They had a hard time, when she started carrying her guitar on her back and playing in pubs and coffeehouses. She told them not to worry, but sometimes they followed her. They sat in the back and listened for awhile, Therese with her book, Jack with his magazine. They watched her. To make sure they were decent places. To make sure she wasn’t drinking. She pretended she didn’t see them, and they pretended they’d been at the movies or home reading their books. Gradually, they relaxed, but it was still a relief for everyone when she decided to move out.

They helped her find old furniture, carried boxes into the studio apartment she’d found, but she shooed them out when it was time to unpack, promising dinner as soon as she was settled, maybe sooner.

She surveyed the boxes with dismay. Truth was, she didn’t much know what to do with them. Truth was, there wasn’t much in her possession that mattered to her. It all belonged to one of the former selves­she thought there must have been several. Surely all this variety and contradiction couldn’t have belonged to one person, she thought, and then she was not so sure. But what was she to do with a chipped china dog, a wax mushroom, a startlingly harsh abstract poster? Was she supposed to display it proudly? Stick it in a closet? Send it all off to the Goodwill?

In the end, she just left the boxes, picking out marginally useful pieces like the rainbow potholders and jumbling the rest back together. The apartment felt unfinished with all the boxes, but she didn’t spend much time there anyway. She spent her afternoons in the parks when it was dry, and in the rain­well, she’d come up with a plan once the rainy season came.

They worried about the apartment, too. "Don’t you want to go shopping for some…well, posters or something?" Therese asked her.

She sighed and gave Therese a patient smile. "I’m fine, dear, but thank you for offering."

Every once in a while she had associations she didn’t quite understand. Why should the smell of cut grass make her flinch? She was able to distance herself from it. From just about everything, really. Sometimes her name didn’t register with her. She’d hear a name called and not know whether to turn and smile. Sometimes she would sit in front of a mirror and repeat it: "Juliane. Juliane. Juliane," just so she’d attach it to herself.

So it didn’t disturb her when a man came up to her on the street saying, "Lisa? Lisa! My God, how are you?"

After a moment, she realized that he wasn’t saying her name. "I’m sorry. You must have me mistaken for someone else." She smiled apologetically.

He examined her closely, peering at her eyes, her face. "I would have sworn you were Lisa. I­I guess now that I see it, your smile is different. But­do you have a cousin or something, named Lisa Andresen?"

"I don’t think so," she said, starting to walk again.

He followed her. "Do you mind if I ask what you do? I’m sorry. I know this might seem weird. It’s just…well, I cared for her very much, and you­you could be her twin. I’m sorry if I seem like a nut­I’m really not."

She said, "No, of course not," but she wasn’t sure if she believed him. Therese and Jack were always lecturing her about not trusting strangers. To cover the awkward silence, she said, "I’m a musician."

He went pale, very quietly asked, "What do you play?"

"Guitar. Folk-rock­I sing, too. Maybe you’ve heard me play at a pub or something."

"No, no," he said absently. "I’d remember.­Look, this just keeps getting weirder. My…my friend Lisa was a musician. She sang the blues and played piano. I’d like to hear you sing, sometime. I’m Ralph, by the way. I’m an accountant." He blushed. "I always end up talking to these creative, artistic people. Sorry. I get so­sorry."

"It’s all right," said Juliane, and unaccountably it was. She had a hard time getting angry at someone with such an earnest look and a sparse mustache.

He followed her to the park where she was playing and stayed for most of the time she was there. Just before she left, he told her he loved the way she sang. He insisted on giving her his phone number and on getting hers. He wrote it in very neat blue script: Ralph, 373-2637. He crossed his sevens like a European.

For once, three of them were at breakfast together. Her mother stood eating a pastry over the sink. Lisa and her father shared the table­she at the edge with her cereal bowl, he sprawling over most of it with stacks of paper, a half-eaten piece of toast and cold coffee languishing on Lisa’s side.

"I had the strangest dream last night," she said. No one looked up. She said it at least once a week. "I was climbing this rope ladder up a steep riverbank, and there were little kids playing by the water. And all of a sudden this huge wave comes and knocks into me, battering me over and over. And when it’s done, I’m hanging there, hurting like hell, and the kids are still playing, totally oblivious. So I finished climbing this rope ladder, and there was this huge bazaar. Everyone I’ve ever known from school was selling stuff, gilded cherubs and silk scarves and books, but the books were all mis-shelved. And I didn’t have any money. I wonder what it means."

"Means you shouldn’t eat cucumbers before you go to bed," said her mother, brushing nonexistent crumbs from her silk blouse.

"But I didn’t," said Lisa.

"Can you two keep it down? I’m working on something very important here, okay?" said her father.

"Well, what did you have?" said her mother, rolling her eyes at her husband.

"Nothing, I don’t think," said Lisa.

"See? There’s your problem. Don’t go to bed on an empty stomach. You never eat enough anyway." The women glowered at each other, and he at them.

Juliane called Therese and Jack to ask them to dinner, as she had promised, and she found herself curious enough to ask it. "Was I Lisa Andresen?"

There was a silence for a moment, and then Theresa’s most worried voice: "What makes you think that? Where did you find out about Lisa?"

"From Ralph."

Therese let out a little sigh, like a wind on a lake. "Ralph found you, did he? She wondered how long it would be until he did."

"So I was Lisa?"

"Yes. You were Lisa." Therese sighed again. "We didn’t know Lisa very well, before she decided to have the procedure done. One of our friends worked at the clinic, and he knew we might have room for someone in our lives. Lisa didn’t have much money­what she had went into the procedure. But we wanted to help. We wanted­well, we wanted you."

"Yeah," said Juliane softly. Jack had told her about the miscarriages, the failed attempts to adopt.

She told Ralph about Lisa when he called her on the phone.

"I don’t understand," he said. "What do you mean, you were Lisa?"

"She had her memories erased," explained Juliane, the way a mature person could explain that their parents had had sex, with a child as a result. "She had her memories erased, and I became her. They’ve only recently been able to erase memories and let people form new ones. It’s a very interesting procedure." The last was a bit of a lie; actually, Juliane never cared to concentrate when they tried to tell her about the procedure. It had no bearing on her life for now. She tried to dredge up the details for him, because he needed them.

"They have one chemical to break up the connections between the neurons in your brain," she said, "and another to allow them to grow quickly. I remember everything, clear back to when I woke up for the first time. I didn’t know much language then, so it’s hard to figure out time scale. It wasn’t very long ago­three years or so. They say it was very intense, compared to usual development."

"I suppose," he said weakly.

"This really bothers you," she said. She wasn’t sure of that, but she was mildly curious.

"No­well, yes­well, no," he said. "Do you have any of her memories?"

"Not long ones," she said. "Just fragments. Tastes. Smells. Nothing coherent."

Lisa was at his door at almost midnight; he was wearing only a pair of gym shorts. "Jesus, Lisa," he said, but he let her in. She flopped on his sofa, sprawling on her back in her jeans and white T-shirt. Ralph could tell she’d been drinking, there was wine on her breath­but she was always drinking, these days. This time at least she was only mellow.

"Do you ever think," she said dreamily, "about your childhood? No, that’s not what I mean, that’s a dumb question. I mean, did you ever think how things might have been different? Like if you’d asked me out in high school instead of that Parker ass. Or if I hadn’t started piano lessons when I did."

Ralph’s heart had stopped long before piano lessons. "I almost did ask you out. In high school."

She waved her hand airily at him. "See what I mean? You wouldn’t have been like, like, like a wild animal or a Nazi or something. I might not ever have been raped." She was drunker than he had thought, he saw then­experience had taught her to carry it better. "And you, maybe you’d be able to sleep with a woman who didn’t look like me."

He flinched. "Maybe you’d better go to sleep, Lisa."

"I’m sorry, Ralph. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that." She peered up at him through a fringe of brown hair. "Maybe I can make it up to you."

"Oh, Christ, Lisa, you’re drunk."

"What does that matter? It’s nothing new. And we haven’t kissed, you know that?" Yes, he thought, I know that. "Not since that first time, when we were­how old? Thirteen? And I’ve always wondered."

"Don’t do this to me."

She knew she was on video. Rooms like this were always on video. She didn’t remember getting to a room like this, but she didn’t remember lots of stuff. She wished there was a mirror, but then she knew it was just as well. She saw herself too well as it was. Her hair was a wild brownish mat from flinging herself around on the bed in the little white room. It felt like somebody had dumped an ant farm on her head, so she knew her hair needed washing. Her eyes were a crazy lady’s eyes, like she should be shouting something about Jesus or aliens downtown, her shopping bags in tow. Her hands were witch-hands, claws, much too thin, grasping at anything. The gauze they’d given her to wear didn’t withstand their tearing.

Little bits of things came back to her as she wept and rocked. The things made her weep and rock more. "It wasn’t enough," she said. "I’m still here. I’m still me. I’m just broken." As much as she could find it in her to hope for anything, she hoped they’d keep going with the half-remembered procedure.

Ralph called Juliane several more times. He came to every show she told him about, waving hello and sitting with his eyes closed, listening. He never really talked to her there­he used the phone for that. He usually had questions, asking if she remembered things. She never did. He finally shifted emphasis and asked her out. Lisa conferred with Therese and, upon winning approval, agreed to go out with him after one of her gigs.

"You probably think I’m a flake," he said for the sixth time that evening. She’d started counting.

"No," she said. She didn’t tell him about the people she met at some of the pubs; that would only worry him. Already she didn’t want to worry him.

"It’s just that, well, Lisa was a very good friend. We had known each other for so long­since we were really tiny kids."

"Uh huh," said Juliane. At least he wasn’t talking about being a flake any more.

"I’d go over to her apartment and she’d play some of her songs for me, or…well, I can’t help wondering about what happened to her."

"She had her memories erased. She went away. She became me." Juliane took a quick swallow of coffee; she would rather talk about something else, but she had enough patience to see him through this.

"Yes, but why? It’s just not normal to give up your identity. Did you ever wonder what she might have been involved in, who might have forced her into this?"

"Was Lisa a normal person?"

"What?"

"You said it wasn’t normal. Was she normal?"

"Lisa was extraordinary," he said in a low voice, but he changed the subject soon, to restaurants and then to his latest job stress. She didn’t care enough to pursue the subject of Lisa, then.

"My life is one big cemetery. A veritable necropolis. No, more than a city. What would you call a planet of the dead? Necroterre?"

Ralph tried not to look at Lisa. Until she’d said that, he’d thought she wasn’t very drunk. He should have known better. He hadn’t seen her drink much, but no one ever did. Still, he had thought this evening would be different, when she’d agreed to go out for supper with him. She wasn’t talking very loud, but he felt like the rest of the restaurant crowd was staring at them. "Maybe we should go home, Lisa. It’s getting late."

"It’s always late, Ralph," she said, clearly, distantly. She sounded more sober than he’d heard her in years.

"What do you mean?"

"I told you, I’m living in a cemetery. One of the big, well-tended ones. I get to running around on one of the lawns with the pretty flowers, and then all of a sudden there’s some marble monstrosity looming up ahead and everything’s cold and gray and dead, and the sunlight doesn’t help. I’m stuck between the gardens and the graves."

She wouldn’t look at him. "Listen. Ralphie. Have you ever wanted to kill yourself?"

"Nooo, I can’t say I have. Lisa­"

"It’s like having a fanged black beast to wrestle with, and he’s got his teeth inches from your throat, and you’re not even sure whether you’ll mind. Anything seems worth it to escape the blackness. You taste blood all the time, your own blood. You get so angry at things, so upset and you don’t even know why you’re angry. I clawed my own face once, left welts running down it, puffy red welts. You want to feel your own blood running out of you too fast to stop, you don’t mind if everything goes black. You don’t mind if you scream until you tear your own throat. The black beast can reach you with its tongue, and it licks all the veneer of civilization right off, it scours your graces away and leaves you naked and screaming to the world you hate.

"But that’s not the worst. The worst comes after. It’s better, when everything is all black, because at least it isn’t gray. The gray descends on you, and you don’t even have the strength to wish you were dead. You want to slice your arm open, not because you want to feel the blood flow, just to prove to yourself that there is blood, there’s hot red blood and muscle in there, because it feels like you’d slice it open and find a gray, mealy paste. You try to find it in you to love, to hate, to be angry, and you can’t. And you can’t even scream, you just whimper like a kitten and pray nobody comes upon you, because they always ask what’s wrong, and you can’t tell them."

"Why not?" he asked gently.

She looked up. He saw she’d been crying. "Because you don’t know."

Ralph brought it up again and again as they saw more of each other. Juliane finally let him draw her into a conversation one evening sitting back at her apartment. "I just think it’s weird that you don’t know why she­why she became you. I’d think that would be something you’d have wanted to know right off."

Juliane sighed. "Look, Ralph. When I­when I was born, I guess, there were two people around, Therese and Jack. They were like parents. This Lisa was no one to me, like a distant cousin. People knew the resemblance, but I didn’t see why her life should influence mine. She isn’t me, Ralph. Her reasons for doing this­well, they’re hers. She did it for a reason."

"But what if there was some foul play? You have to admit it: if this was a movie, there would be some secret. You would have seen something you shouldn’t, or done something. You would know some secret."

"She would know some secret," said Juliane, getting exasperated for the first time she could remember.

"What if you still know her secrets? Wouldn’t it be your duty to right whatever wrongs were done before? Wouldn’t you owe it to yourself?"

"At most I would owe it to her," said Juliane coldly. "I’m telling you, it’s biologically impossible for me to have her memories."

"You don’t know that," he said, leaning forward so that his hair fell in his eyes. "All you know is what they chose to tell you, and they’re the ones who did this to you."

"I don’t want to talk about this any more," she said. She got up from her armchair and flounced over to one of the boxes, one she was still in the process of sorting. "She had drinking problems, you know. Jack and Therese haven’t said anything, but they make it clear."

"Yes, I know. I know as well as anybody."

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He had gone white, with dark red spots on his cheekbones. He looked feverish. She wanted to apologize, but she didn’t know how to say it that wouldn’t make things worse. She started flipping through the contents of the box, mostly sheet music. There were a few handwritten pages of music with titles scrawled across the top. She knew the slanted handwriting was Lisa’s from other samples she’d seen, but it looked nothing like her own round hand.

"Hey," she said suddenly, "do you know this?" The title was "Ralphie’s Garden Blues." It was written for piano, but the transition of the melody to guitar would be trivial. "I can play it for you, if you want."

"No," he said sharply. "No, I think I’d better go home. It’s getting late."

"It’s quarter to eight," she said in surprise.

"I have to work in the morning." The door didn’t slam behind him, but the silence did. Juliane sat on the floor, cross-legged and bewildered. After a few moments, she got up and picked up her guitar, fingering her way softly through the song.

"I wrote you a song," Lisa said shyly. "It’s called­well, do you remember when we were ten, how you wanted a garden more than anything, just little green growing things you could take care of, but you couldn’t have one because you lived in an apartment?"

"And you saved your allowance and bought me a little potted geranium for my birthday," said Ralph.

She looked away. "Well, yeah. Well, this is called ‘Ralphie’s Garden Blues.’" She looked out the window as she began the piece, and then her attention focused on the yellowed piano keys. The beginning was a little playful, a little tentative, and there was lots of dissonance, but the dissonance faded gently away, leaving only the building, growing melody.

"That was great, Lise," he said softly. "That was beautiful."

She still didn’t look into his eyes, focused instead on a newsprint smudge on his chin. "Do you want to hear some more? That’s the only one I wrote for you, but I’ve done a lot more stuff." Ralph agreed enthusiastically and sat down on the floor to listen, but as Lisa played he noticed the dissonance resounding, the cacophonies beating away the melodies in each successive song. They were still beautiful.

Juliane kicked petulantly at the dish she’d left for the kitten. She hadn’t even thought she wanted a cat, but Ralph had brought the little thing home, and she couldn’t resist. Ralph was the source of her troubles, not the kitten, she reminded herself. Poor little thing didn’t even have a name yet. Maybe she was just doomed to be The Kitten for all her life.

She hadn’t cared about Lisa before she met Ralph. Lisa had been the last thing on her mind. She certainly hadn’t written any songs about her previous self. Now she’d written two in the past week.

"And they’re crap, too," she said savagely. The kitten peeked out from behind a kitchen chair and tried to sneak-attack Juliane’s shoelaces.

The real trouble wasn’t even the songs, although they weren’t great art. Ralph had gotten her curious enough that she finally called the clinic she’d come from to ask about her origins. They’d told her that information was unavailable. She’d argued with them, not very convincingly. She’d never gotten good at arguing, never had needed to. She kept telling herself she’d go down there and see if they could refuse her in person, but she hadn’t gotten the courage up.

"Therese would know what was going on," she told the kitten. The kitten looked up from the now-soggy shoelace in languid interest. Juliane sighed; the phone cord was an even better toy than shoelaces, in the world of the kitten. She tried to dial Therese and Jack’s home number without leaving the cord in tantalizing reach on the floor.

"I tried to find out about Lisa from the clinic," she said without preamble.

"Yes?" said Therese.

"They wouldn’t let me."

"What?"

"They wouldn’t let me."

"No, no, I heard you, it’s just that they should have let you. They’re legally bound to answer any questions you might have."

"I didn’t know that," said Juliane grimly. "Evidently they didn’t, either."

"Oh, I know what it was!" exclaimed the older woman. "While you were just starting out, the records were under Jack’s and my control, because Lisa didn’t want you to be able to access them too soon. I’ll just have to call them and let them know that we want to transfer control to you."

"Okay," said Juliane. "Well. That’s good, then. I thought it was something more­I don’t know, it just seemed weird. But that makes sense."

"It’s probably about time you found out about Lisa anyway," said Therese thoughtfully.

The last time Ralph saw Lisa was in a bar. She was playing their piano for tips and drinks; it was obvious she’d had more of the latter. He came up to her as she was finishing songs.

"Hey," he said.

She didn’t say a word, but she grinned and swung right into a jazzed-up version of "Ralphie’s Garden Blues." When she was done with it, she motioned the bartender for another drink.

"You come here often?" said Ralph.

She grinned. "Not any more. Not after this. This is my last time. After this, I’m starting a new life."

"What are you doing?"

"I can’t tell you. An all new life. I’m going very far away. I probably won’t see you."

"I’ll come find you. You’ve never been able to lose me for long."

She laughed humorlessly. "Not since grade school. No. You’ve been there when I needed you, and when I didn’t need you, and whenever the hell you wanted to. I got used to it. But now I’m going far away."

"So you said."

"Look, I can’t talk long, okay, ‘cause I have to play the piano, okay? But you take good care of yourself." She took his face fiercely in her hands, like a blind woman with an attitude. "You take much, much better care of yourself than I have. Okay?"

Shaken, he agreed and pulled away, stumbling out of the bar and away from her clutching hands, away from the vodka-scented breath, away from the new lines on the pretty young face and the sad redness of her eyes. "You’re not going anywhere, Lisa," he mumbled to himself.

It was eerie when the face appeared on the screen. It was like looking into a mirror­no, she decided, not just a mirror, but a mirror which showed only your worst possibilities, your nightmare self. The face in the mirror was gaunt, cheekbones in high relief, and the circles under her eyes made her look like a boxer who could never win. It was the eyes that haunted her, implacable, themselves haunted yet purposeful.

"Hi," said her video self. "I’m making you this tape so that you can find out who you used to be. Who I used to be. Who used to live in your body. Whatever. I’m not really sure how this goes, but I hold onto one thing. I have to believe that you are not me. If I thought you were, I wouldn’t be doing this.

"And I guess that’s what you want to know­why did I do this." She sighed. "Look, I went to my first A. A. meeting when I was sixteen. It didn’t work. I didn’t want to be there, not really. I wanted it to be easy. And it isn’t. You might have guessed that I was a drinker, if I know Therese and Jack. It’s more than that. I’m an alcoholic, and the hell of it is that I can’t want to be sober. I’ve been through a dozen programs in the last eight years, and I know the booze is killing me. And I don’t care.

"I’m a musician. I hope you get some of that, in this process they do. The people who try to tell you that the music is linked to addiction are at least half full of shit. Drinking and music are both ways of filling the same void, or trying­let me tell you, the music is much more successful. I don’t know. They tell me there’s not much chance you’ll end up like me, but I like to think of you as the daughter I chose not to have, and maybe you’ll get my music.

The other woman’s face softened; she looked more tired, less angry. "I’m a fatally flawed person, honey. Don’t get me wrong." She held up her hands defensively. "Everybody is. I know that. But my flaws are killing me faster than most, and I just­I don’t accept that this is as good as it can be. I’m hoping you can improve on what I had. I picked Therese and Jack to help you."

She shrugged. "And that’s it. No words of wisdom, no secrets of life. Just be you, okay? And be happy, but not too easily."

The face disappeared in an iris, and Juliane sat staring at the blank screen, seeing each pixel with complete clarity. Finally she left the chair, asked the receptionist, "Can I take this with me?"

"Of course," he said. "We have another copy. I’ll just make a note of it." She thanked him, slipping back into her usual abstract manner as she pushed the door open, leaving distinct fingerprints on the glass.

She wished he wouldn’t look so sheepish. The word suited him too well just now, and she began to expect him to bleat and graze.

"Thank you for sharing this with me. I feel so­stupid, you know, but it’s really hard to realize that she effectively killed herself without some great reason that explained it all. That she’s just gone. Not buried inside you or some secret. Gone."

"Hey," she said softly.

"She didn’t love herself enough. She didn’t love me enough."

"Hey," she said again. She reached out and touched his arm lightly with the tips of her fingers. He looked at her, baffled. He didn’t look like words could touch him. He looked broken. She only knew one thing to do with broken stuff. She pulled her fingertips away, went and got out her guitar. He didn’t even watch her. The cat had discovered his shoestrings, but he wasn’t aware enough to be amused.

She tried to play some Dylan, some characteristic folk rock, but it wasn’t coming out right. He didn’t look up when her fingers made the strings twang jarringly. Finally she found "Ralphie’s Garden Blues" and began to improvise on it. His tears cleansed his face, ravaging it in its cleaning and leaving only Ralph behind.

"She gave me that song­and before, a potted plant," he mumbled.

"Uh huh," said Juliane, a little confused.

"She always gave me such­such alive­things. Gifts."

"Here," said Juliane. Out of nowhere, she found it in her to play a new song, her own folk, not a blues style, but still for him.