The Secret Ingredient of Wishes

by Susan Bishop Crispell

  She set her plate on the table and sat sideways on the picnic bench. She tugged off her shoes. A blister was bubbling up on the back of her right heel. The red, loose skin stung when she ran her finger over it. She set her shoes on the scarred wood next to her, blocking anyone from sitting next to her.

  Ashe followed with two bottles of water he’d picked up somewhere along the way. “That’ll teach you to let Ev pick out your shoes. But anytime she wants to put you in a dress like that, you are not allowed to say no.”

  Her breath caught in her throat when she looked at him. The sincerity in his eyes made her blush. She hoped the light was dim enough that he wouldn’t notice.

  He moved her shoes to the ground and sat next to her. He left a few inches, but he was close enough to knock elbows with her when he dislodged something from his pocket. “Wet-Nap?” He ripped open the end and squeezed the edges to give her better access.

  “Thanks. I didn’t expect to get quite so dirty before eating.” She took the wet towel from the pouch without looking at him. She scrubbed her hands, then fanned them in the air to dry.

  “So, let’s find out what’s so special about this brisket, what do you say?”

  “I’d already be done with it if you’d given me a fork.” Rachel laughed when he pulled it from his pocket and tossed it to her.

  “No way you’re gonna eat all that.”

  “Watch me.”

  She poked the fork through its plastic bag, freed the napkin, and dug in. The sauce was thick and the heat of it burned her tongue. She couldn’t help the satisfied moan that escaped her.

  Ashe raised his eyebrows at her. “That good, huh? Should I leave you alone with that brisket?”

  “What’s gotten into you today?” she asked, laughing. He was happy, just like Catch had wanted. But his good mood, his easy laughter, felt too natural to be because of a wish. Like he’d managed to shake off some of the anger and hurt that had been weighing him down.

  “I don’t know. I was talking to my brother last night and he said I should lighten up and have some fun. So I’m trying. No brooding, no fighting with Lola. Just hanging out with a pretty girl eating barbecue and enjoying the heat. I figure life can’t get much better than that.”

  She smiled at him. “I guess we’ll see.”

  When he smiled back, it sent tingles all the way to her toes. She curled them into the grass, but it didn’t stop the sensation. As much as she wanted to get lost in the moment, she couldn’t let herself. Lola knew something—maybe everything—about Rachel’s past, and she seemed angry enough to do something about it.

  15

  The hotter it got, the tighter Rachel’s dress got. The soft fabric clung to her skin, and no matter how many times she pried it away, it slapped back to her as if magnetized. She was still tugging on it when she finally made it through the thick mass of people to Catch’s tent.

  “I might have to turn this into a kissing booth with the way the men are looking at you,” Catch said. Her explosive laugh carried across the park. Everyone close to the tent turned to stare at them. Catch waved them off with a quick flick of her wrist.

  “Blame Everley,” Rachel said.

  “You’re just cranky ’cause Ashe finally clued in to the fact that you’re a girl, and you like it. Which makes me right. Now cut that man some pie while I get these moving.” Catch unloaded more boxes of pies on the folding table. She turned to the people still in line and hollered, “We’re closed until after the contest. Come back then.”

  Rachel jabbed the knife into the gooey flesh of the triple berry pie and passed it to the man at the front of the line. “That’s not the part I mind,” she said to Catch when the crowd dispersed. “It’s the fact that I don’t know why he likes me. Which I was prepared to ignore for the day and just be happy for a change, but then you had to go and remind me that it matters.”

  “Why do you have to make it so complicated?”

  “Because it is.”

  Catch rolled her eyes as she whipped the tinfoil off another pie. “How so?”

  “He’s still married, for one,” Rachel said, spouting out the easiest excuse. She jumped into the assembly line and kept her eyes on the pies to keep Catch from seeing all of the things she’d left unsaid.

  “Not for much longer. What else you got?”

  I made your wish for him to be happy come true and he’s probably only interested in me because of it. Just like the other wishes that didn’t go right. “I don’t know how long I’m staying.”

  “You and I both know you’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” Catch said.

  Just because she didn’t want to leave didn’t mean she wouldn’t. If Lola told everyone what she knew, and the town believed her, Rachel might not have a choice.

  Catch passed the tray loaded with pies off to one of the contest runners. Rachel moved to her side and pulled foil covers off pie after pie as Catch lined them up. The air holes in the top of the crusts revealed peach, cherry, plum, pear, strawberry rhubarb, and apple insides. Others—lemon, coconut crème, key lime, and chocolate crème—were topless and needed to be squirted with whipped cream before they could be sent off to the contest stage.

  “What if something happens and I can’t stay?” Rachel asked after a minute.

  “Then we’ll deal with it. But don’t let some stupid what if get in the way of enjoying a little slice of happiness. Lord knows it’s hard enough finding it in the first place.”

  They emptied the last box and followed the runner to the main stage. They’d missed the first four heats while getting the pies ready, but Catch had timed it so they’d be there to see Ashe compete. He was already seated behind the folding table onstage. He was in the middle, with two guys on either side, and Jamie on the far end. They seemed to be throwing friendly taunts back and forth, but Rachel was too far away to hear exactly what they said.

  The runner doled out pies as the emcee announced the flavors each contestant would be attempting to eat faster than the others. A digital timer above the contestants was set to two minutes. If anyone could eat the whole pie in that short amount of time, Rachel was sure it would be Ashe. He ate more pie than anyone she knew.

  With hundreds of bodies packed in front of the stage, there was little room for a breeze. What air did make it through carried a charred meat smell that made it hard to breathe. The announcer’s voice crackled through the crowd as he warned the contestants to get ready. They straightened their backs in unison. A bullhorn cut through the hum of chatter. All five contestants plunged into the pies face-first as if they’d all fallen asleep at the same time.

  Rachel shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. Their heads bobbed up and down, side to side as they ate. “They’re not allowed to use their hands?” she asked.

  Catch fanned herself with a piece of cardboard she ripped from one of the pie boxes. “It’s not called the Ultimate Pie Face-Off for nothing.”

  They watched, the clock counting silently down as the crowd began chanting names and encouragement. She and Catch joined in, urging Ashe on. She yelled louder when Everley squeezed in beside her and started screaming Jamie’s name. Rachel’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

  With ten seconds left, the noise from the crowd ratcheted up a few more decibels, as if the added volume could give the contestants a final burst of speed.

  With five seconds left, the words melded into an unintelligible rhythm that pulsed urgent and hot through the air.

  With three seconds left, Ashe pushed back from the table, grinning as purple sauce dripped off his chin.

  With one second left, Rachel had the overwhelming urge to kiss him.

  * * *

  She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling twenty minutes later and was thankful Ashe was too busy waiting on the final scores and getting cleaned up to come find her. She couldn’t pinpoint when the attraction had taken hold. Until a few days before he’d just been a good-looking, charming guy she flirted with, knowing it probably wouldn’t go anyw
here. But then Catch had made her wish. Now she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

  She told herself it wasn’t real. The universe wouldn’t let her be the person who would make Ashe happy. Not after everything she’d done.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she repeated under her breath, willing herself to just forget about Ashe and how she felt when she looked at him. But her feelings for him had already started to take root, and it had nothing to do with a wish. She couldn’t help but think what he felt for her was real too.

  She focused on helping Catch dish out slice after slice to the line of customers that snaked around the park. There was no end in sight and that was fine with her. If she was dealing with people and pie, she wasn’t thinking about Ashe.

  * * *

  It took more than two hours for the line to dwindle down enough that Rachel could see a definite end. Every time she thought they were about to run out of pie, Catch dragged another box from the trailer.

  “No wonder you’ve looked so run-down lately. Do you ever sleep?” she asked.

  “I look just fine, Miss I-Got-All-Dolled-Up-and-Now-Everyone-Else-Looks-Like-Crap,” Catch snapped.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know what you meant. Old ladies just don’t like to hear that they’re getting old.” She lowered herself into a canvas chair and propped her feet on an overturned bucket. “We’re winding down, so I’m gonna head home soon. You should go find some people your own age. Get some use out of that dress.”

  She thought of Ashe, then of how exhausted Catch looked. How she’d found Catch asleep in the kitchen more than once, cheeks hollowed out and her skin so pale she looked half-dead. She hoped it was just normal signs of aging like Catch said. The alternative wasn’t something she even wanted to consider. “I don’t mind sticking around here for a little longer.”

  Catch backhanded her on the thigh. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  Rachel rubbed a hand over her stinging skin. She slipped on her shoes and left before Catch could smack her again.

  The band had changed several times during the afternoon from bluegrass to country and back again. The barbecue tents transitioned from food to beer. The people, however, were still everywhere. She maneuvered around them, slipping through small pockets of space between groups.

  “Oh, Rachel,” Lola called out in a singsong voice. She darted around the person she’d been talking with and latched on to Rachel’s arm, pulling her to a stop. “Do you have a minute?”

  Rachel freed her arm with a sharp tug. “I was just on my way to—”

  “I’m sure no one’ll mind if you’re a teensy bit late. This’ll just take a minute.”

  Rachel contemplated walking away, but she knew Lola would follow her until she’d said her piece. Staring at Lola, she waited.

  “As crazy as it might seem, you and I have something in common.”

  “A strong dislike for each other?” Rachel said.

  “No, we both have things we don’t want everybody and their mother to know. I’d like to think we could help each other out. I know who you are. And that some people might say you’re bat-shit crazy.” Lola scanned the crowd, then continued in a voice so low Rachel had to strain to hear, “I know about the hospital. All those years of therapy must have been hard.” Lola looked at Rachel the way a mother might look at a disappointed child, knowing full well they weren’t going to get what they wanted.

  Rachel took a step back, her mind racing for some explanation for how Lola could know about what she’d been through. She wanted to lie, to say Lola was wrong, but she could only manage a stunned, “How?”

  “I probably wouldn’t have made the connection, but I was thinking about the things from my past I wish I could change and had this flash of a memory about my sister. She was in that hospital too. I went with my parents to visit her once, when they thought she might’ve been getting better and wanted to bring her home. But Mary Beth didn’t want to leave, and they wouldn’t let me go back.”

  Mary Beth. Rachel’s heart pounded so hard she wondered how Lola didn’t hear it over the music from the band and the babble of voices roaring around them.

  She should have been able to see it, though, the resemblance. Lola was more done up, but underneath the makeup and better-than-everyone attitude, the similarities were there. The deep brown eyes flecked with gold and heart-shaped faces offset with auburn hair.

  Rachel assumed their smiles would be the same if Lola ever smiled and meant it.

  “I know you know her. Mary Beth Beaumont?”

  “I don’t think so,” Rachel said. If she could just make Lola believe her, this could all blow over without anyone else getting pulled into it. “I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.” She took one step before Lola’s clawlike fingers gripped her arm again.

  Lola’s smile was sharp when she held Rachel in place. “Now, you and I both know that you know her. Before she shut me out, she told me about you. How you wished away her nightmares and y’all became BFFs. I’d just hate for the whole town to know what you can do, because it might complicate the nice, quiet life you’re trying to build here. But if you make a wish to get Ashe to forgive me, I’ll make sure to keep that to myself.”

  Rachel let Lola continue to hold her in place, let Lola think she was considering the blackmail though there was no way she could give Lola what she wanted. Wishing for Ashe to be happy was one thing, but doing what Lola was asking? That wouldn’t be fair. She had to find a way to make this all go away. Quickly.

  “Just so we’re clear, you expect me to make him forget you cheated on him, that you threw away your marriage like it meant nothing? And in return you won’t tell anyone that you think I’m some fairy godmother who goes around granting wishes?”

  “I made a mistake. I love him, Rachel. And I just want him to remember that.” Lola loosened her grip as her expression deflated.

  Rachel jerked away from her. She rubbed at the band of red circling her wrist. “Well, despite what you think, I can’t help you.” I won’t. He doesn’t deserve that.

  “We’ll see about that,” Lola said in her best Southern-belle tone. Her smooth smile slid back into place, covering all traces of her angry desperation.

  A hand grazed Rachel’s back, fingers skimming across the bare skin above her dress, making her jump.

  “Everything okay?” Ashe asked.

  Lola laughed. “We’re just talking. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Rachel?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said. Though it was anything but. Lola could ruin the life she was starting to build in Nowhere. Even if no one believed Lola about Rachel’s wish ability, they would ask about her brother, her mom. And she didn’t want to lie to anyone. Especially not Catch or Ashe. She forced a smile at Everley and Jamie as they approached, grateful for the distraction. “Hey, what are y’all up to?”

  Everley tucked her arm through Lola’s and held a plate of deep-fried something into the middle of their little circle. “I figured pie was out of the question after the contest, so I got enough fried Oreos and Reese’s for all of us, though I don’t know which is which. I expect each of you to eat one. And then we’re all going to go find a place to watch the fireworks. Together. And we’re all going to get along for the rest of the night, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

  “I’m not sure deep-fried sweets have enough magic to make that come true,” Lola said to Everley, her voice as sweet as the treats on the tray. She flicked her gaze to Rachel, annoyance sparking in her eyes. “This town is full of mysteries. Secret-keeping pies and now mood-altering candy? Next thing you know, we’ll find out that someone here can make our deepest wishes come true.”

  “Funny,” Everley said. “Now eat. All of you.”

  Grinning, Jamie grabbed two off the plate and popped one in his mouth whole. Ashe followed suit but handed his second one to Rachel. His fingers brushed against hers with just enough pressure for her to know h
e’d done it on purpose. When she smiled, it was only partly to convince him she was okay.

  “You’re staying for fireworks, right?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, sounds fun,” she said.

  Lola pulled away from Everley and gave Ashe a tight-lipped smile. “I understand you wanting to get back at me, Ashe. But at least have enough self-respect not to embarrass yourself in front of all of us.”

  “Lola!” Everley said. “Happy chocolates, remember?” She shoved the last piece of dessert into Lola’s hand.

  “I can’t stand here pretending to be happy when my husband’s clearly not in his right mind. She’s done something to him—wished for God knows what—so that he can’t see how manipulative she is.”

  Everley leaned into her friend and whispered, “You know you sound a little crazy, right?”

  Rachel’s fingers dug into the fried dough encasing the peanut butter cup she had yet to eat. Melted chocolate and peanut butter oozed out of a rip in the side and dribbled down her fingers. Everley offered her a napkin and an apologetic smile. Just ignore her, the smile said. But Lola’s words roared in Rachel’s ears.

  “Stop it, Lola,” Ashe said.

  “She’s not who you think she is. If you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be defending her.” Lola pointed at him, bits of greasy dough flaking off the fried candy as she jabbed at the air with it. Her red-painted lips pressed together, as if for just a second she considered keeping what she knew about Rachel to herself. “Just ask her about the wishes. See what she says.”

  “Maybe we should get her out of the heat,” Jamie said to Everley, with a concerned look at Lola.

  As Everley reached for her, Lola twisted away so she faced Ashe. “This has nothing to do with the heat and everything to do with Rachel ruining lives one wish at a time.”

  “You want to talk about wishes? All right, fine.” Ashe shook off Jamie’s restraining hand and scowled at him. Jamie held up his palms in resignation, muttering, “It was worth a shot” to Everley, who frowned at everyone. Ashe continued, ignoring the interruption. “I wish you would just eat that damn Oreo so it would shut you up for a change.”