Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (22 page)

“Everything's fine,” Fallon said, remembering how touchy people could be with food. “I'm just not hungry. I don't want to waste your great cooking.”

Justine blushed. “That's okay, then.”

Ms. Ward smiled at Fallon and tucked a piece of beef into her mouth. “I hope you'll have room for dessert.”

The spinsters giggled with anticipation. When dinner had all but disappeared, a few women followed Justine back to the kitchen with stacks of dirty plates. The others held hands on their walk to the lounge.

“Evening entertainment?” Fallon asked, wondering what the surprise was.

“Specially planned for you,” Ms. Ward said.

She led Fallon toward the back of the community center, passing through the foyer on the way. One big chandelier projected weak, yellowish light. Fallon saw a flash of gold out of the corner of her eye; it came from a golden plaque paired with a photograph.

Ms. Ward paused. “Fallon?”

She approached the plaque and almost bumped into the table bearing the guestbook. The photograph loomed over the guestbook, depicting a delicate woman with shrewd brown eyes and a serrated smile. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders with abandon, and a simple silver heart necklace graced her throat. “Who is that in the photograph?” she asked.

Ms. Ward pursed her lips. “No one knows for certain, but we believe that she is Zita, when she was a young woman. This photograph's been here since the villas opened. The Bachelor Villas has a matching one.”

Fallon shivered despite the heating. “What a place to put her,” she said. “Her eyes burn right into you.”

“We share this book with our guests,” Ms. Ward said, flipping to the front of the guestbook where each spinster's name was written with the date she moved in. “So you see, all of us have to face Zita's scrutiny eventually.”

“She should be kinder.”

“How do you mean?”

“Zita is supposed to be a messenger, delivering us our romantic fortunes on ticker tape. That must require some empathy on her part, but I don't see it when I look at her.”

“I'm sure she does care. What a stressful job it must be. Makes me glad I'm just a librarian,” Ms. Ward said. “Come along. The others are waiting.”

Fallon lingered a moment longer, dropping her eyes from Zita's salient beauty to the golden plaque. It read:
A HOME FOR YOUR HEART
. Just like on the pamphlet. She didn't know just whose hearts Zita was taking care of, but it wasn't the spinsters'.

Spinsters occupied the chairs and sofas of the lounge, nibbling from a bakery box and sipping from heavy wineglasses. Fire burned in the hearth. A brown paper bag rested on the coffee table.

“You seemed intrigued by our little ritual when I met you out walking,” Ms. Ward said, speaking loud enough for the others. “So we canceled our movie night and decided to have another round of reading romance novels instead.”

Apparently, the public library never lacked in grab bags. This one looked bigger than the last. Fallon plucked a cinnamon-dusted cookie wrapped in paper and avoided the wine, knowing that the women hadn't thought to get her something appropriate to drink. Yasmine did the honors of ripping open the bag, letting the books scatter on the table. All the spinsters got up at once and started examining the romance novels, sloshing wine on the covers.

Fallon took dainty bites of her cookie, mesmerized by the spinsters, who looked like archaeologists picking at dinosaur bones. They sighed and giggled when finding bare-chested men with long-flowing hair and cleft chins on the covers. Any books that had to do with castles, unsavory betrothals, and duels at dawn were fought over.

The romance novels about heroes and heroines with children seemed to upset the spinsters. They lay abandoned on the table. Fallon picked up one of them, the cover showing a blond woman holding hands with a towheaded boy while a handsome man in a suit looked on in the background. The plot involved the man's job as a spy; he had the double challenge of arresting the boy's kidnappers and winning the blond woman's love.

After finishing her cookie, Fallon cracked open the book and pretended to read. She snuck glances at the other women. Yasmine twirled a lock of blue hair and savored her wine as she read a novel with a pirate on the cover. Helena skipped ahead and fanned herself when she read the spicier scenes. Ms. Ward moved her lips as she read, engrossed in navigating the flowery language.

“How are the heroes?” Ms. Ward asked after a few minutes.

“Haven't met mine yet,” said a woman chewing on a biscuit.

“Duke Murdock is brooding by the window in his grand estate,” Helena said.

Yasmine bragged about Captain Bishop, the middle-aged, scarred hero who entered the novel by pressing his dagger against the heroine's attacker on the high seas.

“Lady Harrison just slew a vampire,” said Justine. “My kind of woman.”

“My book's hero is Bob,” a woman said sheepishly. “I'm only ten pages in, but he's already held the door for an elderly lady.”

The spinsters collectively sighed and hugged their books to their chests.

Fallon had thought she would feel pity for these women, but seeing them enjoy the romance novels gave her hope. By reading about characters falling in love, they rebelled against Zita. They were still able to dream.

Their delight was infectious; she wanted to join them, maybe choose a different book and lose herself in it, but then she thought of Sebastian. His face would be stamped on any hero she read about. Her stomach lurched. “I'm not feeling well; I'd like to turn in early,” Fallon said.

“If you're sure…” Ms. Ward didn't hide her disappointment.

“Thanks for this,” she said, gesturing to the torn paper bag, “but I can't stay awake. It's been a long day.”

“Give the girl a break,” Yasmine said without lifting her eyes from the pages. “Anyone can tell she's broken her heart.”

“How insensitive of me,” Ms. Ward said, rising. “I was so excited about your visit that I forgot.”

“I can walk back on my own.”

Ms. Ward glanced longingly at her book and nodded. She told Fallon about the spare key underneath the loose brick on the bottom step. “Another hour and I'll come home.”

Fallon left the room, her stomach pains easing from the walk. When she reached the foyer, she took another look at Zita's photograph. The woman appeared to be sneering at her. Fallon hated the idea of Zita's face torturing future guests or new spinsters. It was the kind of hate that made her hands move on their own. She tore the photograph off the wall and carried it under her armpit back to the villa.

 

chapter 18

SOLVED

The pungent scent of mothballs ruined her chances of sleep, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut under the covers. Her nightgown got twisted about her legs. Her heart pounded in her ears. She deliberately averted her gaze from Zita's portrait; if anything would give her nightmares, it would be the photograph peeking out of her duffel bag. With a sigh, Fallon threw off the covers and walked over to the window.

Moonlight painted the courtyard, an uninterrupted sea of grass. Fallon wondered when Ms. Ward would return. She squinted, hoping to catch sight of the librarian. After some time, a flicker of movement caught her eye. Someone walked through the abandoned croquet game. It was terribly dark outside, with frost distorting her view, but she knew it was him. “Sebastian,” she whispered, steaming the glass.

Her feet moved faster than her brain. She ran barefoot down the stairs and out the door. The cold hit her like a wall, cutting through the silky fabric of her nightgown and straight to her bones. Frost stung her feet. She narrowly avoided a mallet lying in the grass.

Sebastian turned when her hem tore on the end of a wicket.

She didn't care. The tearing sound continued as she shredded the bottom of her gown further, freeing herself from the wicket. “Sebastian,” she yelled, fearing he wasn't real.

“Don't give up,” he said in a cracked, dry voice. He looked nervous, as if he had rehearsed his words over and over. His hands reached for her, then curled into fists at his sides. “You can't stop fighting. Hiding here isn't going to solve anything.”

Fallon slowed her steps.

“I went to your apartment and you weren't there. Hijiri told me where you'd gone. If it's too late…”

Realization dawned. Fallon rubbed her arms and smiled. “You're worried for nothing. I'm not living here, Sebastian. This is for the rebellion. I'm investigating. You would have known that if you'd shown up to the meetings.”

Sebastian stood still, his breath forming clouds between them. Then his eyes slid to her feet. “You're not wearing shoes.”

Fallon would have laughed if she wasn't so cold. “Yes.”

He walked over to her and tugged her toward him so that she stood on top of his boots rather than on the frosted grass.

She was now just as tall as Sebastian. His breath melted the cold from her face; she slid her arms around his neck to keep from falling. Her heart went quiet. Waiting.

His mouth opened, and for a moment, it seemed as if a silencing charm had fallen down his throat. Nothing came out. They stood like that, both trembling from the cold and something more, until he was finally able to speak. “Fallon,” he said, “can I kiss you?”

There was no question of what kind of kiss this would be. Fallon nodded, staring at his mouth, wondering how soft it would be. If it would be. She couldn't tell. Heat traveled from her stomach up to her cheeks.

The wind whistled, flattening her nightgown against her back. Her stomach coiled in anticipation and fear as he slowly bent toward her.

A throat cleared. They jerked apart and turned to see the spinsters standing there, watching. Yasmine shivered in her fuzzy blue bathrobe. Helena's lantern burned with hungry flames. They gathered together in the courtyard. Some had tears in their eyes. Others glowered.

“You kids are too young to know when to give up,” said a spinster with fried, yellowing hair.

“Know when you are beaten,” said another.

Helena shook her head. “Love can't stop fate, honey,” she said. “That only happens in books.”

“Shut up!” Fallon yelled. Never would she have said such a thing to her elders; her skin burned with shame, despite her growing anger. “We're going to fight it. This is not our fate. We don't want it.”

“Doesn't matter if you don't want it,” Yasmine said, burrowing into her bathrobe. “We've never had a choice.”

“But you could. The only person forcing you to live like this is yourself,” Fallon said.

The spinsters muttered, startled. Helena shook her lantern. “Zita kindly informed us that we're destined to never meet our true loves. She's done us a favor, saving us from the heartbreak.”

Fallon let go and stroked Sebastian's cheek. She smiled at him and faced the spinsters. “Take a look at your hearts now and tell me they're not broken.”

Silence filled the courtyard. Some spinsters looked down at their chests. Yasmine placed her hand over her heart. Helena started bawling.

Ms. Ward pushed through the cluster of women. “Our school system doesn't condone bullying. We're not always good at noticing it, but when we find it, we shut it down.”

Fallon blinked, confused.

“I'm starting to see similarities between bullying and what Zita's been doing,” she said.

“You don't mean it,” Helena whimpered. “Don't let the girl brainwash you.”

“None of us wants to be here,” Ms. Ward said, patting the older woman's hand. “Think of the creaky floors and that stench that follows us day in and day out. We're not smelly, disreputable women. Zita has simply told us that we are, and so that's what we've become.”

The spinsters, not easily convinced, wanted to discuss the matter further.

Ms. Ward said that there would be plenty of time to talk in the morning. The unflattering pajamas failed to diminish her authority. “We're going to help these kids,” she stressed. “If you believe otherwise, then you can take it up with me.”

Like reprimanded children, the spinsters dragged their feet and retreated back to their villas.

Sebastian flashed a ghost of a smirk. “I think you've just secured us allies.”

Fallon pinched the fabric on his coat sleeve, unwilling to break contact with him. “I didn't expect that to work. It didn't with Bram.”

“Who's Bram?” Ms. Ward said, approaching.

“He's actually Hard-boiled Hal,” Fallon said without guilt. She didn't care about keeping his identity a secret. “We discovered that he's a bachelor. Yet, he's not compelled at all to help.”

Ms. Ward wiped her smudged glasses and adjusted them on her nose. “I seem to be missing something, Fallon. I understood your wonderful speech, but I don't know what you're looking for. What kind of help are you seeking and for what purpose?”

“Sebastian and I are part of a rebellion. We're going to end Zita's fortunes for good.”

Ms. Ward's eyes flickered from Fallon to Sebastian. “This is better than books,” she said.

*   *   *

The rickety heater set to work on Fallon's numb limbs once she was inside. She wrapped herself in an old quilt and buried her red toes in the couch cushion underneath her. The toasty villa would warm her up quickly, but Ms. Ward still insisted on brewing spicy pumpkin tea for them before going back to bed.

“I'm sure you both have a lot to talk about,” she said, setting up a tray in front of the couch. “I, for one, am going to need a good rest before facing tomorrow. The room is yours.”

Sebastian had gotten the same treatment, wrapped like a worm within a cocoon of patchwork quilts. When Ms. Ward left, Fallon shifted over to lean against him. He stared ahead at the television set, his mouth set in a grim line. He refused to look at her. His voice was thick, scared, as he said, “I have something to tell you. I think I'm ready now. I have to be.”