In case you’re wondering, I won’t nudge her to agree to anything. It would be wrong to nudge clients into something that is going to change the course of their entire life. Besides, the effects of nudging are short-lived—usually only a couple minutes—so not very useful in swaying major life decisions.
She stares at me for another long moment. Finally releasing her death grip on the textbook, she reaches out in slow motion to seal the deal. As our hands meet, she mutters, “But… why are you doing this?”
I give her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Because I’m your fairy godmother.”
2 The Art of the Meet-Cute
It’s time to see Memom.
There’s no time to shower after Poms practice on Wednesday. Not if I’m going to drive forty-five minutes to the retirement home, have dinner with Memom, and do my trig homework before I pass out tonight. So I go for the Euro-shower on the run. I head out of the gym, scrubbing my armpit with a wet wipe. But right as I’m about to push open the door, it swings away from me. My momentum sends me stumbling forward, arms flailing.
My hand holding the stinky-armpit wet wipe connects with someone’s face.
He throws his arms out in self-defense and grazes my boob.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he sputters.
“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” I say at the same time.
I right myself and hide the wet wipe behind my back. Like maybe he won’t notice he just tasted it.
“Wow. Okay,” the guy says, avoiding eye contact. He takes off rectangular glasses, cleans the smears off on the hem of his T-shirt (which says A RESCUE ATTEMPT WOULD BE ILLOGICAL, by the way), and puts them back on. He rubs at the pink spot by his nose where I accidentally clobbered him. Then he pushes his hand through his mass of brown curls, as if to smooth them down. But it has the opposite effect. They spring back even more chaotic, which is kind of… cute. In fact, his whole look screams “adorkable.” I’m a fan.
Finally he looks at me and pulls a face that’s a cocktail of confusion, recognition, and suspicion.
Confusion I get. I’m feeling it too. And recognition makes sense. Even though JLHS is too big to know everyone, he’s probably seen me perform with the Poms at basketball and football games. But suspicion seems a little uncalled for. Does he think I smashed a dirty wipe in his face on purpose? I smile apologetically, hoping to demonstrate that I’m a non-jerk. “Sorry about that,” I say one more time. I duck my head to make my wink less obvious as I nudge a little positivity his way—just a faint Charity’s cool to make this less awkward. My fingertips barely tingle.
He blinks at me, looking even more confused. As if the positive thought about me is creating a does not compute error in his brain.
So that backfired.
I give up and point toward the hallway. “Excuse me.”
He steps to the side with a sweeping arm gesture that is so gallant it’s dorky. I maneuver past him and continue my advance down the hall. Two seconds later I register his voice behind me say, “Uh, Carmen? Can I ask you something?”
Aw. Our newly minted princess has an admirer. Sweet boy was probably waiting outside Poms practice so he can ask her to homecoming. I hope she says yes. That would be adorable.
I’m alternately grinning about Carmen and cringing about the collision when I get outside. I drop my wipe in the trash can, dig a deodorant out of my gym bag, and swipe it under my arms. Then I climb into my Honda Fit and drive.
* * *
Memom is shrinking. Every time I see her, she’s just a bit smaller. It makes me feel guilty for not making time to come more often. But with the fairy godmother gig on top of school and Poms—it’s exhausting. Somehow two months have slipped past without a visit.
But when I get a new client, I have to see Memom right away. I mean, she’s the only other fairy godmother I know, as well as my actual grandmother. She’s my mentor.
Today she’s leaning into some classic old-lady stereotypes. She’s wearing a polyester floral-print shirt-and-pants set, and she has on ridiculously large octagonal sunglasses. We’re sipping tea on the balcony of her assisted-living one-bedroom apartment.
She waves her hands impatiently. “So? What happened after the tryout?”
“She’s living the dream, of course. She’s doing what she loves, dancing till she drops. Goofy guys are throwing themselves at her.”
“Ah.” Memom sighs contentedly. Then she brightens again. “And? Someone else flashed you already?”
“That means something else, Memom.”
She blows her lips out, like, Don’t bother me with trifles.
So I say, “I’ve got nine days with this one. She’s going to be homecoming queen.”
“Nine days?!” Memom spills tea on her polyester blouse. “You can’t be serious!”
“I know, right? Six weeks is my old record.”
Memom looks exasperated. “Even six weeks is too fast. We’ve talked about this. We’re working with real people, not paper dolls. People need time to change. You can’t rush transformations.”
I throw my hands up, maybe a little too dramatically. “What am I supposed to do? I glimpsed it.”
“Maybe it’s supposed to be for homecoming next year.”
“No way. That’s forever from now.” It comes out a little whiny.
“You young people are always in too much of a hurry.”
“Whatever. Don’t act like you know any other young people.”
She giggles. Then she sobers up and looks at me pointedly. “In 1979, one guy flashed me, and I spent eighteen months working him over.”
I yell-laugh-choke, “OMG, Memom! Don’t say ‘flash.’ ”
She waves me off again. “The point is, it’s best to take your time. Baby steps—that’s all people can really handle. One small change. Let it sink in. Then another change.”
I shrug, unmoved. “I hear you, Memom. But this one’s a quickie.”
She smacks my hand. “Don’t say quickie.” Then, with a grin and a twinkle in her eye, she winks at me pointedly.
I feel a little ping in my subconscious and roll my eyes. Whatever gene mutation enables us to send nudges also makes us impervious to them. “Memom, seriously? You know it’s not going to work.”
She shrugs, unabashed. “One of these days I might get you.”
“Aren’t you the one who told me to never, ever use the nudges except to help a Cindy?”
She scrunches her wrinkled face with a petulant humph.
“You need a hobby.”
“I need a Cindy.” She pouts a little, not unlike a three-year-old.
Is this what I’m going to be like in fifty years? Just me and my quirks, swathed in polyester, living for the next glimpse? I love her, but the idea is pretty demoralizing. I drop my head into my hand with a sigh.
She rises creakily from the table. “I have Little Darlings. I’ll get some.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her how nasty Little Darlings are. Mix together one part sawdust, two parts lard, and a boatload of sugar, wrap the whole thing in cellophane and let it cure for ten years, and you’ve got Little Darlings. Memom thinks I love them because I used to scarf them when I was like four.