The Wish Mechanics

How to Make Love an Not Turn to Stone-3

“Her what?”

“Her mean right hook. The girl knows how to throw quite the punch. Oh. She hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?”

“About her warrant?”

“I know about that. She was taken in with everyone in that big bar fight.”

“She wasn’t just taken in. She started it. Best fight I ever saw. In a bar or otherwise. Two monsters, absolute thugs, wouldn’t leave me alone. Your lover girl got all up in them. She’s very protective.”

“Michaela started all that? I just don’t see it.”

“On any given day I’m with you. But she was out for the first time since she’d put her son in the ground.”

“Her son?”

“A mother shouldn’t have to ever bury her child. Especially when they’re killed by a monster like the ones you represent day in and day out. How much do you charge to represent someone who’s killed because they’ve had too much to drink behind the wheel?”

“I didn’t know.”

“I see that. Now you see why she started a fight. And hit one of the creeps so hard he fell. Fell and hit his head just right that he cracked his skull.”

“I didn’t know the charge she was running from was so serious. And that—”

“Now you know. Wonder why she never told you.”

Rockstar rambles on but Francois is barely listening. It takes all of his composure to not break into a run. She’s a monster who only cares for Michaela so long as she is useful to her. It dawns on him he was wrong to think of sending her back to them and their shallow world. He was wrong to let her find her own way out of the mess. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable. She just needed help. Help being ready to deal. And not having to face it alone.

He excuses himself to go to the restroom and exits the warehouse. He is going home to Michaela. He’s going to move her into the house and he is going to tell her he was wrong. Monday morning he is going to arrange to have her case taken care of.

On the way to the ferry he stops and picks up a bunch of red roses at the first flower stand he passes. Sitting on the ferry he has a better idea. When it docks he leaves the roses behind and stops at the merchant who sold him his flower beds and purchases a heartvine bulb. Much better than roses.

Michaela is waiting for him on the front porch and she is holding a heartvine bulb, too. She’s had the same idea and has purchased one, too. Once planted the vines grow together, binding the host planters. Changing them. Joining them. Irrevocably. There is no divorce after heartvine. No cutting the roots out. You are bonded forever. Heartvine flowers bloom once a year and only the host couple can see the bloom of their plant.

They kiss. Michaela leads him outside. As they are tearing off each other’s clothes she grabs the goggles from the box on the patio. She leads him past the lawn to the winding stairs, hewn from the jagged stone cliff, that descend to the beach. They make love on the sand as giant lizards crawl back and forth past them. When the lizards look upon him Francois feels his body wanting to change. Wanting to turn to stone. The lenses are working but the feeling is not like he expected. He hadn’t expected…pleasure. More basilisks come. And ignore them as they traverse the sand to the rocks jutting into the water and eat the dark-green algae. Michaela wonders if this is the reason they are here. The algae. Maybe there is nothing mystic about why they are here at all. She climbs on top of Francois and takes him again. The bats are out and fill the sky with fire. Michaela takes it as a sign. A sign never to lose him. To get her s**t together. To take care of her court case, herself. Somehow, everything is going to be okay. She celebrates by teasing Francois; pulling on his goggles.

“Don’t you want to turn to stone? Don’t you want to turn to stone,” she says.

“Whatever you want,” he says. “Anything for you.”

Later as they are lying there on their backs in the sand watching the bats, a big basilisk returns from the rocks. Its tail dragging in the sand makes a hissing sound as it passes.

“How was the party?” Michaela asks.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m taking care of your case. Monday we’re going to court.”

Michaela holds his hand tighter as the sky fills with fire.

On Monday morning they take the ferry to the city together. The plan is for Michaela to meet Rockstar at one of her galleries, then after lunch come to court to meet Francois after he has arranged for a lawyer for her. One of his colleagues. It is too personal for him to handle himself. He’s too close to it. Then they are going to go home to continue moving and to get ready to plant their vines.

Michaela is late for court. Francois delays the proceeding and waits in the hall watching his phone.

At 3 p.m. she texts him. “I’m with Rockstar. One of her friends’ beach house up the coast. An impromptu party.”

“A party? Now?” he texts. “I’ve set everything up. You are due in court.”

“Take care of it. Please. I have to do this.”

“You have to do this,” he texts.

He can’t believe he is having this fight with her. Again. Here. Now. Via text.

“You told me I was the best and I’m meant to do this,” she texts. “So I’m doing it.”

“I didn’t mean you should throw everything away by going for it now.”

“You believing in me meant so much to me. Don’t take that away.”

“Do you want to go to jail? Do you want to remain a fugitive forever? I’m doing what you wanted me to do and you’re just running away.”

Francois does not hear from her the rest of the day. Nor the rest of the evening. Or night.

The next morning he does not check on the heartvines they have carefully wrapped in fertilized wet towels for planting. He goes to the rock wall.

When Mrs. G sees him coming she says something sarcastic and challenging to him, then ceases when she sees his face.

“You poor boy,” she says. “You can’t love someone who is hell bent on self-destruction. You can’t. No one can.”

“You were right,” he says. “You tried to warn me.”

“I hate it,” she says. “I hate to see you like this.”

“I don’t understand,” he says. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore if I do.”

Francois takes out his phone.

“Do not come back,” Francois texts to Michaela.

There is no reply.

“Never come back,” he adds.

Then he steels himself to go to work.

Two days later Michaela texts him.

“You gave me a gift. The gift of your belief in me. Belief that I was the best. You helped show me what I was meant to do. Why does it feel like you are taking that back?”

Francois does not reply. He makes it through the work week without replying, though he often wants to. On Saturday he closes up his house and gives Mrs. G the keys.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Don’t know,” he says. “Take care of the place while I’m gone taking care of myself.”

“Of course,” she says. “It will be here when you get back.”

Francois is lucky that he has worked hard in his life. He has enough wealth that he never has to go home again. He travels to places where no one knows his name. Places where no one will remember him. In the second month of his travels he finds himself in a fancy bar next to a very expensive hotel on the shore of a Caribbean Island.

A young woman sits next to him. For the first time in months he engages in real conversation. For the first time in months he does not think of Michaela. After a half hour of talking he realizes how much fun he is having. The woman is smart and carefree. He notices his chest no longer feels tight.

The conversation turns to his home. He told her he used to live near basilisk cliffs. She says she’s always wanted to go. A drunk woman, who had been listening, jumps in to their conversation.

“Tell me,” the drunk woman says. “How do you make love and not turn to stone?”

Seeing his reaction the first woman apologizes for the question.

The tension in his chest returns. For a moment when the woman’s attention was on him, he had forgotten Michaela.

Dusk’s last light is almost gone and the sky’s evening blues are darkening in a way that he and Michaela used to find so beautiful.

A man with a wet suit half on, half off, comes up from the beach and throws his arms around the woman Francois has been talking to and kisses her.

“You can’t,” Francois answers.

“Can’t what?” the woman’s husband says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Francois says.

He doesn’t listen to their chatter. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t like the disdain and pity he hears in their voices. Maybe someday he’ll know love again, love like theirs. Maybe someday he’ll be in a place like this and not be alone. Maybe someday he’ll return to Mrs. G and ask for the key to his place back.

A bat spirals into the almost-night sky. It leaves behind a golden trail of flame that does not consume it.

AN AMERICAN GHOST IN ZURICH

1. CoalesceMom and Dad are walking me to the gate, and I can’t help but think of Jaz. After all these years, what would he think?

“I can’t wait to learn what the project is,” Dad says.

“I probably won’t ever be able to tell you,” I say.

“I know. I’m just so proud they’re flying my girl, the scientist, to Zurich,” Dad says a bit too loud.

“She’s a grown woman. Don’t embarrass her, dear,” Mom says.

“Particle physicist, Dad. Say it. Par-ti-cal.”

“You may be a VP and a PhD but you’ll always be my little VIP,” Dad says.

Jaz would be critical. Of Dad’s corny jokes. Of me. Of everything. Like he was before I left him. He’d have a reason why this assignment is a waste of my talents. I can almost hear him going on about why my education was beneath me. As was my grant. My research. Even the project at the neutrino collector.

I sigh and blow my bangs out of my eyes. This was where we said goodbye. Where I saw him off to Europe. That moment is so far away, and I hate that it still haunts me. I feel the weight of the years, of the silence, of the…nothing. He and I are just nothing. Like two electrons without covalent bonds, hurtling through this world, never to share orbits again. Even if we weren’t meant to be together, we could have at least been more than that.

Mom and Dad are bickering. Something or another about me. As usual. I slip my earbuds in. With the sound of School of Seven Bells I come alive. Everything is a black-and-white movie, and I’m a streak of color moving through the frames. Ethereal harmonies wash over me. Beautiful, but not quite on. Imperfect. Just like our fractured universe and everything in it.

A photo appears on my phone. Pria and I at my send-off party. My finger is pointing down my throat to show what I thought of the music my students had playing.

Pria doesn’t see music as a way to transcend. To her, it’s just to reinforce the shiny, happy place she lives in. I love her anyway.

Bon Voyage, she texts.

I’m so excited, I text back. I’m thinking of dying my hair pink.

But what would the Aeon-Hartlin board think?

I know, I text.

Plus, Dad would die. My degrees still hang in my old room with my grade-school science fair ribbons. To him I’ll always be a little girl. I’m some kind of outsider to everyone else. Here I am thinking of Jaz like I don’t want to be, but even at the end, with all the bad, when I was with him I always felt like a woman.

Mom’s voice intrudes, out of time from the beat.

“…I know but I still think we should tell her, dear.”

“Quiet, she’ll hear. No good can come of it,” Dad says.

“Tell me what?” I ask.

“See, now you’ve done it,” Dad says.

“Out with it,” I say. “My plane leaves in less than an hour. Then I’m going to be busy with the project for who knows how long, so now or never.”

“I hate it that they won’t tell you what you’re working on,” Mom says. “It’s probably dangerous.”

“Don’t change the subject, Mom.”

She sighs.

“It’s Jaz, honey,” she says.

“What?!”

“He called while you were in the shower this morning,” she says.

“Jaz? How come you didn’t—”

“He didn’t sound…right, dear. I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Mother. Tell.”

“Now you’ve done it,” Dad says.

“He had a message for you,” Mom says. “Told you not to come.”

“No,” Dad says. “You’re confused. He said the message was to come.”

“Dear, I distinctly heard him say not to come.”

“Jaz. I can’t believe it,” I say. “All these years. Figures he picks today to send me a message.”

“Thing is, he said the message wasn’t from him,” Mom says. “He said the message was from you.”

“From me?”

“That part’s right,” Dad says. “He said you told him to tell you.”

“That’s impossible,” I say. “I haven’t seen him in, what, nine years? I’ve never even been to Zurich, if that’s where he still is.”

“Apparently so,” Mom says.

“I told you this would only upset her,” Dad says.

“I’m not upset. I don’t care. He’s nuts.”

I hear myself say the words but I don’t believe them. He was brilliant. At least once upon a time he was.

“See? I told you it wouldn’t be a problem,” Mom says.

“Good. Come on then,” Dad says. “There’s just enough time to have a coffee with my favorite particle physicist.”

I ease back into the first-class seat Aeon provided. The plane takes to the air and I slip my earbuds in, even though devices aren’t permitted yet. The stale cabin atmosphere is replaced by the Seven Bells’ electronic beats. Lush, open guitar chords join in one at a time. With each layer the song swells. It is more than a song. It is an emotional reality. A story. A truth. The passion is so real I feel that the woman in the song who lost her heart could be me.

The plane hits cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign turns off. I’m thinking about the death of the guitar player and falling asleep to their refrains.

In my dreams I hear Seven Bells songs I have never heard before. They are strange and wonderful and I hope I remember them when I wake.

“Wake up. Stop dreaming,” says a familiar voice.

I open my eyes. Someone is right there, standing over me. The plane lurches. The lights go out. Dim emergency lights flicker on. The person is gone. A flight attendant rushes through the aisle to the coach cabin. I look around for who woke me and realize I don’t recognize the song that is playing. My player lists five Seven Bells albums, but they made only three. I don’t recognize the song titles. My phone dies. An uneasy murmur fills the cabin. I wonder if I am still asleep, but it doesn’t feel like it. The canned air and the harsh perfume of the woman next to me are too real. Static replaces the murmur and my phone powers back up. The strange albums and songs are gone. Did I dream them? No. Coffee has made my breath stale in the most un-dreamlike way.

The cabin lights return.

“Wow, bumpy ride,” says the man sitting across the aisle.

As I hit PLAY to start the song again, two flight attendants and a woman enter the cabin from coach.

“Yeah, that’s her,” the woman says.

“Ma’am, I can confirm this woman has been here in her seat the entire time,” says the flight attendant nearest me. His name, Oliver, is spelled out in cursive orange letters on his jacket. His face is kind. I like the dapper way he has put himself together.

“No. That’s her,” the woman says.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to take your seat,” the other attendant says and leads the woman away.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver says to me. “We had an unruly passenger after we hit that turbulence. That woman said she saw you while boarding and was convinced the unruly passenger was you. On behalf of the airline I’d like to apologize.”

Was the unruly passenger in here? I try to recall her but she was only a shape in the dark.

The man across the aisle is chatting at me but I’m not listening. I’m too drained to tell him to stop. From what few words I do say, he thinks I’m traveling to do some sort of engineering work on the CERN particle collider in Geneva.

He drones on. The woman’s voice is so familiar but I can’t place it. It eludes me like the name of a song on the tip of my tongue.