Love Potion #2. Margot Early

asked me to join you for your Women of Strength herb walk, if you remember.”

      Every weekend, Cameron planned something for Women of Strength, a program she’d instituted at the Women’s Resource Center to help battered women regain their self-confidence through physical activity. Sometimes it was a caving expedition, sometimes a self-defense class, sometimes a bicycle ride or hike.

      “I’m sick. I might have to beg off,” Cameron said. She was sick because it was absurd to think she might have become pregnant despite birth control, but it was far from absurd that after such a very interesting—such a truly great night—with Paul, she could hardly think of anything but him. Never, never, had she experienced anything like it.

      “You’re never sick,” said Denise.

      The herb walk might distract her from Paul—if only any woman but his mother were leading it. Well, there was no begging off. She murmured, “True,” with distraction and hoped fervently that Clare could not or at least would not read her mind.

      “IF A PERSON has already drunk a love potion, what happens if someone gives them a different one?” Cameron asked Clare Cureux. Because Graham Corbett had drunk a love potion, and he was now in love with Mary Anne. That he’d never been the intended recipient of the potion was moot. And Graham Corbett would still be a much better choice for Cameron than…

      Don’t think about him.

      Paul’s mother, her gray-threaded hair in one long braid, glared at Cameron. “Who are you talking about? Not that radio—”

      “No one,” Cameron insisted. “It’s just theoretical.” In fact, she still couldn’t help fearing that Clare, who had “the Sight,” might somehow know what had transpired the night before with her only son. These questions were Cameron’s way of trying to distract Clare, to make Clare think that Cameron was focused on Graham.

      Which she wasn’t at the moment. She did feel differently about Graham after sleeping with Paul.

      “The answer is that nothing would happen. Nothing.” Clare gave her another irritated look. Though Clare sold love potions, she did so reluctantly, always trying to talk the buyer out of it first. Let nature take its course, was her unchanging advice.

      Bridget said, “How is it going, by the way, Cameron?”

      No doubt she thought her question suitably vague. Cameron made a noncommittal gesture with her hand. So-so.

      Now, mother cast an appalled look at daughter, then coldly turned away.

      “It wasn’t a love potion,” Cameron interjected.

      She hadn’t been thrilled to find that Paul’s sister was along on this walk. Cameron felt edgy enough in Clare’s presence without the danger of Bridget’s sometimes greater perceptiveness.

      Cameron was surprised so many women were interested in herbs. Four had turned out for the first herb walk and eight for this one, not including Cameron, Denise, Clare or Bridget.

      Bridget tossed her long dreadlocks and said, almost reverently, “Coltsfoot. Look, Mom.”

      Cameron stepped back to let the other women, three of whom had left abusive spouses and taken refuge at the Women’s Resource Center’s “safe house,” come in closer to see the plant and hear Clare describe its medicinal properties. Like nearly everyone else on the walk, these women had wanted to know who hit Cameron, if she was in trouble, what they could do, how she could let this happen to her. They seemed skeptical that she’d actually walked into a cabinet door.

      Cameron thought she might lose her job over this black eye. She was supposed to be helping women to escape from abusive situations, and now her clients thought she was lying about how she’d gotten hurt.

      Clare didn’t suspect her of lying. When Cameron had explained, she’d simply sniffed and told her the sort of poultice she should have applied at once.

      Another memory of the night before—more a question—What had Paul really felt?—needled her. She had to stop thinking about the night before. It was nothing to get romantic about. She tried to distract herself with the fear of pregnancy, the illusion of a tiny hole. Surely a meaningful amount of sperm couldn’t get through. There was no way.

      Of course, it was Paul’s father, David, a former obstetrician, who had once redefined competition to Cameron, when she was stressing over her chances before a 10K. “My dear, as I am constantly reminding my children, you are the sperm that made it. You’ll never face competition like that again.”

      She didn’t care. It was a silly fear. And if she got pregnant, it was only what women had been doing forever, what women’s bodies were made for.

      Had she been crazy to sleep with Paul? She could not afford to feel this way about him. She needed to be normal with him. If he thought she felt romantically toward him— She almost winced at the thought of it. Being in love with Paul would be a hundred times worse than being in love with Graham.

      Chief Logan State Park Zoo

      PAUL HAD FOUGHT as hard as anyone to get the pair of pale-faced saki monkeys to the zoo. What was more, he’d managed his fight the old-fashioned way, schmoozing with wealthy individuals who might become zoo benefactors. He’d wanted no part of his boss’s “Hold A Baby Snow Leopard” money-making scheme.

      He was, at this time, head keeper of primates. In the past, Paul had worked in reptiles and with the felids, but for the past four years he’d worked with the zoo’s ring-tailed lemurs, black howler monkeys and chimpanzees. He found it difficult to go home at night sometimes because he was attached to these animals.

      A grad student named Helena Ruffles was doing research with one of their chimps, a three-year-old female named Portia. Paul loved to watch Portia learn words. Portia loved Paul, who had known her since she was a baby. In fact, he often said that Portia was his favorite female.

      But not at the moment.

      What he wanted most of all was to make love with Cameron again. She was an astoundingly good-looking woman. He’d always thought so. Her face didn’t have Mary Anne’s model’s bones, but her smile melted his heart. Seeing her gave him the same feeling as diving into the river in the summer, going barefoot in damp grass, picking up his custom guitar…. However, what he’d always felt for her was friendship, and now he wondered why. It bothered him that Cameron had drunk something Bridget had given her, but he hadn’t accepted a drink from Bridget lately, not even a glass of water.

      His father, long divorced from Paul’s mother, was an utter skeptic when it came to the love potions. Paul wished he could be a skeptic.

      Paul did not want to be married. Women were treacherous and powerful, and he preferred a bachelor’s existence. So he wasn’t sure he should make love with Cameron again. Cameron was…sensitive. The local perception of her was of a man-hating champion of women’s rights, directing the Women’s Resource Center. Paul himself sometimes accused her of being that way. But on some subjects, she had the heart of a marshmallow. And her favorite reading material was pre-1960 romance fiction.

      Paul found saki hair below the trees. Was the male still pulling hairs out of his tail? He glanced up, hunting for the primates, and found the male doing just that. Paul slipped back into the keeper area and returned with several dog toys. He particularly liked the flying monkey toy that screamed when you shot it up into the trees. He sent it flying upward so that the male could go retrieve it.

      The female got it instead.

      The male pulled more hairs out of his tail. Paul threw a dog’s Kong toy on the ground and also tossed out a plush gingerbread man, who promptly began singing, “Run, run, as fast as you can…”

      He should at least go by Cameron’s after work. Just to…reestablish normality.

      CAMERON HAD RIDDEN her bike to the trailhead for the herb walk, and she rode her bike home afterward. During a brief stop at the grocery store, a patron of the Women’s Resource Center asked, suspiciously,