Wish Upon a Star by Mary Sheldon

Author:Mary Sheldon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2012-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

New Year’s Day, Tom and Helene got married at the Desert Chapel in Palm Springs. I took my job as best man seriously, spending hours writing a speech that I, at least, thought was amusing.

At the reception afterward I had a good time catching up with old friends. Before I left I wanted to say something to Tom, something to let him know how much he had always meant to me but the feeling was bigger than any words. So I just gave him a bear hug and told Helene to take care of him.

“I will,” she said. There was so much love in her voice that I wanted to bawl.

Driving back to L.A., I puzzled over the way life worked. From the time we were kids, Tom and I had been so much alike that people often mistook us for brothers. How had it happened, I wondered, that one of us had gotten to marry the girl he loved and the other had turned into the loneliest man in L.A.?

And then, about a week later, I met Sara.

I had a business appointment at a new travel agency in West Hollywood, and the moment I walked into the lobby I noticed the young woman sitting in the front left-hand cubicle. She was cute, with curly red hair, and hazel eyes. And what’s more, she was natural-looking—unlike just about every other girl in town.

She was talking on the phone to someone who was obviously being difficult, but she didn’t get impatient. She answered everything politely, and even after she hung up, she didn’t complain about the call. I wanted to compliment her on her attitude, but just then the office manager came out from the back, and we went in to our meeting.

Afterward, when I returned to the lobby, the girl was still sitting at her desk. She was doing paperwork now, but I got the feeling she knew I was watching her.

I walked over, trying to come up with a topic of conversation. There were some Swiss travel posters on the wall behind her, and I figured that was as good an opening as any.

“I understand the Matterhorn in Switzerland is even bigger than the one at Disneyland,” I said.

She laughed. “Yes, but it doesn’t have the Abominable Snowman.”

So we got to talking—about Disneyland, and Switzerland, about skiing and chalets and even cheese.

Then, when I ran out of things to say, I asked the girl what her name was.

“Sara,” she said.

I felt ajar go through me.

When I was a teenager, my favorite song in the world was an oldie from the seventies called “Sara, Smile.” I’d play it over and over, imagining what the girl in the song was like. I always pictured her as being grave and sweet, a little like this Sara.

“Are you from L.A.?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “But not Los Angeles. I’m from Lake Arrowhead.”

That gave me another jar. Lake Arrowhead was a very special place to me. I’d once spent a week there when I was seven—it was the last vacation my family went on before Dad got sick.

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