by Antonia Caruso
I don’t know why they called this place “Rosebower.” I think they should have named it “Hornets’ Nest.” It would have been more honest.
Think about it. Main Street is lined with cute little Victorian houses and almost every one of them was originally built with a private entrance to a “reading room.” Next to the door of the reading room is a tasteful sign announcing the name of the psychic who works inside. The sign usually also gives some notion of the proprietor’s specialty. Tarot. Palmistry. Aura reading. Tea leaf discernment.
Hell. For all I know, somebody in town is advertising a preternatural ability to read chicken guts.
How can these people’s gullible devotees fail to see the obvious? Why would a person with true supernatural powers need props? Wouldn’t a real psychic be able to look a person in the face and just know?
From Faye’s description of the séance she attended, I know that Tilda Armistead used props, but simple ones, just a crystal ball and some incense. Then she closed her eyes and didn’t even look at the crystal ball. I see a lot more honor in her style than I do in the antics of someone sloshing wet tea leaves around in a cup. Right or wrong, Tilda’s readings came from inside her, not from a randomly flipped assortment of cards. Or from a steaming pile of chicken entrails.
Rosebower is going to miss Tilda and her unshakeable good sense. Specifically, she’s going to be missed in her lifelong role as a local politician. The town council has ruled this place with an iron fist since God was a girl, and Tilda’s death will not diminish its political power. Her loss will, however, obliterate its ability to govern credibly.
Imagine, if you will, the most head-in-the-clouds and daydream-believin’ hippie you’ve ever met. Feel free to imagine three of the original hippies, grayed and wrinkled but still waving a fist at the establishment that provides their Medicare. Or perhaps you’d rather imagine a thirty-something neo-hippie who has never worked for anyone but his father. Or maybe you’re pondering the image of a middle-aged woman who embraced the New Age and its mystic crystals instead of dealing with the emotional fallout of her empty nest. Even better, imagine all these people and two more like them, then try to imagine that they are able to run a small town.
You can’t do it, can you? Well, neither can I. Without Tilda Armistead on its council, I think the town of Rosebower is in deep, deep trouble.
I have no idea who will be elected to Tilda’s seat, but I do know what the first order of business will be for the new town council. They will begin to bicker over licensure requirements. If they make it more difficult to become a Rosebower-licensed spiritual practitioner, then people with established practices win, because they won’t have to deal with new competition. If they relax the town’s standards, new residents hoping to start a practice will be happy. And so will the wannabes who would move here tomorrow, if they thought they could get a business permit. The wannabes don’t vote here, not yet, but the owners of the inn and the diner and the grocery store and those new teahouses do.
Any council without Tilda will eat itself alive from the inside, arguing over licensure and creating enmities that will last a lifetime. Tilda won’t be there to make them do boring things like negotiate a contract for garbage disposal. She won’t be able to make sure that there’s enough money in the budget to keep up the parks. Institutional gangrene will set in, and there will be no one to stop the decay of a place that is unique, if a little loopy.
Bystanders like me will be treated to the spectacle of Spiritualists at war. The newcomers will press for their right to do business, and the old guard will entrench itself further, horrified that anyone would equate the practice of their religion with “doing business”…despite the fact that they all charge a hefty hourly rate for that practice. And the schism can only continue to grow wider.
This is when Gilbert Marlowe will stop looking like Rosebower’s money-loving destroyer. Tilda Armistead was the only human alive who was capable of standing between Marlowe and a dollar. Give him a chance to clean up the parks and re-institute garbage pickup, and he will start looking like a savior. When that happens, the council will gratefully approve the plans for his tawdry resort and the fascinating history of this weirdo little town will come to an end.
His plans for developing a New Age Disneyland in Rosebower have brought the old guard to the edge of apoplexy. And he may be able to push them over that edge, because the staunchest upholders of Rosebower’s storied past are uniformly elderly. It may be that he needs to do nothing more than wait for a few more funerals. If he stirs the hornets’ nest a little more, his opponents may start dropping dead on their own. Only I don’t think Gilbert Marlowe has any patience whatsoever.
I may think these people are wacky, but I do like the place. I will be sad when Marlowe destroys it.