by Susan Conley
“He said. He said — he didn’t love me. As much as I loved him.”
“That frickin’ asshole.”
“He said — but last night on the phone, he said, ‘Love you’. I knew it. I knew the words were meaningless. I knew it didn’t mean — I knew all along that it’s just words, it’s not, it’s not — ”
“Had anything happened? The day before or since Saturday — ”
“Things were fine Saturday. Sunday — I, I was exhausted. I really wanted to get that draft right before I sent it off to another agent. I was going over it at his place, and I, I don’t know, I got scared, you know? Nervous. I got a little weepy and … he kind of blew it off. I wanted some kind words. Just a few kind words. ‘You can do it, honey.’ That’s all.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, from your frickin’ boyfriend.”
“And he just went off about how this was always the way, as long as he’d known me, this behavior, this crying in front of him. And how I had just been on the phone with Lorna and everything was fine, why wasn’t I all upset with her, and I had been, but she gave me one of her pep talks — ”
“I’ll bet — ”
“But he didn’t hear me, and she had actually cheered me up, but this is big for me, you know, I’ve been trying to make it for so long, and I — ”
“What? Go on, Belle — you can tell me.”
“I’ve been having a hard time, feeling like he wasn’t supporting me. I felt so whiny, ‘Oh support me, support me’, but it seemed unfair, like I had to play some role, some thing I had to do, be this cute sexy girl who just liked to go out to dinner and the theater, and not have a, a, a, weak spot, to not be able to handle every single thing.”
“Uh huh.”
And I brought it up, this feeling, and I used all the stupid correct psychological terms, like ‘I feel like’, and ‘When this happens I feel like’ and he just said, you keep picking and picking at the same thing, and I said it’ll keep coming up if we don’t work it out!”
“No shit. You’re absolutely right.”
“And it just got worse, and I started crying more, so I dropped it. And then I left because I, well, I wanted to give the manuscript a little boost, do a spell, you know, something to send it on its way, and I got home, and felt calm, and I got my work done, and I called him and apologized — again — and he said okay and he said ‘Love you’ and we were supposed to go to Lincoln Center tonight for a thing that I bought the million dollar tickets for. It was all a lie. It was all a lie.”
“No, honey, it wasn’t all a lie, but let’s leave that for another day. Okay? Had anything happened at all, over the past few weeks, that could have … ?”
“He was busy with some client, he wasn’t around, or available, much. We talked on the phone every day, I gave him space — the negotiations surrounding meeting for a cup of coffee were worse than the Middle East peace process.” Annabelle laughed — sort of.
Her voice trailed off and she laid her head in Maria Grazia’s lap. This had to be a nightmare, a hallucination, a joke. It had to be.
“Let me get you a tissue, okay? I’ll make you a cup of tea, and we’ll just sit, and we’ll talk if you feel like it, and — we’ll get through the day.”
“Don’t you have meeting or a client or something?”
“Nothing. Ssssh. Okay? Chamomile or regular?”
Maria Grazia took over, calmly, quietly. The sound of the traffic on Union Street droned on, the beginning of the pre-rush hour rush. The light was quickly fading from its only source in the room, the building’s inaccessible back yard, and Maria Grazia lit a few candles, even — especially — on Annabelle’s little altar.
The picture of Belle and Wilson that took pride of place was from their trip to Maine. Maria Grazia took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy …
“I don’t think he’s going to call me. I don’t think we’ll get back together. Do you think we will? MG?”
“I don’t know, honey. But people do all the time.”
“Yeah. People do. All the time.”
Maria Grazia threw her eyes up to heaven. Madonna mia, there’s no way that dirtbag is coming back. She handed Annabelle her cup of tea, and sat back down on the tiny couch.
“I have to get that manuscript off tomorrow. How am I going to do that? How am I going to … I — I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
Maria Grazia leaped to her feet. ‘Can’t’ had that effect on her. It made her leap to her feet and want to change the world.
“Oh, yes you can. Yes you can!” she said firmly, turning on some lights. “I’ll help.”
“I — ”
“No. Come on. Sorry, pal, tough love. You’ve just been dumped — ” Maria Grazia remained unswayed by the slight squeal of pain and the new wave of tears that began running down Annabelle’s face, “ — and that’s bad enough. Right now, in this moment, you need to get active. You’ll be even angrier tomorrow if you blow this. Now. Up. Hug. Okay. It’ll all be okay.”
The two friends stood in the middle of the front room, embracing. The sound of Annabelle’s muffled weeping was the only sound apart from the spring breeze rattling the blinds. Maria Grazia looked at her friend’s back, reflected in the mirror that hung over the altar. She’ll need all the help she could get, she thought. Hope there’s something in that magic after all.
Chapter Five
It was odd, this “walking around thing”. This “putting one foot in front of the other”. She’d been up and walking around for most of the last fifteen and a half days since Wilson had ended it. But then she’d been at it for years, really, this walking business. Annabelle called on those years of experience as she left Manhattan’s main post office and made her way downtown.
Equally amazing was this seemingly infinite ability to make it through the day. Communicate. Order coffee to go. Speak to people — people who were strangers, speak to them without crying? Easy peasy, really. It was the moments in between that were still a challenge. Moments like … oh … this one, moments in which she was alone with her thoughts.
Anything could set her off. Songs that formed the soundtrack of their days together were able to bring her to her metaphorical knees, and she’d had to leave Macy’s the other day because they started blaring a truly horrible-under-any-circumstances Justin Bieber hit, but see, it had been playing in the taxi they took back to her place the first time they’d made love …
Time for a lamentation break. A Latin American hot dog vendor caught her eye and put his hand on his heart. Annabelle smiled weakly, and as she passed him, he ran out from behind his cart and pressed a few napkins into her hand.
“He not worth it, mami,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “You gonna be all right.”
She thanked him and walked away. Two blocks down the avenue it struck her that maybe he was an angel or something, that maybe if she turned around to look for him, he wouldn’t be there, cart and umbrella vanished in the blink of an eye. But no, she could see, even from this distance, that he was there, busily making his next customer one with everything.
Annabelle dabbed at her drippy nose with one of his napkins. Well, it was kind of him, anyway. She turned to begin her solitary stroll down to the subway when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the shop window on the corner of Eighth and Thirtieth.
Oooh. A new witchy store.
Annabelle was pretty sure that she knew every single herbalist, tarot card reader, reiki practitioner, chakra adjuster and purveyor of crystals and incense in the five boroughs. This was a new one on her — and it looked as though it had been there for ages, its dusty front window packed to the gills with books, decks of tarot cards, and a crystal ball perched, extremely precariously, on top of the whole shooting match. There was no name on the door, just a symbol, a small spiral painted in gold. Her hand on the doorknob,
she felt a moment’s hesitation, a cold feeling going up the back of her neck, the kind of shiver she got when she was working a ritual that actually seemed to be … working. She took her hand off the knob — something, some small voice at the back of her head started to whisper a cautionary phrase — and then the door swung open with an eerily echoing chime, a minor scale than descended rather than ascended, and Annabelle crossed the threshold.
The smell of sage was overpowering. Smoke from several bunches of the dried herb billowed from sconces along the wall. More candles than seemed possible, much less safe, flickered from tabletops, bookcases, and from chandeliers hung from the low ceiling. Crystals sparkled from display cases, alongside silver jewelry and embroidered leather pouches. Books piled upon books, in no particular order, with no regard for subject matter or alphabetization by author. Annabelle was appalled. The ominous little nurgle at the back of Annabelle’s neck turned into annoyance as she surveyed that haphazard display. It was the first feeling of determination she’d had in a week, and honestly, how in the world was anybody supposed to find what they came for if they didn’t know where anything was —
“I know where everything is.”
Annabelle dropped the pile of books she’d begun to sort. The voice, rasping yet somehow melodious, sounded like it was coming from overhead.
“But the true question is, do you?”
Annabelle swung around. Now the voice was coming from behind her. The smoke seemed to billow more furiously, and the candles to flicker more madly, and the music that had piped softly over the stereo system seemed to swell as Annabelle peered into the depths of the shadowy shop, trying to locate the voice that had just read her mind.
“Not much mind reading to be done, chicken. I know a control freak when I see one.”
The voice took shape and came forward out of the gloom. Raven black hair hung in waves down her back. Eyes the color of burnished jade regarded Annabelle from behind surprisingly trendy spectacles, and her small white face was pointy at the nose and chin. Great swathes of multi-colored scarves covered her from head to toe, but Annabelle could see a regular old pair of Levis showing above the bright red Chuck Taylor sneakers.
“I’m not a control freak,” retorted Annabelle, belatedly. “I’m organized.”
The apparition snorted with un-apparition-like disdain.
“I’m not! I mean, I am! I mean — ” Annabelle almost shrieked. She never shrieked.
“Would you ever calm yourself, pet. Come have a cuppa.”
The woman led the way back to a small circular table tucked into the farthest corner. A great glob of melting candle pooled in the center of a worn velvet cloth, and an unusual deck of cards was spread out along the very edges of the surface. Before Whoever-She-Was hastily gathered them up, Annabelle thought that the house pictured on one of cards looked very much like her family home, that one of the little boys looked like her brother when he was in kindergarten, and that there were several of her with an unknown man who looked — wow! — pretty darn hot.
“What are those? Are they tarot cards? Do you do readings? How long have you been here? What were those — ”
“Oh, sit down and have a biscuit.”
A tin of chocolate cookies was dropped brusquely in front of her, and Annabelle sat down. Somehow, she didn’t feel unsafe, exactly — maybe slightly asphyxiated from the endlessly burning sage, but otherwise, well, what the hell?
“Hell’s got nothing to do with it,” cut in Whoever-She-Was. “That sort of thinking was attached to any practice, even the simplest herbology, back in the middle ages when the old way was forced out by the Christians. No offense to the Christians, mind you. Sure, I’m one myself. I can remember, back in the day — ”
Annabelle took her cup, milk and two sugars, just as she liked it, and butted in. It seemed, if impolite, the only way she was going to get heard.
“Who are you? Some kind of psychic? Do you do readings or what?”
The woman huffed. “No patience, not a bit of patience.” She threw herself into the chair opposite Annabelle. “Sure, just grab a handful of any old stones, call them runes! Buy a wee book on the Tarot, and suddenly you’re an old hand. Stare into a puddle of water and call it scrying, and when you tell yourself what you want to hear, call it divination. Rubbish!
“I am called Maeve and I am one of the Old Ones. I am everywhere and nowhere. I know everything and nothing. I see into, out of, through, and beyond. I am, if you don’t mind, The Real Thing, Miss ‘I am a Witch’ and you’ll pay your respects and wait on me!”
Whoops. Annabelle grabbed a cookie. She took a sip of tea. She tried to visualize the distance to the door behind her, wondered if she’d make it if she —
“No need to make a break for it,” sighed Maeve. “Got a bit dramatic there, did I? Sorry, sorry. It’s just I do hate to see the young squandering their gifts. It’s time you put yours to better use, you see. It’s time for you to meet your destiny.”
“But, but, but — ” Destiny? “I don’t have gifts. I mean, I’m just kind of investigating, like, The Goddess, and, and, maybe doing a spell or two, and, you know, doing a bit of aromatherapy, mixing my own oils — ”
“Don’t go all squirrelly on me now, girleen. Too late for that. The Pooka won’t wait any longer.”
Annabelle sat frozen in her chair as the many candles in the shop mysteriously extinguished, leaving only the mess of wax on the tabletop aglow. The background music had changed to the simple beating of a muffled drum, and as impossible as it seemed, the sage continued to burn and burn, and smoke and smoke, until it seemed as if she, Maeve, and the table were floating in midair. Annabelle grabbed onto the edge of the table — it felt as though the room had begun to spin. The drum beat faster, and the smoke billowed around the madly dancing flame of the candle. Annabelle began to feel dizzy, her blood pounding in her ears, the palms of her hands sweaty and slowly slipping from the edge of the table, she felt her chair shift and rock along with Maeve’s swirling voice, and when she thought she would surely suffocate, faint, collapse —
A hazelnut hit her on the head and bounced into her lap.
The table stopped spinning.
The once dark room was full of light, and empty of smoke.
Everything was back to normal.
“Now.” Maeve nodded. “There you are.”
“Here I’m where?” Annabelle sputtered. She brandished the hazelnut. “What the hell is this?”
“Language, missus! Although I daresay yer one and ye will get on just fine.”
“Look, Maeve — I’m new to this, right? I mean, I do my tarot thing, go for a biannual auric cleansing, phone the Psychic Friends, whatever. I come in here, minding my own business, and get caught up in some ritual or whatever — and what’s this about a Pooka? Isn’t that like a, a, a poltergeist or something? What’s that got to do with me?”
“No patience!” Maeve roared. “It must be this city, each and every one of ye running around like there’s no tomorrow — well, there is a tomorrow, and one after that, and one after that, and if you want to know anything, anything that is of, or not of this world, then you must show some patience!”
“Don’t yell at me!” yelled Annabelle, clutching the hazelnut.
They glared at each other across the tiny table. Maeve’s scowl quickly turned into a knowing, smug grin.
“Well, now, chicken. Haven’t even cast your mind toward auld Wilson, have you? Hmmmm?”
Humming to herself, she rose, and cleared away the tea things. Annabelle sat stunned, the tiny hazelnut in her hand growing warm and, she had to say, it felt like the thing was giving her a bit of comfort.
“Take your time, child. Do your research. Look up Pookas in one of yer auld books. Wait. Watch. Learn.” Maeve came over, and held Annabelle’s face in her two small hands. “Heal.”
&n
bsp; And then it was over, and Annabelle was out on the sidewalk. Blinking in the sunlight, the sounds of the traffic alien somehow, she began to wander off down the avenue. She rubbed the hazelnut between the palms of her hands and realized, yeah: she hadn’t fretted about Wilson, nor about the latest rejection she’d gotten on her book. She felt weird: tired and sad, but not hopeless. She felt pretty good — not freaked out or anything.
Until she turned to take one last look at the shop.
And it wasn’t there.
She ran back, rattled the doorknob — and it came off in her hand. She pressed her face against the dusty picture window, and couldn’t see past the stacks of boxes and the general gloom. She walked backwards into the middle of the sidewalk, and looked up at the building. The whole thing was derelict, and looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in a hundred years.
The hazelnut leaped straight up out of her palm, somersaulted in the air, and fell back into her palm, where it shook itself as if … as if it were laughing.
She looked at the nut and then at her watch.
“I’m late!” She groaned. “Lorna’s going to kill me!”
Chapter Six
Lorna checked the time, and then slammed her iPhone down on the table. Maria Grazia tore her eyes away from the menu at the sound, and shrugged.
“No show,” she said. “Weird.”
She went back to her menu as Lorna’s lethal manicure drummed a death march on the tabletop.
“Every minute I spend out of the agency requires an hour of overtime to make up for it,” Lorna grumbled. “She knows that.”
“She’s got a lot on her mind, you pain in the ass, the least of which is your work schedule. Give her a break.”
Lorna huffed through her nostrils in reply and toyed with her flute of sparkling Italian mineral water. Sunlight poured through the atrium of the painfully hip Upper West side restaurant. Fiero’s was as exclusive as it got, and was clogged to its cathedral ceiling with types: established celebrities and their entourages, celebrities on the ascendant with their hyper-alert managers, celebrity wannabes and the publicists who would mold them into fame.
