Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman [48]
She was bad luck, ill-fated and unfortunate as the plague. When she dared to glance into the mirror she looked the same—high cheekbones, wide gray eyes, generous mouth—all of it familiar and, many would say, beautiful. Still, once or twice she had caught sight of her image a little too quickly, and then she didn’t like what she found staring back at her. From certain angles, in certain sorts of light, she saw what she imagined Jimmy must have seen, late at night, when he was plastered and she was backing away from him, her hands up, to protect her face. That woman was a silly, vain creature who didn’t stop to think before she opened her mouth. That woman believed she could change Jimmy, or, if worse came to worst, rearrange him somehow. The absolute fool. No wonder she couldn’t work the stove or find her boots. No wonder she’d managed to kill Jimmy, when all she’d really wanted was a little tenderness.
Gillian had been crazy to sit in the booth at Del Vecchio’s with Ben Frye in the first place, but she’d been so upset she’d stayed until midnight. By the end of that evening, they had eaten every bit of the food Sally had ordered and had fallen for each other so hard they didn’t notice they had each consumed an entire pizza. Even then, it wasn’t enough. They ate the way people who’d been hypnotized might have, not bothering to glance at the bits of salad and mushroom they speared with their forks, not wanting to leave the table if that meant leaving each other.
Gillian still can’t quite believe that Ben Frye is for real. He’s unlike any other man she has ever been with. He listens to her, for one thing. He’s so kindhearted that people are drawn to him. People just assume he’s trustworthy; whenever he visits cities he’s never been to before he’s always asked for directions, even by natives. He has a degree in biology from Berkeley, but he also puts on magic shows in the children’s ward of the local hospital every Saturday afternoon. The kids aren’t the only ones who gather around when Ben arrives, with his silk scarves and carton of eggs and his decks of cards. It’s impossible to get the attention of any of the nurses on the floor; some of them swear Ben Frye is the best-looking single man in New York State.
Because of all this, Gillian Owens is definitely not the first to have Ben on her mind. There are women in town who have been after him for so long they’ve memorized his daily schedule and all the facts of his life, and are so obsessed that when asked for their phone number they often recite his instead. There are teachers in the high school who bring him casseroles every Friday evening, and newly divorced neighbors who call him late at night because their fuses have all blown and they insist they’re afraid they’ll electrocute themselves without his scientific know-how.
These women would give anything to have Ben Frye sending them roses. They’d say Gillian needs her head examined for sending them back. You’re lucky, that’s what they’d tell her. But it’s a perverse sort of luck: The second Ben Frye fell in love with her, Gillian knew she could never allow someone as wonderful as he is to get involved with a woman like her. Considering the messes she’s made, falling in love is now permanently out of the question. The only way anyone could force her to become a wife again would be to chain her to a chapel wall and aim a shotgun at her head. When she came home from Del Vecchio’s on the night she met Ben, she took a vow never to marry again. She locked herself in the bathroom and lit a black candle and tried to remember some of the aunts’ incantations. When she could not, she repeated “Single forever” three times, and that seems to have done the trick because she