Spellbound

“Cool.” He smiled, reaching into his blue messenger bag and pulling out a notebook. “Here’s the address and my number. Meet me on the corner of Third Avenue and Ninety-first Street tomorrow night.”

Walking home with Ashley that afternoon, I told her about my plans to hang out with Cisco and his friends. I was so afraid of hurting her feelings—the past two weeks, we’d had standing weekend dates—movies or billiards hall—when she didn’t have plans with some of her classmates. Although she always invited me along, I usually passed. Her friends seemed so much younger than she was, and a little too gossipy for anything I could handle. To her credit, her face fell only a little bit before composing herself.

“No, it’s cool,” she said, smiling at me. “You should get out of the house,” she added, giggling. “And hey, Francisco’s cute.”

“Oh, no,” I stammered. “It’s not like that.”

“Why not?” Ashley pressed. “He’s cute. You can tell, he totally works out. And he seems really nice.”

“No, really. We’re just friends.” Even though I knew Ashley wouldn’t care, I had to respect his privacy. It wasn’t my story to tell.

“Anyway,” I continued. “Do you think that Aunt Christine will mind if I go out?” I wasn’t prepared for Ashley’s response—breaking out in uncontrollable laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, but Ashley just continued laughing. She laughed so hard tears actually started rolling down her face, and she had to lean against a building for support. “What is so funny?”

“Are you kidding me?” she howled, her tears causing her eye shadow to leave iridescent streaks down her cheeks. “She’s going to be happy that you’re going out with someone other than me. Ooh, maybe you’ll actually get to bed after 9:00 p.m. for once. Really, Emma. You’re in the early-bird dinner crowd these days. Are you going to play bingo next? Are there hard candies in the bottom of your backpack?”

“Okay, Ashley, I get it.” I rolled my eyes.

“I mean, I thought you were going to start stealing Splenda from diners….” She continued mocking me until we were at her parents’ place on Sixty-second Street—and until I left around dinnertime.

That night after I was clearing the kitchen table—my aunt had ordered in some Indian food—I broached the subject. “So, Aunt Christine, a guy in my class invited me to hang out tomorrow night….”

“Which guy?” she asked without looking at me, scrutinizing her nighttime cocktail as she swirled it around in its glass. She and my uncle George used to toast each other every night with a dry martini, extra olives. After he died, she continued the tradition, making two martinis every night and drinking just the one.

“Cisco. I mean, Francisco Fernandez.”

“Oh, yes, I know the family,” Christine said, smoothing out her billowy cloud of dark brown curls. “His mother’s lovely. His sister and cousin, I believe, also attended Vincent Academy. That’s fine.” She looked at me blankly. “Am—am I supposed to give you a curfew?”

I stood there and stared dumbly back.

“Um, I don’t know.” I shrugged. And the truth was, I didn’t know. I was so young when my mom died—I wasn’t exactly hitting the clubs in eighth grade. And Henry kept switching from no curfew to wanting me home right after school. I never paid attention to either rule.

We stared at each other blankly. Christine swirled her cocktail again and took a sip.

“How about, oh, let’s just say when someone tells you what time they have to be home, you say, ‘Me, too,’” she said.

“Wow, um, thanks Aunt Christine,” I said, a little amazed.

“Well, you haven’t done anything to make me not trust you, so don’t make me lose that trust.” She went back to sloshing her martini in its Waterford crystal glass. “I’ll leave you some money on the counter. Buy yourself a new shirt or something.”

I ran over and hugged her. “Thanks, Aunt Christine,” I breathed into her neck, which smelled heavily of Estée Lauder’s Beautiful.

The next day, I sat in Latin, staring at the clock tick slowly, slowly, slowly. 2:51. 2:52. 2:53. 2:52?

I rubbed my eyes and looked back at the fuzzy numbers on the clock, squinting. Is time actually going backward? No, no, it’s 2:54. Just six more minutes. Ashley and I were going shopping after school. I was getting a new shirt—actually, a replacement shirt, since I’d left a lot of things in Keansburg. Once I’d decided to finally move in with Christine in late July, I’d moved quickly, and never went back for anything I’d left behind. I was sure that, by now, Henry had sold or trashed my stuff, with mementos from my life finding new homes in plastic garbage bags. Every now and then, I’d look for a shirt or hoodie and realize that I’d left them in the laundry bag, or hanging in the closet.

When the bell finally rang, I ran out of my seat and down the stairs to my locker. I had to be at Third Avenue promptly at 8:00 p.m. Since I didn’t have a cell phone, I had no way of finding out if there were any changes in plans. I used to have a cell phone—a cute purple one at that, loaded to the hilt with my favorite ring tones, too—but I’d left it in Keansburg, in the charger on my nightstand. It was just as well: it had pretty much stopped ringing.

Shopping with Ashley was fun, even though she kept trying to talk me out of buying the plain black, long-sleeved boat-necked shirt I wanted. I figured that, with jeans, would be fine. It was the first time I’d see any of my friends out of uniform—and the first time they’d see me. I had to admit, I was a little nervous. I figured I’d play it safe with my outfit.

“Come on, this would look so pretty with your eyes!” she pleaded, holding up a shirt with a bright green design on the front. “It brings out the hazel, really!” she trilled in her high little voice.

“No thanks, kid. I like black.”

We walked back to my aunt’s house slowly, strolling down Madison Avenue and looking in the windows at all the high-end boutiques. For some reason, I thought about Brendan, and wondered what he did on Friday nights. He probably had a girlfriend. Or girlfriends. Ashley had said he was a deejay on the side. I’d bet he spent his nights spinning in the VIP section of some club so exclusive, there wasn’t even a sign on the door, and model-like girls fell over each other to fawn all over him. I couldn’t blame them if they did.

I hated this. It wasn’t a crush so much; I didn’t daydream about him asking me out, or think about twisting my fingers into his messy hair—not that much. I was just so curious about him. I wanted to know him. What bands he liked. What movies he liked. If his mind ever wandered to me, as mine often did to him—like now, since I’d been thinking about Brendan and ignoring my cousin.

I tuned in to Ashley, who was squealing about something. “He winked at me. Winked!” she shrieked, going on about some upperclassman who shared a free period with her. “And on Facebook, he keeps sending me kisses and stuff. I mean, who does that? It’s so…cute.”

By the time we were getting into the elevator in Aunt Christine’s lobby, I had the full story. Her paramour was Blondo—and Ashley thought Anthony Caruso was the best thing since push-up bras.

“Ash, I don’t mean to make you feel bad, but only yesterday, he hit on—” I paused. No sense in making her feel like she’s in my shadow, right? “He hit on a girl in our class. I think he’s trouble. He got really nasty with her when she turned him down.”

“Oh, he’s just a harmless flirt,” she said dreamily, twirling as she stepped out of the elevator.

“I don’t think so,” I said, warily. “He’s pretty shady.”

Ashley turned and regarded me with serious, almost cold eyes. “I like him, okay? Just let me like him. Jeez, Emma, it’s not the end of the world.”

I knew that tone—that stubborn, “you can’t change my mind” attitude. I had inherited it from my mom, and she had inherited it from her dad—my mom’s brother, Dan. I sighed as I put the key in Aunt Christine’s front door, resigned to be on the lookout for trouble between Ashley and Blondo.

“Ash, I just think you should be care—” I never got to finish my sentence. Ashley squealed, spying something. She pushed past me and ran to the kitchen table.

“Finally!” she yelled, picking up a small object next to the Waterford salt and pepper shakers.

“A cell phone?” I squeaked, running over. I picked up the small yellow note that had been slid underneath the salt shaker.

I figured you should have one. The guy at the store set it up. Just please don’t call China on it. Have fun tonight. Love, Aunt Christine.

“Aw, she’s the best,” I murmured, stroking the shiny case of the phone.

“About time you had a phone!” Ashley exclaimed, grabbing the owner’s manual and flipping through it. “Quick, call me so I have your number. And then you can text me tonight and let me know if anything happens with Cisco!” I started to explain for the thousandth time that it wasn’t a date, but she pushed me toward my bedroom door. “Go, start getting ready!”

Two hours later, I had finished blowing my hair dry, flat-ironing it until it hung long and straight. My bangs, once merely in need of a trim, were now just long layers, hanging halfway down my face. At least it pulled my cowlick straight. I parted my hair on the left and tried to brush my bangs to the side. No wonder Ashley thought it was a date. I was acting like it was. I didn’t know why; I just felt like I had to look nice tonight. I was probably just nervous about being accepted by Cisco’s friends.

“You need less eyeliner,” Ashley critiqued, hovering over me as I sat cross-legged on the floor at the end of my bed, my makeup scattered around me as I peered into the floor-length mirror on the back of my door. “You should do something with bright color, like a bright green or bright pink, and play up your eyes. Really, they’re your best feature.”

“Hardly,” I griped, reaching for some more black eyeliner and applying it heavily before rubbing it in for a smoky look. “Everyone else in this family has blue eyes. Me, I get the brown eyes. The boring brown eyes.”

“No, they’re pretty,” she said, her own crystal clear blue eyes twinkling. She then flung herself on my bed, kicking her legs in the air. “They’re not brown. They’re lighter. They’re not hazel. I don’t know, I’ll come up with a name for it. Mink. Yeah. They’re mink!” She started giggling and I rolled my “mink” eyes.

“You’re a mink,” I shouted gleefully, and Ashley just threw a pillow at me.

“Whoa, better hurry up,” Ashley said abruptly, sitting up right and checking out the alarm clock on my nightstand. “It’s seven-twenty, and it’s going to take at least thirty-five minutes to walk up there.” I trusted Ashley’s New York sensibilities when it came to time. Since I knew I could walk everywhere, I estimated every destination to be about five minutes from Aunt Christine’s home. I was often wrong. And late. And ended up running everywhere. I finally get my driver’s license, and then move someplace where no one drives. Christine didn’t even have a license.

I reached into one of my cardboard boxes, still packed in the closet, and grabbed my black boots, pulling them on over my jeans.