by Nancy Warren
“There was one bottle left that Olive found. Olive figured we could do the whole town and you and Joe a big favor if we could get the two of you together since you were doing such a pathetic job on your own.”
“You didn’t…” But she knew from their faces they had.
“It never caused any problems for anyone before. It was Dr. Emmet’s secret recipe but it was only some herbs and things. So we opened the last bottle and slipped some to you and Joe. You have to take it with alcohol before it works, see.”
“That night,” she said, seeing all too clearly. “The wine.”
“Yes.” Olive took up the tale again. “It’s never made anybody sick before, but we’re wondering if maybe it got a little stale.”
“Stale?” Emily sounded like a harpy, but she didn’t care. She was livid. “Emmet Beaver’s been dead forty years. My God. You don’t even know what’s in that stuff, or what might have gone wrong. You could have killed us both. That elixir is obviously rotten.” She slapped a hand to her chest. “Joe could sue us if he finds out. Oh, this is awful.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. You didn’t get sick. I gave you an extra big dose.”
“You did what?”
“Sure. You’ve been hanging around old ladies too long. You ask me, you’re starting to act like one.”
Olive snorted. “Not like you.”
“Well, maybe she should act like me. You both should, you’d have a great time. And just so’s you both know, I took a dose of cordial that night and gave some to a … friend of mine. It worked fine. Exactly the way it’s supposed to. Joe got sick because he works all the time and ate like a pig that night. You ask me, he’d have been better with a dose of bicarbonate of soda than a trip to the hospital.”
She stuck her nose in the air and walked back toward the house leaving Olive and Emily staring at her retreating figure. Just as she was about to go inside, Olive yelled, “Who are you having sex with?”
They got back a sly grin tossed over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Emily wasn’t sure about that. But at least now she knew why Lydia had been so darned happy the past few days. Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to be around as much as usual. Emily had been too busy worrying about Joe and visiting the hospital to give much thought to the aunts, but she hadn’t seen much of Lydia.
“I thought you two went out visiting together that night?”
“No. We left together but she said she was visiting another friend. I didn’t think anything of it.”
The sun, which had moments ago felt warm and pleasant, now pounded down on her head. On top of everything else, she had to worry about her septuagenarian, over-sexed aunt having an affair. “Any idea who she’s seeing?”
“I figure it’s somebody she met off that dating site. I know they’re all nuts in this town, but I didn’t think anyone was so far gone as to take up with that old loon.”
Olive thought for a moment. “It does make you think that the cordial must have still been good. I mean at our age, honey, sex is like pushing a car uphill with a rope.”
In spite of her angst that Joe might sue the B & B, she’d drunk heaven knew what concoction, and her aunt had tumbled right off the rocker this time, she had to smile.
Olive grinned back at her. “Or sticking a marshmallow in a piggy bank.”
Emily choked and then the pair of them started to laugh. “Oh, dear, whatever are we going to do?”
“I for one am going to see if I can find the recipe for that stuff.”
“You don’t think maybe Lydia made up that story so I’d stop being so mad?”
Olive shook her head. “Lydia would never lie about sex. If she says she’s getting it, she’s getting it.”
“You sound almost wistful.”
“Wistful? Girl, I’m jealous as hell.” She glanced quickly up, her blue eyes speculative. “So, did you feel anything extra special?”
Emily felt her skin warming in a way she couldn’t blame on the sun. It was ridiculous to feel shy in front of a former Intimate Healer but she felt foolish admitting the utter disaster that had been her and Joe’s big night.
“Sure, I felt something. He’s very attractive and we’re…attracted to each other and um…I felt…excited.”
“More so than usual?”
It had been kind of a while. Hard to tell if she’d been more or less excited than usual, especially since that night would forever be colored in her memory with the fact that it had culminated not in mutual ecstasy but in a trip to the ER.
She had felt excited though. She’d barely been able to get through dinner, and once they reached the parlor and Joe had kissed her she’d felt her body flame all over. Even after everything was over and she’d been driving home from the hospital she’d noticed that her hormones hadn’t died down to normal.
“Yes,” she said. “Definitely more than usual.”
Olive sighed. “It was working then.”
“But what about Joe? It was awful what happened to him.” She lowered her voice instinctively. She couldn’t imagine how awful it would be if he overheard them.
“I tend to agree with Lydia. Four of you had some and only one got sick. Seems like it might be a fluke.”
“I don’t like the odds. Anyhow, we’re getting rid of the rest of that stuff.”
“Oh, honey, no. You can’t spoil Lydia’s fun.”
“What if her lover dies? He’s got to be a senior citizen. What if he already has a weak heart and this sends him over the edge? Lydia would be a murderer.”
Olive paled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Let me have it.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Pour it down the toilet.”
“Hmmph. There’ll be some happy sewer rats tonight.” She shook her white head. “And I can guarantee you their population is going to spike.”
“Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
As they made their way upstairs to Olive’s room, they passed Lydia coming down. “Where are you off to?”
Lydia wore lipstick and one of her clingy silk dresses. She looked like someone’s very sexy grandmother.
“Have you got that stuff? That potion?” Emily demanded.
“There was still half a bottle in my room,” Olive said.
“It’s still there,” Lydia said. Then frowned. “What are you planning to do with it?”
“Flush it.”
“What?” Lydia gasped. “But that is the last of the famous Dr. Emmet Beaver’s cordial. It should be donated to science. In fact,” she said, warming to her theme, “there should be test subjects who’d swallow the potion and report on how it worked. It could be studied by modern science. We could be famous. Maybe we could make enough money to save this town, have you ever thought of that, missy?” She struck a dramatic pose, forgetting she was on the stairs, wobbled alarmingly for a moment then grabbed the banister and intoned, “The Town That Sex Saved.”
She cackled, delighted with herself. “We could have our own reality show. Maybe that Simon Cowell would come. He’s cute.”
“Yeah, and you’d be voted off the show first.”
“Oh, no I wouldn’t. I,” she said haughtily, “am a character.”
Emily felt like there was too much going on for her to ever catch up. She concentrated on one thing. “Where are you going?”
“On a date.”
Lydia obviously didn’t want to give any more details and Emily decided not to press. Not much could happen to a person in Beaverton. Besides, since everyone knew everybody else’s business, she’d soon have the name of the boyfriend. Emily only had one qualm. “He’s not married, is he?”
“I have never been a home wrecker, young lady. And I never will.” She turned to glide regally down the stairs, then fell off her dignity long enough to turn and say, “Not that I didn’t have plenty of opportunities.”
Emily and Olive continued upstairs. When they got to Olive’s ro
om, she fished out the bottle from the back of her clothes closet. Emily had expected a dusty old beaker of some sort, but in fact the bottle looked like a regular liquor bottle made of clear glass. There was a cork stopper.
It was slightly less than half full of a murky yellow liquid and there was some sediment on the bottom.
“Was it sealed in any way?”
“Of course. The bottles were always sealed with wax.”
Gingerly, Emily eased out the cork and sniffed at the concoction. It smelled surprisingly pleasant, sort of like Chamomile tea. She ought to toss it, but what if she was wrong? Who was she to destroy the last of Emmet Beaver’s cordials? Especially when she had empirical evidence that it was effective. Though possibly dangerous to the health.
Lydia’s words suddenly came back to her. “You know, Lydia was right,” she said to Aunt Olive.
“Impossible.”
“About the cordial. This should be studied. Dr. Hartnett has been doing research on how people in Beaverton live longer and don’t get sick as often. He’s had a passing interest in Emmet Beaver’s work since he first learned of the old sanitarium. Maybe he’d like to study this. He may also be able to tell us once and for all if this stuff is what made Joe sick.” She nodded briskly.
“I agree that it would be a shame for it to go to waste. Imagine if what’s in this bottle is the female equivalent to Viagra. We’d get rich, the town would be saved, Dr. Emmet’s work would live forever.”
“I’m going to take it to him.”
“You sure you don’t want to keep a little for yourself and Joe?”
“Positive. I don’t think the associations of the other night are pleasant enough that either of us wants to take another chance.”
“Too bad.”
“And just so nobody gets any ideas, I’m putting this in the safe.”
After she’d locked the cordial away, she called Gord Hartnett and told him she wanted to see him.
“Are you sick?” he asked, sounding surprised. “You’re never sick.”
“No. I’ve … found something relating to Emmet Beaver’s research that I think might interest you.”
“Great. Tomorrow’s a pretty easy day. Why don’t you come by the office in the morning.”
“Will do. And thanks for all you did for Joe.”
“Joe needs what I found in this town. Only he doesn’t know yet how much he needs it.”
“He could sure relax a little.”
“Have you heard of the Slow Movement?”
“You mean those gourmet types from Italy and France who celebrate a slowly prepared and leisurely eaten meal?”
“Yes. It started with that, but there’s a whole movement now into living life in the slow lane. That’s what Beaverton is. America’s slow lane.”
“Some days it feels like the rest stop.”
He laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Right. That done, she could turn her attention to tonight’s cuisine. It wasn’t part of her regular service to cook dinner for her clients, and it certainly wasn’t her responsibility to cook them a special diet supplied by the hospital dietician. On the other hand, she felt some responsibility for almost killing the man while under her roof. And all in the name of love.
The trick, she suspected, was going to be cooking something healthy and suitable for Joe to eat while not letting on to him that he was getting a special diet. She glanced at the sheet of suggestions and figured she was going to have to get very creative with fresh herbs.
And, unfortunately, in order to disguise the fact that Joe was on a special diet, she and the aunts were going to have to join him. Okay, so the aunts’ taste buds weren’t as sharp as they’d once been, and they liked simple food, she wasn’t sure that fish baked in milk was going to go over big.
She could bake a chicken but the last time she’d tried that it hadn’t ended up so successfully. For all she knew, Joe had developed an aversion to baked chicken for life.
She was still trying to decide what to cook her guest when the man himself came downstairs. He was a little heavy eyed from recent sleep but otherwise looked as good as ever, with an expression in his eyes that made her warm all over.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Hi,” she said, feeling very much alone with him and suddenly remembering the steamy parking lot kiss. Maybe there was still a little of Dr. E’s cordial remaining in her system, for she responded to the warm expression in Joe’s eyes by going from zero to a hundred on the sexual desire scale in under two seconds.
“Hi,” he said back, giving her a crooked smile.
“How are you feeling?”
“Well enough to go visit Klepto Katie and retrieve my cell phone. I’ll see you later.”
“Wait! You can’t barge over there—“
“I believe we’ve had this discussion. You have no faith in my negotiating skills.”
“I do. In fact, I’d like to watch them at work. I’ll come with you.”
“Okay. But I’m taking my bike.”
“Tomorrow! Tonight she’s got the play, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, the play.”
Lydia walked in at that moment, her hair so full of curlers her head looked like a mechanical device. “Oh, good. You’re coming to the play. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Nobody can act, sing, or dance but we all have a hell of a good time doing it. Emily won’t be in the play, so you can be her date.”
“Aunt Lydia! Maybe Joe doesn’t want to go to the play. He should be resting.”
“From a tummy ache?”
Joe laughed. “Really, I want to go. There’s not much I can do until I get my cell phone back.” He glanced at Emily, “Tomorrow morning.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The rustling of Xeroxed programs diminished, the shift and mutter of bodies on the wooden bleachers of the high school gymnasium/theater settled, and the orchestra (which was mostly the high school band brought together for their one summer gig) exploded into the overture of West Side Story.
Within several bars Joe caught the familiar refrain of Maria. After that he wasn’t so sure what they were playing, but he’d never had much of an ear for music. Though he suspected most of the members of the Beaverton High School Band didn’t have much of an ear for music either.
Then with a sound like popcorn near the end of the popping cycle, the drummer gamely wrapped up the overture and the faded blue curtain creaked open to enormous applause.
Joe clapped as loudly as anyone, since he realized he knew almost everyone performing. How odd.
Emily had promised him these were the best seats in the house when she sat them close to the front but off to one side. Seemed like an odd choice to him, but in his acquaintance with her, he’d realized that Emily mostly knew what she was doing.
Joe had seen one of the revivals on Broadway, and –- not that he wanted to be a snob or anything -- but he had to admit the rival gang members had been a little more convincing. Still, these guys were doing their best.
“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet,” sang Edgar Kew, the town barber, in a voice that made up in volume what it lacked in tone. His gang followed him around the stage, singing and dancing, one Jet a few steps behind on account of his walker.
Most of these Jets were a little closer to their dying breath than their first cigarette, but nobody in the audience seemed to care. Including Joe. He was as into it as anyone when his date gasped.
“Oh, my God,” Emily said beside him, and he followed her startled gaze to where Ernie, the proprietor of Ernie’s bar, whose curly black wig might have once belonged to Burt Reynolds, snapped open a switch-blade.
“Must be a method actor,” Joe whispered back. No rubber or plastic for old Ernie. He had a real knife, with a wicked looking blade and the way that dance number was going, somebody was going to lose a limb. Fascinated, and rapidly reviewing what he knew of emergency first aid, he watched the rest of the number, but the other Jets weren’t stupid. They kept a good dista
nce from switchblade Ernie.
When they were done, the gymnasium walls shook from the sound of loud applause. Joe doubted the original cast ever got a better reception on Broadway.
When the last Jet had swaggered through the number, mostly without bumping into any other Jets, he heard a voice order, and none too softly, “Okay, get off now, get off.”
Startled, he stared into the wings, which he had a good view of from where Emily had sat them. A middle aged woman he didn’t think he’d seen before had a clipboard in hand and a pair of reading glasses on the end of her nose. The glasses were on a chain she hung around her neck.
“Is she part of the act?” he whispered to Emily.
“Stage manager. She’s deaf as a post and thinks everybody else is too.”
From that moment, Joe settled back to enjoy himself. No wonder everybody in town got so excited about their summer production.
Maybe these weren’t the greatest actors in the world, but that didn’t stop them for a second.
And that Tony had a surprisingly good voice. Joe recognized him. His name was Eddie something and he was a polite older man. Emily had told him the guy was recently widowed, but she hadn’t needed to. The man walked on the right edge of the sidewalk as though there were someone walking by his side.
When he came out for his Maria song, Eddie got a good clap. He acknowledged this with a bow. “Mar-eee-er,” he said in a good, strong baritone, sounding a lot he’d come from Puerto Rico via Boston. Usually, he dressed as though he were going to the office, in a shirt and tie and a blazer of some kind, but obviously that wouldn’t do to play the part of a West Side Polish gang member, so he was in costume.
And Joe loved his costume almost as much as he loved Ernie’s wig. Tony’s khakis were neatly pressed, his black wing-tips shone and his short-sleeved checked shirt still bore the creases where it had been folded in the package.
Then he started to sing, and the man had a great voice, and was putting every bit of emotion he could into it. When he got to the chorus, where he repeats his love’s name over and over, he paused for a gracious moment for the audience’s applause to die down, then took a deep breath and added even more gusto to his final, “Mar-eee-er!”
