Jon(nie) didn't have a summer job. Her parents had pestered her to get one, but she had managed to fend them off by explaining that she had inherited some money from her grandfather, and that she alsh had sold use of the clone machine at a festival, and it made quite a bit of money for a teenager working one weekend.
But at one point she entered a fast food store. The cashier, however, was Katie. It was a bit of an awkward moment for Jon--Jon had dated Katie, but that was a different reality. As long as Jon remained a girl, it would never have happened.
"So hi," said Katie. "Jonnie. Are you you or your clone?"
"We're both us," she replied. "It seems complicated but we get used to it."
"Is it true that you're really going out together? It's sort of like incest, but it's also like that question of if you're a lesbian, do you get turned on seeing yourself in a mirror?"
"That's a personal question to ask," said Jon, "but we sat down together and decided that there are enough ways that it's not like incest that it shouldn't count as incest. As for the mirror question..."
"Oh, you don't need to answer that! It's just something people say. I was only wondering if you're a lesbian and if so if you're..." She stammered.
Jon guessed a word, but before she could say it, Katie added "unattached."
"Wait a minute," said Jon. "Exactly what's your interest in all this?"
"Well, it seems like having someone like you to be close to would be fun."
Jon wasn't about to say something stupid like "I knew you better in another reality" but the fact was she did. She knew that Katie wouldn't normally talk that way and there was only one real reason why she would. Jon(nie) leaned over and whispered "You're a lesbian and you want me to go out with you."
Katie bit her lip and nodded weakly.
"I think I know where this is going," said Jonnie. "Let me guess. You and your boyfriend broke up in March. You must have realized you're a lesbian then. That's why you broke up. You didn't want to go out with him, but you really liked me and when you discovered that I'm a lesbian..."
Katie nodded weakly again.
"I... I don't know what to say," replied Jon.
"Well I know we all graduated and we'll be in college this fall..."
"So it can't last even if I do go out with you," said Jon. "But that's not all. I really am seeing someone already and it really is Jonnie. And there are other things. I don't even know if I can talk about them." But should she? Jon guessed that in the original reality, Katie must have broken up with Jon after discovering she was a lesbian. In this timeline, Jon was seeing Melissa, and Katie had broken up with someone else and didn't even know Jon except as someone halfway across a classroom. Even though Jon knew her from the original timeline. And as long as the stone stayed a secret, there really was no way she could explain it....
