Sorcery and the Single Girl (12 page)

Instead, I picked up my telephone handset and stared at the keypad.

I could picture Graeme’s business card in my mind, even though it was safely tucked away beneath my mattress. The bold silver border glinted in my imagination, and I could see the strong font. His name. His phone number.

I punched in the digits before I could chicken out.

One ring.

Two.

“Henderson.”

“Hi,” I said. “It’s me. Jane.”

“Good afternoon,” he said, his voice suddenly much warmer.

“The flowers are beautiful.”

“I figured that I owed you something. It’s not every evening that ends with such a…bang. Or shall I say, ‘whimper.’”

I swallowed hard. And what was I supposed to say to that?

He went on, before I needed to improvise. “I would have sent them yesterday, but it was impossible to find a flower shop open on Sunday.”

Besides, I thought, it was much more satisfying to receive them at work. Even if the delivery
did
make my boss jealous. Especially if. “Graeme,” I said. “I was wondering? If you were serious about next Saturday?”

“Quite.” I thought I heard a smile behind his reply. Or maybe that was just the British accent.

“A friend just gave me tickets to
Romeo and Juliet.
”

“‘In fair Verona, where we lay our scene’?” he quoted from the play.

Be still my beating academic heart. “Verona, or the Kennedy Center. Whichever’s closest.”

“Shall I pick you up at your cottage, then? Before the show?”

I pictured the limousine and the champagne flutes. And the professionally blank face of the chauffeur, acting as if nothing untoward had happened on our previous outing. And Neko’s boundless curiosity.

“No!” I gritted my teeth and looked down at my desk, certain that half the library would be glaring at me. I forced my voice into a more Peabridge-appropriate register. “I mean, I have something I need to do on Saturday afternoon. Can we meet at the theater? Maybe grab a nightcap afterward?”

“I’d love that.” The simple way he said those three words tightened my chest so much that I couldn’t breathe.

“Wonderful,” I managed to say. I struggled to add something—anything—but I couldn’t string three words together. At last I gasped, “There’s someone coming up to the reference desk.”

“You’d best go help them, then.”

“Yes, I’d best.”

But when I hung up the phone, there was no patron in front of me. Instead, there was only the massive bouquet of flowers. As I gazed at them, I convinced myself that I could see the rose petals stretching wider, reaching out to the mysteries of the world around them.

Perhaps I should learn a lesson from the natural world. Perhaps it was time for me to start reaching out. To start taking risks.

I hummed to myself as I straightened my desk and finished up my Monday shift.

I
tried not to look forlornly at my wallet where it huddled on the countertop beside the half-full fifth of rum. It had cost me almost forty dollars to get Neko and Jacques out of the house, and if I’d had any more change available, they would have held out for that as well.

The trade-off had been worthwhile, though. I felt I hadn’t seen Melissa in months; this was our first mojito therapy since the
Casablanca
get-together. It was only Wednesday night, but we were both free and eager to catch up on work lives, love lives, and other best friend details.

“What’s that?” Melissa asked, pointing toward a smooth, egg-shaped stone on the kitchen table. It was blood-red, mottled with black splotches. The highly polished rock half filled the palm of her hand.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s an egg, carved out of jasper. At least, I think it’s jasper. That’s what it looks like.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“I’m not sure. I found it on the porch when I stepped outside to get the newspaper this morning.”

She laughed. “Are you in the habit of finding stone eggs on your porch?”

“You wouldn’t believe half the things Neko drags home.” I rolled my eyes.

“Um, yes. I would. What are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know.” I watched Melissa rub her fingers against it, almost as if it was a worry stone. An involuntary shudder rippled down my spine. “Ugh. How can you stand doing that?”

She looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“It’s so rough. Doesn’t it feel like sandpaper on your fingers?”

“What are you talking about? It’s smooth as silk.”

I shook my head. It had rasped against my hands when I picked it up. I’d considered throwing it directly into the bushes, but I’d worried about what havoc a contemporary jasper egg might wreak on an eighteenth-century garden. The last thing I needed was Evelyn complaining that I’d compromised the Peabridge grounds.

I’d originally set the egg aside, thinking I might add it to the collection of crystals down in the basement. The more I thought about that, though, the more it seemed like a bad idea. There was something…odd about the jasper egg. Something slightly off about it.

I shrugged. It was probably nothing more than the fact that the egg was a cheap, mass-produced souvenir, which wouldn’t mix well with the witchy treasures in the basement. “It’s yours if you want it. Just don’t say that Neko never gave you anything.”

Melissa stuck out her tongue, but she slipped the egg into her pocket. I maneuvered our tray of drinks and glasses into the living room.

“So? Which one was this?” I asked, folding myself onto a couch. As I poured a lime-rich cocktail into Melissa’s chilled glass, I couldn’t help but look at the giant display of flowers Graeme had sent me. They filled the coffee table, perfuming the room with the heavy scent of roses.

Melissa grimaced in partial reply to my question, but she consoled herself with a sip of minty comfort.
“Washington Today.”

As far as I was concerned, the
Washington Today
want ads were the weakest link in Melissa’s dating scheme. Half of the men who advertised there were married and looking for a little action on the side. About half of
those
bothered to admit that level of commitment up front. Melissa had learned about the others by sad trial and error.

“Married?” I asked, thinking that we might as well get the disaster quickly out of the way.

“Oh no,” she said. “Not currently.”

“Not…currently?” That reply required my taking a healthy swallow of my own drink.

“He got married at the tender age of twenty-three. To his college sweetheart.”

I made a face. “Let me guess. She broke his heart, and now he wishes that he had his college years back, so that he could sow those near-forgotten wild oats.”

“Are you going to let me tell this story, or not?”

“Sorry!” I grinned and dodged a waving lily to select one of Neko’s Marcona almonds from the pottery bowl on the table. Crunching the salty snack gave me greater satisfaction than usual. If my familiar was going to blackmail me into taking his boyfriend away from our shared premises, the least he could do was keep me from expiring from hunger.

Melissa ran a hand through her honey-colored hair and brought her feet up on the couch, sitting cross-legged like a preschooler at reading time. Her overalls settled into place like a child’s favorite flannel nightgown, and I felt like we were staying up late at night at a slumber party. Another swallow of mojito, though, reminded me that I was a grown-up and slumber parties were a thing of the past. The distant past.

“Okay,” Melissa said. “
Washington Today.
Married at twenty-three to college sweetheart. For the first time.” She held up one finger. “Divorced her at the age of twenty-five. Married—” Another finger. “A woman he met in a bar, one week after he met her, because he thought he’d found true love. Had the marriage annulled six weeks later. Married—” Another finger. “College Girl again. Divorced her one year later. Married—” Another finger. “His secretary, because she loved him, despite having heard the sordid saga of his love life thus far. And, not surprisingly, divorced her. Spent two years in litigation over the resulting sexual harassment suit.”

As Melissa extended her thumb, I said, “Married College Girl again.”

“Bingo! Do I need to go on?”

“Where did the count end up?”

“Four weddings to College Girl. Three in-between girls. I was being auditioned for the role of number four.”

“Any possibility there’d be a decent alimony settlement when you two break up?”

“With all those other hands in the pie? I’d probably need to sign a prenup a mile long. After all, he
is
a lawyer.”

“What type of law?”

“What else? Divorce!” We clinked glasses on that one.

“Sorry to hear it,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s time to give the
Washington Today
ads a rest?”

“And miss out on so many highly credentialed professionals? What sort of girl do you think I am?” At least she could laugh at herself. Ever a true-blue friend, she said, “But come on! Tell me about your date with Double-oh seven.”

“Double-oh seven?”

“That’s what I’ve been calling him in my own mind. I mean, he’s got the accent and the glamour. He’s got that slight air of mystery, luring you away from all you know and love.” She gestured toward the flowers. “And he certainly knows how to get your attention.”

“What do you mean?” A defensive edge sawed into my voice.

“Oh, don’t worry. I totally understand,” Melissa said, in a tone that implied she might not understand anything at all. “He’s swept you off your feet. How could you possibly find time for a girlfriend, when you have
Graeme
waiting in the wings.”

I started to protest, but then I realized she was right. I hadn’t stopped by Cake Walk in over two weeks. Was that possible? Even when I stopped to think about everything that had been going on—Graeme, the Coven, Family-Togetherness brunch with Gran and Clara—I was surprised at how much time had slipped away. Especially since I usually dropped in for at least one sugar fix a day. Graeme might be poison to my friendship, but he was working wonders on my waistline.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I let real remorse color my words. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“If you do, I’ll have to cut you off. You know, never let you work the counter again. Never let you have first dibs on eligible bachelors looking for Lust.”

I heard the tremor beneath her words, and I leaned forward to clink my glass against hers one more time. “That’s a deal. Hey, are we all right about this?”

“Are we all right about your meeting Mr. Perfect while I’m left with the dating dregs?” For just a moment, her face looked pinched.

“Forget about Graeme for a moment,” I said, wishing that I hadn’t set my flowers right smack in the middle of the living room. “Are
you and I
all right? I mean, if neither of us ever saw another man for the rest of our lives, are we still going to be friends?”

Her laugh was more bitter than I expected. “We’ll always be friends.”

I needed to say something. Do something. Break the mood. “Rock, scissors, paper, for getting Neko’s olives out of the kitchen.”

It took her a moment, but then she counted to three, tapping her right fist against her left palm. I chose paper, and she chose scissors. I was glad to let her win.

By the time I’d brought in the olives and refilled our glasses, Melissa had obviously decided to let her dark mood pass. “So,” she said. “Tell me about your date. I really do want to know.”

I wasted a minute, weighing whether she wanted me to tell the truth. What the hell, I decided. She was my best friend. I’d never lied to her before, and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. Popping a stolen olive into my mouth, I launched into the sordid tale. By the time I got to the mosquito repellant, she was grinning, and when I described the obnoxious policeman, she was laughing out loud.

“I do not believe you!” she said. “You are such a skank!”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

“And I’m sure that Neko totally agreed, when you dragged your sorry self home.”

“I didn’t tell Neko.”

“What? You didn’t tell His Nosy Highness?”

“I promised you that I wouldn’t. Friendship Test, right?” The Friendship Test had become so automatic that I’d invented my long-lost high school love without blinking. Ah, the power of girlfriends…“Graeme’s a secret, between the two of us.”

She flashed me a grateful smile. “I wasn’t sure that you remembered.”

“I’ve got a crush,” I said. “Not amnesia. I did have to invent a boyfriend, though—Nate Poindexter. How’s that for romantic happily-ever-after?”

She laughed for real, then, and I knew that everything
would
be all right between us. Before we could say another word, there was a knock at the door. Melissa looked at me curiously, but I shrugged. I wasn’t expecting anyone.

Anyone but my warder. I opened the door to a rather agitated David Montrose. “I don’t know what they think they’re doing—” he started, and then he realized Melissa was sitting on the couch.

“Hello there,” she said wryly, saluting him with her mojito glass.

I knew my warder well enough to tell that he was silently counting to ten. Not because he had a problem with Melissa—they actually got along quite well. Rather, he’d clearly been expecting us to work together, to polish up some witchy routine, something he’d suddenly realized I needed to know about the centerstone. I could tell from the way his shoulders were set, from the way his jaw tightened when he looked at the fish-chased pitcher of drinks. Or maybe that was merely his taking in the floral display. “Who sent those?” he asked.

A strange shiver chose that moment to stalk my spine—once again the proverbial “someone walking across my grave.” After the quickest of glances at Melissa, I said, “Nate. Nate Poindexter.”

“Nate Poindexter?” David asked incredulously.

“He’s a guy I went to high school with.” I waved toward my best friend, expansive with the secret she and I were keeping. “
We
went to school with. He just moved back from Silicon Valley.”

Melissa wiped her smirk clear before David turned on her. “Do you know this Nate? Does he send flowers to all his high school classmates?”

“I haven’t seen him in years,” Melissa said sweetly. “I hear that he’s changed a lot in the last few years.” She gave me a blatant wink.

I don’t know if David accepted our ad lib, but he seemed unable to think of another probing question. “Mojito?” I asked.

“Might as well.”

Well. That was interesting. David never joined my decompression sessions with Melissa. I felt a wave of foreboding as I wondered just what news he bore. Something bad enough to drive a warder to drink? I’d better make mine a double.

I caught Melissa’s eye and then glanced toward the kitchen. “I’ll get you a glass,” Melissa said obediently, unfolding her legs from her half-lotus position.

“I’m sorry,” I called after her retreating form. “There aren’t any clean ones, so you’ll have to rinse one from the counter.” I knew Melissa would glance at my well-stocked cupboards, that she couldn’t miss the glistening glassware. I also knew that she’d give David and me a chance to whisper a hurried conversation.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He ran both hands through his hair, making the silver at his temples stand out more than usual. “The Coven wants to see you tomorrow.”

A shard of ice shot through my belly, colder than any mojito in the world. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped. Before I could take offense, he sighed deeply and then repeated in a drawn-out voice, “I don’t know.”

“But I haven’t done anything wrong!”

He must have heard the panic in my voice—I wasn’t exactly subtle. I was running over everything I could remember from my other encounter with the witches. The man with the sword, the horrible feeling that I was back in high school, the desire to be friends with the women, and the fear that they would never accept me….

My apprehension broke David out of his own dark mood. “It’ll be fine,” he said. If I hadn’t spent hours working with him, days, weeks, months learning everything that I could about witchcraft, I might have been fooled by the sudden steadiness of his words. He nodded once, as if cementing his certainty. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“But—”

Uncharacteristically, he cut me off. “This is actually a
good
thing. The more that you get to know the Coven before you’re tested, the better. We need to start focusing on setting the centerstone anyway. This will give you a chance to build allies, make friends.”

As if on cue, Melissa returned with a suspiciously dry glass, which she hurriedly filled for David. “The almonds are great,” she said, nodding toward the bowl. “And the olives are wonderful.” David started to decline, and then she added, “They’re Neko’s, but we’ve appropriated them for tonight.”