Page 102 of Witch You Would
A stall door opened and Felicia came out, her lips scrunched together like she’d sucked on a lemon. She silently click-clacked her high heels to the sink and washed her hands, then dried them with the air dryer. I stood there, unable to speak while the motor roared and then died.
Felicia got halfway to the door, stopped, then turned around. Her fists clenched and unclenched like she was fighting herself.
“Watch your back,” she said. “Charlotte has been trying to get me to sabotage people since the show started. I told her Iwouldn’t, and she said I needed to put on my big-girl panties if I wanted to win.” Her lips curled up in a sneer. “I saidif I wanted underwear tips, I’d ask my personal stylist, not a washed-up CEO trying to avoid a hostile takeover.”
A what? “What do you mean, washed-up?”
“Her company is a hot mess. She expanded too fast in the last couple of years, tried to start a few trends that didn’t catchon, tried to follow some that were over by the time she got there.” More details came spilling out of Felicia, stuff I didn’tknow about because I didn’t follow the right gossip, apparently. All I’d seen was Charlotte’s public face, the glam storiesand the hype.
Exaggerated. Fake. Word by word, Felicia took a sledgehammer to the statue of Charlotte Sharp I’d put on a pedestal, untilit was lying in pieces on the floor of my brain.
“Has she been sabotaging people’s spells?” I asked.
Felicia shrugged. “I never saw her do it. I don’t think she’d want to get caught. She might have tried to bribe some of theothers, though.”
“Like me.”
“Like you.” Felicia looked down her nose at me, which wasn’thard since she was a half foot taller barefoot. “Your clothes say you desperately need money, but if I were you, I wouldn’t trust that witch. She’ll hug you with one hand so she can stab you in the back with the other.”
I grimaced. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Whatever. It’s your life.” With a flip of her hair, Felicia left.
My emotions swirled inside me like hurricane winds. Anger, disappointment, frustration, exhaustion... Charlotte was probablythe one who’d sent that dude with the check to Gil, too. I had no idea how we could prove it, and did it even matter? Onlyif they tried something in the final round, I guess.
I’d talk to him as soon as I could. But first, spell time.
I almost decided to duck out of the demonstration. He’d understand. How was I supposed to get up the energy to be fun withkids after the confessional and that little conversation?
No way. I wouldn’t let anything or anyone ruin this for me. Not Charlotte, and not Felicia, though unfortunately I had toadmit that she had been annoyingly helpful just now. Unless she was lying? But I didn’t think so. She didn’t get anythingout of it. She could have walked out and let me make bad choices, and she would have won the contest for sure. Instead, she’dset me straight.
Ew. I didn’t want to feel grateful to her. One good deed didn’t change that she was an asshole.
“You’re going out there right now,” I told my reflection. “You’re going to have a good time, and make kids laugh, and teachthem magic. Then you’re going back to the hotel and fucking a hot guy’s brains out. Okay? Okay.”
Was I really the same person who’d spent years letting my boss make me feel like a loser? Was this what growing a spine felt like? Istood up straighter and gave myself a high five, because I’m a giant dork, and then I went to get my makeup fixed.
My abuela would have been proud.
The chattering and squeals of the kids echoed down the hall as I followed Rachel to one of the lecture rooms, my face andhair repaired. As soon as I stepped inside, I saw Gil kneeling, surrounded by tiny people, kindergartners if I had to guess.He was doing a card trick, and they were totally freaking out... Aha! He’d “lost” a card, except it was stuck to the backof his head. Every time he turned around to look for it, the kids saw it and screamed, and he acted more and more confusedas he spun in circles like a dog chasing its tail. Finally he pulled the card off and showed it to them, apparently shocked.Then, so smoothly I wasn’t sure if it was magic or sleight of hand, he made an identical card appear from behind a littlegirl’s ear. She grabbed his hand and jumped up and down as he grinned at her.
He looked so, so happy. Like he was exactly where he should be, doing what he should be doing. I loved it. I loved... him?
Holy shit, did I?
How could I tell the difference between love and lust? Or a hardcore crush? Between something that would keep going and growing,and something that would fizzle out fast like a mediocre enchantment?
I’d known him for months, and yet in some ways I’d only really known him for a week and a half. Less if you didn’t count thetime I thought he was just Leandro Presto. Logic said that wasn’t enough time for real feelings to develop. But since whenwere feelings logical? Who said you had to know everything about a person before you were allowed to love them?
Didn’t we all have mysteries and secrets that lived inside us, and wasn’t discovering them part of the joy of a relationship? And even if we went as deep as we could go, found everything there was to find, couldn’t we still make new secrets together?
Gil waved me over, saying something to the kids as he pointed in my direction. A dozen faces turned the full force of theirsunny smiles on me, and I could almost feel the darkness Charlotte had dragged me into vanishing from their sweet light.
“Miz Belelobe!” a little boy said, yanking on my arm. “Come on, we wanna see the magic!”
“Show us the spell, miss!”
“Mister Leandro said it’s animal bubbles!”
