by Tess Lake
There was certainly going to be a full house tonight. There were Luce and I and our respective boyfriends, maybe Ollie would be coming, the moms, Aunt Cass, and apparently Sheriff Hardy would be coming as well. I was somewhat thankful for that – tonight it wouldn’t only be me bringing my boyfriend to dinner for the very first time. Aunt Ro would be too.
Chapter 10
After a few minutes of deep breathing that had absolutely no effect on my calmness or the storm above, I changed into a long skirt and a blue top for the evening. By the time I returned to the living room, Molly and Luce had emerged from their respective bedrooms. Luce was looking normal, wearing a red shirt that had sparkly things embroidered on it and a long skirt like me. Molly was… well, she wasn’t the same color she’d been when she’d gone into the bathroom. She was looking like one of those tanned people who live on the beach and have skin like dried leather. She was wearing a sweater, although the weather wasn’t quite cold enough for it, and jeans, but you could clearly see the contrast between her pale fingers and her brown face and neck.
“Can you see the black eye?” Molly asked.
“Nope, can’t see it,” I said, trying not to look too closely.
“Is that foundation getting darker?” Luce asked.
“Is it? Oh goddess, what am I going to do?” Molly said.
High above us, some thunder snapped and we all felt the magic shiver.
“Let’s go to dinner. It’s going to be fine. It’s our boyfriends and our family – at least some of those people like us. Yes, there’s going to be some kind of surprise. But how bad could it be?” I said.
With that, we marched down to the main house after I gave Adams strict instructions not to creep down and steal food (which I was sure he would disobey). As we reached the main house, a trio of cars came driving up. Will and Ollie had shared a car, and Jack and Sheriff Hardy had come by themselves. Although Sheriff Hardy was dating Aunt Ro, we hadn’t seen much of him. She was keeping their relationship quiet, and I couldn’t blame her, really. Thus far I’d been doing the same thing with Jack, and so had Molly and Luce. Upon seeing Jack, I felt that familiar calmness come over me and the storm above give a grumble as it started to recede. Tonight he was wearing a standard blue shirt and blue jeans, and I could forgive this fashion faux pas because he looked so handsome I couldn’t keep myself from grabbing him and kissing him.
We greeted our respective boyfriends while Sheriff Hardy stood sort of awkwardly off to the side, unsure of whether he should walk in or not. I saw him glancing at Molly, who had apparently convinced Ollie to come to dinner. Once I finished kissing Jack, I turned to Sheriff Hardy.
“Hey, Sheriff, welcome to dinner,” I said.
“Thanks… I didn’t know everyone would be here,” Sheriff Hardy replied.
“You’d better watch out for those diabolical Torrent women,” Molly said, giving him a wink. We went inside, but not before I heard Ollie whisper to Molly, “Why are you so brown?”
At the dining table, I wasn’t fast enough to snag the seats the furthest away from Aunt Cass, so unfortunately Jack landed right next to where she’d be sitting. She’s been known to get a little cranky from time to time, and usually whoever was closest to her took the brunt of it. I didn’t want to sacrifice my boyfriend, but I really needed to stay calm tonight. From the kitchen, we could hear the moms talking, arguing and sometimes whispering. There was a lot of clanging of saucepan lids, metal spoons hitting pots, the sound of something being whisked, and voices that rose up and down.
Molly and Luce, after planting their boyfriends in their chairs far away from where Aunt Cass would be sitting, had rushed off and retrieved bottles of white wine. They came back and filled all of our glasses. Sheriff Hardy must’ve been feeling a little uneasy, because he gulped his down almost as fast as I did.
“So… how is everyone doing?” Sheriff Hardy said. There was a mumble of responses as a kind of strange awkwardness came across us all. If it had been the three of us with our respective three boyfriends, we would already be laughing and having fun. It felt strange to have the sheriff there. Even though he’s an awesome guy, he’s been in law enforcement for as long as we can remember and had at various times brought all of us home in the back of a police car. Not to mention the weirdness of the status change that he was now Aunt Ro’s boyfriend. We’d only seen them together officially one time, and that was when the Big Pie Bakery was on fire. My memories of that night were scattered, small bursts of time that was mostly fear or misery and then large chunks of black where I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. All I can remember about Sheriff Hardy and Aunt Ro is that she was clinging to him and he was hugging her and whispering something in her ear.
I was about to start talking about working on a film set in the hope that would give enough time for the alcohol to start working on all of us so we could relax when Aunt Ro came bustling out of the kitchen, her hands dusted in flour, wearing an apron that had “Kiss the Cook” written on it.
“Lamont, so good to see—” Aunt Ro began heading for her boyfriend with her hands outstretched when she noticed her daughter, Molly. Instead of grabbing Sheriff Hardy and giving him a big kiss as she’d obviously intended, she sort of crashed into him and pressed a floury hand against his shirt.
“What did you do to your skin!” Aunt Ro said.
“Nothing, a bit of foundation,” Molly said.
“You’re a completely different color than you were this morning!” Aunt Ro practically screeched.
Then she put her floury hands on the dining table and leaned over and looked closely at Molly.
“What happened to your eye? Is that a black eye? Have you been fighting?”
“I have not been fighting. I tripped and hit my face on the sidewalk. This was the only concealer I had to cover it up, okay? Let’s not make a federal case out of it,” Molly said through gritted teeth. She picked up her glass of wine and downed it before pouring herself another.
“Were you wearing those high heels I told you not to wear? I said this would happen,” Aunt Ro said.
The high heels that Aunt Ro was referring to were a pair of ultra-black stilettos that were simply magnificent. Molly had bought them online years ago and had been testing them out when Aunt Ro and the moms had shown up for some reason. Whatever that reason was had been forgotten as they decided to have a conversation about what was and wasn’t appropriate wear for three young witches. This was all about seven years ago – we were all adults, but in the eyes of our parents, still children. Molly still had the stilettos somewhere. I think she’d only ever worn them out once before putting them back in the box and putting that box back in the closet.
“No, I was not wearing stilettos! Now can we please move on?”
Aunt Ro gave her daughter a look that said they’d be talking about this again, kissed Sheriff Hardy briefly on the lips and then walked back out to the kitchen, leaving a floury handprint on the front of Sheriff Hardy’s shirt and two floury handprints on the tabletop.
“Is your aunt a little crazy sometimes?” Jack whispered to me.
“If crazy was Harlot Bay, our moms are somewhere way past Truer Island sailing out over the horizon,” I whispered back and then we both laughed.
There was already some awkwardness with Sheriff Hardy sitting there, and now, after Aunt Ro having a small fight with Molly, the awkwardness was definitely increased. I decided to dive right in to start talking about the film set, hoping it would distract everyone from what had happened.
“So, the film is going pretty well,” I said.
There was a loud knock at the front door.
Mom came bursting out of the kitchen like a comet shooting across the sky, drying her hands on a towel.
“Our special guests are here!” she trilled as she zoomed through the dining room.
“Special guests?” Luce repeated. I felt the magic around us ripple and twist as Molly, Luce and I simultaneously realized who it must be.
&
nbsp; Mom opened the front door as a crack of lightning burst far above us, revealing Bella Bing and her handler/assistant Ru.
“Mrs. Torrent! You haven’t aged a day!” Bella said and flung herself into my mother’s arms.
Given that we hadn’t been friends with Bella when were in high school, back when she was Susan Smith, I was fairly certain that this was the first time that they were meeting.
Mom hugged Bella back and then waved Bella and Ru in through the door. The storm outside, which up until this point had been slowly receding, had come roaring back.
Molly grabbed my arm under the table with an iron grip. I turned to look at her, but all I could see was mostly the whites of her eyes.
“What is she doing here?” Molly whispered to me.
“Special guest?” I replied. Mom brought Bella and Ru into the main dining room.
“Everyone, this is Harlot Bay’s most famous actress, the one and only Bella Bing, and her friend Ru. They are going to be having dinner with us tonight as our special guests! Please make them welcome,” she said. With that, Mom bustled off back to the kitchen.
Bella was wearing a long coat that covered her from neck to knee. With all eyes on her, she pulled it off to reveal a plunging neckline, some sort of sparkly glitter down her arms, and a beautiful jade necklace that practically glowed green in the lights above.
“Oh my, all of your handsome men are here,” Bella said, looking down the line of our boyfriends.
Molly’s hand clenched painfully on my arm.
“Ow!”
Bella looked the three of us over before finally settling on Molly.
“I love your new look!” she squealed.
I know it sounds like a perfectly lovely thing to say, but there was a whisper of tone in Bella’s voice that I’m sure only girls would detect.
“Thank you,” Molly said in a brittle voice. With the six of us on one side of the dining table and Sheriff Hardy sitting alone on the other, Bella looked at the seats and then moved towards where Aunt Cass traditionally sat at the head of the table.
“It’s so lovely to have a nice dinner with people from back home,” she said. She pulled the chair out as Aunt Cass appeared in the doorway leading to the living room.
“You two sit over there, that’s my chair,” Aunt Cass said. Her voice brooked no argument, and Bella practically pirouetted on the spot and headed around the other side of the table to sit beside Sheriff Hardy. Ru followed her, her expression neutral, and sat down opposite Ollie. She was wearing a pale green dress and a gold bracelet that perfectly was set off by her dark skin.
Aunt Cass shuffled over to the head of the table and put down a cardboard box on top of it. She started pulling out an assortment of chili sauces and lined them up in a row.
They were definitely the chili sauces that I’d seen in the office today. She took out a stack of small plastic cups and set them to one side. Once she had them all out, she pulled out a sheaf of paperwork and put it at one end before dropping the box at her feet. She then sat down, snagged herself a glass of wine and looked at all of us.
“Anyone here brave enough to take the chili challenge?” she asked.
There was a moment of silence before Bella clapped and flashed that movie star smile at us.
“I love chili so much. Last year I went to Guatemala and down there they grow the most amazing chilies and I—”
“I need a yes, not your life story,” Aunt Cass said to her, cutting her off.
Bella stopped talking about herself midsentence and sort of shrank down as though she’d been doused with a bucket of water.
“Um… yes, I’ll do it,” she said, a note of challenge in her voice.
Aunt Cass usually stayed on the crotchety side rather than straying over to outright meanness, but it seemed she didn’t really like Bella Bing one bit.
“I’ll do it!” Molly quickly said, practically glaring at Bella.
“Excellent, how about you, policeman-now-builder?” she asked Jack.
He looked down the line of chili sauces. There was a variety of languages printed on them, some Chinese, some Arabic, and one that I think was maybe Korean. As you traveled down the line of bottles, the number of warning symbols clearly increased. One of the bottles at the end had a picture of a tombstone on it and a lot of exclamation marks in red fire.
“What exactly is the chili challenge?” Jack asked.
Aunt Cass rubbed her hands together like she was an old-time traveling salesman.
“Glad you asked, my boy. There are so few tests worth taking in this world, but the chili challenge is one of them. Twelve chili sauces, each unique, each hotter and different from the last. Can you make it through the chili challenge and survive? Only the brave will find out. So, what say you?”
Jack glanced at me, but I was still trying to process what was happening, so I didn’t have any guidance for him. He turned back to Aunt Cass and shrugged before agreeing to take part.
“I’m not doing it,” Luce said.
“I’m out,” Will added, following her lead.
“I will do it. I love chili,” Ru said and then for some reason smiled at Ollie. Molly saw this and her face went dark, well, darker than it already was thanks to the foundation.
“Ollie is going to do it too,” she said, volunteering him.
“Um,” Ollie said.
“Have those sauces been legally imported?” Sheriff Hardy asked.
“What are you, Customs? Are you going take part or not?” Aunt Cass said to him.
“I’m not sure I’m going to—” Sheriff Hardy started to say before the moms burst out of the kitchen carrying a variety of serving platters.
“Um,” Ollie said again.
“Tonight we will be eating a variety of tapas,” Aunt Freya announced to the dining room. The moms had obviously been rehearsing this, trying to make a good impression on our famous guest. But obviously none of their planning had included Aunt Cass sitting at the end of the dining table with twelve bottles of chili sauce and a stack of papers set out before her.
“What are you doing with those?” Mom asked.
“Some of us will be taking the chili challenge tonight. These are waivers,” Aunt Cass said, patting the pile of papers with her hand.
“Waivers? Whatever for?” Aunt Freya asked.
“You can’t eat these last three chili sauces without signing a waiver. We don’t want to get sued into oblivion,” Aunt Cass said matter-of-factly.
“No waivers at the dinner table!” Mom said.
“Fine, but you’re gonna open us up to a lot of liability,” Aunt Cass said and took a sip of her wine. The moms were silent for a moment, but then quickly regrouped. They were somewhat used to Aunt Cass throwing a wrench in the works.
“I love home-style food. It’s so hard to get anything like this in New York. And don’t get me started about the food in Hollywood,” Bella said quite dramatically.
“The first sauce is called Devil’s Tears,” Aunt Cass said, interrupting her. She squirted some into one of the plastic cups and then passed the bottle and some cups to Jack, who did the same. I passed it by me to Molly and Ollie. Ollie then reached out across the table, and when Ru took the bottle from him, I saw their fingers touch. I also felt it, because Molly grabbed my arm again and clenched her hand like a vise. Ru and Bella put chili sauce in their cups before passing the bottle to Sheriff Hardy, who waved it away and handed it back to Aunt Cass.
“Thank you so much, dear, we do try our best,” Mom said to Bella. She’d watched the chili bottle circle the table and had apparently decided to completely ignore whatever it was Aunt Cass was doing. They were going to serve dinner and not say a single word about it.
The moms had evidently communicated this to each other in complete silence, so they proceeded with their serving. They put their platters in the middle of the table and then returned to the kitchen to fetch more. Soon they’d covered virtually the entire surface of the dining table.
Mom
started pointing to dishes and introducing them.
“This is a chorizo sausage slowly cooked in wine, over here are empanadas filled with meat and vegetables, we have some prawns sautéed in peppercorn sauce, we have some stuffed mussels, we have some fried diced potatoes served with a tomato sauce, and there is also aioli, over here we have some octopus served with paprika and sea salt, and there’s also some pork, mushrooms, scallops and some tortillas, as well as a few other things.”
My mouth was watering looking across all of the dishes. It all looked amazing and smelled even better.
“Let’s get the challenge started, then, shall we?” Aunt Cass said.
She picked up a piece of chorizo, dipped it into the sauce called Devil’s Tears and popped it into her mouth. When Bella followed suit, Molly did as well, still glaring at her. Jack dipped his chorizo in the sauce and took a bite.
“That’s kind of hot,” he said and then sipped his wine.
“Is it? I can barely feel a tingle,” Bella said, glaring at Aunt Cass.
“Tastes like standard ketchup to me,” Molly said.
“So how is the film going?” Mom asked Bella, desperate to save the night from becoming a crazed competition.
Bella turned and smiled at Mom, instantly transforming back to the flawless movie star.
“It has been quite sad as we lost Mattias Matterhorn to a heart attack.”
At this she crossed herself, although I was fairly sure that in my research, she had said she was a Buddhist and not a Christian.
“But we have the magnificent Gustaf Hemingway to replace him, and the filming is going wonderfully. Cyro Nash is the most incredible director and…”
I zoned out as I heard Bella begin to repeat essentially her interview with me. It was full of all the things that movie stars say, shallow compliments that don’t mean anything. As Bella talked about her favorite topic, which was obviously herself, the chili challenge quickly moved through the first four sauces.
Every now and again, Bella threw somewhat of a glare at Aunt Cass, still obviously annoyed that she’d been rude to her and cut her off.
