The Big Bang

by Linda Joffe Hull

  “Frank’s doing quite a job of making sure everyone’s safe around here.”

  Hope Jordan was anything but safe.

  She checked her watch. “I’d better get going to my workout class before they cut the power indefinitely.”

  “I’m headed that direction myself.”

  “Spinning?” She smiled as they started down the staircase leading to the workout rooms.

  If that’s where you’re going. “I thought I’d check out what’s available.”

  “At two, it’s either spinning or muscle madness.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “That you hurry and grab a bike before they’re all gone.”

  “What about this muscle whatever class?”

  As they reached the bottom of the stairs she stopped in front of a set of glass doors. “That’s where I’m off to.”

  He looked into a room filled with enough housewives to give him estrogen poisoning.

  Intriguing as it was to spend an hour sweating and breathing alongside Hope, he wasn’t about to ruin his chance to do the same on top, or better yet beneath her, by hanging with the girls like Will the petition guy, the only guy in the room. “I think I’ll be scooting across the hall.”

  “Good choice.” She turned for the throng of women. “See you later.”

  “Definitely.”

  He made it into the spinning studio and staked his claim to a bike by throwing a towel over the handlebars. As he headed for the drink of water he’d missed, he managed to catch another glimpse of that fine ass.

  He’d definitely see her later.

  ***

  Frank watched Hope and Trautman as they disappeared down the stairs together.

  “Mr. Griffin?” the security installation guy asked. “I asked if you had any specific surveillance preferences?”

  Frank stepped over to the rail overlooking the basement fitness wing. He needed to catch her so he could at least tell her he wanted to talk to her about the playground plans later. “I’ll trust you to place the camera where you feel surveillance is most valuable.”

  The security workman checked off a box on the paperwork. “Sign off at the bottom for me, then?”

  “Back in two seconds.” Frank grabbed the clipboard and bolted toward the stairs, but before he’d even reached the landing, Trautman left Hope at the door.

  And watched her disappear into the fitness studio.

  ***

  Hope deliberately walked past the bathrooms and over to the locker area. She’d sweated way more than usual during class. The dampness between her legs was surely perspiration.

  Besides, she wasn’t due for nearly a week.

  She removed her tank top and felt for the reassuring moisture along the lower elastic of her workout bra before peeling it over her head and tossing it in her locker. As she unhooked the heart rate monitor—her pulse had at no time risen higher than the recommended 150 beats per minute—she felt the pull of a slight cramp.

  She swallowed away the sudden thickness in the back of her throat. The cramps were exercise related. Menstrual discomfort was to be expected the week before the period was due. Even when her period wasn’t coming at all.

  Without bending in any way that might irritate her uterus, she steadied the heel of her left Nike with the other and slid her foot out of the shoe. Using her toe, she removed the right Nike.

  Not that she could determine anything definitive with the kind of lightning-quick glance that went unnoticed in a public locker room, but still, as she finished undressing, she avoided the black lining of her yoga pants altogether.

  Wrapped in a towel, she carried her toiletries past the hot tub where the post-pregnancy crowd gabbed unselfconsciously about preschools and chicken pox as their surgically renewed breasts bobbed in the Jacuzzi bubbles. She pretended to readjust her towel, but touched the sides of her own breasts for the reassuring tenderness. Careful not to turn the hot spigot too high, Hope put her towel on the hook and stepped into the shower. She shampooed, conditioned, and completed careful circles up and down her legs with the loofah before soaping her body.

  Lord, help me to conceive a healthy baby.…

  The power went out.

  The last thing she saw before everything went dark was the crimson streak on her washcloth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Section 5.2. No noxious or offensive activity shall be carried on within any property in the Community Association Area, nor shall anything be done that may become a nuisance or cause unreasonable embarrassment or annoyance to others.

  “If Jesus didn’t want us to be happy and successful, why would he put us in the suburbs and give us this blessed life?” Frank’s voice echoed through the auditorium but reverberated through Laney’s head.

  “A tax day Amen to that,” she said to Sarah, seated beside her and wedged between their respective husbands. Then, she sneezed.

  “Bless you.” Sarah handed her a tissue.

  “Next time we meet,” Frank said, “we’ll discuss our place in the bosom of the Lord…”

  “Which reminds me,” Sarah whispered. “I have something for you.”

  “A present?”

  “Better.” Sarah reached into the side pouch of her Coach handbag. “I’ve found the perfect home-based business for you.”

  “I’ve already got a storeroom full of Tupperware, Pampered Chef, and Avon overstock,” Laney said. “I’m not sure I can stuff my shelves with any more paraphernalia.”

  “I promise you won’t be stuffing it in your shelves.”

  “Before you embark upon the glorious week our Lord has planned for you, we have some announcements,” Frank continued, “but first, a little treat.”

  “That’s what you said about the ionic foot detoxification system.”

  “This is different.” Sarah handed her a pamphlet. “Very different.”

  Laney opened the tri-fold to the words Enticing and Compensation. “Mother’s Helpers?”

  The choir stood and opened their hymnals.

  “This could be a hoot, but—”

  “But what?”

  Eva Griffin stepped forward. Her dark hair shimmered like a halo under the lights as she began her solo.

  “Who would I invite?”

  “The regulars—Stacy Simon, Samantha Torgenson, and Jenny Thompson will love it. And you know Will Pierce-Cohn—”

  “Loves anything home shopping.” Laney tilted her head in Hope Jordan’s direction. “But Hope’s not going to show up for a party called Mother’s Helpers.”

  “Send her an Evite and tell her it’s called Household Helpers. She’ll never know the difference until she gets to your house.”

  “I suppose.”

  Across the aisle, Theresa Trautman shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “And how about your very pregnant client over there?”

  “In her condition?”

  “Neighborhood newbies always buy, no matter what’s for sale.”

  “True.” Laney examined the brochure more closely as the choir rejoined Eva and they belted out the chorus.

  With the final claps of the crowd, Laney watched Maryellen saunter across the stage in the tiniest of wraparound dresses. She craned the mike to face height and unfolded her announcement list. “On Wednesday, the Mothers of Preschoolers are going on a field trip to the Englewood petting zoo…”

  “I could make up a flyer and get it to the MOPS moms,” Laney whispered. “They’re always desperate for get-away-from-the-kiddies activities.”

  “Yup.”

  “And if you’ll make sure word gets around your rec center classes…”

  “Done.”

  Lights illuminated the portable golden cross, showering light onto Maryellen. “But, what do I do about Maryellen?”

  “What about her?”

  “If she sees everyone pulling up across the street for a party she isn’t invited to—”

  “Why wouldn’t she be invited?”

  “Tuesday night
,” Maryellen’s voice trilled through the room, “I’ll be moderating the women’s club discussion on incorporating Proverbs thirty-one into modern life.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course, I’m not kidding.”

  “But she’s a minister’s wife.”

  “Not just any minister.” She glanced at Frank, who was whispering intently into the ear of the choir director.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, I heard an interesting tidbit about our fair Frank the other day.”

  “As in?”

  Sarah’s smile was anything but coy. “Apparently, he’s something of a dirty talker.”

  “Seriously?” Laney couldn’t be sure whether the sudden rush came from the idea of Frank’s X-rated chatter or Sarah’s warm breath in her ear. Other than a few men with the distracting need to announce they were coming, she’d never been with a full-on dirty talker—that she could remember, anyway. “Where did you hear that?”

  Sarah pointed her head in the direction of Jane Hunt, who was seated in the front row. “The Griffins’ bedroom window faces the Connors’ bedroom wall. Jane said Julie Connor hears them going at it all the time.”

  Jane nodded, as though in confirmation.

  Thin walls, closely spaced homes, and sound-conductive siding made for dubious privacy. Luckily her bedroom overlooked the playground and her neighbors to the north were older and didn’t socialize with anyone she knew.

  “I can’t believe…”

  “Doesn’t fit your fantasy about the Rev.?”

  “I don’t fantasize about Frank.” Not regularly, anyway.

  “Good, ’cause apparently he’s something of a growler, too.”

  “This week, Cooking with Christ will be at Sue Perkins’s home…” said Maryellen.

  “I can’t even picture Maryellen and dirty talk in the same thought.”

  “Our theme will be the cuisine of Tuscany.” Enthusiasm spiked Maryellen’s otherwise measured monotone. “Which, I have to say, I’m very excited about and I’m sure you will be too.”

  Sarah brushed the toe of her pump against Laney’s ankle. “Never can tell what turns people on.”

  ***

  Twenty-four hours had passed since the rec center incident and Eva was still in total shock. One minute her head throbbed from her father’s carrot dangling and the squeal of electric drills. The next, she had one overwhelming, all-consuming wish:

  Make the noise stop.

  Before Tyler had a chance to suggest they think through things, object to the color of the spell, or otherwise mess things up, everyone materialized in a circle around her.

  And she was practically speaking in tongues.

  Chanting, anyway.

  The air charged as the rest of the group joined along.

  The rec center lights flickered once.

  Went dark.

  Totally freaking dark.

  Hours after everyone in the coven scampered off and her father returned home from waiting for the Excel energy truck to repair the transformer blowout, she buzzed with electricity she could swear transferred straight from the rec center into her body. The second her parents closed their bedroom door for the night, she overrode the parental controls on her computer and Googled anything and everything she’d made up instead of looked up about Witchcraft. By the time she pretended to wake for church, she knew as much about circle casting, voodoo, and White Magick as any of the sanctimonious do-gooders at teenwitch.com.

  As far as the darker elements and coven management, she knew more.

  A cool breeze rustled Eva’s hair and the afternoon sun warmed her face as she stood on the playground gravel pile reveling in the anything was possible of it all.

  She sang her heart out at church. Afterward, when her father started in on his Sunday every last page of your homework must be complete before you can so much text a friend sermon, she simply mentioned that the transformer blowout kept the youth group from officially voting yes on his proposal and, like magic, he did an instant (two-faced) about face. He not only let her call everyone for a meeting, but located her American Eagle hoodie for her before she left the house.

  “The Goddess is with us.” Eva looked out at the gang seated in front of her on the newly poured concrete pavilion. “So our spells will be successful from now on.”

  “If we focus our energies and pay attention to the details,” Tyler added.

  Before yesterday, his I-told-you-so smirk would have pissed her off beyond words. Now, she got how much she needed him to be totally into it for the spells to work right. According to a website called warlockwarriors, a second-in-command warlock, treated with the proper respect, can and will guarantee the success of every aspect of coven practice. Eva dug her toe into the hard-packed dirt beneath her feet, looked up, and smiled. “From now on, we won’t cast a spell without making sure we do everything right.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Tyler nodded.

  “Tyler was also right about needing extra bucks for spell supplies,” she added.

  “So we’re going to do the Memorial Weekend thing?” Hannah Hunt asked.

  “The idea of giving in to my dad kinda makes me want to slit my wrists, but he is offering us the chance to get our spells on faster and better.”

  Hannah Hunt raised her hand. “Second.”

  “Everyone else agree?” She held her breath waiting for some objection from Tyler.

  All hands went up.

  Eva bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. “Okay, in Numerology, the number four stands for success, so, counting yesterday, we need to do three increasingly difficult spells to build up our combined power.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out the handout she’d compiled of possible choices. “If you turn the paper over, you’ll find the spell I think will be the best to kick things off.”

  With everyone’s agreement, she pulled black feathers and matches from her pocket and joined the group on the concrete. “Lauren, your idea to make the diorama sink matched a spell I found on a website for newer practitioners of the craft, so I’d like you to assist.”

  “Nice.” Tyler pushed Lauren gently toward the center of the circle.

  Eva gave her a black feather and a pat on the shoulder. “State your intention.”

  Lauren stepped forward and bowed her head. Her voice, sugary with a slight lisp, carried in the wind. “I will the playground to sink.”

  “We now restate Lauren’s intention together and repeat the chant three times.” Eva reached out her hands, one to Tyler and the other to Lauren. She had to move things along before her dad stuck his head out the door to let her know the comradeship timer had gone off.

  As everyone shuffled into a tight circle, Eva found herself holding hands with Lauren on her left and one of the Goths to her right. Tyler had taken it upon himself to move around her and grasp Lauren’s other hand.

  Eva managed not to bitch about not following directions or flash him a look. A second-in-command warlock, treated with the proper respect, can and will guarantee the success of every aspect of coven practice. Instead, she smiled sweetly in his direction. “Ready to go for it?”

  A feather slipped from her hand and brushed her face as it floated upward in the wind.

  The Goddess clearly approved.

  ***

  The beep of the oven timer distracted Maryellen from fully digesting the sentence she’d already reread twice: Stachybotrys is another fungi that has the ability to produce mycotoxins, ones that are extremely toxic, suspected carcinogens, and immunosuppressive.

  “God love her.” Frank peered out through the side window blinds. “Evangeline has those kids in a prayer circle.”

  Maryellen opened the drawer on the table beside her reading chair, pulled a Post-it off the pad, and marked the passage from the book Will had returned for Roseanne Goldberg. “She really does want to be called Eva.”

  He turned toward the kitchen and the infernal timer. “Have we heard back fro
m the summer leadership program yet?”

  “Not yet.” She didn’t add that she might have accidentally mistaken the information for a mortgage refinance inquiry and shredded it along with a pile of Money Mailers and catalogs. “She mentioned something about wanting to work at the rec center with her friends this summer.”

  “Our girl’s a Chief.” He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed one of the diet Red Bulls she stocked for his afternoon pick-me-up. “Those jobs are for the Indians.”

  Maryellen fumbled for her glasses, leaned sideways, and glanced out the window at their chief. “I don’t think she’s going to want to go away to that camp.”

  “Don’t worry about Eva,” he said. “She’ll thank us someday for honing her natural skill.”

  Maryellen glanced at the photo atop the piano of three-year-old Eva with her sweet smile and angelic blond curls. As she looked back outside and watched the kids let go of each other’s hands, the same low dread came over her that she felt when she caught the faint aroma of burnt wax and incense in the basement after their meetings.

  The same bad feeling she’d had when Tyler had checked out that book on Witchcraft as research for a history project.

  She took a calming breath. Whatever they were doing at the playground, in addition to voting about Frank’s committee, they were doing in plain view of the house. Besides, everything she’d read said rebelliousness and experimentation were part and parcel of the teenage experience. Unfortunately, Frank, who started across the entry hall toward the front door, was unlikely to agree. If he so much as spotted Eva holding that feathered whatever it was they seemed to be passing around, he’d ship her off to Christian military school so fast it would be like Maryellen never had a daughter in the first place.

  The only daughter she’d ever have.

  Maryellen waved her book to distract Frank. “Roseanne Goldberg’s been reading up about mold.”

  “Mold is the Fibromyalgia of the new millennium,” he said, but kept walking.

  Maryellen lifted her readers from her neck and opened to the page she’d marked. “It says here that a family in Texas—”

  “Probably wasn’t leaving food and pouring drinks on the family room carpet.”