BJ
Full
Of Woe
BJ Neblett
© 2006, 2012
Melissa
hated Wednesdays. Wednesdays to her represented everything that was wrong with
the world, her world anyway. Wednesday was not a day but a hole, an unfilled
gap – like the inside of a cheap jelly doughnut – between Tuesday and Thursday.
Her
teachers always seemed to spring pop quizzes on Wednesdays. Her annoying baby
brother, as much of a surprise to her parents as to her, arrived on a
Wednesday. Wednesdays are neither here nor there. You are neither just starting
nor almost done with the week. It’s too far to care about last weekend; not
close enough to plan the next.
Nothing
ever happened on Wednesdays either. It’s a lousy night for TV viewing that is
if Melissa cared about T.V. Back in her parent’s day new movies opened on
Wednesdays. But with few exceptions, most multi-plexes now premiered on Friday.
C.D.’s
and D.V.D’s are released on Tuesdays. Magazines generally hit the stands on
Thursdays. Sunday is family time and Monday back to school. Friday nights are
for friends, Saturday date night. Although, since being dumped by Bobby three
Wednesdays ago, Melissa’s social life progressed at the rate of an arctic
glacier.
And
who ever came up with that ridiculous spelling: Wed-nes-day? There aren’t even
any good songs about Wednesdays. What possible good was Wednesday? Nothing! No
good at all as far as Melissa was concerned.
Melissa
stood in front of her full length dressing mirror this Wednesday morning, as
she did every Wednesday morning, grousing about: her clothes – too nineties; her
hair – not nineties enough; her eyes – not blue enough; her legs – not long
enough; her nose – too big, and her breasts – too small for a fifteen, almost
sixteen year old. And that was another thing – why did all these problems seem
to come up on Wednesdays? In Melissa’s mind it was just more proof that
Wednesdays hated her.
“This
is definitely a Wednesday blouse,” she said aloud, stripping off the pink Oxford
in favor of a pale blue cotton pull over.
“There,
that’s definitely NOT Wednesday.”
Fastening
a medium length gold rope chain – the one that once held Bobby’s class ring –
around her Audrey Hepburn neck as her mom called it, Melissa decided jeans; a
sweater and Reeboks were the best she could hope for on a Wednesday.
As
she brushed her buckskin hair, a deafening thunder clap shook the two story
colonial style home. It was followed by lightening which turned the battleship
grey skies amber. The sound of heavy rain filling the aluminum gutters reached
her ears. Melissa rolled her eyes.
“Wednesdays!”
she muttered through gritted teeth, then gathered up her books and headed down
the stairs.
“Good
morning, Princess, and a happy hump day!” Tom Evans just missed with a kiss to
the top of his daughter’s head as she hurried past.
“Hump
day? What’s that some new age save the whales’ slogan or something?” she asked,
pouring herself a glass of orange juice.
At
the kitchen table, Melissa’s mom Julie, a taller version of Melissa – the pair
more closely resembled sisters – struggled to get two year old Andrew to finish
his now cold oatmeal. “No, silly, hump day is Wednesday, as in over the hump.”
Turning back to her son she found the oatmeal piled in a mound on the floor,
the boy smiling innocently.
Melissa
flopped down on a chair, giving her dad’s morning kiss a chance to find its
mark. “Sounds stupid to me,” she said.
“No,
not at all, your mother and I met at a hump day happy hour.”
“You
mean you picked her up in a bar!”
Tom
looked at his wife who was busy cleaning the floor. Her expression offered no
help but to say, you made that mess, you clean it up.
He
thought for a moment. “Well, not exactly. It was a club, a night club. I wanted
to dance, so…”
“You
picked mom up in a disco?” Melissa made a face. “Yuck! Where was I conceived,
in the back of a Ford Tempo?”
“That’s
enough, young lady.” Her mother glanced out the window as she rinsed an oatmeal
clogged dish rag in the sink. “Your father was quite the charmer, and quite the
dancer.”
Outside,
a car horn sounded above another roll of thunder. “Your ride is here. Don’t
forget your umbrella,” Julie chided.
Umbrella…
Melissa let out a quick breath. Parents were bad enough, but parents on
Wednesday – hump day – were positively exasperating. “Ok, Tom Travolta…”
“That’s
John Travolta…”
“Whatever,
just don’t forget to pick me up after school. We have a driving lesson.”
Holding
her English textbook over her head, Melissa dashed out the back door. By the
time she climbed into the waiting van her hair was flat. Rain dripped off her
nose and ears. The two girls in the back began to giggle, as did Mrs. Coleman,
the car pool driver. Susan, Melissa’s best friend, sat next to her, grinning
like a Cheshire Cat. Unable to contain herself, she swallowed hard and burst
into laughter.
Melissa
closed her eyes, trying to disappear into the bucket seat.
“Wednesdays…!”
The
rest of the week was marginally better. For Melissa marginally better usually
meant disastrous. Her luck held true: arriving at school, she discovered not
only she forgot her lunch money, but that her math and English homework, which
if truth be known, took her all of fifteen minutes to complete while on the
phone, had melted and run thanks to the rain. It now resembled the Picasso’s
and Dali’s she studied in art class. And, her father, ever the absent minded
professor, did indeed neglect to pick her up after school.
Thursday
the rain continued harder, and the pop quiz she hoped the math teacher forgot
on Wednesday showed up. By Friday the car pool more closely resembled Noah’s
Ark as it plowed through the rain swollen streets. It smelled as bad too,
thanks to Susan’s Black Lab who was headed for an appointment at the vets. When
the girls piled out of the van in front of the school, Melissa’s cardigan
smelled like wet dog. She was sure Wednesday had cursed her.
“Ah-choo…”
“Bless
you, honey. I think you are catching a cold from all this rain.”
“I’m
fine, mom, honest.”
It
was Saturday afternoon. Melissa and her mom sat outside J.C. Penny’s, eating
hot, soft pretzels from Auntie Anne’s. Mother daughter malling became a
Saturday tradition at the Evans home just as soon as Andrew was weaned from his
mother’s breasts. Tom spent time puttering around the house doing guy stuff
with his young son. Meanwhile, Julie and Melissa mined unexplored shopping
grounds. This Saturday it was the Exton Square Mall, less than thirty minutes
from their suburban Philadelphia home.
“Still,
I wish you’d be more conscious of your health, especially in the rain. You
never wear your boots or take your umbrella.”
“Boots
and umbrellas are for geeks. Very Wednesday,” Melissa said, wiping mustard and
cinnamon, her favorite pretzel toppings, from her lip. She tossed the crumpled
napkin into the trash.
Her
mother smiled and shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal is
with you and Wednesdays.”
“Wednesdays
hate me. But that’s ok, I hate them back. They’re useless. I wish Wednesdays
would just go away. Who needs them?”
Julie
laughed at her daughter’s remark as the two strolled past K-Bee Toys. “Just
remember what Nana says, ‘Be careful what you wish. It might come true and you
just may regret it’.”
“Yeah,
well, Nana lives alone with six cats and talks to George Washington’s ghost.”
They
both laughed out loud causing a passing security guard to stop and turn. “Well,
you know,” her mother added, “that old house is said to be one of old George’s
stop over’s. It has just never been satisfactorily verified.”
“It’s
old and spooky enough,” Melissa agreed.
Near
the center court a banner announced the opening of a new cellular phone store.
Directly before them, in the center of a wide aisle, between Kay jewelers and
Gadzooks, sat an eight by twelve foot open kiosk. A large red sign overhead declared:
GRAND OPENING EVERYTHING ON SALE.
“Oh,
mommy, look!” Melissa ran ahead a few steps then turned, wide eyed. “Look, it’s
a sale! Can I please have a cell phone, mommy? Please?”
Julie
knew her daughter’s mommy tone all too well, including the innocent deer caught
in headlights look. “We’ve talked about this before.”
“I
know, I know… but…” Melissa paused, searching for the right buttons to push.
“My birthday’s coming up, and besides…”
Ok,
here it comes, her mother thought smiling to herself.
“…besides…
dad forgot me at school three times this week! I could have called to remind
him. And when I get my license it will be a great safety thingy to have,”
Melissa said all in one rushed breath.
Her
daughter’s logic stopped Julie in her tracks. “It was only two times your dad
forgot you, but at least you didn’t say, ‘Everybody has one’. And the safety
thingy does make sense.”
Melissa
took a hold of her mother’s hand, half leading, and half pulling her. When they
reached the booth, a middle aged woman appeared as if out of thin air.
“May
I help you?” she said through lavender painted lips. “I’m Glenda, the owner.
Welcome to OZ Cellular.”
Mother
and daughter looked at each other. “Glenda… OZ?” they said in unison.
The
woman blushed. “Yes, well, this used to be an occult shop. You know, candles
and dragons and the like. Unfortunately, cell phones and accessories sell much
better than love potions these days. And I couldn’t afford a new sign and
letterhead and such, so… what are you going to do?”
It
took a moment for Julie and Melissa to decide if the woman was serious. She
was. As if to assure them, she motioned to the glass case separating them. “Oh,
I still have a nice selection of amulets and tokens and of course spells and
potions. And a fine vintage Grimier, very reasonably priced.”
There
on the shelves, next to the latest in cellular technology from Verizon and
Sprint and AT&T, sat an assortment of rings, necklaces, amulets and coins,
plus detailed pewter statuary of castles and wizards and dragons. In the next
case, surrounded by ear phones, car adapters, and other accessories, were
beautiful crystal gazing orbs of varying sizes and hues, along with a thick,
ancient looking leather bound book.
Julie
blinked to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. The store owner
smiled pleasantly from across the counter. Her age was indiscernible. Her pale
skin and long straight hair the color of cigarette smoke, straw like in
texture, reminded Julie of a witch. Her eyes were mysterious and cat like, and
the simple black dress which reached to the floor seemed to be that of someone
in mourning.
“Well…
err… Glenda…” Julie said, forcing herself not to stare. “I thought maybe a
phone for my daughter.” She looked around. Melissa was engrossed with something
in a counter at the end of the kiosk. “It’s her birthday.”
“I
think I have just the right thing. And it seems your daughter has found it.”
They
moved to the end of the booth. Glenda slid open the counter and produced a
coffin shaped box about four inches long and two inches wide. It was bright
ruby red colored and adorned with mysterious looking gold markings. To Julie’s
surprise and Melissa’s delight, the hinged cover flipped down, revealing a
fully functional phone with an L.C.D. screen, and a large keypad inscribed with
the same strange signs, as well as the normal alpha-numeric table.
“It’s
very unusual,” the woman said. “There were very few made. It was hand fashioned
by a small company in Salem, Mass.”
“Unusual
doesn’t begin to describe it,” Julie replied.
Before
she finished speaking, Melissa had the device in hand, pressing buttons and
dialing numbers. “Oh, can we get it, mommy? Please? It’s perfect!”
“Well,
I don’t know…”
“Let
me assure you,” Glenda said, “it is very reasonably priced, has an excellent
warranty and service policy, and I can set it up for you in a matter of minutes
on most any network you choose.”
Julie
looked at her daughter. Melissa was squealing into the coffin phone, as Julie
found herself calling it, deeply engaged in a conversation with Susan.
“I’ll
throw in a complete set of accessories: head set, extra battery, charger, car
adapter, case; the works,” Glenda offered. “Free, since it’s her birthday.”
Taking
in her daughter’s expression, Julie raised her hands in surrender. “Ok…”
By
the time the contracts were signed and the activation completed, Melissa had
made calls to half a dozen of her girlfriends. Glenda placed a large bag on the
counter and handed Melissa a slip of paper. “Here’s your number and all your
accessories. There’s also an owner’s guide. Please, read it carefully,” she
said, placing a hand on Melissa’s arm and looking her in the eye. “Your phone
has some… unique… features. Use them wisely.”
After
more shopping and burgers and fries and chocolate shakes at T.G.I. Fridays –
Melissa liked the name – mother and daughter laughed and joked about the weird
little kiosk and its weirder owner as they drove in the rain down Route Thirty,
heading home.
On
Sunday the rain changed to a light drizzle and the thermometer dropped. Before
the rains arrived the northeast was experiencing a balmy Indian summer. But
now, the third week of October, temperatures fell into the forties and it
looked like there may be snow by Halloween.
This
day the Evens family was visiting with Nana, Tom’s great aunt. No one knew
exactly the age of the mysterious old lady who lived in the spooky ancient
house on the hill. Not even Tom. When asked, she’d smile a crooked smile, flash
a gold tooth, wink and reply, “I stopped counting at one hundred.” Few doubted
her.
Nana
lived in a three hundred year old farm house. The three story wood and stone
building was one of a small handful of homes situated within Valley Forge Park,
which still remained privately owned. It commanded a stunning view of the park,
overlooking a rolling hill where determined American patriots drilled and
practiced in the cold and snow, preparing to do battle against the British and
Hessian troops. The house was not only well known for once housing George
Washington and some of his officers, but for being haunted by those very same
men.
Dinner
over, Melissa’s parents busied themselves in the kitchen while Andrew slept.
Melissa sat on a mushroom shaped ottoman, chatting with Nana. The old woman
relaxed in an antique Bentwood rocking chair, lovingly stroking the large
brindle cat purring on her lap. Six feet away, a pine log crackled and split in
the huge stone fireplace warming the room.
“Look
what I got for my birthday, Nana.” Melissa proudly held out the ruby coffin
phone, and then flipped it open.
“Oh,
my,” The woman leaned forward and accepted the device. She looked at it
curiously then flipped it shut. “What do we have here, Pywacket?” The cat
stirred on her lap, as Nana traced the gold markings with a wrinkled fingertip.
“Do
you know what they are?” Melissa asked.
Nana
held the phone closer to her eyes and hummed quietly. Finally she spoke,
“Runes.”
“Runes…?”
“Yes,
my dear… runes… ancient letters…” She looked at Melissa who now knelt next to
her, intrigued. “Some say witch’s writing.”
“Witches…!”
“Oh,
yes. For a spell to work it must be written in runes. These are the letters of
the witch’s alphabet, and these symbols represent the planets and the zodiac.”
Melissa’s
eyes grew wide. “Really…? Do you know what it says?”
“Humm…”
Nana studied the lettering carefully, then gazed into the fire. It cast an
eerie, flickering shadow across her face. “Yes… yes,” she said looking at the
phone and reading:
“On
Wednesday show
Full of woe
To make it right
By runes write”
Melissa wrinkled her nose,
“Wednesdays!”
“Yes,” her aunt replied. As in the
old poem:
‘Monday’s
child
Is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child
Is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child
Is full
of woe…’”
She smiled at Melissa. “You were
born on a Wednesday you know.”
Melissa
sank back on her heels, her soft blue eyes rolling, “It figures!”
Pywacket
stretched on Nana’s lap. Sniffing the ruby coffin phone, the cat let out a
guttural yowl, then jumped down and ran out of the room. The old woman nodded.
“Some say cats can see and understand things humans can’t.”
Melissa
pondered the cat’s actions, and then turned her attention back to the enigmatic
phone. “Yes, but what does it mean, the inscription?”
Her
aunt looked at the words again then handed the phone to Melissa. “I believe it
means it only works on Wednesdays.”
Considering
the phone, Melissa flipped it open, the L.C.D. and buttons coming to life.
“That’s silly… it works all of the time…”
That
evening Melissa lay in her bed studying the owner’s guide. In the section
explaining text messaging, she discovered a button which permitted writing to
the L.C.D. screen using standard characters or the strange witch’s runes. She
realized each unique symbol – glyphs the booklet called them – stood for a
letter of the alphabet.
At
the end of the section she came across a cryptic warning:
CAUTION!
TEXT TO * - Б - 1- 1
(STAR, PLUTO, ONE, ONE)
CAN NOT BE UNDONE!
Too
tired to read anymore or try to figure out the warning, Melissa closed the
booklet, turned off the light, and fell fast asleep. As a freezing rain played
against the window, she dreamed she and Nana were witches chanting a victory
spell to George Washington and his men on the eve of a great battle.
Monday
at school Melissa excitedly showed off her new phone. She decided the witch’s
runes and glyphs were just a gimmick, a marketing ploy to sell phones. She
didn’t care. The ruby coffin phone was a hit and Melissa was the envy of the
school.
At lunch, she and Susan programmed
the phone’s memory with the numbers of friends, the movie theatres, home, her
dad’s work, and other phone numbers vital to a fifteen, almost sixteen, year
old girl.
“What’s that?” Susan pointed to the
button with the odd looking Б marking.
“I don’t know. The book doesn’t say
anything about it except you shouldn’t use it or something.”
“Why not?”
“Beats me, dad says that’s the
symbol for the planet Pluto, only it’s upside down or something,” Melissa
replied, snapping the phone shut.
“Pluto, wasn’t he the guy in charge
of the underworld or something like that? Exactly what did the instructions
say?”
Melissa thought hard. “It said,
‘Texting a message to star, Pluto, one, one can’t be undone’, I think.”
“Whose number is that?”
“Probably some geek service tech.”
“Billy Campbell’s older brother is a
service tech and he’s cute,” Susan said, her voice turning dreamy.
The two girls looked at each other
grinning.
Melissa flipped the phone back open.
“What shall we say?”
“I don’t know. Say you are having
trouble with the ring tone.”
Nervously, Melissa tapped the
lighted buttons, words appearing on the screen as she typed:
Hello,
having trouble with my ringer.
Can
you help, please?
Followed
by:
*
- Б-1-1
“Go on, send it.”
The
two giggled. “Oh, my God,” Melissa said, taking a deep breath to calm her
giddiness. Then she hit send.
They
waited.
Nothing.
Wednesday
afternoon Melissa sat in the school’s library staring blankly at her math book.
She was depressed. Not only was it another stupid Wednesday but snow had begun
to fall. If it kept on, by the time her father picked her up from school she
wouldn’t be able to take a driving lesson.
Saturday
was her birthday. Because of the number of students requesting Driver’s
Education, she wasn’t scheduled to take the course until January. Now with the
weather changing she might not get her license till spring.
She
looked out the window at the snow then at her math book. The numbers seemed to
be laughing at her like in an old Looney Tunes cartoon she’d once seen. Melissa
felt about math the way she did about Wednesdays. And math on Wednesdays was
the worse. Finding herself idly scribbling in her note book, Melissa got an
idea. She didn’t really believe in magic and spells, but at least it was
something to do, something other than math.
Copying
what she had unconsciously written in her notebook, she pressed the keys on her
phone’s lighted key pad. One by one the words appeared on the L.C.D. screen:
Snow
snow go away
Let me go
out and play
And then:
*
- Б -1-1
She
read the impromptu poem over then hit send.
The
phone stared up at her.
Nothing.
“Figures…
its Wednesday!” she whispered.
Then
something occurred to her. What was it Nana said? Spells have to be in runes
to work. With nothing better to do than math homework, Melissa shrugged,
hit clear and then the button which activated the glyphs. Carefully she
retyped the short poem, this time using the witch’s alphabet, then * - Б-1-1.
She crossed her fingers, hit send and closed her eyes.
When
she opened them ten seconds later a ray of yellow light shone across the table
where she sat. Melissa shook her head and looked at the ruby coffin phone in
her hand. The message she typed was gone, replaced by another. It read:
Message
received
Have a
nice day. Б
Outside the snow stopped and the sun
was breaking through the overcast.
The school bell shook Melissa back
to reality. Closing her books and tucking the coffin phone into her purse, she
headed for her next class.
Avoiding
her homework, Melissa sat in her room after dinner thinking. It really hadn’t
been too bad a day… for a Wednesday. True it started off as well as any
Wednesday, which wasn’t well at all. But things seemed to slowly improve as the
day progressed. Her last two periods went smoothly. She thought she might have
even aced the pop quiz in history.
Most
surprisingly, her dad was actually on time picking her up from school. And the
driving lesson went well. According to her father, with a couple more lessons
over the weekend she’d be ready to take her test. All in all it wasn’t too bad
a day… for a Wednesday.
Melissa
looked at the ruby coffin phone sitting on her desk. The scene in the library
came back to her. She had made it stop snowing.
Or
had she?
Picking
up the phone and flipping on the glyphs, Melissa began to type:
If
I’m the fairest of them all
Then
why doesn’t somebody call?
“This is stupid,” she said as she
punched in * - Б-1-1 and hit send.
The
phone blinked three times and her message disappeared. A second later it was
replaced by:
Message received.
Have a nice day. Б
The ruby coffin phone rang.
“Hello…”
It was Bobby.
Melissa
awoke to another Wednesday morning. But she wasn’t depressed. It was a
beautiful day and the past week was a new chapter in the new Melissa Evans’
life.
She
passed two major tests on Friday, one in math. The weather was mild and
pleasant again. Her driving lessons over the weekend went great and today after
school she was going for her license. She didn’t even care that it was another
Wednesday.
But
best of all she and Bobby were back together. The night he called they talked
until the battery on her phone went dead. Thursday he drove her home from
school, and Saturday they went out for her birthday. Bobby gave her his class
ring and she wore it on a chain even now as she lay waking.
True,
she tried to conjure up more magic with her phone and failed. But she didn’t
care. It didn’t matter. From now on every day was going to be a great day.
Even
Wednesdays…
Especially
Wednesdays…
She
was wrong.
“Honey,
what’s wrong?”
Melissa
ran through the front door, past her mother and up the stairs. Julie heard her daughter’s
bedroom door slam shut. She was sure Melissa was crying. A moment later the
sixteen year olds father walked into the house.
“Tom,
what’s going on?” Julie asked. “What’s with Melissa?”
He
sighed and sat heavily on the living room sofa. “Well, let’s just say this
hasn’t been a banner day in the life of our daughter.”
“Why,
what happened?” Julie now sat next to her husband. “Was it the driving test?”
“The
driving test was a disaster. And from what I gather that was the highlight of
her day.”
“Oh,
dear, maybe I should go to her.”
Tom
touched his wife’s arm. “You’d better know what you are up against first.”
“Ok…”
“Remember
how happy and chipper she was this morning?” he began. “It didn’t last long.
From what I can tell she failed two quizzes today, English and math. Then at
lunch she spilled mustard and ketchup on her new sweater.”
“Not
the cashmere one Nana bought her for her birthday?”
Tom
nodded. “I was a few minutes late picking her up from school and while she
waited her and Susan got into a big fight.”
“Oh, no, the poor child,” Julie
looked at her husband almost afraid to ask the question. “Her driver’s test…?”
Tom’s face went pale. “A pretty
badly dented fender, fortunately it was a concrete barrier she hit, not another
car.”
Julie stood. “Well… maybe I can…”
“That’s not all. On the way home we
stopped at a red light. That boy she’s dating… Bobby… he was in the car next to
us with Melissa’s friend Susan.”
“No…”
“They were kissing.”
Julie sat back down on the sofa. Her
heart ached for her daughter. “Did Melissa say anything?”
Tom shook his head. “She just kept
mumbling something about Wednesdays.” He patted his wife’s leg. “Give her some
time to herself. Melissa’s a smart girl. She’ll figure things out.”
Upstairs, Melissa lay across her bed
crying. The day’s events played over in her head like a bad movie. She thought
about calling Susan and having it out with her. Or maybe it had all been a
terrible mistake.
Wiping tears from her eyes, Melissa
sat up and reached for the ruby coffin phone. She looked at it. She was getting
better at reading the witch’s runes.
On
Wednesday show
Full
of woe
To
make it right
By
runes write
“Of
course,” she said aloud, reading the inscription over. That was it! “It only works
on Wednesdays. Wednesdays! That’s what it meant. That’s what Nana said. The
spells only work on Wednesdays.”
Melissa
thought. Several ideas passed through her head. None were very satisfying. She
couldn’t harm anyone. Not even that rat Bobby. What she needed was a final
solution; one that would take care of all her problems in one swoop, and for
good. If it wasn’t for Wednesdays…
She
had it!
Flipping
open the ruby coffin phone, she punched the button that activated the glyphs.
Melissa
sighed.
If
it worked she wouldn’t be able to do anything else.
“Or
undo it,” she reminded herself.
Her
mind was made up.
Carefully
she typed:
No
more sorrow
No more
woe
No more
Wednesdays
All must
go
Melissa re-read what she typed.
With a smile she typed: * - Б-1-1
and hit send.
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