Who Needs Magic? by Kathy McCullough Read Free Book Online Page A

suffering will be worth it.
    Unfortunately, this hope is soon dashed on the linoleum that crisscrosses the store. First, Ariella expects me to see through the walls of the dressing rooms in order to tailor tacky dresses and boxy jackets for the women trying them on.
    “I’m not Superwoman. I don’t have X-ray vision.”
    “Study what they take in. Like that short, skinny lady over there. The hems on those skirts are all going to be way too long, and that shirt is way too wide in the shoulders. Right? So now you just time it so that you fix them
as
she’s putting them on.”
    “How would I know when to do that?”
    Ariella stares at me, mystified by the question. “Instinct.”
    I have no response to this. She gave me a lime stick after we entered the store, but I don’t think it’s granted me the superpowers it’s apparently given her.
    Ariella cocks her head to the left and studies me as if I’ve only now begun to come into focus.
    “You’re further behind than I thought.… That’s okay, though. We’ll go back to elementary wish granting.”
    Great. Doing small wishes was the one thing I thought I had down. Now I find out I’m still in the slow learners’ class.
    We crouch behind a circular rack of 30-percent-offblouses and spy on a woman trying on a crimson velveteen jacket over her shirt. The woman’s not old, exactly, but she’s definitely not young. Her brown hair is gray where the roots are showing, and there are tiny lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes. She frowns at her reflection in the pillared mirror, the permanent furrows between her eyes deepening.
    “Go ahead,” Ariella whispers. “It needs to be let out in the back—see? Try making it a little longer too, but be subtle.”
    I study the woman for a second. I don’t think it’s the jacket she’s frowning at.
    Ariella pokes me.
“Delaney,”
she hisses. “Come on.”
    I aim the candy stick over the top of the rack. The woman blinks, and then her expression softens. She leans back, considering herself. She smiles, takes off the jacket, hangs it back up and walks away.
    Ariella steps out from behind the rack. “Why didn’t you do what I said?”
    “I fixed her roots instead. Now she can skip the salon this month.”
    “She didn’t buy the jacket.”
    “That wasn’t her wish.”
    “Yes, it was. Or she wouldn’t have tried it on.”
    “Didn’t you see her? She smiled.”
    Ariella’s attention is caught by a revolving jewelry display on a nearby counter. “Most people have multiple wishes, Delaney.” Ariella removes a thread-thin silvernecklace from a hook. A tiny angel charm dangles from it. “But you have to pick one. Fast. The jacket would’ve worked too. Or you could’ve done both together. But you can’t waste time
thinking
about it. You’ll never get to fifty if you’re too busy analyzing everybody’s secondary wants. Save that for your beneficiary.”
    “Client.”
    Ariella rolls her eyes and carries the necklace to a nearby cashier. I wait for her to tell me I’m hopeless. That I’m a stubborn, impossible student and she’s through with the lesson. But when she turns away from the cashier, ittybitty shopping bag in hand, the stern look is gone. Instead, she’s beaming, bright with a new idea.
    “I know exactly where we should go next. It’s like a shooting gallery of small wishes. You’ll definitely score there.”

    “This is such a great place for granting small wishes,” Ariella says as we step off the escalator that leads to an upper level of the mall. “Once you figure out what movie they want, you make it happen. I once did four at the same time!”
    She guides me through the tangled web of moviegoers gathered outside the mall’s multiplex. Some are messily bunched up in front of the box office, where giant flat screens play scenes from the movies, above digital schedules in blinking red. The rest of the would-be ticket buyersserpentine off from computer kiosks. We “excuse me” our