Chapter 35 #2
Downstairs, I found the bagel bar set out for guests—except the brownies had arranged the food into a map of Beane Island.
Tomatoes represented the village while red onion, cucumbers, and capers denoted streets and fields and bushes.
They’d used avocado to create waves off-shore, and made boat-shapes out of pistachio shells.
A lone cinnamon-raisin bagel had been banished to the eastern half of the island, surrounded by olives carved into miniature green skulls.
“Ha!” I pointed to the skulls and whispered to Violet and Daffodil. “Even the brownies hate cinnamon-raisin bagels.”
The pixies nodded in solemn agreement. A few normal guests approached, so I stopped chatting with my invisible friends.
As I piled my bagel with everything except the miniature green olive skulls—too creepy—I kept remembering flashes of last night. My drunken monologue, my drunken staggering, my drunken drunkenness. And how poor, sweet Gabe had to rescue me.
So I smeared chive cream cheese on a plain bagel, the boring way Gabe likes them, and put it in a bag along with mine. I grabbed two coffees, and popped the cups into the miniature-windmill-looking cupholders that gnomes had added to our golf cart.
As I drove across the island, the windmill blades spun and blew cold air at me, like a low-tech air-conditioner.
I wiggled my fingers in the chill, enjoying the hint of magic and the scent of the morning island.
After I pulled into Gabe’s driveway, I checked the coffees.
I was afraid they’d cooled off, but they were hotter than when I’d poured them, as if the windmills had sucked the chill from them.
Gnome technology. It didn’t make any sense, but it was handy as hell.
As I gathered our food, the realtor with the legs—Ava—came out the front door of the main house, looking slightly ravished. She smiled when she spotted me, like a woman with an ungodly amount of self-confidence, and called, “Gabe’s in his workshop!”
“I’m just bringing breakfast,” I told her.
Her laugh was mischievous. “Well, he should have an appetite.”
I smiled back. Fair enough. Gabe had probably told her we’d been fuck-buddies and she wanted to let me know he was all set in that department. She rode away on a bicycle, probably to keep her legs in perfect shape, and I carried the coffee and bagels toward Gabe’s workshop.
I heard what sounded like a dozen people tapping inside as I bumped the door open with my hip.
“Be there in a second, Munch!” Gabe called from the next room, as the tapping fell silent. “There are sparks!”
Daffodil and Violet helped me set the food on a counter, while a few other pixies admired a display case of rings and bracelets until Gabe entered, wiping his hands on his leather apron.
“Oh!” Gabe said. “It’s just you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said. “What’s munch?”
“Short for Munchkin,” he told me.
“Ew. How come you never gave me a nickname?”
“Because ‘Drunk Girl’ isn’t polite.”
“Okay yeah, that’s fair,” I conceded. “And it’s why I brought you breakfast! A plain bagel with a sniff of chive cream cheese.”
He grabbed his bagel. “C’mon in back.”
“I see you’re not worried I’ll get burned by sparks.”
“Bring my coffee,” he told me.
I huffed but followed him into the back room where a bunch of gnomes were grinding semi-precious stones and soldering silver. And, mostly, putting the final touches on an elaborate mine-cart setup to shuttle goods—and themselves—from one workstation to the next.
“What the hell, Gabe!” I blurted. “You’re Santa Claus!”
“Ho ho ho!” he said, spreading his arms happily.
He cleaned off a chair for me, so I wouldn’t ruin my white shorts, and we settled down at the table in the corner and ate our bagels.
“Ava hasn’t noticed anything strange?” I asked, gesturing at the busy gnomes.
“Nope.” He wiped cream cheese from his mouth. “Well, she asked if the machines are on timers, since they make noise while I’m not in the shop. The thing is, I want to tell her the truth, Pandora. About everything.”
I swallowed a bite of bagel. “That’s a tough conversation.”
“Yeah. First she won’t believe me and then she won’t remember. I guess if I wait a little longer, I’ll stop knowing the truth. Then I won’t have any secrets from her.”
I frowned. “Is that why you said you weren’t so sure you need a gift anymore?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He gestured to the gnomes. “I put them to work, because they wouldn’t go away, but I don’t need them. Maybe you’re right that I don’t need a gift to be happy. I’ve got work that fulfills me and Ava is everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman.”
I gulped too much coffee. “Ow! It burns.”
“Sorry.” He smiled gently. “Just, uh, look after us once I forget, okay? I don’t want invisible brownies messing with us.”
“You know we’re all here for you, always, forever.”
“You know what’s weird about Ava?” he asked. “The more time I spend with her, the more I like her.”
“That is weird,” I said, utterly straight-faced. “So has she had any luck with finding property on island?”
“Yeah, her company’s all-in on Beane for some anonymous client. Who I’m pretty sure is a corporation planning a resort once they get enough land.”
“That won’t work,” I told him. “The old families will never sell. Not even the normals.”
“Don’t you think it’s time for Beane to change, though? We’re kind of backwards. Living in our little faerie-kin echo chamber. Plus a resort would bring more business to the island.”
I watched a girlish gnome shoo a pixie away from a pile of sparkly green tourmaline. “I think we’ve changed plenty.”
“Ha. True. Your gift has been a wild ride.” He sipped his coffee. “So how’s it going with Leo?”
“It’s not. He’s afraid of what’s happening and he’s blaming me. Or not blaming me, but acting like a prick.”
“He’s just—”
“All he ever wanted was for me to get my gift! Why can’t he be happy?”
“Did you ever ask him why he cared so much about you getting your gift?”
“I know why. Because he doesn’t think I’m special enough without it.”
“Oh, Pandora, you know that’s not true,” Gabe said.
“I don’t regret breaking up with Ava the first time.
I needed to learn a few things. I needed to realize how much she meant to me.
But I do regret that I wasted all those years that we could’ve spent together.
I threw away a hundred mornings lazing around in bed, a hundred inside jokes, a thousand times I could’ve made her smile—or moan. If you want him, Pandora, go get him.”
I didn’t answer, a little overwhelmed by his sudden passion, but Violet and Daffodil gave him a standing ovation.