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Morgan said odd things sometimes.
It didn't bother Tyson--in fact he thought it was kind of cute. Part of the package of being friends with a girl from the big city.
Like when she'd get a C on a math quiz and mumble under her breath about missing the pigeons.
One day his curiosity got the best of him, and he asked what pigeons had to do with math.
"A lot of them hang out in the Financial District," she said. "So, they're really good with numbers. The animals here are no help at all with homework!"
"Riiiiight," he said, checking her eyes for their trademark sarcastic glint and, upon seeing none, admiring her commitment to the bit. "Well, maybe our animals are useless, but our tutoring center isn't. D'ya want me to help you get signed up? I have to keep my grades up for basketball, so I know who all the good tutors are."
Morgan groaned.
"Hey now," he said. "If you fail, we'll be in different math classes next year. How will I survive?"
She snorted. "How did you survive last year when I was still in New York?"
He placed the back of his hand on his forehead and sighed dramatically. "With great difficulty and much languishing."
She snorted even louder at that. "OK Mr. SAT prep."
But she did sign up for tutoring.
~.~
Morgan had told Tyson about the incident that had destroyed her wardrobe.
She was still building it back up which meant that occasionally, she'd show up to school wearing something that had clearly come from her mother's closet.
It wasn't that she looked bad in the flowy skirts and flowery tops (in fact, it made him a bit wistful in a way he couldn't quite place). It just wasn't her style--and he was pretty sure it was her visible discomfort that was making her a target for the school's fashion police more than anything else.
As he approached the outside lunch table where Morgan was sitting, he caught the tail end of a comment of a passing girl--a blonde with a K name. Kristie or Kara or something. He always got them mixed up.
"Clearly you and your mom are super close. I mean, look how you're dressed."
"What's wrong with being close to your mom?" Tyson said, putting his tray down next to Morgan's. He kept his tone causal, but his stance squared.
The blonde started in surprise, tripping over her words as she backpedaled. "N-nothing. It's a good thing. That's what I was saying! It's good to have a good relationship with your mom. I mean, you're close to your mom. I wish I was closer to my mom." The girl laughed nervously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Heh, anyway. Uhhh, enjoy your lunch?"
Without another word, she made a hasty retreat.
"You OK?" Tyson asked.
"Yeah," Morgan said. "That kind of thing doesn't really bother me. But thanks for the assist."
"You sure?" It was his mom's town, but Tyson felt strangely committed to making sure Morgan was adjusting.
"Mhm," she said, grabbing a fry off her plate and holding it into the air. Tyson looked confused for a moment, wondering if she was offering it to him and pulling back in surprise when a blue jay swooped down and plucked it from her fingers. "These things have a way of working out."
Later in the day, Tyson passed a blue VW beetle in the student parking lot, freshly in need of a trip to the car wash after some unfortunate presents from several birds. He looked at the vanity plate and snapped his fingers in remembrance.
Kylee. That was the blondes' name.
~.~
"Morgan, I have a question, and you have to promise not to laugh."
They were sitting in the bleachers, post basketball practice. The gym always cleared out very quickly with players eager to shower and get home. They didn't have a whole lot of time before one of their parents would start wondering where they were, but it was enough to sit and talk about mundane things while wondering how he could say, "Hey, I think your hair looks pretty," in a way she hadn't already surely been told countless time by any number of city boys.
"Um, sure," Morgan said. She was fidgeting with her hands. After they'd accidentally brushed hands upon sitting down, she'd kept hers clasped in her lap the entire rest of the conversation. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. "What about?"
He'd lost an AirPod a week ago. Annoying but the definition of a first world problem. Morgan had said she'd help look for it but after a few days, he'd been ready to throw in the towel and order new ones.
Until he'd stepped out of the shower and been greeted with a mouse holding his missing AirPod.
Back in the bleachers, he coughed. "Right. Do you--and again, before I ask this, trust me, I know how crazy this question sounds but I have to ask. Can you control animals?"
"Of course not," Morgan said. "But most of them know my mom so they'll do favors for me if I ask nice."
Tyson blinked. He blinked again.
"You're not joking, are you?"
True to her word, Morgan didn't laugh but she did give a wry smile. "Welcome to my world."
~.~
It wasn't as if Morgan hadn't warned him. It was one of the first things she'd said when they'd first met.
"Imagine if your mom was made of magic and sang at the drive through."
But he'd thought it was another weird New Yorker in-joke.
Now, he was quickly starting to realize that a lot of the things he'd assumed were sarcastic quips were actually her just casually recounting events from her actual life.
"Out of the curtains?" he said.
"Yeah, just like The Sound of Music. And the apartment was filled with like, rats and pigeons and flies."
"Flies? How were the flies even helping with the cleaning? They don't have hands. They don't even have paws!"
"I...honestly don't know." She laughed, a lovely sound. "Give me a break, I was six. I didn't ask enough questions."
"Clearly, neither did I," Tyson said. "It's not like you haven't been telling me stuff. It just hasn't been--I dunno. Sticking? Does that make sense?"
"I think that's just part of how it works," she said. "No one really asks too many questions about her and all her princess-y magic. It just sorta slides off, like it's normal. At first, I thought it was just like, hey. It's New York. Weird things happen here. Keep it moving. But there was that whole thing with the dragon--"
"I'm sorry, the what now?"
Morgan waved her hand in a bored manner. "Don't worry about it. Not that interesting. I wasn't even there for the dragon. Either dragon. The point is, even the most veteran New Yorker would have at least an opinion on that, you know? Even just like, hey, that's kinda inconvenient. If a King Kong situation is happening, you at least look up, right?"
"I feel like I need way more context than you're giving me but I'm gonna go with yes."
"I don't think anyone can properly break past the weirdness filter until they're closer to her. Like my dad and me."
Tyson’s lips twisted into a confused frown. "OK, wait. So that explains everything else but why am I busting through the weirdness filter? I haven't even met your mom."
Morgan looked at the ground for a moment, before looking at him, the creasing on her face clearly indicative of her screwing up the courage to say something. No, he realized. To do something. She leaned over and quickly kissed him on the cheek.
"Do you want to?"
~.~
It wasn't as if Tyson had never seen Giselle before.
She was hard to miss with her bright red hair and colorful outfits. He'd seen her pushing around her younger daughter in a stroller and having strained conversations with his mother--strained from his mom's side of course. Giselle, he'd never seen sans a bright smile.
Which, as far as he was concerned, was the biggest evidence of the whole "Morgan's mom is a literal fairytale princess" thing he'd seen so far.
But this wasn't just seeing her around town. This was meeting her. Like actually meeting her.
"Are you sure what I'm wearing is OK?" Tyson asked, brushing imaginary lint from his letterman jacket.
"It's fine," Morgan said, giving his shoulder a reassuring pat. "Don't worry. Mom's kind of a lot but in a good way. Oh, but if she starts talking about true love's kiss or anything, you have my permission to fake a sports injury and bail."
Now that he was past the weirdness filter, Tyson definitely had a follow-up question about that, but he was stopped by the sight of Giselle, surrounded by a whirlwind of birds, each flying around her and peeling off in formation as if they'd been trained. The dizzying array and bright colors dazzled him into near silence. All he could manage was a quiet, "Woah."
Morgan was not quite so dazzled.
"Mom," she said, causing Giselle to turn around, revealing she was holding a basket into which the formation of birds had been dropping flowers. It was a beautiful arrangement--being Malvina's son, Tyson knew more about flower arrangements that he necessarily cared to.
"Morgan," Giselle said, smile bright as always, eyes filled with warmth. Her gaze moved to Tyson, and he noticed that Giselle's eyes lost a measure of softness that was replaced immediately with a spark of excitement. "And is this who I think it is?"
"This is Tyson. Don't make it weird."
Giselle thrust out her hands, offering him the flower arrangement. "Nice to meet you, Tyson! Welcome to our home."
~.~
Tyson offered to do the dishes after dinner, but he was quickly rebuffed. Apparently, it was the raccoons' turn and he wasn't about to argue with such a meticulously crafted chore wheel.
Dinner hadn't been as awkward as he’d feared. Morgan's dad had been there as well but he'd mostly asked questions about school and basketball. Normal dad stuff. Giselle trended towards more personal questions, but there was never any judgement at his answers. She'd sang a bit under her breath about the cake as she brought it out for dessert which was kind of weird but mostly in a charming way.
The only real snag was when he'd offered Morgan a rose from the basket and she'd pricked herself on one of the thorns. It had brought back a horrible wave of deja vu and when he'd mentioned it, all he'd gotten was nervous laughter from Morgan's dad, a confusing apology from her mom, and a mouthed "I'll tell you later," from Morgan herself.
After dinner, Morgan walked him to his car.
"Hopefully I haven't scared you off?"
"Are you kidding me?" he said, squeezing her hand. "With cake that good, you're gonna have to fight to get rid of me."
~.~
Tyson knew his mom was a lot--and not always in a good way.
It wasn't that he didn't love her. It was his mom. And he knew she did a lot to try to make sure he was happy and successful. But he'd found that it was a lot easier to deal with her if he wasn't always around her.
"I dunno how you deal with her Mrs. P," he told Giselle as he helped with event set-up. Technically this was yet another one of his mother's many events, but Giselle had found herself taking point by popular demand. His mother was taking it as well as she could be expected to. Which wasn't to say that she was taking it well, but no one had been fired or found themselves in violation of obscure Home Owners Association bylaws that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere, which was progress.
"Oh, she's not so bad," Giselle said. "Malvina is just...very driven and particular."
"Didn't she try and kill you? And, like, your entire country?"
"Well yes, but she was under a spell I cast--again, so sorry about that--so I don't think it's quite fair to blame her."
Tyson had seen his mother close enough to going full "off with her head" too many times for him to believe that anything she’d done under the spell had been solely the spell’s influence, but he wasn't about to argue.
"I'm just saying," Tyson said. "You're kind of a rockstar. No wonder Morgan loves you so much." There was something about Giselle that made it easier to say things. He wasn't sure if it was something magical or just something about her personality, but he often found himself saying a bit more than he'd planned when he talked to her.
Giselle looked up from the papercraft flowers she was making.
"Did she say that?"
"I mean, not the words but she talks about you all the time. The whole billboard thing and playing with the animals in Central Park. Oh, and the first time they took you to a Broadway musical."
Giselle smiled, half fond, half embarrassed. "Ah, yes. I still wasn't clear on how this world worked with regard to singing. But I heard that, after that little incident, they started doing quarterly sing-a-long shows that always sell out so I like to think I helped in a way."
Giselle completed the flower she was working on and then her fingers stilled. She looked up at Tyson. "Morgan told you that story?"
"Yup."
"That was so long ago." She hesitated. "And when she told it...was it a good memory?"
"I mean, yeah. Pretty much all of them with you in them are."
Tyson pretended he didn't see her tearing up the rest of the afternoon, for Morgan's sake.
~.~
"Wait, so the whole marching band caught it?"
"Well, not the whole marching band," Tyson clarified. "But more than half. I think they all had a party this weekend and now they're dropping like flies." He sighed. "And Mom lobbied really hard to host the competition here this year, so she's gonna be really upset we can't compete."
"Oh, is there like, a numbers requirement? Do you not have enough people?"
He shook his head. "No, that's not it. There are just too many gaps in the routine. If just a couple of people were missing that would be one thing, but there's too many. It's gonna throw off the whole formation. And there's not enough time to choreograph something new and have them all learn it. They have no idea what they're gonna do tonight."
"Hmm." Morgan pursed her lips thoughtfully. "So, you have enough people, the problem is just the routine?" When he gave a confirming nod she said, "I think I might be able to help. Or at least get my mom to help."
"What do you mean? Does she have a handy, magic cure for the flu?"
"Not exactly."
When Giselle showed up to pick up Morgan, Tyson explained the situation as directed.
"Oh dear," Giselle said, once she was looped in. "That sounds awful. I'm sure those poor kids would appreciate get well cards. Perhaps delivered by bird. Tyson, do you happen to know the names of everyone who's sick and their favorite bird?"
"Uh..."
"Later," Morgan said waving the question off. "But Mom, the competition is tonight. And they need help. Like, musical help."
Giselle's eyes widened. "Musical help? Morgan, are you saying--?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Full Andalasia-mode. Can you please, please, please do your thing?"
Until that moment, Tyson had never heard a grown woman squeal in delight. He was about to ask if they should call a meeting of the marching band or if there was anything to discuss but, before he could, Giselle was singing. And as far as he could tell, she was making up the words on the spot. When he opened his mouth to question the logistics of that, he found that his next words came out half-speech, half-song.
He looked at Morgan, baffled, who said, "Just go with it. It's like suppressing a sneeze if you don't," before joining in herself, clearly not for the first time.
Once they hit the band room, the back and forth turned into a whole musical number about coming together and rallying and the band kids jumped in with their instruments. Tyson found himself rap-singing about teamwork? And it wasn’t as if he was being mind-controlled. He agreed with everything he was saying--singing. It was just, on a normal day, he wouldn’t be able to think of a rhyme for "harmoniousness" off the top of his head.
As verse or two into the song, Giselle handed off lead vocals to the Drum Major and then time went weird. One moment he was watching the young Drum Major whip his smaller crew into shape with rhyming couplets and, the next, he found himself at the sidelines of the competition, watching a fully choreographed number.
Giselle and Morgan didn't seem at all disoriented. They were still keeping up background vocals, which they did until the performance finished. Tyson switched between watching the band and their impossibly polished debut performance and watching Morgan and Giselle, giggling as they danced together on the sidelines--Morgan explained later that the magic was centered on Giselle so she had to participate even tertiarily or else it wouldn't work.
At the end of the night, during the post competition celebration, the Drum Major raised a can of Diet Coke in a toast to Morgan's mom, "The best choreographer we've ever had."
Tyson laughed so hard, he had to leave the room.
~.~
When Tyson went to Morgan's house, she was out. That he was expecting. However, he wasn't expecting her mom to be out too.
"They're together, doing a spa day thing," her dad explained. "Mother/daughter tradition."
"Oh," he said. "Sorry, I can come back later."
"Are you sure it's not something I can help you with?"
He shook his head. "Nah, I kinda needed to talk to Mrs. P. It's a pretty person-specific question if you catch my drift."
"Mmm, so this is a magic thing."
"Kinda. But, don't worry. I can ask when she gets back."
Robert closed his laptop screen. "Well hold on. I've been married to her for ten years. I might be able to answer. But if you need someone to talk to a squirrel then you're going to have to wait for Giselle. Morgan's picked it up some, but I could never get a handle on how she does that."
"No no. Nothing like that. It's just..." He considered for a moment before pressing on. Anything he tells Giselle, Robert will surely hear about eventually anyway. "There's that festival going on next week, you know? The Garden Masquerade?"
Robert squinted. "Didn't that already happen last month?"
Tyson shook his head. "No, that was the Flower Festival."
"But those posters in the community center?"
"No those are for the Rose Waltz in December."
Robert struck Tyson as the kind of guy who’d moved past the need to question things, but he raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Tyson said. "Take it up with my mom. But, anyway, it's coming up and I wanted to ask Mrs. P if there was a way to do her music magic thing but like, centered on less people. Like, maybe just a couple of people."
"Or just a couple," Robert said, in a way that made Tyson sure he caught his meaning.
"Yeah, exactly. I wanted to know if she could, you know," He snapped both his fingers. "Work her magic. Make things a little more flashy for us on the dance floor."
"Your mother is planning the event," Robert said. "I think it's going to be plenty flashy without throwing magic into the mix."
He couldn't really argue with that. But still, his insides felt a bit unsettled. He’d never been nervous at these events before. But Morgan had never been there to dance with. And it wasn't that he was a bad dancer. He knew he was pretty good--side effect of living in a town that had, on average, seventeen festivals a year. But Morgan lived with Giselle. Her entire life since the age of six had featured full Disney Princess level singing and dancing every day to the point where it didn't even phase her anymore.
"I know," Tyson said. "But this is the first festival since we started dating and, I dunno, I just want it to be special."
Robert's face softened, like he was remembering something. "You shouldn't worry about making it special. First dances always are. Trust me. And I was much more stubborn that you when I met Giselle."
"No offense, but I'm not really surprised that went well. She's literally made of magic."
Robert smiled in a way that made it very hard for Tyson to picture the No Fun Allowed lawyer he'd apparently been before Giselle had entered his life. "And when you're dancing with the right person, you feel like you're made of magic too."
~.~
Morgan's masquerade mask was made of blue jay feathers. Tyson's had a lion motif. Both were given to them by their mothers.
A fact that Tyson made clear when Morgan got a look at him and said, "King of the jungle, huh? Someone clearly thinks pretty highly of himself." When he sputtered out an explanation about his mom and them having to match and him not really having a say in the matter, she'd laughed and kissed him on the cheek.
"Relax, you look great."
"So do you."
"I better, the number of mice that put this dress together."
"Morgan."
"OK, that was a joke. Mom made it. First real dance and all. I don't count the one where your mom almost killed me."
"Understandable." He offered Morgan his arm, the way he vaguely remembered doing under the fairy tale spell. "Well, there shouldn't be any magic at this event but as long as we finally get to dance, it'll feel like magic."
Morgan scoffed but took his arm. "Clearly someone has been spending way too much time with my mom."
"I got that from your dad actually."
"Oh." She paused. "Well, that checks out. I dunno if you've noticed, but she kinda rubs off on everyone a little bit."
He looked at his girlfriend, the born and raised New Yorker in a hand-sewn masquerade gown wearing a mask made of the feathers of birds she was on a first name basis with.
"Yeah," he said with a soft smile. "I'm starting to get the picture."