Jamie walked over to the woman's vanity and sat down in front of it, once again seeing the woman's reflection. She just couldn't get past how stunningly beautiful she was. It was such a contrast to how Jamie looked. How she really looked, behind the illusion of this woman.
She grabbed what she thought was a jewelry box and opened it. Inside was an assortment of expensive-looking jewelry. Gold, silver, diamonds, rubies. Besides in the local Wal-Mart's jewelry section, she had never seen so much jewelry in one place. She picked up a pair of gold loop earrings and looked at them. Jamie never wore jewelry. She didn't even have her ears pierced. But, peering closer to the mirror, she saw that this woman did. She attached one of the earrings to her right earlobe, with no trouble. She watched it hanging down from her ear. It wasn't very big, maybe only an inch in diameter, but it was a new feeling for her. Then she took the other earring and attached it to her left earlobe.
"Ow," she uttered. She accidentally poked herself, trying to put it in, but eventually got it right.
Then she dug through the box and found a gold necklace with a twisted gold strip pendant embedded with diamonds. She put it around her neck and watched the pendant rest just above the woman's cleavage. With all of those diamonds, that necklace must have cost a fortune. How rich were these people?
Now since she had her jewelry, she walked to the closet for her shoes. She assumed that that's where the woman stored her shoes, and she would be right. But she never could have guessed how many shoes she had.
She stared at the floor of the closet. There must have been at least two dozen pairs of shoes in there. And almost all of them were high-heeled, something Jamie was not used to wearing.
After looking through her choices, the only pair that made sense were the red heels. But they were four-inch heels. She looked through again, trying to find something with a lower heel that would match her outfit, but there weren't any.
She sat on the bed, looking down at the pair of shoes resting on the floor. Only once had she worn heeled shoes and that was two years ago at her mom and dad's funeral. But those were only two-inch heels. Not four-inch. This was way out of her league. Way out.
The bedroom door opened and the woman's husband poked his head in. "Julie, what's taking so long?"
"I'm almost done."
"I'll be out in the car." Then he left. It was clear that he was impatient.
Jamie stood up and slipped her feet into the shoes and was amazed that they fit so perfectly. But she was unsettled by the fact that her feet were on an incline. She tried walking around, to get the feel of them, but ended up stumbling at least three times. She groaned, then took a deep breath. "I can do this," she said to herself. She walked to the door, trying to walk the way she had seen other girls do it, and only ended up stumbling once. Once she got to the door, she realized she was missing something. The woman's purse. She spotted it on the dresser. She walked over to it, stumbling once, and grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder. And after taking one more look at the woman in the mirror, she headed back towards the door and out into the hallway.
She walked down the hall, seeing at least four rooms connected to it (how big was this house?) before she even got the stairs, which was luxurious just by itself. Eight feet across from one rail to the other, and covered by ornately-designed carpeting.
She walked down the steps slowly and actually ended up making it to the main floor without any mishaps.
As her feet touched the last step, a portly Latino woman dressed as a maid walked into the ... well, Jamie supposed it would be called the foyer, only it was even larger than the bedroom. "Your husband is waiting outside for you, Mrs. Hitchcock," she said, with a Mexican accent.
They even have a maid? Jamie thought, with amazement. Hitchcock must have been their last name. So the woman she was being portrayed as must have been Julie Hitchcock. Hitchcock, Hitchcock. That name sounded familiar, but Jamie couldn't quite place it.
She walked to the door, but was stopped by the maid. "Uh, Mrs. Hitchcock. You do not want your coat?"
It was a little warm for a coat, Jamie figured, and she was about to tell the maid she was going to go without it, but the maid was already getting it from a nearby closet. She closed the door and brought Jamie the coat. It was a fur coat. Jamie grabbed it from her and looked down at it, feeling the texture of it in her hands. This coat alone was probably worth several weeks of pay, maybe more.
"Is there a problem?" the maid asked.
"No. No, no problem." Jamie put the coat on. She felt like a different person. She knew she was still herself. But with all of these expensive clothes and jewelry and this incredible body (well, the appearance of one, anyway), she had never felt less like herself than right now.
The maid opened the front door and Jamie walked out and down the front steps to the silver corvette parked in front of the house. She opened the passenger side door and got in.
Julie's husband looked pissed. He was probably angry that she took so long getting ready, but he didn't say anything. He just slammed down on the gas, and away they went, off of the half-circle driveway and onto the street. A moment later, after passing a number of large houses with large properties, the car came upon a metal gate. This must have been one of those gated communities. He punched a code into the keypad and the gate opened. Then he drove out onto the main road.
Jamie looked out the window. Suddenly, she recognized this place. They were only five minutes from downtown, and maybe another five from her house.
As Julie's husband drove quickly down the street, Jamie looked out the window and noticed a few girls playing hopscotch. What was strange about the sight was that there was also an old woman hopping with them. And then at the next corner, she saw two men kissing each other. This caught Julie's husband's attention.
"Oh, look at that," he said, sounding pissed off again. "Can't they do that in private?"
It was still clear that he had no idea what was happening out here, but if they were heading downtown, he soon would. Given what was happening, Jamie wondered if maybe those two men kissing were actually a man and woman underneath their illusions. Maybe they were even married.
"Are we going to make it?" Jamie asked.
"Just," he said, increasing the car's speed.
Julie opened her eyes, hoping it was all a dream. But it wasn't. Earlier, she was in her bedroom getting ready to go out with her husband Will. They were going to have lunch with his boss. She had just put on her clothes and make-up, when suddenly the entire room was filled with a brilliant white light. Then, in a flash, she found herself in this restaurant, wearing a McDonald's uniform and standing behind the counter, as if she worked there. A woman with crazy eyes was yelling at her, something about needing help. But Julie was the one that needed help.
She ran away from the counter, back through the kitchen (where some guy was calling out someone named Jamie), and then into the women's restroom. It was here that she saw the reflection of the teenage girl in the mirror. And the shock of realizing that she looked like this plain unattractive girl caused her to faint.
And now, as she opened her eyes, she saw two people looking down at her. Each was wearing a McDonald's uniform. One was a girl, the other a boy.
"Jamie, are you okay?" the girl asked.
Julie propped herself up. She was still in the restroom, on the floor. "What's going on?" she asked. "How did I get here?"
"You ran here," the boy said. "And, man, you were in a big hurry."
"No. I mean ... how did I get here in this restaurant? And in these clothes?"
"I'm not sure what you mean, Jamie," the girl said.
"My name isn't Jamie," she said, rather forcefully. "Why do you keep calling me that?"
The boy and girl looked at each other uneasily, then backed away.
"What? What is it?"
"You've been affected, by that body swapping thing," the boy said.
Julie stood up and looked down at herself. Besides the clothes that weren't hers, her body looked totally normal. "I look the same to me."
"When you look at yourself, yeah," the girl said. "But when everyone else sees you, you look like that," she said, pointing to the mirror.
Julie turned and looked. She remembered seeing that reflection when she first ran in there. It was of a late-teens girl with short frizzy brown hair, somewhat pale skin, a somewhat chubby waist, and a pair of B-cup breasts ... and, of course, the McDonald's uniform.
She stared at the girl in the mirror, who looked back at Julie with the same expression. "That's what everyone sees me as?" she asked, as if in a daze.
"Yeah," the girl said.
Julie turned away from the mirror and darted towards the door. Then she made a bee line towards the exit.
"Hey, Jamie! Your shift isn't over yet!" a man yelled. But Julie wasn't listening.
She ran out towards the road and tried to catch her breath. And that was when she saw a silver corvette approaching. But it wasn't any silver corvette. It was her husband's! She got closer to the road and watched as the car drove past. And in the passenger seat, she saw ... herself? No! It was that Jamie girl. The one that had swapped bodies with her. She was in the car with her husband. And Will didn't even notice that she wasn't her!
She tried waving, trying to get his attention, but he seemed to be too focused on his driving. But even if he did spot her, he wouldn't have recognized her. To him, she'd look like a complete stranger. And an unattractive one at that.
But then, just after the car passed by, Julie saw that Jamie girl turn and look at her, just for a moment. For just a second, they made eye contact. And then the girl turned back around, right before the car turned down another street and out of view.
That little bitch took her life! Maybe it was all an accident, but the fact that she was in the car meant that she intended on living Julie's life as her own.
She had to find Will and convince him that she was his wife and not that Jamie girl.
