An Imperfect Witch (13 page)

He didn’t miss the tensing of Josh’s shoulders—or that the guy clearly didn’t want to talk about it.  Maybe Lauren was on to something.  “Everyone likes you, and they’re worried, and since men can’t be fixed by chocolate ice cream, they fret.”

“I like ice cream.”  Josh grinned wryly.  “But taking this conversation any further is going to make us both squirm.”

Hell, yeah.  And he spied Maria coming across the room.  “Think I’m going to do some Christmas shopping instead.”

“Now?”  Josh looked like a deer spotting headlights.  “It’s only the end of October.”

Dev grinned and picked up the red speakers.  Maybe he did have a purpose here after all.  “Let me school you in the ways of women, oh young and foolish one.  If you don’t have stuff by Thanksgiving, they will make you go to
stores
.  To
shop.
”

Josh winced.  And then looked over at Maria, desperate hope in his eyes.  “Maybe she’ll do us a package deal.”

Dev grinned.  There was more than one way to give a guy’s relationship a little helping hand. 

And then he’d report back.  Situation, definitely brewing.

-o0o-

Lizard Monroe wasn’t a voluntary poet.  And as she stepped onto the stage, she cursed the persistent, relentless voice that would never let her quit.

She looked around at the blur of faces tucked in behind the two scraggly spotlights that shone on the performers.  Whispers moved around the shadows of the pub—they knew her here.

Her two best-kept secrets.  Food drops to Trinity and the occasional, impromptu visits to the open mike at the Starry Plough.

It was here that she’d made the biggest decision of her life.  Dared to reach for a life.  And it was back to here she came when she needed to remember, or to fight out something new in the words that her mind refused to let die.  Tonight had insisted on being one of those nights. 

So be it.  If she was going to strip her soul naked, it was damn well going to be for strangers.  People who didn’t matter and didn’t know who she was outside of this place and this moment.  People who loved words.

Here, she was just another wannabe poet in faded jeans and five feet of attitude.

Someone in the back started clapping slowly.  Lizard grimaced.  Time to get on with the show.

She dug for the first line, all that she allowed herself on improv night.  An image, really.

“I saw a video on YouTube yesterday.”

The rest rolled in like a freight train.

“A little girl screaming because her daddy

asked her to pick up her cereal bowl

and put it on the counter.

She pulled on it, agonizing,

moving it not an inch,

face twisted in rage and tears. 

‘The bowl’s too heavy!’

I’m sure most people laugh.

I know how she feels,

the little girl and her bowl. 

I wonder some days if a stone man walked by

and took a seat in my crappy, banged-up bowl

because it freaking feels like

the thing will never, ever move

and the countertop is as far away as the moon.

I’m sure most people laugh,

looking at my tiny little bowl

and its invisible stone man,

just like they laugh at the toddler

and her silly, immature rage.

But I say, look at her face. 

To her, what lives in that bowl is real

and in that moment, she really can’t lift it.

My guy, he wants me to tell him

what’s in my bowl.

But just like the little girl, I can’t see it.

I can only feel its weight.”

Damn.  The last lines had just snuck out—she hated it when that happened.  Lizard exited, stage left, oblivious to the thunderous applause.

Dark approached.  And she felt like it was stalking her somehow.

Chapter 11

Take number two.  Lizard sat herself down on the front stoop of Josh’s townhouse and hoped he came out soon—the wind this morning had gotten lost on its way to Canada.

“Hey.”  He sat down on the step beside her and dropped a blanket on her shoulders.  “How long have you been sitting out here freezing?”

“About three seconds.”  He’d always had scary-good radar.  “I found this girl.”  No bacon-and-egg distractions this morning.  “In one of the empty houses we’re selling.  She’s been crashing in vacant listings.”

“Girl?”  His mind swam with concern and fear and outrage.  “How old is she?”

Not a girl like he imagined.  “Sixteen.  She’s tough and smart and kind of obnoxious.  Managed to stay off the streets so far.”

“That must—”  He paused, eyes and mind uncertain.  “That must be hard for you.”

She wasn’t here to talk about that.  “It’s a lot harder for her.”

He stared into the street for a while.  “How can I help?”

“I’m taking care of it.”

He didn’t move, but the space between them on the step suddenly felt a lot wider.  “Tell me how.”

What was this, grade school?  Lizard bounced off the steps, pissy and cold.  “Lauren’s paying her to paint the walls in the house where I found her.  Romano’s sending by food when I can’t, and Tony’s keeping an eye on the house at night.”  Which was a freaking good plan for someone who didn’t make them.

“So in the order of the people you tell stuff in your life,” Josh raised his head, anger blazing, “I come somewhere after Lauren, Romano, and the guy who trims the hedges outside your apartment?”

What the hell.  “Tony lives down the street from the house listing.  And I didn’t mean to tell Romano—he just asks way too damn many questions.”

He stared at her, incredulous.  “If I found a kid who needed help, you’d be the first person I told.  And not just because you happened to be a convenient solution to some logistics.”

Oh, God.  She could feel his fury now, a beating, living thing.  Still stepping wrong.  “I came home the other night from finding her and then losing her again, okay?  She’d taken off on my watch and I had some people out looking for her.  And there you were, sitting on my couch, and I’m still layered in the crap from the streets and scared this stupid kid is going to get stuck in it.  You got hit by one of my hard edges, and I’m really sorry for that.”  Sometimes she just couldn’t take them off fast enough.

“So instead of telling me what was going on, you chose to try to carry the whole damn thing by yourself.”  His fury was banking now—and what came in its place ripped at her with twelve-inch claws.  “How the heck do you think that makes me feel?”

She was drowning in how it made him feel.  Lizard stared, mute and sad and strangled by her total incapacity to make him understand.  “I came here to try to fix this.”

“You don’t get what’s broken.”  He climbed to his feet, backpack in his hand.  “Let me tell you exactly how I feel.  That after more than two years of doing nothing but supporting you, you still don’t think I’m good enough to stand beside you in the rough stuff.”  His eyes were breaking her.  “And you know what, that’s total crap.”

She watched him walk away, quaking and furious.  And wanted to give him a good, swift kick.  Because he was stupid.

And because she was deeply afraid he was right.

-o0o-

“Everybody’s sad.”

Nell looked up at her younger son, mentally tucking away the lines of unruly programming code she’d been trying to debug.  “Who’s sad, sweetie?”

“Lizard-Blizzard.  I think she needs ice cream.  And maybe some for Josh, too.”

Uh, oh.  She made space for Aervyn on her lap.  The kiddo’s mindreading skills were so immense.  He couldn’t block everything—no one could.  And he loved their renegade poet.

“I wasn’t trying to listen to big-people stuff.”  His eyes were wide and serious.  “Uncle Jamie and me saw Josh at the diner yesterday, and he didn’t even eat his happy-face eggs.  I wanted to make his bacon into hair for the eggy face, but Uncle Jamie said we should just leave him alone cuz sometimes guys have stuff on their minds.”

In the Sullivan clan, a guy not eating was definitely grounds for worry.

“And then Uncle Devin said he saw Josh and they went shopping and it’s all good and I shouldn’t worry.”  He cuddled in to her chest.  “But this morning, everybody’s sad.”

When Aervyn’s six-year-old brain got rolling, it could really roll.  Smack into his soft heart, sometimes.  Nell hugged him close and tried to pick sense from his data and the more normal Witch Central gossip lines.  Her kiddo wasn’t the only one reporting in.  “Well, we know Lizard has a new friend she’s trying to help.”

“Raven.”  Aervyn heard the gossip as well as anyone.  “Auntie Lauren thinks she’s just like Lizard except not so fixed up yet.”

Something like that.  “That might be making things a little complicated for Lizard and Josh right now.”

“Why?”

She kissed his bright, innocent face.  “I don’t know for sure, cutie pie.  But it sounds like your uncles are on the job, and they’re pretty good at finding out stuff and making people feel better.”  And more people would be on the job shortly.

“Yeah.  They’re the best.”  Aervyn grinned and ported in a cookie from the kitchen.  “Want some?”

Crisis over.  Nell hugged her son, very glad she could still make most of the hard things better for her kids.  A shelter in the storm.

And sorrowed for the two young women who’d lived way too long without that kind of refuge—and the guy who was maybe caught in the crossfire.

-o0o-

Lauren rounded the corner on Spaulding, headed to the neighborhood’s newest listing.  And spied Lizard walking out the door.

Handy, that.  Nell’s text had been pithy and worried.  Something was up with Lizard and Josh.  Again, or still, nobody seemed sure which.  Clearly it hadn’t slowed her partner down any—Lizard was developing a serious nose for hot new properties.  “How’s it look?”

Lizard nearly dropped the lockbox on her toe.  “Dammit, don’t scare me like that.”

Ooookay.  Yesterday’s bad mood had been a babe in the woods compared to this one.  “Sorry.  I just saw this pop up on our alert system.  Thought I’d come check it out.”

“Don’t waste your time.  Way overpriced and there’s something squirrelly going on with the foundation.  Back door doesn’t close properly and there’s a mean crack hidden behind some artfully arranged hoses.”

Defects, they could work with.  Owners who tried to hide defects and agents who let them—nope.  “Check.  Cross that one off the list.”  And she’d make a point of cornering the young agent listing the property.  Dumb could sometimes be fixed.  “Want to have some lunch?”

“Not hungry.”

That was dire.  “We can pick up some Chinese and check in on Raven.  New place just opened up around the corner—I hear their ginger beef rocks.”

“Still not hungry.”  Said with way more fire than a lunch invitation deserved.  “And Raven’s fine.  Working on the second floor, lots of paint, didn’t burn her breakfast today, and she slept like a baby on the stupid cot.”

Lauren stepped as delicately as she could.  “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”

Frustrated, offended eyes turned her direction.  “Why is it that everyone around here assumes I’m going to need help?”

This wasn’t headed anywhere good.  “I think we’re assuming Raven needs help.  We’re just trying to pitch in.”

“I didn’t ask for any pitching.”

Lauren wasn’t going to argue that point—she had a bigger one to make.  “You didn’t need to ask.  It’s what we do.”  First rule of Witch Central.  “And you’ve been around here long enough to know that.” 

“Maybe I’m a slow learner.”

They weren’t just talking about Raven anymore.  Lauren donned her firefighter overalls and jumped into the blaze.  “What’s going on with you and Josh?”

Lizard’s brain spewed nails.  “He’s pushy, just like you are.”

God.  So much pain.  “Maybe he cares, just like I do.”

“He wants me to be something I’m not.”  Lizard’s mind was racing like a wild, caged thing.  “And all of you who want to help, and who want me to do things the way you would—it just feels like more of the same.  I’m not your freaking clone.  If I’d wanted to turn into you, I’d be doing a way better job.”

The gut punches needed to stop.  Lauren took a deep breath and resisted the urge to retaliate.  “There’s a difference between trying to change someone and helping them to be the best they know how to be.  And if I cross the line between those two, feel free to give me hell.  But when all I did was ask you how it’s going, because I care about you and it matters to me whether you’re having a good day or a bad one, it feels pretty damn lousy to have you stomp on me.”

Lizard stared.  “You never get mad.”

“I bleed, just like you do,” said Lauren quietly.

Their resident poet stared at the ground for a long time.  And then she started down the steps.  Leaving.

Screw that.  “Where are you going?”