The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker (7 page)

Daisy was waiting by the door when Cory arrived at the restaurant. “What do you think?” Cory said after greeting her friend. “I've never been here before but I heard that the food is good and the atmosphere is even better.”

“It looks great so far,” Daisy said as a handsome satyr approached them. “Table for two,” she told the waiter.

“Make that three,” said Cory. “I asked Marjorie Muffet to join us. I hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all,” Daisy said over her shoulder as they followed the waiter to their table. “I always liked Marjorie.”

“So, why did you say Nimzy is a jerk?” Cory asked her as they took their seats.

Daisy waited until the waiter had given them their menus and trotted away before answering.

“He left for an out-of-town race and didn't tell me until the last minute. I spend all my free time with him, and he can't even tell me that he's going to be away.” Daisy pursed her lips and shrugged. “Boys! I don't know why I bother!”

Marjorie walked in just as Cory was about to mention how unthinking Walker could be. Instead she waved to her friend and gestured for her to join them. On any other girl, the pale, pink sleeveless dress with the darker pink bow tied in the back might have made her look like a child, but Marjorie looked soft and pretty and very grown-up.

“That's Little Miss Muffet?” Daisy whispered to Cory.

Marjorie smiled her thanks at the waiter, who looked slightly stunned and didn't leave until she turned away. “Hi, ladies!” she said to Cory and Daisy. “I'm sorry I'm late. It took me forever to decide what to wear. I saw some people setting up on the stage when I was coming in. I didn't know there was going to be music!”

“Neither did I,” said Cory. “I wonder who it is.”

The waiter came back then and the girls all ordered
salad. They had nearly finished eating their dinner when Cory noticed that Daisy had grown very quiet and was staring at someone across the room. “What is it?” Cory asked, turning to look behind her. When she saw him, she felt as if someone had punched her.

“Who are you looking at?” Marjorie asked, turning to look as well. “Is it that handsome fairy kissing the girl with the long blond hair? He looks like he should be someone famous. Do you know who he is?”

Cory swallowed and nodded. “That's Walker. My ex-boyfriend.”

Marjorie frowned. “You look upset. Did you break up recently?”

“Like, two seconds ago,” said Daisy. “She just learned what a cheating glob of pond scum he is. I'm so sorry you had to learn it this way, Cory.” Daisy leaned across the table and patted Cory's fisted hand. “I heard what he was doing, and I wanted to tell you. I was going to the other day, but then you saw Noodles eating your mother's shoe.”

“You know, girls,” Marjorie said with a bright smile on her face, “ditching deadweight is never a bad thing.”

Cory had been with Walker since Junior Fey School and had never thought about going out with anyone else. Although she hadn't been madly in love with him, she had always assumed that he was faithful and it hurt
to find out that he wasn't. She'd known that he wasn't happy she'd quit the guild, but she'd thought they could weather anything. For a moment she wondered if he was seeing someone else because he was angry with her, but then she realized that that couldn't be the reason. If Daisy knew about it, it must have been going on for a while. Marjorie was right. Walker was deadweight. She didn't need him. She didn't need her mother, either. She didn't need anyone but her friends and her uncle and Noodles. Tears prickled behind her eyes and she had to fight not to run from the restaurant.

“Look, the band is about to start,” Daisy said.

Cory was too caught up in her own misery to pay attention to the band, but after they had played for a few minutes, the music finally got through to her. It was a blues band and the trumpeter was exceptional. She noticed the rapt expressions on her friends' faces before she turned around. When she did, her own jaw dropped. The musician playing the trumpet was Johnny Blue, the same person who had saved her from the dogs the morning of her last collection.

Cory studied Johnny Blue's face while he played. His eyes were closed and his cheeks were puffed out as he blew life into his song. It was obvious that he was lost in his music and that, at that moment, nothing else mattered to him. In the human world he might have been
considered ugly, but not in the fey world, where full-blooded trolls were so hideous that they could frighten their own mothers. Cory had always thought Johnny Blue had an interesting face. Now, despite his puffed-out cheeks, Cory thought he looked almost handsome in a craggy-faced, big-featured sort of way.

No one talked while the musicians played, but the moment they stopped for a break, Daisy turned to Cory and said, “That's why Walker is here! He came to see Blue!”

“I bet you're right,” Cory admitted. “They've been best friends for years. Blue even filled in for Walker the other night. Walker is a sandman,” she explained to Marjorie. “They call Blue the Boogie Man, so I always thought he went to the human world to scare little children.”

“He is scary looking enough,” said Daisy. “But he sure does know how to boogie! He's the best trumpet player I've ever heard! I don't know why we never heard him play before.”

“I'd love to meet him,” Marjorie said. “I think he has an intriguing face. Is he seeing anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” said Cory.

“Do you think you could introduce me to him?” Marjorie asked. “Most of the people in my neighborhood
are old. I never get to meet anyone who doesn't have white hair or walk with a cane.”

“Sure,” said Cory. “We might as well do it now before they start playing again. They should be finished with their break soon.”

Blue was just coming out of the manager's office when Cory reached the hallway. He looked surprised to see her, and when he glanced toward Walker, she understood why. “I didn't know you played the trumpet,” she said. She didn't want to talk about Walker now, not when the pain was so fresh, but from the look on Blue's face, she couldn't help but feel that he had known all along and felt sorry for her. The last thing she wanted was Walker's best friend's sympathy. “We all thought you sounded fantastic! You've met Daisy before, haven't you? And this is our friend Marjorie.”

“Hi!” said Daisy.

“It's nice to meet you,” Marjorie said, extending her hand to Blue.

Blue's irregular features twisted into a smile as he took Marjorie's hand in his. When Cory's stomach started to feel queasy, she wondered if she might have gotten food poisoning. “I think I need to go home now,” she told her friends. “I'd love to stay and hear your next set,” she said to Blue, “but I think something I ate isn't
agreeing with me. Daisy and I are in a band, too. It's called Zephyr. We'll be playing at Sprats' Friday night. It would be great if you could come see us.”

Marjorie nodded. “I'll be there!”

Cory was turning to go when she glanced at Blue again. He was looking at her and seemed almost sad, but the moment passed and he turned back to Marjorie, who was talking and still holding his hand. Cory's stomach lurched as she started for the door, hoping that she wasn't coming down with something.

“You got another message,” her uncle said the next morning. “You might want to read this one.”

Micah had witnessed her throw out two unread messages from her mother when she returned home from dinner the night before, so she wasn't surprised he thought that she'd throw out another. This one wasn't from her mother, however. It was an official notice from the TFG.

“It's a list of all the rules and regulations I'll be breaking if I resign. They're offering me the chance to come back without a blemish on my record if I do it now,” Cory told him after reading it. “I think this is a very important piece of information and I must treat it with the respect it is due.” Crumpling the message into a ball, she tossed it in the garbage.

“You can't do that indefinitely,” her uncle told her with a shake of his head. “Sooner or later you're going to have to empty the garbage.”

“I'll make that one of my official duties around here,” Cory said with a smile.

Micah drank the last of his juice and set his cup on the table. “I'm going to be later than usual tonight. I have a planning meeting with the rest of my department.”

“Then I probably won't be here when you get home,” said Cory. “My band is rehearsing at Olot's.”

Ping!
Another message appeared in the woven basket. Cory opened it even though it was from her mother.

Cory had read enough, and her mother's note joined the others in the garbage. There wasn't any point in reading them, because they all said the same thing. Except, what did her mother mean about Cory's grandfather? Delphinium and Micah's father was the only grandfather Cory had ever known, and he was a big
mushball when it came to his wife. He did everything she asked, saying it was the only way to promote marital harmony. He was a lot of things, but no one could call him stubborn. Cory didn't mention this to either Micah or Noodles, however. Her uncle was headed out the door and didn't have time to listen, while Noodles was cleaning himself in a highly personal way.

After feeding Noodles and eating her own breakfast, Cory looked through the ads and found two that interested her. The first house was only a few streets away.

The other was halfway across town.

After sending messages to both people, Cory cleaned up the kitchen, fed the mice, and took out the trash from the garbage basket. When she walked Noodles to the yard, he didn't want to come back in, so she got a later start than she'd intended.

Apparently, she had given up being a tooth fairy so she could spend her summer babysitting and mowing lawns. Cory hoped her mother didn't hear about this.

The woman who had answered Cory's message lived near a large lake at the south edge of town. Although Cory had heard of the house before, she'd never actually seen it. “So this is the house that looks like a shoe,” she murmured, looking up at the house from the street. She thought it looked more like a boot than a shoe with its high leather sides and thick edging around the bottom that could have been a sole. If it hadn't been for the front door in the toe and the windows at random intervals in the walls, it wouldn't have looked like a house at all.

Cory stood by the road for a moment, trying to see what a home buyer might notice. The grass was a little long, the shrubbery overgrown. Swings hung from the branches of an old oak in the side yard, while another tree supported a dilapidated tree house.

“Hello! Are you Cory?” called a voice. A little woman
who couldn't have been more than four feet tall stood just inside the open door.

“I am,” Cory said, heading up the stone path.

“I'm Gladys!” said the woman. “Won't you come in?”

Cory stepped across the threshold into a room lined with chairs and sofas. It looked comfortable enough, but the furniture was crowded so closely together that there was almost no space to walk.

“What an interesting house. How long have you lived here?” Cory asked as the woman closed the door.

“Twenty-six years. My husband and I bought it when we first got married. It's a good house and has served us well. This is the main room,” said Gladys. “We have a lot of children, so we needed lots of seats if we all wanted to be together.”

“How many children do you have?”

“Forty-three,” the old woman said, sounding tired. “That includes four sets of twins and one set of triplets. Only eleven still live at home. Make that twelve. One just moved back in. Come along. The kitchen is this way.”

A narrow hall led to the kitchen, where a big maple table dominated the room. Chairs were crammed so tightly around the table that Cory didn't see how anyone could pull them out to sit down. The room would have looked large if it wasn't so full of furniture.

“Would you like some tea?” the woman asked as she took some cups from the cupboard.

“Uh, sure,” said Cory.

“Have a seat,” Gladys told her, still facing the counter.

Cory took hold of the closest chair and pulled. The two chairs on either side moved with it, so she had to push and pull all three chairs until she could get one out. She sat down and couldn't help but notice that the chair seat was sticky.

“Here you go,” Gladys said, handing her a chipped cup full of slightly warm tea. “Now, I want to hear all about you. How long have you been babysitting?” She pulled out a chair on the other side of the table and sat down.

“I just started, actually,” said Cory.

“What's the largest number of children you've watched at once?”

“Uh, one,” said Cory.

“That will do. Learn through experience, I always say.” At the sound of a loud thud somewhere overhead, Gladys sighed and said, “That would be my son Tom Tom. Shortly after he graduated from school, he was arrested for stealing a pig. He just got out of jail. Can you believe the boy found a job already? He works the strangest hours, though. I'd ask him to watch his brothers and sisters when he's home, except I know he'd just yell at them and lock himself in his room. Of all my
children, he's the most like his father. But then again, he's the only one I birthed. The rest were all adopted, thanks to my husband. You don't know who my husband is, do you?”