Once Upon Stilettos

“I guess I’ll just get a sandwich at these prices,” she said. “But will that be enough?”



“It should be more than enough. We could probably even share one sandwich. They make really big sandwiches around here.”



“Hmm. Or maybe I could try matzo ball soup. I’ve never had that before. What’s it like?”



“It’s like chicken soup with big, round dumplings in it.”



“Oh.” She frowned at the menu some more, then looked up and blinked. “Isn’t that your friend over there?”



I turned to see where she was pointing. “Over where?”



“Leaning against that wall.”



The entrance to the deli was crowded enough that it was difficult to make out if anyone leaning against the wall was someone I ought to know, but then a tall, thin man emerged from the crowd and walked toward us, a smug smirk on his face—I mean, even more smug than normal, which was pretty smug. “Oh, that friend,” I said. “And he’s not really a friend.”



It appeared that Owen had been wrong about one thing—which might have been a first. Idris wasn’t after him. He appeared to be focusing on me. If Idris had been targeting Owen, he’d be up in some village on the Hudson, disrupting Owen’s weekend with his foster parents. And from what little Owen had said about his foster family, I got the distinct impression that he’d welcome the distraction. I, however, would have preferred to skip the intrusion.



My glower didn’t appear to bother Idris in the least, though. He walked up to our table, pulled out a chair, and plunked himself into it. “Mind if I join you?” he asked rhetorically. “It could take forever before I get a seat on my own.”



It was a situation Emily Post didn’t cover: What do you do if your sworn enemy invites himself to join you and your mother for lunch, and you don’t want your mother to know you even have sworn enemies? The only answer I could think of was to act like it was no big deal. That would probably drive him crazier than anything else I could do. And it wasn’t as if he could use magic to harm either of us or do anything else to us in that crowd.



“Please, join us,” I said with a cyanide-laced saccharine smile. “Mom, this is Phelan Idris. You probably remember him from the other night, when he left before I could introduce you. I know him from work.” Which was true enough. “Mr. Idris, this is my mother, Mrs. Chandler.”



I had to fight back any signs of triumph at how intensely uncomfortable he looked with formal manners. “Um, hi,” he said, fidgeting in his seat. I wished now that we’d gone to some froufrou ladies-who-lunch restaurant where he’d have been even more out of place. Mom narrowed her eyes at him. Clearly, she thought he couldn’t come from good people to be so lacking in manners.



I continued acting like I was hosting a tea party. I might not be able to zap him the way Owen did, but I could Southern-belle him to death. “What brings you out today? Getting a start on your Christmas shopping?” I asked with fake cheer.



He fidgeted some more, looking like a six-year-old his first time at the grown-up table. “Um, well, uh,” he said, quite eloquently. It was hard to believe that this was the guy who had all of MSI up in arms, the reason Merlin had been brought back to lead the company. He was nothing more than a geek with delusions of grandeur.



The waitress came to take our orders. After Mom and I ordered lunch, and Idris ordered a coffee, I said, “That will be on one check.” Then I turned to Idris and said with my sweetest, most honeyed drawl, “It’s so nice of you to treat us to lunch like this. I guess you’re doing great now that you have corporate clients like that winery.” His mouth opened and closed, but the waitress was gone before he could say anything. The absolutely gobsmacked look on his face told me that I’d been right about the source of that spell the winery had been using. I had no illusions of him actually paying our check, but his reaction was funny, and Mom would be even more unimpressed with him when he bailed and left us paying for his coffee. He might be the one man she met while in New York whom she didn’t try to set me up with.



He must have regained his footing by the time the waitress brought him his coffee, for he traded his deer-in-the-headlights expression for his more typical sneer. “So, you’re brave enough to go out shopping without your boyfriend,” he said.



I didn’t have to respond to that one. Mom jumped in faster than I could. “Don’t be silly,” she said, even more syrupy Southern than I was being. “She wouldn’t drag her boyfriend out shopping. This is a girls’ day out.”