Extraordinary (5 page)

“History affects the present.” Mallory caught Phoebe's gaze and held it. “The history of our family and our people affects who we are in the present.”

“Yes,” said Phoebe. “It does! Even if you really wish it didn't.”

“Even if you really wish it didn't,” echoed Mallory.

“This is a risky path that you recommend, child, and requires so much time that it frightens me. Only yesterday you said you would be done in a few weeks. And now you say it will take
years?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I am sorry. I did not fully understand the girl when I made that first rash estimate. But you told me it was safe for a few more years?”

“Yes. I did. And it is. But—”

“She is our best option. She and no other. She is the one we need. She is! Just not yet.”

“I see. I should have expected it would not all go exactly as we had planned. I should even have expected she would not be so easily led; she is a daughter of Mayer, after all.”

“I am sorry, Your Majesty. I will not fail you. I promise. It will just take me more time. More time as her friend.”

“I understand. Do not be sad, child. I am proud of you. It seems you have adjusted well to the initial difficulties of which you told me, and come up with another plan. And of course, I too understand what it is to make initial errors in judgment. As you know. It was my own mistake that brought us to this precipice.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Phoebe—the girl—we are best friends now. That is what humans call it: best friends. With time I will be able to make her do exactly as we wish. But Your Majesty! I have tired you. Would you rest now? I can come back.”

“I am only a little tired. I am not so sick yet, my child. Very well. You may have the time you say you require. It will not, after all, be the longest time that a faerie has ever masqueraded as a human.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. This is just a delay. I won't fail you or our people, I won't. You may rely on me. In the end I will do exactly as I have promised.”

“Oh, no! It looks too utterly slutty!” called Phoebe to Mallory, who was just outside the dressing room.

“Are you sure?” said Mallory. “I don't trust you.”

“See for yourself.” Phoebe opened the dressing room door so Mallory could slip inside. After only a glance, Mallory laughed.

“I know!” said Phoebe. “So much for push-up bras. And stop laughing, you—you perfect C-cup, you. It's just so not fair.”

It was more than four years later—four good, solid years of best-friendship later. It was the middle of January and the girls were in their junior year of high school. Mallory was seventeen and Phoebe had just turned eighteen and they were at the lingerie store in pursuit of the perfect bra for Phoebe. They had taken possession of a large dressing room, but were getting, in Phoebe's view, absolutely nowhere.

“No, no,” said Mallory, sobering. “Don't give up.”

“I've already had on a dozen. The problem is that I'm between sizes. Just like the salesclerk said.”

“The problem isn't you. It's that
thing
you picked out. It's got way too much padding. Look, Phoebe, there are so many styles and we're just wandering around grabbing random bras off the rack. It's crazy. Let's ask that salesclerk for help.”

Phoebe shook her head stubbornly. “No. I don't want her in here with her tape measure and glasses and her professional knowledge of—of—”

“Of exactly what bras she has in stock?”

“Of mammary inadequacy!”

Mallory snickered, and a second later, so did Phoebe.

“Try putting on a shirt,” Mallory suggested. “See how it looks underneath. It's not like you're going to go parading around just in the bra.”

Phoebe sighed, but obediently reached for her shirt and put it on. She scrutinized her image in the three-way mirror. “No. They're in a weird position. Like I had surgery that went all wrong.” She met her friend's eyes in the mirror. Suddenly what had been meant as a fun shopping trip felt horrible. She felt horrible. Her shoulders slumped.

“Stay here, Phoebe,” said Mallory decisively. “Let me go pick something out for you. I bet I'll have better luck.”

“Maybe I should have surgery.”

“Don't even think that! You're fine. Besides, your mother would never let you. Actually, neither would I.”

“I don't really mean it.”

“Good. Stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

“Don't you ask that salesclerk!”

Mallory didn't answer as she shut the door behind her. Alone, Phoebe looked again at herself in the mirror. But it was Mallory she saw in her head. Her friend Mallory.

Her gorgeous friend.

Mallory had changed so much in the last few years. At five eleven, she now towered over Phoebe's five two. And Mallory, not Phoebe, was today the girl that other people noticed when they were together in public. Often people even thought Mallory might be a model, which was not so much because she was tall and pretty as it was because she was striking and confident and held herself well. Her long fall of silky hair, ivory skin, and oval, deep-set eyes didn't hurt either. It was strange to compare Mallory's current grace and style and beauty to the defiant, plain-faced ragamuffin she once had been.

Phoebe faded away next to Mallory now, and she knew it. In part, this was because of her decision last year to wear only black clothing. It wasn't really a goth look, because of Phoebe's thick, reddish brown hair, soft gray eyes, and scattering of freckles, and also because she couldn't be bothered with much makeup. But it also had the effect of making Mallory stand out as the sophisticated, put-together, worldly one.

Phoebe didn't mind, actually. She got enough attention in the world already, when people heard her last name. “This is one of your ways to try to fade into the background and not be noticed,” Mallory had observed to Phoebe about her clothing.

“No, it's just what makes me feel comfortable,” Phoebe had said. “So please, Mallory, don't give me that lecture about standing up for myself again.”

“That lecture” was something that Mallory trotted out occasionally, and which Phoebe had come to find slightly annoying. But she knew Mallory meant well.

And Phoebe had to admit to herself now that she had sort of wanted an amazing bra. She had wanted to believe the ads she'd seen about this one particular miracle bra and how it could change your life.

Make you sexy. Make you feel delicious. Make boys notice.

Oh, well. Phoebe rolled her eyes ironically at herself. She took off her shirt and the miracle bra that had been so terrible on her. She put her own bra on and sat down on the bench in the corner of the dressing room while she waited for Mallory to come back.

It was a good thing she had, too, because it was a long time, twenty minutes at least, before Mallory returned, carrying a single bra on a little hanger.

“There you are.” Phoebe jumped up. “Why didn't you answer your cell phone? I was just about to come out and hunt you down.”

“Sorry.” Mallory sank down almost heavily on the bench that Phoebe had just vacated. She handed the bra to Phoebe.

“This is it?” Phoebe said. “This is what took you, like, half an hour of searching to find?”

“Yes.” Mallory leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“I'm a little tired, I guess. I didn't sleep well last night. Try on the bra, Phoebe. I think it's really cute. I think it's just right for you.”

Phoebe looked again, dubiously, at the bra. It was beige and lacy, and she supposed it was pretty, but it was understated and it didn't have any of the underwire or padding that absolutely would be needed, architecturally speaking, to make her look a size bigger. She was about to say this, but another glance at Mallory changed her mind. Mallory had wrapped her arms around herself, and actually looked somehow shrunken as she sat, curled up now, on the bench.

“Try it on,” Mallory said again, without opening her eyes.

Phoebe did. And stood amazed. The little bra fit perfectly and delicately. No, it did not make her look any bigger. But it was nice. And pretty. And maybe even just the tiniest bit sexy too.

She put on her shirt and looked again.

“All right. I'll get it,” she said.

At that, Mallory opened her eyes. She smiled, though she still looked tired and almost sad. “You're going to get six, my friend. Two beige, two black, one hot pink, and one blue. They don't have them all in stock, but that clerk will order them for you. I already asked her.”

Mallory remained unusually quiet, however, not even crowing in triumph as Phoebe did exactly as she had been told, until the girls had left the store and gotten into Phoebe's car in the parking lot. Then she reached out a hand and stopped Phoebe from turning on the ignition.

“There's something I have to tell you, Phoebe,” Mallory said. “It's good news, but I'm afraid you're going to be mad at me. So please don't be. Please?”

“What is it?” Phoebe wasn't sure if she'd ever heard Mallory sound so—so odd.

Or maybe she had. The combination of strain and relief was actually similar to how Mallory had sounded way back when, at the beginning of their friendship, on the day that the home health care agency had begun managing Mrs. Tolliver's care so that Mallory no longer needed to be responsible for it.

“What's going on?” Phoebe said again, because Mallory hadn't answered her.

“It's my brother,” Mallory said. “My brother is coming to live with me and my mother.”

“What?” Phoebe stared at Mallory, whose face was averted. “What are you
talking
about, Mallory? You don't have a brother!”

There was a little silence.

“That's why you're going to be mad,” said Mallory. “I've never told you about him. But he does exist. He's my half brother, actually. We have the same mother.”

Phoebe shook her head in bewilderment. “I'm—I'm shocked!”

“I knew you would be. I'm sorry. I should have told you.”

All at once Phoebe realized she was more than shocked. She was furious. She unbuckled her seat belt and leaned close to Mallory, who would still not meet her gaze.

“Uh, do you care about your brother at all? Does your mother? Just wondering. Since neither of you ever mentioned him before. What did you say his name was again?”

Now the strain was even more evident in Mallory's voice, though she was able to turn and glance into Phoebe's eyes for a second or two.

“Of course I care about him. And I didn't say his name. He's Ryland. Ryland Fayne. He and I have different fathers, like I said, so we have different last names. I'm really, really sorry I never told you about him, Phoebe. I can explain.”

“Go right ahead,” said Phoebe. “Honestly, I can't wait. And by the way, feel free to share any other big secrets you might have been keeping from me. Any year now is fine. Let me just turn the car on so we have some heat while you tell me everything. Everything, do you hear me? Everything! I still can't believe it! This is so crazy!”

But her astonishment and outrage faded as Mallory talked and Phoebe watched her. Mallory had always been odd and different, after all. And as she began explaining about her older half brother—Ryland was twenty-four—and how he'd been working in Australia for a few years, and in college in England before that, well, it was almost logical that she hadn't mentioned him before.

Almost.

“I missed Ryland too much to even think about him,” said Mallory, talking rapidly. “So I tried not to. And maybe I was a little angry at him too, for—for leaving me alone.”

At least that makes sense, thought Phoebe.

Mallory went on talking and Phoebe listened. Ryland worked doing something good-for-the-earth involving desert water conservation. He was very committed and he just hadn't been able to visit his mother and sister.

“He didn't get a lot of vacation time, and you can't just come and go between Australia and Massachusetts in a long weekend. Plus, it's important, intense work, and other people are involved. Other people's welfare. Ryland told me in advance how it would be. It was outside of his control. And he keeps in touch when he can.”

“I'm so happy for you,” Phoebe said at last, because what else was there to say? “Did you say when he's coming?”

“No, I didn't. It's tomorrow. Listen, I'm going to stay out of school to make sure I'm home when he arrives.”

Mallory went on and on, the details coming out almost in a frenzy, as if she were trying now to make up for past silence. Ryland had finished with his job in the Outback. He wasn't certain what he would do next with his life. He would stay with his mother and sister while he figured things out. It was going to be so, so fantastic. Also, Phoebe was just going to love him!

“You know what, Phoebe? You can see a picture of him. Hang on just a minute. It's on my phone. Here.”

Phoebe leaned over to look. She couldn't deny that she felt great interest.

And Ryland was attractive, Phoebe thought. He seemed tall—like Mallory—and lanky. In the picture, she could see that he had thick lion-colored hair, darker than his sister's. But Phoebe couldn't see his features clearly because he wore large sunglasses. She couldn't tell if he looked at all like Mallory.

“Is this a recent picture?” Phoebe asked.

“Uh. Yes.”