Act One, Wish One

by Klasky, Mindy

  It had all worked out for the best.

  Stephanie apparently forgot that she was waiting for my response. She staggered past me and collapsed into a chair. And then I was face-to-face with TEWSBU.

  He might be drunk, but he was still handsome. Not in the conventional way, not like Drew. TEWSBU was too tall to be traditionally good-looking; I had to crane my neck a little just to look him in the face. He was too skinny. His face was carved into planes, and his nose was a little too long. His cheekbones jutted out a little too hard, leaving behind hollows that whispered about the emptiness in his heart. When he became an old man, he’d look like Ichabod Crane.

  But he was brilliant, in the theater. He read plays and truly understood them, carried those meanings to the public with an ease and a confidence that was the envy of every director I’d ever known (Bill Pomeroy likely excepted). He elicited emotions from his actors, pulling truth from them and displaying it onstage. He was excellent at his job—that was what had first attracted me to him, and that was what I’d most often mooned about during those long nights spent mourning what might have been.

  He stumbled as he stepped past me, falling against me with his full weight. My arms automatically reached out to steady him, and he clutched the back of my chair, keeping himself from going down to the floor. He ended up, though, with his nose planted at the center of my sweetheart neckline, as if he were trying to breathe in the cool pine scent that I had idiotically imagined emanating from my treasured cashmere sweater.

  Then he pulled himself up to his full height. He twisted his neck from side to side, like a pianist trying to work out the kinks before mastering a concerto. He took a deep breath, a sobering breath, and he exhaled fumes strong enough that I worried I might have an allergic reaction then and there.

  Everyone in the room was staring at us. They all knew our history. Every single person was waiting to see what he would say, what I would say, how we would spin out our own sorry drama for their personal pleasure and enjoyment.

  And TEWSBU gave them what they wanted. “Those,” he enunciated carefully, “are extraordinary tits. Where did you get them?”

  A flood of adrenaline actually kept me from hearing the crowd’s reaction, but I could see the discomfort on every face in the room. I heard Stephanie screech something wordless. I felt Drew step up behind me, lay a protective hand on my arm.

  And even as I cringed at TEWSBU’s crude words, I was grateful for Drew’s presence. I was grateful that somebody was going to defend me, that someone, that a man was going to tell TEWSBU that he had stepped out of line, that he had been utterly inappropriate, that he was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Drew said, “Hey, dude. They are pretty great! Come on, now. Sit down.”

  I whirled on my supposed boyfriend. “I can’t believe you just said that!” I was so astonished that my voice broke.

  “What?” he said. “He’s drunk. Never argue with a drunk, dude.” My dim-witted puppy leaned in close, whispering in a voce that wasn’t sotto enough, “Besides, he’s right. You’ve totally got a great rack! And they’re real, so what’s the problem?”

  I needed to escape. I needed to get away from all of them. I needed to get away from my burger and fries, which had turned into a cold, plastic representation of food, nauseating in frozen grease.

  I shoved an elbow into TEWSBU’s side when he didn’t move quickly enough, pushed Drew away so that I could reach the curtained doorway. I marched across the dining room, absurdly grateful that Mike was too busy to look up. I grabbed my coat from its hanger by the door, blindly shoving my arms into the sleeves.

  On the sidewalk, I realized that I was in trouble. I didn’t have my car; Drew had driven us to rehearsal. I would have to phone Maddy, see if I could reach her, see if I could beg her to leave Herr Wunderbar, to come rescue me. I started to dig for my cell phone, fighting back tears that I had been so stupid, that I had let myself believe in Drew, that for one blinding moment I had actually thought he would make things better in front of TEWSBU. TEWSBU, who had proved once again that he was a coldhearted bastard, theatrical genius be forever damned. I caught a sob in the back of my throat.

  “Need a ride?”

  I recognized the voice before I turned around. The Texas twang was easy, comfortable. The sentence was truly an offer, an option, a choice that was open to me, something I could take or leave with no consequences, no penalties. I turned to find John framed against the light of Mephisto’s plate-glass window.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  We walked to his truck in absolute silence. He opened my door in absolute silence. He walked around to the driver’s side, put the key into the ignition, fired up the engine, pulled out of the parking space, all in absolute silence.

  “You okay?” He finally asked, keeping his eyes on the road. Leaving me room to answer.

  I shook my head, then said, “I will be.”

  “They’re all jackasses. Everyone back there.”

  “Some more than others.”

  “You can say that again.” We drove another couple of blocks. “Want to tell me where we’re going?”

  We were going to be the gossip of the entire cast and crew of Romeo and Juliet. We were going to be the laughingstock of every theater professional in the Twin Cities, once our play opened. We were going to be changing careers—at least I was—as soon as my public ridicule was complete.

  I shrugged.

  He pulled up to a red light and said, “You didn’t get a chance to eat much of your dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry now.”

  “Well, I am,” he said. “Keep me company while I get something.”

  I shrugged again. He nodded as the light changed, as he worked the truck through its gears in the comforting predictability of first to second to third to fourth.

  In the end, he took me to a restaurant I’d never seen before. It was some sort of dive-y diner, the perfect place to order a large bowl of chicken noodle soup. The waitress brought us hot bread and butter that was creamy and soft. John told me they served a chocolate silk pie to die for. He remembered that I didn’t like to share. He ordered his own apple pie à la mode, and we matched each other, bite for bite.

  We talked about everything other than the disaster of my personal life. I told him about growing up in the Twin Cities, about the Winter Carnival, about walking out on the ice of Lake Calhoun in the middle of the winter.

  He told me about summer dust storms where half of East Texas blew into his Dallas backyard. He talked about growing up one of seven kids.

  When the waitress brought the check, I glanced at my watch, realized with astonishment that it was past eleven o’clock. “Can I drive you home?” John asked, as he slipped a couple of bills out of his wallet, waving off my offer to pay for my food.

  “Thanks.”

  I gave him directions in a hushed voice. It was late enough that there wasn’t a lot of traffic. He drew up in front of my house, hovering beside the parked cars and putting the truck into Neutral, pulling the parking brake. The porch light was on, but none of the others. The Swensons were asleep. My housemates were in their rooms, or gone for the night.

  I stared at my hands in my lap. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It seemed rude to just say good-night, presumptuous to say anything else.

  Before I could figure out some way to express my confusion, John’s tanned fingers closed over mine. He left his hand there for just a moment, just long enough for me to register the warmth, the weight. And then he leaned over and set his lips against mine. One chaste kiss—a little salty, a little sweet, like the echo of our night at the diner.

  He squeezed my hands again. “Go on, Franklin. Head on in. I’ll wait till you’re safe inside.”

  For once, my key slipped easily into the front door, and I turned to wave. He acknowledged me with one brief toss of his own hand, and then he put his truck in gear, drove off into the night.

  I was still awake as the sun came u
p, wondering what I was going to do to fix the tangled mess of my life. I needed to give Drew his walking papers—genie’s spell or not, absolute faith in me or not, there was no way that I could condone his gleeful objectification of my body. Especially not when he’d been speaking to TEWSBU He had to know what TEWSBU had done to me, how he’d left me stranded. Everyone in the theater world did. Drew knew, but he didn’t care, and that’s what made his offhand crudity the worst insult of all.

  Somehow, I feared that even my double-strength coffee wasn’t going to make my day any easier.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE MORE I thought about it, the more I considered calling in sick.

  That was the thing about stage management, though—about all of our jobs in the theater. There wasn’t any way to cop a sick day. I didn’t have an understudy, a trained professional who could hold the baton while I said, “You guys go ahead and do today without me. I’m just going to crawl back into bed, pull the covers up to my chin, and alternate being furious with my ex-fiancé, enraged with my current boyfriend, and mystified by my even-tempered, knight-in-shining-pickup-truck coworker.”

  The show must go on, and all that crap.

  So, I stood beneath the shower for ages, long enough that the water began to turn cool. I made a point of choosing my skinny jeans, a fitted black tee, and a crimson lamb’s wool sweater that made my cheeks look healthy and flushed. I took the time to apply makeup, even opening my eyes wide for two coats of mascara. I brushed my hair until it shone, and I remembered to add a pair of dangling earrings. I was going to look my best, gossiping cast members be damned.

  I dug in the refrigerator for breakfast, excavating a container of yogurt. I was still hungry when I finished that, so I found an apple. And a banana. I thought about topping off my feast with a handful of Cap’n Crunch, but that made me think of Drew, of all the breakfasts he’d eaten sitting at the same table.

  I broke off my kitchen rampage and completed my food diary entry. I scowled as I wrote up my morning consumption, and then I added dinner with John from the night before. I wasn’t worried about the amount of food, and I had no idea of the actual caloric content, but I was getting damned tired of writing everything down. Still, a deal was a deal. If my maintaining records would keep my father and my housemates off my not-actually-anorexic back, then it was worthwhile.

  Still frowning, I spent the entire drive to the theater writing conversations in my head.

  I told Stephanie that I was happy about her engagement, and I reminded her that there were several excellent therapists in town who would be happy to help her out when she found herself betrayed by the man who had sworn his undying love and affection.

  I told Drew that he wasn’t in college anymore, that his frat-boy indulgences were boring and immature.

  I told John…

  I wasn’t sure what I wanted to tell John. Every time I thought of him, I caught myself smiling. I kept remembering the feel of his fingers on mine, the gentle pressure as his hands closed over my own. I kept reliving the touch of his lips, the absolute…honesty of his kiss. I kept recalling the quiet confidence on his face as he watched me leave, as he waited for me to get safely inside my front door.

  I wanted to thank him. I wanted to tell him how much it meant that he had taken me away from Mephisto’s. I wanted to say how much I appreciated his standing beside me through the entire crazy production, through the incredible insanity that was Bill Pomeroy, that was our show’s bizarre take on Romeo and Juliet.

  I couldn’t figure out the words.

  Don’t get me wrong—I was an expert at conversation. I had spent my entire professional life crouched over a script, listening to actors deliver their lines. I knew how dialogue really sounded, how it worked, what a pause meant when it was measured out just…so, what the perfect word signified, how it balanced out the ideal scene.

  Of course, it helped when the author—the playwright, the stage manager organizing her life, whatever—knew what she wanted to accomplish with that single, ideal scene.

  I was still trying to write perfection as I parked my car. I wrote it as I collected my backpack. I wrote it as I climbed over a snowbank. I wrote it as I pushed open the door to Club Joe’s. I wrote it as I got in line to order my coffee.

  I gave up on the lines, though, when I saw John unfold himself from a table, gesturing to an empty chair beside him. I crossed the room without being fully aware that I was moving, and then I tried to sound casual. “Hey. Let me just get my coffee—”

  He pushed a thermal mug toward me. “Large latte. Four shots of espresso.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down and hugged my coat close. If he regretted anything that had happened the night before, he sure wasn’t showing it. Instead, he looked as calm and steady as ever, as ready to listen as he was to talk. “How long have you been waiting for me?”

  He gestured toward his own cup, a small drip coffee, black. Steam still curled off the surface. I was willing to bet that he hadn’t stirred in sugar. “Not long.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t sure what to say next. I wanted to tell him how much I had enjoyed our evening, but the words sounded lame in my own head. Besides, he’d obviously enjoyed himself too, or he wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have waited for me. Wouldn’t have remembered the type of coffee I drink.

  “About last night,” I finally said, and I squelched a nervous laugh. About Last Night had been a mediocre movie, a film version of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago. As soon as I thought of the play title, I blushed.

  John spoke as if I’d actually finished a complete sentence. “I designed a set for that once. Not an iron fence in sight. Not a single manhole cover. One of the best damn sets I’ve ever built, too. Mamet beats the hell out of Shakespeare. At least this production.”

  I was grateful for the tiny joke at Bill Pomeroy’s expense, but I forbade myself from dwelling on our looming stage disaster. “Seriously,” I said instead. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand me, pretend that his rescue had meant nothing. Instead, he inclined his head and said, “You’re welcome.” If he’d worn the Stetson that seemed to be his birthright, he would have tipped it at me. As it was, I half expected him to say “ma’am.”

  I was glad that he didn’t.

  “Why did you come here?” I asked.

  “I figured you wouldn’t want to walk into rehearsal alone.” He said it like a man might comment on the weather. “Not that you have anything to be ashamed of. Except for the fact that a lot of your friends are idiots.”

  My mind flashed back to the rock on Stephanie’s finger, to TEWSBU’s drunken leer as he stumbled into me. TEWSBU. My former fiancé. Norman Kapowicz. “Norman isn’t my friend.” It was the first time I’d said his name in more than a year. It sounded funny as it left my lips. Norman had always hated his name, but I’d told him I loved it. I’d said that it had character. That it was special. That I looked forward to teaching everyone how to spell my new surname.

  I’d lied a lot during that relationship.

  John frowned. “I wasn’t talking about Norman.”

  “I know.” I gulped down more coffee, trying to swallow my apprehension about seeing Drew. After all, I was the one who had gotten him into our relationship, against his will. Or more specifically, against his knowledge. Teel and me; we’d stolen Drew’s right to make up his own mind about who he was, who he wanted to date. Damn that genie and his wishes.

  But I knew it wasn’t Teel’s fault.

  I had chosen poorly. I had chosen Drew because I’d been stunned by his physical attractiveness. I’d somehow put on blinders, ignored how incredibly stupid the man could be. I sighed. “We might as well get over there.”

  John nodded and climbed to his feet. “Might as well,” he said.

  Drew was waiting for us, of course, just inside the lobby door. “Kira,” he said as soon as my foot touched the carpet. He ducked his head and looked up at me through his thick fringe of eyelashes.
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  He hadn’t shaved that morning, and despite my still being furious with him, my fingertips twitched, drawn to the golden glint of his new beard. His T-shirt was wrinkled, as if he’d pulled it from the bottom of a pile of clothes. His hair was rumpled, and I knew that he’d been running his fingers through it—I could close my eyes and see the familiar action.

  I forced myself to meet his gaze. His eyes were the now-familiar mix of mahogany and emerald, sparkling, even as he looked subdued. His face was still as perfect as it had been on the day of our first rehearsal, a breath-stealing balance of rugged masculinity and perfect bone structure. His lips were still moist, conveying a message of seduction even when they were silent. That one front tooth was still skewed the tiniest bit, making him human.

  I knew this was the guy I had crushed on for weeks. This was the man I had dreamed about, the man who had made me a spiteful, jealous harpy when Teel had minced her way through rehearsals. This was the guy my genie had warned me about, when he had warned me about making my last wish out of jealousy.

  I should have listened when I had the chance.

  I felt nothing for Drew anymore.

  That wasn’t true. I felt annoyed by him. Angry with him. Frustrated, disgusted, repulsed.

  And yet, I felt guilty, too. I had bound him to me, using Teel’s magic. One glance was enough to assure me that his attraction to me remained strong. The spell wasn’t broken, just because I’d realized he was an immature baby. He wasn’t free, just because I’d come to my senses.

  “I tried to call you,” he said, glancing nervously at John. John just stared back at him, tall, silent, inscrutable.

  “I turned off my phone.” I heard my voice, but I wasn’t entirely certain that it was mine. That voice was speaking steadily. With confidence. It didn’t sound like a woman regretting her genie-empowered choices.

  Drew pleaded. “I drove by your house, but the lights were off. I didn’t want to get you in trouble with the Swensons. I didn’t want to make too much noise.”