chapter Seven
Owen and I spent the rest of the day working on details for our scavenger hunt event, interrupted only by a deliveryman bringing me a bouquet of daisies from Josh. The card with the flowers wished me a good evening out and told me he’d be thinking of me.
“That’s nice of him,” Owen said mildly. “How long have you two been together?”
I started to answer, then realized I didn’t know. The start of our relationship was foggy. “A while, I guess,” I said vaguely. A second later, the answer popped into my head. “Nearly a year.”
“So it’s serious, I take it.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” I said reluctantly. Then I was surprised that I felt so reluctant about it. But it didn’t feel too serious, at least, not on my part. I barely remembered Josh existed unless I was with him, and I had a hard time remembering specifics of our time together. The only date I recalled with any detail was our last one. Anything happening before that might as well have happened to someone else. I had far more vivid memories of Owen, and I’d only known him a couple of days. I didn’t think that was a good sign.
*
As Florence and I prepared to turn the café over to the night crew, she said, “Would you mind if we made it a night in instead of a night out? I think I’ve had about all I can take of people for one day. Maybe we could pick up some takeout and watch a video. That way we could talk.”
“Sounds good to me. Your place or mine?”
“Yours, if you don’t mind. It’s closer and nicer.”
We stopped by the café where I got my morning coffee and ordered burgers to go at the counter. Perry the waitress turned in the order, then leaned on the counter to chat with us. “Looks like you’ve got a big night of cholesterol ahead, huh?” she said with a grin.
“Usually, tofu’s more my speed, but you’ve gotta indulge every so often,” Florence told her.
“Yeah, as much kale as she eats, she can get away with a burger every now and then,” I said. “Me, on the other hand, well, I don’t know what my excuse is.”
“You work very hard,” Florence said. “And now the new boss has you doing two jobs.”
“Two jobs?” Perry asked.
“It’s not that bad,” I said. “He’s just getting my help with some planning during lulls at work.”
“And you should see this boss,” Florence added. “Spending time with him is not a chore. I think he likes Katie.”
Perry leaned forward across the counter with great interest. “Ooh, he does?”
“He does not,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He didn’t show even the slightest bit of jealousy when Josh showed up or sent flowers.”
“So you were watching for jealousy?” Florence teased.
“Just so I’d know where things stood. I wanted to see if there’d be a situation I needed to defuse. Things might get awkward at work if my boss got jealous of my boyfriend.” I remembered then that he’d asked how long we’d been dating, but that could have just been casual conversation, not an indication of interest, so I decided I wouldn’t mention it. I didn’t want to give Florence any additional ammunition.
“Order up!” the cook called, and Perry went to get our meals.
“Have a good evening, and I want updates about this boss,” she said as she handed us our bags.
At my place, I let Florence peruse my DVD collection while I got dishes and drinks from the kitchen. She was putting a disc in the player when I returned. “I think a good chick flick is just what the doctor ordered,” she said as the two of us settled onto the sofa.
The movie opened with the heroine walking to work through her neighborhood as a perky pop tune played and the credits showed on the screen. It was an eerily familiar situation. “Do you ever have days when you feel like that, where you can practically hear the song on the soundtrack?” Florence asked. I turned to see if she was joking, but she looked serious.
“I guess,” I said with a shrug. It did look an awful lot like some of my recent mornings had felt.
Then the movie got going. As usual, the heroine had a boyfriend who was obviously wrong for her when the right guy fell into her life. “Sometimes, I just want to smack some sense into these chicks,” Florence said, shaking her head in frustration. “Shouldn’t it be obvious that this is the wrong guy?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem too bad.” I wasn’t sure why I was defending him, though. I didn’t think I’d want to date him.
“He’s boring. I’ll tell you what he is: He’s the safety net. The comfort zone. He’s not going to challenge her, but she’s also not going to grow when she’s with him.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked.
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “I’m just watching the movie. In real life, though, she’d ditch him in a heartbeat for the heartthrob. She just sticks with him because otherwise it would be the world’s shortest movie. Girl meets Mr. Right, realizes it, and dumps Mr. Wrong. The End.”
In spite of her denial, I thought she sounded rather personally invested in the situation. Of course, the heroine started spending more time with the leading man, and then they fell in love in a montage of romantic scenes set to a swoony pop ballad. This part gave me shivers because I’d felt like that a couple of times lately. It was the way I remembered my entire relationship with Josh, and it was the way days spent with Owen seemed to go.
“Is something wrong? You look a little pale,” Florence said, nudging me.
I shook my head. “I think I’ve had a few montage days lately. And why is it the good stuff that goes by in a montage? Why can’t we dispense with a boring day at work with a coffee montage?”
She laughed, but her eyes looked serious. At the end of the movie, she said, “See, that’s how it needs to work out. She realizes her mistake and rushes to make sure she doesn’t lose the right guy.”
“But does she have to do it in a bridesmaid’s dress while riding a scooter?”
“The point is that she does it, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it is. When you know the right thing to do, you just do it.”
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “I believe you’ve made your point. I might miss out on something amazing with Owen if I insist on clinging to Josh, the Mr. Wrong safety net. But life isn’t a romantic comedy movie. In real life, the safe guy is the best bet.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said you’re living montages.”
“I was joking! Nobody lives montages. We live life.”
“If that’s what you call it.” She helped me clean up, and as she went to go, she placed her hand firmly on my shoulder. “I just want you to have the best. I made some mistakes—been there, done that, got the divorce papers. Don’t rush into anything, and be sure of what you want.”
“And no riding scooters in hoopskirts.”
“Only if you’re into that sort of thing. See you in the morning.”
When she was gone, I was left mulling over what she’d said. In the movie, the heroine had ignored her friends’ advice, and I didn’t think I was that type, but I couldn’t remember any friends before Florence. I also couldn’t remember any boyfriends before Josh. My memories before a week or so ago were blurry and consisted only of a few key moments, but if I tried to push beyond that, I hit a wall. I had photos in my apartment of family members, and I knew they were members of my family, but I couldn’t dredge up memories of them other than a few scrapbook pages. It was like I hadn’t existed before that morning when Florence told me the store was being sold.
It was like I was starring in a movie and didn’t realize it.
Then I shook my head. I’d obviously had too much wine.
*
The next couple of weeks passed in a blur that I remembered only in more montage-like groups of scenes—working with Owen in the store, with lots of little accidental touches that affected us both more than we wanted to acknowledge, dinners and romantic walks in the park with Josh. The strange thing was that I didn’t remember these events as though I’d lived them. It was more like they’d been put into my head. I felt as if my movie night with Florence had happened the night before and everything else had just been a dream.
I was starting to wonder if I should maybe seek professional psychological help.
But finally, after much preparation, it was the day before our big event. We closed early, then the entire staff worked together to set up the new signage, re-shelve the books, and otherwise transform the store into the kind of place where book lovers could while away the hours. This time, I wasn’t worried about the background music because I knew it was playing on the store’s sound system. We had coffee and treats from our new suppliers set out for refreshments, and a party-like atmosphere prevailed.
I approached the science fiction section, sorting through the stack of placards in my hand. “Okay, Earl, here you go,” I said, handing the appropriate signs to the section’s coordinator, a tall, slim young man with an elven look to him. His ears weren’t pointy, but I felt like they should be. “One of those goes on each endcap, and then there are two for the signs that go on top of the shelves. I’ll be back around with the shelf talkers.” As I walked away from him, I did a double take. I felt like I knew him from somewhere. Then I shook my head. Of course I knew him from somewhere. We’d been working together at the store for ages. He always came up on his break and ordered an espresso.
When the store was all set and the rest of the staff left, Owen and I stayed behind to hide the scavenger hunt clues. I’d been looking forward to this all day, and maybe dreading it a little. Whatever it was, it had my heart pounding and my pulse racing. Maybe Florence was right about my crush on him. It was harmless, though. It didn’t have to mean anything.
The music on the sound system changed to jazz standards from the forties, which fit the store’s new nostalgic retro look. Then the lights dimmed, and I jumped. “Sorry about that,” Owen said as he approached. “I just thought it would be best if we weren’t quite so visible from the outside.” He held up a stack of colored index cards. “Ready to plant our clues?”
We had a list of books people were supposed to search for, and we went around the store, sticking the cards in the backs of the books and then re-shelving them. Although we’d created the list, we still had to think about where to go and which section would be most likely to come to mind for each book. We ran through the maze of bookshelves like children, and I felt that if I looked out the corner of my eye, I’d see the books coming to life and dancing the way I sometimes imagined they would after a bookstore closed for the night.
“Ah, here it is,” Owen said, pulling the next book on the list off the shelf and opening it so I could slip the card in. He closed the book and put it back in its slot, then smoothed the shelf so it wasn’t obvious that one book had recently been moved. He glanced at me, then back at the books before saying, “Can I ask you something strange?”
I gulped, wondering what he might consider strange. Would this be a personal question, something about Josh or maybe about the way things were developing between us? “Um, sure,” I stammered.
“Have you been having a bad case of déjà vu lately? I mean, seeing people and thinking they’re familiar, and then you realize that of course they’re familiar because you know them, but that doesn’t seem like why they should be familiar?”
“You too?” I asked, a little breathless. “It’s been happening all the time to me lately.” I hesitated, since this was the kind of thing that might get me sent to a psychiatric hospital, but since he’d started it … “While we’re on the subject, do you ever get the feeling that some of your memories are more like dreams, or like time is passing in just a series of highlight images—like a montage in a movie, sometimes even complete with soundtrack?”
He frowned and licked his lips, then said, “No, I don’t think I’ve run into that. But the memories thing, yeah. It’s like nothing from before a few weeks ago seems real. And I do sometimes feel like a week or more has passed between the time I go to bed at night and the time I wake up in the morning. I remember the things that happened, but not as though I really lived them.”
I laughed, then cut myself off when I realized that I sounded like someone on the verge of madness. “So I’m not crazy, or if I am crazy, then I’m not crazy alone.”
“We can share a padded cell,” he said with a grin. Then he went more serious again and seemed to be considering what to say next. He took a deep breath and whispered, “There’s something else weird going on.”
“What?” I whispered in response.
“I think I can do magic.”
“Magic?” I thought about saying that was crazy, but was it any crazier than any of the other stuff we’d been noticing?
My tone must have said it for me because he said defensively, “I was in the office and realized that the binder I needed was on the shelf. I wished it would come to me without me having to go get it, and then it flew across the room and onto my desk.”
“Maybe the store’s haunted and the ghost wanted to help you,” I suggested. I didn’t know why that sounded like a more plausible explanation, but it did.
“Watch this,” he said. “The next book we need is on that shelf over there.” He pointed to the opposite aisle. Then he flicked his wrist and the book flew out of its spot and into his hand.
I squealed in shock and jumped backward. “Oh my gosh!” I said when I’d recovered from the initial surprise. My hand trembled as I stuck the card between the pages, and then he sent it back to its spot. “Can you do anything else?”
He held his hand palm-up, and soon a soft glow formed there. The glow formed into a globe and rose into the air above our heads.
“Whoa,” I breathed. “I wonder if it’s just you or if this is something everyone can do.” To test it, I held my hand out the way he had and thought about forming a light. My glow wasn’t nearly as bright as Owen’s, but it was there. I sent it up to join his. “Oh, wow, I can do magic!” I said with a hysterical giggle.
“I know, right?” He was grinning ear-to-ear. “I guess this makes us wizards. No wonder we clicked. We’re two of a kind.”
We returned to our task, our magical lights following us as we went from shelf to shelf. I wasn’t quite as good as he was at summoning the books to me. I had to be much closer, and it seemed to take more effort—enough that I doubted I’d be using this particular shortcut in day-to-day life. Still, it was cool to play with.
I slipped the final clue card into its book and let Owen send it flying back to its shelf. Then Owen’s grin turned mischievous and he raised his hand to point to the glowing orbs. They suddenly shattered like fireworks, showering us with colorful sparks of light. We ran through the store then, light moving all around us in great swirls. He’d bounce some light at me, and I’d send it back to him. It was like dancing, though we hadn’t even touched.
He waved his hand in the air again, and a snowfall began. The flakes danced in the air, and I jumped to catch them on my tongue, but they vanished before I could reach them. “You did say you liked browsing in a bookstore on a snowy day,” he said.
“But generally the idea is to come in out of the snow,” I replied. “You should have it snow just outside the windows so people will stay longer.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I wonder what else we can do.” With a flick of his wrist, he changed the music on the sound system to an even slower, more romantic piece before he held his hand out to me. “Shall we dance?”
I stepped into his arms, and then we danced in the magical snowfall as fireworks went off over our heads. I wasn’t sure if the tingle that ran through my body was from the magic or from being together like this. I had the strangest feeling that I’d have felt exactly the same way without the snow or the fireworks, that it was the man and not the magic that made every nerve ending in my body sing for joy.
“You know,” I whispered after a while, “this is probably visible from outside the store. People will notice if fireworks are going off indoors.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he murmured, and the sparks dissipated. The snow kept falling, though. It seemed as though the two of us were alone in our own magical wonderland, where the outside world was nothing but a faint memory. He leaned toward me, and I found myself leaning toward him, breathless with anticipation. When our lips were barely an inch apart, I suddenly remembered where I was and what I was doing.
I wasn’t the kind of girl who two-timed. I had a boyfriend. I might break it off with him tomorrow because now I knew what magic really was, but I couldn’t kiss someone else until then. It wouldn’t be right, and if being with Owen was the right thing, I didn’t want to start it off on the wrong foot.
“You know what this snow puts me in the mood for?” I asked, pulling back abruptly and trying to keep my tone light and casual to cover my still-breathless reaction to our near-miss.
“Hot cocoa.” The intense look in his eyes as he continued gazing at me told me that wasn’t what he was really thinking, but he had picked up on my reticence and was willing to shift the mood.
“You read my mind,” I said, smiling in relief. I felt like we had all the time in the world. We had no need to rush things.
The snowfall following us, we made our way up the stairs to the café. We walked side by side, not touching, but close enough that I was conscious of his proximity. I started to head behind the counter, but he shook his head. “No, I think I’ve got this.” A wave of his hand, and two steaming mugs sat on the nearest table. “Your table, miss,” he said with a gesture.
I grabbed a tray of cookies left over from the store rearranging party. Our new supplier’s cookies were good enough that I didn’t think Owen could beat them, even with magic. We wouldn’t be using them to level unsteady tables.
After a sip of magical cocoa, I looked at him through the snowfall and said, “What do you think this means?”
“I have no idea. Are we the only ones who can do this? Or can everyone, but no one thinks to try? Has it been like this all along, or is this new?”
“Maybe there’s something in the water, or space aliens have experimented on us—that would explain the missing time we’ve both experienced.”
“You know, any other day I might have said that was an outrageous theory, but since I can do magic, I’m not sure I can call anything outrageous anymore. Anything is possible.”
“Should we tell someone?”
“Who? We don’t have a ministry of magic in this world, and I’d rather not end up in some secret government laboratory.”
“So, what do we do?”
“I don’t know, but we should think about it, and we should definitely keep it a secret for now until we’ve figured it out.”
“Maybe we should use our powers to fight evil,” I suggested.
“What evil? We already vanquished the lousy coffee the old-fashioned way. That alone should earn us a medal.”
“Mild-mannered booksellers by day, magical superheroes by night,” I quipped, trying to sound like a movie trailer announcer.
We finished our cocoa in thoughtful silence, then he said, “It’s getting late, and we have a busy day ahead. I’ll walk you home.”
I started to protest that he didn’t have to, but I wanted him to. I tried to tell myself that it was only practical, but safety was the last thing on my mind. There was no sign of the magic that had happened there when we left the store. I felt like I’d left a magical world and had returned to reality, except the reality didn’t seem all that real to me either. There was a surreal quality to everything, and I felt more than ever like I’d stepped into a movie. Even the music was there, and I knew it wasn’t from the store’s sound system.
I was sure that Florence would say this was still more proof that I was staying with Mr. Wrong, my comfort-zone man, when I could have magic—literal magic, in this case—with Owen. And yet I felt weird, like I was doing something wrong, as I walked home with him, close enough to touch, but not holding hands or making any actual contact, except the occasional moment when our sleeves brushed.
We reached my front steps and paused there. “Thanks for walking me home,” I said and started to turn to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He caught my arm and said in a rough whisper, “Katie.” I turned, waiting for what else he might say, but he just stood there, like he couldn’t find the words.
I wanted to kiss him, more than anything, but I reminded myself that we’d have plenty of time for that. I didn’t want any nagging guilt to mar this perfect evening. I leaned back, away from him, and repeated, “See you tomorrow,” before turning and running up the steps. I forced myself not to look back because I didn’t think my resolve would hold if I saw him standing there.
The soundtrack playing in my head swelled dramatically, and the music made me want to cry.