I woke up early this morning with a headache. My head felt like it was being held between a jackhammer and an anvil, and I had no idea why it should hurt so much. I swallowed a couple of aspirin before taking a shower and committed myself to actually getting up. Despite the pain behind my eyes, I was going to see Jackie today and the forced early start would give me an advantage.

I was ready to hit the road at just after seven o’clock in the morning. I had packed everything that I thought I would need for the weekend and changed into my gym clothes. My girlfriend, Jackie, and I were planning to head straight to the rock gym when I got to town for an early workout. I did not want to waste any of the time the two of us had together this weekend; being dressed for the gym when I got there would save the unnecessary minutes it would take to change in her apartment. That, and I wanted to use those extra minutes to make her a surprise breakfast when she woke up.

Jackie lives about a hundred and fifty miles north of me. She works at the local hospital and lives in one of the newer apartment complexes nearby. It is convenient for us because the athletic center with the rock gym completely takes up the first floor of the complex. It is one of those new space-saving architectural concepts you read about sometimes in the newspaper. I really think that should have made the rent for Jackie’s apartment more expensive, but she had negotiated a student discount with the manager. She was crafty like that.

When she’s not at work, Jackie is taking classes at the university in town. We got our bachelor’s degrees there, but she had stayed in town to work on her master’s degree. Unfortunately, this means I only get to see her when I drive up on weekends because she is not able to take enough time off work or her studies to visit me. I usually leave early on Saturday mornings, rather than sleeping in like she would likely be doing – Friday nights were late ones for her in class.

After I double-checked to make sure all of my things were in the back of the car I ran inside to grab a bottle of water. I planned to swing by the gas station on my way and would probably be picking up a soda while I was there. The water for when we went to the gym because Jackie rarely keeps bottles of water in her apartment and you have no idea how expensive a twenty-ounce bottle of water is out of the vending machines at the athletic center.

It was still very early when I left, so I expected traffic would be next to nonexistent on both the main roads through town and the freeway. I had no trouble hitting every traffic light green and made my way into the north-bound lanes of the interstate not ten minutes after I pulled out of the parking spot in front of my own apartment. I had already pulled the car’s antenna up, so I turned on the radio to my favorite pop station and set the cruise control for my typical three miles per hour over the posted speed limit. I figured three miles per hour would shave at least fifteen minutes off of my drive, would be fast enough to keep up with the majority of traffic, but still slow enough to avoid the being pulled over for speeding.

My quarter-tank of gas was close to running dry after the first fifty miles on the road, so I pulled in to a truck stop to refuel and pick up a nice big cup of liquid energy. Gas was relatively cheap at this station, so I had more than enough cash left over to afford the two dollar “super-mega-huge” size cup at the fountain machine. It was one of those out-dated sixty-four ounce cups that went the way of the dinosaur after people started caring about their health. Judging from the condition the rest of the gas station was in, though, I doubt anyone here had caught on to the healthy, “clean” trend. I put the lid on the cup and grabbed an oversized straw to go with it. I knew there was no need for that much caffeine or sugar, but I liked the “super-mega-huge” name and it was affordable.

I got back into the car and reset the mileage counter before I continued my way northward to see Jackie. It was only around seven fifty so far, and I had another hundred or so miles to go before I got to her place. I figured I would be there around nine forty-five with the light traffic I was seeing; it would get a little heavier as I passed the hospital and I would not be able to maintain my freeway speed once I got into town. None of this worried me, though, because I knew that Jackie rarely woke up before ten AM on Saturdays. She had a full shift on Friday followed by a three hour evening lecture class and valued the extra sleep she was able to get while I was on the road. I hoped I would get to her apartment with plenty of time to sneak in and make her a nice breakfast before she woke up. That is, if her cat was in a good mood and let me get through the door in one piece.

It was nine forty-two when I pulled into town; I was right on schedule. I had polished off the super-mega-huge convenience store soda about half an hour ago and felt like my bladder was ready to explode. One of the problems of driving on certain roads is that there are never enough rest areas to make it through the whole trip in comfort. I usually paid little attention to the surrounding area when I drove through town, but today I felt like looking at the sights. Despite the need to empty my over-filled bladder, I wanted to take some more time to get to Jackie’s. She had called me at eight-thirty and told me to drive more slowly.

“I woke up about an hour ago and I can’t get back to sleep,” she had told me. “I wasn’t able to get some of my paperwork done yesterday because I had to run off to class. I figured I’d head to the hospital to get it done before you get here, so try not to be too early, Nick. I’ll meet you at the gym when it opens at ten.”

I found this frustrating because I could no longer surprise her with breakfast in bed, but I held my frustration back since I was even more excited to see her today. I reset my cruise control for the speed limit to lengthen the amount of time it would take me to get to the gym and took a few seconds to look around at my surroundings.

My pain killers were starting to wear off, so I occupied myself with the beautiful buildings flying past as I sped down the freeway. Some buildings looked like they had been remodeled, others merely weren’t there, and there were even some new structures where I had remembered the parks being near the shopping mall. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought I was lost and turned around. I turned my head to look at the car in front of me and slammed immediately on my brakes. There was an accident about a quarter-mile ahead of us and the station wagon in front of me had already slowed down to meet the heavy traffic. I stopped about an inch from his bumper. Definitely enough sight-seeing for me, I thought to myself as I loosened the seatbelt from across my waist. My bladder concurred with my decision to avoid any further sudden stops and I decided to pay more attention to what I was doing.

It took a few minutes to get past the wreck on the shoulder and then I worked my way back up to freeway speed; the exit to town was only about three miles farther ahead. I had lived here for four years while I went to school at the university, and my mental map of the area took over. Before I consciously recognized I had left the interstate, I pulled in to a parking place on the second floor of the structure outside of Jackie’s apartment. Sometimes driving without thinking and ending up somewhere else is frightening. This time, however, I was elated because it meant I would get to see Jackie just that much more quickly.

I got out of my car and locked the door, an exercise in patience in itself. I have an older car that was fitted with electric door locks after I had owned it for a while. The problem is that the mechanic made a mistake during installation and I had a short somewhere in my door. The entire car would lock and unlock itself at random while I drove unless I had the driver’s side door locked. To lock the car when I left, I had to pull the door handle as I shut the door. If I forgot to do so, the entire car would unlock and I would have to repeat the process again.

It only took me one try this time, a blessing since I was in a hurry to find the bathroom. I pocketed my keys as I walked away from my car, leaving my climbing gear inside for the moment. There would be plenty of time to run back out and grab my climbing gear after I met up with Jackie. This early in the morning we would be the only two people in the gym to begin with, so I was in no hurry. I was on the second floor of the parking structure and doubted my bladder could take the bouncing that running down stairs would bring, so I punched the call button for the elevator. I stood, pounding the button repeatedly out of my own impatience while trying to ward off images of oceans, rivers, and rainstorms inside my head.

I walked hurriedly across the street, almost in a slow jog, and ran flat into the big double doors at the front of the gym. Damn, I could’ve sworn they were automatic doors last time.  I shook my head at the slight pain in my knees caused by the collision.  It felt almost as if I had been running. I reached to manually open the door and met once again my morning headache. It was a little less severe now, but no less disorienting. Now, it felt like a cross between a migraine and a hangover. Maybe Jackie has some more painkillers upstairs, I told myself as I gathered my composure and walked through the entryway.

Either I had not been paying attention last week when I had been here, or the gym management had hired some very ambitious contractors over the past few days. Rather than a carpeted lobby filled with bulletin boards and towel racks, I saw a very neat and tidy, marble-floored reception area with chairs on the right and an information desk in the center. The room still looked roughly the same; at least it was still the same size. Though, it appeared as though a new designer had gotten their hands on it and had been given a blank purchase order to play with.

My shock at the new décor was short-lived as my bladder once again screamed for my attention. I hoped that the new remodeling job had not changed the layout of the hallways as I walked around the right corner of the desk and turned down the hallway towards the locker rooms. If I was remembering things correctly, the  locker rooms were just a few yards away from the entry and to the left past the equipment checkout desk. The receptionist smiled at me as I walked by her desk and I returned the gesture, albeit more quizzically as I had no idea who she was, as I hurried off in search of a toilet.

The floor had been redone in a marble facade in the hallway by the locker rooms as well, but most of the paintings on the walls were the same as I remembered from my last trip into town. I took a left turn when I got to the next hallway and saw the locker rooms on either side ahead of me. A wave of relief washed over me as I hurried my pace towards urinary salvation. I reached the entrances and turned left, walking around the 20-foot pillar that guarded the doorway for privacy. The new-age architects that had designed the facility did not believe in doors and instead had placed large doorways that wrapped around huge concrete pillars. This way you did not have to worry about the masses of the unsanitary that refused to wash their hands but still had the security of passing eyes being unable to see inside the restroom.

I let my mind wander as I marveled once again at the architectural genius of the building’s designers. The bathroom layout was one of many breakthroughs I wished had come to me before someone else patented. I sighed to myself at another multi-million dollar idea stolen by someone who was older than I was when I was forced to stop dead in my tracks. I turned around as quickly as possible and walked back out of the women’s restroom.

The men’s restroom was in its usual place across the hall; it had been in the same place last time and the time before that and I had been there several times during my trips to town. I walked the short distance across the hallway and started to walk into the proper locker room, but a wave of discomfort ran through me and I was forced to stop in the entry way and lean against the pillar within it. A feeling of misdirection set in – like when you’re driving and take a left where you know in your gut you have always taken a right and just know from that point on that you are going in the wrong direction – and made both my stomach and my head start to spin.

I stood there in the doorway, holding a hand to my stomach, as two men walked out of the locker room towards me. The looked at me with curious, almost amused expressions and smiled at some joke they seemed to share as they walked close to the other wall to avoid me. I heard them both start laughing as they turned and walked down the hall back towards the exit. I followed them out as far as a bench near the drinking fountain where I sat down, hoping to clear the disoriented, shaky feeling from my head.

I sat on the bench and stared across the wall at an abstract painting of people playing tennis. It seemed familiar to me, but I could not remember have ever seeing it in the building before. I laughed to myself as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. Just like the lobby and my mistake of entering the wrong locker room, the painting felt to me as if I should know it but seemed as foreign to me as a childhood memory. I breathed in deeply, trying to reconcile the feelings of familiarity with those of disorientation as a woman ran up to me and grabbed my shoulders, pulling me away from the wall.

“Where have you been,” she demanded. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

I gave her a puzzled look as I regarded her face; like the painting, familiar but at the same time not. I only knew a handful of people in town, even fewer who lived in Jackie’s building, and all of them should have been gone on vacation. The only person I expected to know me in the entire city was my girlfriend, Jackie. Besides, I had never seen the woman before me in my entire life!

“Are you OK,” she asked, bending down to look me directly in the face. She looked about my age, but I still could not remember ever having met her before. “You look sick. Where have you been, anyway?”

For some strange reason, I did not answer. Instead, I just sat there staring at her, racking my brain to place a name with the face that seemed so familiar to me. She obviously knew who I was and claimed to have been looking for me. Where does she think I’m supposed to be, anyway, a voice inside my head added to my already confused thoughts.

“Seriously, are you OK?” she probed again, with an increasingly more worried look on her face. “It’s me, remember? Your friend? Anna? What’s wrong with you,” she demanded, almost shaking me. I was still unable to place this Anna-person’s face in my memory, but her apparent concern for my well being suggested we were friends. I assumed that the odd feelings of disorientation I had been having over the past few minutes were causing a momentary lapse of memory and shook my head slowly to tell the Anna-person that no, I was not OK. I hoped she might give me a few minutes to collect myself, and hopefully with which to figure out who she was. The more I thought about her, the more I felt as if I should know her. I felt like I did when I visited my parents and ran into old friends from high school; I could feel their name on the tip of my tongue but could not understand why I should know their name in the first place.

She knelt down in front of me and to look me in the eyes. She surveyed my face slowly, probably searching for some sign in my eyes about what was going on inside my head. I wanted to laugh aloud at this thought because I did not understand what was going on myself; I doubted she would find anything in my face but more questions. All that was certain was that I was disoriented from feeling lost and out of place in a building that I had visited countless times before and with which I was deeply familiar.

“It’ll be OK,” she said, and leaned in to hug me. I was still slightly queasy from my encounter with misdirection at the locker rooms, and the idea of a hug, even a hug from a stranger, made me feel a little better. We folded our arms around each other, and I felt comforted for a moment. Then I gasped as I noticed another feeling that was different. I knew what it felt like to hug a woman, there was always a gap between me and her made by her breasts; to me it felt a little like having a folded towel between us. This time, though, something was wrong. There was more space between us than her breasts should have made, and the towel-like mass between us felt like an extension of my own chest being pushed against.

I pulled back hesitantly and looked down, mortified to discover the cause of the extra space between the Anna-person and me; there was a pair of breasts on my chest as well! My vague feelings of disorientation and discomfort amplified into sheet panic as I started to hyperventilate. I dropped my arms to my side and pulled back even father from this strange woman who claimed to know me. I pressed my back against the wall as hard as I could and stared at her in fear, searching her face and my mind for answers as I prayed to disappear into the wall.

“Anna, what’s wrong?” asked the woman kneeling in front of me, recoiling against my fearful expression. Her question sent shivers down my spine as I realized her name was not Anna. The entire time she was here, she had been calling me Anna. A revelation of why this woman would not only think she knew me but would mistake me for someone named Anna started to form in my head, but I pushed it aside out of the horrific thought that it might be true.

I looked around in a vain effort to find somewhere I could escape, to hide from the swirling mass of confusion in my head and the strange woman in front of me that I blamed for causing it. Then I remembered I was just a few feet away from the locker rooms and jumped to my feet, pushing off to a run with the ball of my foot and leaving Anna’s friend kneeling bewildered on the floor. I ran instinctively into the lock room and hurtled myself into the nearest open stall I could see. I locked the door behind me and stood there, not knowing what to do next.

My bladder took its opportunity to monopolize my disjointed thoughts and reminded me once again of the long trip I had just taken and the super-mega-huge soda I had drunk on the way. I instinctively turned around and pulled down my shorts to sit down on the toilet to pee. As my bladder’s control over my mind began to subside in a wave of relief I looked down and with a single glance at the area between my legs drove any semblance of relief from my thoughts. I thought for a moment about the trip I had taken from the bench outside into the locker room and pushed from my mind the horror that accompanied my most recent revelation with the disturbing thought that, though I had run into the women’s locker room, no one would think I was out of place.

I sat there for what felt like an eternity before the realization finally set in. I was in a building that only barely resembled the one I had been headed to. I was still me; or at least I still thought like me and felt like me. But I was sitting on a toilet in the women’s restroom, seemingly at ease with the knowledge of where I was. The room seemed almost more familiar to me then the rest of the building had thus far, and that thought frightened me. I looked down at the strange body sitting beneath me and almost cried as I looked at the foreign curves and shapes it made. It was all I could do to hold the tears back and keep myself together.

I finished with the toilet and left the stall. I looked towards the exit of the locker room, but did not want to face the strange woman who could only still be waiting for me outside. I turned and instead walked past the bathroom stalls and deeper into the locker room. Three women who were having a conversation about tennis walked past me without giving me even a second glance. Like every other man in the world I once dreamt of walking unnoticed through a women’s dressing room, but this was definitely nothing like those daydreams. What I was going through at the moment can only be described as utter horror.

I saw the showers off to my right as I walked past rows of wire-basket day lockers and walls of regular high school-style lockers. Unlike the men’s showers that I was used to, these were not an endless room with showerheads in the ceiling. Instead there were several stalls each with their own curtain-covered entrances. I walked to an open stall near the end of the row and turned the water on; hot. Leaving the curtain open, I sat down on the floor under the shower head with my clothes on. I let my mind wander as I sat there, curled up under the hot deluge of water. Part of me wanted this to be a dream, one that I would wake from to head north and tell my girlfriend about so she could laugh at my warped imagination. Another, more pessimistic, part of me doubted the dream and instead hoped the rushing water of the shower would wash this strange skin off of me. Still another part of me, albeit a very distant and quiet one in the back of my mind, wondered why I was on the floor in the shower and not somewhere else. This smaller part of me seemed to recognize my surroundings and held the acute sense that there was somewhere else I was meant to be at the moment.

I pushed the third voice in my head aside and pulled my knees closer. As I squeezed them tighter I hoped against futility they would force the foreign mounds of flesh on my chest to flatten and disappear. I was praying for some kind of miraculous return to normalcy. I sat and hugged myself for a few moments before the weight of my situation overtook me and I began to cry.

“Mrs. Roberts,” I heard a voice ask through my weeping, but to which I paid absolutely no attention. Reality, or what I assumed had become reality, was too distant from my depressed mind for anything to have much affect on it.

“Mrs. Roberts?” The voice was louder this time, standing at the front of my mind’s eye; ironically, also at the front of my shower stall.

I looked up and brushed away my tears and a lock of wet hair that I had not noticed before out of my eyes with a smooth and absentminded motion. I saw a short, older woman standing just beyond the entry to my shower stall. She was staring at me with a deeply concerned expression on her face.

“Mrs. Roberts! Are you all right? Why are you sitting on the floor like that? Do you want me to get you a towel?” She was speaking so quickly I could barely understand her. I looked around myself for a moment and the reality of sitting fully-clothed in the shower hit me. I nodded, slowly, rather than speaking. I relaxed my legs and extended them, giving the blood a second to return to them before I tried to stand up.

Before she scurried off, I heard the woman say something about bringing some dry clothes. As much as I feared what she would bring, I would be grateful for the clean outfit. I hoped it would include shoes, too, as I had forgotten to take them off before sitting under the shower.

I stood slowly and braced myself against the side of the shower while I turned the nozzle off. A second later, both of my legs were overcome with the pins and needles that followed sitting for long periods of time with poor circulation. I shook first one, and then the other, before leaving the shower. I listened to the squish-squish sound of my running shoes as I walked down the row of showers to the room-like changing area at the far end of the locker room. There was a fresh towel sitting on the bench below a maroon garment bag hanging from a hook.

I began stripping off my damp clothing by taking off my shoes and socks and piling them both on the floor in front of the bench. Then I removed my shirt, taking a second glance at the gray sports bra I was apparently wearing before removing it as well. I finished undressing and stood nude for a moment in the open changing area. I picked up the towel and began to dry off the strange body I saw whenever I looked down. As I turned to open the garment bag I caught a hint of motion out of the corner of my right eye.

At the far end of the dressing area was a full length mirror. I turned and walked cautiously towards the mirror, tentatively regarding the image in the mirror at the same time. Had I seen the woman in the mirror in a magazine somewhere I might have been aroused. Seeing instead a reflection, though, was horrifying and I was forced to turn quickly away.

I unzipped the garment bag and looked at its contents.

Inside were women’s undergarments and a tailored pantsuit. I removed and quickly put on the undergarments without thinking too much about them, surprised at how familiar they seemed to feel. Then I removed the garment bag and placed it on the bench by my towel and freeing the remaining clothing within.

I took a navy blue blouse off its hanger and pulled my arms through its sleeves. I buttoned the blouse up all the way and was confused for a moment at why there was no top button. Then I realized that all the other buttons were on the wrong side of the shirt. I had done up the entire blouse without noticing the difference! The ease with which I had buttoned the blouse was unnerving, but I shook the feeling of shock when I felt a cool draft against my bare legs.

I turned and took the pants off their own hanger. I held them in my hand for a minute before slipping them on. The pants were part of a black suit with navy blue pinstripes. Buttoning the pants felt odd. I pulled them up and buttoned them at Anna’s waist, but having the pants so high above her wide hips felt awkward. I put my thumbs under the belt loops and adjusted the pants so they felt comfortable before adding the cloth belt that had been hung on the same hanger. Then I turned back to the full-length mirror I had seen before.

I watched the image of the woman in the mirror as I put the suit’s matching blazer over her shoulders and buttoned it in front of the blouse. The entire outfit seemed to fit her perfectly, tailored to match the unique curves of her body. Together, it was very stunning. A small voice deep in the back of my mind commented on how good Jackie would look in an outfit like this. Just as quickly, though, my own mental voice was muted by another expressing how good I looked in the suit.

Before I could react to the second voice, the attendant returned and interrupted.

“I think I found some shoes that should match your outfit, Mrs. Roberts,” she said as she turned the corner coming into the changing area. “All you had in your locker was the suit, so I had to have these sent over. They should be your size.”

She placed a pair of black high heels on the bench above my wet, discarded jogging outfit and then turned around and left me alone again.

I looked at the heels from where I was standing and cursed to myself. Putting on a woman’s clothing was one thing, but there was no way I could convince myself to put on a woman’s shoes – let alone heels. I walked from the mirror to the bench and sat down next to the strange shoes, glaring at them out of the corner of my eye.

There is no way I can walk around barefoot, I thought to myself. But there is no way I can walk in those, either. The women I knew complained all the time about how hard it had been for them to learn to walk in heels. They, on the other hand, had years of experience behind them growing up. I only had a few minutes before the attendant came back.

I resigned myself to at least experiment with the expectedly uncomfortable footwear and looked down at them. They were black with a strap at the back to hold on to the heel but had a closed toe and a heel that had to be at least three inches tall. I always wondered why women wore high heels, but had never been able to solve that particular mystery. I picked one up and slipped it on to the appropriate foot. The attendant had obviously guessed Anna’s size correctly as the shoe seemed to fit her foot perfectly.

The other shoe fit just as well and I placed both feet on the floor to see how they felt. I pushed my heels down into the floor a bit more, but this was definitely the closest they would get to the ground. It felt strange to have my feet cocked at such an angle, but did not feel as much as standing on a slope as I thought it would feel. I slowly put more weight on the shoes and finally stood in them. Then I took one slow step. Another. It felt like I was walking up stairs but I did not have to lift my leg as much. I can do this, I thought to myself as I took one more step forward. Then I took another, faster, more confident one. A final step took me to the middle of the changing area. Then I turned and walked calmly and smoothly over to the pile of damp clothing I had left on the other bench.

“Mrs. Roberts, why don’t you bring those with you and I’ll have them cleaned,” the attendant said from the doorway to the changing room. I had been so engrossed in learning to walk that I hadn’t even heard her walk up.

“Never mind,” she said as she walked over and put the damp heap into a large plastic laundry bag. “I don’t want you to mess up your outfit.”

“I can grab my shoes,” I offered as I walked over to my discarded running shoes, not recognizing them as my own for the first time. I bent to pick them up and then added them to the bag the attendant was holding. I was so impressed with how well I was walking in my new shoes that I did not even notice the feminine way I bent at my knees rather than my waist to pick my clothing off the floor. Like walking in this foreign footwear it had felt instinctual and natural, as if I had been doing both all my life.

The attendant wadded the bag under her left arm and led the way back out of the locker room. She turned her head slightly and spoke over her shoulder to me.

“You can leave the garment bag there. I’ll come back for it in a minute. I took the liberty of getting your ID badge out of your locker,” she said as she put handed a laminated badge back to me. “Your purse is in your locker, right where you left it before you went out for your run.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I thought back to when I first came into the building and ran into the door. I vaguely remembered that my body had suddenly been sore as if I had been running, but until just now that feeling had not made any sense. I stared at Anna’s feet, thinking back at the moment that seemed so long ago and remembering not only the fall in the lobby, but faintly remembering that I had taken my pulse outside the door after I finished my run. I didn’t take my pulse; I was rushing to get to the bathroom. Why do I remember taking my pulse? I asked myself.

When the woman realized I was no longer following her, she turned again and called for me to follow. I shook the out-of-place memory from my mind and hurried after her. I walked a few feet behind past the rows of green lockers until we turned into a different room with several large, wood-panel lockers. It looked a lot like the expensive players’ locker rooms I used to see in baseball movies.

She gestured inside and I entered, but I had no idea which of these lockers – as ornate as they were, the locked closets still served the same purpose – was supposed to belong to me, belong to Anna. I looked at the woodwork and walked along the left wall until I felt a strange sensation of déjà vu. I reached out and turned the dial on the lock by instinct, not seeing the numbers I stopped at in the combination but turning the lock back and forth purely out of some long-forgotten habit. Surprisingly, the lock popped open when I reached the third number.

I opened the door slowly and peered inside. The locker was about three feet wide, just as many deep, and about as tall as I was standing. There were four other garment bags hanging neatly inside. On the backside of the door was a small mirror with a photograph of a couple with a child that I did my best to ignore.

There was a large leather handbag sitting beneath the hanging garment bags. I pulled it out and slung the handles over my right shoulder as I clipped Anna’s ID badge to its side in one fluid, almost familiar, motion. I realized just then that I had not actually looked at the ID badge yet. I turned it carefully on the side of the bag and looked at the picture. I saw the same face on the badge that I had seen in the mirror, but her blonde hair was a little bit longer. The name on the badge read “Anna Rebecca Roberts” and the text below that said she was the Assistant Director of Operations for the Orchard Avenue Center. I had never heard of the Orchard Avenue Center before, but Anna’s name sounded familiar. I mouthed the name and title and both felt oddly at home on my lips. I shook my head to clear the strange sense of familiarity and was shocked to see long blonde hair whip by in front of my face. The sight reminded me of the strange things going on and was unsettling enough that I almost broke down again.

I took a slow, deep breath before I closed the locker’s wooden door and replaced the lock. Then I made my way back out into the hallway. There was a lit sign indicating the exit was to the left. I turned in that direction and walked a few feet before slowing down and looking over my shoulder. I felt like I was being followed, but no one was there. I started walking again, and heard the clacking footfalls of a woman walking behind me immediately. I stopped and spun around to confront whoever it was that was following me and almost lost my balance. I looked down to see if I had tripped over anything and saw the high heels I was wearing. I had been listening to my own footsteps, but had not recognized them. I smiled to myself, wanting more to cry than laugh; I was so comfortable walking in Anna’s heels that I had forgotten I was even wearing them. I tightened my grip on the leather straps of Anna’s shoulder bag as I started walking once again towards the exit, listening to the rhythmic clacking of my footfalls on the hard locker room floor as I walked.

Martha was pacing back and forth in front of the locker room waiting for me when I came out. I seemed to know her name now, but why now would be different than when she first approached me I had no idea. Nor did I have any idea why I should know her name in the first place.

“Anna, there you are,” she said as she raced towards me and grabbed my arms. “The attendant said you’d be right out. What took you so long?”

“Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head more to dismiss the shock associated with hearing Anna’s voice when I spoke than to allay Martha’s concern. Anna’s voice was far higher than mine and sounded a lot like one of the female telemarketers who called me to offer refinancing for my mortgage. “I needed to take a shower and just got distracted. Sorry I took so long.”

“Well I’m glad you changed your clothes. The outfit is much better than your jogging clothes. I almost thought you forgot today was your son’s birthday party.”

The word “son” bore giant holes through my wall of mental resolve and threatened to bring down the confidence I had mustered leaving the locker room. Martha saw hesitation in my eyes and did not give me much time to respond. Instead she suggested we grab some coffee in her apartment. She grabbed my arm and led me to the bank of elevators at the far end of the hall. We went into the first one going up and I saw her punch the button for the 15^th floor.

“Do you need anything from your apartment before we go all the way up,” she asked, holding the “Door Open” button while waiting for an answer.

“No thanks.”

Martha released the button and the elevator’s double doors slid closed. The trip took a matter of seconds, much less time than I ever remembered a 15-floor elevator trip taking, but still just long enough for my mind to drift and concern for my present situation to creep back in to the forefront of my consciousness. I was in a strange place in the company of people I had never before met. I was wearing someone else’s clothes and saw a woman’s face when I looked in the mirror. This woman was in a position of authority in this building, and apparently lived here as well. I found myself absent fingering a ring on my left hand. I looked down and realized that Anna must be married, too, and her wedding ring had a very expensive diamond on it. Despite what Martha or anyone else in this building thought, I was not Anna.

The elevator stopped and an automated voice reminded us that we were on the 15^th floor. Martha walked off first and led the way down the hallway with me following obediently. I had no idea where we were or where she was taking me, but I did not want to add the anxiety of being lost to my already overstressed mind. We walked past several doorways, most of them closed, that had names and family portraits on the doors. At first, I thought these were offices. The hallway looked almost exactly like I remembered my pediatrician’s office building looked when I was growing up: rows and rows of identical doorways with no tips on what was inside but a nameplate above the door handle. Just when I thought we were headed to an office, Martha stopped in front a door with a picture of her being held by what I considered for a fleeting second to be an incredibly attractive man. She placed her hand on a square area darker than the rest of the wall that was to the right of the door; the square panel turned red for a second, then made a loud clicking sound as it turned green and the door slid open.

“I was going to have an espresso before we head up. Would you like anything,” she asked me as I followed her through the door.

“Um, sure,” I said hesitantly. I was not sure if I actually wanted coffee or not, but thought the caffeine would help clear my head a little.

Martha left me in what appeared to be a very well-kept living room as she went into the kitchen to brew the coffee. Apparently the doors in the hallway had all been apartments, though I was still unsure about whether or not this was an apartment building. “Orchard Avenue Center” could very well be the title of some kind of housing complex, but not many apartment buildings that I had seen had reception desks on the first floor or attended locker rooms with showers.

I walked casually over to the window on the opposite side of the room and put Anna’s handbag down on the windowsill. There was a very high-tech television next to me, but I was more interested in looking out at the city. It was as foreign to me as any in Europe would be; definitely not the town in which Jackie lived. I found myself wondering if anyone I knew was living down there and having the same problems I was. Mostly, though, I worried about Jackie. I wondered if she was OK, if she was still herself, or if – I swallowed hard against the thought – she would know me if I saw her again. I felt tears begin to rise as I contemplated whether or not I would ever see Jackie again at all.

Martha came back into the room carrying two large mugs, one in each hand, talking to me as she came through the door and distracting my thoughts.

“Double latte, just the way you like it,” she said as she forced one of the mugs into my hand. I could not remember ever having drunk a latte before, but I took a quick sip and smiled at the familiar flavor that I had never before experienced.

“Perfect,” I said, taking another sip. “Thanks.”

Martha sat in one of the leather chairs by the coffee table and gestured for me to do the same. I sat and drank more of the sweet, warm liquid. It was then that I noticed I had crossed my legs at the knees unconsciously as I sat down, a feat I had never before accomplished, and one that caught me off guard. I started to uncross my legs but thought better of it. The position was actually quite comfortable. I let myself instead slide back farther in my seat as I took a long sip of my latte.

“This is wonderful, thank you again,” I said, and allowed myself to smile for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

“Not a problem, it’s about time I returned the favor anyway,” she said. She set her own mug down on the table in front of her and then leaned towards me, a concerned look in her eyes.

“What was wrong with you this morning, by the way? Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, I was just feeling a little off,” I lied.

“It was probably something you drank at the party last night. We had an exotic selection,” Martha said, smirking uncomfortably as she relived the memory.

I sat puzzled for a moment. I don’t remember going to any par- Then I did remember, but faintly. It had been at another apartment in the building and there had been a lot of people there. No, a lot of women. It was one of our monthly girls’ nights in. Sara had talked me into coming and had been pouring me shots of a thick, greenish, home-made concoction … I shook my head to rid it of the strange memory. Last night I had been at home packing and getting ready to meet Jackie. There had been no party, or at least not one I had been at.

We finished our drinks in silence, Martha because she had brought up what seemed to be unsavory memories and me because I was trying to dismiss similar memories that were not mine to begin with. I enjoyed every last drop of the coffee, though, and was sad to finish it off; sad both because the coffee was gone and because I knew that this brief interlude to my confusing day was over. My head felt a little clearer now that some of the caffeine had taken effect, but I was still wading through everything that had happened and was nowhere near ready to face any more.

Martha looked at her watch and jumped up from her seat, almost dropping her coffee mug in the process.

“I almost forgot. Your son’s party!”

She took my coffee mug and put it on the table for me. I begrudgingly stood up and followed her back down the hallway to the bank of elevators. This time our destination appeared to be the 27^th floor, though I could not remember the building looking that tall when I drove up earlier.

We got off the elevator and I hurried after Martha as we walked past a few more doors that looked like the apartments from earlier. Martha was rambling on at how impressed she was at what I had done to prepare for the party. I just nodded and forced a smile, remembering only bits and pieces of what she was describing and realizing at the same time that those bits and pieces were of someone else’s memories.

We finally came to a large recreation room with a glass window. The door was unlocked and, for the first time that day, I led the way inside. There was a large television in one corner near a window that looked out on the city. Against the left wall were several tables piled high with wrapped presents and gift bags. A large birthday cake sat in the center of the gift mountain range and there were balloons tied to the table’s corners. On the right side of the room was a clown entertaining several children with magic tricks. One of the children, the boy wearing a pointed hat over his bushy blonde hair, looked familiar.

“Bryan?” I meant to say under my breath but instead seemed to shout across the room.

The boy turned and jumped up from where he was sitting.

“Mommy!” he yelled as he ran towards me with his arms held wide.

I knelt and caught him in mid stride, reacting more to the thought that he could hurt himself than to the one of receiving his hug.

“And how’s the party going so far?” I asked after pushing him back from his hug. I was hoping the question would distract him from the lack of recognition I was sure my face, Anna’s face, was showing.

He responded with a jumbled and rambling story about the clown, magic, movies, a sword fight he had gotten into with a friend, more magic, and the heap of gifts on the table and several other tidbits I was unable to catch. I kept eye contact with him the whole time, keeping a forced smile on my face and reacting as best I could to appear impressed by what he was telling me. The resemblance I saw in his face to the woman I saw in the mirror downstairs was disconcerting, but I forced the idea out of my mind and focused on reacting to the boy’s story.

Martha interrupted, “Where’s your dad?”

“Oh, he went home to get some ice cream.”

I could not hold my calm much longer. Too much had happened in one day for any man to keep calm. I stood up and looked at Martha, feeling I needed her permission to leave.

“I’ll go see if I can get him to hurry up,” I said, but I did not wait for permission before walking towards the door. “Don’t cut the cake without me!”

Bryan waved at me and then ran over to rejoin the other children at the clown’s magic show. After the door clicked shut behind me I started back down the hall towards the elevators. I stood in front of the doors for a moment to breathe deep and collect myself before punching the call button to go downstairs. I then hit the “G” button on the inside of the elevator to return to the ground floor.

I thought back for a moment about the locker room and cursed the attendant who took my clothes. I had put my car keys in my pocket before coming inside; there was no way I could start my car without them. Another of Anna’s memories tugged at my mind, though, and I remembered placing my car keys in my handbag before heading out for a jog. I had almost forgotten I had Anna’s handbag with me and took a second to search through it for car keys. Thankfully, I found them before frustration made me dump the entire bag on the floor. I squeezed them tightly in my right hand and stepped off the elevator as its doors whizzed open. I then walked as calmly as possible out through the lobby where I had entered. I tried to ignore the similarities it shared with Jackie’s gym while I listened to the click-clack of my high heels as I walked through the lobby.

I walked straight to the parking garage and made for a yellow car on the first floor. Nothing in particular had led me in that direction, but this car seemed almost more familiar to me that the memory of the green one I had parked earlier this morning. I opened the door and threw my bag haphazardly on the passenger seat. I was out of the garage and on to the main street in no time at all.

I noticed now how foreign the buildings around me looked. It seemed more like the high-rise environment of a big city than the small, tree- and park-friendly layout of a college town. Even so, I seemed to know these streets and relied on a mental map I had not known existed to guide me between the buildings and through town. I finally merged onto the interstate, still driving more by feel than the signs overhead. A loud voice in my head kept asking where I was going, but I had no answer. I wanted to head south, towards home, but the freeway ran east-to-west. The thought of going south seemed ridiculous to me, so I just decided on driving as far away from this strange place and these strange people as I could. I merged into the fast lane as my cell phone began buzzing and fell out of my handbag onto the seat.

I reached for it and brought it to my ear while flicking my hair out of the way almost out of habit but hung up before the caller could speak. Someone had noticed I was not coming back to the party and was trying to find me. No, I had to force myself to say it. They were trying to find Anna. I was never supposed to be there in the first place!

The effort of forcing that thought was draining and made my head spin. I was so confused now that I was having trouble telling the differences between Anna’s and my own memories. I still knew who I was, but I was beginning to confuse events and people with other memories I had – memories that were not mine in the first place. I gasped a sudden revelation: No, I can’t recount everything about myself! I did still have my memories, but when I called on them they seemed fuzzy, like trying to recall a vague dream. I could remember a handful of people and events, but not why I knew them or when or where things had occurred.

I tried hard to remember when I had met Jackie. We were both freshmen in college and a mutual friend had set us up on a blind date. We were going to see a play before going out to dinner at a local seafood restaurant. He had looked so awkward in a bowtie and I was uncomfortable wearing such a formal dress to a first date … No. That was when Anna met her husband Mark. The memory was perfectly clear, though, and I could even remember their first kiss that night, the second date we had gone on, and how he had taken me back to the same theater to propose … No! That is Anna, not me.

I jerked the car as I felt myself enjoy reliving that last memory. It had not been her I saw at the theatre; it had been me, only I was her. At the same time, though, the “her” I was thinking about felt more natural than the “me” I was forcing myself to recognize. It was like trying to separate myself into a “me” and another person who was also “me.” This new me, the me that walked straight to the women’s restroom, knew how to button up my blouse, walk in my heels, and recognized my son was more and more the only me, though, and the unstable dichotomy between me and the man whose memories I seemed to have was breaking down.

I set the cruise control and turned my thoughts inward. This morning was a blur. I had woken up groggy, probably from Sara’s party last night, and went for a jog to clear my head. I could not remember all of what had gone on between then and now but could remember talking to Martha outside the locker room and then having a coffee in her apartment. I remembered going to Bryan’s birthday party, but could not recollect what had been going on. It felt like I was waking up from a bad dream.

I remembered having a very disorienting headache earlier this morning, but now my head felt clear and I could not figure out why the headache had caused such a sense of anxiety earlier. The only question now was: how would I explain to my son why I was missing his birthday party? I turned off the cruise control and merged over to take the next exit. Picking up my cell phone as I ran a yellow light I turned to head back towards Orchard Avenue. I dialed Mark’s number and hoped he would be understanding of my strange behavior and not be too upset with me.