“Your bottle?” Nate interrupted.
Fazire’s hand came up. “Do not interrupt me, Nathaniel.”
Nate looked at Victor then shrugged. Best to get this over with so he could make himself another drink, then another, then another until he was drunk enough to sleep and so that he could be hungover enough for tomorrow, when Lily came to her senses, he would have something else to think about when she left him at the proverbial altar.
“As I was saying,” Fazire continued, “a man bought my bottle and sent it to a woman, his wife. She lived in Indiana and she became my friend. Her name was Sarah…”
Then, for half an hour, Fazire talked. He told Nate he was a genie. He told Nate about Lily’s parents, Becky and Will. He told Nate about baseball games and lying in innertubes, floating hot summer days away on a pond. He told Nate he’d actually created Lily. Then he’d opened the photo album and showed Nate what Fazire called his “greatest mistake”.
Nate’s somewhat alarmed gaze swung to pictures of Lily, pictures he’d never, at a glance, recognise were Lily if he hadn’t looked closely enough to see her remarkable blue eyes, or, in some of the photos, her quirky smile.
Stunned by the pictures of the chubby, plain (but not entirely unattractive, not with those eyes or that smile) girl that was his Lily, Nate listened further without interruption to Fazire telling him about Lily’s obsession for romance novels. About the children being cruel to her at school (this, Nate had no trouble believing, even though everything else Fazire was saying had to be the ravings of a functioning madman), about the boy she had a crush on insulting her and breaking her fourteen year old heart.
Then Fazire told Nate of her wish, her wish for him, her wish for a romantic hero who would love her more than anything on earth and think she was beautiful.
When he was done speaking, Nate was staring at him.
“You’re mad,” Nate whispered, wondering if perhaps he should call a doctor, now.
Fazire looked at Victor and Victor nodded.
Then Fazire snapped his fingers and Nate heard a tinkling of glass. His gaze swung to the broken shards on the floor and he saw them jump around then, in the blink of an eye, disappear along with the blood and vodka stains.
Slowly, Nate stood. “What the hell?” he muttered.
“I’m a genie,” Fazire announced.
Nate’s gaze swung to and narrowed on Fazire.
“You’ve been caring for my daughter,” Nate stated in a voice so controlled, it had a lethal edge.
“I wouldn’t hurt Tash. I created her mother for goodness sake,” Fazire blustered but Nate was having none of it.
He’d had enough of this strange man and he wasn’t going to have some bizarre magician claiming himself to be a genie living with Lily and Tash. He knew from Lily mentioning on several occasions her “wish” that Fazire had convinced her, too, that he was a genie.
Nate glared at him.
“Get out,” he demanded knowing in that moment if Fazire didn’t get out, Nate would bodily eject him from his life and his family’s, “right now.”
Fazire snapped again and the room was filled with a voice, a voice that was achingly familiar. Lily’s voice but young, her voice that of a girl turning into a woman.
“Fazire, I wish one day to find a man like in my books. He has to be just like in one of my books. And he has to love me, love me more than anything in the world. Most important of all, he has to think I’m beautiful.”
Nate froze at the disembodied words that seemed to dance through the air. There were no tape recorder and no speakers, the words just hung in the air, coming from nothing, nowhere but they were all around them.
“He has to be tall, very tall and dark, and broad-shouldered, and narrow-hipped.”
Nate’s fingers curled into fists and he ignored the pain in his injured hand as he heard the words Lily spoke to him just weeks ago, smiling, teasing, telling him he was her “narrow-hipped” romantic hero who could “lean well”.
“And he has to be handsome, unbelievably handsome, impossibly handsome with a strong, square jaw and powerful cheekbones and tanned skin and beautiful eyes with lush, thick lashes. He has to be clever and very wealthy but hard-working. He has to be virile, fierce, ruthless and rugged.”
“Stop it,” Nate demanded on the word “rugged” and Lily’s sweet voice saying the same word she called him weeks ago but saying it years ago, in a wish.
The voice relentlessly went on.
“And he has to be hard and cold and maybe a little bit forbidding, a little bit bad with a broken heart I have to mend or one encased in ice I have to melt or better yet, both!”
Nate closed his eyes at the hope in her voice but wished instead he could stop his ears from hearing.
“We have to go through some trials and tribulations. Something to test our love, make it strong and worthy. And… and… he has to be daring and very masculine. Powerful. People must respect him, maybe even fear him. Graceful too and lithe, like a… like a cat! Or a lion. Or something like that. And he has to be a good lover. The best, so good he could almost make love to me just by using his eyes.”
At that, Nate opened his eyes and laughed, this time without bitterness.
He threw himself back on the settee and listened to a young Lily describing her deepest desire, her most heartfelt wish.
Him.
“Is that it?” Nate heard Fazire’s voice ask. “Are you sure you want this to be your wish?” There was hesitation then Fazire went on. “Very well.”
Lily’s voice cut in. “Don’t forget that part about him loving me more than anything on earth.”
Her words and their fervent tone tore through Nate’s gut.
“And!” Nate heard her burst out in desperation. “The part about him thinking I’m beautiful.”
“Lily, you will be beautiful, you already are.” Nate heard Fazire’s disembodied voice assured her, his eyes cut to the strange man and for the first time he looked at him with unguarded respect.
“Just, don’t forget those parts, they’re the most important,” Lily reminded her genie, her voice shaky and, Nate thought, terribly, unforgettably sad.
“I won’t forget any of it.” Nate heard Fazire promise his beloved fourteen year old girl, a girl he’d followed through her trials and tribulations, a girl whose side he never left. “Lily, my lovely, your wish is my command.”
Then the room was filled with the sound of a snap and then it went quiet.