by Lucy March
“I was a librarian, until they closed it down and I got laid off. Thanks for paying attention.”
She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I remember that, of course.”
“Of course. Anyway, I sell magic potions now. You know this. I know you know this. Greta at the salon is one of my biggest customers.”
The Widow’s right eye twitched, and I could see the darkness shade her eyes. My mother had about five minutes’ worth of fake congeniality in her on any given day, and I’d used them up. Which was okay.
I had a plan.
I nudged the purple vial toward her, and she flinched away, and spoke in the kind of low, dangerous tones I remember so well from my childhood. “I don’t know what kind of Satan-worshipping nonsense you’ve gotten yourself involved in, Stacy, but I will have none of it.”
“Really? Oh. Okay.” I picked up the purple vial and held it in my hand. “That’s too bad. It’s a beauty potion.”
“I don’t really care what…” She trailed off, right at the point when her mind processed the key word. “Beauty potions aren’t real.” There was just enough wistfulness in her voice to let me know I had her firmly on the line.
“Oh, sure they are. You know how there’s a way you see yourself, and then there’s how you really look when you pass by the mirror and you see yourself, really see yourself? It’s kind of a disappointment, you know?”
She slid her hand along her tight-bunned hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I kept my eyes on her face as I talked. “Oh, you know. You remember yourself in your twenties, with bright, clear skin, and then you see yourself in a mirror and there are those wrinkles … the papery texture … lips kind of no color at all.”
I took a moment examining her features, then made eye contact and shrugged. “Well, if you don’t know what I mean…”
Her posture straightened and she tapped perfectly manicured nails on the table. “I don’t, but I’m sure some other women do.”
“Oh. Sure. Other women, we know how hard it is for them.” I laughed.
She didn’t laugh, just lasered her eyes in on the vial in my hand.
“So, what does it … do?” she asked, making a vague motion.
“Oh? This? Nothing, it just creates a … I don’t know what they call it. A glamour, I guess, that makes everyone see you the way you see yourself. Younger, prettier, thinner…” I shot an appraising look at my mother. “Well, not thinner necessarily. You might put on a few pounds, you know, so people can still see you when you turn sideways.”
She rolled her eyes and gave me a disapproving smirk, but then her focus landed back where I wanted it: on the purple vial.
“It all depends on how your beauty manifests for you. I figured with all the pictures that were going to be taken today, you might want it. But silly me, I keep forgetting about how much you love Jesus and hate Satan.”
I dropped the purple vial back into my purse, pretending not to notice her talons making an instinctive grab for it before she pulled herself back.
“That’s all right,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just give it to Mrs. Peach. The mother of the bride should be the most beautiful at a wedding right? I mean, besides the actual bride herself, but it’s not like anyone can give Peach a run for her money in the beauty race anyway, right? Even you in your heyday had nothing on Peach. I mean that girl is…” I sighed and stared off a bit into the middle distance, putting a dreamy expression on my face. “… so beautiful.”
“Oh, Stacy.” The Widow frowned. “I know you do that just to upset me, and I don’t appreciate it.”
I dropped the dreamy expression and looked at her, then pointed a finger at the space between her brows. “Wow. You remember when I was a kid, and you said if I made a face, it would stay that way?”
“Yes,” she said. A beat passed, then she gasped and flew her fingers to her forehead. She kept her composure for a minute, then got up and went to the kitchen cabinet door she’d installed a mirror inside of, taking inspiration from the lockers of teenage girls. She checked herself out, smoothing the space between her brows, then cursed under her breath and sat down again.
“I suppose…,” she said, maintaining an expression of feigned disinterest, “that I wouldn’t be a good mother if I didn’t look into what you’re doing, make absolute sure that it’s not devil’s work.”
“Yeah,” I said, and reached into my purse. “Failing to do that is what would make you a bad mother.”
She was just reaching out for the vial when I snatched it back.
“There’s a catch,” I said.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Of course there is. I should have known.”
“You will behave today,” I said. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Don’t look for loopholes. You will be actually nice to Peach. You will speak only when spoken to, and then with a smile and as few words as possible. Are we clear?”
She rolled her eyes. “You talk as if I’m such a monster. If I’m such a bad mother, how did Nick turn out so well?”
“Because he’s Nick, and he was born a better person than either of us will ever live to be.” I leaned forward. “Are we clear?”
She screwed up her lips to the side, thinking, then held her hand out. I set the vial out of her reach, opened her coffee, and dumped the ounce of green tea in. She grabbed the cup and swirled it, then took a sip and ran to the mirror again to examine herself.
“Why … wow! I think … I think it’s working!”
“Of course it is. I’m very good at what I do.” I smiled and held up the clear vial. “Don’t you want to know what this is for?”
She glanced back at me for a moment, saw the clear vial, and then looked back at herself in the mirror. “Should I care?”
“Yes, you should. This is the antidote.”
She pressed her fingers against her face and giggled. “My skin actually feels softer!”
Of course it does, I thought. Your delusion is more powerful than anything I could have made.
“You’re gonna want to listen to this, Widow. If I hear one word from anyone about you being a bitch to anyone, not just Peach … if I see one expression on your face that isn’t kindness and delight, all I have to do is get a drop of this on your skin, a single drop, and your face will break out in wrinkles they can see from space.”
Magically, of course, that was impossible, hence the green tea. But the Widow didn’t know that.
She gasped and turned to me, one bony hand going protectively to her face. “What kind of person would even think of doing such a thing?”
“Hey, you raised me, lady.” I leaned my elbows on the table and played with the clear vial, enjoying the way my mother tensed up every time it moved. “It only works in conjunction with what you’ve already taken. So if you splash it back on me or anyone else, it won’t do anything.”
I smiled, appreciating my own genius. No actual magic, hence no violation of free will and no consequences. Sometimes I really loved me.
Her eyes widened. “I knew it! I knew you couldn’t do anything just to be nice!”
“Of course I wasn’t doing it just to be nice.” I tucked the clear vial into my purse, stood up, and walked over to her. “Behave, or they’ll be talking about you in hushed tones at the salon for years.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned and for a moment, I thought she was going to slap me, even though she hadn’t done that since I grew taller than her. I waved a finger at her, indicating her face.
“Watch out. Stays that way.” I put my purse over my shoulder and blew her a kiss. “Wow. You really do look amazing.”
She turned her attention back to her mirror, and I made my escape. It was the first of many errands I had to run that day, and time was short.
Chapter 5
I picked up my pink satin polka-dotted halter-topped zeppelin dress (and matching clutch bag) at Eleanor Cotton’s and half listened to her many warnings about proper care w
hile trying to inch my foot out the door and take Peach’s multiple frantic calls. I picked up my shoes while calling the caterer to double-check the details, and as I pulled up to my Winnebago, I was so involved with my phone call obtaining Addie Hooper-Higgins’s solemn vow that she wasn’t going to slip tons of flaxseed into the wedding cake that I didn’t even notice my brother’s truck parked in my usual spot until I almost smashed into it.
“Oh, shit!” I said, and Addie said, “It does not! Everyone at Vonnie Peet’s wedding got food poisoning, and that’s what caused all that diarrhea. I swear, it wasn’t the cake!”
I yanked my car to the left, narrowly missing Nick’s truck, and parked the Bug.
“Look, Addie,” I said, “I love you, but these are bacon-eating, beer-drinking, trans-fat-loving people. Introducing flax to their systems is gonna clear them out, and we only have two porta-potties rented for the night. Now swear to me on Julia Child that you didn’t load that thing up with Roto-Rooter.”
Addie sighed. “I’m putting my hand on Mastering the Art of French Cooking right now. I swear.”
“Great. See you there.” I hung up and got out of the car, in no mood to deal with whatever crisis my brother was having.
“Nick, I’m telling you, if you’ve got cold feet, you came to the wrong girl,” I said as I reached into the back of my car and grabbed for my dress bag, which was the size of three women. Peach and her damn crinoline. In the other arm, I balanced my shoe box and the matching clutch, wrapped in plastic by a fastidious and paranoid Eleanor Cotton. “I’ve got eighteen things to do and three seconds in which to do them, brother, so there’s no time for sensitive hand-holding. You’re going through with this wedding if I have to hog-tie you to—”
And then I straightened up and saw Leo stepping out of Nick’s truck. My throat constricted in surprise, and regret. Since the Anwei Xing only lasted twelve hours and I didn’t want to be Cinderella on the clock, I’d planned on taking it right before the ceremony. It didn’t even occur to me that Leo might show up at my house first.
Jerk.
“Is Nick okay?” I said, my voice cracking. Damnit, damnit, damnit. He was—had been, I mean—an almost-priest. Didn’t he realize how unkind it was to ambush a person?
“Nick’s great,” he said, tentatively stepping closer, his eyes locked on mine. “I’ve never seen him so happy.”
“Great.” I broke the eye contact and started toward my front door. “Then whatever it is can wait until the wedding’s over.”
“My plane takes off tonight, after the reception.”
I worked hard not to look back at him, although I felt his pull on me, and I moved slower than I should have.
“Stacy…” I could hear his footsteps as he came up behind me. I had my hand on the screen door handle, my keys were out … but I still stopped.
Why did I stop?
“I love you,” he said quietly, and I wanted to cry. Instead, I leaned forward and banged my head lightly on the side of the ’Bago. So close. If I had just taken the stupid drops … if I had just gotten inside faster … if I had just …
But it didn’t matter, because I hadn’t and now the emotion was roiling inside, making me woozy. By the time I turned around to look at him, it was already too late. I was laid open, and getting more and more pissed about it as the seconds ticked by.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, injecting as much steel into my tone as I could, hoping it would cut him. “I heard you.”
“Stacy, I mean it. I still love you. I never stopped.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have a death wish or something?”
His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed, but other than that, there was no sign of fear or weakness in him. He was ready to take whatever I gave him, and even though I wanted to kill him, part of me respected that.
“No,” he said simply.
“You left me,” I said, advancing down the steps. He didn’t move, so I had to move around him, and then I was looking up at him, but it didn’t matter. I had the fury. I had the power. “You left me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Are you kidding?”
“No.” He stood calmly, feet braced, ready to face the storm he’d created.
“You slept with someone else, then left me to become a priest, you son of a bitch!”
“I remember,” he said. “I was there.”
I advanced on him, my hands shaking. “No, you weren’t. You ran away like a coward and hid behind the skirts of the church. You knew what we had, what we were, and you threw it away.”
He met my eyes solidly. “I did. I know.”
“And now, you’re back for … what? Forgiveness?”
He shook his head. “I’m back for whatever you’ll give me. You can hate me if you want, and I won’t hold it against you, but I’m here now, and I have to tell you how sorry I am.”
I felt like my lungs were caught in a vise. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. And, just like old times, when I couldn’t do something, Leo stepped in and did it for me.
“None of it happened because I didn’t love you,” he said, his voice stiff. “I need you to know that.”
“Oh, I knew that,” I said bitterly. “One of the classic signs that a man loves you is when he runs off and doesn’t speak to you for ten years.”
“I didn’t think you’d ever forgive me. I didn’t think I could ever do anything for you but bring you pain, so…”
“So … you went into the priesthood?” I shook my head. “That is literally the worst reason to become a priest.”
“Yeah. Found that out. Thanks.”
There was a hint of a rueful smile on his face, and I almost laughed with him for a moment … almost … and then it all hit me again and the anger raged through me. The shoes started to slip out of the crook of my arm, so I just threw them on the ground. Screw it. The clutch and dress bag followed and, freed from my burdens, I advanced on him. I must have looked pretty scary because this time, he stepped back, eyes wide.
“You son of a bitch!” I hollered. “You left me!”
“I know.”
I put my hand flat on his chest, and felt his heart beating under my fingers, and a wave of pain crashed into me so hard that I thought I was going to fall over. How did he do that to me? Still? Shouldn’t that have gone away over the years? But no, there it was, the same as always. I touched him, and my body physically altered. It was like …
… magic.
“It was us,” I said quietly, my voice low and faltering. “You know how many people get this, what we have? No one, that’s who. And you threw it away. How could you do that?”
It took him a moment to answer, and then he said, “I hurt you.”
“You don’t know what I felt. You don’t know what you did to me. You were gone.”
“No.” He placed one hand gently on mine, pressing it against his chest. “Before I left.”
I stared up at him, my mind reeling. And then, I hit on something that felt like a missing puzzle piece. “What? You left because you slept with that girl?”
He stared at me for a moment, looking confused. “Well … yeah. Why did you think I left?”
The memory of that night flashed through my head. I’d thrown things. I’d screamed. I’d cried. I’d been ugly, the way that my mother had always told me I was ugly when I was a kid.
You may be physically beautiful, Stacy, she had said, so many times through my childhood that it became like a chorus in my brain. But you’re vicious and angry and ugly inside, and no one can love that for very long.
“I thought…” My voice cracked and I stared up at him. “I thought you saw me.”
He shook his head. “Saw you what?”
I pulled my hand away from his chest at the same moment that he reached out to touch my face. His hand froze in midair, and I took a step back.
“What do you want from me?” I said.
He
took a deep breath. “Nothing. I just…” He blinked. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Working through things.” He let out a short laugh. “I have a therapist.”
“About ten years too late,” I said, unable to cut the edge in my voice.
“Yeah.” He nodded, all seriousness. “I screwed up, bad. And you’re right. I hid, and the closer I got to taking my vows, the more I knew I’d screwed up. So I got out, and I got a job, and I worked on things. Now I know who I am again, and I’m not wasting time hiding anymore.”
I took a moment to process this, and then I said, “Okay. Well, good for you. I’m glad you … found yourself or whatever. But that has nothing to do with me, so—”
“It has everything to do with you.”
I looked up at him and shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
“I came back because I thought … seeing you…” He released a breath. “Dr. Roth said that when I saw you, I’d stop thinking of you as … well. Mine. He said you’d be different. He said those feelings would go away, and I’d be able to finally let it go and move on.” He let out a bitter laugh. “He was wrong.”
“I can’t do this,” I said, my breath coming in short as my heart rate kicked up. “I have to…” I turned around, saw my shoes and clutch and dress on the dusty ground, and was grateful for Eleanor Cotton’s plastic-wrapped paranoia. “… the wedding,” I mumbled.
I numbly went to pick up my things, and Leo talked behind me.
“I love you, Stacy,” he said, “and I think you love me, too.”
I grabbed the shoes, almost dropping them again, my hand was shaking so much. “Oh, really?” I said, trying to keep my voice strong even as I was unable to look at him. “You’re a cocky little man of God, aren’t you?”
“I was twenty-one. My father had just died, and I was away at school…”
I shook my head. “I told you not to go back for finals.”
“… and I screwed up. I hurt you and I wasn’t man enough to face that, so I left. Maybe I don’t deserve a second chance, but wearing a hair shirt for the rest of my life isn’t going to fix anything, either.”
“Nothing’s going to fix this,” I said. “It’s broken.”