The Secret Ingredient of Wishes (20 page)

“You do realize that I could just wish for everything to go back to the way it was, for Ashe to forget what I've done and to love me again?” Lola said. She slid a hip onto the porch railing, balanced the pie next to her, and shook a cigarette out of a pack. Lighting it, she added, “And you'd have to make it come true.”

“I can't just make things happen because people want them to, no matter what your sister said.”

“Mary Beth wouldn't have told me that about you if it wasn't true.”

She shouldn't have told you at all.
But that was back before she and Mary Beth only had each other to rely on. Back when Mary Beth still wanted her sister in her life. Rachel drummed her fingers against the storm door. “When exactly did she tell you all this? I thought you hadn't talked to her in years.”

“It was one of the last times we talked. She seemed to be getting better so my parents let us talk on the phone once a week. It might have been a long time ago, but I still remember what she said.”

“How could that possibly be true?”

“If Catch can make secrets stay secret with pies, what's to say you can't make wishes come true?”

“Because it's a crazy idea, Lola,” Rachel said, hoping she would see that. She turned away from Lola when the cigarette smoke blew into her face. “My crazy idea. Why do you think I was in therapy?”

“Same reason my sister was. You lost someone you loved and you couldn't handle it.” Lola shrugged, taking another drag on her cigarette. “She told me about your brother and some of the things you would do for the other patients. You made Mary Beth's nightmares go away.”

That was the one thing Mary Beth had ever outright wished for. At first she'd held fast to the belief that the wishes that came true for the other girls were just coincidences. But after months of waking up in a cold sweat from images of her best friend dying in the car crash—while Mary Beth, the driver, walked away with only a concussion and a few scratches—she'd finally whispered her wish to Rachel the next day in therapy. And Rachel had taken care of it, and Mary Beth.

“Just because those things happened doesn't mean I had anything to do with them. I can't do what you're saying I can.”

“All right, then, I wish Ashe—” Lola said.

“No,” Rachel blurted. Even though she would have to read the wish for it to happen, she refused to take any chances where Ashe was concerned. She waved a hand through the smoke and thought she saw Lola suppress a smile. “Wait.”

“If you can't make it come true, what does it matter if I say it?” Lola's tone was condescending, her lips twisted into a smug smile.

Rachel took a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. “It doesn't,” she lied. “Say it if you want. But I won't be responsible if anything bad happens. That's all on you.” She hoped the threat of making things even worse between Lola and Ashe would keep Lola in line.

“I want Ashe to forgive me because he wants to. Not because I made him,” Lola said. She stubbed her cigarette out on the bottom of her shoe. “And just so you know, I didn't say anything to make things hard for you. I just miss Ashe. And I miss my sister. And you're the best chance I have of reconnecting with her.”

“So you thought you'd threaten me to get me to help you?”

“Not my finest hour, I admit. But seeing you with Ashe on top of realizing you got to spend months with my sister when I wasn't allowed to just made me snap. I mean, what makes you so special that you get to be with the people I love?”

Nothing. Rachel knew that. She didn't deserve them, but neither did Lola. “This isn't really doing you any favors.”

“Just think about it.” Lola gave Rachel a sad smile, then strutted down the sidewalk to her car, leaving Rachel even more confused. It was easy to hate Lola when she was the cheating mean-girl she was used to seeing. Less so when she talked about missing Mary Beth.

The pie sat on the railing, untouched. Rachel snatched it up, wondering what in the hell she was going to do now.

 

19

Rachel held a lighter to the ring of shrink-wrap she'd slipped over the cap of a lotion bottle as a mother and daughter volleyed differing opinions back and forth. They argued about which scent would make the best sweet sixteen present for a friend, what made LUX products organic, and whether or not the daughter could go out with some boy named Tommy that weekend. No matter what the mom said, the girl responded in typical teenage fashion—contradictory for the sake of being contradictory.

“Telling me I'm wrong isn't helping your cause,” the mother said. She held out a candle for her daughter to sniff. When the girl pinched her nose, she snapped the lid back on. “Don't ask me about him again.”

The girl rolled her eyes, heavily lined in black, then stormed out of the shop, the bell clanging as the door slammed shut in her mom's face. Shoving the candle back onto the shelf, the mother followed and jerked the girl to a stop when she caught up with her on the sidewalk. They faced each other, neither one ready to admit defeat.

Rachel heated another cylinder of plastic, shrinking it onto the lid of the lotion bottle as the argument she could no longer hear continued to rage outside. She kept expecting them to move somewhere more private—that's what her mother always did whenever they had argued about Michael—but they remained in full view of anyone nearby.

Averting her gaze, she noticed a scrap of paper sandwiched between the clear layers of shrink-wrap on a bottle she had already sealed. She rotated the bottle to see what had accidentally gotten caught—and how she hadn't noticed it before. The paper read
Some days I really wish you weren't my mother.

She didn't have to hear the girl say the wish to know she was the one who had made it. The vehemence on the girl's face as she stood with her arms crossed over her chest said it all.

Rachel flinched though it was already too late. Her elbow collided with the bottle of lotion she'd just sealed, which smacked into the bottle next to it, knocking them both to the floor. The glass shattered, dousing the air with the scents of juniper berries and lime as the lotion poured out.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she willed the wish not to come true.
Don't ruin this family. Please don't ruin this family.
She turned back to the window, knowing she could do nothing to stop it.

The mother's expression had hardened, her lips pulling into a thin line. She responded to her daughter, words pouring out in a rush, then immediately clasped a hand over her mouth, her coral-colored fingernails bright against the sudden paleness of her cheeks. Whatever the wish compelled her to say to her daughter left her too stunned to move. She didn't even reach for the girl, who backed up step by step until a few feet separated them. She didn't move when her daughter turned and ran.

Rachel rubbed out the goose bumps on her arms. The woman's confession must have been hurtful, but at least she was still there. Rachel hadn't made her disappear.

Leaving the lotion to puddle around the shards of glass, she eased the door open and met the woman on the sidewalk. “Are you okay?” she asked.

The mother rounded on her, eyes shiny with tears and jaw clenched. “This is all your fault,” she said. She spun around to chase after her daughter, who was already halfway across the park, nearly running into Ashe and Jamie in her haste.

“Did something just happen?” Ashe asked. He skimmed his fingers over Rachel's wrist where her pulse jumped, then led her back inside.

She couldn't look at him. Didn't want to see on his face what she'd seen on so many others. Disbelief. Fear. Blame.

“Just some long-buried secrets being blabbed because I happened to be in the vicinity when the daughter wished for something she shouldn't have,” Rachel said, the guilt too fresh to be covered with a lie.

“She's just upset, and after what happened with Lola you're a convenient scapegoat.”

No matter how much she wanted it to be different, wishes didn't come true around her for no reason. This was all her. She stuck her shaking hands into the front pocket of the apron.

“What's going on?” Jamie asked, confused.

“It's nothing,” she said.

“Okay.” He stretched the syllables out so the word hung in the air between them. When she didn't elaborate, he said, “Well, then,” and raised an eyebrow at Ashe for an explanation that didn't come.

Rachel turned her focus to the empty sidewalk for a few seconds, ignoring the part of her that yearned to confess everything and have Ashe tell her that what she could do with wishes was fairly normal by Nowhere standards. Then she spotted the slip of paper getting soggy in the pool of spilled lotion.

Normal people didn't ruin total strangers' lives.

*   *   *

Not ready to face anyone yet, Rachel walked through the yard instead of going inside when she got home from work. She wove between the trees, stopping only when she reached the decaying plum tree at the back of the lot. She held her breath against the stench emanating from its corpse. The cracked, crispy leaves had finally fallen off. The spindly branches were broken and hung at odd angles like dislocated joints. She snapped one off. The gritty bark stuck to her hand, and she flicked it to the ground, then scratched at the brown flakes clinging to her skin. She glared at the plum tree as if she could speed up its demise by sheer will.

She jumped when someone banged on Catch's back door in a series of angry raps. Hugging the back side of the trees, Rachel crept closer, unseen.

The mother of the girl whose wish Rachel had made come true a few hours before crossed her arms over her chest and kept her eyes trained on the kitchen through the window. She straightened her shoulders, then took a step back when Catch appeared a moment later.

“You said my secret was safe. That there was no way Genevieve would ever find out. You promised me,” the woman said, her voice catching on the last few words.

Catch slapped a palm on the door casing, blocking the entrance. “Now hold on there, Delia. I told you the same as everyone else who comes to me for help. The secret is always yours to tell. I have no control over what you do or don't say.”

“But I didn't want to tell her! The words just came out without my permission. Like
that girl
used a wish to control my body and made me say things before I could stop myself.”

“Do you mean Rachel?”

The woman swiped her overlong bangs back from her face where they had fallen when she nodded. “Of course I mean Rachel. She was there when Genevieve wished I wasn't her mother, and then she did whatever it is she does with wishes and forced my secret out. I heard she made Lola Riley almost choke to death at the barbecue festival the same way. It's not right what she's doing. Hurting people and revealing things that don't concern her.”

Rachel sucked in a sharp breath at the accusation. The scent of the plum tree burned her throat. A silent reminder it held a secret too. One that could come out as easily as this woman's had if Ashe made the wrong wish around her. She choked back a cough, pressing her hand to her lips to keep the sound from giving her away.

“Don't go blaming Rachel for something you let slip in the heat of the moment. One coincidence doesn't mean she's responsible.”

“If she keeps on the way she is, she'll put you out of business.”

“That's funny. I don't remember you paying me for my services. Or anyone else, for that matter,” Catch said. “Lord knows y'all are getting the better end of this whole deal. But if you want to trade, believe me, I'd happily swap my
payment
for your secrets.”

“It's only a matter of time before she sets more secrets loose. We'll see if you're still defending her then.” With that, the woman stomped back down the porch steps and left.

Rachel stayed in the shadows of the trees until Catch shut the door. The warm breeze had carried most of the rotten plum smell away, but enough lingered in her lungs to burn when she whispered, “I'm so sorry.”

 

20

When Rachel walked into the kitchen the next morning she was surprised to find it empty. She stared at the dormant oven as if she'd stumbled into an alternate reality. She scanned the room for anything else out of place. The lights were off and the back door was unlocked. The coffeepot was full, the red power light burning. Catch's usual mug sat empty on the rim of the sink where she'd washed it the morning before and left it to dry.

She startled at a muffled sound coming from the hallway that led to Catch's bedroom. She ducked her head around the corner. A shaft of murky light cut through the darkness. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out the edge of a bed through the opening in the door. She walked a few steps closer and waited.

“Son of a bitch,” Catch grumbled from somewhere inside the room.

Rachel hesitated.

The sound of retching followed.

She nudged the door open and crept into the room. The lights were off, the curtains cinched shut. “Catch?” she called. The door to the attached bathroom slammed closed. “Are you okay?”

“Haven't you ever heard of privacy?” Catch called through the door.

“I'm sorry. I heard you and thought you might need some help.”

“What? You want to get sick for me?” she asked. The toilet flushed. “By all means, go right ahead.”

Rachel moved closer to the door, keeping her voice soothing. Keeping her worry at bay. “Can I get you anything?”

Catch gave a weak laugh. “A stronger stomach.”

“I'm fresh out of stomachs.”

“That's a shame.”

All of Catch's small symptoms she'd seen but brushed off in the past few weeks flooded her mind. What if this was something serious and she'd just let it get worse by not pushing Catch to admit something was wrong sooner?