Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) Read online

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Alanna nodded toward where she’d been staring. “You mean she looks like that?”

  Joe followed her gaze. “Holy crap,” he said. “That’s her.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m completely sure. That’s Shelly.”

  “Then we’re not . . .”

  “I guess not. We must be back . . .”

  “On earth,” Alanna finished his sentence.

  “How did we get here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  At that moment, the bartender slid two more not-drinks in front of them and Alanna looked up just in time to catch his gaze. He was smiling, a knowing little smile, and his eyes twinkled as if he’d just enjoyed playing a joke on someone.

  “Speaking of movies,” she said softly. “Does he remind you of anyone?” She nodded toward the bartender still standing in front of them.

  “Hey, you know who you look like?” Joe pointed at him and then motioned with his hand to come closer.

  “Who’s that?” the bartender grinned openly now and leaned in toward them.

  “You look just like Morgan Freeman, You know, the guy who played God.”

  “Wait a minute,” Alanna said. “You were the guy who checked me in during Transition, weren’t you? You were the monk and then the doctor and the lawyer. But what are you doing down here?”

  The bartender only chuckled and pulled their empty glasses away. “You can call me Morgan, if you like.”

  Chapter Six

  Shelly went to the bar because it was familiar. Whenever Ben was on the road she liked to hang out with her girlfriend who worked there five nights a week. That night she was one of two bartenders and the place was busy so Shelly sat alone at the end and ordered a glass of white wine, which she left half full. She wasn’t much of a drinker. One vice was enough.

  Shelly had convinced herself that buying Lotto tickets and playing online slots was really only a hobby, something to keep her busy when Ben was out of town. Being a sales manager with a team to keep on track, he was gone a lot. And even when he was home—well, let’s face it—even when he was home, he wasn’t completely home. His attention wandered. It sometimes seemed to Shelly that she could have been a piece of furniture. She found herself imagining a life where everything went her way, where she was in control and everyone respected her and hung on her every word. Where Ben wouldn’t have to work because they would have all the money they needed. The kind of life one big win would give her.

  Shelly sighed, tried to pull her thoughts back to the present. Marcus always said fantasizing was dangerous, as dangerous as hanging around race tracks and casinos. Besides, she was almost to the end of her struggle years anyway, wasn’t she? It was really just a matter of holding on for a few more months. Once she and Ben were married, she’d be totally solvent and she wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore. It was just this single girl life that had gotten out of control. No matter how much she had, she was like a gerbil in a wheel spinning around and around. Pay one bill and put three others aside for later.

  Shelly reached into her purse and laid out the spreadsheet she’d created in front of her on the marble bar. She took a deep breath and said, “Please, God, make me a winner this time,” then traced down the sheet with her finger, carefully comparing the Lotto numbers on the newspaper page next to the numbers on her spreadsheet.

  From the other end of the bar, Alanna and Joe watched her, fascinated.

  “What’s she doing?” Alanna asked.

  “Attempting to beat the system.” It was Morgan. Now that they’d spotted him, the voice really gave him away. “She puts all her Lotto numbers from different games into a spread sheet and runs them through a probability software she wrote for herself.” He wiped some melted ice drops off the counter with a bar cloth.

  “Wow,” Joe looked over at Shelly with new respect. “That’s impressive.”

  “Yes. She has talents, but she also called in sick to work today so she could go all over town buying Lotto tickets and soon she’s going to find out . . .”

  “Wait a second,” Joe interrupted. “If she runs out of money that’ll stop her in her tracks.”

  “Ahhh, Joe, this is not someone who operates in reality. You see, Shelly’s one of those people who want to believe there’s an easy street waiting around the corner and if they can just find that corner, all their troubles will be over. Just look at her.”

  Alanna and Joe turned toward Shelly at the end of the bar, her head still down, still running her finger down columns on the spreadsheet.

  “Is that the wish we grant her? Directions to easy street?” Alanna asked as she turned back to Morgan.

  But Morgan was gone. Alanna and Joe looked at each other. Then down the bar to where two bartenders were laughing while one placed drinks on a tray for a waiter. Neither of the bartenders looked anything like Morgan.

  “What the hell?” Joe muttered. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know but one thing is sure. He’s dumped a woman on us who’s so self-involved all she can think about is winning a lottery. You’d think he’d have chosen someone more deserving.”

  “There must be more to her than that. No person is just one thing. Maybe there’s something behind her need to win. For all we know, she’s desperate.”

  Alanna shrugged. Maybe, she thought but she wasn’t convinced.

  “Besides,” Joe added. “Money’s not the worst thing you could wish for.”

  “It’s so paltry,” Alanna said. “So meaningless.”

  Joe leaned back and stared at her. “I cannot believe you just said that. Money solves a whole boatload of problems.”

  “It doesn’t seem like enough. It seems like the kind of thing you’d say you wanted and then you’d realize later it wasn’t the right thing, that you should have wished for . . .”

  “Not our problem,” Joe reminded her. “Not our call. Our job is to grant their wishes, not tell them they should have wished for something else. And, for the record, I think most people would wish for more money given the chance. So you must have been some kind of rich girl back in Delray Beach.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Alanna turned to him indignantly, her hair swaying.

  “You don’t know all that much about yourself, do you? Why is this pissing you off so much?”

  “It’s just that everyone assumes that rich people have no problems. It’s not true, you know.”

  “I’m sure it’s not. Poor rich people. Let’s all have a moment of silence on their behalf. Anyway, what makes you an authority on rich people and their problems?”

  Alanna shook her head. “You’re right. I don’t know you and I don’t even know myself and neither one of us has any idea why we’re here.” She gazed down the bar at Shelly, busy with her spreadsheet. Maybe she really was being too hard on the girl.

  “Oh God,” she said, her eyes growing misty as another thought suddenly settled in her mind, obviously something else from the file. “We’re both here for the same reason. That’s why we were partnered. Because our lives ran out before they were destined to end. And that’s why we’ve been given these tasks because we have the chance to earn our way back . . .”

  “Back to what?” Joe asked. “Back to life? I think I must have loved life. But so far this is pretty good, too.” He watched her tip her glass again and thought that she was really a woman who could hold her not-drink.

  “I think we’re going to follow Shelly now,” he said.

  “How do you know that? Was it in the file?”

  “Nope. I know it because she’s leaving. Come on.” Alanna glanced down the bar in time to see Shelly crumple the newspaper page she’d been looking at and throw it on the floor under the bar. She reached down for her purse and slid off the stool. Alanna saw a look of desperation on her face.

  “But maybe we should go over to her, tell her, explain that . . .”

  “No time to talk,” Joe said a
bruptly. Shelly was heading for the door fast and he barely had time to slam down the final not-drink and reach for Alanna’s hand.

  “Let the games begin.”

  Chapter Seven

  “So . . . come here often?”

  It was a lame line and they both knew it. Shelly looked up from her phone and gave Joe a bored glance. Like Alanna, she was an attractive woman. And like Alanna, the kick of having random guys hit on her had worn off a long time ago.

  “So,” he persisted, as the line edged a little closer to the cashier. “What are you here for? Motor oil? Slurpees? Beef jerky?” He paused. “Maybe lottery tickets?”

  Now her head jerked up. “What if I am? It’s not a crime.”

  He raised his hands. “Hey, you’ll get no argument from me. I used to be a gambler myself.”

  Shelly looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Used to be? What happened? You’re not some sort of GA spy, are you?”

  GA. Had that been in the file? Joe’s mind raced through possibilities.

  “Hey, I’m on your side,” he said, with what he hoped was a convincing smile. “Name’s Joe, by the way.”

  She shrugged. “Shelly. Well, really Michelle, but no one calls me that.”

  Joe nodded. He knew all about names. He’d been born Aloysius Joseph Taft and had never forgiven his mother for sticking him with that.

  “Well, Shelly-but-really-Michelle, I’ve gotta tell you. I have a really good feeling about those Vegas Chance tickets. I think you need to buy one.”

  She turned back to her phone, already bored with the conversation. “If you have such a good feeling about it, why don’t you buy one for yourself? Don’t like to win?”

  For starters, I don’t have any money, Joe thought. And for another thing, I’m flying utterly blind here. Why had he told her to get a Vegas Chance? With twenty-five hundred Lotto tickets, her chances were surely better there. Hell, he’d never even heard of a Vegas Chance. The words had simply flown out of his mouth. It must have been something from the file. Shelly had already turned her back to him again, sure he was nothing more than some loser trying to pick her up in a convenience store. Joe glanced around for Alanna, sure she’d have better ways to approach the situation. After all, women trusted other women, didn’t they? But Alanna didn’t seem to have manifested with him. He was not only flying blind, he was flying solo.

  “Yeah, Vegas Chance,” he said again, rocking back on the heels of his feet. If she was a true gambler she wouldn’t be able to resist taking the bait no matter how strangely he acted. “Instant Winner. That’s the ticket.”

  She shrugged, snapped her phone shut. “I only play Lotto. Or Super Lotto. The pots are worth it. I just wish I could win really big once in my life.”

  There it is, Joe thought. The wish. Just as easy as that.

  “I know,” he started to say, catching himself just in time. At least she was talking to him again but there were only two more customers between them and the cashier so he had to act fast.

  “Shelly, I’ll tell you what, I have this really strong feeling that there’s a winning ticket in there for you,” Joe told her and then added. “But only for you. It wouldn’t do me any good at all to buy one. It’s just not my day.”

  Shelly looked at Joe, then at her watch. She understood all about these mystical impulses drawing you to one gas station or another convenience store, telling you that you were going to win, that it was finally your moment. “You have a feeling.” She wagged her head from side to side, considering what he’d said.

  “Not just a feeling,” he promised. “The feeling.”

  “Okay. But just one ticket,” she said and then added. “I must be crazy.”

  Shelley told the cashier she wanted four hundred ninety nine Lotto tickets and one Vegas Chance. The request seemed to set the man back on his heels a little bit, and he was further flummoxed when Shelly withdrew a battered envelope from her purse and fanned five hundred dollar bills across the counter, then crumpled the empty envelope and tossed it toward the trash can. She missed the can and Joe winced. Apparently, just as Morgan had predicted, Shelly had bought tickets all over town and was down to the last five hundred dollars of the engagement weekend money. Gamblers had their strange rituals—another thing he wasn’t quite sure how he knew—and Shelly must be one of those who favored certain gas stations.

  The cashier pushed a stack of paper tickets toward Shelly and she scooped them up and headed for the door. Joe followed, hoping she didn’t ask him why he’d stood in such a long line and left without buying anything.

  “The Vegas Chance is an instant win,” he reminded her, once they were out on the sidewalk.

  “I know, I know,” she said. “God, you really do have a feeling, don’t you?” She zipped the Lotto tickets in her purse and put the Vegas Chance ticket on the top of a metal stand selling copies of USA Today.

  “Scratch it off,” Joe said. His own heart was pounding. “Go ahead.” Even though he was pretty sure this was a winning ticket, Joe felt the rush of the gambler. And besides, how did he know he could trust Morgan? Still, he’d been a guy who never dodged an opportunity.

  Shelly rubbed with the tip of one broken fingernail. She’d blown her manicure money on tickets two weeks ago. The silver coating started crumbling away in tiny pieces. She rubbed and rubbed and when she saw a capital V and then an E and then a G, she rubbed faster and harder. She started jumping up and down in little hops and the more she rubbed the more the letters looked as if they were spelling out the words she needed to win and finally there it was in front of her. VEGAS CHANCE WINNER. Shelly clamped her fingers around Joe’s wrist.

  “You were right. I won. I really won.” She was grinning like a hyena and still had her hand clamped on Joe’s wrist so tight it felt like he’d just been handcuffed.

  “I told you.”

  “How did you know? It’s amazing. But what’s the payout?” She released his wrist so she could hold the ticket in both her hands to study it closely. She turned it over and squinted at the small print on the back.

  “What does it say?” She handed it to Joe. “I can’t read it. It’s too small.”

  Joe knew without reading but pretended to scan the back of the ticket, hoping he was squinting at the small print in a convincing fashion. “It says you’ve won an all expenses paid four days in Las Vegas. It includes airfare—first class—and you’ll be a VIP guest. And, holy crap. It says when you get there, you’ll get three thousand dollars in chips to have fun gambling. Holy crap,” he repeated.

  “This can’t be happening.” Shelly shook her head, as Joe gave her back the ticket. “It just can’t. People like me don’t win glamour stuff. It must be some mistake.”

  “Trust me, it’s no mistake.”

  “Well it’s fantastic, that’s what. Fantasmatastic. I can’t wait to tell my fiancé. I’m on my way to the airport to pick him up now and he’s just going to be . . . he’s going to be thrilled.” She grinned at Joe. “Come on, you need to let me do something for you. It’s almost noon. Would you like lunch?”

  Joe wasn’t sure he could even eat. The Manifest had come complete with what seemed to be a normal human body—his body, as a matter of fact—and no one, including Shelly, seemed to have noticed anything odd about him. But he wasn’t sure how this body worked—if it ate, slept, or performed any of the other vital functions he remembered from his life back on earth. Although a bit ragged around the edges, Shelly was a good-looking girl. He’d recognized it at once and yet he wasn’t responding to her in the same way he’d once responded to a pretty woman. It was a disturbing thought.

  Another disturbing thought. Alanna still hadn’t shown up. Where the hell was she and why had she left him to do all this on his own? After all, they were partners.

  Joe got a sudden rush of pressure and then a jolt of memory that felt like a punch in the gut swept through him. He’d had another partner somewhere. He’d been a—what was it? Yes he’d been a detective. No that wasn�
��t it. He’d been—what? And then it came clear. He’d been a lawyer. A lawyer with a law partner. A partner who’d disappeared. Joe felt a rush of excitement and wanted to share this memory with Alanna. If he ever saw her again, that is. He seemed to have a knack for losing partners.

  Shelly was still looking at him with an expectant expression. Just over her shoulder, his eye fell on a bright red Coke machine. A drink would probably be okay.

  “Maybe a Coke?” he said.

  Shelly giggled. “You’re certainly a cheap date.”

  They walked over to the machine and she began fishing quarters out of her bulging purse and feeding them to the machine one at a time. “I like getting drinks out of machines,” she said, still obviously high from her win. “Now don’t laugh, but I always pretend I’m playing a slot machine. I keep thinking one day a bunch of quarters is going to come rushing back out. Silly, huh?”

  “Let’s try it,” Joe said and he pressed the Coke button. There was a gentle roar, and a hesitation, and then a Coke dropped down. Joe picked it up and popped the top. It was just as he remembered. Cold, sweet, fizzy. And it was nice to feel the warm air on his arms too.

  He looked around, wondering exactly where they were. There was a bank of azaleas at the edge of the gas station, already in full bloom. They must be pretty far south of Boston where it would be too early for such flowers.

  The machine roared again. Another clanking sound. And a second Coke dropped into the slot. Shelly and Joe looked at it and both burst into laughter.

  “Two Cokes for the price of one,” she said. “This really is my lucky day.

  Chapter Eight

  On the way to the airport, Shelly was like a skittish cat. At traffic lights she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and when the light turned green she pressed the gas so hard the car lurched forward. By the time she arrived she had licked her lips so often they were dry and she had to reapply her lipstick before getting out of the car. As she walked away she turned back to look at the Mustang, rusted, dented, one cracked side mirror, and thought, this is your last month in my life, baby. She could barely wait to see Ben. Now that she was on top, she could finally tell him about everything.