Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do with Trixie. Half the Westies in New York are named Trixie. It's embarrassing when you hear your name, turn around, and then End out they're talking to their dog."
"Looks like we've wrapped up that agenda item," Isabel said, signaling to the waiter for another round. "Item two: surveying and possibly selecting male companionship."
I took a sip of my new drink as I took in my surroundings. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone out on the prowl with friends. With Gemma's unofficial dating service, that usually wasn't necessary. The bar was full of suited Financial District types. Some of them were quite attractive, but they were all a little too intense for me.
"What do you think, Katie?" Isabel asked. "Anything that isn't what it appears to be?"
"I don't know. Remember, I don't see what you see. Point someone out to me, and I'll tell you what I see."
Art pointed to someone who looked like a taller, slightly older, much slicker version of Owen. She definitely had a type. "What about him?"
"Tall, dark, and handsome. No pointed ears, horns, fangs, or wings."
"Hmmm." She cast her eyes in his direction, caught his eye, then glanced away.
Gemma had tried to teach me that game, but I was hopeless at it. I either stared too long and made my target uncomfortable or not long enough and never caught his attention.
As I watched the flirting I asked, "What do others see when they look at you guys?"
"You mean fairies?" Trix asked.
"Yeah."
"Basically, just us with no wings and no hovering. Human men find us incredibly cute. Personally, I'm not so thrilled with human men."
"All men are trouble, whether or not they have wings, or how their ears are shaped, or how tall they are," Isabel said. She sounded like what Gemma called the Bitter Single Woman—the kind who pretends to hate men to cover up her hurt about men not being interested in her. Isabel was attractive enough, in a striking Amazonian way. I wondered if she was fully human or if there was something else in there, like maybe a trace of giant blood. Still, it would take either a very large or a very confident man to cope with her. We needed to find a professional football player, maybe an offensive lineman. I considered putting Gemma on the job.
"Men are okay," I said. "I like them well enough." I hated to dampen a good bitch session, but I'd never had a guy really screw me over. They had to be interested enough in me to give me any hope in order to cause much damage, and I hadn't had many get that close. Gemma was right, I needed a boyfriend.
"You're single, though, aren't you?" Trix asked.
"Yeah. But my roommate's working to fix that. She's set me up with half of Manhattan."
"And nothing right for you yet?" Isabel asked.
"Not yet. But if you kiss enough frogs, you're bound to stumble upon a prince."
Trix slammed her palm against the tabletop. "Brilliant idea, Katie. Isabel, I propose a change of agenda. Let's find ourselves some princes."
"Where? The pond in Central Park?"
"That's where I have the best luck."
I had to interrupt. "Whoa, you mean there really are men who've been turned into frogs?"
Isabel shrugged. "Sure. But what they don't tell you in the storybooks is that only the real assholes get punished that way, and being a frog doesn't have quite the personality reforming effect you'd expect."
"But they do tend to be very, very grateful about being rescued, and that's good for at least one night
of fun," Ari argued.
"I was being figurative about kissing frogs, in case you were wondering," I said, wondering if this conversation was really taking place or if I was drunker than I realized. "In my world, that just means you go out with a lot of people, even if they don't seem to meet your criteria on the surface, because you never know which one might be right for you."
"That's boring. Wise, but boring. Our way's more fun," Trix said.
"And I bet our chances of finding someone are better than they are in here," Ari added.
We paid our tab, then stumbled out of the bar. I'd lost track of time while we were in there, and now it was dark. I wasn't sure wandering around Central Park at night in the condition we were in was a great idea. Maybe they didn't metabolize alcohol the same way normal-sized humans did, but I was only just sober enough to be aware of how drunk I was. Unfortunately, I was drunk enough to let myself get swept along with the group.
Isabel hailed a cab—she had a rather effective method that involved blocking the street with her body. If a cab wanted to avoid serious damage, it stopped. We piled inside, Isabel in the front passenger seat and the rest of us in back. This wasn't quite what I'd had in mind when I agreed to an evening out with the girls, and the cab ride up to Central Park was long enough for me to sober up enough to be self-conscious about doing something so crazy. As often as I'd used the expression about kissing frogs,
I'd never had any desire to carry it out literally.
We all fumbled for purses as the cab came to a stop near the Plaza Hotel, but Isabel said, "Don't worry, I've got it." Then we piled out, crossed Fifty-ninth Street, and followed the path down to the pond.
"You're really going to kiss frogs?" I asked as we made our way down to the edge of the water. "This time of year, you may not see many. It's getting too chilly for amphibians."
"That actually makes our chances better," Trix said. "It's the enchanted frogs that'll still be around. They don't want to give up on the hope that someone will break the spell until they can't tolerate the cold anymore."
"How many of these are there? We don't have a lot of princes in this part of the world, you know."
"Prince is a figure of speech," Isabel said. "It can apply to anyone in a position of power or wealth who needs to be taken down a peg. Oh, look, here's one!" She lunged at a little tree frog sitting on a rock. It took her a couple of tries to grab it, then she held it trapped in her hands and brought it up to her face. I wanted to look away as she puckered up and kissed it, but morbid fascination made me stare.
Nothing happened. She sighed and released the frog, which hopped away with an affronted-sounding "ribbit."
I heard sirens on the street above. "We're gonna get arrested for molesting frogs," I moaned. I could imagine explaining that to my folks.
"Don't worry so much," An scolded as she lunged for a frog. Her fairy grace and speed gave her an advantage, so she caught it on the first try. Or maybe the frog just thought she was a giant fly and it had scored a super-size meal. "Nobody can see us, even if they look right at us. We're safe." Then she addressed her frog. "Now, handsome, make my dreams come true." She kissed it, and then I almost fell over in my hurry to step backward.
The frog glowed. The glowing aura around it grew bigger and bigger, until An released the frog. Instead of falling to the ground, it hung at eye level. Soon, the aura spread into the rough outline of a human form. When the glow faded, what remained was a handsome young man in an old-fashioned suit. Men's dress clothing hasn't changed much over the past hundred or so yeats, so it was hard to date his outfit, but he wore his hair in a flowing, Byronic style. He also looked utterly terrified. I put myself in his shoes—coming out of a froglike state to find himself facing a giantess and a couple of chicks with wings— and had to sympathize.
"Wow," I said. "So it's real?"
Ari shot me a glare. "You doubted us?"
"Not really, but you have to admit, it is weird, especially for someone like me."
"Who are you?" the man asked. "You have no right!"
"Get over yourself," Ari snapped. "I broke the spell that made you a frog for God knows how long, so the least you could do is show me some gratitude."
He jolted, looking almost like he'd been shot, then gave Ari a courtly little bow. "I sincerely apologize. I beg you to forgive my poor behavior. I am most grateful, in spite of my churlishness." When he rose from his bow, the panicked look returned to his eyes. "Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I must
be leaving. Terribly busy.
Somewhere else I must be. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
He then took off in an all-out run. I could have tripped him as he passed me, but I felt sorry for the guy. Besides, Ari had wings. If she wanted to catch him, she probably could.
But she didn't. She just folded her arms across her chest and said, "You're welcome."
Isabel patted her on the shoulder. "Like I said, it's the assholes who get that done to them. Not to mention out-of-date assholes. Casting frogging spells was outlawed decades ago. He'd want you to do his laundry and cook for him."
"You could try another one," Trix suggested.
"No, it's Kane's turn. An old-fashioned guy would be just right for her."
I had no intention of actually kissing a frog, but I didn't want them to think I was a stick-in-the-mud. It could just take me all night to catch a frog, if I worked hard enough at it. They didn't have to know I was a country girl who knew all about catching frogs, bugs, and other critters. With my brothers, I either had to learn to get used to them or spend my life screaming. "I want to look for a good one," I said as I headed toward a stand of bushes on the other end of the pond. I could hide in there, pretending to look for frogs, until they sobered up or got bored.
I parted the bushes, stuck my head inside, and then shrieked at what I saw.
thirteen
There was a naked man crouching on a rock behind the bushes. Fortunately, the way he crouched kept me from seeing more of him than was really appropriate on such short acquaintance. He looked up at me and said, "Ribbit."
"Urn, news flash, but you aren't a frog," I told him. The others then reached me. Ari and Trix got there first, their wings flying them over any obstacles. A crashing sound behind them told me that Isabel was on her way, flattening anything in her path.
"What is it, Katie?" Trix asked.
I pointed to the naked man. Words failed me.
"It's a frog," Ari said.
Isabel arrived, breathing heavily. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Katie found a frog," Trix explained.
"No, I didn't. I found a naked guy who seems to think he's a frog. With that other guy, I saw a frog before Ari kissed him. This is different."
"Ribbit!" Naked Frog Guy said, with great enthusiasm.
I knew there were a lot of less than mentally stable people who lived in the streets and parks of New York, and a guy who thought he was a frog wasn't out of the realm of possibility, but the fact that everyone else also thought he was a frog made me suspect that something else was going on here. It must have been the results of an illusion spell rather than an exhibitionist crazy homeless guy or a real enchanted frog prince.
"It's probably a practical joke or a fraternity prank," Ari said. "If you see him as human, that must mean someone cast an illusion on him to make him and everyone else think he's a frog. You don't see the frog because of your magical immunity."
"What do we do about it?" I asked. "We can't leave him out here like this. He'll die of hypothermia. It's cold at night, not to mention the fact that he's naked and around water."
"Ribbit?" he said in a pleading tone of voice.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. "You're. Not. A. Frog," I told him firmly.
"You'll have to kiss him to make him snap out of it," Isabel said.
"Kiss him?"
Ari rolled her eyes. "How else do you break a frog enchantment?" She left off the
"duh" at the end of the sentence, but her tone implied it.
"But why me? Why do I have to be the one to kiss him?"
Trix ticked off reasons on her ringers. "A: You found him. B: At least you'd be kissing a human. If one of us kissed him, we'd be kissing a frog. Kissing any human is better than kissing any frog."
Naked Frog Guy said, "Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!" He was practically hopping with excitement.
"Whoa, chill, okay?" I told him. I wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of kissing naked men, but it depended heavily on the circumstances. For starters, I strongly preferred to actually know the guy and to have established a relationship. I didn't think it was asking too much for me to really like the guy, even to believe that I loved him (though I knew that being with a naked man tended to cloud your judgment in that area). Call me a prude, but I also preferred an indoor location or, at the very least, some privacy.
In short, kissing a naked man who had said nothing more than "ribbit" to me, while surrounded by friends in Central Park, was not high on my list of turn-ons.
But what I'd said earlier was true. He probably would die if we left him out there, and if I kissed him, it might get me off the hook for any other frog kissing that night.
"Well, here goes nothing," I muttered as I knelt next to him. This would be easier if I was drunker. Maybe we could go to a bar, then come back and finish this. But I was already here, so I might as well get it over with. It wasn't like I had to tongue-kiss him. That was fortunate. What if he'd been eating flies? Ewww.
I screwed my eyes shut, then leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips that landed slightly off center. Before I could back away, he grabbed my head and pulled me back for a rather more thorough kiss. After thinking about flies, I very determinedly kept my lips sealed together.
Finally, he let me go, and I couldn't stop myself from wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Almost immediately he grabbed my hand and lavished kisses on the back of it. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," he said, which was an improvement over "ribbit," even if he hadn't added much variety to his vocabulary.
"I owe you big-time."
"Don't mention it," I said, freeing my hand and wiping it on my skirt as I backed away from him and stood up.
He made as if to stand up, too, then glanced down at himself and noticed he was naked. "Um, well, I'm going to have to stand up now, but I'd like you all to take into consideration the fact that it's pretty cold before anyone makes any snap judgments," he said.
Isabel took off her cardigan and tossed it to him. He wrapped it around his waist, then adjusted it carefully as he stood up. It covered him completely from waist to knees. When he stepped out of the bushes and into a better lit area, I saw that he wasn't bad-looking. He was about my age, which made him a little old for a fraternity prank, and his body was nicely denned. He had shaggy blondish hair and a tattoo on one well-sculpted bicep. He looked more like a California surfer dude than like someone you'd meet in New York. Ari gave a low whistle, then elbowed Isabel.
"Why'd you have to give him the sweater?" she hissed.
"Now that you're all disenchanted, you should go home and warm up," I said brusquely. I didn't want him to think I'd kissed him for any reason other than to release him from the spell. If I'd run into him anywhere else, I might have been interested in a little flirtation, but meeting him when he thought he was a frog was just too weird for me. I vowed never again to use that old saying about kissing frogs, not now that I knew I wouldn't want anyone who used to be a frog, even if he was a prince.
"Is there a problem, ladies?" a voice asked. I whirled in shock. We hadn't been caught red-handed while molesting frogs, but standing around in the dark in the park with a seminaked man wasn't the most innocent activity. The speaker turned out to be a park ranger—a park ranger who had wings on his back and slightly pointed ears. This must be a sprite.
"This gentleman has just been disenchanted," Trix said. She and the sprite had locked eyes in a way that was entirely familiar to me, a look of intense, instant attraction. Not that I'd experienced it personally, but I'd watched it happen to friends.
"We'd better get him inside and taken care of, then," the sprite ranger said.
"I'll come with you," Trix said, fluttering her fingers at us as she took Naked Frog Guy by the arm and joined the ranger.
"It's a rebound. It'll never last," Ari opined as they disappeared into the darkness.
"You're letting him go like that?" Isabel asked me.
"Uh, yeah
, looks like I am," I said.
"Why? You actually found a prince. It turns out you were right about kissing frogs."
I shuddered. "No, no, I wasn't. This is a worse way to meet men than singles' bars."
Isabel brightened. "We could go to a singles' bar."
"Not tonight," I said with a sigh. "I hate to be a wet blanket, but I'd rather just go home now."
"You're not having fun?" Isabel asked, looking and sounding worried.
"I had lots of fun, really. But it's been a long week, and it all caught up with me at once. I'm glad I came, though. Thanks for inviting me."
I must have sounded convincing, for she looked more like her usual cheerful self.
"I'm glad you had fun. We'll have to do this again sometime."
"Next time, we can skip the frogs."
She and Ari laughed. "It was your idea," Isabel said. I didn't try to argue that when I brought it up, I hadn't expected them to take me literally. I gave them a halfhearted wave and hurried up to Fifth Avenue to see if I could catch the Ml bus. One of Marcia's city safety rules was that the bus was better than the subway when you were alone at night because you could sit near the driver and you were less likely to be stuck underground with crazy people. I glanced at my watch and was surprised at how early it was. I felt like I was crawling home in the wee hours after a night of debauchery, but I'd probably beat my roommates home.
A bus showed up before long, and I climbed on board. For the first time in my life I felt like the oddball surrounded by normal people, instead of the other way around.
No matter what anyone else on the bus had done that evening, it couldn't possibly be any weirder than what I'd just done.
In the space of about a week's time, I'd gone from being perhaps the most ordinary person on this island to being one of the weirdos. I wasn't sure yet if that was an improvement.
* * *
I was rudely awakened the next morning by all the lights coming on in my bedroom and the window shade going up to let in the feeble sunlight that ventured into the air shaft. "Wake up, sleepyhead!" Gemma called out.
Enchanted, Inc Page 19
