Photo by Bryan Hilson

To read the first installment, click here.

WITCH AND WARLOCK (CONTINUED) 

A gold case, Allison Downer’s compact, he’d forgotten the maître d had left it on the table next to her purse. Peter thought he should put it away. He didn’t want Allison thinking he’d dug it out of her purse and ending the date because of that. She’d assumed for him the role of guardian, and he was this far in he might as well play it. He took the compact into his hands and was struck by how elegant the logo was: “Estee Lauder” etched in black cursive script across gold plating. It was the wine. Why he gave the logo a second look and why he was curious enough to read the label stickered on the back.

“Pink Kiss,” he said. He said it again.

He wasn’t sure it was the alcohol’s effects why “Pink Kiss” resonated with him, why it seemed to hang in suspended animation in his mind when normally, effortlessly, a million other things would have replaced the cheeky name of a color of a blush of a women’s line of makeup. But here he was, his languid brain suddenly buzzing at attention, straining for context to the exclusion of everything else, like he and the compact case were alone on a stage under a spotlight. The clarity of the object made nothing more concrete than a physical feeling; a spasm in his lower back that settled and split into dual, duller creeping presences, as if emotions were two thieves come to rob him, infiltrating his body and army-crawling around the kidneys into his stomach. He could name them. Shame. Embarrassment. Mild cases, Peter assured himself, considering the “Pink Kiss” details that emerged: cold, brilliant cosmetic counters, Morechant’s Department Store, Flagfield Mall, the risk, the girl. Of course a girl. Always a girl. More and more, he felt, his memory was being reduced to a catalogue of all the stupid shit he’d done to impress the opposite sex.

This time he couldn’t have been older than thirteen, though, and it was a universal truth there was nothing a thirteen-year-old male did that wasn’t stupid. What did it mean that thirty years later he was still—whatever, Peter wanted to stay in the past. He was thirteen, roaming Morechant’s alone. Why? His mother. God damn it. She was paranoid about public dressing rooms so her aggravating shopping habit was to buy all the clothes she thought she might like, try them on at home, and then make a massive return of everything she wasn’t keeping. Somehow Peter could never get out of it, what became an eye-gouging eternity in the Morechant’s returns department in the basement of the store. He must have finally convinced his mother to let him wander. That was right, Peter thought, he’d taken the escalator up to the first floor and that’s where the cosmetic counters were and that’s where he saw her. The girl. She’d stood out to him. Of course she had, she was girl. No, he knew there’d been something else, she hadn’t been obvious. Cute and developed and around his age, yes, all major pluses, but it was coming back to him he’d been more excited about what she was wearing. A pantsuit, like she was some kind of businesswoman, and he thought it might have been a little big on her, and that made her even sexier. She was engaged in a conversation with a saleswoman. She was talking to an adult as if they were both adults. No, it was a negotiation. The girl was driving hard for a discount, he remembered. The “Pink Kiss” blush. The saleswoman had been frowning but she’d also been bending, bending, but no she never broke and the girl’s sullen, sulky departure, although it betrayed her real age, must have set something off in young Peter’s loins, which were just starting to exert their dominance over his brain.

He wasn’t the only one the girl had left hot and flustered. The case holding the “Pink Kiss” was still unlocked when the saleswoman abandoned her post to help customers at a different counter. It was a blur to him now but Peter knew he’d done it; he’d reached over and grabbed the blush right out of the case. And when he turned to look for her—hadn’t she been watching him the whole time? Yeah, the girl had been watching him the whole time from the women’s accessories department. Peter smiled at the thought of that. He’d no longer needed his brain. Fuck shame and embarrassment. It was funny. He was thirteen. She motioned him over and he was on automatic. Of course she did all the talking. What had she even said to him? Peter strained again to dig something up. Maybe a thanks but no thanks you crazy idiot you better put it back, or maybe a what’s your name you dashing scoundrel, here’s my number, call me sometime. Maybe all of those things, but he also felt like it was none of those things. No, there was something else she’d said, he was pretty sure of it. And it was something odd. Gabby. Okay, she’d told him her name, but that wasn’t what was weird.

Peter realized he was gripping hard on his blind date’s compact and he relaxed and returned it to the table and bumped into a basket of bread. The muscles in his gripping hand were sore so he grabbed a roll with the other. He sunk into warm sourdough. Somebody at some point had topped off his wine glass. They were taking pity on him. Don’t call me Gabby. Yes. That was part of what she said; the girl didn’t want Peter to call her by her real name. She didn’t want to know Peter’s real name. That was weird. But what else did she say to him? He drank some wine. Call me Witch. His heart thumped hard against his chest. He remembered thinking, But you’re wearing an oversized pantsuit. Warlock, can I count on you? This made his forehead heat up. In a good way, he thought. He was enjoying the memory. She’d said to call her Witch and that she would call him Warlock. It was funny. Flirty, sort of. It was silly teenage stuff. Will you obtain the “Pink Kiss” for me, Warlock? He took another drink. Did he have it wrong? Wasn’t it his impulsive idea to steal the blush? Had she asked him to do it? Be stupid for her sake? She’d had a plan; Peter was putting together the pieces as fast as they returned to him.