Dislaimer: Janet's characters are her own, and Alyssa's personality is... Um, a composite kind of thing. She might get a little bitchy in here, but then we think she's entitled to a little resourceful bitchiness. The poor girl's stressed. We are thinking she has been dropped into one of the books b/c my team of advisors and I really can't think up a good plot for 11, and anyway, we will find it amusing to screw with Janet's plot lines by having an immature party-obsessed co-ed running amok. Look out Joe, look out Ranger, and hide the Merry Men...

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Surviving Stephanie: Chapter 2

Who the hell made up that Stephanie was right-handed? Damn you, Janet! What's with this society-wide bias against southpaws? I breathed deeply and looked squarely at the ground. Don't Panic, I thought at myself. What would Monica and Rachel do?

Of course. So simple, so cliché... Theater training don't fail me now.

"Ex-cuse me, Morelli?" I said, stopping dead in my tracks and turning on him with the fiercest glare I could muster. Morelli stopped too, clearly unsure as to what he had said to get the reaction.

"Steph, you just signed that form left-handed-"

"I heard you the first time!" I said, throwing my hands up in a full-fledged tantrum. "Did you or did you not ask me to marry you?"

He blinked, staring at me with a mixture of shock and dawning male horror. "You know I-"

"How could you?" I demanded, looking wounded. I may not be a bounty hunter, but damned if all my years in theater weren't about to pay off.

"How could I-"

"You don't want to marry me, do you?" I gasped, my eyes widening in shock. "You don't give a damn about that, you just want sex! I'm a sex toy to you!" I ranted, knowing full well I as making a horrible scene in the middle of the parking lot. Several nurses, doctors, even a security guard had showed up. I let a couple tears start falling for good measure.

Morelli's eyes were going from shocked to angry until he saw the tears. Instant deer in the headlights. "Please, Cupcake, I didn't mean it. What did I say-" I stepped backward, narrowing my eyes. Shit, he had that puppy dog look down pat. But I wasn't giving in. I had my own sanity to salvage here.

Besides, he'd probably think it was weird if Stephanie just randomly started avoiding him like the plague. This gave him a reason. See, I'm actually being really nice. Shut up.

"You mean you don't know?" I hissed at him. I crossed my arms and turned to leave. "Fine. Figure it out on your own. Just take me home." I stalked off to the car without a backward glance.

He walked after me, at a much less enthusiastic pace. I just waited for him to beep the doors open and climbed in. Not looking at him, nope, not looking. Can't risk the puppy dog eyes again. Oh, look a purse on the floorboard. A massive black Coach purse. Yick. I glared at it.

Damn it I was still crying. I hate that. When you're cheering up but the tear ducts have apparently put in overtime, you know? Trying to cheer myself up I picked up the purse and started rifling through it. Oh, all kinds of nifty things to be had in the ugly black purse.

There were handcuffs, a stun gun, some batteries, a bottle of self-defense spray, and a wallet. Ooh, wallet. Money? Nope. No cash. Well this identity bites. But there is a Macy's card. Hmm, maybe not so bitey after all. Unless she's currently maxed out? I remember somehow that she does that a lot.

Okay, after I get a gym membership, a hair cut, a speech therapist, and figure out this bounty hunting stuff I'm setting this girl up with a financial advisor.

"Cupcake," Joe said tentatively as we pulled out of the parking lot, "I'm sorry." I turned to stare at him. Like when one of the monkeys at the zoo picks up a keyboard and starts playing the national anthem, that kind of stare.

Yipes, he's apologizing! What the hell, dude? You're a guy. Guys don't apologize! Not for like a week, anyway or until they want to get laid. You can't need to get laid right now and I need that week. Janet, I am writing you a letter of protest when I get back. Writing a male who'd apologize... I thought fast. Think of Rachel, Think of Rachel...

"Apology accepted, Joseph," my voice was stiff, and a little teary. "But I think you missed the point. And I think I mentioned my feelings toward being called a pastry."

"You always liked me calling you that. Remember?" Oh, yeah. I remember a scene about that now... I sighed. I really am like Stephanie, but there are just these minor things. Like handedness, and terms of endearment.

"Look, Joe," I said, trying desperately to think more in-character. "I did, okay? But it's just--" I shrugged, trying to explain myself. "It makes me feel like you don't take me seriously. I'm just some kind of after school snack or something." I glanced over at him as he opened his mouth to put in some sexual innuendo. "Don'!" I said sharply. My own imagination was putting in enough mental images, thanks. "It's demeaning, okay? It relegates me to some inconsequential role, when as your significant other I should be much more than that. Healthy relationships are built on mutual trust, respect and-"

"You've been watching Dr. Phil again, haven't you? And what's with all the big words?"

Oh, Hell. No. Your sexiness quotient just dropped. This time the glare I shot him was real and very ego-felt.

"This is what I'm talking about Joe. I don't rely on some stupid daytime tv show to get a vocabulary." Um, okay, I think maybe Stephanie does, but screw that. "There is more to me than your favorite snack food slash fuck buddy."

He looked sheepish after that tirade, for about half a second. "You're right, Steph. You are smart. You just aren't acting like yourself." Hey, you finally noticed! "Did they give you some sort of bad news at the hospital?"

"Huh?" It was my turn to stare blankly. Bad news?

Morelli looked like he was doing the mental equivalent of manning the battle stations and firing up the shields. "Are you pregnant?"

I couldn't help it, I started laughing. And not just normal laughter, this was doubled over, borderline hysterics laughter. Not a good sign for me to do something like that with a hangover. I'm very anti-humor usually.

"Shit. You are..." he muttered.

Oh my god. His fiancée gets a personality transplant so he thinks she's pregnant? Well, okay, I guess in a guy's mind it made a good excuse.

"No, Morelli," I finally gasped out between giggles. "I'm not pregnant."

You could almost see the armor plating falling away. His shoulders sagged and he rested his head back. Wow, he was even sweating. Huh, ten guesses what his worst nightmare really is. And I thought I had a family phobia.

The golden arches of Mickey D's loomed over us and he pulled in. Still getting lunch I see...

"What do you want, Steph?"

I looked at the menu. "French fries and a D-- er, a Coke." I was so proud of myself for remembering the hangover cure. And I didn't even order a diet. Okay, now if I can just remember other stuff. I pursed my lips and looked out the windows as we left McDonald's. Where were we?

Wait, Steph would know that, wouldn't she? All that normal stuff that come from living somewhere your entire life, like how to get to work, and where you live, and... Do I have a car? Bloody hell this identity theft crap is complicated. I made a production of stuffing myself with the fries. I could do this. Internet. That's what the Internet is for, right? Maps. Yes, good. I can get around. Now, just one more eency weency little insignificant detail.

Which freaking book am I in??? I never could keep them straight, you know. And there were a couple I hadn't even read in forever. Yikes. Okay, she's engaged to Morelli. That's in what? Book 5, Book six?

I think it comes... it comes before DeChooch, because she has visions of the wedding dress when she's out with Ranger...

Okay. Sigh of relief. No Slayers anytime soon. Unless... Unless I'm after book ten and they're re-engaged. And anyway, do I even want to be in the books? I mean, look what happens in the books. Abruzzi happens in the books. That schizo boxer happens in the books.

But if I'm in the book timelines and I don't play by the book rules, does that mean the series doesn't happen? Or does the series veer off and follow me? Will Janet Evanovich's astral form blast out of the spirit realm and smite me for it?

Ow. My head hurts. I want my mommy. The real one. The one who drives a sports car and goes on shopping sprees with me, who buys New Age books and reads Tarot cards and Ouija boards. She'd be able to sort out all of this parallel dimensions stuff. I was tearing up again, but this time it was for real. I want my friends. I want Chelsea, Renee, and Michelle and A Villa in Tuscany and a tub of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Why is it you never figure out what's awesome until you don't get to have it anymore?

"Stephanie?"

I looked over at Morelli, wiping my eyes. "Yeah. Sorry. The alcohol must not be out of my system yet or something."

He didn't look like he bought it, but I think he'd had enough emotional storms for one day. Belatedly I realized we had stopped moving. I looked out the window to see what for and quickly had to grit my teeth to keep my jaw from dropping. We were on a block of row houses.

Real ones. I mean, I'd never seen any up close before. I'd sort of thought they were an urban legend or something. I wasn't so sure I liked them. They just looked so cramped, and sardine-like. Not that they were dingy or anything, but well, I am a Midwestern girl with Southern routes. The mainly small town and rural kind. If you buy a house, people just don't share walls, you know? We believe firmly in side yards, even if it's a completely useless 6 inch strip, we need them. It's our bubble. We don't like not having the bubble. Hell, crack houses have the bubble, but that might just be because the other houses don't want to touch them.

At least that's my theory.

And I wanted the bubble.

I climbed out of the car and followed Joe into the house. "Look, I know you want to go home, Steph," he said as we stepped inside. Joey, you have no idea. "But I promised the doctor I'd keep you under watch for today." Well, he had a point. I didn't want to have a seizure or a further psychotic episode and not be supervised did I?

"That's fine. The guest bedroom isn't taken, right?" He just looked really tired and beat all of a sudden.

"No, it's empty," he said quietly. "But I'd really rather you left it that way..."

Aww, he was making me feel bad. It's for your own good, I told him mentally. You really wouldn't be happy if you figured out why, though.

"No," I said aloud. "I think the guest bedroom's a good idea." I looked away from him to take in my surroundings. Not bad. Not Versailles, but homey. He even had lace curtains. Hmm, a closet metrosexual?

No, wait, wasn't that something to do with a dead aunt? Ok, creepy closet metrosexual. I looked back over at Morelli and almost smiled. Nah, he didn't even believe in hair gel.

"Bob's with Eddie and Shirley," he said, interrupting my train of thought. Maybe he thought my staring around was about the absence of the famed prehistoric beast of a dog. Right, like I really wanted to meet Bob the Bulimic dog.

"Oh." Good. That was another thing I wasn't looking forward to: Doggie barf. No way in this world or any other was I cleaning up doggy ick. And on that note I ran out of anything useful to say. Such a master of conversation I am.

Joe cleared his throat awkwardly. Hm. I looked down at the dress I wasn't wearing. Ah, an excuse.

"Okay, I'm going upstairs and changing." He nodded and thankfully didn't follow me. This was a good thing on several levels, one because it put me in close proximity with him and a bed, and two because I didn't want him to know I didn't know which room was which. Kind of a good thing the house was so small, so I found the guest bedroom on the second try (the first was a closet). There was an overnight bag already on the bed. Great, she was staying with him. Peachy. I set about sorting through the contents of the bag and running over my options.

All right. So I've gone insane or I've been thrown into the plot of a bad romance novel. Or a combination of both. Although I would really like to believe that if I've gone insane my insane self could come up with a better hallucinatory self than this one. Like, oh, I don't know: Jessica Alba or that chick from Terminator 3? Pamela Anderson pre-surgery would have been good too. Nope. No such luck.

I get the pudgy thirty-year-old whose idol must be Fran Drescher.

Okay, I'm really not as silly and shallow as I'm sounding, but this is my life and I'm the one who's gone crazy so I can whine if I want to. Look, the problem is I am really body conscious. Blame it on growing up in the era of Kate Moss and heroine chic. Blame it on the media. Whatever, but looking at myself in the floor length mirror on the closet door and seeing the clothes in that bag... the clothes that apparently make up my wardrobe now. Not that the clothes are awful, but there's a roll if I button up the jeans! ... I have an urge to flop down on the bed and cry again.

Well, actually I'm fighting a distant urge to go barf up the McDonald's grilled chicken I ate for lunch. Shut up. I'm not bulimic. I never get to the throwing up part of it because I can't stand barfing. I tried not eating once, though. I didn't like that either. I get cranky when I don't get sugar. So mainly I've been forced to go the healthier route of watching what I eat and keeping up with an aerobics routine from sheer laziness. I just don't have the drive to have an eating disorder. Sad isn't it? But looking at my new thighs I had to guess this body hadn't seen the other side of a Tae-Bo routine and that wasn't a good thing. She had really long legs now that I looked at them. Billy Blanks would do wonders for legs like this.

Not that the Stephanie body is fat, or even that bad, I'm just being picky. I'm sulking because I'm not Britney Spears. I am also staying the guest bedroom of a healthy, sexy, straight guy who obviously wants to sleep with me. Well, not with me, which is why I was not sleeping with him. He wanted to sleep with Stephanie. I scrunched my nose at the reflection. Grrr. It was frustrating. So I was just going to have to work it out by thinking up torturous workout routines to keep my mind off of sex with the healthy, sexy, straight guy who really does just want me for my body even if he doesn't actually realize it.

I put on a pair of jeans and a scoop neck t-shirt and headed out to face him again. No way was I staying up here and letting him have an excuse to corner me in a bedroom because so far I've never had a sexual encounter I regret (aside from any and all sex with the ex, but that's just life). I'm also afraid that if he gets me anywhere near a set of sheets and some pillows my brain's going to short circuit and I'll forget until it's too late.

Before I headed down, though, I took the time to investigate the upstairs a little more thoroughly. The master bedroom was nice, very late bachelor pad (meaning it had actual matching furniture, sheets, and curtains) and the bathroom... Okay the bathroom was post Brady Bunch, but not too horrible. At least there were no orange fish or purple cheetah prints. The other bedroom was surviving an incarnation as a work out room. Bleh, smelled like sweaty guy. I hate that smell, it brings back memories of the football bus in high school when we cheerleaders were forced to ride with the players, which means it makes me think of testosterone-induced stupidity and Charlie Fulton trying to grab my ass. I quickly backed out of the uncomfortable room and took a deep breath of thankfully un-locker-room air.

The one thing I didn't find was a computer. Son of a monkey, it better be downstairs. As I found out, it wasn't. There was however a moody Italian. I would have preferred the computer.

I stopped just outside the kitchen when I heard Joe's voice. Hmm, either a phone call or he has some issues Janet never mentioned. I cocked my head and listened.

"So her behavior could just be a side effect?...No, thank you doctor.... It's a relief to hear...." I didn't know whether to fume or laugh. He thought my behavior was from me hitting my head. So close, and yet so far, Joe. On the other hand, this brought of the odd question: If this whole thing were my hallucination, why would he be calling my imaginary doctor?

Maybe my subconscious liked details. Whatever. I think I'm going to give up on understanding it just now. Mom always said I needed to learn to go with the flow. Well, Mama, it may have taken a force ten tsunami but I might finally be learning.

I heard him hanging up the phone and finished walking on in, yawning loudly. "Hey, Joe. Sorry I took so long." He half-smiled at that.

"No problem," he said then turned serious. "I think we need to talk, though."

Ugh. The urge to throw up that chicken was back, but it was a whole different reason. I have heard those words several times and they have never, never, never been followed by anything good. Mom used them when I came home from school to find our stuff packed up and ready to move the day she left Dad. My ex used them the day he admitted he slept with that blond bimbo. My dad used them whenever he was going to be on the road instead of coming to one of my 'things' (birthday parties, awards, plays, graduations, little stuff like that you know). I just stared now at Joe Morelli, waiting for the drop. He was having me committed. I really was pregnant. He had syphilis. The possibilities were endless.