If Wishing Made It So (2 page)

All at once, realizing what was about to happen, Hildy sprang forward with an Olympic-class lunge. She reached the window while yelling ‘‘No!’’ to all three cats. Shelley and Keats got the message, jumping in opposite directions to land gracefully on the floor.

Not Chief. He had turned away from the screen and raised his tail. Then he began a little two-step with his hind feet as he assumed the dreaded spray position.

‘‘No!’’ Hildy yelled again while she reached desperately for the sash to slam the window down. Too late. The warm, pungent urine arced through the wire mesh to catch her midchest, soaking her T-shirt.

‘‘Oh no,’’ she moaned, holding the wet cotton away from her body. She watched the neighbor’s cat sashay away, pleased with himself. ‘‘Chief!’’ she called after him. ‘‘One of these days I’m going to neuter you myself!’’

Even as she said the words, Hildy had an epiphany. She had gotten a wake-up call from Chief that she couldn’t ignore. She looked down at her odiferous garment and wrenched it off over her head. She marched to the clothes washer and threw it in, and suddenly she was filled with the understanding that she was spending these precious days of her life cleaning cat boxes and dodging cat piss.

It was no one’s fault but her own. Her world had gotten very small. She had accepted its being quiet and dull. She needed to find love, excitement, and adventure. She needed to get Michael Amante out of her system and stop living in the past. She had to take action.

As she poured detergent into the machine and turned it on, she knew she had to do more than wash her T-shirt. It was time she cleaned up her act and cleansed her soul.

Over the next few weeks, as the school year ground to a close with excruciating slowness, Hildy made a decision to take the entire summer vacation to plan the rest of her life. Sitting at her desk marking final exams in front of her third period senior English class, she looked up and gazed unseeing out the window at the school parking lot while her mind wandered far and wide.

She needed to break out of her comfort zone and make a sea change in her existence.
Sea change. Hmmmm.
She thought she might enjoy being by the ocean. She always felt that the blowing salt-scented breeze, the endless blue waters, and the crashing waves held a kind of magic. Yes, she decided, it was time to go down to the sea. She remembered the famous lines by John Masefield. She was an English teacher after all and knew her verse: ‘‘I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, / and all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.’’

Back home that very night, Hildy went on the Internet and searched for a summer house near the Atlantic Ocean that was within driving distance of Pennsylvania. Not many pet-friendly rentals existed. After hours at the computer, her eyes beginning to blur, she found a small place—actually it was tiny—at the Jersey shore in the VRBO, Vacation Rental by Owner, listings.

The gray, shake-sided cottage was in an oddly named town called Ship Bottom in a place named Long Beach Island. Hildy had never been to that part of the shore; she was buying a pig in a poke. And the cost for the season took her breath away. But displaying a characteristic impulsiveness, she grabbed it, spending the lion’s share of her savings on leasing it for the entire summer.

Two days after school ended in June, Hildy closed up her home, put Shelley and Keats in their carrier, and drove south to this town where she knew no one but where she secretly hoped she might find
someone.
Maybe what she found would be a summer romance; maybe she would find peace of mind; or maybe, just maybe, she would find a man waiting near the sea in this unfamiliar place, and he would be the one she was meant to love.

Chapter 2

But if a romantic meeting on the sands had happened as she had fantasized it might, Hildy would not be where she was a week or so later on an unseasonably rainy and cold late-June morning. She was walking with her sister, Corrine, past the larger-than-life statue, an exact replica of
Augustus of Prima Porta
, which held a commanding position inside the huge, cavernlike lobby of Caesar’s Atlantic City.

Hildy’s eyes darted back and forth. Firelight flickered from torches on the stone walls in the four-story-high atrium above her head. A sense of unreality, of being outside of time and space, overcame her as she hurried past a row of white marble maidens in togas. The faux-Roman decor of the hotel overwhelmed her senses and even became a bit frightening.

‘‘You know,’’ Hildy said, trying not to spill her Styrofoam cup of hot coffee as she hustled across the dun-colored stone floor to keep up with her older sister’s brisk stride, ‘‘you could have driven down to see me instead of coming with the day-trippers from St. Vladimir’s.’’

Corrine didn’t look at Hildy as she hurried forward, explaining, ‘‘The bus from the church was cheaper. Twenty bucks. Plus you get a coupon for fifteen dollars from the casino. And the Ladies Auxiliary at St. Vlad’s provides a paper bag lunch and a snack on the trip going home. They’re trying to raise money to save the church, you know. It’s for a good cause.’’

She didn’t bother to tell Hildy that on the way from Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, to Atlantic City, Father John also said a prayer for their safety and to wish them luck at the casino. Corrine firmly believed this plea for divine intervention increased her chances of winning—not that she didn’t hope that somebody at St. Vlad’s hit the jackpot to repair the old Byzantine church, too.

At that moment they reached the casino floor. Corrine made a beeline toward a bank of slot machines labeled SLINGO PROGRESSIVE. Flashing lights above the slots announced JACKPOT $3,405.00.

‘‘We’re not going to hang out here long, are we?’’ Hildy asked in a pleading tone.

‘‘No, not long. Unless I get a good machine,’’ Corrine said, sitting down and inserting her casino players’ club card with a practiced hand.

Hildy slid into the seat of the machine next to her. Her voice turned a little whiny. ‘‘I thought you wanted to spend some time with me on the beach.’’

‘‘With my cellulite? Puh-leeze,’’ Corrine said. She peered at Hildy over the top of her glasses. ‘‘Besides, it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning, and all I really want to do today is see your summer rental and talk. I bet you’re just moping around all the time. I cannot believe you have not found one eligible bachelor on the entire Jersey shore.’’

‘‘I didn’t say there weren’t any on the ‘entire Jersey shore.’ I said the only people I’ve met in Ship Bottom are teenage surfers, old guys fishing for striped bass, and happy families buying hot dogs and Cokes at Woodies Drive-In up on the boulevard. Ship Bottom is residential; you know, quiet. It’s not a party town. Besides, I’m not looking for romance. I came here to think about my future, decide if I need a career change, that kind of thing. . . .’’

Corrine knew her little sister Hildy better than Hildy did herself; she was sure of it. She looked at that sad little face and said, ‘‘That is utter and total bull, and you know it. You’re dying to find a nice guy. We need to come up with a plan to improve your social life.’’ She gave Hildy an appraising look and frowned as she noted the faded light blue hoodie, baggy capri pants, and beat-up flip-flops.

‘‘Your wardrobe can use some help too. You need to be wearing something cute and sexy.’’

Hildy’s cheeks flared red. She knew Corrine was right, but she didn’t have ‘‘cute and sexy’’ clothes. She had staid suits and skirts for teaching, old clothes like these for hanging around the house, and not much else.

Corrine shook her head at her sister’s attire. ‘‘I’ll figure something out. Maybe we can go shopping— oh, don’t start protesting. I know, you’re on a budget. My treat. Remember, I married well.’’ She smiled at that. Her marriage to Jack had been a love match when he didn’t have a dime, but he had worked hard and brought home a lot of bacon. ‘‘Just give me a couple of hours here first.’’

Corrine turned away then, already sliding the bonus coupon from the bus excursion into the money slot.

‘‘A couple of hours? What am I going to do for all that time? I don’t gamble.’’ Hildy’s eyes roved dispiritedly around the huge room filled with clanging machines, gaudy lights, and little old ladies playing the slots.

‘‘Risk twenty bucks, why don’t you? Come on, sweetie, maybe you’ll get lucky.’’ Corrine’s index finger poised over the MAX BET button. She pushed down. The wheels inside the slot machine spun. Corrine’s rapt face was lit by the garish red and yellow lights of the Slingo marquee. She forgot Hildy existed.

‘‘Oh, okay.’’ Hildy sighed and stowed her canvas tote bag that said SAVE THE WOLVES on it between her feet. She then tried to set her coffee cup in the narrow space between the two machines. It hit something solid as she attempted to slide it back from the edge.

Hildy peered into the dim space and spotted a brownish bottle in the way.
Yuck,
she thought,
somebody left their beer.
She gingerly reached in and pulled out the glass bottle using just her thumb and index finger.

She planned to set the bottle on the floor to be picked up with the trash, but when she got it into the light—as much light as existed in the dimly illuminated casino—she saw it wasn’t a beer bottle. Instead she held a graceful, cut-crystal decanter of amber-hued glass, about seven inches high, and beautifully decorated with blue enamel and gold leaf. She guessed it was antique, and it looked expensive to her.

‘‘Hey, Corrine, somebody must have left this,’’ Hildy said, nudging her sister’s arm with one hand and holding up the bottle with the other.

Corrine glanced over for the briefest moment before her eyes slid back to the machine. ‘‘Probably a souvenir. Leave it. If it’s worth anything, they’ll come back.’’

‘‘Maybe they don’t know where they left it,’’ Hildy said. ‘‘I’ll take it to the Lost and Found when we’re done. I think it’s valuable.’’ She put the bottle into her tote, cushioning it between a paperback novel and her wallet.

Then Hildy looked long and hard at the machine in front of her and muttered to herself, ‘‘I’m not a gambler. I feel as if I’m wasting twenty bucks.’’ Thinking about how little she had to spend for the entire summer, twenty dollars seemed like a great deal of money. ‘‘Oh well.’’ She sighed. ‘‘I’ll eat peanut butter for a week.’’

Thus Hildy resigned herself to the loss, and almost immediately scolded herself for the negative self-talk. She read a lot of self-help books. She believed in the power of positive thinking. It was self-defeating to focus on losing the money. What she needed right now was an affirmation.

She ruminated for a moment, then came up with:
I am fortunate in every way and I wish to be lucky today.

Now, that was pretty doggone good for an instant affirmation, she had to admit. She repeated it softly, delighting in its singsong rhythm. A warm feeling struck her like a ray of sunshine penetrating the casino’s gloom. Her fingertips tingled. The slot machine in front of her seemed to glow for a brief moment.

Hildy smiled. She just loved affirmations; they certainly did produce good vibrations.

She chanted her little rhyme ten more times. ‘‘I am fortunate in every way and I wish to be lucky today.’’ She felt immensely pleased with herself. Then she slid her twenty into the money slot, waited for her ‘‘credits’’ to appear on the LED display, and then imitating what she had seen Corrine do, she hit the MAX BET button.

She watched the spinning wheels. A single bar appeared on the first wheel, then a double bar lined up on the second wheel, and a triple bar came up on the third.
Ten credits
, Hildy read on the display above her credit total.
Hey, I won!
Of course ten credits only added up to a whopping $2.50 since this was a quarter machine, but at least she was in the plus column.

She hit the MAX BET button again. When the spinning wheels stopped there were no bars, no sevens, nothing at all. Over the course of the next few spins she got a cherry (four credits) and another set of bars, but this time they were all triple bars and that meant she had won twenty credits!

Okay, that’s five dollars in the plus column
, Hildy thought, dividing by four in her head.

But then she didn’t win for a while and her credits were back exactly where she started. She shrugged her shoulders; she was getting bored and a little depressed at the way the money dwindled away so fast.

Hildy glanced over at Corrine. Her sister had told her to play for a while. Did five minutes count as ‘‘a while’’? Probably not. Hildy exhaled hard. She was ready to cash out and go for a walk on the boardwalk. But dutifully she hit the MAX BET button again.

This time a funny oval icon with a laughing joker and the words SLINGO PROGRESSIVE on it appeared on the three spinning wheels, one after the other, starting on the left. A light on the top of the machine began flashing. To Hildy’s utter mortification a siren started howling. She wanted to shrink up and sink through the floor.

Oh, Lordy,
she thought miserably.
I’ve broken it.

Her sister stared at her with a look of astonishment.

‘‘Oh, Corrine, I’m so sorry—’’ she began.

‘‘Sorry? Little sister, you won! You won!’’ Corrine stood up and started waving her arms wildly in the air. ‘‘Over here! Jackpot over here!’’ she yelled, as if the uniformed attendants couldn’t spot the slot machine with a light going off on top like a police car’s.

Other players started to crowd around behind Hildy’s seat.

‘‘How much did she win?’’ an elderly lady with large pink glasses and a flowered blouse asked no one in particular.

‘‘Only three thousand and change. Some jackpot,’’ a potbellied man griped. ‘‘These casinos don’t want to get off a dime.’’

Three thousand dollars!
Hildy thought.
Oh my! I won’t have to worry for the rest of the summer! I can buy a new bathing suit. I’ll buy a tube top and shorts. Maybe I’ll get my own bicycle instead of using the funny one with the fat tires and wicker basket from the rental place.
Hildy had never had such a stroke of good luck in her entire life. In fact, she had never won anything before. To her, three thousand dollars represented a fortune and an entire summer free from financial worry.