Who Needs Magic? (10 page)

Now I
know
it’s her. One of the businesswomen behind me taps my shoulder. Hospital Greens Guy has paid and moved off. I’m up. Here goes.

When I step up to the counter, I realize I have no idea what to tell her, though. Do I just introduce myself? “Hi, I’m Delaney Collins, and I’ll be your f.g. for this wish. Whatever it is.”

Damn.
This
is what I should’ve asked Ariella’s advice about. Why didn’t Dad ever talk about this? “How to Greet Your Client” should be Fairy Godmothering 101.

Jeni glances up at me, almost making eye contact. “Are you ready to order?” she asks, her voice tentative, as if she’s worried I might be offended by the question.

“One large pomegranate with walnut.” This is for Nancy, since she never got the one she asked me for the other day. “And, hmm … what do you recommend?” I expect the question to break the ice, but Jeni’s eyes go wide in utter panic at the request. “That’s okay,” I say quickly. I decide to keep it simple. “A small plain lemon.” As she rings up the order, I get out my money and try to come up with a way to make at least a small connection now so I’ll have an excuse to talk to her later. I notice she’s wearing tiny amethyst earrings. Little teardrops. She’s not entirely plain after all.

“I like your earrings,” I tell her.

“Oh!” She touches her ear with her free hand. “Thank you.” Her cheeks flush and her gaze drops. Maybe I can get her to come by Treasures to look at the jewelry. I hold
out a ten, and when she takes it, I feel a shock, a little one, like static electricity. Jeni must feel it too, because her eyes fly up to mine and lock for a second. She yanks her arm back in alarm.

I remember Dad saying something about there being a connection, an electrical current that passes between you, but it didn’t work like that with Flynn. I hadn’t granted a wish yet, though, so I was still operating with only minor magic. But now I’m fully charged.

“What was
that
?” Jeni whispers.

I lean in toward her. “How open-minded are you about the existence of the supernatural?”

Jeni’s eyes widen. “Are you a ghost?” There’s a touch of fascination in her voice, under the fear.

“No. And I’m not a leprechaun either.” I lean closer and lower my voice. “I’m your fairy godmother.”

You’d have thought I told her I was a zombie come to chomp her face off the way she goes stiff with fright, from her dull brown hair to her ugly brown shoes. Really? The idea of a ghost triggers curiosity mixed with mild caution, but “fairy godmother” freaks her out?

“We have to talk,” I tell her. “When’s your break?”

Jeni shakes her head. “Next!” she calls out in a squeaky voice.

“Hold on,” I tell the woman behind me. “I need another minute.” I return to Jeni, craning myself over the counter, prompting her to back up until she hits the carbonation machine behind her. “I’m here to help you, Jeni.”

The remaining blood in her face drains completely out. I’m worried she’s going to faint. “How did you know my name?”

I tap my chest and Jeni glances down at her own, seeing her name tag. She relaxes. A little.

Now that I have the big magic, I hope I can control it, since this will be the first time I’ve used it with a client. I need to do
something
to make Jeni believe me, but it’ll have to be subtle, so it won’t be noticeable to anybody but her.

I grab a straw from the container on the counter and hold it directly in front of me, blocking the view of the people behind me. I aim the straw at Jeni’s shoes.
Please work, please work, please work
. The straw takes on a greenish, ghostly glow, and then there’s a flash of light, exactly like the first time I saw Dad use his big magic with a client. The light bounces off the carbonation machine, illuminating the whole area behind the counter, as if somebody snapped a photo with a giant camera. I feel it—the boost Ariella had described to me. It’s the sugar rush I’d tried to get with the sundae and the pretzel and the pecan roll. “What was that?” the guy worker asks. “The machine better not have shorted out again.” Jeni steps to the side to let the guy inspect the machine. Her eyes lower as she moves, and I know it’s because she’s avoiding looking at me and hopes I’ll just go away already. But that’s okay, since it also means she’s looking
down
. To her shoes. Which are no longer the dull Nutri-Fizzy standard-issue dung-brown orthopedic horrors and are now a pair of pretty robin’s-egg-blue flats.

“Ah …” I barely hear her. It’s like she’s trying to scream, but fear has sucked all the oxygen from her lungs. I wait for her to raise her gaze to me—in amazement, in gratitude, in Cinderella-in-her-glass-slippers delight.

Instead, she whirls around and vanishes into the back of the store, leaving me alone with a line of perplexed Nutri-Fizzy addicts behind me. I don’t get it. How could she not like those shoes? They were adorable.

Shockingly (not), nowhere in my searching have I found any version of a fairy godmother who uses a chopstick for a wand and ends up with the prince. Although I guess, technically, Flynn wasn’t the prince, he was the boy Cinderella. And anyway, I’m not supposed to be researching
my
story. I’m amassing information to help advance Jeni’s story beyond “Once upon a time, there was a shy Nutri-Fizzy clerk with f.g. phobia.”

I spent the rest of yesterday at Treasures, separating all the jackets into denim, corduroy, tweed, leather and “other,” and then subcategorizing by color, sleeve length,
width of collar and type of closure (buttons, zipper, snaps, clasps), while also mentally sifting through the possible reasons for Jeni’s freak-out. I finally concluded that Jeni either has me confused with some mythic creature who means her harm, or she’s suffered through a bad romance—or two—and doesn’t realize that she’s guaranteed to have a happily-ever-after ending this time.

Therefore, I need to present her with the facts. (Although the facts are technically fiction. But they’re only
called
fiction by people who don’t know the facts.) I hear the
click click click
of a camera shutter echoing around the library reading room, and I glance up. Flynn moves along the railing of the upper level, snapping photos of the scenes from famous books—
Charlotte’s Web
,
Oliver Twist
, something with an old guy fishing in a boat—that are painted around the edges of the ceiling.

Flynn was surprised when I suggested visiting the main branch of the county library for the start of our “Delaney Collins’s Day” date. “But the weather’s supposed to be super-amazing,” he said. “We should do something outside.”

“The weather’s always super-amazing,” I pointed out. What I didn’t say was that running around Wonderland for the past several days has made me need a break from sunshine. An afternoon inside a dark, grand, book-lined room is the perfect antidote for the sunniness, shallowness and cultural bankruptcy of the mall. Because I couldn’t tell
Flynn the true reason I wanted to go to the library, I pretended that I needed to do research for my boot business. “I’m out of fresh ideas. Maybe if I check out some examples of boot design through the ages, it will replenish the well or restock the fish pond or whatever.”

Flynn completely fell for it and even spent the fifteen-minute car ride here explaining how he looks through photography books all the time for inspiration. “Different angles, processes, subject matter, color. I’ve gotten a million ideas that way.” The downside to Flynn’s enthusiasm is that he offered to sit with me and go through photography books while I looked through books on boots. Luckily, I persuaded him to take photos of the building instead, which has lots of the weird architectural details that Flynn likes. “Great idea! I could do a photo spread for the paper!” It really is cute how excited he gets about everything, even things I trick him into doing. We arranged to meet in the library’s coffee shop at noon. Although I hoped Flynn would keep busy filling up film rolls, I still lugged an armload of ten-pound illustrated design books to my table, in case he came by before I finished my real work. It’s a good thing, because by the time Flynn spots me from above and waves, I’ve already flipped open
The Complete History of Footwear, from Ancient Greece to the Present
, and the book is so big, it covers all four of the fairy-tale books. Flynn may be too far away to see what I’m doing, but it’s better to be safe.

While I wait for Flynn to move on, I go over my notes. Last night I did as much research as I could on the Internet. I found a lot of clips from the million or so movies and plays and TV episodes based on “Cinderella,” and way too many boring doctoral dissertations on the Political Implications of a Jungian Interpretation of Medieval Fairy Lore, or whatever.

What I wanted was stories of other fairy godmothers, not just the Cinderella one. I need more evidence, to prove to Jeni that her happily-ever-after is really just one f.g. away. I haven’t found any fairy godmothers, though, just helpful witches and magical fish, along with talking capes and birds and mystical voices without bodies, all of whom do the same thing an f.g. does: help the hero or heroine get his or her wish.

I’ve also found examples of heroes and heroines who resist the help, who don’t trust the magical fish or talking cape. These stories usually end with the hero or heroine dying a gruesome death or being trapped in some agonizing situation—blind and enslaved, forced to clean out some king’s pigsty forever after. I might be able to use these as a warning to Jeni to let me help her or else, but the punishments are harsh even by my standards, and I’m pretty sure that if she’s not completely terrified of me now,
this
would make it complete.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

I’m so startled when I hear Flynn’s voice that I
accidentally slam
The Complete History of Footwear
shut—and then quickly open it again when I realize what I’ve done. “You scared me.”

“Boo,” he whispers into my ear. He smiles and glances down at the open book. “Those aren’t boots.”

I notice that I’ve opened the book to a two-page spread filled with drawings of sandals. “I have to be aware of the competition,” I explain. “And I think it was Flynn Becker who once said that inspiration can come from anywhere.”

“He must be very wise, this guy.”

“He has his moments.”

“How about heading to the coffee shop and I’ll share some more Becker wisdom with you?”

“Um, yeah, okay. I’ll meet you there in five minutes. I just have to put the books away.”

“I’ll help you.” Flynn reaches for one of the books, but I flop my arms across it.

“Great!” I say, too loudly, causing the other studiers in the reading room to glare my way. “Can you ask at the information desk if they have any magazines that focus solely on boots or shoes? I don’t need to check them out now. Just get their names. While you’re doing that, I’ll finish up this section I was reading and then we’ll put the books away. Together.”

The second Flynn is out of sight, I gather up all of the books and run them over to a “For Reshelving” cart, straining my arm muscles. Research, note-taking
and
phys
ed. It’s like being in school. If life were fair, there’d be a way for me to get extra credit for all of this.

Because the weather is still super-amazing (of course), I let Flynn talk me into going outside with our drinks and walking through the maze that winds around the gardens behind the library. At least the bushes provide some shade, so it’s not too oppressively sunny. Strolling through the maze—chai latte in one hand, Flynn’s hand in the other—should be relaxing and romantic, and it would be if my mind wasn’t already filtering through all the information I’ve gathered.

“Did you get any ideas?” Flynn asks.

“Oh, sure.”

“So?”

I try to come up with something boot-related to say, but my mind’s too focused on quasi–fairy godmothers. “I can’t talk about it right now. I need to let the ideas … flow. You know, subconsciously.”

“I get it.”

We don’t say anything for a few minutes. There’s a buzz of tension between us. I can feel it in Flynn’s grip on my hand. This is the first time we’ve been together, in person, since I met Ariella. And since then, so much more has happened. The things I can’t tell Flynn about are multiplying exponentially, and I feel the secrecy building like a force.

Flynn’s phone beeps. While he reads his text, I drop his hand and walk ahead, exiting the maze and entering a
grassy clearing with a green-tiled pool in the center. A boy and his father steer a mechanical boat across the water, and two older women inspect a patch of lilies planted around the perimeter. I’m jealous they’re all so “in the moment,” but I remind myself that it’s because living under cloudless skies has fooled them into forgetting to be cautious.

Even if there were a forest nearby where I could lie down for a second and just
be
, the calm wouldn’t last. Growing up in New Jersey taught me that you always have to be on guard, because the bad weather is always there, hovering, waiting to rain down on you and wash away any memory of the sun.