"Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

Enchanted, Inc.
A Novel


Shanna Swendson


acknowledgments

To Rosa, for the feedback, faith, and, most important, the chocolate. I can't give
you your very own Owen, so this will have to do. Thanks also to Mom, for the
"holy nagging" that got the book done; to my agent, Kristin Nelson, and to my
editor, Allison Dickens, for believing in my wacky little story; to Tracee Larson for
Punk 101 and shoe-shopping companionship; to Barbara Daly, for New York
location research assistance; and to the Dead Liners and Browncoats for
encouragement during the tough times and celebration of the happy times on the path
to publication.




one
I'd always heard that New York City was weird, but I had no idea just how weird
until I got here. Before I left Texas to move here, my family tried to talk me out of it,
telling me all sorts of urban legends about the strange and horrible things that
happened in the big bad city. Even my college friends who'd been living in New
York for a while told me stories about the weird and wonderful things they'd seen
that didn't cause the natives to so much as blink. My friends joked that an alien from
outer space could walk down Broadway without anyone looking twice. I used to
think they
were exaggerating.
But now, after having survived a year in the city, I still saw things every day that
shocked and amazed me but didn't cause anyone else to so much as raise an
eyebrow. Nearly naked street performers, people doing tap-dance routines on the
sidewalk, and full-scale film productionsтАФcomplete with celebritiesтАФweren't worth
a second glance to the locals, while I couldn't help but gawk. It made me feel like
such a hick, no matter how hard I tried to act sophisticated.

Take this morning, for instance. The girl ahead of me on the sidewalk was wearing
wingsтАФthose strap-on fairy wings people wear as part of a Halloween costume.
Halloween was more than a month away, and while I couldn't afford designer
fashions, I read enough fashion magazines to know that fairy wings were not a
current fashion statement. She must be some neobohemian trendsetter from NYU, I
thought, or maybe in the costume design program. She'd done a really good job on
the wings because the straps were invisible, making it look like she had real wings.
They even fluttered slightly, but that was probably just the wind currents from
walking.

I forced my attention away from Miss Airy Fairy to check my watch, then groaned.
There was no way I'd make it to work on time if I walked, and my boss was usually