Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One)

by L B Gschwandtner

  “What she does affects us, you know,” he snapped. His tone of voice made Alanna draw back a bit. “What if her wish goes completely south? Then we’ve wasted all this effort to come back with a big fat zero. Who knows if this case will even count, if it will move us along in the process, help us get back to the world of the living.”

  “And you’re still so sure that’s what you want?”

  Joe looked at her sharply, his eyes as dark blue as the ocean. “Don’t you?”

  “When I look around here at all these people I’m not sure this is such a great life. What if being a wish granter is a better way to live?”

  Joe frowned. “How can you even think that? Look at us. All we do is watch and wait. We can’t really affect anything. We have little say in their lives or even our own. I’d rather have one day of misery that at least I controlled than spend eternity being pushed around by Morgan.”

  “But that’s just the point. Everything he’s told us implies that we do have control over our destiny. If only we can remember.”

  “Yeah. Right. They say it’s up to us but then we can’t remember clearly so in the end we’re stuck. I’d rather get back to real life no matter what was wrong with it.”

  “You were the one who was so happy with the situation in the beginning.”

  “That was before I saw my other partner,” Joe muttered under his breath. She was right, he’d done a one-eighty. Being a Wish Granter had seemed like a vacation at first—all about drinks, and manifesting, and hanging out with a pretty girl. Now it seemed like a series of tests he wasn’t sure he would pass.

  The two of them watched Shelly slide the check across the counter to the cashier. She bent her head low as if answering a question, then the woman slid a small stack of chips back towards her, then another. Alanna exhaled with relief. “Look,” she said. “She didn’t cash it all in. She’s only got a short stack.”

  “A few is all it takes,” Joe said. “Look at the color.”

  “Silver?”

  “Platinum. Those chips are ten thousand bucks each.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  So much for control over his own destiny. The minute Shelly took the stack of platinum chips, Joe manifested into a wide hallway of The Bellagio basement where he found himself standing among six gigantic covered tubs on wheels. Although there were large exhaust fans in the ceiling, there was no air conditioning and these tubs were used for disposal of all the hotel restaurant’s uneaten food. It happened too fast for Joe to get his mind in gear to resist, which wouldn’t have done him any good anyway.

  So he stood there for a few seconds wondering why he’d been pulled away from Shelly and Alanna when a man pushing a garbage cart emerged through a set of double doors at the end of the hall. He wheeled the cart directly toward Joe until he came right up to the nearest tub and lifted the lid. The scent of rotting food filled the air and Joe shrank back, muttering “Jesus.” Then he realized the kitchen worker was Morgan, dressed in jeans and a shirt with a stained apron tied around his waist.

  And Morgan did not look happy to see Joe.

  “Why did you bring me down here?”

  “You were about to screw up.” Morgan sounded like a traffic cop giving out a warning ticket.

  “You’ve got it wrong,” Joe said. “Shelly was the one screwing up and I was just about to stop her.” Morgan was infuriatingly calm. “Your assignment is to grant a wish. You’ve done that.” He tossed a huge bucket of food slop into the tub. Some of it splashed and Joe jumped back.

  “Then why am I still here? We granted her wish and yet we’re still with her. What else is there to do?”

  Joe thought of the Greek gods he’d studied in school so long ago, the same ones that stood around the casino, stonily watching people ruin their lives. The gods were always capricious with earthlings. No matter how flawed their own behavior was up on Mount Olympus, it didn’t stop them from interfering in human lives far below. Nothing was too outrageous for the gods, nothing too perverse, scandalous, destructive, vindictive, or vengeful. Thinking about that, and the consequences they wreaked on mortals, Joe considered his own situation, and couldn’t decide whether to placate this mini god who just happened to look like Morgan Freeman, or try to best him with argument.

  “What do you think you still must do?” Morgan asked.

  The lawyer in Joe was struggling to come up with a strategy. His goal was clear. To be released form this realm, whatever and wherever it was, and get back to his life—his real life. But then there was Alanna.

  “By the way, where’s Alanna? Why didn’t she manifest with me?” It was as good a stall as any.

  Morgan replaced the lid on the tub and wiped his hands on the front of his apron. “Why do you care, Joe?”

  Joe didn’t have to think about this one. “Because she’s my partner. Partners watch out for each other. We’re a team. I’m a good team player.”

  “Are you?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “What did you see down there—outside the hospital, when we were taking Mrs. Mandelbaum out for her walk?”

  “Wait a second, there. Just hold on a minute. I didn’t see anything. I hallucinated is what I saw. A ghost is what I saw. A vapor, a mirage. Just like I’m seeing right here and now. What proof do you have that any of what happens up here is real? Huh? Tell me that.”

  “Joe, that’s hardly worthy of a man of your abilities. I expected better. Much better. Use your head. It’s not that hard to figure out.”

  Joe sighed, letting out his breath slowly. There was no real way to fight Morgan so he may as well play along.

  “I saw my law partner. But he wasn’t really there. So that’s what I saw. Nothing. Nobody. Nada.”

  “He must be somewhere,” said Morgan. “Everybody is somewhere.”

  “Oh yeah? You mean there really is a heaven and a hell and we go either one way or the other? That what the nuns taught us is right? That I should still be going to confession and genuflecting every time I pass a church? You’ve got to be kidding me. I haven’t thought about that stuff since I was eleven years old. I have my own philosophy now and it doesn’t require anybody else to tell me where I’ll end up if I don’t follow the rules.”

  “Is that what you think it’s about, Joe? Rules?”

  “I’ve followed rules my whole life. Rules of evidence, rules of procedure, rules of the court. Hell the whole legal system is based on centuries upon centuries of rules set down one on top of the other, dictating everything we do.”

  “You say that with such certainty, Joe,” Morgan looked doubtful now, “and yet you still haven’t faced . . . ”

  “Faced what?” Joe’s eyes narrowed. He sensed an opening, smelled it the way he used to smell a witness about to crack open like a walnut up there on the stand. “Faced what, you imposter?”

  “Ah, Joe, you seem to like this cross examining. Seems as if you’ve gotten back into your groove.”

  This had turned into the most maddening conversation Joe had ever had with anyone. He stepped back further so that Morgan was not so close, not so definite, and so that the smell of the rotting garbage was not so overpowering. Almost immediately another image appeared, walking slowly, a man with his head down, scuffling his feet, one arm straight at his side. He was holding something. Something small and dark. Small and dark and when the light caught it for a second, shiny. The man raised his arm slowly, the thing he was holding pointing away from his body. And Joe realized in that instant the thing was a gun.

  The blast shook Joe off his feet and he was falling through space with the echoes of the gunshot reverberating all around him. It was a bad dream, Joe thought. Just a bad dream and he would awaken and everything would be back to normal and he would be at his office, sitting in his chair at his desk with his law books behind him and his world fixed, complete, balanced. But he was not at his desk and the falling continued until he landed, on his feet, back at the basement with those ugly tubs and the smel
l of rotting food.

  “I remember,” he said it softly. “There was a man, wearing a green golf shirt. He was running away. He shot my partner. My law partner. Shot him in the head. I saw it happen. There was so much blood. It was everywhere. I found him. Oh, God. I found him right outside our office. On the sidewalk. Almost at the door. Like he was trying to get inside when he caught it. And he was warning me to stay away.”

  Images flooded him as if he had suddenly sprung a leak. There was Russell—Russ, his partner, a funny little bald guy in a loud checked jacket always trying to get lucky at the neighborhood bar. Joe sitting next to him, nursing a scotch and arguing with Russ about the case they were defending, angry about something. What? Who had they been defending? It wasn’t clear. But Russ —he was clear as a champagne glass. Belligerent, cocky, Russ, trying to flirt with some woman at the end of the bar. She was ignoring him. Russ never had much luck with the ladies. Not like Joe.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Great. Just great. Joe certainly had a knack for disappearing right when she needed him most. Alanna could only assume he’d been taken out of the casino against his will. She was beginning to recognize a pattern. It seemed they were most likely to be transported when they were either upset, on the verge of remembering something, or both. The sight of Shelly turning away from the counter with the platinum chips in her hand was undoubtedly what triggered Joe’s latest departure. But he’d left her with a bit of a problem. A problem in the form of Shelly who was now gazing down at the chips with the rapturous sort of expression most women reserve for a newborn child.

  Yikes. An odd comparison. Where had it come from? Alanna waved her hand for a few seconds until she caught Shelly’s eye.

  Shelly was pushing the chips into a little blue silk drawstring bag and when she looked up and saw Alanna, her face split into a wide smile, as if she’d forgotten their last conversation at the hospital or indeed the hospital at all.

  “Look,” she said. “When you get the $10,000 chips they give you this cool little bag.”

  She really is like a child in many ways, Alanna thought. Easily distracted and totally absorbed in her own problems and pleasures. But Alanna had to admit that the bag was rather interesting, something like she imagined a medieval princess might use to hide her gold coins.

  “And if you’re carrying this bag,” Shelly went on, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “they let you into the roped-off area where the high rollers are. They bring you champagne in there. Lobsters. Caviar. Anything you want. That’s what it means to have money.”

  “Is that what you want, Shelly? You want lobsters and champagne and caviar?”

  Shelly’s shoulders slumped. “Well, not that exactly. I don’t even like that stuff. It’s just—knowing that you can have it, right? Knowing that if I decided to try the no-limit tables, those big bouncer guys couldn’t keep me out. I mean, half the time we don’t really want something, we just want to know we could have it if we ever started wanting it, you know?”

  Actually Alanna did know. She looked at Shelly with a little more sympathy. “We get the two things mixed up sometimes, you’re right,” Alanna said. “We’re so busy wondering what we can or can’t have that we forget to ask ourselves what it is we really want.”

  Shelly didn’t answer. She was already heading for the velvet rope that cordoned off the high roller room, as if determined to join their ranks.

  When she reached the rope, she held up her velvet bag triumphantly and the guard let her pass. Alanna cast a last frantic glance around for Joe, who would certainly know better than her how to handle the situation. But Joe was nowhere in sight. She strode quickly toward Shelly and told the guard, “I’m with her.”

  He looked her up and down, taking in the long slim legs, the bright smile, the tousled curls. And he let her pass.

  *****

  Shelly stood at the wall as far away from the table as she could get and still see the action. It was the middle of a big hand. A quick count of chips at the table told her there must be close to three hundred thousand dollars in the pot. It was like the last time. All the players were men. They looked like they’d been playing for hours. None of them spoke. The dealer was a stocky guy with fat fingers and a deadpan expression. This was no friendly game. These guys were out for blood.

  No one had folded yet and the bet was twenty thousand on a ten of hearts. Three players folded one after the other leaving two in. A raise and a call and then Alanna was at Shelly’s side whispering to her.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Maybe I liked the feeling of winning,” Shelly whispered back.

  “But that was because of us. You don’t stand a chance in here. These guys are pros. You’ve only played once. You’d be crazy to try again.”

  Thoughts rushed through Shelly’s mind. Maybe she just wanted to see what it felt like to risk so much. Why else would these high rollers do this? Maybe she just wanted in on the big game, or she needed a distraction from too much reality. Maybe she could double down or even triple her winnings just to see what a million bucks in her hands would feel like.

  “They’re risking it all,” she whispered in Alanna’s ear. “Why not me? I’d like to win a million bucks. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Why stop at a million? How about five, ten or even fifty million? How much is enough? What would you do different in your life if you had all the money in the world? Because life is not about having a good time but living a good life. You have to define what good is for yourself before you go risking what you do have. You’re not just risking money here, not just risking your winnings; you’re risking your relationship with Ben, risking your future. What is your future worth? Do you want to be one of those blowsy middle aged women sitting at a slot machine for companionship? Think about what matters. Think about Ben.”

  Shelly did think about Ben for a few seconds but the thing that came back to her was the mother praying in Spanish in the hospital chapel. That woman’s face and the touch of her hand on Shelly’s cheek. She slipped her arm through Alanna’s and moved them toward the velvet rope where they had entered. The guard opened it for them and they were free.

  “What I want,” Shelly said, “is for Ben to be okay. They’re going to be bringing him out of the coma in about an hour, so I need to head back to the hospital now.”

  It was as if she had never made a detour into the high roller room, never even considered risking her chips on the game. It was, in fact, a bit like Shelly was the one waking up from a coma, the one coming out of a long bad dream.

  “Will you walk with me?” she asked Alanna. “I think I could use the fresh air and exercise, but I really don’t want to walk alone.”

  “If you were going back to the hospital why did you get the chips?” Alanna asked with some surprise.

  “It was a test. I guess I just wanted to know I could pass it,” Shelly said softly. “I think I’ve always wanted one of these blue bags, you know? Don’t you think it looks like something in a fairy story? Like just having it would give you magical powers.”

  “Joe thought you were going to . . .”

  “I came pretty close, didn’t I? He was right. That’s what I intended to do.” She gave a little laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Where is he, anyway?”

  “An excellent question,” Alanna said. “It looks like the walk to the hospital is just going to be a girls’ trip. Which might be better, come to think of it. I don’t want to be alone either.”

  “Really? That’s weird. I didn’t know angels ever got lonely.”

  “Angels?” Alanna asked sharply. “Is that what you think I am?”

  “Okay what word should I use?”

  “Just call me a friend,” Alanna said, ashamed that just minutes earlier she had been ready to dismiss Shelly as childish. The girl had a way of seeing through to the heart of things. “And you’re right. That does look like a magic bag.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “What do you re
member about your past life?” Shelly asked. They were about halfway to the hospital and, as they walked, Alanna had described as much as she could about the up above place and the mission she and Joe appeared to be on.

  “It comes back in pieces. I’m pretty sure I was body surfing when I died. Or at least in the water, and I think it was Florida. So that’s one thing and then when we were flying out here, I had the feeling I’d been in first class before. Clue number two. Then I tried on a diamond ring in a jewelry store and had such a strong reaction I almost passed out. Being in the hospital really upset me too because I had this sense I’d been in a bed surrounded by doctors and nurses and everyone was being really kind to me.”

  “Like you’d been in an accident?” Shelly asked. She pushed her hair back and there were beads of perspiration on her lip. Alanna wondered if the walk had been such a good idea. Getting out and moving around seemed to be helping them both, but the Vegas heat was punishing and Shelly looked flushed and exhausted. And there was no telling what kind of news was waiting for her back at the hospital.

  “You know, I don’t think it was an accident, but I’m not sure why I’m saying this. It’s all just impressions. And then in the gift shop, I picked up this little stuffed toy, one of the really soft ones like you put in a crib and it felt like I . . . ”

  “Do you think you lost a baby?”

  “Lost a . . . ”

  “Like a miscarriage?”

  “Maybe. There was blood, and I . . . ” Suddenly the heat began to get to Alanna as well. The sidewalk in front of her seemed to shimmer and vibrate and Shelly grabbed her arm.

  “Are you okay? It’s awfully hot out here. Maybe we can find a cab.”

  “No, I’m okay. But you’re right. That’s exactly what happened. I do remember. I had a miscarriage and went to the hospital because I lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion. I remember.” She said it quietly. The memory was not the surprise she thought it was going to be.