Well, look at her. Not only did Nora have girlfriends, she was enough of a regular that the bartender was teasing her.
After Eve arrived and greeted Clara, Maya hopped up. “Let’s get this show on the road. Everyone who’s coming, drink up and let’s go.”
Nora slid off her stool.
“You’re really not coming, Benjamin?” Maya asked.
“Nope. Some of us have jobs that prevent us from wasting our time on wishes.”
“You wouldn’t know a wish if it bit you in the ass.”
“On the contrary. I just wished that you would leave, and look—it’s coming true.”
“Are they always like this?” Nora whispered to Eve.
“Yeah, it’s kind of their thing.” Eve shrugged. “We’re all so used to it, it doesn’t even register.”
“Let’s go!” Maya called. “Chop-chop!”
Jake swallowed the last of his beer and got off his stool. Everyone stopped talking and swung to face him. He gazed back at them with no particular expression on his face.
Maya cocked her head. “You’re coming, Jake?” He made a vague noise that sounded like assent, and everyone remained quiet. Nora wondered if maybe it wasn’t normal for Jake to join their flower-wishing ritual.
“Well, great!” Maya said with a suspicious amount of enthusiasm. “Come on, everyone.”
A few minutes later, they all were crowding into A Rose by Any Other Name, Maya’s father’s flower shop. The small store was packed with people, some Nora recognized and some she didn’t.
“Hey, Nora, have you met my parents?” Maya introduced her to a smiling fiftysomething couple behind the counter.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Maya’s mom said, echoing the refrain Nora had been hearing from everyone in town.
“On the house,” her father said, smiling as he set a flower on the counter in front of Nora. Then he slid one over to his daughter and said, “Two dollars.”
“I’m family!” Maya feigned outrage, but there was obvious affection in her expression.
“That’s the friends and family discount.” Her father’s eyes twinkled. Nora could see where Maya got her sense of humor. “They’re four bucks apiece retail. Amaryllises are expensive. Now if you wanted to, say, start working here, you’d get the employee discount.”
“Nice try.” Maya shook her head fondly at her father as she clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Cue up your wishes! We’re heading out!”
Jake hadn’t done this since before Jude was born. Kerrie used to like to come and make wishes every once in a while. He suspected that the last couple of times, she’d been wishing for Jude. She’d wanted to get pregnant so badly. She had just started her law career and had decided that “right now” was the optimal time to have kids, even though they were young. She’d reasoned that it was either that or wait until she made partner. He was game either way—he liked the idea of kids, and Kerrie was smarter than he was. He had trusted her judgment regarding timing.
But when the first few months of trying yielded nothing, she had started fretting that maybe there was something wrong. He’d told her that it was too soon to worry, that it was fun trying, and that it would happen in due time. And in an attempt to get her to relax, when she’d rushed home from work early one afternoon declaring that she was at peak ovulation, he’d refused to drop his pants and do it immediately—which had been uncharacteristic for him. In those days, whether they were babymaking or not, he’d generally been ready to go anytime. Instead he’d taken her out for dinner in Bayshore, and as they’d driven back to town, they’d realized it was a full-moon night. So they’d nicked some flowers and headed for the pier.
He’d never asked her what she wished for, but it had been pretty obvious.
And it had worked. Or his dinner-and-a-glass-of-wine relaxation method had. Something had worked, because three weeks later, there was the little plus sign on a pregnancy test. She had been so happy.
They both had.
“So these aren’t actually moonflowers?” Nora, who was walking beside him, held up the flower she was carrying, drawing him from his memories. “Maya’s dad said it was an amaryllis? I thought the whole point was moonflowers. This is Moonflower Bay, after all.”
“Yeah, that’s not a moonflower.” She wrinkled her forehead. It was kind of confusing. “You’ve seen the moonflowers everywhere downtown? Or at least you did in the summer?”
“Yeah, they’re lovely. And once I moved into the Mermaid, I was able to appreciate them more, since I was often walking around in the