It was the last thing he had expected her to say. He felt his cheeks burning and tried to stammer out an answer. “Oh, um, I don’t really, uh, think that …”
“Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Look at me, just blabbing my big mouth off.”
“Oh, it’s okay, really.” He tried to smile at her, but only succeeded in ducking his head to his chest, then walking back into the dressing room.
After that, they didn’t talk much. Charlie was pretty sure his aunt had said that to try to boost his confidence. It seemed like everyone was always trying to boost his confidence. He didn’t like it. It felt like too much pressure, like he was supposed to act a certain way, different from how he was.
And the comment about the salesgirl made him nervous. Did she really think he was cute? Should he have done something about it? Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Did you just go up and give someone your phone number? Now that he had his own phone, maybe he should. Or could. Or would?
“Hi, here’s my phone number. What’s yours?” he tried to imagine himself saying. But he couldn’t. It just seemed too embarrassing.
CHAPTER 20
The Lunchbox
“CHARLIE,” BEVERLY SAID AFTER they had finished carrying the last of the shopping bags into the dining room area and setting them down. Armed with a pair of scissors each, they had set themselves the task of cutting off tags and removing stickers from all of his new clothes. Charlie tried not to look at the prices. He could just imagine his mother saying, “You spent how much on a winter coat? That’ll barely last you the season. And then what are you going to wear next year?”
Charlie had been excited about all of the new clothes they had bought. But thinking of his mother’s reactions to the purchases dampened his enthusiasm. Maybe they had spent too much money. Maybe he should have insisted that two pairs of pants were enough, not the six pairs that Beverly ended up buying him.
Maybe I should call her, he found himself wondering again.
But I don’t really want to.
Lost in his own thoughts, he was surprised to hear what his aunt said next. Had she been listening to his thoughts? Could witches do that?
“Your mother left something else for you. It’s a small lunchbox that she used to carry around with her everywhere, even after she left middle school. We all thought she had outgrown the thing and should let it retire, but she wouldn’t part with it. She told me that she brought it with her to California.” His aunt stood up and walked out of the dining room. He could hear her footsteps echo down the small hallway past the kitchen. A door opened, most likely to one of the closets off the kitchen pantry.
Why would his mother want to give him a lunchbox? Was there something witch-related in it?
Beverly walked back into the dining room and sat down next to him. She placed the lunchbox on the table. “She asked me to give this to you after you settled in. I have no idea what’s inside. She said it might help you understand her a little bit more.”
He looked at the lunchbox. It was, or at least had been, pink. The paint had faded and chipped in places, revealing the metal-plated finish beneath. The word “Celeste” was stenciled at the top in deluxe cursive font. Beneath the letters stood a bright-cheeked doll in a frilly dress.
It reminded him of the lunchboxes kids used to carry to school when he was little, covered with pictures of superheroes, football players, angels. Inside would be thermoses of juice, egg salad or bologna sandwiches wrapped in plastic pouches, store-bought granola bars or chocolate kisses. He had always wanted one, but his mom made him carry everything in the canvas backpack she had made for him. “It’s much sturdier than one of those cheap boxes, Charlie. You’d just break one of them, and then we’d have to buy another one.”
Yeah, well look how long yours lasted, he thought to himself.
“Your mother was nuts about that doll Celeste when she was a little girl. She had the doll itself, plus her clothes, two dollhouses, the works,” Beverly said, shaking her head. “Somewhere along the way she stopped playing with all that stuff, but for some reason she never let the lunchbox go.”
Charlie nodded. He reached down and pressed the metal button near the worn plastic handle. The lid popped up an inch or two, releasing the smell of stale grape candy and pencil shavings.
Where had his mother kept this lunchbox? He knew every inch of their house in Clarkston, every nook and cranny. Or thought he did. But then he reminded himself how much she had kept hidden from him.
Whatever, he said in his mind, trying on an attitude of nonchalance. It didn’t seem to fit him as well as the shirts and pants and the jackets and the shoes that he had tried on earlier that day.
Beverly leaned over the box with Charlie. “Oh my god, I forgot about all that stuff!” she exclaimed.
Inside were pastel-colored gel pens, bright fruit-shaped erasers, a few pencil stubs, and a tattered notebook. There were two photographs. One of them was obviously a school photo of his mother, maybe from high school. The second, curled from age, showed two young girls standing on a rocky beach, blue water shining in the background. They stood arm in arm, smiling at the camera, though the sunshine in their eyes forced them to squint. Both of them were wearing bathing suits.
“Who’s that?” Charlie asked.
Beverly picked up the photo and laughed. “Look at them! Oh, they’re so little. That’s your mother, Charlie, on the right. She’s probably about eight years old there. With her best friend Jeanine. Jeanine Petrovich. That must have been on one of the camping trips Jeanine’s kooky mom Sue took the girls on. Sue was a single mom and used to have gatherings at her house where she tried to get her friends to buy vitamins, or candles and whatnot. My parents didn’t like her. They tried to keep Lizzy from spending too much time there.”
Beverly sighed, then shook her head. “You know, I think Lizzy liked going over to Jeanine’s house because she felt normal there. Not just because Sue and Jeanine weren’t witches. As much as my parents used to badmouth Sue, I’m sure she was very welcoming to Lizzy. To all her daughter’s friends. Our house … well, it was a cold place. My mother was a nice woman, but things could get pretty tense, as your mom and I told you the other day. Dad, when he wasn’t busy running meetings and stirring up trouble, was a stern father. He drove us pretty hard. I think Lizzy probably felt loved at the Petrovich’s in a way she never could at home.”
Sadness spread over Beverly’s face replacing the delight that had been there moments before upon discovering the contents of the lunchbox.
Charlie looked down at the two girls in the photograph. He tried to find his mother in the image of the young girl, but couldn’t. She was skinny and had shoulder-length red hair, but that was where the similarities stopped. There was a squirrelly joy exuding from the girl, a goofy confidence in the way she stood. It was hard to imagine that his mother was ever this age, let alone someone who stood on a beach with her hip jutting out, arm around the waist of her best friend, who had dark brown hair, was soft where his mother was bony, with a round belly protruding above her bathing suit bottom. It was hard to imagine his mother having a best friend.
A bright color from inside the box caught Charlie’s attention. There was a yellow sticky note on top of the notebook. It must have been hidden by the photographs.
Charlie, the note began. He felt his stomach flip. Not another note from his mother. He dreaded what else she might have to say.
Charlie, read this notebook. I’ve marked which pages. It might help explain some things better. Love, Mom.
He looked up and saw Beverly watching him. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Even though he knew he would read the notebook and would talk about it with Beverly and Randall, for a moment he thought about closing the lunchbox and handing it over to his aunt, saying, “No thanks. No more curve balls. Mom’s done enough already. I don’t want any more of this.”
“Well,” Beverly said, her smile reminding him of his dentist’s sm
ile, the one she gave him before injecting him with novocaine. “Looks like you have some reading to do.”
CHAPTER 21
Dear Diary
NOV. 1, 1995: WELL, THEY’RE here again. Dad’s got ’em all downstairs. Still not sure what they’re doing, but I gotta find out.
Nov. 3, 1995: Mom’s so lame. Left her grimoire out again. Maybe she’s doing it on purpose, knowing that her sneaky daughter will look at it. Probably feels bad I’m not getting the “education” Bev got. But I bet there’s something in there that will help.
Nov. 3 (later): It worked! It said I had to use a seriema feather. Who ever heard of that? So I just used one I found down on Alki
Alki? Charlie wondered. It was strange to read the word, knowing that it was a real place, just a few minutes’ drive from Beverly and Randall’s place. A place that his mother had been to before.
He looked out the window of his bedroom for a moment, wondering if his mother used to sit here, on this window seat, watching her neighbors come and go. Maybe she even wrote in her diary on this seat.
He had looked at several of the pages in the notebook before the spot that his mother had marked with the sticky note that read “Begin here.” It was mainly just a bunch of stuff about school, about hanging out with Jeanine Petrovich, or about how Beverly was bossy, her mother was stupid, and her dad was mean.
Charlie took a deep breath and continued reading.
So I just used one I found down on Alki Beach. It’s not from a seagull, though I have no idea what it is. It’s white. That must have counted for something. Anyways, I couldn’t figure out half the spell, but I just kept saying it until the Words came out, and used the feather over the water in the scrying bowl. I wasn’t sure if it worked until I walked downstairs and not even Maggie could tell I was there.
God, this is a long entry! Anyways …
“It should be ‘anyway,’ not ‘anyways.’” Wasn’t she always correcting him when he said it wrong?’
I went downstairs, where Dad was talking with Mr. Corcoran, Ms. Kahn, and Sir John (I HATE that guy!). I didn’t go in Dad’s office, but I could hear them inside. He usually closes the door, but this time, I was lucky.
They were all, Demetrius, how do you know it’ll work and how can you trust her? And you know Dad. He was all Of course it’ll work, don’t worry about it. Such the salesman.
He kept saying Matt buddy (and I couldn’t believe Mr. Corcoran was in on it), it’ll be fine, have I ever steered you wrong? And Mr. Corcoran wouldn’t answer. Sir Creepy John with that nasty pervert voice kept laughing and saying they were all going to get screwed.
You know how Ms. Kahn gets. Demetrius, what are the hard facts? Where’s the data? And Dad kept on going Phoebe, Phoebe, what facts? What hard data? She’s a pioneer. She’s out there doing what no one else has had the guts to do. The data will come later when people like you watch it and can run studies.
This was his mother talking? It didn’t sound like her. The person who wrote in this notebook sounded like a snotty teenager who … but wait. That’s right. She is a teenager. Or, was a teenager, when she wrote this stuff. Charlie was finding it difficult to reconcile the words in the diary with the stern, quiet person he knew his mother to be. What had made her change? And just what, exactly, had been going on down in the basement?
So they keep on going, blah blah blah. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I know who. It’s Grace. They’re all so spellbound by her. Well, not literally. But everyone thinks she’s so great. I don’t like her. There’s something wrong with her. Bev said I was just jealous because she’s so pretty. I told her to eff off (though I didn’t just say “eff” ha ha ha) but maybe Bev is right. Or a little. You should see Grace. It’s ridiculous. Like something right out of Vogue. And she’s so nice to everybody and stuff. But I don’t buy it.
Nov. 5, 1995: I snuck downstairs again. They’re going up to Edmonds, to Grace’s place, for some sort of meeting, or to see whatever it is Dad thinks is such a good idea. He left the address just sitting there. I hope he doesn’t know I snuck in and got it later.
I checked out the bus schedule. It’ll take me like forever to get there, but I can’t take Mom’s car or she’ll know I’m up to something. Same goes for a broom. Mom can always tell if one’s been used. But I’m going. I gotta figure out what this is all about.
Nov. 7, 1995: Oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD!!! I don’t know what to … You can’t even believe it. I gotta get out of here. It’s all so terr-
The entry ended there. Charlie turned the page, only to find it blank. He skimmed through the rest of the diary, but it was blank too. Nothing.
Did his mom make it up to Grace’s place? If so, what happened? Did she figure it out? Did Demetrius catch her?
He tried to remember what the adults had said about Grace. All they had really mentioned was that she was bad and that other people worked for her. Or something like that.
Charlie sat back on the window seat and sighed. He didn’t know why his mom had given him this stupid lunchbox. The diary didn’t tell him anything. Well, that’s not true. It had some clues in it, he supposed. But nothing was clear. It was even murkier now than ever. So his mom spied on her dad and his friends. So what? So she snuck up to Grace’s. What did any of this have to do with him?
He felt so angry at his mom. Why did she have all these secrets? About who she was? Who he was? About what happened before? Why did she have to be so tight-lipped about everything?
Charlie slammed the diary shut and put it back in the lunchbox. He flipped the metal catch near the handle. It made a satisfying snap sound.
“Who was Maggie?” Charlie asked Beverly later, after she read the notebook and they were sitting at the kitchen counter having tea. “And what’s a ‘grimorey?’
“Maggie was our cat,” she said without looking at him. She was staring out the window, though Charlie didn’t think that she was actually seeing anything.
“It’s not ‘grimorey.’ It’s ‘grimoire.’ A French word. It’s just a fancy name for a witch’s spellbook.”
Charlie could hear the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the entryway. He sat still, afraid to ask more, but for once in his life was more uncomfortable with the silence between him and another person than he was with breaking it.
“Beverly?”
“Yes?” she said, now looking at him, her eyes clouded in thought.
“What do you think happened? Why did she stop writing?”
“I don’t know, honey. Your mother left the lunchbox with me the night before she left. She said it would help you understand things and asked me not to go through it before you did. I thought there would be more information, but …”
“Do you think she made it up to Grace’s? She, uh, she said that she was going to sneak up to Grace’s to try to figure out some stuff. Some stuff that involved her dad. Uh, your dad too.”
Beverly looked at him for several moments before she spoke. “If I had to guess, I would say she did. She must have discovered something, something so terrible that it made her run away from home.”
Charlie had thought the same thing. His aunt’s answer only confirmed it.
“The last entry in it was November 7 …”
“November 7, 1995.”
He nodded.
“That was the night she ran away. I’m sorry, Charlie. Your mom has chosen once again to keep us in the dark. I’ve tried to call her a few times, even though she asked me not to. She hasn’t picked up or returned any of my calls. Now with this,” she said, pointing to his mother’s notebook lying on the counter, “I want to try her again, but I have a feeling she’ll keep ignoring us. Don’t worry. I know she’s safe. If something happened to her, I’d know. It’s a witchy sister thing,” she finished, then smiled to reassure him.
Beverly shook her head as if to clear it of bad thoughts, then shrugged. “Looks like we’ll just have to be patient, huh?”
CHAPTER 22
The Market
THE SUNDAY FARMERS MARKET filled the space of two large parking lots. There were booths with white awnings displaying art, fresh pork and lamb, fruits and vegetables, a couple of cheese stands, and several little kiosks selling things like soap and shampoo.
The market bustled with people. Charlie was surprised. The weekly markets in Clarkston covered more surface area, and even had livestock for sale, but were nowhere near this packed.
“God, this place is nuts,” Randall said as he waited for an elderly man to finish loading his car with purchases and vacate his parking spot.
“Well, it’ll be one of the last weekends of great weather before it starts raining. Everyone wants to enjoy it while they can,” his aunt replied as her husband backed into the space. The three of them stepped out of the Volvo and headed over to the market.
They began to peruse each booth, his aunt and uncle planning the evening’s meal while choosing produce. They were having some friends over for dinner that night and wanted to make something special.
“Remember how I said that Beverly’s community is made up of food snobs?” Randall had said while they were still back at home gathering their canvas shopping bags for the trip to the market. “Well, you just wait until tonight. They’ll be in fine form.”
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (Book 1, The Broom Closet Stories) Page 12
