Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  Katya had friends in drama. Giselle would have to consult her about James and Caitlyn’s relationship.

  Rehearsal ended and Giselle prepared for a rainy walk home, wrapping a scarf around her neck, pulling a stretchy cap over her cropped hair, searching for gloves. It wasn’t just raining, it was cold. Autumn had arrived early this year, and with a vengeance.

  As she pulled her gloves from her bag, James was suddenly at her side, murmuring in her ear. “I was wondering if you’d like a ride home. It’s raining hard.”

  Giselle responded, “Sure,” so swiftly her brain could not possibly have processed the answer.

  17

  ROOTS

  Together, they ran through the rain to James’s car, an old beater Giselle suspected might not be up to the job of transporting her home. James unlocked her side with his key and hastily shoved a pile of books, bottles, and empty Doritos bags off the passenger seat and onto the floor, grinning at her as though he’d accomplished something astounding.

  “That was a great rehearsal today, huh?” asked James once they were both inside.

  Inside alone.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, her heart picking up speed. She remembered his last kiss of the rehearsal. She felt fairly confident you didn’t need to actually French kiss for it to look like you were, well, French kissing, but James had been taking no chances. Her hand drifted to her lips, still warm and slightly chapped. She was going to have to start bringing lip balm to class.

  “You’ll never meet anyone who loves his Bard like Kinsler,” James said, starting the car.

  Giselle nodded. The drama class collectively took their Bard seriously enough to make her feel slightly embarrassed on Shakespeare’s behalf.

  “I hope I didn’t lead you on or anything today,” said James, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Giselle couldn’t figure out how to respond to this on two counts. Mostly because she wasn’t sure what he meant, but also because, if she did know what he meant, then, yes, she thought he might be leading her on. The problem was, she didn’t think she minded. James threw his right arm behind the bench seat, bent at the elbow, wrist resting on the top. If he relaxed his wrist, his fingers would touch her. She swallowed and tucked her hair behind her ears, brushing his hand, but then James shifted his hand to fumble for his cell phone.

  Glancing down, he entered a number. “Here,” he said, handing her the phone. “Text my mom I’ll be late. You and me—we’re going out. What do you feel like? Pie? Ice cream? Frozen yogurt?”

  “Um,” said Giselle, taking the phone, “Anything’s fine. I like pie.” She was trying to decide if this was a date. A boy had asked her to go somewhere. With him. It certainly sounded like a date. She was supposed to tell her mother if she went on a date, but it had never come up before. She decided that, on the whole, her mother didn’t deserve to hear anything.

  “Are you … having problems figuring out my phone?” asked James.

  “No, no,” said Giselle. She keyed in his text message to his mother. James’s phone was easy to figure out. In contra-distinction, she noted, to James himself.

  James’s mother texted back immediately:

  Tell Cait hi from me!

  Giselle looked up from the reply, staring ahead at the oncoming headlights as they reflected off rain-slicked surfaces. Should she tell James? Should she ask him what it meant?

  “What did Mom say?” asked James, having heard the ping of the incoming reply.

  Giselle considered her options. She could lie, but he might check later. She could tell the truth, but it might embarrass James. Or it might embarrass her. She decided she would rather gauge his response to the truth, so she read the text aloud.

  James didn’t say anything right away. In the silence, the right hand windshield wiper screeched with each pass. After a minute, James cleared his throat.

  “So, yeah. Me and Cait. We went out some last month. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend who went away to college. They’d been together two years, and I hung out with her because I thought she needed some cheering up. But I guess she thought it was more than that.”

  “Oh,” said Giselle. She wanted to believe him. But if he was in a relationship with Caitlyn—and his mom seemed to assume he was—then it would be smart of her to end things now. The problem was, she didn’t particularly want to be smart. She wanted to be kissing the boy beside her again.

  “Anyway,” said James, “I don’t want to, you know, hurt Cait all over again, so it would be better if we didn’t mention you and me going out tonight. To anyone.” He kept his gaze focused on the road. “You’re fine keeping this our little secret, right?”

  As he said this, Giselle felt her toes stiffen and press into her shoes. If James wanted to go out with her and not Caitlyn, why, exactly, should it become her responsibility to hide it from Cait? But her mouth remembered James’s lips crushing into hers, and her lips formed a single word.

  “Sure.”

  Wrong, wrong, wrong, whispered an insistent voice inside. She told it to go away.

  Over double scoops of Mint Chip Oreo, James recited all the plays he’d done with Mr. Kinsler, what his roles had been, what ads his agent was trying to book him for, and other assorted James-centric news. Giselle finished her ice cream long before James because she didn’t really have anything to add except for an occasional, “Uh-huh.”

  James continued his monologue, commenting on other actors’ skills and how, in particular, he couldn’t see that Marcus the new kid was anything special.

  “Not to mention,” added James, pointing at Giselle with his spoon, “His skin would photograph terribly. I mean, look at him: too pale for an African American, but just dark enough to look like he hits the tanning booth a little too often.”

  “I’m pretty sure Marcus identifies himself as Haitian-American, not African-American,” said Giselle.

  James stared at her, as if shocked she’d interrupted his thus far uninterrupted speechifying.

  Giselle looked away, embarrassed. What was she rushing to Marcus’s defense for, anyway?

  James shrugged and continued talking about himself, his hopes, and aspirations, right up to the moment he pulled his car into the one car driveway in front of Giselle’s house.

  “I had a really great time,” said James. He leaned over and kissed her just below the ear.

  It felt like being brushed by rose petals. Coffee-and-spice scented rose petals.

  Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her again. Giselle liked the kiss here in the warm, dark car even better than under the florescent lights and teasing gazes of her fellow drama students. She moved her body closer to his, and it felt as though current was buzzing between them.

  In fact, something was buzzing.

  James’s phone.

  She grabbed it from where it had settled below her thigh. The caller ID read Caitikins.

  James snatched the phone and read the message quickly, unaware Giselle had already seen the caller ID.

  “It’s my mom,” he said. “She wants me home now. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  Giselle, ignoring his lie, grabbed her bag and started to let herself out.

  James reached out and grabbed her, pulling her close for one final searing kiss.

  “It’s been real,” he said, grinning.

  The time Giselle had spent with James had been many things, but “real” wasn’t the one that sprang to mind.

  She waved goodbye and entered her house. Inside, she found Babushka asleep in her favorite chair beside the heater vent. Giselle seated herself quietly on the couch opposite her grandmother, and slowly the spell of James’s coffee-and-spice kisses wore off.

  Why was James insisting they keep their “date” secret? It was such an odd request. Other than Caitlyn, who would care, anyway? Giselle frowned. Katya would know about James and Caitlyn, if there was anything to know. Katya would be done with her Ballet 5 class by now. Giselle texted a question and Katy
a’s answer came quickly:

  Word is, you couldn’t go more than an hour at drama camp this summer without tripping over James and Caitlyn tangled up in whatever dark corner they could find.

  Oh. Oh.

  Giselle supposed she shouldn’t be that surprised. Maybe James thought he was sparing her feelings by leaving out these … details about his former relationship with Caitlyn.

  If it was former….

  Her phone buzzed again.

  I think they broke up. Cait’s not taking it well.

  This was close enough to James’s version to satisfy Giselle.

  She sank deeper into the couch. Sasha’s toenails clicked on the polished wooden floor. The large white dog settled noisily at Babushka’s feet.

  Giselle glanced outside to where James had just kissed her goodbye, and she felt a flash of annoyance. Why couldn’t James have simply told her the truth about Caitlyn’s text?

  Her grandmother stirred, moaned briefly, and then woke up, startling as if from a bad dream.

  “Milaya moya,” said Babushka, reaching for Giselle’s hand.

  The old woman smiled at Giselle, gave her hand a firm squeeze. Her grandmother’s hands looked old, wrinkled, and arthritic, swollen at the joints, but there was nothing of weakness in those aged hands.

  “Zelya,” said her grandmother, using a pet name her mother had abandoned years earlier, “My little Zelya, you must be kind to your mamulya, your poor mother.”

  Giselle felt a scowl forming but quickly erased it. She wasn’t angry with her grandmother.

  “It makes Ruslana very sad you have abandoned ballet. She will get over this, I think, if she can see you are happy with choice you make.”

  Happy with the choice she was making? The choice she was making? Giselle clenched her jaw. She wasn’t the one who had chosen to cast Marcus as Albrecht or Heidi as Giselle. Choice had been stripped from her. She had no choice. And she certainly had no interest in demonstrating to her mother that she was “happy” with what had happened.

  Babushka drew herself to the edge of her seat and reached a long, bony finger under Giselle’s chin, lifting it like she’d done years ago in ballet class. “Your mother is under great strain now, to pay new instructor because you have departed.”

  Giselle chewed her lower lip. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault.

  “Maybe she should sell the studio,” said Giselle. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Babushka shrugged. “Maybe da, maybe nyet. But meanwhile, no complaining if your piroshki have less meat and more onions, yes?”

  “Yes, Babushka.”

  “And one more thing. That fountain. Your mother makes it back to running every time my back is turned.” The old woman closed her eyes. “There must be no water here to draw evil maidens.”

  “Yes, Babushka.” For a moment, Giselle wondered if her grandmother was really and truly awake or still half-dreaming.

  “Better still,” continued her grandmother, “Drain water and leave fountain dry for winter.” Babushka opened her eyes and nodded, pleased with the idea. “Once fairy play and veela ballet are finished, the rusalki will grow restless and tire of this place. Until then, no running water. You are understanding?”

  Giselle wasn’t sure she understood. As this happened often around her grandmother, and increased in direct proportion to the percentage of Russian her grandmother introduced into conversation, Giselle simply nodded and hugged her babushka.

  The old woman hugged her back. Her gnarled hands on Giselle’s shoulders and neck felt so different from James’s. Whereas James’s touch sent her spinning into weightlessness, her grandmother’s touch made her feel as though she had roots that supported her, flourishing deep, deep, deep in the earth.

  18

  IF STUFF IS REAL OR NOT

  Nearly a full day had passed since James Weinhard had taken Giselle on a secret date. It had been enough time for her to admit to herself she needed to demand a more honest discussion of his relationship with Caitlyn. She resolved to ask him for the truth.

  Unfortunately, Giselle forgot all about her resolution as soon as he entered the drama classroom, toxically handsome in dark jeans and a tight black tee-shirt. He strode in as though he owned the room and reinforced this impression by shouting orders for students to clear the scattered folding metal chairs and make room for rehearsal.

  No one in drama class, Giselle observed, spoke in a soft voice, and moving thirty-eight folding metal chairs seemed to be welcomed as an opportunity to turn up the volume. Students dragged chairs, clanged chairs shut with gusto, and slammed chairs against other chairs in growing stacks along the far wall.

  James, upon noticing Giselle in the room, left the chair-folding to his peers, striding toward Giselle with almost a dancer’s awareness of how his body moved through space.

  “Work it, Weinhard,” called Jordan, his eyes following James.

  James was working it. Things were definitely being worked. Giselle wondered if the jeans, snug-fitting, might even be custom. The way they were slung across his hipbones suggested they didn’t come flat-folded off a stack at the Galleria. Suddenly self-conscious, Giselle peeled her gaze away, picking imaginary lint off her shirt.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  As James spoke the greeting into her ear, her short cropped hair stirred, tickling her like a thousand tiny kisses on her ear and neck. She had that “what happened to gravity?” feeling again.

  Casually, James linked his fingers through her belt loops, pulling her closer. “What are you doing tonight?” he murmured.

  The words acted as an electric current pulsing through her.

  “Nothing,” she replied, her voice husky.

  “There’s a full moon,” he said, reaching to tuck a few tendrils of hair behind the ear he was whispering into. “I think we should check out the sculpture garden by moonlight. What do you say?”

  All her earlier intentions to ask him about Caitlyn, to demand he be less … secretive if he wanted to see her, all of this simply vanished as a wash of wanting swept through her. She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to leave right now.

  “So? The sculpture garden? You and me?” James murmured.

  Giselle swallowed.

  The sculpture garden beside the river was where kids her age ventured by night to do … whatever kids her age did. On the other hand, the thought of venturing close to the river, at night, frightened her more than she wanted to admit. She tossed around for an excuse to avoid the haunted banks of the Multnomah Channel.

  “The weather report says we’ll have our first freeze tonight,” she said.

  Hands on her shoulders, James closed the small gap between his hips and hers, holding her torso out and away so as to look at her face. It was a posture blocked into one of their scenes. A few students were looking at them. She and James might have been running lines. But they weren’t. Giselle felt the heat pulsing between them.

  “Keeping warm doesn’t have to be a problem,” murmured James. “Not if we admire the view from inside my car.”

  Giselle blinked and pulled slightly away, suddenly self-conscious. Her mother would never allow a boy to pick her up and take her to the sculpture garden. But then, what did she owe her mother anymore? As for issues of safety, staying in the car would keep them clear of sirens. Everyone knew sirens avoided anything metal. The riverbank offerings of mirrors, combs, and brushes were always plastic or wood.

  “Okay,” said Giselle. “But you can’t pick me up. My Mom will, er … it’s just not worth the hassle or whatever.” She flushed. “I’ll meet you there. By the mermaid.”

  It was the most famous piece in the sculpture garden—the piece that had inspired the idea of a sculpture garden: a replica of the famous Copenhagen statue. Middle school boys on field trips from Portland dared one another to touch the bronze breast of the Little Mermaid, with the result it seemed to glow, perennially free of verdigris.

  James smiled lazily, a f
lash of white teeth behind those full lips, and then he dashed away. Across the room, he recruited additional students to clear the last dozen chairs for rehearsal. He winked at Caitlyn, who had joined in. Giselle felt a tiny smile creeping across her mouth. Caitlyn could sigh after James all she wanted: she wasn’t the one meeting him by moonlight.

  As Giselle strode across the room to grab one of the last chairs, she saw Marcus with four chairs in his arms already. She raced him for the last remaining chair, certain he would back off, recognizing her intention, but he didn’t recognize her intention and he didn’t back off, and they bashed foreheads reaching for the same chair.

  “My bad,” said Marcus, rubbing his forehead and grinning.

  “It’s fine.” Internally, Giselle cursed herself for speaking to this ruiner of her dreams. She let Marcus take the chair and looked over to where James stood, trading insults with four of the students playing workmen in the “mechanicals” group.

  “Thou dissembling, beetle-headed harpy!” cried the boy acting the role of Flute.

  “Thou infectious, fat-kidneyed pumpion!” responded James.

  “Dude,” said the boy acting Peter Quince, “No way is ‘pumpion’ a word. Not in Shakespeare’s day and not in the dictionary.”

  James puffed out his chest. “The Merry Wives of Windsor says otherwise, thou tottering, beef-witted jolt-head.”

  “Jolt-headed he may be,” replied Flute, lifting a can of the eponymous energy drink, “But ‘tis better to be full of carbonation and sweetness than to be such a churl as thou, thou common-kissing flirt-gill.”

  “Point to the Flute-man,” said Ophelia, joining Giselle.

  Mr. Kinsler called everyone together for circle time on the now-empty floor. At the studio, circle time had been something Giselle used only for her youngest students, but drama students didn’t seem to find it demeaning.