Magic and Loss

Chapter 22

When most people sit down for dinner with their folks, it’s a time for casual banter about school, friends, and weekend plans. In my family it’s far more . . . complicated than that. I have never once seen my mother take a meal without diamonds in her ears and haute couture on her back. And instead of reaching for the bowl of mashed potatoes or passing around a basket of rolls on our own, either Clarence or Langston, his deputy, always does it for us.

“So . . . what are your plans?” my mother asked as Clarence carefully deposited three spears of white asparagus onto her plate.

“You mean for my child?” I replied. “I intend on keeping it, of course.”

My mother raised an elegantly sculpted eyebrow. “Have you truly thought this out?”

“Yes, but clearly not the same way you have,” I replied, already feeling my hackles rise.

“I’m just saying you have your whole life ahead of you. Are you sure you want to lumber yourself with a constant, living reminder of a bad decision you once made?”

“Despite what you may think, my being with Hexe was not a bad decision,” I snapped. “Once things get worked out between us, I’m planning on going back home.”

“But, darling, you are home.”

“No,” I said, with a shake of my head. “This is where I grew up. My home is in Golgotham. With Hexe.”

“Golgotham’s a haven for freaks and monstrosities,” my mother sniffed. “Decent humans have no place there.”

“I belong in that world far more than I ever have in yours,” I said flatly. “In fact—I’m a full-fledged Golgothamite now.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

I turned to Clarence, who was in the process of sliding a nice, juicy slice of prime rib onto my father’s plate. “Clarence, could you bring me a pair of paper clips?”

“Of course, Miss Timmy,” he replied. Clarence nodded to Langston, who nimbly stepped in and took over the carving knife and fork, and then disappeared into the kitchen.

“What on earth do paper clips have to do with this?” my mother asked with a frown.

A few moments later, Clarence returned to the dining room, brandishing a pair of jumbo gold-colored paper clips. “Will these do, Miss Timmy?”

“Just what I need,” I smiled. “Thank you, Clarence.”

I quickly unbent the metal wires and used them to construct an impromptu sculpture utilizing the welter of tableware on either side of my plate. The “body” was fashioned from my coffee spoon, while its four “legs,” joined by the repurposed paper clips, were made from the salad and dessert fork, the seafood fork, and the butter knife. I decided it looked like a horse. Granted, a spindly, somewhat lopsided horse, but a horse nonetheless.

“What are you doing?” my mother sighed. “And couldn’t this have waited until after we’ve had dinner?”

“Your mother does have a point, Princess,” my father agreed as he munched on his prime rib.

“You asked me what I meant when I said I was a Golgothamite,” I replied, as I placed my handiwork down in the middle of the table. “It’s far easier for me to show you.”

I reached out to my creation, just as I had with the clockwork dragon, and felt the familiar spark of connection. Suddenly my ungainly little tableware horse began moving forward under its own steam across the tabletop, although the cocktail fork did result in giving it a pronounced limp.

My father dropped the roll he was buttering onto the floor, along with the knife he was using. To his credit, Clarence promptly retrieved the fallen utensil without batting an eye. My mother squealed in horror and threw her napkin at the thing stumping toward her, knocking it over. The “horse” lay on its side, its mismatched legs still moving, like those of a tipped turtle trying to regain purchase. Although I will admit to taking a certain satisfaction in freaking my mother out, I was genuinely surprised when she suddenly burst into tears and leapt up from the table, fleeing the room. I jumped up and hurried after her, leaving my father to poke at the now-lifeless construct with his own fork.

I found my mother in the conservatory. As unlikely as it seems, she has always had a green thumb. But where other “ladies who lunch” make a hobby out of cultivating orchids or tending bonsai gardens, her passion was container gardening—tomatoes, zucchini, squash, various peppers, cucumbers, even watermelons. Indeed, most of the vegetables that graced the family table were grown on the premises. But not only was her penthouse vegetable garden her hobby; it also served as my mother’s private refuge.

She was sitting in a wicker plantation chair, between the beefsteak tomatoes and the snap peas, daubing at the tears in her eyes with a tissue as she struggled to regain her composure.

“Mom—are you all right?” I asked gently. “I really didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I’m okay,” she said between sniffles. “I guess I should have known this day would come. After all, magic has its price. But I never thought the price would be you.”

I frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

She heaved a deep sigh that seemed almost to deflate her. “All of this is my fault. I brought it upon myself and on you.”

“Mom, you’re not making any sense. . . .”

“I’m a complete fraud, you know,” she announced matter-of-factly. “A complete and utter fraud. Have been from the start.” She looked at me appraisingly. “Do you know where I was born?”

“Sure; in Philadelphia.”

“Oh, I was born in Pennsylvania, all right!” she said with a humorless laugh. “But not in Philly. I was actually born in rural Lancaster County, deep in Pennsylvania Dutch country, on a Mennonite farm.”

I blinked in surprise. Although my maternal grandparents had died long before I was born, I was fairly familiar with their family history. “I thought Grandfather Bieler owned a textile company.”

My mother smiled ruefully. “The closest my father came to textiles was the wool on the sheep he raised. I was the fourth of their seven children—yes, that’s right. I’m not an only child, either. You have aunts and uncles and rafts of cousins I’ve never told you about, most of them still in Lancaster County, I suppose.

“The farm I grew up on wasn’t big, but it wasn’t that small, either. The boys helped Father work the fields, while the girls kept the house and tended the livestock. Every morning before school I had to milk the goat and feed the chickens and then, when I got home, I had to muck out the horse stalls. And I hated every minute of it. The goats would try to butt me, the chickens would peck at me, and the horses were always trying to step on my feet. I promised myself that when I grew up, I would make sure I never had to look at the wrong end of a mule for the rest of my life.”

“Your parents—my grandparents—are they still alive?” I asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not,” she replied, with a shake of her head. “My father died a couple years after I ran away when a tractor rolled over on him. My mother died of cancer, not long before you were born.

“They were good people, I suppose—but uneducated. Neither of them had graduated from high school. My mother was fifteen when she married my father and sixteen when she started popping out kids. I never really knew her that well—she was always either pregnant or tired. I wasn’t particularly close to any of my siblings, either—I was the only one of the litter who had dreams of doing something besides working on a farm or marrying a farmer. I wanted bigger, better things than that, and was determined to escape the first chance I got. So I ran away from home when I was seventeen. I wanted to go to New York City and become a dancer on Broadway. It took some doing, but I eventually got there.”

My jaw dropped in surprise. “You were a showgirl?”

“I realize I’m your mother, but you don’t have to look that incredulous,” she chided. “Yes, I was a showgirl—and a damn good one, too. I could line-kick with the best of ’em, and in high heels, no less.” She paused to study me for a moment. “Did I ever tell you how your father and I first met?”

“Sure,” I replied automatically. “It was at the after-party for the Met’s staging of Rossini’s Cinderella. . . .”

“It was at an after-party—but for A Chorus Line, not the opera. It was being held out in the Hamptons, and one of the producers of the show I was in asked me to be his ‘date.’ He was queer as a three-dollar bill, of course, but he would bring me along as arm candy, for appearances’ sake. When we got there, I realized the mansion was full of younger society types—the ones who went to Elaine’s and Studio 54. Everywhere I looked there were glamorous women with pedigrees as long as my arm, dressed in the latest from Paris, and literally dripping with diamonds. I felt like a hick farm girl with hayseeds in my hair and pig shit on my shoes.

“The minute we arrived my producer friend dumped me to go fool around with some pretty boy in the pool house. The minute he leaves me alone, this creepy swinger type gloms on to me, trying to chat me up. I must have looked pretty nervous, because the next thing I know, your father walks over and hands me a drink and says, ‘Sorry that took so long. Is this guy bothering you?’ After the creep hurried off, Timothy apologized for butting in, but said he could tell I needed some help. Then he introduced himself to me and we started talking.

“I didn’t know who he was—not at first, anyway—but I could tell he came from money. When he asked me about myself, I panicked and the next thing I know I’m telling him my family owns a textile company and that I’m visiting from Philadelphia.” She shook her head in disbelief at the actions of her younger self. “Before I know it, your father is asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner the next time I’m ‘in town.’ I said yes because he was such a gentleman—not like all the other men I knew, who were all hands and tongue.”

“Mom!”

“Don’t give me that look!” she sniffed. “You’re not a five-year-old anymore, Timmy. Everyone knows what you have to do to make it onto a Broadway stage.

“Once my producer friend was finished amusing himself, he came and gathered me up. On the way back into the city, he asked me if I’d made any new friends. And he winked when he said it. When I told him I’d met a nice young man named Tim Eresby, he nearly drove off the road! That’s when I realized I’d lucked into something really big. But I’d also managed to screw myself at the same time.

“If I was going to make any headway with him, I was going to have to ‘live’ the part I’d created for myself. But how could I possibly fill my closet with designer clothes and cover myself in jewelry? I was just the third girl from the left in a mediocre revival of a mediocre musical. If I wanted to dress for success, it meant resorting to magic.

“I had grown up in a religious family, and the idea of turning to a witch for help was . . . troublesome for me. But I also knew several other people who worked in the theater that had used magic to further their careers, most of whom seemed to have suffered no ill effects from doing it. So I went ahead and picked up the Village Voice and looked through the listings in the back for magical services. I found an ad for a Mistress Syra—that’s what she called herself back then; none of that “Lady” nonsense—who specialized in glamours and enchantments, especially the appearance of wealth and social status. Best of all, she made house calls, because, back then, decent people didn’t travel to Golgotham unless they couldn’t avoid it.

“I called the number in the ad, and she showed up at my apartment the very next day. I will admit that I was very impressed when I saw her. She arrived carrying a squarish valise that looked like a salesman’s sample case. I told her what my problem was, and she said what I needed was a No-Knickers spell, which would guarantee me the outward appearance of wealth without actually providing me with riches.

“She opened up her case and a pair of legs popped out of it, so that she could use it like a table. I could see that it was full of different little vials and canisters. She mixed up a sampler batch of the potion, which she poured into a perfume atomizer, and told me to spray it all over myself, from head to toe, and then count to ten before looking at myself in a mirror.

“I did as I was directed, and when I opened my eyes I was amazed by what I saw. I was no longer wearing an off-the-rack dress, but the latest design from Halston, complete with a diamond necklace and matching diamond stud earrings. I made Audrey Hepburn look like a bag lady.

“She then instructed me to take my coat out of the closet and put it on. When I did, it turned into a glorious mink stole! I was ecstatic! It was like I was staring at a totally new woman, one who had never gathered eggs and milked goats, and didn’t know which end of a shovel was used to muck out a horse stable—in fact, she didn’t know what ‘muck’ meant.

“Syra told me that while all of this might look real—even feel and smell real—it was nothing but an illusion. Once its potency wore off, the glamour would evaporate, leaving me revealed as a pauper. Hence the saying: ‘fur coat and no knickers.’

“She told me the more I used it, the weaker the spell would become. I was young and desperate, so I went ahead and paid for the spell, and it wasn’t long before I was on my way to being a faux heiress.

“On my first date with your father, I lied and told him I was staying at the Plaza, because I didn’t want him to see the apartment building I was living in. It was definitely not the kind of place where one would expect an heiress—even one from Philly—to be staying. An hour before he was supposed to pick me up, I took a cab to the Plaza and hung around in the lobby, waiting for your father to come collect me. I must have looked like I belonged, because no one asked me what I was doing there.”

“So how was your first date?” I asked, intrigued by this secret history of my parents’ meeting and courtship.

“It was wonderful—your father took me to this charming little Italian place called Mama Rosa’s, and then we went to Xenon over on Forty-third and danced for hours. Why are you gaping at me like that, child?”

“I’m just having a hard time picturing you and Dad boogieing down at a disco, that’s all,” I admitted.

“What did you think we were doing back then—dancing minuets? It was the seventies, darling! Now, where was I? Ah, yes! We ended by going for coffee at an all-night diner, and then your father dropped me back off at the Plaza. He was gentleman enough not to expect an invitation to my room—which was a good thing, considering. Once he left, I came back out of the hotel and caught a cab downtown.

“The very next day your father called and asked me out again. Soon we were seeing each other twice a week, then three. It wasn’t long before I ran out of the No-Knickers spray. I called Mistress Syra for a refill. She returned and made a new batch for me, but this time it cost twice as much as before! She said it was because she had to increase the glamour’s potency, since I was using it so often. I wasn’t thrilled by the price hike, but what else could I do?

“However, I started noticing something different about the spell. When I first started using it, a single application would last for six to eight hours. But now it was wearing off after only four. One night, when we were at the Russian Tea Room, I left the table wearing Diane von Furstenberg and an emerald necklace, only to arrive in the ladies’ room dressed in J. C. Penney and costume jewelry. Luckily, I was carrying the atomizer in my purse, so I was able to reapply the glamour in one of the stalls. Your father and I had been seeing one another for three months by the time the second atomizer ran dry. When I called Mistress Syra about a refill, the price was even higher than before. The musical I’d been dancing in had closed by that point, and I was living off crackers and tomato soup made from hot water and ketchup. The only thing I owned I could use as payment was a platinum and ruby tennis bracelet Timothy gave me as a token of his affection. It was the first real jewelry I’d ever owned. But I had no choice—if I didn’t pay what she asked, Timothy would discover I was worse than a fraud. So I gave the bracelet to Syra.

“The third bottle of No-Knickers spray was twice as strong as the previous one, but its staying power was eroding even faster. Where once a single spritz had been good for most of the evening, now I was forced to keep ducking into the ladies’ room to reapply my glamour, for fear of the illusion dissolving in the middle of nightclubbing.

“Your father and I had been dating for nearly six months—and I will admit, when we first started seeing one another, I had dollar signs in my eyes. But as I got to know him, I found myself falling in love with him. He was far kinder and sweeter than any man I’d ever known, and not just because he was looking to get in my pants. He was considerate to everyone he met, from nightclub impresarios to the hatcheck girl. He was also smart, funny, a good dancer, and an excellent lover. . . .”

“Mom! Ick! Too much information!”

“Honestly, Timmy,” she said, patting her hair to make sure it was still in place, something she did whenever she was embarrassed. “You know damn well your generation didn’t invent premarital sex! Anyway, one evening your father and I went to a charity gala for some museum or hospital, I suppose. Anyway, we were ballroom dancing and I was enjoying myself so much, I completely lost track of time. Then I looked down and realized I was no longer wearing Chanel, but an off-the-rack shift from Filene’s Basement, and my matching pearl necklace and earrings had turned back into cheap paste knockoffs!

“I looked into Timothy’s eyes and I saw surprise, then confusion. The couples closest to us were openly snickering. Although I was fully clothed, I’d never been any more naked than I was at that moment. I had been revealed as a No-Knickers, and now they knew I wasn’t one of them. I bolted from the dance floor and fled the building. Timothy and I had arrived at the ball in a chauffeured limousine, but there I was, running off into the night on foot all by myself. I ended up taking the subway back to my neighborhood.

“I was so devastated; I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. The man I loved now knew the woman he thought he had been courting for the last six months didn’t truly exist, and that I had lied to him about who and what I was. I’d had a chance at landing my very own Prince Charming, only to fail in the most spectacularly humiliating way imaginable. I returned to my dismal little studio apartment and didn’t go outside for two days.

“Then, on the third day, there was a knock on my door. I was sure it was the landlord, wanting to know where his rent was. But when I opened the door, instead of the landlord, I saw your father standing there, holding a huge bouquet of flowers! He’d tracked me down by talking to the producer who had taken me to the after-party. He told me he didn’t care if I was rich or poor—as long as I was me. But once he returned home, my insecurity got the better of me again. I began to worry that his parents might pressure him into marrying someone with more social standing.

“So I made one last call to Mistress Syra. I didn’t have much in the way of money, but I figured since I had grossly overpaid her with the tennis bracelet, I might have a little leeway. I told her I wanted a love potion; one that would make me the unquestioned queen of Timothy’s heart. The love potion she crafted was odorless and colorless, perfect for being slipped into food or drink, and I put it in his champagne while he wasn’t looking.

“I am not proud of what I did—in fact, I regretted doing it within moments of pouring it in his glass. But there was no going back, and I was genuinely terrified of losing him. Not so much to another woman, mind you, but to his sense of responsibility to his family. If your father is anything, he’s a dutiful Eresby. That very night he proposed to me. It should have been the happiest moment of my life, but it seemed so terribly hollow. It was like I had won a long distance marathon by cheating at the last mile.

“But what really worried me was the fact the love potion, like all magic, would eventually wear off. Of course I could always buy another vial and dose him again, but I had learned my lesson from the No-Knickers spell. I knew I’d end up paying a fortune every other week for potions of ever-decreasing strength.

“I decided the best plan would be for me to steer clear of any more magic and simply make myself indispensable to your father. I thought that if I became the perfect high-society wife, he might stay married to me once the potion wore off, or even fall in love with me for real. So I threw myself into doing all the things expected of me: organizing charity balls, lunching with the right ladies, and keeping myself a size two—and I haven’t stopped since.”

“And did it? Wear off, that is?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “In the thirty-five years we’ve been married, your father’s feelings for me have not changed in the least. That just means every morning I wake up wondering if this is the day I’ll find him looking at me as if I was a stranger.”

She paused for a moment and when she looked at me her face softened and lost its usual reserve, which I had come to view as its default expression. Up until a half hour ago, I thought my mother was just another socialite with a drinking problem who spent her life doing nothing but shopping, gossiping, and dieting, but now I was seeing a whole different person I had never dreamed existed.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been the mother I should have been to you, Timmy. I was so busy imitating the high-society women around me in order to fit in, I copied all their failings, too. Part of me has always been . . . distant toward you, through no fault of your own. Perhaps it’s because I was never close to my own mother, or because I’m unsure whether you were conceived in love—or something else. Whatever the reason, it’s no excuse for me handing you over to others to raise.” She suddenly leaned forward and grasped my forearm, clutching it tightly, like a drowning woman grabbing the hand of a rescuer. It was the closest she had come to hugging me in years. “I know I don’t show it the way I should, but never, ever doubt for a moment that I love you, Timmy. I have everything I ever dreamed of when I was candling eggs and milking goats on my parents’ farm: a rich husband, a wonderful home, fast cars and fashionable clothes, and a beautiful and talented daughter. But I got it through trickery, and now I’m paying the price through my child.”

“Mom—I don’t know what to say,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. “I had no idea. . . .”

“Of course you didn’t. What mother wants to admit that she cheated her way into marriage? Or that she let her own insecurity get in the way of raising her child? Much less that her dabbling in magic has turned her only daughter into a . . . a . . .”

“‘Weirdo’?” I suggested helpfully. “Mom, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up over this. My magic powers have nothing to do with whatever potions you swallowed or spritzed on yourself, decades ago. I know for a fact that I’m not the only human in Golgotham who has been affected. I’m not a hundred percent sure why I’m able to do magic now, but I do know that none of this is your fault.”

My mother smiled and gave a half laugh and half sob as she daubed at the tears returning to her eyes.

“And, Mom? I like this story of how you and Dad met a lot better than the old one.”

“Thank you for saying that, sweetheart. Your father and I will always love you, no matter what, but, I beg you, never bring the silverware to life again. We have to eat with those things.”

As I headed back to my room, I kept thinking about everything my mother had said. It was the first time in our shared lives that she had spoken to me as a fellow adult, instead of a child. The mythology of my childhood had been blown apart, but, to my surprise, I was cool with it. So my textile tycoon grandfather didn’t really exist—big deal. I never met him in the first place. But now I know where my artistic streak came from—my ex-showgirl mother! It almost made up for the news that the only reason my father asked her to marry him was because she slipped him a love potion.

As I prepared to go to bed, there was a knock on the door, and a second later my father stuck his head into the room. “Are you decent?”

“About as much as I’ll ever be,” I replied with a laugh.

He stepped into the room and sat down on the corner of the bed beside Beanie, who was sound asleep and snoring like a buzz saw. “Does he always sound like that?” He frowned.

“If you think that’s bad, just wait until he starts breaking wind,” I chuckled. “Is something wrong, Dad?”

“Can’t a father check in on his daughter and see how she’s doing?” he protested.

“I’m okay, I guess. I’m just feeling a bit dazed and glazed right now,” I admitted. “It’s been a long, stressful twenty-four hours.”

“I’m pleased that you and your mother were able to talk—and without any shouting, I might add.”

I studied him for a long moment, uncertain whether to say anything. Growing up, I had wondered why he always allowed my mother to have her way, no matter what it might be. Now it all seemed to make sense.

“Dad—how would you feel if everything you thought was real turned out to be an illusion—?”

“So I take it your mother finally got around to telling you about how we met,” he said with a laugh. “Did she also tell you about how she slipped a love potion into my champagne?”

“You know about that?”

“Of course!” he replied. “I’m one of the richest men in the world! And back then I was one of the most eligible bachelors in this, or any, country! I was always getting dosed with love potions and having Come Hithers cast over me by gold diggers. That’s why I always wore counter-charms and carried antidotes on my person at all times.”

“You mean Mom didn’t bewitch you?”

“Oh, I’m under her spell—but it has nothing to do with magic!” he laughed. “I was enchanted by your mother the first time I laid eyes on her. She’s an amazing woman, you know that? She’s a real firecracker, and isn’t afraid to speak her mind and stand up for what she believes in. You and she are a lot alike. I suspect that’s why you two are always butting heads. Unfortunately, I fear she’s reliving some unresolved issues she had with her parents through you, especially in regard to your decision to become an artist. I know she hated quitting the stage to marry me—but my parents insisted on it. That’s why she’s such a passionate fund-raiser for the ballet, you know.”

“If you’re not spellbound, why haven’t you told her yet? She’s spent years waiting for you to come to your senses and replace her with some bimbo who looks like a pool toy.”

“And lose what little leverage I have in the relationship?” he exclaimed. “Are you nuts?”

After my father bid good night and kissed me on the forehead, I changed into my nightclothes and climbed into bed. It was far bigger and much more comfortable than Nessie’s living room couch, but it was also just as cold and lonely. My only consolation, as I drifted off into a troubled sleep, was knowing I, like my child, had been conceived in love. Granted, a weird, fucked-up kind of love—but love nonetheless.