“Maybe you should go home now.”
“No way. Then she’ll definitely know something’s wrong.”
“Tell her you’re sick. It’s not a lie. You do look a little green.”
“Love witches don’t get sick.” Another side effect of growing up in a garden is the self-healing. I never had a wound that didn’t disappear by the next day and I’ve had a cold only once. We just make others sick. Lovesick.
Twenty-five juniors follow me as I lead them through a Michael Jackson song in Cardio Fitness, though I’m really just copying Kali, who’s at the far end of the room. She’s on fire, jumping higher and squatting lower than anyone else, and she’s not even breaking a sweat. This is certainly the kind of experience I would never get in the garden.
In our stuffy gym, the high school smells, which I thought I had habituated to, take turns slapping me around; the sharp tang of twenty-six sweating bodies, the tinny juice of appley angst, combined with the nose-curdling fumes of recent paint lifting off the white walls.
Our Czech instructor, Ms. Bobrov, stands in the back, clutching a clipboard and appraising the class. “Move forward everyone!” She makes sweeping motions at the students, most of whom seem to be shrinking toward the back wall away from me. At her order, they move forward, but by only a few inches.
Of all the days Ms. Bobrov could choose me to be dance leader, naturally it would be today, when I’m so unhinged, I can barely stay on tempo. She must have smelled I was weak. Scientists say smell is our most complex sense, stirring people to act instinctually, often without us even realizing it.
Kali does a body roll, and I nearly injure myself trying to replicate it for the class. After I catch my balance again, I find the beat and shuffle from side to side, which I can do without hurting myself. I have to unfix Alice before the elixir begins to work its magic, or I’m toast. Lives are at stake here, love lives. Assuming I can figure out how to make the Potion to Undo Feelings, how am I going to do it without setting off Mother’s nose alarm?
I stumble over my own feet despite the easy shuffle and Vicky, in the front row, snickers. The jealous scent from the previous day has ripened into something different, something calculating, like spiky holly. Beside her, Court’s sister, Melanie, echoes the snicker, halfheartedly jogging in place like her batteries are dying. I do my best to ignore them.
Finally, the song ends, putting us all out of our misery.
“Very good, B plus,” Ms. Bobrov announces in front of everyone.
On the way to the locker room, Kali and I pass through the courtyard formed by a main block of classrooms and two wings in the art-deco style. Panels of young pioneers adorn the upper walls, boys panning for gold, girls contentedly quilting. Bet they never had to worry about their mothers banishing them to the far Arctic Circle for one teeny little mistake.
The crisp Northern California air pecks at my skin but fails to cool my anxiety. Students shrink away as I stumble along, their expressions changing, their voices lowering. I try to ignore the mothball smell of their suspicion, like a closet that is rarely opened. But today, every wrong scent rattles my cage.
The only sign Kali exercised is a mustache of perspiration over her generous mouth. Even her braids are still tight as chocolate Twizzlers. She frowns at me, and I can smell her concern, but then she bumps my elbow. “You were killing me with boredom in there. It’s the moonwalk, not the sleepwalk.”
“Mimosa, could I talk to you?” says a raspy voice from behind me. I recognize the black elder of Vicky’s scent, ripe like a skulking vagabond, before I turn around. It’s joined by celery, creating a scent combination that’s familiar in a way I can’t put my finger on.
Vicky, flanked by Melanie, manages to rock even a polyester gym outfit. She stretched the neckline of her shirt to hang over one shoulder and rolled the shorts as high as they can go. Without her trademark heels, I can see the top of her head.
“Yes?”
Melanie frees a strand of blond hair from the trap of her lip gloss, and leans in toward Vicky like she wants to share a secret. Her face roughly approximates her mother’s, but with bigger eyes and a spotty complexion spackled with foundation.
Vicky elbows her away. “I need you to make a love potion for me.”
“They’re called elixirs. And we don’t work with people under eighteen.”
Vicky laughs in the self-assured way of the very wealthy. When she flips back her thick black hair, her gold earrings nearly blind me and I detect the bitter reek of tobacco under a canopy of Poison Apple perfume.
“Well, see you later.” I grab Kali’s arm and steer her away.
“No, wait, por favor,” Vicky says, working her accent. “Court and I were meant to be together.”