1
Birthday parties made her nervous. Itchy. She didn’t mind the screaming kids, puddles of melted ice cream, or even the clowns who twisted dogs out of skinny, colored balloons.
It was the birthday candles—and subsequent wishes—that did it.
Wishes had a funny way of coming true around Rachel Monroe. Whether she wanted them to or not.
Too bad that excuse didn’t fly with four-year-olds. So there she sat, sideways in a plastic booth, next to a pile of discarded plates and crumpled, pizza-sauced napkins, flicking her gaze to anything in the cramped party room but the source of her discomfort.
“Ray!” the birthday girl, Violet, yelled, waving her twiggy arm in a circle to beckon Rachel over. “Cake! Cake! Cake!”
Rachel scooted out of the booth but stayed a safe distance from Violet and her unicorn-shaped cake with four candles protruding from its back. The ice cream cone horn was slathered in white icing and silver sprinkles. “I’m not hungry,” she said and avoided looking at her best friend, Violet’s mom Mary Beth Foster, who was no doubt rolling her eyes at Rachel’s wariness.
Violet stared, mesmerized, as Mary Beth lit the candles and said, “Make a wish, baby.” Then she scrunched up her face, squeezed her eyes tight, and blew as hard as she could.
Mary Beth gave her daughter a thumbs-up, then walked to where Rachel stood—still a good five feet away. She brushed her auburn bangs out of her eyes and gave Rachel’s hand a squeeze, whispering, “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Rachel squeezed her hand back, grateful that Mary Beth had always believed her about wishes. But, she thought, experiencing it firsthand made it hard not to believe. “Reflex,” she said. “Sorry.”
Logically, she knew Mary Beth was right. But moments like that sent her right back to her teenage years when she couldn’t tell what was real and what was all in her head. “When everyone tells you you’re crazy for years, it kind of sticks, you know?”
“I know,” Mary Beth said, rubbing Rachel’s back. “But you can handle it.”
“Really, Maeby? Because from where I’m standing, it feels like if I can’t even make it through a four-year-old’s birthday party, I’m pretty much screwed.”
“Thinking like that is not going to help, Ray. You’ve got to focus on the good. A wish was made, and nothing happened.”
Rachel took a ragged breath and focused on Mary Beth’s husband, Geoff, as he sliced up the unicorn cake. A faint outline of the Blue Sun logo bled through the button-up shirt he wore over his favorite tee. “Well, yeah, there is that.”
She shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, but her nerves refused to settle down. Sometimes the wishes, which floated down on small, white slips of paper unnoticed by everyone but Rachel, went wrong. And there was nothing she could do to fix them. Still, the fact that Violet’s birthday wish hadn’t immediately materialized in front of them meant Rachel might have a better handle on things than she’d thought.
“There’s also the fact that I refuse to let you backslide,” Mary Beth said. “We didn’t go through years of sharing our feelings with a bunch of other head-case teens just to relapse when things get hard. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“How are you always so sure?”
Mary Beth shook her arm gently, forcing Rachel to look at her. “Because you’ll do anything to keep from letting down the people you love.”
I’ve done enough of that already. Rachel shoved the guilt down and forced a smile. “All right, all right. Point made. I will stop obsessing and enjoy your kid’s birthday.”
Geoff, having broken free from the mass of cake-devouring kids, sandwiched himself between his wife and Rachel and draped his arms over their shoulders. “Don’t tell me you ladies are skipping out on the cake.”
Mary Beth wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him closer. “Just letting things calm down first.”
“I just gave massive amounts of sugar to a roomful of kids. A rush like that could last a week,” he said.
“I guess we better go get some before they come back for seconds,” Mary Beth said.
“I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to…” Unable to decide on a suitable excuse, Rachel trailed off. She shrugged out from under Geoff’s arm.
His thick eyebrows pulled down in confusion as he watched Rachel retreat. “Don’t take too long. Presents are up next and Violet’s got your gift on top of the pile.”
Mary Beth gave Rachel a tentative smile and tugged her husband toward Violet and her mound of presents.
Rachel found the bathroom door hidden between the soda fountain and the token machine. She could just make out the melody of some teenybopper song over the clanging, whooping, and beeping of the games from the arcade on the other side of the door.
She hadn’t seen a wish appear in years. And then a month ago, some unknown person somewhere else in Memphis had wished for their deepest desire and it found Rachel as she swept the front walk of the coffee shop where she worked. She left it unread—and ungranted—on the sidewalk, hoping that was the end of it. But another one turned up a few days later curled into the bottom of a mug with the dregs of someone’s coffee. Then another appeared in the pocket of her favorite jeans when she pulled them from the dryer. Wishes had come almost daily after that, and she’d done a good job of pretending they didn’t exist. But if anyone would have a wish strong enough to push through Rachel’s defenses, it would be Violet, who’d been talking about her birthday wish in high-pitched squeals and a perma-smile for weeks.
Rachel twisted on the faucet and splashed water on her face. The shock of cold helped to dull the worst of her nerves. Even if the wish appeared, she didn’t have to end her wishing boycott. Didn’t have to read it and make it come true. She didn’t have to make another wish come true ever again if she didn’t want to.
Because if the ability refused to give back what it had taken from her, she was done with it. For good.
With a deep breath, she reentered the mayhem and hoped her resolve didn’t crumble under the weight of Violet’s pleading brown eyes.
“Ray, c’mon! Presents!” Violet called as soon as she saw Rachel. Her blond hair was a mass of stringy tangles. A cluster of pink icing was crusted at the tips as if she’d tried to make her hair match the flowing mane on the cake. Her lips and tongue were stained purple from the dye the baker had used on the vanilla cake to make the unicorn’s inside match Violet’s favorite color.
Before Mary Beth had even pulled the empty plate out of her way, Violet hugged the box wrapped in Sunday funnies and tore through the paper.
Nudging Geoff’s shoulder, Rachel asked, “Does she have retractable claws?”
“She’s our very own Wolverine,” Geoff said, chuckling.
“Too bad I got her a kitten. She might accidentally stab it while trying to get it open.” Geoff raised an eyebrow, and Rachel laughed. “Kidding.”
With the wrapping paper floating to the ground beside her, Violet tugged on the lid of the box. It opened with a soft pop. The pink and orange plastic slug night-lights looked even cuter in person than they had online. Their crooked antennae-like eyes stared up at Rachel as Violet showed them off by dancing them back and forth through the air.
“Bunnies! I love them!”
“How can you love them? You don’t even know what they are,” Rachel teased. She took the slugs and placed them in the white fitted base. “They’re not bunnies, they’re slugs. And they’re also night-lights. You can pick them up and carry them around at night and they’ll make it so you can see in the dark.”
Violet launched out of the booth and threw herself at Rachel. The force of it knocked her back a step. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Rachel said. Leaning down, she didn’t even attempt to avoid the icing on the girl’s puckered lips as she smacked a kiss on her mouth.
“Wanna know what I wished for?” Violet asked before Rachel could pull away.
“If you tell me, it won’t come true,” Rachel said, hoping the threat would be enough to tamp down some of Violet’s desire for whatever she wanted.
Violet shrugged, her eyes bright with wanting, and leaned in to Rachel’s ear, whispering her secret with warm, vanilla-scented breath. She held a sticky finger to her lips for secrecy, then raced back to her parents.
Rachel’s laugh bubbled out of her when, with a quick flash of white, a small piece of paper materialized in mid-air. Grabbing the wish, she read it and shook her head. Leave it to Violet to wish that hard for something that doesn’t exist. Poor kid’s in for a hell of a letdown when this doesn’t come true.
Copyright © 2016 by Susan Bishop Crispel
