How to Make a Wish

by Ashley Herring Blake

  And then she turns away from me, her arms wrapped around her middle as she runs back toward the car, a curtain of rain cutting us off from each other. I watch her go, my sad little swan, while my lungs try to pull in enough air.

  Then I push myself up the steps, two at a time. I think I hear Emmy call out to me. I think I hear Luca yell my name.

  I know I hear someone choke on a sob.

  I think that someone is me.

  But I keep taking those stairs, two by two, until I can’t hear anything anymore.

  The rain comes down in sheets as I pack. There’s not much. A lot of my stuff is still at Pete’s. I’m not sure what Mom’s planning to do about all that, but right now I can’t think about it. I can’t think about anything, about anyone; the only thing that distracts me is running through piano pieces in my head, and that only makes me think about what Mom said in the hospital.

  After you graduate . . .

  My finger pauses in mid-zip on my suitcase. She never really believed I’d go to New York. When my audition invitation letter came, it was still a far-off dream, too far away to be real for either one of us. I don’t know what she was thinking when she made those hostel reservations. Maybe it really was just a bribe to keep me from freaking out over moving to the lighthouse. Whatever it was, that excitement has long since fizzled out, replaced by a mourning girl and purple balloons and necklaces and a new start in Portland.

  Because this is Maggie we’re talking about.

  I sink onto the bed. Back in April, before she said anything about a girls’ trip to the city, I’m the one who asked her to go with me to New York. I begged her, never even considered taking Luca with me. Maybe deep down, I knew this would happen. I knew we’d never make it. Hell, I think I counted on it, too scared to actually make the decision to leave her. Too scared to risk reading not good enough in a rejection letter printed on college letterhead. It was self-sabotage at its finest.

  The realization settles over me like one of those April snows we sometimes get. Surprising and expected all at once. Ice-cold when you’re ready for warmth. My fingers dig into my eyes, pressing so hard until I see fireworks of color. I let myself fall back onto the mattress. My phone buzzes loudly from inside my bag. Could be Mom. Could be Luca or Eva. Could be Jay-freaking-Lanier for all I know. Whoever it is, I’ve got nothing left for them.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “GRACIE, LET’S GET MOVING.”

  I blink.

  Once.

  Twice.

  “Baby. Get up, now.”

  The room comes into focus. It’s still dark out, the lobster lamp on the bedside table coating the faded room in a salmon glow. The cheap alarm clock flickers 4:13 a.m.

  I sit up on the bed and push my hair out of my eyes. Mom whirs around the room, throwing the toothpaste into her toiletry bag and grabbing bras down from where they’re hanging on the shower curtain rod.

  “Mom? Why are you home so early?”

  “I’m fine. Just get moving.”

  I swing my legs off the bed, still clad in my jeans from yesterday. Ugh, I feel like death. Probably look like death too. Mom doesn’t look like she’s got both feet in the land of the living either. She’s dressed in what I can only assume are her going-out clothes from last night—​a pair of black skinny jeans and a sparkly red tank top that’s now sporting a tear at the hem. Her arm is in a navy-blue brace, and she keeps muttering “fucking arm” under her breath.

  “What happened with the cops?” I ask, digging my phone out of my bag. Eleven missed calls. All from Luca.

  Except one.

  I stare at her name, but then Mom’s voice cuts off my thoughts.

  “Nothing. I mean, I have a court date for the ticket or whatever, but it’s not for weeks. I’ll come back for it.”

  Ticket or whatever. Translation: DUI. Not like it’s her first.

  “Gracie, we’ve got to go.” She brushes her hair out of her face, her usually messy ponytail messier than ever. “Get my suitcase out from under the bed, will you?”

  I watch her for a few seconds. Usually, I’d say okay. Usually, I’d say yes. But this time, she’s asking me to leave the only town I’ve ever known. She’s asking me to leave Luca and Emmy. She’s asking me to finish high school in some strange new city, only to rope myself to retail jobs or waitressing for the rest of my life so she can steal my tips out of my Wizard of Oz jewelry box.

  This time her whims are riding on the tails of a car accident that totaled our car and hurt my girlfriend, and her every movement right now has this tone of panic to it that’s setting me on edge. Or more on edge. I’m already hanging off a cliff here.

  “Gracie!” Mom snaps. “Suitcase. Now. We’re catching the six a.m. bus.”

  “Why are we in such a hurry?” I ask as I reach under the bed and grab her suitcase handle. It slides reluctantly over the carpet, and I wonder what Mom’s stuffed in there to give the appearance of a clean room. Her soldering iron, maybe. That thing’s heavy as hell.

  “I’m just ready to get out of here,” she says. “And I have an old friend in Portland I want to look up.”

  “An old friend.”

  “Yes, Gracie, Jesus Christ. I do have friends outside of this hick town.”

  If she does, it’s news to me. The only friends she could possibly have that don’t live in Cape Katie are skeezes she hooked up with at Ruby’s.

  “What about our stuff at Pete’s?” I ask.

  “He’ll mail it to us! Now, for god’s sake, enough questions and open that up for me.”

  To buy myself some time and try to figure out what the hell to do, I slowly unzip her suitcase. I flip the top open and suck in a breath when I see it’s not full of her soldering iron or jewelry materials or old magazines.

  It’s full of bottles. Five of them. All Grey Goose vodka. Some of them blueberry flavored, some of them lemon, but all of them empty.

  Is Maggie okay?

  After you graduate . . .

  “Oh, shit,” Mom whispers.

  I glance up to see her frozen in front of me.

  “I forgot those were in there.”

  “You forgot . . .” But my voice trails off, shock replacing coherent thought. Standing up, I back away from the suitcase. All the liquor she drained in what had to have been the past couple of days, because she definitely didn’t flee Pete’s with a bag full of empty bottles. My back collides with the wall, but my eyes stay on those bottles. They almost look pretty, the geese flying free over the soft colors on the label.

  “We’ll just leave them on the bed,” Mom says. She kneels down and starts emptying the suitcase onto the mattress, one-armed and one bottle at a time. They clink together roughly, so hard I’m amazed they don’t shatter. “Housekeeping will take care of it.”

  For some reason, all I can think about are those bubbles Eva and I blew aboard Emmaline, the two of us viewing the world through tiny slivers of color. It was beautiful.

  But it wasn’t real.

  Each bubble eventually burst.

  Each firework fizzled out.

  Each lens got stripped away, and each girl saw the world like it was, all nakedness and reality and live action.

  Where love gets all mixed up with duty and scared and lonely and no way out.

  But escape comes in more than one form, I guess, because I help my mother pack. A voice whispers in the back of my mind, asking me what I want. What I need. What I should do. I don’t know any of the answers. So I keep loading up my mother’s suitcase with her things, good things like toothbrushes and clean underwear. If I don’t, who will? If I leave her now—​if I leave her ever—​how many more bottles will pile up in the next hotel room?

  An hour later I get on a bus with my mother.

  Portland is huge and beautiful. Cobblestone sidewalks under my feet, Portland Harbor shimmering under the afternoon sun just behind the red and blue buildings and steepled churches. If it weren’t for this knot of dread in my stomach, it would feel excit
ing, but it’s hard to get pumped up about anything when you’re not sure where you’ll be sleeping that night. When you can’t get your mind off a pile of empty bottles abandoned on an unmade hotel bed.

  We wander the downtown area for a while, hauling our suitcases behind us, their wheels bumping into tourists and over cobblestones. Mom’s eyes peel through the streets. For what, I’m not quite sure. A watering hole, most likely. I follow her, numb and obedient like a puppy that’s been kicked in the side one too many times, relieved to still have something.

  “What’d I tell you, baby?” Mom asks, her eyes sparkling as she lifts her hand to shade them from the low-hanging sun. “Isn’t this lovely?”

  “Yeah” I hear a voice say. It takes me a couple seconds to realize it’s mine, the raspy, passionless tone so foreign in my ears. I glance at Mom to see if she’s noticed and barely react when it’s clear she’s found a new love, a new city, an entirely new world to throw herself into and around and before. Something almost manic glints in her eyes, in the slight curve of her mouth. Something wild and free. It would be completely captivating if it didn’t look all wrong on her face, a mask she shouldn’t be wearing.

  “So who’s this friend you want to meet up with?” I ask.

  She waves a hand as we cross the street on a Do Not Walk sign. Cars honk and drivers yell, but she keeps sashaying along, wearing her torn shirt like it’s a brand-new Chanel. “I’ll call him later.”

  Him. Fucking great.

  Mom checks us into a Holiday Inn in the Portland Arts district. I breathe a sigh of relief when she opens the door and we’re greeted by two double beds, a fresh linen scent, and sparkling white tile in the bathroom.

  I don’t know how she’s paying for it—​how I’m paying for it—​but for now, I don’t care. I need a hot shower, a soft blanket, a room in which I can close my eyes and make believe it’s a home.

  Mom showers while I lie on the bed, listening to my phone not buzzing in my bag. It hasn’t made a sound in hours, which means everyone’s done calling to check on me for now. Or maybe forever. Just like that, I’m gone and it’s as if the world didn’t even notice. With the realization comes a weird sort of relief, like I’ve been waiting for this to happen, to simply give in and become a little Maggie, letting the wave roll over and under me until there’s no more me. No more Grace.

  It’s easier like this.

  No one to love.

  No one to lose.

  “Good god, you look morose lying there,” Mom says, standing at the bathroom mirror. She’s all gussied up, a slim black dress hugging her hips. Her hair is clean and falls in gentle waves. It’s not shiny or even healthy-looking, but it’s not a mess, so that’s something. Her face is done up too, soft mascara around her eyes and an elegant rose-colored hue to her mouth. She looks pretty. She looks like my mom should look all the time, and I can’t help but smile at her reflection.

  “Cheer up,” she says. “It’s a brand-new day, baby.” She kisses the air, then pushes up her boobs a little more. “I’m meeting my friend, all right? Don’t wait up. I left a few bucks on the sink here if you get hungry.”

  She motions to the couple of dollars lying on the counter—​literally, two dollars. And just like that, all that beauty in the mirror goes foggy and drippy, a gorgeous painting neglected and ruined by the rain.

  “Fine,” I deadpan, and flip on the TV. I don’t say goodbye as she flounces out the door.

  Later, I take Mom’s two dollars and walk a block to the Walgreens. With that and my last five bucks, I buy a Dr. Pepper, a small bag of Sun Chips, and fresh bottle of nail polish remover. I eat my meager dinner on the walk back to the hotel. Once inside my room, I unroll a few sheets of toilet paper and remove every trace of purple polish from my fingers. When they’re clean, I dig my favorite shade of violet out of my toiletry bag, but I don’t open it. Instead, I stare at my naked nails, bare and tinted faintly pink from so many years of color.

  Why purple? Eva had asked that night we sat together on the back of Emmaline, lost in each other, in possibility, in hope.

  It’s always been our color, I had answered, but that wasn’t really why. For years I wrapped myself in this purple, made my silly wishes, telling myself it’s what linked Mom and me, and I was so desperate for that connection, it was enough. But really, it was the opposite. These fingers, these nails wrapped in color, they were my way out. My hope. My wishes for who Mom should be, who I’ll be for her, for myself.

  I wore that color as the ultimate wish.

  And I’m finally done wishing.

  Nails bare and free, I toss my bottle of Violet Glow into the trash and then run a bath. I’m not sure how long I lie in the hot water, but there are clean washcloths and a tiny bottle of bubble bath that smells like spearmint and rosemary and a beautiful girl’s face framed in dark curls floating in and out of my head. I miss her so much, it hurts to breathe, my lungs rebelling against me. I can’t close my eyes without seeing her, so I force them open. But I can’t keep them open without seeing some part of me she touched, some part of me I loved because she loved it too. So I close my eyes again and just let her face bloom in my mind while my skin prunes and softens. When the water gets cool, I let it out and run more, hoping if I get it hot enough, it’ll scald that girl from my mind, her memory from my fingertips.

  Chapter Thirty

  I WAKE TO THE SOUND OF A DOOR SLAMMING OPEN AGAINST A WALL. At least, I think that’s what it is. The bath water is long cold and my neck aches when I sit up, so I know I’ve been in here for a while. Another loud bang, this time the door slamming shut. This room is separated from the bathroom sink and main bedroom, only the tub and toilet inside. Out of habit, I had closed the door when I got in the bath, so I can’t see whatever the hell it is Mom’s doing. I hear a giggle and then a low rumble.

  It’s that low rumble that makes me freeze, my hand under the too-cool water and on the drain plug, ready to pull it up and wash everything empty.

  Because that low rumble is definitely not my mother’s girlish voice.

  As quietly as I can, I get out of the tub and wrap myself in a white towel. My hand grips the doorknob, every nerve in my body alert and listening. No more voices. Just rustling, a thumping noise like the lamp on the nightstand got a little hip bump, a long exhalation followed by the squeak of mattress springs.

  “The hell is she doing?” I whisper to the door. To no one.

  My naked nails curl around the knob even tighter as more sounds filter under the door. Breathy moans. Breathy giggles. A breathy “Aw, yeah, baby” drenched in a male tone.

  I’m not sure what makes me open the door. Even as I’m doing it, there’s a voice in my head telling me to go back in the bathroom, huddle in the tub, and wait it out. She’s done this before, brought guys home, but even in the worst apartments, I’ve always had my own room, a lock on the door, a Luca to call and ask if I could stay over. Here I’m trapped like a rat in a cage, hitting a food-pellet bar over and over and over that never, ever yields any nourishment.

  Is Maggie okay?

  After you graduate . . .

  Eyes fixed on my colorless nails, I throw the door open and finally answer that question, the supposition.

  No.

  The bedroom is dark, the only light a white-blue flicker from the TV I left on mute. They’re on the bed farthest from me. Bile rises up in my throat as I see my suspicions confirmed—​my mother on her hands and knees, her dress up around her hips, some guy I’ve never seen before wrapped around her from behind. Her friend, no doubt. He grunts and smacks her butt a little with the palm of his hand, and my face burns red. All I can see is his back, his jeans around his ankles, and his long button-up shirt covering most of the rest of him, thank god. But with that little slap, something ignites in my gut. Something that lights up my veins, so hot I can almost feel it slithering right under my skin. There’s something cold under there too. Something childlike and lost and tired.

  Something reaching for a
new wish.

  Eerily calm, I pick up the TV remote from where I left it on the white duvet cover and hurl it at his blond head. It makes contact exactly where I intended, cracking him on the back of his skull. The sound echoes through the room, and he cries out, his hands leaving my mother’s hips and flying to his head.

  “What the fuck?” he screams, and staggering forward a little, bracing himself with one hand on the mattress.

  Mom scurries out from under him, yanking her dress down to cover herself. “What happened? Tom, are you—​”

  Her voice dies when she sees me standing there, hair dripping, clad in nothing but a skimpy white towel.

  “Grace.”

  I don’t acknowledge her. Instead, I direct my attention to the dude now sitting on Mom’s bed. He’s breathing hard and rubbing at what is probably a quickly forming knot on the back of his head. His pants are still down, everything on display for the entire universe to see.

  “Get out,” I say.

  “Gracie—​”

  “Get. Out,” I say again. Tom—​or whoever the hell—​blinks at me, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m real. “Or I’ll call the cops and tell them you exposed yourself to a minor.”

  “Grace!” Mom gasps, like my threat is what’s oh so shocking about this situation. But not Tom. In the TV’s light, I see his expression fall, and he quickly yanks his pants up with one hand and grabs his boots, scattered by the door, with the other.

  “Call you later,” he mumbles as he stumbles out the door.

  “Wait. Tom—​”

  But he’s gone, hightailing it down the hotel’s hallway. The door clicks shut behind him, filling the room with a ringing silence. Mom stares at me, agape. I stare back, but it’s more of a cool observation than shock. I feel so completely unshocked, and I shouldn’t be, you know? I should be completely flabbergasted.

  “Margaret Grace, what in the ever-loving hell are you—​?”

  “Just stop,” I say, my voice thin and cold like a razored slip of sheet metal.