Bewitching (36 page)

“Of course.”

They ran into Tayloe, who was eating a huge plate of noodles. Lisette hung on their table, saying, “Don’t know where you put it, girl.” Then she backed up and practically crashed into the waitress. “Oops.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t stand here, honey,” Warner said.

“If they’d seat us, we wouldn’t be here,” Lisette replied.

Over dinner, they chatted awkwardly. “So, you liked that movie?” Warner said.

“Sure. Loved it. It was very romantic.”

“You didn’t think it was a little, um, formulaic? I mean, was there any doubt they were going to end up together?”

Lisette shrugged. “Jennifer Conroy’s so pretty. I loved her outfit.”

“But it kept getting ripped. The movie was sort of degrading to women, don’t you think?”

Yes! Exactly!

“Why do you care? You’re not a woman.” Lisette fed Warner a bite of her brown rice. “You overanalyze things. You’re just trying to show everyone how smart you are all the time. If it were up to you, we’d only see movies with subtitles.”

Warner and I had loved movies with subtitles.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” Lisette asked.

“I don’t know. This is sort of an expensive night. Maybe we could just hang out at my house tomorrow.” Warner shook soy sauce onto his food.

“Oh, sorry, I hadn’t realized you minded taking me out.”

“I love taking you out. But between the tickets and the popcorn, and this…” He gestured around the table. “I’m going to drop a hundred dollars tonight.”

“Your dad will give it to you.”

Warner pursed his lips. “But I don’t want to take it from him. He’ll feel like he’s making up for things.”

“That’s stupid. I know what it’s like to have mean relatives. If I could get anything out of Andrea and Emma, I’d take it.”

She had.

“I guess.”

“I’m so glad we’re together. I saved you from her.”

“Can we please not talk about Emma?”

“Okay, you saved me too.” Lisette stroked his hair. “Saved me from my life of misery.”

Warner tried to make eye contact with the waitress, to get the check.

How could he stand her? On a date with him, she was just as conniving and mean as she was with me. Yet, he took it, even enjoyed it. I watched Lisette move to the seat by his and kiss him. “So, what are we doing tomorrow?” she cooed.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

Was being pretty that important? After a while, wouldn’t you stop noticing the person’s looks?

But maybe he liked being seen with her, instead of being seen with me.

That and the fact that Lisette had convinced him I was Satan.

On the way home, she said, “Actually, I’ll probably be doing chores most of the day. That’s what I do Saturdays. Oh, and Emma makes me do her homework.”

“What?” I said it out loud. I turned to Kendra. “Oh no she didn’t! As if I’d want her doing my homework.”

Warner wasn’t buying it either. “You’re saying Emma doesn’t do her own homework?” Even he had to know I was way smarter than Lisette and wouldn’t let her near my homework.

Lisette realized her mistake and backed off. “Oh, just the busy-work stuff, like when she has to copy definitions from the book.”

“Oh.”

They reached the door of our house, and Lisette said, “Want to come in?”

“Can I … isn’t your stepmom?”

“She’s out … meeting with her coven.” Lisette laughed.

“What about Emma?”

A look of annoyance crossed Lisette’s face. “What about her? She’s out too, I think.”

Warner nodded. “So she’s dating someone else?”

Lisette laughed. “Doubtful. No one but you would be that charitable. I think she’s with her weirdo friend, Kendra.”

“I could make all her hair fall out right now,” Kendra said.

I cackled. “No, don’t.” But it was tempting, because the next thing Lisette did was, she reached for Warner’s face and kissed him. “I think we’ll be all alone.”

Finally, he agreed and followed her to her bedroom.

“Are you sure you want to keep watching?” Kendra asked.

I didn’t, not really, but I was glued to it now, like one of those bad reality shows, which is what my life had become. I nodded. “Yeah.”

The bedroom was mercifully dark, and they didn’t turn on the lights. Still, I could hear them making out, hear them kissing and then more, and I knew it was true what she’d said, that he’d never been attracted to me, as he was to her. We’d never gone this far. I thought it was because he respected me, but I guess I was deluding myself about that too.

Which was why I was pretty shocked when I heard his voice saying, “God, Emma, I love you so much.”

Silence. Had I heard him right? Was there a rewind button on this thing?

Then Lisette’s voice in the darkness. “What did you just call me?”

I’d heard him right.

“What did you just call me?” She was shouting now.

“Lisette. Sorry. Oh, God, Lisette, it was a slip, just a slip.”

“You still love that … that … her? Knowing how they treated me, and you still—”

“No, Lisette, no. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She snapped on the light. She had on panties and a lacy tank top, which she was pulling back on. She arched her back, showing off her body. “Do I look like Emma?”

Warner blinked against the bright light.

“Look at me, you bastard. Do I look like Emma?”

“Of course not. I told you, I wasn’t—”

“How do you think it makes me feel, knowing you told that fat cow you loved her when you’ve never said it to me?”

“Emma’s not…” Warner looked down. “Of course I love you, Lisette.”

“No, you don’t. You love her. You respect her because she’s so smart, and I’m just some dumb slut. That’s what she’s always telling me too.”

“No, Lisette.”

“She’s smart. I’m stupid. Even my own father said he wished I was more like her.”

I gasped. He had?

“I didn’t mean it, Lisette. Let me make it up to you.” He caressed her shoulder.

She moved away. “How?”

“I don’t know. However you want, whatever you want.”

Lisette considered. “I’ll think about it. But you’d better get that money from your dad.”

Warner nodded. “Whatever you want. I love you.”

He pulled her toward him and they kissed, but this time, I didn’t cringe.

I knew he’d told her the truth the first time. He loved me, not her. If he only knew the truth about me and Lisette, I could get him back. I just had to find a way for him to know it.

I handed the mirror back to Kendra. “Thank you. I found out what I needed to know.”

She smiled. “That seldom happens.”

6

Warner loved me. Me, not Lisette. And, what’s more, Lisette was jealous of me for being smart. She didn’t just loathe me randomly.

The whole thing felt so great I almost wanted to be nice to her. Almost.

But, not-so-almost, I wanted Warner back.

Whenever I can’t figure out a solution to a problem, I sleep on it. They say the subconscious can unravel the most complex of spider-webs. So when I was having trouble with a study group member who wasn’t pulling her weight or when Courtney had picked on me at school, I just went to sleep and hoped for an answer.

I did that that night, for Lisette.

I awoke to the sound of Ralph on his mouse wheel, spinning. I touched the cage’s side with my hand, to try to stop the noise. Ralph kept going.

The whirring sound became a song in my head.

Cinderelly, Cinderelly!

A song from a movie I’d seen as a kid.

And suddenly, I knew what to do.

I called Kendra and arranged to meet her at the park.

She was late, so I sat, waiting, watching the kids playing, the squirrels. The birds.

Suddenly she was there.

I was starting to realize how clueless I’d been not to realize she was a witch.

I said, “You’ve read
Cinderella
, right?” It was a stupid question, yeah, but with Kendra, you could mention something perfectly normal like
Cinderella
or reality shows, and then find out she thought it promoted arranged marriages or foot fetishism or something. She’d never been to McDonald’s, and she called hot dogs “frankfurters.” She’d never even watched
Barney
. Part of being a witch, I guessed.

But she said, “Read
Cinderella?
I knew Charles Perrault personally… I mean, of course I’m familiar with
Cinderella
. Who isn’t, right? They made it into a movie.”

“Yeah, and before that, it was a fairy tale, about a girl and her stepmother and stepsisters, and no one likes each other.”

“I’m cognizant. Except I thought they were ugly stepsisters and a wicked stepmother.”

I shrugged. “Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Sometimes, people see a story differently.” After years with Lisette, I didn’t know what to believe anymore, even about fairy tales. Maybe Cinderella was the bad guy in the story, and her stepsisters were just nerdy girls who wanted a boyfriend. How politically correct was it, really, to make the villains ugly? And how realistic? In my experience, it was usually the pretty people who were mean to the ugly ones, not the other way around. Probably, I realized, ugly people needed a group to protect their portrayals in books and movies. Except no one would really admit they were ugly, not even to themselves.

I said, “The point is, no one was happy. Cinderella wanted a chance, and so did the steps. So Cinderella went to the ball, met a prince, and moved out, and everyone lived happily ever after. Apart, where they belonged.”

Even though that wasn’t exactly what the story said. Some versions said that Cinderella forgave her stepsisters. Some said she had them boiled in a pot. Most of them said that the steps wanted to marry the prince themselves. But I figured, considering there were so many versions of the story, they were probably all a little inaccurate.

“If you say so,” Kendra said.

“I do. And that’s my point. I don’t want Lisette to be unhappy. She’s had it rough. But I want her gone.”

Kendra nodded. “So how do you plan to accomplish that?”

“Same way it happened in
Cinderella
. Lisette needs to go to the ball.”

7

In the next week, I had to argue with my mother just to get her to let me attend school. The rest of the time, I tried to study while she had people plucking me, massaging, waxing, personal shopping, microdermabrasion-ing, and straightening me.

I wanted to ask her why this was so important to her, but I didn’t. She’d told me why, because she wanted to show everyone how special I was. Also, I wanted to go now too. Just not for the same reasons she wanted me to go.

Saturday, I had to admit I looked sort of pretty in a flowy top that covered my upper arms and tight jeans that cut off my circulation. I still didn’t look half as good as Lisette looked when she rolled out of bed, but nobody did.

The party was at seven. Lisette had spent the whole day in her room, crying about not being allowed to go, but I knew she had a date with Warner. At six-fifteen, I teetered out of the house in my new Prada strappy sandals with a five-inch heel (okay, I loved the shoes, but I couldn’t walk in them), but not before opening the French door to the patio and letting in one black bird. I had Kendra’s mirror. I brought it with me.

My plan was, of course, that Lisette would go to the party, end up with Travis, and Warner would see what she was really like.

“I want to sit in back,” I told Mother. “I need more room to spread out, so I don’t get messed up.”

Mother beamed. “I knew you were excited about this. You could pretend you weren’t but—oh, Emma, you look so pretty!”

“Yes. Thanks.” I
was
excited, excited to see how our plan was working.

Kendra had taken some persuading. “I’m a witch,” she said, “not a fairy godmother. Have you met some of those fairies? They’re vicious.”

“You’re just pretending to be a fairy.”

“You could make things worse.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“There’s a flaw in every plan, something that could go wrong.”

“Uh-huh.” But secretly, I couldn’t imagine what could go wrong with the plan. It was perfect. By the end of tonight, Lisette would have exactly what she wanted … and so would I.