Dandelion Wishes

Emma righted the bike and shifted gears again. She wouldn’t let Will beat her to the top.

* * *

WILL’S IPHONE SHUFFLED to a Blink-182 song that had a fast beat his feet didn’t want to keep time to. He was sucking in air like a clogged air filter on a ’57 Chevy. But he kept pushing up this hill. Each time Will took on Parish Hill, he made it a little farther. There were ten switchbacks. He’d managed six the other day before slowing to a walk. Someday, he’d run all the way to the top.

The town council meeting was tonight and Will had a lot of people to see beforehand. It had been a month since their permit and rezoning requests had been put on hold. A month of pulling together facts, drawing up blueprints and kissing up to residents who might support them. Tonight, he hoped he and his friends weren’t going to stand alone.

A sound behind Will had him spinning on the defensive. It wasn’t unheard of—if you believed local myth—for a mountain lion to attack out here. He cocked his arm back, ready to launch his only weapon besides his signal-less iPhone—a water bottle.

But it wasn’t a mountain lion behind him. It was Emma, legs churning pedals as she rounded the turn below. She wore black bike shorts and a tight blue flowered tank top, exposing most of her lithe limbs. Emma might have pulled off the professional racer look, if not for the uneven back and forth, near-tumbling way she worked the bike. And the way that she was smiling beneath a pink helmet decorated with daffodils and ladybugs.

Laughter filled the air—warm, unbidden and unexpected.

His, Will realized with a start, watching Emma close the gap between them.

He frowned, put his hands on his hips and told himself Emma hadn’t heard him laugh. He waited for her and what would certainly be another argument about visiting Tracy.

Instead of stopping at his side, Emma kept going. “See you at the top.” And then she laughed. To be sure, it was a ragged, I’m-breathing-hard kind of laugh. But she delivered it with an I’m-gonna-kick-your-butt jab.

Will spun and put his body through the motions of a jog. But the hill was steep and he’d lost momentum. His overheated muscles and aching joints responded to his commands in agonizing slow motion. Emma started to pull away, even though she couldn’t have been going much faster than he was. The next switchback seemed miles off.

Will refused to give up even as the distance between him and Emma stretched. Adrenaline blazed through his muscles until they shook and threatened to collapse. His lungs burned, each breath a fiery agony. One switchback.

Two.

This was as far as he’d ever gone without reducing the pace to a walk.

Emma was moving slower. She’d changed gears a few times, but Will was betting money she didn’t have any options left.

Switchback number seven loomed above. Emma was about fifteen feet ahead. She glanced over her shoulder at Will, never losing that hitching, awkward rhythm.

Emma was going to win. He could stop. He should stop. But to do so meant to surrender. To Emma? Never.

And then she fiddled with her gearshift and her chain clicked in loud, stuttering protest. It clicked and clacked and then dropped to the pavement.

Emma’s feet did a quick once around the pedals before the bike tilted toward the ground. She hopped out of the way as it crashed.

Leaving the road clear for Will to reach the next switchback first.

The thrill of victory propelled him to the elbow in the road. There was no sense going any farther. They were both spent. Will walked in small circles, attempting to fill his lungs with much-needed oxygen, trying to keep his muscles from convulsing him into a permanent fetal position. He’d been clutching his bottle of water and now drained it. After a few moments, he rasped, “You suck.”

She’d righted the bike and was walking it up the hill, feet digging in to build enough energy to reach him. “I had you all the way.”

“Doesn’t matter. I won.”

“Nobody won. We didn’t make it to the top.” Emma popped out the kickstand and removed her helmet. Her hair was plastered to her head and sweat trickled down the sides of her splotchy red face.

And yet, there was something about her that wasn’t unattractive to look at. Her inviting curves. Her challenging grin. Her warrior attitude that dared any man to take her on.

A memory surfaced. Emma wearing a red backless prom dress that clung to every dangerous contour, her dark tresses woven in a bride-like style threaded with delicate white flowers. Also not unattractive.

Emma wiped at her temples with her forearms, and directed her frustration at an inanimate target. “Stupid chain.”

Will took a second, more assessing look at her. His system was in cool-off mode. Rivulets of sweat dripped off the ends of his hair. Most of the rest of his body was just as soggy and droopy. Emma looked about as sexy as he felt.

Which was great. That moment of attraction must have been due to oxygen deprivation. The prom memory was a fluke. It wasn’t like he’d taken her to the event. He’d only made a preprom appearance to intimidate Tracy’s date. “Did you lose track of what gear you were in? You had me until that last gear change.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She grinned as if she’d won the Tour de France.

That smile somehow managed to trap the air in Will’s lungs. Something about Emma burrowed under his skin in a way he vehemently rejected, and had been rejecting since he was in high school. She never played it safe. She never obeyed the rules. She was like a predinner chocolate—temptation you couldn’t resist, even when you knew it was wrong.

He exhaled forcefully. “As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll fix your chain.”

Where had that offer come from?

Emma’s mouth puckered as if she was going to refuse him, but then she laughed and nodded.

They looked out over what they could see of the valley and the hills that bordered it, an uncomfortable silence settling between them as if they were both remembering they were at odds. Not that this was unfamiliar territory. Will’s most vivid memories were of Emma opposing him. Convincing Tracy to go tubing down the Harmony River when it was still raging from spring rains. Dragging Tracy to a New Year’s Eve celebration in Union Square when the girls were naive freshmen in college. Driving with Tracy to that bachelorette party in Tijuana despite the fact that a young woman had been abducted in that city a few weeks earlier.

Oh, Emma was good at flashing a “forgive me, I know I’ve been bad” smile and a good excuse: We knew what we were doing. It was all innocent. Everything turned out fine. Only that time, everything hadn’t turned out fine. Tracy had almost been killed.

Emma plucked a dandelion from her feet, studied it for a moment and then blew its white parachute seeds into the wind. She knelt to pick another one, closed the distance between them and held it up to Will. “How about a dandelion truce?”

Generations of farming blood had him warding her off with one arm. “It’s a weed.”

“It’s a dandelion.” Emma twirled the stem back and forth. “Kids make wishes on them all the time.”

“And blow the seeds of a weed out into the world.” If wishes could make Tracy whole, he’d blow an entire crop of dandelions into the wind. But chances were those dandelions wouldn’t result in wishes. They’d sprout up in his vineyard. “Farmers kill dandelions.”

“Suit yourself.” Emma studied the white puff, drew a deep breath and blew another handful of delicate white parachutes on to the breeze.

Will knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t help himself. “What did you wish for?”

“If I told you,” she said in a solemn voice, as if she truly believed in dandelion wishes, “it wouldn’t come true.”

Will felt a chasm open between them, shored up by differences like belief in fairy tales, Santa Claus and happy ever afters. He stood with the realists. She danced with the dreamers. It had nearly cost his sister her life. He was right to bar her from seeing Tracy. Wishes couldn’t make his sister well.

Emma knelt by her bike and fiddled with the chain. Apparently she’d decided she didn’t need his help. “What’s a good time to come by and see Tracy?”

“Don’t. I talked to Tracy last night and she doesn’t want to see you.”

“You’re lying.” Her hands, splotched with grease, shook.

“I’m not,” Will lied. He’d do anything to protect Tracy. “Flynn and Slade were there. Ask them.” He was betting she’d never do it.

“You can bring a thousand friends to testify she doesn’t want to see me and I still won’t believe you.” Emma’s face was as closed off as the latest firewall software to a cyber attack.

“Don’t come by, Emma. You’ll be the one to get hurt this time.”