The Book of Love

by Lynn Weingarten

  Lucy paused. “Sure,” she said. “Of course we can.” But she didn’t mean it.

  Lucy walked back to the photo closet, went to her cubbyhole, and took out her contact sheets of the pictures she’d taken over the summer. She hadn’t even glanced at them in weeks, not since she’d become a Heartbreaker. How funny to look back and see the world through the eyes of the girl she used to be. The pictures she took now jumped out and grabbed you. These old ones whispered your name over and over until you noticed.

  She stared down at the row of tiny photos. In the center of the page was one of Tristan in profile, playing harmonica in his car as the sun went down. Lucy remembered that day, how the two of them had sat there, their feet up on the dash, eating Popsicles until it was black outside. What was special about the photo wasn’t the composition or the lighting or any of that crap—what stood out was the look on Tristan’s face, in his eyes. There was just so much of him in there—his sweet, funny, smart, weird self. She hadn’t known why she was taking the photo at the time, just that something in her gut told her to.

  She looked up at Alex, who’d just emerged from the darkroom carrying a close-up of a crying eye. His eye. He held up the print, and rubbed his chin, like he was deep in thought about it. Then he glanced at Mr. Wexler, backed up toward his desk, and let out a cough. When Mr. Wexler didn’t look up, he coughed louder. It was so obvious what Alex was doing that Lucy almost had to laugh—he was trying to get Mr. Wexler to notice his picture so he’d call the class over to discuss how great it was. Mr. Wexler had done it a few times for Lucy’s photos, and Alex always looked so surprised, so shocked, that the compliment had been given to her and not him.

  Lucy rolled her eyes and turned away. Perhaps he was the same old Alex after all.

  Sometimes the world just made no sense. How was it possible that she’d fallen in love with this idiot—that she’d pined away for him, given him her heart, and let him break it? Yet she’d broken the heart of her best friend, the best person she’d ever known. It was completely wrong.

  What mattered now was only this: Could she fix it?

  There may be one tiny little chance, Gil had said.

  Lucy just hoped it was enough.

  Seven

  Gilly, Rowan says he’s buying you a ticket to visit him in Australia,” Olivia said, reading from Gil’s phone.

  “Well, that’s sweet,” said Gil.

  “Wonder if you can cash it in for the miles?” Liza said with a smirk.

  It was later, school had just ended, and the four girls were sitting in Olivia’s car, going through the day’s collection of texts from flirting, lovesick, and heartbroken boys.

  Lucy looked down at Liza’s phone. “Jeremiah says he baked you cookies, although based on this photograph, I’m not entirely sure it would be advisable to eat them.”

  Liza let out a snicker, then stared at Olivia’s phone. “Rick grafittied ‘I love Olivia’ on a bathroom wall somewhere in Canada. Ooooh, that naughty boy is committing crimes for you, Livvy.”

  Olivia shook her head. “Well, Aiden wants to know when Gilly’s coming over to pick up the present he got her.” Olivia reached back with the phone open. On the screen was a picture of a guy with a bow stuck to the top of his head.

  “Tim says he can’t wait to stare into your beautiful green eyes again,” Lucy said. “And Craig S says you’re hot.”

  Liza snorted. “Well, at least one of them’s observant.”

  Olivia’s phone buzzed. “Olivia, it’s from Pete,” Liza said. She cleared her throat and in a terrible British accent read, “‘I had a dream about you last night, love. And yes, that kind of dream. I promise to tell you all about it later if you promise to act it out in person next time I see you. Also, when are you going to break my heart already, O-livia? I’ve been ready for ages, you know.’” Liza turned. “Okay, fine, I added that last part myself. But seriously. When are you going to do it?”

  Olivia shrugged. “What does it matter? It’s not like we’re lacking in tears.”

  “I have one more for Lucy,” Gil said. “From Colin.”

  At the sound of his name, Lucy’s stomach clenched.

  Liza smirked in the rearview. “What did you do to him, little Lulu? The boy has got it bad.” She sounded impressed. But Lucy felt terrible.

  It had been surprisingly easy to make Colin fall in love with her because Lucy naturally understood him—he was just like she used to be. That, plus the bit of illicit extra magic that Olivia had slipped to her in the middle of the night, meant his love still burned bright even after more than six weeks of trying to painlessly defuse it.

  “What does it say, Gilly?” Liza asked.

  “Colin wants to know how you’re doing and if you’re okay, because he hasn’t heart back from you in a while. And he would still love to take you for that ice cream if you’re up for it. Then he sent another one saying sorry he meant ‘heard’ back, not ‘heart’ back. And then he wrote ‘haha’ in all caps.”

  “Oh,” said Lucy. She winced. She recognized that tone, that anxious-slightly-desperate-trying-to-sound-casual-but-not-feeling-casual-at-all tone. She couldn’t count how many similar messages she’d sent Alex.

  “You do realize you can’t just hide until he stops loving you, right?” Liza said.

  “I know,” Lucy said. But the truth was, she’d been hoping exactly that.

  “Well, of course she could,” Olivia said. “But it would be kind of mean, wouldn’t it? To let him dangle like that?”

  “Yeah, set him free, Lulu,” Liza said with a smirk.

  This was the part of being a Heartbreaker that Lucy was in denial about, that she felt quite certain she would not be able to do: the actual heartbreaking.

  Lucy swallowed hard. She imagined Colin’s face, and the way he stared at her the last time she saw him the day before she became a Heartbreaker—he was full of such sweet unassuming, earnest love.

  For a moment the car was silent, and Lucy wondered if she was the only one with a ball of guilt slowly growing in her belly. She was pretty sure she was.

  The silence was only broken by the tinkly bell of Gil’s phone ringing. “Gilly-bean,” Olivia said. “Someone named Shay is calling you.” She tossed the phone behind her into Gil’s lap. Gil hit IGNORE.

  “Who’s Shay?” said Liza. “Is that the Scottish one?”

  Gil shrugged and then grinned. “Oh, who can even keep track anymore?” And she laughed. The rest of them laughed right along with her.

  A few minutes later they pulled up in front of a small blue house. The paint was peeling, and it looked like the lawn hadn’t been mowed in a month. The front walkway was lined with flower bushes half-overgrown, half-dead.

  Liza opened the car door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “We’ll come up with you,” said Olivia.

  “You don’t need to do that.” Liza shook her head. “Seriously.”

  “Look,” Olivia said. “We’re not letting you deal with it alone.” And with that she got out of the car and shut the door behind her.

  Liza took a breath and then turned to face Lucy. “My mom is really messed up,” she said quickly. “So please ignore whatever batshit thing she says. I just need to make sure she is not facedown in a pool of her own vomit because her job called and she didn’t make it in today.” Lucy had never heard Liza like this before—she sounded kind of ashamed. And just the littlest bit scared.

  Lucy nodded and looked down at her lap. Gil had already told her about Liza’s mom—about how she was a Glass Heart, which meant that her heart broke all the time, and every time it broke, it shattered. But Liza pretty much never talked about her.

  Liza opened the front door and they followed her inside the house. “Mom, I’m here,” she called out.

  There was no answer, just the sound of the TV. They walked slowly. “I brought my friends, so please do not be drunk and naked. Hello?”

  “Lizzie?” There was a quiet muffled voice coming from the bedroom. Li
za pushed through the door into a dimly lit room.

  There was a chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling, five of its six bulbs burnt out. There was a stained white carpet and in the center of it a large four-poster bed covered in a tangle of twisted sheets and blankets. The floor was littered with crumpled tissues and empty Diet Coke cans.

  Liza went to the window and pulled open the curtains. “Damn, Mom,” she said. Sunlight streamed in. Sitting on the bed was a woman in her mid-forties, wearing a pink-flowered silk robe, her hair pulled back into a sloppy bun, eyes ringed in red. Even in this state, she was gorgeous. She held a phone up and pointed to a photo of herself in a liquid gold dress, fully made-up, laughing, holding on to the arm of a rather ordinary-looking man.

  “You’d think that I would have been the one to leave him,” she said. “I mean, look at us.” She sounded so, so tired. “Look at me and look at him. He was just . . . he was just this guy.” Her voice cracked on “guy.” “I begged him to stay, though.” She looked up then. “I don’t know why he didn’t.”

  “All right, Mom,” Liza said. She walked over to the bed and started straightening out the blankets and putting the fitted sheet back on the mattress with the manner of an impatient but efficient nurse. She picked up a prescription bottle off the floor, opened it, and held it over her palm. A single orange pill bounced out. “These were supposed to last you until the end of the month.”

  Liza’s mom didn’t say anything—she looked down like an ashamed child.

  Liza put the bottle on the nightstand and then started collecting up the bits of crumpled tissues, the half-crushed cans.

  “I just don’t understand why he left, Lizzie. I thought he was it for me. I was so good this time.”

  “You were with him for a week. How could you have thought it was going to be forever?” Liza faced her mother. They looked so much alike it was as though Liza was talking to herself in the future. Except, of course, Liza’s future self would never be like this.

  “I . . . ,” her mother started. “Well, I guess it sounds silly now.”

  Liza’s voice softened. “You were supposed to go to work today. Your boss called. You missed your shift.”

  “Oh, shit,” and then Liza’s mom froze. She stopped crying and raised her hand to her lips. “Can you call them and tell them I’m sick, sweetie?”

  “No,” Liza said. “They don’t care. They said, ‘If she’s not dead, tell her she’s fired.’”

  “But what about our bills? Our rent is due next week. How are we going to pay it?”

  Olivia reached out and squeezed Liza’s shoulder. She whispered something in her ear. Liza shook her head. “Not again,” she whispered back.

  “It’s nothing to me,” Olivia whispered. “You know that.”

  And then they all stood there in silence for a moment.

  “Hi, Kate,” Gil said. Lucy turned. Gil was smiling sweetly. “Sorry you’re having such a rough time of it.”

  “Gillian, honey,” Liza’s mom said. She blinked and looked around, then reached up and touched her hair as though she’d only just noticed there were other people in the room. “Oh, it’s so nice to see you, doll!”

  “Well, okay then.” Liza clapped her hands together. “This has been buckets of fun. But I just came here to make sure you weren’t lying here dead.”

  Liza’s mom tried to laugh, but it came out wrong. “I’m okay, honey, really, I am. You are very sweet to come and check on me. I’m sorry about all of this. Can I make you girls a snack? I think we have some English muffins—I could make you some of those little pizzas you used to like. . . .”

  Liza sighed. “No,” she said. “We’re on our way somewhere.” She turned toward the door, and the rest of them walked out behind her. But at the last second Liza pushed past them, came back, and gave her mom a quick kiss on the top of the head. For a moment, there was a crack in Liza’s gorgeous shiny exterior, and the heart inside, impenetrable or not, was suddenly visible in the expression on her face. But it only lasted a second.

  “Let’s go, girls,” she said.

  And just like that, it was gone.

  Eight

  By the time they got to Olivia’s house, everything was back to normal, or normal-ish anyway. The four girls got out of the car and made their way up the walkway. There was an envelope leaning against the front door, thick and midnight blue, sealed with crimson wax.

  “Olivia, you got a very fancy-looking—” Lucy started to say.

  “Holy shit!” Liza shouted. Liza dove for the envelope and held it to her chest. “It’s here!!”

  She ran inside. Olivia followed. Gil grabbed Lucy’s arm and whispered in her ear. “This was what I was talking about. This is what could save him.” And before Lucy had time to respond, Gil went in after them.

  A moment later they were all in Olivia’s living room, curled up on the evergreen velvet couches, the dangling Moroccan lanterns all aglow, the large photograph of Olivia’s grandmother Eleanor, who’d been a Heartbreaker before she died, staring down at them from above the fireplace.

  “Ladies,” Olivia said. “Behold.” She held up the envelope and broke the wax seal. A puff of smoke escaped and swirled into the faces of four beautiful women, each with a finger raised to her lips. Then a gust of wind blew out of the envelope and whispered, “SSH,” and the faces were gone.

  Olivia took out a sheet of heavy midnight blue paper and unfolded it twice. It was a list of about fifty names, each next to an age and a job.

  Without speaking, Olivia reached out and tapped the first one, EVAN AARONOVICH, 22, ENTREPRENEUR, and a puff of smoke swirled out and formed itself into the face of a guy with sleek feline features and a self-satisfied smirk.

  Gil touched the next name, KYLE ANGEL, 19, COLLEGE STUDENT, and there appeared the face of an overgrown man-child with a devilish glint in his eye.

  Olivia touched MAX ASHKIN, 20, FILMMAKER, who had a face like a hairy shark.

  “What is this?” Lucy stared down at the list. Olivia tapped another name, and a face swirled up, an actor from a movie Lucy had seen over the summer. JACOB JADE, 23, ACTOR.

  “These are the year’s Hard-Hearted Bastards,” said Olivia. “Otherwise known as the HHBs.”

  “They’ve all done some really crappy things this year,” said Gil. “In the realm of the heart.”

  “And now,” Liza said with a grin, “it’s payback time.”

  “What do you mean?” said Lucy.

  “Every year the North American Sisterhood of Heartbreakers compiles a list,” Gil said. “And gives it out to all complete Heartbreaker families. Then they host a contest called the Breakies. The first Heartbreaker family to break the heart of someone on this list wins.”

  “Wins what?”

  Gil turned to Lucy and smiled meaningfully. “Wins everything.”

  “I’ve heard they’re giving out a bottle of Diamonding Powder this year,” Liza said. She rolled her eyes.

  “What’s Diamonding Powder?”

  “It’s basically the Holy Grail for Heartbreakers,” said Olivia. “It’s as versatile as a diamond, and as long-lasting. All of our spells and potions and things wear off eventually, but apparently anything you do with Diamonding Powder lasts forever.”

  “Nothing lasts forever,” Liza snorted, then faced Lucy. “Some people say it was made by Queen Cleopatra and others say the Hope Diamond used to be bigger, and this was crafted from the extra missing carats. And there are a dozen other rumors about it, but they’re all just that. Rumors. The powder isn’t even real.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Gil said. She shook her head. “I mean, I’ve even heard that it can be used to give a regular person a heart as strong as a diamond.” Gil turned to Lucy again. Their eyes met. “But I highly doubt a Heartbreaker would ever make a potion like that. What would be the point, right?” A tiny smile bloomed on Gil’s lips. And Lucy felt a crazy rush of energy run right through her.

  “The Book of Love,” said Olivia. �
��That’s the main prize, and that absolutely exists. And it’s the most valuable thing of all. It contains everything the Heartbreakers know, all in one place. It’s thousands of pages long and who knows how old. It’s been secretly passed around for years. And in the last few it has been one of the prizes for the Breakies. The winning family gets to keep it for a year, before they have to pass it on.”

  “Didn’t you say your granny had it once?” Gil said.

  “She had this very big, very old book when I first moved in with her,” Olivia said. “I asked what it was once and she wouldn’t tell me. She just said not to touch it and then not long after it was gone.”

  “Well, you’ll get to see it this year,” Liza said. “When we win it.” Liza fixed her eyes on Lucy. “The council has this rule that only full families of four are able to enter for the grand prize.” She smirked. “So I guess it’s good that you’re one of us now.”

  “Why only full families?” Lucy asked.

  “Every sister needs three others to keep her in check, and only complete families of four are considered strong enough to handle magic that powerful,” Olivia said.

  Lucy snuck a glance at Gil, who gave an almost imperceptible nod before turning away.

  Olivia looked back down at the list and touched JACK CORNWALL, 26, FILTHY RICH. He had a face like a cabbage.

  “Who’s the lucky one . . . ?” Liza said, and she tapped her bottom lip with the tip of her finger. “Hmmm. Maybe?” She poked DEVON SHIRLY, 22, TECH BILLIONAIRE. Lucy remembered seeing an article about him online, about how he’d broken up with his longtime girlfriend as soon as his company went public, and used a bunch of his newfound cash to hire high-class call girls by the dozen. A face rose up—it looked awfully pleased with itself. “He’d be fun to break,” Liza said.

  “Possibly,” said Olivia. “But think about how much magic we’d need to waste just to get access?”

  “I read he’s super paranoid and travels with three different bodyguards all the time,” said Gil. “Although I guess considering this, maybe he’s not so paranoid after all.”