by Susan Conley
“First things first.” Callie stemmed what was, she was sure, a load of frenzied queries. “I’ve set the warmth of fire about your working space, for protection and for illumination. The incense is jasmine for cleansing, and geranium for hope, and there’s a bit of rose quartz there for you to keep to remind you of how far you’ve come.
“Now. Gather up everything, every memento, every photo, every gift, large and small, anything that had to do with Himself, and bring it here.”
Annabelle rose, and started collecting the bits and pieces she had strewn about the apartment, things that she hadn’t even noticed were still around. The framed photos were obvious, but she could see, sticking out from underneath a wodge of papers pinned up on the bulletin board above her desk, a few casual snapshots from picnics, boating trips, and parties gone by. A trawl through her CD collection showed her that she had a pile of music that she’d bought because Wilson liked it — she decided to keep The Cribs and Eels, but added The Best of Robbie Williams, among others, to the outgoing pile.
As she moved through the remnants and reminders, she realized that she was easily able to decide what to keep, and what to get rid of. She didn’t feel the need to toss it all out the window, least of all the silver bangles he’d given her, which she liked very much — but why hang on to anything that didn’t really have a value, like a bunch of ticket stubs and love notes. ‘Love notes’ with inverted commas, more like, as Annabelle shook out her journal and let myriad scraps of paper float down onto her satin bedspread. ‘Terse messages offset by a few X’s and O’s’ seemed a more appropriate term, and Annabelle smiled at her own hopelessly romantic streak.
I am a hopeless romantic.
Wilson … was not.
Clutching a handful of Wilson’s handwriting, Annabelle paused in the door of her bedroom. Callie sat waiting, eyes closed, as still as a stone, and Annabelle tried to imagine what it would be like if the Pooka wasn’t around. The terrible regret came over her, and Annabelle took a deep breath to keep herself steady.
“No tears, now,” scolded Callie, as her eyes snapped open, and she shook out her cloak. “Let’s get down to business.”
“You know, maybe I should get rid of all of them.”
“All of what?” It wasn’t often that an omniscient, supernatural creature was nonplussed.
“All of who. All the Exes. Yeah! Okay, wait.” Annabelle ducked back into her bedroom, and Callie heard a closet door slide open; a scrabbling sound accompanied by muffled swearing went on for a few minutes, until Annabelle emerged, triumphant, carrying a decoupaged cardboard shoebox. Sitting down in front of her altar, Annabelle shoved all the Wilson stuff to the side, and opened the box.
“I did the collage myself, of course — it’s held up pretty well. I’ve had this since I was fourteen.” She grinned up at the Pooka, whose eyebrows had risen so high they’d disappeared under its hood. “Oh my God! Look!” Annabelle held up a packet of papers tied up with a faded pink ribbon. “These are all my clippings from the local paper, of this guy that I had a crush on in high school. He was on the football team, and he didn’t know I was alive.”
She laughed as she thumbed through the cuttings. Laying them aside, she brought out a handful of photos. “Ohhhhh, man, I forgot about these!” Annabelle held up several for Callie to have a look, and the Pooka, impatient, nodded briskly. “I went down the shore with my best friend Pauline Hegarty and we met these guys and hung out with them for three weeks. It was the summer before I went to college, and … ”
She trailed off, distracted by another memory that she’d kept in this box at the bottom of her closet. “These are some of the drink tickets that Mike Phillips and I stole from the student council office. He was the president and the biggest criminal going. He broke my heart.” And yet she smiled, the pain so far in the past that she couldn’t be hurt by it. “Oh my God! I don’t believe it, look!”
“C’mere, chicken, you needn’t dispose of anything you have a fondness for. And I — we haven’t time to purge every single man ye’ve ever met in yer entire life!”
“Okay, okay.” Annabelle reorganized the box and decided not to replace the lid. Putting the open box before her, she chose a few things from her outgoing-Wilson pile and put them aside. She crossed her legs, and in concert, both she and Callie began to breathe.
“I’m ready.”
The sound of bells, lightly ringing, began to follow Annabelle’s breathing, and as she struggled with her wandering mind — I’m out of milk, I need quarters for the laundry, I should post on my blog, I should post, I should post — the gentle sound of the ringing bells, that seemed to float on a wind that was flowing through the apartment, soon replaced all that hectic thinking and Annabelle became conscious only of her breath, of Callie’s breathing, and the soothing smell of the burning incense.
“This is only simple, chicken, and up to you.” Callie’s voice, usually exasperating and abrasive, was a tender whisper in her ear. “You are the owner of the memories that are arranged before you, and you are the only one that can choose to keep them or to let them go. You are the only one with the power to reduce them to ashes, and as ashes, let the winds of change spirit them away.”
In her mind, Annabelle saw herself raise up the reminders of her old life with Wilson, saw them lift up from her upturned palms, saw them burn as gently as the incense burned, saw the ashes of the memories swirl about her, multi-colored, on the light and gentle breeze that filled her apartment, and saw them disappear out of the room, out of the window, out of her life.
She became conscious, once again, of her breath, of Callie’s breathing, of the dying smell of the floral incense, and of the light of the candles playing against her lids. The tears running down her cheeks were silent and cleansing, and she added the keepsakes she’d set aside to the other, older, no longer volatile memories that she was fond of and wanted to hold onto. She replaced the lid, and running a hand over the top of the box, looked over at Callie.
“Thanks.” She smiled, and wiped away a lingering tear. “That was perfect. I really appreciate all your help.”
Pookas blush. Who knew? “Sure, a little appreciation goes a long way. You could do with having some manners put on ya.”
Annabelle noticed that the Pooka seemed unnaturally agitated. Was Callie actually wringing her hands? The brilliant hazel eyes were clouded with anxiety, and while the rest of her was still a shadowy gray color, she was looking even more dense than when in her earlier avian incarnation.
“Putting on weight?” Annabelle cracked. The alarm in Callie’s eye’s multiplied, and Annabelle rose to comfortingly put her hand on the Pooka’s little head. “Come on, Cal, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on — and we have to have a conversation about the Queen of the Ban — ”
“Sssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Callie hissed, as she flew up into the air and around the room, searching in corners, peeking around doors, peering out the window. Her whole body vibrated with nerves, and Annabelle was starting to feel a bit paranoid herself.
“I know we have a deal and everything, and I am still not interested in being forced to go on some wild Pooka chase to Ireland, but … what’s going on? You look kind of terrified, and I, well, I wouldn’t mind helping you as long as it doesn’t entail leaving the country.”
Callie hissed. “Ah sure, what could ever shift you from yer wee little flat and yer wee little articles and yer wee little friends and yer wee little — ”
That peace treaty hadn’t lasted. “I mean it, Callie. I’m tired of fighting with you. We’re getting nowhere. You’re in trouble, and I, by the way, am not a stick in the mud, or set in my ways!” Hmmm. She’d get back to that later. “Okay. So maybe I take you back to Ireland. Where in Ireland? How long do I have to stay? What exactly do I have to do?”
“Sure we’ll just, what do ye Yanks say, ‘play it by ear’?�
�� Callie wheedled.
“No. Feckin’. Way.” Annabelle faced the Pooka, who was now practically hiding in the sink. “Minnehan told me about Her. Okay? So I know that you’re not out to get me or anything, that you’ve been forced into helping me, but hey, everything’s cool now, right? You got me all this work, I’ve been doing a lot of healing and thinking and stuff, I’m, um, meeting new people … “ She trailed off, avoiding Callie’s piercing gaze. “Can’t you just make contact, give the thumbs up, and … um.”
They looked at each other, and Callie was the first to look away. She was back to wringing her hands, and worrying a pendant that Annabelle hadn’t noticed before. It was made of stone, stone that looked as if it had been broken. The Pooka’s voice was a whisper as she lifted the necklace toward Annabelle.
“When we were punished by Herself, we were all given these — Ha! She only forced them about our necks. They are shards of the marriage stone, Her marriage stone, the one, through our harmless fooling about, em, we managed to blow to smithereens.” Callie shoved the pendant deep beneath her cloak. “The more time as goes by, the tighter the band around me neck. Only when every last scrap of stone is back in place will the geis be lifted and we’ll all be free.” Her head bowed, she mumbled. “It’s down to me.”
“What?” Annabelle cried, appalled. “What do you mean?”
Callie raised eyes gone dark green to bore into Annabelle’s. “It’s down to me. I’m the last one.”
Annabelle slapped her hands to her face and stood, frozen, in disbelief. “You’ve got to be frickin’ kidding me!” She scraped her fingers down her face and linked her fingers around the back of her neck. “Please tell me you’re joking. You’ve got to be joking! It can’t be all down to you! Why is this happening to me?
“All I wanted was to get over a relationship. That’s all! A few chants, and incantation or two. Some herbs, some candlelight! Incense! And what do I get? The world’s last remaining cursed Pooka on my conscience!”
Callie had expanded to fill the opposite end of the room, but Annabelle could see the strain in her face, the effort it was costing her to achieve intimidating proportions. Against her better judgment, Annabelle crossed over to Callie, and laid a hand on the Pooka’s arm. Looking into hazel eyes full of anger and fear, Annabelle tried to soothe. “Sorry. I’m kind of scared, okay? I don’t want you to be stuck in limbo for eternity, but I don’t want to head off into something that probably has consequences for me, and so far away from home.”
“Home.” Oh, shit, was Callie going to cry? “Home, for some, is a more fluid concept than for others.”
“And this whole husband thing.” Annabelle gulped. “So I lied, I do want to get married, but to have a marriage, not just a big party and a big dress, and not just to bail you out of a jam! I mean,” Annabelle hesitated, and took a chance. “Maybe I could have some kind of idea of, you know, who? Who it was? Maybe I’d be less nervous?” She trailed off. Callie had gotten her emotions under control and had shrunk back down to look Annabelle in the eye.
“I can’t say.”
“You could, but you won’t?”
“I can’t and I musn’t.”
“You might if you wanted?”
“I could if you … ”
“If I … ?”
“If you asked.”
“I did ask!”
“Specifically.”
Annabelle gulped. “Oh. So if I put a name to him, if I said, uh, ‘Is So-and-So my future, um, husband’, then you could say?”
“Yay or nay.”
In the thickening, fateful silence, Annabelle remembered being a little girl, tearing the petals off of poor innocent daises, playing with Ouija boards, begging to pull the wishbone … and as she got older, investing divinatory power into the quizzes in monthly issues of Cosmopolitan, always, always with a variation of the same question in mind: Will Joey be my boyfriend? Will Bobby ask me out? Will Wilson marry me? Everything else — college, writing, career, seemed to be within her grasp, within her power, but this, this world of her heart, had always seemed cloaked with mystery, shrouded with uncertainty, a source of bafflement and secrecy, and the only thing that she felt she didn’t have the notion of a clue about.
And now here she was, countless dead daisies later, standing in front of her very own Pooka, with an invitation to inquire, with a guarantee of an answer … and she was mute, she was stalling, she was exhilarated, she was frightened, it was too much, it wasn’t enough, the moment was now, the moment was upon her —
The moment had passed. An explosion of activity in the hallway, a noisy gang of girls giggling and shrieking as they charged down the staircase and rushed out of the building an into the open-ended possibilities of a Friday night on the town, caused Callie to snuff out like a candle, leaving Annabelle alone, with a seriously missed opportunity.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Have you spoken to her lately?” Lorna tightened her scarlet pashmina around her neck. It was yet another glorious day, but the springtime air still held a bit of winter’s chill.
Maria Grazia nibbled on the fruit and yogurt she’d ordered to tide herself over until the other two were ready to eat. “Only to tell her about this.”
“How did she sound?”
Maria Grazia sighed into her cup of cappuccino. “She sounded really well. Bright. Happy.”
Lorna’s brow creased. “Good. I mean, really. Maybe this magic plant thing has passed.”
“Well, I didn’t ask her. I’m still feeling guilty about that botched set-up thing.”
“Did she mention Da Vinci?” Lorna kept an eye on the passersby, should Annabelle materialize among them.
“No.”
“Oh.”
They sat back and watched the passing traffic. From their vantage point, early Sunday afternoon Chelsea was just beginning to pick up speed, as matching couples walked matching dogs up and down Eighth Avenue: the cutting edge, fashionable fellows marched by with tiny Jack Russell terriers on leather leads, the rough trade boys accompanied by pit bulls with red bandanas around their necks, just like their masters, and the random hetero family with a big shaggy mutt, all went about the business of either eating out and reading the Sunday papers, or fetching bags full of bagels and cream cheese to eat at home while they read the Sunday papers. Car traffic was at a minimum, and while an occasional bus rumbled up toward Penn Station, the terrace of the Rocking Horse Cafe was delightfully carbon monoxide-free.
“I do not want to do this.” Maria Grazia grumbled. “I do not want to get involved, I do not want to interfere, I do not want to referee. There’s a reason I keep out of this shit, I grew up with this shit, somebody not talking to everybody, it makes me frickin’ pazza, I did not want to get mixed up in that that misguided set-up thing and look where it got me! One of my best friends hating me.” She signaled the waiter for another serving of fruit.
Lorna ignored Maria Grazia’s rant, and snuck another drag. Even if it was a potentially lazy Sunday, she was still annoyed that Annabelle had yet to show. “She does not hate you. Why is she always late?”
“I am not always late.” Annabelle breezed up to them, arms full of irises and daffodils, a bright smile on her face. “I was, in fact, too early, so I went over to the flower market. Aren’t they beautiful?” She settled the bouquet into the seat next to her, and beamed at her friends.
Maria Grazia smiled weakly, and Lorna scowled.
“What’s your problem?” Annabelle asked casually, casting an eye over the menu. “Where’s our waiter? Have you ordered? Did you buy the paper? Aren’t I full of questions?” She laughed, and several heads turned at the unjaded sound. No one laughed disaffectedly in Chelsea.
Maria Grazia’s second appetizer arrived, and Annabelle ordered a bagel with lox and cream cheese, earning another deadly glare from Lorna, who asked f
or dry toast and another black coffee. The glower intensified after Annabelle and the waiter engaged in an exhaustive comparison of the various herbal teas the restaurant offered, and their strengths and weaknesses.
“Stop scowling, Lorna, you’ll ruin Maria Grazia’s digestion. Oops, forgot! Nothing ruins Maria Grazia’s digestion!” Annabelle fussed with her flowers. “I feel like I haven’t seen you both in ages. Not since before you both stood me up, anyway.”
A strange and complicated silence settled over the table. Annabelle ignored it and, humming to herself, watched the people go by, getting lost in the parade of personas and their pets. A breeze blew in off the Hudson, tinged with the tang of the sea, and she had a sudden vision of miles of high cliffs, and the ocean pounding at their feet, gulls swooping up above the grassy rim, and below near the rocks, as the hypnotic sound of the water crashing against the land lulled her into rest along with the warm, bright sunshine —
“Anna!”
Blinking a bit, Annabelle came back down to earth. “Hmmm?”
“I said, let’s just get this out of the way!” Lorna lit another smoke, and Maria Grazia studiously mixed and re-mixed her berries with the creamy vanilla yogurt.
“Get what out of the — ”
“The thing! The thing at the show, the set-up thing!”
Annabelle looked genuinely puzzled. “What about it? That was weeks ago.”
“So? So you haven’t been calling me or Maria Grazia, Maria Grazia has been so worried that you’re mad at us — ”
“I’m not mad, I’ve been busy,” Annabelle interjected. “I’ve been working, like, every day — ”
Lorna barreled on. “And I — well, I simply don’t have the patience for one of your snits.”
