Wishes and Miracles
By Joan Bird
()
About this ebook
In these two heartbreakingly poignant stories--SAM'S GIFT and AMY'S WISH--four deeply scarred editors and authors find solace and rebirth in the holiday season, proving romantic love can heal any wound, self-inflicted or otherwise.
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Wishes and Miracles - Joan Bird
WISHES AND MIRACLES
Two Stories
SAM’S GIFT
AMY’S WISH
Joan Bird
www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.
SAM’S GIFT
Copyright © 2013 Joan Bird
AMY’S WISH
Copyright © 2015 Joan Bird
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.
ISBN 978-1-941260-84-5
CONTENTS
Sam's Gift
Amy's Wish
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
About the Author
SAM’S GIFT
Joan Bird
To Sam, with the hope she’ll look up my dad and read him this story aloud from a favorite cloud. Preferably one with a yacht harbor and bourbon. Miss you always, Dad.
SAM’S GIFT
Thursday, June 17, 2010, 10:10 p.m.
The first physical contact between them was accidental.
It was the shoes. And the sidewalk. And her balance in the shoes. Ridiculous. Jake barely had the cab door open when she missed the curb. At least, that’s what he thought happened. Innocent enough. Grabbing her instinctively to prevent her from face-planting on the sidewalk. A bolt of lightning raced through him from their every point of contact. That hadn’t happened in years.
Earlier that day
"You wanted to see me, Jake?’
Bob.
His best friend since time began. Right. Don’t we have a romance line?
Bob looked over his shoulder as if hunted and then closed the door to Jake’s office. Are you sick?
No.
Though he’d expected Bob’s derision. "No. But I’ve stumbled on a property and the author pitched it that way. Oddly enough, it’s compelling."
Yeah, well, we have our E-Z-Read line.
Bob’s expression had switched from amusement to concern. But we publish classics, remember?
He could read the authors and titles in his friend’s eyes: Flaubert and his Madam Bovary, Austen, and Jake’s vote for top pick, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Perhaps his mysterious writer was a modern Baroness Orczy. Right. It’s—
Wait. Wait a minute.
Incredulousness furrowed Bob’s brow. "You read a romance novel?"
That’s how it was pitched.
So you said. That’s why I need a drink.
Bob stepped toward the chairs in front of Jake’s desk. A double.
Without a backward glance, he busied himself at Jake’s office bar. Ice cubes bounced into a glass. The stopper popped, and liquid whispered temptation. "You don’t… You read a bodice-ripper?"
If he weren’t so at odds with the situation himself, Jake would have laughed at his friend’s response.
How’d you come upon it?
Jake pulled out a ratty manila envelope and slid it across his desk. It seemed hopelessly out of place against the shiny mahogany.
Shit, Jake.
Holding the rumpled packaging with two fingers, Bob exhibited somewhat less reverence than Jake had inexplicably felt when he bent to retrieve the object stuffed under his door yesterday. And Jake still hadn’t figured out when anyone would have had access, least of all an unknown someone. Company visitors had to pass through at least two security checks. But regardless of the how, and though he couldn’t say why, he’d felt compelled to tuck the envelope into his briefcase despite the missive that wrapped its outside:
YOU must READ this book. Seriously.
YOU WON’T be able to PUT IT down!
Really, Jake.
Bob regarded the package warily. How long would it take to cut these letters and phrases out of magazines or catalogues or whatever?
Too long.
Studying the envelope: But how much time does any unrepresented writer spend sending out manuscripts and reading rejection letters?
Too much, no doubt. Still, I’d be more than a little leery about someone who tries to get your attention like this.
Raising an eyebrow, Bob slid the envelope back. So, is it a romance novel or not?
Yes.
Wanting his once-a-day bourbon, he tried breathing through his mouth to dispel the craving that accompanied the ruddy aroma of his friend’s Scotch. And no.
Come on, Jake. You afraid you’ll wind up coloring the grey around your temples and donning uber-pink shirts if you admit it is?
No.
Pulling the envelope close to his chest. I’m afraid I’ll wind up back in church.
***
Maggie’s Take & Bake Pizza and Rooftop Gardens, how can I help you?
I’m sorry, maybe I have a wrong number. I’m looking for—
You probably want Lizzie. You don’t want a pizza, right?
Uh, no.
And I’m guessing you won’t be needing a roof garden?
I think…no, I’m certain I have the wrong number. Unless you’re a writer who submits unsolicited manuscripts to publishing houses that would normally never publish them?
"Holy sheep shit. You want Lizzieeeee!" The receiver clunked on something hard, and he could hear the tapping of shoes echoing over the line. Liz! Lizzzzeeeee!
More footsteps. Lizzie, there’s a man on the phone for you. He says it’s about your book. He sounds older, you know. Like, forty-something.
Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the glass windows that separated his office from the people beyond, Jake frowned. Forty-two, actually, but not officially dead. Okay, maybe he’d been nearly dead, only going through the motions of life for a period just shy of a decade, but not—declared or otherwise—dead.
More footsteps. Someone picked up the phone. Muffled tones, female voices, and it sounded as if the receiver were punched up against clothing or maybe cupped in a hand. Then:
Hello?
Gravelly, sexy, but no doubt years younger than the over-forty-something reflection Jake still studied in the office glass.
Liz? Lizzie?
he said.
Who wants to know?
"I’m staring at Ordin…acles, wondering how you got your manuscript under the door of my office."
I’m sure I’ve no clue what you’re talking about.
The book. You, or someone for you, somehow shoved a submission for publication, well, I assume for publication, under my door yesterday.
He suddenly remembered the smell of pizza that permeated the office when he returned from that editorial meeting. I can’t be sure of the title, there’s an industrial staple slammed through it.
No reply.
This phone number survived. It was in the header.
"Not my phone number," the sexy voice replied.
Okay, Maggie’s Take and Bake Pizza and Rooftop Gardens.
That was pretty good, but if you want a job you’ll have to speak with Maggie. Let me get her for you.
Stop.
He’d spoken loud enough that Carla Andrews popped her head up from her computer screen outside. She mouthed, You okay?
Jake nodded his head up and down. Did you write it or not?
Write what?
The stapled-all-to-hell book.
Oops.
But a smile laced her voice, easing Jake’s frustration.
‘Oops?’
I do that. I’ve a little zealous streak. Over-the-top, that sort of thing. Sorry. Bad habit. You don’t want to be near me when I’m armed.
He’d bite, although the conversation seemed trending toward the bizarre. Armed?
Yeah. With packing tape, staples, rubber cement… Frightening, really. I’m kind of a superhero of shipping.
Superheroine.
Oh, right. I shouldn’t be shocked that you’re some kind of word gender guru.
The smile in her voice seemed intractable. Jake’s own reaction was beyond his control, so spontaneous that he didn’t recognize his own burst of laughter.
So, now that you’re laughing,
the female voice said, what would you like to know?
Did you write it? The book shoved under my door.
An idea struck. Or maybe it was Maggie. Thinking back on it, there was a pizza delivery to the office yesterday. It makes sense Maggie delivered the pies, so I’m thinking she used the opportunity to slip her book into my office.
Pausing. Trusting a recalcitrant author’s pride of ownership to rise above whatever reason she had for denial. Unless you wrote it.
That was kind of a compound sentence most lawyers would find objectionable and tell me not to answer, especially since I’m not sure it was even a question. You know, like not even an official question.
I’m not a lawyer, dammit.
Sorry, sorry. I do that, too.
Lose your patience, or swear at strangers?
Make people crazy.
I can live with that, Lizzie, if you would just answer my question.
Painfully aware that he might sound a little whiny, Jake cleared his throat. Please.
Well, who wants to know? Can’t answer your inquiry if you won’t answer mine.
Jake. Jake Willis. Bennett and Wi—
Shit. I know who you are. Shit. Shit. Super shit.
Silence. Can you hang on for just a second, Mr. Willis?
It’s Jake.
Again the phone clattered, apparently abandoned.
Do I hang up? Nothing. Not a footstep, nary a garbled word. Yet he found it reassuring that, even if she had written the book, Lizzie-somebody remained down-to-earth enough to articulate her emotions with the artful, "Super shit." Hell, if he wasn’t dead, as the delightful Ms. Maggie Pizza had all but suggested, this phone call might kill him.
Liz?
he said after a few minutes.
I’m here.
Where’s here, exactly?
Maggie’s.
The temptation to suggest they might not share the same planet passed. Which is where?
Bowery. Near Delancy.
I’d like to arrange a meeting to discuss your book.
Serious?
Lizzie, I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.
Wow.
I take it you don’t generally speak the prose you write.
Well, that just would, Mr. Willis, be plain silly, wouldn’t it?
Now he was the one smiling through the phone. It’s reassuring to know you also split your infinitives in conversation.
Wait until I dangle a participle your way.
So you’re some kind of literary rebel?
That’s hard to claim when every manuscript I’ve ever submitted has been rejected.
Not this time, Lizzie,
Jake said. Not this time.
He’d wanted to see her reaction to the offer of publication. In the end, he settled for a concession to meet for dinner. But even then Jake had an inkling she might not show. The discourse had been surreal enough to have not happened. But the book was real. The ransom note–like envelope front and center before him left little doubt of that.
***
"You are so going, Lizzie. You have to."
Why?
Because that book is everything you’ve dreamed, eaten, slept… Well, it’s everything, and now that big-shot publishing place—
It’s called a house, Maggie. And I’ve heard it before. I lost one book to someone with no scruples. I won’t do it again. Not with Annie.
Her best friend and roommate filled another glass of white wine from the box that occupied almost the entire top shelf of their antiquated fridge. Liz longed for a glass, but she was still undecided about the evening. Go or don’t go.
Well, you have to go.
I don’t have to do anything, Maggie.
What the hell did you borrow my pizza uniform for? And why’d you waste almost eighty bucks on pies just to deliver your book to that stupid office?
Maggie emptied her glass in a swallow. "Oh, yeah, and just leaving it at reception? No, not my Lizzie. What the hell? If you didn’t want that thing you spent two years writing, rewriting and re-rewriting seen by someone, then why’d ya shove your manuscript under his door? Maggie yanked at Lizzie’s shirt, rearranging it, something she always did without thinking.
Not going my ass. You’re going."
Clad only in underwear and multi-colored striped knee-socks, Maggie yanked clothes from her armoire, throwing item after item on the bed. Lizzie opted for a short glass of wine and to