Switcheroo

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Sylvie couldn’t help it. She was safely in front of him on the stairs, and he couldn’t see the tear that slid out from her eye as she descended to the bottom of the steps.

  Marla was throwing some underpants and a pair of Lycra bicycle shorts into a duffel bag when she heard the knock at the door. She quickly kicked the bag under the bed. She went into the living room, checked through the peephole, and opened the door. Bob stood there, a big grin on his face and a bottle of champagne in his hand, just as if he didn’t have a nice wife to go home to. Marla was a bit stiff when he took her into his arms.

  “Guess what?” Bob asked as he moved her into the living room, closing the door behind him. Marla had noticed that he didn’t like to be seen outside with her. “My wife is leaving town for a couple of weeks. And you know what that means?” he yodeled, then nuzzled her neck.

  “That she’s on to us?” Marla asked.

  “No, no.” He kissed her tenderly. Marla held her lips firm. “She’s going to visit her sister. But for us it means I don’t have to run home at night.” He fetched two juice glasses—all she had—from the kitchenette. “You know how you always ask me to stay over? Well…I’m yours.”

  How come she’d never noticed before that he was…arrogant. She was always doing the waiting, he was always giving her his valuable time. But now she smiled. “Wow!” Marla said. “You’re kidding! Boy, Venus must be in retrograde, because I have to leave town too.”

  “What?” Bob asked. He’d been playing with the cork of the champagne bottle and at that moment it popped. The bubbly erupted all over his hands.

  “Momma just called to say Grammie’s got the cramp again. It’s the damp from the river that runs right by the Home. Shouldn’t have built a home for the aged in Lowood, I said. Anyway, I’ve got to go rub her.”

  Bob’s face dropped. Marla tried to keep hers serious. It was hard to do since her grammie actually lived in Vegas where she worked in a casino as floor security. She watched Bob as he stood there, his dripping bottle of champagne in his hands. “When will you be back?” he asked, sounding like a boy.

  Marla shrugged. “As soon as Grammie feels better. Probably no time at all. But I do have to leave right away. Like, tonight.”

  “Tonight? You’re kidding!” Bob tried to grin. He put his arm around her. “Come on. You don’t want to waste Dom Perignon, do you? And maybe we have time for a quickie.”

  “Oh no,” Marla said, already high on newfound power. “I never drink and drive.”

  13

  Sylvie woke up choking and realized two things: she hadn’t died under the knife and she was in a stark white recovery room. The surgery was over, then. But something, not the bandages wrapped around her head, not the cold compress on her eyes was…smelling. Was…worse. It was stinking. Was she infected already? Had her face turned into oozing pus?

  Panicked, Sylvie pulled the wet compress off her eyes. Marla’s lineless face was directly over hers. “Well, hi!” she said cheerfully. “Looking bad. Feeling good?” She didn’t wait for Sylvie to answer. “Wow! You look like my sister Brianna after she had one of her, uh, ‘little discussions’ with Tony. But it’s okay. She’s got a restraining order now.” Sylvie noticed that Marla was wafting a bandage or some sort of gauze pad around her face. That was the thing that smelled like…

  “What are you doing?” Sylvie croaked.

  “Aromatherapy,” Marla told her. “Herbal oils to promote healing.”

  “God. Get it away! It smells like rotting bananas and something—dead,” Sylvie gasped. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” She managed to sit up and grab a basin in time, just before she vomited into it. She hoped she wasn’t breaking any stitches. She patted her eyes, then her swollen cheeks. Her face didn’t actually hurt; it felt numb. She lifted her head up from the nastiness in the bowl.

  “Great!” Marla said, as cheerful as a bigot at a Klan convention. “It’s working. You’re expelling toxins and poisons already.”

  Sylvie wiped her mouth on the cold compress and wondered if she had enough strength simply to strangle her rival. “Marla, get rid of that rag right now,” she said weakly. Was the girl trying to be helpful or trying to murder her? It was hard to tell.

  “Hey! I used this when my mother had her second hysterectomy,” Marla said, sounding hurt. “It made all the difference.”

  “Her second hysterectomy?” Sylvie asked weakly, falling back against the pillow. She handed the basin to Marla. “Who needs two?”

  “Exactly. If she’d used aromatherapy the first time, she wouldn’t have needed a second one. That, plus if she hadn’t gone to that Filipino doctor. He said he could do the first operation without a scalpel. Come on! You know, just between us, I think my mother’s still vain about her body, and she’s already forty-seven, bless her heart.” Marla stopped, just before Sylvia was going to try to kill her, and rang for the nurse. “Personally, I think vanity in old people is very self-affirming.”

  Sylvie looked at Marla Molensky through the slits of her eyes. She wondered if the girl sometimes knew what she seemed to be doing so unconsciously. And it seemed as if she lied—a lot. “What mother? I thought you said your mother abandoned you in Santa’s lap.”

  “Oh,” Marla said. Her face registered fear for only a moment. She seemed to be regrouping mentally. “Well, she did. For a while. But then she did come back. Meanwhile, Santa asked if he could meet me later, so she reported him to security.”

  “I’m confused,” Sylvie said, feeling dizzy.

  “Think how I felt!” Marla agreed. “Listen, you look really pale. Maybe you better rest. Oh! Here comes the nurse.”

  A woman in green scrubs had entered the room, holding more cold compresses on a tray. “What is that stench?” the nurse asked. She looked at Sylvie as if she were guilty. “Your daughter better leave the room while I clean you up a little,” the nurse said. Sylvie groaned. Marla, lucky for her, vanished somewhere beyond the whiteness of Sylvie’s bandaged head.

  Sylvie was sitting in an examining chair. Marla was pacing the room while Dr. Hinkle was cutting off the now stiff bandages. “I don’t want you to be disappointed. It’s going to take time for the swelling to go down,” Dr. Hinkle explained.

  “She didn’t use enough ice packs. I warned her,” Marla interjected.

  “It’s going to take a while for the discoloration to go away,” the doctor told Sylvie, ignoring Marla. “Remember, what you’re going to see today is not the end product,” he reassured Sylvie. She felt so nervous that she almost wished to put off this moment, though she’d spent three days waiting for it.

  “Will it gross me out?” Marla asked. “Because I can’t even stand to see a little birdie hurt. You can imagine what big old bloody face stitches would do to me.”

  “Your little sister is very supportive,” Dr. Hinkle said dryly as he removed the last bandage. He gently touched Sylvie’s cheek, then examined the incisions behind both ears. He surveyed her face for a few moments while Sylvie held her breath. “You did very well,” Dr. Hinkle said, nodding. “Not much swelling.”

  “He’s lying! Get your money back,” Marla told Sylvie. “You look like a side of raw beef.”

  The doctor held up a mirror, but Sylvie turned her head. “I don’t want to look if it’s that bad,” she whispered, ducking away.

  “Sibling rivalry can affect recovery,” the doctor said. “Maybe your sister should go home. Anyway, it’s not that bad. I do great work. I completely re-did each of my wives.”

  In two more days the swelling on Sylvie’s face had gone down considerably. The bruises had already lightened from purple to blue. She was up and walking around, though she felt a little self-conscious at first, her head swathed in a sort of Eskimo parka hood, all white gauze. But there were a lot of women at the spa who were wearing worse, including protective cones. A few women also had plastic protectors over their noses, indicating rhinoplasty, and some—whose faces looked just fine—walked with the telltale stiffness that bruis
es after liposuction caused. So Sylvie fit right in.

  She also found there was an unexpected bonus to the operation—she’d lost her appetite since anesthesia. She’d been living on Jell-O and consommé, and she’d already dropped four pounds.

  While Sylvie had thus far been recuperating, she and Marla had started what Sylvie thought of as “the counterintelligence program” to ensure the success of the switcheroo. They’d begun by giving one another general notes about their lives; friends, bureau contents, brand of tampon they used. Now they sat in the bedroom they shared, the sliding glass doors open to the cool air. Outside, fat women in sweatpants were running (or trying to) behind a lithe young female drill sergeant. Ugh! Next week Sylvie would have to start that regimen. She might as well enjoy relaxing now, while she could. She was propped up in bed while Marla sat in a chair beside her, a notepad in her lap, a pink pen with a heart on it in her hand. Sylvie couldn’t help but notice that Marla had the awkward handwriting of a fourth-grader. To her own surprise, Sylvie had actually come to like the girl during this week. She was flighty, but there was a sweetness to her that Sylvie—despite herself—responded to. “Okay,” she said now. “Bob likes all the hangers in his closet going the same way.”

  “Is that because he was in the army?” Marla asked.

  “No. It’s because he’s anal retentive.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about sex yet,” Marla said, and before Sylvie could respond there was a knock at the door. Marla got up and went to open it. Sylvie was surprised to see her mother standing there.

  “Oh my god! Sylvie?…What did that doctor do to you?” Mildred cried out to Marla. She put both hands up to her own face. “I wonder if he could do it to me?” she added. Before Marla could answer, Mildred, in a state of shock, grabbed the hallway service cart for support. None was forthcoming; it merely rolled away. Mildred tried to steady herself, but the cart kept moving and Mildred slowly slid past the door, from vertical to horizontal. From her bed Sylvie yelled out to her mother.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  Mildred pulled herself up off the floor and entered the room. She was hypnotized by Marla’s face and hadn’t taken her eyes off it, even when she had been lowered to the hallway carpet. “No problem,” Mildred told Marla, her eyes still riveted. “How do you talk without moving your lips? And who did your eyes?”

  “God,” Marla said.

  “Dr. Hinkle,” Sylvie answered at the same time.

  At the sound of Sylvie’s voice, Mildred looked away from Marla. “Oh my goodness!” she said as she finally realized there were two of them. She looked from face to face as her own face turned pallid. Then she sank onto the chair Marla had just vacated, sitting on both Marla’s notebook and her heart-shaped pen. Sylvie winced, but Mildred didn’t seem to feel anything. Sylvie remembered her own shock when she’d first seen Marla and tried to help her mother get over it. “Mom, what are you doing here?” Sylvie asked gently.

  It took Mildred a few moments of silence to sort things out. She stared at her bandaged daughter. Then she stared at Marla. “Oh my god!” she said, realization dawning. “She’s the bookkeeper—”

  “Yes, Mom. This is Bob’s squeeze.”

  “But, but…how? Are we talking Stepford wives here? Is this a clone? I didn’t know they’d moved up from sheep.”

  “How did you find me?” Sylvie wanted to know.

  “Bob told me that cock-and-bull story about Ellen and an emergency skin peel. Come on! Only a son-in-law would buy it. So I called your sister. By the way, she told me she’d cover for you with Bob and wanted to know how you enjoyed being forty. Anyway, I got your car serial number, looked up your theft locator, and used Bob’s computer to find you,” Mildred stared at Sylvie, stared at Marla, and then looked back at her daughter. “I haven’t been watching Murder, She Wrote all these years for nothing,” she added. Then she looked back at Marla. “Extraordinary,” she breathed.

  Sylvie smiled. Now, at last, her mother would understand. “Where are my manners? You two haven’t even met yet. Marla, this is my mom. Mom, Marla.”

  “Your mother named you Marla?” Mildred asked and looked back to Sylvie. “Perfect name for a…bookkeeper.”

  “Say, hey! I’m not a bookkeeper,” Marla protested. “I’m a licensed massage therapist, with a specialty in reflexology.”

  “Do you mean you rub men professionally?” Mildred asked, her nostrils flaring.

  Marla crossed her arms and made a face that passed—on her—for stern. “Why do people think that massage therapy isn’t a totally legitimate medical service?”

  Mildred took in the girl, from the tip of her blonde head, past her adorable shorty top, her flat, exposed midriff, down her long legs in tiny shorts, to her pink, pedicured toes, exposed by her high-heeled mules. “Gee, I can’t imagine why,” Mildred said dryly. “Blind prejudice, I guess.” She shook her head. “So, your day job is stealing other women’s husbands,” Mildred said. “Good luck with this one. He’ll never leave the lot.”

  Marla bridled. “Firstly, I didn’t know he was married. Second, I’m not a thief. That thing that happened with the dress at Target was a mistake. I meant to pay for it. And fourth, when I met Bobby, I just didn’t know your daughter was such a giver.”

  “She is a giver,” Mildred agreed. “Look how she gave all her wrinkles away.” Mildred stared at her daughter’s face. “It’s amazing,” she said. “You do look a decade younger. Did it hurt a lot?”

  “Not at all,” Sylvie said and smiled.

  “Did it cost a lot?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Sylvie’s smile widened. “But I charged it. Bob won’t get the bill for a month.”

  Mildred snorted, looked back at Marla, and returned her eyes to Sylvie’s face. “It is amazing,” she admitted. “Not just the surgery, but the resemblance. No wonder it unhinged you.” She took her daughter’s hand. “Thank god for your coping skills.”

  Sylvie smiled at her mother. Marla smiled at Mildred too, though Mildred paid her no mind. It didn’t deter Marla. Kittenish, she sat down on the floor at the foot of what was now Mildred’s chair. “You are so lucky to have a mother like Mom,” she said to Sylvie.

  Mildred snorted. “And your mother would be…?”

  Marla’s pretty face registered that look of pain.

  “Framed by the cops,” she said earnestly. “There’s, like, no way she could have embezzled that money. She wasn’t even good at math.”

  Mildred’s eyes opened so wide Sylvie was afraid they’d need Dr. Hinkle for reconstruction if they opened any wider. “Mom, can we take a walk?” Sylvie asked, attempting to get out of bed. Mildred helped her daughter tenderly, despite shaking her head in disapproval. “I’m supposed to keep my blood circulating,” Sylvie told Mildred. “No embolisms for this girl.”

  “No. Save them for Bob,” Mildred agreed.

  Marla jumped up. “I’ll help you,” she offered.

  “Why don’t you fetch some water for that plant instead?” Mildred suggested to Marla. “It looks as if it needs it.” She gestured toward the tired corn plant in the corner.

  “Oh, I’m not very good with that kind of thing,” Marla admitted, missing Mildred’s point. “I guess I’m just a green dumb.”

  “I think my mom wants time with me,” Sylvie said gently.

  “Oh. Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll just study my notes,” Marla told them, sounding more than a little crushed, and looking at the equally crushed note pad in the seat Mildred had just vacated. “Sure. I’ll review my notes alone so I know where everything of Bobby’s—”

  “Bob’s,” Sylvie corrected.

  “Oh. Right. So I know where everything of Bob’s is, except for those missing cuff links.” She winked at Mildred. “Mom, can I expect you for Thanksgiving? It’s my favorite holiday. And I can’t wait to cook for Bob.”

  “You’re letting her do Thanksgiving?” Mildred asked Sylvie, obviously appalled. Sylvie nodded. “We’re not coming,” Mildred told Ma
rla emphatically.

  Sylvie led Mildred out of the room and into the hall. Women were walking back and forth slowly, some holding onto the grab rails. They all had cone heads. As they passed, Sylvie overheard two talking: “This one was free because he didn’t pull enough the first time,” a middle-aged woman was explaining to an older one. “Hinkle’s good that way. He corrects. Last time he didn’t take out enough skin to make a wallet.”

  “I know what you mean,” the other said. “I told him ‘I don’t want to look rested, goddamnit, I want to look young.’”

  Mildred, sighing heavily, shook her unencumbered head. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I know it’s no good,” Mildred told Sylvie. “You’re scaring me. Why can’t you be like your sister, Ellen? She’s accepted the fact that she’s growing older and never going to have sex again. Just as I have.”

  “You’re scaring me, Mom.”

  “No. You’re scaring me. What is this, Sylvie? I admit, the girl’s a dead ringer for you. It’s shocking. It…it…obliterates you. But what are you trying for? A ménage à trois? Because I simply can’t condone—”

  “Mom, please. I’ve got everything under control,” Sylvie said, and then explained the entire plan—how it could work, and if it did how she’d get everything she wanted: Bob making love to her and being made a fool of. “Then I’ll be able to dump him,” she said. “Or maybe I won’t; I’ll just dump Marla.”

  “Sylvie, it was the inside, not the outside, of your head Dr. Hinkle should have operated on. Aren’t you scared about letting another woman into your home? Into your bed? How can you trust her? A shoplifter, the daughter of an embezzler? Have you made her take a blood test? You’ve lost your mind, and next you’ll lose your marriage.”

  “I don’t have it now. I know it’s a family tradition, Mother, but I’m not going to be celibate for the rest of my life.”