To cut to the chase, as of Friday, Lambert and I had spent a week doing the weird Miami to Boston to Old Orchard and back when we woke still girls route, by which time we were getting to know the other folks waiting to become themselves again a little bit, not really anxious but sort of wondering what was taking so long. He and I sort of got better acquainted during the drives, and I was kind of blindsided when we arrived in Miami and the Feds were waiting for us again. Or, more specifically, for me, searching my bag and finding my phone. The one belonging to Toby Watson.
It shouldn't have been there! Lambert and I had taken our phones north and left them in a drawer at the Inn, power drained, specifically so that they couldn't be tracked, but I was really tired Thursday night and while I was messing with the bureau, I must have taken it out and put it on top of the charger instead of Dunia's phone, so it charged and then responded that it was in Boston's Logan Airport when my mother did a Find My Phone thing, as I guess she's been doing every day for weeks. It got passed on to the FBI, who remembered me and Lambert, and so they were waiting for us when we landed.
I guess I'm lucky I didn't wind up in ICE's hands, but they held me as long as they could. They didn't throw me into a cell, at least, but 48 hours in a small room with a one-way mirror on the side is insane, especially since they won't let you fall asleep and will keep you well-hydrated until you're begging to use the restroom, so they can offer to trade basic dignity for some information. The lawyer put a stop to that so I didn't actually wet myself, but even then, I sometimes felt like he wasn't entirely on my side - I don't think he wanted to get on the FBI's bad side, so he kept asking me if I had something I could tell them, or at least him, so I could help negotiate.
And I kind of wanted to! Like I said back in March, Ma raised me to respect that sort of authority, and the way Dunia's friends and family are much more skeptical isn't entirely something I feel in my bones yet. And even though I know that their comments about how I'm keeping Ma and Lambert's family from finding peace weren't true, they still made me feel bad. But time was running out, and while there are a lot more stories about people being held indefinitely (mostly when ICE is involved, though), the lawyer said they could only hold me for 48 hours, and running out the clock was the best way to get back to Maine and actually solve the problem.
Just about 48 hours later, they let me out without any explanation whatsoever. I stumbled out into the street a sweaty, smelly mess, wanting to fall asleep in a bathtub more than anything else, but it felt really good when Dunia's father wrapped me in a bear hug just outside the Federal building's door. He said something Spanish that I was kind of too frazzled to understand, although it was pretty clearly that he'd been worried and was proud of me for something. I didn't really know what that could be, but I figured I could ask him later after that bath and a good night's sleep. I didn't even notice anyone else around us until he turned around and said something about putting me in an impossible situation.
That's when I looked up and saw Lambert - not Alicia, but Lambert. And... me!
The guy wearing my skin bowed his head, apologizing for what sounded like not the first time, but it was really bizarre. I guess none of us really have a good idea of what we seem like from the outside, but he was always rushing to get the first word in instead of thinking it over, and maybe suppressing a grin, like everyone thinking he was someone else and looking to him for answers was sort of a rush, and having to come up with a story made it even more exciting.
Obviously, I had a ton of questions, but Mr. Cortes was guiding me to his car, away from them, and spent the whole drive home cursing about how those blancos had caused me so much trouble until we got to the house. A shower made me feel at least a little better and perked me up long enough to get some food down, but I reached the bed more or less on autopilot and slept until about 10am the next morning.
Even then, it was the noise that woke me up. Mr. Cortes had gone to work but left a note on the bedroom door about coming home immediately if I needed anything, but otherwise to rest up from my ordeal. Dunia's phone was so full of messages I couldn't even scroll. And outside the house, getting an earful in both English and Spanish from the neighbors, Lambert was sitting in the driver's seat of that Porsche that got us into this mess, honking like crazy, while "I" leaned back against the car. Fed up, I made a throat-slashing motion so that Lambert would cut the noise, and then planted myself just out of grabbing range of the other guy. "Well, I guess the Inn did its thing. Who the heck are you?"
"Why, I'm Toby Watson!" I gave him a glare, not really in the mood. "Sorry. My real name's Gerard, I know that was in bad taste, but I couldn't help but say it once it was in my head."
Lambert had gotten out of the car. "Gerard's got a real problem with saying anything that pops into his head," he said bitterly.
"You said to sell it!"
"I meant that we were embarrassed about the whole thing, not that we had been part of some gay nudist polycule!"
Lambert was about to argue, but I was like "wait, what?" first.
Gerard sighed, and then put his arm around Lambert's shoulder, gesturing in the air with the other. "Picture it: Driving across the country, spending all day in that hot car, and then nights in small motel rooms. It awakens something in us, something we never expected, until we give in to our passion, again and again. We spend the entire two weeks in Old Orchard Beach, not ready to return home to where nobody understands, and by chance meet up with another couple. They've got a cabin on an island off the coast of Maine where they hole up for the winter, and invite us to join them. Excited, but afraid we'll be tempted to back out, we give our phones and the keys to the cars to the nice flight attendants staying in the Inn after us, asking them to keep our secret until we return! I never imagined that you would be so committed to protecting our reputations, even after our cover story collapsed and we were gone far longer than the few weeks we initially indicated, or when that huge storm in the northeast might have put us in real danger--"
Lambert was shaking his head. "Like, I was just being vague and hoping folks would get the idea and not press us about something clearly humiliating, but Mr. Improv here has to keep yes-anding!"
Gerard raised an eyebrow to me. "For someone who gave a wistful sigh when a certain married pilot walked through the airport, he's being needlessly uptight about me making sure his vague story holds up."
I was about to make a comment about how "Alicia" breaking things off with Brock was about him being married rather than something sexual, but cut it off. "Okay, fine, whatever, I'm grateful you got me out of jail and we can figure out how to fix this later, but what did you tell my mother?" There was an awkward pause. "You have talked to my mother, right?"
Suddenly, Gerard was tongue-tied. "Uh, I texted. It, you know, didn't feel right to try to explain all this, uh, not in person."
"Well, maybe tone it down when you do! I don't want to have to fix you coming out to her when we're ourselves again! And she's, like, Midwestern, not some East Coast person who's okay with all that!"
He rolled his - my! - eyes. "You say that like there aren't bisexual people everywhere."
"C'mon, man, my life is already going to be messed up by having this eight-month gap in it, don't make it worse!"
He looked like we wanted to say something, then reconsidered it. "Hey, I'm not looking to cause trouble. I maybe got a little carried away with the cops, but seeing you, knowing you're supposed to be this, it kind of drives home what a big deal this is." He reached in to wipe away a tear I wasn't even aware of. "Just tell me what you need me to know, okay?"
I nodded, then invited them in. There wasn't as much to tell Gerard as I might like - so many of my high school friends had left town or dropped out of touch - but I made sure he had Dunia's number so that I could hopefully be as helpful to him as Dunia was for me, though hopefully not for as long.
He actually went back to the car before Lambert, which suddenly seemed really awkward. We actually had talked a lot over the previous week about what we wanted to do when we were ourselves again, and what we'd learned about women, and he'd had a chance to clean up at the hotel overnight, and it suddenly crossed my mind that we'd shared some tight quarters and changing rooms as girls, but he was a man again now. I think he was having similar thoughts realizing that Dunia was actually kind of pretty, because he blushed a bit. "Are you going to be all right? I almost thought of not going back up there until you could come with me."
"Yeah, but then we both might have ended up stuck and who knows how that would have turned out? I mean, Gerard seems okay, at least."
He smirked. "You just think he's cute."
"Gross!" I shook my head to try and purge that thought. "Well, keep him out of trouble if you can. I'd hate for anything to happen to me before I got to be me again!"
He laughed and said goodbye, standing in the street for a bit to take Miami in one last time before heading home.
After that, I sighed and called Dunia. She picked up the phone immediately. "Toby? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, although I've got some bad news."
She knew what it was - with just a few days before the second group of folks arrived at the Inn and most of the people going there in early May looking to change back, she probably figured my not texting in three days meant something had gone wrong, and I think she was relieved to hear that I was all right, even beyond joking that she certainly wouldn't want me hurt in any way that she'd have to deal with later.
We sat in silence for a bit after that (what can you say?), and then she cleared her throat. "Well, my plane leaves Thursday, and I promised this guy his life back, so I guess we'll see what happens. I guess being Gerard wouldn't be so bad; I've gotten used to being a man and he sure sounds younger than I am right now. Plus, that makes us a nice tight little circle for... later."
I agreed that probably made sense, and then we tried to chit-chat about other things, although it all seemed really small in comparison to my staying her for at least another month or so and he becoming someone else soon. But she doesn't seem mad; I was kind of half-expecting her to come up with a list of things that Lambert and I should have done as soon as we changed, but either she didn't have any or figured it wouldn't do us much good now.
So, another few months, at least, as her. I'm lucky that there are worse people to be, I guess.
-Toby/Dunia
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