Making the decision was hard because things like that don't come up much, but finally Jon and Jonnie decided on the solution.
They were both in their room, but one of them had to do it. Jon rummaged in her purse for the phone, got it out, and called Katie--Katie had given Jon her number, and for that matter her name, after Jon had tried changing the subject and before Jon had left.
"Hello?" said Katie's voice on the other side.
"It's me, Jonnie," replied Jon. "I talked it over with my clone. We, um, both want to go out with you, so the answer is, sure. But you have to go out with both of us. Either both at once, or one at a time. I don't know what you like, I don't know if you'd like both of us, but it wouldn't be fair not to do it like that."
"But you're different people, right?"
"Yeah, sort of. But not that different. We both remember being with you and we can't...." Jon slapped herself mentally, for that mistake.
"But you were the only one there at the cash register. Do you have some kind of mind link? This is starting to sound weird."
Jon realized that first of all, Katie had interpreted the remember comment in the only way she could not knowing about the stone, and second, the wish about people thinking that it's normal to use the cloning machine only went so far. "No," she explained. "We're just two people who share a lot of things."
"I knew about the cloning but I didn't think it extended to sharing dates."
"It's not as weird as it sounds. Look, I have her right here, do you want to talk to her?"
"I assumed that anything you two would do that's strange would stay between you two. I don't know how I'd feel doing it. Let me ask my Mom, okay, and I'll get back to you...."
"Well, that's that," said Jon. "I know what I'm going to do."
"Does a magic rock have something to do with it?" asked Jonnie.
"Oh, yes." Jon put down the phone, placed her palm down on the desk where the rock lay, and said "I wish that that phone conversation with Katie had not happened." She had to look away, and when she looked back the phone was gone. Jon reached into her purse for it--this time knowing exactly where in the purse it was--and got it out much faster than the first time.
She dialed Katie's number again--needless to say, the phone had forgotten she had just entered it before--and was greeted by a "Hello?" from Katie once again.
"Hi, Katie, it's me, Jonnie," replied Jon. "I just called you to say, sure, I do want to go out with you. So does my clone, so we just want to know how you'd feel about going out with both of us..."
"What, seriously?" replied Katie. "That's so weird. You can't go on a date with two people at the same time."
"Well, think of me and the other Jonnie as one person with two bodies. I know you don't mind us being clones--you only asked me in the first place because you knew we were screwing each other!"
"Are you trying to argue with me? I told you. Doing that is too weird."
"Look, Katie, I don't know what to say. My answer is yes, there's this new 3D movie coming out next weekend that we can all go see."
"'We can all' and 'date' don't go together. Jonnie, I wouldn't tell a dyke to go away, but let me think about it, okay?"
"All right. Talk to you later?"
"Sure, bye!"
"Bye, Katie."
"She said 'no', right?" guessed Jonnie.
"Pretty much. She wanted to think about it, but we've got a week before college starts. Not a lot of time to think about it. I mean, she could, but... who knows?"
"It never would have gone anywhere anyway," said Jonnie. And they both hugged. After they were through, Jon picked up the stone, and considered her available options. She could reset the phone call again and try it a third time. She could wish to merge Jon and Jonnie temporarily. Or argue with Jonnie--and she guessed that would have a better chance of working than arguing with Katie. Or go on a date and then transfer the memories to Jonnie. All options of varying science-fiction nature.
Jon put the stone down.
