Jessica
Journal Entry from 2005
Captivate thy love by preparing a pottage stew, and then consuming it before him.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
Today is the day. It has to be. Dina said she overheard Rosalie Hopkins last night at Dairy Queen say she’s going to ask Billy Walker to the Homecoming dance.
If that happens, Billy will say yes, and I’ll never have a chance with him. I can’t compete with Rosalie. Her dad owns the biggest luxury car dealership in the tristate area (as she never misses an opportunity to remind everyone). Plus she gives blow jobs on the first date.
Not that I’m judging her for it. I’m not, at all.
It’s just that since I spent last semester doing study abroad in Europe, I found out a few things—and I don’t mean how much better the bread is in France. I mean how intimate relations are actually supposed to work.
So now when I go down on someone, I expect to be gone down upon in return.
I strongly suspect, however, that Billy Walker has no idea how to orally pleasure a woman.
This isn’t his fault, of course. Sexual education in this country is a disgrace.
But that’s okay. I don’t actually mind that I might have to spend many hours teaching Billy—slowly and carefully—how to properly satisfy a woman.
Which reminds me: another reason it has to be today is that tonight is the full moon. According to Goody Fletcher’s book, love spells are the most powerful when conducted under a moon that’s growing fuller (so that “his love for thee will grow apace”).
So I’ve only got about twelve hours to get this done, or I’ll have to wait a whole month, by which time Rosalie will definitely have already gotten her lips all over Billy.
Fortunately we had all the ingredients—or the most important ones, anyway, according to the book—in the fridge. So last night, while Mom and Dad were at Ethan’s soccer game, I visualized my own attractiveness and lovability while chopping them up and cooking them together.
The only problem is that the ink Goody Fletcher used is so faded (and, to be honest, her cursive so spidery and hard to decipher in places), I couldn’t always read the words.
I’m pretty sure this doesn’t matter, however, since magic isn’t about your tools, but your intentions. Which is good since I have only the best intentions toward Billy and, according to Goody Fletcher, I’m supposed to “rub garlic round a wooden bowl, then eat the pottage from it” in front of the person I’m hoping to attract.
But I’m not about to stand in front of Billy Walker in the cafeteria and eat pottage stew out of a wooden bowl rubbed in garlic. As Dina rightfully pointed out, in all the years we’ve gone to school together, Billy and I have never eaten at the same lunch table. He’s always sat with the jocks, and I’ve always sat with Dina and the rest of the emos and goths. It’s going to look weird enough when I casually stroll over to his table, eating stew out of a wooden bowl from home instead of pizza off a paper plate from the hot food line.
Also, I have Chem class with him right after lunch. I want to entice him, not disgust him with my garlic breath.
So it’s a no-garlic pottage stew out of Tupperware for me.
I really hope my intentions prove strong and pure enough for this spell to work. I don’t know how much longer I can go on being Billy’s lab partner and nothing more, when all these years I’ve loved him. And he and Rosalie would be so wrong for each other, it’s actually gross.