Take a Lemon

There wasn’t a lot of point in trying to outguess Alvin; I simply didn’t know his techniques. All I knew was that he had a good reputation and he’d been pretty kind to me. But now I did have a new concern – learning my lines. Usually I had been used to having a few weeks before I was expected to know them, plus I’d never had this many to learn. But we only had about six weeks total, so I guess he had to accelerate the schedule a bit.

I took my script with me to class the next day, and in the break between Orgo and EuroLit (I didn’t have Spanish on Tuesdays), I found an empty classroom and started reading scene one over and over, walking through the blocking by myself as I did so. The idea was to learn the lines together with the movement. Normally, I would have hoped to do this during rehearsals, but we didn’t have enough time. This was cutting into my lecture review time, of course, but I hoped to make it up in the afternoon somehow. By the time I the period was over, the lines were getting to be reasonably familiar; I could see a cue and pretty much know most of my next line without looking. I didn’t have much in the way of long speeches, which helped.

I practiced some more after my last class, which made me late for lunch. By the time I got there, the only people at our usual table were Jay and one of the boys, whose name I still had not managed to learn. If he was listed on Marsha’s Facebook page, I hadn’t recognized him yet.

“Afternoon, Marsh,” the unnamed boy greeted me. “You’re kind of late today, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been working on lines. We’re supposed to be off-book for act one by Sunday.”

“So… what? You have to sit and memorize half the script this week?”

“Well, it’s not really memorizing,” I explained. “You do them over and over again until you just kind of know them.”

“Sounds like memorizing to me,” Jay commented. And the two of them, obviously not particularly interested in the subject, returned to their original conversation, which seemed to be about the Phillies’ chances in the playoff this year.

I would have loved to join in; I hadn’t had a chance to talk sports in weeks, but dithered over whether it would actually be in character for Marsha to know much about baseball. Nothing in her rooms or Facebook profile or my conversations with “Daddy” had suggested that Marsha was in to sports. By the time I decided to venture a comment about the pitching rotation, which I thought was weaker than a contender should have, the two of them had finished eating and rose from the table, leaving me to finish alone. I was generally used to doing things on my own, but somehow I wished that there had been somebody to talk to at lunch.

When I got back to the room, Terry was just coming out of the bathroom. “Hey, Marsh!” she said. “How’s your workload coming along?”

Workload? Oh, right. I had told her that I was too busy to pin up her gown; and now it had been over two weeks. Well, Nikki had promised to start teaching me this week, hadn’t she?

“Getting through it,” I told her, opening the door to my bedroom. “I hope to be able to fit you in another week or so.”

“Great!” she said, following me in. “That’s what I’ve been telling the girls who came by this week. That they should come back in a couple of weeks.”

Girls?

“But I put the things that didn’t need to be measured on your rack. It looks like you’re making some pretty good progress.”

I wasn’t able to keep myself from looking at the garment rack in surprise. It had never occurred to me that Marsha’s roommates might be taking in work for her. I hadn’t looked at it since I had been certain that I had done everything on it that I knew how to do, but there were definitely more items there than I remembered. Fortunately, Terry misunderstood my reaction.

“Didn’t I label them correctly? I know Lee Ann is usually more careful about getting the details, but I took down the names, addresses, phone numbers and what they said needed to be done.”

I made a show of inspecting the rack. I didn’t know my roommates’ handwriting, so I couldn’t tell who had marked what, but everything that she mentioned was there, and it should be enough.

“No, it’s great,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out what to do first.” I was really in luck – there was another loose button and a couple of split seams; that made three items that were well within my meager abilities. I decided to start with the button, since that was easiest.

I assumed that Terry was going to leave when I did so, but she just settled comfortably on my bed and kept talking. “I don’t know how you manage such detail work, Marsh. I’m so clumsy when it comes to little things like that.”

“Clumsy?” I said in surprise, as I threaded a needle. “That’s kind of odd to hear an athlete say.”

“Oh, I don’t mean on the court. But basketballs are great big things and they fit really well in my oversized hands. It’s when I try to work with something really small like needles and pins that I have problems. Sometimes I wish I could be petite, like you.”

Now that was a strange idea. I was still getting used to being a shrimp compared to, well, most people I knew. The idea that some girls might actually see something positive about my height – or lack thereof – was a revelation.

“See, that’s what I mean,” she commented. “You didn’t even look at what you were doing. You just went zoop with your fingers and started sewing. You remember what happened when you tried to teach me to sew on a button?”

Obviously, I didn’t, but her meaning was obvious, so I gave a small chuckle as if sharing the joke with her. At the same time, I had surprised myself. I had been so focused on what Terry was saying that I didn’t even notice that I had tied the knot in the thread and had the button already in position. How had that become a reflex so quickly, when I had only done a few buttons since Nikki taught me?

I finished the button and then had an idea. “Terry, I’m working on my lines; could you help me?”

“Sure,” she answered. “What do you need me to do?”

“Well, I need to learn them without looking.” I gave her my script. “My lines are marked. Could you read the line before each one and then correct me when I try to say my lines from memory?”

As before, I tried to move through my blocking as well as I remembered it. Terry was a big help once I pointed out how I had written it into the script as well, and I managed to remember a lot of the scene one lines, even though I wasn’t quite word-perfect, but with her coaching me, I was able to improve a lot.

She left after that, and I had time to contemplate what had happened. It was the first time Terry and I had spent time together, and we had gotten along a lot better than I had expected. To be sure, she no doubt remembered spending similar times with Marsha, but no matter how hard I worked at portraying my sister-who-might-have-been, we weren’t the same person, and I didn’t really expect to get along with all of her friends, but I’d been lucky so far.

I was in a pretty good mood at this point, so I decided to finish the easier repair jobs. Sewing – or at least the simple stuff Nikki had taught me – was starting to feel relaxing rather than stressful. I was using my hands to create something, to make an improvement in the world. There was something really satisfying about that; and of course, I was earning money. Given that I couldn’t do that with my guitar, sewing at least helped me feel as though I had some tiny bit of control over my life.

Still, I really missed my guitar. Sewing was silent, and new, and interesting, but the guitar was a part of me. For years, whenever things got tough, or when I was in a particularly good mood, or simply had some idle time, the first thing I did was to pick up that Les Paul and make some music. Music, the saying goes, has charms to soothe the savage breast. Well, I had two breasts now, and neither looked particularly savage, but I sure did need some soothing. Unable to make my own music, I did the next best thing. I called up iTunes, and set it to shuffle through Marsha’s classic rock selections and rocked on until dinner. I didn’t hear Lee Ann knock to see if I was going to join her and she wound up opening my door and saw me air-guitaring my way around the room. It was a bit embarrassing, but I felt a lot better.

The next morning, I got to the Organic Chemistry lecture a bit early, and did not see Geoff in the row ahead of me. A minute or so later, however, he sat down next to me.

“Good morning, Marsha!” he said.

“Oh, hi… Geoff,” I responded, being sure to hesitate over his name.

“You remembered my name! That’s always a good sign, right?”

“Of what?”

“It means that we’re going to be good friends, right?”

“Oh… OK” Well, I’d chosen to room with him, so being good friends should be possible, as long as he avoided making a pass at me. And given his clear interest in Lee Ann, that seemed likely.

“So… do you think you could give me Lee Ann’s phone number?”

I managed to keep from laughing. Geoff was anything but subtle. “I’m not sure she would appreciate me doing that, Geoff. But if you want, I can give her yours.” Or he could try to ‘friend’ her on Facebook, I thought, but she hadn’t accepted my request when I was Marshall, so it probably wouldn’t help.

He was almost comically eager to give me his number, which I prepared to write in the back of my Orgo notebook – but the number itself wasn’t the same one that I remembered. It was the first thing I had noticed that was different in this timeline than the original one that wasn’t obviously the result of my own transformation, and I must have reacted visibly, because he noticed.

“You’re surprised by my phone number?”

“Oh… no… I just…”

“You seem to get surprised a lot, don’t you Marsha?” he laughed. “I’ll bet it keeps life from becoming boring.”

Well, ‘boring’ is certainly not the word I would have chosen for my life these days, that’s for sure.

“I’m just…” I started, not really knowing how I was going to explain my reaction; fortunately Professor Jones started his lecture then, so I didn’t have to. Instead the two of us took notes on the Grignard reaction, our four-color pens clicking adding to the percussion chorus typical to this class. By the time the lecture was over, Geoff had either forgotten my reaction or didn’t think it worth bringing up, and I was able to get away.

When I gave Lee Ann his number at lunch, she thanked me and punched it in to her phone to save. I really wanted to ask her what she was planning on doing, but couldn’t think of a way to go about it that wouldn’t sound totally out of character. Too late, I thought of possibly ‘forgetting’ to give it to her, or trying to talk Geoff out of trying to make anything of a relationship with her.

But the Lee Ann and Geoff thing was just a distraction. My primary focus for the day was preparing for our first “character” rehearsal that evening. I wasn’t too worried about the straight characterization; that was something that I would develop over time. The physical contact parts would have to wait until I had really found the character. What worried me, though, was making a fool of myself in the hysterical bits. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I knew the cast as well as Marsha did, but while I was coming to like them, they were still relatively strangers to me.

I had to get comfortable with those parts, then, on my own first. Mr. Condrin had told us that many actors are afraid of overacting, and consequently tend to underact. But it’s much easier for a director to tone down overacting than to bring up underacting, so he had wanted us to err on the side of “too much” rather than “not enough.” What I needed to do now was to read the problem sections as over-the-top as I could – and that was going to mean a lot of very loud screaming.

Obviously, I didn’t want to do that in my room; it would no doubt bother not only my roommates, but also the girls in the adjacent rooms. Sometimes when I was practicing scenes last year, I used to go behind the engineering buildings – most engineering students pretty much kept to themselves, and I figured that they would ignore somebody walking around talking to himself. That probably wasn’t going to work for me now; a girl screaming would have attracted a lot of attention, even from engineers.

What I really needed was access to one of the music department’s rehearsal rooms. As Marshall, I had been able to make a case for using one for my guitar playing. Marsha didn’t play an instrument, so it might be harder. I’d have to see if I could talk the powers-that-be into permitting it for my acting. Possibly Alvin could help me? I’d have to ask him tonight.

In the meantime, I had plenty of studying to do, as well as some thinking about conversations with Marsha’s roommates. I’d said that I wanted to portray her properly; according to Tina, that meant a lot more talking about things that had never occurred to me to talk about. I decided that I would try to just sit with them more when they were together in our living room; maybe I’d get a better idea of what to talk about that way.

At that evening’s rehearsal, we started by running the first scene a couple of times. Jared pantomimed the kiss, moving his head towards me and stopping about an inch away, lips pulled back, and made a kissing sound. I sort of bobbed my head with my lips closed in response. At least it didn’t draw a comment. Then we did the same thing for the second scene, which ends with that memorable climax. Jo said her final line, “Why did you turn out the light?” Then Alvin announced that the radio was now at full volume, and I came on from stage right to turn the light back on and turn off the radio, only to discover “Mrs. Boyle” lying there, dead. I screamed in panic as well as I could, but it sounded really weak to me. Alvin didn’t say anything about it, though; apparently, the main focus was fairly general character work, combined with making sure we knew our blocking.

But Jo agreed with me. As I helped her up, she commented, “I think you need some help on that; I have an idea on how to improve your screaming, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I told her. “I’m open to suggestions.”

We ran the scene again. Jo had told me before rehearsal that she didn’t mind dying so early and missing the second act, she just hated that she didn’t get to do a dramatic death scene. So she did one on our second walk-through. I had come in at the end of the act once again to “discover the body” and scream in fright; I tried to put some panic in my voice, but it didn’t sound to me any better than the first time. But when Jo suddenly sat up and grabbed my ankle, my scream was pretty convincing – at least before I collapsed in laughter.

I was certainly not the only one who laughed. Alvin waited until we had all settled down and then simply announced, “Good work, all. On Wednesday, we’re going to work a bit more on characters. I expect everyone to be off-book on act one by Sunday.”

Jared gasped, “Sunday? Isn’t that a bit quick?”

Jack laughed, “Welcome to an Alvin Tomlinson show. He always has us off-book really fast.”

“We don’t have that long a rehearsal schedule, Jared,” Alvin pointed out. “And you can’t really get into the role if you’re holding a script. “

“Yeah, but I’ve got like ninety-five lines in this act!”

“You counted your lines, Jared?” laughed the guy who was playing Major Metcalf.

Jared looked a bit embarrassed. “I just like to know how much work I have to do.”

“Marsh has more than that,” Jack pointed out, “and she’s not complaining.”

Of course, I wasn’t complaining because I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be surprised by this – Alvin was the only one who knew that I was new to working with him. But inwardly, I was panicking. Jack had ninety-five lines in the first act? And I had more? How in the world was I going to have them all memorized by Sunday?

“Don’t worry too much, Jared,” Alvin said. “Do your best; Nikki will be playing prompter. I don’t expect everyone to be perfect. I just want you to know most of the lines without reading them, so that you’re not tied to the book. And we’ll be doing some acting games to help you.” Then he turned to the rest of us. “Any other comments or concerns? No? OK, take care all and I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

And that explained why Alvin hadn’t said anything yet – it wasn’t time for us to get energetic in our roles, apparently. That was a relief, even if the whole “off-book by Sunday” thing was a bit intimidating. But I did want to ask Alvin something, so I waited until most of the cast had filed out.

“Oh, Marsh!” he greeted me, before I could say anything. “How are things going for you with… the whole… disorientation thing?”

“Oh, Nikki’s been a godsend,” I told him. “Thank you so much for telling her. I can’t say enough about what she’s done for me. And thank you also for working things out for me with Naomi and Jack.”

“My pleasure,” he smiled back at me.

“I wonder if I could prevail upon you for one more thing,” I asked. “I’d like to be able to practice the screaming parts someplace where I don’t have to worry about being overheard. I thought maybe one of the music department rehearsal rooms. Do you know how I could get permission to use them?”

“Even easier,” he responded. “The theater is mostly empty during the day except when there are classes. You could come in here and be as loud as you like. I’ll send you a schedule so that you’ll know when it’s free.”

“That would be fantastic!”

“Great, then. Oh, and one other thing, Marsh.”

“Yes?”

“Are you having some issues with Jared?”

Issues? I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d noticed, given his reputation. But this wasn’t just a question of issues for me. For all I’d focused on the acting challenges, playing a woman in love with – and physically affectionate with – a man was in a whole other category. I wasn’t really ready for it, and I guess that had come out too obviously. But as candid as I had been with Alvin, there were some things I just couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want him thinking of me as a guy. And I certainly didn’t want Jared to think of me that way, either.

“I’m just a bit nervous, I guess,” I told him.

“That’s very understandable. Some girls kiss guys all the time and think nothing of it. I don’t think that’s you.”

“No, I…”

“So I have an idea on how to make this easier for you. I’ll talk to you and Jared after Wednesday’s rehearsal, OK?”

What could I say? “OK,” I answered, trying to sound a lot more confident than I felt. I mean… what exactly could he have in mind?

I didn’t see any great opportunities to ask Lee Ann about the flirting thing the next day, either. How would I even have brought it up? And I wasn’t sure whether I was more concerned with Geoff being hurt or just jealous on my male self’s behalf. It was so frustrating not knowing what Marsha was supposed to know. What if this was a regular pattern for Lee Ann, and her roommates had been in on it all year? I’d look pretty odd raising an objection after all this time; nor could I claim to be concerned about one particular boy’s feelings, especially after Lee Ann had chastised me for my own treatment of him. So I tried to put the matter behind me for now.

At any rate, I had more important things to worry about. That afternoon was our second blocking rehearsal, this time for the second act. This act was the one which gave me my best acting opportunities. I had an overwrought scene at the start, with Mollie freaking out about having discovered Mrs. Boyle’s body, plus a somewhat tender scene with Chris and a tense one with Giles. There was one bit at the end, in which Giles embraced me, but Jared didn’t even try to touch me when we got to that scene. The look in my eyes must have warned him away. I knew that I was going to have to get over that; I just wasn’t ready yet.

Of all my scenes where the physical contact wasn’t an issue, it was the first scene of the act which worried me the most, simply because it was the furthest from my own, relatively controlled personality. It was also possibly the most dangerous for me. I had so far managed to hold things together by trying to remain as detached as possible from Marsha’s body, seeing it almost as a costume that I was wearing and couldn’t take off, or a puppet that I was manipulating. I couldn’t easily do that and act hysterical at the same time. I didn’t have to worry about it for the walk-through, but Alvin had said that we were supposed to start getting into character at the next rehearsal and I was simply not ready.

The social problems I had caused by ignoring Marsha’s friends at the previous rehearsals seemed to be better now. I tried to talk with Naomi, as I assumed that was expected, but she still seemed a bit cold, although not unfriendly. I eventually concluded that she was just normally like that, which seemed to suit the role she was playing fairly well; at least, I had never particular cared for the character of Miss Casewell. I was actually playing the only nice female in the show, in my opinion. So Naomi was welcome to her.

Of course, that did leave me with the problem of just whom I was supposed to chat with during idle times. Jo wasn’t there, and neither was Nikki, and I wasn’t really comfortable talking with any of the guys, which I decided later was kind of ironic. At any rate, I wound up sitting next to Naomi and listening to her chatter with Jack and the boy who was playing Major Metcalf, and whose name I hadn’t noted.

At the end of the rehearsal, Alvin thanked us as usual. He also smiled and winked at me, which gave me a lot of confidence.

I didn’t see either of my roommates when I got back to our room, so I decided to get a bit ahead on the chemistry reading. I hadn’t gotten very far, however, when my cell phone rang. It was Tina.

“Hey, Teen,” I said, a bit surprised to hear from her. “What’s up?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she replied. “You haven’t called in nearly a week.”

“But I haven’t had any new problems,” I protested. “In fact, with Nikki helping me with sewing, I’m not panicking anymore, even though I’m probably going to come up short on cash, with her doing the hard jobs.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Who’s Nikki?”

“Didn’t I tell you about Nikki?”

“No!”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t even spoken with Tina since meeting Nikki. So I explained, “Nikki knows about me, I mean what happened to me, and how I don’t know how to sew, and she was Marsha’s friend, so she’s teaching me.”

“Just like that? I thought you weren’t going to tell anybody?”

“Well, I had to tell Alvin; he was yelling at me for not knowing Marsha’s friends, and when I told him I couldn’t sew either, he told Nikki to help me.”

“And you’re OK with them knowing that you used to be a boy?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell them that part. But they knew about the experiment, since Nikki’s brother was in it, and now they know I was, too. So there’s no real problem. I would have called if there was a real problem.”

“You didn’t think I would want to know about this? And since when do you need to have a crisis to call me? Just call to talk!”

“About what?” I asked. She wasn’t making any sense.

“About….? Marrrsh…!” she whined. “Wait. How often are you used to talking to me? The other me, I mean. The one you remember?”

“All the time,” I said. “You know, whenever there’s something important going on in my life.”

“And exactly how often would that be?” she pressed.

“I don’t know, maybe once a month or so.”

“Once a month?” she sounded really surprised by the answer.

“Maybe six weeks?” I suggested.

“You’re not going to talk to me for six weeks?!”

“Not in character for Marsha, I presume?” I seriously hadn’t thought things through. Girls did seem to talk a lot more than boys, in my experience, and Tina no doubt expected more frequent conversations with her “sister.”

Then a sudden thought struck me. Not just Tina, but other girls in Marsha’s life were probably expecting a lot more conversation, such as her roommates. I tried to think if they had been giving me odd looks at my failure to chat about… whatever it was that they expected Marsha to chat about. I sighed in frustration; it was just one thing after another. But I needed to deal with my immediate problem first.

“Teen, how often are you expecting me to talk with you? Not that I’m not willing,” I added hurriedly. My question had sounded a bit off-putting once it came out of my mouth, and I didn’t want Tina to get a bad impression.

“Three times a week would be OK, I guess,” she said. “And you should really call Mom at least twice a week.”

“Three times…? What exactly are we supposed to talk about? I don’t think I can even remember that much stuff in a typical day. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, nothing interesting happened today again. How about you?’”

“There’s always something to talk about,” she insisted. “For example, didn’t you have a rehearsal today?”

“A blocking rehearsal, yes.”

“And how did you feel about it?”

“How did I… what?”

“Marsh. How. Did. You. Feel?”

“Um… good?” I answered, obviously missing something very basic.

The sound of her exhalation told me I wasn’t getting it. “What thoughts did you have before, during, and after the rehearsal? How did you think it went? Were there some things that were fun?”

“Oh!” Now I could see what she was getting at. Why anyone would care about my private thoughts at a rehearsal was beyond me, but since she was asking… I told her about the act and the scenes I had in it. I told her how I was worried about the first scene, and how Naomi had been hard to talk to. That led to a discussion of my shunning Naomi and Jack, and how Alvin had gotten the story from me, and who Nikki was…

I had to hand it to my sister. She managed to sound interested the whole time, even when I was telling her things that I certainly would have been bored to hear from somebody else. And… it was odd, but it kind of felt good to have somebody listen. I’d talked a fair bit to my girlfriends, but had always considered that to be sort of part of the dating ritual – you show interest in the other person by letting them talk about themselves. The idea that somebody would want to listen in another context was a bit new to me.

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she commented, when I had finished.

“I can’t believe you wanted to hear all that.”

“Well, sisters should be interested in what’s going on in each other’s lives, don’t you think?”

“I guess so. But why would you…?” Then I got it. Oh boy was I being thick. “What’s going on with you, Teen?”

“I thought you’d never ask! I had another date with Danny last night…”

Ulp. I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to hear about what some boy might be doing to my sister, but she clearly wanted to tell me, and she had listened to me, so I was sort of honor bound to listen. So I just said, “yes…?”

And she talked. And talked. And talked. Whatever my concerns, it was clear that she really liked this boy, and it sounded as though he was being respectful toward her, not trying to force her to do things she didn’t want to. My ‘big brother’ instincts told me that I should have personally checked him out, but she hadn’t gone out with him while I was home. I rather wondered if that hadn’t been intentional. Their date had ended with what was apparently a very intense good night kiss and a bit of a snuggle, and she was very excited about that, so what could I say? I tried to make the same kinds of supportive comments that she had when I was talking. I don’t know if I succeeded, but she clearly appreciated the effort.

When she was done, and we had pretty much said all that we needed to say, she asked when I was planning on calling her again. I suggested a compromise.

“Would once a week be enough?”

“At least once a week, Marsh. But I’m willing to start there; I just hope that you’ll want to talk more than that.”

“OK, Teen,” I said. And we said good night and hung up. Apparently I was expected to play the role of Marsha at least part time with Tina as well. How interesting.

After dinner, I was working on my paper when Terry poked her head in, “Hey, Marsh! You busy?”

“Not too much,” I answered. “How was the game?”

“Great! Greg got a sack and two tackles, and almost intercepted a pass!”

Ah. So it was a football game; “Greg” was evidently a close friend or relative; most likely her boyfriend. And… that was one more thing Marsha was supposed to know that I had learned without any of her friends suspecting. I am so very tricky.

“That’s great,” I agreed.

“So,” she added, “a bunch of us are going over to the Danby party. You coming?”

That was an irresistible offer. Much as I was enjoying my paper, I could really use a break, and I had always enjoyed the parties at Danby. In fact, ironically enough, it was there that I had met Lee Ann and Chandra. Lee Ann looked a bit surprised when Terry announced that she had gotten me to join, but didn’t say anything, so if I’d made an error it wasn’t excessive.

We met up with a group to head over to the party, including Lisa, Susie, and Phil, as well as a fairly large (even by my current standards) young man who had to be Greg, given the way Terry was hanging on him. I didn’t see Chandra, which presumably meant that she was already managing to get serious with Rajiv. Add Susie’s attempts to get Phil’s mind off of “Marsha” and my own disappointed hopes for a relationship with Lee Ann, and I was already seeing more soap-opera style goings on around me in a week than I had in the previous year. And I’d never really cared for soap operas.

The music was already playing when we arrived, and Greg and Terry disappeared quickly in the direction of the dance floor. After some persuasion – and curious looks at me – Phil allowed Susie to drag him there as well, leaving me sitting with Lisa and Lee Ann. We chatted for a while about things that had nothing to do with me, which allowed me actually to enjoy the conversation, when all of a sudden Lee Ann looked up and announced, “Oh, there’s Chandra!”

And indeed, Chandra was walking towards us, accompanied by Rajiv – as well as Mike and Geoff, my roommates when I was Marshall. Mike was with his long-time girlfriend, Becca Sassler, and the group also included Ted Carpenter and Tommy Ng, also friends of ours, along with a girl I didn’t know. Chandra stopped in front of us, though, and remedied that.

“Guys,” she started, speaking to the group with her, “this is my roommate Lisa, my friend Lee Ann, and her roommate, Marsha.” Then she turned to us and enumerated, “Rajiv’s roommates, Mike, Geoff, and Tommy, their friend Ted, and Becca and Anne.” As we murmured our greetings, I mused on the chance that had put Tommy as my replacement, which led me to wonder about the girl I had replaced. That was one more thing to add to my list of things to inquire about after I got back to myself.

Once the introductions were over, the couples all left to dance: Tommy and Anne, Mike and Becca, and Rajiv and Chandra, leaving Geoff and Ted alone with me, Lisa, and Lee Ann. Geoff immediately did pretty much what I would have done in his place – he asked one of the remaining girls to dance. But showing his usual execrable taste, he asked me!

Caught off guard, I flinched audibly before stammering, “Uh, no thanks, I’m just… not in the mood for dancing…”

That earned me a sharp, “Marsh!” from Lee Ann. I stared at her, unsure exactly what I had done wrong. Hadn’t I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in seeing boys now?

But Geoff just laughed and said, “Not a problem.” Then he turned to Lee Ann, “How about you? Wanna dance?”

She nodded and said, “Sure!” and followed him, but not before giving me another reproving glance that warned of a later conversation. So I had managed to draw attention to myself when I really hadn’t wanted to. But given that the alternative was dancing with my former roommate, which would have been downright creepy even if I had been prepared to dance with any boy, I didn’t see what else I could reasonably have done.

Ted, evidently learning from Geoff’s example, immediately offered a hand to Lisa, who likewise acquiesced, leaving me suddenly alone. That had not been my plan. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure what I had been hoping for when I had agreed to come tonight, except that I had had fond associations with Danby parties. My forced role-playing hadn’t even factored into my decision, when it obviously should have. Oh well.

Suddenly alone, I decided to make myself useful, which would also presumably prevent any more pick-up attempts. I found a table for my friends to sit at once the music stopped, and brought some drinks and snacks over to it. Since most of the students in attendance were dancing or otherwise socializing, I didn’t really have any competition, but once I was done I had to face the fact that I had messed up a bit. I was now alone at a party while my friends were enjoying themselves. I couldn’t think of a time when this had happened to me. The male-female ratio had always ensured that there were plenty of unattached girls to flirt with if I wasn’t actually dating anybody, but that wasn’t really going to work for me now. There were certainly “other” girls here, but I wasn’t all that comfortable at being one girl approaching another – my style was fine for pickups, but I didn’t really have any good conversation starters for my current state.

Fortunately, the music stopped after about ten minutes and my friends – and former roommates – came back looking for me. Lee Ann was particularly apologetic about having left me alone, but I lied and told her I’d had plenty to do and didn’t mind. Then she and a couple of the other girls excused themselves to go the ladies’ room. They invited me, but I didn’t feel any need, and it wasn’t until after they left that it occurred to be that going to the bathroom together was a female social thing. I was probably going to have to learn the trick of that.

Geoff watched Lee Ann admiringly as she walked away, then took advantage of her absence to corner Chandra and me. “Hey, um, does Lee Ann have a boyfriend?”

I knew where this was leading and tried to let him down gently. “She’s been seeing the same guy for three years, actually, but he’s in St. Louis.”

“Yeah, but at this point, they’re pretty much just going through the motions,” Chandra interjected. “I don’t think that relationship has much future.”

I stared at her, my mouth open. I couldn’t help myself. That was almost word-for-word what she had told me in a similar situation, nearly a month ago. I hadn’t known better, but I did now, and surely Chandra did as well. What was she doing?

Geoff hadn’t noticed my reaction. “That’s great!” he enthused. “I mean, I’m really sorry about her relationship, but I’m sure she’ll have no problem finding… I mean… you think maybe if I asked her out, she’d go with me?”

“You could try,” she answered him. “She might want to go slowly, sort of out of respect for her current boyfriend, but I’m sure you could persuade her.”

“Thank you very much!” he told her, as she nodded and rejoined Rajiv.

I waited until she had moved a bit further off then tapped his arm. “Um, Geoff, right?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Look, I don’t know what Chandra’s talking about. Lee Ann came back from break pretty enthusiastic about Stephen. I don’t see her splitting with him any time soon.”

He looked as though I had just told him the Easter Bunny wasn’t real. “Really? Chandra sounded pretty sure, and aren’t she and Lee Ann, like, best friends?”

“Trust me on this one. There’s no reason for you to get hurt. She said that she had been considering breaking with him, but I don’t know if she meant it.”

“Oh! Then there’s still a chance, right?”

I sighed. I was just trying to protect him, as I wish somebody had warned me. But if he wasn’t going to believe me, there wasn’t much I could do.

When Lee Ann returned from the bathroom, she came right over to me and favored me with a concerned look, but didn’t say anything. Two of the boys went to get refreshments for us, and we spent some time “getting to know each other.” Of course, it was mostly just Anne that I didn’t know, but I was aware enough after last night’s gaffe to pretend otherwise.

When the music started up again, Lee Ann took charge and made sure that not everybody went to dance at the same time. That meant that I wasn’t alone, for which I was grateful. It also gave me a chance to observe her interactions with Geoff, which were a lot more flirtatious than I would have expected from a girl with a steady boyfriend. I was getting a very confused picture of my onetime crush and present roommate.

Eventually, the party broke up and we separated, Rajiv joining us to walk Chandra back to our dorm. Lee Ann must have made some excuse to Geoff, as they said good night at the party and he did not walk with us. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming, as that was exactly how my first evening with her as Marshall had gone. She had told me that she needed to talk with her roommate and she had said good night to me at Danby with a smile that had seemed so disappointed that the evening was ending so soon. Come to think of it, I must actually have seen that roommate, although of course I hadn’t really paid her any attention.

I didn’t get a chance to ask her about it, though, as she challenged me as soon as we got back to the room. “Ok, Marsh, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” I temporized.

“You said you were too busy to date, but you had time to go out with us both last night and tonight. When Geoff asked you to dance, you acted as though he was some kind of ogre coming to rape you. This isn’t just a question about being too busy, Marsh. What is going on?”

“N-nothing,” I protested.

She looked me carefully in the eye. “Marsha. What happened over break? I’ve seen you shy, but never actually terrified of boys before.”

Oh boy. She was expecting me to come up with an answer, and the only one I could think of was unthinkable. It was one thing to tell Tina and Chad; I’d known them for years. And I’d pretty much had to tell Alvin and Nikki at least some of the truth; fortunately, their own experiences with Ben had made them very sympathetic. But I liked what little I’d seen of the way Lee Ann related to Marsha and I didn’t want to mess that up; besides, the only obvious explanation would no doubt creep her out, given that we were roommates. So I just cringed, which didn’t really take any acting at all.

Finally, she sighed. “Fine. Don’t tell me. You’re only hurting yourself, you know. Somehow, you need to find a way to open up. Don’t keep yourself from being happy, OK? I think you could have enjoyed yourself tonight. Dancing is fun and safe; we were in public and nobody was going to do anything bad to you.”

I nodded, glumly.

She smiled and added, “Look, you’re probably just tired. Why don’t you get some sleep and we can talk in the morning, OK?”

And it wasn’t until I was actually in bed that I remembered – I’d wanted to ask her about what she was doing with Geoff and whether she was involved in what Chandra had told him. Something just didn’t seem right, there.

As it turned out, the plan had not been for Lee Ann and I to hang out together, at least not alone, as Lisa, Sheila, and Susie came over after dinner. I was surprised to see Susie; apparently she hadn’t made as much progress with Phil as she had hoped.

“Is Terry joining us?” Lisa asked. “I didn’t see her at dinner.”

I actually hadn’t seen her since breakfast, but she hadn’t told me if she was going anywhere, and I didn’t want to show my ignorance if Marsha was supposed to know. Fortunately, Lee Ann did know.

“The team has an away game tomorrow, and it’s pretty far, so they left at noon.”

“Oh. Is she going to go every week?” Susie asked.

“Probably.”

I tried to look as though I knew what was going on, but I definitely didn’t. I was positive basketball season hadn’t started yet, so I didn’t know what team they could have been discussing. So chalk up one more mystery for me.

We waited for a bit, but nobody else showed up, so the five of “us” girls trooped over to the Dade Hall lecture room, where they were showing Nights In Rodanthe, which I had actually seen with Jackie. Now, I am not a real fan of movie dates in general, at least for the first few dates. I’ve always believed that if you are trying to get a girl to fall in love with you, you’re better off on a date where you’re actually doing something. Dancing and skating are probably the best, since they combine activity with closeness, but even bowling, as dismal as that sounds, can be more effective than just sitting still for two hours. But if you’re going to take a girl to the movies, Nights In Rodanthe isn’t bad. Jackie had come out of the movie misty-eyed and maybe just a bit cuddlier than she had been on our previous dates.

I wasn’t sure how many of my new friends had seen it before, but they definitely had some of the same reactions that Jackie had, and I rushed to emulate them. I certainly didn’t want to be an outlier here, even though I wasn’t feeling whatever they were. At this point, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to be getting more lessons in acting from trying to improvise my way through Marsha’s life than acting on stage under Alvin’s direction.

“The girls” decided that we would go over to the Student Grill, next. I had the money I had earned from my first two sewing jobs, so I could afford to buy myself a soda, although I felt a bit guilty about it. After all, I was supposed to be saving up to pay my college expenses, and it wasn’t clear just how much money I was going to be able to make at this. But once again, I figured that this was what Marsha would have done. She probably would also have been more active in the conversation, but I just didn’t know enough yet to know what to say. Until they started mentioning me.

“So, Susie,” Lisa asked. “How are things going with Phil?”

“Slowly,” Susie admitted. “He’s still talking about Marsha. I’m not sure if he’s ignoring me, or what.”

“He probably hasn’t figured out that you’re interested in him,” suggested Lee Ann.

“Or maybe he’s just pretending not to notice, because he’s not interested in you,” Sheila added, which I thought was kind of mean.

It felt as if it was my turn to speak, and it seemed safe to suggest, “You probably just need to give him more time.” That might have been a mistake, as it drew attention to me, at a time when I would have been quite happy to be overlooked.

Lisa looked at me, puzzled. “I can’t believe you’re just giving up on him that easily, Marsh.”

“I… “ I shrugged as casually as I could, “I just don’t really have time to date right now.”

“But you’re out with us,” Sheila pointed out. “You could have been out with Phil instead, and it wouldn’t have taken any more time.”

I flushed. “Oh – well, that’s just one night. Usually, you know… if you’re dating a guy… it’s going to be more than the occasional night out…”

“How would you know?” Sheila muttered. “Have you even dated since you came to school?”

“She had that date with David… um, I don’t remember his last name, at the beginning of the year,” Lee Ann said, coming to my rescue. I gave her a grateful smile, filing away the information. I’d have to look this guy up on Facebook, just so that I’d know to be wary of him in the future.

“Oh great,” Sheila went on. “So you’ve gone out once.”

Susie looked at her. “What’s the problem? If Marsh isn’t dating, that’s more chances for the rest of us, isn’t it?”

“Sure, but then we have to hear her whining about not having a date.”

“Why does this suddenly have to be about me?” I complained.

“It doesn’t,” Lee Ann put in, glaring at the other girls, especially Sheila. “Drop it.”

Lisa immediately jumped in to change the subject. “So, what’s the story with the new guy that Chandra is seeing?” I perked up; I was very curious about that myself, and wasn’t really surprised that Lee Ann knew more about it.

“It’s a fix up,” she explained. “I’m not completely clear on all the details, but apparently Chandra’s parents went looking for a guy for her from some kind of matchmaker, and one of the guys they found was a Piques student.”

“Wait,” Sheila exclaimed, “are you talking about, like an arranged marriage?”

“Apparently.”

“Aren’t they kind of young for that?” asked Lisa, surprised.

“I have no idea how old he is,” Lee Ann responded.

“He just turned twenty,” I answered without thinking.

“How do you know that?” Susie asked.

Oops.

“Uh…” I started, as all the girls stared at me. “I… um… he mentioned it when he tried to help me with my suitcase.”

“Sounds as though you guys talked more than a little bit,” Sheila suggested, eyeing me a bit suspiciously.

“And he seemed pretty happy to see you at lunch,” Lisa pointed out.

Lee Ann gave me a worried look. “Marsh, I hope you’re not… I mean, please don’t mess things up for Chandra. She seemed really taken with Rajiv. I mean, I don’t know about getting married, but she hasn’t dated a guy seriously in a while.”

“I’m not interested in him, Lee Ann,” I protested. “Really. I told you I’m not interested in dating anybody right now, but even if I were, I’m not attracted to the guy. He was just being nice, that’s all. And he probably smiled because he recognized me. I don’t suppose he knew anybody else at lunch. He didn’t even remember my name, right?”

“OK,” Lee Ann answered, mollified. “OK, I just… I was just a bit worried, that’s all.”

After that, the conversation turned to safer subjects and I managed to fade a bit more into the background. I was really going to have to pay more attention to what Marsha was supposed to know and what she wasn’t.

The next morning was my first Saturday back at school since this thing had happened to me, and I was at a loss. Usually I had taken advantage of Saturday mornings just to play my guitar for hours, assuming that I was all caught up on my school work, which I was, aside from my Lit paper. Now, of course, I didn’t have a guitar and my fingers lacked the calluses of a guitarist. I consoled myself that when this was all reversed after Christmas break, that all would be restored to me, or close enough for all purposes. I was slightly concerned about being rusty after not playing for a few months, but that was fixable.

In the meantime, I had sewing to learn and a paper to write. I found Nikki’s email address in Marsha’s email program and sent her a message, asking when she was available to teach me more, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she was just going to spend the entire weekend with Alvin.

I was very fortunate. Nikki came over after lunch, carrying several garments needing what she called “simple repairs.” Two had broken zippers, one was missing a button, and one had a torn seam. She’d also brought along some more scraps of cloth, on which she had me practice making seams until she judged that I was capable of repairing the blouse that needed it. This was a lot more difficult than the button had been, but in the end she guided me through the repair and left the others for me. The zipper repairs would have to wait for another lesson, but I could replace the button on my own now. It is possible that I had gotten a bit overconfident from the first lesson. I was now starting to understand why Nikki had taken some away from me. It was clearly going to take a while before I could tackle them, although my mentor was effusive in her praise of the progress I had already made.

“One more thing,” I said as Nikki turned to leave. “My roommate bought a gown and expects me to alter it for her. How do I-?”

“Not just your roommate,” she interrupted me. “You have ads out around campus advertising your services as a seamstress, and more students are going to bring you their clothes. You’re going to need to know how to deal with them. I think we can examine the structure of clothing next – you’ll need that in order to know how to mark garments for alterations. Let’s start that next week.”

“Nikki, you are absolutely incredible. I don’t know how to thank you enough. Isn’t this going to cost you business, helping a competitor?”

Her laughter was wonderful. “Competitor? Marsh, we’re friends. Friends help each other. And… I realize that you don’t remember this, but there is more sewing available than you and I together have time for, if we don’t want to give up our studies and theater. I only took those alterations because you’re never going to get through backlog without some help, now. Take care.”

After she left, I returned to my EuroLit paper. Whether it was the excuse to re-read Shakespeare, or the idea of women dressing like men, or whatever, I was actually starting to enjoy working on this paper. Why had I worked so hard to avoid them? It was an opportunity to play with ideas on an even broader scale than I had had in the logic course. The parallels were practically jumping out at me. Like Zinevra in Bernabò of Genoa (the nineteenth story in The Decameron), Rosalind from As You Like It had fled for her life in male disguise and gone to another land, where she had an opportunity to resolve the problem of the story.

Viola in Twelfth Night uses a disguise as well in a foreign place, although she is not in any danger. I had no idea what the professor was looking for, but I thought I could write a fair bit, just expanding on those points. I would probably have to fill it in with some discussion of why the disguises were necessary, of course. In the modern day, women presumably would be able to accomplish whatever they needed to be able to do, but not at the time of these stories. Hmm. I might have a bit more research ahead of me…

The next rehearsal wasn’t going to be until Sunday, and I didn’t think I should let the issue with Naomi and Jack fester, so after dinner, I spent about half an hour reading everything I could on Facebook about them and their relationships with Marsha. Neither seemed to be all that close to her; she and Naomi had spoken from time to time about Alvin’s plays, and I couldn’t find any evidence that Marsha and Jack had communicated at all – at least via Facebook. I presumed that this meant that they were just acquaintances rather than friends, which made things easier.

I debated apologizing over the phone; surely an involved conversation wouldn’t really be needed? In the end, however, I felt that a face-to-face apology would work better, and I really did need to be able to speak with them in person at the next rehearsal. At least I was going to need to be able to speak with Naomi; with Jo not needed for Act II, she and I would be the only girls in the cast present, and would naturally have been expected to chat. Of course, as soon as I came to that conclusion, I had to smile at myself. It was getting way too easy to think of myself as a girl.

Naomi’s dorm room was only a few minutes walk from mine. I spent the walk prepping myself and psyching myself up for what might be a tense confrontation. Alvin had been pretty angry with me; I had to assume that anger had come from Jack and Naomi, so I was a bit afraid of the kind of reaction I was going to get.

Naomi took about ten seconds to answer the door, and seemed surprised to see me. Even as she said, “Marsh?” I could tell from her mussed hair and the way she was tucking her t-shirt into her jeans that she had not been expecting any visitors.

“Marsh?” Jack echoed, coming to the door behind her. The two of them exchanged glances and then fixed me with a not particularly friendly gaze.

Embarrassed slightly by what I had evidently interrupted, I stammered out the apology I had planned to offer smoothly. “I- I- I’m really sorry, guys. I acted l-like a jerk at rehearsals this w-week.” I caught myself, took a breath and continue under their impassive stares. “I guess I was really nervous about this role. I hadn’t… I mean, I’ve never quite done a role like…”

They looked at each other again and back at me. Then Jack chuckled, “It’s OK, Marsh. Alvin already called us. I take it he kind of smacked you down?”

“Yeah,” I answered, relieved. “He really came down hard on me. And he was right. I was a bit… no, a lot preoccupied and I…” I sighed. “Anyway, I’m really sorry, and I promise at least not to ignore you like that again.”

“You do that,” Naomi said. She wasn’t quite smiling, but at least she didn’t look hostile. “As Alvin always says, we have to work as a team.”

“Yeah.” I had said my piece, had it accepted, and now I wasn’t sure what else to say. “Um… you guys are obviously… busy… and I don’t really want to get in your way…”

They shared yet another look, this time definitely amused at my discomfort.

“So… I’ll just go… and I’ll see you at rehearsal!”

Even as I stepped back out of Naomi’s room and closed the door, I could hear them laugh, which only made me turn redder. I was a bit surprised at my reaction. My primary thought was envy; envy at what Jack and Naomi had been doing or possibly were on the verge of doing, as I couldn’t do anything similar just now. But somehow, that wasn’t what I was actually feeling. Why should I have been embarrassed? A couple of weeks ago, I don’t think I would have been. Apologetic, sure. But not embarrassed. It was as though I wasn’t completely in control, as though my body was trying to react in ways of its own, ways that didn’t match my own inclinations.

Before going to bed that night, I practiced needle-threading again. It was starting to come pretty easily to me, including the one-handed loop tie. There was a second garment that just needed a button replaced, so I tackled that one. A couple of minutes later, I was pleased to see that I had managed to do a repair without any further coaching. Unfortunately, none of the others required any button work, so I was sort of stuck. I made a mental note to deliver the two completed garments to their owners the next day after classes.

By lunch the next day, things were definitely feeling as though they were falling into a rhythm. Thanks to Facebook, I figured that I could now identify pretty much all of the students who regularly ate with Marsha and her roommates. At least, I didn’t have to worry about being too obviously ignorant in casual conversation. I was a bit surprised then, to see that a newcomer had joined the group. He was sitting next to a fairly animated Chandra and nodding patiently to her comments. There was something familiar about him from the back, but I couldn’t tell any more that. until I had circled the table to sit in the empty seat next to Lee Ann roughly opposite the two of them. Then I did recognize him.

“Rajiv!” I exclaimed, surprised.

It was as if a wind had blown the clouds from his visage on to Chandra’s, because she scowled at me even as he looked up and smiled. “Hey! Um, Marcy, right?”

“Marsha, actually,” I corrected him, remembering just in time that I wasn’t supposed to know him very well.

“How do you two know each other?” Chandra asked, a not particularly pleased expression on her face.

He laughed. “I saw Marsha struggling with a suitcase after break and offered to carry it for her. But she was afraid of me, or something.” As I sat down, a bit embarrassed, he added, “I take it she’s a friend of yours?”

“Um… sort of. I mean she’s Lee Ann’s roommate.”

When Rajiv looked away from me, I leaned over to Lee Ann and whispered, “what’s going on?”

“Parental interference,” she whispered back, and shook her head when I looked about to ask more.

I wasn’t really sure what to think about the news that Rajiv and Chandra were apparently a couple, or might be one, depending on what ‘parental interference’ meant. Did that mean that their parents were interfering with an established relationship? Trying to create one? I thought that she was going to get the better of such an arrangement, as I knew him to be a good guy, while all I really knew about her was that she had lied to me about Lee Ann – but that was hardly something I could mention.

“So,” Lee Ann said aloud to Chandra. “I take it you guys have plans for tonight?”

The two of them looked at each other before he shrugged, “I figure we’re just going to take in a movie.”

“OK, in case we pick the same movie, we’ll just make sure to stay out of your way then. Right, Marsh?”

Surprised, I just nodded. I’d had no idea that she and I were going to do something tonight together. It made sense, given that her boyfriend didn’t go to Piques, and Marsha didn’t even have a boyfriend; it must have been an ongoing arrangement she and Marsha had had, as we hadn’t discussed it. As a matter of fact, I’d sort of avoided thinking about the weekend altogether, given my hiatus from dating because of the whole “Marsha” charade. It was ironic then, that my first weekend evening out was apparently going to be spent with the girl I’d be dreaming of before the break, if not quite in the fashion I had expected.

My bio lab that afternoon was a bit trickier than Monday’s had been, since we were now studying the axial skeleton, from the skull on down, and the bone names were mostly unfamiliar to me. Ron started to read the description from the lab notes, “The cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone is received into the ethmoidal notch of the frontal bone…” and we sort of goggled at each other. Then he switched into a bad German accent to read the next section, “…and the christa galli serves as an attachment for the falx cerebri” which I thought was hilarious.

I wouldn’t have laughed of course, not in a lab full of other serious students, if he hadn’t continued with the line from The Court Jester, “the vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true,” at which point I lost it.

That brought on dirty looks from those near us, so we forced ourselves to be serious as we started to record our observations of the skeletons. But he managed to make me laugh – and yes, even giggle – several more times by catching me off guard, raising his eyebrows and whispering things like “… gonna poison the potion on the cribriform plate…” I think I had noticed him in the lab before, but had never spoken with him, so hadn’t realized that he had this sense of humor that worked well with mine. Of course, as Marshall, I wouldn’t have giggled. Definitely not.

We managed to get through the lab with a few minutes to spare, and checked out with the lab TA a bit early. As we were leaving he suddenly asked, “Do you have plans for the weekend?”

I looked at him sharply, but he seemed to be pretty casual – at least he didn’t act as though he was hitting on me. I told myself that Marsha probably would have mentioned it to Lee Ann if the two of them had been flirting, and answered neutrally, “My roommate and I are going to be hanging out.”

“Ok, that’s cool,” he answered, which didn’t really answer my question. Maybe I was just being paranoid; I was so averse to any hint of actual flirtation with boys that I was probably seeing it where it didn’t exist. On the other hand, I had already decided that Marsha was attractive enough that it would be more than reasonable for somebody to come on to me; I was going to have to figure out a good way to deflect advances. Eventually, they were certainly going to come.

After class the next day, I had to start on a paper for my literature class. It was the first one I had had to write since my freshman writing class, and I was not looking forward to it; however, I had found a subject that seemed appropriate. In homage to my own situation, I was going to write a comparison of cross-dressing in the works of Bocaccio and in Shakespeare. I had so far found one example of it in The Decameron, which is what gave me the idea, and of course I knew Shakespeare had used it in As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Wikipedia reminded me that it was found in The Merchant of Venice, as well.

All of the examples I had found so far were of females dressing as males, and that was going to be my focus. In some ways, it was probably wish fulfillment for me. I would really have preferred not to keep wearing dresses, or at least to have something else to put on when I got to drop out of character in the privacy of my bedroom. The problem, of course, was that wearing pants was not something that I had figured out a way to explain Marsha doing if I were caught.

I started my research for the paper by re-reading As You Like It, which took me about half of the afternoon. Then I decided to get back to my sewing-machine practice. I was now able to get a reasonably straight line when sewing two strips of cloth together, but the stitches didn’t really look much like the ones in any clothes I’d ever seen. Instead of a row of neat line segments, there were these little bumps all over the place. I tried tugging on the material as it fed through the machine, but that just made the lengths uneven as well.

“You need to adjust the tension, Marsh,” a female voice said in my ear, causing me to jump. I looked up to see Alvin’s girlfriend, Nikki, wearing a green Piques College T-shirt that didn’t quite reach the top of her short denim skirt. Her brown hair was tied back in a complex braid, which gave her an almost boyish look, if one only looked at her above the neck..

“I knocked several times and you didn’t answer, but I heard the machine going, so I let myself in. You must have been really intent on what you were doing. Anyway,” she continued as I gaped foolishly, “the knots on top mean that your tension is too high.”

“Nikki…” I started.

“I know,” she interrupted. “Alvin told me. You don’t remember me, do you? Come here.” And she opened her arms for a hug.

Like pretty much everybody else I knew, she was taller than I was now, and her hug felt very motherly. “You poor thing. I’ve seen what this has done to Ben, and I can only imagine what it must be like for you.” At the same time, the revealing outfit that she was wearing was causing my brain to expect me to be attracted but not show it because she had a boyfriend. I wasn’t sure how my female body was supposed to handle that mixed message, but it did cause me to miss part of what she was saying.

“… different for you?” she was asking me.

“Yes,” I managed, trying to cover my distraction. “And it’s been really uncomfortable and confusing. The university should never have allowed that experiment.”

“I know, right?” she replied. “The damage those morons did…”

“Um, I hope you don’t mind my asking this…” I started.

“Ask, Marsh. With what you’ve gone through, how can I get angry?”

“If your brother is so miserable, why hasn’t he gone back to ask them to change him back?”

With an angry sigh, she released me and turned away, wringing her hands in frustration. “He’s paranoid. He’s convinced they did this to him on purpose. Because they hated the basketball team or something. I don’t know. Maybe because they thought that he would have made the team really good and they’re really on our rivals’ side.” She looked at me with a face starting to tear. “He’s my little brother, and I don’t know how to help him! He’s miserable, but refuses to hear anything I suggest. He’s passing his courses… barely, but he just doesn’t care about anything. What’s your secret? How do you keep going? What… Alvin said you were embarrassed to tell him, but can you tell me what changed for you?”

“Nikki, I’m sorry. It’s really personal, and I’d be humiliated if anybody knew.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “OK, we won’t talk about it, right? At least you’re trying.”

“Well… I sort of got mad and boasted in front of my sister that I could act the role of… my new self, without people knowing. Not sure how well that’s working right now. Plus, since I am an act- tress…” I didn’t stumble over the word quite so much this time.

“I understand. Right. So… what can I do to help you? I only really know mostly your theater friends, and Alvin’s already told you about Naomi and Jack, right?”

“It’s OK. I found Marsha’s… my Facebook page, and I’m finding out who all I’m supposed to know. What I really need help with is… this.” I indicated the garment rack and the sewing machine.

“Yes, you told Alvin. OK, so… how much do you remember about sewing?”

“Nothing, actually. In my previous life, Mom never taught me to sew.” It was a dangerous admission. If Nikki really knew my family, she might ask why Mom hadn’t taught me, and I was afraid of what would happen if I told her that I used to be a guy.

She was indeed surprised, but didn’t pry. “Wow! So then… let’s start really simple. Come away from the machine.” She fished in Marsha’s sewing basket and pulled out a needle, a spool of thread and a pair of scissors. After snipping off a couple of feet of thread, she sat down on the bed next to me. “First lesson is threading a needle. A basic skill, but you cannot sew without it.”

I took the needle and the cut thread. I’d certainly seen Mom do this from time to time, but had never tried it myself. “The hole in the needle’s pretty small,” I complained. Shouldn’t I be using a bigger one? Or thinner thread?”

“That hole is called an eye, Marsh, and it is just the right size. Here, look.” She took them from me, licked the end of the thread and then somehow poked it right through the hole… the eye of the needle in one try, just as Mom had always done it. Then she pulled it back out and handed the needle and thread back to me. “Now you try it.”

So I did. I poked the thread at the eye, and missed. I pulled it back and tried again, and this time I was sure I had hit it, but no luck.

“OK, stop,” she said. “Why do you have one eye closed?”

I do? I opened both eyes and looked at her. “I… guess I was just trying to see it better.”

“You need both eyes to do this, Marsh. Try again, keeping both eyes open.”

That actually made a lot of sense. I was trying to connect two objects in three-dimensional space, and needed my depth perception. It was obvious, once she had pointed it out. This time I got it on the second try.

“Very good,” she said. “Now knot the end to make a loop.” As I started to put down the needle to knot the long end, she added, “With one hand.”

I just stared.

“Hold the thread at the eye so that it won’t come out,” she instructed me. Once I had done that, she continued. “Now grab the other end with your right hand and loop the thread around your finger twice. Good. Now use your thumb to roll the thread off the end of your finger. See? Now you have a loop in the thread. I never saw how you used to do it, but I usually use that loop to start my stitches.”

I shrugged. “That sounds fine to me.”

“You see, some girls pull the loop closed into a knot, but we’ll do it my way for now.”

She used the scissors to snip off the loop.

“Why cut it off?”

“So that you can practice some more. Try it again.”

It turned out not to be all that difficult when I followed Nikki’s instructions, and after a few more tries, she pronounced herself satisfied.

“OK, great. But how does this help me? Won’t I just be using the sewing machine?”

“Not this time, you won’t. It’s easy enough to sew buttons on by hand, and there’s always somebody who needs help with buttons.” As she said that, she had started examining the garment rack. “Here. This is a simple one. Somebody must have lost weight, and she just needs the buttons moved on this skirt.” She dove again into the sewing basket and came up with a razor blade. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “You’ve marked these two buttons as needing to be moved, so cut them off. Slide this blade against the back of each button, being careful not to cut the skirt itself.”

“Oh, I think I see.” I took the blade and made short work of the threads holding it on the skirt, then looked at where Marsha had marked the new location of the first one. The next step seemed obvious, so I pushed the threaded needle into the marking and pulled it out through the loop. “Now, I just pull the loop tight, right?”

“Yes, exactly.”

A few passes through the holes and I had the button in its new location. Nikki watched me as I pondered how to finish it off, but didn’t say anything. Something told me that a few interlocking knots would work, and when I was done, she raised her eyebrows.

“Atta girl, Marsh! Are you sure you never learned this?”

“I’m sure,” I answered, trying to bask in the intended praise without being overly bothered by the ‘atta girl’ comment.”

“Well, you’re obviously a natural. That would explain why I remember you as being so good a seamstress. Just cut off that loose end and why don’t you do the second button from the beginning?”

Threading the needle again and moving the other button took me amazingly little time. I was feeling a bit smug when I finished, as Nikki praised me again.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, taking three garments off the rack, “why don’t I take care of these? The work is a bit complex, and even with your aptitude, it’s going to take a bit of time for you to learn how. I’ll bring you some of my simpler jobs to work on for now, and we can pass things back and forth as needed. How does that sound?”

Quite frankly, it sounded terrific to me, and I said so. The tunnel was actually beginning to show a bit of light at the end. So I thanked her and she left.

When I left the rehearsal room, I was flying. Not only had he not tossed me, he was going to help me – really help me! For the first time, I was starting to be a bit jealous of Marsha. She’d managed, not only to be cast in three of his productions, but also to become close enough to be treated as an asset, if not a friend. Now, I was going to be the beneficiary of her efforts, since I had temporarily taken over her life. I could really enjoy some of this.

Marsha’s roommates were surprised by the sheer glee in my step when I swept into the room and greeted them with a cheerful, “Hey, guys!”

“Hey, Marsh,” Lee Ann replied, looking up from the reality show she was watching with Terry and Chandra-whatever. “You’re in a good mood tonight. Rehearsal went well?”

“Very well,” I said. “Well, actually the rehearsal wasn’t all that special – it was just a blocking rehearsal, after all – but I had a terrific conversation with Alvin, afterwards.”

“What’s a ‘blocking rehearsal’?” Chandra-something asked. Lee Ann looked as though she already knew, but Terry looked curious. Given my mood, it felt really good to be able to explain.

“You know how when you see a play, the actors move around during their scenes? The director usually plans that out beforehand, making sure that people will be in the proper places so that they can react to one another, or make nice pictures on the stage. So when you’re acting with somebody, they always know where you are, without looking.”

“Like having set plays in basketball?” Terry suggested.

“Do they?” I asked. “I guess I didn’t realize that.”

“Uh huh. That way you can pass and pretty much know where everybody is going to be.”

“OK, then, I guess it’s a lot like that,” I continued. “Usually, the director gives out the blocking at one of the first rehearsals, and we write it in our scripts. Of course, he might make adjustments during later rehearsals, depending on how things work, but the idea is that you learn the blocking along with your lines and interpretations. The point is, we don’t do an awful lot of acting at a blocking rehearsal. With a director like Alvin, we might try out different ways of saying our lines, but he doesn’t say anything about it unless he really likes it,” He had in fact complimented Jo on one of her readings, presumably to make sure she knew to do it that way again.

“So what was the great conversation you had with Alvin?” Lee Ann asked.

“Oh, I was having some problems and I sort of panicked a bit, and he told me how valuable I was to the show and he had enjoyed working with me in the past and would give me all the help I needed,” I said, trying to be as general as I could get away with. “And Nikki’s probably going to come over and talk to me as well.” I didn’t want to ask if she knew Nikki. It seemed as though she had been closer to Marsha than Terry had been, so she probably did.

“Well that’s great, Marsh,” she responded. “I’m glad it’s all working out for you.”

The other girls agreed, and I joined them in watching the end of the show. The biggest difference I noticed from the times I had watched with the guys as Marshall was the conversation, although I couldn’t quite figure out why, only that I was having to work harder at feigning interest. That might just have been my preoccupation with the evening’s events.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten back to my bedroom that reality started to intrude. Marsha had achieved that because of her abilities. Because of her sewing, which I couldn’t do, and because of her acting, which I wasn’t quite sure I could match. This wasn’t just me being given an incredible opportunity; Alvin was expecting ‘Marsha’ to deliver, and I wasn’t completely certain I could. He didn’t know that I wasn’t really the girl he’d known. What if I let him down? At least I knew that I could have handled Paravicini…

So far, I had been able to use the fact of my participation in that experiment as an excuse; but we hadn’t actually gotten to the hard part. What if I couldn’t handle the role of Mollie? Even his friendship or affection for Marsha wouldn’t save me, would it? At least, it would hardly be fair to the rest of the cast if their leading lady couldn’t do her share. He’d have to replace me in that case, wouldn’t he? If I wasn’t careful, I could wind up losing big.

And what about the sewing? He had promised to tell Nikki what had happened to me and to get her to help. She was Marsha’s friend, so she would probably be willing. But would it be enough? I had essentially no knowledge of how to be a seamstress. Would she really be able to teach me to do what I needed in a reasonable amount of time? I didn’t exactly have years to learn, after all. And would she get frustrated with my ignorance and just give up on me? What if she expected me to react the way Marsha had to things, and I didn’t? Would she really be as patient with me as Alvin had implied?

It was really getting to me. I wound up doing my course reading almost perfunctorily. All I could think about was that I was a fraud, an interloper. I was trying to play the role of Marsha, but I didn’t have all of her knowledge or her skills, and it was going to be way too easy for people to find me out. I didn’t want to be a quitter. I didn’t want to pull the plug on this performance. Even though I would be the only one to know it, it would live with me for the rest of my life. And would I be able to look Tina in the eye again, knowing that she would have known about my failure if the very fact of it hadn’t wiped her memory of the whole thing. Finally, I put my books down and called it a night, frustrated.

I slept, but not particularly well. I dreamed that I was myself – Marshall – and that I was in the hallway of Marsha’s dormitory, carrying my guitar. All the girls were in the hallway, just as they had been when I came to school Sunday night, but instead of greeting me as a friend, they were pointing and laughing. I looked behind me, hoping that their target was somebody else, but it wasn’t. It was me. Then I caught some of their words and looked down. They were laughing because I was wearing a dress, and for a moment I didn’t understand why that was funny.

When I realized it, I tried to take it off, but there was another one right underneath it. I ran into Marsha’s dorm room and she and her roommates were there, also laughing at me. I thought that if I played my guitar, maybe they wouldn’t laugh, but suddenly I was a girl again and the guitar was gone, and I had a sewing needle and thread and didn’t know how to use them.

“Marsha,” I pleaded. “You have to help me! I’m your brother Marshall who should have been born instead of you, but now I’m stuck in your body and I don’t know how to use it. Please. Please, I need you to teach me!”

But she just laughed and told me, “You’re the one who likes to look up user manuals online. Why don’t you look up the one for ‘Jennifer Marsha Steen’?”

When I awoke, it was about three in the morning, and I had the feeling that there was something I needed to do. That I should do a web search for ‘Jennifer Marsha Steen.’ I was still half asleep, so it seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do. What surprised me was that I actually got a hit.

It wasn’t a user manual, of course. It was a Facebook page. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that Marsha would have one? Sitting right there were pictures of some of her friends, along with their names. I didn’t know her password, of course, but I had her email account, so I was able to request a reset. A minute or so later, I was able to see all of her Facebook friends, as well as postings she had made. I recognized many of the faces; now I had their names as well, and she had also talked about performing in Alvin’s shows. If only I had thought to do this a week ago! It would have made things so much easier.

“Nikki Forsberg” was there, her picture definitely resembling the girl who had been sitting next to Alvin at the read-through. The two had exchanged quite a few messages in the past year, according to their “wall-to-wall.” They had talked about sewing, and Alvin’s plays, and Alvin himself, and – to my slight embarrassment – about boys Marsha might have been interested in, but was too timid to approach.

Both of my roommates were there, of course. Terry’s full name was “Theresa Baldwin” and she was a member of the women’s basketball team. Given her comments earlier, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. And while I had known Lee Ann before this, she had never let me see her page; it had been part of her flirting with me that it was supposed to have some dark secret. The secret turns out to have been that she’d had no intention of breaking up with her boyfriend. It really made me wonder why “Chandraki Kumar” (according to Facebook, that was her full name) had led me to believe otherwise.

I was going to have to recognize and greet Jack and Naomi, so I looked them up next. Naomi was easy, as she was the only female member of the cast I didn’t know, but I looked her up anyway, just to be safe. There was a Naomi Katz listed, but her picture was just a joke image, so I couldn’t initially be certain that it was she. The page did mention that she was a junior, majoring in economics. There wasn’t anybody named Jack on Marsha’s friend list, but there were several boys named John something or other; looking through their pages, I found one who claimed to have performed in Alvin’s shows. He was a senior philosophy major, and was apparently dating Naomi, which Alvin had not mentioned. I spent extra time on both of their pages, looking for facts that Marsha should have known.

I couldn’t remember the names of everybody in the cast, and Marsha might not have known them all previously, although Jo was there; as far as I could tell, she and Marsha had met during auditions for Mousetrap. I hadn’t met anybody; I’d been too nervous, but Marsha had apparently managed to socialize while auditioning for and receiving the best role she could have wanted.

I was too tired to sit and memorize everybody, but now that I knew about the page, I would make it a point to return to it frequently. People had posted on ‘my’ wall and were apparently expecting responses; I put that off for a bit until I had a better understanding of their relationships to Marsha. I was feeling much better, now. I hadn’t solved the skill and knowledge problems, but at least I had made some major steps – and I’d only been back to school for three days.

I could finally sleep soundly until morning.

The next rehearsal, “blocking” the first act, was pretty straightforward. Pencil in hand, we moved around the stage as directed, reading our lines. Jared, who was playing Giles, pantomimed a kiss when we reached the appropriate place, but did not attempt to make contact, for which I was grateful. There was no way that I was going to be able to kiss him without first getting into character, and even that was going to take some preparation. After blocking, we walked through the scene a couple more times, trying to get used to the requisite combination of movement and lines, and experimenting a bit with delivery.

“OK, great job all,” Alvin said when we were done. “I need everybody back here Sunday except for Jo, and we’ll block act two. We’ll start getting into character on Monday. Have a good night.” Jo, of course, wasn’t needed for act two, as her character’s death was the climax of act one.

Then he turned directly to me and asked, “Marsh, can you stick around for bit?”

My heart clenched at being singled out like that. What had I done wrong? Given that Marsha had been cast in a much larger role than I had, it seemed likely that I was not as good an actor as she – had Alvin been able to tell? Was he taking me aside to remove me from the cast? I thought for a moment that he might have me trade roles with one of the other girls, but if so… if he wanted me to take over Jo’s role, surely he would have told her to come back for the act two blocking rehearsal.

So I just agonized in private as the rest of the cast trooped out. Several of them gave me odd looks as they did, and I thought they were the same ones who had spoken to Alvin after the previous rehearsal. Maybe they had told him that I was obviously not up to the role?

We were alone in the rehearsal room and Alvin closed the door and then came over to sit down next to me. As I held my breath, he said slowly, “Marsha. What the Hell are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“Have you not heard me say that acting is a team activity? When did you turn into a prima donna? Nikki, Jack, and Naomi all greeted you and you just looked through them as though they were strangers.”

I just stared in astonishment. Marsha had known these people?

“And why did you answer like that when we were talking about previous roles? ‘Lady-in-waiting’? Did you think it would sound better if you didn’t tell everybody you were Guinevere?”

My eyes bulged. I had thought it didn’t matter what I said about high school, as nobody would know. Marsha must have listed past roles on her audition sheet.

“And not to toot my own horn or anything, but don’t you think when discussing past roles for a director’s play, that it would be appropriate to mention roles you’ve done for that director?”

Now my jaw dropped, in addition to everything else. Since I hadn’t been cast last year, I had just assumed that neither had Marsha. I kept forgetting that her life wasn’t necessarily always the same as mine.

“Marsh, I cannot have you creating bad feelings in my cast. I need you to get over yourself. Having a lead does not make you better than everyone else. We need everyone to be able to work together. Do you understand me?”

I understood. I understood that I had screwed up very badly, and that I was on the verge of losing this opportunity. Worse yet, it sounded as though I – or rather, Marsha – had had friends here and I had just hurt them. And for some reason I had started to cry. I couldn’t help myself.

“Alvin,” I started, “I-”

But I wasn’t really used to talking through tears like this. To feeling like this. I needed this relationship. And hadn’t Mr. Condrin told me how important a director was? My only choice now was honesty – at least as much as I could afford.

I took a deep breath and started again, tears and all. “Alvin, to be really honest… I don’t remember. I mean, I remember what I did last year and all… but my memories don’t seem to match… to match what everybody else remembers. I remember auditioning last year… but in my memories, you didn’t cast me. I… I didn’t even know I’d gotten this role until I found the script in my bag. I didn’t know that… that I had played Guinevere in high school. Everything’s so different…”

My tears were just getting worse.

“I really want to do this. I mean it. I want to make it right. I want… I want to be able to work with your cast. To be friends with everybody who remembers me as a friend. I just… I just don’t know who they are…”

Alvin stared at me. I had probably just told him about the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and I was obviously not stable. How could I blame him for bouncing me from his show now? By all rights, he should have simply told me to hand in my script and leave. But he didn’t. He closed his eyes for a moment in disbelief. Then he shocked me.

“Marsh, please tell you didn’t volunteer for that stupid time-warp experiment.”

“You… you know about that?” I had assumed that everyone on campus had either never heard of it, or dismissed it as Jay had.

“You did, didn’t you?” Now he stood up, agitated. “Damn it! Marsh, how could you…?” He sat down again, and put his hand to his forehead. “Yeah, I know about it. Nikki’s brother, Ben…” He exhaled, angry. “He volunteered also. Now he says he used to be about six inches taller, but nobody else remembers that.”

“I heard about that,” I breathed. “The article-“

He cut me off. “Yes, that stupid article. Made it all sound like a real joke, didn’t it?”

“It’s not a joke.”

“No, it’s not. Ben used to be this really happy guy – at least that’s how Nikki and I remember him. Oh… you said you don’t remember Nikki?”

“No.”

“Nikki is my girlfriend, and our costume mistress. You two are, or at least were, pretty good friends, actually. Anyway, Ben used to be a pretty happy guy, but now he’s completely sullen. Says that what he really wants is to play basketball, that he used to be on the team, but when he went to practice, they ran him off. He’s barely trying anymore. Shows no interest in most of the things he used to love…”

“That’s terrible.”

“Mm hmm. So, yeah, I do know about this, this… stupid experiment. And the same thing happened to you?” He paced, agitated. Then he looked straight at me. “At least you seem to be trying. I wish Ben would.”

“It’s the only way I know how to cope,” I explained. “And… well, I am an act- an actress,” I continued, realizing that I had almost said actor. “I’m used to being somebody other than I really am. My problem is, I just don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know what Mar- what I’m supposed to have done.” I thought he might have caught my stumble, so I explained, “Sometimes I think of myself as ‘Marsh’ and the girl everybody else remembers as ‘Marsha.’”

“Sounds useful. Give me a sec to take this in. I hadn’t expected to have to deal with it with somebody else.” He paced for a bit before coming back to face me. “OK, Let me see if I can fill you in. I cast you as Miss Forsythe in Death of a Salesman. It’s a small role, but I really liked what you did with it. You also helped Nikki with costumes.”

“Makes sense. Marsha was – is – a seamstress.”

“So’s Nikki. So you two hit it off really well. Based on your performance in Salesman, and your audition, of course, I cast you as Peggy in Come Blow Your Horn. Naomi, who is our Miss Casewell, played Connie. And Jack was Hap Loman and Buddy. He’s doing Trotter in Mousetrap, so you’ve worked with both of them before. I assume you don’t want me to tell the cast what happened to you?”

“I’d prefer not. My sister and a friend at home know… and you. Nobody else, so far.”

“More power to you. Ben’s been telling everyone, and it’s alienating people. That may well be his intent, of course.”

“My biggest problem now – aside from not knowing people – is that I don’t know how to sew, and that’s apparently how Marsha made money. I have a bunch of garments in my room now, waiting for me to do something with them, and I haven’t the vaguest idea of where to start.”

“You don’t know how…? Wow, that’s going to take some getting used to. It’s sort of one of the main things I remember about you. May I offer some unsolicited advice?”

“Please.”

“Tell Nikki. I’ll do what I can to help, but Nikki is your best ally. Not only has she seen what’s happened to another victim, she knows you and likes you, and can help you better than anybody else when it comes to sewing.”

“That – that would be incredible! If she could help me…” I had just done the proverbial fall into a pile of sh— er, manure and came up smelling like roses.

“If you want, I can tell her what happened. I’m sure she’d be happy to come talk to you.”

“Alvin, I don’t know what to say… “

“Just remember this, since you are obviously hearing it for the first time. When I say acting is teamwork, I mean it. We need to support each other, Marsh. You’ve always come through for me in the past, and I’m going to do what is necessary to make sure you succeed in this one as well. OK?” He smiled at me for the first time since the rehearsal ended. “Talk to Nikki, take care of yourself, and I’ll see you on Sunday.”

In the meantime, I grabbed The Decameron, and went into the living room to read it. That way, I would not appear to be more anti-social than necessary, and besides, the couch was much more comfortable for reading than my bed, and at the same time, less conducive to sleep. As it happened, I had about as much privacy in the living room as I would have had in my bedroom, as neither of my roommates appeared to be around. Terry came in about a half hour before dinner and headed almost immediately to the bathroom, where the sound of the shower confirmed my impression that she had had a great workout somewhere.

She and I went to dinner together without Lee Ann, who hadn’t come back to the room yet. At this point, with my first Alvin Tomlinson rehearsal so close, it was getting hard to concentrate on anything else, and I’m sure I was much worse company than usual. In fact, I’m not really sure that I can remember what I was eating, but I excused myself a bit early to make sure I made it to the theater on time.

When I got to the rehearsal room, several people were already there, including Alvin himself, and the girl who was playing Mrs. Boyle. As she was the only one I recognized other than the director, I sat next to her as we waited for the rest of the cast to show up. I hadn’t mastered the knack that girls seemed to have of always finding something to talk about, but I was a fairly good listener, which seemed to be good enough for now. More cast members came in, and some of them greeted me or her – apparently, her name or nickname was “Jo” – but, while I recognized some of them from the plays Alvin had directed the previous year, I didn’t actually know any of them.

Finally, everybody was present, and Alvin stood up to address us.

“Thank you all for coming, and welcome to our production of The Mousetrap. For those of you who have not done a show with me before, I’d like to tell you something about the way I work. I expect my actors to take the lead in developing their characters. I will guide you and make suggestions, but ultimately you are the ones who will actually be on stage before the audience, so you need to own your interpretations. I see acting as very much a team exercise, and we will probably be doing some exercises and improv to develop your characters.”

He next introduced the students who were sitting next to him. Each received a brief round of applause, which Jo and I hurriedly joined. “I’m very pleased to have a strong team working with me. In addition to the actors, let me introduce Cheryl Yeats, our producer, Nikki Forsberg, our costumes mistress, and Bill Bradshaw, our props master. I’d like the cast members to introduce themselves. Each of you should say your name, your role, and tell us a little bit about yourself. Let’s begin with Jared.”

I cannot say that I remembered all of the names, or even all of the roles. I did make special note of Jared Milner, who was playing Mollie’s husband, Giles, and Peter Engelmann, who was playing Paravicini, which was originally to have been my role. And I learned that “Jo” was Josephine Perez, who also went by the nickname, “Josie.” The cast all seemed to be calling her, “Jo”, so I did, too.

The self-introductions gave me a problem I had not anticipated. Each actor mentioned previous roles he or she had done; quite a few had worked with Alvin before, which explained why so many of them had known each other. But I didn’t know what roles Marsha had done! Tina would have known if I had only thought to ask her, but I hadn’t.

So when it was my turn, I simply said, “My name is Marsha Steen, and I am playing the role of Mollie. I played a lady-in-waiting in my high school production of Camelot and a couple of other roles since. I am very thrilled to be part of this show,” hoping that my enthusiasm would make up for my lack of detail. The role in Camelot was a complete guess. There weren’t any named female roles comparable to the one I had done as Marshall, but there were several minor “ladies-in-waiting” in our production.

I noticed several actors giving me puzzled looks. I presume that they were either surprised that somebody with as thin a resume as mine would have gotten such a major role in this production, or that they had found me unusually modest. Well, I just had to hope that I would be able to live up to Alvin’s trust in me, or rather, Marsha.

The read-through itself was fairly non-eventful. Some of the actors played around with their roles, trying one interpretation and then another. My own part was pretty straightforward, but did require some interesting emotional range in a few places. It was definitely a more difficult role than any I had ever tried before.

After we finished, Alvin stood again and thanked us, announcing that we would be blocking act one on Wednesday. As Jo and I walked out together, several of the students who had worked with Alvin in the past went over to speak with him. I was a bit uncomfortable to note Alvin watching me leave as they did. I didn’t really want to think that people would already be talking about me – I just wasn’t confident enough in my abilities to be certain that their comments would be positive. But it was just a read-through. Surely they couldn’t expect all that much from a read-through?

I called Tina as soon as I got to my room, and asked her about a tool to hold the material together while sewing it. I don’t think I had heard her laugh so hard in a long time.

“Excuse me?” she asked, when she had recovered. “Marsh, that’s what pins are for!”

“I don’t get it,” I admitted.

“You’ve never actually watched Mom sew? You pin the material together, Marsh. The pins go across the seam you are going to sew and then you pull them out afterwards. And you put in enough that it will stay together.”

“Oh. I see.”

She laughed some more.

“I’ve seen pins used before,” I said. “When I bought pants, they just put in one to mark where the seam was – I don’t see how that was supposed to hold anything together.”

“No, you can do that, too. You can use pins for lots of different things, but what you are talking about is probably the biggest use of them.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know this stuff – I’m a boy!”

That brought yet another laugh. “Do you have any idea how strange it is to hear you say things like that?”

Now I laughed. “Probably not any stranger than what I’m dealing with on a daily basis. Did you have any ideas for how I’m going to manage all of this?”

“Not yet. Exactly what needs to be done?”

“You mean of what I have already sitting on the rack? Let me check.” I went over and looked more carefully. “Let’s see… there’s eleven things here. This is a skirt that needs a zipper repaired…”

“Well that’s an easy one.”

“Glad to hear it. Of course, I haven’t the faintest idea how… Um, this dress has… aha, pins all over it.”

“That’s alteration – that’ll take a bit of time. Look for other things like that. How many need a lot of alteration?”

“Checking… um, one… mm hmm… looks like four of them are like that. There’s one that says it needs buttons moved… and a bunch with the comment, ‘repair.’”

“Only four? That’s not so bad.”

“Teen,” I pointed out, “that’s just what I have here now. My roommate expects me to alter a gown for her, and that’s not on the rack, and probably a lot of other people will bring me stuff.”

“Well, you’ll just have to tell them, ‘no’”

“And how do I get money for tuition, Teen? That’s the problem, here. If I announce that ‘Marsha’ is no longer in the seamstress biz, I still need something that will bring in money.”

“Oh. I thought…” She paused, confused. “I’m still thinking, Marsh. We can do this, somehow, right? ‘Sisters strong’, right?”

I sighed. “If you say so, Teen. I wouldn’t exactly have used that phrase.”

“Oh, right.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have reminded her. My poor sister must be having a lot of trouble thinking of her ‘sister’ as a boy as it was, and she really was trying to help me out as best she could. So I thanked her for her help, and hung up. I still had a bit of reading to do, but fortunately, no class assignments as yet. So, after a bit of work, I managed to fall asleep.