Chapter 7 THE MAGIC WE FIND #2
I’d never seen Lara this cagey about a guy.
Was she … actually into him? Ordinarily, Lara allowed a guy a couple of dates and then sent him on his way to find a girl who’d treat him right.
She certainly didn’t invite him on vacation.
Well, except the one guy who was heir to a hotel empire and had comped us honeymoon suites across four different states. But that had been a strategic play.
‘Well, he seems cool,’ I offered. ‘What does he do? How’d you guys meet? What’s his star sign? Does he like animals? Can I stalk him on Instagram to make sure he’s safe?’
Lara whacked me on the arm. ‘Okay, okay, I get it. I should’ve said something. But I don’t usually say anything.’
‘There’s not usually anything to say,’ I pointed out. ‘Unless it’s “help, Molly, pretend to be my ailing grandmother so I have an excuse to leave”.’
‘I haven’t done that in ages. I’ve perfected the art of the hasty exit.
’ Lara sipped her drink, shielding her eyes as she watched a couple of kids wrestle a home-made kite into the sky.
‘It’s really not anything, I promise. It’s just …
a couple of dates turned into a couple more dates. I still don’t even know his last name.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Okay, it’s Campanelli. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry him. Besides, I’m more interested in your love-life dramas.’
Now it was my turn to feign fascination with the kite. Although the kids had actually done a good job with all the streamers and cellophane. ‘Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with the Tucker boys thing? Did you hear Lorraine in there going on about making choices?’
Lara flashed one of her ultra-white grins my way. ‘Maybe she meant between pastries. Speaking of …’
She reached for the box of baked goods, running a thumbnail along its edge to dislodge the branded sticker seal and pulling out a pumpkin-spice cornetto. She took a bite before continuing.
‘We’ve always been obsessed with the Tucker boys thing,’ she said. ‘It’s just that you’ve finally figured out that you’re part of it.’
‘Part of what?’ I asked, warily.
‘A love triangle!’ Lara cackled as though she were the witch and not me.
I shook my head vehemently. No, absolutely not.
A love triangle was my least favourite of all the romance tropes.
Normal people didn’t get themselves caught up in love triangles!
They were awkward, and confusing, and someone always got hurt.
Lara had made a game of collecting hearts, but that wasn’t my thing. I’d rather not participate at all.
Just then, a whisperwind came racing over my shoulder: I hate her lasagne. But she thinks I love it, and that makes her happy, so I keep asking for seconds.
Lara giggled – she’d heard it as well. Part of the joy of the whisperwinds was that you didn’t need magic to hear them. They were for everyone.
‘I wonder what the most damning whisperwind anyone has ever spoken is,’ she mused. ‘Do you think there have been any admissions of murder? I think I’d be good at solving a murder.’
‘I bet you would,’ I said, grateful for the topic change. ‘Or getting away with one.’
‘You’re right. You mock my dating history, but I bet they’d all give me an alibi if I asked. And Finn would cover for you, no question.’
‘Finn, huh?’
‘He’s the morally grey one. That’s what makes him so fun.’
‘Not Noah?’
Lara shook her head. ‘He’s too by the book. He’d turn you in even though it would destroy him. And then he’d hole himself up in his studio painting portraits of you until you got out of prison.’
‘How romantic,’ I said drily. ‘You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?’
‘At length. Imagine the reunion. Noah would be a silver fox by then. I bet the sex would be amazing. All that pent-up tension …’
‘Lara!’ I pretended to be mortally offended by this instead of intrigued.
With Lara continuing to offer increasingly debauched scenarios involving passion and murder, the two of us laughingly picked our way along the loose sand at the top of the beach, enjoying the combination of the steady morning sun and the crisp breeze that reminded us that fall was nipping at our heels.
Gulls wheeled overhead, and fish leapt from the water, silver tails arcing.
Healthy types were already out and about, jogging, doing yoga, throwing sticks for happy dogs.
A group of kids gathered shells in macramé bags, trailed by parents wearing sunglasses and sipping early-morning mimosas.
‘The Heart Tree clearing!’ I exclaimed as we arrived at our favourite spot on the beach, a dune ringed by seagrass and overhung by a twisted tree. Dozens of initials were carved into the tree, some scarred into the bark decades ago, others more recent.
As always, I touched the set of initials that fascinated me most: the letters ‘JL’ etched within the top half of a wonky heart. In the bottom part of the heart was a scratched-out section that might have once been initials, or might never have been anything at all.
Lara, Tiff and I had all made our guesses about the heart over the years.
Lara believed it was an empowering demonstration of self-love, and that J.Lo had carved them there between marriages.
Tiff thought that a jealous new lover had covered up the initials of JL’s first one.
To me it had always seemed unfinished, like JL had changed their mind mid-carving.
‘How do you think J.Lo is doing these days?’ Lara asked as she settled down on the sandy, grassy embankment. As sand-in-your-bits seats went, this one wasn’t too bad. It was better than most of the beach, anyway.
‘Only J.Lo knows J.Lo’s heart,’ I said wistfully, setting the zinnias down gently so that they wouldn’t bruise. I opened Lorraine’s pastry box, considering the various pastries until Lara passed me an eggnog-crème doughnut.
I took a bite and moaned in delight.
‘That’s almost offensively good,’ I said, handing Lara what was left of the doughnut. Good thing I hadn’t gone with just the apple tart, or I would’ve missed out.
Lara polished off the doughnut, then attacked the tiramisu with a fork. ‘Wow, I just saw stars. Did Lorraine put all of last night’s leftover booze in this?’
‘Thank you, Lorraine,’ I said reverently, casting witchy hands to the sky.
‘So, Jack’s visiting from Washington,’ said Lara finally.
‘State, or D.C.?’
‘I mean, there’s distance involved with either.’
‘Doomed from the start,’ I said merrily. ‘Although maybe don’t tell Tiff I said that.’
Lara jabbed me with the handle of her wooden fork. ‘There’s safety in distance. It’s ideal for a holiday fling with no further obligations. Or the risk of him showing up at the office. Ugh, like that guy I met at the pop-up in Boston. Who brings a stuffed toy to someone’s place of work?’
‘Counter: who doesn’t bring a stuffed toy to someone’s place of work?’
Lara had turned her attention to the half of the doughnut I’d managed to leave. ‘You and I are very different people,’ she said around a mouthful of filling.
‘Thank goodness, or we’d be keeping local law enforcement very busy.’
‘Just so long as he doesn’t have a podcast,’ said Lara thoughtfully. ‘I have very few rules for holiday flings, but no podcasts is one of them. They have a tendency to slip into podcaster voice during sex. Ruins the whole vibe.’
‘Especially when they start shilling protein powder. Use code Podcast Dickhead for thirty per cent off.’
‘You jest, but that’s happened at least twice.’ Done with her dessert, Lara stabbed her fork into the sand. ‘All right, not happened. But they were definitely thinking about it. I could see it behind the eyes. Right here, the window to the soul bit. It said discount code.’
I laughed around my bite of apple tart, which, to be fair, was just as good as the doughnut. How did Lorraine do it? With great baking skills and a dash of magic, yes, but still. I had my own magic, but it hadn’t turned me into a world-class pastry chef.
In solidarity with Lara, and to mark the completion of a seriously ambitious plate of pastries, I stabbed my fork into the sand as well. Unlike Lara’s, it didn’t stand up neatly in the sand – not even with a touch of magic to it. It must have hit a root or something.
But as I pulled the fork back out to try another stab, something gleamed. A bottle cap, perhaps. Or a lucky penny. I was always finding those.
I used the fork to scoop the sand to one side, revealing a ring. An antique diamond-shaped one decorated with dramatic filigree and tiny moonstones. One of the moonstones had darkened, from the elements, probably, but otherwise it was beautiful.
Awestruck, I held it up, shaking the last few grains of sand from it with a gentle burst of magic. It felt warm in my hand, and I thought for a moment that I felt a small zap of electricity.
Magic … and not my own.
I frowned, rolling it around on my palm.
‘Is this how fishermen feel when they make a catch?’ said Lara, marvelling at the ring, which shimmered beneath the morning sun.
‘Well, I’m not throwing it back,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Put it on,’ urged Lara. ‘Look at it – it’s gorgeous.’
The ring crackled in my palm, and I drew in a sharp breath. Who knew what spells or memories it was imbued with.
But Lara wasn’t taking no for an answer.
‘Here.’
Grabbing the ring, she jammed it on my finger, marvelling as the morning light fractured into prisms of colour. A million tiny spangles sprayed across the sand. Lara oohed, grasping my hand and holding it to the sky.
‘Settle down, Gollum,’ I said. ‘It’s just a ring.’
Granted, a weird, magical ring that had found its way to me. I was no fortune teller, but I knew that magical artefacts didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They found the person they were meant to find, and they stuck around until they had no more reason to do so.