Chapter 3 Dinner Club for Six
Atiny woman somewhere between her forties and sixties, with long silver-white hair and wearing a flowing kimono with matching loose pants stood and outstretched her hands toward where Eloise hovered in the doorway.
When the woman pulled her into the room for a hug Eloise smelled sage and thyme with a hint of honeysuckle and home.
The woman pulled back and smiled happily, her eyes crinkling beautifully and said, "Welcome, darling. We are so happy to have you. You must like wide open spaces and laughter. I can see it in your face."
Eloise turned a happily curious look toward Ursula who laughed and waved her over to one of the empty green high-back bar stools.
She sat next to a young woman, maybe in her early twenties and across from a woman around her age in red cat-eye glasses and a red sweater dress, her silky black hair up in a high ponytail, the ends an ashy blonde.
The cat-eyed woman leaned over and slid a dish with a raven on it toward her.
"I'm Tilly. Ursula makes the best bread, and this is a honey sea salt butter."
"Babe, she needs some honey wine," a voice said and Eloise looked at a gorgeous dark-skinned woman who had on a black sweater with her braided hair wrapped into an ornate bun on top of her head.
"I'm Jen," she said lifting her amber goblet in the air.
"And Ursula has missed you something fierce, so welcome to our little coven. "
"Coven?" Eloise asked as she took the offered goblet of honey wine from Tilly and broke off a piece of warm bread.
Tilly laughed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as Ursula and the white-haired woman shared a secret smile. She remembered again the articles she had read about Ursula and who she guessed were these women sitting around the island with bread and wine.
"We're not a coven," the young woman leaned in, saying the words as if Jen had crazy ideas. "We
just-"
"Well, we occasionally hex people who deserve it and get drunk in the graveyard," the white-haired lady said with a twinkle in the corner of her smile.
The other women laughed and she smiled, looking around and not feeling an ounce of fear but more like she had been invited into a hearty joke.
It could feel odd being dumped into the middle of a group of people, like starting a book in the fifth chapter.
But sitting nestled warm in the velvet chair, a fresh piece of bread melting butter into its nooks and crannies and looking around at these women, she felt the opposite.
Like she might be revisiting an old favorite book knowing exactly what chapter five had in store.
"Crystal, you're going to scare her," the young woman said and Eloise logged the woman's name.
Crystal raised a delicate eyebrow. "Oh?" she looked directly at Eloise and she felt the woman's clear blue stare like a warm touch. "You're not a frightened creature, are you? You have a brave soul. You're plucky; I can feel it," she said with absolute certainty.
"Eloise is one of the bravest women I have ever known and it would take a hell of a lot to get her to turn and walk away," Ursula said.
The words landed like little inked stamp marks.
She imagined she could look down on the delicate skin of her wrist and see the words there as she remembered sitting on Ursula's cracked concrete patio years ago, words said and hovering between them like a last resort.
She knew those long-ago words would need to be revisited and the years in between. But not tonight.
She leaned over the island resting her forearms on the warm wood with her wine in one hand. "Okay, who is going to tell me about Ursula's sexy mountain man?"
Sounds of women oohing and ahhing filled the space; laughter and a red-cheeked Ursula throwing a pumpkin tea towel at a shimmying Jen who had an arm raised in the air as she laughed raucously.
"OH! Jenson Lancaster, our cursed bachelor who drove women to near-insanity. Our lovely Ursula came to town and broke the curse on the poor man, who became immediately smitten with her," Jen said.
"He did not," Ursula argued shaking her head with a small smile.
"Uh, yes he did," the young woman who Eloise still didn't know the name of said. "That man's eyes followed you like you were the rarest shooting star."
"That is not how I remember it. He was a complete ass."
"Ah, but you didn't see him see you the way we did, darling," Crystal added. "It was like watching a man taste bread fresh from the oven for the first time." She said it before taking a great bite out of the crusty bread, a wise and wolfish smile on her face.
Jen pointed. "Or a fresh doughnut." Everyone laughed.
"Why am I being compared to baked goods?" she asked with laughter.
Eloise looked at her friend, and smiled as pink blessed her apple cheeks.
She thought of the man, the pathetic excuse for a man, who had once taken up Ursula's vision like he was some fantastic galactic show.
She'd never seen what Ursula saw in him.
He was haughty, intolerable and worse, the man rarely looked at Ursula.
If you want to know how much a man values the woman at his side, see how often his eyes seek her out. His only brushed her form by accident.
"He's quite yummy," Eloise added with a wide smile.
Ursula ducked her head, but the happiness radiated.
She wouldn't now, but she itched to sit across from her friend and ask, what happened? Did he do something egregious? When did you realize he treated you like an option?
Why didn't you call me?
"He is so yummy," the young woman gushed and Tilly made a humming sound as Jen laughed.
"Now, I may be a lesbian, but even I know that man is fine and he is good, so we here in Salem are glad the man found you. To gorgeous, powerful women breaking curses!" She raised her glass and the cheers to her toast were loud, and abundant.
"I'm Kelsea, by the way," the young woman whispered. Her long, blonde hair was lightly curled and she had a soft presence. She brought on the smell of lilacs and that gentle lapping of tired ocean waves. It was comforting and calm, maybe a little sad.
"Now, darling, tell us about you!" Crystal asked as Tilly helped Ursula ladle soup into bowls, passing them around. The smells of sumac and honeyed butternut squash tickled her nose.
"Yes, we must know all about you if you're going to join our coven," Jen said. The woman winked at Kelsea who laughed and flicked a crust of bread at her which was intercepted by the world's tallest dog.
"Well, I'm Eloise Snowdrop Willow, and yes, my mother was a hippie."
"Oh, Snowdrop! The promise of new beginnings and warmer days," Crystal said with a clap of her thin hands.
"I moved to Florida a few years ago and hated most of it.
Spring is my favorite season, which I haven't seen in too long.
I own a cafe in Orlando that is pretty successful; I'm magic with coffee.
I look great in hats and last year I got sudden onset insomnia and I have hot flashes like I'm a sinner sitting in church.
Oh, and if I start crying it lasts the length of a movie now. You missed the earlier showing."
"Ah, the change before the change!" Tilly said. "I put on deodorant six times a day. And I've gained weight without any reason."
"Those fucking hot flashes are no joke," Jen added. "I'm already a brash woman, but these mood swings, ooooh!" she said shaking her head and tsking.
"Right?" Eloise asked scooting to the edge of her seat. "Last week a customer complained that one of my baristas was wearing an inappropriate shirt showing too much cleavage. And without pause, I picked up the soda gun and sprayed him in the chest with soda water."
Bursts of laughter filled the room.
"And when he started opening his mouth to say something else I sprayed him in the face to stop the words. Was dangerously close to waterboarding him."
Everyone was in fits of laughter, hands slapping the kitchen island, Kelsea leaned into Eloise's side, her body shaking.
"I never would have done something so irrational a year ago, I swear," she said wiping a happy tear from under her eye.
"Uh, yes you would have," Ursula argued with a wide grin.
She conceded with a shrug.
"Sounds like that man should have been sprayed with a soda gun years ago if he thought what he said was rational.
Men," Crystal said shaking her head. "Blaming women for years for being temptresses and the whole world glossing over the fact that in the words of their blame, they are admitting their lack of self-control. "
"Did the woman showing too much cleavage feel embarrassed?" Kelsea asked, her question holding the kind of curiosity that sits inside of a woman for years because she has been too afraid to ask.
"A little, but I gave her all the tips from that day and told her to go buy something scandalous to wear if it made her feel good. I just promoted her to my assistant manager and she's managing the cafe for now."
"And do you have plans to stay here for a while? Because personally," Jen said, laying a perfectly manicured hand over her left breast where her heart beat, "I would like to invite you to join our coven."
"I second that," Tilly said.
"Third," Kelsea and Crystal said over each other with smiles.
Her friend looked at her, thousands of past looks and smiles and secrets that they had shared in the new lines around her eyes. "I fifth."
They lifted their goblets together in another toast and as Eloise's glass clinked with the others, she wondered what if she stayed? What if she gave up the hot, stickiness of a place she never particularly fit in, and the place that held a darkness that had forever changed her?
What if she found herself again in a place that smelled like burning leaves and bonded women's laughter?
"I think I'll stay a while, and I would be honored to join your coven."