The Art of Wishing Page 10

  “It didn’t feel that way,” I told him. “That’s the thing. It would’ve felt that way if Mom had been a dictator about it, but she wasn’t. Not at all. We planned everything together, and it made me feel like a grown-up. I loved it, actually.”

  “Ah,” said Oliver, like someone who’d just fit two troublesome puzzle pieces together. “How old were you?”

  “When Dad left?” I said. He nodded. “I was nine. I know, poor me, parents divorcing during the formative years, right? But then last year, Dad comes back into the picture, and I . . . It wasn’t part of the plan, you know? But Mom just went with it. And this is a woman who never just went with anything! Now she’s taking all this time off work so she can go on honeymoon after honeymoon with him, and when they get back, it’s not me and her against the world anymore, it’s her and him, with me stuck back in this third-wheel little-kid role, like because there’s two of them again, they can just go ahead and decide everything without even asking me, and I’m supposed to play along and make nice like I’m nine years old again, even though I’m the one, you know, cleaning the house and stuff, while they’re off having fun.”

  My face felt hot. My whole body was tense with everything I’d just spilled out. I’d never told anyone this stuff—not even Naomi—and in the silent moment that followed, I began to regret letting myself explode at him like that.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, my eyes dropping to the carpet. “Total overshare. I’ll shut up now.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said with a smile. “So the problem here isn’t your mother. The problem is that you’re unhappy.”

  “I’m unhappy because of my mother,” I said archly.

  He laughed. “Fair enough. But do you really think using a wish on her will change that?”

  I thought about that for a second. It would certainly change how Saturday night played out, but I knew that wasn’t what Oliver meant. “I could wish bigger,” I said slowly. “Like, maybe I could wish for her to treat me like she did before the wedding. We could go back to how we were, and she could still have Dad.”

  He shook his head. “Still not a good idea. Trust me: Wishes that affect other people aren’t ones you should make lightly. I mean, look at what happened to Vicky.”

  I glared at him. “I’m not Vicky.”

  “Then stop acting like her!”

  I reeled back at the force of his words, my jaw going slack.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean that. Really. It’s just, wishes like that can have unpredictable consequences. You’re my master, so if that’s what you really want, I’ll do it—but think about it first, okay? Give it a day or two.”

  “A day or two?” I repeated, frowning at him. “But you have to leave.”

  “I know, I know,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “But I told you before: I want the last wishes I grant to be good ones. And I think you’re pretty awesome, so I don’t want my magic to screw up your life somewhere down the line. You know?”

  Pretty awesome. That innocent little phrase brought me right back to the kiss under the streetlight, to his pretty eyes and warm hands, and to the moment he’d arrived in my bedroom, making assumptions about why I’d called him there. There must have been something about wanting mixed in, because before I knew it, Oliver was turning red again.

  “God, I’m sorry,” I said, putting out my hands like a shield between us. “I’m so sorry. Ugh, this mind-reading thing is . . . I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” said Oliver, still bright red. He reached one hand up and threaded his fingers through mine. The spicy heat of his fingertips warmed me, and he took a deep breath, like he was steeling himself. “I honestly don’t mind it, coming from you. You’re . . .”

  He shook his head, like he was trying to think of the right word—but after a moment he decided against using words at all. Using our joined hands to pull himself closer, he kissed me softly. I closed my eyes this time, pressing one palm against the carpet to make sure I wouldn’t float away.

  When he pulled away, I kept my eyes closed, savoring the feeling as long as I could. “I’m what?” I murmured.

  He laughed, and I felt his fingers touch my hair. “You’re pretty awesome.”

  I sat back on my heels, opening my eyes with a grin. “You said that already. Are you really sure you’re okay with another day or two?”

  He hesitated, but only for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

  “What about five?”

  “Five?” he said, looking at me quizzically. “Oh, five days. The gig. I don’t know.”

  “It’s just . . . you should be there. You made it happen, so you should be there.”

  Oliver hesitated again, but before he could give me an answer, a sudden creak came from the hallway. Oliver looked at my door, then back at me, eyebrows furrowed in a silent question.

  “Someone’s coming upstairs,” I whispered. “You should go.”

  “What about your wish?” he asked.

  I bit my lip, thinking fast. As much as I desperately wanted my mom to change her mind, I couldn’t make Oliver grant a wish when he didn’t want to. Still . . .

  Another creak.

  “I’ll think about it,” I promised.

  “Thank you,” he said sincerely, just as the door started squeaking open. I froze, heart in my throat, expecting my mother to barge in, or Oliver to disappear, and wondering which would happen first. But when the door pushed open a crack farther, it was Ziggy’s head that poked through. She strode into the room like she owned it.

  With a relieved laugh, Oliver reached a hand out, palm up, for Ziggy to sniff. “And who is this?” he said, more to her than to me.

  For a moment I wondered if she’d attack him or something, since cats are supposed to be sensitive to supernatural things. She didn’t. She just sniffed him, decided he was harmless, and rubbed against his jeans a few times.

  “That’s Ziggy Stardust,” I told him, leaning over to scratch behind her ears.

  “Ziggy, huh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Nice. Good album.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “My dad named her. She used to have a brother, too. His name was Sergeant Pepper.”

  Oliver chuckled, but stopped at the sound of another creak, much louder this time. “That is definitely not a cat,” he said, mirroring my thoughts. “I should go.”

  Much as I didn’t want him to, I forced myself to nod. “I’ll see you soon, okay? Now get lost.”

  When he did as I told him and my room was empty again, a little coil of melancholy snaked through my gut. But my hand was still warm where his fingers had rested.

  I tried to write that night, but with all the thoughts about Oliver and George and Mom and playing in a concert and visiting my stupid aunt slowly turning my brain to mush, it didn’t go very well. Mostly I sat on my bed and strummed my guitar, humming melodies that were sometimes discordant and sometimes not, and singing whatever random words occurred to me.

  But after the fourth or fifth time the words green eyes escaped my lips, I gave up. I was getting sappy and repetitive, and that was just pathetic. So I put my guitar away under the bed, then straightened up and looked around for my pajamas—

  Something pricked at my skin, and I froze.

  I don’t think the hair on the back of my neck actually stood up, but it definitely felt like it. Like someone was watching me.

  I peered quickly around the room, even in the closet, but of course there was nobody there. I went to the window; nothing was out of the ordinary. One lone car drove past my house without stopping, and aside from that, the neighborhood was quiet.

  I closed the curtains and got into bed, but I was still jittery. So I grabbed my iPod off my bedside table and put my Neko playlist on shuffle, hoping that would take the edge off my nerves. When I finally did fall asleep, it was to the sound of a swaying, meandering melody, and words about dreams and the moon and forgetting my name.

  Chapter TEN

  True to my
word, I gave my second wish some serious thought. I went back and forth, staging silent debates in my head. During a particularly boring chemistry class, I even imagined myself as a cartoon, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I couldn’t decide who should argue which point, though, so that didn’t last long.

  Oliver not wanting to grant my wish was a major sticking point, of course, but that wasn’t what made up my mind. Actually, the moment of truth didn’t involve him at all.

  Since we didn’t have rehearsal the next day, Naomi and I had planned a girls’ night out: a trip to the movies, with dinner and frozen yogurt afterward, cold weather be damned. She met me by my locker, and as I tried to remember which books I needed to bring home, she told me about the travesty that was Callie Zumsky’s latest rehearsal with Ryan Weiss. I listened eagerly, glad of the distraction from my own dilemma.

  “And I guess he finally figured out that I get pissed when he forgets his lines and I have to remind him yet again. So he’s stopped asking me. Instead he just kinda says what he thinks the line should be. Like, one time he goes, ‘I . . . uh . . . uh . . . oh, Johanna, you’re so friggin’ hot, you oughta have my babies.’” This last was in a poor imitation of Ryan’s deep jock-voice. “He starts grinding his hips, like this, and Callie’s standing there onstage, mortified, and Miss Delisio doesn’t know what the hell to do, and I’m just laughing my ass off . . .”

  “Oh my god, poor Callie,” I said, laughing.

  “Poor Callie? Poor me. I didn’t tell you the worst part.” Naomi leaned over, implying that this was confidential. “Worst part is, Ryan comes up to me when we’re done, and he’s like, ‘You’re cute when you’re laughing at me.’ And he walks away.”

  “What?”

  “McKenna, if I didn’t know better, I’d say—”

  “Ryan’s got a thing for you,” I finished, feeling just as bemused as Naomi looked. I usually saw Ryan Weiss in the company of girls who were tiny, fragile-looking, and bleach-blond. Naomi was none of those things. “Are you gonna . . . ?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. When hell freezes over. Even if I wasn’t with Diego, I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.”

  “You and anyone with half a brain,” I said. “So when do I get to meet this Diego, anyway? I’ve been hearing about him since before Christmas, and it’s already . . .” But I trailed off as I caught sight of Vicky Willoughbee walking timidly toward us. Naomi turned around to see what I was looking at, and greeted Vicky with a friendly arm around the other girl’s thin shoulders.

  “Hey, Willoughbee! What’s up?”

  “Hey, uh, Sloane,” said Vicky, looking distinctly uncomfortable in Naomi’s embrace. She said a quick hello to me, too, then asked Naomi something about the rehearsal schedule for next week. I tuned them out and went back to shuffling through my locker—until something Naomi said caught my attention.

  “You sure you don’t want to come see a movie? We’ve still got room in McKenna’s car.”

  I looked up sharply. Surely my ears were playing tricks on me.

  Vicky flicked a quick glance my way. “Nope, I still have plans tonight,” she said with a tight smile.

  “Aw,” said Naomi. “Another time, though.”

  “Definitely,” said Vicky, and scurried away as fast as she could.

  “I didn’t know we were inviting her,” I said, keeping my tone as light as possible.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Naomi, like it was no big deal. “I just don’t get to see her much outside of rehearsal, so I figured what the hell. Wait, you’re not still pissed at her about getting Mrs. Lovett, are you?”

  “Nah, of course not,” I lied.

  As I closed my locker, Naomi went back to chattering about Ryan, but I barely heard her. All I could think about was Vicky and that stupid wish of hers. Everyone in the world wanted to be besties with her! They wanted to hang out with her all the time! They wanted to make her their queen and grovel for her attention and bring her delicious treats on silver platters and sacrifice her to their giant flesh-eating monkey gods!

  Okay, maybe not the last one. But still, at that moment, I’d never been more grateful to be in the thirty percent of people unaffected by Vicky’s wish. Because the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t stomach the thought of having a magic spell cast on me and not even knowing it.

  And as mad as I still was at my mom, I couldn’t imagine doing that to her, either.

  As I drove us to the movie theater that afternoon, I told Naomi about George offering me the South Star gig. She shrieked so loudly that I almost drove right off the side of the road.

  “For the millionth time,” I said, once I’d recovered both my hearing and my sense of personal safety, “would you please not do that?”

  “Sorry,” she said quickly. “But holy crap, girl! How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Only since yesterday,” I said, slowing down as I saw a yellow light up ahead. “But I didn’t tell anyone because there’s some drama with my mom.”

  “Greeeeat. What kind of drama?”

  “The kind where she’s not letting me play the gig.”

  Now stopped at the red light, I glanced over at Naomi, who was looking at me in disbelief. “Whatever, McKenna,” she said after a moment, waving away my mom’s edict like candle smoke. “You’re playing it anyway.”

  “How, exactly? I’m supposed to go with my parents to visit my stupid aunt in stupid Delaware for a stupid barbecue.”

  She paused. “What time are you leaving?”

  “Kitchen calendar says six o’clock. It’d probably be earlier, but Dad has a golf thing.”

  She laughed. “Six? Oh, that’s easy. Come over a few hours before that, and just don’t go home. We’ll leave from my house.”

  “You mean sneak out? I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “Begging forgiveness beats asking permission.”

  Suddenly suspicious, I looked sideways at her. “You’ve done this before?”

  She settled into her seat, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Sweetie-pie, you’re like the only person I know who hasn’t done this before. Trust me. I got you covered.”

  The light turned green again, and I stepped on the gas. She made it sound so easy, going behind my parents’ backs. But what would happen when they found out? What kind of punishment would they throw at me? I had no idea, and that alone was enough to terrify me. No, this definitely wasn’t worth the risk.

  Then again, I already knew that changing my mom wasn’t the solution, and that left only one other option: changing myself. Maybe it was time for me to become a begging-forgiveness-instead-of-asking-permission sort of person.

  “Let’s do it,” I said, shooting Naomi a sideways grin. “I’ll dedicate my set to you.”

  “You sure you don’t want to dedicate it to Oliver Parish?”

  Between the smooth segue and the fact that I was trying to pass another car, it was a moment before I understood the question underneath the question. “No,” I said, eyes firmly on the road. “Oliver’s not the one helping me sneak out to the gig.”

  “Well, sure, but he can come with us, if you want. My car’s big enough for five people. You and me and Diego, and Willoughbee, too, if Diego can get her a fake ID in time—which leaves one seat. I was gonna ask if you wanted to bring Simon along, but judging by what I’ve been hearing around school, I’m guessing Simon’s not at the top of the list anymore.”

  Ignoring the part about Vicky, I gave her a sidelong frown. “What kind of things have you been hearing?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just that Oliver was spotted in the parking lot last night, making out with someone who looked a whole lot like you. I didn’t want to believe it, since you’re just friends or whatever—but you, McKenna, are lobster-red right now, and since I somehow doubt you’ve managed to get a sunburn in the last three seconds—”

  “Okay, okay, I kissed Oliver. Happy?” As I took a smooth righ
t turn into a parking space near the movie theater, I tried to recall the details of last night. I knew a couple of people had seen us talking, but they’d all left well before the kissing had commenced. “Who told you?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember. MaLinda, maybe? Or, no, I think Yuki mentioned it in debate.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. The Yuki in question wasn’t involved in the play, so she had no reason to be anywhere near the parking lot last night. Which meant this had actually reached rumor status. Even the thing with Joey under the bleachers hadn’t gotten that far. Crap. What were they saying about me? And who, besides Yuki and possibly MaLinda, was saying it?

  Naomi’s elbow jabbed into my biceps, making me jump. It dawned on me that she’d just asked me a question. “Huh?” I said.

  “I asked if he’s a good kisser,” said Naomi patiently. “And if he’s less boring than he seems.”

  I tensed, ready to go on the defensive, but quickly realized there was no malice in her question. Just honest curiosity. “You think he’s boring?” I asked.

  “In an objective sort of way,” she said with a shrug. “That’s just how he comes off. Like he’s trying to blend into the background. And he talks to people even less than you do, which is saying something.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “I talk to people.”

  “You talk to me, and I talk to people,” she corrected me gently. “That’s not the same thing.”

  She was exaggerating, of course, but not by much. Naomi was the only person I really went out of my way to spend time with. Between schoolwork and the musicals, I’d never had the time to navigate the supposedly complicated high school social scene—and even if I had, it just wasn’t my thing. I’d always preferred having one best friend to having lots of casual friends. I’d never thought Naomi had minded that about me.

  “Huh,” I said, somewhat disturbed.

  “It’s not a criticism or anything,” she said, shrugging again. “I was just making a point. And the point is, that Parish kid is a quiet little thing.”