WILLEM (The Witches of Wimberley Book 1) (3 page)

I closed the door. Hector looked up from his work station, which was spread across most of what had once been a living room, and nodded vaguely. I waved half-heartedly, headed for the privacy of my room, closed the door, dropped the backpack on the bed and sat down beside it.

It didn’t take long to fish out the card. Once I had it in my hand, I sat there on the side of the bed studying the text, graphics, colors, even the textures. It was a heavyweight vellum that felt almost like fabric, cotton maybe. When I rubbed my finger over it, I realized the text was raised like old-style engraving. All things combined to make it not just draw attention, but compel.

Maybe the designer was a psychologist, but I really felt like I had to reach in my pocket, pull out my phone, and dial the number. There wasn’t even a hint as to what I’d be calling about.

Maybe it was a retirement home for psuedo actors who never even got called back for a cop/doctor/lawyer show walk-on.

What would I say if they answered?
“Hey. I have no idea why I’m calling. Some random dude standing in a moo chute audition line gave me this card and said that if I was really moving on from acting to check out the, um, witches?”

It sounded lame when I played it over in my mind. If I was on the receiving end of that call, I’m fairly certain I would hang up on me.

The hum of the little fridge in my room drew my attention. I often thought of it as my own personal version of a Hummer. So I got up and pulled a cold diet drink out. When I closed the fridge door, the hum quietened, which was unusual to the point of being rare. When I opened the can, the crack of aluminum sounded loud, like I was in an echo chamber. I supposed that’s what the space would sound like all the time without Hummer noise.

Sitting back down on the side of my unmade bed, I took a long pull on the aspartame poison, chasing the Scotch neat I’d borrowed for a nightcap at The Spot, and held the card up again. After studying it for a few more minutes, it became clear that it wasn’t going to give up any more information than before. So I put it on the bedside stand next to my trusty alarm and the bendy-neck lamp, dropped my clothes on the floor, climbed in bed, and turned off the light.

I lay awake for a few minutes thinking how strange it was to know the alarm wouldn’t be going off in the morning. I wondered if Julie would realize I hadn’t called. Seemed to me that I should feel something about pushing through the exit-only door. Since I’d dedicated a decade of my young life to the single-minded focus of becoming the next Brad Pitt, you would think I’d be depressed or morose or angry. But honestly, I didn’t feel any of those things.

The fact that I had no Plan B wasn’t scaring me or worrying me either. And that worried me. I should be worried. Right? That’s what a normal person would feel in my situation.

Telling myself that I’d delve into the metaphysical mysteries of personal self-reflection after a good night’s sleep, I turned over and shut my eyes.

Keep in mind that I used the phrase “good night’s sleep”. If that was a qualifier, then the night was disqualified. Whenever I dozed off, I found myself dreaming about every Hollywood version of witch-type characters I’d ever seen, from the high school girls in
The Craft
to the harpies subbing for Dracula’s vampire wives in
Van Helsing
.

Waking myself each time I was a hair’s breadth away from being groped, clawed, bitten or seduced, my eyes were drawn to the card pretending to sit innocently on my bedside table. I’m not going to say it glowed in the dark, but I will say that I knew where it was. After several hours of tossing and turning, I threw back the covers, grabbed the card in sleepy disgust, and put it inside the Hummer.

“There,” I said, throwing myself back onto the bed.

Twenty minutes later I imposed lucid dreaming on a dream wherein a succubus was about to suck up a lot more than my dick. She was going for the full monty, body and soul.

I jackknifed up, which put me in a sitting position looking straight at the Hummer that was vibrating away three feet from the end of my bed.

“Christ,” I said to no one.

My eyes wandered all around the fridge. I’d built makeshift bookcases with cinder blocks and boards from Home Depot and, in ten years, I’d collected an impressive library. Mostly from the half-price store. It’s amazing what treasures people are willing to give away or sell for pennies on the dollar.

Anyway, I thought about fishing out one of the tomes that really is a lullaby in printed word form, but I knew if I turned on the light I wouldn’t go back to sleep.

In a huff, I threw myself onto my right side and forced my mind to think about a jumping sheep. Not just any sheep. I’d seen a video featuring a sheep who’d been orphaned young and taken in by an Aussie family with Border Collies. The poor sheep thought she was a Border Collie and tried to play with the dogs, who were not the least species-confused. They just stared with a dog version of a WTF expression. I felt sorry for the shunned sheep who so desperately wanted to be accepted.

That’s what was on my mind when I drifted off the last time.

The next time I woke there were cracks of light around my thick-lined dark curtains. That didn’t mean I got a full night’s sleep. There were usually only two to three hours of darkness left when I turned in at night.

Life and times of a barkeep.

Turning toward the alarm, I opened one eye so I could read the time. Nine-oh-seven. The first thought that jumped to mind after that was that it probably wasn’t too early to call the number on
the card
.

Half falling out of bed, half pulling myself up, I headed to the shared bath outside my door. Jabba’s door was closed and I didn’t hear any signs of life. It was a tiny slice of heavenly experience, the times when I could pretend that I was actually alone.

Having relieved myself of the burden of Scotch, diet drinks, and vitamin waters, I stepped back into my room and looked at the Hummer. I had the oddest compulsion to take a shower and shave before making that call. I’d figured out by the time I was ten that feelings like that usually mean something and had started paying attention to them.

You might call it intuition. You might call it weirdness, but calling something weird doesn’t make it go away. It also doesn’t make it untrue.

I guess that’s what drew me to study MMPP. I find that, if you keep your eyes open and don’t shut down possibilities before they have a chance to show themselves, you’ll find that life is far stranger than most people are ready to admit. By the time I was twelve I was calling this vague and invisible sense of guidance the Voice. Not that it had an actual voice. And not that I called it that anywhere except inside my own head. Even as a child I was savvy enough to figure out that telling other people about voices could land you in the Counselor’s office when everybody else was outside for recess.

That was the long meandering way of explaining why I went back to the bathroom, used the good soap, gave myself a twenty-dollar shave and used just enough product on my hair to give myself the almost-impossible-to-pull-off-bedhead-by-design look. Over torn jeans I buttoned up a clean, pressed button down, left the shirt tail out and put a good-looking Armani sweater on over. The fashionable juxtaposition of rags and riches was hip and looked good if I did say so myself.

Too much trouble for a guy who’s straight, you say? I’d agree with you completely, but the gay boys taught me that women like clothes and don’t appreciate the practice of looking like you reached into the closet wearing a blindfold and put on whatever your hand came back with. If you want to be noticed by powerful women who can do something for you, you need to dress in a way that comes off as understated sexy. I’ve worked at that look and pretty much mastered it, even if I do say so myself.

After transforming into cover model perfection, I took a look at the room and decided that the bed should be made before the phone call. Don’t ask me why. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it sounds squirrelly. After all, I wasn’t planning a video call, but the Voice was insistent. So I took three minutes to make the bed. I even picked clothes up off the floor and put them in the duffel that I lugged to the laundry downstairs when it couldn’t possibly wait another day.

With an environment that was semi-presentable and a personal presentation that would cause most women’s mouths to water, I was ready. Or I would be after coffee.

I was more scared of venturing into the kitchen than I was of my lack of a plan for the future, but like the macho southern man I was, I forged ahead.

There was no window in the kitchen, but there was a slider door and balcony on the other side of the dinette. I flipped on the light and, more or less, stood there frozen. I may have gaped. I’m not sure. I know I was surprised.

The kitchen was spotless. Everything was in its place, whether drawer, cupboard, or cabinet and the surfaces almost gleamed. I must tell you that I’d
never
seen the kitchen like that in all the years I’d call that dump home. I realized for the first time that I hadn’t known what the kitchen looked like. Not really.

As if that wasn’t spooky enough, the coffee machine had been set up with water and coffee in a fresh filter. We had an old-style setup, but I promised myself that someday I would have one of those single cup doobies. Fancy. For sure.

Hell. Maybe Hector was turning over a new leaf, too. If he was, I’d have to stop thinking of him as Jabba. I mean a kitchen
that
clean deserves some respect. Coffee ready-to-go deserves respect plus long-lasting friendship.

So I turned the machine on and leaned against the counter smiling.

On the very day I should have been drowning my sorrows in country music and alcohol, dreading taking a bus to sweet home Alabama, and dragging my ass into my parents’ house to say, “Surprise! I’m a thirty-year-old without a degree. My only viable skill is that I can tend bar and I’m living with you again.”

That should have made me depressed enough to think about taking a carousel ride on the Santa Monica Pier and then jumping off. Of course, that probably wouldn’t be a solution because I’m a really strong swimmer. Survival instinct would kick in and force me to swim to shore. The idea of not being able to commit suicide by drowning was depressing. Or it should be. But I
didn’t
feel depressed. At all.

The only part of that scenario that was appealing was the carousel ride. Now that I think about it, I might be a little depressed about that last part because, after all, I am a grown man and, as such, know that it’s out of sorts with my image to find merry-go-rounds fascinating.

That was the stream of consciousness that was lazily filtering through my head while I waited for the coffee pot to do that gurgling hissing thing it does right at the end of the cycle to indicate it’s finished. Or dying.

I stirred sugar and coffee cream into the cup and then stood there wondering what to do with the spoon. A kitchen that looked showroom pristine just shouldn’t be spoiled with an errant spoon. So I rinsed it off. Thoroughly. Dried it. And put it back in the drawer.

No one the wiser.

It had been the most in-depth and complicated preparation for a phone call in the history of Alexander Graham Bell. All was done. No more delays or excuses.

So I returned to my room, closed the door and, for reasons I wouldn’t be able to explain, locked it. I retrieved the card from the Hummer and set it on the bedspread next to the phone. What a fine pair of items they made. A phone and its reason for existing, a potential call.

Taking a deep breath like I was embarking on breaking a channel-swim record, I dialed the number on the card. Now I was holding the phone next to my ear with one hand and holding the card with the other so that I could continue looking at it while I waited for an answer. I sat the card down and took a sip of coffee.

Ringing stopped. “Mr. Draiocht.” This was said by a man with an English accent and a no-nonsense business-like tone.

I sat blinking trying to assess how I felt about the witches knowing my name.

“How did you know my name?”

I heard a distinct sigh on the other end of the connection before the man said, “Caller ID.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Draiocht?”

“I don’t know. I was given your card. And I guess I thought that was the question I’d be asking you. What can you do for me?”