Enchanted, A Paranormal Romance / Fantasy (Forever Charmed) (11 page)

Ally was holding a sleeveless black dress with a cowl neckline, drooping elegantly. “Black is good,” Mandy managed.

“The whole thing is good. More than good, actually. Lucas will love it. It will look great on you. What’s not to like?” Ally defended her pick.

“Well, I don’t really do cowl necks,” Mandy started.

“Don’t do cowl necks?” Ally sarcastically mimicked. “Well you do now. Here, go try this on. I can’t wait to see it,” Ally instructed.

Mandy took the dress from Ally and went into the bathroom across the hall to change. Once it was on she felt completely out of place. There was a full length mirror hanging on the wall behind the bathroom door so she was able to criticize herself inside her head privately before she had to subject herself to Ally’s scrutiny.
Yikes
, Mandy thought.
What are you supposed to do with this thing?
She pulled at the cowl neck, trying to arrange it in the way she imagined it was supposed to look. She tugged at the hemline of the dress. It was kind of short. She turned to get a glimpse of her back.
Oh God!
Her whole back was practically hanging out. It was a closed neckline in the back...at the top. But under that was a circle cutout exposing a lot of skin. Mandy sighed and decided to go out to Ally, plead her case, and hope for mercy.

As Mandy opened the door Ally gasped and clapped her hands together in delight for the second time that day. “I know, it’s pretty bad, right?” Ally tried to sound convincingly devastated.

“Bad? Are you kidding? You look hot!” Ally exclaimed.

“Ally, this really isn’t me! I don’t even know where we’re going to dinner at. What if he was just planning on pizza or something?”

“If he was planning on pizza he will change his mind once he sees you in this!” Ally laughed. “It fits you like it was made for you. Grab your other clothes and let’s get going. We’ve still got hair and makeup ahead of us.”

An hour later Ally was just finishing up her “project”. Mandy glared at her reflection in the mirror as Ally practically beamed behind her. Ally had outlined Mandy’s eyes with black liner and then caked on lots of mascara. Rosy blush was now highlighting Mandy’s cheekbones and on her lips was a very shiny light pink lip gloss. Ally had then made sure to painstakingly curl all of Mandy’s hair and then topped it all off with a heavy mist of maximum hold hairspray. Ally also insisted on Mandy borrowing some silver jewelry from her. “Silver goes perfectly with black,” Ally had instructed. Dangling from Mandy’s ears hung two interlaced silver hoops. On one of Mandy’s wrists were three thin silver bangles.

“I should be a stylist! People pay good money for this kind of work you know,” Ally said smugly.

“I’m sure they do, just not people like me,” Mandy replied.

“Relax Mandy. You look great. So what if you’re out of your comfort zone for one night? It’s your Cinderella night! And I am your fairy godmother. Which makes Lucas Prince Charming!” Ally giggled. She was cut short by the ringing doorbell. Mandy felt her insides turn to mush. “Your prince has arrived!” Ally said in a loud overly dramatic whisper.

“Tell him I’m sick,” Mandy moaned.

“Ok, I thought you were a little off, but now I am starting to think you are crazy. The hottest guy in town, possibly in the world, is down there waiting for you! Do you know how many girls, myself included, would kill to be in your shoes tonight?!” Ally raised her eyebrows at Mandy. Mandy wondered if she was supposed to respond to this question.

“Mandy!” Mandy’s mom called from downstairs. “Lucas is here!”

“Be right there, Mrs. Malone!” Ally answered. She grabbed Mandy’s wrist and pulled her along behind her down the stairs. “Hey Lucas!” Ally greeted him cheerily, full of confidence.

“Hey Ally. Mandy, you look…wow!” Lucas stuttered. Mandy’s mom laughed. Mandy thought she would faint dead away any moment, but somehow she remained on her feet.

Lucas took Mandy by the hand and led her out the front door with Ally trailing behind them. “Bye you two! Lucas take good care of my project!” Ally called laughing as she climbed into her car.

“You look great no matter what,” Lucas proclaimed as they drove down the road. Mandy held back a laugh of incredulity and looked out the window. It didn’t seem as though she would win this argument, but maybe she didn’t want to anyway. It was nice to be complimented like this by a guy. An incredibly good looking guy.

“Hope you like sea food,” Lucas said as they pulled into the parking lot of the Union Bluff hotel.

“Yeah, I pretty much eat anything,” Mandy admitted.
Great, why did I just say that? Now he probably thinks I’m a rhino
… Mandy offered a half-smile in Lucas’s direction.

“I pretty much eat anything too,” Lucas laughed. “It’s hard to find girls like that these days though.” Lucas reached over and caught Mandy’s hand. He intertwined his fingers with hers as they headed towards the landmark sitting atop the cliffs. The Union Bluff hotel had been standing guard over the ocean for over a hundred years. It was ironic that in all the time Mandy had been coming to York, she had never ventured in its grand doors before.

The Union Bluff was a tall white hotel looming over the sea and beach. Multiple tiers of balconies overlooking the surf were stacked like layers of a wedding cake. Once inside Lucas led Mandy into the restaurant area and gave his name. “How many?” the hostess inquired.

“Just two, please,” Lucas confirmed. Two. The word resonated in Mandy’s brain. Not so long ago Mandy had been longingly wishing to have a friend here. More specifically she remembered thinking how nice it must be to be half of a pair.
Pair. Two. Half of a pair
. Now here she was, only days later, wish fulfilled. Now she would know what it was like. So far it was nice, just as she had been predicted.

The hostess showed Lucas and Mandy to a table near a dancing fireplace. The flames cast a warm orange glow about the room, lending the dark wood that adorned the doorways and walls an inviting feel. Mandy was glad that they had gotten a table close to the heat source. She always tended to be on the cold side, and having her nerves on edge and only wearing a skimpy dress wasn’t helping her warm up tonight.

Lucas pulled out the chair for Mandy to sit on. “Thanks,” Mandy had to bite her cheek to keep from giggling. She knew that Lucas was a rare find, an even rarer one to be found by Mandy of all people, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of humor in all this irony. It just didn’t add up that he would want to spend time with her. And then to be so polite and chivalrous on top of it all gave Mandy the feeling of a being a bit over the top.
Seriously, what guy pulls out chairs and opens car doors for girls these days? Well, Lucas apparently
. Mandy liked it, but at the same time it kind of made her feel more self-conscious and inadequate. Lucas seated himself opposite of Mandy and the waiter came by with two glasses of water. “Need a couple of minutes or are you ready to order?” she asked.

“She will have the wild caught salmon, and I will have the fillet mignon. Please,” Lucas flashed his winning smile at the waitress.

“Sounds good,” she replied. “And to drink?”

“Oh, sparkling water for both of us with a lime.” The waitress nodded and walked away, taking the menus with her. “Sound good?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, great,” Mandy forced another smile across her face.
I can’t gag, I can’t gag
. She really would have rather have just had a salad or a cheeseburger. And a soda. A nice cold Coke. When Mandy had said she liked seafood she had meant something more along the lines of fish’n’chips. She had never had salmon before in her life. The color freaked her out. And sparkling water? She liked her beverages with sugar and caffeine. None of this good for you nonsense.
Ok, well the trade off to having to eat this unpalatable food is getting to be the envy of all the girls in York and be with Lucas
. She would just have to deal with it.

Lucas shrugged, suddenly serious. “Don’t get me wrong. Ally seems like she’s really friendly, and so do
most
of her friends,” he trailed off.

“Well, yeah. He said supposedly we’re descendents of some Mary Nasson lady that lived in York hundreds of years ago. And supposedly she was a rumored witch…so you can make the connection as to where he was going with that story,” Mandy shrugged. “Pretty absurd.”

“Mary Nasson. I know that story actually. I’ve been to her grave.”

Mandy got chills up and down her arms. “Excuse me sweetie,” the waitress interrupted. Mandy hadn’t noticed that she’d been so engrossed in the conversation that she was leaning across the table towards Lucas. The waitress had nowhere to put the food down.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mandy said as she backed up against her chair into her proper position. A plate of pink salmon was put in front of her, the plate decorated with some watercress and rice cakes. Yum, yum, not… Lucas’s piece of meat looked much more appetizing.

“Enjoy!” the waitress chirped.

“Thank you,” Lucas responded, ever the gentleman.

Mandy really didn’t want to eat, especially not this. She wanted to know where Lucas had been going with that last statement. She wanted to know why he knew all about Mary Nasson. Something inside of her was telling her not to be overly eager, so she heeded her intuition and tried to stall by picking apart her rice cake. Lucas was sawing at his filet mignon with his knife. He cut off a bite and put it into his mouth. Mandy put some of the rice into hers. “Good?” he asked. “My mom loves that dish.”

“Mmmm,” Mandy tried to fake approval at the vulgar dinner. She swallowed and tried to wash it down with her sparkling water. “So, what were you saying about Mary Nasson?” Mandy tried to appear nonchalant.

“Oh yeah. Well you learn about her in history class here when you’re in elementary school. All the kids take a fieldtrip to the old burial ground to see her grave after the lesson. Pretty cool when you’re a little kid. Kinda brings her to life, you know?” Lucas delicately speared another bite of steak on his fork.

Is that all?
“Oh, yeah I can see where that would be cool,” Mandy smiled.

“Yeah, but the coolest part is that it turns out that my family’s ancestors had some sort of feud with her. My great great great, well I lose count of how many greats, but great grandfather was a doctor in York. In fact, the only doctor. Legend has it that Mary turned up and just about ran him out of business “healing” people. Let’s just say they weren’t on the best terms.”

Mandy almost choked on the bite of food. The doctor had been mentioned in one of the letters Mary had written to Lavinia! How weird was it that a letter written so long ago could now suddenly have so much more meaning and reality pinned to it. Mandy feigned innocence. “Really? So what happened?”

“Well, story goes that although Mary was good at healing people, she also had a reputation for being different in the way she healed people. People got to gossiping and rumors spread about her. Although the big witch scare in Salem had been almost a hundred years previous to Mary’s time, it had not been forgotten. It was almost engrained in the people of New England.” Lucas paused to take another bite. Mandy tried to hide her annoyance. She took another sip of water and pushed the salmon around on her plate a bit. “Not hungry?” Lucas asked, catching Mandy moving the food around her plate.

“I guess I just got distracted by your story. So what were you saying?” Mandy asked, trying to get Lucas back on track and distract him from her untouched salmon.