Chapter 13: A Present for Wendy

At quarter to eleven, two friendly familiar faces showed up in my room.

"How do you feel, Patti?" asked Linda.

"Just a little sore, but nothing worse," I said.

"We'll be in shortly," said Julie. "The ward is nearly empty because of the weekend, so let us do our rounds and then we'll both be back."

The candy striper who had sat with me since Einstein left was clearly pleased to be able to move on to something else. I hadn't been much company for her, as my thoughts had been elsewhere.

"What were you guys doing at the school on Saturday?" I asked Linda and Julie when they came back.

"Shall we show her now?" Julie said, "Or wait till tomorrow?"

"Maybe we should make her wait since she obviously doesn't appreciate the extra effort we put in," said Linda.

"Ah, come on you guys!"

They both laughed and Julie explained that since it was obvious that I wanted something special for Wendy's birthday, the two of them had gone shopping for just the right thing.

Linda took a package from her pocket. It looked like a pretty fancy jewelry store box to me.

"Ready?" she asked.

I nodded, and she opened the box to display a beautiful gold heart pendant on a fine gold chain. The heart had a tiny heart-shaped cutout on the left side.

"Oh, Linda, it's beautiful!"

"And this is for Wendy to give to the one she loves," said Julie, drawing another box from her pocket and opening it to show me a matching necklace with a very tiny heart pendant on it. "This way the missing piece of her heart will always be with the one she loves. You can let her decide."

"Oh, this is way too cool!" I said. "But it must have cost a small fortune. I tried to tell you how much I could afford."

"We know," said Julie, "but we also know how you feel about this girl. If we hadn't been sure before, what we saw today told us how she feels about you. Guess our intuition was pretty accurate eh, Linda?"

"Very much," Linda replied. "So we figured that you deserved at least this much from us."

I thanked them profusely and after promising they would have it gift wrapped before morning we got down to some serious talking.

I told them that Patrick had been in earlier in the evening and thanked them for letting us use them as messengers.

"We talked with him for some time," said Julie, "and it's kind of funny, but he seems to have the same kind of selective memory loss that you do. It's interesting nobody noticed it when he was still in the hospital. Must have been all that police business that distracted everybody."

"Yeah," said Linda. "He seems to be fooling a lot of people, but not in a bad way. His mom and dad are happy with him and he managed to change schools as well. It's almost like you guys had planned to change everything so you wouldn't have anybody from your past around. Like people who might notice small changes?"

They were uncomfortably close to the truth although my changing school was by accident and not by choice. I tried to shrug it off and said they read too much Sci-Fi, but clearly they weren't buying it.

They weren't badgering me or anything like that, but they clearly had an idea of what was going on. I had to decide how much I could trust them.

"Okay," I said. "Ask me a question. I will answer it as truthfully as possible, on condition that you don't ask me how I know. And I should warn you that I don't know a lot about this time period."

"This time period?" Linda asked.

"Yep. Remember that I'm only 14."

Julie's eyes narrowed and she pulled Linda aside. For a few minutes they whispered quietly then came back to my bed.

"Okay," said Julie. "We won't ask how you know, but we finally settled on a question that will confirm our suspicions."

I took a deep breath and said, "Fire away."

"Do the Beatles ever reunite?" asked Linda.

I chuckled. These girls were much smarter than even I had given them credit for. I thought about it for a couple of moments, trying to decide how much information I should give them.

"No," I said. "The Beatles were a musical phenomenon that will never be repeated. The Beatles are finished, though all four of them will continue with solo careers. At various times they will join in groups of two or three to add to each other's singles but as a group the Beatles are done."

As they mulled that over, I realized that if I had told them about the death of John Lennon in 1980 at the hands of a crazed assassin they might try to prevent it. At least I could answer this question without compromising the time line as I knew it.

"Does Patrick have the same knowledge?" Linda asked.

Hmm... a second question, but not about the future. I thought about how far on a limb these girls had gone for me and Einstein, and told them, "Well, more or less. After all, he's a boy and I'm a girl."

"And you two have never met before?" Julie asked.

Tough one, though the honest answer was easy. "No," I said. "Prior to waking up in this hospital, I can honestly say we had never met before." Which was true in the strictest sense of the word. I knew the body and life of Patrick because I had been him, but I had never met Patricia until I became her.

"This is Twilight Zone stuff," Linda said. "It's hard to understand. We're looking forward to the full story when you two are ready."

"So," I said, changing the subject, "I hear that you shocked Patrick when you asked him if he was able to 'relieve' himself."

Julie laughed. "The look on his face was priceless when he eventually figured out what we were talking about!"

"He's a good kid," Linda added. "Cute and sweet. We offered to set him up with someone if he had a need that self loving couldn't satisfy, but he seemed pretty cool with it. I thought he might be queer."

"I thought he might be as well," I said, "but from what he told me tonight, that doesn't seem to be the case. By the way, Linda... thanks for the condoms. I'm not sure when he will need them, but as he said, better to be prepared than to be caught short."

Despite the fact that I was stuck on liquids, and had a neck that hurt like hell, we had a great night. I don't think we finished talking until three in the morning when I must have dozed off.

Neither Linda nor Julie broached the subject of the future again that night, and instead we talked about our plans for the future. Julie wanted to go back to school and become a doctor. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to specialize in pediatrics or become an obstetrician. I suggested that she concentrate her studies towards infertility and alternate methods of conception.

Okay... so I was already playing with fire, but Julie would just be finishing medical school when artificial insemination became an accepted method for reproduction.

Linda wanted to continue working for a few more years and then have a baby. I asked if she had picked a father out yet, which caused her to laugh.

"Not yet," she said putting her arm around Julie. "Why? Do you know of any good candidates?"

I smiled at them. "I think you'll find Patrick would be willing, and he won't try to interfere with the way you two want to raise your child."

Both of them thought that was a great idea, but it raised an obvious question... How did I know, could I know, that Patrick would be agreeable?

"Let's just say that I can speak for Patrick and he can speak for me." I said. "Besides, nobody knows him better than I do!"

I woke up late Sunday morning, regretting that I had fallen asleep on my two friends. There was an envelope on the bedside stand addressed to me and I opened it to find a note from Linda and Julie.

Dear Patti,

You looked so peaceful sleeping we thought we would leave you alone. We left the two packages wrapped at the nurse's station for safe keeping and to avoid questions. When you want them, just ask one of the nurses for them.

Love,

L&J

That was so sweet of them. I hoped that Wendy would be allowed to come and visit today so I could give her the present.