The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (23 page)

DeThomas Farms was lit with strand upon strand of fairy lights, and from the barn a speaker emitted moans, shrieking, and clanking chains. Lindsay stood on the back deck surveying the fake spider webs and dry ice smoking from a pseudocauldron. She was almost thirteen—too old to feel this shivery, as if decorations really could create magic. Since Allegra got sick, she’d learned to telescope the world down to her attic room, a small enough place where she could control things. Suddenly Sally let out a string of cuss words and Savannah started crying.

“Sorry!” Sally yelled, from high up in the tree where she was tying a hangman’s noose so it would dangle over the already set tables. “I lost my footing and thought I was going to fall on the freaking table.”

“Sarah Juanita DeThomas!” Sally’s mother called from the kitchen. “Do you want to miss your own party and spend the night sitting in your bedroom without access to your computer?”

“I
said
I was sorry!”

“One more outburst and that’s where you’re headed. Apologize to your cousin.”

“But I wasn’t swearing
at
the worm, I was just swearing generally!”

“Do not call her a worm. Savannah is sensitive and you know it. Your foul language upsets her. Apologize or go to your room.”

Sally climbed down the tree to where Savannah stood, dressed up like a sobbing green bug with gold antennae. Sally knelt down so she could look into Savannah’s eyes, and said, “I’m sorry I called you a worm. I should have said butterflyin-progress. Please forgive me so we can have the best damn Halloween party ever, okay?”

“Will you take me trick-or-treating?”

“You betcha, if you tell my mom you accept my apology.”

“Auntie Phoebe, I accept.”

“See?” Sally yelled to her mother, who was probably in the kitchen listening anyway. “All’s well that ends well. A quote attributed to William Shakespeare but probably a woman said it!”

“I’ll bet she wasn’t a mother,” Sally’s mom yelled back.

“Come on,” Sally said, waving Lindsay over. “Let’s go get the rest of the game prizes so we’ll have time to check on Charlie and friends. Savannah, come on.”

Charlie. Just the name sent Lindsay’s stomach tumbling. She was growing so tall. They had to pinch off buds so she wouldn’t lose her mother-plant abilities. Her army of clones was growing right on schedule. According to Gregorio, September through November were the flowering months, especially if you grew marijuana outdoors. The equal daylight/night cycles stimulated the plant to flower, and for as long as it continued, the flowers increased in number and in size. Gregorio impressed upon them the care taken with light cycles. “Think of a photographer’s darkroom,” he said, and Sally said, “Why? Nobody uses them anymore. When my dad wants to print a picture, he downloads his camera onto the computer.”

But Lindsay knew what he meant. Light leaks could leach the pigment out of photographs, and apparently things like a flashlight left on could do the same to
Cannabis sativa.
Finding out that in these cycles the plants could also experience stress-related sexual problems, like hermaphroditism, was interesting. Premature flowering caused the plant to think, oh, no, I haven’t got a chance at reproduction, so I had better self-pollinate. And there went the entire science project, future scholarships, everything. Lindsay would end up waitressing at The Owl & Moon and having to be nice to Mr. Cashin for his grimy old quarters.

In the kitchen, they loaded party favors into shiny black lunch-size bags that each party attendee got to take home. Inside were licorice witches, chocolate fraidy cats, a light stick—
chemiluminescence,
a word Lindsay loved to say—and seed packets for plants that liked to grow in the dark, along with a brochure on planning a night-blooming garden. In addition to all that were stretchy beaded bracelets with silver charms, candy corn–flavored lip-gloss, and a CD of scary sound effects.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Savannah asked Lindsay.

“Um, Einstein.”

“Who’s that?”

Sally slapped witch stickers on the front of the bags and DeThomas Farm stickers on the back. “Omigod, Vanna, he only invented the theory of relativity! Go on my computer and Google him right now. You have to know who he was if you want to get anywhere at Country Day!”

“He was only one great scientist,” Lindsay said. “There were lots of others. Einstein was the only one who got made into a poster.”

“Probably because of his hair,” Sally added.

“His hair looked like Lindsay’s hair?” Savannah asked.

Lindsay immediately lost her appetite for the chocolate cats. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

“Jeeze Louise, will you relax? It’s a costume party! You’re supposed to look funny.”

But Lindsay couldn’t relax. She knew that Savannah was only pointing out what Taylor and her army would jump on first thing. Look at Lindsay Moon! How sad that she tried to fix up her hair nice for the party and that’s the best she could manage. “I think I want to go lie down,” she said. “Maybe I should call my mom.”

Sally reached into the cardboard box full of treats and handed Lindsay a chocolate cat. “You can’t. Your mom’s out with the Scotsman tonight.”

“Do you think they’ll have sex?”

“How should I know? Eat some chocolate. Not only does it contain antioxidants, but it also stimulates endorphins.”

“I know that,” Lindsay said. “I still don’t want any.”

“Then go make a Pepcid sandwich or take some aspirin, but you are not leaving this party. Please? It won’t be great without you.”

“What’s sex?” Savannah asked, her mouth smeared with chocolate.

“Savannah,” Lindsay said. “Your antennae are really cool. Jiggle them for me.”

“I’ve got mer-lot for my baby, and biscuits for my hound,” Fergus sang as he nudged on the boom box and fed Theodora her dinner. “What do you think, Mariah? Have I a chance at a singing career?”

Andrea Bocelli he wasn’t. “I’d hold on to the day job,” Mariah said, sitting on the bed contemplating the mother of all relationship tests—sex: Will it go well or not? There’s only one way to find out. “Fergus?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t feel like red wine. What else do you have in the way of alcohol?”

“Well, let me see.”

The sun had set. Mariah wondered if Lindsay was having a good time at the party. She looked out toward the horizon and thought of how all over the world there were couples going to bed together for the first time. They fussed with condoms and diaphragms, sniffed their breath, worried they’d applied too much cologne, or not enough deodorant. Fergus handed her a glass with amber liquid. “What’s this?”

“Properly aged Scots whiskey.”

“But there’s no ice in it.”

“Egad, what a thought. Drink it slowly, love. It’s precious.”

Precious in Scot-speak meant expensive. Scarper meant to run off. Fatal meant beautiful. The confusion his dialect caused forced her to take his word for lots of things. A seal barked, and another one joined in. “Four o’clock Fergus,” Gammy had nicknamed him, forgiving
him
for keeping Mariah out late but unwilling to let her forget it. Allegra was probably with Dr. G again, having dinner she wouldn’t eat. Why was it so hard for her mother to muster appetite? Every time he visited, Dr. G came bearing gifts: flowers for Gammy, candy for her, and books for Lindsay. Mariah had to award him points for that, though she found herself wanting to yell at him for not forcing Allegra to eat. But something prevented her from liking him. The academic in her considered the Jungian concept of “the shadow self.” It was possible she recognized her own troublesome qualities in this man who was apparently going to be in their lives forever. She sipped the whiskey and tried not to think about it.

“Back shortly,” Fergus said, taking Theo ashore to “do her business.”

Mariah quickly took off everything except her bra and panties and got under the covers, only bumping her head once on the low ceiling. She sniffed the sheets and smiled. Instead of salt and damp, she smelled detergent and softener. He’d washed them just for her.

Taylor Foster and Cheyenne Goldenblatt were dressed like
Melrose Place
girls. Loaded with rhinestone jewelry and pink marabou, they entered the party carrying metallic silver purses that held little stuffed dogs, and they didn’t stop giggling long enough to say hello. Lindsay checked out their platinum blond wigs enviously. Why couldn’t she have thought of that instead of Einstein? When her mom had two minutes to spare, they dug through the thrift store’s costume bin where they found the wig. “God, I hope this doesn’t have lice,” Mariah had muttered under her breath as she dug a dollar out of her pocket to pay for it. Lindsay had sprayed the inside with Lysol just to be safe, and now it kind of itched.

“Welcome to the party, girls,” Sally’s aunt Nance said. She was prettier than Paris or Nicole would ever be, and her straight blond hair wasn’t a wig. “Come on in and get yourselves a glass of goblin punch,” she said, and Lindsay cringed at the are-you-kidding-me look Taylor and Cheyenne sent her.

“Hi, Lindsay,” Taylor said. “Great costume.”

Determined to stand up for herself like Sally did, Lindsay said, “Thanks.”

“How’s your science project going?”

“It’s going all right. How’s yours?”

Taylor batted inky fake eyelashes. “Perfect. It’s too bad you won’t win the award, since your family is so poor they have to work in the service industry.”

Lindsay’s cheeks blazed. She tried to think of a comeback, like wasn’t everyone a service worker in some way if you broke life down into the smallest components? “They do work really hard, but as my great-grandmother always says, ‘To enjoy the lemonade, you have to break a sweat.’ ”

“That’s such a homey old saying, but it’s not exactly factual, is it? Hard work has killed lots of people, such as miners, or farmers, or anyone of the blue-collar class, which includes cooks and servants. That’s why everyone goes to the best college they can. If they can afford it.”

Belva Satterly arrived, carrying a sack of her own food, since you never knew what might have wheat in it. “Lots of great people didn’t go to college,” Lindsay said.

“Name one.”

Lindsay didn’t want to say Edison; everyone knew he was self-taught and had 1,093 patents to his name. “Guglielmo Marconi.”

“Really?” Taylor said. “What did he invent? SpaghettiOs?”

“The radio. And no matter what college I end up at, I’ll still make straight A’s.”

But Taylor was no longer paying attention, having found someone else to torment. There was glitter on her cheeks, and her shoulders, too. Even if she didn’t win the scholarship she’d never have trouble making her hair look good or finding a boyfriend. As Lindsay stood there in her lab coat and baggy pants, she wished she were serving the punch like she poured coffee at The Owl & Moon. Even though waiting tables made you invisible, at least you ended up with a pocketful of tips.

Sally came up behind her and said, “Can’t wait for the Haunted House this year. There’s going to be some surprises, let me tell you.”

“What kind of surprises?”

Sally turned up the collar on her black satin cape, so only her eyes showed. “The kind where you stick your hand into what’s supposed to be brains, and it turns out it isn’t spaghetti, but something else.”

“Sally, what did you do?” Lindsay asked, her heart pounding. “If you did something to Taylor, you’ll get in trouble. Please, whatever it is, take it back.”

Sally didn’t blink. “Linds, relax! It’s Halloween. Pranks are expected. Hey, Taylor, come over here for a second.”

Taylor took her time, allowing the other girls ample time to tell her how cute her costume was. “What are you supposed to be? A cape?”

“This is only half my costume,” Sally said. “You’ll see the rest when it’s time. What happened to your Juicy backpack? I haven’t seen you carry it lately. Did you lose it or what?”

“You freak! I know you put the crickets in my backpack.”

“Ah, but can you prove it?”

“I told Mrs. Shiasaka.”

“Mrs. Shiasaka is a half-full glass kind of teacher,” Sally said. “She tries to believe the good in people. And crickets do like to hide in dark places, like your soul.”