Love Potion #9

By Bill Suboski

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

So hometown hero Trisha Vector is coming back to verdant Edgewood, fifteen years after she graduated high school and fled town. She has had a satisfying musical career and an embarrassing series of turns as an actress. Her return is highly celebrated – this is the first time back since she left.

But that of course is not true. She was here nine years ago, to attend her brother’s funeral. And she has quietly returned to spend time with family. So maybe it is more accurate to say that this is an official return. But most of her fans probably buy the first time back. I know she has been back many times because I would recognize her in a pitch black alley on a moonless night on the darkest evening of the year.

` Whether in a wig or disguise or even dressed as a man I would always spot Trisha Vector. This is not a blessing, more like a curse, a holdover from when we were teenagers in love and went to Prom, and made eternal promises, and then she left forever. Welcome back, Trish. I hope you enjoy your visit.

The diner will be busier. Trisha’s music is popular. Fans and reporters are already flooding in. I have Saturday off, but I am not going to the free concert in the park. As much as I loved Trisha, I have never cared for her music. I will go home, watch some TV, sit on the porch and relax. I feel numb, neither happy nor wounded. When she left she took with her the life I thought we would share. I have this life now, and it’s a good one. I like it.

Alex the reporter stops in and gets dinner times two to go. He has been hanging out with old Sal out at the lake. Alex is funny. He says he has a nose for news. But he doesn’t see the obvious. Whenever I point out some of the strange coincidences in Edgewood he investigates and debunks it. And yet, he claims he saw a ghost out at the old Starlight motel.

The dinner regulars begin filtering in. Phil mostly cooks and I look after the dining room, but we switch it up. Fred comes in for his burger. Leroy always gets the daily special. The afternoon becomes evening then late night. We get another surge when the bars start to close then long hours of emptiness. Then finally, either late late night or early early morning, Esmerelda and the others come in. That’s when I know my shift is ending.

Trisha arrives the next morning. There is a parade but that is before I get to work at six at night. There is a lot of talk. Apparently Rich Jenkins has gone missing. He bought the cottage thirty years ago and has been complaining about it ever since. He claims he was lied to, that the septic was like that on purchase, and he has refused to fix it.

So it is the talk of the day. People come here to be informed as much as for food. Everyone is commenting on Rich’s disappearance. And not one person has expressed regret. Rich is gone, possibly dead? Well, well, isn’t that interesting. Over twenty years, Rich has bad-mouthed Sal. Yet Sal never reciprocates.

People are happy tonight. Maybe it is early summer, Maybe it is just the good weather. Maybe it is Trisha. Or Rich; who knows? But people are happier today than usual, smiling more, being more polite to each other. And it is contagious, and the mood in town is upbeat. I smile more than usual. Despite the supernatural goings-on, I am happy here in Edgewood.

It is only much later, in that blank time between three and Esmerelda that I sink back again into my funk. I am just thirty-two, alone and drifting. I can drift, for now. But increasingly I face the realization that I most likely will spend my life here in Edgewood. And that really isn’t a bad thing, really.

The next day is Saturday; there is excitement in town and we are much busier than usual. I swing in for breakfast but it is my day off. There are some local bands also on the billet. I live just a few blocks from downtown. The city plays the concert through the public address system. The music really isn’t that bad. And the first time I hear her voice doesn’t hurt at all. I actually smile and am happy. She always sounded like an angel. Peace, Trisha. May god stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

The next day is Sunday and the brief festival ushered in by Trisha Vector is winding down. This weekend’s excitement is a mayfly, born for a day. Young girls in brightly colored dresses trail banners between them. There is another parade, this one impromptu. Hot dog vendors have set up downtown. I see many young people wearing Trisha t shirts. Tomorrow we go back to our everyday lives.

At noon Trisha speaks at the main square. She thanks the citizens of Edgewood for welcoming her. She declares that Edgewood is the best little town ever. She is from Edgewood, she reminds us. She is now going to visit regularly. She has missed Edgewood. She then declares that she is donating $100,000 to the county museum fund. She ends her speech by touching her open palms to her mouth and miming kisses that she tosses out to the world. After that she gets into her limousine which quietly drives away.

Be well, Patricia Vatakinnen. All success.

That Sunday at the diner is quiet, as expected. We have the hardcore regulars of course. But there really is no later bar traffic and by one in the morning we are almost empty. But almost is not empty. There are the two men in booth three and the lone woman at the end of the bar. Finally, just shy of two am the two men pay their tab and depart.

Once the door closes the woman raises her hand and appears to be about to say something. But I cut her off and speak first.

“How have you been, Patty?”

“How have you been, Chris?”

“Fine,” I say as I absently wipe the counter down. “I am doing well.”

“I wanted to call. I promise I did. But I couldn’t call the night I left, or the week, or the month. Time just got away from me. “ She pauses. “I know you love this place, Chris. Taking you from Edgewood would be like pulling a fish out of water. And there was no way I would get anywhere staying here.”

“All true,” I say as I smile. “I’m glad you succeeded.”

“Not yet. Not yet I haven’t. I meant what I promised. There is still someone missing.”

She is small and pensive and vulnerable in that moment. I believe her. I always have. She is in this moment quite far from her loud and proud stage persona and could easily be again that seventeen-year-old whose eyes shone so brightly with future possibility.

“That was…a long time ago. And it’s still true, Patty. You can’t be here and I can’t be anywhere else.”

“I’m sorry, Chris. But too much time went by. I was too embarrassed to call. I should have. I’m sorry. But I am here now.”

“And nothing has changed,” I say, still wiping. “That was fifteen years ago. We are who we are.”

“And who are we, Chris? Two people closing in on middle age? Or are we those two kids who just made love on a blanket on the forest floor for the first time and declared their undying love? Or other people entirely? Are we too angry to forgive?”

“You left.” I say it flatly, a fact rather than an accusation.

“You stayed.”

Somehow I had never considered that. I always subtly blamed her for leaving. But I am also the one at fault. I refused to leave. It is all relative.

“Would you have come if I had asked you?”

“No.”

“Then we are still fifteen years ago and still at impasse. And I love you.”

“I love you, Patty. Always have. Always will.”

She sings a moment.

“You can make mountains ring, or make angels cry…”

She sets the two bottles on the countertop. They are the size of eyedropper bottles, an opaque blue. Each one amounts to the volume of a single shot of alcohol. Patty broadly smiles and laughs the hefty laugh of a woman grown strong.

“I got them from Esmerelda. She called them Love Potion Number Nine.”

And she laughs tiny bells ringing in the breeze, the sound of spring and summer. Just then a teenage couple noisily enters. He is being very loud and miming drunkenness. They want some black coffees to go. Young people, indeed; put them behind the wheel of a car and they think they can push everyone around.

The girl is staring at Patty while I get the coffee. But Patty is wearing a big floppy hat, a blonde wig and sunglasses. Still, the young woman stares, and almost speaks, but thinks better of it.

“On the house, pal. Drink these up before you drive again.”

The young man giggles in a way that is both childish and effeminate. I am reminded of when young children are encouraged to show off their big bellies. Patty and I were not like them. They leave and Patty has opened both bottles.

“What happens,” she says, “If two people who already love each other drink a love potion?”

“Let’s find out.”

We make eye contact and link arms and each empty our bottle.

🩷🩷🩷

Bill is an aspiring fiction writer with a background in computer programming. He is still trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up. Born in Indiana, Bill is a transplanted Hoosier living as a Buckeye by way of Canada and the Netherlands. Contact Bill at WSuboski@yahoo.com.