by K. J. Emrick
“No one calls us that,” Harry says in a level voice.
“Well, I do. It’s just easier. Like, Person of Color, or Person of Interest.”
“Nobody,” he repeats, “uses that phrase.”
“Except me,” I say cheerfully. “I’m thinking of trademarking it.”
“Yes. No one uses it, my lady, except you.” He gives me a wink, and I figure that’s a win for me.
Chris is watching us, his head swinging back and forth like it’s a tennis match. “Okay, so using magic is a genie thing?”
And that brings the mood at the table right down again as Harry sits up straighter, the flecks of gold in his deep brown eyes sparking. “A genie thing?”
“Yeah. Oh, sorry. Is that like…racist or something?”
Racist or something… I heard it with my future-sense before he said it but too late to do anything about it. You’d think, being a black cop in the middle of the Midwest would make him a lot more sensitive to that issue but…there it was. I clear my throat, hoping it’ll be enough warning for Chris to change the subject. It isn’t.
“I mean,” he says, stumbling even further into the hole he’s digging for himself, “how am I supposed to know? It’s like, you make all this amazing food, and this incredible coffee, all out of thin air. You live in that twelve-by-twelve area rug spread out in Sidney’s living room and I have exactly zero idea how you manage to fit in there. You’re huge as it is, Harry. Is there some sort of Big and Tall store for genies? No way are those pants off the rack.”
I cringe, and set my silverware down, waiting for whatever comes next. Harry’s sensitive about not being human anymore, and certain things set him in a foul mood. Chris just managed to push all the hot button topics, all at once.
So, here’s the thing I’ve learned about this power of mine that I’ve had since birth. I can see everything that’s coming three seconds in advance. Everything, as it turns out, except anything having to do with People of Magic. I can’t hear what Harry’s going to say next. I can’t see what he’s going to do next. Nothing. Nada. That’s what has been hardest to get used to about having him in my life. Suddenly being unable to know what the future holds—even if it was just with Harry—was like suddenly not being able to use my right hand. Sure, I have another hand and it works just fine, but let’s face it. Not using both hands to do things would be awkward for you, right? Same with me, and not being able to use my future-sense with everyone around me.
Right now, I can’t even guess what Harry’s thinking about Chris’s little joke about his size. I’m picturing everything from plates of food getting thrown across the room, to Harry snapping his fingers to fill Chris’s underwear with scorpions, to the two of them challenging each other to step outside, to…
Harry bursts out laughing even harder than we had before, and when he slams his palm down on the table this time, the plates actually bounce.
Well. I didn’t see that coming.
“Ha!” he booms. “That was a fine jest, Christopher Caine. I haven’t had this much fun in centuries. My friends and I used to sit around a table and share our meal together when I was a young boy. It feels good to find that camaraderie once again.”
Chris sits back in his chair, probably relieved that his joking had been taken in the spirit it was meant. “It’s all in good fun, right?”
“Yes. Yes!” Harry slaps his hands together, still chuckling.
Just as I’m about to steer the conversation in another direction, he leans forward, eyes on Chris, and snaps his fingers.
Above Chris’s plate a huge, round slice of roast pork pops into being, quivering around its edges, dripping gravy…and then it drops like a heavy wet blanket over the rest of his food.
Plop.
“That,” Harry says, “is a ‘genie thing.’ Food from thin air. Let me know how it tastes.”
His smile is wicked now as he goes back to eating his own food. Maybe he’s a little more sensitive about his size than I realized.
Chris stares down at the new slice of meat, and even though it’s cooked to the same sizzling perfection as the others, and even though it isn’t moving or doing anything suspicious, he ever so carefully pushes his plate away, just in case. I give him a look that says don’t-be-stupid-it’s-just-a-piece-of-pork, but he shrugs and picks up his coffee instead. Some people just aren’t ready to think about where their food comes from.
The rest of the meal goes fine, although Harry starts humming to himself quite a bit, casting glances over at Chris’s plate, like he’s very pleased. I’m going to need to have a talk with him later about taking it easy with the magic poofing, until Chris is more used to all this. I mean, I’ll have to talk to Chris, too, about being a little more sensitive to Harry’s feelings. I really want these two to get along. The two men in my life shouldn’t feel the need to walk on eggshells around each other.
After a dessert of fresh-baked apple tarts, Harry and I start clearing away the dishes. “What have you got planned for us to watch tonight?” Chris asks me.
I notice the way Harry sort of stops, his back to us, his ears pricked up like he’s listening without trying to make it obvious. The dishes he was carrying drop into the sink a little harder than they need to. The food leftovers, mostly from Chris’s plate, have all disappeared, of course. Harry makes cleaning up easy. I still make him do the dishes by hand, because even I’m a little uneasy with him just making the dirt poof away. That’s not clean in my mind.
“The movie tonight is a classic,” I say, wrapping up the rest of the Italian bread in plastic. “I’ve got What Lies Beneath on the DVR all ready to go.”
“Hmm,” he says with a frown. “Not sure I know that one.”
“Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer,” I tell him. “She’s the lead, and she finds out the neighbor is…well, you’ll see. She basically kicks everyone’s ass.”
“Oh, no wonder you like it.”
In the sink, the dishes crash together a second time, even though they were already in there. It’s like Harry levitated them all up a few inches only to drop them back down again, on purpose. It makes me jump, and it’s moments like this that I really hate not being able to use my future-sense on him.
I look over, and I’m sure Harry can feel the weight of my eyes on him, but he’s ignoring me. That’s not like him. What’s eating at my big genie friend?
“I suppose you have Rocky Road ice cream in the freezer, too?” Chris asks, completely oblivious to Harry’s mood. “And kettle corn for popping?”
“Aw,” I say, putting my smile back in place. “You know me so well, don’t you?”
“Took me a while, but yeah. I’ve got you all figured out.”
“Oh you do, do you?’
“Sure. Tough exterior, even tougher on the inside. You’re like one of those Skor candy bars.”
“Ha! You wish. I’m a Caramello all the way.”
Leaning back in his chair, he gives me a dubious look. “So you’re all squishy and soft inside, that what you’re telling me?”
“Try me, mister,” I say.
Maybe I will.
“Maybe I will,” he says back to me, edging the conversation into pretty risky territory.
The dishes, I kid you not, slam together in the sink a third time.
As fun as it is to flirt with my best friend—harmlessly, like friends will do—I think maybe we need to stop until Harry has the dishes put away. “Hey, Chris? Can you wait for me out in the living room? I just want to help Harry finish cleaning up.”
Chris looks past me, at the already cleared table, and one eyebrow slowly lifts up. There’s nothing left to do out here and he knows it. The only things left are the coffee cups and the saltshaker that never leaves that spot. He doesn’t say anything about it though, just gets up from his chair with a shrug.
When he does, his hand reaches over and squeezes mine. His skin is warm and, um, surprisingly soft. I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, I saw his hand coming before it was the
re…but I didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect the way that touch made me feel. It was kind of an intimate thing, more than friendly, like he was trying to tell me something and didn’t have the words to express it.
Or maybe I’m just overthinking it.
When he moved around and down to the living room couch, I went to stand very close to Harry at the kitchen counter. “You want to tell me what all of that was about?”
“You didn’t tell me, my lady, that he was staying for the evening.”
I blink at him. “That’s what’s bothering you? Seriously?”
“I wouldn’t say that I am bothered, necessarily.”
Maybe not, but considering the way his shoulders are all bunched up, and the way he still won’t look directly at me, that’s precisely the word I would use.
Granted, this is the first time we’ve had Chris stay past dinner, but I’m trying to get us all to get along. Chris and I hang out a lot, but usually at his place or at bars we liked to go, or whatever. We'd also previously hung out at my place, but Harry had to hide back then. Now that everyone knows about him, I want to include Harry in all our little get togethers. To do that, I need to bring the party here.
Harry is the classic example of a shut-in. He never goes anywhere. It’s not his fault, considering he literally lives inside a magic rug with tassels hanging off the edges and he only gets to come out again when he gets a new master. In this case, that’s me. Even then, he can only go so far from where that rug is. The rug’s on my living room floor, so for right now his world is my apartment.
I guess it’s just going to be a learning curve for all of us. More so for them than me. I don’t know why guys have to be so complicated. There’s enough of me to go around.
Oh, wow did that come out wrong. You know what I mean.
“Come on, big guy,” I tell Harry, bumping my fist into his shoulder just like I did with Chris earlier. If Chris’s arm was like hitting stone, Harry’s is like steel. “Let’s all of us get some big bowls of Rocky Road and go watch the movie. I’ll even let you make the popcorn for us if you want. Use the popcorn maker this time, okay? No poofing it up in the bag like before—”
He’s starting to warm up to the idea when there’s a knock on my apartment door.
I look around, eyebrows bunched down in a frown. Now who could that be?
“Harry…?”
But, of course, he’s gone. He did his disappearing act at the first rap-rap-rap on the door, poofing himself back into his rug like always, leaving behind the smell of fresh cut flowers on the air. It’s a magic thing, I guess. He knows he has to hide so people won’t see him and wonder who this guy is. Could be worse. He could disappear to the scent of incense. Or worse, Axe body spray.
The thing is, he would never disappear on me like that if he thought I was in danger, so he must have sensed that our visitor isn’t here for trouble.
“You expecting company?” Chris asks me from the couch. He’s found the TV remote and now he’s just flipping through channels. He isn’t offering to get up and answer the door for me because he knows better. This is my apartment, and I’m a modern woman. I can open my own doors, thank you very much.
There’s another knock at the door, a rapid succession of taps, one after the other. Whoever is out there in the hall really needs my attention. Well. I might be able to see a little bit of the future but I’m not clairvoyant. The only way to find out who’s there is to go to the door. By the time I’m there and about to reach out for the doorknob, I’ll be able to see an image of myself opening the door, and who’s there, in a three-second flash that happens just as I—
The door opens before I got the chance and standing there is a slender woman nearly half a foot shorter than me, with red hair pulled back in a widow’s peak from her forehead and freckles across her cheeks. Her sky-blue eyes are bright and anxious. Her hands can’t stop fiddling with the sleeves of her simple black dress, and her smile is uncertain.
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, repeating herself. “The door was open, and I couldn’t wait I just had to come in and see you. Um. You are Sidney Stone, right? The private investigator? Stone Investigations, that’s you, right?”
Okay, so maybe there’s some drawbacks to not locking your apartment door. People walking in unannounced could become seriously problematic. Guess I’ve gotten a little too complacent with Harry being here, and all. Not that this young woman looks like she would cause me any kind of trouble. She’s in her mid-twenties, I’m guessing, but she looks like she’d get knocked around in a stiff breeze.
“I’m Sidney,” I answer her, happy that for once someone didn’t expect ‘Sidney’ to be a guy. “And yes, I’m a private investigator. You saw the sign in the hallway, I’m guessing? If you need advice on a criminal matter you should probably start with the police…”
“What? No,” she interrupts. “I mean, yes, I need some advice, but I can’t go to the police, I just can’t. I need your help, Miss Stone. Yours. Only yours. It can only be you and I don’t have much time, so please, please just hear me out.”
Her words are all coming out in a rush. In a voice as sweet and rich as honey, they keep tumbling over each other, one thing getting tangled into the next. I get the gist of it. I can see it written all over her cute face. She’s in trouble, and she needs the kind of help that only someone of my profession can provide for her. People don’t come knocking on a private investigator’s door when things are going well and life is easy. They only seek us out when they’ve got a problem they can’t solve themselves. One that needs our delicate, behind-the-scenes touch.
She can’t go to the police, she said. Got to admit, that’s got my interest.
I look over my shoulder, into the living room, and when Chris gets a look at my expression, he gives me another one of his sighs. He gets up off the couch without me even having to say a word. “I was just leaving,” he says with a dramatic sigh. “Thanks for dinner, Sid. I’d stick around but I’ve got that thing to take care of.”
We both know it’s a lie, and not a very good one, but he heard what this woman said just like I did. Chris is one of those guys who firmly believes everything should be handled by the law, but at the same time he respects me and what I do, and he’s not going to sit there and insist he needs to hear everything because he’s a cop. He’ll be there in a second if this turns into something I need his help with. Until then, he’s just going to leave and let me do my thing.
If there was an award for being an all-around good guy, Chris would win it hands down.
The redhead shrinks back a few steps as Chris comes closer. I have to admit I’m a little torn, because this was going to be a whole evening of just me and my guy friends hanging out together and watching stupid old movies that I absolutely love, eating popcorn and shouting advice at the characters on the screen as if they could hear us. But at the same time, I can’t exactly turn away someone who thinks I’m their only hope. That’s what Princess Leia said to Ben Kenobi in Star Wars and if he couldn’t turn away a plea like that, I certainly won’t either.
I mean, who am I to think I know better than Ben Kenobi?
“Hey” Chris says to me. “No worries. A girl’s gotta make a living, right?”
I give him a grateful smile. “That’s my line.”
“I know.” He reaches out, and his hand slips into mine. “I like doing things like this with you, Sid. Sorry it had to end so quick. Let’s try it again in a few days? When you aren’t so busy?”
“Um, sure.” I should take my hand back, I tell myself. How come I’m not taking my hand back?
“Okay.” That sounded like goodbye to me, but he still stands there, and I stand there with him. Then he drops his voice to a whisper to say, “Tell Harry I said thanks for supper. Even if it did come out of thin air.”
His fingers linger on mine, and damn but it feels…right, somehow. Like we should have tried this forever ago. I’m very tempted to tell my visitor to come back tomorrow when I have regular
office hours, just so I can stand here for a little while and figure out why it feels so good to hold his hand while he’s just standing there smiling at me. If she didn’t look so very, very upset I might have done it, too.
It’s okay, I tell myself, pulling my fingers out of his. Chris is just my friend, and he’ll understand that I have work to do that’s more important than… whatever I’m seeing in his eyes.
I only remember to say goodbye when he’s already closing the door and gone.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
I turn back to the redhead with a frown. “He’s not…Chris is just a friend of mine. He was here for dinner.”
“Um. Sure. It just seems like I was interrupting something. You know. Something a little more personal than just friends?”
“You weren’t.” I say it automatically but then I have to wonder if maybe she saw something Chris did, or said, that I missed. Maybe I’ll never know. “Listen, I don’t usually talk about my personal life with complete strangers. So let’s try this. Hi. I’m Sidney Stone, and you are?”
“Oh. Oh, right. Yes. Sure. I’m sorry, right. I didn’t tell you my name. Here I am going on and on and I don’t have time to ramble like this and I’m…” She plucks at her sleeves again, and swallows back a breath, and starts over. “My name is Molly Knowell. I need your help real bad. My boyfriend had something stolen from him and if he doesn’t get it back, he’s going to die.”
Okay then. I gotta say, as cries for help go, that one pretty much takes the cake. Life and death. That’s about as serious as it gets.
“Why don’t you come sit down,” I tell her, “and start from the beginning? I have a feeling there’s quite a story here.”
“No, no, no. I don’t have time to sit down. I just need to know that you’ll help me. I need your help, Miss Stone. Only you can help me.”
Curiouser, and curiouser. “How did you even find me? Did you look me up online, or something? You keep saying I’m the only one who can help you but there’s lots of private investigators in Detroit. None as good as me, maybe, but still. You sound like you chose me specifically for some reason.”