Chasing Wishes (17 page)

I grab my old, hardcover fairy-tale collection from the bookshelf, and the rest of the afternoon flies in a beautifully satisfying haze. I record first my best "Three Little Pigs" rendition ever, then "Cinderella," and just as I’m about to revisit my old version of "Rapunzel," a loud rap on the door breaks my spell of productivity.

As I stop the audio recording on my laptop, I’m surprised to feel how tired I am now that I’m free from my artistic trance. I could have read forever, but now that I’ve stopped, it feels as if I’ve drained every last bit of functionality out of my brain for the day. It feels
awesome
. This is the first time I feel like I’ve truly done a good day’s work in months.

"Come in!" I call over my shoulder as I spin around in my chair. The door creaks as it slowly swings open, and Marcus peeks in at me.

"Do you mind terribly if I come in for a moment?" he asks so politely that I almost want to put a top hat on his adorable, balding old head. I wave him in with a smile, and he closes the door behind him.

"Ah, you’ve been settling in nicely," he says, nodding approvingly at the décor and seeming particularly delighted by my choice of curtains.

"Thanks. It’s really nice of you to let me stay," I answer awkwardly, my eyes drifting down to my feet. Somehow, complimenting me on the room only reminds me that it isn’t really mine—that I’m just here as long as I work for Terrence.

Marcus sighs, crosses his arms and rolls his eyes at me.

"Irene, the room and board is part of your compensation for helping Terrence. It’s part of the deal, and you don’t need to thank us for it," he lectures me, and then adds with a grin, "Besides, it looks damned nice in here now. I may hire you to do my son in law's house next, in fact."

"I charge mileage for house-calls, but phone consultations are free," I say, grinning right back. I stick out my tongue at him, and he laughs and sits down on the edge of my bed. "So what brings you to my humble abode anyway?"

"I’m going to be away this weekend. My mother isn’t doing very well, and—"

"Your
mother
?" I blurt out in surprise. "Wow, how old is she?"

My face turns bright red as my brain tries its best to throttle the rest of me for being such an idiot. Can I go even one day without unintentionally insulting the poor guy? Jeez!

"Ninety-nine," answers Marcus, shrugging off my accidental insult. "I want to go visit her, if you don’t mind. Can I leave Terrence in your capable hands this weekend?"

"Sure! Is there anything I need to know?" I ask. "Does he have any plans? Meetings? Odd habits?"

Marcus chuckles and shakes his head.

"No, I think you’ll find his demands perfectly manaperes his argeable," he answers. "The worst he might do is request your assistance in taking you out to dinner."

"Eh, that sounds easy enough for... wait,
what
?"

My brain trips over itself as all the words click into place. Assist him... in taking
me
... out to dinner? Does that make it a date? No way. He can’t possibly mean that!

Or does he?

I can’t even ask Marcus to elaborate without looking like a total creep if I’m wrong. Shit.

"I’ve been begging him to get out more often—to go out on weekends and, for lack of a better phrase, to ‘act his age’ for two years now," explains Marcus, bouncing gently up and down on my bed as if he’s testing the mattress. "It appears that he’s finally decided to listen to me, and last night, he said he might take you out for the evening."

He clearly caught my ‘deer caught in the headlights’ impression, because then he adds, "Don’t worry. I don’t think he means as a date or anything—just as a friend."

"Marcus... you do realize that asking someone out as ‘just friends’ translates to ‘nervous date,’ right? It’s meant that since, like, the dawn of time."

He smiles and shakes his head.

"You have no idea how excited I’d be if that’s what he meant," he says, a hint of sadness poking a hole in his voice and making its presence known. "No... I know him well enough to tell you it’s not a date. He
should
date people, but he won’t."

"Why not?" I ask, uncertain of whether I should feel relieved or disappointed. The idea of going on a date with my boss seems ill advised at best, but I still felt my heart sink just a teeny bit when Marcus shot the idea down.

"He hasn’t had the best of luck in dating," answers Marcus, shrugging uncomfortably. "His last girlfriend was over two years ago, and she only made it two months before breaking up with him."

"Sorry..."

"It’s for the best, I think. She never cared about him anyway."

"Oh come on, you can’t say that—"

"She broke up with a blind man by letter," he sharply interrupts me, his eyes briefly gleaming with cold anger. "I can say it very damned well, Irene."

I gasp and cover my mouth in empathy and horror. "By letter? You have to be kidding me!"

"I had to read it to him. I’ve never seen a man so humiliated in all my years," he whispers, shaking his head. "It’s no wonder he doesn’t go out more often, but I still wish he would. Not everyone’s a stone-hearted harpy like Colleen was."

Marcus climbs down from my bed and wanders over to my desk, raising an eyebrow curiously.

"What’re you working on?"

"Oh, this?" I stammer, embarrassed. "It’s... well, it’s nothing, really."

I’ve been through this conversation a hundred times, and it plays out the same way every time. I tell them that I’m recording a demo tape, they ask to hear it, and then I refuse, feeling too humiliated and self-conscious to let them hear me read. When they ask, I’m suddenly not proud of my voice anymore. I can't help but cringe when I hear recordiI hfeeling tongs of my own voice, no matter how clear and crisp the recording may be.

Marcus smiles knowingly, and before I can react, his hand darts out and grabs a CD case from the stack.

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" he asks, and then his eyes light up as he puts the pieces together. "You’re recording demo tapes of these stories, aren’t you?"

"Yes," I squeak. I shouldn’t be so embarrassed, but my face grows hot all the same. Why am I so embarrassed of my lifelong dream? I’ve been trying to land a recording contract since I was sixteen, and I’ve never been able to move past the fear of someone I know hearing me.

"Any publishers bite yet?" asks Marcus. I shake my head silently, and he pats me comfortingly on the shoulder.

"They don’t know what they’re missing," he tells me. "Your voice is one in a million, dear."

"Thanks," I reply, smiling as sincerely as I can. One in a million? That’s thirty rivals in the New York metro area alone. I’ll still need a whole heap of luck if I want t
o get a contract.

Marcus turns to leave, steps over the sleeping dog hogging most of the floor, and as he opens the door, he looks back over his shoulder at me.

"Irene?"

"Yes?"

"Terrence mentioned to me about how you told him stories in the limo last night," he says, lowering his voice. "Thank you for taking such good care of him. It means a lot to me."

He smiles gratefully at me and then, without another word, closes the door behind him.

I
saac and I stroll slowly down the hall toward our lockers, and for a moment, I almost feel normal as we walk together side by side. It’s so relaxing not to have to dodge other students all the time. It’s been such a long time since I could let my guard down here, since I could walk to my locker without fear of getting harassed by the other students just because I dared to make eye contact with them. Even when the others didn’t resort to outright harassment, I still hated seeing the looks of disdain and hearing the whispered mockery as I passed.

One of the guys from my literature class—a real class act who takes every chance he can get to insult me—cuts through the crowd in my direction looking as if he wants to start trouble, but he quickly catches the look on Isaac’s face and backs off.

Isaac’s my shield now, fending off all the undeserved hatred from my classmates. I wish he didn’t feel like he has to protect me, but I’m grateful for it all the same.

Jacob and Sarah are walking in the opposite direction down the hall and they look none too pleased to see us. Isaac broke Jacob’s nose after the ‘bag of crap’ incident, and he clearly still harbors a grudge. He hasn’t bothered me since then, at least not so brazenly, but with the fading of his black eye and healing of his nose came the return of his arrogant swagger. He has the stupid, confident air of a guy who’s forgotten just how badly Isaac’s willing to hurt him for messing with me.

Sarah’s doing her usual thing and stretching the school’s dress code to the breaking point. Her low-cut, navy blue cardigan is unbuttoned, revealing a white blouse so sheer thatI hfe her her red bra shows straight through, and she’s wearing her skirt so low on her hips that the waist of her thong is showing. She shoots me a cold, hateful glare as we approach each other, but rather than say anything, she instead hooks her arm around Jacob’s waist and steers him away from me as if she thinks I’m contagious.

"Wow, take a look at her," whispers Isaac. "How much do you think she charges?"

It’s totally a low blow, but Sarah deserves it after all the rumors she's spread about me.

"And people call
me
a slut," I whisper back with a giggle.

Jacob sees us whispering to each other and his face turns bright red with anger. Sarah tries to keep him away, but he’s far too strong for her and easily drags her along behind him until he’s walking directly toward Isaac. He quickens his pace as if daring Isaac not to move aside and make way for him.

I’m starting to get a little nervous, but Isaac just grins at me and keeps walking straight toward Jacob.

"Relax," he whispers to me. "Just ignore him and keep walking. He won’t do anything."

"Ignoring him hasn’t exactly worked for me, in case you haven’t noticed," I hiss back to him, clenching and unclenching my clammy hands and trying to pretend that I’m not tensing up. Even if Isaac’s on my side, I’m sick and tired of fighting all the time and just want people to leave me alone.

Just as I’m certain that a head-on collision is inevitable, Jacob steps aside so that he only rams shoulders with Isaac. "Stupid spic," Jacob hisses at me as he passes, and Isaac reacts so quickly that I haven’t a chance in hell of stopping him.

Isaac spins around and slams his fist into the side of Jacob’s head, and before I even realize what’s happening, Jacob grabs Isaac by the shoulders and slams him hard into the wall of lockers with a thunderous clang that reverberates through the hallway. Isaac shoves off the lockers and slugs him squarely in the face, his fist making a dull ‘thud’ against Jacob’s skull.

Sarah and I stand frozen in place, staring at each other in horror as the two boys wrestle each other to the floor in a flurry of violence, and for the first and only time in history, we’re on the same side. Almost in unison, we race into the fray and try desperately to drag Isaac off of Jacob before someone gets killed.

"Let go of him!" screeches Sarah as a crowd of students gathers around us.

"You think you’re better than her, asshole? Who the
fuck
do you think you are?" snarls Isaac, punching Jacob again and again. A deep red pool is slowly forming around Jacob’s head on the gleaming tile floor, but as hard as I try to drag Isaac away, I’m not strong enough.

"Stop it, Isaac!" I shout. "That’s enough! Let go of him!"

Suddenly, a deep, familiar voice bellows out above all the commotion.

"Break it up, all of you!" shouts Mr. Donovan, my Algebra teacher, and he shoves through the crowd and rips Isaac away from Jacob in one strong yank.

Sarah kneels beside Jacob and tries ineffectually to dab away the blood pouring from his face with a handkerchief from her purse. His face is so swollen and red that it’s almost unrecognizable now. Sarah looks back up at me again, her face twisted with fury and hatred, and any evidence that we weree turse ever on the same side is gone.

"You fucking
whore
!" she screeches at me. "Look what you did to him!"

Mr. Donovan’s cold gaze locks on to me, and he steps right over Isaac as if he’s not even there and heads straight toward me, his eyes burning with the same resentment and hatred as Sarah’s.

"Get moving," he barks, grabbing me by the shoulders and shoving me through the crowd ahead of him. I try to turn around to face him as we emerge on the other side of the crowd, but he ignores me, grabs me painfully by the wrist and drags me down the hall toward the principal’s office. "Mr. Donovan, just listen to me," I beg, trying to pull away from him, but he only tightens his grip on my wrist. "I didn’t do anything!"