“Hmmmm?”
“The voice,” Ava wanted to know, “was it male, or female?”
Suzanne looked at her mother and burst out laughing. Leave it to Mom to come up with the one question that, after eighteen years, she hadn’t even thought to ask herself.
“Well, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t really . . .” She thought for a moment, trying to put her finger on it. “It wasn’t really one or the other. Or maybe it was both.” She shook her head, frustrated with her inability to describe it. “But it seemed to come almost from inside me, inside my head, inside my heart. Like I could feel its vibrations through my whole body.”
Ava was smiling at her in an almost awed fashion. “What did you do then?”
Suzanne shrugged again, popping a cigarette into her mouth and lighting up. That was another benefit of an outdoor market; they couldn’t tell you not to smoke.
“There wasn’t much to do. I got up, pushed the nurse away, told her I’d changed my mind, and ripped off that damn ugly Johnny.”
“Did she try to talk you back into it?”
Another question that no one but Ava would consider asking, Suzanne thought, amused.
“No, not really. She spoke very calmly, telling me that it was my choice and if ‘another option’ was better for me, then I should follow that option. But I could tell she was trying to keep me in the room as long as possible, in case it was just a momentary lapse.”
“I bet they get a lot of those.” Ava plucked the cigarette from Suzanne’s lips and flung it to the ground, smushing it out with her foot. “I’m sorry, dear. I know we’re outside, but a little consideration for others, hmm?” Without giving Suzanne a chance to react—let alone respond—she plowed on with the conversation. “So, what did young Mr. Lauder have to say about all this when you came out of the room? Was he upset? Angry? Did he try to talk you out of it?”
“Well,” Suzanne replied, looking longingly at the crushed butt beneath Ava’s heel, “he was sitting there in the waiting room, flipping through Highlights magazine, and I came barreling out. He just looked up at me, not like he was surprised or anything, but like he was wondering what the heck I was doing out there so quickly. I think I said something lame like, ‘I changed my mind, let’s get out of here,’ and just walked out. He followed me, of course, and we just sat there in the clinic’s parking lot in his brother’s cruddy truck, staring off into space for a couple of hours. Then he drove me home.”
“So, he didn’t try to make you feel better? Comfort you? Like it was all going to work out beautifully, and everything was going to be okay?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you gotta give the little booger that,” Ava conceded. “At least he didn’t pull out those crappy clichés on you.”
Ava stared out into the marina for a moment. She loved the water, and she couldn’t understand how people in landlocked states managed to avoid becoming completely claustrophobic. Some of the boats were being put up for the season as they spoke, while braver members of the yacht club would leave theirs in the water for another couple of weeks, hoping for just one or two more blissful outings before the harsh cold reality of winter struck.
Suzanne gazed right along with her mother, loving the way the waves gently lapped up on the rocks, below the decks. She’d spent many a childhood hour watching the boats go by, while escaping Ava’s drunkenness.
One day, I’ll get one, she told herself, as she did every year. One day. Of course, now that all that money she’d had earmarked for Molly’s education wasn’t needed, maybe someday could be now.
But after years of pinching pennies, spending thousands of dollars on a boat . . . She didn’t know if she could do it.
“Well,” Suzanne spoke suddenly, shaking off the seriousness of the conversation, “the voice was right. So the next day, Steve and I went to find the cheapest wedding rings we could, and nine months later, I gave birth to the prettiest, purplest, gooiest, eight-pound, eleven-ounce baby that this world has ever seen. I remember being shocked at her hair. She had a full head of curly hair, even though every baby I’d ever seen before that had been bald. She looked like a monkey. That’s what we called her, remember? Till she was about two, she wasn’t Molly, she was Monkey.”
“I remember.” Ava fell quiet for a moment, taking everything in. Suzanne used the opportunity to stealthily light another Spirit, surreptitiously blowing the smoke as far away from Ava, and every other patron of the market, as she could. “Has anything like that ever happened to you before?” Ava asked. “The voice thing, I mean?”
Suzanne opened her mouth to say no, when a memory came rushing back to her. She’d been about eight years old, climbing the big oak trees with the McHenry brothers from down the block a ways. They were prodding each other: “You go higher,” “No, you go higher,” “No, you go first,” and suddenly, there was a big black electrical cable within reach.
“I dare you to touch it,” the oldest one, Rick (or was it Todd?) challenged her. He had only mustered up the nerve to climb to the top branches after she did, and he had to save face somehow.
“Why would I want to touch a stupid wire?” she had said.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t do it,” John sniveled, wiping his nose on his arm.
Rick/Todd pulled a package of unopened gum out of his pocket. Grape Bubblicious. Her very favorite.
“It’s all yours if you’re not chicken,” he sang, waving the purple foil package back and forth. “Come on, it’s totally safe, you big wimp.”
“If it’s so safe,” John shot back, “why don’t you do it?”
“Because I already have a pack of gum,” Rick/Todd replied confidently. He looked up at Suzanne. The look said, are you tough, or a sissy girl like all the rest of them after all? “Well?”
Suzanne, knowing nothing about electricity, started to reach for the wire, wanting the gum, but most of all not wanting to be seen as a wimp by the McHenry brothers. Then suddenly, that voice, that same voice that later saved Molly’s potential life, spoke right in her head.
Don’t! The voice screamed. If there’s even a chance you’ll get a shock, you shouldn’t do it. Don’t!
She pulled back, gasping, as though she had just escaped a great danger (and she found out years later that she had—touching the wire would likely have fried her to a crisp right in the tree).
She was suddenly sure she had done the right thing. She also just as suddenly didn’t give a darn what Rick/Todd thought about it.
“What’s the point of grabbing a big old wire?” she sniffed haughtily, as she climbed down the tree. “You just go ahead and keep your stupid gum.”
Dangling by her arms, she dropped the remaining foot and a half. As she hit the ground, she landed on one ankle funny, and it rolled a bit. She felt a small crunch that would later turn her whole foot an explosion of various shades of purple, but at that moment, she didn’t so much as utter an “ouch.”
Standing, she daintily wagged her red-mittened hand at him and flounced home. He stared after her, a stupid look on his face, wondering how she had managed to avoid the dare but still get the best of him, and it made her feel strong. For the first time in her life, she felt empowered—even though she didn’t yet possess the word in her vocabulary. She didn’t feel the pain of her injured ankle until she was safely home.
“Now that you mention it,” Suzanne said to her mother, “I did hear that voice, just one other time.” She filled her mom in on the Rick/Todd adventure. “It’s just like . . . there is something, or someone, up there rooting for me.”
“I bet there is, sweetie.” Ava stopped at a table full of candles, and Suzanne picked up what looked like a small bamboo tube with a crystal glued to its end. The owner of the booth, who seemed to sell primarily Halloween items, had the audacity to ask twenty-two dollars for it.
“Well, look who’s here!” a voice said brightly from behind the booth. “Hey there, Suzanne.” Suzanne looked up into the face of someone she never expected to see again
—and someone who she never expected to greet her with such cheer.
NINE
“Wow. Oh my goodness . . . This is a surprise.” Suzanne put a hand to her throat, composing herself. “What a surprise.” She felt like a dope.
“It sure is,” Laura Caldwell replied in her smooth, deep, perfect voice. There was very little about Laura Caldwell that wasn’t perfect way back in the years between ages five and eighteen.
Every school had a Laura Caldwell, Suzanne supposed, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. She was drop-dead gorgeous, but it was the kind of beauty that required only the smallest amount of makeup. Her golden hair bounced to her shoulders in perfect curls, and her blue eyes always seemed to glow with amusement at life in general. She didn’t take herself, or anything, so seriously she couldn’t laugh at it. At five-foot-two, she was a little on the short side, but she possessed one of those figures that wasn’t thin, wasn’t fat. Just perfect. Curvy where men liked the curves, and slender where women liked to be slender.
She’d been one of the soloists in chorus for all four years in high school, not to mention head of Student Council, captain of the cheerleading squad, co-captain of the dance squad . . . The list went on and on.
Worst of all, her personality was sweet, funny, effervescent, and gracious. Which was likely why she hadn’t exchanged more than two words with Suzanne during her entire high school career; Laura wasn’t exactly the smoking area type. Laura was also the girl who had given the Soap Opera Queen of the Year award (for mastering the fine art of bursting into tears at the library) to Suzanne during Senior Assembly—when the top ten students gave out appropriately made-up awards to the rest of the class. (Suzanne had been told that, when Laura found out why she was so emotional that year, she had had the good grace to blush.)
Laura didn’t exactly pick on her, per se, but there were enough instances to make Suzanne think of Laura with a sour taste in her mouth. Freshman year, Suzanne and Laura had been neck and neck for grades, for accomplishments, for attracting boys and ringleading the girls.
But by senior year, Suzanne had been the drama queen (on and off the stage) who got knocked up; Laura had been salutatorian and Most Likely to Succeed. The sting had never really worn off.
And now here Laura was, right in front of her, just in time to witness her divorce and most likely hear about her daughter’s Monkey-See-Monkey-Do senior year pregnancy through the local grapevine.
To make matters even worse, Laura seemed to have barely aged a day. Her figure was still perfect, her skin still flawless without makeup. And she’d let her gorgeous hair grow so it hung like a sheet of gold to the middle of her back.
Suzanne reminded herself to have a quick word with God later on the topic of fair play.
“It’s been a while,” Suzanne smiled broadly, not knowing what else to say.
“Yes, it has,” Laura agreed with a musical laugh. “In fact, last time I saw you, your water broke.”
Suzanne smiled thinly, unable to come up with the polite obligatory laugh that she’d given a thousand times before.
“You look terrific! Even better than in high school, you lucky thing.” Laura sounded absolutely sincere, Suzanne noted warily.
“Well, I recently lost two hundred pounds of dead weight—you went to school with Steve, so you know what I mean,” she cracked, running her fingers through her hair, wishing she hadn’t decided to put off doing her roots again last night. Maybe this was what Ava meant when she said you always wanted to put your best face forward. Laura’s roots, of course, were perfectly blonde, as they had always been.
Laura laughed; again, the sound was remarkably genuine.
“Still, eighteen years for a teenage marriage. It’s amazing you managed to hang in there as long as you did. I mean,” she added hastily, “because, well, the odds of teenaged marriages aren’t good.”
“Right.” It struck Suzanne that Laura seemed nervous that she might have been offensive, and wondered why. People like Laura didn’t generally give a good crap if they offended people like Suzanne or not. She looked around at the melee for her mother, who’d been swallowed by the crowd just at the moment when she needed a rescue. Laura smiled at her happily, easily, and Suzanne again tried to force a smile, feeling wildly uncomfortable.
“So,” she said, trying to sound pleasant, “what are you up to these days?”
Laura spread her arms, indicating the table that was stocked full of new-age and ancient religious paraphernalia: crystals, wands, bracelets, necklaces, books, bumper stickers, and Halloween decorations of all kinds.
“This is it.” She handed Suzanne a card from a stack at the corner of the table, which was covered with a blood-red velvet cloth.
“Goddess Treasures,” Suzanne read the antique script aloud.
“It’s a small store over on Market Street. We sell all sorts of Goddess relics.”
“Goddess? What do you mean?”
Laura’s eyes lit up, and Suzanne cursed to herself, realizing she had just asked the million-dollar question. Now she was trapped, with no Ava in sight.
“In the Wiccan religion, we believe in the Goddess as well as the God—two sides of the same coin. In fact, many Wiccans believe only in the Goddess and not the God. But I find that a bit close-minded.”
Laura picked up a small statue that showcased three women, all perched on the branches of a solid, ancient tree. On the uppermost branch sat a withered, wizened old lady. Near the middle of the tree was a woman cradling a newborn, and the branch nearest the ground held a very young girl.
“It’s the triple Goddess, see? Maiden, mother, and crone. We sell crystals, magical tools, books, candles, chimes, glassware, incense. Some clothing, but those are generally for the teenaged wannabes.” She rolled her unadorned light blue eyes, still smiling patiently. “Still, if they’ve got money to spend, they’re welcome in my store, and they get as much respect as Laurie Cabot would—and she’s known as the official witch of Salem, Mass.”
“What do you mean, ‘wannabe’?”
“Wannabes—as in, people who want to be Wiccans, witches, or pagans. Or, more accurately, who want to dress like witches and pagans, and get the attention that witches do, but don’t want to commit to the work it takes to protect the earth or do the religious worship.” Laura paused just long enough to take a breath. “Although Wicca is the accurate term of our religion, many of us choose to call it witchcraft to honor those before us who were killed for practicing their beliefs.”
Just then, Suzanne saw the star within the circle dangling from a thin leather strap around Laura’s neck. It was very old, and it looked to be made of brass. She’d seen them before, mostly on Goth teenagers, their skin white as sheets, their eyes lifeless. (Molly, who often dressed semi-Goth, at least managed to retain her rosy glow, and her eyes were always bright with love, laughter, and life. Suzanne supposed that made Molly a wannabe, and that pleased her to no end.)
“Also, we do our part to celebrate the accomplishments of women of the world today,” Laura continued enthusiastically. “We have weekly readings of women writers. Not just women of our faith but women who write poetry, fiction, spiritual books, or even women who are just entertainers. Whatever springs to our amazingly creative minds, we celebrate.”
“So you’re . . .” Suzanne swallowed; she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to say the word. After all, maybe Laura was putting her on, and this was just an effect for the business. If she fell for it, she would surely be the butt of many jokes later on, as she had been senior year.
“A professional witch, yes,” Laura said comfortably. No one turned around in shock or looked particularly surprised when she said it out loud; apparently the downtown crowd was quite used to her.
“Wow.” Suzanne didn’t know how to reply. She still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some kind of elaborate marketing ploy. “Wow, that’s just . . . great. Good for you. I’m just . . . well, last I heard, that is, you . . .”
�
�I, what?”
“Well, weren’t you off to Columbia law school, after college?” Suzanne was starting to get the idea that this earthy, relaxed woman before her might be a whole different person from the feverish go-getter she’d known twenty years ago. “Last I heard, you were in New York making tons of corporate cash.”
“The dark days.” Laura closed her eyes, shivering, as if the memories were too terrible to think of. She leaned forward, speaking softly. “I try to never think of them, but I’ll spend the rest of my life atoning for them.”
This woman just proudly announced that she’s a witch, but she needs to whisper the fact that she was once a corporate attorney? Will the real Laura Caldwell please stand up?
“I worked for one of those big, big corporate firms that were killing small businesses all across the country,” Laura went on. “I was helping the big guy beat up the little guy.” She covered her face, still mortified after all this time. “Each day, the knot in my stomach grew bigger and bigger, until one day I just snapped—snap, crackle, pop. I quit my job, came back home, and then, just by chance, a month later I went to this amazing reading at a Goddess bookstore in Boston. It truly opened my eyes to the wonder that we females are. Nothing stops us: we’re givers of life, we’re nurturers, we’re gutsy and fearless and creative . . .” She lowered her voice again, adding slyly, “And it’s my experience that we take on more than any three men in our lifetimes.”
“You’re right about that,” Suzanne agreed, thinking of how unfairly balanced the workload was in her marriage. She hadn’t realized it was an epidemic.
An adorable blond girl of about nine popped up and took Laura’s hand; something about her was very familiar.
“Mommy, can I have money for a piece of fudge?” she asked.
“Honey, you know how bad refined sugar is for you. Why don’t you go buy a nice pear instead?” Laura reached into her pocketbook even as the girl began pleading her case. “Oh, all right, but just this once. First, introduce yourself to my friend.”
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