Rachel . . . who, BTW, met a guy. Sort of. Actually, Dagne and I used a little witchcraft to conjure him up, but he is SOOO cute! More later . . .
Rachel had so much to do the next day, so of course it would be raining.
Her first stop was Turbo Temps, where the employment agency had sent her. With a little luck—and okay, a little magic—Rachel hoped to get some sort of part-time gig. She pulled into a parking spot, found her umbrella, then opened the door, wrestling with the umbrella and the door while she tried to squeeze between her Bug and the SUV next to her, and in the course of it, stepped into a puddle and flooded her boot.
Clutching a soggy referral sheet, she pushed through the door of Turbo Temps, where a woman immediately barked at her to put her umbrella in the can. She did that, and then squished back to the counter and handed the woman her referral sheet.
The woman took it, grimacing, and made a huge show of straightening it out.
“I’m really sorry,” Rachel said. “It’s raining.”
The woman reviewed the referral sheet, the copy of Rachel’s résumé attached to it, and without a word, turned and punched a couple of buttons on her computer. An old dot-matrix printer began rattling behind her, during which time she stared at the computer screen. When the thing finally stopped printing, she swiveled around, extracted it from the printer, and handed it to Rachel. “Call before showing up,” she said.
Rachel took the paper and looked at it. Baumgartner Medical, it read under the word Client. Transcribing medical transcripts from draft to final form. Requirements: Typing, 50 wpms, use of computer and word-processing software.
Rachel glanced up at the clerk. She was staring intently at her computer screen, but said, “That’s all we have today. Baumgartner will give you a paper to bring back here for payment. If you want to get paid, don’t leave the job without getting that paper. And make sure someone signs it!”
The only good thing about Rachel’s visit to Turbo Temps was that when she came out, the rain had let up a little. Rachel threw the papers into the backseat and headed over to Providence Fabrics. Because the cops had busted her coven (at least her sense of humor was still intact) they hadn’t done the sight spell. So Dagne, in a great show of faith, left her pink spell book with Rachel. “I’ve gotta do some stuff on eBay tomorrow,” she said. Honestly, Dagne spent so much time on eBay that it was a wonder they hadn’t given her an honorary page or something. “Try it yourself!” she had cheerfully urged Rachel.
Rachel had at first laughed it off, but the more she thought about it, the more she thought, why not? She was doing all the work anyway—Dagne just stood around handing her stuff to drink and then telling her what to recite. And besides, she’d seen another weight-loss spell in there that she really wanted to try.
At the fabric store, she looked for the perfect swath of lavender. She figured it needed to be velvet or brocade—something weighty and therefore, meaningful. And on the next to the last aisle, she found what she was looking for. It was silk chenille and a beautiful shade of lavender. It was very expensive, so Rachel didn’t even look at her credit card as she handed it to the clerk. Can’t see it, can’t feel it.
A quarter of an hour later, she left the store with three yards of the silk chenille and enough lavender silk fringe to trim it. She figured she had enough to not only cast a spell, but to make a shawl, too.
From there, Rachel headed for campus and the Brown University Library, where she spent the remainder of that soggy afternoon holed up at a desk with several books around her, working on dissertation theories.
Darkness had fallen when she returned home. There was a note from Dagne stuck in her door—Came by to pick up some stuff—and Rachel panicked for a moment, thinking “stuff” equaled the spell book. But it was exactly where she’d left it, on the kitchen bar, a couple of pages dog-eared. So she made herself a box of macaroni and cheese (not exactly healthy, but she really didn’t have much else, as it was obvious Myron had been by, too), then wandered into the living room, flicked on the TV, and then promptly got up and left it on, off to find her Pilates book.
She returned to the living room a little later dressed in yoga clothes, her hair knotted into what Dagne called her Mickey Mouse look—two knots atop her head—and her yoga mat. And while Korean TV played in the background—some sort of variety show—she worked through her Pilates book until her muscles screamed at her.
Now she was ready for a few spells.