My anger blazes and I look her in the eyes, but what I see wrenches straight through me.
Because I see something there that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen.
Hurt. She masks it well, but for one, tiny fraction of a second, I saw it.
And then, with sad clarity, I realize: He left my mom, too. Her husband, the man that swore to love her until death do them part, reneged on his promise, just like he did on all the others—the BB gun, the dirt bike, everything.
Maybe her company isn’t all about impressing him. Maybe it’s about forgetting him.
My mom grinds her teeth, the mask back. “I don’t have time for this conversation. I’ve got a retreat in Eastern Washington for the rest of the week. Chase in is charge.” She’s looking for her shoes and jamming her toes into the crème leather pumps. “We’ll discuss this when I get back. Until then, you’re grounded.”
“But—”
“We will finish this later.” She glares at me and the look on her face makes the words die in my throat. I can see being grounded is the least of my concerns.
“Okay,” I manage.
I’m frozen in the doorway as she backs the car out, and I’m still standing there when the garage door shuts, staring at the lime-colored bike in the second bay.
Is it wrong if I want to take it for a test spin?
26
I’M ON MY WAY to my room, fuming about this whole stupid, mess of a day, when I see something sitting on the counter.
My mom’s planner.
I glance out the front window to be sure she hasn’t come back right away for it and then scurry across the tiles and unsnap the button holding it together.
It’s pristine, perfectly organized, nothing out of place. The total opposite of my life right now.
The front is a series of plastic pages that hold one business card after another. She must have a hundred cards.
I scan the first couple of pages. They’re DJs, banquet halls, caterers. My fingers glide over the surface as I scan the business names. A bakery isn’t among the first few pages.
A low humming noise outside catches my attention. I turn to see my mom parking in the driveway.
She’s realized that she forgot her planner.
I start flipping the pages faster, whipping through them. I have to find the card. I must find the card.
To undo the wishes, to undo this mess I’m in.
More rental halls, an inflatable-bouncy-house company, a few florists. My heart climbs into my throat as I hear her car door slam.
If I don’t find it, I’ll never get to the bakery. After today, my mom’s not going to be doing me any favors, even if it’s just looking up the address for a bakery. And she’s definitely not letting me out of the house to go buy a cake.
And then on the last page, I see it.
A big blue cake, carefully designed and imprinted on the card. It looks fancy, Dr. Seuss–like. Definitely in the style of my sweet-sixteen cake.
Betty’s Bakery is embossed in burgundy swirly print across the top.
My fingers scramble to find the opening, figure out what side the card slides in on so that I can yank it out.
I hear my mom’s heels clacking across the slate stoop. She’s going to catch me digging through her planner.
My fingers find a gap in the plastic and I yank the card out and then flip the planner shut and dive behind the island just as the door is opening.
I count her steps as she crosses the foyer and walks across the tile. I hold my breath and listen as she re-buttons the planner.
Then silence. I don’t know what she’s doing. I think she might be listening for me. Wondering if I’m up in my room or in the garage. Please don’t look for me. I don’t need The Big Lecture: Part II.
I close my eyes and try not to sigh aloud as she turns around and heads back to the door. I don’t breathe until I hear her car door slam and hear her back out of the drive.
The business card is smashed in my palm, but it’s still in one piece.
IF MY LIFE were a natural disaster, the president would now declare it a federal emergency and call in aid. The Red Cross would try to revive my social status and repair my relationships with my mom and best friend.
Since that’s not happening, it’s time to kick this plan into high gear. Ann and I are heading to Betty’s Bakery, which turns out to be outside a completely different mall than the one we went to last time. At least now I have the card tucked into my pocket and I know where I’m going.
I’m pinning all my hopes on reversing everything.
Unfortunately, it’s pouring rain now, covering the freeway, making it a little tough to speed, which I really want to do. My fingers grip the steering wheel and I glance down at the speedometer, wishing it said ninety-nine miles per hour. The faster this is over, the better. Everything’s changing, crashing down, and I’m afraid I’m going to fall apart just like the rest of it.
Ann clears her throat. She can tell I’m worked up over something. “Ken and I bought you something. Well, Ken bought it. I just came up with the idea.”
I look sideways at Ann. I’m almost afraid to hear what she’s going to say next. The wipers are hardly keeping up with the torrential downpour. I turn my attention back to the road. “What?”
Ann digs into her pockets. She found a pair of my jeans from junior high, when I was a size or two smaller. She’s also wearing a Hello Kitty T-shirt, the one I bought to pair with combat boots. She hands me something, a piece of paper.
When I see what it is, my eyes widen and I shake my head and toss it back at her. “No way.”
“But you like ballet!”
“Liked ballet. Past tense, remember?”
“You don’t have to dance in it, silly. We’re going to go and watch.”
“Pretty sure I’m grounded.”
“Forever?”
I snort. “No, but probably for at least two weeks. Longer if I get in trouble again.”
She frowns. “But the ballet is on Saturday. And we bought four tickets in case you want to bring a date.”
I whip around to look at her. “What do you mean, if I want a date? Isn’t Ken my date? Or doesn’t he think he’s my date?”
Ann gives me this, I don’t know how to tell you this but . . . look.
My eyes flare wide. “Oh my God! I’m the third wheel!”
I smack my forehead and then spread my fingers so I can see the road through them. “You and Ken are, like, totally into each other, aren’t you?”
I don’t have to look at her to know the truth.
“Unbelievable. First Nicole and now you . . . Why does everyone around me hook up?”
Ann kind of shrugs and crinkles her nose, because she knows it’s a rhetorical question. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t know.
“Won’t you come, though? It’ll be fun!”
I switch the wipers up to the highest notch as the downpour increases. I should have worn a jacket. Ann should have too. “I told you I’m grounded. And besides, I might be sticking hot needles under my toenails that day. I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you.”
“Oh, come on, you have to come. If you don’t, Ken probably won’t go.”
I look at her sideways. “What do you mean? I thought he was into you.”
She kind of squirms in the seat. “Well . . . I was kind of hoping he could be. Because you’re not into him. So maybe if you brought a date, he’d turn his attention to me . . . ”
Maybe if Ann had asked me this yesterday, I would have considered it. But today? When so much is going wrong?
“Please? I really want to go. Ken showed me YouTube videos, and—”
“You watched YouTube videos with Ken?”
She nods.
“How? When?”
“We used your computer earlier today.”
“Ken was in my room?”
She nods and then looks out the window, as if what she just said is no big deal at all.
“Ann! Yo
u can’t just let people into my room like that. My mom could see you!”
“I wasn’t even there when your mom was home. Besides, it’s our room,” she says. “He was my guest. And you have no idea how bored I get when you’re not around.”
My hand tightens on the wheel. I stare, unblinking, out at the sheets of rain pouring down over the freeway, blurring the red tail-lights in front of me. The dynamic between Ann and me is getting increasingly complicated. It’s like she’s Pinocchio, and she’s ready to assert her independence. I don’t know how to deal with it, how to keep her under wraps. “He didn’t, um, like dig through my stuff, did he?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not.”
Silence falls between us. Just the muted sounds of the radio and the pounding of the rain. I flip my blinker on and take my exit. A big semi-truck roars by us to our left, and Ann jumps.
“So, will you go? Pretty please?”
I sigh and pull to a stop at the light just off the ramp. I feel like a tiny little ant lined up with all the other cars, ready to go marching two by two to get out of the rain. “I told you, I can’t. But maybe we can figure out how to get Ken to go with you.”
If I’m lucky, this cake thing will work and there will be nothing left to figure out.
The light finally turns and I hang a left and follow traffic for a few blocks to get to the mall. I feel tingly and nervous as I pull into the lot, my eyes scanning the nearby buildings for the bakery, aka, the reason for this entire disaster. Or at least, what I’m hoping is the reason.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. Because I’ve had a birthday every year for sixteen years, and I’ve never had my wishes come true. Then my mom buys this ridiculous frosted masterpiece and presto, magic. Maybe this bakery’s recipes include hair of witch and slime of a toad or something. I don’t know, but it’s my last resort, so it better work.
I circle around to the back, and my stomach seems to trip all over itself when I see the swirling letters spelling out Betty’s Bakery. Ann shrieks and points to the sign and bounces around in her seat.
I still haven’t told her that she’s going to be part of the unwish. How would I start? “Oh, by the way, have fun today because it might be your last”? That’ll go over well.
She doesn’t understand that real life means school and jobs and paying bills, and there’s no way she can function like that. So she has to go back . . . to wherever she came from.
I park the car as butterflies swarm my stomach. This is my one shot at fixing everything. I have to make this work. Because if it doesn’t?
Well, there is no if. There’s just a when it works, life will be back to normal. I can apologize to Nicole and forever stay away from Ben.
Ann and I cross the blacktopped lot, my sneakers feeling sticky, like I’m melting into the pavement, even though it’s probably forty-eight degrees out and still pouring rain. The rain starts soaking through my jeans, and my skin begins to tingle.
I realize with a jolt that I must get out of the rain, and I pick up a dead sprint and dash through the sparkling glass door. I take a deep calming breath as I step inside the well-lit place.
The glass display case parallels the long wall to my right, and it’s filled with a colorful array of cupcakes, cookies, and cakes. There are big portraits on the wall, giant posters of frosted, mountainous treats: wedding cake towers, cartoon-themed birthday cakes, giant cookies placed in a pyramid of mouthwatering sugary sweets.
I follow the pastel-colored tiles to the counter, where a petite gray-haired woman is leaned over, a phone propped up between her shoulder and her ear, scribbling down an order.
“Uh-huh. Lemon filling. Strawberry filling? I suppose we could do half and half. Right. Well, no, you probably wouldn’t want them mixed together. One side lemon, one side strawberry. Right. Okay. The twenty-fifth? Yeah, it’ll be tight, but we can do that. Okay. I’ll call you when it’s ready. Thank you.”
She sets the phone in the cradle on the wall and turns back to her order form, scribbling down more directions for the filling-challenged customer. I wait quietly for her to notice me, but when she doesn’t, I clear my throat.
She jumps back from the counter and looks up at me, her brown eyes widening to the size of the cupcakes.
“Sorry,” I say, grimacing. Whoops, didn’t mean to scare her.
“We need a cake,” Ann says, peering into the display case. “That one.”
“No, not that one.” I look over at Ann, wondering why she’s trying to take charge of this expedition. “I think you made a cake for my sweet sixteen last week. Pink, lots of flowers, four tiers. I’d like to get another one. Identical.”
The woman leans back against the counter behind her, crossing her arms over her flour-dusted black apron. She has a smudge of frosting on her chin, and I swear, she has sprinkles in her curly gray hair. “I require two weeks notice for custom cakes.”
My heart seems to stop beating altogether. “This is an emergency. I really, really need that cake, today.”
She puts her wrinkled hands into the pockets of her apron. “You do realize that cake cost three hundred dollars?”
I practically choke on my spit. I can’t afford that, not by a long shot. Thanks to all my Ann-related expenses, I have maybe forty bucks to my name. “Can you make a mini-version?” I say, feebly. I’m not even sure a mini-cake would do the job, since my homemade one didn’t. Then again maybe it’s the ingredients, not the size.
“I still need a couple weeks notice. I’m backed up as it is, working late every night, seven days a week. No time for an extra order.”
I look down at my feet, fighting the urge to scream. This is not good. Not good at all. “Please, I need that cake,” I say, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. I’m wearing a pair of jeans my mom bought me. It’s a little weird to feel so . . . normal. They fit well, with no rips or tears or ink to be seen.
“Look, the only thing I sell out of the case is cookies,” she says, pointing to the display case, “or you can place an order and come back for it in two weeks.”
I grind my teeth and stare at the case. “I can’t even take a cupcake?”
At least those are made of cake batter, and maybe if I got one white and one pink . . .
“Those are sold by the dozen. Sixty dollars.”
Holy crud, this lady really overcharges. I dig through my purse. All I have on me is thirty dollars and a metric ton of pennies and nickels.
“Okay. Um, one cookie,” I say, my stomach sinking. This probably won’t work. I’m doomed to live my life with Ann and Ken and the rest of my twisted troupe.
The woman stuffs a cookie into a paper sack and then hands it to me. “On the house. You look like you could use it.”
Okay, so suddenly she’s feeling all generous?
“Um, thanks.”
I head to the door, dragging my feet, while Ann bounces around behind me. The door is half open when I hear the old lady speak again.
“It’ll be over by Monday.”
I freeze. My hand on the door tightens until my knuckles turn white. I turn around and face her.
“What does that mean? Everything goes away after the last wish?”
The woman looks up from the cake she is frosting. “Pardon me?”
“You just said it’ll be over by Monday. Does that mean as soon as I receive the fourteenth wish? They’ll all just poof into oblivion?” I ask, stepping toward her.
Her eyes dart back and forth and she steps back. It’s like she’s looking for a freaking silent alarm, like I’ve gone mad. “I said no such thing.”
“You did! You know what’s going on!” My voice gets higher, frantic. The woman backs up until she’s pressed against the countertop behind her. “Tell me how to fix this!”
She puts her hands out, as if she’s been cornered by a pack of wild dogs. Like I’m crazed or something. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
I take in a ragged breath, trying to calm myself. I can�
��t freak her out. “No, please, it’s okay. I just need help. One of these wishes can’t come true or my life will be over.”
“Miss, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You need to go or I’ll have you removed.”
So this is how she’s going to play it. Feign innocence. Make me deal with it on my own. Stupid lady and her magical cakes. I think the sprinkles have gone to her head.
I stomp to the door and shove it open, Ann trailing after me. By the time we get to the car, I’m positively fuming.
Maybe I should be happy. Now I know that Ann and Ken and the pony won’t be lurking in my life forever. But all I can think about is kissing Ben and betraying my best friend.
That lady is responsible. I don’t know what she puts in those cakes. . . .
I can’t believe this! What a disaster! If she’s right, there’s no way to undo it. Not until I get the last wish.
Not until I kiss Ben.
I hate my life.
Ann gets into the car and buckles her seat belt. I just stand there next to the driver’s-side door, the rain soaking through my T-shirt. My legs begin to tingle, but I still don’t move.
I’m screwed. Totally, completely screwed. I have six more wishes to survive, and I don’t know what any of them are.
No, I know what the last one was. So what are the others?
Could I have wished for anything worse than what’s already happened?
27
BY THE TIME I get home from the bakery, I’m so frustrated by everything that I want to scream and rip out my hair.
I tell Ann to check on the pony and then go inside. She pouts, but I’m so furious I don’t even care.
I take the stairs two by two, tripping over the last one and landing hard on my knees. I scramble to my feet and then make it down the hall and fling my door open. I head straight into my closet. I want to find everything from my childhood. Every stupid, cursed thing and destroy it, before it comes to life too. I stand on my tippy toes to find the boxes that have been occupying one corner of my closet for years.
I yank so hard on the first one that it topples over and the lid flies off and everything inside the box scatters across the floor.
You Wish Page 16