Body Jumping

by Brenda Lowder

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” she says back, though she draws it out uncertainly, studying me closely.

  “Oh, right,” I say. “You were wondering what I’m doing here. Guess I got turned around.” I mince forward a few steps, hoping to edge us both away from my real family’s drama.

  She folds her arms and shoots me a skeptical expression. “‘Turned around?’ One floor up and half the length of the hospital away? I don’t think so.” She puts her hand on the front of my button-down shirt and steers me backward. She’s sporting a huge rock. Engaged or married, then. Apparently I’m very generous to my spouse or fiancée. Unless she bought the rock for herself.

  “What?” I say stupidly, for stupid I am in this strange world of body hopping, of being Greg Applebaum.

  She leans past me, ducking her head into room 529. I wonder what she’s seeing. Laurel and Brent. The used-to-be me, empty and beeping.

  She swivels around and waves her hand behind her. “Do you know one of those women?” She looks at me uncertainly. Something in the way she asks makes me think there are land mines in this question the real Greg would know how to avoid.

  “No,” I tell her. She narrows her eyes at me.

  “Then what are you doing here? Why would you leave your father, your family?” She shakes her head at me, her gaze clouded with questions.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” I rub the back of my neck and try to look as confused as I am.

  She inches forward, crowding into my personal space, which Greg would probably welcome, but I don’t. I can smell her perfume. Chanel. My insides cringe. No, I could never make love to this woman.

  “Why are you here then? Lurking at this woman’s door?” She studies the room number. Is she going to try to find out who’s in this room?

  “I told you,” I say, putting my new masculine force into the words, “I got lost. Forgive me.”

  I turn on my heel and, without looking back, tromp down the hallway toward the elevator bank. The click-clack of her heels on the hard floor tells me she’s following.

  I mash the call button with a thick finger and listen to the whirr of the elevator car arriving on the fifth floor. Blondie puts a hand on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to shrug her off.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice is low. I turn to look at her. She’s hanging her head, and I believe her. But I also know, as a woman, that Greg has done something to put this woman’s oh-no-he’s-cheating radar on high alert.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say warmly, adding a smile. Her shoulders relax and a grateful smile lurks around her lips. “It’s been a tough day. Losing Dad.”

  All at once she looks chastened. “Yes. God. I’m sorry.”

  The elevator arrives, and we get in. Where do I think I’m going? My body and my life as a stationary vegetable are the other way. Will I really go home with this woman just because I don’t want to face my own life and my own problems? Whatever kind of life I wanted, it isn’t Greg Applebaum’s. And I really don’t want to be the cause of him losing his. I owe it to him to try. I wait until the doors almost close and then slip through without triggering the safety mechanism that makes them spring apart.

  “Hey!” my wife or fiancée yelps.

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” I call, even though the doors have closed on her once-again-confused face.

  I jog back down the hallway, make the left turn, and face room 529 again. This time I hesitate for only a second before I stride into the room with all the purpose and resolve fake Greg Applebaum can muster.

  “Hello?” Laurel ventures uncertainly, eying me. Brent stands at my approach.

  “Hello.” I barely glance at either of them and hurry past to the used-to-be me’s bedside. I look down and there I am, all right, looking wan and pasty under the dull fluorescent light. There’s a bandage on my head where the gash was and bruises under my eyes. The thin white hospital blanket is pulled tight across my chest. My legs, sporting casts, jut out grotesquely. My arms with their taped-down tubes and needles rest lifelessly atop it. I seize a hand, the one closest to me, and wait for the unsticking feeling and the whoosh.

  “Are you Aiden?” Laurel asks. She puts her hands on the armrests of her chair and starts to stand.

  Startled, I drop my body’s hand and swivel toward her. “No.”

  Laurel looks disappointed and glances down at her chair like she realizes she has stood for no reason. She crosses her arms.

  I decide to give her something. “He’s out of town. For work. In Boston. So I’m here instead,” I say, “checking on her.” I tilt my head toward used-to-be me.

  She nods, but her brows furrow. “I’m sorry. We tried to call him when this happened.” She gestures at the broken me. “But we didn’t have his number. And it wasn’t in Julianne’s phone.”

  Yes, suspicious, isn’t it, Laurel? Almost like the man I told you is my boyfriend isn’t actually my boyfriend.

  I nod Greg’s head. “No, it wouldn’t be, would it?” I say it boldly, like she should understand. She pretends to. I glance at Brent. He doesn’t say anything.

  Laurel is looking at me. “And you are…?”

  “Greg Applebaum.” I move around the bed and hold my hand out for her to shake. I wonder if I’ll whoosh into Laurel. Please, God, no. I’ve always wanted a life like Laurel’s—husband, kids, that sparkle quality that makes everyone like her and want to be around her—but I don’t want Laurel’s life.

  She shakes my hand, and I stay where I am. I expel a relieved breath.

  “Yeah, just checking in. Seeing how she’s doing. So I can tell Aiden.” I approach the bed again. I obviously did not hold my hand long enough to jump back into my body. I need to try again before Laurel forces me out with her questions and suspicious glances.

  Grabbing my hand, I put it between both of Greg’s larger, hairier ones, but nothing happens. I give my hand a shake. Still nothing. I flop the hand roughly, jiggling used-to-be me’s whole arm.

  “I read about this,” I say to forestall Laurel’s criticism at the treatment her sister’s hand is receiving. “You’re supposed to touch people, really let them know you’re there, physically, when they’re in a coma. Along with talking to them.” I shake my hand, hard, once more for good measure. “Wake up, Julianne,” I say for Laurel’s benefit. Laurel steps forward in a protective motion, and my heart thaws a few degrees for my body’s sister.

  “I think that’s enough.” She takes used-to-be me’s hand gently from Greg’s mitts and places it back on top of the covers.

  Staying longer would be too dangerous. Touching my hand didn’t work, and Laurel and Brent are looking at me like I’ve wandered up from the psych ward. I’ll have to regroup before returning and trying again. And maybe I should touch something else.

  I straighten to Greg’s full height and smooth my hands down his navy blazer. “I really must be going. I wish your sister—and your family—the best at this difficult time.”

  “Thank you, Greg.”

  “You’re welcome, Laurel,” I say as I adjust the cuffs of my blazer. Laurel freezes.

  “How do you know my name?” The distrust is vivid on her face.

  “Aiden must have mentioned it.”

  “Oh, of course,” she says, but she gives me a puzzled look. I scoot past her, nodding to Brent who nods back at me. Guy-speak. I’d seen it in action all my life, and here I was doing it. It wasn’t as cool as it looked. Words are necessary to connect meaning with feeling. I need words to understand and be understood. Maybe that’s why I’m a writer. Aspiring, anyway.

  The minute I clear the corner of the bed, I dash to the door. The only problem is that I have no idea where to go.

  Chapter Four

  I decide to go to the hospital lobby in search of a comfortable chair and space to think. When I get there, my irritating wife is waiting for me. Maybe that’s unfair. I don’t really know Blondie. Maybe she isn’t really irritating. Or my wife.

  Of course s
he looks livid at being ditched again. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “I had to use the restroom.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” She waves her manicured hand at me. “Your mother’s been calling me every two minutes since you left the room. She’s beside herself. Your father died. And you’re running around the hospital like a crazy person, spying in a strange woman’s room.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just so…devastated.” I sigh. “About Dad. I’m not thinking straight.” I put on a penitent expression and am happy when her pursed lips relax into a straight line.

  “I understand. It’s hard, him going so suddenly like this. Just when we all thought he was making a full recovery.” Her tone is sympathetic, and I think I’ve judged her too harshly. Maybe there is love and wonder enough for Greg and Blondie.

  She tilts up and puts her arms around me in a comforting hug. I return her hug, my hands spread wide against her slim, silk-sheathed back. She lifts onto her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my neck. All at once I feel a tumult in my very…soul.

  The squishy inner and outer halves of me pull apart, and I’m unsticking from Greg. I have time to realize that this is the first time that Greg-me has touched or been touched by Blondie, skin to skin.

  I’m on the move. Again.

  I whoosh into Blondie’s body and land with a sticky slam like one of those slimy hands on a string that kids throw at refrigerators. As I come alert in my new host body, I feel light, slim. With Greg’s body, I felt big and heavy as if I were lumbering under a cumbersome burden. Now I feel buoyant and free.

  Free and unstable, that is. I find myself teetering on high stiletto heels. I hate heels. I’ve never been able to work them. They aren’t comfortable. And they’ve been proven to be bad for your back, hips, and every other body part you can name. Standing here for two seconds in Blondie’s stolen pumps and already my toes are cramped and my arches ache. How does she wear these without crying?

  Greg blinks at me like he’s waking up. I wobble and he catches my arm. His hand is on Blondie-me’s naked forearm, but the wave has passed, and I don’t switch back. Is this spirit travel just a one-way ticket, then? I guess I missed my chance at doing anything else I wanted to do in Greg Applebaum’s body. Masturbate? That could have been kind of interesting. It’s something I probably would have enjoyed as him and as myself, if only to pick up first-hand knowledge about what a man likes, for when I was a woman again. Like now.

  I shake my random thoughts from my pretty blonde head. My chignon doesn’t move. I look closely into Greg’s eyes. Does he know what happened? Is he in there? Did I kill him?

  He focuses on me. “Natasha.”

  Ah. Natasha. A name. Blondie-me’s name. And Greg saying it means he’s in there. He’s really Greg. And he knows enough to remember her name.

  I peer at him, scrutinizing him for any post-body-swapping ill effects. “Are you okay?”

  He blinks some more then inclines his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. Seen from this angle, he’s more attractive than I’d previously thought.

  “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Just a bit of a headache.”

  “Do you know where we are?” I press.

  He scrunches up his eyes at me. “We’re at the hospital. For my dad. Oh, God, my dad.” His mouth drops open. “He’s dead, isn’t he? I have to get back up there.” He turns and heads toward the elevators. I follow.

  “Why did I leave my mother?”

  I shrug. Did Natasha ever shrug before she was me? I can’t picture her elegant shoulders moving.

  He pushes the “up” button and shakes his head. “I can’t remember.”

  I put a comforting hand on his arm. We walk into the elevator. No one else is inside. “What exactly do you remember?”

  I wonder if he’ll think it an odd question and sense, somehow, that I’m not Natasha. That I’m instead something very wrong. But he doesn’t seem to think the question strange.

  “I remember Dad flatlining. I remember running from the room and walking around another floor. Oh!” He turns to me, excited. “I remember looking for room 529.” His eyes cloud, and he rubs his head. “Though I don’t remember why.”

  Wow. So he remembers what I—he?—we—did when I was in his body, but he doesn’t remember that he wasn’t the one running the show? Does he have any inkling that he hadn’t been alone in his own skin?

  I squint my eyes at him. “Did you feel weird?”

  “Weird?” He looks at me blankly.

  “When you were on the fifth floor?”

  “God, Natasha, how do you expect me to feel? My father just died.” He turns away from me.

  I go to his side and hug him. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  He relaxes his stiff frame and hugs me back, releasing a sob. “I’m sorry. It’s just, you know, it’s Dad.”

  “I know.” I let him cry on me.

  We ride the elevator past our floor. Some people get on and some people get off. No one pays us any attention. I suppose that tears are not unusual in a hospital. I continue to let him cry, probably staining Natasha’s silk dress. I figure I owe him. And I’m also really glad I didn’t kill him or otherwise mess him up with my temporary ownership. My lease on his life?

  I push the button for the fourth floor. Greg stands up straight and wipes his eyes. I root around in Natasha’s purse until I find a small packet of tissues and hand him one. He smiles his gratitude, and my heart goes out to him. I’m getting far too enmeshed in the Applebaums’ life. It’s to be expected, though, I think. I’ve been three of them today, after all.

  Before we can make it back down to the fourth floor, someone gets on the elevator with us on the fifth.

  Laurel.

  She focuses on Greg, and her eyes go wide. “You’re still here?”

  “Um, yes. My father died.”

  She puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry. Wow.” She shakes her head. “What are the chances?”

  Greg stares at her numbly for a moment. I worry he’s going to say something to reveal he has no idea who she is, and that he’s never heard of anyone named Aiden. “This is my wife. Natasha.” He gestures to me.

  Laurel regards me with interest. I’m exactly the kind of cool, polished, beautiful suburbanite Laurel thinks she is. I pull my shoulders back, thrusting out my borrowed assets, and look down my nose at her. “Nice to meet you.” I loop my arm through Greg’s and give my sister a wider berth.

  Greg looks past me at Laurel, and I can see the wheels of his mind turning. How much does he remember of what passed between them in room 529? Will she bring up Aiden? Will Greg admit that he doesn’t know him, let alone have any idea about his current travel schedule? Will Laurel, somehow, figure out that Aiden is not my boyfriend, in fact doesn’t even know me, much less care that I’m currently in a coma?

  The elevator bell dings on the fourth floor. Greg and I exit gracefully if somewhat hurriedly. The doors shut behind us, and Laurel goes on her way alone without another word.

  Greg starts down the hall and then pivots and faces me squarely. He grabs my upper arms in each of his hands. “Natasha.” His voice is urgent. “I swear to you. There is nothing going on between me and that woman in room 529. I have no idea why I went there. And held her hand. And told a lot of lies.” He looks off down the hallway, but we’re alone in the airy white space. “I promise you.”

  “I believe you,” I tell him. He searches my eyes, but he must read the truth in them because he relaxes his hold on my arms and steps back.

  “Thank you.”

  I hug him again, and he clings to me until I pat his back and pull away. I could really use some time alone to try to figure things out. “You go be with your mom right now, okay? I think she’d really rather have you to herself. I’ll go home and wait for you there.”

  It must be the right thing to say because he looks relieved and smiles a real smile. Maybe Natasha doesn’t get along so well with her mother-in-law. Or, probably like
most mothers of boys, her mother-in-law is ever-so-slightly jealous at not being the number one woman in her son’s life anymore. Heaven knows Brent’s mother gave Laurel enough grief.

  “Thanks, Nat, for being so thoughtful.” He turns and hurries off toward the nurses’ station to track down what’s left of his family. I wonder if his father has been moved to the morgue and how that all works and just where his mother and brother are right now, but I leave Greg to figure it out. His mother needs him, as evidenced by the many calls she made to Natasha’s cell. She’ll be happy to have Greg back.

  I take the elevator down to the lobby and realize I’ll have to take an Uber home since I have no idea what Natasha drove to the hospital—or if she did—let alone where it’s parked. I pull her phone from her purse and am delighted to see that not only does she have an unlocked screen but the app for Uber is already installed. I look at her license to get her home address, which is the same as Greg’s, and then schedule a ride.

  I step outside the hospital doors to await the ride that will take me to another life that isn’t mine.

  Chapter Five

  Natasha and Greg’s house is ah-mazing. I don’t know what Greg does for a living, but whatever it is, he must be good at it. Maybe that’s sexist of me to jump to the conclusion that Greg’s job is the one responsible for the gorgeous, sleek house in Alpharetta, Georgia. Maybe Natasha is the breadwinner, though judging by her killer arms and well-toned ass she spends more time at the gym than behind a desk. But then again, she could be a runway model or a neurosurgeon.

  The Uber drops me off in the driveway, and I’m able to get the front door open on my second try with the keys from Natasha’s purse. I spy a keypad on the wall near the front door, but I’m fortunate they neglected to set the house alarm in their haste to get to the hospital.

  Closing the door behind me, I admire what must be professionally decorated rooms. Either that or Natasha (or Greg) has preternatural good taste…and a master’s degree in interior design.