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Isabel took off her cardigan and tossed it to him. He wrapped it around his waist, then adjusted it carefully as he stood up. It covered him completely from waist to knees. When he stepped out of the bushes and into a better lit area, I saw that he wasn't bad-looking. He was about my age, which made him a little old for a fraternity prank, and his body was nicely denned. He had shaggy blondish hair and a tattoo on one well-sculpted bicep. He looked more like a California surfer dude than like someone you'd meet in New York. Ari gave a low whistle, then elbowed Isabel.
"Why'd you have to give him the sweater?" she hissed.
"Now that you're all disenchanted, you should go home and warm up," I said brusquely. I didn't want him to think I'd kissed him for any reason other than to release him from the spell. If I'd run into him anywhere else, I might have been interested in a little flirtation, but meeting him when he thought he was a frog was just too weird for me. I vowed never again to use that old saying about kissing frogs, not now that I knew I wouldn't want anyone who used to be a frog, even if he was a prince.
"Is there a problem, ladies?" a voice asked. I whirled in shock. We hadn't been caught red-handed while molesting frogs, but standing around in the dark in the park with a seminaked man wasn't the most innocent activity. The speaker turned out to be a park ranger—a park ranger who had wings on his back and slightly pointed ears. This must be a sprite.
"This gentleman has just been disenchanted," Trix said. She and the sprite had locked eyes in a way that was entirely familiar to me, a look of intense, instant attraction. Not that I'd experienced it personally, but I'd watched it happen to friends.
"We'd better get him inside and taken care of, then," the sprite ranger said.
"I'll come with you," Trix said, fluttering her fingers at us as she took Naked Frog Guy by the arm and joined the ranger.
"It's a rebound. It'll never last," Ari opined as they disappeared into the darkness.
"You're letting him go like that?" Isabel asked me.
"Uh, yeah, looks like I am," I said.
"Why? You actually found a prince. It turns out you were right about kissing frogs."
I shuddered. "No, no, I wasn't. This is a worse way to meet men than singles' bars."
Isabel brightened. "We could go to a singles' bar."
"Not tonight," I said with a sigh. "I hate to be a wet blanket, but I'd rather just go home now."
"You're not having fun?" Isabel asked, looking and sounding worried.
"I had lots of fun, really. But it's been a long week, and it all caught up with me at once. I'm glad I came, though. Thanks for inviting me."
I must have sounded convincing, for she looked more like her usual cheerful self.
"I'm glad you had fun. We'll have to do this again sometime."
"Next time, we can skip the frogs."
She and Ari laughed. "It was your idea," Isabel said. I didn't try to argue that when I brought it up, I hadn't expected them to take me literally. I gave them a halfhearted wave and hurried up to Fifth Avenue to see if I could catch the Ml bus. One of Marcia's city safety rules was that the bus was better than the subway when you were alone at night because you could sit near the driver and you were less likely to be stuck underground with crazy people. I glanced at my watch and was surprised at how early it was. I felt like I was crawling home in the wee hours after a night of debauchery, but I'd probably beat my roommates home.
A bus showed up before long, and I climbed on board. For the first time in my life I felt like the oddball surrounded by normal people, instead of the other way around.
No matter what anyone else on the bus had done that evening, it couldn't possibly be any weirder than what I'd just done.
In the space of about a week's time, I'd gone from being perhaps the most ordinary person on this island to being one of the weirdos. I wasn't sure yet if that was an improvement.
* * *
I was rudely awakened the next morning by all the lights coming on in my bedroom and the window shade going up to let in the feeble sunlight that ventured into the air shaft. "Wake up, sleepyhead!" Gemma called out.
I pulled the covers over my head, but she pulled them back. "You don't want to sleep all day, do you?" she asked. "I've already been for a run."
I pried my eyes open to see that she was dressed in a high-fashion velour jogging suit, very similar to one Madonna had been wearing in a photo in last week's People .
"Since when do you run?" She had the kind of body that stayed fabulous without exercise. If I didn't love her so much, I'd have to hate her.
"Since I heard that Saturday morning in the park is a great place to meet buff guys."
She perched on the edge of my bed. "Not that I actually bothered running. The trick is to always look like you're about to run, or like you've just finished running. It's hard to hook up with someone while you're in the process of running."
