“Can he talk to me like that?” Callahan sputtered.
“Yep.” Rufus smiled. “This isn’t show-’n-tell, brother. Recovery ain’t pretty. Jacob there has been potion-free for three years now. You’d do well to listen to him.”
Callahan crossed his arms and scooted farther into the seat. The move revealed that he was sporting an erection. He quickly realized his mistake. Scooting his butt back, he lowered his head into his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know how to quit,” he whispered.
I pressed my lips together. Part of me wanted to shake the guy and tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself. The other part felt some compassion for him. Using potions changes who you are in the most fundamental ways. Probably Callahan was a guy who lacked self-esteem and started taking the virility potion to feel more confident and attractive. He’d had no idea when he started using that he’d turn into the type of guy who’d jack off in front of kids.
“Being here is the first step,” Rufus said. “Come talk to me after and I’ll hook you up with some other resources, okay?”
Callahan nodded and wrapped his arms around himself protectively.
“Miss Pen?” Rufus prompted.
Next to me, Pen sat up straighter. “I’ve been feeling really tested lately. Some of these kids I talk to at school?”
Rufus nodded.
“Their parents got them so messed up they don’t know their assholes from their elbows.”
“That’s horrible.” This from Darla, the fortysomething mother of four, who’d been sober for six months after kicking her addiction to vanity potions. When she’d first attended group, her size 42 GG breasts had defied several laws of physics, but now the pendulous lobes drooped over the distended shelf of her stomach.
“It’s the truth,” Pen said. “Some days I don’t know why I even try. Money doesn’t buy class or morals. Today, this kid was brought into my office because she got caught taking a diet potion. She’s eleven.”
Darla made a distressed sound and shook her head. I raised a brow, but not much shocked me anymore. Working the Cauldron beat helped me develop a nice, tough callous where my naïveté used to live.
“What did you say to her?” Rufus asked.
“I asked her where she got it. Said her mama gave it to her because she wasn’t losing her baby fat fast enough.”
“How does dealing with these kinds of cases make you feel?”
“Frustrated. Angry.” Pen sighed. “Powerless.”
Rufus leaned forward. “Sometimes you got to fight the good fight even if you’ll probably lose the war.”
Pen nodded. “I have a call in to CPS, but they’re so backlogged it’ll be a long time until a social worker gets over there.”
“Did you talk to the principal?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She grimaced. “He said as long as the diet potion is clean magic, we can’t get involved. But you ask me, he’s just worried about losing that family’s fat fund-raising checks.”
“Pen, we’ve talked about this before—” Rufus began.
She waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know—I can’t control other people’s behavior.”
“I was going to say that you can’t save everyone.”
Pen laughed bitterly. “You just said I had to fight the fight even if I’d lose.”
Rufus shook his head. “Sometimes the fight’s not even worth starting.”
My best friend went silent. Rufus had just poked her most sensitive bruise. She raised her chin. “Maybe not, but at least I have to try to save them.”
Rufus winked. “Just be sure you’re doing it for them and not because your savior complex has replaced your old addiction to energy potions.”
Pen had been addicted to potions that helped her stay awake and energized during her rigorous master’s-level work in psychology. She’d purchased the potion patches from some two-bit cook on campus, who put God-knows-what in the formula. After using the potion for six months, she’d had a minor heart attack that almost ended her life and her future career and definitely ended her love affair with dirty magic.
Instead of being angry for being called out on her issues, Pen simply nodded. She’d put enough people through the psychotherapy wringer to know Rufus was not only justified, but also right in his assessment.
“Kate?” Rufus said.
I jerked my head up. Usually I didn’t talk much at group. I wasn’t mad he’d called on me, just surprised. “Don’t have much to report,” I lied.
Beside me, Pen leveled me with a look. “Mmm-hmm.”
I swiveled to stare at her. She raised her brows. When I looked at Rufus, he had a knowing look on his face. “What?”
Pen nudged me with her elbow. “Your anniversary.”
My first reaction was relief. For some reason, I’d been expecting Pen to call me on lying about my problems. But then I remembered she’d have no idea about my fight with Danny or the fact that my first love was now a suspect in the most important investigation of my career.
My second reaction was frustration. “How many times do I have to tell you guys I don’t feel right celebrating anniversaries?”
All these years I’d resisted because I was never actually addicted to using magic. I’d never taken a token or anniversary pin because I felt it was disrespectful to those who’d been through hell to kick their dependencies. I’d just showed up to a meeting one day with Pen and kept coming because it helped me remember why I didn’t cook anymore.
“But this is ten years,” Rufus said.
“It’s still a couple months away,” I added loudly over the round of applause from the group. I’d stopped cooking the day my mother died. The anniversary Pen was referring to was of my first time attending a meeting. After I’d started working at the restaurant where she was already a waitress, it had taken a few weeks for us to feel each other out, and even longer for her to convince me to come to a meeting with her.
“Ten years?” the new girl asked. “How did you do that?” Her eyes were wide, as if the answer to this question would dictate her own failure or success on the road to sobriety.
I looked at Ru for help, but he simply raised a brow and smiled. “One day at a time, baby girl. One day at a time.” To me he said, “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”