That Magic Mischief (27 page)

He grinned. “Now I know what it sounds like when you talk to yourself in your head.” He tugged at a lock of her hair. “No worries, missus. Anticipation is half the fun, I always say.” He gathered up his knives and whisk and collapsible vegetable steamer, and Annabelle opened the door.

“That was really lovely. Except for the head-banging, falling over part.” Annabelle shrugged gamely.

“I’ll ring about an excursion to the auntie’s. Think about it.”

“Okay. Thanks again.”

“My pleasure. And the head-banging wasn’t so bad, but the falling over — fugeddabowdit.”

“Ah, Ben Stiller. Very good!” Laughing, Annabelle shut and locked her door, and held up a hand. “Callie — not in the mood, okay? There is no way you can be more pissed off than I am right now, so let’s just leave it.”

Turning off lights and blowing out candles, Annabelle headed off for bed, and didn’t hear the pounding that was coming from above, as Nosy Ned suddenly found himself the ball in an impromptu game of invisible soccer.

Lugging her stuff out of 1175 Sixth Avenue, Annabelle sighed and slid her shades over her eyes. The midday sun shot off the glass and metal of midtown’s skyscrapers with a vengeance, and the buildings flashed and glittered as a cloud or two raced across the sun. It was the first truly warm day of the season, and the district’s canyon-like atmosphere served to trap the heat and intensify it. Add to that the manic hustle and bustle of office workers, couriers, deli delivery boys, and worst of all, tourists, and Annabelle felt almost unbearably oppressed by the environment. Give her the low-lying buildings of good ol’ Brooklyn any day.

And oh, God, the traffic. Every single taxi that went by was engaged, and she simply couldn’t face the subway, not at rush hour, not all the way back to Carroll Gardens from midtown. Hands on hips, she wondered yet again where her Pooka had gotten to, and why, when she could really use a supernatural helping hand, she was never around?

Callie would have also come in handy at the beginning of the interview: the subject, a middle-aged business man type she was meant to profile for
BusinessWeek
, had been so stiff and uncooperative that Annabelle had despaired of getting anything out of him at all. She had sent a thought out to her Pooka, asking her to shake the guy up a bit, but no mischief had been forthcoming.

That’s when Annabelle decided to think like a Pooka. While making a show of putting a new tape into her recorder, she noticed that Mr. Uptight Business Man was wearing a Jerry Garcia original tie.

“Mind putting on some music? I find it really inspiring,” Annabelle said.
Even if it will make transcribing this tape a complete nightmare.

“Sure!” Business Man showed a spark of enthusiasm. ‘What do you like to listen to?”

“Well, I’d have to agree with Hunter Thompson — ‘Workingman’s Dead’ was one of the best records of the early seventies.”

After that, he was putty in her hands, and she was certain that her lead would have to be a description of his rousing session of air guitar while standing on his desk.

Well, she’d solved that problem. Now how about this one? She supposed she could go back inside, beg the security guy for the number of a car service …
Don’t be ridiculous! A car service! Get on the F train, lazybones!
She resolutely turned toward Sixth Avenue, when she saw Lorna and Maria Grazia walking toward her.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said Annabelle, trying for jolly and cheerful.

“Hey, honey,” said Maria Grazia.

“Hello,” said Lorna.

“Just passing through?” Annabelle looked expectantly at her friends.

Lorna looked confused, and Maria Grazia sounded it. “No,” she said, “We knew you’d be here, and we wanted to patch things up in person.”

It was Annabelle’s turn to be bewildered. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“You told us,” Lorna said impatiently.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did!” Lorna huffed. “On Sunday. You said you were doing an interview in midtown at end of business.”

“I did not. I didn’t even get this job until this morning.” Annabelle looked from one to the other. “It was a last minute thing, I got the call at 9:00
A.M.
Which was ridiculous, but I couldn’t say no — ”

“You told us on Sunday!” Lorna was becoming increasingly shrill. “You must have told us, because how would we know otherwise! Maria Grazia, she told us on Sunday, didn’t she? Maria Grazia!”

Maria Grazia was shaking her head, thinking. “We knew this. Somehow we knew you’d be here. But how we knew it, I don’t know … ”

Annabelle arched a brow and leaned back down for her bag. “I’d love to make it up with you guys, but I have the feeling we’re going to descend into more argument if I broach a possible explanation for this unusual occurrence. Why not help me get a taxi, and we’ll meet Friday for dinner or something? I’d rather not hash it all out in the middle of the street anyway, and — ”

Lorna, who had been staring over Annabelle’s shoulder, suddenly reached out and grabbed her friend’s arm, a look of wary shock on her face. Maria Grazia, from her vantage point, could see what Lorna saw and braced herself for whatever was going to happen next.

Annabelle turned to look.

It was as if midtown Manhattan had gone into slow motion, sight and sound almost grinding to a halt. The light glared off the windshield of a nearby delivery van, temporarily blinding her, and through the flash of that bright white light, a couple appeared, arm in arm, walking toward her. Their shining hair glinted in the ferocious sunshine, and as they strolled toward Annabelle, she realized that it was Wilson. Wilson and that little redheaded bitch, Winifred. Wilson was monologuing, his voice drowned out by the bustling traffic, and Winifred smiled and nodded as he leaned over briefly and kissed the top of her head.

Out of the corner of her eye, Winifred saw Annabelle, and she raised her left hand to wave as regally as the Queen of England, to wave with her palm turned toward herself to ensure that Annabelle noticed the big, fat, shining, shimmering, sparkling diamond on her ring finger. She smiled and waved, waved and smiled, as the cold surge of utter disbelief threatened to knock Annabelle to her knees. She felt Maria Grazia’s hand on her back, bracing her, and she saw Lorna’s angry, disbelieving expression, and she quite simply froze and couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything.

The happy couple passed them by, close enough to touch, and Wilson, self-absorbed as usual, didn’t notice Annabelle or her friends. Still, as if in slow motion, Winifred continued to smile and wave — which is why she didn’t see the huge, wet dog come bounding across the street after having rolled around in the leavings of a carriage horse — didn’t see the big, wet, smelly dog making his way for her — didn’t see the dog leap over a parked car to jump right smack onto her chest, not only knocking her onto the pavement as he lashed his big smelly tongue all over her now grimacing, screaming face, but also knocking the big, fat emerald-cut diamond out of its platinum setting.

Wilson scrambled for the stone and it rolled out of his reach, rolled and rolled and rolled until it found, as if it had been looking for it, a subway grate that opened onto the deepest, darkest bowels of New York City. Gleefully, it skipped off a gray, dried mound of chewing gum, and, flashing its last, fell into what would surely be its final resting place.

Motion resumed its normal pace, as Lorna hustled to flag down a cab, Maria Grazia steered Annabelle into the backseat, and the cabbie miraculously accepted a Brooklyn destination with equanimity. Maria Grazia got in front and looked back at her friends. Lorna was uncharacteristically quiet, and was clutching Annabelle’s hand.

As the cabbie prepared to pull away from the curb, the dog leaped up at Lorna’s window and barked three times. Annabelle came out of her haze and looked the dog in its eyes — its piercing, hazel eyes. She began to laugh.

“She’s insane,” said Lorna.

“She’s shocked,” said Maria Grazia.

“She’s the dog!” said Annabelle, laughing her head off.

• • •

Lorna deferred to Maria Grazia, and waited for her cue. They had followed a now-silent Annabelle into her place, and both waited in the front room as their friend unloaded her gear. Maria Grazia had bustled around, lighting candles, digging out a box of tissues, and even though she didn’t approve, she had also found a pack of Marlboro Lights, and had helpfully extracted a few, laying them within easy reach. Lorna sat down on the couch, and Maria Grazia stood, wondering if there really was anything to be done to help.

Annabelle looked at her expectant friends. Maria Grazia had set the scene for a good smoke-and-cry, and Lorna, tense as she normally was in such circumstances, had been unflaggingly stalwart in the taxi, and now sat on the couch as if awaiting orders.

“I don’t want a difference of opinion regarding my sanity to come between us,” Annabelle said, as she sat down next to Lorna. “I know that you guys love me, and I love you, and that’s that. If my Pooka trouble bothers you that much, then I won’t speak about it ever again. It’s about to resolve itself anyway. I’ll be taking her back to the auld sod after all.” Annabelle laughed. “Husband or no husband, I owe her, big time, after that little episode.”

“So you think it was … ” Maria Grazia trailed off.

“
Hus
band?” Lorna croaked.

“Callie,” Annabelle supplied, ignoring Lorna. “Yeah, the dog’s eyes were hazel, it’s the only consistency between the shapes that she takes on. The eyes are always the same color.”

“And you think that she, um, put it into our heads that you were going to be in Manhattan today … ” Maria Grazia trailed off in confusion.

“I guess,” Annabelle replied and looked at Lorna, who was scowling.

“I don’t like that bit,” she grumbled, “Running around, putting thoughts into people’s heads!”

“You should have seen my face when she stole my favorite toothbrush.”

“And what
hus
band?” Lorna looked revolted.

“Can we talk about that some other time?” Annabelle closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the couch. A companionable silence fell. She wondered if she was going to cry, to burst into tears at any moment. She sat still, waiting for the deluge, and Maria Grazia eyed her sympathetically.

“So? How are you feeling?” MG asked.

Annabelle paused, gave it some thought. “I feel like shit, mostly. I feel like … ” she shook her head as she searched for the words. “I feel bad, but it’s a transitory kind of bad. I feel like an idiot — I don’t think Wilson is impulsive enough to get engaged to someone he’d only been with for two months.”

“Who was that bitch?” spat Lorna.

“An old childhood friend. So they had history, in any case.” Her voice wobbled, and a few tears gathered in her eyes. “Oh, that hurt. That hurt a lot. Did you see the size of that rock? Ow, ow, ow — “ Lorna reached over and clutched Annabelle’s hand. “It hurt because I had wanted it to be me, because I thought I wanted to marry him. And in the middle of me thinking all those things, he was already replacing me before he’d even unloaded me. Tea?” She jumped up from the couch and began grabbing mugs, heating water, and busying herself in general as the hurt she was feeling was rapidly turning into anger. She paused with her back to her friends.

“I stood there, where Maria Grazia is, I stood there and let him dump me, no explanations, no excuses, no illumination — I stood there and took it. I was so shocked, he got to walk out that door, mission accomplished, free and clear. I was so out of it, I was so stunned, that he didn’t have to explain himself in any way, and that is really pissing me off right now.”

The kettle whistled, and Annabelle sloshed hot water over the random tea bags she’d tossed into the mugs. She haphazardly handed them around, and almost tipped Lorna’s into her lap as she fell onto the couch once more.

“Any questions or comments at this juncture?” Annabelle looked at her unusually silent pals.

Maria Grazia and Lorna exchanged a look, and Maria Grazia cleared her throat. “So I was gonna apologize, before the Wilson sighting,” she said, “And I was gonna basically reiterate everything that you had pointed out to us, with our agreement that you are probably right, that Lorna and I have been slightly more focused on your love life than was entirely healthy. And that I should mind my own business, and I know better. I know! But I love you, and I couldn’t help it.” She sniffled.

“You’re a big girl now,” Lorna added. “And I apologize for interfering with you and Monet.”

Annabelle leaned over and air kissed Lorna’s nearest cheek, and got up to give an emotional Maria Grazia a big hug. “Thanks, guys. I apologize for making you let me read your cards, and your palms, and anything else I haven’t remembered that I tried to make you do.”

“There was that spate of reiki you were giving out,” offered Maria Grazia.

“And the time you tried to secretly feng shui my apartment,” added Lorna. “And remember that time you shoved all those herbs into my pocketbook before I went on my interview with Matrix?” asked Lorna.

“And that whole color therapy thing with the little bottles of oils that you gave us for Christmas?” chirped Maria Grazia.

“Okay, okay!” Annabelle laughed. “No more alternative therapies unless I’m asked.”

“Are you really okay?” Maria Grazia sat down on a chair, finally relaxing.

“I guess. I’d already let him go,” Annabelle said, “And although I can’t deny that the sight of him happy infuriates me, much less the sight of him with his fiancée, I’m much better than I was than the last time you all were here. I’m better than I have been in years.”

“That is frickin’ fantastic, Belle,” said Maria Grazia, welling up a bit. “We need to frickin’ celebrate!”

“It
would
be nice to toast this with some truly superior champagne,” Lorna agreed.

Annabelle laughed, and on instinct, said, “Check the fridge. You never know.”

Lorna got up and tugged open the door. “Well, well, well.” She withdrew a magnum of Dom Perignon. “Too bad about that smell of fish. And what’s this?” She took out a striped ball and tossed it to Annabelle, who caught it and laughed.