All he wanted for Christmas was a date to the company party. A girl to make Brittney jealous enough to dive headfirst into a vat of ice cream and not come out until she had lost her uber-slim super-model look. He especially wanted a girl with the brains and good taste to laugh in Allistair's face when he made a play for her. Because he would make a play for her, just because Ken had her.
He had considered
asking Lanie Zephyr to pretend to be his girlfriend. He thought she was great.
If he didn't have a raw wound where his heart used to be, he might pursue her
as a girlfriend someday. However, that wheelchair got in the way. Even if Lanie
were pretty enough to elicit jealousy from Brittney, his soon-to-be-ex-wife was
too shallow to see the woman inside the wheelchair. She would only see the
handicap and wouldn't be jealous. The whole point of finding someone new and
wonderful was to make her jealous. On a positive note, Allistair thought
anybody in a wheelchair had a communicable disease, so he would never try to
take Lanie from Ken. Although it would certainly be fun to see her shred
Allistair with her sharp, lunatic sense of humor.
"Perfect,"
Angela sighed as she stepped back from the tree. "Thank you, everyone. I
don't know how I would have done it without your help." She turned, her
long, gleaming golden hair swirling out from around her like a satin cape.
"You don't need
anyone's help, Angela." The speaker was a kid in baggy jeans, ball cap,
and oversized gray sweatshirt, sitting on the front counter. "If we hadn't
stopped in to help, you would have just called the elves, and they would have
decorated."
His remark earned
laughter from the others around the tree. Ken laughed along with them. The boy
was right. Angela always managed to work miracles, and Divine's Emporium seemed
to be a source of never-ending strange and wonderful things and occurrences. Angela
always had advice and something to suit everyone's need, so when she needed
help, there was always someone ready and willing.
Metallic,
rainbow-streaked balls, miniatures of the Wishing Ball hung on the tree. Ken
admired the ornaments and longed for the ability to believe in magic and make a
wish. But if magic was real, then belief was the key ingredient in making it
work. If he couldn't believe, no matter how strong and real the magic was, it
wouldn't work for him.
"Just for that, Jo," Angela said, "you get the first wish."
Ken caught his breath. Wishes? He laughed silently at himself. Even if there was no more magic left in the world for him, that didn't mean other people couldn't believe and enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment