Suddenly Sorceress (4 page)

Four

I
didn’t have any tomato juice,
but I did have spaghetti sauce—lots of it and several varieties. So I filled the tub in the guest bath and emptied all the jars into the hot water. Dipping my toes in first, I swirled the water.

“Double, double, toil, and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” I giggled.
Macbeth
was my father’s favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, and for some reason, quoting it made me feel closer to him. I had always figured the ties to Scotland appealed to him, but suddenly the irony struck me as funny. The legendary curses associated with the Scottish play didn’t seem so silly anymore.

Before long, the tub was slick with tomato sauce and a slimy orange film floated to the top. I lowered myself carefully into the broth and then, leaning my head against the back ledge, slid down until the water reached my chin. The smell wafted up, making my stomach rumble. I still hadn’t eaten, and I was soaking in a bowl of hot soup. Tomato soup.

Bathing in spaghetti sauce wasn’t on my bucket list, but it
definitely
had a spot on my list of things to never do again. Bits of sausage and beef collected between my toes. I was pretty sure it would clog the drain. I didn’t want to think of all the places I’d find remnants. I probably should have skipped the meat sauce.

The impulse to lick the crook of my arm was almost irresistible. Or rather, thoughts of
someone
licking their way down my arm pervaded my thoughts. Images of the sexy vet floated to the forefront of my mind again, and then I was not only immersed in what was essentially a condiment, but thoroughly turned on… again.

I’m sure Matt would have found some pleasure in my suffering. Even if I had acted out of instinct, completely unaware of the consequences, I probably deserved
some
suffering. Stewing in tomatoes wasn’t my only punishment, I reminded myself as “I’m Too Sexy” played from the counter. I’d lost count of Matt’s missed calls.

After marinating for almost an hour—long enough for my body to reek of an Italian restaurant—the water turned cold and the sauce formed clumps on the bottom. The piquant aroma leached out of my pores. A long hot shower followed the bath. A greasy layer of marinara had invaded every crack and crevice of my body: between my fingers and toes, under my nails, in my ears, and other more…
delicate
places. I washed my hair three times with rosemary mint shampoo and conditioner, and I nearly scrubbed off the top layer of my skin with an SOS pad from the kitchen. Between the tomato bath and the exfoliating, there was absolutely nothing more I could do.

After wrapping myself in a towel, I wiped the fog from the mirror. “Who are you, Ivie McKie?” I didn’t look like a witch. I looked like the same twenty-four-year-old kindergarten teacher who didn’t do anything even remotely exciting, the same girl who ate frozen dinners four nights a week and bought designer clothes from a thrift store. I used to think I knew everything about me. I was uncomplicated and, like Matt said, boring.
Maybe not so boring after all.

Combing a hand through my wet tangles, I thought back to what Chloe had said about my hair. She had to be imagining things. I looked exactly the same. I rubbed the towel briskly over my head, absorbing as much water as I could, and then pulled it around me again, tucking my damp locks behind my ears.

Chloe’s ringtone sounded at the same time the doorbell chimed.

“Hey, shopaholic.” I readjusted my towel as I answered.

“Let me in.”

I hung up and plodded down the stairs to the front door. “What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t wait,” she said, brushing past me.

I sucked in a quick breath. “Couldn’t wait for what?”

“Your explanation.” She pushed her sunglasses into her hair like a tiara then crossed her arms. “You’re keeping something from me, and you’re going to spill
this instant
.”

My heart lurched, then stopped before setting off at a thundering pace. “Keeping something from you?”
How did she know?

“Oh, come on. You’ve been my best friend for almost six years. I was there the night you lost your virginity to the Brad Pitt look-alike, who
only
looked like Brad Pitt after three shots of tequila, by the way. I’m the one who talked you out of drunk dialing every guy in your contact list when fake-Brad broke your heart less than a week later,
and
I convinced you to give the male population another chance when you vowed to move to Indonesia and become a nun.” She poked my arm to punctuate each thought. “I’ve listened to every secret”—poke—“wish”
—
poke—“and dream”—poke—“you’ve ever had without
once
breaking your confidence. And I’m probably the only person alive who’s seen the underwear you
really
wear when you think no one will see you in your underwear. So don’t even
try
to hide this shit from me.” She gave me the evil eye. “Unless you don’t trust me anymore.”

“I… Of course I trust you.” I trusted her, I really did, but some things were just too big.

“Then…” Her eyes scanned me, and she scrunched up her face as she leaned in to
sniff
me. “For God’s sake, please tell me why you answered the door in nothing but a towel, in the middle of the afternoon, smelling like…
skunk
pizza
? You know, I would have never guessed you could possibly smell worse than you did this morning, but congratulations, you’ve proven me wrong.”

“I smell like skunk pizza?” I sniffed my arm. She was right. “I took a bath in tomato sauce to get rid of the smell. You know, the… uh… farm trip?”

“Okay, so that explains why you stink, but what about the rest of it? I get why
you
ditched today, but I can’t stand the suspense anymore. Why is Dr. Doolittle’s car in the exact same place as it was this morning? He
never
calls in sick.” She eyed me up and down. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting busy with your fiancé, but since we both know
that
doesn’t happen—at least not in the light of day or without several bottles of wine—I’m assuming you’re keeping something else from me. You aren’t getting kinky up there, are you? I’m all for a little kink, but this”—she waved toward me—“is just weird.” Chloe’s blank expression gave away none of her thoughts.

“Oh, my God! Chloe, no, I’m—just no.” I convulsed at the thought of “getting kinky” with Matt—in any form. “I’m traumatized, you know, from my farm experience.”

“Please. I may be a blonde, but I’m not dumb. You seemed fine yesterday. This is about more than a bad field trip. Start talking, girlfriend, and don’t even
think
of leaving anything out.”

Chloe listened as I detailed yesterday’s events from the moment I boarded the bus bound for the farm until the minute I arrived home to drink myself to sleep. I stopped the story just before Matt stepped through the door. Her face went from mild annoyance to utter shock and back to unreadable as I spoke. Then both of her hands flew up to cover her mouth as she let loose with a burst of hysterical laughter.

“Oh, sure, laugh at me.” I crossed my arms, pulling the towel tighter around me. And she wondered why I’d resisted telling her. Still laughing, Chloe gave me a hard nudge, and I fell into the nearest chair. “Nice, Chloe. Geez, enough already, it’s not
that
funny.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.” She choked back a giggle. “But you’re wrong. It’s
exactly
that funny. Please tell me someone got it on video.”

I shuddered at that possibility. “There’d better not be a video.” She cracked up again. I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. “Stop laughing. Do you think someone might have taken a video?”

Chloe pressed her lips together before shaking her head. “We would have heard about
that
by now.” She took a calming breath, pulling herself together. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” After a beat, she started laughing again. “No, I’m not sorry. I really need to get the whole picture here. So let me get it straight… You were checking out this deliciously sexy veterinarian across the barnyard?” She waited for me to nod. “God, he must have been something else if you wandered into a muddy pasture in your Ralph Lauren boots.”

My cheeks flamed, and I nodded again.
Hot
didn’t begin to cover it.

“Okay, so you tripped? And ended up on your knees in the mud? And then…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I sputtered. “Please, can we not talk about this anymore?” My face fell into my hands, and she broke into another fit of giggles.

“Oh, Sabrina, it’s just too priceless. Here I am worrying about shopping for your wedding dress, and you’re cheating on poor Dr. Doolittle with a
goat
.”

“Ugh, I did
not
have sex
with the goat.”

“Admit it, that’s the closest you’ve been to having sex in
months.
It sounded pretty hot too. Doggy style in the mud with his… paws? Over your shoulders?”

“Hooves.”

“Huh?”

“They’re called hooves, not paws.” I groaned.

“Right.” She pushed back another fit of giggles. “So he had his
hooves
over your shoulders, nibbling on your neck, bleating sweet nothings in your ear. Please tell me you were safe. You did at least use protection, didn’t you?”

“For Chrissakes, I didn’t have
sex
with the
goat
!”

“Semantics, Ivie, semantics.” She twirled a strand of her hair. “You were dry humped by a goat in front of a busload of kids.”

“Oh, God.” I moaned into my hands. “It sounds so much worse when you say it like that.”

“It’s barnyard porn no matter how you say it.” Chloe patted my head. “You must have gotten that poor goat all hot and bothered with your horny pheromones raging from drooling over the veterinarian. Speaking of the sexy vet, did you at least score a phone number?”

“What? No, I didn’t get a phone number. I wasn’t about to show my face again. The minute he pulled the goat off me, I ran back to the bus with my proverbial tail between my legs. What was I supposed to say?”

“Yeah, you’re right. ‘Thank you for saving me from the best sex I’ve had in months,’ just doesn’t cut it, now does it?” Chloe said.

“I should’ve never told you. You’re never going to let this go.”

“Nope.” She popped the
p
. “Never. But at least I forgive you for ditching me and making me shop alone.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

“I do what I can.” Chloe sniffed me again. “I hate to say this, but you really need another bath. Try hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish detergent. That should do the trick.”

“Wait, how do you—?”

“Don’t speak, just listen. I really need to run, but I’ll call you later. I’m sorry about the goat, but hey, at least you finally got lucky, right?”

Why does everyone say that?

Chloe froze with her hand on the doorknob and flashed a wicked grin. “Oh, and Ivie? Goats don’t smell like skunk. I’ll get to the bottom of your mystery odor later.”

“I really hate you.”

After taking Chloe’s strange advice, I smelled halfway human again. My elation was short-lived as I stared at the pile of dirty clothes. They reeked of skunk and sweat. I’d worn them for too long already. I needed clean clothes.

The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could walk around in a towel all day, or be brave and go back into my bedroom to get something clean to wear. Terrycloth wasn’t really an option, so I hitched the towel under my arms and took a long last breath of fresh air. I marched back into my room, and didn’t breathe again until I’d opened a window. The stench from the bathroom had overtaken the space. I knew if I didn’t do something soon, someone would notice.

And by someone, I meant Mrs. Camp.

Other than her, our neighborhood’s resident crazy old lady, the neighbors kept to themselves. We lived on a nice quiet street made up of a charming row of late Victorian and early Craftsman-style houses. Just down the block was a crumbly old cemetery so ancient no one had been buried there in over fifty years. On Halloween, all the teenagers snuck through the gates to scare each other. And get lucky. The creepy old boneyard terrified me, so I’d never even set foot inside.

I didn’t know my neighbors well. They would wave if I passed by, but no one stopped to chat. Mrs. Camp was the only one I knew by name. If I’d had to place a wager on who was the witch in our area, my bet would have been on that old biddy.
Not me.
She lived directly next door to me, and she
rarely
kept to herself. In fact, she made a point of keeping track of everyone’s business—particularly mine.