Chapter 6 The Only Normal Person in Salem #2
Once I left for college, it became easier to rely on myself.
I manipulated my course load, cramming in classes back-to-back so I could maximize the number of shifts I took at the hotel.
Being a working student meant joining fewer college clubs than I might’ve liked, and I ended up with a social circle very much on the smaller side of small, but my NYU meal plan wasn’t going to pay for itself.
Besides, I really didn’t want to fight rats for pizza slices.
Or scrounge around inside the dumpsters behind my dormitory hall.
People vape back there. They would’ve noticed.
Having no home to return to over break was only lonely the first few times.
But you can make bank working at a hotel during a peak season, like the holidays and summer.
The best part was, I always ended up taking home an absurd amount of leftover turkey and cranberry sauce in Tupperware.
By the time I graduated, I’d saved enough plastic containers to build a small airplane, or possibly a boat.
On the last night before move-out, I bequeathed it all stealthily to the second-floor hall populated by engineers.
It’s quite possible I created a fire hazard.
But I like to think of it as me having offered them a hands-on learning opportunity.
Mom didn’t send me a graduation gift, but theoretically she understands I’ve accomplished a milestone and is proud of me for cinching my internship and job offer to EFG.
I know this because I call her once a week and she answers about once a month.
At times, the connection can be a little shaky, almost like her voice is coming from behind an electronic curtain, but it’s fine.
For all I know, it’s a consequence of dropping her phone repeatedly in the resort pool.
In spite of her flakiness, I really thought Mom would make an effort to attend Grandma Rose’s funeral. I can only guess that, like me, she never expected her mom to die. Maybe she hasn’t come to terms with her grief yet.
Or maybe it’s something else. One of her herbs? Is she a cactus juice addict now? Maybe she’s found a form of it that sprouts whole bodies instead of just legs and has made herself a nice big surrogate succulent family.
Bulan coughs, alerting me to the fact that I’ve gone tellingly silent.
“I now see why you had so little sympathy when you found me alone in that closet,” he says.
Is Bulan pitying me? I detect pity. Nope, not having that. Rather than look at him, I survey the withered plant zoo in search of my next moody specimen.
“You were fine,” I say, reshouldering my bag. “You escaped my duffel, didn’t you?”
“Consider the difficulty I encountered! You have arms. I miss arms.”
“They require sunscreen. It gets expensive.”
“Hmm. An interesting point.”
As Bulan mulls this over, I refocus on my procurement task and aim for the rosebushes.
After all, roses are Classic Romance. To my annoyance, most of the branches have already been cut back ahead of first frost. Hmm.
Would it be terrible if I uprooted the scraggliest of the scraggly bushes?
Probably not. I’d be doing the gardeners a favor.
As I get on my knees and prepare for some dramatic deadheading, a squirrel twitters in a tree above us, rustling acorns to the ground.
At this, my mind turns to the mysterious Hanry Burleson.
It’s unexpected, yet I can’t help it. It’s all this foraging.
The fact that I’m breaking and entering again.
And the fact that Hanry, in spite of being rugged and the size of a tree, had eyes that caught in the moonlight with an endearingly boyish glint, and I thought I’d never see him again, but now, if I’m stuck in Salem—for a few more days, anyway—who knows?
“So, Head,” I say in an intentionally offhanded way. “What did you think of that guy we met in the cemetery Friday night?”
“I didn’t officially meet him,” says Bulan. “You know, with my being in a bag, escaping your murder attempt and all.”
I scrape aside dirt. “I’ll rephrase. Should I be worried he’s sicced vampires on me?”
“I wouldn’t be! From the sound of it, he was desperate to help his friends. And as far as I know, there isn’t anyone else with your alleged talents on the North Shore.”
I allow that thought to simmer for a moment. “So… you’re saying he’s a gentle, sociable giant?”
“I’m saying that I should warn you: news travels fast in Salem’s circles. I’m sure you’ll have a good number of visitors this week, hoping for similar services.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” I say.
It’s EOD when my phone finally blows up with calls from a New York City area code.
Steve chews me out in a twenty-minute-long, unsubtly misogynistic tirade.
Yes, of course I understand my ratings will take a hit before I’ve started my first day.
I do realize my colleagues will be forced to take on a heavier workload for our tech client, MicroOrange, in my absence.
As punishment for getting sick, it’s only fair I miss out on the pizza party later this month.
These are the burdens we must bear when horribly, yet ambiguously, ill.
I promise to send a doctor’s note to HR.
Then I squeeze my eyes shut, repeating affirmations to myself in a desperate attempt to drop my heart rate.
A year from now, no one will remember this, Sabby!
You’ll be seen as a predictable employee!
Actually, you won’t be seen as anything at all, and when it’s time for ratings, Steve will have mistaken you for Jane and forgotten to fill out your assessment.
Unfortunately, I’m catching notice amid the paranormal community too.
Over the next two days, I’m forced to talk to no less than two more vampires, a werewolf, a druidess, a scuba instructor named Joe, and a polyamorous trio of banshees.
They track me down at Grandma’s shop, ignoring the closed shutters.
The sign that reads OPEN: NEVER. It’s possible I could have avoided them by staying at Grandma’s house, juggling studying for my CPA exam, making floral arrangements, and dialing increasingly frantic calls to Dave and Amanda under the lustful gaze of cardboard Colin Firth.
Their wedding night, Saturday, is closing in fast.
But Grandma’s house isn’t a better option.
Every morning, her friends reappear in the yard to dress the flamingos in new outfits.
Once, Matilda has the audacity to knock on the door and caw something about “checking on me.” Provocations from the witch cabal aside, Grandma never installed Wi-Fi—whereas her shop neighbors a kitschy café with free Wi-Fi under the moniker HEEBYJEEBIES.
Hopefully that’s not how you’re supposed to feel when you eat their sandwiches.
I tough it out all the way into Wednesday.
By this point, Bulan no longer registers as a part of my day-to-day weirdness.
I find myself forgetting he’s bodiless more often than not.
He seems to have warmed up to me too, and he supports and advises me through the visitations from paranormal characters.
He chirrups helpful prompts to keep me from saying or doing anything too egregiously offensive.
Once, he proves utterly invaluable: I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but The Unmentionable Thing that slides up to the storefront has the general build of an overstuffed garbage bag.
Its stench reminds me of a fire ring at a summer beach party: a noxious tornado of dancing adolescent beach sweat, stale beer, and burnt marshmallows.
Even though we’re separated by windows and a door, the affliction to my sinus cavity is extreme.
I crouch closer toward my laptop, determined to stay focused on my MCQs.
Bulan acts like he’s dying.
“Closed,” he gasps at the door, “for—business!”
I glance up.
“Don’t make eye contact!” Bulan croaks. Then, furiously, he whispers: “As a general rule, if a being smells like fire or destruction, it’s best to keep away. Even Rosie did that.”
Grouchily, I say, “I’d think the appearance of that Thing would be telling enough.”
“I’m teaching you principles.”
“You’re interrupting my studying,” I say. Then I shove my bump-bridged nose deeper into my McGraw-Hill review book.
Bulan rolls his eyes, then his whole head-body for good measure. I pretend not to be amused, much less grateful for his help with The Unmentionable Thing. Same as I pretend I’m not existentially jarred by encountering a heaving bag of doom.
By Thursday, my anxiety is becoming unbearable.
It wouldn’t be so bad cobbling together the décor for Dave and Amanda’s dream wedding if they would just accept my phone calls.
Instead the most I get are sporadic and random disorganized texts, with them attempting to describe their wedding vision and complaining about their previous wedding planner either dropping out or dropping dead—I’m not sure which, but either way, it’s too dramatic.
They refuse to come back to the shop in person, because the sun is too draining, and they won’t Zoom because video calls are too novel.
The only clear desire they successfully share for their wedding comes from Dave, who wants everything to be dark, so very dark.
When I finally manage to reach Dave and Amanda on Thursday night, the call feels like an exercise in futility.
“Do you want a rehearsal tomorrow?” I ask. “After dark, right?”
“No, no, it’ll be hard enough to get everyone there for the wedding,” says Dave. I nod, understanding. I’m familiar with this kind of friend group.
“No problem. Can we rehearse on Saturday? In the early evening?”
“I don’t like the word hearse,” says Amanda.
“Fine. We’ll wing it.”
“Winging it is perfect,” moans Dave. “We have the right equipment.”
I think he’s missing the point, but hey—not my wedding, not my flying monkeys.
Or bats. It’s probably going to be bats.
“So just checking, you don’t have any preference for where you stand during the ceremony?”
“No,” the couple says in unison.
“And you don’t care about the order of the ceremonies?” After a pause, I correct myself. “Ceremony?”
“No, we don’t, so long as we’re carried into the room in our coffins,” says Dave, giving me new information he could’ve shared earlier. “The coffins are very important.”
Amanda puts in, “He needs it to be dark.”
“Very dark.”
“Noted,” I say, rubbing my temples.
In desperation, I ask ChatGPT: “What do you need to do to prepare for a sixty-head wedding that’s last-minute?
Also, I have no budget and the guests aren’t human.
” Its answer is… questionable. Thankfully, I find super-detailed DIY checklists on Pinterest for brides planning their own weddings.
And I scour my memories of the handful of events I’d catered at the hotel.
It’s a total headache, and by this point I’m not sure that the four thousand dollars is going to be worth it.
If I ever see Hanry Burleson the graveyard forager again, I am going to give him a piece of my mind. And possibly hurl a bunch of pine cones at him.
By the end of Friday evening, I feel as ready as I can be.
I’ve pulled together: a bridal bouquet, replete with dead beetles; an assortment of bridesmaid bouquets and boutonnieres, with the pins replaced with Command hooks and Velcro so no one gets any ideas about stabbing; centerpieces for the four banquet tables; and, because I’m an overachiever—make no mistake, that accounting degree from NYU was nowhere near a cakewalk—a garland for a wedding arch, composed of vines stripped from a spare lot nearby; and finally, lumber for the arch itself.
Plus hammers, nails, and scissors and stuff.
Pulling out my credit card with the greatest regret, I rent an SUV to carry everything to the wedding venue.
In a moment of generosity, I suggest wedding singers.
One of my NYU friends who moved to Boston for work moonlights as lead guitar for his cover band, the Vampire Weekenders.
Judging by his sad posts on social media, they’ve been suffering for opportunities to play gigs. What am I, if not a good friend?
As I’m perfecting the last centerpiece, ensuring it looks genuinely spectacular—if you’re into Gothic nightmares—I get a final unexpected visitor to the shop: Baldy.
“Samantha,” he calls from outside. “Samanthaaa. Samaaaaaantha!”
I don’t look up, too busy shaping Oasis, the professional-grade floral foam that holds arrangements in place. YouTube tells me that once you chip the green stuff off, there’s no going back. But I’m precise. I’m focused. I’m a goddamn floral Michelangelo.
“Samantha, since you haven’t checked your mail, I’ve brought documents for you to sign.”
I jump from my seat, flinging the Oasis aside. Anything that must be done on paper has to be Serious.
“One second,” I call out. I scramble to find the keys to the door—until I think better of finding them.
Here’s my problem: it wouldn’t be good if Baldy laid his eyes on the torso-impaired head near my laptop, slurping Diet Pepsi through a straw.
It’s not just Bulan I need to protect, either.
I don’t trust Baldy to ignore me running a business in violation of local tax law.
So I settle for shouting, which is, frankly, rewarding in and of itself.
I’ve more than earned some stress relief.
“What are the papers for?”
“They affirm your understanding of the estate’s debt and all its outstanding bills.”
“Amazing. Could you let Grandma’s creditors know I’m going to have the money to start paying them back by Sunday night? And let the courts know too? Also, the… magical courts? Also, question. When Grandma’s soul ascends, how will I know?”
“I suspect there will be confetti,” he says.
“Really?”
“No,” says Baldy. “I have not witnessed such an event myself.”
He presses his oily forehead against the glass, marring it horrifically.
“What are you doing in there, Samantha? The tables, they’re looking… fuller than before. On our call, you said you had finished inventory and clean-out, so why—”
“Happy Halloween! See you.”
I pull the curtain closed on him.
“Thank you,” says Bulan. He squints up at me with gratitude. “The glare from his head was hurting my eyes.”
“So true,” I agree. “Now, hold this butcher paper between your teeth and help me wrap this up.”