Her incredible blue eyes lifted to his and there was a world of worry and hurt in them.
Then she said, “Nate.”
“Who, pray, is Nate?”
She fidgeted with her hands, dropping her head to stare at her nails.
“You remember my wish?” she asked.
How could he ever forget the most complicated wish ever?
“Yes,” Fazire answered.
Her eyes lifted again and in them was something that made Fazire’s genie heart beat a little faster.
“Well, it came true. His name is Nathaniel McAllister and he’s the most wonderful man ever. And, I think… Fazire, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have his baby.”
Fazire immediately stopped levitating and dropped heavily to the floor.
Then he screeched, “What?”
Lily shook her head and bit her lip before saying, “It was… I don’t know. I can’t think straight. It all happened so quickly. One second I was just, well, in London doing my normal London things. Going to museums, a little shopping…”
Fazire doubted it was a “little shopping”. Lily could shop like Jackie Robinson could steal a base.
She kept talking. “The next thing I knew I was going to fancy dinner parties and he was taking me out to romantic restaurants and midnight walks in the park and we made love again and again and again and it was so, it was…” she leaned forward, her eyes lighting before she whispered fervently, “spectacular. Mind-boggling. You cannot even imagine.”
Fazire tried floating again but could only get three feet off the floor. This was mainly because most of his concentration was spent on keeping his ears from burning and possibly dripping blood at his Lily-child talked about mind-boggling love-making.
“Then Mom and Dad…” She couldn’t finish. They both still could not talk about it.
“He hasn’t called,” Fazire finished for her.
“No.”
“Has he called, maybe, your thingie-ma-bobbie?” Fazire tried.
“My what?”
“The thing that records voices on the phone.”
“My answering machine?”
“Yes, that.”
“I picked up my messages, none were from him. He doesn’t know my number anyway. I was always in London with him, he never had to phone me and I’m not listed.”
Fazire thought for awhile. He was, although out of practice, very good at what he did. Sometimes genies could go for years and years without having their bottle rubbed so they knew there might be magical delays and any good genie prepared well for them. Fazire, if he did think so himself, was very, very good with his wishes.
And he’d made absolutely certain sure Lily’s was the best of all.
Something else must be happening with this… Nate.
Fazire peered at his mistress and made his decision.
Decision made, he declared, “Then we must go and find him.”
* * * * *
Fazire walked up the short staircase to the beautiful white house that Lily told him was something called “Georgian”. It had black shutters and in every window there were window boxes filled so full with startling red geraniums, you couldn’t tell where one flower stopped and the other started. Each box was trailing lacy, green ivy. There were fancy wrought iron fences in front of each house all were painted a shiny, perfect black.
All the houses looked exactly the same. It was almost as if they had a pact that everyone on the whole street would have the same coloured geraniums with trailing ivy so the street would look tidy and splendiferous.
Fazire very much wanted to hate this place called England and he was pretty certain he’d really hate London for although Jim had found his bottle in a market in London, Fazire had actually come from a bazaar in Morocco and never been released in Europe at all. But even though some of London was rather shocking, busy, grimy and graffiti-filled, this street was quite lovely.
During their terrifying plane ride (neither Lily nor Fazire had a good time on that plane after what happened to Becky and Will, and it had far more than two engines), Lily told him some people lived in this house that knew her Nate, a man and woman named Victor and Laura. She said they were nice people, kind and caring and they’d taken care of her after Nate had saved her life. Or, she’d understated the story when Fazire had been struck dumb at the idea that her life was in danger, and she explained this Nate saved her and her purse from a purse snatcher.
Lily was nervous, he could see her shaking and he stood two steps behind her. He was certain everything would be all right. This Nate had come to her through Fazire’s wish so of course it would be all right.
She knocked, using the hoop that went through a brass lion’s face nose. Fazire thought that was peculiar, he’d never seen a lion with a hoop through its nose but he figured he’d mention that titbit later maybe use it as an opening gambit to some future conversation with Lily’s Nate.
A dark-haired woman answered the door. Fazire was surprised that she was young, not much older than Lily. She was also crying, her face wet with tears and a mottled red with the force of her emotion. Fazire thought she might have been pretty without the tear-stained face but then decided she was not when she looked at Lily and her face contorted with repugnance and her eyes filled with hate.
“Oh, hello, Danielle, I was…” Lily paused then asked, “Are you all right?”
Lily stopped speaking and Fazire heard her voice was concerned as she lost all track of their quest and asked after the girl who was looking at her with such venom. Fazire wanted to grab Lily back but he stayed where he was in order to let her do what she needed to do.
“No, I’m not all right,” the girl snapped. “What are you doing here, Lily?”
Fazire found himself thinking these people who lived here weren’t very kind and caring at all.
Lily hesitated, somehow not surprised at this reaction from the woman, then she went on. “This is a little embarrassing but I had to leave town unexpectedly and now that I’m back, I went to Nate’s and his doorman says he doesn’t live there anymore. I was just –”
The woman didn’t allow her to finish, her face changed to what looked somewhat sly and scheming to Fazire but he lost those thoughts at the next words she said.
“Nate’s dead,” Danielle informed them coldly.
Then, without further ado, she slammed the door right in Lily’s face.
Lily stood staring at the door, frozen to the spot.
Fazire stood behind her, just as frozen.