Glimpsed

by G. F. Miller

  “I seriously do not need to have this conversation again, Mother. We’ve been circling the same ground since Hope was twelve years old.”

  “Well,” I point out, “we’re all grown-up now and it’s not really up to either one of you anymore. So maybe, maybe, you could just, like, CUT IT OUT!”

  We go silent, facing one another in a three-way standoff.

  Mom sighs. “Can I have a few minutes alone with my daughter, please?”

  Memom nods primly and takes a Contemporary Bride magazine off the table. As she passes me, she puts her hand on my arm and whispers, “Mothers are just people with their own set of problems. Please know that.”

  As soon as Memom’s out of sight, Mom says, “Charity, I—”

  “All these years, you never told me?” Tears spring to my eyes. “I needed you.”

  She looks at her hands. “I couldn’t help you, not with this.”

  My hands clench into fists at my sides. “Whatever you have to tell yourself.”

  “Charity, please try to understand.” She drops into the armchair with a heavy exhale. “My mother never had a healthy relationship—not with me, certainly not with a man. I never knew who my own father was. She couldn’t hold a job—just wandered wherever the previews led her, living for other people’s Happily Ever Afters. I never got to put down roots or make friends. Half the time we didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. I never felt as important to her as her Cindies. I vowed that I would never grant a wish. I wanted a better life for you and Hope. For all of us.”

  “So instead of granting wishes, you became a workaholic. That’s better?”

  “I’m a fairy godmother! I’m hardwired to fix things. Work is my outlet. At least I’ve given you stability.”

  “You know what I needed more than stability?” I glare at her. “A mom.”

  She turns her palms up. “I’m doing my best.”

  I hold her gaze while my head pounds and my stomach roils. I’m seriously never drinking alcohol again. I break the stare-off and sink into the couch, pressing my palm to my forehead.

  She pushes the coffee cup toward me for the umpteenth time. “Drink. It will help.”

  I look at it resentfully. Coffee. The evidence of my mother’s indifference toward me. “Hope was right. We’re cursed. Whether or not we grant wishes, we are doomed to push everyone away from us.”

  “No we’re not, Charity. You’re not.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because there’s no such thing as curses. We each make our own choices and create the best life we can. Besides, I told you. I previewed it.”

  I shake my head, refusing to believe, then regret the movement. “So you met a guy for two minutes, got some download from his adolescent brain, and decided to play God with my life?”

  Sweet Romulan ale. I’ve turned into Noah.

  Memom clucks in the kitchen.

  Mom crosses her arms like a CEO. “First of all, I’m not playing anything. I’m trying to help. And secondly, I didn’t get a preview from Noah. I got one from you.”

  “Me?” My head is spinning, trying to make sense of that word. “You couldn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “No. No. We’re immune to the nudges, and we don’t transmit glimpses.”

  “Well, I’m telling you it happened.” She’s using her because I said so tone.

  “But fairy godmothers don’t go to the ball.”

  “Where do you come up with this stuff? Who makes these rules?” She smiles wryly. “Look, I just don’t want you to limit yourself.”

  Memom blats, “HA!” Apparently the magazine is really entertaining.

  I pick at my bagel morosely. “Why do you care?”

  “Because you’re my daughter.”

  “I didn’t know you remembered.”

  She looks like I stabbed her. Good.

  I rub my temples, feeling bereft. I’ve lost everyone—Hope abandoned me, Memom has been keeping unforgivable secrets, turns out I never knew my mother, and I gave up Noah to the Other Girl. I am alone and adrift.

  Mom picks up the freaking coffee cup again. “Honey, try to drink a little. Please. You’ll feel better.”

  “Ugh!” Just to get her off my back, I snatch the cup out of her hand, brace myself for the bitter taste of coffee, and tip it into my mouth.

  It’s orange juice.

  I look at the cup like I’ve never seen one before. She knew what to get me. My mom knows I like orange juice.

  Blinking back tears, I lift my face toward her. She hesitates for a moment, and then, with jerky movements, she comes to my side and puts her arms around me. She murmurs, “I hoped I could protect you from the previews—from that life—but it turns out ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.”

  I sit stubbornly rigid in her embrace. “That seems like Business 101.”

  She chuckle-sniffs. “Yeah, but parenting is much harder than running a company and saving the ocean.” Her arms tighten a little. “I’m sorry I’m so far from the mom you need me to be.” She chokes at the end. I give in to the hug and wrap my arms around her. I know she probably won’t change, but, after all, she knows I like orange juice. This is a happy moment, and that is enough. She holds me, rubbing my back.

  After a few minutes I pull back a little. “I researched this, though. Fairies can’t love. We destroy anyone who loves us.”

  “What did I tell you about believing what you read on the internet?”

  “Not to.”

  “Fairies can love with our whole hearts.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I love you.”

  My heart feels like it’s swelling up like a balloon. “What did you glimpse?”

  Mom’s eyes twinkle—anguished tears mixed with secret hopes. “Some things are better to discover along the way.”

  “Okay? And?”

  “And will it make you happy if you and Noah go your separate ways?”

  Even hearing those words spoken out loud reopens a hundred fresh wounds on my heart. Of course I’m not happy. But I know now that fulfilling glimpses is no panacea leading to ultimate happiness. I straighten up and go into teacher mode. “Mom, you wouldn’t know this, because you don’t grant wishes, but the glimpses don’t tell the whole story. All they are is happy snapshots. So, I know that you think you’re helping me. But the fact is, despite whatever preview you saw, I’m still most likely going to end up heartbroken—and hurt someone I care about in the process. What’s the point? I really don’t need to go through it twice.”

  She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me like she’s using X-ray vision. “Charity, life has heartbreak in it. I can’t promise you it doesn’t. And love is messy, and it’s hard work. I’m not telling you you’ll be happy every minute forever. But—” She hesitates a moment with her mouth open, like she’s not sure if she should tell me the next thing. Then she takes a deep breath and says, “If you spend your life trying to protect yourself from getting hurt, you’ll end up missing the best parts. Some people are worth breaking your heart over.”

  For a moment I look at her in stunned silence. Then I take a drink of orange juice.

  “Charity, whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you. It’s not about whether or not you choose to be with Noah. I just want you to know that you are lovable and capable of great love.”

  A tiny electron of hope sparks in my soul and zaps my brain with possibilities. No curse. No more staying above it all. No more being the Ice Princess. Noah could wrap me up and thaw me out with his hypotheses and his sharp insights and his relentless fandom. I could be part of TrekkieFam instead of hovering on the fringes. I could mess up, break down, or totally fail, knowing that Noah has seen me at my worst and still believes the best about me. Life could be all full of laughter and soup when I’m sick and probably Comic-Cons. A smile trembles on my lips.

  And then my emotional pendulum swings all the way in the other direction. Despair tak
es over. There is no way Noah will want me after the things I said, after what I did.

  My aching head drops into my hands. “I screwed it up, Mom. Publicly, irrevocably. You have no idea how bad I burned him. If you had only told me all this before the party…”

  There’s no response.

  “What do I do?” I plead.

  She sighs heavily, defeated. “I don’t know, honey. I’ve wrecked my share of relationships too, remember?”

  Memom’s head pops out of the kitchen. “What’s with the negativity? We’re fairy godmothers!”

  Memom shuffle-skips to the front door and takes her oversized purse from the hat stand. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get your young man back!”

  Mom and I glance at each other dubiously. Then she stands like a soldier and holds her hand out to help me up. So this is it. I can either accept Hope’s version of reality and my own brokenness, or I can do everything possible to chase down what I want—even though I don’t know my destiny or if Noah could ever forgive me. I can self-protect and keep my distance from a mother who is sure to continue disappointing me, or I can forgive her and let her in again even if it comes with a side of heartbreak.

  I feel the corners of my mouth turn up as I reach out.

  As soon as I take Mom’s hand, the throbbing in my head fades away. I scoop up my orange juice, and we join Memom at the door. She leads us out into the sunlight with a gleeful “He-he! Destiny, here we come!”

  * * *

  As Mom navigates the Saturday traffic, Memom says, “Charity, you’d better fill us in on this Noah fellow, so we know what we’re dealing with here.”

  I tell them about Noah figuring me out because he’s a legit genius, and that he works at an ice cream shop and loves sci-fi. Memom laughs until she cries over the pepper-spray incident and the Frankenfrosty. I tell them about Nat and Lisa and Paul and Dr. McCoy, and about the closet full of cosplay costumes. They both gasp and groan over the fake-dating situation. We’re fifteen minutes from home when I finish with what happened at the party last night.

  When it’s clear I’m done talking, Memom complains, “You’re a terrible storyteller. You left out all the kissing parts.”

  Mom says, “Mother!” She glances at me in the rearview mirror, gasps, and says, “Charity, your face.”

  I stretch my neck to look at myself in the mirror. Flaking mascara, smudged eyeliner, blotchy cried-off makeup, after-party hair. I’m a hot mess.

  She moans, “You can’t go into battle like that. We’ll have to go home to clean you up first.”

  Memom counters, “He could be with that Holly girl right now!”

  Mom CEOs it. “I understand the problem. What I want is a solution.”

  Memom says, “I have wet wipes!” She digs a package out of her purse and hands them to me.

  I scrub my face clean and glance in the rearview mirror again. Hangover hair. It’s gross. “Anybody have a hair band?”

  Memom produces one like magic.

  As I whip my hair into a black-and-raspberry messy bun, I ask, “How do you ignore the glimpses, Mom? I ignored a couple, and I thought I might literally die.”

  She laughs, one Ha. “When I feel one coming on, I shut it off. If one slips partway through, the aftermath is just a dull headache for a few hours. Nothing a few Motrin can’t take care of.”

  So that’s the deal with the headaches. So many things make sense now. I toss out, “You know those things are destroying your liver.”

  Mom shoots me a look in the rearview mirror. “I don’t need a lecture about liver health from a teenage girl with a hangover.”

  I shrug and lapse into silence. But it doesn’t last. Too many questions are bubbling right at the surface. “Do you think you’ll start granting more wishes now, since this one?”

  She shakes her head. “Definitely not. Nothing less than love for my daughters will tempt me.”

  “What about Hope? Do you think she’ll ever stop hiding in Thailand?”

  Mom’s eyebrows pinch together. She presses her finger against the spot between them. “Hope has to find her own way. But maybe now that we’re all telling the truth… Maybe if she knew she could control the previews instead of isolating herself…” She pauses. “What about you?”

  I consider my answer carefully. A few days ago I would have said never again. But then Vindhya made up with the Robotics Club, and I glimpsed Gwen of my own free will. And there’s Kelly and Juggernaut. What if I hadn’t brought them together? I’ve learned so much about what the glimpses are trying to tell me, about what people are capable of when they know what’s possible, and about unfinished stories and how messy life is. On one hand, there’s Memom, recklessly wish-granting, never stopping to question any of it. But there’s also Mom and Hope denying the glimpses completely, and that hasn’t made them happy or whole. Plus, do I really want to live the rest of my life with my frontal lobe throbbing?

  And there are those moments when my Cindies shine with all the power and beauty inside them, when I know what my purpose on this earth is. I hope for people. I see in them what they can’t even see in themselves. I hold their hands while they do hard things. Sure, I’ve made a huge mess of it. I’ve pushed too hard and been insensitive. I’ve cared about the agenda more than the people. And yeah, I haven’t looked deep enough to always see the things that really matter. But this fairy godmother thing didn’t come with a helpchat, you know?

  Didn’t someone say Failure is the best teacher? Forget it. It’s probably from a Marvel movie. Anyway, it’s really true.

  I answer slowly, choosing each word. “I’m going to keep learning how to control it. I’m going to be… more careful. And I’m still going to help people.”

  Memom whoops with joy. Mom nods her acceptance of my path.

  We pull off the freeway. I venture, “Memom, you don’t have any deodorant in that bag of tricks, do you?”

  She pulls out deodorant, body mist, and a travel toothbrush. “I’m the maid of honor at Lonnie’s wedding next weekend, you know. According to Contemporary Bride magazine, these are essentials.”

  As I scrub deodorant in my pits, I snark, “What happened to ‘take your time and don’t rush things’?”

  “When you’re eighteen, all you’ve got is time and a whole lot to learn. When you’re eighty-six, it’s now or never.”

  I sigh. “You know, I’m still mad at you for not teaching me how to control the glimpses and for never telling me about Mom and Hope.”

  “I’m an old lady. It’s not safe to hold grudges. I could die any second and then you’d feel terrible.”

  I have to laugh, because she loves playing the old-lady card so much. “You’re such a brat. And you can’t die. Not ever.”

  “So you do forgive me.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I stick the travel toothbrush in my mouth and scrub the sweaters off my teeth.

  So, thanks to Memom and Contemporary Bride, I am cleanish, deodorized, and minty fresh by the time we pull up at Noah’s house.

  34 Happily Ever After? I Got Nothin’.

  Noah’s not here.” Natalie looks genuinely broken up about this information. “He was gone until late, and then he left early this morning. Did you try his phone?”

  I can’t just text him a “sorry.” This situation obviously requires a Grand Gesture. An in-person, grovel-on-your-knees, epic-apology, boom-box-over-the-head Grand Gesture. I bite my lip. “I really need to see him.”

  Natalie’s face lights up. “I know! My mom and dad can track him on their phones!” She shoots me a tween-attitude face. “They’re total helicopter parents.”

  From inside the house, Noah’s mom calls, “I heard that!” A few seconds later, she appears behind Natalie. She looks at me with deep suspicion and says, “What’s up?” But it sounds like, Get off my property.

  I mumble, “I’m just trying to find Noah.”

  She purses her lips and accuses, “He said you two had a complete warp core breach.” She shakes her he
ad. “It’s a Kobayashi Maru situation.”

  Aha! I know this one. It’s from Wrath of Khan. She’s saying this is hopeless. I look Lisa in the eye and, repenting as best I can, quote, “I changed the parameters of the test. I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.”

  That must be the right answer. Her eyes light up, and her mama-grizzly countenance morphs into determination. “I’ll get my phone.”

  Natalie yips, “I’m coming too!”

  “Wait.” I gulp. Knowing Star Trek opens doors has given me an idea. “There’s one more thing I need, if it’s okay. Can I run up to Noah’s room for a second?”

  Lisa waves me inside.

  Ninety seconds later, the three of us are crammed into the back seat of my mom’s car, making hasty introductions. After a formal handshake with my mom and Memom, Lisa checks her phone and says, “Noah’s a few blocks away. Go to the stop sign and turn right. Hmmm… This address seems familiar.”

  Natalie leans into her mom, concentrating on the map. “Oh! That’s Holly’s house!”

  My stomach plummets. He’s in the clutches of the temptress, probably breaking out of the friend zone at this very moment.

  This needs to be a helluva Grand Gesture. I start pulling on the Gorn costume, trying not to elbow Natalie in the face while I wiggle into the revolting, rubbery green monster suit. This is possibly the worst idea I’ve ever had.

  “Left up here,” Lisa directs, as if me car-changing into a Gorn suit is too normal to notice.

  Mom turns.

  Natalie zips me up and helps me jam my hands into the monster mittens.

  Memom says, “Here’s the plan: Don’t say a word. Just suck his lips off. Boys go in for that cave-girl stuff.”

  Mom glares at her. Lisa looks offended. Natalie’s face is frozen in disbelief. I cram the Gorn mask over my head. It smells like old balloons and stale Cheetos. I can only kind of see through the sparkly silver mesh eyes.

  Natalie’s muffled voice comes from my right. “Quote Star Trek. Tell him you’re a doctor, not a miner.”

  Lisa says, “No. Tell him, ‘I am and always shall be your friend.’ ” She sighs, then snaps to attention. “Oh, there we go—the blue house right there.”