Page 3 of With This Wish

Ten minutes later, I’m poking my fork around the dish in front of me. When I looked over the menu, I kind of knew what I was getting into food wise, but apparently I wasn’t quite as prepared as I thought I was. The grilled chicken salad seemed like the least innocuous item on the menu and I figured, hey, you can’t mess up a salad, but the contents of the bowl that’s currently staring me in the face is not what I’m used to. “Excuse me,” I say, flagging down my waitress. “Could you tell me why there’s cheese in my salad?”

The older woman with her faded black hair tied into a bun gives me a questioning look. “Because it comes with cheese,” she says before turning to help another customer, but I call out before she can get too far.

“But I ordered the grilled chicken salad,” I say, as if that should explain why I am having an internal crisis at the appearance of yellow strings of dairy sprinkled atop iceberg lettuce. I give another cursory poke with my fork and frown at it. I’ve had cheese in salad before, like feta or blue cheese, but never this. “Is this cheddar?”

The woman, who is clearly over my pickiness, drops the coffeepot she was wielding on the warmer behind her and reaches over to pat my hand. I look into her warm brown eyes and am shocked to not see annoyance, but patience and understanding in her expression instead. “It is cheddar, and it comes in every salad. If you’re lactose intolerant or truly prefer to not have it in there, I can bring you another, but I assure you that if you try it, you’ll like it,” she promises. Her smile is pleasant, and I decide to not make too big of a fuss.

With a shrug of my shoulder, I grab the side of vinaigrette I requested and give her a smile. “Why not? I can take a walk on the wild side,” I tell her. Before I can pour it over my salad, she stops me with a hand on my forearm and a slow shake of her head.

“Oh, honey. If cheese on salad is the wild side, you need to do a whole lot more living,” she tells me with a sad smile before reaching the counter behind her and grabbing another bottle. She plops it in front of me and I see that it’s ranch dressing, something I’m not sure I’ve ever tried in my entire life. “Use this instead. It’ll really blow your mind.” With a wink, she grabs her coffeepot and heads over to refill mugs for some of the other patrons.

I eye the bottle skeptically, but decide that in the spirit of trying new things, I’ll go for it. With a small smile at myself for stretching my comfort zone, I take the bottle and drizzle the creamy white liquid on my salad. Grabbing my fork, I take a little of everything into my mouth and groan as the spicy dressing and creaminess of the cheese hit my tongue. The chicken tastes perfectly grilled too, but it takes a back seat to the other more robust flavors hitting me as I chew. This foray into the wider culinary universe is proving to not be all bad, and I continue to eat my salad, making a mental note to add ranch dressing to my grocery list.

My server reappears and gives me a once-over, a slow grin playing at the corners of her mouth. “How’s the wild side treating you, hon?” she asks, handing me a napkin and gesturing to my chin.

I accept the cloth and wipe a glob of dressing from my face, nodding in thanks. “It’s not as scary as I thought it would be,” I admit with a smile. My eyes once again flick over to the fries on the plate near to me. They look good, and clearly this place has quality stuff since my salad is turning out better than I thought. I decide to throw my usual self-imposed dietary requirements out the window and just go after what I want. “Could I get an order of fries, please?”

The woman, who if my peek at her name tag is any indication, is the titular Fran who owns the cafe, smiles knowingly before reaching behind her to grab a small plate of golden sticks that look fresh from the fryer. “I had a feeling you might be wanting some of these,” she says, her eyes crinkling in the corners.

Blinking at her in disbelief, I huff a breath. “Are you a mind reader or something?” I ask, pulling the plate toward me and grabbing the ketchup bottle on the counter.

Her expression turns wistful. “Some people like to think so,” she says, giving me a small wink. “They go on and on about how this town is magic and that I must have gotten my powers of clairvoyance from drinking lake water or something.” She sighs and her head shakes to clear away the memory. “In reality, I’m just good at reading people, and I could tell it had been a while since you gave yourself permission to go after what you really wanted.”

I lean back in the vinyl stool, oddly unsettled by her astute assessment of me. “What gave you that impression?”

Fran’s shoulder shrugs nonchalantly and her easy smile returns. “Not sure really. Maybe it’s all tourists who come through here, but there just seems to be something a little more buckled up about people from the city. It’s like you all are so busy making plans for your lives that you don’t take the time to live it.”

“Wow,” I tell her, scratching my head. My finger snags on a rogue curl and I make a mental note to get my hair trimmed before I start at the office on Monday. “You really are good at reading people.”

“Maybe,” she says, her voice slow as molasses as she leans an elbow on the counter between us. “Or maybe I just think that a life that’s all hustle and bustle with no breaks for the little things, isn’t much of a life. Time is too fleeting to not spend it doing things that make us happy. Things like skipping stones in the lake, or gazing up at the stars on a clear night, or…” She points at the salad I have almost entirely eaten and smiles. “Or eating salad with cheese and ranch.”

My exhale is slow as I think about everything she just said. “While there is definitely not much cause to stargaze in the city, I don’t know that it’s all that different from here.” I was happy in Seattle, and enjoyed growing up in Denver. Didn’t I? As my mind sifts through memories of the past, the answer to that question becomes less and less certain. I thought I was happy, but the more I sit here and stare at my plate I fries, I wonder if maybe I’ve simply been going through the motions, following the plan for my life instead of living it.

“Maybe not, but I can still tell when someone needs to let loose a little, and you, Mister No Cheese on Salad, need to let loose,” she says. “I don’t know how long you’re in town, but you should take in the sights, hit some of the stores. You never know. You might just end up enjoying yourself a little.” With a polite nod, she pulls back to her full height before turning on her heel and walking down the counter to start chatting up another patron.

After polishing off my salad, every fry on my plate, and paying my bill, I decide to head into town and get a look at the other local businesses. Maybe it will be a colossal waste of time, but maybe Fran was right and I’ll end up enjoying myself a little. The cool air hits my face as I exit the café and I glance around, taking a deep breath and enjoying the invigorating feel of the fresh mountain air as it fills my lungs. Looking around for my next destination, I spot a turquoise awning with the word “Hodgepodge” written in white letters staring at me from across the street. My body feels oddly drawn to the small shop. Hodgepodge could literally mean anything, but I feel compelled to go there. It seems like as good a place as any to start my little adventure, so I head over, hoping to enjoy myself for little while before my plans start calling again.

Chapter Three

Maya

Lunch with Carter went better than expected. After our conversation in the workshop earlier, I fully expected the meal we shared behind the counter, as tourists wandered in and out of the shop, to be nothing but awkward, stilted conversation, but it was surprisingly good. My brother apologized for not going to the lighting festival with me, and after telling him no apology was necessary, we spoke a little about our plans for the evening and following day. Carter, of course, plans to pack a bag and camp out near the lake, no doubt staring up at the stars and talking to our dad like I know he does when he thinks no one is watching. They were close, bonded by a love of the same craft and an inexplicable love of brunost, a Norwegian cheese byproduct they would put on waffles. The two of them tried to convince me it tasted like caramel, and while it’s not horrible, it doesn’t compare to the real thing. My mom didn’t like it either, so the two of us stuck to the more traditional waffle topping of maple syrup. She and I had a similar closeness that Carter and my dad seemed to have, but instead of bonding over woodworking and foreign food, we would go looking for artisans to feature in the store and she would tell me all about how the town was filled with magic.

My mother was a fanciful person. She believed in the inherent good in others and that magic existed in ways that most people didn’t realize. Her superstitions were few, but she always believed that putting good out into the world came back to you, and that making a wish in the fountain at the town square would ensure it would come true. The first one always sounded nice, and I try to put good out into the world by being a polite, thoughtful, mostly positive person. I have been slacking on that front the last two years, losing myself in my grief a little too much to care about anything other than getting through the day, but I want to do better, even with things like my mom’s idea of wishing in the fountain. Needing a little more magic in my life, I’m willing to try and believe it now. When I was younger, the whole thing was a little harder to swallow.

“I don’t think that’s true, Mommy,” I had said to her when I was seven. “The fountain is broken. I wished for a pony and I didn’t get one.”

My mom just smiled and gave me a knowing look. “Didn’t you, though?” she asked as we bundled together waiting for the holiday lights that year. “We went down to the Miller’s Farm and you got to ride that small horse.”

“But I didn’t get to keep it,” I argued, sniffling in the cold.

My mom rubbed her gloved hand up and down my back to reassure me. “The wish doesn’t always come when or how you think it will, but it always comes,” she told me.

From then I tried to keep track of my wishes and whether they came true in any form, but usually by the time January rolled around, I had forgotten all about the wish I made in November. As I grew up, I started just wishing to be happy, figuring that no matter how that wish came true, the result would be good. And I was happy … for a while. When my parents died, I stopped wishing altogether. Attending the lighting festival was too painful, and it’s difficult to believe in magic when the two people who loved you unconditionally are gone.

Our Aunt Sue called earlier today to check in since she won’t be able to make it to town this year, and I consider her family, but she has her own life to worry about. She cares, I know she does, but it’s not the same as having Mom and Dad here. My brother cares too, but he’s going through the same trauma I am, and as close as we are, we’re also different people. Where Carter needs more time, I’m ready to move on. Too much time was spent disappearing into myself, and I want to get back to who I used to be. That doesn’t mean forgetting my parents, but instead I can honor them by living my life to the fullest.

The first part of doing that involves attending the lighting festival. This year, it will be a little different, not only because my parents aren’t there, but because I contacted the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and floated the idea of providing hot chocolate, apple cider, and cookies to people who come to the holiday lighting festival. The accident that killed my parents was caused by a drink driver, a man who had started drinking at the festival and kept the party going all the way through the next morning when he swerved into oncoming traffic, causing my parents to veer off the road and into a tree. The fact that my parents died on impact brings little solace. Even knowing that the man who drove under the influence was held responsible only brings the comfort of knowing he won’t make the same mistake again. To prevent anyone else from having to lose a loved one, I thought that providing free drinks at the festival and having it sponsored by MADD could go a long way to helping me feel better, and I’m excited to volunteer tonight. When I’m done, I can watch the lights come on, enjoy the sights and people, and maybe I’ll make that wish I thought of earlier. It’s time to start living, and it might be time to start believing in magic again.

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