Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) (5 page)

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.

He was already standing in
baggage claim when she came through the automatic doors —talking on his cell,
of course—and waved her over but kept talking. Okay, it was going to be one of
those days. Snippets of conversation interrupted by calls and texts and
whatever. I’ll find the right moment, Shelly thought. But her shoulders sagged
a bit and she felt like the girlfriend who arrives at the bar to find her
boyfriend chatting up a long legged beauty wearing a short skirt.

When he finally shoved his
phone in his pocket, Shelly had lost some of her nerve but she plowed ahead.

“Benji,” she began.

But Ben was still wound up
from his trip and broke in to tell her about the training in Saint Louis, the
new members of his team, and how the company’s profits were looking good this
quarter.

“And guess what?” he finally
asked.

“Ben,” she repeated, and this
time she didn’t use her pet name for him. “I have something to tell you.”

He grinned. “Let me guess.
You missed me so much you could hardly stand it. But I’m back now. Maybe we
should skip lunch. Go back to my place.” His smile and the look of mischief on
his face told Shelly exactly what he thought he knew.

“Will you listen? I want to
tell you about something. About me. Something you don’t know that . . .” This
wasn’t going well and Shelly stalled. Then she took a deep breath and thought,
I might as well just spit it out.

“Damn. What’s the hold up
with these bags? I swear it takes longer to get your luggage than it does to
make the flight. Okay, wait. Here we go. About time.” Ben reached down to the
conveyor belt for his suitcase and put his other arm around her. “What were you
saying, babe?”

May as well wait until we’re
outside, Shelly thought. Only an idiot would try to confess in the middle of an
airport. She and Ben walked to her car where he put his suitcase in the back
seat along with, she was relieved to note, his jacket. That meant his cell
phone would be out of reach for the length of the ride.

They climbed in and she
cranked the car which made a sputtering howl of protest at being prodded back
into service and she slowly backed out of the parking place. Funny that she
felt fine taking some risks, but was an unusually cautious driver. Ben was
always kidding her about going forty-five in a fifty zone.

“Okay,” he said. “Your news
first.”

She took a deep breath. “It’s
just this. Remember the money
you gave me? For the inn? Well instead of taking it out there I bought
Lotto tickets with it.”

He merely stared at her. “You
did what?”

“I've got twenty-five hundred
of them in my purse. No wait, twenty-four hundred and ninety-nine to be
precise. And I thought one of them was going to pay off, I really did, because
. . .”

His hand came down like a
claw across the steering wheel. “Stop the car,” he said.

She had never heard his voice
so cold, so flat.

But there was no arguing with
the tone. She looked around the parking garage and pulled into the first space
she came to, a handicapped spot. Appropriate, she thought.

They both sat for a minute
staring straight ahead at the concrete wall. Finally he spoke.

“Why in the name of God,” he
said. “Would you spend the money for our engagement dinner on lottery tickets?”

“Super Lotto, honey. The
pot’s up to thirty mill-“

“Michelle,” he said and it
occurred to her suddenly, like a child, that he was really angry. He never
called her Michelle. Never. “I’m not asking you how big the pot is. I’m asking
you why you felt the urge to gamble our engagement on a purse full of lottery
tickets.”

Gamble their engagement? Was
that what she had done? Was he saying he wasn’t going to marry her now? Panic
began to bubble up in Shelly’s throat.

“Because I thought I could
parlay that money into enough to pay off my debts and get out of this situation
I’m in. I’ve wanted to do that for years now. I’m always behind the eight ball
and I never get clear. So I thought this time I could do it. Get clear. But, um
. . .”

Ben was still staring at the
concrete wall in front of them. “What sort of debts are we talking about?
Credit cards?”

Credit cards? He still wasn’t
getting it. He thought she’d spent too much on shoes and lunches out with the
girls. Shelly took a deep breath, struggled to get control of herself.
“Everything,” she finally gasped. “Yeah, credit cards and the car loan, and
insurance, and a bank credit line, and rent, and-“

“How did you get so far
behind? I know what you make . . .” Ben leaned back against the headrest and
closed his eyes. “Oh, I see,” he finally said and his voice was tired. “I
thought you said all this was behind us.”

This is the longest we’ve
ever talked without his cell phone ringing, Shelly thought, in some abstract
part of her mind that was looking down at the scene from a faraway place. I
guess it doesn’t pick up a signal in the parking garage. Okay, he’s furious,
but at least I’ve got his attention, so I may as well say it all.

“I know you’re angry,” Shelly
began again. “I know I shouldn’t have done it.
And I know you’re disappointed and
everything but it worked out okay in the end. Because I did win something.
Something really terrific. See I met this guy at a gas station on the way here.
It just happened. Like it was destined.” She was rattling on now, talking fast as
the whole thing tumbled out like falling leaves until she stopped.

“So you’re saying you gambled
away the deposit for our engagement party on lottery tickets—or excuse me Super
Lotto tickets—and then with your last dollar bought another ticket at a gas
station because some jerk told you it would be a winner? Shelly, you must be
insane.”

“But I won. Don’t you see? It
was all worth it. I can cash in the three thousand in chips and still have five
hundred left to win out there. And when we get to Vegas . . .”

“Vegas? Do you honestly think
I would go with you to Vegas knowing that you’re a compulsive gambler? I can’t
even begin to tell you how many ways that is wrong. And the fact that I have to
explain it to you, especially after all our discussions about this. And after
you agreed to go to GA and you promised . . .”

“We can talk about it over
lunch,” she said. They just needed to get out of this awful garage and go
somewhere sunny and nice. Then he would calm down. He would start to understand.

“I don’t want any lunch,” Ben
said, his voice finally moving from cold to angry. “My God, I’ve spoiled you
like a child, haven’t I? You announce something like this, just blurt it out to
me in a parking garage, and think we’re just going to go to lunch. And then
you’ll jolly me right out of this bad mood, won’t you, Shelly? Is that what you
think? I’m surprised you didn’t tell me in bed.” Ben unhooked his seat belt and
pushed open the car door. “I need some time. I’m going to take a cab home. We’ll
talk later.”

“But Ben if you’ll only . .
.”

“Later, Shelly. After I have
a chance to calm down.” He flung open the back door and pulled out his suitcase
and jacket.

Shelly’s heart began to pound
and she was aware that her palms were cold and clammy. She couldn’t think
straight. All she could picture was Ben walking away and her never seeing him
again. Only one thought kept repeating in an endless loop in her mind. I
shouldn’t have told him, I shouldn’t have told him. She opened her mouth,
wanting to ask him to get back in the car, to stay with her, to let her try to
explain. But no sound came out and it was as if she had suddenly been struck
silent by an unseen hand.

Chapter Nine

Joe and Alanna had watched
the whole thing from a cab sitting in a line of cabs in front of the airport
baggage claim exit doors. They watched Ben walk back toward the airport and
robotically get into the first cab in line. They watched Shelly climb out of
her Mustang and call something to him, a question that would forever go
unanswered. And they watched her then lean against the hood of her car,
sobbing.

“Well we’re off to a great
start,” Alanna said hollowly. “We’ve been on the job I would estimate about
three hours and we’ve ruined her life.”

Joe slammed his hand against
the cab door. “It’s my fault,” he said. “I don’t know why I ever said the words
‘Vegas Chance’ to her. Where the hell did that even come from?”

“It’s not your fault,” Alanna
said absently, patting his arm while her gaze was still focused on Shelly. The
girl was the very picture of despair and she wanted to go over and comfort her.
“I should have been there to help you and I don’t know why I wasn’t. It seems
like I spent the whole morning riding around in this stupid cab, but I don’t
know why.”

“You’d have to have handled
it better than I did,” Joe said, his gaze also locked on Shelly. He remembered
he never could stand to see a woman cry.

“The lady will get her
chance,” said a familiar low voice. The cabbie turned around and peered at
them.

“You again?” said Joe.
“You’ve got some explaining to do. Why was I sent down there alone while Alanna
was stuck in this cab? Why did you let me muck it up so bad?”

“Why did I let you?” Morgan
chuckled as he eased his cab out of the line and started to drive.

“You still think I’m God, don’t
you?” Morgan glanced at them in the rear view mirror. “I’ve never been entirely
comfortable with that word. It seems to make people so nervous. And besides, if
I was God, Transition
would
have to be Heaven, wouldn’t it? And is that where you think you were?”

“Not exactly,” Alanna
muttered. She’d never really pictured the afterlife as harps and angels but
even so, it had to be more ethereal than bars and taxi cabs .

“Okay then, Morgan, what now?
We granted her wish. Or at least part of it. Is she going to win the Lotto? She
still has 2499 tickets in her purse.”

“It’s not quite that simple,
Joe.”

Joe winced. “Somehow I didn’t
think it was.”

Morgan turned the cab onto a
busy street with strip malls on either side. “I thought this would be a good
opportunity to let you see how Shelly got to be Shelly. There are some things
you don’t yet understand.”

“What things?” Alanna asked
and, as soon as the words hit the air the little taxi video screen in front of
them—the kind you could watch the news on or pay for your cab fare—came to life
with an image of Shelly superimposed over a grid of her life so far.