‘I always work Thursdays.’ Effie knew that her tone sounded cold, but rightly so! Shewascold. Literally cold, all thanks to her sister’s lack of consideration, which was an ongoing theme in the book of their lives.
‘Oh, right.’ This appeared to be breaking news to Bonnie.
‘I’m not a hermit. I have a job. And friends.’ All right, just the one friend, Tessa, but an excellent friend.
‘I know, I know.’ Bonnie ran her fingers through the perfect golden waves of her hair. ‘This whole bar thing – it’s taken up so much more of my energy than I thought. And my money.’
Absolutely not. They were not having this conversation. It was not Effie’s fault that Bonnie had spent her entire inheritance on abarinstead of investing it carefully in a three-fund account that would return seven per cent in compounding returns over a lifetime. Or that she’d had four years of back taxes to reckon with. Or that she’d financed a vintage Cadillac at an interest rate straight out ofThe Sopranos.
And still, Effie was expected to put down her book and offer guidance and commiseration every single day.
But not this day. Not this freezing-shower, late-to-work, mildly-jealous-that-Bonnie-might-meet-the-hot-neighbour-first day. Especially without apleaseor athank youin the mix.
Muttering a quick excuse about a library emergency, Effie snapped her fingers, lightly increasing the humidity in the room just enough to make her sister’s hair frizz.
‘Wait, what? No!’ moaned Bonnie, reaching for a bottle of hair serum.
Biting back a smile, Effie grabbed her bag and ran downstairs to her second-favourite place after her beloved reading chair: the Yellowbrick Grove Public Library.
Chapter 2
UNDER A STRANGER’S SPELL
Bonnie
The bar was Bonnie’s happy place. Although to be fair, for most of her life, Bonnie’s happy place had been all of Yellowbrick Grove. She’d lived a charmed existence, and she was well aware of it. Mostly because Effie had made a point of making her aware. But it wasn’tBonnie’sfault that she had a natural charisma, or that Effie made a concerted effort to exist on the periphery of her own life. Their town might be small, but it was home, and it came with all the wonderful things that home delivered when you made the tiniest bit of an effort. Yes, Bonnie was popular, but that was because she actively worked to be part of the community. She’d played (and coached) basketball for years. She’d been on the dance team, the improv team and the entrepreneurship team. She’d hosted bake sales, car washes, pep rallies, everything. It wasn’t as though she’d just been sitting around watching soap operas and eating Girl Scout cookies (she’d also topped the Girl Scout cookie-seller leader board) while Effie had shouldered the weight of the family.
Besides, Effie haddecidedto take on that role. And frankly, Bonnie resented her for it. It suggested that Mom hadn’t done enough to support and look after them, when she’d worked herself to the bone to give them a wonderful childhood. Leaf-kicking trips through the autumnal parks, stomach-wrenching turns around the fairground rides, familymovie nights in front of the ancient TV, all of it. Effie had become even more insufferable in the wake of their mom’s death. Instead of letting Bonnie grieve, instead of respecting the special space that Mom had held in their lives, she’d tried to fill it with all of her fussing and fastidiousness andadmin. Bonnie, frankly, couldn’t give a shit about admin. Especially after this past year, which had demanded she reprioritize her entire life.
Bonnie squared her shoulders and swanned into The Silver Slipper, which she’d bought using her inheritance. It still remained her greatest accomplishment. Unlike Effie, who’d thrown her half of the life insurance pay-out into something called an index, Bonnie wanted to create something that would help remember their mother.
The bar was exactly the sort of place that Lyra would have enjoyed visiting on her days off from the hotel or on the nights when her shifts let out early enough: a former corner-block diner with green-tinged windows and globe-shaped pendant lights that somehow captured everyone’s best possible angle. The main action took place on the ground floor, but there was a private area upstairs for parties or special occasions (on Sunday nights the local tango dancers gathered for a milonga, and they’d burn through the bar’s entire allotment of Quilmes beer and Torrontés wine). Not to mention the upstairs attic that Bonnie eventually planned to turn into an apartment. Out front, set against a backdrop of ivy and well-fed flower baskets, were half a dozen cosy benches overhung by Moroccan-style lanterns that cast starry light over the streets as they twisted in the breeze.
Unsurprisingly, the townsfolk had flocked to the bar since its grand opening four months earlier, and Bonnie couldn’t be prouder. She could tell from her sister’s huffy looks that Effie thought it was all luck, or perhaps the Bonnie glamour she was so jealous of, but the bar’s success had been the result of sheer blood, sweat and tears. (All right, only a bit ofblood – that time she’d gashed her toe while helping with the tiling – and notsomany tears. Most of those had been for Mom, really. But the sweat was real. Hence all the showers Effie was so opposed to.)
‘Bonnie, babe!’ chorused Hannah, Kirsty and Alana, Bonnie’s own personal Greek chorus. According to Effie, anyway. Bonnie hadn’t paidthatmuch attention in literature class at school. She’d been focused on more pragmatic things, like building her social networks and jostling for personal references. Besides, what was a deep understanding ofMedeagoing to get you other than some trauma and maybe a gig at a museum?
‘Babes!’ Bonnie swept in for a cheek-kissing extravaganza. ‘How’s the party shaping up? Sorry I’m late. Effie issues.’
‘The worst,’ groaned Kirsty, a svelte brunette who had an impressively negative opinion of just about everyone. Which worked for Bonnie as it gave her a chance to freely unload whenever her sister did something to irritate her, which was most days.
‘Tell me our guest of honour isn’t here yet?’ asked Bonnie, glancing around.
She wasn’t quite sure how she wanted them to answer. Obviously, as the bar owner, it was good form for her to be ready and waiting for when recent arrival-from-the-city Theo Carmel, the subject ofmuchgossip among the townsfolk, darkened the bar’s already dimly lit doors. But the other part of Bonnie desperately wanted to be fashionably late. To be the one that everyone saw making an entrance. To be beheld rather than the one doing the beholding.
‘No sightings yet, babe. Although we’re prepared.’ Prim Hannah, who was indeed always prepared, ran her fingers through her perfectly straight hair as her enormous eyes scanned the bar for fresh blood. This was, of course, one of the downsides of living in a small town: you knew everyone, and the pool of eligible partners was vanishingly small.Especially when you had to excise people from your list of possibilities based on their prior dalliances with anyone in your immediate friendship group.
Thankfully Yellowbrick Grove was still close to the city, and picturesque enough to be a popular tourist destination for people looking for something between a staycation and an actual getaway. During the on-season weekends (fall, when the trees turned an astonishing combination of fiery colours, and spring, when the blossoms ran riot), the streets were packed with visitors looking to spend their hard-earned cash at the bar, and their precious time off with Bonnie, who needed a warm body every now and then.
‘According to my research, he comes from a prominent banking family,’ said Kirsty, whose social media stalking skills were unrivalled. In another lifetime, Kirsty would have been a Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist, but in this one she ran a moderately successful blog about life in Yellowbrick Grove, with some social media consulting on the side. She’d stopped just short of becoming an influencer, thankfully, because Bonnie could only afford to give away so much free booze before the bar’s bank account started making warning sounds.
‘And there was a breakup,’ added Alana, a fashionable bohemian whose heavily pierced ears had a preternatural ability to absorb gossip, and a job as a yoga instructor that was extremely conducive to hearing it. ‘His childhood sweetheart ripped his heart in two. On their anniversary, would you believe?’
Bonnie filed this away for future use. She’d never personally been in a relationship long enough to be able to mark an anniversary, but she was sure that would hurt. Actually, she’d never been the dumpee, either, something she was quite proud of. It took a lot to reach the grand old age of twenty-five without having had someone throw your heart to the crows. She always made it a point to get in first and do the dumping,usually when the uncomfortable reality of feelings was starting to set in.
‘We could do with a top-up on table four, sweets,’ said Winston Wakefield, head of the Yellowbrick Grove Old Darts team, and who always wore a hat advertising this fact. Winston was so ancient and so well known that it felt as though the entire town had grown up around him. He was like one of those 200-year-old tortoises that you hear about a family passing down through the generations, its startled, wrinkly face privy to decades of change. (Shelby, the turtle who lived in the town fountain, was the closest Yellowbrick Grove came to this particular phenomenon.) Winston and his similarly wrinkly friends had been keeping the place in business since its diner days, and Bonnie was grateful they were creatures of habit. Even if they did have annoying superstitions like keeping anyone in green away from their board, and forcing anyone who’d played a nine-darter to sit at the next table for the following week (which meant they ended up doing shots with students from the college – never a good idea).
But Yellowbrick Grove was full of odd superstitions and proclivities. You learned to roll with them, or you’d spend your days like Effie: huffing and puffing at every little thing that didn’t make sense. Uncle Oswald sure had – he ran a revoltingly overpriced shop down an alleyway off the square catering to every occult-like and spiritual whim you might have. Even if you didn’t have such whims, Uncle Oswald, who’d graduated with honours from the School of Pushy Sales Tactics, would definitely help you whip some up. But given that right now Bonnie could spot a moon-phase pendant, an electromagnetic field-blocking phone cover, a bouquet of rosemary poking out of a purse, and a set of tarot cards being pored over on a nearby table, it was fair to say that the whims in this town were plentiful. And why not? In a world where things grew ever more complicated, people could hardly be faulted for seeking solace in magic.
