Read Online Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult - Free Book Online

name.
    DeeDee appeared in her immaculate jacket, smiling. “You must be Maggie,” she said. “You look just like your mother described you.”
    I wasn’t about to take
that
bait. “Nice to meet you.” I never quite figured out the protocol for this part of the experience—you said hello and then disrobed immediately so that a total stranger could lay their hands on you … and you
paid
for this privilege. Was it just me, or was there a great deal that spa treatments had in common with prostitution?
    “You looking forward to your Song of Solomon Wrap?”
    “I’d rather be getting a root canal.”
    DeeDee grinned. “Your mom told me you’d say something like that, too.”
    If you haven’t had a body wrap, it’s a singular experience. You’re lying on a cushy table covered by a giant piece of Saran Wrap and you’re naked. Totally, completely naked. Sure, the aesthetician tosses a washcloth the size of a gauze square over your privates when she’s scrubbing you down, and she’s got a poker face that never belies whether she’s calculating your body mass index under her palms—but still, you’re painfully aware of your physique, if only because someone’s experiencing it first-hand with you.
    I forced myself to close my eyes and remember that being washed beneath a Vichy shower by someone else was supposed to make me feel like a queen and not a hospitalized invalid.
    “So, DeeDee,” I said. “How long have you been doing this?”
    She unrolled a towel and held it like a screen as I rolled onto my back. “I’ve been working at spas for six years, but I just got hired on here.”
    “You must be good,” I said. “My mother doesn’t sweat amateurs.”
    She shrugged. “I like meeting new people.”
    I like meeting new people, too, but when they’re fully clothed.
    “What do you do for work?” DeeDee asked.
    “My mother didn’t tell you?”
    “No … she just said—” Suddenly she broke off, silent.
    “She said
what
.”
    “She, um, told me to treat you to an extra helping of seaweed scrub.”
    “You mean she told you I’d need twice as much.”
    “She didn’t—”
    “Did she use the word
zaftig
?” I asked. When DeeDee didn’t answer—wisely—I blinked up at the hazy light in the ceiling, listened to Yanni’s canned piano for a few beats, and then sighed.“I’m an ACLU lawyer.”
    “For real?” DeeDee’s hands stilled on my feet. “Do you ever take on cases, like, for free?”
    “That’s
all
I do.”
    “Then you must know about the guy on death row … Shay Bourne? I’ve been writing to him for ten years, ever since I was in eighth grade and I started as part of an assignment for my social studies class. His last appeal just got rejected by the Supreme Court.”
    “I know,” I said. “I’ve filed briefs on his behalf.”
    DeeDee’s eyes widened. “So you’re his lawyer?”
    “Well … no.” I hadn’t even been living in New Hampshire when Bourne was convicted, but it was the job of the ACLU to file amicus briefs for death row prisoners.
Amicus
was Latin for
friend of the court
; when you had a position on a particular case but weren’t directly a party involved in it, the court would let you legally spell out your feelings if it might be beneficial to the decision-making process. My amicus briefs illustrated how hideous the death penalty was; defined it as cruel and unusual punishment, as unconstitutional. I’m quite sure the judge looked at my hard work and promptly tossed it aside.
    “Can’t you do something else to help him?” DeeDee asked.
    The truth was, if Bourne’s last appeal had been rejected by the Supreme Court, there wasn’t much
any
lawyer could do to save him now.
    “Tell you what,” I promised. “I’ll look into it.”
    DeeDee smiled and covered me with heated blankets until I was trussed tight as a burrito. Then she sat down behind me and wove her fingers into my hair. As she massaged my scalp, my eyes drifted shut.
    “They say it’s