***
“YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY have a fairy godmother,” said Suzanne, the undisputed dictator of my kindergarten class.
“Yeah!” said Angela, her best friend, dimpled hands on the waistband of her dress, pouting pink lips turned down. “Fairy godmothers don’t exist.”
“My fairy godmother does!” I insisted. “I can bring in her picture.” I had a picture of my fairy godmother, Caroline, on the dresser in my bedroom. It showed Caroline and my mother at Bryn Mawr college, where they’d been roommates. Caroline said that Cinderella’s fairy godmother went to Bryn Mawr, too.
“You wouldn’t even know you had a fairy godmother until you were really in trouble,” Angela said. “And then she’d come fix things for you. Like in Cinderella.”
“Does she have wings?” Suzanne said. “A real fairy godmother would have wings.”
I had a book of fairy tales, and I’d asked Caroline why she didn’t have wings. “Caroline says that fairy godmothers don’t have wings anymore,” I said. “Because of underground nuclear testing.”
Suzanne gave me a skeptical look. “So what does she do?” she asked. “Can she do magic? Real fairy godmothers would be able to do magic.”
“She took me to see Star Wars,” I said. “Three times!”
***
WHEN I SNIFFLED out my story to Caroline, later that night, I heard something that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh, but her face was serious when I raised my head. “Obviously,” she said, “Suzanne and Angela have extremely delinquent fairy godmothers, if they think that we only show up when you’re already in dire straits.”
“But can you?” I said. “Wave your magic coffee cup” (Caroline said wands weren’t her style) “and fix everything?”
“That’s not what real fairy godmothers do.” Caroline lifted me out of her lap and pulled my fairy tale book off the shelf by my bed. “Let’s take Cinderella’s fairy godmother as an example. First of all, she didn’t really fix everything—she gave Cinderella a way to the ball, but the rest of it was up to Cinderella. Second of all, our power has limits—she couldn’t force the Prince to fall in love with Cinderella, or even just wave her wand and make Cinderella a rich lady with no stepsisters. If I had absolute power to change the world—” Caroline cut herself off with a laugh.
“Third of all,” she said, “if Cinderella’s fairy godmother had been doing a proper job of it in the first place, things would never have gotten so bad that she had to use magic at all.”
“But can you do magic?” I asked.
“Of course!” she said.
“Could you turn...” I tried to think of a readily available equivalent of a pumpkin, “... one of Daddy’s zucchini into a magic coach?”
“Yes,” Caroline said, “but—” and she held up her hand to hold off my avalanche of requests— “there is a catch. I can grant you wishes, if they are within my powers. But I’m only allowed to grant you three wishes.”
“Why?”
“It’s in the Federal Regulations on Fairy Godmothers.” I must have looked confused, so she elaborated. “You notice that Cinderella’s fairy godmother only works the magic three times. Now, they don’t mention it in the story, but that was it. Cinderella used up her three wishes, and that was all her fairy godmother could do.”
“Only three wishes...”
“...ever. There’s no expiration date, but once you use them up, you can’t have any more. And none of this business about wishing for more wishes—” Caroline grinned. “That doesn’t work either.”
My plans to demand an immediate transformation of all the zucchini in the garden evaporated. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed her, but I certainly wasn’t going to risk wasting a wish just to prove a point.
“Couldn’t you do something to prove you’re really a fairy godmother to Suzanne and Angela?” I pleaded. “Without using up a wish?”
Caroline shook her head. “Why make Suzanne and Angela feel bad, just because their fairy godmothers never pay any attention to them?”
***
I WAS ABLE to hold out on using a wish for almost a year. Then, the summer between kindergarten and first grade, the school district lines got redrawn, forcing me to switch elementary schools. I would have to attend first grade with a class full of strangers. I was terrified.
“Make me not have to go to a new school,” I pleaded with Caroline. “I’ll use a wish for it. I’ll walk the whole way every day.”
Caroline picked me up and let me cry on the shoulder of her corduroy shirt. “Can you tell me why you’re so scared?”
“I—” I gulped. “The only other kid going to Sidley is Suzanne, and she hates me. I’m afraid everyone else will hate me too.”
“Sweetie...” Caroline paused. She was quiet for so long that I looked up from her shoulder to see what was wrong. “I might be able to fix that.”
“How?”
Caroline took off the necklace she was wearing. I hadn’t seen it before. It was a blue rock on a silver chain. “This’ll count as a wish, you know,” she said, slightly grumpily. When I did not object, she went on. “This is a magic necklace. If you wear it, people will want to talk to you and be your friend. Now—” she held up one hand to hold off my protests. “—you have to be careful about a few things. You can’t tell anyone about it, because they might fight against its power just to prove it wrong. Magic isn’t strong enough to overcome that. It’s best if you wear it under your shirt, where no one can see it. Also, you have to meet it halfway. On your first day of school, you have to say hello, introduce yourself, and ask a question of at least five people.”
“I’ll sound stupid.”
“No, you won’t—the necklace will keep you from sounding stupid. Do you want it?”
I nodded. She fastened it on, and I dropped it down under my shirt.
***
ON THE SECOND of September, I got on the school bus, gripping the handle of my new Star Wars lunchbox so hard that my knuckles were white. All the older kids were carrying their lunch in brown paper bags. They’ll all think I’m a baby, I thought as I slid into a seat by myself. I’d talk to five people later.
After the next stop, someone slid in next to me with a bump. Staring at the floor, I could see the pink ruffled skirt out of the corner of my eye. I looked up slowly. It was Suzanne. Her hair was in pretty golden ringlets and she was wearing a little ring with a blue stone in it. She was also gripping her lunchbox so hard that her knuckles were white.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I sit with you?”
***
“WHERE DO YOU get a fairy godmother, anyway?” Suzanne asked, cracking her gum. She peered at the picture of Caroline and my mother, then bounced up off my bed to eye herself moodily in my mirror. All the eighth-grade girls that year were wearing their bangs poufed out, and Suzanne’s just weren’t working. She picked up my comb to urge her bangs a little higher.
“She always told me she was the wicked fairy who gate-crashed my christening,” I said from the bed. “But my parents were polite and didn’t cringe or whine, so she decided to be my fairy godmother instead of cursing me with bad taste in men or an incurable desire to kiss frogs.”
“You’re so lucky,” Suzanne sighed, still glaring at herself in the mirror.
“Why?” I said. “She’s not really a fairy, she’s just a friend of my mom’s.”
“You said in kindergarten that she could really do magic.”
“Yeah, well, she still says she can.” To my immense embarrassment. “She told me in kindergarten that I could have three wishes. I used one in first grade.” I told Suzanne about the necklace.
“Well, it worked,” she said.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t really magic,” I said, even though I’d worn it on the first day of junior high, too. “It was just to give me confidence.”
“So are you ever going to use the other two wishes?”
“Why would I?” I said. “She can’t really do magic!”
“Can I have one, then?”
I sat up to stare at Suzanne. “What are you going to wish for, poufy bangs?”
“It’s none of your business,” she said, and flushed.
“So what am I supposed to tell Caroline, then?” I asked.
“Tell her your wish is that she grant my wish,” Suzanne said.
“That won’t work,” I said. “I can’t wish for wishes.”
“Well.” She put down the comb and turned around to glare at me instead of the mirror. “I’ll tell you my wish if you promise that you’ll give my wish to Caroline.”
“But there’s no such thing as a fairy godmother!” I said. Suzanne continued to glare at me, and finally I sighed. “OK, Suzanne. I promise. What do you want me to wish?”
***
“WHAT?” THE SOAPY dish slipped out of Caroline’s hand and back into the sink. “You want me to do what with Suzanne?”
“It’s her wish,” I said. “She wanted me to use one of my wishes for something she wanted. And that’s what she told me to tell you.”
Caroline picked the dish back up out of the sink, rinsed it and handed it to me to dry. “I can’t make somebody not be different,” she said. “And even if it were within my powers, I wouldn’t.” She drained the sink and dried her hands. “Do you know if Suzanne had plans tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. I was Suzanne’s only good friend.
“Do you think her parents would mind if you invited her over to my apartment?”
“I doubt it.” Ever since her parents got divorced they hadn’t much cared what she did.
We picked up Suzanne in Caroline’s VW Rabbit fifteen minutes later, and brought her back to Caroline’s apartment. To my disappointment, Caroline banished me to the bedroom with a book. “I think Suzanne needs to talk to me alone,” she said. Annoyed, I pressed my ear against the inside of the door to eavesdrop.
“There’s something wrong with me.” Suzanne’s voice.
“Lucy doesn’t think so.” Caroline’s voice.
“Everyone else thinks so.”
Their voices dropped and I couldn’t hear anything for a while. Then,
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Suzanne half-shrieked.
“Yes, I do, sweetie,” Caroline said. “Believe it or not, I know exactly what it’s like.” There was a long silence, then Suzanne spoke, but I couldn’t hear what she said. Caroline answered, “I can’t promise you that there will never be trouble, or grief. But I can promise you things will get better.” Suzanne started to say something bitter, and Caroline cut her off with her deep laugh. “That’s an easy promise, Suzanne. Everything gets better after middle school. This is about the worst it ever gets.”
Their voices dropped again, and then I heard Suzanne crying. Caroline again: “You’ll tear yourself apart trying to shove yourself into the round holes they build for little girls. So don’t, Suzanne. To hell with them; you can build your own world, you don’t have to stunt yourself to fit into what the rest of the eighth grade thinks you should be.”
Their voices dropped again. Sometime later, I heard footsteps in the hallway leading to the bedroom and dove for the bed, pretending that I’d spent the last hour reading. Suzanne’s eyes were swollen and her bangs had fallen flat, but somehow she looked better than she had in a long time. “I’ve changed my wish,” she said.
“OK,” I said. “What’s your new wish?”
“I want Caroline to be my fairy godmother, too.”
***
“WHAT DO YOU think?” I held up a ruffled pink formal.
Caroline turned her thumbs down and Suzanne made noises like a cat coughing up a hairball. “It looks like one of those things I wore in grade school,” she said.
I snickered and put the dress back. It was the end of senior year, and I was on top of the world. Suzanne and I were graduating at the top of our class; we had gotten into our first choice colleges (Bryn Mawr for me, Swarthmore—right in the next town—for her); and best of all, I had a boyfriend who was taking me to prom, even if Suzanne made the same hairball noises for him that she’d made for the dress.
“Nix on anything pink,” Suzanne said.
I rolled my eyes and pulled a blue dress off the rack, but Suzanne was already shaking her head. “We should try a different store,” she said. “Everything in here looks like Cinderella’s bloody ball gown.”
Caroline decided that maybe it was time for lunch. “So could you provide me with a magic coach to take me to prom?” I asked as we ate. “If I used up my third wish.”
“I could probably track down a limo for you,” she offered.
“Yeah, but what if I wanted a pumpkin?”
“Well, I suppose if that what’s you want, but you know pumpkins turn back into pumpkins at midnight, and doesn’t prom go until later? How would you get home?”
“I’d come home early if I got to do it in a pumpkin.”
“So, is that what you want for your third wish?”
“Nah.” I finished my milkshake. “Steve’s getting a limo. I’ll save the wish; who knows, I might need it.”
***
WE FINALLY SETTLED on a floor-length blue dress that looked a little like the dress Caroline wore at my parents’ wedding, and she dropped me off at home. Steve was on the football team, and Caroline didn’t like Steve any more than Suzanne did; I could tell even though Caroline refrained from making hairball noises. She and Suzanne exchanged worried looks whenever I talked about him. Still, I thought he was handsome and exciting, and most important, he liked me. I’d never had a boyfriend before.
So of course I was shattered when he called me up two nights before the prom and broke up with me. “But I’ve bought my dress!” I said.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said, and hung up the phone.
Suzanne told me that she’d heard a rumor that Kimberlie, one of the short, perky cheerleaders, had hinted to him that she’d wanted to go to prom with him, so he’d dropped me to ask her out. “Come on, Lucy!” she yelled at me over the phone as I sobbed. “Like, we need guys to be complete people or something? Get over this Seventeen magazine bullshit!”
I didn’t really expect Caroline to be much more sympathetic, but I called her up next anyway. “What if I said I wanted my third wish to make him love me?”
Caroline sighed. “You know magic doesn’t work that way.” I could hear her drumming her nails against the side of the phone. “Anyway, Lucy, you know it wasn’t going to last. You’re going off to Bryn Mawr in the fall. He’s going to Guido’s House of Bachelor’s Degrees. It was going to end sooner or later.”
Sniffling, I had to admit that she was right. It was more my pride that was hurt than anything else. “He’s such a jerk. I wish you’d turn him into a frog.”
I could hear Caroline smile. “Is that your third wish?”
“Sure. Why not? That’s my third wish.”
***
I WAS PLANNING to stay home and mope, but on the afternoon of the prom, Suzanne showed up at the door in combat boots and black leggings and a pink satin dress she’d picked up at Ragstock, then cropped to mid-thigh and “hemmed” with duct tape. “You’re coming, aren’t you?” she said. “Come on! We’ll laugh at all the boys who think they know how to do the foxtrot and show Steve the Sleeve that you don’t need his worthless presence to have a life.”
So I put on my magic necklace and my prom dress, which I did not let Suzanne “hem” for me, and I called Caroline to ask her for a lift, but she was already pulling up at the door.
The prom was in the ballroom of a local hotel, with chandeliers and fake wood paneling and big plastic plants. We parked ourselves at a table and snickered at our classmates trying to act sophisticated while tipsy and overdressed. The boys were winking at one another and passing condoms around for “later” while the girls pretended not to notice.
“Bryn Mawr looking better every minute?” Suzanne asked. She glanced past my shoulder. “Want to show this two-bit high sch
ool how the foxtrot is supposed to be done?”
I started to refuse—what would the other kids think about my dancing with a girl?—when Suzanne glanced past my shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “Look who just showed up.”
I turned around. It was Steve and Kimberlie. Suzanne was standing up, an evil grin on her face. “Let’s go over and say hi,” she suggested, and dragged me to the entrance.
When Steve saw me, he froze. He definitely wasn’t expecting me to be there.
“Hi Steve,” I greeted him cheerfully. I was having a good time, and besides, Suzanne was right. He doubtless expected me to be crushed, so I’d be as buoyantly cheerful as I could possibly muster.
“Ribbet,” Steve said.
“Excuse me?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly.
“Ribbet,” Steve said again. He had a dazed look on his face. “Ribbet!”
What happened next depends on who you ask, but within moments, there was a pile of formalwear lying on the floor, and Steve, who might or might not have still been wearing his boxers (with little glow-in-the-dark Playboy bunnies on them) had sprinted out the door and thrown himself headlong into the fountain outside the hotel ballroom.
Hotel security, smelling alcohol on his breath, called for the cops and had him taken to detox. Kimberlie the cheerleader was going to go with him, then thought the better of it and replaced him within five minutes with a member of the wrestling team.
I was stunned. “I take it back!” I whispered. “I don’t want him to be a frog! Not for good!”
Suzanne smacked me across the shoulders. “When Caroline told me I was going to have to drag you to prom, she sent a message for you: ‘Everything ends at midnight. Including that. So go have a good time.’“
I shook my head. Further back in the ballroom, people were making fun of Steve. “‘Ribbet,’“ I heard someone snicker. “What a loser.”
I trailed Suzanne back to the table. “I feel kind of bad,” I said. “I used my last wish on revenge.”
Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories Page 9