Sorcery and the Single Girl (11 page)

“I was certain that you could tell me,” he said, smiling. “Isn’t there some other monument over here? Something off the beaten path?”

“Constitution Gardens,” I said, and then I bit my lip. All right. I
was
a librarian. I knew stuff. But did I have to show off that knowledge like some completely geeky teenage girl? I fought against the urge to tell Graeme about the Monument to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, or the fact that the Gardens were land reclaimed from the Potomac River Tidal Basin, or any of the other dozen Happy Tourist Facts that sprang to my mind.

Instead, I let Graeme guide me to a wooden bench. “What are those lights over there?” He nodded toward a vague glow that lit the path ahead of us.

“The Vietnam Memorial,” I said. Designed by Maya Lin, completed in 1982, droned the travelogue in my mind.

“Ah,” he said. “What was the name of the woman who designed it?”

“Maya Lin,” I said, trying to keep the note of surprise from my voice.

“And how long has it been there now?”

“Since 1982,” I said, and my awe definitely flowed into my words.

He didn’t care that I knew things. It didn’t bother him that I had a stash of trivia tucked away, that I could call up a ridiculous number of facts and tidbits.

And as I relaxed into the curve of his arm, I wondered why I’d ever thought that it
would
matter. But that, at least, was easy to answer. Most guys didn’t like to hang out with girls who knew more than they did. I’d spent a lifetime trying to hide the fact that I was smart, trying to disguise my memory, the bits and pieces I’d picked up as a librarian.

Even David Montrose wasn’t thrilled with my know-it-all approach. Or at least so I sensed. I held back from him. I assumed the role of student, let him play the part of teacher. I gave in to him regularly, because that was how we related to each other. Those were our
jobs
with respect to each other. He taught. I learned.

I blinked as I became consciously aware of the things Graeme was doing with his fingertips on the back of my neck. The very stimulating things he was doing. The downright arousing things, as his lips moved toward my silk-wrapped cleavage.

Toward the cleavage I had liberally doused in chemical-tainted, mosquito-damning poison. “Wait!” I said.

“What?” He pulled back reluctantly.

I let my own fingers travel toward the neck of his white shirt. The cotton glimmered in the dim light, and I licked my lips nervously. At least there was no taste of Offs! there. Who knows what this gorgeous man would think if I let him proceed? If I let him continue on the shimmering little journey of discovery that he’d commenced? What a way to kill a romance—literally, with poison.

I undid his top button. “Nothing,” I said, aware that his exclamation was still hanging in the air. “I just thought that I should do a bit of the work.” I added a taunting smile to my words.

He grinned back at me. “Work?”

“Work,” I repeated, and then I shrugged. “Play. Whatever.”

I kissed him, to keep the proverbial ball rolling forward. His fingers tangled in my hair, adding an urgency to my lips. I fumbled at another of his buttons, and another. I could see that my Englishman had a fine dusting of blond hair on his chest—not one of those movie-star smooth torsos that always reminded me of a boy. No. Graeme Henderson was a man. A man who was obviously eager for me to return to my ministrations.

Who was I to disobey? Without thinking, I hitched my skirt a little higher and eased onto Graeme’s lap, facing him and the shadows of Constitution Gardens. His indrawn breath told me that my attention was more than welcome, that I had, indeed, made him forget my chemical-soaked skin. I leaned down, determined to continue my successful enterprise. Another button. Another. A tug to free his shirt from the waistband of his slacks.

I might have ignored the sound of a clearing throat. I had definitely overlooked the slap of feet against the blacktop path. But there was no way I could avoid the beam of a flashlight.

A flashlight that had all of the intensity of a
CSI
investigation. A flashlight that immediately picked out and broadcast the fact that my T-shirt had ridden up considerably higher than the waistband of my skirt. A flashlight that showed exactly what a remnant trail of Pick-Me-Up Pink looks like against pale English flesh, especially flesh that was framed by a tousled cotton shirt.

Graeme blinked and sat up straighter on the bench, holding me steady with one confident hand. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

Officer. Crap.

I jumped away from Graeme as if he were a lightning rod channeling an entire thunderstorm of electricity.

The policeman took advantage of the movement to shine his light directly into my eyes. “I was going to ask you the same question, sir.” I could hear the smirk behind his words, an infuriating “just a joke between us boys” tone that made my blood boil. “We’ve had reports of certain…unsavory characters here in the park,” the cop went on. “You can never be too careful.”

I started to splutter a reply, but Graeme settled a soothing hand on my forearm. “I’m being careful enough, Officer.”

I could swear the flashlight beam dipped lower, that the policeman made an entirely inappropriate inspection of Graeme’s trousers. Or maybe that’s where
my
eyes traveled. Oops.

“All the same,” the policeman said. “The park isn’t safe after dark. You two should move along.”

We were being rousted by the D.C. police. We were being chivied along like vagrants. Herded up like streetwalkers. Well,
I
was the one being treated like a streetwalker. Graeme was just my unsuspecting john.

I started to protest, to ask if the park was closed yet, if it was technically after hours. I was going to demand a meeting with the cop’s boss, with the sergeant, or whoever it was who took charge of these badge-toting, flashlight-wielding tyrants of the street.

But then I thought about riding in the back of a police car. A car that would almost definitely be lacking the smooth suspension of Graeme’s limousine. A car that would certainly be in short supply of champagne and almonds, of the miniature chocolate truffles that I had glimpsed in the cabinet of culinary wonders.

And so I let myself be hustled out of Constitution Gardens. I let myself be marched back to the main path, to the uncomplimentary glare of streetlights. I let myself stand beside Graeme as the policeman waved a jaunty farewell, shaking his head as he left to search out other miscreants in the night.

I was too embarrassed to hear Graeme’s parting words to Washington’s finest. I didn’t even feel Graeme’s fingers on my elbow, guiding me back to the limo. I didn’t see the chauffeur, standing at attention beside the sleek black door. I didn’t taste the champagne that Graeme poured from a fresh bottle, didn’t feel the tickle of the tiny bubbles at the back of my throat.

Instead, I sat on my half of the car seat, swaddled in my own private blanket of misery. I felt like a child caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar. I remembered the time that Gabriel Kahn had come over to study high school physics, and Gran had caught us necking on the living room sofa, our textbooks long forgotten.

Only when the limo pulled up in front of the Peabridge did I trust myself enough to speak. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” I managed to say.

“Jane,” Graeme said. “Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?” I started to ask, and I was horrified to hear tears behind my words.

“Hush,” he said, and then he pulled me close to his lipstick-traced and now cotton-covered chest. I felt his arms around me, though, calm and soothing. He wasn’t embarrassed. Or at least, he didn’t act like he was.

I felt him brush his lips against the top of my head. My mosquito-lotioned hair. That was the problem. Deep Woods Off! had ruined everything. I pushed back from his chest enough that I could look into his eyes. “It wasn’t like we were doing anything wrong,” I said. I felt as if I was testing foreign waters, easing in with a toe before I dared to take a plunge.

“We’re both consenting adults,” he agreed.

“He didn’t have to be so snide.”

“He was likely jealous. Miserable sod.”

We stared at each other for a long moment, and I realized that I could do the responsible thing. The adult thing. I could invite Graeme in, take a quick shower to remove the Off! from my tainted skin, and pick up right where we’d been interrupted.

But there was Neko to consider. Neko, and Jacques. I shuddered. There was also the fact that I had promised Melissa—
sworn
to my best friend—that I would keep this romance secret from my familiar.

Friendship Tests could be a bitch.

“I’m sorry,” I said, at the same time I heard Graeme say exactly the same words.

He laughed, and he cupped his palm against my jaw. “Sometimes, when the moment’s lost, you just have to let it go.” He sighed as he traced my jaw with one blunt finger. My belly—or something lower—flipped over. “Promise me that you’ll save next Saturday night for me. Let me make this up to you.”

I looked around—at the limo, the champagne, the remnants of a perfect evening. I was acting like a spoiled brat. I shouldn’t need Graeme to make anything up to me. If anything, I should be making things up to
him.

Saturday night, he’d said. Just like a regular boyfriend. “I’d love that,” I said.

He reached for the door handle. “Let me walk you to your door,” he said.

“No!” I pictured Neko and Jacques, staring out the cottage windows. “No,” I repeated in a slightly more sane voice. “I want to picture you here. Remember the good things about tonight.” I leaned in and gave him one last kiss, a hint of what I wanted to make happen next Saturday night.

“Good things,” he said with a smile, as he came up for air. And then he opened the door.

I was only a little embarrassed to find the chauffeur there, waiting patiently. Of course, he was waiting for me to emerge from the sex lair of the backseat. That was his job. He offered me the slightest bow as he handed me out of the car. “Good evening, madam,” he said. He kept his eyes straight ahead, his demeanor as different from the cop’s as any two men imaginable.

I forbade myself to look back as I walked down the garden path. Instead, I focused on slowing my breathing, on steadying my pounding pulse. I started to weave together the bits and pieces of my story, the tale I would need to tell as soon as the front door opened.

Earlier, in fact. Neko pounced on me from the front porch. “Where were you?” he asked.

“And who were you weeth?” Jacques added from his own darkened corner of the doorstep.

I wondered how long they’d taken to coordinate their interrogation, but I was suddenly inspired to answer with disarming truthfulness. I shivered a little, overcome by my daring. “I had a date,” I said, breezily opening the door and letting all three of us into the living room.

“With who?” Neko cocked his head to one side, as if I were a mouse he might bat across the floor.

“Whom,” I said, smiling sweetly.

“Whom,” he growled, flexing his fingers like a predator’s claws.

“Nate Poindexter,” I said, tossing off the name as if I’d said it a million times. Where had
that
come from?

“Poindexter?” Neko asked.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have chosen a surname that made me want to laugh. “Nate,” I said firmly. “We went to high school together.”

“High school?” Jacques asked, as if the notion of education were completely foreign to his French mind.

I reached back into my store of schoolgirl French and said, “
Lycee.
I ran into him the other day, just walking down the street in Georgetown. He’s been living out in San Francisco, but he decided that D.C.’s really more his style.”

“San Francisco?” Neko asked, making the name of the city sound like an accusation. Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen a gay stronghold. My familiar just might use that one against me. But not if I got him off track soon enough.

“Actually, Silicon Valley. Cupertino.”

Neko nodded, storing away my words. He even stretched, working out every last kink in his seemingly elastic spine. “Where did you go tonight?”

“Morton’s. For steak. Apparently no one serves red meat in California anymore.”

Neko sniffed, and for just a moment, I wondered if he was trying to smell filet mignon on my breath. I wouldn’t put it past the little sneak. Before I could come up with another lie to cover my meat-free evening, Neko shook his head. “What
are
you wearing, girlfriend? Eau de Pine-Sol?”

“It’s not that bad!” I gasped.

“Not if industrial solvents turn you on.” Neko made a face. I tried to remind myself that he had once been a cat. He was a magical familiar. His senses were more finely tuned than any true human’s. They had to be.

“Enough,” I said. “I’m going to bed. You boys keep the noise down.”

They were quiet enough. But I tossed and turned for hours. Even after I took a quick, cool shower—enough to wash away the Deep Woods Off! And the lingering heat that Graeme had stirred inside me.

I
looked up from the lectern, once again surprised by the number of people who were sitting in the Peabridge’s conference room. “And so,” I said, gesturing toward the screen behind me, which showed a hand-lettered surveyor’s plat, “you can view our extensive collection of maps, study them like the founding fathers did in their endless attempts to resolve border disputes, determine effective trade routes, and ultimately break free from British control.”

The applause was spontaneous, and I found myself surrounded by eager audience members as I turned off the microphone that was, incongruously, attached to my lace bodice. A middle-aged woman set a hand against her well-groomed silver bob as she said, “Thank you so much! These Monday sessions are the high point of my month.”

I put on my best librarian smile. “They wouldn’t be anything without people from the neighborhood joining us.”

My words sounded fake in my own ears, but they seemed to please the local matron. As I dug for something a little more sincere to deliver as a follow-up, I felt small hands tugging at my skirt.

“Now, Nicholas, you know that we don’t do that.”

Well, maybe Nicholas’s mother knew that he wasn’t supposed to tug on every last pleat in my colonial garment, but Nicholas himself seemed distinctly unaware of that fine point of etiquette. His toddler’s cheeks were smeared with something that looked like strawberry jam, and his tousled hair screamed “Dennis the Menace.” Especially the “menace” part.

I had noticed the kid during my presentation. He had taken advantage of the lowered lights and the quiet crowd to demand his sippy cup, and then had dropped the damn thing on the floor. Repeatedly. Despite his mother’s stage whisper that he sit down. Despite the hissed complaints of other patrons. Despite my attempts to incinerate him with glares from the lectern.

His success at prying open the top of the supposedly-indestructible sippy cup and spilling the contents all over the conference room floor was merely an added benefit for those of us who got to maintain the Peabridge’s space.

Now, Nicholas buried his face in my embroidered overskirt. What sort of mother uses sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a (blatantly unsuccessful) quietness bribe? I could only hope that the library would consider my dry-cleaning bill a reimbursable business expense. Or maybe I could conjure up some sort of cleaning spell. There had to be something practical in all those books lining my basement walls.

Sometimes, I wondered why I had launched the Peabridge’s program of community open houses on the second Monday of every month.

“That was excellent!”

I finally managed to extricate myself from Nicholas’s unwelcome embrace as I turned toward my boss’s voice. Evelyn was standing beside the lectern, resting her hands on the wooden surface as if she longed to take her own place on the podium. She was dressed in one of her boxiest suits, determined as ever to be a grand ambassador for the Peabridge. At least this ensemble featured a cool blue bouclé, a soothing complement to her graying hair. She generally favored muddy browns and acid greens, colors that competed violently against her complexion. I was afraid to rave about the improvement, though, lest she detect my criticism of her past sartorial splendor.

“Thanks,” I said, gathering up my notes.

“Well, with ten of these under your belt, I have to say that you’ve really mastered the art of handling this audience.”

I stood a little straighter. I
did
do a good job of finding topics that would interest our neighborhood scholars. And I managed to keep my training sessions light and informative.

“Stop it, you brat!” The shout came from the doorway, and I looked up just in time to see a linen skirt swirl over the threshold, flouncing toward the library’s lobby. I wasn’t surprised to see darling Nicholas standing in the aisle, scrunching up his face in preparation for a deafening bellow. I wondered what poor person he’d attacked. Then, I asked myself if I was a terrible human being for feeling grateful that the victim was not me.

I settled for making a face and cocking a half smile toward Evelyn. “Maybe we need to set an age limit on these things.”

“And miss out on mothers in the neighborhood, who might not have any other way to get here without bringing the younger ones?”

The worst thing was, she was serious. And no self-respecting Nicholas-terror would ever think to harass
her.
She looked downright evil—like a fairy-tale witch, if I did say so myself. And every little child knew that it was a witch who captured Hansel and Gretel, who kept them in a cage and readied them for the oven.

Poor Evelyn. She didn’t even get the benefits of magical powers, but she was stuck with the stereotype.

“I’d better get upstairs,” I said. “Some of these people might need coffee to sustain them on their long walk home.”

“There’s the spirit,” Evelyn said, and I thought that she was going to separate my shoulder as she clapped a pleased hand down on my colonial garment.

I wasn’t actually all that eager to staff the coffee bar—I desperately wanted to work on a new research project I’d just begun, involving medical treatments developed in the colonies prior to the Revolution. No, lattes were not my friend, but I wasn’t about to get stuck cleaning up Nicholas’s sippy cup disaster.

The heat was forecast to break tomorrow, but it was still muggy enough outside to curtail the line of brewed espresso drinkers. At the beginning of the summer, Evelyn had tried setting up industrial-strength blenders to make überpriced coffee milk shakes for our patrons, but even her avarice needed to yield to the truth: we
were
a library. People expected some modicum of quiet on our premises. Ice cubes being ground for long, earsplitting minutes went too far.

And so I ended up just pouring a couple of iced coffees, and considered that I’d gotten off easy. In fact, I wouldn’t mind the coffee bar at all, if I didn’t need to waste time foaming milk and making complicated cappuccino orders. See? I wanted to say to Evelyn. I was willing to compromise. She wasn’t interested in compromise, though. She wanted to maximize coffee-based income—a goal that increasingly conflicted with my desire to be a reference librarian.

I had just wiped down the counter and straightened the ever messy container of individually packaged sweeteners when a familiar voice said, “Is it possible to make a mocha over ice?”

“Mr. Potter!” I hurried around the counter to give the man a quick embrace. He spent a great deal of his time helping Gran with her concert opera work, but the Peabridge’s guardian angel never failed to stop by the library for my Monday lectures. I hoped that he was pleased with them—it was his generous donation that made the extra sessions possible. The extra sessions, along with the cataloging work that continued downstairs, as we finally started to get our extensive collection under control.

He laughed at my attention, and I couldn’t help but notice that he stood a little straighter when I stepped back. He even took a moment to smooth his nonexistent tie flat against his chest. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, he actually sucked in his belly a bit, too. Sweet man.

As I moved behind the bar to make the coffee drink, I said, “And how is poor Beijing holding up under the summer heat?”

“Perfectly fine,” Mr. Potter laughed. “That little shih tzu has the entire world wrapped around his paws. He has me trained to turn a fan on for him whenever I leave the house. We’ll both be glad when the weather finally catches up with the calendar.”

“But I’m sure that he repays your attention with flawless loyalty.” Knowing Mr. Potter’s sweet tooth, I held up the canister of whipped cream. He started to shake his head “no” but gave in to his true desire and held his fingers apart about an inch, to indicate a short dollop. I obliged, giving him the huge serving that I knew he really wanted.

“Loyalty.” He shook his head. “I suppose that’s what some might call it. I’d say he’s just spoiled. But I worry enough about him that I take him with me when I travel. Like this weekend, when I drive to Pittsburgh for my brother’s birthday party. We’re going to a karaoke bar!”

“That should be fun.” Not that I thought it would really be fun to drive all the way to Pittsburgh. With a yappy shih tzu in the car. To sing karaoke with a bunch of septuagenarians. I’d rather organize my crystal collection.

“Which brings me to the reason I stopped by.”

I handed over the iced mocha and smiled inquiringly. Mr. Potter took a moment to sip the beverage and declare it “perfect” before he reached into the pocket of his sports shirt. He handed me a slender envelope, the type that looks like a birthday card with money from an elderly aunt. “Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”

Puzzled, but excited like a little kid, I eased my finger under the flap. Two tickets were nestled inside. I fanned them out against the envelope and read, “Kennedy Center.
Romeo and Juliet.
” The date was for Saturday night.

“I was going to exchange them at the box office,” Mr. Potter said. “But then I realized that I’ve seen enough Romeos and enough Juliets for a lifetime. Perhaps you can find someone to go with?”

Someone. Graeme.

All of a sudden, I remembered straddling his lap on the park bench, cringing before the intruding flashlight of Washington’s finest. My cheeks became incandescent.

“Aha,” Mr. Potter said. “I see that you have someone in mind.”

I sighed. I’d have thought that my blushing circuits would be long-ago burned out. “I do,” I said, all of a sudden too shy to mention Graeme by name. I could just picture Mr. Potter saying something to Gran, and then my trying to explain my stunning Englishman to my grandmother and mother both, maybe over another of our infamously strained get-to-know-each-other torture brunches. Better to keep my secret a while longer. Until I was certain that it would survive under the nuclear blast of my family’s interest.

As I looked at the tickets, I realized I shouldn’t be planning any dates around town. I should be thinking about the Coven, about setting the centerstone. I needed to start working on my magical test, or Samhain would arrive before I knew it.

But the Kennedy Center? And Romeo and Juliet? And Graeme? “Thank you, Mr. Potter! Thank you so much!”

“You’ll have to tell me if the play’s the thing, then,” he said. “I’ll be in Pittsburgh all next week, but when I get back, I’ll want a full report!”

A full report. Well, he might not be getting that. Not if an evening of theater became as supercharged as a tourist turn about the monuments. “Absolutely,” I lied.

I tried to wave off his money, but he insisted on paying for his iced mocha. “I have an interest in this library, you know. I’d never forgive myself if you went into the red because of caffeine fiends like me.”

More like whipped cream fiends, I started to say, but I didn’t want to risk hurting his feelings. I clutched the tickets to my chest. “Thank you, Mr. Potter! I really appreciate your thinking of me.”

“Enjoy, Jane.”

I watched as he walked across the lobby, taking the time to say goodbye to Evelyn. He would never get over the sorrow of being a widower, but the Peabridge had become something of a second home for him, and I was glad.

When he got to the library’s glass double doors, he needed to shuffle left, then right, dancing to avoid a messenger bearing a huge vase of flowers. I shot a glance to Evelyn at the same time that she looked at me. Clearly, neither of us was expecting the delivery. Maybe Nancy, helping patrons check out books at the circulation desk? Or the cataloger, working downstairs?

The messenger approached the front desk, setting down the elaborate display and producing a clipboard. As Nancy signed for the arrangement, Evelyn and I both zeroed in, drawn like hummingbirds to crimson sugar-water.

Flowers exploded from the vase. There were tall stems of lilies in rich orange and yellow. Daisies brightened the arrangement, and baby’s breath ghosted over broad leaves of greenery. A full dozen red roses were tucked into the explosion of color, their broad petals just beginning to open up.

A card peeked out from the midst of the arrangement, and my name was prominently displayed in bold Courier type.

Evelyn sighed. “They’re yours.” She waited for me to pluck the card from its plastic fork. My belly did a somersault, and I wished she would back away, let me read the card in peace.

Thank you for an arresting Saturday night.

And it was signed with the initial G.

Arresting. Well, not exactly. I mean, it wasn’t as if we’d actually been dragged down to the police station. It wasn’t like the policeman had read us our rights before whipping out his handcuffs.

Handcuffs. Maybe that was the image that got me. Or just the memory of the heat that had melted through my short skirt as I straddled Graeme’s lap. Or the thought that I had been one of
those
women, the type that gets caught having sex in public. (Almost sex. Whatever.)

But suddenly, my cheeks were as dark as the roses.

“What does the card say?” Evelyn asked, holding out a hand as if she expected me to hand over the incriminating evidence.

“It’s just a little joke,” I said, trying to make an offhand shrug. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you. I mean, um, to anyone. That is, anyone but me.” I gathered up the huge display of flowers and hurried them back to the staff kitchen, where I made a great show of topping off the water in the vase and adding the powdered “life extender.”

Don’t bother talking to me, I tried to project. I’m much too busy to answer silly questions about flowers. About a card. About a man who would send an entire florist shop to a librarian he’d only met a couple of weeks before.

Fortunately, by the time I came back to my desk, Evelyn was involved in a discussion with Nicholas’s mother. It looked like a heated confrontation, and I imagined that it involved the uncapped Magic Marker in Evelyn’s hand. I didn’t see immediate evidence of what Nicholas had ruined, but I didn’t waste a lot of time looking.