When I reached the Union Square station, I was surprised to see Miss Airy Fairy head down into the subway ahead of me instead of continuing toward the university. People who work downtown tend not to dress like that for work. As I followed her down the stairs, I noticed that she wore what must have been platform shoes with Lucite soles, which gave her the appearance of floating a couple of inches off the ground. She moved remarkably gracefully for someone wearing what had to be pretty clunky shoes.
As usual, no one on the platform gave her a second glance. I’d been here a year, and I’d yet to exchange one of those knowing “only in New York” glances with anyone. How could everyone be so jaded? Surely there were people around who were newer to the city than I was, and then there were the tourists, who were supposed to stare at everything.
But then I noticed a guy looking at Miss Airy Fairy. He didn’t seem shocked or surprised, though. Instead, he smiled at her like he knew her. That in and of itself was odd because he didn’t seem the type to spend his weekends wearing a cape and playing Middle Earth in Central Park. He looked like a typical Wall Street type, wearing a well-tailored dark suit and carrying a briefcase—the kind of Mr. Right that just about every career girl in New York hopes to snag. I’d guess he was a few years older than me, and he was quite good-looking, even if he was a little shorter than average.
Mr. Right (if he wasn’t mine, he had to be somebody’s) glanced at his watch, then up the tunnel, like he was looking for the next train. He muttered something under his breath—probably something like “Where is that train?” or “I’m going to be late”—twitched his wrist, and next thing I knew, I heard the rumble that signaled an approaching train. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he summoned it. I wasn’t complaining because I needed the train myself.
The waiting passengers shoved their way onto the train, then the conductor’s voice came over the PA system, saying, “Attention passengers. Due to a one time situation, this Brooklyn-bound N train will stop next at City Hall. If you need stops prior to this, please exit the train here and board an R train or another N train. Thank you.”
There was a chorus of mutters and groans as passengers poured out of the train. I took a now-empty seat and looked at my watch. At this rate I’d be early to work. This wasn’t a bad way to start the week.
Mr. Right was still on board, as was Miss Airy Fairy. Mr. Right exchanged a grin with the guy sitting next to me. I turned to look at that guy and then wondered if there was a polite way I could move to another seat without it being obvious that I was avoiding him.
He looked like the kind of guy who spends his lifetime defending against sexual harassment charges, the kind who thinks of himself as so irresistible that he can’t imagine his advances being unwanted. Unfortunately, that type is never as attractive as he’d like to think. This one wasn’t exactly hideous. With a little effort and the right personality he might not have been so bad. Unfortunately, he made no effort at all, so that his hair was poorly styled and greasy, while his skin would have made my mother, the Mary Kay representative, faint in horror. But he acted like he thought every woman on that train should be drooling over him, which made him even more unattractive to me.
The funny thing was, all the women on the train were looking at him over the tops of their books and newspapers like they thought Pierce Brosnan had joined us on the subway car, and he grinned at them like he was totally used to that kind of attention. Maybe they could tell he was particularly well-endowed. Or maybe he was a famous rock star I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t hip enough to know what most rock stars looked like. He had the kind of smug slickness you’d expect from a famous rock star who didn’t have to do anything to make women fall at his feet.
As for me, I’d rather look at Mr. Right, who was getting his fair share of admiring glances but who looked shy about it, not like he expected the attention. That made him infinitely cuter in my book.
“On your way to work?” Slick asked. It wasn’t among the top five pickup lines I’d ever heard. Not that I heard a lot of them.
“Actually, I just like being crammed like sardines in an underground tin can to head to lower Manhattan in the morning,” I said.
He stretched his arm out along the back of the seat, like he was angling to put his arm around me. I’m from a part of the world that still has drive-in movies, so I recognized the move and edged away as subtly as I could. “You’re obviously not a native New Yorker,” he said, oozing charm like my dad’s old tractor oozes oil. “I love your accent.”
Little did he know, but he wasn’t paying me a compliment. As effective as the steel magnolia routine could be when I was asking for something or trying to get my way, it was a liability at work, where everyone seemed to think my Texas drawl meant I was dumber and less educated than they were. I’d been trying to lose my accent, but it kept slipping out when I was being particularly sarcastic. I guess I inwardly thought the drawl took the sting out of whatever ugly thing I’d just said. In this case, it seemed to have worked, just when I didn’t want it to.
I wished I’d brought a book to bury my face in, but I’d planned to walk to and from work when I left the apartment, so I hadn’t brought anything to read. In fact, the only things in my oh-so-professional-looking briefcase were my sack lunch and my dressier shoes for the office. Instead, I just gave Slick a glare and turned my attention to Mr. Right. Maybe he’d have a Galahad complex and feel compelled to rescue me from the subway stalker.
Then I noticed that Slick was looking at Mr. Right as well, and suddenly his face was totally serious. Mr. Right, also serious, nodded his head slightly. Miss Airy Fairy was also staring at me. Now I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a conspiracy. Were they going to rob me or try to scam me? Goodness knows, I might as well have been wearing a big yellow button saying “Hick from Out of Town! Please take advantage of me!”
Just then the door between cars opened and a giant chicken entered our car. To be more precise, it was a bored-looking man in a chicken suit—and how sad was it that he was more bored than embarrassed to be wearing that costume in public? I added to my mental list of jobs that were worse than mine. He shook a little plastic box in his left hand, and clucking sounds came out of it. I felt a pang of homesickness, for I used to have one like it on my desk back in Texas. I wouldn’t dare put it on my desk here. It would only reinforce the hick stereotype. At the clucking sound, everyone looked up, reacted with mild amusement, then immediately went back to reading or avoiding eye contact. The chicken man then tried to hand flyers to everyone in the car. I hadn’t yet learned the technique for avoiding flyers that most New Yorkers seem to have honed, so I took one from him. A new fried-chicken restaurant was opening, which gave me another moment of homesickness as I remembered family Sunday dinners. I tucked the flyer into my briefcase.
This incident didn’t do much toward helping me understand New Yorkers. Fairy wings on the subway weren’t worth noticing, but a guy in a chicken suit got a slight reaction. Both outfits involved wings. Why was one humdrum while the other was at least a little bit amusing? I noticed that Mr. Right had also taken a flyer. He was smiling and staring at the chicken man, which made me like him even more. Or, it would have if he didn’t seem to be in cahoots with the other two, who were still looking at me funny. I forgot about the giant chicken as I remembered why I felt ill at ease.
***
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About the Author
SHANNA SWENDSON earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas and used to work in public relations but decided it was more fun to make up the people she wrote about, so now she’s a full-time novelist. She’s the author of Rebel Mechanics and the popular adult romantic-fantasy series Enchanted, Inc. She lives in Irving, Texas, with several hardy houseplants and too many books to fit on the shelves.
Visit Shanna’s Website at: http://shannaswendson.com
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Also by Shanna Swendson
The Enchanted, Inc. Series
Enchanted, Inc.
Once Upon Stilettos
Damsel Under Stress
Don’t Hex with Texas
Much Ado About Magic
No Quest for the Wicked
Kiss and Spell
Frogs and Kisses
The Rebel Mechanics Series
Rebel Mechanics
Rebel Magisters
The Fairy Tale Series
A Fairy Tale
To Catch a Queen
A Kind of Magic
PAINT THE TOWN RED
A Short Story Set in the World of Enchanted, Inc.
Shanna Swendson
Copyright © 2016
All Rights Reserved.
978-1-62051-259-3
Cover Illustration: Sarah 'Pickles' Dill
AGENCY INFORMATION
NLA Digital LLC
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Writers work hard to support themselves. Please help them by buying their books from legitimate sources. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Paint the Town Red (Enchanted Universe Book 1) Page 2
