Read That Magic Mischief Online

Authors: Susan Conley

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Paranormal, #Romance

That Magic Mischief (6 page)

BOOK: That Magic Mischief
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Humming to herself, she rose, and cleared away the tea things. Annabelle sat stunned, the tiny hazelnut in her hand growing warm and, she had to say, it felt like the thing was giving her a bit of comfort.

“Take your time, child. Do your research. Look up Pookas in one of yer auld books. Wait. Watch. Learn.” Maeve came over, and held Annabelle’s face in her two small hands. “Heal.”

And then it was over, and Annabelle was out on the sidewalk. Blinking in the sunlight, the sounds of the traffic alien somehow, she began to wander off down the avenue. She rubbed the hazelnut between the palms of her hands and realized, yeah: she hadn’t fretted about Wilson, nor about the latest rejection she’d gotten on her book. She felt weird: tired and sad, but not hopeless. She felt pretty good — not freaked out or anything.

Until she turned to take one last look at the shop.

And it wasn’t there.

She ran back, rattled the doorknob — and it came off in her hand. She pressed her face against the dusty picture window, and couldn’t see past the stacks of boxes and the general gloom. She walked backwards into the middle of the sidewalk, and looked up at the building. The whole thing was derelict, and looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in a hundred years.

The hazelnut leaped straight up out of her palm, somersaulted in the air, and fell back into her palm, where it shook itself as if … as if it were laughing.

She looked at the nut and then at her watch.

“I’m late!” She groaned. “Lorna’s going to kill me!”

Chapter Six

Lorna checked the time, and then slammed her iPhone down on the table. Maria Grazia tore her eyes away from the menu at the sound, and shrugged.

“No show,” she said. “Weird.”

She went back to her menu as Lorna’s lethal manicure drummed a death march on the tabletop.

“Every minute I spend out of the agency requires an hour of overtime to make up for it,” Lorna grumbled. “She
knows
that.”

“She’s got a lot on her mind, you pain in the ass, the least of which is your work schedule. Give her a break.”

Lorna huffed through her nostrils in reply and toyed with her flute of sparkling Italian mineral water. Sunlight poured through the atrium of the painfully hip Upper West side restaurant. Fiero’s was as exclusive as it got, and was clogged to its cathedral ceiling with types: established celebrities and their entourages, celebrities on the ascendant with their hyper-alert managers, celebrity wannabes and the publicists who would mold them into fame.

Each table was draped in hand-embroidered, hand-woven linen from the hills of Tuscany, and were placed at cunningly discreet distances: far enough apart to promote privacy, but close enough should an occupant want his or her hottest bit of gossip or latest triumph to be overheard and make its way around the room, and out into the world at large.

Lorna instantly found comfort — not via the delicate touches of greenery strewn about or the gorgeous scents wafting out of the kitchen — but in the feeling one can only get when floating on a cumulative cloud of expensive perfume and when bobbing in a sea of Dolce & Gabbana.

Maria Grazia, meanwhile, found the design to be pleasantly airy but pretentious and devoid of originality. She glumly examined the breadbasket, grudgingly left by a waiter hampered by serious delusions of grandeur. Swathed, as if the product of a royal womb, in a square of rust-colored raw silk, were three of the tiniest rolls she’d ever seen.

“If Belle chose to ditch us, I can’t blame her. Look at these!” she demanded, thrusting the basket across the table. “I’ve seen cold sores bigger than these rolls.”

“Do tell, oh celibate one.” Lorna reared back from the carbohydrates as though avoiding flaming toxic waste.

“Cold sores, not herpes.” A waiter with a haircut more expensive than Maria Grazia’s shoes sailed by with an enormous plate that played host to what appeared to be three ravioli and a seared stalk of celery. “Did you see that? I’m going to have to have lunch right after I have lunch. I hate this place.”

“We could have eaten at my desk,” snapped Lorna, and cutting across Maria Grazia’s sarcastic “Woo hoo!” she continued, “But I’m treating, so I get to choose.”

She raised one perfectly polished index finger ever so slightly, and as if on wheels, their supercilious server glided toward them.

“Paolo, I’ll have my usual, thanks.” Lorna handed him her menu, a roll of hand-illuminated parchment, and scanned the room once more. Nobody was here today.

“For appetizers, I’ll have the radicchio and asparagus confit, the mozzarella tomato salad, and the panzanella, and for an entrée I’ll have the bistecca and eggplant roulade with a side order of minestrone soup. Can you tell me if that entrée actually comes with any steak?”

The waiter was looking so far down his nose at Maria Grazia that his eyes were practically shut. Then Maria Grazia smiled, and all was forgiven; Paolo stumbled toward the kitchen and actively contemplated how he could work harder to make Table Sixteen happy.

Lorna laughed. “Don’t you get tired of that?”

“Of?” Maria Grazia quirked a brow.

“The Smile, and the effects thereof.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sighed theatrically, as she shook out her napkin — or tried to. It was especially large. “Listen, it’s just as well that Belle’s not here. She’s in pieces and this is no place for human emotion. Her sorrow would have clashed horribly with the frescos.”

“I wanted her to feel surrounded by luxury. The good life,” Lorna insisted. “But I will agree that it’s not precisely her style.”

Maria Grazia buttered the tiny pieces of bread as best she could, and waved the now-empty silver basket at the pining Paolo. “She is the true starving artist of the three of us. In theory, anyway. Ideals, idealism, and all that.”

“I wish she’d get her work on track,” Lorna exploded. “We both know that she is an extremely accomplished writer. Why does she insist on focusing these dry-as-dust historical novels? We both know that her talents run more to documentary than narrative, so to speak. How does she stand it? No career, now no boyfriend — good riddance, but she does like having boyfriends — and on top of it she lives in
Brooklyn
. My God!”

“We love her anyway, despite the geographical flaw.”

“What are you implying? I adore her!” Lorna delicately placed a hand on her heart; several rivals seated nearby wondered if indeed anything beat there. “And I can’t stand watching the friend whom I adore just spin her wheels!”

Paolo arrived laden with plates, all for Maria Grazia, and another serving of bread. He waited vainly for another flash of The Smile but Maria Grazia never grinned with her mouth full.

Lorna went charging on. “And what about all this new age-y witchy business? I’d never been to her apartment, I’d had no idea that there were candles everywhere, and all those straggly pots of herbs on her windowsills, and that truly bizarre lunar calendar — ”

“It’s more a spiritual pursuit than anything else, and, dear Lorna, it’s not really any of our business. No one scolds you about the way you carry on.”

Lorna sat up so straight that it appeared as if someone had tugged her up by the tops of her ears.

“I do not ‘carry on’.”

“You work like a drayhorse — ”


Excuse
me, a what?”

“ — and you sleep around like a Chelsea boy — ”

“A
dray
horse?”

“ — and smoke too much, but it’s nobody’s business but your own, even though there are those who might think that you’re squandering your life.”

“A
horse
? Do I look fat in this?”

“My point; I did not come here to dish Belle.”

Lorna’s furious riposte was dampened by the reappearance of Paolo, this time with Lorna’s organic
salate di spinaccio
in lemon juice, and Maria Grazia’s steak. She looked at her plate, and couldn’t claim to be surprised by its lack of bulk. “This must have been raised on the Upper East Side.” Nevertheless, she dug in.

Lorna stabbed her fork around her plate; she had a vague sensation, the kind she hadn’t allowed herself to experience since she was a teenager, that quite possibly could have been her feelings feeling hurt.
How dull
, she thought, and strove to keep the rhythm alive.

“So I’m a workaholic-slash-smokeaholic-slash-shagaholic? Are you suggesting I join a group, perhaps?”

Maria Grazia laughed. “You’re outrageous, bitch! I’m starving — let’s defer round two.”

From day one, they had always been the best of sparring partners, from the very first day of college when they met outside a club, trying to fake-ID their way in. After some conversation, Lorna accused Maria Grazia of putting on a cinematic accent (she was still rather proud of the use of ‘cinematic’) since because she was in a new situation and no one would know whether or not that was her real voice. MG had roared, “You’re outrageous!” As Lorna had chosen to cultivate such a personality trait the minute she had graduated high school, well, she’d known that they’d be best friends. Their crossfire often made Anna twitch, being the least confrontational of the three — and it could, at times, get fierce.

Lorna watched Maria Grazia inhale her meal, and delicately crossed her knife and fork over the remains of her salad. She waved to a distant table —
I thought she got canned,
Lorna thought to herself, and cast her eyes around to case the room once more.
Hmm, wasn’t that The Aging Daytime Drama Star with Interior Beauty’s resident handyman?
That’s
interesting

“Enough with the scanning. I feel like I’m getting a frickin’ x-ray.”

“If you won’t allow the discussion of Anna and her career prospects, can we at least trash Wilson? I have been longing to.”

Maria Grazia nodded as she swallowed the last precious mouthful of her steak. “That we can do. Over dessert. Who’s that one, over there? Silver fox.”

“Oh, him.” Lorna smiled and waved at the rather dashing older man three tables away. “He has tragically found himself on the losing end of a pitch for the three year contract to represent MGM’s east coast interests.”

“I suppose congratulations are in order?” MG raised her glass.

“Oh, yes,” breathed Lorna. “And you?”

“Well.” Maria Grazia hauled up the voluminous napkin and patted her lips. “I’m sure I’ve designed the new ‘It’ bag — each one hand made, sadly by me alone at the moment, but don’t tell — and one of Oprah’s people were in the other day looking at them. And in fact, she bought one.” She smiled like the cat that got the cream
. Hmm, cream …

“Isn’t that interesting,” Lorna sang, and they smirked at each other. This was where they were at their best, and most at home with each other, in their ambitions.

Maria Grazia cleared her throat. “Breaking my own rule — ”

“How unusual.”

“But.
I
wish … Oh, I said we wouldn’t dish Belle and here I go, I am hopeless — ”

“Oh, just go
on
!”

“She’s so talented, but she has no animal instinct, or something. She’s not thinking it through logically. She’s got some romantic image of what being a writer is, and you are right, you are so right, her strength is in, like, living history, remember that series she did on that artist? He’s frickin’ famous now, because she made him famous.”

“And now she’s wasting her time on relics — ”

“Enough, enough. I hate gossiping about friends with other friends, I won’t do it. Shutting up now.”

Lorna sat back and waited. It was part of Maria Grazia’s digestive process to rattle on at length.

“And that Wilson was no help. So patronizing — remember at her birthday, the last one, when he gave her that supremely inappropriate, never mind impersonal, faux leather desk agenda thingie? So crass, not even real leather, and her poor little face, I think she was expecting ‘An Avowal’, as Jane Austen might say. ‘The Ring.’ I know she did. I just know it. She really wanted to marry that stuffed shirt. Bastard. I wonder if she’s heard from him, if he’s looking for post-break-up pity sex, or something. I hope not. She’s not ready to see him. No. You know, I really am convinced that this rupture is a good thing.”

“Oh?” Lorna knew that this was all that was required.

“I just wish she had more energy, I swear that asshole was like a vampire, sucking the life out of her.” She accompanied this with a visual rendering of what she imagined the sucking to look like, using elaborate hand movements. “And that is why all her magick-y stuff is a goddess-send, it’s the only thing he didn’t suck right out of her.” Reprise of hand movements. “I was tempted to drape her door with garlic myself. And he dressed like a clown, a frickin’ banker clown. Dessert?”

• • •

Walking back to Lorna’s office, heads turned in reaction to the both of them. Lorna’s height and Maria Grazia’s curves, each appealing to different strata of the male of the species, meant they had always been each other’s best wing-women. Clearly, even in the swiftly moving Midtown traffic, they still had what it took. Added to their entirely different tastes in said males of the species, their untrammeled ambition, and all the water under years of bridges … well, they understood each other as well as anybody could ever understand another human being, within reason. Frankly, it was seriously annoying Lorna that she suddenly felt she didn’t understand Anna at all.

“All those
bloody
soul mate books warped her brain.”

Maria Grazia flung her hands into the air, and sent a winning smile to the pedestrian she’d almost knocked to the ground. “Leave it alone! So she wants a long-term partner, so what. You and me, we’re simple, we both
don’t
want the same thing. We can support her without having to be like her.”

“I think she needs a … how shall I put this? A rebound.”

They paused outside Lorna’s building. Maria Grazia thought about it.

“I might go there with you on that. Has she ever done that? A one night, drunken, reactionary shag?”

“I think after that wrestler guy, she met some guy in a bar who was, perhaps, a guitar guy or a poet guy. Younger.”

BOOK: That Magic Mischief
8.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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