For some reason, both of the TV reporters wanted to interview her in front of the federal courthouse downtown. She arranged to be there at four for a sort of informal press conference with the two TV reporters and the guy from the Herald. Chameleon put on a long sage-green dress and pulled out her pentacle necklace so it was prominently displayed. When she looked in the mirror, her face was a mess of puffy eyes and splotchy skin. This was not the look she would have chosen for her TV debut.
When Chameleon arrived in front of the federal courthouse, it was clear why the reporters had wanted to interview her there. The courthouse steps were packed with people: men in three-piece polyester suits straight out of a 1978 Sears catalog; other men in jeans and flannel shirts, their hair cut military short; women with scrubbed, makeup-free faces and never-cut hair, wearing loose, long-sleeved dresses and sensible shoes; other women with beauty shop hairdos and ladylike suits looking like the honorary daughters of Phyllis Schlafly—all of them carrying hand-lettered signs with slogans like NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD WITCH, DON'T TURN ROUTE 25 INTO A HIGHWAY TO HELL, and THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE.
Chameleon couldn't breathe. Was this the twenty-first century, or had she just time traveled to the days of the witch hunts? Had she been lured here by the media so that these crazed villagers could burn her at the stake?
But then she saw something that made being burned at the stake seem like an attractive option. There, at the stop of the stairs in front of the white-columned courthouse, was Tia, looking gorgeous and professional with half a dozen microphones and tape recorders in her face.
I can do this, Chameleon told herself. I can speak to Tia in front of all these reporters and all these hate-filled protesters without crying. She took a deep breath, whispered "Goddess preserve me," and headed up the steps, past the demonstrators who were so busy chanting, "Witches, turn or burn!" that they didn't even notice that she, the enemy, was among them.
Tia met her at the top of the steps. "Hi," she said, the same way you'd say hi to your two o'clock appointment, not to the woman whose naked body you had licked the night before.
"Hey." Chameleon was surprised that her voice didn't come out choked and squeaky. "So, what's with all these protesters? Was it a slow day at the abortion clinic or something?"
Tia looked like she might smile but thought better of it. "I'm sure they're enjoying having something novel to protest. I told you when the news of this suit hit, it was going to be big. These reporters are practically drooling over the sensationalism. Don't be surprised if they slap a pointy black hat on your head. Oh and listen..." She touched Chameleon's forearm, but like a lawyer, not a lover. "I talked to them quite a bit about the legal basis for our case, so you might want to focus on what a peaceful, harmless religion Wicca is... you know, do a little pagan PR."
"Sure," Chameleon said, wondering if there were any emotions hiding beneath Tia's professional exterior. "No problem."
"Okay, take care," Tia said. "I'll be talking with you soon."
Trying to shake off her emotions like a drenched dog shaking off water, Chameleon joined the throng of reporters. It was amazing how alike the two women reporters looked in their just-so suits and their over-coiffed hair which screamed, "don't touch me." Their faces were carefully shellacked with makeup, and they held their microphones in manicured hands. Newsbots, Chameleon thought.
The balding, shlumpy newspaper guy stood back from the newsbots wearing a sweat-stained, dingy sport shirt and jeans he probably bought back when the Watergate scandal was on the front page. For all his sloppiness, Chameleon liked him way better than the newsbots. At least he seemed like a real person.
"So, Ms. Masters," the blonde newsbot said, her candy apple red lips spreading into a beauty pageant smile, "you're the chairperson of Witches of East Tennessee?"
"We don't really have terms like 'chairperson' in Wicca," Chameleon said. "We're not a corporation or anything. I'm the high priestess of the coven, and my witch name is Chameleon." Chameleon watched the newsbots smile encouragingly, the same way they might smile at an insane, but basically harmless street person who was holding forth on some conspiracy theory.
"Miss Ch-Chameleon," the brunette newsbot said, "what would you say to people such as these protesting today who say that witchcraft is devil worship and that by publicly sponsoring a roadway, you're exposing the community—especially young people—to dangerous influences?"
"Well, I would disagree, obviously." Chameleon tried for an ingratiating smile, but given the day she was having, smiling was not an easy task. "It's a common misunderstanding to confuse Wicca with devil worship, but the Christian ideas of God and Satan just aren't a part of our beliefs. We practice an earth-centered religion, based on the cycles of nature and using the goddess as a metaphor for the bounty and seasons of the earth. And since we do value the earth so much, it only makes sense that we would want to participate in a program like Adopt-a-Highway in which we can care for and nurture a little patch of our earth."
"Chameleon," the shlumpy newspaper guy said, not choking on her name at all, "do you think this controversy is just another example of the increasing religious intolerance in our country?"
Chameleon could have kissed the top of his shiny head. Finally, an intelligent question. "Yes, I do. This is the same kind of intolerance you read about every day: Muslim and Sikh children sent home from public schools on dress code violations simply because their clothing or hair length is proscribed by their religion. Christian prayers said at public sporting events. For a country which supposedly guarantees religious freedom, the U.S. certainly seems to favor the Christian religion over all others."
By the time Chameleon finished the press conference she was utterly exhausted, but she did feel like she'd made some pretty good points. It would be interesting to see if any of those points actually showed up in the coverage.
Chameleon didn't own a TV, so she headed over to Coyote's house to watch the 11 o'clock news. By 10:30, Coyote's apartment had turned into the setting of an informal coven meeting, with Belladonna and Anansi showing up to watch too.
"Well," Coyote said, passing beers all around. "I had no idea that being the only coven member to own a flat-screen TV would make me so popular."
"I think you're the only coven member who owns a TV, period," Anansi said, twisting open a bottle of Rolling Rock.
"Well, I've got to have it to watch the Lady Vols games," Coyote said.
"But you always go to the Lady Vols games," Belladonna laughed. "You've got season tickets."
"I still tape 'em at home, though, so I can watch 'em on TV later," Coyote said.
"So," Belladonna said, "how does it feel to be a regional lesbian stereotype?"
"I refuse to be called a stereotype by a girl wearing all black and smoking a clove cigarette."
"Shh, it's coming on," Anansi said over the news' canned theme song.
When the blonde newsbot's face appeared on the screen, Belladonna yelled, "Eeew! It's Newscaster Barbie!"
"Trust me, she's even scarier in person," Chameleon said, sipping her beer. She still felt wretched from Tia's brush-off, but being in a roomful of friends was smoothing away some of the sharper edges of her pain.
They sat through ten minutes of stories on robberies, murders, and maimings before the newsbot chirped, "In other news, some local citizens are up in arms about the fact that a group calling themselves Witches of East Tennessee has asked to participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program. Based on those citizens' concerns, the county has denied permission for Witches of East Tennessee to post the name of their organization on an Adopt-a-Highway sign. W.E.T., as the group calls itself, has countered with a lawsuit claiming discrimination. Today I talked to people on both sides of this controversy at the federal courthouse."
A thick-necked, middle-aged man with a buzz cut appeared on screen. "Some things," he proclaimed, "just ain't right. You let witches adopt a road, the next thing you know they'll be try
ing to adopt our children and turn them into witches, too."
One of the daughters of Phyllis Schlafly appeared next, a Nutrasweet smile on her face. "We're just here to protect the children," she said.
"What children?" Belladonna yelled at the TV "What fucking children?"
"Shh," Coyote hissed.
Tia was onscreen next, staring into the camera confidently. "I tell you what," Anansi said, "our lawyer is fine."
Chameleon winced even as she agreed with her.
"By letting the Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church adopt a stretch of highway," Tia was saying, "the county set a precedent that it is acceptable for a religious organization to not only adopt a stretch of highway but to have the name of their organization appear on the highway adoption sign. Witches of East Tennessee is a legitimate religious organization which should have its name displayed like any other organization. We are confident that the federal court will agree in the spirit of upholding religious freedom for all Americans."
Next, Chameleon saw her own face appear with the name
Chameleon in quotation marks under it, along with the word "witch." She listened to her Wicca-is-not-devil-worship speech, but the whole time she could only think of how strange and nasal her voice sounded and how beaky her nose looked. She was stark naked in front of the coven on a regular basis, but being on TV fully clothed made her feel much more exposed and vulnerable.
"Hey, you kicked ass!" Belladonna said.
"Our high priestess is media-sawy," Anansi added.
Coyote chucked Chameleon on the shoulder—it hurt a little— and passed her another beer.
"Thanks." So... Chameleon thought, she was completely in control as a high priestess and completely helpless in her personal life. So what else was new? "Anybody want to order a pizza?" she asked.
It was Sabbath night again. As always, Chameleon set up the altar in the pasture, then went back to the house to get ready for the ritual. It was almost time to start, and Anansi, Coyote, Belladonna, and Graymalkin were gathered in the bedroom, undressing as Celtic music played softly on the stereo. "Has anybody seen Iris?" Chameleon asked. Without a working partner, there could be no ritual.
"Well, actually, I ran into her at the Food Co-Op this afternoon," Coyote said. "And I don't know how you're going to take this, but..." Coyote took a deep breath and put her hand on Chameleon's shoulder. "She told me she had been seeing the high priestess of this coven in Maryville. She said she might start going to their Sabbaths instead... that she hadn't made up her mind."
"Well, I don't see her here, so apparently she did make up her mind," Anansi said.
Chameleon was near tears. Despite how Tia had hurt her, despite being publicly under fire as a witch, she had comforted herself that at least things were going well within the coven. And now she couldn't even say that anymore. "It would've been nice of
her to tell me. I mean, who she sleeps with is her business, but standing me up for a Sabbath... that's the coven's business."
"She's not thinking about the coven," Belladonna said. "She's thinking about her new high priestess's pussy. The girl is a total groupie."
"I could do her part tonight," Graymalkin said. "I know I'm not ideal, but Goddess knows I've been a witch long enough to be able to do the ritual."
"Would you?" Chameleon said. That was so like Graymalkin— always willing to step in and help in the face of disaster. "That would be great."
Graymalkin did know the choreography of the ritual, but even as she went through each motion, Chameleon knew the Sabbath was going badly. Through no fault of her own, Graymalkin, the comforting crone of the coven, just didn't generate the right chemistry to be Chameleon's working partner.
Usually by the end of a ritual Chameleon felt exhilarated, more alive than she felt at any other time. But tonight's ritual left her drained and depressed. As soon as it was polite to do so, she said her goodnights and left. Why stick around when there was no magic in the air?
Chameleon unlocked her door, wondering if a private ritual might help her feel better. Perhaps the Tarot could give her some guidance. On her way to fetch her deck from the rosewood box where she kept it, she noticed the flashing light of the answering machine. She remembered a line Dorothy Parker supposedly said whenever the phone rang: "What fresh hell is this?" Could it be more newsbots? Or one of those devastatingly attractive yet intimacy-fearing women who were prone to screwing and abandoning her? She pushed "play" only to discover that it was worse, much worse: "Camille, it's your mom. Your daddy and brother and I are coming into Knoxville tomorrow to pick up a few things at that big Christian bookstore out west. Anyway, we thought it'd be fun if you went out to dinner with us. We'll be at your... well, it's not really a house, is it? We'll be at your little... place around six o'clock. See you then."
Chameleon had to sit down. When that didn't help, she put her head between her knees, which didn't help much either. This was weird. Too weird. Her parents never thought "it would be fun" if she went to dinner with them. Indeed, they were embarrassed to be seen in public with her. Even though they only lived about an hour away from Knoxville, Chameleon rarely saw them more than twice a year, when she made her much-dreaded obligatory winter and summer visits. Chameleon's mother had only been in her house—or her "little place"—once, and the whole time she'd kept talking about what a bad neighborhood it was, her eyes darting frantically as if she were in danger for her life.
Her father regarded Knoxville as a hotbed of vice and had never visited her at all, and her brother—what the hell was he doing tagging along? Didn't he have some loaves and fishes to multiply or some water to turn into non-alcoholic grape juice or something?
And then it hit her. Her parents, who lived only three counties away, were in the Channel 8 News viewing area. And while they didn't watch the news every night, she'd be willing to bet, given the way her luck had been running, that they watched it last night. In her mind she saw her face as it had appeared on the TV screen with the caption '"Chameleon'—Witch."
This was bad. All kinds of bad. Well, she thought, she could always hide out at Coyote's or Graymalkin's tomorrow night, and when her family showed up, she just wouldn't be there. But then she thought of Iris running out on the coven without a word of explanation. Would standing up her parents really be any different? No, she should stay and talk to them. She had already come out to them as a lesbian; she might as well come out to them as a witch ... or at least come out to them personally instead of just doing it on TV. After all, she was proud of who she was, and if her family cut her off entirely, didn't she already have a loving and supportive family in the form of the coven? She could do this, she told herself. She could. But right now, she needed to cry a little.
Chapter 2
Five-fifty p.m. and Chameleon was a total wreck. She had debated calling another member of the coven to go along with her for moral support, but then decided this was too much to ask, even of a close friend. Chameleon knew her family, and she knew they would regard each of her friends with suspicion: Graymalkin because they wouldn't understand why Chameleon would have a friend who was so much older than she was; Coyote because she was so butch; Belladonna because she was so goth; and Anansi because she was a member of an ethnic group Chameleon's parents most frequently referred to as "those people." She wouldn't make her friends suffer just because she had to.
When there was a knock at the door, Chameleon jumped as if it were a gunshot. She closed her eyes, said a quick prayer to the goddess, and went to open the door. Her mother, father, and brother stood framed in the doorway with fixed smiles on their faces that made them look like particularly overenthusiastic door-to-door salespeople.
Chameleon's father and brother were wearing nearly identical dark suits and actually looked pretty nearly identical otherwise, except that Camille's father's sandy brown hair was now only a clown-like fringe over his ears, whereas her brother's hairline had only begun to creep backward. Chameleon's mom was wearing
one of her standard "cute" outfits—a fuchsia sweater decorated with kittens playing with balls of lime green yarn. Her slacks were the same shade of green as the yarn, and her shoes were the same shade of fuchsia as the sweater. Chameleon's mom was the queen of "cute" outfits in what she called "festive" colors. Opening the woman's closet door was like opening a giant box of Crayolas.
"Hi, honey!" Chameleon's mother crowed. She gave Chameleon an arm's length hug and a feather-light, guaranteed-not-to-smudge-the-lipstick kiss on the cheek.
"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad." Chameleon's dad did not offer a hug or a greeting, and she didn't make a move to force him. "Hey, Cameron."
"Hey, sis." Cameron gave Chameleon a half-hug of the back-patting variety.
"So," Chameleon's mother chirped. "Are you hungry?"
Nauseated was more like it. But Chameleon still climbed into her parents' gigantic, environmentally toxic SUV with its "God Bless America" and "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" bumper stickers and settled in for the ride to West Knoxville. Chameleon's parents refused to eat at any of the restaurants in the downtown or university area because they were "not nice." Chameleon assumed that this label also applied to the restaurant where she cooked.
In the strip mall land that was West Knoxville, Chameleon's dad pulled into the parking lot of the Parmesan Piazza, a pseudo-Italian chain restaurant which served a variety of overcooked pastas drowned in red sauce. At the table, a cute waitress with a small tattoo of a Congee character on her hand said, "Welcome to the Parmesan Piazza. Can I start you folks off with some wine?"
Yes, a bottle of Merlot and a straw for me, Chameleon thought, but her father said, "We don't drink alcohol, and neither should you. I'll have a sweet tea, please."
"Sweet tea, sweet tea," Chameleon's mother and brother echoed, while Chameleon, still wishing for wine, settled for a Pellegrino.
"What's that you ordered?" her mom asked suspiciously.
"Just water, Mom. It's an Italian bottled water."
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