Chapter 32 Coco
Coco
“What do you think she’ll be like?” Cristina asks as we approach the nursing home.
“No idea, but I’m hoping she’ll at least remember the book.”
“Did you bring it?”
I lift it from my purse, displaying one teensy-weensy corner. “Right here.”
Her eyes flare with panic and she shoves the book back into the bowels of my bag. “Don’t let anyone see.”
“You’re the one who asked if I’d brought it.”
“I didn’t expect you to flash it like you’re a perv in a raincoat.”
I shoot her a dark look as we step inside. An abrasive, nose-wrinkling antiseptic smell permeates the nursing home. Lining the ceiling are bright fluorescent lights that no woman over thirty would ever approve of, and a receptionist sits behind a desk that bustles with nurses.
I tell her we’re here to visit Dot Stevens. She and a nurse exchange a quiet, if supercharged, look that makes my stomach fall.
“Are you a relative?” the receptionist asks in a way that makes me feel like I should probably lie and say yes, but if I add one more fib to my conscience, I might break in half.
“We’re not related. I brought her a book.”
“Let me check if Dot’s up for a visit.” She lifts a beige phone and punches in a couple of numbers. “Can Dot Stevens see visitors?” There’s a long pause before she says, “Okay, I’ll let her know.”
My hopes plummet because it’s obvious she’ll say no and I’ll go home empty-handed.
The receptionist hangs up the phone. “Dot can have visitors, but you won’t be able to stay very long. She’s tired.”
I nearly jump up and down with glee. “Thank you. Which way?”
She gives us directions and a few minutes later, Dot’s nurse meets us in the hallway and knocks on her door. “There’s two ladies here to see you.”
“Send them in,” comes the reply in a raspy voice.
Dot Stevens sits in a chair crocheting a rainbow-colored afghan that’s spread over her knees. If I had to guess, she’s probably in her eighties. Her skin sags, and brown liver spots speckle her hands and face. She has watery blue eyes and wears thick glasses.
When we enter, she looks up, stares at me, and says, “Who the hell are you?”
So much for the kindly old woman vibe she had going. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dot pulled out a cigar and asked if I knew her bookie so she can place a bet on a horse named Winter Fresh.
I nervously tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
“My name is Collette Higginbotham, and this is my friend, Cristina. I took over your old position at land development. Well, it’s not really your old position.
They made a new one, what with the magic being restored to the land and all. But I got your old office.”
“Did that son of a bitch Oscar steal any of my books?” she snarls.
Oh my goodness, I’m so glad I didn’t bring cookies. Dot would probably prefer whiskey and a blowtorch so she can break out of the nursing home.
Beside me, Cristina attempts to hold in her laughter. She shakes silently, and I get the feeling that any second now, she’ll excuse herself to go scream into another resident’s pillow.
“Well?” Dot demands when I don’t answer quickly enough about Oscar and the books. “Did he take them?”
“No. He left them, and he didn’t even dust the office before I arrived.”
“Son of a bitch.” She stops crocheting and glares at me.
“Do you know I worked with that asshole for thirty years—thirty whole years—and the whole time he gave me the shit jobs, literally. If someone was putting a new shitter in a restaurant, he made me check it out. I told him over and over again, shitters weren’t on our list of projects, but he insisted. So you know what I did?”
“Checked out the shitter?” Cristina asks with the most serious face I’ve ever seen.
“I checked out the shitter,” she confirms, deadpan as all get-out.
Before this day is over, I might spontaneously combust from laughing on the inside.
“Sounds like a crap job,” Cristina adds.
I. Want. To. Die.
“It was more than crap,” she screeches. “It was shit!”
“Dot.” Her nurse appears in the doorway, voice coated in warning. “What did we say about cussing?”
“We said I can do it every once in a while. Look, Mary, I’ve been good for a long time. You haven’t even heard one ‘fuck’ from me in, what? Two weeks?”
“Three days.”
“Huh? Do you chart it or something?”
“No. I have a memory, and you cuss more than any woman on this floor.”
“That’s because I’m with a whole bunch of damned dainty Southern belles who think they’re too high and mighty to admit they pull up their panties the same way I do. And if Hazel’s complaining, she’d better shut her mouth, because do you know what I saw her doing to old Benji in his room?”
The nurse’s face turns beet red. “That’s for you to know. Just keep the cussing to a minimum, or try not to shout so God and all the angels hear you.”
The nurse leaves and Dot stage-whispers to me, “What Hazel did to Benji will give her herpes of the mouth. Everybody knows he’s got herpes. Hell, he’s given it to half the women here.”
Okay, and the geriatric visual was way more than I needed. Talk about finding a way to kill your libido.
“We’re here because of one of the books you left in the office.”
“Oh yeah? Which one? And it better not be the Kama Sutra.” She shrugs, seeming to rethink it. “Even if it is, don’t pay any attention to the dog-eared pages. They’re of no consequence.”
A bark escapes Cristina and she scuttles toward the door. “Be right back. Need some air.”
“Try not to catch herpes in that hallway! The walls are covered in it.”
Cristina’s laughter echoes as she disappears out the door.
Dot turns her watery gaze to me. “So. What book is it?”
Here goes nothing. “This one.”
I pull the spell book from my purse. Dot takes one look at it, her eyes widen, and then her entire expression shuts down.
“I’ve never seen that before in my whole life. And what the hell are you doing walking around with it, anyway? Don’t you know what people in this town think of someone who keeps a book like that? Do you know what I should do?”
She puts one forefinger over the other, making a cross as if I’m a vampire. “Stay away from me. That book isn’t mine, and I don’t know where it came from.”
I swipe a hand over the cover, removing a few motes of dust that cling to it. “I worked one of the spells,” I say quietly.
“And what’s that got to do with me?”
“I thought you might be able to help. Things went bad.”
Dot exhales a low whistle as she slowly lowers her cross fingers. “Close the door.” I do as she requests, and then Dot says, “Sit on the bed. It’s a herpes-free zone.”
Thank goodness. I was worried, because apparently it’s on the walls.
When I’m situated, Dot begins. Her entire demeanor has changed. The crochet hook rests in her lap and her hands are curled atop the afghan.
“I put the book in my office to hide it,” she explains. “I knew that son of a bitch Oscar wouldn’t touch a thing in there. I’d told him time and again if he ever did, I’d cut his nuts off.”
She looks at me as if I should compliment her. I manage to say, “That’s very, um, specific of you.”
Okay. And these two worked together for thirty years? They either despised one another, or they had hate-sex about a gazillion times.
“Yes, well. That’s me. Anyway, the book.
I found it years ago, hidden in a house I bought when I first moved here.
The magic was beginning to leave then. The unicorns still had some power, but not much, and God knows the piggycorns were cute, but completely useless.
” She cocks her chin. “Has that changed?”
“Yes, I believe it has. The piggycorns can generate electricity.”
“Well, good for those little shits. Anyway, it was funny because I could always do small things—like wish for something to happen and it would. So when I found the book—or when it found me, rather—I thought I’d gained something special, even though in the back of my mind, I knew what I was doing was wrong.
But I thought, just a peek. And so I did.
I took a good long peek, and I found a spell that called to me. ”
Her story almost mirrors mine.
Dot continues, “There was a garden in town, a small community one the widows kept. That year there was a drought, and their garden wasn’t doing so hot.
I was good friends with one of the ladies, and if she didn’t get the food from the garden she needed to can and store, then she’d have a hard year coming up. ”
I could understand that. Canning is a big deal in my community. People rely on the food they store themselves. Georgia might be in the South, but few people grow winter vegetables, and in some places you simply can’t because the soil’s too rocky.
“So I thought, what the hell? This damn land is magical.”
Why does it not surprise me that this was Dot’s thought?
She continues, smoothing the afghan over her legs. “There’s damn unicorns all over the place. What’s the harm in coaxing a few tomatoes to grow? So I started searching in the book for a spell to help. And I found one. But you know what I did?”
“No clue, but I’m curious.”
She lifts one finger. “I ignored the warning.”
My stomach knots. “What warning?”
“The warning that told me the spell could lead to disaster. I thought, what does a little book know? I’m smarter than it. So I worked the magic. And guess what?”
My shoulders feel heavy just asking. “What?”
“The damn thing worked. The tomatoes grew big and fast. The cantaloupe ripened quickly. It was all perfect the next day. I thought it was great.” She scoffs.
“But I was wrong. Because even though the tomatoes were big, if they weren’t picked right away, they continued to grow.
One got as big as a basketball.” She seems to contemplate this before adding, “And that’s when the whispers started. ”