Arthur/Penny/Millie: What Is WRONG with These People?

(Before starting on the rest, I'm really glad to hear that Cary is on the mend!  I only just met him last year, but he's a good guy and Zee is great too!)

My instinct as a writer all the way back to starting this blog is to set the scene and tell the story and maybe hit a climax, but let's face it, a lot of people bail after a paragraph or so if you don't make your point up front, so I'm going to just say it:  That wasn't Harmon in this room, I don't know where she is with my identity of the past two decades, and if anyone can help me find out, I'd appreciate it like you wouldn't believe.

Okay, so let's get back to the beginning.

Ray, Millie, and I came up on the first train Wednesday, when it was just starting to really heat up; even if we hadn't planned on a heat wave, it was kind of nice to get out of the city and a teeny bit north, and none of us were going to let the person who needs to be at the Inn be alone.  We found a nice little sublet that cost an arm and a leg for the whole month of July, so even though I'd be going back to the Inn on my own at the end of the day, my family would be nearby and we could hit the amusement park or go on day trips as a group.  We'll look like a single dad with his college-aged son and younger daughter, but we've been through weirder.

We stopped there to drop off some of the gear and then hopped on bikes to ride to the Inn, where I put my Millie suitcase on the dresser before finding it odd that Harmon had apparently brought some bag i didn't recognize and left it.  Wanting to get a head start, it unzipped it and stared in incredulity at the men's clothing inside.  There was a worn wallet loose among the strapped-down compartments, and suddenly felt light-headed when I opened it and saw the license. 

Ray caught me as I buckled, then looked down at the license.  "What sort of sick joke is this?"

One of the garments, smaller than the rest, caught my eye, and I pulled it out a t-shirt from a 2002 writing workshop.  "I don't think it is.  I think this is real.  Harmon made the reservation, but frigging Germy was the one who stayed here."  I gave a bitter chuckle.  "I'm going to be Arthur Milligan again."

"WHAT?"  Millie went completely white and rushed over to inspect the wallet.  "No!  We'll find Harmon and get him to fix this!  We've gotta!"

"We'll certainly try, but the most important thing is getting you back where you belong.  And that means I've got to stay here before you do."

I was surprisingly calm as I said this; I don't know if non-parents would understand this, but it was just that simple, just as it was last year:  This was what I needed to do to protect my kid, so I was going to do it, and I'd figure out the details later.

Millie was not calm, she was crying like the 14-year-old girl she was behind her grown man's face, hugging me tight like she was going to stop me from doing something.  "It's all my fault!  If I hadn't...  I'm so sorry!"

I put my hands on her face and made her look at me.  "Hey.  You didn't make the greatest decision, but that doesn't mean it's your fault!  Jeremy Boyd and Harmon Kendall are selfish people, and they almost certainly would be doing something like this whether you came here or not, and at least we all know who we really are rather than someone having a stranger in their house and not knowing it."

"But if I'd just asked!"

Ray patted her back.  "Then we would have either tried to come up with a story which you'd believe, but it wouldn't have worked, because we couldn't even convincingly lie to you about the Easter Bunny, or we would have told you the impossible truth and you'd have been insulted.  You would have wound up here anyway, only angrier at us and maybe without someone who seemed to have your best interests at heart."

She let go of me to wipe her eyes, and I let her step back.  "This sucks so much."

"Yeah.  But we can handle it.  Now, let's get out our laptops.  Your dad will see if Harmon did something dumb like buying a plane ticket with my credit card, I'll try and contact my friend Jessie and see if she can help figure out what's going on, and maybe you can contact your 'girlfriend' and see if they noticed something specifically strange.  And then...  Well, and then we'll take a break and have a nice dinner and make sure we don't waste any of our vacation together, okay?"

Millie allowed that it was okay, and we got to work.  So far, no luck, and the Inn's filling up, but we haven't given up.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: It happened!

Got a photo of Harmon flexing in his underwear this morning, and I suppose that I should just be glad that he thought twice before deciding he doesn't want to start a new life with a 14-year-old girl going to the cops because of a dick pic, which Millie and I would have been tempted to do, because it seems reasonably certain he's going to keep that life rather than roll the dice again.  He says he won't, but he's selfish, and I suppose I should feel lucky that he didn't find my life too comfortable, which may have been entirely down to me, Ray, and Millie making it clear we didn't want him.  If he'd just landed in someone like Penny with a family that didn't know what was up? Entirely possible he figures Penny is older than Alicia, but in good-enough shape until he decides to go to the Inn again, with teacher/writer suiting his temperament better than flight attendant.

Anyway, that's a huge load off my mind.  Ray, Millie, and I are off to get bagels to celebrate. 

- Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: ... No More Teacher's Dirty Looks!

Look, it was either that or "school's... out... forever!"

I started typing this in my home office at a reasonable 10:30AM and left the window open while I do other things all day.  It's just me in the apartment, because Ray is in the office and Harmon is at the school, grading the last finals and essays and attending some year-end meetings that have to be done in person.  Then, just like for the past week, he'll be driving up to the Trading Post Inn, except that he won't be driving back tomorrow morning, but just hanging around until he's no longer Penelope Lincoln Lee and I've got the chance to be myself again. 

There was a time I would have envied the year he's got in front of him; the luggage and letter that was there when he arrived is a stud who looks like he's spent a good chunk of his 18 years in the gym, accepted to a good college, nobody in particular to fool.  Probably got a huge dick, because some folks just have good luck fall into their laps. 

Which admittedly includes me; the last few years have been a bit tougher than expected, with Ray starting his own firm and having to get a full-time job because "midlist author" isn't quite the stable income it used to be, especially when you've got a kid with often-expensive hobbies.  Those are the most first-world of first-world problems, really (note to self: have not heard kids say "first-world problems" in the time I've been embedded among them).  I've been Penny long enough to have developed a certain world-view that it's maybe useful to have upended.

Not that I'm ever going to admit that the months of worry are a fair tradeoff for understanding Millie better.  Yes, one of the lasting lessons I've learned as a parent is that worry is what you spend to have a child you can be proud of; I've worried every time Millie hurt herself playing sports or spent the night at a friend's place or went to camp, and, boy, that time I watched her ride a bike out of my sight gave her her first T pass at 11 were crazy, but I do think she'll be a braver, more independent woman for it, and she got through an Inn experience that I suspect might have broken me had I visited the Inn at 13 and wound up a grown woman apart from my parents, mixed bag as they were - I might have been so lost that I might not have been able to conceive going back and being myself again, but Millie is still herself underneath the silly facial hair, and I'm grateful.

And, for all that this started with me expressing private frustration with relating to her because her genes weren't the ones that made me who I was, regardless of what I became later, I know for a fact that she is my daughter in all the ways that matter.  My instincts steered me well as her, and nobody ever told me I was acting weird.  Plus, she apparently took all the writing classes she could fit into Griff's schedule at school, not quite enough that he's going to come back to find he's minoring in journalism, but it shows that a lot of what drives both me and Ray is in there - just like the way she ran off to find the Inn, she wants to know things and communicate it and make them right, which is a big part of what drove me into writing and him into law.

Maybe this time will fade for her, or maybe she'll have a leg up on dealing with men and other adults as she grows older.  I kind of hope it's the first, but no kid comes out of something life-changing, literally or figuratively, unchanged.  She looks like she's doing well, but she deserves to be a kid and a teenager.

Speaking of which, today happens to be her/mine/our 14th birthday.  We're going to eat some garbage and watch the new Supergirl movie tonight, and then spend the weekend with her humiliating me at tennis and whatever other sports we can get to while she's got a 21-year-old male physique.  With any luck, we'll get a message from Harmon tomorrow about the Inn doing its thing, and we can look forward to changing back and being able to talk about everything.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: When Will This School Year End?

I try not to fall into the trap of thinking my life experience is more universal than it actually is - the Inn will disabuse you of that notion very quickly - but I feel like I should be out of school by now.  When I was growing up, the school year basically ran the day after Labor Day to a couple weeks into summer, every year, everywhere.  I'd heard that maybe it was different in the extremes - like, Minnesota would have a long winter break and start a little earlier/end a little later - but not too much so.  When you watched TV, it was basically like that on every show with kids and school.

And yet, for my first year back in public school in 25 years or so, it started around then but I'm there until the 25th of June, and that's without much in the way of snow days.  They don't have many of those any more, between climate change and all the tele-learning infrastructure that was built during the pandemic, and it's driving me nuts.

And it's not like this everywhere - on some places, it's weirder!  I'm on a group chat with other authors, and one of them who lives in Texas says her kids' school year ended the week before Memorial Day, so they had to take their summer vacation the week off the holiday because the kids' summer activities start on June 1st, when I've still got three weeks to go. 

Would I have been this annoyed by it if I were in my natural role of teacher/parent?  Probably not, I admit.  It's normal for Millie, as much as anything is (she's had two out of eight years disrupted by a pandemic, so what's normal?), and a couple years ago, I was getting used to having a scheduled job rather than being freelance, so it didn't seem too long.  I did kind of notice kids staring out the window a bit more on nice days as a teacher, and I'm sure doing it right now.  Granted, I've been doing it all year, but I'm maybe even more fidgety now.  Kid attention span when you know some of your teachers are playing out the string is a heck of a thing. 

On top of that, the delay is driving the whole group of us nuts.  Millie has been at a complete loose ends ever since Griff's academic year ended, because there really isn't anything to fill her time with, and it's stayed to really get awkward with the "girlfriend".  My daughter is only just about to turn 14, and she's had crushes, but by and large attraction is new to her, and six months or so is about when someone who has been to the Inn starts to really acknowledge that the gender identity, sexual orientation, and hormones they've inherited are something to be accepted rather than fought.  So she's got the urges of a 20-year-old man who spends a lot of time with someone with the appearance of that boy's girlfriend who has spent most of the past year looking out for him, and, yes, I do freak out every time I see Emilia and Rusty talk about how quickly Katey started hooking up with that grown man at right about this point!

So we've been doing what we can to keep her busy.  Ande apologizes for not helping out more now that he knows, but we don't blame him for wanting to spend as much time with his girlfriend as possible before she's off on her internship.  I try to get her over at the house as much as possible to read and study with me so she won't be very far behind when she starts school again in the fall, and I like to think it's centering for her, seeing that her life is being tended to and that I'm there to help.  Harmon creeps her out, though, so she's been spending a few nights out with Ray. 

It's annoying that we're dealing with Harmon this long, which is another artifact of the long school year.  Since he doesn't plan on becoming Alicia again, we decided to basically run a month behind with a broken "thread", which means that Millie's current "roommate" is heading to the Inn tomorrow, as is Harmon, even though they were a month apart last summer.  Harmon is going to be doing a daily round trip like Toby and Lambert did, although thankfully without flying to Miami and back, heading north at around 4pm or 5pm, then setting a 4am alarm so she can be at school the next day.  By the time it's my turn to head up, school will be out, so we won't have to do around much. 

Suffice it to say, we are all really, really ready to get things back to normal! 

- Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: So Happy and Furious

I was going to just use this post to talk about some book stuff, which I've kind of neglected over the past year because talking about writing and publishing is boring for other people.  Basically, I write two books a year:  There are the Lynn Ashford mysteries about a lady sportscaster who has a bad habit of running into murders when she blows into town for the Olympics, the Women's World Cup, the NBA Finals, whatever, which I've been writing for almost as long as I've been Penny, and I've usually got some other, more fantastic series going on, generally pitched toward young adults and often involving identity and transformation to some extent, sometimes under a pseudonym (or a different one, considering what you think of "Penny Lincoln").  You may remember Annette liking the Pygmalion series; after winding that down I did something more science-fictional whose second of three volumes is due out in August, and I've been trying to work on a comedic high fantasy since then.  It kind of started from a joke about how dragons don't hoard gold so much as they shit it out because they expand their cavern lairs by eating rocks that pass through their alchemical digestive systems, with the hero a princess who got swallowed whole and winds up a muscular Adonis after traversing the monster's intestines.  As you might imagine, it's been kind of tough writing that one in my current situation, although I've had a ton of ideas for age-regression stories!

Anyway, this year's Lynn Ashford is World Cup of Murder, and while I think it's pretty good, the lead time on publishing novels is enough that I had to deliver the final draft for this story meant to tie into the 2026 World Cup being held in North America in late 2024, when we were pretty certain that Kamala Harris would be president, and everything even vaguely related to the border and boycotts and foreign relations has made my book with its international cast of characters look more and more like it takes place in some far more pleasant fantasy universe.  It's not the first time this has happened, even recently - the publisher was insistent I not mention that Covid quarantines happened in my last one - but it means that the release and tie-ins got a little more low-key.  Truth be told, that's been the case generally over the last few years - making less from writing is why I took the job as an English teacher in my daughter's middle school, and that makes it a bit harder to do publicity.  It's kind of a self-reinforcing loop, but what can you do?

What that all means is that the release has been relatively quiet and the "book tour" has mostly been New England bookstores during April vacation, when schools of the region, or at least Massachusetts, take a week off around Patriot's Day.  Without a lot of sports practice taking up my time that week, I'd been "assisting" Harmon on these stops.  Part of it's the usual things that adults have their kids do to keep them busy at events like these - fetching water, having a fresh pen ready, getting books open to the title page and passing them over - but also interrupting in my best annoyed teenager when someone asks a question Harmon can't answer.  Everyone laughs and finds the kid who remembers stuff better than her mom adorable as opposed to Harmon alienating fans by not having read my entire output.

Anyway, we were doing an event in Harvard Square when a couple of college students made it through the line to the card table, and I'm kind of half-zoned out making a little pile of hardcovers ready to be signed when I hear Harmon snort-laugh at something, which isn't necessarily bad reader interaction, before she shakes my shoulder.  "Oh, Millicent, you've got to hear this - this guy says he saw new layers to my work after staying at a hotel in Maine!"  I look up and see this boy of about twenty with an extraordinarily silly mustache sweating bullets mouthing something like "you call her Millicent?", his girlfriend standing behind him with her arms crossed, kind of keeping him from fleeing.  My eyes go wide in realization and I shift into Mom Voice for the first time in months.  "Oh, we've got to talk, young... man!"  I slam the book he was getting autographed and drag it to the side, walking to the door, knowing that they're following me without seeing, vaguely hearing the rest of the line murmur in confusion.  I pull the phone out of my back pocket and dial Ray's number on my way out the door, saying a curt "Millie's at the signing, get down here now!" when it goes to voice mail.

When we get to the sidewalk, I turn around and take them in.  They both look even more nervous, and the knot in my gut tightens a bit as I see that the young woman is wearing a Northeastern University sweatshirt.  At that second, they're looking over their shoulders at Harmon chuckling at the commotion in a way that's not very maternal before turning back to me.  "Wait, are you--  Mom?"

I look up at him (her) in frustration.  "Of course I'm your mother!  What, did you think I was going to let just anyone step into your life and decide that they just might want to keep it for their own because you're so pretty and talented and have such a bright future?  That your father and I would just trust some stranger with your well-being?"

I hadn't really meant to attack the other person, but she turned a deep crimson.  "I'm sorry, I was under the impression that she had been communicating with you--"

I pointed vaguely down the street.  "I will deal with you later!  Right now I have things to discuss with my daughter!"  The other person nodded and backed away, and I crossed my arms to await an explanation.

Millie was crying, and I felt bad about that - neither Ray nor I are big yellers and she probably hadn't been hit with this for the past year.  "I don't know what I was thinking!  I just heard you say you might not really be my mom and that it had something to do with that Inn so I figured I had to get to the bottom of it even though I didn't know what I was going to find there!  And then it did this to me and I was still so mad that you'd kept something so important secret..."  I kept staring.  "Okay, I should have told you, but then it felt so good to be grown up and have people trust me..."  She sniffled.  "And then, every time I came to look at how the new me was doing, maybe offer some help, it freaked me out that she... you...  that nobody would be able to tell that I was gone or different!  You didn't seem to need me so I just threw myself into being Griff--"

Despite myself, I snickered.  "Griff?"

"Yeah, Angelo Griffin; everybody calls him Griff, which I guess is better than 'Angelo'.  He found a flyer for the place in his roommate's mail--"

Something clicked.  "Ande.  You're roomates with Ande."

Her eyes went wide.  "You know Ande?"

"Yeah, he comes to this little thing Auntie Ashlyn does at the Changeling was a month for Inn people.  He used to be his twin sister."

"That maybe explains something--  Wait, does that mean Auntie Ashlyn...?

"Used to be a guy too, yes."

"Is anyone we know who they're supposed to be?"

I gave it some thought.  "I think that's it.  Although, don't ever imply to Auntie Ashlyn that she's not who she's supposed to be!"  And though I thought it went without saying.  "And don't ever even think that I'm not supposed to be your mother!"

I guess she really needed to hear that because she grabbed me for a bear hug, which was kind of awkward because this Griff guy is taller than I am as Millie, but then, the other moms who aren't freakishly tall women say that's just part of having your kids grow up.  We got a lot of concerned looks from people on the sidewalk, but fortunately that was when Ray showed up, panting a bit as he ran from wherever he'd parked the car.  Millie still had her face buried in my hair when he said "is this...?" and I nodded, so he grabbed us both. 

Millie turned to look at him.  "Are you mad?"

"So mad.  But more relieved.  We love that you're stubborn and want to handle things yourself, but you have to ask for help with something this big!"

She nodded and said she had help, which is when we finally relented and waved "Griff's girlfriend" over.  She seems nice, and has done what she could to keep Millie's head above water.

We considered going to grab something to eat and maybe invite Harmon along, but Millie decided she didn't want to see her looking like me more, that it's different seeing your own face or hearing your own voice, because she doesn't really spend that much time looking in the mirror, and I get it.  We've at least been able to text and email recently, so that all the arrangements for turning back could be made.

It's been a tremendous load off our shoulders for the past week, though!

-Penny/Millie

Arthur/Millie/Penny: Jumpy

It's been a while - almost 19 years! - since I've booked return tickets to the Inn, so I'd kind of forgotten the combination of giddiness and panic that comes with it.  I think most folks feel the same; there's this genuine relief that things are going to get back to the way they should be, and I have met a lot of folks who actually enjoy this phase of the Inn experience more than anything else.  "Okay," they seem to say, "now that this has an end date, I can stop worrying what enjoying this says about my inner self, and I don't have to worry about feeling trapped by this thing I don't like."  You would not believe how many people who've become the opposite gender really step up their sexual experimentation in those last couple months! 

The flip side, though, is that you can get extremely paranoid about anything going wrong or amiss.  This is my first time waiting to return to the Inn since I started writing fiction, so now I've trained myself to extrapolate everything down every path it could take, so there are a lot of things that could go wrong in my head, and that's on top of being a kid.  Ray and Harmon and I have tacitly agreed that unless I do something really stupid or dangerous, especially with other kids involved, they're not going to make much show of parental authority, even if it's somewhere that Ray and I would try to rein Millie in, but the rest of the world isn't in on this, and I've spent a few nights worrying about how things could get messed up if I draw someone's ire as a "misbehaving teenager".

Because that's really easy to do!  This weekend after tennis practice, for instance, "Venus" (not her real name) and I were hanging out on the Common, drinking Dunkin iced coffees with enough caffeine for full-grown men even though it was pretty chilly because we're New Englanders (well, Millie is, and I've been here long enough, right?), taking selfies and scrolling through TikTok, laughing and squealing when we hit a particularly funny one.  I was maybe acting my apparent age than usual - I had endorphins from a good practice and a lot of coffee! - but at most, we were being annoying.  Still, a cop came over and asked what we were up to, we both got a little mouthy for different reasons (I do occasionally react to stuff like I'm both an adult and totally white while Venus loves rap battles almost as much as tennis and her parents have insulted a deep distrust of authority in her), and while nothing actually happened, his hand was on his nightstick the whole time and he shooed us away from the group that I guess was giving us the stink-eye.

Which led to like a half hour of us doing increasingly mocking imitations of the puffed-up tyrant. 

After a while, we started wandering around Downtown Crossing (the new Japanese pop culture shop isn't open yet, alas), when Venus stopped outside the fancy Legal Sea Food and pointed inside.  "Is that your mom?"

I was already starting to say something about not thinking so before looking up and realizing that, yes, it was Harmon, all made up and wearing a cardigan and a camisole that showed some cleavage, talking to some man I didn't recognize.  He was about my real age and kind of good-looking, although he probably should just let his gray hairs show rather than try and cover it up.  They were laughing and looking more than chummy, so I whipped my phone out and took a photo before walking off.  Venus and I did a little more window shopping, but it wasn't a much fun anymore and started to drizzle, so we went out separate ways. 

Naturally, I was waiting for Harmon when she got home, looking as stern as I could, although I've seen this look on Millie's face as well as a bunch of students, and so I know that there's a hint of "kid upset she has to eat her vegetables" to it.  I pulled the phone out and showed her the picture.  "Who's this?"

Harmon looked and busted out laughing.  "It's the new editor, Rob Giordano!  Remember, Lucinda is starting her maternity leave, so Rob is going to be our point of contact with the publisher.  He and his son were visiting colleges this weekend, so he texted to see if we could have a quick sit-down to meet in person."

I raised my index finger to start making points.  "One, you're not supposed to do anything publisher-related without involving me; two, you're looking awful friendly for having just met!"

She rolled her eyes and pulled her (my) phone out of her purse.  "Millicent, the text came while I was at that fundraising dinner with Ray, and I had forgotten about it when we got home.  You were out the door by the time I got up, and though I planned to demur, it seemed like bad form.  As for how we looked, I suppose that I may have seemed more relaxed around someone who did not know you, but that is all there is to it - I am certainly not looking to entangle myself with your life more than I already am during the next month!"

As much as i hate being called by Millie's full name at school even more than she does, pulling that at home is just openly insulting.  Still, I knew she was looking for a reaction and hopefully didn't give him one more than clenching my jaw.  "You should still have given me a heads-uo; you're way past using 'I never got used to the way young people text' as an excuse."  Am I proud that I responded by emphasizing that he's an old man underneath his skin?  Well, maybe it's adolescent pettiness, but I'm not ashamed.  "So, what's he like?"

We talked shop for a bit, and the new guy mostly sounds like someone I'll be able to work with.  I must admit, I'm kind of worried that it will be more than an interim arrangement, because while my publisher probably won't lay Lucinda off while she's on leave, we all know how it works now, that the corporate higher-ups will see that the imprint doesn't collapse with one fewer editor, so if someone else leaves, they just won't fill the position when she returns, but might do a reorganization where everyone gets shuffled to look after a little more. 

Which would be a bummer; I've been working with Lucinda for years and we've got a good relationship that I don't think Harmon has sabotaged.  I suppose that would be the case no matter what, unless some butterfly effect thing means that her working with Harmon rather than me - say, things running long because I'm feeding him answers - changed circumstances just enough that she and her husband conceived when they otherwise wouldn't have.  Still, I would have liked to say goodbye. 

Ah, well, it's school vacation week in Massachusetts and I'm actually not booked solid with sports, but might instead get to spend a couple evenings "helping mom" stay book signings, which folks find adorable.  I am ready to be on the other side of that again! 

- Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: I Need Another Vacation

Even with all the snow, I'm not going to get it any more than I got to enjoy this last week, which was packed because Millie is good at sports, and when kids are good at sports they wind up expected to fill their school vacations with tournaments and events, even when you'd think these girls would really rather be home watching the Olympics and getting inspired!

I wouldn't mind so much if it was just tennis. I like that a lot, although I'm probably hurting Millie's chances of being noticed by the scouts looking for the next girl who could be a teenage champion, which seemed a whole lot cuter and more exciting when you're just watching the Williams sisters crush seasoned vets on TV and marveling at kids being prodigies than when you're simultaneously that kid having practice eat your weekends and her mother worried about if this is hurting her in school or making her miss out on being a child.  Oh, and that a bunch of adults are looking at a kid and seeing her as just one of of many their hedging their bets on, abandoning the ones they can't exploit.  Millie and the other girls mostly seem to enjoy the attention and the praise from knowledgeable adults, but I obviously can't get into that mindset.  Maybe it will be a good thing if my being just pretty good means she doesn't get recruited into a big program, but i can obviously never, ever say this to her after we get back to normal.  All apologies! 

But that's tennis.  Millie's winter sport is cross-country skiing, and I think I hate it.  Aside from it being constant endurance and knowing how to pace and push your body, it requires a lot more talent in terms of reading the trail than I've developed.  One thing I've learned as Penny, and which the original has learned in his second life as well, it's that there are physical activities where it's fun to go all out and others where it's better just doing enough to burn some calories, and cross-country skiing isn't even that. 

(Oddly, I kind of enjoy using the Nordic machines at the gym - it's like a good run except your breasts don't bounce as much - but once you're out in the snow, it just kind of sucks!)

But I think I could endure that if it was just not looking the activity, because as both Millie's mom and an Inn person not wanting to leave someone in the lurch, I want to return her life to her just as she left it.  But, God, why are boys like this? 

I haven't talked a lot about having to dress like a girl Millie's age, because I really haven't figured out how not to sound like a creep or uptight mom or hypocrite.  There's lots of wearing leggings like they're pants and midriff-baring tops in warmer weather (or when you know you're not going to be outside), and I absolutely have become the sort of woman who thinks that sort of thing is okay to wear when working out but not when hanging out, even if you're doing both in the same city park.  Girls this age are also starting to experiment with cosmetics, and not only am I not ready as a mom, but I'm actually kind of too good at it:  I had to study hard and really drill myself to make it second nature, and it kind of takes the other 13-year-old girls by surprise when the tomboy whose dad especially doesn't want her putting anything on her face blends her makeup like she's been doing it longer than they've been alive.  Harmon giggled when I told her that I'd said my mother taught me because anything worth doing is worth doing well, and living up to that layer is going to be annoying. 

But I digress.  What I'm trying to get at is that, while tennis is just skirts that aren't that far off from regular clothes, skiing is spandex that shows that my chest and bottom have filled in a bit over the past few months.  I'm still more tall and rangy than curvy, but now a whole bunch of middle school boys who didn't realize Millie had breasts or a butt are taking notice and finding reasons to "accidentally" brush up against them, and, god, it's so uncomfortable, because I'm not sure what to think.  I know that, despite having a whole lot more life experience, I am a nearly-14-year-old girl on a certain level, with a whole bunch of hormones, and while some of these boys are leering like creeps (and let us not get into their dads!), some are just having their attention caught and are probably perfectly nice, and the sort of boys Millie would like.  Hell, I kind of like them, and I can't deny that I sometimes feel like I've acclimated to this age more than I'd like, when I feel patronized or come up against something in school that I didn't encounter in my previous lives or pick up some pop culture thing that Ray and Harmon don't know.  But, yes, hormones are flowing, I'm feeling very frustrated by the fact that I haven't had that sort of intimacy as part of my life for six months, and I sometimes think that maybe I should get myself a little boyfriend, just so that Millie doesn't look weird skipping another dance or have rumors swirl around her that she has to deal with when she gets back.  I won't, but "tween" does come from between.

And then, of course, there's the racism.  Yes, there have been a lot of Asian and Asian-American folks doing very well at the Olympics over the past couple of weeks, but there are still a lot of folks out there (mostly parents) who think winter sports are just for northern-European people like they don't have snow anywhere else in the world and have depressingly little filter about Millie participating in them.  Official school sports is pretty good about not putting up with that nonsense, but you still here it before people get escorted away, and during vacation-week invitationals, there's usually less enforcement.  This isn't my first go-round as an Asian-American, so it's not out of left field, but I must admit, I kind of figured Elizabeth might have been someone who brought out the worst in people and they reached for the worst possible thing - I'm not proud of ever having had the mindset of a white guy who thinks there must be some sort of explanation for vile racist shit - but that's definitely not the case with Millie.  That some of it came from a 15-year-old boy that looked like might become something and that Millie might like, well, that was the icing on the top of a terrible dessert.

So that kind of sucked, and being stuck in the apartment alone with Ray and Harmon today has been a pain.  The city's big enough that we can all kind of go our separate ways when things get uncomfortable, but Harmon decided to be flirty today.  I guess she teases Ray a lot when I'm not around, and he always says it's really inappropriate, but he got mad today, and Harmon giggled when he went in the restroom to relieve some tension, then outside to shovel.

Needless to say, I'm very ready to get back to being myself again.  I've had another card from Millie that sounds like she's feeling the same way, at least, but it can't come soon enough.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: A Christmas Card!

The big news first - we got a Christmas card from Millie!  Ray and I were kind of paranoid about whether it was the real deal at first, because one of his current cases is an identity theft thing and we would be very easily catfished in this situation.  Fortunately, we've got some of Millie's handwriting to compare, and it looks the same, albeit bigger.

It doesn't really say anything that helps us find her, except that she's "visiting family" for Christmas and the downtime is really making her miss home.  It also means we can't tell much from the postmark, since she's not where she usually is. 

It was kind of a relief, though, because Christmas has been a lot of going through the motions, as Ray, Harmon, and I didn't really feel like shopping, but Ray and I have friends who like hitting the holiday fairs with us, and Millie is still a kid, albeit a teenager (or "tween", I guess), which means her friends are very excited but there's a lot of eye rolling at what they get, so we kind of did it anyway.  I wound up doing a lot of shopping for Millie saying I was shopping for friends, and kind of hoping she won't mind if it's lightly used when she got back, and also for Ray and Harmon. 

Christmas morning was kind of strange, obviously, because none of us wanted to act things out for the others, but Ray did get me a couple things, and then there was Harmon.  It would seem rude not to get her anything, but the things she's been dropping hints for are outfits and accessories, because apparently her time as Alicia has her thinking I haven't really been making the most of what I have.  We try to make it clear that this is kind of inappropriate, as she may not be able to take it with him, but she shrugs out off, saying you've got to live for today.  I've mostly gotten her books and such anyway. 

We've also spent the last week splitting the work of grading midterms, which had been interesting.  I'm a lot more sympathetic to some of what the students do that would probably have rubbed me wrong a year ago, and we both have different skills when it comes to spotting when students use AI.  It's kind of an uneasy truce situation right now, because she's discovering that junior high will wear you down, no matter how energetic, and also groaning about communicating with my editor and setting up signings for the new book.  I think she thought that school vacation was going to be vacation for her as well, but, ha!

Still, heard from my daughter, so I can't get too upset.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: Missing Date Night

There are some days when I almost want to return the attention of the various middle-school boys who awkwardly express interest in Millie, just so that I can go through the motions and maybe keep from getting too rusty at certain sorts of social interaction before next summer.  Yes, I'd be indulging certain insistent hormones as well, but I can kind of feel that part of my connection to Ray starting to atrophy and it kind of bothers me, especially because Harmon gets to go through the motions instead of me. 

In some ways, it would have been easier if I'd wound up becoming Millie the last weekend that the Inn was open for the summer.  We could have made excuses for where Penny was that would have been ridiculous but impossible to check, continued to go on what looked like daddy-daughter outings, and explained a while lot by just pulling closer in "Penny's" absence.  Heck, I might have convinced Ray to come with me (or "bring me") to The Changeling for the monthly meet-up.  We would have probably found a bunch of things that just didn't work, but word situations can give you a chance to be creative. 

The other alternative, of course, is for the three of us to just stay out do things as a family in all the time, getting used to each other and maybe making that work, but Ray and I belong to a lot of adult communities:  l socialize with other faculty and staff at the school and have authors groups, he networks with other attorneys and is active in the local Korean-American community, and there are some folks we just hang out with as a couple.  It's kind of gratifying that our absence was noted, but very frustrating to be on the outside looking in, and also kind of seeing a different dynamic forming:  On Halloween, Harmon thought it would be fun to wear one of the flight attendant uniforms from her(*) old life, getting Ray a matching pilot costume.  It was a weird fit; I was a lot taller than she was as Alicia, but Alicia was curvier, so the uniform stretched in different ways.  She also wore heels, which I very seldom did, because while Ray is confident enough in his masculinity to not find it a big deal, other people do.

(*) Pronouns are weird with Harmon.  She's spent years as Alicia, and has certainly embraced presenting herself as feminine, but there's a very masculine vibe to her and the way she approaches being a woman, like she's settling despite both Penelope and Alicia being upgrades to who she was, or like she intends to be the alpha in a given situation.  It's tough to use "she" when calling her "Harmon", but she's no longer Alicia and I'm damn sure not going to call her "Penny" or even "Penelope", and while she's gone by "Harmony", she doesn't seem to like it.

It wasn't a big deal, but it was the first really couple-y thing they've done since Harmon arrived, and it sort of broke the ice in terms of them doing more.  Not every night, but a couple times a week. and I can't deny that it's making me a little crazy.  Not afraid of Ray cheating on me or anything like that - I can read him pretty well by now, and there's definitely a sense when they get home that any fun he had was despite being out with Harmon than because of it, and he really seems to enjoy discussing it with me as my husband even if he's seeing his daughter while he does it - but the feeling of being left out of my own life hits pretty hard when they're out.  I kind of wish that I could say that Millie's life fills the void and distracts me, saying something about how much teenagers have to study compared to my day, but I can actually keep up with her classes.

What winds up happening is that I wind up playing video games online with Millie's classmates, and I don't mind that they regularly destroy me and ask why I've sucked so much since school started, but it just feels like such an isolating way to have your social life compared to what I was doing at their age and what Ray and Harmon are doing right at the same time.  Plus, the language!  I know it makes me sound like my grandmother, but I'm having a hard time getting used to tweens swearing at each other or calling girls sluts.  I've sort of grown a bit of a shell where that's concerned as Penny and forgotten a lot of the vile shit that must have gone through my mind as a boy/man, but even though they're addressing me, they're saying it about Millie, and as a mom that really drives me nuts.

But sometimes, afterwards, I think that maybe the ability to forget what something was like is part of what makes it possible to function as humans.  Not just people who have been to the Inn - although the fact that what it's like to be a man has receded quite a bit in my brain can be a blessing - but just generally.  Sure, I was probably a little brat with a foul mouth a Millie's age, and I'd probably react differently as a parent if I could really remember it clearly; my instincts to protect her might make me smother her, rather than letting her figure out where her lines are.

And, sometimes, when Ray and Harmon are out, I start to understand how she could feel so betrayed that she went out to investigate.  What I feel on date night is not quite the way a kid feels at having their parents feel there's something they'd rather do than be with them even for a few hours, but I hate that there's something really important going on without me.

And, at times, I wonder if Millie is really enjoying not having to feel all this.  I read about the girls in New York who are only a few years older than she is, and the fact that they seem to be doing okay makes me really nervous.  She really should have contacted us by now, and I don't know what's scarier - that she's landed someplace where she's in over her head, or that she might be dreading the idea of coming back now that she's been able to skip what must seem like the boring parts of one's life.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny/Millie: Ms. Lincoln

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Arthur/Penny/Millie: Lessons

It probably sounds like a silly "Gen X vs Millennials/Zoomers/Alpha" thing, but I didn't really have a lot of scheduled time when I was a kid and have attempted to raise Millie that way, but ran into a bit of a buzzsaw on that:  There aren't many years between my real age and Ray, but they appear to include the line between "mom and dad said to be back before midnight" and "mom and dad wanted to know where we were at all times".  Plus, and as somebody who hates making generalizations as much you might expect from having been four different people, he's Korean-American, and so are his parents, and there is a lot more early focused pressure there.  It's pragmatic, in a lot of senses; there's this real stew of having left your homeland to achieve, needing to be better to overcome prejudices, and imported focus on developing the ability to work one's way up a ladder that is more rigidly defined than we imagine it to be in America.  Add on that Penelope Lincoln grew up being on three lacrosse teams and swimming competitively during the off-season, and I kind of didn't have a leg to stand on.

On top of that, to get back to what started this whole thing, Millie is Penelope Lincoln's kid, genetically.  I may not have been in a lot of clubs as a kid or teenager and never made varsity in school sports - I had hobbies and collections and such, but was kind of low-key about it - but I'm not in a position to pass that on, at least on a biological level.  She's competitive in a way I often find intimidating, quite frankly, and when she decides she wants to get good at something, she wants to spend time learning from experts.  Plus, all her friends at school and in the neighborhood are kids with busy schedules, so that's how she's going to spend time with them.

Which means I spent the one-week anniversary of being Millie at a tennis lesson.  But let's start with the week in between.  

It was late Saturday when Ray and I got home, after an incredibly awkward train ride.  We both dropped our things in the living room, maybe subconsciously not wanting to face putting them away in different rooms yet, then decided to go out to eat and see a movie rather than sit around.  It was fun, and we mostly laughed away the comments we probably weren't supposed to hear about daddy-daughter dates because it's his weekend with custody, or the ones about what kind of parent brings his tween to a horror movie.  That's what people are going to see, right?

Still, when I got home, I felt very strange picking up Millie's backpack and standing in front of her bedroom door.  I was the sort of parent that respects their daughter's privacy, right?  So I dithered a bit, putting the Penny clothes I'd worn in Maine in the hamper, seeing of there was a ballgame on TV, going into my home office and seeing of any ARCs that a publisher wanted me to blurb caught my eye.  Not that night. Ray slipped into the bathroom to shower, brush his teeth, etc., then walked out shirtless.  I bit my lip, because, well, turning into your daughter doesn't completely suppress all the memories and associations that he's still kind of hot.  He read my face quickly enough and found the top that goes with those pajama pants. 

I raided my own closet for a night shirt to wear, and grabbed at some of the supplies we'd bought at CVS and Marshall's earlier.  A change at the Inn means you buy a new toothbrush, underpants, etc.  It's been almost rent years since the last time, but it's just automatic from the second on. 

Trying to fall asleep in Millie's room was beyond strange, because, on the one hand, I know it well: Millie isn't the sort of kid who keeps a Keep Out! sign on the door or objects to her parents ever coming in, even to collect laundry or find something she left behind.  Lying on the bed looking up, I tried to think of it as just an Airbnb, but it's not a stranger's place, it's somewhere familiar, but in the absolute wrong context.  On top of that, I could practically feel my husband in the next room, and I wanted to go there, but, no, we weren't going to give each other any chance to talk ourselves into anything. 

Sunday was errand-running day, and while i don't really need to train Ray on what the family's grocery needs are or anything, we spent the day double-checking to make sure there wasn't anything that he didn't know about keeping the household going that would trip us up when a new Penny showed up.  Happily, we're a good team; there wasn't anything that he didn't think he needed to know as the husband. 

Then he went off to work for the week and I stayed going crazy. 

It's not that I wasn't busy; there was a bunch to plan for the new school year where I got away with having some convenient Covid that took my voice, a book to write and another to edit, and about a million texts from Millie's friends per day.  There's no boyfriend, thank God, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to tell them when I start school next week.  I've been holding them off by claiming to be grounded for what I pulled last week and that is fill them in on that later, but Ray and I really haven't come up with a cover story yet. 

The thing about saying you're grounded, of course, is that you're stuck inside, and the extra energy I have as Millie versus Penny is making the fiction of being grounded very hard to maintain!  Was i like this as a teenager?  I thought i would be able to concentrate on work, but that really isn't happening.  I sleep in, try to have a coffee when I get up, spit it out because while it doesn't really taste different now, the taste buds that respond to it are clearly not connected to the pleasure center of my brain (yet), grab a Monster from the fridge and hate that I'm okay with it despite it making me too jittery to focus on writing or copy edits very well.

And then, last Saturday, I went to my first tennis lesson as Millie. 

As Penny, I'm not really bad at tennis.  My drivers license says I'm in my 40s but Penelope was an athlete and I inherited all the under-the-skin infrastructure to turn carbs into muscle that's suitable for lacrosse, and it's pretty transferable - lots of running and swinging a stick to create leverage that sends a ball flying, although the elbow is more involved.  I've aged well enough that I don't get tired that quickly, and I honestly seldom lose to anyone consistently except Millie, and she's only gotten that good recently. 

And now I see why.  The coach spent the first lesson blowing her whistle at me a lot, pointing out that Billie Jean or Serena or Venus (obviously, not their real names) had left the opposite baseline wide open, or asking why I was trying to hit the ball as hard as I could when I could drop it just on the other side of the net since they were at the back.  I was apparently bad enough at that to wind up doing drills, trying to build up the muscle memory to hit that spot, which Millie already has.

I wasn't really mad or frustrated about it, but it did remind me a bit that I kind of take all the ways I've done this for other things for granted, and how frustrated I was at being a woman the first time, and now it's second nature.  But having this sort of intensive training is something else; I felt like I was thrown into the deep end when I woke up as Liz, but now I wonder what diving into the deep end would be like, with intensive training, and whether I'd be able to handle it.  As I mentioned, I was a kind of laid-back kid, and kind of picked up on being Liz and then Penny because I had to, which means I did okay but you can still see I'm my old self in a lot of ways.  Penelope probably wouldn't have become a novelist left to her own devices, but I bent her life hard in that direction to make it easier for myself, and as I found myself getting a little better at this game just after my first lesson, I kind of wondered how malleable I might be.

Still, it was uncomfortably intensive.  I've spent most of my time since this last trip to the Inn with Ray, and we're both really reluctant to touch or do anything that might possibly look or feel inappropriate, which is not a problem my coach has - she'll get right in there, standing directly behind me and pushing and pulling at my joints and butt to get me into the right stance or demonstrate how to move.  It was really unnerving, because although I've had people handle me like that at the gym on occasion - even male trainers, once in a while - knowing that she thinks I'm just a kid and doesn't expect any pushback from Millie makes it weird.  I know it's just about training, and Ray and I vetted her before we signed Millie up, but it still felt really uncomfortable.

Though not as uncomfortable as "hit the showers" did.  I went into the locker room just like after any other workout but as soon as I saw Billie Jean take her sport bra off I turned right around, grabbed Millie's gym backpack from her locker, and bolted straight for the T.  It was honestly like I'd just been a man a month ago and was suddenly seeing things I was not supposed to, and I'd be headed for jail if I didn't get out of there right away.  As soon as I was on the T, I was texting Jessica, asking how one manages to not feel like a creep 24/7 when reverted to this age, and she says that it took her three years to feel like she was okay, at which point she was going through puberty and just feeling like a regular tween, and since I wasn't going to be Millie that long, I was just going to have to live with it.

Great.

Still, once I'd broken that seal, I was able to meet up with "Serena" a couple times during the week to practice, and it was kind of fun to get out and play, even though I knew this is pretty serious for the girls, who have pro ambitions, including Millie, I'm kind of just enjoying getting into the flow state for a few seconds at a time.  Not for long - these girls are destroying me - but I'm pretty sure I'm going to greatly appreciate any moment where I feel like I know what to do and don't have to think about my body a lot from now on.

The second lesson at least went a little better, and I was able to just sort of stare fixedly ahead in the shower and call upon how I sort of taught myself not to look around like I did in my first weeks of being Liz afterward.  Not exactly something I want to be calling on again, but here we are.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny: Substitute Millie

I haven't had a reason to come back to Old Orchard Beach since I became Penelope after Jermy decided he was talking my life, and I can't remember if I liked it the first time around.  I was a young man and probably cynical about vacation/tourist spots, figuring they're not real or authentic, but between being older and having home on vacations with Millie, I think I understand their appeal a bit more.  These places have a goal and a function that I can probably appreciate anywhere else, but being sick in one when you are not happy, and feel like you have to guard against any attempt of the place to make you happy, is a certain sort of Hell.

I spent the whole week doing things I know are bad for me.  Eating at the worst fast good restaurants so I don't have any fond memories of the trip, holding my phone in my hands all the time just in case Millie decided to call, even though it's terrible for your mental health.  I texted and left messages to everybody in my Inn network, but was kind of curt with everyone, even Ray, mad he wasn't there to help even though I'm the one who said to hold the fort at home.

It could have gotten expensive, too, but Cary knew a guy who knew a guy, and I was able to hunker down in a little cottage that had been rented by a Canadian man who wasn't coming to the U.S. this year.  I didn't get a whole lot of work on the new book, being in no mental state to edit, especially when I took a deck chair and moved to the Trading Post's porch ahead of the new groups arriving on Thursday.  I wanted to at least have a look at the folks who would be in Room 4.

They didn't show up until late Friday, a couple of tattooed twenty-somethings who just absolutely could not keep their hands off each other, digging right into the fronts of each other's pants right in the off-street parking and yelling an enthusiastic "fuck off" to anyone who looked at them cross-wise.  I could immediately see into the future and what the school administration and coaches were going to be calling me about, especially if the guy wound up as Millie.  And there wasn't much time, because, sitting on the porch, I'd felt the tingle.

A lot of Inn people don't actually believe in the tingle; they either never registered it, figure those who claim to have felt something the afternoon before the change are retroactively drawing a connection, or just kind of dismiss the idea that magic can reach back in time, because cause precedes effect no matter what.  Despite being affected by something otherworldly, Inn folks as a group do not really believe in fate, more likely to see the place as something chaotic even if we settle into a new life and like it.  I figure there's no reason magic can't send ripples up and down the timeline, even if it does lead to me doing something I hadn't really considered before I felt it, although it seemed to make complete sense once it occurred to me.

So when I saw they had Room 4, I offered them the place I was staying in exchange.  It just made so much sense, even though I hadn't really considered it before doing it.  I'd been reaching out to people I know who might agree to be Millie until next year (Ashlyn actually might have done it if she and her boyfriend weren't on a cruise) and making plans for how to deal with someone who decides it might be a decent life, but when it comes right down to it, who else can I really trust? 

They thought I was nuts, but went along with it.  I let them drive me to the house, grabbed my luggage, and made my way back with the key.

Then I took a deep breath as I opened the door.  The room was still set up with a queen bed, Millie's backpack on one side and this other woman's suitcase on the other, and I took the bedding off to form a little next on the floor next to Millie's backpack.  I recognized that I was gambling at this point - first, it would be logical that they placed their bags on the sides of the room that corresponded to where they slept, but not certain, because folks don't necessarily figure out the minimal distance thing after just one trip to the Inn.  Honestly, there's still some holes in the theory - like, if things work out that there are ten people right on top of where the last person was in the center of the building, but the rooms on the ends have 1 and 2, but in different arrangements in separate visits, will one person change into someone all the way on the other side, or does whatever this force is go for the shortest total distance?  Also, by doing this, was I potentially closer to someone on the other side of the wall than where Millie had been?  Still, it was the best I could do.

Having a plan felt good, and I decided to indulge myself a bit, taking a cab into Portland, dropping a c-note on a nice dinner (including what I figured would be the last drinks I'd be having for the better part of a year), and coming back to the Inn full and buzzed and thinking that the person who wakes up as Penny in a couple weeks or so was going to have a stomachache and a hangover, and I should probably apologize for it in the letter.  I'd stopped at a 7-11 to get some of the energy drinks Millie likes that I usually find gross and popped one open so that I'd be awake for the change.

Around 2am, I set my phone up and started recording, figuring that if someone younger than me wound up becoming Penny, they might appreciate video over text, and assurances that there wasn't multiple layers of deception going on among the people with whom they'd soon be sharing a home.  It meant I got to watch myself change, and changing into one's daughter is a trip - it feels less like your face is turning into someone else's than you're noticing how much you have in common, right up until the moment when something she has that you don't shows up.  I noticed that my hair hadn't been that long in a while or that dark since I was Liz before any almond shape to my eyelids showed up, and then I pulled my knee up to my chin and, yeah, I keep in shape and have nice legs, but skinny 13-year-old legs are something else.  My pajamas were feeling a bit loose all around, and when I stood I could tell that the top and bottom overlapped a little more than they did before, although at the rate Millie's been growing, I'll probably be shrinking again in spring.

I stood up to take a proper look in the mirror, and immediately recognized that even if the alcohol in my body hadn't vanished with the change (and I honestly don't know whether it did or not; it's another thing you get different accounts of), I still bounced to my feet with ease.  Nell had been a college and (briefly) professional athlete, and I spend a fair amount of time in the gym to not waste what I had inherited, but it felt downright rude of the Inn to remind me that there is indeed a big difference between how a 40-something woman making her best effort looks and feels and how a sporty 13-year-old girl looks and feels.  I took a good look at Millie's face in the mirror, though as someone who has been through this I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find.  A beauty mark that hadn't changed?  Something missing?  Lines that didn't completely vanish?  Whatever it was, I suddenly felt like the caffeine was out of my system, and I flopped down on the bed immediately.

By the time I woke up the next morning - Millie can sleep in! - most of the screaming was done, and a note had been slipped under the door asking if there was an extra bag in my room.  I resolved to knock on the next door, but had to go to the bathroom first.  It all seemed normal enough until I was about to wipe and suddenly had a flashback to when I first became Liz and felt like this was a huge invasion of privacy, that I was now going to have to interact with someone else's private parts - a child! my child! - every day for months.  I gritted my teeth and told myself it was better than the alternative, but I still opted to hit myself with some spray deodorant rather than hit the shower, and practically looked away from examining myself in the mirror.  I knew from experience that I couldn't avoid this forever, but felt like putting it off.

There was a text from Ray saying that he was on the train when I checked my phone, and I replied saying it happened last night and I'd meet him at the station.  Then I gave the woman next door her new clothes and phone and wallet - she looked askance at the opened letter but and then her jaw dropped when I explained the very good reason and extracted a promise to call me as soon as she heard from the person whose life she was taking over, especially if they mentioned Millie - and then headed out.  I had a couple hours before the train arrived, and I needed to make a Dunkin' run (apparent teenagers buying breakfast sandwiches and coffee on a Saturday apparently not that unusual) and buy a change of clothes.  

Once i'd changed into them, eyes closed as much as possible, I made my way to the train station.  It was a little late, as is the Downeaster's wont, but I spotted Ray right away and jumped up, waving my hand in the air.  He saw me and started running toward me like he thought I was really Millie and was going to jump into his arms, before realizing that wasn't the case and stopping a little short, and awkwardly extending a hand.  "Hey, I guess we're going to be seeing a lot of each other.  I guess you must recognize me from the photos on Millie's phone, but where's Penny?  I was under the impression you'd met your mother for the duration."

"Uh, I'm right here, hon."  It suddenly seemed to dawn on us both that my messages had sort of said all the things I had done over the past few days but hadn't exactly put them together.  We started for a couple of seconds and then he pulled me into a hug.  "My God, Penny, what have you done?"

I started crying.  "The only thing I could think of to do!  I mean, who else are we going to trust with Millie's life?  Maybe Ashlyn if she were around, but--"

"But she's on that cruise, and it would be so much to ask of her."  I could feel the sigh that moved his entire body before he pulled back to give me a kiss, but froze when he saw my new face, hugging me close again.  "I wish you'd explained everything yesterday, so I could help."

I shrugged.  "How?  You'd just try to stay in the room with me, to increase the odds that one of us became Millie, only then we'd probably wind up separated and with all sorts of mess to deal with when it came to change back!  The next ten months or so are going to have enough moving parts as it is, and I kind of need you steady."  I paused as he gave me a strange look.  "Not that I was planning this, mind you, I was just kind of careless in my texting, but this is still probably the best case situation."

"And it sucks."

"It sucks so much!  I thought I'd be able to handle it but I've freaked out at least three times since 2am, and I've got no idea whether she'll thank me for this or never forgive me.  And now, she's not going to have, you know."

He didn't for a second, but then it clicked.  "It could still happen."

I shook my head.  "Maybe, but you know they were talking about preparing for menopause and how dangerous 'geriatric pregnancies' can be at my last physical.  And we're not going to try and sell the new me on the idea - you've talked to Jonah-slash-Krystle, and maybe you can say her situation's unique, but you know changing this much does weird things to your head, and even someone who said they would just act as an unconventional surrogate--"

He put his finger on my lips, which took me aback; it was something he would occasionally do with Millie when she was motor-mouthing off on a tangent, but not with me, and, again, he seemed to realize it after half a second.  "Hey, let's just worry about the kid we've got and not some hypothetical other one, okay?"  I nodded.  "Have you heard anything?"

I shook my head.  "No, but I'm pretty sure my neighbor will work on her predecessor.  Millie might be stubborn, but this other woman's a mom, and she'll get it."

"Absolutely."  He looked around.  "So, do you want to hang around here at all, or just get on the next train south?"

"Oh, next train south, absolutely!  Although..."  I took out my phone and checked the time.  "We've got a couple hours to decide what's staying in the room and what's coming with us - I'm going to need my writing laptop, for example - and maybe grab some hot dogs and let Cary and Krys know the latest and see if they can watch out for anything."  I tried to grin.  "Maybe he'll have some advice for you about what to do with a tween who thinks she knows everything because she's really an adult!"

He quarter-laughed - it was only half a joke but neither of us really felt like joking - and then we started walking toward the Inn.

-Arthur/Liz/Penny/Millie

Arthur/Penny: She's Gone

It looks like my fears from Saturday night were right: After tennis practice Saturday morning, my daughter Millie told her friend that she needed to head home, but instead went to North Station and bought a ticket for Old Orchard Beach.  She's tall enough that folks occasionally take her for being further into her teens than she is, and it's not like it's a federal crime to ride Amtrak as an unaccompanied minor.  Or if it is, it doesn't seem to have been enforced.

From there, I gather, she went to the Inn and started looking in windows, asking if there was anything weird about the place, and it didn't dawn on her until after the last train south left that there were likely no hotel rooms open in this beach town and the debit card onto which Ray and I deposit her allowance probably wouldn't be enough to check into one even if it was.  She was apparently sitting on the Inn's front porch when someone asked what was up and said she could stay in her room for the night.

She was lucky number thirteen, and the changes happened that night.

I know this because I decided to head north on Sunday morning, with Ray handling the search in Boston, knocking on all the doors, asking if anyone had seen Millie.  My heart sank when I saw there was a lot of confusion from post-transformation morning.  I explained what was happening to a lot of people - this late in the season, there aren't a lot of Inn veterans there, as chains from the people who were able to switch back in May break - and a couple my apparent age said that they saw her with the talking with their neighbor.  Nobody responded to my knocking, but they shared a bathroom which was unlocked.

I found Millie's backpack in the room.  She had already left.

Trembling, I opened the bag and found a letter on top.  I knew it wasn't for me, but I opened it anyway.

Dear Whoever Opens This:

My name is Millicent Anne Lee, Millie for short.  I came to the Trading Post Inn wondering what my parents meant when they said they weren't entirely my parents, and now I know.  My mom, and maybe my dad, used to be someone else, and now I get a chance to find out what that's like.

Their numbers are in my phone, so you can call them and tell them to pick you up.  They can tell you anything that you need to know about being me until we get a chance to come back, and you can tell them not to worry:  The lady who let me stay in her room last night is going to be with me and will help me out.  I'm a little older now, but not that much, and I think I can handle this situation.

I don't know if I'm ready to tell you or them who I am now yet, though.  I'm still kind of mad that they didn't tell me this.  I'm not running away for good, though, and I'm going to want to be me again as soon as I can.

Please don't do anything weird with my life,

Millie

I sat down on the bed and just cried for a while.  The people from the next room came in and asked if I was all right, and I said no, I wasn't, my daughter was somewhere out there in the world and I didn't know where or who she was.  I allowed that she was smart and mostly responsible, and that Ray and I had tried to raise her to look out for herself and solve problems, but she was still a kid and mad enough at me that she might not ask for help out of spite.

They didn't seem to know what to say, but said they'd be around for the next few hours if I needed to get back in that room.

I nodded, and they went back to their room to give me some privacy.

Obviously, the first thing to do was call Raymond.  He wasn't sure whether to be relieved to know what happened or panicked that this was something much bigger than Millie not checking in before staying over at a friend's house.  He started trying to remember everything he could about teen runaways, saying that most of them came home pretty quickly, and not just because they didn't get very far and realize they've got no resources pretty quickly.  Millie, though, may have the resources of an adult, and who knows what sort of adult?

I immediately realized that someone else might know, and ran across the room to see the bag beside the other bed, opening it up to find the letter they had left for the people in their lives.  It didn't tell me much - she was a woman in her mid-fifties, from somewhere in the Midwest, where she worked in the local town hall.  I looked her name up online, and she seems pretty trustworthy - a relatively young widow, one grown son, involved in her community.  Not much social media, but gently pushes back when conspiracy-minded friends get weird in the comments on Facebook.  You can't really know about people from their online profiles, especially now, but she seems okay.  Unfortunately, she also seems reluctant to disclose her new identity.

Still, the very fact that I have the equipment to give birth to a daughter means that there is an awful lot about this situation that shouldn't be taken for granted.  I've left a note of my own on the desk in the room, although I don't know if it will still be there when the next guests arrive - whoever cleans the Inn has been leaving lost luggage in rooms for at least twenty years, but will they throw that away?

I guess that I'll have to set up shop on the Inn's front porch, if I want to vet who is going to be filling in for Millie.  Ray's offered to join me, but he's got more time in courtrooms than usual this week, so I probably won't see him until Saturday.

What a terrifying and absurd sentence to write.  This isn't my first time in crisis mode as a mom, but I'll bet you can count on one hand the number who have tried to deal with this specific crisis.

-Penny

Arthur/Penny: Emergency Post - Has Anyone Seen My Daughter?

This especially goes out to anybody in Old Orchard right now!  I haven't seen Millie all day, and while that's not entirely unusual - she's pretty free-range, and she'd stayed over with a friend last night because they had tennis practice in the morning - but she's usually a lot better about texting me where she's at and if plans changed.  Still, she's 13, and can get forgetful or let her phone die, so we weren't really worried until the afternoon, and even then, we just figured it was normal tween girl stuff and didn't start calling folks until dinner time.

Which is when we found out she actually popped in late to grab her tennis racket,  Normally, she'd call out, even if we hadn't been kind of at odds all week because Ray and I were asking her to choose between tennis and cross-country skiing (there has been a lot of talk about how this wasn't fair because Grandma and Grandpa Lincoln didn't make "me" choose between lacrosse and swimming when I was her age).  Last night, though, it is entirely possible that she came in while one of us was saying that raising a girl like Millie would be difficult even if she was a hundred percent mine, but that's the Trading Post Inn for you.

A lot of kids might have burst into the living room at that, wanting to know what the hell we were saying, but as much as she has inherited Nell's athleticism from me (or at least, the DNA I inherited from her), she's also got a lot of the traits that make Ray a pretty decent lawyer, and that includes not giving people who may have lied to her the chance to lie to her again.  She once confronted us with a voice recorder that I use for interviews that she'd left out to capture us constructing presents from "Santa".

So, it's possible that we've fucked up really badly here.  It's also possible that this is just something that happens when your kids start getting independent, but better safe than sorry!

-Penny