After their fifth or sixth date, Rachel had hesitantly followed Jake up the stairs to his apartment. He had kept it immaculately clean for four weeks in antic.i.p.ation.She dropped her purse inside the door and looked around the living room. Jake watched her eyes fix on the two garlic plants growing in pots beneath each window, the acorns and lavender on the windowsill, the horseshoe nailed above the door, and the tiny cricket cage in which a small, noisy cricket that Jake called Adolf lived.
He was so accustomed to all these things that he hadn"t realized how much of a freak he would seem to her. He was at least glad that she hadn"t seen his drawer full of bright yellow underwear.
"Um," Rachel said, but she couldn"t seem to think of anything else.
"I"m a little superst.i.tious," Jake said, trying to sound blasé. "Have a seat."
As she crossed to the couch, Jake hid a bowl of blue beads and multicolored rabbit"s feet under a stack of bills. Jake went to sit beside her, and after a horrible fifteen seconds of silence, she put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him forward into the most life-changing kiss of Jake"s life.
Jake woke up beside Rachel sometime before dawn. The house was silent except for Adolf"s occasional chirp. He buried his face in her hair, and her strawberry scent was like electricity all through his body. He breathed her in, sure that this breath was the only one he would ever need again. He replayed the most delicious of last night"s moments, feeling her hands and mouth and her legs tensing around him again. He had traced the curve of her hips to her stomach up into the warm, sheltered place below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He had touched her until he was able to believe that she was really there and that he was allowed to touch her.
In the predawn silence, he stayed near her as long as he could, trying to keep still so he wouldn"t wake her, but he only lasted a few minutes before he had to get up and go to the bathroom. He carefully separated himself from her silk skin and stepped silently from the room.
He glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror, surprised by how happy and alert he could look at four a.m. He"d been pretty sure last night that Rachel had used the commodore until she"d broken him, but he seemed to have survived.
Jake was too awake now to consider returning to bed before Rachel woke up, so he left her curled up under his navy blue sheet and went to the kitchen, poured himself a gla.s.s of milk, and searched the cabinets until he found a bag of Cheetos that had only recently expired. He opened the bag over the sink, opening it too hard as he always did and sending four or five Cheetos spiraling in every direction. Three landed in the sink, but before he could go in search of the others, a white vapor spiraled up out of the bag, materializing into a two-foot wispy presence with a goatee that hovered over the remaining Cheetos and raised a hand in greeting.
"Hail!" it boomed.
"Shh," Jake said with force. He set the bag in the sink, walked into the hallway, and peeked in the bedroom door. Rachel hadn"t moved. He closed the door carefully and went back to the kitchen. "Get out," he said.
"I am the jinn Bakri. You have released—"
"If you can"t talk quieter than that, don"t talk at all."
"You have released me," Bakri whispered, "from my prison. For that you may have three wishes."
"I wish for you to go far away from me forever," Jake said, scooping the Cheetos out of the sink and into the trash. Cheetos covered in genie spit didn"t appeal to him.
Bakri shook his head. "Look, you"ve got a great opportunity here. Don"t blow it."
"Keep your voice down. I don"t need the help of a guy who couldn"t escape from a bag of chips. What were you doing living there anyway? Was Wal-Mart sold out of lamps?"
"Right, make fun of me. I"ve been breathing processed artificial cheese dust for three years. Who hasn"t fallen on hard times once or twice? And here I am, trying to do a nice thing, give a little back. I could"ve zapped your soul from your body and turned your chunky biodegradable remains into my new penthouse."
"Sorry," Jake said. "I"ve just got a girl here who"s not used to genies in the kitchen when she wakes up." He opened the refrigerator. "I just hope she isn"t used to eating breakfast either."
"First off, it"s jinn, not genie. Think Arabian Nights, not Robin Williams. Second, did I not mention the wishes thing? Three wishes—that"s coffee, pastries, and eggs, and I"m out of your hair. Or orange juice, waffles, bacon. Tea, crumpets, and a red coat. Whatever you want."
Jake took a deep breath and a drink of his milk. "You"re not going to mess with me on this, right? If I ask for waffles, you"re going to give me a stack of waffles and not a million waffles that fill up the house and suffocate us?"
"Of course not. I mean, you have treated me with nothing but rudeness, but—"
"Or one giant waffle that is as large as the city and crushes everyone"s homes?"
"Feeding the homeless is against the rules? No, I"m not going to be tricky. Just be specific."
"Okay." Jake thought about it. "How about one average sized," he measured it out with his hands to demonstrate, "box of Cheerios with no added poison or snakes or preservatives. Let"s see, I have milk. Two small bananas, not on the tree, not peeled. And two cups of coffee."
"Sir, your wish is my—"
"And you can put it all on the dining room table."
Bakri vanished in an unimpressive twinkle and the food appeared on the table, set out beautifully with napkins and spoons and bowls, and saucers under the coffee cups.
"Not bad, Bakri," Jake murmured. He picked up a cup and took a sip, then almost spilled the boiling coffee all over everything. He set the cup back down and ran to the bathroom, sticking out his blistered tongue and examining it in the mirror. "Basth-tard," he said.