We Won't Feel a Thing (15 page)

Show me myself,
she commanded.

Rachel watched herself step out of the elevator. Her skin tingled in delight. She was everything she wanted to be. She wore a black trench coat with a high collar and zippers like glittering scars. She had dangerous spiky boots and a big white paper bag from a real New York bakery. On her shoulder perched a giant raven with a ruby-studded collar, exactly right for the sidekick of a wicked queen who was also the city’s most feared and respected copy editor.

Walk,
she instructed herself. Her cartoon self stalked down the carpet, the trench coat billowing behind her. The vision was silent, but she could practically hear the sounds of a thriving business: the clatter of keyboards, the friendly chatter, the overlapping
brrrriiinnnngs!
of desk phones. She bid good mornings to workers in the hallway. They peppered her with questions, helpfully captioned:

“Period inside the parentheses?”

“Outside,” she said.

“Should this be
farther
or
further
?”

“Farther. It’s a measurable distance,” she said. She was benevolent to all on her side, and effortlessly generous with knowledge. From her paper sack, she handed out apple-crumb donuts.

At the end of the hall loomed towering double doors. Rachel turned the iron raven-head knobs and opened the doors to the office of her dreams. It wasn’t just a corner office. It was a
lair
. A throne of red metallic Cross pens shone behind a carved mahogany desk, on top of which Bob and Athena guarded stacks of marked-up papers. On the mantel above her giant stone fireplace, glass and marble awards made their own gleaming skyline. And in front of her desk was a trap door, perfect for people who misused
literally
and refused to acknowledge the importance of the Oxford comma.

Her assistant, a smart-looking girl in a pencil skirt, poked her head in. “You have a new message from Trueheart Publishing,” her caption said.

“Fantastic!” Queen Rachel polished her gold apple paperweight. Her raven glowered on her shoulder. “Read it, please.”

“Brilliant edits on the Audley book,”
read the girl.
“You’ve made a history of decorative-plate collecting almost readable.”

“A lovely note from a deeply intelligent individual.” Queen Rachel put her boots up on the desk. “Please send him a basket of mini muffins.”

“Will do. Also, a…Mr.
Leggweak
from Rival Editorial is here to see you. Shall I release the interns on him?”

Queen Rachel smiled a poison-apple smile. She stroked the raven and fed her a donut crumb.

“We can handle this, can’t we, Lexicon?” she said.

Ravens, she discovered, could shrug.

“Send him in.”

Mr. Leggweak swaggered through the doors in a too-small brown suit and a t-shirt with a monocle on it. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Chad Armstrong. He gave the mermaid clock a snide and insinuating look. The raven scowled and ruffled her feathers. Queen Rachel’s finger brushed the trap door button.

“So, Mr. Leggweak. We meet again.” She filed her nails with her letter-opener dagger. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’ve intercepted a copy of this old-timey sideshow you call a ‘stylebook.’” He flipped through it with cartoonish disdain. “So many stodgy rules. A full page on split infinitives? Newsflash: English isn’t Latin, toots.” He leaned on her desk. “I think I will endeavor
to boldly poach
some of your clients.”

“I’d like to see you try, Mr. Leggweak.”

“Oh yeah? What’ll you tell them?”

“That you’re a disgrace! A disgrace to the forces of—”

Leggweak burst out laughing. It was an ugly laugh that crunched up his nose and put his alarming red gums on display. “I’m sorry,” he whooped, tossing the stylebook on the floor and clutching his stomach. “I’m sorry…”

“What’s so funny?” Queen Rachel glared. The raven jumped down from her perch and did a menacing wing-flap.

“You. Getting all worked up.” Leggweak slapped his hands on the desk. “When I don’t even exist.”

Queen Rachel rose up.

“What do you mean,” she said, “you don’t exist?”

“None of this does! Nice fantasy, though.” He waved her letter opener. “See, in reality, you never left town. You poor unfortunates made the mistake of kissing, and then neither of you could
bear
to leave each other, so you compromised and stayed right here. Forever.”

Leggweak stabbed the desk. The wood carvings shriveled and vanished. The mahogany finish faded into scuffed oak. Her raven blipped out of sight.

“His parents retired, moved out to a cheap condo,” Leggweak continued, “and you two kept your precious house—”

Rachel’s office transformed itself as he talked. The tall windows shrank and grew plain white cotton curtains. The burgundy walls paled into corncob yellow. Her awards disappeared and dozens of taxidermied animal heads popped up in their place, new ones mixed in with the old. A stuffed raven sat glassy-eyed on a shelf beside the window.

On the library roof, Rachel punched the button on the goggles, but the vision wouldn’t stop. She froze, horror rooting her to the trash-can seat.

“Riley took over the business, see,” said Leggweak, gesturing to a stuffed two-headed kitten under a bell jar. “He hasn’t made a mosaic in years.”

“Why not?”

“Guess he lost heart.” He shrugged, surveying the staring heads. “The business doesn’t bring in much money, but you two don’t need much. You don’t go anywhere. You don’t do anything.” He steered Queen Rachel toward the living room, his arm around her shoulders. “All you do is
make love.
All day, every day.”

Rachel and her avatar cringed—because no phrase in the English language was more humiliating than
make love
, and because Leggweak had led her into an unexpected room, one that seemed expressly designed to inspire cringes.

It bore no resemblance to the Woodlawn living room. All the furniture was gone. In the center of the room was a nest of heart-shaped pillows in pink and yellow and lavender satin. The floor was littered with empty champagne bottles, ripped lingerie, open boxes of chocolates, china plates of half-eaten strawberries. Where the white couch had been, a heart-shaped hot tub now bubbled and frothed, guarded by a fat cupid statue with emerald eyes and lush red ringlets. The windows were fitted with thick golden bars.

Rachel’s throat closed up.

“Take me back,” her avatar said. Her wicked black coat was gone, replaced by a gown of lavish pink lace. “Take me
back to my office.”

“This is it.” His eyebrows waggled revoltingly. “This is where Business Time happens.”

Rachel smashed a champagne bottle on the hot tub and brandished the jagged end.

“Ho, hold up!” Leggweak backed up. “You don’t want to do that, doll.”

“Erase this! Make it go away!”

“Put the bottle down.”

“No!”

Leggweak broke his own bottle.

“Put it down, kid,” he said, advancing on her, “or you’ll be—”

“STOP!”

Leggweak whirled around. Silhouetted in the doorway was a familiar figure, tall and proud on a whinnying white horse like the Solomons had on their farm. He wore protective plastic goggles and brandished a chipping hammer that was ten times its usual size, but Rachel instantly recognized her beloved.

“Nothing can part us, my lady!”
he said.

“Oh my god, Riley.” Rachel smacked her forehead. “Get
out!”

“I can’t. It’s your fantasy.”

“Don’t come in!”

“I’m surprised. The white horse and all. It’s not really you.”

Riley and the horse squeezed through the doorway, trotted to Leggweak, and made a small but threatening
capriole
. He was annoyingly endearing as an animated hero. He wore a blue shirt with some kind of robot-knight on it and his eyes looked like movie-prince eyes and his curls bounced as the horse danced around in place.

“Do you need me to vanquish this jerkwad?” said Riley.

“I can vanquish my own jerkwads,” said Rachel.

“Let’s vanquish him together. It’ll go much faster.”

“Ooooo-kay. I’m out.” Leggweak tossed the broken bottle over his shoulder. “We can skip the duel.”

Leggweak snapped his fingers and vanished in a billow of purple smoke. When it cleared, Rachel and Riley were curled together in the nest of pillows. Each pillow bore a candy-heart message in red. CRAZY4U. MY LOVE. AT LAST.

“We’ll just get rid of this one,” Riley said, and tossed the pink YOUR SWEET pillow over his shoulder.

“I appreciate that.”

Riley’s hand vanished in the folds of her lace gown. LOVE U, the pillows said. KISS ME. KISS ME. Their lips drew closer…closer…

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A sharp voice popped the vision. On the library roof, Rachel tore off the Step Three goggles and leapt to her feet, tingling madly in places she didn’t want to tingle. Her legs liquefied. A hot tub frothed in her belly.

Jeanette stood scowling beside the roof door.

“What is this? A protest?” She put her fists on her hips. “You think you’re too good to shelve romance novels?”

“I—”

“What’s with the goggles?”

“They’re for…” Rachel flipped through excuses. She was sweating through her shirt. “…Meditation?”

“Did you two join a cult? Is that what’s happening here? First Curly disappears, and then—”

“He disappeared?”

“Oh, relax.” Jeanette reached to the side and yanked Riley through the doorway. “I found him in the basement.
Fighting with Chad Armstrong
.”

Riley’s blue t-shirt was ripped from neckband to pocket. He pressed a wad of toilet paper to his bleeding nose. He was filthy in the oddest way, as if he’d been dragged belly-down across a dust-covered floor.

Rachel’s insides rioted. She backed away. “I’m sure there was a reason—”

“Whatever. I don’t want to hear it. Andrea’s on her way in.” She heaved Riley at Rachel. “Go home, both of you.
Now.”

Chapter Nine

The car roared down Honeyhill Road. Thirsty Herd blared from the speakers. Cornfields blurred past like a film in fast-forward. The weak sun was in the rearview; ahead, clouds hung thick in the sky.

“Rach.” Riley turned down the music. “Slow down.”

She gripped the wheel tighter. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t need a doctor?”

“Not for this.”

“You didn’t have to defend my honor.”

“I was defending my face, pretty much.” Riley adjusted the tissue wads plugging his nose. “But your honor came up too.”

“I’m sure.”

“He said something gross—”

“I don’t want to know.”

“He fights dirty! He went for the nose first. I didn’t even get a good punch in.”

She glanced at him. A lump had swelled above his left eye. “Did he hit you on the
forehead
?”

“No. I saw the blood and passed out,” he admitted. “My head hit the cabinet.”

Rachel pulled the car onto the shoulder and threw it into park.

“What?” said Riley.

“You’re being cute,” said Rachel, her forehead on the steering wheel, “and it isn’t helping.”

“Sorry.”

Rachel turned the music back up. Her teeth attacked her green-apple gum.
Blind me with the radiance of lies
, bawled Thirsty Herd.

“I can’t believe you just showed up,” said Rachel.

“On the roof?”

“In my vision.”

“I was there?”

“On a—” She sighed and closed her eyes. “On a
white horse.”

“Really? Seriously?”

“I don’t know how it—”

“You were in mine, too!” he said. “Okay, so you came in and you had on this incredible dress of mosaic tiles and then we were in this cottage like Crab and Clam’s, and—”

“We were supposed to Visualize the Future,” Rachel rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We weren’t supposed to
invite
each other.”

“I didn’t invite you!”

“So I just showed up in your vision, of my own free will.”

“Yes.”

“Wearing some amazing arty dress.”

“Yes!”

“You must have thought about me first!”

“I always think about you.” Riley shook his head. “I can’t help it.”

Rachel’s eyes softened. She rested her hand in the empty cupholder between them, where Riley always put his lemonade when they went to Trail’s End.

“Did I…kiss you?” she said to the gearshift. “In the vision?”

“Yeah. Well, no. Almost.” Riley slipped his hand into the cupholder. Their fingers made shy introductions. “What about me? Did I kiss you?”

Rachel stared at the spot on the gearshift where the silver veneer was chipping off. She turned a shade of red he hadn’t seen since she mixed up
venal
and
venial
during their Special Topics in World Religions class.

“Oh, wow,” he said.

“We need to shut the door,” she said.

“What door?”

“The mirror door.” She put the car in drive again, fingers trembling. “Here’s what we do: We go home, shut the door between us. You finish your mosaic. I write an urgent email to David and discuss this.” She turned down Donnybrook Lane. “And then later, you and I meet in safe, neutral, unsexy territory to discuss next steps.”

“Dining room. Under the boar head.”

“Perfect.”

“Are we doing Step Four?”

“Let’s see what David says.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t—” Riley’s face fell.
“Oh.”

“What?” Rachel looked where he was looking. Their front lawn was still four mailboxes away, but she could already see what Mr. and Mrs. Woodlawn had been up to in their absence.

“Oh god,” Riley said, as they rolled closer to 212 Donnybrook Lane. “Our house threw up.”

***

Rachel and Riley had once seen a spectacular TV breakup, which had begun with a mild dispute over a toothpaste cap and ended with the couple flinging each other’s belongings all over the front lawn. The carnage in front of the Woodlawn house was similar. The grass—overgrown, since no one had mowed it that week—was strewn with old photos and CDs, books with ripped-out pages, broken knick-knacks from failed vacations, and heaps of ripped clothes, including the remains of Mrs. Woodlawn’s pink silk pants and Mr. Woodlawn’s denim shorts. Draped on the front steps was a long empty sack.