“You look exactly like her. Exactly,” Jill breathed with awe. “Right down to her clothes.”

  Claire blinked, then switched her gaze to her body. At first, she didn’t understand what Jill was talking about. She was still wearing the white smock and black pants she’d left work in. Then Claire noticed the pink collar of a T-shirt was visible under the open neckline of her white blouse and smock.

  “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.”

  “You mean…like this is you?” Jill asked, touching the satin. “Your cells?”

  “It must be,” Claire repeated faintly. It was the only thing that made sense. They weren’t really clothes at all, just her body shifting and changing color to look like them. The chameleon effect was there after all. It just wasn’t alone—the ability to shift her shape was there as well.

  Jill nodded slowly, then stiffened and said, “Hang on!”

  She glanced around with confusion as Jill rushed out of the bathroom. Claire had no idea where the other woman was going, but couldn’t seem to care much at the moment. Her poor mind was struggling to accept her new abilities. She peered at herself in the mirror with fascination until she heard Jill cursing and the sound of thumping and drawers and door slamming in the room across the hall, Jill’s bedroom.

  Claire started out of the bathroom, then paused to snatch up her clothes. The last thing she needed was for Kyle to come home and stumble over her bra and panties in the bathroom.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Claire asked with amazement as she entered Jill’s room to find it in chaos. Jill was a whirlwind, rushing about her room, searching drawers and closets and tossing things willy-nilly. “What are you trying to find?”

  “I had a magazine here,” Jill explained, kneeling to look under her bed. “I know I put it—aha!”

  Claire raised her eyebrows at this triumphant cry as Jill dragged a magazine out from under the bed and got back to her feet. It was a celebrity magazine, she saw as Jill began to leaf through it. Suddenly, her friend paused, folded the magazine over, and thrust it forward.

  “Try this.”

  Claire tossed her clothes on the bed and took the magazine. She peered down at the picture it was open to and blinked, then glanced up, asking with disbelief, “Brad Cruise?”

  Jill nodded. “Yes.”

  “But he’s a guy,” Claire protested, which was something of an understatement. Brad Cruise wasn’t just a guy. He was the guy. He was the male equivalent of Brooke Jordan. He was also the biggest action movie star of their time, raking in double-digit millions for each role he took. The most familiar face in film, Brad Cruise was the man women lusted after and men would kill to be.

  “No. Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Jill said sarcastically, then smacked her in the forehead and said, “Duh!”

  Claire rolled her eyes and shoved the magazine back at her. “I can’t do it.”

  “Oh, come on. How do you know until you try? You’ve changed into Brooke and the blond, you can do this,” Jill said encouragingly.

  “I shifted into Brooke and the blond by wanting to be them,” Claire argued. “They’re women; beautiful, successful women. Brad is a guy. G…U…Y. Guy. Male. A man. The opposite sex. I have no desire to be a man.”

  “Think Freud. Think penis envy,” Jill said quickly.

  “I don’t have penis envy,” Claire assured her.

  “Oh, come on,” Jill pleaded. “Just try. Just—imagine it. Being Brad Cruise; feted and adored by everyone. Rich beyond your wildest dreams. Just try. Please. For me.”

  Claire blew her breath out with exasperation, then sighed. “Fine. I’ll try. For you.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Jill gave her a quick hug, then stepped back, nodded, and said with excitement, “Go on…Do it.”

  Claire shook her head and peered down at the picture, sure she wouldn’t be able to do it. For one brief moment, she’d had a real longing to look like Brooke. As for the blond, Claire had even managed a little excitement and interest in looking like her, but Brad Cruise…? She just didn’t really have any desire to become him, though she supposed it might be interesting. Sighing inwardly, she concentrated on the picture, noting the features, the shape, the…

  “Holy shit.”

  Claire glanced up when Jill breathed those two words. One look at her wide, round eyes was enough to make Claire head back to the bathroom to peer at herself in the mirror.

  “Wow,” Claire breathed as she stared at Brad Cruise’s reflection looking back at her. Rugged good looks, short, tousled light brown hair, and the same black suit the man had worn in the magazine photo. It was as if he’d stepped right out of the page and into the room. Only he hadn’t. It wasn’t Brad Cruise she was staring at, it was herself.

  “Yeah.” Jill sighed, following her into the bathroom. “Wow.”

  Claire’s gaze narrowed at the sudden spark in her friend’s eyes; a spark that was usually reserved for members of the opposite sex.

  “Oh yeah.” Jill walked around Claire, her eyes sweeping over her body in the suit. “This is incredible. You look just like him.”

  “Yeah,” Claire agreed dryly. “I look like him, but it’s still me in here.”

  Jill stopped behind her and peered at their reflection in the mirror. “Oh, wow, look!! It’s me and Brad Cruise. I gotta get a picture of this. All those women at the reunion tonight would just eat their hearts out.”

  “I thought you weren’t going,” Claire reminded, then shook her head as Jill started out of the room, but her friend had barely taken a step into the hall before stopping abruptly and whirling back.

  “What?” Claire asked warily.

  “I have an idea,” Jill said slowly.

  Claire noted the mounting excitement on her face and began to shake her head. Excitement and ideas were a bad mix with Jill. “No.”

  “You don’t even know what it is,” Jill protested.

  “I don’t need to, Jill. I know that look. It’s the look that always got me in trouble when we were teenagers,” Claire said. Her mouth tightened when Jill’s shoulders drooped and her face took on a pathetic, dejected cast. It was the look that always got her. Knowing she would regret it, Claire sighed and asked, “What is it?”

  Jill hesitated, then blurted, “Be my date for the reunion tonight?”

  Claire blinked. “What?”

  “Be my date. Like that,” Jill explained, gesturing to her Brad Cruise guise.

  “Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Claire said, shaking her head.

  “Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” Jill countered quickly, then clapped her hands together as if in prayer and begged, “Please? Please Claire? It could be fun.”

  “Fun?” she echoed with disbelief.

  “Yes, fun. Just think about it,” Jill said. “Magda the bitch would eat her heart out. For once in life, we would have it over her.”

  Claire grimaced at the idea of Magda the bitch. A Barbie doll look-alike with blond hair and boobs, she’d had everything…Except personality, compassion, and heart. Magda had been a devoted subscriber to the belief that when you looked as good as she did, you just didn’t have to be nice. More than that, she’d gone out of her way to be cutting and cruel to anyone she’d felt beneath her on the food chain…which had been everyone in the school who wasn’t male and on the football team. Claire seriously doubted the woman had improved with age. The idea of Magda’s distress if Jill walked into the reunion on the arm of Brad Cruise really had some charm to it.

  “And then there’s Ted,” Jill said, adding to her argument. “He’d eat his heart out, too.”

  “Ted?” Claire asked with confusion. “He didn’t even go to our high school. Why would he be there?”

  “He’ll be there with Magda. It’s why he had to end it today rather than wait until the very last minute, like the day of the wedding…or maybe months after,” she added.

  “Magda won the ‘Ted’s wife lotto’?” Claire asked with horror. “She was the other finalist?”

  Jill nodded, stone-faced. “After he told me he was dumping me, I was foolish enough to ask if he couldn’t at least attend the reunion with me tonight and he told me about Magda.”

  “I can’t believe he told you about Magda,” Claire gaped. “He’s got some balls, that guy. What if you tell her everything tonight?”

  Jill snorted. “He knows I won’t. Magda would just sneer and point out that she—of course—won him from me and I was a loser…again.”

  Magda had made something of a hobby of stealing other girls’ boyfriends in school. She’d stolen Jill’s prom date a week before the prom, then gone on to steal Claire’s prom date on the actual night of the prom after he and Magda were crowned Prom King and Queen.

  Claire pressed her lips together, then nodded. “Okay. We’ll do it. We’ll go to the reunion and rub Magda and Ted’s face in it. But only because I love you like a sister, and only this once.”

  “Only this once,” Jill agreed, then squealed and hugged her. “Oh, you’re the greatest.”

  Claire smiled wryly as she patted Jill’s back. “Yeah, yeah. Now, we have another problem.”

  “What’s that?” Jill asked, pulling back to peer at her.

  “How do I change back into myself?” Claire asked quietly.

  Jill stared at her blankly, then frowned. “You…well…” She brightened suddenly. “I have tons of pictures of you. You can look at one and turn back.”

  Jill rushed out of the room, leaving Claire to turn and survey herself in the mirror. In the picture of Brad Cruise, he’d had a serious case of five o’clock shadow going on. Claire now had that case herself. Curious, she lifted a hand and ran it over her cheek and chin, grimacing at the scrape of short hair against her fingers. Man, this was so weird…but kind of cool.

  “Here.” Jill hurried back in and started to hold out a picture, then pulled it back. “Wait, first try to do it without the picture.”

  “Without it?” Claire asked with surprise.

  “Well, sure. I mean it is your body. Just close your eyes and concentrate on being you again. Just think ‘I want to be me,’” Jill suggested.

  “Isn’t that a song?” Claire asked with amusement.

  “Will you concentrate,” Jill said with irritation. “Just try to change.”

  Sighing, Claire closed her eyes and concentrated on being herself. She didn’t have a picture to think of; she didn’t need one. She had lived with her face and body for years.

  “Ooops.”

  Claire blinked her eyes open as she felt a soft towel being wrapped around her.

  “I guess the clothes you were wearing really were you,” Jill said with a shrug, holding the towel together until Claire reached up to take over the task.

  Jill had wrapped a bath towel around her shoulders. Claire shifted it under her arms and wrapped it around herself sarong style. She was completely and utterly nude under the towel, which meant that the pink T-shirt and blue capri pants, the black satin dressy outfit, and the man’s black suit had been purely her. That seemed kind of weird.

  Both women stiffened at the sound of the front door opening.

  “I’m back! Claire? Jill?”

  Claire was the first to break out of her surprise. Suddenly aware of her nudity, she quickly pushed the bathroom door closed.

  “Hello?” Kyle apparently heard the door close, his voice now came from somewhere in the hall.

  “Yes?” Claire called. “Hello.”

  “Claire?” Kyle asked, his voice now right outside the door.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay? What are you doing?”

  Hearing the worry in his voice, she said quickly, “I’m fine. I’m…I’m in the bath.”

  When Jill’s eyebrows rose at her choice of activity, Claire gestured to her attire. She was in a towel and her clothes were in Jill’s bedroom, Claire could hardly tell Kyle she was just using the loo. He might wait in the hall until she came out so that he could see for himself that she was okay. He seemed terribly worried about her, and had every right to be. The destabilizer had affected her after all.

  “Bath?” Kyle sounded surprised, then asked, “Where’s Jill?”

  Claire’s eyes widened on her friend.

  “She’s…er…”

  “At the store,” Jill suggested in a whisper.

  “She’s at the store,” Claire said dutifully.

  “Damn it. She was supposed to watch you,” Kyle sounded irritated. “What if something had happened?”

  “She only went a minute ago…to the corner store. She’ll be right back,” Claire assured him. “She could hardly watch me in the bath any more than you would.”

  “Right.”

  Claire heard Kyle’s sigh through the door. Silence followed, then he cleared his throat and said, “Maybe that’s for the best. I wanted to ask you something.”

  Claire and Jill raised their eyebrows at each other.

  There was more throat-clearing, then Kyle said, “I was wondering…”

  “Yes?” Claire prompted when he hesitated, and found herself taking a step closer to the door as she waited.

  “Look,” he said abruptly. “Would you go to the reunion with me tonight?”

  Claire froze, sure her heart briefly stopped, then she swallowed and asked, “So you can watch me? Or as your date?”

  There was a moment of silence, then Kyle asked, “Would you be interested in being my date?”

  Claire hesitated, afraid to say yes and then learn that it wasn’t what he’d intended.

  “You don’t have to answer that. It isn’t fair when I haven’t given you any indication of my feelings,” he said before she could decide how to answer him. “Look, I really suck at this kind of thing. I’m great with beakers and bunnies, but personal relationships are just kind of beyond me in some ways…But…Claire, I like you. I’ve liked you for the longest time. Since we were twelve years old and you were pestering me about the science kit my parents bought me for Christmas. I even almost asked you out in high school, but you were dating that football guy.”