“If your parents send you generous pocket change, you could buy the magazines that are being printed now. You’d have to pick them up yourself, though. Delivery is too risky,” Mirthe said.
“That makes sense,” Nico said. “Even the mailmen are dependent on Zita’s fortunes. If they knew what we were ordering…”
“We’d be caught,” Mirthe finished. “You can take a bus out to neighboring towns, but if you have your own transportation, that would be better.”
“Mirthe and I share a moped,” Femke said.
“Then it sounds like buying the new charms will be up to you,” Sebastian said dryly.
Mirthe ignored him. “There are other ways to find old love charms. You have to keep your eyes and ears open. Write them down if they’re not already captured on paper. Learn to squeeze the charms out of people.”
“Don’t forget to organize them,” Femke said as they packed up their belongings.
The energy in the room hummed. No one had ever tried to shut Zita’s shop down. This was new territory, and the task ahead had not quite sunken in. Fallon pushed whatever doubts she had aside. Her fortune reminded her of what lay ahead if she sat by and did nothing.
* * *
At first, Fallon thought she was alone walking back to the student housing complex. Her thoughts flickered and glowed like fireflies. She imagined eating whatever entrées were cooling on tables at the outdoor cafés, as if judging their quality was not a habit she’d been bred to follow. I could eat whatever I want, she thought, and pick each dish just by what smells good. My nose isn’t as developed as my parents’. She liked that flaw. The sky darkened, allowing the streetlamps to cast golden shadows on the streets.
As she approached a footbridge, Sebastian walked beside her. He had a languid stride, even while carrying his schoolbag over one shoulder. He didn’t look at her for quite some time. He stared straight ahead, chin up, with that incorrigibly bored expression on his face.
“You could have waited,” he said. “I live at the complex too.”
Fallon wasn’t sure what to say. When the meeting ended, her only desire was to return to her apartment. There were clothes to lie out for the next morning and she needed to use the potatoes she had bought for her dinner tonight or else they would go bad. “My mind was on other things.”
“What things?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Nothing important.”
The canal below their feet made gentle lapping sounds. Two little girls ran across the footbridge, shrieking and throwing leaves at each other.
“I’ve heard about you.” He watched the leaves as they tumbled out of the girls’ hands.
“Me?”
“Fallon Dupree, Grimbaud High’s princess.”
“I’ve only been in school a day. How could I have a title?”
“News travels fast. I heard that you wouldn’t eat the principal’s casserole at orientation. That caused quite a stir. Along with the T-shirts. I guess you won’t be wearing one on our school spirit days.”
“The quality’s poor,” Fallon said. “Wearing cheap material makes my skin crawl.” Robbie had all but burned away any desire she had to wear cheap clothes after he became a clothing inspector.
“It’s not a Dupree thing to do,” he said.
“What do you know about my family?”
“What everyone else knows. Duprees are sleuths. They inspect everything. They also live up to their own quality standards, be it food, clothing, or dating. This is a small town, isn’t it?”
Part of her wanted to turn the tables on him. Sebastian had to have been gossiped about at school, if his track record of girlfriends over the past month gave any indication. She was willing to bet he dated and dumped girls no matter the season.
As if sensing her thoughts, he said, “Barringers have been coming to Grimbaud for years too, but we don’t have a reputation. Until now. I’m doing an awfully good job. You’ve seen the girls at my door this summer?”
“I’m not that nosy.”
He snorted. “You’ve been leaving tissue boxes.”
Her breath caught. She hadn’t expected him to notice such a small thing.
Sebastian flashed a lazy smirk. “I have a lot of ex-girlfriends. That’s kind of you to leave them tissues. You keep buying the expensive ones.”
“They need the extra care, with you breaking their hearts,” Fallon said softly. “Go away.”
If Sebastian heard her, he didn’t give any indication. He matched her pace, keeping his gaze on the other side of the footbridge. His bangs fell into his eyes. “I’m bored, Fallon, and dating is as fun a game as any.”
Fallon’s voice turned bitter. “I have a talent for ruining fun. You’re wasting your time.”
Sebastian took one long step forward, flashing the white of his ankle. His leather shoe came down hard on the leaf resting there. The shattering sound made a group of crows rise into the air. “You didn’t jump.”
Fallon blinked. “Was I supposed to be scared?”
Sebastian cocked his head. He looked back at her over his shoulder. “I don’t know. That’s what’s interesting about you. You don’t act like a princess.”
“Are princesses scared of leaves breaking?”
“Of course. Princesses are delicate creatures. The sound reminds them of bones shattering in a dragon’s mouth. But you’re made of stronger stuff.”
Fallon sucked in her breath. Her body felt leaden. The shadows shivered and danced around them, the light from the streetlamps stinging her eyes.
“You could try me out sometime, you know, with the dating thing.” His tone was teasing. “Who knows? We could fall in love.”
She tried to smile as they started walking again, if only for her own sake. “I doubt it.”
“Maybe.”
“Sebastian,” she ventured. “It doesn’t matter what my fortune says. I’m not interested in dating you.”
His mouth twitched. “More like passing the time.”
“I think you’d have more fun with a real princess,” she said.
When they reached the student housing complex, Sebastian opened the gate for her. She thanked him, but tucked the gesture away in her brain. She didn’t need to remember nice things like that, coming from a boy who would date anyone.
chapter 4
OVERDUE
Sebastian’s words returned to plague Fallon on her walk to the school library the next day. Nothing about her was princesslike. Nothing at all. Fallon lacked classic beauty, an affinity for animals, and was not, as Sebastian insisted, delicate, no matter how well she cared for herself. Okay, so even after a morning of rushing from class to class and sharing her homemade lunch with Nico and Anais, her hair remained perfectly parted down the middle and her nails were clear of dirt. But she was no princess. Rather, Fallon decided as she walked into the library, she’d make a good clever maid, the one in fairy tales who always got her mistress out of trouble.
A clever maid wouldn’t be scared of crushed leaves.
Ms. Emma Ward, the head librarian, stood on a chair against the back wall of the library, adjusting one of the many inspirational posters encouraging teens to read. The angle was a little off, so Ms. Ward kept leaning forward and backward to gauge whether she had straightened the frame. The chair wobbled with each movement.
“Lift the left side about a half an inch,” Fallon suggested.
Ms. Ward squinted through her cat-eye glasses. “Are you sure?”
“It’s easier to tell, standing back here.”
Ms. Ward shifted the frame accordingly and managed to climb down from the chair. Her long black pencil skirt and conservative sweater didn’t allow her much room for movement. Ms. Ward was in her twenties, with gentle features that were sharpened by her angular jewelry and glasses.
Fallon handed her a purple slip of paper that came from Mr. Drummond. “I’m Fallon Dupree. I’ve been assigned to be your helper during this period,” she said. She wasn’t much of a reader,
even though she took great care of the golden-bound picture books she had since childhood. More often than not, she buried herself in her parents’ old quality-control textbooks in an effort to find loopholes in their strict lifestyle. What excited her about work at the library was the system itself: she loved the idea of a card catalog holding all the knowledge in the room, and the distinct pleasure of being able to reshelve a book to its assigned spot.
The plastic-covered library books at Grimbaud High had wrinkled pages and were tattooed with illegible margin notes. They smelled like sadness and temptation, drenched in dust motes that drifted like tiny stars. Many a bored teenager had trampled the ancient carpet. Gum hardened underneath the wooden tables. Nooks and unpopular stacks provided ample cover for secret make out sessions. Fallon winced. She didn’t relish the idea of watching other students live out their good love fortunes, and she hoped Ms. Ward didn’t either.
“A helper,” Ms. Ward repeated. “Yes, that’s just what I need. I didn’t think Mr. Drummond listened when I requested being part of the program.”
“What should I do first?”
“You should probably shadow me. I’ll show you how the library works. A library, no matter how big or small, is a careful balance of love and responsibility. A machine, if you will, cranked by those who care most about reading. What a wonderful balm it is for the soul.”
Fallon smiled. The drab library looked more cheerful after hearing Ms. Ward’s ardent speech.
The hour passed quickly as Ms. Ward showed her how to shelve returned books, properly stamp and register a book being borrowed, and how to pretend you know more about the card catalog than the students searching for a particular title do.
“It’s so simple to use,” Ms. Ward said, “but I can’t tell you how many students stare at the catalog as if it’s a monster waiting to bite their fingers.”
The boy sitting alone at a table looked up. He had smooth, dark skin with eyes large and brown like twin dark chocolate truffles. The veins running along his skull stood out. A broken key hung from his neck. He was too young to be a high school student, so Fallon figured that he must have been one of the teacher’s sons in need of a babysitter. The music pouring from his headphones sounded like a tango.
“Quiet in the library,” Ms. Ward sung, tapping her fingers on the boy’s table as she passed.
The boy shrugged and lowered the volume on his tape player.
“He says his mother fries mozzarella sticks in the cafeteria,” Ms. Ward said when they stepped into the history aisle. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, does the cafeteria really serve mozzarella sticks?”
Fallon brought her own lunch to school, so she wasn’t sure.
Ms. Ward gave a tentative smile. “It’s just funny. It seems like a childish food to serve teenagers. You’re all almost adults.”
A lump formed in Fallon’s throat. She couldn’t miss the longing in Ms. Ward’s voice, how her words were gingerly spoken. The librarian was lonely. And no wonder. The entire school knew how her love fortune had turned out.
“I think that’s all for today, Fallon. Fifth period swiftly approaches.” Ms. Ward led them back to the circulation desk. Behind the desk, out of sight from students, were some photographs. Each one depicted the same group of women caught in the middle of activities: knitting, watching movies, playing croquet on the lawn outside the Spinster Villas.
“Your friends?” Fallon asked when she felt Ms. Ward watching.
“Yes.” Ms. Ward smiled sadly at the photographs. “They’re lovely women.”
Fallon wanted to know why, after traveling the world, she had decided to return to Grimbaud. But asking her about such a touchy subject would have been rude. “Those are nice pictures,” she said instead.
Ms. Ward thanked her. They spent the remaining minutes awkwardly standing behind the desk, shuffling loose book pockets.
* * *
If the twins were right, only the deepest, most abandoned archives of the library might hold charms made by the old love charm-makers. Fallon doubted that the school library had such a back room. Grimbaud’s public library was the next stop.
After school, she explored the stuffy stacks of the public library, finding private collections that the librarian working the front desk assured her had more to do with historical records than charms. “We don’t keep back issues of magazines,” the librarian said, looking down her nose at Fallon, “but our charm-making books are on the second floor.”
“What about love charms?” Fallon asked.
The librarian cast a sidelong glance at the policeman guarding the doors. “You must be asking about Zita. You won’t find her charms in any book. A chef doesn’t give away his secret recipes, now does he?”
“Of course not,” Fallon said. “Sorry.”
As Fallon left the public library, she noticed a pink rose pinned to the collar of the policeman’s uniform. She could only describe the shade as pink lemonade. The same color as Zita’s shop. Why that pink? She thought, tucking her hands in her skirt pockets. Does Zita have something to do with the police? Grimbaud’s emblem was a cupid, not a rose, and no officers in her hometown wore extra embellishments on their uniforms. She’d have to ask the twins about it.
Her feet took her to Verbeke Square, where she spent an hour drinking hot chocolate at one of the outdoor cafés. The drink clung to her tongue, thick and creamy; she managed to relax a little. Zita’s storefront was active, drawing an older crowd. A few stragglers still waited in line outside the shop to get their love fortunes, but most of the town must have already received theirs.
“How can you wear such a sad face when you’re drinking hot chocolate?” asked an unfortunately familiar voice from behind her. Fallon turned to look at Sebastian.
Dark jeans hugged his legs and a green V-neck showed off his collarbone. He wore a navy-blue plastic bracelet on his wrist, but Fallon couldn’t make out the words printed on the outside. It looked old, the writing cracked with age. Sebastian lifted his eyebrows. She swished the cooling hot chocolate in her cup. “Well, look at my view.”
He smirked and pointed at himself.
She sighed.
Sebastian grabbed a chair from another table and dragged it right next to hers. He sat close enough to touch her but was wholly focused on seeing what she was seeing. “Zita’s. Nice choice. You must enjoy feeling miserable.”
“Honestly, I was hoping for some inspiration. I don’t know how I’m going to find charms.”
“We’ll find some.”
“How are you so sure?”
Sebastian rubbed his lower lip. “Zita wasn’t the first love charm-maker in Grimbaud. She couldn’t have erased the marks left behind by other love charm-makers. We just have to look harder.”
Verbeke Square lit up pink and orange as the sun bled through the clouds. Fallon pictured the ghosts of the past dancing through the square, selling crude charms, dueling on behalf of love, and exchanging encouragement and advice as old as the world itself. Could one woman really erase all that past? Sebastian had a point. Maybe there were other ways of coaxing Grimbaud’s lost love charms out of the cobblestones. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“What?” He blinked. “Did I surprise you?”
Fallon’s cheeks flushed with shame. “I was under the impression that you didn’t think so deeply about…”
“Important things? Well, I do. When I have to,” he said gruffly. “And this Zita business is a serious problem.”
Over the last month Fallon had figured Sebastian out: he was a smooth-talking, shallow boy with no concern for a girl’s feelings. She knew boys like him in her hometown. But Sebastian had surprised her twice already since she met him at the meeting. He showed a bit of depth in the way he had spoken about princesses (whether she agreed or not) and now about the town she adored. She wanted to understand him.
“Serious problem for who?” she ventured. �
�You don’t seem to be having a problem with romance.”
He stiffened, curling his fingers into fists. He seemed at once to lock himself up, door after door slamming over each feature. A key turned, sealing his lips shut, and he shifted away from her.
Her cup of hot chocolate was suddenly fascinating.
“Sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sorry for asking. Everyone in the group who had love fortunes shared them. Except for him. She didn’t have much to go on. Rather, she was apologizing for saying the wrong thing.
“What I do is my business.”
“But if it hurts you, then it becomes my business too. The entire group’s business. We’re all working together now.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“Not yet.” He cracked a weak smile. “Don’t forget that you have your own secrets, princess. I think we’re even.”
Fallon drank the rest of her hot chocolate. “So. Charms.”
“They can’t all be on paper,” he said. “Try listening and see what you find.”
* * *
Fallon tried keeping her ears open on her walk home, but she only heard the wheels of food carts crunching leaves and tourists snapping pictures of the canals. The red light on her answering machine waited for her. She knew without having to look that the message was from her parents.
“Call us back,” her mother said, her voice thick with impatience. “Your father and I are waiting for the good news.”
Her hands shook while she peeled the last of the potatoes and made a cold salad with them. The vinegar she used as dressing stung as she chewed. Her eyes wandered around the apartment. There was so much she could do instead of calling. The tile floor needed scrubbing. The ceiling fan needed dusting. The hole under the armpit of her favorite pink cardigan needed mending.
Outside the apartment, students chatted on the stairs or brought their homework outside to the patio. A tiny jingle nearby meant that someone had already bought a charm. She couldn’t tell from the sound whether it was a charm for financial prosperity or excellent test scores, but she knew from past visits to see Robbie that the complex would look like a small shrine by midterms with all the hanging charms fluttering from railings and roofs.
Love Fortunes and Other Disasters Page 4