“You really don’t deserve that kind of thing, B,” he went on. “A woman like you shouldn’t let anyone treat her so badly.”
“Oh, you wonderful, wonderful man!” B was obviously about to swim over to him, and over the next few days, I kept wondering what would have happened next if I hadn’t grown larger on the spider plant leaf and then, slowly, slipped backward off it. I landed with a loud splash in the bubbling water between Henry and B. She let out a little shriek and spluttered, while Henry stared at me blankly.
I’d had no control at all over turning back into my own shape, so I wasn’t surprised to find that I was naked, too, although my skin shone in metallic green and blue, and there were still four delicate dragonfly wings on my back, drenched with water and hanging uselessly down.
But that made no difference now.
B was the first to recover from the shock. She coughed and spat out some water. “Oh no, no!” she said indignantly. “It was so nice just now. Perfect! We can do without a weird sort of elf, or something out of Avatar. What’s all this about?”
Yes, what was it all about? I didn’t know either. I didn’t know anything anymore.
The guilty look in Henry’s eyes only made everything worse, and it also made me so angry that I entirely forgot to be embarrassed.
“No idea,” I snapped as I corrected my skin color and got rid of the wings. “Why don’t we ask Henry?”
But Henry wasn’t saying anything. The sight of me had obviously deprived him of speech.
I swam to the side of the pool, climbed out, and marched away, dripping water, past all the other naked figures. My feet were still green, and everyone in the place seemed to be staring at me. Well, let them stare—I could guarantee we’d never meet again!
Why couldn’t I wake up? Where was the door leading into the corridor? I wanted to go home, that was all—I just wanted to go home.
As if someone had turned on a faucet inside me, I began shedding tears. They ran down my cheeks, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Oh, damn it! This was too much! That stupid door had to be somewhere here. Blinded by tears, I felt my way along the wall.
“Liv!” Henry took my forearm in both hands and turned me around to face him. Without stopping to think, I freed myself with the move I’d practiced with Mr. Wu over and over again, until it was part of my flesh and blood. And when Henry immediately made another grab for me, I drove my fist into his sternum. That was the gua tong choy move.
But instead of bending double under the force of my blow, Henry put out his hands and tried mopping the tears off my cheeks. “Livvy, please! Don’t run away.”
He was back in jeans and T-shirt again, and perfectly dry, and that made me furious as well. He obviously had the nerve to think of his outward appearance in this situation, while I was wandering around the place on green feet, naked, soaking wet, and in floods of tears.
To make matters worse, he made a bathrobe appear out of nothing and held it out to me. And yes, there was definitely pity in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that, Liv,” he said softly. “Here, put this on.”
That was the moment when my tears dried up, and I went rigid with fury. It cost me only a tenth of a second to get myself fully clothed and without a hair out of place. I’d even imagined my glasses on. And now at last I could see clearly again: there was a door covered with fabric right beside me.
“There we are,” I replied, and even my voice was rigid—frozen rigid as an icicle. I raised my chin and looked straight into Henry’s gray eyes. “Sorry to have disturbed your rendezvous. I had no idea you fancied older women. She’s terrific, no doubt about it—except maybe for her musical tastes.” Celine Dion was still yowling over the loudspeakers, saying her love was safe in her heart, her heart was still beating, and life went on. How nice for her. “But, hey, you can’t have everything.”
I tossed my hair back, turned on my heel, and flung the door open. I’d studied the art of making a dramatic exit from watching Florence. Stupidly, I had picked the wrong door. This one led into a cupboard full of towels.
Damn it, damn it, damn it! I couldn’t even make a proper exit.
Behind me, Henry said my name again, but before I could turn to face him, I felt heavy pressure on my chest. And then I made a dramatic exit after all, because a gigantic furry ginger paw broke through the domed roof and kicked me out of B’s dream.