Bewitching (39 page)

“I bet.”

“I want to kiss you though, Emma. Not just on the cheek. So will you come over tomorrow?”

“Probably,” I whispered, then wondered, why did I say that? Of course I was going.

But it was the right thing to say because he laughed and said, “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. Guess I should’ve known when I saw you and
Candide
here. No one I know would say ‘probably.’ But seriously, if it’s a driving thing, I could have someone pick you up.”

“Okay. Around noon?”

Was that too early? Too late?

He nodded. “Noon.”

I said, “Are you supposed to… I mean, does your dad want you to dance with other girls? I’ll understand.”
But I didn’t want him to leave
.

He shook his head. “I’ll only go so far for my dad.”

So we danced for another hour, past Mother, who was beaming, Lisette, who was scowling, Warner, who kept shaking his head, and about a hundred other girls, all of whom stared at me, probably wondering what I had that they didn’t.

Except one, a girl with stunning long ebony hair and a backless black dress that looked like it was from another century. No one else in the room seemed to see her, but she winked at me as I danced past, and I recognized her. Kendra!

I mouthed, “Did you do this?”

She shook her head, then pointed at me.

Then, she turned into a crow and flew off the balcony.

Which no one noticed but me.

K
ENDRA SPEAKS (DOESN’T SHE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO, AFTER SUCH A SPECTACULAR AND COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED RESOLUTION?
)

Okay, so I changed my mind about helping Emma. But what did I do, really? Did I make Travis fall for Emma, instead of Lisette? Nope. It was just a lucky coincidence. Once every hundred or so years, you get one of those. And I didn’t do anything to make her choose him over stupid Warner either. But I’m glad she did.

I don’t like to meddle, you know. No, really.

People always want to know what happens
after
the end of the story. Did they fall in love? Did they live happily ever after? Will they marry and have six kids? Too soon to predict. I come by my wisdom through longevity, but I can’t predict the future. If I could, I wouldn’t have been all worried about that beast kid in New York. What I do know is that Emma did go to Travis’s the next day, and the day after,
and
he came back to Miami every chance he got for the rest of the school year. He even picked her up at school once, as a surprise. So it looks pretty promising.

And Lisette? She spent most of the next week ranting to everyone who would listen about how could Travis possibly be into Emma. Finally, someone (Tayloe, maybe) told her to shut up, that she was getting boring, and everyone else agreed.

Oh, and she broke up with Warner a few days after the party, which came as no big surprise to anyone. Except Warner.

In the Grimm version of
Cinderella
, the stepsisters get their eyes pecked out by birds in the end. In Mr. Perrault’s, Cinderella forgives them and finds them rich husbands.

Though I wouldn’t advise Emma to go that far, I did agree with her when she said she wanted to try to make peace with Lisette.

Here’s what happened, in her own words.

Lisette and Emma: The Finale

Okay, so Travis was pretty incredible. But, unlike in fairy tales and movies, falling in love doesn’t solve all your problems—though it helps. I still had to live in that house. With Lisette. And my mother. And I couldn’t get Kendra to use her magic every day.

Well, maybe I could, but it didn’t seem nice.

So the day after Lisette broke up with Warner, when she was slogging through the rain to the bus stop before school, I pulled up beside her. “Get in.”

She hesitated, but I said, “If you’d rather your hair frizz than ride with me, be my guest.”

She put her hand up to her hair which was, of course, perfect, but she decided to get in anyway. “Courtney was supposed to pick me up, but she texted and said she couldn’t.”

“She changes her mind sometimes.”

“Yeah. Do you always leave this early? I mean, do you have a study group before school or something geeky like that?”

I chose to ignore the obvious insult. “No. I was looking for you.”

“Why?” She stared at me.

“I think maybe we should…” It was hard to talk with her eyes piercing me. I looked at the road. “Daddy’s gone. There’s really nothing else to argue about. Really, you won. If your object was to keep me from having a relationship with him, you won. And Warner? I don’t care about Warner anymore.”

“Neither do I.”

“I know. You did me a favor, actually. You let me know what he was like.” I dared to look at her. “So, what’s left? We’re stuck living together for two more years, and I think we should make the best of it.”

She rolled her eyes. “The best of it being, I guess, that I do all the work and you get all the stuff?”

“No. I mean, unless you enjoy that type of thing. I was thinking maybe I could talk to Mother, tell her that I didn’t think it was fair to treat you like that. But you have to do something too.”

“What? You already have everything you want, a hot boyfriend, nice clothes.”

“I want you to stop blaming me. I was three when your dad married my mother. I didn’t have a choice in it. I didn’t make him do it.”

She shrugged. “I guess. It’s just so unfair. I have no mother and now, no father, and you—”

“I miss him too. He was the only father I had, and I loved him, and I’ll never see him again or be able to tell him. But can we stop playing this game of competing to see who’s more pathetic? It makes us both pretty pathetic, if you ask me.”

Lisette didn’t answer for a long time. We were at school now. It was early, not crowded, so I just pulled into the parking lot, and suddenly I realized I was going to ask Mother to be nicer to Lisette, whether or not Lisette agreed to be nicer to me. It just wasn’t in me to be mean to her, or to let Mother do it either. Also, it took energy I didn’t have.

Besides, I knew Daddy wouldn’t have wanted Lisette to be miserable and poor.

I chose a parking place and turned to Lisette. “Look, I just wanted to tell you I’m done. I’m done. Daddy’s gone. Warner’s gone, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m done fighting. If we can get along, great, and I’ll share the chores with you, but otherwise, I’m still done.”

I wanted, needed, the conversation to be over. I’d said what I had to say, and Lisette, as usual, wasn’t helping at all. “Anyway, I have to go meet, um, Ms. Meinbach about newspaper.”

I got out of the car, slammed the door, and started walking toward the school.

“Wait!” She was running after me.

I stopped. “What is it?”

She caught up with me. “My … our father. I should tell you.”

“What?”

“He always loved you. I tried… I felt like I was his daughter. He should love me best, but even after I chased you away, he talked about you all the time, about how close you’d been, how he missed spending time with you.”

I felt tears springing to my eyes. “He said that?”

I didn’t know, until then, how much I needed to hear it, and from her, because she was the only person who would never lie, never try to be nice.

“Yeah,” she said. “Pissed me off, and in the end, I was thinking maybe I was stupid, trying to compete. Maybe I should just back off, try to get along. Then, he died, and it was too late, and your mother was so mean.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“He loved both of us.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” I said.

An awkward pause. We both stood there, like you do when you think you’re supposed to hug someone, but you really, really don’t want to. I didn’t love Lisette. I never would. I no longer wanted to be sisters, or even friends. I just wanted to get along, for my father’s sake and for my own.

Finally, I started to walk away.

“Meet me here after school. I’ll drive you home, and I’ll talk to my mom.”

Her voice stopped me. “Emma!”

I turned. “What?”

“I’ll see you then.”

It wasn’t the apology it should have been, but I thought it was an agreement. I said, “Okay.”

K
ENDRA (AGAIN)

Lisette and Emma didn’t become bestest friends. They weren’t sisters. They became the most they could ever become—two girls, stuck together, who no longer hated each other.

“Do you consider that a success story?” Emma asks me over coffee.

I haven’t been to school in a while, but I still drop in on Emma sometimes. When she asks where I’ve been, I always say, “You don’t want to know.”

But the truth is, I’ve been watching a lot of daytime TV, searching the morning talk shows for the next poor soul who needs my help, perhaps. Thought it’s hard to admit, I really like helping people find love. It makes the time pass faster.

The problem with spending a hundred or so years in high school is, after a while, it’s all review. Even the social parts seem like they’ve happened before. So sometimes, I take a few months off. I’ll start again in the fall. Someplace new.

“A success,” I say to Emma. “I’d consider it a rousing one. You’re still alive, and I’m not getting toasty at the stake. Some of my fails have been pretty epic.”

“I see.”

I don’t tell her about Doria. There was no need for her to know. But I can’t take credit for my successes, like Operation Beastly or Emma’s finding love, without also acknowledging my failures.

“How’s it going with Travis?” I ask her. “Are you in love?”

Emma tries to act all casual, but I can see her smile.

“You are then?” I say.

“I think so. He invited me to Italy over the summer, to stay in his villa while they’re filming his movie.”

“Italy?” This sets the wheels in my head to turning. It’s been a long while since I’ve been abroad, nigh upon a hundred years, and longer still since I’ve seen
Italia
. The people I knew there would be long dead, a good thing in this case.

“And when is that?” I ask.

“June. As soon as school’s out. Mother’s coming along as a chaperone.”

“I see. And Lisette?”

Ah, how I remember Italy in summer. There had been a charming gondolier named Giacomo. He’d admired my blond hair (I was always a blonde when I went to Italy—I like to stand out) and sang me romantic songs. Of course, he was no more, but there would be others, I suspected. And I could make new friends. They say Italian witches always know where to buy the best shoes.

“No, Lisette’s not going,” Emma says. “I mean, we’re getting along better now, sort of, but I just don’t think it would be fun.”

“Good call.”

And, of course, Italian cooking is sublime.

“I thought so,” Emma says. “I talked Mother into sending Lisette to theater camp in New York. She’s really excited about it.”

I’m excited too. Emma’s mention of theater camp reminds me how I’ve always enjoyed the opera. Perhaps I might learn the role of Tosca or Medea and make my debut at La Scala one day, using poor Doria’s voice. The world should hear it, and after all, I have nothing but time on my hands.

“I’m happy for you, Emma,” I say. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”