VenCo(34)

There was a moment of silence. Someone cleared her throat. A glass was lifted and lowered. The women looked at each other and then down at their own spoons. Meena was the one to answer.

“This,” she said, drawing the word out as she gestured to the women around the table with her wineglass. “This is a coven.”

Lucky laughed. She didn’t know that was what she was going to do before the sound jumped up her throat and out her open mouth. “A coven? Like, an actual coven.”

“Yes, Lucky St. James. Like an actual coven.” Meena smiled wide and knocked back the last of the wine in her glass. She pushed back her chair and stood. “I’ll grab us another bottle. This is going to be a long night.”

“Where do you think the name VenCo came from? Ven-co. Coven,” Freya sneered. “Hiding in plain sight, babe. Just like us.”

“My turn, I guess,” Morticia interjected, stirring sugar into her tea. “I have a story.”

“So, wait, are we going in order of where we’re sitting?” Freya cut in. “Or should we go based on when we got our spoons?”

“Freya . . .” Wendy started.

“No, no, Mama W, I don’t care. I’m last either way.” She slung her legs over one arm of her chair and settled her teacup and saucer on her lap. “I’m just figuring out the formula we’re following here.”

Wendy smiled at her indulgently, then turned to Morticia. “Tish, love, please, go ahead.”


New York City, 2016



Morticia knew that soon she would be Patricia again. More likely, even, Pat.

Her thirtieth birthday was two weeks away, and nobody over thirty was allowed to have hair dyed blue-black and wear six-inch platform boots and still be taken seriously. And since she had never developed an aptitude for computers like other goths, she would also likely find herself unemployed, especially with the bookstore’s precarious lease.

“Fucking Pat. How am I going to live as a Pat?” She pulled on her Marlboro. Yet another thing she’d have to give up. “Soon I’ll have to get a vape. I’ll be fucking Pat who smokes vanilla juice out of a fucking vape.” She flicked the butt into a puddle in the alleyway and turned to Bo, who was chewing black polish off his nails. “Just kick my ass now. I would if I could.”

“Why are you being so existential?” Bo narrowed his eyes at her and shook his head. “Thirty isn’t the end. It’s not like it’s thirty-five or anything. Christ.”

“Easy for you to say.” She stomped a boot and anxiously fiddled with the skinny tie knotting the collar of her extra-small uniform shirt, a leftover from her Catholic school days. “You have the Yang family dynasty to fall back on. You’re allowed to be morbid and interesting until they bury you in a black marble coffin.”

Bo looked down the alleyway, a tunnel to the lights and cars and too many people on the street. “Ooo, you think they’ll drop roses over the city as I descend? Like, thorns and all . . . extra thorns. From a helicopter. No, no, from a blimp playing Smiths ballads.”

“Roses, really?”

“Yeah, you’re right. The Yangs can deal with either the goth thing or the gay thing, but not both at the same time.”

“I’m serious here! I’m about to become a suburban housewife named Pat right in front of you. The least you can do is commiserate.” She walked over and leaned hard against the brick wall beside him.

“I’m here, I’m commiserating.” He slapped her arm lightly, his hand mostly covered by the stretched-out sleeve of his black hoodie. “But wasn’t Patricia the name you were born with? You must be used to it on some level.”

She growled at him. “Maybe I should just move.”

“To where? We live in New York City, Brooklyn even, which is, like, the coolest place on earth. If you can get away with the aged goth spinster thing anywhere, it’s here.”

Morticia picked at the holes in her fishnets, held together by strategically placed safety pins. “So that’s it, then. Game over.”

Bo pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “We got to get back. Just suck it up, at least for the next two and a half hours. You can finish your breakdown when we close. Then we’ll pour whiskey on it.”

He held out a hand, and after a few seconds, she took it and allowed herself to be guided through the back door and into the familiar dust and shuffle of the store.

Late-summer sun was muscling its way in through the wide front window, filtered by a layer of yellow grime. Gabriel stood behind the antique front desk, his bald head gleaming. “Hey, we got an unpaid drop-off to sort. Not it!”

“Not it!” Bo echoed. He turned on a delicate heel towards Morticia and scrunched up his face. “Sorry, babe.”

She sighed. “Yeah, sure, guys, let me be the one to sort through the trash someone couldn’t fit in their recycling bin. Why not?”

And it was sure to be crap. The people who brought in good books didn’t donate and dash. They hung around for the assessment and took their cut from the cash register, usually after haggling or whining, neither of which got them anywhere. When faced with a haggler, Morticia would remind them that the Salvation Army on Bushwick was accepting donations, and that usually ended it.

She sighed again. It was turning out to be a breathy kind of day. “You take a look yet?”