How Not to Make a Wish Read online

  If Drew had responded to the proverbial “call to central casting,” he’d report for duty as Leading Man. His hair was tousled, as if he hadn’t taken the time to comb it when he’d tumbled out of bed that morning. (I sternly pulled my thoughts away from an image of him in bed.) Streaks of gold glinted through rich dark blond; if he’d been a woman, I’d have known that he paid handsomely for the highlights. (Since he was an actor, he might have paid, as well, but chances were he was just damn lucky. Besides, I didn’t detect the brassy perfection of even an expert hairdresser’s touch.)

  Drew’s eyes were a deep brown, so dark that they were almost black. As he blinked, though, I could just make out sparkles of green, adding depth, complexity. His bone structure was amazing—hey, theater people are taught to analyze things like that, with complete and utter dispassion! His cheekbones were strong, and he had just a hint of a cleft in his chin.

  I was half in love—and totally in lust—before I heard him reply to Bill’s question. The strangled crush of my heart against my ribs was only heightened by the adorable shrug he made as he laughed in rueful embarrassment.

  “It was a total mind-trip, dude. It was like Juliet was totally hawt for Romeo. You know, first love.”

  Okay. So Drew wasn’t going to win any elocution contest. But I was more than willing to help him remember the heat of first love.

  Bill jumped to his feet, almost turning over his chair. “Exactly!” Drew’s answer apparently gave our director so much energy that he had to pace behind us. I half turned in my seat, so that I could follow him as he gesticulated. “Reversing our gender roles makes us think about the meaning of everything we say, everything we do. It makes us listen to our old assumptions with new ears. It makes us ask ourselves whether we really mean all those things that we’ve always said, whether we truly believe all those thoughts that have been pounded into us since we were children.”

  He waved a frenetic hand toward Drew. “Does it have to be the woman who stands on the balcony, waiting for her love to arrive?” He pounced toward Jennifer. “Does it have to be the man who finds the first courage to speak?” And then, he rounded on me. “What social strictures bind us? Why do we react the way we do?”

  I quaked a smile, which felt like the tight-jawed grin of a skull.

  Bill waited. And waited some more. “Seriously, Kira,” he said at last. “Why do we react the way we do?”

  Well, I supposed I should be grateful that I was being included in the discussion. I should appreciate being brought into the fold right away, from the very beginning. If only the fold weren’t quite such a freakishly bizarre place.

  Bill spread his hands in appeal. “Why did you laugh, Kira?”

  “I—” I cleared my throat. “I laughed because they took me by surprise. I laughed because I wasn’t expecting to hear those words said by those people. I associate the lines with a certain type of behavior, a certain attitude.”

  Bill nodded gravely, and the entire cast mimicked him, like the audience on Oprah’s show. Any minute now, he was going to invite me to share my story, to bring in Dr. Phil for a consult. “Go on,” he said, and I realized I still wasn’t off the hook.

  “I laughed because I was uncomfortable,” I said. Even if I hadn’t been uncomfortable then, I was now. That should count for something.

  “Yes!” Bill said, and suddenly he’d gone from Oprah to preacher. The cast caught their collective breath, clearly enchanted by Bill’s power, taken in by his aura. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d broken out in song, perfect pitch, one and all. Or maybe that was just my background, coming to the Landmark from so many years in musical dinner theater.

  At least I knew what I was supposed to say now. I knew exactly how I was supposed to react. “Society has led me to respond to romance in certain ways, to react to love stories with certain expectations.”

  “Precisely!” Bill exclaimed, and the cast nodded its frantic approval. “Kira, here, is saying exactly what we expect our audience will say. She is the voice of the people. Vox populi.”

  Really? Me? I was all that? I suddenly found the cover of my script fascinating. (Read: I became excruciatingly aware of everyone studying me like I was some exhibit in a zoo.)

  Bill went on expansively. “In the next three months, we’re going to study Kira’s reaction. We’re going to focus on what we know, what we believe, and where there are gaps between those two. We’re going to examine why our society does the things that it does, what we can change, how we can make things different. And along the way, we’re going to change the way that the Landmark, the way that the Twin Cities, the way that the United States of America thinks about art!”

  The cast applauded.

  They actually applauded, as if they were at a play themselves. For just a moment, I thought that Bill might even garner a standing ovation.

  What had I gotten myself into? Were these folks stark raving mad?

  Or was this what the real theater world was all about? Was this what artists were really doing, instead of rehashing old musicals while their audience tried to sneak second helpings of dessert from the buffet?

  I’d asked for change, and I’d certainly gotten it.

  Bill made a few more points. He talked about production design, and how he wanted the play to appear, visually. He explained that in the same way that we were exploring the reversal of genders, we were going to explore the reversal of classes. Our Romeo and Juliet were not going to live in palaces. They were going to live in sewers beneath the Verona streets. They weren’t going to dress in silk and velvet; instead, they’d cover themselves with whatever rags they could salvage from the rotting landfills around them. They weren’t going to duel honorably, with swords flashing in a public square. No, they would fight their battles with nunchucks, tossing in a kick or two to the groin.

  We were going to stage a Romeo and Juliet like no other. Of that I could be sure.

  Bill wrapped up by announcing a full read-through the following morning. The actors eagerly gathered their belongings, chatting animatedly as they headed out the door in groups of two and three. I glanced around the now-ragged circle of chairs, grimly amused to see that even gender-bending revolutionaries neglected to throw away their own empty water bottles and coffee cups. I shrugged and stacked the chairs into four piles, easing their metal legs together, one on top of the other. Then I started to collect the debris. Some stage manager tasks were always the same, no matter how adventuresome the company.

  As I was scooping up the last cup, I heard Bill’s voice from behind me. “Kira, I want you to meet our set designer, John McRae.”

  I straightened up to find the Marlboro Man staring at me. He was tall, but a bit slouch-shouldered. His hair was a little too long, as if he hadn’t made time to visit a barber for several weeks. It was wavy and black, with a sprinkling of gray around his temples. This guy had spent more time in the sun than dermatologists currently recommended; he had gentle crow’s feet by his eyes. His mouth was set in an easy smile, but it was half obscured by a mustache—a look that had gone out about twenty years before but somehow seemed to suit him.

  Maybe it was the plaid shirt he wore, and the well-worn jeans. Or the toes of his boots, scuffed and comfortable. But I could totally picture him swinging up into a saddle, clicking his tongue in a near-silent message to his horse, riding off into the sunset.

  I automatically extended my hand to complete Bill’s introduction, only to realize that I was still holding the lipstick-printed dregs of some actor’s latte. I would have shifted the cup to my other hand, but those fingers were already splayed around a trio of Red Bull cans. At least one of our cast members was prepared to match me, milligram for milligram, in caffeine consumption.

  John reached out and took the paper cup in his left hand, offering me his right to shake. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, and I was pretty sure that he was smothering a laugh at my expense. What the hell. I’d been ready to laugh at our entire production.

&n
bsp; Bill glanced toward the door and saw that his lighting designer was about to leave. “Dave!” he called out. “Wait up! I want to talk to you about just how dark we can make the fight scenes.”

  As he hurried away, I turned back to John. “Sounds pretty grim,” I said.

  “Sounds pretty something,” he said. I caught the hint of a drawl, hiding beneath his wavy hair and warm brown eyes.

  “You aren’t from around here, are you?” I asked, almost kicking myself when the question came out sounding like something from Gunsmoke. Or Bonanza. Or any of the other ancient Westerns that haunted late-night TV.

  He shook his head. “I moved up from Dallas about six months ago.”

  “At least you got to enjoy our summer.”

  He grinned. “I can barely remember it now.”

  “It’ll get colder before spring. And we’ll have a lot more snow.” I watched Bill walk Dave Barstow out to the front door of the theater. I figured I could venture a question or two. “So, did you know about this whole gender-switch thing when you signed on?”

  “Pomeroy and his ‘concepts.’” John shrugged. “I’ve worked with him on a half-dozen shows over the years. He starts out with big ideas, and grows them bigger.”

  “I’m not quite sure where else this one can go.”

  “Just you wait,” he said with an easy smile. “If Bill says he wants sewers, you can be sure they’ll be the nastiest, slimiest ones you’ve ever seen.”

  “Great,” I said, trying to chase a note of doubt out of my voice. “I’ve always heard that he’s thorough. At least we don’t have a smell designer on staff.”

  “Don’t put it past him to add something like that before we’re done.”

  “Scratch and sniff in the programs?”

  “Maybe more like those fancy perfume ads in magazines.” He shrugged. “The audience can rip open Eau de Sewer when they read about the cast. Catch ’em by surprise.”

  Surprise. I’d said I wanted a change. I’d said I wanted to do more than I had at Fox Hill. I’d said I was up for the challenge. “I can’t wait.” Success—I’d hit the right note. At least John laughed with me.

  He glanced at the oversize clock on the wall. “I’ve got to swing by the lumberyard this afternoon, but a bunch of us are grabbing dinner at Mephisto’s tonight. You up for it? Around six?”

  Mephisto’s.

  The restaurant was a couple of blocks away, conveniently located near half a dozen of the small theaters in downtown Minneapolis. It was actually called Mike’s Bar and Grill, but all the theater crowd called it Mephisto’s, because Mike looked like the devil, and his burgers were enough to lead anyone down the path to Hell.

  I loved Mike, and I adored his food, but I hadn’t set foot in Mephisto’s for over a year. The place was one of TEWSBU’s favorite hangouts. By unspoken arrangement, he’d gotten it in our…divorce. After our non-wedding, I’d had no desire to hang out in the familiar restaurant, to chance running into him. My belly flipped at the idea of going there even now.

  Besides, I should head home to prepare my script. I should do some research on past productions of Romeo and Juliet, on other directors’ attempts to turn the story on its head. I should do some laundry and wash my hair and iron my sheets into flawless perfection.

  But John was offering me a way to meet my new theatrical family. He was opening the door for me to join the cast, to move forward with the camaraderie that they’d clearly already begun building through auditions.

  Besides, Mike’s burgers were really, really good.

  I stooped to pick up one last wayward water bottle and was a little unnerved to find John looking at me when I straightened. His expression was relaxed, patient. His weight was distributed evenly on his feet, as if he could wait all day for me to make up my mind. Without saying a word, the man projected calm steadiness, the exact opposite of the tempestuous TEWSBU. “I’d love to join you,” I said before I was even sure that I’d made up my mind.

  “Great,” John said, with another easy grin. “I’ll see you there at six. Have a great afternoon.”

  I waited until he’d left before I dug my phone out of my backpack. Glancing around the room and shaking my head about the strange rehearsal I’d just witnessed, I auto-dialed my father. I nearly dropped the phone in surprise when he answered the line directly; I always got his secretary.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said, recovering quickly. “I’m finishing up here at the theater. Can I swing by in half an hour?”

  I was already turning off the lights in the rehearsal room when he said yes.

  CHAPTER 4

  MY FATHER’S SECRETARY, ANGIE, WAS BUSILY TYPING away when I got to his office. “He’s on the phone,” she said, scarcely glancing at the Space Shuttle hardware that substituted for a telephone on her desk. She tracked three phone lines for my father, and she supported two other attorneys full time. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she could launch nuclear weapons from that thing.

  “Should I come back?”

  “He’d probably welcome the interruption now. It’s been a long day.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, sighing dramatically.

  “Aren’t you ready to leave the theater, and come take a normal job here at the firm?” Angie knew that my father had been encouraging me to do the same for at least the past ten years, since I’d been a sophomore in high school.

  I grinned and gestured at my black sweatpants. “What? Give up my life of glamour?”

  She snorted. “I just want to report to your father that I’ve done my part. You’d better go on in, before someone else comes around.”

  I thanked her and dipped my hand into the M&M’s jar on the corner of her desk. She filled the thing every morning—when I was a kid, I believed her when she said that fairies replenished it at night. Now, knowing that Teel and his ilk were roaming the streets, I wondered what it would take to find a real magical candy stock boy.

  I picked out all of the green M&M’s and started crunching away as I knocked on Dad’s door frame. As Angie had predicted, he waved me in. I shrugged out of my coat and dropped into one of the chairs across from his desk. He glanced at my black sweats, briefly registering disapproval, but then looked away. We’d decided a long time ago which battles were worth fighting.

  He was speaking in his Logical Lawyer voice. “I’ve got to have the rider by noon tomorrow, Chuck. My clients wanted this deal closed in December. They’re already set to walk away.” I listened to the squawk of disagreement on the other side of the phone and smiled. Knowing my father, his clients didn’t need to close the deal until Independence Day.

  As Dad gave a patient, professional reply, I glanced at my fingers. The flame markings were barely visible, here in the office light. If I twisted my hand just…so, I could make out a slight flicker, but there was nothing that anyone else would see. Nothing that my father could pick up from the other side of his desk.

  I realized that I wasn’t going to tell him about Teel.

  After all, how many lawyers could listen to their daughter say that a genie had granted her three wishes? How many caring parents could let that one go by, without calling for immediate medical intervention?

  I didn’t have any way to prove that Teel existed; I couldn’t show that I was speaking the truth. My housemates—they just might understand. They’d heard enough crazy things from me over the years; we’d had serious discussions over whether certain theaters were haunted, whether Shakespeare’s Scottish Play could actually bring bad luck when its name was said aloud.

  But Dad? Not so much.

  I looked around as he made conversation-finishing noises. His office hadn’t changed in years. He had two corner windows, looking out from the twenty-seventh floor of the IDS Tower, the tallest building in Minnesota. Life as a partner at Franklin, Cromwell and Hopkins had its perks.

  Although my father would never admit it, his practice had been infinitely more successful than even he had originally predicted. The firm now boasted three h
undred attorneys who devoted their time to every conceivable field of civil and criminal law. Profits per partner were the highest in the Twin Cities.

  As Dad insisted on reminding me, every single time I stopped by. I started a mental stopwatch as he hung up the phone. “Good afternoon, sweetheart,” he said, paternal warmth replacing the legal chill that had been in his voice.

  “Hey, Dad. Aren’t you supposed to be at home watching TV and eating bonbons while your associates fight the good fight?”

  “Someone has to mind the ship,” Dad said. “Those profits per partner don’t generate themselves.”

  Wow. Under a minute. The old man still had it.

  I glanced at the shelves that lined the side wall. Scattered between mammoth books were dozens of Lucite cubes, records of transactions completed to the tune of millions of dollars. Each block contained a miniature version of a stock offering, my father’s brilliant legalese shrunk and preserved forever. I didn’t know who had started the tradition, but some trophy company must be making a killing.

  In the center of the legal memorabilia was a picture frame—a plain silver rectangle holding a professional black-and-white portrait. My mother.

  She had the same unruly curls that I’d inherited, and I knew that her eyes were the identical brown as my own. I could just make out the upturned tip of my nose when I looked at hers. Now that I’d put on my post-TEWSBU weight, our chins were different, but when I was at my slimmest, we looked like sisters.

  She’d died of leukemia when I was three years old.

  I had a few memories, images that I held on to with the ferocity of a child clutching her favorite teddy bear. I could feel Mother coming in to kiss me good-night after an office holiday party, her hair still cold from the winter air outside. I could remember her laughing as I blew out the candles on my third-year birthday cake. I could hear her reading Goodnight Moon to me, and I remembered shouting out “Good night, nobody!” even though I was supposed to be quieting down and getting ready for bed.