Act One, Wish One

by Klasky, Mindy

  “I’ve got my car here.”

  “I’ll follow you, then. Make sure you get there okay.”

  I was too tired to protest. Instead, I collected my coat from the dressing room. I picked up my backpack. I looked around the theater, realizing that it would take us less than forty-eight hours to eradicate every last sign of the worst Romeo and Juliet known to man.

  John held the door for me as we left the theater, and he blocked the wind as I locked up. But he kept his distance as we walked to our cars, merely nodding at the unlikely coincidence that we were parked next to each other, right in front of Club Joe’s.

  I let myself into my own vehicle. I started my engine, giving it a minute or so to warm up. When I pulled into traffic, he followed me, silently, protectively. It was after midnight, and the city streets were quiet. We wove around Lake of the Isles in tandem, and I thought about changing my mind. I thought about asking him to come up to the apartment.

  But what was the use? I’d lost my last chance at happiness in the theater. I wasn’t going to listen to the siren song of New York. I wasn’t going to imagine what life would be like on the Great White Way, how my career might prosper and grow beside John’s.

  I was going to be a lawyer. I’d promised my father. We’d shaken on it.

  John waited while I pulled into a parking space just a couple of car lengths from my driveway. I sank back into my seat, wanting to listen to the engine tick as it cooled, wanting to close my eyes and fall asleep and wish all of the crazy night away.

  I knew, though, that he’d stay there until I got inside, safe and sound. That was the gentlemanly thing to do. That was John, all over.

  I sighed and picked up my backpack from where I’d tossed it on the passenger seat. As I pulled it over the gearshift, a golden box tumbled to my feet. Drew’s expensive chocolate.

  My stomach constricted, reminding me that it hadn’t been fed in ages. My fingers scrambled for the fabric ribbon that held the box closed. I fumbled for a chocolate, tossed it into my mouth like a starving woman. Which I was.

  I bit down, already relishing the bittersweet melt across my tongue. I swallowed reflexively, and then I started to gag.

  Alcohol. Liquor. Bourbon or rum or something that my taste buds had forgotten how to classify precisely.

  My cheeks flushed even as I spat the last of the chocolate into John’s handkerchief, which I’d kept after my sobfest. My lips tingled, as if I’d swallowed a particularly unpleasant hot pepper. My throat started to itch.

  Drew had given me liquor-filled chocolates. And I, completely distracted, had not even thought about testing the treat.

  My reaction wasn’t life-threatening. I wasn’t collapsing in anaphylactic shock. I could head inside and pop a Benadryl and be fine in the morning.

  But the searing of my reddened cheeks was the final nail in Juliet’s coffin.

  I stumbled up the walk to the front door, swiping away fresh tears. I didn’t even bother to wave goodbye to John, although I heard him put his truck in gear, heard him drive away. I locked the door behind me quietly, praying that the Swensons wouldn’t think I was some sort of crafty burglar with a key.

  I could hear voices upstairs, even before I turned the key in the apartment’s lock. Maddy and Jules fell silent, though, as I opened the door. They’d been laughing, but now they stared at me, pity stark across both of their faces. They hadn’t even been at the show, but they’d already heard about the disaster.

  “Kira,” Jules said, but I only shook my head, heading directly into the bathroom.

  I raided the medicine chest, found the antihistamines, then swallowed a couple of pink pills with water cupped in my hand. I took a minute to splash my face, shaking my head when I realized there was no way to hide that I’d been crying.

  By the time I got back to the living room, I had pasted on a fake smile.

  “Kira,” Jules said again, as perky as if she were greeting me for the first time that night. “Have you eaten?”

  I glanced over at the dining room table and saw the collection of take-out containers from Hunan Delight. My stomach growled, but my tingling lips spoke of their own accord. All of my anger and frustration, all of my sorrow about the production, about John, about Drew, all of that negative emotion flowed over in a torrent of rage. My helpless fury was a flood directed at the two people who best understood me, best knew what I was going through. I screamed, “I don’t need you guys to tell me when to eat!”

  “We just—” Maddy said, sitting up on the couch.

  I shoved my hand into my backpack, ripped out my food diary with enough force that several pages tore away. “I’ve been writing down my food, okay? I’ve been recording every single bite! You can go ahead and read it! Go ahead and call my father! Want my phone? Want to call him right now? I made a promise to you guys, and I keep my promises! I always keep my promises!”

  “Kira!” Maddy said, her voice severe enough that it shocked me into silence. “We just wanted to know if you were hungry. We were celebrating, and we saved some for you.”

  I was shaking, but I managed to ask, “What could you possibly be celebrating?”

  “We both got news tonight. Good news.”

  I felt a little stupid, standing there with my torn food diary, and my stomach grumbling loudly enough that I was certain they both could hear. Without a word, Maddy pushed herself off the couch and started piling food onto a plate. As I stared like a sleepwalker, she carried my dinner over to the microwave.

  Jules filled the awkward silence by saying, “We heard about your show.”

  “Who told you?” I asked, consciously deciding to let exhaustion replace my outrage.

  Jules cast a quick look at her coconspirator. “We got a few phone calls.” Great. The rumor mill must have tied up every cell tower in the Twin Cities. The triple beep of the microwave spared me the need to reply. I crossed to the table and accepted the plate that Maddy put in front of me. The Hunan chicken was heaven in my mouth, and I barely resisted the urge to swallow an entire carton of rice without chewing.

  “Yeah,” I said after I’d downed another three bites. “So much for my brilliant Landmark debut.”

  Before I could say anything else, Jules passed me a glass of water. The diamond twinkling on her finger rivaled the one that Stephanie Michaelson had shown off at Mephisto’s.

  “Oh my God!” I said, nearly knocking the water to the floor as I grabbed her hand. “Justin finally proposed?”

  Jules’s teeth flashed white in a perfect smile. “They voted him in as partner, tonight. He came by as soon as he had the news.”

  Maddy rolled her eyes. “You missed it, Kira. He was down on one knee, holding out the ring, asking for her hand, the whole traditional thing. The four of us cheered so loudly that Mr. Swenson came upstairs.”

  I made a face, even as I continued chewing. Mr. Swenson could live with one night of noise. Jules had been waiting for this night for years. “Wait,” I said, swallowing. “The four of you?”

  Jules raised her eyebrows, clearly instructing Maddy to continue. For the first time since I’d met her, though, my bluff friend was silent. Instead, Maddy was suddenly fascinated by the edge of a cloth napkin. She rolled it between her blunt fingers, then smoothed it flat, repeating the process as if it could capture the mysteries of the universe.

  “Who?” I said at last, snatching the napkin away. “Who else was here?”

  “Gunther,” Maddy said softly.

  “Herr Wunderbar,” Jules reminded me helpfully.

  “Oh!” I couldn’t help but look at the whiteboard calendar in the kitchen. A disbelieving tally, and I heard myself say, “What is it? Almost three months?”

  Maddy’s eyes were shining, even as her face crinkled in annoyance. “It’s not like that’s so unbelievable.”

  Jules answered before I could clear my mouth of chicken and vegetables. “Yes, it is. Three months in Maddy time is like three years in an ordinary relationship.”

 
The food turned to sawdust in my mouth.

  That was practically the same thing that John had said to me. Three months. Three years.

  I pushed my plate away.

  Maddy glared at Jules, but then she laughed and said, “I’m going to New York with him. With Gunther. People are already talking about the work he’s doing for Shakespeare in the Park. He’s got lots of offers, all sorts of possibilities. And I’ll find work, too.”

  I knew what I was supposed to say. I knew what I was supposed to do. Years of living in the theater came to my rescue. I responded perfectly. “Maddy!” I said. “I’m so happy for you!”

  New York. With the man of her dreams. Perfect.

  And Jules and Justin were getting married. Perfect, too.

  And I’d be left alone, living above the Swensons in an apartment I couldn’t afford. Looking for strangers to be my housemates. Studying for the LSAT. Preparing for law school. Getting ready for my life as a lawyer.

  “I’m so happy,” I said again. “For both of you!”

  “And to celebrate,” Maddy said, “we have our fortune cookies!” She presented the cellophane-wrapped treats on a plate. “I waited until you were here, Kira.”

  “What a sacrifice,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.

  Jules opened hers first. “Everything will now come your way,” she read. The light glinted off her engagement ring as she set the curl of paper on the table. “Hopefully only good things!” She laughed.

  Maddy looked toward me, but I nodded for her to open her own cookie. “You are filled with life’s most precious treasure—hope!” She made a face. “I’m filled with Eight Treasures Chicken, but that’s close enough, I guess.”

  Jules laughed. “I hope Gunther wasn’t attracted to your ability to think in abstract terms.”

  Maddy grunted. “I’m a lighting designer. Not a philosopher.” She turned to me. “Come on, Kira. Open yours.”

  I was tired of the game, weary of the lighthearted banter. But I wasn’t going to argue; there was no reason to fight. Better to get all of this best-friend camaraderie over. Finished. So that I could retreat to my bedroom and collapse into sleep.

  I tore open the wrapper, broke the cookie into two neat halves. I cleared my throat as I unfolded the slip of paper. “You are going on a journey,” I read. Unanticipated tears blurred my vision. More tears. How could I have any tears left? “Whoops, Maddy. I must have gotten yours by mistake.” I shoved the fortune toward her, along with the broken crescent of my cookie.

  I heard the shakiness in my voice. I knew that they could hear it, too. That’s what best friends were for, after all. But I didn’t have time for social niceties. I didn’t have time to be polite. I had to get away from them, away from their happiness, away from their sickening, perfect lives.

  I said, “I’m even more tired than I thought. I have got to get to sleep. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  And because they were my best friends, they pretended to believe me. They let me escape down the hall toward my bedroom.

  Before I could sequester myself away, I saw the flurry of sticky notes attached to my door. Jules’s neat handwriting. Maddy’s forceful notes. “Drew called.” “Drew called again.” “Drew.”

  I tore them off the door and crumpled them into a ball as I threw myself onto my bed.

  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I wanted to tell Bill Pomeroy that he had ruined my life. I wanted to swaddle myself in my baggy black sweatshirts, my shapeless black sweatpants, the disguises that had protected me during my year of mourning Norman. I wanted to scream at Drew, to tell him that he didn’t love me, that he’d never loved me, that it was all a horrible lie.

  I rubbed at my face, trying to scrub away the last of the alcohol-induced itch. The rubbing only irritated me more, though, and I forced myself to fold my hands in front of my eyes, almost as if I were praying.

  A golden glint caught my attention.

  I opened up my hands, turned my wrists in the overhead light. Unbelievably, I could still make out the shape of golden flames, the glitter of the tattoos that should have faded weeks before.

  I scrambled onto the floor, swiping my hand beneath my bed until I found the abandoned brass lantern. It was warm to my touch. Warmer than any metal had a right to be in Minnesota, in March.

  I caught my breath and squeezed my thumb to my forefinger, pressing as hard as I could. “Teel,” I said, working hard to keep the single syllable even, firm. As if I believed my genie would appear.

  Fog flowed out of the lantern—emerald and cobalt and ruby and topaz. I caught a shriek against the back of my teeth, dropped the lamp onto my bed. I staggered back a couple of steps, unable to believe my eyes as a body solidified out of the mist.

  Teel looked like the lawyer I dreaded becoming. Her sleek blond hair was cut in a neat bob that curled perfectly at her jawline. She wore a white blouse and a navy suit, the skirt cut an inch or two below her knee. Her legs were encased in silky stockings, and her ankles were steady in sensible pumps. She gripped a briefcase in her right hand, as if I’d summoned her just as she was about to walk into court.

  Only the ring of flames tattooed around her wrist broke the stolid, boring image.

  “Teel?” I whispered.

  “At last!” she said. “I thought you were never going to call me back here. Are you ready to make your last wish?”

  CHAPTER 17

  “WH-WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” I stammered.

  Teel stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. She thrust her head forward and raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Hello? I’m a genie? I’m bound to stick around until you make your four wishes?”

  “Four?”

  She clicked her tongue like a frustrated nanny. “Parlez-vous anglais? Sprechen Sie Englisch? Habla ingles? Quatre. Vier. Cuatro.”

  I waved her off, trying to make sense of the situation. “Yeah, yeah. I speak English. But what do you mean by four wishes? Don’t I just get three?”

  Teel sighed in exasperation. “Didn’t you read the paperwork?”

  “What paperwork?” Astonished as I was, I was becoming more than a little exasperated myself.

  Teel set her briefcase on my bed, triggering the locks with two expertly manicured nails. She lifted the lid of the container and shuffled through a stack of manila folders. “Joan Frankel… Carl Franken… Jeanette Frankovich….”

  “Franklin,” I said. “You went past me.”

  “Frankel,” Teel repeated through gritted teeth, brandishing a folder. “Franken.” Another folder. “Frankovich.” She frowned, and rifled through the rest of the briefcase’s contents. When she looked up at me, a deep line was incised in the center of her forehead. “You don’t have a folder.”

  “Maybe that’s because you never gave me the paperwork.” Despite my exhaustion, despite the absurdity of our conversation, I sweetened my voice. (Read: I loaded my tone with saccharine, betting that Teel would let my insubordination slide.)

  She harrumphed and passed me a sheaf of pages covered with tiny print. “Well, it’s not too late. You can read and sign them now.”

  I took the pages by reflex. “The party of the first part… The party of the second part… Hereinabove mentioned forthwith…” I looked up. “You do realize that lawyers gave up a lot of this jargon ages ago, don’t you?”

  “Read,” she said imperiously, producing a fountain pen from somewhere in her briefcase.

  I can’t promise that I understood everything that was in the document. I can’t swear that I grasped the intricacies of the indemnities and the indemnifications. I wouldn’t testify in a court of law that I had mastered the language about severance and inheritability and third-party beneficiaries. I was virtually certain that I was missing something about the subordination clause, and it seemed to me like “novation” should have something to do with weddings.

  But there was one clause that was crystal clear. One clause that even an idiot could understand. One clause that eve
n an exhausted, emotionally rattled stage manager could glom onto: “Term and termination: This agreement shall terminate upon the granting by Genie of all elements and sub-elements of the Fourth Wish (‘the Final Wish’) made explicit by Wisher.”

  I grabbed the pen before the words could change. Slamming the contract down on my desk, I scribbled my signature across the bottom of the last page. Teel took a step closer on her sturdy, practical heels. “And initial there,” she said, pointing to a space on the first page. “And there. And circle your state of residence there. And add your mailing address there. And if you decline to purchase insurance from us—”

  “Enough!”

  Teel pursed her lips before tapping a perfect fingernail under the final clause. “Read this and initial beside it.”

  I picked up the paper and turned it to better catch the light. “Confidentiality: Wisher shall not disclose to others (including but not limited to Wisher’s family, legal counsel, and targets of all Wishes) the existence of this Agreement or any of the terms herein. Wisher explicitly agrees not to disclose the actual number of Wishes granted herein. Wisher further explicitly agrees that disclosing the actual number of Wishes granted herein will result in irreparable harm to Genie, which harm may be enjoined to the full extent of law and equity.”

  I recognized the hodgepodge of words, identified each individual strand of legalese. I knew that my father would forbid me from signing such a document, at least until he’d had a chance to pick it apart, clause by dependent clause.

  But I also knew that my father was never going to review my genie’s documentation. I knew that Teel had the magical strength to keep me from revealing what I knew, even if I were inclined to do so. She’d already shown me that power numerous times, when she’d kept me from talking about what was going on, even before I’d known there was a fourth wish at stake.

  Initialing the confidentiality clause was a formality. A formality that would get me my fourth and final wish. I scribbled KF in the margin, crossing the F with a final flourish.