Body Swap

by Sylvia McNicoll

  Susan purses my lips, a strange kind of mouth move that I don’t usually do. “I think we just have to make the best of things the way they are.” Of course she would be okay with the whole deal.

  “Well, you can’t leave your car in the middle of the road. Better park it, so we can check out the mall,” I suggest.

  “I … I can’t. I don’t trust it … or myself. I feel shaky.” She covers her mouth with her hand, another thing I don’t do. So weird to watch.

  “Oh, give me a break!”

  “In your body, I’m too young, anyway.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it.” I reach into her purse for keys.

  “Do you know how to drive?”

  “Yeah. I drive my uncle’s truck all the time. Not sure about how well I park, though. There’s always so much room on the farm.” I head to the driver’s side and get in.

  “Saji Hurricanes are easy,” she says, sliding in beside me. “When they work properly, they park themselves.”

  “But it’s a big car and there’s hardly any room.”

  “What I mean is Saji vehicles parks themselves, literally. There’s a park-assist feature. Cameras and sensors.” She waves her hands, fluttery, old-people style but with my teenaged hands.

  She mentioned something about the floor mat at the carnival before, so just in case, I bend down to make sure the mat is clear of the gas pedal. Then I turn on the engine. The dash lights up in bottle blue. Susan switches on the park feature for me. I watch as the screen displays three sides of the Hurricane. “Wow, didn’t think you liked technology.”

  “I don’t. My son Ron convinced me. He’s a lawyer. A good one. His wife, Sheryl, insisted I give up my licence after my heart attack. He talked me into buying a car with extra safety features instead.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Just drive it in. It will beep if you’re too close to any of the other cars.”

  “Rats, a Smart car just pulled into our spot.”

  “Christmas. People circle for hours for a space.” Susan cranes her neck. “See that single line of cars at the back near the snowbank? One spot just opened.”

  “Parallel parking?” I ask.

  “May take you all of thirty seconds. Get over there, before someone takes it.”

  She’s right, I better hurry. I turn the wheel, put it in drive, and accelerate gently. Of course, there’s no problem. I know my gas pedal from my brake, not like some senior citizens I know. I test it out to make sure, stop for a moment, then accelerate again. Once we get to the line, I pull up to the car ahead of the spot.

  “Now put it in reverse, let the steering wheel go, and accelerate.”

  “You trust it to park like that?” Makes me wonder if she believes her own story.

  “It’s quite amazing. Just be gentle on the gas.”

  I push my foot down and magically it moves backward. “Weird.” It’s like some supernatural being has taken over driving the car.

  Beep, beep!

  “That’s the signal you’re in. So brake. Perfect.”

  “Accelerator works fine.”

  “This time. If it malfunctioned consistently, I would have no problem getting it attended to.”

  “Sure.” I switch off the car and get out again. But I’m way slower than she is.

  She power-marches through the snow toward the mall.

  I struggle to keep up with her. “Slow down, will ya? My knee hurts.” Just as I get the words out, there’s a dip in the pavement and the ball of my right foot lands harder than I expect. I stumble. “Ow. Geez, I’m clumsy.”

  Rabbit-quick, she doubles back to catch me. “Sorry. That bad knee always throws me off balance. I’ll walk slower. Here, hold on.” She sticks out her elbow for me. “It will make things easier and you won’t slip on the ice.”

  This is embarrassing, but I grab onto her for all my decrepit arm is worth. Nobody will know me, anyways. When we get closer to the entrance, a man presses the wheelchair button and the door opens automatically for us. Hey, we could have opened that ourselves.

  “Thank you,” Susan says. She parts her lips to show an even row of perfect teeth.

  Those used to be mine. Did I ever have a nice smile! I never realized that before. My lips were a full pink bow. I wiggle my older lips –– they feel dry and cracked.

  “Where is this store?” Susan asks me as we enter the building.

  “See if you can’t smell it.” I inhale deeply and enjoy the electric-wire fragrance of technology. I love it.

  “This way?” She points to the left.

  “Yup.” It isn’t far and the bright lights shining from inside the IQ store out-flash all the others. The large, plate windows combined with the two blank white walls along the sides make it look bigger than it already is.

  The store bustles with people, most sitting around high tables with assorted screens in front of them. Clerks in black pants and white lab coats circle, each of them with an El-Q in their hand. Along the back wall, screens flash IQ messages. How can we make your purchase more pleasant? And When in doubt, reboot. Images of upcoming new models appear underneath. A long, white bar stretches in front of the screen, and a row of customers sit patiently on stools, all waiting for a lab coat to pay attention to their problems.

  The lab coat who approaches us is cute. His hair tufts up with some kind of product. He has a slightly downturned smile and puppy-dog brown eyes that right now are paying all kinds of attention to Susan, even though I’m smiling at him with all my might.

  Do I have hideous yellow teeth in this body? I poke my tongue around in my mouth. Do I even have all my teeth? Seems like it. I close my lips, anyways.

  “My name’s Van. Is there something I can help you with today?”

  “Well, Van, we want to look at the very latest El-Q,” I tell him, trying my best to sound adult.

  “Certainly. Come over this way.” He leads us to a table near the left wall. “These are all the models we have in right now.”

  “How much do they cost?” Susan asks as she looks them over.

  He squints at her. Why should a teen care, after all? “It depends, miss, on the features and the size of memory you want, but this one” — he points to the screen closest to us — “runs about six hundred.”

  “What! For a phone?” Susan shrieks. She’s definitely coming across too senior citizen.

  Van’s eyebrows jump and his head tilts. “This isn’t a phone, it’s the future. An OLED screen so it’s super sharp and light. Face ID, wireless charging, a long-life battery. The true depth camera has optimal image stabilization — you can take phenomenal photos, even with selfies …”

  “Can you make phone calls?” Susan asks.

  She is so embarrassing.

  Van smiles at her. “Sure you can.” He shrugs. “But don’t you just text?”

  I cough to get his attention but his eyes never leave Susan. He thinks she’s cute, I can tell. In my body, she is cute! Cuteness gets attention power; I had power before. I never knew that. Now, in Susan’s body, it’s like I’m invisible.

  “We’ll take two, please.” It comes out in a creaky old-lady voice. I hold my neck as I clear my throat. But, of course, that voice doesn’t shock anyone else but me.

  “No problem.” Van instantly keys something into his own device. “Says here there are exactly two left in the back. Let me go see.” He rushes away.

  Once Van leaves, Susan hisses at me. “You can’t use up all my money just to get even. This isn’t my fault.”

  “You wrecked my phone!” I wrench open her blue bag and rummage through. “And you don’t even own one.”

  “Fine.” She pulls an El-Q from the table but there’s not enough cord to get it close to her face. “But why does it have to be this model?”

  “It’s way more user friendly. See the big screen and all the icons? These are the apps it comes with.” I take the phone from her and open a magazine app just to show her.

  “To me, an icon is Alice Munro
.”

  “What songs does she sing? Maybe I can play one for you.”

  “She writes short stories.”

  “Oh yeah? You can read on this model, too.” I point to a little image of a book. “Here’s the icon.” Then I click on it. “They’ve got Charles Dickens on here as a sample. But watch what else this device can do.” I tap the centre button and a line appears on the screen along with the words What can I help you with?

  The line wobbles as I speak. “Find me A Tale of Two Cities.”

  A female computer voice answers okay, and a moment later, the book opens for us.

  “It’s like having a genie in a cellphone,” Susan says.

  “That’s what they call her. Genie. Great, right?” But as I try to read the opening, the print seems incredibly tiny and the words look blobby. I blink for a few seconds. “Uh, what’s wrong with my eyes?”

  “Usually, I need glasses to read,” Susan tells me. “They’re in my purse.”

  “I’ll just bump up the font then.” I hit the plus sign a couple of times.

  “That is impressive. You would never need reading glasses.”

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. I read the lines in my head.

  “That’s another thing. We don’t know each other at all. In order to keep this soul switch a secret, we need to stay in touch. To tell each other stuff.”

  “You’re right. I was a young girl once but things have changed so much. School, too, I bet.”

  “Aw man, that’s in less than two weeks. We’ll have our bodies back way before then. Don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. What do you suppose Eli meant by different endings?”

  “Oh, come on, he’s just messing with our heads.” At least, that’s what I hope. I can see where she might hope differently. “Christmas is only five days away. I can’t miss that.” I shake my head, discouraged, then look around for Van. He seems to be taking his sweet time. “You know what? I’m just going to run out to the kiosk and see about a plan so we can stay in touch with each other. You just play with the El-Q awhile till I get back.”

  She nods and I hand her the device.

  I try to run but forget how bad my knee is. Instead, I hobble, as quickly as I can.

  “‘Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,’” I sing along to the mall music. At Patches, my favourite boutique, I spot a great sale on jeans, slow down, but then pass the display. I can’t try them on in this body.

  Then I spot Chael in the distance with Hardeep. My breath freezes, my heart stops. I raise my hand to wave, then quickly put it down again when I see my liver spots. They breeze by and head for an exit, not even a glance my way.

  Finally, I arrive at the Telco kiosk. The clerks behind the counter — a tall blond girl and a super-hot guy — chat with each other and don’t seem to notice there is a world outside their conversation.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me.” I feel like I’m begging.

  They look away from each other, finally. Their eyes land on me but it’s as though they see straight through me. Makes me think about Eli’s carnival. I shudder.

  Then I cough, ahem, ahem, and ask them about phone plans for the El-Q.

  The tall blonde takes her time to explain several in detail. My eyes glaze, my brain travels on a little vacation. I watch the super-hot guy look over some paperwork. I wonder if he would like me in my usual body. At some point, over the haze, I hear something about a thirty-day trial share plan where El-Q users get free FaceTime and unlimited calling and texting with each other for sixty dollars a month. Seems perfect for Susan and me.

  “Can we get that set up today once we buy our El-Qs?” I ask.

  “Sure. And after thirty days, you’ll get a discount for using one of their devices, too. We have an agreement with IQ.”

  I’m just about to tell her that I’ll be right back when an alarm sounds. Loud. Painful. I cover my ears and turn away. “What is that?” I ask.

  “The IQ store must have caught a shoplifter.”

  “Really?” Something tells me I better check back in on Susan.

  CHAPTER 6

  Susan

  ALL I WANTED WAS TO USE THIS phone as Alexander Bell originally intended and call my son to let him know I remembered I was coming for supper. But I couldn’t even find the numbers on the confounded contraption. I tried to get a sales associate’s attention. “Yoo-hoo!” I waved but he rushed by to help someone carry out a large box. “Excuse me!” I called to a young woman with a wide chin. But Mandi (that was the name on her tag) was devoting her attention entirely to typing something into her own contraption.

  I even tried summoning that genie in the phone by tapping the middle button. Instantly, the magic words appeared and I thought I was getting somewhere. What can I help you with?

  I raised my voice so she could hear me. “Call Ron MacMillan!”

  A lovely, regretful voice answered, I’m sorry, you have no contacts listed.

  “Can’t you look it up?” No answer. The genie ignored me. Bah! Finally, I just pulled out the cord to walk to one of the lab coats. Instantly, a saxophone blared, loud and louder.

  I covered my ears and headed for the door, away from the awful racket. Where was Hallie? Hallie would understand how this machine operated. I stepped out the door to peak my head around and look for her.

  Now, I’m surrounded by lab coats. It seems as though I’ve drawn the attention of all the mad scientists in the store. At last, I’ll get some help!

  “Don’t move,” says the same young man who ignored me before. Matt, as his name tag reads, shuffles as if to block my getaway.

  “This is a misunderstanding,” I begin explaining. “Van is supposed to be helping me but he disappeared.”

  “Van has been let go,” Matt answers.

  Hard to look this young man in the eyes; they shift and swirl behind his thick glasses. “In the middle of serving a customer, um, Matt? No wonder he was taking so long.”

  “Call security,” he tells Mandi, who seems to have finally torn her attention away from her own screen.

  “Sure thing, Matt.” Who knew Mandi had such energy and eagerness in her. With her wide, hard jaw, she looks to be one tough cookie.

  The horn continues to blare. Everyone stares in my direction. Nothing like this has ever happened to me in my entire life. It would be rather exciting, if I could just be a bystander watching it happen to someone else.

  Mandi frowns at me, pushing that hard chin forward. She could be a boxer or a security guard herself. She taps something into her contraption. “They’ll be here in a moment.”

  “You don’t need security,” I tell them. “I’m buying the El-Q. Two of them.”

  “Sure you are,” Mandi says. “Show us the money, kid.”

  “I don’t have it — Hallie, um —” I think quickly about how to explain our relationship in a logical way. The truth would be too unbelievable. “I mean, my grandmother does. She just stepped away. I was looking for her when you stopped me.”

  “You can’t leave the store without paying for the device.”

  “I understand that. I wasn’t leaving completely. Just stepping over the line, as it were. But while we’re waiting, maybe you can show me how you make a phone call from this.”

  Not one of the young people standing around me answers. Instead, like attendants at an insane asylum, they tighten their circle around me.

  Meanwhile, two men in black uniforms arrive. Their uniforms have pockets everywhere, even on the legs of their pants. It gives them a bulky, muscular look. What can they possibly need all those pockets for? They can’t carry weapons or ammunition in them, surely. But their faces look so stern and serious, I don’t ask.

  “Would you come this way, miss?”

  “But I can’t leave the store. My grandmother won’t know where I am.” The lie comes out a second time, much quicker. I’m getting used to the idea and rather liking it.
More fun to have a granny than to be one.

  The two men hook their arms under my shoulders, and even though I try to dig my heels in, it’s impossible on tile floor. I feel like I’m being abducted. And then finally I see the tall, thin blond woman that used to be me making her way back to the store.

  “Grandma, help!” I yell.

  “Let her go!” Hallie shouts at the guards. “Immediately,” she adds.

  The guards look from Hallie to me. You can see the disbelief on their faces. One set of eyebrows rises, another set of eyes narrows in response. What is wrong with these people? So our skin colours don’t exactly match. This is the twenty-first century.

  “Call Uncle Ron! They think I was stealing the El-Q!” I explain. I turn to the guards with all the pockets. “My uncle is a lawyer.”

  “Ma’am, your” — Mandi raises her fingers in those air quotation marks I find such an affectation — “‘granddaughter’ disconnected the El-Q and headed through the door. Claims she wanted to know how to call someone. What does she take us for?”

  Hallie rolls her eyes, an odd movement for an octogen­arian. “I’m sorry. My granddaughter was raised Amish.”

  The lab coats squint. They are trying to take that literally but don’t look convinced. Do they not understand a joke without an LOL sign?

  “Where is the sales guy who was serving us?” Hallie asks.

  “Van got sacked,” I tell her, wondering if sacked is a teen word.

  “He was short-changing inventory,” Matt adds.

  “Look, we want to buy two El-Qs and connect them in a hurry. So I dashed over to Telco to ask about service …”

  “And now she’s back, as you can see!” I gesture toward Hallie.

  One of the security guards shakes his head at the other.

  “We’ll be leaving,” the other one announces.

  You have to admire someone who can take charge like that and make the correct decision.

  “Call us if you need us.” It is not exactly clear who he thinks will need them, the lab coats or Hallie.