The Vicarage Bench Anthology (2 page)

Jenna was more than ready to get away from the growing crowd of nosy onlookers gathering in hope of some excitement. “Jenna McBride. I’m a freelance model. You’ve probably seen some of my work in
Vogue
or
Chatelaine
magazine. In fact, I’ve been on so many front covers, I’ve forgotten them all.”

John nodded, eyes partially closed as he listened. He helped her to her feet, whereupon she realized he was looking down at her. This brought on another bout of tears because not many men were taller than she was, when she was dressed in killer heels like the ones she’d put on just that morning.

It wasn’t until she stumbled that she noticed her rhinestone-studded, three-inch wedgies had been replaced by plain white pumps. They were decorated with hateful tiny bows perched at the junction where her toes were obviously scrunched together, forced into shoes too small.

Tears fell faster, and she was on the verge of fainting as John guided her to the entrance of the old house while supporting most of her weight, not an easy accomplishment. The unlocked door added validity to her story, and his relief was palpable.

The room they entered felt familiar to some extent. The old damask draperies embracing the windows allowed insufficient light, but nonetheless she was able to peer all around. She let out a shriek when she spotted the oval mirror. It was like an old friend, and Jenna ran to look, gladness in her heart.

She passed out cold, going down like a large, felled tree, and only John’s instinctive awareness and quick action saved her from a frightful fall. He gathered her bulk into his arms and half steered, half carried her to one of the two golden wingback armchairs by the fireplace. He sat her down, whereupon she slid and flopped to one side, legs wantonly spread but covered by her rather long, bulky, polka-dotted skirt. Her small feathered hat slid down over one eyebrow, and her cheeks spread like jowls over her chest, similar to a young baby’s before the neck is fully formed.

Opening her bag, he searched through her belongings for a phone number or address, and his features, thoughtful at first, became concerned and finally puzzled as he held her driver’s permit, dated 1960. He made his way into the sparse kitchen and found all the makings for tea, then searched for a cloth and some cold water.

It took several minutes of bathing her face and calling to her before Jenna came around and opened her big, brown eyes.

“What is your name?” He questioned her slowly.

“I don’t know,” whispered a voice filled with fearful trepidation. “When I looked into the mirror, it wasn’t me looking back. I’ve changed.”

“You’ve changed?” He used the same calmness and gentleness in his tones that reassured his most troublesome patients. “How have you changed?”

“My name is Jenna McBride. I was in this same room only a few minutes ago with my secretary, Marnie Yung. I was dressed in totally different clothes, and I was so—soooo—beautiful.” Her screeching wail had him swiftly patting her hand and shushing her in a patently worried manner.

“It says here in your handbag that your name is Lucy McGillicuddy and that you live a few blocks away on Wilson Street. You have an employment card from the library that names you as the assistant to the head librarian.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s crap, nonsense. I’m a model and was here on assignment with a major makeup manufacturer. I took the last few days as holidays. I’m an American. My home is in Seattle. I’m twenty-five years old. And I’m beautiful. Not like that fat blob I saw in the mirror.” The staccato sentences drilled into him as he sat with his mouth ajar and his eyes bugging out. Jenna jumped to her feet and flew back to check her reflection in the mirror, still disbelieving.

“Dammit, what
is
going on?”

“Do come and sit down, please. You’re wearing me out,” he said, remonstrating, but soothingly. “Your picture is on your library card, and it looks accurately like yourself. You are Lucy McGillicuddy.”

“No, I’m not! This person isn’t me,” she yelled, stabbing her fingers into her overabundant chest. From what she had seen in the mirror, she was a short, frizzy-haired, blotchy-skinned fatty in a ridiculously outdated dress and nasty makeup. “I want to be me again!” she wailed, and the tears collected in her eyes until they all but obliterated the brown before they overloaded and streamed out like waterfalls.

Suddenly, she straightened and the waterworks stopped. “I’ve got it.” She snapped her fingers—or tried to but the gloves impeded the action. “My bedroom. My things must still be in there.” She stormed out and he trailed behind her.

In a few moments they returned to the parlor. Once again Jenna couldn’t explain. Nothing belonged to her in the bedroom, not one item. In fact, she hadn’t recognized the room’s furnishings at all. John began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

“I think we’d better leave here. I don’t believe we belong. Let’s get you home and see if something in your personal surroundings could be the key to getting your memory back.”

Hours later, after a quickly-thrown-together meal made by John, two cups of tea made by John, and numerous crying bouts made by Jenna, who hated tea and unsurprisingly preferred specialty coffees, they weren’t any closer to figuring out what had happened.

He had taken her to a small house that was old-fashioned in the extreme and most likely had belonged to Lucy’s parents or even grandparents at one time, since Lucy was a young person and the furnishings were the sort elderly people would have found comfortable. The place was downright sad, with a lonely feel to it. The one well-used armchair was dressed in starched doilies, with a plastic-shaded floor lamp aimed for the sitter and a footstool posed close by. The sofa and other chairs were pushed well back. The floor-model television was one Jenna recognized as similar to what she’d seen in her parents’ old photo albums from before she was born. Piled high on the end table by the armchair were numerous romance pocketbooks.
Please
,
Please Me,
the first record album produced by the Beatles, was leaning against a record player.

John asked for the umpteenth time, “You sat on the bench and felt faint?”

“Yes. At the time, my secretary, Marnie, was telling me that my boyfriend Harvey was going to meet me at the airport and take me out for dinner when I arrived stateside.” She sighed loudly. “She was saying he’d told her that he wanted me to look extra nice so he could show me off to some friends we were to have dinner with.”

Distaste settled clearly over John’s features, and Jenna found this offensive.

“He’s a looker, and rich. And he likes being with beautiful women. I was very beautiful.”

“You’re still beautiful.” John stated in a gentlemanly manner, jollying her along.

“I’m huge, and I look like a Cabbage Patch doll.”

“What is a Cabbage Patch doll?”

Something clicked for Jenna. Her memory zoomed back to the strangely dressed people and the old vehicles she’d witnessed after her spell, all of which she had put down vaguely to the fact that she was in a small township in England where everything was slightly old-time compared to Seattle. She grabbed John’s arm and demanded, “What is the date today?”

“Today? It’s August 7
th
, 1963.”

Chapter Three

She swooned. She gasped. Then she threw up in a vase from which John had ripped the flowers in a timely fashion.

“There, there. You’ll be fine. Keep your head down.” He gave her a damp cloth to bathe her face.

“You don’t understand. I woke up this morning on August 7
th
, 2006.”

“Where is your wallet?” He spread all her documents over the stick-legged coffee table, and they perused them together. Her birth date on one document revealed her to be twenty-five as of three weeks ago, July 17
th
, 1963.

“It’s the same date as my birthday, except for the year. At least I didn’t change to a man or become old,” she said showing a bit of humor for the first time.

“Write your name and this address. I want to see if your handwriting is the same.”

“How do you spell McGillicuddy?”

“You
are
joking, right?”

“How should I know how to spell her name?”

“Whose name?”

“Lucy’s name, of course. Isn’t that who we’re talking about?”

He looked at her piercingly. Her features were perplexed, even sad, but without an ounce of guilt or duplicity.

John said thoughtfully. “I have a friend, Robert Andrews, who might be able to help sort this problem out. He’s a psychologist. I know it’s a relatively new form of medicine, but I can assure you that it’s an acceptable practice and helpful to many patients.”

“A shrink? Sure, yes—it’s a good idea. Maybe he can hypnotize me, or give me some kind of fancy drugs so I can get my life back.”

“Right. Well, that’s fine, then.” He was openly shocked by her easy acceptance of his suggestion. “You rest tonight. I’ll notify the library so they will be aware that you are under medical care for a short time, and I will be here to introduce you to Dr. Andrews in the morning.”

“He’ll come here? A house call?”

“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be able to fit you in.” The truth was that to the ordinary working person in 1963 psychiatry was an unknown practice, and many people referred to Dr. Andrews and his form of medicine as quackery. A new patient would be a roundabout relief to the scholarly fellow whose nose was, more often than not, happily buried in some large tome. He was seldom busy.

After John left, Jenna was restless and turned to the television, expecting to see normal programming, though she knew the late-night shows from New York City wouldn’t be on here in England. She was disappointed with a buzzing black-and-white test pattern, proving that it was late in the evening and the networks were finished for the day.

Oh, God,
I’m in hell.
She slowly made her way to the fussily-decorated main bedroom, where pink reigned supreme, including the rose-colored chenille bedspread detailed with tiny rosebuds and the white lacy dresser skirt and chair skirt intertwined with pink flowers and ribbons.

In the wooden wardrobe she found a voluptuous granny nightgown that, sadly, fit her bloated body, and in the bathroom she giggled uncontrollably when she spied the bag of curlers and the silk cover that was apparently supposed to be worn to keep them in place.

“I don’t wish to intrude, but what’s so blasted funny?”

Jenna looked around suspiciously, wondering where those words came from.
Am I hearing voices now?

She refused to look in the mirror. With disgust, she threw away the cheap facial products she found in the drawers, and so it was with some difficulty that she followed a portion of her nightly ritual. Her old routine took her anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour, depending on what her schedule looked like for the next day. She was highly paid and took her responsibilities seriously. Her looks were her bread and butter, and she was brutal in keeping to her regime. Tonight, she coped as well as she could with what she found acceptable and then crawled onto the misshapen mattress and let the copious tears flood.

“I don’t know why you’re crying, for heaven’s sake. It’s my life you’ve taken over, my body you hate, my things you’re laughing at and my bloody bed you’re sleeping in.”

“What? Hello?”
Now I’m talking to myself, or thinking to myself, or—whatever.
More tears flowed.

“You’re thinking, well, talking to me. It’s Lucy.”

“How can I talk to you when I’m you? Or, no, you’re me. Aw, shit! When we’re the same.”

“I wish! You’re beautiful, and I’m plain and fat. Stop crying! My eyes swell terribly when I cry, and they can stay that way for hours.”

“Hell’s bells, now I can’t even cry without getting hassled. Go away.”

“No, I won’t. It’s taken me this long to come through. All the time you were talking to that handsome John Norman, I was so tongue-tied I was sick to my stomach.”

“I noticed. We barfed all over his hands and feet.”

“Sorry. When my nerves are upset I have the tendency to get sick.”

“And faint.”

“It’s a family curse.”

“So’s overeating.”

“Only when I’m nervous. I get nervous a lot.”

“Figures. Your body weighs a ton, and I’d lay money on it that your feet swell up from the blasted steel girdle you had on. Your legs look hideous. It’s no wonder you wear those goofy long, full-skirted dresses.”

Tears gushed out, followed by hiccups.

“Stop it. You even cry badly.”

“Well, then, stop being so mean to me. You’re hurting my feelings.”

“Look, what happened at the vicarage? Why am I together with you in your body? What did you do?”

“I don’t know. I was on my way home from church, and I’d stopped to sit on my favourite bench in front of the vicarage when I saw John Norman coming. I got scared and hid behind the trellis with the roses, the one directly behind the bench. I remember I pricked my finger on a rose thorn and felt giddy, so I sat back down, and then there you were. Taking over, I might add.”

“If I had my way, you’d have you back all to yourself, and I’d be me again, so don’t blame me. I was just sitting there on the same bench, but for me the date was 2006.”

“I saw you for a few seconds during the transformation. You looked like a movie star, with beautiful reddish hair, and you were tall and skinny.”

“My hair is chestnut, not reddish, and I’m slender, not skinny. I have to be thin. I’m a model.”

“Ohhh, you lucky ducky. I wish I was—thin, that is. But maybe it’s better I’m not, or we both might not fit.”

“Don’t be so dumb. I’m not all here. Just my mind, or my brain and my soul, I guess. Aw, hell, I don’t know what all travelled over with me.”

“Well, your mind has a big, mean mouth. You hurt my feelings, laughing and sneering at me earlier.”

“I’ll be doing more than that, girlfriend. Get used to the idea of a few changes. I’m giving you fair warning—we’ll be following my routine from now on, until I’m outta here.”

“Crikey! That’s not fair.”