Opening Night
That first day turned into another day, and then another. Before too long, the apartment was fully furnished, and I had to admit I probably enjoyed all that new furniture more than I should have. Yes, there was something to be said for antiques, for pieces that had been previously loved and which had absorbed the unique energies of their former owners…but there was also a lot to be said for having tables without burn marks from careless cigarette butts or scratches from too many moves.
As I’d promised Archie, I tried to do some research on spells that might get him out of his predicament, but so far, I hadn’t found very much. Most of the spells contained in my own books of magic were confined to benign topics like healing and abundance enchantments, and while the darker texts might have provided some information on how to turn someone into a toad — or a cat — they were pretty unhelpful about offering any actionable data on how to turn someone back.
Oddly enough, my unexpected roommate and I got along better than I’d thought we would. He had me put the cat bed in the second bedroom/office, and since I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in there, it wasn’t as though we tripped over each other much. He also had a tendency to slip out as soon as I opened the front door so he could wander the neighborhood. How he’d managed to avoid getting hit by a car or eaten by coyotes all those years, I had no idea, but I supposed there was something to be said for having a human brain in a cat body.
I asked him one time why no one had ever noticed that the same gray cat had been lurking around the area for decades, and he’d only tilted his head at me.
“People see what they want to see,” he replied, a cryptic comment that didn’t do much to illuminate the situation but which, I realized later, was only the truth. And since he’d turned out to be an unobtrusive companion — at least I never had to worry about him lurking near the bathroom, trying to sneak a peek as I got out of the shower — I figured he could keep his secrets. After being cursed to remain in a cat’s body for sixty years or more, he’d probably earned that right.
The same week I moved in, Brett came over and turned the downstairs shop space into the azure haven I’d envisioned, and he also told me about a local artist who did beautiful murals and sign painting. I got in touch with Hazel Marr, the artist in question — who turned out to be only a few years older than I was, and someone I felt comfortable with right away — and she transformed the shop ceiling into a gorgeous night sky adorned with all the constellations of the zodiac, along with a beautiful crescent moon above the front door.
Ordering display cases and tables, along with all the various items I wanted to sell in the shop, took a bit more time. Still, less than a month had passed by the time I was ready to open Once in a Blue Moon to the public.
Josie advised me to have a grand opening, with drinks and snacks. “People are curious about the place, of course,” she said one afternoon when she dropped by to see how everything was progressing. “But booze really helps to get them in the door.”
I couldn’t help laughing at her comment, although I had a feeling she was right. “If that’s what it takes,” I replied, thinking that the food and drinks would be a good tax write-off, if nothing else. “And I’d love it if you could help me get the word out.”
“Consider it done,” she told me.
And that was why, when I officially opened the doors to Once in a Blue Moon on Friday, April ninth, I immediately had a flood of people coming inside. Josie, of course, and her nephew Brett, accompanied by a slight, fair-haired woman I guessed was his wife. I’d learned earlier that Josie had been divorced for years and had no intention of remarrying — “why would I waste my time on that nonsense?” she asked rhetorically during one of her visits — and with her came Hazel, the artist, who I’d already gotten friendly with as she worked on the shop ceiling. I had a feeling Hazel was glad to see someone a little left of center show up in town — the streaks in her light brown hair varied with her mood, and were blue and pink that particular night, and she also had a tiny diamond stud in her nose — while I knew I was certainly happy to have met a woman around my own age who didn’t give me the side-eye when I casually announced I was a practicing witch. We were a long ways past the bad old days of the Salem witch trials, but a lot of people still weren’t super-comfortable with the whole woo-woo thing.
More people arrived after that: the two guys from the coffee house down the street, and Max, the gruff individual who owned the antique store right next to my shop. And still more Globe residents I didn’t recognize, all of them looking friendly enough, even though I noticed a few of them giving sketchy glances at the items engraved with pentacles or the sacred triple moon, like my mini cauldrons and carved altar pieces.
Still, no one had shown up with torches and pitchforks, and so I figured I could already count the evening a success because of that. People sipped from little plastic cups of wine and ate cheese and crackers and fruit, and some of them even bought a few things. The essential oils and candles seemed especially popular, and I made a mental note that I’d probably have to restock those items more frequently.
And then he walked in.
I was so focused on his handsome, strongly marked features and the long, night-black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail that at first, I didn’t even realize he was wearing a uniform of some sort. Cop? I supposed so, but the members of the Globe P.D. that I’d spotted during my time in town had worn dark blue uniforms, while this stranger’s was khaki.
“Calvin Standingbear,” came Josie’s voice at my ear, and I turned to see her standing a foot behind me, a knowing smile on her face. “He’s the police chief for the San Ramon Apache tribe. They operate the casino just down the road.”
Right. I vaguely recalled seeing a turnoff for a casino when I was out exploring in my Beetle, but because gambling had never been my thing, I hadn’t paid it very much attention. And I knew I’d seen people shopping at the Walmart in Globe that I guessed had to be Native American, although I didn’t know anything about the local tribe.
“I hope he’s not here to check for a liquor license or something,” I joked. Josie had assured me that as long as I was giving the wine away and not expecting people to purchase anything in exchange, I should be fine, but my stomach did a nervous flip-flop anyway.
Or maybe that was simply how my body had decided to react to the godlike specimen who’d just entered the shop.
She waved a hand. “Oh, the tribal police don’t have jurisdiction here in town. No, he probably dropped by to take a look because he was curious. People have been talking about this place since you moved in.”
“I had no idea I was such a topic of conversation.”
All right, my comment was probably a little disingenuous. No, I’d never grown up in a small town, but I knew my arrival had caused something of a flutter in Globe, if only because a town that size didn’t get a lot of people moving in, and to have someone show up and buy a highly visible property sight unseen — and for cash, no less — would naturally start tongues wagging.
How did they know I’d paid cash for my live/work space? Because I might not have been around all that long, but I’d already learned that Josie was a world-class gossip. She tended to slide tidbits about people and their goings-on into conversations, coming at them sideways rather than making a full-blown announcement, and yet it was pretty obvious that it would be hard to have any secrets in my new hometown.