That Magic Mischief by Susan Conley Page A

monster plant. “Hmph,” she huffed, and glared at it, and then, by extension, Jamie. This seemed to strike him as funny, and he snickered again, a mischievous little giggle that sounded as if it had its roots in his childhood.
    “Surely I’m not to blame for that as well — ”
    “Everyone! Let’s all move ourselves around now, we must all meet one another if we’re going to be a team!”
    ‘Everyone’ rose, and began to mill about, changing places. A scenic designer started brandishing an old-fashioned Polaroid camera, one that actually spit out pictures, right there, in the moment, and Kelli nearly swooned. Jamie swept his gear off the table into the paper bag, and was treated to another shocked glare from Annabelle. He did take care, however, with the pencil sketch he’d done of her, of her smiling face …
    The meal dragged on. Trapped between two mimes, Annabelle ate as quickly as was humanly possible, refused a coffee, and said her goodbyes to Kelli. Maria Grazia tapped her throat —
Call me!
— and Annabelle tried to ignore the staring Irishman, until, annoyed at his gawking, she stuck her tongue out at him and left.
    “She’s a funny way of flirting with a fella,” he murmured, but not indistinctly enough for Kelli’s finely tuned ear.
    “Why, Jamie, was our Annabelle flirtin’ with you?” Her drawl increased exponentially with the prospect of romantic intrigue.
    “I reckon it was flirting. I — she — we’d been having a chat, like, and well, it was, you know. Feck’s sake, like.” Jamie briskly dug into his crème caramel.
    “That’s real interestin’,” Kelli drawled. “You interested?”
    “In her?”
    “No, in investing in the stock market.”
    “Both, actually,” Jamie grinned.
    Kelli patted him on his forearm (so
muscular
) and couldn’t help letting her hand linger to give it a little squeeze. “I’ll have my broker call your broker, but as far as the other is concerned … well. Annabelle’s somewhat emotionally distressed, due to an unexpected and inelegant termination to a long term relationship.”
    “So she’s single?” Jamie’s eyes lit up speculatively.
    “Umm hmm.” Kelli’s own eyes took on the dreamily fervent gleam of the unrepentant matchmaker, and her mind shot from zero to sixty — from the elegant dining room where they now were, to a simply gorgeous wedding reception at the Central Park Boat House — in under five seconds. She leaned conspiratorially against him.
    “This might take some … finessin’. You just leave it all to me, ya hear?”

Chapter Ten
    Plodding through the proofs of a banking annual report so dry, she felt as if she was physically dehydrated, Annabelle forced herself to focus. This was lucrative, if dull, work. And the deadline was insane; if she made it she’d be amazed, but she had incentive, and not all of it monetary.
    Basically, she was terrified to go back to her apartment. What better way to avoid the mystery monster plant than to work, work, work? After all, it was her tried-and-true method of avoidance: in the past, it had been particularly effective on those Friday nights when she didn’t have a date, which, pre-Wilson, had been almost every Friday night …
    She forced her attention back to the page she was currently proofing, and given that her mind was wandering, wasn’t really prepared for the next thought that came sneaking in: maybe if she’d kept at her own work, the dumping wouldn’t have been so painful? Or so unexpected?
    “What the
hell
!” Annabelle snapped to herself. Why did that keep coming up? Everything had been
fine
, so what if he’d seemed ridiculously busy toward the end, and so what if she had had a few Friday nights on her own, she
liked
her own company, she
needed
a bit of solitude —
why
was she talking to herself in
italics
? She crossed out a particularly egregious misuse of ‘it’s’, and happily placed the printout on the done pile.
    The enormous clock that hung over the