Page 46 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

Her brows pinched. “That was awful. I’m so glad you and Josie were there.”

“Yeah.” I tried not to think about it, which was difficult. The boy’s parents had managed to catch me coming into the apartment lobby tonight and had gifted me a homemade pie of gratitude and had returned my jacket—the blood miraculously washed out of it. Their son was going to be okay, but I couldn’t ignore their teary eyes and the feeling that I needed to make a change, so stuff like that wouldn’t happen again. “Could I clean up that lot, or turn it into a park without creating a charitable society?”

She shrugged again. “Complain to the city. Get the lot owner to clean it up.”

“I did. And the mom said she complained weeks ago, too. Nothing’s happened.”

“But now that a kid has been injured, I’m sure it’ll get a new fence at least.”

A fence would do nothing. “It should be a park.”

Samantha’s brows lifted at my insistence. “So do it. Raise money. Get grants. Buy the lot. You don’t have to be a charity.”

“I don’t?”

“No. Clarisa always does crazy stuff like this. She steps up and helps, you know?”

Samantha’s stepmom was a lady who lunched. And apparently did good deeds for her community. I needed to become her, but without the lunching part. I needed to figure out how to do all of this in enough time that it could snowball some good energy right into my magical bank account over at Estelle’s.

“Where would she start?”

“Call the city and find out who owns the lot. Then look up what it’s worth. Take it from there, I guess.”

I nodded as my phone buzzed with a message. I patted around beside me to find the device in the couch’s cushions. I held it up, staring at the screen as my heart leapt with joy.

James:Joining leisure league. Wanna help me shake the dust off my pitching arm?

I hunched over my phone and typed out a reply.

“Ooo. Is it James?” Samantha cooed. “You’re smiling and blushing.”

“Shut up.” I was crushing, yes. But it would never come of anything, even if he did seem to like me back. The two of us wanted different things, so why entertain the idea? We were just friends who enjoyed each other’s company.

“Tell him I say hi.”

“No.”

Me to James:Of course! When? Where? Think I still have a catcher’s mitt around here somewhere…

This would be a perfect way to increase my good karma, right? Say the mantra, catch a few balls….

I hesitated before hitting Send. But Iwantedto hang out with James and I loved baseball—which he knew. So, if I wanted to do this, and took great joy from it, did that lessen its karmic payback value? Should I be spending my time on tasks I didn’t enjoy but had greater payback value?

Or did doing things that made me happy increase the positive vibes and spread the good energy even further?

There was so much I still didn’t understand. Shaking off my thoughts, I sent the message. If I didn’t have some fun, I’d give up. Tomorrow I’d check in with Estelle and see how my account was coming along, and ask her more questions about how this whole fairy godmother thing worked.

CHAPTER11

~ Char ~

Half an hour later, James and I were in front of my place, the setting sun bouncing off the windshield of his Range Rover, baseball gloves in hand.

“Got somewhere we can play?” he asked. He was wearing a soft grey, loose sweatshirt and black track pants. Instead of looking like he was giving up on life, he looked buff and athletic.

And so very handsome. Maybe part of it was the new haircut. His sandy hair was tousled and yummy, and he was grinning, a bounce in his step. He seemed so genuinely happy to see me. Was I more in need of a friendly face than I’d realized? Or was my crush worsening?

Maybe I was just blue. That point in my cycle where everything felt hopeless, coupled with the reality that it all truly was—from my finances to my dating life.

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