Making the Saint, page 2
“Okay,” he said. “That was Voodoo Mama. Could I have all the bands out here please?”
The various bands that had performed during the evening came out from both sides of the stage and met in the middle. Cooper and Jane stood beside T.J. and the rest of Schroedinger’s Cat, while another band crowded in behind them. Cooper noticed that the girl from Voodoo Mama was standing across from her. Now that the light was better, Cooper took the opportunity to look at her more closely. She was really pretty. Her mocha-colored skin glowed against the red of her dress, and her long, lean body looked like it had never had an extra ounce of fat on it.
Suddenly, Cooper realized that the girl was looking back at her. She met the girl’s gaze and saw that her eyes were an unusual color, a mix of green and brown. She smiled at the girl and received a curt nod in return.
“It’s time to choose our winner for tonight,” the emcee said. “Who’s it going to be, folks?”
People screamed out the names of their favorite bands for a moment, then the emcee held up his hands to quiet them down. “We’ll go one at a time,” he said. “Your cheers will pick the winner, so when it’s your band’s turn, make sure you let us hear you.”
He pointed to the first band. “Who wants to send Petting Zoo home with the prize?” he asked.
The applause was loud but not overly enthusiastic, even though Petting Zoo’s drummer tried to get the crowd pumped up by jumping up and down and waving his arms around.
The emcee moved on to the second band. “How about Stop Motion Photography?” he called out.
This time the applause was much louder and longer. Stop Motion Photography—SMP for short—was a favorite local band. They played frequently and had a loyal following, and Cooper had noticed a lot of people in the crowd wearing their T-shirts. She also knew that their lead singer, a cocky guy with lots of tattoos, expected to win.
“That’s going to be hard to beat,” said the emcee as he came to stand in front of T.J. “Can Schroedinger’s Cat do even better?”
“Tough break,” Cooper whispered to T.J. as the applause came and went without coming close to the enthusiasm the audience had shown for SMP.
Now it was Cooper’s and Jane’s turn. When the emcee lifted his hand above their heads and said, “Is it time to take your Bitter Pills?” the two of them struck poses, daring the audience to say no to them.
It worked. The crowd went wild. They stomped their feet and clapped, chanting, “Bit-ter Pills, Bit-ter Pills.” Cooper looked at Jane and the two of them laughed. This only made the crowd call out their name more loudly. The cheers went on even after the emcee motioned for it to end. When it finally did, Cooper looked over and saw the singer from SMP glaring at her. She winked coolly and blew him a kiss.
“Okay,” said the emcee. “Only one more act to go. At the moment, Bitter Pills looks like our winner. Can Voodoo Mama derail their train?”
The girl from Voodoo Mama stood silently, her guitarist standing behind her, looking out at the audience as they applauded her. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to win, she looked at Cooper and the others, seemed to shake her head, and held up her hand, indicating that she didn’t care whether they all liked her or not.
What a sore loser, Cooper thought as the emcee walked over to her and Jane and handed them an envelope. “Here’s your check for two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said. “And when you’re ready, there’s a main spot on our Saturday night lineup for you.”
Everybody walked offstage as the crowd applauded some more. Then the sound system blared to life with music from the club’s DJ and everyone began dancing. Backstage, Cooper and her friends congratulated one another on their performances.
“You won this time,” said Jed, Schroedinger’s Cat’s keyboard player and, now that Cooper was gone, new guitarist. “But next time we’ll be the ones holding the cash.”
“You’re on,” Cooper said.
“That was quite a song you did,” said a voice behind Cooper. She turned around and saw the girl from Voodoo Mama standing there.
“Thanks,” Cooper said. “Yours was great, too.”
The girl sniffed. “It was too good for this place,” she said. “They don’t understand jazz.”
Well, she’s a real charmer, Cooper thought as she stared at the girl. Even her compliments were insults. What was her problem? Was she just mad because she’d lost? Why was she even talking to Cooper if all she wanted to do was be rude?
“Your lyrics were amazing,” T.J. said to the girl.
She turned to him and smiled, her mouth slipping from something resembling a frown into a slow, easy grin. “Thank you,” she said, looking T.J. up and down. “I think the words are the most important part of a song. I don’t like to cover them up with a lot of guitars like some people do.” She glanced momentarily at Jane and Cooper as she made her statement, then turned her full attention back to T.J. “I’m Madelaine,” she said, holding out her hand.
“T.J.,” Cooper’s boyfriend said.
When he didn’t continue, Cooper elbowed him in the side. “Oh,” T.J. said, giving a start. “This is my girlfriend, Cooper, and that’s Jane.”
“Your girlfriend?” Madelaine repeated, eyeing Cooper. “How interesting.”
“Isn’t it?” said Cooper, smiling sweetly. If the girl wanted to play games, Cooper was only too happy to give her a run for her money.
Madelaine continued to look at her. “I actually didn’t come over here to talk about this silly contest,” she said. “I came because I wanted to meet the girl who told the world she was a witch.”
Cooper looked at Madelaine, not knowing what to say. She knew that everyone else was waiting for her to speak. Everyone there knew that Cooper was involved in Wicca, but they didn’t usually talk about it. Now Madelaine had brought it up as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“Thanks,” Cooper said finally. “I think.” She wasn’t really sure whether Madelaine thought her being into witchcraft was a good thing or a bad thing. Having had run-ins with people who thought it was definitely on the negative end of the scale, she didn’t want to have any trouble.
“I read in the paper about what you did,” said Madelaine. “You and your friends. I was hoping they might be here as well.”
“Good old Amanda Barclay,” Cooper remarked caustically. The newspaper reporter had caused her trouble on several occasions. Recently, she’d written a series of articles about Cooper’s battle with the school board of Beecher Falls High School after they’d tried to ban her from wearing a pentacle to school. Cooper had successfully stood up to them, and it had made her something of a local celebrity—or a troublemaker, depending on what people thought of her actions.
“My friends couldn’t make it tonight,” Cooper told Madelaine. “But I’ll be sure to tell them we have a fan club.”
“I wouldn’t call myself a fan,” Madelaine continued pointedly. “But I admire your courage.”
She never quits, does she? Cooper thought as she nodded at Madelaine. Just when she thought the girl might be trying to make nice, she had to go and say something nasty. There was an awkward silence as no one spoke. Then T.J. said, “I like the name of your band. How did you come up with it?”
Madelaine laughed lightly. “It’s what some people call my mother,” she said. Then she looked at Cooper again. “You’re not the only one who knows something about the spirits.”
Before Cooper could reply, Madelaine slipped her arm through T.J.’s. “Now, why don’t we go have a soda?” she said, flashing him a smile. “I’m very thirsty.”
CHAPTER 2
“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Kate told her therapist. “Her parents’ ghosts were just holding her. Then they disappeared and Cooper and I hugged her.”
She was starting to cry all over again as she remembered the strange events that had occurred on Samhain Eve a few weeks before. She, Cooper, and Annie had performed a ritual in which Annie had called to the spirits of her parents. To Kate’s surprise, Mr. and Mrs. Crandall had appeared. It had been an emotional moment, especially for Annie. But it had been very special for Kate, too. Watching Annie finally get to say good-bye to her mother and father, almost ten years after their deaths in a fire, Kate had been reminded of how important her own family was to her. They’d had some rough times over the past few months, and on occasion Kate had wished that she had a different family. But she loved them, even when they were impossible to deal with, and she knew that they loved her. They’d even let her go to the weekly Wicca study class again after meeting some of the instructors. She knew that was a big step for her conservative parents, and she appreciated it.
“Do you really believe that you saw ghosts that night?” Dr. Hagen asked Kate, holding her pencil to her lips as she waited for an answer.
“Sure,” Kate said. “We all saw them. We couldn’t all have been imagining it.”
“Had you and Cooper ever seen photographs of Annie’s parents?” asked the doctor.
Kate nodded. “A few,” she answered. “Why?”
Dr. Hagen shook her head. “I’m just wondering,” she said.
“You don’t believe me!” said Kate, surprised. It was the first time she’d ever felt that perhaps the therapist didn’t think she was telling the truth. “You think I imagined it all because I wanted it to be true.”
“I believe that you had an experience,” replied Dr. Hagen carefully. “I’m just not sure I agree completely with your explanation of it.”
Kate groaned. “And I thought you were on my side,” she said.
Dr. Hagen set her pad and pencil on the little table beside her chair. “I’ve told you before, I don’t take sides,” she said. “And I also don’t lie. I’m not going to tell you that I think you saw ghosts when I don’t.”
“Then what do you think I saw?” Kate asked her defensively.
“I don’t know,” admitted the doctor.
“You don’t believe in ghosts, though?” Kate prodded.
“I’ve never seen one,” Dr. Hagen told her, not really answering the question.
Kate snorted. “Well, I don’t think Annie, Cooper, and I all had the exact same hallucination or something. I saw those ghosts. Do you always have to see something before you believe in it?”
“Generally,” said the doctor. “Call me old-fashioned.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange, then,” Kate told her.
Dr. Hagen laughed. “Well, before you start sending the Ghost of Christmas Past to wake me up tonight, why don’t we talk about how things in the real world are going. How’s the situation with your parents?”
“Fine, I guess,” Kate said. “We’ve sort of adopted the don’t-ask/don’t-tell policy about the whole witchcraft thing. They pretend I’m not really going to Wicca class every Tuesday night and I don’t mention anything about it when I get home. It’s dysfunctional, but it works for us.”
“Hmm,” said the doctor vaguely as she picked up the pencil and wrote something on the pad. “And you’re okay with that arrangement?”
“As long as I get to go to class,” said Kate. She paused. “I guess I would like to be able to tell them some stuff,” she added. “But it’s okay for right now.”
“And what about Tyler?” asked Dr. Hagen.
“That’s a whole other story.” Kate sighed dramatically. “My parents still don’t want me to see him. I can’t argue with them about it because that would mean talking about the witch stuff some more. But I really want to see him. It’s been a long time.”
“Do you talk to him?” the doctor queried.
“Sometimes,” answered Kate. “He comes to class on Tuesdays when he can, and we talk then. But that’s not enough.”
“How does he feel about all of this?” the therapist said.
Kate sighed. “I think it bothers him as much as it bothers me,” she said. “I try not to talk about it too much because I don’t want what little time we do have together to be depressing.”
“But you don’t think he’s given up on the relationship?” Dr. Hagen asked. “He’s not dating anyone else or anything?”
“No!” Kate said, shocked that the doctor would even suggest something like that. “Tyler? No way. I mean, I know we haven’t been the tightest of couples lately, but I know he still loves me. He’ll wait until things work out.”
“And you love him?” said the therapist.
“Most definitely,” Kate replied firmly. “He’s everything I could possibly want in a guy.”
Dr. Hagen paused as she wrote something down. Kate waited for her to say something, but she seemed engrossed in whatever it was she was scribbling on the paper. Finally, Kate couldn’t stand waiting anymore. “So, how do I get them to let me see Tyler again?” she blurted out.
Dr. Hagen stopped writing. “How about asking them?” she suggested.
“They’ll just say no,” Kate said wearily. “I know they will.”
“That’s what you thought when I suggested inviting them to a ritual, too,” the therapist reminded her. “And you were wrong about that.”
“True,” Kate admitted. “But I’m not sure they’re willing to give in twice in one century. I have to think about it. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my brother will be home from college. That will put them in a good mood. Maybe I’ll do it then.”
“Holidays aren’t always the best occasions for bringing up potentially stressful issues,” Dr. Hagen pointed out.
“I know,” Kate said. “But I need to tell Kyle about the whole Wicca thing anyway. We haven’t talked about it yet, and I feel weird not having him know. I might as well get it all out of the way at once. Besides, once Kyle knows about the class he can help me gang up on Mom and Dad. That’s how we’ve always worked together.”
“It would be good to have an ally in the house,” agreed the doctor. “Are you fairly certain that Kyle will support you?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Kate. “Besides, if he doesn’t I’ll threaten to tell Mom about the tattoo he got. They don’t know about that yet.”
Dr. Hagen sighed. “Well, I can’t officially endorse blackmail as a means to an end, so I’ll leave it up to you to work out the ethics of that approach.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying talking to you or anything,” Kate said, “but how much longer do we have to continue our sessions? My parents brought me here because of the whole Wicca thing. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, is there really any reason to keep spending my Saturday mornings here?”
Dr. Hagen shrugged. “That’s up to you, I think,” she said. “Do you feel that we’ve talked about everything you want to talk about?”
Kate was about to say yes, she did think they’d talked about everything. But then she hesitated. While part of her wanted the doctor to tell her parents that everything was fine and that there was no reason for her to keep coming back, another part of her liked talking to Dr. Hagen. She liked being able to say whatever she was thinking, and she liked that the therapist treated her like someone who could make her own decisions. Was she ready to give that up? To her surprise, she found that she wasn’t sure she was.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she said.
Dr. Hagen looked at her watch. “Perfect timing,” she said. “We’re done for today.”
They stood up, and the doctor walked Kate to the door. “Say hello to your parents for me,” she said as Kate left. “I’ll see you next week.”
Kate left the office and walked to the waiting room, where her mother was thumbing through a magazine and looking bored. “Okay,” Kate said. “I know how gripping those articles on bike trips the whole family can enjoy must be, but it’s time to get out of here.”
Mrs. Morgan put down the magazine and stood up. “For your information, I was reading about the drama on the set of the new Russell Crowe movie,” she said as she pulled on her jacket.
“I see,” Kate said. “Let me guess—he was moody and didn’t like the food?”
“Basically,” her mother answered. “But who cares? He’s a hottie.”
“Mom!” Kate said.
“Please,” said Mrs. Morgan as they left the office and walked to the car. “Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you go blind.”
“It’s not that,” Kate said. “I just thought you’d be more of a Tom Hanks kind of woman.”
Her mother laughed. “He’s too goofy,” she said.
Kate rolled her eyes. She liked joking around with her mother like this. It made her feel more comfortable, the way she had before all of the issues around her involvement in Wicca had put a strain on their relationship. Her mother had always been like a best friend, but that had changed when Mrs. Morgan had found out about her daughter’s interest in witchcraft. Since then Kate had missed the way they’d been before.
Now, though, it seemed that maybe things were getting back to normal. Kate attributed this partly to the fact that her aunt Netty, her mother’s sister, was doing really well in her battle against cancer, a battle she felt she was winning partly because of the effects of a healing ritual she had done with some of Kate’s witch friends. Seeing Netty get better had changed the way Mrs. Morgan looked at witchcraft, and while Kate wished that her aunt never had to fight cancer in the first place, she was happy that some good had come out of it.
Thinking about that reminded Kate that Aunt Netty would be there for Thanksgiving, which was a little more than a week away. Kate hadn’t seen her aunt in a while, and she was looking forward to it. She was also looking forward to seeing her older brother, Kyle. It would be great to have the family together for a few days. Now, if she could only find a way to solve her Tyler problem, everything would be perfect.
“What are your plans for tonight?” her mother asked as they drove home.
“Just hanging out with the girls,” Kate replied evasively. She knew her mother was still a little unsure of her friendship with Annie and Cooper, so she tried to bring them up as little as possible. If she didn’t say which girls she was hanging out with, her mother could assume whatever she wanted to. Not that there were a lot of other options when it came to who she might be spending time with. These days, Cooper and Annie were pretty much it for Kate as far as really close friends went.
