by Judi Fennell
Oh, ho; this was his lucky day. Enchanted dishes. Things he could easily transport. The genie would definitely want her magical, dancing dishware back. Women always liked this kind of stupid shit.
Then one of the dishes went whizzing by his head like a Frisbee. Followed by another—and another—forcing him toward the back door.
He was not leaving without one of them.
When another dish went sailing through the air toward him, Gary grabbed it. Its edges whirred around like a saw but luckily were too smooth to do any damage. He, however, could do a lot of damage to it.
He shoved the bag with the lantern under his arm and held the dish out in front of him with both hands. “One more step and I snap it in half.”
Every inanimate animated object in the room stopped moving. The chattering-teeth thing stopped clacking. Thank God.
“That’s it, big guy,” he said to the armoire. “Back it up. Right into the living room where you belong. You, too, Ichabod.” He could swear the coat rack shivered.
“You.” He nodded at all the dishes who’d landed on the dish towel on the drainboard. “Wrap yourselves up in that towel. One layer each.” He grabbed another towel from the cabinet knob and tossed it to those on the table. “The rest of you, too. Hurry up. One flex of my wrist and this guy’s history if you don’t.”
The dishes drooped their edges as they worked themselves into a stack, each one divided by a layer of towel. He grabbed a pair of grocery bags and stuffed the bundles inside, tying the ends securely, then shoved them inside the box on the counter, just squeezing them in. Good. They wouldn’t be able to move at all.
Then he shoved the box inside another couple of bags and tied each one tightly, trussing them up enough that they wouldn’t be able to alert Zane or the genie while he got away. He’d like to take them all, but that would alert Zane immediately that someone knew his secret. Gary wanted some time to plan how to use this to his best advantage.
Now to see to the thugs in the living room.
He shoved the remaining dish into his supply bag with the bottle, picked up the package of dishes, then walked back into the living room.
The furniture was having a powwow, leaning against each other as if they were planning something.
“I’m not kidding, you two.” He held up the box of dishes. “Separate or I start breaking these one by one until you do.”
He could almost feel the animosity emanating from them, but who the hell cared? He just needed some way to stop Zane from finding out what he’d been up to. Since kidnapping an armoire was out of the question, the next best thing would be to knock them out… Hmmm.
Before the coat rack had a chance to realize what he was going to do, Gary grabbed it and swung it at the top of the armoire with all his might. Luckily, the thing didn’t break as it made contact, but he felt the reverberations all the way up his arms.
He also felt the coat rack go slack. And saw the armoire’s door fall open.
Aha!
Gary grabbed the fishing line he’d packed and made quick work of tying their legs together in a crisscross pattern. He did the same thing with the armoire’s door latches after shoving the box of dishes inside. That shit was stronger than twine and had the added benefit of being nearly invisible. Zane and the genie wouldn’t be able to see the binding unless they were looking for it, buying him more time.
The rug was a little tougher, but a couple of thick nails from Zane’s toolbox—ah, the irony—nailed it to the floor and some tape on the fringe kept it immobile. The little clacking compact, though easy to transport, was too vicious to risk it getting free in his home, so Gary taped it shut and stuffed it between the sofa cushions after it came at him one more time. Hopefully no one would find it for a long time.
Gary picked up his bag and saw the lone dish trying to escape. He gave it a nasty flick and it flinched. Good. It needed to know who was boss.
He made sure the bottle was still in there, smiling as he imagined the cash he’d have the genie zap all over him with his first wish. He’d wallow in it. Bathe in it. Sleep in it. And then he’d spend it. Every freaking dime, and have her conjure more. Gold the next time. Jewels. A Ferrari—no, a Bugatti. No. A Bugatti and a Ferrari. And a Porsche, too. Or three.
One quick glance around the room showed that everything looked the way it had before. He ran across the living room, climbed back out the window, put the screen in place, and hightailed it back to his car.
Like taking candy from a baby.
Chapter 26
In spite of everything, Vana was excited to head back into town to Watson’s Diner. Peter had loaned the original owners money to get it started, and she hadn’t been in since the ribbon cutting.
Surprisingly, the diner hadn’t changed all that much. Well, the technology was different and the sepia photographs on the wall had faded, but the gingham décor and the smell of Catherine Watson’s homemade pies were still the same.
The townspeople, however, had done a complete one-eighty from their predecessors.
Peter had been accustomed to stony silence, but the minute she and Zane took their seats in a booth by the window and ordered two sodas, the chatter started.
“You’re Peter’s great-grandson, aren’t you?” asked an older gentleman who spun around on his stool at the counter to stare at them.
“Of course he is,” the man’s wife chided, spinning her stool around. “Who else is going to be living in that house?”
“Who else would want to,” muttered the woman on the other side of the counter.
“I remember your parents,” said another woman in the booth behind Vana. “I never understood why anyone cared about those old stories when your parents always did such nice things around town. Like the scholarship your mom created in your father’s name. My son won it his senior year. It really helped with college. I guess she was just carrying on both families’ legacies, huh?”
“She was,” said Zane. “That scholarship was important to her. Thank you for telling me and congratulations to your son.”
Vana cleared her throat after they’d opened their menus. “What did she mean by ‘both families’?”
Zane exhaled and set the menu down as a teenaged waitress put their sodas on the table. After they’d given their orders he answered in a low voice, which, considering she was the only one in the place who didn’t know what the woman was talking about, probably had nothing to do with being overheard.
“Civic duty. It’s on both sides of my family, though Peter was way ahead of my mother’s father on that front. Probably why the old guy busted a gut when Mom decided to marry into the Harrison family. He was a judge in the next county. Old school. You know the type: stern, disapproving, thought he was better than everyone else. Especially Peter Harrison’s grandson. And because of that, I never saw my grandparents. Even after my father died, we didn’t move in with them. Mom took me to a distant cousin in Philly. I was just happy to be away from all the gossip where no one knew anything about Peter or the stories. Thank God the Internet didn’t exist in those days. I wouldn’t have had the same anonymity if it had.”
“Yet you chose a high-profile career.”
“But it was my choice. Where my accomplishments earned me what I wanted. Where my drive and my talent and my ethics and my hard work allowed me to decide who I wanted to become. If I’d stayed here, I’d have been defined by everyone’s opinion of who I should be. That’s why I have to get rid of the place, Vana. It’s not who I am anymore.”
“But you don’t have to sell it.”
“Look, I appreciate how much you care, but let’s change the subject. How about you tell me about you?”
“Me? I’m a genie. What more is there to know?”
“Well, for starters, do you have a family?”
She started choking. She never handled talking about her family well.
Zane thrust her soda into her hand, but, holy smokes, that fizz burned when it went the wrong way. She coughed it out.
“Of course I have a family, Zane. Genies don’t just spring from a fairy ring, you know.”
Zane put up his hands. “Okay. I get it. Backing off.”
Frankincense. Bad enough she kept sabotaging his house; she didn’t need to bite his head off, too.
The waitress returned then with their meals, giving Vana another couple seconds to get herself under control and summon the shell she metaphorically plastered around her shoulders when dealing with anything having to do with her family. “Sorry, and, yes, I do have a family. My parents are somewhere in the world when not in Service to anyone—which is most of the time. They’re probably rescuing a ram off the Matterhorn or retrieving a cow out of the Ganges as we speak.”
“They’re genies, too?”
“Of course. We’re a race, not an occupation.” Though her parents had treated djinn life as a vocation. Educated to the nth degree on every subject there was, her parents were experts in every field—and they’d expected the same from their daughters. DeeDee was on her way to fulfilling their wishes, but Vana? She might as well wish for Zane to fall in love with her because she had a better chance of pulling that off than living up to her parents’ expectations.
Hmmm… apparently fairy tales weren’t just for mortals.
“So genies can use magic for whatever they want?”
Her brain had gotten stuck on that little happily-ever-after scenario for a second, and she had to pry it back to their conversation. She picked up a French fry, then dropped it onto her plate and licked her fingers. Sucker was hot. They’d always been soggy and cold by the time they’d gone through the necessary channels to make it into her bottle.
“Technically, genies in The Service are only supposed to use magic for their masters’ safety and comfort, unless they’re high enough on the proverbial food chain that the rules don’t apply. My parents are that high.” And she never forgot it.
“What about your sister?”
“DeeDee?” Vana nodded. “She’s that high, too. She’s the complete opposite of me, even though we’re twins. She’s the perfect daughter who can conjure a flawless diamond on the head of a pin with the bat of an eyelash. Granted that is her Way of doing magic, but still. Her magic is as flawless as that diamond.” Hers, on the other hand…
“Where are they now? Aren’t they wondering where you’ve been for the past hundred years?”
Vana shrugged and shifted on her seat when the knot that always formed in her belly when she talked about her family started acting up. “They know where I am.” The entire djinn world knew where she was. And why. “We Skype occasionally.”
Very occasionally and only very recently. The iPad they’d given her for her birthday two years ago had made that possible—but it’d also brought on more “life lessons.” And should-dos and read-these and practice-this…
She was tired of being treated like a child. Yes, she’d made a boneheaded decision when she was younger by jumping into the bottle before she was ready, but she’d figured it out in the interim. She shouldn’t have to pay for that mistake forever, but even when she’d mentioned that she’d picked up DeeDee’s Djinnoire, her parents hadn’t been appeased. She’d hate to think what they’d say about the magic she’d been doing lately.
Unfortunately, she knew what they’d say, so she was keeping it to herself.
“Are you sure you don’t want to visit your parents, Vana?”
Absolutely sure. “It’s no big deal.”
“You could go now. I don’t have a problem with it.” He bit into his hamburger. “Well, after we get home, obviously. I’m sure the health department would have something to say about pink smoke all over the diner.”
He was trying to make her laugh, but she was getting hung up on the image of that word. Home. It conjured up images of hearth and home and snuggly big chairs and warm hugs and cookies baking in the kitchen—none of which she’d ever had. Mom and Dad’s idea of home had been a mausoleum filled with sculpture and libraries and works of art. Marble and gold, cool and beautiful. Sterile. Just like her parents.
“Seriously, Vana, you should go see them. Once your family’s gone, they’re gone. You’ll wish you could have spent more time with them.”
His voice was soft and hoarse. He wasn’t talking about her family.
“You miss yours, don’t you?”
Zane cleared his throat. “Well, doing this, visiting the house and stirring up old memories… This place, in spite of everything, is where the three of us were a family. Dad taught me to throw a ball in the backyard. He cheered me on when I climbed to the top of the willow by the creek. Then Mom would yell at the two of us for risking my neck.” His voice had gone soft again. “There were a lot of good memories.”
Vana didn’t have any memories like those. Her earliest ones were of books. Hundreds and hundreds of books. In every language imaginable. Now, there was nothing bad about books; but all that mandated reading and memorizing and studying… All she’d wanted to do was learn how to use her magic, but her parents had insisted upon learning the history and ways of the world before she was unleashed in it.
In retrospect, their idea had been valid. But not the execution of it, stifling to a little magical girl unsure of her powers and all that came with them, one who only wanted to test her abilities and find her limitations.
Well, she certainly had.
Just then a young boy walked up to their table with a piece of paper and pencil in his hand. “Mr. Harrison, can I have your autograph? You’re my favorite player.”
“Sure thing.” Zane smiled at the boy, slid to the end of the booth, and took the pen and paper. “But call me Zane, okay? What’s your name?”
“Tommy. I mean, Tom.”
“Do you play ball, Tom?” Zane didn’t sign the paper, instead focusing his attention on the boy.
“Yeah. Receiver, just like you. But I’m not as good.”
“I wasn’t good when I was your age. It took a lot of practice and hard work.”
“I’m on three teams. One at school, one for infermertels, and one with my buddies. We play all the time.”
Zane didn’t even crack a smile at the child’s mispronounced word; he talked to Tommy in the same serious tone that Tommy used. A real man-to-man football discussion.
“It sounds like you have the practice thing down. Good job. But you know what else you have to do? You have to keep your grades up so that they’ll let you keep playing in school.”
“I do. I got all As on my report card last time.”
Zane clasped him on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s great. If you keep that up and pay attention to what your coach tells you, you’ll have a good shot at playing for a long time.”
“I want to play pro like you. My dad, he told me he used to be in school with you, and you didn’t even play back then.”
A flicker of something crossed Zane’s face, but he quickly masked it as he set the paper on the table. “That’s right. I didn’t start until I was thirteen. How old are you?”
“I’ll be eleven next week.”
“Well, see? You’re starting even younger than I did. And if I can do it, you can, too.” He quickly wrote something on the paper. “Here you go, Tom. Good luck. I hope you get to play pro ball someday.”
Tommy looked at the paper, his lips moving as he read it. Then he smiled from ear to ear. “Thanks, Mr. Harrison, I mean, Zane! You’re the best!” He took two half-skips, then stopped and turned around. He walked back and stuck out his hand. “And good luck to you, too, next season. I hope this time you get to win the Super Bowl.”
Zane shook his hand but didn’t respond for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat and nodded. “Thanks, Tom. Me, too.”
They remained like that for a few seconds, Zane with an expression on his face that Vana couldn’t quite figure out, before Tommy ran back to his family, waving Zane’s signature as if it were a winning lottery ticket.
Zane watched him go, then nodded an acknowledgment to Tommy’s father.
“You really love it,” Vana said when he slid back to the middle-of-the-bench seat.
He cleared his throat again. “I do. All of it. The fans, training camp, off-season workouts, the camaraderie, the rivalry, and, of course, the actual game itself. I love it all. And I’m good at it. Like I told Tommy, I was a late bloomer, but I worked my tail off and earned a scholarship that paid for college. I worked even harder there and was lucky enough to get a shot at the pros. Football is my life. The team, the coaching staff, even our competitors; they’ve all become family to me. It’ll kill me to leave it.”
And again he brought up family. For all his not wanting to be part of Peter’s, he obviously wanted one.
So then why…? “You’re planning to leave football?”
His fiddled with his own fry. “Planning to? Hell, no. Facing the possibility? Yeah.”
She covered one of his hands with hers. “But why, if you love it so much?”
“They’ve got me on second team. I’ll see some playing time, but not like I’m used to. And for all that I’ll still be playing, it won’t be on my terms.” He went on to talk about injuries and age and up-and-comers and stats and a bunch of other things she didn’t fully understand about the game, but beneath it all, she heard the sadness.
“What else will you do if you don’t play?”
“There’s always network commentating.”
“That’s good, right?”
He laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “Let’s just say that sports reporting is where players go to die. Where we fool ourselves into thinking we still have something to contribute to the game, but, in reality, we’re merely reliving our glory days. Trying to keep the illusion going that we’re still what we once were.” He folded her fingers into her palm and enveloped her fist in his, his thumb tapping her wrist, his smile bittersweet. “The truth is, ex-jocks are a dime a dozen, and we can be replaced in the booth as easily as we can on the field. This latest contract offer has proved that loud and clear.”
If he could only hear himself. He was looking to belong. To be valued. But he was looking in the wrong place. Like she and Merlin had talked about, coaches left, owners sold teams, things changed. If Zane wanted somewhere to belong, all he had to do was look across the table.
