The Kitchen Charmer

  “No, that’s Miss Alberta. Mama says she’s a man inside.”

  Tal and Gabby’s brother is calling you. Gus MacBride is calling you.

  My hand jumped. I smeared white glitter paint across Tim’s cheek.

  He’s alone in Afghanistan, where it’s dawn of Christmas morning. You have to answer.

  I pulled the phone from my skirt pocket as I cleaned up Tim’s star with a cotton swab. I tapped the speaker function. I needed not to be alone with Gus MacBride and his orgasmic psychic effect.

  “Lucille Parmenter here. I’m on the speaker. At a children’s party.”

  “Luce? This is Captain MacBride. Tal and Gabby’s brother. Gus. I could turn on my speaker but I’m alone in my rat can with the scarf you sent me. I think the scarf can be trusted.”

  Luce. His voice was deep, a good musical drawl, and he created a new version of me with it; he sang me a nickname no one else had ever used, before. The effect caught me between breaths; it pulled me like the warm stroke of cashmere wool.

  “Luce?” he said again. “Or is it Lucille? Or is it Lucy? No, it’s Luce. I get ‘Luce.’”

  “Luce is fine,” I said. And then quickly, “I’m the face-painting elf at a Christmas party, and I’m just finishing up the snowflakes on a small friend’s cheek. His name is Tim, and he’s three years old, and he’s convinced that you’re Santa calling.”

  Now, Tal’s brother will say an awkward thank you for the scarf and then goodbye.

  Instead he replied gruffly, “Hello, Tim. I’m not Santa, but if I see him I’ll tell him you’re bein’ real good.”

  Straight for Tim’s heart. He’s dropping his correct adverb forms and his g’s.

  Tim’s eyes lit up for the first time. “You will?”

  I said, “Tim, Captain MacBride is a soldier. And he’s—”

  Tim leaned over the phone urgently. “Do you know my daddy? He’s a soldier, too.”

  Oh, no. I searched my mind. Something came to me about Tim and his mother’s records. A missing biological father in the military.

  Gus plowed forward. “What’s his name?” His voice was careful.

  No. No. There’s no way out of these sad questions.

  “His name’s ‘Daddy.’”

  “Daddy. Hmmm. Let’s see.”

  “Captain MacBride, let’s change the subject.”

  “I may have met him.”

  “Please don’t . . . ”

  “He loves ice cream—”

  I drew up in a knot. Don’t try to fool this child with a guessing game.

  “ Strawberry. With Reese’s Pieces crumbled on it. Tim, he said you call them ‘Pinky Pieces.’”

  Tim gasped. “Yes! Mama says he left for the war ‘cause he couldn’t get a job. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I saw him a long time ago. But I know this much: He loves you and your mama, he’ll never stop loving you.”

  “Okay!” He leaned over and whispered into the phone, “You really are Santa, aren’t you?”

  Gus whispered back, “No, but I’m one of his bigger elves. You stay strong. Take care of your mama. She needs you to tell her you love her. Tell her every day.”

  “I’m goin’ to go do that right now!”

  Tim hopped down and galloped toward an outside door. His mother could be seen through the windows, huddled on a patio alongside several other women, smoking a cigarette under a security lamp made only slightly friendlier by a Christmas wreath. Macy waylaid Tim and looked my way. I nodded. Macy wrapped him in a coat then carried him outside.

  He dived into his mother’s arms. He whispered against her hair. She flicked the smoke into the yard and hugged him tightly, her face burrowed against his.

  Stunned, I finally found my voice. “You were right,” I whispered into the phone. “She needed that. But his father’s . . . missing. She just hasn’t told Tim, yet.”

  “He’s dead.” Gus said the words flat, like slamming a brick onto the fresh mortar in a wall.

  I shivered. “Yes. I felt it when I gave Tim a scarf. The wool shrank under my fingers. That’s a death sign.”

  “Talk wool to me. Tell me the other signs you get.”

  “There are too many. And it’s situational. I rely on a voice.”

  “Do you have a name for it?”

  “Opal.”

  “Why?”

  “I just know that’s her name. I heard her not long after I came here. She told me Cathy Deen Mitternich wouldn’t miscarry, this time. She was right. That’s when your sisters and Delta Whittlespoon told me I had the gift. I was a Charmer. Like them. And you. But you all were born with it. I just . . . ”

  “You always had it. You just weren’t ready to hear the voice and the visions until the right time.”

  “Do you hear a voice?”

  “No, but if I did I’d call him Wolverine.”

  “Why?”

  “He could grill kabobs with his knuckles.”

  I did the impossible. I burst out laughing.

  He chuckled. There was whisky in it, and drugs. “That’s a good sound. Let’s play guessing games. “You like the harvest, not the planting, not the waiting. Too much can go wrong in the prep stage. Cook it, store it, pour it, drink it.”

  “Is everyone some kind of beer, to you?”

  “Says the woman who thinks everybody’s a sheep.”

  “You’re not a sheep. You’re . . . ”

  I halted. Take it easy. Don’t go all fan-girl on him. Keep it smooth.

  “Don’t go soft on me now. Finish it. What am I?”

  “A wolverine. That’s what you like. Wolverines.”

  “Nooo. Wolverines look like a cross between a bear and a skunk. Just say it. What am I? A yak? A camel?”

  “I need to think about it. Tal says you’re a yarner. Knit, crochet, even a little needlepoint.”

  “My dad taught me. Said men who knit get more dates.”

  “And he taught you to make beer.”

  “Another way to get the girls.”

  “You miss him.”

  “You miss your dad, too. I can feel it. He hasn’t been gone long.”

  Silence. Dad collapsed while I was in the hospital. Died of a heart attack. I still feel responsible.

  “Whatever happened,” Gus said quietly, “it wasn’t your fault.”

  How much can he learn about me without me telling him?

  “I can’t look where you don’t want me to look, Luce.”

  He knows what I’m thinking.

  “Not really, it’s just a deep intuition.”

  Stop thinking.

  “I promise you, I can’t read your mind. You can’t read my mind, either. Just bits and pieces and guesses.”

  I finally got my voice back. “What you can do—what we can do—is far more than hunches and guesses.”

  “Aw right, yes. But I’m not going to plow into your private spaces and violate your trust. You have my word. And I ask the same promise from you.”

  “I promise.”

  “Read me. Go ahead. See what you find.”

  I took a deep breath. I saw long scenes of their childhood in foster care after their parents died. Their father killed directing traffic on an icy winter road. Their mother dying in an Asheville hospital a few months later, from a blood clot brought on by grief and stress. A custody fight and the time in foster care. Frustration and helplessness. The subjugation of boyhood pride to the reality of a system that put Gabby at the mercy of older boys while Tal huddled in corners.

  Kiss him, Opal ordered. Kiss him right where it counts. Save his life.

  I pressed my mouth to his. How coarse and interesting his skin would be, stubbled, quickly razored after a long patrol, fres
hly showered but still scented with the vast cold terrain of the Afghan mountains. Not like our mountains, capped in ancient forests of evergreens and hardwoods; no. Scraped raw by bony celestial fingers. A beloved land to its people in ways our mountains spoke to us. Secret whispers.

  Like the kiss I brushed across Gus MacBride’s open lips.

  It’s Christmas Eve, Gus. I haven’t kissed a man in years. I desperately want to. There.

  “Merry Christmas to me,” he said hoarsely.

  She asked for it, your Honor.

  I drew back. Physically as well as mentally. Leaned away from the phone.

  “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “Please. Whatever happened to you, I feel it. I respect it.”

  “I’m uncomfortable with this conversation.”

  “Let’s back up and change the subject. You still haven’t told me what kind of wool I am.”

  “I have to go. Thank you for calling . . . ”

  “Buffalo? Gorilla? You’re not goin’ leave me thinking I’m gorilla wool, are you?”

  I struggled to breathe. “Wensleydale, Captain.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Old Irish breed of sheep.” I was hyperventilating now. “Tough. Long strands. Almost completely waterproof when spun and knitted. Not always comfortable when it’s next to the skin. Best used as a shawl. Coat. Scarf.”

  “Alright. Not easy to touch, but protective. That sums me up.”

  His misery flooded me. I heard lambs in Gus MacBride’s rust-red river. Lambs crying. He’d seen death. A lot of it. Close up. Even just a few days ago.

  “Do you really like the scarf I sent?”

  “You bet. I’m having a good night. I’ve got your voice in my ear and a big box from home between my feet. There’re cookies and pickles from my sisters. And the scarf you made, yeah. I’m warm for the first time in days.”

  Deep breath. “It’s merino and alpaca. We don’t have merino sheep here in Jefferson County, so I barter for that wool. But the alpaca is from our animals. You’re wearing Shirley.”

  “Tell Shirley she feels like a warm hug. So . . . exactly where are you doing this face-painting tonight, playing Christmas Elf? The shelter at Rainbow Goddess?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds homey.”

  He knows it isn’t homey at all. Might as well be honest.

  “Not exactly. We have security cameras everywhere, a dozen big dogs who bark at everything that moves, llamas that spit at strangers, goats that attack with no warning, and miles of wild mountains in every direction. We don’t publish our address. It’s too risky, these days. And we make the farm’s main entrance hard to find. It looks like an old hunter’s trail from the road, with a steel gate and a rusty Do Not Enter sign. Feels like we’re guarding an outpost on the frontier, sometimes, except for the goddess statue near the gate. But it’s beautiful, here. It’s a sanctuary. At least for now.”

  I stopped.

  “Are you safe?”

  I’ll never feel safe again.

  “Yes, of course. I’m a counselor here. It’s my home. Are you safe? No. You’re not.”

  I felt him back off. “I’m safe enough. I’m sipping bourbon out of a metal cup in my metal tin can of a home. Keep talking. Please.”

  A vapor curled around me. Hops steaming in a deep of water. Aromatic herbs and grains, fermenting.

  “Just keep talking to me,” he repeated.

  “I live in a one-room efficiency in the sheep barn. If I walk outside in the pastures and follow the slope of the hills into the hollows and the forest, in twenty minutes I’ll be on your family property at Free Wheeler. The old bicycle village your grandparents built is sad and beautiful and impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t seen it in person. All the empty buildings. It’s magical. It really is. My outpost isn’t nearly as stark as yours, but I can understand how you must feel on a holiday night, alone.”

  “You’ve got no family left.”

  “Afraid not.”

  “You’re not alone. Not when you’re talking to me.”

  Heat traveled through me; his voice carried it, but a current of sensations traveled in sync. Down my body, into my arm, through my hand, which gently smoothed my work in progress, the scarf, atop my thighs. Change the subject. “What are you knitting, right now? Current work-in-progress.”

  “All right, wool charmer. Here’s a test. I’m picking up my current knitting project. In my hands. Right now.” His voice shifted to a lower timbre, daring me. “Can you tell me—”

  “Camel, because it’s soft and handspun, with imperfections, and the color is natural; it’s the color of the landscape there. I think it was a gift from a villager. You like all those things about it.”

  He gave a low whistle. “All right. Next, Miss Smarty Yarny, tell me what . . . ”

  “Fingerless gloves.”

  “You’re good at this.”

  “Not better than you, Tal and Gabby. Do you think there are others like us?”

  “I hope so, but until you came along, I’d never met one.”

  “Me . . . neither. I didn’t have this ability until I came to the farm as a . . . until I came here. I had never knitted or crocheted or spun wool before. I . . . touched a handful of wool and suddenly found a connection. Magic. Homespun intuition. Your sisters are my buddies. And Delta Whittlespoon. And Cathy Mitternich.”

  “I’d like to be considered a friend of yours. If I cross a line, just tell me. Deal?”

  My mind pulsed with the urgency that flowed from him, but also the discipline. Controlled desire. He saw my ugly snapshot and still called. Desire for me. I want to be wanted.

  “Deal, Captain.”

  My breathing shallowed. I wasn’t in a pit looking up at a sky I’d never see again. I felt desire for a man. A real one, not a faceless impulse attached to my own hand at night.

  “Those fingerless gloves,” I said. “You’re having trouble with the pattern?”

  “The holes are too small for my fingers. When I add stitches, I get gaps. So I frogged that version, re-knitted per the original chart, then did a wash and block to see if I get some stretch.”

  “Did you try soaking the finished piece in hair conditioner? That softens wool the same as it does human hair.”

  “Tried that. Didn’t work. The holes haven’t relaxed at all.”

  “Try a few simple increases around the rims.”

  “I get puckers.”

  “Try tucks. A tuck by the knuckle of your forefinger. A second tuck by the knuckle of your little finger. Then add two small tucks underneath, palm-side, below the middle fingers. The pattern just needs to be . . . tucked.”

  Silence. I heard my own breathing, and his. He cleared his throat. “I could use help with my patterns. You up for that?”

  I could barely form words by then. “Send yarn. I can do that much. Send you yarn. I know your sisters send you boxes full. It’s hard to get, there.” Pull yourself together. Deep breath. “Captain, yes, I’d love to talk to you again. Knitting, crochet, spinning. Wool is my passion. What else can I send?”

  “Luce,” he said in a deep drawl that caressed my sweet spot, “I’ll be happy with whatever you give me, and I’m yours to command.”

  I was plunging down confession lane with this big, macho stranger. I blinked and saw him vividly. Sitting on his ugly little bed, bare-chested, my scarf around his neck.

  And a loaded pistol beside him.

  My entire body went cold. I saw the pistol lying next to his hip, on the cot.

  “Captain. Gus. I don’t like that gun. Put it away. Your mother is with you. She’s all around you. I can feel the love. And your father is there, too. He’s saying something about the crochet hook. You carry a crochet hook of his?”

  Long si
lence. I know the sound of a man trying hard not to cry when he speaks.

  “Yeah,” Gus answered.

  “You need to come home,” she says. “You’re needed here. She means North Carolina.”

  “I never . . . planned to come back. Too many memories.”

  My face was wet. I was crying. “Put the gun away. Put it away. They’re saying put it away. And come home.”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Wool Witch.” His voice was a deep, fractured mess. “You stay alive, and I will too. I’ve got a leave coming, in March. I want to meet you.”

  “I’ll be here. And between now and then, we’ll talk by phone and work on patterns.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  THAT NIGHT I had the worst panic attack in months. Ended up feverishly working at my wheel on the little stoop outside my room in the barn, while sheep, llamas, alpacas and Brim dozed around me. My spinning wheel, an antique Delta had given me, sat on the walkway outside my room at the barn. Bags of unspun wool roving were piled around it. The long stranded varieties, from the Bluefaced Leiceisters, were easy to spin. The short, ultra-soft merinos were harder. The Angora rabbit fur was like fitting fluffs of cotton into a strand.

  The long, coarse wools, like the shaggy Wenslydales, could rub my fingers raw.

  Hadn’t you been leading them on, Ms. Parmenter? Flirting with these two maintenance workers at your apartment complex? Bringing them cookies in the evenings after you came home from your teaching job? Engaging them in conversation?

  Sir, that’s . . . that’s how I how I was raised to treat my fellow human beings. That’s called outreach. Ministering. They had drug problems.

  Move to strike that comment, your honor. Prejudicial against my clients.

  Ms. Parmenter, just tell us your own motives.

  Yes, Ms. Parmenter, tell us if you were trying to get sex and drugs from my clients—two hardworking men who were charmed by a pretty blonde school teacher looking for thrills.

  I should tell him the truth. I was drugged, raped, and beaten by two meth addicts. They held me hostage, in my apartment, for hours. No part of me wasn’t damaged.

  If he came home in March, I would talk. Look him in the eyes and read the book inside his soul and find out if he was a dream come true or just another nightmare.