Don't Expect Magic (26 page)

After Dad reads a passage from the book, he throws in some new advice, “inspired by an important lesson I relearned today.” He smiles my way. “A lesson I’d forgotten in my quest to change everyone on the planet for the better.” The crowd laughs on cue. He recites a version of what I said to Andrea, but he’s translated it into life coach–ese, and he wraps it up with: “Remember, only
you
can be you, and you can only be you.” Leave it to Dad to make something simple ultraconvoluted, but his fans obviously speak “Dr. Hank,” because they all clap and ooh and make a mental note to reserve a copy of the next book as soon as the publication date is announced.

After the reading, everybody presses in to buy the new book and get their millisecond one-on-one consult with Dr.
Hank, along with his priceless autograph. As Gina hands Dad each book, she watches him with the faraway wistful expression I saw on Cadie’s face, and I know Gina still likes him. He lectured me on the way over about not trying to push them together again, but he warned me too late. I’d already made the call.

From the café, I have a clear view of the escalator, which I’ve had one eye on since we got here, and now I see them rise up like angels into the cookbooks and crafts section. They step off, holding hands. She’s wearing a sodapop-orange sundress and aqua flip-flops. He’s skinny, with long, rock star hair. He’s not what I imagined at all, but they look exactly right for each other.

I’d snagged Dad’s cell from his jacket pocket at the end of our big hug. It was an impulse, something I knew I needed to do. When I went back to my room to put on the dress, I found Andrea’s number in the address book and dialed.

“Dr. Hank! I love you!” she squealed when she answered, so loud I had to quickly shut my door so Dad wouldn’t hear. After I told Andrea it was me, she launched into another Posh-worthy breathless speed-of-light report about how Aaron had listened to her confession of her hang-ups and then confessed that he’d been afraid to show
his
true self with her, even after he proposed, because he was so intimidated whenever she’d show up for their dates in her fancy f.g.-spell-generated designer dresses and chic hairstyles.

Andrea spots me and starts for the café, but I shake
my head and point to Dad, who’s giving brow-furrowed advice to one of his devotees. Andrea and Aaron get in line, and I spoon up the remaining sugary-spicy foam from the bottom of my cup and wait. Gina notices Andrea first and gets an alarmed look on her face. She glances around, searching, like the store’s got a lunatic wrangler on staff for these sorts of situations. Too late, though, because Andrea’s already stepped up to Dad, who now wears the same tense expression as Gina. Andrea talks, bouncing up and down in her flip-flops, waving one hand in the air while the other clutches Aaron’s. Dad’s face slowly transforms from anxious to relieved to delighted. As Andrea showers her words over Dad and Gina, Gina’s worry softens into a smile.

It’s like a silent movie, since I’m too far away to hear. The best part of the story comes when Gina and Dad both laugh at the same time, and their eyes meet, and their gaze hangs on for a few seconds like they’ve been caught in some invisible force field. Once again, no magic required—except for the kind that comes naturally.

The movie continues to play and my eyes zoom in, like a camera, on Andrea and Aaron, and then on their hands, still clasped. My right hand is suddenly warm, as if someone has taken hold of it, but when I look down, it’s empty. I still feel it, though, or remember the feeling, or feel the memory, or whatever.

Time seems to speed up, and then slow down, and then it reverses, as the day up to now runs through my mind. Then the last few days, and then the last few weeks, and
then the months. Then I’m back here in the bookstore, and I start to think.…

No. I can’t think. I’m done with thinking. It gives me a headache.

I concentrate on the Brennan’s logo on my latte cup, not allowing thoughts to stick, willing them to float away and disappear, exactly like Ms. Byrd teaches us to do in yoga.

But one thought turns around midflight, and before I can stop it, it comes zinging back and lands,
bang
. It latches on to me, and it’s not going to let go.

I have to do it. I have to try.

I must blank out then, because I’m not aware of getting up or walking over to Dad or interrupting the lovefest going on around Andrea and Aaron, which the customers have now joined in on. I am just already
there
, and I tell Dad something that people here in the land of omnipresent sunshine say all the time.

“I want to go to the beach.”

We drive along the coast, windows down. The glowing terra-cotta sun lounges in the late-afternoon sky, its big butt dropping so near the darkening blue-green of the ocean it’s like it wants to plop in already and cool off. There’s no end to the earth, and anything seems possible.

We couldn’t leave until the signing was finished, and although Dad tried to wrap things up fast, there was always somebody with one last question, and it felt like it
took hours to get out of there. Cadie’s party could already be over, which, as we get closer, I start to wish for, because it will be like getting the “no” without having to be emotionally stomped on in public.

But when Dad pulls up to the steps that lead down to the beach, I can see Mia and some of the other kids from school playing volleyball. As I get out of the car, I hear hip-hop from someone’s radio, and I spot more kids scattered around, on towels or in the water.

“Do you want me to wait?” This is the first thing Dad’s said the whole trip. There was nothing to say before, really. He knows why I’ve come.

“That’s okay. I’ve got my cell.” I tap the pocket at the top of one of my boots. “Or I’ll come find you. You’re only going to be over there.”

I point toward the pier farther down the beach, where crowded outdoor tables at a Mexican restaurant overlook boardwalkers, arcade players, merry-go-round riders, ice cream eaters and the sea. Dad’s having dinner at the restaurant with Gina after she gets off work. It was her idea. She suggested it after I made my announcement, unaware that my reasons for wanting to go to the beach weren’t recreational.

I insisted that they go anyway, without me, and after making sure I was sure, Dad agreed. Andrea and Aaron were included in the invitation, so it’s not really a date. It’s a start, though, a fresh one. With Andrea there, it’d be a great opportunity to get the whole f.g. secret identity
thing out on the table, but I’m not going to mention this to Dad. His life’s up to him now.

Like mine is up to me.

As Dad drives off, I scope out the crowd, but the big fireball sun has turned most of the beach partyers into silhouettes.

When I reach the bottom of the wooden stairs, I realize that the sand will ruin my boots—I’m going to have to carry them. I grab the railing and unzip one, then the other. I feel naked without them, like a turtle without its shell, a knight without his armor, any other fill-in-the-blank metaphor for agonizing vulnerability you want to come up with.

The hot sand grabs hold of my feet with every step, and I’m already regretting this. He’s not here anyway. I don’t see him. I might as well leave.

But then—there he is, sitting on a towel a few yards up from the surf, legs straight out, leaning back on his hands. He’s staring ahead to where I can barely make out two figures doing what can only be called frolicking in the cascading waves at the edge of the shore, laughing and splashing each other with foamy salt water.

One is tan and lean and wearing a neon yellow bikini, her long wet hair plastered over her shoulders like mermaid’s locks. Guess who?

What was I thinking? Oh, that’s right—I wasn’t thinking. Why not? Why
didn’t
I think? Now I’m going to have to get out of here before anyone sees me, and that means
going back through the quicksand, which is anything but quick.

“Delaney?”

Flynn is squinting up at me over his shoulder. How did he know I was here? And how did he manage to peel his eyes away from his beloved sea nymph?

He scrambles up from the towel and trots over to me, and somehow his feet don’t sink like mine. There must be a trick to walking on California sand.

He’s got on long board shorts and smells like sunscreen and sweat. I notice that he’s in pretty good shape for a yearbook geek. He’s no Mr. Muscle or anything, but he doesn’t need to cover up.

“I didn’t think you were coming. Where’s your bathing suit?”

“I was just passing by.”

Flynn studies me. “You look different.”

“No boots,” I say, and hold them up. I feel embarrassed by my bare legs, even though they’re the least bare of anyone’s here. My face gets red, but at least the sun is casting a pink glow over everything so no one will notice. Especially Flynn.

“I bet they look great with that dress,” he says. “But the dress looks nice without them too,” he adds quickly. “It’s a nice dress.”

Flynn grins in a goofy, awkward way. The heat from my cheeks flushes through to my sand-clamped toes. I didn’t even know a full-body blush was possible. Really, what is
the point of this torture? Doesn’t he realize that having two boots in my hands means that I’m armed?

Instead of using my boots as weapons, I pull myself together. This is the new Delaney Collins, who puts her professional responsibilities first. When I look at Flynn right now, through f.g. eyes, I do truly want him to have his wish.

“I just came by to say congratulations,” I tell him. “I really am happy for you.”

Flynn puts his hands on his hips and cocks his head at me. “What are you talking about? Congratulations for what?”

“You and Cadie.” I gesture out beyond the surf, where Cadie is now one of several bobbing heads waiting for a wave.

Flynn gives me a strange look. “You mean you don’t know?” Know what? “Cadie said you were the one who told her to be herself,” he says.

“Yeah, so?”

Behind Flynn, Cadie bodysurfs to shore, followed by her fellow frolicker—the tag-along girl from last night, Emma. They push themselves up and slap the sand off each other’s legs, laughing. Their hands meet and they stop.

They straighten up, hands still touching. Their fingers intertwine and they stare at each other as the water ebbs and flows around their ankles. I notice that Emma’s bathing suit is covered in drawings of dragonflies.

Finally I get it—but I don’t get it, because how could I not know this? I’m supposed to have extrasensory f.g. perception.

“So that’s
not
her cousin,” I say, to myself as much as to Flynn. Observation + calculation = conclusion.

“No.”

The volleyballers have run down to the water, and I watch Mia pause as she nears Cadie and Emma, who quickly let go of each other’s hands. All three stand uneasily. Mia says something and then Cadie does. Mia touches Cadie’s arm and they both seem to relax a little; then Mia darts off and dives into the water.

Cadie puts her arm around Emma’s shoulder, and they walk away, along the jagged rim of the ocean, where wet sand meets dry, into the sunset, a Hollywood ending.

“Wow” is all I can say.

“Yeah.”

I feel Flynn watching me. I’m thrown off balance for a second and I have to take a step to the side, bracing myself. It’s back. That churning, yearning, queasy, woozy sensation. Am I getting another client already? What happened to my promised break? There’s no one around, though, except Flynn.

“You still like her.” This is beyond pathetically tragic, for too many reasons.

So why is Flynn laughing?

“Are you kidding? I never liked Cadie. If it wasn’t for your short-circuited voodoo magic-radar ‘you belong
together’ nagging, I wouldn’t have even thought it. I told you way back at the start, you got it all wrong.”

“Then who?” I glance up and down the beach. God, I hope it’s not Mia. She may not be completely evil, but she’d still squash him like a bug.

Flynn laughs again, a lighter laugh this time that blends with the whoosh of the waves. Like at the book signing, the memory of Flynn holding my hand returns, but sand and sweat press against my palm too, and when I look down, his hand really is there, in mine.

It takes centuries for my eyes to lift, all the way up, to meet his. He’s still smiling, a crooked, nervous, adorable smile. We don’t say anything, we just stand and stare.

The sounds around us separate: the crashing of the waves, the caws of gulls, the voices of swimmers, the wind. Then they blend again, and the seasick feeling pulls away, gone at last, like the tide going out, leaving only a tired, happy sort of calm.

Is this what it feels like when you grant someone’s wish?

Or when you get your own?