by Antara Mann
“I told you she’s gone crazy!” Lewis started walking to and fro in the office and finally stopped at my desk. “Look, I don’t want to sound crazy; I know it sounds strange but…” He hesitated for a moment and cautiously looked around to make sure we were alone. “I think that there’s some magic involved here,” he said, almost whispering.
I laughed nervously. I already felt as if I was a character in a Woody Allen movie.
“Lewis, I understand that Jackie’s behavior is…” I wondered what word to use. “Supernatural” felt too much. “…unusual, but she is at an age when very often elderly people like her begin to rethink their values. I don’t think there’s any magic involved here.”
“What magic is involved here?” Barry, The Screw’s screenplay writer, entered the room.
“Oh, nothing. I was just telling Julia how magicians did their tricks. You know, rabbits in hats, bodies cut in half…” Lewis cleared his throat and looked around nervously. “Well, I must be going.”
“Is he OK?” Barry asked me, staring at Lewis.
“He’s fine. His mother, the living embodiment of Uncle Scrooge, has become a Democrat and is now giving tons of money to charity organizations.”
“Really? Now that’s a story for Miracle – How I Did It. Are you planning to show it on national TV?” Barry winked at me. “The joke aside, for the next episode with Leonardo DiCaprio as a guest, I’ve laid emphasis on questions about environment, climate…”
I wasn’t listening to him at all. My mind was focused on Jackie and her complete transformation. Hadn’t I wanted just that? Then why didn’t it feel right? Perhaps it was because Jackie had changed too suddenly, but it was to a good end, right…?
“…make sure you squeeze these things out of him. Julia, are you listening to me?”
Hearing my name mentioned took me back to reality.
“Yes, sorry, Barry. Go on.”
***
At the end of my workday, I decided to take a walk in Central Park and think over the situation. When I finally found some peace and quiet and was alone in the park, I took out the coin, determined to make a decision as to what I should do. One wish and it could all go back to the start, but was I ready for this? Why did everything have to happen by magic and not the natural way? Did I feel happier being the host of my own TV show and dating Lewis again? Could my previous life have been better, despite everything? Jackie’s dramatic change made me think about whether the fulfillment of my wish had actually been good, considering the fact that she was totally changed. Jackie had been a high-class, snobbish bitch who hadn’t been interested in anyone apart from herself. Now she was the complete opposite of her former self and still there was something that was bothering me. Somewhere deep inside, I felt I couldn’t meddle with people’s fates like this and change them to my liking. If they were going to change at all, it should happen by their own wish.
“Hey, babe, how are ya?” A boy from a group of teenagers hanging around whistled at me.
I decided to just walk on but I heard another voice from the same group.
“Hey, Mark, isn’t that the reporter who made Roscoe famous?”
“Hey, hottie, wait a minute!”
“How about showing me on AEC, too? Just hear me rap!”
“You know Roscoe?” I interrupted him.
His name caught my attention.
“Sure we do. Who do you think shot his video?”
“Now wait a minute, that was me!”
“I set up his marketing campaign! Who do you think gave him two million views?”
“Shut up, you bonehead! Who gave him five thousand comments, ha?”
“What? Hold on a minute! How do you mean you gave him two million views?” I turned to the boy who had mentioned something about marketing. The question how Roscoe Ritch had managed to gather two million views had been gnawing at me from the very beginning.
“How else? With money. Pay a grand and you can also get several million views from Bangladesh, India, China… There are plenty of developing countries with millions of people starving and ready to do anything for a couple of bucks.” The three boys laughed spitefully.
Suddenly I felt sick. I wanted to see no one and be seen by no one. So that’s what was behind my top story that had shot me to the top? Paid page views from Asia?
“Sweetie, hear my song! I’ll pay more than Roscoe and I’ll have over five million views!”
“Get out of here!” I shouted. I was so furious. None of them made a move. I shouted one more time, “Get out of my way! Now!”
I was overtaken by hatred, anger and mortification to such an extent that I grabbed the coin and offhandedly wished for the boys to disappear. The next moment they were gone, but I couldn’t calm down. I felt both deceived and like a deceiver.
I went home quickly; I wanted to be alone. Lewis called. He had to have been wondering why I wasn’t with him. I didn’t feel like explaining anything so I didn’t pick up. The next morning I went to work as usual. I was in the office at nine and I was preparing my next presentation when Barry, the Screenplay Writer, came in and said, “Your boy is in the limelight again.”
“My boy?” I repeated and looked up from the sheets of paper in front of me.
“Yes, the rapper Roscoe Ritch.”
“What’s he done? A new video?”
“Haven’t you heard the news?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Three friends of his are missing and haven’t been seen since yesterday evening. The police are investigating. You really haven’t heard? That’s breaking news. Those three teenagers’ mothers are in shock.”
If I hadn’t been sitting I would have most definitely lost my balance.
“Julia, are you all right? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m…um…” I cleared my throat as I was looking for my glass. It had been somewhere on my desk. “The news of the missing teenagers shocked me, too.”
“Well, you’re not alone. Your Roscoe called on the citizens to find his three friends on national TV.”
“Is there any result?” I asked tentatively although I knew the answer.
“I guess no, so far. And don’t forget to add the topic on the missing teenagers to your next program. Get involved in the story and send your condolence to their relatives. Will you do that?”
I nodded. As soon as Barry went out I turned on AEC’s latest news to make sure the screenwriter had been telling the truth. After a while, I heard the message:
“Yesterday evening around six o’clock, Isaac Reed, Gary Tucker, and Matthew Barnes were seen for the last time in the Central Park area. The police are looking for them and begging citizens who have any information about the three teenagers to contact their nearest police department.”
I stopped the video and closed my eyes. What had I done? I’d had no intention to cause those boys any harm, but the previous day they had challenged me. I stood up. I had to fix what I’d done. I closed the door of the room and when I made sure there was no one around (the door was transparent), I took the coin out and spoke:
“I want Roscoe’s three friends to go back to their parents.”
I left the coin on the desk and took a long look at it. I was no longer sure that the wishes I was making were to a good end. What if somebody got on my nerves again and I wished for something that would harm them? Could I control my actions and reactions when I was emotionally upset? I had the nagging feeling that the coin was no longer helping me. The more inconvenient question, however, was if it had helped me at all. I had to talk to someone. Where was that stranger who sold me the coin now?
During my lunch break I took a walk along West 54th Street and purposefully passed the place where I had seen the stranger for the first time. I found him selling coins again. When he saw me, he greeted me with the words:
“So that’s what happened, ha? I knew the things would end up bad. You people, always want everything but when you actually get it, you
start regretting it. Isn’t this a paradox? I’ll quote Oscar Wilde: ‘There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.’”
“Is it because I touched the coin with my right hand? Is that why some bad things started happening?”
“Touching it with your right hand has nothing to do with your growing desire for power and control. You got carried away in your pursuit of gaining control over everything and everyone. Touching the coin with your right hand is not fatal; it just makes the wish fulfillment more painful, the way it was with Jackie. Roscoe’s friends also disappeared because you wished for it. All things considered, Julia, you can’t complain from the universe – you get exactly what you want. The question, however, is what do you really need? And is it good for the others around you?”
“Julia? How do you know my name? How have you found out about Jackie and Roscoe’s friends? Have you been following me?” I asked him, dumbfounded.
He laughed.
“Who are you?” I asked him the question that had been gnawing at me from the very first time I had seen him.
“Who am I? I’m a poor vendor. I sell magic coins on West 54th Street.”
“What do you mean, you sell them? Are you some kind of a magician… or God? And how can this coin fulfill wishes in the first place?”
“Julia, I don’t know if I’ll disappoint you, but I’m not God. It’s pointless for you to rack your brains about such questions. The only thing that matters is what you learned from this whole experience.”
I remained silent and stared more carefully at the stranger. What did he mean?
“You got this coin to learn something. Are you aware of it now?”
I took a breath before I could answer:
“Well, I realized I should be careful what I wish for. I began with harmless wishes such as being the host of my own show but every new wish that was fulfilled made me greedier and I wanted more and more. But I realized that it’s not right to meddle with people’s fates and model them the way I need them to be. The change must be undertaken by their own wishes.”
“I’m glad you’ve arrived at this conclusion on your own.”
“So what will happen to me now?”
“There are two options in front of you: one of them is taking the consequences as they are and going on from the point you’ve reached. The other one is to lose everything and start all over again. In both cases, the coin will be taken away from you. What do you choose?”
“The coin will be taken away? What do you mean?”
The stranger smiled widely.
“You look for logic in everything. Let the things follow their natural course and the changes happen when they have to.” He paused. “I’m repeating my question: which of the two options do you choose, Julia?”
I half-closed my eyes. If I chose the first one, I would spend my whole life with the thought of having changed Jackie, having turned one cheater into a star, and having caused the disappearance of his friends. I wasn’t able to bear such a fate. The alternative was to be alone again and to go back to being a reporter in GMU.
“Julia, your decision?”
“Isn’t there a third option?”
The stranger shook his head and I sighed.
I was surprised by how determined I sounded when I pronounced:
“I’m going back to the start.”
The stranger nodded in agreement.
“Okay, your wish will be fulfilled.”
Suddenly, everything disappeared and I was surrounded by darkness.
I didn’t even have time to consider what was happening.
Chapter 8
The shrill ring of the alarm set on my cell phone woke me up. God, why did I always choose loud and aggressive waking-up ring tones? I got up and reached out toward the phone to make it stop. The display said it was seven o’clock. I put on my bathrobe and went to the living room. That morning’s issue of The New York Times was lying on the small table. I picked it up and, to my surprise, I saw the date was September 30th, 2014. The day I had bought the coin was September 29th! Everything was starting all over again, just as the stranger had told me it would. However, just to make sure, I decided to call Emily. The newspaper could have been an older copy left on the table by mistake.
I dialed her number and after a while I heard a male voice:
“Hello, who’s there?” I could hear the baritone timbre clearly from the other side of the line.
“Is Emily there?”
“Um… just a moment. Em, it’s for you.” I heard people moving around and then Emily’s subdued voice asking who it was.
“Hello?”
“Em?”
“Oh, Julia, is that you?” She recognized me immediately. “What’s going on, what’s happened?” Why are you calling me so early?”
“I’m sorry for troubling you, I just wanted to make sure… Could you tell me what day is today?”
“September 30th. And how are you? Susan went too far yesterday; you’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Yesterday… Susan…” I repeated, trying to recall the events.
“I always tell her to be more tactful and considerate but apparently these two notions are incomprehensible to her. Anyway, you know she has only good intentions even though she has a big mouth.”
I smiled. I remembered the previous evening when we were at The Dead Poet. Susan had mentioned that Lewis was going out with The Screw’s new host – “my favorite,” Jennifer Bailey.
“Are you all right?” Emily sounded really concerned.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. See you, Em,” I hung up. So everything was really starting all over again? In less than half an hour I went out dressed for work.
At the office everything was back to what it had been before. I didn’t have my own show and my desk was back in the old place in the common hall. In my inbox there were about twenty emails – all pitches for future TV stories.
No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a GChat message from Roscoe Ritch. I stopped by Starbucks for lunch. I felt free from the burden of the magic coin. No wishes and magic. I ordered a sandwich and waited for the barista to heat it for me. In the meantime I saw Lewis and Jenny at an adjacent table. I could have guessed that the universe would arrange that I confronted those two.
“Hey, Lewis, how are you?” I turned to him.
He was visibly startled.
“Julia! What a surprise! How are you?” He put his sunglasses on the table and turned to take a better look at me. “It’s been a while since we last saw each other. How’s it going?”
I smiled at “a while”.
“Yeah, that’s true. Jennifer, congratulations for The Screw!”
She smiled more forcedly than honestly.
“How’s Jackie?”
Lewis was surprised by my question.
“Well, fine. Yeah… you know her.” He took a sip from his coffee. “Now would you excuse us, we’re having…”
“Oh, sure, I’m not going to interrupt you anymore.” I started reading the magazine I had taken with me from the office. In a few minutes my sandwich was served and I ate it with pleasure. I had never imagined I would be so happy to see my ex together with Jennifer.
When I came back to AEC’s office, I saw that Mike Greenberg had been calling me. I had to have failed to hear my phone while I had been walking. Mike had also called me on the day that Roscoe Ritch sent me the link to his video, but I had rejected the call. I had been too busy and I had other plans with Lewis. With my ex taken from me, however, it was time to try my luck somewhere else. Mike and I agreed to meet after work. I suggested The Dead Poet. He accepted with no further questions.
We met at the arranged hour. The place wasn’t full yet and we found free seats by the bar.
“I’m glad to see you. How are you?” Mike greeted me while unbuttoning his coat. “How are you stories going?”
“Well, today I was talking to a woman from Alaska who saved a pola
r bear from some sort of a contagious infection, and I also came across a four-year kid from Washington who can already read and count. I don’t know which story to include, perhaps both….”
“I really like your stories and I daresay I know someone who changed their life dramatically.”
“Really? What did they do?” I took a sip from the beer I had ordered.
“I have to tell you his story in more detail. For a long time he was working as an executive manager in Apple. He worked eighteen hours a day and finally gave up and saved himself from burning out. Now he’s a shareholder and makes a million per year.”
“I don’t see anything unusual here.”
“He founded a charity organization in Asia which is called ‘Share a Dream.’ He spends half a year in India, Thailand and then Cambodia. His organization feeds millions of people in the Third World.”
“Yes, that will make a story. But how come he changed himself so radically? You don’t often see people on such a high professional level change like this. There must be some reason.”
“Well…” Mike remained silent for a while and lowered his eyes. “He suffered a heart attack when he was 47 and that made him reconsider his whole life.”
“How do you know so much about this guy? What’s your relationship with him?”
“Well, here’s the thing – he’s my own father.”
I almost choked on a mouthful of beer.
“What? Your father?” For a moment, I thought Mike was joking. “Didn’t you tell me that in the beginning Damien and you were just two poor young students who counted only on your scholarships from New York University?”
“Yes, that’s still true.” He smiled at me. I had the feeling he was enjoying how ignorant I was. “Before the attack, my father used to be the most tight-fisted man on the planet.”
“He can’t have been more tight-fisted than Jackie,” I murmured.
“Sorry? Did you say anything?”
“Oh, nothing. Yes, that thing about your father sounds quite interesting, if it’s true, of course.”
“Do you think I would have lied to you about such a thing?”