Once Upon Stilettos

by Shanna Swendson

  I blinked at her in disbelief. She didn’t see anything weird about an entire deli breaking into a spontaneous dance number? Then again, her view of New York was largely shaped by television and movies, and she did have a fondness for old musicals, so people doing dance routines in public might not have been all that shocking to her.

  “I guess they have to come up with some way to keep all those Broadway dancers employed,” she went on. “Entertainment at restaurants is a wonderful idea.” That was a relief. I’d have hated to think my mom was so clueless she thought people in New York really did do spontaneous dance routines. There certainly were restaurants with singing, dancing waiters, and she didn’t have to know that this wasn’t really one of them.

  Before Idris got any other bright ideas, like reenacting the infamous deli scene from When Harry Met Sally (something I did not want to see with my mother around), I picked up my purse and shopping bags, threw enough bills to cover our uneaten lunches and Idris’s coffee onto the table, along with a nice tip for the waitress, who’d been a really good dancer, then grabbed Mom’s arm. “Let’s get out of here,” I suggested. “The floor show’s over, and the food isn’t all that good.”

  “What about your friend?” Mom asked, glancing to where Idris was looking decidedly ill.

  “He’s not my friend, and he’s not my problem.” If he wanted to do draining, badly designed (according to Owen) spells as a prank, and overreach himself by making the spell a little too elaborate, he could live with the consequences on his own. I wanted to get away from him before he recovered enough to do something more serious to us.

  “There was something odd about that boy,” Mom said in a conspiratorial manner when we were safely outside the deli. “I think maybe he was hitting the sauce a little too early in the day.” She made drinking motions with her hand, as though she felt I wouldn’t get what she meant. “Mavis Alton used to show up to UMW luncheons at the church acting like that, and we all knew she’d been sipping the cough syrup, if you know what I mean. Maybe he has a problem. Mavis sure did. She had to spend a month at a ‘spa’ to get over it.”

  “Oh, he’s got problems, all right,” I said. I wondered if a Ritalin prescription would help or hinder our cause.

  When we got back to my apartment late that afternoon, Dad was there having coffee with Gemma, Marcia, Jeff, and Philip. Dad was laughing at something as we came through the doorway, and I hoped Gemma and Marcia had enough sense to edit whatever they told him for parental consumption. Not that I’d done much of anything worth editing, but that was about to change.

  “I’ve finished our Christmas shopping,” Mom declared as she dropped her armload of shopping bags on the floor. “We have presents for the boys, their wives, the grandkids, and my sisters. You’re on your own for your side of the family.”

  Dad took a sip of coffee, savored it, swallowed it, and said, “I take it you’re speaking to me again.”

  “Spending your money was rather therapeutic, and we had a good time at lunch.” I wouldn’t have called it “good,” but if she wanted to think of it that way, who was I to stop her?

  “Did you get anything, Katie?” Gemma asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” I opened the Bloomingdale’s bag and pulled out the shoe box with a flourish.

  “Those aren’t—”

  “Yes, they are.” I slid the lid aside to show her.

  “Oh my God!” she squealed. “I’m so glad you got those!”

  Marcia leaned over. “Let me see.”

  I took one shoe out of the box and held it up for inspection. “Gorgeous, huh?”

  “Oooh,” Marcia breathed. “Put them on and let us see.”

  Mom rolled her eyes as she took off her coat and draped it over the sofa arm. “Honestly, you girls and your shoes. Katie, honey, if you’re going to show the shoes off, show them with your new dress while you’re at it.” She addressed Dad. “I bought Katie her Christmas present early.”

  Gemma made shooing motions at me, moving me toward the bedroom. “Go on, show us the whole outfit.”

  I went into the bedroom, shut the door behind me, and took off my clothes before putting on the dress. As a finishing touch, I slid into the shoes. I felt that same burst of power I’d noticed when I first tried them on, and I was glad I hadn’t let my practical side win.

  Before I went back into the living room, I admired myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. I didn’t even look like myself. I looked older, more sophisticated. Yes, even sexy, and that wasn’t a word that applied to me very often. Then, with a deep breath, I opened the door.

  Jeff let out a low wolf whistle. Philip rose slowly from his seat, a look of awe in his eyes. I couldn’t remember ever getting that look from any man. Gemma applauded and Marcia shook her head slowly in admiration. Dad swallowed hard, then said roughly, “You look real nice, baby.”

  Only Mom seemed relatively unaffected. She eyed me critically, then said, “Well, I guess you’re right. Those shoes do go with that dress. It makes a nice outfit. But I still say if you were going to spend that much money on a pair of shoes, they should be shoes you could wear every day.”

  “They wouldn’t be special if you wore them every day, Mrs. Chandler,” Gemma said. She turned, saw Philip still gazing at me, and elbowed him in the ribs. He blinked and sat down.

  “I hope Ethan has something good planned for New Year’s Eve,” Marcia said. “If he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve to see you looking like that.”

  “I was hoping for something a little sooner than New Year’s,” I said. “Maybe not the full outfit, but I have to wear the shoes on our next date.”

  Gemma gave me an assessing nod. “Yeah, I think with a little black dress, or maybe a black skirt and white blouse. It depends on where he’s taking you.”

  “Like he’d tell her where he’s taking her,” Marcia said with a snort.

  “He does seem to like the top-secret dates,” I admitted. “I think he enjoys surprising me.”

  “Well, he can surprise you with someplace very, very nice,” Gemma said.

  Jeff, staring at me like he used to when he was under the enchantment that made him obsessed with me, said, “Even if he isn’t planning that, he’ll change his plans once he sees her. A girl looks like that, she’s going to be taken someplace special.”

  “I would have to agree,” Philip said softly. “When a lady has made that obvious an effort with her appearance, she deserves a certain level of treatment.”

  I shot my mom a triumphant look. It was nice to have validation from actual men. Maybe that’s what I’d been doing wrong all along. I’d been so worried about being practical that I’d forgotten about making myself special. If I didn’t think I was special, why should anyone else?

  And I was special, I reminded myself. I was immune to magic, a trait that was extremely rare. I had an important job because of that. I might as well dress like it.

  Mom sighed and shook her head. “A lady should be a lady no matter how fancy she’s dressed,” she said. She went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a can of soda.

  “I think that a lady who attires herself well is complimenting the gentleman she’s with, showing him that she values his company,” Philip argued. That totally stunned me. He seldom said much of anything. I halfway suspected he’d spent too much time as a frog and had forgotten how to communicate as a human. Gemma never seemed to notice or mind.

  “He’s right,” Dad said. “You hush, Lois. Don’t bring the girl down. She looks nice. She is all grown-up, you know, and if you ever want to throw that wedding you’ve been daydreaming about, she’s going to have to dress herself up to land a man.”

  I was glad he was on my side, but I wasn’t sure I liked the implication that I had to dress up to get a man. Then again, I hadn’t had dramatic success up to that point, other than with Ethan.

  “Well, fashion show’s over. Time for me to turn back into Cinderella,” I said, then went i
nto the bedroom and shut the door. I admired myself in the mirror one last time. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the hottest of them all?” I said softly. Then I took the dress off and hung it up. I put my sweater back on before I finally forced myself to take off the red shoes and put on my jeans. I carefully wrapped the shoes in tissue and replaced them in their box, then stashed the box on a shelf in the closet. Fortunately, neither Gemma nor Marcia wore the same size shoes as I did. We could share tops and sometimes even skirts, but they were taller than I was and wore bigger shoes. Before, I’d always regretted that because Gemma had a fantastic shoe wardrobe. Now, though, I was glad because it meant those shoes were all mine.

  I went back out into the living room and asked, “Is there any pumpkin pie left?”

  “I made an extra just for leftovers,” Mom said.

  “Anyone else want some?” I offered. They all nodded or raised their hands. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water before I got out the pie and cut slices for everyone, then topped them with whipped cream and passed them out.

  I stood at the kitchen counter, eating pie and sipping water, while I listened to the hum of conversation. I’d dreaded my parents coming to visit, but I was glad they had. It was good having them around again.

  “So, Katie, what are you going to show us tomorrow?” Mom asked, startling me out of my thoughts when she brought her plate to the kitchen.

  “Is there anything you’d like to see?”

  “We were hoping we could see where you work.” She held up her hand to quiet my protest before I could get a word out. “I know we won’t be able to go inside, especially not on a Saturday, but I want to see the building. That way, when you talk about going to work, I’ll be able to picture it.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Marcia said. “You work near City Hall, don’t you, Katie?”

  “Yeah, and near the Woolworth Building.”

  “Okay, then,” Gemma said, “tomorrow it’s downtown. We’ll come along, too. Katie hasn’t shown us her office, either.”

  “It should be relatively quiet down there on a Saturday,” Marcia added. “We can show you Wall Street, the Stock Exchange, and Battery Park, too.”

  It felt nothing short of inevitable. I had no good reason why we shouldn’t go downtown and see where I worked—at least, no good reason I could share with the others. I had plenty of reasons I had to keep to myself. For one thing, the office building was on a street that didn’t appear on any maps, and it tended to be the kind of place you didn’t notice unless you were looking for it. It also didn’t fit in at all. It looked like a medieval castle transplanted into Lower Manhattan. Those alone were reasons I didn’t particularly want to parade my friends and family by my office. Then there was the fact that the security guard was a talking gargoyle. I crossed my fingers and hoped Sam would be off moonlighting at a church over the weekend. He could probably pick up some extra cash filling in for a gargoyle at St. Patrick’s.

  “Downtown it is, then,” I said, trying to force more enthusiasm than I felt into my voice. If I sounded like I was trying to hide something, the folks would get suspicious, and there were enough reasons for suspicion without me adding to them. I sincerely hoped Idris had something better to do on a Saturday than keep stalking me.

  The next morning, Gemma, Marcia, and I guided my parents onto a city bus. Gemma insisted on the bus instead of the subway because it was the best way to see the changing neighborhoods of the city. We got off in front of the Woolworth Building, where we peered through the front doors into the ornate lobby.

  “Now do we see your office?” Mom asked. “Didn’t you say it was near here?”

  Actually, you could see it from there, if you knew what to look for, but I preferred to prolong the inevitable. “Why don’t we come back by there after we’ve seen everything else?” I suggested.

  I let Marcia lead the way once we entered the financial district, since that was more her domain than mine. While she rattled off facts and figures about the buildings we passed, I kept my eyes open for potential magical strangeness. In the days before I learned about magic, I frequently saw odd sights in this part of town, probably because of the proximity to MSI headquarters, where a large portion of the magical community was employed. They all seemed to have stayed away during the holiday weekend, much to my relief. I saw nothing with wings, nothing moving that wasn’t supposed to, nobody making anything disappear or appear out of thin air. This was probably the most normal I’d seen New York since I’d moved here.

  We made a side trip by the Ground Zero site, then went all the way down to Battery Park, where we looked out across the water to the Statue of Liberty. Marcia led us down Wall Street, and we paused to take pictures in front of the Stock Exchange. By the time we reached the South Street Seaport, we were ready for lunch.

  All that walking had left everyone tired, so conversation was muted. I hoped that meant they would all be too tired to ask many questions once we reached my bizarro office building. With luck, they’d be so tired they’d just want to hit the subway station and go home.

  I took the lead when we finished lunch and headed up the hill. I couldn’t help but hold my breath as the MSI building’s turrets came into view. I could see them, and that meant Mom could, too, but I wasn’t sure what anyone else might see. I didn’t want another fight between my parents about whether or not Mom was seeing things.

  “Now, that’s an interesting building,” Dad said.

  “Which one?” I asked, probably a little too casually as I tried to hide my anxiety.

  “That one, the one that looks like a castle.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s my office building, believe it or not.”

  “I didn’t even know this was here,” Marcia said, frowning. “I’ve been by here hundreds—thousands—of times, and I’ve never noticed it.”

  “It’s amazing what commuter tunnel vision will do to you,” I said. “I’d never noticed it, either, until I went for the interview.”

  We drew nearer, so the rest of the castle-like building was visible. Fortunately, Sam was off-duty. There was nothing unlikely perched on the awning over the main entrance.

  “I can’t believe I’ve never seen this,” Marcia said, still frowning and shaking her head.

  Gemma pulled her guidebook out of her bag. “It’s got to be in the guide, since it’s so unusual. Maybe it’s Victorian-era Gothic Revival.”

  I knew she could flip through the guidebook all day long and never find that building, but I didn’t say so.

  I tried to keep my pace steady so they’d be less inclined to slow down and look too closely as we passed. “So, anyway, this is where I work,” I said. “There’s a subway station on the other side of the park.”

  They didn’t take the hint. They all came to a stop to stare at the company logo on the shield by the door. “What does MSI stand for?” Dad asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure it stands for anything, or if it ever did, it doesn’t anymore. It’s like IBM—does anyone really know what that stands for?”

  “International Business Machines,” Dad said without missing a beat.

  “Oh. Well, they left that part out of the company orientation, so I guess they just consider it a name these days. I suspect that it’s maybe the names of the founders, or something like that.” That was a pretty good fib, if I said so myself. I mentally filed it away for future use.

  “What did you say they do?” Dad asked.

  I hadn’t, actually. “It’s kind of like software. To be honest, I don’t understand a lot of it. I just do administrative work.” Which was true, sort of. Spells were like the software of the magical world, I didn’t understand how it all worked, and I did do administrative work. I started walking again, hoping they’d follow me. “There’s a subway station across the park. We can get home and have some more pie.” The mention of pie did the trick. Gemma and Marcia were soon right behind me, and my parents had no choice but to follow.

  We re
ached Park Row and crossed the street to the park, where we all paused to flip coins into the fountain. “See the gaslights,” I pointed out, relieved to be showing off normal touristy stuff once more. Now that my parents had seen my office building and hadn’t had a complete freak-out, it looked like the worst was truly over.

  As we approached the subway station, a handsome man in his early thirties crossed the street toward us. Gemma and Marcia’s heads turned in unison to watch him, and I couldn’t help but take a gander myself. He really was gorgeous, in a slightly dangerous bad-boy way. He wasn’t the sort of man I usually went for, but he looked like he might be fun for a fling. He also looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place him. You’d think that if I’d met him before, I’d have remembered. I glanced at Mom, who didn’t look quite as impressed. She was probably afraid of the bad-boy thing. He wasn’t the kind of man she’d choose for her little girl. It was just as well that Mom would be gone in a couple of days.

  He flashed us all a big smile as he approached. I twirled my hair with one finger and smiled back at him. Gemma stepped up to my side, gave him a come-hither look, and elbowed me in the ribs. “Hey, isn’t that the guy who recruited you for your job?” she hissed. “You did say you weren’t interested, right?”

  Before I could remind her that she had a boyfriend, so she could get out of my way, he directed a grin right at me and said, “Hi, Katie, what brings you down here on a Saturday?”

  I froze. It was Rod’s voice. And then I remembered where I’d seen him before. It was Rod’s illusion, the face he showed to the rest of the world. I’d seen it only once, reflected in an image checker mirror. Otherwise, I couldn’t see what others saw because an illusion was a spell cast on other people to make them see what the caster wanted them to see. That meant it didn’t work on me, and I always saw the real thing.