“I can take care of myself.”
“No offense, but you wouldn’t have taken care of yourself too well tonight if I hadn’t been with you,” he said.
I looked from the gang to the bar, where the drug-spiked lemonade remained untouched thanks to Summer. I couldn’t disagree with him.
“Besides, this is a party. They like to party. So let’s let them party.”
He went to the music system and turned up the volume. Then he went to each one of them and whispered something in their ears. I stood back watching. One by one, they rose, moving very slowly, just like someone who was hypnotized, and to my shock and surprise, they all began to undress.
“Summer!” I shouted as the boys began to take off their pants and then their underwear. “What are they doing?”
He smiled. “It’s just your typical nudist party,” he said.
Even Jason was struggling to get out of his clothes. I shook my head and backed away. The girls were moving just as quickly to get undressed.
“I can’t believe you’re getting them all to do this.”
“It’s nothing special,” he said. The girls were nearly naked. Neither Darlene nor Mia had been wearing a bra.
“Stop them.”
“They’ll stop themselves,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s not let them ruin our evening.”
“What?”
He took my hand and started me toward the front door.
“But . . . when will they stop?”
He looked at his watch. “Give them another fifteen minutes. Maybe they’ll enjoy one another more,” he said. He opened the front door.
“But are you sure they’ll be all right afterward? I mean . . .”
“Depends what you mean. They’ll be plenty embarrassed, and they’ll wonder what happened, but no one will be able to explain it.”
“They knew we were here, and you gave them the pills.”
“What pills?” he said, smiling. “They won’t remember us even being here.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He held his smile.
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
“A few times,” he said, “but never with more glee,” he added, and led me out.
The music was so loud now that we could hear it clearly all the way to his car.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Let’s get something to eat. I’m starving. I know a better pizza restaurant than the one you were supposed to go to in the mall,” he said, opening the car door for me. I looked back at the house, and then, as if I had been tapped on the shoulder, I spun around and looked back down the street. Once again, I thought I saw the silhouette of a man in the shadows.
“There’s someone there,” I said, nodding in the silhouette’s direction. “Watching us.”
“Where?” He looked and shook his head. “Naw, that’s not anyone. It’s just a small tree.”
I looked again. The silhouette was gone.
Of course, the first thing I thought was that it had been my father.
“Stop worrying so much. I’ll be sure to get you back in front of that mall by twelve.” We got into his car.
“When they regain their senses, they’ll wonder why we didn’t show up, even if you’re right and they forget we were there, Summer.”
“So what? Simple answer is you and I decided we wanted to be alone for our first date. They’ll buy into that. No worries.” He started away.
I looked back at the house. The girls would be devastated, I thought. “Will they all wake up at the same time?”
“Practically. No one will wake up early enough to cover himself or herself up from the others. I can guarantee you that.”
“Really? So where and when did you do this before?”
“What’s the difference? Stop worrying about them, Sage. They were out to get you tonight, and I told you, promised you. I’m not going to let you get hurt, now or ever,” he said and drove on.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or upset. Despite what they were planning to do to me, I couldn’t help but feel bad for them.
Summer laughed. “I can’t wait for the story those girls give you tomorrow, if they decide to tell you anything at all,” he said. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Relax,” he said. “You didn’t do anything to them. I did, but don’t you tell them. Believe me, they wouldn’t be this concerned about you.”
“When did you know about all their planning to hurt me tonight?”
“Almost as soon as they concocted the idea,” he said. “I’ve got amazing hearing.”
He laughed again, and we drove on in silence for a while. Did he have amazing hearing, or was there some other way he had found out? When did he overhear them? He was with me almost every moment of the day.
“C’mon, stop thinking about them,” he said, seeing how deep in thought I was. “We didn’t do them any permanent harm.”
“Oh, I think those girls will carry that for a long time,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Imagine what you would have carried for a long time if they had succeeded and gotten you into big trouble with your nervous-wreck, obsessive parents,” he said.
He was right, I thought, but still . . .
He made a few turns and brought us out onto a street I had never been on. Right on the corner was a small Italian restaurant called Mamma Mia’s. He parked right in front of it.
“How did you find this place?”
“My father found it. He’s like that. He’ll scout an area for days locating the best of everything. Wait until you taste the pizza here. Everything’s made from scratch and fresh. It’s the closest thing to pizza in Europe that we’ve had.”
It wasn’t until we got out and approached the front door that I realized this was the first time I had been to any restaurant without my parents. He smiled and kissed me on the cheek before he opened the door. I knew I looked at him strangely, because I thought, although it was nice, it was so unexpected. Why kiss me then and there?
“Couldn’t help myself,” he said, reading my thoughts in my eyes. “I could kiss you all day. I want you to feel good about this night, Sage. I warn you, I’m going to work at it.”
I laughed, finally relaxing, and we entered the small restaurant and went directly to a booth as if it had been reserved for us. When the waitress came to hand us menus, he shook his head.
“No need. We’ll have a Margherita pizza and two Cokes. We’ll share a house salad,” he said quickly. “They’re pretty big,” he told me. As soon as she left, he reached across the table for my hands and put his around them. “There’s no reason we couldn’t have had a date like this from the start and avoided all that back there,” he said.
“Maybe we will next time.”
“I don’t know. I’m not confident. You haven’t even been permitted to sleep over at a girlfriend’s house until now, right?”
I nodded.
“I don’t care how you excuse it. There’s something wrong with them treating you like a serial killer or something.” Suddenly, he let go of my hands and sat back.
“What?”
“I didn’t notice until now that you had on two necklaces. I can’t see what’s on the second one. You have it under your sweater.”
“Oh. It’s a pentacle,” I said, pulling it up to show him.
He nodded.
“Do you know what it all means, each star corner?” I asked.
“Yes. Where did you get that?”
“My great-uncle Alexis sent it along with a wall-sized one. He’s coming to visit us tomorrow. Actually, I’ve never met him or my great-aunt,” I said.
“You have one weird family. So your parents are into that sort of thing?”
“You mean spiritual stuff?”
“Yes.”
“They are. But your father bought you something spiritual. You’re wearing that double dragon piece.”
“My father’s into lots of things, b
ut he doesn’t take anything that seriously. He thinks most religions are full of superstitions. Are your parents superstitious, too?”
“About some things,” I said. “Yes.”
The waitress brought our Cokes and salad with some bread.
“Bread’s homemade,” he told me. “The olive oil is from some family vineyard.”
“You know everything about this place?”
“My father asks lots of questions. He uses everything in his writing. I’m sure this restaurant will turn up in a novel.”
“Do you read his books?”
He smiled. “Not a one. They’re too girlie.”
“Did he always write romance novels under the name Belladonna?”
“As long as I can remember. Great salad dressing, isn’t it?”
“What? Yes.”
“So what are some of your parents’ superstitions, besides black cats and walking under an open ladder or something? Anything unusual?”
“I don’t like talking about them like this,” I said. “It feels funny, like I’m betraying them or something.”
“Betraying them? Jeez, they really do have you shackled. It’s not right. You should be soaring. You could easily be the most popular girl in the school. If you keep a bird’s wing tied to its body, it’ll never fly, and you can fly, Sage.”
I nodded slightly and ate some more.
“That’s it. I’ve made a decision,” he said.
“What decision?”
“I’m making you my cause. I’m determined to help you free yourself of your bondage.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” I said. “I wouldn’t call it bondage.”
“Believe me. I’ve been around, Sage. It’s that bad,” he said. “There are girls two years younger than you in our school having more of a social life.”
The waitress brought our pizza. It looked delicious.
“We’d better wait until it cools a little,” I said.
He ran his hand about an inch over it. “It’s fine.” He looked at his watch. “Eyes are opening back at Jason’s,” he said with glee. “I’m almost sorry we didn’t stay around to see.”
“I’m not.”
I put a piece of pizza on my plate. It looked like it still should be too hot, but when I felt it, it was just right. It was the best pizza I ever had eaten. I told him so.
“I won’t ever disappoint you, Sage,” he said with such confidence that I couldn’t help but be impressed.
“I hope not,” I said. Something kept me from matching his words and making the same promise.
When we were nearly finished, he looked at his watch. “This might sound nuts for me to suggest. I should be monopolizing every minute with you.”
“What?”
“We have lots of time yet. How would you like to meet my father? I told him about you,” he added quickly. “I don’t talk about girls with him much, about anybody, for that matter. He’s dying to meet you, and I’d like you to meet him.”
“He might be disappointed, Summer.”
“I doubt it. We don’t have to stay long. I kinda said I would bring you around,” he confessed. “I’ll get you back to the mall in time. Don’t worry about that,” he added. “Well?”
“Okay,” I said.
He signaled for the waitress to pay the bill.
I wanted to suggest that we circle back to Jason’s house to see if the others were really all right, but he was too excited about my meeting his father. They lived in the opposite direction, a good two or three miles from downtown Dorey. Here the houses were farther apart. The area looked more rural, with older buildings and some abandoned or no longer working farms.
“How come you live out here?”
“Dad always looks for the quieter, more remote places whenever we settle down anywhere,” he said. “He likes less distraction when he’s writing, and he’s always writing.”
“I guess so. I saw he had more than forty novels published.”
“No lack of ideas. Sometimes he works on more than one at the same time. He changes from one story line to another like you and I change television channels.”
“Was he always a professional writer?”
“He’s always been an entertainer. Let’s say that.”
“What do you mean? What else did he do?”
“He had a magic act when he was younger,” he said.
He slowed down as we approached a two-story Dutch colonial house with dark gray shingles and white frames around the windows. The gambrel roof had double slopes on each side, making it look like a dressed-up barn at first. It had two narrow white pillars on its wide entry portico. There wasn’t very much landscaping, and the grass in front and on the sides looked untended. He pulled up to the single-car garage.
“Magic act? My uncle Wade’s a magician!”
“Dad hasn’t done magic for a long time. He was already writing and publishing when I was born. This is your uncle who gave you the ring?”
“Yes.”
He shut off the engine. “C’mon.”
I got out, and he came around to take my hand and lead me to the portico. It was somewhat overcast now. There hadn’t been a moon, but the night hadn’t looked as dark to me until now. There was only a small light over the entrance. Most of the windows in the house were dark.
“Are you sure he’s home?” I asked.
“He’s home. He’s probably in his little office and so involved with his story that he’s unaware how dark the rest of the house is. There’s no one more absentminded than my father when he’s working.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t disturb him, Summer.”
To my surprise, and I think Summer’s surprise, too, the front door opened before he reached for the doorknob, and his father stood there, silhouetted against the backlit hallway.
“I thought I heard you drive up,” he said.
He reached to the side and flipped a switch for a small chandelier above his head. The illumination flowed down over his coal-black hair, which was cut and brushed in the style of a 1920s actor, with the top brushed to the right and a part on the left. He wore a vintage burgundy velvet smoking jacket, a black cravat, a white shirt, and black slacks. I saw he had on a pair of black fur-lined slippers.
“You must be between chapters,” Summer said.
“Yes, perfect timing. So this is Sage? I can see she is even more beautiful than you described,” he said. “Welcome.” He stepped back.
“Thank you,” I said, and we entered the house.
I smelled a familiar scent. “Is that garlic?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Sorry. I made myself pasta tonight, and as Summer will tell you, I can be heavy-handed when it comes to the garlic.”
“And the red pepper,” Summer added.
“The spice of life. Please, come in.” His father led us to the small living room on the left.
There was barely any light coming from the small table lamp next to a large dark brown cushioned chair. He quickly turned on a larger floor lamp next to the matching sofa.
“Let me get a better look at you,” he said, indicating that I should sit near the lamp.
Summer led me to the sofa, and we sat.
“Can I get you anything to drink? Had dessert?”
“We’re fine,” Summer said. “Mamma Mia’s,” he added, as if that would explain everything.
His father nodded, smiled, and sat across from us. He crossed his legs and folded his hands on his flat stomach. On his left hand, he wore a silver ring with three strands of woven gold in the center. It seemed to seize the light from the smaller lamp and glitter. His face was in some shadow, but I had seen that his eyes were an interesting and unique shade of gray. He had my father’s kind of handsome, symmetrical facial features, only his face was narrower, his chin a little sharper. I thought he was a little taller than Summer, not as broad in the shoulders, but with a more regal stature and a mature elegance. Even though it was the first time we had set eyes on each other, there was something fam
iliar about him. It was as if he had been in my dreams more than once, a stranger introduced to me in sleep, faintly recalled and always fascinating.
“As I understand it,” he began, “this is a forbidden date tonight.”
Surprised, I looked at Summer.
“I always tell Dad the truth,” Summer said.
“My parents are very careful about my socializing,” I said.
“Why? Did you do some terrible things in the past? Come home late, get into serious trouble, use drugs or drink too much?”
“No, none of those things,” I said.
He shrugged. “What makes them so concerned? From what Summer tells me, you’re a perfect A-plus student, in the chorus, and well thought of by your teachers.”
Where should I begin? I thought. Should I talk about the way my parents had reacted to my stories and dreams from the time I was able to talk? Should I tell him about their fear of my biological father coming to snatch me away? Should I bring up their failure with two previous children? “I’m hoping they’ll change and become more relaxed about me,” I replied instead.
“So I don’t have to worry about you leading my son into a life of sin?”
I glanced at Summer. He was smiling, but his father still looked serious.
“I think the devil will be quite disappointed if he’s looking for help from me,” I said, and his father laughed.
“She’s bright,” he said.
“Summer told me you were once a magician,” I said.
“Yes, in my younger days.” He leaned forward. “Does magic interest you?”
“I have an uncle who’s a magician. He travels all over the world performing.”
“Yes, the Amazing Healy.”
I looked at Summer. I was sure I had never told him Uncle Wade’s stage name. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, I still have an interest in the profession and keep up with the stars of magic. Do you do magic tricks now, too?”
“Me? No. Hardly. My uncle doesn’t give away his secrets.”
“Nor should he ever,” Summer’s father said.
“I am fascinated by what my uncle can do, however.”
“I imagine so. Summer also tells me that you and your girlfriends had copies of one of my novels.”
“That was supposed to be a joke on Summer, but he beat us all to the punch.”
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