Winds of Salem (24 page)

Gracella removed her rubber gloves and apron, and Joanna took her by the hand, guiding her to the living room, where they sat on the couch.

“You see, Miss Joanna, you have been so kind to me and my family. I really don’t want to seem like I am asking for anything. It’s j-just…” she stammered.

“Come, come, Gracella, let it all out,” encouraged Joanna, patting her on the knee.

Gracella nodded and forged on. She reiterated that Joanna had been so generous putting Tyler in preschool. “But now he is kindergarten age, and the public school is terrible. My friend Cecilia said that there is a lot of bullying going on there—and as you know, Tyler is not like most kids. He’s too smart, for one, and takes everything too literally. I am very worried the children will pick on him…”

“Ugh!” said Joanna. “When is all that bullying going to end? You read about it in the papers all the time.” She realized that in all this distress over Freya she had forgotten that she had meant to do something about Tyler’s schooling in September. There was no way she would let him be subjected to bullying. He needed to be with children who were as special as he was and teachers who would nurture such uncanny intelligence.

“Of course we are going to do something about it. Tyler will not enroll there in the fall, don’t worry.”

Gracella wiped at her nose and cheeks, sniffling a little as they hugged.

Joanna wasn’t rich, but she had some money socked away for emergencies such as this. She was going to go upstairs and give Norm a ring, tell him to hold off on looking for that new car today—did they really need a second one?—and ask if he had any pull at some of those fancy private schools in the Hamptons.

The next day Joanna and Tyler were on their way to their first appointment at one of the most prestigious elementary schools in the area. It had been recommended by a certain Hamptons creative set. Norman had a painter friend who was on the board, a successful artist whose shows often got rave reviews in the
New York Times
and was written about in the
New Yorker.
Norman had pulled some strings to secure the appointment for Joanna and Tyler.

She parked the car in the lot, which was surrounded by a neatly trimmed boxwood hedge. “This looks nice,” she remarked to Tyler as she squeezed into a spot.

She took Tyler’s hand, and they made their way across what appeared to be a large soccer field. It was cold out, but in the field sat a circle of little girls and boys wearing wings over their heavy coats. At the center of the circle, a woman with long pink hair, wearing much larger wings over a long violet coat, held a book in one hand. She was gesticulating as the children attentively watched her.

“This looks fun!” she said to Tyler, somewhat skeptically.

The pink-haired woman and little children waved as they strode past them toward the schoolhouse. A man with a shag and scraggly beard, dressed in white, waited out front. Joanna wondered if she had stepped into the seventies, if the passages of time had in fact reopened.

“Mr. Rainbow?” she asked.

“Just Rainbow.” He smiled. “There are no such formalities around here,” he said as they shook hands.

“Well, I’m Joanna Beauchamp, and this is Tyler, the boy in question.”

Rainbow kneeled down to be at Tyler’s eye level. “Hello there, Tyler.” He winked, tousling the boy’s curls.

“Hey,” responded Tyler, then he looked down at his feet and kicked at the cement, intimidated by the man’s overfriendliness.

“Come on inside and see one of the classes in session.”

Joanna and Tyler followed Rainbow into the school. Children’s paintings decorated the walls. The school was bright with sunlight, airy, and smelled of Elmer’s Glue. They pushed through doors into a hallway and made their way down it. She could hear fun, happy Spanish-sounding music.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The class is in ‘movement’ right now.” Rainbow swung a
door open onto a huge room with blond wood floors, where boys and girls shifted desultorily about, some spinning in circles, some wandering off into far corners, all appearing to have no real sense of direction.

“Movement?”

“Other schools call it ‘physical education,’ ” he explained with a look of distaste. “You want to dance, Tyler?”

Tyler shook his head no, then looked at the floor.

“That’s okay. In time. But if the mood strikes you…”

“Can you tell me about the curriculum?” asked Joanna.

Rainbow smiled in his affable way. “This is an experimental school. For movement, we might take the children out to the gym and have them invent their own ball game. We like our students to feel free to express themselves in order to reach their full potential.”

“Even when it’s freezing outside?”

“What is weather anyway?” Rainbow smiled.

Joanna attempted a serious expression while Tyler did a little break-dance move beside her.

“That’s fantastic!” said Rainbow. “Keep going, Tyler!”

Tyler stopped immediately and watched the dancing children.

Joanna expressed her concerns about bullying, and Rainbow reassured her that there was none of that here. The school was a breeding ground for pacifism, if anything. Classes were given in an impromptu, unstructured fashion, often letting the children themselves dictate the tone. There were no textbooks or homework or lesson plans. The staff believed they were in the middle of creating something new, revolutionary, creative, and were inventing it as they went along. The mission statement: “Freedom in learning. Learning in freedom.”

The cafeteria was vegan, using local organic produce only, which added to the already prohibitive tuition, of course, but
who would want their kids to eat anything else? Rainbow happily rattled off the illustrious names of all the rich and powerful and famous parents who had donated time and money (a lot of money) to make the place what it was today.

The more she learned about the school, the more Joanna grew wary that Tyler would learn anything here. She imagined the classes as utter chaos. Children needed—even wanted—discipline and structure. They needed
books
.

The music changed; this time it was a man singing in an angelic, operatic voice. The children drifted about, waving their arms as if they were flying, mimicking the movements of the young woman who began to lead them.

“So if there are no books, how do the children learn to read?” she asked. “Or do they not?”

“Oh, they do! They do!” said Rainbow. “Somehow they do,” he added with a serene smile.

“What about when they go to high school? Won’t making the transition be a bit like culture shock? This is so different.”

Rainbow gave her another big, happy grin. “I’m not saying there aren’t going to be challenges later.”

Joanna sighed. Oh well. At least there wouldn’t be any bullies. And Rainbow did say the kids learned to read…
somehow.
“When are applications due?” she asked.

The serene smile left his face. “You have not applied?”

“No?”

Rainbow shook his head sorrowfully. “I am so sorry. Applications were due a year ago. We only have sixteen spaces, and we had hundreds of families apply. I am so sorry.”

And that was when Joanna realized that the little school with no textbooks, no lesson plans, and no physical education did have one thing: a surfeit of prestige—which was the one thing that mattered in the Hamptons.

chapter thirty-one

Tequila Sunset

Leaning against the cash register in a plaid shirt and jeans, Freddie crossed his arms as he ran an eye down the bar of the North Inn. The lone bleached blonde at the end, with oversize pearls and coral lipstick, was tilting off her seat, and he thought he better cut her off soon and call her a cab. Overall, he was getting good at this mortal thing, being unable to avail himself of his powers. His customers had drinks and ramekins of peanuts. It was midweek, early in the evening. Sal was in the back, playing poker with his septuagenarian buddies, and Kristy was home with Max and Hannah.

AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” began to play on the jukebox, the tolling of bells followed by a guitar’s opening riff. Freddie dug a beer out of the ice bin and popped it open. He took a long, hard swig, exhaled a satisfied sigh, and looked up at the hockey game on the old-school TV above the bar. His team was in the midst of scoring a beautiful goal and they were winning.
Small pleasures,
he told himself.

He always sensed the shift in atmosphere when a customer entered the bar. This time he felt it before the door opened. One second he flicked his eyes at the door and it was closed, the next the door swung open and someone was walking through it. He still had a little magic in him after all. The man striding toward
him was nearly as tall and wide as the doorframe itself—football-player size, at least the breadth of his shoulders.
Wait a second,
thought Freddie,
I know this guy…

“Odin’s beard!” Freddie said.

“Wha?” Troy laughed, swinging a hand out at him. Freddie grabbed it and his old friend tugged him forward to give him a bear hug over the bar top. The young men patted each other hard on the back as they laughed.

Troy took a seat. “Hey, man!”

“Wow! Look at you!” Freddie shook his head and whistled. “Thor, how have you been, my friend?”

“Good, good, everything’s great. Good to see you, man. I saw Ingrid the other day. She told me you were here. So… here I am!”

“That right?” said Freddie with a grin. “Wow! Ingrid, huh? Erda and Thor.” He laughed.

“Yep! Except I go by Troy Overbrook now.” He swung his bangs out of his face.

Freddie shook his head with a smile. “Troy Overbrook, Freddie Beauchamp at your service. What can I get you?”

Troy eyed the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. “How about we have ourselves a little reunion celebration?” He squinted at Freddie and gave a nod. “Tequila?”

“Perfecto!” Freddie got an unopened bottle of Sauza Gold along with shot glasses and dewy cold Coronas. He had already finished his own beer. He set the tequila and beers down between them. They licked salt off their fists, slammed down their shots, bit into limes, and took deep swigs of the chasers.

Troy flashed his glowing white teeth.

Freddie saluted Troy with his beer bottle. “What the hell have you been up to?” He didn’t usually drink on the job, but this reunion was a special occasion.

As they downed more tequila shots and beers, Troy proceeded to tell Freddie about his life in Midgard. He told him about his more recent fiasco: the after-hours club he had owned in the city, and how he finally had to give up the ghost. He had sold it and made a modest but decent chunk of change. He believed the club’s lack of success was somehow related to their magic waning. Then, on a last minute whim, Troy had decided to spend the winter in North Hampton and enjoy the quiet. He had some business here.

Freddie lifted his eyebrows inquisitively at Troy as he poured two more shots that spilled over the glasses.

“Well, I kind of just wanted to see Erda, to tell you the truth.” Troy shook his head. “I mean Ingrid. You know, give it the old college try.” The Sauza had loosened his tongue.

“Oh,” said Freddie. “Right, well, good luck with that!” He grinned.

“Help me out here, Freddie! A guy needs all the help he can get. Can’t you do something? I mean, she’s your sister! She really serious about that mortal?”

Freddie hiccupped. He took a long swig of beer, which seemed to help. “Sure looks like it. Sorry, bud.”

They laughed good-naturedly. Freddie replenished their beers, and they drained two more shots and bit into lime quarters, making puckered-up faces. Freddie quickly served the new customers who had wandered in, disappointed to find Freya and her pop-up drinks were gone, but Freddie made them forget his sister soon enough with his own brand of magic: being an energetic, good-looking guy at the bar. He refilled a few drinks, and returned to Troy, all ears, but not before pouring himself and Troy two additional shots.

Troy regaled him with tales from his immortal life—in Roman times, he had been a senator (tons of gold, bacchanalia, and
debauchery); in sixteenth-century France, he had lived in the courts of kings (more gold and oh-so-many lovely breasts heaving up from tight corsets); then in the nineteenth century, he was with Jefferson in Paris (excellent cash flow and not stodgy at all—in fact, the libertines were total babes). And on it went with raves about gold and women, then eventually cars and motorcycles.

Freddie had started to feel a little edgy—or, rather, envious of Troy. His friend had lived all these amazing lives. What had Freddie done since he’d arrived in Midgard? Since he had made his way back from Limbo, he had fallen for this chick, Hilly, who had totally bamboozled him and he ended up forced to marry her sister, and just when he had completely fallen for Gert, she had left him. Most of his time in mid-world had, in fact, been spent playing video games, if he really thought about it. He had put out a few little house fires, but big deal.