When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae

by Kirsten Mortensen

  Twenty minutes later, Libby stood beneath Dean’s loft window.

  “Dean!”

  Inside the cabin, Bo woofed.

  A minute later the door opened and Dean stepped out. He was barefoot and wearing a white tee shirt, the sleeves tight over his biceps.

  “I thought you might turn up,” he said. “Just not in the middle of the night.”

  “Is she alright?”

  “Yes, she’s fine.”

  “What did you do to your face?” He was carrying a lantern and lifted it now as he touched the scratch across Libby’s left cheek.

  Their eyes met.

  “Ran into something,” she whispered.

  His fingertips kept going when they reached the end of the scratch, brushing the side of her neck, and then his hand dropped down behind her and he pulled her in and put his mouth on hers.

  A moment later she followed him indoors, and then she followed him up the ladder to his loft.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  If Maisey was surprised to see her aunt the next morning, she was admirably discreet. Just got up and poured a third mug of coffee.

  And then the three sat down at the big wooden table in Dean’s kitchen and began a Talk. Only it quickly strayed off-topic.

  “You shouldn’t have run away,” Libby said.

  “I wasn’t running away. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Do you know what she said to me when I told her I was breaking up with Ty?”

  “Who, your mom?”

  “Yes. She said, ‘well about time. I was sure you were turning into another Libby. You don’t own him, you know. It’s about time you give Alex a turn.”

  Libby nearly spit out her mouthful of coffee. “What did you just say?”

  “She’s worried I’m turning into you.”

  “No, the other bit. About Alex.”

  “She said I should give Alex a turn. At Ty.”

  “That’s an interesting choice of words,” said Dean.

  “You’re telling me,” Libby said. She dropped her hands into her lap so Maisey and Dean wouldn’t be able to see that they were clenched into fists. Why was she so angry at Gina all of a sudden . . . granted, the woman was a fool. And that was a stunningly insensitive thing to say to her daughter, for sure. Libby should be outraged.

  But this was something else. She was more than outraged . . . she was furious.

  And then it hit her.

  That choice of words.

  Gina had said the same thing to Libby, once.

  It came back in a flash. It was a couple of months after she’d first started dating Wallace . . . Gina had been acting so weird. So glad for Libby at first, about what a catch Wallace was, what a hunk he was. Then, quite frankly, she’d begun acting jealous. It was during the summer, Gina was home from college, and they’d had some argument about something completely different and suddenly Gina had said it. “You’ve had Wallace awhile now. You should give me a turn, Lib.”

  It had struck Libby as so odd, she’d thought at first that Gina was trying to crack some kind of joke.

  Libby looked up. Dean was studying her. She forced her attention back to what Maisey was saying. “. . . and then she and Alex show up when I told her to keep Alex away for awhile, you know, to give me and Ty some time . . . I just can’t stand it anymore.”

  They sat in silence for a minute.

  “You okay?”

  Dean. Asking Libby .

  “I’m fine . . . Look, Maisey, I see what you’re saying. But still, you had no business taking off like that, not telling anybody. Your mother—she can be a jerk, sometimes, but she was worried about you.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Maisey set her jaw. “And anyway, you’re running away from her, too.”

  “No, I’m making a difficult decision.” Libby avoided both Maisey’s and Dean’s eyes this time. “Running away is taking the easy way out. I’m not taking the easy way out.”

  “I’m not a minor child. And she’s not going back to Hawaii, you know. She’s staying here. Indefinitely. She wants you to go to Hawaii for her, to help her boyfriend with the pineapple thing.”

  “I’m not going to Hawaii. I’m moving to Rochester. I’m—” Libby stopped herself. She’d been about to say, “moving in with Paul.”

  She took a gulp of coffee to hide her blush. And to give herself something to do besides check to see if Dean was still watching her.

  “Did you know she’s gotten quotes on putting in a Visitor’s Center?”

  “Huh?”

  “A Visitor’s Center. On your property.”

  “You’re kidding me. And my body not even cold yet.”

  Maisey didn’t get it, but Dean snorted appreciatively, and she allowed herself a quick glance. Bad idea. Made her blush again. He was awfully good-looking, that guy.

  “Anyway, Dean says I can stay here for a few days. Then, I dunno. I’m thinking maybe Florida.”

  “Why Florida?”

  “I dunno. They don’t get snow.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea? What about college? You were thinking about college, weren’t you?”

  She shrugged.

  Libby took another sip of coffee.

  “Maisey,” she said after a moment.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re right. I am kind of running away.”

  “Want to come to Florida with me?”

  Libby shook her head and then she met Dean’s gaze full on. “But I don’t see what else I can do. I have two options, really. Even if I toss Gina out this morning, I still have a huge publicity mess. And she’s not going to quit, she’ll just work it from town. She sees it as her ticket, I guess—”

  “It might be a bit deeper than that,” Dean said.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter what her motivations are. She’s not going to give it up. And I didn’t buy this place to be a media figure.”

  “That’s pretty defeatist, isn’t it, Libby?”

  She looked up, feeling a quick spark of temper. “It’s not defeatist to be realistic about things.”

  “Realistic? You’ve convinced yourself you’re trapped.”

  “I am trapped.”

  “Only if you think you are.”

  “You guys are fighting,” Maisey said. “I’m going for a walk. C’mon, Bo.”

  “Of course we are,” Libby said. “That was an unhelpful thing for you to say, Dean.”

  The screen door slammed behind Maisey.

  “I’m only trying—”

  “By insulting me?”

  But she’d pushed it a bit too far, because he put his coffee mug down, hard, on the table and his next words were low and forceful. “I didn’t insult you. I made an observation. You know, this may surprise you, but I like you, and I’d like you to have what you want. I’d like you to be happy.”

  “You want me to be happy? You want to do something for me?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “Fine. Here’s what you can do for me. Talk to your sister. And Tyler, too, while you’re at it.”

  “Tyler?”

  “Maisey loves him. And no offense, but Alex—”

  “What about Alex?”

  Libby gritted her teeth. Because who was she to throw stones? Her own sister, relatively speaking, made Alex look ripe for canonization. “I just think Tyler may be making a mistake, is all. And Lord knows my sister won’t intervene on Maisey’s behalf.” She glanced toward the door reflexively, but Maisey was well out of earshot, over by the edge of the clearing around the cabin.

  “I don’t see what you want me to do. I’ll admit Alex can be a piece of work—”

  “Well, then forget Alex. Talk to Ty. Have a man-to-man with him.”

  “Men don’t have ‘man-to-mans.’ That’s a myth.”

  Libby glared at him. “Is that right.”

  “Look, Libby. I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of BS—”

&nb
sp; The Iranian princess.

  “—and I’ll be damned if I’ll ever interfere that way in peoples’ lives.”

  “I’m not asking you to break anyone up,” Libby said. Kind of on purpose, to test the Iranian princess hypothesis, and sure enough, his eyes flicked to hers for a split second. But it wasn’t enough to faze him.

  “You’re asking me to tell a guy that he doesn’t know who he really loves,” he said.

  “Forget it. Forget I asked.” She stood up and carried her mug to the sink. “I have to go. I have to get back before they miss me.”

  Maisey had returned and the screen door slammed again. “You guys done? Oops, I guess not.”

  “Look, Maisey, there’s something I need you to understand. I can’t cover for you. You need to tell your mom where you are.”

  Maisey’s face crumpled.

  “I have to do what’s right, Maisey.”

  Dean caught up with Libby at the edge of the clearing around his cabin. And he was pretty angry.

  “You know, you’ve got a funny idea of right and wrong, Libby Samson.”

  “Do I? Because it seems pretty straight to me.”

  “Yeah? Straight as mud. What exactly are your plans, Libby??”

  “To go home.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you want to know? Whether I’ll sleep with you again sometime?”

  “You think that’s what this is about? Sex?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what it’s about,” Libby said, her voice rising. “But I need to go home. Right now. So good-bye. Okay, Dean? Good-bye.”

  There were brambles growing along the edge of the clearing and she felt them tear into her clothes as she forced herself through them and into the woods.

  Dean didn’t follow her. Because life isn’t like the movies. Except maybe the part about how hard it is to see when you’re trying not to cry.

  38

  She didn’t need to know what Wallace was driving to know which one was his car. It was parked in the “Employees Only” slot closest to the dealership’s staff entrance. Silver, slung low to the ground, a two-door sports coup that was as close to the shape of money as a road-worthy vehicle can get.

  Libby went into the showroom and when a portly guy in a sports jacket asked if he could help her, she told him she was there to see Wallace. He said he’d check to see if he was available, and a few moments later Wallace walked out, a fake smile pasted on his face.

  “Libby! Nice to see you.”

  “Yeah.” She kept her tone polite. “I have a quick question for you. Mind if we—”

  He led her into one of the little rooms where they seat people to discuss their financing options.

  “If this is about money, forget it, Libby. You signed the settlement, it’s over.”

  “No. It’s not about money. I just need to know something.”

  He hadn’t dropped the smile but she could smell how uncomfortable he was, and she marveled suddenly at how much they’d come to hate each other.

  Why had it taken her so long to see that?

  “I’ve got about two minutes.”

  “Just tell me if you slept with Gina.”

  He puffed out his cheeks. “Who?”

  “Gina. My sister.”

  “Libby, you called me out here for this?”

  “Just answer.”

  “No. No, of course not. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do something like that if my life depended on it, Libby.”

  He smoothed his moustache as he was talking, but she didn’t need a tell to know he was lying. Lying through his teeth.

  Time to give Alex a turn, indeed.

  “Thanks, Wallace. Because you’re lying. You did sleep with her. And I got exactly what I came here for.”

  His eyes slid nervously toward the door, but he needn’t have worried.

  She was done with him.

  For good, that time.

  39

  She probably should have marched straight home and confronted Gina.

  But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

  She didn’t really know why.

  She went to Mendon Ponds Park, is what she did. And wandered around.

  She used to go there back when she was still married to Wallace, and hike the trails and think how nice it would be to have a place in the country that was all her own. Fantasize.

  Funny how now she had her place in the country and it was less private than a county park.

  Mostly what she thought about, as she wandered around, was Paul. And about how it was Libby, this time, doing the cheating. Not that Paul and she had ever officially declared ourselves a monogamous couple. But, you know. She knew he wasn’t seeing anyone else. And she knew he assumed she wasn’t, either.

  So what. She was going to get on Gina’s case for sleeping with her ex nearly ten years ago?

  It’s not like Libby hadn’t gone over basically the same ground again and again. There are relationships, and there is sex. And they’re two different things. Libby knew all about that. She’d lived it. And now she was living it again, that’s all . . . she was just sitting on the other side of the table this time . . . Paul had a good job and he’d stuck with Libby through her divorce and even, kind of, through her buying her farm. And what did she know about Dean? Nothing. Other than how good-looking he was. For instance, how could he afford that land and that cabin? He wasn’t working, obviously. He could be some kind of crook, for all she knew. Or a gold-digger.

  People let their sexual drives make their decisions for them. Wallace did it. Gina did it. Tyler was doing it now, maybe.

  She wasn’t going to do it.

  Of course, she’d have to tell Paul what she’d done.

  She wasn’t looking forward to that.

  But he needed to know.

  The afternoon had turned hot and humid and the air along the trail she’d taken smelled rich with a swampy pond smell. A deerfly buzzed around her head and she stopped once to watch a hawk circle the sky, and then again as a black lab on the other side of the pond waited for his human to throw a stick into the water. He stood on the bank, prancing back and forth and barking until the stick splashed in the water, then he jumped in to fetch it.

  It wouldn’t be right to toss away everything she had with Paul just because Dean got her motor running. It just wouldn’t be right.

  She trudged back to her car.

  Besides. she was going to sell her place. Which meant the only thing she did have in common with Dean—that being that they were neighbors—would be gone. And then what? She couldn’t exactly see him driving up to Rochester to date her. Mr. holed-up-in-his-cabin.

  No. Her future was with Paul. As it had been, ever since Wallace served her with the separation papers.

  And if her relationship with Paul had been a little stressed, that was understandable—and it would be handled, as soon as she got rid of her property. See? It would work out fine. She’d sell her place, move in with Paul, and she’d never be around Dean’s temptations again. Problem solved.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She hadn’t been home for an hour when she realized something was up. Got to her front door and a knot of campers were escorting a couple of people toward the house. Media, again. Had to be. And sure enough, about two nanoseconds after she stepped outside, Gina was introducing her to a reporter from an outfit that publishes weekly town papers in the Rochester suburbs. Slight, balding guy, last name Templeton. He had a microcassette recorder, and there was photographer in tow, too, whose name Libby didn’t catch. Woman in her mid-thirties, dark hair with a premature gray streak down the left side of her bangs.

  Libby gave the interview. Why not? And then they walked out back so they could pose her as she pretended to work around her pie pumpkin plants. Then another set of pictures of her seated on one of the rocks from the tumbled-down wall.

  “Are they around now?” the reporter asked for the umpteenth time.

  “It’s not like that,” Libby sa
id. “I can’t explain it, really. But I’m not in the right state of mind to see them. Not with—”

  “If we move away, would that work?”

  So the reporter herded Gina and the campers to the other end of the field, and the photographer switched lenses on her camera, and Libby sat on the rock feeling foolish and disgusted with herself for letting them turn her into a spectacle. She sort of went through the motions, looking around, but of course nothing happened. So after a few minutes she stood up.

  The photographer was photographing her as she threaded around the growing beds.

  She got a couple photos of Libby with Bo, too. Libby didn’t realize the dog was around until she felt his nose press into her hand.

  Dean didn’t show himself, of course.

  The photos with Bo didn’t make it into the paper.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Great news,” Gina said later. She’d been on the phone. Libby, on the other hand, had been wandering around, looking at her house, feeling melancholy.

  “You found Maisey?” Libby couldn’t resist. She knew the answer. Maisey was still in hiding at Dean’s. Unless she’d made good on her threat to move to Florida.

  “Nah. But I know Maisey’s okay. Jade did a reading, and Maisey’s fine. I told you she would be. And anyway, I did the same thing when I was her age.”

  Libby stared at her. “No, you didn’t. You ran off with Mr. Jeffers. Maisey isn’t with her dad’s golfing buddy.”

  “Well, she’s run off with some man, what’s the difference?”

  “What makes you think she’s run off with some man?” Libby thought of Dean. But unless she was completely wrong about Dean, he was showing her a kindness. Not sleeping with her.

  “Because that’s what women do.” Gina rolled her eyes. “You’re still a prude, aren’t you, Libby? A prude, so you can’t understand that it’s all about peoples’ sex drives.”

  Libby gritted her teeth. “Gina, I suggest we change the subject. Now.”

  Gina shrugged. “You’ll never change. Anyhow, what I wanted to tell you is that Jade found a backer. We can buy your place.”

  “Oh.” They were in the kitchen. Now Libby turned her back on her sister and flicked on the water. There was a sink full of dirty dishes. As usual. She reached for the detergent.