I'd asked Ellen over mainly to help me with the Pyewacket puzzle, but I had also come to lean on her for deeper needs.
Ever the counselor and a dear friend eager to help, she always told me what was on her mind when she knew I was troubled. "This new man in town has thrown you, hasn't he?" She peered into my face as we walked inside the house. I scooted Elvis away and we both settled on the couch.
"It's only because of the note. If he'd just driven away after conquering that evil spider, I could have forgotten him as easily as Sunday's football scores." I looked down at my semi-fluffy house shoes. "We were just corny 'strangers in the night' and it would've ended with that single pass."
"Except for his one-word note."
I nodded solemnly.
"Kris, I want to come back to the note, but let me ask something." She leaned forward slightly, her palms resting on polyester-covered thighs. "If you weren't out to catch a man, why on earth did you wear such a sexy Halloween costume?"
My face probably looked like I'd stepped in something. "Uh, I don't know."
"I mean, if you were intent on witching, you could've gone with warts and a shapeless black shift." Ellen cleared her throat. "Why a sexy witch?"
I felt slightly ashamed. "I guess sexy was the only, uh, direction that occurred to me."
"Kris, have you wondered why? If you really don't want a man in your life again — why would you wear something showing lots of leg and bocoodles of…?"
Tears formed in my eyes, but they didn't pool enough to fall… yet. It probably meant I was still conflicted. Deep inside, maybe I actually did want to re-establish contact with the male species. Well, not the entire species. I didn't reply to my friend.
Ellen took a deep breath. "Look, you were burned badly but you've survived. You're climbing your way out financially and you have normal relationships with individual men."
I nodded slowly. "But friends, landlords, and former supervisors aren't the kind of relationships you wear high hems and low-cut blouses for. Or a bustier." I gulped.
"No. Those, uh, trappings are designed to make a statement."
"What statement did I make that night at the armory?"
"Well, for some women I know, the statement would have been, 'Have a good look and if you're interested, meet me in the storeroom in ten minutes'."
I gasped and pressed a small pillow to my face.
Ellen hurried to reassure me. "But I think your statement was more along the lines of, 'Hey, somebody let me know if I'm still attractive, because I haven't felt sexy for nearly four years'."
Not since that scumbag screwed up my life. Those pooling tears fell, followed by others. "But that makes me sound so desperate. What did all those people think?"
Ellen sandwiched my hand between hers. "You need to remind yourself that you did not deserve this, Kris. Wally was looking for an easy victim and you opened up to him because you believed his words and trusted his touch. But after Wally everything changed." She peered into my face. "I know you're crushed and bitter — completely understandable. But you have to grow past all that, just like you've steadily paid down all those bills."
I sniffled loudly. "Yeah. One day, about fourteen months from now, I'll be free from that financial jail."
"Jail is a good image, Kris, and I worry that your heart is still confined." Ellen patted my hand. "That pirate let you out of those wooden bars…"
I didn't let her finish. "But there's no way he can rescue me any further, even if I'd let him." Which I won't.
Ellen, who had begun this conversation looking counselor-hopeful, seemed crushed. I hated to disappoint her, but I couldn't just flip a switch and suddenly emanate a golden glow from my formerly shriveled heart. That's just in movies and paperbacks. So, I stood quickly and headed to the kitchen to get the universal tonic for Greene County blues — iced tea.
I held up the plastic pitcher. "Or would you rather something stronger?"
Ellen chuckled in spite of the glum mood in the room. "No, tea's fine."
I poured two glasses and returned to the couch. "I appreciate everything you do to help. Everything you've done, Ellen. Truly. But I don't think I can fix my heart until I get my finances back in operating order. You know, one thing at a time."
"Kris, life doesn't always give you the privilege of handling one thing at a time. Sometimes, you have to tackle whatever's thrown at you. And if one of those happens to be really good — or appears to show some promise — you owe it to yourself to at least stop and take a look."
I mulled that notion. "Or poke it with a stick to see what it does."
Ellen looked puzzled at my image. "Well you sleep on it a bit. It'll come to you… if it's for the good." She took a sip of tea and then stole a peek at her watch. "So what did you find out about that word?"
I was relieved to depart the psychoanalysis. "Pyewacket." I quickly summarized what I'd learned on the Internet search and segued into the movie I'd watched. "That was the name of the witch's cat. Doesn't mean anything to me."
Ellen studied the slipcase for the VHS cassette. "The real question is 'What does that word mean to Ryan?' See the difference?" Ellen seemed always either in the mode of counselor or amateur writer.
"So you haven't seen it?"
Evidently not, from her shrug.
"It's an old movie — late fifties…"
"Oh, back then script writers could put anything on the screen and we were supposed to buy into it." Ellen rolled her eyes. "Give me the low-down."
"It's on the Internet, uh, on a movie database."
"I can't blast my DH off the computer long enough to even check my e-mail. Just list the high points."
"Okay, Jimmy Stewart is a publisher about to marry some icy socialite. Kim Novak knows the Ice Queen from a betrayal during their college days. For revenge, Kim puts a spell on Jimmy so he'll fall out of love with his fiancé. In the meantime, Jimmy falls in love with Kim! But Kim is a witch so her heart cannot even feel love. Yada yada yada. Then Jimmy drinks a potion to counteract the spell and Kim gives up her witch powers so she can finally feel her heart. So, they both lose and it's basically back to square one — an impasse."
"Sounds pretty lame. Nobody could publish that nowadays."
"It plays better than it tells." I was never very good at movie summaries or book synopses. "Well, after some time passes, they happen to meet again and start over with a clean slate, so to speak. No spells, she's completely human by then, and he's over his hurt pride, or whatever."
Ellen placed the slipcase on the coffee table. "Okay, so what part did the cat play in all this?"
The Internet summary hadn't spelled this out, so I had to go back to memory. "Hmm. The cat left Kim after she gave up her mojo, but Pyewacket was instrumental in getting them together. Don't remember exactly because I fast-forwarded part of it, but I think the cat went up to Jimmy's office and sort of reminded him of his connection to Kim. It's a bit fuzzy now."
"Well, forget the cat. Ryan's allusion was the movie itself." Ellen the writer. "Obviously, you're his Kim Novak."
"I don't look anything like Kim." Though it would be quite nice to resemble the sultry Ms. Novak in her prime. "But I'm back on the cat. If it was just a reference to the film, he could've used the title."
"Men don't always utilize the most direct route." Ellen sometimes closed her eyes when she thought especially hard.
"Okay, I'll play it again and you watch it with me."
Ellen reached for her phone to call Mack and then grinned. "Can we bake cookies during half-time?"
I didn't clarify there was no intermission in that movie. "Yeah. Sure." Cookies would be great for those ten pounds I'd been trying to lose.