Atlanta OOC: Co-written with the De Matteos' author.
Atlanta was not, apparently, a huge hot spot for wizards, but it had Georgia’s magical transportation center in it just the same. As she slid out of the passenger side of the silver Lexus (chosen because it was the least flashy of her family’s cars, an unfortunately necessary consideration for trips involving Jessica these days), it occurred to Jessica for the first time to wonder if that meant there were, in fact, at least a certain number of people like her right here in Atlanta. Did they do wizard things all the time, or did they find ways to live normally? It was hard to imagine anyone living too low-tech in Atlanta, at least in the parts of the city Jessica knew particularly well. Atlanta prided itself on its modernity, on being the city too busy to hate. That did, however, lend itself to some real granola types on the fringes, and she suspected she was going to look askance at smoothie shops and yoga studios for a while now….
She had to admit, though, it would be kind of brilliant if some of them were hanging out in that scene. Charms would make it super cheap, she imagined, to run a hot yoga studio, or a spa with sauna. No need to use electricity and city water to create the steam. She chuckled at a thought, and her driver, Robert, raised an eyebrow above his dark sunglasses. “What’s funny, Miss Jessica?” he asked.
“I just thought of a future business opportunity,” said Jessica blithely. “If I’m not wrong, I can use my condition to be a free power source for the most profitable crunchy luxury spa in Atlanta.”
Robert nodded. “That’s the spirit,” he said approvingly. “You know what they say, Miss Jessica. The obstacle is the opportunity.” He removed his sunglasses. “I never get used to this,” he muttered, squinting at the building.
Jessica looked at the building, then remembered - it looked wrong to Robert. It had apparently given him an awful headache the first time he had brought her and her parents here. She flushed, hating that she had to make him uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “We’ll only be here for a few minutes. Is it easier for you inside?”
“Somewhat, generally,” said Robert, opening a door for her.
Jessica was momentarily at a loss herself on the other side of the doors. She had known she was not meeting her friends in the same place where the wagon dropped her off and picked her up, of course, but it hadn’t occurred to her that she didn’t really know any other areas of this facility until she got here. Undeterred, she found someone to give her directions, and in short order was waving them over with a broad smile.
“Hi! Welcome to Atlanta!” she trilled, her accent thicker than it was at school. Her red hair swung around in a high ponytail secured with a silky holder; she wore dark blue jeans with a silky light pink short-sleeve blouse with scalloped sleeve edges and tiny pearl buttons down the front. She led them over to Robert. “Robert, this is my friend Felipe, from school, and his sister Leonor,” she said, hands folded at her waist, body half-turned so she could see everyone at once. “Felipe, Leonor, this is Robert, my driver - well, our driver today.”
Robert bowed his head in acknowledgment of her guests. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” he said politely. “I hope you had a pleasant journey?” Jessica reminded herself to thank him later for acting as if it was a totally normal, not weird journey he was inquiring about.
The trip had been unusual for Felipe and Leonor, not least because it was one of the first they had taken alone. In fact, other than trips with tutors, it was the first they had taken alone. Their parents had bid them adieu with knowing smiles and encouraging sideglances that made Felipe’s stomach knot and Leonor straighten her shoulders with just a little more self-importance than usual. When they arrived in Atlanta, they both returned to normal.
Seeing Jessica in her natural environment put to rest some anxieties Felipe hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. After all of the angst of the previous term, it was good to see that Jessica was okay, or as okay as a witch could be while living in enforced isolation among muggles. He relaxed, and his usual sheepish smile responded to his friend’s excitement.
Leonor felt quite the opposite. At home, she was second fiddle. Felipe was the heir, and she was nothing much. Her parents loved them equally, but they didn’t utilise them equally, and Leonor was well aware that that meant she could do more than Felipe ever could. She loved her big brother, but her big brother was a lot smaller than their little world seemed to make him out to be. Here, though, she was small, too. She was used to unfamiliar places from their travel, but she wasn’t used to unfamiliar places without their parents or a tutor. She felt herself shrinking and made the conscious decision to be bigger than anything that ever made her feel small again.
“It’s good to see you,” Felipe told Jessica as they were ushered over to meet a man who looked as uncomfortable as Leonor felt. “And it’s good to meet you,” he added, bowing his head politely. “Thank you so much for your service.”
Leonor stifled the urge to roll her eyes at her brother’s archaic niceties and smiled at Jessica. They were only a few years apart, but Jessica seemed much more glamorous than Leonor felt. She was well aware that they were entering territory that was going to look different than home, particularly for Leonor who had inherited much darker hair, skin, and eyes than her brother, but she wasn’t aware that she would look like a potato in her simple linen gown. It’s white fabric seemed suddenly to merely flop over her, whereas Felipe’s white linen shirt fitted and accentuated his growing arms and legs, and the muscles that were shaped neatly beneath. He had grown a lot already over the summer, and was nearing 5’4”.
"No tuvimos problemas para llegar aquí, gracias por preguntar,” Leonor said, raising an eyebrow as if daring Felipe to tell her off for choosing Spanish. Other than a quick look towards Robert, Felipe did no such thing. Instead, he did exactly what he’d been taught to do because he was taught such things and Leonor wasn’t.
“Yes, thank you for asking,” he repeated in English. “Our trip was very good.”
*******
Jessica slid into the backseat of the Lexus with her guests and used the controls to lower the screen between them and the front seat. “So, I put together a few ideas for things to do,” she said. “Are you hungry or want to rest or anything? If you do, we can do that first, or jump straight into the cool stuff - there’s the High - that’s an art museum - and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History - they have dinosaur skeletons - and the Center for Puppetry Arts, which...that’s exactly what it sounds like,” she concluded with a laugh. “We can get to any of those in...eh, depends on traffic, but they’re not far from each other,” she said. “Do any of those sound better than the others, or do you wanna go get something to eat?” She realized she’d already said that. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. This is just so exciting!”
Felipe was all smiles, and his tousled hair made him look more relaxed than he usually did, although Leonor knew it was actually a sign of his nerves as that was usually when he ran his hands through his hair.
“I’m hungry,” Leonor said, forgetting in her vulnerability to be snarky.
Really, she knew she should be nicer. She actually liked Jessica, and was excited to see her and to see Atlanta. It was just everything else that bothered her. It was Felipe and the way their parents looked at them and the way their parents talked about these sorts of trips. She hated it for her brother, who never seemed to realize what was happening, and she hated her brother for it. Of course, she only hated him because she cared so much.
“I’m hungry, too,” Felipe admitted a little more demurely than Leonor had. “But those museums do sound very interesting. I’d like to see them, too. Thanks for planning all of this,” he smiled.
“My pleasure,” smiled Jessica. “But lunch first. Anything y’all especially want? I can almost promise - you want to try it, it’s somewhere in this city,” she said, waving her hand toward the car windows and the city outside, its skyline pierced with a seemingly endless array of towers of glass and steel. Cars of every color filled the many asphalt lanes. “It’s not exactly New York, but we do pretty well,” she said. “With the airport and the film people and everything. All sorts of restaurants. Plus your classic Southern food, of course,” she added, since they did have some things of their own, and said things were pretty good, in her opinion. As for the details, she trusted Robert to be able to find some kind of restaurant in almost any given specialty which would be good, but which would not be the sort of place where her father’s business associates or mother’s social ones or grandfather’s political ones might see her and wonder what in the world she was doing and who she was doing it with.
Felipe looked at Jessica with some sense of awe that he couldn’t quite put a word too. She was so comfortable here, so different than she was at school. It was the sort of easy happiness that his mother sometimes had when she sat outside on a windy day and let her hair down. His father said that’s why he loved her so much, and Felipe could sort of understand it then. Jessica was beautiful because she was happy, and that made Felipe happy, too.
He looked to Leonor before making a decision, as he would much prefer that Leonor was in charge most of the time anyway. She was being a sourpuss today but that didn’t mean he wanted to play leader in the interim.
“Do you have a preference?” he asked her in Spanish, speaking much more quickly than he would when speaking with Jessica. He suspected her Spanish was good enough to keep up, but it was just a habit. He and Leonor practically spoke their own language anyway.
Looking at her brother with some sense of guilty gratitude, Leonor shrugged. Why was Felipe always so absentminded about these things? Did he really just do everything for everyone else all the time? She knew that wasn’t true. At the same time, she really appreciated that he looked to her when nobody else did, and when the conversation turned to her, she couldn’t help remembering that she was at least important in his world, even if the rest of the world didn’t agree.
“Not really, no,” Leonor said, continuing in the same language.
“Do you want to go someplace local then?” Felipe asked, thinking of the southern food that they could try while they were here. “Quando a Roma?”
“Okay.” Then, looking to Jessica, she asked, “What is southern food? We could try that.”
“Anything you can do with pork, fried chicken, beans - you can just have beans and potatoes, unless you’re in a barbeque place, then you might not. And fried fish, fried shrimp - lots of fried stuff. And you can have breakfast food all day at most places. Grits, eggs, gravy, biscuits - all the good stuff my mom does not let me have normally,” said Jessica, ending with a sigh and a glance toward the front seat.
“You’re the one with the credit card, kid,” said Robert.
“And therefore the one who gets to explain things to my mother if she looks at the statements,” said Jessica. “Except, you know, she does say that I have to do what you say if it comes down to it.”
“Call it that you are introducing your friends to local culture,” he offered.
“It’s a new educational initiative to increase consumption of fried food. Mommy’s going to think I crossed the aisle and dishonored all my ancestors,” deadpanned Jessica, and Robert laughed. “Most of ‘em were probably jerks anyway. So, any of that sound good?”
Leonor and Felipe looked at each other and then looked back at Jessica. Leonor had to imagine it was comical, except that they both suddenly looked like they’d never eaten anything in their lives.
“That sounds perfect,” Leonor said, answering for both of them. She knew her brother would prefer a juicy fruit over anything fried, but they hadn’t come to Georgia for a mango so fried food it was.
“We have money to pay for ourselves too, if that is easier,” Felipe added. The process of taking wizarding currency and exchanging it for Mexican muggle currency and then taking that and exchanging it for American dollars had been difficult, and he was eager to spend it all so they didn’t have to go through the whole thing backwards. At the same time, he knew that his family would never allow Jessica to pay for herself and would probably find it mildly offensive. He suspected Jessica was the same. “Or we can spend it on souvenirs and things,” he added to make sure she had an out.
“Also, how do credit cards work?” Leonor asked. She sort of knew what they were, as she’d seen them before, but she didn’t really get the whole concept. Today was the day to learn something new.
Jessica paused, mulling over the question. “I’m trying to think how to explain it,” she said, to explain her silence as she contemplated how to explain credit cards. “It’s...the bank looks at how much money you have, and how you’ve paid back money you’ve borrowed before, and how much property you have, and they say ‘okay, we trust you to pay us back this much if you spend this much,’” she said, aware this was not a stellar explanation. “So when you’re shopping, or at a restaurant, you give the card to the people who wait on you, and they stick it in a machine, and that...there’s some steps in the middle, but the machine sends a message to the bank to give that store or that restaurant however much money, until you reach your credit limit. Then the bank sends you a bill, and if you can pay it off right then, you do, but otherwise you pay it back to the bank a little at a time, and the bank charges you extra for each month so they make some money and get their money back,” she said. “Does that sound about right, Robert?” she asked.
“Close enough, Miss Jessica,” said the driver.
“So yeah. Of course, the only time we wouldn’t pay everything off right away would be, like, if Daddy got a loan to build a new lab or something for the company,” she said matter-of-factly. “But the card they let me bring doesn’t even go up to anything like that. Guess they don’t quite trust me not to go on a spree and empty the Neiman Marcus or something,” she sighed, this time obviously joking. “It’s just easier than carrying cash around, so if you get mugged or someone steals your stuff, you just call the company and get the card cancelled and get the bank to send you a new one. Not that I go many places where that’s too likely to happen, but you know,” she said. She lived for the most part in a bubble of moneyed safety, but there were no real guarantees, and her city was only ever one wrong turn down an alley away from parts of the city that emphatically were dangerous, with no official barriers to keep people from crossing from one to the other. A certain caution about such things had been drilled into her since birth, along with strict instructions never to get too far from Robert, who was as much bodyguard as driver.
There were a lot of things Leonor wasn’t understanding about this explanation. How did machines send messages to banks? What was Neiman Marcus? She only knew what “cash” was because that’s what they’d gotten their American money in, and it seemed like a very odd way to deliver currency. Why were these crunchy green papers worth anymore than any other piece of paper? Just because of the grumpy white man on the front and a number in the corners?
However, Felipe was nodding along, so Leonor just filed the information away until she could find out more about it. Felipe probably learned about some of this stuff at Sonora, so maybe she’d just wait until then. Or their father had taught it to him, but she didn’t like that explanation as much because it offered little hope for her.
“Well, don’t use up your whole card on us,” Felipe said, carefully choosing words that he was pretty sure fit the concept. He wasn’t totally clear on whether the card would be used up, or run out, or emptied, or something else, so he picked a verb that could be applied generally and hoped for the best. He hadn’t expected to feel so out of his element here, and they hadn’t even gone to any of the actual Muggle locations yet. “But the food sounds great.”
“I assure you,” said Robert, glancing at the rearview mirror to look at Felipe’s reflection in it, “we can get lunch without exceeding Miss Jessica’s credit limit.” Jessica nodded casual agreement; she had always thought it was absurd, those stories about loser rich kids who somehow blew four thousand dollars on one meal. That was, like, two pairs of her mother’s shoes there, maybe three depending on the brand.
* * * * * * * *
After lunch and the Fernbank, the party at last began to wend its way back to Jessica’s house. The Lexus stopped briefly outside an imposing pair of wrought-iron gates, where Robert had to lean far out of his window to tap in a security code; a beep later, and the gates opened onto a long driveway flanked with oak trees. The gates swung almost soundlessly closed behind them as they drove up the long paved lane, surrounded by rolling green lawns periodically moistened by an automatic sprinkler system.
The house emerged suddenly from between the trees, three stories of red brick surrounded in thick white columns. These were connected by lower rails around half the first floor, forming a deep porch peppered with white wrought iron furniture, surrounded by deep flower beds bursting with color, beds which competed with the hanging baskets of petunias hung at regular intervals. On the upper floors, smaller white balconies jutted out, and the whole was topped with multiple chimneys.
Jessica had grown quiet the closer they got to her house, crossing her arms over her stomach, but she smiled at her guests. “My house,” she announced.
Robert dropped the three friends off at the front steps, which Jessica led them up, unlocking the front door with a key on a small keyring in her handbag. Inside, she reached into her handbag again, this time retrieving a cell phone. A few punches later, she had it unlocked and had pressed the icon to call Mommy. “Mom? I’m back with guests.” She listened to the response. “Is Mara still here?” she asked, knowing the answer. “Okay, great,” she said. “Love you. See you in a few minutes. Bye.”
She hung up the phone and dropped it and her housekey back into her handbag. Then she turned to her friends, an unmistakably wary look on her face as she crossed her arms over her stomach again and her cheeks began to noticeably pinken.
“So, this was - not something that I knew about when I invited y’all to come spend some time in Atlanta,” she said. “We - just found out this is a thing, actually, so. It’s a thing. There’s someone I think y’all should meet.” She swallowed. “Another witch, actually, who’s going to be coming to Sonora with us.”
….
She led them into her living room, where a girl with black hair and brown skin lay on the sofa, a book held up above her nose. She put the book down, though, when the door opened, and swung her feet down as Jessica and Felipe and Leonor entered the room.
“Hey, you’re back,” said the girl.
“Yeah,” said Jessica. “Mara, this is my friend Felipe De Matteo, and his sister, Leonor. Leonor’s just your age, Em.”
“Hey,” said Mara, with a bit of a nod to Leonor in particular.
“And Felipe, Leonor - this is Mara. Mara Morales. She’s my sister.” Jessica rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, my half-sister, obviously,” she said, as neither the differences in their appearances nor the difference in their surnames was exactly subtle. “But we found out, like, a couple of days ago that she’s going to be coming to Sonora with us this fall! So I thought it would be...nice for y’all to meet.”
Felipe, for the first time in his life, forgot his manners.
“Good to meet you,” Leonor told the girl.
The Girl who was Jessica’s sister. The Girl who had not existed. Felipe wasn’t sure whether it bothered him more to think that Jessica had lied to him to hide this person, or that she didn’t think a half sister warranted mentioning when he’d asked whether she had siblings. They’d talked about family. They had bonded over family. But obviously that wasn’t something they had the same opinion of.
“It’s good to meet you,” Felipe said stiffly, nodding at Mara as well. It wasn’t her fault that she was only allowed to exist now that she was magic and had to be acknowledged. What sort of family was this with backwards logic like that? They were accepting Mara for the same reason they had shunned Jessica. It was hard to be mad at Jessica then.
Leonor looked from her brother to Jessica and then to Mara. “Sorry to cut this short, but Felipe and I have to check in with our parents. They wanted us to let them know when we arrived back here.” She looked at Jessica with a raised eyebrow, trying not to be as obviously interested in whatever was happening between her and Felipe as she was. She couldn’t help looking down a little bit at her though. “Do you have a room with a fireplace we could borrow?”
Jessica was not sure exactly what sort of reaction she had expected to get from her admittedly somewhat abrupt announcement of a sister. She had not been able to think of any better way to handle it, though, not in the two days she had known that Mara was apparently a witch. She had expected some reaction, though, so this was a bit disconcerting.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” said Jessica. “Daddy let them hook up one in one of the spare rooms in case of emergency, so if you can figure out how to make it work….”
“I’m gonna go ahead to the pool,” announced Mara. One of her favorite things about visiting the Big House was the private swimming pool. “Do y’all swim?” she asked Felipe and Leonor, glancing between them and deciding to ignore the tension in the air.
Felipe didn't say anything.
"Not much," Leonor replied. "There are not many places to do so near our home." She looked at her brother and then back to Mara. "I would like to learn someday in the future."
* * * * * * *
Jessica led Felipe and Leonor toward the spare room.
"Thank you," Felipe told her, not making eye contact. He had regained some semblance of self-control, which meant he could be more polite and also meant he could be more intentional. His father always said that if you were trying to understand somebody, look in their eyes. Look for their walls and their weaknesses and their wants because it would all be spelled out right there. So Felipe didn't give her his eyes.
Leonor nodded at Jessica as well. "What do you want to do?" Leonor asked Felipe, switching to Italian.
For all that the De Matteo siblings didn't always get along, no one could say they didn't understand each other well. Felipe was grateful for the more private language.
"It is rude to just leave. But… I find that I don't want to stay." It wasn't an easy thing for Felipe to admit, in part because he didn't want to acknowledge it.
Leonor nodded again, her face showing all the signs of her having made up her mind. Returning to English, she looked at Jessica. "Mother and father were unaware you had extended family staying, and may wish us to come home." She said it matter-of-factly. Directly. There was no malice and if Felipe hadn't known better, he might have believed her.
Jessica did not speak Italian, and Felipe, she knew, knew this. Which meant they were deliberately talking in front of her in a language she didn’t understand. She bristled slightly at the insult, but was more occupied with how very sideways this seemed to be going.
“I’d hardly count Mara as extended family,” she said matter-of-factly. “And anyway, she lives with her mom not far from here. We’re both in and out of both places all the time.”
She allowed her shoulders to relax slightly and decided to do something very weird. As weird as admitting things she had admitted to Felipe in the past. “Which isn’t the point,” she announced. “The point is that you’re freaked out. Which is fair. This is so not how I ever meant to get to telling you about Em.” She twisted a piece of her hair around her finger. “At home we’re just...a family. But outside, there’s...politics. Mommy would kill me if I ever - I wanted to tell you when I met Leonor - but Daddy said not to, that people don’t understand how our family is and that it didn’t matter anyway since Mara...wasn’t like us. Except that now she is.”
Felipe inhaled sharply. He thought of looking to Leonor again but even out of his peripherals he could see that Leonor had resigned. This explanation was enough for her. Except it wasn't enough at all.
"Wasn't like 'us'?" Felipe confirmed in an icy voice. His world had shattered a little bit when Zara and Jessica had fought, but maybe that was all wrong too. Certainly everything seemed a little more broken now that one of two people he had trusted outside of his family had been lying to him. He wondered whether Zara was trustworthy either but decided it was best not to project. "That's rich, Jess. Like us," he asked, gesturing between them. "Because we are magic? Like 'us'," he asked in air quotes. "Because you're both from families that don't have magic?" He refused to acknowledge that they were in fact one family. "Or like 'us,' the people who made you feel small and awful for being magical, then kept your sister from the world just like they'd done you and you just watched? Propogated the lie? So Mara matters now because she's magical, and you're fine with that? Because I seem to remember that you stopped mattering when you were magical." He let out his air, and seems to cave in on himself for a moment before standing tall again, his face Stern and unreadable. "Considering the importance of both magical and non-magical people in the De Matteo life, I would have thought you would know that they are an open-minded people. You could've… you could've told me. I see that you didn't agree. Leonor and I will be going home now."
Jessica grew redder as the speech rolled on, but not with embarrassment. Instead, she was getting angry.
“You know perfectly well what I meant,” she said. “That Daddy was saying that she wasn’t like me and you and Leonor. Mara has always mattered to me - and to Daddy. She’s my sister. She’s his daughter. We love her. And I’ve hated every day that I have to do this stupid trick where I say I’m Mommy and Daddy’s only child - since I am Mommy’s only child - and - and all this stupidity just because of politics. The same way I hate having to pretend I’m sick while I’m here. But I was doing as I was told and - what, once we were friends, you would have taken it better if I’d just been like ‘by the way, I know I implied I was an only child before, but I’ve got my sister’ at school, or at your house?” she challenged him. “And after my parents specifically told me not to tell people? You’re going to stand there and tell me that I know every single thing there is to know about you and your parents and your people and your family, right now?”
"Yes! You could have picked any moment when I could have been sympathetic, not when I have to be polite because that's what we," he gestured between them again. "Do. And you know that. You don't know everything about my family but I didn't lie about it either. I certainly don't have any siblings I haven't told you about it said I didn't have."
"Felipe," Leonor said quietly. She sounded like their mother and it was a cutting reminder that he was not being good enough.
"I'm ready when you are," Felipe told his sister.
“You definitely weren’t polite,” said Jessica, ignoring again his intention of leaving. Leonor didn’t seem eager to do so anymore and Jessica took that as permission to keep going. “So don’t go with that line. Mara probably thinks I’m friends with some seriously judgy people right now. Like she’s not freaked out enough about all this.”
“You’re half-right,” a fourth voice said from the door, and Jessica’s ponytail stung her face from the speed with which her head swung around. Mara stepped into the room and looked around at the three of them. “I’m not too freaked out, but your friend definitely sounds kinda judgy.”
“I thought you were going to the pool,” said Jessica, at a loss for better words.
“I decided it would be more interesting to see what y’all said about me behind my back,” said Mara.
Felipe looked down, his face flushed. He was ashamed of his behavior but he was also indignant. He hated that Jessica had brought this out in him.
"I apologize," he murmured. "For what it's worth, I have no problems with you. It's your… Jessica."
Leonor looked between the others in the room and then sighed exasperatedly. Felipe's eyes flicked to her face, a cautious question in his furrowed eyebrows.
"For what it's worth," Leonor repeated sarcastically before dropping her tone into something more reasonable, if not serious. "I think you're both being stupid, and Mara seems lovely. If you wanna be friends…." She shrugged again, letting her offer trail off. "But we really should go."
“If you’ve got a problem with my sister,” said Mara, emphasizing the word slightly, “you’ve got one with me. I like you, though,” she added to Leonor. “You’re smart. Them, not so much,” she slipped into Spanish, nodding toward Jessica and Felipe. “I told her not to tell you about me.”
Leonor grinned at Mara and then at Felipe, looking very pleased with herself. "I'm glad she told us. Or me at least. I'm glad to meet you." She paused, considering something for a moment, then sighed. "Can I come back another time and you'll teach me to swim?"
Mara shrugged. “Fine with me. I’m here a lot in the summer. Jezi has to tell Mrs. H if she’s going to have company, outside the family, but apparently she’s okay with you, so.”
"Sounds like a plan. I'll see you at Sonora then," Leonor nodded, finding it amusing that 'Mrs. H' liked her. Jessica's mom wouldn't like Leonor's hoity toity brother if she knew about this moment.