Going Through the Change

by Samantha Bryant

  “But how is this happening? How can this even be possible?” Mary asked.

  Helen considered. Should she tell her daughter about Dr. Liu and the pills? She looked at her daughter. Mary was an open-minded person in a lot of ways, but she was also very sure of what was right and wrong. But, still, if she didn’t tell Mary, who was she going to tell? It was all so amazing and exciting. Truthfully, she was dying to tell.

  “So, do you remember those pills you got for me?”

  hen Leonel called the next morning and asked if Jessica would like to get some breakfast, Jessica jumped at the chance. The boys were at their respective schools for the morning, so she was free until it was time to pick up Max at noon.

  They had gone to a favorite breakfast place of Jessica’s, where she had eaten her usual egg-white only omelet with feta cheese and smoked salmon. Leonel had ordered the steak and eggs with a stack of pancakes on the side and the fruit bowl. Jessica’s eyes had goggled at the amount of food surrounding her new friend.

  Gesturing at the array of dishes, Leonel shrugged sheepishly. “I’m hungry today.” Then he leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “Maybe I’m pregnant!” He widened his chocolate-brown eyes and covered his generous mouth in a dramatic gesture. Jessica struggled to swallow her orange juice around her laughter, half-choking in the process. It was worth it, though. She hadn’t laughed like that in ages.

  Leonel and Jessica chatted amiably for several minutes, exchanging stories about their children and husbands. She was surprised to realize that Leonel was a grandparent! He seemed so young.

  “David and I married young,” he said simply. “I was only eighteen when our first child came to us.”

  Leonel pulled out a brand new wallet, its newness contrasting with the worn softness of his flannel shirt, and flipped through the pictures in the back to show a picture of their oldest child, Lupita, and their grandchild, Carlitos.

  Somewhere in the middle of the meal, a silence fell on the table. Jessica’s mind drifted into her problems. Unconsciously, she shifted in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position where the weight belt didn’t push into her back. She had hardly dared to remove her weights since the incident the day before. It was only Leonel’s quick reaction that had kept her problem from causing grave injury to David. She was a danger to others as well as herself. There had to be something that could be done.

  “What are you thinking, nena?” Leonel had stopped eating and was looking at Jessica with such open sympathy that she couldn’t help but respond.

  “I was thinking about the accident yesterday. We were so lucky you were there! I don’t know what I would have done if my problem had hurt your David.”

  Leonel patted Jessica’s hand. “It wouldn’t have been your fault, cariño. But I am glad I was there, too.”

  A troubled look clouded the handsome man’s face, and Jessica was sure he was imagining David seriously injured. Leonel picked up the coffee mug with both hands and sipped from it. Jessica was struck by the gesture. There was something delicate about it, as if he imagined himself so small that he would need both hands to support the sturdy mug. She sipped from her own juice, considering.

  “My mother has a friend who has offered to help me.”

  Leonel looked at her questioningly, taking another sip from his coffee.

  “She’s an herbalist, some kind of specialist in Chinese medicine.”

  A flicker of something went across Leonel’s face, but he didn’t say anything. Jessica went on to tell him about the conversation on Sunday after her disastrous trip to the grocery store on Saturday. Leonel was a good listener, clucking sympathetically at the right moments, but never interrupting, never stopping her to ask questions or offer ideas. Only when she had finished, her words run completely dry, did he comment.

  “This woman who says she can help you, what’s her name?”

  “Liu. Dr. Cindy Liu.” In her mind, she added, Who was no more than two. Her mother had warned her as a child not to make the Dr. Seuss reference in front of Miss Cindy. She was sensitive about it. But she always thought it.

  Leonel nodded and then looked toward the window, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, thoughtfully, one finger tapping against his temple. Jessica noticed the little streaks of gray running into his long hair, which he wore bound into a low ponytail. She was thinking about his hair might feel in her fingers when he spoke again, startling her.

  His tone was soft, but somehow a little stern. “She lives in my neighborhood. I knew her mother.” He hesitated and then leaned in closer. “I don’t know why, but something about that woman doesn’t feel right. Do you know what I mean?”

  Jessica did. She bit her lip. “But who else can help me? It’s not like I can just go to the doctor for this. They’d think I was crazy. I can’t make it happen on cue, you know. What if I can’t demonstrate? What if I can?”

  Leonel reached across the table and held Jessica’s entire forearm in his warm, soft hand. “Be careful, m’ija.” Catching the eye of the waitress, Leonel pulled out his new wallet again. “Let’s go shopping,” he said. “I need a new shirt.”

  Jessica drove them to the mall, leaving Leonel’s little car in the restaurant parking lot. She couldn’t imagine why such a large man would drive such a small car. Although she had already been inside the restaurant when Leonel had arrived, she could picture him getting out of the car and had to stifle a laugh at the awkwardness of it.

  “Where do you want to start?” Jessica asked, parking at the mall entrance.

  Leonel looked thoughtful. “How about the beauty shop?”

  “Be careful. I’ll take you up on that!”

  “What? I wasn’t kidding. Let’s go!”

  Heads turned as Leonel strode into the salon at the back of the largest department store. They didn’t get a lot of male clients, and certainly few that looked like Leonel, Jessica was guessing. But before the stylist even had him leaning back in the chair, Leonel had her giggling. He was obviously very comfortable in this environment. He even convinced the manicurist to roll her station closer to the hair station so that Jessica could have her nails done while he got a haircut and they could still talk.

  “Not too short, now,” he warned the stylist. “I like my hair long, but maybe you can help me do something with the front. All these layers were a bad idea. I look like Jennifer Aniston.”

  Jessica and her manicurist hardly spoke, both of them transfixed by the sight of this man in his dirty work boots and faded flannel shirt getting an upscale haircut. In fact, Jessica had agreed to the first thing the manicurist suggested and was surprised when she looked down at autumn orange nails. She had never gotten anything besides nude or pale pink before. She spread her fingers, looking at them doubtfully.

  “Let’s see, Jessica.” Leonel gestured for her to come toward him. His head was leaning forward so the stylist could get to the long hair falling between his shoulder blades.

  Jessica obediently splayed her fingers under his gaze.

  “Beautiful!” he declared. “You have lovely hands, and this color suits your skin so well. Good work, Maribel.”

  The manicurist glowed from the compliment.

  When Leonel’s haircut was over, he checked himself out from several angles in the mirror. The soft layers around his face had been shaped into jagged locks that emphasized his strong cheekbones. He looked amazing. “I don’t know. Do you think I’m too old for this?”

  Jessica shook her head wordlessly. Too old? What was he? Forty-five? The stylist gushed about the haircut, even taking a picture with her phone to show her friends. Leonel laughed and posed for the camera like a beauty queen, lips pursed and one hand behind his head.

  “Do you have time to help me pick some clothes?” Leonel asked on the way out of the salon, folding Jessica’s arm over his. Jessica checked her cell phone for the time. She frowned. There wasn’t time before Max’s pickup.

  “Hold on,” she said, taking a few steps away and dialing her
mother. Her mother sounded happy to hear that Jessica was having a good time and readily agreed to pick up Max. Jessica turned back to Leonel and grinned. “Let’s see what we can do about your shirt,” she said.

  They stood in front of the mall directory for a moment, trying to choose a likely store. “Where do you usually shop?” Jessica asked, thinking this might give them a starting point.

  “I haven’t been shopping since―” Leonel stopped speaking suddenly. Jessica would have sworn the man was blushing. He continued, “These clothes came from a thrift store, I think.” He looked down at himself, tugging at the sagging jeans. “I’m not even sure what size I wear.”

  Jessica could tell Leonel didn’t want to explain the clothing situation, so she didn’t ask. Instead, Jessica looked Leonel up and down, walking around him in a circle and stroking an imaginary goatee. “Let’s see, my darling,” she said, putting on an atrocious Russian accent. “Vhat kind of makeover shall we give you? Walk with me!” Jessica snapped her fingers in the air above her head and stalked off, snapping her hips from side to side in an exaggerated wiggle.

  She could hear Leonel chuckling to himself as he followed her. She stopped in front of a store window and leaned into one heel, her hand flared as if she held a cigarette. Loud music blared from the shop, and the air smelled of musky cologne. The mannequins in the window were skeletally thin and posed with their hands in their pockets and their shoulders in a permanent shrug. Leonel stood in front of one of them and adopted the same pose, raising a doubtful eyebrow at Jessica, who fought to stay in character. “No. This simply will not do. Onward!”

  They repeated the scene in front of several storefronts before they found one Jessica deemed worth going inside. Jessica was drawn to a plain black T-shirt made of something very soft and a little bit shiny. It was quite a contrast to the soft flannel Leonel was wearing, but she thought he’d look good in it.

  “Here! Try this one!” she said, pulling an extra large one off the rack and thrusting it into his hands. Jessica spun in a circle looking for some pants to go with the shirt. She found a pair of gray jeans that were neither skinny jeans, nor saggy jeans, but just a sort of straight fit that made her think of cowboys. “With these.” She eyed Leonel and made a quick calculation. She picked up three possible sizes. “One of these should fit. Now scoot!” She shooed him to the fitting rooms, ignoring the bemused sales clerk.

  Once Leonel was inside, the clerk let out a low whistle. “You’re going to have to hold on to this one, honey,” she said.

  “We’re just friends,” Jessica said.

  The clerk raised an eyebrow.

  “He’s married,” Jessica said.

  “All the good ones are.” The clerk sighed dramatically. “Or gay.”

  “Or both,” Jessica offered. It was probably best that he was.

  A half hour later, they had selected six new shirts and pants for Leonel, as well as a pair of boots in soft black leather, a pair of brown semi-dress shoes, and a couple of belts. Leonel shuffled through the credit cards in his wallet, pulled out a card, and laid it on the counter.

  “Linda?” the clerk read, doubtfully.

  “Oh, sorry. Wrong card!” Leonel said, pulling out a card with David L. Alvarez inscribed on the front.

  Jessica looked at the card on the counter. It was the kind with a photo in the corner. The photo was of a pretty Hispanic woman, about fifty years old. Linda Alvarez, it read. Who was Linda? And why was Leonel using a card with David’s name on it instead of his own?

  atricia had not been able to reach Cindy all weekend. She wondered what the woman had been up to that had her so busy she couldn’t return even one of her messages. She had left several, trying everything from text to Facebook. She wanted to know what Cindy had learned from all the samples she had taken the week before. Could she explain yet what was going on with Patricia’s skin?

  Even several days later, she was still reeling from the testing session and the idea that she was bulletproof. Cindy had taken pictures of the area of impact, and there was no sign of damage to the skin. The skin itself was a sort of gray-green and thick as a turtle shell. Cindy had been excited and seemed to think this was something wonderful. Patricia had felt excited, too, infected by Cindy’s enthusiasm when they were in the lab. But it was a different story home alone over the weekend.

  The condition was getting stranger all the time. Besides the plates, there were now these bumps that popped up along her shoulders. They were really large, like golf-ball sized. They seemed to rise up when she became agitated and then go back down. Were they some kind of bizarre allergic reaction? Once, when she had rubbed at them, she had felt a sharp edge, like a spine. It had actually cut her finger, but when she tried to find it again, it was gone.

  On her pillow that morning, Patricia had found little green shiny pieces she couldn’t identify. They resembled nothing so much as scales, like from a fish or a lizard. Or a dragon. She found another one in her hair when she had showered. The scales were in a Ziploc bag in her purse right now. She thought she’d show them to Cindy whenever she managed to get a hold of her.

  She had Suzie call off and on all day Monday. If she didn’t hear from Cindy by lunch today, Patricia figured she would just go over to the house and pound on the door. It occurred to her that Cindy lived alone and worked with a lot of dangerous things in that basement lab of hers. What if she had been injured or exposed herself to something dangerous?

  It had happened before, in the months right after Michael’s death. Cindy had been living in Boston at the time. Patricia had flown in to visit her after an especially worrying phone call in which Cindy sounded both violent and despondent. Cindy hadn’t shown up to pick her up at the airport, and when Patricia had arrived by taxi and let herself in to Cindy’s apartment, she found her passed out on the floor. When she regained consciousness, she admitted it might have been more than two days since she had eaten anything.

  She had been studying all the case information on Michael, convinced the doctors had missed something that could have saved him. She had his body frozen and was sure she could bring him back. Patricia had stayed with her for several days, forcing her to take breaks from her research to eat and sleep.

  So far as Patricia knew, Cindy didn’t have anything going on her lab that would have her working quite that hard, but she still wanted to hear from her friend and be sure that she was all right. She was just considering driving over there when Suzie came in from the adjoining closet they had transformed into a small office for her.

  “She’s all right.”

  Patricia felt relief wash over her. “What did she say?”

  Suzie laughed. “She said it was a rough night, and that she is hung over, but she can meet you for lunch at two o’clock.”

  Hung over? Cindy was not a drinker. In fact, she was usually very careful about what she ate and drank. She was always lecturing Patricia about the toxins in the things she ate and how bad processed foods were for you. She wanted to hear this story. “Make us a reservation at Lupe’s,” she told Suzie.

  At two-fifteen, Cindy walked through the door at Lupe’s, wearing a pair of sunglasses even though the day was overcast. She grimaced when the door flopped closed behind her with a smack. Patricia could see she was being honest about the hangover. She was moving like she could hear the air circulating.

  Putting aside the desire to tease her friend about behaving like a teenager, she kindly gestured the waiter over and asked for a pot of jasmine tea. Lupe’s Restaurant used loose-leaf tea in beautiful ceramic pots. She knew Cindy would approve.

  “Don’t you have any of the Hangover Relief stuff you used to sell in college?” Patricia asked, keeping her voice soft. When they were in school together, Cindy had financed a trip to Mardi Gras by selling a homeopathic remedy for hangovers. There was a lot of demand for it on a college campus.

  Cindy let the glasses slide to the end of her nose, and Patricia could see how red her eyes were. “I can’t take it now.
It won’t work on me.”

  That was odd. “Won’t work on you? Why not?”

  “It’s a metabolism thing. Let’s just say it will interact badly with the other things in my system.” Cindy was being evasive, and that was often a bad sign.

  Patricia was growing more worried by the moment. Other things in her system? Was her friend polluting her body with drugs? “What are you up to, Cindy?” she asked, keeping her tone light though her thoughts had gone dark.

  “No good,” she responded. “Like usual. Like you.” It was an old joke for them.

  Patricia smiled. “Situation normal then?”

  Cindy nodded and then gripped her head. The motion must have made her head hurt anew.

  Patricia patted her hand. “Were we drinking alone?”

  “No, I was celebrating with a new friend.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ha!” The laugh was loud and made Cindy’s face turn green. “Ow! His name is Helen. She’s not that kind of friend.”

  “So, what were we celebrating?”

  “Success. She’s been participating in one of my experiments, and things are under control and looking promising.”

  Patricia was quiet for a moment. Her own experiment with Cindy, on the patches on her back, was far less successful, and she really wanted to talk to her about that, but it seemed selfish to bring it up right now when her friend was not feeling well.

  “Did I tell you I got another intern?”

  “Oh, no. Have you made her cry yet?”

  “This one is actually pretty good, though she is awfully blonde and cute.”

  They chatted happily for an hour or so. The tea seemed to help a little with Cindy’s headache. Patricia thought she would just wait for another day to talk to her friend about her skin. Today, she needed to just be a friend.