Entr'acte by Frank Juliano Page B

inspected the heavy book carefully. As she suspected, several pages were well-thumbed, while whole sections appeared to have been untouched.
    Joyce blushed at the idea of invading her relative’s privacy: Connie had been reading over the famed “dirty parts.”
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Chapter 18
    If her own sister, whom she lives with, thinks I’m Connie, then maybe I am, Joyce’s fevered thoughts raced. But Connie disappeared just three days from now, and wound up dead.
    What if I do say I’m tired of life in New York and go back to Maine? Will my family take me in? They wouldn’t know me, but they might accept me as Connie.
    Would that save Connie from being killed? Or would that still happen but no one would know because I would be living out her life?
    What would happen then in 1986? Who would be born into my family as my parents’ daughter? Are there two of us, or am I Connie, and I’m fated to be murdered, only to come back 47 years from now?
    Have I been traveling this same loop between the time
    “Connie” gets murdered and “Joyce” is born all along? What happens to me in the meantime, am I really dead?
    If I really am Connie somehow reincarnated, why don’t I know more about her, or even feel more sure I am her? If anything, I am sure that I am not her but have only my life as Joyce.
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    She tried to focus her thoughts on what she knew for certain about her situation. But, even pacing up and down in front of the vanity and speaking out loud so she would have to form her thoughts more precisely, Joyce could not concentrate.
    It seemed like her mind wanted to race ahead. Before she could examine one idea, something else would pop into her head, wild tangents that had little to do with the subject at hand.
    Joyce’s rib cage ached but she did not have the aura that usually preceded a seizure. I’ve got to stay in control of myself, she thought, repeating the word “control” like a mantra until she felt calm again.
    As if to test a theory, Joyce got up off Connie’s bed and went to her closet, trying on outfit after outfit. All of them fit fairly well; judging by the way some of them hung Connie was a few pounds heavier than Joyce.
    Some of the outfits had expensive tailoring and labels that indicated they were custom-fitted for Connie. Those clothes fit Joyce poorly; she guessed that Connie’s bust and hip measurements were about an inch bigger than hers.
    The shoes also didn’t fit perfectly. It seemed that for all her size, Connie had long, skinny feet. Her shoes pinched on Joyce.
    Connie would have been an imposing woman in her day, at least 5’8 judging by her clothes, and she wore a size 9 shoe.
    Most of the shoes had a higher heel than Joyce liked to wear, but there was a pair of saddle shoes, or white bucks, that she found comfortable.
    A pale blue jumper with white lace on the collar, an almost Little Bo Peep look, fit Joyce best. Compared with all of the nightclub clothes hanging in the closet, it also suited her.
    I can’t fit into Connie’s clothes perfectly and we’re different sizes, so we must be different people, Joyce thought. But even if 102
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    that’s true, if I look enough like her to fool her sister, whoever wants to kill Connie could make the same mistake.
    There were hatboxes on the floor of the closet all the way in the back, and Joyce started pulling them out and opening them.
    For someone whose income was sporadic, Connie sure had a lot of expensive stuff, Joyce mused. Perhaps her boyfriends, however shady they were, at least treated Connie generously.
    One hat, in a grey and black striped, octagonal box, was wide-brimmed, with a patch of gauzy netting fixed to its side. It was a relatively plain hat, adorned with only the gauze and a thin red band. The hat itself was beige.
    There were several berets, a rust-colored tam and a kelly, perfectly blocked and banded. I’d look cute in this, Joyce thought, and perched the felt hat on her head. She did a George