Wishful Thinking Read online

  “So why doesn’t she just leave us alone?” Rory demanded. “I’ve had enough of her gifts, anyway. Who wants to sounds like a bird when they try to sing?” She opened her mouth to demonstrate and let loose with a nightingale warble that made the waitress passing by stare. Cass kicked her under the table and she shut up abruptly.

  “We’ve been over this time and again. Anyone with even a drop of fairy blood gets assigned a fairy godmother—kind of like being assigned an attorney in court if you can’t afford one. The Fairy Council would have her wand if she stopped at least pretending to keep an eye on us,” Phil said grimly. “So we’re as stuck with her as she is with us. The FG is here to stay so I need to decide on a wish.”

  It was surprisingly hard to keep coming up with wishes that wouldn’t backfire and ruin your life, as they had all discovered the hard way. Rory had once wished to be able to talk to dogs, and had been turned into a Schnauzer—not at all what she’d had in mind. Phil and Cass had an awful time hiding the disaster from their excitable Nana. They’d had to use their allowances to buy their baby sister dog food until their fairy godmother had finally bothered to show up and reverse her badly cast magic. And that was one of the lesser birthday wish disasters Phil could remember.

  “What about a good parking spot everywhere you go?” Rory suggested.

  “Did it.” Cass raised a hand. “That was what I wished last year. We never go shopping without each other so that would be a wasted wish. Speaking of which, when are we going to go look for a new bathing suit for your office beach party, Phil? You know your old one is a write off because Nana accidentally bleached it.”

  “Can’t be tomorrow because Christian probably has something planned for my birthday.” Phil coughed self-consciously and her sisters let it pass. “And I can’t do it Tuesday either. Maybe Wednesday since the pre-Fourth of July beach party is on Thursday.” She took a sip of wine. “Now, come on—back to the wishes.”

  “Wish that your tea will always be hot, no matter how long you let it sit,” Rory suggested.

  “I did that my freshman year of college during finals when I was taking a summer semester. I didn’t want to have to keep getting up to steep a fresh pot while I was studying,” Phil said. It had been one of her better wishes, actually. One of the few she didn’t regret and hadn’t had to beg their fairy godmother to reverse. Simple wishes worked the best, they had found. The more complicated a wish got, the more room for disaster there was.

  “Well, what about—?”

  “Excuse me, ladies.” Their waiter, a nice-looking young man with a neatly clipped mustache and dark hair, was standing at Phil’s elbow with a covered tray. He leaned toward her confidentially and she nearly groaned when he half lifted the lid and she saw what was on it.

  “I heard you talking about a birthday and thought the lady might want dessert,” he said, smiling at her politely. “Compliments of the house, of course.”

  “Of course,” Phil said weakly, knowing there was no point in protesting.

  “Ooo, what is it?” Rory, who had an insatiable sweet tooth, leaned over to look at the tray.

  “What do you think it is?” Cass demanded. “It’s what it always is.”

  “Oh.” Rory looked disappointed and both sisters said in unison, “Éclair.”

  “Well…yes.” The waiter lifted the tray completely, looking faintly surprised. He deposited the cold dish with its chocolaty, creamy treat in front of Phil, who tried to suppress a shudder at the sight.

  She had made an ill thought-out birthday wish at the age of eight that she could have an éclair every day for the rest of her life. And ever since, no matter where she was or what she was doing, at some point before the clock struck midnight and the new day began, someone offered her an éclair. It might be a waiter, a family member or even a complete stranger on the street, but come what may, she got her éclair even though she had long since become thoroughly sick of them.

  Once she had locked herself in the bathroom for the entire day and refused to come out, trying to avoid the gooey desert. It hadn’t worked—the magic had compelled Cass to go to the bakery and use her allowance to buy one, even though she very much didn’t want to. She had shoved it under the bathroom door complaining bitterly about people who didn’t face up to the consequences of their wishes. Phil had never tried to hide from her daily éclair again.

  Thanks goodness, she thought, looking down at the chocolate and cream confection, that she hadn’t wished that she could actually eat an éclair every day of her life or she would have had to become bulimic by now. As soon as the waiter left she shoved the plate towards Rory who dug in philosophically. Chocolate was chocolate, as far as her little sister was concerned.

  She glanced at her watch and saw that their pre-birthday planning session was almost over and she still hadn’t gotten any good wish ideas. She had to think of something good, something small, something that wouldn’t change her life forever…

  Suddenly a muffled rendition of “Pachelbel’s Canon” began to resound from inside her sensible black purse.

  “Hey, Phil, your purse is ringing,” Cass said smugly. Her own phone rang the X-men theme and Rory’s changed according to who was calling her. Phil dug the cell out of her purse and glanced at the number.

  “It’s Christian. I’d better go.”

  “Honestly, before I’d let a man order me around like that…” Cass grumbled. Rory just shrugged, her mouth full of éclair.

  “He’s not ordering me—we have plans. And if you hadn’t spent the whole strategy session dishing, I’d have a plan too,” Phil groused. Her magically induced mild temperament insured that she never completely lost her cool, but she came closest with her annoying younger sister.

  “Whatever. You better get the phone before Christian has a coronary. You know how he gets when he has to wait for anything,” Cass said, raising an eyebrow at her.

  Phil flipped open the phone.

  “Hey, babe.” Christian’s voice filled her ear. “Look, I don’t like to rush you when you’re with your sisters but you know we have a big night planned tonight.”

  “Hi, hon.” Phil suppressed a small sigh. She had gotten upset with her sisters for saying that she was always out “entertaining” her fiancé’s important clients but it was the truth. Sometimes she wished that things could go back to the way they’d been before Christian graduated law school and got his job as a hotshot attorney. As crazy as it sounded, she kind of missed the nights when they just sat home and ate sandwiches together because they couldn’t afford anything else. At least then they’d had time to talk—to really connect. In the past year since Christian had been working so hard all day and entertaining clients all evening, she felt like she hardly knew him anymore.

  Phil pushed her disloyal thought to the back of her mind and tried to sound happy. “So who are we entertaining tonight? And where are we going?” she asked brightly.

  “We’re taking out Heidi and George Ghent. And I made reservations for four at Berns.” He laughed and Phil winced. Berns was one of the most expensive and exclusive steak houses in Tampa. The restaurant had dry aged steaks and a wine list that was supposedly unequaled anywhere in the country. “Couldn’t have afforded that this time last year, huh, Philly-babe?” Christian continued. “Gotta love that expense account. But as my senior partner says, the client is always right and that’s where Ghent wanted to go. This could be a very important account for us.”

  “Sounds…wonderful,” Phil said, hoping he couldn’t hear the hesitation in her voice. It seemed like every client represented an important account but she had never dreamed that Christian would spend as much time wining and dining prospective clients as practicing law. Certainly that wasn’t what she hoped to do when she got through law school herself. Phil intended to be a civil rights attorney and stand up for people whose rights were being trampled on. Somehow she didn’t think most of her clients would be bigwigs who demanded to be taken to the most expensive restaurants in town.