Body Jumping

by Brenda Lowder

  “What? Ew. We did none of those things.”

  He folds his arms. “Hmm. I thought you said y’all did it.”

  “I didn’t say we did it. You’re the one saying we did it.” A pause. “Okay, we did it. But we didn’t do any of that gross stuff you’re talking about.”

  He sighs dramatically. “Okay. Go on then. Tell me all about your boring-ass librarian vanilla sex.”

  “Maybe later,” I say, meaning never. “I’ve got to change and head over to the hospital.”

  “Okay, but don’t go succeeding in switchin’ back bodies today!”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because your sex life is finally getting good!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Visiting the hospital is starting to become a religious experience for me. For one, I go there with vast frequency. Two, it’s something that really makes me think about life, the universe, and well, everything. And three, you might be able to say that when I’m there, I’m having an out-of-body experience.

  Ha. I know, bad joke.

  Today I’m hoping to run into Laurel. Usually I try to avoid her because it just makes me sad to see her. She’s always there, worried about me, making me feel super guilty for enjoying my life as Evie and not actually wanting to live my life as Julianne, and then I get freaked out and worried because Laurel has cancer, and how are we going to deal? What about the kids? What about Brent? What about me?

  And then I berate myself for my rampant selfishness because really, what about Laurel? These weeks of being outside of Laurel’s life rather than in it have shown me how much of a relationship we did have as sisters. We have a rapport I discounted until I felt the lack of it in Natasha and Evie’s relationship. Comparatively speaking, Laurel and I are downright close. And she needs me. And it’s so hard to be needed. So I avoid. And I feel guilty. And I feel like avoiding again and thus, downward spiral.

  But in the shower this morning it occurs to me that, although we’re technically the same age since we’re twins, Laurel is the older sister, by two and a half minutes, and also by personality. She absolutely fits the mold of the oldest child in the birth order books I’ve read. As the older sister, Laurel might have some insight into Natasha and how I might be able to broker a peace between that set of sisters in lieu of solving the problems in my own.

  When I get to Julianne’s room, I’m disappointed to find Laurel isn’t there. I take Julianne’s hand and feel the familiar revulsion of holding onto a dead thing. She can’t be alive because I’m out here, living. I should pity my empty shell…but I don’t. It’s too much me. Instead I look at her like the toenails I clipped or the strands of hair on my brush or the dead skin cells I lose every day that become dust on my bookshelf. Dead parts of what used to be me.

  Most of her wounds from the accident are healed now. I don’t even see the bruising around her eyes anymore. Her legs are still in casts, but even those must be healing on the inside. She looks better, but her color remains gray and lifeless. I should feel guilty about this because I’m sure if I were inside her, where I ought to be, she’d have more color, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to care.

  “Oh, hello!” A middle-aged man wearing a white doctor’s coat and a showy, jovial attitude comes into the room. I haven’t seen him before, but that’s not noteworthy. I try not to stick around long enough to talk to Julianne’s doctors. Laurel handles all of that. Just another thing to be grateful to her for.

  “Hello,” I answer.

  “Is Mrs. Davidson coming back today?”

  “I don’t know when Laurel’s returning. Do you want me to give her a message?”

  “Are you part of the family?”

  “I’m her sister.”

  “Oh.” He looks at the used-to-be me on the bed.

  “I’m the other sister,” I clarify.

  “I apologize. I didn’t realize there was another sister.”

  “No problem. A lot of people think that.” Because it’s technically true.

  “Right. Well, I know it’s a tough call you all have to make, but when you see her, would you please remind her we need the decision soon?”

  “Decision?”

  His eyes narrow, and I can tell he thinks he’s talking to the least intelligent of the sisters. “About your sister’s future.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He clasps his hands in front of him. I imagine he’s accessing his bedside manner training. “The future of Julianne’s care. Transferring to Grady Hospital like your sister’s insurance company is requesting. And my recommendation that, due to declining organ function, we discontinue life support in her case.”

  The news hits me hard. Declining organ function? My body is dying without me. Makes sense. There’s nobody in there.

  And a transfer to Grady Hospital is the insurance company looking to save money. My belly squirms. I didn’t think about the money it was taking to keep my old body going. Who’s going to pay what the insurance doesn’t cover? It’s not like I have a bunch of savings. And it’s not like Laurel has money to spare. Or that I’d want her to spend it this way, even if she did.

  For all those reasons, Laurel will have to take me off life support.

  Then what will happen?

  My body would die, of course.

  But what would happen to the real me? Will I stay in Evie’s body or finally be evicted? Will my soul then go to wherever it was supposed to go when I died? It’s not like I have a claim on this body since birth like Evie does. Or did. Or hopefully still does. I don’t know if Evie’s in here waiting to repo her body or not. From her letter, I think she doubts it. I have no answers, but my gut tells me I’m only in a rental property, and if my home gets seized I’m going to be a soul on the streets.

  I swallow hard. “I’ll tell her,” I say to the doctor. “We’ll decide.” He leaves, and I pull up a chair to wait for Laurel.

  At first I don’t say anything. What can I say? And who would I say it to? I’m sitting in a room, alone, except for a body I know for a fact is not presently occupied. But after a couple of minutes, I start talking to it—her—like she’s someone who needs advice.

  “Okay, kid. You’re going to have to figure out what to do. No one is coming for you. There’s no help to be had. It’s all on you. You need to wake up. I don’t care if you don’t like your life. I don’t care if you think you’re sad and pathetic and that everyone in the world is doing a better job with their lives than you are.” I’m sounding a lot like Barclay right now, but that’s probably a good thing. The man is deceptively wise. “You need to quit playing around and own up to who you are. You may not like who you are—I get that. But that means you’re the only one who can change you. Not Evie. Not Laurel. Not Aiden. You. Just you. So you’re going to have to wake your ass up, get over thinking that you’re the one who killed your mom, and be the kind of sister Laurel needs you to be.”

  My body doesn’t answer, of course, but my little speech has galvanized me. I’ve got to start making the tough choices to find a way back to myself.

  I have to quit my job.

  I can’t keep working with Aiden. It wouldn’t be fair to him. This half-love affair with Evie’s body and my soul is not the stuff of true love. If I really have feelings for him, if I really love him, then the last thing I should do is selfishly take what he’ll give under false pretenses. What kind of coward am I to think this is any kind of relationship?

  I can’t tell him. I’m not that kind of brave. And also there’s no way he’d believe me. How could he? He doesn’t even know me.

  No, the right thing to do is to quit my job so I won’t see him anymore and get on with trying to save Evie and Laurel, however I can.

  “Hi, Evie.” Laurel comes into the room and for once I’m not startled to find her here.

  “Hi, Laurel. Um, you just missed the doctor.”

  “Oh.” Laurel’s face betrays no hint that she’s guessed what he said.

  “He wa
nted me to remind you that you have to make up your mind about what you’re going to do about pulling the plug on your sister or getting her transferred.” I don’t think about my phrasing. I should have. She bursts into tears.

  “Oh, Laurel. I’m so sorry.” I lead her over to her usual chair and help her sit.

  “It’s not your fault.” It is. It really is, and she has no idea.

  I hand her a tissue. “What are you going to do?”

  What’s going to happen to me?

  “I really don’t know.” Laurel blows her nose and looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “What should I do?”

  I cringe. I don’t want to answer this. What do I want for myself? For Laurel? For everyone in my life?

  “Can you give her a week?”

  Laurel nods.

  “I think that’s what I’d do.”

  It will have to be enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  If I wasn’t trying hard before to get out of Evie’s body and into my old one, I am now. A primal instinct deep inside me says I won’t be able to live without my body. Maybe it’s superstition talking, or maybe it’s the truth. Either way, I feel like I have to move along or risk complete existential obliteration.

  I’m having a rough day.

  It’s time for action.

  Now that I’ve made the decision to cut Aiden loose from whatever tenuous attachment we have to each other, I’m anxious for it to be done. I don’t know how to go about quitting my job since the last thing I want to do is call him up and talk. I decide to type a letter of resignation to leave at the restaurant.

  At home I find that Barclay has gone to work. I’m relieved I won’t have to endure any theatrics, judgment, or stirring rhetoric calling for me to live my life according to his most recent whims. I dash off a notice about my leaving with the appropriate effective dates and hurry to the restaurant before Aiden’s due to be there.

  I make it.

  When I get to Simple Sauce, the kitchen crew is setting up, but none of the servers are there yet. I keep my head down and spend fewer than sixty seconds in the place, pausing only to slide my letter under Aiden’s office door.

  Returning home takes a lot longer than getting there did. I take my time, passing up the bus stop in favor of walking to the next one. I don’t think I’m trying to get Aiden to run into me, but I keep picturing what I’d say if he did. None of it makes any sense. There’s no way for us to be together. I’m in a rent-a-body and my own body has a short lease on life right now. I have less than nothing to offer him, and certainly no future to speak of anywhere.

  Dealing with my letter to Aiden has made me think about Evie’s original letter to me—along with the engagement ring. I take it from my top dresser drawer and feel the weight of it in my hand. An idea as to who the ring belongs to poked along the edges of my mind on my walk to the bus stop and the ride home. After a little internet research and a long talk on the phone, certain puzzle pieces lock into place for me. I can see the whole picture. I put my plan together and pray that what I do will matter.

  It’s high time to strike a blow for redemption.

  ∞∞∞

  When Natasha opens her front door, I stick my foot in it so she can’t immediately close it on me. I wore my thickest shoes for just this purpose.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Evangeline?”

  “I wanted to see you,” I say honestly.

  She looks down her nose at me. “I don’t want to be seen.”

  “I have to give you something.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.” She tries to close the door, but my shoe holds and my foot is only a little bit medievally tortured.

  I pull the diamond engagement ring from my pocket and hold it out to her. The diamond Evie left for me in her first letter. Natasha’s mouth drops open, and she lets go of the door. It swings wide, and she steps fully into the doorway. She takes the ring from my hand carefully.

  “You still have it.” There’s wonder in her voice—and what sounds like a little gratitude.

  “Yes. I’m so sorry I made Devin take it.” I’d had a hunch and I’d put it together after a call to Greg Applebaum’s mom/Natasha’s mother-in-law. Greg’s brother Devin, the strip-club-frequenting black sheep of the family, had stolen his mother’s ring and given it to Evie. It’s one of the things his dying father—me—had forgiven him for. “Please tell your mother-in-law anything you need to in order to explain why it was missing. Including that it was all my fault.”

  Evie must have talked Devin into stealing it so she could hock it for the money she owed her drug dealer. I wonder why she hadn’t sold it, hadn’t gotten the cash for it. Maybe that’s when she stole the strip club money instead. Greg’s mom knew that Evie was involved and had instigated Devin’s taking it. Natasha was embarrassed about it—that was obvious. It was also a lot of the reason she was horrible to Evie. And why Greg’s brother Devin needed forgiving. Maybe if I hadn’t been in Greg’s father’s body after he died, no one would have been there to forgive Devin. And it would’ve been Evie’s fault that he’d died with that bad blood still between them.

  Natasha nods as if confirming it all.

  I’d done my best to give Natasha what she needed to fix things in her life. Truths. Now I want to give her some well-intentioned lies.

  “Nat, I know you don’t like for me to talk about the future, but I’ve got to tell you this.”

  A cloud passes over her pretty features, but she looks more willing to listen to me than she ever has before, so I press on.

  “When I look at the future, I see you and Greg really happy. I see a baby, maybe two, and a good life with you working together and supporting each other. I see you being kind and loving and happier than I’ve ever known you to be. The future holds everything you want. You just need to reach out and grab it.”

  Her expression softens, and her eyes fill with tears. I step away from the door and turn to go.

  “Evie, wait.”

  I turn around.

  She’s standing there gaping at me, and I can tell she doesn’t know what to do. I wonder if Evie would know or if this is one of the many reasons that I’m here, because I do. I hug her tightly. After a moment, she bends her rigid frame and hugs me back, and I feel that there are years of healing here, in this moment of forgiveness, and a new, fragile bond of love being built.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It’s Monday. I hate Mondays.

  I snuggle deeper into my nest of pillows and blankets and think about not getting up today. I’ve gotten nowhere, and it’s day three of my seven remaining days before Laurel and the hospital take me off life support.

  I helped Natasha and Evie’s relationship by returning the ring and smoothing things over there, but besides that, I’m coming up empty. I visited my body yesterday and nothing happened. Again. Really nothing, because I didn’t even run into Laurel.

  Laurel.

  What can I do to help Laurel? I don’t think there’s anything I can do. Not as I am. Not living in Evie’s body.

  So although I didn’t have the time to be lazy and do nothing, that’s exactly what I did on Sunday. But time is speeding by, and I’m afraid that very soon, I’m going to be gone.

  I haven’t talked to Aiden. He’s called three times, but I haven’t answered and deleted the voicemails without listening to them. He hasn’t tried again. Three strikes and I am definitely out. He must have accepted my breakup with the restaurant as well as he accepted my breakup with him. It makes sense, I tell myself, even though my ego is wounded. We were never even that together. And I was never a great waitress.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Barclay says when I drag my feet into the brightly lit kitchen for breakfast. Despite the cheery words, his voice is somber. Since I told him on Saturday that I’ve got a week until Laurel pulls the plug on my body, Barclay has been acting like we’re counting down to my funeral. Sometimes he gets a weepy expression on his face when he looks at me and then bur
sts out into a dirge.

  It’s startling, that’s what it is.

  “Good morning.”

  Barclay’s sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of orange juice. “So.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you up to making my breakfast?”

  I’m not sick. I’m just dying. Maybe. “Yes, Barclay. I’m up to making your breakfast.”

  He claps his hands. “Okay, great, because I might not have too many of these left.”

  At my narrowed gaze he makes a hangdog face. “Sorry.”

  I shake my head and shrug. “It’s okay.”

  He perks up. “Great! Then Belgian waffles, please. With chocolate chips. And bacon.”

  “Coming right up.” I don’t even give him a hard time about his cholesterol. As he said, I might not have many of these left.

  I get the bacon frying in the pan and am making the waffle batter when there’s a knock on the door. Barclay, who has been staring at me cooking like he’s watching the Food Network, shrieks and then clutches his chest.

  “What was that? Are you dead now? Julianne! Julianne!”

  “Barclay, that was the door. Calm down.” I turn off the burner because I really worry about Barclay sometimes and go answer the door.

  And I have to look down.

  “Um…hi,” I say to the little person on my front step.

  “Can I come in?” Jacob asks. My heart stutters a beat at the sight of Aiden’s mini-me.

  “Sure,” I answer after a beat. He steps forward. “Wait, is it appropriate?” I ask him, looking around for his dad, who is nowhere to be seen.

  “Is it more appropriate to leave me out here?” He raises an eyebrow at me and manages to look exactly like his father.

  “Good point.” I open the door wide.

  “What brings you here today, Jacob?”

  “Miss Evie, can we talk a minute?”

  I start to have a bit of a melty heart for this polite little boy that has nothing to do with his attractive father. “Of course—have a seat.”