If Wishing Made It So (3 page)

After being escorted to the cashier by guards as if she had won a million bucks and needed protection, Hildy had to fill out tax forms before getting her winnings. Given a choice, she opted for a check, not cash. As soon as the cashier handed over the check, Hildy stuffed it in her hoodie pocket and hurried back to where her sister still sat at the slot machine, mesmerized by the spinning wheels.

‘‘I’m back,’’ Hildy announced. She felt dazed, probably from the excitement. She stood there near Corrine. The winning machine sat empty but Hildy had no desire to revisit it. The experience of hitting the jackpot had been exciting, but altogether, she thought, a bit odd, an anomaly that didn’t fit in her quiet, ordinary life. ‘‘I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t want to gamble anymore, okay?’’

Corrine smiled. ‘‘Smart move, little sister. Me, I’d like to play for a while. I’m breaking even. How about you take a walk or something? Buy me some taffy to take home. Give me until’’—she paused, giving the matter some consideration—‘‘hmmm, lunchtime maybe to try my luck, then come find me, okay?’’

That was just fine with Hildy. A light-headedness had overtaken her. She longed to be outside in the fresh air. She headed toward the nearest exit. She was pushing through the heavy doors that opened onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk when she remembered she meant to go to the Lost and Found with the odd brown bottle.

She paused and decided to go to the Lost and Found later. Right now she urgently needed to emerge from the dark casino and get into the light.

Gulls wheeled overhead as Hildy began walking. The rain had stopped but pearl gray clouds still raced across the sky as if trying to close up any small slice of blue that appeared between them. A brisk breeze caught Hildy’s long hair and threw it forward, making it a wild mess of tangles.

Hildy didn’t care. She had just won three thousand, four hundred, and five dollars. She had been lucky—even luckier than she wished to be. She fingered the paper check deep in her pocket. She was grinning so hard, her cheeks hurt.

Holding her hair out of her eyes with her hand, Hildy ducked into a store that sported children’s swim wings and fuchsia flamingos in its display windows. She quickly found a bright yellow cap with a visor that had ATLANTIC CITY in red on the brim. She looked at herself in the mirror on the counter. The hat was terrific.

Then she picked a pair of wraparound sunglasses from a rack and tried them on. She peered into the mirror again. With the visor and sunglasses, she appeared kind of sporty, almost hip. She put the items together on the counter. She added a box of saltwater taffy for her sister to take home. She was rapidly accumulating a small pile of goods.

Last, she splurged on a large beach towel. TODAY’ S YOUR LUCKY DAY IN ATLANTIC CITY was printed on the terry cloth between an orange sea horse and a purple starfish. It so perfectly described her experience that Hildy figured she just had to buy it.

It felt good not having to watch every cent she spent!

‘‘You must have won today,’’ the young Asian clerk said as Hildy handed over three twenties to pay for her purchases.

‘‘How can you tell?’’ Hildy asked and retrieved the cap as soon as the clerk had rung it up. Standing in front of the mirror again, she twisted her hair into a knot and secured it with her new hat.

‘‘You have the look of a winner,’’ the girl replied. She leaned forward across the counter and whispered conspiratorially, ‘‘Don’t give it all back. Stay out of the casino!’’

‘‘I agree.’’ Hildy smiled so widely that a dimple appeared in her cheek. ‘‘I’m just going to take a walk. I feel lucky. Maybe this is the day I’ll meet my Prince Charming.’’

‘‘You go, girl,’’ the salesclerk said, and gave her a thumbs-up.

Chapter 3

Back outside the store, Hildy kept smiling. The sun was breaking through the luminescent clouds. Bright patches of light zigzagged down the wide wooden boardwalk. Open-sided jitneys rumbled past. Bicycle rickshaws filled with tourists traversed the distance between casinos. And with the sun, crowds had appeared as if from nowhere. Couples walked along holding hands. Mothers pushed toddlers in strollers.

A swift flow of melancholy welled up inside Hildy. She had no lover to hold hands with and no baby to take for a walk. For a split second, she wished she could see Michael Amante again. She quickly pushed the thought away. That was just the kind of foolish longing she had left her hometown to escape. She needed to savor her good feelings, not get all maudlin and weepy.

At the end of Michigan Avenue, she spotted a pathway to the beach. She thought she might find solitude on the soft sands that lined the shore. In any event, it would be a great place to sit down and think about the things she could buy with her winnings and still have enough money left to cover her expenses until September.

Once she came up over the dunes that acted as a barrier between the eroding effects of the water and the casinos, she could see the sea. She kicked off her flip-flops and carried them in her hand. It was easier to walk in the warm sand without them.

She strolled a short distance before stopping just beyond the tide line. She carefully put down her tote bag and spread out her new beach towel. She sat on top of the picture of the orange sea horse and folded her arms around her knees, gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean.

Contented, delighted, she looked seaward, a smile playing on her lips. She thought of Shelley’s lines written more than a century ago: ‘‘I see the waves upon the shore / Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown; / I sit upon the sands alone.’’

After a few minutes, the sun had warmed the air. Hildy peeled off her hoodie and stuffed it in her tote, mindful of the precious check in its pocket. Underneath the hoodie she had on a white Penn State T-shirt with a Nittany Lion in navy blue stalking across her chest. She looked down at herself. She had owned this shirt since she was a college freshman. It was definitely time for a wardrobe update.

As she stared at the vast ocean, her mind wandered and stopped paying attention to the dancing waves. She calculated how much of her winnings she could use for new clothes. She figured that five hundred dollars should buy her some nice sportswear, especially if she stuck to the sales racks. Then she’d take another three hundred and buy a sleek, light trail bike that was brand-new, not used and scratched up like the one she had rented. Satisfied with her decisions, she forgot about shopping and daydreamed for a while.

Keeping her eyes on the horizon, she thought how modern-day Rome lay about four thousand miles due east from where she sat. Strangely enough, Caesar’s sat a few hundred feet behind her. The thought tickled her. She giggled to herself.

Suddenly she noticed how rough and wind-tossed the ocean had become. The tide must be coming in. She shivered. Murky gray green and filled with whitecaps, the Atlantic wasn’t the placid blue sea of her imaginings. It heaved and roared with an immense power. The waves rolled in and crashed without mercy onto the wet sand. Sandpipers nervously skirted the frothy spume, careful not to be caught by the retreating water.

But the violent sea filled Hildy with a strange stirring. Everything was in motion around her: the rushing waves, the churning surface of the water, the gulls circling and crying overhead, the fierce wind that tried to pull the new cap from her hair. The sun went behind another cloud and the air seemed almost cruel, but in the next instant the sun returned and the wind tugging on her hat became only mischievous, not malevolent.

As the cap nearly flew off her hair again, Hildy laughed and grabbed the visor. This was life, sharp and tangy, filled with energy and possibility.
Is there danger here by the ocean?
she thought.
Yes,
she answered herself,
but it intensifies the moments of joy
.

She sprang to her feet and ran impulsively to the water’s edge. A wave came up and encircled her ankles. Its coldness made her cry out. But the next wave felt warmer as it slapped against her feet. Like a child, she stamped up and down on the sand, watching the tan muck gush up through her toes. She moved deeper into the surf, letting the water soak the bottom of her capri pants. When a large wave receded, she bent over to pick up a pretty seashell—

And the next thing she knew a huge wall of water knocked her down. Suddenly she was being tossed about, somersaulting in a crazy way underneath the surface of the water. She fought to find her footing, but which way was down? Which way was up?

All at once, she found herself sitting on the bottom, her head and shoulders above the surface, the wave receding. She coughed and tried to catch her breath. She went to stand but her wet clothes were heavy and made it hard to get her balance.

She had just gotten to her feet and started staggering toward the beach when another wave hit her hard from behind, knocking her down once more.

Panic chased all thoughts from her mind. She flailed about, trying to get back to the surface. Suddenly, she was being pulled into deeper water by the undertow. Then, just as relentlessly, she was being swept back toward the beach. She was overpowered and helpless. Her luck seemed to have run out in a very frightening way.

With a tremendous effort, she stuck her head up and broke into the air, gasping to fill her lungs. Facing the horizon, she couldn’t tell how far from shore she had come. She had also swallowed a great deal of water and was terribly afraid she wouldn’t make it back to land.

At that moment someone grabbed the back of her shirt, holding her firmly, keeping the waves from snatching her back to deep water.

With her T-shirt high up under her arms, Hildy choked and coughed as she did an ungainly crablike crawl backward, her fanny scraping the bottom, as her rescuer held her by the neck of her shirt. Finally her shoulders hit a pair of legs.

‘‘I have you!’’ a man’s voice yelled. ‘‘Stop struggling! You’ll be out in a minute.’’

A strong arm reached down and encircled the bare skin of her waist, then lifted her up. She was carried toward the beach folded over the man’s arm like a rag doll until she was dumped into a sitting position on the dry sand. She put her hands down to steady herself. She was trembling all over and felt weak with relief. She also noted that her bra and white T-shirt were practically transparent, but she felt too glad at being safe to worry about modesty.

‘‘Are you okay?’’ the man’s kindly voice inquired.

Hildy kept her head down and coughed, then sucked in more air. ‘‘I think so,’’ she managed to answer.

‘‘Here, I even grabbed your hat,’’ the man said. ‘‘I think it will be good as new when it dries out.’’

A well-tanned hand extended her yellow cap toward her. She took it and looked up. The sun blinded her. She couldn’t see her rescuer’s face. She could tell, however, he was quite tall and his knees, also well-tanned, were about even with her line of vision.

‘‘Thank you,’’ she said. ‘‘I thought I was going to drown.’’ She coughed again. She had swallowed half the damned ocean. Her throat felt terrible. Her stomach was churning. Wet strands of hair were plastered to her cheeks. When she peeled them off, she realized her hair and face were caked with sand. She must look like a drowned rat.

She turned to thank her rescuer again, tipping her chin back farther, squinting her eyes against the glare.

‘‘Hildy?’’ the man asked then. ‘‘Hildy Caldwell? Is it really you?’’

‘‘Huh?’’ Hildy answered, totally confused. ‘‘How do you know my name?’’ She shaded her eyes with one hand and finally saw the face of the man in front of her.

‘‘Mike?’’ Her voice came out as a squeak. ‘‘MichaelAmante?’’ she managed to utter as her stomach gave a mighty squeeze. ‘‘Oh no—’’ she cried, and scrambled onto her hands and knees before, in a most unladylike manner, she retched up seawater onto the sand.

Chapter 4

Once she stopped retching, Hildy sat back on the sand. Feeling chilled in her wet clothes, she shivered. Goose bumps covered her still winter-pale skin. But that was the least of it. She had never felt so humiliated. She covered her face with her hands. She wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. She couldn’t bear to look at Mike. Her shoulders began to shake as tears came unexpectedly, deepening her shame.

‘‘Aw, Hildy, don’t cry.’’ Mike sat down next to her and gathered her into his arms. He pulled her against him. She hid her face against his bare chest. His skin was smooth, warm, and smelled so familiar her heart lurched. She began to cry harder.

‘‘Shh, shh,’’ Mike’s voice said as if he were comforting a child. ‘‘You’re safe. You’re okay.’’ He put his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up toward his. He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears.

Hildy could barely breathe when she felt Mike’s touch. It crossed her mind that she had died out there in the water, and she had gone to heaven. She couldn’t believe this was really happening.

‘‘Oh, Mike,’’ she said softly, and looked into his eyes, which were just as she remembered them, warm and amber, like fine bourbon.

His eyes returned her stare, and the two of them gazed unmoving until Mike leaned forward. Hildy squeezed her eyes shut as she prepared herself for the kiss she had dreamed about for ten long years.

Mike’s lips landed on her nose. The caress was brief. It was friendly. It was not filled with love and longing.

‘‘You’re still a funny kid, the same old Hildy,’’ Mike said, chuckled, and withdrew his comforting arms.

Hildy’s eyes sprang open. ‘‘I most certainly am not!’’ she snapped, trying to hide the lump of disappointment that lodged in her throat. She sat up very straight and huffed, ‘‘I am not a kid. I happen to be a high school English teacher. I even have tenure.’’

‘‘Whoa! I meant no offense. You always did get into crazy situations, you know. And you look exactly the same, that’s all. Honest, Hildy, you haven’t aged a day. I meant it as a compliment.’’

Hildy stole another look at Mike. He looked like he did in high school too, only better. His face had become more angular, laugh lines radiated from the corners of his eyes, and the boyishness in his features had vanished. He needed a shave and the auburn stubble on his dimpled chin and lean cheeks looked sexy, very sexy. Hildy’s stomach fluttered. Her eyes started to dip toward his bare muscular chest, but she caught herself. She quickly looked away, out at the sea.