A Man for Megan

by Darlene Scalera

  Silence followed her statement. Megan saw a look pass between Kitty and Mark.

  Dolores said, “I thought you told me you don’t drink.”

  “I don’t,” Megan insisted. “And I’m not crazy. Listen.” She told Gino’s story beginning with the curse and ending with the second wish. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s the truth.” She looked point-blank into Elliot’s eyes. “I swear.”

  There was more uncomfortable silence until Mark began to laugh. “Good one, Megs. I gotta admit you really had us going for a minute there.”

  Kitty looked uneasily at Mark, making a shushing motion with her hand. “I think she really believes it, honey.” She sent Megan a worried look.

  “You got him at a yard sale, you say?” Dolores questioned. She gave Gino a once-over. “And I thought I got good buys at Wal-Mart.”

  “Elliot?” A note of plea strained Megan’s voice. “Do you believe me?”

  Elliot was staring at Gino. “No, I don’t believe you,” he said, the anger controlled and cutting in his voice. “I don’t believe you’d go to these lengths to humiliate me!”

  He started to turn away.

  “Elliot, wait,” Megan begged. “Watch,” she asked as his steps stopped. “Okay, Gino, do that disappearing thing you do.”

  Gino, his face impassive, blinked once and was gone.

  “See.” Megan turned to the others, triumphant.

  Elliot snorted in disgust. “What’s he going to do next? Pull a rabbit out of his hat?”

  Megan’s shoulders sagged. “Okay, Gino, c’mon back.”

  Gino reappeared, his face still expressionless. Kitty gave a little gasp.

  “Big deal,” Elliot said. “David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. And even he doesn’t claim to live in a brass lamp.”

  “Megan said he lived in a crock pot,” Dolores said pointedly.

  “What about your mother’s hands?” Megan submitted.

  She felt a glimmer of hope as Elliot studied his mother’s hands.

  “She started new medication about a month ago. The doctor said that, combined with the uncommonly hot, dry weather we’ve been having this summer, probably eased the stiffness and pain.”

  “What about Kitty’s pregnancy?”

  “You and your genie did that? And I always thought the stork brought the babies.”

  “What do I have to do to convince you?” Frustration and desperation mixed, turning Megan’s voice raw.

  “Let me see.” Elliot considered her question. “You said you have one wish left?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, then,” he said as if the answer was obvious. He looked directly at Megan. “Make it.”

  “Make it?” she repeated in a softer voice.

  “What’s the problem? You said he gave you three wishes. The first you used when you rescued Frank from an accident no one ever heard of, but, let’s not split hairs. The second one you used to make Kitty pregnant Did you know that, Mark? All that time you’d been trying when you could’ve been down at the Bowl-n-Brew, working on your seven-ten split. That leaves one wish left.”

  Elliot fixed Megan in his sight. “Make it.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s not that easy.”

  “No?” He was incredulous. “What’s the problem? The man’s a genie, right? Right?” he insisted when Megan didn’t respond.

  “Yes, but—”

  “He can do anything you ask him?”

  “Not everything.”

  “No?” Elliot said with more mock amazement.

  “He can’t give me more wishes.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “He can’t make someone love me.”

  “Is that what you wished?” Elliot demanded.

  “No,” Megan hastily replied.

  “Any other restrictions?” Elliot asked with a barely sufferable air.

  She shook her head.

  “Then, this man, excuse me, this genie hardly seems unreasonable. Go ahead, make your third wish.”

  She looked into Elliot’s eyes. The irises were as colorless as one of the stones on Dolores’s fingers.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “No?” His lips went tight, sharpening the short lines around his mouth.

  She looked down at the ground. “I don’t know what I want.” She looked back up at Elliot, hoping for understanding.

  “It’s evident you don’t know what you want,” he snapped back at her. “You should’ve told me that when I asked you to marry me instead of saying yes and then, making a total fool of me. That’s what I wish. Unfortunately I don’t have a genie to make it come true. C’mon, Mom, show’s over.”

  “Elliot, no!” Megan cried.

  He wouldn’t even look at her. “C’mon, Mom.”

  Dolores reluctantly got to her feet. She looked wistfully at Gino. “You weren’t going to dance at the lingerie party, were you?”

  Elliot disappeared around the corner.

  “Oh, I better go be with him. Kitty, I’m sorry,” Dolores apologized before hurrying after her son.

  Megan sank down into a lawn chair as if the simple act of standing required too much effort.

  “Perhaps, we should go, too,” Gino said. He stood behind her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  She allowed herself to be led to the car. He opened the passenger door for her. He buckled the seat belt snug across her body.

  “I should’ve had you do something else,” she was saying as he slid in behind the wheel. “That thing you do with the trees and the gems. Now that would’ve gotten Elliot’s attention.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped.” He inserted the key into the ignition and started the car.

  “Why not?”

  He backed the car out of the driveway. “People believe when they’re ready to believe. That’s what I was trying to warn you about back there.” He winked at Megan. “I think Dolores might be on your side, though.”

  “That’d be a first,” she muttered. She stared out the window. Gino put the car into Drive and started toward home.

  “What’re you saying? It takes some people longer to believe than others?” she asked.

  “Sure, some people take longer. Some people never believe—people like Elliot.”

  She turned away from the window. “Never? Why?”

  “Some people can only trust what makes sense. I’m so completely outside the realm of their belief, I threaten everything they know as true.”

  “You do turn a person’s world upside down.”

  “It didn’t stop you from believing in me. In fact, you were one of the easy ones.”

  “Strange. I would’ve thought I’d be more like Elliot,” she mused.

  He glanced at her. “Maybe you’re not as much like Elliot as you think.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Gino’s gaze went back to the road. “Maybe deep down, you were ready to believe, ready to trust someone.”

  “I had Elliot.”

  “Elliot’s not here now.” Gino looked at her.

  “Your fiancée tells you she has a genie in her crock pot, and you don’t expect the man to get upset?” Megan argued.

  “Obviously you didn’t,” Gino said with maddening rationality. “Or you would’ve never told him.”

  “I thought he’d, at least, give me the benefit of the doubt,” she conceded.

  “If he loved you, he would’ve trusted you. And if you trusted him, you would’ve been able to love him.”

  He was right, but it only made Megan angrier. “Since when did you become Miss Lonelyhearts? They don’t even have love where you come from.”

  “You hang around humans for two thousand years, you pick up a thing or two.”

  Megan stared unseeingly out the windshield. “I never expected Elliot to love me. I only expected him not to leave me.”

  She heard Gino’s cluck of disapproval. “You ask the impossible.”


  She turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “No one can give you that kind of security. Not Elliot. Not even me.”

  They’d come home. Gino waited until he’d parked the car and turned off the engine so he could look her right in the eyes. “Sometimes, the people that love you have to leave you. They might not want to, but, sometimes, they have no choice.”

  “Elliot had a choice,” Megan maintained, although she had the feeling Gino wasn’t talking about Elliot anymore.

  “So did you.”

  She gave an indignant laugh. “What choice did I have?”

  “You could’ve made the third wish.”

  Megan said nothing. There was no defense, no denial.

  “Then Elliot might not’ve left you,” Gino added.

  But you would have. The thought rose immediately, not allowing Megan time to reject it. So strong, so swift was the truth, she turned away, afraid he would see the pain in her eyes. One last wish, and he’d be gone forever.

  She knew the truth then. She could let Elliot leave her. She could suffer her friends’ worried, curious looks. What she couldn’t willingly bring about was Gino’s goodbye.

  She finally turned to him, not wanting to arouse his suspicion. “As you well know, I don’t know what I want,” she insisted in a clear voice.

  He looked at her a moment too long as if he also knew the truth. How easy it would be if he laughed right now, scorning the certainty of her statement, calling her bluff.

  Yet, what difference would it make if his contempt drove her to confession? What would it matter if she revealed she knew exactly what she wanted.

  Her avowal of the truth would only lead to a greater truth: the one thing she wanted was the one and only thing she could never have.

  Gino reached for the door handle without a word. Relief made her legs weak as she followed him inside the house.

  “I think I’ll hit the sack,” she said as soon as they were inside. “It’s been another long, strange day.”

  “You’re not going to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. But you help yourself. There’s some salad and soybean dressing in the refrig.”

  Gino made a face. “That’s okay. I’ll just whip something up.” Platters of steak, baked potatoes and steaming corn on the cob appeared on the table. A basket of rolls nestled between the plates. Silver bowls of sour cream and butter completed the meal.

  “Are you sure you won’t join me?” he invited. “It’s really no problem.”

  Megan mustered a smile, but shook her head. She started toward the bedroom, hesitating at the entrance to the hall. “What’re you going to do after this?”

  Gino looked up at her, puzzled. “I’m going to be King.”

  “No, no.” She laughed. “I meant what’re you going to do tonight, after you finish dinner?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I don’t know. What time is it in Paris? If Marie-Anne Cantin’s cheese shop in the Rue du Champ-de-Mars is still open, I could do with a bit of Brie and fruit for my dessert. Shall we take a chance?”

  Frowning, Megan rocked back and forth on her heels. “Couldn’t you just blink it up?”

  When he laughed, she realized he’d been teasing her.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “After dinner, I’ll curl up in my crock pot like a good genie.” He turned his attention back to the meal.

  At the doorway, Megan said, “We humans must be such a dull lot to you.”

  Gino was busy smearing sour cream across his potato. “You have your moments.”

  She smiled. “I suppose. Good night, Gino.”

  “Good night.”

  Still she lingered in the doorway. “If you’d be more comfortable, you’re welcome to use the guest bedroom.”

  Gino looked up from the roll he was buttering. “Maybe I will. Thank you.”

  She gave an odd half-laugh that caused Gino to continue looking at her. “It feels like I should be the one thanking you.”

  He put down the knife and roll. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.” She gave that strange yelp of a laugh again. “You’re over two thousand years old, you live in a crock pot, you make miracles with a blink. Yet, talking to you, being with you, everything seems to make sense.”

  She shook her head, finally starting down the hall. “It’s crazy.”

  LATER, STRETCHED OUT on the narrow bed, Gino saw only Megan’s face. He heard again and again the words she’d spoken: It’s crazy.

  And he agreed.

  He shifted to the side, trying to curl his legs beneath him to fit the short mattress but only succeeded in loosening the sheet in irritating wrinkles beneath him.

  He sat up, forgoing sleep, knowing it was more than the uncomfortable bed or the twisted bedclothes that disturbed his rest.

  At Kitty’s house today, Megan could have made the third wish, and it would have been over. The curse would have been fulfilled. He would have returned to his world and received his well-earned reward. Megan would have married Elliot and had what she craved: a home, a husband, a family. Everyone would have lived happily ever after.

  Yet, this afternoon when Elliot had asked Megan to make the third wish, Gino had suddenly forgotten how to breathe, his heart seemed barely to beat. He’d waited for Megan’s answer, knowing it was more than the third wish. It was- the last wish, the wish to end all others. He should have been praying to the gods for her to make it.

  Instead he’d asked the exact opposite from the spirits above.

  And when his prayer was answered, he praised the heavens in silent joy.

  Gino’s head fell back onto the flat, damp pillow. His hands rose, palms up. Why?

  Why?

  As if in echo, he heard Megan scream.

  He was in her room before the scream peaked. The moonlight coming in through the window shadowed her prone form. She twisted onto her stomach, whimpering now, and he realized she was still in the throes of a terrified sleep. He kneeled at her bedside, smoothing back the moist curls from her brow, gently easing her from the arms of the dream demons.

  “Megan,” he said softly, careful not to snatch her back too abruptly. The devils of sleep needed to be sneaked up on or they only increased their hold, giggling with glee.

  “Megan,” he whispered again, barely shaking her, his voice a low call.

  She sat up suddenly, snapping the demons’ direct hold. But, in the glaze of her stare, he saw that she remembered their horrors. He sat on the bed beside her, holding her shoulders. Startled, she turned to him, then collapsed, her breaths labored against his neck.

  “The blood, the blood,” she muttered. “It was so red against the white satin gown.”

  “Shh.” He quieted her down, smoothing her wet curls, rocking her gently, seeing that the night demons had done their damage.

  “Then she was gone. My mother was gone. I was alone in the car, her blood staining my bridal dress.” The words spilled from her as vividly as the dream’s surreal images.

  She looked up, still trembling from the night’s black touch, still saying words only spoken in the dark. “Everyone leaves, Gino. They don’t even say goodbye. They just go.”

  The moonlight streaked across her features, bringing luminescent life to her pain. “Shh,” he said, trying to shelter her profile of strangely painted sadness back to his shoulder.

  She fought against his soothing strokes, lifting her head. “You’ll leave, too.”

  It was not a question. They both had known the answer from the beginning.

  “Please, when you leave me…” Her words caught as if she could say no more. “Say goodbye.”

  Emotion overwhelmed his voice. He stared at her. His heart, having only known joy from her, now learned pain.

  “Promise,” she pleaded from the depths of her soul stripped bare by the night.

  “I promise.”

  She smiled then, and he kissed her on the cheek, intending only comfort. But her head turned and their mouths met.
Her lips were warm and alive, seeking him until the night seemed to fade. Together as one, they defied the darkness, feasting on the wetness and texture of each other until the demons scattered and their heads moved in a soundless, rhythmic lullaby.

  When the kiss ended, all grew still, the night gods placated. As if exhausted from a great battle, Megan rested against him. He rubbed her back, and this half man, half immortal who had walked with gods and waltzed with goddesses, couldn’t imagine more fulfillment than the fragile, fine feel of Megan’s spine against his palm.

  Her head weighted heavy against his shoulder and her breathing slowed, becoming light and even.

  Carefully he eased her down onto the pillow. Her body stretched out in welcome.

  He sat there, afraid to leave her once more alone against the evilness of the night.

  His hand touched her cheek, her brow now as smooth as a child’s. “Sleep, dear Megan.”

  Still he sat on the bed, unwilling to leave her unprotected against the creatures of deep sleep. He took her hand and held it to let the dream devils know they were battling two now. Her hand, small and soft, curled against his like a newborn kitten, and he met the miracle of human touch.

  He looked at the woman now in perfect sleep, and knew why, had always known why, he had prayed against the third wish that day.

  “Oh, Megan,” he said simply, his anguish mixed with amazement. He lifted the tiny, unmoving hand he held and, closing his eyes, laid it against his cheek. She was his curse.

  And his salvation.

  Chapter Ten

  The alarm went off at five-thirty, waking both Megan, who was curled up in her bed, and Gino, who was stretched out in the upholstered chair in the corner. Their first look at each other was filled with surprise, then they smiled, not unhappy to wake and find the other one there.

  “Good morning,” Megan said, her cheek pressed into the softness of the pillow. Her arms were wrapped around another pillow as if she was holding herself from a fall.

  “Good morning to you.” She was tousled and sleepy-eyed. She’d never looked more beautiful. He was pleased to see the dream demons hadn’t done any permanent damage. The thought of waking each day to that face came into his mind. He didn’t chase it out immediately.