Chapter 6 - Once Were Six

A moment later, I thought I heard a creak by the second story steps. Grandma heard it too and started to rise from the bed when I pushed in with, "Does everyone like him more?" I tried to make my words sound nervous and frantic, which wasn't that hard.

She halted her rise as much as she could and drifted back to the edge. "Why would you think that? I mean...we've both said so much about wretched Riona. Bless her, that she may see sense and kindness someday yet. And neither of us could ever choose between the two of you. Riona and Mark will always be our children, no matter what. But you and John are our children too. In ways we never dreamed and dreams we want to share. Alright, sweetie?"

So many things were not alright, even when you looked beyond my current, Lacy situation. But at least I'd bought enough time for Lacy to go upstairs, out of sight, and do heaven-knows-what. For grandma, I tried to mitigate how much anxiety I expressed and assured her it was alright. I could've tried to tell her I felt this or that about John but even though Lacy had unintentionally loaned me her mouth, I wasn't going to put words in it for her.

Before we made our way out of the bedroom, grandma rested a hand on my shoulder and asked in the most polite way possible about what could only be described as "lady troubles". With a frontal shape that always reminded me something was there and clothes that felt more like a costume, I didn't need to be reminded my cousin's body was...female. And I knew enough about her concerns as painful static drifting in the air when her mom second-guessed her prescriptions.

A deep breath and solemnly reiterating, "I'm alright" turned out to be enough.

Mercifully, finally, I was free. The bags on the table had shifted but I was the only one who noticed. At that moment, I didn't even care what Lacy might be up to. I cradled my plate of food and eagerly joined my grandfather in the front room.

He had on a rerun of an 80s detective show. Sitting forward in his plush chair, he looked for all the world like he was a consulting detective on that case trying to sniff out the perpetrator. His hands bent carefully as he lowered them from around his face.

Grandpa dressed the same as he did in all the time I knew him. A newsie cap in plaid off the side for when he went out. Red suspenders clipped to soft, gray pants. Always a nice, cream button-up shirt and a second layer if he felt cold. Leaning towards the couch I slowly approached, he asked, "Welcome back, my dear. Is it still nice out there?"

As I arrived at my regular spot, I paused and reflected on where Lacy usually sat as I considered grandpa's question.

"It's a nice evening", sounded like enough information. "How have you been?"

Sitting down in Lacy's spot with as much sense of grace as seemed normal for her, I slowed the pace of my fork. In the change, I had lost so much weight and all of it felt like it had exited through a transformed digestive system which had only known hunger. Lacy's teeth also felt tender and awkward.

Fortunately, the chicken fell apart so easily that I barely needed to bite. After chewing a while, I realized what the problem was. Through the events, I had kept Lacy's jaw so desperately tense, to the point of grinding, that it had put pressure on my mouth. Pushing into the food, while also doing my best to relax, finally offered some measure of relief from tension. However, I still started coughing after several bites.

Grandma was over and back with a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge before I could even think to get up for some on my own. Sipping gently, I thanked her as they both leaned to watch over me...over Lacy. Their concern was for Lacy. And my concern was what the real Lacy was trying to do at this moment.

"You seem peckish but do take it easy. Is John around?"

On cue, I heard footsteps down the stairs. Tightening Lacy's breath in my throat, I figured this would be weird, one way or the other. From behind the wall, approached what used to be my male reflection in the mirror. Clenched in his hand, he held an empty banana peel with that strange tint.

"Sorry for the delay. I am sooo desperately hungry."

John had on my clothes from earlier. They still appeared damp and a bit disheveled. He looked lean, thinner than me, as though trying to stretch the form of a smaller person into my shape. His voice sounded uncertain with my words, lighter and airier. He didn't sound effete but maybe more androgynous with his inflection. The way he swung his hips seemed like a force of habit.

Soon, grandma had a plate prepared for him and stacked with even more food than I had piled on. He glanced at where I was seated, nodded, and then went for John's usual place. With a snort, grandpa casually inquired if we were competing.

Even though I could've guessed this happenstance, it took a great deal of effort to restrain my shock. After all, this was my cousin, my perfectly normal cousin, finally making an appearance. Only he did so with my face. Everything was normal, but Lacy had decided to flip the coin. No wonder she wanted so many bananas. Likely for the sake of such experimentation.

It was hard to begrudge her wanting to spend an evening like me, but her recklessness was a problem. What was I supposed to do? We had no idea if any of the theories about returning to normal, courtesy of that questionable paranormal forum, were anywhere close to right.

It took just minutes for this John to basically inhale half of his plate and start eyeing mine. He didn't look quite as taffy-stretched and slight as a few minutes ago, but it still seemed like he could use some meat on his bones. At least grandma and grandpa didn't notice he was so slender. Or, if they did, they hadn't gotten up the confidence to ask that John about it.

Shoot, I was already calling him 'John', despite the fact it was clearly Lacy making impetuous decisions with those questionable bananas. I bent forward, in a protective stance, just in case Lacy tried to pilfer something from my plate, like she often would at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.

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Trying to wield her regular voice to respond to grandpa's competition comment, I caught a rogue, long cinder of hair not only sneaking between a bit of chicken and my tongue but taking forever to get to the end of. The twisting, long cough I muffled with Lacy's hand almost turned my shrunken stomach.

It wasn't about the hair. That dumb hair was assaulting me when I woke up like this and Lacy had done her best to wrangle it into a bundle that vented out of sight. I spent a forgettable but tolerable time with hair just as long anyway. It didn't catch me by surprise. But this was the final straw upon my slender, weakened shoulders.

Walking in confusion, confronting my bewildered cousin, being dragged along on ideas and in public and then brought back to the house in a skin that wasn't mine while Lacy slipped mine on to try, with no idea if we could ever fix things. I hated it, but I whimpered plaintively. This was me crying uncle. I did my best and this was my limit.

Before I could ramble about what was actually going on, Lacy pressed my actual body against me. For the sake of our grandparents, she explained, "Lacy's had a rough day. There's something I promised we would talk about. Come on. We'll be right back."

I had half a mind to keep Lacy's butt seated on that couch and just spill what I had bearing down on those poor shoulders. But only half.

For our chat, Lacy picked a location not too far from the master bedroom: the large bathroom. It had a custom, level enclosed shower and bath that our grandparents could just easily walk into. After checking the small hallway, Lacy locked the door and groaned as she eased my behind down on the large, metal hamper.

"I'm sorry. I should've said something but...isn't this better than the alternative?"

Staring at my own face, wielded in shapes and sounds beyond my control, I did my best to project befuddlement and frustration with Lacy's. While folding her arms in a broad, lower loop far from her bust or any other concerning features, I scrutinized, "The alternative?"

Lacy still bore all her little nervous tics, but translated through the filter of my body. She even tried to fix hair that wasn't there. While I straightened with authority, an unfortunate remnant of dad still lodged inside me, she tilted my shoulders in a way her mother sometimes did when preparing for battle. For Lacy, it was at best a way to brush off doubt, like clearing lingering snowfall from your coat.

"Where grandma and grandpa totally freaking see us as me and maybe one of them gets so upset...something bad happens. We both wanted to prevent that. And grandma almost caught me. I had to just about crawl over the basement stairs and I've needed to dust them in forever."

Cupping Lacy's forehead, I urged, "What happened? Why and how?"

For a moment, she tried to cross my legs before flinching and opting for a neutral pose. "I...well. I tried one. It was like banana pudding or stew. Now, we were only guessing before about how it worked..."

I stopped her there and pressed, "We still don't know how it works."

Twisting my hands, she offered, "But we know a little more now. I stripped off my clothes upstairs. And I ate it. Then I put on your clothes. It was weird, the change. I felt like...half like I was drugged and half like someone was stretching me all over. All of me. I got dressed and hoped nothing weird would happen to me. God, I am still sooo hungry. I could take on one of those eating challenges they show on cable." She barely pulled back some slobber at the end.

Cupping the taut, crinkly embers of Lacy's bound hair at her forehead, while trying not to dislodge any, I sucked in a breath and told her, "We could both be screwed. Or trapped or whatever. But well, I guess I put on your cleaning gloves for the bathroom when all this started. That...suggests...with so much assumed, if you put on or possess clothing of someone else...you become them?"

Lacy had used that wild supposition. And thank goodness the banana didn't consider the floor or the hamper as owners of the clothes. Or rather it didn't have rules like that. I tried to shake off the notion of the tinted bananas as some conscious party to all this. The initial insanity still pursued me, despite the fact we were so far past it.

"Anyway. What do we do now? You pretend to be me and I pretend to be you and we just decorate the front door and wear our absurdly-real costumes for the kids?" Granted, Lacy could just put on my karate gi or I could wear it, although it might look sloppy or too suggestive with Lacy's shape.

Lacy cocked her head instead of simply nodding but the implication was clear: She wanted this for Halloween. Maybe she'd always wanted to be me for Halloween. And more. But that wasn't a thought I sought to pursue to its endpoint. Lacy was Lacy and I was John. She could be whatever she wanted but that came with the assumption we weren't trading bodies or lives or whatever else she might have kicking around in her head. But the clothing we bought didn't make sense.

Softly, she finally answered, "Maybe...just for tonight? It could work. And if it doesn't go the way people say in twenty-four hours, we have spare bananas and two tests already. That means five chances to make it right. More than enough." I wasn't sure if she was exuding confidence or a clammy mix of my drying clothes and the tangle of normal bathroom aromas, but I really wanted to believe her and that she'd put some degree of thought into this plan. A degree of warning me ahead of time would've helped though.

Before letting her feet underneath me go slack against the bathroom tile, I pressed her about the safety of the remaining bananas. In all the confusion of bags and sneaking, I had forgotten but suspected she kept them.

"I left them...ummm..."

Lacy's heart just about started banging through my temple and I worried that a vague haunting of stomach unease might stretch into a sharp, nervous pain and require me to actually use the nearby toilet. But Lacy held my hand up and assured me, a moment later, "I was gonna leave them with the other bananas but, to be safe, I set them in the candy bowl. Grandma would never throw food away anyway."