You Had Me at Halo

Thirty minutes later she let out a sigh of relief when Vince opened his front door to reveal a neat and unassuming apartment. It wasn’t anything like Todd’s cutting edge bachelor pad down by the river, but neither did it have anybody else in it trying to ask difficult questions, and for that she was truly thankful.

A bit of peace and quite was what she needed to try and figure out a new plan on how to contact Tina MacDonald.

It was only ten at night, but when Vince walked past the tidy living room and into the only bedroom, Holly was too tired to complain. She sat down on the bed and started to pull the horrible boots off.

“What are you doing?”

“These things weigh a ton. What’s in them? Cement?”

“They’re steel-capped. As well as sitting down in our workshop doing geeky things, sometimes they actually let us out in public to install systems. They’re for protection.”

“Oh.” Holly tried not to flush as she realized he must’ve heard her start to call him a geek earlier. “Well, they’re sort of heavy.”

“I guess I’m used to them,” Vince said, but Holly noticed he didn’t stop her as she tugged them off.

“Ah, that’s better.” She wriggled her toes for a minute.

“If you say so.” Vince didn’t sound impressed. “What are we going to do about this situation then?”

Well, for a start, when Holly got back to heaven she would definitely be filing a report against Dr. Alan Hill. After all, what sort of bogus health professional would send an innocent girl into such a dangerous situation? An experience like this could knock years off her life, if she was still alive. There should be consequences. And compensation.

“I guess we just need to play it by ear,” she finally said. “You can talk when we’re around your friends and I’ll talk when we’re around my friends.”

“Except I doubt any of your friends would hang around long enough for me to open my mouth.”

“Gemma will, because she already knows.”

“What do you mean she already knows? How did you manage that?”

“With great difficulty. She thought you were trying to hit on her in the middle of my funeral.”

“Great, as if my life wasn’t bad enough.” Vince lay back down on the bed and put his hands behind his neck.

“But now she knows the truth.” Holly wriggled him back up into a sitting position. “And tomorrow I’ll explain everything to Todd.”

“I’d like to see that.” Vince snorted as he lay down again.

“Unfortunately, you will.” Holly sat up and peered around his room. There wasn’t much in there apart from the double bed and bookshelf with a pile of books, a small collection of coins and a moth eaten teddy bear. Then she caught sight of a Baker Colwell Platinum Merit certificate. Boy, those things were hard to come by. Vince must be good at his job. In fact she and Gemma had both being hoping to get one, but so far they hadn’t managed it. Gemma said—

Holly jumped to her feet. Gemma. Of course. All she needed to do was get Gemma to go around and see Tina MacDonald. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? All this body sharing was obviously playing havoc with her brain.

She looked at her watch. It was after ten and normally she would’ve waited until the morning, but this was a matter of life and death. Or was that death and life?

“Vince, can I use your phone?”

There was no answer and Holly frowned.

“Vince. Can I use your phone, please?”

But there was still no answer. Was he ignoring her? She was just about to pinch his arm before realizing not only would it hurt her as well, but perhaps he was asleep? After all he’d had a pretty rough day, what with having his body snatched and all.

She fumbled around in his jacket pocket until she found the cell phone and prayed the battery wasn’t flat. Actually it seemed quite outrageous that Dr. Hill hadn’t provided her with an expense account when he’d sent her down here. She was going to have serious words when she got back up there.

“Hello?” Gemma’s voice sounded cautious. “Who’s this?”

“Gem, it’s me. I’m using Vince’s cell phone.”

“And Vince’s voice. Holly can I just tell you one more time that this is seriously weird.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Anyway, did Irene settle down?”

“Only after I let her tell me all about how her fifth grade teacher humiliated her in front of the whole class by asking her to spell ‘wheelbarrow.’ Honestly, she’s getting worse. But enough about her, how did you go?”

“I found out how the pills got in my system,” Holly told her in a triumphant voice. “Problem is that I can’t go and see myself because of the Vince situation, so I need you to go around and confront them for me.”

“Of course I will.” Gemma squealed from the other end of the phone. “So who is it?”

“Tina Macdonald,” Holly informed her proudly. “In fact it’s so obvious I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“Oh.” Gemma didn’t sound convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Holly was stung by her friend’s doubt. “She was jealous of my promotion of course so was trying to sabotage my presentation. She gave me a cup of coffee on Friday morning, which is when she must’ve slipped me the pills.”

“Holly, that doesn’t really make sense,” Gemma said in a tentative voice.

“What do you mean it doesn’t make sense? Of course it does. She couldn’t bear the idea of losing out so she decided to drug me up.”

“Yes but what would be the point of only giving you four pills? I mean all she would’ve ended up doing is making you fall asleep for a night. It hardly would’ve stopped you doing your presentation on Monday morning.”

“Apart from the fact that I’m dead.”

“Holly…look all I’m saying is that Tina would have to be pretty stupid to try and think anything much could happen with only four pills.”

Holly felt some of the wind go out of her sails. “Well, perhaps she was just hoping I would fall asleep in the bath and drown? After all, that’s not so silly, since it really did happen.”

“Perhaps,” Gemma sounded doubtful. “But to be honest I think the whole thing was either an accident OR the person we’re looking for had a particular reason for wanting to make sure you didn’t go out last Friday night.”

She’s right you know, Vince suddenly spoke and Holly almost fell off the bed in shock. Besides which, I don’t think Tina’s clever enough to do it.

Holly reached up to her lips. Had her mouth moved? She was pretty certain they hadn’t but to be honest she couldn’t quite recall. Since what with being turned into a guy and then finding out she was body sharing with the same guy, her short-term memory seemed to be a bit up the wall.

I think we can speak telepathically, Vince informed her, the sound of his voice reverberated inside her head…his head…their head.

Did you just read my mind? Holly tentatively tried to speak to him. And could she just say that it was the perfect ending to a perfect day. Not only was she trapped in a body of a geek, he would soon have unlimited access to all of her dark dirty secrets.

I don’t think so, Vince replied. Unless you were thinking about why one of us can go to the sleep while the other one is still awake.

Holly let out a sigh of a relief since that particular problem was way down her list right now. Which meant that at least her secrets could stay dark and dirty.

S-so you mean we can speak to each other without moving our lips?

My lips, Vince corrected. But yes, that seems to be what’s happening.

“Holly?” Gemma was saying. “Are you all right? You’re not speaking.”

Holly realized just how hard this was going to be. Especially when I have to share a body with someone who has NO idea of boundaries, she muttered to herself.

I heard that, Vince sang out but Holly was too depressed to even comment as it