Wishing Day (9 page)

N
atasha had time to read the note exactly once before Darya burst in triumphantly, wiggling an Allen wrench in the air.

“Ah-ha!” Darya crowed. “Bet you forgot this trick, didn't you?”

“Darya!” She clutched the note to her chest. “What are you doing? Get out!”

Darya sauntered to Natasha's bed and dropped down beside her. She tossed the Allen wrench onto Natasha's nightstand. “You don't always trust me, you know.”

“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right
now?” Natasha said. She kept the note pressed to her chest. She wanted to move it, to sit on it or hide it or put it in her pocket, but she didn't want Darya to notice.

“You just broke into my room,”
she said. “Why in the world
should
I trust you?”

Darya eyed the note. She lifted her gaze to Natasha's.

Natasha shoved the note under her thigh. “Go. Away.”

Darya leaned back on her forearms. She straightened her legs and wiggled her toes, which were now covered by blue socks with penguins on them. “I borrowed another pair of your socks from the mudroom. They're cute. Can I keep them?”

“Darya—” Natasha's voice jumped in the way of almost crying. It surprised her.

It surprised Darya, too. She sat up straight and said, “What is it? What's going on, for real?”

Natasha shook her head. Everything seemed too big. Too much. She refolded the note with sharp, angry movements and gave it to Darya.
Why not?

Darya stared at Natasha for a long moment. Natasha didn't trust herself to speak.

Darya placed the note between them on the bed.
She didn't open it. “Natasha, I'm not out to get you. But I'm your
sister
. Doesn't that count for anything?”

Natasha shrugged. When they were younger, Darya had idolized Natasha. Natasha, in return, had been a
really good
big sister. She included Darya in stuff. She made her laugh. She watched out for her, and she
never
teased her, not in an unkind way.

They'd grown apart, though. Eventually Darya had wanted to be more than just Natasha's adoring little sister; maybe that was what started it. She'd wanted to be her own person—the gall! Natasha had known her reaction was ridiculous, but she'd felt rejected. Darya had found her own circle of friends. Maybe she liked them more than she liked Natasha.

So Natasha had pulled away too, out of pride. At home, Natasha began paying more attention to Ava than Darya, and when Darya brought it up, she'd pretended not to understand.

“We can't leave her out just because she's littler,” she'd told Darya.

“I'm not saying we should!” Darya had said. “I just . . . I miss
us
. Don't you?”

“I'm right here,” Natasha had replied coolly. “
I
haven't gone anywhere.”

Darya's face had crumpled, and Natasha had
shrugged and turned away.

“Hey, Ava,” she'd called. “Want to play Slap Jack?”

Natasha
had done that. For the first time in her life, she'd hurt Darya's feelings on purpose.

The distance between Natasha and Darya had plenty of other causes. Both sisters allowed it to grow. But when Natasha looked at Darya now, she felt a great hole of regret.

A tear, and then another, trickled down her cheek.

“Natasha, shhh,” Darya said, putting her arm around Natasha and pulling her close. She stroked Natasha's hair.

“Did something bad happen?” Darya asked. “Does it have to do with Benton? Did you honestly steal his marble?”

Natasha hitch-laughed. “It's not his. Or it might be, I don't know. I don't know whose it is.” She pulled back and swiped at her eyes. “Or, wow. Maybe it's Aunt Elena's.”

“From when she was little? The one the Bird Lady supposedly gave her?”

Natasha was astonished. “She told
you
that story? When?”

“A long time ago,” Darya said. “Let me see it again.”

Natasha gave her the marble. Darya held it up to the light and turned it this way and that. She shook her head definitively and said, “Nope, not hers.”

She tossed it to Natasha, whose fingers closed around it as if they'd been created for that very purpose.

“How do you know?” Natasha asked.

“It's round.”

“So?”

“Aunt Elena's was shaped like an egg, a blue glass egg.”

“But mine's the
size
of an egg.”

“And my eyeball is the size of your eyeball.” Darya made an impatient sound. “A blue glass egg, that's how she described it. A blue glass egg that Aunt Elena probably made up, but a blue. Glass.
Egg
.” She jerked her chin at the marble. “Would you describe that as an egg?”

“It's blue . . .”

“Lots of things are blue.” Darya drew her whole body onto the bed and sat cross-legged. She adjusted her feet until her toes were tucked beneath her knees. “Can I read the note?”

Natasha bit her lip, then nodded.

Darya picked it up and unfolded it. Her eyes moved across the paper. She lifted her head and asked, “What does it mean?”

Natasha leaned over and retrieved the other two notes from beneath her bed, where they'd lain smooth and flat between the pages of her journal. She passed them to Darya.

Darya read each one aloud.

“‘You don't know how special you are. Lots of people don't know how special you are. But I do. And you are.'”

She put that one to the side.

“‘You don't know how beautiful you are, either.'” Darya glanced up. Natasha shrugged. Darya returned to the note. “‘You should smile more, Natasha. When you smile, it lights up your face.'”

She placed that one with the other. She lifted the most recent note and read it aloud: “‘Would you like to talk?'”

She set it down. She studied Natasha. “So?”

“So,” Natasha repeated.

“You either have a stalker or a secret admirer. Or both.” Darya put all three notes together, tapped them against her thigh, and returned the stack to Natasha. “
Do
you want to talk to him?”

“If they're from Benton, then yes,” she said. She bunched her bedspread in her hand. “But what if they're not? And what would I say to him?”

“Hmm,” Darya said. “Just to be clear—you swear you didn't write them yourself, right?”

“Darya!”

Darya arched her eyebrows. “Maybe you wrote them yourself and didn't even know it. Maybe you have a split personality.”

Natasha revised her opinion of Darya's new and caring personality. She picked up her notes, rose from the bed, and said, “I've totally got a split personality. You nailed it. And now would you
please leave
, like I've been asking you to all along?”

“Wait. I take it back.”

“Too late,” Natasha said stiffly.

Darya uncrossed her legs and stood up. “Okay, let me think. The notes
could
be from Benton. It's possible. He's not going out with anybody, and he travels between crowds, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” Natasha said.

“Sometimes he hangs out with the popular kids, sometimes he hangs out with the jocks.” She pinned Natasha with her stare. “He's friends with nerdy kids, too.”

“Like me? I'm nerdy?”

“Duh. And Stanley, his best friend.”

Natasha walked across her room and opened
her door. She wasn't rude. She wasn't defensive. (She hoped.) She just stood by her door and waited.

Darya rolled her eyes. “Have you told Ava? You should tell Ava. She's twelve now, you know.”

“Why yes, I do.”

“And she's sneaky, so she's good at figuring out other people's sneakiness.”

“Thanks for your input. Bye.”

Darya took her own sweet time strolling from the bed to the door. “Next weekend is the Spring Festival. Everyone will be there—we can hunt down Benton and, like, watch him.”

“Awesome plan. You should be a detective.”

Darya reached Natasha and paused. They were the same height, but not for long, Natasha feared. Soon Darya would be taller than she was.

“I think it's cool,” Darya said. “I wish someone would leave me secret love notes.”

Natasha started to reply, but stopped.

“What are you going to tell him?” Darya asked. “Yes, you want to talk, or no, you don't? And
how
are you going to tell him?”

Natasha felt ill. She had no idea.

“You could wear a shirt, maybe. We could use a Sharpie and write ‘yes' or ‘no' across it?”

“No thank you,” Natasha said faintly.

“Regardless, we need to stake out the scene
together
—you, me, and Ava—just in case the notes are from a stalker. I don't think they are, because they didn't give me a bad feeling. They didn't send off warning vibes, you know?”

Warning vibes? Stake out the scene? Darya would never talk like this in front of her friends. But here she was, talking exactly like this to Natasha.

“Ohhh,”
Darya said.

“What?” Natasha said.

“What about Molly? You're probably going to the Spring Festival with Molly.” She looked disappointed, but tried to cover it up. “What does Molly think about the notes?”

“I haven't told her.”

“You haven't?”

“I don't know
why
I haven't. I just . . . haven't. I probably should, huh?”

“Up to you,” Darya said neutrally.

“Molly's great,” Natasha said, all of a sudden feeling like a jerk.

“I know she is.”

“It's just, sometimes, she can be a little judgy.”

“I've never seen her be judgy.”

Natasha twisted the fingers of one hand with her other hand. Nothing about this conversation was going how Natasha would have thought.

“But it doesn't matter, because Molly isn't going to the Spring Festival,” she told Darya. “She's—”

Natasha frowned. Molly wouldn't be at the Spring Festival because . . .
ugh
. Why wouldn't Molly be at the Spring Festival again?

“Her cousin's bar mitzvah!” she exclaimed. “She's going to her cousin's bar mitzvah with her parents. She's going to be out of town for the whole weekend.”

“Huh,” Darya said.

“Yeah,” Natasha said, feeling even more like a jerk. Molly had told Natasha all about the bar mitzvah, and getting to go shopping to find a new outfit, and how she hoped her cousin's cute friend would be there. His name was Mason or Curtis, something like that. How had Natasha spaced that out?

Darya flipped her hair over her shoulders and shook her head so that her curls fell just the way she wanted. “All right, then. I'm glad we had this little chat. On Saturday, we'll go to the Festival.”

She strolled out of the room. From the hall, she turned back.

“Does this by any chance have to do with your
Wishing Day wishes?” Darya asked.

Natasha grew flustered. “You don't believe in Wishing Day wishes. You don't believe in magic, period.”

“Never said I did.”

“Then why does it matter?”

Darya regarded Natasha with what looked an awful lot like pity. “Because
you
do.”

I
t didn't take long for Darya to share the news about the notes with Ava. Darya dismissed the notion that magic was involved, however, since she dismissed the notion that magic existed. She insisted that Natasha simply hadn't seen whoever left her the notes.

“Exactly,” Natasha argued over Monday night's dinner. Aunt Vera was playing bridge at a neighbor's house. Aunt Elena had gone to the movies, she'd said, though she grew pink and couldn't come up with an answer when Darya asked her what she was seeing. Natasha assumed she simply wanted a night off, and she didn't blame her.

Papa sat at the head of the table, spooning vegetable soup into his mouth and letting their conversation swirl around him.

“I didn't
see
anyone because there wasn't anyone to
see
,” Natasha said. “Let's play a game of pretend, 'kay?”

“Enh,” Darya said.

“You girls, with your imagination games,” Papa said. He exhaled. “Klara had such an imagination. When you were younger, she'd get right down on the floor and play with you. Sometimes she was a queen, sometimes a king. Sometimes a donkey!”

“That's funny, Papa,” Ava said.

“She had an invisible friend when she was a girl. I didn't know her then, not really, but I heard about her later, Klara's invisible friend.” His eyes focused sharply and landed on Natasha. “Emily. That was her name. And she looked like you, Natasha. Klara said so once.”

Natasha's blood reversed directions in her veins. “N-no, Papa, I don't think so.”

“Imaginary friend, you mean,” Darya said. She tore off a second piece of bread. “An
invisible
friend—now that would actually be cool.”

Natasha bowed her head. She placed her hands on the table to steady herself.

Darya passed Papa the breadbasket. “Here, Papa. Have some more bread.” She looked quizzically at Natasha. “You said we were going to play a game of pretend.”

“You said ‘enh,'” Natasha croaked.

“So?”

Lots of people have brown hair and brown eyes
,
Natasha told Papa silently
.
You
have brown hair and brown eyes. Everyone says I look like you, you know.

“Hey,” Darya said. She snapped her fingers in Natasha's face.

Natasha blinked several times and took a long sip of milk. Her dizziness passed.

“Well . . . okay . . . look down,” she told Darya. “Do you see your fork?”

“Yes, because we're having soup, which means we don't need forks. There mine is, clean as a whistle.”

“That expression doesn't make sense,” Natasha said.

“
You
don't make sense.”

“Ha ha. Now watch.” Natasha grabbed Darya's fork. “Did you see me take your fork?”

“Nope,” Darya said.

“You did, too!” Ava said.

“Natasha, give Darya back her fork,” Papa said.

“Yes, Papa,” Natasha said. “Darya, here's your fork.”

“Cool. Thanks. Not that I
need
it . . .”

“But guess what?”

“What?”

“Those two seconds it took me to steal your fork?”

“Girls, don't steal each other's silverware,” Papa said.

“That's how long it took each note to appear. If someone had
been
there, I would have seen them.”

“Enh,” Darya said again. “You get lost in your thoughts sometimes, like someone else we know.” She jerked her chin at Papa, who was gazing into his empty soup bowl.

“She's not
that
bad,” Ava said. She patted Papa's hand. “No offense, Papa.”

“Hmm?” Papa said. “No, no offense taken.”

“Thank you, Ava,” Natasha said. “And I'm sorry for not telling you myself. I would have. Darya just got to you first.”

“A whole day later,” Darya commented.

“Ava, Darya is being annoying on purpose. Ignore her.”

“Or just
pretend
to ignore me,” Darya said. “Pretend you don't see me, like Natasha pretended not to
see her
secret admirer person of mystery
.” That last bit, she whispered loudly.

She reverted to her normal voice. “Which brings up an intriguing point. We think Benton left the notes, right? Or we hope he did.”

“Darya, not now,” Natasha said.

“Oh, whatever. Papa doesn't care.” She turned to Papa. “We love you, Papa.”

“We really do,” Ava said.

Papa's eyes teared up. “And I love you girls. So, so much.”

Darya got back to the task at hand. “But Natasha. If Benton left the notes, and yet Benton was
invisible
or whatever . . .” She spread her hands, palms up. “How's that supposed to work? Is Benton
your
invisible friend?”

Natasha stood. She collected her bowl, Papa's bowl, and her sisters' bowls. She took them from the table to the sink, and she grabbed the cake dish from the counter on her return trip. She'd made a buttermilk fudge cake, because Papa liked it. It was moist and crumbly and thick with frosting.

Ava tugged her arm when she came back, before she sat down. “I believe in magic. You know I do.”

“Thanks, Ava,” Natasha said.

“And I think the you-know-whats could have been written by you-know-who and
delivered
magically. Or something.”

“You don't need to talk in code,” Darya said.

“Darya,”
Natasha said, irritated. Yes, Papa was out of it. No, that wasn't news to anyone, even to Ava. But he was still Papa. He deserved their respect.

“Sorry,” Darya muttered. She glanced at Papa. “Sorry, Papa.”

“It's all right, just don't do it again,” Papa said automatically.

“I mean, no one ever said that boys don't have magic,” Ava went on.

“They don't,” Darya said.

“We don't know that for sure,” Ava said. “We don't know anything for sure.”

Natasha stood across from Ava, holding the cake plate. “You know, that's kind of true.”

“I tried telling you-know-who that”—Ava rolled her eyes and pointed to Darya—“but she wouldn't listen.”

“Tell me what?” Papa said.

All three girls swiveled their heads to look at him.

“Oh!” Ava exclaimed, turning red. “Papa, I didn't . . . I didn't mean—”

“That Darya's decided to eat more healthily,”
Natasha said. “That's what Ava didn't tell you.” She bypassed Darya in her loop around the table, lifting the cake plate up and over her head. “No buttermilk fudge cake for her, which means Ava gets double.”

“Yay!” Ava said.

“Hey!”
Darya protested.

“You're the one who said you didn't need your fork,” Natasha said.

Papa looked confused.

After cleaning up the dinner dishes, Natasha went to her bedroom. She lay on her bed, tummy down and elbows propped up, and wrote a story about a shy girl and a very cute boy. The shy girl didn't think the cute boy ever noticed her, but he did, and at their fall formal, he found her in the shadows and asked her to dance. He picked
her
over all the other girls.

He took her hand and led her to the middle of the gym,
she wrote.

Dots of light flickered over them, and Delilah thought about fireflies, and the smell of rain, and how strong Pete's hand felt on the small of her back.

He pulled her closer. “I'm going to kiss you now,” he said. “Okay?”

Delilah felt dizzy. Was this actually happening, or was it a dream?

“Yes,” she whispered. “Okay.”

His lips brushed hers, and every doubt fell away. Pete was real, the dance was real, the kiss was real. None of it would disappear.

Coming out of the story was like coming up for air. She felt dizzy, just like Delilah. Just like she had when Papa mentioned the name
Emily
—although Natasha didn't want to dwell on that.

Then the knowledge of what she'd done sunk in.

She picked up her pen.

THE END
, she wrote in big block letters, because she'd done it. For the first time in her life, she had finished a story. It had a beginning! And a middle! AND AN ENDING!

Her elation lasted for five minutes, a blaze of pride and accomplishment.

Then it died down, but a small, steady flame remained.

It was possible her story sucked. It probably did.
But she'd done it
. She'd started a story and made it all the way to the end.