“Of course.” Derek grinned. “This thing’s a workhorse.”
“Lawd, I hope so.” Berniece plopped onto the backward seat of the cart.
When they got to the inn, the sun shined. The front yard was arranged for a film shoot with cameras on dollies, lights on wheels, chairs with printed names, and people milling about.
Derek slowed the cart to a stop as a PA held up a hand to him.
Rebecca scratched her cheek. “How can it not be raining here?” She looked to the east. Bright skies hovered over the white-capped water, and waves pounded the rocky ledge.
Berniece got out, and the cart rose. They walked closer to the set.
A large light on a stand flashed and shone onto Carolyn, who stood on the inn’s front porch.
Dodger, sitting beside the cameraman, looked at a monitor. He nodded, held up a hand. “And action!”
Carolyn closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. She looked out at the landscape and draped a hand over the railing. Her heels clicked their way down the front stairs. The long white train of her gown folded down the steps, like a bride departing from a church.
Dodger extended his chin in a cue to Food, Derek’s roommate, who stood next to a fan, clicked a button, and a stream of air blew over Carolyn. She extended a hand out toward the camera as her dress billowed and her hair flowed. A slow, eerie smile came over her face.
Staring at the monitor, Dodger leaned back and locked his hands behind his head.
It took a few days before Josefina and the witches played nicely together.
“Josefina, honey.” Rebecca banged on the door to the hallway bath. “Viola says you’re using up all the hot water.”
“Huh?” said a voice over the sound of running water.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in there for a half hour. There’s no more hot water.”
The shower squeaked to a stop. “Rebecca? That you?”
“Yes, I’m trying to tell—”
“No more hot water!” Josefina yelled. “Can you tell Miss Viola make more?”
Michael strolled down the hall. “Thanks, Rebecca. We’re buying Viola a new hot water tank anyway.” He knocked on the door. “Gentleman entering!” He went in.
“Ah, Mr. Michael! You no gonna enter me.”
“I don’t want to enter you, Josefina. Trust me.” He knocked on the inner door. “I want to save the planet from caving in on itself from lack of water.” He paused. “You’re squeaky clean anyway.” The inside door clicked open.
Berniece arrived. “She at it again?”
Rebecca nodded. “He said he’s buying Viola a new tank.”
Berniece shook her head and traipsed toward the Islesford room.
Michael’s mumbling cropped out from the bathroom.
“I no hoochie-coochie woman!” Josefina replied.
“I didn’t say that. I said dry yourself or your cooch is gonna get a draft.”
Rebecca snickered and went back to their room, where she found Berniece poking through a crate of books. “Bernie!”
“I’m sorry, Becky. I just had to look.”
Rebecca knelt beside her. “Anything good?”
Berniece shook her head and made a renouncement at the back of her throat.
Rebecca held one. “They’re notebooks.” Michael’s name was written on the cover. “I thought they were Josefina’s.”
“Josefina? A writer?”
The sound of bare feet slapping on the floor came from the hallway. “I no in there that long!”
The witches floundered and got to their beds just as the door opened.
“Ladies,” Josefina said, smiling, “your Guatemalan fren’ is here.” She held a shower cap in her hand and wore a pink bath towel crimped over her breasts. “Mr. Michael going to take me to chop at the L.L. Bean in Bar Harbors. You can come?”
Conference Call
As Thanksgiving approached, twenty pages of the script still needed to be filmed. Hail pelted the windows of Pretty Marsh, Carolyn’s room at the Summerwind Inn, sounding like a parade of gumballs pouring from an unrelenting candy dispenser. Cell phone to her ear, she looked out onto the harbor and the slush of saltwater ice hugging the ragged shoreline. The bitter arctic blast hampered production. If the crew got in a few hours, Dodger considered it a productive day.
“Ms. Sohier? Are you there?” A female voice broke in on the conference call, which had yet to commence.
“Yes, I’m here.” Carolyn hated the business angle of entertaining—contract discussions, non-creative details, promotions, et cetera. She sighed. Rudy was so good at handling the technicalities. Well, some of them.
“Thank you for holding,” the receptionist said. “I’m connecting the studio now. It’ll be just another moment.”
The hold music went back to the tinny version of Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart,” which Carolyn hummed to as she sat on the edge of her bed.
The admin from Cantor Productions rejoined and connected the parties for the conference call. “Mr. Cantor has joined the line. And lastly…Mr. Galante, are you there?”
Carolyn shot up. Rudy?
“I’m here,” Rudy’s indistinguishable baritone voice rang.
Carolyn wanted to scream his name but restrained. At least he’s alive. She paced while the line burst into conversation about contract negotiations and the film’s setbacks.
After several minutes, Jonathan, on another line down the hall in his room, explained to Cantor about the film’s delay. Rose, an agent from the California office, spoke up. “Ms. Sohier, Mr. Galante, we need to extend the part of Marigold and Carolyn’s commitment to the film at the agreed-upon rate.”
Carolyn combed a hand through her hair and went to the window. She received a higher sum than the Screen Actors Guild standard for a principal actor. She nodded.
“No,” Rudy said. “We expect fifty percent more.”
The line erupted into more haggling.
Carolyn shook her head. That’s Rudy. She’d been fine with the money she’d been receiving.
“Forty,” said Rose.
“Fifty,” Rudy repeated.
Rudy threw out concerns over the use of non-union crew, and the call silenced.
“She’s done an amazing job,” Dodger said, “especially the last few weeks.”
Is he talking about me? she thought, not really sure if Dodger meant it or wanted justification for the increase.
Dodger continued, “There’s something about this island that’s really conducive to making a great picture.”
“You’re insane,” said a voice Carolyn didn’t recognize. “New England’s weather is crazy…very unpredictable, especially this time of year.”
“We’re managing, Bill,” said Dodger. “The area films beautifully.”
“We’re not making The—”
“Enough, Bill.” Rose sighed. “Rudy, where can I send the new contracts?”
Carolyn, figuring she could add some value to the call, said, “Viola has a fax machine. You can fax it here.”
“And who is Viola with?” The admin, who’d connected the call, asked for Viola’s representation. “Are they on the line?”
“This is Julia Hartfield.” Carolyn imagined Dodger’s busty assistant beside him with her fortified face hovering over his room’s telephone.
“Carolyn, we can handle it,” Julia said. “Rose,” she addressed Dodger’s agent, “Viola’s just the innkeeper.” She chuckled, implying the lunacy of the old woman having agency representation. “You can have your admin fax it to Jonathan’s attention at the 207 number we gave.”
Which is Viola’s fax. Carolyn shook her head.
The admin repeated the number, and the conference ended.
“Rudy?” Carolyn said. She looked at her phone. The connection terminated. She shut her cell phone, lay on the bed, and closed her eyes.
Shortly after, her phone rang, and she scrambled for it. A wide smile tugged the sides of her mouth. “Rudy?”
A wave of glee mixed with trepidation slammed down on her. They talked for a time. She took in his apologies for “being incommunicado,” as he put it. She’d done well these past few months without him, but she knew she’d eventually need management.
Carolyn and Rudy’s more-than-just-a-business relationship grew complex when they first took Carolyn’s cabaret show on the road. Several months singing for any bar, roadside diner, or establishment that would have them, deepened their connection. Sharing rooms at cheap motels led to one thing and then another.
“Oh, I’m handling Dodger’s mood swings just fine.” Carolyn wrapped a strand of hair around her finger and leaned against the Pretty Marsh’s dresser. Mood swings. Hmm.
One drunken evening on the road, Rudy slapped Carolyn across the face so hard blood splattered onto a velvet print hung on the wall of a Super 8. It had been early on in her career, and because she relied on him for work, she dismissed it. When he later forced himself upon her, she didn’t fight back, justifying the aberrant behavior through self-deprecation—something Seth Stevenson in high school taught her a thing or two about.
She moved to the inn’s window for better reception. “I couldn’t have gotten that raise without you.” Carolyn felt herself falling back into his clutches, like an alcoholic at a bar just having one drink. I can’t handle the demands of the business without him.
In Rudy’s presence, Carolyn felt famous. Like the time she got so many standing ovations at a club in Reno that they ran out of material to encore, and Rudy rewarded her with flowers and jewelry. She never even wanted to go Reno. He gave her the push she sometimes needed.
They finished their conversation with promises to reunite once Rudy returned from Key West. After they hung up, she held onto the phone for a while longer, absorbing the confusing bath of apprehension and joy she felt immersed in.
She needed to talk it through with someone. She flung her phone to the bed, and left the room.
Oops
In the throes of passion, Michael held the brass headboard to keep it from banging too loudly against the wall in their room called Hall Quarry. It’d been months since he and Terrence made love. While he wanted to satisfy his man, he didn’t want the entire inn to know how much they missed each other.
“Oh, babe.” Terrence tugged Michael’s hair, the way he liked it.
The mattress squeaked and mixed with a knock at the door.
The tugging, squeaking, and banging of the headboard all intensified, signifying, as usual, Terrence’s ascension to the peak.
The door flung open, and Carolyn burst in. “Michael, Michael! Guess wh—”
“Jesus, Carolyn!” Michael grabbed a pillow to cover himself.
“Good God!” Terrence yanked at the blankets.
Carolyn jumped back into the hall, and the door slammed shut. “Oh, guys.” Her voice muffled through the partition. “I’m so sorry.”
“I thought you locked the door?” Terrence said.
Carolyn’s footsteps clanked their way down the hall.
“Forget about it,” Michael said. “Get back over here, Tiger.”
Terrence growled. The scare had little effect on his state of arousal.
Minutes later, with the room’s paisley-patterned bedspread laying in a clump on the floor, Michael hopped into a pair of briefs, sat on the back of Terrence’s legs, and massaged his shoulders.
“Oh, you know exactly what I like.” Terrence moaned.
Michael kneaded Terrence’s shoulder with his palms and smiled—no more business trips to Japan. Warmness buzzed Michael’s core. “Are you still thinking about GammaSoft?” He moved up to Terrence’s neck. “Your leaving was a blessing in disguise.”
Terrence arched his head into Michael’s touch. “I guess.”
Michael cocked an eyebrow.
“I’ve been doing some thinking.”
“Thinking?” He rolled off Terrence’s lower back. The buzz in Michael’s stomach soured. Terrence’s thinking usually means work.
Terrence sat up. “I need some more time to muddle it through.” He brushed a hand along Michael’s face.
“Well, aren’t you here in the middle of nowhere to relax?”
“Well, sort of, but…”
“So what are you thinking? What’s your idea?” Michael grabbed a pillow and clutched it in front of him. “A new business venture?”
Terrence pulled the sheets and covered his chest. “You could say.”
Michael took the pillow and hit Terrence in the stomach. “I thought we were going to retire.” He took the pillow back. “Terrence, you’re forty-five years old. I thought we planned on retiring young? We can afford—”
“Forty-four.”
Michael kicked Terrence playfully. “All right, forty-four…and eleven months, what’s the difference? You’ve had a very successful career. Why not let it rest? You, yourself, said you wanted to get away from computers and corporate America.”
Terrence’s sheet slipped down. “I’m done with all that.” The bed linen bound his firm chest. “Let’s do something new, different, and daring.”
Michael took in Terrence’s blue eyes. “I’m gay…me!” His pun didn’t elicit the usual smile.
Terrence leaned into him. “I need more time to think about it.” He kissed him.
“What’s there to think about?” Michael knew how to get his partner’s mind off work.
Terrence kissed him harder. “Nothing, right now,” he muffled, nibbling Michael’s lower lip.
Michael took the pillow from in front of him and flung it to the floor. “I can’t get enough of you.” He pulled Terrence in closer.
Terrence climbed on top of him. “Any more and I’ll start to wear down.”
Michael sighed as Terrence kissed and bit his neck. “It’s gonna take a lot more to stop us.”
Incandescent
On the couch of the Islesford room, Berniece sat next to Rebecca, paging through Dorr’s Book of Shadows. Its daily liberation from the widow’s watch to their room had become a custom over the last few weeks. “There’s a spell in here,” Rebecca said, “called the Charm of Summerwind.”
“What’s that for?” Berniece chomped on corn chips.
“It’s prosperity magic—that rids the island of ‘irregular incandescent energy.’ Whatever that means.”
“Lightbulbs?”
“No.” Rebecca slammed the book down on the coffee table. “I don’t get it. This book doesn’t make sense. I still don’t understand any of these spells. Or magic for that matter!”
Berniece tossed the Frito bag in the trash. “Let’s just do it.”
“What? You’re the one who didn’t want to go up there, the one who didn’t want to take the book. Now you want to do a spell we barely understand?”
“Why not? We’ve come this far.”
There was someone at the door.
“Come in.” Rebecca rose.
“Hi.” Carolyn peeked through the partially opened door. “You decent?”
Berniece sat back down. “’Course. C’mon in.”
Carolyn entered. “Where’s Josefina?”
“She got her own room.” Rebecca swatted Berniece’s feet, up on the coffee table. “Viola had a spot open, now that some of the crew are leaving.”
“So,” Berniece eased back, feet on the floor, “what’s going on?”
“Rudy’s back.” Carolyn smiled. “You guys haven’t met him but—”
“But you done told us about him.” Berniece ripped open another bag of chips. “Ain’t he a snake?”
“Bernie!” Rebecca didn’t care much for Carolyn’s manager, either, but she wanted to be respectful. “That’s…great, Carolyn.”
After a few moments of odd silence, Carolyn said, “He’s really going to make me famous this time.” Carolyn’s face reddened, presumably realizing how silly it all sounded, and she looked to the carpet.
Rebecca wanted the c
onfidence spell they’d placed on Carolyn to have time to work its way through on its own. They’d heard it could take months, even years to fully realize. What do I know? Rebecca sighed. “Hocus-pocus.”
“Hmm?” Carolyn sat next to Berniece, who’d patted the cushion next to her.
“Oh, nothing.” Rebecca caught Berniece’s grimace. “What are you looking at?”
Carolyn patted Berniece’s thigh. “Anyway, he apologized profusely…for leaving me stranded. Even got me a raise to finish the picture and an option on the sequel.”
“A sequel?” Berniece brightened. “Like Bewitched?”
“Bernie!” Rebecca sat on the edge of the coffee table. “Bewitched didn’t have a sequel. Televisions shows don’t have—”
“You know what I mean.” Berniece copied Rebecca, put an elbow on her knee, and leaned in toward Carolyn. “So, what else is this Rudy fella gonna do for ya?”
In the pitch-black of the Islesford room, Rebecca shook Berniece awake. “Get up. It’s time. Everyone’s asleep.”
Berniece’s mouth mashed. “Huh? Why you waking me?”
Rebecca leaned back. “Oh, Jesus, Bernie, your breath.” Rebecca clicked on the side of her watch and shined its blue glow on Berniece’s face. “It’s quarter to four. We need to get the Book of Shadows back to the widow’s walk and do that spell before everyone wakes.”
Berniece threw back the covers, and they snuck out of the inn. They ascended the stairs to the widow’s watch at Viola’s house.
Rebecca stopped at the hallway’s open door. “The wind must’ve pushed it open again.”
“Ain’t no wind. It’s a ghost, Becky. I’m telling you, I scared.”
“Shush.”
The women went in and, as the book instructed, cleansed the floor with ground sea salt, and enlisted the guardian of the widow’s watch for their chant.
In unison, they sat and whispered, “Iridescent glow of night…make this candle flicker with delight. Enhance the islanders through their dreams…with their love as once it seems.”
Summerwind Magick: Making Witches of Salem Page 15
