Change Places with Me

by Lois Metzger

  Rose reached the lady and stood opposite her. Rose was quite a bit taller.

  “You’re disoriented. That’s to be expected too, I suppose. Well, now that you’re here, you . . . might as well come on in.” Though this sounded like it was the last thing she wanted Rose to do.

  Rose followed her through a narrow hall with a wooden bench. An enormous spider plant hung from a hook in the ceiling over the bench; if you were sitting there, it would be practically on top of you. The lady led Rose into an exact cube of a room and closed the door behind them. More spider plants were hanging from ceiling hooks. They looked like little alien invaders, just waiting for you to turn your back so they could land and finally take over. The smell of paint was everywhere, but these walls were peeling, too. An overhead light cast a dim yellow glow, but a tall standing lamp was turned off. The plain black letters on the window, Forget-Me-Not, were now backward, and curtains at either side billowed even though the windows were shut tight.

  Somehow it seemed important to know more about this room. Rose pointed to the curtains. “Why are they blowing?”

  “The radiator. This is a premillennial building with steam heating.”

  “Where’s that paint smell coming from?”

  “Upstairs. They’re converting office space into a dance studio.”

  Of course, Rose thought, there are other businesses in the building. But there was something so isolated about this place, like it was the only business on the planet.

  “It’s dark,” Rose said. “Can I turn on the lamp?”

  “Please, don’t touch anything! Especially that lamp.”

  It was like being a kid again on the first day of school, doing everything wrong. There was a gray chair that looked hard, but as soon as Rose sat down, she felt like it could swallow her whole. “This chair,” she said, not sure what else to say about it.

  “Elephant foam. Our company had it developed specially for our offices. Once you sit, it remembers your body and adjusts to suit your movements. It can handle thousands of customers, or passengers, as the company likes to call them, and it memorizes each one—elephants never forget, of course.” She paused. “That’s right, you didn’t find that so funny last week, either.”

  “Last week?”

  The lady sat in a swivel chair at a glass desk empty except for a wraparound screen and a nameplate that, oddly, was facing her. “Your mother came with you last time. I’m surprised she sent you alone today.”

  “She doesn’t know where I am.”

  “Isn’t she aware of your situation?”

  “What situation?”

  “That you’re here now, of course. That you remembered.”

  Rose felt like they were going in circles. “Did something happen to me in this room?”

  “Let’s take a step back.” The lady swiveled. “Have you had a blow to the head?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t answer too quickly.”

  Rose hesitated. “No,” she said again.

  “How about an allergic reaction?”

  Rose didn’t have allergies, but she gave that question a good, long pause. “No.”

  “A sudden shock?” No. “Did you jump into a pool of icy water?” No. “Were you given anesthesia?” No. “Even some Novocaine at the dentist’s can trigger it.”

  Rose said she hadn’t gone to the dentist, or done anything out of the ordinary.

  The lady stopped swiveling. “Strange—it’s almost always caused by something external. You must’ve done it yourself, then. That shows an extraordinary amount of resistance.” She frowned at Rose, as if unconvinced that Rose had this in her.

  “What have I done?” Rose asked.

  “Breakthrough, it’s called.”

  “Breakthrough,” Rose repeated. “Isn’t that something good?”

  “Not in this instance.”

  Rose pointed out the window. “I had to come here. I was having brunch. I looked up. I’d found a receipt. Of course, that was before.” She knew she wasn’t explaining it very well.

  “But you rang the bell. You could’ve walked away. I suggested you do just that.”

  Rose felt herself sink deeper into the chair. It immediately contorted to fit her in a sort of overfamiliar, off-putting way.

  “We have many, many satisfied customers who don’t even know they’re satisfied customers,” the lady said. “Don’t believe everything you hear about the lawsuits. There are a few unsatisfied people, yes, but well over ninety-five percent of our clients never experience breakthrough or other sort of complication. Even when the proof is right in front of their eyes—looking up and seeing our sign, or finding a receipt, as you say—they’ll still deny having it done. Even when they’ve spent weeks thinking about it, they’ll simply assume they’ve changed their minds. These people aren’t lying or crazy. They’re just proving it works.”

  “What works?”

  The lady widened those startlingly green eyes. “Memory Enhancement. What else are we talking about?”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Memory Enhancement.” Rose just sat there. “Cooper—my friend—knew it. He was right. You . . . you tampered with my memories.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated, Rose. . . . Okay, where do I begin?” The lady paused, as if Rose could help her out, give her a hint. Swiveling in her chair, she glanced at her watch. “Have you got your phone with you? No? Use mine. You need to call your mother so we can get this all straightened out.”

  “She’s my stepmother.”

  “Yes, of course; she told me your history. Evelyn referred to you as her daughter, just so you know. And you two do look alike—the blue eyes.”

  The lady’s ID pic on her phone showed a yellow parakeet on her shoulder. Rose fastened onto this. “Very cute bird,” she said brightly. “At the animal hospital where I work, they don’t take parakeets. No exotics. Where do you go when she’s sick?”

  “It’s a he. I have a vet who makes home visits, and—” She swiveled some more. “You weren’t so chatty last week.”

  Why am I even talking about birds? Rose wondered. The chair seemed to clamp itself down on her as if she might try to escape. She tapped in Evelyn’s number.

  “Hello?” Evelyn said tentatively.

  “It’s me—Rose,” she said, in case Evelyn got confused by the unfamiliar ID pic.

  “Where are you? Are you okay?” Evelyn’s voice shook. “You said you were going out for brunch and coming straight home. Hours went by. You didn’t have your phone. I was worried sick. Where are you?”

  “I’m at Forget-Me-Not.”

  There was a pause on the other end. “Oh. So this is Dr. Star’s phone? Is she with you?”

  Rose looked at the lady. “Are you Dr. Star?”

  The lady turned the nameplate around. It said DR. .

  “Yes,” Rose said into the phone.

  “Stay right there. I’m on my way.” Evelyn hung up.

  “She’s on her way, Dr. Star,” Rose said.

  Dr. Star started swiveling again. “You might as well know, it’s not my real name—everyone who works at Forget-Me-Not is Dr. Star. We’re affiliated with the practice at the mall in Spruce Hills, called Memory Lane. Everyone there is Dr. Star, too.”

  “Isn’t that kinda awkward? Everyone who comes here meets Dr. Star, so if they tell someone about it later—”

  “But that’s the point. People don’t remember coming here—at least they’re not supposed to.” She gave Rose a wary glance. “And nobody else knows about what’s happened, either, not husbands or wives or children or friends or coworkers. It was different with your stepmother—she had to know because by law you’re a child.”

  “So you met her. . . .”

  “Last Saturday.”

  “While I was at the zoo,” Rose said with some force. “I mean, the Bronx Global Conservation Center.”

  Dr. Star was shaking her head. “We should wait for your stepmother, but . . . Rose, you were right here wit
h me. Evelyn was in the hall, reading a book. You said your dad had taken you to the zoo when you were a child, so a visit to the zoo was, shall we say, arranged. We’re very thorough; we give plenty of visual and auditory cues, animal images and videos, and the brain fills in all the rest—the smell of the animals, maybe the silky feel of alpaca hair at the petting zoo, or the taste of an ice-cream sandwich.”

  “There was no weather.”

  “It was a cool fall day with late-afternoon sun. That should’ve registered.”

  “The zoo was all wrong today.”

  “Oh, you actually went to the zoo? That’s not good.” She tsked.

  “I don’t understand.” Rose felt dizzy. The chair tightened its grip even more. “What memories were erased? And why would my stepmother force me to do this? I’m happy, finally happy, bursting with happiness.”

  “Rose—”

  “She’s always dragging me to doctors and therapists and treatments. They don’t work. They’re not for me. This couldn’t have been my idea.”

  Dr. Star considered her for a moment. “Well, it was and it wasn’t.”

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Goodness, Rose, you only called her five minutes ago! What did she do, fly here?” Dr. Star got up to answer the buzzer, leaving the door wide open behind her.

  “I’m here for my daughter,” Evelyn said over the intercom, breathlessly.

  CHAPTER 23

  Rose got up, took a couple of steps, and caught a glimpse of Evelyn out in the hall. Evelyn didn’t look well. Her skin was splotchy and raw; her hair, unbelievably, unkempt. And she’d forgotten a book.

  Rose, with all her compassion, should’ve hurried to her stepmother and said a few words, but she couldn’t move any closer. Evelyn knew about Forget-Me-Not, about the obliteration of memories. How could Evelyn have done this to her, something so sweeping, so invasive, so . . . what was the word her dad had used about Evelyn?

  Everlasting.

  Dr. Star came back and closed the door, leaving Evelyn in the hall. “Please sit, Rose. We need to sort you out, help you remember everything. Company policy, should someone find his or her way back to the facility.”

  Rose still stood there. “Can I sit somewhere else?”

  “Everyone loves that chair!” Dr. Star said, sitting in her swivel chair and swiveling. “They want to order one and get frustrated when I tell them they’ll never remember even sitting in it.”

  Rose sank into the chair, which molded itself to her body like a marshmallow with muscle.

  “First,” Dr. Star said, “you need to be reminded . . . that is, you need to be told what it is we do and don’t do here. ME—that’s what we call Memory Enhancement—is not memory alteration, or erasure, or anything like that. All of your memories, every single one of them, have been and always will be yours.”

  But that didn’t make sense. It did nothing to explain why Rose was so overwhelmingly confused. She did her best to listen carefully, follow every word.

  “Memory erasure is, frankly, barbaric. The consequences can be disastrous, with devastating side effects that can be worse than the original memories themselves. Remember Hypno-Friends? Don’t get me started on that fiasco. The only memory we actually manipulate is the memory of your visit—three hours, give or take, the trivial amount of time you spend here with us. It’s crucial that you don’t remember going through the ME procedure. This is because your conscious mind simply wouldn’t accept the fact that we can accomplish in hours what usually requires months, if not years, of psychological treatment. No matter the problem, it can be solved as easily as popping a balloon. We can’t have you recalling that, can we? But, once again, all your memories are right where they should be, perfectly preserved. Aside from your memory of last Saturday, that is.” She turned her computer screen to face Rose and clicked it on. “Here, this will explain it.”

  An ad started, in highest res and surround-stereo. It featured a young woman in a red convertible. “I got hit by a car last year and had to get seventeen stitches in my leg,” the young woman said cheerfully. “But it was more than a scar. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t even cross the street. I just stayed inside my house, a prisoner of fear. Until I went for Memory Enhancement!”

  We erase only the pain, flashed across the bottom of the screen. You’ll still be you, with your memories intact . . . a happier you.

  “All it took was one session to give me a whole new outlook. Memory Enhancement doesn’t erase or alter the memory of the accident. Imagine the complications! What about my family, my friends, everyone who had seen me in the hospital and in rehab? No, I remember the accident perfectly—Memory Enhancement simply dissociates the emotions I have from the memory itself, and replaces them with serenity and understanding. My new attitude? Accidents happen! No biggie! Of course, I don’t remember getting my memory enhanced. I thought I’d spent the day at the gym. Just look at me now,” she said, turning the corner, hair streaming in the wind. “Accidents happen!” she called out again with a big smile. “No biggie!”

  There were words on a crawl below the woman as she spoke: Actress portrayal. Based on composite events. Results may vary.

  She had seen this ad before. She’d woken from a nightmare, gone to the living room, sat in the blue chair, opened her phone, and watched videos for the rest of that night, until it got light outside.

  But she hadn’t been Rose, then.

  “Did I do this?” she said quietly, almost to herself.

  “No,” answered Dr. Star. “You, Rose, did not.”

  “So, I mean . . .” God, she was really starting to freak out here. Panic filled her throat, and waves of sadness washed over her, and there was anger, too, coursing through her veins. These feelings so clearly didn’t belong to Rose—they had to be connected to something she couldn’t remember, despite Dr. Star’s insistence. “I had something erased. I must have. Something’s missing. Something with . . . my dad?”

  “Rose, I promise you. Your father is still there.”

  She thought about Evelyn in the hall, beneath a low-hanging spider plant. “This had to be my stepmother’s idea—so she could take something away from me. It’s the only explanation.”

  “Actually, Rose, your stepmother was concerned and asked me, privately, about side effects and risks. There are none that are statistically significant, as I told her. I don’t know how much it helped. She gave her permission, but it was difficult for her—I could see that.”

  “No, that can’t be right.” Rose wrapped her arms around herself.

  Dr. Star called up another video. “We require proof of consent, in case we need to demonstrate the procedure was done voluntarily.”

  The video played.

  And Rose saw a crystal clear image on the screen, a girl in a flannel shirt and denim overalls; she had limp brown hair with bangs so long you couldn’t see her eyes. But you could hear her voice clearly. “I fully understand what’s going to happen to me,” she said. “I just want to say that I want Memory Enhancement. I want it more than anything. I want it with every cell in my body.”

  “Do you see now?” Dr. Star said.

  I didn’t do this, Rose thought, reeling as she recalled what she had known all along. Clara did.

  Yes. Clara had wanted this, unquestioningly. She’d shaken Evil Lynn awake at dawn, told her to call the nearest Memory Enhancement clinic. A recording said they opened at nine. She’d sat and waited. Evil Lynn had never heard of Memory Enhancement and talked to her, greatly troubled after an hour of researching it online. There were some problems, Evil Lynn had said; it was too new and untested; it was something to think about for a few days and not leap into. But she’d said Please, over and over, and when Evil Lynn then said yes, she said Thank you. Finally, the office opened. What luck—she could go that afternoon; they’d had a cancellation. Why would anyone cancel anything so miraculous? Don’t plan to do anything afterward, she was told—you’ll just sleep and sleep. Evil Lynn tried to get her to eat breakfast.
She wasn’t a bit hungry. Evil Lynn asked if she wanted to sleep a few hours. She couldn’t lie still. She carefully went over the route there on her phone, again and again, memorizing the names of streets, even visualizing all the turns. On the walk over, she didn’t have to refer to the phone once; she could’ve made the trip in her sleep. Evil Lynn kept asking if she was absolutely sure about this.

  Yes, Clara was absolutely sure. Because the woman in the red convertible had actually done it.

  She had changed places with herself.

  CHAPTER 24

  “You were given a shot of Alitrol,” Dr. Star said.

  “Yes, on my jaw.” She pointed to the spot. “It’s been hurting all week.”

  “Unrelated. The needle we use is tiny and doesn’t even leave a mark.”

  “Maybe you hit a nerve.”

  Dr. Star tightened her lips.

  Had Rose just hit a nerve here, too? “If I was a frog, that spot would be my tympanum.”

  Dr. Star shrugged at that and turned her screen back to face her. “Last week, the special light we use plus the Alitrol put you into a state we call IT—Irresistible Trance.”

  “A trance,” Rose said. Clara’s life in the glass coffin had been a kind of trance. Had she traded in that trance for a new one?

  “It is most certainly not a parlor trick. Just like the woman in the ad said, Memory Enhancement is a proven technology that works with a person’s own memories and realigns the emotions attached to those memories. That’s all.” Dr. Star peered at her computer. “I’ve never dealt with a case like this before, though it’s part of the training, of course. Here we are, breakthrough, blue light . . .” She took a few moments to read, and then she gestured toward the tall standing lamp. “We use the red light during ME, which gives the room a lovely glow.”

  “Red light—I see it when I wake up.”

  “That has been reported in extremely rare cases, as well. Harmless and temporary,” she added with emphasis. “Now, the blue light; that’s what we need to use in case of breakthrough.” She got up, fiddled with the lamp. “Wait, I have to change the setting—it’s stuck. My first time doing this— There!” She clicked it on.