Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (11 page)

After several more tiny sips, I marveled at the magical warmness spreading through my gut. My arms and legs became tingly and I thought my head was gonna float right off my body. The cares of the world suddenly didn't seem so bad. As I got used to the taste of it, my sips got bigger and the next thing I knew, it was empty.

I felt happy and carefree. If one bottle of beer could do that, I could only imagine how wonderful I would feel with two.

With some effort, I twisted the top off the second bottle and took a big swig. I sat watching the leaves of the trees in the front yard blow in the breeze.

“Rose?” Joe asked, sounding stunned. “What are you doin’?”

I turned my head. He stood at the edge of the porch with my purse in his hand. I lifted the bottle up to show him. “I’m drinkin’ a beer.” I giggled then took another sip.

He climbed the steps and sat in the rocker next to me, setting my purse on the floor between us. “Yeah, I can see that. I thought you didn't drink.”

I giggled again. “I don’t, well, I didn’t. But that was the old me; this is the new me and the new me drinks beer.” I leaned over to him and whispered loudly. “And guess what? I
like
it.”

Joe chuckled. “So I see.” He looked down at the box, alarmed. “How many have you
had
?”

I waved the drink at him. “This is just my second but look how many there’s left!”

“Mind sharin’?”

I hated to lose one, but it seemed the neighborly thing to do. “Okay.”

Joe picked up a bottle. He twisted the cap off a whole lot easier than I did and took a big swig. “Bad day?” he asked.

For some reason I found his question funny and my laughter spilled out until I laughed so hard I was crying. Joe rocked in his chair, sipping his beer. He watched patiently, waiting for me to settle down.

“It sucked.” Then I started giggling again because Momma had considered
sucked
a bad word and tonight I was breaking all the rules. I settled down in a minute and took another drink. “Hey, what are you doin’ with my purse?” I asked, noticing it on the floor between us.

“I saw it outside the side of the house, thought I’d bring it to you before someone took off with it.”

“Huh,” I said, contemplating how it could have gotten there. I must have set it down when I unlocked the door earlier. Thinking of the door reminded me of the locks. “Oh!” I exclaimed in a mini-shout, fairly certain Joe actually jumped in his seat. “I plum forgot I owe you money.” I reached down for my purse, but had trouble grabbing hold of it. I thought that was funny and snickered.

“Rose, it can wait. You can just pay me later.”

I finally got a good grasp and pulled it up into my lap. “No, I
insist
.” I chuckled more because the
s
sound in the word
insist
sounded funny. I pulled the wallet out and shoved the bag off my lap. It landed on the floor with a loud thud. “Oops.”

I opened my wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

“I don't remember. Just pay me later.” He looked like he thought something was really funny.

“No, no, no.” I wondered why it sounded like my words were slurred. “I might forget.”

“Okay, pay me twenty dollars and you can cook me dinner sometime to make up the difference.”

I dug through my cash, carefully picking through the bills. I found a twenty, taking great care as I pulled it out. The Wal-Mart receipt fell out onto my lap. I reached over to hand Joe the money. He took it from me, his fingers brushing mine. I felt a strange tingling in my gut.

“Oh…,” I said, my eyes opening wide in surprise. I turned to Joe in fascination.

He looked confused at my reaction.

I thought about touching him again, but decided to take another drink of my beer instead.

“How long have you been out here?” he asked.

“I dunno…,” my voice trailed off. “Hmm….” I tried to think.

“When did you start drinkin’?”

“I dunno, not that long ago.” I finished off my bottle and reached down for another.

Joe grabbed my hand in his, stopping me while I lifted it out of the box. “Hold on there, Party Girl. When was the last time you ate somethin’?”

Our heads were bent close together, both of us reaching down. I turned slightly to look at him. “I dunno…,”

His face was inches from mine, his eyes full of mischief, but they quickly clouded over and turned dark and serious. He sat up, looking stiff and uncomfortable. “I’m gonna go get us somethin’ to eat. You wait here and
don’t drink anything else
.”

“But there’s another beer in there!” I protested in earnest.

He grabbed the bottle and stood up.

“That’s mine! Give that back!”

“I will, after you eat something. Since you’re new to drinkin’ I'll teach you all about it.”

That got my attention. “You will?”

“Yeah, when I get back. Just wait right there.”

I watched my last bottle of beer leave with him. My hands settled in my lap and the receipt poked my palm. I unfolded the strip, smoothing it out. How long ago had I written my list? It felt like a lifetime.

I started reading, surprised at the number of items I could already mark off. I’d been more wicked than I thought. I’d completed three of them: numbers one, ten and eighteen—
get a cell phone, drink a beer
and
wear high heels
. Three items of twenty eight. I still had a ways to go, but those were three things I’d never done in twenty-four years. I’d made pretty good progress.

“What are you lookin’ at?”

My head jerked up at the sound of Joe’s voice. “Huh?”

“What’s that?”

I loved beer. Normally, I would have been shy and hid my list, but beer gave me confidence I'd never had before. “It’s my Wish List.”

Joe handed me a bottle of water and a paper plate with a sandwich and some chips. He sat down with his own plate and water.

“Where’s my beer?” I asked, panicked that he might have lost it.

He laughed. “Don’t worry, I put it in your fridge. Rule number one of drinkin’: Beer is better cold.”

I picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “Oh…”

Joe leaned over toward me. “That one is very important.”

I nodded, seeing the seriousness of it. “What else?”

“Beer before liquor, you’ll never be sicker.”

I scrunched my nose. “What does that mean?”

“It means don't drink beer and move onto harder stuff; you’ll get a pretty nasty hangover.”

“Okay.” I took another bite of my turkey sandwich. “Why did you bring me a sandwich? Why’re you being so nice to me?”

He shrugged and grinned. “You gave me a beer, I repaid you with a sandwich. Good trade. Besides, that brings me to the next rule: don't drink on an empty stomach. Bad idea.”

“Wow, I had no idea drinkin’ had so many rules.”

“You have no idea. Next rule: drink plenty of water so you don’t get dehydrated.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, take another drink. It will keep you from gettin’ a headache tomorrow.”

“I’m gonna get a headache?”

“If you drink too much and don’t eat or drink water. We’re gonna try to stop that from happenin’.”

I took another sip.

Joe finished his sandwich and set his plate on the floor. “So what’s on your list?”

“Wishes.”

“Wishes? What kind of wishes?

I handed him the list.

He took it and raised his eyebrows. “A Wal-Mart receipt?”

I shrugged and nibbled on a chip. “I didn’t have any paper.”

“Number one,
get a cell phone
. Two,
commit all seven deadly sins in one week
.” He jerked his head up, smiling. “What
is
this?”

The fuzzy feeling in my head was going away and I didn’t want it to. “Can I have my beer now?”

Joe gave me a weird look as he went in the front door with the receipt still in his hand. He must have run because it felt like he’d just gone in when he came back, handing me an open bottle. He had one too.

“So about this list…”

I took a drink. Joe was right; beer
was
better cold. “I told ya already, it’s my Wish List. It’s all the things I wanna do.”

“Looks like you took care of number ten tonight,
drink beer
.”

“Yeah, lucky for me Uncle Earl left it behind.” I giggled.

Joe continued reading. “Number fourteen,
kiss a man
.” He looked up. “Rose, are you tellin’ me you’ve never done anythin’ on this list?” He sounded like he’d just been told there was no Santa Claus after believing his whole life.

“Oh, no…”

“Good, I didn’t see how…”

“I hadn’t done any of those things before
last week
. I’ve done three of them now.” I held up three fingers to show him. “I bought a cell phone. I wore heels to Momma’s funeral and I didn’t fall over. And tonight I’m drinking beer.” I lowered a finger as I ticked off the items, leaving my middle finger for the last. A second later I realized what I did and broke out into a fit of laughter.

When I stopped, Joe stared at me, his face very serious. “Rose, why did you write this list?”

I took another drink of my beer. “Cause I was tired of not livin’, you know?”

“No, what do you mean?”

I sighed for all I was worth. “I wanted to live my life instead of havin’ my momma tellin’ me what I could and couldn’t do and tellin’ me how
evil
I was.”

Joe took a drink of his beer, quiet for a moment. “Rose, when did you write this list? Number four is
Get my own place
.”

“I wrote it Saturday, before I came home and found Momma.”

Joe reached over and took my hand in his. “Rose, did you kill your mother?” His voice was so quiet the cicadas almost drowned out his words.

I tried to snatch my hand away. “No! What do you care, anyway? You said it wasn’t for you to decide, remember?”

His grip held tight. “You’re right, I don’t care. I’m just curious.”

“What? Are you afraid I’ll beat your head in with a rollin’ pin?”

Joe laughed and let go of my hand. “No, I’m not afraid of you, not how you’re thinkin’ anyway. If you came at me with a blunt object, I could fend you off with one hand tied behind my back.”

I thought about arguing with him but decided maybe I’d prove him wrong later. I’d bide my time.

“Number twelve,
dance
. You’ve never danced?”

“Nope.”

“Not even in your livin’ room?”

“Nope.”

“Now that’s a damn shame. Everyone has danced in their livin’ room.”

“Not me.”

“Number fifteen.”

I turned to face him. “Which one is that?”

He glanced up. The teasing expression on his face looked forced. “
Do more with a man
.”

For the first time since he started reading, I felt embarrassed. “I didn’t say what I wanted. I just said
do more
.”

“Why do you want to commit all Seven Deadly Sins in one week? Why one week? Why commit them at all?”

I took a drink, suddenly tired of all his questions. “Look, there’s rules with that list. I can only mark them off when I do them. If I don’t do them, they can’t come off. I wrote that one without thinkin’. I thought about how Momma always said I was committin’ deadly sins and I thought I was gonna commit them all and
enjoy it.
But one day just didn’t seem right, you know?” I stopped to make sure he did.

He nodded with a smirk.

“So I decided one week would be more respectable. But what I hadn’t thought about was keepin’ track of them all. I think I’ll have to write them down or I’ll forget which ones I did and didn’t do.” I stood up. “I gotta pee.”

Joe laughed. “All right. Do you need help gettin’ to the bathroom?”

My snort told him what I thought of his ridiculous question. I turned to go inside the door, teetering because the porch began to wobble. I giggled again.

Joe got up and held onto my elbow. “Be careful.”

I tripped over my foot and started to fall. Joe wrapped his arm around my waist and steadied me, pulling my body to his in the process.

We stood chest to chest, his arm holding me to him. My heart sped up and my breathing became shallow. The warm feeling down below returned with a tingling I hadn’t expected but wasn’t ready to lose just yet.

“Can you list the Seven Deadly Sins?” Joe asked, his voice barely a whisper.

I stared up into his eyes, mesmerized. “Envy, slothfulness, gluttony.”

“Have you ever done any of those, Rose?”

I nodded slowly.

“That’s only three. Do you know the other four?”

“Wrath, pride, greed,…lust.”

His face moved closer to mine. My heart beat even faster, trying to flip-flop out of my chest.

“Ever felt greed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lust?” His mouth was inches from mine.

Overcome with a yearning I’d never felt before, I didn’t answer, just studied his face.

“Have you really never been kissed? I find that so hard to believe.” His free hand caressed my cheek.

I felt his breath on my face and something in me ached with a need I couldn’t name.

His mouth lowered so close to mine, our lips almost touched. “I can help you with an item on your list.”

“Which one?” I whispered, searching his eyes and trying not to go cross-eyed.

“Number fourteen, a kiss.”

My heart thumped so hard I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack. But I decided if I was gonna die, then kissing Joe was probably a good way to go. “Can you make it a really good one?”

Joe laughed, tilting his head back, to my utter disappointment.

“So you can’t make it a good one or you don’t want to kiss me?” I asked, peeved.

He stopped laughing. “Neither.” The hand around my waist inched up my back, pulling me even closer to him, which I hadn’t thought possible. He did it slow and deliberate, like I was a mouse and he was a cat, playing with his prey. His eyes bore into mine, his mouth inching closer. My heart rate sped up again, the ache inside growing with every second.

“Are you sure, Rose?” he asked, a small grin lifting the corners of his mouth and making his eyes twinkle.