The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern

For her 18th birthday, Irving buys Augusta a rhinestone pendant from a street vendor. It breaks immediately, which frustrates Irving, who is still poor and hungry. Looking for an extra job, he goes to Zip Diamond’s house. Lois answers the door. She tells him everyone wants something from her father and wonders what Irving is willing to do.

On her birthday, Augusta wakes to find Jackie making chicken noodle soup, just like Esther. She receives a bouquet of flowers and runs after Irving to confront him about it. Jackie perceives that Augusta once loved Irving and suggests he might have loved her back. Augusta admits she did something that convinced her that Irving loved Lois. Jackie asks what it was.

Irving reveals to Augusta that he is working for Zip Diamond, which worries her. He reserves a table at a fancy restaurant, Acadia Gardens, to celebrate Augusta’s graduation, and he invites Nathaniel and Evie to join them. At her commencement ceremony, Augusta sees Mitzi Diamond, and then Lois, greeting Irving. She wishes she knew Irving’s real feelings and decides to make Esther’s elixir, without Esther’s knowledge. She sings the words of the incantation with deep intention, and she then puts the powder in a flask of whiskey she steals from her father. She selects a pink dress to wear that night and is bewildered when Irving simply leaves the restaurant. She tells Esther she regrets using the elixir, but Esther warns her that some things cannot be undone.

As Augusta tells Jackie what she did, she reflects that perhaps, if she hadn’t been so impatient, or had heeded Esther’s advice, things would have turned out differently with Irving. Jackie produces Esther’s apothecary case and suggests they make the elixir once again. Augusta is pained by the memories that the case evokes. Jackie also has Esther’s mortar.

Irving has been working for Mitzi, not for Zip. Mitzi has taken over much of Zip’s business since Zip is experiencing dementia. Irving’s job entails sitting with Zip while Mitzi is out. One day, Mitzi brings Lois, who doesn’t look well, to the pharmacy. While Mitzi meets with Solomon, she asks Irving to take Lois to see Esther. Esther guesses that Lois is pregnant. Irving has a bad feeling that this discovery will result in trouble.

Augusta regards Esther’s mortar, feeling the weight of all the remedies it has been used for. She tells Jackie she can’t use it because the last time she used it, she tried to make a cure that would heal Esther, and Augusta failed.

After Irving leaves town, Augusta begins swimming every day. She enrolls in pharmacy school at Fordham College and works in her father’s store. When Esther becomes ill that winter, Augusta begins making soup. Esther tells her about her village and how there was another man there who was also a healer. However, the villagers called him “the apothecary,” while they called Esther a witch. He loved her but refused to marry a woman with a talent that rivaled his. When Esther told him she’d used the elixir on him, the man refused to speak with her, and Esther was heartbroken. When Augusta wonders if she can have both professional success and love, Esther replies that she hopes that this will be possible for women in modern times. 

Esther is 92 and ailing, but Augusta is determined to save her. However, Esther reminds her there is no magic that can make someone live forever. After Esther dies, Irving sends his condolences from Chicago. Augusta feels furious and lost. She is convinced she can no longer be Goldie, the girl who loved Irving and believed there was magic in the world. She is determined to study, work hard, never fail a patient, and never eat chicken soup again.

Augusta tells Jackie that when Esther died, she felt all the magic was gone from her life, and she could not bear to use Esther’s tools. She says if she were to make the elixir again, this time she would be honest with Irving. Augusta makes Esther’s soup and then prepares the elixir, singing the incantation. As she ties up the packet of herbs, she feels there just might be magic left in the world. Augusta dresses for dinner, and she and Jackie pick up Shirley. Augusta learns that Shirley has feelings for Nathaniel.

For her 20th birthday, Augusta’s father gives her a white coat. When a customer protests Augusta making his medicine, Solomon defends his daughter.

Jackie has reserved a private room at a fancy restaurant and orders champagne after everyone is seated. As Augusta visits the ladies’ room, she regards herself in the mirror and sees both her younger and older selves looking back at her from the mirror. Jackie presses Augusta to give Irving the powder, but Augusta wants a chance to talk to him first. She rises to make a toast and accidentally spills water in Irving’s lap.

Irving overhears a meeting in which Mitzi Diamond confronts Solomon about filling whiskey prescriptions for her. She says another pharmacist she was working with refused to increase her order, and his store suddenly burned down. Mitzi gives Solomon time to consider her offer.

Augusta’s birthday cake arrives, delaying her speech. Nathaniel accidentally drinks Irving’s scotch, to Jackie’s dismay. Irving wants to say a few words when Nathaniel suddenly addresses Shirley, beginning to declare his feelings for her. Irving shouts at him, and Augusta hears for the first time that Irving had planned to ask her to marry him that night many years ago at Acadia Gardens. She also learns that Nathaniel drank Irving’s flask that night, too. Augusta guesses that Jackie put the elixir in Irving’s drink, and Nathaniel drank it again. Irving fumes that he was going to tell Augusta he loved her, and Augusta, laughing, replies that she loves him, too. However, she wants to know why he went away to Chicago, and Irving admits that for decades, even after Zip and Mitzi died, he’d been too fearful to reveal the truth.

Irving has the ring in his pocket, and he plans to propose to Augusta. Before they go to dinner, he takes the group to a speakeasy. Augusta gives Irving a flask, but Nathaniel takes it and drinks all the contents. When Nathaniel then proposes to Evie, stealing the show, Irving feels angry and betrayed. He steps outside to find a man lying in the alley with a knife in his back, and Mitzi Diamond wiping blood from her fingers. The murdered man is Freddie Schecter, Irving’s old nemesis; Freddie got Lois pregnant but refused to marry her. Mitzi doesn’t want to kill Irving, even though he witnessed the murder, so she decides he will marry Lois. She threatens to harm his family or the Sterns if Irving doesn’t agree.

Irving explains that, after they left for Chicago, Irving made Mitzi spread the word to other racketeers to leave the Sterns alone. He took joy in his twin boys and kept them out of the family business. In 1946, Irving visited New York and went to Stern’s, where he saw Augusta with a young girl. He assumed she was a wife and mother and decided to leave her alone. He didn’t know he saw Augusta holding Jackie, her niece. Augusta chides him for the wasted time, but Irving promises to love her in all the years they have left. Irving says fate brought her to Rallentando Springs. However, it was Jackie who found out through Harold Glantz that Irving lived there. Irving wants to know what Jackie put in his drink.

Augusta takes Jackie to the airport, and they reflect on the previous evening. Afterward, she meets Irving by the pool, and he suggests going to the beach. She agrees and says they can swim around the waves together.

On the night of her 81st birthday, Augusta climbs out of the bed she shares with Irving and puts on a blue robe. Then, she goes into her kitchen. Irving helped persuade her to begin making remedies for friends, and Augusta realizes that she can help many women for whom Western medicine didn’t have all the cures. She uses Esther’s mortar and pestle and thinks of all the women who have benefited from these tools. As she sings her incantations, she is grateful for her second chance at happiness and love. She feels she is a woman of science, like her father, and a traditional healer, like her aunt. She believes in medicine and in miracles.