By Magic Alone (12 page)

I coughed. “Pretty much, yes.”

“I see.”

Bracing myself for an explosion, I drained the rest of my coffee in one large swallow. She continued to click her nails and stare off into the distance.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Hm? Yep, I’m fine. Just piecing all of this together.”

Huh. She didn’t look mad. Or hurt. In actuality, she appeared composed and calm. How odd was that? “So, this doesn’t upset you?”

She blinked long, mascara-coated lashes. “Why would it?”

“He’s your ex,” I pointed out. Never mind the fact that she wanted him back. “Isn’t that, like, friendship rule number one? Never date your best friend’s past boyfriends?”

“But you’re not.”

“But I am.” Combing my fingers through my hair, I sighed. “That’s what this conversation is about.”

“Are you trying to upset me?” she asked.

“No . . .?”

“Are you dating Scot because you
want to
date Scot?”

She’d worded the question calmly enough, but a thread of anxiety existed beneath the calm. I heard it plain as day. “No. I already told you—”

“Are you interested in having a relationship with Scot?”

“Hell, no.” That much I was sure of.

“Do you want to roll around in bed with him and do naughty things?”

Um. Yes? No? Honestly, I hadn’t quite decided on that, so I evaded the question with another truth. “Yeah, right. We could barely handle being in the same room together last night. And we were clothed.”

She expelled a loud sigh of relief. “Then why should I be upset?”

All of that and we were right back to square one. I figured
I should be as honest as I could. “Perhaps because Verda has decided that Scot and I are a match.”

“Verda’s wrong.” Leslie crushed her now-empty cup between her hands. “She has to be wrong, because you and Scot might as well exist on different planets.” She screwed her mouth into a misshapen grin. “And I am not referring to Venus and Mars.”

“Okay, then, Leslie. I don’t know. I’m tired and cranky and I’ve been really worried about telling you all of this. I figured you’d be mad at me.”

A real smile wreathed her face. “I was shocked at first. But now that the idea has set for a few minutes, I really am okay with it.”

The ball of stress that had been weighing me down evaporated. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I swear, I’ll get out of this arrangement as soon as I can. I promise! Hopefully, I won’t have to go out with him more than a few times.”

Leslie sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, effectively removing a layer of her lipstick in the process. “I don’t want you to try to get out of the arrangement, Julia. Don’t you see? This is perfect. If he’s dating you, I don’t have to worry about him falling for someone else, and while you’re dating him, you can try to convince him to give me—
us
—another chance.”

Her request jarred me like a physical blow. “Exactly how am I supposed to accomplish that?”

“Just . . . well, let him know that I’ve changed. That I’m not afraid of my feelings anymore, that my relationship philosophy isn’t the same as yours. Oh! And Verda! I’ll talk to her. And you can too! To try to convince her that I’m the better match for Scot.” Leslie’s guarded hope returned, shiny as a brand-new penny. “It could work.”

“I don’t know. This doesn’t feel like a good idea,” I managed to say. “Scot . . . Well—”

“What?” Leslie demanded. “Did he say something about me last night?”

Oh, no. I didn’t want to tell her this. But averting my gaze, I nodded. What if her hope of getting back together with him was entirely impossible?

“What did he say?”

Chicken that I was, I tried the one maneuver that usually did the trick with Leslie. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “So the quicker you spit it out, the less late I’ll be.”

I opened my mouth but closed it just as fast. Then I steadied myself and said, “Sweetie, he said that you two are over. That you
know
you’re over. He . . . ah . . . seemed pretty absolute.”

She turned away. “Yeah. I know that. I haven’t shared this with you, but I contacted him a few weeks ago. Told him how sorry I was and that I’d like to give us another try. He shot me down, Julia.” Leslie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “He said he forgave me, which is great and all, but . . . he also gave me the friend speech.”

I took this new information in, and while I didn’t—couldn’t—comprehend the level of misery my friend was going through, it cut me to the quick just the same. “And you still want me to do this? Talk to him and try to convince him to give your relationship another go? Even knowing how he feels?”

She swallowed. “It’s probably a stupid idea. We only dated for a few months, and we haven’t seen each other for longer than that, but . . . I guess I’m not ready to give up on him after all. Not yet. So this—you pretending to date him—might help.”

Her voice wavered, and that was what made my mind up. Leslie rarely broke down.

“It might not make a difference,” I said. “He might not want to hear it, or maybe he really has moved past you, but if this is really this important to you, then—”

Leslie bounded from her chair and squashed me in a tight hug. “Thank you! Thank you so much. I know it’s a long shot, and I won’t blame you if nothing changes.”

Semi-uncomfortable, I patted Leslie on the back, trying to reconcile myself with what I’d just agreed. Was I nuts? Probably. Extracting myself from my friend’s grip I said, “There’s something else, though, Les. Scot doesn’t like me a heck of a lot, so anything I say might have the opposite effect.”

“Take it slowly,” she suggested. “But really, Julia, if this doesn’t pan out, it’s okay. At least there’s now a chance, which is something I didn’t have yesterday.” Suddenly realizing the time, she gathered up her belongings and fluttered her fingers in a good-bye wave. “Now I really have to leave. Thank you so much!”

I stayed at the table, staring at my untouched doughnut, for quite a while. Leslie’s parting statement should have put my fears to rest. I mean, as long as she understood that I wasn’t a miracle worker, there was no harm in going along with her plan. But I feared the light in her eyes and the spring in her step spelled disaster.

Two hours later found me glaring at Verda’s envelope as if it were about to eat me alive. I didn’t know what to do: open it and go through everything to prove to Scot that I was the coldhearted bitch he thought but possibly save my company, or throw the dang thing away, forget I ever had it, and continue along at Introductions left to my own devices until the business either sank or swam. Sure, Verda was expecting
me later today, but seeing as I’d agreed to date her grandson, I sort of figured she wouldn’t care whether or not I filled out the paperwork.

Verda was an odd duck, though, so the possibility existed that I was wrong and she’d somehow be upset. That was one of my reasons for dragging my heels. But not the only reason. Not even close. The larger part of my reluctance rested with Scot and the picture he’d drawn of me. Try as I might, I couldn’t deny the validity of that picture. Or at least the validity of a small portion of it. So now the mere thought of going through Verda’s paperwork gave me an odd, achy sensation deep inside.

Somehow, though, the compulsion to follow through remained strong. Pressing, even. Which was the crux of my dilemma.

I clicked the button of the pen I held. Once. Twice. I reached a hand out toward the envelope and then yanked it back. Slid the envelope closer and fingered the flap. Yes? No? Oh, hell. I didn’t have a clue. I picked the envelope up, felt the weight of it in my hands, and cursed again. “Make a decision, Julia,” I muttered.

Closing my eyes, I fought to find some balance, a little distance. I weighed the pros and cons along with the possible positive and negative results of whatever action I took. What finally pushed me forward was a combination of three things: my strong curiosity, Leslie . . . and strangely the same thing that had originally held me back. Scot.

He already believed ice ran through my veins. He already saw me in a way that would likely never change, and I was going to have to pretend to date him, to ignore my stupid, irrational desire for him and try to work some matchmaking magic for Leslie. That was a lot. It involved dealing with other people’s emotions, something I wasn’t particularly good at.
Besides, if I was going to change Verda’s mind about me and Scot, convince her that Leslie was the better match, wouldn’t it help to know how Verda did things? And if the process somehow helped me with Introductions . . . well, that was incidental.

I unfastened the flap of the envelope. Tipping the package carefully to the side, I spilled the contents—a thick stack of papers and a book of some sort—out onto the glass surface of the coffee table. A breath wheezed out of my chest and I sniffed, not surprised to smell the lingering aroma of roses, but a whisper of apprehension trickled down my spine and caused me to let go of the envelope so that it fluttered to the floor.

Weird, really, how one experience can forever change your tastes. Before the other night, roses were just another flower; I neither liked nor disliked them. Now they were akin to food I’d eaten right before coming down with the flu. To this day, I cannot stomach even a spoonful of cream of potato soup. I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d also never look at a rose the same way again.

Scooting forward from my spot on the sofa, I grabbed the sheaf of papers and moved them closer, ignoring the book for now. I’d start at page one and work my way though, one sentence, one question at a time.

The initial page was a basic introduction letter, welcoming the client to Magical Matchups and explaining the importance of fully answering every question within the packet. I had a similar letter, both on my company Web site and in our welcome folder, so I only gave this a passing perusal. So far so good.

The remaining pages were partitioned off into six separate sections with binder clips. Each segment was printed on a different color paper. Probably for no other reason than to signify a change of focus to the client, but I had to admit it
was a smart, if simple, idea. This first page, the section printed on light green paper, began with basic questions such as name, birth date, address, phone number, and the like. I entered in the appropriate information and flipped to the next.

Education. This was a piece of cake, too. But my pen stalled at the career questions. Hm. No way was I putting down that I owned a dating service. But I didn’t want to completely lie either. I scrawled in “Customer service rep” and continued. Hey, I dealt with people and tried to solve their problems. Relationship problems. Close enough, thank you very much.

Next came a series of inquiries related to my career, covering everything from how well I liked what I did to my favorite and least favorite aspects of my job. A medical questionnaire followed, one that reminded me of new-patient registration forms at a doctor’s office. Kind of odd, and not something I included in my client workup at Introductions, but I supposed I understood the reasoning.

With the green section completed, I moved on to the lilac pages. These questions reminded me of the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, but with a broader scope. The personality-focused questions I understood, and I used something comparable at Introductions, but why Verda deemed it important to know if I liked dogs, preferred one make/model car over another, was a morning person, or listened to music in my car was beyond me. I rushed through, circled the appropriate responses, and moved to section three.

One glance at the sky blue paper forced a groan. In front of me were short essays depicting a specific scenario that at the end asked “What would you do?” Ugh. My reactions to any given situation weren’t set in stone. Nor, in my opinion, were other people’s. Still, I powered through, and in nearly every case, gave whatever response floated first into my brain.

The next bunch of papers—pink, by the way—was the
thickest of the entire group. Ah!
These
were the relationship questions. These were the ones that would likely give the real scoop on how Verda matched her clientele.

I read. Then I shook my head, turned the page, and read more. I did the same with the next two before flicking back to the beginning.

“Okay, then,” I whispered.

Initially there were three pages asking questions about my last few relationships. Twenty questions per relationship, per page. This isn’t what bewildered me. After all, good logic states that folks tend to choose the same type of person from one relationship to another. Introductions also delved into its clients’ dating histories, just not this deeply. But what did shock me was her rating system for men. Depending on how I answered each of the relationship questions, there was a handy little key that ranked my exes by fruit.

Seriously, fruit.

Verda’s highest-ranking fruit—er, man—was a pomegranate, followed by kiwi, going all the way down to—naturally?—a lemon. An average man was described as an apple, while the fellow who ranked just above average was an orange. Just below? A pear. In between pear and lemon we had the plum. Which, if you followed along with Verda’s concept, made a weird sort of sense. You know, plums become prunes.

But, come on. Fruits? Really? I reread the key and the descriptions, trying to work this bizarre revelation in with the whole magic/fairy-godmother thing. Honestly, it flat-out didn’t compute. But then, not that I’d admit it out loud, my curiosity got the better of me and I whipped through the questions with superhuman speed.

I’d only had two serious relationships over the past ten years. One of them had lasted almost two years, and the other just over one. But I’d also dated a guy in college, so I added him to
the mix to give me the total of three past relationships Verda asked for. I resisted checking the key until I was completely finished. Once the totals were tallied, I discovered that my dating habits—if Verda was to be believed, of course—were all over the place.

My college boyfriend was an orange, which apparently meant he fell in line slightly ahead of those average apples, often making good marriage material but sometimes becoming too preoccupied with themselves and backsliding easily. And not just to the average level, but all the way down to a lemon. Ouch.