“Well, I can’t be there on your first date,” Maria said. “So you’re on your own on that front.”
“Or can you?” Claire said, slyly.
Sherlock jumped up onto the chair next to Claire and sniffed her food. Claire was in such a good mood that she didn’t even sigh in disgust or push him down.
Yeah, it was turning out to be a pretty good day, indeed.
“Listen, Claire, I need to tell you something.”
“It’d better not be that you have a crush on Ken.”
“Ken? No. C’mon, you know who I like.”
Claire pointed up and grinned. “Speak of the devil.”
Maria’s stomach dropped. She turned around and saw Joe walking over to their table. He had a tray of food from Sbarro’s Pizza, and a smile on his face.
“Stay calm, stay calm,” Claire said.
“How do I look? Please tell me I don’t have any cotton candy in my hair or popcorn oil on my shirt.”
“You look great, Maria, don’t worry. In fact, you actually look a little—”
“Mind if I sit here?” Joe asked.
Claire didn’t answer. She was waiting for Maria.
It took Maria a moment to realize that Joe had asked her the question, and when she did, she didn’t stumble, which was unusual. “Yeah, of course,” she said.
“How are you ladies today?” Joe said, still smiling. On his tray were two big slices of pepperoni pizza. Put them together, and they’d be big enough to take up about half of a large one topping.
“Good,” Claire said.
“Never better. Another day in the paradise that is Rolling Hill Mall,” Maria said dryly.
Joe chuckled.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Usually the early shifts are quiet, but I’ve already had to chase two—that’s right, two—shoplifters out of Macy’s and JCPenney,” he said.
“Catch them?”
“Got one, but the other guy was so fast, I swear he could’ve been on the Olympic track team or something…or it was just too early for running.”
Maria chuckled. It was a sound she used to fill the void of conversation. She didn’t want any awkward pauses.
“So, did you have a good birthday?” Joe asked.
Oh, please don’t mention what happened at the putt-putt course, Maria pleaded silently.
When he didn’t, Maria replied. “Yeah, it was pretty good. A little weird, but that makes things interesting.”
Claire flicked a glance at Maria and Maria had to turn away because she was smiling.
“That’s good to hear. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything,” Joe said. He took a big bite out of the pizza. The pepperoni juice rolled down his chin, and he quickly wiped it away with a napkin.
He seems…nervous, Maria thought. He’s never seemed nervous before. It’s kind of cute.
“Ah, don’t say that,” Maria said. “You didn’t have to get me anything. I’m not much of a present person. Plus, I hate surprises. I’ve gotten enough surprises over the past twenty-four hours to last a lifetime.”
Claire and Joe both looked at Maria like she was crazy. Maybe she was; she didn’t know for sure. All of the previous day had seemed real.
“Well, listen, since I didn’t give you a present—but I did write on your Facebook wall, by the way—” Joe interjected.
“I never check that stupid thing. The internet scares me.”
“It’s a scary place, I agree.”
“But thank you for writing on it. I’ll have to check it soon…if I remember the password.”
Joe nodded. He smiled again. It was a nice smile; one that sent tingles all over Maria’s body. “Anyway, since I didn’t get you a birthday present, I was wondering…”
Claire leaned closer, a grin on her face.
Maria felt her stomach tighten around the flapping of butterflies.
“I was wondering if you wanted this piece of pizza?” Joe finished.
The chair squeaked and grated on the shiny mall floor as Claire sat back, disappointed. Maria, on the other hand, wasn’t. In fact, she was a little relieved. She wanted every moment she and Joe spent together to be perfect. Sitting at a table in a crappy mall with crappy Chinese and Italian food in front of them, with a dog to her right who she could hear speaking inside of her head wasn’t exactly her definition of perfection.
“I just noticed you didn’t have any food, and everyone else does. Even the dog has been chowing on Stir Fry 88. I figured you wouldn’t want to be left out.”
Maria nodded. The humor of the situation was starting to hit her. “Uh, yeah, I guess if you’re not going to eat it.”
Joe smiled. He took one last bite from his slice and passed the tray to Maria.
Maria started to finish it off.
“But that’s not really what I wanted to ask you,” Joe admitted.
Claire leaned forward again.
Sherlock announced, This one is a tease. I don’t like him.
Maria rolled her eyes and instantly regretted the gesture, hoping Joe didn’t think it was directed at him.
“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go out this weekend. I don’t know, maybe bowling or dancing or something,” Joe said. He scratched the back of his neck. His face flushed the slightest bit, making his smooth skin look sunburned.
Screw everything she’d thought earlier. Joe could ask her anytime and it would’ve been the perfect time.
Everyone waited, holding their breath.
“Maria?” Joe asked nervously.
A decent amount of time had passed, but Maria had hardly noticed.
“Earth to Mariaaaaaaa,” Claire said, then leaned over the table and flicked her ear.
“OW!” Maria grabbed her earlobe.
The world came back into focus, all of it spinning in a dizzy, lovely haze. “Yes,” she said, quietly. Then louder, “Yes! Yes, I’d love to.”
“Really?” Joe’s jaw dropped. He almost had to pick it up off of the floor.
“Yes, really,” Maria said, suspiciously. It took her a moment to realize Joe wasn’t kidding, that this was actually real. When she did, she took a napkin out from under the paper Sbarro plate and wrote her number down.
“Just text me later and we’ll make plans.” She scooted her chair away from the table. “Gotta get back to the popcorn place. You know, serve that big line of people.” She motioned to the kiosk near the entrance of the food court. The neon lights were on, but there wasn’t a soul in sight waiting for a bag of delicious, homemade-recipe caramel corn. There probably wouldn’t be for a long while.
She stood and called to Sherlock, who was busy trying to get a pea from the fried rice that had fallen under Claire’s tray.
“I’d better get back, too,” Claire said.
“Thanks again for the pizza,” Maria said to Joe. “And text me.”
He smiled dreamily. “I-I will.”
As Claire and Maria walked back to their stores, Claire was practically hyperventilating. “Oh, my GOD! We should go play the lottery or something!”
“What, why?”
“We bagged both of our crushes.”
“Oh, stop. ‘Crush’ is such a girly word. Don’t use that.”
“Whatever. You should’ve seen yourself. It was like…like you were on fire!” Claire said. She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s still there. He’s looking down at the napkin you wrote your number on and practically drooling.”
“Quit it!” Maria said, but she wanted to look, too. She couldn’t. She believed if she did, she’d ruin all the magic—funny choice of words, Maria—that had stolen over her and given her the courage to say yes and actually write her phone number down on the napkin. So she didn’t look back. Instead, she just let the magic guide her.
Two o’clock came, and the customers didn’t.
Claire kept walking up to the counter and messing with the cup of pens and office supplies Ted kept by the cash register. Each time she did, Maria wanted to tell her about what she’d seen the
previous night. The dead boy named Duke and the magic he’d used to show the past to her. It was crazy, though, and she feared Claire wouldn’t believe her. Maybe Claire would even think it was so crazy she’d tell Tabby, and the two of them would just up and quit being Maria’s friends all together. She didn’t want that.
So she let time go on as it always did in the mall: slow and grueling.
Around 2:30 p.m., Danny Harris from Auntie Anne’s Pretzel, across from Sephora, threw a frisbee at Maria. She had been sitting there, playing Twenty-One Questions with Sherlock, when she saw the disc whirling through the air, accompanied by Danny’s, “Heads up!”
Maria caught it and looked at it as if it were a UFO.
“Throw it back, bozo,” Claire said. She stood outside of Sephora. She wasn’t handing out samples because there was no one to hand samples out to.
Maria smiled and let the frisbee fly. It soared through the vacant air. Danny caught it with ease. “You ready, Claire?” he shouted.
Claire jumped up and down and yelled, “Hit me!”
The pass was a little high. Claire missed it, and the frisbee clattered across the glass makeup counter with an uproarious sound. Maria cringed, thinking about broken glass and other possible damage Claire would have to pay for out of her paycheck, but when she came back with the smile still on her face, all those thoughts went out the window.
Claire passed it to Maria, who was now laughing and jumping, and then Maria to Danny. They even got the workers from Journeys shoe store in on it, though they only threw it a few times before a customer had to come and spoil the fun.
Sherlock complained, This is not fair. We never throw the frisbee.
“Because you’re too fat to go chase it,” Maria said. “No offense.”
Offense! Offense has been taken! Sherlock huffed and went back to eating old popcorn kernels from under the ice chest.
“See?” Maria said under her breath.
The frisbee game went on for about fifteen minutes.
Then Maria heard a voice like a wicked lash of lightning. It was Ted, her boss.
“Maria Apple!” he scolded. “What in the good holy heavens are you doing?”
Maria smiled sheepishly.
Ted’s eyes flickered to the blue frisbee in her hand. She quickly hid it behind her back, but the damage had already been done.
Ted isn’t supposed to be in today; he’s supposed to be attending to family matters in Cleveland. But Maria was slowly realizing that there were no family matters in Cleveland. He had lied in the hopes of catching her doing something wrong, and what do you know? He did.
“You are supposed to be one of my best workers. I am supposed to be able to trust you!” Ted said. “How can I trust you when you play games instead of see to your work?”
“Mr. Gund, everything’s done, and there haven’t been any cus—” Maria started.
“Because they’re too afraid of getting their head lopped off by your damn devil disc!”
All eyes were focused on the Popcorn Palace. Maria could feel them. She could also feel the anger welling up inside of her.
In all of Ted’s upheaval, he hadn’t noticed Sherlock. He probably would have continued to not notice Sherlock, if the Bloodhound hadn’t lifted his leg just then and marked Ted’s brown loafers.
“What the fu—” Ted bellowed.
A steady trickling hit the floor, and Ted shook his foot. Inside, his socks made the sounds of feet squelching in mud.
The anger left Maria now, and it was replaced with an odd sort of humor. She moved the frisbee in front of her face, to cover her red cheeks and laughing grin.
Serves you right, asshole, Sherlock was saying. You’re lucky that’s all I have in the tank.
“Out!” Ted said. “Out NOW! You’re FIRED!”
“Fired?” Maria said softly. She looked over her shoulder at Claire, who was covering her face with both hands, possibly on the verge of tears.
“Yes, fired. Get out of my sight. I never want to see you again.”
“Wow, Ted. I thought you’d forgotten about my birthday, but I’m fired, and that’s the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten!”
Ted was shaking. He looked like he was about to explode.
Maria walked past him, a smile on her face. “C’mon, Sherlock. Let’s get out of here.”
Sherlock barked in approval and trotted behind her.
Maria turned around and flung the frisbee toward Ted. It didn’t hit him, but it scared him fiercely. He jumped and almost lost his balance.
She hadn’t bothered saying, ‘heads up’.
Chapter Eleven
Outside, the day was nice. Sun lit the trees in golden light, and there was a light breeze that took the edge off of the heat.
Not long after Maria heard the front doors shutter closed (she was technically not allowed to go through the Employee Only door anymore), Claire’s heeled shoes came up behind her.
“That was…AWESOME!” Claire said. “You should’ve seen the look on Ted’s face.”
“If I never see Ted’s face again, I’ll be perfectly fine,” Maria replied. “Besides, he may be a total douchebag, but we were throwing around a frisbee, and I did have a dog in the kiosk with me. Imagine if the health inspector had shown up, or something. They would’ve condemned the whole place.”
“I don’t care. Rules are meant to be broken; insert rebel yell here…Wueeeee, as your grandpa might say. And it was still fucking cool as hell.” Claire patted Maria on the back. “I’m starting to look up to you. Normally, the friend who has the car is the cool one, but you are just turning into something else.”
Maria’s smile melted, her features going serious. She grabbed Claire by both wrists and said in a low voice, “You don’t even know the half of it.”
Claire, sensing something wrong, arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story, and I know you don’t have much time before you get in trouble with your own boss…”
Claire rolled her eyes. “You know, you actually inspired me. Maybe I should quit next; then we can get Tabby to quit her job at the dry cleaners. We just have to come up with something as badass as having a dog pee on our boss’s legs. I mean, wow! The old Maria would’ve rolled over and started kissing Ted’s feet once anything to do with being fired came out of his blubbery lips.”
Claire was gushing. It was a trait that carried over from high school. Gossip, gossip, boys, boys, boys, ‘I think Mr. Fawn is out to get me’—that kind of stuff. Conversation Maria hadn’t ever been too fond of.
Maria held up a hand. She had to tell her best friend what was happening to her. Claire would, if it was her. They told each other everything. Whether Claire believed it—well, that was up to whatever gods the beings of Oriceran prayed to.
“Claire,” Maria said, her voice deadly serious, “I’m not the same Maria.”
“What?” Claire replied, rolling her eyes. “Was the real Maria abducted by aliens, or something?” She leaned forward and knocked lightly on the top of Maria’s head. “Hello in there. Do you come in peace? Do you want me to take you to our leader?” She said the last part in a robotic voice. “I don’t know who I should take you to, actually, now that I think about it.”
“Claire!” Maria said. “Seriously, I need you to listen to me.”
Claire took a step back. “You’re not joking, are you?”
Maria pointed to her lips, which were set in a grim line. “No, I’m not. This is serious, and both of our lives might depend on whether you believe me or not.”
“Well, that is just way too unfair right there,” Claire said.
“Can I tell you or not?”
“Now, I’m not sure I want to know.”
She’s an alien, wooooooo, Sherlock said. Maria ignored him, though that was probably the best and most simple way to put it.
Somewhere in the parking lot, a car horn honked.
It was a nice day, but Maria would be lying if she said she hadn’t gotten
goosebumps.
“Okay, I want to know,” Claire said.
“Let’s go to your car.”
“All right, but if you’re an alien, I’m going to pepper spray the shit out of you.”
Maria smirked. “If I’m an alien, how do you know I’m not immune to pepper spray?” She turned and walked to the Kia Rio parked in front of the Honeybaked Ham, leaving Claire on the sidewalk.
When Maria noticed Claire wasn’t following her, she said, “Oh, c’mon, I’m just kidding!”
“About being an alien?”
“Well…”
Eventually, Claire opened the Rio. She looked on edge. Maria tried her best to ease the previous night’s discovery into the flow of conversation, but she probably shouldn’t have started with, “Last night, I saw a dead boy.”
Claire slid in her seat, reaching for the door handle.
“No, no, no,” Maria said. She grabbed Claire’s arm. “Not like a ghost…well—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Claire said. “Where’s my pepper spray?” She sounded like she was joking, but Maria didn’t want to push it.
“I can prove it,” she said.
“Prove that you saw a ghost?”
“Not that, exactly. Okay, okay, let me backtrack. Let’s start small.”
Claire waited with anticipation.
Maria smiled and patted the middle console. Sherlock put his two front paws on it and stood in the middle. “Okay, here,” Maria said, “small.”
“Small,” Claire repeated.
Maria took a deep breath. “I can talk to Sherlock.”
Claire burst out in laughter. “Okay, okay,” she said, holding her stomach. “This is too much.”
“Sherlock, nod so Claire knows it’s true.”
Sherlock nodded.
Claire tilted her head. “That’s nothing,” she said. “Simple dog tricks.”
“You’re right,” Maria said, looking at the Bloodhound.
“I always knew you and that dog were a little too close…”
Tell her to open her mouth so I can sniff what she had for breakfast, Sherlock suggested. I am a Bloodhound, after all.
Maria nodded. “I think I’ll leave out that last part.”
Midwest Magic Chronicles Box Set Page 11
