by Isobel Bird
Tyler looked away. “I thought we were past that,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “You’re right. That wasn’t fair.”
Tyler looked at her. “Kate, I’d like you in the coven because I think we could work well together.”
“You’re still avoiding the whole teacher issue,” Kate said testily.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “Maybe I’ve never really thought of you as the teacher type.”
Kate bit her lip. Thinking that Tyler didn’t see her as teacher material had been difficult enough; hearing him actually say it hurt more than she cared to admit.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Tyler said when she didn’t reply to him.
Kate gave a little laugh. “No,” she said. “You never do.”
She looked across the table. Once she had thought that Tyler was the most considerate, thoughtful guy she’d ever met. Now she couldn’t even look at him.
“I have to go,” she said, sliding out of the booth.
“What?” Tyler said, surprised. “Where are you going?”
“Away from you,” said Kate as she walked away from him.
She exited the restaurant and began walking toward the bus stop. Moments later she heard Tyler running down the sidewalk after her.
“Kate!” he called out. “Wait.”
She didn’t wait. She kept walking. But Tyler was running, and he quickly caught up with her.
“Hey,” he said. “Can’t we talk?”
“Apparently not,” said Kate, facing him and looking him in the eye.
“How did this get so ugly?” Tyler asked her. “What happened?”
“I let myself think that you’re something you’re not,” Kate said flatly.
“Which is what?” said Tyler.
“I thought you were different,” said Kate. “I thought you really wanted me to be the best person I could be—the best witch I could be. But you don’t. You want me in your coven, but not because you think I’d be a good addition to it. You want me there so you can make sure I don’t get too good.”
“That is so not true!” Tyler said angrily.
“Isn’t it?” asked Kate. “I think it is. I think you’re just like all the other guys out there. You like a girl until she proves she’s her own person.” She regarded Tyler for a moment. “Scott was the same way,” she said.
“Don’t even mention me in the same sentence as that guy,” Tyler said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’ve got things all wrong. I do want you to be the best witch you can be, Kate. And I do think you’d be a great addition to the coven. All right, so maybe I’ve never thought of you as being a teacher, but maybe I’m wrong. Prove me wrong. Join the Coven of the Green Wood and show me what you can do.”
The two of them stood on the sidewalk, staring at one another but not speaking. Kate was still furiously angry. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and she could feel her hands shaking. She knew that Tyler was challenging her, and she knew that the only way she was going to prove her point to him was by accepting it.
“Fine,” she said. “I will.”
With that she turned and walked away from him.
“Good,” he said. “You do that.”
Kate half expected Tyler to chase after her again, but she didn’t hear the sound of his shoes behind her, and when she turned around after walking half a block he was nowhere in sight.
“I still won,” she said out loud. Then she turned and practically skipped back to the bus stop.
When she got home she found her father in the kitchen, getting something to eat. He was staring into the refrigerator with a lost expression.
“What is all this stuff?” he asked Kate as she came into the room.
Kate peered over his shoulder. “That stuff in the blue bowl is lobster salad,” she said. “The thing in the Tupperware is a roast chicken. I’m not sure what’s in that container, but it’s either vegetarian lasagna or mushroom ravioli.”
“I’ll go for the lobster salad,” her father said, taking the blue bowl out of the refrigerator. He sat down at the table, took the plastic wrap off the bowl, and stuck a fork into the salad.
“Don’t you want a plate?” Kate asked. “Mom would kill you if she knew you were eating straight out of the bowl.”
“Your mother’s not here,” her father said, as if that justified everything. He went to the refrigerator and returned with a bottle of beer.
“Good point,” said Kate. She got a fork and sat across from her father, spearing a piece of lobster and popping it into her mouth.
“I thought you were going out with your friends,” her father said, opening his beer and taking a drink.
“Just one friend,” Kate told him. “Tyler. But we cut it short.”
Her father looked at her quizzically. “Going out with Tyler again?” he asked.
Kate snorted. “Not in this lifetime,” she said. “No offense, but your kind are not exactly high on my list of favorite things right now.”
“My kind,” her father said. “What did we do now?” His voice suggested that more than once he’d been required to defend the entire male species from attacks by women.
“What is it with you guys?” asked Kate, getting herself a soda from the refrigerator and taking out the chicken while she was at it. “Why do you always have to be in charge?”
Her father laughed, almost choking on his beer. “Us?” he said. “You think we’re in charge? If your mother heard that she’d have something to say about it.”
“Come on,” Kate argued. “Why is it that whenever a woman starts being independent and strong, guys flip out on us?”
“Did Tyler flip out on you?” her father asked.
“Well, no, not exactly,” admitted Kate as she poked at the chicken and pulled a strip of crispy skin off. “But he told me he didn’t think I’d make a good teacher.”
“You want to be a teacher?” said her father.
“Not as in a career,” explained Kate. “At least, I don’t think I do. This is about joining his coven.”
Her father looked down, and Kate realized what she’d said. She and her father never really talked about the fact that she was being initiated as a witch. He had tried his best to talk her out of it, even asking her to speak with the family priest before making her decision. He had agreed to stand by her choice if she agreed to do that, and he had. But Kate knew he wasn’t happy about it, and she did her best not to upset him by talking too much about her Wiccan activities.
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” she said quietly.
Her father held up his hand. “No,” he said. “We should. So you want to join this—group—that Tyler is part of.”
He can’t even say the word coven, Kate thought. But at least he’s trying.
“It’s one of my choices, yes,” Kate said. “And Tyler said he was okay with me doing that. But tonight he basically told me he didn’t think I was smart enough to teach other people about . . . about the Craft,” she said, choosing to use the name for witchcraft that sounded the least witchy.
“Of course you’re smart enough,” her father said instantly. “You can do anything you want to.”
“That’s what I told Tyler,” said Kate. “Well, after I told him what a jerk he was.”
Her father laughed. “Let me guess, and then you ran out of the restaurant.”
“I did not run,” Kate said defensively. “I walked quickly.”
Her father laughed again. “You’re just like your mother,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Kate asked him.
“One time, when we had been dating about six months, your mother and I went skiing,” her father told her. “She wanted to go down this difficult hill. I made the mistake of telling her that maybe she should stick to something easier. Well, you can imagine what she did.”
“She went down the hill,” Kate said, knowing that she would do the same thing.
Her father nod
ded. “About halfway down she fell. She rolled the rest of the way down.”
“Was she hurt?” Kate asked.
Her father shook his head. “Just a little bruised,” he said. “But I’ll never forget what she said when I met her at the bottom. She looked at me and she said, ‘I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t made me so angry.’ ”
Kate laughed. “That sounds like Mom,” she said.
“So, did you fall halfway down?” her father asked her.
“What do you mean?” Kate asked him.
“I mean, did you do something just to prove to Tyler that he was wrong, something you maybe wish you hadn’t?”
“I agreed to join his co—his group,” said Kate, using her father’s choice of words.
“And is that what you really want?” asked Mr. Morgan.
“Yes,” Kate said.
Her father didn’t say anything in response, concentrating on finding a big lump of lobster meat in the salad.
“What?” Kate said, knowing that there was something he wasn’t saying.
“Nothing,” her father replied. “You said yes.”
“And I meant yes,” said Kate.
“Okay,” said her father.
“You don’t believe me,” Kate said.
“I don’t have to believe you,” said Mr. Morgan simply. “You have to believe you.”
“You’re as bad as he is!” Kate said. “I swear, you guys have some kind of pact to always stick up for each other.”
“I’m not sticking up for anyone,” her father said. “I’m just saying.”
Kate took a bite of chicken and chewed it, watching her father. She knew he was up to something. He was behaving the same way he behaved whenever he and her mother got into an argument.
“I do want to be in the Coven of the Green Wood,” she said finally.
Her father shrugged. “It’s up to you,” he said.
“I do,” Kate said again. I do, she thought to herself as her father attacked the lobster salad once more. I really do. She looked at the chicken. At least I’m pretty sure I do, she thought.
CHAPTER 10
“That’s Betty Bangs,” Cooper said excitedly.
“Where?” asked Annie. She, Cooper, and Sasha had just walked into Black Eyed Susan’s. It was Friday night, and the place was filled with people who had come to hear the battle of the bands.
“Over there,” said Cooper. “The one in the Blondie T-shirt and leather pants.”
“She looks cool,” Sasha said appreciatively.
“She is cool,” Cooper said. “Scrapple is one of the best bands around.” She looked around the club. “I wonder where Jane is?”
A moment later Jane materialized, coming in the front door.
“She has someone with her,” Annie remarked as Jane made her way over to them, using her guitar case to push people out of the way as a girl followed along behind her.
“That must be Siobhan,” Cooper said happily. When Jane reached them Cooper hugged her and whispered in her ear, “She’s so cute.”
“Everyone, this is Siobhan,” Jane said.
The girls all introduced themselves. Siobhan shook hands and smiled. Cooper pointed out Betty Bangs to Jane.
“I hope she likes our cover of ‘Song for a Tired Girl,’ ” Jane said. The two of them had rehearsed for several hours the night before, with the Scrapple song one of the tunes they’d spent the most time on.
“I do, too,” said Cooper. She looked at her friends. “We have to get backstage,” she said. “Do you guys mind?”
“No,” said Sasha. “We’ll wait for Kate. Besides, we have to grill Siobhan, and it’s easier if you’re not here.”
Jane looked at her friend. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’re harmless.”
“We’ll be standing right up front when you guys play,” Annie assured them.
Cooper and Jane left the three of them in the club and headed backstage. There they found lots of women hanging around, tuning their instruments and warming up their throats.
“This is so cool,” Cooper said as she and Jane found a place to unpack their guitars. “I’ve never seen so many rocker girls in one place. It’s like Ozzfest and Lilith Fair got all jumbled together.”
“You don’t think they’re giving Siobhan a hard time, do you?” Jane asked, sounding preoccupied.
“She’ll be fine,” said Cooper. She watched Jane put her guitar strap around her neck and start to play with the tuning pegs. “She seems nice,” she said.
Jane blushed. “It’s just that, you know, this is the first time I’ve introduced anyone to my friends.”
“They’ll be nice to her,” Cooper assured her. “If they’re not I’ll beat them up myself.”
“Okay, ladies.”
Cooper turned and saw a woman standing in the midst of all the musicians. She had a clipboard in her hand, and she was holding it up for everyone to see.
“This is the roster for tonight,” she said. “Batcave will go first, followed by Cindy’s Notebook. Lemon Fizz will be third, and then we’ll have the Bitter Pills before winding it all up with Messy Lucy. You’ll each get a fifteen-minute set, and you can do however many songs you can fit into that time period. Any questions?”
“When do we get to meet Betty Bangs?” called out a girl who was practicing her drum licks on the wall as she spoke.
The woman with the clipboard waited until the catcalls that followed the girl’s question settled down. “Betty is a very busy lady,” she said. “She’ll present the prize to the winners. Whether she stays around afterward or not is up to her.”
“What is the prize?” Jane asked. While a prize had been mentioned on the flyer, what it was hadn’t been specified.
“That’s a surprise,” said the woman. “But trust me—the winners will be more than satisfied.”
Murmurs filled the air as everyone talked about what the prize might be. The woman with the clipboard waved for their attention again. “I’m going to go start the show,” she said. “Be ready when you’re called or I’ll have to cut you.”
She slipped through the curtains to the stage, and Cooper heard the people in the audience clap.
“Welcome to Black Eyed Susan’s,” the woman said, her voice amplified by the club’s sound system.
“Do you think we’ll win?” Jane asked Cooper.
Cooper shrugged. “Why not?” she said. “We won the last time we played, right?”
Jane nodded.
“Then why not this time?” said Cooper. “I mean, really, do you think we’re going to lose to someone called Lemon Fizz?”
Jane laughed as a girl near them shot them a look. Cooper put her hand over her mouth and pretended to be embarrassed. “Guess she’s with the band,” she whispered to Jane, making her laugh.
“It would be so cool to win in front of Siobhan,” said Jane.
Cooper grinned. “Well, I’ll do my best to help you score big points,” she said.
The woman onstage was announcing the judges. Cooper heard her mention a local music critic, as well as the owner of the record store where Jane had found the flyer. Then the woman said, “And visiting us from Seattle, where her band, Scrapple, revolutionized the rock world, is none other than Betty Bangs.”
The club erupted in applause, as did the backstage area. Cooper knew that every girl in the place probably was there because of Betty Bangs, and she really wanted to impress Betty with the way she and Jane played. Having one of her idols hear her play was a dream come true.
“And now let’s get the evening started with four girls who spent way too much time reading comic books when they were little,” the announcer said. “Give it up for Batcave.”
The members of Batcave went onstage. A moment later Cooper heard their drummer count down the intro and the band launched into its first song.
“They’re good,” Jane said after listening for a minute or two.
“They’re okay,” Cooper said. “They sound too much like a R
unaways rip-off.”
Batcave played four songs before their time was up, after which the audience applauded and the announcer came back on. “Okay,” she said. “While the judges think about that performance, we’ll let the next band get ready.”
The girls from Batcave came backstage as the three members of Cindy’s Notebook took their places.
“Good job,” Cooper said to the guitarist from Batcave, who was standing near her.
“Thanks,” the girl said. “I think we did okay.”
“I don’t know if Betty did,” the bassist said. “She barely looked at us.”
Cooper looked at Jane. The whole reason she was there was because of Betty Bangs. If Betty didn’t like her music, she didn’t know what she would do.
Cooper listened as Cindy’s Notebook began their set. But her mind wasn’t on their music. She was thinking about how awful it would be if Betty Bangs ignored her—or, worse, gave her a lousy score.
“I feel sick,” she said to Jane.
“What?” Jane said. “You never feel sick before we play. I’m the one who’s supposed to feel sick.”
“Well, I do,” Cooper said, leaning against the wall.
“You’ll be fine,” Jane assured her. “Besides, we’re almost on. There’s just one more band to go.”
The girls from Lemon Fizz were readying themselves to go onstage. The singer gave Cooper a withering look as she walked past, and Cooper groaned.
“She’s probably Betty Bangs’s best friend,” she said to Jane. “They’ve probably known each other since they were five.”
“Will you get over it?” Jane said. “We’re going to be great.”
Cooper didn’t say anything. She slumped miserably against the wall, listening to Lemon Fizz start their first song. She hated to admit it, but they were good. Although she wanted to block them out and focus on getting ready for her own set, she couldn’t help but listen. The band played through two songs. Then the singer said, “Lemon Fizz owes a lot to groups like Scrapple. In honor of Betty, we’d like to do our favorite Scrapple song.”
Jane and Cooper exchanged glances. “They’re not,” Jane said as the familiar guitar opening of “Song for a Tired Girl” ripped through the club.
