"I'm not Yuki," said the other increasingly white girl. "I'm Pamela Kimble."
"P-Pamela?" Lauren's now brown eyes were open wide at the sight of Pamela's eyes which were losing their Asian folds and developing "double eyelids." The roots of Pamela's black hair were turning golden blonde like Melony's. Both girls' noses and lips were narrowing over enlarging chins. "I'm ... sorry," muttered Lauren in a soft tone she had never used before. She was too ashamed to admit that she couldn't tell Yuki and the other Asian girl at school apart. Now that other girl had a name. "I thought you were somebody else ... Yuki Mee-shy-duh." Lauren had heard Yuki's first name often enough to pronounce it more or less correctly, but didn't know how to pronounce her last name.
"Yuki?" Pamela looked at her best friend Melony, someone she hadn't known a few classes ago when she had been Zoe Madison's Korean-American classmate Pamela Kim. How could anyone mistake Pamela Kimble, an English-American rose from Utah, for Yuki, an Irish-American colleen from Boston? They didn't look alike, and they didn't even sound alike.
Melony shook her head. "Weird," she whispered to Pamela.
Lauren overheard Melony's remark. You're telling me, she thought as she bent down to pick up her altered ID card. "Look at this thing." She waved the card in front of the girls. "It says I'm Lauren Levine."
Lake Point High freshman Pamela Kim had only vaguely heard of Lauren O'Brien who had been a junior, but Whitelace Upper School 11th grader Pamela Kimble was all too familiar with her classmate Lauren Levine, the local girl whose mother worked here. "Of course you're Lauren ... Lauren." Pamela felt silly saying the obvious.
Lauren's hand trembled. She could hardly bear to touch her new card. "I'm not supposed to be a Levine. I'm ... I'm Jewish. I can't remember who I used to be! What was my old last name?" She shoved the plastic thing into her purse. Even that had changed. It looked ... cheaper now. She didn't feel her Android inside. Did she even have a cell phone anymore?
Melony placed her lightly tanned hand on Lauren's shoulder. "You don't look well. I think we'd better take you to the nurses' office."
"But we're gonna miss class," protested Pamela. "You should just go there yourself, Lauren."
Lauren's eyes scanned an unfamiliar hallway full of strangers. "I don't know where it is ... anymore."
"Come on, Pam, let's show her where it is. We'll have a legitimate excuse. The nurses can vouch for us. Write us a note or something. It's not as if AP Physics is all that exciting anyway."
Pamela sighed. "Okay. Follow us."
Lauren trailed the 11th graders, staring at everyone she passed to find traces of the world she knew. She thought she saw Yuki talking to some Hispanic girl. But since when did Yuki speak English fluently with a Boston accent ... or have curly brown hair, blue eyes, pasty freckled skin, or an upturned nose?
"That's Yuki," said Pamela. "Yuki Massey. Julie looks nothing like me." Pamela's hair was now half blonde. The yellow color had traveled halfway down each strand and even the ends had begun to develop golden highlights.
Something about Yuki - or was her name now Julie? - struck Lauren as familiar. Those Irish features ... but why? Did ... do I envy them? Lauren asked herself. Am I supposed to have them? Did I used to look like her? But my hair wasn't brown like Julie's. Could it have been blonde ... like ... Lauren couldn't help but stare at Melony's golden waves which had completely lost their African curls.
Got to write down what I can remember of my old self, thought Lauren. Maybe the nurses will let me have pen and paper. Maybe I can reread my notes and remind myself ... if I still believe them by then.
"We're here," announced Pamela. "See you."
Melony waved at Lauren. "Bye. Hope you feel better."
"Thanks." Lauren made a weak hand motion. "B-bye." She opened the office door and almost ran into a nurse. "Oh, I'm sorry, Nurse - no, not you!"
"Calm down, dear," said the nurse. "I'm ..."
