Hazel had just replenished the cheese plates when Rosanna stopped her in the second-floor hall. “What do you think?” she asked, reaching for a cracker and popping it into her mouth. “Is everyone having a good time?”
Hazel nodded and looked down at the carpeted hotel floor. “I hope so,” she said. She hadn’t quite gotten over the irrational anger she’d felt on the boat, and had been avoiding Rosanna all night. Every time she caught a glimpse of her on the roof, chatting with friends, she remembered the way she’d felt the first time they’d met. All of her questions had been answered. And now she had to start asking them all over again.
“You guys did a beautiful job hanging these,” Rosanna said, gesturing to one of her portraits on the wall. It was of an older woman on a beach chair. She was wearing an oversize sun hat and holding it steady with one hand, shielding it from the ocean breeze.
“That one’s my favorite,” Hazel heard herself saying. It was true; she’d seen the painting in the studio and had loved it right away.
“Really?” Rosanna asked happily. “That’s Adele. She’s easy to paint. Her face is so expressive.”
Hazel looked back at the woman in the picture. Rosanna was right. It was as if an entire catalog of emotion was playing across Adele’s features. There was surprise, and even a bit of fear, maybe on account of the sudden gust of wind, but also a hopeful longing in her eyes, as if she were missing someone she hadn’t yet met.
“It’s like a story,” Hazel said abruptly. “You’ve captured a moment, but there’s a whole story behind it. Her story. It’s beautiful.”
Hazel looked quickly back at the carpet, feeling suddenly embarrassed that she’d said so much. She could feel Rosanna’s eyes moving from the painting to the top of her lowered head.
“I came by your room to drop off some more clothes this morning,” Rosanna said, and Hazel swallowed hard. She didn’t know what excuse Jaime had given for missing work, and worried they’d be caught in mismatched lies.
“I saw some Polaroids on your bed,” Rosanna went on. “Are they yours?”
Hazel exhaled, quietly relieved that Rosanna wasn’t interested in an alibi. “Oh,” she said, remembering the few shots she’d snapped of the gardens from the cabin window. “Yeah. I guess I forgot to put those away.”
Rosanna nodded. “You have an incredible eye,” she said, giving Hazel’s elbow a gentle squeeze. “Have you shown your photography professionally before?”
Hazel felt a small smile breaking up her face. “Professionally? “ she repeated. “They’re Polaroids. I just like to mess around.”
Rosanna’s smile slowly faded and she let her hand fall from Hazel’s arm. “That’s too bad,” she said. “I was hoping to include some of your work in my next show.”
The cheese plates slid on the tray and Hazel lurched forward to keep them steady. “Oh,” she stalled. “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve never …”
“Think about it,” Rosanna said, turning to wave at a pair of older men in sand-colored suits at the other end of the hall. “Just five or six of your favorites. The ones you think represent you the best. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Rosanna started down the hall to greet her friends. Hazel watched as they praised Rosanna’s paintings, allowing herself for just a moment to imagine that it was her own work hanging on the walls.
The tray was heavy in her hands and she started back up the stairs. Her own work. It sounded so pretentious and formal, and a far cry from the silly snapshots she usually took. Who would ever want to buy a picture of a shoelace?
Hazel shook her head, shoving the thought to the back of her mind. She had other things to worry about, like the tray full of cheese in her hand. Not to mention Jaime, her real mother, who was waiting for that tray, impatient as ever, and toe-tapping at the top of the steps.
16
“You can let us off here,” Luke called out from the back of Craig’s truck. There were so many paintings at the show, and so many of Rosanna’s staff working there, that multiple rides to and from town had to be arranged in order to get everybody home.
Luke and Hazel had caught the first shift and were squeezed in the back of Craig’s silver pickup, sandwiched between stacks of unsold canvases. It was the first time Hazel had ever traveled in the open bed of a truck, and after she’d gotten over the initial fear of tumbling out, she’d started to enjoy the constant rush of the wind on her face. It felt good to be out in the crisp night air, and even better to take a break from thinking about the day’s bizarre events.
“Are you sure?” Craig asked from the window as Luke hopped over the truck’s back door. After he’d thudded to the ground, he reached out a hand to Hazel and helped her step carefully over the edge. “What about the paintings? I can take you all the way to the house.”
“Are you kidding?” Maura teased from the passenger seat. “It’s a miracle he even let us drive him this far.”
Craig shrugged and Luke and Hazel waved good-bye from the side of the road. Luke had dragged an armful of paintings out of the truck and was struggling to walk with them tucked against his side.
“Can I help?” Hazel asked, reaching out a hand.
“No, I think I—” Luke started, but was interrupted by two or three canvases sliding down the side of his leg. Hazel grabbed them just before they hit the gravel driveway. “On second thought,” Luke said, smiling, “that’d be great.”
Hazel hoisted two of the smaller framed paintings beneath her arm, and they started down the narrow road that led to the estate. Overhead, a canopy of trees huddled around them, their leafy tops blinking in the cool light of the moon.
“I hope you don’t mind walking,” Luke said, over the hollow crunch of their feet on the gravel. “Sometimes I forget that not everybody likes it as much as I do.”
Hazel smiled. The other morning, as she was leaving the guesthouse with Jaime for work, she’d seen Luke at the far end of the driveway, walking by himself. And she remembered the day she’d met him, in the ice-cream shop. He’d said he’d walked to town then, too.
“You walk to work every day, don’t you?” Hazel asked.
Luke nodded. “I know, it’s nuts,” he said, almost ashamed. “At first I just did it because I didn’t have my license, and I hated putting people out for rides. But now it’s pretty much my favorite part of the day. It’s quiet, and I see all kinds of things I’d never catch if I was in a car.”
Hazel stared at their feet on the gravel, hearing Luke’s words echo in her mind. It was exactly how she felt about taking pictures. Looking through a lens was the only time she felt like she was really seeing what was around her, even if it had been there all along.
“And Maura was right,” Luke continued. “I was totally planning on walking all the way home tonight, too.”
“Why didn’t you?” Hazel asked, switching arms to get a better grip on the canvases.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged with a sheepish grin. “I saw you getting in the truck. Figured it’d be an easy way to force you into hanging out.”
Hazel smiled. Force her? Ever since she’d made a fool of herself at the bar, Hazel had been scheming ways to get Luke alone again. If she could just be herself around him, she hoped, maybe they could start over and pretend the whole bonfire freak-out had never happened.
But now that it was just the two of them, she didn’t know where to start. What did being herself even mean? Maybe she should just keep pretending they were cousins. It had definitely been easier to talk to him when she thought they were related.
An exposed branch snaked across the road and Hazel’s toe stuck beneath it. She tripped forward, taking a few halting steps before regaining her balance and scrambling to keep the paintings from crashing to the ground.
“Easy,” Luke laughed. “It’s not a race.”
His voice was light but Hazel wanted to disappear. Her blood burned in her veins and she wanted so badly to say something normal. But the only thoughts racing through her mind were of the dec
idedly not-normal variety:
Sorry about running out on you before; I thought we were cousins.
Or:
I haven’t been born yet.
Or:
Guess what? Jaime’s my mom!
Her head was spinning and she felt the beginnings of frustrated tears springing to her eyes. Luke stopped and leaned his load of paintings against the base of a knotted tree.
“Hold up for a minute,” he said, reaching out for her canvases and adding them to the pile. “I want to show you something.”
Luke ducked between a pair of spindly evergreens, holding back the lower branches so Hazel could step safely through. They followed a footpath out to a clearing at the very edge of a cliff. Not far in the distance, Hazel saw the lights on at Rosanna’s house, the shadow of the barn, and even the porch light of the guesthouse twinkling against the blue-black night sky. Above them, a tapestry of stars sparkled in space. And ahead, the endless ocean, stretching back and disappearing into the curtain of darkness hovering at the horizon. It felt like the end of the earth.
“Isn’t it incredible?” Luke asked, sitting dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. An oddly shaped rock dislodged at Hazel’s feet and fell heavily toward the ocean. It slipped into the water and was quietly swallowed by a set of hungry waves.
“It always reminds me of being out on the boat,” Luke mused. “It feels kind of like flying, too.”
“Yeah,” Hazel breathed timidly. She’d never been a fan of heights. Roy even teased her about closing her eyes whenever they drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. Slowly, cautiously, she lowered herself to the cliff beside Luke.
“It’s okay,” Luke joked, grabbing her knee in the firm grip of his hand. “I’ve got you.”
Hazel smiled and felt herself slowly relaxing. Somehow, it was true. She did feel safe around him.
“Listen,” he said after a moment of quiet. “I know why things have been kind of weird. So don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Hazel’s stomach wrenched and she dug her fingernails into the damp cracks between the rocks. “You do?” she asked, her voice shaky and small. Had he seen her in the dress by the pond? Had he found Posey’s letter? Did he think she had escaped from a mental institution?
Luke took a deep breath and clasped his hands together in his lap. “Jaime told me,” he said finally. “I know that she’s pregnant. And I know you’ve been helping her out.”
Hazel stared at a shimmering swath of moonlight reflected on the ocean’s glassy surface. She felt immediately relieved that she wouldn’t have to try (and, no doubt, fail) to explain herself. But she was also shocked that Jaime had confided in Luke about the baby.
“She told you?” Hazel asked. “When? I didn’t think she wanted anyone to know.”
Luke shrugged. “I’ve known Jaime since we were two years old. We took baths together,” he said simply. “Believe me, I know more about that girl than any guy should.”
“Oh,” Hazel said quietly. “I didn’t know.” She was glad that she wouldn’t have to keep the big secret alone. And she felt warmer toward Jaime all of a sudden. If Luke had been friends with her for so long, how bad could she be?
Luke kicked his feet gently against the rocks and looked down at his hands in his lap. “She also told me that she thought it was pretty decent of you to go with her to the clinic today, but that’s just Jaime for you,” he said, glancing sideways at Hazel. “It wasn’t just decent. It was really, really great.”
Hazel’s face flushed and she quickly looked away.
“And I just wanted you to know, I totally get it if you just want to be friends,” he said gently. “Either way, I’m really glad you’re here.”
Hazel smiled. She felt her heartbeat rocking in her ribs. She turned to Luke and saw that he was looking straight at her.
“For Jaime,” he stammered suddenly. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here—”
Before Hazel had time to talk herself out of it, she was leaning toward Luke and brushing his lips with her own. She stayed pressed against him for a moment, tasting the salty warmth of his skin, before she pulled herself away.
Luke’s face was frozen in a stunned half-smile, the sea breeze rustling his light brown hair.
“For Jaime,” she finished for him.
Luke laughed, his strong hand finding her own in the dark.
Beneath them, the waves rolled in and pulled back out, a steady crash followed by the rhythmic drag of pebbles against the shore. Hazel looked up at the diamond-studded sky. She’d never imagined that her first real kiss would be under a blanket of stars, against the sound track of the open ocean, legs swinging at the end of the earth. In fact, she’d never really imagined it at all. But that was probably okay.
There was no imagining in the world that would have felt half as good as the real thing.
17
Hazel stood outside the ice-cream shop, an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. Rosanna had sent her into town to run a few errands, and on her way home she’d decided to visit Jaime at work. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she was having second thoughts.
She and Jaime hadn’t had a chance to talk since the opening the night before—it was late when Luke walked her back to the guesthouse and Jaime was already sleeping. Hazel had tossed and turned, every so often catching a glimpse of Jaime, wrapped like a mummy in her patchwork quilt, the rhythm of her soft, steady breathing the only sound in the room. Sometime during the night, in the dreamy, muddled space between awake and asleep, everything began to look different. Everything was different. Jaime wasn’t the stubborn roommate Hazel had to endure. Jaime was her mother. And all of a sudden, Hazel didn’t feel angry. She didn’t feel upset. She felt lucky. She’d been given the one thing she’d always wanted.
She’d been given a chance to get to know her mother.
Not that she thought it was going to be easy. It was a new day, and the trip to the clinic already seemed like a scene from some faraway past. And now, here she was, stopping by unannounced to remind Jaime that it wasn’t. What made Hazel think that Jaime would be happy to see her? Just because Hazel suddenly had a reason to want to know Jaime, didn’t mean that Jaime had any interest in letting herself be known.
Hazel shut her eyes and leaned against the glass. She was working through a few deep breaths when Jaime appeared and plopped down on the curb at her feet.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Jaime grunted. “It’s like the DMV in there. You’d think people would be in better moods. It’s an ice-cream cone, not a parking ticket.”
Hazel smiled. It was a surprising relief to hear Jaime sounding like herself.
“What are you doing here?” Jaime asked.
“I was in town for Rosanna anyway,” Hazel said. “Just thought I’d say hi.”
“Hi,” Jaime grunted, picking at a sticky trail of drying ice cream near her elbow.
“Do you have time for lunch?” Hazel tried. She hadn’t fully thought this plan through, and she knew she’d have to think fast. Maybe food would help.
Hazel craned her neck sideways and spotted a pizza place on the corner, a long line already snaking out into the street. “You should probably eat something, you know.”
She started off down the sidewalk, stepping out of the way of a group of college-aged kids all wearing slightly different versions of the same maroon-and-gray UMASS T-shirt.
“Hold up,” she heard Jaime call from behind her. “No way. No. No. No. Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely not what?” Hazel asked, stopping to turn around.
“You will absolutely not mother me through this,” Jaime said, emphatically crossing her arms at her chest. “If I wanted a cheerleader, I would’ve told Rosanna.”
“What do you mean?” Hazel asked. “I was just asking if you wanted to eat.”
“I will eat, when I’m hungry,” Jaime retorted. “Just because I have a… thing growing inside me doesn’t mean I will suddenly forget how to be a human being.”
Hazel didn’t know what to say. A thing? A baby wasn’t a thing. She wasn’t a thing. And she was only trying to help.
“Fine,” Hazel sighed heavily. She realized that any time she spent with Jaime was going to have to be on Jaime’s terms. But Jaime’s terms were better than no terms at all. “What do you want to do?”
“For starters,” Jaime said, pushing herself off the curb and striking out in the opposite direction. “I want to get as far away from this place as possible.”
Hazel hurried to keep up, following Jaime to the dock and along the harbor, lined with outdoor cafés and noisy moped rental shops. Mostly they walked in silence, but every so often Jaime pointed out the best place to get fried clams, the greasiest pizza, and the tourist traps with the ugliest T-shirts and most outrageously overpriced souvenirs. Eventually, they landed back at the main intersection, just outside the carousel that Hazel had stumbled upon during her first wayward walk through town.
“The Flying Horses,” Jaime said proudly. “It’s the oldest carousel in the country.”
Jaime took the wide front steps three at a time and Hazel followed, the dense, buttery smell of popcorn greeting them at the open doors. Inside, the carousel was a whir of colors and noise, circus music and children’s squeals spinning out in waves from the rotating platform.
“The idea is to get the brass ring,” Jaime explained, gesturing to a long, metal arm reaching out of one shingled wall. As the carousel spun, riders on the outer ring of horses reached out toward it, grasping for rings and dropping them onto a small silver pole spiking out of the horse’s long mane. Some people would just grab one ring, while others would attack the opening with hungry, agile fingers, hooking three or four in one go.
“I think my record was seven at a time,” Jaime said, beaming. “I haven’t been on it in forever.”
“Let’s go,” Hazel suggested, surprising herself. She’d never been on a merry-go-round. The only other time she’d had the option was on a trip to the county fair, organized by the group home she’d lived in for a year outside of Santa Rosa. The other kids had gone crazy over the carousel, but Hazel couldn’t see the point. It went around and around and around, in the middle of a dusty, abandoned soccer field, as whiny country music played out of a boom box on a folding chair nearby.
Wishful Thinking Page 9
