Summer frowned. “Of course I did.”
“Oh, um. Okay, well, tofu spaghetti sounds just dandy then.”
Summer seemed not to have heard her. “Ohmygoddess! Do you think Ken thinks I’m on the menu, too?”
“Let’s hope so,” Jenny said.
“No!” Summer gasped. “That’s not what—I mean, I wasn’t thinking that. Exactly. Or at least not on our first date. That’s isn’t in accordance with my plan. We weren’t going to have sex until the third date.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Jenny, have I messed up?”
“Are you kidding? Kenny-ben—ur—I mean, Kenny isn’t exactly Mr. Forceful. If he comes on to you, and you don’t want to do him, just say no.”
“I might want to do him,” Summer whispered.
“Okay, then just say no nicely.”
“But that wasn’t what I was planning.”
“Oh, please! Would you loosen up? If you want to have sex, then boink the fairy. If you don’t, then wait until the third or even the thirtieth date. Whatever.”
Summer fanned herself. “I’m never going to be able to do this.”
Jenny peered down her nose at her as if she were an unusual specimen under a magnifying glass. “Darling, didn’t you date at all in college?”
Summer’s cheeks flushed pink. “Yeah, of course I did.”
“And?”
“And nothing. If I liked the guy, I decided when we’d, well, do it, and then we did it.”
“Always according to your well-controlled plan,” Jenny supplied.
“Always.”
“Oh my Goddess! You’ve really never been swept off your feet by hot, sticky, steamy, raunchy sex.”
When a couple of the kids sitting closest to the front of the bus gasped and laughed, Jenny turned her narrowed eyes on them, instantly quieting their tittering.
Summer frowned and lowered her voice. “No, and I don’t think I’d like what you just described. It sounds so . . . so . . .”
“So out-of-control?”
“Yes. Exactly. And I’m not particularly good with out-of-control.”
“That is shameful,” Jenny said.
“Well, it’s the way I am. And there’s nothing wrong with the way I am,” Summer said, more than a little defensively.
“Oh, girlfriend, I don’t mean to make you feel bad about yourself. It’s just that you’re missing so much.”
Summer shrugged. “I don’t know. I had fun in college.”
“I don’t mean frat banging and one-night stands. I mean love.”
“Huh?”
“Girlfriend, don’t you know that love can’t be controlled and planned and prepackaged or hermetically sealed to be taken out when it fits into your schedule?”
Summer chewed her lip and thought about Ken. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Jenny had to tilt her head toward her to hear her. “I was kinda thinking that Ken would be the guy I let myself fall in love with. You know, college is over. He’s here in my hometown. He’s literally the boy next door.”
“I don’t know. It just sounds so clinical. And love is definitely not clinical.” Jenny shook her head. “No. This will never do.” She tapped a long, manicured red fingernail against her skintight black slacks. “What if I did a spell on you—one that I meant to be the opposite of what I really cast?” Before Summer could protest, she hurried on. “I could cast a control spell on you. That should get zapped by your opposite magic and allow you to relax with him tonight. Then what happens between you can at least happen naturally. Right?”
“Jenny, you can’t ever, ever cast any kind of spell on me. It won’t work like you expect. I guess the opposite magic isn’t exactly the right way to describe what I have. It’s more like opposite squared. It doesn’t just make the spell reverse; it also makes it wacky.”
“Define wacky.”
“Okay, here’s the perfect example. When I was in high school, Glory Tawdry thought she would help me out. It was right before our senior homecoming dance, and I didn’t actually have a date with Ken, but I’d told him that I’d meet him there and would save all the best dances for him.”
Jenny shook her head. “This has been going on between you two for years, hasn’t it?”
“This?”
“Waffling. Unfulfilled romance. Missed opportunities. All because of your insane need for control.”
“Yes. And my need for control is not insane. Anyway, as per usual for my high school days, overnight I grew the biggest, nastiest zit right in the middle of my forehead. No amount of makeup would cover it. It was like I had a third eye.”
“Yuck.”
“Yeah. So I asked Glory to cast a zit spell on me.”
“Goddess! There’s such a thing as a zit spell?”
Summer nodded. “She got the spell from her sister, Evie. You know she’s a vengeance witch.”
“Oh, that’s right. Okay, go on.”
“Well, it should have been simple enough. I wanted the zit gone. I have opposite magic. Glory casts a spell to fill my face with zits, which should have totally cleared my face of zits.”
“It does sound simple enough.”
“It didn’t work out that way.”
“What happened?”
“It cleared my face. Of everything.”
“Everything?”
“Absolutely everything. I had no gigantic zit, but I also had no eyes, nose, or mouth.”
“Shit! What did you do?”
“Freaked out. I knew it was bad, because I couldn’t see anything, but when Glory started screaming, ‘Oh great Goddess help! Her face is gone,’ I lost it. I tried to scream with her, couldn’t, so I did what any normal girl would do when scared shitless and utterly blind.”
“You ran?”
“Yep. And promptly fell over my cool fuchsia beanbag chair, smacking my head on the corner of my very large and very metallic stereo cabinet, which negated the spell. Thank the Goddess.”
“So your face came back?”
Summer nodded. “Along with the Cyclops zit. See, that’s what happens when I think I’m smart, take a chance, and let my opposite magic do its thing. It never works exactly opposite. It’s more like sideways, around-the-corner, upside-down magic. And the spell only goes away if something major happens to me.”
“Like smacking your head.”
“Like smacking my head.”
“Okay, I get that that was bad, and your control issues are making more and more sense, but have you ever tried to control your magic instead of controlling yourself?”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. You have weird magic, fine. Besides that, you have strong weird magic. How you’ve dealt with it is to clamp down major control over everything else in your life, but maybe all you have to do is to take control of your magic—you know, show it who’s boss—and make it act right.”
Summer shook her head. “You’re nuts.”
“I’m just sayin’ discipline can be a good thing.”
“Sure, for someone who is comfortable with it,” Summer said.
“So get comfortable with it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Maybe you just need the right incentive,” Jenny said. “Want me to give you a quick dominatrix lesson or twelve? It’d be fun.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll just bumble along as I am, which means no ‘helpful’ magic spells from you or anyone else. Okay?”
Jenny held up her hand like she was taking an oath. “Promise.” Then she added, “Guess it looks like you’re going to have to get a handle on your übercontrol issues and your bizarre magic.”
Summer sighed. “Sadly, it looks like it.”
“Well, never fear. You have a Certified Discipline Nymph on your side. Plus, Kenny-benny may surprise both of us and take forceful control of your date tonight and ravish you properly.” Jenny giggled and then, at Summer’s frown, cleared her throat and sobered up. The bus lurched to an awkward halt in front of Dark Shadows, Mysteria’s only art gallery. “But before anyone gets ravished, we will edify and educate the masses.” She winked at Summer, stood up, smoothed her hair, and faced the bus full of teenagers. “Touch anything and you will have to deal with me—before school in the boy’s restroom with a toothbrush, a can of Comet, and a collection of Shakespearian sonnets.”