Wishful Thinking

  She breathed a sigh of relief when the break room was free. If only everyone would just stay away from her she might get through the rest of the day. She was fixing herself a cup of hot tea and planning how to handle her performance review later that afternoon, when she heard someone behind her.

  Phil turned apprehensively, but to her relief it was only Davis Miles, the handsome lawyer that Alison was always hitting on. Thank goodness she had never had any desire to tell him off. She was safe.

  “Morning, Mister Miles,” she said, adding some sweetener to her hot cinnamon tea and keeping her head down.

  “Good morning, Ms. Swann.” He nodded gravely at her, showing the restraint she found so admirable in him. Phil watched him from the corner of her eye as he poured himself a mug of coffee. With his dark hair and eyes, she had always thought he looked like the hero on the cover of a romance novel. To her horror, her mouth opened suddenly and the thought came rolling off her tongue.

  “You know, Mister Miles, with your dark good looks, I’ve always thought you looked like one of those handsome, well-hung hunks from the cover of a bodice ripper romance novel,” Phil heard herself say. Oh God! Did she have to say it quite like that? She watched as Davis Miles turned around, a small frown creasing his perfect forehead.

  “Uh, thank you, Ms. Swann,” he said carefully.

  “I’ve always wanted to see you with your shirt off,” Phil continued, much to her own horror and, most likely, to Miles’, as well. “You look like you work out. I’ve always kind of wondered what you look like naked.”

  Oh no! She slapped a hand over her mouth. Fighting with her fiancé and shouting at the pencil boy was nothing compared to this—nothing at all. Phil wanted to sink through the floor.

  “I’m sorry…” Davis Miles was staring at her, his coffee mug halfway to his lips. “Did…did you just say you wanted to see me naked? I mean, that’s what I thought you said but…”

  “I did say that, but I didn’t mean it,” Phil gabbled. “I mean, I did mean it or I wouldn’t have said it but I didn’t mean to say it. I’m so sorry,” she finished miserably, “I can’t help it—I can’t stop saying what I think.”

  Miles was still giving her a strange look. “Did, uh, did Alison put you up to this? Because this whole, um, this whole naked thing sounds like something she would say.”

  “What whole naked thing?”

  Phil tried to stifle a groan as she turned to see her slinky coworker sliding up behind her. An old saying of her nana’s popped into her head—speak of the devil and he will appear. Or in this case, she. She couldn’t help wondering how much of the humiliating exchange Alison had heard.

  “Nothing, Alison,” she said hastily. “Nothing at all.”

  “Oh, I think there’s something going on in here, Philomena,” Alison purred. Today she was wearing a low-cut poison green blouse that matched her eyes perfectly and her skirt, as always, was positively indecent. “I heard my name and the word ‘naked’ in the same breath,” she continued, batting her lashes at Davis Miles. “I hope you’re not giving Davis here a bad impression of me.”

  “Why would I bother when you’re doing such a good job of it yourself?” Phil said. The wish was in full command of her now. She couldn’t even stop her mouth long enough to try and think of a nursery rhyme to distract her awful thoughts.

  Alison stopped making eyes at Miles and turned, giving her full attention to Phil for the first time. “What did you say?”

  “I said,” Phil continued, unable to stop herself, “That you dress like a slut. And you act like one too.” Oh, God! This is getting worse and worse!

  Alison put a hand on her hip, her green eyes flashing. “Are you calling me a slut?”

  Phil shrugged. “If the size seven fuck-me pump fits—wear it, hon.” Behind her, Davis Miles snorted laughter, which he quickly turned into a cough.

  Alison’s eyes narrowed. “How dare you talk to me like that, you drab little bitch?”

  Phil stood up straighter and stared her coworker in the eye. “I’m only saying what everyone else in the office is thinking. Why don’t you have some respect for yourself, Alison? There’s more to you than just your tits and ass—at least I hope there is. So why don’t you act like it? Button your blouse, pull down your skirt and try doing some work for a change, instead of sleeping your way to the middle.”

  “Well, I…I…” Alison stuttered.

  “And another thing,” Phil snapped, pointing a finger at her coworker’s considerable cleavage. “You car is parked in my spot for the twentieth time this month. If it happens again, I can’t be responsible for my actions.”

  “Are…are you threatening me?” Alison put a hand to her heaving bosom, her narrow, fox-like face flushed with anger.

  “No,” Phil said coolly. “Just your car. Good morning.” She brushed past Alison and Davis, her mug of tea clutched in her hand and her heart thumping in her ears. So much for avoiding everyone and not having any more confrontations.

  “Philomena, I want to talk to you.”

  Not Kelli again! She must have been lying in wait for Phil outside the break room.

  “Now is really not a good time,” Phil said truthfully, quickening her step. “Honestly, Kelli, I really need some alone time right now.”

  “Well I want to talk about the way you bit my head off earlier.” Kelli’s strident voice was no doubt reaching everyone in the office.

  Phil turned abruptly, slopping hot tea over her hand and onto the maroon rug. Carefully, she placed the mug on a nearby desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “All right,” she said grimly. “Let’s talk. But I warn you, you might not like what you hear.”

  “I…” Kelli looked nonplussed. “Well, I just wanted to say you didn’t have to yell at me like that. I was just coming up to tell you how late you were this morning. In fact,” She brightened as she spoke. “You know, I was late the other day, but I had a totally good excuse. See, I was stuck in traffic because there was this major accident. And I was all thinking, ‘God, Kelli, why does this kind of stuff always happen to you?’ So the woman next to me in traffic, she was like eating some hash browns or something—I don’t know. Anyway, she was all staring at me, like I had the plague or something. So I roll down my window and I go, ‘Do I know you?’ And she goes—”

  “Enough!” Phil had her hands clenched so tightly she could feel her nails biting into her palms, but it was no use.

  “What?” Kelli looked at her in confusion.

  “Every day.” Phil raised a finger, advancing on her coworker. “Every day I come in here and I have to hear about your life. It might be different if you ever asked about my day or wanted to talk about anyone else but yourself. But no, Kelli, it’s always you, you, you. Did it ever once occur to you that I don’t want to hear every tiny little detail of your existence? Have you stopped once to consider the fact that you just might not be the center of the universe as we know it?”

  “I…I…” Finally Kelli was at a loss for words. But Phil wasn’t.

  “Kelli,” she said, staring her mouthy coworker in the face. “I’ve been wanting to say this for years. Shut. Up.” She turned and stalked away from her cubicle, leaving Kelli in silence for the first time since they had started working together.

  This wish was appalling and exhilarating at the same time. But Phil knew there were sure to be repercussions. Big ones. At the same time she couldn’t regret telling her coworker off. Was she turning into a bad person? Or was she finally standing up for herself? Or both?

  Still, Phil realized she had an even bigger problem. The wish she had made was no longer distinguishing between things she actually wanted to say, down in the dark depths of her subconscious, and things she was simply thinking about and had no desire to voice out loud. Everything that popped into her mind came straight out her mouth. She was literally speaking her mind.

  There was only one thing to do—she had to get her fairy godmother to reverse this wish.

  Chapter Tw
elve

  “Fairy Godmother? Fairy Godmother!” Phil hissed, under her breath. She was huddled in the last stall at the end of the row in the ladies room trying unsuccessfully to make contact with the pink-winged bringer of doom who had screwed her yet again. Otherwise known as her fairy godmother. In fact, she’d been hiding out in the bathroom trying for most of the morning with zero success.

  Part of the problem was that fairies didn’t carry cell phones. In fact, they didn’t communicate through any ordinary means. And, other than on birthdays, they could be extraordinarily hard to get hold of, or at least, Phil’s was. In theory, all she had to do in order to contact her fairy godmother was pull on her right earlobe three times and whisper the words, “Fairy Godmother, please come for my need is dire.” In actuality, Phil had been yanking until her earlobe felt like it was going to come off with no results.

  It wasn’t like she’d expected to get hold of the FG on the first try, she thought bitterly, stopping for a moment to give her red, swollen earlobe a rest. After all, every other time she and her sisters had been forced to ask to have a wish repealed, they had had to call repeatedly before she bothered to show. But Phil couldn’t ever remember feeling so frantic before. This wasn’t just a pair of pretty but painful shoes stuck on her feet—this was her life! She and her run-away mouth were systematically screwing up everything.

  So far this morning she had: one—called her elderly neighbor cheap and threatened to put her foot up her dog’s ass, two—had a harrowing moment of truth with the man she loved (well, was reasonably sure she loved, anyway), three—yelled at the little blind pencil boy and broken his glasses (okay, so he wasn’t blind and he wasn’t that little, but still!), four—she’d asked one coworker a rude question, told another to shut up, called a third slut, and told a fourth she wanted to see him naked. All in all it was the worst day of her life, hands down. And it wasn’t over. In fact, until she contacted her fairy godmother, it would never be over.

  Phil did regret that she might lose the will to stand up for herself. Then again, if she worded things correctly, she might not. The wish she’d made to speak her mind had canceled out her fairy godmother’s earlier “gift” of being mild mannered. So unless the FG specifically regifted her with the lamb-like temperament, maybe she could stop thinking out loud and still keep her newfound sense of self worth. Despite everything that had happened to her, Phil knew she didn’t want to go back to being a spineless dishrag who listened to her coworkers’ complaints and her sisters’ criticism without saying a word in her own defense. She didn’t want to meekly accept whatever hand life dealt her. And most of all, she didn’t want to go back to letting Christian run her life.

  She rubbed her temples again, then grabbed her right earlobe and yanked as hard as she could. “Fairy Godmother come to me for my need is dire!”

  “I don’t care what kind of intestinal difficulties you’re having, Philomena. You’d better get your ass out here and get to your performance review or Dickson is going to fire you. Not that I’d mind.” Alison’s snarky voice bounced off the pink tiled walls to Phil’s ears.

  Phil winced. The performance review! It was something she’d been dreading for months but in the confusion of the morning, she’d forgotten all about it. Of all days to have it! She should just go home now and consider herself unemployed.

  Phil was many things, but she wasn’t a quitter. And she might need this job if she suddenly found herself…well, if things didn’t improve between her and Christian. Not to mention how the lack of a good reference from BB&D would look if—no, when she went to law school. Too bad she couldn’t claim to be suddenly ill but at BB&D there was no excuse good enough to miss a review. There was no help for it, she would have to go to the review.

  She stood up and banged open the stall door to see her coworker leaning against the row of sinks with her arms crossed over her chest and a smirk on her face. On the plus side, Alison had buttoned her blouse and her breasts were no longer threatening to overflow. And when Phil walked up to her she actually flinched a little.

  “Better get to that review, hon,” Alison sneered. “You don’t want to keep Dickson waiting too long or he may decide to fire you. If he hasn’t already.”

  Phil lifted her chin. “You know, you really are a bitch,” she said. Then she turned and headed out of the ladies room. Time to face the music.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Come in, Philomena, sweetheart. I hear you’ve been a naughty girl today.” Atwood Dickson’s booming voice made her wince as Phil walked into his office. Her boss was sitting at his desk with a leering grin stamped on his ape-like features. Apparently the office rumor mill had been working overtime while she sat in the bathroom and uselessly called her fairy godmother.

  “Mister Dickson, I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Phil began, trying to stand well back from his desk. “But I—”

  “Oh I heard all kinds of things, sweetheart.” He grinned at her unpleasantly and came toward her around the side of his desk. “But what interested me the most was what I heard you said to Davis Miles. Now is it true that you asked him to strip so you could see him naked?”

  “Well, I…” Phil backed away from him, trying to keep her mind blank. Nursery rhymes hadn’t helped earlier but maybe if she didn’t think any words at all, she wouldn’t say anything. La, la, la, la, la, she thought frantically.

  “And is it further true that you wanted to take him in the storage closet and, uh, show him a good time?” Dickson waggled his eyebrows at her and she saw with disgust that he had big flakes of dandruff in them.

  “What? No!” she protested, backing further away. He must have been drinking coffee all day because his breath was horrible. Immediately she wanted to tell him so. La, la, la!

  “Well, honestly, I didn’t hear that.” Dickson laughed and Phil sagged in relief. He had been making a joke. A horrible joke but a joke nonetheless.

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t—”

  “But that’s how it could sound on your performance review,” Dickson interrupted.

  “What?” Phil blinked.

  “Yes, that would be a shame, wouldn’t it sweetheart?” Dickson had her backed into a corner now, blowing his horrible coffee breath in her face and leering like a horny bear. “You see, up until today, I was going to give you a perfect review same as every other year and send you on your way. But you…” He shook his head. “You had to go and screw that up, didn’t you, Philomena? I’ve had three separate complaints against you today not to mention that someone saw you out in the parking lot abusing a sight impaired pencil salesman.”

  “But…but he’s not really sight impaired,” Phil protested, wondering who had been watching her smash the pencil boy’s glasses.

  Dickson gave her an unpleasant smile. “Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. What matters is what I put on your review.”

  “But what…how…”

  “This is how it’s going to work,” Dickson said, leaning against the wall so that she was trapped between his arm and the corner. “Either I can give you a poor review and you can have an attitude adjustment session with HR tomorrow. Or…” He leaned closer and whispered, “Or you can give me a reason why I shouldn’t.”

  Finally Phil’s confused thoughts began to come together. “Mister Dickson,” she said, staring him in the eye. “Are you propositioning me?”

  He laughed, a troll-like chuckle that made her skin crawl. “Oh, I wouldn’t call it that, Philomena, sweetheart. Let’s just say I’m giving you a chance to get a better review—a fresh start, so to speak.”

  “I see,” she said coldly. “And all I have to do is sleep with you to get it.”

  “Take it or leave it. Do you want this job or not, sweetheart? You have to admit, I’ve got you between a rock and a hard place. A very hard place.” Dickson laughed and shrugged, his fat shoulders bunching under his ill-fitting suit jacket. Beneath the armpits Phil could see large sweat rings.

  “You’re a pig,” she said cl
early.

  “What?” It was Dickson’s turn to look shocked.

  “You’re a pig and you make me sick. Just the thought of your hands on me—of your disgusting, hairy body anywhere near me—turns my stomach.” Phil ducked out from under his arm and faced her boss, her hands clenched at her sides.

  “What did you say?” He stared at her.

  “You think I like coming to work every day, putting up with your stupid, sexist remarks and the way you’re always trying to grab my ass?” Phil demanded. She poked a finger in his face. “Well I don’t. I put up with it because I need this job—but I don’t need any job badly enough to sleep with you.”

  “Why, you little…” Dickson’s muddy eyes narrowed to slits. But Phil wasn’t done yet.

  “Not only are you a bad boss, you’re a horrible attorney,” she continued relentlessly. “I always feel so sorry for your clients. Because you’d rather sit here and watch porn on your computer and whack off than prepare for your court dates.”

  Dickson’s face began to get red. “I didn’t…I never…” he blustered.

  “Don’t deny it—the whole office knows it. Everyone knows what a disgusting, lazy, smelly, sexist pig you are.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s right, I said smelly. You have horrible breath and your fingernails are always grimy. It’s disgusting.”

  “Ms. Swann!” Dickson roared, retreating to the formality of her last name.

  “I’d sooner sleep with a diseased billy goat than let you get anywhere near me.” Phil’s hand was on the knob of the office door, but still her mouth wouldn’t quit. “So bring on the HR review. I’ll be happy to tell them anything they want to know. And I don’t care if the head of HR is your cousin. Because I’ll tell him to fuck off, too!”

  She left the office, slamming the door behind her. So much for her performance review. So much for her job. So much for her life.

  The icy cold layer that had been covering her emotions ever since her fight with Christian that morning suddenly seemed to melt. She put a hand over her mouth and ran for the elevator.