The piano solo ended.
She knew she needed to start the second verse. She tried to cover with a smile and a nod. Waiting for the next appropriate beat to come in, she glanced back at the pianist—to avoid the glowering camera.
I can’t just walk off stage.
Perhaps she should have written the lyrics on the palm of her hand, for she had no idea what words came next. She couldn’t even recall the song’s name. A rising storm within surfaced—her mind a blur.
The orchestra played on. The queasiness in her stomach made her think back to the candy from Rudy. “I’m the shits!” she shouted into the microphone.
Oh, God.
She knew she had to have said something. After all, the audience waited.
Like her thumping heart, the orchestra clamored off a couple of beats. The audience giggled.
She prayed for the peace to rake back over her and comfort her from this horror. Deus ex machina. Like in a Greek tragedy, she hoped to be plucked out of the scene.
Her knees weakened, and her legs shook. Her bowels gurgled again. She prayed the microphone didn’t pick up the noise.
The orchestra repeated the bridge—minus her accompaniment.
Enveloped by dizziness, she bit her inner cheek to retain consciousness. The induced pain helped deflect the sharp throb in her gut.
The producers scrambled offstage, albeit for a commercial break. She stood paralyzed.
No, no please! she exclaimed to her body—she felt outside of it. This time, death seemed more palpable. Fearing any movement would stir up something else, she remained still and tried to fight off her nausea, but her gag reflex pushed up a smattering of SweeTARTS, Pez, and something else.
As she collapsed, she vomited out, what looked to be, a bat-like creature. In Carolyn’s slow turn toward the floor, she watched the small figure skitter across the stage and into the wing. It swept over the area, now empty, where Rudy had been.
“A delusion,” she said, when the medics arrived. “It’s all a delusion.” She wedged thoughts of the apparition deep into the recesses of her mind—alongside the other things she didn’t want to confront.
A Friend in Seattle
Overlooking Puget Sound, Michael and Terrence’s house—a cement structure with mirrored-glass windows—clung to the side of Bellevue cliff. Its backyard sloped to the water.
A mishmash of European and early Americana antiques, in contrast to the home’s modern facade, filled its immense interior.
“Oh my God,” Michael said, more to the television than to Terrence, who sat beside him on the American Rococo settee. He repeated his plea to God, but this time in a higher pitch. Normally he used his hands to express himself, a habit from his Italian heritage, but this time, they were plastered to his face. The cheeriness of the commercial’s announcer irritated him. “Shut up!” Michael yelled, clicking the remote and throwing it to the carpet.
Terrence sat open-mouthed, elbows on his knees. He straightened and placed his Scotch on the table. “Did she just puke all over the audience? On national TV?”
“Oh my God!” Michael repeated. He shot up and started pacing. “I got to go. I’ve got to help her. I should have—”
A loud, bellowing scream from the floor above echoed through the house. Josefina, their maid, hadn’t been dusting and vacuuming the upstairs library as she had claimed. Indeed, she’d been watching Miss Carolyn.
“Mr. Michael? Mr. Terrence?” The pitter-patter of her feet running down the staircase filled the hall.
“It’s Miss Carolyn! Mr. Michael? Mr. Terrence?” She held her chest. Her breasts bounced, and she scurried across the marble floor. Her short, dark hair, loaded with hairspray, didn’t move a strand. “Oh, poor Mr. Michael.” In her black-and-white polyester uniform, she came to a stop and attempted to catch her breath. “Oh, no. How you going to handle your good fren’?”
For a moment, the three stood in the foyer, staring at one another.
“It’s my fault,” Michael said, breaking the silence. “I should have been there with her.”
Terrence put an arm around him and pulled him into a sideward hug. “Stop. It’s not your fault.”
“What the fuck happen?” Josefina asked. “Jesterday you tell me she gonna be on the cho. I not gonna watch but I lie.”
Josefina paraded her vulgar mouth about the house like, as Michael said, a Bob Mackie gown at the Oscars—a key reason why Michael and Terrence had to hire out when entertaining. Terrence could never have clients over with a boorish live-in maid spitting “Sit the fuck down!” as she escorted them to their seats.
“She must have the flu,” Terrence said and tightened the satin belt of his paisley robe.
“No, it’s nerves. Trust me. I know.” Michael shook his head. “I knew I should have—”
“Oh! I can no believe. I can no believe!” Josefina patted Michael’s back to console him. “I don’t know how it happen. I swear. One minute I watchin’ wit the vacuum, the next she upchuck and poop on the stage. I tot she was going to sing like the Barbra Streisand or the Betty Miller lady. Everyone say Carolyn better.”
Michael slammed a hand onto the stair’s newel post. “I’m flying out to New York to see her.”
Terrence scuffed his slipper-feet over to the phone. “All right, I’ll call the car.”
“Josefina,” Michael asked, “would you be a peach and get my luggage?”
Dialing the phone, Terrence shook his head. “You’re already packed?”
“I’ve always got a bag packed for Carolyn. You know that…just in case.”
“Talk about having confidence in your best friend,” Terrence said. “I don’t know why she needs you all the time to pull her out of a mess.”
“Terrence, don’t be so insensitive,” Michael said, chastising his partner’s choice of words. “You…you don’t know all we’ve been through.” He watched Terrence talk to the car service. “God, I think she’s finally having a breakdown. But I can’t be there for her all the time.”
“I know…I know. You guys have a special bond,” Terrence said, with his hand over the phone.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Michael asked. “Isn’t there some client in the city you could see again? We haven’t been to New York in…” Michael looked to the ceiling and bit his lower lip.
“Two months?” Terrence answered for him.
“Three! That shopping spree in Midtown when I took Carolyn to get new shoes.”
“I can’t just up and leave.”
“Yeah, I know,” Michael said—more to himself, as Terrence finished the call. “The projects, the software, the business…Will!” he added, referring to Terrence’s business partner.
Terrence hung up the phone and pulled Michael closer. “Come here, you. I’m going to miss you. Josefina’s going to be mean to me while you’re gone.”
Michael laughed. “Oh, stop it, you big baby. C’mon. Come with me.”
Terrence nestled his head in the crook of Michael’s neck. “I have a meeting with Will in the morning. Getting back from New York by ten a.m. might be a bit difficult.”
“Will. Great. Anyway, I shouldn’t be long. Just a few days to comfort her.”
“Give her my love?”
“You bet. God, I still can’t believe—”
“Dese fuckin’ bags!” Josefina said from the upstairs hallway.
“Josefina! Josefina, honey? Are they too heavy?” Michael shouted up the stairway. His hand reached for Terrence.
“Get you spoiled ass up here and help me! Dese bags weigh a car-ton!”
“God, I love her.” Michael looked to Terrence.
“Well, why don’t you take her with you?”
Josefina dropped a bag with a loud thud. “I hear you! I no going New York! No way. No me gusta.” Josefina struggled with Michael’s carry-on, wrapped around her neck. With each step down the stairs, the scrape of her skirt rubbing against her nylons filled the foyer. “Too much wash…too much cook for Mr. Terren
ce.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want to miss that.” Terrence rolled his eyes. “This morning’s blackened toast with egg equaled sheer perfection.”
“Mr. Terrence!”
Terrence stared at Michael. “Sorry, Josefina.”
“Mr. Chow come and cook for us.”
“Of course. We can hire help for the help,” Terrence said.
“Oh, shush!” Michael replied. “You know she’s got a bad back.”
“Oh, Mr. Michael, da car is pullin’ in da gates now,” she said, looking out the stair window.
Through the glass by the front door, a glare of lights cast along the wall.
“They got here fast,” Terrence said. “Sometimes it pays to be the VP of a major organization.”
Michael shook his head and muttered, “Please. You know I don’t like power trips.”
Terrence stammered, “Hey, I—”
Josefina dropped the luggage on the landing. “You no gonna help? I no gonna carry all this shit! Is too heavy!”
“Oh, Josefina. I forgot. Let me get that.” Michael darted up the stairs two at a time.
“You give Miss Carolyn my breast,” Josefina said.
“Your best, Josefina. Remember, your breasts are your boobies. Carolyn doesn’t want those.”
Josefina playfully hit Michael on the shoulder. “That’s for no coming to help me.” She hit him again. “And that’s for picking on my talk.”
Michael smiled. “I’ll tell Carolyn you said hello.” He hugged her.
“Now get you ass out to the car! You no gonna keep him waiting.” She pushed off his hug and followed him down the stairs.
“Okay, girls. Time for me to go.” Michael grabbed hold of Terrence one last time and squeezed his butt. “I think I’ll miss you most of all.”
“Gentlemen, no in front of this beautiful Guatemalan lady.”
Terrence pinched Michael’s butt. The phone dropped from his hand and crashed to the floor. Its piercing dial tone echoed throughout the foyer.
Josefina stood, shaking her head. “I no gonna fix you telephone.” She looked down at it as it began to beep.
Michael and Terrence kissed.
Josefina tapped her foot on the floor. “’Ello?” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Driver waiting.”
Stepping back from their embrace, Terrence put a hand through his thinning hair while Michael smiled coyly.
“You gonna make a love on da floor?” she asked, her foot continuing to tap. “Les get going!”
Michael huffed. “Okay. Okay.”
Josefina went to the door. “You tell Miss Carolyn not a good song.”
“Poor Carolyn, she’s such a mess.”
“That’s an understatement,” Terrence said.
Michael elbowed him and walked over to Josefina. “I’ll miss you, Josefina.” He grabbed the carry-on still slung around her neck, pecked her cheek and headed for the door.
She waved him on. “Go! Mr. Driver.”
“You have your cell phone?” Terrence asked.
Michael held it up to Terrence, blew kisses to both, and left.
As Michael stepped onto the stone porch, the driver greeted him coming up the stairs. The door closed.
“Evening, Mr. Coligliano.” The driver nodded, and a shadow from the brim of his cap fell across his eyes. “Another trip to see Ms. Sohier?”
“How’d you guess?”
The driver smiled, took Michael’s luggage and headed toward the black sedan, which had its motor running and trunk open.
“Please hang up, and try your call again,” and a few Spanish expletives rang out from within the house.
Witch Way
In a strip mall just a few miles from downtown Salem, Massachusetts, Rebecca Farney tossed her dyed-black hair away from her pale face. She fretted with a bunch of Matchbox cars that had fallen off metal pegs and onto the bottom of the display case. “I bet Loni Hodge’s witches don’t slum around at Wal-dor for a living,” she muttered to herself.
She stapled the ripped tops of the packages and slid them back onto the hooks. What kid would want a toy burnt-sienna 1987 Plymouth? She continued to staple and hang, noticing how the packages of the ugliest cars seemed to need the most repairs. The oldest merchandise always did.
“Fuck!” She clanked the Swingline, opened it to find it out of staples, walked back to the register and threw open the drawer. Its contents rolled forward, and she took out a fresh box.
Over the loudspeaker, the store manager squawked in her all-too-cheery voice. “Clerk from Toys to the service desk, please. Toys to the service desk. Thank you.”
“What the fuck?” She slammed the drawer; its innards thumped toward the back.
“Nice language,” she heard a shopper say from the bike aisle to her right.
I’ll show you some fancy language, bitch. I’ll put a spell on your moral ass.
Unconcerned about offending a customer, Rebecca headed for the front of the store. After all, Ms. Greenfield’s calls were more important than some miniature Dodge Omni being marked on clearance—or even a goody-two-shoe bicyclist, for that matter. She pocketed the car in her smock and brushed a lint ball from the earth-toned rainbow—the store’s logo—just above her left breast pocket.
Why can’t I be in a cool department like music or electronics? she thought as she looked at a mess of Barbie dolls that had been pulled from their boxes. Kids.
She walked past Stationery and art supplies. The oil she’d painted at home came to mind. Her deep, dark works always had a signature burst of purples and blacks, evoking a mix of her favorite artists, Pollock and Warhol. Perhaps I could steal a bottle of metallic silver. That would finish it off nicely.
With the service desk in sight and no sign of a waiting customer, she sighed. She half expected to see someone like Crazy Coupon Clarice standing beside the glow of the orange Formica counter, ready to complain about the latest action figure in an all-out-battle return. Like two weeks ago, when she showed up with a competitor’s flyer and demanded the difference in price for a can of Play-Doh she’d purchased a year back—plus, she wanted to use an expired coupon.
Instead of a refund, Ms. Greenfield, the store manager, pursed her lips to one side and glared that look she gave when Rebecca did something wrong.
Great, what does she want to write me up for this time?
Ms. Greenfield held out the phone.
Rebecca took the receiver. Thoughts of nuns from St. John’s school—parading about in habits and carrying yardsticks for reprimanding—came to mind as Ms. Greenfield stood there looking so mighty. Rebecca stifled a laugh as she visualized the sisters dancing to the Britney Spears song playing overhead. “Toys,” she said in monotone and immediately recognized the voice on the other end. “Berniece!”
Ms. Greenfield, standing high atop the customer-service desk pulpit, hitched her brow—just like Sister Mary Margaret—and glared down on Rebecca. What a witch. She must have known the call to be personal, which explained the reason for having her come up front to take it instead of transferring it.
“Uh, yeah…Miss Berniece”—Rebecca cleared her throat—“regarding your grandson’s layaway.”
“What? I ain’t got no layaway!” Berniece, her roommate, said. “Becca, it’s me! Bernie!”
Rebecca turned her back to Ms. Greenfield and mumbled, “I know.”
Berniece paused. “Oh.”
“You can come in anytime and PICK UP YOUR LAYAWAY!”
“Hmm,” Berniece said. “Okay, I get the picture.”
Cupping her hand over the phone, Rebecca hurried, “I’ll call you from my cell.” She turned around and hung up the phone.
Ms. Greenfield put down the Wal-dor newsletter: Store 39 Opening in Scarborough, read the headline.
Rebecca flashed her a smile and meandered back to Toys.
From the register drawer, she grabbed her cell phone—despite the store’s policy against using them—and went on her break.
Berniece Faga
r—Rebecca’s woman-of-color roommate and friend—owned an occult shop named Red Vanilla just a few blocks from Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables. In Rebecca’s spare time, she’d try to help out at Bernie’s store, but being there just meant less time focusing on her art or witchcraft.
As she walked to the break room, she imagined Berniece, with her large buttocks hung over the sides of her stool, waiting for tourists to come in to buy a postcard, her eyes teetering between the phone and the wall clock with its picture of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha in Bewitched taped to its faceplate, expecting Rebecca’s return call.
A dollar to one of her donuts, she’s going to tell me she’s short on her portion of the electric bill.
Looking out the two-way mirror and onto the store below, Rebecca listened to Berniece’s lead-up. Berniece took forever to get to the point. The solitude of the employee lunchroom during unscheduled break times provided her the anonymity a call required.
While Berniece droned on, Rebecca checked out the shoppers below. A woman pulled her sweatpants out from the crevices of her fat butt cheeks. Rebecca chuckled. The mirror offered the only good thing about working at Wal-dor. “On a Saturday night, the real Salem loons come out,” she’d told Berniece. “To hell with the Tuft’s health plan. That mirror’s the best perk.”
Rebecca pinched her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder and lit a cigarette. “Berniece, it’s my job. I can’t drop everything every time you call.” She inhaled, and let out a puff toward the This Is a Smoke-Free Environment sign on the wall.
Berniece sighed. “Well, I’m helping us. This is important.”
“Yeah, well, so ain’t this week’s toy markdown. I need a paycheck to afford our rent. Besides which, did you go down to Steve’s Market and pay the light bill?”
“Don’t worry about that right now. I’ve got good news for ya,” Berniece said.
With cigarette dangling from lips, Rebecca reached for her coffee on a shelf beside the mirror. “Better be.”
“Well…” Berniece cleared her throat, as if getting ready to announce something big, “Loni Hodge left Red Vanilla ’bout twenty minutes ago.”
Summerwind Magick: Making Witches of Salem Page 2
