Witches in Flight (41 page)

Lizard frowned—she was leaving with a lot more stuff than
she’d arrived with.
 
And her
roommate had just been on a wild, two-day shopping spree.
 
“Where’s all the new stuff?”

“At the new house.”
 
Elsie glared.
 
“Don’t peek.”

A herd full of mind witches, and they still had no idea what
Elsie was up to.
 
Well, they had
lots of guesses, but those ranged from starting a circus to opening a halfway
house for wayward musicians.
 
Lizard had placed her bet on a bike-decorating service, but only because
Ginia had been harassing her unmercifully for a guess.

Someone should maybe warn Elsie that she had a bike-decorating
team already making signs.

~ ~ ~

Elsie watched her soufflés do their funky sinking thing on the
counter and grinned.
 
It was hard
to believe she used to eat yogurt for breakfast.

And darned if she was going to sniffle through her last
breakfast, with her best friend, in this place where the impossible had
happened.
 
She reached for a folder
on the counter.
 
“I made us a
schedule.”

“What for?”
 
The
suspicion in Lizard’s eyes delighted Elsie’s heart.
 

“Regular breakfast dates.
 
Once a week at the diner.
 
Once a week at someplace less greasy.”
 
It was so hard to keep a straight face sometimes.
 
“Two yoga classes, and alternating
between our places for movie night on Thursdays.
 
I want to make sure we keep spending quality time together.”

She’d expected the eye roll.
 
And the snickers.
 

But she hadn’t been ready for Lizard to pick up the folder and
slide it carefully into her bag.

It had been a joke.
 
Sort of.
 
And the sniffles
were back.
 
Elsie got busy pouring
orange juice.
 
“All that’s flexible,
of course.
 
Especially if a certain
guy is keeping you busy during any of those times.”

No snickers this time, and no eye rolls.
 
Just Lizard’s eyes swimming in tears.
 
“Oh, sweetie.”
 
Elsie put down the juice pitcher and
did what she’d wanted to do all morning.
 
She pulled her roommate in for a close and slightly desperate hug.
 
“It’s all going to work.
 
Today will be amazing—you’ll
see.”

And if it wasn’t, she was personally going to kick Joshua
Hennessey’s very cute butt around the block.
 
Twice.

~ ~ ~

Caro stood in her back garden, eyeing the healthy, vibrant
tomatoes.
 
Damn—those would
probably take a serious turn for the worse as soon as Elsie moved out.
 
Maybe she could invite the girl back
for emergency gardening help.
 
Trade some of her fresh bread, or maybe some of the new MadTosh yarn
Elsie was crazy about.

Good grief.
 
She was
only moving two blocks away.
 
Lizard’s new place was even closer.

No reason to be shedding any tears in her garden this
morning.
 
They were both taking
flight, off to their new lives.
 
Everything was as it should be.

And she had knitting to work on.
 
Every new house needed a big orange blanket.
 
It was a rule.
 
She had two on the needles, awaiting
her attention.

Caro looked over at the other side of her duplex, still
thrumming with excitement and sadness and the powerful magic of sisterhood.

“Fly well, sweet girls.
 
And blessed be.”

~ ~ ~

Lizard stood at the door to Josh’s house and wondered if she was
stark-raving mad.
 
This might just
be the grown-up equivalent of taking someone else’s car on a joyride—it
felt really good at the time, and then you landed back on Planet Reality and
discovered it totally sucked.

Or maybe she’d just turned into a total wimp.

Scratch that.
 
She
might be an ex-stupid ex-delinquent, but she wasn’t a wimp.

Lizard picked up her hand to knock on the door—and jumped
at the footsteps behind her.
 
Damn.
 
She wasn’t quite ready
for him yet.
 
Which was a dumb
thing to say when you were standing on a guy’s front porch.

Time to pull herself together.
 
“Hey.
 
I was
hoping to talk to you.”

He leaned against a huge planter that hadn’t been there the last
time she’d been in the neighborhood.
 
“That’s an improvement over texting, I guess.”

Crap.
 
He was
steamed, which was probably a reasonable response to someone turning down a
fantastic offer via iPhone.
 
“Sorry—I didn’t do that very well, I guess.
 
This is kind of all part of that same
conversation, but I had some stuff to take care of first.”
 
She tried not to think about the dreamy
purple boots.
 
She’d needed time to
think, dammit.

He just nodded, his business poker face firmly in place.

“I’m going to take Lauren’s offer.”

He nodded.
 
“Figured
you might.”

“I like what I do there.
 
I can give you a day a week if you want it.
 
She’s cool with that.”

He nodded again.
 
“Danny will kiss me.”

That definitely wasn’t where she wanted this conversation
going.
 
“It’s not about trying to
avoid you.”

His poker face was getting a little leaky now.
 
“Good.”
 

What had happened to the talkative Josh Hennessey?
 
“I’ll be kind of busy, but I was hoping
to take you out sometime.
 
On a
date.”

The suspicious tinge in his mind nearly broke her heart.
 
The hope that flared after it finished
the job.
 
He nodded slowly.
 
“Okay.
 
I like burgers.”

She hadn’t totally blown it.
 
Maybe.
 
But if
she was going to fix this, she needed to start at the beginning.
 
She reached into her bag and pulled out
two photographs.
 
“This is who I
was two months ago.”
 
She could see
the sad, vulnerable gaze now.
 
So
much for years of practice trying to look tough.
 
“I’d kind of given up on the world being very decent.”

He studied the picture for a while—and finally reached out
a finger to touch the eyes.
 
“You’ve changed.”

“Yeah.”
 
She took a
deep breath, trying to get her words lined up in some kind of order that might
make sense.
 
“The thing is, it was
kind of hard to keep up.
 
And some
parts changed faster than others.”
 
She looked down at her shiny purple toes.
 
“I cleaned up and did a good job at work, and I think most
people figured the rest of me was a shiny new Lizard Monroe too.”

“I’m not as dumb as you think.”
 
He was practically growling.
 
“And there are a bunch of other people in your life who
aren’t that stupid either.”
 
He
stuffed his hands in his pockets with enough force to punch two holes in the
bottom.
 
“I’m not looking for the
shiny new Lizard.
 
She’s fun in a
boardroom, but she probably sleeps in a red skirt and heels and has a dog named
Floofy.”

She was not going to laugh.
 
“I have better taste than that.”

His lips twitched.
 
“Fine—red silk and a cat named Phoebe.”
 

They were so not going to talk about what she slept in.

He plucked a small purple flower from the planter, eyes serious
again.
 
“I guess all I’m trying to
say is that I’m pretty cool with wherever the hell you’re at.”

“Yeah.”
 
Dammit, she
was not going to cry.
 
“It’s me
that hasn’t been pretty cool with it.”

She held out the second picture, the one she’d pried out of
Charlie’s fingers.
 
Something about
it not being dry yet.
 
Too damn
bad—she’d needed it.
 
“I’m
never going to be all shiny, but I’m pretty happy with this Lizard.”
 

Charlie had found truth again—and this time, the truth
she’d needed him to find.
 

“Uncle Charlie took this?”
 
Josh held the picture with something like reverence.
 
And when he finally looked up,
something entirely new flooded his eyes.
 
“What do you see?
 
When you
look at this, what do you see?”

She’d spent all night staring at the face of the Lizard of
now—and at the eyes that believed at least some things were
possible.
 
“I see someone who maybe
deserves a shot at a guy like you.”

The gooey flood in his brain nearly melted her into a puddle
right inside her splendiferous new boots.
 
That
, she wasn’t quite ready for.
 
Yet.
 

“So, about that date.”
 
She watched as humor snapped back into his eyes.
 
That was better.
 
“I was thinking some really loud
rap.
 
The kind where we can’t talk
much.”
 
She reached out for his
fingers, needing this to be real.
 
“The kind where maybe I get to kiss you.
 
Or something.”

The smile that broke across his face was like sunshine hitting
the dark side of the moon.
 
And
something in Lizard bloomed just watching it.
 
Something that didn’t sell herself short at all.

She reached up her face to catch some of the sunshine.
 
And discovered that Josh had more than
one way to turn her into a purple-booted puddle.

~ ~ ~

Elsie set a huge stack of plates on the folding table next to
the mongo pot of spaghetti sauce.
 
She rested her hand on top of the plates, marveling at the sheer number
of them.
 
They’d been one of her
first business purchases.

And a statement—two months ago, she hadn’t known that many
people willing to come have a plate of spaghetti simply because she asked.
 
Today, she’d be lucky if she didn’t run
out.

She looked around the large, old room, empty except for the
folding table—and breathed in the possibility of all that it could
become.
 
She was in no hurry to
fill it up.
 
That would come with
time, and love, and friends.
 
For
now, there was something inspiring in the emptiness.

It wasn’t going to last long, anyhow—she could already
hear footsteps on the walkway outside.

She trusted they’d make their way inside.
 
Witches didn’t knock.

“Hello, lovely girl!”
 
Helga beamed from the doorway.
 
“I’ve brought you some flowers.”
 
She looked around the room, grinning.
 
“I should have brought a vase as well.”

Caro squeezed the hand of the small boy at her side.
 
“Can you fetch one of the pretty glass
containers from by my kitchen sink, superboy?
 
Carefully—they’re a bit fragile.”

Aervyn squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
 
“Do you want the orange one, or the one
with all the mostly dead flowers in it?
 
Ginia might be able to fix the flowers for you.”

Caro snorted with laughter.
 
“That’s what happens when a fire witch tries to be nice to
fresh flowers, sweet boy.
 
Bring
the orange one, please.”
 
She held
out her hands, and in seconds, a gorgeous, fluted Depression-glass vase landed
in her hands, light as a feather.

Elsie’s fingers reached out to touch the glorious color,
relieved such a treasure had survived four-year-old transport.

“A home-warming gift,” said Caro briskly, depositing the vase in
her hands.
 
She looked around.
 
“It’ll brighten the place up.”

It would have a place of high honor on the mantel.
 
Elsie cradled it gently and reached out
to squeeze the hand of the no-nonsense woman who had adopted her.
 
“It will remind me of what lies inside
me.
 
Beauty and fire.”