Cleo

If I was to be a witch, then Cleo needed to look the part. I taught her to perch on my shoulder. Our first attempts were dismal and painful to us both. But Cleo was a willing student with a sense of balance worthy of Cirque du Soleil. She was soon able to dig her claws into my clothes deeply enough to secure a platform without piercing my skin. I enjoyed the alarm that flickered across visitors’ faces when I opened the door with a black cat glaring down at them from my shoulder. For all their technology and sophistication, people are wired like primitive beings. They still believe in witches. Not so long ago, neighbors would have gathered outside my white picket fence at dusk and dragged me and my cat to the nearest bonfire.

“A woman needs a man like a butterfly needs deep-sea diving gear,” I said to Emma, who’d become a regular visitor. I’d met her at a book launch, where we’d both been hovering by the loo doors. Emma worked in a feminist bookstore. She helped me nurture a herb garden and introduced me to her circle of women friends, who had strong views on the male species. Listening to their wine-fueled discussions, I nodded fiercely. Men were a lesser species, slaves to the bulge in their pants and overdue for extinction.

Even if I couldn’t contemplate cutting my hair short and bleaching it silver the way Emma had, I admired her flair. Turquoise was her color. Only a woman with no children would have time to sift through what must’ve amounted to hundreds of shops and market stalls to find so much turquoise junk—bangles, scarves, even a pair of turquoise sunglasses. One of her favorite accessories was a feather-trimmed pendant inlaid with turquoise, a gift from a Hopi Indian chief who had cleansed her aura, smudged evil spirits out of her house with sage smoke and identified her totem animal as a cougar.

Emma often brought over books from her shop—Why Women  Bleed, The Disposable Male. Free from maternal exhaustion, she was honorary aunt to the kids. I envied the excess energy she had to bounce on the trampoline with Lydia or kick a ball around with Rob. I was grateful for Emma’s company.

I was also thankful for the restless, throwaway atmosphere of the newsroom. A combination of deadlines and worldly quips from workmates helped stop up the holes in a shattered heart. I was grateful that nobody, not even Nicole, said, “I told you so.” The toy-boy jokes dried up and gradually stopped. They accepted me back into the fold. I loved them for it.

While I didn’t know Tina well, she was showing signs of being an empowerment witch herself. Not so long ago she’d asked me into her office and suggested I apply for a Press Fellowship to Cambridge University in Britain. My chances of being accepted were less than zero, but I filled out the form to practice applying for things. The form invited applicants to nominate an area of interest. Confident I wouldn’t get in, I invented a zany topic—Environmental Studies from a Spiritual Perspective.

Another weekend without the children stretched ahead like a desert. I was pleased when Emma offered a Saturday night oasis, asking me over to her place for pasta and salad. Thank God, whoever She may be, for women friends, I thought, pulling up outside Emma’s cutesy house nestled in the hills outside town.

“How are you?” she said, opening the door.

Emma was one of the few people I could be honest with.

“Good. Bad…Dunno…Tired.”

She poured a glass of wine, a soulful Australian red. We dined outside under the hypnotic toll of a wind chime.

“You’re a wonderful friend,” I said, scraping the remains of home-baked lemon pudding off my bowl. “It’s such a treat to have a beautiful meal just appear like this. It’s magic. I can’t get over it. I didn’t have to peel a potato.”

“My pleasure,” Emma said, flashing her incisors. The Hopi Indian chief was right. There was something cougarish about her, especially in the evening light.

As I stood to help clear the table, Emma took my hand. “No. Sit down,” she said. “Tonight’s your night. I know how hard you work and how demanding it is raising the kids on your own. Tonight I’m taking care of you.”

Her words made me want to crumble with gratitude. At last someone understood.

“What’s that sound?” I asked. “Do you have an ornamental fountain?”

“I’m running a bath for you,” Emma said.

A bath?! Did I smell that bad? I’d showered before leaving home.

“You said a good bath relaxes you more than anything,” she added, sensing my alarm.

“Yes, but that’s when I’m at home on my own,” I muttered.

“This is going to be better than anything you’ve ever had at home,” said Emma. “I’ve been saving some special French bubble bath for you.”

“That’s…very…kind,” I said, wishing she could’ve just handed over the bottle of bubble bath and let me go home.

“I’ve put a robe out for you,” she said, looking more cougarish by the second. “In the bathroom.”