Once Upon Stilettos

Page 76

Then I lost it utterly. The tears came once more, and I couldn’t shut them off. “He broke up with me,” I sobbed.
She immediately jumped up, flew over the top of her desk, and grabbed me by the shoulders. “You poor thing,” she said as she hustled me into my office, where she shut the door behind us and pushed me into my desk chair. Then she conjured up a cup of tea, a box of tissues, and a tray of chocolates. “Now, tell me all about it,” she said, sitting in the chair next to my desk. “Why did he break up with you? Things seemed to be going so well, even when he picked you up today.”
I tried to shrug, but it was difficult because my shoulders were shaking so badly. “Because I’m boring.” I grabbed a tissue out of the box and blew my nose loudly.
“Did he actually say that?”
“Well, he did say I was too ‘normal,’ but he meant boring.” I adopted a mocking tone. “Apparently, he wants to explore and experience this new world he’s discovered, and he thinks I want things to be too normal, so we have totally opposite ideas of a good time.” I bit a chocolate in two, then licked the caramel filling off my lips.
The light on my phone indicating a call coming in to Trix’s line flashed. “Hold that thought,” Trix said, leaning over my desk to grab the phone. “Mr. Mervyn’s office,” she said briskly, then after a pause said, “One moment, please. Let me connect you.” She pushed a few buttons, hung up the phone, then picked it up again and pushed more buttons. “Ari, emergency summit meeting, Katie’s office, now. Get Isabel.”
When she hung up and returned to her chair, I asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She waved a hand, dismissing my concern. “I wouldn’t take her romantic advice, but there’s no one better for venting when you’re mad at a guy. Once we get past that, then we can strategize about what to do next. It should be easy enough to convince him that you’re not too normal for him.”
“But he’s right. I do like things normal. Don’t get me wrong, I like magical people, but for fun I like to do normal stuff. When magic intrudes on my personal life, everything always goes horribly wrong.”
“If he’s looking for magical excitement, he’s going to be unpleasantly surprised. Most of us aren’t usually off doing wild and crazy magical things. Magic is a convenience, not a lifestyle, except among certain fringe groups.” She giggled, a sound like tinkling bells. “And I can’t picture him in any of those groups. They’d kick him out for being too normal.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Talk about irony!”
There was a knock at my door and Trix called out, “Come in.” The door opened and Isabel and Ari spilled into my office.
“What’s up?” Ari asked, then she got a good look at me. “Don’t tell me, he ditched you already?”
I nodded sadly while Trix got them up to speed. “If you can believe it, he made a lunch date with her, took her out, then dumped her at the restaurant. He said she wanted things too normal while he wanted to really get into the whole magical world.”
Ari licked her lips slyly. “So, what exactly did he want that you thought was too out there?”
Isabel smacked her lightly on the shoulder, which sent her reeling. “Really, Ari. Please!”
“It wasn’t like that,” I explained wearily. “I don’t like it when weird, magical stuff gets in the way of my personal life, and he finds that exciting.”
“Too bad you didn’t find that out earlier,” Ari said. “You could have used that as a great seduction technique.”
“That was kind of the plan for this weekend,” I admitted. “But not the using-magic-to-get-him-excited part. I had this really hot pair of red shoes.”
Trix clapped her hands delightedly. “You bought them!”
Isabel put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze, nearly suffocating me in the process. “Oh, honey, no wonder you were so disappointed. I hate it when guys do that. Why is it that just when you’re ready to take things to the next level, they decide they want out?”
“Though normally they back out right after that particular next level, rather than before it,” Ari put in. “So, what do we have planned for revenge?”
I shook my head. “I don’t need revenge. This is a situation where we can let the universe handle it.”
“Yeah, he’ll get himself ditched by some magical girl for being too normal,” Trix said. “And in the meantime, Katie will find herself someone fabulous.”