wc 1324 writing doodle/NaNo/Bernie/Daniel

Dragon's Blood?

Three evenings a week and most weekends, I worked at Marcella's Magickal Book Nook.  Mostly I dusted shelves, rang up a few sales, and didn't bat an eye if someone asked if we had real dragon's blood on hand. Once I was tired and told the customer that I'd gathered bloody dragon tears from the dragon out back that morning; unfortunatley, her six year old was listening.  The little girl made her mother came back for a month wanting to meet Smoky.  I had to tell them that there was an ordinance that dragons can't stay in any one place more than six weeks per year and that his stay was over for now. He was off to Turkey for a visit.  Her mother took me aside and told me to be careful or her daughter, Sarah, would ask to write emails to Smoky or follow his travel log online.

Marcella laughed so hard she cried.  "Let's learn Photoshop and crop him into stock photos from around the world."

From experience I knew the word 'let's' usually meant 'Bernie,' so I made sure we both dropped the subject before I got saddled with a fictional dragon's travel escapades. At the same time, it could have been a great series of adventure stories for small children, if only I had the time.

I called Marcella after the Grady debacle, she offered to cleanse my apartment, my aura, and my bank account of all of Grady's dross energy.  Like so many others in my family, she wanted my third eye cleared so I could see Grady clearly.  Turned out my third eye had a shade drawn down over it; the proposal to someone else effectively opened the shade and as the old song says, I could see clearly now.

"Bernie, if you want me to cast a spell so he's impotent, I'll do it. No charge," Marcella said.  "I know it works, I used it on Horace, my third husband, when we lived in Vegas and he kept hiring a naked cleaning service.  Not that he did anything with the women, but when Mr. Happy became and remained Mr. Indifferent, he went back to Molly's Merry Maids."

I raised an eyebrow.  I've heard stories for years about all five of Marcella's former husbands, probably why I'm glad my dad's never married her.  They don't even live together, then again, as long as his mother lives with him, I doubt they ever will.  Grandma can wield guilt like a weapon, one quick flick of her tongue and she draws blood.  I've seen grown men cower after a mere thirty seconds.  Then again, Marcella is only ten years older than I am and it would just be weird for her to be my stepmother.  It took me weeks to get her to quit telling me about her relationship with my dad.

She drew an X across her heart.  "Really, I did it and I wasn't sorry. I wasn't missing out on much."  She wiggled her little finger at me, "Not much at all."

Eww.  I so didn't need to know that, not about either of them.

You can research almost anything, right?

"I'd even get a pass from the Karma Fairy if I do it, considering everything he's put you through," she sighed.  "I'm pretty sure I've got all the ingredients and enough candles to make sure he can't get it up for a couple of years."

"Neither of us can take on that kind of karma.  It wouldn't be worth it," I said. With my luck, it would boomerang and I would be single until I was seventy-five or older.  Or worse, I'd meet another man just like Grady and the cycle would start again.  Thank you, no.  "I won't lie and say I'm not devastated," I said.  I lifted my favorite mug, the one that says Witch's Brew on it, and inhaled the herbal tea. I took a small sip to check the temperature and sighed. "I did nothing to make him accountable.  It's been a terribly expensive lesson, but I'll eventually get over it."

"We need to move you to a new place," Marcella said.  "You've been in that dumpy apartment for too long."

Six months after I started working here, Marcella started to date my father.  He loved that Marcella was the opposite of my own mother; Marcella's bohemian, carefree, and accepting. Because she didn't know which end of a hammer hurt when you dropped it on your foot and he thought everything she sold was hocus pocus.  He tried to make her handier, even got her a little pink toolkit like the one I got when I was eight.  She tried to make him more open minded, he let her use some of her oil blends for massages.  Whenever she tried to give me more detail than that, I had to shut her down.  There are just some things  you shouldn't know about your father's sex life.

"I can't afford to move," I said.  I hadn't done all of the math, but I knew I'd be money ahead without Grady.  Still I wanted to have a better cushion in my savings account before I made any radical changes in my lifestyle.

"There's a cute little bungalow the next street down from me that's going to be for rent soon," she said.  "My friend, Saddie, her great-nephew just wants it occupied. I don't think he'd set you back too much. Daniel's new at the landlord thing."

Great. A landlord who would want to check on things all of the time.  And it was a bungalow.  Just what I wanted when I thought I was going to start happily ever after with Grady. A perfect little two bedroom cottage waiting to be filled with new memories. "No.  Thank you for thinking of me. I'll pass for now."

"You sure, honey?" Subtle as a train, Marcella always had been. Not.

"Yeah."

"You sure I can't have a bonfire with his old clothes and dance skyclad around chanting for his destruction?"

"I'm sure."  I smiled. "I let him  have his clothes back, but I'm selling everything else that's left." I thought I'd put all of his things in his suitcases and hefty bags; the dirty laundry went into the suitcases and the drycleaned suits and dress shirts were all in garbage bags. Not too vitriolic, not really.

"What did he leave behind?"

"All of his books, notes, and files."  He was late.  His name wasn't on the lease.  Vic and his boyfriend made sure he didn't gain admittance after my dad changed the locks.  I smiled into my mug of tea.  "I've seen his scrawny ass naked and don't want that inflicted on anyone else, and the books actually cost me a lot more than the clothes." Clothes you can buy on sale.  Law books, not so much.

"Where are you going to sell them?"

"I'm thinking Ebay or Craigslist."  Or I might just put everything in the dumpster behind the apartment, after I soaked it all in the bathtub.

"Too bad you don't have any of the suits left, Saddie's nephew just took a new job and he needs some suits or at least a couple of nice ties."

"Hardly anyone wears ties anymore."  In my office, life was business casual.  The only time anyone wore a suit was if someone from corporate came to visit.

"Dress to impress has all but died," she said.  "I always hated dressing well to make a good first impression."  Her flowing lavender skirt fought with her brown and green paisley peasant shirt, and the Birkenstocks with toe socks clashed with everything. "Now I live to make myself happy. A lesson you would do well to learn."

I lifted my mug to her in a salute.  "I need to check the storeroom and restock the bottle of dragon's blood."

"Tell Smoky I said hello," she said, laughing.



~~~

tbc

word count:  1324