Page 33 of Your Every Wish

Misty’s sprawled out on her living room floor when we get there, a pair of scissors in one hand, a pin cushion around her wrist on the other, and a ruler gripped between her teeth.

“Can you flatten that side down?” she asks but it comes out garbled with the ruler still in her mouth.

I walk around her, crouch down, and straighten out her pattern, which has curled up from the pink polka dot fabric beneath it. “You want me to pin it?”

“That would be great.” She sticks out her wrist so I can help myself to a few pins.

“What are you making?” Emma asks.

“My Halloween costume and it’s rather complicated, so I don’t have time to help you find your late father’s missing fortunes.”

I look at the pattern’s envelope on the coffee table, expecting a witch’s costume. The picture shows a flouncy flamenco number with at least twelve sets of ruffles and big poofy bell sleeves. Yep, it looks hella complicated.

On the dining room table is a sewing machine, a yardstick, a bolt of lace, a second pair of scissors, and a half-eaten apple.

“Help me up.” Misty puts down the ruler and scissors and holds up her arms so we can hoist her off the floor. “I need coffee. You girls want any?”

“Sure,” I say, though I don’t. I’ve already had my morning fill and will float away if I drink anymore.

I nudge Emma.

“Yes, please.”

“Let us help.” I start to follow Misty into the kitchen.

“Stay where you are. I’ve got it.” She returns a short time later with a silver tray laden with coffee service for three and a plate of sugar cookies, which she probably baked before even changing out of her pajamas, and sets it down on a side table in the living room.

“Excuse my mess. Fix yourself a cup and sit anywhere you can find a spot.”

Emma and I choose the sofa. Misty moves a stack of patterns from one of the easy chairs onto the floor and sinks in with her cup of coffee. “I should’ve stuck with last year’s costume. What are you girls going as?”

A real-life inmate , I think to myself.

“It’s a surprise,” Emma says and catches my eye, then gives a guilty little shrug of her shoulders.

Neither of us has given any thought to the Cedar Pines Halloween potluck, let alone our costumes.

But it’s futile to try to hide this fact from a soothsayer because Misty glances at both of us and shakes her head. “Did you find the golf bag?”

“No, we didn’t, and we searched the entire house.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” She snags a cookie and dunks it in her coffee.

“What’s in the bag?” Maybe this is all a waste of time. Something tells me it’s not but maybe I just want to believe. Maybe because it’s my last resort.

“You asked what the key went to. I told you,” she says so nonchalantly I want to smack her.

“Okay, let me start over—what’s in the bag?” I say between gritted teeth.

“The end to your troubles, my dear girl.” She rests her cup in a saucer on the coffee table and gets to her feet. “Break time is over. This dress isn’t going to make itself.”

“Misty, we really need your help here,” Emma says in that soothing voice of hers.

The one I imagine she writes in when she’s giving advice.

“We realize that Kennedy’s problems don’t amount to those of a parent of a missing child, but she owes a man a lot of money.

And if she doesn’t return that money to him within ten days, she’s .

. . well, she’s toast. All we’re trying to determine is whether our late father hid some money somewhere, money that can be used to pay off Kennedy’s debt.

I personally don’t think there is any hidden money.

But perhaps if you tell Kennedy that, she can move on, and we can make other arrangements. ”

That’s the thing. There are no other arrangements or options. Hidden money is my last resort. I’m stooping so low that I’m here, sitting in the middle of a double-wide, drinking coffee that I don’t want, begging a woman who claims to be a universal diviner to save my ass.

“There’s hidden money,” Misty says. “A lot of it. More than you can possibly imagine.”

My head pops up like a jack-in-the-box. Meeting Misty’s eyes, I try to gauge whether she’s bullshitting us, whether this is her idea of a prank. But I see no artifice there, no sleight of hand, no tell.

“How do you know?” Emma is the first to ask, echoing my own thoughts.

Show us proof.

“I’ve seen it multiple times,” she says so matter-of-factly that only the best con could carry off her earnestness. “First in a dream and then in visions. Like when Kennedy called me from his house. I saw it clear as day.”

“The money or the golf bag?” I say.

“Both. I haven’t figured out if they’re one and the same or separate. But they’re related.”

“And you saw them both at his house in La Jolla?”

“That’s where it gets fuzzy.”

I let out an audible sigh. She’s all over the map, one minute confident, the next minute “fuzzy.”

“Do you think you can lead us in the right direction?” Emma asks.

She plops back down into the easy chair. “And what’s in it for me? A missing child is one thing, helping you get rich is another. ”

“We’ll give you a share of the money,” I blurt, ready to promise anything.

“I don’t want your money. But there is something I do want.” She lets the words settle in the air for full effect. “In exchange for helping you, you have to promise not to sell Cedar Pines.”

“Ever?” Because that’s a mighty long time to be saddled with a useless trailer park that needs a shit lot of work.

I see her mind working as she ponders the question. “At least five years for one wish, ten years for two. All right, I’ll make it three. But that’s it.”

Does she think I’m fucking Aladdin?

“What if you’re wrong and the money doesn’t exist, and we don’t get rich?” I want to hedge my bets before I make any promises. Five years to hang onto this place is a big commitment. “Then the deal is off, right? We can sell before five years.”

“Then the deal is off,” she agrees.

“Wait a minute,” Emma says. “You said ten years.”

“That’s only if you go with the twofer. Okay, technically it’s a threefer because I threw in the third wish free of charge. Think of it as a baker’s dozen.”

My foot accidently on purpose kicks Emma’s leg. All we need Misty to do is find the money. Five years for a fortune is a trade I’m willing to make.

“Make Dex love me,” Emma says. “Can you do that?”

“I can’t make anyone do anything. I’m not a sorceress. But I can get inside his head and find out what makes him tick. Hopefully that’ll help find the missing ingredient. But once I find that it’s for good.” She holds Emma’s gaze. “It’s potent stuff. He’ll love you forever.”

I smack my hand against my forehead. Five more years of this money pit for Dex. Emma can do so much better. “And if he doesn’t, then we’re off the hook for ten, right?”

“Right,” Misty says.

“Okay, what do we do now?” I hear myself ask, realizing just how crazy this is. I’ve officially lost my mind.

“Find the golf bag,” Misty says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“I doubt we’ll be able to get back into Willy’s house again.” For all I know it’s already been auctioned off and the new owners are preparing to move in.

“Look, I can lead you to where you need to go but how you get there is your problem.”

On our walk home, Emma says, “I don’t think you should abandon the idea of applying for a loan. This thing with Misty is fun and all but it’s—”

“Ridiculous. Absolutely insane.”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “It’s not that I don’t believe her.

She definitely has some kind of sight or telepathy, or clairvoyance .

. . I mean, we’ve seen it with our own eyes, the way she can read our minds.

But the idea that she’s going to find a fortune that probably doesn’t exist is more than a little far-fetched. ”

“I know. What about Dex? You think she can work her magic there?”

“I doubt it. But it’s worth a try. Even if she can’t, at least I’m back where I started. You, on the other hand, have a deadline.”

I let out a long sigh. “Do you think Mr. Townsend can get us back into Willy’s house one more time?”

* * *

“Don’t you have at least one credit card that isn’t maxed out? Or one that has enough of a balance that I can add it to mine?” I ask Madge in a fit of desperation after our trip to Misty’s.

“Honey, if I did, I would’ve volunteered it from the start.

And if Max didn’t have this deal pending and didn’t have to worry about his books looking clean, he’d give you the money without hesitation.

Now tell me about Willy’s house. Surely there was something there that you could sell or hock.

The man could buy and sell Dubai. Was it incredible?

” Madge yawns, reminding me that it’s nearly midnight.

“Not really. The location, yes. Ocean views from every room. But the house was nothing to write home about, just a box really.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Willy I knew,” she says. “He always liked a little flash. He grew up poor, you know? That’s why money was so important to him.”

I’m not in the mood to hear another Willy Keil story. Or about Max’s nonexistent deal—the one that’s been “in the works” for three years now. Or how my mother can’t manage to scrounge up the money she stole in the first place. I’m not in the mood to hear how this is all on me.

“It’s late, Mom, I should turn in.”

“Busy day tomorrow, hon?”

“Yeah, busy day.”

“You know you could always sell that trailer park. What do you need it for anyway? I bet it’s worth a pretty penny. You can’t even buy a barn in California for less than a couple of million. Imagine what all that land is worth. We could buy a place here, you, me and Max.”

“Good night, Mom.”

“Good night, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow.”