“I hope so.” Tess shakes her head. “Everything has become such a mess. It makes me wonder why God allows these things to happen.”
Dr. Palmer has never been much into religion, so she can only shrug. “They say he works in mysterious ways.”
“Very mysterious sometimes. The way those poor girls have suffered…it makes me lose faith sometimes.”
“I’m sure everything will work out in the end. You have to hang in there.”
“I suppose so.”
“In the meantime, there’s something else I should mention.” She tells Tess the results from the monitor. “Right now there’s not much outward change, but we could have some problems in a few months, especially with Madison.”
“What do you suggest?”
“There’s nothing we can do right now. We’ll just have to keep an eye on things. I might want to see them more often to keep tabs on them. I can stop by your house in a couple of weeks to make it easier.”
“They’re usually home by six-thirty. I try to put Madison to bed by seven-thirty, though sometimes that’s difficult.”
“I imagine it would be. Madison is a pretty spunky girl.”
“She certainly is.”
Before Tess can leave, Dr. Palmer puts a hand on her shoulder again. She looks into the older woman’s eyes. “How much sleep are you getting?”
“Six hours or so, depending on if they have any nightmares.”
“You should try to get a few hours more. I can prescribe something—”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be fine.”
“What about your husband? How’s he holding up?”
“He’s been working himself hard these days. Some days I don’t see him until he climbs into bed after midnight.”
“I really wish you’d let me help you out.”
“We can manage.”
Dr. Palmer wants to argue, but she knows it won’t do any good with a woman like Tess. A woman like her would never accept charity, not so long as she has a choice about it. She’s too proud for that. “Maybe the next time Madison needs some new clothes I can take her shopping.”
“That’s very generous of you. I’ll talk to Jacob about it.”
“Good.” Dr. Palmer shakes Tess’s hand. “I’ll see you guys in a few days then.”
She just hopes the news is as good as she’s made it sound.
***
It’s been really hard to keep a secret like her boyfriend from Jamie. Stacey hates how they have to sneak around at lunch and recess to find a private place. Most of the time she and Darren go to the supply closet on the third floor. There they can manage to kiss and hold hands for a few minutes without the need to worry someone will see them.
The situation isn’t much better at Dr. Mac’s house. Darren’s uncle is always around to give them advice on their presentation or offer them snacks or something. The only way they can be alone is for Stacey to pretend she has to use the bathroom and then wait for Darren to make an excuse to get away from his uncle so he can slip into the bathroom with her.
The best times are when Jamie has her appointments with Dr. Mac. Then at recess Stacey and Darren can sit under the slide and talk. They plan out their whole lives: they’ll get a loft somewhere in the city for their home base. They’ll travel all over the world and perform on stage with Darren playing the piano and Stacey singing. They’ll be richer and more famous than Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber combined. Stacey will have her own horse, maybe even a stable of them, and Darren will have the biggest stereo ever so he can listen to music all the time. Eventually they’ll have two kids: a boy and a girl named Darren Jr. and Qiang after Stacey’s mommy.
Darren hasn’t asked if she wants to go public yet. She’s glad about that because she doesn’t want to have to explain. Mostly Stacey doesn’t want that big meanie Keshia to find out because then she’ll try to steal Darren away. Stacey doesn’t know what she’ll do if that happens, not after she and Darren have planned to grow old together—or at least she’s planned to grow old with him. She has a whole page in her diary to practice her signature as Mrs. Darren Macintosh. Sometimes she just stares at that page for a while and imagines what it will be like, how awesome it will be.
Her phone beeps. There’s a text from Jamie. “Where are you?” Jamie asks.
“At Dr. Mac’s,” Stacey types back. She hates to see both of her doctors a day apart. It’s so unfair.
They talk about last night’s X Factor, which is Stacey’s favorite show after iCarly. Jamie says Stacey should try out in a few years. She would win for sure. That’s what Stacey thinks too. She has to wait for the right time to ask Grandma and Grandpa about it. She knows they won’t be all that enthusiastic about it. They’d never let her go to Hollywood, at least not alone.
The receptionist calls Stacey’s name. She signs off and leaves the phone with Grandma so it can’t interrupt her session with Dr. Mac. Even though they see each other most every day, Dr. Mac still acts like he barely knows her. “Hello, Stacey. Have a seat.”
She takes her seat across from him. She doesn’t know why she has to come here. She’s fine now. Sometimes she can’t even remember what Mommy and Daddy look like. That makes her feel sad until she remembers they’re up in Heaven to watch over her and Maddy.
What she does like is to see the picture of Darren on Dr. Mac’s desk. She tries not to stare too hard at it, but the picture makes her feel like he’s here with them. She sneaks a glimpse at the picture as she sits down and hopes nothing gives her away to Darren’s uncle.
“So how is everything going?” Dr. Macintosh asks.
“Fine.”
“No problems with Keshia?”
“No.”
“Homework not too difficult?”
“No.”
“Project coming along?”
“You know it is. We practice in your house.”
“You think you’ll be ready for it on Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Are you excited?”
“A little.”
“Not a lot?”
“It’s just a couple of minutes. It’s not like being in Hollywood or anything.”
“I see. You want to sing in Hollywood?”
“Maybe someday. When I get bigger.”
“That’s probably a wise decision. So you want to be a singer when you grow up?”
“Or maybe a veterinarian,” she says to throw him off. Grandma Tess says it’s not nice to lie, but sometimes Stacey has to so Dr. Mac won’t find out about her and Darren.
“You like animals?”
“Some.”
“Cats?”
“Yes.”
“Dogs?”
“A little.”
“Horses, I bet. All little girls love horses.”
“They’re OK.”
“Have you ever thought about being a police officer?”
Stacey shakes her head. “That’s for boys.”
“There are a lot of policewomen these days.”
“So? I don’t want to wear some ugly uniform.”
“I see. You want to look pretty?”
“Duh. Girls are supposed to be pretty.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Most girls anyway.”
“Not like Keshia, I bet.”
“She’s not pretty.”
“What about Madison? Is she pretty?”
“I don’t know. She’s a baby.”
“I’m sure she would take issue with that.”
“So? She is a baby. A big fat baby.”
“Do you think your sister is overweight?”
“Duh,” Stacey says again. “Her clothes hardly even fit anymore. Grandma says if Maddy gets any bigger, she’ll need a whole new wardrobe.”
“And does that make her ugly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not? It’s a simple question.”
Stacey squirms in her seat. She hates when Dr. Mac does this to her. She always feels trapped.
She glances at the picture of Darren and wishes he were here to hold her hand. “She’s my sister.”
“I see. That means you can’t judge her like kids in your own class.”
Stacey squirms a little more. It’s hard for her to admit it, but she says, “Maddy is cute. For a baby.”
“That’s good.” Dr. Mac taps his notebook with his pen. That always means he’s about to ask her something hard. “What about you? Are you pretty?”
She thinks about that one. She knows what Darren thinks. He’s said a bunch of times that she’s the prettiest girl at school. But when she looks in the mirror, she isn’t so sure. Other girls don’t have glasses like she does. Their eyes aren’t shaped like footballs either. Except for a few like Keshia, their skin isn’t so brown either. She’s different from the other girls. All the stories they read say being different is good, but she isn’t sure about that either. No one makes fun of you if you’re the same as them, only if you’re different. “I guess so,” she finally says.
“You guess? Shouldn’t you know?”
“Maybe.”
“Do other girls besides Keshia give you a hard time at school?”
“A couple.”
“Do they think you’re pretty?”
“No. They think I’m ugly.”
“Why would they think that?”
“Because I’m different.”
“What makes you different?”
She repeats the list she already went through in her own mind. As she does, Dr. Macintosh nods along, to confirm everything. She decides to turn the tables on him. “Do you think I’m ugly?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To be nice. That’s what grown-ups do. They tell fibs all the time.”
“Do your grandparents fib?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do they fib about?”
“That we aren’t poor.”
“Why do you think they lie about that?”
“So they won’t make us feel bad.”
“Does it make you feel bad to think you’re poor?”
“Sometimes,” Stacey admits. “Sometimes I wish we could afford lots of nice things like you and Jamie have. And if we had more money Grandpa wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
“Does he work too hard?”
“I hardly see him anymore. He’s always in his study or at work. He’s not even around to tuck Maddy in at night.”
“What about your grandma?”
“She works hard too. Especially when Maddy is being a brat.”
“And I’m sure you’re never a brat, right?”
Stacey looks down at her feet. She hates the way Dr. Mac does this to her, to make her feel bad about things she hardly thinks about. “Sometimes. But most of the time it’s Maddy’s fault. Like the other day I wanted to watch iCarly and she wouldn’t change the channel.”
“And then what happened?”
“I took the remote. The stupid baby went and told Grandma and she sent us both to bed.”
“Did that make you angry?”
“A little. I watched it the next day at Jamie’s house so it was OK.”
“Did Madison get to watch her program?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t care?”
“She probably didn’t want to watch it anyway. She just didn’t want me to watch my show.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s a brat, like I said.”
“I see. Do you love her?”
“What?”
“Your sister. Do you love her even though she is a brat?”
“Yes,” Stacey admits. “Can I go now?”
“Almost.” He reaches beside him to take out a hand mirror. He passes it over to her. “What do you see in the mirror?”
“Me.”
“I see. Let’s pretend for a moment. Let’s pretend we’re strangers. How would you describe yourself to me?”
“Um, well, I’m four feet tall and I’ve got black hair—”
“That’s your physical appearance. I can see all that. Describe what I can’t see.”
“Oh.” Stacey stares harder at the mirror. As she stares into her eyes, something weird happens: they turn blue. Not just blue, but round as well, like the other kid’s eyes. Like in a nightmare her whole face changes: her skin turns pale white and her hair goes from black to a dark red that’s curly and pretty. Her cheeks turn slimmer while her nose gets longer. This face is older than hers, a grown-up’s face.
She yelps and then tosses the mirror into Dr. Mac’s lap. She curls up in the chair and whimpers like Maddy. She feels his hand on her shoulder. “Stacey? What happened? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Stacey mumbles into the cushions.
“It wasn’t nothing,” he says. “Let’s talk about it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Stacey, that’s not a big girl answer, is it?”
“I don’t care.”
Dr. Mac sounds more like Grandpa as he says, “Young lady, sit up right now.”
Though she doesn’t want to, Stacey obeys. She won’t look at the doctor; she stares down at the floor. He hands her a tissue to wipe at her eyes with. “Thanks.”
“Now let’s talk about it. What did you see?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Stacey gathers her courage. Dr. Mac will think she’s gone crazy. “At first it was me. Then my face started to change.”
“How?”
“My eyes turned blue and my hair turned red.”
“I see. Go on.”
“And then I looked in the mirror and there was this pretty lady instead of me.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“No. I never saw her before.”
“You say she had blue eyes and red hair?”
“Yes.”
“What else do you remember about her?”
“Her hair was curly and really pretty. Her skin was white. She didn’t have stupid glasses either.”
“And she wasn’t a little girl like you?”
“No. She was a grown-up.” Stacey looks up at Dr. Macintosh. He writes in his notebook, probably that she’s crazy and needs to go to the hospital. “Do you know her?”
“No, I don’t.” He leans forward in his chair. “But I bet if you think hard enough you’ll know who she is.”
They end the session like that. Stacey goes out to Grandma Tess. She hugs her grandma; she needs to feel the warmth of someone’s body at the moment. Grandma strokes Stacey’s hair and asks, “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Nothing,” she says. She pulls away from Grandma and then waits for Maddy to end her session; she counts the moments until she can hug Darren again.
Chapter 35
The company doesn’t like Dr. Palmer to bring outsiders into the lab. They especially don’t like her to bring a cop like Jake Madigan in. Lennox Pharmaceuticals has a code of ethics, but adherence to that is optional. It’s more important to get results.
Dr. Palmer doesn’t care if she offends the Lennox big shots, not for the Madigans. It was a Lennox project that had put them into this bizarre situation, so they have a right to know what’s going on. When the big shots balked to give Jake and Tess access to the lab, she had gone to them and said they could let the Madigans in or else she would go to the media to tell them how over a year ago the company had tried to buy back its own formula from a notorious gangster.
She doesn’t feel bad about that as she ushers them inside. Jake looks just as frazzled as Tess, both of them in dire need of a vacation. “When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” she asks him.
“Probably during the Carter administration,” Jake says. “I’ll be fine once the coffee kicks in.”
Dr. Palmer doesn’t say anything to that. She’s not J
ake’s doctor. If she were, she would tell him that he’s not a young man anymore; if he wants to live to see the girls grow up, he’d better start to take care of himself.
She ushers them through the last security checkpoint. Dr. Palmer has tried to tighten security since she learned someone had given away Lennox secrets to Dr. Ling. The company did full background checks on everyone—including her—and doubled the number of cameras in the building. There’s also a new digital security system on the computers to prevent someone from hacking into the network. It might be a lot of wasted effort since Ling died, but even with Ling dead, there are still plenty of competitors who would pay a lot of money to find out what goes on in the lab.
The lab hasn’t changed much since the security upgrades. There are more cameras, but the equipment is all still the same. She motions Jake and Tess to stools by a counter in the center of the room. She made sure someone cleared off the counter before she brought the Madigans up here; no sense to show them things they don’t need to see.
“OK, before I show you our big breakthrough, I want to give you a little background first. There are certain diseases that can cause the body to age at a more advanced rate. That’s what we’ve been looking into in order to help the girls.”
“You’re going to give them a disease?” Tess asks.
“In a way. We’re going to trigger the same reaction the disease does. The main difference is we’ll be able to stop the reaction, kind of like flicking a light switch.”
“That sounds pretty fantastic,” Jake says.
“I thought you might be skeptical. That’s why I arranged to have the proof brought in here.” She goes over to another counter, where there’s an object covered with a towel. Like a magician, Dr. Palmer pulls the towel away to reveal a white rabbit.
“That’s going to change the girls back?”
Dr. Palmer brings the rabbit’s cage over to the counter and sets it down in front of the Madigans. For its part, the rabbit shuffles around the cage; its ears and nose twitch. “As you can see, this is a fully grown, adult rabbit.”
“That’s very nice, dear,” Tess says. She sounds like Dr. Palmer is one of her girls showing her a pretty picture she colored.
“Now here’s the thing: this rabbit was born two weeks ago.”
That finally gets their attention. Their eyes go wide as they look to her and then the rabbit. “You can’t be serious,” Jake says. “Is this some kind of trick?”
Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Page 49