Wished

Chapter 3

3

The best thing about chopping onions is that no one asks why you’re crying. You can stand in the middle of a busy kitchen with tears streaming down your cheeks and no one thinks there’s anything to worry about.

My knife slices through onion number twelve, seesawing on the cutting board as it slides through the crisp flesh. The spray of onion juice mists the air and its pungent scent sets off another stream of stinging tears. My eyes burn, and the sharp tang of onion bites at my sore throat. There’s a salty taste on my lips and my cheeks are wet.

I chop the onion with a quick motion of my wrist, creating perfect slender slices. The reassuring thunk, thunk, thunk of the knife hitting the wood sets a soothing rhythm. When I’m done I swipe the slices off the cutting board and into a large bowl.

The tiny kitchen of our two-bedroom apartment is overly warm. There’s fresh bread baking in the oven, kicking out heat, and a pot of homemade stock is simmering on the stove, sending warm steam into the air, scented with thyme, oregano, and summer savory.

This kitchen is barely big enough for one person, but somehow we always manage to cram at least three people into its tiny confines.

Our apartment was built in the 1950s, post-war, when efficiency and utility were more important than beauty. There was an architectural style called brutalism that influenced the development of many, many hideously hollow-eyed, soulless buildings, where rooms were tiny, often without windows, and without light.

I think architecture reflects the state of a nation’s soul and its ideals. If a country aspires to beauty and elevation of the human soul, you can see it in its monuments, its churches, its government buildings, and its schools. But if a country seeks to debase, to discourage, and to suppress; if the nation has lost the belief that humanity should always seek beauty and love, that we can aspire to more—well, you can see that in the architecture too. If you want to know the state of a country, look at what they’re building.

I think Geneva has some of the most romantic architecture in the world. Just look at the beauty of the Barone Estate. The elegant stone buildings. The spires of churches. The stone chateaus lining the lake.

Ignore the post-war concrete boxes.

My mom moved us into our apartment after Emme’s dad left. They had an explosive marriage. They met in Detroit at a car show, married after one week, and we’d packed up and moved to Geneva a day after the wedding. My mom claims she married Emmanuel because she was still gripped by the grief of my dad dying. She wasn’t thinking straight; she only wanted to feel something besides the yawning pain of my dad’s absence.

She succeeded.

My mom’s marriage to Emmanuel lasted six years. It consisted of mortars and shells lobbed over a crumbling brick wall of passion. Yelling, throwing dishes, pounding against locked doors—they were all part of the great marriage war. Emme was born six months before he left, and thankfully, she doesn’t remember any of it. I remember too much of it. If I’d been a genie then, I would’ve wished Emmanuel away.

However, when I was seventeen, he finally left in a blitzkrieg of red-faced shouting to go and raise shrimp in Vietnam, where another woman waited with open arms.

We moved to our apartment. It was dirt cheap. It was safe. It was quiet.

It was also ugly, boxy, and post-war. However, my mom had just come out of a war, so it matched her mindset. Regardless, we’ve been here eight years, and now the tiny square rooms, the tiny kitchen, and the windowless bedrooms aren’t so dismal anymore.

The walls are painted creamy yellow to capture the slivers of light that fall through the narrow living-room windows. I sewed bright red couch and chair covers to hide the old, lumpy gray fabric Emmanuel preferred. We have tie-dye throw pillows, colorful pillar candles, and Emme’s watercolors, which hang on a clothesline in the living room, are taped over the kitchen sink, and are tacked to our plywood cupboards.

It’s a home.

And someday, if my mom gets her wish, we’ll leave our post-war apartment and find ourselves a stone cottage in the countryside to better match the hope my mom has for our futures.

“All right,” my mom says, gripping my chin in her hand and tilting my face up to the kitchen’s fluorescent light. “I can’t take it anymore. Why are you crying?”

I can’t deny that I’m crying since tears are, at this very moment, running down my cheeks. But I can make an excuse.

“Onions.” I gesture to the bowl full of the chopped remains of at least fifteen onions.

My mom huffs. It’s one of her superpowers. She can load an entire conversation into a single exhale.

She shakes her head, and I realize that I was wrong. Onion tears don’t disguise real tears. Or it’s that you can’t fool your own mother. My mom’s eyes are sharp, and even when she’s exhausted from pulling a double shift she’s not fooled.

“Fine. It’s not just the onions.”

“That’s what I thought.” My mom nods. She looks a lot like me, except she’s cut her dark, curly hair in a short bob and she has more stress lines on her forehead than any fifty-year-old deserves.

Emme looks up from the watercolor she’s painting. She’s at the kitchen table, a paintbrush in her hand, a purply brown glass of paint water at her elbow, and a large sheet of paper with a watercolor lake and sailboat in process. She’s only eight, but she’s already a better artist than me. The kid has skills. It’s one of her dreams to go to the French Riviera, set up an easel, and paint to her heart’s content.

It’s probably spurred by my mom’s ardent love of Saint-Tropez—a place she’s never been, but dreams of visiting. Some day.

A glop of gray paint drips from Emme’s paintbrush and splats on the sky. She ignores it. I’m sure she’ll turn it into a seagull or something.

“Anna? Are you sad?” she asks, her eyes wide and worried.

Aww. My heart melts a bit and the stupid, stinging onion tears fall faster. I love my little sister too much.

“No,” I say, sniffing and wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand.

When Emme wrinkles her nose and my mom huffs, I say, “Maybe a little.”

“Why?” Emme asks.

That’s the question, isn’t it?

“Well ...” I glance at my mom, then I decide to avoid answering by dropping a large pat of butter into a thick-bottomed pan. I rotate the pan over the blue flame of the stove, watching the butter slide across the metal. The smell of the melting butter mixes with the stock and the onions. It’s buttery sweet and soothing.

My mom and sister are still waiting for my answer.

What should I tell them? The man I fell in love with at first sight three years ago hates me? No. The man whose house I clean thinks I’m a thief? No. Dorene fired me? Yeah. I’ll find a new job, don’t worry, we’ll all be okay? Sure.

“Well, you see?—”

I’m cut off by a loud knock at the front door, then the creak of its opening. We never lock our door at mealtime. Any neighbor who is hungry—be they kid, adult, or grandparent—can drop in for a plate of whatever we’re cooking. Our herby stocks and caramelizing onions are famous for drawing in all sorts of interesting people.

Dorene blows into the kitchen, two bottles of burgundy in her hands. She’s changed into a frilly skirt, a long top, and her long, gray-streaked hair is loose around her shoulders. She swings the bottles and then clinks them together.

“Did you tell them I fired you yet?” she asks.

“Fired!” My mom sends me a stunned look.

In response I drop the fifteen desiccated onions into the sizzling butter. They pop and crack loudly and set off a pungent sweet-onion odor.

“What’s fired?” Emme asks, dipping her paintbrush into the blue paint and swirling it around.

“It means Anna doesn’t work for me anymore. I canned her. Sacked her. Discharged her. Terminated! Axed! Fired!”

“Anna, why didn’t you say anything?” My mom reaches across the sizzling onion pan and squeezes my shoulder. “I had no idea. You should’ve told me.”

“Wine?” Dorene asks, holding out the bottles.

A hot flush works its way across my wet cheeks. “You know, you don’t have to be so cheeky about it.”

Dorene lifts her eyebrows as she takes in my onion-tear-streaked cheeks and red flush. “Well. I thought I’d shuffle us past the embarrassment and resentment phase and move us into the ‘wasn’t that time I sacked you so funny?’ stage.”

“It happened twenty minutes ago. You’d think you’d give me a minute.”

“I did. I gave you twenty.” She holds out the bottles again. “Take the wine.”

“You literally just fired me.”

“Well.” She shrugs. “It had to be done.”

My mom lets out a loud huff and crosses her arms over her chest. Even though she’s short, petite, and soft-faced, she’s always been able to look intimidating.

“Dorene. Why did you fire my daughter?”

I grab a corkscrew from a drawer and sink it into the first bottle. Wine sounds good.

My mom glares at the corkscrew. I have to give it to her, she looks ready to take a meat cleaver to the bottle.

“Well, Janice.” Dorene says, addressing my mom. “That’s what you do when your employee attempts to steal a million-franc necklace from a client.” She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. “Stealing is poor form.”

My mom swings toward me, and I wince as I pull the cork free. The wine opens with a loud pop.

I refuse to look at my mom.

“I already told you,” I say. “I didn’t steal it.”

“Yes. You were just holding it in your pocket for a moment. I understand,” Dorene says.

The silence is a bit too awkward, so I take a moment to splash a large glug of wine into the sizzling onions. They steam and hiss as the wine soaks in. A fragrant cherry and pepper perfume rises in a cloud as I shake the pan.

“What are you making?” Dorene asks. She leans over the pan and sniffs.

“Onion soup.”

“Mmm.” Dorene reaches into the cupboard above her and pulls out four bowls.

My mom watches her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“You—” My mom cuts herself off, shakes her head. “You?—”

“Got fired.” I nod.

My mom smacks her palm against the counter. “Anna. You couldn’t have stolen that necklace!”

“I know. I didn’t,” I say, wanting to make it clear. My little sister is listening, her head tilted, her body still. She’s painting the sail of the sailboat in a soft orange. She’s pretending to concentrate, but I know she’s listening to every nuance, every breath, every word.

I never want her to think less of me. Sure, Max thinks I’m a criminal. Dorene thinks I made a regrettable, stupid mistake and I’m too embarrassed to admit it. I don’t know what Emme would think.

“I didn’t,” I say again, stirring a ladleful of stock into the caramelized onions. “I closed the box. I didn’t touch it. But when Max came into the library, somehow it was in my pocket. I don’t know how it got there. But I swear I never touched it.”

“Of course you didn’t,” my mom says almost angrily. She takes the bottle of wine and fills three glasses. “Last week you took the bus back to the grocery when you realized they undercharged by two francs. Last month you called the electric company and told them they forgot to include the service fee in our bill. When you were in fifth grade and you saw your teacher marked a problem right that was wrong, you told him to reduce your grade. You don’t have it in you to steal or lie! In fact, I’ve always found your adherence to honesty somewhat inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient?” I ask, stunned.

“Sometimes it’d be nice to accept the extra two francs as a mistake gift.”

“But it’s not. There’s no such thing as a mistake gift. It’s not right?—”

“See?” My mom shrugs. “You’re just like your father. I won’t believe it.” She turns to Dorene. “You shouldn’t believe it either. You shouldn’t have fired her.”

Dorene takes a glass of wine and swallows half in one gulp. “Sorry. It was in her pocket. Doesn’t matter if she’s as pure as Mother Theresa. The girl tried to steal from a client.”

I dump the sizzling onions into the stock and the herby liquid bubbles at the addition. Then I turn back to my mom and Dorene squaring off in the kitchen.

I’m about to say something when Emme waves her paintbrush in the air. A few drops of blue water fling across the kitchen and land on the cracked white tiles.

“I know,” she says, waving her paintbrush. “Anna, I know!”

“What?” I ask, smiling at her, because both of her dimples are in full effect and she’s bouncing in her chair.

“You didn’t put it in your pocket?—”

“I know. I didn’t,” I agree. “Stealing is wrong.”

She nods. She waves her paintbrush like a wand and more water drops rain onto her sheet of paper. “It got in your pocket ’cause of magic.”

She smiles at me and gives one last wave of her paintbrush.

My mom and Dorene, who were engaging in a hissed back-and-forth argument, stop and stare at Emme.

My sister looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to confirm her theory. I think about the golden, breath-held feeling in the library. The strange allure of the necklace. The wish.

“Maybe it was,” I say. “Maybe that’s all it was. Mischievous magic.”

I say this to make Emme feel better. For me, though, I don’t want it to be magic. Not any kind. I took my wish back.

“When I told you to ask Max Barone on a date, I didn’t expect you to go to such lengths to catch his attention,” Dorene says, taking another sip of her wine. “It reminds me of when I stole that French politician’s Bugatti. I did it while he was watching. Completely naked. Now, that is the proper way to steal from a man. It’ll get you a proposal every time.”

My mom sighs.

“The man was naked?” Emme asks.

“No. I was!” Dorene lifts her glass in a toast. When she sees it’s empty she frowns and pours herself another.

“Soup’s ready,” I say. I glance at the clock. “Bread too.”

“Have I successfully ushered us into the post-awkward phase of your firing?” Dorene asks brightly.

“No,” my mom says. “I oughtta light your movie collection on fire and toss it out the window.”

“Yes,” I say, sending my mom a quelling glance. “It’s all right, Dorene. I understand. I would’ve done the same if I were you.”

“Good. What will you do now?” Dorene asks, setting the bowls on the table.

Emme has finished her watercolor. I take it and look at the shifting blues of the water and the vivid yellow sun shining on the orange sailboat. The paper is soggy, but the picture is lovely.

“I like it,” I tell her. I set it on the little makeshift drying rack at the end of the counter. Then I turn to Dorene. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I guess I’ll eat soup, then I’ll help do the dishes, then Emme and I will finish her science project, and then I’ll go to bed.”

Dorene lets out a disgruntled humph. “You forgot ‘drink all this wine and get drunk, casting slurs at the heartless boss who fired you.’”

“Sounds good to me,” my mom says, putting the round, golden artisan loaf on the table. The bread steams and lets out the perfect fresh-baked scent.

“Or we could cuss out that nasty Maximillian Barone,” Dorene says. “Did you know he threatened to call the police if I didn’t remove my overinflated ego from his residence immediately? He asked if I needed him to call a tow truck to help.”

I let out a snort and set my elbows on the table. Grinning, I ask, “Did you stand up for me?”

“Maybe,” she says. “Still fired you though.”

“What did you say?” I ask, trying to picture Max and Dorene going toe to toe.

She looks toward the ceiling, then a wide smile rolls over her face. “I said, ‘You probably put the necklace in her pocket so you could play poke the piggy.’”

“You didn’t,” my mom says, then she gets a considering look on her face. “Maybe he did. I heard he’s a womanizer.”

“He is not,” I say, pressing my hand to the center of my forehead.

Dorene winks, relishing her retelling. “ Then I told him I’d cleaned his place for ten years, and if he didn’t realize what a good thing he had—meaning me, naturally—he was an idiot.”

“Then what?” my mom asks.

Dorene takes another sip of wine. “He said, ‘Leave.’ I said, ‘Stop playing games and tell me you love me.’ He said, ‘You’re deluded.’ I said, ‘Stop flirting.’ He said, ‘You’re worse than the other one.’ I said, ‘So you do want to take her on a date.’ That’s when he offered to call the tow truck.”

I let out a pained moan.

My mom pats my back. “They’re hiring for the night shift at work. The stockroom. I could put in a word?”

I nod. “Sure.”

“Can we talk about my science project now?” Emme asks, clearly done with the conversation.

“Of course,” I say. “Did you finish your poster? And did you find the perfect potato for your battery?”

My mom’s hand rubs a slow circle over my back.

“It’ll be okay,” she says quietly, and I know she’s thinking about how tight things are for us. How tight they always are. Fourteen years after he died, my mom’s still paying my dad’s medical bills. Eight years after he left, she’s still paying for Emmanuel’s bad decisions.

I pay my part of the rent, help with utilities and groceries. If my mom didn’t have my help, she and Emme wouldn’t even be able to afford our little post-war box.

In the morning I’ll find a new job. For all that Dorene jokes and makes light of the situation, I know she won’t bring me back on. Her trust is gone. She can’t afford to employ someone who might be a liability.

On the bright side, I’ll be so busy scrambling I won’t have a moment to think about the way Max looked at me when he told me he never wanted to see me again. I won’t even have to think about what it felt like when a dream smashed into the pavement and a wish came crashing down in flames.

For years I thought I had put that hope behind me. I didn’t know how painful it’d be to feel that final glimmer wink out.

After the dishes are done and Emme’s science project is finished and she’s sent to bed, my mom, Dorene, and I finish both bottles of wine. Then Dorene brings out the cognac and I get gloriously, wonderfully, stupidly drunk.

I decide my life is better without Max Barone. My world is better without wishes. Everything is better without the pain and hope of love.

At midnight I stumble to my tiny, windowless bedroom and fall flat on my mattress. I’m sprawled on my stomach, my arms spread wide. I’m floating, the room is spinning, and when I close my eyes, all I can see is Max looking like he wants to kiss me with rough, punishing, urgent need.

“I wish . . .” I whisper, my voice a soft slur. “I wish I never loved you. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to hurt. To want you so much.”

I bury my face in my soft quilt—the one my mom made from my old T-shirts. I close my eyes again, falling into the spinning, swirling darkness of the night.

“I take it back,” I say. “I take it back.”

I’m not exactly sure what I’m taking back. My wish that I never loved Max, or my wish that he loved me and was my husband.

Either way. I take it back.

I fall asleep floating up to the stars on a vibrant blue river of light.