Quick Fix

by Linda Grimes

  I was left out of the Being-Molly lineup since I was officially in charge of the real thing. She was looking wild-eyed and a bit too happy for my peace of mind. Also, did I mention she was heavy? Even with Clint’s added upper-body strength, if I didn’t find someplace to sit down soon my arms were going to break. I could only pray Molly took to heart the lecture about proper party behavior she’d received from all of us at the meeting the day before. It was still a little tough to tell if everything we said was getting through to her—the ape aura seemed to be enmeshing itself more deeply the longer it held on.

  James was itching to get back to the lab, and planned to duck out of the party as soon as possible. This would not be out of character for him since he did it every year. No one really blamed him—the party was not as much fun for the nonadaptors in attendance. They got bumped out of the competition pretty quickly. No matter how creative their costumes were, their real identities were strikingly obvious.

  This year James had chosen to come as that hot Aussie doctor from House—the early seasons version, when the actor still had longish blond hair. The resemblance was actually pretty amazing, only James was blonder and even better-looking. Bonus for him: the costume consisted of a white lab coat and a stethoscope, things James had readily at hand. He’d already checked Molly-O’s heart three times while hamming up his role. (We’d taken to referring to the real Molly as Molly-O, just to avoid confusion with the fake ones.)

  Before the party, James had given her a dose of something he’d hoped would do the trick, but it was taking longer than anticipated to work, and he was a little worried about side effects, so he was keeping a close eye on her.

  I also knew the chosen personas for Mark, Thomas, and Brian. We’d decided at the meeting it would be less confusing all around if we could look out for one another, and we couldn’t do that if we didn’t know who we all were. Mark was Julius Caesar. Easy to slip in and out of the toga for his quick changes. Thomas was Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps—ditto on the quick-change capability. Nothing but a Speedo and a lot of medals to deal with. And Brian was Madonna. He’d borrowed Suze’s outfit, which I suppose was his way of bringing her to the party. Practicality has never been Bri’s strong suit.

  Nobody knew who Billy was, or if he was even there. He hadn’t been at the meeting, nor had anyone talked to him since he’d left me in Pretty Boy’s clutches at James’s apartment. Once the crowd around me thinned (even the novelty of a baby ape couldn’t keep them away from the bar for long) I did my damnedest to figure out which pseudo-celebrity he was. I gave up after a few fruitless minutes. If Billy didn’t want to be found out, he wouldn’t be.

  I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning my new relationship status with Billy to Thomas. No need to fog up his mind with any new concerns until after we got Molly straightened out. He was ticked enough at Billy without throwing me into the mix. Fortunately, Mark hadn’t said anything, either. As frustrating as spook discretion could be, it did come in handy once in a while.

  I was reaching for a stuffed mushroom from the tray of a passing member of the waitstaff when warm, dry lips connected with my neck from behind. I jumped, almost dropping Molly. As I righted myself, my eyes connected for the briefest instant with the server holding the tray before she moved quickly to the next group of partiers. She looked vaguely familiar—

  “Wanna make my day, big boy?” a sultry voice whispered in my ear, distracting me. Meryl Streep, circa The Bridges of Madison County.

  “Wrong movie, blondie,” I said, pretty sure it was Billy. Who else would kiss my neck?

  “But the right sentiment.” Meryl tugged my hair, and tickled Molly under her chin. Yep, had to be Billy. “Why don’t you pass your date over to the good doctor and come upstairs—”

  I released an impatient breath and rolled my eyes, neither gesture particularly well suited to my current aura. “This is not the time or place for—”

  “—to talk,” he said, gracefully arching Ms. Streep’s left eyebrow. “I need to fill you in on a few things.”

  “Oh. I thought—”

  He took my well-muscled Eastwood arm and hustled me toward James. “Oh, that, too, if we can squeeze it in,” he said in breathy Streep whisper, lacing “squeeze it in” with enough innuendo to bring roses to my Clinty cheeks. It might even have given me a twitch in a certain male part of my anatomy, if I’d actually been projecting one. Since this aura was strictly from visuals, though, I hadn’t bothered with the parts that didn’t show. I might have oozed machismo on the outside, but under my clothing I was about as masculine as a Ken doll.

  And, okay, I did wonder if we might manage a quickie (as ourselves, naturally), but only for a second, I swear. Because, seriously, I don’t think I could ever have sex in my parents’ house.

  James was sitting on an overstuffed red velvet love seat, surrounded by a small group of nonadaptors, none of whom had put a whole lot of effort into their costumes. Who could blame them?

  Meryl took Molly from me and deposited her on James’s lap. “Back in a few, darling. Clint is insisting on showing me his big gun, and there’s just no arguing with him when he gets all macho.” Ha. Little did Meryl know, but Clint was unarmed.

  James immediately put his stethoscope to Molly’s chest and waved us away. “Go on, then. Have fun.”

  My eyes widened, but he was too busy listening intently to whatever wild rhythm Molly was beating out with her simian heart to pay attention to me. Surely he couldn’t have meant what I thought.

  Meryl took my hand and winked at me. We almost made it to the stairs before Don King blocked our way. “Ms. Streep, I have always been an admirer. May I have this dance?” The wild-haired boxing promoter took Billy by the hand and swung him onto the floor, spinning him twice before dropping him into a dip that left me looking at Meryl’s upside-down face.

  Billy smiled and wiggled Meryl’s graceful fingers at me. “Later, Clint. You know where,” he hollered over the music as Don pulled her up into another spin. Thank goodness Mom and Auntie Mo always paid off the neighbors ahead of time. It’s amazing how a large check can muffle the noise from a raucous party.

  I met one of the Mollies as I headed upstairs, whizzing past me at a clip more suitable to a greyhound chasing a rabbit. A nose ring glinted as a random beam of light ricocheted off the disco ball and hit her face. I caught her around the waist as she shot by me, swinging her up and depositing her on the step in front of me. Clint’s strength was a handy thing.

  “Whoa, Bri,” I whispered beneath the blare of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance,” and pointed to the offending piece of jewelry. “Take a better look in the mirror before you leave the room next time.”

  “Oops,” he said with an excited Molly giggle. He turned his back to the room below, removed it, and adapted away the hole.

  “Careful. If Auntie Mo had seen Molly with a pierced nostril, what do you think she’d do?”

  He got serious. “You’re right. Sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

  “You do that.” Then I remembered something. “Hey, is Suze here?”

  “No way! Mom would kill me.”

  “You sure? I could have sworn … Nah, never mind. She already moonlights as a rock star. Why would she need a catering job?”

  “That’s right,” he said, and skipped away toward the dining room, where the table was laden with heavy hors d’oeuvres, shoving his nose jewelry into a pocket as he went. I hoped he’d remember not to eat anything Molly hated.

  As I turned back toward the upstairs, a preset gong rang. Time for all the adaptors to drop an assumed feature and allow one of our own to show. Really cagey adaptors tended to come as people they shared common traits with, and then dropped those traits first, hoping the difference won’t be noticeable. I didn’t have a lot of similarities to Clint, so I went with going back to my original boobs, figuring the change wouldn’t be dramatic. When life hands you lemons (so to speak), you get used to making lemonade.

  My room was at the end of
the hall, not visible from downstairs, so I was pretty sure no one saw me slip in. Well, except Caesar and Michael Phelps, standing over by my closet, deep in serious conversation while Caesar redressed himself in his toga. Phelps, in his Speedo, barely acknowledged me with a wave and Caesar inclined his head regally toward me as he pinned his sheet at the shoulder.

  “What’s going on, guys?”

  “Who’s Billy? Have you made contact yet?” Mark asked. Did I detect a bit of urgency in his imperial voice?

  I hooked my thumbs through my belt loops and played Clint at his taciturn best. Why should I be any more forthcoming than they were?

  “Come on, Ciel,” Thomas said. “We need to talk to him. Now.”

  There wasn’t much point in keeping it a secret, since Billy could show at the door anytime in his Meryl guise. Still, might as well make good use of the time I had.

  “Well, boys, what do you say to a little info swap? You tell me what the big rush is, and I’ll tell you where to find Billy.”

  Caesar looked at Phelps. Nodded.

  “Laura claims Billy is the one who shot her—she won’t budge on that. We think if she can talk to Billy, we might get to the bottom of things faster.”

  I sat on the edge of my bed, hard. “Crap. It wasn’t Billy, I know it wasn’t. But who could it have been? Who hates Billy enough to set him up like that?”

  “That’s one of the things we need to find out. So who is he?”

  “Listen, have you thought of explaining to Laura about other adaptors? So she won’t think it was Billy?”

  “We’d like to avoid that if possible,” Mark said. “The fewer people who know, the safer the entire community is.”

  “Hey, listen, when I found Laura—” The image of her lying in a growing pool of her own blood flew to the fore of my brain and made me catch on the words. “When I found her, she said something funny about Mark. ‘Tell him he was right.’ What did she mean by that?”

  Caesar sighed. “I’d warned her against working with Billy on any of his side jobs. Told her she’d get hurt.”

  “But you didn’t mean by Billy!”

  “Of course not. But maybe that’s the way she’s reading it now, in retrospect.”

  “You have to tell her.” I stood and turned to Thomas, ignoring the Speedo as best I could. Really, nobody should wear those. Even on a perfect body, they’re just not decent. “You tell her. She’ll believe you—I saw how she looked at you in the hospital. Show her, if you have to. Hell, I’ll show her. Take me to her.”

  “Calm down, Howdy,” Mark said. “We just need a little more time to figure things out. Billy can help—if you’ll tell us who he is.”

  I sighed, at a loss for alternatives. “Meryl Streep. Last I saw, he was dancing with Don King.”

  They left in a rush. “Hey, guys—” I said as I went after them. No point in waiting in my room for Billy now. “Did you miss the gong earlier? Time to drop a feature.” Eyeing my brother’s backside, I added, under my breath, “Good luck with that, Thomas.” Speedos don’t offer a lot of wiggle room with an aura. As he walked off I noticed Phelps’s astoundingly long, flipperlike feet shrink to Thomas’s more normal appendages. As long as nobody who recognized my brother’s toes looked down, he’d be safe until the next round.

  Of course, Meryl was not on the dance floor when we got there. Don was dancing with Cleopatra, whose aura wobbled every time she sneezed. Poor Aunt Helen. Mom had gone with flowers after all. Guess my paper cranes hadn’t measured up to party standards.

  God only knew where Billy had gone. Caesar and Phelps systematically wove their separate ways through the downstairs, nodding regally or smiling Olympically at anyone who tried to engage them, but not pausing long enough to converse. I left them to it. If Billy didn’t want to be found by them, he wouldn’t. Instead, I went back to the living room, where I’d left Molly-O with James. He was probably ready for a break by now.

  Boy, was he. Planted between simian-Molly and Brian-Molly, he appeared desperate to keep them apart. What on earth? I hurried over and took my little orange friend off his hands. “There you are,” I said, laying a little extra gravel in Eastwood’s voice. “Hope you’re not giving the good doctor any problems.”

  “I wanna hold her,” Brian said, hopping up and down and, in my humble opinion, overplaying Molly’s youthful enthusiasm.

  “Not a good idea right now,” James said, throwing me a meaningful look. I examined Monkey-Molls more closely. Were her dark eyes shifting from brown back to dark blue? Hard to tell in the indoor light, but I thought maybe so, and her lashes definitely looked thicker. Uh-oh. Not the best timing. Still, if she was changing back, this could only be good, right?

  “Hey, there, pardner,” I said, possibly sounding more like John Wayne than Clint Eastwood in my urgency to get her out of there, but not really giving a flip. “Better come with me.” I lifted her, praying she wouldn’t start to exhibit my steely Clint stare. “Excuse me, folks. My little friend here needs to find a powder room. She’s mostly housebroke, but not always reliable.”

  Whereupon Molly-O threw me a disgusted look and slapped my shoulder, adding a grunt of disapproval. I shrugged helplessly at her. Nothing else I could do now—I’d apologize later for casting aspersions on her potty training.

  Brian followed me. “Don’t touch her,” I hissed. He looked stricken, which, considering it was Molly’s tender face I’d glared at, made me feel even guiltier. “Just until we’re alone, okay? She might be coming back.”

  “Molly!” an excited voice called from across the room. Crap. It was Jordan, Molly’s best friend, a trouble magnet if ever there was one. He looked like an absolute angel, a poster child for biracial beauty, with creamy caramel skin and soft, black curls framing his face, but his cherubic appearance was deceptive. The kid lived for mischief. Not that he was mean; he just required an endless supply of entertainment and happened to find chaos entertaining.

  Brian shot me a panicked look. I shrugged, tossing the ball back to his court.

  “Jordy! Uh, what are you doing here?”

  “Mom couldn’t find a babysitter willing to stay with me this year. Cool, huh?”

  Normally, parents were encouraged to leave their prepubescent children at home, since the kids would naturally know who their parents were coming as and would inevitably let the cat out of the bag. Molly, as the child of a cohost, was the exception, but she was expected to stay out of sight as much as possible, and to go to bed early.

  Jordan grabbed Brian-Molly’s hand. “Come on, let’s go! We have to hide from your mom—which one is she, anyway? My dad said if she finds out I’m here, our whole family might get kicked out.”

  True enough. Auntie Mo might harbor a sneaking fondness for the boy, but it didn’t extend to risking the success of the party. No one could prove Jordan had snuck into last year’s party (no doubt with Molly’s help) and somehow precipitated the fire that had upset the caterers so much, but it was suspected by all who knew him. Even if Nero (Jordan’s dad last year) had officially taken the blame.

  Brian shrugged his skinny little Molly shoulders at me and departed with Jordan. It would’ve seemed strange to anyone around us if he hadn’t. No real problem for me—I’d just have to keep the real Molly out of sight if she changed back. It was kind of a problem for fur-Molly, though, judging by the doleful look on her face as she watched her facsimile scamper off with her best buddy. Adaptor-hood was hitting her where it hurt.

  Watching the two of them go, I did wonder why Jordan hadn’t stayed home with his older sister, Monica—the friend who’d recommended my zoo client—the way he usually did. (She had been overseas the previous year, and he had supposedly been left with an able babysitter, but like I said, there were doubts.) I scanned the room for signs she might have relented in her long-standing adaptor avoidance, and had actually come to the party.

  Monica, like James, was a nonadaptor, only she had chosen to keep herself as separate from the community as was human
ly possible. It hadn’t always been the case—she’d only started avoiding us when she hit her late teens and it became apparent she hadn’t inherited the gene. There had been whispers of sour grapes among the adaptors of our generation (she was a grade ahead of me and Billy in school), but I assumed she was just trying to find herself.

  A lot of people thought it might be a good thing if Jordan also turned out not to carry the adapting trait, though few were tactless enough to voice it above a whisper. The kid was a menace now; God only knew what kind of trouble he’d get into if he could readily change forms.

  I didn’t catch a glimpse of Monica, and couldn’t take the time to do a full-scale search, even though I’d really been hoping to find her so I could thank her for the client rec. Thelma Parker had paid me very well, with the promise of a substantial bonus for a successfully completed job. Since I’d nailed the interview I was expecting my bank account to get a lot healthier very soon, all thanks to Monica.

  But I had to get Molly someplace private fast, in case she started showing more of her real self. And, if I admitted it to myself, I was a teensy bit relieved not to see Monica. She was beyond gorgeous, carrying her brother’s exotic appeal to ridiculous extremes, and her beauty had never been lost on Billy. He’d been seriously bent out of shape when she’d rebuffed his advances back in high school.

  Confession: I might have rubbed that in a bit at the time. But it was a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of teasing he’d dished out to me, so I figure, in retrospect, it really doesn’t count much.