“Son,” Crash said. “You’re in the wrong business.”
Mare leveled her eyes at Jude, who was breathing heavily now, his Adam’s apple practically palpitating, his fingers rubbing his tie tack so hard, she almost expected a genie to appear. “You don’t happen to know a tall, dark-haired woman in a red dress, do you? Very beautiful? Dark eyes with a red ring around the iris? Looks like she could cut you in half with them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jude croaked.
“The hell you don’t,” Mare said. “My aunt Xan sent you, you little bastard.”
Jude shook his head, his chest heaving.
“Back to Aunt Xan, are we?” Crash said.
“I have a few questions for you, too,” Mare said to him, suddenly angrier with him than with a lying VP she didn’t care about anyway. “Five years you’ve been gone but all of a sudden you want to marry me. How’d that happen?”
“It was time,” Crash said. “You’re mad about that?”
“You’ve been gone for five years,” Mare said. “Why now?”
Crash shook his head. “I don’t know. The business is on its feet. I bought a house. We’re making money. I was tired of chasing girls.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mare said.
Crash looked confused and more than a little annoyed. “This guy in Annapolis ordered a bike and it was ready to ship, and I thought, I could deliver it and see Mare again. The bike I’ve been restoring for you is finished. I looked out the door one day and thought about you standing in the sun, and I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe. It was just time.”
“Just like that,” Mare said, trying to ignore the “couldn’t breathe” part. “I find your timing suspicious.”
Crash shrugged. “You’re the Queen of the Universe. Maybe you made it happen.”
“I’m not the queen of anything,” Mare said grimly. “So what did my aunt Xan tell you?”
“Nothing,” Crash said, definitely annoyed now. “I don’t know your aunt. What’s this about?”
“I think you’re both Xan’s evil minions.” Mare swallowed hard, appalled to realize that she was upset, almost crying upset. “She was always trying to get control of us, and I think she sent men after us this time, and I got a doubleheader. At least I only fell for one of you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jude said, trying for the high ground and just sounding slimy. “I’m offering you a promotion and the chance for great earthly power. All you have to do is stop doing anything”—he gestured to her dress—“strange. It’s corporate America. We don’t do strange.”
“And I told you, I don’t know your aunt.” Crash straightened, his face dark now. “But you know me. You knew me for three years before I left Salem’s Fork, so if I was going to be an evil minion—and who the fuck talks like that anyway?—you’d have known back then. You really think I’d hurt you, do anything that would hurt you? Jesus, Mare, if you can really think that, you don’t deserve me.”
Mare’s mouth dropped open. “What? You’re mad at me?”
“Hell, yes, I’m mad at you. You drag me up on that damn mountain last night, you give me some kind of dumb story about magic, we have great sex, but then you tell me there’s no spending the night because you live in a damn nunnery with your sisters, and now you’re accusing me of being a minion? Yeah, I’m mad. What did I do to—”
“Listen, you,” Mare said, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. “You left me. I loved you and you left me, for five years you left me, bleeding and alone and then you came waltzing back in, all charm and marriage proposals like I’m just gonna fall right back into you, and of course I DID—” She blinked back tears. “Because I missed you so damn much, you bastard, and you did not just show up here by chance out of the blue by a wild coincidence at the exact same time that Xan sent men to Dee and Lizzie, so yes, I think you’re a minion, you rat bastard, and how dare you come back here and make fantastic love to me and minion me when I love you and trust you and love you, and—” She smacked him on the chest, gulping back tears, and he caught her fist and shoved her away.
“Tell you what,” he said. “When you get your head out of your butt, you give me a call.” He headed for the door and she moved to block him, sticking her chin out as he loomed over her. “Out of my way, O’Brien.”
“Give me one good reason to trust you!”
“Because it’s me,” he said, and moved her roughly aside, kicking the beanbag chair out of his path and spraying pellets everywhere as he walked out the door.
“Well, he’s obviously not a gentleman,” Jude said when the door had closed behind him. “Now about New York, I think you can go right to the top if you don’t do anything that’s not normal and give up—”
“Shut up, Jude,” Mare said, fury and pain making her savage. “You are so evil minion, it’s written all over you. You probably even have the goddamn T-shirt. Go back to the lair and push the button, Igor, or do whatever the hell it is that evil minions do when the jig is up. Just get out of my face.”
“Huh?” Jude said.
“Jesus,” Mare said, “I’ve lost all respect for Xan.” Then she went back out to the counter.
“What happened in there?” Dreama said. “Crash looked really mad.”
“He was,” Mare said miserably. “So am I.”
“Heads are gonna roll, huh?” Dreama said, grinning. “The Queen of the Universe is gonna kick some ass.”
“I’m not the Queen of the Universe,” Mare said, close to tears. “I’m not even Queen of Value Video!! and that’s about as low as you can go.”
Dreama’s face went slack. “Mare!”
Mare picked up a stack of DVDs. “I’m going to restock these. And then I’m taking my lunch break. That okay with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Dreama said, with a catch in her voice.
“Everything,” Mare said, and went off to shelve movies. Starting with Girls Gone Wild Cleveland.
Mare went to the Greasy Fork to pick up lunch on her way to Mother’s, threading her way through the crowd of locals and tourists. It was easy to tell them apart; the locals didn’t bat an eye when she walked in wearing her ripped blue tulle wedding dress, but the tourists all gaped. “Are you in a play?” one of them asked.
“No,” Mare said over the tops of her heart-shaped glasses. “Why would you think that?” and then moved on without waiting for an answer, heading for the register.
Pauline went past her, carrying her tray shoulder high like the pro she was. “There’s a lady over there in the booth, said you could sit with her.”
“A lady?” Mare said, turning to look at the booths. “I don’t know any …”
In the last booth, a brunette beauty with a fine-boned face and flawless skin sat looking at the menu with barely concealed distaste. Her ruby earrings and cashmere blue hoodie were drawing more glances than Mare’s blue tulle, but she didn’t seem to notice. Then she looked up and saw Mare and smiled, her red lips curving an invitation, and Mare began to walk toward her without realizing she was moving.
“It can’t be you,” she said, taking off her sunglasses as she reached the booth. “You haven’t changed. It’s been thirteen years and you haven’t changed.”
“Diet,” Xan said. “Exercise. Plastic surgery.” She waved a languid hand. “Magic. Have a seat, Mare. You look beautiful.”
“Well, blue is my color,” Mare said, trying to get her snark back as she slid into the booth, the scent of cinnamon and sulfur taking her back to childhood. “I should have known you were here. They’re serving martinis here now. That had to be a sign of the apocalypse.”
Xan closed her eyes for a moment.
“So you sent guys after us and now you’re here in person,” Mare said. “What’s going on?”
“Guys?” Xan said innocently, but the red flash in her heavy-lidded eyes was just like old times, and the red ring around the black iris said Xan was cooking, magic at work.
“Danny,” Mare said. “Jude. Eldred.”
“Elric.”
“Exactly,” Mare said. “You sent them.”
Xan laughed, the lovely, liquid musical laugh that Mare had tried to emulate as a child, only to have Dee yell at her for sucking the helium out of her balloons. “Just trying to get back in touch, darling. Bring the family together again.”
“How sweet,” Mare said. “But you know how the holidays are with families who eat their young. So that would be no.” She looked closer at what Xan was wearing. “Is that cashmere?”
“Yes,” Xan said, and peeled it off, shaking out her hair so that it fell over the white silk tank top she wore underneath.
The man in the next booth almost fell into his chili.
Xan held out the hoodie to Mare.
“Really?” Mare said, looking at it like it was a snake.
“You can’t think I’d really wear a hoodie,” Xan said.
“Okay, what’ll it be?” Pauline said, appearing beside them and pulling her pencil out from behind her ear.
“I’ve never seen a waitress actually do that,” Xan told her.
“Pauline has studied waitressing on all the major TV shows.” Mare held out the hoodie to see it better. “Wait’ll she cracks her gum and calls you honey.”
“Funny,” Pauline said. “So that’ll be crackers and water for you.”
“With a side order of medium rare hamburger and chocolate shake,” Mare said. “Hold the crackers. And make the water a Diet Coke. And add some fries. To go.” With a great deal of self-control, she put the hoodie on the table and pushed it across to Xan. “I’m not staying.”
“I’ll have the chicken Caesar salad,” Xan said, closing the menu. “Dressing on the side. And Perrier with lemon.”
Pauline raised her eyebrows at Mare.
“She’s my aunt. She’s not from around here,” Mare said. “She’s not staying, either.”
“Looks more like one of your sisters,” Pauline said, surveying Xan with a critical eye.
“That would be the plastic surgery,” Mare said. “And the magic. I’m starving, Pauline, and I have to be somewhere in, like, five minutes.”
“Coming right up,” Pauline said. “Plastic surgery, huh?” She picked up the menus. “Did it hurt?”
“They give you drugs,” Xan said.
“Huh,” Pauline said and left.
“Don’t be so quick to reject me, Mare,” Xan said. “I have things to give you. Besides the hoodie.”
“Well,” Mare said. “Jewelry is good. And money is always in fashion.”
“Or your One True Love?” Xan sat back. “That took some heavy-duty magic, finding three soul mates for you all. And then convincing them to come to this backwater.” She looked around the diner. “I did manage to find them, though. Yours took the longest. Jude. He was in Italy and I—”
“Oh, please.” Mare put her chin on her hand. “If Jude is my soul mate, I’m putting in for a new soul.”
Xan leaned forward, her beautiful face smooth but her dark eyes intent. “I sent the men as a goodwill gesture. I don’t want you to be lonely, Mare, I want to help you. Jude can give you love, but more than that, he can give you real power, earthly power, not the parlor trick your magic gives you. He can take you straight to the top of the business you’ve chosen.”
“Renting videos?” Mare said, incredulous. “You think that’s my future? God, I’m going to kill myself, I really am. I think William has some rope left—”
“Not renting videos,” Xan said. “Have you even listened to Jude? He thinks you’re brilliant. He wants to take you to New York. Mare, you could run the entire company. You could …” She stopped as Mare squinted at her. “What?”
Mare tilted her head. “You know what’s freaking me out? There’s no expression on your face. It’s in your eyes, but your face is like this mask. Is that the surgery?”
“Botox,” Xan said. “Grace Kelly didn’t have expressions, either.”
“Grace Kelly was serene, not embalmed.”
“If you’re trying to drive me off with insults, it’s not going to work.” Xan reached out and put her hand over Mare’s, twining their fingers together. “I’m here to help you, but you have to grow up. Life isn’t a game, Mare. It isn’t about who’s got the best comeback or”—she gestured to Mare’s wedding dress—“who gets the strangest looks in the local diner.”
“Says the woman who’s nine parts snake venom,” Mare said, taking her hand back. “Or whatever the hell Botox is.”
Pauline appeared and slid their drinks in front of them. “Anything else?”
“Got any antitoxin?” Mare said. “My aunt may want to show fury shortly.”
“Fresh out,” Pauline said. “We got steak sauce.”
“That will be all,” Xan said, and Pauline evaporated, probably in fear for her tip. “Look, darling, you can be as flip as you like, but I know you. I know you’ve been living with Dee for too long, I know how she treats you, like a child, patting you on the head, trying to run your life—”
“That’s not going to work,” Mare said. “You know I’m fed up with Dee, but I know I can’t trust you. Yes, Dee’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but she’s smart, and she’s strong, and she’s right most of the time, and more than that, she’s part of me, she’s a third of who I am, and that means that while I fight her tooth and nail when it’s just us, when somebody comes at us from the outside—that would be you—I am her girl. So if you think you’re going to do an end run around her by hitting at the soft underbelly of the group—”
“That would be Lizzie,” Xan said, and sipped her ice water.
“You haven’t seen Lizzie lately,” Mare said. “What I’m saying is, this isn’t going to work. You can’t divide and conquer. We don’t divide.”
Xan shrugged. “Well, at least you have Jude.”
“Oh, Jesus, kick a girl when she’s down.” Mare looked at her watch. “Damn it. Pauli—”
“Gotcha,” Pauline said, appearing with a Styrofoam container with her burger and fries and a lid for her Coke. “You got time to make it yet.”
“What’s wrong with Jude?” Xan said.
Mare capped her Coke cup. “Jude is not my type, and that’s being charitable.”
“Who’s not your type?” Pauline said.
“The Value Video!! VP who’s in town,” Mare said.
“The one who looks like Jude Law.” Pauline nodded.
“How could he not be your type?” Xan said. “Your entire generation is mad for Jude Law.”
“Well, some of us felt he lost some luster over the nanny thing,” Mare said.
“And besides, there’s Crash,” Pauline said as Mare put her sunglasses on and slid out of the booth.
“Crash,” Xan said dangerously.
“Christopher Duncan, Mare’s old flame, he’s back in town,” Pauline said, in her best news-at-eleven voice. “He proposed. She’s thinking about it. He wants her to go to Italy but she doesn’t know if she’s going. We’re still waiting for the update.” She looked at Mare over the tops of her glasses. “The pool stands at even money.”
“There is no update.” Mare looked at Xan. “I’m going to get a tattoo now. You should go back to wherever you came from. We’re not interested.”
“You lie,” Xan said without rancor. “And you can’t speak for the others. Lizzie might be interested. Even Dee might be tempted by the chance to have a normal life.”
“Maybe, but not if it means dealing with you,” Mare said. “Enjoy your salad. Tip Pauline good. She’s the sole support of twelve orphan children.”
“And a dog,” Pauline said solemnly.
“And a dog,” Mare said. “Thanks for the speed with the Styrofoam, Pauline. Have a safe trip home, Xan.”
“Wait,” Xan said, and Mare paused. “This Crash. You think he’s the one you really love?”
“I don’t know,” Mare said.
“Yes you do,” Xan said and
took a deep breath. “It’s in your voice. I don’t know how I missed him, but he’s the one. Isn’t he?”
“Probably,” Mare said. “It’s definitely not Jude.”
“And you say he lives in Italy?” Xan said, and she sounded sincerely interested. Sincerely puzzled but sincerely interested.
“Tuscany.” Mare settled into the booth again. “He came back because he was ready to settle down, not because of your spell, he didn’t have anything to do with you—”
“That’s where the spell found Jude,” Xan said, half to herself. “I thought it was odd.”
“Jude’s not my type at all,” Mare said. “Maybe the spell was slow and Crash had just ridden by. He rides those bikes at suicide speeds.”
Xan nodded. “That could be. Long distances like that are tricky for finding things. I must have cast that spell a dozen times because the result was so strange.”
“Well, Jude’s a good-looking guy,” Mare said charitably. “You couldn’t have known he was that much of a loser.”
Xan shook her head. “You know, magic. After a while, you start to think it can’t go wrong.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mare said, taking her sunglasses off. “Mine goes wrong fairly often.”
“You did get the short end of the stick, didn’t you, darling?” Xan said sympathetically, reaching out again and twining her fingers with Mare’s. “But from the sound of things, you’re making up for it with your Crash. And if you’re sure he’s the one …”
She let her voice trail off, as if asking, and Mare nodded, feeling warm in the moment, connected to Xan somehow.
Xan nodded back. “Well, then, don’t screw it up. Follow your passion, Mare. Sacrifice anything for it. Your sisters, your power … real love is worth anything.”
Mare blinked. “Boy, for a minute there, you sounded like a real aunt.”
Xan smiled at her, holding on tightly, the warmth from her fingers spreading. “So you’re going to Italy. Tuscany?”
Mare nodded. “That’s where he lives. But I can’t go. I—”
“Of course you can go.” Xan sounded indignant. “My God, Mare, the man you love lives in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and you have nothing holding you here. Why can’t you go?”
Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, The Page 20