Shopping trip on a wish

COSTA MESA — The limousine pulled up to the curb outside Monce' Bravo's apartment and waited for her to descend the stairs. She appeared after a few minutes, surrounded by her family and sporting a pink shirt and shorts with a knit cap pulled snugly over her head. As the driver held the door open for her, a pair of women on the sidewalk began snapping pictures.

"Can I get in now?" Monce' asked good-naturedly, pausing on her way into the back seat so the photographers could capture images of her.

Monce', 12, is not a celebrity, although she got pampered like one for a few hours Thursday. The Westside resident contracted leukemia a year ago and her doctors don't expect her to last longer than a few weeks. Illness hasn't brought her down yet, however. As she rode in the limo to South Coast Plaza with members of Grants Wishes, a nonprofit that benefits children and young adults with cancer, she chatted about her recent regimen — spending weeks at a time in the hospital, going to the mall and the movies in between — as if it were no hassle.

"God is with us all," Abigail Knief, a volunteer for Grants Wishes, told her at one point. "God is here in this limo."

Rather than get misty-eyed, Monce' laughed out loud.

Monce', who attended Rea Elementary School and planned to go on to middle school before her illness kept her at home, is one of a select group of patients served by Grants Wishes.

The Anaheim-based nonprofit services children who have already had a dream fulfilled and gone on to suffer a relapse of their condition. Monce' — short for Moncerrat — went to South Coast Plaza to go shopping with the Make A Wish Foundation last year, and asked for the same thing when Grants Wishes contacted her family.

Thursday morning, she boarded the limo with her mother, father, brother and $2,000 and stopped for lunch at the Rainforest Café before heading off to shop.

When she entered the clothing store Limited Too, South Coast Plaza officials stepped in to give her balloons.

Lori Sullivan, the founder of Grants Wishes, brought a wheelchair for Monce' in case she didn't have the strength to walk, but Monce' politely declined.

For the time being, Monce' wasn't feeling like a patient.

And she still had another wish in mind: to meet pop star Justin Timberlake in person.

"She says he's her boyfriend," her father, Amado Bravo, said.