Wishful Thinking by Kamy Wicoff Read Free Book Online

body still reverberating with shock but quivering with a kind of triumph too. “I’m here!”

four
| I T W ORKS; I T R EALLY W ORKS
    A T THE SOUND OF her voice, Julien whirled around and then came running. She bent forward, weight on her front leg, and pulled him upward as he leaped into her arms, nuzzling her nose into his neck. At eight he was heavy now, but this was a way of greeting each other they’d perfected during the years when Norman had made only the occasional appearance in their lives. Now, however, she was faced with Norman, who was here, looking at her with a mixture of surprise and, she thought, quizzical irritation.
    “I thought you couldn’t make it!” said Melissa, smiling warmly at her.
    “I changed some things around,” she said, putting Julien down. She kissed Melissa hello as Jack wrapped himself around her legs, nestling his face into her stomach. “This was more important!” She was a little startled by how easily she lied—not only lied, but milked the lie for mommy points.
    “It’s great that you’re here,” Norman said. He tried to meet her eyes, but she quickly looked away.
    “Let’s go!” she enjoined. Motioning to the four of them to file ahead of her, she hung back a bit, surveying her body to make sure everything was still put together right. So far so good: no signs of scrambled parts or teleportation skid marks.
    Was
she in two places at the same time, she wondered, as the app had said she would be—here and at the office? She couldn’t be, she told herself. Clearly she couldn’t! But as soon as she had soaked in Julien’s delight and Jack’s kisses (delivered with a faceful of chocolate from a cookie Melissa had brought along—
Too many sweets!
Jennifer thought), sent Julien backstage, and taken her seat in the front row with Jack in her lap and a program in her hand, her heart, the one that had miraculously continued beating as she had traveled through space via phone, began to pound anew.
    I’ll text Tim
, she thought.
Or, no, I’ll call Vinita.
She took out her phone, and a message appeared, in midnight blue.
    While on a Wishful Thinking appointment,
it read, as polite and civilized as ever,
the receipt or transmission of data is strictly prohibited. Your phone is currently in airplane mode and will remain so until your Wishful Thinking appointment is over.
    Why wouldn’t she be allowed to use her phone while on a Wishful Thinking appointment? She could think of some good reasons—but only if she really was at her office right now, and at the West End School at the same time.
    Norman leaned over and touched her arm. The sudden sensation of his hand on her skin caused her to jerk backward so abruptly, Jack almost tumbled out of her lap.
    “Easy there,” he said. “I was just going to ask if it was hard to get away from work. You’ve been so busy lately.”
    “A little. Not really,” she added, backtracking. “How great that
you
could be here!” she said, hoping to distract Norman from searching her face too carefully—not that he would be able to read anything there. For an actor, Norman wasremarkably inept at reading other people’s nonverbal cues. “I was here the last time,” he said. He looked at Jennifer’s hand. “What happened?” he asked. “Fisticuffs at the office?”
    Before she could answer, however, something over her shoulder caught his attention. She recognized an eager look she knew too well.
    “Hey, did you see Scott Spencer is here?” Norman asked, rising from his seat and dusting the cookie crumbs from his pants. “He was in that show
Notorious Minds
? I have a pilot idea I’ve been wanting to pitch him.” Jennifer remembered another way she depended heavily on her phone—she pretended to study it at moments like this, when Norman was trying to impress her. She stared at her wounded hand instead. “Jennifer, did you hear me? I’m going to go talk to Scott Spencer about a pilot.” Nodding, she smiled. Running a hand