She made a cup of tea and grabbed a notepad, sitting on the couch with Baxter curled up beside her. At the top of the page she wrote:
Twenty Wishes
It took her a long time to write down the first item.
1. Find one good thing about life
She felt almost embarrassed that all she could come up with was such a plaintive, pathetic desire, one that betrayed the sorry state of her mental health. Sitting back, she closed her eyes and tried to remember what she used to dream about, the half-expressed wishes of her younger years.
She added a second item, silly though it was.
2. Buy myself a pair of red cowboy boots
In her twenties, long before she married Robert, Anne Marie had seen a pair in a display window and they’d stopped her cold. She absolutely had to have those boots. When she’d gone into the store and tried them on, they were a perfect fit. Perfect. Unfortunately the price tag wasn’t. No way could she afford $1500 for a pair of cow boy boots! With reluctance she’d walked out of the store, abandoning that small dream.
She couldn’t have afforded such an extravagance working part-time at the university bookstore. But she still thought about those boots. She still wanted them, and the price no longer daunted her as it had all those years ago. Somehow, she’d find herself a pair of decadent cowboy boots. Red ones.
Chewing on the end of her pen, she contemplated other wishes. Really, this shouldn’t be so difficult….
It occurred to her that if she was going to buy red cowboy boots, she should think of something to do in them.
3. Learn how to line dance
She suspected line dancing might be a bit passé in Seattle—as opposed to, say, Dallas—but the good thing was that it didn’t require a partner. She could show up and just have fun without worrying about being part of a couple. She wasn’t ready for another relationship; perhaps in time, but definitely not yet. After a few minutes she crossed out the line-dancing wish. She didn’t have the energy to be sociable. She read over her first wish and scratched that out, too. She didn’t know how to gauge whether she’d actually found something good about life. It wasn’t specific enough.
A host of possibilities bounced around in her head but she didn’t bother to write any of them on her list.
Lillie was right; she needed to get her finances in order. She wrote that down on a second sheet of paper, along with getting her annual physical and—maybe—signing up for the gym. The only thing on the first sheet, her wish list, was those boots.
So now she had two separate lists—one for wishes and the second for the more practical aspects of life. Not that each wish wouldn’t ultimately require its own to-do list, but that was a concern for another day. She closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she wanted most, what wish she hoped to fulfill. The next few ideas were all sensible ones, like scheduling appointments she’d postponed for months. It was a sad commentary that her one wish, the lone desire of her heart, was an outrageously priced pair of boots.
That was the problem; she no longer knew what she wanted. Shrouded in grief and lost dreams, her joy had vanished, the same way laughter and singing had.
So far, her second list outnumbered the wish list. It included booking appointments with an accountant, an attorney, the vet and a couple of doctors. Sad, sad, sad. She could well imagine what Lillie and Barbie’s lists looked like. They’d have wonderful ideas. Places to go, experiences to savor, people to meet.
Anne Marie stared at her wish list with its one ridiculous statement, tempted to crumple it up.
She didn’t. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she left it sitting on her kitchen counter. Lists were important; she knew that. Over the years she’d read enough about goal-setting to realize the value of writing things down. In fact, the store carried a number of bestselling titles on that very topic.
Okay, this was a start. She wasn’t going to abandon the idea. And at least she’d taken control of some immediate needs. She’d identified what she had to do.
Sometime later, she’d list what she wanted to do.
She ran her finger over the word boots. Foolish, impractical, ridiculous—but she didn’t care. She was determined to have the things.
Already the thought of listing her wishes was making a difference; already she felt a tiny bit of hope, a whisper of excitement. The thawing had begun.
Eventually other desires, other wishes, would come to her. She had nineteen left. She felt as if the genie had finally escaped the lamp and was waiting to hear her greatest desires. All she had to do was listen to her own heart and as soon as she did, her wildest dreams would come true.
If only life could be that simple.
It wasn’t, of course, but Anne Marie decided she was willing to pretend.
Chapter 2
All that next week Anne Marie continued to look at her list. The sheet of paper with TWENTY WISHES written across the top became a patchwork of scribbles and scratched-out lines. She wrote I want to sing again, then changed her mind, deciding it was unnecessary to waste a wish on something she was convinced would return in its own time.
Eventually she transferred her list, such as it was, to a yellow legal pad, which somehow made her wishes seem more official. Then on Wednesday, her day off, she walked past a craft store on her way back from the accountant’s and noticed the scrapbooking supplies in the window. She stared at the beautifully embellished pages displayed in the showcase. She used to possess a certain decorative flair. She wasn’t sure she did anymore, but the idea of creating pages like that for her meager list of wishes appealed to her. A scrapbook to compile her wishes, make her plans and document her efforts. Those wishes would encourage her to look forward, to focus on the future with an optimism that had been lacking since her separation from Robert.
With that in mind, Anne Marie bought the necessary supplies, then lugged them home. As she passed A Good Yarn, the shop just two doors down from the bookstore, she impulsively stepped inside. First, she wanted to thank Lydia for the table covering and second…she’d ask about classes.
She’d add knitting to her wish list. Anne Marie wondered why she hadn’t thought of that earlier. Elise was a consummate knitter and often encouraged the others to learn. She described the satisfactions of knitting in such a compelling way, Anne Marie had flirted more than once with the idea of taking a class. Lydia Goetz, who owned A Good Yarn, was a much-loved and admired member of the Blossom Street neighborhood. Anne Marie was friendly with her and had often gone inside the yarn store, but never with the serious intent of learning to knit. Now, the prospect of knitting filled her with unfamiliar enthusiasm.
Lydia was sitting at the table in the back of the shop with her sister, Margaret. Although Lydia was petite and graceful, her sister was rather big-boned, a little ungainly. At first glance it was hard to believe they were even related. Once the surprise of learning they were sisters wore off, the resemblance revealed itself in the shape of their eyes and the thrust of their chins.
When Anne Marie entered the store, the sisters were obviously involved in their conversation; as they spoke, Lydia was knitting, Margaret crocheting. The bell above the door jingled, startling them both.
A smile instantly broke out on Lydia’s face. “Anne Marie, how nice to see you! I’m glad you stopped by.”
Lydia had a natural warmth that made customers feel welcome.
“Good morning,” Anne Marie said, smiling at the two women. “Lydia, I came to thank you again for the gorgeous tablecloth.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. You know, it’s really a lace shawl I knit years ago. I hope you’ll have occasion to use it again.”
“Oh, I will.”
“I’ve been meaning to visit the bookstore,” Lydia told her. “I want to pick up a couple of new mysteries. By the way, how did the Valentine’s party go?”
“It was wonderful,” Anne Marie said, gazing around. Whenever she went into the yarn shop, she was astonished by the range of beautiful colors and inviting textures. She walked over to the blue, green and teal yarns that lined one area of the shelves. Putting down her packages, she reached out a hand to touch a skein of irresistibly soft wool.
“Can I help you find something?” Lydia asked.
Anne Marie nodded and, strangely, felt a bit hesitant. “I’d like to learn to knit.” This was the first positive step she’d taken toward acting on her wish list. She’d been searching for somewhere to start, and knitting would do very well. “I…saw the notice in the window for a beginners’ class last week, but there isn’t a sign now. Do you have one scheduled anytime soon?”
“As it happens, Margaret and I were just discussing a beginners’ class for Thursday afternoons.”
Anne Marie shook her head. “I work all day on Thursdays.”
“I’m also thinking about starting a new class for people who work. How about lunchtime on Tuesdays?” Lydia suggested next. “Would you like to sign up for that?”
Before Anne Marie could respond, Margaret was on her feet. “That’s too many classes,” she muttered. “Lydia’s teaching far too many classes and it exhausts her.”
“Margaret!” Lydia protested and cast a despairing look at her sister.
“Well, it’s true. You need to get someone else in here who can teach. I do as much as I can,” she said, “but there are times I’ve got more customers than I can handle and you’re involved with all those classes.”
Lydia ignored her sister. “Anne Marie, if you want to learn how to knit, I’ll teach you myself.”
It occurred to Anne Marie that what she really wanted was a class. She’d rejected line dancing because that had seemed like an overwhelming social occasion; a small knitting group was far less threatening. Other than the Valentine’s event with the widows, she hadn’t gone anywhere or done much of anything since Robert’s funeral. Until now, the mere thought of making cheerful conversation with anyone outside the bookstore was beyond her. She decided she could ease into socializing with a knitting class. A few likeminded women, all focused on the same task…
“I appreciate the offer,” Anne Marie told Lydia. “However, I think Margaret’s probably right. You’ve got a lot on your plate. Let me know if that noontime beginner class pans out.”
“Of course.”
After they’d exchanged farewells, Anne Marie picked up her shopping bags and left the yarn store. As she strolled past the shop window she noticed Whiskers, Lydia’s cat, curled up in a basket of red wool. When Anne Marie walked Baxter, he often stood on his hind legs, front paws against the window, fixated on Lydia’s cat—who wanted nothing to do with him.
Hauling the scrapbooking supplies upstairs to her apartment, Anne Marie set her bags on the kitchen table, then scooped up her dog, stroking his silky fur. “Hey, Mr. Baxter. I just saw your friend Whiskers.”
He wriggled excitedly and she put him down, collecting a biscuit from a box on the counter. “Here you go.” She smiled as he loudly crunched his cookie, licking up each and every crumb. “Maybe I’ll knit you a little coat sometime…and maybe I won’t.”