"Good luck."
Ken held out his hand. He caught his breath when a spark shot up his arm at the
touch of Jo's warm, smooth hand.
His last task before
he left the decorating party was to haul two garbage bags to the back storage
room and put them in the wheeled garbage bins. Angela was waiting for him when
he picked up his coat from the pile in the book room.
"I hope you
don't think making that wish was a waste of time." She rested a hand on
his arm.
"I'm not exactly
in a mood for believing in wishes and magic." He felt almost ashamed to
say that to her. What was Divine's Emporium, if not a magical place?
Angela sighed, and
the sympathy in her eyes was warming, and didn't tie him up in knots inside
like the sympathy he saw in other people. That was part of the magic of this
place, too. A magic he could still believe in, maybe even needed, desperately.
"Just because
Brittney used you to get Allistair's attention doesn't mean you, Ken Jenkins,
are worthless or a fool. There is still magic in this world. There is still
true love. And those who are willing to look for magic and love will find them.
Take a chance."
~~~~~
Jo sighed as the last
few people left the decorating party. Only she, Angela and Holly were left in
the main room, though she thought she heard Lanie and her brothers talking in
the book room. She watched Ken stride out the front door, into the swirling
snow. His shoulders were bowed like Santa Claus carrying an impossibly heavy
pack.
He seemed like Santa
Claus right now. In the three years since she had moved to Neighborlee to take
care of Aunt Myrtle, Jo had made many wishes at Divine's, but none had ever
come true this fast and this clearly before.
She laughed silently
at herself when she felt the business card crumple in her fist and watched Ken
tugging his Willis-Brooks College varsity jacket closer around his shoulders.
Her smile faded, remembering the stress lines around his mouth and eyes.
Somebody needed to do something nice for him. How many people nowadays lifted
their heads out of their own problems to help someone else?
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