Dagne, predictably, did not appreciate Rachel’s suggestion.
In all fairness, Rachel wasn’t into the white magic thing, which she’d tried to explain to Dagne more than once. Dagne’s witch deal was really out there, even for Dagne, but when Dagne was starting off on some grand adventure, she tended not to hear very well. Unless, of course, you said you thought her spell sucked, and then she’d hear each word, memorize them, and repeat them back with a hurtful look like you had criticized her shoes or something. Judas Priest.
In spite of Dagne being the sort of gal pal Rachel typically avoided—slender, strawberry blond, and pretty—they’d met at Brown University a few years ago when they were both students of history, and quickly discovered a shared fascination for all manner of funky things. Rachel was still a student of history (or as her father said, a perpetual student of history), but Dagne got bored with it, decided she couldn’t afford it on her hair stylist income, and come to think of it, she was way more interested in hairstyling than history. And even though she’d gone on to be more interested in massage therapy than hairstyling, she and Rachel had remained best friends.
Which was why Dagne was in her house now, bugging her about witchcraft. This particular thing had started when Rachel returned from New York after the worst fight with her father she’d ever had. She had made the mistake of studying her astrology chart to see what was up and concluded that the planets were pushing her to make some changes. When she showed the chart to Dagne, her brown eyes sort of bugged out, and she said, “Girl, you have got to make some changes.”
And then she’d shown up tonight, fully prepared to make Rachel’s changes for her. After dinner, of course, which Rachel was still in the midst of preparing.
Dagne helped herself to a glass of wine and asked, “So what have you come up with?”
“Nothing,” Rachel sighed as she tossed the salad.
Dagne paused to swipe a chunk of red bell pepper from the salad bowl. “Hey, cool bowl,” she remarked.
Yes, cool bowl. Very pretty bowl. Cut glass, gilded rim, hand-painted scenes of a lovely French countryside painted around the bottom. “A gift from Myron,” Rachel said. “They must be having a sale at the museum gift shop.” Myron used to be her boyfriend. Now he was her friend and a part-time assistant curator with the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Society. He had a habit of bringing her gifts from the museum gift shops instead of the money he owed her.
“So I’ve been thinking about this,” Dagne said earnestly. “Did you notice that Mars and Mercury are in retrograde? That makes everything so obvious. I mean, it’s, like, impossible to try and move forward with your life with that going on, right?”
Who could argue the retrograde theory?
“Everything is pointing toward reassessment. Whatever you thought your plan was? Rethink it.”
Rachel snorted as she added slivers of portabella mushrooms to the salad. “What plan? I don’t have a plan. My internship just ended, I hardly have enough to pay the utilities and phone bill, and my dad is so not going to help me out.”
“That’s the other thing,” Dagne said cheerfully. “Jupiter is getting close to the sun, which, of course, will affect your income, so by the end of the month, you should be flush.” This she announced as if it was a done deal, no questions asked. All Rachel had to do was wake up at the end of the month and presto! Money.
“Flush?” Rachel said accusingly, and carried the salad to the dining room.
“Flush,” Dagne said emphatically. “Listen to your cosmic meter, Rachel.”
Frankly, Rachel sometimes wondered if she shouldn’t listen to anything or anyone besides Dagne. But she had nothing else to cling to at the moment. She returned to the kitchen, grabbed the wine and their glasses, and brought those to the dining room while Dagne grabbed her canvas bag and the tofu lasagna.
“There’s actually some good news in my horoscope,” Rachel said as she pushed the salad toward Dagne. “When Mars comes out of retrograde at the end of the month, it should kick some butt in my tenth house, which means . . . drum roll, please . . . new job!” She lifted salad tongs in triumph, then handed them to Dagne. “I have to believe things are going to start happening for me—new job, new money, new life. I just have to make a couple of teeny-tiny adjustments.”
“Like better money management!” Dagne snorted.
Surprised, Rachel looked at her across the lasagna. Dagne raised her brows, silently daring Rachel to argue. Oh sure, like Dagne was a wiz at money management, which she was not.
“I mean you should stop giving it away,” Dagne clarified.
Rachel laughed. “I don’t give it all away.”