“What…?” Bewildered, Claire stripped off the smock and unbuttoned several buttons of her white blouse. Underneath was the same pink T-shirt Brooke Jordan had been wearing on the magazine cover.
“Are you wearing her capri pants too?” Jill reached for the waist of her black dress pants, but Claire danced instinctively away, then paused and undid them herself.
“Holy Jeez,” Jill breathed as baby blue linen was revealed poking up from under her white lace panties. “You’re wearing her capri pants, too.”
“I can’t be,” Claire said faintly, then finished stripping her own clothes away until she stood there in a pink T-shirt, blue capri pants and Brooke Jordan’s face. She stared at herself in the mirror with bewilderment.
“You’re a dead ringer.”
“But how?” Claire asked faintly. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course, it does. It makes perfect sense. It’s the destabilizer,” Jill said triumphantly, then tilted her head and asked, “Do you think Kyle would let me try it out? Just imagine what I could—”
“It can’t be the destabilizer,” Claire argued. “It’s supposed to cause a chameleon effect. The ability to change skin tone, not shape.”
Jill paused to consider that, then suggested, “Well maybe you haven’t really changed shape. Maybe you’re still under there and it’s just like a painting over your skin.”
Catching Claire by surprise, Jill suddenly reached out and began to feel her face. A frown immediately tugged at her lips. “This doesn’t feel like your face.”
“What do you mean?” Alarmed by the statement, Claire put her own hands to her face once more, but this time doing more than just touching her cheeks. She began to explore her face like a blind person examining features.
“Your nose should be turned up,” Jill pointed out. “You have the cutest little turn at the end, but Brooke has a straight nose, kind of Roman. Your nose feels Roman now. I guess it isn’t just a chameleonlike painting on your face.”
Claire immediately shifted her fingers to her own nose. It didn’t feel like her nose. It was too straight.
“You’ve actually changed shape,” Jill said, then brightened. “Like a shape-shifter. The destabilizer made you a shape-shifter! How did you do it?”
“I didn’t,” Claire said faintly as she tried to absorb what had happened to her. “John did.”
“Not that!” Jill said swiftly, then waved to her face and body. “This. How did you…you know…shift?”
“I don’t know,” Claire admitted, glancing down at herself with bewilderment. “I just stared at the picture thinking that Kyle might be more interested in me if I looked like her…and wishing that I did…look like her, I mean.”
“I’ve told you and told you, Claire. Kyle likes you as you are,” Jill insisted, then paused, frowned, and amended, “Well, he did like you…as you were.”
Claire blinked at the correction, anxiety crowding in at what it suggested.
“Never mind.” Jill waved the problem of Kyle away and snatched up the magazine she’d tossed on the counter. “Here, look at another model and see if you can do it again.”
“I don’t think I can,” Claire admitted. “I don’t know how I did it the first time.”
“Just try,” Jill insisted, leafing through several pages before settling on a short-haired blond. “Here. Do her.”
“Jill, I—”
“Try,” Jill ordered.
Claire hesitated, then peered down at the blond. She was beautiful, with full red lips and big green eyes. Claire took the magazine from Jill and concentrated on the picture, trying to put herself in the same frame of mind she’d been in earlier while looking at Brooke…Trying to drum up the same longing to be so beautiful and attractive to the opposite sex…To Kyle.
“Oh my Gawd!!” Jill squealed suddenly.
Concentration broken, Claire glanced up. “Did it work?”
Kyle’s sister nodded dumbly.
Claire turned to the mirror and found herself staring at yet someone else’s face; this time, the blond with short cropped hair and large red lips. Her body shape and clothing had also changed, her breasts appearing larger as they pushed up out of the strapless black blouse she was now wearing with black satin pants.
“How do you do the clothes?” Jill asked with amazement, reaching out to touch the pants.
“I don’t know,” Claire admitted. “It must be me. I mean the pink T-shirt and capri pants were under my own clothes.”