Wishes (Montgomery/Taggert 14)

She jerked her arm from his grasp. “You should talk of liking! All you want from my old maid sister is our father’s money. I am merely trying to protect my sister from—” She stopped because Jace was laughing at her.

“Your father’s money,” he said with a sneer. “Before you go accusing people you should do a little research. I want Nellie because she’s everything a woman should be—everything that you’re not.” He leaned over Terel in a threatening way. “I’m warning you, you’d better leave Nellie alone. No more ink on her dresses, no more telling her she’s fat. You understand me? You keep making her cry and you’ll have to answer to me.”

At that he turned and walked back into the ballroom.

For a while Terel was too stunned to move. No one had ever talked to her like that before, and as she watched him go to Nellie and saw the two of them start dancing together Terel’s anger turned to something deeper. Research, he’d said, and he’d said it as though there was something she should know about him.

She went back to the ballroom and began to ask questions. It didn’t take many questions to find out that Jace Montgomery was one of the heirs to Warbrooke Shipping. Terel had no doubt that her father knew all about Warbrooke Shipping, and that that was why he’d hired Jace in the first place—and the man had accepted employment just to be near Nellie.

As Terel danced and smiled and chatted her mind worked. Under no circumstances on earth was she going to allow her fat, old-maid sister to catch one of the richest men in America. Was she, Terel, to marry some boy from Chandler and settle for a small house while Nellie lived in a mansion in New York? Or Paris? Or wherever she wanted to live? Was she supposed to spend her life reading about Nellie in the society pages of the newspaper? Maybe Nellie would feel sorry for her little sister’s poverty and send Terel her cast-off clothing. Was Nellie to have everything that Terel wanted in life just because she happened to meet Jace Montgomery first? If Terel had gone down first to greet the man that night he came to dinner, no doubt he’d be in love with her now.

She is taking everything that should have been mine, Terel thought. My own sister has betrayed me by taking everything I’ve ever wanted.

Well, she can’t have it, Terel thought. What is mine is mine, and she can’t take it away from me.

She looked at Nellie, standing near Jace, drinking a cup of punch and listening to Kane Taggert. The man had never so much as given the time of day to Terel.

“I’ll get her,” Terel whispered. “If I die trying, I’ll keep her from taking what’s mine.”

She turned away from Nellie and smiled at the young man near her. For all the world she seemed to be enjoying herself, but in her mind she was concocting a plan.

Chapter Eight

The Kitchen

Berni stepped out of the bathtub and once again looked at her list. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the Luxury room, but it was long enough to have chosen three things from the list.

After having given Nellie her three wishes, Berni entered the Luxury room and was given a long list of pleasures from which to choose. Since she’d spent the previous fourteen years partying, the first thing she chose from the list was “videos.”

Following golden lights through the fog, she entered an enormous room filled with shelves of videos of every movie ever made, plus every episode of every TV show. She had merely to look at the titles and they were chosen for her. After choosing a few hundred movies and old TV shows—everything Mary Tyler Moore had ever done and all the early “Bonanza” episodes—she followed the lights to a beautiful bedroom. The bed, covered with two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar sheets and pillowcases trimmed with handmade lace, was high off the floor and as soft as down (there were no “good for you” orthopedic mattresses in the Kitchen). She lay in bed for a very long while, eating endless bowls of buttery popcorn and watching one video after another. She didn’t even have to get out of bed to change the tapes, and when Mel Gibson was kissing someone the tape automatically slowed its speed.

After many, many videos she got out of bed and looked at her list. The next luxury she chose was “friendships with women.” On earth Berni had never had any women friends, but she had always heard and even believed that other women had solid, loving friendships with each other. So, for a long period of time, Berni had women friends. They went shopping together, giggled together, had lunch. Her friends gave her a birthday party, and they were always there to listen to her. When one of her friends broke up with her boyfriend, Berni stayed up all night with her.

But Berni grew tired of listening to other people, so she looked at her list again. This time she chose “bubble bath.” She sat in a large, soft bathtub full of hot water and lots of bubbles, read trashy novels, ate chocolate-covered cherries, and drank pink champagne. The water never grew cold; the bubbles never burst; the books were always good and the candy and champagne delicious.

Now, leaving the tub, she was looking at her list again. “New clothes” intrigued her. On earth she’d realized that the only clothes she really liked to wear were new ones. She would have liked to wear something only once, then discard it. “Kids who behave like those on TV” also

interested her. There was also “winning prizes” and “being popular in high school” and “being appreciated.”

She was trying to decide when Pauline walked into the bathroom. As soon as Berni saw her the bathroom disappeared, and Berni was once again wearing the suit in which she’d been buried.

“You must come with me,” Pauline said sternly. “There is a problem in the Grayson household.”

Berni gave a grimace, then followed Pauline through the fog. She hadn’t thought of that fatty, Nellie, since she’d given her three wishes. “What’s she done? Wished her little sister into the grave?”

Pauline didn’t reply until they were in the Viewing Room; then she waved her hand and the fog cleared. Berni could see a cutaway of the Grayson house, rather like a doll house, with the upstairs and the downstairs showing at once. Terel was in the parlor, beautifully dressed, entertaining half a dozen equally well-dressed friends with tea and cakes. Charles was in the dining room with four men, looking at plans for a new freight office. The men were drinking whiskey and eating thick roast beef sandwiches. Nellie was running from the kitchen to the parlor to the dining room, trying to obey every demand her sister and father made.

Berni looked at the scene and frowned. “Can I help it if she didn’t take her wishes? It’s not my fault if she’s too dumb to—”

“Nellie made her wishes, she just wished for things for other people.”

“For other people? How can you make a wish for someone else?”

Pauline looked back at the house. “Nellie’s first wish was given to her sister. Terel said she wanted to be the most popular girl in town, so Nellie wished it for her. Of course, Nellie has had to cook and clean and take care of Terel’s wardrobe due to her little sister’s new popularity.”

Pauline turned to look at Berni. “Nellie’s second wish was that her father’s business would become more successful. It has, but, as you can see, Nellie has had even more work dumped on her shoulders.”

“They’re big enough to handle it,” Berni muttered. “What was her third wish?”