Misfortune and Mr. Right (Only Magic in the Building)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Olivia

The magic thing about home is that

it feels good to leave,

and it feels even better to come back.

~ Wendy Wunder

“Slow down!” Megan shouts from behind me. “It’s not a race.”

Maybe not. But I have a feeling this apartment won’t be available for long. And it’s mine. It has to be mine. I practically lived there every Sunday through high school and whenever I was home from college.

We should have driven here. But no, I had to say, It’s a beautiful spring day. Let’s walk from my office .

Megan, my best friend since kindergarten, catches up to me, her breath coming in labored gasps.

“It’s yours.” She inhales and exhales with a dramatic flair. Her hand lands on her chest. “That apartment is yours.”

She takes a few more exaggerated breaths and says, “Calm down and stop walking like you’re practicing for the Boston Marathon.”

Megan is extremely positive, a little superstitious, very gullible, and loyal to a fault. We balance one another. I add the practical, reliable, grounded elements to our relationship while she brings the whimsy and levity.

“Trust me, if I were practicing for the Boston Marathon, you’d know it,” I assure Megan.

Running is my happy place. I’ve considered training for the famous Patriots Day race every year. Something always seems to come up that makes it impossible to devote the hours needed to prepare well. Maybe this will be my year to make the commitment. I want to run it before I’m thirty. But I don’t want to merely run it. I want to finish strong, make my PR … and most of all, beat Logan.

Logan Alexander .

The bane of my existence.

He’s also someone I’ve known since kindergarten. Only, unlike Megan, Logan has made it his mission to rip the rug out from under me at every turn. He seemed to show up at every cross country practice, science fair, and Future American Risk Takers (aka F.A.R.T.s) meeting I signed up for. I’d look around, and there Logan would be. He’d not only show up, he’d become team captain or win first place. And he was the president of the F.A.R.T.s. Not that you’d want to use that acronym on your resume, but still.

When I graduated from high school, I thought I would be free of Logan’s ominous, perfect, self-assured shadow. But as luck would have it, Logan applied to Boston University at the same time I did. We both happened to major in marketing, meaning he showed up in most of my classes, bending the curve with his top grade in the course, winning over the professor, being chosen as the TA. Logan graduated summa cum laude . I graduated magna cum laude , which sounds better, but is just a notch below—as always.

It’s as though Logan’s a deranged homing pigeon and I’ve got some sort of tracking device in me that screams “Home! Home! Home!”

Thankfully, after graduation, Logan took his marketing degree and his 4.0 GPA and secured a job in Boston while I came back to Serendipity Springs and landed my dream job with Barnes Marketing, far enough away from Logan to be able to make my mark in the world without being outshined and overshadowed at every turn.

I happened to see a post on his social media the other day announcing that he’s beginning to train for next year’s marathon. Of course he had to show a photo of himself all sweaty, checking his Garmin watch to share his personal record time. And yes, I still follow Logan’s socials. You would too if someone like Logan haunted you like an award-winning, overachieving ghost.

I don’t even have to tell you that the photo of him all sweaty from a run looked exactly like you’d imagine—as if he’d been hired by Nike to promote their new line of T-shirts in an ad campaign called “Hot, sweaty guy wears the bejeebers out of a gray T-shirt.” Logan can’t even perspire without looking amazing. It’s revolting. Truly. The man is perfect. And perfectly annoying. Just once I’d love to beat him at something. Not that I’d rub it in his face. I wouldn’t even gloat … much. Maybe just a teensy-weensy victory dance. That’s all. It would be so small. A little gloatette. A gloatina. A gloatsie. I’d gloat so quickly, you’d barely notice. And then I’d move on once and for all.

We turn the corner, and I see it: The Serendipity . I pause for a moment. Meg smacks right into my back.

“Oof. Pacing. We need to work on your pacing, Olivia.”

Our shared laughter overpowers the wave of emotions that hit me at the sight of my gran’s old building.

“Are you okay?” Megan asks me.

“Yeah. I am. I really am. You know I’m not one for all the woo-woo stuff, but this feels like destiny. I’d even go so far as to say this might be my lucky day.”

“Atta girl!” Megan says with her signature broad, easy smile. “I knew I’d bring you over to my side eventually. There’s more to life than what we see with our eyes.”

I shake my head. “Let’s not push it. I’m just saying I feel good about this. Then again, maybe it’s just the residual sugar high from the cinnamon roll you talked me into eating for breakfast.”

“Nope. It’s good luck … fortune … kismet … whatever you want to call it. This is meant to be. You’ve been waiting to hear about an apartment opening up here for years. And what’s the likelihood that you would overhear a couple talking about an apartment at The Serendipity while standing in line to pick up a bowl of chowder on your lunch break nearly ten blocks from here?”

“I’m sure the likelihood is pretty high. Everyone knows about The Serendipity. Apartments opening here are a rarity. It’s not kismet or karma or whatever voodoo-moodoo mojo-hojo you want to attribute this to. It’s a matter of proximity and supply and demand.”

“So you say.” Megan winks at me with a nearly patronizing smile. “Don’t doubt the magic.”

She dramatically waves her hands in the air and blinks and then flicks her pointer finger in my direction as if it’s a wand.

“Right.” I deadpan my reaction. “The magic.”

Meg practically skips up the cement steps to the front door.

I stand at the base of the stairs, taking in the brickwork, the decorative stone carvings, the familiar architecture. The building feels like a second home to me. I can nearly hear my gran’s voice—especially her laughter—and see the twinkle in her eyes whenever we opened our fortune cookies after finishing the takeout I brought for us to share every Sunday. It was our tradition. Chinese to-go and an afternoon of stories and laughter. Gran was my safe place to land, my cheerleader, and the quirkiest little woman—a lot like Megan. They shared a love of whimsy and the ability to fully believe in anything absurd or delightful. Not a skeptical bone between them.

“Are you coming?” Megan asks. Her hand rests on the front doorknob.

“Yeah. Yes. Of course.” I skip up the steps.

“It’s locked,” Megan announces, jiggling the knob.

I lean in, peeking through the glass. There’s a guy at the bank of mailbox cubbies in the lobby.

I knock. He looks over and regards us.

Megan waves at him and yells, “Yoo-hooo. Sir?”

He walks toward us and pulls the door open.

“May I help you?” he asks, looking between Megan and me.

“She’s here to get her apartment. 2B. That’s hers. She just needs an application to make things official.” Megan smiles at the gentleman.

“2B.” He looks between us.

“Or whatever apartment is open, but that’s really the one she wants,” Megan adds, possibly realizing how presumptuous her first impression might have appeared.

He lives here, obviously. It’s not like he’s the one who’s going to rent us the apartment. But actual details rarely dissuade my bestie. She’s going to get me that apartment, and as far as she’s concerned, this guy owns the building.

“Applications are completed online,” the man says, rattling off the web address.

Megan glances around the lobby, over at the row of built-in phone booths that line the left wall and the library in the front corner of the building, then at the welcome desk in the center of the space, and finally at the spiral staircase leading off to our right.

Megan came with me to Gran’s a number of times, years ago. Outside of the Sundays I guarded to keep just for me and Gran, I loved times when the three of us sat around talking and laughing in Gran’s living room. Megan and Gran were two peas in a pod. They spoke the same fantastical language of the heart. Kindreds, as Anne Shirley would have called them.

I cherished my Sunday afternoons alone with Gran, so I probably unwittingly gave off a vibe that told Megan not to even consider asking to tag along. My life was crammed with commitments the rest of the week back then, but sometimes I’d stop in when I could on an afternoon after school, and Megan would come with me.

I glance around. The building looks the same but fresher somehow. New paint? Something’s different. And yet, it’s still the same old Serendipity.

“Do you know if Galentine is here?” I ask the man.

“Galentine?” The man looks confused.

“She was the manager … or owner? I don’t know. I thought I’d get the application from her.”

“Archer is the owner. Has been since before I moved in, but I’m new here. I never met a Galentine.” He pauses and then adds, “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Megan says on my behalf. “We’ll just fill out the application online. Nice to meet you.”

The man smiles at us, tucks his mail under his arm, and walks across the lobby to the elevator.

I take one last look around the lobby and turn to leave.

“Good luck, miss,” the guy says.

“Yeah. Good luck,” I mutter.

“Don’t bash good luck,” Megan says to me as she pushes the front door open. “You could use all the good luck you can get.”

“Okay, Mary Poppins.” I smile over at her. “Let’s grab some lunch.”

“How about that little place with the amazing corned beef?”

“Sounds good. We can pull up the application over lunch and fill it out.”

I glance over my shoulder at The Serendipity one more time before joining Megan to walk back the way we came.