Careful What You Wish For

by Lucy Finn

  Gene quickly conjured up hot chocolate with marshmallows and sandwiches of thick ham on homemade bread for him and me and warmed up a bottle of formula for Brady. Lately Brady had insisted on holding his bottle for himself, but this afternoon he was so sleepy it slipped from his hands. Then his head nodded onto his chest, and his eyes closed. I took him to his room and tucked him in for a nap.

  When I came back downstairs, Gene and I lingered over lunch, not saying much. Before we were finished, the refrigerator sprang to life with a whirring sound, and a few lights clicked on. The power had been restored. A lightbulb clicked on in my mind too. Peggy Sue and her defeated, hangdog look kept reappearing in my memory. I excused myself from the table to go and telephone Freddi from my office. Gene said he’d clean up the kitchen while I was gone.

  “Freddi,” I said after she picked up the call, “I need you to spin a clever lie for a good cause.”

  “Not another of your schemes.” Freddi no doubt was remembering the trouble I had gotten her into while we were growing up. One time I convinced her to help me steal a salt lick from way back in our aunt’s cow pasture; I don’t remember why I even wanted it. We got caught after she fell on the slippery rocks of the creek and gashed her leg so badly, she had to go to the emergency room to get it stitched. She still has the scar. Another time I egged her on to climb up Noxen Mountain farther than we had ever been allowed to go. We kept hearing this funny noise, sort of a buzzing but not quite. When we clambered up on some rocks, we saw hundreds of rattlesnakes sunning themselves not twenty feet from us. As Freddi tells it, “We liked to have died of fright.” She says she should know better than to ever listen to me again.

  “You know Peggy Sue’s going through a hard time,” I said.

  “Yeah, we all heard about her no-good husband running off with her money.”

  “Right. She’s working two jobs, she’s exhausted, and I really think she’s depressed to the point it could injure her health. She looks ten years older than she is too. It might give her a mental lift if she got fixed up a little. If you can, would you do Peggy Sue’s hair? The works: dye, cut and style it. But you know she won’t let me pay for her. You have to think up something so she feels as if she’s helping you.”

  “Hell’s bells, that’s an easy one. I’ll tell her I need to practice for a big wedding party, that I have a new hair product, and I’m afraid to try it out on the bride—whose hair is the same color as Peggy Sue’s. I’ll even get one of the girls to come up from the beauty school and do her makeup.”

  I was a little surprised she thought up a lie so easily. Still waters run deep. “That’s good. That’s really good. I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry.”

  “Shut up, Ravine. You aren’t going to take credit for my good deed.”

  I laughed. I asked her how “things” were going, meaning what was happening with the fertility drugs. Having a cousin for a best friend is a twofer. We shared the same family, and we shared secrets. I could hear the sadness and frustration in her voice when she answered. She hadn’t gotten pregnant but she felt lousy because of the medication. She and Bobby were fighting over dumb things. Their sex life had lost its joy, it was so purpose-driven. Bobby had begun avoiding coming to bed at night. At that point Freddi broke down and started crying.

  Freddi didn’t cry easily. In my mother’s family, feelings were private, and farm life didn’t produce what my mother quaintly called “pantywaists.” We were expected to be tough and stoic. No whining, no crying, no complaining. Buck up and bear it. To hear Freddi break down put a hole in my heart.

  “Can I do anything?” I asked gently. “Anything. Tell me.”

  “I know you would,” Freddi said, sniffing back her tears. “But this is between me and God. If I get pregnant, it will be a miracle. I’ll keep praying and taking these awful pills.”

  “Okay, I’ll pray for you too,” I said. But after we hung up, I got to thinking again. I had that one wish left. I was scheming to use it on Gene. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe I should start thinking about using that wish for something more than my own needs. Would it be right or wise to wish for Freddi to get pregnant? My lawyer mind immediately raised a host of objections, but I tucked the thought away to take out later and ponder.

  After Freddi and I hung up, I called my mother. I needed to borrow her truck tomorrow and have her take care of Brady while Gene and I went to find Peggy Sue’s husband. After quickly agreeing to both favors my mother asked in a funny voice if I had seen the news that morning.

  “Our power was out until lunchtime, so I haven’t seen anything today. Why?” I asked.

  “Seems Scabby Hoyt froze to death.”

  My hand tightened on the phone. “Huh? What happened? What killed him?” An uneasy feeling washed over me. “Did they say?”

  “Beer killed him, that’s what. He was drunk as a skunk. He must have gone out to feed the cows during the storm and sat down in the snow. They found his body a few feet from the barn door.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “He was a miserable man, and he squandered his life hating. I wanted him locked up, but I wouldn’t wish him dead. I really wanted to find out if he tried to burn down my house. Now we may never know.”

  “I guess we know near enough,” my mother answered in a hard voice. “Calvin Metz, he’s the one who found the body. He went over to Scabby’s trailer after he heard Scabby’s dog just a-howling and a-howling. The cows were making a terrible racket too because they hadn’t been milked. After the cops and ambulance came, Cal said the cops looked around for gas cans. They didn’t find any, and that was suspicious because everybody has at least one. But the cops told Cal—one of them is his nephew, you know—that they had photographed the tire tracks in the snow at your house the night of the fire. The right front tire was worn right down to the steel belt. They’re sure it’s going to match up with Scabby’s truck.”

  “That’s a relief,” I confessed. “But I was hoping if Scabby got arrested, I might have a shot at getting him to say who hired him to scare the Katos.”

  “You think somebody did?” my mother asked.

  “I have a gut feeling. No evidence. Scabby drank all the time, Ma. He couldn’t function without alcohol in his system. I don’t see him stopping to rest or even passing out so close to the barn. If he were out hunting in the woods, yes, it would make sense. But while he didn’t have much use for people, Scabby loved those cows, and he wouldn’t have stopped anywhere until after he fed them. Something about this doesn’t sit right with me.”

  I went back to the kitchen and told Gene about Scabby. He didn’t comment at first, simply drummed his fingers on the table for a minute. Then he said, “When people start dying, you better think again about what you’re doing.”

  “The cops say Scabby’s death was an accident.” I felt defensive and wasn’t sure why.

  “Is that what you think?” He looked at me steadily.

  “I don’t know what to think. It’s possible that somebody got nervous he had attracted too much attention with the arson attempt and decided to remove him from the picture. It wouldn’t be hard to get him drunk enough to pass out, then sit him out in the snow. But what about a second set of footprints?” I sat down and put my head in my hands.

  “If it was snowing hard enough, there wouldn’t be any by morning,” Gene answered while he looked out the window at the acres of white beyond it.

  “Then I guess we’ll never know,” I said.

  “Ravine?”

  “What?”

  “Let it be a warning, okay? Somebody out there may be ruthless enough to commit murder. We don’t know what really is at stake here.” Gene got up and began pacing back and forth. “I’ve seen guys try to kill each other over nothing more than a dice game. It’s no doubt useless to ask you to drop the case—”

  “It is.” My mouth became a tight line.

  “You’re unreasonably stubborn,” he said.

  “I’m a Patton,” I responded. “We didn’t survive o
ut here in the middle of nowhere for two hundred years by walking away from trouble. And we’re used to it. My great-great-great-grandfather was an Indian.”

  Gene looked interested. “What kind of Indian?”

  “I don’t know. He could have been local. This area was populated by Eastern Woodlands Indians, and several different nations settled in Wyoming Valley—Delaware, Iroquois, even some Shawnee. But family lore holds that our Indian came from Canada, up by Fort Niagara, and moved here to fight during the French and Indian War. My Aunt Pauline used to say she didn’t know what kind of Indian he was, but judging by the Pattons, one thing was for sure: He was a wild one.”

  While Brady napped, I decided to download the pictures Gene and Jerry had taken by the sleigh. Gene wanted to watch me do it. As the snapshots came up on the screen, they took my breath away. The ones of Brady on the pony were classic, and the last few with the three of us together reflected so much happiness that I knew I’d always cherish them.

  Gene was amazed by the technology. He immediately asked if I’d teach him how to get online and search the Web. I did and left him alone for the next couple of hours. I went into the living room and picked up the Tony Hillerman Navajo mystery I had been reading. I dozed off on the couch and woke up around four when I heard Brady through the baby monitor.

  Before I started up the stairs to get him, I paused at a window that looked out toward the back pasture. The clouds had broken up, but the light was dying fast. The trees were a long black line at the edge of the yard, and angry red streaks crisscrossed the deep blue sky. I thought I saw the dark silhouette of a person standing upright between the house and the trees, like somebody watching. But the sun ducked behind a cloud for a moment, shadows moved over the landscape, and when the light returned, dimmer than before, the form was gone. A shiver shook me from head to toe.

  Chapter 12

  I didn’t say anything to Gene about the figure in the field. It might have been my imagination playing tricks on me or a cross-country skier passing through. It might have been anyone or no one; it didn’t have to be someone who wished me harm. Besides, if I did tell Gene, I could envision another speech about the weak and the strong.

  After a light supper and a quiet evening, during which Gene spent more time on the computer, I retired alone to my bed. As strong as the physical attraction was between us, I decided that which is too easily won is too little prized. I smiled and said I’d see him in the morning before giving him a warm good-night kiss and leaving him wanting more. A few hours earlier Gene had once again said, “When I’m gone.” Doubts about our future overcame me again. I also decided that changing his mind about leaving meant I needed to listen to my brain more and my hormones less.

  As I lay in bed that night going over my plans for the next day, I also did some hard thinking about what would make a man like Gene stay here in the twenty-first century rather than trying to return, with no guarantees that he would get there, to the past he knew. I pondered the kind of man he was. In September of 1939 he had been a bookish grad student who volunteered to go to war because his country needed him. Three years later he had become a rakish RAF pilot who made sure his crew reached safety before he bailed out of his burning plane. It became obvious to me that love, even a great love with exciting sex, would never keep Gene here with me and Brady. After all, he had loved his sweetheart, Laura, but left her because a greater duty called.

  As I drifted, tired and troubled, toward slumber, the words of a long-dead poet came to me in a misty dream: “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.” It described the kind of man Gene was. Even as I spiraled down into darkness and the oblivion of sleep, I realized with a rock-hard certainty that if I wanted Gene for a life partner, he had to feel needed. In fact, I had to convince him that he was indispensable and irreplaceable in my own and my child’s life. That was a blatant manipulation of Gene’s emotions. Could it backfire?

  I rose with first light on Monday morning. I could hear the dull roar of traffic on the highway a mile below at the base of the mountain. The roads had obviously returned to normal, and the early weather-cast on the local NPR station reported that the temperature would climb above freezing and stay there over the next few days. The snow would soon be gone.

  I wanted to get on the road to Binghamton early enough to get home before dark. Located where the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers meet, Binghamton lies about sixty-five miles due north of Noxen and a world away. In its heyday Noxen had hosted a tannery and a few lumber mills; Binghamton had given birth to IBM. Noxen, a one-street town, sported a yearly Rattlesnake Roundup and a restored train depot; Binghamton, a jewel of a small city, was graced by a university and at least four bridges, and called itself “the carousel capital of the world” because six antique wooden carousels still operated in the city and surrounding towns. The largest of these had seventy-two figures, four abreast, and was considered a national treasure. But now, in the grip of winter, the merry-go-rounds were silent, and I had more serious business to attend to there, and a different kind of gold ring to snag if I could.

  In the back of my closet I found a severe navy blue wool suit that I used to wear to court and put it on. I pulled my hair back into a chignon. I threw a pair of low-heeled pumps into an oversized purse, but wore chunky snow boots and thick ski socks. I wanted to project an image of authority, but I didn’t need to freeze my feet any longer than necessary. By the time I got Brady dressed and his baby bag stuffed with everything he’d need for a day at Grandma’s, Gene had a hearty breakfast of scones and oatmeal, which he called “porridge,” waiting in the kitchen.

  As I stood at the counter, hastily downing a bowl of the hot cereal, Gene asked, “Why are you eating standing up?”

  “Force of habit.” I bit into a scone and washed it down with black coffee. “We’re in a bit of a rush today. When I was working, I’d grab something at Starbucks and eat at my desk. Even now, I’d skip breakfast if you hadn’t made it. Brady gets his bottle, but I don’t bother making anything for me.”

  “You don’t take very good care of yourself. You’ll end up with indigestion.”

  “Agreed. I used to take Prilosec, my heartburn was so bad. Hope I don’t end up on it again now that I’m getting a private practice going. I guess I need somebody to watch over me.” I tossed off the comment carelessly, but I did so deliberately.

  Gene did his wink and bell-ringing trick to clean the kitchen while I hurried into my office to pick up the last of my things. I put all the papers I thought I’d need into the briefcase I hadn’t used in over a year. I admit it felt good to be working again, even on quirky cases that weren’t going to pay much. The three of us managed to get out the front door before eight, and Gene and I had dropped Brady off and switched vehicles with my mother minutes later.

  I filed Peggy Sue’s divorce papers in Tunkhannock at the county court, which occupies a large white wooden building that looks like a Puritan meetinghouse. Gene waited in the truck, and because I wanted to get to Binghamton and return home as quickly as possible, I didn’t take the time to look at the deeds for either the Sikorsky farm or the Katos’ B and B. They went on my “to do” list, and I’d figured I would have to return tomorrow.

  Back on the road, I continued following Route 29, a narrow two-lane secondary highway, instead of the interstate, because it was the most direct route to the New York State border. Melting snow made the pavement wet and slick. I had to concentrate on my driving, so Gene and I didn’t talk much. I wouldn’t say he was a white-knuckled passenger, but I could see his hand gripping the armrest and the muscle in his jaw twitching.

  I did ask him at one point if he understood what I needed him to do when we found Peggy Sue’s husband. He answered with a terse yes. He then asked me if I wanted him to get us to Happy Trails Camping and RV Park “his way” instead of going through what he characterized as this “torturous ordeal.”

  I replied that a Ford F-150 pickup truck suddenly materializing from
out of thin air in the middle of an RV park might attract attention, didn’t he think?

  He muttered under his breath, “She didn’t mind me using magic when she found it convenient.”

  I shot him a dirty look and decided to turn up the sound on the radio. I put on a Golden Oldies station. It would help Gene fill in the gaps of what had happened during the sixty years he was imprisoned in his bottle. He seemed underwhelmed with the Beatles even though I explained they were British and had changed music forever. He liked Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” which should have sent up a red flag about his tastes. When Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” started playing, he gave me a pained look and suggested that I lower the volume.

  I did. “What music was popular before you became a genie, when you went to war.”

  His eyes looked inward when he answered. “Vera Lynn singing ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ and ‘There’ll Always Be an England.’ We also listened to a lot of American songs by Glenn Miller and Kay Kyser. I don’t know, I guess ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ was big with the Yanks right about the time I crashed.” As he spoke, his face got so sad that I was sorry I asked.

  “I don’t get most of this stuff you call music,” he added. “It gives me a headache if you want to know the truth.”

  If Led Zeppelin provoked a migraine, I could only imagine his pain at Bush, Green Day, or, God help us, Metallica. I wondered how important it was for a couple to like the same music. Come to think of it, I had once dated a guy who was a huge Bee Gees fan, and his incessant playing of “Stayin’ Alive” definitely factored into our breakup.

  I had to remember that Gene might have many of the likes and dislikes of someone my grandfather’s age. It gave me a weird feeling. Of course, if I thought about who Gene was, weird feeling didn’t begin to describe my emotions. Here I was, a woman of the twenty-first century, seriously trying to build a relationship with a genie—who came out of a bottle in a Diaper Genie in my living room. And I was worried we didn’t like the same music? Get real, I mentally screamed at myself. That’s the least of your problems.