Eight: Boil, Boil, Toil, and Trouble.

I woke up in the morning so tangled in arms, sheets and legs that it was a good minute or two before I dared move. I wiggled myself loose a bit, and looking over my right shoulder, found Peter’s head not far from mine. His hair was messy and obscured all of his face, save a bit of mouth. I admired him for a second or two (sleeping Peter looks so sweet) then I put my forehead against his and shook my head, using the volume of my own messy hair to tickle his sleeping face into awakeness. And then I bit his lips--I figured there were worse ways to wake up in the morning.

He stretched his arms over his head, peeped an uncovered eye open, and grinned, then threw an arm around me and slid me back onto the warm, cuddling side of the bed (his). I was on the point of falling back asleep when I remembered that I was a professional, and there was work to be done! I had not been invited to the Hermits’ Convention to cuddle with a cute hermit, after all, I had been invited to record the event and its participants, and there were still many more to meet. So I rolled us both right out of the bed with thud.

“Oooh, Lima.” Peter complained, halfheartedly, “why did you have to do that?”

“Because, sir, there are many things to be done today and I just thought that our chances of waking up would improve greatly once we were actually out of bed. Don’t you feel more awake?”

He groaned, but then sat up and blinked his two blue eyes open. “Yes.”

“Good! I’ll fix you some root coffee.”


“So where is it you’re off to today, Miss Bean?” At this point, I was sitting at his table sipping my root-coffee, revising some notes, and he was sat in a chair playing with his guitar.

“Well, I have an interview with Isabelle Du Bontemps in the morning and THEN...”

“yes?”

“...then I’m going to meet Claudia, Shirelle and Vance.”

“Well, that’ll be fun. Are you taking Willoughby?”

“If I can find him! He’s made so many friends I can hardly keep track of him!”
But no sooner had I said that, then I heard his own happy bark at the bottom of Peter’s tree.

“Speak of the devil!” I leaned my head off of the porch, “Good morning, love.”

He smiled his toothy smile up at me and suggested we get a move on. Apparently Willoughby wanted to meet the witches as well. I ran over to Peter and, yanked on a bit of his hair and kissed him goodbye. Little did I know it would be the last time I'd see him.

I climbed down the stairs and into the fresh morning air, whereupon Willoughby dragged me to, and quickly from, my appointment with Isabelle du Bontemps.

She was interesting to look at: tall and waifish, with large-eyes and ankle-length blonde braids, but she answered almost every question with a single word answer--often a single syllable--and would periodically fling herself at a canvas mid-conversation and begin furiously adding details to this painting or that, which were too high-concept for simple-minded me (please detect a note of sarcasm here). What I can say for Isabelle, is that amongst the hanging plants and wide-windows of her treetop studio, sitting on her stool, surrounded by canvases, with a long cigarette in hand, she remained at all times with her fair face in the best lighting and at the most advantageous angles. Even in the absence of everyone but, well, me and Willoughby.

After an half hour, Willoughby was squirming with boredom, so we excused ourselves and waved goodbye to Isabelle, who was back at attacking a canvas before we had so much as closed the front door.

On the way to visit Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, Willoughby was walking at such a fast pace, that we kept missing turns, and so got lost three times before finding their place. Which was by no means easy to find. This is where you are expecting me to say “witches’ den.” I know you are.

I have to admit that even I--hard though I may try to ignore stereotypes--was also expecting something along those lines. But, boy oh boy, was I surprised!

Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, three former Southern Belles, had constructed the most lavish residence on the North Carolinian property: a sprawling single-level, bright-white house, with huge floor to ceiling windows, whose shutters opened onto a wraparound porch complete with hanging plants and COLUMNS--yes, their house even has columns!--AND a yard with sloping, green grass and two shady trees, underneath one of which was a set of tasteful white-iron lawn furniture, and from whose branches hung a swing, in which Shirelle, wearing a floppy brimmed summer hat, was lightly swinging back and forth, drinking Pimms and soda. She lifted her glass in salute as Willoughby and I approached.

Shirelle saluted us from the tree-swing, Vance was sitting at the table slowly flipping through a book of mammoth proportions, and Claudia was lying on a blanket, under an umbrella, on the lawn, sunning her legs.

Shirelle was tall and buxom with dark brown hair that fell in loose curls from beneath her hat, down around her heart-shaped face and winking green eyes; Vance had blonde hair with teased bangs and a and blue eye-liner'd blue eyes that always seemed wide with pleasure or interest and Claudia had straight, cropped red hair and freckled skin: they were the Golden Girls but slightly younger and infinitely more fun (as we would soon find out).

“Well, hello!” Claudia waved, sitting up.

Vance got up from the table to greet Willoughby and I with a scratch behind the ear and a kiss on the cheek, respectively.

“Come! Come have a seat” she welcomed, motioning to the table. The three of them were all smiling at us their most hospitable Southern smiles. Willoughby’s tail was wagging so furiously that it took him multiple attempts to get and keep his bottom sitting.

“Now isn’t he daaahhling!” Shirelle said, “Can I give him a treat?”

Willoughby looked slightly incredulous that she should ask my approval, then nodded at me furiously. I laughed.

“Of course he can.”

Whereas other witches of repute have had cauldrons, wands, or, more recently, twitching noses, Shirelle had a large Louis Vuitton handbag, inside of which, she could find anything. To be honest, we couldn’t ever be sure if it was magic, or if she just traveled well-prepared. At any rate, she produced a tasty treat for Willoughby, who took it in his mouth and then glided by each of us in turn, giving us broadside dog-hugs. The ladies were delighted.

I sat down at the table with Vance. Claudia got up to get another pitcher of icy Pimm’s for everyone.

The ladies were great to talk to, because they needed so little prompting. Really, I had to just sit and smile and listen as they bounced stories off of themselves, including the time they disguised themselves as Slovenian socialites, leased a villa in Italy and seduced a trio of Italian shoe designers, thereby winning a lifetime supply of Italian pumps; the time they beached their yacht into a deserted island in the Caribbean and coaxed the local animals to help them harvest coconuts to nurse their hangovers; the time Vance accidentally turned a girlfriend into a Weimaraner and the time Shirelle purposefully turned an ex-boyfriend into an ox.

As the afternoon waned, so did the pitcher of Pimm’s. And the next. Soon we were saucy and laughing. I was taken on a tour of the house, but all I remember of it, is that I tripped over the rug in the Parlor, which had the girls (and Willoughby) in fits of laughter, and Vance fell into the pool with all of her clothes on.

As the evening progressed, so did the crazy antics. If you’ve never spent an evening with three drunken witches with a good sense of humor, well, you should try to arrange it.

Shirelle turned Vance’s blonde hair pink mid-conversation, Claudia made my lounge chair start walking across the yard, Vance made bouncy balls materialize from all sides of the property until poor Willoughby (who’d also had a bit to drink) was smiling sloppily and nearly cross-eyed from chasing them. The hijinks continued until Peter came to fetch me--Pipton had sent him to see me home safely--and carried me away, stumbling and laughing as the girls laughed and waved from their doorway.

Now mind you, I said that that morning was the last time I would see Peter, and I was telling the truth. It was dark when he came to fetch me, and once we were back in our neighborhood (and the walk had sobered me up a bit) we laid down on the shore of the lake and stargazed as I recounted to Peter my experience of why the witches were everybody’s favorite hermits.

Then, he put his forehead to my forehead and his nose to my nose, and admitted in low tones that he was leaving in the morning. I said well, we knew the summer wasn’t going to last forever, and then I kissed his face.

The next day, I woke up in my bed with a pretty serious hangover. Willoughby, who was lying on his back with face pressed into his cushion, was snoring audibly. I suspected he wouldn’t feel much better.

I dragged myself into a sitting position and slowly took stock of the night before. I laughed, just thinking about Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, and laughed again imagining their parallel hangovers.

Then I remembered the end of the night and my head resumed throbbing. Peter was gone.

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