Take a Lemon

“Oh, Marsh,” Tina laughed, while trying to sound sympathetic at the same time, “I didn’t mean to walk in on you like that!”

“My fault,” I acknowledged, sheepishly. “I lost track of the time.”

“Do you do that a lot?”

“No! I mean… this is the first time, I’ve… well, my first time.”

“Really?! You mean, all this time…? I had the impression that guys did it a lot, so I just assumed…”

“I… I didn’t know how, OK?” I said, more than a little embarrassed. “It’s different for boys. I had to ask a friend, and I found this in my closet, and… this was the first time I’d gotten a chance to try.”

Tina  bit her lip, probably to keep from laughing at me. “Um, why don’t I just leave you alone so you can get dressed? Grandma bought ice cream for the four of us and we’re eating it in the kitchen.”

She left before I could say anything more, which was probably just as well. I would have liked to shower as well, but was afraid to take the time, if they were really waiting for me.

The ice cream – a butterscotch sundae – was delicious, and I concentrated on it and tried to ignore the excited talk about the movie. Even Joey was excited, and I couldn’t remember too many times in the last half dozen or so years I’d ever seen him excited about anything but cars.

“You really missed something great, Marsh,” Joey declared. “Is there a 3-D movie theater near your school?”

I tried to think; usually, we just watched movies on-campus, and they tended to be a bit older films. “I’m not sure – I might have to watch it in 2-D.”

“You don’t want to do that, Marsh,” Tara insisted. “You’ll miss half of the impact of the movie.”

My cousins seemed really enamored of this movie. I couldn’t imagine what the big deal was, and I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to wait until Christmas break, then. Just means that I’ll have to figure out somebody else to go with.” That would be very strange. Obviously, I couldn’t go out with my old group. Chad would be OK with it, I was sure, but I had the impression that the other guys hadn’t been that close to Marsha.

“Don’t you have any girlfriends that you hang out with over the summer?” Tara asked, looking puzzled.

I hesitated a moment, at least in part because, to me, “girlfriend” still meant a girl I had dated, even though I had learned to use it in the sense that Tara intended. But even then it wasn’t all that easy. Marsha’s “girlfriends,” according to Chad, were Dinah, Maddy, and one other girl I couldn’t remember. But the only one I really knew was Maddy, and she would be a problem. Not only did she count as a former “girlfriend” in the way I was used to using the term, the way we had ended our relationship would make going to the movies with her kind of awkward for me.

“I’ve… sort of lost touch with them,” I finally said. “At least, I haven’t spoken with them in some time.”

“But you need to fix that, Marsh,” my cousin advised me, looking very serious. “You were in Girl Scouts. Don’t you remember singing, ‘Make new friends, but keep the old…’?”

… One is silver and the other gold, I finished in my head. I did remember that, although I hoped that I remembered it from Tina singing it, and not from hearing it at Girl Scout meetings. “Yeah, I suppose I should call, or something.” That would be strange, though; I’d have no idea what to say to them. Maybe it would be easier to let one of them call me.

But the idea of calling up old girlfriends reminded me of something I did need to take care of on my own. Vicky. We hadn’t spoken since that dance, and I was trying to be more proactive, so…

“I’ll call one of my girlfriends tomorrow,” I promised. “I guess it’s too late, now.”

Tara nodded approvingly, while Tina, who had been quiet through most of the conversation gave me that curious look that I was seeing a lot this weekend. I was pretty sure I knew what it meant. I had said something that she wanted to ask me about, but couldn’t in front of somebody who wasn’t supposed to be in on my secret. And with Tara sharing the bedroom with us, we had to look hard for opportunities to speak privately.

In the meantime, I had to worry about what exactly I was supposed to say to Vicky. She was the one who had walked out on me, and my inclination would normally have been to wait until she was over her mad and called me, but I was trying not to be so passive about things. And that just reminded me of Chad’s comment about letting Eric do all the hard lifting in trying to find the guys responsible for all this, and that reminded me of Eric and the fact that I hadn’t heard from him yet…

“Hello? Earth to Marsha…” I looked up to see my sister waving her hand in front of my face.

“Oh! I did it again, didn’t I?” I said, coming out of my reverie.

“’Again’? Are you doing this space cadet thing a lot, lately?”

“I guess… I’ve just had a lot on my mind, lately.”

“Tell us,” demanded Tara. Then with an eye toward her brother, she added, “This could get really girly, Joe, so you might not want to be here.”

Joey said, “I’m going,” and gobbled the rest of his ice cream so quickly that I winced, imagining the brain freeze he had just assured himself. But he just laughed and walked out, dropping the remains of his sundae in the trash.

Tara looked at me expectantly, while Tina looked simply curious.

“No, no, nothing girly,” I protested. “I just had a fight with… with one of my girlfriends. She walked out when my roommate sort of fixed me up with that guy I told you about.”

“The one you slow-danced with?”

“Mm hmm.”

“And why did this girl care?”

Oops. I couldn’t exactly tell Tara the real reason, so I paused for a second to think. “I guess she… just didn’t think it was appropriate for me… plus, she despised my roommate.”

“Why?”

Now I wasn’t sure which point she was asking about, so I answered the second, since I had a mostly easy answer. “Um… well, she says that Lee Ann stole her old boyfriend.”

That got Tina’s attention, too. “And did she?” my sister asked.

“Well,” I started, now having to confront the situation myself, “Lee Ann had been sort of flirting with the guy, but not seriously, since she has a long-term off-campus boyfriend. But the guy didn’t know that, and sort of cooled down towards Vicky – my friend – and she sort of let him go.”

“Why did she let him go?” Tara demanded.

The question took me aback. I had mostly focused on my own behavior, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to question Vicky’s. “I… I don’t know. I guess she thought she’d lost him and was just getting out of his way.”

Tara didn’t buy it. “That’s stupid,” she said. “If another girl was flirting with my boyfriend and he started buying into it, I wouldn’t let him go so easily. It sounds to me as though she really didn’t care so much about him.”

“No!” I protested. “She said that he was the best boyfriend she’d ever had, and after… after she had some other issues come up in her life, she tried to get him back.”

“And what happened then? Did he take her back? And if he was such a great boyfriend, why was he flirting with your roommate and why did Vicky let him go?”

“I… don’t know.” I didn’t have any good answers, never having thought all of this through. “I always thought… well that the two of them had just sort of decided they weren’t interested anymore. She says not, though.”

“And what about the guy? Did he take her back?”

‘Um… I think he would have… I mean, I know he would have… but he had to… um, he left campus and… he’s not around any more.”

Tara sat back and crossed her arms. “Well, that sucks. No wonder your friend doesn’t like your roommate. I mean, the guy sounds like a real jerk, but Vicky sounds like a wimp or something. Or maybe she just doesn’t think she deserves to have a ‘great boyfriend.’ You probably just got caught in the middle of her fight with Lee Ann.”

Nikki had said sort of the same thing, now that I thought about it. She had asked if Vicky had self-esteem problems, and we hadn’t pursued the question. Now I really felt that I needed to speak with her. If she was feeling bad about herself, it sure sounded as though I had contributed to that.”

“I think you’re probably right about the guy,” I admitted. “I’ll call her first thing in the morning and talk things out.”

“Yeah, and if she’s hurting over him enough, she’s going to need a good friend to talk to.” She put down her empty ice cream cup. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired. You guys ready for bed?”

Tina and I looked at each other. “We’ll be right up,” she said, and waited until Tara had left.

“So, Vicky is the girlfriend you meant?” Tina asked, lowering her voice so that we wouldn’t be overheard. “About calling, I mean?”

“Yeah, I have no idea what I’m going to do about Maddy and Dinah.”

“What was the fight really about?”

I put up my hands. “It was pretty much as I said, except that I was the boyfriend who had been flirting with Lee Ann… and Vicky was upset about my going along with the dancing thing. She really doesn’t like it when I do girl things.”

Tina twisted her face. “She’s going to have to get used to it, isn’t she?” Then she laughed. “I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t hear you last night,”

“I guess so,” I nodded, still embarrassed about how I had reacted to Dad.

My sister stood up and came over to hug me. “I know this is really hard for you, Marsh, but you really shouldn’t be embarrassed. You’re a girl, and you’re going to be doing girl things and acting girly, more or less. You’re not quite the same as Marsha; I know her – knew her, I guess – better than most people, and I see a difference. I mean, I known you – her – all my life. You’re strong, and I’ve always looked up to you. I know that you’ll be fine.”

“I guess I’m pretty lucky, at least,” I told her, “I can’t even imagine going through all this without somebody close to talk with. And I’m somebody who never thought that having somebody to talk feelings with was important.” Our eyes met. “Thanks, Teen. I’m going to finish my ice cream and I’ll be right up.”

“What do you mean, ‘she’s not coming’?”

I was in the dining room, putting away some of Grandma’s dishes while everybody else was getting ready to go out to a movie, when I heard her raise her voice in the kitchen.

“She’s grounded, Mom,” my mother answered, “and that’s for the entire weekend.”

“Why?! Why are you punishing me? I want to take my family out to a movie, and you’re saying that my eldest grandchild cannot come?”

“It’s not…” Mom protested. Then she sighed in exasperation. “Look, Mom, this is a discipline issue, and it is between Art, Marsha, and me.”

“But I’m affected.”

“Somebody else is always going to be affected, Mom!”

“So why can’t you make it start tomorrow morning, Miriam? What is so serious that she can’t just come to see a movie with us?”

At that point, I had finished putting away the dishes, and left the dining room by the other door; I really didn’t want to listen to Mom and Grandma arguing. Mom wasn’t going to give in, and I can’t say that I really cared all that much. Sure, I really did want to see Princess and the Frog, as I’d heard really good things about it; but I could probably persuade some of my friends to go with me back at school.

Of course, Grandma wasn’t the only one angry: Tina had been outraged on my behalf when I told her why I was grounded.

“You’re being punished for telling the truth? That’s not fair!” she’d whispered as we cleared the dishes after lunch.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I want them to believe the truth, and anyway, I don’t think they’d believe me at this point, so telling the truth is sort of lying, here.”

“What if I told them that I believed you?”

“Then I’d just be in even more trouble for getting you to go along with the ‘hoax’ after they had specifically told me to drop it,” I’d pointed out. “At this point, the easiest thing to do is to leave things alone.”

She hadn’t liked it, and now, when everybody was getting ready to go out, she seemed to be feeling guilty about leaving me behind. “Marsh,” she said, while putting on her coat, “do you want me to stay with you? Maybe we can go to the movie together another time.”

I just hugged her and laughed. “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “Really. Go have a good time. I want to look over the music for Sweeney Todd, and I don’t think anyone is going to enjoy hearing me sing right now.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve got a beautiful voice!”

I lowered my voice to reply. “Marsha had a beautiful voice. I haven’t really even tried singing for real since… since I wound up in her body. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but it probably won’t sound much like what the family expects from her. Besides, this music is kind of hard. I’m going to be hitting a bunch of wrong notes and bad rhythm, and stuff.”

“You want me to coach you?”

I smiled. “Another time. Thanks for the offer.”

“OK,” she said, finally accepting that I meant it.

Mom even came over to me before she walked out, and said, “Marsh, I do hope you understand…”

“I do, Mom,” I assured her. “Have a great time.”

I breathed a sigh of relief when the door finally closed behind them. I really did need ‘alone time’ just now; with the family around, it was impossible simply to sit and think for any length of time without interruptions, except at night. Talking things over with Tina had led only to more questions; what I needed was answers. I needed to understand what was happening with my memory.

While heading back up the guest room for my iPod and Sweeny Todd sheet music, I tried to search my memory for anything that would have to be a ‘Marsha’ memory. I think my biggest fear would be remembering making out with her longtime boyfriend, Dirk. The very idea made me shudder.

But try as I might, I couldn’t positively identify any memories as specifically from Marsha. No memory of her dates, or wearing dresses before midterm break, or anything that only a girl would remember. But did that mean that I didn’t really have any of Marsha’s memories? Or just that I didn’t know what to try to remember? How could I know if I was remembering a memory that I don’t remember remembering before I changed?

Eventually, I gave up and turned to the music. I’d been listening to the recording for a while, so I ventured, Mrs. Lovett’s By The Sea. I had no illusions that – even with Marsha’s vocal cords – I had any shot at one of the leads, but I do like singing Sondheim, and even my usual spot in the chorus would be a lot of fun.

I couldn’t tell if I was doing justice to the song. It’s one of the easiest in the show, so it didn’t me all that long to learn it – or at least well enough to sing it on pitch; projecting, the way a lead would, was another matter. There were real differences in the way my diaphragm felt when I tried for support. If my sewing experience was any hint, I was going to need a lot of coaching to unlock the potential my body was supposed to have. That would have to wait until winter break, I figured.

My next attempt was Green Finch and Linnet Bird, Johanna’s main song. It’s a bit trickier, melodically and, to my surprise, too high for my new voice. So either Marsha – or rather, I – was a mezzo, or I just didn’t know how to coax those high notes out. It didn’t really matter; there’s plenty of work for mezzos in the chorus, but by this point my throat was starting to get a bit sore from the straining, and I decided to stop.

I had one more thing I wanted to do. Something I needed privacy for much more than either puzzling through my memories or experimenting with my voice. Something that harkened back to that conversation I had had with Nikki in the costume room.

I remember her casually picking out costumes and handing them to me, talking as she went; talking about the show, the costumes, things she and Alvin had planned – almost everything but the delicate subject she had intimated we would be discussing. Finally, I’d felt the need to broach it myself.

“Um, Nikki…”

She didn’t say anything, just stopped talking and looked at me, waiting for me to go on.

“You said that we were going to talk about…” I’d paused again, hoping she would interrupt. “I mean, you said we needed to have a private chat…”

She’d just kept looking at me, and I’d finally realized she was going to make me say it. So I took a breath. “I mean, you laughed when I said that I thought… um… female orgasm wasn’t all that special.”

She’d taken the clothing out of my hands and made me sit down.

“You sure you were a boy? You seem really uncomfortable with the subject. I thought boys liked to talk about sex.” She was smiling, but it had really felt like a bit of a dig.

“It’s just… I mean, it’s one thing to talk about sex with other guys, as a guy. You know, if you’re…” I’d sighed uncomfortably. “… if you and your girlfriend are… getting it on… but we didn’t actually go into details. You know…?”

“I know. Alvin and I have discussed this. Well, Marsh, girls do talk about sex in a bit more detail, I think. But the answer you are looking for, I think, is that it should be every bit as pleasurable for a girl as it is for a boy.”

“But then…” I was confused. I was so sure that I had followed her instructions, and yet I hadn’t felt anything particularly great.

“But it’s usually a lot harder for a girl to climax than it is for a boy. On the other hand, we can, or at least some of us can, achieve multiple climaxes in a row.”

“Well, that sounds pretty good.”

“Mm hmm. It just takes practice.”

My face must have fallen at that point, because she’d grinned at me, and added, “There is a shortcut, you know.” I’d perked up, eager to learn this ‘shortcut.’”

“Have you ever heard of a vibrator?” she asked me.

I was back to confused. “You mean, like for sore muscles?”

Her laughter was not mean, but it had been pretty obvious that I’d said something stupid. “Oh, Marsh, I keep forgetting how naïve you can be. I guess a lot of boys don’t know too much about them, but the main – or at least a main – purpose of vibrators is to aid in female masturbation.”

“Oh.” I was really glad that nobody else had been around, because I was horribly embarrassed, and that was just talking with Nikki. “So, I need to buy… a vibrator? I’m not sure I can afford–”

“Well first of all, you might already have one. You don’t – or rather, I should say, Marsha didn’t – have a boyfriend, so there’s a pretty good chance she owned one.”

“Well, how do you know she even… you know…”

“Masturbated? Certainly, there’s a chance she didn’t, but… I think most girls do. It’s harmless and pleasurable, so why not?”

“Oh…” I had stammered, “I guess I’ll just have to search my room. Maybe she hid it in the closet or under some clothes or something.”

“Why don’t you do that?”

So when I got back to my room, I checked my dresser and sewing basket without success, and then realized that I couldn’t see what was on the shelf in the closet, since it was so far above my head. By standing on my desk chair and rooting around in the back, I found my prize. Now it was just a question of finding the right time to try it.

That time had finally come. So it was with a combination of embarrassment and eagerness that I went back upstairs. According to the clock, the family couldn’t possibly be back in less than an hour, assuming that they came right home as soon as the movie was over; chances are, they would go out for ice cream or something.

There was no mirror in our bedroom, so I looked at myself in the one in the bathroom, once again adjusting my clothing to simulate a skimpy skirt and blouse. It didn’t seem to be having quite the same impact on me that it had, previously, although I wasn’t sure if that was due to the circumstances, or just the repetition. I might really have to see if I could somehow justify buying a sexy outfit for real.

I might not have been as turned on as I’d hope, but I was still feeling something, so I went into the bedroom and closed the door. Even though I was alone in the house, having the door closed still felt more private. Then I took off all my clothing and got into bed.

Nikki had suggested a lot of exploration all up and down my body with this new toy, if only to get a feel for how it worked. I probably spent a good half hour stimulating everything from my shoulders to my breasts, to my calves. It was definitely a nice feeling. Finally, I felt that I was ready for the ‘main event.’ I took a deep breath and applied it between my legs. The sensation was a lot stronger than I had expected, and I pulled it away.

I had to experiment a bit with more and less pressure, and different positions, but it started to feel really… nice. The feeling got more and more intense and then suddenly, it hit and I actually climaxed – and nearly fell off the bed in surprise. I suppose I should have expected it, but I hadn’t. Somehow I hadn’t really believed that it was going to happen. And… I was aware that I had actually cried out right at that moment. I was very glad that nobody else was in the house.

But… I was still alone, and I remembered that girls don’t need the recovery time that boys do, so I tried again. Um… and again. As Nikki had said, it was pleasurable, and it didn’t hurt anybody, so why not?

I guess I might have overdone it, just a bit. I was rapidly approaching yet another climax, when I suddenly heard the door open downstairs. I felt the orgasm hit me, and in a panic, forced my mouth shut so that I wouldn’t cry out.

It was very uncomfortable, then, when I heard Tina call me. “Marsh? We brought you some ice cream!”

I was seriously out of breath. I was naked. I was still in the midst of a fairly intense orgasm. And my sister was on her way up to the room!

I managed to get the vibrator turned off, rolled off the bed, and pulled the cover after me. When Tina opened the door, which I had foolishly neglected to lock, I was panting on the floor, but unfortunately not hidden by the bed. She stared at me.

“Marsh, what are you doing?”

“I…” I gasped, “I… I just…”

Then I saw the box that the vibrator had come in, sitting out on the floor. Tina followed my eyes and spotted it, too. My sister is no dummy, and apparently knew a bit more about vibrators than I had, because she quickly closed the door and starting laughing.

I stared at her in outrage, or tried so. I tried to catch my breath, but I couldn’t, because even as the climax left me it was replaced by laughter. I think if Tina had ever caught me like this when I was boy, I would have been really upset, but somehow… somehow…

Well, let’s just say that I am glad to have found something to laugh about because I was a girl.

“Jennifer Marsha Steen!” Mom exclaimed when Dad told her what he’d learned. “You lied to me?”

I went rigid at the accusation. My eyes rapidly scanned the wall of the study behind her while I tried to think of a way to answer the question. Obviously, I hadn’t lied about the experiment or Tyler, but if I claimed I hadn’t, Dad would call me out for lying. I tried to think back to all the things I had told her since break, what with trying to keep it a secret. I must have lied to her about something in that time, I decided, so I cringed and nodded, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

She sighed. “I’m not really sure what we can do to punish you, young lady. You’re grounded for the rest of this weekend, of course, but we can hardly enforce that when you’re back at school. And it’s not as if you seem to be going out a lot, anyway. You do understand how disappointed I am in you, I hope?”

“Yes, Mom.” I deserved that, I guess. I wonder what would have happened if I had told her the truth the first day.

“Did you think it was funny, getting me worried about you like that?”

“No, Mom.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “Do you realize how disappointed I am right now, Marsh?”

I nodded quickly. I knew I had messed up, badly.

Suddenly, she pulled me into her arms. “Honey, I’m sure you didn’t mean to be deceitful, but you really shouldn’t be pulling pranks like this on your parents. Don’t you remember the story of the ‘boy who cried wolf’?”

I murmured, “Mm hmm” over her shoulder.

“Daddy and I are here to help you; please don’t pretend to be really upset when you’re not.”

“Mm hmm.” I said again. Of course, I had been upset – it hadn’t been an act – but I didn’t see any way to make them believe that, now. At least I couldn’t think of a way without somehow getting them to believe in the experiment, and I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to do that, even if I could.

“You’re such a good actress, honey; I don’t want to have to start taking that into consideration the next time you start crying.”

“I understand, Mom,” I told her.

“Good.”

“I’m really, really sorry, Mom.” I pushed myself away from her, reluctantly. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“OK, Princess,” he said, hugging me. Then he kissed the top of my head, and I automatically started to snuggle against his chest, until I realized what I was doing. Eyes wide, I forced myself to wait a few seconds before gently pushing away. He was smiling, and so was Mom, so it appeared that the worst was over.

“I’m going to go spend some time with Tina and Tara,” I ventured, and when they nodded, I fled.

My sister and cousin weren’t in our room when I checked, so I changed from my ‘photography’ dress into a blouse and skirt, while trying to figure out why Dad being affectionate was having that effect on me. It was the second time in as many days that I had turned girly when he cuddled me.

I found Tara and my sister in the TV room, watching Enchanted on DVD. I’d really enjoyed that movie – it was corny, sure, but it was a real movie musical, with a great sense of humor. I’d taken Maddy to see it, back when we were still enjoying being together.

“What was it this time?” Tina asked as I joined them on the coach.

“Well, I’m grounded for the weekend,” I told her with a shrug.

“What did you do?” Tara asked.

“It’s not really important,” I replied, definitely not wanting to push the ‘hoax’ angle any further than Dad already had. Tara stared at me, wide-eyed and admiring.

“Boy, you don’t talk much of a game, but you’re a serious bad girl, aren’t you?”

I gaped at her, while Tina choked with laughter between us.

Tara looked confused. “What? What’s so funny?”

“It’s the idea of Marsh as a ‘bad girl,’” Tina laughed.

“I think you’ve sort of misunderstood something,” I added. “I was grounded for… well, something kind of tame that I would rather not discuss.”

“And what about that guy…?”

“Oh, please. I told you, that was just another misunderstanding. I didn’t do anything.”

“OK…” she said, not looking particularly convinced. It was as if she didn’t want to be convinced. I’d have to find time to ask Tina what Marsha and Tara’s relationship had been like. At least she didn’t pursue the matter.

We watched the movie for a few more minutes before Tara looked at me again, and said, “I just remembered what I wanted to ask you, Marsh. Do you remember a girl named Sarah Harrison?”

The movie had gotten to the part where Giselle sings. “How Does She Know You Love Her?” with random Central Park goers, to Robert’s consternation. It’s one of my favorite scenes, so I wasn’t really paying attention to Tara, but when she mentioned the name, I suddenly remembered a girl I’d known slightly when I was about ten or eleven, so I nodded.

“We were in…” I started to explain, when I suddenly realized where I though I knew her from and my heart skipped a beat. Impossible. But I finished, “um… in something together.”

“Girl Scouts, right?”

“Um… sure,” I agreed, causing Tina to swing around and stare at me.

Tara, of course, was oblivious. “She’s my boyfriend’s big sister,” she explained, “and when he told me they used to live in Rosemont, I asked if they knew you guys, and Sarah said she remembered you. Were you close?”

“Um, not… not all that close,” I muttered, heart pounding. Tina was still staring at me, and I really wanted to talk to her alone, but Tara showed no sign of conveniently leaving the room.

“Well, I think it’s pretty neat,” Tara went on. “I mean, what are the chances that you’d know my boyfriend’s sister from when you were a little girl?”

“Ah… I’m at least as surprised as you are,” I told her. My ability to concentrate on the movie was shot now, and I really, really needed to talk this out. What in the world was happening to me?

I tried watching the movie, forcing myself to be calm. I was not going to do another freak-out and have my parents come down on me again. I was not going to call further attention to myself if I could help it. But I really needed Tara to leave for just a few minutes.

Then I had an idea. “Hey, anybody want a drink?” I asked, suddenly. The other girls nodded, so I ran to the kitchen for a big bottle of soda and three glasses. It took until nearly the end of the movie, and I actually had to use the bathroom before she did, but Tara eventually asked us to pause the movie so she could answer the call of nature.

Tina turned to me as soon as our cousin was out of the room. “Girl Scouts?”

“All I know,” I answered, “is that when Tara mentioned this girl’s name, I suddenly had this memory of her wearing a Girl Scout uniform, and there were a lot of other girls around wearing the uniform, too.”

“And you…?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was just hanging out with them for some reason, you know, as a guy. Maybe it was some kind of combined Boy Scout / Girl Scout thing. I mean, I was in Boy Scouts. But what if it was a Girl Scout meeting and I was one of them? What if I’m remembering part of Marsha’s life? What if I have some of her memories?”

“That would be… kind of weird, wouldn’t it?” Then she tilted her head, trying to think it out. “Wait, don’t you have some of her memories? Isn’t that how you’re able to sew?”

“No, all I have is her reflexes – I think. All my actual memories are my own, as far as I know. At least they have been. Memories of being Marshall. It’s going to be weird if I also remember parts of her life. What if her memories start replacing my own?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“And I keep acting all girly around Dad. I don’t like this, Teen.”

“I don’t know what to say, Marsh.”

I looked at her carefully. I was almost afraid to ask her, but… “Teen… you know… if her memories do all take over… you’d have Marsha back. You wouldn’t have to deal with… well, me. Wouldn’t that makes things easier for you?”

She looked away and started fidgeting. “That’s… I’m not sure how to answer that, Marsh. Marshall. I mean, I was really upset when you started acting all strange, and said you were a boy, and all, but… I mean, you’re my si– my sibling. I don’t want to lose you. Sure, I’d love to have Marsha back, but…” She turned to face me. “Marsh, please don’t put me on the spot like this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“I don’t either, Teen. I don’t either.”

When I got there, the only ones in the kitchen were Grandma and Aunt Jackie.

“Oh!” I said, surprised. “Where’s–”

“The girls went upstairs, Marsha,” Grandma said. “They said they wanted to start getting the room ready.” As I turned to follow them, she asked, “Did everything work out with your parents?”

“Oh. Sure…” I replied. “I apologized and they just want to make sure I talk to Mom more, that’s all.”

“You should be doing that anyway, honey,” she added.

“Yes. You’re right, I should,” I said, inching my way to the door.

“Tell Tara I need her down here,” Aunt Jackie called after me,

“I will,” I shouted over my shoulder. With no further comments or advice coming, I ran up the stairs. I had dodged a bullet with my parents, and I was in no mood to let something slip to other adult relatives that might put me back into jeopardy.

When I got to our bedroom, my sister and cousin were making up the cot. That just reminded me that Tina and I were going to share. I really wasn’t looking forward to that. It was one thing to be pressed up close to a girl all night, but my sister? That was just… gross.

“How’s it going?” I greeted them as I entered and sat on my bed.

“What happened with Mom and Dad?” Tina asked urgently, as she looked up from tucking in her blanket.

I shrugged. “Not a problem. Daddy said that I just had to make sure to call Mom, like every other day. He and Mom decided that I was just freaking out because Jared wanted to have sex with me.”

Tara’s eyes bulged. “I thought you said you weren’t seeing anybody.”

“I’m not. We were just meeting for a soda to get acquainted.”

“He asked for sex on the first date?! Gross.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t a date. Just a get-together so we could be comfortable kissing each other.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Tara looked totally confused. “You’re kissing a boy and he wants to have sex with you and you don’t count that? That’s more action than half my friends are getting.”

“Wait…” I said, finally realizing how it all sounded. “No, there’s nothing between us. We have to kiss in the play, that’s all. And we were kind of awkward, and we were trying to get comfortable with each other – as friends.”

She looked disappointed. “Oh. Then I’m back to ‘gross’ if you were just trying to get to be friends.”

“Yeah.” Then I remembered. “Oh, Aunt Jackie wants you downstairs.”

“Oh, for… I mean, it’s not like I get to spend with time you guys every week.” She sighed. “I’ll be right back – I hope.”

Tina waited until she was out of earshot. “So, what else didn’t you want her to hear?”

“Not much. I mean, I told them I used to be a boy, and Daddy decided that I must have some reason I wished I were. I didn’t see any point in correcting him.”

“Who decided?”

“Daddy. Why?”

“It’s just… really strange to hear you calling him that, now,” she answered slowly.

“Why is it–?” I started, then realized what I had said and clapped my hand to my mouth.

“Yeah, you’ve been calling him, ‘Dad’ when it was just the two of us. I guess you must have decided that if you were staying this way–”

“No,” I said, just a bit surprised at myself. “I didn’t realize I was doing it. I guess it’s just that when Daddy – I mean, ‘Dad’ – put his arms around me when I got upset, I really kind of felt girly, and… Wow.”

“Because he held you?”

“Yeah, it felt, you know, really kind of comfortable and… he sort of stroked my hair, and…” I shivered a bit. “I hadn’t really intended to, you know, girl up so much.”

“Well, is it a real problem? After all, you’re a girl now for keeps, right? So why not?”

“Because it doesn’t feel like me. It feels like I’m surrendering to ‘Marsha.’”

“Like the way you’re sitting?”

I looked down. To my surprise, instead of hanging my legs over the side of the bed, I had them tucked under me. Hurriedly, I straightened out and let them hang in front of me. And then deliberately moved my knees a few inches apart, for good measure. Given the length of my skirt, it wasn’t actually immodest.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, Marsh. Your feet don’t reach the ground and you’ve always been more comfortable – I mean, Marsha was always more comfortable – sitting the way you just were.”

“Yeah, well I don’t usually do that. Am I picking up any more of… her… habits?”

“How should I know?” Tina asked, impatiently. “I know Marsha very well, and I don’t really know your habits much at all. How am I supposed to know which ones you never did? Besides, why does it really matter?”

I bit my lip. “Maybe it doesn’t,” I admitted. Unless I do manage to change back and find myself acting girly still, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. “It just bothers me that I didn’t realize I was doing them. It’s almost as though Marsha is still in here, somewhere, and is trying to get her body back when I’m not paying attention.”

“Whoooo…” Tina said in a spooky tone and then laughed. “Like Invasion of the Zombie Catchers!”

“Body Snatchers,” I corrected her, also laughing.

“What did I miss?” asked Tara, coming back into the room while we were laughing. Mom wanted to talk to me about what I was going to wear tomorrow. What are you guys wearing?”

“Mom bought us new matching dresses just for the pictures,” Tina told her, to my surprise. “They’re probably still in her room.”

“You guys are so lucky,” Tara exclaimed. “I wish I had a sister. Why couldn’t Joey have been a girl?” And then we wouldn’t explain why we laughed yet again.

Sleeping in the same bed as my sister was strange. I’d slept this close to girls before, but that was when I was a guy, and we were being intimate. It’s just not the same. We started sort of back to back, with me facing the wall and curling my arms in front of me. Sometime in the middle of the night, though, I woke up to find an arm wrapped around me, with Tina essentially spooning me. It took me several minutes to move her arm, because I didn’t want to wake her up and explain. Once I was free, I climbed out of the bed and watched her sprawl face down in the middle, and I spent the next half hour gently nudging her to her side so that I could get back into bed. By that time, I was so tired that I fell back into a dead sleep; I don’t think I would have noticed if she had bear-hugged me.

The next morning, all nine of us piled into two cars to go to the photo studio in the local mall, Tina and I now wearing matching pink dresses, and having spent over an hour fixing our makeup. Tina had to help me with mine, of course; while I had by now achieved a reasonable level of competence, I had nowhere near what proficiency she had gained after two years of practice. I had, however, developed awareness from watching my roommates that Tina’s skills were not quite up to what was expected of a girl my age. Between us, we did manage something reasonable.

Grandma had booked a fairly extensive shoot. We started with Tina, me, and our parents; then Tara and her family, Joey all alone as the only grandson, followed by the three of us granddaughters and then all of the grandchildren. The photographers posed us at least two different ways for each grouping. When Mom was called up to pose with her mother and brother, she sent me to retrieve Dad, who had walked away from us for a while, but would be needed for the final all-family shots.

I found him in the unused front studio, talking on his cell phone. As I reached him, I overheard him say, “… mirror… No, ‘Strangers in the Mirror,’” and froze. Who might he be talking to?

“You’re sure?” he continued after a pause, not having noticed me come in. Then, “I see… yes, that’s certainly possible… I’d appreciate that… OK, I’ll tell her… Yeah, thanks, Rick. ‘Bye.”

I backed out of the studio and waited until I heard him hang up the phone. Then I knocked on the open door. “Daddy? Mom sent me. We need you again.”

He turned. “Oh, hi, Princess. I was just about to come back.”

After we had finished the shoot, getting two poses with the full family, Dad suddenly announced. “I haven’t seen my older daughter for some time, because of school. Would the rest of you mind if I took her for ice cream while we’re waiting for the pictures to be ready?”

Of course, nobody else minded; I suspect that most of them were going to start gift shopping in the meantime, but I was a bit surprised. It was only 11:30; that seemed kind of early for ice cream. Obviously, Dad wanted to talk to me, and maybe I would find out what his phone call was about.

“This is kind of an odd lunch,” I commented, as we sat down, him with a cone and me with a sundae.

“Just keeping up our tradition, Princess,” he smiled. “Are you enjoying your break?”

“Aside from my little freak out yesterday, you mean?”

“Aside from that,” he agreed. He still seemed pretty casual, so I figured I couldn’t be in too much trouble.

“Well, it’s nice to have some time off,” I started. “And I’m enjoying the time with Tara and Tina.” The three of us had talked for almost two hours before falling asleep last night. Or more precisely, the two of them had talked, with me offering rare comments. Tara was apparently going through something of a boy-crazy stage, and wasn’t all that eager to talk about too many other subjects. Not having a boyfriend or even a crush had made anything I had to say much less interesting to her.

“That’s good,” Dad said, interrupting my short reverie. “Marsha,” he continued, sounding just a bit uncomfortable, “I spoke with Rick Peterson, an old classmate of mine who is in the Dean’s office up at Piques…”

So that’s whom he had been talking to. Maybe he hadn’t fooled himself last night as thoroughly as I had assumed.

“He told me that there was indeed no time-travel experiment on campus.” At my look, he hurriedly added, “Not that I really expected there to be, but I just wanted to see if there was anything like it. There wasn’t, of course.”

I nodded. The administration’s concealing of the experiment, assuming that was what had happened, was finally working in my favor.

“On the other hand, he did tell me about a very interesting article in the local paper…”

I inhaled sharply in surprise, and he raised his eyebrows. “I thought you might know something about it. Some Piques students making the same claims you had about a time travel experiment? He said that they had been trying to locate the students responsible for this… hoax. I take it you know who they are?”

I nodded slowly, tensing up just a bit.

“Were you involved in this article?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I… met them only afterwards.”

“Mm hmm. These students… would they be the ‘Strangers in the Mirror’?”

I nodded.

“And was yesterday’s ‘freak out’ related to this group and the contents of the article?”

I nodded again.

Dad sighed. “Marsha, I’m a bit disappointed in you. You really upset your mother. Did you think that this little hoax was funny?”

I shook my head.

“And did that… that boy really proposition you like that?”

“Yes, he did,” I said. “And I really did… overreact. I was really upset about that.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “But,” I admitted, “It had nothing to do with the Strangers in the Mirror thing.”

“Oh. OK.”

We sat silently eating our ice cream for a moment. I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this.

Suddenly he grinned. “Princess, that is about the lamest hoax I have ever heard of! I’m glad you weren’t involved in thinking it up, but seriously. It wasn’t funny the first time they did it, and bringing it home to spring on your mother didn’t help. Tell me, did this group tell you what to say? Are they the ones who came up with the ‘missing cousin’ bit?”

“No…”

“If you want to have a good hoax, I’d say that the first rule is that you not make your mother think you’re cracking up, OK?”

I nodded, thinking fast. He had found yet another way to misinterpret the facts, but who could blame him? I had already known that the ‘hoax’ angle was the one being put around by the Administration.

“And the next step is make sure it’s actually funny, at least in hindsight. I’ll tell you about a great hoax I heard about when your mother and I were at Piques. I don’t know where this happened, but apparently some college had a Civil War cannon mostly buried in the middle of a lawn. Those things are really heavy, but one morning the school woke up to find a hole there instead, with an enormous pile of dirt. The cannon was gone, but there was no sign of any heavy equipment that would have been needed to carry it away.”

“Wow.”

“Any idea on how they might have done it?” he asked with a smile.

I thought about it for a while. “Um, could they have brought in large panels of something to protect the grass and driven a crane over them?”

“Good thought, but no. Panels like that would have left an impression. The grass around the hole was completely undisturbed.”

“Then I have no idea,” I admitted.

Dad chuckled. “Nor did anyone else, until they brought in the groundskeepers to put the dirt back into the hole. The cannon had never been moved. It was under the pile of dirt all along!”

We both laughed at that.

“You see?” he said, finishing up his cone. “That’s a great hoax. It got people very worried – a cannon like that is very valuable and probably irreplaceable – but ultimately, there was no harm done, except that a lot of people felt very foolish. Your time machine story, on the other hand, fails because all it does it make people think that the ones making the claim are crazy or lying.”

I nodded again. If he wanted to view this as a hoax, I didn’t see any way to prove him wrong, even if I wanted to. For all I knew, there might not be any evidence that the experiment had happened, other than the memories of a bunch of students. It all depended on what Eric found.

“So you owe your mother an apology,” he concluded. I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off. “Yes, I know you apologized last night, but I think your mother deserves the full explanation. I’ll tell her what I found out and then you can apologize again, this time. OK?”

I agreed, relieved. I had been afraid for a moment that he was going to make me tell Mom that it was a hoax, which would have put me in a really bad spot. If I did as he asked, I would be lying, and if I didn’t, he would think that I was lying. I was still sort of lying by omission, but that wasn’t as bad. At least that’s what I told myself.

“By the way, I do still expect you to follow the terms I set out for you. I want you calling your mother at least every other day. She worries about you, and wants to be sure that you tell her if you’re upset.”

I nodded.

“And I don’t want to hear another word about this, OK?”

“OK.”

“Good.” He leaned across the table and kissed me on the forehead. “Finish your ice cream and let’s get back to the family.”