Laughing Down the Moon (14 page)

Additionally, I was becoming increasingly anxious about having agreed to see Mickey on the third of January. She was going to Vegas for Christmas and New Year’s but thought it would be a good idea if we could see each other when she returned to, as she put it, “figure things out.” I had told her that things were pretty well figured out, but she had pleaded, not in a desperate way, but in a way that made my heart break a little more for us, and so I had said yes.

The robust, skunky scent of coffee assailed me as I entered the welcoming independently owned coffee shop. The aroma dragged me over to the stainless steel counter and forced me to order the darkest roast they had. The young man who rang me up sported a bushy beard, chin length hair and a flannel shirt. Immediately I wanted to test him with a few snippets from a Kings of Leon song to see if his look was in tribute, but the only lines that came to me were from “Sex on Fire.” As I had never met this young man, I kept my wonderings to myself.

I babied my overfull coffee cup to a tall, scratched wooden table by the window. I unpacked my writing bag and got to work. It was a full twenty minutes before I even looked up from my notebook. I needed a better word for “sought.” I looked around as I considered my options. The coffee shop was littered with people who all looked busy. The girl closest to me was squinting at a Kindle and smiling to herself. Two women to my left were leaning over another woman’s laptop and all three were snickering over what they could see on the screen. There were a couple of younger women in worn leather armchairs, each engaged with her own cell phone. A man in basketball shorts pecked away at his laptop in the corner and another man used his phone to take a picture of his still-life kids at the mini caffeine-addict-in-training table. Once he had an acceptable photo, he sent it on, and the kids came back to life. The Kings of Leon guy behind the counter watched soccer on the muted TV suspended over the serving area.

I realized not one of us had a real book or even a newspaper. I sipped away at my coffee, appreciating the dark flavors. What did people do before they had their own technological devices? Talk to each other? I hadn’t frequented coffee shops as a kid so I didn’t know, but I’m guessing it used to be a very different scene. I looked down at my notebook and felt out of date. I liked the lines and the smudges of pencil, but there might come a day when I skipped this step and went straight to the computer for my drafts. Not today though, I thought as I hunted for a replacement for “sought.”

I had to smile to myself because I was feeling happy and that was a welcome change. If I admitted it, I almost felt content, like I was myself again. I swung my legs under the stool and grinned into the faces of strangers. Most of them smiled back at me. Could The Funk really be gone?

Then my own little piece of technology alerted me to a call. I scooped my cell phone off the table. It was Elizabeth. I hesitated before answering.

“Hello?”

“Hi Allura, it’s Elizabeth.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Is this a good time to talk?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied. I wouldn’t have answered my phone if it hadn’t been a good time to talk. Why was she calling? Did she want to apologize? Funny, I thought, how when a few things start going right, everything follows. I gladdened over the prospect of us mending what we had damaged the other day at The Chatterbox. I would apologize to her too, I decided.

“Good,” she said. I waited for her to say more, but she was silent.

“How are you, Elizabeth?”

“Fine.” She sounded curt. Maybe she wasn’t calling to make up with me. I felt my smile disintegrate into a straight line. I reached up to my throat to twist my beads and discovered there were none. What the hell? Hadn’t I put any on this morning? That was so unlike me. Or had they fallen off? Elizabeth finally spoke again.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” she began.

My gaze swept the floor as I listened to her. I grasped the table’s edge so I wouldn’t topple off the stool. The only thing down there was a wadded up straw wrapper. No beads. I tried to remember what beads I had selected that morning. Nothing came to me. I probably hadn’t chosen any. Very unusual.

“Yes?” I prompted the silence. No inkling of an apology lingered.

“Well, you were way out of line, Allura, way out of line. You have no idea what happened between me and Daniel and you were—”

“Way out of line, I get it.” I tried to control my rising pisstivity. I took a deep breath. “Elizabeth, I think I got defensive with the way you came at me about Mickey. You’re right, I don’t know anything about wha—”

“You’re right, you don’t. And I should be coming at you hard about the way you treated Mickey!” She aimed her words like spears and chucked them at me through the phone. “We should all be coming at you hard for that. I don’t know how Trisha and Heather can forgive you. You really screwed up.”

“Elizabeth,” I said.

“No! You were wrong on both accounts,” she spat, “and you wait, you’ll be wronged by someone soon. You just wait!”

“Elizabeth,” I tried again as she took a breath, but she cut me off once more.

“You think you’re untouchable? You think no one will ever cheat on you? You think that?” she ranted.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen, seeking reason or sensibility in the mundane icons. I could hear her tinny screeching even though my ear was more than a foot away from the phone. I caught my reflection in the surface of the phone’s screen. My brow was knit and I was biting my lower lip. I raised my eyebrows at myself in the reflection. Smiling cow pose. I smiled at myself, but I was full of anxiety over Elizabeth’s outburst.

Her rage was still audible, and I heard no signs of it ending any time soon. Something was seriously wrong with her. What did she mean when she said I thought I was untouchable? And I’d be wronged by someone soon? Would I? I knew it was the last thing I should do, but I disconnected anyway. My hand shook. Tears pressed dangerously close. I didn’t want to cry, not over her and not in this coffee shop. I took another deep breath.

I tossed my phone into my writing bag, closed my notebook, packed up and then just sat there with my chin in my hand. No beads to twist. I looked out of the window, not seeing much. I had felt so good a few minutes ago. Had I been wrong to compare Daniel’s sex addiction to Mickey’s alcohol addiction? I hadn’t said it to be malicious; I had said it to help Elizabeth understand where I’d been coming from with Mickey. I had thought it might even bring us closer since we both had partners with addictions in common. Or exes with addictions, I should say. The acrid bite of my cooled coffee attacked my taste buds as I emptied my cup. The skies had grown bruised, and it looked like a cold rain, or maybe snow, was on its way. I slithered off the stool, grabbed my bag and let The Funk escort me out of the coffee shop.

Book of Shadows

Spell for Requesting Guidance

Cast the circle with burning sage.

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Light one red candle to take away the indecision.

Light one white candle to infuse self with confidence in decision-making.

Inscribe glyphs for the Sun, Mercury and Jupiter on a cut open paper bag.

Place the paper on the floor between the candles.

Stand with bare feet firmly rooted to the paper.

Greet and honor the four directions and the universal elements.

“Sun, I invoke the glow, warmth and steady energy you provide.

I’ll let your brilliance guide me in all decisions.

Jupiter and Mercury, I request your powers of change and speed as I make decisions. I thank you for your presence. I trust that your combined guidance and powers will lead me along the correct paths in my life. Thank you.”

Stay rooted to the paper and allow the energies of the Sun, Mercury and Jupiter

to travel upward through feet, legs, hips, belly, heart, chest, shoulders, neck and head.

Open self to the guidance that is present.

Thank the four directions and the universal elements.

“Blessed be Creatures of Light.”

Extinguish both candles and open the circle.

Fold the paper glyph-side out and place it under the mattress so that the guidance

might be revisited each night.

Chapter Eighteen

Solschristice

The acorn hit me square between the eyes.

“Hey!” I yelped, rubbing the spot where the pointy little cap or bottom made contact with my head. “What was that for?” I asked Veronica. We were sitting on opposite sides of Trisha and Patrick’s low oak coffee table in their living room, gluing miniscule red ribbons to acorns so that we could dangle them from our Solschristice tree.

“Where are you?” Veronica asked me as Patrick plunked himself down on the floor next to her, holding his wineglass so high that if he did spill it, it would hit his dark green fleece shirt rather than just splashing the floor.

“Patrick, why’d you hold your glass high as you sat down?” I asked him.

“What do you mean,” he asked.

“Hey!” Another acorn bounced off my head, this time hitting me above the ear because my face was turned toward Patrick.

“Quit changing the subject,” Veronica demanded. “What’s on your mind—you have been somewhere else for the last twenty minutes. What gives? Where were you?”

I had been somewhere else. I had been making out with Shiloh, letting her run her hands from my head to my naked toes, pressing her body into a huge four-poster bed with fat down-filled comforters tangled between our bare legs, pressing her bikinied body into the sand on a beach as the tide splashed us and added to the urgency of our passion, being kissed by her sweet mouth as December finally acted like December and the long-awaited snow drifted from the bitterly cold sky and covered our naked bodies that were pressed tightly together for heat—that’s right, we were naked outside in December. It didn’t make sense, but that’s where I had been for the past few moments.

“Nowhere, I’m right here,” I said. I tried to control the blush rising from the collar of my already red cardigan, but I was unsuccessful. My face was hotter than the fire roaring beside us.

“Yeah, whatever,” Veronica said, winking at me.

She backed off when she saw my blush. She probably felt sorry for me if wherever my mind had wandered brought out this type of reaction. I made a mental note to make her an extra Yule gift this year for dropping the subject. Patrick sipped his wine with a bemused expression. Trisha was due home at any moment, so we were killing time before we ate dinner and began celebrating our hybrid Solschristice holiday together.

I was looking at Patrick’s hand on the stem of his wineglass so that I wouldn’t start daydreaming about Shiloh again, when I heard a frenetic popping behind me.

“Jesus!” Patrick yelled just as Veronica screamed, “Oh my Goddess!” We all jumped up, and they both lunged behind me toward the fireplace. Patrick dashed the wine from his glass onto our Solschristice tree, which was a good idea. Veronica flapped her full black taffeta skirt at it, which was a bad idea. The pine started to smolder—the long needles on its backside where it had been leaning against the brick hearth became wicks with little reddish orange sparks that were quickly traveling up each needle toward the trunk where they turned into bigger reddish orange sparks. The popping noise grew louder as more of the needles became fuses that were bursting into flames.

“Open the door, open the door!” Veronica cried out as Patrick tried to figure out a safe place to grab the tree. I scrambled toward the front door, shoving the big armchair out of the way and threw open the door. There stood Trisha with her gloved hand outstretched toward the doorknob.

“Move!” I hollered into her startled face, and she jumped aside as Veronica holding the tip and Patrick holding the trunk ran through the open front door like they were storming a castle with a glowing, smoking battering ram. Trisha and I stomped the little sparks on the floor as Veronica and Patrick beat the tree on the snow-less earth in the front yard. Tiny embers jumped away from the tree as they pounded it on the ground. I searched around for any renegade glimmers on the front porch. Trisha ran inside to do the same. When I looked back at Patrick and Veronica, they were staring down at the tree like they were paying respects at a funeral.

“I guess we won’t need to make as many acorns as we thought,” Patrick said, his voice sounding bright in the darkness.

“That could’ve been really bad,” Veronica said, shaking her head.

“But it’s all right,” Patrick said. He leaned over, reached into an especially bare spot midway down the tree, grabbed the trunk, pulled it upright and said, “There’s a lot of tree left.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek and tugged my amethyst beads. The tree was more gone than here, but I could tell from the way Patrick was beaming at it that it was coming back in the house to be decorated with acorns, cranberries, popcorn and an angel in white. Patrick hoisted the half-singed pine over his shoulder and lugged it back in through the front door. I could hear Trisha inside asking Patrick if we were all okay and if the tree fire was completely out.

Veronica and I looked at each other. Her face went from frozen shock to devoid of emotion to bursting with humor all in a matter of seconds. We laughed like delirious hyenas right there in the front yard.

“Oh, my Goddess!” she hooted, pulling her cheeks down or warming them up with a hand on each side of her face. She laughed more quietly and said, “You know this is all your fault; your daydreaming took you away. We could have all perished in there!” She was still laughing and her brown eyes sparkled.

I delivered a playful shove to her shoulder and said, “My back was to the fire—you’re to blame for this—you should’ve had my back!”

She grabbed my sweater front with both hands, pulled me so close that our foreheads were touching and said, “Happy Solstice, Allura!”

I hugged her and laughed a happy solstice into her shoulder. We walked back toward the house, leaving the tension of an almost-calamity out in the front yard. She kept one arm draped over my shoulder until we got to the front door.