Lucky Charm (21 page)

She was just about to climb inside, when she heard a male voice behind her
say
, “Excuse me,
m
iss, would you mind sharing a cab?”

She turned around and saw a handsome-looking guy a few steps away from her. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a fitted leather jacket that showcased his muscular physique
. H
is perfectly coiffed hair made him look like a modern day Jimmy Dean.

Could it be that Madam Aurora’s charm was working its magic already?
Annabel wondered.
Relax
, she thought,
the poor guy just wants to share a cab.

“Sure,” she said. “Where are you headed?”

“Just one moment, please
.
I don’t quite remember the address.” The James Dean look-alike reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a crumpled up piece of paper. “Eightieth and Second.”

“That works
.
I’m going up to Seventieth.”

“I’m Frank
,
by the way,” said the handsome stranger once they were seated inside the cab.

“I’m Annabel. Is this your first time in
New York
?” she asked, grasping for straws to start a conversation
. I
t had been so long since she had flirted with a guy.

“Yeah.” Frank nodded. “I’m from Park City, Utah
. I
t’s way more my speed over there, if you get my meaning. I’m here visiting an old buddy of mine
. W
e grew up together, but I’m not sure if coming out here was such a good idea after all.”

“How come?” Annabel asked
,
too curious to stop herself.

“Well, we used to be real close, but he’s a different person now. He works for some big-name financial firm
.
I was hoping he might help me get financing for a business that I want to start, but it doesn’t look like it. I’ve been here almost a week, and he’s been so busy working that we haven’t even hung out together
.
I pretty much ended
up
roaming the streets of Manhattan on my own.”

“Well, if you’d like, I could show you around the City tomorrow,” Annabel blurted out before she could catch herself
. N
ormally, she would never do something so spur of the moment as asking a total stranger out, but apparently, Madam Aurora’s charm had given her new boldness.

Frank shifted in his seat uneasily. “Thank you and all, but I’ve got a girlfriend back
home,
and I know that she wouldn’t like that.” He shrugged apologetically.

“No, no
,
it’s fine
.
I wouldn’t want your girlfriend to be jealous.” Now this was a sucker punch
. S
he had opened her mind to new possibilities, as Madam Aurora had instructed her to
do
, and immediately got shot down. Thankfully, they were nearing
Seventieth Street
,
and Annabel asked the cab driver to pull over.

“I’m sorry,” Frank apologized
.
“Please
,
don’t think me rude, but I’ve never been good at beating around the bush. If you don’t mind me saying, I think you’re real pretty
,
and if I didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d jump at the chance to go out with you.”

Actually, I do mind
, Annabel thought
. S
he did not need his apology or pity
. S
he just wanted to get the hell out of that cab.

“Well, have a great stay in
New York
,” she called over her shoulder as she climbed out of the cab.

Standing on the pavement, Annabel watched the cab pull away, feeling like she could fall straight through the ground from embarrassment.
What’s wrong with you?
she thought
. G
et a hold of
yourself. I
t’s just some random guy you’ll never see again
. W
ho cares?
But
,
of course
,
that was not the reason why she felt sideswiped, still gasping for breath from the impact of the blow. No, it was because despite her instincts telling her otherwise, she
had
decided to take a chance and failed
. I
f this was the work of Madam Aurora’s talisman, she did not need it.

Back in her apartment, Annabel sank dejectedly into the couch. Her face was still burning with embarrassment, but she had to admit that
,
given her track record, she should not have been surprised. Somehow, starting with her first crush, she always managed to go for the wrong guy.

Her first foray into the land of dating
had
happened in her senior year of high school when she fell for Adam Hum, a freshman at
Columbia
and a fledging poet she met at a Barnes & Noble poetry reading in the City. Adam was everything Annabel had ever dreamed of in a guy: with his thoughtful brown eyes and longish brown hair
,
he looked handsome without
being
threateningly so, and his long, lanky body was just masculine enough without being overpowering. He quoted Tennyson and Shakespeare, and he openly admitted to having a weakness for Jane Austen and Edith Wharton.
B
est of all
,
he was a gentleman
. D
uring the three months that they dated, he never pressured Annabel with sexual demands. Lilly kept insisting that it sounded too good to be true, but Annabel disagreed, arguing that their love was deep and spiritual. It was not long after that a rude awakening followed. A month later, Adam announced that he was getting back together with his high school girlfriend
,
who was a freshman at
Boston
University
and that he would be transferring to BU in the fall
. A
pparently, the two of them
had
wanted to take a break from each other and try dating other people, but
had
decided to stay together after all. He offered to remain friends, but Annabel politely rejected his offer
. S
he liked him a lot, just not as a friend. So, she skipped senior prom and hoped that college would be different.

The first year of college was uneventful, as she focused on her studies and spent her free time rea
ding Jane Austen and Emily Dicki
nson, dreaming of romantic ideals that made a real life romance with a college guy pretty much impossible.
If you keep filling up your mind with this nonsense, you’ll never meet anyone, Annabel,
Lilly used to joke. As she went from one meaningless date to another, Annabel was beginning to think that her friend might have a point
.
T
hen, in her sophomore year, Andrew Swanson asked her out. Andrew was a junior
. H
e was a finance major, and Annabel thought that that might be a nice change
.
Andrew’s vocabulary was rather sparse, but at least he seemed honest and straightforward, just like the endless rows of numbers that he crunched on his calculator. He was also on the lacrosse team
. H
e was tall and muscular and wore polo shirts with neatly pressed slacks. She liked him well enough
,
and he even invited her to spend Christmas with his family in
Connecticut
. They were together for two years, but when Andrew graduated and got offered an analyst position at Goldman Sachs, he announced that he would be too busy at work to be in a relationship. A few months later, Annabel found out that he got engaged to a girl from
Connecticut
. A
pparently, their fathers worked together.

Still, she did not despair
. S
o what if she had kissed a few frogs
?
S
he was certain that her prince charming would come in due time
. T
hen she met Jeremy.

It
seemed that no amount of magic could fix her predicament. With a sigh, Annabel reached for the pendant on her neck
. S
he was about to unfasten the clasp when Madam Aurora’s words came into her mind:
You must be patient
. I
t takes time for the charm to work
. Perhaps there was still a chance that Madam Aurora’s charm would work
. S
he could certainly use the magic
. N
ot that she believed in this kind of thing in the first place. Truth be told, she would very much like to believe in it, but so far the reality
had
proved otherwise.
Well, maybe I will give it another chance
, Annabel thought, secretly wishing that the lucky love charm would turn out to be the real thing.

Annabel spent the next month taking on as many new projects as possible at work and doing her best to eradicate Jeremy from her mind. She was proud to say that lately
,
memories of her ex-fiancé troubled her less and less
. W
hen she did think of Jeremy, it was more out of habit than actual hurt. As for Madam Aurora’s love charm
,
it was yet to manifest its magic
. S
till, Annabel took to wearing the heart-shaped pendant, secretly hoping that one day it just might work.

Annabel checked her watch
.
Lilly would be there any minute
. T
hey had agreed to share
a
car service to the airport. Her bulging suitcase was propped against the wall, her purse was packed with two travel guides filled with copious notes along with a detailed itinerary of sites she would visit in
Paris
. I
n a nutshell, she could not wait for her journey to
Paris
to commence.

At first she had agreed to go because of Lilly’s insistence, but since then she had grown genuinely excited about the trip
. F
or the first time since her break up with Jeremy, she truly felt like she had something to look forward to. Despite Lilly’s assurances that they would be spending time together, Annabel was not going to hold her friend to her promise
. O
ver the past month
,
Lilly had racked up a humongous long distance telephone bill, which consisted entirely of her talks with Simon
.
Annabel expected that the two lovebirds would want to be alone as much as possible. She was prepared to explore
Paris
on her own
. O
nly a few weeks ago
,
such a p
rospect would
have
unnerve
d
her, but now
she was looking forward to getting to know the City of
Light
. But what she really hoped to get out of her time away was to get to know herself again
. S
he had bought a diary to record her experiences during the trip and hoped that keeping a diary would help her to start writing again.

Her
cell phone rang
. I
t was Lilly. Annabel locked the front door and hurriedly lugged her suitcase down the steep stairs of her building.

“There you are! I was beginning to worry you
’d
changed your mind.” Lilly opened the passenger door while the driver was loading Annabel’s luggage into the trunk.

“Not in a million years! I’ve got my itinerary all worked out.” Annabel pointed to the bulging travel guide in her purse. “It’s going to be
the
adventure of a lifetime!” she exclaimed, hoping that if she believed it, it might indeed turn out that way.

“We’re going to have a ball!” Lilly picked up on her friend’s excitement. “I can’t wait to get the show over and done with,” she added, “I barely slept all week, finalizing the selections.”

“By the way, how did you manage to pack your entire collection into one suitcase?” Annabel had spotted Lilly’s petite luggage when the driver was maneuvering her own huge suitcase into the trunk.

“I didn’t
.
I FedExed everything on Thursday
. I
t should get there by Sunday night. The shipping charges cost a fortune, and I sure hope it will be worth it,” Lilly added.

“You’ll blow them away
,
you’ll see,” Annabel assured her friend
.
“
A
nd you know that I’ll be there
,
should you need any help.”

“You can be sure that I’ll take you up on your offer
.
I will need tons of moral support.” Lilly grinned. “But the show is not until Tuesday, the week after we arrive, and until then I’m going to enjoy
Paris
!”