Once Upon Stilettos

Page 50

“She wasn’t a street performer, Mom,” I said.
“But Katie, she had on wings. What kind of person wears wings, when it’s not even Halloween? And I could swear she was flying.”
I scrambled for an explanation and came up with something she wouldn’t dare question. “Mom, there are all kinds of alternative lifestyles, and they’re pretty open about them in this city. I don’t think you really want to get more into it than that, okay?”
She looked stunned, then frowned like she was trying to put together a mental image. Finally, she shook her head as if to clear it. “Okay,” she said at last in a small voice I could barely hear over the traffic.
“Let’s catch up with Dad,” I said, relieved that I’d managed to get away with telling a version of the truth. All I had to do to get through the rest of the week was think of the places in the city where we were least likely to run into magic. Oh yeah, piece of cake.
Unfortunately, I’d already promised to show them Central Park. There was maximum weirdness potential there, as I’d discovered soon after joining MSI. Any enchanted frogs should have been hibernating for the winter by Thanksgiving, so that wouldn’t be an issue. I’d hope there wouldn’t be any pranks like the one played on Marcia’s boyfriend, Jeff, when his friends cast an illusion that made him and everyone else think he’d been turned into a frog, so that he did things like crouch naked beside a pond in the park. I could probably explain any naked men squatting by ponds as deranged drunks. I was more worried about the number of male fairies—they called themselves “sprites” because they thought it sounded less gay—and gnomes who worked in the park. Sprites could be more “alternative lifestyle” people my mom wouldn’t want to talk about, but how could I explain living garden gnomes?
As I expected, my folks were charmed by the Plaza Hotel and the lineup of carriages they’d seen so often in movies. I led them to the Mall so they could look down the lane of elm trees. It wasn’t as spectacular as it was during the summer when there was a canopy of leaves, but I thought it was still an impressive sight. Dad studied it for a while, then asked, “About how many acres do you think this place is?”
“I have no idea, but it is a huge park. If you get into the middle of it, you can almost forget you’re in the city.”
He nodded. “Hmm. That’s good. You need something green around to keep you feeling alive.”
“Hey, what’s that?” We both turned when we heard Mom’s voice.
“What’s what, Lois?” Dad asked.
“That!” She was pointing at the base of a nearby statue, where a garden gnome was at work with a tiny shovel in the flower bed beneath the statue. I did a double take, for I was pretty sure I recognized that gnome, which was odd. I didn’t know too many magical people who didn’t work at MSI, and I definitely wasn’t acquainted with the park’s magical groundskeeping staff. The gnome’s look of sheer panic when he looked up at me was proof that this was someone I knew. After a moment, I realized who he was: Hertwick, a member of MSI’s sales force. But what was he doing in the park during business hours? Then I remembered that the more important question was how I’d find an explanation that would satisfy my mother without making my dad, who probably didn’t see anything at all, suspicious.
“I don’t see anything,” I said. Hertwick looked indignant, but then I caught his eye, inclined my head slightly toward my mother and frowned. He got the message and jumped behind the statue while my mom was glaring at my dad.
“It’s right there!” Mom protested, turning to point to the place where Hertwick had been. Then she frowned and looked puzzled. “Or it was. I could have sworn I saw something. It looked like one of those little statues in Louise Ellerbe’s front lawn—which I always thought were as tacky as plastic pink flamingos—only it was moving. It was like it was digging in the flower bed.”
This time it was my dad who took her arm and moved her away. “Maybe we’d better head back to the hotel,” he said. “You’re probably tired.”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “I am not tired. And don’t tell me my hormones are out of whack, either. I know what I saw.” She marched right over to the statue, then walked around it. Hertwick ran around the statue base, keeping it between him and her. When she’d made a full revolution around the statue, she returned to Dad and me, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “Huh,” she said, then looked up at Dad and wagged a finger in his face. “And don’t you dare say a word, Frank Chandler.” She headed off down the path without a backward glance, with Dad and me hurrying to keep up.