Body Swap

by Sylvia McNicoll

  Something shimmers in the air and I watch, hypno­tized. Just like that moment when my cellphone spun around in the air, time slows down. A tall silhouette forms and fills in, becoming an older woman. She fusses with her faded blond hair and looks beyond me to the roller coaster. “My, my.” She smiles. “I haven’t been on one of these in years. Didn’t think they still made them like this.”

  “Well, they’re making a comeback,” Eli says.

  The face and hair look familiar. Oh my God. She’s the woman from the stretcher. I shake my finger at her. “You’re the one who hit me with your car.”

  “Be sweet,” Eli suggests. “You wanted a partner for the ride.”

  “I can’t go on with her!”

  “Why not? Roller coasters are her favourite, too. You have so much in common.”

  “That’s all right, dear,” the older woman’s voice soothes. “My son Ron was afraid of them, too.”

  “I’m not scared of roller coasters. But if we get on this ride, you know we’ll never come back!”

  “Oh now, back is so overrated. Why would I want to return to a life full of achy joints and shaky fingers?” Suddenly she throws her arms open wide. “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long!”

  She’s so happy, it’s annoying. “Stop singing! Don’t you have a family?”

  “Certainly — I have a son who thinks I’m a bother and a daughter and a couple of grandchildren out west who hardly know me anymore.”

  “Well, bully for you. I’ve never even kissed a boy.” I curl my hands into fists. “Now I never will. And it’s all your fault.”

  “I was backing out. You stepped behind the car,” she says calmly.

  “You should have braked!” I shriek at her.

  “I did. The accelerator stuck.”

  “You just confused the pedals. People your age shouldn’t drive!”

  “Why didn’t you watch where you were going? Young people are always in a hurry!”

  “I was running to catch up with a hot guy from school. Who likes me.” I hold up my thumb and forefinger. “I was this close to getting a boyfriend.”

  “With a cellphone in front of your face.”

  “Ladies, ladies!” Eli holds up his hands like stop signs. “All that is history. Why don’t you just have some fun together?”

  “Because what she said is not true –– you know it’s not,” the older woman argues. “And it’s what everyone will say. Even my own son. I had the car in for the acceleration problem. The stupid mechanic said it was the floor mat and my boots. And I was wearing athletic runners!”

  Eli shakes his head. “You can’t get quality workmanship these days.”

  Her face turns pink; her eyes burn at him.

  I’d like to hit him just as much as the old lady does. “I don’t care. I just want to kiss a guy before I die. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Well, I do care! I lived a good life and don’t want the ending to be smirched.”

  “Smirched?” I repeat.

  “You know, that everyone blames me for killing you.”

  So I am dead. Of course, I suspected as much.

  Eli turns from me to the lady and back again. He doesn’t look as smug anymore so I press the issue.

  “You run this whole carnival; you can change things. This accident. Give us both another chance.” That last line comes out sounding desperate; I change tactics, and my voice. “What do you say? The old lady and I can have fun together and prove her case while we’re alive.”

  “Susan … the name is Susan MacMillan not ‘old lady’ or ‘her.’ And you are?”

  “Hallie Prince. I’d like to say that I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “But under these circumstances, how can you be? Really … Eli, is it?” Susan turns to the carnival operator. “The Hurricane is a dangerous car. More people will be injured and killed if Saji Motors doesn’t find the flaw and fix it. With Hallie’s help, perhaps I can get someone to listen.”

  Eli nods thoughtfully. Then he grins, maybe too energetically.

  I’m not sure I trust his excitement.

  “All right Susan and Hallie. You don’t have to ride the roller coaster yet if you don’t like. You’re both going to have your different ending. More different than you can ever imagine.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Hallie

  MY EYES FLUTTER OPEN. I STARE AT a dashboard, the top of a steering wheel pressed to my forehead. This can’t be. I don’t even have a driver’s licence. Around my chest a band of steel feels like it’s tightening. “Ow, ow, ow!”

  Someone taps at the window.

  “Reach into that purse and get a nitroglycerine pill,” a voice orders.

  “A what?” I don’t have a purse, and whose car am I in anyways? Mom drives a minivan. I turn my head and see the old man from the bus. Not the carnival operator. “Eli?”

  It’s his cane tapping. “Open up and I’ll help you.”

  My head lifts. I struggle with the buttons to unlock the car door and he does the rest: opens the door, reaches across me, fumbles through a blue leather bag, unscrews a vial, and shakes out a round white pill. “Place this under your tongue.” He sticks his fingers in my mouth, so I don’t have a choice.

  Bleh, yuck, old man fingers.

  “Don’t swallow it or it won’t work.”

  The pill tastes bitter and sends a sharp, burning sensation through my head.

  “Take deep breaths,” Eli tells me.

  I inhale and the steel band starts to loosen. My head feels full, my face warm.

  “Is it better yet?”

  I nod. “A little.”

  “Then come talk to Hallie. See how she’s doing and apologize.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m Hallie.”

  “Well, yes and no. Your soul belongs to you, so yes. But your body is all Susan. And people do tend to judge by covers. So no.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” But as I flip down the makeup mirror, I notice the skin on my hand is pale. Between brown spots and blue, bulgy veins, that is. I gasp.

  “Relax. You’ve just had a bout with angina. You shouldn’t have any more shocks.”

  Too late. My lips are thin, my eyes blue and watery with purple circles underneath them. Wrinkles roadmap from the corners of my eyes and mouth. Not only am I white, I’m ancient! I breathe faster. “No!” I scream. Across my forehead is a curved band of violet –– a steering-wheel bruise forming.

  “On the plus side, remember how you’ve always wanted to lose weight?”

  My hands slap down to long, thin thighs. My knees feel knobby and they throb. I’m hyperventilating.

  “Easy, breathe out. Nice and slow.” He puts his hand on my back.

  I close my eyes. It takes me a while to open them again.

  “There now. That’s better.”

  “You think this is a great joke, don’t you? Well, ha-ha on me. I’ve learned my lesson: it sucks to be old. Now switch me back.”

  He shakes a crooked finger at me. “But you haven’t proven Susan innocent.”

  “That’s because she isn’t! Come on. That was just me bargaining with you to get some more life. I never really believed her.”

  “Exactly.” Eli taps the hood a couple of times. “Go over to her. Help her up.”

  “Her? She’s in my body?”

  “Yes,” Eli whispers. “Remember, you look like Susan now. Don’t let on you’re not.”

  I stare at him but don’t see even a trace of a smile. “Or what? Something worse will happen?”

  He shrugs. “People will think you’re suffering from dementia. Put you in an old-age home.” He claps his hand over mine and squeezes. “This is your one chance.”

  “My one chance to be old?”

  He tilts his head and lifts his chin. “Growing old is a privilege — one you may not even earn.” He raises his white-cloud eyebrows.

  I sigh and swivel my body toward the open door. I lift my legs over to the outside. When I st
and up, one knee feels like it’s going to collapse, but Eli grabs my elbow and hands me the blue purse. Then he leans on his cane as, together, we hobble over the snow to my former body, now Susan’s.

  Abby crouches close to her, calling to her and crying.

  When I reach them, I stop and wring my hands. “Oh, I’m so dreadfully sorry.” Dreadfully — that’s a word old ladies use, isn’t it? “I didn’t see her. Is she all right?”

  Abby shakes her head and sobs. “I don’t know. She’s not answering me.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Susan

  MY BACK, OH IT’S SO COLD … ICE … parking lot … why am I lying on the hard ground? I must get up or I’ll catch my death. But I need to move slowly, don’t want my sciatica to act up.

  “Hallie, Hallie!” Someone shakes my shoulder.

  Stop that! My head aches and feels as though it’s filled with a hot fog. Dementia? Has it finally set in? Calm down, I scold myself. It’s no sin; one in five after eighty succumb to Alzheimer’s, and I celebrated that birthday two years ago. I force my eyelids apart.

  A face hovers in front of me, blurry, with blue hair, badly cut. I blink again, surely a vision. Some strange-looking angel.

  She addresses me. “Are you okay, Hallie?”

  I remember now. Hallie is the name of that girl I met at the carnival. The one who stepped behind my car as I was backing up. Perhaps this hovering face belongs to a friend of hers? Someone should fix that haircut; it’s unfortunate, hacked too short on one side. Or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

  “Talk to me, please!”

  Blessed Mary, will she never stop bleating? How can a person think? I push myself up on my hands, waiting for my wrists to answer in pain. But they don’t ache at all, nor do my fingers or palms. It was easy! I look down at them, and that’s when I notice. My heart thumps hard. I’m black!

  Calm down, I tell myself a second time. My skin is lovely, young and smooth. And the extra pigment is so practical and protective. I have to say, I like the new me.

  All my life I’ve been pasty white. My mother used to slather me with baby oil and tell me to sit out in the sun so I could get some colour. Unfortunately, that colour was always red, and then later the skin would tighten and crack into white flakes. Mother is long dead, but once a year, these days, I visit the dermatologist so he can burn off my pre-cancer cells.

  But enough delay. I’m definitely going to attempt standing now. I wriggle my toes first and stretch my legs. It’s the only way to warm up my joints and get the circulation flowing. Otherwise, I will hobble like the little old lady I never wanted to be. When exactly did I grow so old?

  As I move to a crouch, I realize my knees and ankles don’t hurt at all, nor do my Achilles tendons.

  “Hallie, Hallie!”

  I take a breath. My name is Susan, I’m certain of it. Not Hallie. And I will smack her one if she shakes my shoulder again. Oh, but I mustn’t. I can’t say anything, either; I must play along. Since I turned eighty, I find they’re always looking for ways to point out how stupid I am.

  The veil of fog lifts and I peer down at my legs. They’re so different, shorter, rounder, and I’m wearing jeans. Farmers’ pants, totally unsuitable to wear shopping. I scramble up the rest of the way and feel the strength in my leg muscles, which can’t possibly belong to me. I want to jump up and down to enjoy them, but then I notice my old body standing beside the blue-haired girl.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry I hit you. Are you hurt?” That’s my voice coming from my body.

  But I touch my lips; they haven’t moved, and they feel different too, softer, fuller. “No,” I answer, “I feel better than I have for a long time.”

  And it’s true. Even my new voice sounds smooth and energetic. I smile.

  An older gentleman stands next to my former body. I’ve seen him sometimes at the local deli. There’s always been something odd about him, a strength and confidence that most seniors do not project.

  He’s holding my former elbow and I see the tattoo. Carpe Diem, “seize the day,” if my Latin serves me. Just like that carnival operator, Eli. Then it strikes me, hard as a baseball bat.

  Eli means God in Hebrew. Can it be?

  “But that car really threw you, Hallie!” The strange angel keeps calling me by that other girl’s name, and from the parts of my body that I can see, I now look like Hallie.

  Eli warned us about different endings.

  “And you’re holding your head,” she continues.

  Instantly, I drop my hand. If I am in her body, is Hallie in mine? Did Eli mean he would switch our bodies?

  “Maybe you have a concussion,” the blue-haired angel says. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  At the word hospital, I panic. “No, no!” My friend Margret’s husband went in there with just a mild case of pneumonia but he came out in a box. “You can’t send me there. I’ll catch the C. difficile virus and die.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve never been in a hospital before. Not even when you were born.”

  Too late, I see Eli tapping his nose, raising an eyebrow, signalling me.

  Why? I’ve said something wrong? Ohhh, it dawns on me. My wariness of hospitals, not something a teen would necessarily have yet.

  “Maybe the young lady is confused, give her a moment,” Eli suggests.

  “You probably read about germs and hospitals on the internet for a school project,” says the person in my body. She is trying to help me. She’s in on it. She has to be Hallie.

  What a nightmare this must be for her, to be trapped in an octogenarian body.

  “Ye-yes,” I stammer. “C. difficile is something we learned about in class.”

  “Must have been when I was away then,” Blue Hair says. “’Cause I sure don’t remember.”

  “Perhaps you weren’t paying attention,” I snap. Really, leave it alone, missy! I watch as my old body bends to pick up the pieces of Hallie’s cellphone from the ice. Even after dying and reincarnating into a senior, Hallie’s first concern seems to be her phone. Too quickly, she straightens and a wave of pain passes over her face. I remember the feeling well.

  “You may be fine,” she tells me, “but your cellphone is toast.” She grips her back and winces. “I would love to replace it for you.” Flames burn in her eyes as she smiles, cunningly.

  Still bearing a grudge, I think. Maybe she can burn off my old cataracts with that laser stare of hers.

  “It’s the least I can do for you after running you down.” There’s iron in Hallie’s voice. This teenager is quite likely looking for revenge.

  Two can play at this game. I smile, too, with my soft, young lips. “That’s all right. I’ve learned my lesson about staring at phones while walking across parking lots. I won’t be using one anymore.” I scramble the rest of the way to my feet.

  “Oh, but I insist. In fact, I’ve decided to step out of the Dark Ages and buy one of those new phones they’ve just released, the El-Q, for myself. Maybe they’ll give me a deal for two.”

  Glaring at her, I bend down easily and scoop up the backpack that fell when the car hit her. “I couldn’t accept, really. Those models are far too expensive.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Her friend, the blue-haired angel, stands up from her crouch. “Take the El-Q. She owes you.”

  Oh, the young people today! They think the whole world owes them.

  “You can probably get all your contacts off the memory card from this one.” Hallie holds up a small piece of the cellphone. “What do you think, Abby?”

  The blue-haired angel squints suspiciously at this old body asking her the question. “How do you know my name?”

  Indeed, how would she? This young Blue Hair is a sharp thing; it’s going to be difficult to pull the wool over those angel eyes.

  Hallie’s wrinkled face turns pink. “You told me, remember?”

  “Um, actually, I don’t. Maybe we should just go home right now.” Blue-haired Abby shifts on her feet, cle
arly uncomfortable at the prospect of spending any more time with this strange senior. Her eyes scan from Hallie to me. “You should both probably lie down.”

  I could use some quiet time to sort this out, I think. But where is home? Where will I go if my body and voice belong to someone else?

  “First you need an El-Q.” Hallie nods and winks at me. “So we can stay in touch. You know, in case you find out you’re injured later on.”

  She has a point about staying in touch, a really good one. We can’t carry this off if we don’t. “All right. Shall we go back to the mall?”

  “Okay, well …” Abby interrupts. “My mother just texted me about an appointment. I HAVE to go home. Right now,” she adds.

  “Wait! Should I drive you?” Hallie asks.

  Just because she’s in an older person’s body, she thinks she’s capable of chauffeuring. We’ll see about that. I try to catch her eyes. So disconcerting because, of course, they’re my old eyes. “Perhaps we should get those El-Qs first. Just the two of us. We have things we need to discuss.”

  Abby shakes her head. “I can catch the bus. I’m good.”

  “What about lunch first?” Hallie pipes in. “My treat for everyone. We can go to Perspectives.”

  “Oh no,” I interrupt, “the food court would be fine.” Perspectives must be the most expensive restaurant in Burlington. How much is this switch going to cost me? This young girl doesn’t understand anything about money. About making it last till the end of your life because you won’t ever earn anything more.

  “No, I insist. I owe you a proper lunch, considering how much pain I’ve put you through.”

  “Well, not me,” Abby says. “You guys have fun. I see my bus coming. Bye!”

  Just as well. I can’t keep up the ruse in front of Hallie’s friend. Hallie’s going to have to fill me in on her entire life. “Okay, see you later, Abby.” I wave, happy to remember her name. Of late, I’ve been so bad with those. But the mind I’m using now is as sharp as a tack. So clever! I’m really going to enjoy this body swap. Perhaps a great deal more than Hallie.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hallie

  “WHERE IS HE?” I TURN AROUND in the parking lot, searching for Eli, but the old dude has conveniently disappeared. “I want to know how long I’m stuck in” — I wave my hands over the old lady’s body — “this.”