Well, she promised she’d make it up to me. So I’ve been excited all week about our plans to go to the mall in Atlanta for the craft show. It’s Thanksgiving break, which at Hawthorne U is two weeks. Thankfully, we drive her Audi because it is snowy outside. My old eight-cylinder car is not very snow-friendly.
When we enter the sliding glass doors of the mall, Alondra’s rushed by a girl in a large fake-fur coat and short blond hair. Jane. It’s the exact same coat Alondra’s wearing. Not only am I surprised at seeing Jane; I’m surprised by a toddler in a thick white coat holding her hand.
“Hi, Lee,” Jane says excitedly and gives me a hug. “You guys,” Jane says with a big grin, “meet my niece Madison.”
Madison waves her small hand. Alondra giggles. Then Alondra gets down on her knees and puts her hand out to the little girl. “Hi, Maddie.”
“Hi,” Madison squeaks. But she backs away from her hand.
“Madison,” Jane corrects Alondra.
“Maddie sounds better,” Alondra says with a shrug. Then Alondra turns to me. “Surprise!” Alondra has a stupid guilty expression. She turns back to Jane, whispering, but loud enough for me to hear, “I told him it was a craft show. Like an art show. I didn’t want to scare him about your niece.”
“No problem,” I say with a chuckle.
“You don’t mind the little tyke?” Alondra asks.
“Finger paint?” Madison asks.
“In a moment, dear,” Jane says, touching her nose. “I hope they have finger paint. I really do. I know you love that.”
“She’s adorable, Jane,” I say.
“Oh, thanks, Lee. Don’t you just love her?” Jane asks. “The show’s somewhere around here.” Jane squints and looks all around her. “I think it’s near pictures with Santa.”
“Santa?” I ask. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”
Jane shrugs.
I’m really struck by the Christmas decorations. In Hawthorne, everyone ignores Christmas. Not in Atlanta. Even though it’s Thanksgiving break, there are Christmas lights and signs advertising Christmas sales in every shop window. And with a cold spell unusually early this year, everyone, including me, is wearing gloves and a long coat.
We pass the “Picture with Santa” spot. There’s a line of kids, but there are no kids’ crafts there. Alondra, forward as always, asks one of the elves, and we’re told it’s at the opposite side of the mall.
“So, do you know what you want for Christmas, Maddie?” I ask as we walk by the mall windows. Jane is carrying Madison in her arms.
“Don’t know,” Madison says. “Doll?” she asks looking at me.
“It’s up to you,” I say with a laugh.
I catch Alondra whispering something in Jane’s ear.
“What?” Madison asks me.
“Did your mommy and daddy hint at anything?”
“No.”
“But you’re excited, aren’t you, Madison?” Jane asks.
“Yep.” And the girl claps adorably.
The craft show is impressive. There are like twenty tables of stuff to do and ten kids surrounding each table. Madison seems more interested in charging at other kids and breaking their artwork than actually doing any “art” herself. But she loves it.
Jane’s right about her loving finger painting. Madison goes crazy messing up her fingers and face with the stuff. After half an hour, I’m exhausted. And, thankfully, Madison looks petered out too. We head back.
We pass a Victoria’s Secret on our way out, and Alondra flashes me a sly smile. Then she whispers in Jane’s ear again.
“I’ve got to change Madison, guys,” Jane says. “And it’s getting late. I’m gonna take her home to Mom and Dad. I’ll meet you two back in Hawthorne. Okay?”
“Be careful on the drive home,” I say.
“Bye, Maddie,” Alondra says.
“Bye, bye,” Madison says. Then she looks at me. “Bye, bye.”
Alondra and I watch Jane and her niece make their way down an escalator and through double glass doors. Then Alondra hooks her arm in mine and tugs me into Victoria’s Secret. “Come on. I need your help in buying something for you.”
“For me?”
“I owe you. God, you were so nice to Madison. You’re so nice, it kills me.”
Inside she walks over to a table and sifts through some burgundy and black undies. “So what do you want to see me in?”
“What do you mean?” I ask with a smirk.
“What do you want me to try on for you?” she asks, blinking stupidly over the panty table.
“It’s not like you can try it on in the store here, Allie.”
She raises a finger, “Ah, but I can when we get home.”
“So… you’re like my girlfriend now?”
She furrows her brow. “What’s a girlfriend?”
I fold my arms. She’s smiling as she runs her fingers through more panties. She throws her hair back and asks, “Tell me…how many boyfriends and girlfriends get married?”
“Not many.”
“Um-hmm. And how many that get married stay married?”
“Not many.”
“But how many boyfriends and girlfriends fuck?”
I look around the store, and that makes her laugh hard. She shakes her head.
“And let’s look at the word, shall we, Lee?” she asks, still laughing. “Not that one. The word boy-friend. Well, you’re a boy and you’re my friend, aren’t you?”
I don’t say anything. I don’t even nod. I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks that she does this Socratic method shit on occasion when trying to be cute and playful. I’m tired and not in the mood.
“And I love you, Lee. Sure. I love it when I make your face red. I love it when I get you all nervous when I hug you and peck your cheek. And…you love me, right?” After I don’t answer for a while, she says, “So…” with a shrug, picking up saffron panties, “What is a boyfriend and a girlfriend? Who cares? Unless it has something to do with us fucking.” She makes sure to say the word fucking really loud.
“Don’t be a bitch,” I say in a whisper.
“What?” Alondra asks. “Don’t be a witch? What does that mean?” She’s squinting and appears to be stopping herself from bursting out laughing.
She moves to lace bras. She picks up one that’s navy blue.
“Can I help you, miss?” asks an older saleswoman wearing thin glasses and a long navy-blue blouse. She folds her arms and smiles at Allie.
“Oh, you sure can,” Alondra says. She grabs a black bra and presses it against her boobs. “Do you think this will look good on me?”
“That’s a floral lace. Yes, it’s very nice. Yes.”
“Or I could go with red?” she asks and grabs a cherry-red one and puts it against her chest. Then she does the same with a dark one. “Or black?”
“You seem to like black makeup,” the saleswoman says. That’s for sure. “I think the black one fits you.” Yep.
“What do you think, Lee,” Alondra asks smugly. “You like black. It’s really important that you like it on me.”
“I think he’ll like the black one a lot,” the saleswoman says with a laugh.
“Yeah, I think my boyfriend will like black too.”
We returned home to Hawthorne at night. The whole drive was awful as I slowly drove—I mean, really slowly—down the icy highways and then up the secluded forested hills of Hawthorne. We meant to get back early for safety, but there was an accident on the road. It’s almost nine o’clock. And though no one is home at Alondra’s house, all the yellow outside lights are on. One is shining on her red carriage.
We’ve been quiet for the last hour. I suppose I was concentrating on the road. But now, it seems a bit uncomfortable.
“What’s the red carriage in the front of your house about?” I ask, parking behind it.
“Don’t you just love it?” she asks with a yawn. “It’s decoration.”
“Expensive decoration.”
She turns to me and nods, and her emerald eyes flash green from an outside light. She squeezes my hand and smiles.
“Why do your friends call you Falconsong?” I ask as I stop her car.
“That’s easy. A falcon is a leader. Take a look at your ancient Egyptian history.”
“Sure, professor.”
She shivers and says excitedly, “Ready. We need to bolt. It’s gonna be very cold.”
“You really want me to stay the night?”
“Yeah. If that’s all right with you?”
Honestly? I’m a little scared. Alondra is unpredictable—fun, but frightening as hell.
“Okay.”
“What’s the matter?” she asks, frowning. “Are you angry about Madison? Maybe I shouldn’t have tricked you. Sorry about that. But I really wanted you to come with Jane and me.”
“No. It’s just that, Alondra, your ideas about a boyfriend are not my own. And I didn’t appreciate you embarrassing me in the store.”
“But we say fuck all the time. I loved how it got a rise out of you in public. Sorry. Why does it bother you so much, anyway?”
“I’m Christian. Christians believe in love and marriage. Love between a man and a woman. Not just sex. You know, girlfriends and boyfriends.”
“I finally called you my boyfriend, didn’t I?”
I sigh. I just know this discussion isn’t going to go anywhere tonight. So instead of answering, I open my door and walk around the car shivering like crazy. Then I open her door. She leaps out and runs, sliding by her open gate.
“Careful!”
Regaining her footing, she makes it to her front door. Then she fumbles with her keys from her purse and opens it.
Inside, the house is pleasurably warm. She turns on a switch, and the incredible diamond chandelier above lights up. Then she turns on some switches in the hallway.
“Want pizza?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“We can order in.”
She walks into the kitchen, and I hear her dialing. Meanwhile I meander my way to the living room. For a flash, I remember people lying in the hallway drunk or drugged. That was the first time I was in this house. She invited everyone for a welcoming party the summer before my first semester, and her house was packed with intoxicated people partying or unconscious. I remember seeing her in a tight black skirt looking cute as hell. And checking me out. She kept looking at me. Only now do I understand why she and her friends were wearing black. I turn to my left and see the dining room, remembering Alondra decked in full witch costume, greeting me on our “first date.” I enter the living room on the other side of the hallway.
Her living room is really modern, with an elegant stone chimney and a sofa and chairs in strange colors like fuchsia and baby blue. A large glass sliding door leads to the backyard. I recall a hundred students walking in and out of this door at her party. Now it’s quiet and too dark to see the wild grassy field and the surrounding forest.
Alondra walks in the living room with another yawn and says, “We can watch a movie or something.”
She takes off her sweater and is wearing just a black T-shirt and jeans. Then she walks over to the sliding door to her porch and turns on an outside light. She stares outside for a moment.
“Everything’s icing. I like ice, you know. A lot of my sisters don’t. They enjoy Selene around Beltane or Litha. But I like Yule. I feel like ice and snow is beautiful, you know?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah.”
We sit on a couch and she uses a remote on a glass coffee table to turn on a big-screen TV. There’s a documentary on baseball showing. The sports channel is for me, I think. It doesn’t really matter. She leans against my shoulder, and I just enjoy sitting beside her.
The pepperoni pizza comes, and we bring the box over to the coffee table. She gets me a few beers. I’m still underage, but it doesn’t matter. And I’m sure not going to remind her. She’s two years older than I am.
After lots more TV, with her sleeping with her head on my shoulder, she wakes up close to midnight.
“I’m being such a bad host,” she says, stretching with a yawn. “Let me make your bed.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“It isn’t,” she says, shaking her head and dragging herself off the couch. “God, that drive was so boring, it killed me. Come on.”
“I thought you wanted to try on your bra?”
“Oh, I could do that,” she says, quickly turning, surprised. “You want to do that?”
“We left the bags in the car.”
“Did you plan that?” she asks, squinting.
“I preferred having you rest on my shoulder.”
“That’s so sweet.” She turns very serious. “Really, Liam. You’re so sweet. You know, you don’t have to go with me tomorrow. This one’s gonna get pretty bad. My friend told me it’s one of the most dangerous haunts she’s ever seen. It’s not just a ghost hunt. Maybe it’d be better if you make yourself at home and stay here?”
“The roads are still slick and dangerous,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t want you going alone. And how is it possible to keep that part of your life out of our relationship, Allie, anyway? You’re the high priestess witch of the Hawthorne coven.”
She smiles and nods, but she looks unsure. Then she reaches for my hand.
She leads me down the hall to another hallway by the door. Along this hallway is the guest room. She grabs some sheets from a closet, and I help her make the bed. When she finishes, she yawns and says, “’Night, tiger. If you need anything, holler. I’ll be upstairs in my bedroom.”
She hobbles sluggishly toward the door, but I snatch her wrist. I turn her and she looks surprised. I kiss her tired lips. I bring her close. She runs her hand along my back and butt, grasping me tighter. I feel her boobs against my chest, and we just French kiss, making out for a while. And it’s nice.
“How’s that?” I ask. Her eyes are still closed, and I run my hand along her cheek.
“Umm. You sure you don’t want to get the bags from the car tonight, boyfriend?” She smiles slyly.
“Too cold.”
She yawns again and nods. Then she stares into my eyes and gets really serious. “I like you, Lee. I really do. I like you a lot.”
“I like you too, Alondra.”
“Goodnight, babe.”