You Wish

by Mandy Hubbard

  18

  IT TAKES ME twenty minutes of digging through my closet to find an outfit that works on Ann, let alone one for me that will hide my chest.

  I tend to like a lot of fluorescent colors with really bad designs on them, and the colors do not work well on Ann, being that she’s a redhead. She does like trying it all on, though, throwing clothes all over my room in her excitement.

  I bet there are a lot of ten-year-olds who would pay big money to have an actual life-sized doll who likes playing dress up. Maybe I should rent Ann out as a babysitter. Two birds, one stone.

  She ends up in a baby-blue tank top I haven’t worn since eighth grade and a pair of torn-up jeans. She seems to be a size smaller than I am, so I have to find a belt for her so they won’t fall off.

  Even with the ill-fitting jeans, though, she looks kind of hot.

  Raggedy Ann has a banging body. Who knew.

  While her hair is still wet from a shower, it looks kind of normal—almost cute, because the water has tamed her curls. The strands look longer, straighter, and the darkened red is much prettier than the orangey red she normally sports.

  But by the time we’ve been in the car for ten minutes with the windows down, her hair has gone insane, a little like Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons. Ann spends the whole ride giggling about the way it’s whipping her in the face, halfheartedly trying to hold it down around the nape of her neck.

  I have my mom’s twenty in the pocket of my plaid cutoff shorts. They don’t really match my hoodie, but I’m wearing it anyway to hide my honkers. It made sense at home, but now I feel really weird, like I shouldn’t have left the house looking this freakish.

  Ann follows me into Fred Meyer, and I grab a small cart.

  I’m on a mission.

  I was so distracted by my new boobs that I forgot to talk to my mom about the bakery. I don’t want to wait another day, so we’re moving to plan B: I’ll bake my own cake, a perfect mini-replica of the sweet-sixteen monstrosity. I’ll do four small layers and decorate them with frosting flowers and put four candles on each tier. If I’m careful, I bet I can get it to look quite similar to the birthday cake.

  Then I’ll make Ann sing me “Happy Birthday,” I’ll blow them out, and when I open my eyes, she’ll be gone, my chest will shrink, I won’t be spouting off in Italian every time I’m annoyed, the pony will be in her make-believe plastic barn, and the gumballs will be occupying gumball machines everywhere.

  Let’s be real here—if those are the first five wishes, do I really want to know what the others are?

  Ann follows me across the store, her eyes roving all over the place. She keeps stopping at various end caps and picking up bags of chips and two-liter bottles of soda. She pokes the fresh loaves of French bread and she knocks over a few boxes of crackers.

  This is an amusement park to her.

  “Ann! I don’t have all day!”

  Technically I guess I do have all day, but I’m on a mission here. She groans and stomps after me to the baking aisle, and we stare at the cake-mix boxes for a few moments in silence.

  “This one looks yummy,” she says, holding up a box of German-chocolate mix.

  “It needs to be white. Like this one.”

  I hold up a box with a picture of a white-frosted cake.

  “Sprinkles!” she shouts, jumping up and down.

  Just kill me now.

  I toss two boxes into the cart and then ponder whether I’m totally sure that it was white mix. It could have been yellow.

  I crouch down and reach over to grab the yellow mix off the bottom shelf. When I lean forward, my new chest knocks into the shelf and a half-dozen cake-mix boxes make loud smack sounds as they land on the floor.

  I stare at them, contemplating just leaving them, then sigh and scoop them up and place them back on the shelves. When I stand up, I have to grab ahold of the cart to keep from tripping.

  Next we pick out an assortment of frosting, including some pink stuff in tubes that should work for making the flowers. I grab a box of birthday candles and then drag Ann down to the refrigerated aisle to get some eggs and milk.

  My back hurts a little already. I feel like I have mountains sticking straight out, and it’s hard to reach for things because I knock into them. So not fun.

  And also? It is so odd wearing your mom’s bra. I took one straight out of the dryer so I know it’s clean and all, but it totally gives me the willies.

  I drag Ann over to the clothing section. If she was excited over the food, she’s ecstatic over the clothing.

  “You can buy any of this?”

  I look over at her. She’s holding up a pink V-neck with lacy arms and flowers all over it.

  “Yep. And they’ll give you the noose to hang yourself too.” Ann regards me with a skeptical look and then shrugs and puts the shirt back on the rack. I wonder how long it will take her to pick up sarcasm and wield it against me. I give her until tomorrow.

  My mom’s bra is a C cup. I think I’m probably supposed to be a D now, because I think I might bust right out of the top of it, but I refuse to buy anything with a D on it. I buy the most full-coverage C cup I can find and also a sports bra. Maybe if they don’t have shape, they won’t look so gigantic.

  For good measure, I find the first aid supplies and grab some Ace bandages. Maybe I can bind them down and make them less . . .

  Obtrusive.

  By the time I’ve left, I’ve spent forty-four dollars’ worth of my birthday money and all of the twenty my mom left on the counter. There goes the pizza dinner for my brother. Poor guy, he’ll be eating Hot Pockets again.

  I use the last six dollars I have in my pocket for a couple of dollar cheeseburgers, which Ann and I scarf down on the way back to the house.

  This whole cake thing better work.

  Because as it turns out, getting everything you ever wished for is really expensive.

  19

  ANN AND I get out the measuring cups and spoons and a few giant bowls. I flip on MTV, which, shockingly, is playing music videos. Katy Perry is just coming on-screen, introducing another poppy, bouncy song. She probably has a choreographed dance with a bowl of fruit later.

  Ann is really excited about our baking experiment. “I’ve never baked a cake before!” she says, throwing her arms out. Her hands knock into one of the boxes of mix and it flies off the granite countertop and lands on the travertine-tiled floor with a loud smack.

  At least it wasn’t open yet.

  “Chill,” I say, picking up the box and ripping the top off.

  She smiles and scrunches her shoulders up like a little kid who has been scolded. “But this is so cool! I saw your birthday cake when you turned eleven, you know. You put me on the counter, right next to it. It was this giant homemade thing. I think it was a turtle.”

  I scrunch up my brows. “I had a cake that looked like a turtle?”

  She nods enthusiastically. “Green frosting and lots of sprinkles. It looked delicious.”

  “Oh. Um, right.” I’m not sure what to say to that. Ann has a spectacular memory. I change the subject. “Uh, okay, we need to put the white mix in this bowl and the yellow in that bowl and get all the lumps out, because I don’t know where my mom put the sifter.”

  My mom had this whole gourmet kitchen designed and stocked with fancy gadgets, because once upon a time she really liked cooking. I loved it too. We’d spend hours creating gourmet meals and then we’d make my brother and my dad sit at the table with blindfolds and we’d have them taste test it. They pretended to hate it, groaning and protesting, but they always sat right down and put the blindfolds on and then ate until they could barely move and we almost had to roll them into the living room.

  My mom and I wouldn’t tell them what the food was. We’d just make them open their mouths on cue and accept the spoonful of whatever we made. We’d giggle when their faces turned sour and then tell them all the ingredients.

  It was amazing, the glow of my family when we were happy.
Like we were one big clan from Leave It to Beaver.

  But then he left and it’s not the same with just my brother, and then my mom got too busy with her company and started leaving us cash for Chinese takeout or pizza delivery, and the gourmet tasting parties became just a memory.

  I hand Ann a fork and the box of yellow mix, and she sets to work pouring it into the bowl and mashing down the lumps with her fork.

  Then she eats a forkful of cake dust. It sticks to her lips.

  “Ew! Don’t do that.”

  “Oh! Sorry.” Then she puts the licked fork back into the mix.

  “Oh, gross.” I grab the fork and toss it into the sink. “I’m not trying to get Raggedy Ann–ositis from you.”

  She just gives me a blank look. She never gets my lame jokes.

  I crack the eggs since I’m not stupid enough to think Ann could handle that, and then we put in the vegetable oil and start stirring.

  Ann holds the bowl in one arm and the spoon in the other, and then she spins around in circles and sings along to Katy Perry. A few glops of batter sort of spray out of the bowl, and then Ann loses her balance and knocks into the countertop. The motion makes her arm jerk and she sort of launches a big glop of batter at me.

  It spatters across my apron. I freeze, my big wooden spoon still in the bowl, and stare at her.

  “Seriously, Ann, take it down a notch.”

  That much bubbly energy should not be legal.

  I set my bowl down and lean over to grab the two greased pans I’ve put out, and then Ann smacks a hand over her mouth and starts giggling.

  “What?” I say, frozen, my hand still outstretched.

  She points. I look down.

  Oh God, my boobs are totally in the cake batter.

  I slowly retreat, and the batter kind of plops back into the bowl, the rest streaking down my apron.

  I sigh and rub my eyes. I slide my bowl to the side and then grab the cake pans and then we load them up with batter and put them in the oven.

  “Now what?” Ann asks as she stoops over and stares into the oven. After a moment passes, she opens the door and peers in to survey the results.

  “It’s not instant.”

  “Oh.”

  Ann stands upright again.

  I’m half tempted to tell her we should see about taming her frizzed-out red hair, but then I remember that she’s going to be gone in like an hour, tops. As soon as I make that wish, she’ll be donezo, and I can go back to life as usual.

  This better work.

  BY THE TIME the kitchen timer dings, Ann has performed most of the dances on MTV, even the ones done by Shakira. Since the song lyrics happen to be There’s a she-wolf in the closet, I suppose I should find it funny, or at least ironic, considering she did come from the closet. Instead there’s something annoying about it. I can’t help but be jealous because she’s figured out that weird belly-dancing shimmy thing.

  I wonder if Ann could be a world-class painter or a singer or something if she just had the right teacher.

  I wonder what it would be like to have that kind of shimmering possibility, that kind of endless expanse of dreams. To just choose something and be good at it.

  Whatever. Now I sound like I belong on the underside of a Snapple lid.

  Ann stands back as I slide the cakes onto a cooling rack. We stir up the frosting as the cakes cool, and then I get out a big waxy sheet of paper and put the cakes onto it. I use toothpicks to try and secure them to each other, holding my breath like I’m playing a game of Jenga. They seem to stay.

  Ann hovers over my shoulder and watches, so close I can feel her breath.

  I trust her with the frosting, which believe me, is hard to let her do. I do not want this screwed up. She uses a butter knife and the results aren’t pretty, but it does the job. Maybe I should have turned on some Martha Stewart instead of MTV.

  She stands back as I do my best to replicate the fluffy pink-frosted flowers from my sweet sixteen. It might help if I had looked at the real deal for more than one incredulous second, but I didn’t, so hopefully this is close enough.

  I jam candles into the cake—four on each layer—and then stand back and admire my work.

  It’ll have to do.

  “Okay, now sing the birthday song,” I say to Ann.

  She just gives me a blank look.

  “You know, ‘Happy birthday to you . . . ’ ”

  She just continues to stare.

  It takes me ten minutes to teach her the song. You’d think as repetitive as it is that it would go more quickly, but she’s really worried about getting it just right. I guess I should be too.

  She’s finally ready, and she sings me the song as I grip the edge of the countertop, my knuckles turning white.

  As she sings the last “Happy birthday to you . . . ” her voice going higher and carrying on longer than necessary, I close my eyes.

  I wish every wish I’d ever made had never come true.

  With a long intake of breath, I open my eyes and blow out every candle with one try.

  Then I close them again for a quiet moment.

  Wishing.

  Hoping.

  Maybe some kind of magical sense of peace is supposed to wash over me. Tranquility. Serenity. Something.

  Finally, I open my eyes.

  Ann is cutting into the cake with the butter knife she used for frosting. “This is going to be sooo good!”

  I just groan and sink to the floor.

  Maybe she’ll disappear at midnight, like Cinderella.

  Or maybe that’s my life as I knew it.

  20

  I SPEND MOST of that night staring at the ceiling in my room, listening to Ann snore and trying to come up with more wishes to fill in on the list. If I can’t stop them, it would be nice if I at least knew what was coming.

  You’d think if I had used up a precious birthday wish—you only get one per year, after all—I’d at least remember what I wanted.

  But I can’t. I have some ideas, of course. I remember certain toys I was obsessed with. I remember when I wanted to be one of the voices in the Shrek movies. And when I wanted to fly an airplane.

  But who knows if I actually wished those things?

  So, as another day dawns, I sneak out of my room and throw on a sweatshirt. It’s barely past nine o’clock, and Ann is still sleeping heavily.

  I sit down on the last step at the bottom of the stairs and pull on my rattiest, most comfortable pair of Converse sneakers. I’m still lacing them up when I hear the stairs creak, and I turn around, expecting to see Ann’s messy mop of red hair.

  But it’s my mom. Surprising, for nine a.m. Normally she’d be gone by now.

  Sundays are usually huge event days—most often a wedding or a company retreat slash picnic—so she tends to leave in the wee hours to soothe the frazzled nerves of a bride-to-be or a hoity-toity CEO or any number of rich, spoiled people.

  I mean if you can’t plan your own party and would rather pay someone to do it, you probably have more money than necessary. And I’ve seen some of my mom’s invoices. Her clients definitely have more money than necessary.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “The library.”

  “You’re gone an awful lot these days,” she says.

  “I am gone a lot?”

  Surely, I heard her wrong.

  She nods. I narrow my eyes and give her a skeptical look.

  “What’s that for?”

  I shrug and walk to the door to pick up my backpack. I should have kept my mouth shut. “I’m home way more than you, that’s all.”

  My mom sighs. “Don’t give me lip, Kayla.”

  My jaw drops. “I’m not! How is it lip if it’s the truth?”

  My mom crosses her arms. She’s wearing a perfect, starched lavender blouse with pristine khaki pants. Her brown hair—a darker, much prettier shade than my own—is blow-dried into a perfect boardroom-worthy coif. “Why must you be so ungrateful? I give you everything you wa
nt, and yet you insist on wearing the same old ratty clothes and complaining all the time.”

  I snap my jaw shut and clench my teeth. “Right, Mom. You give me everything I want. Got it.”

  “Kayla Louise! I threw you a beautiful party not a week ago.”

  “Did you, Mom? Did you throw me a party, or did you throw your company a party? Because it was kind of hard to tell the difference.”

  My mom glances at her watch, and I try hard not to roll my eyes. She’ll never have time for me. “I have to go do bio homework,” I say, ripping at the handle of the door.

  “Do you want a ride? I’m running late, but—”

  “No thanks, I can walk.”

  And then I rush out the door. I don’t need to hang around to know that she’ll leave a twenty on the counter with a note about takeout, and I won’t see her until sometime tomorrow.

  Although, damn. Maybe before I mouthed off, I should have asked her about that bakery. I can’t ask her now, after I stormed off. This is never going to get fixed if I don’t focus on solving the problem.

  The public library is a short walk from my house. It’s open early on Sundays, which never made much sense, but I’m not complaining now, because it gives me somewhere to escape to.

  Ann’ll probably sleep for another hour or two and then wonder where I went. If I’m lucky, she’ll try to find me and get hit by a Mack truck.

  Okay, that’s mean. I reach out and run my fingers along a chain-link fence as I walk, my mind wandering as I turn at the corner and head toward town. The Cascade Mountain range rises up in the distance. Even though most of the trees are evergreens, a few deciduous are mixed in, and the result is splashes of burnt orange and bright red, lighting up the hilltops. Further in the distance, the snowcapped peak of Mount Rainier juts into the skyline. Enumclaw is a big plateau about eight hundred feet above sea level, built on an old mudflow from when Rainier last erupted, a zillion years ago. Really reassuring, when you think about it.

  But I’m not. Thinking about it, that is. I’m thinking about something far more urgent.

  I wonder what today’s wish is. I wonder if I’ll figure out how to stop all this craziness before Ben tries to lay one on me. I’m still annoyed with myself for fighting with my mom when I should have faked a nice conversation and asked about the bakery. But no, I had to get all annoyed.