This is like the fifteenth e-mail I’ve sent you. Don’t make me call the cops up there, because I will, I swear I will. Rachel, seriously, I tried to call the other day and your friend Dagne answered the phone and said you hadn’t been around in a while, and she kind of laughed when she said it, and frankly, I think she’s pretty weird and I am worried for your safety. I would not put it past a real witch to have done something like boil you in soup or something horrible like that. Matt is laughing as I write this because he says you are the smartest of all of us (please) and that you wouldn’t be stupid enough to get yourself boiled in soup and to quit worrying about it, but I can’t. It’s not like you to be off e-mail for days on end and not answer your phone. I know you better than Matt does, and I can remember all the bone-headed things you’ve done, and getting yourself into some weird situation you can’t get yourself out of is not outside the realm of possibility. I also know how sensitive you are about the boyfriend situation, so if you are just being mad at least write us and tell us you are not dead! If you’re not being mad and you ARE dead, we will know when we don’t get an e-mail from you or the cops arrive on your door and find your body sacrificed on some altar. So call me!
Subject: RE: RE: R U mad or what?
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
CC: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
I am not dead. But I am very busy. Will write soon love Rachel.
P.S. Grandma, thanks, but I cannot come for Thanksgiving.
Flynn and Rachel were spending every day together, working around his consulting schedule and her thankfully short-lived job of packing fish. At present, she was answering phones for a paint company and working up an outline for her dissertation. In the mornings, she’d pop off to the gym to ride a few miles while Flynn went off and did whatever he did with his computer job, and then in the evenings, they’d go out for dinner, or bundle up and walk down to the water to watch the boats go by, or wander around and look at the old and stately historic homes.
But mostly, they talked. About everything. Flynn asked lots of questions about her, which Rachel liked, because he seemed genuinely interested in her. That was definitely a new experience and she discovered, as she answered his questions, that there was more to her life than she’d given herself credit for.
He asked about her school, her travels. And about Dagne and witchcraft.
“I’m not really very good at it,” she had said with a laugh.
“Perhaps you could cast a spell to make yourself better at it,” he had quipped.
He asked about Myron, too, about his dual professions of professor and assistant curator, which Rachel thought was a little weird, but then again, she figured he wasn’t entirely convinced that there was nothing between her and Myron. The fact that Myron still had her phone and occasionally left messages advising her “they” were out of salami or sodas did not help that impression.
Rachel was wondering more and more why she hadn’t cut ties to Myron a long time ago. All right, he’d morphed into a security blanket, she could admit it. She hadn’t believed another guy would be interested—so why not hang on to Myron? At least he was someone to hang out with.
Dagne had been so right—who hung on to ex-boyfriends after the affair was over? Fat chicks who were afraid of never having another boyfriend, that was who.
Just mentioning Myron reminded her of how sad she was, and she always changed the subject when he came up, usually by asking about Flynn’s life.
He talked a lot about his family, rolled his eyes when he told her his mother was obsessed with their connection to the Duke of Alnwick.
“Really? You’re part of the aristocracy?” she had asked, suitably impressed.
“Hardly,” he had replied. “I worked it out once. We’re several hundred steps removed from the mayor of Butler Cropwell, and many, many more from the unfortunate Duke of Alnwick.”
“Unfortunate?”
“Tragically so, for my mother believes there is some connection and therefore writes him rather frequently, including the obligatory Christmas letter about all the goings-on in our branch of the ‘family.’”
Rachel laughed, looked at the plate of Lebanese food they had ordered at a local restaurant. “Is it your mother who calls in the middle of the night?” she asked slyly.
His first reaction had been to wave a dismissive hand at her and claim it was just an old friend. But when she reminded him that he’d actually raised his voice on one of the calls, he sighed. “All right . . . the fact is, I was recently engaged to a woman in England.”