Enter Three Witches (11 page)

Contrary to his gloomy predictions, Bren found that the next two days in the theater were more fun—more what he had imagined in the beginning. He was working on the stage, for one thing, hanging and focusing the long line of Fresnel lights that hung on a pipe just inside the front masking curtain. First he brought the pipe down onto the stage, where he could put the lights in roughly the right positions and connect the cables. It was positively luxurious to do this work with both feet on the floor. Even after the pipe was hauled back into place, he was able to stand on a short, sturdy ladder while Eli turned the lights on in pairs and called directions for focusing.

Erika worked almost at his feet, hammering nails with surprisingly deft strokes into an intricate network of wooden struts that would become a tower of the castle. Jeremy was in the shop constructing a banquet table with one false side, designed to conceal the actor who would play Banquo’s ghost. When the changing of the lights made it too dark for Erika to see, she came to the foot of the ladder and talked to Bren. Her high spirits seemed to have returned completely.

They left the theater each night in a festive mood, but this spirit of camaraderie was not, in the end, to Bren’s advantage. On the evening of the second day, as they stood together on the corner, Erika made her bid for a return invitation. “It’s too nice a night to just go home,” she said. “Why don’t we go over to your house for a change, and you can introduce me to Luna. Now that I’ve made friends with Shadow, a cat should be easy.”

“That just shows how little you know about cats,” Bren said, playing for time. If he had ever imagined a day when it might be even halfway safe to take her home, this particular one would have been low on his list.

His mother had risen early with a fanatical gleam in her eye and had gone to the phone to invite Bob to dinner. Bren could have told her that before breakfast was a bad time to ask his father anything, but surely she must know that. He fixed his own breakfast in the center of a cyclone, but was allowed to eat it in peace while Miranda went off, muttering darkly, to her studio. Then, as he warily climbed the stairs to fetch his books, he saw a purple haze drifting through the half-open door of the tower room and glimpsed his mother poring over an enormous tome under the fixed blue stare of Luna, who sat like a pharaoh’s cat, paws together, encircled by her tail, on the edge of the desk. It was possible, but not likely, that conditions in the house on Eighty-fourth Street would have improved by nightfall.

Erika was looking stubborn, and Bren improvised hastily. “Tonight’s no good,” he said. “We just had the floors done. Mom said everything would be sticky, with just a tiny path from the front door to the bedrooms. I expect we’ll have to go out to dinner. You couldn’t see the house at all or sit down in the kitchen, which is really the neatest place.”

“What about the animals?” Erika asked suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Bren confessed. “Good question. They’re probably shut up in the attic.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “I think you’re making the whole thing up to keep me out of your house. Honestly, Bren, you’d think it was some kind of chamber of horrors with skeletons in the corners and bats flitting around.”

Bren was indignant. “What an idea. Who would want to live with a lot of bat droppings all over the place?”

“Who indeed?” Erika said. “But until I see it, that’s what I’m going to think.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to think the worst for a few days. I hear this floor stuff takes ages to dry.”

“That’s just about the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Erika said. “But never mind. I get the picture, Bren, and don’t worry. I won’t ask again.” She turned and started off down Broadway.

“Erika!” Bren cried. “Wait a minute. You don’t understand.”

“That’s what you think,” she called over her shoulder, and swung away down the crowded sidewalk.

Bren stood on the corner looking after her in despair. He wondered briefly if it wouldn’t have been better to take her home, then shuddered at the possibilities. He would open the living room door to disclose his grandmother crouched over her crystal ball, or Louise would be sweeping the hall in the full splendor of her purple dashiki. Madame Lavatky would be climbing the scale to her shattering high C, and the door to the studio would be open upon a scene of some inexplicable weirdness. The situation was impossible and could only get worse. Bren cursed himself for the feebleness of his lie. It had seemed quite inspired as a spur-of-the-moment effort, but he would have to do better. If I ever get a chance, he thought as he turned toward home. If she ever believes a word I say or even wants to try.

The next day was Saturday, and Bren endured a full afternoon in the theater with Erika. She seemed, in paint-spattered black jeans and sweatshirt, more attractive than ever, an effervescent, elfin girl whose gaiety was dispensed in equal measure to all three of her fellow technicians. He had become no more special than Eli or Jeremy or probably even the janitor. He ground his teeth and struggled with the big floodlights in front of the backdrop. Eli was being unusually hard to please. Bren thought the ghastly afternoon would never end, and when it did, he returned from the lighting storage room to find that Erika had gone.

Sunday’s weather was heartbreakingly fair. “I am not going to call her,” Bren said to Shadow as they wandered from tree to garbage can in the shimmering early morning light. “She’ll have to call me, and she’ll have to be quick about it. We’re not going to waste this day, old friend, waiting for some girl to call.” Shadow wagged his tail and looked hopefully toward the park. Five minutes later Bren was back in the kitchen at the phone, listening to Erika’s phone ring and ring and ring. It was hard to imagine that neither Erika nor her father was home at this hour on a Sunday, but after about twenty rings, he had to conclude that they were either out or had turned off the bell.

Bren sat down to a gloomy and solitary breakfast. Before he had finished, the telephone rang and sent him dashing across the kitchen with a pounding heart, but it was only his father.

“What’s the matter?” Bob asked. “You sound like you’ve lost your best friend. How about brunch?”

“Brunch?” Bren growled. “I just finished breakfast.”

“Not now, for God’s sake. I’m still in bed. I was thinking of something civilized like one o’clock.”

“That’s lunch,” Bren said, “but never mind. I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me about brunch in New York. Isn’t it too nice a day to spend inside some restaurant?”

“Come on, Bren. I know a new Mexican place—tacos, chili, margaritas. You’ll love it, and I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

So that’s it, Bren thought. Terrific. Tacos and margaritas (which he probably wouldn’t be allowed to have) and his father’s new girlfriend. His mind raced, trying to come up with a good excuse, but in the end he couldn’t refuse his father. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “Thanks, Dad. Just tell me where and when.”

Bren went back to his breakfast, now cold, and finished it with a kind of grim determination. He was not hungry but felt an obscure need to fortify himself for whatever the unpromising day might bring. As the last crumb of toast went down, his mother came in. She was wearing her old bathrobe, looking frazzled and friendly. Calling a cheerful good morning, she went to the refrigerator and, to Bren’s consternation, produced a quart of pancake batter and a package of bacon.

“I was looking for you upstairs,” she said. “How nice you’re still here. We can have a real old-fashioned Sunday morning breakfast. You didn’t eat much, did you?”

“Eggs, toast, and juice,” Bren said. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You can eat a few pancakes, I’m sure. Boys your age are bottomless pits.” Miranda began putting an alarming quantity of bacon in a large frying pan. She seemed happy as a lark. Bren loosened his belt and resigned himself to being a good son. Sometimes he felt that pleasing his parents was a full-time job, all the more so since they had taken to leading separate lives.

Breakfast, nevertheless, was a pleasant meal, except for the growing discomfort of his stomach. Miranda was interested in the play and managed to talk about it without once alluding to its witchy aspects. Bren found he had more to say about stage lighting than he would have thought possible. It was almost the first time he had thought about lighting as an activity divorced from its associations with Erika. He expounded, and his mother, who could be a good listener when she chose, took in every word. It was only as he was struggling out of his chair, intent on reaching the park in time to walk off his second breakfast, that he made a false move.

“That was great,” he said. “Just don’t plan too much for supper. I’m already two meals ahead, and in a couple of hours I have to have brunch with Dad.”

Miranda stopped on her way to the sink. “Brunch?” she said. “Lucky you. I didn’t think your father was into brunches.”

“I didn’t either,” Bren said cautiously, “but I guess he is. I whined about going to the park on such a nice day, but he was determined, and I decided to humor him.”

Miranda sighed. “Well, I wouldn’t mind going in your place. I never go anywhere these days, but I suppose he wouldn’t appreciate the substitution.”

“Not perhaps this time,” Bren said unwisely.

“What’s special about this time?” Miranda snapped.

“Nothing, so far as I know. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Who’s jumping to conclusions?” she cried. “I suppose he’s bringing his paramour.”

“What a silly idea,” Bren said. “And what a silly word. Nobody has paramours anymore.”

“That’s what you think,” Miranda said. “And just remember, Bren. If she’s there, you know what I want.” She brightened suddenly. “Maybe you could actually get a strand of hair. You could snag it on the sleeve of your jacket.”

“I’m wearing a T-shirt,” Bren said, “and besides, no one else is going to be there, Mom. You’re making this whole thing up.”

“We’ll see about that,” Miranda said darkly.

In spite of the brilliant October sunshine, the Mexican restaurant was dim, its windows shrouded by heavy orange curtains printed in black with scowling images of Aztec deities. The walls and ceiling were more cheerfully adorned with a vast collection of Mexican artifacts—clay jugs, baskets, masks, candlesticks, tin mirrors, and colorful weavings.

Bren took all of this in before he found his father in the farthest corner of the room. Bob West was not looking for his son; he was leaning across the table, which was surely too small for three, and gazing into the eyes of a woman with red hair. I could turn around and leave, Bren thought, and they’d be halfway through dessert before they realized I hadn’t come. Curiosity, however, held him, and while he stared, a hostess in Mexican costume asked him if he was meeting someone.

“My father,” Bren said, “over there in the corner,” and allowed himself to be led to the third place at the tiny table.

Bob jumped, nearly knocking over the tall, frosty glass in front of him. “Bren, oh good. You’re here. This is Alia. Alia, this is Bren.”

A dazzling smile illuminated the thin, dark face of Bob’s companion, and she reached both hands out to Bren.
“Ma che bello!”
she cried. “Bobby, you did not tell me. He is the image of you. So like! How happy I am to see him at last.”

At last? Bren thought. How long has this been going on? “Hi, Alia,” he said, and gave her outstretched hands a perfunctory squeeze. He was startled to see that his father’s face had turned bright red.

Bob took a hasty swallow from his drink. “We started ahead of you, old boy. I hope you don’t mind. Not that you’re late. We were a bit early. Waitress, another margarita, please.”

The waitress, who had been hovering nearby, stared at Bren with beady black eyes, shrugged, and turned toward the bar.

His father’s mistress (there no longer seemed any point in hoping that she was anything else) continued to gaze rapturously at Bren. Her eyes were very dark and, along with her olive skin and sharp, Mediterranean features, contrasted strangely with her furiously red hair.

“Alia’s from Italy,” Bob contributed proudly, as if he had been unusually clever in acquiring an Italian girlfriend.

“From the Veneto,” Alia said, “where there are so many people with red hair like mine. Perhaps you did not know this?”

“Lucky you,” Bren said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Venice.”

Alia sighed dramatically. “Ah, it is beautiful. You cannot imagine, but in New York I find so much more.” She turned her smile once more upon Bob and then switched it back to Bren, who was unpleasantly reminded of a searchlight. His drink arrived, and Alia raised her glass. “To my new friend, Ben,” she said, “and to my so good old friend, Bob. Such wonderful American names!”

Bren raised his glass. “It’s Bren,” he said, “with an
r
, but thanks anyway.
Salute.”

Alia clapped her hands. “Adorable! Don’t tell me, Bob, he speaks Italian. I will love him instead of you, if he speaks Italian.”

“That would be news to me,” Bob said. “Do you speak Italian, Bren?”

“Of course not. Everybody knows a few toasts.” Bren took a swallow of his margarita, a drink that was new to him, and found its curious mixture of salt and lime appealing. He wondered if there was much alcohol in it and decided to drink some more quickly and find out.

Alia turned the full force of her personality back to his father, and now, as she reached a slender hand to pluck at his sleeve, Bren saw her enormous ring. It was silver, intricately engraved with some kind of script that was at once strange and familiar, and its unusually high crown was set with a dark red stone. He looked more closely and saw that on one side was a little knob that looked like the clasp to a tiny box. Catching his gaze, she withdrew her hand quickly and put it in her lap, all the while laughing and chattering to Bob.

Intrigued, Bren turned his attention to the rest of her jewelry, meanwhile draining his drink. There was no doubt now about its alcoholic content, and he felt greatly fortified to face the rest of the brunch. Jewelry, he observed, must be one of Alia’s weaknesses, and though he knew little about the subject, he was struck by the oddity of her ornaments. Both wrists were entwined with copper bracelets of serpentine design, and around her neck was a formidable necklace of rough-cut amber beads. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, something his mother had said one night when, dressing to go out, she had adorned herself with a different but equally ill-assorted collection.