“Hello, honey,” Maryam replied absently. For a moment she blinked, as if searching for a foggy memory as she smiled at her. But then her brow cleared and she took her in a hug. “Ganesh preserve us!” she exclaimed, staring upwards. “Every time I turn around you’re taller! When are you going to stop growing?”
“I don’t know,” she replied with a smile. “I never expected to be over six foot when I grew up, that’s for sure.” Her mother’s head barely reached her chin, she found to her immense shock.
The older woman stepped back. “Well, your Uncle Rajeep is almost as tall as you. But I think you hit the genetic lottery, kiddo.” She turned back to emptying the dishwasher. “What are you up to today?”
“I’m not sure. I think I might-” Her phone beeped, interrupting her. She fished it out of her shorts to see a text from Shannon. “Oh, crap. The last fitting for Shannon’s wedding dress is today! I nearly forgot!”
“You better hustle, then.” Her mother shook her head. “I still think it’s weird that she wants your opinion about her dress.”
She started to say something, then caught herself. I’m a guy, now. Right. Instead she shrugged and said only, “We’ve been best friends forever, Mom. How could I tell her no?”
Opening the fridge, she grabbed an apple and a muffin and a bottle of juice. “I got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Sure, honey.” She took her kiss on a proffered cheek, and watched bemusedly as she tore out the door.
Twenty seconds later she burst back through, climbing the stairs two at a time as she hurried to her bedroom to collect the necklace, wrap it in a piece of cloth, and dash back outside again.
*****
“Well, you handled that rather well,” Gene said, popping into view in the passenger seat as she idled at a red light.
“Agh!” She flinched so violently her foot nearly slid off the brake. “Don’t do that!”
The genie snickered, leaning out the window so he could flick an imaginary speck of dust off the sleeve of his cardigan. “My apologies, O my Master.”
“And why are you here, anyway?” The light turned green and she turned left onto Columbus. “Isn’t your work, you know, kind of done?”
“Have you released me from your service?”
“Um. No.”
“Then I have no ability to depart. You are my master, and I am your…servant, shall we say.”
“I can hardly introduce yourself to the girls at the bridal shop as my servant.”
He waved a negligent hand. “A friend, an associate, a well-wisher, insofar as I do not wish you any specific sort of harm.” A feral smile. “And anyway, you need a wingman to run interference for you with all those bitches.”
“They’re not bitches! They’re my friends!” Well, Allison’s friends, mostly.
“Not with you as a woman, no. But now you’re a man, remember? There is nothing worse than an unmarried bridesmaid with a good-looking man around. They’ll all have their tails up and their claws out. And if you’re not careful, my master, you might that you’ve been hooked by one of them rather than sweet little Allison.
“Also, to give you a little advice. Because there’s nothing worse than serving a master who has found out that having his wish granted doesn’t make him happy. For your entire life, Riyad, you’ve been content to hover in the background, passive. Have you ever told Allison the way you feel for her?”
Her face heated. “I don’t need to tell her. She knows.”
The genie cocked an eyebrow at her. “Really? You think lovely Allison knows that her best friend wants to thwart her wedding, seduce her, strip her naked, make love to her all night long, and end up sowing his seed in her while they achieve the sort of climax which would make the very gods weep with envy? Or at least lick every delectable curve and crevice of her body until she cums all over your face?”
Her face blushed furiously. “No,” Gene continued. “She doesn’t. Oh, she might suspect something, deep down, but she would never admit it to herself, because you’ve never given her a chance to think about it. That has to end. Starting today. You don’t have much time. So for once in your too-short, blighted mortal life, Riyad, you have to be the aggressor. You can’t stand there making cow-eyes at her and hoping she’ll notice. Because she won’t. Not because she doesn’t care for you, in her own slightly dim way. But because you’ve been friends for so long that she can’t imagine the two of you as lovers. And I don’t want to be the one who has to pick up the pieces if this all goes to hell.”
Margie’s Bridal was tucked away in downtown Mayfield, comfortably snug between Antonya’s Candles and a sewing supply store. She parked on the street and walked up to the shop, Gene sauntering slowly after, surprised at how her long legs ate up the ground, and the difference in the way people she passed acted. Before, she had always had to duck out of the way on the narrow sidewalks. Today, other people gave were giving her room.
I could get to enjoy this.
The bell rang as she entered the store, and the four bridesmaids turned as she approached. “Hi, Ray.”
“Hi, Tara. Wendy. Odette. Jenny.” She nodded at each one, feeling amazingly awkward. Inside this pristine, jasmine-scented shop, she felt appallingly, disgustingly male, as out of place as a harsh, croaking crow in a chorus of songbirds. “Where’s Allie?”
“In the dressing room.” Tara grinned. “By the time she’s done, that dress is going to look like it was painted on her. I’m pretty sure her grandma is going to pass right out when she sees it. That girl might be a Baptist, but the wedding dress isn’t so sure.”
Shanaya smiled, but her belly growled in a convincing display of hunger, and the other girls snickered as she blushed. She had eaten the apple and the muffin on her way to the bridal shop, but her new body was insisting that hadn’t been nearly enough for breakfast. She made her way over to a little nook, where a tasteful display of finger-sandwiches were laid out to keep the people who had to wait from perishing of hunger. She ate two, then a third, then turned at a chorus of giggles.
“I know, girls. Isn’t he absolutely scrumptious?” Gene whispered conspiratorially. “And not a gay bone in his body, more the pity. You cannot imagine how good his ass looks in a pair of bikini briefs.”
“You’ve never seen my ass in a pair of bikini briefs,” she shot back.
“See the way he treats me?” Gene gave a limp-wristed pout, his hand flopping vapidly as he batted his eyes at her. “And after I saved his old homestead from those terrible cattle rustlers, too.” He winked at the other bridesmaids, who were nearly in convulsions. “I told him that my gun had more than six bullets, but did I get any gratitude? Of course not. Men,” he sighed. “They’re all the same.”
She turned away, the tips of her ears burning, but she could feel the eyes of the bridesmaids on her. A few minutes later, Wendy sauntered over, her hips swaying saucily under her skin-tight blue jeans. A full-figured brunette, she had been on the cheerleading team in high school, though she was a year younger than Allie or herself.
“God, Ray, where did you find that guy?” she giggled. “He’s funnier than a dog with a mouthful of peanut butter.”