Love Potion #2

by Margot Early

  They hung their homemade ornaments on the tree, went to bed and made love. When Cameron awoke in the morning and went into the living room, she found another ornament on the tree, a Hallmark ornament with Charlie Brown and a Christmas tree.

  Paul said, “I thought it could start a tradition. A new ornament every year.”

  Every year. The words, for Cameron, were the greatest gift of the day. He intended to be with her during all the Christmases to come.

  CHAPTER TEN

  February 13

  PAUL WAS INVITED

  to Mary Anne and Graham’s dinner on the eve of their wedding. He was invited as Cameron’s date. Because Graham’s dissertation advisor had been unable to come to the wedding and because Sean Devlin and Graham had become friends since Sean’s move to Logan, it was Sean who would walk up the aisle beside maid-of-honor Cameron on the following day. Paul bore this with civility. When Cameron told him that Sean would be best man, Paul simply said that seemed reasonable as he and Graham were very similar. Mary Anne maintained to Cameron that Paul had said that because he was jealous of both men.

  As Paul sat beside Cameron at the long table, Graham spoke to him. “You’re going to be the next to go through what I’m feeling right now.”

  Cameron grinned. “What are you feeling, Graham?”

  “Terror and excitement,” he told her with satisfaction.

  “But you’ve been married before,” she remarked, for Graham was a widower.

  “Makes no difference,” he said. “I’ve never been married to Mary Anne.”

  She wondered how she would feel if she and Paul had not become lovers and conceived a child together. Would she now feel envious of Mary Anne? Would she wish that she herself were to walk up the aisle beside Graham? If so, that would be, Cameron decided, a silly reaction. After all, she herself had never been on a date with Graham.

  Paul and Cameron drove home from the dinner together, Paul stopping briefly at his rented house to collect a few boxes. He was gradually moving into Cameron’s. In the morning, she would be going to her grandmother’s house to help Mary Anne dress for the wedding. Cameron had always considered herself untraditional, never caring if she married. But suddenly she was extremely conscious of being pregnant and unmarried. While she certainly wasn’t envious of Mary Anne, her own situation slightly depressed her.

  She had become pregnant by someone she still didn’t think was keen to marry her.

  But we are engaged.

  And the things he had done at Christmas were so thoughtful. A tree. A first ornament. His grandmother’s ring. And Bertie.

  The dress she put on for Mary Anne’s wedding was one she and Mary Anne had chosen together. Neither were seamstresses, and they’d picked out a flowing dress with an empire waist. It was in fall colors, browns and rusts, and Cameron liked how she looked in it. With the pregnancy, her breasts had grown fuller and her abdomen had begun to round. The dress certainly did not hide the fact that she was pregnant, yet it was graceful.

  Mary Anne planned to keep to the tradition of not allowing herself to be seen by the groom prior to the ceremony, and Sean Devlin was under strict orders to keep Graham (who lived around the block from Mary Anne’s grandmother) well away from the bride.

  It was while she was watching Mary Anne arrange her own hair—being better adapted to this task than Cameron—that Cameron first felt a slight cramping sensation. She thought nothing of it.

  Mary Anne was beautiful in white satin. Her dress had capped sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. She and Cameron had both loved the veil, attached to a small cap, which only someone with Mary Anne’s model’s bones could wear. She was borrowing an old blue cameo belonging to their grandmother. It went well with Mary Anne’s coloring, which was similar to Cameron’s.

  Cameron helped her fasten on the choker and told her, “You are so gorgeous. You are glowing. I really haven’t seen you so beautiful.”

  “I’m so happy,” Mary Anne whispered. “I know Graham and I are right for each other.”

  Cameron hugged her cousin from behind. “Wait till he sees you.”

  The doorbell rang and Lucille came up to say that Paul Cureux was downstairs.

  Cameron went down to see him and thought again how fantastic he looked when he bothered to put on a suit. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Is anything wrong?”

  “I brought your corsage. Mary Anne’s bouquet is at the church.”

  She clapped a hand to her forehead. She’d forgotten that Paul had offered to run flowers to their various locations.

  Her corsage was made of orchids, and she said, “You pin it on,” and he did a good job of it, then kissed her lips.

  “By the way,” he suggested, “you might want to catch that bouquet.”

  Cameron laughed.

  Paul thought how beautiful she was, and later he did not mind seeing her go up the aisle with Sean as it was simply all part of the ceremony of Mary Anne’s wedding. As he watched Cameron, he remembered hearing from his mother about the reasons for his parents’ divorce. What his mother had done wasn’t precisely even infidelity, as infidelity was a matter of the heart. Not that Paul considered things that way in his own life. But his mother had been coerced into sex. Had allowed herself to be? Had chosen to be? It was too murky to judge. In any case, his father hadn’t left because of Clare’s unfaithfulness—at least as Paul understood David Cureux’s motives. It seemed to have more to do with personal integrity and, as in his mother’s case, with career. Paul wished his mother hadn’t done what she’d done. But how wrong people were to think his long reluctance to commit to a woman stemmed from issues about his parents’ marriage. It never had.

  His reasons had been entirely different. He’d not wanted to see the end of an era in his life. Cameron’s becoming pregnant marked the end of that era. When she became pregnant, moving forward had become inevitable. The birth of their child would end that former era far more effectively than matrimony could. He accepted that he was going to have to move into a new role.

  Cameron glanced at Graham Corbett’s face as he watched Mary Anne, truly a vision in white, come up the aisle. She saw him dash a tear from his eye, then smile broadly, obviously blissful, overwhelmed with happiness.

  He’s so in love with her, she thought.

  Cameron tried to imagine Paul gazing at her like that, but she couldn’t. He loved her, but she imagined that to him…Well, the wedding wouldn’t be as emotional as it clearly was for both Graham and Mary Anne. She could see Paul showing satisfaction but not this, not a tear of happiness.

  Later, as Cameron’s date, Paul sat at the head table with the bridal party at the reception. Paul held her hand often as he sat beside her. He felt a comfort in touching her.

  Cameron turned to him once or twice, and he gave her small, quiet smiles. There was something very intimate in his smiles. They spoke of something he shared only with her, a closeness that could belong to no one else. Cameron felt content in that feeling—that she was special to him, that the day-to-day business of living gave her a unique knowledge of Paul. With Paul, this was intimacy of the highest kind.

  She had at times suspected Bridget had dosed her with a love potion. But that didn’t matter. She had always loved Paul. What she’d felt for Graham had been infatuation with someone she really didn’t know. Paul she knew, and no potion had been necessary, so whether Bridget’s potion had been a love potion—and Cameron now leaned toward the notion that it had been what Bridget claimed, an elixir to restore emotional equilibrium—was moot.

  Joining the two of them briefly at the table, Paul’s sister lifted Cameron’s left hand and observed, “That was made to go there.” She glanced at her brother. “And you say love potions don’t work.”

  Cameron started.

  He said, “What goes around comes around, Bridget.”

  “I’m already happily married.” And indeed, her husband Billy was across the room, with Merrill on his lap as he ate, Nick beside them, talking a
mile a minute. Bridget caught Billy’s eye and blew him a flirtatious kiss.

  Cameron, however, was more interested in the under-current of Paul’s and Bridget’s exchange. She stared between the two of them, catching all the nuances of the conversation. As Bridget moved away, Cameron asked Paul, “Has she admitted to giving me a love potion? Were you behind that?”

  He squinted at her as though puzzled, then touched his own chest. “She gave me a love potion.”

  History flashed through Cameron’s mind. History preceding a long ago night when she’d first ended up in Paul’s bed and in the morning… Paul’s reaction when he first knew she was pregnant… Then…

  “When?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “The night you and I came here for dinner, I think. She and my father were here?”

  Cameron was thunderstruck. Was his attention to her all down to the love potion?

  And now we’re engaged.

  No free will.

  Did she believe that? Paul had long been so opposed to marrying anyone ever. “Do you think the love potion worked?” she asked Paul quietly.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve always found you attractive, you’ve been my best friend for years, and now you’re having my baby.”

  “Our baby,” she corrected, slightly stung by his phrasing of the sentiment. “But you believe the potions work. You asked me to live with you after drinking it.”

  “Then maybe it made me see what I’d felt all along.” He spoke rather casually but seemed to sense Cameron’s frown, her uncertainty. He looked up, met her eyes. “Cameron, let it go. I’m happy. You’re happy.”

  That was true. But Cameron couldn’t quite let it go. She wished she felt more certain and was angry with herself for always wanting further displays of his commitment to her. She’d never thought of herself as insecure, yet ever since becoming lovers with Paul, ever since the night the baby was conceived, she’d felt nothing else—at least as regarded his feelings for her. She repeated, “But you’ve always believed that your mother’s and sister’s love potions work.”

  As she spoke, she felt a slight cramping in her abdomen, like the onset of menstrual cramps. It took a moment to register, and when it did, she ceased to care about their conversation.

  No.

  And there was a warmth between her legs. She feared for her dress and instantly rose to go to the bathroom. But she was bleeding, knew she must be. She threw an anguished look toward Clare Cureux, across the room, but Clare was looking the other way. She heard Paul say, “Cameron, what is it? Are you all right?”

  She kept walking, hurrying to the ladies’ room, wondering what Paul would feel if she lost the baby, if he would feel trapped by the promises he’d made.

  Or if, she thought glumly, the love potion Bridget had given him would prevent even that.

  But she had little energy for worrying about losing Paul. The fear of losing the baby was too near and too real.

  It wasn’t a flow of blood, just spots, as at the beginning of her period. Still feeling cramped, she walked back into the dining room, found Clare and touched her shoulder. “I’m spotting.”

  BED REST and an infusion of herbs, which would help her to keep the baby if she was meant to keep it but which would not prevent her miscarrying a baby that was malformed or for some reason could not make it to term in her womb.

  No lovemaking, either.

  That was the plan.

  From her bed, she heard the front door, and Paul came in, followed by Mariah and Wolfie. Wolfie, uncharacteristically, came within two feet of her and looked at her, as though concerned. The wild dog did not usually come close enough to people to be touched himself. Cameron knew that if she reached out to try to touch him he would retreat.

  Paul set down a grocery bag on her rocking chair, left the room and returned with her television/DVD player, which usually lived, unnoticed, in the living room.

  “What is it?” Cameron asked. She watched him take a DVD case from the grocery bag. She felt listless, couldn’t bear to read anything but romances, couldn’t face any book about pregnancy and birth. What if she was defective, could never carry a child to term? Clare had not been sanguine. Bleeding this early… And Cameron wanted, loved, this baby. This baby was not replaceable. A different baby would be…a different baby.

  And what if there could not be any baby? she wondered again, panic-stricken.

  “Bollywood,” Paul said.

  She frowned. She had heard of Bollywood but knew nothing about it.

  “You don’t know Bollywood?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s perfect for a confirmed romantic like you.”

  Cameron was soon engrossed in the story of a blind girl being wooed by an unconventional tour guide. Well, that was how it started.

  Paul watched her. He rarely felt like praying, but he felt like it now. Cameron wanted this baby, and he wanted Cameron’s happiness. And if she miscarried, where would that leave them? Would she still want to marry him?

  Would he still want to marry her?

  Yes.

  How strange that he felt certain of that. Though he believed love potions worked, he could not attribute this change of sentiment within himself to whatever Bridget had put in his water.

  He watched the film with Cameron until his cell phone rang.

  Cameron glanced at him as he answered and saw a stillness cross his face, a stillness that meant something bad had happened.

  “They need a shooting team,” he said. “If no one can dart him, you have to shoot him.”

  Cameron watched him listen to what was being said on the other end of the line. “I’ll come,” he finally said. “I don’t know if the zoo can take him, and if we can it will only be temporary, probably. We don’t have room in our collections for that. The director needs to make those decisions. Right.”

  He closed his phone and looked at Cameron. “Pet baboon.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Where?”

  “Right here in Logan County,” he replied. “The owner is a new resident, apparently. The cute baby named Precious has reached adulthood and is being uncooperative. Imagine that.”

  “You’re not telling me something,” Cameron said.

  “Someone’s been hurt,” he said. That was undoubtedly the short version.

  Paul remembered Cameron’s being near the zoo when the zoo’s chimps had been out. His fear for her.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “The police have the area cordoned off, it sounds like.”

  “Why would anyone do that?” she asked. “Have a baboon for a pet?”

  “Ignorance,” he answered. “They’re cute when they’re babies. But they grow up and don’t get along in human households. They’re wild animals, and they need a safe and appropriate environment. And a lot of people don’t understand how strong they’ll be as adults. Arms, jaws, any of it.”

  He kissed her before he left.

  Clare had suggested trying two days of bed rest. If the bleeding stopped, she could get up again.

  The bleeding had stopped, and Cameron thought she would get up for a while after the movie. She thought of her fierce desire for a homebirth, and now that seemed childish. Well, not childish perhaps, but certainly unrealistic in her case. She just wanted a healthy baby.

  Her rationale had been that if she had the baby at home, she would be able to walk around, allowing gravity to help the baby come out. In the hospital, she felt certain, she would have to have an electronic fetal monitor, tying her to the bed, forcing her to remain on her back. The thought of being pressured to submit to the hospital routine had infuriated her, made her feel an intense fear of violation.

  Now she only wanted the baby to survive, to be healthy.

  Baby, stay with me, she thought. We can do this.

  The movie had begun romantically, but it turned out that the hero was a terrorist. There were lots of special-forces-type scenes, and she realized it was not going to have a happy ending. Nonetheless
, she liked it and felt thankful to Paul for introducing her to something new. She was in love with him, loved everything about him, and she didn’t want to think about the love potion Bridget had given him or if he loved her only because of it.

  When the movie was over, she called his cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Outside the cordon. They darted him, and he did go down.”

  “Did you realize that you brought me a movie about an innocent girl who falls in love with someone she doesn’t know is a terrorist and who she then thinks dies but he doesn’t, and they have a baby and she has to shoot him to save the people of India from being blown up?”

  “Didn’t you like it?”

  “Actually, I did.”

  “Romance,” he said, “can be about honor.”

  “I did like it,” she repeated. “And you’re right. It can be. It was romantic. You could tell he was really torn; he’d been indoctrinated by his grandfather. And he was afraid for the woman and the child.” The words she’d spoken rippled through her with an eerie resonance. She sensed that Paul felt protective, fearful, for her and their baby. Quickly pushing her own thoughts from grim outcomes, she asked, “What’s going to happen to the baboon?”

  “Well, there are two.”

  “Really?”

  “This adult male and an infant that the owner is willing to part with because of what happened here.”

  Obviously, whatever had happened had been horrible. Cameron didn’t ask. Instead she said, “Are they going to the zoo?”

  “For right now, they are. It wasn’t my decision.”

  “Is there no space?”

  “And there are no other baboons. It’s crazy. It’s not even a mother and baby, though the owners claim the adult likes the baby. If it’s true—well, that could be good. But he could kill it, too. They’re like that.”

  “I’d like to see the baby.”

  “You’ll probably get to. People are so stupid,” he said, as though to himself. “This couple couldn’t have kids, so—”