Wishful Thinking

by Evangeline Anderson

  “They did not,” Nana said with satisfaction. “I filled their nasty little hole right in—it took me nearly an hour. I dare say I’ll have to have a talk with Mister Clausen about it. In fact, I’d go over there tonight if it wasn’t so late and if I didn’t smell so.” She wrinkled her nose delicately. “Really, I must shower.”

  Cass sniffed the air. “There is a funny odor in here but I don’t think it’s dog shit. Sorry, Nana, dog crap.”

  “Dog excrement might be a more lady-like thing to say,” Nana huffed

  Cass sniffed the air around their grandmother again and fixed her with a stern stare. “Have you been dabbling in the Craft again?”

  Nana lifted her chin. “Certainly not. I gave my word not to and a fairy’s word is her bond as you well know, Cassandra.”

  Phil jumped to her grandmother’s defense. “Leave her alone, Cass. I’m sure she’s telling the truth.” She didn’t want to admit to burying the last batch of potion in such a foolish spot and was immensely relived that their grandmother had filled in the hole dug by Mister Clausen’s poodles. The last thing she needed after the day she’d had was more drama.

  “You know, girls.” Nana’s full lower lip was trembling and her bright green eyes were abruptly about to overflow. “I understand that I’ve caused you some trouble this week, but it’s only because I’m afraid to be all alone when all of you are gone. Oh, I do wish your grandfather was still alive! I miss him so much sometimes.”

  “Oh, Nana.” Phil and Cass got up simultaneously to give their grandmother a hug.

  “There, there, now. I’m just being a silly old woman.” Their Nana patted Phil affectionately on the cheek and smiled at Cass. “You mustn’t mind me. I must go and shower. You can always tell a true lady by her bewitching scent but right now I positively reek.”

  “Goodnight, Nana,” Phil and Cass chorused and with a final pat to their cheeks, their grandmother swept out of the room.

  “Well…” Cass yawned. “I think I need to turn in, too. It’s late and I have to present at least two of the pieces for my show at the ICU tomorrow. Did you decide what you’re going to do? Please don’t be an idiot about this, Phil. Just tell Josh you care.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Phil wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. She wanted to be sure she was doing the right thing—not just going along with someone else as she had been doing her whole life. She knew Josh loved her, but how did she feel about him? The encounter in the RipTide dressing room still made her blush, but as Josh himself had admitted, there had to be more than just the physical element.

  She thought of all the times she’d cried on his shoulder, all the times he’d made her laugh and given her pep talks, all the sweet, considerate little things he did for her on a daily basis. She felt warm just thinking about it—the way he always remembered her birthday, the way he knew she hated éclairs. There was definitely something there but she wanted to be fair to her best friend—was it enough to ask him to stay for? Or was she still in shock from her abrupt break-up with Christian? Everything was moving so damn fast Phil felt like she was stuck on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the amusement park and couldn’t get off. If only she had a day or a week or a month to think things through!

  Doubtless Christian would be calling her soon to ask when she was coming back. She still had to pack up her things and get out of the apartment she’d shared with him. Besides, Phil thought, if she did decide to start something with Josh in the future, she didn’t want to base a relationship on something either one of them was magically compelled to say. She wanted a fairy godmother-free bond with her best friend and right now, that was impossible.

  No, Phil decided, she was just going to be honest with her friend. I’ll tell him I care about him deeply but I need a little while to sort things out, she told herself. She felt sure if she gave him hope, he would give her time. Time to get away from Christian, get over him, get on with her life. Time to find her feet again before she went jumping back into the deep end of the love pool. And time to get out from under this damn wish.

  “Hello, Phil? Cass surprised her by snapping her fingers in front of her face. “Are you okay? You kinda zoned out on me there.”

  “Fine, I’m fine.” Phil grabbed the cocoa mugs and put them in the sink. “Just tired and wondering how I’m going to get this wish fixed,” she said, hoping her sister wouldn’t keep harping on her romantic entanglements. “I mean, the FG was so nasty about it last time. I bet she won’t show up again for a month no matter hard I yank my earlobe and scream.”

  “Oh, and you’ve got to go to that beach party tomorrow, don’t you?” Cass gave her a sympathetic look. “Wow, no matter how good you look in that bikini Josh bought you, I wouldn’t want to go out on a public beach and hear what everyone thinks of your body.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cass,” Phil said dryly. She picked up the RipTide bag, tucked it under her arm and sighed. “You’re right, though. I don’t need anyone telling me I look indecent or else saying out loud that they want to get into my polka-dotted panties. But I just don’t think I’ll be able to get the fairy godmother to show in time to change it.”

  Cass looked grim. “Oh, we’ll make her show, all right. Wait until breakfast tomorrow. You and I and Rory are all going to summon her at once and you know we’re stronger when we’re all together—she’ll have to come.”

  Phil frowned doubtfully. “Yes, but forcing her to show up won’t exactly put her in a good mood when it comes to fixing this wish.”

  Her sister waved that minor detail away. “Just be sure you word your request very specifically this time. Don’t leave her any loopholes to work with. We’ll get it fixed so everybody can keep their opinions to themselves and you can stroll on the sand with your honey-bunny in peace. I promise.”

  “But what about you? Your wish is coming up in less than a month,” Phil reminded her.

  Cass looked slightly discomfited but then she frowned. “Well you know, maybe it’s time to let her know we’re tired of putting up with her crap. She’s probably already pissed off so pushing her a little more won’t matter. Anyway, you let me worry about me and you worry about getting that wish fixed so you can get with Josh.”

  “You’re so brave.” Phil smiled and gave her sister a quick hug. “We’ll think of something airtight so that the FG can’t screw you no matter how much she tries.” She grinned. “Maybe you can wish that all Brandon’s pants are permanently see-through? For the artistic potential.”

  “Uh-huh. Right. Good night, Phil.” Cass went to bed, leaving Phil to run water in the cocoa mugs and contemplate exactly how she would word her wish.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Fairy godmother, come for our need is dire!” Phil, Cass, and Rory all yanked on their earlobes and shouted the words simultaneously for the second time. They were sitting around the large kitchen table, concentrating hard. But Phil was beginning to think this wasn’t going to work. She was already wearing the sky blue polka-dotted bikini and she had left her hair down because she knew Josh liked it that way. She was still wondering what she was going to tell her best friend. Just thinking about it made her stomach feel like a hundred butterflies had taken flight and were currently doing nosedives and barrel rolls inside it.

  “D’you think this is gonna take much longer?” Rory yawned hugely. “I need to get dressed and get going. Doctor Robinson hates it when we’re late to work.” Doctor Robinson was the head veterinarian at the animal clinic and kennel she was working for that summer.

  “Don’t get your panties in a knot,” Cass snapped. “I have a big day too—I’m trying to get my show together for the ICU down on North Hanna. But Phil needs to get this wish reversed before she goes to the beach.”

  “Wish I could go to the beach,” Rory mumbled around her cornflakes. “Phil, you look really good in that suit but I think the top is too small. I’ve always wished I had boobs as big as yours.” She choked on her mouthful of cereal. “Oh my God! I didn�
�t mean to say that out loud. Why did I…?”

  “Because the FG screwed Phil the last time she asked for a redo.” Cass nodded and added sugar to her own breakfast—a huge mug of black coffee. She always claimed the thought of food before noon made her retch. “So now instead of telling everyone what she’s thinking, everyone else had to tell her. I’m sure you can understand why she needs our help.”

  “Yeah.” Rory’s eyes widened. “Wow, that has to be rough, Phil—I’m really sorry.”

  “And that’s not the worst of it either,” Cass continued. “She just found out last night that slime-ball Christian has been cheating on her for the last year.”

  “Oh my God.” Rory frowned sympathetically. “Phil, that bites! But you know, I never liked him. Please tell me you dumped him when you found out.”

  “She handed him his walking papers all right,” Cass said approvingly. “Sayonara, shithead.”

  “Could you guys please stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Phil sighed. It didn’t take magic to tell how her sisters felt about her ex-fiancé. She ought to feel heart-broken and devastated about her break-up with Christian but strangely all she felt when she thought about it was…lighter. Like a big rock had been rolled off her chest. Even if I’ve been screwing everything else in my life up, at least I did one thing right, she told herself firmly.

  “Sorry, Phil,” Rory said. “We didn’t mean to rub it in.”

  “That’s okay, hon.” Phil pinched the bridge of her nose to push back the headache that wanted to start behind her eyes. “And I know you two have a busy day planned. Maybe we should just let it go. After all, I survived yesterday so I can probably manage a while longer.” But the thought of seeing her coworkers again and hearing more of their awkward secrets made her cringe.

  “Nothing doing.” Cass slapped the table with her palm. “We’re sitting right here until the FG comes and fixes this screw up. We’ve taken her crap for long enough. Now once more, all together on three. One, two…three!”

  “Fairy godmother come, for our need is dire!” all three sisters shouted, yanking their lobes like crazy. Nothing happened.

  “All right, that’s it.” Phil shook her head. “I really don’t think—”

  Suddenly there was an audible pop and the room filled with pale pink smoke and the odor of burnt flower petals. Phil blinked and saw their fairy godmother floating in the middle of kitchen, her mother-of-pearl wings a blur of agitation. She was dressed in a pale pink tailored pantsuit and her silver wand was spitting sparks all over their nana’s linoleum floor.

  “What is it now?” the FG snarled. “Did I or did I not tell you that I was preparing for my yearly vacation in Patagonia? When will you get it through your thick, half-breed skulls that I have better things to do than tend to your every tiresome whim?”

  “If you’d get it right the first time we wouldn’t have to keep calling you back,” Cass snapped at her.

  Phil shot her sister a worried glance and shook her head slightly. She was every bit as pissed off with the FG as her sister but Cass’s birthday wish was coming up next and fairies were notorious for holding grudges. However, her wish was still at work on her sisters and Cass apparently couldn’t resist adding one more zinger.

  “You have to be the most incompetent fairy godmother in history,” she told the FG. “The Fairy Counsel ought to revoke your license for sheer idiocy.”

  “Why, you little—” The FG’s face was turning red and to make matters worse, Rory chimed in.

  “I’ve never liked you ever since you turned me into a dog,” she said, pointing her cereal spoon at the FG accusingly. “You knew perfectly well that wasn’t what I wanted when I wished to be able to speak to animals. Would it kill you to put a little effort into your magic once in a while?”

  “You little ingrates!” The FG was hissing with rage and her wand was spitting enough sparks to set the house on fire. “I have never, in all my years as a practicing fairy—”

  “Please, Fairy Godmother, they’re just reacting to my wish,” Phil said desperately. “They can’t help what they’re saying!”

  “Well they’d better help it or I’ll turn the lot of you into the slimy little toads you are.” Their fairy godmother raised her wand threateningly.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Cass’s voice had a hard edge to it as she glared at the FG. “The Fairy Council would have your wand if they heard of such an abuse of power. And I for one—”

  Things were deteriorating rapidly. “I just need one more redo, Fairy Godmother,” Phil said, interrupting Cass’s rant. “My wish still isn’t right. It’s been causing me a lot of problems. And I do mean a lot.”

  The FG scowled and crossed her arms over her bony chest. “Fine but let it be understood that this is the last time. I’m going to Patagonia for a month and I’ll be completely unavailable—I don’t care if you yank your pretty little earlobes ‘till they bleed.”

  “All right.” Phil took a deep breath to calm herself. It wouldn’t do any good to antagonize their fairy godmother further.

  “And hurry up.” The FG tapped her foot in mid-air, her thin aristocratic face still pale with anger.

  “I don’t want people around me to feel the need to speak their minds—by which I meant to shout out their innermost thoughts and feelings—anymore,” Phil began carefully, trying to get the wording just right. She’d been up half the night rehearsing what she was going to say. “And I don’t want to feel compelled to speak my mind and tell everyone around me exactly how I feel either,” she continued.

  “Right. If anything she needs the exact opposite,” Rory put in.

  “Rory, please.” Phil shot her a glare. “I’m wishing here.” But it was too late. There was a wicked gleam in their fairy godmother’s silver eyes and her wand was already in action.

  “The exact opposite it shall be!” she declared and Phil felt the tingling all over, the Pop Rocks in Diet Coke sensation that signaled a granted wish.

  “Wait!” she yelled. “Fairy Godmother, I—”

  “Don’t bother me again!” There was another puff of acrid pink smoke and the FG was gone, leaving Phil with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Rory, why did you do that?” Cass turned on their youngest sister.

  “I was just trying to agree with Phil!” Rory protested. “I’m sorry—I’m still half asleep.”

  “But the exact opposite? What does that even mean? And more importantly, what has the FG done to Phil now?” Cass turned to her, a worried expression in her violet eyes. “Phil, how do you feel? Do you have the urge to blurt out everything you’re thinking again?”

  Phil took a deep breath and thought about it but no, she didn’t. If she had, she would have yelled at her youngest sister for shooting off her mouth in the middle of her wish. She wasn’t sure what Rory’s interference had done to her latest wish fix, but at least she wasn’t right back where she’d started.

  “Okay, then.” Cass sighed. “I don’t feel the need to say what I’m thinking either. Rory?”

  Rory shook her head mutely, still looking miserable.

  “Good.” Cass looked closely at Phil. “Well, maybe she got it right this time.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Phil said, even though she was still harboring serious doubts. But she couldn’t hold her sisters up forever and the FG had made it abundantly clear she wasn’t coming back a fourth time no matter what.

  “Good, well…” Cass got up, drained her coffee mug, and put it in the sink. “Time to go. Have a good time on the beach, Phil. And remember—tell Josh exactly how you feel and everything will be fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Starfish Cove, the private beach where the BB&D Third of July beach party was being held this year, was located across the bay off of Interstate 60, otherwise known as the Courtney Campbell. The Courtney Campbell was a long, winding road lined with palm trees on either side and had only two lanes, one coming and one going.

  Normally Ph
il hated to take the Courtney Campbell anywhere because there was always some idiot in a hurry who wanted to pass when there was clearly no room to do so. But today the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and traffic was light. She was on her way to tell her best friend that she wanted to be more than his friend—in time, that was, she reminded herself. They were going to have to take things slow for a while. Over and over she rehearsed exactly what she was going to say to Josh.

  Josh, I’ve been thinking about what you told me yesterday about how you feel and I think I might feel the same way. But I need some time. I just broke up with Christian and I—

  Phil was jerked out of her anxious contemplation of how Josh would react to her news by a blaring horn and the sight of a huge black pickup truck barreling down on her.

  “What the…” she gasped, slamming on her brakes. The idiot in the pick-up was trying to pass an elderly couple in a large, slow moving Town Car and he had gone into Phil’s lane to do it. It was exactly why she hated driving on 60. The truck was headed right at her and there was nowhere to go—the sandy shoulder of the road led directly down into the green waters of the Bay. Phil saw her entire life flashing in front of her eyes, reflected in the huge truck’s chrome bumper. Just when she was regretting spending so much of it with Christian, the truck swerved back into place behind the Town Car.

  Heart thundering in her ears, Phil took in a gasping breath. As the idiot in the pick-up blew past her, she laid on the horn and opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of him and his driving skills. “Have a nice day!” she heard herself shouting, shaking her fist at the man behind the wheel. “I think you’re an excellent driver!”

  She stared in bewilderment as the truck passed her. What she’d meant to say was that he was an idiot and the worst driver on the road or something along those lines. She could still taste the fear, sour and electric, at the back of her throat and her heart was galloping. She could have died back there! And a near death experience was enough to leave anyone tongue tied, wasn’t it? Surely it didn’t have anything to do with her wish…did it?