The Art of Wishing (9 page)

Mom’s eyes grew sharp, and I instantly regretted what I’d just said. But before I could figure out how to take it back, she said quietly, “You are part of this family, Margaret McKenna. And on Saturday, this family is going to visit Aunt Sarah and have a nice barbecue. I’m very sorry that you’ll have to cancel on thirty-one-year-old George and his band, but you should have been responsible enough to check with us before you agreed to play.”

“Cancel?” I echoed. “But you can’t just make me cancel. You can’t.”

“Oh, I can’t? Watch me.”

“But—”

“You are not playing in that concert, and that is the end of this discussion.”

“This isn’t a discussion,” I said, unable to help the whiny edge that crept into my voice. “This is you screwing up my life.”

There was a pause that seemed to stretch on for ages. I heard the scrape of a chair moving against tiles in the kitchen. Dad was still listening.

“Go to your room,” said Mom.

I forced out a laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m eighteen.”

“You’re eighteen, and you’re about to go to your room, before I get really pissed off.”

Another pause. I held her gaze, but she didn’t back down. I seriously considered storming out of the house, getting back into my car, and driving away. But even if I did that, I would have to come home and face her eventually, and she would only be angrier than she was now. So I did the only thing I could do. I went to my room.

Chapter
NINE

I
ran up the stairs and threw myself onto my bed, burying my face in my vast collection of pillows. I should have seen this coming. I’d dared to do something spontaneous, and what had it gotten me? A fight with my mother, and a nice, old-fashioned “Go to your room.” If only I could—

Oh, but I
could
.

The ring was still in my pocket, so I pulled it out and called Oliver, thumb and forefinger against cool silver. A few seconds passed and he appeared, just inside my closed door. I sat up board-straight, every muscle in my body humming with the need to make things right.

“What’s up?” he said. Then he blinked, and his eyes darted around, taking in his surroundings. “Wait. Is this your bedroom?”

“Yes. I need you.”

His eyes widened, and he put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Whoa, hold on a second. It was just a kiss. This is way too fast for—”

“I need to wish for— Wait, what?” I said, deflating a little as my brain caught up with what he was saying. Then it hit me. Oliver had just arrived in my bedroom, where I was lounging in a pile of pillows. Even though I was in jeans and a baggy sweater, which were not exactly sexy, it was an easily misinterpreted situation.

I burst out laughing and covered my face with my hands. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean
that
.”

“No no no, it’s fine,” said Oliver quickly. When I looked at him again, he was still hovering near the door. His hands were buried in the pockets of his hoodie, and his face was beet-red. “I shouldn’t have assumed, um, I mean, I just didn’t expect you to call me here. Can anyone hear us?”

“Big house, and everyone’s still downstairs,” I said as my laughter faded. Somehow, Oliver’s mere presence had taken the edge off my anger.

I slid down onto the carpet, crossed my legs, and patted the spot in front of me. I couldn’t undo the fact that I’d called him here, but at least the floor was closer to neutral territory than the bed. Oliver sat down warily and arranged himself in a position that mimicked mine.

“Relax,” I said. “I won’t bite.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“But I never—oh, you mean your other, um, what is it, wish-makers?”

“Masters,” he supplied smoothly.

“Right,” I said quickly. “Okay, but biting? You mean literally, or . . .” I made a vague gesture toward the bed.

He let out a quick laugh. “Yes and yes.”

“Huh.” I took a moment to turn this information over in my head. “That’s . . . huh.”

“So, you have a second wish?” he said in a bright, businesslike tone. “What’ll it be?”

“Second wish. Right.” Distracted as I was by thoughts of Oliver and biting and questions I couldn’t quite pin down, it took a moment for me to remember why I’d called him in the first place. “It’s my mother. She won’t let me open for Apocalypse Later, and I need to change her mind.”

Oliver’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. Whoa. I mean, I had it all planned out—the three of us driving up there, lots of family bonding, stuff like that—and she just shot me down. If it weren’t for my stupid father—” But I could feel myself teetering on the brink of a rant, so I stopped. Shook my head. “Never mind. Wish number two. Let’s go.”

“Wait, wait, hold on a second,” said Oliver, leaning away as I reached for his hands. “Don’t say ‘never mind.’ What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said shortly. “I just want to make my wish.”

“Wrong,” he said. “It’s not nothing. I can tell. Talk to me, Margo. You know you can talk to me.” He narrowed his eyes. “And you
want
to talk to me. I can see it.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. Or did I? I couldn’t decide.

“Fine, then I’ll do the talking.” He sat back, cocking his head at me, just like in the diner, when he’d first read my mind out loud. “You want your mother to stop putting your father first all the time.” I shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t deny it. “You want her to understand you. You want to be happy that they’re back together, but you’re not—”

“Of course I am!” I interrupted. “Who wouldn’t be? It’s like the ultimate dream: Mommy and Daddy getting back together. That’s what
everyone
wants.”

“But you’re not everyone,” he said softly. “You’re you.”

I stared at him, suddenly unable to speak.

“And,” he said, “you want your family back to the way it was.”

That was exactly what he’d said in the diner. I’d misunderstood him.

Slowly, I nodded. “It’s selfish, isn’t it?” I said. “So many people want what I have. And here I am, wishing I didn’t have it.”

“That’s not selfish,” he said, so firmly that I almost believed him. “Have you talked to your mom about it?”

“No,” I said, with a huff of laughter. “Of course not. I mean, what could I say? ‘Please divorce Dad again, because I liked you better when you weren’t so happy all the time’? She is, too. She’s so happy, and she
deserves
to be happy. It’s just . . .” I paused. There was that brink again. But Oliver nodded at me to go on, and suddenly I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s just, it took so long to put everything back together after Dad left. But we did. We had to. She turned herself into this strong, awesome person, and I molded myself after her, and we were like . . . like this force of nature, you know? Me and her against the world. We planned out what we wanted our lives to be, and then we damn well made it happen. Promotions for her, straight A’s for me. Movie nights on Friday, chores on Sunday, study dates every school night after dinner. That kind of stuff.”

“Sounds kind of . . . regimented,” said Oliver.

“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.