NotMelinda and Other Francess
Winter break was proving to be interminable. Melinda wondered if an urban, apartment-dwelling person could get cabin fever, and she decided not to risk it. She looked online for nearby movie theatres, and found one that had rather agreeable prices and she could catch features that weren't available in the newer theatres anymore. The brunette had hopped on the Blue Line at UIC-Halsted, taking the train to the Logan Square stop.

She had gotten a large Coca Cola and small popcorn, settling down for the first movie and relishing the theatre's near-emptiness during the daytime. Two hours later, though, and she had regretted downing the entire soft drink. As soon as the closing credits began to roll, she high-tailed it to the restroom.

The hand dryer was broken in the bathroom. This complaint came from a woman with wet handprints on her jeans, who sought out the Assistant Manager to report it. On their operating budget, Francess thought, moviegoers were lucky the toilet wasn't a hole in the floor. After calling in a service request with the manufacturer, she found a role of brown paper towels in the supply closet and took them into the women's restroom. She set it on top of the hand dryer and taped a sign there, too.

'Out of Order. Fixing Soon! We Heart Trees!'

Maybe it would stave off lectures from those people who wore Earth Shoes, and wanted to outlaw phone books, holiday wrapping paper, and takeout menus.

While at the sinks, she fidgeted with her hair. Francess wanted to dye it again. The black was fading into ordinary brown. She wound her ponytail into a twist and made a bun on the back of her head, examining herself from each side. Did she look managerial? How about collegiate? In thinking about taking a theatre class, Francess also remembered a business card from Victoria she'd kept. The famous actress thought she could be a model. It made a little sense; Francess thought most models looked kind-of weird. Perhaps she could ask Victoria if she had any stage presence.

Melinda came out of one of the stalls after flushing; she had used the toe of her boot to push down on the handle. Public bathrooms were germ-ridden, that's all there was to it. Her jacket slung over her arm, she approached the sink with rolled up sleeves. She pumped the soap dispenser twice, wrinkling her nose at the gross, viscous substance that plopped into her open palm.

After washing her hands, the brunette approached the hand dryer, and that's when she spotted the other girl hanging up the homemade sign. "Excuse me," she muttered, brushing past the girl to get to the rough, scratchy paper towels that she'd have to make do with. That's when she felt as if the room were shifting, and she put one palm up against the tiled wall to steady herself.

"What the..."

"Hey... ow."

Francess felt like she finally got the meaning of the word 'brainstew'. In her head, it felt exactly like a giant wooden spoon was stirring things around. The dizziness wasn't painful, but lurching into the towel dispenser was. Its metal crank dug into her arm. That was gonna leave a mark. She reached down to rub the red spot, but all the sudden, it didn't hurt any longer.

In movies, startled people were always dropping things when they were shocked. Francess had always considered that something of a cliche, especially if it shattered. Bonus points for slo-mo. But looking herself directly in the eye was a teacup-shattering moment. A jacket slipped off her arm and landed on the moist floor. For a second, she thought she'd gone out-of-body, but the Other Francess was upright and very much awake.

She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a scream.

Melinda watched as her jacket slipped to the floor, about to reprimand the girl until she realized that it was her. She was looking at herself, and she was also a lot taller than she usually was. She turned jerkily toward the mirror, her eyes (but they weren't her eyes) narrowing. She turned back to herself -- that was beginning to get confusing -- and grabbed her arm. "Give it back!" Of course, Melinda was the type of person to lay blame on the easiest target.

But she did know that she had put on thirty-five dollar underwear that day, and she wasn't going to let some strange girl walk off with it. Even if she was also wearing her body.

"Give what back?" Fran's voice, which was not her voice, rose in a shriek. She jerked her arm free. Whatever was going on, it was feeling a lot like being the youngest sibling, and getting blamed for things that weren't her fault. "You're the one who stole my body! How did you do that? Oh god, I'm gonna pass out." Preemptively, she touched her forehead, only it didn't really feel like she was gonna pass out. That was just the usual response her body had to freakiness. Only this one wasn't hers.

She looked in the mirror. She was short. It was like being in a funhouse where the mirrors shrank you down to pint-size. "I need to sit down!" Francess chewed her borrowed lip. The only seats were toilet seats, and no thank you. She was strictly an Employee Restroom type of girl. She leaned against the sink and stared at Other Francess.

"Steal your body? You stole mine!" Melinda brushed her hair back, but found that it was already pulled back into a ponytail. "I like my body just fine, thank you very much." She paced around the bathroom, ignoring the girl...herself, but it wasn't herself. She clapped one hand against the side of her temple. "First I'm a high school student, now this." The brunette -- well, they were both brunettes but Melinda was such a self-centered sort that she hadn't even noticed the other girl's attributes until she was inhabiting her body -- spun around and pointed an admonishing finger.

"I didn't do this. I only wanted to kill some time by watching movies, and then I don't know, go out for awhile and meet new people. This was not what I had in mind, this is..." She couldn't think of a word that properly encapsulated all that this was.

As she glanced back at NotMelinda, she remembered the bracelet on her wrist and dove in, grabbing NotMelinda's arm and wrenching the jewelry off of it. "And that's mine."

"Oh yeah? Well... that's mine!" Francess reached over and snatched the nametag off the imposter's uniform. Francess Penn, Assistant Manager. It was plastic, but she had worked a heck of a lot harder for it than WhatsHerName probably worked for that tacky bracelet. Afterwards, she felt a little petty and sheepish, but the nametag was the single thing linking herself to the nebulous concept of identity right now, and she clung to it like a life raft.

"I didn't take your body," she said, and the voice was so oddly not hers, except in intonation. It sent a shiver down her spine. "Not on purpose, anyway. You bumped into me. I just wanted to give you some paper towels." A second later she rushed to add, "And I didn't do the high school thing, either! I, too, was victimized."

"Oh, you saw through my ruse," Melinda said dryly. "I did all this just to steal your nametag." She paused for a minute, a confused expression on her face, before lifting her arm and sniffing it. "I smell like artificial butter. You smell like artificial butter." That was another thing: would her roommates even let her in the apartment, not recognizing her? What about her stuff? Thank god she was on winter break. 'I missed the assignment because someone else has my body' was a pretty lame excuse.

She leaned against the sink, crossing her arms. "Say I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, we're still in a predicament. Living situation, and work...no way am I working here!"

Francess blanched. "You have to show up at work! I'm an Assistant Manager! And... it's better to smell like artificial butter than department-store perfume. All of them." Twisting her fingers together, she tried to ward off a rising tide of panic. While the stranger worried about her apartment and belongings, Fran began to think about Avery and Connor and her parents. Oh, god. Oh, god, what if Miss High Society ran into her vampire Frequent Date Partner?!

"Give me my phone!" she said, sticking her hand out. "I need to make a call."

Okay, that one hit home. Melinda threw up her hands. "Where do you keep it?" She wasn't about go feeling up some stranger's body, even if she was in it at the time. Then she thought of NotMelinda searching for the phone, and shrugged. "Okay, screw it." She reached a tentative hand into a pocket, was glad when she hit on target. The brunette pulled out the cell and handed it off.

"Do you know someone who can fix this?," she asked hopefully. The truth was, she wasn't well-off and if NotMelinda spent a day walking around in her discount outlet shoes, she'd find that out quickly. It was all appearances.

"Don't say... 'screw it' in my body," Francess pleaded awkwardly, and she halfway wanted to pump some soap into her palm and scrub out her own mouth. Her eyes widened as other terrifying possibilities occurred to her. "And don't do that in it, either! It's my body, and it's my--" Don't say virginity! "Just don't do anything freaky until we get this figured out." She wet her lips and stared at the phone. Did she know anyone who could help them? No... But maybe Avery did. He worked at a new age shop, didn't he?

Francess opened the cell and thumbed a text message to the vampire. 'SOS- Don't freak out. Weird thing happened. Switched bodies w/ snobby girl! Help!' She pressed send and held onto the phone. "I texted someone. He might know some people. Wiccan ones." The accuracy of that statement was questionable, but it was the best she could do under pressured circumstances.

"Okay, okay. I won't say 'screw it' and I won't screw anyone, either." Melinda paused. "Sorry." Wait, why was she apologizing? A bell rang in her head, and she straightened, pushing herself away from the sink. "Hey, I know Wiccan people, too. Well, Wiccan person. Woman. Whatever, I know her, and she works at this store downtown. Maybe she can help." She glanced down at herself for the first time. It wasn't horrible, but it was a bit like being in a rental when your own car, that was familiar and broken in, was in the shop.

"Oh, and when you're in my body, be careful because..." She glanced around the restroom, ascertaining that they were alone. "Well, I can move things with my mind, and I own a few breakables. So, you know...be aware."

Fran's jaw dropped. "You have telekinesis? Like Stephen King's Carrie?!" It hadn't quite sunk in yet that, no, she now had telekinesis. But with an awed look at her new hands (as if that was where Melinda's power was stored), her mind made an attempt to comprehend it. She hadn't even known that power was real, but considering the modern world, it wasn't such a stunner. She swallowed and gave Other Francess a nervous look. "Then... there's something I should tell you, too. I have out-of-body experiences. You know, like, when I sleep. It's called astral projection," she babbled, "Except that's technically incorrect and it's etheric projection, but nobody knows what that means. And nobody knows! About me, I mean, except Avery. And Nathan, but you shouldn't talk to him, because one of these days, he's going to eat you. Me. Probably anyway."

Melinda took her unintentionally borrowed hair out of its ponytail and shook it out, checking herself in the mirror. "Yeah, sure, like Carrie, except I've never killed anyone. Well, not yet at least." She glanced back at NotMelinda. "That's sort of a joke." She leaned in close to the reflective glass, looking at herself from different angles. Avery, now why did that sound familiar? And then she remembered, the other night at Jimmy John's. She snapped her fingers in recognition. "Avery. I met him. He knows Grace."

She finally turned away from the mirror. "A lot of vampires walking around these days, huh? And I assume this Nathan's one, as well? Unless you mean 'eat you' in an entirely different sense, which I don't even want to think about so we'll stop that train of thought right there."

Well, she wasn't about to jump ship twice. Melinda just wouldn't sleep.

Francess watched the stranger fiddle with her hair. Her hair. She reached up to touch the locks attached to her current scalp. The innuendo about Nathan was enough to make her face turn bright red. "I don't personally know Grace, but Nathan's just... no. He's the evil kind of vampire. Avery's my significant someone." A current of jealousy shot through her unexpectedly. What if he didn't get the text? What if Other Francess ran into him on the street, and he swept her up into a new! improved! romantic embrace and kissed her? Oh, she would just about die if that happened. It was the kind of lingering thought girls couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard they tried.

"Is there anyone I should know about?" Deep breaths... deep breaths. "Like a boyfriend, or a girlfriend?" She really knew nothing about this person's life. What if she was some kind of criminal, like a shoplifter, and the police hunted her down and dragged her off to the pokey? "And what's your name?"

Melinda crossed her arms defensively. "Well..." And then she blushed, and the sensation startled her. She hardly ever blushed. "That person I mentioned before." She tapped her foot in a nervous fidget. "It's not a relationship or anything. Not even close. Just a...a friend, you know...friend-type thing." Averting her gaze, Melinda rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "Grace, okay? Don't judge me. You don't know..." She trailed off, realizing she was protesting far too much.

"My name's Melinda. I didn't catch yours, you kinda took the name tag away before I could get a good look at it."

Oh, boy. Ohhhh, boy. Not because Grace was a girl, but because Grace was a regular vampire, and the kind of person who fired explosives at high school prom, which was the only time she ever came face to face with her... or a version of her, anyway. Gulp. Francess held it up. "I'm Fran." Since they were sharing bodies, it seemed fair to be on a nickname basis. "Nice to meet you." It was an uncomfortable statement, considering. "Any minute now, the manager's gonna barge in here wondering why it's taking so long. You should say you're sick and need to go home. But don't use cramps for an excuse. It never works."

"Some people call me Mel," she replied, shrugging. "Maybe I'll tell him this polyester shirt's making me sick. You could get a lawsuit out of it," Melinda joked. She decided to express some small token of goodwill. "If you're worried about it, I can...work the rest of the day." She waved a hand vaguely. "I'm sure I'd figure out the mechanics of it after awhile. Annnd...I would feel...bad if you got fired, okay?"

Francess contemplated it for a moment, but quickly came to the conclusion that she (and her job) was better off if Melinda called it quits before disaster struck. Payroll paperwork was due today. "No," she said, shaking her head, "Say you've got a flu coming on. It'll buy us a few days." The loss of wages would bruise her bank account, but getting fired would do more damage. "This is more important in the cosmic scheme. I'll go out the front door and we can figure it out when you clock out. Oh! My locker is number 8. My stuff's in there."

She bent down to pick up the jacket, a sleeve of which was soggy from the dripping sink pipes. "Sorry. I'll get it dry-cleaned."

Melinda eyed the jacket, then shrugged. "It's okay. I bought it at a consignment shop, it only looks expensive. The dry cleaning bill would probably cost more." She reached for it gingerly, removing her own belongings from the pockets. "Just so you know, I live next to the UIC campus. I'm a grad student there, business major. I'm on break now, though, so don't worry about it too much."

She gestured to the door. "Could we possibly get out of here? The public bathroom smell is getting to me."

"It's 2000 Flushes. The smell, I mean." Francess nodded ascent to leaving, wishing she had an exciting tale to tell of her life, but this job was it, and Melinda had made her feelings on movie theatre employment clear. It wasn't a neat occupation after age 18, a thing Fran had begun to acknowledge to herself.

Before leaving, though, she took a last look at the mirror, orienting herself with the unfamiliar but very pretty face she now wore. Melinda. Mel. An MBA-to-be. "I'll be outside." In the lobby she rushed past a young coworker, as if fearing recognition might be possible in her posture and mannerisms, but he didn't notice anything untoward.

"Okay, I'll meet you out there." Melinda paused. "And...Fran? I know you aren't pleased about this, either, so...sorry for blaming you." She turned away before she could get anymore soppy and sentimental, heading toward a door marked 'employee's only.' They'd get this taken care of. Because the alternative was far too horrible to contemplate.