Wishful Thinking (13 page)

The prize for winning the brass ring was one free ride, but Jaime didn’t have much time before she had to be back at work. Hazel was pocketing the stamped voucher when she found Jaime waiting for her on the steps outside, with two fat lobster rolls crowding a paper plate on her lap.

Hazel felt a small twinge of victory and smiled—Jaime had decided to eat something after all—but she knew better than to say anything.

“Sit,” Jaime commanded as Hazel hovered behind her on the wooden steps. Hazel settled down beside her and Jaime held up the plate. “Prepare to have your mind blown.”

Hazel reached for one of the rolls. It was a standard white-bread hot dog bun oozing with orangey-pink lobster meat, dotted with tiny slices of celery ribs, and held together by globs of creamy mayonnaise. “Careful,” Jaime warned, stretching the plate out closer to Hazel’s lap. “It’s sort of a two-hand situation.”

Hazel brought the soggy roll to her mouth and bit down at one end. A mouthful of buttery, lemony goodness greeted her, and she swooned. “S’good,” she mumbled, wiping the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t just good. It was heavenly and tasted exactly the way she’d always thought that summer should.

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Jaime said, and shrugged between bites. “The ones on the docks in Menemsha are better. But that’s a field trip for another day.”

Hazel reached for one of the napkins Jaime had tucked under a sweating can of Sprite. They ate in silence for a few moments, every so often shifting closer to the railing, conceding the steps to the would-be riders bounding inside.

“I guess I
will
kind of miss this place,” Jaime sighed suddenly, angling her roll to get a clean, full bite. She said it as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation, one that Hazel hadn’t been aware they were having.

“Where are you going?” Hazel asked, unable to mask the interest in her voice. It escaped all in one breath, a jumbled, high-pitched squeal.

Jaime shrugged again. “I can’t stay here,” she said. “When Rosanna and Billy sell the farm, I’ll be out of a job
and
a place to live.”

“What about your family?” Hazel asked. She’d never heard Jaime mention anything about where she came from. Most of the time, it seemed like she’d been with Rosanna forever, and the rest of the time, Hazel got the impression that it wasn’t okay to ask.

Jaime rolled her eyes. “Family?” she huffed. “Let’s see. There’s my
mom,
but she’s been in India since I was four. Looking for Buddha or the perfect lotus flower or some crap.”

Hazel hung on to Jaime’s every word. She had a grandmother, she realized suddenly. An absentee grandmother, far away and wandering around Indian temples, but a grandmother nonetheless.

Jaime waved her sandwich in the air, little pieces of lobster
meat flying onto the steps. “Or maybe you mean my
dad.
I could call him, but I’d have to make sure to get him between about eight and eight thirty in the morning. That’s basically the only time he’d be sober enough to remember my name.”

Jaime shook her head. “I’d also need to know where he was living. Last I heard, he was sleeping on a friend’s couch behind a gas station in New Bedford.”

Hazel swallowed hard and glanced down at the wooden steps. Jaime’s mom had left her, and her dad was a drunk. It wasn’t exactly her own story, but it was pretty darn close. Maybe it was true what people said about apples not falling far from their trees. If these were Hazel’s trees, what did it say about her?

She looked back at Jaime. “How did you end up with Rosanna?”

“My grandmother,” Jaime said. Her eyes warmed and all of the bitterness in her voice had suddenly dissolved. “I lived with her in the tribe until I was eleven.”

“The tribe?” Hazel asked curiously.

“We’re Wampanoag,” Jaime explained. “Native Americans were on the island first, too, just like everywhere else. There’s a reservation up in Gay Head. Don’t worry, it’s on the agenda.”

Hazel nodded, trying to focus on chewing in slow, even bites. But her stomach had roped into a pretzel and she was suddenly terrified of choking.

If Jaime was Wampanoag, then
Hazel
was Wampanoag, too.

“She was an artist, like Rosanna,” Jaime went on. “She made the quilt that’s on my bed.”

Jaime wiped a few crumbs from her lap. Hazel looked over at her, remembering her first day on the island, when Jaime had caught her snooping around their room. Jaime hadn’t
yelled at her just to be mean. She’d yelled because the quilt was special. It was the only family she had left.

“Anyway, she and Rosanna were friends,” Jaime continued. “And Rosanna promised to take care of me when Grandma died. I guess that’s another good thing about this island,” she said, hugging her knees to her chest. “Even when you don’t have a family, it finds you one.”

Thoughts were crowding Hazel’s brain. It was as if a dam had been opened and questions were pouring out. But there was one thing she was most curious about. It was the only possible explanation for how she could be part Native American and still have auburn hair, blue eyes, and skin so pale that it practically glowed.

“What about the, um… father?” Hazel managed. Her mouth was dry and she could hear her pulse drumming deep inside her ears. “The baby’s father, I mean. Who is he?”

Jaime balled up the rest of the napkins in one fist and chucked them toward an overflowing trash can on the corner. The napkins bounced off the metal rim and fell to the pavement.

“I mean, you have a boyfriend, right? Emmett said…,” Hazel prodded. She knew she shouldn’t be so nosy, but she couldn’t help it.

“Technically, yes,” Jaime sighed, and stood slowly, leaning over the railing to pick up the crumpled napkins. “Reid. But I haven’t seen him since he visited a few months back. And there’s not much he can do now, from across the Atlantic.”

Hazel’s mind swirled, her pulse pounding even harder. Her father. Reid. She had a father named Reid. Who was he? What was he like?

“What’s he doing there?” Out of all the questions she wanted to ask, it seemed the least suspicious.

Jaime sighed again and ran her fingers through her wavy dark hair. Whatever she was thinking about looked like it hurt. “He’s working at a soccer camp in England,” she said, and paused before adding a sad little laugh. “Excuse me,
football.
He’s going to play at Dartmouth in the fall. I thought we’d at least have this summer together, but I guess it was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.”

Hazel watched as Jaime stared off at the noisy traffic, bottlenecking at the intersection out front. She was clearly somewhere else.

“He’s coming back, though, right?” Hazel asked. The hope in her voice was transparent.

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s a summer kid. Which I guess means I was just a stupid summer fling.”

Something changed in Jaime’s expression and she looked quickly at her watch.

“Crap,” she said, pulling herself up and hopping to the sidewalk. “I have to run. Ice cream for the masses and whatnot.”

“Wait,” Hazel started. She wanted to know more. So much more. She knew there would be time to ask all of the questions brewing inside her, but she’d already been waiting eighteen years. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. “Where are you going to go? I mean, after they sell the farm?”

Jaime grabbed the wooden railing and swung back, her thick curls falling away from her shoulders. “If I know Rosanna, and believe me, I know Rosanna, there’s no way she’ll let me do anything but go back with them to California.” Jaime shrugged. “It’s why I’ve been putting off telling her. That, and the whole cheerleader thing.”

Hazel swallowed hard and leaned closer to Jaime at the
railing. “What about the baby?” she asked quietly. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

Jaime rested her head in her chin, her small dark eyes seeming suddenly far away. “Not really,” she said, scratching a swollen bug bite at the corner of her elbow. “I mean, I’m having it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Hazel nodded. She felt relieved, which she knew was silly. Of course Jaime would have the baby. Hazel had already been born.

“But I’ll probably have to give it up,” Jamie went on. “I’m not exactly mother material, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Jaime laughed, a harsh little chuckle that didn’t sound real. Hazel forced a tight smile, as Jaime threw up her hands and started down the block.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, living in San Francisco,” she continued, turning over her shoulder. “We could be neighbors or something.”

Hazel gulped and leaned back against the steps. “Oh,” she managed. “Right.”

“See you at the house,” Jaime called from the crosswalk with an arm in the air, and Hazel lifted her hand in a tentative wave.

How was she supposed to do this? Just sit back and watch as Jaime made her decisions one by one, decisions that would determine a specific course of events, decisions that would ultimately lead to abandoning Hazel in a San Francisco maternity ward? Not only did it seem impossible, it seemed downright unfair. She hadn’t wished to meet her mother just so she could witness all of the terrible mistakes she’d made. Who would wish for something like that?

A woman in a paisley sundress was slowly climbing the steps up to the carousel. She was holding the hands of two
apple-cheeked toddlers, a boy around four and a girl around two. They were both reaching out toward the painted horses as their mother crouched down to their level, tucking in their shirts and getting them ready to ride with the big kids. Hazel turned to watch the children run on their chubby little legs, weaving between the crowds and clapping their hands in the air.

She thought back to where she was at that age. Wendy had been gone for a few years. Roy had just given her up for the first time, checking himself into rehab and leaving Hazel with his elderly mother. Roy’s mother was a nice old lady, but had terrible arthritis and couldn’t get up the stairs very well. Hazel’s earliest memories were of standing in her crib early in the morning, wailing for somebody to come pick her up.

Some days, nobody ever came.

Here, things would have been different. If Jaime found a way to stay on the island, Hazel would have a chance at a totally different life, a life full of ice-cream cones and carousel rides and lobster rolls on the beach. Even if Rosanna left, there was something about the energy on the island that made it hard to believe that Jaime wouldn’t be okay. The island would take care of them, just as it had taken care of Jaime before.

Something deep inside of Hazel clicked, and she hopped up to her feet. She’d wished to get to know her mother, but that could’ve meant a lot of things. She could’ve met Jaime any time, any place. Maybe there was a reason she’d been sent back to the time before all the decisions had been made. And maybe it wasn’t to simply sit on the sidelines and watch.

Maybe she had been sent back to make a difference.

Maybe she had been sent back to make things right.

“A
re you sure you want to do this?” Jaime asked, lying sideways across her bed. It was Saturday afternoon and Hazel was already late. The night before, she and Luke had gone for a walk on the beach after dinner. They’d been sitting on the cliffs as the sun went down when his mouth started to twitch. It looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Finally, he told her about the Fourth of July party on Saturday night that the yacht club hosted every year. And then he asked her to be his date.

She’d said yes, of course, though the idea of making small talk with stuffy yacht club types had been tying her stomach in knots all day. And Jaime wasn’t helping.

“What do you mean?” Hazel asked from the closet. She was standing in a towel, her wet hair heavy on her shoulders, as she angled Posey’s second dress away from the hanging garment bag.

“I mean, I hope you’re prepared for a serious snob fest.”
Jaime swung her short legs over the side of the bed. They hardly even touched the ground. “And I
really
hope you’re not hungry. Public eating is a major faux pas at these things. You’ll probably only be able to sneak a carrot stick or two. Maybe an olive, if you’re lucky.”

Hazel hung the dress on the back of the closet door. Even being near it made her skin tingle. Ever since she and Jaime had talked on the carousel steps, Hazel had had a vague idea of how she wanted to use her second wish. She knew that if she could find a way to make Jaime stay on the island, she would eventually decide to keep her baby, and Hazel would have a shot at changing the past.

But it seemed like a lot for one wish. Should she wish for Jaime to stay? But what if she stayed, and still gave the baby up? Maybe she should wish for Jaime to keep her, regardless of where they went. But what would Hazel’s life be like then?

The options seemed endless, and endlessly complicated. She knew that wherever the wishes led her, it couldn’t be any worse than the childhood—if you could call it a childhood—she’d been stuck with the first time around. But now that she’d been given the chance to start over, she wanted to make sure she got it right.

“What’s the deal with the dresses?” Jaime asked suddenly, and Hazel’s stomach clenched.

“No deal,” Hazel murmured. She felt her cheeks flush and flipped her head upside down, reaching for a towel and rubbing it over her damp hair. “They’re just dresses.”

“Yeah, but you were wearing that one the other night,” Jaime pressed. “And the green one when you got here. And
why do you keep them in a bag all the time? Are they expensive? They
look
expensive.”

Hazel rolled her eyes, still upside down and facing the door. She suddenly longed for the time when Jaime hardly talked. The new Jaime sure asked a lot of questions. “No,” she insisted. “They weren’t expensive. Somebody gave them to me right before I came here.”

She was amazed at how certain she sounded. It was the truth, after all. She just didn’t mention the whole time-traveling, wish-granting-fairy part. No biggie.

Hazel flipped her hair back and pulled the dress off the hanger, stepping into the skirt. “Can you hook me?” she asked, and heard the bed frame creak as Jaime stood on top of her mattress, reaching up to the back of Hazel’s neck.