Wish Read Online Free PDF

furrowed to a bushy point. “Excuse me,” Olivia gingerly began. “Do you—?”
    “We’re closed,” the girl said, noisily flipping a page. She was remarkably tiny, with sticklike limbs that were swallowed by the round crimson cushions of a vintage love seat. The love seat itself was missing two legs, and had been propped up on one end against a broken, boxy record player.
    “Closed?” Olivia quietly repeated, her shoulders sinking. She glanced back through the darkening window, already imagining a night of mauve taffeta travesties, the itchy lining, the horrific swishing sound it made around her knees when she walked. She was reaching one hand to the door when a sharp voice called out from behind her.
    “Wait!”
    Olivia looked back to see that the girl had abandoned her book, which now lay open facedown in her lap. It was one of those steamy romance novels usually buried deep in the dollar bin outside used bookstores, with a half-naked couple swooning across the cover.
    “I’ve seen you before,” the girl said, staring at Olivia with tight, beady eyes. “You live nearby?”
    Olivia nodded and swallowed. “Yeah,” she answered, her mouth dry and her tongue slow. “We just moved in down the street. I was just, um, on my way home and I thought…I mean, I was just looking—”
    “Looking is allowed.” The girl smiled, revealing a crowded row of what looked like baby teeth and pulling herself up to her feet. She spoke with a slight and indistinguishable accent, cleanly articulating each syllable and sound. Olivia wondered if she was foreign, or just one of those people who talk funny to be different.
    “I know that,” Olivia said, suddenly defensive.
    The girl reached behind a patchwork quilt that was hanging from a clothesline strung across one corner of the room, and pulled an old broom from where it had been leaning against a wobbly chest of drawers. Much like the girl, all of the furniture in the shop appeared arthritic, like it might buckle or fall if you sneezed in its general direction.
    “I’m Posey,” she said, lazily swatting the broom across a patch of dusty red tiles.
    Olivia took a step closer. “Olivia,” she said, her hand hanging awkwardly between them. Posey hesitated before extending her own hand, which was so small and spindly Olivia worriedit might shatter into pieces. From close up, Posey’s brown eyes were flecked with bits of yellow-orange, and blinked curiously through dark, crooked bangs. There was something about the way she stared that made Olivia uncomfortable, like she suddenly wanted to put on another layer of clothes.
    “Nice to meet you, Olivia,” Posey said, spotting a toppled pile of fabric swatches at her feet and bending over to straighten it. As she stood, the corner of her shoulder bumped up against a table leg, and one of the small butterfly figurines tottered from side to side. Posey hurried to keep it from falling, delicately steadying its trembling wings to stillness.
    “I like your butterflies,” Olivia said, realizing immediately how lame it sounded. “I mean, they’re nice. I like butterflies, you know; they’re—”
    Posey smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “They were my grandmother’s.”
    As Posey carefully lifted her hand from the ornament and went back to sweeping the floor, Olivia recognized a familiar flash across her eyes. They were my grandmother’s. It was the look of someone who had lost something she’d never get back.
    “Was this her shop?” Olivia inquired.
    Posey nodded. “She started doing alterations for people in the basement,” she explained. “Pretty soon, she had a following. There were articles in magazines, the Style section of the paper…”
    “She must have been talented,” Olivia ventured.
    “She was,” Posey said, the lost look in her eyes lingering as she continued sweeping the same superclean spot on the floor. “I’ve tried to keep it going without her, but…” Her voice trailedoff as she gestured with