The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0)(43)

As Franny walked on, the neighborhood smelled like patchouli and curry. It was the end of summer and everyone who could afford to be out of the city was. The Village felt like a sleepy town. It was a different city here; the buildings were smaller and it was possible to see the sky. No one cared what you looked like or what you wore. Franny stopped at a café for a strong cup of coffee. Listening to the waiters argue in Italian, she felt transported. She went to a flower shop and bought a rose that was so dark it appeared black. At last she turned onto Greenwich Avenue and there she stopped. She had come upon a tilted little house that had a For Sale sign in the street-level window where there had once been a shop. There was a school next door and the children were out at recess. When Franny looked through the window she could see a pie-shaped yard filled with weeds. Shifting her gaze she spied a twisted wisteria and a few spindly lilacs. It was then she felt her heart lift.

She wrote the phone number of the Realtor on a scrap of paper and went on, across Sixth Avenue, past the Women’s House of Detention at 10 Greenwich Avenue. It was a huge prison plunked down in the center of the city, built in 1932 in the Deco style on the spot where the old Jefferson Market Prison once stood. Women shouted rude comments through the bars that guarded the open windows. It was hot on the street and far hotter inside the prison.

Help a sister, someone called.

Franny did the best she could. A cool wind rose to flit through the windows, down the hallways of the prison. For a moment, there was some relief from the heat. In response there were hoots of laughter and applause. Franny looked around. No one on the street was watching so she blew a kiss to those women who were locked away, and she left the wind gusting all the rest of the day.



Franny found Vincent in the Jester on Christopher Street. He was drinking absinthe and lemon juice, a sugar cube tucked into his cheek.

“Hey, Franny,” he said when he caught sight of her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Two attractive girls from NYU sat in the booth with him, the prettier one slouched in the hollow of his arm. The girls seemed annoyed to see Franny and sent looks of frustration Vincent’s way. As if he cared about them. Franny didn’t know why he bothered. Was it to prove something to her or to himself?

#8220;Let’s go,” Franny said with a nod. Vincent could tell from her tone that she was deadly serious. “We’re moving.”

“What?”

Franny had received a notice from the attorney. They had enough to buy the ramshackle place on Greenwich and still have a nest egg of cash to survive on a shoestring for a while. After that they were on their own.

“The movers come this week. Our house has been sold and we’re going to a place we can afford. Or at least I hope we can.” She paid Vincent’s bill and waited for him on the sidewalk while he told his girlfriends good-bye. Then they walked side by side, boot heels clattering, two tall moody individuals with scowls on their faces. People crossed the street to avoid them.

“So we just leave home?” Vincent asked. “And what about Radcliffe?”

Franny gave her brother a sidelong glance. “You knew I was never going.”

“I wish you could have.”

They splurged on a taxi uptown. Then they stood in front of the house where they’d grown up and gazed at it sadly. They would likely not come back to Eighty-Ninth Street once they were gone. They would avoid it after they were settled downtown. You don’t go back to a place where you’ve lost so much.

“What about Haylin?” Vincent asked.

Today New York smelled like wet grass and jasmine tea.

Franny shrugged. “He’ll give up.”

“You’re selling him short. He’ll never let you go.”



When Haylin phoned, Franny told him he must go to Cambridge alone. He wouldn’t listen. He continued to call, so she stopped answering the phone. He came to their door at all hours, but she didn’t respond. Sooner or later he’d have to leave New York. It was now September. Everything in the park was fading to yellow, and huge clouds of migrating birds lit in the trees.

“You’re staying for me,” Jet said.

Franny shrugged. “You’re my sister.”

“But Hay?”

“Hay will be fine.”

“Will he?” Jet wondered.

“Yes, he will, but he won’t listen to me. You tell him the truth,” Franny said in a surprisingly small voice. “Cover for me.”

“What if you lose him for good?”

“Then it was meant to be.”

Jet was convinced she must talk to him. Haylin had posted himself at the Owenses’ town house, a determined expression on his face. He looked the way he had when he chained himself in the school cafeteria. Jet told him Franny had withdrawn from school and would not be leaving for Cambridge. In fact, they were moving downtown. There was no way to change Franny’s mind. Jet had already tried.

“If I just saw her,” Hay said. “If I could talk to her I think she would leave with me.”

“You know Franny, she’s stubborn.”

Haylin was already two days late for the semester and had missed registration; if he waited any longer they might retract his acceptance.

“Go,” Jet told him. “And don’t feel guilty.”

She went inside and locked the door, leaving Hay to stand there, dazed and despairing. He had no idea why Franny had done her best to stop love’s hold on him. He looked upward, shielding his eyes. The movers were packing up the town house. Vincent had suggested they leave everything behind—all he was taking was a backpack of clothes and his guitar—but Jet had taken great care in wrapping up the china her mother had brought home from Paris and had filled a trunk with Susanna’s chic clothing. She had boxes and boxes of books stacked in the hall. As for Franny, she took only the letters Haylin had written to her the summer she was away, and some of the clothing she’d worn when she was with him. She was packing it all into a single cardboard box when she happened to gaze out and see Haylin on the sidewalk. Her heart broke then; she could feel it tearing in two. He looked so alone out there.