Girls' Night

You and Felicia arrive at The Longshot with not a moment to spare to meet your deadline, not that you were on the clock or anything. In fact, it seemed like you two were the first to arrive, as you made your way to one of the standing tables.

The only thing that separated The Longshot from any other bar in town was its name. The music was loud, the lights low, the patrons on the verge of falling over. You weren't sure why looking nice even mattered in a place like this, because it was hard to see or be seen by anyone. The bartender came by, asked for ID, and opened a tab in your name. You and Archer both got a pint of beer and an order of nachos for the table.

You fiddled around with your jacket idly while you and Archer chatted about just little things, mostly related to schoolwork. The jacket was a good idea, it actually did have pockets you could use for carrying around important stuff instead of lugging around a backpack or purse. The purse was not something you were ready for yet, something about it felt like a womanly rite of passage, and that was way down the line. If ever. To be honest, you expected the novelty of the gender change to wear off after long, to the point, expecting Archer to get bored by it as well and it just returns to being a side effect rather than the thing driving nights like this forward.

Eventually the other girls showed up, looking a little concerned as they stopped at the table, setting their own bags down. They flashed brief smiles, and then glanced at you and Archer.

"Hey, so Archer, this was really weird but..." Cierra started as she looked at you, and then hesitated. Ramona nudged her on. "...McCall came up to us while we were in the locker room. She said she could guarantee us a spot on the team if we encouraged you to tell coach that you're not going to play ball after all."

You glanced down at your beer, nodding a little. "She came by my... my friend John's place earlier too. She is... intense."

"Crazy and jealous, more like," Ramona added. "She really doesn't want you around for some reason. Were you like childhood rivals or something?"

You shook your head, pausing the conversation briefly as the heaping mound of nachos arrived at the table. The others started pulling apart cheesy chips while you talked. "No, I hadn't met her until today. Her cousin is in the freshmen group, though, and I'm guessing she wants to share first base with her. That's what she told me on the field."

Cierra nodded as she thought. "Hmm. That makes sense. This is Josie's last year, and her cousin Cathy played first base in high school. She wants to pass the torch and I bet she convinces coach to start them as DP and Flex to split the workload and become a powerhouse duo. But..." Cierra leaned in a little further, although she backed up when she almost got her chin in nachos. "...I think it's more than that. Your batting is a little weird, granted, but even if you played outfield, I guarantee if you play like that in a real game you become the MVP. No question. No way does McCall want to give up her crown."

Ramona laughed a little between bites. "Yeah, it's almost like you were a robot out there or something in the outfield. How long did it take you to get that good?"

Oh, just a little under a week, you thought to yourself. Fortunately, the discussion was interrupted when the bartender came along to ask for Ramona and Cierra's drink orders. DP and Flex... you needed to read up on some softball terminology, it seemed. You didn't want to ask now, out of concern of being humiliated.

"So, how long have you two been a thing?" Ramona asked as she picked at the nacho tower.

Archer had been unusually quiet this whole time, but now it was time for her to shine at weaving a story of romance and whimsy and lies. "Gosh, where to begin? I feel like I've known Felicia Archer all my life, really! But I think it was... junior high. It was junior high, right Felicia?"

You took a long sip of your beer and then nodded when Archer nudged you. "Yeah, oh yeah, good ol' junior high. Back where it all...well, you tell it better."

"You're right, I do." Archer glances out at the other two. "She's not the most talkative, that's definitely my thing. Felicia has a habit of unlocking Pandora's Box with a single sentence, sometimes. But, yeah, we sat next to each other in science class, we were dissecting frogs together and all that. But it wasn't until... the accident... that we really knew we were meant for each other."

Cierra and Ramona were at rapt attention. You rolled your eyes. You knew what was coming.

"It was a terrible auto accident right outside of our hometown. Felicia was driving us to a birthday party, and a car in the other lane swerved into ours. She swerved to avoid it, clipped two other cars, and then a third came up from behind to spin us all the way around and off the road and into the nearby river. We're dazed from the airbags, water's getting into the car, all that. It got really bad, we were stuck and there was nobody able to get to us fast enough. She's got a concussion, my leg's broken, but I had to break out a window and drag us both out or we would have been lost to the river. And then, as we lay by the river's edge and felt like our lives were nearly taken from us at the same time, our spark began... and we shared our first kiss." Cierra and Ramona had tears in their eyes, Ramona's hand rested on her heart.

None of it was like that. You had swerved to avoid a cat and the car ended up nose-first in a pond, the water barely came up to your feet. You couldn't get your door open, so Archer helped you climb out through her door. Plus, all this happened last semester, the girls probably even saw the photos on the local news and didn't know it. ...The kiss and lifelong bond was a new detail though.

At least while Archer and the others talked, you could enjoy some more nachos. Felicia shrugged a little, reached out to grab and squeeze your hand to show her affection, and then turned back to the others. "So, what about you two, what's your stories?"

"Oh, we shared a dorm freshman year. Cici and I have been friends since day one here," Ramona said. "And we sort of have this pact, where if one of us wants to do something or should do something, the other agrees to do it too to help things along. Now I, the astrophysicist who spends a lot of time in a chair looking through telescopes, only played little league but I knew that Cici had done some high school stuff. She hadn't tried out for the team here before, and I thought she should, so I joined her. I at least wanted to see how far I could go."

Cierra put her hand on Ramona's back. "You did good today. I mean, I think I did pretty good too. I'm a little rusty, I hurt my wrist in high school and didn't want to re-injure it so soon since it took a real long time to heal, but it seemed like maybe it would be a good time to try again. That's why I'm doing sports medicine, so I can make sure I can get other athletes healed up with minimal downtime. I feel like I missed some opportunities because of that, maybe a scholarship. And you, Felicia, I saw on the signup sheet you're an anthropology major?"

"Oh, neat, you're both doing anthropology?" Ramona looked back and forth at you, as Archer grins at you with this new information she's received. "That seems real helpful to be able to work together."

"Yes, Felicia," Archer started, raising her eyebrows a bit in amusement. "What's your favorite part about anthropology?"

You blanked. You did take the entry-level anthropology class with Felicia Freshman year before you never touched it again. You really had to rack your brain on this one. "Oh, uh... the bones. Yeah. I really love the bones part. Sometimes they're so old. And the... pottery, sometimes it's there when they find the bones, like in the burial... spot."

Ramona and Cierra nodded politely. Fortunately, Archer decided to not **** you for much longer, as conversation weaved its way through more topics, more nachos, and more beers. TV shows, places in Europe to go visit, Ramona's long-winded explanation about the presence of dark matter in the universe, whether or not everyone believed magic was real, including all the rumors about Emilia King and her collection of occult objects. That one got real interesting. Three beers deep, though, Archer had an even more interesting question that spurred off of them.

"Okay, so, hypothetical. Imagine a coin," she began.

"What kind of coin? Old coin? Spendable coin? Like a quarter-Euro?" Ramona asked, on her fourth beer. You were smart enough at two, so you could remember this conversation later.

Archer shook her head. "That's not a thing. Look just imagine any coin, now imagine it's magic. You could wish to be good at something, whatever you want. But the catch is, if you flip the coin to charge that magic up, if it lands on one side, you're turned into a dude."

"For how long?" Cierra asked. She was the current record holder among your little squad, having downed five pints over the course of the evening.

"Does the coin glow?" was Ramona's apparently burning inquiry.

"No, it does not glow, it looks just really regular. But you're a dude for at least an hour, then you can flip again and maybe go back to normal. But remember you got way better skills in something now. Would you do it?"

"Oh yeah, absolutely," the two other girls said, as Archer just nodded along with their answer.

Cierra went back to the nachos, apparently satisfied with ending her participation in that conversation, but Ramona wanted to ponder it further. "So I get to be a guy, pretty much whenever I want but it's not permanent, and the side effect is that I get... better at something? What kind of what-if is this? You're bad at these. Being a guy whenever would have so many perks."

"No, the guy part is supposed to be the side effect. I, uh, asked a guy friend the same question one time and he had a tougher time with it."

Ramona looked upward in thought. "I dunno, I think that would be pretty great, y'know? Like, configrab... configlar... configurable friends. Sometimes you need a guy friend, sometimes you need a girl friend. And if it's the same friend that's double-friend. And they'd probably understand both sides better so they'd be less of a dick."

"Statistically speaking, with a fair coin, they'd be fifty percent a dick," Cierra offered.

Everybody giggled and laughed, you laughed politely too but just felt a little bizarre inside by how close Archer wanted to toe the line with your secret. But, it was interesting to know that at least after a couple beers, everyone was on board with copious amounts of gender hopping.

You stood up, and patted Archer on the back. "Okay, I think that's it for us tonight, big test on bones tomorrow. Sweetie, let's go pay the tab," you said, trying to sound cutesy for Archer's sake so she'd be more agreeable. It worked like a charm, and soon she was up and walking with you as you two waved your goodbyes to the other duo.