by Terri Garey
“What? If you’re not careful I’m gonna start thinking you’re really serious about this guy.”
There was a very uncharacteristic moment of silence.
“You’re in love,” I gushed.
“Am not.”
“Am too.”
I heard a noise of impatience. “Don’t start with me, Miss ‘It Was Sweet’ Thang. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. How’s it going with Joe, anyway?”
Damn him for knowing me so well.
“It’s going great,” I admitted. “So great, in fact, that I spent the night with him again and then ran like hell. I told him I needed some space.”
“Oooh, those little tootsies are getting cold, aren’t they? Maybe I should bring over your pink fuzzy slippers.”
“Smart-ass,” I mumbled.
“You can’t run forever, you know. This ‘couples’ thing isn’t so bad with the right person.”
“How the hell are you supposed to find the ‘right person’ in a world filled with millions of people? No matter which way you look at it, the odds are stacked against anybody living happily ever after.”
“That didn’t stop your parents.” Evan wasn’t cutting me any slack. “Even mine actually loved each other once. Now they do a great job of tolerating each other for the sake of their darling boy. Coming out of the closet was the biggest favor I ever did them?PFLAG gives them something in common.”
Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays was an organization that embraced diversity and emphasized tolerance.
“The fact that your parents broke up to begin with is further proof that true love isn’t always true,” I said.
“The point is, they tried, and created the miracle that is me. You, on the other hand, are still making every guy pay for the idiot who broke your heart in high school.”
Only Evan could get away with knowing me so well.
“We were engaged, Evan. Erik cheated on me, remember?”
Evan made a tsking noise. “Engaged. Who gets engaged in high school?” My silence warned him?we’d been over this ground many times, and I knew he’d never cared for Erik. I didn’t need to hear that lecture again. “Anyway,” he went on, “you need to check that baggage at the door this time, girlfriend. Joe is a keeper.”
I knew he meant well, but I didn’t need the pressure. As much as I hated to rain on Evan’s love parade, it was time to change the subject.
“I heard some news about Mojo this morning. He confessed to killing Caprice. He said he had to, because she’d found out about his girlfriend, and she was gonna kill him.” I’d read the newspaper article over coffee with the old couple. “There was a knife with Caprice’s fingerprints, lying in the grass. Granny Julep believes him. Mojo’s being charged with manslaughter now instead of murder.”
“Caprice was gonna stab him? Out of jealousy? Wow.” Evan’s voice turned thoughtful. “But it doesn’t surprise me. Not after what happened.”
I knew Evan well enough not to let him dwell on his visit from Caprice. He was doing quite well out there in the burbs with Butch.
“Don’t you have something better to do, like get your hair done?”
Evan gave a mock sniff. “Well, I never.”
“Oh, yes you have. Many times.”
We teased a little more, good mood restored, then I hung up with a smile and a promise to call him later.
Just after lunch I got hit with a wave of elderly ladies in red hats, bussed into Little Five Points on a shopping trip.
Southern ladies are all about the past. I enjoyed helping them spend their money while they revisited their youth through fashion and frippery.
“How much is this, dear?”
True Southern belles still believe in the genteel power of wealth. Many of them are apparently too wealthy to be bothered with reading price tags. I was happy to give them service with a smile, though I wished Evan were there to flatter his way into their hearts and their wallets.
Old ladies always loved Evan, and vice versa.
“I carried a beaded purse like this to Cotillion when I was seventeen. Daddy insisted we hold the party at the country club even if it was during the war.”
In Georgia there’d only been two wars: the one between the states and World War Two. I tried my best to envision a wizened grandmother as a dewy-cheeked seventeen-year-old, boogeying to the big band music of the forties. “It must have been a lovely party. Would you like to see this purse out of the case? It’s a Whiting-Davis with the original satin lining.”
Another old woman was drawn to the jewelry counter. “You’re about my granddaughter’s age. She’s a pretty little thing, just like you.” Southern ladies were also sweethearts. “Do you think she’d like this bracelet?”
“I’m sure she would. Vintage Juliana, very collectible. Amethysts and citrines set in japanned lacquer.”
By five o’clock I was beat. The last of the Red Hat ladies was gone, and foot traffic was beginning to die down on Moreland. Most people were heading for cocktail hour or home to their dinners.
Knowing I had nothing in my refrigerator that wasn’t at least a week old, I decided to close up shop and run by the grocery store. I wasn’t much of a cook, and even my stock of frozen dinners was running low.
By six o’clock I was pulling into my driveway. I had almost an hour to put my groceries away and spread voodoo charms and tobacco seeds all over my house before it started getting dark.
The wind rustled the leaves in the big tree that shaded the front lawn, reminding me of my childhood. I used to climb that tree and listen to the same rustling, pretending the tree was whispering to me. Or sometimes I’d make believe that fairies lived among the branches, imaginary friends no one could see but me.
“Welcome home, Nicki,” whispered the leaves/ fairies. “Welcome home.”
I stood for a moment, looking at the house. It was my house, dammit, and no evil spirit was going to keep me away.
If Caprice wanted to dance, we’d dance.
So I did what I almost always did when I got home from work?I turned on the stereo.
“‘You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen,’” I sang. Disco music was one of my guilty pleasures, but never when anyone else was around. I had my reputation as a chick with a dark side to think of, after all.
I turned it up until it was blasting. Music always set the mood for me, good or bad. Right now I wanted to feel young and alive and upbeat.
The straw figures Granny had given me weighed almost nothing, and it was easy enough to tape them above the doors and windows. The tobacco seeds were black specks that reminded me of mouse poop, but I sprinkled them faithfully on every windowsill and over the thresholds.
If the seeds kept Caprice from slinking like a shadow into my house, I’d happily suck them up in the morning with a straw.
The final weapon in my arsenal: Ralph Lauren sheets, barn red, only slightly faded. They looked great with a denim comforter, but I left that off tonight. Between those and a red T-shirt and panties, if Caprice wanted to get me, she was gonna have to get past a lot of red.
Disco tunes carried me through until dusk, and then it was time to change the mood. I brought on the heavy metal, and ate a nuked vegetable lasagna while AC/DC growled out “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Soon it was full dark outside.
Every light in the house was on, and all my preparations were done. Granny Julep’s beads were hard crystals of resolve around my neck.
I was ready to kick some duppy ass.
CHAPTER 11
Nothing happened.
An uneventful evening of listening to rock music and flipping through magazines. Of turning off the music to read a novel in bed, trying not to jump at every imagined sound. Around midnight I finally felt safe enough to close my eyes and try to sleep.
Scratching woke me at 2:43 in the morning. The bedroom was bright as day, the lights still on. I’d moved a few extra lamps in earlier.
Scritc
h scritch.
Something was scratching at my window.
The tree didn’t reach the house, and the bushes were trimmed. I stayed in bed, listening.
Scritch scritch. A pause. Scritch.
There was a drawn-out deliberateness to it. Someone wanted me to hear, to know it was there.
Use your mind, girl. That’s the only place she is?that’s how she draw her power.
Granny Julep’s words came back to me, and I realized what she meant. If I allowed myself to imagine what horrible creature might be scratching at my window, trying to find a way in?
The scratching became a rattle, as if something tested the strength of the window frame. Then came a tapping against the glass, quick and urgent.
I fingered Granny Julep’s beads beneath the covers while I forced myself to breathe, to be calm, to ignore the noises at the window. I squeezed my eyes shut and snuggled deeper beneath the red sheets, trying to think of other things. Of safe things.
Like Evan and the store. Like our annual shopping trip to New York every spring. Like maybe getting a puppy. Having someone to come home to wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
The noises stopped, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I’d won, after all.
But I wasn’t gonna push my luck by dwelling on it. To stay distracted, I thought about Joe.
Why had I met him now? Was there some kind of cosmic joke I didn’t get? I’d been offered a glimpse of eternity and then sent back, though I’d happily have stayed. I was a believer now?God had made His point. He didn’t need to punish me.
I didn’t want to talk to the dead. I didn’t want to fall for a conventional, respectable doctor. I didn’t want to have a twin sister who was married to the doctor.
Is married to the doctor.
A sister. Someone who could’ve taken the place of the stuffed animals I’d had as a kid, the ones I’d whispered my girlish secrets to and snuggled against so I didn’t feel so alone.
I was drifting in that place between asleep and awake when I heard the drums.
Far away and steady?regular as a heartbeat but faster. The sound came in waves, like gentle ripples on a pond, rising and falling. The drums lured my dreams, beckoned my thoughts, urged me to hear nothing but their rhythm.
“No.” I opened my eyes and rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling.
The drums got louder. It was so comfortable there, listening to those drums. They were in my mind, and all around me.
“No,” I said again, and sat up.
The drums were insistent, ruthless in their staying power. The rhythm never faltered.
I threw back the covers and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. Cotton balls might help.
“Nicki?”
The drums stopped.
Someone rapped on my front door. “Nicki? Are you up?”
Who would come knocking on my door at this hour? I couldn’t help but think of the night my parents died…that time, it’d been a pair of Georgia state troopers.
Suspicious, I eased down the hall toward the door.
The knocking came again.
Gathering my nerve, I looked through the peephole.
“Joe…what are you doing here?”
Even through the distorted lens I could see he was weaving a little.
“Nicki.” He smiled beatifically, as if he could see me. “I think it’s called a ‘booty’ call. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never had one…or given one…” Joe waved a hand vaguely. “…or whatever. The boys in Radiology said that’s what it was.”
The conventional, respectable doctor was drunk! It would have been funny if it hadn’t been the worst timing in the world. I glanced down at the sprinkling of tobacco seeds on the floor and remembered Granny’s instructions: Once the house has been sealed, don’t break the seal until dawn.
“You went out with the boys in Radiology?” I was stalling, torn about what to do.
“I did.” Joe nodded his head solemnly. “First time ever. Told ’em all about you.”
I couldn’t help but smile on my side of the door, cringing at the thought of how that might have gone.
“Great guys, should’ve gone out with ’em sooner. Dr. Dull has been a Joe boy.”
Stifling a laugh, I said very seriously, “Joe, you have to go home now. You can’t come in.”
He leaned against the door with both palms, pressing his eye against his side of the keyhole. “You can’t send me home…I’ve had too much to drink. I’m a menish to society.” Joe sounded completely self-satisfied, and completely confident I’d let him in.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I wanted to let him in, but I didn’t dare break the seal. So far Granny Julep’s advice seemed to be working.
“Joe, listen.” I leaned up against the door, still peeking through the lens. “I can’t open the door. I’ve sealed it for the night.”
He leaned back, disappointed.
“Sealed it with what? Duct tape?”
“Never mind with what.” I wasn’t going to give Joe any more reason than I already had to doubt my sanity. “Sealed with seeds” just didn’t quite get it. “I can’t break the seal until dawn.”
“Okay.” Joe heaved a theatrical sigh, hands dropping from the door. “I’ll just make myself comfortable here on the porch. We’ve only got”—he peered blearily at his watch—“three or four more hours.”
“You can’t sleep out there. You have to go.” The porch light flickered, as though a shadow passed over it.
Could’ve been a moth.
“Please, Joe.” He was glancing around as if looking for a place to sit. There was a porch swing, but it was in a far corner. A corner with lots of shadows. “Stay right there. I’ll call you a cab.”
“You’ll call me a cab?” Joe was so disappointed. “The boys in Radiology will never let me live it down. My first genuine three A.M. booty call, and I’m shot down in flames.” He lost his balance and stumbled a little. “Are you sure?”
Damn the man. Caught between fear and laughter, I didn’t stand a chance against the hurt look on his face. Throwing caution to the wind, I unlocked and opened the door.
His smile was almost worth it. I grabbed him by an arm and dragged him inside, closing the door as quickly as I could. I let go of him, looking around for my remaining tobacco seeds.
“I knew it,” Joe said, making a beeline for the couch. He threw himself down with a sigh and settled himself comfortably on his back, while I watched, open-mouthed.
“Sealed the door,” he mumbled, eyes closing. “Worst excuse I ever heard.” Within a few seconds he was out.
“Some booty call.” I shook my head as I found the tobacco seeds and sprinkled more, hoping to fix any damage. I suppose I should’ve been pissed, but I wasn’t. Even passed out, Joe made me feel safe. I was glad he was there.
I’d felt a lot of things for a lot of guys: lust, both reciprocal and unrequited; casual affection, casual sex; mad crushes and hurt feelings. But I’d never depended on any of those guys. I took care of me. I’d only known Joe for a week, but I already knew he was the type of guy I could always depend on.
And it scared the hell outta me.
Hoping there’d been no harm done in the few seconds it took to get Joe inside, I pulled a blanket down out of the linen closet and covered him with it. He looked younger when he slept, his seriousness relaxed. It must be hard to make life and death decisions every day, to hold people’s lives in your hands. I touched his dark hair and he mumbled something.
The overhead light by the front door flickered. I looked around the room uneasily, hearing the faintest ping as the bulb blew out.
It was only one light. The house was full of them.
Then the lamp by the chair went out.
“Joe.” I ripped off the blanket I’d just tucked in and grabbed him by the shoulder, giving him a shake. “Joe. Wake up.”
Needless to say, he didn’t wanna wake up. I shook him harder, and he opened his eyes just as the t
hird light, the one at the end of the couch, went out.
“Get up, c’mon, get up,” I urged. I eased myself beneath his arm and pulled, hard. “We have to go to bed.”
I’d never have been able to move him myself, but Joe caught the gist and tried to cooperate. Together, we stumbled from the living room and down the hall toward my room.
I couldn’t leave him out there. I had to get us barricaded in the bedroom with every lightbulb I could find. Red sheets, tobacco seeds, straw charms, and gris-gris bags. Lightbulbs and old beads.
Heaven help me.
I’d done all I could. Joe was passed out in my bed, unaware of the fear creeping up my spine. I’d skittered like a nervous mouse throughout the house, snatching up lamps to add to my hoard until the resulting shadows became too threatening, then retreated to my room.
Caprice had made it inside. I just knew it.
I’d locked us in the bedroom, sprinkling tobacco seeds over the threshold and again on the two windowsills. Then I’d covered Joe with the red sheet, the only other protection I could give him.
Damn him for trying to play the bad boy.
Damn him for tempting me tonight, of all nights.
A faint echo of feminine laughter, just at the edge of my hearing, brought my head around uneasily. I scanned the room, nearly blinded by the ring of lamps.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I muttered. “You’re not getting inside my head.” If thinking of evil gave it power, then I had to think of something else. Caprice couldn’t harm me if I were stronger mentally than she was.
Evan’s Christmas gift was my salvation.
I snatched up the little white iPod and plugged the earphones into my ears. The power adaptor was already in the wall, ready for recharging. I sincerely hoped Caprice couldn’t influence anything bigger than lightbulbs, but if she did, I had batteries. Then I applied my own antidote to evil by listening to The Cure and Ani DiFranco, letting the music drown out everything else.
When dawn finally came, I was lying on the bed, back-to-back with a still sleeping Joe, and down to my last three bulbs. I was completely exhausted. Caprice wasn’t giving up, and either I had an electrical problem of epic proportions or she really needed the darkness to get to me. Thank God for Evan’s recent fondness for bulk warehouse sales—I’d started with a stockpile of two dozen bulbs and used nearly all of them. The bulbs had blown out, one by one, all night long.