After a slow day exploring the city, the Montrose women brought beignets back to their hotel room, a bag from Café Du Monde, some from Cafe Beignet, a box from the corner stand near Madelyn’s old apartment. Willow and Madelyn wanted Nickie to rank them, but she was diplomatic in her assessment that they were equally too sweet and too fried. Madelyn suggested the next day they do crawfish étouffée, but Victoria shot down the idea. They had to get back; they were not on vacation. Semantics, in Nickie’s opinion—until she’d crossed the city limits into Long Beach, she was far away and in holiday mode. She had barely left Long Beach’s borders in her seventeen years of life, but she found freedom in having traveled this far, even if ultimately her theory about the missing pages hadn’t panned out. She was glad that she’d still been curious enough about the shop that she’d gone there, the only Montrose woman who’d never been. When she’d seen her family standing in front of it, she’d been relieved, despite wanting to get away from them only the day before. And thank goodness they’d showed up. Together, they’d managed to end the curse. She was still wrapping her head around it all, but the curse had been real indeed. And she’d helped to bring it to an end.
“We at least need to catch us a second line before we go. Nickie needs to learn about where she comes from,” Madelyn said.
“Yeah, well, she’ll have to do that another time. She’s already missed two days of school.”
Madelyn flipped a hand toward Victoria. “Big deal. You know how many days of school I missed? Dozens, and I still graduated. Besides, she’s our hero. Hero, hero.” It wasn’t the first chant since the bookshop, her family making her feel like she’d hit a clutch shot at a championship game just as the whistle blew, when all she’d done was recite Lanora’s song.
“Hey, Vic, don’t forget to call Felix and let him know we found Nickie,” Willow said.
Nickie turned around in her seat at the small table, her lips caked with powdered sugar, gasping as if someone had pulled her hair. “What?”
Madelyn did her best retelling of a group chat they’d had with Felix, Nickie growing more and more horrified as her grandmother spoke. To her surprise, her mother told her she could contact him the next day when they headed back.
“I don’t know his number by heart,” Nickie said, still stunned.
“Nick, your mom’s the one who called him. She has his number. I don’t know why she don’t just let you call him right now. We’re two hours ahead,” said Willow.
Nickie’s heart thudded. “That’s okay.” She wasn’t sure she was ready for that.
Madelyn waved her hands to get Nickie’s attention. “Just do it, Nick. We wouldn’t have found you if it weren’t for him.”
This made no sense to her. How would he have known? “What do you mean?”
“I was just about to get to that part of the story,” said Madelyn. It had taken her five minutes just setting the scene, describing each woman’s posture, her facial expression as they gathered to talk to Felix via speakerphone.
Nickie clenched her teeth, holding in a fierce cry, trying not to be embarrassed by the whole ordeal. “Well... I’m glad he was helpful,” she mustered with a smile. She wanted to change the subject. The events of the day had gotten her curious about something else. “Hey, Mom, can we use the laptop?” Nickie’s smile deepened, knowing that her mom could no longer give her a hard time about her online activities. While Nanagusta had been the one to share the details of her life in that letter, after reading it, it was her mother whom Nicki had come to know more. She understood what was at stake, could see the sacrifices mothers were willing to take for their children.
Victoria sighed, then got up to retrieve the computer from her suitcase. Nickie scooted her chair close to Augusta, elbowing the woman to wake her. Her great-grandmother blinked to life, then used her sleeve to mop up some saliva that had escaped during her short nap.
Nickie opened a browser and typed Benjamin Montrose.
“What you doing, Nickie? You looking up my daddy?” Madelyn leaned over to view the screen. Willow stood behind her.
“Doggone, two million results?” Madelyn said, reporting for the benefit of Nickie’s mother, who’d gotten under the covers, cold because she’d only packed her summer nightgown. “They got all kinds of Benjamin Montroses. A dentist, an architect. A director.”
Augusta balanced her weight onto Nickie as she reached for the computer, sliding it closer, just a few inches from her face.
“Nana, we can’t see.” Augusta shook her head that she didn’t care. Nickie craned her neck. Her great-grandmother had clicked on a Wikipedia page with a picture of a handsome man on the side. “Benjamin Montrose. Nana, is that him? Is that my great-grandfather?”
Her mother sprung up from the bed, stubbing her toe as she hurried. Nickie read the page and scrolled when necessary for everyone’s benefit. This guy, Benjamin, was from Chicago, born in 1938. Nothing about a life-changing visit to New Orleans in the 1950s, but it did say that he moved to Los Angeles and got small roles on the Kraft Theatre series. In the late 1960s, he wrote and produced his first movie, the story of a young man who falls in love with a Voodoo priestess in 1950s New Orleans.
This was their Benjamin Montrose, and he had not died. In fact, he was alive, owned a home in Calabasas. Had been married for forty-nine years with children and a granddaughter who acted and had just directed her first short.
“Oh damn—I’ve heard that name before. You mean I’ve got a rich grandpa and some famous cousin just thirty-some miles away from home?” Willow was on her toes, reading over Augusta’s head.
“Near Kim Kardashian,” Madelyn said, proud of herself.
Nickie wrinkled one side of her face, thinking. “So I guess you didn’t love him, Nana.”
“Or,” Victoria said, “maybe he got away just in time, before she had a chance to love him enough.”
“Whatever the case,” Madelyn said, “I’m glad Nana took his last name. Madelyn Laurent? That just don’t sound right to me.”
Augusta rubbed her face, perhaps an attempt to wipe the shock from it. She kept looking to Nickie, over to Madelyn, and at her granddaughters behind her, with an expression Nickie could only describe as joy.
Willow knocked on Nickie’s back with her knuckle. “You awake? You’re not snoring.” She spoke softly from her side of the bed they shared.
Nickie flipped herself onto the opposite hip. She didn’t respond, only stared at Willow, her brown eyes picking up colorful flashes from the television.
“Nickie, tell me the truth. Did you plan on leaving out the magnetic sand in that potion you were mixing up for Felix?” Her mother must have told Aunt Willow what she’d done, how she’d gotten caught at school with the sulfur.
Her feelings about Felix ran the gamut. Nickie couldn’t understand how she wanted him back after what he’d done to her, but she did, and that upset her, so much so that she had indeed planned to use the revenge oil, to omit the magnetic sand. She worried what her aunt would think of her if she told the truth. But her hesitation gave her away. She let her eyes drop, afraid to see her reaction.
Willow put her hand on Nickie’s face, then moved it to behind Nickie’s head. “Don’t ever tell anyone, you hear?” Her voice stayed a whisper but was insistent.
When Nickie found the guts to look at her aunt again, Willow was smiling, tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to keep secrets, Auntie. But... I’ll keep yours. I know you weren’t trying to harm my father the way you did... I was just...upset, betrayed. I wasn’t trying to harm Felix that way either.” She couldn’t say the word kill because that didn’t describe what Willow had done. In fact, Nickie had decided not to blame Willow at all for what happened to Jimmie. If Willow did kill her father, it was only because the curse caused her to do it, despite what her aunt believed.
Willow wiped Nickie’s tears, smiling in return. “Hey, why don’t you text Felix?”
“I don’t know. I can’t.”
“Of course you can. You can use my phone.” Willow grabbed her phone from the nightstand. “Look, I have his number too, your mom gave it to us. Here. Keep it all night, okay? It’s only ten out there. I’m sure he’s up.”
She didn’t want him to know yet that she’d reconnected with her family. With the spell, Nickie had wanted Felix to feel the crushing awfulness she’d experienced since he’d left her at the motel two weekends before, the exact opposite of how wonderful it had been to fall for him. If she could help it, she planned not to fall for him or anyone that intensely again.
Though, look at her—she’d literally come all this way, had spurred her great-grandmother to get on an airplane and helped her to face her foe. She could absolutely tell that to Felix, even if it was just a way for him to know that he hadn’t ruined her, and that he couldn’t.
Hi Felix. It’s Nickie. On my aunt Willow’s phone. Guess what? The shop in New Orleans now sells old books.
Seconds later, the phone vibrated and Nickie answered it quickly. “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s me. Felix.”
“Hi.” She quieted her voice, hearing someone stir across the room.
“You’re okay, sounds like.”
“Yes. And thanks for helping my family.”
“So you really went to New Orleans? I was right?”
She nodded, the pillowcase soft against her cheek. Willow stroked her back. She was listening, they probably all were. “Yes. You were.” She swirled her feet around under the covers.
“Look, I’m sorry I was such an asshole the other night. I don’t know. I guess I got scared about what you said. About that curse and all. I know it’s ridiculous, but I just started thinking, What if it’s true? I’m not ready to die. I just thought about it—me dying and my mom going through all my art projects. Who knows what she’d do with them? That just sort of freaked me out.”
So he’d been a believer as well. She wanted to tell him that it was all over, their destinies reset. But she would keep this from him. If his apology was genuine, he’d find a way to make it up to her first.
“By the way, the motel called. I have your necklace. You want me to bring it by when you get back?”
She wanted to say yes, to have him over again as company. But for now, she thought it best to keep her distance, at least until she figured out her feelings. She simply couldn’t erase how he’d treated her. “You can just give it to Mark at school. I’ll get it from him.” He said he would, and they ended the call.
Returning the phone to Willow, she finally felt ready to rest, sure that whatever might be next for her and Felix, for college or the prom, for her major and even this gift she had, she would get through it. She wished she hadn’t gotten to the point where she wanted to use the revenge oil on Felix, but she was glad to be settled here now, trusting in herself for whatever love the future had in store for her.