Bewitched

This piece was written as punishment for my failure to find 17 words in the January 19, 2024, NYT Spelling Bee puzzle. All 17 words are included, in bold type, in this story. The missed words, in alphabetical order, are as follows: Acetal, Café, Calculate, Calf, Caul, Clef, Cuff, Eclat, Effectual, Effectuate, Elect, Electee, Lacteal, Lettuce, Tacet, Tactful, and Tactual. 

Holiday dinners with my husband, Jude’s, family are often tricky, but this Thanksgiving bore true promise for the kind of skirmish that makes my husband effervescent with delight – like the fans at a Washington Capitals game beating on the rink shielding while players pound each other’s helmets off and fall to the ice fighting, until the linemen finally stop blowing their whistles and skate over to separate the hooligans. This was the year that Jude’s younger brother, Darren, would bring home his girlfriend – the first he’s ever dated for longer than a couple of hours – to meet the family.

We had met Emma in September when the four of us had dinner together at a neighborhood café in Dupont, not far from our house in Washington DC. When drinks had been ordered and we got down to conversation, I opened with the predictable, “So, Emma, tell us how you and Darren met.”

“I already told Jude the whole story,” Darren interrupted. Jude was searching his text history to see whether he had forwarded anything to me about it. He had not.

“C’mon, Darren, I want to hear Emma’s version,” I persisted, unrelenting, but trying to be tactful.

Emma was happy to tell us the whole story. They met at the hospital where she works as a physical therapist. After Darren’s surgery for a torn meniscus, he was seeing Jeremy, one of Emma’s coworkers, for physical therapy on his knee. One morning, Emma walked by as Jeremy had Darren doing knee extensions with resistance bands. Darren was in between sets and stopped Emma to compliment her on the tattooed cuff of leaves and flowers that wound its way from her wrist to her bicep. After seeing each other at the clinic two or three more times, they met for coffee, and that was that.

I turned to Darren, “What about the physical therapy? Did you find it effectual?”

“Effectual? Was that the word of the day?” Darren teased.

“Indeed, it was,” I admitted. “Seriously, how’s the physical therapy going?’

“My knee’s still stiff, if that’s what you mean, Rachel, but the therapy did effectuate a date with Emma, so I’d call it a win,” Darren smirked. He leaned over and kissed Emma lightly on the cheek. Her eyes twinkled. Throughout the entire meal – the wine, the arugula and goat cheese salad, the quattro formaggi pizza – the two of them smiled at one another. Conversation was comfortable and convivial, as if Emma had been one of us all along. 

Walking down P Street toward home after dinner, Jude and I agreed: Emma was smart, she was charming, and she was pretty. After we turned to make our way to Church Street and were past the Keegan Theater, almost to the house, Jude said, totally straight, “Too bad she’s a witch.”

The following morning, I quizzed Jude at length about the whole witch thing but received no meaningful intel for my efforts. I sat down to do a bit of research over lunch. Witches of the 21st century, I learned, do not wear pointy black hats or travel on brooms. Nor are they Satan-worshipping lunatics with spinning heads and green vomit. Instead, Wicca traditions honor nature and the earth. Wikipedia’s description of some of their rituals and ceremonies sounded a bit far-fetched, but honestly, no more wackadoodle than any other religion. After hopping around the web for forty-five minutes, I remembered I was hungry. But I looked down at my now room-temperature cottage cheese, oozing a lacteal film over top of a wilted lettuce leaf, and pushed it aside. I read some more about the female mother goddess and her horndog consort, a guy with a nose like a bass clef and, appropriately, huge horns on his head. Horndog’s name is, no lie, Horn god. I thought of those cutesy bumper stickers, “God is dog spelled backward.” Horn god, indeed.

We invited Darren and Emma over for dinner. I thought I might casually inquire whether she was a good witch or a bad witch. Of course, I didn’t lead with that. “Emma, when did you get that elaborate tattoo? It reminds me of a Georgia O’Keefe painting, but I’ve never known anything about the plant or even its name.”

“It’s only been about a year since it was finished. It took several sessions. I don’t much like needles,” Emma winced, “so I kept putting off my appointments and then there was Covid.”

“And what kind of flower is it?’

 “Datura. You’re right about the O’Keefe painting, though she called it by its common name, jimson weed.”

“Datura is better. Does that mean you’re an O’Keefe fan?”

“Well, I guess, but I’m more a fan of the plant. It’s used in all sorts of herbal remedies and that’s what I’m into. I even keep a small garden where I grow datura, or should I say, try to.”   

Darren jumped in and asked, “So Rachel, Jude tells me that you two are planning a trip to Ecuador. Isn’t that dangerous right now?”

Just like that. I had dilly-dallied and now the moment was lost. I swear Darren was shaking his head at me and grinning.

The next day, I was like some little kid scared out of her wits by a horror movie but still watching. Not that modern-day witchcraft seemed all that horrific, or at all horrific, but I was obsessed with the notion that Darren was dating a witch. Back to Google. The weirdest witchy thing I learned involved something called a caul – a schmear of amniotic membrane that sometimes sticks to a baby’s face. In the way-back times, people would dry out their cauls, like lavender or sage, and sell them to protect against witches. Or, witches would use them to put their black magic spells on you. I couldn’t wait to tell Jude that cauls were known to help lawyers persuade judges to rule in their favor. It’s not something you can find on Amazon, though. He shouldn’t expect it for Christmas.

I also learned that datura is a hallucinogen and that it can be poisonous. I even found a shop in San Diego actually called Datura that sells all sorts of herbs online for “spellcraft, ritual and healing.” Who could object to a little healing with herbs? Sounded like drinking echinacea tea to me. Of course, the Datura Shut Up Ritual Intention Oil – used to stop gossipers and backstabbers – might be a bit dodgy. On the other hand, I calculate that Emma might need that stuff once my mother-in-law finds out she’s a witch.

Everyone but Jude was apprehensive about Thanksgiving. On the big day, in the Uber over to my in-laws’ house in Glover Park, he asked, “What’s Mom going to do? Tell him he’s not allowed to go out with a witch? Walk Emma over to Georgetown and push her down the Exorcist stairs?”

“Somehow, I doubt Father McCabe will recommend murder. Anyway, no one’s told your mom, right? I would elect that we simply avoid the subject of witchcraft, Jude.”

He pulled an imaginary zipper from one corner of his mouth to the other, or tried to, but erupted in laughter instead.

We headed for the kitchen when we arrived to say hi to Louise, Jude’s mom. He grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and asked, “Darren and Samantha here yet?” “I thought her name was Emma,” said Louise. Behind his mother’s back, Jude widened his eyes and moved his nose side-to-side with his forefinger. “Jude, go say hi to your dad while I help your mom.” But I was too late. Jude’s father, Milton, was on his way up the stairs from the basement where he’d been watching football. Just then, the front door opened, and in came Darren with Emma.

Emma brought a degree of éclat to the gathering with which we were all unaccustomed. Her chestnut tresses tumbled around her shoulders in the kind of soft waves most of us have seen only for the first five minutes after leaving the hair salon. She wore a terra-cotta long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and a matching wool ankle-length skirt with a wide black belt around her slim waist and low-heeled ankle boots on her annoyingly small feet. Good, I thought, when I stopped gawking at how great she looked. Arm tattoo hidden. We hugged in greeting and then she turned as Darren introduced her to Louise.

Uh-oh. What was that on her calf? Was it a pentagram in a circle? With more leaves and tendrils just like on her arm, but snaking down to curl around her ankle? Jesus y Maria. With that slit up the back of her skirt, she might as well have lit herself up in twinkling red lights and a pitchfork.  I walked into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine.

I wanted things to work out for Darren. Jude and I had never seen him this happy. But their mother, Louise, is a devout Catholic. Her worldview was not about to expand to include Wiccans just so her younger son could finally get … um, a steady girlfriend. How could we spin it? You know, get Emma initiated into the club and then, slowly, strategically, share the truth with Louise? Maybe after Emma was pregnant? I started drinking. Jude came into the kitchen and reminded me that it wasn’t my problem. Then he poured himself a glass. We both took a swig and thus girded, marched out to take our places in the dining room.

We assembled around the table for dinner and Milton did his typical short and sweet rendition of “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts.” Meanwhile, I was praying to the god I didn’t believe in that no one noticed the tattoo. My husband, Satan, was smiling and grabbed my behind. We all sat.

I passed the sweet potatoes and Louise got right down to it. “Emma, I couldn’t help but notice all those leaves on your calf. I wondered if you are a botanist?”

“My goodness, no,” Emma smiled, “I’m a physical therapist, though I do enjoy gardening on the weekends. I noticed your impressive hydrangea bushes as we were walking up. You must have been tending those for years.”    

Score one for Emma with the “impressive hydrangea” compliment. Never one to appear ungracious, Louise was forced to hang back a turn. The tattoo would have to wait. “How did you become interested in physical therapy?” Louise asked, biding her time.

“Well, I was majoring in chemistry at CUA here in DC. I’ve always liked science,” Emma began.

“Chemistry?” Milton perked up.

“Catholic University?” Louise asked.

Jesus, I thought. Did Darren not tell his parents one helpful thing?  

It didn’t matter though. Emma was a virtuosa. Darren, Jude, and I all played tacet during the entire movement while Louise sat helpless.

“I really enjoyed chemistry in the lab at school, but I was less enthralled after a summer internship at a Dupont plant in Parkersburg where they make acetal resins. At heart, I’m an environmentalist. I just couldn’t see myself working over the long haul to develop more plastics. Forget diamonds, it’s plastics that are forever.” Emma continued. “When I got back to school in the fall that year, I decided to work toward something where I could help people on a personal, more tactual level. When I thought about physical therapy, I realized I couldn’t be outsourced.” Emma beamed triumphantly.

“Dupont?” Louise gulped, crestfallen.

“In Parkersburg, West Virginia. Do you know it?” Emma asked.

“Son, have you told this charming young woman nothing of your family?” Milton asked good-naturedly. Turning to Emma, he elaborated, “That very DuPont plant is what made a chemistry professor out of me. What are the odds? After working there for six months, I decided to go for my PhD at Hopkins. Been teaching ever since.”

“Dad’s the OG of sustainability,” Darren chimed in.

“What’s OG?” Milton asked. 

Fearing it could be her last shot of the day, Louise asked Emma, ”What kind of plant is that …”

With total disregard for my mother-in-law’s wrath, I leapt in, ”Did Jude tell you I’m the new electee for chair of my book club next year?” I squeezed his knee under the table and he took the hint.

“That’s right,” Jude added, now mimicking Larry David, “she’ll be pretty, pretty busy heading up that group of six winos.”

I slugged his arm and prepared to discuss our possible book choices when Milton interrupted, “Emma, did you hear the one about Argon going into the bar? The bartender said, ’We don’t serve noble gases here.’”    

Emma chuckled as she answered, “I bet Argon didn’t react.”

We groaned as Milton laughed out loud.

Fair is foul and foul is fair, I thought. Maybe Darren and Emma could actually work.

I caught Darren winking at Emma as I rose to fetch the pecan pie.

Louise went to find her rosary.