Taking deep breaths to calm yourself a bit, you take the quick hike back around the lake to your family’s cabin.
By the time you get back to the cabin, you’re a little more excited about testing out your powers. You practically burst through the front door, letting the cabin’s screen door slam behind you.
“How many times have I told you not to slam the screen door?” You see your mother sitting on the cabin’s living room couch, a magazine on her lap, looking sternly at you over her reading glasses.
“Sorry,” you mumble, and then ask, “Back from town already?”
“Already? It’s 2:30,” she says. “You should keep track of time better.”
You’re a little surprised -- apparently, the process of you gaining omnipotence took longer than it seemed. You roll your eyes at your mother’s comment.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, young man!” she warns.
You sigh silently, and realize that you never ate lunch. “Did you get any sandwich stuff at the store?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you spoiling your appetite for dinner. Your father will be grilling some steaks,” she says.
“Okay,” you mumble, turning toward the cabin’s small kitchen to find a little something to tide you over for the next few hours. You find yourself thinking, I wish my mother was the kind of person who wouldn’t nag and would only want to do things for me and basically let me do whatever I want.
It’s hard to describe the sensation you feel next, but it’s as if a wave of energy suddenly left your body. Something tells you that you should turn back around.
You do so, and see your mother looking a bit confused as the reading glasses disappear from her face. It appears that she’s getting younger -- the wrinkles around her eyes are disappearing, as is the gray in her hair, which is darkening to a raven black and lengthening down her back.
Her skin loses its freckles and becomes an even shade that’s a few levels darker than normal. Her eyes change to an almond shape, the irises going from green to a dark brown. Her nose shrinks slightly as her cheekbones become more prominent.
Her long hair arranges itself onto the top of her head as various ornaments appear sticking out of it, forming a very elaborate hairstyle. Her T-shirt and jeans somehow meld together and then quickly whirl around to form a colorful silk kimono. A pair of wooden sandals appears on her bare feet.
An invisible hand appears to be painting her face. Within seconds it and her neck are completely white -- at least as far down as the high neckline of the kimono -- except for her lips, painted a brilliant red, her eyes, rimmed in black and red, and her eyebrows, emphasized with a bit of black coloring.
She blinks and says, “Oh, I am so sorry, Max,” in a voice with a definite Japanese accent and a bit of a sing-song quality. The magazine is still on her lap, but she places it neatly on an end table as she stands up.
She bows apologetically to you. You realize that she’s lost several inches in height; she’s now about a foot shorter than you, not counting her tall hairdo. “It’s half-past two, and you have not eaten! I should have sent you out with a lunch this morning! Please, may I make you a lunch now?” She looks almost terrified.
“Sure,” you say, and then after a brief pause, “Mom.”
You halfway expect her to say “I’m not your mother,” but instead she just looks extremely relieved, and walks toward you and the kitchen. “Please have a seat, my son,” she says. “I purchased many sandwich ingredients in town today, although if you would rather have something else...” She looks at you expectantly, and you can see in her altered eyes that the expectation is not “I’m just asking to be polite and you’d better say you want a sandwich,” it’s “I will attempt to make you any food you can imagine.”
However, you merely say, “A sandwich would be just fine,” with a smile. “I’m sure any kind would be fine.”
She smiles back and immediately takes some dishes out of a cabinet, then starts removing items from the refrigerator.
By the time you sit down on the couch and give the magazine she’d been reading a quick examination, she’s chopping up lettuce and avocados for what looks like it’s going to be a gigantic overstuffed sandwich. It’s almost like she’s been trained as a short-order cook.
You think back to the exact wish you made to transform your mother and decide to test this new version of her. “Can I have a beer to go with it?” you ask.
She says with obvious delight in her voice, “Oh, my son is growing up! What kind would you like? We have the Leinenkugel’s your father likes, and the light beer that your sister’s boyfriend drinks --“
You shake your head. “Actually, never mind. I’ll just have a Coke.”
Disappointment briefly flickers across her white-painted face, but then it goes back to a smile. “Maybe tonight at dinner,” she says cheerfully. “Beer goes well with a cookout! I’ll be finished with your sandwich in one more minute.”
“Okay,” you say, as you watch this almost completely unfamiliar woman prepare lunch for you. Having a geisha for a mother does seem to have possibilities.
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