Twenty Wishes

  “The man told me you’d probably say that. If you’ll sit down, I’ll take a look at your knee.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any glue, do you?” she asked, holding up her broken shoe.

  “No, sorry.”

  Barbie thanked her again and left, hobbling back to Blossom Street, where she’d parked her car. The injury to her knee was nothing more than a scrape but the blow to her pride would take much longer to heal.

  Her one consolation was the fact that, despite everything, Mark had sent someone to check on her. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. A tiny fracture in his resistance. It gave her hope.

  By Monday evening, Barbie’s knee was healing nicely. Although she didn’t need to, she wore a huge bandage over it and a short skirt, short enough to reveal her bandaged knee.

  Tessa was at the ticket window when Barbie approached.

  “So, which movie should I see?” Barbie asked, the same as she had the week before.

  Tessa’s dark brown eyes searched hers. “He isn’t here.”

  “You mean not yet, right?”

  “Uncle Mark’s not coming, period.”

  “Why not?” Barbie couldn’t have disguised her disappointment if she’d wanted to.

  “He figured out that I was the one feeding you information.” Tessa sounded as disgruntled as Barbie felt.

  Because she was holding up the line, Barbie stepped aside until there was a break.

  “I’m sorry,” Tessa murmured. “He told me he won’t be coming to the movies again and that I should make sure you knew it.”

  “Oh,” Barbie murmured. “Do you see him outside the movies very often?”

  Tessa shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “Next time you do, tell him I think he’s a coward.”

  Tessa’s jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”

  “Yes, I am,” Barbie insisted. “Tell him that for me.”

  She purchased her ticket, plus popcorn and a soda. Although she sat through the entire movie, she couldn’t remember a single scene.

  Chapter 14

  Monday evening Anne Marie put a meat-loaf-and-potato casserole in the oven. It was a favorite recipe of her mother’s and one she hadn’t made in years. The meat mixture baked with sliced raw potatoes, both covered in tomato sauce. Anne Marie had liked it when she was around Ellen’s age and she hoped Ellen would, too.

  As she closed the oven door, she noticed Ellen approaching the large oak desk where she kept the scrap-booking materials for her Twenty Wishes book.

  “What’s this?” Ellen asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “My Twenty Wishes.”

  “Twenty Wishes,” the girl repeated. “What are those?”

  “Well, on Valentine’s Day, my friends and I had a small party. We started talking about all the things we’d wished for in our lives and then we each decided to make a list.”

  “Just twenty?”

  Anne Marie laughed. So far, coming up with twenty had been hard enough, and in fact, she was only halfway there. “This is fine for now. I’ll think of more later on,” she said. “In fact, I’m still working on my first twenty.” She had a total of nine: the five she’d written earlier, plus her most recent additions.

  6. Find a reason to laugh

  7. Sing again

  8. Purchase a home for me and Baxter

  9. Attend a Broadway musical and learn all the songs by heart

  She was considering a line dancing class, which was a wish she’d erased earlier. The St. Patrick’s Day performance had inspired her interest in dancing again.

  “The wishes don’t need to be practical,” Anne Marie went on to explain. “That’s why they’re called wishes instead of resolutions or goals.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t necessarily expect them all to happen.”

  “If you don’t expect them to happen,” Ellen asked, regarding her quizzically, “then why are you writing them down?”

  “Because they’re wishes,” Anne Marie said. Finding a pen, she added a wish she’d erased two or three times.

  10. Travel to Paris with someone I love

  That encompassed the essence of what she sought—love, adventure, new experiences.

  Ellen stared down at the recently entered wish. “Can anyone make a list like this?”

  “Of course.” Anne Marie set the timer on the oven. They’d gotten into a routine, the two of them, during the past five days. It felt as if Ellen had been with her much longer. One obvious difference in her life was that Anne Marie now regularly cooked dinner.

  Ever since she’d started living alone, she’d fallen into the habit of grabbing something quick and easy or skipping dinner altogether, which she could ill afford to do. But Ellen needed regular nutritious meals and a daily structure. With everything else in the girl’s life in upheaval, Anne Marie could at least offer her that.

  The phone rang and Anne Marie picked it up immediately before Call Display could even register the number. She was expecting to hear from Elise, whom she’d been trying to reach all afternoon. “Hello.” She figured Elise wanted to share her news, which Anne Marie had already heard via the neighborhood grapevine. Elise had taken a part-time job working for Lydia at A Good Yarn.

  “Anne Marie, it’s Brandon.”

  “Brandon! It’s great to hear from you,” she said with genuine pleasure.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you for a couple of weeks,” he went on. “Melissa told me what she did. I can’t believe my sister sometimes. And as for my father…”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” That was mostly true.

  “You’re sure?” Brandon pressed. “To be fair to Melissa, I doubt she realized how hard you’d take that business about Dad. And she was pretty devastated herself.”

  “Really, it’s okay,” Anne Marie lied, brushing off his concern. The last thing she wanted was to talk about her husband’s indiscretion—or even think about it. She felt a rush of pain whenever she remembered and constantly guarded herself against the image of Robert with Rebecca. In his office, on the couch…

  “You’re sure?” he asked again. He didn’t seem convinced.

  “Yes. Positive.” As much as possible she made light of the incident.

  Her stepson hesitated a moment, then blurted out, “Let me take you to dinner tonight. I know it’s short notice, but we could talk and—”

  “I can’t.” She hoped he’d take her at her word, not force her to explain.

  “Why not?” Brandon’s voice fell with disappointment.

  “I have a visitor.”

  Her announcement was met with a short silence. “Anne Marie, are you seeing someone?” he asked somberly.

  “No, of course not!” The question amused her. “Melissa asked me the same thing.”

  “Of course not? Why say it like that? You’re young and beautiful and—”

  “I’m with a…friend.”

  “Ah, the mystery intensifies.”

  “It’s not a mystery,” she said, smiling at his teasing banter. “It’s Ellen. She’s eight and she’s living with me for the next week or two.”

  “You have an eight-year-old living with you? Is she a relative of yours?”

  “No, I met her through a nearby school—the Lunch Buddies program. Why don’t you join us?” she said impulsively. “I just put a casserole in the oven and it won’t be ready for another forty minutes.”

  “You made dinner?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked. I did a lot of cooking in my time.”

  “Okay, I’d like that. Thanks. Give me a few minutes to finish up here and I’ll drive straight over. You’re still living above the bookstore, right?”

  “For now.” She really did hope to purchase a house. Once Ellen was back with her grandmother, Anne Marie had every intention of beginning her search.

  “Brandon, one thing…Melissa’s and my conversation…”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to discu
ss it, all right?”

  He hesitated. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” she told him, keeping her voice firm.

  Anne Marie hung up the phone and turned around to discover Ellen perched on a chair at the kitchen table, staring blankly into space. She had the end of a pencil clamped between her teeth.

  “Are you doing your homework?” Anne Marie asked.

  Ellen shook her head. “I’m making a list of Twenty Wishes.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Ellen nodded. “Do you want to hear what I have so far?”

  “I would.” Anne Marie pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.

  “One,” Ellen announced with great formality. “Plant a garden.”

  “What kind of garden?”

  “Flowers,” Ellen said. “I read the book you gave me about that garden, remember?”

  Anne Marie smiled approvingly. Of course. On Sunday she’d given her a copy of the Edwardian children’s classic, The Secret Garden. Ellen was an advanced reader and had no difficulty with comprehension. Occasionally she’d asked about the meaning of a word. She’d loved the idea of the walled garden, hidden from the world, and had instantly identified with the story’s orphaned young heroine.

  “Is there any other kind of garden than flowers?”

  “Vegetables.”

  “You can grow tomatoes?” Ellen asked in an excited voice. “I like tomatoes a lot, especially when they’re warm from the sun. I like them with salt.”

  Anne Marie looked at her curiously. “Did you ever have a garden before?”

  Ellen lowered her gaze. “No… Grandma Dolores told me about warm tomatoes with salt. I’ve never had one but I know they’d be really good because my grandma said so.”

  “I like tomatoes, too.” Anne Marie closed her eyes at the memory of working in her garden at the house she and Robert had owned. The smell of earth, the sun warm on her back… “Last summer I grew tomatoes right here, on my balcony.”

  The child seemed thoroughly confused by that.

  “It was a container garden because I didn’t have anywhere to plant an actual garden.”

  “What about corn?”

  “That might be a challenge, but I’ll check into it. If you like, we can plant seeds in egg cartons and then once your grandmother’s home again, I’ll help you clear a small space in her yard for your very own garden.”

  “Really?” The girl’s face shone with uncomplicated joy. “A garden,” she breathed.

  “Anything else on your list?”

  Ellen nodded. “I want to bake cookies with Grandma Dolores.”

  “I bet she’d like that.”

  “She always said we could, but then she’d get tired or she wouldn’t be feeling well and we never got to do it.”

  Anne Marie slipped her arm around Ellen’s shoulders. “When your grandmother’s back from the hospital, she’ll be feeling much better and have a lot more energy, and I’m sure she’ll want to bake cookies with you then.”

  “Oatmeal and raisin are my favorites.” Ellen set the pencil down. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  “What about something whimsical?”

  Ellen turned to her, expression blank.

  “Whimsical means fanciful—a wish that’s not…serious, I suppose you could say. Something lighthearted, just for fun.”

  The end of the pencil returned to Ellen’s mouth. “Do you have anything whi-whimsical on your list?” she asked.

  Good question. “Not yet. Let’s think about it.” She stood to get three plates from the cupboard.

  “Like what?”

  “Well…” Anne Marie murmured. She looked at the child, then walked over to her own list.

  11. Dance in the rain in my bare feet

  “What did you write?” Ellen asked.

  Anne Marie told her.

  Ellen started to giggle. “That’s silly. Aren’t you afraid your clothes will get wet? Or you’ll get mud between your toes?”

  “I wouldn’t care, especially if I was dancing with someone I loved.” She opened the refrigerator and removed a bag of romaine lettuce and other salad ingredients. Anne Marie occasionally made salad for dinner; she wasn’t afraid to add unusual ingredients, like walnut bits, cranberries, raw green beans, Chinese noodles, sunflower seeds, pickle slices, beets… Her inventions weren’t always successful—the chopped anchovies came to mind—but they were usually interesting.

  For Ellen’s sake, she chose more conventional makings of cherry tomato, shredded carrots, cucumber and green pepper. Then, because she couldn’t resist, she added crushed pretzels, guessing Ellen would enjoy that.

  As she and Ellen set the table with a white cloth and some leftover St. Patrick’s Day napkins, Anne Marie explained who Brandon was and said he’d be coming over for dinner. Ellen seemed a little nervous about meeting him and, perhaps, about sharing their private time together.

  There was a knock at the back door just as Anne Marie put the salad in the middle of the table. “That’s Brandon,” she said, walking to the door as Baxter barked excitedly.

  Her stepson entered the small apartment, both hands behind his back. With a sweeping gesture, he produced a bottle of her favorite wine and a bouquet of flowers. He kissed Anne Marie on the cheek, then presented the flowers to Ellen. “You must be the lovely Ellen. These are for you,” he said.

  Ellen gave Brandon a tentative smile. “I like flowers.”

  “Are you going to thank Brandon?” Anne Marie asked.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Ellen.”

  Anne Marie found a vase and helped Ellen arrange her bouquet. Then, without being asked, Ellen opened the silverware drawer and counted out what they needed, while Anne Marie got two wineglasses and one for juice. When they sat down to dinner, Ellen said grace.

  Brandon’s eyes met Anne Marie’s as he bowed his head, and he murmured “Amen.” Ellen insisted on saying a prayer before all their meals. Her grandmother had taught her that and it always made Anne Marie wonder how the woman’s two daughters, presumably raised the same way, had turned out so badly.

  Brandon raved about the casserole. “This is really good.”

  “Secret family recipe,” Anne Marie told him with a smirk.

  “Will you give it to my grandma?” Ellen asked, scraping up the last of the casserole from her plate.

  “If you want me to.”

  “I’d like it, too,” Brandon added. “Hey, I’ll give it to one of my girlfriends to make.”

  “Hey, make it yourself.”

  “Fine,” he laughed. “I will.”

  They finished their wine; then Brandon and Ellen cleared the table, while she made a pot of coffee.

  “May I go to my room and read?” Ellen asked. She’d just started the Laura Ingalls Wilder series and Anne Marie knew she was eager to return to Little House in the Big Woods.

  “Yes, Ellen, you may.”

  They watched as Ellen retreated to her bedroom, Baxter close behind. Brandon turned to Anne Marie, leaning casually back in his chair. “You’d make a good mother,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Thanks,” she said, but it was a moot point. If she was going to have a child, there had to be a father, and she was nowhere near ready for another relationship. In a few months she’d be thirty-nine and soon after that it would simply be too late. She had no intention of doing what a few women she’d heard of had done—get pregnant via a willing “sperm donor,” a man who would play no role in their babies’ lives.

  When the coffee had brewed she filled a mug for Brandon and one for herself before joining him at the table.

  “Have you talked to Rebecca yet? My dad’s assistant?” he asked.

  He certainly hadn’t delayed in getting to the point, even though she’d explicitly said she’d prefer not to discuss it. Anne Marie let the question slide for a moment as she busied herself with the cream and sugar.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want
to,” Brandon said with teasing sarcasm.

  She sighed, giving up. “The short answer is no. The long answer is I’m not sure I ever will. If she comes forward and acknowledges the child is Robert’s…then I’ll deal with it. Not before.”

  “I can understand that,” Brandon said after a long moment. “I want you to know that Mel genuinely regrets what happened.”

  Anne Marie shrugged it off. “How is your sister?”

  “We talk every now and then. I have to say she seems a lot more serious now. More mature, you know?” He frowned. “When I called her last week, she told me she’s on the outs with Mom.”

  That surprised Anne Marie. As far as she knew, Melissa and Pamela were close. Robert’s ex-wife lived in England, where she worked for an international hotel chain. According to Robert, her devotion to her career had led directly to their divorce. Pamela had accepted a position that involved frequent travel, even though Robert had asked her to wait until the children were out of school. She’d refused and left him and their family for months on end.

  “What’s wrong between Melissa and her mother?”

  Brandon shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me. When I pressed the issue, she changed the subject. She obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, but she made it sound like she’s busy with school and she probably is.”

  “She’s graduating this year, isn’t she?”

  Melissa was completing an MBA program; she then planned to follow in her mother’s footsteps, moving into hotel management.

  Robert had always been proud of his children, and he’d often said they were the only good thing to come out of his marriage to Pamela.

  “Yeah, she should be done in June.”

  “Is she still seeing Michael?”

  “As far as I know. He’s a good guy. I like him better than any of the other guys my sister’s gone out with. Some of them were…well, put it this way.” He reached for his coffee again. “Melissa’s made some strange choices.”

  Before Anne Marie could respond, Ellen stepped into the room, a pad and pencil in her hand. “Is having a goldfish a wish or a goal?”

  “Well, it’s a little of both, I’d say.”

  “Okay.”

  “I thought you were reading,” she said.

  Ellen looked down, a tendency she had when she was afraid she might be in trouble. “I was reading, but then I thought of another wish. I want twenty, the same as you.”