T-Backs, T-Shirts, Coat, and Suit

  “And that’s when I told him,” Tyler said.

  “Told him what, Tyler?”

  “About Bernadette.”

  “Told him what about Bernadette, Tyler?”

  “Told him about how Bernadette is a witch, and that if he was on the lookout for evil, he didn’t have to look no further than Bernadette.”

  Chloë was speechless. When she recovered her wits, she said, “Evil? How can you call Bernadette evil?”

  “Because she’s a witch. You know that your ownself. And witches consort with the devil. And the devil is evil, spelled with a d.”

  “And what did the Reverend Mr. Butler say?”

  “He tried to make out like he weren’t surprised. He said that he knew there would be some reason why Ms. Pollack had ordered Mrs. Westbeth and the deacons out of her kitchen. The reverend had been pretty heated up about that. Mrs. Westbeth, she had already reported to him about that spooky dog of your auntie’s, and she told him how she seen you stare at the bonfire like you was under some kinda spell. The reverend, he didn’t take too much convincing after that.”

  Tyler finished lacing his second skate. He stood up. “My momma don’t want me to get throwed out of the Bible school. Aunt Wanda says she don’t have any idea what she’s gonna do with me all day if I get throwed out. And the Reverend Mr. Butler won’t throw me out as long as he needs my help. And I’m making sure he’s gonna need it to investigate your auntie.”

  “Don’t call her my auntie. No one calls her that. She’s Bernadette, plain and simple.”

  “She may be plain, but she ain’t so simple.” With that, Tyler skated away.

  Chloë thought, Surely no one believed that Bernadette had made a pact with the devil. No one except the Reverend Mr. Butler. The Reverend Mr. Butler and Mrs. Westbeth. The Reverend Mr. Butler, Mrs. Westbeth, Deacons A and B, and all of the Bible school at the Church of the Endless Horizon and all of COAT. They all believed that Bernadette was a witch. They all found evil in as many places as Savonarola did. In T-backs, in nakedness, in witches.

  She knew now that she had totally lost control of the situation. She had first sensed she was losing it when Tyler had asked everyone at Bible school to pray for Bernadette. She should have stopped her little game right then and there, but she hadn’t. Now, thanks to her, Tyler had all the evidence he needed to convince the reverend and his congregation that Bernadette was a witch. Tyler would not only save his place in the Bible school but would also save his mother’s job. Instead of being a fool, he would become a hero.

  Once again, what she had wished for had come about, but again things had developed a strange twist. She had managed to line everyone up against Bernadette: the T-backs, the suit, and COAT. And all Bernadette had ever wanted in this whole T-back war was to stay out of it.

  * * *

  Chloë didn’t get a chance to say anything more to Tyler. He was skating circles around her and everyone else. When Bernadette picked them up, Tyler said, “I don’t want no Dairy Queen tonight.” That was all he said. He left the car without a good-bye or a thank you.

  On the day that Bernadette went to the doctor’s to get the cast taken off her wrist, she dropped Chloë at the dollar-movie parking lot. Tyler was already there. “I been here just about every evening this past week,” he bragged. “I told Aunt Wanda about this place, and she’s been dropping me off on her way to Zack’s in the evening.”

  “How’s your investigation coming?” Chloë asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  From that moment on, Chloë was uneasy.

  * * *

  Bernadette was so pleased to be free of her cast, she said that they would celebrate with a candlelight feast on Sunday evening.

  Because it was not yet dark when she lit the candles, she pulled down the shades to make the candlelight more dramatic. Her arm looked limp, thin, and discolored from having been in the cast, but she told Chloë that she had conquered things worse than a sick arm. Helped by Bernadette’s good spirits and the romantic candlelight, Chloë entered into a feeling of celebration for the first time since Tyler had told her about the reverend’s investigation. The candles were still burning and they were about to clear the table when Daisy assumed her guard dog stance.

  Chloë knew that company was coming, and she felt that the end was coming too.

  She went to the window, pulled the shade aside, and watched the Reverend Mr. Butler emerge from the driver’s side of a long gray Cadillac. Zack came from the passenger’s side; Tyler, Velma, and Wanda, from the back. They all proceeded slowly up the path to Bernadette’s front door. They were all dressed up; Zack, Tyler, and the reverend wore suits. Velma and Wanda wore long silk dresses, buttoned up to the neck, tied at the waist.

  The reverend carried his Bible; Wanda carried a camcorder; Velma, a camera. Tyler carried the T-shirt that Bernadette had loaned him the night he fell at the parking lot. It had been washed and ironed. Tyler handed it to Bernadette as soon as he was inside the door. Zack, the last one to enter the house, carried nothing, but he would not look at Chloë or Bernadette. He kept his head down and mumbled hello.

  The candles still burned in the kitchen. Bernadette snuffed them out one at a time. The kitchen looked dark and smoky, and the odor of wick and wax wafted into the living room, where the guests now stood. The smell penetrated the room, causing the Reverend Mr. Butler to lift his nostrils. He sniffed the air and exchanged a knowing look with Tyler. To dispel the gloom more than the dark, Chloë turned on every lamp in the room.

  All of them sat down except the reverend. He remained standing, Bible in hand, and began to speak in a voice that was half political candidate and half talk show host. “Mrs. Pollack …,” he began.

  “Ms. Pollack,” she corrected.

  “Yes, Ms. Pollack,” he continued. “Some serious charges have been brought against you.”

  “By whom?” she asked.

  Chloë knew what was coming.

  The Reverend Mr. Butler did not answer her question. Instead he drew a deep breath and said, “Ms. Bernadette Pollack, you stand accused of being a witch.”

  Bernadette laughed. “You’re not serious.”

  “I assure you, Ms. Pollack, I am very serious.”

  Bernadette smiled. “Who says I am a witch?” she asked.

  The reverend answered. “A little child.”

  Bernadette shot Chloë a glance, and Chloë returned a startled look. She would have to confess. She was ready. She would tell them how she had deposited every piece of information that Tyler had in his memory bank. But the reverend said, “Young Tyler here has witnessed. He has brought us evidence.”

  “Evidence? Evidence?” Bernadette said. “What evidence?”

  At that, Tyler leaped up from his chair and stood in the center of Bernadette’s living room and recited all the evidence that proved that Bernadette was a witch. He had it all memorized. More than that, he had it all rehearsed.

  • Bernadette wouldn’t attempt to swim because she had made a pact with devil. The water would reject her because she had not been baptized.

  • She had bewitched a dog to act as her familiar, and she communicated with it every night in her bedroom.

  • She made magic potions from herbs and roots and wild mushrooms, and some of them could cure, but others could make you sick.

  • She did magic with cards.

  • She had a pap that suckled imps and could not feel when scratched by her familiar.

  • She had a tattoo of the anti-Christ on her body.

  After each item, Velma and Wanda nodded and said amen and the Reverend smiled.

  Chloë’s head felt like the contents of a table at a garage sale where all the odds and ends are laid out. There was something there in the assortment of Tyler’s junk that she wanted to pick up and examine. What was it? Something didn’t belong on that table. She didn’t have time to concentrate because Tyler was still talking. She heard her name.

  • … trained her a
pprentice, Chloë, to do magic with cards and to put curses on people, causing them to fall from grace.

  Bernadette stood up. Chloë thought, Now Bernadette knows. She’s figured out that I bragged to Tyler about having learned to put a spell on someone.

  Bernadette faced her accusers. From one to another she looked, and waited for a reaction from each before allowing her gaze to move on. Wanda stared vacantly into space; Velma tried to smile; Zack looked at his lap and flicked lint from his trousers. The Reverend Mr. Butler, who had remained standing, lifted his chin and raised his eyes in an effort to be on a par with Bernadette. Tyler took a tiny bow.

  At last Bernadette spoke. “Reverend, I congratulate you on your Youth Corps. Savonarola could not have trained him better.”

  The reverend said, “Thank you. Now, I must ask you to offer proof that you are not a witch.” He held up a piece of paper. On it was a drawing of Nick’s tattoo. Chloë wondered, Why did the reverend want to know about Nicks tattoo? He waved the paper under Bernadette’s nose. “Ms. Pollock, you must explain to those of us gathered here why you have an upside down broken cross, a sign of the devil, tattooed on your body.”

  That was it. That was the piece of information that Chloë needed to examine. She had never mentioned the tattoo to Tyler. Why would she? It was not the sign of the devil. It was the peace symbol. Chloë took the drawing from the reverend and examined it. It was the same as Nick’s tattoo. Exactly the same. If a person wanted to, he could make it out to be an upside down broken cross as easily as he could make it out to be an anchor or a bow and arrow. But it wasn’t. It was, pure and simple, the sign of peace. Nick was proud of his. He had said that everyone at Spinach Hill was proud.

  Without a please or a thank you, the Reverend Mr. Butler snatched the paper back from Chloë, waved it in the air, and hissed, “Confess! It is because you bear paps that suckle imps and the mark of the devil that you will not wear a T-back. Confess!” The Reverend Mr. Butler was getting very heated. “Prove to us that you are not an emissary of Satan. Prove to us that you do not bear the mark of the devil upon your person.”

  And then realization hit Chloë. Zack! Zack was the only person there who would know that Bernadette had a tattoo. He had lived at Spinach Hill when they all got them. Zack knew what it was.

  Chloë heard a voice say, “Excuse me.” She heard it again. “Excuse me,” it said. She saw all eyes in the room turn to her before she recognized the voice as her own. She looked at Zack, and Zack began to fidget. She let him. She let all eyes shift to him before she said, “Zack, I think that if you want Bernadette to show the reverend her tattoo, you ought to show him yours.”

  Zack reamed his collar with his fingers, stretching his neck so that his Adam’s apple rested above his collar like a flesh-colored echo of the knot of his tie, but he didn’t answer. Wanda looked as uncomfortable as Zack. She had seen Zack’s tattoo. She knew he had one exactly like the one he had drawn on the paper the reverend was holding.

  The Reverend Mr. Butler paid no attention to Wanda, Zack, or Chloë. He was not interested in finding out about the tattoo. He was only interested in confessions. He raised his right arm and extended his hand, holding the Bible. “Swear to us,” he said, “swear to us on this Holy Bible that you are not an unholy woman bearing the mark of the devil.”

  “What makes you think that Bernadette has to swear to anything?” Chloë asked. The question came from a mysterious place deep within her, a place that rose in her throat the way that Zack’s Adam’s apple rose in his.

  “My dear young lady,” the reverend said, “please be still. This is a matter for the adults.”

  “Then why did you listen to Tyler?” she asked. Wanda started to answer, but Chloë wouldn’t let her. “I asked him,” she said, pointing to the reverend. She felt like a conduit, like a pipeline for the things that some stronger, older Chloë wanted to say.

  The Reverend Mr. Butler said, “Tyler has witnessed for God, little lady. We must pay attention. Wherever evil lurks, we must seek it out and eradicate it from the face of the earth. Satan is the daddy of all evil, and in the name of God, your aunt must answer.” The reverend faced Bernadette. “Ms. Pollack,” he said, “I am asking you once again to prove to me that you do not bear the sign of the devil on your body.”

  Bernadette smiled, and then suddenly the smile dropped from her face like pudding from a spoon. “Reverend,” she said, “I owe you nothing. Whether or not I have this sign tattooed on my body is my business. Not yours. Not Tyler’s.” She pointed to Velma. “Take your camera and your camcorder back with this message: I don’t owe anyone here free footage for the TV news. I will not make a spectacle of myself. I do not owe that to anyone.”

  Tyler would not give up. “What about the pap? I seen that dog scratch at her and her not even feel it. I seen it.”

  Bernadette looked down at Tyler and said, “You poor nasty little boy. You poor toy of these people’s greed.” She walked to the door and opened it. She made a sweeping motion with her pale, weak arm. “I must ask all of you to leave my house. Now.” She held open the door and stood majestically to the side as they filed out, one by one.

  When the last of them was through the door, Bernadette leaned against it, exhausted. Behind her glasses her eyes burned hot enough to light tinder.

  “Doesn’t Zack have a tattoo?” Chloë asked.

  “Of course he does. He got one when everyone who lived at Spinach Hill did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell on him?”

  “For reasons historical and personal.” She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms at her waist. “Let me ask you this, Chloë. Would having Zack show the reverend his tattoo prove that I am not a witch?”

  Chloë said, “But it would show that Zack is one too.”

  Bernadette threw up her hands. “There you go.”

  Chloë lay awake thinking. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. But she was safe. No one would ever find out the part she had played. Tyler wanted the Reverend Mr. Butler to think that he had done it all himself. He would never tell anyone that she had planted all but one of those magic seeds in his mind. She tried congratulating herself on getting away with it, but she couldn’t. She found it harder and harder to convince herself that she should be allowed to get away with it.

  She would confess.

  Once she made the decision to confess, it became a need.

  She would tell Bernadette everything. She would tell her what she had done and what she had not done. She had never—never once—mentioned the devil. Those accusations had come from the reverend’s own warped mind.

  Bernadette would find the whole thing very funny.

  She, Chloë, would apologize.

  They would both have a good laugh, and then she would get a good night’s sleep.

  After thinking and pacing, pacing and rethinking, she walked to Bernadette’s room and timidly knocked on the door. Not too loudly, half hoping that she would be asleep and would not hear. But Bernadette answered immediately, and Chloë asked if she could come in. “Is this an emergency?” Bernadette asked.

  “I’m not dying of gunshot wounds, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’ll meet you in the living room,” Bernadette said.

  Bernadette appeared in the living room wearing a seersucker robe. Both looked tired and worn. “You want to confess, don’t you?” Chloë sat on the edge of her chair, her mouth open. How did Bernadette know? “Is that it?” Bernadette demanded.

  Chloë said, “Well, yes …”

  “Do you have anything to say that I don’t already know?”

  Chloë shrugged. “I don’t know what you know.”

  Bernadette said, “This is your confession, not mine. You speak.”

  Chloë sat on the edge of her chair and related how, in order to entertain herself, she had convinced Tyler that Bernadette was a witch. She enjoyed confessing not only because she was getting everything off her chest but also because she was rather proud of ho
w cleverly she had turned the facts of Bernadette’s life into flights of fancy.

  When she was done, Bernadette asked, “Is that it?”

  Chloë said, “Well, yes.” Bernadette did not move. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Go back to bed.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Chloë asked.

  “Yes, I am,” Bernadette replied.

  Chloë was dumbfounded. She had expected Bernadette to put an arm across her shoulder—not that she ever had before—and tell her that everything was all right. She was not getting the understanding she had expected. She struck out. “Well, Bernadette,” she said, “there is an awful lot about you that is spooky by anybody’s standards. Like how could you explain Daisy’s behavior when Jake died?” As if on cue, Daisy growled. “And how can you explain the pap?”

  “You stupid child,” Bernadette said.

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  Bernadette narrowed her eyes. “You are stupid. Your name for what you don’t understand is spooky. My name for it is stupid. Stupid.” She almost spit out the final word. She crossed her arms across her lap as if stricken with stomach cramps. She leaned forward and pushed herself up from the sofa. Bernadette looked as if she were on the verge of tears, and that frightened Chloë.

  As Bernadette got up from the sofa, her robe gaped open, and Chloë saw that, under her robe, one side of her chest was totally flat.

  Bernadette did not look at Chloë again. “Come along, Daisy,” she said, and without a backward glance the two of them left the room.

  Chloë at last put it all together. Bernadette had been “very sick” before Nick and her mother had gotten married, and at the wedding Bernadette’s hair had been short enough to comb with a suede brush. It was just growing back after she had lost it all from chemo. That solved the mystery of the pap. On the night that Tyler fell, Daisy could scratch at Bernadette’s left “pap,” and Bernadette would not feel it because there was no pap. There was no flesh and blood where there had once been cancer. There was padding.