By now, the actual doing of the spell—the Clean Casting—felt like a weird dream that Peter had concocted after too many drinks. The more people made a fuss about it, the more he felt like he’d made the whole thing up. But he could still picture it. He’d gotten one of the stone spellcasting bowls they sold on late-night cable TV, and little baggies of all the ingredients, with rejected prog rock band names like Prudenceroot or Womanheart, and sprinkled pinches of them in, while chanting the nonsense syllables and thinking of his desired aim. The spellbook, with its overly broad categories of enchantments that you could slot your specifics into like Mad Libs, was propped open with a package of spaghetti. All of it, he’d done correctly more or less. Not perfect, but right. He’d done it in his oversized pantry, surrounded by mostly empty jars of stale oats and revolting cans of peaches, with Dobbs goggle-eyed and drooling, the only witness.
The time came when Peter could leave the house again without people shoving things in his face. He still had people coming up to him in the bookstore to ask him if he was that guy, and his coworkers would never stop making weird remarks about it. And he made a point of not googling himself. Or checking his personal email, or going on Facebook.
But just when Peter thought maybe his life was returning to semi-normal, some guy would see him and come running across the street—through traffic—to belt out something about his baby, his baby, Peter had to help, the man needed a spell and the consequences would probably be unbearable if anybody but Peter attempted it. Peter would have to shrug off the crying, red-faced man, and keep going to the pet food store or supermarket.
There was a girl working at the pet food store who apparently knew who Peter was, and didn’t seem to care. She had curly brown hair and really strong lines from the bridge of her nose down around her eyes, which made her look sort of intense and focused. She had a really pointy chin and a pretty nose, and seemed like the kind of person who laughed a lot. Even when she looked serious, which she mostly did. She always smiled at Peter when she rang up the special food that Dobbs needed for his pancreas, but not in a starey way.
Finally, one day, a few weeks after all this started, Peter asked her why she hadn’t ever said anything about his claim to fame. She rolled her eyes. “I dunno, I figured you were sick of hearing about it. Plus, who cares. It’s not like you won the lottery or anything, right?”
Peter immediately asked her if she wanted to grab some dinner sometime. She was like, “Sure. As long as it’s not medicinal dog food.” Her name turned out to be Rebecca.
Actually, they went to the shabu place that was Peter’s favorite restaurant in town. He always felt guilty for eating there alone, which he did often, because it was kind of an interactive experience, where you grilled your own meat and/or made your fancy stew, and you really needed someone else there to join in. The staff wore crisp white uniforms to underscore that they did no actual food preparation themselves. There were tables, but almost everybody sat around a big U-shaped bar in the center, which had little grills embedded in it. The sound system blasted a mixture of Foreigner, 38 Special, Yes, and some J-Pop from a CD-changer.
Peter was nervous about being seen out on a date, and having people act weird about it during or afterward. (Did you cast a “babe magnet” spell? Ha-ha-ha.) But the Shabu Palace was pretty empty, and a few people stared a little bit but it was no big deal. Peter found the meat vapors comforting, like carnal incense.
“I hate this town,” Rebecca said. “It’s just big enough to have restaurants like this, but no actual culture. We don’t even have a roller derby team any more. No offense, but that’s one reason why you’re such a big deal. We finally have a local celebrity again, to replace that sitcom actor who was from here who died." Peter wasn’t offended by that at all; it explained a lot.
Rebecca was saving up money from her pet store gig to go to L.A., where she wanted to go to barista school. Peter didn’t know that was a thing you went to school for, but apparently it was a big deal, like knowing the science of grinding the beans just right and making just the right amount of ristretto and steaming the milk to the edge of burning. And of course latte art and stuff. Rebecca had tried to be a psychologist and a social worker and a vet, but none of those career paths had worked out. But she was excited about the barista thing because it was hip and artistic, and you could write your own ticket. Even start your own fancy café somewhere.
“It’s cool that you’re so ambitious,” Peter said. “I think L.A. would drive me insane.”
“I am guessing L.A. would be okay as long as you don’t want to be a movie star or whatever,” Rebecca said. “I mean, the barista school is probably hella cutthroat. But I can handle that.”
Peter hadn’t really thought of this as a small town—it seemed pretty big to him. There was a freeway, and the downtown with the opera house, and the art museum, and the world headquarters of a major insurance company. And there was a small zoo during the spring and summer, with animals that wintered in Florida somewhere.
“People hate you, you know,” Rebecca told Peter halfway through dinner. “You’re super threatening, because you’re the proof that there’s something wrong with them. If they’d only been good people, they would have gotten away clean, too. Plus, it offends our sense of order. Power should have terrible consequences, or life would be too easy. We want people to suffer for anything good they ever have. People are governed by envy, and a sense of karmic brutality.”
“That’s a very bleak view of human nature,” Peter said. But he found it kind of a turn-on. Misanthropy was just undeniably sexy, the way smoking used to be before you had to do it out in the cold.
It turned out Rebecca had never even tried to do magic herself. “I never wanted to risk it,” Rebecca said. “I’m the least lucky person, of anyone I know. I can only imagine how badly I would be screwed if I tried to bribe the universe to give me a shortcut.”
By now, Peter was really hoping that Rebecca would go home with him. He could almost imagine how cool it would be to have her naked and snarky in his big four-poster bed. Her body heaving to and fro. The way her hair would smell as he buried his face in it. He almost started getting hard under the counter of the Shabu Palace just thinking about it. Bryan Adams was singing about Heaven on the stereo. Everything was perfect.
“So,” Rebecca said, leaning forward in a way that could have been flirtatious or conspiratorial. “I gotta ask. What was the spell that you did? The famous one?”
“Oh man.” Peter almost dropped his meat piece. “You don’t want to know. It’s really dumb. Like really, really dumb.”
“No, come on,” Rebecca said. “I want to know. I’m curious. I won’t judge. I promise.”
“I… I’d rather not say.” Peter realized he’d been about to lift this piece of meat off the grill for a while, and now it was basically a big carcinogenic cinder. He put it in his mouth anyway. “It’s really kind of embarrassing. I don’t even know if it was ethical.”
“Now I really want to know,” Rebecca said.
Peter imagined telling Rebecca what he’d done, and tried to picture the look on her face. Would she laugh, or throw sake at him and tell him he was a bad person? Immature? He couldn’t even go there. Even Bryan Adams suddenly sounded kind of sad, and maybe a little disappointed in Peter.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I think this was maybe a mistake.” He paid for both of them and got the hell out of there.
By the time Peter got home, Dobbs was freaking out because he really needed to go out and do his business. Dobbs ran around a tree three times before peeing on it, like he was worried the tree was going to move out of the way just as Dobbs was letting go. Dobbs looked up at Peter with big round eyes, permanently alarmed.