We went to the library. To movies, museums, and to job fairs, which were miserable. She brought weird pamphlets home that I usually didn’t read because they were cheesy and uninteresting, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I always thanked her and feigned interest, then sat down at the kitchen table with my pamphlet pile. But, instead of reading them, I’d scribble all over them because they were too corny and boring to read.
“What’s this?” Aunt Stacey held up one of my scribble pamphlets.
“Oh. I, uh… you know. It’s just a doodle.”
She flipped it around. Moved it closer to her face. Then farther. “It looks like a bear.”
“It’s a bear. A bear making pancakes.”
She set the paper down on the table. “Looks like you’ve got a bit of a hidden talent after all.”
I picked up the drawing and instead of a whooping, woo-hoo, a-ha, eureka moment, I slapped the paper against the table and said, “That is so fucking punk rock.”
“Watch your mouth.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze and walked away.
A couple of months after Dom’s funeral, Bronwyn came over to invite me on some camping trip in the mountains. When I opened the front door, she wore the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face. A smile bigger than Theresa ever tried to get away with.
Standing next to her, looking as purple and adorable as ever was Sparrow. Her perfect, petite Sparrow hand had its fingers interlocked with Bronwyn’s.
Something almost like sadness, but not quite, hit me, ran all through me then back out again and then I smiled right along with them.
Not sadness. Maybe wistful with a drop of amusement. Poor Dom. He just didn’t see that Bronwyn had a better chance with Sparrow than he did.
Sparrow, in all her petite purple perfectness wasn’t really a Sparrow after all, but a Tammy. I went camping with these two girls who used to be Theresa and Tammy. It was almost cold, but not quite. That last weekend of warm you can take advantage of before shutting yourself indoors to watch the leaves fall to the ground from behind a window.
A lot of the people I met on that trip had decided to be new people, too. I was introduced to people with mysterious, ancient and animal names. Raven Silverfox. Artemis Crystal Leaf. Lavender Black. Someone asked me my name. I made it a point to mention that I’d always been an Ivy and likely always would be.
“Many people like to choose their own name once they enter the Craft,” a guy with a blond ponytail told me.
“I don’t get it.”
“Everyone here is Wiccan,” he said. “You know, neo-pagans. Witches.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. Neo-pagans,” I said, wondering how those were different from neo-Buddhists. “So what’s your Craft name?”
He shrugged. “I’m just Michael. We don’t all do it.” He smiled and gave my plastic cup a light tap with his own. “Anyone can be whoever they want here.”
It was the strangest camping trip I’d ever been on. There was chanting and singing in the woods, some weird wine made from honey and lots of talk about gods and goddesses.
In the light of the bonfire, I watched Bronwyn and Sparrow. Watched the last fragment of all that was before in my life slowly morphing, changing shape and becoming a life I didn’t recognize. More than that, I got a sense of what it must have felt like to be Theresa, to be surrounded by people you just can’t fit with, all the while knowing how nice it might feel if you could.
I’m unlocking the door of my prized shitty Datsun. From the corner of my eye, I see someone stride past my car, and approach the small green pickup that’s parked next to me. There’s a brief moment where our eyes meet. Everything outside our view of one another vanishes for one quick flash, then we’re just two people standing in the middle of the parking lot again.
“Hey, you look familiar,” he says. “Did you start recently?”
“Yeah. Today’s my first day.”
He squints, tilts his head a bit in an effort to recall where he’s seen me before. I don’t need to tilt or squint. I’d remember those clear gray eyes for the rest of my life.
It’s too hard to forget the weight of shame that a pair of eyes can put down on you.
I open my door. Toss my bag on the passenger seat. I stand up straight again to face my shame.
“Wait, I’m sure we’ve met before. Did you used to go out with Micky Ruiz?”
“Never heard of him.” I reach in my pocket for my cigarettes, then remember I decided to quit. “I think we met before.” I point at the highway, at the flow of cars heading south toward the city, toward the place where I’d almost lost the shirt baby. “I think we met just a couple miles that way.”
“Oh, shit… that was you? The fake baby hitchhikers?”
“Yeah, um… look, I am so sorry. You know, stupid pranks, dumb ideas… really, I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, surprises me with a tiny laugh. “Nah.” He waves his hands in that gesture that says, “stop, enough”.
“It’s no big deal,” he says. “We all do stupid stuff. It was a while ago. I’m over it.”
“You were so mad…”
He lifts his baseball cap, scratches his head and puts it back on. “Doesn’t do any good to dwell on things and stay mad.” He smiles. “Unless you’re planning on pulling some fake baby scam later, or something.”
“Oh, uh… no. That was a really a one-time only scam. I mean, no, I’m not scamming anything later, or anymore.”
“Good. I almost didn’t recognize you. Didn’t you have purple hair, or something?”
“I think it was puce.”
“You look much better as a blonde.”
Everything outside of our view of one another vanishes for one quick flash, then we’re just two people standing in the middle of the parking lot again, but now we’re two people laughing, grinning.
He walks around my little car,
