Then I lost it utterly. The tears came once more, and I couldn’t shut them off. “He broke up with me,” I sobbed.
She immediately jumped up, flew over the top of her desk, and grabbed me by the shoulders. “You poor thing,” she said as she hustled me into my office, where she shut the door behind us and pushed me into my desk chair. Then she conjured up a cup of tea, a box of tissues, and a tray of chocolates. “Now, tell me all about it,” she said, sitting in the chair next to my desk. “Why did he break up with you? Things seemed to be going so well, even when he picked you up today.”
I tried to shrug, but it was difficult because my shoulders were shaking so badly. “Because I’m boring.” I grabbed a tissue out of the box and blew my nose loudly.
“Did he actually say that?”
“Well, he did say I was too ‘normal,’ but he meant boring.” I adopted a mocking tone. “Apparently, he wants to explore and experience this new world he’s discovered, and he thinks I want things to be too normal, so we have totally opposite ideas of a good time.” I bit a chocolate in two, then licked the caramel filling off my lips.
The light on my phone indicating a call coming in to Trix’s line flashed. “Hold that thought,” Trix said, leaning over my desk to grab the phone. “Mr. Mervyn’s office,” she said briskly, then after a pause said, “One moment, please. Let me connect you.” She pushed a few buttons, hung up the phone, then picked it up again and pushed more buttons. “Ari, emergency summit meeting, Katie’s office, now. Get Isabel.”
When she hung up and returned to her chair, I asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She waved a hand, dismissing my concern. “I wouldn’t take her romantic advice, but there’s no one better for venting when you’re mad at a guy. Once we get past that, then we can strategize about what to do next. It should be easy enough to convince him that you’re not too normal for him.”
“But he’s right. I do like things normal. Don’t get me wrong, I like magical people, but for fun I like to do normal stuff. When magic intrudes on my personal life, everything always goes horribly wrong.”
“If he’s looking for magical excitement, he’s going to be unpleasantly surprised. Most of us aren’t usually off doing wild and crazy magical things. Magic is a convenience, not a lifestyle, except among certain fringe groups.” She giggled, a sound like tinkling bells. “And I can’t picture him in any of those groups. They’d kick him out for being too normal.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Talk about irony!”