Page 34 of A Class of Her Own

Willow put her hands on her hips, her deep purple nail polish catching enough light to show off some sparkles. “Meredith, if there’s one thing I know about you it’s that you get the job done. So, pardon me for calling bunk on this Santa thing. You haven’t even tried yet.”

I moved on to a collection of bracelets on a spinning rack. “Not true,” I sighed. “I’ve actually called several people whose names I was given. They’re all booked or dead. The dead thing feels suspicious. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that ‘Playing Santa’ is listed as the cause of death on their death certificates.”

“How many have you called? Ballpark figure?”

“Five in Cache Valley, another four in the Ogden area. I even reached out to a handful in Salt Lake. There’s no hope.”

“Yikes,” Willow pulled a sympathetic face.

“It’s me. The holidays are never nice to me.”

Willow laughed and went back to sorting clothing. “You know, someday you’ll be a mom, and you’ll have to pretend to enjoy holidays.”

“I’m thirty-five, and, seeing as I’m not one of those spontaneously reproducing reptiles, I’d need a man for that. I don’t have one of those, as you’ve noticed. Besides, I already raised you and Ash, and you pounded my maternal instincts into dust. Parenthood is not happening.”

“I’ve been manifesting someone to you.”

There was a jingle of chains as I accidentally bumped the bracelet rack. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about sending powerful thoughts for a desired outcome into the universe. I’m using laws of positive attraction to bring your man into reality.”

I laughed. “How long have you been doing that? Because, so far, nothing.”

“Not long. It occurred to me recently.”

“How about manifesting yourself a date?” I teased, moving away from the check-out counter to the shelves next to it. “You’re no better off than I am in that department.”

“You’re wrong,” she said in a sing-song tone that had me letting the scanner dip down as I looked at her. “I’ve gone on five dates with the same guy. This month.”

My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

“I am. His name is Steve, and he’s really great.”

“Did you manifest him into being?”

She nodded without a single hint of joking or embarrassment. “I did. Which is how I knew it would work for you.”

We worked in silence as I tried to decide if I wanted to hear more or not. Willow hummed softly, happily, knowing me well enough to let me process while she separated out colors and sizes of clothing for us to scan into the system. Willow had always been one to hum while working. On one rare occasion when Dad had felt the need to share, he’d told us our mother did the same thing. Willow had beamed and been a committed hummer ever since.

My memories of Mom were foggy at best. Flashes of a dark-haired, warm presence. Everything I knew about Judith Atwood pointed to someone sturdy and practical compared with our father. And while she’d gone along with giving us nature names, she’d insisted we all had a middle name to tether us to earth. I was always grateful to her for that, otherwise I’d have been stuck with Evergreen Atwood my entire life. Willow and Ash both had sturdy middle names too, but they liked their first names well enough to use them.

“How, exactly, does a person go about manifesting?” I asked ten minutes later.

Willow was kind enough to not react over the small victory she’d won. She simply stopped humming and answered matter-of-factly. “Well, it’s a process. First, you make a list of qualities you want in this person. For you I listed smart, hardworking, and kind. Because you’d walk all over someone with a low IQ, you’d kill a lazy person, and you need more sweetness than you’re willing to admit. Next, you visualize how you’d feel with that person. I imagined you’d feel settled, finally. I imagined you feeling secure and safe. Then, you . . .”

This was too much, and I held up my hand as my skin began to feel too tight for my body. “It sounds insane.” What was really insane, though, was the way she’d gone to the effort to see me and ponder what she thought I’d need. It frightened me.

Here’s the thing: Men do not like me; men get nowhere near loving me. Men had always called me words like abrasive, bossy, cold, and humorless. I’d tried dating, but that had been in my twenties when I was still working through my very real issues with my dad and his neglect. I’d had no good measuring tool for what I wanted, and being myself had only ended in fights and clashes that had left me frozen on the outside and broken on the inside. I was not cut out to be in a relationship, even if I had grown and come to better understand myself in my thirties.

I knew this because every man I’d ever tried with had told me that I was a total failure at being part of a couple. Every man had run away . . . from me, specifically.

“No more,” I said in a raspy voice.

Willow pressed on anyhow, like she always did, possibly not even hearing me as she folded some pants. “Let me finish. Once you’ve laid that groundwork, start by focusing your thoughts on a desired outcome. Then you make statements to yourself like, ‘I wonder where Meredith and her new guy will go on their first date’ or ‘I’d better tell Ash to set an extra plate at Thanksgiving next year’ type thing. You never manifest with even a hint of doubt. You can’t say things like ‘I hope Meredith has someone by next Thanksgiving’ or it won’t work. Make sense?”

I’d gathered myself as she’d spoken, and now I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“That’s because you’re not a dreamer, Mer. You’re too practical. But I know for a fact that if you put out good into the universe, you’ll get good back.”

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