The new girl’s name is a mouthful of Chinese. She looks about thirteen, unlucky for Genie. It’s been—how long now?—and the girl still hasn’t made her wish. Through the vent holes of the magic oil lamp, Genie watches her kowtow to four corners while chanting nonsense about parallel universes and fireflies. She seems to have decided that she needs an elaborate ritual to summon him. Genie counts fifty kowtows before she follows the actual instructions. 

“O Genie, my Genie,” she says, wiping the lamp’s hollow belly. “Come out!” 

Genie winces. Then he is sucked tail to head into the lamp’s spout and hurtled out. Even after thousands of years this still hurts. He presses his meaty palms against the ceiling to stop his head from spinning. Slowly, his vision coalesces: pink. Needy, whiny pink. Bedspread, pillows, wallpaper, curtains, and the girl herself, in a pink tracksuit, hugging a stuffed giant panda by a window that frames a city of cascading high-rises and glowing neon signs. China? He doesn’t know how he got here and he doesn’t care. As soon as the girl makes the wish, it’s zaijian and never again.

The girl cranes her neck to take him in. She frowns, as if she finds his naked chest and bulging arms ridiculous, his golden balloon shorts silly, and his smoky tail—no legs!—pointless. Even the sapphire blue of his skin reflects back from her dark eyes flat and dirty. He wants to push her with one finger and watch her free-fall down five stories.

“Girl, ready to make your wish?” he says, not bothering with her name, because eventually she too will be forgotten, like all the other masters with their same-old, same-old wishes for gold, fame, or a heart as strong as an ox’s. 

She ignores him and sits on her bed to study her pores with a magnifying mirror. 

He can see every bit of peach fuzz on her cheeks. The fine, rosy caterpillar veins. The faint salamander-shaped birthmark on her nose. Her youthful imperfections make him self-conscious of the uniform blueness of his skin, the wrong color among all this pink.

“Say I’m beautiful,” she says and combs her shiny black hair, straight to the waist. 

He can tell she already knows that. “I grant wishes, not affirmations,” he says. “Do you wish to be beautiful?”

She squints, seeing through his ploy. 

Outside the girl’s bedroom, her mother shouts above a TV tuned to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, calling her for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Meals seem to be the one thing the mother cares about a lot.

“Not hungry!” the girl yells. 

Genie follows the girl to the living room, sucking in the oversized everything of him to squeeze through the doorway. 

The mother is heading out, her winter coat bright and furry. She can’t see Genie. Most people can’t, blinded by the illusion that they are the master of their destiny. He bears the unsavory truth that luck is a random draw by an apathetic hand, and very little is required of a lucky few to attain great wealth or great fame or a stomach as strong as a butcher’s dog’s.

“Good daughter, seal the envelopes for me?” 

The mother’s stilettos click-clack to the elevator, which chimes before it descends. The girl locks two metal doors, one with bars and one without. 

“Sit,” the girl says and slumps in a dining chair.

“You wish?” Technically speaking, he is not allowed to count trivial commands. But.

“Just a request.”

He decides against the flimsy dining chair and plops down on the cold tile floor, his large head towering over the girl, his smoky tail curlicued on his lap. 

The girl spins the lazy Susan of the dining table with a pile of letters. As the letters fly, she announces like a game show host, “Iiiiiiit’s time to answer readers of Mother’s…China Number 1 Mistress Newsletter!” 

She dumps a letter out and reads it aloud. “‘Dear Mrs. Wang: My hometown boyfriend proposed, but an official offered to buy me an apartment in the city. What should I do?’”

“What do you think?” the girl asks and raises an eyebrow.

Genie thinks, maybe he can get the girl to wish for a puppy? 

“Let’s see what Mother says. ‘Money is freedom. Don’t be afraid of freedom. Take my video course. The first lesson teaches you how to open a Hong Kong bank account.’”

The girl seals the envelope and slaps on a stamp dramatically. “Next!”

“‘Dear Mrs. Wang: My boss keeps three other mistresses. How do I capture his heart?” 

“‘The Chinese say, old oxen chew young grass. Be the girlfriend he wanted when he was twenty. Carry a parasol always and plastic surgery is an option too. ‘Next!” 

“‘Dear Mrs. Wang: I’m pregnant!’”

“‘Hide so he can’t force you to get an abortion. If it’s a boy, demand a generous settlement. If it’s a girl, pray that you get a generous settlement.’” 

The girl lets the letter drop, at last tired of her game. After a long silence, she says, “Do you know if just one little thing was different, you wouldn’t exist at all?”

Just his luck. Of the billion people in China, he is stuck with someone who wants something he cannot give. 

(Continued…)