Chapter 2 #2
Susan squints, witch interrupted. Can’t he see she is working?
She inhales, takes him in. He is a man who requires a second look: his height is disguised by a bookish slouch, his steady blue eyes by thick, old-fashioned frames.
There is a seriousness about his haircut, his crisp button-down, but he gives himself away with a cheeky, lopsided smile, a single, handsome dimple.
He thinks he’s clever.
“Witchcraft.”
“Makes sense,” he nods. He holds her gaze, does not take her hint to leave. After a moment, he asks, gently: “Are you okay?”
Of course not. I am going to die. Bridget would say it, if she were responding, but this man is clearly concerned about Susan, her face smudgy and undone, flush with heat and emotion.
“I’m going to be fired.” She realizes it only as she says it.
“Is there anything—” he starts. And then: “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It will be worth it,” she says with precarious mania. “It’s better than sleepwalking through life.”
He looks at her unblinking, inhaling as if he has something to say.
What can he possibly say? She could laugh.
He must have no idea. He does not leave.
Instead, steadily, he crosses into the greenroom, as though searching for some way to comfort her.
Can’t he see, she doesn’t need comfort? She has never been more powerful than on this precipice.
Nevertheless, he points his aquiline nose up at the machine, taps it twice with the flat of his palm.
“In my professional opinion, it’s dead. Chuck it.”
“And what kind of a professional would that be?”
“Well, I’m trying to become a doctor.”
“So medically, it’s dead.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean a medical doctor, obviously. Who needs them when the witches around here are so good?”
She laughs. Forgives, despite herself, the intrusion.
“I’m more of a history doctor,” he continues, “or working on it. So, I guess I’m a professional in what does and doesn’t need saving.”
If you asked her, Susan would tell you that she doesn’t have a type.
She would also tell you that she hasn’t been in love, but this she is less sure about.
She finds it difficult not to fall, with sudden intensity, for the men she dates—it’s too simple to imagine herself becoming the type of woman they would love in return.
She does not see this as a fault. If anything, it’s this capacity (she tells herself) that makes her such a convincing scene partner—the ability to find the lovable in everyone.
The only point of consistency is unfamiliarity.
In men she is looking for something she has not yet discovered, something she cannot find in herself.
So, this history doctor intrigues her. He is old, but not so old—not yet thirty by her estimation. He is looking at her with the assurance of someone who knows what he wants.
In the corner, a small black-and-white TV runs a feed from the stage. She has time.
“So what about me?” she asks.
“Sorry?”
“Do I need saving?”
He takes her in, the drama of her face.
“Something tells me you’ll be all right.”
A summer intern emerges, apologizes; he was unable to locate the documents, he tells the man. “You’d be better off returning next week, when the proper help might be available.”
The man looks almost delighted by this outcome, stealing a last glance at Susan as he follows the assistant down the hall.
Maybe she’ll see him again. Maybe not. Either way, it does not matter, because here it comes now, the walk to her doom.
Grasp at them, all the fleeting joys of life, every moment that you made a difference, that you didn’t spend regretting.
If she is sure of one thing, it is that she wants to live.
She wants to see and feel and burn and wonder and love.
She wants to say yes to all the world. When the boys come to drag her out, she resists harder than ever, her heels scuffing the stage, enchantment and anger radiating through her, the whole cast looking at her as though she might actually be a witch.
“Any final words?”
The tears are close to the surface now, instinctual. Here come the shallow—shallower—inhales like a sharpened pencil, liquid lead in her lungs. You want a witch? Fine. Have me. As she gives over to the bestial howl, the child in the front row stirs, opens his eyes.
BLACKOUT. The crowd on their feet. Adrenaline propels her through the greenroom, out of her costume, past Bourke (Susan!), out of the Courthouse. She can feel him chasing her, stray words perforating the applause still resounding in her mind.
“We talked about this—”
“A responsibility to portray factually accurate—”
“If I can’t trust you—”
In the sweltering parking lot, she turns to face him. “So what?” she begins.
“I have to ask myself,” he says, his brow knitting in concern, “if you really want this job.”
Of course, being Bourke, he is trying to make it her decision.
You wanted this, she reminds herself, stand your ground.
But outside the showroom, the demands of the twentieth century are roaring awake.
They’d have to pay her severance, wouldn’t they?
How far would that go in New York? She could find an apartment, something would come through, right?
Her bravery is faltering under the material facts of her life.
Stupid Susan, swept up in her own need to matter.
You can’t be important if you can’t afford to live.
“I take this job very seriously,” she begins, which is true.
“I’m not sure you do,” Bourke says, his voice thin and pedantic. “The job is reenactment. The job is accuracy. The job is trusting me.”
The job is fucking boring. She needs to leave. But how?
A hand on her shoulder. That man again, the one with the glasses.
“That was great,” he is saying. “You were terrific.”
Why is he still here? He must have watched the show. He must have waited for her. A steadying thought. No one ever waits for her.
“Thanks,” she manages.
“Are you the director?” the man asks, turning his attention. “I’m Alcott Bliss, I’m sure my name has come up.”
Bourke is blank, blinking. Susan can practically see the frantic search in some mental filing cabinet for the name (Bliss, Alcott). He plasters on a smile, extends a hand. “Of course. Thank you for coming.”
The man stands up straighter, adjusts his glasses. Should she know about him? He catches her with the quickest dart of the eye. No, the slow revelation. He is trying to help me.
“Well, as you probably suspected, I’m here from the board assessment committee. And we look at the value of all of the programming here at the museum. Well, I just have to say, I’m sure you are aware, but there was talk of winding down this production.”
Bourke’s eyes are like saucers. As much as she hates the intervention, oh, this is what it feels like to have the upper hand! She has grasped his angle, keeping her face steady.
“N-no,” Bourke stammers. “I wasn’t aware—”
“Oh dear. Sorry to cause alarm, because you really ought not to fear—I must say, after the performance of Miss—ah—”
“Byrne.”
“Miss Byrne, truly, I can only make the highest recommendation. Really sets it apart from what the other museums are doing, really brought it to life.”
“Oh, well. You know it’s always wonderful… Obviously, we have a… An innovative approach here…”
“Well, the direction naturally deserves much credit.”
“He’s a genius,” Susan says, biting back sarcasm. She holds Bourke’s gaze. He regards her like a fish on a hook.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Bliss. It’s been good to meet you.” Warily, his eye softens. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Susan.”
Bourke retreats. Catch and release. Relief, regret, her swollen throat.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Alcott says, studying her cut-off jeans, her exposed navel, her sequin scrunchie, as though he expected something else, as though the discrepancy has impressed him. He is beaming ear to ear, high on his success.
“I thought we agreed I didn’t need saving.”
“You looked like you needed help.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
“What could possibly be good about needing help?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I said you’d be all right, didn’t I? Can I take you home?”
“I don’t want to go home.” Her unspent anger is turning to petulance. Home is a cage, and all his good intentions have damned her back to it.
“Well then, come for a drive.”
It isn’t a question. His face is set, like he has already read the script. Like he himself has written it.
Did she leave Bridget at the door? In the half-hung rumple on the costume rack?
Or is she still here, making the decision for her, guiding the instinct that says: Go on, live!
Maybe it is the heat, or the rush, or the light sweep of his hair, or the way that he is looking at her, like he would chase her to the end of the earth.
Is she the type of person to get in a stranger’s car?
Is that even a type of person, or does it all just depend on the moment?
“Fine,” she says.
“I should warn you,” he says brightly, “I’m Ted Bundy.”
“I thought your name was Alcott?”
He laughs, as though she has made a joke, as if they have both been joking, but then sees the blankness on her face. “Al, actually,” he says, holding open the passenger door as she climbs in.
Salem leaves them, the municipal red brick giving way to low, unloved shopping strips and the drearier outlying neighborhood where Susan grew up.
Where Susan still lives in a dilapidated neocolonial surrounded by a chain-link fence.
Is that her mother, out by the mailbox? Who knows—who cares—they are rushing off north, over the bridge and up the wooded coastline.
“So,” he begins. “How long have you been a witch?”