Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)
Bette Lee Crosby
For Katie
Who will forever hold
a special place
in my heart.
Wishing for
Wonderful
The Wish
Somewhere high above the world there’s a place Earthlings know nothing about. A few suspect it exists, and they imagine it’s somewhere beyond the sun or nestled behind the clouds. Neither is true. I know, because this place of whisper thin breezes, heartaches and dreams is where I live.
No mortal has ever been here, and few even believe I am who I am. On Valentine’s Day they send cards and flowers to their loved ones but it’s simply a tradition, not an acknowledgement of my expertise in providing them with their perfect mate. “Thank heaven I met you,” lovers say to one another, but there is seldom a mention of my name.
Eleanor Shipley was an exception, and that’s why I’m determined to grant her one wish.
It happened back in February of 1973. I was arranging for a young widow to meet a single father with two girls when a sound soft as a feather landed on my ear. I looked down and saw Eleanor standing in her backyard looking up at the sky. Scooping a handful of snowflakes from the porch rail, she blew them into the air and said, “Please, Cupid, make Johnny Gray fall in love with me.”
Such belief touched my heart, and in that fleeting instant I turned the snowflakes to stardust. Eleanor knew then her wish would be granted. She was only seven at the time so it would be years before I could make it come true, but I promised myself it would happen.
The thing about promises is that sometimes they slip through the cracks. Not due to a lack of caring, but simply because life gets in the way. That’s what happened with Eleanor. Now, after forty-seven years, I finally have a chance to set things right, but there are a number of other people I’ve got to deal with before I can give Eleanor the happiness she deserves. Still, I’m determined.
To understand the challenges, you’ve got to hear the whole story. Once you’ve heard it, I think you’ll agree with what I did. There are rules here; I know that. And I’ll admit I flagrantly defied them. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I’m a sucker for true love.
I’m Cupid; isn’t that what you’d expect?
Cupid
True Love Never Dies
Unlike Eleanor Shipley, who knew exactly what she wanted and was wise enough to ask me for it, most humans are outrageously in love with love. Even worse, they’re determined to find it themselves. They stumble in and out of relationships that were never meant to be and then wonder why those relationships didn’t work.
Females are infinitely more complicated than males. Lindsay Gray, for example. She’s dead set on doing this her way, and five times she’s ended up with the wrong male. She’s the kind of female who makes my job a nightmare. Don’t forget I told you I’d have to deal with other people before I could give Eleanor what she wants. Lindsay is one of those people.
Contrary to popular belief, love isn’t a result of me shooting an arrow into some human’s heart. That whole bit is a lot of hooey. I get my orders from Upstairs. The Boss gives me a rundown of matches; then it’s my job to make sure the male and female get together. When things go wrong, I’ve got to come up with a Plan B. Unfortunately Lindsay Gray has already used up B through D. I’m now working on Plan E, and she’s dangerously close to being reclassified as Love-Challenged.
Her problem is she can’t tell love from lust. She sees a pair of heavy-lidded dark eyes or a rippling muscle and thinks she’s in love. This started when she was only ten years old and caught sight of the boy who lived two doors down. The lad was twelve and wanted nothing to do with her, but that didn’t stop Lindsay from developing a preadolescent case of lovesickness. She followed that poor boy around like a faithful puppy until she saw him kissing Sara McLachlan. Once that happened she swore she’d never love again and she didn’t, until she was eleven.
Bear in mind, I am who I am and not once have I mistaken lust for love. Lindsay has more times than I can count, and every time it ended in a disaster. She can’t understand why this keeps happening to her, but the answer is obvious: humans with do-it-yourself determination are not equipped to identify true love. They inevitably believe passion is love.
Elizabeth Taylor is a perfect example. She refused to let me handle things, so eight times she got married and seven times she got divorced. One poor chap was killed in a plane crash before she had a chance to divorce him.
That was not my doing, by the way. That unfortunate event came from Life Management. Not one of those gents was included in Elizabeth’s plan, which goes to prove what I’ve been saying.
But I’m digressing.
One of the advantages of this job is my ability to see the future, and I can tell you Lindsay’s got a lot of problems ahead of her. Problems far worse than her bad boyfriend choices. Most of those problems are coming from the guy over in Life Management. Me, I’m a lovable fellow. But Life Management—well, suffice it to say he handles things like car crashes, bankruptcies and heart attacks.
Right now my primary assignment isn’t Lindsay, it’s her father and Eleanor. But if I don’t step in and take control of Lindsay’s life, she’ll ruin theirs. Eleanor and John deserve better; they’ve been waiting a long time.