“Watch, listen and learn,” my mom said, flashing one of her most wicked smiles. “Amalie, this is the weekend you shall become a woman.”
Fat chance on that!
I watched her skillfully pour a vial of what she called her ‘love potion’ into a large plastic cup of her homemade sweet tea. She stirred the mixture with the straw, capping the lid just as he approached her vintage Mercedes convertible.
This was so not how I wanted to spend my fifteenth birthday.
I scooted down in the seat, my back sticky with sweat despite the cool September breeze. She could have at least had the decency to put the top up on the Mercedes. I didn't want to watch him pull her into his arms and drink her up with that first hungry kiss.
Normally I hid in my room, burrowed under the covers with a pillow pressed over my ears to drown out her horrible shrieks and screams. Tonight I was trapped. A captive audience. 163 miles away from the safety of my bedroom. No way not to watch my mom making out with a man most people only got to see on their TV screens.
Billy Dalton might be one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling. To me, he’s just the man my mom disappears with at least a couple of weekends every month. He's got a wife and a family back in Charlotte. When school's out he takes his two sons on the road with him and won’t see my mother.
Until tonight his kids have been lucky, not knowing about the things their dad does with my mom. No such luck for me. I’m not sure which is worse, having to overhear all the noises they make in her bedroom or dealing with her explosive anger when she doesn’t get to see him.
Billy had parked his Cadillac on the other side of the lot and sent his boys into the Burger King. My stomach let out an angry jealous growl. That salad we’d had before the show hadn’t been enough food to call a real meal and since she was always riding me about my weight I knew I wouldn't be getting any more food tonight.
Sometimes I imaged my father staring down at me from the heavens. From what I remember of him he had always been so nice and calm. He had known how to control her demons. At least until his own demons got the the better of him. She says it was his wife that poisoned him. Everyone else thinks he drank himself to death. Either way, he was the lucky one since he no longer has to deal with her.
A thud on the hood indicated where he’d placed the cup to free his hands. She would be screaming if anyone else had done that to her precious Mercedes. This gleaming silver custom painted car had been her very last gift from my father. I wondered if Billy's tongue would still be down her throat if he knew that on her lonely manic nights it’s Will she cries for, not him.
Billy. Will. Yeah, I know, it’s kinda weird that their names are so similar. Yet they look so different. My father was blond and buff and really tan. Billy is dark haired and brawny, more comfortable in jeans than in the suits I remember my father wearing when we lived in Florida. I got to stay next door with my mother's friend Carmella on the nights he spent in our little cottage on the beach. My father made sure I never overheard any of their intimate time together.
I was ten years old when she gave him the ultimatum. If he didn't leave his wife, we were moving back to Raleigh on New Year's Day. He didn't leave her. We came back to North Carolina and he went home to his wife in New Orleans. We never saw him again. Turns out he couldn't live without my mom. A few months later and he was dead.
My father never would have left me sitting in a car like this. He would have made sure I was with Carmella before putting the moves on my mom. To forget about what she was doing I imaged my father taking me out to eat at a nice restaurant. He wouldn't fuss at me for eating too much and I know he would have ordered me a piece of cake for dessert, maybe even with a big dip of ice cream on the side.
If I could just get through tonight everything would be okay. Surviving yet another full moon esbat would be easy compared to this. Mom has dragged me around to Pagan festivals and gatherings since I was in diapers. That I could handle. This pro wrestling stuff I wasn't so sure about.
I've had Shamans try to heal me. Reiki Masters lay hands on me. Voo Doo Priestesses make sacrifices in my honor. And more than one coven join my mom in her pleas to the Goddess that I might someday, sooner rather than later, come into my witchy powers.
I opened the book I'd gotten this morning, trying to use it as a shield. If I had any magickal powers of my own I would have zapped myself straight to New Orleans and right into the middle of that story. Anne Rice's Mayfair witches seemed a lot more likeable that my mom. And the way that man watched over poor Deidra. If I could have one birthday wish it would have been to have someone like that looking out for me.
“Why didn’t you leave the kid at home with Olivia?”
The way Billy said my aunt's name made my skin prickle. I know Aunt Olivia is far from perfect, but she's the one person who at least tries to look out for me.
“She’s making a run to Mexico with Jose,” Mom said. “Although she did send along some goodies for Vlad and Charlie, so you’d better get the cash from them.”
"You know I don't like messing with that stuff," Billy said.
My mom pressed her body against him and silenced Billy with a kiss that made me scoot even further down in my seat.
“Well, I reckon I could get you a room and send the boys over to hang out with your kid while I tell them I’m visiting with an old friend. You can’t stay the night with me, but we’ll have time for a little loving.”
After the spell she’d worked on him this morning and the stuff she’d put in his tea I knew she would be spending the night in Billy's room.
