Potions of Love
Chapter 6
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
The temperature has continued to drop over the last half an hour, and Josh is having difficulty staying warm. He wishes he could start the motor of his new black Jeep Gladiator, but the SUV already looks out of place in this neighborhood, and he doesn't want to draw further attention to himself by sitting in an idling vehicle.
He is about ready to give up waiting for Rick and his buddies to leave the mysterious-looking house when he sees some movement through a small opening in the curtains that hang in the bay window. He sits up straight, moves his seat back into its original position, and continues to wait.
Earlier Tuesday evening, when the guys arrived at Madame V's
Madam V motions the guys to walk through the darkened entryway and follow her into a small room on the south corner of her house. A rustic table with an antique lamp sitting on top was on the left side of the room. To the right, near the bay window, were two overstuffed armchairs. To Rick's amazement, they walk into the backroom divided by velvet drapes, and he sees what every gypsy has in rooms like these, a crystal ball.
Pointing to a straight-backed chair with a bright red cushion, Madame V says to Rick, "You sit there." Turning to Tom and LT, she points to the two chairs by the window and, with a no-nonsense tone, says, "You two sit over there, and you do not say a word!"
Rick sits down at the large table with Tom and LT behind him and out of his field of vision. Madame V walks over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room and pulls out what looks like an old Sherlock Holmes-style handheld magnifier. She moves to the chair on the other side of the vast table, sits down, and stares at Rick.
Madame V's silence continues to unnerve Rick to the point where he can no longer remain silent, and he blurts out, "Ok, I'll bite. What is going on with this little gypsy-like setup?" His sarcastic tone causes Tom to cough into his hand, and when Rick looks over his shoulder, Tom is shaking his head, trying to discourage Rick from continuing with his current attitude.
Rick understands Tom's point. He then turns and readjusts himself in the hard-backed chair, looking at Madame V, and says, "I'm sorry, I meant no disrespect."
Madame V does not acknowledge his apology. She stretches out her left hand and, in a muffled tone, says, "Show me your palm, college boy."
Rick exhales loudly but extends his hand as instructed. Madame V pulls his hand even closer and examines his palm with the oversized magnifying glass. She continues to look at his palm, tilting her head back and forth, finally saying, "So, so sad."
Rick responds by saying, "What do you mean?"
"No love!" The woman exclaims. Seeing Rick's confused look, she continues, "College boy here has no love in his life, and it looks like he never will!"
Rick yanks his hand away from the gypsy woman and, in a high-pitched tone, says, "How do you know that?"
Madame V remains calm and again pulls Rick's palm back under her magnifying glass and says, "You have bad experiences with women, no?"
Rick continues to sit speechless across from the woman, wondering how in the world he ended up here. He can't make eye contact with either Tom or LT as they are sitting behind him, so he cannot sense how they react to what is transpiring around him.
Madame V continues, "Are you gay? Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just means that we need to take a different approach."
Rick chokes and replies, "No!"
Tom and LT begin to chuckle at Madame V's question until she turns her attention on them, which causes them to settle down quickly.
"Madame V again comments, "I have never seen a man who is this bad with women. But you wait, I have something that should be able to help you." She continues to shake her head as she stands and leaves the Parlor area heading to another part of the house.
Rick spins in his chair and glares at Tom. "What have you gotten me into this time, guys?"
Tom smiles and says, "Why are you mad? I am just trying to help one of my best buds!" LT tries to hold back his laugh just as Madame V returns to the Parlor.
Madame V sits back down in her chair and places two bottles on the table in front of Rick. One is a sizable ornate-style bottle you may have seen in pictures from far eastern areas of the world. Wrapped around the long thin neck of the bottle sits a pewter ring in the shape of a snake with deep red jewels embedded in its eyes. The other is a smaller clear bottle with an aerosol sprayer attached to its top.
With her hand holding onto the large bottle, Madame V speaks once again in her somewhat broken English, saying, "What is in this bottle will cause any woman who even remotely likes you to become extremely attracted to you and may fall in love with you."
Rick's mouth drops open, and he can barely squeak out a single word response of, "What?"
Madame V looks Rick directly in the eyes and firmly says, "Yes, you must be very careful with this potion! And I repeat, you must be sure that the woman already has some feelings for you. Otherwise, you could end up turning off the woman who likes you and end up attracting other women who have never shown an interest in you."
Again, Madame V waits a moment, watching Rick's reactions. She sees a deep look of unbelief coupled with that of extreme nervousness. She continues explaining, "To administer the potion, you must first spray it in your mouth, then it will only work on the woman if it can be shared either by a kiss or by whispering a special word into her ear. The word is perfect!"
Rick's reaction is beyond skeptical. With a raised voice, he responds, "I am a third-year pharmacology student, and I understand drug composition and their interactions with other components, and this makes absolutely no sense."
Madame V is getting frustrated by Rick's tone. She removes the snake ring from the large bottle and slides a glass tube inside to draw out a few drops of the potion. She places the drops of potion on a piece of waxed paper, folds it, and slides it over to Rick. She tries to emphasize again what the potion can do, but Rick isn't buying it.
In a very dismissive tone, Madame V says, "Well, Mr. College boy, take this paper and run all of the tests you want and see what happens." Madame V's tone is now rather scary, so Rick accepts the folded-up paper and nods his head.
Madame V then stands and looks at Tom and says, "I think it's time you boys left." They all hesitate, looking at one another, then she says, "NOW!" Her deep, almost angry voice even unnerves Tom.
Tom looks at Madame V, and in a more apologetic voice, says, "Ok, Madame V, and thank you."
All three guys quickly turn and head for the front door, and none of them are looking backward. Madame V follows them to the door and practically slams it shut after their departure. They rush down the sidewalk just as the earlier requested cab rounds the corner. As soon as the taxi comes to a stop, all three practically dive into the backseat and ask the driver to take them back to the bar to get their cars.
Josh had straightened his car seat back into its driving position when he saw the three men almost race out of the darkened house. He caught a glimpse of the lady in the doorway just before she slammed the door. She is dressed like a gypsy, so maybe the rumors about her being a fortune teller are true. But that's not what's important at this moment.
He starts his Jeep and discreetly follows the taxi back to the bar, where Rick and his friends exit the cab and head directly to their cars. Something is going on, but he cannot figure out any more details tonight, so he heads back to his apartment.
The cab returns to the bar, and the guys climb out of the backseat and look at one another, but they do not speak of Madame V or anything that just transpired. They bid each other goodnight and go to their cars.
Rick's drive home is highly unsettling. He is playing back in his mind everything that had happened at Madame V's and is struggling to accept what she had told him about the so-called potion. He is a medical professional, and absolutely nothing she said is remotely possible in the world of pharmacology. And even if it is real, he is torn. He knows he cares deeply for Kate, and he doesn't want some mythical formula driving her to him. He wants the real, the natural Kate.
Rick pulls into his usual parking spot in front of his apartment and enters the front door. He heads into the kitchen to find that Neddie is back to her ornery self and has spread garbage all over the floor.
After hanging his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair, he begins cleaning up the mess. Neddie is nowhere in sight, so he assumes she is sensing she has pushed him too far tonight and is hiding under his bed. He finishes the cleanup, then grabs a spoon and pulls his last pint of Potato Chip Fudge ice cream out of the freezer. He decides to watch a late-night TV program in hopes it will get his mind off of the evening's bizarre activities.
Rick is unaware that Madame V's small piece of waxed paper with the potion drops on it fell out of his jacket and slid under the kitchen table.
After an hour of watching mindless television, Rick takes his spoon and empty ice cream carton out to the kitchen. He turns off all of the lights and heads to bed.
Later Neddie comes out of her hiding place and begins her nightly prowling of the apartment. She hops up on a table to look out the window and check out the neighborhood, then jumps down and walks by both doors to sniff and ensure no unwanted guests are trying to enter her domain. She heads out to the kitchen to see if her human has remembered to put out her fresh food and water.
As she enters the kitchen, her sensitive nose picks up on a new aroma she has never encountered before in the apartment. She roams around and finds a piece of paper under the table. The strange smell is coming from that paper. She uses her paws and teeth to tear into the object and finds a bright red liquid that she immediately begins to lick.
Neddie acts like she does when Rick treats her to catnip in about a minute, only this feeling is much more intense. She begins racing around the apartment and exits out a window that Rick had forgotten to close.
A loud sound outside Rick's bedroom window wakes him up from a deep sleep. Rick heads into the kitchen, where the noise reaches an ear-piercing level. He opens the rear door to the apartment in hopes he can figure out what is going on. Just as the door opens, Neddie races back in, yowling with her ears straight up and her tail beating side-to-side in her, "I am ticked off, so get out of my way, mood."
He turns to look back into the yard and sees dozens of cats racing toward his back door. He slams the door shut just in time, so none of the cats can get into his apartment. But he hears their screams and their persistent scratching on his door. He turns, and Neddie is still running through the apartment in some heightened state and refuses to let him even touch her. After about 20 minutes, she calms down, jumps up on the couch, and instantly falls asleep.
Rick is baffled as to what in the world has gotten into his cat. He reaches out to grab his coat and hang it in the closet when he notices the wax-like paper that Madame V had given him, lying on the floor.
He drops onto a nearby chair and bends down to pick up the torn pieces of paper. He sees that there are still a couple of drops of the bright red potion left on the corner edge of one of the larger pieces. He carefully wraps the waxed paper back up, slips it into a small plastic ziplock bag, then places it inside the metal pantry cupboard in the corner of the kitchen.
Rick sits back down on the kitchen chair, overwhelmed to think that the potion must be authentic and it works as Madame V had described. He lowers his head and thinks to himself,
"Now, what do I do? The only person I trust to help me figure out the potion components is Kate. If I approach her tomorrow during our lab, what will she say? Should I tell her about the adventure the guys and I had tonight? Is she going to think I am crazy when I tell her what Madame V says the potion can do to people? If I tell her the entire story, am I going to blow any chance I have left to be with her in the future?"
Rick stands up, planning to head back to bed, but still thinking aloud.
"If I am going to have any chance with Kate tomorrow,"
Rick glances at his watch and sees it's 2:30 am.
"Make that; if I am going to have any chance with Kate today, I have to get some sleep."
Rick turns the kitchen light off and walks back through the living room on his way back to bed. He sees Neddie, still sound asleep, on the couch and kneels beside her and gently rubs her head, quietly saying, "Well girl, believe it or not, you are my first test subject for this crazy potion. Who knows, maybe you will be part of my answer to this entire mess."
Rick stands back up and pets Neddie one more time before turning out the light and going into his bedroom. He climbs back under the covers hoping he can get back to sleep before his alarm goes off at 7:00 am.
Rick turns over and pounds his pillow a couple of times before finally settling down. Maybe it's due to his sheer exhaustion that he does go back to sleep about 10 minutes after his head hits his pillow.
Rick surprisingly sleeps until his alarm goes off at 7:00 am. After hitting the stop button on the offensive-sounding device, he turns over to see that Neddie is in her usual place at the foot of his bed, but she's still asleep. He wonders if that's something to note about the possible effects of the potion, as she is always up walking on his chest or trying to nuzzle into his neck when the alarm goes off?
Rick's thoughts then jump to Kate as reality hits that he will be seeing her in less than two hours at their Wednesday lab. He is not sure what he should expect or how to approach her. He again exhales a deep breath, shaking his head, thinking he hates the unknown when it concerns her.
Before getting out of bed, he reaches over and gently rubs Neddie's favorite place between her ears. Her twitching tail is his only sign that she is aware of his presence. Rick continues thinking that the potion must be a strange concoction of elements if it can throw a cat for a loop.
He gives Neddie one last rub, then gets up and heads to the shower. As the hot water runs over his head and body, his thoughts again shift to Kate and how he can approach her and ask for her help working on the potion's composition. He closes his eyes and leans his head against the shower wall, thinking,
"Why am I even pursuing this potion thing? There is no way I would try and use it on Kate. That would be so unfair to play that type of mean trick on her to get her attention. What am I doing?"
Rick steps out of the shower without answering his questions and finishes his morning routine. As he walks into the living room on his way to the kitchen, he notices Neddie has moved from the bedroom out to the couch, but she has gone back to sleep. He is beginning to worry about her since Madame V had said the potion would wear off in about four hours. But of course, she hadn't said anything about its effects on animals.
Rick heads into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and his usual breakfast, thinking this might be the only 'usual' part of his entire day. Before leaving for class, he puts fresh food and water down for Neddie. The rustling sound of the food bag penetrates Neddie's napping state as she slowly walks into the kitchen for her morning treats.
Rick smiles down at her and says, "Good girl. It's great to see you up and about." Sometimes he swears the cat has human emotions as she stops eating and gives him one of her patterned kitty glares before going back to her kibbles.
Rick chuckles to himself, gets his coat from the closet, and prepares to head out the door. Neddie's quiet meow reminds him to grab the bag containing the remaining drops of potion before he heads to the University.
On his twenty-minute drive to the Science and Medicine building for his Wednesday lab with Kate, his stomach is starting to churn and feels like a bundle of knots. His nervous feelings about approaching Kate increase the closer he gets to the lab building.
Rick pulls into his usual parking area and reaches into the backseat to grab his backpack. He sits in his Jeep for a few more minutes before opening the door and telling himself,
"Here we go. This could mean the end of my relationship with Kate, or possibly open the door to try and get back to where we were last week."
Rick briefly closes his eyes, hoping it will be the latter.