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    Wish and A Star
    Wish and A Star
    Wish and A Star
    Ebook60 pages53 minutes

    Wish and A Star

    By Denise Tanaka

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Constance Kirby has lost her way. Approaching middle age, and working a dead end job, she is at her wit's end caretaking for her grumpy, housebound father. When the ghost of silent film star Rudolph Valentino visits her, can she get her life back on course?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSasoriza Books
    Release dateOct 16, 2016
    ISBN9781946055002
    Wish and A Star
    Author

    Denise Tanaka

    Denise B. Tanaka has a lifelong passion for writing stories of magical beings and faraway worlds but is sometimes sidetracked by nonfiction projects. A graduate of Sonoma State University, she works as a senior paralegal in immigration law. She has dabbled in genealogy for more than 30 years and is very grateful for the internet.

    Read more from Denise Tanaka

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      Book preview

      Wish and A Star - Denise Tanaka

      Table of Contents

      Wish and A Star

      Sign up for Denise B. Tanaka's Mailing List

      About the Author

      #

      Hey, Dad.

      Constance Kirby tossed her car keys on the table. She dumped her satchel purse on the floor.

      The TV was on, as always, hissing with the white noise of cheering spectators. It could be a baseball game, a hockey game, a soccer game, bowling, wrestling, cage fighting, or golf. Her father watched them all.

      Dad, are you okay?

      Maybe today's the day, she thought with dread. He was in his late eighties and living every day on borrowed time. The hardwood floor of his San Francisco rowhouse, built in 1924, creaked under her shoes.

      You're late, Connie. Her father reclined in his armchair as usual. He stared at the TV with a mesmerized glare. Someone on a field of grass had scored, and the crowd was going wild.

      Traffic was hell going over the bridge.

      Constance straightened the knitted afghan that covered his lap. She picked up crumpled paper towels that littered the floor. I got you a box of tissues, Dad.

      Sissy puff tissues are for queers.

      It was no use arguing with a man who made Archie Bunker look reasonable. In her youth, she used to get outraged at her father's prejudices and had sobbed in embarrassment when he spouted off racial slurs in front of her friends. Now, in her mid-forties, she had no friends left.

      Constance went to the kitchen. On the refrigerator was a handwritten note from one of the church volunteers.

      Thrice happy they, and more, whom an unbroken bond unites and whom love, unsevered by bitter quarrels, shall not release until the last day of all.

      —Odes, Book I, xiii. Horace.

      She opened the cabinet and contemplated soup cans. What do you want for dinner?

      Beef chili.

      I stopped buying chili, Dad. Remember what the doctor said? It aggravates your colon.

      Goddamned doctor.

      How about minestrone?

      I told you, no Italian food.

      Constance took out the can. It's not Italian food, Dad. It's Campbell's. While he continued ranting about the shortcomings of Italian food, the Italian people and the country of Italy from the fall of the Roman Empire to Benito Mussolini, she heated up the contents of the can and poured it into a blue bowl.

      The phone rang today, he grumbled.

      Who was it?

      I don't know. I didn't answer.

      Constance arranged the serving tray over his lap. The phone's right here. It's cordless so you can answer it without getting up. What if it was important?

      If it was important, they'd leave a message. He leaned forward over the bowl and slurped loudly off the spoon. It's too hot.

      Let it cool off. Constance checked the answering machine. No messages.

      She made her rounds to collect the dirty laundry from the floor. She ran a Swiffer around the bathroom and replaced the toilet paper. She counted out the dosage of his medications into a colorful pill-sorting box while making a note of the prescriptions to refill.

      Are you finished with your soup?

      Don't rush me! You made it too hot. I've told you before, I don't like it too hot. It's gonna burn my tongue.

      Constance descended the stairs to the garage. The narrow space stank of old stucco and the detritus of an old man's life: bicycles without wheels, chairs without cushions, bureaus with cracked drawers, steamer trunks that looked like they had survived the sinking of the Titanic, and a scuffed upright piano had not been played since her mother died.

      She walked a narrow path through the clutter to the mail slot in the garage door. Neither snow, nor sleet, nor son-of-a-bitch. Among the usual junk and bills was a hand-addressed envelope. The name on the return address was not familiar. Surely none of her father's acquaintances would use a label with a calligraphy font, a yellow rose, and musical notes.

      Dad, look at this, she said, returning upstairs. Do you know anyone named Sarah Keyes?

      Probably a scam. Throw it out.

      Constance brought the letter into the kitchen. She sat down at the linoleum table and rested her elbows next to her stack of dog-eared paperback mysteries. Curious, she used a butter knife to open the envelope.

      The stationery of rosebuds and music notes matched the address label. The paper smelled vaguely of coffee. The handwriting was large and swift.

      She read, Mr. Kirby, you don't know

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