My eyes plead with Henry. He rolls his own in response, but he gets her down. “Come on, Lisa. Azra wants you to practice your curtsying again.”
While I chase Lisa up and down the beach, Henry stays behind. With Chelsea. Chelsea, who leans her tiny, bikini-clad body against the bottom of the lifeguard chair and swings the red rope of her whistle as if she were posing for the cover of a swimsuit issue. When Henry laughs, I can’t fathom what Chelsea could have possibly said to elicit such a reaction. That a half-naked girl doesn’t have to say much to cause a teenage boy to be enraptured crosses my mind. But Henry’s too smart to be taken in simply by Chelsea’s assets.
I check my watch and am more relieved than I have a right to be when I see it’s five minutes past my mom’s pickup time. Lisa sprints ahead of me toward Henry.
As I follow her, Nate sidles up next to me. “Turned out not to be so bad of a day after all.”
This, like so much else in my life at the moment, I have conflicting feelings about.
The four of us stand at the lifeguard chair. Chelsea who’s looking at me who’s looking at Henry who’s looking at Nate who’s looking at me.
“My mom’s probably here if you want a ride,” I say, desperate to break up the awkward gathering.
As we leave the beach, Henry and I trail behind Lisa. He then turns, waving to Chelsea.
Seriously?
Before we cross over the dunes I steal a last glance at Chelsea. Her back is arched and she’s laughing. I’m convinced she knows I’m watching when she lands a teasing slap on Nate’s stomach.
In my head, the satisfaction of telling Henry how Chelsea mocked Lisa battles against the fear that it would hurt him too much. But it’s not even a fair fight. If I’ve learned anything from what I did to Laila it is this: from this moment on, not hurting my family will always come first. And without a doubt, Henry is now my family.
22
It is happening. My first assignment arrives, sealed inside a gold envelope with my name embossed in an ornate script across the front.
Azra Nadira.
It doesn’t fall from the sky or anything, just from my mother’s hand.
My bowl of chocolaty cereal no longer holds my interest. The soggy mess and I stare at each other for so long, my mother gets fed up.
“Oh, come on, Azra. Just open the damn thing.”
The lightness of the envelope belies what’s inside. I wedge my nail in the small gap at the corner. Sliding my finger across, I jerk my hand back. Paper cut. Apropos. I stick my finger in my mouth, sucking the blood. Who cares what Henry thinks? Vampires would be a cool supernatural being. Grass is always greener, right?
I nudge the textured linen note card out of the envelope and read the gold lettering. Anne Wood. My first candidate is a woman. The only other information this paper gives me is her address. As expected, she lives right here in town.
I dump my soggy cereal in the trash. “So, want to come along for the ride?” I’m only half joking.
“You know I can’t. No one can. You’re supposed to be fully trained and able to do this yourself.” My mother’s model Jinn answer is accompanied by a glint of worry in her eyes. Especially as she adds, “Which, you are.” She takes the paper out of my hand and her body relaxes. “Or you will be by the time you need to do this. You have a week.”
She lays the card facedown. On the back, in between two squiggly lines is a 7.
“That’s how long you have before you need to grant Ms. Wood’s wish.”
As my mother pours me a new bowl of cereal, she launches into her Jinn lecture of the day: research.
In this, I’m lucky. The Internet affords Jinn of my generation a huge technological jump on how our ancestors performed this least glamorous part of the wish-granting ritual. Even during my mother’s genie days, recon had all the hallmarks of some cheesy movie. Jinn would shadow their candidates like a detective trailing some rich woman’s cheating husband, camera hidden inside a trench coat, binoculars at the ready.
I now understand how proficiency in mind-reading might be a desired skill. The more a Jinn can read their victim’s—er, candidate’s—mind, the less external prep work required.
Learning about the wishee through a combination of research and mind-reading helps us craft the right wish the right way, most importantly, the way it won’t wind up on the evening news. Whatever genie was responsible for the building of the Great Sphinx of Giza or the Roman Colosseum certainly didn’t have to worry about paparazzi, twenty-four-hour news cycles, and conspiracy bloggers.
I go through the day feeling like I have an itch on my insides that I have no possible way of scratching. I even texted Hana, Mina, and Farrah to ask their advice. Well, I wrote texts to Hana, Mina, and Farrah. Knowing my butterflies would get back to Yasmin, the only text I actually sent was to Henry.
Which turned out to be a huge mistake.
“World peace?” My phone dings with another message from him.
He’s been quizzing me all day on potential wishes. Thinks he’s hilarious.
I slide my laptop onto the bed, taking a break from my barely started cyberstalking of Ms. Wood to reply,
Trick. Make her feel the current state of the world is perfectly peaceful as it is.
Cheater. Sure I can’t come? Love to see you do real magic.
Real magic? As opposed to …
How those spiffy loafers working for ya?
That’s baby stuff.
You try it.
I ??wish??.
LOL.
When’s big day?
One week.
’K. Grams giving me evil eye. H out.
He’s out to dinner with his visiting grandparents and still he’s texting me? I delete all the incriminating messages and toss the phone on my bed. Baby stuff. Hardly. Then again, world peace? What the hell would I do with that? I rub my hands to warm them. What if he’s right? What if everything up until now has been baby stuff?