No Rest for The Wiccan

by Madelyn Alt

  Everything looked normal when we pulled into the brick driveway that swirled ever-so-tastefully up to Mel’s ever-so-tasteful home. Mel lived in the ritzy Buckingham West subdivision, where the houses were all taupe, the men business casual, and the coffee klatch wives in serious need of therapy . . . retail therapy, that is. It was where many of the up-and-comings in old Stony Mill society and the property tax refugees from the city comingled in relative peace and harmony, secure in the knowledge of their continued financial well-being. It was an arrogant view, perhaps, a naïve view, but they had had years of prosperity to bolster their faith and complacency. Welcome to the lives of the rich and fortunate. For all they knew, the world had always been their oyster, always waiting for them to take the pearl. And that was the way they intended it to stay.

  The residents liked to think everyone was equal in Buckingham West, and by outward appearances, they were right. There was a sameness here, with the matching color schemes, the garages limited to three cars, the requisite curb appeal. The rules. You see, to be fair to all, the association had put forth many rules with regard to anything that might be viewed by the outside world: frontage size, lot size, style of home, colors of siding, number of windows, those things you could have in your yard, and what you couldn’t. Evenly applied rules meant equal footing between the otherwise competitive Buckingham Westers.

  Of course, the veneer of equality was nothing more than illusion, and the pretense of fairness was the biggest illusion of all.

  Mel was no different from the rest of her lofty-minded neighbors. If anything, she was the queen of the neighborhood watch, if more by attitude than actual status. Mel had always wanted more than what we had grown up with on my dad’s salary alone. Landing Greg, a young lawyer, must have seemed a real coup, the first big step in her life plan. She’d lost no time in quitting her job in order to step into the kitten heels of a socialite and starting a family with Greg, and one of the first things they’d done as a married couple was to dig themselves neck deep into debt on this house, to fit in with Mel’s concept of the American dream.

  Maybe that was why Greg worked all those hours.

  A more probable cause became evident the moment we set foot inside the house. It was obvious my mom had not been there yet. Dishes from the morning meal lay where they had been left all over the counter, which was soiled with spilled milk and scattered cereal. The milk jug lay on its side, though at least its lid was in place, thank goodness. Newspaper lay discarded on the counter, the floor, and one of the tall stools at the counter—Greg’s doing, no doubt. Coffee was burning in the bottom of the coffeemaker, the scorched smell assaulting the nose almost as much as the smell of soiled nappies coming from the diaper can. A little pink scooter lay discarded on its side in the center of the Mexican tile floor, surrounded by blocks and crayons and a fuzzy purple hippo with a gap-toothed grin. My eyes went wide at the state of things.

  “Um,” I said to my mother, trying to get the big picture, “you were here just yesterday. Weren’t you?”

  Mom was surveying the wreckage with the same dazed expression I was wearing. “Yes.”

  “And this goes on every day?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Together we moved along toward the hall. “Greg?” my mom called out, trying to be heard over the maniacal giggling and yammering cartoon voices coming from the television in the family room. “Greg? Girls? Grandma’s here!”

  Nothing.

  “Maybe they’re upstairs with Mel,” I suggested, trying to be helpful.

  Mom nodded, but instead of walking toward the wide, free-floating steps that led to the upper level, she walked to a box on the wall and pressed a button. “Melanie? It’s Mom. I’ve brought your sister with me.”

  I didn’t need the intercom to hear my sister. Her response echoed off the vaulted ceilings. “Mom! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been so bored up here all by myself, and none of my friends could come over this morning. They’re all busy with their churches. I was even starting to think I was hearing things. Why do houses have to make such odd noises? You’d think, with what we paid for this one, that it would be as silent as the grave.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I’m going stir crazy, obviously.”

  “Melanie,” Mom interrupted her flow, “where are Greg and the girls?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you yesterday? Greg and his mom took the girls in to morning services. I could have sworn I mentioned it. Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t get up early to take care of the girls, isn’t it? Although it would have been nice to have the companionship.” Amazing, how she managed to excuse herself from not keeping Mom up-to-date, while still scolding her for not coming around anyway. Smooth.

  “Well? Are you two coming up or not?”

  As we made our way toward the stairs, the messes continued. Mom started to pick things up, but I touched her arm and shook my head. “We’ll never get upstairs that way.”

  She shrugged.

  “Is it always like this?”

  “No. Well, not entirely. They’re busy girls, that’s all. And without proper supervision, they . . .”

  “Wreak mortal havoc? Leave chaos and destruction in their wake?” I quipped as I double-stepped over an eerily lifelike babydoll and a xylophone on the third riser.

  All Mom did was pick up the toys and tucked both under her arm as she trudged wearily up the stairs.

  “There you are!” Mel exclaimed as we arrived at her open bedroom door. She was wrapped in a pink bedjacket that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a 1950s-era starlet. Razor cut to perfection, her blond hair lay in a soft curl against her cheek, the other side tucked neatly back behind one ear. She even wore a sweep of blush and a light touch of mascara. Sandra Dee, eat your heart out. “I thought you’d gotten lost or something.”

  “Huh,” I grunted before Mom could stop me. “Actually that’s not far from the truth. It’s like a jungle down there.”

  “The girls were playing while Greg made them breakfast,” Mel said, waving a hand dismissively.

  Mom was running on autopilot, straightening bedding, restacking the multitude of fashion magazines that covered the bed, picking up dirty clothes. “I have good news for you,” she said as she reached to plump the pillow behind Mel’s back. “Your sister has offered to help out with the girls.”

  Mel’s gaze flicked toward me. She raised her brows. “Maggie did? Hm. I suppose that was your idea.” Her expression left no doubt as to her skepticism. “Maggie doesn’t know anything about keeping a household. The girls need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “And on that note of encouragement,” I said wryly, “I guess I’ll be going. See ya, Mom.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Maggie, don’t be going off in a huff just because I hurt your feelings. You’re too damned sensitive,” Mel said, setting down her nail file and folding her hands primly over her six-month-preggers belly while leveling a pointed stare in my direction. “I mean, if anyone has a reason to be overly sensitive right now, it’s me.”

  “Girls! For heaven’s sake. Melanie, I don’t want to hear any protests. You need help, and I know I haven’t said anything, but it’s just too much for me. I need help.”

  Melanie sighed, gazing back and forth between the two of us. “Fine. You’re right, Mom. I don’t want to stress you out. As long as you think Maggie can handle it.”

  My pride twisted in my chest, making me long to be twelve again and forgiven for doing the immature thing. Like sticking out my tongue and blowing a big, fat raspberry. Instead, I said, “Don’t worry about a thing, Mel. Everything will be fine.” Taking the high road was sometimes a lot less soul-satisfying.

  “Good!” Mom exclaimed. “That’s settled, then. I’ll just show Maggie where you keep things and fill her in on the girls’ schedules, and she’ll stay the afternoon. I could use a day off to get some things done around the house before the week starts over tomorrow. All right, Maggie?”

  The moment I had walked into
Mel’s house, I’d known that the role I’d been conned into would not be easy. But I’d been wrong. It wasn’t going to be difficult. It was going to be pure hell.

  My sister, in typical Mel fashion, had written out lists of tasks, schedules, warnings, admonishments, and just plain bossiness. “Wow. Is there anything she didn’t think to write down?”

  Mom shrugged. “It’s really made things easier for Greg. This hasn’t been easy on him.”

  Well, with Mom there all day, and Greg not coming home until after the girls were in bed, I was having a hard time seeing how Greg was being affected much at all . . . unless it was in the bedroom. But maybe I was being too hard on him. A lack of bedroom action was enough to hit any guy where it hurt most.

  With a last suggestion to call her if needed, Mom left me alone with Mel.

  Chapter 3

  Greg and my amazingly beautiful nieces, Jenna and Courtney, arrived home shortly after Mom left. I barely had a chance to give my handsome-in-a-business-suit-kinda-way brother-in-law a soapy-handed wave as he walked in with a cell phone firmly attached to his ear before he headed upstairs.

  My nieces immediately wrapped themselves around my legs and were now bobbing up and down excitedly.

  “Auntie Maggie! Auntie Maggie!” Jenna, the elder, squealed. Courtney just beamed like a curly-haired cherub and buried her face against my knees.

  The two together were a pretty irresistible combination. Looking down into their big, babydoll eyes, I felt a strong and relentless tug in the vicinity of my ovaries. I’ve always known that I wanted kids of my own, someday . . . but the longer it took to find that perfect man to be their perfect father, the more I began to worry that love and somedays were just pretty dreams that had no basis in reality. Fairytale concepts that single women everywhere liked to believe, because to admit otherwise would be to open the door to depression and despair, and wasn’t the world a scary enough place as it was? And it didn’t get any easier. Was Tom The One? Was he Mr. Right? Or was he just Mr. Right Now? And how, exactly, was a girl supposed to know for sure?

  That was the eternal question. One I intended to get to the bottom of. Soon. Well, eventually.

  I dried my hands and knelt down to wrap the girls in my arms for a hug and a big, smoochy kiss. “Hello to you, too, you cuties. My goodness! Look how big you’re getting. What has your mommy been feeding you two? Magical beans?”

  “Jack and the beanstalk! Jack and the beanstalk!” Four years old and proud of it, Jenna often spoke for both of them. Courtney, at two and a half, hadn’t yet mastered the finer elements of speech, and was more than happy to let her sister do the talking. “Gramma read us about the beans.”

  “She did?” I raised my eyebrows. My mother and magical beans? I didn’t think she did magic.

  “Uh-huh. I don’t like beans. But I’d like magical beans. They wouldn’t taste icky like Mommy’s. Wanna see what I can do?”

  Courtney lifted her arms to me and gazed up expectantly, so I scooped her up, patting her on her padded bottom as I watched her older sister do a somersault in her Sunday best. “Whoa! That was good. Wow. Tell you what, maybe we should go change. I don’t think your mommy would like you rolling around like that in your nice clothes.”

  Right on cue, the intercom buzzed. “Maggie? Hellooooooo?”

  Little Courtney’s face lit up. She put her hand on my cheek and leaned in, gazing deep into my eyes. “Mommy!”

  “I know!” I settled her more securely on my hip as I went to the intercom. “Need something?”

  “Could you bring me up a pop or something cold? Please?”

  “Um, sure.” I wondered why she didn’t just ask Greg to do it for her. But maybe he was still on his cell. “Come on, girls, let’s get your mommy a pop and go visit her upstairs.”

  I grabbed a ginger ale from the fridge and, settling Courtney more securely on my hip, headed up the stairs with Jenna trailing behind.

  Mel was on the phone, but I heard her telling the person on the other end to hang on. “There’s my girls!” she said, opening her arms. I set Courtney down, and she and her sister stampeded forward to leap into Mel’s arms. “Oops! Careful now. Watch Mommy’s tummy. You wouldn’t want to hurt the baby.”

  “Our baby has to be careful,” Jenna told me, her eyes wide and solemn, her arms folded behind her back.

  “That’s right,” I said, equally grave. I handed the can of pop to Mel. She took it, but put the receiver back up to her ear. The girls toddled off hand-in-hand toward their room down the hall.

  Mel returned to her phone conversation. “Well, you can’t go by what she says, Margo. You know that she just says things to annoy you. She’s not really one of us.”

  I stopped what I was doing. Margo. That could mean one person and one person only. My lips settled together in a grimace. A few months ago, I’d learned that Mel was on occasion having coffee and going shopping with my high school nemesis, Margo Dickerson-Craig. That didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “Well, what about it? Greg just left, and my mom isn’t here to spoil the fun. Why don’t we get the girls together here?”

  Ack. Wait, what? I frowned at her and waved my hands around to mime, No, no, no! And what did she mean, Greg just left?

  Mel ignored the hand action. “Oh, good. I have got cabin fever like you would not believe. Can you do the calling around? I have a palm to grease here. Just my sister. She won’t say a word. Trust. Yeah. Okay. Talk to you in twenty.”

  I stood at the end of the bed with my arms crossed, glaring at her as she clicked off the phone. Mel glanced up at me, amusement glinting in her eyes. “What? A girl can’t round up some of her girlfriends when her hubby goes off for some fun of his own?”

  “That depends on what kind of fun we’re talking about here.” I said not a word about her friendship with Margo. It wasn’t up to me to choose my sister’s friends. But oh, in this one case, I wanted to.

  “Just a simple afternoon of movies and coffee. A little R and R, girl-style.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for that? You are supposed to be taking things easy.”

  “If things get any easier, I’m going to be comatose. Come on, Maggie. A girl cannot live on fashion mags alone. I don’t even have to get out of bed.” When she saw me wavering, she threw in a wheedling, “Please?”

  Exasperated that I had totally lost control of my day, I sighed. “What do you want me to do and when will they be here?”

  She handed me a(nother!) list. “An hour or so. Thanks, Mags.”

  Mel’s estimation was right on the money. I worked like a madwoman for the next hour, vacuuming, stacking things in the dishwasher, tidying, and wiping down the bathrooms. I was in the kitchen, throwing together bowls of snacks, when I heard a car in the driveway. The doorbell rang a moment later.

  “Ding-dong! Avon calling!” a muffled voice giggled.

  I opened the front door. On the other side stood two women, one stacked high with bags, the other bag-free and witless. The Bag Lady I recognized as Jane Churchill, the hapless friend of the Witless Wonder, Margo Dickerson. Er, hyphen Craig.

  Her face froze when she saw me—or maybe that was the result of the Botox she had conned her doctor into injecting into her forehead for her migraines. (Sometimes Mel’s gossip actually was quite entertaining. And useful.) “Well, well. Look who it is, Jane. My old high school buddy, Maggie O’Neill.”

  Emphasis on old, I noticed. It didn’t matter. We both knew she was no buddy of mine. I decided to ignore her instead of rising to the bait. “Come on in. Mel is upstairs in her bedroom. Why don’t you go on up while I bring the snacks. Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Pop?”

  “Why don’t you just bring up a variety, Maggie, hmm?” Margo suggested . . . aka placed her order. She lifted her too-blond hair away from her forehead. “And maybe you could turn up the AC? It’s sticky in here.”

  It was sticky everywhere, but then, in her nubby blazer and trouser-style jeans, she wasn’t exactly dressed fo
r the weather. Jane gave me an apologetic glance that almost made me forgive her for her friendship with my least favorite person in the world, but trailed like a puppy at Margo’s heels, leaving me to wrestle alone with the trays of snacks and drinks.

  No problem.

  I followed carefully, feeling out each unseen stair tread with my toes before taking the next step. The door to Mel’s bedroom was closed, but luckily the handle was a lever sort. I kind of backed up to it, rose up on tiptoe, and eased it down.

  Sometimes, having a strongly defined backside comes in handy.

  “There you are! Girls, you remember my sister, Maggie, don’t you?” Mel said as I backed into the room, deftly avoiding the door as it bounced back. There were a number of DVDs already fanned out across the bed, waiting for a selection to be made. I took a glance at the covers as I drew nearer. Mostly cookie-cutter romantic comedies featuring flavor-of-the-month abworthy hunks. Chick-o-rama. “Maggie, set the trays down over there. I just sent Jenna and Courtney back into their room to play, so if you could keep them entertained and quiet, that would be great.”

  Under normal circumstances I might have protested being relegated to the role of slave babysitter while the rest of the grown-ups played, but considering the company I would otherwise be expected to keep . . . I set the trays down on the small round table between Margo and Jane.

  “There’s one more girl who’s running a little late,” Mel said. “If you could listen for the doorbell . . .”

  “Sure.”

  I hurried to close the bedroom door before she could think of anything else to ask. Mel was completely in her element today, that much was obvious. While I had gotten busy in the kitchen so that Mel could play hostess with the mostest, she had set about freshening herself up—as if any further primping was needed—and now her makeup was flawless, a fresh nightdress crisp across the mound of her belly, not a shining hair out of place. Perfect. She looked like a queen, surrounded by her loyal subjects.