"Cheating?" I asked.
Trix rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it seems like he had a weakness for anything in wings."
"Then hit him with a love spell that makes him fall desperately for a butterfly," Art suggested. We all laughed at that. I might not be magical, but I had to appreciate the mental image of a man in love with a butterfly.
"Are you really going to do that?" I asked, suddenly wondering if this was just girls'
night out talk or if it was more literal in the magical world. My friends and I had wished all sorts of horrible things on men who'd done us wrong, but we didn't have the power to actually do anything about it.
"Of course not," Isabel said.
"But it would be funny," Ari added.
"It would serve him right," Trix said, "but it falls into a gray area. It's not outright harm, but it's also not a good idea to manipulate another person's free will. No, I'll just have to satisfy myself with the knowledge that I'm better off without him. I guess I'll have to hang out in the park more often, since I'm off elves and humans don't do much for me."
"I like human men," Ari said with a lascivious smile.
"But what's the point? You can't have children with them."
"Who says I want children? I just want fun, and human men are a lot more substantial than sprites. I like a guy I'm not worried about breaking. Besides, if I had kids, I'd just piss off my parents by not giving my kids some sappy fairy name."
"You have a perfectly nice name," Isabel said.
"Yeah, until they came out with The Little Mermaid, and suddenly every human girl is naming her cat Ariel." She turned to me. "It totally ruined the name."
"You shouldn't complain," Trix said. "I have a cousin who got stuck with the name Tinker Bell because her parents thought it was cute. She goes by Belle.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do with Trixie. Half the Westies in New York are named Trixie. It's embarrassing when you hear your name, turn around, and then End out they're talking to their dog."
"Looks like we've wrapped up that agenda item," Isabel said, signaling to the waiter for another round. "Item two: surveying and possibly selecting male companionship."
I took a sip of my new drink as I took in my surroundings. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone out on the prowl with friends. With Gemma's unofficial dating service, that usually wasn't necessary. The bar was full of suited Financial District types. Some of them were quite attractive, but they were all a little too intense for me.
"What do you think, Katie?" Isabel asked. "Anything that isn't what it appears to be?"
"I don't know. Remember, I don't see what you see. Point someone out to me, and I'll tell you what I see."
Art pointed to someone who looked like a taller, slightly older, much slicker version of Owen. She definitely had a type. "What about him?"
"Tall, dark, and handsome. No pointed ears, horns, fangs, or wings."
"Hmmm." She cast her eyes in his direction, caught his eye, then glanced away.
Gemma had tried to teach me that game, but I was hopeless at it. I either stared too long and made my target uncomfortable or not long enough and never caught his attention.
As I watched the flirting I asked, "What do others see when they look at you guys?"
"You mean fairies?" Trix asked.
"Yeah."
"Basically, just us with no wings and no hovering. Human men find us incredibly cute. Personally, I'm not so thrilled with human men."
"All men are trouble, whether or not they have wings, or how their ears are shaped, or how tall they are," Isabel said. She sounded like what Gemma called the Bitter Single Woman—the kind who pretends to hate men to cover up her hurt about men not being interested in her. Isabel was attractive enough, in a striking Amazonian way. I wondered if she was fully human or if there was something else in there, like maybe a trace of giant blood. Still, it would take either a very large or a very confident man to cope with her. We needed to find a professional football player, maybe an offensive lineman. I considered putting Gemma on the job.
"Men are okay," I said. "I like them well enough." I hated to dampen a good bitch session, but I'd never had a guy really screw me over. They had to be interested enough in me to give me any hope in order to cause much damage, and I hadn't had many get that close. Gemma was right, I needed a boyfriend.
"You're single, though, aren't you?" Trix asked.
