Love Fortunes and Other Disasters

by Kimberly Karalius

  “Can’t be comfortable.”

  “No.” She thought hard.

  “Well,” Sebastian said, “don’t want to be late for class.”

  The idea came to her in a starburst. She grabbed his bag strap before he could walk away. “Now I have two favors to ask you.”

  Sebastian, bemused, stopped to listen.

  * * *

  Sebastian said he needed two weeks of listening to Hard-boiled Hal’s Practical Guide to Love before he could confidently be able to identify the radio show host’s voice. “It’s all in the pauses between words,” he said. “Everyone creates silence differently.”

  Fallon wondered what gaps she left between her own words. While she folded her laundry and ironed her uniform, she tried out sentences and listened for the spaces. “I talk too slowly,” she whispered.

  During the week, she took turns visiting both Anais and Nico. Especially Nico. She squeezed into the ticket booth with him, offering what comfort she could while he struggled to accept Hijiri’s discovery.

  “She said I have a positive effect on him,” Nico said, toying with the money in the cash register. “The more I’m in his line of sight, the better. Maybe he’ll be able to pull himself out of the charm completely someday.”

  Someday. That sounded like hundreds of years in the future. Would they grow old and die still prisoners of Zita’s fortunes? Fallon buttoned her coat up to her chin to keep out the chill.

  “I care so much,” Nico said, “but I’m so tired, Fallon.”

  “I know.” She didn’t sleep much herself, unless she listened to Sebastian’s tape.

  Nico slapped the register closed. “You know what? This isn’t like me. I’m not going to sit in this stupid booth, crying and lamenting my fate.”

  “That is like you,” Fallon teased.

  “Nevertheless. Let’s get some air. Real air.”

  She followed Nico to where the rowboats were tied up. “We’re going out on the water?”

  Nico shushed her. “Not so loud. My dad can’t find out.”

  The rowboat only left ripples as proof of their escape as they traveled down the canal. Mr. Barnes’s big boats cruised farther south; since Nico knew the route by heart, they were in no danger of taking the same path. Fallon sat with her hands in her lap, admiring the firefly lights belonging to the coffee shops and antique stores. Adults drank wine on balconies. A string quartet played on the street near the canal while their audience curled up on blankets and ate cakes wrapped in wax paper.

  Nico’s wiry muscles flexed as he rowed. “Beautiful, isn’t it? It almost makes me forget.”

  Grimbaud filled Fallon’s heart and from the tips of her eyelashes to her toes. Gliding down the canals in a tiny boat made the rest of the world feel so far away. Her worries about Zita sank beneath the water. Twisted love fortunes and charms were only nightmares, gone by morning.

  From this distance, Grimbaud was a perfect arrangement of smoky heart-rings, rich chocolate, and love never-ending. Love in every brick. In every drop of water. It wasn’t a trick of the canal.

  “We have to save this town,” she said, rocking with the boat.

  Nico grinned.

  On her way back to the complex, Fallon bought three cherry-filled chocolates and savored them. She ate one over each bridge, daring herself to make the decedent pieces last until her feet touched solid ground again.

  While lost in thought, Fallon glanced up to see a troupe of women crossing the street. They were mostly middle-aged, wearing sheer hats and whimsical clothing. She knew them immediately as the residents of the Spinster Villas. Unlike the beautiful women depicted in the villas’ pamphlet, the real women staying there became eccentrics as a way of coping with sadness. Some women got tattooed with the names of the men they would never date, while others adopted stray cats. Ms. Ward carried a brown paper bag in the center of the group.

  Fallon jogged after the troupe; they moved faster than she imagined, but it was impossible to lose them with their colorful outfits and loneliness that trailed behind them like smoke. “Ms. Ward!” she yelled.

  The entire group stopped. Ms. Ward clutched the paper bag close to her chest. She was startled from having heard her name in public. “Hello, Fallon.”

  As she approached, Fallon noticed the stares she received from the townspeople. They wanted to know why she was talking to the spinsters, being friendly with them and using their names. Although Grimbaud was generally cordial toward them, no one wanted to actively seek out a spinster’s or bachelor’s friendship—their condition could rub off on them.

  “Who’s this girl, Emma?” said a woman in her late fifties. She wore an empress-style dress that dragged in the dirt behind her.

  “Fallon Dupree, my volunteer at the school library,” Ms. Ward answered.

  “Is she one of us?” asked a small woman with blue hair.

  Ms. Ward hesitated.

  “I could be,” Fallon said, “if my fortune doesn’t change next year.”

  “Honey, they never do,” said the first woman. She introduced herself as Helena. The small, blue-haired woman was Yasmine.

  The troupe peppered her with questions, comfort, and requests to see the dreaded fortune itself. Fallon tried to catch her breath as they drew closer, but she seemed to be missing air. The stench of mothballs and stale perfume filled her lungs. The paper bag crackled when she bumped against Ms. Ward.

  “You’re crowding the girl,” Ms. Ward said, using her librarian voice. “Give her some space.”

  The spinsters apologized and stepped back, but not before smoothing Fallon’s hair and adjusting her bent shirt collar.

  “Go on ahead to the bakery,” Ms. Ward said, handing Yasmine a clump of money. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

  Fallon sank onto the curb. “Thanks.”

  Ms. Ward sat down next to her and placed the paper bag between her legs. “They mean well, but they get so excited sometimes.”

  “I could be a new member,” she said. “They have every right to celebrate.”

  “You will be a spinster, no matter what your living arrangements may be,” Ms. Ward said. “I learned that the hard way. At the time, I refused to believe the fortune. I tore it up and remained in Grimbaud just long enough to graduate high school.”

  Fallon rested her hands on her knees. “What happened?”

  “I thought I could outrun the fortune by backpacking across the country. I slept among ruins and sketched terrible portraits of the kind strangers I stayed with. The libraries of the world seduced me and I visited every single one I could. I knew my calling was to be a librarian.”

  “But love?”

  “The same pattern happened, again and again. I would meet a boy and, within a few days, everything would fall apart. The longest relationship I had lasted a week, and only because it took him that long to realize that I sleep with paperbacks stuffed inside my pillows.”

  Fallon couldn’t help but laugh. “Why?”

  “Paperbacks are soft,” she said, “and I like the idea of sleeping with entire worlds beneath my head.”

  Fallon rested her chin on her knees. “I like that too.”

  Footsteps echoed on the sidewalk. Bicyclists made their loops. The streetlamps streaked Ms. Ward’s glasses with warm light. “Most of the time, I only saw boys in fleeting moments. The busboy who held the door open for me as I left the café. The violinist in the street who whistled when he saw me coming, but vanished moments later when I returned with change. I started hating that feeling of hope, of potential, Fallon.” She tightened her fist. “After enough times, I decided to do my best to accept that love wasn’t coming my way.”

  Fallon couldn’t imagine what Ms. Ward had to feel guilty about. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to fall in love.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  Fallon squeezed her eyes shut. Her brain had a few arguments against love, especially the feelings that pointed her to Sebastian time and time again. Not love. Surely not l
ove. She wasn’t that stupid.

  “Zita’s fortune was right,” Ms. Ward said. “Maybe my fate is to live like a broken record, repeating the same encounters over and over. It’s certainly felt like that. Better to embrace spinsterhood and focus on life’s other pleasures.”

  Her words drew Fallon away from her own warring thoughts. “Having so many similar encounters isn’t normal. What if Zita’s messing with you to make sure she’s right?”

  Ms. Ward tried to laugh, but her voice trembled. “That’s ridiculous. I traveled far away from here, and love charms are fickle once outside of Grimbaud. Zita couldn’t have the energy or ability to cause what happened to me.”

  “So it’s fate.”

  “That’s right. It took me long enough, but I accepted it.” Ms. Ward sighed. “Romance isn’t everything. Life is much, much more.”

  Fallon’s gaze fell on the paper bag. “What’s that?”

  Ms. Ward flushed. “A villa tradition. We’re not supposed to be reading romance novels, really, but the women agree that these books lift our spirits. It’s our secret indulgence. Once a week, we buy a mystery bag of romance novels from the public library. You never know what’s inside. Part of the fun. After picking up desserts, we divvy up the books and spend the evening reading.”

  “Why do you need them?” Fallon asked. “You said romance isn’t everything.”

  Instead of answering, Ms. Ward shook her head. The bag of romance novels, a lifeline only moments before, sat heavy in the librarian’s hands.

  chapter 14

  TERRIBLE SHOES

  Fallon couldn’t sleep the night after speaking to Ms. Ward, and she didn’t want to be soothed by the tape Sebastian had left her. The pillows needed fluffing. She turned on her bedside lamp. The sheets sagged against her body, a deflated balloon, as she shifted into a comfortable position.

  Placing her hand over her heart, she searched for the familiar beat. Her heart was a solid drummer, neat and thorough as she was with her own life, but it ached. Not a physical pain—she would have asked Mrs. Smedt to take her to the hospital if she thought it was serious. More so, she was concerned that it didn’t act out enough.

  “Why don’t you flare up?” she wondered, tucking her chin to her chest. “Why aren’t you like Ms. Ward’s heart, shooting off fireworks at the first sight of love?”

  Not everyone’s heart worked the same, but the mechanics underneath had to be similar. Nico’s nervous heart carried both anxiety and bravery as he fought to remain by Martin’s side, no matter how doomed. Anais’s heart was stubborn and guarded, but she freely revealed certain parts of it to Bear with intense, confident love.

  “I’m a Dupree,” she told the night. “We are orderly and clean. We fold our clothes and cook fresh foods and accept that love comes as easily into our lives as making room for another cashmere sweater in the drawer.” Generations and generations. Duprees never had to try. They never worried about finding love because it always arrived with blinking signs and Zita’s favorable fortunes. Her grandparents had been among the first to receive love fortunes. Her parents fit together. Robbie and Morgane lived in their world of clothing inspections and memories of belfry escapades.

  If Fallon really was a Dupree, why was her cool heart sore with impatience? She felt as if there was something she ought to know.

  In the morning, Fallon washed her face with her bar of goat’s milk soap, a present from her mother, until it was shiny and pink. She sliced an apple for breakfast and buttoned her white blouse slowly. When she picked up her blazer, she lost her grip and the folds unraveled. Crinkled, brown petals scattered on the floor.

  At first, she didn’t know what she was seeing. She bent down for a closer look. The petals were brittle and had lost their scarlet color long ago, but she realized that they must have belonged to the begonia Sebastian had given her when they went searching for charms. Her stomach flipped when she remembered the warmth of his fingers when he had tucked the begonia behind her ear.

  “How did you survive the washer and dryer?” she asked, rolling the dried-up petals in her hand. The blazer pockets weren’t generous, so the tight space must not have been properly cleaned during the wash. The poor begonia hadn’t deserved dying inside her blazer pocket. She whispered an apology and finished getting ready.

  Begonias, a common enough flower in Grimbaud, caught her eye repeatedly on her walk to school.

  * * *

  During homeroom, Fallon erased and rewrote upcoming events in her planner. Papers due. Midterm exams. Student government and charm-maker’s club meetings. Her handwriting had been sloppy and, with October’s end upon them, she needed to maintain a sense of quality in whatever way she could to be prepared for next month.

  Mrs. Heymans took attendance at her desk; today’s brooch was a shimmery pink begonia that cast flecks of rainbows on the wall. With the heaters running, the room was stuffy. Nico napped on the desk beside her.

  The classroom door opened with a wail. Marlene Dumont accepted her tardiness without as much as a glance in Mrs. Heymans’s direction. “You won’t believe this,” she said furiously. “I was just turned down by Bastion. And I’m not the first girl he’s refused.”

  Nico woke up with a start. Fallon’s heart froze and melted.

  A boy in the back snickered. “Why would you want to date him, anyway? Don’t you girls ever learn?”

  Marlene remained undaunted. Despite any embarrassment it might bring, she knew a juicy piece of gossip when she heard it. With the whiteboard behind her, she launched into her explanation of the morning’s events. She had found Sebastian standing alone by the basketball court’s fence and thought that she needed a little fun. “I wanted to take my mind off of Hamza,” she said, referring to her breakup she had dramatized last week. “Sebastian saw me coming, knew what I was going to ask, of course. But he said he was tired of dating. Tired! Can you imagine?”

  “He would be, dating every girl in Grimbaud,” said another boy.

  “That’s not the point,” Marlene snapped. “Bastion never turns girls down. So why now?”

  Nico, annoyed at losing his nap over this, said, “Because he developed a conscience.”

  “No.”

  He grimaced. “Do you have a real answer?”

  “There’s only one reason why Sebastian has changed.” Marlene paused for effect. “Obviously, someone’s finally stolen his heart.”

  The boys in the classroom groaned.

  “That’s enough, Miss Dumont,” Mrs. Heymans said. “Take your seat.”

  But the students continued to talk about Sebastian’s decision, including theories about his fortune and the mysterious girl who (maybe) took his heart. Fallon erased with vigor, shedding shavings and wrinkling November’s pages.

  “You look happy,” Nico said, cracking open an eye.

  “Do I?”

  He nodded and shut his eyes again. “You’re smiling.”

  Brushing off the shavings, Fallon traced her lips to the corners. A smile.

  * * *

  Fallon and Sebastian agreed to meet in Verbeke Square that Saturday to search for Hard-boiled Hal. The sky was dark and gray; she had forgotten her umbrella that morning and concentrated on stepping over puddles.

  Sebastian waved at her from where he stood in front of a lace shop. His hair was windblown, his eyebrows pushed together in concentration. “The square is overflowing with people,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s going to be hard finding Hal with all the noise.”

  Fallon curled her fingers into a fist to stop herself from touching her ear. “We might get lucky.”

  “What optimism,” he said dryly.

  Her eyes flickered over the crowd. Hard-boiled Hal had to be somewhere in the square. After listening to a few of his shows, she’d noticed that he talked a lot about Verbeke Square: the cafés serving the best beers and the shops with the best lace-making, but mainly badmouthing Zita’s love charms. He talked so often about her newest charms that Fallon easily pictur
ed him staking out the love-charms shop with binoculars.

  Little kids tugged anxiously on their parents’ hands, bored and itching to run. Burdened with groceries for evening supper, housewives paused to watch a demonstrator use bobbins to make lace. There were plenty of men in the square. A group of them congregated at an outdoor café, smoking pipes that spewed heart-shaped clouds. Teenage boys hung their legs over the side of the stone walls.

  No one particular man made an impression on her. She hardly knew what kind of man Hard-boiled Hal was. She half expected him to be a character, wearing a fedora and trench coat to match the mystery of his show, but that seemed unlikely. Had he dressed like that, his identity would have been discovered long ago.

  Standing next to Sebastian reminded Fallon of the night at the bridge. Even without the recorder, she found herself seeking the pockets of silence and noticing the little sounds that snuck through: the shuffling of feet, a sigh, pigeons cooing, and the feedback of the demonstrator’s microphone. Occasionally, she stole glances at Sebastian’s profile. His smooth skin and straight nose made him look softer than most boys, but she had no trouble picturing him as the restless, impulsive kid he said he’d been.

  The usual ache and uneasiness she felt around him wasn’t there. Thinking on it, she knew it was because of Marlene’s news. If Sebastian had truly given up his careless dating, the barrier she had built between them had no reason to exist. From the very first time she had seen him at the complex, Fallon had disapproved of his contemptible behavior toward the girls who came and went as he dated and turned them away. But without that, she discovered much to her surprise that she liked Sebastian.

  His teasing put her at ease, as annoying as it could be. She wanted to hear more stories about Grandma Marion and the dogs he’d practiced his grooming skills on. Maybe she’d even try something from a food truck. If she researched the place first.

  Still, she burned with the same curiosity as the students in homeroom did. Sebastian’s fortune was a mystery. Any hints he dropped were lost on her. Fallon didn’t know what could be worse than being doomed to spinster- or bachelorhood, but it had to be something bad. He joined the rebellion for a reason.