“One thousand, two hundred and forty-one miles,” he finishes. “What a trip, even with shortcuts! Anyway, I’m starving. How about you?”
I indicate. “There’s a KFC.” It’s an easy right turn.
Hall sinks back against his seat, eyes narrowed. “I know too much about their eleven herbs and spices.” Then he pitches forward again, pointing at a bank. “Can we go in there?”
“What for?”
“I like lobbies. I see a chandelier. I like chandeliers.”
I deny Hall this request, because I think it would look suspicious to walk into a bank for the purposes of lurking. As I wend my way through town, focusing on the GPS (which I am almost positive speaks with the voice of Lacey Chabert), Hall asks to go inside every store that he recognizes from commercials. Big Lots. Chico’s. Kroger. Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. “The HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS!!!” He takes a hundred pictures, going out of his mind. “Bettie! You have to stop!”
We waste half an hour at the Holiday Inn, taking selfies in front of anything that says Holiday Inn. At first, someone on the staff looked like they wanted to get rid of us (“Are you booking a stay?” “No, we’re just looking, thanks.”) But one of their colleagues recognizes me, and they argue in whispers about whether or not I’m Bettie Hughes. It’s absurd to think that Bettie Hughes is at a Holiday Inn Express in Shelbyville, Indiana. One of them raises their phone to snap a discreet picture, which is my cue to leave.
I steal a small Holiday Inn notepad and pen from the desk on our way out, which Hall admonishes me for, but he can’t bring himself to give it back. He gingerly tears off the top sheet and sticks it inside his scrapbook.
“Take a right at the next exit,” Hall tells me. I slow, whisking under an overpass and, impossibly, right out of the Wendy’s drive-thru in Teller City.
I almost slam on the brake. “How did you do that!” I yell, stuttering along, checking my mirror. “Holy shit.”
“Over there.” He points the way to Gold Rush Bookshop.
“I know that! I can see where we are.” My nerves fray as I edgeinto an ice-slicked parking space on the street. “You’re insane. You need to give me warning before you change states in the blink of an eye.”
Hall’s barely listening. “Isn’t it lovely?”
Gold Rush’s display window is done up in festive lights. Next door, the Blue Moose Café is done up similarly, bulbs wrapped around the moose antlers on its hanging sign. They’re both hopelessly outshined by the town house, however, which Hall’s evidently been adding to. Along with enough blinking decorations to rival the Las Vegas strip, he’s put an inflatable Santa Claus on the roof, boots sticking out of the chimney, and Christmas trees all over the small front yard, which are bathed in an inordinate quantity of snow. “I remember when I asked for a beach mansion,” I sigh wistfully.
“Your mouth saidHawaiian villabut your heart saidgingerbread fairy tale,” he replies sagely, jumping out of the car before I can poke him.
“On second thought, if we’re taking shortcuts, I want you to raise theTitanicout of the ocean and put it in Grandma’s backyard. It’s going to be my white elephant. Imagine the look on everybody’s faces.”
“No can do, we’re not using magic to get whatever we want today.”
“And bywe, you mean me, because you’re certainly still using it for yourself,” I return grumpily.
He deliberately looks away. “It’s in my nature to use it constantly, so I can’t help it. But it isn’t inyours. Shame on you for trying to break the rules.”
I splutter, and he walks faster to avoid being called out.
I follow him inside the store, edgy by habit even though itdoesn’t matter if someone tells Grandma they spotted me here. And if I stay in town for good (which, until Hall gives in and makes my beach house a reality, looks likely), I’ll bepermanentlyhere. At some point, my family will notice. They’ll ask why I moved to this town, how long I’ve been here...
The bell dings as the door opens. Hall enjoys it so much that he backtracks and reenters simply to hear it ding again. A guy around my age is browsing, and he goes bug-eyed at the sight of me. My stomach pinches, knowing what’s going to happen next, already feeling like a piece of public property. He’ll ask me to autograph a receipt. He’ll want a selfie. If I say no, he’ll call me awful, unspeakable names—
“I love your sweater,” he remarks, then moves on. I watch to see if he’ll covertly slip out his phone, but he doesn’t. I’m in shock.
“Uh, thanks,” I reply, not loud enough to be heard.
“Mine’s nice, too.” Hall glances down at his ownlet’s get elfed upsweater, then covers himself in horror. “I didn’t put that there!” He quickly changes it to a rated-Goh, deer.
“What happened to a proper day of doing things properly?” I can’t help but tease.
He sidesteps behind a rack of keychains and lets out an annoyed exhale.
The store is tiny but whimsical, with trellises of ivy against one wall, the others brick and outfitted with modern industrial-style shelves. The Milky Way is painted on the ceiling. I fill my basket with multiple sets of finger paints, because it’s important to nurture the arts in my beloved nieces and nephews, whom I cherish, and not at all because their parents are going to hate dealing with finger paints. Hall asks a friendly woman who works here if they’ve got “anything to do with magic” and is soon laden withbooks.Iron and Magicby Ilona Andrews.Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop. Freddie Mercury: A Kind of Magic.
“This is going to help me get in touch with my inner magician,” he declares, holding up a copy ofAgain the Magicby Lisa Kleypas. I give him a thumbs-up. Hall is on his journey now.
As we leave, he compliments the workers’ festive holiday vests, leaving all of them in great moods. “Thank you and good night! Let your hearts be light!” They wave at him, and a smile tugs at my mouth that I can’t for the life of me put away.
