Season 2, Episode 5: Reincarnation

Episodes May 21, 2026

It was a couple of weeks later, and, somewhat surprisingly, not a lot had happened.

I kept in touch with Erica, but she was a bit distant after our lunch. She had a lot going on, so I was OK with that. And I was a little bit proud of her, because she made a point of assuring me she was taking care of everything - Jim's funeral arrangements, the transition to her and her son Michael at the helm of Stafford Oil, and a few other things.

I told her I knew she could handle everything. "Yeah, thanks," was her response.

But Jim was hanging on, though it sounded like that wasn't an altogether good thing. He was suffering so much from the lymphoma that was killing him that he was basically on a fentanyl drip.

Ugh.

Give Jim credit, though, because it looked like he was outliving Skyline Ventures, Katie's employer/owner. After that initial call from this Bernie Stine character, I'd not heard from them. A week later I'd called him back to inquire about the $4500 bill for Katie's room and board, which I was planning to say was now $4800, but the message said the number was disconnected.

Katie, who was back in her body - Amber and I had agreed we were both happier that way - said her company email had been shut down.

So that was it.

I didn't expect that Katie was free and clear from her indentured servitude as a call-girl bookkeeper, but on the other hand I wasn't sure what her exposure would be. If nothing else, whoever came to claim her would have to pay that bill - and I planned on tacking on to it as time went by.

But that meant we were stuck with her.

And Katie didn't make that easy. We'll come back to that, because something else interesting happened just before the large box with Amber's new body arrived.

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I was out on a client call. One of my new subcontractors had made a pretty big mistake on a job I'd put her on, and we'd had to go over to the client's place and grovel, and then put in a bunch of hours fixing it. And then I'd shown the client Keegan's business app and suggested that putting them into it would prevent anything like that mistake from happening again.

It was an all-day ordeal. I didn't know how successful it would turn out to be, but the client really did like the app. At minimum, I'd managed to get them from "you're fired" to "hey, let's think about this new thing."

So when I stopped for gas on the way home, I decided I'd pay inside because I was going to get some beer out of the cooler and have one in the car. Yes, I'm such a rebel that I would drink one beer while fighting the afternoon rush hour traffic. Put the cuffs on me.

Anyway, I'm coming out of the convenience store and I notice that because a couple of the pumps are out of order there's now a little line of people waiting for gas. And a chick in a silver BMW is at the front of that line. She's just behind my truck.

"You're blocking me from getting gas," she said, her window rolled down.

"My deepest apologies! Wait, I know you. Michelle, right? I met you at the Pink Ball."

"Uh huh," she said, nodding with amusement. And then I realized she had been messing with me by barking at me about parking at the pump.

"Well, OK," I said. "I will make up for inconveniencing you by pumping your gas."

That earned me a grin and a nod.

So I moved my car to a parking spot next to the gas station's store and hustled over to the pump. Michelle had put her card in and she was leaning against the Beemer.

"Aren't you quite the gentleman?" she said as I started pumping her gas.

"Yeah, I guess I am," I said. "I think I like your ride better than mine, by the way."

"OK, so you'll know, I'm not giving you my number."

"No? Is it my oppressive body odor that's in the way of that?"

"Oh, is that a thing with you?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"No. I'm just saying that I'm not available."

"Ohhh, you've got a fella. But I don't see a wedding ring."

"We're just dating right now. But we made an agreement that we wouldn't do any, y'know, prospecting anymore."

"I get it. So I can maybe talk to you but I can't hit on you."

"Exactly," she said with a very magnetic smile.

"OK, fine. What do you do?"

"I've got a marketing agency."

"Yeah? You any good? It seems like you are given this ride of yours."

"I'm excellent. But, y'know, it's a small company. This economy makes it hard to grow."

"Tell me about it."

"So what about you?"

"I do business consulting. Actually, we probably could do with partnering with somebody to do marketing for our clients. Here, let me give you my card!"

So I did. And she took it and smiled at me again.

Then the pump shut off, and she thanked me, got behind the wheel and drove away.

There was this old song from when I was a little kid and MTV had just gotten started. It was by a British guy named Ian Hunter, and the name of the song was "All Of The Good Ones Are Taken." That song popped into my head as I got in my truck and popped the cap on that beer.

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Traffic was atrocious. It was after dark when I finally got home. And Katie and Amber were sitting at the dining room table with the box on the floor next to them, and they were fighting.

"Oh, thank God, you're finally home!"

"Yeah, what... oh, your new body is here!"

"We would have already put her in it, but Little Princess here said we had to wait for you."

"Well, that's sweet, Amber. Have y'all checked it out?"

"No! We wanted you to see it first!"

"All right, then," I said, and I grabbed a kitchen knife to cut the tape off the box and open it, but before I could pull open the cardboard flap...

"Stop. Just stop right there."

"What?" I said.

"I'll take it from here. You just go upstairs and Amber will come and see you in a little while."

"Huh? No."

"Katie," said Amber, "he's paying for this thing. I think he gets to do the honors."

"No. He doesn't need to see you naked in the box."

"Why not? I saw her that way the first time."

"Katie," Amber said, "you're being unreasonable."

But she wouldn't budge, and it got contentious. So finally I threw up my hands and went upstairs. I still had work to do anyway.

But a few minutes later...

"Hi there."

"Well, hello. Nice posture you got there. How do you feel?"

"Pretty good, actually. There are some things I need to get used to, but it's a big, big improvement."

"Things you need to get used to?"

"Like, I'm feeling a little cold. But I'll get over it. Anyway..."

And that robe came off.

"Oh, my," I said.

"You like?"

"I think I do."

"Then come on."

And she sashayed away to the bedroom, that robe trailing lazily behind her.

I had some things to do, but I quickly realized those would have to wait for the next morning.

And the next morning, Amber insisted on joining me in the office. But she wasn't all that motivated to join me in getting any work done.

"Hey, Amber? You wanna at least crack that laptop open and get me the spreadsheet on the Palmer account I asked for?"

"You know it's a waste of my talents to get me to do spreadsheets," she said. "Let Katie do that. She literally has nothing to do."

"So this is you, in your new body, telling me you want to be Sexy Housewife Amber and then have Katie become Workaholic Secretary Katie?"

"You'd better not call her a secretary. She'll bite your head off."

"Hmm. I don't hate this idea, though. Katie's a worker. But you've done a really, really good job as my assistant. I kinda hate losing you."

"I'll make it easy on you. I quit."

"You quit? You can't quit."

She just smiled, and then she got up and sauntered off.

Then Katie came in.

"You wanted to see me? Please give me something to do. I'm going absolutely insane downstairs on the couch."

"Well, Amber seems to think you'd do a better job than she will as my personal assistant. In fact, she's insistent on that. What do you think?"

"Actually, what you should do is have me as one of your subcontractors. You don't have an accountant, do you?"

"Katie, you aren't an accountant."

"Yes, I am! You know I am!"

"No, what I mean is you don't have a license. You aren't a CPA. I can't put you out there as a provider of accounting services."

"Oh."

"Not to mention that your fake ID that says 'Jane Campbell' and has a social security number which is... not yours would make me a felon if I employed you in a professional capacity."