Don't Expect Magic (23 page)

I gaze up at the sky, as if I might see Mom there, but it’s just black nothingness. “Why does something bad have to happen for something good to happen?”

Flynn thinks this over. He shrugs. “Life sucks.” I like this answer and I like Flynn for saying it. He hands me the
stuffed dog, but instead of hugging it, I hold it with one hand and punch its cute little face with the other. Flynn laughs. “Feel better?” I shrug, then pat the dog’s head in apology.

“Here’s what we need to do,” Flynn says, “in this order exactly: fun house mirrors, caramel apples, Ferris wheel, cotton candy.”

“Whoa,” I say. “Mr. Take Charge.”

“Just call me T.C.” Flynn takes my hand and pulls me through the crowd. His hand feels very present in mine. Like all of the energy from our bodies is moving toward it, our blood pulsing in sync.

I glance over at him, wondering if he’s feeling the same thing, but he’s pointing ahead to the fun house. It’s a rickety-looking building with a giant clown mouth painted around the entrance. We race up to the gaping grin and duck inside.

As we stand in front of the wavy mirrors that make us look fat or tall or squiggly, Flynn asks me questions off the yearbook questionnaire. We go through favorite bands and TV shows and websites, and end at favorite snack. Flynn: cinnamon-covered cake doughnuts. Me: super-spicy hot jalapeño nachos with Tabasco.

We’ve answered all the questions by the time we leave the fun house and get in line for caramel apples, but it feels like we’ve just gotten started. Like we’ve peeled the orange, but there’s still fruit inside that we haven’t even
touched. I suggest that next year we should add a few bigger questions, deeper ones, questions that everybody would answer differently.

“Like what?” Flynn asks.

“Like: where would you go right now if you could go anywhere in the world?”

“You first,” he says.

“That’s easy. Italy. Land of shoemakers. Boot paradise. The country’s even shaped like a boot.”

“I’d go some place so big and beautiful and awesome that you can’t take a picture of it. Some place that you stare at it and it’s like you get pulled out of yourself.”

I close my eyes, imagining it.

“Like the Grand Canyon, maybe,” he says.

“Or Legoland.”

Flynn smirks. “Right. Plain caramel or chocolate caramel?” I give Flynn a look. “I’m not suggesting that as a yearbook question. We’re up next.” He gestures to the caramel lady, who’s waiting for our order. I like chocolate, but a caramel apple should be the real thing and I tell Flynn this. “Right answer. I was just testing you,” he says, and orders two straight up.

On the way to the Ferris wheel, I take a bite of my apple. It’s salty and sour and sweet, pretty perfect. This is definitely how a date should be, if this
were
a date. Which it’s not.

“I’ve got one,” Flynn says. “If you were candy, what flavor would you be?”

“Bitter lemon,” I say. Flynn smiles. “And you’d be coconut.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Would you rather have chicken pox or poison ivy?”

“Poison ivy!” we say together, and the other people in line glance around in alarm, making us crack up.

When we get to the front of the line, Flynn swallows his last bite of apple and tosses his stick into the trash. I hold on to mine, because you never know when you might need to grant a small wish. A ponytailed girl leads us to our seat and lowers the bar over our legs. The wheel rises a few feet and then stops, to load the next two people.

“Give me another one,” Flynn says. “A real one this time.”

I study Flynn, wondering what I could ask him about himself that I couldn’t guess on my own, and decide that
that’s
the question.

“What’s the one thing that people don’t get about you?”

Flynn stares out at the merry-go-round twirling and twinkling a few yards away and thinks. “That photos aren’t just pictures to me.” The wheel gets going for real and the car lifts. The sounds of the carnival blend together and fade as we climb higher and higher, floating up into the night. “To me they’re more real than what you see in life,” he explains. “You know how a vampire doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror? It’s the opposite—a photo captures the true reflection. That’s what I think, anyway.” Here above the glare, the stars are visible. The light on Flynn
is moonbeam blue, and it might be the shadows, but his eyelashes seem amazingly long.

“That’s something people don’t get about your
photos
. Not you.”

“I
am
my photos,” he insists.

“Deep.”

“
You’re
the one who wanted deep.”

“I didn’t mean cavernous.”

What he’s said makes me want to look at his photos again, though, even study them, to figure out what they reveal. “I think you should do a series called Hidden Depths.”

Flynn smiles. “What about you, Delaney Collins? What’s your secret hidden depth?”

Our car glides in an arc over the top of the wheel and then begins to fall. I try to come up with an answer. I can’t tell him about being an f.g. But what else is there? “You take the magic photos,” I say. “You tell me.”

Flynn pulls out his little camera and stares at me through the viewfinder. “You’re not as tough as you pretend.”

So wrong. “Yes. I am.”

Flynn lowers the camera and shakes his head. “Some people are all soft and fragile on the outside. You can beat them up easily and they might get really bruised, but they never break, because there’s a steel core inside.” We slide past the hay-strewn ground and then begin to rise again. “And other people have these hard, thick shells. Because inside it’s nothing but jelly.”

“Are you saying I’m jelly? You’re lucky we’ve got a bar locking us in or
you’d
be jelly—splat on the ground.”

“Come on, admit the truth to Rufus.” Flynn props the blue dog up on the bar. I pinch the dog’s nose and Flynn lets out a howl, then talks in a high-pitched voice, like he’s the dog. “Come on, Delaney, come on, come on, admit it.” I laugh and snatch the dog away. “Admit it,” Flynn says softly in his own voice. We reach the top again and the wheel stops.

I hug Rufus as our car rocks gently. The distant tinkling of the rides and the murmur of voices is like a sound track, turned way down low. Considering everything that’s happened in the last few weeks, it does seem that maybe, possibly, the clueless little girl I used to be is still there—that even though I wanted to get rid of her, she never actually went away.

This is not as upsetting as I expect it to be.

Quiet settles over us as we watch the people on the ground below. The silence between us isn’t awkward this time. It’s comfortable. Nice.

Flynn pats the dog’s head, and I know he knows that no answer is my answer.

I gaze out over the carnival grounds and spot Dad and Gina, far away, in front of the mechanical genie. I should probably look for Cadie, but as soon as I think this, I don’t want to look.

I don’t want to find her.

It’s wrong, I know. I’ll never be able to help anyone
else get their big wish. I’ll be robbing Flynn of his. I’ll have to live with his yearning right next to me, in my face, forever. I’ll never get the wand.

I don’t care.

The wheel starts moving again, and as we drift down, I spot someone familiar at the edge of the crowd, wearing a frilly party dress that looks totally out of place here. It’s not Cadie. But it’s almost as bad.

Oh. No.

When we reach the bottom, the ponytailed girl lifts the bar and we both jump up, but for different reasons.

“Next up, cotton candy!” Flynn announces, and grins at me.

“I have to, um, go to the bathroom.” I shove Rufus at him. “You get the cotton candy and I’ll meet you back here.” Before Flynn can answer, I race off.

It must be carnival rush hour because everywhere I turn, it’s packs of middle schoolers and college students making out and slow-moving little kids with even slower-moving parents. I wade through the human swamp, pushing everyone out of my way.

Finally I spot the dress. Pinky-orange with a big belted bow in front that’s come untied. Too big and falling off one shoulder. When I get closer, I can see the messy permed hair, and it feels like my heart has dropped into my stomach because it really is her.

“Andrea!” I wave and run over.

“Oh, hi, Delaney.” Her smile is crooked and forced, her
mascara smeared. “I’m looking for your dad. He told me he was bringing you here tonight.” Her eyes dart around in impending-psychotic-breakdown mode.

“Does he know you’re here?”

Andrea’s smile twitches, then dissolves, and she drops her head into her hands. “It’s so awful.” She looks up at me. Her eyes are red and horror-movie scary, with jagged dripping black liner rimming them. “Aaron took me out to the place we had our first date, to celebrate. I wanted to look like I did that night … I was so beautiful.” She lets out a shuddering little sob. “And I tried. See?” She waves a shaky hand at herself. “I tried to do it on my own. I bought a dress. Put up my hair.” I now notice there are bobby pins all over her head, poking out from the ends of the curls, like tiny lightning rods. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fake it. So I left. I left Aaron.”

“You broke up with him?” I glance around, hoping that Dad and Gina are nowhere near.

“No. I
left
him. At the restaurant. I had the hostess call me a cab.” She clutches her hands together, her knuckles white. “I
need
the magic,” she pleads, like a crack addict in withdrawal.

I take her arm and steer her back toward the entrance. “I’ll tell Dad to call you tomorrow.”

“No, no, no. I have to see him.” Andrea struggles to get free but I tighten my grip.

“You’ve got to get some sleep first. He won’t be able to do anything for you now. The magic doesn’t work if you’re
too stressed out.” I have no idea if this is true, but it’s no weirder than the other f.g. rules.

“Really?”

“Yeah. The bad energy sort of deflects the good. Spells will bounce right off you.”

“Oh.” She gives up struggling. “The cab left, though. How will I get home?”

“We can get someone in the ticket booth to call another one for you.” Crisis averted.

Until I hear a voice behind me. Dad’s voice: “Andrea?”

Andrea spins around, plucking herself free from my grasp. She races to Dad, arms out, and in a second she’s got them wrapped around him in a sobbing hug. “I can’t do it without you, Dr. Hank. I
need
you.”

Gina stands a couple of steps behind Dad, her eyes unblinking, her mouth gaping open like the clown’s mouth on the fun house entrance. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so cataclysmic.

Dad pats Andrea a couple of times on the back and smiles queasily at Gina. “Client,” he says.

“She
is
,” I assure Gina.

Dad tries to peel Andrea off of him, but she’s holding tight. “Some of them can be a little … needy,” he says, and smiles again, but Gina’s stunned expression has frozen onto her face. Only her eyes move, shifting from Dad to Andrea to me and back.

I grab one of Andrea’s wrists, squeezing hard, and she lets go of Dad. “You’re not supposed to hug your
life
coach
,” I scold, shooting a glance at Gina to make sure she’s listening.

Andrea sniffs and clings to me like she’s going to collapse if I don’t hold her up. “He’s more than a life coach,” Andrea whimpers. “He’s a life
saver
. A life
savior
 … a
love
savior.” She stares with tragic adoration at Dad.

“Andrea …” Dad shakes his head. He’s not looking at Gina anymore. This isn’t good.

Andrea blinks away her mascara-drippy tears and gazes around at all of us. “I’ve interrupted your family outing. I’m so sorry. Everything I do is wrong.” She drops her head into her hands again.

“That’s okay,” Gina says. She tries to sound upbeat, but her voice is tense and pulled tight, like a ponytail with a too-small hair band. “I should be going anyway. It’s getting late.”

“But Andrea’s leaving!” I protest.
“Right now.”
Andrea takes a weepy gulp at this and Dad closes his eyes like he’s in pain.

“It’s okay, Delaney.” Gina pats my arm, then turns to Dad. “Thank you, Hank. I had a very nice time. I’ll see you at the signing.” She glances at Andrea. “Nice to meet you.”

Andrea smiles gratefully through her inky tears. “Oh, thank you. You too.”

Gina walks off. Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He stares straight ahead of him, back to Mr. Freeze.

“She’s very pretty,” Andrea says to me, her panic attack over. “You never think of a fairy godmother having a love
life.” She turns to Dad. “But of course, you must have. You have a daughter.”

“I’m going to drive you home, Andrea,” Dad says in his professional Dr. Hank “I’m in command” voice. “We’ll talk on Monday. During
office hours
.” Andrea nods. Dad takes me aside. “Go back to your friends, Delaney. Give me a call when you want me to pick you up.”

“Go get Gina,” I urge him. “Tell her to come back. It’s not that late.”

He shakes his head with a sad smile. “It’s
way
too late.”

“You were having a good time!”

“I appreciate what you tried to do, Delaney. But you have to trust me to take care of my own life.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes it, and I know there’s nothing I can say to change his mind.

My mood has deflated like a popped carnival balloon, but then I think of Flynn, waiting for me with cotton candy and his goofy grin, and it pumps me back up.

I feel lighter and lighter as I hurry through the crowd, texting Cadie as I go, telling her not to come, that we had to leave early, that I’ll call her. I’ll make it up to her later somehow. We’ll go shopping. I’ll design her a special pair of boots.

I spot Flynn up ahead, his back to me, holding two cotton candy cones, the stuffed dog under his arm, and I’m lifted even higher, as if my boots have air jets on the bottom and any second they’ll raise me off the ground.

Then I see who he’s talking to, and I crash-land to reality with a painful thud.

Cadie.

She’s standing next to a girl I don’t recognize. Cadie says something to Flynn and he reaches out to touch her on the arm. Cadie beams at him, warmer and more sincere than I’ve ever seen, which is saying something for her. It says a lot actually, and what it says is mostly about Flynn. He
is
her prince.