Katie Chandler - Damsel under Stress Part 18

Seventeen.

I froze. This wasn't how I'd planned to tell my friends about magic. Then I tried to recover. "Ha, ha! Yeah, that's what we call her at work. She's like a fairy G.o.dmother to all of us in the office. She gives us such great advice on dating, relations.h.i.+ps, and stuff like that."

Marcia didn't act like she'd noticed anything odd, which made me relax a little. "It's nice to meet you, and you must be doing a good job, from what I've heard. It seems like Katie has found a good man."

"The best," Ethelinda said, beaming proudly, as though she had anything at all to do with it. "Now, if only we can make sure things work out for those two."

"Yeah, well, everyone goes through that," I said with a forced smile.

"Why don't you join us for lunch?" Marcia asked. I groaned inwardly because there was nothing I could say to stop Ethelinda from joining us and it would have been rude to uninvite her.

The hostess returned to her station and glanced at us, then asked Marcia, "Wasn't it just two in your party?"

"Our friend's going to join us," Marcia said.

The hostess then swept us back to our table. She plunked menus down and said, "Enjoy your lunch."

Ethelinda grinned gleefully once we were all seated. "I haven't had lunch with the girls like this in ages. Now, what romantic problems do you want help with?"

Marcia giggled nervously, then lined her silverware up in precise rows. "Funny you should mention it, but I did want to get some advice about something."

"Isn't that Gemma's area?" I asked. I wasn't sure it was a good idea for Marcia to talk about her love life in front of Ethelinda, not if she didn't want it completely screwed up.

"I definitely don't want to talk to Gemma about this right now. Her view of relations.h.i.+ps doesn't always match mine, and you, well, you seem to be pretty level-headed." She turned to Ethelinda and added with a smile, "And I'd appreciate any wisdom you've got, too."

"What did you want to talk about?" Ethelinda asked.

"My boyfriend, Jeff. I thought for a while that he helped balance me. He's a live-for-the-moment guy, and I'm Ms. Spreadsheet. I'm ambitious and driven. But there's balance and then there's functioning in different universes." She looked at me and said, "You knew him before I met him. What do you know?"

All I knew was that he'd been sitting naked in Central Park, thinking he'd been turned into a frog when it was only an illusion because of a practical joke spell, until I'd kissed him and broken the spell. Unfortunately, the next effect of the spell was that he became obsessed with me until he met Marcia and fell for her. "I don't really know much about him," I confessed. "I'd just run into him around town a few times."

"I don't think I'm a sn.o.b, and it's not like I'm ashamed to take him with me to work functions, but I'm not sure I can stay with him. I just think we're fundamentally incompatible on a long-term basis. I'm a grown-up, and he's like an overgrown frat boy. Do I sound horrible?"

"No. You sound sensible," Ethelinda said. "If you're not happy, then there's no need to keep at it. It's not as though you're married." Which was pretty much what I'd planned to say. Why could Ethelinda give such sane advice to my friend when she only messed things up for me?

"Gemma would say I'm avoiding intimacy, that I'm not letting anything into my life that's not in perfect order."

"Then Gemma can go out with him. It's your life," I said.

"I'm not convinced you're meant to be together," Ethelinda said.

Marcia sighed, and I could practically see the tension leaving her body. "I'm glad you see it that way, because I broke up with him last night. I guess that means I'm the fifth wheel for the New Year's Eve party, since I'll be going solo. But don't tell Gemma yet, okay? I know she'd say I should at least have a date for New Year's Eve." She chuckled. "It does make me sound like a man, breaking up right before a major holiday."

"But it also means you really didn't want to be with him, if you were willing to go dateless at New Year's," I said.

"True. And did you say that gorgeous friend of yours is going to be at the party?"

It took me a second to realize who she was talking about, since I normally didn't think of Rod as gorgeous. "Oh, yeah, he's the one hosting it."

"Is he seeing anyone?"

"Uh, Manhattan? And maybe even some of the outer boroughs. Oh, and definitely a few foreign airline flight crews. He's kind of a player. I love him to death as a friend, but I'm not sure I'd encourage anyone I cared about to date him. It would be a recipe for heartbreak if you actually liked him enough to want to go out with him more than once or twice."

"He's going through a phase," Ethelinda said. "A phase he should have outgrown by now, but I don't believe it reflects his true personality. Still, he may not be ready yet to move out of that phase." There she went again with the sane advice.

Marcia twirled her hair around her finger. "Hmm. Sounds like a challenge."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." I looked up, and wouldn't you know it, Rod was walking through the door. There had to be some unconscious spell that made the person you were talking about show up, it happened so often. "Speak of the devil," I muttered.

"Why, what a coincidence!" Ethelinda said gleefully. "Here that very young man is."

Marcia turned to look, and while her back was to the table, Ethelinda waved her hand and a soup-and-salad lunch for four appeared. Rod saw me and came straight to our table. "How are you ladies today?" he said smoothly. Marcia batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously, and I tried not to gag.

"Just great. Marcia, you remember Rod, don't you? And this is Ethel. I was just telling Marcia that she's like the fairy G.o.dmother of the office." I gave the words "fairy G.o.dmother" particular stress and hoped he'd sense her magic and figure it out.

"Yeah, that's what we say," Rod said, giving me a sly wink and the barest hint of a nod.

"Won't you join us for lunch?" Ethelinda said. "We already have food for you."

"Hey, when did that get there?" Marcia asked.

I shrugged. "The waitress brought it when you weren't looking." At that moment, the waitress came out of the kitchen with a tray, saw our table, frowned, and went back into the kitchen. The sound of raised voices filtered into the dining room as the kitchen door swung in and out.

"What romantic advice have you been giving?" Rod asked Ethelinda. I wondered if it was my imagination, or if he'd done something to alter his illusion. He was still very handsome, but it didn't seem quite so over-the-top as it usually was. Maybe I was getting used to it, or maybe the contrast with his usual appearance wasn't so strong now that he was making an effort.

"Marcia here has decided to break up with her boyfriend," Ethelinda said smugly, as though it had been her idea. I was getting the feeling that Cinderella and her prince had already worked things out, and it was in spite of the gla.s.s slippers and pumpkin coach rather than because of these things that they got together, while Ethelinda took credit and coasted on that laurel for centuries.

"Oh, really?" Rod asked, raising an eyebrow and leaning closer to Marcia. If he'd been sitting next to me instead of across from me, I'd have kicked him in the ankle. Then I realized that I still wasn't getting any sense of his usual attraction spell. The last time I lost my immunity, it had taken all my willpower to keep from throwing myself at him. Now I didn't feel so much as a nudge. Had he really given that up, or was he just being a lot more focused about it now?

Marcia gave him a rueful smile. "Yeah, I guess so. Bad timing, huh? It looks like I'll be flying solo at your party. You don't mind me coming without a date, do you?"

"I don't have a date, either, and it's my party." Rod not having a date for New Year's Eve, when he had a date for just about every night of the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, was almost unbelievable. Then again, it probably meant he was hoping to hook up with someone there without an official date to get in the way. "You can keep me company."

Marcia blushed and looked fl.u.s.tered in a way I'd never seen with her before. She had to be under a spell, but Owen's necklace gave off only a low-level hum that was probably accounted for by Rod's illusion and Ethelinda's veiling. I hadn't felt anything stronger or any surges of magic, other than when Ethelinda conjured our lunches.

The waitress, still looking confused, dropped off our check. "This one's on me!" Ethelinda declared. Money appeared on the table. I hoped for the sake of the waitress that it was real money. "And I believe my work here is done. It was lovely meeting you. I hope things work out."

We thanked her for the lunch, then I held my breath, hoping she'd leave the normal way via the door instead of her usual vanis.h.i.+ng act. If she vanished, I told myself I'd let Rod explain it. Fortunately, she did use the door. Rod soon excused himself to go take care of some final party-planning details.

Marcia and I then went uptown and met Gemma as she got off work in the garment district. "There's a huge Victoria's Secret nearby, so we can go over there and get all the accessories we need for our costumes," she said after greeting us.

Once we were inside the store, she headed straight for the bra section. She skimmed through the displays, then pulled one off a rack. "This should do the trick. It adds a full cup size. The red satin one would be really s.e.xy and would work under that dress, but you'll probably get more use out of the nude one because you could wear it under other things. What size do you wear?"

I was just about to tell her when I looked up and found myself looking straight at Mimi, my evil boss from my last job. Her smirk told me she'd heard everything Gemma had just said. She had to be feeling smugly superior, for she'd never need a padded bra. That was one of the many ways she felt she was better than me. "Why, Katie, imagine seeing you here," she said, doing a fake air kiss that I didn't bother returning. "I thought you were too sweet and wholesome for this kind of thing."

"Too sweet and wholesome to wear underwear?" I asked with exaggerated innocence. I mentally high-fived myself for having a good comeback. There was something about Mimi that always made me feel about an inch tall, even if I was no longer working for her.

She laughed. "Very funny." Suddenly, she was acting like Good Mimi. That was part of what was so evil about her. She could change personalities at the drop of a hat. She'd start the day acting like your best friend, lull you into complacency, then pounce with claws bared. "Whatever did you do with that gorgeous guy you were with the last time I saw you?" The last time I'd run into her around town, I'd had Owen with me. He'd jumped valiantly to my defense when she'd gone on the attack.

"I'm giving him a break today to rest up for New Year's Eve," I said, then grabbed something sheer and naughty looking from a nearby display. "And that would be why I'm here."

She looked at what I was holding, then glanced over at the heavily padded bra Gemma still held. "Then, word of advice-you don't want to disappoint him by starting with all that padding and then showing him the sad reality that you can't hide in that." She'd made a good, stinging barb and she knew it, so while I was still thinking of a better comeback than "I know you are, but what am I?" she turned and headed to another part of the store.

As soon as she was gone, Gemma and Marcia said in stunned unison, "What a b.i.t.c.h!" Gemma then asked, "Who was that?"

"That was the infamous Mimi."

Marcia shook her head as she watched Mimi berating a sales clerk on the other side of the store. "And I always thought you were exaggerating when you talked about her. How did you survive that long without killing her?"

"I needed the job if you wanted me to pay my share of the rent." I put the sheer thing back on the rack, then said, "Okay, show me this miraculous bra."

"You're not going to get that?" Gemma asked, raising one eyebrow.

"That? Are you kidding? It would give him heart failure."

"That's the idea."

"No, when I'm ready for that kind of thing-and I mean after we've been going out for more than a few weeks-I'd need something a little more cla.s.sy, less calculated and obvious."

"Okay, then, try the bra on," Gemma said, herding me toward the fitting rooms with Marcia at her side. They didn't give me much choice but to go with them.

That didn't stop me from protesting. "I know what size I wear," I insisted.

"It can be different in different styles. In fact, you should try a couple of different sizes."

I really dug my heels in when they followed me into the fitting room. "I can do this alone, thank you very much." Gemma and Marcia ignored me, barging into the small room with me.

I changed out of my top, and with my back turned I took off my bra and tried on the one Gemma handed me. Then I turned around to get their opinion and found that they were holding my blouse, my purse, and my coat. "Okay, since we're all here, we need to talk," Gemma said.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"We're having an intervention," Marcia said.

"A what?" I moved toward the door to get away from them, then realized that unless I wanted to go out in just a bra, I was stuck because they were holding my blouse and coat.

"We're worried about you," Gemma said. "You've been acting odd lately. And we've been getting the feeling that you're lying to us about something."

"You never used to lie to us," Marcia added. "You can't tell a good lie and not look like you're lying, which is why we know you're hiding something from us. But we want you to know that no matter how bad it is, you can talk to us. We'll try to understand, and we'll be here for you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, sure I was proving their point about looking like a liar. "And do we have to get into this here?"

"We planned to do this here," Marcia said. "At home, you could lock yourself in the bathroom or go out. But right now, you're stuck, and you have to listen to us."

"Y'all are blowing this out of proportion," I said, feeling frantic.

"You've got symptoms of drug abuse, or maybe mental illness," Gemma said. "I looked it up on the Internet. You're gone a lot with no explanation, you lie about where you've been, you're a.s.sociating with different people. You don't enjoy things you used to enjoy."

"I've got a new job," I pointed out. "Of course I'm a.s.sociating with new people, and I'm gone more often because I have more responsibility."

"This job is on the up-and-up, isn't it?" Marcia asked. "And the new boyfriend, he's not a drug dealer or an abuser, or anything like that?"

"You met him. What do you think?"

"I spent about twenty seconds with him before you hustled him out the door. Hey, wait a second, you aren't ashamed of us with your new work friends, are you? You didn't seem crazy about your friends joining us for lunch today."

"No, it's not like that at all." I tried to think of an explanation, but I was afraid I'd only make matters worse since they were definitely onto my lies and cover-ups. As a last resort, I decided on telling the truth-well, some of it. "It's just weird to mix worlds like that, you know? I've always had my work friends and then y'all, and I never had to mix the two groups. I kept my personal life and my work life separate. Now that I'm dating someone from work and some of my coworkers have become real friends, it feels like my worlds are colliding, and it's taking some adjusting." Oh boy, was it. "I mean, look at how freaky it was to run into my old boss here. Lunch today was that kind of thing for me."

Gemma handed me my blouse. "We just want you to know we're here for you if you ever want to talk. And that bra fits you perfectly. You should take it."

"But we will be getting to know your boyfriend better at the party so we can be sure about him," Marcia added.

"I can a.s.sure you he doesn't have me under mind control, and he's not trying to recruit me into a dangerous cult and separate me from my friends and family. Now, can I have some privacy?"

They were waiting out in the store when I returned, fully dressed and my wits more or less about me. This had been possibly the closest call I'd yet had in hiding my magical double life. Gemma had picked out a pair of flesh-toned fishnet tights. Mimi was torturing a sales clerk by making her open and search through every drawer to make sure the bra she wanted wasn't hiding from her. I certainly felt the clerk's pain. I was sure that as soon as the salesgirl found the bra, Mimi would change her mind and want to find a different one.

I'd just checked out and was moving toward the store exit when Owen's necklace went nuts. It was vibrating so hard it was almost painful. That meant big magic was in use nearby. Even without the necklace I'd have felt the power flying around. Before I had a chance to react, someone grabbed me and pulled me toward the exit.

Gemma and Marcia flew into action, hitting the guy holding my arm with their shopping bags and purses. My attacker was probably my old friend, Mr. Bones. Under my roommates' a.s.sault, he let go of me, but I wasn't sure where to turn. I didn't want to run out of the store because there were likely more goons out there waiting for me. I threw a few good kicks into the mix, and soon he was the one running from the store.

But that didn't stop the chaos. When the door opened to let my would-be kidnapper out, something else seemed to come in. I still felt magic in use and wondered if my magical bodyguards had come on the scene. I hated being without my magical immunity because it meant I could only guess at what was going on. A negligee-clad mannequin toppled over, then tried to right itself before falling over on the other side, right on top of Mimi. This time, she was the one to shove the mannequin upright, but she didn't seem to notice that she had something lacy and filmy hanging off the back of her head. That sight alone made up for the scary moments earlier.

"Let's get out of here," Gemma said. She and Marcia each took one of my arms and marched me out of the store. "That was bizarre. See why we're worried about you?"

"Hey, you're not blaming me, are you?" I asked, trying to keep up with their longer strides. "Did you think I set that up?"

"Of course not, but that guy went straight for you," Marcia said.

"It was random. Crime often is, you know. I was the closest one, and maybe I looked distracted because my friends had just accused me of being crazy or doing drugs, so I was an easy target."

"But then all that other stuff started happening," Gemma said. "Things flying, mannequins falling over."

"Okay, I admit it," I said, pulling my arms out of their grasp and throwing my hands in the air in defeat. "I've got magical powers, and I used them to torment Mimi. Are you happy now?"

Gemma laughed. "Well, you might have a point there. We can't blame you for that. It was just typical New York weirdness. But you are okay, aren't you? You'd tell us if something was wrong?"

"I'm okay," I insisted, skipping over the part about telling them. They didn't seem to notice my omission as they nodded and put their arms around me. I still had a feeling they weren't going to stop worrying about me anytime soon.

As I sat New Year's Eve with a head full of hot rollers while Gemma painted what felt like an inch or more of makeup onto my face, I wished I'd gone for Owen's stay-at-home idea. "Hold still and don't blink," she ordered, waving an eyeliner brush at me. I was almost afraid to look at myself in the mirror when she was through.

When I did get the nerve to look, I didn't recognize myself. She'd done a cat's-eye effect with eyeliner and eyeshadow, and she'd managed to make my lips look plump and red. "Now, go get dressed," she said, "and then we'll do your hair."

By the time I got on the pneumatic bra, the fishnet tights, the red dress, and my red shoes, I felt I'd been transformed even more. With the help of the bra, I almost filled out the top of the dress so that it hugged every curve-natural and artificial. Gemma took out the hot rollers, instructed me to bend over and shake my head while running my fingers through my hair, then patted the tousled waves into place and sprayed thoroughly with hair spray before sticking on the horned headband. "There we go," she said, admiring her creation with satisfaction. "One she-devil."

I had to admit, I looked pretty good, though even with my hot red outfit I wasn't sure I was anywhere near as s.e.xy as Gemma was in her skintight black catsuit and knee-high black stiletto boots. And then Marcia came out of the bathroom.