“Many of you are unfamiliar with Red Magic, and as I stand here today, I want to take the blame for that. We thought we could protect you from it, but we were wrong, and I am afraid that our hubris has put the Sitterhood in danger. Right here, just a few weeks ago, the true powers of Red Magic made themselves known. We were almost bested, and unimaginable havoc was almost wreaked, so we are here now to make sure that never happens again.” Wanda paused and looked around the auditorium, and I swear that her eyes lingered on me for just a second. I quickly looked down at my knees.
I tried to pay attention to the rest of Wanda’s speech, but I had a hard time. Her words were powerful, and serious, but somehow I couldn’t make sense of them. Halloween had been the most terrifying night of my life. It was the first time I’d seen demons, and a Portal, and MacKenzie had been kidnapped on my watch. It was a hot mess from beginning to end. But I was a novice Sitter then. I’d never even done a real Return before that night, and neither had Cassandra. We were pantsing it all the way, and we hadn’t done a terrible job.
And the villains of the night, Erebus and Dion? They were Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Erebus was powerful, no doubt, and scary, but he was also a total scuzzbucket. The Synod had come in and swatted him away like he was nothing more than a fruit fly. Yet, they had also sealed the Spring River Portal for almost fifteen years because of him. This whole Summit was here because of him. He was a creep for sure. But a Red Magician mastermind? That seemed like a stretch.
Suddenly, Wanda’s speech was over and everyone was up and heading for the doors.
Casandra stood, but instead of charging ahead like she normally did, she actually waited for me, and we fell in behind the crowd. “So, what did you think of that speech?” I asked, wondering if she was on the same wavelength as me.
“It was weird,” she said, glancing around. “What did you think?”
I nodded. “It was weird,” I agreed. “Why did you think it was weird?”
“You tell me first,” she said.
“Well, it made Red Magic sound terrifying,” I said. “And it is. But Erebus, well…” I struggled for the right words, trying to keep in mind that Erebus was Cassandra’s dad.
“Was not terrifying?” she offered, and I nodded.
“Exactly!” I said, happy she had said it, not me. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was scary. And he was certainly powerful, but there was something about him that seemed a little thirsty.” Cassandra nodded, and I kept going. “Like, he seemed like the kind of guy who’d keep his pleather jacket on when it was ninety degrees, just because he thought it looked cool.” She nodded again. “He seemed like the kind of person who’d be really into creative facial hair, and turn up the radio and say ‘This is my jam!’ when Nickelback came on.” Cassandra kept nodding, which encouraged me to continue. “He seemed like the type of guy who’d drive a PT Cruiser,” I said, “and call it a sports car. He seemed like—” Cassandra held her hand up.
“I got it,” she said. “You can stop there. Basically, he doesn’t seem like someone who would warrant all this.”
“Exactly,” I said, but before we could continue, I spotted Brian. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Cassandra, and took off in his direction.
I wove through the crowd, making my way toward Brian. When I caught his eye, he did not look happy to see me. I could see the muscles twitching in his jaw.
“Well, that was quite a show you put on,” he huffed when I was finally standing in front of him. Oh God, my phone.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” I said, realizing that this was perhaps not the best intro to the question I had to ask. “And I swear that it will never happen again. But I need my phone back. Now.”
Brian laughed so hard that he slapped his knees. Rather, he pretended to laugh so hard that he slapped his knees. I gave him a minute and acted like I was impressed when he pretended to wipe his eyes. “Oh, that’s rich,” he said. “That’s just rich.”
“I’m serious, Brian,” I said. “Mom’s facility called and Dad hasn’t paid her bill and they are going to kick her out. Dad isn’t answering his phone and I have to figure this out. The electricity was off at our house this morning, and if I don’t get ahold of him soon, I might have to go home.”
“That is not an option,” Brian said. “You’re here for the duration of the weekend, and the Synod has gone to great pains to make sure no one will notice you’re gone.”
“I’m not worried about anyone noticing I’m gone,” I said, feeling very real, not-pretend-at-all tears come to my eyes. “I’m worried about my mom. And my dad.” And Pig, and basically everyone else whom I cared about. In short, I was worried about my entire life.
Brian’s face softened. “You can’t have your phone back, and you certainly cannot leave,” he said. “But I will look into it. We don’t want anything to take your attention away from being here.” He paused. “Don’t worry, Esme. Everything will be fine.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said, slightly calmed by Brian’s assurances, though, if Dad truly hadn’t paid the bill because he couldn’t afford it—because we couldn’t afford it—then that was a problem no amount of magic was going to solve. Suddenly, I felt my cheeks go hot as a thread of anger coursed through me. “Brian,” I said, “Mom was a Sitter, and the only reason she is in the place where she is now is because she was trying to do her job. The Synod owe it to her, and they should be helping make sure she’s okay.” They owe it to me, too, I thought. I braced myself for Brian to give me another one of his lectures about rules and responsibilities and yada yada all that life-is-not-fair BS, but instead he just reached out and squeezed my shoulder.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “And I promise your mom will be fine.” He swallowed. “Room assignments were handed out, so you should go meet your roommate now. And try to enjoy this as much as you can. It’s a very special thing.” I nodded and started to walk away when a thought hit me, and I turned back to Brian.
“So, hey,” I said, “Wanda…I thought her name was…well, you know?” Brian shook his head. A cup of yogurt knew more about pop culture than Brian did, but he still picked up on my reference.
“No, but it is not a coincidence they look so much alike. The actress you are thinking of was cast in her iconic role because of her resemblance to Wanda. It is one of those bits of the Sitterhood that has made it into mainstream lore.” Suddenly, Brian straightened up and brushed something invisible off his turtleneck. He was looking over my shoulder, staring at something across the room. I followed his gaze to see that he was staring at someone, not something. Clarissa. Even in different clothing, tracksuit still recognized tracksuit, and it looked like someone had a crush.
I got my room assignment, then took the elevator up to the fourth floor. I walked down the hall, and when I found room 402, I tried to push the door open, but it would only open about a foot. The door was hitting something behind it. I tried again, but the door wouldn’t budge. Finally, I turned sideways and squeezed through the gap. The doorstop was a massive suitcase, wedged between the door and the wall. And from the looks of it, the suitcase had exploded. There were clothes and shoes and jewelry and makeup on every conceivable surface, and, though the room appeared to be empty, it smelled like skunk. Then I heard a toilet flush and someone appeared in the bathroom doorway.
It was the girl with the shaved side and the Rick Owens jacket, and the smell I’d been smelling wasn’t skunk, but the lit joint pinched between her fingers. She must have just taken a hit, because she started coughing and the smoke burst out of her nose and mouth like she was an asthmatic dragon. She walked over to one bed, and as she did, a piece of ash fell off the joint and floated through the air, landing on said jacket, which was now lying in a crumpled pile on the floor.
“I took the closet,” she said. “Because there was only one.” She took another hit. “Amirah Rahim,” she sai
d as she held her breath. I recognized the name from the Runaway Bunnies.
“Oh,” I said. “Esme Pearl.”
She smiled. “I mean, is this not the smallest hotel room you’ve ever been in? The showers at the Standard are bigger than this.” I just nodded and didn’t offer up the fact that (a) this was probably the only hotel-not-motel room I’d ever been in, and (b) I had no idea what the Standard was.
“Where’s your stuff?” she asked. The hotel had dropped off my weekend bag, and it was sitting right inside the door, but apparently that didn’t count as stuff.
“I didn’t bring much,” I said. “Since these rooms are so small,” I added. I was torn between looking at Amirah and at her jacket, which looked like it was in pain. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and bent over to pick it up off the floor. I smoothed it out and hung it on the back of a chair. “I like your jacket,” I said. “Is that from the spring/summer ’19 collection?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I hated myself for saying them. Sure, I was asking because part of me wanted to know, but I was also trying to impress Amirah. And she was clearly not impressed.
“Yeah, but I think I’m going to sell it,” she said. “I’m pretty sure my godmother is getting me a Saint Laurent for Christmas.”
I nodded like I knew what she was talking about, even though I didn’t have a godmother and had never been faced with an embarrassment of leather jacket riches. I crossed over to the bed that she wasn’t sitting on and sat down on it. “So where are you from?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“New York.”
Of course. I’d heard of that place. “Did you get to the room early?” I asked. Wanda had dismissed us just a few minutes ago, so surely there was no way Amirah could have made this much of a mess in such a short time.
“No,” she said, looking confused. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I said quickly. Amirah stubbed out her joint on the lip of an open La Croix can. I heard a hiss as the cherry fell into the Pamplemousse, then she stood up, turned around, and, in one swift motion, pulled all the sheets and blankets off the bed and dumped them in a pile on the floor.
The hell? Maybe the thread count wasn’t high enough, and she’d brought her own sheets from home. But then she pulled out a roll of clear packing tape, ripped off a strip with her teeth, and started taping it on the mattress. Then she stood up, held the tape up to the light, and peered at it.
She was apparently satisfied with whatever she saw, because she crumpled the tape into a ball. Then she turned to me and motioned me off the bed I was sitting on. I stood up and got out of her way as she repeated her performance.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Checking for bedbugs,” she said. “My dad brought them home once from a Four Seasons in Scottsdale. I thought Mom was going to divorce him. We ended up having to go to Paris for three weeks while the penthouse was fumigated.”
Amirah looked at me like I was supposed to feel sorry for her that she had endured such an inconvenience as having to go to Paris for three weeks. And she had said penthouse, not apartment. I bet it was one of those places where there were no hallways and the elevator opened right into the living room. I wondered whether she always traveled with a roll of tape tucked between Balenciaga jeans and Balmain T-shirts, which I knew she had because they were also strewn across the floor.
“Well, I’m going to head downstairs,” Amirah announced. “See what sort of old tires and burlap sacks this place cooks up for dinner. You coming? We’re at the same table.” I followed her to the door and in the process nearly tripped over a Versace sneaker.
“Are you going to put the sheets back on the bed?” I asked.
She waved one hand over her shoulder. “The maid will do it,” she said, and shut the door behind us. “So, where are you from? Wait! Lemme guess! Minnesota?” I shook my head. “Iowa?” I shook my head again, and Amirah crinkled her eyebrows. “Well, it’s definitely someplace flat. Gosh, you’re not from Oklahoma, are you?”
“No, I’m from here.”
“From Kansas?” she asked. I nodded and she laughed. “I’ve never met anyone from Kansas before. It’s kinda cool, in a Children of the Corn sort of way.” I cringed—that was not a compliment. “So, tell me, what do you do for fun here?”
I sucked my breath in through my teeth. I wasn’t sure how to answer that question—watched movies, ate doughnuts, went thrifting. But would that seem lame to Amirah? I decided to keep it vague. “Oh, you know, just hang out,” I said. “What about you?”
The elevator arrived, and I followed Amirah on. She pressed the lobby button with an elbow. “You know, normal stuff,” she said. “Go to clubs, openings, things like that.” She swiped her hair from one side of her head to the other. “Or rather, I used to. I’ve been training so much lately that I barely have time to go to brunch.”
“Oh,” I said. “Training takes up most of your free time?”
Amirah nodded. “My parents are actually letting me homeschool so I can focus on it. Which kind of sucks, ’cause I miss my friends, but protecting the innocent is more important. Obviously.”
“Your parents are supportive of you being a Sitter?” As the question came out of my mouth, I realized that this was the first-ever conversation I’d had with a Sitter other than Cassandra, and that I had a million questions for Amirah, and not just about her wardrobe.
“Of course, they’re, like, beyond,” she said. “My mom slayed back in her day.”
“Is your dad in the Sisterhood too?” I was starting to learn the words that everyone else used when they talked about this stuff. The elevator door opened and Amirah and I stepped out into the lobby.
“Nah, he’s just a normie. Well, not a total normie—he’s like a billionaire—but he’s like obsessed with my mom. He has been from day one. He was actually dating Naomi Campbell when they met, but he dropped her so fast. I mean, why date a supermodel with you can date a woman with actual superpowers?” She rifled through her Issey Miyake tote and pulled out a little box of mints. She popped one in her mouth, then held the box out to me. I took a mint and regretted it the second it touched my tongue: a sinus-clearing blast ripped through my head, but the mint itself tasted like dirt and shrimp. I coughed a little.
“Good, right?” Amirah said, and ate another one. “Our housekeeper special orders them from Japan.” I nodded and forced myself to swallow the mint whole, like a pill, just to get rid of it.
* * *
—
We walked across the lobby, and when we got to the Chris Parker Cafeteria, I was relieved to see a buffet table laden with things that looked worlds away from what I had just had in my mouth. Food that looked normal, and predictable: a fajita bar, chicken fingers, pizza, veggie burgers, french fries, iceberg lettuce with bacon bits and ranch dressing. I turned, ready to ask Amirah whether she wanted to get in line, to see that she had already left. She was running toward Heart-Shaped Glasses, and it looked like they were reuniting after thirty years, not thirty minutes.
I grabbed a plate and got in line by myself. Across the room, I could see Cassandra already sitting at a table, chowing down, with several empty chairs between her and a redhead, the only other person at the table. I helped myself to a couple of slices of pizza and extra breadsticks, then added a salad, extra dressing, for good measure. I walked over to our table, which had a little Runaway Bunnies sign, just like the book cover, in the middle of it, and opted for the empty chair next to the redhead as opposed to the empty chair next to Cassandra. The redhead looked up at me and smiled.
“Hi,” she said, holding out her hand, “I’m Mallory.” Her hair was curly, the top part held back with a scrunchie, and she had big glasses that kept slipping down her freckled nose. I couldn’t help but think how she reminded me of the original Mallory, Mallory Pike, but I didn’t bring it up, because it seemed lik
e something she had probably heard a million times before.
“Are you Cassandra?” she asked, which made me realize that even though she and Cass were sitting at the table alone, and had been for a minute, they hadn’t exchanged a word.
“No, I’m Esme,” I said. “That’s Cassandra.” At the sound of her name, Cass looked up from shoveling spaghetti into her mouth and gave a little wave. I was about to ask Mallory where she was from when Amirah and Heart-Shaped Glasses approached the table, and Amirah set her tray down with a bang. There was only a small bowl of white rice on the tray.
“This food is not going to work for me,” she said, looking at me as if I had cooked it. “I’m going to have to order takeout. Please tell me you have uni in this godforsaken town.”
“Jeez, Amirah,” Heart-Shaped Glasses said. “This is Kansas. If they had uni, would you really want to eat it?” Her tray was similarly laden to my own, and she used the tips of her talon-nails to pick up two chicken fingers and drop them on Amirah’s tray. “Eat some chicken. You’re not going to die if you go one weekend without Nobu.” Then she turned to the rest of us. “I’m Ji-A,” she said. “With a hyphen between the i and the a.”
For Better or Cursed Page 11
