The Magnolia League

24





Well, it works. Hoodoo, voodoo, fire-ant hair spells, whatever. You know what? I don’t care, really. The point is, I am finally somewhat close to hot.

Over the next couple of weeks, my appearance is totally transformed. After years of worrying about my extra pounds, I’m now inarguably skinny—as skinny as I’ve always wanted to be. My zits are gone, thanks to some weird yellow paste that burned like acid when Hayes rubbed it onto my face, and my hair has kept its newfound gloss.

As awesome as this transformation is, though, the changes are getting me into some embarrassing situations. For one thing, my scalp still itches. In fact, I’ve been scratching so much that Constance takes me aside one morning and asks discreetly whether I need to be tested for lice. And Madison was right about the clothes. After just a couple of days, nothing fits me. My shirts are looser, and my pants gap at the waist. The jeans we got Tuesday at BleuBelle’s are already huge, so I have to hitch them up all day. Then, at my locker, Dex informs me that I’m giving the entire hallway a killer view of my purple tie-dyed underwear—a lone relic from arts-and-crafts day at the RC.

“Crap,” I mutter, standing and pulling up my jeans.

“Dude,” Dex says later at Waffle House. In a solemn commitment to cementing our friendship, Dexter has been taking me to “Awful Waffle” once a week. Our download time on Thursdays has now become a sacred tradition. “Okay, I wasn’t gonna ask you this, because I didn’t want you to think I was one of those metro a-holes who sit around obsessing about hair. But, okay, it’s been three weeks or whatever, and it’s like you’re in a silence pact about it. So, gotta know: How’d you undread the bird’s nest?”

“Oh, you know. Conditioner. A brush.”

“I thought you had to shave that shit.”

“What do you think?” I reply, carefully not answering.

“Good call,” he says. “It’s not like I’m the fashion police or anything, but that look you were rolling with was pretty heinous.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“Are you kidding? A man must never say anything about a woman’s hair. Even an asshat like me knows that. Now, what leftovers do you have for Dex?” He looks at my plate expectantly.

“I ate it all,” I say, my face growing warm.

“Seriously?” he cries. “The whole thing? You ordered two smothered-and-chunked hash browns. A.L., you got a bun in the oven?”

“Not possible. Unless you’re a true believer in immaculate conception.”

“We Jews don’t buy into such nonsense. That Virgin Mary, she definitely had a guy on the side.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve just been really hungry lately.”

“Hmm.” He looks at me suspiciously. “Maybe you should go to the doctor or something. You’re looking a little scrawny. You might have a tapeworm.”

I’m completely tempted to tell him. It would be so great to get a sane outsider’s perspective on this hoodoo pact. But Dex would think I was crazy.

“I’ll eat more,” I say, standing up. “Promise. Listen, I’ve got to—”

“Hey, loser,” Madison says, literally blowing through the door. She seems to have her own personal wind tunnel; menus scatter onto the floor. The humble diners of Waffle House crane their necks to stare at her beauty. “Saw your tacky van in the lot.”

“Looking for me?” Dex says. “A crush. How flattering.”

Oddly, Madison reddens a bit. Did Dex actually manage to insult her?

“Not likely, Mr. Doughboy. Alex, I need you. We have only a few hours of daylight left for—”

“For what? Warding off the vampires?”

“Vampires are so over, Dexter. Everyone knows that. Coming, Alex?”

“It’s cool,” I say. “I’ll bike.”

“Okay. Ta, loser,” she says, waggling her fingers at Dex.

“I’ll call you later,” I say, rising.

“Beware, friend,” Dex says. “These Magnolias are toxic stuff.”

I shoot him an apologetic look as I head out the door. I should just make Madison wait while Dex polishes off his hash browns, but the truth is we’re finishing the last step of a three-day spell for Hayes. It’s my first time as a participant (as opposed to a guinea pig/victim), so I’m pretty psyched about it. I pedal hard out of suburbia’s blazing strip malls and into downtown’s leafy maze, making a quick stop at my grandmother’s house to throw on some smaller jeans. After a trip to the kitchen to speed-feed three pieces of meat lover’s pizza, I ride over to Hayes’s house on Pulaski Square and park my bike inside the gate of the large, perfectly manicured garden.

From the pretty brick courtyard, I can hear Hayes’s voice floating through the open window. I can’t hear what she’s saying exactly, but she sounds tense. She saw Jason talking to some hot band nerd by the girls’ locker room the other day, and now she’s convinced that he has a wandering eye. Personally, I think she’s being totally insane. How could anyone as gorgeous and nice as Hayes ever doubt that her boyfriend is into her? But no one asked me.

“Dried cat semen?” I hear her shriek as I enter. “How the hell am I supposed to get that?”

Right. That’s the thing about a lot of these spells. They all have a million steps and call for some really random stuff. Potions have to be mixed at a certain time of day; pastes have to be applied while staring and concentrating on some old picture; the steam of teas must be waved in the direction of a certain country. Often the spells involve bodily fluids—sweat, spit, even menstrual blood. And they never, ever make sense. My grandmother is always half burying old cans of lye in the garden. (They ward off evil spirits, apparently.) After Madison cast that spell to make my hair grow, she had to put a dime from my pocket into her own shoe.

“You should thank me, dorkus,” she told me later. “I had to wear the same closed-toed heels for three whole days. Everyone knows I never wear the same pair of shoes twice in one month.”

I have to say, even though the whole hoodoo thing really freaked me out at first, I find it pretty rad that the town’s fanciest families secretly derive their wealth and power from African rituals. And once you know the secret, you wonder how you never guessed before. Signs of hoodoo are all over Savannah—from graves decorated with cans of food and bottles of whiskey, to house doors painted haint blue, to signs around town advertising hoodoo fortune-tellers and remedies. Before, I would have just dismissed them as Southern wackiness, but now I’ve learned my lesson: What may seem like nonsense to one person probably makes a hell of a lot of sense to someone else.

Upstairs, Hayes is still lamenting the complexity of her spell. I take the opportunity to check out the Andersons’ house. Whereas Madison’s personal quarters are sleek and highly designed, Hayes has gone for more of a luxurious Barbie’s Dream House look with her room. The carpet is plush and pink; the walls are papered with a pink-and-gold fleur-de-lis pattern; and all the furniture, including the king-size canopied bed, is gilded. It’s the sort of place an old-fashioned courtesan would think up if she were sixteen—and loaded.

Hayes is on her knees in the middle of the room in front of two red candles in brass holders. On one candle, she’s carved the name Hayes; on the other, Jason. She’s busy stuffing two crude-looking cloth dolls with what looks like pine straw, hair, powder, and bottles of fluid.

“Hey,” Hayes says. “Glad you’re here.”

“Voodoo dolls?”

“Yeah. It’s not routine—you know, it’s not a hoodoo thing, really. But Sina wants to try out some New Orleans tricks. She likes to be fluent in both practices.”

While Sam is the official root doctor for the Magnolias, the MGs often circumvent the official channels and hire Sina on the side. Though my grandmother is usually understanding, she’s been known to say no to a spell. Since Sybil’s not such a fan of Jason, chances are Miss Lee neg’d a mojo to help that relationship. It’s dangerous to use Sina directly, of course. When Miss Lee finds out someone’s done it, she gets pissed and has been known to suspend Magnolias from any hoodoo for up to a year. It’s a majorly embarrassing punishment, especially to an older Magnolia, because it means losing whatever you’ve conjured—your age or hair or body or whatever—and looking like your natural self. You’d think they’d be okay with looking like the selves they’d been born with, but hoodoo is like any good drug: Once you have the magic, it’s tough to get off it. Apparently Khaki Pettit’s sister went into hiding when she was caught illegally using Sina to put a Love No More spell on Khaki’s husband—with whom she’d been having an affair. (She was penalized on two counts: illegal spell use and betraying a fellow Magnolia.) She was so horrified by her natural looks that she told her friends she was traveling around the world for two years and secretly had her maid bring her food in a big straw basket to her room.

“Hayes,” I ask now, eyeing a suspicious-looking jar. “Is that… pee?”

She nods.

“It’s Jason’s,” Madison says.

“How did you—”

“Oh, that was nothing. But getting the nail clippings was tough.” She squints at the wrinkled piece of paper. “God, it’s hard to read Sina’s writing. I like it much better when Sam does the spells. Okay, this says saffron. Damn. Alex, can you go down and see if we have any?”

“Sure,” I say. On the way, I take a little tour of the upstairs. Hayes’s mom—Sybil McPhillips’s daughter—has done a bang-up job preserving this house. As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of house owners in the old part of the city: the ones who have given themselves over to Savannah’s weather and rot, and those who fight the good fight. My grandmother’s house, for example, practically crumbles in your hand. Ivy chokes the brick; the walls literally sweat with humidity, causing the wallpaper and paint to peel; weird drafts curl around the corners, slamming doors and blowing papers; odd smells waft from the pipes and vents. Hayes’s house, however, is filled with gleaming, polished wood and freshly washed linens. Each piece of furniture is precious, polished to a gleam, and carefully arranged. You get the feeling that Hayes’s mom spends every moment painting, upholstering, or waxing. Like, the dog’s bed matches the tea towels, which match the doormat that matches the toilet paper holder, and I’m fairly certain none of that is an accident.

I wander down the blue plaid hallway into the yellow-and-red kitchen. Saffron… where would that be? Tentatively, I open a cabinet and peer inside.

“What are you looking for?” My heart leaps into my throat.

“Thaddeus!” I slam the cabinet door shut quickly. “I thought you’d be at lacrosse.”

Immediately, I’m horrified. Now he’ll know that I’ve totally memorized his schedule.

“I skipped today. I need to study for my calculus test. Unlike you girls, I actually study for things.” He gazes at me quizzically. “You look different lately.”

“It’s nothing. I just straightened my hair.”

“That’s it?” He steps back and looks me up and down. I have to admit, even though I don’t believe in the power of expensive clothes, I’m pretty happy to be wearing these awesome jeans right now.

“Well, I’ve been… riding my bike a lot.”

“Huh. Well. Listen, about the other day… I’m really sorry about your mom. That’s all I wanted to say. I can’t imagine what that loss must feel like. My mom’s a crazy Martha Stewart wannabe, but I’m glad I have her. Anyway—I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I say, my face growing red.

“Alex, hurry up,” Madison snaps as she enters the kitchen. “We’ve only got an hour. Oh. Hi, Thaddeus.”

“Hey,” he says to her. He opens the fridge as if he’s looking for food, then frowns. “Sorry I forgot to call you back about that thing.”

What thing? They call each other?

“Sure.” She looks at us. “I’m glad to see you both here, actually. There’s a rumor I want to clear up.”

“What?”

“Well, Thad, word on the street is you have a little crush on Alex here.”

My face heats to a thousand degrees.

“Madison—”

“So, my question is, what’s the holdup? If it’s true, don’t you think you should ask her out already?”

Thaddeus, clearly mortified, doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, she looks great, doesn’t she?”

“You know I can’t, Madison. She’s…”

I feel tears searing the edges of my eyes. So, I’m not good enough for Thaddeus. Just like Reggie.

I turn and leave the kitchen, heading to the porch. I know I’m supposed to help Hayes with her love spell or whatever, but now the tears are seriously coming down. I wipe them away angrily. First, I’m dumped by Reggie because I’m too fat. Now Thaddeus obviously thinks the same thing. Or something like that.

Not my type, man. Too chubby. Too weird.

I run down the porch steps to my bike, hop on, and begin pedaling away.

“Alex!”

Thaddeus is following me down to the garden.

“Alex, wait!”

He catches up to the bike and reaches for the handlebar. I swerve too quickly, falling on the drive. Crushed oyster shells bite into my hands.

“Crap!”

“Are you okay?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Alex, you need to understand,” Thaddeus says, holding out his hand to help me up. I brush it away, but he grabs me roughly under my armpits and yanks me up. “I promised myself I’d never date a Magnolia again.”

I look at the ground. My knee is bleeding. “You didn’t think I was too fat? Or too ‘out there’ or something?”

“No. I think you’re cool. I like that you’re different.”

Wait. Whaaaat? This is a complete one-eighty from what I thought was happening. This guy is a total high school god, and he likes me. Me.

“Um… I…”

Thaddeus gently puts his hand on my shoulders, then leans closer and looks into my eyes. “Alex,” he says, “you know I like talking to you. But this is the part where you shut up. Okay?”

Oh. My. God.

I nod. And I realize that, up in heaven, my mom must be cooking up a hoodoo spell of her own in my honor. Because just then—miracle of miracles—the hottest guy in school—no, on the planet— leans in and kisses me.