by Hailey North
That voice, so strong and insistent despite the tininess of its owner, carried clearly to Penelope’s ears. No figment of her fantasy, that!
She glanced at the cab driver, but he appeared engrossed in the sports pages he’d propped next to the steering wheel. Normally Penelope would have taken a cabbie to task for that, but today that transgression scarcely registered with her.
“Shhh,” Penelope whispered, leaning over her purse and peering in. The radio, tuned to a jazz station, blared so loudly she didn’t think the driver could hear her, but she had no desire to attract his attention.
Mrs. Merlin perched atop Penelope’s Coach wallet, arms on hips, a waspish expression on her face. For the first time, Penelope noticed she wore a tiny pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. Her hair, fiery orange-red streaked with silver, stood in wispy angles out from around her head, revealing ears that winked with red and green stones pinned to their lobes.
“Suffering in silence has never been my style. Don’t get me wrong, dear. I appreciate being rescued, but I’ll have you know the buses of the Rapid Transit Authority provide a smoother ride than you and that wobbling purse.”
“Well, it’s not as if I fainted on purpose.”
“As hot as it is inside here, I can believe that. I do need some fresh air.” Mrs. Merlin looked up, hope in her eyes. “Let me out of here?”
Penelope glanced toward the driver’s seat. “I can’t do that now.”
Mrs. Merlin wagged a minuscule forefinger and Penelope felt as chastised as she had the one time she’d been called into the principal’s office in grade school. “Don’t ever say anything can’t be done.”
“But there are some things—”
“How did I get so unlucky as to land in a lawyer’s clutches! Always an answering argument.” Mrs. Merlin touched her forefingers to her lips, then to her temples. “I promise the goddess of flame and light that if she helps me out of this mess I’ll be ever so careful in the future.”
Goddess of flame and light? Penelope laughed, a shade hysterically.
“Only the ignorant laugh at the unknown,” Mrs. Merlin said softly.
Penelope pressed her lips closed. She stared into her purse. Slowly she said, “You know, you’re absolutely right about that. I apologize.”
“Good. Now can I get out of here?”
Penelope exhaled a big breath. Reaching into her purse, she extended two fingers. Mrs. Merlin climbed quite nimbly on, then settled onto the palm of Penelope’s hand, still clutching the long brown stick.
Measuring with her eye, Penelope figured the tiny woman stood about as high as a can of soda. She set her on the seat next to her purse, checking to make sure the driver kept his eyes on the sports pages.
Mrs. Merlin fluffed the sides of her caftan and patted at her iridescent hair. “Thank you ever so much. By the way, what’s your name, dear?”
“Penelope Fields.”
“Ah, Penelope. And what are we weaving today?”
The weaving reference was one Penelope had heard time and time before, as people delighted in asking her whether she’d been named after the Penelope of Greek myth who’d spent years weaving garments while her husband Odysseus was off wandering.
The truth was her mother had been determined from the day of her daughter’s birth to make her stand out from the crowd. She simply picked the name because it was uncommon. Realizing she hadn’t responded aloud to the woman, Penelope said, “Today I guess I’m weaving some adventure into my life.”
Mrs. Merlin smiled. “Chances are that doesn’t please you right now, but it might one day. I always like to say things happen for a reason, though I’m bedazzled as to what it was I did wrong this time.”
“Wrong?”
Mrs. Merlin worried her lips into a knot and tapped the side of her cheek with her forefinger. “I was working on a spell for Ramona. She’s a dear who lives down the street from me, but for all the days in the year the woman doesn’t possess a lick of sense. She’s gotten herself in trouble with the tax collector and I was only trying to help.”
Penelope nodded, but she wondered how Mrs. Merlin could help.
Almost in answer the tiny woman waved a hand airily. “I burn candles,” she said, as if that answered every possible question Penelope might have about her.
“Candles.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Merlin stopped talking, but continued tapping the side of her cheek and began murmuring to herself.
To Penelope’s relief, the cab swung onto her block in the Warehouse District. Not only had she shoplifted, fantasized way too much, and made a fool of herself in front of the man with the bedroom eyes, she’d been saddled with a tiny woman who was without a doubt certifiably nuts.
How much simpler her life would be had she gone to the office as she normally did on Saturdays.
The cab halted. Penelope pointed quickly to her purse and with a shake of her head Mrs. Merlin climbed inside. Penelope paid and headed inside the converted cotton warehouse that housed her apartment.
She loved the rich woods and the feeling that time had been captured and rejuvenated with the loving restoration of the old building. Stepping inside always made her glad she’d taken the chance and moved to New Orleans.
And now, stepping inside with Mrs. Merlin muttering under her breath inside her shoulder bag, Penelope smiled and realized she was glad she hadn’t gone to the office.
“Sense of adventure, here I come,” she said, and punched the elevator call button.
Chapter 4
“Not a bad place,” Mrs. Merlin said, peering around from her perch on Penelope’s glass and oak coffee table. “A little impersonal, though.”
“It serves me nicely,” Penelope retorted, caught between annoyance and amusement at this woman who invaded her life, then criticized her decorating style. She’d taken over the apartment as is from an architect leaving in a hurry for an Italian assignment.
“I always think it’s the personal touches that add that something certain,” Mrs. Merlin said. Then she grasped the stick she’d been dragging around and used it to vault from the table to the floor in one smooth move. There she straightened her caftan, patted her hair, and tucked the stick under one arm.
“What is that thing and how does it work?” Penelope had meant to ask about the stick earlier, but the question had seemed a bit nosy.
“It’s an incense stick,” Mrs. Merlin said, adjusting her glasses on her nose and fixing Penelope with a look that indicated she found her on the slow side. “It’s used to light the candle in the practice of magick, but now that you mention it, I’ve no idea how it’s made. Precious oils and wood pulp, I suppose.”
“How do you use it to move like that?”
Mrs. Merlin skipped across the living room, which flowed through a wide archway into the kitchen, then vaulted onto the countertop. “Search me,” she said. “But when the goddess provides, I don’t question. Nice kitchen,” she added, glancing around.
Assuming she wouldn’t get a straight answer from her visitor, and leaving her to finish passing judgment on her apartment, Penelope went into the bedroom to exchange her loafers for a comfortably worn pair of house slippers.
Her slippers were under the edge of her bed. As she slipped off her shoes, her mind flashed to the memory of being lifted and carried effortlessly by the man with bedroom eyes. Her feet had floated above the sidewalk as he’d cradled her in his arms.
Penelope knelt beside the bed, reliving the feel of her body crushed against his chest. She sighed, thinking how invincibly strong he was, how heroically he’d rescued her. Even Raoul, her fantasy lover, couldn’t have done a better job.
She knew she should tend to the pint-size woman now surveying her kitchen like a broker come to bid, but Penelope, suffering a curiously stirring eruption of sheer physical reactions, couldn’t budge.
“Who is that man?” she whispered, idly pulling her slippers on. “Why is he following me?” She rested one hand atop her thigh. Tracing a fig
ure eight with her fingers, she said to herself, “Why does he bother with me?”
She wished with all her being she could answer that question in a way that would bring her pleasure, but she was far too rational, far too honest. He wanted something from her, from Penelope Sue Fields, and it wasn’t her feminine allure that attracted him. Perhaps he was in tax trouble? Perhaps he needed a lawyer and didn’t know how to ask the bar for a referral? Perhaps he’d mistaken her for someone else?
Surely, Penelope thought, smoothing her hands against her sides and along her slender hips, he did not desire the very thing she suddenly and fiercely wanted him to want.
Her.
Penelope Sue Fields, the last one chosen for softball, the first one picked by the teacher to read her homework.
Penelope Sue Fields, outstanding lawyer, who might one day, if she continued on her current track, set her sights on a federal judgeship.
Federal judgeships were for life.
And so was spinsterhood.
She sighed and turned away from her bed. Best to get back to the moment, back to Mrs. Merlin, however unreal that particular visitor might be. Soon David would arrive, and Penelope had so far neglected to prepare one tidbit of the marvelous dinner she’d imagined only that morning.
That morning, which seemed weeks, even years ago. That morning, when she’d concentrated on the work she’d brought home, then rewarded herself by a late afternoon shopping trip to Pottery DeLite.
“I say,” Mrs. Merlin piped up in a voice that carried surprisingly far, “would you happen to have a snack for a hungry woman? “
Hearing her visitor’s voice, Penelope hurried from the bedroom. “Honestly,” she said. “I’m having trouble believing you’re real or I assure you I would have offered you refreshment the minute we walked in the door.”
Mrs. Merlin crossed her arms and looked steadily at Penelope. “Do I look like an object of your imagination?”
Thinking of the characters who peopled her fantasy world, Penelope felt a blush rise on her cheeks. “Well. . .” she began.
“Never mind,” Mrs. Merlin interrupted. “No need for hypothetical questions. Especially when my hunger is most definitely real. I am craving something shrimp- or crab-based, and perhaps some jambalaya. Yes, jambalaya would be perfect. You do know how to make jambalaya?”
Jambalaya? Escargots she knew. Crepes and other delicacies crowned with sauces ranging from béchamel to hollandaise to béarnaise, oh, yes, all those Penelope knew from heart. But jambalaya?
In the few months she’d been in New Orleans she’d worked so many hours at her new job she’d only had time for one visit to a cook’s dream, the Crescent City Farmers’ Market. And that took place down the street from her apartment building. As for discovering the mysteries of a roux or an étouffée she’d had not a minute. But, as Mrs. Merlin had asked her, where was her sense of adventure?
“Jambalaya, absolutely,” she said, feeling as much a phony as she had when she’d shoplifted Mrs. Merlin from Pottery DeLite. With a straight face she added, “But I gave away my last batch to the maid. How about some Lean Cuisine?”
Mrs. Merlin made a face, an expression of opinion Penelope had to agree with, but sad to say there were many nights she made do with a frozen entrée. Life as a lawyer didn’t lend itself to early evenings with time for leisurely gourmet cooking. Penelope had often wondered how the men and women she worked with professionally managed to maintain any vestige of a personal life. She’d grown used to and sometimes semi-thankful for her state of singledom. At least she didn’t have to juggle the impossible with the unattainable.
She plucked two boxes from the freezer, then halted in mid-turn toward the microwave.
David.
She’d completely forgotten about him, about the dinner she’d promised to create. A quick glance at the kitchen clock informed her she had less than two hours before he’d be ringing her intercom buzzer.
“Fritos and frogs,” she said, and slapped the Lean Cuisines back into the freezer.
“Does that mean I’m going to bed hungry?” Mrs. Merlin vaulted from the counter to the butcher-block worktable.
“It’s all that man’s fault.” Penelope paced the floor from kitchen to living area and back, thankful for the open layout of her apartment. One of the appeals of the converted warehouse had been the lofty ceilings and the feeling she couldn’t be confined or captured under the weight of a room with walls that crowded and closed in.
“Man?” Mrs. Merlin said, sounding as if she’d far rather talk about food than the masculine gender.
If her eyes had glinted, or if she’d sounded like a neighborhood gossip settling down for a newsy talk session, Penelope might have kept her mouth shut. But there didn’t seem any harm in telling her woes to someone who had no connection to Penelope’s day-to-day reality.
“Yes, man, as in m-a-n.” Suddenly Penelope paused and stared at the tiny woman. “It’s very odd,” she said, “but I’m talking to you as if you’re real and it’s hard to realize you’re so. . . so. . .”
“Six and one-quarter inches?” Mrs. Merlin didn’t sound caustic, but Penelope thought she might have a hard time accepting such a fact.
“That’s precise.”
Mrs. Merlin sighed. “Well, it just so happens that Ramona’s property tax liability was six hundred twenty-five dollars.”
“Yes?” Penelope worried her lip and wondered why she’d ever invited David Hinson for dinner.
“Don’t you see? Six hundred twenty-five somehow became all mixed up as six and a quarter in height.” Penelope didn’t see at all. And Penelope hadn’t made it to the top of her class in law school by accepting the illogical without argument. “I fail to comprehend how this woman’s tax deficit has anything to do with your height.”
Off came the spectacles. Lifting an edge of the vivid caftan, Mrs. Merlin began a vigorous polishing job. After a long moment, she looked up. “My dear, how old are you?”
Penelope pulled her pasta machine from a cupboard. “Why?”
“Why?” She popped the glasses back onto the tip of her nose. “Because you’ve lived long enough to begin learning a few lessons about life.”
My, but wasn’t Mrs. Merlin bossy! Penelope turned her back and began rooting in her refrigerator. Caesar salad, with her own signature dressing. She’d have to keep the entrée simple or she wouldn’t have time to shower and change out of her sticky clothing. David Hinson always appeared impeccably put together and she’d rather send out for pizza than let him see her looking this bedraggled.
Hands full, she deposited the ingredients for pasta from scratch on the counter. “Which lessons?”
Mrs. Merlin held out the fingers of her right hand. She began ticking off, “Fear of adventure, avoidance of facts found squarely in front of your nose, and . . .” She paused and glanced around. “I’d have to add, after looking about this house, that you’re avoiding emotional attachments. It just doesn’t feel like a home.”
Penelope dumped durum flour into the bowl of her pasta machine, along with the eggs and water. “And just how do you make that last deduction?”
Mrs. Merlin pointed to the refrigerator. Penelope collected handcrafted magnets and liked to display them on the refrigerator.
“What’s wrong with my refrigerator?”
“Oh, nothing,” Mrs. Merlin said, waving a hand as if it were a magic wand. “It’s what I don’t see that tips me off to what’s missing in your life. My fridge, for instance, is cluttered with drawings made by my grandchildren.”
Penelope dumped in the water without bothering to measure. Mrs. Merlin’s words were passing beyond amusing now, perhaps because they hit their target too accurately.
“Oh, never mind,” Mrs. Merlin said. “I’m far too hungry to try to help anyone else. Besides, look what a pickle my last good deed landed me in.”
“As soon as I’ve mixed the pasta I’ll whip up some appetizers. By ‘good deed,’ I suppose you’re referring to trying t
o help your neighbor with her tax problem.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmmm.” Penelope didn’t like to be impolite, yet she couldn’t help but wonder at the woman’s delusions. The thought made her laugh out loud. Wasn’t she the one suffering delusions? “I’ve got to quit imagining things that don’t exist,” she said under her breath. To Mrs. Merlin she said, “It’s much more sensible for someone with a tax problem to consult an attorney such as myself rather than trying to dream up a make-believe solution.” There, and let that be a lesson to you and your fantasizing, she told herself. Rather than hiding from life with your imaginary lover Raoul, let yourself go. Let David kiss you the next time he tries.
“You’re a tax attorney!” Mrs. Merlin clapped her hands to her forehead.
“I told you I was a lawyer,” Penelope said, forcing her mind back to Mrs. Merlin’s line of discussion, wondering at the woman’s dramatic reaction.
“But a tax lawyer! That explains everything!” Mrs. Merlin sat down on a cookbook, chin in hand, and began drawing on her caftan-covered lap with a minute forefinger.
This time Penelope simply waited for an explanation.
“I used verdant and chromium and elixir of violet, but what I must have done wrong was add in the pink. Oh, yes, oh, yes, whatever was I thinking?” She began wringing her hands.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Penelope didn’t like the way the tiny hairs on the back of her neck were rising to attention.
“Candle magick.” Mrs. Merlin looked up at her as if Penelope were a sweet but not too bright child. “An ancient and positive way of calling on the forces of the universe to aid our journey through space and time.”
“Uh-huh.” Penelope crossed her arms over her chest, spattering flour on her already soiled blouse. “And I suppose before you burned your last candle you were really a sweet grandmother from Gentilly about, oh . . . five feet four.”
“Five feet four and a half. And I am a grandmother.” Mrs. Merlin lifted her hands toward the ceiling. “I admit to dabbling in candle magick, but I do have a few things yet to learn.”
“You’re normally five feet four and a half?” Penelope concentrated on the question of height, trying to ignore the reference to magick.
