Wish-Come-True
by Consatnce Gelvin

"Look at her eyes. Notice anything weird?"

Alanie watched Dawn closely for a clue as to how to respond. She darted a look at Tamara sprawled on Dawn's plush, flower-patterned rug. Tamara's tiny, painted nails winked from the sunlight that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. One long-lashed eye was half closed; the other seemed to pulse with intensity. The unease Alanie felt evaporated when she touched the creamy smoothness of Tamara's satin skirt, the crisp lace edging her pantaloons, the seed pearl buttons on her shoes that for some reason made Alanie want to cry. Her voice warbled from the desire to be right. "They're so sky blue?"

Dawn frowned. "Cliché. I should of known you'd say that." She snatched the doll up by one arm, tossed it over her shoulder.

Alanie winced, and watched, heart thumping, as Dawn stood and left the room. She looked around idly, at a loss as to what to do. She thought back to the first time she'd ever met Dawn. Alanie had heard tell of her before she'd even met her. It was right after Alanie and her Dad had settled in Squanee Springs. Before her Dad had gotten the caretaker's job with Dawn's parents, before they'd moved into Columbine Cottage behind the Jamison's big house. Alanie had been down on the Ave. soaking up what she described to herself as the State Fair atmosphere of Squanee. She loved everything about her new home: the pointy-roofed cabins that once isolated tuberculosis sufferers, the neon-festooned Penny Arcade with its original 1800's games, the cotton candy and popcorn of Sandy's Taffy, the mountains that loomed around the town's west and north ends with houses built right into their sides.

A group of boys had gathered on the sidewalk in front of Sandy's. Alanie slunk into the shadows of the boulders behind the Magic Mirrors; the rocks that kept tourists from falling into Ruxton Creek's rushing waters. The boys shouted, tittered, their voices strained from trying too hard. At first she thought they were saying "done, done." They elbowed and pushed each other, ignoring the angry looks of jostled people in line for soft serves and taffy. Then she saw a sunlit girl--tanned, hair streaked with every shade of blonde--white, sandy, toffee-colored--sauntering down the Arcade's pale sidewalks. And even at that first glimpse Alanie had noticed Dawn's casual ease was tinged with sadness.

But that observation was pushed aside by Alanie's instantaneous realization that Dawn was one of the blessed girls who knew How to Do Everything Right, one of Alanie's goals. "I believe in the perfectibility of life," Alanie had told her friend Ina back in Johnson City where she and her Dad used to live, or--as she later complained to Dawn--existed. A blank look had crossed Ina's face and Alanie mentally kicked herself. She'd vowed to stop saying things other people had trouble responding to. She knew she did that a lot.

And after those first eager cries of "Dawn! Dawn!" she heard the name everywhere. "Dawn got Bryce Barron's autograph when she was in Aspen." Alanie overheard while sipping a vanilla Coke in the Rexall's that was inside an old-timey building that was so different from the one in Johnson City. Once when she'd strolled in front of the red brick storefronts that had "no sidewalks to speak of" as her Dad would always say, she'd heard a shouted, "Dawn!" She swiveled, but no one was there. Dawn's name floated in the lilacy air in front of St. Stephens, and when Alanie started school, it was whispered in the food-scented steam of the cafeteria and sometimes guttural shouts: "Dawn? Dawn!" would cut through the spray of the girls' showers.

Alanie would pretend to study as she sat alone in the Commons Area, nibbling on a bologna sandwich. Every morning her Dad said, "One bow-log-na sammich commin' up. Specialty of the house." Then he'd snatch away the greasy-stained paper bag he'd re-creased from the day before, and Alanie would have to jump for it and he would laugh like it was the funniest thing in the world. One noon Alanie looked up and started in surprise. Dawn stood there. Dawn had never even glanced at Alanie; like everyone, she hadn't the slightest interest in the New Girl.

"Mind if I sit here a bit? Alanie, right? From Health and Hygiene? Can you believe Miss Prune Face Netterson carrying on about 'the necessity of remaining dainty?' I mean, I could tell O'Black and J.R. knew what she was talking about. I was so embarrassed!"

Dawn took it for granted that Alanie knew who she was. But Alanie wasn't completely sure what Miss Netterson had been talking about. "I-uh, yeah, I thought the same thing. I mean, wash your pettipants out nightly--gross! Would gag a maggot."

"Gag a maggot. I like that. Yup, things would have to be pretty gross to gag a friggin' maggot."

Friggin'? Alanie thought, as her cheeks flushed with pleasure at the delighted tone in Dawn's voice. And from then on, Dawn made a point to speak to Alanie in the halls, or to scoot next to her on the Commons' stone bench or to pass her notes: "Miss Netterson's mouth looks like she's been sucking lemons. This whole class sucks. Luv ya, D." Alanie worried Miss N. would catch them and read the note aloud, but part of her was excited because then everyone would know that Dawn Jamison liked her.

One afternoon the miraculous happened. "You doin' anything after school? It's okay if I have a friend over. We could hang out, maybe walk down to the Arcade or something."

Toward the end of Ruxton Avenue, they turned onto Sparkling Waters Street. They approached a large white house with a wrap-around porch supported by thick columns with curlicued tops. A wooden swan sat near a pond filled with fat goldfish and a naked girl fountain whose water streamed from her upheld seashell. Coming closer, Alanie saw the swan was actually a swing. "Wow. Your house is so great. And big. As big as, as a--"

"Hotel?" Dawn laughed. "Actually it was a small resort hotel right after Squanee was founded. If my Mom's around, which is doubtful, she'll chew your ear off about how tourists back east came to Squanee to 'take the waters.' Our place was called Sparkling Waters, like the street. The water's supposed to cure tuberculosis, make you calm, all kinds of stuff. Not that I give a shit. I hate this fucking town."

Alanie felt her insides clench. When Dawn laughed at her shocked expression, Alanie was afraid to tell her how much she liked Squanee.

"Let's take the back stairs. Mom's probably still playing bridge and I don't want my Father to know we're here." They climbed an iron staircase that reminded Alanie of the ones she'd seen in New Orleans when her Mother was still alive. Dawn opened a door, pausing at every creak. "Hungry? I don't want to go the kitchen, but I've got lots of stuff here."

They walked into a bedroom larger than the two rooms Alanie and her Dad were living in--"Just temporary digs, I promise you, sweetheart. Just 'til I line up some steady cash." Bristly pine branches brushed against the bare windows that looked out over the wide lawn. Dawn couldn't absorb everything at first: the arched canopy bed with its fine netting that swished as the wind breezed through the windows, the shelves that held costumed Madame Alexander dolls from every country, the chair long enough to stretch out on, the stereo, the...the beauty of the room overwhelmed her.

Dawn put a finger to her lips, tiptoed quietly to the closet. She rummaged behind clothes sheathed in clear dry cleaning bags then pulled out a huge duffel, unzipped it and several red and purple striped bags from Sandy's Taffy tumbled out. Pale mint-flavored taffies, vanilla ones with red jam streaks running through them, dust-colored milk chocolates and even licorice ones with their black shoe polish color that Alanie hated, spilled out. There were chips, pretzels, a can of Cheez-E Cheese Product that Dawn squirted right into her mouth, beef jerky and a jar of peanut butter.

"Pig out time. But we'd better keep quiet, okay? I don't want anyone to hear us."

"You sure it's okay I'm here?" I mean, I--"

"Yeah, sure. It's just...Father dear might come up with things for me to do if he knows I'm home."

Alanie nodded. Her dad was always sending her to Ted's Tubz to do laundry or the Inaminit Mart for milk because she was now "the woman of the house."

"God, this sweater is scratchy." Dawn pulled the sweater over her head and Alanie noticed a long, puckered scar on her lower arm. Dawn sat unselfconsciously in her bra with its tiny pink rosebud between the cups. Alanie was half shocked, half some feeling she couldn't name. Dawn pointed at the shelves.

"Most were my Mother's. Shoot, I've never liked dolls, not even when I was a little kid. Dad gives me a new one every year. Some ways he still treats me like a little girl." She stared dreamily out the window like she was watching a movie only she could see.

"I know all about it. My Dad--"

"More taffy?"

"Better not. Dad told me to stop by his work later and--" Alanie stopped. She didn't want Dawn to know her Dad was working at The Mug while the regular bartender was on vacation.

"Saving room for dinner like a goodie two shoes? Shit, girl, this is dinner. Hope it'll spare me having to eat later--"

The door th-wumped! open. A man Alanie thought looked movie star handsome, dressed in white tennis shorts and a shirt with a little emblem on it, stood in the doorway. He held a sweating can of beer and grinned at Dawn who grabbed an afghan and covered herself.

"Do you mind? I've got company."

"Thought I heard the scurry of little feet. Just cooling off? All those hor-moany teenage boys get you all hot and bothered?"

Alanie watched Dawn grimace, her eyes squinch shut, her cheeks blotch in an angry rash.

"Your Mother called. She's having dinner with 'the girls.'" Dawn's father wiggled his fingers in an italics gesture. "Followed by the sweet sounds of Tom O'Bennighan at the piano. Be a late night. I told her we'd be fine--"

"No!"

Alanie jerked backward like she'd been physically slapped by the anger in Dawn's voice. There'd be "hell to pay" as her Dad would say if she ever talked to him that way.

Dawn's father just laughed and took a long draw of his beer; his eyes squinting over the can at Dawn. Alanie shifted slightly and he slowly pulled his gaze over to her.

"It appears we've forgotten our manners. I'm James Jamison, and, yes, that is my given name. And you are?" Alanie swallowed.

Dawn pulled the afghan over the lower half of her face like an Arab lady.

"Alanie. Alanie Squires. I'm new at Squanee H--"

"Squires? The Denver Squires of Squires, Thomas and--"

"Stop it." Dawn's voice was muffled. "He's asking about your pedigree. Wants to know if you're good enough for us."

Mr. Jamison crumpled the beer can, tossed it into the wastebasket by Dawn's fancy white desk with its gilt trim. "It's always nice to meet one of Dawn's friends. But Dawn needs to do her homework now so we can--"

"No!" Dawn jumped to her feet and the afghan slid off her shoulders. She clutched at it desperately. "I've asked Alanie to spend the night."

Alanie felt panicky, suffocating from what was happening in this oversized, airy room with clouds painted on the walls and its rows of dressed-up dolls, their frozen eyes staring straight ahead. "I'd like to, but I promised my Dad I'd--"

"Seems your friend doesn't mind spending an evening with her old Dad."

With an odd, strangled-sounding gasp/cry Dawn reached over, snatched up her sweater, turned, and before Alanie's astonished eyes, pushed open a window and jumped out of it. James made a clucking sound. "You'll have to excuse Dawn's behavior. She's always climbing down trees, sneaking in through the back door. I tell myself it's just a phase."

Alanie followed him down a hall painted with a mural of the house and grounds. A curved staircase with wide banisters ended in a room with a glarey black and white tiled floor. Above a stone fireplace hung a picture of the way Dawn would look when she was older, Alanie thought.

"My wife, Mallie. Fairest in all the land. Or used to be."

Alanie half ran out the front door. She hurried past a man tending a flowerbed, a sundial, a round crystal on a cement pedestal that Dawn later told her was a gazing ball.

She was almost to Ruxton when she heard, "Alanie! Wait up! Sorry about that. It's just, sometimes my Dad...gets on my nerves...and I have to bolt."

"I know what you mean, my--"

"You promised your Dad you'd meet him somewhere? For dinner? Think he'd mind if I tagged along?"

Alanie couldn't imagine Dawn at The Mug, but softened at the panic in her voice. They hoisted themselves onto the torn vinyl of the seats and Dawn, who'd never been there before, admired the blinking white Christmas lights draped over the gold-veined bar mirror, the handwritten signs taped everywhere, the shelves filled with a plastic dinosaur collection. Alanie couldn't tell if she was making fun or not.

Dawn and Alanie's father Fred really hit it off. She asked him how they'd decided to come to Squanee, got him talking about Alanie's mother, something Alanie could never do. Dawn told him her family was looking for a new gardener and that's how it happened that Alanie and her father moved into Columbine Cottage, tucked behind the pines and the only weeping willows in Squanee.

It was doll house-sized and painted what Mallie Jamison called "robin's egg" blue with white trim she called "gingerbread." Everything was small and perfect. Alanie couldn't understand why Mallie described the bed in Alanie's room as a "slay" bed, why the tiny sofa was called a "love" seat, the kitchen table a "breakfast nook."

But the best part was she got to see Dawn every day. And the other kids noticed them walking to school together, having lunch, and pretty soon she heard, "Here come Dawn and Alanie!" "Alanie!" and she was dizzied by the sound of her own name floating through the halls, bouncing off the walls, settling over her like a golden cloud.

One afternoon they snuck into Dawn's room. The chinook winds whipped the pine trees' dry branches and picked up twigs and pebbles and flung them at the windows. The clouds were swollen and dirty gray, but the light from Dawn's tulip lamp warmed the room. They'd taken off their shoes and tiptoed across to her closet, in an unspoken pact of silence.

Dawn lay on her back, a socked foot swinging idly when she kicked the ruffle of her bedspread and Alanie caught a glimpse of the beautiful doll Dawn had tossed away that first afternoon.

"Wait a second! It's that doll, the one you asked me what was weird about her eyes. Why is it..." Alanie was emboldened by her disgust at the doll's crumpled skirt that exposed a hinged leg doubled back like it was broken. The doll's eyes were locked forward, lashes furled backward in a look of wide-eyed astonishment. "She shouldn't be thrown around like that. My Mama used to say that God wouldn't entrust me with beautiful things if I didn't take care of what I had."

"That what your Mama used to say, huh? Tamara? My Dad gave her to me when I was eleven, when I became a woman he said. So he gives me a doll, can you believe it? A doll that creeps me out, whose eyes follow me around the room. Yuck. But quite the little grown-up doll she is, Miss Wish-Come-True Tamara." She sing-songed the name.

Alanie reached out, smoothed the doll's skirt, gently closed the doll's eyes. "She's the most wonderful doll I've ever seen. You're so lucky. For everything, this," she looked around wildly. She felt her face flush; she felt giddy, dangerous, she knew she needed to be careful about what she said, but she couldn't help herself. "I'd give anything to be you. This house. You're so popular, rich. Your father loves you so much. My Dad never had two sticks to rub together. That's what my Mom used to say. They always fought about money. He..."

Dawn grabbed Wish-Come-True Tamara and tossed her, limbs flying herky-jerky, into Alanie's lap. "She's yours. May all your wishes come true. May you have a charmed life. Like me." Dawn laughed until it almost seemed she was crying, rubbed her eyes and jumped to her feet. "Hey, it's getting late. Your Dad'll wonder where you are. Better head back to the cottage."

Alanie cringed. Was Dawn mad at her? "Look, Dawn, you don't have to give me--"

"I said take it! I hate that fucking doll." Dawn turned away, walked toward the window and Alanie wondered if she was going to jump out it again.

Alanie clasped Tamara to her chest and a slow, heavy joy coursed through her. She crept quietly down the stairs, wondered if she'd run into Mrs. Jamison; she and her Dad had hardly talked to her since they'd moved in. Miss High Falutin' Alanie's Dad called her, and she called him the "yard boy."

"What's that you've got there?" Mr. Jamison's face was striped by strands of weeping willow. He emerged from under the tree; his face seemed to fairly glow from the electric candles that dotted the borders of their flowerbeds. Alanie felt her mouth drop in surprise.

"D-Dawn's doll. Tamara. I'm just...I mean, I'm just going to, uh, take her home, iron her skirt--"

"Iron her skirt, huh?" Mr. Jamison arched his eyebrows; he looked ready to laugh. She couldn't believe she'd told him such a dumb lie. People can recognize a liar, she knew; why was she so stupid?

"Come here, right here under the tree. Did you know there's a bench built around the base? I've taken Dawn out here since she was a little girl. Our secret place, did she tell you?" Alanie shook her head. Mr. Jamison took her hand, sat her on the bench carved with leaves that dug into her bare legs. The wind that raged outside seemed stilled inside the cocoon made by the branches.

"No. We, she, didn't--"

"Good. It wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it?" Mr. Jamison barked a harsh laugh.

But you've told about the secret place, she thought. Faint glints from the candlelights wavered in Mr. Jamison's pupils.

"So, Alanie, Dawn tells me you've lived all over. That's so exciting. Me, I'm just a two-town kinda guy. Here and Atlanta."

"But you've traveled to so many places. Dawn said..."

Alanie felt nervous and tongue-tied. She couldn't believe the way Mr. Jamison was talking to her. Though her Dad called her the woman of the house now, he never talked to her like she was a grown-up. Mr. Jamison laughed and asked questions about her life and listened and the words seemed to tumble from Alanie's mouth. She felt tingly, happy. "And, anyway, I'd never met my cousins on my Mom's side until then. It was so cool. They had this, like, secret cellar type place. My cousin Rilla--but everybody calls her Chigger--she has this great voice and wants to be a country western singer. She writes songs and everything. She wrote one about when our cousin Louise whose nickname is Bugsy had her appendix out. 'Bugsy's in the hos-im-pi-tal.' She sang it just like that. 'Bugsy's in the hos-im-pi-tal. Lying in b-ed. Tellin' them doctors she's got misery in the h-ead.' I mean, it sounded just like a song you'd hear on the radio."

Mr. Jamison flung his head back and laughed. "In the hos-im-pi-tal. I love it!"

Suddenly Alanie felt uncomfortable. "I can't believe I told you that dumb story. You probably have things to do and--"

"You don't have to apologize. You've got a good heart; you know that about yourself, Alanie? You've always struck me as special; you stand out from the rest of Dawn's friends. You care about other people and their feelings."

Deep inside Alanie's chest throbbed something half achy and half...tender. She felt the way she did when she looked at the picture of her Mom and Dad at the Larimer Stampede before they were married. The way their heads tilted together, resting on each other, the way her Dad looked so young and happy, the way... That picture was Alanie's main memory of her Mother whose face was fading in her mind's eye like an erased-over drawing.

"I feel so comfortable talking to you and I hope you feel the same way about me, Alanie."

Alanie nodded, at a loss. She loved the way he pronounced her name A-lah-nie and not A-lay-nie like her Dad. She was glad she'd started going by her middle name. A new name for the new me, she'd told herself; so much better than her boring given name: Donna, which her Dad pronounced Dough-na like a hick.

"You know Wish-Come-True Tamara is special, like you are. Did Dawn show you?"

"Show me? Uh, no, we hardly talked about, I mean..."

Mr. Jamison grinned. "You don't have to spare my feelings. I know Dawn hates the doll. You know, Tamara does indeed have the power to make your wishes come true. But there's a trick to it."

"What's--"

"The trick is to know exactly what you want. You'd be surprised how many people don't know. Can't decide whether it's money, love, beauty. They want it all. I know exactly what I want. What would you wish for?"

Alanie squirmed. "I don't know. I'd like a big house. Or maybe for my Dad to get a good job. 'Course if he had a good job, then we could have a big house. So--"

Mr. Jamison chuckled, and Alanie realized she was just like the people he was talking about. "Sorry. I guess I need more time to think about it. I--"

"Before you think about what your wish would be, I want to show you another way Tamara's not like other dolls. Like baby dolls or limp cloth dolls that sag in your arms or fashion dolls with exaggerated figures and permanently arched feet."

They both laughed. Dawn's father is so cool, she thought.

He carefully picked up the doll and its round china eyes seemed to widen in surprise. He inched her skirt upward and tugged gently on the lace trim of Tamara's old-fashioned underwear.

Alanie watched, stunned, as the undergarment fell in folds around the doll's shoes with their pinhead-sized buttons. "See? No, look here. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. The body is such a beautiful thing. And Tamara has the body of a full-grown woman, see?"

He guided her hand up to a small tuft between the doll's legs.

Alanie drew her hand back sharply. "No."

"I've embarrassed you, haven't I? I'm so sorry." He pat-pat-patted her on the back. Alanie noticed how clean he smelled, his face shaved soft.

"I just wanted to share something special with you, my special Alanie."

Something sharp and painful--a feeling Alanie hadn't realized was there until that moment--released, melted. She felt warmed.

And, later that year, Wish-Come-True Tamara granted both their wishes.

And, by then, it was the same wish.

Consatnce Gelvin has placed in several writing contests including: Arizona Authors League Short Story Contest, Writers West, MileHiCon 30, Garden State Horror Writers, and the 1998 and 1999 Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition. Her play: "Mental Health and Other Myths" was produced by Love Creek Productions in New York City the end of October. Her first novel No Reason to Lie will be published by Hard Shell Word Factory in 2001.