“I’m one of the four ghouls in Nightmare before Christmas, that’s the show opener. And then I’m a skeleton in Danse Macabre, and a demon in Night on Bare Mountain, but not a broom imp in Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Best of all, I’m the understudy to the lead’s sidekick in Tubular Bells. Matt got the second soloist role, just like everyone expected. He’ll be premiere next year when Aaron graduates. We’ve got a solo and everything. And I may be a spark in the ‘Ritual Fire Dance’ if Billy flakes out. He’s talking about taking up soccer rather than sissy ballet. I just think he’s lazy and soccer is less work.” He grabbed three cookies and began stuffing them into his mouth.
I knew how many calories he burned dancing. And he was growing again. I didn’t have to worry about spoiling his appetite. Belle, on the other hand, was a very picky eater, afraid to get food caught in her braces. She brushed her teeth five times a day. More fastidious than G.
“Um, Jason, is it okay if I come in?” asked an elfin-faced blonde. She stuck just her head around the swinging door to the kitchen.
“Sure, Tiffany. Mom, you remember Tiffany. She’s prima in the company and gave me a ride home from the auditions.”
“Welcome, Tiffany. Of course, I remember you. I thought your performance in Vivaldi’s Spring last June was inspired.”
She sidled inward, as tall as me, but weighing about half as much, I don’t think she could move without fluid grace. A sophomore in the university’s performing arts program, rumor had it that she’d forsake our tiny regional semi-pro company for New York before the year was out.
“Thank you for bringing Jason home,” I added. “Is there something I can do for you?” Normally, when Jason begged rides, they dumped him at the door and sped off.
“Um . . . Jason said you might have an ointment or something for sore feet. I can pay you.”
Immediately, I looked at her raw and swollen toes. She wore flip-flops instead of regular shoes to keep from irritating them more.
“Come with me,” I said, placing a gentle and reassuring hand on her back. “Sit.” I pointed to the bench seat beneath a bay window in the breakfast nook. I handed her two cookies to keep her there.
“My dad’s waiting in the car. . . .”
“Jason, go talk to him. He can come in and watch or come back in an hour. We’ve got plenty of cookies, and there’s milk in the fridge.” While I spoke, I dug out a dish basin and started filling it with hot water. While that was happening, I poked around in the back of the pantry, on a shelf that used to be too tall for the kids.
“Mom, this is Mr. Tyler, Tiffany’s dad,” Jason called.
“Take a seat, Mr. Tyler, I’m Daffy. I’m just giving your daughter a good long soak with Epsom salts with some mint, aloe, arnica, and ginseng mixed in,” I said, carrying a sealed plastic container to the sink and the rapidly filling basin. “Oh, and I’ll add some alum, that helps toughen the skin against further abrasions.” There were a few other secret ingredients in the dry mix to promote healing, but I don’t always remember which ones I add, —just what feels right at the moment.
“Are you truly daffy, or is that just a nickname?” asked a forty-something man in a light baritone voice. He stood about six feet tall, maybe a little less, with the same silvery blond hair as his daughter. A rugged face, not handsome like G’s, but pleasant enough; a cute little mustache filled the area between nose and upper lip. Briefly, I wondered if it would be soft or bristly.
We’d seen each other off and on over the years, at dance recitals and waiting for children at rehearsals. But I’d never communicated with him more than a neighborly wave. Now I looked at him more closely, and my heart started beating double time.
He didn’t wear a wedding ring. But that didn’t mean much these days. G only wore his when he was at home.
My hand felt naked and too light now that I’d removed my wedding band and the one-carat diamond engagement ring.
“It’s short for Daphne, but I’ve been Daffy most of my life.” I had to smile at his easy banter.
He hitched his jeans and plunked down on the bench on the opposite side of the built-in table from Tiffany. G never succumbed to the casualness of butt hugging jeans.
“I’ll gladly pay you whatever you ask if you can keep my daughter dancing,” he said. The endearing smile vanished, replaced by a concerned frown. “When her mother died ten years ago, dancing was the only solace she found. It helped us both get through the worst of the grief, but then we discovered what a special gift for dance she has. She needs to keep dancing. I’m Ted, by the way.”
So he was single. I put a plate of cookies on the table between them. “Help yourselves; there are plenty more.”
Then I gave the herbal mixture a quick stir with the wooden spoon that just seemed to live in my jeans back pocket these days. Something not quite right about the mixture. I stirred it twice more, then added a hint more alum. When it felt ready, I placed the basin on the floor by Tiffany’s feet. “It might feel a little hot at first, but it needs to be for all the salts to dissolve and mix together properly.”
She touched a toe to the water and jerked it back, then let it sink slowly to the bottom of the basin. Almost immediately, she sighed in relief.
“Ballet is not kind to a dancer’s feet,” I said. “Even Jason gets blisters and aches, and he doesn’t wear toe shoes.” I placed a hand on Tiffany’s right foot when she tried to jerk it out of the hot water after only a few seconds. Those salts could be a bit abrasive on open sores. “Let it work. It’s uncomfortable now, but it will feel so much better in just a few minutes. Now relax and enjoy not having to be on your feet for a little while.”
She did so.
“I haven’t seen her so relaxed in dog’s years. A driven personality, she’s not happy unless she’s moving and accomplishing something,” Ted said.
“I bet she finishes her homework on time and completely the first time just so she can spend more time dancing,” I replied, looking pointedly at Jason.
“Something like that,” Ted said.
“Speaking of which— Jason, have you finished mowing the lawn?”
“It’s Belle’s turn,” he argued.
“Belle is at a chess tournament with her father right now.” G taking Belle meant one less hour in the minivan for me, which meant I had time to do the laundry so I could send the kids to school on Monday with clean clothes.
“The lawn can wait for her to do it when she gets home. But one or the other of you will do it by tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “It’s going to rain.”
“The weather critters on TV say no chance of rain.” Jason rolled his eyes. He loved keeping up with the weather forecasts, hoping to catch me in a wrong prediction. I watched the same forecasts and made my own guess based on the radar and jet stream. I was rarely wrong.
Jason pulled a chair from the dining room to sit and stretch his long legs out in front of him. Yep, those socks beneath leather sandals had holes in the toes, too. Time to hit the bargain store again.
“Trust me, it is going to rain tomorrow afternoon.” I didn’t add that the first drops would fall at three-o-five. TMI.
Magic? Not really, more like smelling the differences in the air and humidity and long experience watching the volatile weather of the Willamette Valley between the Coast Range and the Cascade Mountains.
Shara seemed to have disappeared. I hoped she hadn’t sneaked out to the greenhouse again. Maybe I would have to tear it down and get rid of that evidence locker, despite my promise to G. He’d drag his feet for years if I let him.
“I don’t know what Jason did over the summer, but his leaps are amazing now. He has much more power than he used to,” Tiffany said. She looked at my son with admiration, but not adoration.
I wondered if he knew the difference.
“If I’m so good, how come I didn’t get the second soloist part instead of underst
udy?” he grumbled. Yeah, he knew that Tiffany used compliments to gain an introduction to me. I kept his feet fit, and he sometimes bragged about it. Foot care was that important to a dancer.
“Maybe because Matt has more experience and more polish to his technique,” I suggested.
Back to Tiffany’s feet. “Soak for thirty minutes every day, before bed. Do that for two weeks. Expose your feet to the air as much as possible. Sandals that strap on, not flip-flops. Keeping those dang things on will screw with your back. And blowing out of them will cause even more damage to those raw and blistered toes.”
“See, I told you so,” Ted said. He smiled hugely at his daughter.
I bet he didn’t win many arguments with her.
“Okay, Daddy.” The love between them flowed in both directions. They had the kind of bond single parents develop with their children. I could tell they spent a lot of time together and he supported her dancing completely.
“Can you stay out of toe shoes for three or four days to let some of the worst lesions heal?” I asked, knowing she’d agree to maybe a day and a half, until Monday. “Do you see where your little toe curls under the next toe?”
She peered at her feet through the water.
“It may be broken. I’m not a doctor, or even a naturopath, just a . . .” I wanted to say “kitchen witch” as part of current slang. But I wasn’t one. Not really. And now I knew that real ones existed. “I’m just a baker with an herbal hobby. You need to have that x-rayed and taped by a professional.”
“Possibly . . .” she hedged.
I looked to Ted.
“We’ll stop at the urgent care clinic on the way home.”
“Daddy!” Tiffany sounded more than a little put out. “What if they make me stop dancing for weeks? What if I lose the part in Tubular Bells? That’s the showpiece in the collage of Halloween numbers. What if it screws up all the auditions I did this summer?”
“I’m outta this argument,” Jason said. He scooted his chair away from the center of the action and aimed for the back door. “Lawn. Maybe last time I have to mow it until spring.”
“Jason, check on Shara. She may be in the greenhouse.” Then I turned back to Tiffany. “I can’t keep you from dancing. I can’t keep my son from dancing. But at least wrap your toes in some lamb’s wool inside your toe shoes. I don’t care what your teachers and directors say. It’s not being a sissy, it’s protective maintenance.”
More grumbles.
“About that payment. I meant it,” Ted said. He reached behind for his wallet in his back pocket. No, I hadn’t really noticed how nicely his jeans fit his tight butt. Really.
Well, maybe.
I was on the rebound; I didn’t want to notice men at all.
Yeah, right.
“Actually, if Jason can share rides with Tiffany, that will be more than enough.” I raised my eyes to him in hope. I didn’t need the money right now. Between G’s financial support and my share of the profits at Magical Brews, my checking account was okay if I didn’t go overboard on school clothes. What I needed was time, the one thing mothers never had enough of. And, right now, I needed to spend more time with Shara before her natural curiosity got out of hand.
That settled, I went about mixing dry ingredients for Tiffany to take home. Then I put many of those same ingredients in a base of linseed oil and camphorated olive oil. Okay, it started as a commercial moisturizing lotion I bought in bulk at the big box store. “Salve in the morning, soak in the evening. And stay out of toe shoes for a couple of days. A week if you can,” I told her, handing the remedies to her father.
“All natural, nothing harmful?” he asked as he stood.
He was very close. Too close for normal comfort. I could smell the lingering remnants of his aftershave and natural male. Damn it. He was attractive, and I hadn’t had attentive male company in months.
“All natural doesn’t always equate to nothing harmful. But I did not knowingly add anything that would hurt your daughter. I would never willingly deprive the world of the beauty of her dance.”
The front door slammed, and I jumped back two steps.
G and Belle stood frozen in place at the swinging door. The three tall, perfectly groomed, fashionably dressed adolescents behind them and looking at Belle with fascination didn’t register until later. All I could see in that moment was the scowl on G’s face, and hear the animal growls coming from his throat.
Five
JASON UNWOUND THE THIRD long extension cord for the electric mower. Shara had handed it to him from the depths of the toolshed. He didn’t know what fascinated her about the cement block flooring, but she wasn’t in the greenhouse like Mom said. So he guessed she was okay.
“I need a riding mower,” he grumbled. “I could finish this . . . this meadow in half an hour with a bigger, more powerful mower.” Not that Mom would consider anything as noisy and polluting as a gas-powered machine. If she had her way, the whole, bloody acre would go back to wildflowers and grasses.
He flipped the switch, and the machine purred, the blade spinning beneath the housing. At least, the electric mower was easy to start. His friend BJ Chambers complained about the shoulder-wrenching pull start of his gas mower. He only had an oversized corner lot, maybe one hundred by two hundred feet, and a house that filled most of it.
Even klutzy Belle could manage the electric stuff, if she didn’t run over the cord. That had happened a couple of times.
A snazzy red sports car drove slowly along the narrow road at the front of the house. Jason turned off the mower and gawked at the dream car. “Mr. Mooney!” he called to the man who climbed out of the sexy vehicle.
Oops. His father’s friend wore a tie-dyed caftan and sandals today instead of his weekday business suit. “Coyote Blood Moon, what brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“Is your dad home?” The slender man of average height stayed by the car, didn’t approach him or the house at all. Something about his mystic outfit made his neatly cut and groomed hair look fuzzy. Actually, his whole figure looked fuzzy as if he never worked out or did any exercise at all.
“Yeah, Dad drove in a couple minutes ago. Some kids from the football team followed him home.” He jerked his head toward a gleaming, oversized black pickup truck parked across the street and down a ways, closer to BJ’s old house than this one.
Jason couldn’t decide if he’d rather have the macho truck or the snazzy sports car. He still had a year to wait to get his license. No sense even asking for his own car until then.
“All right. I’ll call your father later. It’s not terribly urgent. Don’t bother mentioning I stopped by. Got to get back to my shop. Oh, I did notice that CD you wanted came in. African drums music is kind of weird for someone as young and white as you.”
“African Jazz is the coming thing in innovative dance. You see it all the time on the competition shows on TV. I want to be ahead of the game. Maybe do some of my own choreography.”
Coyote Blood Moon nodded and smiled. “I’ll keep it under the counter by the cash register. You can pick it up anytime.”
“Might be a week or two. Have to wait for my allowance.”
“I’ll let you have it on account, and you can bring in the money whenever. I know you are good for it.” He tucked himself back into his car and drove off slowly, looking carefully from side to side, down each widely separated driveway. In this semirural part of town those driveways could be half a mile apart, leading to ancient farmhouses or old and crumbling mansions. His dad had kept up their house pretty well. But he did wish for a better mower.
Jason shook his head. He often wandered into Coyote Blood Moon’s music shop a couple blocks away from Mom’s coffee shop in old town. He liked the weird drums and flutes and the books about magic, but sneezed mightily from the incense and candle smoke. Somehow the image of the middle-aged hippy didn’t mesh in his mind
with the sophisticated real estate developer.
Which man was he in truth? Too fuzzy around the edges to know for sure.
This was the first time he could remember Coyote Blood Moon coming to the house at all. Dad always met him in town alone.
Oh, well. Speculating about his parents’ weird friends didn’t get the lawn cut.
A whiff of scented candle smoke and heavy incense drifted back to Jason as the sports car turned around in the neighbor’s driveway and Coyote Blood Moon drove back past the house.
Jason’s nose itched, and burned, and finally exploded. His eyes ran, and his sinuses pounded with building pressure.
No way could he mow the lawn now. He wasn’t allergic to grass, but adding that pollen to the incense did him in.
He unplugged the mower and abandoned it. Belle would have to finish the job.
He trudged back to the house in search of meds, almost grateful that he’d taken off his shirt because it was hot out. Maybe Tiffany would be impressed with his newly defined abs and biceps. Summer workouts paid off.
“Introduce me to your friends, Belle,” Daffy said, not looking at G.
“Who?” Belle looked around, as if amazed. The green agates on the ends of her hair sticks jiggled, and a long curl of dark hair escaped from the sloppy bun at her nape.
G took note of how the boys’ eyes didn’t track to anything but the movements of those jade charms dangling from his daughter’s hair ornaments. He felt the blood drain from his face. He knew magical enthrallment when he saw it.
Time to have a long talk with Belle about the dangers of uncontrolled magic. And uncontrolled boys. Damn, she was facing her twelfth birthday. Much too young for this.
He wanted to wring all of the boys’ necks.
“Oh. Mom, this is Bill and Mike. You know BJ already.” She zeroed in on the cookies still on the cooling rack on the kitchen island.
A Spoonful of Magic Page 4
