Take a Lemon

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…

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.

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.

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?

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.