Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (12 page)

“What are you thinking about?” Fallon asked gently.

Robbie rubbed his mustache as they waited to cross the street. “Just shaken up.”

“We both are.”

“But you're still making memories here,” he said. “And Grimbaud is changing. Part of me knows that change happens—I mean, even regulations on buttons change—but mostly I'm worried about returning to Grimbaud and finding nothing familiar about it. That my four years here only exist in a dream.”

“They can't take the belfry away,” Fallon said.

Robbie's eyes widened. “Do you know if Zita owns the belfry?”

“No.”

He muttered a curse. “I hope that omelet is as good as you say.”

Now more than ever, she wanted it to be. Thankfully, the oozing cheese and spicy sausage ended up being delicious enough to drag her brother from his melancholy. The caf
é
's perky goldenrod roof and outdoor seating offered a corner view of an old church and the gardens surrounding it. Fallon cut into her omelet and worked especially hard to distract him. She even voluntarily asked him about work—something she knew would start him off on a tedious ramble.

“You wouldn't believe the stack of sweaters I inspected last week,” Robbie said with his usual verve. “They looked normal enough at first glance, but I found a stray needle buried under the armpit. The stitching was broken at the neckline. The labels were even missing their identification numbers.”

“I don't think most people notice that on their clothes,” she said for argument's sake.

“Be that as it may,” he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin, “tracking clothing is important. We must always know what business produces even the lowliest blouse.”

“So you know who to blame.”

“In some cases, but it's for the customer too. Those people who love shopping at off-price retailers can benefit from checking the label. If they recognize the number, they'll be able to tell whether they're really buying the brand they want. You'd be surprised how often shops like that switch the tags around. The labels stay.”

Fallon finished her omelet, feeling both overwhelmed by her brother's apparel adventures and relieved to have him back to his regular self. She didn't know how Morgane could stand listening to him every night when he came home from work. It was Zita's doing; if not for the red clothing, Robbie and Morgane might not have met. They could have spent their four years at the complex without ever having spoken to each other.

Yet, instead, Robbie was happily married, another greased cog in the Dupree family wheel. She loved her brother and parents, but she felt more and more like she wasn't one of them.

*   *   *

Fallon thought that Robbie had forgotten something when she heard knocking on her door. It had been fifteen minutes since he left, giving her one last hug and dragging a promise out of her to replace the pilling waffle-knit shirt hanging over her desk chair.

The knocking persisted. “Hold on, I'm coming,” Fallon yelled. For good measure, she jogged over to the corkboard and unpinned her love fortune. The ticker-tape ribbon curled like a snake around her hand, but she managed to shove it into her pocket before opening the door.

Sebastian stared at her, his hands jammed into the pockets of his gray jacket. “Who was that guy?”

Fallon blinked.

“That guy,” he repeated, eyebrows furrowed. “Tall, rich-looking? I say one
slightly
offensive thing about your hair and you've already found someone new.”

Fallon didn't know whether to burst out laughing or snap at him. “You and I aren't dating.”

“We could be.”

She ignored his offer. “That was my brother, Robbie. He came to visit me.”

Sebastian exhaled loudly. “Well.”

“You believe me?”

“He does look like you, now that you mention it. You both dress like you're going to a yacht club or something.”

“For a second there, I thought you were jealous,” she teased.

Instead of coming back at her with a snide remark, Sebastian's face paled. He examined his hands as if hoping to find an answer there. “I don't know what jealousy is.”

His reaction concerned her. “Of course you do. Girls feel it all the time around you when you're between dating. You can come in if you want. You don't look okay.”

Sebastian said nothing but followed her inside. His eyes swept over her plain decorating and neat living room.

Fallon's fingers itched to do something for him. His silence was unnerving after the outburst he'd had at the door. Where had his energy gone? Something she said must have upset him. Part of her wondered why she cared. “Are you cold? I can get you a blanket if you want.”

He tore his gaze away from a vintage poster of a pearl-black bistro atop a hill. “Does the blanket have dragons on it, princess?”

A surprised laugh escaped her lips. “I don't think a princess would want to be reminded of the creature keeping her captive.”

“Spoken like a true princess.”

“I'm not.”

Sebastian shook his head and wandered through the room with a little more energy. He paused at her cassette player. “Nice. Where did you get it?”

“Antique store. It works really well.”

Sebastian rubbed his chin. “My grandmother gave me my recorder. I can't imagine being without it.” He leaned close to the corkboard to see the photographs of her, Anais, and Nico, and even spent time contemplating each restaurant poster with the seriousness of a museum patron. “Is restaurant inspecting in your future, princess?”

“I hope not.”

“Why?”

Because he seemed interested, she answered. “My whole life, I've watched my parents end dreams in the restaurant business. They're only doing their jobs for safety's sake, but I couldn't be brave enough to tell someone they failed an inspection.”

Sebastian took a seat on her couch and kicked off his shoes. “What else?”

“There was a boy.”

“Seriously?”

She glared at him. “His name was Louis. We sort of dated in the fifth grade, if you could call it that. Holding hands and trading lunches. His parents owned the neighborhood deli. During inspection, my father discovered that the ice machine had been contaminated for quite some time. A rat infestation also ruined the cuts of meat. As you can imagine, an inspection like that made my father famous, but also earned Louis's unending hatred for us Duprees. For me.”

Sebastian shifted in his seat. “Do you still pine for Louis?”

“That was fifth grade.” Fallon sat in the chair next to the couch. “My point is that a health inspector ruins lives either way. If you don't do your job, people can die from food poisoning. But if you do, the restaurant owners lose their means of making a living.”

Sebastian didn't share her pity. “Maybe they weren't meant to cook.”

“You sound like my parents.”

“I haven't met them, but I'm pretty sure what you just said was a lie.” He smirked. “You'll need to lend me an ascot and fitted suit to come close.”

Fallon bent over laughing, wiping the tears from her eyes. The only reason why her parents dressed so nicely was because of Robbie's influence, but even they wouldn't wear ascots.

“I didn't come over here to quiz you like a career counselor,” he admitted. “Actually, I wanted to apologize.”

She recovered from her laughter enough to look up. “For what?”

“What I said the other day about your hair.”

“You didn't say anything wrong.” She paused. “For once. I don't relish the idea of having my hair cut by a groomer, but it was nice of you to offer.”

He huffed. “You're making it too easy for me. Why don't you find something else you don't like about me and be mad? That way, this will matter.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cassette tape. “It's a copy of the silence we recorded Thursday night.”

Fallon took the tape from him and turned it in her hands. Just holding it brought her back to that moment under the bridge.

“You should listen to it when you're stressed,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Sebastian nodded to himself and stood up. “If that's it, I'll be on my way.”

Fallon lingered in the doorway as she watched him leave. He made her laugh. He asked her about her posters and her parents' jobs. Nothing could make her forget his strange reaction to her teasing, though. Sebastian had stood in her apartment, pale and lost, like a wanderer stunned to discover that he'd finally arrived at his destination. Where did that look come from? How had she caused it?

Zita's love fortune burned in her pocket. She took it out and crushed it in her fist.

 

chapter 10

ON THE DOCK

The next few weeks carried Fallon into October. Trees dropped their leaves faster, causing a symphony of crackling during the morning walks to school. Girls kept their skirts but replaced high socks with stockings to keep warm. Pumpkin-spiced coffee sold on the streets woke her up by smell alone. Winter would tint Grimbaud in blues and grays soon enough. Then spring. You couldn't live in Grimbaud and not love spring.

Sometimes she could pretend that this was just another school year. Her teachers, preoccupied with lesson plans and grading, soon forgot to shoot her pitying looks. Homework covered her desk in piles, textbooks tagged with notes and problems yet to be solved. Working at the library offered its own structure. She learned how to check books out for the few students who read, and caught on to the intricacies of the card catalog. Fallon surprised Anais at the drugstore and joined Nico in the ticket booth when the long hours made him stir-crazy.

Sebastian now had a presence in her life. As the month trundled on, she grew used to seeing him at Femke and Mirthe's charm-making meetings. Sebastian always pulled up a seat next to her and uttered his bored replies to whatever the twins had cooked up. When she sat in her apartment on a lonely, homework-filled night, she held her breath and waited for a knock. But he didn't bother her again at the complex.

“We've been gathering charms long enough,” Mirthe said one afternoon. “It's time to find out what everyone's got and move on to the next phase.”

She sat with her sister on top of the teacher's desk in the science classroom. Femke nodded and wrote something in her notebook. The twins wore matching purple lipstick and necklaces strung with golden stars.

Fallon breathed a sigh of relief. Since combing through the magazines Anais had let her borrow, she hadn't found any new charms.

Nico checked his bag. “I left my charms at home.”

“We're not doing that here,” Mirthe said, as if it were obvious. “Too dangerous. Spies could be lurking in the hallways even as we speak.”

Sebastian was unmoved by the threat. “No one comes here.”

“We can't get too comfortable,” Femke said. “That's not good for a budding rebellion.”

“Exactly, sister,” Mirthe said. She pulled pieces of paper out of her bag and handed them out. The paper was an invitation to come to the twins' house on Saturday. Under the pretense of a party, the club members would bring their charms with them.

“We'll have our party on the dock behind our house. If we're messing with charms anywhere else, our parents are not going to be happy,” Mirthe said. Since their house doubled as a weather charm-making shop, decades' worth of weather charms layered the air. If a love charm activated, their parents would sense the change in air pressure—unless the club met on the dock, close to the sea.

“All weather charm-makers know how powerful the sea is. It's got its own charm, more powerful than anything,” Femke said.

“Except for Love,” Hijiri said quietly.

“Right. We shouldn't offend Love any more than Zita already has.” Mirthe bristled. “But I meant that they'll cancel each other out. We won't leave footprints from using the charms we have.”

Fallon didn't know anything about the technical side of charms, but she believed the twins and valued the extra safety. “That's good. You don't want to attract attention like I did.”

Mirthe placed her hands on her hips, looking every inch like a mother hen. “Out of everyone here, I never suspected you'd do something as careless as use a love charm in public. Zita's spies are everywhere. Obviously anyone working in her shop is one.”

Fallon looked down at her lap.

“I'm working on compiling a list of Zita's employees,” Femke said, “with pictures and corresponding job titles. That way, we'll all know who the enemies are.”

“For now, make sure you don't forget the charms,” Mirthe said.

On the way home, Sebastian caught up with Fallon. “She didn't need to embarrass you like that,” he grumbled. “I was there too.”

Fallon slowed her steps. “No, I deserve it. We need to be taking this seriously.”

“Still—”

Five girls waited at the entrance. A girl with soft pigtails waved at him and said, “Bastion, what took you so long? We were waiting for you.”

“Looks like your new girlfriend is calling you,” Fallon said.

Sebastian sighed and hitched up his schoolbag. “Fine. We'll talk later.”

For a moment, she could only think about Sebastian and the pigtails girl embracing under a streetlamp or sharing an ice cream cone despite the frigid weather. Fallon rubbed her shoulders. “Go have fun. I'll just see you at the party.”

She walked ahead, brushing past the girls. Fallon pressed her hands to her ears as casually as she could to avoid hearing the sound Sebastian's lips would make upon connecting with the girl's.

*   *   *

The blue colonial house with its back to the sea bore years of abuse. Cracked windows on the second floor were repaired with duct tape. A stone sundial was missing the slice for three in the afternoon. The garage on the side of the house was wide-open, revealing an intricate weather charm-making studio.