Wish 01 - A Secret Wish (2 page)

“I don’t have a secret stash or a cellar,” Colin said. “But the liquor store down the street has plenty of wine.”

“I’ll go.” Angela grabbed the excuse like a lifeline. She had to get out of this room, out of this party, out of this life.

“You can’t leave – it’s your party. I’ll go,” Colin said.

“No, I need some air.”

He frowned, obviously unhappy with her decision. “What do you want me to tell your mother?”

“Tell her I’ve had all the surprises I can take for one night.”

“Angela.”

“What?”

“Don’t take too long.”

“I’m just going to get wine,” she said. “How long could that take?”

Liz felt an excited shiver run down her spine as she stepped out of a cab in front of the thirty-story glass building that housed one of San Francisco’s newest luxury downtown hotels, the Remington. She still couldn’t believe she’d hopped into a taxi with a perfect stranger who was intent on buying her an expensive glass of champagne. It felt more like a scene from a movie than real life – at least, not her real life.

“After you,” John said, waving her toward the revolving doors.

She hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere else? Neither one of us is dressed for this place.” She’d changed out of her scrubs into a pair of blue jeans, a knit shirt, and a black sweater, her usual out-of-work clothes, which were definitely not high class, sophisticated, or even unwrinkled, for that matter, having been stuffed in her locker all day.

“It’s your birthday. You deserve the best,” he said.

“You’re right, I do deserve the best,” she said slowly. It was not the way she usually thought about her life, but maybe it was time she did. “I might have to find an ATM first, though.”

“This is my treat.”

“I’m used to paying my own way.”

“Tonight you don’t have to. Don’t worry, I can afford it.”

“I’d feel better if you told me a little more about yourself, including your last name.” So far, he’d only provided her with
John
. And she wasn’t even sure that was his real name. There’d been something odd in his voice, another reminder that she was taking a risk by going out with him, but she’d been playing it safe for so long that she was ready to shake things up.

“I don’t think we should exchange last names,” he said with a grin. “It will make tonight more fun.”

She wanted to argue, but it was just a drink, for God’s sake. She didn’t need two forms of ID to accept a glass of champagne, did she?

“Come on, Liz, let’s start the celebration. You’re not getting any younger,” he teased.

“Fine. No last names.”

John took her hand as they headed toward the door. His touch made her feel warm all over. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held hands with a man. Kyle had hated holding her hand. He'd said that he felt constrained. That had probably been a clue that he was not going to want a future with her if he couldn’t even hold her hand, but she’d overlooked that clue along with plenty of others in her desperation to be as attached as everyone else in her circle of friends.

As they entered the hotel, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the cathedral ceilings, the marble floors, and the glass chandeliers. The people walking through the lobby were just as pretty, the men in designer suits, the women in expensive evening gowns. If there had been a red carpet, she might have thought they were at the Oscars or a movie premiere where everyone was someone.

She’d been someone once – someone famous – but not in a good way. And she’d felt immensely relieved when her fifteen minutes of fame had elapsed.

John led the way up an escalator to the second floor. She assumed he was heading for the bar until he stopped in the doorway of a ballroom, which was jammed with at least a few hundred people.

“What is it – a wedding?” she asked, trying to peer around his shoulder.

“Looks like a birthday party.” He tipped his head toward a poster on an easel by the door. “Carole Prescott’s fortieth birthday party. Hey, she shares your birthday. I think it’s a sign.”

“Of course it’s a sign, John. That’s what they call words on big posters.”

“Funny girl. I mean a sign that we’re in the right place.” A mischievous glint came into his eyes. “We should join the party.”

“No way. We can’t go in there. We don’t even know her. You said a glass of champagne in the bar.”

“I bet they have champagne here.” John squeezed her hand and pulled her into the darkened room while she was still protesting. She waited for someone to kick them out immediately, but everyone’s attention was focused on the far end of the room, where a huge, three-tiered cake decorated with multicolored roses had been rolled into the center of the dance floor.

“Look at that,” John muttered. “It’s big enough to feed a small country.”

It was certainly bigger than the cupcake she’d bought. “That must have cost a fortune.”

“Kind of puts your little party of one to shame, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, just because a party is small doesn’t mean it’s not good,” she protested, but she was lying, and they both knew it. Who wouldn’t want a celebration like this?

“I think there’s going to be a speech,” he said.

Liz watched as a distinguished man in a black tuxedo escorted an equally stunning blonde in a turquoise beaded evening dress to the nearby microphone.

“Before we light the candles,” the man said, “I’d like to make a toast to my incredible wife, Carole.” He picked up two glasses of champagne from an attending waiter and handed one to the woman by his side. “You’re an amazing wife and mother. You’re tireless in your efforts to take care of your family and others. You’ve given me an incredible seventeen years of marriage and two beautiful children. I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Happy birthday.” He kissed her on the lips as the crowd murmured “Happy birthday” and raised their champagne glasses.

It was a beautiful, loving toast, Liz thought, watching as two waiters began to light the candles. It took a few minutes to get all forty lit. When they did, it looked like a royal bonfire. She’d never seen such a spectacular sight. Carole Prescott was a very lucky woman.

For a moment she tried to imagine that this was her party, that the man in the black tuxedo was her husband, that the guests were all there for her. But her mind came up blank. Her imagination wasn’t that good.

As Carole stepped toward the cake, her gaze ran around the room, settling on Liz and John. She frowned.

“Uh-oh,” Liz whispered.

“Time to go,” John said. They ran to the door like two kids who’d been caught sneaking into the movies. They didn’t stop running until they reached the bar.

Laughing, they grabbed a booth in the corner. It took a moment for Liz to catch her breath. She hadn’t felt this alive in a long time. “I have a feeling you are going to be a bad influence on me.”

“That’s funny. Because I was just thinking that you might be a very good influence on me,” John replied.

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you – before the night is through.”

* * *

If Carole Prescott could have skipped any birthday, it would have been this one.

She didn’t want to be forty. She didn’t want to deal with the ugliness of aging and the fear that her husband would find someone younger and prettier. She didn’t want to get left behind. And she was terribly afraid that could happen.

Her husband, Blake, had big ambitions. He was a high-profile corporate attorney who wanted to be a United States senator, and he’d used the occasion of her birthday to network and raise funds for his upcoming political campaign. More than half the people in the room were here for him. They didn’t give a damn about her birthday. But they’d smile and pretend to care, and she’d do the same. It was what she always did.

She couldn’t complain. She’d chosen this life. She’d worked hard to get it. And she’d never allowed herself to look back or regret any of her choices…until tonight.

While she normally loved parties and being the center of attention, she would have preferred not to have this particular party. She didn’t want to mark this day, have the society columnists shouting to the world that Carole Prescott was forty years old. It would only mean more scrutiny in the future and gossip about whether or not she’d had a face lift, Botox, or plastic surgery.

It was different for men. Her husband loved being forty. For him, aging gave him life experience and wisdom, the perfect combination for a senator. But what did aging give her but a time bomb ticking down the days to the end of her life?

She was being dramatic, but it was her nature. She’d always wanted to live bigger than life. From the time she was a little girl living in a seedy, run-down apartment building, she’d believed that some day she would be somebody. And she
was
somebody. She’d just had no idea how difficult and wearying it would be to wear a mask of perfection twenty-four hours a day. She could never relax, kick off her shoes, let down her hair, put on old sweats and dance around the living room the way her mother used to do every single night after waiting tables at the local burger restaurant.

Not that she wanted her mother’s life – God, no! She’d done everything she could to get away from that world.

As the crowd chanted
Make a wish! Make a wish!
Carole closed her eyes, trying to shake off the past and focus on the present, the future. It was difficult to concentrate. The noise from the crowd made her head spin and the heat from the candles drew beads of sweat along her forehead. All she could see in her mind was the past in bright, living color, reminding her of who she’d once been and what she’d left behind.

There were eight candles on her cake. Her mom wore her flashy red hair in a ponytail and there was a cigarette hanging out of her smiling mouth. Her aunt held a cheap disposable camera in her hand. The other kids crowded around the scratched-up picnic table in the city park. Alex, who lived across the hall, asked for one of the red roses on the cake. His younger brother, Peter, wiped his hand across his face, smearing the mustard and ketchup from the hot dog he’d eaten from ear to ear. They kept shoving each other, trying to get the best spot on the bench.

Her friend, Becky, slipped her hand into Carole’s and asked if she could help blow out the candles. Becky always wanted to do everything Carole did, especially when it came to presents and candles. Not that there were many presents, just a doll from the dollar store and paper and crayons to draw with.

Her mom had written Happy B’day
Carly in red frosting that was jagged and barely readable. Carly was what everyone called her. Her mom said she’d named her Carole for her grandmother, but it was too big a name for a little girl.

“Make a wish, baby, a secret wish that comes straight from your heart,” her mom said. “And make it a good one. Lord knows we need all the wishes we can get.”

Because they didn’t have much more than wishes, she thought. She was only eight, but she knew that with a certainty that would have surprised her mom and her aunt, who tried to whisper when they talked about the fact that her dad, Billy, had run out on ’em, taking all their money and all their dreams. She was glad he was gone. She didn’t miss her dad or the beer bottles in the fridge or the Saturday night fights that made her mom cry and wear long-sleeved shirts all weekend. She tried to take care of her mother and keep the house clean, but her daddy seemed to get mad anyway.

Her mom always said, “Don’t worry, Carly, Mama’s got your back,” but it wasn’t the truth. Sometimes her mother wasn’t there when her daddy came home mad.

She closed her eyes, trying not to think about him, and wished for a big house, piles of money, and plenty of milk for her and her mom. They liked to dunk Oreo cookies into the milk when they watched TV at night.

Certain that she had the right wish, she opened her eyes to blow out the candles just in time to see Alex push Peter so hard he fell headfirst into the cake, setting his hair on fire. He started screaming along with everyone else.

Suddenly everyone at the party was blowing on the cake, making sure all the flames were out and Peter was okay. That stupid Alex had ruined her party.

She looked down at her smashed cake and had a feeling her wish would never come true. She burst into tears and her mom’s arms came around her in a tight and loving hug.

“Don’t worry, Carly. The birthday fairy already heard your wish. It will come true. You’re a special girl, and God takes care of special little girls.”

Her mother had been right. Her wish had come true. She had a big house, piles of money, and plenty of milk. Only she didn’t drink milk anymore – it was too fattening. And she didn’t share her house or her life with her mother. For the first time in a long time, she missed her mom. She missed her children, too. She couldn’t see them anywhere in the crowd.

Her husband told her to hurry up and make a wish before the candles burned down. An unexpected wish filled her heart.
I want my family back.

As she opened her eyes and blew out the candles, she regretted her foolish wish. Her family hadn’t gone anywhere. Her family was her husband and her children. So what had she been wishing for?

But as she stepped away from the cake so the waiters could begin serving, she couldn’t shake the feeling of hollowness. She had everything and yet it felt like nothing.

The band began to play softly in the background, and she realized she was standing alone in the lingering smoke from her candles. How was that possible? The birthday girl wasn’t supposed to be alone.

She needed to move, join a group and make small talk. She was good at cocktail conversation. Blake had always admired the way she could work a room. But she didn’t feel like working the room tonight. Her stiletto heels were pinching her toes, and her facial muscles were tired of smiling. At the very least, she needed to sit down for a few minutes and catch a second wind before the band started playing. There would be dancing and more toasts to endure. She had to find her party spirit – and fast.

“Mrs. Prescott, are you all right?” Lindsay, the party coordinator, a perky blonde in her early thirties, had a clipboard in her hand and a worried look on her face.

“I’m fine. The party is lovely. You did a wonderful job. Thank you.”

The tension in Lindsay’s face eased. “You’re very welcome. I hope you’re having a good time.”

“Yes, of course. Have you seen my children around?”

“They left right before you cut the cake. Your daughter told me that she was driving your son to a sleepover or something like that. I assumed you knew their plans.”

She’d known they’d each made plans to spend the night somewhere else since she and Blake had booked a room at the hotel, but beyond that she knew very little. She was disappointed that they’d left so early. They hadn’t even wanted to watch her cut the cake. They hadn’t wanted to do much of anything with her in recent years. She’d attributed their distance to the teenage years – Sophie was sixteen now and Michael was fifteen. They had their own lives.

But she knew the distance between them had started years earlier. Her devotion to Blake and his career had forced her to miss some of the children’s events. Blake needed her to host parties, to travel with him, to support his career, and she’d always believed that helping him achieve his goals would give her children a better life. And it had. They lived in a big house. Her kids had nice clothes, the latest electronics and computers. They lacked for nothing, and that was because of her effort. Still, deep in her heart, she missed having a real relationship with them.

Well, maybe she hadn’t been the best mother, but she was a fabulous wife. That she had no doubts about.

Speaking of being a wife, maybe it was time to find her husband.

She strolled through the ballroom, keeping a sharp eye out for Blake. As the minutes passed, she grew more and more annoyed by his absence. Lately, he never seemed to be around. She didn’t mind being in his shadow, as long as he was actually near enough to cast one.

The party had spilled out into the hallways that ran along the ballroom. She smiled and waved to several guests as she searched the halls for Blake. She turned the far corner, wondering if he’d gone into the kitchen or one of the banquet offices to speak to someone. She thought the corridor was empty until she saw a couple almost hidden by a tall plant.

She stopped abruptly, recognizing the broad shoulders of her husband. The woman with him had long red hair and she wore a very short black strapless dress. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old.

As Carole watched, the redhead leaned in and whispered something in Blake’s ear. Then she slid her lips along his cheekbone. The intimate gesture was unmistakable.

Carole’s stomach turned over and her heart skipped a beat. Oh, God! Was this it, then? Was her husband already having an affair with a younger woman?

She must have let out some kind of sound, because suddenly Blake whirled around and saw her. His eyes glittered the way they always did when he was nervous or guilty. The woman with him didn’t appear worried at all. She looked triumphant, as if she’d just won some big prize.

“Carole,” he muttered, walking toward her. “Have you met Krystal Cunningham? Her father just made a very large donation to my campaign.”

She heard the explanation. She didn’t believe it. She wanted to stamp her foot and scream at him that he was a liar and a stupid one at that, to fool around with this woman at his wife’s birthday party. But she couldn’t do any of those things. She couldn’t make a scene. That wasn’t who she was, or who she wanted to be. So she said, “I see. And you were just thanking her.”

“Exactly.”

She saw the relief in his eyes, the acknowledgement that they would both handle this with dignity and poise. Her hands clenched into fists. She had the tremendous urge to give him a hard, stinging slap across that handsome face, to shake him up, to make him realize that she wasn’t doing this for him, she was doing it for herself. The last role she wanted to play was the pitiful, betrayed wife at her own party.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Prescott,” Krystal said in a voice that almost purred. “I hope you don't mind me borrowing your husband for a few moments. I find his thoughts on politics so intriguing.”

Carole wanted to slap her, too. Ignoring Krystal, she said, “ I’ll see you inside, Blake.” She turned and walked quickly back the way she’d come, her heart beating in double time, fury boiling her blood. She wasn’t sure if Blake was having an affair or just participating in a dangerous flirtation. Either way, he was stepping over the line. She’d never believed he would risk damaging his reputation with a sexual fling. Maybe she was wrong.

She suddenly had doubts about him and everything else in her life. It was this damn birthday making her want to re-evaluate her choices. And she was terribly afraid that if she looked too closely, she’d see nothing – no substance, no meaning, just pretty things, pretty people, and pretty lies.

Making a decision that was probably reckless and foolish, she bypassed the ballroom and headed for the escalator. She had a desperate urge to get the hell away from the party.

Her walk turned into a jog, then a dead run as she ran down the escalator, through the lobby, and toward the front door of the hotel.

Was that her husband calling her name?

She pushed through the revolving door and stepped onto the sidewalk. The valet gave her a curious look. She ignored him, spotting her limousine across the street.

She was so intent on getting away from the party that she didn’t realize there was any traffic. The shocking glare of headlights made her freeze in the middle of the street. She saw a car bearing down her… just a second too late.