Love Charms, page 4

"So what was all that?" Bob asked as I walked back into the apartment. He gestured with the bologna sandwich in his hand.
"It's nothing," I replied, dully.
He eyed me funny, then asked "And what were you playing with?"
I was caught off guard by the question and snapped at him. "It's nothing all right?"
"What's up with you," he persisted. "Are you weirding out on me?"
"Okay look, it's...it's one of those...you know, 'things'," I said agitated, "for your dresser drawers. That make them smell nice. All right?"
"Okay, fine," he said putting his hands out, bobbing his head.
"All right? Okay?" I shouldered past him into the room, unable to keep my mouth shut. "What, did you think I was playing with rag dolls or something?"
"Hey, I don't know. You're the one with the all the screwy classes."

I continued past him down the hallway, back to my room. It would be easy to repeat the ceremony, I told myself. Provided I did it by midnight, it should still work. It might even be better to do it right after sunset so it would not be too dark -- so I could tell what I was doing, since obviously I'd been a little haphazard the night before. I made sure to put the JAIME and JOE poppets in the same dresser drawer, and CRAIG isolated in his own. The action filled me with a vague feeling of dread, that I might open up the next day's campus paper to read Craig had been found suffocated in a dumpster or something. But, it was just as easy to remind myself my dresser was not air-tight. My dresser was probably just as confining, and perhaps just as messy, as Craig's own apartment. I could pretend that all I was doing was restricting him, "grounding" him. While Jaime and I were together, Craig was simply off on his own.

It was actually rather easy to get Bob out of the apartment that evening. I merely talked him into walking over to Main street and picking up some burgers. As soon as he was gone, I pulled down the shades in my room and started my ceremony. I felt confident it would work this time, since the brilliant full moon was already shining. JAIME and JOE were bound together, CRAIG was lying in socks, and all I had to do was wait out the weekend.

Saturday seemed to go by fast, to start with. I spent the morning watching exhibition baseball on TV, and then in the afternoon the floor rounded up enough people to play a rudimentary softball game. I was my usual uninspired self. Sunday, however, was excruciatingly boring. It was a better looking day than Saturday, but for some reason I spent much too much of it indoors. My obligatory phonecall home did not bring us closer together, as the commercials would say; it instead made me feel that much farther away. There was little activity on the floor, as if everyone else felt this was a lazy Sunday too. But time was passing too slowly indoors. I needed to do something, if only to take my mind off things. Bob, slouched in his beat-up easy chair, eyed me silently as I got up and grabbed my jacket. I wasn't really dressed for it, but I talked myself into going over to the fieldhouse and running laps inside. I tried to concentrate on my running but was still too preoccupied to keep track. I'm pretty sure I jogged a mile, which for me takes up a long time.

Bob was still watching TV when I got back. I was not surprised to find he hadn't started anything for dinner, although the room did have a kind of burnt smell to it. I wondered if Bob had attempted to cook something and had failed. The failing part I could understand, but the attempt part did not sound like Bob at all. He was staring at me as I came in. "Did you make something?" I asked, before I could consider whether I should've mentioned it or not.

"It's dinner time, right?" he asked, starting to grin. "You hungry?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure. Did you make something? or do you feel like getting a pizza."
He didn't answer, but continued grinning. "You know, you really surprised me."
I stopped and looked back at him. "Surprised you how."
"You know," he said, grinning and nodding. "I didn't know you were even into it."
"What." I tried to ask it evenly, but my shields had gone up and a red alert was sounding off in my head.
"The pot," he answered. "In your dresser. I hope you don't mind, I did yours and your friend's, but if you're into it I'll just give you some of mine next time."
I didn't even hear the last part. I simply stared at him. The roar in my head was so loud I could barely tell I was speaking, "What pot in my dresser."
"Those little sachets, or whatever. You know, the ones you were hiding in your dresser..."
"Where are they."
"Huh? I threw 'em out, I guess."

I closed my eyes. I gripped the top of a chair, closed my eyes, stood there for a few seconds, and then walked into the kitchen area. I crouched down and opened the cupboard beneath the sink. I tipped forward the wastepaper basket and saw the two small limp cloth shells, now stained but still clearly marked JOE and JAIME. "I don't know," Bob was continuing behind me. "It's pretty cool packaging, but I think you got ripped off. The stuff really reeked, and I didn't get much of a buzz off it."

That's it, I thought. It's all over. It's finished. It's done with. It's lost and gone. How appropriate to find it in the trash because that's all it ever was. Somewhere, above the silver blue clouds the moon was full but its power would never find my magic charms. The spell would never be. I would never have Jaime. I guess, taking all these setbacks into consideration, it seemed like it must never have been meant to happen. I had tried to test my fate, to rework it in my favor; but my cruel fate had been victorious. This thought, the inexorability of it, was more painful and crushing than simply seeing my work undone. It was over. Not only was it over, but it was never meant to be. She was done for me. I couldn't even say I'd lost her, since she had never ever been mine.

I don't remember ordering the pizza, but one came. I don't remember eating any of it either, although the box sat next to me at the kitchen table. I had a book open in front of me, but I don't recall what. I had a notebook open too, into which I idly scribbled. I pretended to study, but in fact I just sat there as lifeless and as feeling as stone. The weight in my chest suggested I might be close to tears, but crying would take effort, and I had none to give. I just sat there. I just sat there, until suddenly I got up, went to my room, and crawled into bed.