Three Wishes (18 page)

Joey looked at the bottle cap, then at Tom.

Tom nodded, gestured that he should try.

A small hand came up and gave the cap a nudge. When the cap barely moved, the hand gave it a shove. There was progress this time, but not enough. Coming up on his knees, Joey gave the cap a wallop. Tom caught it on its way to the floor and held it in his lap.

Joey waited. When the cap didn't reappear, he stood on the bench seat, put his hands on the table, and looked down at Tom's side of the bench. Then, as quickly as he'd pushed himself up, he collapsed and disappeared. Seconds later, under the table, tiny fingers were prying Tom's hand open and retrieving the prize. Seconds after that, Joey was up on the bench again, setting the cap on the table, taking aim.

 

Tom figured it was a sign. It didn't matter that the child was two. Kids were wise. Instinctively, they knew friend from foe. Joey Little had decided that he was a friend. It was a start.

Once he was convinced that Bree was holding up well waitressing for the first time, that Flash was watching her closely, and that, in any case, she was having too much fun seeing all the regulars to leave, he settled his bill. Then he drove to the bungalow on West Elm, took a single-edge razor from the tool kit under the kitchen counter, and slit open the first of the cartons of books that hadn't seen the light of day since he left New York.

He was back at the diner at five to pick her up, drove her home to the Victorian on South Forest, and gave her a full-body massage that put the foot warming he had given her at the hospital to shame. Later, in the claw-footed bathtub that barely, just barely, held two and was ideal for that reason, he told her that he loved her.

8

L
ife was good.

No, Bree decided. Life was
great.
She was madly in love with a guy who loved her back, a guy whose main purpose in life seemed to be to please her. There were times when she was sure she was either dreaming or hallucinating, but when she pinched herself, Tom stayed right there, smiling at her like she was the answer to his prayers.

A few months back, she wouldn't have believed that she could have found a man who was as kind, as intelligent, as
famous,
as loving. That, though, was before she had seen the being of light. The peace she had felt with that being was the same peace she felt with Tom. Same goodness. Same love. There were times when she wondered if Tom wasn't the incarnation of that being, times when she wondered if she had died and been sent back to earth for the sole purpose of being with him, times when she wondered if she
wasn't
the answer to his prayers. She was good for him. He needed laid-back, and she was laid-back. He needed open and sincere, and she was open and sincere. Though she was small-town, she read the books he read and could hold her own in any discussion he started. She gave his life a focus, something he hadn't had in too long a time. And she pleased him sexually. Oh, yes, she did. She could hear it in the sounds that came from his throat when she ran a hand down the center of his chest to his belly, could feel it in the tremors that shook him when her tongue found the smooth skin at his groin; and when he threw back his head and bared his teeth in the course of a long and powerful climax, then slowly sank down beside her with a look of pure love on his face, she knew it was true.

She hadn't told him that she couldn't have kids.

But if he loved her, that wouldn't matter.

If he would be gone by spring, it
really
wouldn't matter.

In any case, she had time.

Besides, she couldn't dwell on the future. The being of light had taught her that, though, like the three wishes, it was a lesson she had absorbed without hearing the words. More important, living for the moment was something she could
do
. It was something she could act on immediately.

She wasn't ready to act on the three wishes. Not yet.

 

Thanksgiving in Panama had been a communal affair since the days of the town's founding fathers. In those early days, the leading families, whose houses all circled the green, prepared grand turkey dinners and opened their doors to the town. As those families died or moved on and the town's population grew, things changed. The houses around the green still opened their doors, but now everyone chipped in with the work.

Bree had been assigned to the Nolans' house. She brought two huge salads and Tom. After eating the main part of their dinner there, they strolled from house to house for dessert, as tradition decreed.

“Not great when it's raining,” Bree remarked, remembering the mess of many another Thanksgiving Day. There was no rain on this one, though. From the start, the clouds were thick and white. By strolling time, it had begun to flurry. The town green became an enchanted place then, filled with townsfolk wearing brightly colored hats, jackets, and scarves, their faces flushed by good food and drink, and light white stuff falling innocuously around.

Bree couldn't have wished for a nicer day. From early morning to late night, she glowed. Tom rarely left her side, and then only to fill her dinner plate, refill her glass, or fetch her coat. He wasn't possessive. He simply doted on her in the nicest, most subtle of ways.

The significance of his presence beside her wasn't lost on the town. She hadn't come partnered to a town event since she had gone to her high school prom with Curtis Lamb. Nor, though, was Tom's presence beside her a surprise. It was common knowledge that he dropped her at the diner every noon, picked her up when her shift was done, and spent most nights at her house.

But something happened that Thanksgiving Day. A bit of the goodwill that the town afforded one of its own, and in even larger measure one as well liked as Bree, spilled over onto Tom. They didn't exactly open their arms. A wariness remained. But they included him in the talk.

More to the point, they questioned him. Curiosity took over where distrust had left off.

He was asked about being a lawyer. He was asked about being a writer. He was asked about his family. He was asked the same questions over and over again, first at the Nolans', later at other houses, and he answered with unending patience. Only Bree knew how hard the family ones were for him.

In a private moment's reminiscence, as they leaned against the warm brick of the Nolans' fireplace, he said, “Our house was always busy on Thanksgiving. My brothers played football, too, so there was always a game. Afterward everyone poured back to the house—friends, family, coaches, teachers. It was a little like this, actually.”

He didn't have to say that he wondered what his family was doing this Thanksgiving Day. Bree had seen him lift the phone that morning and hold it to his chest for a long moment when he thought he was alone, before quietly putting it back. She could see the sadness in his eyes now when he looked at one family after another of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, and kids.

If she had three wishes, she might wish for Tom to make that call. But it wasn't her place to suggest it. The best she could do was to help field his sorrow.

She was prepared to do that. What she wasn't prepared for was fielding a sorrow of her own, unexpected pangs at times when she saw those families that were larger by one child than they had been the year before. She looked at the runny noses and the hands greasy from turkey skin, and reminded herself that she hadn't wanted to have kids.

Still, the pangs came.

 

In the days following Thanksgiving, Joey Little became a regular at Tom's booth. At first he stayed on his side of the table, shoving the bottle cap toward Tom, slipping underneath to retrieve it from Tom's hand, and scrambling back to his own side. In time, he took to stealing under the table and coming up to sit beside Tom. Gradually, his silences gave way to giggles and shrieks.

One particularly high shriek brought Liz on the run. She found Joey scrunched under Tom's arm, making faces at his upside-down reflection in the soup spoon Tom held.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Is he bothering you?”

Tom gave the little boy a squeeze. “No way. We're best buddies, Joey and me.”

“He can be a handful.”

“I've got big hands,” he said without a second thought. He had played this way with his nieces and nephews on the rare occasions when he'd visited. Children fascinated him. Their motives were clear, their instincts straight from the gut.

He was pleased when Liz slipped in across from him. “What did you think of Thanksgiving?” she asked. “Kind of different, huh?”

He had done Thanksgiving at the Ritz in Laguna Niguel, at a posh estate north of Manhattan, and on the slopes in Aspen. “Different from anything I've done in recent years,” he told Liz now, then added, “Nicer. I liked it.”

“So did Bree. I've never seen her look so happy. I wasn't the only one to think so. Lots of people said it. I guess we have you to thank.”

The old Tom would have taken all the credit. The new Tom wasn't falling into that trap. “Bree's had an interesting fall. She sees things differently. She's happy to be alive.”

“It's more than that,” Liz said and sat back. “So are you going to break her heart and leave, or are you staying?”

“I won't break her heart.” He couldn't do that without breaking his own, and he had never been a masochist.

“That's only half an answer.”

Tom sensed that Liz was a friend. He liked her husband, felt an affinity for them both. They, too, came from the city. They, too, had professional lives independent of Panama. They, too, adored Bree.

So he confided, “I don't know the other half. I haven't decided that yet.”

“Martin Sprague is convinced you're writing a book set in Panama.”

“I'm not. I'm not writing, period.”

“Martin wants to think you are, because the alternative is that you might just hang out a shingle and practice law on his turf.”

Tom cleared his throat. “I sensed he was worried about that. But I won't.”

Liz studied the table. She scrubbed at Joey's smudgy fingerprints with the arm of her sweater. “You could. There's a need.”

“Martin handles it.”

“Barely,” she said, and raised her eyes to his. “Don't mistake me. He's a wonderful man. He's handled Panama's needs for years. The problem is that some of us who are new to Panama have needs that are new, too.” She took a breath. “Ben and I design ad campaigns for small businesses. Last summer we made a presentation to one of our clients. The president didn't like it and hired a cut-rate firm instead. Suddenly now the company is running print ads that are identical to the ones we proposed. That's theft.”

“Doesn't Martin agree?”

“He doesn't call it theft. He calls it an unfair business practice, and he says it'll cost us more to go after them than we'd have made in the first place. I'm not sure he's comfortable doing the going after.”

“He isn't a litigator.”

“No.” She paused, looking him in the eye. “You are.”

He had set himself up and been caught. Clever Liz. “I'm not practicing law.”

“You could.”

He shook his head.

“Why not?” she asked.

“First, I haven't practiced law in eight years. Second, I'm not a member of the local bar. Third, you said it: this is Martin's turf.”

“Do you agree with him that this isn't worth going after?”

“I couldn't say that without knowing more. Intellectual law wasn't my specialty. Don't you have lawyers in New York?”

“We thought we did until we called. Apparently there isn't enough money at stake for their tastes, and they're right, in a way. With us, it's the principle of the thing. We don't have copyright protection. It never got that far.”

“Then you may not have a case.”

“We have the ads we designed. We have a copy of the ads being run. We know that the same things the president of the company said he objected to in our ads are right there in the ads being run.”