As usual the bulk of the class made a show of solidarity, slowly nodding in ponderous agreement, letting their chins jut forward so as to suggest that there was really nothing more to be said. I wasn’t in the mood to draw anyone out.
“I agree, Piper. Ms. Austen was an observer of human nature who couldn’t resist the challenge of throwing people together and carefully nuancing the outcome by her own design. Behaving in such a way in real life could be disastrous. But there is always the chance that it could work out beautifully.”
I was counting on it.
“Anyone else?”
“If I were chatting at Starbucks with Jane Austen,” drawled Alex, a pencil tucked behind his ear, “I would have suggested she add a character or two with the balls to go up against Emma to make it interesting. Everything was too easy for her. Mr. Elton put up a little fight, but it’s not much of a fight if you spend half the time telling your opponent you’re in love with her.” He quirked an eyebrow in my direction. “I’d also suggest she skip the tea and go for the espresso.”
“Good point, Alex,” I said, glossing over the “balls” mention. “Mr. Knightley was the intended foil for Emma, but I’m not sure he really rose to the occasion as he might have. I think a little more spirited opposition from that quarter would have made him a more interesting character, and perhaps Emma an even more interesting book.” I speared him with a look, still not entirely certain he hadn’t chosen Gwyneth Paltrow over the printed word. He gave up nothing.
And for the time being he was safe.
I didn’t get a chance to check my messages until the last bell rang and I dropped into my chair with a bottle of Orange Crush from the vending machine. Every part of me felt fluttery and excited. I let my eyes slide shut at the sound of his voice, remembering.
“This call is for Cat Kennedy. This is Jake Tielman. We met at the Hitchcock shindig on Halloween, where I was an over-the-top Jimmy Stewart. I wanted to let you know that the cast is off, I’ve gone cold turkey off the hair gel and ditched the pajamas. I’m hoping I can convince you to be my date to a wedding this Saturday. Good friend, gotta go—we can pretend we’re spies if that sweetens the deal any. I still haven’t gotten to finish out the twenty questions you promised me. So please call me. This line is secure.” He added the last almost as an afterthought.
I smiled to myself, appreciating the North by Northwest reference and licking the taste of gummy orange slices off my lips for five long, luxurious, imaginative seconds before my eyes flashed open in sudden awareness. I can’t go. I’d waited long, urgent hours for this call. I’d second-guessed, made excuses, and even begun to formulate a backup plan. And now he’d called, and I’d let his voice, full of playful confidence and flirty innuendo distract me. But I couldn’t go. I was going to a wedding with Ethan. And I could guarantee we wouldn’t be pretending to be spies.
Seriously, what were the odds of me being asked to two weddings at the very last minute by two separate guys?? They were insane is what they were.
Damn, I was tired of being thwarted.
But it didn’t stop there. It was just one of those days. The journal had it in for me too.
absence may In fact produce a very desirable effect
I stared for several long uncertain moments, wondering how to take this one. With every new little snippet of advice, I went haring off on a mental scavenger hunt, trying to find the link that would bridge the clues and help me decode the secret message. It was my fault, clearly, for having entirely too much imagination and no one to keep me in check, but that didn’t ease the situation any.
This one could be referring to my recent snooping session into Ethan’s private life, or it could be playing off the clichéd sentiment about absent hearts, hinting at my growing obsession with Jake. With that interpretation, it was even possible the reference was giving me a heads-up for next week’s barbecue night with Mr. Carr and my mom. Suddenly I was tired and not particularly in the mood to puzzle it out.
I’d called the mysterious Mr. Tielman back after a fifteen-minute pity party and gotten his voice mail. I’d carefully declined, casually hinting at my other plans and a desire to meet again. I relished the feeling of playing hard to get, but I didn’t want to overdo it. I suppose if nothing else, I could attend Syd’s next event and hope to run into him there. Although. . . Syd and her crew were pretty unpredictable. Our next meeting could very well involve dining family style in the middle of an organic farm field, which didn’t exactly scream vintage vixen. I needed the man to call me again—for a night I hadn’t agreed to step in as a token wedding date.
I was starting to have a bit of trouble trying to keep track of all the little subplots in my own life. It was almost as if I was in the middle of an Austen novel, and while exhausting, it truly couldn’t have been more thrilling.
I’d made a deal with Mom: She wouldn’t object to an evening of lasagna and Yahtzee with a strange man her daughter had hand-picked for her if I’d come back to the store this week and switch out the Halloween window displays for something appropriately autumnal. Judging by the number of times Mom had managed to work Rodney into the conversation since the “meet-cute,” she’d gotten a twofer.
Ideally I would have gotten this all done on Thursday, seeing as I’d committed to a two-night extravaganza with Ethan starting Friday, but Dmitri taught Pilates on Thursdays, as I’d recently been reminded. And I wanted to feel him out on the topic of Syd. Falling victim to a slew of social stereotypes, I’d initially assumed he was gay, but after a quick little storeroom chat, I stood (flabber-gastedly) corrected. It went something like this:
Dmitri: You think I’m gay, don’t you?
Me: Not . . . necessarily. Although I’ve had an occasional suspicion.
Dmitri: Because of the fashion major, because I look like a J.Crew catalog model, or because I do Pilates?
Me: All of it?
Dmitri: I’ve got good news for you, Cate. Not only am I not gay, I’m the whole package, exactly what women want: a sexy, sensitive guy with rock-hard abs and an obsession with clothes. And I’m available.
Me: Are you flirting with me?
Dmitri: God, no.
I thought maybe I could get him on the guest list of the next Pop-up Culture event and then step back and bask in another match well made.
So on Thursday, I borrowed a bunch of outdated textbooks and classroom copies of past years’ required reading, dragged them home with me, and hunkered down in front of the television with Mom to watch a Burn Notice marathon. She’d taken the script-writing suggestion seriously and kept making mental notes to herself. Audible mental notes.
“Sam could stand to ease up on the beers a bit and work on buffing himself up. It’s pretty obvious that his Hawaiian shirt is hiding a little potbelly. Or maybe it’s not so little,” she’d opined, sliding her scissors skillfully along a roll of kraft paper.
I refrained from commenting.
“He may be charming and a sexy salt-and-pepper, but a woman needs more than that.”
I cut my eyes around at her. “A sexy ‘salt-and-pepper’? Is that a new term?”
Mom’s lips twitched. “I think my lunch bunch made it up. They tend to be rather feisty.”
“What do they call ‘women of a certain age’?”
“Cougars,” she said, giggling. I rolled my eyes and turned back to finish taping the end flaps on the book I’d just finished wrapping.
“Well, Rodney’s all that and a bag of chips, which he can eat because he doesn’t have a potbelly.”
“Not yet,” she admitted, clearly not optimistic about his chances to “maintain.”
“Well, Dad didn’t have a potbelly when you decided to split up, and he’s in even better shape now.”
“Your father likes to impress the chippies, always did. I give him full points for staying fit and attractive at his age. Sex wasn’t our problem, sweetheart. We did just fine in that department.”
I slid my finished book onto the stack and ho
pped up, looking for a quick escape. “I’m just gonna get a snack. You want anything?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a Milky Way Midnight,” she said, her attention already refocused on the diversionary explosion on TV.
I blamed Gemma for this. Her little bomb drop had liberated Mom a little too much. When my sister had decided to enroll in grad school in microbiology, Mom had informed her that she’d either need a grant or a student loan because the money she and Dad had put away for college had run out after one degree per daughter. Gemma won three separate grants, but they weren’t enough, and rather than supplement with a student loan, she decided to take a job as a phone sex operator. She spent hours every day alone in a lab and could pretty much let a phone chat run its X-rated course. Little did her call-ins know that she was wearing a Bluetooth, lab coat, and sexy spectacles and running her experiments while giving them exactly what they wanted. Or maybe they did know, and that just helped things along. I was left to deal with Mom and the sex talk.
I slipped quietly back into the living room and settled in to finish wrapping books, trying not to engage Mom in any questionable conversational gambits. It was a long night.
On Friday afternoon, I hustled out of the building after the last bell, jumped into a car overflowing with kraft-paper-wrapped books, and hightailed it down to Mirror, Mirror, parking illegally in front of the shop to unload the cascades of books. I needed to work like a fiend to give myself enough time to get dressed and ready by seven.
I requisitioned Dmitri to help me, putting him in charge of the mannequins, and did my best to have a serious conversation while squatting in the storefront window, fanning books open and folding pages into billowy loops, precise chevrons, and whatever else I could come up with.
“Have I introduced you to my friend Syd?” I asked casually. “She’s the one that started up the culinary underground business—their events tend to get pretty regular write-ups in The Chronicle.” I glanced over at him as he cinched a black patent leather belt over a mustard yellow cardigan topping a forest green wool pencil skirt.
“You’ve mentioned her, but we’ve never met.” He pulled a trio of vintage brooches from his pocket and pinned them onto the cardigan in a cluster.
“I need to get you on their mailing list—their events are Weird City renowned. From the outside they have the feel of an exclusive party with a secret password to get in, but inside it’s just cool people sipping signature drinks and eating gourmet food.”
“How many have you been to?” he said, distracted by the effort of stretching some patterned tights from beneath the mannequin’s skirt to the aubergine suede Mary Jane pumps waiting on the floor below.
Hadn’t seen that coming. “Um. . . just one. But I’ve heard about a bunch more.”
Ironically, I now had his full attention. His riot of black curls was so artfully arranged that he looked like a classical statue. In fact, that was probably what he was going for: Adonis with fashion sense. In his trim khakis and black V-neck T-shirt, he only needed to lose the chunky black frames settled on his nose. Then again, what did I know—he was the fashion major. He propped his hand on his hip. “Why just one?”
“Oh, I’ve just been really busy.”
“Doing what?” he demanded with a sardonic tone that put me immediately on the defensive.
“Plenty! But now I’ve been to one, and I’m definitely going to another.” I made sure to keep the sassy little “so there!” I was hearing in my head silent. “You should seriously consider being part of the city’s cultural underground. Who knows who you might meet. . . .” I thought of Syd, with her smoky bedroom eyes, her athletic body and well-placed tattoos, and smiled to myself.
“Uh-huh.” He turned back to the mannequin, gave her a quick once-over, and shifted his attention to the next one. “So sign me up. If it gets too pricey, you can be my sugar mama.”
I glanced over the piles of books at Dmitri, who was efficiently shimmying the skirt right off the mannequin. Clearly the man was talented. If Syd could see past those Clark Kent glasses, I bet she’d be willing to comp him the night.
Suddenly it seemed as if everywhere I looked, there was an alter ego just waiting to be unmasked.
“If I’m even going to consider being your sugar mama,” I drawled, “I’m going to need some Sugar Babies.” And Mom still had a bowl of Halloween candy on the counter. I carefully unfolded myself from my crouch, checked my watch, and limped out of the window display with the slightly exhilarating feeling that I was moonlighting as Miss Match.
Chapter 8
When Ethan knocked, I was waiting, and I slung the door open, holding it in my grip and striking a pose in the doorway. In black loafer heels, my eyes were almost level with his, and I locked onto them. His gaze roamed all over, from my charcoal gray pencil skirt to my black button-up silk charmeuse blouse with cap sleeves and red piping, all the way down to my hose and heels, and back up again to my chandelier earrings of jet beads and Swarovski crystals. Oh, and the lips. He definitely noticed my Lolita lips. And I suspect that was all he could handle.
“What the hell, Cate?” I could tell he’d tamped down on what he really wanted to say, but he seemed genuinely puzzled. Clearly he’d been anticipating a date with a schoolteacher, not a curvy, sexy siren. I bit my lip to hide my amusement.
“I’m sorry, what’s the question?”
His eyes flashed, and he put his hands out in an isn’t it obvious gesture. I softened toward him just a little. Here he was, looking very handsome in a beautifully tailored suit, come to pick up his date for the evening, and she was almost unrecognizable.
“Remember when I said I was looking for a little more excitement in my life?”
“Yeaahh,” he said, drawing the word out, probably cringing against the possibilities.
“I found some,” I confided, feeling giddy over the big reveal.
“Where’d you find it?”
“This is Austin. . . it may as well be floating in the air.” I was teasing him now.
He leaned forward a little, glanced over me again, and dragged his eyes back up to mine. Tension was high, and I was riding it.
“I created an alter ego. . . like Superman and Clark Kent, only I’m not a superhero. I’m more of a friendly femme fatale, flirting shamelessly. Meet Cat Kennedy,” I suggested, lifting my free hand in spokesmodel fashion.
“Holy crap, Batman!” Ethan blurted, his lack of creativity surprising me. I waited, certain there was more.
“So you’re just vamping up and going out? Isn’t that a little reckless? What if some guy takes you up on your shameless flirting?”
“Who says one hasn’t?” I countered waspishly, wishing one in particular had. “And what business is it of yours if one does? Fresh meat for Sunday Scrabble,” I reminded him.
He was staring at me, wide-eyed, utterly baffled, but he quickly regrouped, running a rough hand over his face, clearly trying to form a cohesive argument.
“I haven’t told you all of it yet,” I said, torn between wanting to and not.
He pulled his hand away. “Do I even want to hear the rest of it?”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said.
His shoulders slumped slightly.
I took a deep breath. “Remember that journal I found under the table at Torchy’s last week? Well, the week before you went missing?”
“Yeah,” he said warily.
“It’s a little wonky. And it definitely factors into this. Maybe I should tell you in the car. Otherwise, there’s a good chance we’ll be late, and that sort of behavior is frowned upon in a best man.”
Ethan conceded the point, turning to step down the stairs of my garage apartment. When I turned from locking the door, I found his gaze heavy on me, even in the dark, and I felt self-conscious as I carefully maneuvered the steps in heels. Things were just as awkward in the car.
“So tell me about the journal,” he said, eyeing my legs in the deepening twilight before shifting his gaze bac
k to the road. I couldn’t get a good read on him—was he disappointed in me? In my legs?
I stared at his profile, wondering how he was going to take this. It would probably be a tough sell, but I knew that going in. . . I could work with that. “The journal sort of has a mind of its own.”
“What the hell does that mean?” He glanced over at me again, and his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly in the light of a street lamp.
“It means that when I write in it, it somehow erases the words it finds. . . superfluous. And when it’s done, there’s a message.”
Ethan shot through a yellow light going over the Congress Ave. Bridge.
“What?! What sort of message?”
“The latest one said, ‘absence may in fact produce a very desirable effect,’” I told him, cursing myself for bringing up the journal. I should have known that it would be impossible to explain. Words were simply not enough; he was going to have to see it to believe me, and even then he’d have a hard time with it.
“Cate—” he said, shooting another look at me, probably in an effort to see if I was messing with him. For once, I wasn’t.
“I know. I know! I honestly have no idea what that means, but I do have a few theories about the whole thing.” Theories I’d be a little squeamish about telling Ethan. But I would, because I’d decided I needed a sidekick. He could be my behind-the-scenes code breaker slash tech guru, should an instance arise that I needed a tech guru. He could wear all black, maybe a leather jacket. . . .
“Yeah. . . ?” he said, zapping my little fantasy bubble. “Lay’em on me.” We were already pulling into a parking spot on Brazos. Ethan shifted into park and killed the engine, and suddenly it was very quiet. . . and awkward all over again. It felt weird, like I was sitting beside a stranger. He’d been gone—mysteriously—for an entire workweek, and in those five days, things had changed big-time. All because of a magical journal that, until now, had been my little secret.
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