Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2)

by Shanna Swendson

She shook her head. “But they’re not you. You’d be wearing someone else’s signature.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Why aren’t they me? They might be me, but you don’t know me anymore. Or I could grow into them.” I whirled to look at the salesman, who’d shrunk back and was pretending to mind his own business. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first shoe department dispute he’d ever heard.

  “They do look lovely on you,” he said, “and those shoes are very popular. I can show you a pair in another color, if you like.”

  “No thank you,” I said. “I want these.” I walked over to a mirror and admired myself. I’d wear these shoes on my next date with Ethan. He wouldn’t be able to resist me. I could already see how the date would go: everything would be perfect, with absolutely no weirdness; we’d go back to his place, drink that bottle of wine, and then I might have the first sex I’d had in longer than I cared to think—since my last serious college boyfriend.

  But I couldn’t use that reasoning on Mom, who still thought her little girl was a virgin. I might as well have been, considering I’d been with only one guy a couple of times more than five years ago. It was almost embarrassing how inexperienced I was for someone my age. Part of it was that I couldn’t bring myself to treat sex as casually as most people my age seemed to. Part of it was that most men acted as though they thought touching me would be like defiling their baby sister.

  That was all going to change. I was ready, and it was high time, too. I sat down and reluctantly slid my feet out of the shoes, then put my old loafers on again. “You’re really going to buy those?” Mom asked, her voice heavy with disapproval.

  “Yep, and it’s my money, so I can get them if I want to. They’ll go great with that black velvet dress.” Before she could stop me, and before I could change my mind, I handed my credit card over to the salesman. If I didn’t eat out for a month and stayed away from the bookstore, I could probably pay the shoes off in a couple of months. By then, I was sure I’d have worn them several times and my life would have changed completely.

  Once I’d signed the credit card slip and had the shoes packed carefully into a big shopping bag, I had to resist the temptation to peek in the bag repeatedly on the way down the escalators and out of the store.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Katie,” Mom said. “You were always so practical.”

  “But Mom, practical is boring. I want to do something different. It’ll be good for me to get a little wild and crazy. I’m only twenty-six, and I act and dress like a middle-aged woman. This is my chance to get out of my rut and shake things up.”

  She looked at me with wry amusement. “And you think those shoes are the key?”

  “I think it’s the attitude the shoes give me. They’re like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, only they get me away from home instead of taking me home.”

  “I’m sure you know what’s best for you.”

  I thought I did. But then I was hit by a wave of buyer’s remorse. I looked into the bag again, wondering if I should turn around and return the shoes. Who was I kidding? They were totally impractical, and me wearing those shoes would be like a Halloween costume. Nobody would believe it. They’d just think it was sweet little Katie, trying to act all grown-up and sexy. They’d laugh at me instead of being impressed.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said with a deep sigh. “Where am I going to wear these, anyway?”

  “Thank goodness. I knew you’d see reason eventually.”

  We turned around to head back to Bloomingdale’s, but we must have caught the surveillance detail off-guard, for they didn’t have time to get out of sight—and since I doubted they yet knew about Mom’s immunity, they probably weren’t concerned about staying out of sight. We nearly came face-to-face with a hovering gargoyle.

  I grabbed Mom’s shoulder and spun her around to walk in the opposite direction. “On second thought, they’ll think I’m crazy if I go right back. Let’s window-shop a while longer and then we can return the shoes.”

  As we walked away, I glanced back over my shoulder, trying silently to signal the gargoyle that it had to stay well out of sight, but it was gone.

  “Did you see that?” Mom asked, also looking over her shoulder.

  I tried to keep her moving forward. “See what?”

  “There was this thing, flying right at us.”

  “I think a little kid had a helium balloon. The street vendors are really out today. Want to buy a designer knockoff purse?”

  She glanced over her shoulder again. “No, I don’t think it’s on a string.”

  I looked behind us, but the gargoyle must have finally caught a clue and ducked out of sight. I’d have to have a word with Sam about his people. This one seemed a bit slow. “Well, there’s nothing there now,” I said, steering Mom around the corner.

  “Why don’t you return the shoes now, and then we won’t have to worry about coming back.”

  I peered into my shopping bag and even opened the shoe box lid a crack so I could admire the red stilettos. “On second thought, I’ve changed my mind. I want to keep them. They’re the most beautiful shoes I’ve ever owned.”

  She shook her head wearily. “Well, if you say so. But I’m not letting you spend anymore money today.”

  “There’s nothing more I want to buy.”

  “Then we can get lunch. I want to go to a deli, like in the movies.”

  This part of town wasn’t my usual stomping grounds, but you can’t swing a dead cat in Manhattan without hitting a deli, so finding a place for lunch wasn’t too difficult. I doubted that the fact that there was an available table at the first deli we found on a day like today was a good sign of quality food, but I didn’t feel like looking for anything else, so we settled in for lunch. It’s pretty hard to mess up a corned-beef sandwich. I pondered trying on my new shoes again while Mom studied the menu.

  “I guess I’ll just get a sandwich at these prices,” she said. “But will that be enough?”

  “It should be more than enough. We could probably even share one sandwich. They make really big sandwiches around here.”

  “Hmm. Or maybe I could try matzo ball soup. I’ve never had that before. What’s it like?”

  “It’s like chicken soup with big, round dumplings in it.”

  “Oh.” She frowned at the menu some more, then looked up and blinked. “Isn’t that your friend over there?”

  I turned to see where she was pointing. “Over where?”

  “Leaning against that wall.”

  The entrance to the deli was crowded enough that it was difficult to make out if anyone leaning against the wall was someone I ought to know, but then a tall, thin man emerged from the crowd and walked toward us, a smug smirk on his face—I mean, even more smug than normal, which was pretty smug. “Oh, that friend,” I said. “And he’s not really a friend.”

  It appeared that Owen had been wrong about one thing—which might have been a first. Idris wasn’t after him. He appeared to be focusing on me. If Idris had been targeting Owen, he’d be up in some village on the Hudson, disrupting Owen’s weekend with his foster parents. And from what little Owen had said about his foster family, I got the distinct impression that he’d welcome the distraction. I, however, would have preferred to skip the intrusion.

  My glower didn’t appear to bother Idris in the least, though. He walked up to our table, pulled out a chair, and plunked himself into it. “Mind if I join you?” he asked rhetorically. “It could take forever before I get a seat on my own.”

  It was a situation Emily Post didn’t cover: What do you do if your sworn enemy invites himself to join you and your mother for lunch, and you don’t want your mother to know you even have sworn enemies? The only answer I could think of was to act like it was no big deal. That would probably drive him crazier than anything else I could do. And it wasn’t as if he could use magic to harm either of us or do anything else to us in that crowd.

  “Please, join us,” I said with a cyanide-lac
ed saccharine smile. “Mom, this is Phelan Idris. You probably remember him from the other night, when he left before I could introduce you. I know him from work.” Which was true enough. “Mr. Idris, this is my mother, Mrs. Chandler.”

  I had to fight back any signs of triumph at how intensely uncomfortable he looked with formal manners. “Um, hi,” he said, fidgeting in his seat. I wished now that we’d gone to some froufrou ladies-who-lunch restaurant where he’d have been even more out of place. Mom narrowed her eyes at him. Clearly, she thought he couldn’t come from good people to be so lacking in manners.

  I continued acting like I was hosting a tea party. I might not be able to zap him the way Owen did, but I could Southern-belle him to death. “What brings you out today? Getting a start on your Christmas shopping?” I asked with fake cheer.

  He fidgeted some more, looking like a six-year-old his first time at the grown-up table. “Um, well, uh,” he said, quite eloquently. It was hard to believe that this was the guy who had all of MSI up in arms, the reason Merlin had been brought back to lead the company. He was nothing more than a geek with delusions of grandeur.

  The waitress came to take our orders. After Mom and I ordered lunch, and Idris ordered a coffee, I said, “That will be on one check.” Then I turned to Idris and said with my sweetest, most honeyed drawl, “It’s so nice of you to treat us to lunch like this. I guess you’re doing great now that you have corporate clients like that winery.” His mouth opened and closed, but the waitress was gone before he could say anything. The absolutely gobsmacked look on his face told me that I’d been right about the source of that spell the winery had been using. I had no illusions of him actually paying our check, but his reaction was funny, and Mom would be even more unimpressed with him when he bailed and left us paying for his coffee. He might be the one man she met while in New York whom she didn’t try to set me up with.

  He must have regained his footing by the time the waitress brought him his coffee, for he traded his deer-in-the-headlights expression for his more typical sneer. “So, you’re brave enough to go out shopping without your boyfriend,” he said.

  I didn’t have to respond to that one. Mom jumped in faster than I could. “Don’t be silly,” she said, even more syrupy Southern than I was being. “She wouldn’t drag her boyfriend out shopping. This is a girls’ day out.”

  Go, Mom! I thought. That apparently wasn’t the reaction Idris was expecting. To be perfectly frank, I wasn’t sure what he was after. This seemed to be merely a nuisance call, something intended to keep me off-balance. Well, I wasn’t going to let it work. “Yeah, I needed a day out. Things are getting so busy and hectic at work,” I said, then waited to see how he’d respond.

  “Yes, I imagine they are. And things will probably get busier very, very soon, so I hope you’re up to the task—in every possible way.” He emphasized every other word or so, like he was embedding extra meaning into his simple statement. He might as well have swirled his cape and said, “Mwa ha ha!” That would have been more effective as a threat. As it was, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I suspected that my theory about him just wanting to throw us into chaos was proving accurate.

  “You can bet Katie will be up to any task,” Mom said. “She’s our little go-getter.” I turned to stare at her in shock. Did it take being forced to sit with the bad guy for her to praise me without qualifiers? I almost felt like I owed Idris a favor.

  The waitress brought my sandwich and Mom’s bowl of matzo ball soup. Mom picked up her spoon, then shrieked and shoved the bowl away. “Mom, what is it?” I asked, trying to see what was wrong but distracted by the way Idris was smirking.

  She was beyond words, which is really saying something when it comes to my mother. All she could do was point with her spoon at the soup bowl. I couldn’t find anything wrong with her soup. “Those are just matzo balls,” I explained. “I guess I didn’t describe them right. They’re not the kind of dumplings we make back home.”

  “Are they supposed to blink?” she asked.

  Idris giggled, and I turned to glare at him. As I did so, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the matzo balls were, in fact, blinking. They weren’t matzo balls at all. They were eyeballs. I screamed almost as loud as Mom had. The really gross thing was that if Mom and I saw the eyeballs, it wasn’t just an illusion. There really were eyeballs floating in the soup bowl. Ewwww. I’d never be able to eat matzo ball soup again.

  The waitress came over, probably drawn by the screams. “How is everything?” she asked. Then again, maybe not. Either she hadn’t heard the screams, she was tuning them out like a good New Yorker, or Idris was blocking out the fun at our table from the rest of the deli. In the latter case, I was grateful to him, but the good deed was more than mitigated by the trick he’d played on Mom.

  “I don’t think the soup was quite what she expected,” I told the waitress, handing her the bowl with my eyes averted so I wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with the soup. You never want to make eye contact with your soup. “Could we maybe get some plain old chicken noodle?”

  The waitress studied the soup bowl like she couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Now that she was holding it, I couldn’t see anything wrong, either, but I suspected Mom had lost her appetite for matzo balls, judging by the sickly green shade of her face.

  Idris was still giggling. I’d have loved to read him the riot act about playing magical practical jokes, but I couldn’t do that without spilling the beans to Mom. Fortunately, Mom could more than take care of herself. “Young man, it’s rude to laugh at other people’s discomfort,” she scolded. “Do they not teach manners up here? Really, Katie, I question your choice of friends.”

  “I never said he was my friend,” I muttered while trying to get my leg into a position where I could kick him in the ankle under the table without stubbing my toe on the metal post supporting the table. Then I pushed my sandwich over to Mom. “Here, why don’t you eat this? I guess the soup was a little too exotic for you.”

  Mom didn’t even argue, which told me how upset she was. Normally, she’d play the suffering martyr role to the hilt, gladly (and noisily) starving. I had no doubt that she fully believed matzo balls were really eyeballs, and she’d be telling everyone back home all about it.

  She took a tentative bite of the corned-beef sandwich—like she expected it to moo at her. I held my breath, not sure what to expect, but I soon realized that his next prank had nothing to do with food. One by one, the other patrons in the deli stood and formed a chorus line. With precision to rival the Rockettes, they launched into a synchronized dance number. All I could do was stare openmouthed as elderly women, paunchy middle-aged men, teenaged girls, and every other type you might find in a Midtown deli at lunchtime tapped and shuffled their way across the floor like it was the most normal thing in the world.

  I chanced a nervous glance at Mom, sure this would be enough to send her straight over the edge (not that she was all that far from the edge to begin with), but she was staring at the impromptu chorus line in delight, her eyes shining. I looked back at the dancers, dreading the high kicks that were sure to come at the end of the number. Most of these people looked like they’d need traction if they tried something like that.

  The funny thing was, although I couldn’t hear any music, I felt like I was listening to the same catchy tune all the deli patrons were dancing to. I couldn’t help but tap my feet under the table. I forced myself to stop, stubbornly wrapping my ankles around the chair legs so I could resist the urge to join the chorus line.

  I had no doubt that Idris was behind this. It looked a lot like the results of that control spell he’d been selling earlier, the one I saw Owen and Jake testing and that had been used during the wine dinner. I forced my eyes away from the dancers, who were moving into a Busby Berkeley formation that probably looked stunning from the ceiling, and turned toward Idris. He was pale, and sweat ran down his face, but he looked more caught up in the happenings than Mom was. He move
d his fingers and the formation changed. All we needed now was a fountain rising from the middle of the deli, or maybe a giant staircase for showgirls to float down.

  The waitress came out of the kitchen, carrying a tray loaded with food, then froze in shock. Idris caught my eye and grinned—a non-sneering, nonthreatening grin, for a change. “Watch this!” he said. A moment later, the waitress’s tray turned into a feathered fan, and she began darting in and out of the line of dancers with surprising grace, waving her fan in front of her.

  Idris laughed in delight. “Ooh, and how about this?” he said, still grinning. Soon the sounds of cookware being banged in rhythm with the dance came from the kitchen. “Good one, huh?” he asked. He looked like a little kid with a new toy. “Maybe they should dance, too.” One by one, the cooks came out of the kitchen, still banging pots and pans, to join in.

  Idris must have improved the spell, for it seemed to work better than the earlier versions had. I waited for him to spring the big surprise on Mom and confront her with the evidence of magic, or maybe to blackmail me into quitting MSI, but all he did was add more and more details to his extravaganza.

  Then it hit me: our evil archvillain had a raging case of ADD. He had the attention span of a toddler on a sugar high. He couldn’t maintain a good threat long enough to do any real damage before he got sidetracked by something shiny. The real danger wasn’t that he would take over the world. It was the chaos he could stir up while entertaining himself. He was more Dr. Evil than Dr. No.

  Finally, he let out a gasp, then slumped onto the table, drenched in sweat. Around the deli, the patrons stopped dancing, returned to their seats, and collapsed, rubbing their temples. The waitress’s fan became a tray once more, but she didn’t get it settled before the soup hit the floor. She sank into the nearest chair, looking weary. The cooks joined her. I remembered the headache Owen had after a spell much like this one had been tested on him, and he’d only been under the influence for a few seconds. I could only imagine how these people must feel.