Your Perfect Life

by Liz Fenton

  “I need to be alone.” I turn toward the door again so she won’t see my eyes filling with tears.

  “Hey, don’t go. Talk to me,” Casey says quietly.

  “Talk to you? You have no idea what I’m feeling.”

  I ignore the hurt look in Casey’s eyes and snap, “Oh, wait, you probably have people to call for this. A life coach on speed dial, perhaps?”

  I see John approaching, a concerned look on his face, but I shake my head to warn him not to get in the middle of this.

  “What crawled up your ass? Don’t let some silly award mess with your head. It’s not worth it,” Casey pleads.

  “Said the most successful to the least successful.”

  “For the last time, your award was for still looking the same, which is meant as a compliment. You haven’t aged a day since you were eighteen. You should be flattered!”

  “Flattered? Just look at them.” I motion toward no one in particular. “They know I haven’t lived up to their expectations. I was voted most likely to succeed in high school yet my biggest accomplishment is what? President of the PTA? No, wait, I’ve got something better than that: I won the brownie bake-off at Sophie’s school two years ago.” I glare at John, still watching us from a safe distance. I think of the headhunter I’d secretly met with just days before finding out I was pregnant with Charlotte; the résumé we’d crafted; the excitement I’d felt as I thought of working outside of the home again.

  I hated to admit it, but having another baby had changed us. Suddenly we were fighting about everything: who would get up with her, who should get up with her; another college tuition on a single income; my refusal to let John continue with his weekly poker night because I needed help. I don’t remember it being this hard before, but then again, it was sixteen years ago and I was a much different mom and wife back then; more patient and less exhausted.

  “No one here is thinking you aren’t a success except you. No one is pitying you except you. Don’t tell me you’re actually jealous of this?” Casey waves her trophy in front of me. “You want it? Take it!” Casey tries to push it into my hand, but I step back and it falls on the floor between us and a group of classmates looks our way.

  “I don’t want your award. It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You have everything you ever wanted.”

  Casey shakes her head. “Okay, fine. You want to have this out. We’ll have this out. Why don’t you have everything you ever wanted? Why didn’t you ever go back to work? Why did you give up?” Casey challenges.

  “You think having a baby is giving up? God, you have no clue what you’re talking about. It wasn’t as simple as you thought it was. You think I could’ve finished college while I was pregnant and then gotten a job at some TV station all while trying to take care of a newborn?”

  “If you wanted it bad enough,” she says, her words slicing through me.

  “You just don’t get it. You’ve never actually had a baby.”

  Casey scoffs then looks away, sadness crossing her eyes. And then I know I’ve gone too far.

  “Okay, you two, let’s end this thing right now,” John says in a hushed tone as he walks up with the bartender, who is carrying two drinks. “These are from our friend Brian,” he says. “He wisely suggested you two need to drink these and let go of whatever it is you’re fighting about.”

  Brian smiles broadly, eyeing the two shot glasses full of a bright purple liquid. “I made these extra special for the two of you.”

  Casey rolls her eyes. “You think it’s so simple. Like a couple of shots can make us forget all the BS that’s gone on tonight? A lot’s been said.”

  John puts his arms around both of us. “You guys have been fighting like sisters for years. Angry one minute, best friends again the next. Why should tonight be any different?” He gives me a supportive look, “It’s just a high school reunion, right?” He kisses me on the cheek. Then he turns to Casey, “Just knock back one of these and call a truce.”

  Brian holds out the shots proudly. “C’mon, ladies. I promise these will make you both realize how silly you’re being.”

  “Fine,” I say, grabbing one of the shot glasses.

  “Whatever.” Casey takes the other.

  “We might as well make a toast while we’re at it,” I say.

  Casey lifts her shot glass and says sarcastically, “To your perfect life.”

  “No,” I say, clinking my glass against hers. “To your perfect life.”

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  casey

  “Mom!” A girl is screaming. Am I dreaming? Or is that one of my neighbors? It’s probably that kid who just moved in, the star of that new Disney show. She’s always fighting with her mother about something. I swear children should not be allowed to be in show business; it’s hard enough when you’re an adult. Temples pounding, I pull the pillow over my head to block out the sound and make a mental note to complain to the homeowners’ association about the thin walls in this place.

  Next come stomping footsteps that sound so close. She couldn’t be inside my apartment, could she?

  “Mom!” I open my eyes, half expecting to see the Disney star, but instead it’s Rachel’s daughter, Audrey, who yanks the pillow off of me and shakes my shoulder. Did she just call me Mom? Doesn’t she recognize me? I’m her fun and free-spirited Aunt Casey. I squeeze my eyes closed again, willing this bad dream to be over so I can get some serious REM sleep.

  Finally, she leaves. Thank God, I was dreaming. But a few moments later, I’m overcome by the smell of poop. I open one eye and find baby Charlotte dangling in front of me. A very stinky baby Charlotte. This dream is so real. I can smell the poop so clearly.

  “She needs to be changed, Mom. C’mon.”

  Fine. I’ll deal with the baby so I can move on to a much better dream, like the one I had the other night about Brad Pitt. I take Charlotte from Audrey and carry her to her room, fumbling for diapers and wipes. Trying to remember exactly how I’ve seen Rachel change one of these. Audrey looks at me strangely.

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like you don’t know what you’re doing.” She folds her arms over her chest and even Charlotte gives me a funny look.

  “Well, why don’t you help me out then?” Even in my dream, I don’t want to get shit all over everything.

  “Fine,” she says reluctantly before expertly wiping the baby’s bottom and folding all the offensiveness into a neat little ball and securing it closed. She lifts Charlotte’s bottom and places the clean diaper under her, sprinkling some cornstarch for good measure before cinching it up. Wow. She’s really good at that. Even the baby gurgles her approval.

  She holds Charlotte out to me and for a moment it doesn’t register that she wants me to take the baby. Finally, I reach for her and awkwardly place her on my hip. Audrey shakes her head and walks out of the room. I wonder if she’s this bitchy to Rachel in real life. I’ll have to ask her when I wake up.

  Rachel. We both said some terrible things last night. I run back through our fight, cringing as I recall every hurtful word. As soon as I escape from this crazy dream, I’m going to call her.

  John walks down the hallway without so much as a good morning. “Hey there.” I call out.

  He turns around. “What?”

  Okay, grouchy. I hold out the baby to him. “Can you take her downstairs?”

  “Has she eaten?”

  “Um, no?”

  He looks at me oddly but takes her anyway. Now I can crawl back into bed and end this craziness. On my way back to the bedroom, I catch my reflection in the hall mirror and do a double take. The image looking back at me is not mine. It’s Rachel’s.

  This can’t be real. This has to be a bad dream. I pinch myself—hard. Yep, it hurts. I rush to the bathroom and wash my face. But no matter how hard I scrub, every time I look at my reflection, it’s not my blue eyes staring back at me. I tug at Rachel’s brown hair, hoping my blond locks will somehow be revealed
underneath. I pull up Rachel’s knee-length cotton nightgown searching for my body.

  “How did this happen?” I say aloud, hearing Rachel’s voice. I grip the edge of the white tile countertop and think back to the reunion, the awards, the fight. Think, Casey! What happened next? But the last thing I can remember is that bartender handing us two shots and Rachel and me making a toast.

  “MOM!” The calls for me are getting louder and louder. I’m not your mom, I want to scream. I’m your Aunt Casey who should be sound asleep until at least 11 a.m., maybe noon—in her silent high-rise apartment! I lock the bathroom door and sink to the tile floor, not wanting to face the mirror again. What do I do? I can’t hide in this tiny bathroom forever; it reminds me of my dressing room.

  If I’m Rachel, then where is she? Is she me?

  I start tearing through her bedroom—pulling drawers out of her dresser, searching under the bed—desperate to find her phone. Then John reappears. “Do you hear the kids calling you?” he asks, the annoyance in his voice sharp, a look on his face to match.

  “Can you handle it please?” I reply briskly, my hands inside Rachel’s black evening bag finding everything except her phone. Lip gloss, a wad of cash, the ballot.

  John’s dressed in running clothes, his Nikes dangling from his right hand. He looks at his watch. “I guess I’ll have to,” he snaps and starts to leave before turning back. “What’s your problem?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, realizing I need to stop acting like a crazy person who just discovered she’s in her best friend’s body. “I’m just hungover. Can I have a few minutes to regroup please?” Even though there’s not enough time in this world to help me regroup from this. I force a smile. This seems to appease him and he walks away, presumably to deal with the kids.

  I finally locate the cell phone and start dialing Rachel’s number before I realize that I can’t call her, I’m holding her phone. This is crazy. I call my own cell phone number and hold my breath. Who will answer? If I’ve become Rachel, what’s become of me?

  “Hello?” The sound of my own voice answering my phone gives me the chills.

  “Rachel? Is that you?” I whisper from inside her walk-in closet, rows of khaki capri pants hanging next to me.

  “Casey! Thank God. Yes, it’s me. What the hell is going on?”

  Relief pours over me. At least I know where she is, that’s she safe. And that I still exist.

  “I was just calling you. Well, me,” Rachel says sounding out of breath.

  “I don’t know what’s going on. This is so strange,” I say as I twist Rachel’s gold wedding band and notice her ragged cuticles—chewing on them has been a bad habit of hers since middle school.

  “I totally freaked out when I woke up in your bed this morning. Nice sheets, by the way.” She forces a laugh. My laugh. “What are they, like five-thousand-thread count?”

  “Two thousand . . . and on that note, flannel sheets? And what’s with this cotton nightgown that looks like my mom’s? Really, Rachel?” I pull the nightgown over my head and start looking for something else—anything else—to put on. I run my hands over the rows of bland cardigan sweaters, the stacks of Gap jeans, the shoe tree filled with slip-on tennis shoes, and debate putting that terrible nightgown back on.

  “Well, I nearly had a heart attack when I woke up without any clothes on. Is that how you always sleep? I can’t remember the last time I did that . . .” Rachel trails off.

  Maybe that’s why John’s so damn cranky. Between that and the nightgown that looks like Ebenezer Scrooge should be wearing it.

  I settle on a pair of workout pants and a T-shirt. Maybe I’ll try to get Rachel on one of those makeover shows after we get this all figured out and switch back. If we switch back. But first we need to figure out how we got here in the first place.

  “We need to figure out—”

  Rachel cuts me off. “Why we’re trapped in a bad Freaky Friday remake.”

  “Exactly . . . You’re Jamie Lee Curtis by the way.”

  “At this point, I’ll be anyone if it means I can get my life back.”

  “Just one thing,” I say, picturing John with his running shoes in hand.

  “What?”

  I open the closet door and listen for more calls for Mom. “I don’t know how to ask you this, but how do I convince John to take care of these kids so I can leave the house?”

  “Oh God, the kids. I haven’t even asked about them. How are they?”

  “They’re fine, I guess,” I answer.

  “You guess? It’s seven thirty in the morning. What have you been doing?”

  “Oh you know, the usual. Sleeping in. Relaxing. Realizing I’m in another person’s body!”

  “I need to come over there and help. They need me in the mornings. You don’t understand. It’s pretty chaotic.”

  “You can’t come over here and help. You’re not you, remember? And anyway, what could possibly be so chaotic?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Well, John’s going to have to handle it. What’s his deal anyway? Why does he act like you have to do everything?”

  She sighs. “Careful. Don’t remind me how it is. I may not want to switch back.”

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  rachel

  I fling the front door open and I’m staring at myself. It’s me, but it’s not me. My dark hair is swept back in a neat ponytail, my cheeks flush—is that blush?—my eyelids covered in eye shadow. “Is this really happening—is that you inside my body?”

  “We have to talk about this inside my apartment.” Casey pushes past me. “All I need is my nosy neighbor calling Perez Hilton about this.”

  “Please tell me we’re about to wake up from this dream.” I place my hands on my new, nonexistent hips.

  “I wish I could. But I just woke up at your house with a baby’s diaper in my face. This is real. Shitty-diaper real.” Casey slumps down on her white pillowless sofa and kicks off a pair of my running shoes that I haven’t worn in months. I cringe as I notice the way the Lycra pants Casey’s wearing are clinging to my thighs.

  “How is she?” I self-consciously feel Casey’s thighs, but they’re now slim and toned, no doubt due to her daily workouts.

  “Who?”

  “Charlotte!”

  “She has a clean diaper,” Casey answers, clearly distracted, running her finger over her midcentury modern coffee table, inspecting her finger afterward. “What does my housekeeper think I’m paying her for? There’s dust all over this.”

  “Yeah, I really hate it when that happens.” I grimace, thinking about the laundry piled high next to the washing machine. Casey has a big dose of reality coming her way when she gets back to my house.

  “This is insane. I’m a guest in my own home. What is happening?” Casey paces across her white stain-free rug.

  I could never have a white rug in my house.

  “I woke up this morning to total silence. No one was calling for me . . .”

  “That’s because they were calling for me!” Casey laughs. “Your house is Grand Central Station in the morning. I haven’t even had coffee yet!”

  I walk into Casey’s sprawling kitchen, a giant island in the middle with two sinks in it—two sinks—and open the Sub-Zero refrigerator searching for coffee.

  “I’ll make you some,” I say over my shoulder, the feeling of being able to take care of someone comforting me slightly.

  Casey hops up on the counter and I think I see her flinch a bit, probably not used to the extra weight she’s carrying.

  “Did you scream when you saw yourself ?”

  “Bloody murder! I’m surprised someone didn’t call the cops.” I pour the coffee into the filter.

  “A scream? It would take a lot more than that to get a reaction out of my neighbors. Nick Nolte, Wee-Man, and Dennis Rodman all have apartments in this building.”

  “I ran over to your full-length mirror and freaked out. My muffin top was gone!”
<
br />   I watch as Casey puts her hand on my belly, feeling surreal as I stare at myself. So this is what they mean by an out-of-body experience.

  “This?” Casey says, pinching at my stomach. “There’s nothing here?”

  There’s a lot more there than should be. I was never petite, but before I had Charlotte I was in good shape and two sizes smaller. I should be exercising in those running shoes and workout pants every morning. If John can make the time to do it, why can’t I? “You’re sweet to say that, Casey, but I’m out of shape. You’ll see. When you haul the baby up and down the stairs enough times at my house, you’ll feel it.” I look away, tears burning in my throat as I think of Charlotte.

  Casey puts her hand over mine. “Well, hopefully I won’t have to feel it. Hopefully we’ll figure out how to get out of this mess and you’ll be hauling your own baby in no time.”

  “What did we do to deserve this?” I hand Casey a cup of coffee.

  Casey thinks for a moment. “I’ve slept with a lot of young guys.”

  “I’m sorry, and how is that bad again?” I smile, our banter temporarily pulling me out of the panic brewing just beneath the surface as I think about my family.

  “We’re two smart women. We can figure this out. Like I always say, when all else fails, turn to the movies for the answers. What happened in that body-switching flick with Matthew Perry and that kid from High School Musical? You should know this one; you watch crap like that with your kids all the time, right?”

  Ironically it was that movie 17 Again that Sophie and I had argued about just a few weeks ago. She was supposed to be doing her homework, but I caught her watching it. After she’d sassed me about how I shouldn’t be barging into her room unannounced, I’d grabbed the laptop, slammed it shut, and then also slammed her bedroom door behind me.

  “They don’t switch bodies. Matthew Perry just becomes younger,” I say quietly, remembering a cell phone conversation I’d overheard between Sophie and one of her friends later that night. She’d called me a bitch. I’d been so upset I couldn’t even tell John—things had been so rocky between us that I was afraid he’d agree with her. Maybe I had overreacted.