Magic and the Modern Girl (25 page)

“Of course,” Melissa said, shrugging like she heard that sort of thing every day. “Who
wouldn’t
want more familiars running around D.C.?” She smiled sweetly at Neko. “No offense intended.”

“Of course,” he agreed, pushing his mug closer to her in silent request for another peacemaking refill. “None taken.”

“We can’t get together tonight, Neko,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I have other plans.” Well, I
would
have other plans. If I followed Melissa’s advice and contacted Will.

“Plans more important than rebuilding your magic?” He actually sounded serious, for the first time since setting foot in the bakery.

“If you must know, I’m going to call Will Becker. I’m asking him out. Again.” Because the first time had gone so well. Because every time we got together, my witchcraft got in the way, and I was determined to have one single, solitary date that was normal. Normal. Like any other woman in the world. Like a librarian. Not like a witch.

“Will’s the one you had dinner with the other night?” I could see the little wheels spinning inside my familiar’s skull. He was smart enough not to mention garlic shrimp. Or breath mints.

“That’s the one. I owe him an explanation or two. We saw Ariel last night, at the Capitol.”

“You what?”

I filled him in quickly, ending with, “I could hardly explain what was really going on. Not after you and David frightened him off the other night with your Men In Black routine.”

“
We
didn’t frighten him off!” Neko sounded shocked and appalled at the notion. I glared at him. “Well, maybe, we were a little…intimidating. Have you stopped to think that he might just be easily scared?”

“Neko!” I said. Even though I knew my familiar was just clowning around, the question bit deep. I really wanted things to work with Will. I really wanted to be able to tell him about my witchcraft, to get that deep, dark secret behind us.

“Wait a second,” Neko said, drawing out the words. “You really like this guy!”

Frantically, I looked at Melissa for help, but she just shrugged and turned around to start a fresh pot of coffee. “He’s a nice guy,” I said helplessly. “I just don’t know how to tell him about…well, you know.”

“Just say the words, girlfriend.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Pick up the phone. Make the date. Say the words. Tell him you’re a witch. If he’s not man enough to handle it, he’s not the right man for you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.
Tell him.”

I glanced at Melissa. She was staring at Neko, apparently amazed that they had offered identical advice.

“I will,” I said reluctantly.

“Promise?”

“What?” I asked, suddenly out of patience. “Have you turned into my grandmother now? I said I’ll call, and I’ll call.” I fumbled for a chance to get away from talking about my life and loves. “Let’s do witchcraft training Sunday afternoon.”

Neko shook his head. “Gran and I are going to pick up your dress on Sunday. Your dress and her veil. Do you know that she’s determined to wear her old gown?”

“From when she was seventeen?”

“She can still fit into it.”

I thought of my grandmother’s ability to pack away food and muttered something wholly uncharitable.

Neko raised an eyebrow, then wisely retreated into scheduling. “I’ll work with Nuri and Majom tonight, keep them from climbing the walls. I can teach them some tricks all familiars should know these days.”

“Spare us,” I said.

He ignored me, barreling on. “Sunday, Sarah and I will get the gown. We can all train on Monday. And you can come by your grandmother’s on Friday for a fitting. I promised to do the alterations myself. Someone else might think the fabric was a mistake. Or the design.”

I read the glee on his face, and my heart plummeted. It couldn’t be that bad. There was no way for
any
dress to be that bad.

It was orange-and-silver.

It was going to be that bad.

I shuddered and passed my mug across the counter for a refill. “Mojito therapy,” I croaked to Melissa.

She grinned. “When?”

“Next Friday. At Gran’s place. It’s the only thing to get me through that fitting.”

Neko shook his head mournfully. “I’m telling you, girlfriend, there isn’t enough rum in all the world to get you past that dress.”

And the scary thing was, Neko had never been wrong before when it came to me and fashion.

13

A
ll afternoon, I wrote conversations.

It really wasn’t very difficult. I knew exactly what I would say. I could roll my words around and around, tasting them like one of Melissa’s delectable treats. I’d practiced the phrases for a long time, after all. I’d come out of my witchcraft closet before, so to speak. I’d told any number of people that I had magical abilities: Melissa, Gran, Clara. The Inexcusable Beast. The Coven Eunuch.

Okay. Those last two confessions hadn’t gone so smoothly.

But I refused to believe that my problems in those two instances were because my confidants were male. Those problems had come about because my male confidants were two-faced, scum-sucking liars. With other women in their lives.

But Will wasn’t like that. I had to believe that Will wasn’t like that. I had to believe that I had learned something through the days, weeks, months of torture, from the self-doubt and the questioning that had followed my time with the Irreparable Bum and the Coven Eunuch.

It scared me a little to realize how much I wanted Will to be different from the others. How much I wanted the thing that I felt between us to be real, to be true. A gnawing corner of my mind kept saying that I’d never had a decent relationship with a guy, that I’d never had a real, truthful, healthy romance (even with the man I’d been engaged to, well before all the witchcraft stuff came into the picture). I did my best, though, to give myself the answers that I knew Melissa would give me, if she’d been sitting in the Peabridge, if she’d been close enough to shake some sense into me—literally or figuratively.

Just because I hadn’t met my true match yet didn’t mean that he wasn’t out there for me. Just because I had managed to screw up every other romance in my life didn’t mean that I was doomed to ruin this one. Just because every other guy that I’d dated with even a scintilla of hope had turned out to be a loser didn’t mean that Will would be.

Will was different.

That became my mantra for the afternoon. Will was different. Therefore, he and I could talk. Will was different. Therefore, I could tell him the truth about myself. Will was different. Therefore, I could be honest with him. Will was different. Therefore, he would accept my being a witch.

Well, Will was going to
have
to be different for that last bit to fly.

When I hit the self-reassurance wall, I decided to spend the afternoon working on one of our most boring, most needed long-term projects at the Peabridge—the dreaded shelf-read. Armed with a listing of every single item that we owned, I strode back to the farthest part of the library, to the most distant shelves. I flipped to the appropriate page in my printout and began comparing the list of what we
should
have on the shelf to the reality of what was there. For each missing book, I made a notation in the margin—I’d have to see if it was checked out. If not, we’d try to track it down from wherever it had been lost or misplaced, working to keep our collection whole and healthy.

It was mind-numbing work. I needed to be careful to match numbers exactly. But at the same time, the task was mechanical. I could do it with one part of my mind, freeing the rest of my thoughts to write and rewrite, and re-rewrite conversations.

Me
: “Will, I have something to tell you. It’s serious.”

Him
: “How serious?”

Me
: “I’m a witch.”

Him
, shrugging: “Wow. That’s cool. Want to order Chinese?”

Yeah. Like that was really the way things were going to go. Try again.

Me
: “Will, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s serious.”

Him
, horrified: “Oh my God. You’re pregnant.”

Me, grateful for the heads-up
: “Um, we haven’t done anything. And now, I know we won’t.”

Nope. Still not there. Another try.

Me
: “Will, I have something to tell you. It’s serious.”

Him
: “I’m listening.”

Me
: “I’m a witch.”

Him
: “A witch. Like you’ve got magical powers and everything?”

Me
: “Just like. I can cast spells. I can create charms. I can read runes.”

Him
: “Wow. I always thought that a witch would be different. Frightening. Like something from another world. But you’re totally normal.”

Me, smiling a little
: “Well, not totally.”

Him, reassuring
: “You are in every way that matters. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me this, Jane. I can only imagine how difficult it was for you.”

There. That was the perfect conversation. A little bit of humor, a healthy dose of honesty. We’d end by understanding each other perfectly.

Conversations were really so much easier, when you just had a chance to practice them in advance. I contemplated calling him that afternoon, asking to meet for dinner that night. But that might give him the wrong idea. After all, I’d come off sounding pretty desperate if I asked him out that day for that night. Wasn’t that against the rules? I’d wait and call him on Monday. Give him the weekend to realize how much he missed talking to me. Even if things had been strained the night before. Especially because things had been strained the night before.

I tossed my shoulders back and lifted up my ballpoint pen, feeling better than I had since the moment I’d seen Ariel in front of the Capitol. This would actually work out fine. Everything would be perfect.

I completed an unheard-of six pages of shelf-reading. I might not have my romantic house in order, but my boss was going to love me.

I held on to that glow of positive determination as I shut down my computer at the end of the day. I held on to it as I said goodbye to Kit, as I waved across the lobby to Evelyn. I held on to it as I stepped into the garden, as I breathed the crisp air that told me autumn was truly, finally arriving in D.C. I held on to it as I walked to my front door, imagining my quiet evening at home, now that I had cleared away the need to call Will.

But I totally lost it when I saw Will sitting on my front porch. He stood as soon as he saw me.

“What are you doing here?” I squeaked.

“Your assistant called me.”

Kit? Why had Kit called Will?
How
had Kit called Will? She didn’t have his number. She didn’t know anything about him. I mean, she’d seen him in the library, the day I spilled my coffee, and maybe that other time, the day he met Mr. Potter. But to phone him? I tried to convert my surprise into an English-language sentence. “When did she do that?”

“She?”

“Kit.”

“Kit?”

Okay. Now I was getting annoyed. “My assistant. Who called you?”

“The person who called me was a man.”

And then I began to realize what had happened.

Neko.

Neko, who had stood in Melissa’s bakery and told me that I needed to “just say the words.” Neko, who had practically made me promise that I’d get in touch with Will. Neko, who knew me well enough not to trust me when I said that I would call Will of my own volition.

“Oh,” I said, increasingly aware of the silence that was spinning out between us. Time for a halfhearted save of face. “That would be my other assistant. My confusion.” So much for telling Will all the truth about my secret life. I swallowed a grimace.

Will shoved his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a high-school senior trying to decide what to say to the girl with the locker next to his. His eyeglasses were a little askew on his nose, and my fingers twitched with the desire to reach out, to straighten them, to make everything right. At last, Will said, “You wanted to see me? He said that you have something you want to talk about?”

“I guess,” I said, forgetting to sound like I had assistants make appointments for me all the time. “Of course. I mean, he’s right. That is, I do want to talk.” I gritted my teeth. It had been easier trying to kiss a boy good-night when I was on a high-school date, worried that Gran was listening behind her front door. I sighed, knowing that my rehearsed conversation would work better in the comfort of my own living room. “Would you like to come inside?”

“Thanks.”

I took my time fitting my key into the lock. I needed to run through my lines one last time. I struggled to reassure myself. I had worked it all out. Right there, in the back of the library. I’d finally come up with the phrasing that worked. How did it begin? What was I supposed to say?

I finally had to turn the key, open the door.

Will looked around as he stepped inside. “At last,” he said. “I see the inner sanctum.”

“Not so interesting,” I extemporized, shrugging. The movement made the lace across my bodice itch, and I resisted the urge to scratch. There was only so much awkwardness one man could be expected to tolerate in a single evening visit. I settled for reaching up to my head, unpinning my mobcap and pulling my hair free from its haphazard chignon. I clenched the beribboned muslin cap, folding my fingers into a tight fist.

“A drink!” I said, as if I’d discovered an exquisite new species of butterfly. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure,” Will said, and the awkward shift of his shoulders told me that he was just as uncomfortable as I was. Once my powers were fully restored, I was going to have to devise a special punishment for Neko.