VenCo(83)

“Meena?” Lucky said. “I understand why you waited. And I’m not mad.”

Meena’s shoulders quivered a bit, and she wiped at her face, her back turned to the group. She raised her voice to reply. “All you have to do is get the spoon and the witch and come back to us.”

“Right.”

“That’s the important part, Lucky. You come back to us. You come home.” Her voice broke a bit at the end.

“Got it.”

The line went dead, and silence returned to the kitchen.

“What do we do now?” Morticia was hoping the answer would be “Go back to bed.”

Back to her old form, Meena said, “Now that Lucky’s on the spoon, we get back to looking for this missing witch, but we switch tactics. Wendy, can you prepare some tea to help us sleep?” But Wendy was already digging through a pile of recipe books behind a glass door in the corner of the cabinet.

“Soooo, we are going back to bed, then?” Morticia was still hopeful.

Meena put a hand on her shoulder. “In a way. Except there will be nothing restful about it. This will be work.”





27

The Big Uneasy




Morticia had paid extra to make sure their room at the Olivier House was available as soon as they arrived, bright and early the next morning. “We put y’all in the Garden Suite, just over past the pool here,” the clerk explained while Lucky filled out the registry. He wore a bright purple golf shirt that cradled his ample weight, with a green belt holding up rumpled shorts. His face was clean-shaven and had impressively unlined tanned skin for a man in his fifties. “It’s through the courtyard and at the very back. There’s an upstairs loft with a queen bed and a pull-out double on the main floor. Two bathrooms too.”

“Can we go in the pool?” Stella had slept all the way here and was ready to party.

“Surely,” he answered, already enchanted by her. Gay men loved Stella, maybe, Lucky thought, because she had some serious Carol Channing vibes.

“I have to sleep, Grandma, and you can’t go swimming alone.”

“That sucks. What am I going to do?” She literally pouted.

The clerk stepped in. “Well now, I have to trade off with Myrtle on the desk and am about to go clean the pool area. I can accompany you if you would allow it.” He was looking at Lucky now.

She glanced at her sulky grandmother and then back at the pleasant clerk. She read his name tag. “Listen, Theodore, I don’t want to put you out, and besides, no offence, I don’t really know you and she needs . . . minding.”

“I would like the company too,” a small voice said from the side parlor.

A small woman came into the lobby, leaning lightly on an ornate silver cane. “I’m Aggie Duveaux.”

“Aggie, these are”—the clerk leaned over to look at the registry—“the St. James women.”

“I’m not a St. James,” Stella corrected. “I’m a Sampson. Stella Sampson. This is my granddaughter, Lucky. She’s the St. James.”

“Well now, Stella, I’m glad to know you. And Miss Lucky. And you know my name. You’ve met my grandnephew Teddy here.”

Theodore gave a quick bow. “Aunt Aggie owns this hotel. She also lives in the coach house in the back.”

“So we aren’t exactly strangers.” She smiled. “You even know my home address. So can Stella come out to play?”

What else could Lucky do but relent. Besides, she was cautiously optimistic. Stella had been more lucid lately. “Okay, Grandma, let’s go to the room, settle in, and you can dig out something to swim in that isn’t track pants.”

Stella smiled at her. “Not that I need your consent, but I’ll take it. I’ll see you poolside, Miss Aggie.”

Twenty minutes later, Lucky was pushing Stella out the door in a sports bra and shorts. As soon as she was gone, Lucky lay down. She started thinking about the Benandanti, and the fact that the coven hadn’t told her. She really had been angry, but the truth was, if they had told her, she probably wouldn’t have gone on. She’d been a witch for all of what—a week? It was a tough call, but probably the right one. She was used to it. Life with Arnya had been full of tough calls. Soon enough, Lucky fell asleep. When she woke up, Stella was back and watching TV with the volume down and the closed captioning on, and it was after two in the afternoon.

“Shit! Why’d you let me sleep so long?” She jumped out of bed and grabbed her phone. It was dead. Her bedroom was on a second floor, up a metal staircase, so she made her way down, carefully. She dug through their bags, still by the door, for her charger.

“What, I’m your butler now? You should have set an alarm.”

Lucky waved her dead phone in the air. “Hello? I did!”

“And I’m the one that ‘needs minding’?” Stella turned back to her show, arms crossed across her chest. “I know I’m forgetful, but I’m still here.”

Lucky plugged her phone in and sat down on the couch beside Stella. For a few minutes, they watched a fishing show in silence as the air-conditioner whirred. Outside, some kids screamed and splashed in the pool. A car drove by on the street playing bounce music at window-vibrating volume.

“I’m sorry,” Lucky said. “I forget too. I forget that you’re the one who took care of me pretty much my whole childhood. All I remember is the burning popcorn and the weird hats . . .”