Chapter One
“I’m a stalker. That’s all there is to it.” Annalise Gallagher gripped the steering wheel of her little blue sedan tighter as a coworker walked by on the sidewalk. The handsome young man frowned at her as though he heard her mumbled words, but then he headed to his car down the street without making an unwelcomed pit stop at her open window.
Annalise worked as a certified picture framer and sales associate at the Changing Times Art Gallery in the center of the artsy urbanite Pearl District, but she’d left work for the day over an hour ago. Her coworker likely didn’t understand why she chose to sit in her car in the afternoon heat instead of going home.
She just couldn’t leave without seeing him.
Elijah Burleigh.
The new art restorer and museum tour guide moved to Portland, Oregon five months ago and Annalise fell head over heels for him at first sight. She’d always loved visiting the Quicken Museum of Fine Arts across the street from her work and she just happened to join Elijah’s tour group on his first day at the job. He captivated her with his knowledge, excitement and keen appreciation for the paintings and sculptures on display. Since then, she only joined his groups even though she knew as much about the artifacts as he did. She just wanted to hear him speak and to ogle his tight, sexy bottom as he led the way through the immaculate gallery halls.
Unfortunately, he never noticed her and she didn’t have the guts to speak with him.
“That’s why I’m a stalker.” Annalise rubbed the bridge between her eyes and avoided the rearview mirror like the plague. She’d likely see a big black L sign on her forehead and her self-esteem didn’t need another smack-down today. The unhappy customer she’d pacified a few hours ago effectively ruined her morning and she hated to bite her tongue when someone called her an incompetent bitch.
The digital clock on the dashboard read six o’clock and she needed to head home to grab the oh-so-yummy double chocolate and oatmeal cookies she baked last night for her weekly girls’ night out. Rather, girls’ night in. She and her three best friends always met at each other’s house or apartment every Wednesday evening for food, wine and gossip—they used to meet at various bars across the city but they couldn’t afford the expensive drinks and food every week—and this time they’d agreed to meet at Cami’s house.
Annalise sighed and stared up at the Renaissance-style museum one last time. The large columns, huge stained glass windows and imported stone blocks once intimidated her but the employees and historians who worked there always smiled and treated her with kindness. The ticket-counter girl even knew Annalise by name since she’d signed up for a yearly membership after Elijah started to work there. Otherwise, her bank account would dwindle if she paid the exorbitant entrance fee each time she wanted to stare at her unrequited love like a doe-eyed puppy.
She started up the engine to her car just as one of the double doors to the museum opened and Elijah stepped out into the sunshine. Air clogged her throat. His spiky dark blond hair shimmered in the light, his broad shoulders appeared wider than usual in his gray blazer and his long legs took the stone steps that led to the sidewalk two at a time. Though she didn’t care much about fashion, she knew Elijah probably couldn’t buy off-the-rack clothes like a normal man. If he did, his clothes would definitely need alterations from a professional seamstress due to his bulky size, or he’d have to buy his wardrobe at specialty shops.
She leaned forward in her seat as Elijah dug his keys out of his slacks pocket and headed to a silver car parked almost parallel to hers. A few cars passed by, obstructing her view, and Annalise pushed against the steering wheel and leaned farther up to keep him in sight. Her arm slipped, the car horn blew and she plopped back down in her seat.
Annalise yelped and ducked away from the window as Elijah whipped around and seemed to stare right at her car. Heat flushed her face, as she felt more than afraid that he saw her, and her heart felt as though it would pound out of her ribcage. She counted to twenty and then slowly peered out the window again. Relief filled her as he climbed inside his car and shut his door. She waited until he drove away before she sat all the way up in her seat and rested her head against the headrest.
“It’s official. You are a loser.” For good measure, she stretched her thumb and index finger into the shape of an L and placed it on her forehead. “And that’s so ʼ90s.”
A buzzing noise echoed inside her large, thrift-store-bought purse and Annalise dug through the messy bag for her cell phone. Her stomach clenched as the name Sybil popped up on the screen. She clicked the disconnect button but she knew her estranged mother, Sybil Gallagher Baudouin, would likely leave a voicemail to ask Annalise if she liked her birthday present. Annalise dodged her mother’s calls as often as possible—she hadn’t seen her mom in almost two years—but Sybil always sent her a haute couture dress for her birthday and Christmas even though Annalise didn’t need or want fancy dresses.
She rubbed at the jagged white scar on her lower back and shivered. Just go home, change into something more comfortable and meet your girlfriends. Her friends always made her feel better when she felt pathetic and, right now, she felt pretty damn low. She pushed her mother and Elijah from her mind, checked the rearview mirror for oncoming traffic and then pulled out onto the busy, two-lane street.
An hour and a half passed before she finally arrived at Cami’s house. Raven St. James was already there and Cami Carlina, their hostess for the evening, left the main door unlocked for her and Tess Andrews. Annalise walked in without knocking and found her friends in the living room. They hugged her in welcome.
Cami’s mouth dropped open once she noticed the cookies in Annalise’s hand. “Girl, you don’t bake often enough. I love these cookies and I’m sure to gain ten pounds tonight.”
Annalise laughed. She likely would too. “I’m not much of a baker like Raven is but I can make awesome cookies now and then.” She laid her saran-wrapped plate of cookies on the coffee table and nearly salivated over the heavenly aroma of Raven’s fresh bruschetta on crostini. Tess had promised to bake her famous death-by-chocolate squares for their gathering and everyone always brought over their own bottle of wine just in case one or two bottles weren’t enough.
They’d all become lushes if they weren’t careful but they usually didn’t drink more than three bottles a night.
“We probably shouldn’t melt Tess’s chocolate squares on top of your cookies in the microwave again but, damn, it was scrum-diddly-umptious.” Raven poured Annalise a glass of wine and handed it to her.
They chatted about their day for several minutes until Tess arrived with her squares in hand. Her friends’ banter eased Annalise’s nerves, as did the crisp glass of bargain basement Riesling, and she didn’t know what she’d do without her girlfriends.
“Cinderella had it easy.” Cami reached across the coffee table and emptied the first bottle of wine into her glass. “Come on, let’s have a reality check. Cinderella’s stuck in the middle of a terrible situation and then all of a sudden a prince comes along to save her.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “I know it’s a fairy tale, but maybe princes actually did rescue damsels in distress back then.”
“Really?” Tess laughed. “You’re up to your neck in history all day at the TV station. You know how it was in Cinderella’s time. Everyone needed to be rescued, not just damsels. They had no running water, bathrooms or penicillin back then. No. Thank. You.”
“You know what I mean.” Cami tucked her feet underneath her bottom and sighed as she snuggled into an overstuffed chair.
Annalise sat crossed-legged on the soft carpeted floor and smiled up at Raven as her petite, black-haired friend pulled a colorful throw out of a wicker basket by the couch and lounged beside her. “I don’t believe there are any Prince Charmings left in the world. The only men I’ve dated the past few months—no, make that years—are frogs.” Annalise sipped her wine, careful not to drink too fast or too much, and hated that she occasionally slipped up. Alcoholism coursed through her family’s line like diseased blood and it ruined her relationship with her mother. She vowed never to follow her mom down that long, dark road.
“We’re also not fairy tale type girls. We’re the geeky ones, not the trophy wife types. We put our energy into college degrees and aren’t concerned with matching our bra and panties.” Raven chuckled and then popped a square in her mouth.
“Hey,” Annalise protested as she pulled on the neckline of her ribbed sweater to see her chest. “My bra and panties match. I bought them as a set, so I didn’t have to shop long.”
“Exactly, and you bought them on sale from the grocery/clothes/hardware store on your way home. You only bought it because your other bra had holes in it. You told me so yourself.” Raven sat straighter and lifted her chin in the air. “We’re not the kind of girls who live for shopping, which is probably why we’re sitting around here in our sweatpants instead of underneath some hot, gorgeous guy.” She made a check mark in the air with her finger as though she wanted to mark a hot guy off her list of things to do. “Perhaps we should dress like tramps?”
Annalise blushed. She told Raven about her shopping excursion last week and, the worst of it was, the bra didn’t fit right. She should’ve tried it on before she bought it but she noticed one of her childhood tormentors shopping down another aisle so she just grabbed the first thing she found in her size and ran. She’d spent the last ten years of her life reinventing herself after her high school graduation and she’d moved to the city to escape her hometown and embarrassing past. She’d told her friends all about it one Wednesday night in a drunken share-fest but they never judged her.
“Thanks for pointing that out, Raven.” Tess let out a little snort as she curled up in a second overstuffed chair with a twinkle in her eyes. “And tramps? No. My mom would slap me silly.”
“I don’t even know what constitutes a normal girly-girl. I guess I haven’t fit in that box since I was six years old.” Cami touched the long scar that ran from her eyebrow to halfway down her cheek. She’d survived a car crash as a child and the doctors grafted new skin onto her shoulder. The scar on her face eventually faded but never disappeared.
Annalise reached behind her back and rubbed at her own scar but she didn’t want the childhood memory to bring down her good mood. “Here’s to being single.” She raised her glass and they all drank a toast. “And to all of us finding true love someday.”
Raven glanced down dejectedly. “My mom and dad didn’t last. After Alan, I don’t know if I want to try again.” Her boyfriend, Alan, left her high and dry about a year earlier and Raven fell into a deep state of depression. Annalise and the others helped her through the pain and Raven finally began to wear bright clothes again, her dark and drab period officially over.
“Remember what happens when you let the negative self-talk slip in?” Annalise had no room to chide after all the negative things she thought about herself today but Raven always seemed to respond to her tough love. “Have another glass of wine and buck up. You’re beautiful. You just need a little confidence.” She rubbed Raven’s arm in an attempt to soothe her.
A small smile lifted Raven’s lips. “I know. I’ll have to bake a dozen bagels tomorrow but at least I’m no longer handing out quarters for each negative word. I’d be broke by now if I still did that.” She laughed softly.
“My grandma believes in true love.” Cami stood up to refill everyone’s glasses with a fresh bottle of wine.
Tess’s eyebrows lifted. “The grandma I met at the retirement community? The one you’re named after?”
Cami nodded and then frowned at the now empty bottle in her hand. “I went to see her the other day. She gave me a locket she found when she was younger.” She hurried across the room, grabbed her purse off a side table and rummaged through it. “Here you are.” Cami emptied a small satin pouch and then held up a silver chain with a black and cream face locket. “The cameo face is made of ivory and the back side is onyx.”
“It’s beautiful.” Raven took the locket and inspected it more closely.
“She told me a story about a young man she was in love with. They went to school together but he barely noticed her. Then he enlisted in the Army to fight overseas in World War II. Grandma wrote to him every day, anonymously, and she made a wish on the locket every night that he’d come back safe.”
“That’s sweet, but it’s too bad she didn’t have the courage to sign the letters herself.” Annalise ran her fingers through her frizzy brown hair. She certainly didn’t have the courage to speak with Elijah, let alone write him love letters, and she felt a sudden kinship with Cami’s grandma.
“Does this story have a happy ending?” Tess bounced up and down in the chair. “I don’t want to hear it if it doesn’t.”
Cami smiled in a coy manner and Annalise doubted the story ended happily. “Grandma Cami made one more wish on the locket after she learned her soldier was finally coming home by train the next day. She wished she would be beautiful for just one special day and to have the courage to talk to him at the train stop. She wanted to tell him she was the one who’d written him the letters.”
“What happened?” Raven braced her arms against the coffee table with excitement and hope clear on her face.
“Well, the next morning, she peered in the mirror and looked like a combination of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. ‘A knockout. Hot and sweet,’ Grandma Cami said.” The younger Cami smiled as though she pictured her wrinkled grandma as a Golden Age of Hollywood movie star.
A magic locket? Not possible, but Annalise’s heart still tightened in anticipation. “C’mon, Cami. Don’t leave us hanging.”
“That’s all she told me. She fell asleep.”
“You stinker.” Annalise threw her hands in the air as Raven and Tess plopped back down in disappointment.
“Did she end up with him? Did she marry him?” Tess asked as Raven passed her the locket. “I have to know more of the story.”
Cami shrugged. “I know I had a grandpa, of course, but he passed away before I was born. Grandma didn’t talk about him much. Gramps could’ve been her soldier but I’m not sure.” She paused for a brief moment as though to gather her words. “There’s something else. Before Grandma fell asleep, she told me she still believes this locket has magic powers. She’s always been a little kooky—now I think this necklace probably had something to do with it—but she figures all the wishing she did on it somehow made it magical. Grandma claims it transformed her into this beautiful, confident woman so she gave it to me. She wanted me to see myself as she sees me. Beautiful.”
Annalise tilted her wineglass side to side and watched the liquid spin. “I don’t believe in magic.” She used to and she’d wished on the North Star a hundred times as a child for her mother to stop drinking. Her wish finally came true when Sybil threw an empty whiskey bottle at the wall and it shattered. A shard burrowed deep in Annalise’s back and her drunken mother rushed her to the emergency room. Since then, she’d given up on magic, wishes and fairy tales.
Tess handed the locket to Annalise and, though not her particular style, the cameo reminded Annalise of a respectable bygone era she loved to see in classical paintings.
“With magic there’s always a catch. Did your grandma tell you what it is?” Raven asked. “I’m not going to make a wish and have a unicorn horn grow in the middle of my forehead.”
“She said the only catch is that from the time you make the wish, the magic will only last from the following midnight to the next midnight.” Cami took the locket back from Annalise. “I know it all sounds nuts but what if it’s true? What if we wished for Cinderella bodies and got them for twenty-four hours? What would we do?”
“I know what I would do.” Annalise wiggled her eyebrows. “Elijah wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Tess giggled. “Did you go on his tour group again today?”
“No, he only hosts tours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are his short days. He works long hours somewhere in the back of the museum on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to restore old paintings. He rarely comes up for air on those three days and he leaves well after the museum closes for visitors.”
Raven sighed. “What are we going to do with you? You’re a stalker, Annalise. I bet you even know his favorite color.”
Annalise smiled, unperturbed. “I think it’s green because he seems to wear greenish-colored shirts more often than any other color shirt. Unless he has to go to a meeting with the museum board, and then he wears a white button-down. Anyway, his emerald-green eyes really pop when he wears green, so I have no complaints.”
Her friends burst into giggles as she rambled.
Cami recovered first but her face still resembled the cherry-red tomatoes on the crostini. She refilled everyone’s glasses again with a new bottle of Riesling except for Annalise’s half-empty glass. “We’re not the girls who have frizz-free hair and perfect butts, and we usually don’t get lucky on the first date. Wouldn’t it be great, though, to be someone else for one day? Midnight-to-midnight. We’d finally look exactly the way we’ve always dreamed of.”
“I call BS.” Raven sat her glass down and crossed her arms.
“I’ll try it. What the hell. What do I have to lose?” Cami held the locket upright in her palm and waved her free hand over it. “Oh great and magical genie, I wish…” She trailed off and Annalise assumed Cami pictured someone beautiful in her mind.
In Annalise’s opinion, her friends were already beautiful, inside and out, and she knew they thought the same about her. They all struggled with personal demons and a lack of self-confidence, but knowing they had issues and doing something about it were two different things.
Tess snatched the locket from Cami’s hand and repeated the incantation Cami likely made up. Tess then handed the locket to Annalise and she felt it vibrate in her hand. The cameo also felt a little heavier as though from the weight of her friends’ wishes or from the pain in Annalise’s heart. She wanted to be beautiful, but her mistakes ruined her for any decent man. Hell, her mistakes ruined her for herself. She couldn’t stand to be in her own skin sometimes.
So maybe this new Cinderella body was exactly what she needed—if only for one day.
She closed her eyes and held the locket tight. I wish to look like Ava Gardner and Jane Russell—a beautiful, buxom brunette with long legs, a narrow waist with curvy hips and dimples in her cheeks when she laughs.
Okay, so she didn’t want Cinderella’s blonde hair—she tried to go blonde back in high school and the bleach-blonde look washed out her natural skin tone—but she’d love it if her mousy-brown hair resembled the color of a rich chocolate mousse from the finest bistro.
Annalise handed the locket to Raven and then her friend made her wish and handed it back to Cami.
Cami placed the locket in the middle of the coffee table. “Put your wine glasses around it, close your eyes and join hands. Think about your wish one more time.” Everyone did as Cami requested and then she continued. “Together, with the power of four, we strengthen our wishes to become what we want to see in the mirror.”
Annalise bit back a laugh. Cami’s line sounded like something out of a witchy movie. She opened her eyes and stared around at her friends. Everyone appeared the same but Cami had said the wish only worked from the start of midnight. They probably just needed to wait a few hours—if the idea wasn’t ludicrous.
“Do I look any different?” Cami asked.
Raven shook her head as though in resignation. “Nope. I told you it was BS.”
“Maybe we did something wrong. Why don’t you ask your grandma on your next visit? Then we can try it again,” Tess chimed in, always the optimist.
“Sounds like a plan. Maybe Grandma will stay awake to finish the story next time.” Disappointment laced Cami’s words. She yawned and Tess suggested they call it a night.
Four empty bottles cluttered the table but Annalise lost track of how much she drank, though she felt a good buzz. Her friends knew of her mother’s addiction, so Cami bypassed Annalise earlier as she topped off everyone’s glasses. Though Annalise liked to drink now and then, she tried to monitor her consumption and she always ate to stave off the effects. When she and her friends talked about love, however, they seemed to drink more than planned.
Annalise called the taxi company as her friends cleaned up the living room and then headed to the kitchen to wash out their glasses and plates. They all knew what happened on Wednesday nights, so they always took a taxi to the hostess’s home and then called for another to return to their own home. Better safe than sorry. She ordered three taxis for herself and two of her friends and they continued to chat in the kitchen until their bright yellow carriages arrived.
She hugged Cami goodbye, then Raven and Tess, and then she headed outside to greet her driver. Though they all lived close by, they’d calculated the cost of sharing a taxi to each riding in their own and determined they got off cheaper by calling for separate drivers. Annalise waved goodbye to her friends and a deep sigh left her lungs as her driver steered the taxi out of the neighborhood.
She didn’t really expect the magic locket to work but she couldn’t help herself and got her hopes up. With her hopes dashed, she’d go back to living her life one day at a time.
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