The Bad Lady (Novel) (13 page)

“Are you sure I can ask you this question, you won’t get mad?” I now sported a tank top shirt, and had my Nike sneakers on, without socks.

After taking a bite of her sandwich, my mother hesitated before chewing to evaluate my eyes. “Well I can’t guarantee that,” she says, rather serenely. “Not until I know what the question is.” She wore shades, possibly not only to shield her Gothic eyes from the sun‘s UV rays, but also because I had heard that heroin addicts were particularly sensitive to light. Think of all of the drug-addicted rocks stars who wear shades during a concert, even at night. “So what is it, what do you want to ask me?”

“Are you a witch?”

She was taken aback. “Excuse me. Am I a what?”

If she had not put on the mascara, eyeliner, and most of all that freakish white makeup, which at the moment, had started to melt in the oppressive heat, now making her look a little like the Joker from the first batman movie, I would not have posed this question.

“I know that sounds totally crazy, except yesterday, when I was over at Andrew’s house, I heard his mother say to their neighbor, Mrs. Bailey, that you were a witch.”

“Don’t listen to Mrs. Keller.” My mom shook her head, sort of chuckled. “She’s one of those meddlesome parents who likes to go around telling stories.”

“Why?”

“Because she has nothing better to do. That‘s why.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t have to guess, it’s true. Mrs. Keller doesn’t work. She lives off her husband’s salary, and sits at home all day with nothing to do except watch soap operas and swap tittle-tattle with her girlfriends. She represents everything today‘s women are against, having to rely on a man to pay her way through the years.”

“Anyway, she said you went to some kind of pagan ritual in the springtime, a ceremony, or whatever, and that that‘s when you had supposedly become a witch.”

“Knock it off, Billy!” My mom, or it may have been the bad lady (I wasn’t sure), suddenly slammed her cold Coke down on the picnic table. The force of the slam caused some of the fizzy soda to spurt from the top of the can. “I just told you not to pay any attention to what Mrs. Blabbermouth Keller says about me. She‘s one of those people that has no life. Therefore, she feels the need to make up farfetched stories about other people, to fill her time. To get her kicks.”

I looked down. Fell silent. Went back to nibbling on my lunch.

“So what else did Mrs. Blabbermouth say about me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.”

“Why do I find that so difficult to believe?”

“I don’t know.”

She sighed, took a bite of her crunchy dill pickle. “You didn’t tell Andrew’s mother what happened with you and Nancy Sutcliffe did you?”

“No.” Her bullying pitch made me nervous. “Why would I?”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Because I don’t want you bringing that up, understand? Not to anyone. Not even to Andrew. If Mrs. Keller finds out that you were molested, she’ll blab it to everyone in town. Then, after the summer is over, when you go back to school, everyone there will know about it as well. We don‘t need that happening. You don‘t want all the kids and teachers to be staring at you funny in the hallways. Because trust me, if you tell Andrew about this, that‘s exactly what the situation will wind up being.”

I vowed to say nothing. Cub Scout’s honor.

Sheesh! First Nancy wanted me to keep what we had done hushed; now my mother wanted me to do the same. Sometimes I thought grownups were more complicated than finding the keys to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

“A witch,” she grumbles, picking up her plastic fork to daintily pick at her coleslaw. “Ha! If anyone has reprehensible ethics, it’s Nancy Sutcliffe. That woman is Satan’s spawn.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means she’s a sinner. An evildoer. Someone who disrespects the law of God.”

“Oh.” Boy was she ever dramatic.

“By the way, Billy, did you know that there are wicked witches and good witches?”

“No,” I tell her. “I thought they were all wicked.”

“Now who led you to believe that, Mrs. Keller?”

“No. I just assumed all witches were evil.”

“Well, that‘s not true. Most self-proclaimed, practicing witches today are normal, upstanding people. They don’t fly around on magical broomsticks, have green faces, hairy warts on their noses, wear pointy hats, or transform into black cats. What you’re thinking about is fairy tale lore. Wizard of Oz. Stuff like that. That’s all fantasy. Make-believe. Myth. And Billy-”

“What?”

“Just so you know there are monsters that live inside each and every one of us.”

“There are?”

“That‘s correct. Monsters that are just waiting to be unleashed.”

Whoa! That was disturbing. I didn’t know why she had told me that.

PART EIGHT

NANCY’S STREET

CHAPTER 19

Later, in the afternoon, we drove across town to Nancy’s house in my mother’s blue Toyota Corolla.

I kid you not.

Originally, my mom, who had to literally force me to get in the car, had intended to take me with her down to police headquarters. She had resolved that she had wanted to press charges against Nancy after all.

However, oddly, as soon as we had pulled into the packed parking lot at the cop station, with its official American flag out front, waving limply in the humid breeze, my mother abruptly changed her mind, and simply drove away.

She mumbled: No! Forget it. I’m not going in there. This was a waste of time because the police won’t believe shit!

After hearing her mutter that grievance, I cringed, realizing right away that I was not in the vehicle with my mom. No. The bad lady sat behind the steering wheel.

What was the bad lady up to? I wondered. And why had she driven to Nancy’s house?

“Mom, why did you come here?” I asked for the second time, as she stopped the Toyota. Unbelievably, Nancy was outside, with a broom, sweeping grass clippings off the sidewalk. We saw the lawnmower near the edge of the driveway, behind Nancy’s black Jeep Cherokee.

“Just be quiet,” the bad lady argued, now taking the keys out of the ignition. She had parked the car two houses away from Nancy’s property.

“No! I want to know why you drove to Nancy’s house?”

“Billy, this doesn’t concern you.”

How could it not concern me? I was at the heart of the conflict.

“What are you gonna do?” I did not like the vibes she put out.

“I’m going to go over there and have a word with her.”

“But why? You know she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

The bad lady scowled, as she continued to stare fiercely through the windshield at Nancy, who wore Daisy Duke Shorts and a measly half-shirt that showed off her stupendous knockers. “She’ll have to talk to me. She’ll have no choice.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. I sat in the backseat with my seatbelt on. The sun shone through the window onto my bare legs. It seemed as if it was a thousand degrees in the car. The seats felt as if they were on fire.

“You stay in the car,” the bad lady warned, peering at me over shoulder. With her dark shades on, her eyes were concealed.

“How long are you gonna be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Five minutes, ten?”

“Billy, I said I don’t know how long I’m going to speak to Nancy Sutcliffe. But when I get out there and start engaging in a conversation with her, under no circumstances are you to get out of this car. In fact, I don‘t even want you to take your seatbelt off. Just stay put. And don‘t holler anything from the window either. Not a peep. Ya hear me?”

I frowned, while distractedly fidgeting with my seatbelt. “What would I holler from the window?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’m not gonna holler anything.”

“You’d better not,” the bad lady advised strictly. “Because you see, I can tell there’s a part of you, son, a very misguided part of you that still believes in some way that this woman is your friend, which she is clearly not. Not even, close. What you need to understand is that that corrupt person over there sweeping the sidewalk used you for her own malicious purpose.”

“So there’s no way you and Nancy won’t get along?” Yes, you’re correct; I was undoubtedly unwise to the ways of the world.

The bad lady gave me the ‘how can you be so stupid’ look. “No. I don’t think so.”

Suddenly I glanced out the car window at Nancy. She had stopped sweeping and had turned her gaze in our direction. She knew my mom’s blue Toyota, and I could tell by the way she had begun to stare over this way that she had spotted us.

Nancy appeared to be exhausted, I presume from doing the yard work. Her long raven-dark hair was wind-blown and she looked pretty sweaty. She had white work gloves on, probably, I assumed because she had also worked on her garden, pulled weeds, that sort of thing. I know she did a lot of gardening because she frequently mentioned it.

“She knows we’re here now,” I declared softly, not sure, why the bad lady was rummaging through the glove compartment. I had no clue what she wanted to get from out of there. My mother didn’t normally have anything in the glove box other than her license, insurance, and registration card, and a bunch of CD’s, a lot of Lionel Richie and Celine Dion.

The bad lady looked up. “Good,” she says, closing the creaky glove compartment. “It looks like you’re right. I think the pedophile does see us parked over here.”

“She definitely does,” I affirmed.

“Why you little whore,” the bad lady whispered ominously, reaching for the handle that opened the car door. “Remember what I said, Billy. Stay put and don’t make a sound.”

***

With my nerves on edge, I watched the bad lady get out of the blue Toyota and then angrily slam the door to the vehicle shut.

I did not know what to expect from the confrontation. I mean, I crossed my fingers (and my toes), and hoped for the best.

Somehow, I felt I should be held accountable for this situation, or at least partially.

I did not have to lay my hands on Nancy Sutcliffe’s soft naked body, and I did not have to let her touch me. Just like, I did not have to kiss her on the mouth, and kiss her nipples, and do those other weird sexual things that people, in lust do. If I had wanted, I could have stopped her at any time. Except as I hope I’ve already made abundantly clear, I did not want to stop.

No! I liked what Nancy and I had done, even though it had also seemed kind of creepy, deviant, and wrong. Especially what she had me do with my tongue. That might have been the only thing that I did not enjoy. Because I did not really know what to do with my tiring tongue and I did not like the way, Nancy smelled down there, like sour bass. Furthermore, I did not like how she had kept pushing my head down, and had kept insisting, while panting and grunting, that I not stop.

Anyway, as the bad lady slowly approached the sidewalk, Nancy stood there with the yellow broom in her hand looking puzzled. For a second, it seemed as if she planned to go in her house, to try to avoid having to face my mom. Well, she wouldn’t be dealing with my mother, you know that and I know that. However, Nancy certainly did not have any knowledge that she would be dealing with my mom’s sinister alter ego.

From the car window, I watched and listened.

“No, no,” I heard Nancy say forcefully, as the bad lady stopped near the cement footpath. “Miss Hall, get back in your car and leave. Immediately! You’re not welcome here.”

“You shut your mouth,” the bad lady warned, waving her finger.

“What?”

“I said, shut your mouth.”

Nancy, who had been rendered momentarily speechless by that aggressive comment, held the wooden broomstick in front of her body, seemingly for protection, as if she were a ninja warrior. I could also tell by the expression on her face that she was stunned by my mother’s new Gothic appearance. The makeup was still melting, now particularly the mascara. That’s when it had occurred to me that the bad lady must have been the one who had chosen to paint my mother’s face. I should have come to that conclusion earlier.

“Nancy Sutcliffe,” the bad lady added, almost snarling. “Since you wouldn’t address this matter on the phone. You gave me no other alternative, I had to come here.”

“I said all I have to say.” Although Nancy had the broomstick in her hand, she appeared to be genuinely frightened.

The bad lady sized up the object that might possibly be used as a weapon against her. “What are you talking about, you sick, ice cream truck pedophile, you didn’t say anything. Do you know why Nancy, because you’re afraid that if you address this matter you’ll incriminate yourself. That’s why you hung up on me.”

“You’re wrong,” Nancy flatly denies the accusation. “I hung up on you, Miss Hall, because you’re accusing me of something that never happened. Clearly your son Billy has a boyhood crush on me, and is making things up, and doesn‘t realize the ramifications of his wild sexual claims. Don‘t you get it, he‘s fantasizing. I never touched the child. Never! This is outrageous. What kind of person do you think I am?”

The bad lady hissed. “I think you’re a very sexually disturbed individual. That’s what kind of person I think you are.”

“How dare you speak to me like that.”

“I’ll speak to you how ever I please pedophile. What do you plan on doing with that broom?”

Nancy clutched the yellow broomstick tighter, and then hesitantly backed up against the trunk of a gargantuan maple tree, which was so ancient that the roots had protruded through the sidewalk. Nearby, on the concrete driveway, perched beside the gas-powered lawn mower, was a garbage can where Nancy had been dumping the grass clippings.

“Stop calling me a pedophile,” she urged.

“Why, that’s what you are, isn’t it?”

“No it is not.”

“Pedophile,” the bad lady harassed, elevating her voice.

“Oh. That’s just great. Why don’t you just announce that to all of my neighbors.”

All of a sudden, in the street, a couple of cars passed the sunny green yard. Both the bad lady and Nancy watched the vehicles go by with distracted expressions. When the two cars had traveled far enough down the road, their conversation resumed.