Who Needs Magic? (11 page)

Flynn catches up to me. “Brendan has a skateboard competition at three in Hannah Park. You want to go?”

It’s always entertaining to watch Flynn’s friend Brendan perform senseless aerial flips off a concrete ramp and nearly break multiple limbs when his feet fail to reconnect with his skateboard, but this will mean sitting next to Flynn, and more hand-holding and gaze-sharing. There was a time—the Night of the First Kiss to be specific—when these were things I’d hoped to be doing with Flynn all summer, repeatedly. But that was so long ago, back before I could even imagine the complications coming my way.

I may know about the hidden storm clouds, but another couple of hours out in the happy sunshine, with our knees and hands touching, and my willpower will collapse. It’ll all come out. The pressure will be gone, but I
can just picture Flynn looking at me like Ariella did: pitying, doubtful of my abilities. It’s too risky. I just have to hold off a couple more days.

“Actually, I think I’m going to go home and sketch out some of these ideas while I’m energized.” I back away, toward the maze.

“You’re leaving now?”

“I have my roller boots on, so it won’t take long.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I wave as I slip behind the bushes. “I’ll call you later.” I know this is the right thing to do. Soon, I’ll have Jeni on board, and I’ll grant her wish, and I’ll be able to tell Flynn everything.

As I hurry through the maze, I wait for relief to come, but instead, I feel worse. That’s because doing the right thing is like medicine. It may taste awful, but you know it’s good for you and that in the end you’ll be better off.

There she goes. Again. Dashing off to the back room to hide from me.

I’ve gone through two entire Frequent Fizzy cards and drunk an ocean’s worth of Beta-carotene Berry Blasts, and every time I get to the front of the line, Jeni vanishes the second she spots me. Ducking behind the Nutri-Fizzy machine, crouching under the counter, running off to the restroom and locking herself in. I’ve left her multiple copies of the fairy-tale research I’ve done. She has to have at
least looked at it. I’ve dropped off gifts—boxes of organic chocolate truffles, jars of scented baby powder—like I’m some heartsick suitor from a fairy tale, when that’s not my part in the story! I’m not the one who’s supposed to be begging. I’m the one who’s supposed to be
begged
.

I’ve even tried stalking her outside the shop before it opens, and at the end of the day, but I always miss her. I’m beginning to wonder if she has a superpower of her own: the ability to become invisible whenever I get within three feet of her.

This should not be the hard part. Magic hasn’t even come into the equation yet. For things to even out, granting Jeni’s wish will have to take less than a millisecond—and the odds of that are not good.

It’s ironic that my breaks have become more work than work. Although work has been more work too. Since I reorganized and redecorated the vintage room, there have been a lot more customers. When I first started, there were one or two a day. Now the only time the shop is empty is first thing in the morning and at the end of the day near closing—and even then, not always.

I deserve a raise, since this is all due to me, but instead, I asked Nancy for more breaks. “The effort that goes into keeping the vintage room at its aesthetic peak is draining me,” I explained to her. “I’m not able to sustain this level of creative supremacy without sufficient time to replenish my mental and physical energy levels.”

“I can imagine.” I detected a hint of sarcasm in Nancy’s
voice. “Just coming up with that excuse must’ve been exhausting.” More than a hint.

But I got the extra breaks. I’d rather have the money, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make as an f.g. Yet
another
sacrifice. When will they stop?

Even though one more break has come and gone without success, I’m relieved to get back to Treasures. It’s late, so business should be slow. I think I’ll pull out my worktable and devote the rest of the day to boots. I’ll concentrate on just one pair. I don’t even have to finish, as long as I start.

I’m semi-cheered-up—until I enter the vintage room and notice that there’s a customer. Not only that, but she’s totally wrecked my belt display. I rearranged the design yesterday, mixing up the lengths and colors into an impressionistic sculpture of a weeping willow caught in the morning sun.

Now it looks like a dying tree after an ice storm. Actually, it just looks like a hat rack, because all the belts are draped over the girl’s arm.

“I had those organized,” I say. The girl turns and glares. She’s a little older than me and everything about her is hostile. Her eyes have five times more black eyeliner etched around them than I’ve ever worn, and her sandy blond hair shoots up in angry spikes, like porcupine quills poised to fire. “If somebody wants to buy one, it’d have to come off, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m buying them.”

“
All
of them?”

“If that’s okay with you.” I notice she’s already got about six belts strung around her waist, over her dress, which looks like a burlap sack with holes cut out for the arms. Her tan, chunky-heeled hiking boots match the color of her hair and the dress and the leather cuffs on her wrists, and even her skin. She’s like some comic-book girl Robin Hood rendered in sepia tones.

She follows my gaze to the belts she’s wearing. “I didn’t steal these,” she snaps. “They’re
mine
.” She glares at me. Wow, it’s not just her hair that’s prickly.

“I know that. I’m aware of my own inventory. I was just thinking that you seem to have enough belts already. And half of those”—I point my Nutri-Fizzy cup at the belts in her hand—“aren’t going to fit you.”

“They’re not for me. I redesign them and then sell them.”

“You do?” I can’t help the surprise in my voice. Damn, now she’s going to think I’m impressed.

“Yeah. I carve images onto them, paint them, add studs, beads, clamps.” She steps closer. I expect her to give off a foresty scent or something earthy, but she weirdly smells like roses. “Like those,” she says, and punches her belt-holding hand through the air toward my boots. The buckles of the belts whip around like the ends of a medieval torture device.

“I made these,” I tell her. They’re my “Artist’s Palette” pair, with paintbrushes and fountain pens carved next to stamps of inkpots and paint cans.

“I figured. You seem the type.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“You think it’s an insult?”

“It is the way
you
say it.”

She laughs. “That’s just the way I talk.” I can tell now that she has one of those cute little-girl faces under the harsh makeup, her features round and soft, babyish. I wonder if her attitude is a way to mask it. I don’t see her liking being called “cute.”

“I saw the table behind the screen with the boots and tools and all. What’re you hiding it back there for?”

“I’m not hiding it. It’s a separate business. My main job is managing this room.”

“You do good work. I love this, by the way.” She swings the cat-o’-nine belts out again, the ends fluttering past the hats on the shoe rack, the scarves on belt hooks, the shoes stacked vertically on the shelves, the left of each pair with the toe pointed up, and the right with the toe down. She’s incredibly irritating, but she’s got taste. And talent too—I’m guessing she carved the spirals on her wrist cuffs in addition to the snakes and skulls and flames on her belts. I take a sip of my drink while I try to figure out if I like her. The nasty fake fruit flavor hits the back of my throat. Ech.

“Nutri-Fizzy, huh?” the girl says. “You like those?”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Why’re you drinking it, then?”

“It’s complicated.”

She shrugs. “I’ve never had one. I won’t go to places that don’t let you bring a reusable cup.”

“They have them there.”

“Yeah, you have to buy one of
theirs
.” She drops the belts on a chair and hunches a shoulder, letting the strap of her leather backpack slide down her arm. For a second I expect her to pull out a bow and arrows. “I have my own.” She shows me a felt pocket with a wooden fork, knife and spoon inside. She’s also got a tall steel coffee mug and a collapsible metal canister with a lid.

“You could go camping.”

“Most places respect it. If they don’t, I go somewhere else.”

“You’re probably vegan too.”

It was a joke, but she sneers at me in response. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. If that’s all right with you.”

“Then how do you explain all the leather?” I wave a hand from her cuffs to her belts to her shoes. Ha! Got her.

She packs up her reusables, unfazed. “I never buy new. No cow has died on my account.”

“I don’t buy new boots either.” Although this is mostly because old ones are cheaper.

“Glad to hear it, Boots.”

“Not my name.”

“Fits, though.” She shifts the backpack onto her shoulder
and nods to the belts on the chair. “So, is that it for belts?”

“We might have more in back.” Because of all my client-searching breaks, I haven’t had time to unpack the boxes Nancy brought in from her last estate-sale spree.

The girl doesn’t say anything. No request to see the boxes. Definitely no “Please,” although I wasn’t holding my breath for
that
. Which is a good thing, because my lungs would’ve exploded since all I get from her is “Well?” accompanied by an expectant, demanding stare.

“All right, all right.” I find a couple of boxes marked “Clothing +” in the storeroom, carry them out and drop them at her feet.

“You take that one,” she orders, pointing to the bigger box. “I’ll take the other.”

Normally I’d snap back that I’m not her servant, but her bossy style is growing on me. At least
she’s
not afraid of me. The opposite, actually. And her hostility is on the surface, where you can see it, and not buried under sugary layers of condescension, like Ariella’s.

I kneel down next to her but sigh loudly as I do, just so she knows I can match her attitude. She grins at me and holds out her hand. “Lourdes Taranco,” she says.

I’ve never seen anybody my age shake hands. Back in New Jersey, a college admissions guy came to talk to us about doing interviews and made a big deal about how a lot of women do these wimpy handshakes because they seem more feminine, but that it actually makes you seem
weak. So when I say “Delaney Collins,” I grab her hand tight, determined to show her I’m the polar opposite of weak—but her grip’s even stronger than mine.

She gives me an approving nod, like maybe she had the same guy come talk at her school. “Cool name.”

“Thanks.”

She lets go of my hand and I wiggle my fingers to get the blood back in them.

Lourdes hunches over her box and starts digging through it. “So what’s your problem, anyway?” she asks. “Why were you so pissy when you first came in here? And don’t tell me it’s because I ruined your precious weeping willow display.”

Okay, that’s incredible. She knew it was a weeping willow. That’s just … Nobody else would ever get that. Except maybe Flynn. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of weirdness the last couple of days,” I say. “Something that seems really great happens and then it turns out to be, like, anti-great, if you know what I mean.”

She laughs. “Oh, man. I have so been there. Feel free to vent.”

“Will you be mocking my pain?”

“Probably.”

I smile. I’d like to tell her everything, and it
would
be easier to confide in a stranger, somebody I have no emotional connection to. But I’d have to back all the way up to Mom and moving here and Dad and learning I’m an
f.g. and my first wish and Ariella and Jeni—and Lourdes probably wouldn’t believe half of it. Even if she did, it’d definitely lead to a nickname a lot worse than Boots.

“Is it a guy thing?” she asks. “Because I am
all
over that. My love life is a tragic farce.”

This surprises me, because it seems like Lourdes is somebody who can get whatever she wants on her own. I concentrate on her for a second, to see if I can sense any kind of wishing vibe coming off her. How great would it be if
she
were my client? Hmm. Maybe it’s possible to switch clients if you haven’t found out the wish yet.

“Yo.” She dangles a striped leg warmer in front of my face. “Earth to Boots.”

“Sorry.” I keep trying to tap into some invisible yearning from Lourdes, but she’s vibe-free. “It’s not that. It’s more of a professional problem,” I say, hoping this ends it. To change the subject, I hold up a rope belt I’ve found. “Interested?”

Lourdes takes it and dangles it by one end, as if she’s got a snake by the tail. “How much?”

I always tell customers to ask Nancy the price of stuff that’s not marked yet, but I’ve noticed that she seems to make up the price on the spot, to match the customer. She’s pretty good at guessing the person’s maximum budget. I don’t think she’d mind if I gave it a try, especially since Lourdes is buying every other belt in the store.

“A dollar.”

Lourdes thinks a second. “Why not?” She tosses it onto the chair with the others. “So?” She spins her hand in the air for me to continue my story. “Spill.”