Reluctantly Charmed (12 page)

“I know you’re pretending.”

He opened and shut one eye.

“You can stay if you’re quiet.”

He leaped out and furiously wagged his tail, rubbing his wet nose into my hands.

“I said, be quiet!” Laughing, I scratched behind his ears, and attempted to push on his back to get him to sit. “Where’s your horrible master, hey?”

He flicked his head to one side, studying me. Then he sat and rested his head on his paws. Eventually, he lay down.

Quite liking my new work partner, I slid into my seat. But already my mind was turning to my expanding workload.

“Ka-a-a-ate?”

I looked up. “Hi.”

Marjorie slowly crossed the office, a pink cashmere vision in a tight, striped pencil skirt and 1950s heels straight out of
Mad Men
.

A cloud of perfume billowed around my desk as she pulled up. “What’s he doing here?” Her eyes narrowed, and her neck jutted forward an inch, betraying her casual tone of voice. Marjorie always seemed to be looking for a weakness to pounce on to shamelessly promote herself upward.

“Setanta is working on the Starshoot campaign,” I said, sticking my neck out as far as it would go.

“Well,” she smiled sweetly, self-consciously holding her finger up to her mouth, “that’s fun.” She gritted her teeth. “I thought you might be struggling. It’s a big challenge. I’m available any time if you need some help.”

“Thanks so much.” Butter wouldn’t have melted. “We’re doing fine.”

“Well, you know where I am.” She spun around like whipped cotton candy.

I had noticed her lipstick was smeared and I could have sworn she had the beginnings of a cold sore. It was the first time I’d ever seen her makeup slightly askew.

After work that evening I went to the cinema with Lily to see an independent French film. It wasn’t the kind of film we usually
went for, but Lily had a crush on a guy at work who was all about French films, museums at the weekend, and goatees. She had already preplanned her morning coffee conversation, when she would mention the film to him, ever so casually, to illustrate that she, too, liked French films, could visit museums at the weekends, and appreciate goatees.

As it turned out, neither of us could understand what was going on, and we spent the first twenty minutes nudging each other, whispering things like “I don’t get it. Who’s he? Did he do it?”

Afterward, as we made our way through the lobby, stuffed to the eyeballs with popcorn and Maltesers, we tried to work out how Lily could possibly talk intelligently about a completely incomprehensible film. “What about the lighting at the opening credits?” I was trying to be helpful. “You could say it was moody and symbolic.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully, slowly twirling her fingers through her blond curls. Lily has the most amazing hair, perfect white ringlet curls that make her green eyes sparkle. She’s the kind of girl who always gets a second look from guys, and she wasn’t used to not having her crushes reciprocated. “I might just use words like that—symbolic, poetic, difficult.”

“That could work.”

We shuffled on in silence.

“He sounds difficult,” I added truthfully.

“I know. But he’s cute.”

“That is difficult.”

We nodded in agreement, both understanding the complexity of liking a good-looking man.

“I know the goatee thing and the museums and the fact he has a blog is a bit odd, but I do like him.” Her face looked hopeful. “I
just can’t get his attention. It’s like I’m jumping up and down in front of him and he can’t even see me.” She shook her head.

I cleared my throat and mulled it over quietly.
How can Lily get Goatee to fall in love with her?
Suddenly I began to see how this love match could ignite. I felt excited and unbelievably sure that I had the answer. I was having a moment. It was like when you play Trivial Pursuit and a question on sport comes up or, worse, a question on golf comes up. And not only have you never watched golf, you don’t know who plays it or how they play it. You have a vague idea that they wear baby-pink argyle socks pulled to the knee, but that’s the extent of your golf knowledge. And then what should be your worst nightmare happens: you’re asked who won the 1980 PGA tournament. And it’s for a piece of cake. And you just know, hand on heart with 100 percent certainty, that it was Jack Nicklaus. You’ve probably never said his name out loud before in your life, but you know it’s the right answer. Well, that’s how I felt about Lily and Goatee: I knew I had the right answer.

“Did you ever make cookies?”

“What?”

“Well, you said he drinks coffee. Why don’t you bake some cookies and bring them into work?”

“Because I’ve never baked anything in my life, and this is not the 1950s.”

“No, no, hear me out. Bake cookies with lots of sugar. Make sure you put vanilla essence in them and a sprinkling of ginger and some rose petals. Grind it all up. I know it sounds weird, but it’ll work. Think of him while you’re baking. Shape one of the biscuits into an image of your face, and when he bites into it, stand right in front of him, and say: ‘You love it, don’t you?’ You have to say the word
love
, and he will, Lily, he’ll see you and he’ll fall in love with you on the spot.”

She started to laugh. “You’re so funny. Is this some love potion?”

“I think it’s more of a spell.” I smiled. “I must have read it in
Woman’s Own
or
Bella
or something. But I know it works—in fact, I’m 100 percent positive this will do the trick, Lil.”

She laughed. “Are you using your magical witch powers?”

“Obviously. The witch powers that I got from a magazine.”

She shrugged. “It would be rude not to try. I’ve tried everything else: new haircut, cleavage, perfume. No harm in a little baking.”

“That’s the spirit.” And we laughed happily as we pushed through the exit doors. Outside, there were a good few people hanging around, waiting for the next film, smoking.

Lily fumbled in her oversized handbag for cigarettes. Triumphantly, she pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and then cursed her lack of a lighter.

“Back in a sec,” she said before trotting off to a group lost in a cloud of smoke.

I rocked back and forth on my heels, waiting. And then the strangest thing happened, and it happened with such clarity, it was as if it was in slow motion, and I felt my heart leap out of my body with shock.

Bright lights started flashing, and I heard clicking.

“What the hell?” I looked to my left. Two men with cameras were snapping furiously, their long lenses poking in my direction.

Shocked, I repeated myself: “What the hell?” Instinctively, I threw my hands up to my face to avoid the attack. Whir. Click. Flash.

“Kate, look this way.”

The men were shouting at me in loud, overbearing voices. “Kate, do you have any fairies with you now?”

The cinemagoers looked over at me, straining their necks to see what the commotion was. “Who’s that?” I heard someone mutter.

Flustered, I stumbled backward.

“Fuck off!” Lily screamed at the top of her lungs. She waved her cigarette in front of her like a sword, stabbing the air between us and them. Swiftly, she looped my arm in her own, and with speed and precision, as if she’d run from paparazzi all her life, she bundled me into a taxi and slammed the door behind me before shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” at the driver.

Still in shock, I pulled out my phone and texted Lil: “Thanks. How mental was that?”

It felt weird, wrong, that somebody would take my photograph, and those lenses felt very intrusive. It felt like an attack.

Back home, I paid the taxi driver the outrageous fare of twenty euros and marched up my path, still shaking slightly. As I put my key in the door, I noticed a package on the step addressed to me. I picked it up and ripped it open. A book, a giant hardback entitled
Ye Olde Book of Spells.
Confused, I opened it. Scrawled on the inside cover was a message from Simon Battersby. “The Seven Steps can save us all. Your friend, Simon.”

Save us all from what, Simon?

I stomped upstairs, threw the book on the hall table, and changed into my blue brushed-cotton pajamas, thinking all the while,
Tomorrow will be a better day
. Only it wasn’t. It was worse.

10

I
t was Mam and Dad’s TV debut. They were on the breakfast show with Mark and Sinead from 7:26 to 7:28. I flicked the telly on with great trepidation, knowing they could be seriously loose cannons. Dad had his cord suit on, and Mam a floral dress that I recognized from last summer and her berry lipstick newly applied. They were grinning, then laughing and interrupting each other as they animatedly waved their hands around.

“How do you feel about these Steps?” Sinead moved in closer to my parents on the brightly colored couch, chummily sipping from a cup of tea.

Dad’s voice dropped to a serious tone. “There’s something in them, Sinead. A message of grave importance. We can’t ignore it.”

I threw my eyes up to heaven. He was playing to the camera.

Sinead pursed her lips and nodded like a wise sage. “It’s true, the answers to our future often lie in our past. We just have to look to our history. Society often repeats its own actions.”

The answers? To what?

I flicked it off, just as they were cutting to a pig festival in Ballinspittle. A journalist in wellies was drowning in eight feet of muck.

When I arrived at work, Setanta was waiting for me. He was
becoming a permanent fixture under my desk, where he’d lie at my feet, resting his chin on my knees or burrowing his head into my hands. He turned up about twice a week—the rumor in the office was that Hugh Delaney’s creative work wasn’t going well. Colin and Marjorie were hosting twice-weekly work-in-progress meetings with him, something that never happened—the work was clearly bombing. I was happy when Setanta was there. I enjoyed his company and chatted away to him and Matthew in equal measure, convinced I’d draw inspiration from one of them. Matthew was fond of him, too, and said I was being really mean when I deliberately moved the box of Starshoots out of Setanta’s reach. The dog kept turning up anyway, in spite of the lack of treats. But he seemed to have an in-built beeper: at certain times he’d just up and run, as if chasing a rabbit, but I knew it was because Hugh was leaving the building.

On this particular morning, though, Hugh came looking for Setanta. He marched through the office, feet stomping, arms swinging, stressed-looking, blond hair ruffled and spiked, calling out like he was in the middle of a field, oblivious to the fact that in an office the highest decibel of conversation is a loud whisper. Hugh didn’t fit in an office. His presence somehow made everything around him seem more artificial: the Formica chairs, electronic keyboards, plastic tables, fluorescent lightbulbs. He looked like an oak tree straining for the sunlight; he obviously needed the outdoors to breathe. It was like a survival reality show, nature struggling against corporate city life.

“Ah! He’s with you.” Hugh smiled a dazzling smile, all white teeth and twinkly eyes, and fell onto his knees to come eye level with Setanta, who was ecstatic to see his owner.

“Are you being a good boy?” Hugh said in a gushing cartoon-style voice, to which Setanta responded by violently wagging his tail and jumping up to him.

Laughing with that dimple exposed, Hugh looked up at me. “Is he bothering you? Will I take him?”

“No,” I said adamantly. “He’s great. I really enjoy having him around.”

“It’s strange. He’s not normally very friendly. He’s usually stuck to me like glue.” Hugh rose to his full height, all long legs and shoulders, and looked teasingly at me, a cheeky grin on his face. “I wouldn’t want him disturbing your important work, now.”

I won’t rise to him
, I thought. “That’s okay. He helps me with my important work. He’s quite inspirational.”

We both looked down at Setanta’s wide-eyed expression and the plastic bone he’d spent the last few hours chewing on. He wasn’t exactly a likely muse to my creative ambitions.

“I talk to him,” I qualified, blushing a little bit. I looked directly into Hugh’s gray eyes and somehow felt the sway of the Atlantic Ocean. I was thirsty, parched. His presence dislodged me.

Hugh nodded and responded softly, “So do I. He’s a great listener.”

“Nonjudgmental . . .”

We both laughed. And once again I thought how handsome he was, how masculine he looked with a shadow of light-brown stubble brushing his jawline.

“He loves the gossip,” I said.

“Ah, he’s an auld pet.” He bent down to pat him. Suddenly his head came up, his eyes on me, making my color rise, as if somehow he could hear what was really going on in my mind. But all he said was: “He keeps secrets well.”

“I suspect he’d turn me in for a can of Pedigree Chum.”

He grinned at me with an honest, open smile. “He’d never do that to you.”

“Let’s see.” I laughed.

“Nah, he’s always nice to the pretty ladies.”

And suddenly a switch flicked and I could feel my blood boil. Pretty? “Don’t you mean ‘natural-looking’?”