by Ann Macela
She started up the path after her parents.
“Marcus Forscher seems like a nice young man,” her mother said as they walked to the house.
“Yes, very bright and quite personable,” her father said as they climbed the stairs to the porch.
“I do wonder about his childhood, though,” her mother said as they went inside.
“Yes, boarding schools at an early age, and calling his parents by their first names,” her father said as they walked into the kitchen.
“I can only imagine what he usually eats. I had the distinct impression he was very apprehensive when he tried his first bite of the salad,” her mother said as she sat down at the table.
“Probably doesn’t like ‘fancy’ food. No telling how all that boarding school and restaurant food affected his eating habits,” her father said as he also took a seat.
Gloriana put her hands on her hips and glared at them. “Will you two stop?”
“Stop what?” her mother asked, a look of innocence on her face.
“I’m sure you have something to say about Forscher, so spit it out. You discussed what a ‘nice young man’ he is and what his parents must be like while we were in the living room. Okay. Fine. I agree with everything you’ve said. But we’re still polar opposites when it comes to the practice of magic and probably a bunch of other things. He’s uptight, and I’m informal. He’s theoretical, and I’m hands-on. His head is in the clouds, and mine’s in the dirt. No matter what, however, I’m going to have to work with the man on these crazy debates, and I don’t expect it to be easy. So, say what you have to say.”
She stalked over to the dog’s water bowl, picked it up, filled it with water, and put it back down. When she straightened up, her father pulled out a chair and motioned to it. “Have a seat, Glori, we think you may not have realized something.”
Uh-oh. They looked concerned, truly concerned. What could they be talking about? She sank into the seat. Delilah came over and put her head in her lap and she rubbed the dog’s head and behind her ears. “What? What haven’t I realized?”
“Did you notice the way Marcus looks at you?” Antonia asked.
“Sure. That disdainful expression, like he’s not sure what I’m going to do or say, and he has to watch me like a hawk? The icy one where he hardly cracks a smile? The one where he’s about to hand down a death sentence, or maybe he smells something bad? Those looks? So what? The man doesn’t like me much. He’s arrogant and aloof. I can still work with him. Lord knows, I’ve worked with worse.” If he acted like his ol’ buddy Prick and didn’t metamorphose into Mr. Congeniality or get close so she could smell his tantalizing scent… or look directly into his blue, sometimes-not-icy eyes …
“Glori?”
At the sound of her mother’s voice, she came back from wherever she had been. She blinked, focused, sat up straight, cleared her throat. “That look?”
“I don’t think you’re reading him correctly,” Antonia said.
“Do you have any idea of the expression in your eyes when you look at him?” her father asked.
“When I look at him? I try to keep a blank or polite expression on my face. At the meeting with Ed and today, I considered us to be in negotiations. I can’t afford to go all ‘girly’ and expect to be taken seriously. Daddy, you know I make a lousy ‘sweet young thing.’“
He chuckled. “That you do, sweetheart.”
“So? What’s in my eyes? On my face? What are you two beating around the bush about?”
Her parents sighed simultaneously. Alaric sat back and said to Antonia, “You explain. You’re better at these discussions than I am.”
“Coward,” her mother muttered. She sat straight and assumed that this-is-the-way-it-is expression all the Morgan kids feared. “All right. Here’s what we’re thinking. The way you and Marcus looked at each other reminded us of how we acted when we met. It was uncanny. It wasn’t disdain in his eyes, Glori, it was lust.”
“Lust? Oh, please, Mother. The man’s cold as a glacier.” She shook her head vigorously to reinforce her statement. “I’ll admit he’s gorgeous, but he’s still icy. Lust? No way.”
“A man doesn’t go all gooey when he’s aroused,” Antonia said. “He goes hard—all over. Not simply in one part of his anatomy.”
“Mother! I understand the basics.” She could feel a flush creep up her neck into her cheeks. “And I don’t go all gooey when I look at him.”
“No, you look more like a kid in an ice cream store—exactly the way your mother did. Like you can’t believe what you’re seeing, and you really like it,” Alaric said.
“Meanwhile he looks like he’s spotted his mate—exactly the way your father did,” Antonia added.
“Wait a minute here.” Her gaze went from one to the other and she started adding up the clues. Forscher was “in lust” for her. She liked what she saw. What was the word her mother had used? M-m-m … That could only mean …
“No!” An electric shock ran through her body, and she slammed her hand down on the table. “No! That man is not my soul mate! He can’t be!“
“Why not?” Antonia asked.
Gloriana stared from one parent to the other and back. Her mother and father had gone mad. She had to come up with reasons against their ridiculous assertion. This time, however, she, who usually had an answer for every harebrained notion, couldn’t think of one word to say. She shut her eyes, gripped her skull between her hands, and rubbed hard.
Fortunately, neither parent said a word.
Finally, after a minute of almost pulling her hair out, her ability to think returned—sort of—and she managed to start talking. “Be-be-because … we don’t even like each other. We have nothing in common! We think differently. I’m concrete and tangible, grounded in the real here and now. He’s abstract and hypothetical, in the theoretical stratosphere. He’s all numbers and symbols and I’m all… something else. Sure, I use chemical symbols in my work, and numbers, too, but not at his level. Look at that equation! How much farther from the way I practice and view magic can he be?”
Okay, that was a start. She wasn’t grasping at straws. Why else? “More importantly, we hold philosophically opposite views on the practice of magic. I’m not sure if I even like him as a person. Soul mates are supposed to think alike, like the same things, especially each other. He’s perfect. Even his jeans have a pressed crease. I’m always playing in the dirt and getting it all over me. I’m sure there are other anomalies—like music, for instance. When we were in his car, he was tuned to a jazz station. I have absolutely no interest in jazz.”
Okay, here came the clincher, she was certain. “The soul-mate rules say mates are supposed to be compatible in every way. Daria and Bent and Francie and Clay certainly are. Forscher and I are not. How on earth can we be soul mates?”
“You’re both in academics and have basenjis,” Alaric offered.
“Hardly enough, Daddy, to base the rest of my life on.”
“I’m going to give you the same advice I gave your sister,” Antonia said. “Get to know the man. That’s part of the process. Before and after the debates, spend some time together. Talk about yourselves, your goals, your likes and dislikes, books, music, movies, politics, all that. See what’s inside of the shell he’s built around himself.”
Gloriana looked from one parent to the other again. They clearly believed what they were saying. With them staring at her, however, she couldn’t think, could hardly breathe. She had to get out of there. If leaving meant she was a coward, so be it. She stood up, pushed back her chair. “I understand that you mean well, but I can’t process this information. You just put my brain on overload. It’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. I’m going home. Thank you for lunch. Come on, Delilah, let’s go. The walk will do us both good.”
“Please, Glori,” her father said, “promise me you’ll think about it.”
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll do that. I’m not going to jump to any conclusion, however, yours or mine.”
>
Her mother followed her out of the kitchen and gave her a big hug at the door. “You know we want the best for you.”
“Yes, Mother. I understand.” Weariness settled over her bones. With all she had to think about and accomplish in the next few weeks, why did the burden of a soul mate—and Marcus Forscher, of all people—have to happen, in her busiest time of year?
“Finally, done.” That evening Gloriana put the last paper in the pile of graded student work, entered the grade in her computer listing, and leaned back in her chair to stretch. By sheer force of will, she’d concentrated and graded every paper in her two graduate courses. What was she going to do next?
She rose, picked up the stack, and took it to the table where she usually laid out the student papers by class. For once, the table was bare of others waiting for her attention. She looked around her home office. She didn’t feel like browsing the Internet, or looking at e-mail, especially what she’d been receiving about the debates, or even doing some of her research.
Her stomach growled, and she glanced at her wristwatch. Eight o’clock already? She headed for the kitchen. Delilah was sprawled on the rug by the fireplace and didn’t even twitch when Gloriana went by. Yep, a tired basenji was a good dog, from her point of view. She bet Samson was zonked out, too, especially if he wasn’t used to the freedom of running off a leash.
What was Samson’s master doing? Had Marcus Forscher realized the predicament they might be in? No, he couldn’t have because they weren’t… that word. She refused to even consider the notion that her parents were correct.
They couldn’t be.
How could she and Forscher ever come to terms about spell-casting, much less to the togetherness soul mates enjoyed? The pleasure of being in each other’s company, the just-between-us jokes, the sheer joy in their eyes when they looked at each other—all that she’d witnessed in her brother and sister and their spouses. She could only imagine what the intimacy between mates must be like in bed …
“Stop thinking,” she ordered out loud and started putting a sandwich together. When it was ready, she carried it and a glass of wine to the living room coffee table and sat on the couch. She turned on the television—a commercial, of course, came on immediately. She took a big bite of her sandwich and flicked open a horticultural magazine lying on the table.
She wasn’t paying attention to the program until she put her sandwich down to flip the page … and heard a man with a low, deep voice say, “Oh, my darling, we will be together forever.” She looked up to view a clinch to beat all clinches. In response, her breasts tingled, and her magic center vibrated like a plucked cello string.
Not what she needed to think of, much less witness! If she hadn’t had a mouth full of food, she’d have screamed. She grabbed the remote and clicked channels until she found some old cartoons.
Between the magazine and Bugs and Elmer, she managed to finish her sandwich.
What next? She sat back on the couch and drummed her fingers on her knees. It was too early to go to sleep. She’d eaten, so she wasn’t going to go for a run. Dead-to-the-world Delilah offered no distraction. She didn’t feel like cleaning the house; she’d done that yesterday.
She absolutely, positively did not want to sit here and think about Marcus Forscher.
Or, oh, God, soul mates.
But wait. What did she really know about soul mates or the whole phenomenon? How they found each other? About the imperative that brought them together? The SMI, as Clay called it? She’d never really discussed it in detail with other family members—not since she and Daria had that conversation where they’d concluded it didn’t exist. Yeah, right. Then Bent came along and blew their theories to smithereens. She’d helped explain magic to Francie, and Daria, as the one with the experience, had taken over the imperative explanation.
She wasn’t going to bring up the subject with her mother—not after their earlier conversation—but she had another source. She rose from the couch, took her dishes into the kitchen, poured herself another glass of wine, picked up the phone, and punched the buttons.
The phone rang on the other end. “Hello?”
“Hi, Daria, it’s me. Do you have a few minutes to talk? I have some potentially important questions.”
Her sister must have picked up something in her tone of voice because Daria hesitated before saying, “Here, talk to Bent while I move to a quiet place.”
“Hey, Glori, how are the plants?” her brother-in-law asked.
“Fine. How’s your garden?”
“Blooming like crazy. You and Antonia did your usually wonderful job on our landscaping.”
“You’re our urban test site. It better look good after all our hard work,” she teased.
Another phone was picked up and Daria said, “Thanks, Bent, I’ve got it.”
Gloriana exchanged good-byes with Bent and heard his receiver hang up.
“Okay,” Daria said, “what’s going on?”
“Mother and Daddy think Marcus Forscher is my soul mate.”
“What? How? When?” Daria practically shrieked in her ear. Her next words were considerably calmer, and Gloriana could almost hear the click when her sister went into consultant mode. “How did they arrive at this conclusion?”
“He came here today to discuss how we might control the debates and make sure we can still get our research and writing done before fall.” Gloriana sighed. Might as well tell it all. “Our parents say that he and I are looking at each other the same way they did when they first met. He concentrates on me the way Daddy does on auditing—you know that laser-beam look he gets. Personally, I think Forscher is icy, hard, and disdainful. Regarding my looks, I’m not ‘looking’ any way at all. You’ve been a negotiator, determined to make the best deal. You have to keep a poker face.”
“What’s Forscher like as a guy?”
“It’s the strangest thing, Daria. When he’s not staring at me, he can be Mr. Congeniality, charming, handsome, with a smile that wrapped Mother around his little finger. If that’s not enough, he liked her chicken salad—ate enough to stuff a buffalo. She thinks he’s great. Do I need to explain more?”
“What’s he interested in, besides spell-casting by formula and theoretical math, that is?”
“I haven’t the slightest… No, wait, that’s not true. He likes jazz. He has a dog, a basenji, no less, named Samson.”
“Samson? Oh, honey, you’re doomed.” Daria started laughing like she’d been sniffing the catnip her two cats liked.
“Ha, ha. I’m serious, Daria. I need some help. What if they’re right? What’s it like to meet your soul mate? What happens next? Am I truly stuck with him if he’s the one? Can I fight it?”
“Whoa, Glori. Slow down. First of all, when I met Bent, my magic center started itching like crazy. I found out later his did, too. Francie and Clay had the same problem, and remember, Francie didn’t like Clay, either, at first. Have you been itching?”
Uh-oh, that didn’t sound good because, with Daria’s question, a huge mosquito took a bite out of her magic center. She ignored it—and the question—to ask another. “What next?”
“Let’s simply say the attraction builds. You don’t have the problem Clay and I did when we met Francie and Bent—Marcus Forscher is a practitioner, so he’s been taught about soul mates. Brother dear and I had to convince our mates about both magic and soul mates, and it wasn’t easy for either of us.”
“I remember all too well.” She smiled at her memory of Francie’s reaction.
“As for fighting it … I don’t think you can, or not without serious injury,” Daria said skeptically before continuing in a blissful tone, “Besides, the first mating makes up for all problems.”
Gloriana did not want to discuss her sister’s love life—too much information, for sure—but she had to ask, “What about the first mating? You go to bed, have sex, and it’s done.”
“Mother never really explained this. It’s a process, not a one-time thing like I tho
ught originally. Also, it’s much more than ‘having sex.’ It’s definitely making love. For both of us couples, the bonding took several, uh, ‘matings’ to take effect. Bent and I realized it had happened when we touched each other’s magic centers and felt like we’d been struck by lightning. Francie told me they touched centers and had colored lights swirling around them that came together practically in a nova.”
“How many matings to bonding?” Not that she cared, because she wasn’t going to tie herself to Mr. Iceberg. She told herself it couldn’t hurt to have the facts.
“Oh, at least five or six. Maybe seven? I really don’t remember. When it happened—Wow!”
“What else can you tell me?”
“About your ‘fighting it’ question? Watch out for the imperative. The SMI can be vicious if you don’t give in. It didn’t bother me too much, but Bent said he felt like he’d been shot when he resisted, and Francie was sure she had a bleeding ulcer. Clay said it messed with him even after he’d given in to it, and that happened before Francie said yes.”
“Oh, joy. What pleasant times to look forward to in the middle of the damned debate. I wish I’d never written that idiotic letter to Ed. No sense regretting that, I guess. Maybe I can still hope Mother and Daddy are wrong.”
“I doubt it. Remember, Mother took one look at Bent and said he was the one.”
“Thank you so much for that recollection.”
Daria must have heard the grim sarcasm because she chuckled. “I’m sure it will all work out.”
“Yeah, right. Do me a favor in the meantime and don’t tell Francie or Clay, especially Clay, about Mother’s revelation. He’s looking for a reason to get back at me for everything I said when he and Francie were going through the process. I’m sure you’ll tell Bent, but swear him to secrecy, too, will you?”
“Okay, I promise. I can understand your hesitation, particularly when you and he seem to have little in common. If Mother’s prediction comes true, however, you’ll still be all right. Remember what Daddy says, ‘Being soul mates just gets better all the time.’“