Katie Chandler - Damsel under Stress Part 19

We almost didn't recognize our own roommate. She wore a Marilyn Monroestyle dress, and with her hair curled she looked very much like Marilyn. It was more overtly s.e.xy than I'd ever seen her. "What do you think?" she asked, sounding a little unsure.

"You'll have to walk over at least one subway grating," I said, and she grinned as she mimicked the famous pose.

The buzzer from downstairs sounded and Gemma ran to answer the intercom. A moment later, she opened the door to let Philip in. He was dressed like a storybook version of Prince Charming, complete with cape and crown. He gave all of us a sweeping bow, then put a green frog mask up to his face. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud. He gave me a sly wink as he took the mask away from his face. "Is my costume adequate?" he asked.

"It's great," Gemma said, stepping forward and giving him a quick kiss.

"Absolutely brilliant," I agreed.

The buzzer sounded again, and this time it was Owen. When he came upstairs, he was wearing a tux and a full-length opera cape. His eyes went huge when he saw me, and he'd just started to blush when Marcia asked him, "And what are you supposed to be?" With a sigh and a pained look at me, he put on a broad-brimmed black hat and the Phantom mask. Marcia nodded in approval. "Nice, but I think you might be a little too cute under that mask to be a proper Phantom of the Opera."

He turned one of his better shades of red. "I guess we're ready to go," I said, trying to direct attention away from him even as I wished Marcia had given him a chance to react fully. It wasn't often that a man looked at me that way, and I didn't get the full effect of that look when he had the mask on. "Shall we head downstairs and try to get a couple of cabs?"

"Wait a second," Gemma said, turning to Marcia. "Where's Jeff?"

"He's not coming tonight." Marcia picked up her coat. "Let's go."

Owen took his mask off. "I called for a car, if you don't mind."

"Not one bit," Gemma said, blowing him a kiss that made him turn pink again. "Thank you."

As we all trooped downstairs, I hung back with Owen. "Nice cape and hat," I said.

"I borrowed them from James. I headed up there for a short visit last night. I was scolded for not bringing you. And, by the way, I, um, like your costume. It's a little out of character, but maybe it's an entirely different side of you. One that could be fun for an evening, I suspect."

"Thank you. I think." I didn't dare look at him because I was sure I was turning redder than my dress. I couldn't help but wonder what he meant about my she-devil persona being fun. We got down to the sidewalk, and before we joined the others, I glanced at him. "When you said you ordered a car..." The look on his face said it all. "Oh, no, you didn't."

But the squealing tires of the car that came to a stop with one of its front wheels on the curb said it all. Instead of the two goofy gargoyles, though, one man got out of the driver's seat. He had bulging eyes and Rocky's long, thin face, but his legs were short and stocky. Owen and I sat in the front seat, with me in the middle next to the driver(s), and the others got in the backseat. "And, we're off!" Rocky's voice said as we shot out into traffic. My friends didn't seem to notice anything strange about the driving, but I clutched Owen's hand and squeezed my eyes shut during most of the trip.

The party turned out to be in a s.p.a.cious SoHo loft with large arched windows overlooking the street many floors below and cast-iron columns throughout the room. Rod greeted us as we entered. He wore a purple frock coat that reminded me of the Gene Wilder version of w.i.l.l.y Wonka. "You remember my roommates Gemma and Marcia?" I said. "And this is Philip, Gemma's boyfriend."

Rod kissed the girls and me on the cheek and shook Philip's hand. Then he turned to Owen, who was back in full Phantom regalia, and did a mock double take. "And who are you, stranger?"

"Not Robin Hood this time," Owen said. "Now, if you'll excuse us, there are some shadows I need to haunt on the other side of the room." He swept me away with an arm around my waist.

"Don't get too deep into character," I teased him. "I mean, unless you really want to drag me off into the bas.e.m.e.nt away from all these people." We were fairly early, but the place was already packed. With the costumes, it was hard to tell who was who. I'd left Owen's necklace at home, a.s.suming the place would be full of magic, so I couldn't even tell how many people were wearing illusions instead of real costumes.

"The bas.e.m.e.nt idea is tempting, but we should probably save it for later," he said, scanning the room. "Do you want something to drink?"

"Sure. Whatever you can get to easily."

He took off into the crowd, and while I waited for him, Gemma and Philip joined me. "I think that costume went to Marcia's head," Gemma said. "She's back there flirting with your friend." I glanced across the room to see Marcia doing the Marilyn over the subway grate pose in front of Rod.

"Isn't that the idea of a costume party? To leave yourself behind and have fun?" I asked.

"I just hope she doesn't regret this later."While Gemma glared in Marcia's direction, Philip sidled up to my other side. I still had to fight off a fit of the giggles when I saw his frog mask. "I must thank you for your referral to the attorney," he said.

"You're welcome. And how are things going?"

"Ethan and I have a meeting with them to raise the issue after the holiday."

"Good luck with that."

A masked pirate with Tinkerbell at his side then joined us. I recognized the fairy as Trix, which meant the pirate had to be Ethan. He wore leather pants and a s.h.i.+rt open almost to his waist, and I didn't think the hoop earring he wore in one ear was a clip-on. When he decided to explore the wilder side of life, he didn't do things halfway.

"Katie? Is that you?" Trix asked, then gave a tinkling fairy laugh.

"Yeah, I'm expressing my inner self." I gave my pointy tail a swish for punctuation.

"You couldn't be evil if you tried," Ethan said.

Philip perked up when he heard Ethan's voice. "Mr. Wainwright?" The two of them then recognized each other and were soon lost in legal conversation.

"What's up with them?" Gemma asked.

"They're working together on some business thing. It's a very small world." And even smaller when you factored in magic. Then I remembered that Trix was still there, left stranded while her date talked shop. Ethan might have been interested in exploring the wilder side of life, but he was still a lawyer, first and foremost. "Gemma, you remember Trix, don't you?"

"Oh yeah. Hi. I almost didn't recognize you with the wings. Great costume!"

Owen showed up then with drinks. I couldn't see his face well behind the mask, but I could tell he was fl.u.s.tered. "You would not believe the wait at the bar," he said as he handed me a drink. "I'm not even sure what this is. I just grabbed what I could get my hands on."

"If it's wet, I'm happy."

Gemma slunk over to Philip and whispered in his ear. I wasn't sure what she said, but soon she was leading him to the dance floor. Trix and Ethan weren't far behind. "Do you want to dance?" Owen asked, with a tone to his voice that told me he'd love me forever if I said no.

"The only time I can remember dancing in public was when I was under a spell, and I don't intend to change that anytime soon."

"Thank you," he said. "It's actually more fun to watch everyone else make fools of themselves. Gloria taught me to waltz and foxtrot, of course, but I don't think you can do that to this music."

Philip certainly seemed to be trying. He had Gemma in a proper ballroom dance hold and moved her smoothly around the floor to the beat of the thumping house music. It worked better than I would have thought.

"What I'd really like to find is a place to sit down," I said, trying to wriggle my toes within my shoes.

"These shoes aren't made for standing around for long periods of time." I was already losing feeling in my middle toes.

"There are some chairs over there. And they're even empty."

"You hurry over and grab them, and I'll hobble behind you." As hot as these shoes were, I never would have bought them if I hadn't been under an enchantment at the time, but now I was stuck with them. They were impressive, but they were best for occasions spent mostly seated. "Ah, that's better," I sighed as I sat down.

The room was getting more and more crowded by the minute, and though we were far from the main dance floor, the dancers were getting closer to us. That made for prime people-watching. I soon began to wonder if inviting my friends was a good idea. It would be hard for them to avoid noticing that there were some pretty odd things going on. Then again, would anyone really think that odd meant magical if they didn't know the truth?

"You'd better look out for your friend," Owen said, gesturing toward the dance floor. I followed his gesture until I saw Marcia dancing rather closely with Rod.

"She just broke up with someone, so he wouldn't even need to turn on the juice to lure her in. He may be just what she's looking for."

"And she may be more than he can handle, from what I can tell. This could be interesting."

I thought for a second that I saw Ethelinda on the dance floor, but it turned out to be Isabel, Rod's secretary, dressed as a fairy G.o.dmother. She looked much as Ethelinda must have looked a few centuries ago in her prime, but wearing only one outfit and about four times Ethelinda's size. I was pretty sure Isabel was part giant.

She danced up to us, waving what I hoped was a toy wand. "Hey, you two," she boomed. "Great costume, Katie, and I presume the mysterious gentleman with you is one Mr. Palmer."

Owen raised his mask slightly to verify his ident.i.ty and gave her a smile.

"Why aren't you two on the dance floor?"

We looked at each other, then Owen said, "Watching everyone else is more fun for us."

"It gives us better office blackmail material for after the holidays," I added.

She fluttered her fake wings at us as she returned to the dance floor. Others might have considered us to be wallflowers, but I had a good time sitting with Owen and trying to guess the ident.i.ties of the various party guests in their costumes. Marcia and Rod were still dancing together, and still quite close. From what I'd heard about Rod's social life, that may have been the longest he'd spent with any one woman in years. Philip had finally given up trying to ballroom dance in that crowd and was attempting to follow Gemma's more contemporary dance style, even as he seemed to be a bit distracted by that catsuit. At least one fairy was floating and spinning above the crowd, and if I saw it, that meant my friends could see it, so I hoped they were too busy dancing to notice.

"I'd say it's a successful party," I remarked to Owen.

"Rod does know how to throw a party," he said. He checked his watch. "It's not long until midnight. I'd better fight my way back to the bar to grab some champagne."

While he was gone, I slipped my feet out of my shoes and pointed and flexed my toes a few times to try to get the circulation going again. As I bent to put my shoes back on, a sudden wave of dizziness struck me. Maybe I should have asked Owen to grab some food before he got the champagne, I thought.

Owen returned more quickly than I expected. "They had the champagne all lined up on a table," he explained. After he handed me my gla.s.s, he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew two of those party things you blow into and make uncurl. "And we have something to help us usher in the New Year," he said, handing me one of those. "I wasn't sure if you'd want one of these or one of the noisemakers, but I figured there's enough noise in here."

"Very good choice," I said, then blew it at him.

The band stopped playing and Rod took the microphone. "Are we ready for the countdown?" he asked.

Owen and I stood up and moved to join the rest of the crowd. Everyone counted down from ten together, then balloons and streamers floated down from the ceiling-where I hadn't noticed anything hanging previously-and everyone cheered. Owen and I clinked our gla.s.ses together, then he leaned forward to kiss me. "Happy New Year," he said.

"And happy New Year to you, too."

I drank my champagne, and then things started to get a little fuzzy. And then things went kind of blank.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed with a killer headache, in my bedroom, in our apartment, and still wearing the red satin dress and fishnet tights.

Eighteen.

I t was hard to tell what time of day it was from inside my bedroom because so little light came through the airshaft no matter what time of day it was, but this didn't look like morning sun. I had to squint and force my eyes to focus so I could read my bedside alarm clock. The clock had to be wrong. It said it was nearly three in the afternoon. That was impossible. It would mean I was missing about fifteen hours, since the last thing I remembered clearly was kissing Owen at midnight.

I reached to rub my aching head and found the horned headband, still clinging precariously. Removing it eased the headache a little bit, but not enough. With a supreme effort, I willed myself into a sitting position. Maybe a shower would help, I thought, if I could make it all the way to the bathroom. The wooden floor seemed to have turned to ice, it was so hard to keep my feet under me, and I had to hold my arms out like a tightrope walker to maintain my balance.

A long, hot shower didn't do as much to clear my head as I hoped. A large part of my brain was still out cold and the other part was having to lug it around like deadweight. My balance had improved some, so navigating the path back to the bedroom wasn't quite as difficult as the walk to the bathroom had been. I threw on a sweat suit, and then I ventured out into the living room. I wasn't yet sure I wanted to know what had happened during all those missing hours, but I was sure my roommates would tell me.

"It lives," Marcia said drily from her seat at the dining table when I shuffled in. Gemma glanced up from the fas.h.i.+on magazine she was reading with a grunt.

"Yeah, it lives. More or less," I said, sitting very carefully on the sofa to make sure it was where I thought it was. I felt like I had a skewed perception of the world, as though everything was just a bit off from where it seemed to me to be. I noticed as I sat down that one of my red stilettos lay on the floor in front of the door. There was no sign of the other one. Maybe Prince Charming had snagged it when I lost it while fleeing the ball and he'd use it to find me again. "Would anyone mind filling me in on what happened after midnight? 'Cause I'm drawing a blank."

"Oh, it's quite the saga," Gemma said. "I'm not sure we have time to tell the whole story."

"How about we start with what should be the easy part: How did I end up at home and in bed?"

Marcia got up from the table and came over to stand in front of me. "When things got out of hand at the party, Owen and Philip dragged you out of there. Owen called for a car to drive us home. Owen and Philip got you up the stairs between them, and then Gemma and I threw you in bed."

I nodded. "Okay. That makes sense. Well, the coming home part does. But what do you mean by things getting out of hand?"

"Ha!" Gemma's response was somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

"Come on, y'all. What happened? I'm missing a lot of time here, and I don't know why. I remember kissing Owen at midnight, and after that everything is a big blank."

"Let's just say I never had you pegged as a mean drunk." Marcia tossed her hair, which still held some of the Marilyn curl, and stalked off to the kitchen.

"But I wasn't drunk," I protested. "I had one cup of punch, which seemed pretty watered-down even to me, and then a gla.s.s of champagne at midnight, and I don't remember drinking all of that."

"I hope you were drunk," Gemma snapped. "Because if you weren't and you were acting that way, well, you aren't the person we thought you were."

"What did I do?"

"You got nasty. You said some really mean things to us and to Owen, and then after you told him how pathetic he was as a boyfriend, you came on to every other man in the place-especially those who were there with dates."

I moaned and buried my face in my hands. I'd only ever been truly drunk a few times in my life, and even then, never to the point of pa.s.sing out, so it was hard for me to compare the experience. Still, it seemed like I should remember more than a couple of drinks if I'd had enough to pa.s.s out. Or was it like a concussion, where sometimes you forgot the whole day, even the time before you got conked on the head?

"What did I say to y'all?" My voice came out m.u.f.fled from behind my hands.

"For one thing," Marcia said, "you told everyone about me breaking up with Jeff. How did you put it? Oh yeah, 'Like she thinks she's too good for him.'"

Still with my face behind my hands, I said, "You know that's not what I think. I told you that."

"Yeah, and I also recall asking you not to tell anyone."

I looked up to see her sitting once more at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. My mouth watered at the sight. Coffee, that was what I needed. If I got some caffeine into my system I was sure I'd be able to think straight. And would it have killed Marcia to offer me a cup while she was up? I recalled having brought many a cup of coffee to her when she was in a similar state.

"I don't remember saying that, honest. I didn't mean to blab."

"What was the big secret, anyway?" Gemma asked. "Why didn't you want me to know?"

"It's my business, isn't it?"

While Marcia and Gemma argued, I eased myself off the sofa and aimed for the kitchen, hoping there was still coffee in the pot. I nearly wept with joy when I saw that there were at least two cups left. I poured half a cup for myself, added some sugar and milk, then took a cautious sip. One thing I remembered from the few hangovers I'd experienced was such a strong nausea that the thought of food or drink made my stomach churn. But my stomach felt fine. I was able to drink the whole cup, and soon my head felt a lot clearer, even if the headache hadn't eased at all. Actually, it was even worse.

I wandered over to the front window while Gemma and Marcia argued. It was snowing outside, in the stage of a snowstorm when it's mostly flakes dancing to the ground from the sky, but before much has acc.u.mulated yet on the ground. At any other time, this would have been the perfect day to stay inside with my friends, watching old movies while eating popcorn and chatting. Apparently, today wasn't going to be one of those days. I tried to force my attention back to my roommates.

"It's not like you've had perfect relations.h.i.+ps, yourself," Marcia said.

"What? Because I hit a rough patch with Philip? Well, we talked last night, and he said work was distracting him. He's going to try to be better because he misses me."

"That's great!" I said, trying to radiate enthusiasm for my friend's good fortune.