Austensibly Ordinary (12 page)

“How many have you been to?” he said, distracted by the effort of stretching some patterned tights from beneath the mannequin's skirt to the aubergine suede Mary Jane pumps waiting on the floor below.

Hadn't seen that coming. “Um. . . just one. But I've heard about a bunch more.”

Ironically, I now had his full attention. His riot of black curls was so artfully arranged that he looked like a classical statue. In fact, that was probably what he was going for: Adonis with fashion sense. In his trim khakis and black V-neck T-shirt, he only needed to lose the chunky black frames settled on his nose. Then again, what did I know—he was the fashion major. He propped his hand on his hip. “Why just one?”

“Oh, I've just been really busy.”

“Doing what?” he demanded with a sardonic tone that put me immediately on the defensive.

“Plenty! But now I've been to one, and I'm definitely going to another.” I made sure to keep the sassy little “so there!” I was hearing in my head silent. “You should seriously consider being part of the city's cultural underground. Who knows who you might meet. . . .” I thought of Syd, with her smoky bedroom eyes, her athletic body and well-placed tattoos, and smiled to myself.

“Uh-huh.” He turned back to the mannequin, gave her a quick once-over, and shifted his attention to the next one. “So sign me up. If it gets too pricey, you can be my sugar mama.”

I glanced over the piles of books at Dmitri, who was efficiently shimmying the skirt right off the mannequin. Clearly the man was talented. If Syd could see past those Clark Kent glasses, I bet she'd be willing to comp him the night.

Suddenly it seemed as if everywhere I looked, there was an alter ego just waiting to be unmasked.

“If I'm even going to consider being your sugar mama,” I drawled, “I'm going to need some Sugar Babies.” And Mom still had a bowl of Halloween candy on the counter. I carefully unfolded myself from my crouch, checked my watch, and limped out of the window display with the slightly exhilarating feeling that I was moonlighting as Miss Match.

W
hen Ethan knocked, I was waiting, and I slung the door open, holding it in my grip and striking a pose in the doorway. In black loafer heels, my eyes were almost level with his, and I locked onto them. His gaze roamed all over, from my charcoal gray pencil skirt to my black button-up silk charmeuse blouse with cap sleeves and red piping, all the way down to my hose and heels, and back up again to my chandelier earrings of jet beads and Swarovski crystals. Oh, and the lips. He definitely noticed my Lolita lips. And I suspect that was all he could handle.

“What the hell, Cate?” I could tell he'd tamped down on what he really wanted to say, but he seemed genuinely puzzled. Clearly he'd been anticipating a date with a schoolteacher, not a curvy, sexy siren. I bit my lip to hide my amusement.

“I'm sorry, what's the question?”

His eyes flashed, and he put his hands out in an
isn't it obvious
gesture. I softened toward him just a little. Here he was, looking very handsome in a beautifully tailored suit, come to pick up his date for the evening, and she was almost unrecognizable.

“Remember when I said I was looking for a little more excitement in my life?”

“Yeaahh,” he said, drawing the word out, probably cringing against the possibilities.

“I found some,” I confided, feeling giddy over the big reveal.

“Where'd you find it?”

“This is Austin. . . it may as well be floating in the air.” I was teasing him now.

He leaned forward a little, glanced over me again, and dragged his eyes back up to mine. Tension was high, and I was riding it.

“I created an alter ego. . . like Superman and Clark Kent, only I'm not a superhero. I'm more of a friendly femme fatale, flirting shamelessly. Meet Cat Kennedy,” I suggested, lifting my free hand in spokesmodel fashion.

“Holy crap, Batman!” Ethan blurted, his lack of creativity surprising me. I waited, certain there was more.

“So you're just vamping up and going out? Isn't that a little reckless? What if some guy takes you up on your shameless flirting?”

“Who says one hasn't?” I countered waspishly, wishing one in particular had. “And what business is it of yours if one does? Fresh meat for Sunday Scrabble,” I reminded him.

He was staring at me, wide-eyed, utterly baffled, but he quickly regrouped, running a rough hand over his face, clearly trying to form a cohesive argument.

“I haven't told you all of it yet,” I said, torn between wanting to and not.

He pulled his hand away. “Do I even want to hear the rest of it?”

“You don't have a choice,” I said.

His shoulders slumped slightly.

I took a deep breath. “Remember that journal I found under the table at Torchy's last week? Well, the week before you went missing?”

“Yeah,” he said warily.

“It's a little wonky. And it definitely factors into this. Maybe I should tell you in the car. Otherwise, there's a good chance we'll be late, and that sort of behavior is frowned upon in a best man.”

Ethan conceded the point, turning to step down the stairs of my garage apartment. When I turned from locking the door, I found his gaze heavy on me, even in the dark, and I felt self-conscious as I carefully maneuvered the steps in heels. Things were just as awkward in the car.

“So tell me about the journal,” he said, eyeing my legs in the deepening twilight before shifting his gaze back to the road. I couldn't get a good read on him—was he disappointed in me? In my legs?

I stared at his profile, wondering how he was going to take this. It would probably be a tough sell, but I knew that going in. . . I could work with that. “The journal sort of has a mind of its own.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He glanced over at me again, and his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly in the light of a street lamp.

“It means that when I write in it, it somehow erases the words it finds. . . superfluous. And when it's done, there's a message.”

Ethan shot through a yellow light going over the Congress Ave. Bridge.

“What?! What sort of message?”

“The latest one said, ‘absence may in fact produce a very desirable effect,'” I told him, cursing myself for bringing up the journal. I should have known that it would be impossible to explain. Words were simply not enough; he was going to have to see it to believe me, and even then he'd have a hard time with it.

“Cate—” he said, shooting another look at me, probably in an effort to see if I was messing with him. For once, I wasn't.

“I know.
I know!
I honestly have no idea what that means, but I do have a few theories about the whole thing.” Theories I'd be a little squeamish about telling Ethan. But I would, because I'd decided I needed a sidekick. He could be my behind-the-scenes code breaker slash tech guru, should an instance arise that I needed a tech guru. He could wear all black, maybe a leather jacket. . . .

“Yeah. . . ?” he said, zapping my little fantasy bubble. “Lay'em on me.” We were already pulling into a parking spot on Brazos. Ethan shifted into park and killed the engine, and suddenly it was very quiet. . . and awkward all over again. It felt weird, like I was sitting beside a stranger. He'd been gone—mysteriously—for an entire workweek, and in those five days, things had changed big-time. All because of a magical journal that, until now, had been my little secret.

“You need to see it for yourself, Ethan,” I told him, not quite meeting his eyes. “It's impossible to explain without the journal, because without the journal it all sounds like a load of crap. I get that. But when have I not been straight with you?” Forcing myself, I lifted my gaze.

In the darkness, his eyes stared into mine, impossible to read. Whether he believed me or not, he was back, and everything already felt more normal.

“All right. Why don't we just get through this dinner, and you can show me the journal when I drop you back at home?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, nodding.

I'd noticed when Ethan had come to pick me up that with heels I was only a couple inches shy of his six feet. And now, as we walked along the sidewalk together, it occurred to me that my eyes were just about on level with his lips.

I stumbled, my heel caught on a tree root pushing up between the concrete squares of sidewalk—something I probably would have noticed if I'd been watching where I was going instead of measuring myself against Ethan like a little kid. Ethan caught me easily, his hand gripping my arm just above my elbow.

“Thanks,” I said. “I'm good.” I nodded and sent him a sidelong smile, evidence of my careful concentration.

I could feel him staring back at me, but I didn't look. After a beat of silence, he conceded, but rather than let me go completely, he slid his hand down to clasp it firmly, securely around mine.

He must have had a sixth sense about me in those heels, seeing as I stumbled again, almost immediately, on a clear, flat stretch of sidewalk. Weird.

Ethan was quite the attentive escort, although I suspected he kept close to me, often with his hand on my lower back, to make sure I didn't go all Catwoman on him. It felt strangely like we were on an actual date. Very strangely.

By the time Ethan had pulled back into Mom's driveway, I was carrying my heels and desperate to get out of that pencil skirt and into some pajama pants. Judging by the speed with which he shrugged off his suit jacket and yanked off his tie, Ethan had precisely the same idea.

“I'm making hot chocolate,” I told him, scuffing through the apartment on the way to my mini-kitchen. “You want some? I add lots of marshmallows.”

“Sure,” he agreed. His eyes were already shuttered closed as he lounged on the sofa, no doubt gearing up for our little show-and-tell-all. Too bad nothing would prepare him.

I came back to the couch carefully toting two mugs of cocoa and a bag of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos under my arm. Settling everything on the coffee table, I unearthed the journal from underneath the sofa. I was slurping up marshmallows and the journal was waiting patiently between us when Ethan finally opened his eyes.

“You wanna do this tonight?” I asked, offering him an out.

“I think we'd better,” he said, looking me over. “You're easier to talk to like this.”

“You mean in flannel?” I teased.

“Yep,” he said, reaching for his cocoa. “So tell me again about the journal, and I'll see if I can make sense of what you're saying this time.”

I pulled my legs up onto the couch, sitting cross-legged, and suggested, “Why don't you take a look for yourself, and then I'll answer your questions till we're on the same page?”

So he looked. He looked at the inside, glanced at the dedication, paged through and pored over the four pages with messages, and even riffled through the blank pages till the end. Then he closed the book and examined it all over again from the outside. As a silent observer, it didn't appear that his efforts produced any additional findings over and above the original perusal in the Trailer Park. He looked up at me.

“No joke, right?”

I stared at him from under lowered lids. “Well, it's not funny, is it?”

“Judging from past experience with you, that doesn't exactly eliminate it as a possibility.”

I plastered on a snarky little smile before confirming, “No joke.”

“Anybody know you found this journal?”

“Nobody but you.”

“Where have you been keeping it?”

“Under the couch.”

He shot me a look, but didn't comment.

“Okay, let's see it in action.” He held the book out to me, and I took it cautiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, let's write in it and wait for words to disappear and the secret message to emerge.” By the sound of his voice, he wasn't taking this completely seriously, so I wasn't about to reveal any of my conspiracy theories. At least not yet. Maybe I'd wait to hear his theories before telling him mine. But clearly he was going to have to see the little transformation for himself.

“Fine. Do you want to do it, or shall I?”

“Why don't you do it? You're already pen pals.” He tipped his head back against the couch and smirked. I considered popping him with one of the pillows, but rose above it. I did, however, spoon the rest of the marshmallows out of his mug and into mine before settling in to write. In pen.

 

 

Well, it wasn't much, but I couldn't very well write any private things because Ethan would obviously want to read the before as well as the after.

“Okay,” I said, nudging his thigh with my foot. “The hard part's done. Now we wait.” I leaned over to retrieve my cocoa, holding the journal open between us. We'd have to go through this entire procedure all over again if Ethan didn't get a peek at my entry before it got hacked to bits.

Ethan leaned forward, took the open journal, and then propped his elbows on his knees to read over my token entry. Just after his muffled snort of amusement, he turned his face toward me, eyebrows raised and lips quirked. “I'm flattered.”

I shrugged. “Just greasing the skids, my friend. Now you're in a much more accommodating frame of mind.” I sipped my cocoa and smiled to myself.

“That remains to be seen. So now what?”

“Now we wait.”

“How long do we have to wait?” He glanced at his watch, which likely read the same as the clock on the wall beside the kitchen: ten-thirty.

“No idea. I write in the journal and then stuff it under the couch and check it when I get a chance.”

“What kind of experiment is that?” He reached for his mug, started to take a sip, immediately noticed the missing marshmallows, and glanced over at me in exasperation. Worth it.