essica held onto the newly installed safety bar in her shower, letting the water run over her. Billows of steam filled the bathroom. She thought she was done crying now. She hoped so.
A gentle knocking came at the door. Her mother’s voice called out, “Everything okay, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Just enjoying the heat.” Jessica heard her walk away. Her steps were quiet and slow, not at all like the usual fast pace of heels clicking that she associated with her mother. Jessica turned off the water and stepped out in a cloud of steam, choosing a fluffy yellow towel off the rack to wrap herself in and a smaller purple towel to wrap her hair in. Her hair wasn’t really long enough to necessitate a second towel yet, but she had clung to the habit, even when she’d been bald.
She wiped a swath of mirror clean with the palm of her hand and looked at her eyes in the mirror. They looked surprisingly calm and clear. She didn’t feel that calm inside. She laid a hand on her heart and rubbed the skin as if she could slow the frantic beating with the touch. She sat down on the closed toilet and wrapped her arms around herself. She felt nauseated.
It had been difficult, but she’d told her mother the whole story. How she’d tripped and not fallen, floating around her house until she fell on Nathan, resulting in his trip to the hospital. The grocery store. The weights. Meeting Leonel and David. How Cindy had been waiting for her when she arrived to pick up the children. The ladder incident. Her decision to take Cindy up on her offer to help. What happened when she tried to leave. Waking up in the laboratory. Her rescue by Leonel.
Her mother had listened carefully, her expression growing ever more severe. She sat with her hands clasped over her mouth in horror when Jessica demonstrated her problem. Her hands shook as she helped strap the weights back on to pull her daughter back down to earth. At the end, she had drawn Jessica into her arms and held her like she was a small child again. When Jessica looked into her face, she was shocked by how old and tired her mother looked. She had never looked like that, not even visiting Jessica in the hospital as she fought ovarian cancer.
“How could she do that to you? To my baby?” she said, anger putting a quaver in her voice. “I thought she was my friend.”
At her insistence, they called the police. As they tried to explain the situation to the officers who came by, Jessica could see them making eye contact occasionally and wondered what they were communicating silently. She had spotted one of the two writing “domestic” in his small notebook, and wondered if that meant he was writing this off as not a real crime.
There was an awkward silence when one of the officers asked why Ms. Liu would want to kidnap Jessica. They couldn’t really explain her motivation without explaining Jessica’s entire situation, and they had agreed to leave that part of the story out. Eventually, Eva just shook her head and said, “I don’t know, Officer. I really just don’t know.” His face softened then. Eva had a way of bringing out the protective nature of men.
Jessica glossed over how she escaped as well, just saying she was lucky, that she saw her opportunity and ran for it. She could see that the officers thought her story sounded a little fishy, but she didn’t want to get Leonel involved unless she had to. The last thing she wanted was to send trouble to her one true friend.
The officers left, promising an investigation would be opened. Jessica’s car was still missing, so, if they could find it, that would help the credibility of her story. She understood they needed evidence. They had taken the clothing she had been wearing, but Jessica doubted they would find anything to help them on it. Jessica hoped they’d find something all the same. Ms. Liu needed to be locked up before she hurt someone.
Still wrapped in a towel, Jessica strapped the new weights her mother had purchased for her around her ankles. They were padded and covered in tan cloth. They weren’t as heavy as her father’s old scuba weights, but, so far, it seemed like they would do the job, and they didn’t hurt nearly as much to wear. She padded to the bedroom and sat on the bed, staring at the closet.
Nathan’s side of the closet was open. He never remembered to close doors behind himself. Staring at the line of his suit jackets hanging there, she suddenly felt angry again. Nathan had not worried about her. Instead, he’d actually yelled at her when she came back, like she was a teenager who had just been on an irresponsible joy ride. “What were you thinking? Leaving us in the lurch like that? Your mother had to come and take care of the boys so I could go to work!”
He had stormed out the door with his overnight suitcase packed and gone straight to the airport, never once asking where she’d been or if she was all right. She hadn’t been able to get a word of explanation in. He didn’t seem to notice the disarray of her appearance. The fact that he was gone when the police arrived probably raised the wrong sorts of red flags for the officers, too. She felt strangely satisfied at the idea of him being pulled out of his board meetings to talk to the police about what had happened to her. It would serve him right.
She closed Nathan’s side of the closet and opened hers, choosing a soft pair of sweatpants and a comfortable T-shirt that read “Soccer Mom” across the chest and “No, really!” across the back. All the moms on Frankie’s team had gotten them last spring. When another set of burbles lightened her belly, she grabbed the new handle by the closet and waited it out. The feeling was short lived this time. The ankle weights held. She hovered only inches from the floor. Thinking about her conversation with Ms. Liu, she forced herself to burp and then fell softly back to the carpet. Loss of buoyancy associated with eructation, she thought. So much for table manners.
When Leonel had brought her home, he’d also brought David and his tools along, and the two of them had installed a variety of handles and safety bars all over the house while Jessica and her mother talked. Jessica couldn’t believe how kind the couple had been to her.
The boys seemed to be unaware that anything had been amiss. They were just excited about having company and about all the cool tools in David’s kit. Max kept quoting all the Spanish he knew, mostly words he’d picked up from Dora or Diego cartoons. Both boys took to Leonel right away, especially when they found out that he could lift them over his head and fly them around like airplanes. Stretching his arms out like Superman, Frankie giggled like mad. It had been more than a year since Jessica was able to pick him up and play with him like that. He was just too big now. And Nathan wasn’t the sort to play roughhouse games with the boys.
Leonel had even made dinner. He’d had a lot of fun trying out the dual ovens and moveable plates in the stove top. Jessica didn’t know what half the stuff was on the table, but it was all delicious and had filled the house with wonderful smells all day. The boys kept running through and asking for bites, and Leonel kept shooing them away with a wooden spoon and a smile. It was the liveliest and tastiest dinner the house had seen yet.
After Jessica and Eva had seen the boys to bed, the adults sat at the table together. David, Leonel, and Eva sipped the chocolate Leonel had made, but Jessica went and made herself a cup of tea. When she sat down and began to sip, Leonel suddenly reached across the table and took Jessica’s hand. “Jessica? May I look at the box for that tea?”
Jessica nodded and retrieved it for her friend. Leonel pursed his lips as he tried to read the list of ingredients printed in small type on the side of the box. He held his head at an odd angle, and David silently reached into his chest pocket and passed the other man a pair of glasses. Leonel smiled at him and put on the glasses, studying the box more easily now. “I don’t see anything unusual in this ingredients list, but I think you should stop drinking the tea. I think it might be causing your gravity problems.”
Jessica laughed. “It’s just tea, Leonel.”
Leonel and David exchanged a look, and David nodded and then stood behind Leonel’s chair, resting a hand on his shoulder. Leonel reached across the table and took one of Jessica’s hands. “My name is really Linda.”
Jessica was confused. Was it a joke? Or
was Leonel trying to tell them he preferred to be called Linda? Was he a man who would rather be a woman? “What do you mean, Leonel?”
“Until a few months ago, I was a woman.”
Eva and Jessica listened as Leonel recounted his tale of transformation. When he―no, when she—talked about her feats of strength, the mother and daughter moved closer to one another, looking to each other for reassurance. Two weeks before, they might have called the police to remove the crazy person from their house. But two weeks ago, Jessica had not broken the bounds of gravity. Impossible things seemed much more possible now.
“And you think Cindy’s soap made this happen?” Eva asked, incredulous.
Leonel spread his―her―hands out and shrugged. “I don’t know, but it seems more than a coincidence that both of us have had such strange things happen to us and both of us use Cindy Liu’s products.”
Eva said, “But I drink this tea, too. And nothing bizarre has happened to me.”
David jumped in. “Maybe it doesn’t do it to everyone. Maybe it’s just if there’s something about the person using the stuff. Like when you have an allergy? It’s fine for everyone else, but not for you. Remember when we found out that Estela’s stomach problems were from the milk?”
Everyone nodded and Leonel squeezed his husband’s hand and smiled at him.
Jessica pushed her cup of tea away forcefully enough to cause the cup to clatter in its saucer. “Is there any more of that chocolate?” she asked.
essica was accustomed to feeling short. But standing between Leonel and Patricia, she felt like Gulliver among the giants, watching carefully to make sure she wasn’t accidentally crushed. Patricia, in particular, moved with a briskness that required others to be on their guard. Jessica knew now that Leonel was so considerate in part because he really did know firsthand what it was like to be a small woman.
Jessica turned and looked up at her friend. He was easily a foot taller than her. He was a very handsome man, too. Well-muscled without being bulky. He wore his long hair tied in a low ponytail. She could give in to a crush on him very easily. He wore a soft white T-shirt that clung to his muscular chest and jeans that accentuated his rounded ass. His face was gently lined around the eyes in a way that suggested a person who laughed a lot. Looking at him, she had trouble believing he had once been a woman called Linda. To her, he would always be Leonel, her rescuer and friend.
She felt a little guilty, ogling him that way, but the truth was the spark had been gone with Nathan for a long time now. Nathan had been so charming when he was pursuing her. They’d met through a friend. She had found him handsome but maybe a little shallow. He always said, though, he’d fallen head over heels for her from the moment he first saw her.
His attention was like a spotlight. He’d won her over with extravagant surprises and exciting opportunities. She’d missed half of her last semester of college because Nathan would just show up and whisk her away. It hadn’t seemed important at the time that she wouldn’t graduate. She wasn’t going to need a degree in physical therapy for the life she would lead with Nathan.
The first five years of their marriage had been full of tickets and trips. She’d worn a cocktail dress at least every other week. True, she was bored at most of the events, but she felt proud of Nathan and enjoyed watching him work a room. He was certainly a man who was going places, and she guessed she was lucky to be the woman who would go with him.
These days, she wasn’t so sure she’d call herself lucky. It had been a long time since Nathan had taken her anywhere. He certainly wouldn’t like where she was now, standing with Leonel and Patricia, waiting to help break into Dr. Liu’s house.
Turning her head the other way, Jessica could see Patricia, her other partner in crime. Patricia looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties. She had this really intense way of looking at a person that made Jessica want to hide. She was obviously not someone you wanted to cross. Ever. Despite the softness of her yoga pants and tank top, she looked hard and mean. When she had shown them her scalier self earlier that evening at Leonel’s house, Jessica had quite nearly peed her pants. When fully transformed, Patricia looked like some kind of lizard or dinosaur or maybe a crocodile, but with spikes. Even Leonel had taken a step back, resting a hand on his chest and murmuring something in Spanish.
In fact, the two of them seemed so strong and skilled that she wondered why she was there at all. Leonel was incredibly strong. Patricia was impervious to harm. Even bullets couldn’t get through her armor! What good was she? A former gymnast who floated like a balloon? She felt strangely jealous. None of them had asked for this, but the other women had gotten amazing and useful powers. She didn’t get a super power; she got a disability.
The original plan had been to go in through the lab window. There was a tree right outside the window that blocked the view, and would help make sure no neighbors saw them breaking in. They didn’t want to explain themselves to the police, after all. But when they got there, they realized only Jessica was small enough to fit through the space. They’d circled the house, examining windows and doors, and finally decided the back door was the best bet. It was difficult to see from the street or the neighboring porches, and the light seemed to be out. Jessica would climb through the old-fashioned transom at the top of the door, drop to the floor inside, and let the other two in.
Flicking his flashlight to catch the attention of the other women, Leonel gestured to the transom above the back door. It was tilted in slightly. Leonel knelt down, holding his hands in an obvious sign that he intended for Jessica to step into his hands and be lifted to the window. She stepped into his hands and tried to keep her body still as he moved to a standing position. When she stretched her hands up, she almost got the giggles. The position was an awful lot like a free liberty cheerleading stunt. She had a sudden image of herself, Patricia, and Leonel in cheerleading sweaters and had to fight her own laughter again. She scolded herself internally to get it together. This was no time for hysteria. They were trying to get in quietly and look around without attracting unwanted attention.
Jessica could just reach the top of the transom with her fingers. She tugged, and the window made a horrid screeching sound. All three women froze, looking around anxiously. After a few seconds, it seemed the sound had not attracted any attention, so Jessica grabbed onto the edges of the window frame and pulled herself upward. Her upper body strength hadn’t been this impressive since she won the state meet back when she was a tween, before she hurt her knee.
Holding onto the trim around the window, Jessica tucked her body into a rolled up position. She didn’t want to end up falling face first into the foyer. Once inside the window opening, she twisted, unrolling her lower half on the other side of the door. Changing her hand holds, she went through the window backward, hanging briefly from her hands before she dropped to the floor inside. Without thinking, she found she had landed with one foot in the front of the other and her hands above her head. She could almost hear her old coach’s voice calling out, “Way to stick it!” Muscle memory was incredible.
Wiping her gloved hands on her pants, Jessica hissed through the doorframe, “I’m in.” She turned the four locks one at a time, jumping a little as the noise seemed to echo in the empty house. She was relieved when the door swung open and her larger companions could enter. It was creepy in there. There were strange rustling sounds.
The women didn’t bother with the main house but headed straight for the laboratory. Anything that was going to help them was going to be in there. As they’d agreed, Patricia headed straight for the charts and notebooks, Leonel stood lookout, a baseball bat in his hands, and Jessica waited. She’d done her part getting them in, but waiting was boring. After a few minutes swinging her feet back and forth as she sat on a stool, she hopped down and started looking around the lab.
Someone had cleaned up the glass from her rescue, but the tube was still there. Had she really been inside it? It was bizarre looking, somewhere between a c
anister jar and a bug holder. It looked like something from a science fiction movie, the kind of thing an alien might be enclosed in, floating in yellow liquid. The lock that had given Leonel such trouble was still closed, and a red light was blinking on the display screen. She could see all kinds of readout screens along the side of the tube and was creeped out to see a clipboard with notes about her on it. “Subject 17: Jessica Roark: 32, Spontaneous Buoyancy.” Now she knew what number subject she was, she supposed. Thinking about the rabbit she had watched Dr. Liu test, she felt sick about the other sixteen subjects and anxious about what might have happened to her if Leonel hadn’t gotten her out. Would she have been howling in the same kind of pain while Dr. Liu took notes about her reaction?
On impulse, she released the clip, rolled the papers together into a sheaf, and shoved them into her back pocket. The police would probably miss it eventually, but she was sure the information would do her more good than them. She wondered if the police had been in the lab yet. There wasn’t any crime scene tape, but maybe they only put that on the outside of the house. Jessica was sure Cindy Liu would have a plan in place to hide her actions from the authorities.
Looking for a distraction, Jessica checked on her companions. Patricia was still digging through the papers and files. She had booted up the desktop computer and was moving files onto a small hard drive. She moved quickly like she knew exactly what she was doing. Jessica admired her confidence. She bet Patricia never second-guessed herself.
Leonel was standing just outside the door, watching the stairs. He smiled in her direction when Jessica poked her head out, but turned his concentration back to the task at hand. He looked very intimidating standing there with the baseball bat. You could watch his muscles work when he moved it in his hands. He seemed a little tense and jumpy. Jessica would definitely think twice about coming down those stairs if she were an intruder here.
Going Through the Change Page 18
