Enchanted, Inc.

I'd calmed down a lot by the time I crossed Houston Street. Now I could see the spire of Grace Church ahead of me and I knew I was almost home. I cut across to Fourth Avenue one street before the church because there was sometimes a gargoyle on that church that really wigged me out. It wasn't the gargoyle itself that gave me the creeps. It was the "sometimes" part that unnerved me. Gargoyles are carved of stone and should be part of the building. If one is there, you should see it all the time, not just on an occasional basis.



This church didn't usually have gargoyles at all, just carved faces. But every so often there was a classic winged, clawed gargoyle sitting over a doorway or on a roof ridge, and I always felt like it was looking at me. I knew that wasn't one of those weird New York things that everyone talks about, so I preferred to avoid the situation entirely.



A couple of blocks up Fourth, I noticed a costume shop next to a magic and fantasy shop, and I had to laugh at myself. That explained the girl with the wings. She must have been an employee, doing a little advertising by showing the wares around town.



It didn't explain why she seemed to know those two men on the train, but then again, Mr. Right had got on at the same station, so maybe he lived in the neighborhood.



They must have been neighbors.



And the magic shop may have had something to do with the gargoyle. It was an illusion, or maybe a prop, put on the church as a practical joke and removed before anyone in authority caught on.



I felt much less like I was going crazy when I reached my building and unlocked the front door. By the time I made it up the stairs to my apartment, I'd managed to put both work and the weirdness of the day out of my mind. I'd barely had time to get the windows open so the place could air out when my roommate Gemma came home. She worked longer hours than I did, but she'd never do anything so crazy as walk home from work. Not in the shoes she usually wore.



She kicked off her high-heeled sandals inside the front door and stretched out her calves. "Is that what you're wearing?" she asked.



"Huh?"



"You must not have seen the e-mail I sent."



"Nope, sorry. Every time I tried to log on, Mimi stuck her head in my cube to demand something." I used a Web-based e-mail service for personal mail at work, since I knew getting personal e-mail on the company system would be asking for trouble from Mimi. Better safe than give her an excuse to yell.



"You have got to get another job."



"I know," I moaned as she went into the kitchen and took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. For a moment I considered telling her about the e-mailed job offer, but I knew she'd just laugh at me. "So, what's going on and what should I be wearing?"



She came back into the living room and curled up on the other end of the sofa, tucking her bare feet up under her. "Dinner out, the three of us and Connie." Connie was our other friend from school who'd moved up here with Gemma and Marcia.



When she got married and moved out, the other two invited me to come to New York.



"What's the special occasion?"



"I have news." Her expression remained enigmatic, and I knew Gemma well enough to know that I wouldn't get any more than that out of her until she was ready to spill.



My stomach tightened up into a knot. I wondered if my worst fears were about to come true. She wasn't dating anyone seriously, so I doubted she was getting married and moving out, but maybe she'd been promoted and was moving to a loft in SoHo or someplace infinitely more fashionable than our dingy little apartment.



"Is there a reason I need to dress up?" I asked. It was hard enough to choose one outfit a day.



"It never hurts to make every outing into an occasion. You never know who you'll run into." Gemma was our self-declared social director, determined to make the rest of us experience life in New York to the fullest. Otherwise, she insisted, we might as well have just found jobs in Dallas or Houston.



She was right, though. You never knew who you'd run into, like movie stars or musicians. Or Mr. Right from the subway, who might live nearby, even if he was a little weird. I got up and headed back to the bedroom. "Any suggestions?"



She bounced to her feet. This was her area of expertise. After all, she did work in the fashion industry.



By the time Marcia got home we were both dressed to kill. Wearing a borrowed sweater of Gemma's, I felt almost glamorous, even though I knew I was a total plain Jane next to the rest of the crowd. I certainly wasn't unattractive, but I was extremely ordinary. I wasn't short enough to be delicate and petite like Connie, and I wasn't tall enough to be striking like Gemma. My hair was somewhere between blond and brunette, not short, but not long, and my eyes weren't quite green, but not quite blue, either. On the bright side, if I ever staged an armed robbery, witnesses would have a hard time giving an accurate description that didn't sound like half the city.