I saw her as soon as I stepped into the café, her wild froth of hair bent over what was undoubtedly a decaf soy mocha something-or-other.
Beck was the intern assigned to me at work, and also, by way of some sweet-talking, my mentee through the University of Texas Women in Engineering Program. I’d signed up for the program last spring, viewing it as one of those great give-back opportunities that fit in nicely with a well-rounded life plan. Honestly, I’d envisioned myself as sort of a big sister, dispensing life advice along with gourmet cupcakes. Beck was content with just the cupcakes—cupcakes were the one thing we had in common, other than our chosen career path.
She had magenta highlights and a sparkly pink nose stud and a Weird shirt. Not to mention a healthy interest in all sorts of new-age stuff, a willingness to try anything once, and a never-say-die attitude. She was single-handedly turning the engineering stereotype on its head.
Weaving through the maze of tables, I came up behind her. “I’m gonna go order,” I said, thumbing in the direction of the counter. “Back in a sec.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said jauntily, glancing up through her lashes at me, her eyes twinkling in amusement.
“Don’t make me punish you,” I warned, heading for the counter. She knew I hated to be ma’am’d. I ordered a nonfat chai latte and had the barista add a pair of coconut macaroons dipped in dark chocolate to my order before turning back to the table.
Settling myself across from her, I guarded the cookies close and quizzed her. “What’s the first rule of being a mentee?”
“Never call your mentor ma’am,” she recited in a pseudo-sullen mutter.
“Good girl,” I said, handing over the lumpy wax paper sleeve filled with macaroon.
“You’re the best! Next time’s on me.”
Scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and coconut swirled around us in a yummy confluence while the café hummed with nightlife. I quietly sipped my drink and watched Beck forge a plan of attack against her mound of macaroon. I hadn’t yet mustered the courage to ask the tough questions: Do you have to stick your finger up your nose to change the stud? If you take it out while you have a cold, does goo ooze out the hole? What about the hair—why pink?
Probably best if I didn’t. My street cred, what there was of it, would take a definite hit.
Given my train of thought, I had only myself to blame for the trend the conversation eventually took.
Looking me straight, and curiously, in the eye, Beck launched with, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Anything?”
Her intensity made me pause, but not for long. I didn’t have any skeletons in my closet. My bookshelf maybe ...
Placing her forearms on the table, she leaned in and quietly asked, “What’s going on with your chi?”
“My chi? ” That was unexpected. “Chi as in tai-chi?” Immediately I pictured myself on a hilltop, stretching and reaching, for what I had no idea.
“Minus the tai. Your chi is Chinese-speak for the life force flowing through you. The positive and negative elements should always be in balance. Yours are out of whack.”
Direct hit! I could almost hear the air-raid siren. I set my cup down, troubled on two separate levels. Not only was my chi “out of whack,” but it was enough out of whack for Beck to notice and address it! This wasn’t good.
Feeling like an idiot, I asked, “How can you tell? Do I even want to know?”
“My roommate is into all sorts of stuff: crystals, chakra, tarot. Talitha taught me how to tune in to my own life forces and understand their effect on my world. Occasionally I practice reading other people.”
“Awesome.” When I realized my mouth was still hanging open, I immediately popped it shut. “So what exactly is my chi telling you?”
“Just that you’re out of balance. Something’s on your mind—something big—and it’s affecting your aura.”
“My aura?”
“Very Harry Potter, isn’t it?”
“A little, yeah.” I sat back, a little weirded out, and picked up my tea, hiding, scanning the café, looking anywhere but at Beck.
“You okay?”
My gaze slid back to her, and I couldn’t help but think, After the evening I’ve had, “okay” is just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy for me. I’m pretty sure it’ll be a while before I’m okay again.
“I’m just ... surprised at how dead-on your reading is,” I finally answered. Breaking off a bite of cookie, I popped it into my mouth, buying myself some time with a good-manners defense.
“Really?” She seemed very proud of herself. “Awesome. I don’t suppose you want to”—she paused to shrug casually—“talk about it?”
My initial reaction was a polite but emphatic “no thanks.” I’d known Beck for several months now, and we’d gotten to be friends beyond work and school, but I was supposed to be the mentor here, not the lunatic with the issues.
But maybe Beck had a karmic or astrological explanation for my situation. Maybe I was standing under the wrong planet rising. At that point, I was willing to listen to anything. And seriously, how judgmental could she afford to be?
I glanced at Beck, who was still peering at me encouragingly, waiting for my decision. Honestly, I was nearly twitching with the urge to let all the pent-up craziness spill out of me.
“I think that maybe I would like to talk about it,” I finally admitted, oozing calm. “But it’s a little bizarre, so I want to offer you an out—”
“I’m good, so whenever you’re ready.”
Lowering my cup, I did a quick assessment. She looked good—solid—like maybe she could handle my little nugget of news with no problem. Maybe even solve it for me. So I decided to give it a shot.
She dropped her chin into her raised palms and settled in for a good story.
“I’m just gonna blurt it out,” I glanced around, suddenly self-conscious, and lowered my voice, “quietly, and we’ll go from there. Sound good?”
“Great.” She wasn’t fazed at all. Evidently I just needed to get on with it.
Eyes closed, fists clenched, deep breath, and go ...
“I bought a journal at an antiques store down on SoCo and wrote in it last week. I opened it today, and words were missing.” I glanced up in the middle of my confession and paused for just the barest second, waiting to see if she was going to stop me or worse, scoff in patent disbelief. But her clear brown eyes were riveted and wide with attention, and her only change of expression was the slight lift of a single eyebrow as she waited for me to continue. I was impressed.
I took another breath and forced myself to speak slowly. “Not all of them are missing. A few are left, scattered around, and they read kind of like a ... message.”
Beck dropped her hands, straightened to perfect posture, and hitched up the corner of her mouth. “Do I get to hear what it is?”
“Um, I suppose so.” I took a breath and chickened out. On the second try, I managed to get it out. “ ‘Miss Nicola James will be sensible and indulge in a little romance.’ ” I really hoped I hadn’t made the wrong call here.
“Whoa! Like a personalized fortune cookie.” Her eyes got huge. “The entry you wrote was condensed into that?”
“Right.” I nodded and felt like a bobblehead.
She sat back in her chair and bit her lip, her eyes bright with possibilities I probably didn’t even want to consider. I wondered if I should push my luck and mention entry number two and its hints about cleavage. None of this was mentor material.
Beck leaned casually forward and asked, “Is there more?”
“Um, yeah.” That’s all it took to get her hunkered down for the rest.
Her reaction was unfathomable.
“Aren’t you the slightest bit fazed by all this?”
She shrugged. “There’s obviously an explanation.”
“Really?” I was suddenly on the edge of my chair, quivering with anticipation.
“It’s magic.”
My whole body slumped. I did not need to hear that. “Thanks, Luna Lovegood—that clears things right up.” It came out a bit sharper than I’d intended. “Sorry. I guess you could say I’m not quite so open-minded.”
“Well, what’s your take on things?”
“My take is that magic is for prime-time specials and Las Vegas shows—none of it is actually real. There’s always an explanation, a trick, a sleight of hand. I’m missing something—I must be—and tomorrow I’m going back to that antiques store to grill the shop owner for any useful information.” I wasn’t about to tell her that my confidence in this plan of action was waning with each missing word.
Beck slapped her hands palms down on the table, making little flakes of coconut jump and our drinks slosh in their cups. Her eyes flared with excitement. “When? When are you going to do that?”
“Around lunchtime.”
“Can I come? Do you mind?”
Slightly baffled by her exuberance, but not opposed to having her tag along, I shook my head and offered, “Sure. You’ll have to meet me, though—I’ll be coming from work.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Hell, yeah it does.” I was beyond tired of going above and beyond.
“Okay,” she enthused, “how about I meet you around one? We can get lunch, come up with a strategy before we go in.”
“We need a strategy?” I was well on my way to being thoroughly gobsmacked.
“Well, this isn’t exactly Lord of the Rings, but I think a little pre-planning would be good. Has the student suddenly become the master?” she teased.
“Okay, just so you know, strategizing is tough when you’re in denial. In case you hadn’t noticed, ‘My Precious’ is sort of throwing me off my game.”
I couldn’t decide who was crazier—Beck for coming up with the analogy or me for running with it.
“So, we need a strategy,” she concluded. “Let me hear the rest of the story.”
“I’ll give you the condensed version.” I paused before revealing, “I wrote back.” Beck’s eyes widened considerably at this little tidbit. “Earlier tonight. Then I was gone for three hours, and I got another fortune.” I paused out of sheer embarrassment and then laid it on her. “ ‘Cleavage is as cleavage does.’ ”
Beck clapped a hand over her mouth, and with her eyes twinkling, it abruptly occurred to me that the little traitor was laughing! This was sooo not laughable. I propped my elbow on the table and covered my eyes with my hand. Oh, but it was. If this was happening to anyone else, it would be incontrovertibly hilarious. I made myself promise not to hold a grudge. But I did spear her with a glare.
“That is just so unbelievably cool. Not to mention ironic.”
Curious, I lifted an eyebrow.
“That out of all the weird souls in Austin, you’d be the one to end up with a fairy godmother.” She chuckled to herself.
That got my attention. “A fairy godmother? Get serious.” I made a point of rolling my eyes for Beck’s benefit.
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Uh-huh. And what’s your serious explanation for all this?”
She had me there. I straightened my spine and scraped away imaginary crumbs, refusing to meet her eyes. “I haven’t hit on a legitimate explanation yet. Right now, I’m still gathering data.”
“You mean writing in your magical journal and waiting for your fairy godmother to answer?”
“I wouldn’t describe my procedure in precisely that way, but ...”
Now it was Beck’s turn at the eye-rolling. But before I could counter, she had leaned forward, widened her eyes, and begun speaking in an urgent undertone. “Don’t you get it? It makes perfect sense. Your journal is obviously magical—what other explanation is there—seriously? And who else but a fairy godmother would be giving you romantic advice? Think of her as a modern-day, matchmaking Jane Austen—Jane Austen in Austin—Fairy Jane? Given your obsession with her, this is like the mother ship calling you home.”
I was momentarily struck dumb, but I rallied. “That makes perfect sense? Really? No offense, but speaking as your mentor, not to mention your boss, I’m not exactly getting a warm fuzzy here.”
She inched back off the table and held her hands up, palms out. “Okay, fine. Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything. Let’s pretend that you don’t have a magical journal with a fairy godmother, and she’s certainly not Fairy Jane.” She tipped her eyes down casually and nonchalantly inquired, “Have you had a chance to try it out yet, see if it works?”
I stared at her with squinty eyes, giving no thought to the wrinkles surely sprouting on my forehead. “Try what out?”
“The advice!”
“Are you kidding me?” I lowered my voice, sparing a glance for the café’s other patrons, wondering if they’d already gotten an earful, feeling just crazy enough to take them all into my confidence and hammer out a strategy right here, right now.
“What?” she shot back.
“Taking the advice definitely isn’t part of my strategy.”
“Aha! So you have thought strategy!” Before I could respond to this, she was off again.
“Seriously, Nic, what’s to lose?”
“My identity as a sensible, rational human being?”
“It won’t be lost. Just sprinkled with a little fairy dust.”
God, I hoped she was teasing. But I felt the need to clarify. “Except that I don’t believe in fairy dust. Or fairy-tale endings. Or magic in general. This journal is throwing a major kink in the works.”
“Maybe it’s supposed to—maybe that’s exactly what you need, a little kink.” She winked and then looked around behind her toward a table shared by three grungy college guys cramming for something. She then peeked over her other shoulder at a man alone in a suit, poring over his PDA and sipping an espresso. When she turned back, she whispered, “Pull your sweater open a little at the neck.”
Certain I’d misunderstood, I leaned forward against the table, eyebrows raised, and murmured, “What?”
“Try to show a little more skin.” She dusted some bits of coconut off her fingertips and then proceeded to reach across the table to deal with my sweater herself.
I slapped her hand away, wondering how the conversation had spiraled so completely out of control.
I leaned in farther and whispered harshly, “I am not taking cleavage advice from a journal, a nonexistent fairy godmother, or you. Speaking of which—”
I glanced up to see the PDA guy moving past our table. He was looking down at me, and I met his friendly grin with a distracted one of my own before turning my attention back to Beck.
Her eyebrow was winged up, and her smile was definitely smug. She shifted her gaze from my face to my chest, and I let mine follow. Sitting there, boosted up and pushed together by my hunch over the table and partially exposed by my recently adjusted sweater, my bogus cleavage was on display. Perfect.
Tipping my no doubt ruby red face back up to glare at a grinning Beck, I felt an urgent need to get back on familiar ground. Yanking my sweater closed, I decided to play the mentor card.
I sat back and shifted my shoulders primly. “Have you decided what you want to do over the summer—work, school ... both?”
Beck’s eyes went from fantasy to reality in a single blink.
“I was thinking I’d stay at Micro.” Her voice sounded vaguely flat, but I hardly noticed. Not only was I excited that she wanted to stay on over the summer, but I was thoroughly relieved we were no longer talking about road-testing the journal’s advice or fairy godmothers. Definitely a plus.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” I grinned at her. “I’ll need to get final approval from David, but I can’t imagine them letting you go. Do you think you might want to transition to another project—try something new?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Her voice had flattened further—like roadkill—and she was glaring at me, breaking Rule #1 on purpose.
I glared right back. And then, ever so slowly, her eyebrow creeped up, as if to say, what’s it gonna be?
Hell.
I slumped down against the table, saw one of the frat boys turn in our direction, and jerked myself erect, now totally self-conscious, thanks to my pimp of a mentee.
“Can’t we discuss any mentee-related topics?”
“Like minty-fresh breath? An absolute must for those romantic indulgences!”
“You’re teasing me? I just told you the biggest, weirdest secret I’ve ever told anyone, and now you’re teasing me?”
“Maybe a little. Does that bother you? Because I can not do that.” Her mouth quirked up at the side and her eyes twinkled.
“Can you? I wonder.” I dredged up a smile and took a deep steadying breath. “Okay, well, I’m done chatting about Jane Austen and J.R.R. Tolkien, so unless you have another topic in mind ...”
She shook her head in the negative. “Nothing that could come close to this.”
I checked my watch—just past eleven. “There’s a sandwich shop down on SoCo—”
“Jo’s? Definitely, let’s meet there—perfect vibe.”
“O-kay.” I couldn’t help but wonder what constituted a perfect vibe for Lord of the Rings–style strategizing over a magical journal. I guess I’d find out. “Jo’s it is. I’ll bring the journal.” I crumpled up my wax paper sleeve, ready to pack it in.
She nodded, clearly delighted with the arrangement, and we walked toward the exit, tossing our trash in the bin by the door.
The trees in the parking lot were underlit by spotlights and seemed vaguely otherworldly. With a shiver, I turned back to Beck.
“Thanks for calling. It feels weird to have said any of that out loud, but I’m glad I talked to you, even if your idea of ‘perfect sense’ is a bit loco. At least you didn’t freak.”
She laughed. “That makes one of us. Just consider the possibility. . . And by all means carry on with the data collection. I’ll expect full deets tomorrow: What you said, what she said...” Her head was tipping back and forth, and the sparkly pink star in her nose was winking at me. She shooed me away. “Go home! And write juicy,” she called back over her shoulder.
I rolled my eyes in the dark, deciding I wasn’t a big fan of surreal. I’d had a mind-numbingly normal day until words had disappeared from my journal and my intern / mentee had announced that they’d been stolen away by a fairy godmother channeling the spirit of Jane Austen. And there was no end in sight, because as self-appointed sidekick, the mind-blowing Mulder to my strait-laced Scully, Beck was very likely going to crazy up my day tomorrow too. At this point, it was unclear—at least to me—which of us was the protégé in this fledgling relationship. I worried what that meant for the future.