A Stranger in the Mirror

The dusty Greyhound Odessa-El Paso-San Bernardino-Los Angeles bus pulled into the Hollywood depot on Vine Street at seven A.M., and somewhere during the fifteen-hundred-mile, two-day journey, Josephine Czinski had become Jill Castle. Outwardly, she looked like the same person. It was inside that she had changed. Something in her was gone. The laughter had died.

The moment she had heard the news, Josephine knew that she must escape. She began to mindlessly throw her clothes into a suitcase. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there. She only knew that she had to get away from this place at once.

It was when she was walking out of her bedroom and saw the photographs of the movie stars on her wall that she suddenly knew where she was going. Two hours later, she was on the bus for Hollywood. Odessa and everyone in it receded in her mind, fading faster and faster as the bus swept her toward her new destiny. She tried to make herself forget her raging headache. Perhaps she should have seen a doctor about the terrible pains in her head. But now she no longer cared. That was part of her past, and she was sure they would go away. From now on life was going to be wonderful. Josephine Czinski was dead.

Long live Jill Castle.