Three Wishes: This didn't go as planned!

The Gorge

"Let's not go back."  I said, as we left the grocery store.

"Back to the house?  Permanently or just for a little while?"

I laughed.  "Just for a little while.  Today.  Maybe tomorrow.  I can text Kate, tell her were not coming back."

"Ah, yes."  Jeanie said knowingly.  "Phones."  She thought for a moment.  "You're different, you know?"

"Hmm?"

"Yeah.  Most people who bring me out...  Even your ancestor was more controlling."

"Was he important to you?"

She looked at the sidewalk.  "Yes."

I quashed a pang of jealousy.  "So how about it, wanna go somewhere?"

She smiled at me.  "Yes."

We got in the car, zipping southwest along the freeway.  I turned on some music and she went wild over it.  

"Cause every monkey needs alone time--" She sang along as the greenery skipped by outside the windows, the tires rolling in rhythmic time.  "-- to eat bananas in the sunshine--"  She laughed.  "I've never heard someone refer to themselves as a monkey before."

"Yeah."  I looked over at her.  She seemed lit up from the inside, golden flecks in her eyes revolving like tiny galaxies.  "Evolution."

"Darwin?"

"Yep!"

"I didn't know he'd get that popular."

"Oh yeah."

We chatted on about what she'd missed while she was in that lamp.  It was lucky I'd always been good at history. 

I didn't know exactly where we were going, but when we reached a gorge at the edge of the state I pulled over to the side of the road. 

"Do you want to check it out?"  I asked. 

She rolled her shoulders sleepily.  "Mhmm."

The gorge had a river at the bottom.  It glided along, distorted like old glass.  There was an unstable path carved in the cliffsides.  We climbed down it.  Jeanie picked a fluffy pink flower from the cracks between the rocks and tickled my ear with it.  

I ignored it, straight faced.  

She tickled my ear again.  

I looked back at her, raising an eyebrow.

She gave me big, innocent eyes. 

We reached the bottom of the chasm, and I turned around and grabbed her, tickling her breathless.

"Stop, stop."  She finally said, gasping and smiling and giggling.

I set her down.  She looked up at me with a goofy grin.   Looking away, I cleared my throat awkwardly.  She shrugged and walked past me to the river.  I turned to watch her skip a stone across it.  Her lithe frame swayed as she picked up another rock, weighing it carefully.

"I want to do this again."  I said. 

"What do you mean?"  She asked, looking over her shoulder.

"I mean, I've always wanted to travel.  To just take off like this--"  I quirked my mouth downwards.  "But, I guess I can't stray too far."

"Why?"

"Kate needs me-- Chris needs me, or at least someone stable.  And what if there's an emergency?  I can't be too far away..."

She turned around fully.  "I think you're forgetting something."

"What?"

Curtseying, a strange gesture in pants, she said.  "One genie at your service, sir."