Wishful Thinking

  Phil looked at the remains of the éclair, still smeared all over Mister Clausen’s hand. “It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the poodles getting into the éclair I buried next to the potion in the garden,” she said.

  “Why bring it up if it doesn’t have anything to do with it?” Cass demanded.

  “No, don’t you get it? She’s saying it does have something to do with it,” Rory said. “It’s what I said to the FG—it screwed up her wish and she’s saying the opposite of everything she thinks.”

  “Phil, is that right?” Cass turned toward her, frowning.

  “No.” Phil said, nodding her head frantically.

  “Wait—so you’re saying you buried an éclair right by the potion where the dogs could get to it?”

  “No,” Phil said, nodding again.

  “Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean to,” Rory defended her.

  “Mister Clausen, I must insist that you keep your distance!” their grandmother’s shriek made Phil look up again. Mister Clausen was trying to steal a kiss and Nana wasn’t having any of it. She was trying to keep him at arm’s length, but he was more determined than his poodles.

  “Just one little kiss, Minerva, darlin’,” he wheedled, dodging the broom Nana was poking at him like a martial arts expert. “I never realized what a sexy little lady you are.”

  “That’s it.” Cass started to march forward through the forest of yapping, crapping poodles, a grim look on her face. But Phil had an idea.

  “Wait!” She put a hand on Cass’ arm to stop her, still eyeing the éclair smeared on Mister Clausen’s hand. “We can’t lead them all out onto the porch and spray them down with the hose,” she said, hoping her sisters would understand her opposite speak. “There’s no way it would help to get rid of the remains of the potion that’s on the éclair Mister Clausen isn’t holding.”

  “Okay, wait a minute…” Cass seemed to have the hang of it now. “You’re saying we have Nana make a mad dash for the door, leading the poodles and Mister Clausen outside, then spray them all with the hose to get rid of the potion?”

  “No!” Phil exclaimed, nodding emphatically.

  “Actually that’s a really good idea,” Rory said.

  “Probably the best we’re going to get anyway,” Cass muttered. “Okay, Phil, you go man the hose since nothing you say makes sense. Be ready to spray the minute I yell go.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Rory asked.

  Cass turned to her. “Grab Nana’s hand and help her off the couch. You pull her out the door while I keep Mister Clausen and those crazy dogs off her. Lead her outside so Phil can blast them with then hose when they follow. Everybody got it? Okay—go!”

  Phil ran outside. It was a good thing she was still wearing the sky blue polka-dotted bikini, she thought, as she went for the hose. She turned on the water and pulled the long coiled length with its spray attachment around to the front steps, ready to let loose on the pack of potion drenched dogs plus one elderly man.

  “Ready?” Cass shouted.

  “No!” Phil yelled back, her finger tightening on the trigger.

  “Okay then, we’re coming out.”

  There was a scuffling sound and Phil could hear Nana protesting, then she and Rory came running out of the house, hand in hand, followed closely by Cass with the broom in her hands. Behind Cass, trying to get around the broom, was Mister Clausen. The nineteen or twenty now-more-brown-than-white miniature poodles were hot on his heels.

  Phil waited until Nana, Rory, and Cass were past and then opened fire at Mister Clausen. She only caught him a glancing blow but she sprayed the poodles pretty well. Then the whole bizarre parade was around the corner of the house and she had to wait for them to go all the way around the porch and come back to the front again.

  On the next go round, she managed to spray Mister Clausen in the face but he only sputtered and kept right on after Nana. Her grandmother was running quite nimbly despite her age, Phil noted, and it wasn’t long before they were around the corner again.

  Around and around they went, Nana, Rory, and Cass, followed by a bellowing Mister Clausen and the yapping poodles, all of them getting progressively wetter. By the fifth circuit, some of the poodles were beginning to lose interest and were straggling down onto the front lawn to shake out their sodden fur. But there was no stopping Mister Clausen. Phil couldn’t help but wonder if he had already had an interest in her grandmother that the potion had exacerbated. She kept trying to aim for the soggy remains of the éclair in his hand but he was moving too fast for her to hit it.

  “Mister…Clausen…please!” Nana huffed as they made what had to be the tenth circuit of the house. “I…just…can’t…”

  “Minerva…I…want…” But what Mister Clausen wanted wasn’t to be revealed. Just as Phil was preparing to spray him again, his foot skidded in a puddle of water and he went down on the porch with a flat slapping sound that made Phil wince.

  “He’s down! He’s down!” Rory skidded to a halt, looking over her shoulder.

  “Quick!” Cass was breathing almost as hard as their grandmother. “Get Nana inside. Phil and I will deal with him.”

  Phil threw down the hose as Cass ran to see if Mister Clausen was all right. Luckily for him one of the poodles had wound up between his head and the hard wooden porch, so he wasn’t out cold, just mildly dazed.

  “Are they all right?” Phil gasped. But as she watched, the poodle who had acted as a cushion shook itself and yipped once before trotting down the steps to join its brothers on the lawn. Mister Clausen was muttering something, the remains of the éclair still clutched tight in his hand.

  “What was that Mister Clausen?” Cass asked.

  “Such a…sexy…lady,” Mister Clausen moaned, and fainted dead away.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rory rounded up the poodles and put them in Mister Clausen’s backyard while Cass called 911 and rode with their neighbor to the ER. Phil stayed to help Nana clean up the considerable mess in the living room, thankful that the house on States Street had hardwood floors instead of carpet. By the time it was all said and done and she and her sisters and grandmother were all gathered back in the living room—which smelled strongly of Lysol—the time was nearing four o’clock.

  “Oh, God, I ache all over,” Rory moaned from her spot on the brown leather recliner. “And I hate poodles. I don’t care if I am going to be a vet—I’m going to be a vet that sees any animal but poodles.”

  Cass gave a weary laugh. “I’ve heard of specializing in a certain kind of animal but never of excluding one.” She and Phil were collapsed on either side of their grandmother, on the wide brown leather sofa which Phil and Nana had cleaned within an inch of its leathery life.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. If Rory hates poodles, she should deal with them all day long,” Phil said.

  “What’s that, dear?” Nana frowned at her.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Phil, Nana.” Cass made a shooing motion with her hand. “The FG screwed her again so that now she has to say the opposite of everything she means.”

  “She’s wrong, I don’t,” Phil agreed, nodding. She had been luckier than her sisters, having gotten a shower after the ordeal. Of course, there was nothing for her to put on afterwards but Cass’s little red nighty since neither Rory or Nana’s clothes would fit and everything else Cass owned was in the wash.

  Phil didn’t even care about the fact that she was lounging around in lingerie—she was just so glad to be clean. But now that all the excitement with Nana and Mister Clausen and the poodles was over, she felt her heart growing heavy. Josh was probably on his way to the airport by now.

  “It’s all my fault.” Rory looked like she might cry. “It was something stupid I said when Phil was trying to get her wish fixed. And now because of me she’s made Josh think she doesn’t like him.”

  “I don’t more than like him,” Phil said sadly. “In fact, I think I don’t love him.”

&nbs
p; “You love him? Oh, Phil—I could just kick myself.” Rory’s green eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Oh, Rory.” Phil sighed. “I don’t forgive you. It was all your fault.”

  “This is…very confusing to say the least, my dears.” Nana looked from Rory to Cass to Phil. “So Christian is…how do you girls say it now…out of the picture?”

  “He sure is.” Cass answered for her. “He’d been cheating on her for over a year! He admitted it to Phil last night.”

  “Oh my!” Nana put a plump hand to her bosom. “Well then, you’re better off without him, Philomena. But what about that nice young man we had to dinner the other night? That Josh? Are you saying you ran him off, too?”

  “She didn’t mean to, Nana,” Rory said miserably. “But she couldn’t help it. He must have asked her if she had any feelings for him and she had to say ‘no’ because of the wish.”

  “That’s exactly what didn’t happen,” Phil said nodding. “You shouldn’t have seen the look on his face. I…I don’t think he was crying when he left.” She felt like she might cry herself, especially hearing the foolishness coming out of her own mouth. The idea of trying to make herself understood until the wish could be reversed was daunting but it wasn’t nearly as depressing as the idea of losing Josh.

  “Did he say anything about the swimsuit matching your eyes when it’s sunny and there aren’t any clouds again?” Cass asked.

  Phil nodded, too wretched to speak.

  “Wait a minute, he noticed that your eyes change?” Rory frowned. “How can he do that? I mean, I knew he could hear when we were talking about the FG but he really shouldn’t be able to see your eye color.”

  “He can, though,” Cass assured her. “He even noticed she hates éclairs.”

  “Wait, my dears.” There was an excited sparkle in Nana’s pale green eyes. “Are you saying that this young man, this Josh, notices things that should be invisible to non-fairy eyes though he has not a drop of fairy or fae blood in his veins?”

  Phil nodded and Cass said, “That’s what we were trying to tell you last night, Nana. But you were too distracted by the dogshi…uh, excrement on your shoe to pay attention.”

  “Oh, my dear, if only I had known!” Nana was almost breathless with excitement. “Although I did have a feeling from the moment I saw him…”

  “Have an idea about what?” Phil demanded, glad to hear at least one sentence come out of her mouth ungarbled.

  “Well, my dear, don’t you see?” Nana’s cheeks were flushed.

  “See what?” Cass and Rory asked together.

  “That this man is perfect for Philomena. He’s her Prince Charming, I suppose you could say. That is how he is able to notice things about her that he shouldn’t.”

  “What?” Now all the girls were talking at once. Their nana was usually so flighty it was hard to get two words of sense out of her, but every once in a while she let drop some startling nugget that shocked them all. Phil often thought it was inconvenient that their only sources of information about the fairy part of their heritage were a whimsical grandmother and a sullen fairy godmother.

  “Think about it, girls.” Nana laughed. “What force in the universe is stronger than magic? All kinds of magic?”

  “Uh…” Phil had never considered that there might be a force stronger than her fairy godmother’s badly wielded wand. If she had, she would have been out looking for it instead of begging like a pathetic pauper to have her wishes reversed for years.

  Apparently Cass was thinking along the same lines. “You mean there’s a way to undo all the crap our fairy godmother puts us through without dragging her back here and begging for a redo? Nana, why didn’t you tell us before? Years before?”

  “Silly girls, I am not speaking of Lucinda’s wish granting, although I will allow that it sometimes leaves much to be desired.” Nana sniffed. She was the only person Phil knew who used the FG’s first name.

  “Then what are you talking about?” Rory asked.

  “Love.” Nana patted Phil’s cheek, a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Love is stronger than magic. Love is why your friend—and I liked him very much by the way, Philomena dear—notices things he shouldn’t be able to. To Josh, nothing about you is to be taken lightly. He notices you because he loves you.”

  “Are you serious?” Phil put a hand to her chest. She remembered thinking the same thing—or something like it—in the dressing room of RipTide, but it had seemed crazy at the time.

  “Nana, are you just blowing smoke up our skirts?” Cass arched an eyebrow skeptically.

  “Why ever would I do that, Cassandra? And where would I get the smoke? Cigarettes are such a vulgar habit,” Nana said disapprovingly. “But to answer Philomena’s question, yes, my dear, I am in deadly earnest. How do you think I met and married your grandfather? He noticed me—the real me. In my youth, you see, my hair was as blond as Philomena’s with the most beautiful lavender tint. Now I know girls these days dye their hair any shade of pink or purple or green that suits them but it wasn’t so when I was younger—not a bit,” Nana said. “On the day when your grandfather bought me a silver necklace with an amethyst charm to match my hair, I knew he was the one even though he had not a drop of pure fairy or fae blood in his veins.”

  “Oh, Nana—that’s so romantic.” Rory smiled at her and even Cass was grinning.

  “Nana, you scamp,” she teased. “You never told us that before.”

  “You never asked.” Nana patted her silvery hair primly. “Of course it didn’t sit well with my father at all. He was a full-blooded fairy and he’d gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange for me to marry a man who was the same. He didn’t want the family magic getting any more diluted than it already was, you see.” She lifted her chin. “But I defied him and ran away with your grandfather on a night when the moon was full.

  “I still remember that magical tingle the first time he took me in his arms and kissed me and I knew that I loved him with my whole heart…” She shook her head. “But there’s no sense in mourning for my past—not when we have your future to look after.” She gave Phil penetrating look. “Philomena, dear, if you’ve found a man who loves you—really loves you enough to notice all the little fairy peculiarities about you, then you ought to hang onto him.”

  “But, Nana, it’s too late,” Cass objected. “He’s supposed to be flying out to California tonight and he told Phil he wasn’t going to come back if they couldn’t be together.” She looked at Phil. “What time did you say his plane was leaving?”

  Phil felt like she might cry. “Not six,” she managed to say.

  Rory looked at the clock. “It’s past four thirty. He’s probably already at the airport what with all the baggage checks and things they make you do now.”

  Phil felt a small stirring of hope deep down at the bottom of her heart. Josh was never on time for anything and she certainly couldn’t see him getting to the airport two hours early. Chances were, he was still in his apartment in New Tampa getting the last of his things together. But then, what good would it do even if he wasn’t at the airport yet? Even if she could get to his apartment in time to stop him, nothing she could say would keep him from going. In fact, whatever she said would probably make him want to leave faster!

  “There is always hope, especially where true love is concerned,” Nana said, cutting into her dreary thoughts. “Now, Philomena, this is serious. I want you to go find that boy and tell him how you feel.”

  “But she can’t, Nana—that’s what drove him away in the first place,” Rory protested.

  “Yeah, what is she supposed to do? Tell him how much she doesn’t love him?” Cass said. Then she frowned thoughtfully. “But I guess one of us could go with her and explain to him. Usually the magic keeps you from talking about it to non-fairies but if he can hear and notice all that other stuff…”

  “No!” Nana’s voice was more stern than Phil could ever remember hearing it. “This curse—for it is a curs
e and a wish no longer, my dears—has been laid on Philomena and Philomena alone. And she alone must break it. No other may help her and no other may guide her except her heart.”

  “But…but I…” Phil shook her head, unable to express her doubts and fears.

  “Philomena, you must go right now,” Nana insisted. There was a steely glint in her eyes that Phil had never seen there before. “You must not waste your one chance at true love. Do you think it was easy for me to defy my father and leave in the dead of night to be with your grandfather? To leave the Realm of the Fae and come to the mortal world? It most certainly was not! But I did it and my darling, I have never regretted it for an instant.” She nodded regally at Phil. “Go now and do not come back until you have found him.”

  “Nana’s right—you should go to him, Phil,” Rory said.

  “Yeah, there’s no harm in trying,” Cass chimed in.

  “Uh…” Phil bit her lip. “But what am I supposed to say?” she asked in despair, even as Cass jumped up and started pulling her to her feet.

  “Say what is in your heart, my dear.” Nana smiled serenely. “And remember that words are not the only means of revealing your emotions. Sometimes in this world, you have to make your own magic.”

  Rory and Cass were pushing her out the door. Before she knew it, Phil found herself on the still damp front porch barefoot and wearing only Cass’s flimsy red baby-doll nighty.

  “But…But…what about what I’m wearing?” She gestured helplessly at the tiny red lace outfit that was scarcely more decent than some of the double-dog-dare-you bikinis Josh had picked out for her the day before.

  “So much the better,” Cass said. “Remember what Nana said—words aren’t the only way to express yourself. Use the international language.”

  “I think she means body language,” Rory put in, grinning. She shoved the keys to Phil’s car into one hand and her beach bag into the other. “Here, just in case you need your cell phone or something. Go get ‘em.”