ran into something you hadn’t been ready for. Do you want to tell me about it?”

And I did. I had to retain something of my self. So I told her what I had told Tina about my guitar, and what exactly I had been doing instead of sewing. I told her how the guitar had gone to a cousin, although I didn’t explain why. I sort of suggested that in my old life I had had a greater aptitude for music than I did now, although I think she probably saw that as an evasion.

Nikki looked at me very sympathetically. “Marsh… would you mind if I asked you something?”

“You can ask me anything, Nikki. You’ve been a terrific friend to me.”

“Well, I don’t want you to get upset, but…” she took a deep breath. “You told me that when you woke up that day, you thought you were dreaming, right?”

I nodded.

“… which means that the change was something really obvious, probably something you didn’t even need to look in the mirror to see. And you said that in your old life you were interested in girls, and your mother never taught you to sew… and you told Alvin that what happened to you was very personal…”

I tensed. I had revealed many things about myself, each seemingly harmless. I didn’t like the way she was putting them together now.

“And you just mentioned a marshal, and it occurs to me that ‘Marshall’ is a boy’s name…” She looked me square in the eyes. “Marsh, were you by any chance a boy in your old life?”

“I… Nikki…”

“It’s OK, Marsh. It really is. But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Reluctantly, I nodded. She’d actually figured it out. I hadn’t thought that anybody could, but she had, and I was afraid.

“Oh you poor thing,” she said, hugging me again. “That’s so much worse than what happened to Ben. I don’t know how you’re managing to keep yourself going.”

“You… you don’t mind? You’re not grossed out?”

“Marsh, you’re my friend. Why would I mind?”

“But… you’ve been so open with me, and…” horrified, I remembered her undressing in front of me, trustingly, “and I’ve seen you in your underwear…”

She laughed. “We’re theater people, Marsh. We see each other in underwear all the time. Besides, you’re a girl, now. Why should I care if you were a boy in another life?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t want people to think of me as a freak.”

“Nobody’s going to think of you as a freak, Marsh. This will be our secret. Does anybody else know?”

“Just my sister and my neighbor. I haven’t even told my Mom and Dad.”

“And I won’t tell anyone, either,” She hesitated. “But maybe your parents need to know.”

“I’ve been struggling with that,” I admitted. “I’m just afraid of how they’ll react. They’re comfortable with me, this way, and I sort of boasted to Tina that nobody would know the difference.”

“That sounds like a very boy thing to do.”

“Well, I am a boy.” In response to her raised eyebrows, I added, “I mean, underneath.”

“Well, I think you’re coping very well.”

“I still keep thinking that it’s temporary, and I’ll be able to change back.”

“If that’s what you want, I hope you can.” Then she looked at me and added, softly, “I’d miss you, though.”

And while I was processing that, she surprised me with a suggestion. “The guitar playing seems to have been very important to you, Marsh. Why don’t you borrow Ben’s guitar and teach yourself to play all over again?”

“What do you mean?”

“Marsh, if you know how to play, but your hands just aren’t used to it, isn’t all you need a lot of practice? It’s just the opposite of your sewing. You seem to have the practical experience with sewing – your hands just seem to know what to do, but your head doesn’t. You’ve picked up stitches in a day that many girls take weeks to learn. With the guitar, it’s exactly the opposite. You know the theory. You know how the instrument is supposed to sound. So now you just need to practice, to train your hands to do what needs to be done.”

“Nikki, that is so incredibly generous of you!” I almost started crying again. “But I’m not so sure I can accept. It’s Ben’s guitar–”

“…which he has no interest in,” she pointed out.

“But shouldn’t we try to teach him?”

“Marsh, he isn’t interested. If you didn’t have a queue of work and a need to earn money, would you have taken up sewing? What if you had found out you couldn’t play the guitar immediately, instead of after weeks in your new life? How would you have felt about working to pick up some other skill that your new self was expected to have?”

I saw her point.

“Besides,” she added, “what if at some point, he does decide that he wants to learn? I can’t teach him. But if you get some practice, maybe you could.”

“You do realize that you are offering me something I want terribly?”

“Good. At least somebody will get some use of it, instead of having it just sit around in my sewing room. And maybe… maybe one day you’ll be able to help Ben.”

“Nikki, I accept. I’ll do it. I’ll… I’m going to need help carrying everything. And is there a case for the guitar to protect it? I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

Somehow, the sewing lesson didn’t seem all that important just now.

Ideally, an actor can keep the character he’s developing, and the feelings he’s acting, completely separate from his real life. In practice, though they tend to leak. That’s probably what Alvin meant when he’d talked about “cleaning the emotional canvas.” He’d wanted to make sure Jared and I didn’t have inappropriate strong feelings towards one another that would affect our acting.

It works the other way, too. At a cast party last year, one of the seniors mentioned how the girl he’d been doing romantic scenes with had developed real feelings for him, and almost wound up breaking up with her boyfriend about it. I’d never done any kind of a romantic scene before this, and in fact this show was my first ever “stage kiss,” and I was clearly feeling some of the effects. All of that work I had done establishing the proper feeling for the kiss was leaking into my dreams.

I saw myself, as Marshall again, walking from the Grill with Jared. It was odd to be taller than he was, this time, but comfortable to be my real self once more. I wasn’t sure how we got there, but suddenly we were in a dormitory furnace room. Jared turned to me and asked, “Shall I stoke the furnace?”

I looked at him lovingly and said, “already done,” and kissed him. I kissed him – as a guy!

What in the world? I sat up in shock, suddenly wide-awake. I’d never dreamed of myself kissing a boy before. I looked around wildly to make sure I was alone. I was, and I was still female, but what had brought that on? I’d made certain to establish that it was female me – me as Mollie – who was kissing “Giles.” It wasn’t me, Marshall. I’d never do such a thing. Never.

I calmed myself; it was one in the morning and nobody was around. It had been a fluke. It didn’t mean anything. I needed to sleep.

I was back in the Melodee Music lounge, listening to Tina sing, only I was Marshall again when Jeremy came in and we started talking. He was telling me that mathematicians were really musicians in disguise and that his sister was a better singer than mine. As he talked, my focus moved in and all I could see was his mouth, his beautiful mouth, so distinguished, so articulate, so kissable…

I woke up again. This was getting serious. I was straight. I knew I was straight. Hadn’t I had lots of girlfriends? Hadn’t they all thought I was so manly and wonderful? It hadn’t been lack of attraction to them that had made us break up after a few months. I know it hadn’t. I wasn’t attracted to boys, not at all. The Jeremy thing was a fluke. I had been confused, not known who I was, thought it was just a dream.

But I knew, now. I knew that this body was just one I was forced to wear. It wasn’t me; it wasn’t permanent. All I had to do was find the lab where they had changed me; I had plenty of time before winter break. There was no reason for me to be fantasizing about kissing boys! It was disgusting.

Unless… I’d heard that some guys were latent. That deep down they were really gay, but in denial. What if that were me? It wasn’t possible, was it? Had I really, subconsciously, preferred my own sex? Was that why my relationships had all failed? I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true, but… why the stupid dreams?

I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed and tried not to think about it, but at the same time I was afraid to dream again. I kept looking at the clock, hoping that somehow I would just fall into sleep without dreaming. It was two o’clock. It was two-thirty, it was…

I thought about Vicky, and how I had loved her, lusted for her. That wasn’t how a gay guy would feel, was it? And Jackie before her. And Maddy, and…

Vicky and I were at a party; we had found a secluded spot and were starting to make out, when suddenly a musician appeared with a flute and started playing a strangely familiar tune. He repeated it over and over before I recognized it…

It was my ringtone for Chad, telling me that he was calling my cell phone, and it was a bit past seven-thirty. I mumbled a hello.

“Marsh,” he said, sounding excited, “I had an idea for you. Did you ever find those experimenters?”

“No,” I admitted, yawning. “I haven’t been through the whole building, yet, and some of the labs were locked when I went by.”

“Well I thought of something else. How would you feel if you found somebody who actually remembered you as a boy?”

My eyes opened. “I didn’t think that was possible. Didn’t we already figure out that nobody else should remember me that way?”

“Unless you have a friend who did the experiment – their memories should be from the ‘old’ life if it’s actually real, right?”

Now I was fully awake. “That’s brilliant, Chad! Maybe you should be the one in college, not me.”

“Oh, please. Like I wanted to spend four more years in classrooms. No offense, Marsh, but I’m doing something real, here. When I do my work, I leave something lasting behind me. Something that people can see and appreciate. Not just words on a computer file.”

I had to laugh. I had always prized his different perspective on things. It was nice to have somebody I could talk to who disagreed with me but was never disagreeable about it.

“Anyway, I think there’s just one flaw in your suggestion, Chad. I’ve mentioned the experiment to my friends, and they all scoffed at it even happening. So none of them actually were volunteers.”

“Not Marsha’s friends; Marshall’s friends. Do you even talk to them anymore?”

“Oh. Damn. Oops, I mean, ‘oh rats’ – I wasn’t thinking. Yeah, I speak to one of them pretty regularly, since he’s in my Organic Chemistry class. But I wouldn’t know how to raise it with him.”

“That’s where my idea comes in, Marsh. The guy who wrote that newspaper article obviously spoke with a number of volunteers. Maybe he has a list of people who came forward. Maybe one of your old friends is on that list.”

“Huh. You’re right. If he would help me out… Chad, that is an incredible idea. I’ve got the article with me, and the writer’s name should be on it. Thanks an awful lot, buddy!”

He chuckled. “No problem. I’m still getting used to you calling me that. Glad I could help out. Let me know how it goes, OK?”

“Will do. Talk to you later.”

That was the solution. I had known that it was dangerous to stay in character too long, and I had been playing the role of Marsha non-stop for weeks. I’d had no connection to my old life, no anchor that would hold me to it; remind me who I really was. My confused dreams had to have been caused by that. I’d been working hard at doing feminine things, at kissing a boy convincingly in my ‘play within a play’ and it was getting to me. That had to be the cause, not any real doubts about my sexuality. But if I could find somebody who remembered me as Marshall…

It was later than I usually woke up, and I probably didn’t have time for breakfast, if I was to manage to put my makeup on properly, but I did have time to send an introductory email to the author of that article. I fished out my copy, and used it to look up contact information for the writer, whose name was given as “George Cracraft.” I told him that I was another of the victims, and that I was trying to find out if any of my old friends had been part of the experiment, and asked him to send me what names he had.

At lunch, Sheila looked particularly concerned. “Marsh, are you alright? You missed breakfast.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I just overslept.”

“Thinking about Jeremy?”

I stared at her, wondering how she could possible know what I had dreamed. Then I figured it out.

“Oh! My roommates must have told you about our conversation.”

“Yes, I and I know how painful it is when your feelings aren’t returned.”

I laughed. “It’s really nothing like that. I’m not interested in him; I just needed the memory for my play.”

She nodded. “Tell yourself that. It’s much better that way.”

Great. So now I had to deal with the girls assuming that I was pining over a guy.

When I got back to my room after lunch, I checked my email and found an answer from the reporter, George Cracraft. His reply said, simply:

Miss Steen,
Hope you are well. Unfortunately, please understand that I cannot divulge my sources. Good luck in your search – G. C.

He might well think that that was the end of the matter; he didn’t know me very well, though. I needed that list. I needed him to connect me with anyone who might remember me, the real me. And I had an idea for how to go about changing his mind.

I decided that “Jerry” was probably closer to the right name than “Jordi.” It also sounded a lot less like “Jared,” an association that bothered me – I didn’t want to start overlapping the two. Kissing a boy who could be treated as almost imaginary was a lot safer than imagining myself kissing my fellow actor.

Once dressed, then, I imagined myself standing with “Jerry” again. Being dressed carried much less of the sexual innuendo. I took a deep breath and thought, I’m a girl before reaching my arms up for a kiss. In the character of this girl I had conjured up, this girl who was surely “Jerry’s” girlfriend – not his wife – I still felt a lot of the excitement from before, but it was definitely lessened. Then I tried Alvin’s last direction. I kept my hands down and imagined simply lifting my face for a kiss. Much better. I could feel the fondness, but no excess of passion. That would be the sequence, I decided. Look up, put my hands down, and lift my face. I did it a few more times, adding my simple line, “Done” as I looked up. I can do this, I told myself. I’ll just have to choreograph the interaction with Jared. He’s already got the feeling, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for him.

I’m not going to say that I was eager to kiss Jared at the next rehearsal, but I did really want to see if I had worked out the problem. I couldn’t help smiling at the prospect of impressing Alvin with my recovery from that disastrous last attempt. The biggest downside was that I had to remember to think of myself as a girl while I did it.

I took in two more sewing jobs, including an alteration. I’m sure that the girl I pinned up would have been mortified if she’d known that I still thought of myself as a boy – no matter, I was harmless now. In fact, I would have apologized to Terry, if I could have thought of a way to do it that wouldn’t upset her.

At dinner, two of the boys where arguing about Classic Rock music again, and this time they actually asked me to decide who was right.

One of them, whose name I thought might be “Fred” asked, “Marsh, do you know the group, Three Dog Night?”

“Sure, there were big in the late 60s and early 70s, I think,” I answered.

“And how many songs did they do that actually mentioned dogs? I say it was three, to match their band name. Sam says there was only one.”

I took a moment to think. “Actually, I can’t remember even a single one.”

The other, whose name was evidently Sam, looked at me scornfully. “C’mon, Marsh everybody knows that one. You know,” he said, and sang quietly, “Jeremiah was a bulldog! Was a good friend of mine…”

“No, no, no,” I shook my head. “Not ‘bulldog,’ – ‘bullfrog.’ ‘Jeremiah was a–” Then I broke off with a realization. “Jeremy! That’s his name – Jeremy!”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Jeremiah,” Sam insisted.

“Not the song,” I said impatiently. “There’s no dog in the song, and I don’t think there’s a dog in any of their songs. I’m talking about this guy I met. Jeremy. I was trying to remember his name.”

We had attracted some attention from the other girls. “Who’s Jeremy?” Lee Ann asked.

I turned to her. “I met him over break.”

“Oh!” she raised her eyebrows. “Did you like him?”

“Yeah, that’s the point. I have to kiss somebody in the play, and the director told me to imagine a boy I’d want to…” I stopped as I realized how that could be interpreted. “Anyway… he’s just a nice guy, and… I couldn’t remember his name.”

I was very aware of my roommates and a lot of other people staring at me; my face was hot under their gaze.

“Yes…?” Terry prompted.

“Nothing. Nothing,” I said, wishing I had kept my mouth shut. “It’s just… nothing.”

My eyes were focused on my hands, which I seemed to be wringing awkwardly, so I couldn’t see anyone, but I was sure they were exchanging glances. How was I going to explain my way out of this?

Sheila said, “You can’t just leave us hanging like that, Marsh! Tell us more.”

“There’s nothing to tell! I just met him and we talked.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t worry,” Lee Ann spoke up. “Terry and I will get it out of her tonight.”

“There’s nothing to ‘get’!” I insisted.

“We’ll see,” Lee Ann grinned.

I was still protesting as the three of us walked back to our room. “You guys are reading way too much into this, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Terry said skeptically as she closed the door behind us.

“Sit down and spill,” Lee Ann added. “Where did you meet him?”

I sighed in exasperation. “I took my sister to choir practice, and he was there. His sister is also in the choir and we were both waiting for them to finish, so we just sat and talked. That’s all that happened.”

“Tell us about the part where you said you liked him,” Terry suggested.

“I just thought he was nice,” I tried, but my face grew hot again.

“How nice?” Lee Ann prodded.

“Alright. Alright, I liked him. I thought he was… fascinating.” How did I get myself into this situation? I was admitting – and truthfully – that I had been attracted to a guy.

“Well, at least now we know why she wasn’t interested in Phil anymore,” Lee Ann observed.

“No, it’s not like that!” I insisted. “I didn’t think he was real – I thought I was just dreaming!”

“So he’s the man of your dreams?” Terry simpered.

“No! He’s just… a guy I met. That’s all.”

“Did he ask for your phone number?”

Fortunately, he hadn’t. I don’t know what I would have done if he had asked. Thinking it was a dream, I might well have given it to him – and wouldn’t that have been interesting to explain away if he’d called?

Aloud, I said, “No, he didn’t ask. We just talked, that’s all.”

They exchanged glances again. “So he doesn’t know how to get in touch with you?” Lee Ann asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

I hesitated, and then admitted, “He knew who my sister was; she’s pretty well known in the choir, so if he really wanted to, he could probably ask her.” But Tina probably wouldn’t give a boy my number, all things considered. I didn’t think I needed to tell them that part.

“How long ago did you meet?”

“Beginning of break.”

“That’s like three weeks ago, Lee Ann.” Terry pointed out. “If he was going to call, he probably would have down so by now.”

“You’re right,” Lee Ann agreed. Then she came over and hugged me, “Oh, Marsh, I’m so sorry.”

I laughed. “It’s really OK. I told you, I don’t have time for boys right now.”

“You are so strong, Marsh,” Lee Ann said, looking me in the eye. “I really respect that. I just hope things work out for you.”

I told them I was pretty sure they would, and thanked them for their concern. Inwardly, I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or horribly embarrassed. It was really nice to see them so concerned about me, or actually, about Marsha. It made me feel all the more guilty about deceiving them as to who I really was – but that was hardly a secret I could share.

Before rehearsal started the next day, Alvin pulled me aside. “Nikki says that you found a memory that would help with the kiss, but that you needed to work on it. Will you be ready to try it today?”

I smiled at him to show confidence I almost felt. “I think so. My sister helped me work on it.”

“Well, I don’t want you agonizing over it any more than necessary, so why don’t we start with that scene as soon as Jared gets here?”

So we did. Just before Jared’s entrance, I reminded myself of how I had looked, naked in the mirror. I’m a girl, I insisted to myself. It’s fine for me to kiss a boy.

As he said, “Shall I stoke the Aga?” I thought about Jeremy and remembered how I had felt when I met him. I imagined him standing where Jared was. Then I looked up at Jared/Jeremy, wiped my hands on an imaginary apron and lifted my face to be kissed as I said my line, “Done.”

The kiss felt right. It felt loving, and from Alvin’s murmur of approval, it read properly from the audience. I had done it! The scariest part of our blocking, and I had it nailed. If I could do that, there was no reason I couldn’t get into character for the rest of Mollie’s reactions.

The feeling of triumph carried me through the rest of rehearsal. I was on and I knew it. My energy was good, my delivery was sharp, and by the time we finished, I was emotionally spent. That’s really one of the great things about this role – Mollie goes through so many changes of emotion, from panic over finding Mrs. Boyle’s body, to concern for Chris and anger at Giles, finally ending with the terror at being threatened by Trotter, relief at rescue, and a loving reconciliation with Giles. It’s a high-energy role, and for the first time, I felt really confident that I was going to be able to do a good job with it.

Nor was I the only one who noticed. Even Naomi, who rarely spoke to me, came over and said, “Good job!”

I was so surprised that I didn’t even get a chance to respond before she left. Jared nodded his approval, and Nikki gave me a hug.

But probably the best was Alvin, who said, “Atta girl, Marsh. Now that’s the acting I was expecting when I cast you.” Then he winked. “You do realize I expect you only to get better from here on, right?”

On the way back to the dorm, I called home, and Mom answered. “I hope it’s not too late to call,” I said, “but I’m feeling terrific and I just wanted to share it.”

“It’s not too late,” she said. “What happened?”

“Just a fantastic rehearsal. The character finally clicked for me.”

“That’s a great feeling, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah. Very definitely. Is Tina up? She helped me with part of the role, and I’m sure we wants to hear how it went.”

“She went to bed early. She has auditions tomorrow, you know.”

“Oh, right. Well, tell her it all worked out, and that I said to break a leg, OK?”

“I’ll do that. Good night, Marsh.”

“Good night, Mom,” I said before hanging up. “I love you.”

I composed myself before entering our room; after our earlier discussion, I didn’t want to admit to jubilation over managing to kiss a boy realistically on stage. I needn’t have worried. Neither was in the common room; I assumed that they were studying, which was something I really needed to do myself. So I worked on my lab notes for a couple of hours before calling it a night.

Nikki stopped and stared at me. “All those dates you say you had in your old life… you don’t mean that you dated a lot of boys, do you? You meant girls, right?”

In the dark, she couldn’t see my expression, but my physical reaction seemed to tell her all she needed.

“I mean, I’m not judging you, Marsh. There’s nothing wrong with… I mean, it’s just a surprise, since I remember you as straight. But… I guess, that would make it a bit harder to do that scene, you know, if you don’t like boys…”

I didn’t have to see her to see that she was more embarrassed than I was – the rapidity at which she was speaking was evidence of that. And to my strong relief, she had guessed wrong. As uncomfortable as she was imagining me a lesbian, I suspect that she would have been much more so if she knew that I had been male.

“Wait! I just thought of something,” she added. “When you said that you were having trouble finding… “certain people” attractive… did you mean girls in general? You’re not attracted to girls any more?”

“As far as I can tell, yeah. As far as I can tell, I’m not attracted to anybody any more.”

“Oh, Marsh,” she said, sympathetically. “That’s horrible.” It looked as though she was torn between hugging me and feeling uncomfortable about how I might react. Then friendship, or her tendency to mothering or something kicked in, and she did hug me. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through, with this on top of everything else.”

“Yeah.”

After a moment, she held me away and looked at me. “So you’re not suddenly finding boys attractive?”

I shuddered at the idea. “Definitely not.”

“Wow, that’s going to be… I mean, not even in dreams? You can’t imagine yourself liking a boy in a dream or something like that?”

“No,” I started, and then suddenly I stopped. “Dreams…” I repeated. “Oh my… goodness, I just remembered something. When I first woke up after… this happened, I thought that I was dreaming. I took my sister to choir practice, and while I was waiting for her, I met this boy. I told myself that I should be fascinated by him… and I was.”

“So you do have a memory of being attracted to a boy.”.

“Yes, but don’t you see? It wasn’t a dream. It was real! That means… that he was real, too.” I tried to remember what I had actually said to him, but the only thing that came to mind was my telling him that I was Tina’s big brother. “He must have thought I was a total idiot.” And even worse, I had been attracted to a boy!

“Does it matter? Are you likely to see him again?”

“I… I don’t know. This is just so strange, realizing that I had been speaking with somebody while thinking he was a figment of my imagination.”

“But you can use that memory, right?” she insisted. “What was his name?”

I stopped to think. I could picture his face, and hear his voice. “I remember… he was telling me something interesting about math and music, I think. But when I got talking with Tina afterwards, I forgot all about him.’ I shook my head. “I can’t remember his name. I think it was something like… Jordi?”

“Jordi? Really?”

“No, that doesn’t sound quite right. Look, I thought I had invented him; remembering his name wasn’t important.”

“And it probably isn’t important,” she suggested. “What really matters is that you can use the memory. Jordi is sort of like ‘Jared,’ right? So does that help?”

“I… think so.” I tried to remember how I’d felt, seeing myself as a girl talking with “Jordi..” I closed my eyes and visualized him. Of course, I had no memory of wanting to kiss him, but I did remember a feeling of excitement – and it did feel something sort of like what I had felt for Vicky. Maybe not as strong, but it was definitely there. Exciting and, in retrospect, a bit horrifying.

I tried to visualize myself as Mollie, next. Mollie, seeing her husband of just a year, Giles. I felt a faint smile come on to my face as I lifted my arms towards towards an imaginary Giles – and stopped with a shudder. I seemed to have mentally labeled Jared as “harmless.” Trying to think of wanting to kiss him, or rather Giles, or “Jordi” was another step.

“I’m going to have to work on this, I think,” I told Nikki. “I have the memory, and I think I can get the feeling, but it’s this mental block, this aversion…”

“… to kissing a boy? You did seem awkward with Jared.”

“To wanting to kiss a boy. To finding one desirable. I have this memory, so that’s a start. I just have to use it somehow.

“OK…”

“And thanks for helping me come up with that memory. I think it’ll give me something to work with.” I shrugged. “I guess we don’t need to go to the Grill, after all. Good night.”

“Hold on,” she said. “We can go anyway. Come on, I’ll treat you to ice cream.”

“I don’t think…”

“I know that you’re not bringing in a lot of money yet, and I’ve taken on some of your more expensive jobs, so I am, and we’re friends, right?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

“And I don’t want you going to bed thinking that this revelation makes me uncomfortable around you.

“You don’t have to twist my arm, Nikki,” I grinned. “I accept.”

Over ice cream, we kept talking, but about almost anything except the play. She was particularly interested in talking about sewing. “Somehow you seem to know a lot more than you realize, Marsh. I’m just wondering how far it goes.”

“I don’t really know,” I answered. “I just seem to pick things up, almost as if I did once know them and forgot.”

“That is what it seems like. So… would you know what to do if I told you to do a lapped seam?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve never heard of it.”

“How about a flat felled seam? A topstitch?”

I shook my head. “I have no clue.”

She nodded. “And yet, I suspect that if I showed you, you’d pick it right up.”

I nodded. “My brain doesn’t know sewing at all, but my hands seem to – or at least I have an aptitude I’d certainly never expected.”

“You know, I bet you might even be ready to tackle some simple alterations. Why don’t you come over to my room… say, Thursday afternoon, so I have time to pick something out for you to work on?”

“Sounds great,” I said enthusiastically. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

So I was in a pretty good mood, all things considered, when I set down next to Geoff in Organic Chemistry the next morning.

“Good morning!” he greeted me. “It may interest you to know that I spoke to Chandra about Lee Ann.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it seems there’s a bit going on there. You were right that Lee Ann wasn’t planning on dumping her boyfriend.”

I sighed with relief. “Good. I just wanted to make sure you knew. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not the issue. The problem is making sure that Lee Ann doesn’t get hurt.”

I shook my head in confusion.

“Chandra says that her boyfriend is a jerk, and that Lee Ann’s parents sent her here to get her away from him. Chandra’s trying to get her to go for somebody else.” He grinned. “That’s where I come in.”

“I think you’re wrong. Stephen seems like a nice guy. I… I think you’re wasting your time.”

“Oh, you’ve met him? What’s he like?

“No. I haven’t met him,” I admitted, before realizing that Marsha probably had, given my conversation with Lee Ann about last year.

“Well, Chandra has.” He shrugged. “In any event, at least the effort will be enjoyable.”

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. Knowing that Lee Ann wouldn’t have been leaving her boyfriend after all had been a consolation for the loss of my apparent chance to replace him. But if Chandra was right…

I didn’t get a chance to question Lee Ann at lunch because she didn’t come in until I had started to return my tray after lunch, while in the middle of a discussion about classic Rock with some of the guys. To my surprise, Marsha had a reputation of being fairly knowledgeable on the subject, despite not playing the guitar. She must have been pretty close to Grandpa, which made his overlooking her for the inheritance all the more confusing.

And it was becoming increasingly clear that Chad’s suggestion that I look for the lab was a good one, as it was taking a long time to find it. I’d gone back to the physics building with an empty notebook to track my search. This time I started a diagram, making sure to note the doors I had been unable see into. Different professors seemed to have different schedules, and there were several labs on the floors I’d already searched which had been locked the day before, some of which were locked today as well, and some were not. Patience was to be the key, clearly.

I search for another hour before going back to my room again. I couldn’t exactly ignore my studies, after all. But first, I called Tina again.

“I need some more help with the kissing thing, Teen,” I explained when she expressed surprise at my calling her two days in a row. “I think I can imagine liking a boy, but wanting to kiss him? That’s tough.”

“Because you’re thinking that you’re a boy, right?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Can you think of yourself as a girl while you do it?”

“I don’t know, Teen,” I said, skeptically. “I can think of myself as playing a girl, but actually thinking of myself as one? That’s a bit tougher.”

“Well… what do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I see myself – in costume,” I laughed.

“You have a full-length mirror, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I replied. “It’s for when girls come in to be fitted.”

“And for you to check yourself when you get ready to go somewhere.”

“That too.”

“So try this. Take off all of your clothes and look in the mirror.”

“What?!” I sputtered.

“Just do it.”

So I did. I made sure that my door was locked, and undressed, feeling extremely self-conscious. Then I stood in front of the mirror and looked at this naked body I was wearing. No, I scolded myself. I looked at my naked body.

“Still see a boy?”

“Not really,” I had to admit. Under the dress, which had covered most of my body, it had been very easy to pretend that everything I saw was costume and make-up. Seeing myself naked, really looking at myself that way, this way, made that impossible. The curves of my body, the contours of my crotch, stripped away the illusions with which I had been comforting myself.

“Look at yourself carefully and try imagining the kiss again,” Tina suggested.

So I did. I put down the phone. I’m a girl, I told myself, at least for the moment. Looking carefully at my feminine reflection, I imagined “Jordi” in front of me. I hadn’t expected the sudden feeling of modesty that made my wrap my arms around myself in response to the thought of him seeing me this way. I took a deep breath and tried again. He’s your husband, I insisted. It’s normal for him to see you like this.

I summoned up the memory of my fascination with “Jordi.” I closed my eyes, opened my arms to reveal my nudity to “my husband” and reached up my arms to be kissed. This time, I felt a nervous excitement, a terrified passion that reached not only into my lips, but touched my breasts and… Firmly, I admonished myself to memorize the feeling in my face and my neck and my mouth, as Alvin had directed us.

After a moment, I shuddered and hid myself with my arms again. The feeling had been much more intense than I had expected. This wasn’t supposed to be a passionate kiss, Alvin had said. But I had to affix this memory in my body, so I tried it again.

I licked my lips as I pictured “Jordi” standing over me, and reached for him. I caught my breath as I imagined his arms enfolding me. Breathing slowly, I eased myself off my toes and picked up the phone again.

“I… think it worked, Teen,” I said, shakily.

“Really? Are you OK?”

“I think so. I guess my imagination works pretty well.”

“What happened? What did you feel? Tell me!”

“I, um… imagined that I was a girl kissing a guy that… “ I stopped myself from telling her what guy – it occurred to me that he had known who she was; what if she knew him? Better that he remain anonymous. I didn’t want to make him too real.

“A guy that…” Tina prompted me.

“Um. A guy that… this girl liked… that they were married, and… anyway, I felt it. I felt the kiss. I felt it in my neck and in my arms… and in my body.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah, I think I might have overdone it a bit. I’m going to have to take it down a little.”

“Well, Mr. Condrin said that was easier than adding passion and energy, right?”

I smiled to hear my sister quoting our drama teacher the way I did. “Right. I’m gonna get dressed and try this with my clothes on. Thanks for your help, Teen.” I almost hung up, but remembered, and added, “Oh, what’s new with you?”

“Since yesterday?” she laughed. “Not too much. I’m practicing for the Carousel auditions, that’s all.”

“Well, good luck,” I wished her. “Not that you’ll need it, of course.”

“Thanks, Marsh. Take care.”

“You, too, Teen. Bye.”

After classes the next day, I walked into the physics building and started searching. The building was larger than I had realized, and none of it looked familiar. The grad student who had signed me up for the experiment had met me in the building lobby and walked me to the lab, but we had been talking the whole way and I hadn’t paid any attention to where we were going. I remember going in an elevator, but not which floor we had gotten to.

There were many offices and labs; some were locked, but I looked into a number of open ones. None of them looked the way I remembered, and I didn’t see that grad student anywhere. I searched for close to an hour, before deciding that I had to get back to my room and work. There’s no reason to worry, I assured myself. I just don’t know the building very well.

Before heading for rehearsal, I called Tina again. She was quite surprised.

“Marsh! You’re really getting into this regular calling thing! What’s happening?”

“I just wanted to talk something over with you. This kiss thing – it’s still a bit of an issue.”

“I thought you said it was ‘nothing’?”

“Yeah – that’s sort of it. Alvin doesn’t want it to be ‘nothing.’ He wants some emotion and affection to come through.”

“Makes sense.”

“You had to do some stage kissing in West Side Story, didn’t you? How did you get the right emotion?”

She laughed. “Well, I’d never kissed a boy before, so I was really nervous. But that was what Mr. Condrin said he wanted – for Maria to be eager and naïve, so it mostly just worked. Sam wanted to practice a lot, but I wouldn’t kiss him except when we were actually on stage. Maybe I should have.

“What does your director say?”

“Well, so far he’s said he wants us to kiss as though we’re very much in love. He told us to remember kissing somebody we really liked or were in love with.”

“Like Dirk?”

“No, not Dirk! I told you, that was Marsha, not me. If I tried to imagine myself kissing Dirk, I’d probably vomit. I was thinking of Vicky, and how she and I used to kiss if we saw each other in the morning after not spending the night together. It had been very comfortable for both of us – kisses which had said, ‘even though we didn’t do anything particularly romantic, you are still very important to me.’ I think that’s sort of what this is like.”

“Did you mention Vicky to me?”

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

“O… K…You’re going to imagine yourself kissing a girl?”

“I pretty much have to, don’t I?”

“I guess; it’s just a bit weird for me to think of you that way.”

I refrained from pushing the point. “I just wondered if you had any suggestions for me.”

“This isn’t exactly something I have a lot of experience with, Marsh. I don’t know if imagining yourself kissing a girl when you’re supposed to be acting as though you’re kissing a boy is going to work, but I don’t have a better idea for you.”

“OK, thanks, Teen,” I said, and we said good bye and hung up.

Rehearsal that night started much as the first one had for the first act; Jo wasn’t there, of course, but Nikki was, and she sat with me. To my surprise, so did Jared. In this act, the two of us were offstage together for a while, so we had some time to talk quietly during the rehearsal – if we could have thought of something to talk about.

The problem was, the only thing we seemed to have in common was theater; we were at an “I’m on your side” stage, but not really friends. Not yet, anyway. That didn’t stop him from trying.

“If you’re supposed to be angry with me in that bit we just did, would it help if I did something really obnoxious, first?” he offered in an undertone.

I grinned at the thought. Then I put on a fake “offended” tone and shot back, “Are you implying that I’m not a good enough actor to play angry without actually being angry?”

Of course, he didn’t know me well enough to tell when I was joking, and for a second he was taken aback. “I didn’t mean to imply–” he said, before realizing what was going on.

At this point, Alvin gave us a sharp look. I guess we were louder than I had realized. We shared a smirk at being rebuked together again, and went back to following the scene in our scripts.

Near the end of the act, we had another of those “intimacy” moments. Jack, playing Trotter, grabbed me from behind with one hand on my mouth and one on my neck, and pressed harder than I thought was necessary, although it did help me play the panic. “Miss Casewell” and “Major Metcalf” rushed onstage to save me. At that point, the blocking called for me to collapse onto the sofa (represented by two folding chairs); as they left, Metcalf called Giles on stage, where he rushed over to comfort me.

Unfortunately, as Jared said his line, “Mollie, Mollie, are you alright?” and reached for me, the speed of his entrance knocked over the chair I was sitting on and I went sprawling.

I said, “Well I was!” as I lay on the ground, laughing, joined by much of the cast.

“Keep going,” Alvin ordered, as Jared helped me up and righted the chair.

So we kept going. I said, “Oh Giles” and leaned against him, as he put his arms around me. But we were both still suppressing laughter, so any real feeling of intimacy would have been lost.

“Who would have dreamed it was Trotter?” he said, trying to see his script over my shoulder.

“He’s mad, quite mad,” I read from my own, and then looked up at him, before the two of us collapsed into laughter again. Alvin let us recover this time and had us restart from Giles’ entrance. This time it went much more smoothly, and we were actually able to get some real closeness into our last lines before Metcalf re-entered.

“You should have told me,” Jared said, reading and looking right at me.

“I wanted to forget,” I responded, seriously.

It was by far the best connection the two of us had made on stage yet, and Alvin complimented us when he gave his notes.

Once we had finished walking through the act twice, Alvin had us repeat the opening bit, which included the kiss. But before we started, he gave us additional instructions.

“You wouldn’t think I’d have to tell a couple of college students how to hug and kiss,” he said. “But what I am looking for is the sense that you two are newlyweds, very much in love, and very comfortable with one another. The kiss is a casual one. It should not look like a nervous ‘first date’ kiss or a forced ‘I don’t really want to kiss you’ kiss. I’ve asked you two to find a memory of somebody you might have kissed that way, or wanted to. Do you both have those memories in your heads?”

We nodded.

“Good. Make those memories strong in your minds, paying attention to how you held your face, your neck, and your mouth. OK? Now try that from Giles’ entrance.”

And we did. Jared said his line, “Shall I stoke the Aga?”

I turned and smiled as I said, “Done” and mentally reached for Vicky.

But Vicky had been five inches shorter than I, where Jared was as much taller, and my arms landed on his rear and his casual peck caught my nose, since my head was tilted down, not up. We both recoiled.

“Whoa!” Alvin stopped us. “What was that?”

I could feel my cheeks grow hot and I stammered, “My– my fault, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“OK, try it again. Same place.”

So again, I said, “Done” and smiled. This time I imagined Vicky standing on a ladder so that had to reach up for her; I reached for her shoulders as Jared leaned down – but his shoulders were quite a bit further apart than hers and I smacked him in the chest.

“No, no, no.” Alvin said. “Marsh, this time just turn your face up and keep your hands down; imagine that you are wiping them on your apron. Again.” He still sounded patient somehow, although I certainly wasn’t. I shouldn’t be screwing up like this in front of the entire cast. Fortunately, nobody had laughed – yet.

One more time I said, “Done” and smiled, and turned my face up to kiss Vicky. But with my eyes open to make sure we didn’t miss, I saw Vicky’s face suddenly transformed into that of a boy, and recoiled. We made lip contact only because Jared followed through. But it didn’t feel loving and casual, and apparently it didn’t look like it, either, as Alvin stopped us once again.

“OK, this isn’t working,” he said. “Jared, I believe that your Giles is in love with his wife. You’re leaning over with a fond and tender smile and it just works. Marsh… I don’t know what the Hell you’re doing. It’s as though you’re afraid of Giles, and I had hoped we had just fixed that. Whomever you’re imagining, it’s not working. If you can’t bring up a positive memory of a boy you’ve kissed, the next best thing would be for you to think of a guy you wish you could have. Can you do that?”

Obviously, that was going to be rather difficult. Yet thinking of Vicky didn’t give the impression that he was looking for. What was I supposed to do? I shrugged and nodded, indicating that I didn’t really have an answer, but that I would try.

“Look, take your time,” he said. “Think about it for Wednesday, and let’s move on.”

He had us run two other bits from the first act – the ends of both scenes – before letting us go.

“Good rehearsal,” Jared told me, making a thumbs-up sign.

“Except for the kissing,” I answered ruefully. Certainly, it was a much more comfortable rehearsal than it had been, other than that one part I just couldn’t get right.

Nikki intercepted me before I could leave. “Marsh, would you mind if I tried to help you with the kissing thing? Alvin thought that you might be more comfortable talking it over with another girl in private than in front of the whole cast.”

“Alright,” I agreed. “I really do seem to need some help with this. Where could we talk?”

“Well, it’s really too late to hang around here by ourselves. Why don’t we go to the Grill?”

The Grill was about a five-minute walk from the rehearsal room, so we started talking on the way. I wasn’t sure what she was going to be able to do. Even though Nikki and I had become close friends pretty quickly, sharing the real reason for my difficulty wasn’t something I was ready to share. But I couldn’t tell her that.

“Can you give me some idea of what kind of problem you’re having, Marsh?” Nikki asked. “Does the boy you are visualizing have some negative associations for you? Maybe you could try a different one. Are you trying different boys?”

“No,” I admitted. “I… I haven’t been able to think of a boy who… you know.”

She looked at me, curiously. “But didn’t you tell me that in your old life, you had dated constantly? Surely there must be one boy…”

“No,” I said again, a bit embarrassed. “There really isn’t…”

“But that doesn’t make sense, given all the…” she trailed off suddenly, and I could have kicked myself.