The Flower Bowl Spell by Olivia Boler Page A

Want company?”
    I’ve got one eye on an SUV bearing down on
us, its roof loaded with surfboards. I’m only doing fifty. Clearly
cell phones and driving don’t mix. I can only concentrate for a
millisecond on the change in Tyson’s tone from the day of our
interview. He actually sounds friendly.
    We agree to meet at a taqueria we both know.
I toss the phone aside without a goodbye and concentrate on
steering straight and keeping up with the speed limit.
    ****
    He’s surprised to see me with Viveka’s
daughters. I introduce him to the girls, who take him in with what
I’m beginning to think of as their customary demeanor of faint,
polite curiosity. I can’t really tell what they think of this
slender young man with the mirrored sunglasses that make him look
like an Asiatic Bono. A little in awe maybe. They’re acting
shy.
    Tyson’s definitely less surly than before.
His aura shimmers in rose and silver with near nirvana-like
flawlessness. Even with the glasses on, I can identify the
resemblance to his sister. Alice had a shimmering, happy aura too,
when she wasn’t in classes. School was not her forte.
    Sitting on the taqueria’s patio, we chow down
on fish tacos, chips, and guacamole. The restaurant is close to a
playground. I used to come here as a kid to play, then fill up on
quesadillas next door. There’s a new feature in the park, a petting
zoo. Romola and Cleo really want to see the goats and ducks.
    After lunch we throw away our paper wrappings
and cups, and enter through a picket gate into a replica of an
idealized, miniature barnyard. There’s a goat-food pellet
dispenser, and we buy some for a quarter a turn. A nanny goat wolfs
down Romola’s handout in one second flat. Cleo holds her stash
close to her chest and doles out the pellets one at a time. The
goats respect this, standing back and waiting, taking the feed
delicately out of her fingers between their yellow chompers.
    Tyson and I lean along the white-painted
railing and watch. I check the goats, look them in their hircine
eyes, but they are just animals. I find this a little
disappointing. Two of the white ducks, however, are wearing
clothes. One is knitting while the other taps something out on a
small electronic device that I later realize is a Scrabble game.
These two are tucked away on the side of a small duck house—like a
henhouse except inhabited by ducks. I look to Tyson and the girls
to see if they see what I see, but they glance several times in
that direction without any sort of reaction.
    “So, what’s the deal with the munchkins?”
Tyson asks in a low voice, gesturing to the girls.
    I tell him a shortened, PG version of
Viveka’s out-of-the-blue visit. I’m too distracted by the ducks for
more. The knitting duck is most impressive, the way her (his? It’s
wearing a small Dodgers starter jacket) wings manipulate the small,
duck-sized needles. It appears she’s just started on something
green. The other duck is dressed in a brown leather vest and is
easily using his beak to press the buttons on his game.
    “How come Mr. Bailey’s not taking care of
them while you’re on tour with us?”
    This question snaps me out of my duck study.
There are at least three things about his question that poke at
me.
    “You know, if you want me to call you Ty,” I
say, “then you’re going to have to start referring to him as
Cooper. Or my boyfriend.”
    His eyebrows raise above the sunglasses in
mock-innocent befuddlement, which is actually rather sexy. “Right.
Cooper. Your boyfriend .” He nods at Romola, who is following
a duck—a naked one—and is unconsciously imitating its waddle.
“Don’t they have school?”
    “They’re home-schooled.”
    “Home-schooled?”
    “You have heard of it, haven’t you?”
    He nods. “Oh yeah. I’ve heard of it. Isn’t it
for religious freaks?”
    I kick him in the shins harder than is
friendly. He elbows me in the side. He makes a face and I slit my
throat with my finger. He grimaces in