Love Fortunes and Other Disasters

by Kimberly Karalius

  The stone cupids that Zita had charmed were suddenly back at their posts throughout the town; Fallon recognized the paint-splattered cupid that had attacked her in the labyrinth, perched above the art college’s front doors.

  Fallon had expected the park to be packed with people. She expected children to plunge their hands into the gurgling fountain, trying to grab shiny coins, while their parents sipped from wineglasses and shared their joy over the statue’s return. There would be food and drinks while the townspeople took turns at the podium to talk about love. But when Fallon and Sebastian entered the park, they found it near empty.

  Ivory cloth-covered tables bore ham-and-endive gratin, white sausages topped with apple compote, and fried sweet dough drizzled with pink chocolate; the caterers fidgeted at their stations, finding ways to keep the untouched food hot. A few town officials wearing their best suits huddled around the podium, discussing whether to cancel the event.

  “Where is everyone?” Fallon whispered, searching for their friends.

  “Hijiri’s over there,” Sebastian said, pointing to the girl standing in front of the statue.

  Hijiri studied the marble statue with her arms crossed, her long, now-silky hair falling freely down her back. “Love looks so content here,” she said once Fallon and Sebastian stood beside her, “but do you think it ever is? Always running around, making sure the people of this world keep loving.”

  “We’re supposed to be celebrating, not dissecting Love,” Sebastian teased.

  “Well, this isn’t much of a party,” she said.

  The twins came running into the park, their matching silver-sequined dresses sparkling sharper than the coins in the fountain. They wore plastic clips in their hair meant to look like marble.

  Fallon was surprised to see Femke and Mirthe. After discovering the missing fog, tornado, and tremor charms, Mr. De Keyser grounded them. Because of their potency, those charms must have cost a fortune. Fallon wasn’t sure how many years it would take for the twins to make up the monetary loss, but hopefully their parents were the forgiving sort. Yet, here they were, dressed to attend the statue’s party.

  “The Square!” shouted Femke and Mirthe at the same time. They stopped just short of the statue, gasping for breath. Sweat beaded at their temples.

  “You have to come to Verbeke Square right away,” Femke managed first. “Everyone’s there.”

  Everyone. Anais and Bear. Nico and Martin. What were they doing at Verbeke Square when the party was here? Fallon was about to ask, but Mirthe cut her short.

  “No time to explain. Let’s go,” she said.

  The urgency in Mirthe’s voice stirred her to move. Fallon grabbed Sebastian’s hand. With Hijiri in tow, they ran toward the square as fast as their feet would take them.

  Policemen sectioned off half of Verbeke Square with barricades. They urged the gawkers to move along. Anger and astonishment peppered the air. Fallon stood on her toes, trying to see what the trouble was over the crowd. That was when she saw Zita’s Lovely Love Charms shop in shambles.

  The pink building had somehow been split in half, the brickwork crumbling and creaking even as the police swarmed the area. Conflicting scents of broken charms and smashed love potions perfumed the air. Fallon pinched her nose and breathed through her mouth.

  A bored policeman looked at his watch and then climbed onto a crate. He used his megaphone to relay a message that he’d probably repeated all day. None of the officers wore pink pins. “There’s been an accident of unknown origin. In light of this incident, Zita has come forward with instructions regarding her business. Zita’s Lovely Love Charms will not reopen. The property will be reconstructed at a later date.”

  “What about our fortunes?” bellowed a middle-aged woman.

  A chant started. People took their anger and fear out on the policemen, shaking the barricade and demanding Zita’s return.

  “Love must have kept its promise about it being over,” Sebastian said. “No more fortunes. I’m glad.”

  “Me too.” She refused to let the angry crowd ruin her hope for the town. Grimbaud’s people had lived comfortably with Zita’s monopoly for quite some time. Losing that stability would be devastating—for those who received the good fortunes. Now everyone was left in the dark. They had to fend for themselves, stumble and break their hearts, instead of being given the answers ahead of time. Those secrets belonged once again to Love. Fallon preferred it that way.

  “Besides,” she said, “this isn’t the end of love charms. It’s just the last of Zita.”

  Bram De Groote and Emma Ward climbed on top of a crate, sharing the tiny space with their arms wrapped around each other for balance. Bram had brought his own megaphone and captured the crowd’s attention with his particular radio-show voice. “It’s time for a change,” he said. “Forget Zita. Love is back in charge. And, as much as I complain about love, I could get used to it. Now that, you know, I don’t have a bad fortune hanging over my head.”

  The energy shifted from anger to excitement and curiosity.

  “I’ve forgotten to introduce myself,” Bram said with a grin. “Or don’t you know me already? Hard-boiled Hal. In the flesh.”

  A few gasps broke out. People stood on their toes to get a better look at him. Fallon felt their excitement at a long-held mystery solved.

  Ms. Ward plucked the megaphone from his hand and added, “The villas are going to be demolished. They were rotten buildings anyway. No more spinsters. No more bachelors.”

  Yasmine and Helena hooted from somewhere in the crowd. Sebastian started clapping; it spread from one end of the square to the other and grew stronger by the second.

  With the tension in the crowd dissipating, Bram had one last thing say. “What are you standing around here for? Love’s statue has been returned to us. Go on to the park and celebrate!”

  The townspeople cheered.

  Fallon’s hands stung from clapping so hard. She stood on her toes, searching for the rest of her friends. Bear and Anais were a few feet away. Bear offered her a tin of Peake & Brown’s biscuits. Anais looked at him in mock outrage that quickly dissolved into giggles when he kissed her hand. Hijiri moved through the crowd in her usual fluid matter, getting a closer look at the crumbled shop. A few boys turned their heads to watch her, but she seemed not to notice them. Martin sat on top of one of the café tables; Nico used a chair as a boost and joined him. Their hips bumped; Martin looked flustered and adjusted his glasses. Femke and Mirthe grabbed each other by the elbows and danced, their laughter joining the warm February air.

  “Look over there,” Sebastian said, touching Fallon’s shoulder. “Of course she’s not clapping.”

  Camille stood on the edge of the crowd, still red-faced from her very public expulsion from school.

  Fallon smiled to herself. Camille’s absence from school would be a comfort. Without Zita’s tutelage, she’d hopefully find a less treacherous career to pursue. Love charm-makers would be welcome to practice their craft in town again, but that also meant that the charms would have to be policed; others just like Camille might push their manipulations too far. I wonder if that’s something I can do, she thought. Most towns had detectives, private or public, that specialized in particular types of charm crimes. If Fallon started studying love charms now, perhaps she’d have the makings of a great love-charm detective by the time she graduated.

  After the police took Bram’s megaphone, the crowd began thinning out. Most headed in the direction of the park, while a few stayed behind to say heartfelt good-byes to Zita’s shop.

  Sebastian’s breath warmed her ear. “Come with me after the party,” he said. “I’ve got a promise to keep.”

  Fallon wondered what he’d come up with instead of a stolen kiss in the school library. Her cheeks flushed pink. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said before tugging him over to join their friends.

  * * *

  The Tunnel of Love was a twenty-four-hour tourist attraction. Still, with the majority
of the town celebrating the statue’s return, Fallon was surprised to see someone operating the ticket booth. The wizened old man wearing a newsboy cap refused to take Sebastian’s money.

  “Why not?” Sebastian asked, curious. “What makes us different than the next couple?”

  The old man ignored his question and left the booth, jingling a key ring as he walked. One particular key drew Fallon’s attention: it shimmered, larger than the rest. She felt as if she knew that key, but the thought was gone as soon as it came.

  “Enjoy the ride,” he said, turning the key inside the control box next to the ride. A seductive tango suddenly filled the dark tunnel, beckoning them inside.

  The Tunnel of Love’s entrance was heart-shaped. Fallon climbed into the boat first, sinking into the cushioned seat. Sebastian joined her with a boyish grin on his face. “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Me neither. I didn’t want to go alone,” she said, blushing.

  Sebastian rested his arm against the back of the seat. He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger; the gentle tugging made her skin tingle.

  The boat moved forward on a track, meandering through the smooth canal water. As relaxing as the gentle boat ride was, the decorations were excessive. Cupid dolls with fuzzy, plush faces and googly eyes hung from the ceiling, pointing their arrows at each other in a silent war. Love letters, scanned and printed to poster size, showcased happy couples writing sweet words to each other over the years. Porcelain couples embraced under pink lights. Fallon leaned forward to see hundreds of chocolate boxes, fake flowers, and a zoo’s worth of animals wearing suits and dresses, handing candy hearts to their loves.

  When the tunnel darkened, the love letters on the tunnel walls turned into reproductions of Zita’s loveliest fortunes. A wave of panic pierced her heart. Fallon stuck her hand underneath Sebastian’s shirt, searching until she felt his heart beating beneath her fingers. Not a trace of the fortune left.

  “Fallon?” he said huskily.

  “Just checking,” she said.

  Sebastian shifted so that he was facing her. The boat rocked, but he held her steady by the waist. “I thought love would kill me,” he said, his expression solemn. “That was never my future, but it could take a long time for it to sink in.”

  “Get used to it. I’m never going to be a spinster.”

  Sebastian cracked a smile. “That, my princess, may be a good alternative for when you get sick of me.”

  Fallon tucked her hair behind her ears, raising her chin. “Don’t be silly. I am the girl who stole Bastion’s heart. That’s not a role I’m willing to give up, not for anything.”

  “You didn’t have to steal it,” he whispered.

  They fell into silence as the music ended. The water lapped at the sides of the tunnel. Wheels and cogs creaked as the plastic people and animals continued dancing, giving flowers, blushing with the help of painted cheeks and electric bulbs.

  This is the boy I love, she thought, memorizing the slant of his eyebrows, his dark bangs falling across his forehead. The dim, glowing lights made him look dreamlike, and she supposed she looked the same.

  This time Fallon didn’t need to touch his heart to know it was still beating. Instead, she buried her fingers in his hair. His kiss was better than pressing the last wrinkle out of a blouse.

  Acknowledgments

  Without Swoon Reads, this book simply wouldn’t exist. Thank you, Jean Feiwel and the Swoon Reads staff for falling in love with Fallon Dupree and Grimbaud. My editor, Holly West, is pure magic. I like to imagine her wearing an Indiana Jones hat as she found her way through my prose, cutting away the overgrowth and excavating the gems underneath. Special thanks to Christine Barcellona for being a great brainstorming partner during my first revision meeting. There are no words to express my joy over the charming cover designed by Richard Deas and illustrated by Zara Picken. It’s the stuff of dreams. I could not have felt more welcomed when I had the privilege of visiting Swoon Headquarters. As wonderful as the staff is, I wouldn’t be here without the Swoon Reads community. Thank you for the votes, feedback, and support. And a big, warm hello to my fellow sister-authors: Sandy Hall, Jenny Elliott, Katie Van Ark, Temple West, and Karole Cozzo.

  Many thanks to the readers who saw this book change and grow. First, Figgies Underground, a motley crew of talented writers and precious friends, including: Lydia Albano, Kristin Yuki, Cara Clayton Olsen, Emily Rose Warren, Hannah Horinek, LiAnn Yim, Samantha Chaffin, Patrick and Janelle Labelle, Savannah Finger, Reagan Dyer, and Enaam Alnaggar. Christina Im and Maria Dones, for the constant support in the form of funny, delightful e-mails. Don and Valarie Eckhart, for making the long days at the office fun. Christina Pletchan, for asking the hard questions during my early draft and feeding me peanut butter cup cookies. Steven Georgeson, for being patient with my questions about hearts. Also to Lauren Christian, a friendship I could never do without.

  I owe a lot to my readers from figment.com for believing in me. Without you, I could not have been as tenacious, brave, and unfailingly strange with the stories I spun and shared with you.

  Thanks to my professors Rita Ciresi, John Henry Fleming, and Ira Sukrungruang for advice and three full years of eating, sleeping, and breathing the craft of fiction. My University of South Florida MFA cohorts, you know who you are, for providing critical eyes and companionship as we all continue to follow our dreams. Phillippe Diederich, my author photo is stunning thanks to you; I keep looking forward to our friendly who-wrote-the-most-this-week competitions.

  To my friends and fellow English majors from Florida Southern College: I didn’t know at the time that ripping open a mystery bag of romance books would have led to a novel, but I’m glad we did it. Thank you for many nights of silly conversations held over our dog-eared literature textbooks.

  Then there’s my family. Even though he lives hours away, my brother, Bill Karalius, deserves my heartfelt thanks for listening when I rambled about charms and chocolate over the phone. This book has surely benefited from my dog, Misty, who fell asleep on my lap while I typed. My parents—my practical father and creative mother—have always supported my dreams, even though I was a weird kid. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

  Read on for some

  Swoonworthy Extras …

  Sebastian’s Dating Rules

  1. You will not fall in love with me.*

  2. Failing Rule #1 results in an immediate breakup.

  3. If you’re dating me with ulterior motives, tell me. I prefer being prepared.**

  4. I’m kind to you because I like to be kind, not because I’m in love with you.

  5. I will not go further than kissing. This is nonnegotiable.

  6. In the event of a breakup, stop keeping vigil outside my door.

  * If you fall in love with me, I will know. There are many ways this can happen: confessing your love to me in person, writing me a letter, leaving me thoughtful presents, looking at me funny, trying to claim I bought you an engagement ring, or candlelit dinners.

  ** I’m fine with you dating me to get back at your ex, make your parents angry, or annoy your friends. But since those people would potentially lash out at me, I’d rather know ahead of time so I can plan for it.

  A Coffee Date

  with author Kimberly Karalius and her editor, Holly West

  “About the Author”

  Holly West (HW): What’s your very favorite way to spend a rainy day?

  Kimberly Karalius (KK): Usually when it’s rainy out, the house cools down, which is something you notice in Florida because it’s always so hot all the time. I like sitting on the floor with a blanket playing really old board games like Candy Land. I love playing them because they are kind of goofball-y—nothing too challenging, but always fun.

  HW: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

  KK: The most practical thing for me would be the ability to change my size at any time. I could become tall enough to reach the highest shelf on the bookshel
f with no problem, because I’m a really short person. Or become small enough to go explore dollhouses and things like that.

  HW: That’s an interesting choice. I like that. Do you have any hobbies?

  KK: Besides, of course, reading and writing, I watch silent films. Anything with Buster Keaton is an instant favorite for me. Then there are cartoons too. Nineties cartoons hold a special place in my heart, having grown up watching them, but I just can’t get enough. If it’s animated, I’m interested! And, of course, I love going to theme parks, especially Disney, but I don’t discriminate.

  “The Swoon Reads Experience”

  HW: How did you first learn about the site?

  KK: I read an article on its launch on GalleyCat in September, because I’d made it a habit to always give my creative-writing students news about what was going on in the creative-writing world. When I saw that article I got really excited, because Swoon Reads was definitely something I wanted to participate in as soon as I had a novel that I thought fit.

  HW: That probably answers the “when did you decide to post your manuscript up” question too.

  KK: Well, I did write Love Fortunes specifically for Swoon Reads. My other manuscripts have romance in them, but not as a central focus. So I felt like I had to write something new. I ran through the first draft as quickly and safely as possible, revised it a few times, and then put it up as soon as I felt like it was ready.

  HW: I love it when the books are written specifically for us. Before you were chosen, what was your experience like on the site?

  KK: I really enjoyed it because it was so different from my other experiences posting, sharing, and writing online. I came from Figment first, and that was really fun because it was like play-by-play comments. I would post a chapter and see what everybody was thinking and sort of plan it like, “This is what I want to happen, but they said this and it’s interesting, so let me see if I can do that too.” But with Swoon Reads, the entire manuscript was finished, so I got to find out from readers what they thought of the entire story on its own. That was a completely different type of critique and I enjoyed getting those comments. It was always exciting to log in and see if I had gotten any new ratings or comments, and also, of course, to read other people’s manuscripts.