Universe 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Terry Carr

  What if I don’t do it? Before the thought was complete his breath caught; fear choked him. All right, I will—I will! Still shaky, he got up to a solitary breakfast, and packed. He left a note for Margaret: “Off to rent my brains in San Fran. Four-five days, six at the outside. Will call. Love.” Then he was ready to leave.

  His preferred driving speed—eight miles over the limit, where traffic permitted—brought him near Coos Bay by midafternoon. He checked into the motel, showered and changed clothes, hung his binoculars around his neck, and walked around to the fountain.

  She was up there, all right—a fat, robed shape with dull moon face and bald-looking head. If she saw him, she gave no sign. Remembering then, he moved the glasses, watching the spot of reflected light as he tilted it up the hillside. He waved his free hand.

  Did she see him? Yes—now she turned to call to the nurse. He waited. The binoculars came; the girl fiddled with them, then held them steady.

  What did she see, now? Oh, yes—suck in the gut! He did, lowered his own glasses and smiled, then raised them. She followed suit; was that the way it had happened? They waved to each other; he beckoned and pointed; she signed assent.

  That was all he could remember; he waved again and turned back to the motel. In his room, he poured bourbon over ice.

  Jesus! Is THAT how it’s going to be? Following in his own footsteps with no chance to choose their path? Trapped action! Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, after all, to meet in person.

  But he had to, he just plain had to. Why? Because she was closer to him than anyone else in the world—closer than his wife or a twin could be. She was himself, one day behind himself.

  And maybe in Seattle, able to talk together, they could plan ahead and avoid trapping him this way.

  But until then, he decided, he would not see her again.

  And that’s final!

  * * * *

  He went to San Francisco and sold his schematic proposal. He went home, and this time Margaret was there to help him celebrate. He did other jobs and enjoyed leisure between them, and drank not too much and did sit-ups for the gut muscles and sometimes, when Margaret was off with Carl Forbes, visited redheaded Phyllis Asaghian.

  But for the most part, Ed Carlain in his own life was marking time. As days added up to weeks, then months, it was Melanie’s life he lived for.

  * * * *

  Waking, remembering seeing herself from the fountain, for the first time she thought of herself as “she.” Ed Carlain had seen her so, and Ed-in-Melanie now accepted it. Somehow she felt a sense of relief, of a tension vanished.

  She spent the day in exercise, in the discovery and practice of bodily skills, interspersed with rest and reading. Her body hungered but she ate only what Dr. Phipps prescribed. She tired less rapidly and stayed awake later; at bedtime she slept without chemical aid and dreamed of vague and pleasant scenes.

  Each day resembled the one before it. A week after Nurse Ahlstrom’s Polaroid picture a second was taken. Melanie studied it alongside the first and nodded with some satisfaction.

  Weight loss was not dramatic, but the body stood more erect, better poised. The belly sagged less; overall, her posture was more alive. The face was less moonish and showed a hint of expression, of intelligence— not much, but a start. And this time the stubble on the head was clearly visible. Melanie took a pen and in the lower margin awkwardly lettered “June 12—187 pounds.”

  June 19—180. Chin was narrower than cheekbones. She could walk without her “walker.” The smile looked real.

  June 26—174. She had walked up and down a flight of stairs. She could do five sit-ups, but they hurt. She was learning to type; Ed Carlain typed only with two fingers.

  July 3—165. The waistline was smaller than the bust. She had begun jogging, outdoors, a few minutes each day. Her face showed hints of contours waiting to be revealed. She experimented with masturbation and achieved orgasm on the third attempt. She was pleased to learn that she could.

  July 10—160. A plateau, perhaps? Or maybe the Pill—she was “on” it, since the abortion, to regularize her periods. She took the Personality Inventory tests and checked out “normal” except for a tendency toward masculine attitudes. Her hair was nearly an inch long and gave her head and face a better overall shape. Her breasts and shoulders still carried too much fat but no longer looked gross to her.

  July 17—155. Reaching the goal she had first set, she pinched her waistline and still found too much fat. She had endured through hunger and adjusted; she no longer felt its pangs—so why settle, just yet, for a maintenance diet? Her coordination was roughly as good as Ed Carlain’s and still improving. She smoked a cigarette; it made her sick. Who needs it?

  July 24—151. She had strong features, not pretty, but striking. She learned to apply lipstick but seldom used it. With Nurse Ahlstrom’s help and instruction, her short hair became a curly, light-brown cap, more becoming than the close-lying straightness had been. She wondered how long it would grow if she didn’t cut it. She passed the state examinations for a high school diploma. Dr. Phipps said, “You’ve certainly done a lot of reading in a hurry, haven’t you?”

  July 31—147. Close, she thought, to what would be her best weight —and soon now. She obtained college entrance exams from the University of Washington in Seattle and passed well. She agreed with Dr. Phipps that it was now time for her competency hearing, to make her legally a responsible adult.

  “Will I need a lawyer?”

  “Can’t hurt to have one. I’ll call mine.”

  The lawyer, Arnold Zumwalt, was a thin man with a plump face; Melanie liked him. After they had talked for a time she said, “I’d like you to represent me in another matter, also.”

  “Yes?” And she commissioned him to investigate her parents’ wills and her brother’s administration of them. “Don’t see him personally. I want to know where I stand before he learns of me.”

  Dr. Phipps said, “Isn’t that being a bit paranoid?”

  “Maybe it is. But this is my brother Charles who quit coming to see me since well before my parents died, since before he moved East. I don’t blame him—who wants to visit a vegetable?

  “But I think I know how he’s going to feel. This money, however much it is—part of it may be legally mine but for a long time it’s been factually his. And now here comes the turnip, with her hand out You see?”

  Phipps nodded, and Zumwalt. Discussion closed.

  * * * *

  The judge was younger than Melanie expected. He heard the briefs, then asked, “Melanie Blake, to the best of your knowledge, are the foregoing statements true?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, yes.” Somehow the lie came hard.

  “Your memories begin on June third of this year?”

  “That is correct.” Not quite a lie, that time. Your?

  “And all your knowledge at that point came from overheard conversations, television, and so forth, recorded unconsciously?”

  “That is what I am told. I have no better theory to offer.”

  “Well, then.” The judge tipped his gavel up on end, then laid it flat again. “I’ve seen the test results—intelligence, personality evaluation, high school and college entrance exams—I’ve heard Dr. Phipps’s testimony and I’ve seen and heard you. Obviously, at this time you are legally competent”

  He leaned forward. “But what if—what if, I ask—you were to suffer a relapse. Tomorrow, for instance. Who would be responsible for you?”

  “Legally, you mean?” She thought. “Well—sir, every day people suffer heart attacks or strokes that leave them helpless.”

  After a moment the judge smiled. “And of course no one is given legal responsibility for any of them, in advance. Miss Blake, you’ve made your point.”

  The gavel.

  * * * *

  August 7—144, and tomorrow Charles Blake, aged thirty-two and several times a millionaire, would arrive. He controlled the more than six million dollars he had built
in ten years from the three million their parents had left them—but half was in trust for her. She could claim it. Reading the gray Xerox of the will, she could sense her parents’ stubborn, forlorn hope: “if at legal age or at any later time she is adjudged competent . . .” There were more qualifications, but that was the crucial clause.

  She memorized it.

  * * * *

  Charles, she decided, looked ten years older than his age because he worked at it. She guessed his executive-style glasses with their heavy black frames to be “window glass,” for appearance. Dark and stocky, he was at least an inch shorter than she. His obvious embarrassment blanketed any personality he might have displayed, except for his equally obvious resentment of Zumwalt’s presence.

  She tried at first to make some sort of polite conversation, but he was having none of that. Finally he said, “I don’t know who you are or what you’re up to, but one thing is clear. You are not my sister.” He looked at Zumwalt and at Dr. Phipps. “I suppose you’re all in on it. If I’d known what I was walking into, I’d have brought my own attorney. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” said Melanie Blake. The more the merrier.” She stood and loomed above him where he sat. “And now tell me why I’m not your sister. Because my fingerprints, along with the ones on my birth certificate, say I am.”

  * * * *

  It went on and on. She had been willing to settle for half the original legacy, leaving to Charles all the increase he had wrought. Zumwalt had disagreed. “If you had been normal all your life you’d be entitled to your full share. Correct? Why should your previous disability make any difference?” She had been undecided, but now Charles’s attitude and behavior swung her to Zumwalt’s view. Argue-argue-argue— her brother was intolerable.

  But still she wanted an amicable settlement not a lawsuit Charles was holding forth nonstop; she cut into his Point Seven. “Charles! I do not intend to cause you any trouble.”

  “As I have said, it is impossible for me to liquidate enough assets to give you your so-called share, without—”

  “Goddamn it, shut up and listen!” And for a wonder, he did. “If you’ll just tum off your mouth for a minute—I’ve been trying to tell you—keep control; I won’t tamper. Mr. Zumwalt explained how under the terms of the wills you keep a sizable cash account in my name, to provide for my care and medical expenses.”

  He started to speak; she swiped a near-slap past his face. “All right, Charles. You haven’t touched that money for yourself; you can’t. I can use it for a drawing account, quite legally, for major expenses. Right?”

  She did not wait for an answer. “But I want an income, too, eventually. And the best way to get it—a way that will cost you nothing—is directly from the company you head.”

  “And just how do you suggest that I rob our company?”

  “Who said rob? I’m the second-largest shareholder. So appoint me to the next vacancy on the board of directors.”

  His mouth fell slack; then he said, “You’re not just retarded; you’re crazy. Put the competition on the board to fight me?”

  She sighed. “Businesswise you’re a genius, but with people you’re a klutz. No wonder you’ve been divorced three times. Competition, my dimpled butt! I was going to say, if you’d shut up long enough: Put me on the board and I’ll give you my proxy. I certainly don’t know enough to vote it properly.”

  She saw the renewed confidence in his face, now that he was once again in a situation he knew and understood. “Do you mean that? It could work. Old Showalter’s due for retirement soon, and the man next in line isn’t exactly on my team.”

  “I mean it, Charles. I don’t want your blood, for heaven’s sake. I’d just like to have some of my own.”

  Luncheon was amicable, but still she was glad when Charles left.

  * * * *

  September 4—142, and holding. She had been as low as 140 and could do it again, anytime she wished. Dieting was no longer a problem; she came to meals with good appetite and ate as much as her active body required.

  She looked at the latest—and last—of Nurse Ahlstrom’s Polaroid prints. Damned good body, if I do say so myself. Well, she had worked for it, hadn’t she?

  Her two-inch growth of hair looked well enough in a mild curl, especially with the reddish rinse she had used on it. The cut was a little too pixieish for her face, she felt, especially on a big girl, but time would correct that. She’d do.

  For two weeks she had owned a car; it waited in the parking lot. Her purse contained, among other things, a valid driver’s permit.

  She had said good-bye to Nurse Ahlstrom and to most of the others she knew at all well. Dr. Phipps had been away for the day, but she would see him at breakfast next morning.

  * * * *

  The doctor fooled her. “Mind if I ride up to Seattle with you? We can trade off driving. You haven’t driven more than a few miles at a time yet; you’d get tired.”

  She wouldn’t; her driving habits were Ed Carlain’s, not the newly learned ones of Melanie Blake. But his consideration touched her.

  “You’re welcome, of course. But how will you get back?”

  ‘The puddle-jumper plane stops by, every day. We can drop my car off at the airport, on the way out.”

  She nodded. “Fine. But now tell me why you really want to come along. No, it’s not just the driving—though I appreciate that, too. But I could do it in short hauls if I had to, take two days for the trip. So, why?”

  “Well . . . Melanie, you—your consciousness—is really only three months old. There’s so much you don’t know, can’t know. Like a baby bird leaving the nest, and—well, maybe papa bird wants to see you settled on a safe perch.”

  She felt guilt—because this kindly man could not be told that his anxiety was groundless, and why.

  “I worry a little,” he said. “You’ve leased this town-house apartment and had it decorated—a little stark, I thought, when the decorator was down from Seattle with his drawings and samples, but you can change it later if you like.

  “Anyway, that part’s fine. But when you get there, what’s in the refrigerator? You’ve learned some cooking but you’ve never been in a supermarket. And other things—so many daily-life things you don’t know first-hand yet—I’d like to steer you through a few of them, if I may.”

  She laughed. “All right. But believe me, I won’t do the TV-commercial bit—poke into someone’s grocery cart and get nosy about their detergent.”

  His answering laugh was brief. “I know; you seem to have sorted the facts from the garbage all right. But still I’m glad you’ll indulge an old man who’d like to monitor your first day of total independence.”

  “So that it won’t be quite so total?”

  “You got me that time! But I won’t interfere, unless . . .”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to. I hope not”

  * * * *

  Alone, she would have driven the distance in about seven hours including stops, but to please Dr. Phipps she agreed to trade seats every fifty miles or so and take a rest stop at each exchange. Also, she drove at his speed, not Ed Carlain’s.

  While she drove he talked little, but when he first took the wheel he asked her, “Have you thought much—decided yet, among the things we’ve talked about, what you intend to do?”

  “You mean, like work—though I don’t have to, of course—or going to college?” She shook her head. “No, not really. Oh, I’ll probably take classes at the university, but not right away. I may get into some volunteer work—you know the kind of thing—mostly to meet people. That’s what I need, I think—to learn to live with people.” She hoped it sounded right, like Melanie, not like Ed Carlain in drag.

  “And I need to get to know people of my own age.” That, at least, was true. She had forgotten what it was like to be eighteen in company, and today’s youngsters were not the same as Ed’s youthful contemporaries had been; he was often puzzled by Margaret’s son and the boy’s friends.


  “Yes, I suppose so.” The doctor hesitated. “Melanie—there’s one matter—you’ve been rather evasive—your attitudes toward sex. Did the rape . . . ?”

  “No. That wasn’t—it was something blind and impersonal.” She turned to face him. “I know I’m ignorant—all TV ever does about sex is talk around the edges of it—but I’ve read a lot and I think I know how people should feel about each other . . . first. Not like Hollywood, maybe, but . . . well, friends. Is that close?”

  “Perhaps something more than friends, I think. I—”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Doctor. I’m in no hurry about it.”