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I started working the buttons on her blouse with renewed vigor, giving her little time to regret her decision. I got the damn thing off, along with her bra, meaning, I’d just gotten to the good part when my cell phone vibrated on the nightstand.

  “You need to get that?” she said.

  I grabbed my knife from under the pillow and plunged it through the center of the phone in a motion so quick it should have impressed the shit out of her. In retrospect I guess she hadn’t expected the knife or my ability to use it.

  She ran to the door screaming, clutching her bra and blouse to her chest. She was fidgety, and it took a while to get the door unlocked, but when she realized I wasn’t chasing her she paused to put her clothes on, while keeping a wary eye on me.

  I was aware of all this, but I was more interested in my cell phone.

  It was still ringing.

  I pried the knife loose and answered it.

  “Creed.”

  “Mr. Creed, this is Buddy Pancake. I’m in trouble.”

  To the girl in my room I said, “Wait. You lost an earring.” It was a large gold hoop, probably bought at the same time she bought the underwear. I slid it on the blade of my knife and hurled it in her direction. She shrieked as it stuck in the door frame and vibrated back and forth. It was a good throw, one that should have dazzled her, landing as it had a mere two inches from her face.

  “Buddy,” I said, “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Creed.”

  My date angrily tried to pry the knife out of the door frame, but I’d thrown it too hard. She gave up, opened the door, and, rather rudely I thought, flipped her middle finger at me before leaving.

  I said, “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Buddy?”

  “The worst kind.”

  I sighed. “Where are you?”

  Part One:

  BUDDY PANCAKE

  Introduction

  On April 8, 2010, custom motorcycle builder Jesse James was voted “The Most Hated Man in America,” for cheating on America’s Sweetheart, actress Sandra Bullock.

  The story broke three days after Sandra won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in The Blind Side.

  The Academy Awards had been held Sunday, March 7, at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre. In attendance that night were a number of famous beauties, including Mariska Hargitay, Kate Winslet, Maria Menounos, Demi Moore, Jinny Kidwell, Amanda Seyfried, and Charlize Theron.

  If you’re lucky enough to be a world famous actress, and one of the world’s most beautiful women, you might not say it out loud, but secretly you know you can have any man on the planet.

  For this reason, the entire world would be stunned to know that five days after Sandra Bullock won her Oscar, a balding, pudgy, middle class nobody named Buddy Pancake managed to do something only three men in the entire world had done.

  He fucked Jinny Kidwell.

  How did a man like this wind up in bed with Jinny Kidwell?

  Simple.

  He wished it.

  Chapter 1

  This whole thing started the way things often do: a few guys hanging out together on a Sunday afternoon, talking about pussy.

  It’s early March, and we’re three underachievers, soft, wimpy, mid-management worker bees, sitting in the basement of my split-level ranch, in the room I like to call my office. There’s an old college couch in here, and a black, faux-leather bean bag chair. An ancient, but working, TV sits atop a maple desk I salvaged from my neighbor’s yard sale last summer. It’s not fancy, but it’s mine, and has a matching chair. The room’s only window shows half dirt, half sky. It’s split horizontally, and the top half pushes open about six inches, just enough to let the weed smoke out.

  By way of introduction, I’m Buddy Pancake.

  I’ll pause a minute, while you bust my balls. Go ahead, ask me if Pancake is my real name.

  It is.

  Ask me “What’s Mrs. Butterworth?”

  I don’t know. What, maybe five bucks?

  Hilarious.

  Move along to where I live.

  Yeah, that’s right. The Pancake House.

  I know. You got a million more.

  Do me a favor. Put the pancake thing on hold while I tell my story. You won’t be sorry, it’s a helluva story.

  For five days I was the luckiest man in the world.

  And then I wasn’t.

  Chapter 2

  Like I said, here we are, me, Mike and Richie, in my basement office. My wife, Lissie, on her way home with a pound of pasta and a bottle of Patsy’s All Natural Puttanesca Sauce.

  Me, telling my friends the origin of the name puttanesca: “It means Whore’s Sauce.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Mike says.

  I pass him the joint and say, “No, for real. Puttanesca was a cheap, quick dish Italian hookers made between tricks. The ingredients can be found in any Italian larder.”

  “Listen to you,” Richie says. “Larder. Jeez. How gay is that?”

  I flip my middle finger in response.

  Mike, pensive, says, “Ever been with one?”

  “What, a hooker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get real,” I say.

  Mike passes the torch to Richie, and we’re quiet a minute, thinking about doing it with a hooker.

  Mike breaks the silence. “Well, you got Lissie. Don’t know how you managed it, but who needs a hooker when you got a looker, eh?”

  We laugh, take another hit off our communal joint, blow it in the general direction of the window, and chase it with a swallow of scotch.

  “But say you didn’t have Lissie,” Mike persists. “Who would you want?”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  Richie, getting into it: “Say you can have any chick in the world. Who would you choose?”

  “Wait,” I say, “You mean like for one night? Who would I want to fuck?”

  My friends nod.

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Mike says.

  “I mean, I never thought about it.”

  “Oh, bullshit!” Richie says. “I know who I’d take.”

  Richie knows we’re looking at him, so he makes us wait a few seconds. Then he says, “Megan Fox.”

  Mike nods. “Yeah, okay. I thought you were gonna say Angelina Jolie, but yeah, Megan’s hot. Me? I’d take Katrina Bowden.”

  “Who?”

  “Chick on 30 Rock.”

  “Oh, right. Wait. The receptionist?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, she’s hot. Great ass.”

  Richie locks onto my eyes, says, “Your turn.”

  I smile. I’m with friends, and know that the words I’m about to utter will never be heard by my wife. I take a deep breath and say, “Jinny Kidwell.”

  “Whoa,” Richie says. “Oh, shit. Yeah, okay, you win.”

  We sit there grinning like monkeys flinging shit through a cage, thinking about pounding Jinny Kidwell.

  Yeah, that Jinny Kidwell, the twenty-five million per movie one.

  “What else would you wish for?” Mike says.

  “I get Jinny Kidwell for one night?” Richie says, “I don’t need nothin’ else. Game over. I die a happy man.”

  “Yeah,” Mike says, “but in addition to sleeping with Jinny Kidwell, say you can have anything in the world.”

  I realize Mike is talking to me.

  “What,” I say, “You mean like a genie grants me three wishes?”

  “Yeah, like that. Only let’s say it’s four wishes. What would you ask for?”

  “Easy. A million bucks.”

  Mike takes a hit, holds it, then exhales loudly. “Okay, sure. But then what?”

  “What, a million bucks and sex with Jinny Kidwell ain’t enough for you?”

  “Not if I got two more wishes coming. What else would you wish for?”

  “Wait,” I say. “Where’s this bullshit coming from?”

  Richie and Mike look at each other.


  Mike says, “We found this website called Wish List. It’s like a survey. You type in your wishes and they compile them and tell you the most popular ones. It’s updated every day.”

  “This is guys only, right?” I say. “’Cause chicks are gonna put down stupid shit.”

  I don’t normally talk this way in real life. Mike and Richie probably don’t either. But when we’re together we talk the way we used to, growing up in the South End. It’s comfortable. We’re hard working guys, stuck in dead-end jobs. We’re a hell of a lot smarter than we sound on afternoons like this when we’re passing a joint around, shooting the shit.

  “There’s a guy list and a chick list,” Richie says.

  “You guys fill it out?”

  “Naw,” Richie says. “But it’s fun to think about.”

  Mike says, “I did.”

  We look at him like, no shit?

  “Yeah, I filled it out. It’s just a flippin’ survey, right?” He shrugs his shoulders. “What’s the big deal?”

  Lissie’s home now. From the kitchen, we hear her shout, “Buddy? Want to help me with dinner?”

  Richie grabs his crotch and says, “I’d like to help her with dinner!”

  Mike says, “Jesus, Richie, show some respect. She’s Buddy’s wife!”

  I glance at Mike, thinking there’s something weird in the way he said it, like he was really pissed. Hey, if anyone should have been angry…

  “Hey, sorry man,” Richie says. “It’s the weed. You know I’m just acting out.”

  “Bygones,” I say.

  Mike stares at me a long moment, then stubs out the joint, puts the butt in his pocket, and stands up. Gives me a bro hug and says, “Check it out: Wish List.bz. Let me know what you wish for.”

  Chapter 3

  My friends leave. I’m in the kitchen, checking out Lissie’s ass while salting the water for the pasta.

  I’m thinking Mike’s right about Lissie being top of the food chain in my pond. I take a minute to wonder how a beautiful, kind, loving woman like her winds up with a fat fuck like me. Well, I’m not fat fat, but compared to the guys Lissie could get, I may as well be the Hindenburg.

  Anyway, here’s the thing about me: I’m ungrateful as hell. Here I am, an average guy with a cartoon last name and a shit job I’m on the verge of losing. I hit the lottery when Lissie fell for me—and it’s still not enough.

  I know I’ve already achieved the pinnacle with Lissie, but I’m thinking about Jinny Kidwell anyway. I try not to, but there she is, fixed in my brain, like a pregnant woman craving Twinkies at two a.m.

  I know it’s nuts. I mean, come on—Jinny Kidwell?

  Of course it’s nuts. But I’ve studied enough biology to know that a half million years of evolution has hard-wired my brain with the biological imperative to spread my seed with the highest genetic code available, and…

  Christ, listen to me. I embarrass myself sometimes.

  Forget my biological imperative. It’s not utter bullshit, but I don’t know enough about it to make a winning case to a female jury. Nevertheless, there is something utterly compelling about Jinny Kidwell. You know it, I know it, and Hollywood knows it. Or they wouldn’t pay her twenty-five mil to star in movies, and we wouldn’t pay ten times that to see her in them.

  I know there is no way in the world I will ever have sex with Jinny Kidwell. If she and I are stuck in an elevator and the world is coming to an end it won’t happen. If we emerge from that same elevator to find we’re the last two people on earth—it’s still a no. I know with every fiber of my being there is no set of circumstances on earth that could result in the two of us being in bed, in a sexual situation, with her consent.

  And yet…

  And yet it did happen, five days later.

  But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Dinner’s over and I’m in the kitchen, watching Lissie bend at the waist to pick a bit of lettuce off the floor. I’m staring at her long, tanned legs looking for a flash of panty. Her dress doesn’t hike that high, but I see it in my mind anyway. Now she’s tossing the lettuce into the sink, asking me if the puttanesca had been hot enough.

  I nod. It’s all hot in the kitchen this night, and in my mind my wife’s legs are Jinny Kidwell’s, and I’m allowing myself to keep the image there because it’s fun and it’s certainly not the same as cheating. There’s no way I’m ever going to be in the same room with Jinny, much less in the same bed, so it’s not cheating, right?

  I’m only thinking all this about Jinny because there’s something about the idea of putting her name on a wish list that makes it seem almost possible, and that’s what it’s all about. I mean, when you’re a guy, and you’re alone and thinking about sex, you can either look at porn or create a fantasy in your mind. But the fantasy has to be based on something plausible in order to work. What I’m saying is, if I’m alone and seeking relief, my mind can only create a plausible connection with Jinny Kidwell if there’s some type of outside influence. But thinking about the wish list, and having verbalized it with Richie and Mike, I’ve caused Jinny to move into the realm of visualization.

  And if you can visualize it…

  Lissie likes watching the Academy Awards. I usually let her do it alone, but I remember from the promo that Jinny Kidwell is one of the presenters tonight. When the time comes for Jinny’s entrance, the cameras are all over her. She’s wearing a gunmetal gray dress that’s tasteful in front, and practically obscene from the back. When she turns to exit the stage I can see two dimples between her hips, which means if her dress was a half inch lower in the back, the show would have to carry a PG 13 rating.

  “God, she’s gorgeous!” Lissie said.

  “You think?”

  “Don’t you?”

  I do. But what I say is, “Compared to you? Not so gorgeous.”

  A short time later I’ve got Lissie in bed. I’m really going after it, really hammering her.

  I know I’m disgusting. I know she can’t possibly want me touching her, much less riding her, but there she is, acting like I’m her version of Jinny Kidwell. Like I said, I don’t deserve her.

  I’ve got my eyes shut tight, mouth slightly open. My back arches upward…

  Then something shifts in the cosmos.

  I feel it beneath me.

  One minute Lissie’s into it, the next she’s not.

  Still, if I can just hold this image of Jinny in my mind for three more seconds…

  But no.

  Lissie says, “Damn it Buddy!”

  And pushes me off.

  “Jesus, Lissie! I was just about to—”

  “I know exactly what you were about to do,” she says, scooting away from me on the bed. I try to follow, but she makes her arm rigid between us, like Diana Ross, singing Stop in the Name of Love.

  Then she says, “Who is she?”

  “What?”

  “Some new girl start at the office today?”

  “What? Are you nuts? Of course not! Why would you even think that?”

  She sits on the edge of the bed, her back to me. Her eyes follow the trail of clothes that runs from the door to her feet.

  “Your friends were here today,” she says. “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I swear!”

  “Uh huh.” She reaches down, picks her panties off the floor, slips them over her feet and pulls them to her knees. “Fine.”

  “Jesus, Lissie.”

  She stands, lifts her panties to her waist in a fluid motion, then goes to the dresser and selects a flannel nightie that practically screams, “Don’t Touch Me!”

  “Lissie, you’re the only woman in my world. I swear!”

  She shrugs the nightie on, walks back to the bed, and stares me down.

  A moment passes before I cave.

  “I mean, yeah, Richie and Mike are a little uncouth sometimes, you know? They were talking a little crude.”

  She waits.
Like me, she’s wondering where this is heading.

  “I think maybe Mike likes you.”

  She arches an eyebrow. “What do you mean, likes me?”

  I can’t believe I’m willing to sell my friends out so easily.

  “Well, he made a crack about how lucky I was to have you, and how you’re way out of my league…”

  I peek at her face to see if she’s buying my bullshit. She isn’t, but I have an endless supply and know how to shovel it.

  I say, “I guess it hurt my feelings, you know?”

  “Hurt your feelings.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew Mike was right.” I shake my head. “It’s true. I don’t deserve you.”

  She gets a funny look in her eyes, like when her nephew soils his diaper, the one she just finished changing. She doesn’t like changing diapers, but she loves her nephew.

  “So this was some sort of caveman thing? Like I’m your woman or something?”

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  Then her voice gets an edge to it and I know it’s all going south on me.

  “So you were going to show Mike who’s boss.”

  “What? No!”

  “No? Well, guess what: this time I believe you!”

  “Uh…whaddya mean?”

  “This had nothing to do with Mike, and your feelings weren’t hurt. You were having sex with me, while thinking about someone else.”

  “I wasn’t!”

  “You were, and I won’t have it!”

  “What’re you talking about? How can you even draw that conclusion?”

  “All night at dinner you’re staring at my body, not at me. Then you rip my clothes off, never once looking at my face. Then you start touching me differently, but still I give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Until?”

  “Until just now.”

  “Ever dawn on you I might be adding variety to our love making?”

  “Not when you pound me like a street whore.”

  “What?”

  “You practically raped me! So don’t even—”

  She presses her lips into an angry frown and stares at me like I’m a stain in her panties.