The cowboy clicked again. “Yes you can,” he murmured.
As a cowpoke, he must’ve been one excellent cattle driver. With his soft voice and those little clicks, he was herding me right into the chute he’d chosen.
I was big for my age. But Dad’s problem was too big for me. I couldn’t fix him. Trying to do that was ripping me in two.
I needed the cowboy’s help. I had to make the right wish.
I let out a ragged breath. “Okay. Here’s what I want.”
I hesitated.
The cowboy did his giddyup click.
I swallowed. “I wish for my dad to love Mom, Wyatt, and me more than he loves booze.”
A slow smile split the cowboy’s grizzled cheeks. “Yes.”
He repeated the yes, his voice happy. “Thank you, Shane. You made the perfect wish.”
He stepped off the road, slipped behind the rock pile, and vanished.
I was stunned. By the heat, by the cowboy, by the whole impossible afternoon.
The weirdest thing was that my worry had disappeared with the cowboy.
I felt light and airy and full of joy. I could have flown home, I was so buoyant.
I got on the bike and pedaled like crazy. The sky above me was a gorgeous rosy color, the distant clouds bands of purple. The air smelled sweetly of sage.
When I pulled up at our one-story adobe house, the skinny pine double doors stood open. Five feet of sloped roof sheltered the tiled area beneath. To the left of the doors, a rustic two-seat swing hung from the roof beams.
Wyatt lounged on the red cedar slats. His dirty bare feet rested on the three-foot-high adobe wall that marked the far edge of the space we used as a porch.
Wyatt had taken off his shirt and shoes and wore only a faded pair of shorts like mine. Three sizes smaller since his head only comes up to my nipples and his arms and legs are stick-figure thin.
With his left hand, Wyatt stroked the dark curly pelt on his narrow chest. With his right, he pressed his phone into the brown hair covering his ear.
I guessed he’d gotten a call and come outside for better reception.
He was grinning wider than the cowboy.
I ditched my bike and bounded over the wall to sit beside him. I smelled cedar and Wyatt’s little boy odor of bike chain lubricant, desert dust, and milk.
“Shane’s home,” he said into the phone. “I’ll tell him.”
He ended the call, bounced up to standing, and tucked the phone into his shorts pocket.
“That was Mom. She says Dad’s okay. The doctor was delayed. He showed up a few minutes ago and spotted some mix-up in the test results. Turns out, Dad’s got zero alcohol in his blood.”
“Dad hadn’t been drinking?”
“Nope.” Wyatt slapped his hands together. “They’re moving him out of detox to a regular ward. Keeping him overnight for observation.”
He headed into the house. “Mom’s on her way home,” he said over his shoulder.
I followed him inside. Wyatt danced over to the big pine table that sits between the sitting room and the kitchen. He plopped onto the wood bench and spooned up cereal and milk from a flawed version of the blue-green bowls.
Wyatt’s favorite cereal is mostly colorful marshmallows shaped like four-leaf clovers and stars and other charms. Floating in white milk, all the pale greens and yellows and pinks looked terrific in the bowl.
Wyatt swallowed and said, “Tomorrow, Mom wants you to ride down to ABQ with her. You’ll drive Dad home in the truck. She’ll follow in the car. He should be fine in a day or two.”
“Excellent plan.” Dad was a great Driver’s Ed instructor. Unlike Mom, he didn’t panic.
I dropped onto the red-and-blue cushion topping the built-in seat below the front window.
Wyatt let out a happy gurgle and waved his spoon at me. “I was eating my charms and wishing for Dad to be all right. The phone rang and my wish came true.”
“Cereal magic.” I dropped my arm so my hand dangled next to the solid base under the cushion.
I flattened my palm on the cool adobe plaster.
Whoever finished our inside walls created built-in adobe shelves on the side wall and made this window seat.
Touching the smooth whiteness, my fingers found the hills and valleys where the maker patted the adobe mud into shape. An awesome feeling, like reaching back in time to touch the artisan’s fingertips with mine.
Ghostly, the way the past filters into the present along the Turquoise Trail.
I’d let Wyatt go on thinking his lucky charms had saved Dad.
But I bet the ghost cowboy had magicked the bad tests into good and gotten Dad back on the recovery path.
The cowboy had lifted the family curse, too. Or at least convinced me that I had it wrong. I’m not doomed to be an alcoholic when I grow up.
Maybe the cowboy had granted all my wishes?
I stood, stepped over to the shelves, and picked up the hand mirror with the ornate tinwork frame that Mom bought to go with our “pueblo revival” house.
I frowned at my reflection. I couldn’t tell if my beard had changed.
“You think my five o’clock shadow is lighter than usual?” I asked Wyatt.
“Not a chance. Your beard gets darker and thicker every single second.”
Wyatt popped out of his chair, fisted his hands, and pounded the curly mat on his chest.
He yelled, “We are Daniel Harrison’s hairy sons and proud of it.”
Wyatt dropped his arms. “You’re going to be as ugly as Dad.”
I tilted the mirror at a better angle. Wyatt was right.
“I guess I will.”
I wouldn’t bother going out to the garage to check for a new car loaded with cans of clinical strength antiperspirant.
The cowboy had stuck to the rules and granted only one wish. Maybe I’d quit shaving and flaunt my manly whiskers.
My dad could roast and peel a Hatch chile faster than any man alive. He’d been a people’s choice finalist three times for cooking the best green chile cheeseburger in New Mexico.
I look just like him.
I’m glad I do.
As Fast as Wishes Travel
Dale Hartley Emery
We leave you with a story that made us smile.
Dale Hartley Emery’s previous Fiction River story, in No Humans Allowed, isn’t quite as impish as “As Fast As Wishes Travel.” In fact, Dale must have been in an impish mood for a while now, because it even translated to the biographical information he sent us, which we’ll now quote:
“I have worked as a failed shoemaker, reluctant dairy farmer, and ruthless ice cream man. For several years I monitored the nuclear test ban treaty, making sure those pesky commies didn’t blow up the planet. (They didn’t.)
“I prefer writing.
“When I’m not writing, I advise software teams and leaders about how to play nice together. Colleagues in my industry once created a special award for me for being reasonable.”
He has published eleven short stories, and a short fiction collection called Winding Unwinding.
About “As Fast as Wishes Travel,” he writes, “Once while my wife and I were walking our dog, we saw a tree that looked as if someone had taken a bite out of it. The image stayed with me for years. When Rebecca Moesta asked for a story about wishes, I immediately knew that tree would play a part. All I needed was a reason for someone to make a wish about it.”
Which he found, of course.
Grace chewed her thumbnail and debated the odds that Miss Fisher would be able to fix her PowerPoint presentation before the end of fifth period geometry class. Or before the end of the school year. Or before the sun expanded and melted the eyes out of the last remaining earthling who gave a crap about congruent angles.
On the whiteboard at the front of the room, a lopsided parallelogram shimmered, probably due to a bad connection between Miss Fisher’s computer and the projector. Miss Fisher didn’t seem to notice the shimmer. She was tapping k
eys and scraping the mouse across her desk, trying to get the presentation to advance to the next slide.
If Miss Fisher didn’t call the AV department in the next three minutes, Grace would do it herself. It would give her something to do.
The caption under the parallelogram read: Prove that angle A and angle B are not congruent.
Apparently, the next slide would reveal the exciting proof. Sometime before the universe died.
Miss Fisher looked up from her computer over the tops of her cockeyed, rimless glasses. “Open your books and read the section on supplements and complements.”
So the big revelation of the parallelogram proof was going to have to wait.
One seat up and one seat over from Grace, Liss Macklin leaned over her open geometry book, rubbing her forehead with all five fingertips of one hand. She must have caught Grace looking at her out of the corner of her eye, because she turned and said, “Mind your own business.”
Grace stuck out her tongue.
Liss sighed in disgust and turned back to her book.
Grace had read the complements and supplements section four times. She knew it by heart. She could explain it better than Miss Fisher could, she was sure of that. Even without PowerPoint.
And she already knew the proof of the parallelogram problem. Her favorite kind of proof. The single word kind: Duh! Clearly angle A was obtuse. Clearly angle B was acute.
Grace had given her one-word proof on three different questions on the midterm. Miss Fisher was not amused.
Miss Fisher had no sense of humor. Or proportion. Grace’s “little stunt” had cost her a C minus and a note home to the parents.
Grace bit her thumbnail again and tasted chocolate. Waxy chocolate from the Ding Dong from her lunch.
She sighed. The chocolate had been disgusting even the first time.
Why couldn’t Ross Alexander teach this class instead of Miss Fisher? Now there was a man with a sense of humor. He had subbed last Wednesday when Miss Fisher was out. Grace hit him with her new, expanded, three-word proof. Quod Erat Duh.
Ross Alexander had laughed out loud.
Liss Macklin had rolled her eyes. Geometry may be beyond her, but her mastery of advanced eye-rolling would take her far in life.
Then Ross had rolled his eyes dramatically, mocking Liss. But Liss didn’t see, and Grace felt all light and cottony inside.
At the front of the room, Miss Fisher waggled her mouse.
Liss turned and scowled at Grace. “I’m not your boss.”
“What?”
“You said ‘boss.’”
Grace felt her neck tingle. She didn’t realize she had said anything out loud.
“Why don’t you shut up and let the rest of us read?”
“You sure sound like a boss.”
Liss sneered. “Hah, hah.”
“And I didn’t say, ‘boss.’ I said, ‘Ross.’”
“Well, shut it.”
“Why can’t Ross Alexander teach this class instead of Miss Mouseclicks?”
Liss cocked her head. “Huh.”
“What?”
“That’s not a bad idea. He’s pretty cute.”
“Cute?” Grace said. “The man is six gorgeous feet three gorgeous inches of hot, buttery sizzle.” She tilted her head back in a mock swoon and fanned her neck with her fingers.
Liss laughed. “Too bad he’s just a sub.”
“Well, I wish Miss Fisher would have a kidney stone or something and have to sit out the rest of the year.”
“I like the way you think, girl,” Liss said. “A little cruel, maybe, but practical.”
Miss Fisher’s voice interrupted. “Girls. You’re disturbing your neighbors.”
“Sorry, Miss Fisher,” Liss said.
“I’m surprised at you, Allison,” Miss Fisher said to Liss. To Grace she said, “Not so surprised at you.”
Grace bit back the urge to say, “Duh.”
Liss said, “It was totally my fault, Miss Fisher.”
Miss Fisher glared at Grace.
Grace smiled innocently and batted her eyelids.
“Don’t you both have some reading to do?” Miss Fisher didn’t wait for an answer. She hunched over her computer and tapped some keys.
Liss turned back to Grace and winked. “Don’t worry, sis. I’ve got your back.”
Oh, god. Now Liss thought they were friends. Peachy. Just peachy.
Maybe Liss could teach Grace to roll her eyes.
The next morning, as Grace stepped through the front door of Gordon Abbot High School in the dry, cool light of the early December Sacramento morning, Liss and three of her hangers-on stepped into her path, surrounded her, twisted her around, and hustled her back outside onto the wide, pinkish-white marble steps.
“Gracey,” Liss said, leaning forward and whispering in a conspiratorial tone. Her breath smelled like Lucky Charms. “What did you do, girl?”
Gracey? Liss was getting too chummy for comfort.
“Well, let’s see,” Grace said, stroking her chin. “I gave up breakfast cereal for good. Made the decision just now. Right this minute. Is that what you mean?”
“God,” Miranda Calley said, rolling her eyes with zero of Liss’s skill and nuance. Miranda was the smartest of Liss’s minions, which wasn’t saying much. And the prettiest, which was saying a lot. “What a weird—”
Liss shut Miranda down with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Grace, did you see who’s in the teacher’s lounge?”
“In the four nanoseconds I was inside the building? No.”
“Guess.”
“Colin Powell?”
“No.”
“William Powell?”
“Grace, I’m serious. This is huge.”
“Boog Powell? He was a big boy, but I wouldn’t call him huge.”
“Mister Sizzly Butter himself.”
“Oh,” Grace said. Ross Alexander. This might turn into a good day after all. If Grace could get off the front steps and into the building. And into whatever class Ross was teaching. “You mean Mister Buttery Sizzle.”
“Whatever,” Liss said.
“What class?”
“Geometry,” Liss said. Then she repeated the word, slowly, nodding with each syllable. “Ge-o-met-ry. You see what this means, don’t you?”
She certainly did. Quod erat dreamboat. “Duh. It means I got my wish, because I deserve it, because I’m awesome.”
Liss’s eyes went wide. “So you know?”
“That I’m awesome? I’ve known that for, like, three weeks.”
“No. About Miss Fisher.”
“What about—”
“Kidney stones.” Liss pointed to the teacher’s parking lot. “Right over there, last night. Coach Sanders found her on the ground next to her open car door, rolling around on the pavement, screaming.”
Grace suddenly wanted to throw up.
“For the love of God, Liss, please stop talking.” When Grace was seven years old, she had seen her mother doubled up on the living room floor, whimpering. She thought her mother was dying. It turned out to be only kidney stones. But the sight of her mother in pain like that was the most awful moment Grace could remember. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Except that she had.
And then Grace realized what Liss had been getting at. “Oh, no, you don’t seriously believe—”
“In coincidence?” Liss shook her head. “Uh, no.”
Grace opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. What Liss was implying was too stupid for words. Or maybe Grace still didn’t understand what Liss was implying. Liss wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t smart, but she wasn’t stupid, either. Not that stupid.
Miranda said, “You gave Miss Fisher kidney stones.”
Miranda was that stupid.
“You think I gave Miss Fisher kidney stones just by wishing for it?”
Liss shrugged. “What’s your explanation?”
Grace didn’t have one. Not a good one anyway. “People
get sick all the time.”
Liss shook her head. “‘I wish Miss Fisher would have a kidney stone.’ Exact words.”
“People get kidney stones all the time. My mother—”
“So you’re going with coincidence?”
It was a coincidence. The only other explanation was—
Was the one that Miranda said.
And Miranda was stupid.
“So you think my wish came true? Is that what you think?”
“Don’t you?” Liss said.
“You realize how crazy that sounds, right?” Grace’s throat felt tight. She noted a quaver in her voice. She did not like that quaver.
Liss placed a hand gently on Grace’s shoulder and said very quietly, “Your wish was very specific, Grace.” There was compassion in her voice, in her gesture. Sincere compassion.
Grace did not like that compassion. It meant that Liss thought she needed comforting.
How condescending.
“Then you’re as stupid as Miranda.”
Miranda jerked back as if she’d been slapped.
Crap. Grace hadn’t meant for it to come out that way. She just wanted Liss and her gang of nitwits to back off.
Liss laughed. “Ah,” she said. “Now I get it. You’re mean to everybody. Not just Miss Fisher. Are you going to give me kidney stones now?”
“If that would get you off my back.”
Liss blanched.
God. What was wrong with these people?
“For the love of leprechauns, Liss, I can’t give people kidney stones. It was just something stupid I said.”
Why had she said it? Why had she made that wish?
It was to ingratiate her with Liss. And she didn’t even like Liss.
Crap.
“Stupid,” Liss said. “Oh, dear. How awful that must be for you. To realize you say stupid things just like the rest of us.”
Oh, that was rich. Liss had spent the first three months of ninth grade sneering at Grace every chance she got. And now she was accusing Grace of looking down at her.
Which she was.
Crap.
“Liss, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“And Miranda.”
Fiction River Page 23