‘I can, and have. You should see me over the holidays.’
Theo looked impressed. ‘I try not to arrive empty-handed, but it’s not like you can bring a bottle of wine to a bar. Well,you can, depending on the venue, and the wine. But I was worried that a place called The Silver Slipper might be more about chugging beer from shoes than cellaring fancy vintages.’
Effie chuckled in spite of herself. Was she actually enjoying conversing with this handsome stranger? Bonnie usually had the gift of the gab around men, while Effie hid away, caught up in her anxieties about how she was being perceived and whether she’d be found wanting. It was different at the library, though. That washerrealm, where her knowledge and her skills (and her secret, magical ability to get books from the top shelves) mattered.
‘You would be correct,’ she said. ‘The only type of vintage my sister has room for is 90s fashion from Etsy.’
‘Your sister?’ Theo looked confused, as though he were trying to connect Effie to any of the party animals he’d met tonight.
Effie sighed: thedoes-not-computemoment was imminent. Every time a newcomer learned that she and Bonnie were related, you could hear the mental record scratch as they tried to figure it out. Did they have different parents? Was one adopted? Had one been raised in a basement and the other at Disneyland?
‘Bonnie,’ she said, defeated. ‘The one in the sequinned dress with the entourage of harpies.’
Theo blinked. ‘But you’re nothing like—’
Ah, there it was. The admission that she was the lesser sister, the one that charisma had overlooked, the one whose headstone would eventually read ‘Survived by her seventeen cats’.
‘Yes. I know,’ she said irritably, grabbing her book bag, which was now damp at the bottom. Fabulous. She could only hope the lining had held up, and that spilled beer wasn’t seeping up through the stack of mystery novels she was carrying. Not to mention the googly-eyed frog cosy, courtesy of Tessa, that encased her favourite lunchbox.
A blast of music roared as the bar’s door swung open and Bonnie emerged, wearing nothing but a man’s jacket and a pair of high heels. The jacket was buttoned, at least, making the overall ensemble quite tame by Bonnie’s standards.
‘Theo, babe, are you hiding out here?’ called Bonnie. ‘It’s no fun without the guest of the hour.’
Theo flinched, but only slightly. Forcing a smile, he turned, waving with his glass. ‘Sure. I was just talking to...Hey, wait up!’
But Effie and her books were already on their way back home.
Chapter 4
DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT?
Bonnie
Ouch, her head. Bonnie’s skull was inhabited by a thousand galloping stallions, who with each pounding hoof sent a clap of thunder pounding right behind her eyes. Even her biggest, darkest sunglasses and her strongest painkillers were not cutting it.
‘Big night?’ asked Terrance, one of the cute baristas at The Winged Monkey, the town’s highly photogenic coffee shop. Wedged beneath a rabbit warren of offices and apartments, it was an airy space crammed with plants and pottery. Whoever had furnished it had been given a clear mission to select items that were either rickety or cosy (not both), and as a result, the seating options were plush, deep couches and hanging egg chairs surrounding cute little tables that habitually spilled cookies and coffee all over the floor.
‘The welcome party for the new banker from the city,’ said Bonnie. Every consonant sounded like a particularly zealous percussionist bashing a set of timpani between her ears. Bonnie wasn’t allowed to drink on the clock – an annoying law that admittedly did make sense – but she’d made up for lost time after they’d shut down the bar and continued the party on the back patio of the Dorothy House, an adorable cottage that Hannah was in the process of selling.
‘There could be a buyer among us, right?’ she’d asked the group, who’d responded with a drunken roll call of credit scores.
Apparently, just as you shouldn’t feed gremlins after midnight, you also shouldn’t do shots after 2 a.m.
‘Banker, huh. I’m studying business, you know,’ said Terrance hopefully as he whipped up Bonnie’s usual triple chai cinnamon latte. ‘I’m also working on cultivating a photographic memory. I can do half a deck of cards. The full deck is going to be my audition for College Kids Got Talent.’
‘Good for you, child.’ Unfortunately for Terrance, anyone with a mullet was officially too young for Bonnie, and card memorization was definitely not on her list of sexy hobbies. It was up there with Bobby’s D&D fascination, which she’d never understood. Although, the way Bobby’s eyes lit up when he was talking about gnomes or whateverwasa bit endearing.
Terrance pouted, but recovered quickly. He spun around the iPad. ‘And with your discount...’
Bonnie smiled as she added her tip. She had a discount at most places in town, which she thought only fair given the contribution she made to the local economy, and the generous pours she provided at The Silver Slipper, where you definitely got your money’s worth in every glass.
Bonnie staggered off to the twin pink velvet couches that she and her entourage claimed every Saturday morning. Regrets. So many regrets. Not least that for all of her flirting and sassing and all the preparatory Googling she’d done on foreign exchange and hedge funds, her guest of honour had been decidedly uninterested.
‘I don’t understand.’ Bonnie traced the heart that Terrance had drawn on her cup. ‘I literally took off my dressright in front of him, and he didn’t react.’
Her wrists glimmered lightly, and she placed her hands beneath the table.
‘Maybe he’s asexual,’ mused Hannah, polishing off a muffin so large that it must have been stolen from atop a beanstalk.
