A Taste of Magic (24 page)

“Betty, it’s me. Give me a call back. On my cell.”

BEEP.

“Hey Betty, it’s me again. Still waiting for your call.”

BEEP.

“Are you screening me? Come on, I just want to talk to you. It’s important.”

BEEP.

“Elizabeth, this is Marc. I’ve called you three times over the last three days. Please—call me back.”

The light went out, indicating there weren’t any other messages. Was I desperate enough for company to call my ex-husband? No. But I had to admit, he’d piqued my curiosity. If it was due to the magic cake, it certainly had taken long enough to work.

Though, Marc was definitely stubborn and possibly had held out that long. But what if it was something else? And, why did I care? Would I take him back? Now?

Shoot
. I seriously didn’t know what to do. Making a decision, I hit the delete button and returned to the living room. I picked up my half-finished unicorn rug, plopped down on the couch, and began latch-hooking.

Nice. Somehow, I was right back where I’d started. Miserably alone, crafting something meant for kids in my crappy apartment with absolutely nothing else to do.

Interesting, really, how the exact same place could mean so many different things. This same living room I sat in depressed had been the scene of three different men kissing me. Three different men, all handsome, all desirable in their own ways, interested in me. Nate on the couch, hands all over my body, inside my body, eliciting responses from me I didn’t think were possible. Jon, bewildered, confused, and his sweet kiss. And Kevin, dancing with me to silent music, confusing me even more.

I’d also cried many tears on this couch over Marc and our marriage. Our divorce. Spent way too much time feeling sorry for myself. For my life. God help me, for the person I’d become. I remembered promising myself to change. To not do this self-pity crap again. But it seemed, at least for tonight, that’s exactly what I was doing.

“No. I’m not going to,” I whispered. Sudden energy propelled me to run around my apartment, grabbing every single latch-hook rug I owned. Why the hell I’d bought so many of them when I never finished any, I had no clue. Yanking open a drawer in the kitchen, I pulled out my scissors and stacked the rugs on the counter, one on top of another.

“You’re history, Mr. Unicorn,” I muttered, choosing that one first. The scissors cut through the plastic and the yarn, the tearing sound oddly gratifying, and slowly, I dismantled the rug, dumping the pieces into the garbage as I did.

Bits of yarn floated in the air, and I sneezed. Weird, but the simple act of destroying crappy home craft projects was extremely pleasurable. When I finished demolishing the final one, I shoved the trash can under the sink and slammed the cupboard door shut.

“Better.” But strangely, still not enough. My eyes whipped around, trying to find something else—anything else I could do to prove to myself I’d changed. That I was a different woman now than I was a year ago.

You see, it was suddenly of extreme importance that I wasn’t the same person Marc had abandoned for someone else. Misery pulled at me, but I shoved it away.

“No more. No. No. No,” I cried. Loneliness surrounded me. It came in a giant wave, almost suffocating me with its strength. My breathing hitched in my throat, the air pushing out of me in short, fast gasps. I gripped the counter. This was going to stop tonight. It
had
to stop tonight.

“What am I supposed to do?”

She arrived then. All at once, a fragrant rush of roses permeated the air. My skin tingled. And then, oddly, the air changed. It was as if someone had turned my AC on full blast.

“Miranda? Talk to me. Tell me what to do!”

No response. Didn’t she know I needed her?

“I know you’re here. I can smell you. You have to be here for a reason, right? Why else would you keep returning? I’m thinking it’s to help me. But you’re not really helping and, trust me, I could use the help.”

Still no response. Damn. What good was a ghost grandmother if she refused to talk? Then, the weirdest sensation came over me. It was as if someone placed their hands on either side of my face and applied pressure. I allowed it to happen, I stopped resisting, and my head turned until my gaze rested on my refrigerator.

“What? You’re hungry?”

Of course, no response. I flipped my gaze around the room again, only to have the hands force it back. And just like before, I was staring at the refrigerator.

“Okay, okay.” Walking to it, I swung the door open and examined the contents. “Juice. Milk. Leftovers. Condiments.” Nothing that jumped out at me. Nothing that made any sense. Nothing that would make this agony go away.

A hand grabbed the back of my hair and forcibly pulled down. Hard. My neck yanked backward with the tug, and my head jerked upward. Now, my eyes rested squarely on the freezer. Ah.
That.

“Got it. Thanks.” Opening the freezer, I closed my eyes and reached around and past the disgusting dead rodent box until I found it. Pulling it out, I sat down on a chair and unzipped the bag. I turned it upside down… and the foil wrapped cake fell to the table.

I picked at the foil, not quite ready to unwrap it. The last time I’d seen the actual cake inside had been over a decade ago. When I believed in love.

When I believed in forever.

When I believed in… Well, when I believed.

I wanted to throw it away, like I’d done with the rugs. But somehow, I knew that wasn’t enough. I needed to open it. I needed to look at it. And then, I needed to get rid of it.

If I did that, would I be throwing my dreams away with it? Well, yeah, that made sense. In a stupid life-altering, change your destiny, new-age sort of way. My hand shook as I gently peeled back the foil. I’d been smart enough to put the cake in plastic wrap before covering it with foil, so nothing stuck.

There it was. White on white. Crushed icy pink roses, smushed a bit, but still recognizable. Oddly, it didn’t look as if it were a decade old. It didn’t appear to hold the key to my future. It was a hunk of frozen cake. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I made the mistake of picking it up. As soon as my skin touched it, everything changed. Instead of sitting in my kitchen, I was once again at my wedding, then at my reception, various scenes flipping by speedily, like a DVD on fast-forward. Just as before, my real world bled away. It was as if I had stepped into the past. But as a ghost. It felt real, but I knew it wasn’t.

After the reception came our honeymoon. Then our first home. Then our second. And then, finally, the one we’d built together. While all of this was happening, emotions were zipping around inside of me. At first they were amazing. Love. Happiness. Fulfillment. But negative emotions soon followed. Frustration. Sadness. Wanting a baby and Marc’s refusal. No longer cuddling together on the couch at night. Fights. Recriminations. Guilt. More fights.

Guilt? I tried to grasp what was being shown to me. I tried to understand
why
it was even happening. And then—suddenly— everything slowed down. No longer on fast-forward, the vision in front of me was of
that night
, in heart-wrenching slow speed, flickering before me. My thirty-fourth birthday. Except this time, I watched Marc’s face as he spoke to me. His hand shook when he gripped the chair. He told me he was leaving me. And then, when my prior-self turned her back on him, cursing him, I saw regret shimmer over his expression.

It was there
. The regret I didn’t think he felt, so obvious in his eyes as he stared, frozenlike, at the back of my head. But when my old self pivoted, angry words flying from my mouth, the regret instantly vanished, shielded by that ice cold glare I’d spent the last year remembering.

The tears came then. No way in hell could I stop them. I sobbed, and while I’d cried plenty in the past, never like this. Never this all-consuming explosion of tears that just wouldn’t stop.

My chest hurt from it, my soul ached from it, but strangely— my heart? It felt free, light, and whole. Still crying, I dropped the cake on the table and sat there, waiting for the trembles to stop, the tears to cease.

They didn’t. Standing, I grabbed the cake again, thinking I’d drop it into the garbage, or maybe the disposal, when my eyes fell on the snake.
Oh God
. That was something else I needed to do. I’d had him for a week, which meant he needed to eat. Still crying, I maneuvered the little door for feeding and dropped the cake in there. Fast.

Every pet I’d ever owned had loved people food. Snakes couldn’t be any different, could they?

Besides, it seemed a fitting end to the cake. To the old Elizabeth. To me and Marc. Being digested by a snake.

Locking the hatch again, I didn’t wait to see if it ate it. I was going to take a hot bath and then go to bed and, hopefully, when I woke in the morning, it would be a brand new day.

Hell. If I was really lucky, it would be a brand new life.

Chapter Eighteen

“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked Scot as he drove. “He looks dead. But do you think he’s really dead?”

“Yes. I do. A vet isn’t going to help him,” Scot said, slowing the van to make a left turn.

I killed the snake
.

I’d woken up that morning weirdly at ease; even the rain hadn’t bothered me. I was going to talk to Nate. I’d decided it was time, so I was nervously excited, strangely hopeful. But after my shower, I realized the snake wasn’t moving.
At all
. I naturally couldn’t touch him (ew), so I’d knocked on the glass, but he’d stayed all curled up tight. I’d considered sticking something in the tank to prod him, like a wooden spoon, but couldn’t deal with the actuality of it.

Frantic, because somehow the thought of a dead snake in my home was even more horrifying than a live one, I’d begged Scot to come over immediately and haul us to the veterinarian’s office.

I am a horrible person. I disliked the snake, but I hadn’t meant to murder him. Probably, it was the cake. Even though it didn’t look as if the snake had actually eaten any of it, what else could it be?

But still, he was dead or faking it really well.

That was an idea. Maybe? “Scot, can snakes be trained? Like dogs? Maybe he’s just playing dead.”

“Why do you care? You couldn’t wait to get rid of him.” “I just feel bad,” I murmured, eyes on the road.

Two hours later, I didn’t feel any better. The vet assured me it wasn’t the cake that killed my snake. Though, he did give me a strange look when he saw the cake in the tank. Oh wait, not a tank. It’s a
vivarium
.

Luckily, he didn’t ask me to explain, but he did firmly vocalize I shouldn’t consider owning a snake again. Ever. For my entire life. Yes, he said those exact words. Seeing as I wholeheartedly agreed with him, I didn’t argue or point out how rude he was. Nor did I point out it wasn’t my idea to own a snake in the first place.

Apparently, the fourteen-year-old snake had been riddled with some weird disease that would have been treatable months ago but wasn’t dealt with, so he died from it. I still thought the cake pushed him over the edge. You know, vapors can be deadly.

“When we get back to my place, will you do me one more favor?” I asked Scot. “You owe me. You knew I’d freak, but you helped Grandma anyway.”

“Come on, Lizzie. You gotta admit it was hysterical. I wish I could have been there the first time you saw him.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” I snapped. “I’m late for work, and I need you to take any remaining snakey stuff out of my apartment.”

“Snakey stuff?”

“Dead rodents,” I huffed. “In my freezer.”

“Chicken.”

“Yep. But you’ll do it?”

“Yeah. I have a friend who has a couple of snakes. I’ll take them to him.”

“I have some wrapping paper if you want to gift wrap it,” I suggested.

“Or I could leave them there. For you to deal with.”

“I should have called Joe,” I muttered, glancing out the window as we pulled into my parking lot.

While I felt terrible about a living creature dying, I was really happy—no, ecstatic—that he was not in my home any longer. Plus, I’d learned something. Never, ever, no matter what, tell Grandma Verda anything that could be misconstrued to such disastrous results, ever again. Oh yeah—I also learned I didn’t really want to be a snake. They were entirely too, um, reptilian for my peace of mind. Plus, that tongue thing? Creepy.

I sipped my coffee and basked in the sun that shone through my windows. Spring was in the air, with the bite of winter’s chill softened by buds of warmth. And I just knew the second I stepped outside I’d be wrapped in the unique scents of the season. Fresh, breezy, the promise of hot summer days in every whiff. Normally on Sundays, I’d sit around most of the day. I’d catch up on chores, maybe watch a movie or read a book. Not today. Today, I was going shopping.

I hated my furniture, but beyond that, I wanted the black gone. No wonder I’d been depressed for a year. I was living in an apartment of mourning.

Brushing the crumbs from my morning toast off my hands, I considered hauling Maddie out of bed and insisting she come with me. But I sort of wanted to do this on my own. After the vision sequence with Marc, I was finally ready to move on. I didn’t need to see him now, and I didn’t need to hear an apology. Visualizing his regret was enough.

Yeah, I still needed to talk to Nate, but for some reason hesitated. If he wanted to talk to me, he knew where I lived, right? Right. Which meant, if I was honest with myself, he didn’t want to talk to me. I figured I’d focus on something I could do rather than on things I couldn’t. No matter how much it hurt.

After checking the Sunday advertisements, I mapped out my day. Several furniture shops were having spring sales. If I could save money
and
redecorate my apartment, even better.

I jotted a note for Grandma Verda, who was still spending the majority of her time with the recovering Vinny, grabbed my purse, locked my door, and then headed into the sunshine. Right away I realized filling my apartment with new furnishings wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought. Let me tell you, these furniture shops? Tons of choices for someone who didn’t really know what she wanted. Deciding to browse, my eyes scanned the store I was in.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled as I passed an older couple who were discussing the merits of a La-Z-Boy recliner.

The woman glanced up and smiled. “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you think of this chair? We’re considering buying it for my granddaughter, but we’re not really sure if it’s young enough for her.”

Her striking white hair pulled at a memory, and I took a closer look as I answered. “It’s nice. But without knowing the décor of her home, it’s hard to say.”

The man said, “Sit down in it, will you? We’re getting too old to get in and out of chairs in public. We’ll embarrass ourselves.” He grinned. They seemed like a really sweet couple.

And then, I remembered who they were. The couple from Starbucks. The ones whose history Maddie and I tried to guess but who’d disappeared before I could ask. How weird was it seeing them again?

“Sure,” I answered. Sitting down in the chair, I pulled the leg-rest up and sighed. “Oh yeah, this is relaxing. Maybe I’ll consider buying one.”

“So if your grandmother purchased this for you as a wedding gift, would you be happy or annoyed?” the woman asked. “We’re not sure if she’ll think our tastes are too old for her.”

“Um. My grandmother? A chair would be great. It’s the snake I couldn’t handle.”

“Snake? How interesting,” the lady said with a smile. “I bet that’s a great story.”

I shuddered. “Not really. But she meant well. Your granddaughter is getting married?” I pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “I own a bakery that specializes in wedding cakes. If she hasn’t chosen anyone yet, have her come in.”

Accepting the card, the woman nodded. “Thank you. Could we have another, perhaps? So I can give one to her and keep one for myself?”

“Definitely.” I gave her another card. “Please feel free to give it to anyone you want.”

“Oh, it’s for us. We’re finally getting married. After twenty years together, we decided to make it legal,” she said with a nervous chuckle.

“Twenty years?” So Maddie and I were both wrong. Interesting. “That’s amazing. Congratulations!”

The old man’s eyes twinkled. “I asked her to marry me on our second date. It’s taken her this long to say yes.”

Her cheeks turning pink, the woman tucked both business cards into her purse. “Sometimes it takes a while,” she said softly. “But you waited for me, and I came to my senses.”

“You’re just stubborn,” the old man teased.

“Can I ask a question? If it’s too personal, I’ll understand.” At the woman’s nod, I continued. “Did you ever doubt in those twenty years that you were supposed to be together?”

“Oh no. I fell in love with him the moment I met him. Like a romance story.”

“Then why so long to get married?” I realized I was being rude, but I needed to know.

Her frail shoulders moved upward in a shrug. “Bad first marriage. I guess it took me twenty years to see what was in front of me the entire time. That just because my heart was broken once, it didn’t mean it would happen again.”

The elderly man reached over and squeezed her hand. And then, a look so intimate passed between them that I felt as if I were intruding. After a few more minutes of chit-chatting, I said, “Congratulations again! I hope to see you and your granddaughter soon.”

Imagine. Twenty years with someone without a wedding ring. Twenty years to get over a bad first marriage. Sure, they certainly appeared happy, but I was smart enough to understand they’d probably argued about it over the years. Honestly, it spoke volumes that they’d managed to stay together to reach the point of getting married. Most relationships probably wouldn’t.

Stopping midstride, I thought of Nate and a rush of dizziness hit me. Reaching out, I steadied myself by grabbing onto a chair. It was time. I needed to talk to Nate. Regardless of what he said to me. Regardless of how he reacted. It was time.

My heart jumped in my chest. Hell. Now or never, right?

Right.

“Hey, Elizabeth. I’m surprised to see you.” Nate shook his head. “That didn’t come out right. I’m glad to see you. How are you?”

“Can I come in? I won’t take long. I promise.” My skin prickled with nerves, and my legs threatened to collapse. This was brand new territory for me, and I hadn’t even given myself a chance to prepare what I was going to say. I was too afraid I’d chicken out if I didn’t come to Nate immediately.

“Absolutely. Come on in.”

He opened the door wider, and I stepped into his apartment. I didn’t see his girlfriend, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. Possibly she was sleeping off a night of amazing sex. Yeah, I just had to put that image in my mind.

“Do you want anything to drink? I have juice, soda, wine, what ever you want,” Nate said, gesturing toward the couch. “I even have coffee.”

Taking a seat, I exhaled. “No. Thank you. If I don’t say this straight-out, I’m not sure I will.”

Apparently he’d just gotten out of the shower, because his hair was wet. His white T-shirt tightened across his chest, clinging to areas he must not have dried properly before answering the door. Even knowing he had a girlfriend, I still wanted to rip that shirt off. I know. Hopeless. Completely and utterly hopeless.

Instead of sitting next to me on the couch, or across from me in his chair, he sat on the coffee table in front of me. So close, our knees were almost touching. Shoot. He smelled really good.

“I’m listening. What’s going on? Everything okay with your grandmother, your sister, and all other assorted family members?” he asked with his trademark twitchy grin.

I loved that twitchy grin.

“Um. You’re too close to me,” I blurted. “I can’t think when you’re this close to me. All I want to do is kiss you. And I can’t do that, so you should probably move.” Tell me I didn’t just say what I think I said.

Yeah. I know. I did.

“You want to kiss me?”

“I’m sorry. I know you have a girlfriend. I shouldn’t have said that. So, let’s forget I did and I’ll say what I came to say instead.” I fidgeted in my seat.

“I’m much more interested in following this kiss line of discussion. Why stop at wanting to kiss me? Why not lean over and kiss me? Do I need to be closer?” He scooted closer. “Is that better?”

What was happening? I didn’t think he was the type to cheat. Maybe I was wrong about the girlfriend thing? A blossom of hope eased its way through me. “Do you have a girlfriend?” I blurted.

His green eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I have a girlfriend?”

“I’ve seen you with her. Or at least with a woman who I thought was your girlfriend. I know you love her and that’s good. Well. Not good for me. But good for you, and it’s not that I don’t want you to be happy, because I do. If she is your girlfriend, that is. You know, it’s just, well … for a while I thought maybe we could be happy together.”

This was, without a doubt, absolutely not going as planned.

“Why don’t you start from the very beginning and tell me what you came to say. Then we can work through this addled idea of yours and come back to the kiss.”

Addled? Did he just call me addled? That’s something my grandmother would say. And yeah, maybe I was a little confused, but who could blame me? With him sitting so close and smelling so good and all. I twisted a few strands of hair to give me a few seconds to compose myself. “I came to apologize to you for that night you thought I was missing.”

“You’re a big girl. If you want to stay out all night, you don’t have to ask permission from anyone.” His gaze skittered away for an instant before returning to me. “That being said, you really scared a lot of people who love you. And your grandmother was really upset. I’m just surprised you forgot to call her.” While his voice was genial enough, it held a thread of coolness. I hated that.

He ran his hands over his face. “I thought … Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Once you were home and I realized you were with your boyfriend, I thought it best to give you some distance.” Leaning over, he brushed my nose with a finger. “But I was worried about you. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you walked through your door.”