Who Needs Magic? (22 page)

I decorate the boot with random swirls and checks. Lourdes grabs a red pen and draws a series of stick figures doing acrobatics. We’re quiet and listen to the sounds of creation: the hum of the sewing machine, the tap of fingers on laptop keys.

I’m filled with the same calm that comes with watching Jeni and Ronald flirt. I feel, for the first time in a while, that things are getting better instead of worse.

For instance, I haven’t seen Ariella since that day Jeni tried to “sever our bond.” I have seen Fawn occasionally, charging back from the shoe store, wearing sundresses that hang on her skinny frame, or halter tops and skintight capris, or short shorts that are so short that she has to stop every two seconds to tug them down. I feel sorry for Fawn, and I’m tempted to lure her into Treasures and find something for her to wear that would make her feel better about herself, not worse. I’ll do it after Jeni and Ronald have walked off into the sunset and Ariella’s finally admitted that her beneficiary hasn’t benefited from her help at all.

If the universe really is spinning back in a pro-Delaney direction, then Flynn should be next. Maybe he’s thinking about me right now, missing me, desperate to get back and tell me, over and over, extremely clearly, with lots of specific detail, how much I mean to him and how lucky he feels to have Delaney Collins, super f.g., as his g.f.

Anything is possible now. I mean, look—I’ve created
a whole new boot design without any effort! Without any thought, actually. Why shouldn’t my relationship with Flynn be as thought- and effort-free?

My phone buzzes. Oh my God, it must be Flynn. I know it is. It has to be.

It’s not. It’s Jeni. The text is a half-gibberish mess of misspellings, missing words and nonexistent grammar. “What the …?” I say. Lourdes stares at me curiously. “It’s Jeni,” I explain. “I think she’s, um, been hit in the head or something. Let me just text her back.” I type out a series of question marks and send. Her next message is just as nonsensical, except for one word that screams out from the screen. Not a word—a name. A name that causes both of Jeni’s texts to become decipherable, her scrambled words unscrambling as I study them, the gaps filling in, until the meaning is completely clear: Ariella has gone
too
far.

The sky’s turned pink when Lourdes drops me back at the mall. “I have this thing to go to,” she says, “but I can be late.”

“No, that’s okay.” I’d told Lourdes after Jeni’s second text that she wasn’t injured, just upset. “It’s kind of personal. Better if it’s only me.”

“Call me if you need me,” Lourdes says. She rides off and I hurry out of the parking lot, into the mall.

The daytime crowd’s cleared out and the nighttime crowd has begun to arrive, like the changing of the guard. The shorts and strollers and packs of kids have traded up
for women in party dresses, strappy high heels and bright lipstick, holding hands with men in sport coats or designer leather jackets or dress shirts with skinny ties. Older couples hurry to the movie theater to catch the first show because they have only so much time before they have to get back for the babysitter, and groups of friends bump shoulders on their way to happy hour, laughing loudly,
already
happy. I feel out of place, irritated by their contented contentment, the joy that wafts off them like perfume, while I stink of panic and dread. Jeni didn’t answer my last text and I don’t see her now as I get closer to the Nutri-Fizzy Bar, where they’re closing up for the night. Has she been carried off in a straitjacket? Thrown herself in the fountain? Overdosed on thyme-flavored carbonated water?

But no, she’s there. I see her through the window, helping Kevin lift a gas canister onto the Nutri-Fizzy machine.

“Jeni!” Jeni lets go of the canister when she sees me enter, causing Kevin to lose his balance and fall back against the counter. Another Fizz Master leaps into action and grabs the opposite side of the canister, while Jeni rushes past them, away from me. I grab a straw from the counter and aim it at the door to the back room. When Jeni pushes the lever handle down, it goes nowhere, locked from within. She grabs the lever with both hands, rattling it.

“Jeni, I need to talk to you.”

Jeni gives up on the door, spins around and charges from behind the counter. Her head is down, not from shyness—from anger. I’m about to speak when she reaches
up her arms and shoves me, hard, then storms past me. I hurry out the door after her.

Jeni’s walking so fast, I have to run to catch up to her. “Whatever Ariella said to you, she was lying,” I tell her. “She has an agenda.”

Jeni stops, suddenly, and I shoot past her several strides before I’ve even realized it. Then I have to jog back. I really don’t think being an f.g. is supposed to be this physically demanding. “She said she was a fairy godmother. She
showed
me.” Jeni glares at me, a glare so filled with hurt and betrayal that even in the dimming light of the evening, it slices into me.

“Okay, well,
that’s
true—”

“She said she’s helping another girl get Ronald.”

“Okay, well—”

“She said you’re an ‘inferior mutation of the profession.’ ”

“Inferior! I am so
not—
”

“And that you’ve never granted anybody’s wish before.”

“Okay, well, yes.
Technically—
”

Jeni pokes me in the shoulder. “
You’re
the one who lied.” It’s a hard poke. I’m definitely going to have a bruise.

“I’ve
never
lied to you. I didn’t tell you about Ariella, because she’s
wrong
. The girl she’s trying to help isn’t the right one.
You
are.” Jeni turns her face away from me just as the mall’s streetlamps snap on. The light illuminates the conflicted expression on her face. I can tell she wants to
believe me, or at least she
wants
to want to, but she can’t quite get there. “It’s her word against mine,” I say. “And against what you
know
you feel.”

“She said they were already together.” Jeni’s voice is a whisper, nearly lost among the echoes of the vanished happy-hour-goers. But even as soft as they are, the words cause my stomach to lurch.

“I’m sure she made it up, to throw you off.”

“I texted him.”

“Ronald?”

Jeni nods. “To invite him out with us tonight. He said he was
busy
.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“And I know who the girl is that the other fairy godmother is granting the wish for. It’s the girl we saw in the shoe store that first day. The one you
lied
about.”

“That wasn’t a lie. It was a minor fabrication for the purpose of—”

“Liar.”

The clock tower chimes and Jeni gives me a smug look, like the ensuing gongs are symbolic proof that whatever magic spell I wove for her has ended. But I’ve come too far now to be undone by a clanging bell. It’s just a clock. Midnight is hours away, so even symbolically, I still have time.

“I’m going to find Ariella,” I tell Jeni. “And I’m going to talk to her and clear this up. Everything’ll be fine. Wait here five minutes.”

“I can’t. I have to go back and help close up.”

“Wait there, then,” I say, and try to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “I’ll be right back.”

I dial Ariella’s number and take a quick detour to glance into Jump Kicks. Ronald’s chatting with two preteen boys, who are listening with rapt awe as he extols the benefits of spring-loaded heels. No Fawn, no Ariella, no impatient anticipation in Ronald’s expression to suggest that he’s a prince looking forward to his date with his princess.

I sigh in partial relief.

The Elegant Imprint, the card store where Fawn works, is still open, but there’s no sign of Fawn. Or Ariella. “Excuse me,” I ask the lady behind the counter. “I’m a friend of Fawn’s. I was supposed to meet her and another friend here.”

“Fawn left about an hour ago. I think she had to babysit.”

A guy restocking stationery glances over. “Wasn’t she going to that poetry thing?”

“I don’t think that was tonight,” the lady says. “Was it?”

“I think it might be.”

“Hmm. I don’t—”

“Was there another girl with her?” I ask, interrupting the endless debate.

They both shake their heads.

“She was by herself when she left,” the lady says.

“I didn’t see anybody else,” the guy says. At least they agree on something, but it doesn’t help me.

Back outside, I hit Redial on the phone and then search
up and down the mall’s curved sidewalk, as if I’ll be able to spot Ariella blinking like a human firefly, but the only bright beams come from the reflections of the streetlamps in the shop windows.

The fountain music crescendos and then ends, leaving only the trickling sound of the water jets as the next song cues up. There are just a few people out now, and they’re in no hurry to get to bars or movies. They stroll slowly, talking softly, and in the whispering quiet, I hear the tinkling sound of wind chimes. I speed toward the sound, the clacking of my boot heels echoing along the cobblestone. Then I see her, and—oh my God—she
is
glowing like a firefly. But no, it’s only light bouncing off the sequins on her angel jacket as she strides toward the half-moon driveway near the valet stand, where her mom’s pointy-finned green car is idling. “Ariella!” I call out.

She pauses in front of the little table display of eye creams and body oils that sits outside of Potions. She waits and watches me as I approach, a smile on her face, her eyes gleaming, partly from the golden glow of the big globe light over Potions’ front door and partly from an evil glee. “Hi, Delaney! What a nice surprise!”

I stop in front of her and catch my breath. “How could you do that?” I finally manage to say.

Ariella picks up a lotion bottle and pumps a couple of dollops into her palm. “Do what?” She rubs the lotion over the tops of her hands, like some diabolical TV cartoon villain getting ready to extract the brains out of kittens.

I fold my arms and say nothing. Ariella glances over her shoulder at her mother’s car, where her mom is talking into her Bluetooth and gesturing with her hands, clearly in the middle of her own f.g. crisis. Assured that she has time to torment me, Ariella turns back and drops the smile.

“I did that poor girl a favor,” Ariella says. “You were getting her hopes up when there’s no chance for her.”

“You’re cheating.”

“It’s not a game, Delaney. You’re playing with people’s lives.”

“I know that—” A white-smocked saleswoman steps out from the store. She smiles at us over her rectangular mock-doctor eyeglass frames.

“Can I interest you young ladies in a sample of our latest grapefruit blossom body scent?”

“No, thank you,” I say coolly, and give her a “no sale” glare.

“I’d
love
to.” Ariella sneers at me and then holds out her wrist for the woman to spritz.

“You have to come back with me right now and tell Jeni you were lying,” I say, not caring that the saleslady overhears.

“Lying about what?” Ariella rubs her wrists together. She sniffs the scent and coos approvingly.

“Everything.”

Ariella ignores me. “How much is it?” she asks the saleswoman.

“It’s on sale today for fifteen dollars, and you get a free lip gloss with purchase.”

Ariella thanks her and the woman smiles again, just at Ariella this time, before returning to the store. Ariella presses a wrist to the hollow of her neck. “I didn’t lie about anything, Delaney. I
am
the superior fairy godmother. I have a lot more experience than you. Ronald belongs with Fawn. That’s why they’re on a date right now.”

“I just saw Ronald at the shoe store.”

“He’s meeting Fawn there. In about …” She checks her phone. “Twenty minutes.”

“Meeting her where?”

Ariella smirks at me.

“It can’t be tonight,” I insist. “You’d be there.”

“I don’t need to be there. Cinderella’s fairy godmother didn’t tag along with her to the ball.”

A car horn beeps from the valet circle. “Ariella! Let’s get going!” Ariella’s mom leans out the car window. “Your father and Justine are waiting for us.”

“I’m coming!” Ariella calls, and then turns back to me. “It’s too late, Delaney. Give up. Accept the fact that you’re never going to grant that girl’s wish. Stop leading her on.”

Ariella’s mom spots me and waves. “Oh, hi, Delaney! We’re going to Fiesta for Ariella’s dad’s birthday,” her mom says. “Why don’t you come with us?”

Ariella stiffens slightly when her mom mentions the birthday, and that’s how I know Ariella would be with
Fawn if she could, which means she’s
not
sure it’s a done deal.

“No, thanks,” I say. I wave back and in that split second, something occurs to me. It’s as if, with the wave, I grabbed the thought out of the sky. I wait until Ariella has climbed into the car and then I give her the same patronizing smile she gave me. “I have other plans.” I wave again and keep waving. Ariella’s eyes stay on me as the car swings around to the street. It’s hard to tell as her face moves into shadow, but I think I see a flicker of worry cross her face.