‘Yeah,’ Mare said. ‘Who steals my frog steals trash.’
Lizzie turned steely eyes on her and Mare said, ‘Hey, I’m on it. This bitch screwed up my life forever, and for that alone I’d go after her, but she’s taken the two men who made my sisters happy, so this chick is toast.’ She held up the charcoal square on her plate. ‘And we all know what happens to toast in this house.’
Lizzie nodded solemnly. ‘So we get the toaster from hell…’
Mare started to laugh, and Lizzie did, too, and then Dee got a gleam in her eye, and leaned forward.
‘Maybe not toast,’ she said. ‘But I like the ‘kitchen from hell’ part. Let’s put that bitch where she belongs.’
Crash took the after noon to finish up the last of his American business, pack, and talk to his partner about the
Annapolis delivery for the Moto Guzzi, but when it came time to go, he couldn’t leave Salem’s Fork, not without Mare. All right, so there were some new wrinkles in the relationship, the magic thing was still giving him headaches, he’d been a frog, for Christ’s sake, and there was that love spell mess, but at the end of the day, she was Mare, and he loved her, and he’d sworn to never leave her again, and he wasn’t going to. So he’d spend the extra week and she’d see he still loved her…
What if he spent the extra week and he didn’t love her? It had taken him five years to come back for her. What if she was right?
Clueless about what to do next, he went to the Greasy Fork. It was packed because the service was slow – one of the waitresses had disappeared and the place was buzzing with gossip about it – but then a booth miraculously opened up even though the people had just sat down – ‘Forgot my wallet,’ the guy told Crash, bemused – and Crash told Pauline to bring him the usual.
‘Could you be more specific?’ she said, and he looked up in surprise, but when she glared back, he told her.
Fuck, not even Pauline could remember him.
When his burger and fries were gone, and he was trying to drown his sorrows in his milkshake, Pauline came back with the check.
‘So what’s with you?’ she said, cracking her gum.
‘What’s with you and the gum?’ he said, feeling hostile. ‘You never did that before.’
Pauline stopped cracking. ‘You look like you lost your best friend.’
‘I did. Mare dumped me.’
Pauline nodded. ‘Eh, it’s for the best. She really wasn’t the Italian type. Good-looking guy like you, it’s too soon for you to settle down. Go back to Italy. Play the field. I hear they got a lot of fields there.’
‘No, it’s not for the best,’ Crash said, annoyed. ‘I’m ready to settle down and I always knew I’d settle down with Mare. And she’d have loved Italy. And Italy would have loved her’ And what the fuck’s with you, Pauline?
‘You’re telling me you’re ready to get married. Ha.’ Pauline cracked her gum again. ‘With all the lookers in the world, you’re gonna give all that up for one woman you probably haven’t even thought about for five years.’
‘The hell I haven’t,’ Crash said.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ Pauline said. ‘She doesn’t want you. You think she hasn’t been dating and screwing around? I can tell you, she has.’
Crash winced. Then something bumped into the window and he saw a butterfly fluttering there, a big blue one with round wings, staring back at him. Belligerent, aren’t you? he thought. It looked like the kind of butterfly that probably beat up the other butterflies. In fact, it looked exactly like Mare’s butch butterfly, tilted above Mare’s beautiful round butt. ‘Well, why shouldn’t she have?’ he told Pauline, as the butterfly shoved off and disappeared. ‘I did, too. We lived our lives. We learned things. Now we’re going to learn things with each other. We’re ready. No regrets.’
Pauline cracked her gum. ‘Yeah, you look ready.’
‘She wants me.’ Crash pushed the milkshake away. I’m the one she loves, damn it, she said so.’
‘You just don’t love her,’ Pauline said. ‘Well, them’s the breaks. You should go back to Italy.’
‘Not without Mare.’
‘You’re just being stubborn.’ Pauline began to clear the table as Crash got out his wallet to pay the check. ‘You haven’t thought about her in five years, so why-’
The picture of Mare’s Florett fluttered out of his wallet, looped a loop, and landed face up on the table.
‘The hell I haven’t.’ Crash picked up the picture. ‘Look at this. I’ve been looking for the parts for this bike for three years…’
He stopped, realizing what he was saying.
‘Three years,’ he told Pauline, jabbing the photo at her. ‘I’ve been planning on coming back for her for three years. I’ve always meant to come back for her. I’m just slow.’ He looked at the bike. And stupid,’ he added to be fair. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t love-’ He looked up at Pauline and for the first time noticed the red glint in her eyes. And the red ring around her iris.
Pauline did not crack gum. Pauline knew exactly what his order was. Pauline was not serving his dinner.
‘Of course, there’s no reason to rush into anything,’ he told Xan.
‘Yeah,’ she said, cracking her gum.
‘I think I’ll go back to Italy now,’ he said, putting the photo back in his wallet. ‘Good plan.’
He handed her a twenty. ‘Keep the change.’
She nodded, the red glint in her eye getting brighter. ‘That’s real generous of you.’
‘Well, I’m leaving the country. Gotta get rid of my American money.’ Grash stood up and bumped into the woman who’d just gotten up from the booth behind his. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the top of her head, her gray razor-cut hair neatly parted.
‘My fault,’ the woman said, keeping her head down.
He followed her out the door, and then got on his bike and headed for the O’Brien house to tell Mare that her aunt was at the Greasy Fork possessing waitresses.
And that he’d loved her since the day he’d met her and would until the end of time.
They’d almost reached the top of the mountain, Pywackt padding beside them, the Great Big Rock in view, Mare with ‘Remains of the Day’ stuck in her head, when she heard the purr of a well-tuned motorcycle.
He’s not coming back for you, she told herself sternly, but her heart said, He’s coming back for me.
‘Send him away,’ Dee said. ‘This is not the time or the place for civilians,’ and Mare slowed as Crash rounded the final turn to the top, narrowly missing a frog that was hopping along the roadside. The frog sneezed.
‘This is so not the time for us to discuss the relationship,’ she told him as he parked his bike, but she sighed in spite of herself, he looked so good standing in front of her again.
He took off his helmet. ‘Your aunt is at the Greasy Fork. I think she’s possessed Pauline.’
‘Really,’ Mare said, smiling at the thought of Xan slinging hash at the Fork. ‘Well, she hasn’t possessed Pauline. Pauline’s in Baltimore with William. They ran off together after William’s dinner break in the middle of the libido spell. He quit his job at Value Video!! so they tried to make me manager this afternoon, but I’m busy with the whole Antichrist thing so they offered it to Dreama. She’s the youngest manager in the history of the company.’ Mare knew she was babbling, but he was right there, with her, and it was all she could do not to reach out and pat him because he was right there.
I love you, she thought. I have to go do something horrible to my aunt and I’ll probably die, but I love you.
‘Okay,’ Crash said. ‘So who’s at the Greasy Fork?’
‘Probably Xan, shapeshifting. What did she want?’
‘Me, back in Italy. But I’m not going without you.’ Crash got off his bike. ‘So what are we doing here?’
‘Mare!’ Lizzie called from the top of the path.
‘Just a minute,’ she called up. ‘This is new.’ She looked back at him. ‘I can’t talk now. Xan has grabbed Danny and Elric for some kind of Evil Overlord plan and we have to turn her into a geranium. But if we survive this, her power will be broken, and then if you still love me without her spell-’