Wishes Three

Chapter 1

Hank made frequent stops by the Wishing Well. He used to come in later in the day, and he was popular with the night crowd of senior girls from Sainte-Clodine Community who came out for a little fun. ‘Hank the Hunk,’ they called him, and it was easy to see why. With his striking blue eyes, blond hair cropped like a soldier’s, and powerful, hard-muscled frame, he was the object of many a tipsy college hot-dish, even as he crawled closer to his late-thirties than his mid-ones. He supposed it was to be expected, especially when his competition were a bunch of immature slobs steadily putting on, and then never dropping, the Freshman Fifteen. As a matter of fact, it was the combination of his looks and the flowing alcohol that had led him to…compromise his conscience, on more than one occasion. Thank the Lord that his wife had never discovered his indiscretions.

He loved Jill-Anne, he really did. He just wished there was something he could do to rekindle the spark of their marriage’s early days.

Anymore, he only came to the Well during daylight hours, when there were no distractions to…well, to distract him. At least, none other than the bartender, but there was always something unapproachable about her. It wasn’t just a disinterest…if anything, he’d call it spookiness. But he was grateful for it, as it protected him from transgression.

Today was the first time he was the first one through the door at opening. The bar, despite the shining sun outside the windows, was as dim on the inside as ever, lit by blue-tinted string lights overhead and neon signs above the rows of bottles. The stools were all propped up underneath the counter. Desiree hadn’t even made it behind the counter yet, even if she had turned on the ‘Open’ sign. Hank guessed she was either in the ladies’ room, or taking the opportunity to smoke out back before the lunch rush arrived.

However, there was a bottle of whiskey sitting open on the bar, alongside a clean, shiny shot glass. Why would that be there, if not for him to help himself?

So, he pulled out a stool and fixed himself a shot, swiveling once on his barstool as he chucked it back, and once he was facing the bar again, there Desiree was, before him, tall and proud as always, in another vest that looked too expensive for the rickety floorboards, and an assortment of clips and combs pinned into her long, plaited hair, which he’d always assumed were tokens of affection given to her by braver men. “Well, I’d ask what’ll it be, sugar, but I know you know your way around already,” she said, in that familiar, backwoods drawl.

“Oh, hey, Desiree. Didn’t see ya there.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to work on my entrance, huh?” Though she grinned, her words came out dry. “What can I do ya for?”

“Oh, I think I’ll wait for that first one to hit before I–”

“No.” Elbows on the counter, she leaned in, fixed him with a steady stare straight in the eyes and asked, “What do you REALLY want?”

It was the eeriest sensation: somehow, he felt as though even if he didn’t tell her, she would know. “It’s Jill-Anne. No matter how hard I work to please her, she’ll hardly look at me. Not the way she used to,” he confessed.

“How hard you work,” Desiree repeated. “So, you buy her lots of flowers? Take her out to fancy joints, the kind what you need a reservation for? Is that it?”

No, that wasn’t it, but he thought he still deserved a lot more credit than he was getting. “Can I tell you a secret?” Lowering his voice, as if there were any other customers around to listen in on his most private shame, he said, “I used to be kind of a…a big guy. And not the good kind.”

“Yeah?” Desiree blinked slowly, her lips dropping into a small ‘o’.

“I mean, not obese, or anything,” Hank backpedaled. “Just had a bit of a beer gut, that’s all. But from the moment we started going steady, I knew I had to whip myself into shape and become the kind of guy that deserved her. I’d have thought that should make her want me more, but…I don’t know. The way she treats me, it’s like she thinks I’ve turned into a whole different person.”

“Well, have you?”

“No!” He pushed his shot glass toward her, beckoning for another round. Okay, since undergoing his transformation, he’d started developing little habits…

Turning down the pies she’d have ready and warm on the counter when he returned from work until they eventually molded in the fridge…but didn’t he have to maintain his willpower?

Pointing out the neighbors’ growing potbellies after every Christmas season, and again after they failed to keep up their New Years’ resolutions…but, after he’d struggled through the effort it took to turn himself around, hadn’t he earned the right?

“What would you have me do?” he asked. Then, “Sorry. I’m sure you don’t mean to meddle.” He sighed and drank his drink.

“Maybe I do mean to meddle, just a little,” said Desiree. “Here’s what I think: I think, maybe you’re just not remembering things right.”

Somehow, despite her cryptic air, that made a certain kind of sense to him. “Well, thank you kindly, Desiree. I feel better already,” he said, paid his tab, and tucked a dollar into her jar.

***

Due to short-staffing at the warehouse, Rich was forced to cut his lunch break from thirty minutes down to twenty. This town really needed a union, or something.

He’d heard of the Wishing Well before. Nobody was saying it was the nicest bar in Sainte-Clodine, but by its reputation alone, he figured it was for folks in the next tax bracket up from him, an inkling only confirmed when he walked in towards the tail end of the lunch rush to find a beautiful, well-dressed woman manning the counter, slinging drinks to the customers with a polished flair. Where else was he supposed to go, though? It was the closest place to his job where he could grab a bite to eat.

A cool breeze blew straight into him when he sat down at the bar, a welcome relief with his dark hair sweat-plastered to his forehead. Dabbing his face dry with a bar napkin off the counter, he perused the menu that the bartender slid under his nose. “Name’s Desiree,” she introduced herself. “Just let me know when you’re ready, sugar.”

“Oh, I’ll just have…” Pressed for time, and not wanting to waste any more of hers than he had to, he ordered the cheapest, quickest sandwich (chicken salad, bread untoasted), and, after looking over his shoulder to make sure none of his coworkers were around to rat him out, the cheapest beer (something called Montana Pickle Sour).

“Coming right up!” Desiree smiled and turned with a roll of one shoulder that he wished he wasn’t too exhausted to properly appreciate.

Lunch was quickly before him, and he made quick work of it, the sandwich offering his sunken, underfed stomach what he knew was only temporary relief from the toil of hard labor while the cold beer warmed him from inside, if only for now. As he fumbled for his wallet to pay his check, Desiree reappeared in front of him. “Ain’t there anything else you want?”

“Oh, I would like to, Miss, believe me,” he said, quietly and politely. That Devil’s food cake in the display by the front door had been practically calling his name when he walked in. “It’s just that I’m a little out of pocket right now, and I’d feel like a real sack of it if I couldn’t tip you.”

“I didn’t mean to eat or drink,” said Desiree, fixing him with a smirk that seemed, somehow, all-knowing. “Now, I’m gonna ask you again: what else do you want?”

Rich sighed. “It’s this dead-end job, and this mean boss I’ve got. One day off a week, and all the while he’s breathing down my neck, down all of our necks! I know I oughta be grateful, but we don’t get paid enough for the amount of grief we get! You know they make us punch out to use the can? Heck, they’d make us punch out to sneeze if they could! It’s enough to make the most hardworking man wish he never, ever had to leave his house again!” By the end of his million-word-a-minute spiel, he was breathing hard, red in the face…and self-conscious. “I’m awfully sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to burden you, ‘specially since you’ve taken such good care of me…” He passed her ten dollars across the bar.

“It’s no trouble at all, honey! Lemme be right back with your change…”

She was gone for a minute, and when she returned, she brought him not only his change, but a white paper box. “Now, you take that home and eat that up. On the house, I insist.”

Rich cracked open the box, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the thick, hearty slice of Devil’s food cake inside. “Gee thanks, Miss Desiree! You really know how to make a fella feel better!” he said, and stuffed all of his change into her jar.

***

Jett had never thought he’d find himself returning to Sainte-Clodine. He’d always been the kind of guy to think big, and at the first opportunity, he’d taken the train down to California to make use of his natural good looks to become Hollywood’s next big movie star. That it had not worked out for him was due to the sheer, ignorant oversight of this generation’s talentless crop of directors and agents. That they could even say no to his perfect body and flawless face was still a shock to him. A part of him thought it was simply a matter of time that he didn’t have: he could have stuck it out waiting tables in Hollywood until he scored that career-making deal…

If any of his restaurant jobs had stuck.

If he hadn’t run out of money.

So now, he was back in the bum-fuck nowhere town he’d been born in, applying around.

He was surprised to find the Wishing Well still standing, not that he’d ever been inside to assess its merits. When he’d left Sainte-Clodine, he’d been old enough to vote, but still too young to drink. But despite the disorienting blue lights inside and the loud, laughing cacophony of the happy hour crowd over the music, he strode up to the bar, his confidence unshaken.

The woman who came to greet him didn’t strike him as a local. If anything, she looked just like a California girl: tall, skinny, huge knockers, lots of crazy crap in her hair. But then she opened her mouth, and she sounded just like Sainte-Clodine: “Howdy! Name’s Desiree. What can I do ya for, handsome?”

Sliding onto a barstool, he went, “I’ll take a vodka soda and a job application.”

She dared scowl. “What’s the magic word?”

“Um, now?”

She sighed, turning on her heel to reach below the bar for the ice, and his paperwork. As she fixed him his drink, she asked, “You ever barbacked before?”

“I’m sorry…have I what?”

“Well, how about this: name all five of the liquors you keep on the speed rack.”

The speed-what? “Vodka…” Fuck.

As quickly as she’d set the application before him, she snatched it away.

“Wait! I’ve waited tables before!”

“I’m sure. Whereabouts?”

So he told her all about his days slumming it in trendy Hollywood salad bars and cafes, catering to the most inane requests of the demanding customers as he sipped his drink. “Not that that’s what I wanted to do. I always hoped I’d, you know, make it big. Of course, then I had to come back to this town…”

“And what’s wrong with this town?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me?”

As she took his glass of spent ice, she asked, “Is that what you want? What you truly want? To get ‘big’?”

“Well, sure.”

“Then,” she said, presenting his check, “I don’t see what’s stopping you from doing it right here in good ol’ Sainte-Clodine.”

The words should have rung empty, but somehow, he got what she meant.

She ran his credit card and came back with the receipt.

“You know what? You might be onto something, Desiree.” He signed himself on the dotted line in looping cursive. “Desiree, how do you spell that?”

She told him, and he wrote her a note on the bottom of the slip: ‘Desiree–good luck to you!’ Then, he signed his name again, and winked. “Hold onto that: it might be worth something sooner rather than later,” he said, and, with a flourish, deposited it into her jar.