Kim Harrison - Dates From Hell

Claire stared at her, taking a minute to realize she was suggesting the woman who had entered must have picked it up. Frowning over the possibility, Claire moved to press her face to the crack on one side of the door. Jill promptly crowded up next to her to peer out the crack on the other side.

Claire had a pretty good view of the girl through the crack as she turned off the taps and walked over to the hand drier, good enough to see that she wasn’t carrying any pictures in her hand. There didn’t appear to be any pockets in the form-fitting black dress the woman was wearing either, she noted.

Claire was about to pull away from the crack and kneel to give the floor of the next booth a more thorough look over, when Kyle gave a “psst.” Both she and Jill glanced over their shoulders to find he’d stood up on the toilet to look out at the room. Obviously he’d seen something they’d missed, for he was gesturing down toward his feet. Claire glanced down, didn’t see anything and glanced back up to find Kyle pointing toward the door.

Claire turned back to her crack and peered out, this time focusing on the woman’s legs, then feet. At first she didn’t see anything, then as the girl finished at the hand drier and turned to walk out of the room, her eyes widened incredulously at the sight of the folded magazine photo stuck to the bottom of one high-heeled shoe.

“That is so me,” Claire muttered as the doorclosed behind the girl with the picture-bearing shoe.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, stepping off the toilet. It left him standing behind her, his chest against her back in the small space.

“ I’m usually the girl with the toilet paper trailing behind her on her way out of the bathroom,” Claire explained with a wry twist of her lips.

“Yeah well, she’s walking out with my date under her heel,” Jill said with disgust. “Kind of like Magda with Ted under her thumb.”

“Maybe,” Kyle commented. “But I can’t think of a guy more deserving of Magda than Ted. God, what an arrogant ass he turned out to be.”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed. “And I thought I had bad taste.”

“Thank you very much,” Kyle said with amusement and Claire flushed.

“I meant other than you, of course,” she amended. “Most of the guys I’ve dated—aside from you—have been total turds like Ted.”

“Thank you very much for pointing out what bad taste I have,” Jill said shortly.

“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Claire said quickly.

“Yeah. He had me fooled, too, Jill,” Kyle assured her.

Slightly mollified, Jill sighed and gestured Claire out of the way. “Back up. I’ll go get the other picture. God! Why couldn’t it have been your picture she walked out with?”

“Well I’m glad it was Brad,” Claire countered, backing into the small bit of space between the toilet and the side wall to leave room for Kyle and Jill to juggle around and get the stall door open. “I’m already Brad Cruise.”

“Hardly,” Jill snorted, managing to struggle her way out of the booth.

Claire frowned as the stall door swung closed on her back, then turned to Kyle to ask, “What does she mean, ‘hardly’?”

Kyle hesitated, his expression pained.

Jill’s voice came from the stall next door. “You’re only half changed.”

Claire’s head jerked sideways at the announcement and then she tugged the stall door open and hurried to the mirror over the sink to peer at her reflection.

“Oh my God,” Claire breathed with horror. Some of the features staring back at her were her own. She was looking at her green eyes and her little turned-up nose, but they rested above Brad Cruise’s mouth and chin with the five o’clock shadow. Her hair was a strange mix of short light brown hair and long red waves, and her body…well…it was a mishmash of Brad and Claire. She had the jacket and pants from his suit, but the pants ended above her knees and she also had boobs. They didn’t go well with the bulge between her legs that was his “package.”

“This is a nightmare,” she breathed, no longer caring which picture it was so long as it was a whole somebody. She could not leave the bathroom looking like this, and while she could turn back to herself without a picture, she would be naked.

“It’s all right,” Kyle murmured, slipping out of the stall to pat her back as he met her gaze in the mirror. “We’ll fix it with the other picture.”

“Oh dear.”

Claire turned sharply toward the stalls as Jill came out with the remaining picture in hand. “Oh dear, what?”

“Nothing. It’ll be fine,” Jill said quickly, suddenly picking at the picture, then she paused and said, “Oh no.”

“Oh no? Don’t say ‘oh no.’” Claire started forward to take the picture, but Jill suddenly frowned at her as if just realizing she was out of the stall.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “Get back in the stall! Someone could see you.” Holding the picture out of Claire’s reach, she grabbed her with her free hand and wrestled her into the stall, then slammed the door behind them and sighed.

“Jill?” Kyle asked from the other side of the door and she grimaced, then opened the door again and waved him in. She waited until they were all situated in their original places again before locking the stall door once more.

“Tell me,” Claire ordered grimly.

Jill sighed, then held out the snapshot. Claire snatched it from her hand, peered down and nearly bit off her own tongue. The picture had landed facedown on a wad of gum. The girl who had used the stall must have stepped on it because it had really been worked into the picture. When Jill had tried to pick it away, the image itself had ripped off the photo backing.

“Hell,” Kyle muttered.

“It will be all right,” Jill assured them both as she turned to the door. “Wait here.”

“Wait here?” Claire grabbed at her arm with alarm. “Where are you going?”

“The corner store is only a couple minutes away. I’ll get a fan magazine with a picture of Brad in it and be right back,” she assured her.

“Brad? What about her ? Do you have another picture of her?” Kyle asked with concern.

“No. Unfortunately, we only took the one snapshot,” Jill admitted and Kyle turned back to Claire.

“Can you do it without the picture?”

“No,” she said on a sigh.

“Have you tried?” Kyle asked and Claire smiled faintly, thinking he sounded just like his sister earlier that day when she’d been coaxing her to be Brad Cruise.

“She can turn back into herself, but she’ll end up naked without a picture to look at,” Jill announced.

“Naked?” Kyle’s gaze flickered over her in such a way she thought he might be picturing her that way. And might not necessarily think it was a bad thing.

“What time is it?” Claire asked suddenly.

“I don’t know. Why?” Jill asked with confusion.

“I was just wondering how much of this double date from hell I’ve spent in the bathroom,” she admitted, and Kyle, who had glanced at his wristwatch, now let it drop to his side without telling the time. That long, she thought with a sigh.

“Look, you two wait here and I’ll go get a magazine at the store,” Jill repeated.

“No. Enough of this nonsense,” Kyle said. “She’s not turning back into Brad. She’s supposed to be Claire now.”

“Well she isn’t Claire now, and surely a full Brad is better than a Brad with boobs for getting her out of here?” Jill pointed out. “We can leave, then I’ll take her home and she can change into herself and put on the dress and come back to finish the date with you.”

While the twins continued to argue, Claire peered down at herself with a frown, recalling the incident on the dance floor when she’d accidentally made her boobs grow and then shrink. Could she do it again? Squeezing her eyes closed, she concentrated on making them go away and leaving her flat-chested.