My eyes were still closed, but I could tell it was way too light and way too loud outside. I stretched from fingers to toes before cracking open an eye. Grace Slick was wailing that I needed someone to love, and Ben Casey was in the corner munching from a bag of Laura Scudder potato chips.
"Paulette? Who's the Doc in the Box? And why are we in a tent?"
"Oh my God, Claudette. I think we have jumped ship again. This time to 1969! We are at a concert in the park - Golden Gate Park. The doctor says we dropped some acid, or something. Crazy, huh?" She was in her cot and I, in mine.
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed and threw my hands, palms up.
"Young lady!" boomed Dr. Potato Chip, "that's quite a mouth you have on you." Since when did a hippie dippy doc sound like Dick Nixon? "You shouldn't use curse words."
Both Paulette and I stared at Marcus Welby for a moment. "Okay, Dad," I said. But what I thought was have some respect for your elders, Doc Holliday. "What a jerk off," I whispered to Paulette, who started laughing. I was still fixing my most sullen look upon Dr. Not So Steamy, when it dawned on me that I wasn't wearing my contacts. "Paulette, it would seem in 1969, unlike 1906 or 1924, I no longer wear contacts. This is all so weird. Do you, by any chance, have my glasses?"
Hawkeye Pierce piped up, "I found your specs in your pocket." What was he doing squirreling around in my pockets? Perv.
"Oh, thanks." I took the glasses from him. I recognized them immediately as mine, but from a long time ago. I turned them about and saw the rhinestones in the corners, the pale green patina and the telltale white tape that held the arm to the frame front. Yep, those were my glasses, all right.
I mumbled, "Hmm," as I peered through my glasses at my twin.
"What?" Paulette was reclining and rubbing her temples. Her eyes were closed.
"Well, these glasses - my glasses - are the ones I wore when we were in ninth grade. You know..." I stopped mid-thought. "Paulette! You look so young, like you are fourteen or fifteen. I mean..."
Paulette cut me off. "Oh, you are so full of it. But thanks for the compliment. That's sweet of you." She sighed and rolled to her side, keeping her eyes shut. She was wearing a green hip hugger skirt with a wide white belt, a flowered baby doll top, and tan huarache sandals. Her long blond hair hung loosely and was parted in the middle. Her freckles were scattered along the bridge of her nose.
"I think we need to find a mirror." I grabbed Paulette's hand, pulling her from the cot. "Hey, Dr. Kildare," I hollered, "where are the bathrooms?"
"Just out the tent flap and to the left. You can't..." Dr. Seuss was still blathering, but we had already hit the exit, and made our way to the restrooms. There were a bunch of hippie chicks standing in front of the mirrors, applying makeup in such a way as to make it look "natural," but I figured age before beauty and elbowed my way through the girls and the smoke. Paulette and I examined our reflections in the mirror, neither of us saying a word for two seconds.
"OH MY GOD! WE ARE FIFTEEN YEARS OLD!"
