When he told them these stories, his genie friends got a little quieter when they were making fun. Then they got jealous. Then the settled in and couldn’t wait for Fazire to channel to tell them what he was up to next.
And Fazire was always up to something, usually with Becky.
Fazire leaned to his left and picked up the dripping wet, sweating glass of sweet, grape-flavoured Kool-Aid, his most favourite human drink – that was to say, in the summer, he loved Becky’s hot chocolate with marshmallow fluff melting on top in the winter. He slurped a big swallow out of the cool glass and spied Becky walking down to him.
She was round and jolly, just like him, and very tall. She was also very lovely with pretty green eyes and her mother’s white-gold hair. Fazire, although he would not admit this out loud to anyone, genie or human, thought of her a little bit like his child. He had helped to raise her in a way, if getting her into trouble and coaxing her to do naughty things was raising her which Fazire preferred to think it was.
Now she was a part-time photographer (she’d won a few awards and she’d even taught Fazire how to take photos) and she was married to Will Jacobs who thought the sun rose and set in her.
Fazire liked Will. Will had moved in with them rather than taking Becky away from them and Fazire approved of this. He found he very much liked having lots of people around the house and lots of conversation and more food on the table. Will was a bit intense but only in the best ways. He loved deeper, thought harder and cared more for people than, well, almost than Sarah and Becky did. He also could hold a pretty mean grudge so Fazire tried to stay on his good side.
And he knew what Fazire was and he didn’t mind a bit.
And, lastly, he liked baseball.
Yes, Will was okay in Fazire’s Book and Fazire did, indeed, have a book.
Becky waved at Fazire and then collapsed into the grass beside him. She was barefoot and wore a pretty dress. She smiled such a quirky, sweet smile it almost took your breath away. She also liked the sun, just like Fazire, and they used to spend hours outside in the summers baking away.
“Good day, Mistress Becky,” Fazire greeted cheekily.
“Quit calling me that,” she said but it wasn’t in a nasty way. In fact, she had a smile in her voice. He only called her that because it annoyed her and she was very easy to annoy. And sometimes when she was done being annoyed, it made her smile or giggle and even Fazire’s best wish granted was nothing to one of Becky’s smiles or giggles.
She was his mistress though and he tried to explain this to her so often, he lost count.
“You’re getting brown,” she observed, looking down at Fazire’s nicely tanned, suntan-oil-slicked, very-rounded body exposed by the swimming trunks.
“Do you want to go swimming?” he asked hopefully. He and Becky had gone swimming in the pond more times than he could remember. And today, such a hot day, he felt it was the perfect idea.
She turned on her side and shook her head. He noticed for the first time something was on her mind.
He threw aside his sun reflecting mirror and turned on his side too.
When Becky had something on her mind, Fazire was always there to listen.
He didn’t say a word. He just waited.
“Fazire…” she began and then looked away, “I’m scared even to ask,” she whispered.
“You can ask me anything, Becky.” And it was true. He didn’t know much and she’d figured that out years ago, considering she was very clever and she realised he spent most of his existence living in a double-decker bottle, but he would do his best.
She nodded and looked back at him, her green eyes warm but, indeed, frightened.
“Will and I have been trying to have a baby for years.”
“I know,” Fazire nodded sagely, she’d talked to him about this before. She talked to Sarah about it too. She’d tried and tried to have a baby but each time she tried, she lost it. Sometimes this was painful, sometimes she would bleed. A lot. Sometimes, no, actually every time, this was very scary for Will and Sarah and Fazire.
Losing a baby always made her sad and it was worse and worse every time.
“I want to have a baby,” she said in a rush, almost as if she was afraid of the words, afraid to hope, to wish. “I won’t be greedy, just one. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl. It doesn’t even have to be perfect, just someone to love, someone that Will and I made, someone –”
Fazire went quite still.
All these years…
“Are you asking for a wish, Becky?”
She looked at him carefully, silently then she nodded.
He couldn’t believe it, after all these many, many years. She was older than most women who had babies these days but this, this was a wish he could grant.
He smiled at her and he reached out and touched her belly.
He looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Your wish is my command.”
* * * * *
But Fazire didn’t do exactly what she said.
He did make her perfect.
He made her bright and funny and very, very talented.
He made her sweet and thoughtful and very, very caring.
He made her generous and kind and very, very loving
He decided not to make her beautiful, at least not at first, because she should know humility and not grow up with conceit.
Though, she would become a beauty, a splendid beauty beyond compare.
Just… later.
Chapter Two
Fazire & Lily
October, many more years later
Fazire watched Lily as she pushed her bike up the lane which was awash in the vibrant autumn colours he liked so much in Indiana.
He was frowning and he was doing this because he saw that Lily was sad.
He didn’t like Lily sad but Lily was sad a great deal of the time these days.
She never used to be sad.
She was so very loved, so loved that the minute she was born – well, a couple of hours later because luckily Fazire had not been present at the birth, he’d heard stories about it and felt his absence was a wish granted to him – Becky had given her two last wishes to her new daughter.
Lily was so smart, she walked before other babies did, she talked before they did. Later, she read before other children did. Now she was two grades ahead of the other kids at school, she was so smart.
And she was supremely vivacious, happy, smiley and loving. One hug from Lily and your whole world turned golden. She gave the absolute best hugs.
And the minute she could string three words together, she started to tell stories. And they were always the best stories… ever.
If she was talking about something that really happened, she could make the most mundane happening entertaining. But it was even better when she made up stories from scratch, those were the absolute, most bestest, best.
And she was funny. She could make even old lady Kravitz laugh and old lady Kravitz never laughed.
Everyone loved Lily, even old lady Kravitz.
There was a lot to love. Lily was, quite simply, perfect.
Except…
Fazire had to admit that he had made a wee, little mistake when he healed Becky’s womb and made it fruitful and set the wish that would be Lily.
He should have made her become beautiful a little quicker.
Or, at the very least, pretty.
He used the excuse to himself that he didn’t know.
He’d been created by the Divine One as a full grown genie. Then he’d gone to Genie Training School where you had to pay attention because if you didn’t and you messed up a wish or didn’t follow Genie Code, well, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
Fazire had never been to human school. He didn’t know how cruel children could be.
And Lily, although not ugly, was plain. And being so smart made other children think she was strange. And they made fun of her.
Sarah, Becky and Will worried about Lily. Well
, Sarah and Becky did, it made Will madder than the dickens (this, a phrase Sarah had taught him and Fazire still didn’t know what “the dickens” was but he figured it was pretty bad by the way Sarah said it).
As the school years went by, more and more Lily would come home like she did today.
Sad.
He hid himself as she came into the house (as he did most days) and watched her surreptitiously steal the three Baby Ruth candy bars (named after one of Fazire’s heroes, Babe Ruth, a great baseball player who was nearly as round as Fazire).
She grabbed her ever-present book (another in a hundred romance novels that he knew she read) and ducked back out of the house. Fazire watched as she walked down the sloping lawn to hide herself in the trees at the bottom by the curve of the gravelled lane.
He knew exactly what she’d do. She’d eat the candy bars. She might even steal a few more. Then she’d have a big dinner and dessert. She would also, maybe, steal something else to eat before she went to bed.
Fazire liked his food but Lily didn’t. She didn’t eat because she liked it, she ate because… well Fazire didn’t know why.
And Lily was getting heavy. Not getting heavy anymore, she was beyond chubby.
And she read those books like, well, he knew why because Becky told him. They were her escape.
Somehow, Fazire knew, this was all because of the kids at school.
Now was the first time he ever wished one of his mistresses would ask for vengeance. If he even heard one of children saying cruel things to her like what Will told Fazire they were probably saying, he might do a wish for himself (which was outside of Genie Code) and blast the consequences.
Stupid, ignorant, jealous children.
He waited until she’d eaten the candy bars and hidden the wrappers like he knew she did then he walked down to join her.
She was sitting in a bed of dried fallen leaves the colours of red, brown, yellow and orange, some of the leaves even had all four colours, in one single leaf. Her back was pressed to the trunk of a tree. Her white-blond head was bent over her romance novel.
But she wasn’t reading, she was crying.
“What’s happened, Lily?” Fazire asked quietly.
She jumped and stared up at him, the tears glistening wet on her face.
“Fazire!” She tried to hide behind her smile but it was shaky. He’d seen her don her mask of false happiness a hundred times but he caught her before she could slip it firmly in place.
“Don’t you try hiding from me, Lily-child. This is Fazire you’re talking to. I know all,” he stated grandly in his best genie-in-a-bottle voice.
To his shock she didn’t make a joke or a further attempt to hide. She burst into uncontrollable, body-wracking, fourteen-year-old girl tears.
“Oh, Fah… Fah… Fazire. It’s was awful.”
Without hesitating he sat down next to her in the leaves (oh, his genie friends would just be horrified at him putting his greater-than-the-earth genie bottom on a bed of dead leaves), pulled her in his arms and let her cry it out.
“Tell me about it Lily. Get it out. Your Grammy said to me that she didn’t talk about her Jim missing in the war and she should have right when she knew it happened. Don’t bottle it in, my lovely. I know what being bottled in is all about!”
She giggled just a little and shook her head, getting herself under control.
“It’s silly, Fazire.” She tried to be brave but wasn’t succeeding. “Just, a boy at school said something about me… about, well, about me being fat.” She gave a little shudder and continued to look at the ground.
“You aren’t fat!” Fazire snapped in outrage although, it wasn’t exactly true, she was past chubby but he’d never describe her as fat.
Her eyes flew to his and her mouth did some funny movements as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“I am fat, Fazire,” she said quietly and then pulled the Baby Ruth candy wrappers out of her jeans pocket and showed them to him.
“Oh Lily-child,” he moaned and did a little bit of genie magic, magic that was allowed for no one liked litter, not even genies, and in a snap of his fingers the wrappers were gone.
She stared at her hand. She knew he was a genie but it was always a bit shocking to be confronted with magic even though she’d seen it dozens of times before.
“Do you want to use one of your wishes so I can do something to this boy? Give him horns and a tail? Make him big as a blimp?” Fazire asked hopefully.
She shook her head, her mouth moving definitely in the way of one of the quirky smiles she’d inherited from her mother.
Her eyes, which had always been pretty no matter what anyone said (they were pale blue on the inside of the iris and dark, smoky, midnight blue on the outer edges) became thoughtful. Fazire thought her eyes were startling and lovely and Will swore they were from his side of the family though Fazire liked to take most of the credit for all that was Lily, he just didn’t tell Will that. Now he looked into her extraordinary eyes and waited.
“I do want to make a wish though,” she whispered.
Fazire was shocked.
Two wishes!
If she made a wish that would be two that were used, leaving her with only one.
This meant, if she used the last one he’d have to go away.
“Lily, think about this, my lovely. Think about it before you go wishing one of your wishes away on some, stupid boy,” Fazire warned rather sagely, for Fazire.
She continued to look into his eyes. “That boy today who called me fat, I liked him. As in liked him, liked him. He’s the cutest boy in school. The most popular. The…” She stopped and for some strange reason she picked up her romance novel then held it to her chest like a shield that might ward off evil.
Fazire had read a lot since becoming a human-sort-of-genie. He’d never read a romance novel though. He preferred Louis L’Amour.
“Fazire, I wish –” she began.
“Lily-child –” he interrupted but it was like she didn’t hear him, she kept talking.
“One day, I wish to find a man like in my books. He has to be just like in one of my books. And he has to love me, love me more than anything in the world. Most important of all, he has to think I’m beautiful.”
“Lily, I need to tell you something.” Fazire was going to tell her about Becky’s wish and his mistake and let her look forward to something, let her look forward to the incomparable beauty she was going to be.
Most of all, he had to stop her wish now. He didn’t want her wasting it on some fool idea. He wanted it to be special, perfect, to make her world better like she had made Becky and Will’s and, indeed, his.
But again she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were bright and they were steady on his.
“He has to be tall, very tall and dark and broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped.”
Fazire stared. He didn’t even know what “narrow-hipped” meant.
“And he has to be handsome, unbelievably handsome, impossibly handsome with a strong, square jaw and powerful cheekbones and tanned skin and beautiful eyes with lush, thick lashes. He has to be clever and very wealthy but hard-working. He has to be virile, fierce, ruthless and rugged.”
Now she was getting over his head. He didn’t think there was such a thing as impossibly handsome. How cheekbones could be powerful, Fazire didn’t know. He was even thinking he might have to look up “virile” in the dictionary Sarah had given him.
“And he has to be hard and cold and maybe a little bit forbidding, a little bit bad with a broken heart I have to mend or one encased in ice I have to melt or better yet… both!”
Fazire thought this was getting a bit ridiculous. It was the most complicated wish he’d ever heard.
But she wasn’t yet finished.
“We have to go through some trials and tribulations. Something to test our love, make it strong and worthy. And… and… he has to be daring and very masculine. Powerful. People must respect him, maybe even fear him. Graceful
too and lithe, like a… like a cat! Or a lion. Or something like that.”
She was losing steam and Fazire had to admit he was grateful for it.
“And he has to be a good lover.” Lily shocked Fazire by saying. “The best, so good, he could almost make love to me just by using his eyes.”
Fazire felt himself blush. Perhaps he should have a look at these books she was reading and show them to Becky. Lily was a very sharp girl, sharp as a tack (another one of Sarah’s sayings, although Fazire couldn’t imagine a tack ever being as clever as Lily) but she was too young to be reading about any man making love to her with his eyes. Fazire had never made love, never would, genies just didn’t. But he was pretty certain fourteen year old girls shouldn’t be thinking about it.
Though, he was wrong about that, or at least Becky would tell him that later.
Then Fazire realised she’d stopped talking.
“Is that it?” he asked.
She thought for a bit, clearly not wanting to leave anything out.
Then she nodded.
“Are you sure you want this to be your wish?” Fazire asked.
She looked at him straight in the eye. Hers were sombre and direct.
Then she nodded again.
“Very well,” Fazire said on a sigh.
He opened his mouth to speak but she put her hand out to stall him, resting it on his arm. “Don’t forget that part about him loving me more than anything on earth.”
He lifted his goatee’ed chin in acknowledgement.
“And!” she burst out, squeezing his arm for emphasis, “The part about him thinking I’m beautiful.”
“Lily, you will be beautiful, you already are.”
Her chin quivered and he knew she was about ready to cry.
“Just don’t forget those parts, they’re the most important,” she reminded him, her voice shaky and, Fazire thought, terribly, unforgettably sad.
His hand covered hers on his arm.
“I won’t forget any of it.”
Then Fazire lifted his hand, put it on her head and said softly, “Lily, my lovely, your wish is my command.”
Chapter Three
Fazire & Lily
Three Wishes Page 2