Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (24 page)

“Home,” he said, in an almost pained whisper.

“You should see a locksmith,” Fallon said, wishing she could say something less obvious.

“My mistake,” the boy said, tapping a finger on the fissure, “but I'll find a way back in. Isn't that your friend?”

He spoke so gravely that his question caught her by surprise. Fallon pushed in the chairs on the other side of the table so she could get to the window. Outside, students lingered on the front lawn, making plans for another study session or waiting for their parents to pick them up. Anais crossed the front lawn, her face tight with anger as she yelled at someone following her.

The woman following Anais wore a shoulder-padded business suit and carried a file folder stamped with Peak & Brown's insignia.

“Oh no,” Fallon whispered.

The boy settled back into his seat, closing his eyes and humming to the music blasting through his headphones.

Fallon wished she could run out the door and rescue Anais. Nothing good could come from a Peak & Brown's employee showing up on campus, especially when Anais had no desire to work with the company. Fallon fogged the glass with her breath as she watched the saleswoman corner Anais.

Anais stuck her fingers in her ears and refused to listen to whatever the saleswoman said. Bear came around the corner with his judo teammates, dressed in their gym clothes for afterschool practice, and noticed his girlfriend's distress. He straightened his back and said something to the saleswoman.

Instead of being intimidated by the burly boy, the saleswoman merely laughed. When the saleswoman opened her mouth again, Fallon felt a wave of dread. She couldn't hear anything through the glass, but she still knew that Anais's secret had finally tumbled forth.

Anais's face went slack with shock. Then, she came beautifully to life, launching pebbles and grass at the saleswoman. The saleswoman dodged them easily, and Fallon had to wonder if this kind of confrontation was something the woman was used to.

Bear just stood there, stunned. When Anais took a step in Bear's direction, his teammates surrounded him. He shook his head and left her there.

Fallon headed toward the circulation desk, anxious to help Anais somehow. The library became stifling. She rocked back on her heels. Why wasn't Ms. Ward finished talking to Bram yet? Duty kept her stationed at the desk.

Luckily, Anais knew where to find Fallon. She showed up in the library as a shaking mess, the saleswoman on her tail.

“Peak and Brown's needs your face for our new campaign. The world wants to know what's happened to our dear little biscuit girl,” the saleswoman said, loud enough for the entire library to hear. “Promise me you'll consider coming back.”

“This is a library,” Fallon said, standing as tall as she could. “If you don't have a guest pass, you need to leave campus immediately.”

“One minute with Anais, if you don't mind,” the saleswoman said.

Fallon grabbed the phone off the circulation desk and held it like a threat. “The assistant principals are on speed dial.”

The saleswoman backed down. “Remember what we talked about,” she said, shooting Anais one last desperate glance.

“You're okay,” Fallon said, approaching her friend. “It's over.”

Anais covered her face with her hands. “I can't.”

Fallon grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her toward the geography section, presently unoccupied by eavesdroppers. They sat on the ground, surrounded by outdated atlases and tomes on cultures, also outdated.

“You heard enough to know what happened,” she said angrily. “The entire school will be talking about it tomorrow.”

“What about Bear?”

Anais rubbed her eyes roughly to stop the tears. “He hates me.”

“No, he doesn't.”

“You didn't see his face.”

“Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

Anais wiped her nose on her blazer. Over the weekend, her father had gotten a few calls from Peak & Brown's. The company wanted Anais to return for a new line of biscuits, as well as become their mascot through commercials and interviews. That wasn't the kind of attention she wanted. Anais argued with her father until he finally agreed to turn down the company's offer, but Peak & Brown's didn't give up: The company sent Mrs. Cools, the tenacious saleswoman, to represent their offer in person. The woman had been following her since that morning. “She must have hid in the bushes or something while I was in classes,” Anais said, “lying in wait until school was over.”

Mrs. Cools cornered Anais right on the lawn. Fallon had seen that. With no teachers or assistant principals around, the saleswoman freely pitched the offer again to Anais. Loudly. When Bear came to help her, he ended up hearing everything.

“He knows everything,” she said. “Worse still, the vile woman thought that Bear was unfit to be my boyfriend. Said he wasn't ‘biscuit tin material.'”

“She said that?”

“To his face. Right in front of the team.”

This was worse than Fallon thought. “What did Bear do?”

“He
believed
her.”

“I'm not taking her side,” Fallon said gently, “but Bear's position as your boyfriend has always been precarious. I mean, you never told him about the drugstore or the biscuit tins. He must have felt like you were a stranger when he heard Mrs. Cools's accusations.”

Anais frowned.

Fallon shook her head. “I hate to say it, but even Zita warned you that this was going to happen.”

“I don't want to lose him.”

“Did he break up with you?”

She sniffed. “He didn't say.”

“Then this could just be a fight.” Fallon squeezed her hand. “Bear needs time to digest what he's heard, but you're going to have to be the one to apologize.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I don't know how.”

Sometimes Anais atoned for a sharp word or thoughtless act, but never by saying “I'm sorry.” She'd buy sweets for Nico after having a heated debate with him, or leave fresh flowers for Fallon after having made a crude comment the day before. This behavior carried over into Anais's dating life. Her high expectations prevented her past boyfriends from lasting long; she broke up with them early enough not to have offended them too badly.

“You love Bear,” Fallon said.

Anais nodded.

“Then try to learn. We can practice. You'll be a professional apologizer when I'm done with you.”

Anais cracked a smile. “I'm in your hands.”

Ms. Ward's office door opened. Bram emerged and shook the librarian's hand. He looked unhappy about it and shot Fallon a begrudging nod on his way out.

“Fallon, why is there a line at the circulation desk?” Ms. Ward said.

“Sorry; I'm coming.”

Anais groaned. “That sounded so easy. Why can't I do that?”

Fallon hid her smile as she hurried back to the desk. She took over stamping as Ms. Ward typed in the ID numbers.

“It worked,” Ms. Ward whispered giddily.

“What did?”

“You have a whole army behind you now,” she said, tapping the enter key too dramatically.

It took a moment for Fallon to realize what she meant.

*   *   *

November ended buried in paper. Even the rebellion took a backseat as final exams became a reality. Fallon puzzled over take-home quizzes, hunting through her textbooks for the elusive answers. Her essays poured from pencil to paper like sludge. Charms hung from windows and doors. Some were silencing charms, though none of them were expensive enough to obliterate sound like Bram's was. Fallon purchased a focus charm, made from fluorite, a pale, greenish-purple stone that hung from a silver string.

She tried studying with Sebastian, but he wouldn't take it seriously. He was more interested in collecting silence from her apartment, lying on the wood floor with his eyes closed, the recorder capturing the sounds of her pencil scratching forever. When he
did
study, he cracked jokes and chewed on his pen caps. Sometimes their feet brushed under the table and her cheeks grew hot.

It was too much of a distraction. How he passed his exams was a mystery to her.

Between studying, Fallon promised to help Anais work on her absent apology skills. She assigned Anais a new and more challenging task every time they met. The last one was for Anais to bump into three people on the street and give them a quick apology. Somehow, Anais failed to make even one apology. She either snapped at the person she bumped into or just kept walking, forgetting the point of the assignment.

“I'm not a mean person,” Anais whined. “Nico's meaner than me.”

“That doesn't even make sense,” Nico said, joining the fun.

When she took breaks from her homework and studying, Fallon took Zita's photograph out and stared at it. Fallon decided that her first foray into stealing was worth it. She couldn't stand the idea of Zita looking down on every guest and resident. If she had access to the Bachelor Villas, she'd steal theirs too.

*   *   *

“This is your big plan? To become a librarian? Honestly, Fallon, I don't know why that job would appeal to you. You're perfectly capable of becoming a house inspector,” Mrs. Dupree said.

Fallon bit back a grin and twirled the phone cord. “Being a librarian could be my calling, Mom.”

“Stop. You're giving me palpitations.”

“If you let me stay at school over break, Ms. Ward promised that she'd show me the inner workings of the library. She'll even give me a behind-the-scenes tour of Grimbaud's public library.”

“You
can
stay,” Mrs. Dupree said, “but only because you'll discover faster that running a library is not for you.”

“We'll see,” Fallon said. “I'll miss you. Say hi to Robbie and Morgane for me.”

After hanging up the phone, she put her hands on her hips and smiled. Her empty suitcase awaited her.

*   *   *

The bus ride to Glastonberry took longer than scheduled because of the snow. The roads hadn't been salted, so the driver trundled through heavy traffic and abandoned country roads. Fallon slept most of the ride, her head tucked into the crook of Sebastian's shoulder. The closer they came to Glastonberry, the more excited Sebastian grew.

“You're going to love the sea,” he said.

“In winter?”

“We can't go swimming,” he said, “but the view is amazing from the clinic.”

The town of Glastonberry lacked the allure of Grimbaud. The buildings hadn't been built with the intention of wowing tourists and locals. High-rise concrete apartments hugged the coast while the bus drove through downtown. Glastonberry reminded her of her own hometown: commonplace and unremarkable. No gregarious cupid and stork statues. No flashy shops or quaint caf
é
s. She looked for canals out of habit, but found none.

People did sell charms, but she didn't see many shops. Fallon read signs that claimed reduced prices and two-for-one deals on heating charms for December only. One old woman's stand had a poster stating that her charms had a 50 percent chance of working—but no refunds if they didn't.

They stayed on the bus until Glastonberry's last stop, closest to the coast. No one got off with beach blankets and sunglasses. Fallon put on her knitted cap and zipped her coat up to her chin.

“Grandma's clinic is five minutes up the road,” Sebastian said, grabbing both suitcases.

Fallon wouldn't let him pull hers. “Tell me about summer here. I'm having a hard time picturing it.” To her right, she saw the steel-gray sea below; they were on an incline, heading toward the peak of a cliffside village. Thatched-roof houses emerged amid the undisturbed snow.

“We have sand-sculpture competitions in August,” he said. “Do you see that teal building down there, by the sea? That's the aquarium. My grandmother takes me to the dolphin and fireworks shows every year, even though I outgrew it a long time ago.”

Fallon had never been to an aquarium before. Her hometown had a few dusty museums, and what she saw of sea life was served on a plate at restaurants. “I can't imagine ever outgrowing fireworks.”

“Maybe the dolphins, then,” he said, shrugging. “Cats and dogs are friendlier. And, they have ears to scratch.”

When they reached the top, the veterinary clinic looked heavenly. Smoke poured from the redbrick chimney. The rustic building had the appearance of a bed-and-breakfast rather than a clinic, but Fallon heard barking coming from the back where the overnight kennels must have been. The cliff's edge was secured with a fence for the sake of the animals.

When an old woman opened the screen door, Sebastian dropped his suitcase and went running. He called out like a little boy to his grandmother. Fallon couldn't help but smile.

Grandma Marion wore a veterinarian coat and a crisp, masculine shirt and trousers underneath. The weather didn't seem to bother her as she stepped outside and embraced Sebastian. A squirrel with a bandaged head sat in her coat pocket.

A blush crept into Fallon's cheeks and she pulled her suitcase. The similarities between Sebastian and his grandmother were striking; they shared the same straight nose and sharp eyebrows. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut short and neat and she wore no makeup. Old scratch and bite marks crisscrossed her bare hands.

“You must be Fallon,” Marion said gruffly.

She stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Marion's handshake was firm. “Don't be nervous. You've put up with my grandson. I'm thoroughly impressed.”

Sebastian grumbled.

“Come inside before you both turn into icicles.”

Fallon's skin thawed when they entered the waiting room. The room was decorated with lush purples and greens like a children's playroom, a friendliness that didn't match Marion's surly exterior. A gray cat sat on the front desk, swishing its tail. Three spotted puppies chewed on one another's ears in a basket behind the desk. Jars of dog treats and colorful leashes sat on shelves, waiting to be purchased. Marion's assistants, dressed in purple scrubs, came in and out.