A Little Night Magic (3 page)

He relaxed a little and straightened up. “Okay. You sit here. I’m gonna clean up and walk you home.”

“I don’t need—” I began, but then his eyes narrowed and I knew the only thing standing between me and six pointless hours in a Buffalo emergency room was my compliance, so I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine.”

He walked over to the counter and started bussing. For a long time, there was just silence, and then he said, “She left you a good tip.”

“Yay,” I said weakly, then leaned back in the booth and waited for Tobias to take me home.

2

“She threw a stinky gym sock? At your
head
?” Millie Banning diced the green peppers at my kitchen table and scrunched her nose. “Wow. That’s really weird.”

“Yeah, I know. She said I was magic, or something.” I threw the tomatoes I’d just chopped into the bowl of pico de gallo, then shook out my hands, which were still tingling. “She left while I was knocked out. I hope she’s okay. I don’t think she meant me any harm or anything, but she’s obviously nuts.”

Millie shrugged, some of her ash-blond curls falling out of the plastic clip that seemed permanently attached to the back of her head. She pointed her knife at me. “Okay, enough talking around the Tobias thing. What happened when you told him you were leaving?”

I angled my head, staring down at the bright green herbs between my fingers. “Wait. Stacy hates cilantro, doesn’t she?”

Millie nodded. “She says it tastes like soap.”

“Oh. Right.” I scraped the herbs off my chopping board and into the garbage, then reached for a jalapeño.

“And once again, you’re avoiding my question,” Millie said.

“What? Oh—Tobias? He didn’t say anything, really. He was surprised I wanted to sell the house, but aside from that…” I sighed. “You know. Whatever.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Millie said. “I know it’s bugging you. And I’m sorry.” She turned her attention back to the green peppers, and began chopping harder. “You and I, we’re not like Peach and Stacy.”
Chop.
“Naturally thin and beautiful and perfect.”
Chop.
“It’s harder for girls like us.”

Girls like …
us
? I loved Millie, she was one of my favorite people in the world, but she was … well. In the twenty-odd years we’d been friends, I’d seen her wear makeup exactly twice. Her hair was one of her best features, with that lovely kind of curl that dances down her shoulders, but she always kept it swept up tight in those ugly clips. Everything in her wardrobe was a variation on beige, and her standard outfit was a turtleneck under a shapeless jumper, which made her look, well … kind of squat.

I glanced at my own reflection in the glass door that led out to the back hallway. I was wearing jeans, and a pretty green scoop-neck shirt, and I had hair and makeup kind of going for me, but if I had to be honest I looked, well … kind of squat. Peach and Stacy were the beauties in this group, and Millie and I were the quirky ones with the good personalities. That was just how it was.

I sighed, reached for my margarita, took a big gulp, and decided to change the subject.

“Do you think I should sell the house?” I asked. “It’s not like I’m paying much for it, just property taxes and insurance. Maybe I should keep it? Do you think?”

“Hmmm.” Millie thought for a minute, then said, “I don’t know.” Her face lit up, and she dropped her knife to grab a pencil and a pad out of my junk drawer. “Pros and cons.” She jotted the headers for the two columns on the page. “Pros: You own it outright.”

“Cons,” I said. “It’s too much space for one person.”

She scribbled. “Pros: It’s interesting and fun.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “It’s Willy Wonka’s country home.”

Millie jutted her lower lip out. “I like Momelia’s aesthetic.”

Momelia.
Millie’s own mother had died when she was very young, and her grandmother had raised her in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town, so it had been natural for my mother to become Millie’s surrogate mother. Millie had never been quite comfortable enough to call her Mom, but one day, she’d accidentally morphed “Mom” and “Amelia” while talking to my mother, and the nickname had stuck.

“What aesthetic? Modern Flea Market?” I scrunched my nose. “Forget that nothing matches, and I have a guest room that is chartreuse. The exterior is
pink.
”

“I like it,” Millie said, ever loyal to the memory of my mother and the legacy of her outrageous taste.

“It’s like living in a box of Strawberry Nesquik.”

Millie shrugged, conceding the point. “You could always paint it.”

I tapped my finger on the Cons side. “Willy Wonka.”

Millie dutifully jotted it down. “Pros…” She thought for a bit, then said, “It’s right next door to Peach.”

“Right,” I said. “And Cons … it’s right next door to Peach.”

Our eyes met and we both laughed. Bernadette Peach was the kind of person you love, not because of any particular qualities you could name, but just … because. She traveled in a swarm of perfume and Aqua Net, a shameless bottle blonde with a Barbie-doll figure and a fifties’ fashion sense. She was achingly gorgeous, slightly narcissistic, a little thoughtless sometimes, but fiercely loyal. She and I had become friends because we were the same age and we lived next door to each other. When we got to school, she bonded with beautiful Stacy Easter, and I bonded with the more cerebral Millie, but Peach would not allow those differences to pull us apart. I was her friend, I would
always
be her friend, and that was that, so instead of dividing along lines of beauty and social grace the way most kids do in school, we ended up uniting as a foursome.

“Speaking of Peach, on the pro side for keeping the house, she bought her parents’ house when they moved to Florida specifically so we’d stay neighbors.”

Millie shook her head. “You can’t let other people’s choices influence your decision.”

“I can if she kills me,” I said, “which she will.”

Millie smiled and jotted “Peach will kill you dead” on the pro side.

“I am going to miss the Confessionals,” Millie said. “We’ve been doing this every Saturday since, what? Junior high?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t think you guys will do it without me?”

She shook her head, and stared down at her list.

I tossed the jalapeños into the bowl. “Okay. Cons. I still have to manage the upkeep of it while I’m in Europe.”

“But what if you decide to come back?” Millie said. “Can you imagine living in Nodaway and not living here?”

I looked around at my kitchen. The bright yellow walls, the daisy curtains moving gently in the breeze from the open window over the sink, the chink in the plaster in the ceiling from the time the fire alarm went off while Mom was cooking bacon and she hit it with the butt of the fire extinguisher to turn it off and missed on the first whack.

“No,” I said. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else if I’m going to be here, but…”

She put the pencil down and looked at me. “But you’re not coming back.”

Slowly, I shook my head. “You remember my mom. Even on her best day, part of her was always missing. I don’t want to be like that.”

“And leaving is going to prevent that?” she asked, her voice cracking a bit.

I sighed. “Dumb as it sounds … I think so, yeah. If my whole life changes, if it’s not just that I’m losing him, maybe I won’t notice it so much. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes sad. She took the pad and pencil and began scribbling, then twirled it around so I could read it. She had drawn lines through all the pros and cons, and had written,
“In bocca al lupo,”
with a little smiley face.

I laughed. “What does that mean?”

“It’s an Italian idiom. Basically, it means good luck.” She reached out and clasped my hand. “Promise me you’ll write, and send pictures.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Europe’s lousy with goats.”

She gave me a confused look, and I laughed.

“I’ll write. I’ll send pictures.”

The front door opened and Peach hollered, “Party’s here!” Millie grabbed the margarita tray while I balanced the bowls of chips and pico.

“Hey, do me a favor?” I said. “Pretend you’re surprised when I tell Peach and Stacy about Europe. Peach will be hurt that I told you first without them.”

Millie nodded, and we went out to greet Stacy and Peach.

“Liv!” Peach danced into the hallway, holding a plate in one hand as she pulled me in for a hug with the other arm. She stepped back, then peeled back the pink-tinted Saran Wrap to show me her brownies. “They have chili powder in them, to go with the Mexican theme. Hey, Millie!”

Millie and I exchanged glances of affectionate amusement as Peach hugged her.

Stacy stepped in wearing dark jeans and a black Marvin the Martian T-shirt that read,
YOU. OFF MY PLANET,
and stuffed a bottle of tequila in my hands.

“Hey, Liv,” she said, and flashed her patented knock-you-out smile. Stacy was one of those women whose neck-throttling beauty never made it on her own radar. She had huge chocolate eyes, apparently poreless skin, and a body any other woman would kill for. She just didn’t care. She’d grown up with an alcoholic father who’d left her and her older brother, Nick, in the care of their crazy mother, and after that, being preternaturally pretty didn’t seem so important.

Peach tucked her arm into Millie’s and dragged her into the living room, and I leaned into Stacy as we followed behind. “So, what are you confessing tonight?”

She spread her hands, the picture of innocence. “Nothing to confess.”

“You have nothing to confess? That’s three weeks in a row for you.”

She shook her head. “I have no secrets in this town. Betty reports anything I do to the masses at CCB’s within twenty-four hours.”

“Well, maybe stop fooling around on the pool table at Happy Larry’s, and news will stop traveling so fast. Speaking of which, I heard about Amber Dorsey catching you with Frankie Biggs.”

She raised a brow at me. “Hence, why I have nothing to confess.”

We took our seats in the living room—Millie on the big pink floral love seat my mother had bought at a flea market when I was seven, Peach on the leather La-Z-Boy I’d gotten a few years back, and me and Stacy together on the key lime couch that matched nothing else in the room. Or the house.

“So,” I said, reaching for my margarita. “I’ll start.” I took a deep breath. “I’m going backpacking through Europe.”

“Awesome.” Stacy grabbed her margarita and took a sip.

“Europe?” Peach crumpled her nose. “Why?”

Millie gave Peach an exasperated look. “It’s
travel.
She doesn’t need a reason.”

Stacy gave a small laugh. “Seriously. A few weeks in Europe can do a lot of good for a girl. Speaking of which, I hear Germans are particularly good in the sack. Bag one and report in, will you?”

“Actually,” I said, and shot a look at Millie for moral support, who smiled encouragement. “It’s going to be a little longer than a few weeks. A lot longer.” I swallowed my nerves down, and wrung my hands, trying to squeeze that damn tingling away. “I’m not coming back.”

I looked at Peach, waiting for the explosion lit by the shock of my betrayal. There was none. Instead, she nibbled a bit on her lower lip, her eyes locked on Stacy, who was checking out the nail on her index finger.

“It’s really about making a big change, and I don’t think I can make that change if I plan to come back.”

Peach was still eyeing Stacy distractedly, who was eyeing her index fingernail. The only one paying attention to me at all was Millie, and she already knew everything.

“I promise, I’ll write. I’ll send pictures. We can Skype.” I looked at Peach again, who was still focused on Stacy, and I felt a jolt of annoyance run through me.

“Peach? Are you even listening to me?”

Her eyes squinched shut, and I was sure she was going to lay into me when she spit out, “Nick and I are getting married!”

Stacy looked up casually from her fingernail. “Nick who?”

Peach blinked. “Nick Easter.”

Stacy laughed. “My brother? You and my brother?” She thought about it for a moment. “Huh. Liv, you got an emery board?”

I motioned toward the end table on her side of the couch, and she stretched over to grab the emery board sitting there.

Peach let out a long breath, and began to ramble. “We’ve been dating for about six months. We didn’t want anyone to know because … well, you know how people in this town are. And it’s been a job of work keeping it secret, let me tell you. Secret dates in Buffalo, weekend ‘business trips’ to Rochester. The whole nine, seriously.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry, but you know I couldn’t tell you, Liv. You can’t keep a secret to save your life, and if Betty found out, the whole
town
would know, and we just weren’t ready to have the whole town in bed with us, you know? Not until we knew for sure that it was forever and now…” Peach’s face warmed with joy. “Now, we know.”

“So…” I said carefully to Peach, “you’re not upset that I’m going to Europe?”

Peach blinked at me. “Europe? Hell, no. I think that’s great. It’s about time you had some fun. I’ll watch the house while you’re gone. When are you coming back again?”

“She’s not,” Stacy said. “Were you even listening?”

Peach’s eyes flew wide open. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I just told you,” I said, exasperation seeping into my tone. “I need to make a change, a big one, and if I plan on coming back—”

“You … you and Nick are getting married?”

Millie had been so quiet that I think we had all forgotten she was there. She stared at Peach, her eyes wide and, to my surprise, a little wet.

“Um, yeah,” Peach said, looking at Millie but obviously keeping her feelers out for Stacy’s reaction. “We’ve been together since New Year’s Eve. We both got drunk at Ginny Boyle’s party, and then things kind of … happened.”

“I know,” Millie said, her face hard as stone.

“You knew?” Peach said.

“She’s his secretary,” Stacy said. “The secretary always knows.”

“I didn’t think it would go anywhere,” Millie said. “I thought it was a distraction. Something temporary. You’re getting
married
?”