The Flower Bowl Spell (10 page)

Of course, it’s not in their nature to
fraternize outside their species. If they have to, they’re usually
all business. Like the mermaid today. I appreciate that she got to
the point. None of this mystical hide-and-go-seek her comrade has
been pulling.

Cooper asks me, “Why are you scowling?”

Our champagne arrives and he toasts me: “To
your career.” I smile and we clink glasses.

Our conversation is like a hundred others
we’ve had—what happened that day, what we read in the morning
paper, what Hillary is doing. It’s nothing like it was in the
beginning—the fervor of discovery—but I suppose it never is in any
relationship, unless one of you has a multiple personality
disorder.

We dig into an appetizer of sausage and
potatoes. The waitress, a Provencal version of Meg Ryan circa the
mid-nineties, tells us it’s a regional specialty. I’ve finished my
champagne and ask for a glass of pinot noir.

“
Ç’est bon
,” she says with an
approving smile and goes off to fetch it.

“You should speak French with them,” I
shout-whisper across the table to Cooper. It’s noisy in here under
the tin ceiling.

He nods.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Every time we go to a French restaurant you
want me to speak French. You should do it. You speak.”

“Not very well.”

“Lousy teachers?”

“Yeah.” I smile. It’s an old joke of
ours.

Meg Ryan puts my glass of pinot on the table
and I thank her and take a bigger sip than intended. As I chug, my
eyes meet the host’s. He’s bending over a table of three couples,
chatting them up. We continue to look at each other as he smiles
and winks. I smile into my glass and look away. When I look again,
he’s gone from the room.

“—at the aquarium?” Cooper is saying.

“I’m sorry? What?”

“Did you see the alligators at the
aquarium?”

“Oh. Yeah. They were asleep.”

He nods. “Speaking of, how early do you have
to leave tomorrow?”

“Pretty early. I guess the show doesn’t start
until eight, but it’s what, a five-hour drive? And I want to talk
to Yeah Right before the concert.”

“Yeah who?”

I try to explain the relationship between
Arsenic Playground and Yeah Right. Cooper nods along, but his eyes
are glazing. He has no interest in music, not even classical. Not
even French music. I think he’s the only person I know who doesn’t
have some sort of CD or LP collection, just whatever his daughter
leaves around the flat. At first I thought it might be a
deal-breaker, but I find that I always get to pick what we listen
to in the car or at home, which makes me feel like a queen.

Someone is placing steaming dishes of food in
front of us. I’m enveloped for a moment in heat so strong I’m
afraid the skin on my face will burn. My eyes water slightly from
the garlic and vinegar that make up the compote of my roasted game
hen. I look up to thank Meg Ryan, but it’s the host. He smiles at
us, as equally dazzling to Cooper as to me.

The soft pendulum light above us turns the
pale hairs on his arm a white gold as he clasps his hands. “Is
there anything else I can get you?”

“
Non, c’est super, le canard
,” Cooper
says, and the host purses his lips in Gallic delight. They
rat-a-tat-tat in French for a while, too quick for me to
understand, although I catch something on the regions of France and
Cooper’s Toronto upbringing. By the time they’re done, my food has
cooled sufficiently, and the host touches the backs of each of our
chairs in turn as he wishes us
bon appetit
before hustling
off to greet some just-arrived customers.

Cooper picks up his fork and knife and starts
sawing away at his meat. “That’s Remy.”

“Remy as in Chez Remy?”

“Um hum.”

“So he owns the place.”

“Along with his family.” Cooper points
discreetly with his fork at our waitress and towards the kitchen.
“His sister, cousins, and friends.”

I study Meg Ryan, trying to see a
resemblance. The blondness, I suppose, and the skinniness.

“Tell me more about this trip,” Cooper says.
“How long will you be gone?”

“Three nights, I think.” I take a bite of
hen. Divine.

“And the girls?”

“What about them?”

He gives a little laugh. “Where to
begin?”

I wait for him to do just that.

“Their mother abandoned them—”

“Not true,” I interrupt. “She’s coming back.”
I decide then and there that I need to read the tarot cards when I
get home. I need to be able to back up my statements, which are
unanchored buoys at the moment.

“Well, where is their father?”

“I don’t know.” I put down my utensils. “He
might be the reason Viveka left home. I haven’t been able to figure
it out. Yet.”

“I see.”

“Good, because I don’t.” I laugh
halfheartedly.

“I hope,” he says, touching his mostly
untouched champagne flute, “that you know what you’re doing.”

You and me both, dude
, I want to say,
but I just sigh.

Our waitress sweeps in with a water jug. We
both sit back from the table to give her room. I’m feeling pissy
and I’ve lost my appetite. Cooper has finished his food.

“I’m done,” I blurt. The waitress, taking it
in stride, signals to a busboy to clear our plates. We sit in
silence as our table is de-crumbed and small dessert menus are
placed in front of us. There’s nothing more I want to eat, but this
is a celebration. We agree to split an apple tart and order
coffees.

Cooper pulls out a small box from his blazer
pocket and hands it to me.

“Just a little something,” he says.

All the tension I’ve been feeling falls away.
Gifts can do that—not just the thing, but the intention. It’s too
big to be a ring, and I’m not sure how I’d feel about it if it
were. I remove the wrapping paper and pop open the box. It’s a
silver locket, an oversized butterfly with a pattern of abstracted
petals and feathers. It looks antique, or a good replica.

I haven’t worn much jewelry since I gave up
the craft. Since Alice died. Since I failed her. This locket is
nothing like the simple bead on a leather cord I gave to her, the
entire amulet steeped in my strongest protection charm.

Just because it’s a necklace doesn’t mean it
has to remind me of all of that. “I love it,” I say. “Thank
you.”

Cooper takes my hand and kisses it. I put on
the necklace and open it. It’s empty.

“You will be proud of me, your
vieux
mec
. I bought it online. I won it, I should say, in an
online auction.”

This is surprising news. Cooper, a Luddite
through and through, has little patience for e-commerce, or
e-anything. He tells me the details, relishing them, of having a
dream about a butterfly locket and then, after hunting around on
the Internet, finding one up for auction. He figured out how to
open his own eBay account and was thrilled by the idea of needing
to be a winner rather than simply a buyer. He sniped at all comers,
and while he’s too much a gentleman of manners to tell me his
winning bid, he confesses that there were eight separate bidders
vying for the piece.

“The seller’s name is Foxy Lady. Can you
believe it?”

I laugh.

“Whose picture will you put inside, I
wonder?” he says.

“Probably Rexie’s.”

He rolls his eyes. “You and your puppies.”
But he’s smiling.

We get up to go. I’m just about to shrug my
shoulders into my coat when Remy appears by my side. He takes the
coat from me and slips it up my arms. I always feel awkward when
someone helps me do that, like my arms aren’t bending the right way
and I’m sure to miss the armhole. But it goes on without a hitch.
His hands rest lightly on my shoulders for a moment, and, I hate to
admit it, I feel a little sparkly inside.

“I hope you and your father enjoyed dinner,”
he says, so softly I’m not sure he’s really spoken. I turn and look
at him. His face is too close to mine and his eyes are laughing at
me.

“We did.” I step away. “Thank you.”

As I push aside the velvet curtain at the
door, an object on the floor, no larger than a pinecone, glows up
at me. I pause to peer down at it. It’s a stone boot-scraper in the
shape of a goat. It looks up at me and blows out its lips, a
perfect, childlike raspberry.

Chapter Ten

Romola carefully places slices of Black
Forest ham and provolone on pieces of focaccia. We are assembling
road snacks at eight in the morning. Cooper has already checked the
tires and fluid levels of my middle-aged Passat, pecked me on the
cheek, and headed off to school. There’s no reason to rush. We
can’t check in to our Santa Barbara hotel until three, and the
concert is at eight. I’ve already called ahead, and the woman at
the front desk assures me they have a reliable babysitting service.
It’s not the best situation—leaving Viveka’s daughters in a hotel
with a stranger until the wee hours of the night—but Romola seems
fine with it, and Cleo only whined a little. It’s slightly
unsettling to me that I rely on them for cues as to what is
okay.

As soon as we get on the freeway, though,
regret sinks into my stomach. These are little girls! They should
be at home, not traipsing around California with a stranger. My
dashboard hula girl seems to nod in agreement. I glance now and
then in the rearview mirror at the sisters. They’re playing a
thumb-wrestling game, except instead of fighting their thumbs kiss.
I put on a Beatles CD.

“Help!” Cleo sings along. “I need a fun
bunny!”

“Help!” Romola chimes in. “Not just some
money!”

“Help!” I join in too, my voice cracking a
little. We have a singsong, getting most of the words wrong.

“Who’s your favorite?” I ask, glancing back
at them.

The girls look at me politely.

“Who’s your favorite Beatle?”

Romola shrugs. “I like the dung beetle,” she
says, and starts cracking up.

“The purple beetle!” Cleo shouts.

“No,” I say. “I mean the Beatles. The band?
You know, Paul, John, Ringo, and what’s-his-name?”

“Who’re they?”

“They’re singers—musicians.” I point at the
car stereo. “That’s them playing ‘Twist and Shout.’”

The girls don’t say anything, their eyes
roaming the speeded-up scenery of Interstate 280: rolling hills,
reservoirs, power lines.

“You knew that one song,” I say. “I’m sure
your mom has played them for you.”

Romola shrugs.

“Doesn’t your mom like the Beatles?”

“We don’t usually listen to music,” Romola
says.

“Unless we make it ourselves!” Cleo sticks
out her tongue and emits a very loud, very wet raspberry that hits
me a wee bit on the neck. Yuck. I’m reminded of the goat last night
at Chez Remy, its blank stone eyes expressionless as it made itself
known to me, for whatever reason. Was it calling Cooper an old
goat, perhaps emphasizing Remy’s mistake about our relationship? Or
was something else going on there?

Romola is laughing as Cleo attempts to stick
out her tongue and touch her nose with it. This is the silliest
they’ve been since Viveka left them with me.

“What do you mean, you don’t listen to
music?”

“Except at church,” Romola says, suddenly
serious again. “There’s singing there. We had some CDs for a while,
but Daddy took them when he gave the boom box away.”

Hm. I wonder what my next question should be.
We haven’t talked about their father since they informed me that
he’s Jesus Christ. “What kind of music did he take?”

In the mirror I see Romola shrug. “Same as
what we listen to at church.”

“Your mother used to adore the Beatles,” I
say, more to myself than to them. I remember Viveka’s John-and-Yoko
phase. She grew out her feathered hair, letting it go long and
lank. She said she wished she were born a hippie, not a witch. Only
now do I see the irony in this. “Maybe she used to sing ‘Help!’ to
you?”

“No,” Cleo says. “But Grandy did.”

Romola makes a noise. I glance in the mirror
again. She’s shaking her head at her little sister, a frown putting
a crease between her eyes that will probably be permanent in a
couple of decades.

“What?” Cleo says. “It’s okay.”

“Who’s Grandy?” I ask.

“My grandpa.”

I nod. “Does he go to your church too?”

“No.” Cleo grabs her toes. “We visit him
sometimes.”

“He lives near Disneyland!” Romola can’t seem
to help herself. There’s a look of excitement in her eyes. “His
house is really neat and he gives us whatever we want to eat and
takes us swimming.”

I voice my appreciation. This must be Tucker,
Sadie LeBrun Murray’s arranged Wiccan ex-husband. Disneyland. L.A.
It’s hard to try to find someone with my mind while driving, and
I’m also out of practice, but I zero in on the horizon and the
snaking freeway lanes ahead of us. I reach out—I still can’t get a
bead on Viveka. But Tucker is out there. I feel him wink at me, and
it makes me lose my concentration. That’s never happened
before.

Maybe Viveka has gone to him.

“Sometimes Mama listens to Pastor Dick,” Cleo
puts in. I try not to laugh. “In the car,” she adds.

“And who, pray tell, is Pastor Dick?”

“He’s on the radio. He talks and he plays
rock and roll.”

Christian rock, no doubt. I’ve reviewed a few
bands. Some of them are pretty good. Upbeat.

“Well,” I say, my ability to influence their
sorely deprived ears with some of the classics swelling inside of
me righteously, “Listen to the Beatles. They’re awesome and your
mother used to love them. Especially ‘Yellow Submarine.’”

Romola laughs. “Yellow submarine
sandwich?”

I fast-forward the CD until I find the song.
I sing along under my breath. When it ends, Cleo demands to hear it
again. I put the song on repeat and we cycle through it a few times
more. Soon they’re singing it too.