Chapter Twelve

Making Sense of the Matter

Salinger

If I had flipped over the book and read even the first line again, it might have pulled me back into the book and I would have to go through it all over again. I didn't dare to. If it was written for only one person then it had recorded my failure completely. Whoever left the book would find it and read what had happened. Whoever they were, they may as well know how I felt about Veda so they could give up whatever romantic designs they had on me. Finally, I decided it had been left by someone who wasn't upset about my interest in Veda. I settled on the weird lady who was staying with June. Her name was Hattie, and behind her conflicting colored clothing, she had loads of unused magical energy lying around. She could have written it with her toes.

I stopped walking.

There was no way that book was intended to discourage me from pursuing Veda. If anything, it was an instruction book to show me what mistakes I was making. I decided at that moment that I didn't have to leave the leaflet back in the library. It was meant for me. I went back to retrieve it, but it was gone.

That night, I sat at the dinner table with Fair Isle and her family. Intarsia was there too, and the two gabbing girls kept their heads close together as they shared their secrets. Using that moment as an opportunity, I used my magic to show me what Fair Isle looked like without her piercings. She looked like she was about twelve years old. I wondered if she was Vanya. Something about the two girls was similar. No, more than that. Vanya was Fair Isle.

Sensing my gaze, the two girls turned to face me. When Intarsia's face came into view, I saw I had made a mistake. Vanya couldn't be Fair Isle. She had to be Intarsia. My eyes shifted between them. No. Vanya was both of them.

“Salinger, what's going on?” Fair Isle drawled. She stretched her gum and gobbed it on the edge of her plate. “Why are you staring at us?”

“Where's Clementine tonight?”

“She's home. Hair washing night.”

“Do girls still do that?”

“She does.”

I got up and grabbed my coat. “Where’s Pearl?”

“She's out with Antony. Who knows where they go?”

“I'll try his house,” I volunteered as I left.

I had to look Clementine and Pearl in the face while my memory of Vanya was still fresh.

I banged on Clementine's door. She answered.

“What's going on?” she asked with a poised Cheeto in her orange dusted fingers.

Studying her face, I said, “Everything is fine. I just had to check something.”

“Check what?”

“Your face.”

“Don't be an ass,” she yawned, completely nonplussed and posing to allow me to examine her features.

“I'm finished.” I darted from the door and yelled over my shoulder, “Thank you.”

I was right, Clementine looked like her too.

I slowed down. Did I even need to see Pearl? It would probably look like her too, and why? Because Veda would throw anyone under the bus for her cousins. That was the purpose of the book and the reason behind everything Veda did. She was doing the same thing to me in real life. Specifically, she was allowing me two dates a week so I would stay in Edmonton and be available to fall in love with one of her cousins who gave me more attention than she did.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Why? Were Veda's cousins so messed up that they couldn't find lives of their own? Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard any of their plans for after graduation. Pearl, of course, wasn't graduating, but the other girls and Antony should have plans. Clementine had a job of some kind, but just now I found her doing nothing.

Veda was afraid none of them would do anything for themselves... Ever! She had to help them establish good life patterns that would propel them in a positive direction for the rest of their lives. Until that was done, she couldn't have a life of her own.

I realized abruptly that the time I spent dating Veda was being wasted. She wasn't giving me a chance. She was not going to be touched by the romance I presented her no matter how well orchestrated it was. She was going to keep her heart as cold as ice and never let me get one step nearer to her.

I needed to change my strategy.

I trudged up the steps to Antony's house. He answered the door when I knocked. Incredibly, he looked a little like Vanya too.

⚘⚘⚘

One of the things about sleeping at Fair Isle’s house was that I didn’t sleep as well as I did back home. Maybe it was the city lights that shone through the gauzy curtain beside my head that made me feel that it was never quite dark enough to sleep. Maybe it was the unfamiliar smell or the feeling that if I let my guard down, something irreversible might happen.

And that night, it did.

I heard my door creak open and the footsteps that followed.

Ever since Veda’s warning, I had been afraid something like this would happen. She was counting on my being asleep as she quietly mounted the steps to the loft bed where I slept. It wasn’t dark enough to hide her form, but apparently, she was too busy making sure she was quiet to realize that I was watching her.

Careful not to bump me, she crossed her legs and put her hands together. She took in a deep breath, breathing in both her mouth and her nose at the same time. It was the sort of breath you took right before you started chanting.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not whispering.

“I’m here to tuck you in,” she said with a winning smile. It was very effective in the dim light. Even though her hair was short and there was a ring protruding from the corner of her lip, she looked more like Veda than should have been possible. Was she using a glamor?

“I don’t think I need to be tucked in,” I replied.

She put her hand on my foot and started running her fingers down the length of it, like a gentle massage. “Aren’t you frustrated? Isn’t Veda hard? Dating her must be terrible for you. You’re so full of life, which makes you her complete opposite. I know you feel like you have to win her because you told everyone that was what you were going to do, but what if you took a tiny break from chasing her?”

“What kind of a break?” I asked, the sound of my voice jarring to my ears.

Fair Isle was on her hands and knees now, slowly making her way to the head of the bed. “The kind where you forget about her for one night and try a different cousin on for size. You did say you wanted to try all of us.”

She bent her head to kiss me, but before our lips touched, I knew what that felt like. It had taken some time for the knowledge my character had learned in the book to get back to me, but the light in her eyes brought it all home. Like I had really been the character in the book, I knew what she tasted like, how she moved, and how she wanted to be touched.

I put my hand up to stop her from coming any closer. “It was very daring of you to come up here.”

“I’m not asking you to give up on Veda,” she said. “You can try again with her in the morning. This is a no-strings-attached kind of rendezvous. You know how good we are together.”

I did know, but I also knew that if I raised one hand to satisfy what I was thinking, I would no longer be able to be Veda’s gentleman caller. Her referring to me that way had been ridiculous. The first time I heard it, it had sounded so absurd, I almost laughed.

I had to refuse Fair Isle, but every sentence I tried to formulate to reject her sounded stupid. She was coming closer, her fingers were under the collar of my shirt as she grabbed my collar. She was going to jerk me into a sitting position and kiss me.

Putting my hand on hers, I said, “Stop. You’d better go.”

“What if I come back tomorrow night?” she whispered breathily.

Again, everything that came to mind as a comeback sounded terrible, cheesy, or cowardly. I pushed her completely off the bed.

With a dull thud, she landed on her feet. Then she turned and blew me a kiss. “Another night then. I’m sure you’ll eventually get bored of Invader and her lack of charm.”

With her gone, I fell back on my pillows and thought of what a different feeling that had been. How I had felt holding Veda in front of the fireplace in her book and how I had felt with Fair Isle sitting on the edge of my bed?

I had stopped her from casting a spell on me when I stopped her from chanting. There wasn’t a spell that could make someone fall in love when they didn’t want to, but there were plenty of spells that could have confused me enough to make me think she was Veda and a willing participant.

I’d never get to sleep again.