An Imperfect Witch (12 page)

A long exhale from the other side of the table said pumpkins weren’t closing this deal.

 “I get that you’re trying to fix this,” he said quietly.  “And I know that’s hard for you.”

But she was blowing it—that was written all over his face.  “I’m screwing up.”

His eyes were still so damn sad.  “You’re trying to apologize for the wrong thing.  I don’t care that you got mad at me.  You have all this passion inside you, and sometimes it leaks out armed—I get that.  But you walked out without me really understanding why you were shooting at me.” 

He stabbed a frustrated fork into his eggs.  “And you’re hoping to make it all better this morning, but you still don’t want to tell me what the hell’s going on.”

She wasn’t ready.  Too many questions, not enough answers—and she didn’t want to drag him down into the muck.  “I can’t.  Not yet.”

He set down his fork.  “Then I’m sorry, but I can’t sit here and eat and pretend everything’s okay.”

She gaped.  He never left.  Never walked out.  That was her gig.  “You’re leaving?”

He stood, and then leaned down and rested his forehead on the top of hers for a moment.  “I’d way rather stay.  But I just can’t.”

She watched him walk out.  And wondered where the hell her guy with the eternal patience had gone.

-o0o-

Lauren frowned as Lizard slid in the door of Berkeley Realty.  One poet, weight of the world on her shoulders. 

Not good.  It was time for their regular weekly office meeting, though—maybe they could gently pry some of the heavy stuff away.  She took a quick look over at their tiny conference table.  Noodles, Lizard’s favorite root beer, and some really good chocolate mousse for dessert.

Heavy lifters, all.

Her young associate slung herself into a chair and raised an eyebrow at the food.  “Got anything that doesn’t require using my arms?”

Lauren smiled and stuck a straw in the bottle of root beer.  “Best I can do.”

“Classy.”  Some signs of life slid back into Lizard’s cheeks as she leaned over and swigged.

“Long morning?”  It hadn’t been a painting one—client showings took priority over taupe walls.

“Yeah.”

Pulling over her plate of noodles, Lauren settled back and waited.  They often used these meetings to kick around ideas for difficult clients.  Which wasn’t the only thing going on here, but it could be the first.

“Took the Aikens to see six places.”  Lizard frowned, pushing her root beer bottle in little circles on the table.  “They asked for downtown and funky, but every house we go to, they want more space, more modern conveniences, bigger yard.”

They had a lot of company.  “Time for the burbs?”

“I guess.”  Lizard always took that as a personal failure.  “I don’t get why some people want all that sameness.”

Ground they’d tread before, but Lauren was agreeable to walking it again.  “The comforts of home come in lots of different shapes.  Some of the shapes suck, but our job is to find the shape the client wants.”

Her tired associate raised an eyebrow.  “Bullshit.  You put that cute couple who wanted a condo in a house with six bedrooms.”

And that would get lived down in this office exactly never.  “Fine.  Sometimes we guess where they’re headed.”  The Milanos had twins on the way now and adored their ramshackle farmhouse.

Lizard sighed.  “No idea where the Aikens are going, but I think they need manicured bushes and plumbing that was installed in the last decade.”

That was doable.  “Take them out to that new Nightingale development.”  Dumb name, but the builders were solid and the sales team probably wouldn’t give her temperamental poet hives.

“On it.”  The noodles on both plates were disappearing now.  Painting pain was no match for Romano’s genius.  “You got any weenie clients to talk about?”

“Nope.  Marketing crap.”  Which Lauren was well aware her associate loved almost as much as painting.  “I need to book some promo slots for next spring.”

“Spring?”  Lizard looked like she’d never met the season.  “It’s freaking October.”

“Noted,” said Lauren dryly.  “Marketing types like their calendars full months in advance.  It’s a failing.”

“I’ll say.”  Blue eyes were contemplating chocolate mousse, a lot perkier than when they’d walked in the door.  “I don’t care about the marketing—do whatever you want.”

That’s where things were going to get a little sticky.  “
Home and Cottage
wants to feature you.  Berkeley’s hottest new realtor and all that.  They’re hoping you’d write a short article.  Something personal.”

Lizard looked totally horrified.  “What, like where I buy my nose rings?”

Lauren was pretty sure the staid and proper editor of
Home and Cottage
hadn’t actually noticed the piercings just yet.  She’d been swayed by sales figures.  “No, more like life as a young agent, your plans for the future, personal real estate goals.”

She’d expected resistance—but that wasn’t what blanketed the mind across the table.  Lizard looked totally perplexed.  “I don’t have plans.  Noodles on Wednesdays, sell lots of houses, pay my rent.”

She really meant it.  Lauren could hear the clanging, empty wasteland that lived beyond next Wednesday.

“My life is good.  Next week might not be.”  Lizard scowled, defensive posture slamming into place.

Damn.  It had been a long time since they’d landed in quicksand together.  Lauren looked around for solid ground.  “You could write them something about the new generation of buyers.  Explain twenty-somethings to the old farts.”

Outsized relief from the other side of the table.  “Yeah.  I can do that.”

Capitulation.  And still, that yawning void.  Lauren reached for her mousse, desperately wishing for this moment to tilt back to normal.  “I stuck some more of this in the fridge in case you wanted to bribe Raven.”

Lizard managed almost a snort.  “Is it in a five-gallon bucket?”

“Nope.  Teeny tiny cups.”  She looked at the empty one in her hand.  “They should totally do the bucket, though.  Best birthday gift ever.”

“I’ll remember that.”  Ground, solidifying. 

Lauren smiled—her birthday wasn’t until June.  The land past next Wednesday wasn’t totally uncharted.  “Is Raven as annoying as you were by day two?”

“Probably not.  I have mad skills.”  Lizard leaned back in her chair, one hand patting her full belly.  “I have to go check in on her in a bit.  She’s doing fine with the painting, but she curses like a drunk circus clown and her attitude is about ten times bigger than she is.  I have no idea why I like her.”

Lauren had no idea circus clowns cursed—but she knew exactly why Lizard liked Raven.  The girl was tough, funny, full of chutzpah, and still dared to hope.  Resilience, calling to its own.  “Josh rolling okay with all this?”

Lizard’s mind shuttered.  “Yeah.  I think so.”

Ooph.  Clearly not.  And clearly not up for discussion, either.  Lauren debated Moira’s choices—to help, to lead, or to butt the hell out.  And chose door number three.  For now.  “Well, let me know if you need any more paint.”  One realtor, getting out of the way, at least until they knew what the heck was going on.

But that didn’t preclude sending in an emissary.

-o0o-

Who the heck made plans for next freaking spring?

Lizard lugged the rollaway cot up two more stairs and cursed.  Whoever thought the damn thing rolled clearly hadn’t tried actually moving it anywhere.  Plans were evil, even small ones.

“What the hell is that?”  Raven stood at the top of the stairs, paintbrush in one hand, something resembling a grilled-cheese sandwich in the other.

“A bed.”  Lizard waved an elbow at the food.  “What the hell is that?”

“Lunch.”

It looked a little crispy.  “You cook it with a blowtorch?”

“No.”  Raven looked a little touchy on the subject.  “I used that pitiful, ancient monstrosity you guys call an oven.”

Lizard was pretty sure that hadn’t been included as a feature on the listing.  Then again, given the rest of the house, maybe it had.  “Turn down the burner next time and it’ll toast your bread instead of incinerating it.  You going to help me with this bed?”

“Nope.”  Raven turned around and headed back in the door.  “You want to lie around and watch me paint, you gotta lug your own bed up here.”

The door swung shut, and Lizard seriously considered letting the bed tumble down into the thing at the bottom they’d optimistically called a garden. 
Get your ass back out here and help me with this bed, or I’ll find whatever you used as a frying pan and thunk you with it.

The door opened and Raven stared, eyes huge.  “How the hell did you do that?”

Lizard was beyond caring.  “I’m a witch.  I can yell at you through walls, and that’s about it.  Pick up one end of this bed, or I’ll leave it out here to rot.  I thought you might actually like something halfway comfortable to sleep on.  Clearly I’m an idiot.”

“You got that for me?”  Raven nearly landed on the bed headfirst.  “I think I love you.”  She tugged on the other side of the frame.  “Damn, it’s heavy.”

“No shit.”  Lizard’s brain was catching up with her really big mouth.  She never told
anybody
she was a witch. 

Raven hauled her end up a step.  “You got any fancy witchy powers to make this thing lighter?”

She should have just opened the bloody door before she yelled.  “No.”

“Too bad.  My aunt could make little lights with her fingers.”  Raven shrugged.  “And warm up grilled-cheese sandwiches.”

Lizard stared.

Raven raised an eyebrow.  “We going to stand here all day?  I have painting to do.”

Fury made you stronger.  One last push and the bed crashed through the door.  No damn way it was leaving, either.  She’d add it as a selling feature.  Lizard slung the backpack off her shoulder.  “I have a sheet for the bed in here somewhere.”

“Ah, my eyes!”  Raven slapped her hands to her face as the object in question emerged from the backpack.  “What the heck did they do, torture an Easter bunny to make that?”

It was kind of pink.  “The cot’s for kids.  It was either that or Dora the Explorer.”

The teenager grimaced.  “At least it’s not taupe.”

Exhaustion suddenly settled on Lizard’s shoulders.  A bed and a sheet.  It should have been simple.  No cooking tips, no bunny torture, and definitely no witchy yelling through walls.  Time to leave before she did something else terminally stupid.  “I gotta go.”

She headed out, well aware she’d left Raven standing there confused and unsettled.  And way more weirded out by pink sheets than sudden displays of magic.

Plans never survived a brush with reality.

Not hers, anyhow.

-o0o-

Devin had no idea why he was stalking a grown man.  He waded his way up the stairs of the building where Josh worked, astonished at how many people were in the stairwells, most of them wearing more electronic devices than limbs.

A woman adorned with screaming pink headphones grinned as he went by.  “Elevator’s busted.”

Nice.  He took two more steps and then turned around.  “Hey, where’d you get the headphones?”  The holiday season approached, and with it, the increasing possibility that some female member of his extended family would try to make him go shopping.

“We make ’em.  They’re in beta.  Hot acoustics, circum-aural in a small footprint, groovy colors.”

She was speaking geek language, and he was the wrong Sullivan brother to understand.  “I have three eleven-year-old nieces with very high tech standards.  Are they going to like these?”

“Love them.”  She squinted at him.  “Hey, aren’t you the guy who sometimes works with Josh upstairs?”

“Nope.  That’s my brother.”

“Close enough.”  She stuck an arm through his elbow.  “How many nieces you got?”

“Three.  And three more almost-nieces under the age of twenty-five.”  He ran a quick mental check—they were multiplying like weeds lately.

“’Kay.  Pretty sure I can talk Maria into hooking you up.  She’s our maven of sales.”

“Yo, Trish.”  Josh was coming down the stairs two at a time.  “You stealing my guy?”  He stopped and did a double-take.  “Wait, you’re Devin.  Where’s Jamie?”

He had no blooming clue.  “Not with you, I take it.”

Trish laughed.  “You guys practicing for the Three Stooges Comedy Hour?”

Devin eyed her hopefully.  “Is there one?”

She rolled her eyes and dragged him through a door with
GirlTech
emblazoned on the door. 

Josh tagged along.  “Want me to ping Jamie?”

Devin ducked several wires.  Clearly only short people worked in this office.  “Why?”

“Aren’t you looking for him?”

“Nope.  Looking for you.”  They were coming to the end of the tunnel—he could see lights and lots of shiny stuff up ahead.

Josh raised an eyebrow.  “Should I be worried?”

Probably.  They emerged into a room bathed in gleaming white light—and stuffed full of every kind of tech gizmo a girl could ever want.  Or most of the boys he knew, too.  “Oh, wow.”

Trish smiled proudly.  “This is our showroom prototype.  Leading-edge tech, awesome quality.  We’re trying to prove that girls aren’t just swayed by pretty and pink.”

He looked at her earphones and hid a grin.

She smirked and dropped them on his head.

It only took ten seconds to know they were as good as any audio headgear the Sullivans owned.  Damn.  He wasn’t the family tech geek, but he was no idiot—and he hung around a lot of girls.  He looked around again.  “You guys are going to make a flipping fortune.”

Trish beamed.  “Lemme go get Maria.  You talk like that, she’ll let you leave with half our beta models.”  She was already halfway out a door he could barely see.

Josh had a set of wireless speakers in his hand.  Red, shiny ones.  “They make really good stuff.  Jamie keeps trying to invest, but they want to stay family owned.”

It had worked for the Sullivans.

“So.”  Josh set down the speakers.  “Why are you here?”

For reasons that had been drummed into him over coffee.  “I’m supposed to make sure you’re okay and stuff.”  That probably covered everything, at least at a general level.