As promised, Rebecca’s return to the area helped Berniece and the store through Salem’s busiest time of the year. Haunted Happenings, a month-plus-long event, started in September and welcomed hordes of Halloween celebrators. A morass of Frankensteins, Draculas, witches, goblins, and ghosts paraded the streets, frequented shops and restaurants, and filled the hotels as early as mid-September. Rebecca pushed past a few of these early costume wearers as she hustled over the cobblestones of Essex Street—a road no longer open to traffic, instead used to corral consumers into nearby establishments.
“Coming through.” Agitated, Rebecca pushed through throngs of Alice in Wonderland characters and a group dressed in Star Wars paraphernalia. She used a little more oomph to get past Darth Vader. They paid no attention to her and boisterously made their way in the opposite direction. “I’ll be glad when Halloween is over,” Rebecca muttered. She’d recently read that mumbling, at least in the eyes of seventeenth-century villagers, was the work of the devil. “Hmm. I’m not the devil!”
A woman pushing a pumpkin toddler in a stroller eyed her suspiciously.
When she reached the area near the museum, the crowds thinned out. “Thank God.” But could she truthfully thank Him? Gratitude hadn’t been her most becoming feature as of late. She continued marching forward.
Music poured out from a restaurant across from the Hawthorne Hotel.
“Again?” She trotted closer to the establishment. “Of course it is.”
Through the open window, patrons dined and talked loudly over the song blaring inside—Carolyn Sohier’s latest hit.
Rebecca turned onto Washington and headed down toward the wharf.
“Did you see that girl talking to herself?” a tourist said to another.
Rebecca held a middle finger over her left shoulder and kept walking.
At Red Vanilla, Berniece—all smiles—pressed buttons on the cash register. “Thank y’all for coming.” She handed back change to a couple dressed like Raggedy Ann and Andy.
“Cute.” Rebecca forced a smile as they brushed past her and exited.
“’Bout time!” Berniece shut the registers drawer with a clang. “You supposed to be here two hours ago. Where you been?”
“I overslept.” Rebecca installed herself on Berniece’s stool as her friend moved to the new computer set up on another section of the counter.
“I need time to get my ledger into this here accounting system.”
“I know. I know.” Rebecca combed a hand through her hair, took her keys out of her sweatshirt’s pocket, and placed them on the counter.
The door chimed and two girls, sans Halloween costumes, entered. “Is this the place where they filmed the new Carolyn Sohier movie?” said the blonde with pigtails and looking no more than sixteen.
“No,” Rebecca replied curtly.
Berniece glowered at her and turned to the girls. “As a matter of fact, Ms. Sohier sat right over there”—she pointed to the card table set up in the back—“where I read her fortune.”
“Really?” The second of the two went over to it, her braces glistening. “What did you tell her? What was her fortune?”
Berniece rose. “That she gonna be a star.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
The blonde sat in one of the folding chairs—one with a taped piece of paper on it reading Carolyn Sohier sat here. “We just love her new album.” Since the Barry Manilow concert, Carolyn had rocketed up the charts faster than Derek could blow an orgasm.
Derek. Rebecca hadn’t been with him in weeks. She cupped her chin in her palm. She longed to cuddle with him, smell the musk on the back of his neck, feel the chafe of his beard along her—
“Becky!”
“What?”
“I asked,” Berniece said with her hands hidden in the flesh of her sides, “if you could get me one them photographs behind the counter.”
“What?” Rebecca twisted the stool. On a shelf to her right sat a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white pictures. She pulled one out. “Carolyn Sohier?” A headshot of the actress with her autograph scribbled in black marker on the bottom stared back at Rebecca. “When did you get—”
Berniece pulled the photograph from her hand. “It’s ten dollars.” She handed it to one of the teenagers.
“Oh, I only have a five.” The girl looked at the note in her hand.
“That’ll do.” Berniece tugged the bill from her grip, and the girls returned to the tarot card table with the picture.
“Hey, let me sit,” said Braces to her friend. “It’s my turn.”
Berniece looked over her shoulder as she walked to the counter. “Bet you can’t wait to see the movie…next month.”
The girls were too busy studying the glossy to reply.
The store’s door rang open, and Berniece turned. “Welcome to Red Vanilla.”
Three tall figures—men?—dressed in head-to-toe black form-fitting costumes whisked in. The door slammed shut.
“You gotta restroom?” one of them asked, his voice muffled through the mesh over his face.
Rebecca pointed at the window, where a sign directed people to the public bathrooms. “Pickering Wharf has—”
“Aw, c’mon,” another one said, stinking of alcohol as he neared.
Rebecca stared at him with a lift to her eyebrow. “What do you say, Bernie? Should we let the drunks take a leak?”
The Carolyn Sohier fans paid no attention to the men and played with the tarot cards Berniece’d left on the table.
“What y’all pretending to be?” Berniece meandered over to the group.
The man in front of Rebecca pulled on a pair of strings draped over his shoulders. A set of black wings shot out from behind him. “We’re grim reapers.”
“You done passed out.” Berniece hovered over Rebecca. “The boys were just having some fun.”
On her back, Rebecca lifted her head. “What the…?” Behind her, a toilet gurgled through closed doors.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Black boots walked past her. The man had removed his mask—his brown hair matted. “Next!” he yelled to his buddy. “You got any water?” The matted-hair man peered over the counter. “She all right? Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me.” Rebecca sat up. “I just…haven’t eaten.” She cracked her neck with a twist of her head.
“There’s a case of drinks behind you,” Berniece said to the man and helped Rebecca up.
Rebecca, a bit wobbly, returned to the stool, fussing with her hair.
The man’s grim reaper wings dangled behind him as he rummaged through the refrigerated case. He brought two waters, a Coke, a Snickers bar, and a bag of Fritos to the register.
Berniece rang his merchandise.
His friend wandered out from the bathroom—the other waited outside, puffing a cigarette through a hole in his mask.
“Keep the change.” The grim reaper left a twenty on the counter. “Sorry to trouble you.”
“Why, thank you,” Berniece said, and the register clanged. With the store empty of customers—the Carolyn Sohier fans had disappeared—Berniece asked, “You want me to order you something to eat?”
“No, I grabbed a slice, downstairs, on my way over.”
Berniece shuffled over. “Then why you passing out?” She brushed back Rebecca’s bangs. “They did scare you, didn’t they?”
Rebecca shoved her shaking hands between her thighs and the stool. “No. I’ve just been in a weird space lately.”
Berniece sighed. “I know. You still flying through the air at night?”
“It’s not funny.”
“I ain’t saying it’s funny.”
“I hardly slept a wink last night.”
Berniece sat—with a loud exhale—at the computer station. “That’s why I didn’t call to remind you to come in.” Her spicy aroma, like curry for lunch, filled the air. “You could’ve stayed back at the ’partment if you wanted.” She clicked the keyboard.<
br />
“No.” Rebecca rose. “I need to get out.” She went to the rack formerly reserved for books on witch spells. “You’re selling Carolyn Sohier CDs, too?” She held her hand out toward the refrigerated chest. “It was one thing to sell tonics and snacks…don’t you think you’re taking a little advantage of the situation?”
“Becky, I need to make a buck.”
Rebecca grabbed a CD. On the cover, Carolyn wore a leopard-skin jumpsuit, bright-blue eyeliner, and her teased hair in colored spikes. “Look at her. I can tell she’s not happy. And we did this! She’s become the Leather Queen…like the album title and what her manager wanted her to be.”
“Becky, we can’t take blame for everything.”
“Blame! A month and a half ago, you were taking credit for her success. Telling Loni Hodge our magick—with a k—worked.” The three-way spell the night of the Barry Manilow concert, Berniece friending the president of Barry’s fan club over the internet prior to, and Rebecca channeling Radio City from afar: it all came into place. “I just have this awful feeling that she’s going down the wrong path.” She held out the CD. “Look at her!”
“She rolling in the dough. She don’t mind.” Berniece looked over the rim of her reading glasses. “Look, I got some stuff to do on the computer.”
The front door chimed, and a couple with a child dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle entered.
“Welcome to Red Vanilla,” Berniece said.
“Yes,” Rebecca added, “where we sell out.”
“Of everything!” Berniece moved to the patrons. “We’ve been so busy and all.”
High Above Miami
The penthouse suite Rudy got for the night cost more than some people’s automobiles. Carolyn swam in the private rooftop pool, which overlooked Miami. The city’s lights glistened, and the sounds of the ocean roared in the distance. She kicked off from the pool’s infinity edge and tore into another lap.
When she came up for air at the other end, Rudy snorted a line of cocaine from a mirrored tray. He sat, dressed in a white robe, naked beneath—for they’d just fooled around.
Carolyn, in a one-piece black suit, backstroked through the water.
A man in a tuxedo entered the rooftop patio from the suite’s living area. He uncovered a dish of berries, placed it on the table beside Rudy, pulled a bottle of champagne out from an ice stand, and filled two glasses.
“For the lady.” Rudy nodded his head Carolyn’s way.
She reversed course and breaststroked her way toward them.
The waiter knelt and left Carolyn’s glass by the edge of the pool.
When she got to it, she fingered out a raspberry, ate it, and continued swimming.
At one a.m., after bringing down the house at the Fillmore in South Beach, the last thing Carolyn wanted to do was entertain guests, but the band arrived, along with a horde of others whom she didn’t even know.
“Leather Queen!” the drummer yelled, arm extended toward her.
“Hi, Rusty.” Carolyn moved to the pool’s stairs.
“Get her a fucking towel!” Rudy demanded of another band member.
“I’m fine.” Carolyn held up a hand. “Fine.” Water dripped from her as she went to a lounge chair and dried herself with a towel.
Rusty took a beer from a bucket atop the bar. “You did great tonight, Carolyn.” The twenty-something ambled toward her.
“Thank you, Rusty.”
The gangly kid with stringy blond hair took a robe hung on a rack by the piano room and brought it over to her.
Carolyn wrapped herself in it. “Such a gentleman. And a fine musician, I may add.”
“Aw, you’re too kind.” Rusty sipped beer.
She slapped his jean-clad butt, and he laughed.
Rudy snorted more cocaine.
She went to her lover, placed her hands on his shoulders, leaned into him, and kissed the side of his head. “Take it easy.”
He shrugged her off.
In the suite’s master bedroom—larger than her entire apartment in New York—she undressed. She didn’t worry about anyone seeing her through the mirrored windows. She could see out, but no one could see in.
A splash of someone jumping in the pool aired.
“Give me a beer!” Rudy yelled.
The suite’s sound system blasted Carolyn’s CD. “Going Out of My Head” rattled the walls.
“Again? Can’t we play anyone else at these parties?” She moved to the en suite and turned on the shower. More than anything, she wanted a quiet, intimate night with her man. Instead, she got ready for the important people coming to the party.
Later, dressed in jeans, leather boots, and a low-cut white blouse, Carolyn extended her ruby-clad hand. “Jack Cantor. So nice of you to come.”
The film producer looked older than when she’d last met him. “Carolyn.” He kissed soft lips to her hand. “You’re coming to the premiere, I presume?”
“But of course.” She took her hand back. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Derek’s Problem
Back in Summerwind, Rebecca loved being in Derek’s bed—even if it was only a twin.
“What do you mean, you came?” she asked. “I thought you said you were doing better?”
Derek’s locks fell onto his forehead as he lowered his head. Semen dripped from the hair on his chest. “I-I have been. But it’s been a few days.”
“It’s-it’s all right.” Rebecca pulled the sheets over her breasts. Even with the fire snapping the air, the cold bit the room. It’d been some time since she’d made love to the German-Italian stud. While her libido remained unfulfilled, she understood, now that he’d confessed the reason for his job-place absence. “So it all started…jackhammering?”
“Yes, yes.” The doctor’s note with its explanation of his spontaneous orgasms triggered by a thought-to-be minor back injury sat on his nightstand.
She traced the nubs of her bitten fingernails along his back. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“No?”
She knew he was. “I’m glad you shared this with me. All this time, I thought you were a late bloomer, suffering from a lengthy pubescence.”
“Ha.” He lay beside her and wiped the mess of his mishap with his underwear. He nestled under the covers beside her. “I’m sorry. It makes me feel less of a man.” He kissed her cheeks and brushed her bangs from her eyes. “I want to please you.”
She got up on her elbows. “You do satisfy me. And you’re one hell of a man!” Her legs spread as his hand made its way between her folds. She smirked. “Derek…what…what are you doing?”
Moments later, Rebecca writhed in the bed, like a seventeenth-century teenager bewitched by a Salem villager. “Gawd!” Her mouth contorted, and her arched back fell to the mattress.
Derek kissed her mouth. “I’m hard again,” he muffled.
She grabbed his cock. “I’ll say.”
He lay back. “Oh, Becky.”
She fondled more. The smell of alcohol from the Scotch they’d sipped prior to wafted her way. “Oh, Seth.”
“Seth?” They both shot up. “Who’s Seth?” Again, in unison.
“I-I don’t know.” Rebecca let go of Derek’s softening penis.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Seth. She knew no one of that name. Where did it come from? Her eyelids batted.
“You have someone back in Salem, don’t you?” Derek jolted out of bed, feet slapping the floor.
“No…no. I don’t.” Her breasts jounced as she leaned across the bed and clawed at his naked, retreating butt. “Don’t leave.”
He spun around, dick flaccid. “Seth?”
Michael and Rebecca Under a Tree
Michael walked the backwoods behind the Nesbitt house. While he loved Terrence’s drive—fixated on renovating the inn for next season—he needed peace and quiet. His head ached from paint fumes and the banging of hammers. A saw whined in the distance. “You wouldn’t think y
ou’d need to go far on an island to get—”
Rebecca puffed a cigarette with her back rested against the tree—his tree.
Great. Company. He sighed. Twigs snapped under his tread. “Be careful with that cancer stick,” he said to her flinch of surprise. “You might cause a fire.”
“Oh, hi, Michael.” She tossed the cigarette package in her purse and rushed smoke out the side of her pursed mouth.
“Don’t let me stop you.”
She scraped the butt on the bottom of her shoe. “Please don’t tell Derek. I promised I’d stop.”
He dropped his knapsack by her side. “You don’t think he’ll smell it on you?” He squatted as she shrugged, and he sat ankle-over-ankle next to her.
“What’s going down?” She turned her head in his direction, but her eyes remained fixated on her shoe.
“Just trying to get away from all the construction.” He wanted her to leave—have the crisp, cool afternoon to himself—but his claiming of the spot didn’t seem to deter her.
“Must be annoying.” She placed the butt of her smoke into a paper cup by her side. Its contents slushed as she swirled it about and held it up. “Look, no fire here.”
He smirked. “What ails you?”
“Ails? What makes you think—”
“The smoking kind of gives it away.” As she picked a cuticle, he added, “And your nubby fingernails.” He couldn’t believe he was being this direct. Maybe the paint fumes have gotten to me.
She shoved her hands under her thighs.
Caught! He’d always found her a bit of a fraud, telling Carolyn this and that and “supposedly” getting her to sing at the Barry Manilow concert with the help of a couple of spells and a fan club connection. Now, he hardly ever heard from his best friend; she was so busy. He took his journal out. Maybe this’ll give her the hint. “It’s a great day to relax.”
Summerwind Magick: Making Witches of Salem Page 31