No Shoes, No Shirt, No Spells (Mystic Cafe Series) (18 page)

“
Have a seat.” He pointed. “What’s on your mind?”

I blew out a deep breath and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. After studying his face for a second, I said, “I think you know what’s on my mind, Tom. I need answers. Shouldn’t the organization be helping me a little more instead of just leaving me to figure this mess out on my own?” My words became more hurried. “And don’t look at me with that little grin.”

“
Sorry, it’s just that you’re cute when you’re panicked.”

“
Tom, quit kidding around,” I said, willing my lips not to curve upward.

“
Who says I’m kidding?”
A hint of a smile materialized on his lips.

“
I want to know what’s going on.”

“
I’m working on it. When I say I’m helping you, you need to trust me.”

I blew a shallow breath through my teeth, then said,
“I can hear the clock ticking. With every second that passes, it’s as if a little voice chimes in my head, ‘the café will be closed forever.’ Can I at least talk to Mr. Wibble? Isn’t there a way we can convince him to give me more time?”

“
I’ll see what I can do to get Mr. Wibble to speak with you, but I can’t make any promises.”

“
Fine, fine, whatever. It’s a start. I need something, anything right now.” The
weight in my chest grew heavier.

“
Elly, the organization has been around for many years. So many years I think they’ve lost track as to when it was actually formed. Anyway, they have their reasons for doing things the way they do. It may not make sense, and maybe they don’t always make the best decisions, but it keeps some form of order to magic. Without them, who knows what would happen?”

“
Life isn’t always fair, huh? How many times do I have to learn that lesson?”

“
It’s easy to forget,”
Tom said in a low tone.

“
So you can’t tell me everything that’s going on, huh?”

He shook his head. “As soon as I know anything different, I’ll let you know.”

I nodded. “I’m just freaking out a little.”

“
It’s understandable. Look, I’m going to tell you one more thing to freak you out even more.” He leaned forward, trying to narrow the distance between us.

“
I’m not sure I can handle any more.” I gripped the side of the chair, bracing myself for the blow.

“
It’s just that, you can’t do any magic for now. Put a hold on it, at least until I talk to you again.”

“
Why?”

“
Just stop with the spells, okay?”

I watched the TV in an attempt to ignore his request.

“
Are you listening to me, Elly? There are consequences if you do the magic.”

“
Oh yeah, like what? They’ll close the café? I heard that already.”

“
There’s more to it than that. Things like having your magical rights taken permanently away. Any descendents wouldn’t be allowed to do magic, no matter what level of talent they possessed.”

“
I doubt I’ll have descendents. And I hadn’t anticipated being allowed to ever do magic after the café,” I groused.

“
You have natural magical talent, Elly. You don’t want to ruin your chances of ever doing magic again.”

I had no idea why all of a sudden my magic was being restricted, but I didn’t intend on listening for any further reasoning. Tom was talking in circles as far as I was concerned. I’d heard enough rules from the magic bureaucrats and this was one I wouldn’t be following.

“
I shouldn’t have come here and bothered you.”

“
You’re not bothering me, Elly.”

“
I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.”

Before Tom had a chance to react, I jumped up and hurried out the door.

“
Elly, don’t go, please. I don’t want you to leave here upset,” he called as I climbed in my car.

When I pulled away, Tom stood in front of his room, barefoot and holding his hands up in frustration. Maybe he did want to help. But like Grandma Imelda always said: if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. That’s what I intended on doing: fixing this magic debacle myself.

Chapter Twenty
-Five

Before going home and passing out for the night, I decided to head back to the café and prep a few things in the kitchen. I wanted to release my frustration and anxiety before attempting sleep. As wired as I felt now, there was no way I’d get any rest. Maybe work would tire me out.

I slipped into the café and flipped on the light. The space was eerily silent; there were no clanking dishes, no chatter, or demands for refills. I ambled across the room, touching a chair, then moving on to brush my finger across a picture of Mystic Hollow from 1952 that grandma had hung on the wall.

As I studied the photo, I realized the town looked strangely the same back then as it did today. Grandma Imelda may be in Florida enjoying the sand and surf, but her presence still lingered in the café. What would she have done in my situation? What a silly question. She would never have made a mistake as I had.

Grandma had placed a calendar on the wall behind the register. I looked over at the date. Hours ticked away toward my forty-eight hour deadline. It felt as if I was watching the sand pour through an hourglass, and I had done nothing to stop it from falling completely to the other side. With running the café, there was hardly time to think of anything other than pancakes, eggs, and bacon. I needed to stop messing around. The answer to my problems wouldn’t fall at my feet. How would I find the time to reverse a magic spell? I had to make the time. Somehow, some way.

As I moved toward the kitchen to begin work and attempt to relieve my melancholy mood, the bell jangled on the door.

I spun around and clutched my chest. “What are you doing here?”

“
The better question is what are you doing here?” Mary Jane propped her hand on her jutted-out hip.

I sighed. “I knew I couldn’t sleep, so I came here to work off my troubles.”

“
I’m sorry to say it probably won’t help, but you can give it a try. Do you want to talk about it?”

“
Not really, but…”

“
But you know you will.” She grinned. “I expected you’d still be with Rory. Last time I saw you guys, you were by the Tilt-A-Whirl.” She covered her mouth. “I didn’t spy. Honest.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“
What happened? It looked as if you were hitting it off,” she said.

“
I thought we were, until Kim popped up.”

Mary Jane flushed red and dropped her purse on the floor. “What!” Her voice boomed across the café.

I filled her in on every detail, even up to the point where I sat in Tom’s hotel room.

“
So that’s what happened. And now I’m trying to figure out why I feel like this.” I sighed and leaned against a table.

“
You love him.” Mary Jane wiggled her eyebrows. “Not to mention you have a lot of crap hanging over your head right now.”

“
I do not love him,” I huffed.

“
You do. I can see it in your eyes.” She pointed.

“
You can’t.” I looked away. “I think I’m still at the in lust phase.”

“
Good point. But it could definitely turn to love.”

“
I don’t know him, and besides, if the end of the night was any indication, I think he’s spoken for again. Kim has her eyes and heart set on getting back together with him. I don’t think she’ll stop until she’s succeeded.” I pulled out a chair.

“
In a span of twenty-four hours, I learned Rory’s
favorite doughnuts…chocolate glazed, and sports team…Cincinnati Bengals, for heaven’s sake. All things I discovered during our chitchat at the county fair. These are things I doubt Kim would care to learn.”

“
Wow, you did learn a lot. I’m impressed by your skill.”

“
I bet she knows nothing about him after dating him for two years.” I shook my head in disgust.

But it didn’t matter how little she knew about him, she had the history with him and I didn’t. But that didn’t mean she loved him or that they belonged together because of it. My stomach acid churned and I rubbed my chest. Between the caramel apple, ice cream and the stress, I’d need a vat of acid reducer soon.

Mary Jane walked up and put her arm across my shoulders. She’d been absentmindedly rearranging the sugar packets on the table.
“It’ll work out. Just you wait and see. The café will stay open and you’ll sort out this thing with Rory. Kim doesn’t want him. She messed with his heart and mind once, she’ll do it again. He deserves better than that. He’s a fine man and not just on the outside.”

“
The good ones are always taken. Come on, let’s go back to the kitchen,” I said, jumping up from the table.

She nodded. “Sometimes the bad ones are taken, too. As in Kim.”

“
You think she’s a bad one?”

“
What do you think? The way she treated him?”

“
She claims the opposite,” I said.

“
If she really believes that, then she’s crazy. She’s only lying to herself. She knows the truth. And there are plenty of people who can back up the story. Rory didn't realize it at the time but, in my opinion, it’s the best thing that could have happened to him.”

The bell on the café door jingled and I walked over to the kitchen door. I thought everyone in town knew we didn’t stay open this late.

“
Sorry, we’re closed,” I said as I opened the swinging door from the kitchen.

It was Kim.

Making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a dying cat, I stopped in my tracks.

“
Oh, look now, it’s back. Er, well, she’s back,” Mary Jane said when she peeped out the little window.

“
I’ll go talk to her.” As if I thought for a second Mary Jane would stay behind and not listen to this conversation. Maybe I’d need her for backup, though. Kim probably wanted to clobber me.

I hadn’t expected to see her in the café again so soon. She hated that I didn’t have any fancy coffee drinks. I had a suspicion as to why she was there and it had nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with Rory. Why wasn’t she still with Rory? What happened to her ‘broken’ car?

The usual scowl was displayed on her face.

“
I need to talk with you, Elly, if you have a minute?” she asked in a clipped tone.

I didn’t like the sound of this. She had to have seen us kissing. No doubt, she’d been stalking us all evening, way before she popped up in the park.

“
Sure. You want to have a seat at one of the booths?”

She stared at me for a moment while tapping her foot.
“I’d rather not. This won’t take long.”

“
Okay.” My lips twisted into a wry expression. I couldn’t believe she was staring me down.

Her back stiffened as the blood rushed to her face. “I’m tired of playing games with you. Stay in your stupid little café and leave my Rory alone.”

“
I’m not playing games with you,” I said through a smile.

She held up her hand. “I’m not finished.
He doesn’t want you. I tried to be nice to you, but I see that doesn’t work.” Pinning me with her green eyes, she continued, “Now, I’m warning you. Stay away.”

Kim spun around and stormed out the door. The bell moved so violently that it wasn’t able to make a sound. The door rattled when it slammed shut.

“
Go dye your roots!” Mary Jane yelled in her wake.

“
That’s telling her, Mary Jane.”

Mary Jane’s face was fire-engine red and her eyes narrowed. She’d always had a temper. “How dare she come in here and tell you that,” she ground out.

“
Come on.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and led her to a table. “Forget about her for right now. Let me get you a piece of pie.” A little dose of pastry with a general spell for a calming effect would be good right about now.

“
Can’t you do a
magic spell
on Kim to make her not want Rory?”
Mary Jane
asked.

“
That would be a negative spell. And it specifically states in the book on page one that there are to be no negative spells.”

“
I bet someone has done a negative spell.”

“
Yeah, lots of people probably have, but it doesn’t turn out well for them in the end. Well, at least that’s what Grandma Imelda told me, anyway. Even if none of this magic was in play, I still believe in karma. It’s like grandma always said: what goes around comes around.”

“
You really believe that?” Mary Jane asked.

“
I do, always have. Then again, I’ve been hearing it from my grandmother since I can remember. My mom, too. But regardless, I do believe it.”

“
So if a negative spell is out of the question, what do you do now?”

I handed Mary Jane a plate with a slice of peach pie and a heaping pile of whipped cream on top. “Wait, I guess. Find out what Tom says I can do next.”

“
There has to be something you can do on your own instead of waiting around. Rory needs to tell Kim that he’s not interested in a relationship with her.” She speared a hunk of peach with her fork.