The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  “What? Well…”

  Tawny hid her smile behind her hand and then looked at Diego.

  “I get it, Mr. Ramirez. He’s cute anyway. But then, that shy look he gets? Yum yum!”

  “Totally,” said Diego, grinning like a fool.

  She turned to Charlie. “Oh, and I’m not just saying that to make you feel good about yourself. It’s true. You just don’t know it.”

  Charlie had no idea what to do. He mumbled thanks and ducked his head. The strap of his backpack slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow and somehow managed to turn upside down. Because it was unzipped, the entire contents spilled out onto the floor. He watched in horror as his pencil case opened and pens skidded under a nearby drinking fountain. Books lay scattered on the tiles near his feet.

  “Oh geez, I just…” he started.

  Tawny and Diego were down on the floor in a flash, gathering the dropped items and trying, unsuccessfully, not to laugh.

  Charlie stood in painful silence, unable to do anything but hold his backpack open while the two friends filled it with the spilled contents.

  “Well, okay then. Looks like I’ve completely flustered you,” Tawny said. “I’ll take that as my cue to leave.” She leaned in and kissed Charlie on the cheek, then gave Diego a hug before walking back down A-wing.

  “Charlie, don’t worry about that, it’s no big deal,” Diego started to say.

  But Charlie wasn’t listening. He realized how tired he was of hearing himself say that he wanted things to slow down. If he really did want things to slow down so much, then he was going to have to do something about it. No one could or would do it for him. Waiting for someone else to make it better for him was a stupid idea.

  Yeah, cuz look how good that plan has been going.

  “I’m not going to the GSA meeting with you tomorrow.”

  “Oh. Okay. Why not?”

  “Because,” Charlie said, worried that Diego was going to get mad, but determined to speak his mind. “I’d like to take things one at a time. I really like hanging out with you. Can we just keep it to that for a while?”

  The frown lines on Diego’s forehead deepened, then vanished.

  “Of course. I’m kind of like a puppy, all excited and everything. Sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s okay, I…”

  “Charlie, I get it. I’ve had a lot of time to figure a bunch of stuff out. And to take lots of small steps. This is new for you.”

  Funny. Diego’s words sounded just like what Beverly had said to him about the legacy of witchcraft. How could two things which seemed so opposite end up running around him in the same way?

  In spite of trying to maintain his cool, Charlie’s shoulders actually shuddered as he relaxed. He was relieved that Diego understood. “But I’d like to hang after school, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Are you just saying that because you’re trying to be nice?” Diego asked, crossing his arms over his chest and furrowing his brow.

  “No. I want to. I just don’t want to go to some big public meeting, is all. Not yet.”

  Diego smiled so widely that Charlie wanted to shield his eyes with his hands. But he found himself smiling back. And then his mind flooded with sensory images, of tasting the boy’s mouth, of feeling Diego putting his hands on the back of his head as they kissed.

  Charlie shook his head. “Ok then, time to get to class.”

  At lunch he called his aunt to ask if he could go to Diego’s house after school.

  “Will you be home for dinner?” she asked him. “Randall’s making his famous stuffed pasta shells. They’re too amazing to be missed. Maybe Diego would like to come over?”

  It was decided that they’d go to Diego’s house for homework, since he needed to feed their cats as his mom was working late. But Diego had a Wicca meeting to go to later that night and couldn’t make it to Washington Street for dinner.

  “But tell your aunt I’d love a rain check,” the boy said.

  And so this was how Charlie found himself in Diego’s house, with no adult around. He drummed his fingers on the kitchen counter while Diego pulled out cereal boxes from the cupboard and two large white bowls.

  They ate their cereal and watched part of an Adam Sandler movie on TV.

  “I should really get to some homework,” Diego said. “Wanna join me?”

  The idea of going to Diego’s bedroom excited Charlie, but also made him nervous. He remembered his realization earlier in the day, that he needed to speak up about things. But he wanted to be with Diego in his room. Alone. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to kiss this boy. Unable to figure out what he wanted, he kept his mouth shut.

  They walked up the wood and glass staircase, down the hall, and into the bedroom. Charlie did a double take. The mess was gone. Everything was picked up off the floor. The closet doors were closed, and the bed was trim as a soldier’s uniform.

  “Wow!”

  “I know. Some difference, huh? Every so often I go on a cleaning binge. Plus, I was reading in one of my Wicca books the other day that if I wanted to have a clear mind, I should make sure my environment is free of obstacles. It made sense to me. I’m not promising to keep it like this forever, but…” He smiled, hands on his hips, like a proud captain presenting his sailing vessel.

  He walked over to his desk and turned on his speakers. Soft world-beat music began to play. He lit a candle and some incense.

  “Can we just hang a bit before doing homework? Whaddya say?” His eyes softened. At any moment Charlie expected him to walk over to him and embrace him. Instead, he stood still near his desk, waiting for Charlie’s response.

  Charlie now knew what “hanging out” meant. He was worried. Worried he’d get behind in his schoolwork, worried that hanging out was swiftly becoming a habit for them. But the sheer fact that Diego was making an invitation, that he seemed to be willing to go slowly the way Charlie wanted, made him relax even more. And it made Diego look that much sweeter as he waited for his answer across the room.

  “Okay, but we need to do…”

  “I know, I know. Our homework. We will, I promise. But let’s just…”

  He walked over to where Charlie stood, took him by the arm, and brought him over to the edge of the bed. He sat down, and his eyes darkened as he pulled Charlie close to him.

  The first time they’d kissed at the park, Charlie hadn’t paid much attention to the mechanics of it all. He’d wondered before, while watching a movie or reading a book, how people ever figured out how to kiss. Where did you put your nose so it wouldn’t bump into the other person’s? How did you know when to turn your head?

  It was a lot easier than he’d realized.

  Now he knew what to do, how to lean in, how to open his mouth slightly…

  Charlie could feel waves of warmth coming from the boy’s chest. Diego’s lips were thick against his, and he tasted like sweet granola and milk from the cereal they’d eaten. He put his arms around Charlie’s back, pulling him closer. The gentle smacking sound of their lips coming together and drawing apart excited Charlie.

  Diego responded by lying back on the bed and pulling Charlie on top of him. Diego’s chest rose and fell beneath him as their kissing grew deeper.

  Charlie let his tongue press into the boy’s mouth farther than he had before. A low grunt escaped Diego’s mouth.

  Charlie pulled back. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  Diego, whose eyes had been shut, looked up at him. “Didn’t mean to what?” he asked, his voice deeper than normal.

  “I, uh, I thought I hurt you. I thought…”

  Diego interrupted him. “You goofball. That felt really good. What you were doing with your tongue. Do it again.”

  Charlie smiled in spite of himself, and leaned back down over the boy. Their tongues began to push against each other, and Diego groaned. Loudly.

  Charlie slid onto the side of the bed so that they were facing each other. Diego rubbed his hands along Charlie
’s chest. Then he slipped his fingers up under Charlie’s shirt and ran them along his belly.

  The muscles in his stomach contracted each place the boy’s hand touched. He surprised himself by groaning even louder than Diego had, and pulling at the boy’s ears, tugging him closer, as if trying to fit him into his own mouth.

  Diego’s hand slid below the waistband of Charlie’s pants, fingertips brushing the skin just above his hipbone.

  A loud crash sounded in the room behind them. Diego jumped up off the bed.

  “What the…?” he exclaimed. He walked over to the far side of the room. Charlie sat up and saw three of the framed photographs from Diego’s altar lying on the ground near several large shards of glass.

  “That was weird. I must have bumped them when I lit the incense,” he said. “Oh well, I’ll take care of them later.”

  Charlie knew they hadn’t fallen accidentally. He thought that all of the post-popping, out-of-control-stuff was over. Maybe it wasn’t.

  All the excitement he’d been feeling drained out of him as fast as it had come on.

  Diego walked back to the bed.

  “Now where were we?” he said.

  But Charlie was sitting up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed. “Diego, have you ever, uh, have you ever, you know, done it?”

  “What? You mean, had sex? Nope, not unless you count me and la mano mio,” he said, holding up his hand.

  Charlie felt his cheeks grow hot.

  “I was hoping we might, you know, if you wanted to…” Diego started, then stopped when he saw the look on Charlie’s face.

  “I don’t think I’m ready,” said Charlie. A part of him really wanted to. It just felt so good with Diego. But another part knew that if going to the GSA meeting seemed fast, then having sex with Diego would be like a rocket ship ride to the moon. And he also worried about what would happen. If pictures broke when Diego touched him with their clothes on, what if they went further? Images of the Ramirez’s home engulfed in flames flashed through Charlie’s head.

  “Hey, of course not. If you’re not ready, then fine. I wouldn’t want you to do anything you wouldn’t want to do.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “What? Mad? Charlie, come on. Of course I’m not mad. I’m not going to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do. I mean, yeah, I want to. You’re totally hot and it feels really, really good. But only if you do too. If not, then well, I liked what we were doing. Or we could even just hang out,” he said, smiling. “I mean, really hang out - and talk and stuff.”

  Diego lay back on the bed and pulled Charlie up beside him, so that his head lay on the boy’s chest. He could hear Diego’s heartbeat in his ear. He breathed in the boy’s familiar scent, a combination of butter, raspberries and warm skin. Charlie had begun to equate the smell with both excitement and contentment. He thought a lot about that scent this last week.

  Diego began to talk about his mother, his uncle’s apple farm, and the trouble he and his cousins used to get into, all the while stroking Charlie’s messy hair and the back of his neck. Soon his eyelids grew heavy, and it wasn’t until his phone rang in his pocket and he woke with a start that he realized they’d both fallen asleep, cuddled together on Diego’s bed.

  “Dinner’s just about ready, Charlie,” he heard Beverly say into the phone. “Come home soon, okay? You don’t want to miss these shells. And tell Diego he doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she said, her voice teasing with laughter.

  Chapter 58

  “Von’t you come vith me down to my spooky lair?” Beverly said in a fake Transylvanian accent, as they walked downstairs to the basement.

  Their slippered footsteps echoed on the cement floor as they passed by the garage and stopped in front of a door that Charlie had never opened.

  “You may think it odd that I lock this door with a key. I have so many wards on this room that Esmerelda of the East couldn’t get in here. But my mother, your Grandmother Margaret, used to do the same thing. Like mother, like daughter, I guess.”

  She selected a small key from her key ring.

  “How do wards work? How do they keep people away?”

  Beverly’s hand stopped midway from the lock as she considered the question.

  “There are many different kinds. Some of them are what I think of as a soft deterrent. If someone were to pass by, say, they might not see the door. Or the door might look so unimportant and uninviting that they’d just ignore it and move on.

  “Others are more aggressive. They work to keep the door shut. If anybody pulled on the door, it wouldn’t budge. If a witch were able to break through the first layer of wards, then things could get a little more serious. My dad forgot to remove one of them when he had some friends over one night, some folks from the community. One of his buddies had asked if he could get something out of Dad’s den. They all heard a yelp, and the next thing they knew, Jerry was flattened against the wall, trussed up like a rodeo calf. I think they’d all been drinking a bit too much. They used to crack each other up, telling that story again and again.”

  She inserted the key into the lock, passed her hand over the knob, and moved her lips. Charlie felt a small wave of heat flush over his arms and chest. He wondered how many times in his life his mother had done something like that in their own home. Had she set up wards? He wouldn’t have been able to feel them. Now he could, after being popped. He felt a confusing mix of emotions - antipathy, frustration, sadness - when he thought about her. In a way that was becoming habit, he pushed them away.

  Beverly opened the door and stepped inside, motioning for Charlie to follow.

  While he certainly hadn’t expected a dark and creepy dungeon, what he saw still surprised him. The room was larger than he’d imagined, at least forty feet long by thirty feet wide. At the top of the wall opposite the door, warm light spilled through a set of windows. Soft beige carpet covered the entire floor. A table ran down the middle of the room. It reminded Charlie of Mrs. McMeniman’s craft table back at home, though Beverly’s sat much lower to the ground.

  A white shelving system covered the entire length of the left-hand wall. Large mason jars filled most of the shelves, though there were also several white boxes, the kind his mother used to store tax documents. These were labeled in clear handwriting with things like, “Aunt Lula’s Papers,” “Photos of Dad,” and “Ideas.” Charlie wondered what was in the small yellow box, sitting off to the side, marked, “Lithuania.” The mason jars contained brightly colored powders, round objects, dried flowers, red and brown liquids.

  Black and white photographs hung on the right-hand wall. He recognized a younger version of his mother in a few of them, and a younger Beverly too. To the right of the photos was a closed door. Probably some sort of closet.

  A low cement shelf jutted from the far wall near the floor. On it sat a small speaker system, a vase with dried flowers, and a stone sculpture of a heron.

  “Randall calls it ‘Bed, Brooms, and Beyond,’” Beverly said.

  She walked over and turned on the speakers. “Stevie Nicks and I like to hang out here together, though sometimes we invite Joni Mitchell too.”

  Soft vocal music began to play. Charlie didn’t know who his aunt was talking about, but figured they must be singers she liked.

  “Want some tea?” Beverly asked.

  She opened a cupboard on the far left side beneath the shelves and pulled out an electric kettle, two mugs, a teapot, a small mesh ball, and a brown paper bag.

  She slid a cushion out from beneath the table and sat down, crossing her legs, then motioned for him to join her. He sank down onto his own cushion’s softness.

  “I’ve made my own tea before, but I can never get it to be quite like this stuff,” she said, handing him the brown bag to sniff.

  He inhaled. He smelled the strong scent of orange, along with mint. There was another smell he couldn’t identify.

  “It’s called ‘Spring Spice,’ and we get it at - oh my G
od, Charlie, we haven’t taken you to Pike Place Market yet! This whole time and…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Only the oldest-running farmers market in the nation, thank you very much. Parts of it can be really touristy, but people forget that it’s an actual farmers market. It’s right downtown. Great produce, amazing flowers, and a shop that sells this tea. Rand and I love to spend hours at the market. We get all kinds of different foods, and sometimes sneak up onto the roof of the Inn at the Market, as if we were guests, and watch the ferries cross Elliot Bay.”

  She slapped at his arm and laughed. “How can you let us be such bad hosts? Charlie, I know a lot has been happening. It’s not as if you’ve had a normal ‘Welcome to Seattle’ kind of introduction to this place. But really! There are so many beautiful things to see here. There are great hikes. Waterfalls to explore. Do you ski? Oh, and we haven’t even talked about the Olympic Peninsula yet. I want to show you so many things!”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he found himself carried away by images of mountains, the water, a large market. Just as he was wondering why she’d never mentioned any of these places and activities before, she said, “I think I was worried I’d be one of those fussy people who try to shuttle you all over the place as if life is one big bus tour. But it looks like I’ve just been neglectful!”

  The kettle boiled, and she busied herself filling the tea ball with the spiced leaves.

  “What do you do down here?” Charlie asked.

  “This is my workroom,” she said. “Most witches like to have a place where they can work. I make many things down here. Teas, for instance. Not any that taste this good. And you’d think I’d be able to recreate it. How could it be that hard? But I swear there’s a secret ingredient that the shop owner won’t tell me.”

  “Couldn’t you just, you know, use the scrying bowl on them and get the answer?” he asked, remembering their lessons at Malcolm’s cabin.

  She laughed. “Of course I could. But you know, I enjoy mystery. It’s more fun not knowing, and trying to figure it out. Plus I like teasing the people at the shop. Every time I go in, one of the clerks says, ‘Hide the recipe, the spy’s here!’”