A Farewell to Charms (14 page)

“Because she likes you!” I threw up my hands. “Are you sure that
truth
is your skill? Because you’re kind of sucking at it right now.”

Reed fiddled with the fake garland. “It’s not an exact science.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” I asked.

Reed stood and slipped into the storage closet. When he didn’t return, didn’t rush over to apologize to me or even go back and talk to Kylee, I stormed after him. He was back to rearranging bins, like nothing had happened.

The shot of adrenaline from my Kylee moment was turning into anger toward Reed. I mean, I totally understood his motivations with Celeste, and maybe even his cluelessness with Kylee. But why the mixed signals? First, he’s flirting with me, then he doesn’t trust me, then he’s all business about our alliance, then he makes these cryptic comments and…ugh! You know what else? He should know how hard it was to keep everything a secret. Except, never mind,
his
whole family worked for Façade.

“That’s it!” I yelled. “I’m done with this stupid living-two-lives stuff. You and I are going right back into the gym to tell Kylee the—”

“Truth?” Reed snorted. “That’ll go over well.”

“Do you know what it’s like lying to my best friend?” I asked.

Reed dropped the box he was holding and took a step closer to me. And another step. The storage closet wasn’t very big to begin with, so now we were almost nose to nose.

I could smell his Reedness, feel his closeness, could see the skepticism in his eyes.

“You think I don’t know? My whole life has been about Façade. My whole life
is
a façade. We’ve moved around so much, I’ve never been able to make close friends. And if I do, I can’t keep them, because part of feeling truth like I do means I know when they start to think I’m weird. So I can’t open up. I’ve probably told you more than I’ve ever told anyone besides my parents, and that’s only because I know you understand what it’s like. But maybe you don’t.”

“I do,” I whispered.

“So you get that we might lose more than one friendship here, right?”

I looked away. “Yeah.”

“And you’re still in? Because I’m not going to go up against Façade unless you’re a hundred percent about this.”

I cut him a look. “I’m in. But you can still be nice to Kylee.”

“I’ll save her a dance at the ball.”

“Not funny.”

“Two dances then.”

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. And I hated him for it. And loved him. And…ugh, WHY WERE BOYS SO COMPLICATED? “You’re impossible sometimes.”

“Most of the time. That probably doesn’t win me many friends, either. But I promise I’ll be more sensitive to Kylee. And I’m sorry about Celeste—I didn’t know that would be a big deal.”

“It’s not.” I sighed. “And I’m sorry too. I just…There’s a lot of stuff going on at the same time.”

“Is it too much? Do you think you’re ready to find this sub?”

I lifted my chin. “It was my idea, wasn’t it?”

“Good. Then let’s get to business.” Reed bent over and hefted a box into my arms. He pushed the door open with his foot, and I followed him into the hall. It took some self-control, but I didn’t peek in on Kylee as we walked down the corridor and out the back exit. Cold air blasted through my thin sweater. Reed propped the door open with a rock.

“So, what do we need to do first?” Reed asked. “I mean, you have this vial of magic, but who does it belong to and how are we going to get it back to them without being caught?”

I told him about my conversation with Meredith, about Meredith’s sub, about the box of stuff I got from Floressa, and the close call with my mom. And then the good part—that Floressa lived in Hollywood, just like Caprice, so we had a perfect cover plan. Well, as perfect as we were going to get.

“Wait, Floressa Chase is your Match?” Reed asked, his voice cracking with excitement.

I plopped the box down next to the front entrance and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yes, she is, and no, I’m not going to introduce you. I don’t care how pretty she is.”

“I don’t think she’s that pretty. She’s too done up. And I’ve already seen her a million times.”

“On TV?”

Reed knocked on my head. “In person. I’m Barrett’s Match. Prince of Fenmar? Floressa’s boyfriend?”

A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. Oh. Barrett. The
other
Prince of Fenmar. So if Reed was Barrett’s Match—the idiotic, self-absorbed brother—then he wasn’t Karl’s Match. Which meant Reed was not the boy I fell for when I subbed for Elsa.

“I thought you were
Karl’s
Match,” I said.

Reed looked thoughtful. “I don’t think he has a Match. I could ask him. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

Right. It didn’t matter. So Reed wasn’t Karl. So what. So Karl…really was Karl? Did I feel a connection to Karl when I subbed for Elsa? If so, why did things feel so different between us later? And if Reed wasn’t Karl’s sub, did that mean I’d based my feelings for him on something that wasn’t real? Here I thought I liked Reed for this special reason, when that reason never existed. Great, now I like
two
boys. I think?

I shook my head. So what. SO WHAT, DESI. Crush crises were nothing next to impending magical chaos. I had to do what Reed was obviously doing and focus on the task at hand. This wasn’t about us.

But later, when this was all over, that boy and I had some
serious
talking to do.

We headed back down the hallway and retrieved more boxes. It took me that long to find my voice again. “So…this is good?” I asked.

Reed scrunched up his face. “Isn’t it? Barrett and Floressa are bound to line up subs so they can go to the Façade Resort together. And when they do, we’ll go to Hollywood and talk to this old sub Caprice together.”

I was really trying to ignore the twist of disappointment in my stomach. It was better that Reed was Barrett’s sub, really. This was the perfect opportunity. What I didn’t understand was how Karl could be so inconsistent—he really seemed like a different person when I met him as Floressa’s sub. Crud, what if there was
another
sub and I liked three guys? This was like musical chairs of the heart.

But, so what? Does. Not. Matter. Business before boys. “But the chances are good that Floressa and Barrett will leave together anyway, right? I don’t see her leaving Barrett alone with her sub if she can avoid it.”

“Hopefully, yeah. But Façade might not be too keen on sending two real-life friends out at the same time. And if they do, they’ll be watching us.”

“Maybe we can figure out how to jam the system? It went down during a big wedding, right before I faced the Court of Royal Appeals.”

Reed grabbed the last box, and we walked outside. “I would think that Central Command is even more tuned in to possible bugs after that crash.”

“You’re right.” I rubbed my forehead. I was starting to get a headache, and I couldn’t say if it was from the strategizing or Reed-isn’t-Karl news.

“Either way, we don’t need much time really, just enough to see if this sub—”

“Caprice,”

“Right, see if Caprice remembers anything about Façade. Then give her back that vial and see what happens when she’s magical again. And face the consequences, I guess.”

“Oh. Is that all?” I asked.

He plopped down the last of the boxes and started going through the contents. He found a yellowed stuffed snowman and laughed. “This thing is hideous.”

“Reed. We’re talking about doing something impossible.”

“Pretty much.” Despite his words, his tone was jovial. “We have no idea how the science works. We don’t know if Caprice drinks that liquid or breaks the vial or what. We do this wrong, and we could do more bad than good.”

He punched the snowman and tried to fluff up the stuffing inside. I grabbed the weathered decoration and shoved it into the bin. “But we have to do this, Reed. You get that? We have to try. Even if we fail. You said yourself—we can’t know what we know and do nothing.”

Reed’s eyes glinted. “Now, that’s more like it. I never said I didn’t want to do it. The challenge almost makes this fun. Like James Bond.”

“We’re a long way from fun, 007.”

We went silent as we unloaded the rest of the bin. I stacked the ornaments and lights in one pile, random decorations in another. I wondered what kind of budget we would have—at least a third of the ornaments were falling apart. Maybe I could buy a few at the dollar store. My life felt like it was unraveling, but at least I could Christmas up this ball.

I started to untangle a mess of lights, but looked up when I heard Reed laughing.

“What?” I asked. “These lights are hard. Whoever was on cleanup last year was in a hurry.”

“It’s not that.” He shook his head. “I was just thinking…when I pulled you out of that dunk tank last summer, I had no idea what I was getting into. Just saw this cute girl who’d gotten dunked by some jerk, and my instincts kicked in.”

Cute girl. He said cute. I was very intent on staying professional, but…he did say cute. Just pointing that out.

“Now, here we are untangling Christmas lights while we figure out a way to take down our employer. And my parents’ employer.” He closed his eyes. “Man, my parents are going to go nuts when they find out about what we’re doing.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we can, can we?”

“Maybe just a bit? We should probably learn as much as we can about organic magic before we try to give Caprice back that vial.”

“Good point. I’ll think about it. There’s no rush, really. We’re going to have to look at every possible hole in the plan. And we have to swing it so we’re both in California at the same time. It could be months before we can act.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be ready,” I said.

We weren’t.

I
took the rest of the week off work for Thanksgiving. Not that I had much of a choice—my Granny came up from Salt Lake on Tuesday night and immediately took over the kitchen, insisting that my pregnant mom rest or else “her ankles were going to swell into tree trunks, just like they did last time.” I had to do all the dumb chores, like coring apples for the pie and peeling potatoes. Luckily, it seemed Façade was taking a break too, because I didn’t get any messages telling me to get to work. Actually, I hadn’t heard anything from Façade, except for the stuff I’d received from Floressa. It would be nice for Genevieve to send me an e-mail, even a quick hello text. I’d be happy with an emoticon at this point.

And I missed Meredith. Not Meredith as my agent, but Meredith as my friend. She’d had this huge life change happen, and I was sure that all these big things were going on that I had no clue about. Was she still talking to her prince, even if she’d declined his proposal? Had she been assigned to lead a new agency branch? What did they do to celebrate Thanksgiving at Façade? Wait, it’s an American holiday. Maybe they didn’t acknowledge Turkey Day at all. The thought of Meredith—who didn’t have any family—missing this holiday made me sad. So I slipped into the bathroom and sent her an e-mail.

Hey, Mer
,

Was just thinking of you today. I hope everything is going great at Façade. I got a Floressa package from Genevieve delivered to my house, which was kind of weird. Am I getting a new agent anytime soon? Not that I’m complaining, it’s just that I miss you. You eating any turkey there today? Did you get assigned to your new branch? Anything else? I’m working on a Winter Ball committee that’s pretty fun. Oh, and my mom is pregnant. Crazy, huh? So…anyway, just wanted to say hi. Gobble gobble!


Desi


She hated when I called her Mer. Maybe she would write back faster to scold me. I even missed her scolding. “Desi?” Granny knocked on the door. “What happened to you?”

“I’m in the bathroom. Do you need specifics?”

“You have to go to the store. I’m out of butter, and you bought the wrong brand of stuffing.”

I unlocked the door and stuck my head out. “It’s Thanksgiving. The store won’t be open.”

“Walmart is open all day. I checked in the newspaper.”

Basically, every time Granny came to visit, I became her slave, just because I was older. I mean, if my parents had had kids closer in age, then we could have shared the load. Now my mom had to rest, and my dad had to play with Gracie, and I had to do everything. And this was supposed to be my week
off
of work. “I’m morally opposed to shopping at Walmart.”

“Jason!” Granny called.

Dad skirted around the corner. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Your daughter is taking a moral stand in order to get out of chores.”

“It’s not about getting out of chores.”

“You better go, Desi.” Dad jingled his keys. “I’ll take you.”

“If you have the time to take me, then you could just go to Walmart by yourself,” I reasoned.

“I think she needs to go just to learn some respect and responsibility.” Granny sniffed. “Kids today have it so easy—no responsibility whatsoever.”

Despite what Granny thought, I had enough respect to not roll my eyes. And responsibility? I HAD RESPONSIBILITY COMING OUT OF MY EARS.

“Des.” Dad put his arm around me. “Let’s just run there together. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

This is how my dad and I found ourselves in the Walmart checkout aisle thirty minutes later, with butter, stuffing, and a twelve-pack of ginger ale for Mom—who was either sick from being pregnant or from her mother-in-law’s extended stay.

“Hey, look.” Dad pointed at another checkout aisle. “You’re not the only one forced to enter Walmart. Isn’t that the boy who saved you from the dunk tank?”

I pulled Dad’s arm down. “Don’t point!”

“But isn’t it?”

I snuck a glance at Reed, who was not alone. His agent, Sergei, was with him, along with two adults I assumed to be his parents. His mom had silky black hair and Reed’s same olive skin, while his dad was stout with freckles and a baseball cap. Reed saw me and waved. I looked away. Five Façade employees and one ignorant dad were
not
a good combination.

“Oh, yeah, it is Reed,” I said. “Well, we better hurry back so Granny doesn’t get mad. I have to chop the onions for the stuffing, you know.”

Dad paid for our food and put the bags in the cart. “We have to say hi. I never thanked him for helping you, and he did so well in that play.”

“Dad, NO.” I tried but failed to keep the panic out of my voice. “It’s Thanksgiving. I’m sure they have to get back…”

Dad was already in Reed’s aisle. “Hello!” He stuck out his free hand to Reed. “I’m Mr. Bascomb, Desi’s dad. I’ve wanted to thank you for some time for helping save my daughter.”

“Oh, no problem. And it’s good to meet you, Mr. Bascomb.” Reed gave Dad a firm handshake. “These are my parents, Christopher and Hera, and this is Sergei…uh, Uncle Sergei.”

“Desi!” Reed’s mom scooted around her cart and gave me a big hug. Her accent was much thicker than Reed’s. “Oh, honey. I’ve been wanting to meet you forever! Things were so hectic during that play, and now Reed has been keeping you all to himself with this Winter Ball work. There are so many things for us to talk about, of course. We’d love to have you over for dinner sometime soon.” She smiled at my dad. “Your daughter has been so sweet to my son since we moved here.…We hop around so much, he doesn’t have much opportunity to make friends, but they just have so much in common, and I’m so glad they’re spending time together!”

I didn’t look at my dad. I hadn’t mentioned that Reed was on the Winter Ball committee, or even that I’d ever spent time with him. I hadn’t mentioned Reed
ever,
actually.

Dad cleared his throat. “That’s Desi. Friendly and full of surprises.”

I started to push our cart toward the exit, the Pearsons following right behind.

“Well.” Reed’s ears were red, probably from his mom’s enthusiastic declaration that her son had no friends. “We’re just picking up some things to welcome Uncle Sergei. He’s never been here for Thanksgiving, so we decided last minute to whip up a feast.”

Sure enough, their cart was filled with canned cranberries, pies, frozen potatoes. Nana would cringe at all the store-bought food, but I’d take it over three days of cooking. Sergei patted the smoked turkey breast. “Yes, I want very much to eat of the traditional American food. It is a great treat to visit the land of Idaho.”

“Now where did you say you’re from?” Dad asked, taking in Sergei’s biker appearance. “Sorry, your accent…Is it Russian? I thought your family was from New Zealand.”

Mr. Pearson jumped in. “Oh, Sergei…he’s adopted.”

“Yes, yes.” Sergei nodded eagerly. “Was very old at time. We are, er, multicultural family.”

We stopped in front of the automatic doors. The weather was awful outside, a freezing mixture of rain and slush. I turned to my dad and said, “Dad, can you please pull the car around so I don’t get wet?”

Dad looked at the Pearsons, then at me. “Suuurrre. Nice to talk, all. We’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime. I’d love to hear more about your family.”

Once Dad ran outside to load the groceries and get the car, Mrs. Pearson’s hand flew to her mouth. “I said something wrong, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I was so excited to talk to someone from work, and Sergei is just here visiting for the day—he really does feel like family, but we forget how odd he seems when we take him out.”

“I am not odd,” Sergei boomed.

“Right, right. You’re all-American,” Mrs. Pearson said. “And, Desi, I forgot your parents, are, well…They don’t share our employer.”

Meaning: my parents are not magical and have no clue that I am. I watched Dad sprint around the wet cars. “It’s okay. They’ve been suspicious lately, but it’s not like they’re going to guess the truth.”

“Reed tells me you’re already Level Three,” Mr. Pearson said. “And you’re how old?”

“Thirteen. But my birthday is December tenth.”

“Very admirable.” Mr. Pearson squeezed Reed’s shoulder. “You’re a good influence for my son.”

Reed hid a smile. So, obviously, he had not told his parents how much I’d corrupted their model-employee son with all our planning and scheming.

“Well, since we ran into you, we have some big news that we’re grateful for today,” Mrs. Pearson said. “Reed said he hadn’t told you.”

“Told me what?” I asked Reed.

He looked down at the floor. “Mom, I was going to wait until after the holiday.”

“Nonsense. She’s bound to hear from Meredith anyway.”

Reed sighed. “Can I at least mute the conversation so you don’t spill too much?”

“Who would you need to block?” Sergei asked. “This is not big secret. And when did you start with the muting? Is this so you and Miss Bascomb can have talk of love—”

“Dude! Sergei!” Reed pushed his agent, but Sergei didn’t budge.

“So, what’s the news?” I asked Reed’s parents, desperate to save us both from scrutiny and embarrassment.

“We’ve been promoted!” Mr. Pearson said.

I beamed. Even if I wasn’t keen on how the agency was being run, the family’s enthusiasm was contagious. “Oh, that’s fantastic! But what does that have to do with Meredith?”

“Well, she’s the one promoting us,” Mrs. Pearson said. “Didn’t you hear? She’s been assigned to Organic Magic. It’s temporary, but we do hope she’ll be assigned to our division for good. She’s very assertive and driven.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Meredith,” I said. “What’s your promotion?”

“We’re exploring ways to maximize the power of our magical sources,” Mr. Pearson said. “There’s essentially a terminal velocity we can achieve when it comes to harvesting our researched organisms, but we’re hoping to find ways to break that barrier and either sap more energy from known sources, or discover a source that has unlimited magical matter.”

“Oh.”

Reed leaned in. “Basically, they’re looking for more magic. Dad geeks out when he gets excited.”

“And we finally get to search for the Vorvella tree!” Mrs. Pearson gripped her shopping cart. “We’ve spent years researching the magical folklore, and now we’re only months away from finding it ourselves.”

My dad pulled his car around to the sliding doors of Walmart. I needed to make a run for it to avoid getting too wet, but first I had to figure out what the Pearsons were talking about. “So you’re going to go look for some tree?” I asked. “Like, for vacation?”

“The Vorvella tree is a legend. It’s an Egyptian tree, like the tree of life—its sap can produce an infinite amount of magic. Some people believe Façade used to have one that was passed down to each council head. Lots of the company’s shared magic supposedly came from this tree, but an enemy of the agency killed it, or so the legend goes.”

“Is not legend!” Sergei interrupted. “Vorvella is as real as turkey in my shopping cart.”

“No one knows if the Vorvella is real, because no living person has ever seen one,” Reed said. “But my parents…they’re kind of obsessed with it, and so they’ve always wanted to move to Egypt and discover another Vorvella for Façade.”

“And Meredith approved the funding. So it’s finally happening!” Mr. Pearson added. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t conjure any enthusiasm into my voice. Did this mean what I thought it meant? “That’s great. Congratulations.”

Reed took my hand. “Here, I’ll walk you outside.”

I tried to pull my hand away, but Reed wouldn’t let me.

Mrs. Pearson smiled knowingly. “Good-bye, Desi! Come by for a visit before we move.”

“Yeah. I will.”

The Pearsons and Sergei waved. Reed and I stepped outside and paused under the awning. My dad motioned for me to hurry.

“So you’re moving?” I asked Reed.

“Seems like it. But don’t worry, we’ll still have time to work on the, uh, special project.”

“I’m not worried about the project right now.”

I looked down at our hands, still entwined. So did Reed. Behind the glass, his magical parents and his Russian-prince agent were waiting by their Walmart shopping cart. And fifteen feet away, my dad was grooving in the minivan. Reed’s mom said we had so much in common, but geography was not going to be one of those things for very long.

“I have to go,” I said.

“This sucks.” Reed’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” I hurried through the rain and slid into the backseat of the minivan. Reed stayed outside, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes sad. I know it was melodramatic, but I stuck my hand on the glass as we drove away.

Like always, my dad was very intent on the road, so I quickly slipped my manual out of my purse. Meredith still hadn’t written me back. I didn’t bother with e-mail this time, just sent a quick text.

DESI: HOW COULD YOU?

She wrote me back right away. As much as I was missing her before, this was not what I wanted to hear.

MEREDITH: TRUST ME. IT’S FOR THE BEST.

What was IT supposed to mean? Promoting Reed’s parents so they had to move and Reed and I wouldn’t get to see each other anymore? And if she was really thinking about what was “for the best,” then maybe she could find me a new agent instead of busy stand-in Genevieve, one who actually cared about her client’s feelings. Not that I was going to write Meredith about that. I was never going to write her again, period.