Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) (18 page)

Speaking of weird things,
I thought. Jeff was magical, though Marcia didn’t know it, and he had a tendency to get magical pranks pulled on him. That was potential disaster around my mother. I managed to be nearest the front door when he got up to our apartment. “Hi, Jeff, good to see you,” I greeted him loudly, then whispered, “My mom’s an immune, so play it safe, okay?” His eyes widened, but he nodded. I brought him further into the apartment. “Dad, this is Jeff, Marcia’s boyfriend. Jeff, this is Frank Chandler, my dad.”

Dad stood to shake hands very properly, which took Jeff aback. “Oh, um, hi, good to meet you,” he said.

“And it’s nice to meet you,” Dad said. “Marcia goes way back with us. She’s like part of the family.” There was a stern warning underlying his friendly words. Jeff wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he nodded like he got the idea.

Philip came along next, and he was the one I was most worried about, for he really had spent decades as a frog. As a result, he was very old-fashioned and had an unhealthy fascination with flies.

I shouldn’t have worried, though. His archaic manners meant he fit right in with my parents, and there were no flies to be seen. He arrived with an armful of flowers—a bouquet each for Gemma and Mom. It didn’t take him long to get into Mom’s good graces. He handed her the bouquet with a courtly bow. “I must offer you my most sincere thanks for inviting me,” he said, then kissed her hand.

“Where did you find him?” Mom whispered to a beaming Gemma.

“Would you believe, in Central Park?”

“We were just there yesterday,” Mom said.

I tried to catch Philip’s eye and warn him, but he never took his eyes off Gemma. I wasn’t quite certain how magical he was other than that he’d been enchanted and didn’t seem too shocked about it. He’d managed to hide his origins from Gemma, so he might get through dinner without causing a scene.

We got Thanksgiving dinner on the table with a minimum of disasters, and Jeff and Philip were both intimidated enough by Dad to keep their mouths shut. I got a better sense of why dates in high school had been few and far between for me. Between my dad and my three older brothers, it would have taken a very brave boy to come anywhere near me.

Ethan arrived just in time for dinner. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he came through the door. “I got sidetracked catching up on some work. Good to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Chandler.” I introduced him to Jeff and Philip, and then we gathered around the table to say grace.

Dad made us all hold hands and bow our heads. Jeff looked baffled, but he followed along. I hoped Dad went for a shorter prayer instead of the sermon he could sometimes preach on Thanksgiving. “Oh Lord, thank you for bringing us all together here today,” he began. It looked like we were in for the long version. Midway through, there was a yelp from across the circle as apparently Marcia had to keep Jeff from sneaking something from the table. Ethan spent the whole time massaging my hand with his thumb, which felt nice even as I feared it would earn a lightning bolt from heaven. There had to be something wrong with flirting during a prayer. I wasn’t sure which I feared most, God or the wrath of my father if he caught us. We all joined in a hearty “Amen!” when Dad finally brought the prayer to a close.

Then it was time to dig in, and we worked our way around the table to fill our plates. As Ethan put a slice of turkey on my plate, he whispered to me, “Is something wrong? You look stressed.”

I debated whether I should tell him, but I felt like I needed one sure ally in case things got weird. “I figured out yesterday that my mom’s immune to magic. That must be where I got it.”

He nodded. “I see. So now you’re constantly worried about what she’s going to notice.”

“Yeah. I almost ran out of explanations yesterday. Please don’t say anything about work. I want to get her home to Texas without having to tell her the whole story. You’re as immune as I am—as she is. Help me look out for anything I’d need to explain. And please don’t tell anyone about this when we go back to the office.”

“What are you so worried about?”

“I just—I just want things to be normal. I can handle my job being totally whacked out, that my boss is Merlin, and that I have a fairy in the office next to me. I can even handle the fact that on every date I try to go on things tend to zap in and out of existence, or scary things try to hurt me, or even that people who think they used to be frogs serenade me.” I noticed his confused look and said, “Long story. But I need my family to be normal. Not for me, but for them. My life has changed. Theirs doesn’t have to. I want them to be able to go home and be happy, understand?”

“I think I see your point,” he whispered.

“What are you two lovebirds doing whispering over the turkey?” my mom called out from across the room.

“Of course, with my family, ‘normal’ is a relative term,” I said with a sigh.

Ethan laughed and handed me a glass of Mom’s traditional cranberry punch. “I’m not sure any family is truly normal,” he said.

There wasn’t room for us to sit at the table with all the food on it, so we took our plates to the living room and sat on the floor, the dining chairs, or the sofa. I tried to think of a safe conversation to start, but Mom beat me to the punch.

“I hope you like everything. I’m sure it’s different from what y’all eat for Thanksgiving up here, but it’s traditional for us back home.”

There were mumbles around the room about how good the food was. Food seemed to be a safe topic. “I know a few people were surprised by the corn bread dressing I made last year,” I said.

“My mom used to make oyster dressing, before she gave up cooking entirely,” Ethan commented. Mom looked like he’d uttered a blasphemy. Okay, so maybe food wasn’t such a safe topic. I’d seen from my oldest brother’s marriage that what to serve for holidays was a bigger source of marital strife than money or sex. A corn bread dressing person and a sausage stuffing person weren’t likely to see eye-to-eye. Oysters in the dressing could be grounds for a holy war. I noticed with great relief that Ethan didn’t seem to have any problems eating the dressing we’d made.

Mom had taken on the role of hostess, and she spoke up again to keep the conversation rolling. “Ethan, we ran into a friend of yours the other night,” she said. “Or maybe ‘friend’ isn’t the right word. He said some very mean things about you, and I’ll have you know I didn’t believe a word of it.”

Ethan shot an utterly baffled look at me, which I returned, equally baffled. I had no idea what she was talking about. “My friend?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, he was at the restaurant where we had dinner Monday night,” she explained. “He came over to talk to Katie—very rude young man. He didn’t so much as acknowledge us, though I suppose Katie should have made the introductions.”

Only then did I realize what she meant. Oh no, she’d thought Idris was talking about Ethan when he referred to my boyfriend. It was a natural assumption to make, but it was a misunderstanding right out of a bad sitcom, and I couldn’t think of a way out of it. I’d been so worried about getting tangled up in magical problems that I hadn’t considered the potential for maternal-meddling complications.

Mom continued, oblivious to my discomfort. “Now, I know you do more than walk Katie to and from work. I’m sure you take her to some very nice places. That boy was just being mean.”

Realization dawned in Ethan’s eyes. I knew he’d figured out exactly who Idris was referring to as my boyfriend. I wished I could play it cool and insist that it was just Idris being a jerk, but I felt my face growing warm. Ethan frowned and nodded slightly, and I was sure he’d noticed. He might not have had magical powers, but I felt like he could see right through me.

A split second later he managed to compose himself. “If it’s who I think it was, you can ignore anything he said. I beat him in a tough negotiation once, and he’s never forgiven me.” Then he abruptly changed the subject. “What do you think of New York so far?” I could have kissed him. Well, I wanted to kiss him anyway, in spite of what he might have thought at that moment, but his coming to my rescue made me want to even more.

“It’s interesting,” Dad said with a nod. “I’d like to get a better look at the park. You know, I’ve got this new fertilizer in stock that might help them. I wonder what they’re using now.”

“Was the city what you expected?” Ethan clarified his question.

“I knew it would be kind of strange,” Mom said, then dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “But I wasn’t expecting all those alternative lifestyle people.”

“Alternative lifestyle people?” Gemma asked. “Katie, you didn’t take your parents to the West Village, did you?”

“No, just Times Square,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth.

“We saw this woman wearing fairy wings in public,” Mom said. “Very odd.”

“No, odd would have been a man wearing fairy wings in public,” Gemma said with a laugh. “Preferably with pink tights and a tutu.”

“Oh, we saw one of those, too,” Mom said. “Though not with the tights and tutu. But he had wings.”

“There wasn’t anything that strange about that woman,” Dad said. “Lois just thought she was a street performer and tried to tip her. And the man was a park ranger with a backpack on, not wings.”

“Frank, the woman had wings and was flying.”

“She was tall. You were imagining things. It wasn’t even the oddest sight in that part of town.”

“Don’t you tell me what I did and didn’t see. If you’re not going to speak to me with respect, then you don’t have to speak to me at all.” She crossed her arms over her chest and pointedly turned her back to Dad.

I got up and said, “Anyone for pumpkin pie?” I’d thought my worst problem would be getting Mom home before she clued into the magic. It hadn’t crossed my mind that my parents would fight over what Mom did or didn’t see. The last thing I needed was for my parents to fall out because of magic.

Later that afternoon while the others watched football, Ethan and I washed dishes. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked softly, his voice masked from the living room by the running water.

“Not quite as bad as the first time my oldest brother brought a girlfriend home for a holiday,” I admitted. “But they’re still not speaking to each other.”

“If they aren’t talking, then they can’t be comparing stories about what they’ve seen.”

I picked up the pan he’d just rinsed and dried it. “True. But I think this would be easier if both my parents were immune. Then the same story would work on both of them.” I chuckled. “Then again, with my dad, he might be immune and we’d never know it because he’d think it was none of his business to comment on someone’s obvious physical deformities.”

“Think what they’d say if they met Sam.”

Ice water ran through my veins. “Oh no, Sam doesn’t know that he and his people have to stay out of sight. But I don’t want to tell him because I don’t want the company knowing about this.”

“How often do you see your bodyguards?”

“Almost never.”

“Well, then, it’s a nonissue, isn’t it?” He flicked a bit of suds onto the end of my nose and grinned at me. “You’ll be fine.”

He was acting like nothing had happened, but I still felt the need to clear the air. “About what my mom was saying earlier…that was just Idris playing his usual games.”

“I figured as much.”

“I don’t even know what he wanted, approaching me like that.”

“He wanted to make you nervous.”

“It worked. But you know, he can’t be too bright if he can’t figure out who my boyfriend really is.”

“Don’t worry about it. It didn’t mean anything.” He didn’t look at me as he answered, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was busy rinsing a glass or because there was something else going on.

I heard my mother’s voice from the living room. “I still say there was one of those garden gnomes working in the park. I know what I saw.” She was probably the most vocal person around when it came to not speaking to someone.

I moaned. “I need a drink.” Ethan took the glass he’d just rinsed, filled it with water from the tap, and handed it to me. This was going to be the longest weekend in my life.

Mom and Dad still weren’t happy with each other the next morning, so Mom declared that she wanted to go shopping and spend Dad’s money. Bright and early, we headed uptown to window-shop on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue. I barely had a chance to look in the store windows; I was too busy keeping an eye out for weirdness I might have to explain to Mom. Fortunately, I didn’t see anything particularly odd. The magical world must have been smart enough to stay home on the biggest retail day of the year. That should have been enough to relax me, but I still had to deal with Mom, which was seldom relaxing.

She made me take her picture in front of Tiffany’s, then I led her a few blocks over to Bloomingdale’s. She sighed in wonder as we reached the women’s clothing department. “Just look at all this. It beats the heck out of the Wal-Mart in the next town over.”

“Yeah, it is something.”

“I want to buy you a nice new outfit. You need to look more sophisticated.”

“Mom!” I protested, but I had to admit she had a point. In spite of all Gemma’s efforts to teach me fashion sense, I still tended to err on the side of practicality, from my sensible business pumps to my mix-and-match wardrobe of skirts, blouses, and sweaters.

“We can call it your Christmas present in advance. You need something nice to wear on a date with Ethan. I really like him.”

“So do I.”

“I should hope so. A lawyer who drives a Mercedes and who’s nice enough to pick your parents up from the airport
and
do the dishes—well, hang onto him, honey.”

She pulled a smart little suit off a rack. “How about this?”

“I don’t really need a suit. I don’t wear them for work, and I wouldn’t wear one on a date.”

“Hmm.” She wove her way around clothing racks. “This would look pretty on you.” She held up a slinky black velvet dress. “You’ll need something for New Year’s, now that you’ve got an almost guaranteed date. You could also wear it to a fancy office party.”

I did like the dress, but I didn’t know that velvet fit so well into my lifestyle. “I can’t guarantee I’ll have a date for New Year’s, or that we’d do anything I could wear velvet for.”