Body Jumping

by Brenda Lowder

  “Let me in!”

  Through the glass dividing us she packs a lot of hate in her narrowed eyes. “Never again,” she shouts, loud enough for me to hear. She tells the driver to go and he does, leaving with the only person he’d driven here, or so he must think.

  Afraid that Beefy might still want to chase me, I ignore the pain in my bare feet and run out of the parking lot of Evie’s apartment building and to the main road. Peachtree is deserted at this time of night. It’s dark and the air is still hot and heavy with the typical Atlanta humidity. I turn left and run along the road for a while, taking first a left, then a right, then another left down side streets, trying to confuse any would-be pursuers.

  When the stitch in my side is stabbing me harder than I can take and my lungs feel like they’re going to burst, I stop running. My feet are throbbing and bleeding from a cut or two I took along the way. I look around at the crumbling concrete, the caked-on dirt, the chunks of paper and plastic littering the street. I’m in unfamiliar territory, but having lived in this city all my life, I know roughly where I am.

  Panting hard past my sore, almost-strangled throat, I lean against the side of a red-brick building to catch my breath. There’s no one on the darkened street. This should comfort me, but instead I find it unsettling to be completely alone, on the street at night, not even in my own body.

  I put my hands in Evie’s shallow pockets. I have no wallet, no cell phone, no money.

  There’s only one place to go when there’s really no hope.

  Home.

  Chapter Eight

  I’m dreaming. Aiden and I are having dinner downtown, somewhere seedy, somewhere crumbling, but it doesn’t matter because I’m warm and loved and happy to be anywhere with him.

  I awake to rough hands pulling me from my dreams.

  I struggle, thrash about, try to connect with the face of the giant who has somehow lifted me off my snuggly bed and dangled me in the air. I open my eyes and realize I’m fighting Barclay, my new-as-of-three-weeks-ago roommate. And he’s winning.

  “Barclay! Stop! It’s me, Julianne!” I try to plant my feet on the floor near my bed, but I’m still being held by my arms a few inches off it.

  “You’d better explain what you’re doing here, druggie, because if you think all you white bitches look alike, then you are wrong. Dead wrong. I can tell y’all apart. And you ain’t no uptight librarian with a wardrobe deficiency.”

  “I’ll explain. Barclay, I will! Just let me down.” I knock his hands off, and he releases me. I land on the floor and stay there, choosing to scoot back and lean against the bed frame. Last night when I finally got home after walking until three in the morning, I was careful not to wake Barclay. I got the extra key out of the fake rock in the planter out front and crashed into bed, telling myself I’d figure out what to tell my new-ish roommate later.

  Well, it was later.

  What could I say to Barclay that would convince him? It wasn’t like we had a long history of friendship between us. In fact, I’d seen very little of him in the three weeks since he’d moved in. I also get the feeling that he doesn’t like me very much. The poorly dressed librarian comment kind of clinches it.

  But at least I don’t have to be afraid of Barclay like I am of Evie’s drug dealer or landlord or whoever he was. Despite his ample height and girth, Barclay’s not as intimidating as he looks. He grew up with three sisters so he fights like a girl.

  Barclay crosses his arms and glares down at me. “Well?” He taps his foot, and I almost feel like laughing at him. He’s hilariously cute in his bubble-pattern purple silk robe.

  “Barclay, I am Julianne.”

  He wags a finger at me. “Uh-unh. No, you aren’t.” He steps to me and tries to haul me up by my arm. I go limp and stick myself to the floor and keep talking.

  “I know I don’t look like Julianne! But I am! I swear. I switched bodies with somebody else last night!”

  Barclay gets a strange look on his face and lets go of my arm.

  “That’s a real crazy-ass thing to say.” But he pulls his robe tighter and winds his finger in the air for me to go on.

  I pull my new tangled blonde hair out of my face and wrap my hand in it. “I know it is. But it’s true.”

  He cocks his head to the side and then slides the chair out from my desk. He sits heavily on it and waves his hand toward me. “Out with it.”

  “Out with what?” I say.

  “Prove it to me.” When I look at him blankly, he says, “Bitch, I’ve seen this movie before. You’ve got to have some secret insider knowledge before I’m going to believe that Julianne just up and switched bodies with a crack ho.”

  I cast my eyes around the room, hoping for inspiration. “Um, you have three sisters.”

  He shakes his head. “Mmhmm. That’s something everybody knows. Try again.”

  I let go of my hair and wrap my arms around my knees. I barely know the guy. I really wish we’d had some sort of all-night, pigging-out, bonding-moment movie marathon sometime in the last three weeks where we’d traded our deepest, darkest secrets. But we hadn’t.

  I had nothing. In my two-bedroom, two-bathroom house we didn’t even have to share a bathroom. I was coming up empty on Barclay wiki knowledge.

  “You work at Thrifty Fabulous on Peach Blossom Parkway.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Public information. Anyone could have told you.”

  I search my memory, but I can’t think of a single thing I know about Barclay that any person in the whole entire world wouldn’t be able to guess just by looking at him. What experiences have I had with him?

  “Yesterday morning when you were in the kitchen making toast you spread orange marmalade on top and then put the spoon on the counter. Later you put your plate and the spoon in the dishwasher, but you never wiped the counter. You left a sticky orange circle that I had to wipe up after you.”

  He stares at me with dark, piercing eyes. “Okay.” He nods and claps his hands, suddenly sporting an enormous smile. “I believe you. Welcome home, Julianne.”

  “Wait, what?” Disbelief shoots me to my feet. “You believe me?”

  “Hell, yes, I believe you. That’s some boring-ass shit for somebody to go making up. And you’re just the kind of nit-picky, shriveled-up librarian to be all harboring a sticky-orange-circle grudge just for me making my damn toast!”

  “Wow.” I cross my arms. Searing prickles of moisture start up behind my eyes. Am I really so awful? Am I really so unlovable that my new roommate hates me before even getting to know me?

  Apparently so.

  I burst into tears. And not just a gentle trickle of cosmopolitan disillusionment. I give myself over to the soul-sucking emptiness that a complete misplacement of time and space and identity can engender.

  I throw myself onto my bed and bury my face in my pillow. It still smells like me and my Mediterranean-breeze-scented fabric softener, so much better than Evie’s bed with its unwashed blankets and sheets.

  Barclay wheels my desk chair over to the side of my bed and pats my hair awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  His voice is light, ephemeral, but I want to grab it and hold on and believe him. “What part?”

  “The…um…shriveled-up part? I mean, you have to be old to be actually shriveled-up and you’re only, what? Thirty-five?”

  “I’m twenty-nine, you son of a bitch!” I explode at him.

  He laughs. “I was just messin’ with you.” He laughs again, and suddenly I can picture myself from his viewpoint. A crazy, drug-thin stranger offended by what he’d said about her other body. I start laughing, too, and throw my pillow at him. He catches it and throws it back.

  “So how’d it happen?” Barclay asks when our semi-hysterical laughter levels out.

  My stomach gurgles, and I realize how famished I am. When was the last time Evie ate? It may have been days ago. She may be on a strictly pill-based diet. And that was going to end right now.

  “Do yo
u mind if I tell you over breakfast? I’m starving. And I need a shower.”

  “You really do.”

  After a shower, during which I marvel at my overly thin, lithe form, I make a big breakfast for Barclay and me and fill him in while we wait for the Belgian waffles to be ready. Because of the special circumstances of my body-switching, Barclay decides to call in sick to work. He calls it taking a Freaky Friday holiday, even though it’s Saturday.

  “So what happened to your body after the car accident?”

  “It’s in a coma. In the hospital. With my sister watching over it.”

  Barclay gasps and puts his hand to his mouth. “Your estranged sister you’ve always envied?”

  “What?”

  He waves a hand at me. “Oh, I’ve heard you on the phone. Jealous, much?” He simpers smugly and sprinkles mini chocolate chips on his hot waffle.

  Since he has obviously never met Laurel, he has no idea what he’s talking about. “She’s my twin, by the way, so we’re not that different so there’s not much to be jealous of, number one. And number two, we’re not estranged, we just don’t have that much to talk about.” I spread a pat of butter on my hot waffle and pour some more batter onto the sizzling waffle iron to make another for Barclay.

  “Mmhmm.” He tilts his chin and the look he gives me says loud and clear that I’m defensive. He’s right. As grateful as I am to have someone believe me about this unbelievable body-hopping situation I’m in, I feel the anger bubbling up inside me at his know-it-all superiority and pre-judgment.

  “Really, we’re fine. We have a good relationship.”

  “And that’s why you get that snobby tone when she calls. And change the subject every time she mentions her husband and kids. And say that tacky-ass phrase ‘how nice for you!’ through your nose when anybody hearing you knows you’re really saying, ‘I don’t care how great your life is, I want to cut you, bitch!’”

  I drop the spatula I was using to pry the waffle out. “That’s not true!”

  “Which part?”

  “Any of it! I love my sister. We have a very…good-ish relationship.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “We do.”

  He doesn’t even bother to answer me and instead gives me his chin-tilting, eye-bugging, lip-tightening look that says, Bitch, I’m not believing you.

  “I think I’ll make some bacon and eggs too,” I say.

  “You should.” Barclay waves his sticky fork in my direction. “You should put some meat on that girl’s bones. She looks like she hasn’t had a good meal in a year.”

  “She looked worse before I jumped into her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I kind of rounded her out a little. And my color got better.”

  Barclay studies me with his fork in the air. “What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I take the eggs and bacon out of the fridge and get two frying pans heating up on the stove. I busy myself making more breakfast before voicing what’s making me quake inside.

  “Barclay, what if Evie’s already dead?”

  He pauses with his now waffle-laden fork halfway to his mouth. “Greg and Natasha aren’t dead.”

  “I know, but…” I swallow. “Before I went into her, her eyes were closed. She was so still.” I remember the quiet, the emptiness, the grayness. I shudder. Am I the only thing—soul—holding Evie up? When I leave, as I’m sure I must, will she crumple and die like the old man, Mr. Applebaum, did?

  “She was in the middle of an overdose. A probably deadly overdose, according to her. And then she was me.” I crack the eggs into one pan and get the bacon started in the other.

  Barclay munches on his mouthful of waffle before answering. “If Evie was dead, then there wasn’t anything you could have done about it. No ambulance would have gotten there in time. And if she’s not dead, then she’s gonna be fine like Greg and Natasha are, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Absolutely.” He looks at me speculatively. “You have an overdeveloped sense of guilt.”

  “Uh-huh.” I scramble the eggs and go back to the fridge for some shredded cheese to sprinkle on top. “But then maybe it’s not so much guilt as just knowing the blame I deserve.”

  Barclay gives me an inscrutable look, and I turn the bacon, thinking.

  After a minute he says, “Your hair is terrible.”

  “I know.” I raise the hand I’m not flipping bacon with to the tangled mess. “I’ll use the whole bottle of detangler after breakfast.”

  “You should let me cut it too.”

  I smile. This is a huge overture of friendship. “Oh, wow. That would be great. You do hair?”

  “Sure do. Been giving my sisters their best haircuts since I was seven. Never even had to come out to my parents. By the time I thought about telling them, they told me they’d be disappointed if I wasn’t because the whole of my life wouldn’t have made sense to them.”

  I am not sure that makes sense to me, but I get the general gist. “A new haircut would be nice. I’m thinking that I want to leave Evie’s body better off than when I found it, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, I get you. This girl needs work.” He takes a drink of orange juice. “She’s got the raw goods, though.” He looks at Evie’s body like a realtor evaluating a property for sale. “Beautiful blue eyes, nice figure if it weren’t so thin, full lips. Gorgeous nose.” He sets his glass down. “Do you think it’s hers?”

  “Whose else would it be?” Did he think individual parts got body jumped?

  He gives an impatient snort. “Duh, she could have had work done.”

  “Oh, right.” I frown.

  “You said she’s got money, right?”

  “I’m sure Evie doesn’t have money—you should have seen her apartment. But her sister does. I’m guessing that Greg has the money, and Natasha married him for it.” I remember Natasha riding off without me last night, abandoning me to the dirty apartment and scary guy. Does Greg know how unfeeling his wife is? Or does she hide that side of herself from him? Or is she otherwise kind and generous and only her druggie sister drains her of compassion? I guess it’s possible. Certainly Laurel and I have different demands, expectations, and deep, seething pits full of blame for each other than we have for other people.

  “I think it’s her nose,” I decide aloud. “I don’t think Natasha and Evie grew up with money. I do think Natasha’s enjoying it now, though, and doesn’t want her flunkie little sister ruining her cushy situation.”

  Barclay pushes his breakfast to the side. He leans his elbow on the counter and cups his chin in his hand. “Julianne, honey. I have something I want to say to you that I have wanted to say since the first moment I laid eyes on you, and it still holds true even though you’re in a whole ’nother body.”

  I finish plating the eggs and bacon and look up at him. “What’s that?”

  “Makeover.”

  Chapter Nine

  My hair looks fabulous after Barclay cuts it—and healthier, too, since he also insists on doing a clear glaze treatment for shine. It’s medium length and glossy blonde and as beautiful as Natasha’s.

  After my haircut, Barclay offers to do my makeup, and I let him. Evie’s coloring is different than mine, and I wouldn’t know where to start. That and I was never all that great at knowing what looked good on me, even in my own body. Barclay once toyed with the idea of being a cosmetologist and tells me he did the makeup for all three of his sisters when they competed in pageants. And one of them even won, to the disappointment of the other two. So I pay attention to what he uses, how he applies it and where. In the mirror I’m amazed at my transformation and tell him so.

  He fusses with a strand near my ear. “Hmm…well, it’s not perfect, but you’ll do. When we’re out shopping we’ll pick up some eyeshadow and bronzer better suited to your new skin tone.”

  “Shopping? Thanks, Barclay, but I don’t have time to go shopping. I have to go back to th
e hospital and try to get into my body again.”

  He bugs his eyes at me. “I did not take off work today just to watch you climb back into your boring-ass body. Besides, you need clothes. Desperately.”

  I blink at him. “I can’t keep Evie’s body, Barclay. I have to give it back. As soon as I can. This isn’t some joyride vacation from myself I’m taking.”

  “You said it yourself—she’s probably dead. She doesn’t need her body anymore and you do.”

  “I have a body!” I protest. “I just need to figure out how to get back into it.”

  He crosses his arms. “Did you ever think maybe there’s a reason you can’t get back in?”

  “Of course I did! I know the reason. It’s because I don’t know how. I need to figure it out, keep trying, and stop touching other people.” I play with the blush brush. He snatches it away from me.

  “No, I mean a real reason. A reason like God or Buddha or Morgan Freeman wants you to learn a real-ass lesson before you’re allowed to go home, E.T.”

  “Okay, you are really mixing your references.”

  He tilts his head at me and starts tidying the makeup away in his sparkly black makeup bag. “You know what I mean. This doesn’t happen every day. Maybe. There’s. A. Reason.”

  I exhale heavily. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Mmhmm. Thank you.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to put things right. I owe it to Evie to restore her to her life.”

  “You don’t owe that girl anything. She was throwing away her life like an empty gum wrapper. You were just there to pick it up.”