"Perhaps the two of you would like to take a break and have something to eat," Mom called back, in a clear attempt to erase thoughts of horses from Jeremy"s mind.
"Can we have a feast?" Jeremy asked. "Can we shoot a deer?"
"Well, we can order pizza," Mom said.
Jeremy put his hands on his hips. "Robin Hood doesn"t eat pizza, Mom."
Steve laid a hand on Jeremy"s shoulder. "Do you like pizza?"
Jeremy nodded.
"Then I shall be happy to try it."
They went to the living room. I went to my room and changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt; something a little more flattering than Steve"s lucky poker T-shirt. I folded his clothes into a neat pile so I could give them back to him later.
When I joined my family in the living room, Jeremy was peppering Steve with questions about Sherwood Forest, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the responsibilities of a Merry Man.
I kept staring at Steve, trying to see the person I"d seen this morning, the one with the short brown hair and casual conversation. It was hard to remember that person because his Robin Hood came through so vibrantly. I hadn"t really appreciated this about him on the set, back when I"d watched him do silly things like sword fight with the air. But now his eyes glowed while he talked about the perils of the forest. I half believed him myself.
When the pizza arrived-just cheese pizza for Jeremy because Mom wouldn"t let him eat the nitrates in pepperoni-we all sat at the kitchen table. Jeremy made a big deal of showing Steve how to eat it, and Steve smiled and followed his directions.
I tried not to constantly look at him, and struggled to find something else to rest my gaze on. But I kept looking back to Steve. Every once in a while he sent a smile in my direction, which completely robbed me of coherent thought. I had to keep telling myself to stop it. He was only here because he promised to see Jeremy. I probably wouldn"t ever see him after today.
When we finished with the pizza, he nodded in my mother"s direction. "Thank you for your hospitality, m"lady, but I fear my time here grows short. I dare not stay away from Sherwood for long, lest it be invaded by knaves and cutthroats-or, worse yet, lest Friar Tuck eat all the food."
My mom leaned toward him. "Thank you again for coming. This has meant so much to Jeremy."
The last part of her statement probably wasn"t necessary because Jeremy threw himself into Steve"s lap. They had a few more Merry Men words together and then Steve stood up and Dad pried Jeremy away.
Steve thanked my parents again for the strange delicacy of pizza, then looked at me. "Before I go I"d like to have a word alone with Lady Annika." He glanced down at Jeremy and winked. "We need to discuss genie business."
"Of course," Mom said. "Annika, why don"t you show him to the door, and the rest of us will stay here and clean up the dishes."
"We have this neat thing called a dishwasher," Jeremy called to him. "Do you want to see it?"
"Perhaps next time."
Jeremy"s face lit up with hope. "Will the genie let you come again?"
"Didn"t I say I"d come back to give you your Lincoln greens? You shall have them soon, genie or no genie."
Jeremy raised his hands and jumped in triumph. "Yessss!"
I took Steve"s hand and pulled him from the kitchen before Jeremy volunteered to show him how all the appliances worked.
As we walked, I said, "First of all, you"re amazing. Really. I even know better, and I found myself believing in you."
"Thank you," he said using his regular voice.
"I don"t remember the last time Jeremy was so thrilled. This whole thing will totally work. I just know he"s going to fly through surgery tomorrow."
A flicker of doubt crossed Steve"s eyes, but he squeezed my hand. "Good. I"m glad you"re happy."
"Oh, and the second thing I need to tell you about. When your brother asks, tell him our pit bulls loved you."
"Your pit bulls?"
"Yeah, Dagger and Deathwish-and stop raising your eyebrow at me. I had to think of an excuse so he wouldn"t come inside. I played your girlfriend all morning, and I couldn"t really introduce him to my family since they know I don"t live in California."
Steve shrugged. "We could be having one of those long-distance relationships."
"Could we?" I asked and then felt like I"d said too much. I"d put him on the spot. Before he could speak, I said, "I hope you don"t get into too much trouble for messing up the production schedule."
"They"ll manage." He tilted his head and gave me one of his famous smirks. "Although if the next few episodes have me swimming through freezing rivers or being repeatedly beaten by King John"s men, well, you"ll know Dean is still ticked off."
I smiled and tried to memorize how his hand felt in mine. I knew in another moment he"d pull it away from me and leave.
Instead of pulling his hand away, he took a step closer to me. "Look, Annika, we should probably talk about us." He said this in that hesitant voice guys use when they really don"t want to discuss a subject but feel obligated.
I didn"t want to hear his next words. I let go of his hand and put my own in the back pockets of my jeans. "You don"t have to say it. I understand." I looked out the living room window to the front lawn. His car was nowhere in sight. "Where did you park?"
"Down the street. If Jeremy was in your front yard, I didn"t want him to see Robin Hood pulling up to his house in a Lexus. It ruins the whole medieval illusion."
I craned my neck to see farther down the street, but still didn"t see the car.
"Yes," Steve said. "I did in fact walk past all of your neighbors" houses wearing green tights, a pointy feathered hat, and carrying a bow."
I giggled despite myself. "I"m sorry. Do you want me to drive you back to your car?"
"Are you kidding? I"ve seen how you drive."
I gave him a playful shove. "I think you"d be safe for a block."
He leaned closer to me, and his voice lost its teasing edge. "We could."
"We could what?"
"We could have a long-distance relationship."
The words surprised me so much I just stared back at him. "Oh."
He put his hands on my shoulders. "I know it"s only been a couple of days, but you already know me better than Karli ever did. You care about people, and you"re pa.s.sionate about helping them. Besides, I feel like . . ." His voice drifted off as though he didn"t know how to say it. "Like we"ve known each other all along. I"ve always felt that."
I took a step closer to him and smiled. "Right, I could tell by the way you brushed me off at the stadium."
He grinned, remembering. "Okay, maybe it wasn"t an immediate connection. It was a little later . . . actually, it was when you jumped past me between trailers. I knew I was in trouble from then on. That was what I nearly confessed to you back in the car." He bent down to kiss me, but I heard footsteps and turned my head. Jeremy had come into the room. The timing made me jump. If he had walked in two seconds later, we would have had to explain to him why Robin Hood was cheating on Maid Marion.
Jeremy tilted his head at us. "What are you two doing?"
"Robin was about to tell me a secret," I said. "And you were supposed to stay in the kitchen."
"I wanted to see the genie before it took Robin Hood back to Sherwood Forest. I"m ready to make the last wish."
"Oh. Right." I ran a hand through my hair trying to get my mind away from Steve-nearly-kissed-me mode and back to genie mode. I looked behind Jeremy to see if Mom or Dad was about to come fetch him. "We"d probably better do that in the den."
"Okay." Jeremy took Steve"s hand and pulled him toward the hallway. "The den is over here. Are you going to disappear into a puff of smoke?"
"No, he"s not," I said. "And, remember, you have to keep your eyes closed or the genie won"t come." I sent Steve an apologetic look as I led the way to the den. Once inside, I had Jeremy sit on the chair in front of the computer. Steve stood by the door, which I left partially open. To Steve I mouthed the words, "Once he shuts his eyes, leave."
Steve nodded.
"Remember," I told Jeremy, "for the official third wish you"re going to wish that you do fine during surgery."
Jeremy shut his eyes, but then they popped open again. "You never told me what your first wish was."
"Well, it was a long time ago. . . ." I stalled. I still hadn"t thought of a good answer to this question. What could I have wished for that he would believe? If only something amazing had happened in my past, something I could point to and say, "See, that was obviously the work of magic."
"Don"t you remember what you wished for?" Jeremy asked.
"I remember . . . it"s just private."
Jeremy lowered his voice. "I won"t tell. Promise."
From beside the door Steve said, "I know what she wished for." I looked at him questioningly and he added, "I asked the genie. I had to know what kind of wish I followed. When you"re part of a second wish, you always want to be more spectacular than the first wish was."
"Are you more spectacular?" Jeremy asked.
Steve walked over to the desk and knelt to be eye level with Jeremy. "Nope. I knew I couldn"t be more spectacular, so I didn"t even try."
Jeremy"s eyes grew wide and he leaned toward Steve. "What did she wish for?"
Steve gently tapped him on the nose. "A little brother."
Jeremy leaned back and laughed. He turned to me as though I"d been silly. "Why wouldn"t you tell me that that?"
"I didn"t want you to say anything to Mom and Dad. All this time they thought it was their idea."
"I won"t tell them," he said.
Impulsively I bent down, picked Jeremy up, and hugged him. In the last month he"d grown so thin I could feel his ribs pressing through his shirt. "Everything has to go fine," I told him. "I can"t lose my first wish."
He hugged me back, but only for a moment. Then he slipped from my arms and climbed back onto the chair. Before anyone had a chance to say anything else, he squeezed his eyes shut. The words flew from his mouth. "This is my official third wish. I wish that no matter what happens with the cancer, my family will still be happy. Especially Annika." He opened his eyes. "Was it okay to add that last part? That"s not cheating because it wasn"t a different wish."
I couldn"t answer him. It felt like I"d been hit with something. I just stared at Jeremy until I could get out, "That"s not what you were supposed to wish for."
He shrugged. "I thought you needed the wish more. I don"t want you to be sad anymore."
"But . . ." But everything I"d done meant nothing then. Only I couldn"t say that, so the sentence hovered in the air, unfinished. Jeremy turned to Steve. "How come the genie didn"t poof you away?"
"The genie thought I needed to stay and talk to Annika for a bit."
"Oh. Okay. I"m going to go tell Mom and Dad that you"re not sad anymore. They were really worried about you before you came home."
He slid off the chair, gave Steve"s legs one last hug, and then zoomed out of the room.
I watched him go, feeling the effects of my horrible defeat settling around me.
Steve put his hand on my arm. "This doesn"t mean the surgery won"t go well. It will probably go wonderfully."
I barely heard him. "Mom and Dad must have said things about me while I was gone, and they worried Jeremy. It"s because I left to find you that he thought I needed the third wish more." The same trapped feeling of being in the underworld crept into my heart. "No matter what I do, I can"t win."
"He loves you, Annika. That"s a good thing, a real thing. The wishes were never real."
His sentence snapped me back into my room, back to the present. I nodded. I took deep breaths. "You"re right. The surgery might still go well." I managed to smile. "Maybe one day when Jeremy and I are old, we"ll laugh about all of this."
"And when you tell him the whole story, be sure not to leave out the part where Esme went flying into the fishpond."
I nodded.
Steve stayed for a while longer, giving me more words of encouragement. I kept nodding, but inside I felt hollow. I gave him his clothes and my cell phone number. He said he"d try to get some child-sized Merry Man clothes for Jeremy as soon as possible.
"Will you be okay tomorrow?" he asked me.
I nodded, but I wasn"t sure.
He bent down and kissed me good-bye, and then I did feel like I was going to be okay. After all, I was clearly the luckiest girl alive. Things would go well tomorrow. They had to.
Chapter 17
I didn"t go to school on Friday. I wanted to go to the hospital with my family, and besides, my parents thought it would be best if I avoided school until people stopped talking about the pictures that had showed up on Entertainment Tonight Entertainment Tonight. Because they did. Along with an interview with Karli Roller in which she blamed me for her breakup with Steve Raleigh. "I knew there was someone else on his mind. A woman can always tell."
Right. I doubted she could tell which way was up without using an elevator.
Madison had been the one to call and tell me that the interview was on TV, but a couple of my friends called my cell phone afterward. The conversations went like this: Them: Hey, there"s these pictures of Steve Raleigh with some mystery girl who looks a ton like you.
Me: Really?
Them: Yeah, besides the brown hair, she could be your twin.
Me (making a note to myself that I need to bleach my hair back to blond before I see any of my friends) (making a note to myself that I need to bleach my hair back to blond before I see any of my friends): Really?
Because I was not about to tell any of them the truth. I didn"t want them flipping out or bugging me to meet him, and I certainly didn"t want a repeat performance with the paparazzi. Of course, this didn"t mean that I didn"t want Steve to take me to prom, because, hey, how cool would that be?