Arthur/Penny: You can't go home again

Although maybe you can; it's just a matter of deciding what home is.

I did my last bit for CalSports last night. After the Stealth were eliminated from the playoffs, I told George that I wasn't going to sign a new contract to cover the Dragons, and gave two weeks' notice on the scorecasts. He was kind of surprised, but he could also see it's been something I've wanted to do for a while. He threw me a great going-away party last night, and had enough respect for me that he didn't spend a lot of time trying to convince me to stay.

Rick didn't take it quite so well. He couldn't believe I'd make that kind of move without consulting him. On a certain level, he does have a point; if you have a career where an agent makes sense, he needs to be in the loop on your career choices. Still, I said, the fact that he said "consulting" rather than "informing" was part of the reason I didn't. There'd be no point.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means..." We were at a restaurant, and I probably did some awkward thing then - reaching for my glass, deciding I didn't want to use that as a delaying technique for what I had to say, deciding I really was thirsty... "It means that this isn't that kind of career move. It's not about wanting to change jobs because I'm not getting paid enough, or the cheerleader thing made me feel uncomfortable, or I've got another option. I just don't want to do TV sports any more. If I'd consulted you, you'd have tried to talk me out of it, because to do otherwise would be arguing against your own interests."

He said that wasn't completely true; this would be a challenge, but we could work together on the next phase of my career. That's when I told him that I wasn't just quitting this job, but his agency. There were a bunch of reasons; it felt weird to have that kind of working relationship with someone I'd slept with, I wanted to write and his agency was more set up for in front of the camera talent (and media where there was a camera!). Besides, I was going to be leaving California--

"Without telling your boyfriend?"

"Come on, Rick, we haven't been that in... I don't know if we were ever that. We were just convenient and safe; it was easier having someone we could talk to about everything. But you don't need that any more. You've... assimilated, I guess. You like the life you're in. I'm probably all that's keeping you from packing up shop and moving to Los Angeles to take it to the next level. And don't think I don't know about the pretty young things you've been seeing on the side."

"You could..."

"I don't want to! I don't want to live where I have a chance of running into the jerk calling himself Arthur Milligan on the street, let alone at work, even if I'll miss my home town. I don't want to spend years trying to fake knowledge of lacrosse or really concentrate on learning that, or just being a pretty face that reads sports scores. I want to research, and learn, and create."

"And you'll be doing that...?"

"Back in Boston. I've got a friend there, and know some in New York, and... Well, you may be content with what the Inn made you, and figure your time worrying about it is at an end, but I want to know more. I need to know more, and I'm going to have to be near it to do that."

It went downhill after that; I think in a while he'll accept that this is best, but that was pretty much like being fired for him, and nobody likes that.

I do think everyone should try quitting their job at least once in their life, though - the next two weeks can be some of the most enjoyable you can imagine, if you still get along with your co-workers, because none of the annoying crap touches you. You can really look at and think about what you're doing objectively.

And if you're in my position - which you're probably not - there is something quite liberating about selling everything you inherited from the person whose appearance you took. All the bulky exercise equipment, furniture, books, movies (I'm keeping some of the electronics) - gone. I'd sell the car, too, but I figured I'd wait and see how useful it is back in Boston before going that far. I've had Lyn scouting out apartments for me, and I've got a few job interviews lined up. It's going to be exciting.

I am tempted to stay here, but it's not what I want and really need right now. And it will be great to see Lyn regularly again, especially after not having seen her for a year.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: If you think I'm providing a link, you're nuts.

I should have known this was going to happen, but I didn't. I've got half a mind to fire "Rick", quite honestly, even though he's got a small point when he says that he's only been working as an agent for less than a year and thus couldn't be expected to anticipate this. My initial instinct is to call bullshit, because he's sort of been anticipating this ever since we wound up in these lives, but I probably won't.

It just goes to show how ignorant I can be that I didn't have any idea what was going on until Tuesday. I had decided not to go to bed at all Monday night, since I was going to watch the A's game at 3am (7pm Tokyo time) and getting just three or four hours of sleep is pretty useless. I put in some late-night time on the treadmill before the game started, then got out the laptop so that I could do some re-writing and surfing done while mostly paying attention to the TV.

I wasn't surprised to see Lyn on at the same time. She IMed me first, asking if if I was up late or early. "Late," I typed. "You?"

"Early. Got a lunch shift. I probably wouldn't be up at all, but Matt's watching it at the station and wants to chat with me so it would like we're in the same room."

"Aw. That's sickening."

"Hey, someday you'll meet the right guy and you'll be doing stuff like that too."

"I don't know if I'm ever going to be that much of a girl."

"Hey, a year and a half ago, you couldn't imagine dressing up as a schoolgirl, but you make a damn hot cheerleader!"

I tensed up a little behind my keyboard, but typed that I chickened out.

"Liar! It's on YouTube." Link. Link. Link. Link.

I took a moment to follow the links Lyn sent me, becoming more mortified with each one, especially some of the comments on them. The fact that they appeared to have been typed by illiterates didn't do much to camouflage their crudity.

"Oh my god... I don't know what's worse, that these things exist or that you must have gone looking for them! Please tell me that your secret admirer sent them to you or something!"

"Hey, you can't expect a girl not to be curious after that cliffhanger. But come on, you pulled it off, you were classy. Those people would make comments like that if they found pictures of their mothers online!"

I found that less than reassuring, and changed the subject to stuff like Matt being "the right guy" or why she was still working at Headlights. And the game. I'm afraid I jinxed the A's during the ninth, saying I was about ready to go to bed just before the Red Sox tied it up. Lyn taunted me for that.

I was doing the scorecast the next night, and told George about these clips, saying I'd really appreciate it if the network could lean on Google to take the clips down - that was copyrighted CalSports footage, after all! He said he'd see what he could do. I wound up staying up all night at the studio - the weird hours for the games in Japan meant that instead of just shooting a bit that could be edited into the program for the morning repeats, we stayed up and watched the game, rewriting copy so that we'd be able to just shoot a new bit when the game finally ended at six.

It was a busy weekend - a Saturday game in Edmonton - so I didn't get a chance to see whether the videos were taken down. They were not, and it was almost like George forgot that I'd even wanted that. I came in yesterday to do a scorecast and he was giving me the good news about how ratings for the games were up 40% this weekend. The higher-ups at the network were really pleased, he said, and were probably going to talk to Rick about offering me a full-time contract.

I was a bit sarcastic, I think - something about whether or not they'd be reconfiguring the set so that the audience could see my belly button during the show, or whether cleavage would be enough. That raised some eyebrows, so George took me aside, saying that this was a good thing - maybe some of the people that tuned in to look at me would get into lacrosse, or I'd be able to work on more prominent assignments - this was a good thing!

I said I guess, if you just wanted to call games and read scores. I'd worn the outfit to call attention to the story, and it didn't sound like it was going to lead to more stories, which was what I really wanted to do. George said he could see my enthusiasm for it, but that's not the way it usually worked in television - they tend to do work with the local papers, and the promotion path goes toward more on-screen time.

I did the broadcast, but decided to go in to talk to Rick today. He said he was just about to call; Maxim had contacted him again about getting me for a pictorial. I pointed out that I'd said no the last time, and he said that the stuff on the internet seemed to indicate that I might have loosened up about that.

No, I said, I hadn't, and I would really like him to start talking me up for more creative/reporting work, because I don't know how much more I'm going to want to work for CalSports after my Stealth commitment is up. He says he thinks that would be a big mistake, and I said, yeah, maybe for Nell, but I'm not her, and I'd like to live something resembling my life as much as hers.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: You have GOT to be kidding me.

I try not to be a total hypocrite about objectifying women. I have, after all, done my share of it in the past; I was, after all, a man. So when I meet a guy and he has a conversation with my chest, I tend to let it go. It is a bit uncomfortable for me, but getting upset about it tends to be counterproductive - not only are you focusing his attention on your breasts even more than it already was, but he's now less at-ease (which can be useful) and sometimes comes away from it thinking of you as a bitch (which is seldom useful). I've learned some tricks about it over the past year (it wasn't a big deal when living Liz's life, because she's a bit flat-chested and I was often standing next to Lyn and her eye-magnets). If you're sitting, stand, or vice versa; it changes the guy's eyeline and most men will realize that they've been impolite and make an effort afterward. Keep a scarf of wrap in your purse or desk draw for days when it's bugging you. That sort of thing.

Similarly, I don't act snippy when some girl is using what she got to her best advantage; I've enjoyed the benefits of that far too much in the past and, to be frank, still do, a little. Twenty-five-plus years of being trained to appreciate the female form doesn't just go away because something else is now supposed to excite you on a chemical level. I may have a little more insight on what a girl is going to get male attention, but I haven't found that makes me appreciate it less.

This is a roundabout way of trying to get you to believe me when I write that I did not resent the idea of spending the week filming bits about the "Spy Girls", the Stealth's dance team, to use as a feature story on the pregame segment of Saturday's game and during the recap programs, along with inserts during the game coverage.

It's been an interesting week. George was technically the producer, and he was good at making sure all the technical stuff was in place, but he gave me a pretty free hand with the interviews, arranged to do some new pick-up stuff based on what the girls said, and I'll be spending a good chunk of tomorrow with him in the editing room. It's a lot like writing a commissioned article, just with a lot of extra steps and different media; it came pretty naturally.

I liked the girls, too; I found out that many of them see this as a stepping-stone to a job with the Raiders or 49ers, or looking for modeling or television work. Some of them are just doing it part-time, because it's something the enjoyed in high school or because their nine to fives make them feel drab or uninteresting. I wound up giving a lot of Drew/Rick's business cards out to the first group, and I sympathized somewhat with the latter; I know what it's like to want something different from the life you're leading.

I was surprised by the intensity of some of them, though. Most of the cheerleaders I knew in high school were pretty cool people, but as Annabeth (not her real name) pointed out, there was likely at least one queen bitch among the cheerleaders I knew, and those were the ones that had ambitions to ride their looks, by and large, so there could be a lot of backbiting going on when I wasn't looking. It's like anything else - you may have been the best at something in school, but then you get fed into a situation where you're not just competing with the lesser lights who happened to live in the same town, but a whole ton of people who were the best around where they were.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, the closest thing to actual journalism I've done while at CalSports, and sort of makes up for not getting chosen for the Tokyo trip.

Until this morning, when George tells me that one of the other producers had the idea that, since we were doing a theme of highlighting the dance squad this week, wouldn't it be neat if I wore the dance squad's outfit tomorrow? Sure, the camera doesn't point inside the booth that often, but it might be fun during pre and post!

I was not amused, to say the least. It is one thing to not mind when someone is checking you out, or understand the impulse, but asking me to do that is something else altogether. This felt like something I could actually be proud of, and they want me to make my body the focus of it? Not cool.

Still... George and "Rick" (Drew doesn't use his own name much these days) both say it would be good for me to be play up my attractiveness a little, demonstrate I'm a little more willing to use it. So I'll probably dress in the stupid cheerleader costume tomorrow night.

I've got no idea what Nell's father is going to think of this. At least my mother isn't around to see it.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: Rejected!

Man, am I glad for the team to have a off week right now. February has been ridiculously busy, as even though there were only three games (and no crazy parts of the schedule where the Stealth is playing at home in San Jose one day and then up in Canada the next), I've had to do a lot of anchor work because a good chunk of the rest of the on-air talent is covering spring training for the A's and Giants, or covering basketball and hockey. February and March are a time when the network's staff gets spread pretty thin, so I'm at the desk a lot.

And that's part of why I won't be getting to go to Tokyo. George told me yesterday, saying that since they don't actually broadcast the games, they can only really justify sending a two-person team (talent and camera/sound), and they're opting for one of the people they have who are more closely associated with baseball, who have been around the team during spring training, etc.

I guess that's reasonable, but it's disappointing. Less reasonable was the part that he sort of joked about, that the cameraman would wind up having trouble fitting me and any Japanese people I interviewed or profiled in frame. I actually wouldn't be surprised if this was the actual reason, because it does make sense from a certain aesthetic point of view - I'm a six-foot-tall woman, and there are guys who get uncomfortable being interviewed by me on-camera. I've been there, and I can say from first-hand experience that the male of the species does sometimes respond badly to having to look up to a woman. Heck, I've exploited it at times.

But this really does wind up gnawing at me, because as much as I've come to accept that this is going to be my life from now on, and I like being tall and strong and healthy, I hate being treated like a freak. I already know I am one, but nobody knows it goes deeper than being a sort of tomboy.

If that's not enough, I've been getting rejection letters for my book. I'm not totally surprised; it's my first real attempt to write a novel, and structuring a good mystery turns out to be really hard. Still, it's hard to take, especially having someone else's form as I do. I always used to say that I didn't work on spec much because it's just bad use of one's time to do the thing you get paid for without getting paid when you could be doing a paying gig, and for the most part I believed it. Of course, it's also been so long since I did spec work that I've forgotten just how painfully personal each rejection can be. It sucks being told that you're not good enough, and when you submit to multiple places, you get told again... and again... and again.

I actually cried when I got the first rejection letter, and then had a panic attack over whether that was an Inn thing - had I been female so long that I was starting to react like one? Had becoming a girl changed my body that much, so that I'd react to failure with tears and self-doubt purely because of endocrinology? I don't think so, but how can I know? And now that I have actually cried over that, what's it mean? Does it mean that my sex is asserting these sorts of responses, or would I be crying over it if I were still a man? There seems to be no right answer.

Some of the reasons really wound up bugging me, too. On the one hand, I know I'm not really great at fiction yet, so I should be able to accept being rejected on merit. Still, some of what's in the letters has really bugged me:

* "We have no place for new authors in our mystery imprint's publishing schedule."

* "As much as we like your concept, we do not feel that your name has national visibility."

* "We think the book has real promise; have you considered working with a co-writer?"

* "... a ghost writer?"

A ghost writer... I threw a bit of a tantrum at that; calling Drew and telling him not to send anything to that publisher the next time around. He talked me down from that, reasonably pointing out that it's not a good idea to hold grudges against corporations, but undid a lot of good will by saying that I'd face nothing but frustration if I kept trying to live my old life. Be a sportscaster and spokesperson, he says - you've got the face, voice, and body to be a good one and you'll be happier just going with the flow. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself nuts trying to be something you no longer are.

Suffice it to say, he hasn't been getting any for the last week. In a world where a stripper can win an Oscar, I figure I can write a few mystery novels.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: Getting around

I was sorely tempted to try and find a way to beg off doing play-by-play for the Stealth when it became clear that the National Lacrosse League's labor dispute wasn't going to cancel the season. I feel exposed at those events, because lacrosse was really Nell's thing, and I didn't inherit her expertise with her body. I know I'm not going to get in trouble for being an impostor or anything - nobody believes us when we tell them that we're not who we appear to be, except under special circumstances - but it's not quite a rational fear. I do feel afraid of letting Nell down, or doing damage to her reputation.

I never quite got the nerve to bail, though - the money's not great, but it's not so minuscule that I wouldn't miss it if it were gone. Besides, after a few months of mainly sitting behind a desk and reading scores, I find myself pretty anxious for the escape it gives me - travel.

I wasn't much of a world traveler in my previous life, but one of the fun things about being a freelance writer is that you can take all manner of assignments that bring you to a bunch of places. There were times I stuck close to home because I was worried about my mother and her health, but I would take other assignments because they gave me the chance to go new places and try different things or interview interesting people.

Doing the play-by-play gives me that option. Last night I was in San Jose, calling a home loss against the Calgary Roughnecks; today I'm in Denver to call tonight's game against the Colorado Mammoth, I'll be in New York next Thursday, and there are trips to Edmonton, Philadelphia, and Portland on tap. I just wish I had more time to spend looking around; we're sometimes in and out so fast that we don't even bother to book a hotel room.

That's why I'm trying to convince George to let me cover the Athletics' opening series in Tokyo against the Red Sox. It might conflict with a home game, but if they really do see me (or, at least, "Penny") as a potential face of the network, having me do remotes and interviews might make it worth it. I like the idea of writing and researching my own material while I'm over there, too.

Drew's pretty excited about the idea, in terms of making me a more valuable client, although he groans when I say it could be valuable research for my second book. He's probably right when he says I shouldn't even be thinking series before getting my first one sold or even finished, but I tell him that the mystery publishers like series; they're steady streams of income.

It's going to take some convincing, but I'm hoping it will work out. I think this is the first time while living as either Liz or Penny that I've really been excited about an opportunity that I wouldn't have had in my old life.

-Art

Arthur/Penny: You start to wonder

I haven't written in this blog in over a month. More worrisome, I haven't written at all, outside of what I do to prepare copy for the nightly telecast, in a few weeks. When Lyn called the other night, as freaked out about what Jessica and Louisa had found out as you might expect her to be, I joked that I was showing solidarity with the striking Writers' Guild of America.

Note one: I'd never worked in film or television in my original life, so Jeremy has not inherited a WGA membership. I'm also not a member of the union as Penny, since news broadcasts are not covered under that agreement. The only issue with writing this would be if we had an eye toward developing it into a television series or movie, and I don't know if we could even if we had a mind to. But I completely support the striking writers.

Note two: If Lyn wants to talk about our post-Pygmalion phone calls, she can. The revelation that her "secret admirer" is probably far more than a typical stalker obviously affects her more directly than any of the rest of us, and I'm not really comfortable speaking to her state of mind based on what we've said over the phone.

Still, as much as Lyn is the most directly affected, we all have to wonder how much we've drawn the attention of Pygmalion. Lyn certainly has. Mark and Vinessa did, although that might just have been targets of opportunity if he already had someone working in the INS. The new Dex maybe turned out useful to him.

I wonder about me, though. I mean, I haven't written. I've had a lot of reasons to be busy - one of the other anchors for the Ten O'Clock Report went on maternity leave, I've been reading up on the San Jose Stealth's players and indoor lacrosse in general. Nell's father had big holiday plans that involved his daughter, for both Thanksgiving and Christmas (I've thankfully begged off New Year's). My phone's been ringing off the hook to do speaking engagements, and those are nice. But I've written as long as I can remember, keeping journals, writing short stories, and then in school and professionally. For me to not do it for so long feels like something even more fundamental than my body has changed.

And when there's something like that, there's a tendency to try to assign responsibility. Is Pygmalion doing this? Does he want to see if I take up Nell's life completely? Does me getting wrapped up in this life mean I'm paying less attention to Lyn, and thus give him freer reign with her? Or is it just a coincidence and I'm assigning myself far too much importance.

Hell if I know. But I'm going to go work on the book some more, just because I can.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: Writer's Block

In my old life, I frequently told people that I didn't believe in writer's block. Part of that was because I seldom wrote fiction. It's not like once you've got things outlined and your research done, an informational article writes itself, but you've got your roadmap, there's not much doubt on what you have to do. You also generally have a deadline, and if you're a professional, "writer's block" isn't much of an excuse. Does a computer programmer get to say "writer's block"? Does an accountant get to say "sorry, guys, I've had a hard time getting into math lately"? Does a carpenter get to say that he's having a hard time making the hammer work for him?

No, no, and no. In fact, I probably had to hold to a stricter schedule than some of them, because if I miss a deadline, I might never work for that editor again, and don't think that word wouldn't get around. They will insist you return your advance and use someone else to fill your space.

Writing a novel on spec, though? It's killing me. I've changed the killer something like three times because even though it makes sense in the outline, once I've started writing and given a character a voice, their planned actions don't seem to fit half the time. And don't even get me started on the characters you plan to kill but enjoy writing. It's not even that I start thinking of them as real people; that would be kindness of a sort. No, this is selfishness - writing character X is fun, and if I kill her, I won't be having as much fun any more.

It's spilled over into this blog, too - I can't turn my computer on without feeling like I should be working on the book. After all, if there's something really important about the Inn situation, I can just call Lyn and talk to her directly.

Drew's saying that the best advice is probably to just put the novel aside for a while and focus on the career that pays me. It's a very practical attitude, but I don't know if I can. He's negotiating with CalSports about what the contingencies in my contract would be if the NLL (National Lacrosse League, which plays indoors during the winter; not to be confused with Major League Lacrosse, which plays outside in the summer) and their players don't arrive at a contract and I don't have games to broadcast, and, honestly? I don't much care. I didn't really enjoy calling MLL games, and traveling to San Jose sounds even less exciting.

All right... Back to the book. This has been a nice distraction, but I really want the book.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: Not how I'd like to work for them again.

It's three A.M., and I can't sleep. Drew is in the bed and sleeping like a log, but I guess sex just wears him out a little more than it does me. Normally, this would be prime time to do a little work on the novel, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to concentrate on it right now.

Part of it's the busy schedule; there are days when CalSports has me working both a six o'clock and then a ten o'clock show, and after ten they have me hang around as the baseball scores come in, shooting new bits of footage that will be inserted into the ten o'clock show so that it can be run overnight and into the morning. I can't imagine how much this job must suck on the east coast, where you have to do basically the same thing, only the west coast games don't get over until one a.m., Eastern Time.

I'm up to doing that three or four times a week, but it's not always the same days. Plus, I've started doing some of the personal appearances that Nell used to do. Only about half of them actually pay, but I like doing the ones that help out a good cause, and Drew figures that doing talks at schools is good business, too - he figures that it can't hurt to be some kids' first crush, that they'll remember later. When he said that last weekend, I was kind of alarmed; how much later was he talking about?

Well, he says, as "Penny" you're in your mid-twenties and healthy, keeping up her workout habits; you've probably got a good, long chunk of "babe years" ahead of you. It's not impossible that a kid in fifth grade might still make it a priority to tune to ESPN on the nights you're doing SportsCenter when he's in college ten years from now.

Ten years! It's not quite yet one year since I first woke up as Liz, and I'm not even really sure that I'm going to stay Penny long-term, or at least not that long-term. I asked him how he could think in those terms; he just shrugged and said that even if I didn't stay Penelope Lincoln, someone would, and it would be his job to look out for her interests. That kind of took me aback. What about getting back to your old life?

He shrugged. "I like it as R.J. It's a good fit, and California sure beats going back to Michigan for the winter. The original one doesn't figure on being able to extricate himself from Stephen Jeffries's affairs by the time the Inn closes for the season, so I'm figuring on an indefinite stay. 'New Drew' can do what he wants." Oh. "Maybe you should give me one of those new nicknames you're so fond of, like 'Lyn' and 'Penny'. So what do you think... Am I a 'Rich'... or a 'Dick'?" He pulled his body against mine at that, and I could feel the latter's appropriateness.

We got distracted.

It was the next morning, when I was scrambling some eggs in my t-shirt and panties, that he told me he'd been talking with an editor at Maxim about me. I said that was great; I'd really enjoyed doing work for them in the past, even if it was an assignment for them that led me to the Inn. How'd he get them to talk, though; it's not like Penelope has the bibliography they usually look for in a freelancer?

Well, that's the thing, he said - it's not for writing work; it's for a pictorial.

Oh. I really wished I was wearing some pants after he said that. I absently tried to pull my shirt down a little but it just made my nipples stand out. "I don't know, Drew..."

"Hey, it's Maxim, not Playboy. It'll raise your profile, potentially to national attention, and it's not like they'll be showing anything Nell hasn't put on display before. She was a pro beach volleyball player, after all, and their uniform is the bikini."

"Yeah... but..."

"It's not even a formal offer yet; just something he and I are talking about. It's easy work and even though reading the scores pays better than announcing lacrosse, it's not bad to get paid, either."

I told him I'd think about it.

Maybe that's why I'm still awake and typing this, even though it's almost four, now. I go to sleep and time jumps forward to the morning, and he'll be wanting to talk about it again, even though I've still got a few things to figure out before even considering it.

-Art/Penny

Arthur: Penny

At least the Dragons' last game was a win. Sure, it wasn't a whole lot of fun to interview a team that's going home, as opposed to the championship weekend in Rochester, but I figure there's a non-trivial difference in attitude between a team that goes 3-9 and ends on a loss and one that goes 4-8 and ends on a win.

The whole thing made for a kind of strange Saturday evening afterward, doing a wrap party with the rest of the CalSports crew. After all, even though we travel with the team and sort of root for them during the broadcast, our success as broadcasters can be considered separately from that of the team on the field, and I guess we did alright by that regard.

Seems kind of unimportant, though. I got a letter from Penelope yesterday.

Well, not from "Penelope", but from "Jeremy Boyd".

Dear Nell,

It seems strange to write those two words like that, but I'm not sure what else to call you. I hope you are well, and not finding my life too much of a drag. I would have written sooner, but as you might imagine, things were strange. Still are, I guess, but they're a type of strange I can deal with.

When R.J. and I woke up as Jeremy Boyd and Stephen Jeffries, we were both kind of in trouble. Between the time the inn closed down for the winter and when we changed, there were nearly eight months where these people simply fell off the map. Stephen, as a corporate VP who enjoyed a bit of a lavish lifestyle, managed to run up bills even while absent that took a bit of sorting out, and was actually named in a lawsuit that R.J. says is groundless, but managed to gain traction by the very fact of his absence.

For me, the situation was a little more cut and dried: Jeremy Boyd's leave ended something like a week after he changed into Arthur Milligan, so when I awoke in his body, I was facing a desertion charge. Fortunately, the Army is practical about such matters; they figure that there isn't a lot to be gained from chasing, court-martialling, and then imprisoning people who just walk away. They don't make a big deal about it, because otherwise, especially in times like today, they might lose enough people that they'd have to start doing something about it. But if you turn yourself in, you wind up with a couple of weeks in the stockade and then a dishonorable discharge, which was just about the best case scenario. I don't think I'd have backed down if the Army had decided to ship me out, but I know I wouldn't have had the necessary skills to survive very long.

I wound up back in Jeremy's hometown, still weirded out by my body, feeling vaguely ashamed even though I hadn't abandoned anything. I was set to buy a bus ticket west to confront you and "Arthur" - and I mean, not even letting my bags leave the station - but Jeremy's father met me there, gave me a serious look, and said that I should go see Daisy.

Diasy Wright had been something less than Jeremy's girlfriend; really, just someone he knew form high school that he slept with between others. The last time was just before he left for the Trading Post Inn; this time she got pregnant.

Jeremy's son - my son... He's beautiful. You can probably tell from looking in my stuff that I was never a huge girly-girl, but I've always liked kids (I used to love doing summer camps and speeches at schools). It was a difficult pregnancy for Daisy, and she doesn't have much money to begin with...

What can I say, the kid needs a dad, and I'm pretty damn certain I can do a better job than the person who actually fathered him.

So I'm Jeremy Boyd now. I've always liked a challenge, and being a better Jeremy than the man who was born to it seems like it will be a great one. I'll miss my old life, but you seem to be doing okay with it, if what I read on the internet about getting anchor work is true.

Enjoy being Penelope... Or at least find someone who will should you decide to go back to the inn.

Sincerely,

"Jeremy"

The postmark and return address were from Nashville; not a place I'd necessarily be thrilled with settling down, but then again, there's no kid there who will call me Daddy (or Mommy, as the case may be).

I sat there kind of stunned, after reading it. I'm almost in the same position as 'Lyn after Stephen had told her he was keeping her old life, although I was pretty darn close - Nell had just given me her life, like the original Ashlyn had given Jake hers, and it certainly looked like Jeremy intended to keep mine.

After a few minutes, though, I wasn't just stunned any more - I was kind of jolted. I had to do something.

I went to the closet and pulled out the set of four-inch heels I'd initially thought were totally superfluous for a girl as tall as Nell. I did my make-up, combed out my hair, and painted my nails. I found a matching skirt and jacket in the closet and unbuttoned a couple of buttons on the blouse that went with it. Then I hit the road.

When I got to the Raiders' business offices, I didn't waste any time. I asked the receptionist where Arthur Milligan's office was and then walked there like I owned the place. She called him, of course; Nell's a bit recognizable, and it's not as if a member of the media coming to talk with one of the team's public relations people was odd, especially once the pre-season had started. I walked into the office and forcefully shut the door behind me.

It was kind of difficult to keep my exposed knees from knocking, or otherwise appearing nervous. That's why the shoes, and the power suit, and everything. Tall girls intimidate a lot of guys, and a woman who stands six-foot four in heels while he's sitting down? Should be enough to cancel out the jitters I was feeling. It was slight overkill, as it turns out. It's been almost a full year since the last time I looked in my own face, and it was weird, but also easier than I'd been expecting. A year of seeing other faces in the mirror, of knowing other people that this had happened to, of changing a second time... It's left me better able to accept that faces and lives can be exchanged, and that this guy with my name isn't me.

He looked up at me with a smirk. "What took you so long?"

I crossed my arms. "If I'd come earlier, I might have wound up playing your game. I might have actually slept with you because you had something I wanted badly. I might actually have thought that by giving you something that Nell wouldn't, you'd have actually given me my life back. Because that's how it was going to go, wasn't it? And I might have been desperate enough to go for it, even though the end result would have been you snickering about how completely you'd taken my life and manhood."

"And you came here just to tell me that?"

"No." I slapped a copy of Nell's letter down on his desk in front of him, spinning it to face him under a manicured fingernail. "I came to tell you to read this. I came here to make sure you know that the woman you tricked into dealing with your shit knows more about being a man than you ever did."

I leaned forward, letting him get a whiff of perfume and lining up those open buttons up with his eyes so that he had the choice of looking me in the eye or looking at my cleavage. He didn't disappoint. "Oh, and Germy?" He looked up, just a few inches away from my face. I came in a little closer, to whisper in his ear. "No matter what that Inn does to my body, what clothes I wear, and who I fuck... Which will never, ever be you... I'm still more of a man than you're likely to ever be."

And I left, driving from the parking lot straight to the CalSports studios. I was on last night, after all.

The show went well, although people watching it may have noticed me slightly stammering at the end: "That's the Ten O'Clock Report. For all of us here at CalSports, I'm...I'm Penny Lincoln. Good night."

George caught it, at least. "I thought you hated being called 'Penny'?"

It actually felt a little good to hear him say that. "I'm trying something new," I said. "It's time."

-Art/"Penny"

Arthur: At least there's only one more week of calling losses

Writing a novel looks kind of easy. You figure out what you want to write about, come up with an outline, and then just do it. Especially when, as I'm trying to do, it's about your current line of work; there's not quite so much research to do. There's still plenty, though - a murder mystery has to be absolutely flawless in its details, or the fans will absolutely crucify you.

So, I've been spending a lot of my free time lately doing research, and feeling like I should be doing more; it seems like each new thing I discover about sports, broadcasting, crime, or any of the other things in the book makes me rewrite . I'm starting to think that if this book winds up three hundred pages long, I'll have written something like fifteen hundred, which is daunting.

Spare time is not something I've had a whole lot of lately, though. I'm doing anchor duty two nights a week, which means being around all evening for cut-ins, and working on writing my material. As much as the novel isn't my forte, apparently neither is voiceover work. George says otherwise, which is nice of him, but I don't know if the way I announce the scores and recap that no, Barry Bonds didn't hit a home run tonight is really noticeably different than what some other guy does.

The other thing is that the last couple of weeks have been away games - L.A. two weeks ago, Chicago last weekend. It was cool to go back to L.A.; I got to see Cassie again. She at least seems really excited by the book, begging to let her proofread it or something. I told her I would, and she thanked me, saying that if I got it published, it would be just about the coolest thing anyone she knows has ever done. Drew kind of gave me an eyebrow after that, since this wouldn't really be something done by someone Cassie knows, although when Cassie caught it, he said that hosting the show was pretty cool, too, wasn't it?

Drew does like coming down to L.A., though. I think he's kind of star-struck by it, having grown up in Michigan, which I'm sure is nice, don't get me wrong... But you come to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and you see things that you remember from movies and TV practically every time you turn a corner. Sometimes you'll see a movie star eating in a restaurant a few seats away, and it's like it's no big deal. He's spending about half the week there, right now, signing a few would-be actors and models to beef up R.J.'s roster.

Cassie teased me about that, but I told her I was cool with it. I was tempted to make a joke about not being used to having one guy doting on me all the time, based on Ray and Stewart, but I figured there was a good chance of her finding that really inappropriate based upon something in Nell's past.

I don't think I'd be too terribly upset if he found some new girl down in L.A., though. I get the feeling that Drew is becoming less and less interested in returning to his "real" life, so if he wants to settle into something, I guess I wouldn't blame him. Do I enjoy going out (and then going back in) with him? Yeah, we have fun, and there's no lying to it. But I won't even begin to kid myself that we're in love, or that I'm looking for anything permanent so long as I look like Nell.

-Art

Arthur: Treading carefully

Sometimes, it seems like trying not to do something is the surest way to do it. I was bound and determined not to wind up with Drew, and yet...

Well, you know how it goes. You've got something in common, you see each other on business... You wind up just spending a lot of time together. Maybe you feel that the whole idea of a relationship is wrong, and something casual is perhaps even worse. But it's tough to resist sometimes.

Plus, after visiting Lyn, I felt a few different things. I was kind of jealous of how she's just living her life without thinking about her next trip to the Inn, or having to worry about being someone else someday. I've got no desire for a lot of the details of her life, but just feeling like you're in control of your life is something I miss.

And, I admit, it also felt good to remind myself how fit I feel. As R.J., Drew's in pretty good shape, too, and a lot of my time is spent around professional athletes. Heck, even what friends of Nell's I meet (I'm going to see Cassie again this weekend) tend to be fitness nuts. It's a reminder that I'm in a pretty good position right now.

So, a couple weeks ago, after I get the good news that "Nell" will be co-anchoring one CalSports's late-night highlight shows a couple times a week, Drew and I go out drinking. We get back to his place. One thing leads to another. And... it's good.

I told him that I don't think this is going to be a big thing - I'm still looking to get my body back, or at least give Nell back hers, and I know he and New Drew are trying to work scheduling out, even if it doesn't seem like it's going to happen until next spring. He says that's fine; it's just nice to have a girl call him "Drew" in bed, although calling her "Arthur" is a bit of a buzzkill. I tell him I used to go by "A.J." as a kid, and he seems to like that.

This could become a great big disaster, but I don't think it will. We're both going into it with our eyes wide open.

-Art

Arthur: Weekend plans

It looks like I"m starting to get a little extra work from CalSports. Drew is trying to take credit for it, and I've got no doubt that he made sure I got the best terms I could, but there are probably three factors that loom larger than his "mad negotiatin' skillz" to explain why I'm not heading straight back west after the Dragons' latest loss, this time to Philadelphia.

It's cheaper to get me from Philly to Boston than to fly someone else cross-country, possibly passing me in the air.

So long as I look like Nell, I'm much more photogenic than Mike, and George has told me that they've been hoping to give Nell a larger role for a while.

And, of course, anyone with any seniority will be staying in SF to cover the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, while the inexperienced girl wit no clout gets to film a goofy "lacrosse player goes to Harvard" piece and get statements after the Major League Lacrosse All-Star Game.
Whatever the reasons, I'm doing it, picking up an extra couple hundred bucks to spend a kind of damp weekend back in Boston. I'm a little disappointed that I missed the Fourth, as I've heard they make a really big deal of it in Boston (and probably Philadelphia, too, for that matter). They're going to be keeping me pretty busy, but that's probably a good thing. I don't see myself getting sentimental about my time living Liz's life, but I do admit to feeling an odd impulse to check in on her and Ray. I'm suppressing it, though - I don't want her to feel bad about me not being me, and what does Penelope Lincoln have to say to Raymond Kim?

I'll try to take the time to see Lyn, although it would be just my luck if she's got a shift at Headlights when I'm free Saturday and Sunday nights. Of course, if she's willing to stay up late, I'm game - after all, there's no point in re-acclimating to Eastern Daylight Time for a three day trip. Heck, it's not quite midnight for me posting this right now.

Well, there's the tendency of Boston to shut down well before midnight, but other than that...

-Art