Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman [108]
“Pizza,” Antonia announces, and they all sit down to dinner in spite of the awful smell coming from the aunts’ mixture boiling on the rear burner of the stove. The storm is rattling the windowpanes and the thunder is so near it can shake the ground. One big flash of lightning, and half the neighborhood has lost its electricity; in houses all along the street, people are searching for flashlights and hurricane candles, or just giving up and going to sleep.
“That’s good luck,” Aunt Jet says when their electricity goes as well. “We’ll be the light in the darkness.”
“Find a candle,” Sally suggests.
Kylie gets a candle from the shelf near the sink. When she passes the stove she holds her nose closed with her fingers.
“Boy, does that stink,” she says of the aunts’ mixture.
“It’s supposed to,” Jet says, pleased.
“It always does,” her sister agrees.
Kylie returns and places the candle in the center of the table, then lights it so they can go on with their supper, which is interrupted by the doorbell.
“It better not be that delivery boy back for more,” Frances says now. “I’ll give him a real piece of my mind.”
“I’ll get it.” Gillian goes to the door and swings it open.
Ben Frye is on the porch, wearing a yellow rain slicker; he’s holding a box of white hurricane candles and a lantern. Just seeing him makes a chill go down Gillian’s spine. From the first, she’s been figuring that Ben was taking his life in his hands each time he was with her. With her luck and her history, anything that could go wrong would. She’d been sure she’d bring disaster to whoever loved her, but that was back when she was a woman who killed her boyfriend in an Oldsmobile, now she’s someone else. She leans out the front door and kisses Ben on the mouth. She kisses him in a way that proves that if he was ever thinking of getting out of this, he’d better stop thinking right now.
“Who invited you here?” Gillian says, but she has her arms around him; she’s got that sugary smell anyone who gets too close to her can’t help but notice.
“I was worried about you,” Ben says. “They can call this thing a storm, but it’s really a hurricane.”
Tonight, Ben has left Buddy alone to bring the candles over, even though he knows how anxious thunder makes the rabbit. That’s what happens when Ben wants to see Gillian, he has to go on and do it, no matter what the consequences. Still, he’s so unused to being spontaneous that whenever he does something like this he has a slight ringing in his ears, not that he cares. When Ben returns to his house he’s bound to find a telephone book shredded or the soles chewed off his favorite running shoes, but it’s worth it to be with Gillian.
“Get out while the going’s good,” Gillian tells him. “My aunts are here from Massachusetts.”
“Great,” Ben says, and before Gillian can stop him he’s inside the house. Gillian tugs at the sleeve of his rain slicker, but he’s on his way to greet their guests. The aunts have serious business ahead of them; they’ll flip their lids if Ben careens into the kitchen assuming he’s about to meet two dear old ladies. They’ll rise from their chairs and stomp their feet and turn their cold gray eyes in his direction.
“They arrived this afternoon and they’re exhausted,” Gillian says. “This is not a good idea. They don’t like company. Plus, they’re ancient.”
Ben Frye pays no attention, and why should he? The aunts are Gillian’s family, and that’s all he needs to know. He lopes right into the kitchen, where Antonia and Kylie and Sally stop eating the minute they see him; quickly they turn to see the aunts’ reaction. Ben doesn’t catch on to their anxiety any more than he notices the fiery scent rising