Jenny knocked on Lessy and Bill’s front door. Over the last several months, she’d become quite fond of her new neighbor, Lessy. She was kind, foul-mouthed, and creative, and worked a lot of hours at their new store. However, she was quickly becoming Jenny’s closest friend, especially considering the question she was about to ask.
“Good evening. Are you busy?” Jenny asked.
“Oh no, come on in, sweetie. And why do you always feel the need to bring a basket of something sweet? It’s totally not necessary. Plus, if I didn’t have a magnificent metabolism, my ass would be the size of a large condo by now.” Lessy laughed as she led them both to the kitchen.
Jenny followed, knowing exactly where the couple’s plates were. She placed the basket on their kitchen table and headed toward the cabinet as Lessy went the opposite direction toward the refrigerator. They met back at the table prepared with plates, forks, glasses, and a bottle of wine.
“I have to talk to you. Are you sure you’re not busy?”
“Nope. Bill is on the phone with a friend of his from back in Vermont. It sounds like he’s coming to visit us,” Lessy said as she helped herself to three brownies, stacking them to make it like a cake.
“That’s genius. If I added frosting to that, it’d be a decadent cake-like dessert.” Jenny made a mental note of the new creation.
“Ha, I didn’t think of that. It was just the fastest way to consume a lot of chocolate without looking like a complete fucking pig, you know what I mean?”
Jenny failed to hold in a laugh as her friend took a drink of her wine. Lessy was in a class of her own and didn’t really care what people thought of her. With the exception of her shitty family and awful childhood, Lessy was the person Jenny wished she could be more like.
She’d uprooted her entire life, moved to Assjacket, opened a store that was extremely busy, and, Jenny assumed, very profitable. Lessy was loving and had an amazing husband—and she wasn’t afraid of anything.
“What’s up? You look very perplexed.”
At her friend’s prompting, Jenny turned and dug out the travel book from her purse. Closing her eyes tight, she silently counted to three before facing her friend again, and then laid the book on the table.
The indentation between Lessy’s brows deepened, yet she stayed quiet…waiting.
Jenny dropped her chin to her chest. “Hawaii,” she whispered. “Have you ever been?”
She peeked up in time to see Lessy grab the book and start flipping through the pages.
“This is gorgeous. No, I haven’t, but it’s on our bucket list. We just haven’t figured out the right time of year to close the store for a vacation. Wait… Are you going? You lucky girl!”
Jenny swallowed, her pulse speeding up, the familiar tingles starting to spread through her. She shook her head.
“I…I can’t.”
“Okay, honey. You’re gonna have to help a dense girl out. I don’t know what you’re asking me, sugar.” The pages quit making noise as Lessy stopped flipping them. “Jenny. Jenny, are you all right? You’re as white as an old lady’s doily. Do you need some water instead of wine?”
Jenny’s mouth was drier than the time Scotty James had dared her to eat a mouthful of sand at recess back in grade school at WW Academy for Young Witches and Warlocks.
“I’m… I’ve…” She propped her head in her palm, unable to face her friend and admit her biggest weakness.
“You…want…to go to Hawaii.”
Lessy had let the word “want” hang in the air. Jenny nodded and, after a few moments, dared to look her friend in the eye.
“What are you scared of?”
Shit buckets.
What was she supposed to say? Everything? Including her own shadow. She tried über-hard to be as normal as any other witch or shifter in Assjacket. In some areas, though, she felt like a complete disappointment.
“You’ve never left town even once, have you, Jenny?”
“Fuck a duck. You just keep nailing your own questions with perfectly correct answers. Are you sure you don’t do some mind-walking on the side, you know, just for fun?” Jenny failed miserably at a forced laugh.
“Jen, did something happen when you were little? I’ve never wanted to be nosy and ask, but where is your mom?”
“She got stuck in a wrinkle when she went to visit my grandma. I don’t know where. I was a baby. I just know that’s what my dad said. And no, we never ever left town to go anywhere. I’ve seen all these gorgeous places in books that Dad has, but the thought of actually leaving scares the holy bejezus-ma-neezus out of me. And there is absolutely no way to pretend to be normal and fly on a plane with mortals. I know there’s no way I could possibly remember not to use magic for even simple—or especially simple—things. Big things, maybe, but I’d be that witch who just suddenly had a Sprite appear on my tray next to some kid who went wide-eyed and would rat me out to everyone in the damn vicinity. You know what I mean? How do you not end up in a padded room, a jail cell, or worse—the magic pokey?”
“Wow. All right. So we go back to the beginning. Um, your mom. Have you talked to your dad about that, asked him more in-depth, now that you’re not a kid anymore?”
Jenny shook her head. “He never speaks about her. There’re no pictures anywhere of her. I asked when I had a homework thing a long time ago about a family tree. He mentioned the wrinkle, and that’s all he said before he practically flew out of the room. He was so…kinda…mad and sad at the same time. Not at me, I definitely could tell that, but… I don’t know, maybe at her? It was strange, and super obvious he didn’t want to talk about her.” She shrugged. “I never asked him anything again.”
“I can tell you from my experience, wrinkles don’t exactly work like that. And transporting is super easy as long as you’re at full capacity on your magic. I know you remember that I had to drive here from Vermont, but that was a very different situation, don’t forget that very important fact. We’ll go talk to Zelda and Mac and see if we can find out more about what could have gone wrong. You good with that?”
“This is as utterly embarrassing as all hairy swinging donkey nuts, Lessy. Do we have to? I mean, I’ve known Mac my whole life. The thought of going to him and Zelda with something so stupid and having them think I’m dumb—it makes me want to be sick. Really, they don’t have time for my trivial crap.” Jenny sighed and swiped the hair at her neck into a long ponytail, then let it fall again.
“You’re kidding me. I had so little magic by the time I made it here, I couldn’t even make doors open. Now that is what we classify as fucktascularly to the gazillionth degree embarrassing. So you really want to start comparing, sister? I’ve got ya beat, hands down.” Lessy grinned.
Jenny smiled at her friend as Lessy reached out and patted her hand. If one good thing came out of the whole situation, it was that she had Lessy as a true friend. To have put her worst fear out there in the universe, aloud, without Lessy laughing was a close second. To have her want to help, that was simply the cherry on top of a friendship sundae.