Copyright © 2009 Benjamin Crowell
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Short Stories: HER HEART'S DESIRE
by Jerry Oltion
Jerry Oltion has been writing science fiction and fantasy since 1981. He won the Nebula award in 1998 for his novella, “Aban-don in Place,” which he later expanded into a novel. Lately his interests have turned to amateur astronomy. He grinds telescope mirrors for fun, and has invented a new type of telescope mount he calls the “trackball.” Jerry's first story for Asimov's, “Her Heart's Desire,” is one of his favorites, possibly because he has struggled with the electric guitar for several years and has even written half a guitar book. The author lives with his wife, Kathy, in Eugene, Oregon, a town in which it's easy to imagine disappearing magic shops. Jerry and Kathy are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary this year.
Patrick had just started down the sidewalk away from the music store when he crashed into the woman in blue. It was as if she'd dropped out of nowhere. He'd been looking at the new guitar instruction book he'd just bought, imagining himself actually learning how to play this time, but he didn't think he'd been so absorbed that he would fail to spot someone right in front of him.
He apparently had, though, because he didn't see her at all until they collided. She was facing the street; her left shoulder slammed square into his breastbone. His book fluttered like a wounded pigeon to land beside a pay phone bolted to the brick wall, and the mason jar she carried—half full of silvery dust—flew upward in a glittering arc. “Oh!” she cried, reaching out for it even as she toppled sideways, but her fingers swept past inches beneath it.
He made a desperate grab for it himself, touched the brass lid just enough to set the jar spinning, then he followed her helplessly down to the sidewalk, twisting at the last moment to avoid landing on her legs.
The jar hit the pavement with the sickening pop of breaking glass.
“Aw, jeez, I'm sorry,” Patrick said, hastily climbing to his feet and extending a hand to the woman.
“My wish!” She ignored his help, scuttling on hands and knees over to the broken jar. Shards of glass glistened all the way out to the street, and the silvery contents were swirling around like snowflakes in a blizzard.
“Careful!” he said, but she ignored him.
“I wish for eternal youth!” she called out into the silvery cloud. “Eternal youth, eternal health, and eternal wealth!”
The cloud swirled around her, momentarily engulfed Patrick, then swept upward and dissipated into a fine mist that blew over the roof of the building.
He felt a sneeze coming on, but the urge vanished as quickly as it had come. “A—a—are you all right?” he asked. He glanced around to see who else had witnessed her odd behavior, but the only other people on the street were in passing cars.
She clenched her hands into fists and her whole body shook with rage or grief or frustration, but then she exhaled and turned to look at him for the first time.
She was maybe twenty-five or thirty, attractive enough at first glance, wearing blue jeans and a light blue fuzzy sweater, but it was her blue eyes that caught his attention. They glinted with sparks of silver, as if the contents of her mason jar had been trapped there. Her hair was light brown and short, exposing half her ears, from which dangled silver butterfly earrings.
“You!” she growled, rising to her feet with the grace of a tiger about to pounce. “Do you know what you've done?”
“I'm sorry,” he said. “It's my fault entirely. I'll do whatever I can to replace it.”
“You can't replace it!” She looked down at the shards of glass, then back up at him. “Do you have any idea what that was?”
“No.” He looked down. There was no sign of the contents, no splash or stain; just the broken jar.
“It was—” her skin, already pink from anger, reddened still more. “It was—” she began again, then she swallowed and said softly, “It was my heart's desire.”
“Ah,” said Patrick. There was really nothing more he could say.
“You think I'm crazy, don't you?”
“We just met.”
“We ... did, didn't we?” She squinted at him with the expression of someone appraising a day-old fish. “Don't flatter yourself,” she said. “You're at least twenty pounds overweight, and that goatee looks ridiculous. You look like an old man trying to look like a college student.”
Patrick had just turned thirty last summer. He reached up to his chin and brushed his beard. “Madam,” he said with all the wounded dignity he could muster, “I don't believe my appearance is any of your business.”
“Maybe not, but your sudden appearance sure became my business, didn't it?” She nudged one of the larger fragments of glass toward the brick wall, then she jerked back as if she'd touched a live wire. “Jesus, it's gone!”
He looked down at the sidewalk, still covered with long slivers of broken jar. “What's gone?”
She waved her hand at the blank expanse of brick at chest height. “The door. The whole shop! It's gone!”
The music store was about ten feet up the street, and there was an office supply store maybe twenty feet down the other way. There were no other doors in the unbroken brick wall between them, and never had been for as long as Patrick could remember.
His book was still lying beneath the pay phone. He picked it up, taking the opportunity to step away from the woman as he did.
She said, “There was a door right here. And a window right there to the side of it with a bunch of antiques in it.”
“Okay.” He reached for his wallet in his hip pocket. “Look, I feel bad about breaking your, uh, whatever. What did it cost you? I can at least pay you back.”
She pressed her hand to the brick, her face a caricature of disbelief. “It's gone,” she whispered. She looked back at him. “It was here just a moment ago. I swear it was. There was a handwritten sign propped up against an old mantel clock that said, ‘Special, today only, your heart's desire.'”
“How much did they want for it?” he asked again.
“They didn't take money!”
A portly businessman in a gray suit turned the corner by the stoplight and strode toward them. Patrick knocked pieces of glass toward the wall with the side of his shoe, and when the man drew close he said, “Watch out, broken glass here.”
“Ah, thank you,” said the businessman, stepping around beyond the parking meter and back onto the sidewalk when he was past.
The woman helped Patrick scrape the glass shards toward the wall, then bent down and retrieved the lid. A ring of ragged slivers still stuck out of it, but she rapped the edge of the lid against the brick and the glass fell out. So did the flat disk in the middle, leaving her with just the metal rim in her hand.
The flat disk rolled toward the street. Patrick retrieved it and handed it back to her. “They, uh, pack hearts’ desires in home canning jars?”
She nodded. “There were shelves full of them.” She nested the disk inside the rim and stared at it a moment, sniffing and blinking back tears.
If she was an actress, she was a good one. But if she wasn't, then she was loony as a bag lady. Her story would account for how she had appeared right in front of him on an empty sidewalk, but still. A disappearing shop?
“I'm sorry,” he said again. “Whatever you had there, I'd replace it for you if I could. But there's no shop here.”
“There was,” she insisted.
“Okay.” He nervously ruffled the pages of his guitar book. One of the photos of a band onstage looked familiar, but it was gone before he could identify it. He lowered the book and looked at the woman before him. “What can I do?”
“I don't know.” She pressed on the wall again as if she could force it to open if she could just find the secret spot to push, but the dark red brick and gray mortar remained a wall. “I don't know,” she said again. “I made three wishes as soon as I saw the stuff in the jar swirling around in the air, b
ut I don't know if that means anything or not. The guy in the shop said it was my heart's desire, not a genie.”
Patrick remembered her wishes. Immortality, health, and wealth. Not bad for a snap decision. He doubted if he would have done as well.
Of course the whole thing was pure bunk anyway. Magic stores didn't just pop into existence like mushrooms on a summer night, and people couldn't buy their heart's desire in a bottle. They had to work at it, the way he had worked for years to learn how to play the guitar.
He glanced again at the book. His book, full of tips and tricks for people who wanted to learn his distinctive style. Fresh out on the stands today. The publisher had promised him dozens of copies, but he'd bought this one just for the sheer joy of seeing old Dixon ring it up at the cash register.
“Listen,” he said to the woman, “I don't know if you like classic rock, but I'm playing a concert tomorrow night at the stadium. I could get you and a friend or two in for free.”
“You're playing with the Wombats?” She squinted at him. “Wait a minute. You're Patrick Brandon! Oh my god!”
Patrick nodded. “Guilty.” Now would come the typical fan reaction: the I-can't-believe-it, the autograph on whatever scrap of paper was handy, then the come-on. He still loved the attention, and he'd used to love the come-ons, too, but after a couple hundred one-nighters he'd grown tired of sleeping with fans.
“I can't believe it!” she said, right on cue.
“Fans?” he asked, looking at his music book in disbelief.
“What?”
Two different versions of reality fought for space in his head. Was he really a rock star? He remembered the early days of the band: long practice sessions in Snake's garage and even longer gigs in smoky bars, screaming fights with Natasha in the recording studio until they finally found a sound they could both live with, the first record coming out to rave reviews, getting gigs in concert halls and taking their pick of the groupies night after night—but he also remembered being a wannabe geek who couldn't play and couldn't get a date. He remembered that as recently as five minutes ago.
“I'm ... I think I got your heart's desire,” he said. “I mean, it's my heart's desire I've got, but I think it came out of your jar.”
“What?” she asked again.
“Think about it,” he said, struggling to retain his grip on reality. “Had you ever heard of a band called the Wombats before today? Had you ever heard of me before?”
“Of course I have.”
“Are you sure?”
“I ... think so. Haven't I?”
“No. And you said I was overweight and my goatee looked silly.”
“You don't have a goatee.”
He touched his chin, felt only the stubble of a half-day's growth. His whole body felt different: lighter, more in shape than he'd ever been. Leaping around on stage took stamina.
He was a musician. He remembered what it was like to get out on stage and play, his fingers dancing over the strings while the fans danced in the aisles. It was real. But he'd gotten it at someone else's expense.
He looked back at the brick wall. “Do you remember what you were thinking when you saw the doorway?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing unusual. I was on my way back from lunch, just walking along and thinking about all the things I have to do this afternoon, when I looked up and saw the window display.”
“Were you wishing you didn't have to go back to work?”
She smiled for the first time. “Well, duh.”
“Do it again.”
“Do what again?”
“Walk past here and wish you didn't have to go to work.”
“You're serious?”
“Do you want your heart's desire back?”
She cocked her head sideways. “You'd give it back?”
“If we can find the shop, it sounds like there's plenty more for both of us.”
“Maybe.” She looked down the street toward the office supply store, then nodded. “Okay. Here goes.” She held the jar lid before her like a talisman, then walked away, her shoes crunching on the last of the glass shards they hadn't swept aside. After about ten paces she turned around and walked back. She squinted her eyes and wrinkled her forehead in concentration, but nothing happened to the wall.
“This is the direction you were walking the first time?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Let me try it,” Patrick said. He retraced her steps, trying to concentrate on wanting a big change in his life, on not going back to a daily drudge of a job, but even as he tried, he knew that wasn't the key. If it was, he'd have been tripping over magic doorways every dozen feet all his life. His former life, anyway. He didn't have many regrets about the new one.
Not surprisingly, he wound up beside the woman again, with only a pay phone marring the brick expanse beside them.
“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Where are we going?”
“To look for evidence on the other side of the wall.”
They were closer to Dixon's door than to the office supply place. As he led her toward the music store, he said, “What's your name, anyway?”
“Michelle.”
He held the door open for her. She tucked the jar lid into her purse and stepped through. Dick Dixon, the pudgy, balding guitar guru who had sold Patrick his first Stratocaster when he was still in high school, looked up from the Rolling Stone he'd been reading behind the counter, saw Patrick, and said, “Back so soon?”
“I, uh, wanted to check something out.” Patrick led Michelle down the side wall, gauging the distance against his memory of where they'd bumped into one another outside. The spot seemed to be right behind a glitzy red drum set, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary there.
“See any sign of it?” he asked.
“No.”
“Sign of what?” asked Dixon.
Patrick sat on the stool behind the drum kit and thumped the bass a time or two with the foot pedal. “A disappearing magic shop?” he finally admitted.
“Ah, nope, fresh out,” Dixon said, grinning in a puzzled sort of way.
“I was afraid of that.” Patrick looked back to Michelle. “Got any suggestions?”
“No.”
He thought it over. “Did the guy in the shop tell you how the stuff in the jar was supposed to work?”
She shook her head. “No. He just gave it to me. Said I'd know what to do when the time came.”
“What stuff in a jar?” Dixon asked, his grin disappearing. “Are you fooling around with drugs?”
“No,” Patrick said, but the question brought back memories of times when he had. The silver stuff had created an entire past for him, complete with stupid mistakes. Mistakes that Dixon had helped him get past.
He picked up the sticks off the snare drum and did a quick paradiddle. He was nowhere near as good as Snake on the drums, but he had picked up a few basic moves. He even remembered when. This sudden new life was spooky, but it was also the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he knew it.
“What's your heart's desire?” he asked Michelle. “Besides long life and health and money. What do you want to do with all that once you've got it?”
“I—I don't know.”
“You must have some idea.”
“Well I'm sorry! I didn't expect to have to examine my entire existence today, okay?”
“Right. Sorry.”
Dixon looked from her to Patrick. “Is this any of my business?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Patrick told him. “Sorry. Let's go get us a cup of coffee,” he said to Michelle.
He led her to the front of the store, but she stopped at the door and folded her arms together across her chest and gave herself a little hug. “I should get back to work.”
“Let me at least get you out of that. What's your boss's phone number?” He took his cell phone out of his pocket. Ten minutes ago it had been bigger and clipped to his belt in classic g
eek style.
Michelle said, “You're just going to call and ask if you can take me to coffee?”
“What good's fame and fortune if you can't get special favors with it? What do you do, by the way?”
“I'm a software support tech for Quicklink Biosystems.”
“Cubicle work?”
“Yes.”
No wonder she was seeing magic doorways. “Phone number?”
He dialed it as she gave it to him, and when another female voice answered, he said, his voice sliding into the faintly British accent he used in public, “This is Patrick Brandon, of the Wombats. I'd like to borrow Michelle for the afternoon.”
“Michelle?” the woman asked. “Michelle Lancer?”
“I think so. Hold on. Is your last name Lancer?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Yes.”
“Yes, that's her. You see, I ran into her on the street, quite literally, and rather spoiled her lunch hour. I'd consider it a big favor if you'd let me make it up to her.”
The woman on the other end said, “You're—you're Patrick Brandon? Really?”
“Really. Do you know Michelle very well?”
“I'm her supervisor.”
“Right. You wouldn't by any chance happen to know what her heart's desire is, would you?”
“Her what?”
“Her heart's desire. What does she really want to do with her life? And no, before you ask, that's not a trick question. I sincerely want to know.”
“Why don't you ask her?”
“I did, but she doesn't seem to know it either.”
Michelle was turning bright red beside him. “Stop!” she whispered. Behind the cash register, Dixon was shaking his head.
“Is she all right?” the woman on the phone asked.
“Yes, I think so. Would you like to talk to her?”
“I think I'd better.”
Patrick handed the phone to Michelle. She took it the way she might take a rabid skunk, but she said, “Hello, Cindy? Yes, I'm fine. No, nothing like that. Yes, it's really him. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Can you cover for me for the rest of the afternoon? Thanks. I will. ‘Bye.” She closed the phone and said, “I think that's the first time I've ever heard her so flustered.”
Asimov's SF, September 2009 Page 13