Love Potion #9 Read online

  This wasn’t going well. I wandered out of the kitchen. The house was jammed with kids I recognized vaguely from passing them in the corridors of Muhlenberg High but didn’t really know. They seemed to be involved with each other, and apparently no one wanted to get involved with me.

  Well, I’d expected this. I might not be the most gregarious of people, but I wasn’t a chemist for nothing, and I’d come prepared. I took a small envelope from my pocket and poured its contents into the bottle I carried, then rolled the bottle between my palms, mixing the powder with the beer. I called it Love Potion #9—yeah, there were eight unsuccessful versions before it—and although it was a potion, it didn’t have anything to do with love. It was simply something I’d whipped up to make me relaxed enough to have a coherent conversation in company. It wasn’t that I couldn’t talk; it was that I tended to babble, rambling on and on and on about things that couldn’t possibly interest my captive audience. One of its side effects, though—because everything I mixed came with a side effect—was to make me laugh uproariously, the main reason why I’d never used it at school, but I thought it couldn’t hurt at Judy’s party.

  “Here’s mud in my eye,” I muttered.

  “Hey, what’ve you got?”

  I jumped, then blinked at a guy I recognized as Taylor Rogers, a junior who hung around on the outskirts of Johnny Haskell’s clique. “Beer.”

  “You sly devil. I saw you slip something into it.”

  Oh, crap.

  “Come on, tell, tell. What was it?” His eyes widened. “Roofies?”

  I started choking. “God, no!”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” he sing-songed. He grabbed the bottle, and before I could stop him, he took a healthy swallow. He stared at me, obviously waiting for something exciting to happen, but of course nothing did. He scowled and started to walk away.

  “That’s my beer!”

  “Fine.” He shoved the bottle back into my hand, then clapped his hands on each side of my face and kissed me.

  “What?

  His eyes widened. “I’m not gay!” And he booked it out of there.

  Well, that wasn’t a usual side effect. Before I could give that much consideration, Bobbi bounced up to me.

  “There you are! We were wondering when you’d show up.”

  “I got here a little while ago, but I didn’t know where you were.”

  “We’re all in the basement. Judy’s got her favorite music playing, and the gang’s dancing up a storm. Let’s get you a beer—”

  I held up my bottle, and she blinked owlishly.

  “Oh, good, you’ve got one. Okay, come with me. I’ll point out Leslie, then you go over and start flirting with her.”

  “I’m not good at—” No, it didn’t pay to tell her again flirting wasn’t my forte. Absently, I took a sip of beer. This time it went down more smoothly. And I wondered idly if this new formula would have a similar side effect on me and I’d start kissing everyone I saw.

  * * * *

  Leslie was a gorgeous brunette. Her looks were vibrant compared to Judy’s more insipid coloring—or maybe it was simply I didn’t like what Judy had done to the girl she’d once claimed was her best friend.

  I plopped myself down beside her. “How’s it going, Les?” I bit my lip when I started giggling. Well, that was interesting. Same old side effect.

  “I should go home. I’m not having fun. I mean there’s my former best friend dancing with the guy I love, who happens to be my former boyfriend. I don’t know why I let Bobbi talk me into coming to this party.”

  “You don’t think she wants you to see how happy Judy and Johnny are together?” I tipped the beer to my lips and let the liquid slide down my throat. It went down much easier with each sip. I took the bottle away, then covered my mouth with my palm to hide a discreet burp.

  Leslie stared at me as if horrified.

  “Pardon me.” I could feel a blush climb my cheeks. “I don’t usually drink beer,” I offered by way of an excuse.

  “Oh, you.” She slapped my arm lightly, but then her lower lip quivered as if she were about to cry. “Bobbi’s my friend.”

  “So was Judy.” When I realized what I’d said, all I could do was hope I’d spoken softly enough that Leslie hadn’t heard me.

  “You don’t really think Bobbi would do that to me, do you?”

  I shrugged and bit back another giggle.

  “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Drey—”

  “Oh, no. On, no.”

  “I am, trust me.”

  Her lower lip quivered again, and she looked away. And I realized she wasn’t talking about me. I looked around, and there was Judy making out with Johnny. In fact, it looked like she was trying to suck his face off his skull. This time I couldn’t stop the giggles.

  Stop it. I took myself to task. It’s not funny. Leslie is hurt—in spite of myself I snickered. “Ah, geez.” I struggled to get myself under control. “I’m so sor—”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  I turned my head to stare at Leslie, unable to believe what she’d just spat at me. “What?”

  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were blazing with fury. She grabbed the front of my shirt, yanked me toward her, and there she was, kissing me. Small whimpers escaped her mouth as she tried to shove her tongue down my throat. I tried to pull back, but she held on so tightly…God, so tightly.

  I heard a screech I thought might have come from Judy’s direction, followed by a thud and another screech, gasps from the other party-goers, and a thunderous roar.

  “What the fuck?”

  I managed to get my mouth free and turn my head. Johnny was standing not two feet away, and seriously, if looks could kill, I’d have been lying dead and burned to a cinder on the floor.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Johnny demanded. One of his large hands closed on my shoulder, and I flailed as he yanked me up and away from his former girlfriend.

  Love Potion #9 chose that moment to stop working, and I gaped at Johnny, unable to say a word.

  Leslie jumped to her feet and glared at her former boyfriend. “What I do isn’t your concern anymore, John Haskell.”

  “But…but…”

  “You go on back to Judy and kiss her, and if I want to kiss some other guy, I’ll do exactly that.”

  By this time, Judy had stalked over to us as well. “What are you doing, Johnny?”

  “Leslie’s kissing this four-eyed dweeb.”

  “So what? You’re not her boyfriend anymore.” She gave Leslie a smirk Johnny was too busy glaring at me to see, and Leslie narrowed her eyes.

  “You’re right, you slut.” She slung an arm around me. “Just make sure you keep your stinking hands off my new boyfriend.”

  Wait, Leslie had a new boyfriend? I looked around to see who it was, only realizing she meant me when she grabbed my arm and started to drag me toward the stairs. Why was everyone manhandling me? Well, okay, it was just Johnny and Leslie, but still…

  “Judy, let me the fuck go,” Johnny snapped at his girlfriend.

  A glance over my shoulder showed Johnny shoving Judy away. She staggered back, tangled her feet together, and landed on a sofa only to slide off and wind up on the floor.

  “Ow!”

  Meanwhile, Johnny wheeled around, and I backed away in an attempt to put as much distance between us as I could.

  It wasn’t enough. He came storming toward us.

  Leslie squeaked and ducked behind me, and the next thing I knew, everything exploded in a burst of pain, my eyes rolled up in my head, and everything went black.

  * * * *

  “Drey? Come on, sweetie, please open your eyes. You have to open your eyes.”

  I did? Okay, that was my mom, and when she asked me to do something, I did it. Or at least tried to. My eyelids felt as if they were glued together.

  I began to panic. “I can’t see. Why are my eyelashes stuck together?” I raised my left hand to pry them open,
then froze at the tug and sting in my forearm.

  “Don’t move, okay? You’re hooked up to an IV. I’ll explain in a minute. Let me wet a washcloth.”

  “Mom?” I could hear water running.

  “Shh.” She brushed a warm, damp washcloth gently over my eyes. “They didn’t know you’re left-handed. They called to get permission to treat you, and of course I gave it, but I didn’t get here until after they’d inserted the IV into your left arm.”

  “Why do I have an IV? Where am I?”

  “You’re at Muhlenberg General. What do you remember?”

  I tried to think, but it only made my head hurt. Finally, though, something broke through the fog. “I went to see Uncle Angelo about having a night off so I could…” My words petered out as the fog descended again. “Why did I need a night off?” I was saving up for college, and I never asked for time off.

  “Don’t fret over it. The doctors said you might have some temporary short-term memory loss.”

  “Memory loss?” I had amnesia?

  “You got quite a knock on the noggin.”

  “I did?” I angled up and rubbed the back of my head with my right hand, flinching when I discovered a knot the size of a pterodactyl egg. My lips felt swollen, my mouth throbbed, and when I probed my front teeth with my tongue, I discovered there was a gap—two were missing.

  Oh God, having my teeth straightened had cost Mom a fortune she couldn’t really afford. “I’m so sorry.” She was going to kill me.

  “Shh,” she said again. She took away the washcloth. “Try opening your eyes now.”

  This time I succeeded in raising my eyelids, and I got a view of the ceiling, although the dingy white tiles were blurry. “Can I have my glasses?”

  She slid them carefully over my face. “Is that better?”

  “Yes, thanks. What happened? Why am I in the hospital?”

  “The kids at the party you attended panicked when you were knocked unconscious and called 911.”

  “I was at a party?”

  “Yes. Apparently one of the boys hit you in the mouth when he thought you were hitting on his girlfriend.”

  I started to laugh at anyone thinking I’d hit on a girl, but it hurt, so I stopped. “If I have short-term amnesia, and I’ve been unconscious all night, how did you find out what happened?”

  “The doctors told me one of the boys who was questioned became quite chatty.”

  “Uh…yes?” Oh, crap, Love Potion #9 must have kicked in again. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  “Why? For kissing a girl? I must say I’m surprised—”

  “Yeah, I am, too. I’d have thought I’d kiss her boyfriend instead.”

  “Yes. One of the boys at the party said she’d actually initiated it. The consensus is she kissed you to make her ex-boyfriend jealous.”

  I frowned. “What? I’m not good enough to kiss on my own?”

  “Of course you are, sweetie.” She patted my hand.

  It still didn’t help, but she was my mom, and she’d support me no matter what. “What I meant is I’m sorry about losing my teeth.”

  “Don’t worry about it. As soon as you’re better, you’ll be getting implants.”

  “Mom, we can’t afford it.”

  “You’re getting implants.”

  “But—”

  “You’re getting implants.”

  * * * *

  And I did, because as it turned out, my mom—the sweet, gentle, mild-tempered woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly and who’d let my father walk out of our lives without a murmur—had had a lengthy conversation with Alexander Haskell, Johnny’s dad. The senior Haskell didn’t want the police or his insurance company involved, so he covered the entire cost out of pocket.

  I recovered enough to babysit for the Sullivans in early July—really nice kids—and I got to meet Mrs. Sullivan’s son, River, when he returned home early. He was nineteen to my seventeen, but he smiled at me and asked me out. I forgot to take Love Potion #9, but it didn’t seem necessary. I found a ton of things to talk to him about, and we had fun. He was my first kiss—well, the first one that meant anything—my first hand job, and my first blowjob. He probably would have been my first everything, but he didn’t do anal, and in spite of how curious I was about the act I viewed as the Holy Grail of sexual experiences, I didn’t push him.

  Since he went to UCLA, he had to return to California before the end of the summer, but he promised to keep in touch.

  Of course he didn’t keep his promise. Maybe my conversation hadn’t been as scintillating as I’d thought and I should have used Love Potion #9. Still, I wasn’t certain about its side effects. From what I’d learned from the gossip mill, after the ambulance had taken me from Judy’s party, Taylor Rogers had tried to kiss every boy there, and then insisted he was straight and complained for almost a week about having the headache from hell.

  I decided I’d better experiment with the formula and see if I could come up with something better for Love Potion #10.

  By the time school started in the fall, Johnny and Leslie had gotten back together, then broken up again, Judy and Johnny were again a couple, and Leslie and Bobbi were dating—each other.

  As for me, I’d turned eighteen, I’d had my first boyfriend, I had two brand new, gleaming white front teeth, most of my memories of that night back, and something I’d never expected—a reputation for being a Don Juan. It seemed that before the effects of the potion had worn off to be replaced by that headache, Taylor had regaled the entire student body of Muhlenberg High with the events of that night.

  I enjoyed being eighteen and my newfound status as a stud, and I dated a wide sampling of the male seniors. And it was possible I just might have achieved my own personal Holy Grail, although a gentlemen doesn’t tell.

  Another of the high points of my senior year was having Mr. Beaumont sign my yearbook. He wrote, Looking forward to reading about all the great things you’ll accomplish. Then he said, “May I have your cell phone?”

  His request puzzled me, but I gave him my phone, and he’d put his phone number into my contacts. He’d put his phone number into my contacts! I could hardly catch my breath.

  “Call me if you ever have anything you’d like to talk about.”

  “Thank you.” We’d had some interesting discussions, and I appreciated his offer.

  I attempted to give Uncle Angelo my notice a couple of weeks before Mom put me on an Amtrak to Boston in mid-August.

  “No, I won’t take it.” In spite of the fact it was a verbal notice, he folded his hands behind his back as if that would somehow prevent him from accepting it. “Your job will be here if you ever decide to come home.”

  “Thank you.” His kind words choked me up, and I threw myself at him and hugged him. “Thank you.”

  So while Frank Sinatra could sing about seventeen being a very good year, for me, eighteen turned out to be even better.

  Chapter 2

  Throughout my years in academia, I experimented with various formulas, although not a genuine love potion, which always struck me as being too nonconsensual, as if the person who offered it to the object of their affection was stripping them of their free will. So the formulas I worked on were versions of #9. I just wanted someone to have enough confidence to go up to a handsome guy and strike up an intelligent conversation without having it devolve into verbal diarrhea. And I was certain success would be within my grasp in the near future.

  I got my bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard at twenty—all those AP classes helped—and during those two years, I used my down time to perfect various formulas. Unfortunately, what they turned out to be were perfect disappointments. However, one thing I’d learned from Mom was to throw away nothing; I filed away the failed formulas and spent my summers working on others.

  I obtained my master’s from Caltech at twenty-two and worked on more formulas. One turned out so well my adviser suggested I take out a patent on it, which I did, and which brought me enough money I w
as able to buy my mom the rental house we’d lived in and which she loved.

  I successfully defended my dissertation based on another of my formulas, and at twenty-five, I brought home my PhD from MIT. I took out a patent on this formula also, and I became wealthy beyond dreams of avarice…

  It would have been pretty awesome if my life turned out like that, wouldn’t it? Only that wasn’t how it went.

  The “knock on my noggin” did more than futz with my short-term memory; it shorted the neuron paths in my brain completely. I didn’t realize it right away, of course. My senior year was a breeze, and if I’d suddenly found it a little difficult retaining what had previously come so easily to me, I put it down to “senioritis” and told no one about it.

  My first semester in Harvard, though—that was a total nightmare. My grades fell from an A+ to a D- in a matter of weeks. To begin with, my professors thought my failure to live up to the promise I’d exhibited in high school might be a case of going to hell with myself because I was eighteen and away from home for the first time. They never took into account I lived for chemistry and in the normal course of events would never let anything come between me and it. They turned to sad-eyed admonitions, and when that didn’t seem to help, they suggested councilors, going on the assumption I was willfully wasting my talents. As much as they might think I was careless with my intellect, the fact my IQ seemed to have dropped scared me spitless, and I began to see a shrink recommended by the staff at the university’s mental health facility.

  Dr. Griffin, who wore a sweater vest and wire-framed glasses and had a goatee streaked with silver, asked in-depth, open-ended questions, hmmed, then sent me for an MRI. That was how I came to learn an actual problem with my brain was behind my declining grades.

  “One hundred thirty isn’t bad. Quite a few people would be satisfied to have such an IQ.”

  “Not if it was as high as mine was.” It had dropped more than seventy points. “I can’t make heads or tails of chemical formulas that used to be a snap for me. How can I be grateful for that?”