"PsssPssst!" I closed the shop door quietly, even though I knew the little tinkly bells would have already awoken Princess Sedona. Sedona liked to wake up slowly, preferably on her own, which meant I was most likely in the doghouse anyway. The pssst sound was a little bit of a comfort to her, telling her it was just me.

She came into the kitchen corner, arching her back and yawning.

"So? Time to hiss and make up?" she asked, flicking her tail as she watched me unwrap the salmon and tuna from the store.

"They had all kinds of produce on sale today!" I said, putting my apples and pears into the fruit basket.

"Ah, fascinating," Sedona answered, but her eyes gave her away; I saw them widen and her pupils get teeny when she spied the fish.

"Madam," I said, and with a flourish I placed a little white plate with flaked salmon on the table.

She jumped up without a sound and waltzed over to the plate. "Ah, sweet meowstery of life, at last I've found you," she murmured as she delicately tasted the fish.

"I'm running up to the apartment with this," I said, scooping Ms. Esther's philodendron out of my carpetbag. Its dirt was almost like rock, and not a flake of it had even spilled out into my bag.
"Poor Phil has certainly seen better days. I want him upstairs with us, so I can keep a close eye on him." I looked at him warily. "And so customers don't think he's an example of my inventory. In fact," I said, peering more closely at Phil, "I'm thinking this is the poor little guy I gave Ms. Esther for her birthday last year! You need anything while I'm up there?"

She barely glanced my way. "Marty would be nice. For my next nap, I mean," she answered.

Marty Mouse is a catnip stuffed toy no bigger than a silver dollar. Sedona is a little embarrassed by her addiction to him but sheds her pride in order to sleep with him whenever possible. She'd bat him around for a while for show, but really I think he's more like a child's security blanket. She just likes him snuggled up under her chin while she sleeps.

I smiled at her and nodded, but she wasn't paying attention to me. I ran the whole six flights up to our apartment with Phil and looked around the living room for a place for him to live while healing.

"First, a nice long drink, sir," I said to him in a cheery voice. I doused him in room-temperature water, then showered his leaves with the dish sprayer, nice and gentle. I worked with his dirt, lifting chunks of it to aerate it, then wiped the dust off of each individual leaf. Finally, I cooed to him and sang him a nice lullaby. "You'll need a new pot, of course. Let's tend to that tomorrow. And some food would be good. But for now, just some sunlight and a soak in the drink!"

I carried him to the window, the corner one I'd been inspecting from the street before. "This window," I said, "will get cleaned soon, and you'll both get a fresh start to the springtime." I put Phil down on the sill and lifted the window open to breathe in the fresh air. The streets below were alive with the usual action: people window shopping and taking pictures, cars and cabs clogging up the intersections and honking at each other. Ah, New York.

When I looked down to the corner across the street where I had been standing earlier, my breath caught in my throat and my heart jumped up, bumping around in my rib cage. There, standing next to Ms. Esther, was Officer Miles Denton! Towering and rippling, smiling down at the little old lady, then shading his eyes to look straight at me! Or maybe he was just checking the building like I had earlier. Either way, this was a moment, here, and I was gulping it down like Phil gulped his water just minutes ago.

I watched them walk across the street toward me, Ms. Esther kind of tugging on Miles' sleeve and talking, waving her little arms around for emphasis. Miles just kept smiling at her and nodding his head. Such a kind man. As they stepped up to the sidewalk, I realized that I was leaning farther and farther out over the window sill to follow their movement, and by the time that little realization hit me, I had bent my body all the way out and over Phil, who finally gave up the ghost and tumbled out the window altogether.

I watched in horror. Like in slow motion, Phil twirled and somersaulted, his poor leaves flapping in the air, some of them even tearing all the way off.

And then it happened. But of course, this would happen. Phil's pot--the nice terra cotta kind I always used, the kind that, after falling six stories could probably kill someone, landed right at Officer Miles Denton's feet. The dirt? Everywhere. And the plant? Well, I'm sure he was hopeless, but that wasn't really my main concern, here.

I think some adrenaline-based magic helped me almost fly down the six flights of stairs and onto the street.

"Oh, gosh! I'm so sorry, guys!" I leaned over to pick up Phil's few gnarled little stems that were still hanging on for dear life, and I gave him a little caress. "Glad he didn't hit you!" I looked up and it was like one of those snapshots, you know the ones. The shots you can run through from your life like an actual slide show? The awkward moments, stunning moments, embarrassing moments, they're all there, in some heinous memory bank just holding your life in suspension so you can play through them, one at a time, at your late-night pity parties?

Well, this was one for the collection.

Miles, beautiful and mountainous, had his arm around Ms. Esther. He was biting the inside of his cheek and looking just plain delicious. But Ms. Esther? She was sucking on her lips the way some elderly people do when they're missing some teeth. The little hairs on her chin, wiry and silver, were catching the spring sun at just the wrong angle, calling attention to themselves. Her brow was furrowed, and as she cast her eyes first at Phil, then to his broken pot, then back to Phil, you could just about see the wheels turning inside her head.

I beat her to the punchline.

"Now, Ms. Esther, this is your plant who's fallen from my window. I got him from your place and was just about to treat him to some R & R. You know, some fertilizer, regular soaks, clean leaves..."

"That's my plant!" she screeched, pointing a crooked finger toward what was left of Phil.

"Well, yes, he sure is, Ms. Esther," I said. "Like I said, he seemed a little, well, sickly to me. I was just taking him to--"

"You stole my plant!" she said, her voice still really loud. Ms. Esther grew up in the city. I guess she learned early you had to speak really loud out here if you wanted people to hear you.

"Ms. Esther, I just took him in to help him get better. He's--"

"What were you doing in my apartment? When did you take my plant? What have you done with my--" But she stopped herself here, visibly reining in. "Maybe that plant isn't the only thing that caught your eye in my apartment, young lady?" She wrenched herself away from Officer Denton, who gave her a little pat on her humped back.

"Now, Mrs. Sena," he said.

"Don't you 'now, Mrs. Sena' me, young man!" she shouted. "I want to know what Madeline Bridges has been taking from me, right under my very nose! And you!" She poked him in his beautiful chest and spat up at him, "oughtta wanna know the same thing! You're a cop! Do your job, here!"

I was just dumbstruck. I'm sure my mouth was hanging from its hinges. I've never stolen anything in my whole life. Well, okay, that little magic trick with the cups and the ball, back when I was ten. But I ended up sneaking it back to the magic store a few days after I figured out how to make the ball disappear. Human magic is really so dumb. I figured at the time I was just borrowing, not stealing.

"No, Ms. Esther, wait. Let me explain, please." I reached out and closed my eyes and cast just the teensiest of calming spells on her. When I opened my eyes, her breathing was back to normal and her brow wasn't furrowed anymore. "Let's go inside. Have a cup of tea. I'll tell you and the nice policeman, here." I looked at him and felt my butterfly stomach, just like I was back at that eighth-grade dance again. "You'll have a cup of tea, won't you, um, Officer..."

"Denton. Miles Denton. We met this morning at the station, remember? Venus Flytrap guy with the little boy?"

I smiled vacantly up at him and stuck my dirty hand out to shake. Anything for a chance to touch this man.

"Ah, of course," I said. "I knew I'd seen you somewhere recently. Come in, come in!"