How to Make a Wish

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “Emmy supports her plenty. Emmy’s a grief counselor, Mom.”

  She waves a hand and sips her coffee. “That shrink mumbo jumbo doesn’t help, trust me.” She sighs, her gaze going soft. “She’s so lovely, isn’t she? An only child, missing father, too young to deal with losing the most important person in her life.”

  Her voice has this dreamlike quality to it, and I stare at her as she grabs a napkin from the funky copper holder, her eyes blurry from actual tears over a girl who might as well be a total stranger. Something in my chest closes up, squeezes, and breaks open again. I’m an only child. I have a missing father. I’m too young to deal with half the crap I handle every day. At least I think I am. And I’m . . . well, lovely has never been a description attributed to me, but I’m not a damn ogre or anything.

  Not that I really expect my mother to notice any of these things.

  Last year she got me two dozen purple roses for my birthday. They’re my favorite flower. They’re my favorite flower because they’ve always been her favorite flower, and I used to love that we shared that. The morning of August second, she crept into my room before the sun came up. While I slept, she took a few individual flowers and crushed up the petals, spreading them around my floor, covering the dingy carpet with beautiful color. Then she divided the bouquet into several smaller ones, tucking them into vintage bottles and vases and putting them all around my room. On my nightstand. On my desk. On my dresser. On my windowsill. She set a plateful of my favorite pumpkin-apple muffins next to my bed.

  When I woke, it should’ve been perfect. It would’ve been perfect if my birthday was actually August second.

  It’s not.

  It’s August twenty-second.

  I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. It’s the thought that counts and all that. I knew the roses were expensive, and she had to special-order them. I knew she probably baked those muffins—​the only food in the world she’s actually good at making—​after I had gone to bed the night before. We went about the day, her jabbering on about my birth and even talking about my father a little bit, how he cried when he first held me and how he sneaked a cheeseburger for her past the hospital nurses.

  It took until almost dinnertime—​and a few curt words to a bewildered Luca about him forgetting my birthday—​for her to realize she’d totally messed up the date.

  And now, here she is, ready to spend money we don’t have and sing “Kumbaya” for a girl she’s only just laid eyes on in real life.

  Suddenly, that big world shrinks to the size of pinprick and I’m too small inside of it.

  Too small for my mother.

  Too small for my town.

  Too small for this summer, for the next year weighing on me like a fur coat in the heat of July.

  Too small even for Luca and his concerned shoulder squeeze when I don’t lift my eyes to meet his as he sets my food down in front of me.

  Nothing fits and no amount of inside jokes or new friends or lighthouse trips will change that.

  “See you tonight?” Luca asks.

  I nod without looking up, picking at my eggs. Mom slurps her coffee. She slurps all her drinks. Loud, wet, annoying gulps that are the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to my ears.

  As Luca walks away, I glance up, half hoping Mom is leveling me a worried look. She’s not. She’s buried in her phone, slurp-slurping away.

  Chapter Ten

  BY THE TIME I GET TO THE BONFIRE, THE SUN IS LONG gone and half the partygoers are already sloshed. I find the beer keg a few feet from the fire, a bunch of dudes hovering around it. Some guy whose name I’m pretty sure is Chad with arms the size of my thighs starts to show me how to work the keg, but I grab my own red cup and fill it before he can get an oh-so-masculine word out. I turn away, but one of them—​Victor Dinnon? Vince Dannon? Something with a V and a D—​snags my wrist.

  “Hey, where you going, Glasser?” he asks. “I’ve got my phone with me, so we can, you know”—​he pumps his hips and makes these guttural noises I hope some poor girl never, ever has to hear in real life—​“text.” His buddies break into laughter. I yank my arm from his, spilling half my beer in the process.

  “Tempting, but I’m not really into bestiality.”

  Venereal Disease frowns, and his posse laughs harder. I move away from them quickly but still feel their eyes on me as I go, and it makes my face flame up. None of the texts Jay posted featured pictures, thank god, but they were detailed enough to leave little to the imagination. Since then, I’ve never felt fully clothed around anyone from my school, so that’s lots of fun.

  Music from some unidentifiable source blares through the crowd. Everyone’s in shorts and hoodies, although some girls are clinging to their bikini tops, trying to force summer into existence. I weave in between swaying bodies and rocks topped with couples making out, my eyes peeling through the moon and flame-licked darkness for Luca. I tip my cup into my mouth, swallowing a few gulps of the mostly flat brew.

  “Tastes like piss this year,” Luca says from behind me, startling me into snorting some beer up my nose. I cough and spew while he slaps my back.

  “Dammit, Luca.” I wipe my mouth. “And also, yeah. But all beer tastes like piss.”

  “Not good beer.”

  “What the hell do you know about good beer?”

  “Macon’s all into microbrewing now. He’s been cooking shit in his kitchen for the past few weeks.”

  “Cooking shit? Is he brewing beer or running a meth lab?”

  “You know Macon. Always enterprising.”

  I laugh. I do know Macon. He’s five years older than us and is sort of a jack-of-all-trades. He made straight A’s in school, can figure out anything if you give him about an hour of silence, and has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit because he’s a wealth of useless information. He also never went to college, even though Emmy begged him to. Instead, he married his high school sweetheart, Janelle, and stayed in Cape Katie, helping his mom run LuMac’s and raise his equally enterprising little brother. He and Luca have already started selling a few of Luca’s weird creations around town, but after Luca graduates, LuMac Designs will launch full force.

  Every time I think about it, a little pang of loneliness shoots through me. I’ve never been without Luca. Not for longer than a couple of weeks, at least. The thought of leaving him—​and leaving him here, both of us knowing I’m counting on him to make sure Maggie doesn’t fall off the edge of the planet—​has always ​filled me with a lot of relief and a lot more guilt and a hell of a lot more fear. Every time I’d start freaking out about it, doubting that I could leave, that I should leave, he’d make this really annoying game-show buzzer sound.

  “Mraaaa! Wrong answer! Try again!” he’d yell.

  “Jesus, Luca,” I’d say, covering my ears.

  “Gray, you and I both know you need to get out of this town. Me? I’m good here. I’m happy. I’m not a college boy. But you? You need that concert hall, and you need your own damn life, so Mraaaa! Shut up about it.”

  And so I would shut up for about a week, and Mom would even cook a meal or two and buy me a new top or something. I’d get comfortable and start snuggling into a little normal and then—​BAM!—​Mom would do something wildly alarming, like drive to the duplex we lived in two duplexes ago and bang on the door because her key didn’t work until the current resident called the cops on her ass.

  “Did you find a piano?” Luca asks now.

  “Yeah. Luckily. Though it’s a bigger piece of junk than mine was.”

  “Where?”

  “The Book Nook. Patrick Eisley has an old upright in the storage room that used to be his dad’s or uncle’s or someone’s. Who cares? It’s got eighty-eight keys. I got in a couple hours of practice this afternoon.”

  He puffs out his cheeks with held-in air before letting it out with a little pfft sound. A sure sign he’s holding back opinions.

  “I know,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me.”


  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You wanted to.”

  “Gray, I always want to when it comes to Maggie. You know I love her, but—​”

  “This is a party, Luca.”

  “So what you’re saying is, shut up and party?”

  “Basically.”

  “I can do that.” He nudges my shoulder playfully before he mumbles, “For now.”

  We both drink and watch our peers drink, most of them getting more and more sloshed by the mouthful and spilling half the contents of their cups into the sand.

  “Oh, finally,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Kimber’s here.” He tosses back the rest of his beer and drags a hand through his hair about five times, a sure sign he’s gearing up for some grade-A flirting.

  “Kimber Morello?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Since when do you like Kimber Morello?”

  “Since she came into the diner earlier in this little short skirt and a halter top.”

  I pull a face. For all his chivalry, Luca is still such a guy. But he could do worse than Kimber. She’s an honest-to-god nice person and one of the few who didn’t smirk at me whenever I passed her in the halls after the whole sexting debacle. Plus, she’s cute as a damn button, with this stick-straight black hair I’d kill for, and she’s a hell of a photographer. This past year when I was Martha Ireland’s assistant, Kimber was her intern. Her black-and-white candids were off-the-charts amazing.

  “I thought you liked Eva,” I say, drawing out the vowels in her name. Kimber spots Luca from across the bonfire and tilts her head at him, a clear invitation to join her.

  “I said she was pretty—​there’s a difference.”

  “Please. You were practically drooling when you told me about her.”

  He snorts. “Whatever. Besides, I’ve got no shot, trust me.”

  “Why not?”

  He waves me off and takes a step toward Kimber, but I grab his arm. “Why don’t you have a shot?”

  He raises his brows at me, and I let go of his arm, swallowing some beer to cover up my interest.

  “I just don’t,” he says. “If you’re so curious about it, you should ask her yourself. She’s around here somewhere.”

  “What happened to ‘showing her the way it’s done’?” I ask, hooking finger quotes around my words.

  “Oh, she’s got it under control. But check on her for me, will you? Mom’ll have my ass if Eva gets trashed.” Luca snags one of my hands, pulling it toward his mouth like he’s trying to bite me.

  I jab my forefinger into his bottom lip.

  “Hey! Damn, Gray! I might need that later.” He rubs at his lip and pouts.

  “Then don’t put my finger in your mouth next time.”

  He laughs and shakes his head, before his expression softens. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  Quick as heat lightning over the ocean, my throat thickens. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

  He huffs a little through his nose but nods. We both know glad isn’t exactly the word for it.

  Kimber calls Luca’s name, and he waves at her. “I got to go. And you need to have some fun. Go get drunk. Practice safe sex.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He shoves my shoulder a little but plants a kiss on the top of my head.

  And then he’s gone, his arm slung over Kimber’s shoulders, a laugh already on his lips as they stroll off down the beach.

  After I finish my beer, I toss my cup into a pile with the others and search the crowd for a familiar face. But this is Cape Katie—​a lot of faces are familiar, but I don’t really know anyone. A few names. Hobbies. Who so-and-so dated for how long and why they broke up. Nothing that really matters.

  I move here and there to keep busy and look interested, giving myself a good half-hour before I can get the hell out of here. With Luca otherwise occupied, he won’t notice and I’ll stay long enough that tomorrow I’ll be able to tell him, “Oh my god, yeah I did see Melody Caruthers hurl all over Layla Simms!” Melody’s sick stench floats around on the sea wind, and I’m just about to hightail it home when I hear laughter erupt near the bonfire. It’s all male and greedy-sounding. I step around a sobbing and soaked Layla, walking toward the fire as music laces through the sand-dusted air.

  I see her before anything else about the scene really registers. She’s on top of an old picnic table, dancing with a few other girls. She’s got on a filmy black tank top and white shorts, smooth skin everywhere. The firelight reflects off her hair and her eyes are closed, though she’s not smiling. Her movements are nothing like ballet—​the pounding bass and electronic rhythms aren’t exactly graceful—​but every roll of her shoulders and hips is mesmerizing.

  “Yeah! Exotic new girl has some damn moves!”

  The familiar voice jolts me out of my staring. Jay claps his hands above his head, his gaze tilted up as his eyes roam all over Eva. His douche-hat friends elbow each other and laugh, but they don’t look at one another. They only look at her. Point their phones at her. Yell at her. Whistle. Jay reaches out a hand and skims it up Eva’s calf. She pulls back a little, her dance faltering just enough that I know his touch unnerved her.

  Not one to be ignored, Jay hops up on the table and starts moving. Jesus, he has absolutely no class, but the guy can undulate a hip. He presses close, his stomach against Eva’s back. Her eyes flip open, her mouth parting in surprise. He grips her waist and tries to sway with her. At first, she plays along, but her smile tightens, all of her previous carefree motions gone.

  Then suddenly, I can’t see her. Boy after boy gets up on the table, spilling onto its surface like an army of ants. They surround her, arms waving in the air, hips circling, laughs echoing into the wind. Eva’s completely disappeared.

  Grace!

  Mom’s plea bounces around inside my head, and I’m lost in the memory, my feet crunching on the peanut-shell-dusted wood floors, the stench of sweat and beer stinging my nostrils, the bodies pressing too close.

  Gracie!

  Right off the cape, in a little town called Sugar Lake, there’s this dive bar Mom loves to frequent. Ruby’s, it’s called, like it’s this dainty little jewel in the rough. It’s not. It used to be a semi-classy dance club back in the eighties, but now it’s a total dump. Mom gets lonely or breaks up with her latest boyfriend or we get kicked out of an apartment because we didn’t have the rent, and Mom usually ends up there, plastered and making out with some creep in a dark corner. One time this past winter, I went with her. She was particularly unnerved by her breakup with some guy whose name I can’t even remember. I sat at the bar, sipping ginger ale, while she danced and drank. At least this way, I’d make sure she got home. But it got later and later, she got drunker and drunker, dudes got handsier and handsier. Close to two a.m., I went to the bathroom. Five minutes later, I couldn’t find her. She was covered in a wall of men, the music moving their bodies closer.

  At first I wasn’t even sure she was in there, but then I heard my name, a tiny high-pitched plea rising out of that huge mass of stupid. I elbowed my way in, enduring a few ass grabs along the way, and pulled her out.

  She was laughing and then she was crying, and I’ve never been so terrified. She hasn’t been back in few months—​at least, not that I know of.

  After that, I decided not to go to college. No way in hell. Mom would never bodily survive without me, and there’s a community college in Sugar Lake. Good enough.

  Luca strongly disagreed.

  A shout from the crowd pulls me back to the bonfire.

  Teeth gritted, I push through the crowd, elbows flying, curse words trailing behind me. When I reach the table, I hop up and shove even more until I find Eva in the middle. She’s trying to play the whole thing off, shuffling her feet and gently pushing guys’ hands away. Luckily Jay has both of his paws to himself or I’d castrate him right here, right now. Still, Eva looks totally freaked out. I grab her arm, yanking until she nearly tumbles off the table. Sh
e lands on her feet, and I push her in front of me.

  “Hey, Grace!” Jay calls from behind me, totally oblivious. “Come back and dance!”

  I ignore him, keeping my hand on Eva’s back as I steer her through the gaping crowd. Some laugh. Some leer. Some don’t even notice us, but I keep moving until we break through the edge of the group.

  When we pass a cooler, I grab two water bottles, but then I keep walking toward the ocean. Adrenaline buzzes in my ears, in my chest, and my fingertips fizz like I’ve been sucking in too much oxygen.

  “God, that was wild,” Eva says, still breathing hard.

  I uncap one of the waters and gulp some down, the cold a shock to my sand-scratched throat. I don’t stop walking.

  “Hey. Grace, wait.”

  A hand on my arm whirls me around. Her eyes are bleary, mascara smudged, hair disheveled. It’s too familiar. Too easy for me to try to fix. Too hard for me to walk away from.

  I turn my back on her again.

  “Grace, come on.”

  But there’s nothing to really say, because if she’s into that kind of partying, the kind that’s basically a show for jerks and a balm to soothe some unseen wound, more power to her, but I’m out. Because that’s the bitch about having a mom like mine. Lines get blurred. Half the time, my attempts to help Maggie with anything relating to one of her boyfriends result in a tongue-lashing followed by tears, capped off with another round of It’s none of your business, Gracie!

  So yeah, this is all just too damn familiar.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say.

  “Grace, wait. Please.”

  Right now the only thing I want is to go home—​whatever home that is at the moment—​and curl up in my mother’s bed. Maybe talk to her more about Pete and Jay and get her to understand, because I always, always hope that one day she’ll understand.

  But she’s not there.

  She’s in Portland, buying a bunch of shit for . . . well, a girl who’s not me. The thought causes me to stop and turn around to look at her, this girl who’s not me.