tried to resurrect the hilarity.
“So, why don’t you use it?” he asked in the manner of a teenager being helpful and polite.
“I did,” she said. Her orange lipstick was like a stain.
“And … were your three wishes granted?” I asked.
“Every last one,” she said flatly.
None of us knew what to say to that.
“Well, has anyone else used it?” Yun Sun asked.
“One other lady. I don’t know what her first two wishes were, but her last was for death. That’s how the corsage came to me.”
We sat there, all silliness squelched. The situation felt unreal, yet here we were, in this moment.
“Dude, that’s spooky,” Will said.
“So … why do you keep it?” I asked. “If you’ve used up your three wishes?”
“Excellent question,” Madame Z said after staring at the corsage for a few heavy seconds. She pulled a turquoise lighter from her pocket and struck a flame. She picked up the corsage with a fierce determination, as if committing to a course of action long overdue.
“No!” I yelped, snatching it from her grasp. “Let me have it, if you don’t want it!”
“Never. It should be burned.”
My fingers closed over the rose petals. They were the texture of my grandfather’s wizened cheek, which I stroked when I visited him at the nursing home.
“You’re making a mistake,” Madame Z warned. She reached to reclaim the bundle, then jerked her hand back convulsively. I sensed the same internal warring as when I first goaded her into speaking of the corsage, as if the corsage had an element of actual power over her. Which was ridiculous, of course.
“It’s not too late to change your fate,” she managed.
“What fate would that be?” I said. My voice broke. “The fate where a tree falls in the forest, but poor me, I’m wearing earplugs?”
Madame Z fixed me with her thick-lashed eyes. The skin around them was as thin as crepe paper, and I realized she was older than I originally assumed.
“You are a rude and disrespectful child. You deserve a spanking.” She leaned back in her swivel chair, and I could tell—snap, like that—she’d released herself from the corsage’s unhealthy hold. Or perhaps the corsage had done the releasing? “You keep it, that’s your decision. I take no responsibility for what happens.”
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