Sparks

Chapter 3

The rumble of the MAX train had long since faded behind Willow by the time she turned onto her sister’s street.

Well, it was her street now too, but she hadn’t quite gotten used to thinking of it as home yet. The sight of the house still made her chuckle.

Fiona’s quirky English cottage looked like something from a fairy tale. Its bold shade of purple made it stand out between the ordinary homes as much as Fiona did among her neighbors. Twin dormer windows with a white trim peeked out from a sharply pitched roof like two raised eyebrows.

The weathered wooden fence that separated the yard from the sidewalk was painted a faded burgundy red. A climbing rose vine spilled through the slats and over the top, with a few stubborn late blooms still clinging on.

Willow tucked her chin into the collar of her jacket against the drizzle as she climbed the few steps to the arched entryway and the white front door beyond. She dug her keys out of her purse and let herself in.

The scents of linseed oil from Fiona’s oil paints, melted cheese, and dried lavender greeted her, but the house was unusually quiet.

“Fiona?” she called. “You home?”

“In here!” Fiona replied from the living room.

Willow took off her jacket and shoes by the door. Not that Fiona required it. Her sister had never mentioned a single house rule, other than: “Make yourself at home.”

In her pantyhose-clad feet, Willow padded through the narrow hallway and past two well-loved armchairs in the living room.

Fiona was sprawled on the large couch, a chipped mug in one hand and a paperback balanced on her belly.

She had her feet up on the coffee table, stretching them toward the electric fireplace, so her mismatched socks were on full display.

“Hey, you’re back! How was it?” She marked her page by folding down a corner—which made Willow wince—flung the book aside, and jumped up.

Sugar, one of the cats, lifted her head and blinked sleepily, while Spice—who’d been curled up on Fiona’s other side—let out an annoyed hiss at the interruption.

“Did you survive day one in the corporate jungle?” Fiona asked.

Willow sighed and dropped her purse next to the couch. “Barely.”

“Come on. Sit and tell me everything!” Fiona grabbed her arm and dragged her around the coffee table.

Willow sank onto the sofa next to her. “It wasn’t bad. Everyone seemed nice, especially Barb. She’ll be there for the next two months to show me the ropes. The work itself seems really interesting.”

“Ooh, you mean there are”—Fiona lowered her voice as if whispering dirty little secrets—“color-coded spreadsheets, geeky checklists, and inventory forms?”

Willow chuckled. “Of course there are. But mostly, it involves juggling a lot of moving parts and putting them all together to keep everything running like a well-oiled machine. It’s a challenge, but I think I’ll enjoy it.”

Fiona studied her. “But?”

Her sister knew her too well. Willow hesitated, not sure she wanted to talk about it.

“There is a but, isn’t there? Is your boss an ass?”

“No, she’s all right, I think,” Willow replied. “Well, the jury’s still out on my boss’s boss, our COO. I haven’t met him yet, but our manager seems okay. Barb says she just values efficiency.”

“If it’s not your bosses, what is it, then?”

Willow grabbed the half-eaten slice of pizza from Fiona’s plate on the coffee table and opened her mouth to take a bite.

Fiona snatched it away and pushed the plate out of reach. “There’s more in the oven for you, but you’re not getting it until you spill. What happened?”

Willow sighed. “The usual.”

“Oh no! Tech glitch?”

Willow’s lips compressed into a thin line.

She nodded. “It all went well until it was almost time to go home. The evil devices lulled me into a false sense of security, and just when I thought I had made it through the day without an incident…bam, my keyboard stopped working and I had to submit a ticket to IT.”

“That sucks.” Fiona wrapped one arm around her and gently pulled Willow’s head onto her soft yet solid shoulder.

Willow tensed for a second, bracing for the familiar zap, but it never came.

Phew. Maybe she was starting to feel at home in her sister’s house after all.

The more relaxed she felt, the less often the static shocks happened.

Plus it helped that Fiona’s house—unlike the Operations bullpen—didn’t have carpet. She exhaled and sank against Fiona.

“Could the IT guy fix it for you?” her sister asked.

“It wasn’t a guy. It was a woman.”

Fiona let go of Willow to clap her hands together. “Ooh, a woman with a tool belt! Isn’t that like lesbian catnip?”

Willow shrugged. “I guess.”

“So she wasn’t attractive?”

How had this gone from being about her sucky day and her traitorous keyboard to being about Scottie’s attractiveness? Willow dug her elbow into her sister’s side. “She didn’t even have a tool belt, just a tool kit.”

“I notice you didn’t say she wasn’t attractive.” Fiona flashed her a sly grin.

Okay, Willow had to admit Scottie hadn’t been unattractive.

She had that capable soft butch thing going, with blonde hair that fell across her broad, open face.

It wasn’t exactly shaggy, but it curled around her strong jaw with a slight wave as if overdue for a trim.

Some people, Willow possibly included, might say it gave her an effortless charm.

Her brown eyes had been kind, not judging Willow for even a second, and they had crinkled at the corners whenever she’d smiled—which had been a lot.

And, yes, Willow had noticed how well her black chinos fit when Scottie had bent to check out the cables beneath her desk, emphasizing strong thighs and wide hips that tapered into a narrow waist.

“I wouldn’t know,” Willow said, trying for her most convincing poker face. “I was too focused on my keyboard issues to notice.”

“Right,” Fiona drawled.

“No, really. My boss’s cubicle is in the same bullpen, and I was too busy trying to appear normal.

Not that I succeeded.” Willow rubbed her face with both hands.

“Scottie probably thought I was weird. I’m pretty sure she caught me touching the desk drawer before I shook her hand so I wouldn’t zap her. ”

“Scottie?” Fiona cocked her head. “Is that your boss?”

“No, the woman from IT.”

Fiona shoved the rest of the pizza into her mouth and chewed slowly. “So if she saw that,” she said once she’d swallowed, “why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

Willow groaned. “How many times do we have to have this conversation?”

“I just don’t get why you think you’ve got to keep this a secret at all costs. I know it’s what Mom and Dad drilled into you, but you’re an adult now. You get to make your own decisions.”

Willow pinched the bridge of her nose. “I did make my own decision—the decision to keep it quiet, not tell everyone and their dog.”

“I’m not saying rent out a billboard, but why not reveal what’s really going on with you to a few select people?” Fiona asked. “Wouldn’t it make your life easier if you didn’t constantly have to hide or make up excuses? If you told this Scottie person, maybe she could have helped you.”

Willow grabbed one of the fuchsia throw pillows and kneaded it roughly.

“What exactly should I have told her, Fi?” There was no scientific explanation she could offer for batteries draining and electronics malfunctioning around her, sometimes without her even touching them—at least nothing that sounded halfway reasonable.

“I know you mean well, but telling her wouldn’t help.

People never believe me. They just think I’m weird. ”

“Maybe it would be different here. Our slogan is ‘Keep Portland weird’ after all.”

Willow shook her head. “This would be too weird, even for Portland.”

“How do you know if you don’t give it a chance? You said you want this”—Fiona waved her arm in a gesture that indicated the entire city—“to be a new start, so why not try to make new friends?”

Willow dug her fingers into the pillow until they started to hurt. “And then what? Watch another group of people get fed up and stop inviting me to movie night and any other activities involving tech?”

Been there, done that. She had no desire to repeat that experience. It was easier to keep people at arm’s length.

“Please!” Fiona huffed. “Those weren’t real friends. They were assholes.”

“All of them? Including Mia? I thought you liked her.” Willow froze. She hadn’t meant to ask that. She had spat out Mia’s name in frustration.

Fiona went uncharacteristically still. “Yeah, I did like her. But she was more than a friend to you, wasn’t she?” she asked quietly.

Willow’s head snapped around. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew! It was painfully obvious that you had the biggest crush on her when you were fifteen.”

Heat surged up Willow’s neck. “Ugh. Was it really? How humiliating!”

“No, it was cute.” Fiona studied her with a soft smile. “I never understood why you two stopped hanging out. I just didn’t want to ask and dig into something painful. Did you confess your feelings, and she couldn’t deal with them?”

Willow picked imaginary lint off the pillow.

“No, that wasn’t it.” Back then, she had been pretty shy.

She never would have dared to tell Mia, who was everything she wasn’t: cool, confident, popular, and extremely successful at whatever she tried her hand at.

“Remember that DSLR camera she took everywhere?”

Fiona nodded.

“It used to be her dad’s before he died.

One day, she talked me into cutting school and sitting up on the rooftop, talking and taking goofy snapshots of each other for hours.

I thought it was the best day of my life…

until I tried to take another picture of her and the camera wasn’t working.

It just turned off and never turned back on, no matter what we tried. ”

“Shit,” Fiona muttered.

“Yeah. Mia got so upset. She tried to get it repaired, but they couldn’t fix it.

I promised to take a summer job and buy her a new camera, but she said it wouldn’t be the same.

I tried to explain…told her everything…” The disbelieving expression on Mia’s tear-stained face was burned into her memory forever.

“She didn’t believe me. She accused me of making it all up because I was too much of a chicken to admit that I’d dropped the camera when she wasn’t looking.

Then she told all our friends that I’d broken her dad’s camera and that I’d tried to cover it up by making up some wild story about a tech curse. ”

That was when Willow had stopped trying to explain the way she affected technology.

In the sudden silence, the hum of the oven from the kitchen sounded overly loud.

“I’m so sorry.” Fiona turned on the sofa and pulled Willow into a hug.

Willow sank into her big sister’s embrace, not caring one bit that there might be some not-yet-dry paint splattered over Fiona’s turquoise overalls. Even the smell of turpentine that clung to Fiona was strangely comforting.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me what really happened?” Fiona asked.

Willow shrugged without freeing herself of the embrace. “We weren’t exactly close back then. You already resented me enough without me running to you with a sob story about destroying yet another device.”

Fiona clutched her fiercely. “Yeah, okay, we weren’t as close as we’re now. I guess we were too different. But I never resented you.”

“Please! Fiona Aveline Greene! Don’t upset your sister; we just replaced the dishwasher!” Willow imitated her mother’s voice. “Don’t tell me you didn’t resent that!”

Fiona chuckled. “All right. I admit I didn’t love that. They tried to lock you away in an ivory tower, and I—”

“Wanted to set out to slay dragons,” Willow finished. Even as a child, her sister had always been outgoing and bold and hated any attempt to contain her.

“Maybe not slay dragons, but I wanted to go to summer camp and invite my friends over to play video games, and I hated not being able to do some of that. Always having to be careful. That’s just not me.”

“I know,” Willow said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Fiona nudged her. “Don’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault. If anyone has to apologize, it’s me. For ever making you feel like I resented you. I was only fed up with all the restrictions, never with you.”

A lump formed in Willow’s throat. She swallowed it down and pulled back a little to grin at Fiona. “Not even when I gave your favorite Barbie a buzz cut?”

Fiona laughed. “Okay, maybe then. I didn’t share your fondness for butch Barbies.” She pulled Willow back against her. “Thank you for telling me what really happened with Mia.”

“You’re welcome,” Willow murmured against Fiona’s shoulder.

They sat in silence for a while, and Willow felt the tension recede from her body.

Only then did she realize how anxious she’d been all day.

No wonder her keyboard had been acting up!

Her effect on electronics always got worse when she was stressed, upset, or experienced any other strong negative emotion.

“By the way, I take it back,” Fiona said close to her ear.

“Take what back? Your suggestion for me to make friends and tell people the truth?”

Fiona pulled back but kept her hands on Willow’s shoulders. “No. I take back what I said about Mia not being an asshole.”

“She’s not!” The wave of defensiveness, even after all those years, surprised her. “She was just hurt and didn’t understand. It’s not her fault.”

“I know.” Fiona gave a soft squeeze. “But it’s not yours either, and I hate seeing you live your life like you’re cursed.”

The word made Willow flinch. That was exactly how she felt sometimes.

But she refused to let it control her life and her emotions any more than it already did.

That was why she hadn’t walked away from her admin job years ago, even though it required constant interaction with computers, printers, and software.

“I’m not. I just need to make it through the first week and establish a new routine at work.

Once things settle down and I’m less stressed, my devices will stop glitching all the time. ”

“Right.” A grin returned to Fiona’s face. “And until then, you can always call your superheroine with the tool kit to come to your rescue.”

Willow smacked her with the pillow. “Shut up and go get my pizza.”

“Me? Do I look like a waitress?”

“You look like a woman who wouldn’t want her oven to spontaneously combust when I open it.”

Fiona gave her a playful glare but got up and padded over to the kitchen, both cats in tow.

Willow watched her with a smile. If she was technologically hexed, she might as well use it to her advantage every now and then.