The Witches of Eastwick

many lit windows of the house. Inside, the three women sat in a row on the curved sofa in Van Home's long, art- filled, yet somehow barren liv­ing room, drinking the potions he brought them. Their host was a master of exotic drinks, drinks alchemically concocted of tequila and grenadine and creme de cas­sis and Triple Sec and Seltzer water and cranberry juice and apple brandy and additives even more arcane, all kept in a tall seventeenth-century Dutch cabinet topped by two startled angel's heads, their faces split, right through the blank eyeballs, by the aging of the wood. The sea seen through his Palladian windows was turning the color of wine, of dogwood leaves before they fall. Between the Ionic pillars of his fireplace, beneath the ponderous mantel, stretched a ceramic frieze of fauns and nymphs, naked figures white on blue. Fidel brought hors d'oeuvres, pastes and dips of crushed sea creatures, empanadillas, calamares en su tinta that were consumed with squeals of disgust, with fingers that turned the same muddy sepia as the blood of these succulent baby squids. Now and then one of the witches would exclaim that she must do something about the children, either go home to make their suppers or at least phone the house to put the oldest daughter officially in charge. Tonight was already deranged: it was the night of trick-or-treat, and some of the children would be at parties and others out begging on the shadowy crooked streets of downtown Eastwick. Toddling in rustling groups along the fences and hedges would be little pirates and Cinderellas wearing masks with fixed grimaces and live moist eyes darting in papery eyeholes; there would be ghosts in pillow cases carrying shopping bags rai­ding with M & M's and Hershey Kisses. Doorbells would be constantly ringing. A few days ago Alex­andra had gone shopping with her baby, little Linda, in the Woolworth's at the mall, the lights of this trashy place brave against the darkness outside, the elderly overweight clerks weary amid their child-tempting gimcracks at the end of the day, and for a moment Alexandra had felt the old magic, seeing through this nine-year-old child's wide gaze the symbolic majesty of the cut-rate spectres, the authenticity of the pack­aged goblin—mask, costume, and plastic trick-or-treat sack all for $3.98. America teaches its children that every passion can be transmuted into an occasion to buy. Alexandra in a moment of empathy became her own child wandering aisles whose purchasable won­ders were at eye level and scented each with its own potent essence of ink or rubber or sugary dough. Hut such motherly moments came to her ever more rarely as she took possession of her own self, a demigoddess greater and sterner than any of the uses others might have for her. Sukie next to her on the sofa arched her back inward, stretching in her scant peach dress so that her white frilled panties showed, and said with a yawn, 'I really should go home. The poor darlings. That house right in the middle of town, it must be besieged.'

Van Home was sitting opposite her in his corduroy armchair; he had been perspiring glowingly and had put on an Irish knit sweater, of natural wool still smell­ing oilily of sheep, over the stencilled image of ges­ticulating, buck- toothed Malcolm X. 'Don't go, my friend,' he said. 'Stay and have a bath. That's what I'm going to do. I stink.'

'Bath?' Sukie said. 'I can take one at home.'

'Not in an eight-foot teak hot tub you can't,' the man said, twisting his big head with such violent roguishness that bushy Thumbkin, alarmed, jumped off his lap. 'While we're all having a good long soak

Fidel can cook up some paella or tamales or some­thing.'

'Tamale and tamale and tamale,' Jane Smart said compulsively. She was sitting on the end of the sofa, beyond Sukie, and her profile had an angry preci­sion, Alexandra thought. The smallest of them physi­cally, she got the most drunk, trying to keep up. Jane sensed she was being thought about; her hot eyes locked onto Alexandra's. 'What about you, Lexa? What's your thought?'

'Well,' was the drifting answer, 'I do feel dirty, and I ache. Three sets is too much for this old lady.'

'You'll feel like a million after this experience,' Van Home assured her. 'Tell you what,' he said to Sukie. 'Run on home, check on your brats, and come back here soon as you can.'

'Swing by my house and check on mine too, could you sweetie?' in chimed jane Smart.

'Well I'll see,' Sukie said, stretching again. Her long freckled legs displayed at their tips dainty sneakerless feet in little tasselled Peds like lucky rabbit's-feet. 'I may not be back at all. Clyde was hoping I could do a little Halloween color piece—just go down­town, interview a couple trick-or-treaters on Oak Street, ask at the police station if there's been any destruction of property, maybe get some of the old-timers hanging around Nemo's to talking about the bad old days when they used to soap windows and put buggies on the roof and things.'

Van Home exploded. 'Why're you always moth­ering that sad-ass Clyde Gabriel? He scares me. The guy is sick.'

'That's why,' Sukie said, very quickly.

Alexandra perceived that Sukie and Ed Parsley were at last breaking up.

Van Home picked up on it too. 'Maybe I should invite him over here some time.'

Sukie stood and pushed her hair back from her face haughtily. She said, 'Don't do it on my account, I see him all day at work.' There was no telling, from the way she snatched up her racket and flung her fawn sweater around her neck, whether she would return or not. They all heard her car, a pale gray Corvair convertible with front-wheel drive and her ex-husband's vanity plate rouge still on the back, start up and spin out and crackle away down the drive. The tide was low tonight, low under a full moon, so low ancient anchors and rotten dory ribs jutted into starlight where saltwater covered them for all but a few hours of each month.

Sukie's departure left the three remaining more comfortable with themselves, at ease in their relatively imperfect skins. Still in their sweaty tennis clothes, their fingers dyed by squid ink, their throats and stomachs invigorated by the peppery sauces of Fidel's tamales and enchiladas, they walked with fresh drinks into the music room, where the two musicians showed Alexandra how far they had proceeded with the Brahms E Minor. How the man's ten fingers did thun­der on the helpless keys! As if he were playing with hands more than human, stronger, and wide as hay rakes, and never fumbling, folding trills and arpeg­gios into the rhythm, gobbling them up. Only his soft­er passages lacked something of expressiveness, as if there were no notch in his system low enough for the tender touch necessary. Dear stubby Jane, brows knit­ted, struggled to keep up, her face turning paler and paler as concentration drained it, the pain in her bow­ing arm evident, her other hand scuttling up and down, pressing the strings as if they were too hot to pause upon. It was Alexandra's motherly duty to applaud when the tense and tumultuous performance was over.

'It's not my cello, of course,' Jane explained, unsticking black hair from her brow.

'Just an old Strad I had lying around,' Van Home joked and then, seeing that Alexandra would believe him—for there was coming to be in her lovelorn state nothing she did not believe within his powers and possessions— amended this to: 'Actually, it's a Ceruti. He was Cremona too, but later. Still, an O.K. old fiddlemaker. Ask the man who owns one.' Suddenly he shouted as loudly as he had made the harp of the piano resound, so that the thin black windowpanes in their seats of cracked putty vibrated in sympathy. 'Fidel!' he called into the emptiness of the vast house. '?Margaritas! ?Tres! Bring them into the bath! ?Trai-galas al bano! ?Rapidamente!'

So the moment of divestment was at hand. To embolden Jane, Alexandra rose and followed Van Home at once;