Her fun- vented, Cerridwen produced three copies of another book and laid them on the counter. “I couldn’t help noticing these got moved into the remainder bin,” she said, more subdued now.
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. It wasn’t my decision.”
They were copies of her own book, Weaving With Moonlight, all rather dusty and bearing that sad little gold “Autographed!” sticker, that always reminded him of the stars given to reward second-grade overachievers. Michael had convinced his boss to buy the books direct from Cerridwen, since it was a small press edition with a tiny print run. A few copies had sold to Cerrid-wen’s friends in the first weeks after the book came out, and then no more. He hadn’t read it himself. Cerridwen was a figurehead of local neo-paganism and a frequent patron of certain downtown shops—Wymmyn’s Mysteries and Smoky Mountain Magick. In wanner weather she did Tarot readings for friends (or five dollars) at the sidewalk tables outside the Cutting Board, using the big round cards of the Motherpeace deck, or sometimes the Voyager Tarot. (Michael himself used nothing but the Thoth deck, despite its obvious deficiencies.)
He felt sorry for her, and so after checking to make sure he was unobserved, he ran the books through the demagnetizer and slipped them into a bag without ringing them up. don’t you just take them?” he whispered. “No charge.”
She looked surprised. “Really?”
“They’re yours anyway. Sorry they didn’t do better.”
“Well… now I know what sells. Crap.”
At that moment, a tall teenage boy wearing a silver pentacle and a ragged parka came sidling up next to them and slapped a copy of The Mandala Rites on the counter.
“Hey, did you hear this guy last night? Intense! Oh, yeah, I remember you! You gave him a ride in your cool Beetle!”
Michael flinched a bit and grinned sheepishly at Cerridwen. Her friendly look gone, she hugged her sack to her breast and headed for the door. Michael rang up the sale.
After work, Michael was supposed to shop for his mother. Her car was dead. She had called in the morning to give him a grocery list, wasting his coffee break while she tried to decide what she needed. Eleven a.m. and she was already drunk; he dreaded seeing how bad she would be by the time he arrived with groceries. He decided to swing by and see Lenore at work.
The steep hill streets of downtown Cinderton were lined with crumbling brick buildings, most of them abandoned or sparsely occupied, except for a few square blocks rejuvenated by clothing boutiques, art galleries, and New Age shops selling crystals and herbs. Lenore couldn’t stand these places, but Michael found them a welcome oasis among the backwoods people. He kept his car parked where it was, tucked the latest “Frauds & Fakirs” issue of Gnosis under his arm, then went down one hill and up another to the Cutting Board.
There was no sign of Lenore at the bakery counter. He poked his head into the dining room, which was quietly crowded with students, aging hippies, recent Yankee refugees drinking coffee, reading, or writing in notebooks. She wasn’t at the register. Before he got to the kitchen, a man with a graying beard and ponytail came out through the swinging doors.
“Hey, Mike.” It was Cal, Lenore’s boss. “Where’s your old lady?”
Michael stopped. “She’s not here?”
“No. She didn’t call in sick. I tried your number but the phone kept ringing.”
“That’s weird,” Michael said.
“Tell her not to do this to me, all right? I already have a girl out. If she warns me, I can make arrangements. Otherwise—”
Michael started to say she wasn’t sick, but realized he didn’t know if this was strictly true. He hadn’t talked to her yet. After last night, maybe she was feeling out of sorts.
“I’ll check the roads and see if her car broke down somewhere,” he said. “We’ve been having trouble with it.”
Cal gave him an exasperated look. “I don’t suppose you want a job?”
Cal let him use the phone to make another attempt at reaching Lenore; but if she was home, she wasn’t answering. He supposed she could have stayed late at school, to work in the library. Lenore had her own reasons for doing things; she wouldn’t appreciate him getting mixed up with her boss. For all he knew, she was mad at Cal and making him pay for it. She couldn’t afford to lose the job, but she wouldn’t stand for Michael lecturing her about responsibility. He reorganized his priorities in order of increasing unpleasantness, and decided to get his mother’s groceries before dealing with Lenore.
The TV was blaring in the kitchen when he walked in the back door of his mother’s house, a bag of groceries in either arm. She was standing at the sink, pouring vodka into a glass of grapefruit juice. Another TV was going in the living room; he could see Earl’s feet up on the La-Z-Boy.
“Where were you last night?” she asked.
He dropped the bags on the table. She immediately started rummaging through to see if he’d forgotten anything.
“We went out,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do in an emergency? You go out and you don’t even tell me where you’re going? How was I supposed to get in touch with you? Call that neighbor of yours, ask him to give me a hand?”
He started putting cans in the cupboard. “We went out, that’s all. I’m supposed to tell you every time we leave the house? What’s wrong with Earl, anyway? Why can’t he help you?”
“You leave Earl alone. His car got repossessed. He’s feeling low.”
High-pitched laughter from the living room didn’t necessarily contradict her. Michael heard the theme music from some game show. Earl was a moody sort of guy, and never said exactly what he’d been doing in the state prison outside of Cinderton, where his mother had met him. She had been “laid off,” as she called it, shortly after his release, and Earl had been a fixture ever since. At least they weren’t married yet. She’d taken that much control of her life.
“I’m sure one of your neighbors would help you out.”
“My neighbors? Are you crazy? They won’t give me the time of day. I’m lucky I don’t have crosses burning on my front lawn.”
“I thought you liked it here.”
“It’s not a matter of liking it. It’s what I can afford. I can’t live just anywhere I want, can I? You tell me how, on what I collect.”
“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Earl says it’s the battery. He was a mechanic, you know.”
“And it took him a week to figure out you need a battery?”
“He doesn’t have his tools, Mike. You leave him alone, I said.”
Michael threw the few vegetables into the refrigerator. “Well, if it’s the battery, I’ll just get you a new one.”
“Would you? That’d be so sweet.” She grabbed the carton of Neapolitan ice milk out of his hands before he could open the freezer. He started to put the six-packs in the fridge, but she said, “Leave one of those out.”
Michael glanced at the clock over the stove. “I’ve got to get home. My night to fix dinner.”
“What about my battery?”
“Sears is open late. I’ll bring it by in the morning, before I go to work.”
“Can’t you do it tonight, Mikey? I just feel marooned out here.”
“You shouldn’t be driving anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Chubby-cakes?” Earl leaned forward in the big chair, peering down the hall into the kitchen. He always dressed like a seedy banker just home from work: white collar open, tie pulled loose. If any social workers or parole officers dropped by, he was prepared to claim he was just on his way to or from a job interview. “Oh, Mikey, how you doing? Did I just hear a pop-top?”