Glimpsed

by G. F. Miller

  I park on the street and march to the front door for Operation Stalker Smackdown. I jab the doorbell. Eight seconds pass with no answer. While I wait, I scroll through the texts Noah has sent in the past hour. Thirty-six messages, and they’re all pointless. It infuriates me all over again just when I should be finding that Zen place where I could nudge something truly debilitating into his head.

  Maybe I could make him forget his own name for a minute. Or eat paste. Or humiliate himself online…

  Noah opens the door. Despite the fact that he has obviously been up since 7:05, he looks like he recently rolled out of bed. His hair is in a wilder mop than usual, if that’s even possible. His T-shirt has a hole near the collar and a faded drawing of the dude with pointy ears. He’s wearing lounge pants.

  Lounge pants.

  He’s sporting an I just beat you in a chess tournament smirk, but it morphs into openmouthed stupefaction as he registers my appearance.

  Phase one complete. My adversary is weakened. Time to go for the throat.

  I jam the phone toward his face. “You think this is funny, grunt? Because, so help me, I will strangle you with my bare hands and leave your worthless corpse in the desert to—”

  “Noah?”

  The door opens a little more to reveal a middle-aged woman. She has the same untamed brown hair and prominent nose as Noah. The expression on her face is the look one would give to a hooker yelling death threats at a toddler.

  It honestly didn’t occur to me that some people’s parents are actually home on Saturday mornings. I cringe, now hyperaware of how low-cut my tank top is and that I sound homicidal. I would very much like to crawl into a hole and stay there for the next twenty or thirty years. But there are no Charity-size holes in sight, so I put my game face on.

  With a big, apologetic smile, I stick my right hand out. “You must be Noah’s mom. I’m Charity.”

  She purses her lips and gingerly shakes my hand. “Lisa.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, all politeness. I wonder if I could inconspicuously tug my top higher. No chance—all eyes are on the ta-tas. Actually, Noah manages to wrench his eyes upward enough to shoot me an evil glare. There’s nothing to do but hold my head high and will my hands to remain at my sides.

  Noah’s cheeks turn pink in an I’m caught between my mom and a red lace bra kind of way. He slouches against the doorjamb, avoiding all eye contact. “Uh. Charity and I are working on a project together. For school. The death threats are just her thing.”

  Mom’s eyebrows go up, but her look softens. “Oh.”

  Noah backs away from the door, waving at me to follow him. “So we’ll be up in my room.”

  The eyebrows go higher. “Oh?”

  I trail after Noah into the house and down the hall, taking the opportunity to adjust my shirt to a mom-appropriate area of my chest.

  When we’re halfway up the stairs, his mom calls, “Keep the door open.”

  Noah goes, “Mom.”

  I wonder what it would feel like to have a mom who cares about what you’re doing and who you’re with. I slap the thought away.

  Noah gestures me into his room, enters behind me, and shuts the door. I look back pointedly at the sound of the click.

  Noah says, “So… what’s with the outfit? Is that for my benefit, or do you dress like Shahna of Triskelion every Saturday?”

  “That is a nerdy-ass comment that I’m not going to dignify with a response.” My hands go to my hips. Unfortunately he seems to have successfully rebooted his brain cells, and Lisa stole all my thunder. So much for my attack plan. I’m forced to at least pretend to negotiate. “Now, before we get started, let’s go over some ground rules.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest, casting a peeved look my way.

  I recite, quickly and formally, “You shall not, during or anytime following the expiration of our wish-granting agreement, directly or indirectly disclose the nature of our relationship to any living person. No part of our dealings may be posted on any public forum, including but not limited to social media, online platforms, or school-based communications.”

  Noah’s eyebrows drift upward during this speech.

  I continue. “Furthermore, you shall not approach me in public places or seek me out for purposes outside the scope of your wish. At the time of the fulfillment of your wish, all contact between us will immediately and irrevocably be terminated.”

  Normally that last part is a tiny bit sad, but I relish it now. And then I add a clause especially for him. “At which time you will also destroy your list of previous clients, the illicit recording of any conversations between us, and any other evidence of past, present, or future dealings that you hold with or without my knowledge. Do you agree?”

  He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, holding the back of his neck. I’m pretty sure I detect an undercurrent of scoffing as he says quite seriously, “So basically, we pretend we don’t know each other, I never tell anyone about this, and once I get Holly back, we never talk again.”

  “Correct.”

  He smile-grimaces like you would if your detention got shortened by fifteen minutes, like, This sucks 25 percent less than before. “Fine by me. I literally cannot wait to never speak to you again.”

  “It’s so mutual.” I’m about to get to work on his room when he jams his fist into the space between us. His pinkie pops up. I narrow my eyes at it. “What’s with the finger?”

  “Pinkie swear.” His voice modulates into a lawyerly formality. He’s mocking me. “The pinkie swear is the only universally acknowledged method of making a verbal contract such as this one legally and morally binding to both parties.”

  I roll my eyes. He jiggles his pinkie. With an exhale of contempt, I hook my finger around his for a brief second. It’s not nearly as repellent as expected. His skin isn’t clammy or sweaty or oily or scaly. In fact, if this digit were attached to someone else’s hand, I might even admit that my little finger seems to fit perfectly into the crook of his larger one. As it is, I snap my hand back the instant we make contact and huff, “Now shut up. I’m working.”

  I stare at him hard, willing myself to glimpse… something. If I knew his destiny, this whole thing would be much less onerous. I visually bore into his forehead, trying to drag a glimpse out of him. Absolutely nothing happens.

  “This is really awkward.” Noah clears his throat. “What are you—”

  “Nothing.” I look away. “It’s a fairy godmother thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Giving up on the glimpse, I take in his bedroom. Star Trek posters cover most of the wall space. On his dresser is a detailed model of a spaceship inside a Plexiglas box—its placard reads “NCC-1701 USS Enterprise.” Next to it are vintage action figures in aging boxes.

  A photo stuck to the mirror draws my eye. It’s of Noah and Holly in a kitchen. She’s holding a plate of intricately frosted cookies and smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen her smile in real life. He’s pretending he’s about to steal a cookie. They both have frosting in their hair and on their faces. Remorse for meddling with their relationship tries to creep in on me, but I tamp it down. No mercy for blackmailers.

  I turn away from the desk.

  There’s a bookcase stuffed with paperbacks. The flip phone I saw him with the day he first texted me lies on top of a Nintendo Switch on top of a laptop next to an Xbox.

  The whole room seems like it has been cleaned for my benefit. There is a thin line of dust around the edges of things, like they were wiped down in a hurry. And there are vacuum lines in the carpet.

  I turn ninety degrees. His bed is against one wall—a twin with a dark blue bedspread and a stuffed bear wearing a Star Trek uniform. There’s a pair of well-loved hiking boots on the floor next to the bed.

  I take a deep breath and blow my lips out. “Obviously I’m the first girl who’s been up here.”

  Noah stands near the door with his arms crossed. “Do you have a point, or are you just always mean for no
reason?”

  I shrug. “I figured, since you and Holly were so close, you two would have spent some quality time in here, but… obviously not.”

  He lifts and recrosses his arms. “Or maybe she likes me for who I am and we did.”

  “But you didn’t.” I turn to look him straight in the eye.

  He holds my gaze for two and a half seconds. Then he shifts his weight and looks away. “No. We didn’t.”

  Ha. I knew it. I move toward the dresser with a satisfied smirk and open the first drawer I come to. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

  The drawer is full of socks and underwear. Nasty, I know. But a surgeon doesn’t flinch when he cuts you open. I pull them out one by one and throw them on the floor with only the most cursory of glances. Mostly I’m doing it to be mean. None of my other Cindies have been subjected to such humiliation, but none of my other Cindies blackmailed and pepper sprayed me either.

  Noah goes, “Hey… uh… wha?… come on…”

  That’s right. Feel my wrath, Evil Cindy. In thirty-six seconds, there are two pairs of boxer-briefs and one pair of socks left in the drawer. I move on to the next—T-shirts.

  I hold them up one at a time and add them to the reject pile behind me. “No. No. No.” I survey a shirt with cartoon versions of the Star Trek characters. I wrinkle my nose.

  From behind me Noah says, “That’s vintage.”

  “Ugh. Hell no.” I chuck it.

  Next comes one that says… TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE. I shake my head. “Nooooo.” I toss it over my shoulder.

  Noah says, “Hey!”

  I open the next drawer—shorts and pants. I throw out everything except one pair of jeans. “Dude, so many drawstrings. Are you in some kind of button-hating cult?”

  Instead of responding, Noah demands, “Could you just hang on a minute?”

  I whirl around. “What?”

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing to my stuff?”

  “This is phase one of a desperately needed wardrobe fix. As per our contract.”

  Noah scoops some of his T-shirts off the floor and haphazardly shoves them back into the drawer. “No thanks.”

  I snatch them back out. “What did you think a fairy godmother would do for you? You said you want Holly to fall in love with you. You blackmailed me into helping you. So this is it. This is me helping you.”

  He wrenches the T-shirts from my arms and says through clenched teeth, “Let’s get this straight right now. I want Holly to fall in love with the real me. I’m not going to let you screw with me like you did with the others. I’m not changing my clothes or my interests or the way I talk. Got it?”

  For a moment I am too stunned to formulate a response. Only because of years of practice do I manage a pseudocalm “Yeah. I get it. Cool. I mean, you do you. But…” I can’t keep the irritation out of my voice as I slowly explain. “At some point you’re going to have to choose between this guy”—I thrust my arm out to point at the action figure box on the dresser—“and Holly.”

  His eyes flick toward the action figure. Then he looks down at himself and shrugs like he doesn’t see the problem. “She liked me before.”

  “Yeah. BEFORE. Before she was dating KADE freaking KASSAB. Okay? He’s your competition now.”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  I throw my arms out, exasperated. “I’m not saying he’s a brain trust. But he looks like Mena Massoud. And he has boy-band hair. And he can run an interception back thirty yards for a touchdown. So if you want Holly, you’re going to have to let me do my job.”

  I punctuate the speech by grabbing the T-shirts back out of his arms. We glare at each other over the pile of cotton, both of us angry breathing. Without breaking eye contact, I pointedly drop the shirts on the floor at my feet. Noah flinches but doesn’t look down.

  We hold the stare-off for a few more silent beats. He blinks first.

  “Fine.” His jaw works. “Fine. You can give me advice on clothes and stuff. But I’m still going to be me. And if I don’t see results by homecoming, I’m outing you.”

  “A week?! Not happening. Granting wishes takes time.” My inner fact-checker brings up Vindhya, but I tell her not to interrupt me while I’m ranting. “I can guarantee results by Christmas.”

  “End of September.”

  “Thanksgiving.”

  “Fall break.”

  I hesitate, making quick calculations in my head. Fall break is about four weeks out. It’ll be tight, especially for the likes of Noah, and I’ve got nothing to go on—I’ve never tried to grant a wish without a glimpse before. Plus I have to get a crown on Vindhya’s head six days from now. On the other hand, it would be nice to get this on the “done” pile. And hey, I believe in me.

  I give a curt nod. “Fine. You cooperate. I guarantee results by fall break.” I jab my hand toward him to shake on it. He holds out his pinkie with an audible sigh. Either he’s really committed to the pinkie swear, or this is the maximum skin-to-skin contact he can stomach. Like I care. I lock my finger with his. For reasons unfathomable to me, Noah looks profoundly sad the moment our fingers touch. Like he’s lost a piece of his soul in the deal.

  7 Families Are the Worst

  No sooner do we break the sad pinkie-link than my phone cheeps and the door opens in the same moment.

  Noah’s mom says, “I told you to leave this open, Noah. You’ve earned yourself poop duty.”

  A girl’s voice calls, “Are you guys making out?”

  Noah slaps his hand over his face and groans. “NO! Leave us alone.”

  Instead, they both walk in. His mom surveys the pile of clothes on the floor. “What is going on in here?”

  This is not the first time I’ve run interference with parents. I volunteer, “We’re doing a donation drive. It’s part of the project Noah mentioned.”

  His mom picks up the WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE shirt. “You aren’t getting rid of your Star Trek T-shirts, are you? You love these.”

  “No. I’m not.” He plucks the shirt from his mother’s hand and stuffs it into his open dresser drawer. He bends down to pick up the rest, while she takes the shirt back out and folds it.

  A girl I’m assuming is his little sister comes to stand between us. She looks to be in middle school, with braces and the family’s signature curls. She chimes in, “Are you giving him, like, a Queer Eye makeover? He totes needs one.”

  Noah shoves her. “Get out of my room, plebe.”

  She sticks her tongue out at him. His mom tsks, continuing to fold and replace T-shirts. I smile at Kid Sister. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced—”

  Noah says, “Oh yeah. This is Charity. Charity, this is my sister, Nat the Brat.” The way he says our names, he might as well have been introducing Loki to Thanos.

  “Natalie,” she corrects. “You seem way too hot to be hanging out with my brother.”

  I smile to make the next thing I say seem like a joke. “Well, he blackmailed me to get me here.”

  Natalie snorts.

  Noah growls, “Seriously, get out of my room.”

  His mom says, “Okay, okay. We’re going.” She propels Natalie out the door, leaving it open a few inches.

  Eight seconds of uncomfortable silence ensue. He breaks it with “Sorry about my family.”

  I cross my arms. “It’s fine. They actually make you seem a tiny bit less like a budding domestic terrorist.” I rock on my toes. “So. What’s ‘poop duty’?”

  “When we piss off my mom, she makes us clean the cat’s litter box.” He crosses his arms.

  I pull a face. “Ick.”

  Then I drop my arms, because his are crossed.

  This is plain awkward—the two of us standing in the middle of his room, talking about cat poop, trying not to mirror each other. Besides, I have more work to do. I brush past Noah, sit on his toddler bed, and pull my phone out. There’s a message from Sean: Call me.

  Obviously, I can’t call him right now with Noah and
his whole family dogging my every step. It’ll have to wait. I swipe away the text and open my browser. I glance up at Noah. “Wi-Fi?”

  “The network is TrekkieFam. The password’s, uh, ‘stardate-2-2-8-5.’ All one word.”

  Oh swell. The whole family is obsessed. I shake my head as I tap it in. Once it connects, I navigate to one of my favorite online shopping outlets.

  Apparently to fill the silence, Noah asks, “So… what’s the punishment of choice at your house?”

  I’m caught off guard. I wasn’t expecting him to ask about my life. To be honest, pretty much all my human interactions are based on what I can do for other people. My stuff never really comes up. I keep my eyes on the selection of trendy shirts on my phone. “There is none.”

  “You literally never get punished for anything?”

  I shrug and add a button-down shirt to the cart.

  He mutters, “That explains a lot.”

  I look up, eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that. You don’t know anything about my life.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “Nope. Backstory is not included in our arrangement.” I return to picking out clothes. I’m on to jeans now.

  The bed dips as he plants himself next to me. “Then you leave me no choice but to make assumptions.”

  I pry my eyes off the task at hand and level them at Noah. How is it possible for anyone to be this exasperating? “If you must know, my dad lives in DC and my mom’s too busy for things like rules and consequences.”

  He grins. “That sounds awesome.”

  I train my eyes back on my phone and swipe away a pair of guy jeggings. “Well, it’s not. It’s not awesome.”

  He makes a hmm noise. For a few blessed seconds he says nothing. Then, “So what are we doing now?”

  I don’t bother looking up. “Buying you better clothes, of course.”

  The bed shifts as he settles back further. “Oh goodie. Are we going to do the shopping montage, where I try on all the outfits for you while a One Direction song plays?”

  I roll my eyes. “No. I already picked out what you need. You’re going to give me some form of payment, and, poof, it will arrive at your door in a few days. Magic.” I hold out my hand and wiggle my fingers expectantly.