43

The morning of the interview at Bountiful Books began as every other since Nem had moved to this city. Her entire being was filled with the anticipation of an exciting adventure. Greg, and what he was doing at any given moment whenever he entered her thoughts, hadn’t happened at all today. A great sign that her new life had begun the untangling process of her future from her past. This gave her strength in the belief she could do this. If she could recover so easily from a miscarriage and her marriage breakdown, then she had little to fear of the future.

She focused her thoughts on the interview; her earlier concerns of complications from surrounding herself daily with strangers had left her. She wanted this job and could have easily used the luck thing to be assured of securing it.

A quiet hope inside wanted the diary to ignore her desire and not use its power to simply hand her this. She wanted to win, fair and square, like the Bewitched character Samantha. She desired to live as an average person, failing and succeeding on her own merit.

She noticed since she hadn’t always used the accrued power, that it worked like a bank account, allowing her to build a type of equity of bad fortune. When it needed to be spent, the good fortune was inserted in a line beneath the last misfortune notation.

The diary, while playing a balancing act with fate, seemed okay with being in debt either way. It hadn’t seemed to work like this for the previous owners but for her, things appeared different. She wondered if this was because she’d tried so many times not to use it, or if she had used it on occasion to help others and not just herself. In the end, she told herself, however it worked, it didn’t do her a scrap of good to worry about the mechanics. The diary did what it did, and she lived how she lived. Sometimes they were partners, and sometimes not.

She wanted, needed to know, that when it came to this job, if her own personality and smarts sufficed. Maybe that’s what her mom had imagined she was doing with Alan. Had she wanted love to find her on its own and to work out her problems without magical assistance?

She wondered if these thoughts occupied the minds of a billionaire’s children. Did they decline their parents’ financial assistance in order to grow their own confidence in their abilities?

Probably not. Why would you? She laughed at her answer and hoped she might be stronger than that, but if in the end, she gave in and used the diary, or it just interceded, then so be it.

Nem had decided to walk to the store, using the opportunity to familiarize herself with the neighborhood. She’d chosen well and delighted in glancing at the smattering of coffee shops amid the apartment blocks and funky, designer stores. She made a mental note to visit a different one each day and explore this new world.