Chapter Fourteen

Frowning Down

Veda

I had a date with Salinger that night. I was spinning at my spinning wheel waiting for him. He was late.

Hattie sat down on the bench, picked up a pair of clips, and started working a nearby fleece.

“Thank you. I hate wool clips.”

“I know. When a girl spins as well as you do, it seems a crime to make her do the clips. I haven't done this since I was a teenager.”

“Does it bring back bad memories?”

“Everything brings back bad memories. Doesn't matter though. I'm here with you now instead of back there with them. This house is nicer than the house where June and I grew up. There are not eight witches inadvertently ripping the walls apart.”

Hattie had been living under my roof for two weeks, but she was less trouble than I imagined. She made no mess and though her clothes were a vibrant kaleidoscope when she arrived, she had been settling into a watercolor palette. Sometimes I came into a room and her clothes matched the wallpaper so well, I didn't notice her.

“Has June talked to you about selling the house lately?”

“No.”

“June can't afford to buy it from you by herself, but she and I are thinking of buying it together and letting you stay on. What do you think of that?”

I felt myself tearing up. “I would love it. Are you sure you don't want a different house, a better house?”

“Yours is across from the school, which pleases June and I’ll like it here if I can get a cat.”

I nodded, thinking how nice it was that we would be able to please everyone.

The doorbell rang.

“Is that Salinger?”

“I think so.” I answered the door.

It wasn't Salinger. It was a delivery man with a vase of white roses. I thanked him and brought the flowers in.

“Your boy sent flowers rather than coming? Probably not because he wanted to. He must have been held up,” Hattie commented before making another pass with her wool clips.

The note attached to the roses read, ‘This doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind.’

I felt my lips curling. Pretty evocative seven words.

Two days later, I was supposed to have another date with him. This time, a fruit basket was delivered. I liked it, but I wondered what could be keeping him from our date. Instead of worrying about it, I packed myself off to Cold as Stone. I could have gone to the yarn store instead, but Pearl's mother was less hostile toward me than the other aunts. I planned to show up and offer to work in the shop for free that evening so Pearl's parents could have the night off.

Cold as Stone was the last shop in a line of stores in an outdoor strip mall. I liked to go there, even if it meant working for free because there was so much to do there. The displays always needed refreshing and unlike Pearl, the items in the store didn’t resist my attempts to tidy them, improve them, and show them at their best.

Even before I got inside, it was obvious that something was different. The glass door was clean. That by itself was a huge tip-off that something strange was happening inside.

For starters, Pearl's parents were not around. Secondly, Pearl was manning the counter (I had never known her parents to leave the store in her hands before). Thirdly, Salinger was there. He was on a ladder doing the finishing touches on a paint job. He had painted the entire place, including the ceiling, black. It made it look instantly more credible and edgy at the same time.

A bell rang when I entered and the two of them noticed me immediately.

“Hi Veda,” Salinger called when he saw me.

Pearl made a similar sound.

I tapped my nails against the aluminum ladder. “This is what you're doing instead of our date?”

Antony was there too. He glared at me, then he pinched Pearl’s ribs so she giggled, and escaped to the back.

“He's painting the bathroom,” Salinger explained to me in low tones.

“So, you were working on this little project when you ditched me on Thursday?” I inquired.

“For some of the day. I also went to the college with Intarsia.”

“How did that go?” I asked curiously. I had been trying to get her to do exactly that for the past two years.

“She had a few ideas.”

“Such as?”

“Talking about them would jinx them, don't you think?” He crossed his fingers and continued painting above our heads.

I glanced at Pearl. She was humming and reading, completely absorbed. Her book was flat on the counter and unless I was mistaken, her toes were dancing as she leaned forward to read.

Salinger looked busy.

Nobody needed me.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I moved to leave the shop when I heard him say, “It's a real shame you're dressed so beautifully. If you weren't, you could help us paint.”

“I am only dressed up because I thought I had plans with you tonight. If you had wanted to see me, it would have made more sense for you to tell me to wear scrubs and come help,” I hissed under the ladder.

He balanced his brush on the edge of the paint bucket and came down to my level. Wiping his hands, he said, “I should have. That was insensitive. After all, you live to help people, don't you?”

I glared at him. What he said was true, but his tone while saying it infuriated me. It was practically as though he said, 'I figured you out. You're not that hard to understand after all.'

He was right, I was enchanted by the work that was happening in Cold as Stone. More than I ever could be by a mere dinner date. The place normally resembled a junk heap. By covering the ancient off-white paint job, he had sharpened everything up. Nothing made me happier than for ugly, unworkable things to be straightened out. Already, I wanted to give him a high five, and I never gave those out.

Instead, I said, “Was this your idea?”

“Of course. Everything that is about to happen is my idea.” He bent forward and whispered in my ear, “From now on, you're going to feel my magic everywhere.”

Pink cheeked, I scowled. “What for?”

He shrugged his shoulders and went back up his ladder. “Stick around. I'll take you out to eat once I’ve cleaned up and next time I do something like this during our scheduled date time, I will ask you to come along and give me a hand.”

“So you're going to be doing this sort of thing all the time?”

“I may as well make myself useful while I’m here in Edmonton. Back home, I'm a privileged brat.”

“Where did you learn how to paint if you're so privileged?”

“Sweetheart, this isn't rocket science. YouTube and the patience to do things slowly are my only tools here. I didn't say I was lazy.”

I leaned against the ladder. “And you're doing this so that I'll go bananas for you?”

“Well, you are.” He put a gob of black paint on my cheek. “Go find a book on love potions. Slipping something weird into my drink is probably your best bet if you want me to forget about you. I've made up my mind. You're mine.” He went back up the ladder. “I'll just finish this bit and then I'll come to get you.”

I rubbed my cheek and made an even bigger mess.

Pearl laughed. “So that's what you two are like when you're together! All scrappy. She's like, 'Oh! I'm gonna get away from you.' And he's all, 'No, you won't!'” Pearl chuckled until her forehead touched the pages of her book. Then she suddenly lifted her head and her pink hair bounced, which was something that never used to happen. “We should go on a double date!”

“No, we shouldn't!” Antony shouted from the back.

I was glad he objected before I could. I had only been on a handful of double dates. They were supposed to make things less awkward with more possibilities for conversation, but I had never had it turn out that way, and I didn't think there was a chance it could turn out well if the four people on the date were the four of us.

“Text me,” I told Salinger. Then I left the shop.

I had to admit that talking to him felt good. I supposed that must be what flirting was like and I had never had fun doing it with any other guy. I also experienced a surreal feeling that he had seen past my pretenses to the person I really was and he’d liked what he saw.

I'd have to give it more thought.

I went home. Fair Isle's mother, Willow, was there. I heard her talking to June and Hattie in the dining room. Keeping out of sight, I listened.

“When is she going to make up her mind?”

Neither Hattie nor June answered right away. When they did, they responded with the same words and in the same tone. “There's no need to rush.”

“I'm not trying to rush her. I haven't even spoken to her,” Willow said haughtily. “I'm asking when she will make up her mind. I've seen what will happen in my crystal ball. Probably, so have you. I'm only asking when it will happen. I'm thinking of Fair Isle. I'm not saying she's innocent. When has she ever been innocent? I'm saying she's suffering more than she needs to for what she did. Her reading Salinger's book poisoned her and I only want to help her recover. How long will it take Veda to make up her mind and get Salinger out of here?”

I expected June to speak up, but instead, it was Hattie. “I don't think my crystal ball has been showing the same thing yours has been. I haven't seen her make a decision.”

“It's plain as day,” Willow said crisply.

“Yes,” continued Hattie, “but it hasn't said the same thing two days in a row for me. She's up and down, left and right. Just because it looked that way today doesn't mean it will look the same tomorrow. You should go home and do another reading.”

“Ugh,” Willow gaped. “You sound exactly like that girl's mother.”

I had been thinking the same thing, and it opened the wound in my heart that was always fresh. Honestly, I hadn't heard my mother's voice much. The way I felt about her was pathetic. She was so rarely present in my life that when she was walking with me and talking with me, it was a rare treat. Then one day, long ago, I realized the truth. I was never going to be full. I was always going to starve, and the attention of others didn't fill the hole.

“I've been trying to channel her,” Hattie confided. “Her soul is all over the place. I wanted to ask, has she always been that way?”

“Yes,” Willow and June answered in unison.

“Because of her husband?”

“Yes.”

“Is he that horrible?”

June was the one to answer. “I met him on several occasions. In those days, he was perfectly charming. Veda gets her good looks from him. His charm wasn't evil or conniving. He was even good in a way, but he was not a superior type of man. He was like a wind chime, beauty of sight and sound, but he wasn't good for anything important. He just flipped around in the wind. I think that if Veda's mother had not been from such a solid family, she would have taken Veda with her. It's a relief she left her behind. You know, I like Salinger, because he's not the same sort of man. I have been afraid that she might fall for a man who was as flighty as her father was. Thank goodness there hasn’t been a man like him around. Salinger is like a tree with roots because of the family he comes from, but also branches because of the way he writes.”

“You want them to get together?” Willow accused.

“I have since the first time I saw him,” June said, completely without defense or offense. “I haven't been manipulating it, but I've been hoping for it. He's perfect for her. She just can't see it because she's afraid. Salinger came to me the other day and asked me to help him do some things at the school. I enjoyed the time we spent talking. He's logical, reasonable, and sweet—without being too sweet—if you know what I mean.” Then June stopped and her voice became a warning. “I am not saying that I am not sympathetic toward Fair Isle. I am. She was too young to know what she was doing when she read a book specifically designed to seduce another woman. It may take her years to undo what Salinger's book did to her in one night. It was not a fair punishment. Something needs to be done, but what? Rushing Veda into accepting Salinger is not an option. No matter what you and the rest of your coven think, it wouldn't help Fair Isle to have them out of sight. I think it might even make her recovery harder. She would just think of them as reliving the night she spent in the book and not realize that their real life is exactly that—real life.”

Willow’s anger had deflated as she replied, “I agree with you on that point, but what can we do? I can't stand to see my child suffer.”

Hattie cut in. “I will speak to Salinger. I think he may have to take some kind of responsibility for the incident. In normal life, what a dumped girl wants is closure from the boy who dumped her. Maybe there is some way for him to give her that.”

“Would he?”

I heard Hattie's smirk from the hallway.

Then my phone pinged. I wasn't sure if it was loud enough for the women in the dining room to hear. It was the text message I had been expecting from Salinger. I turned off my phone without replying and thought about what June had said. She thought he was perfect for me. The idea formed a lump in my throat that I couldn't swallow. I wasn't yet sure what that lump was made of. It might have been anger, maybe fear, but whatever it was, it couldn't be hope. I was destined to always be alone. There couldn't be a man who was made just for me, to be that mystical 'other half' that all those dopey fairy tales spoke of. That wasn't possible.