The Wishing Trees

by John Shors

  “Sure, Daddy.”

  He picked her up, raising her over his head to put her legs on his shoulders. “How about finding some ice cream, Roo? Feel like a little walkabout before heading back to the hotel?”

  “You think they have cookies and cream?”

  “I reckon they have everything in this city.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Aye, aye, First Mate,” he said, holding tight to her legs, stepping off the escalator and into a world that continued to confound and perplex him, as if he were a ten-year-old boy and not a man who’d seen four decades come and go.

  AT HALF PAST TEN THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Ian and Mattie met Georgia and Holly atop one of the main escalators. The girls greeted each other with hugs. Ian and Georgia’s embrace was much stiffer—a forced merging of two bodies and minds that didn’t know what to do with each other. Stepping onto the escalator along with a never-ending stream of locals, the foursome began their descent toward the city. They had decided to shop at one of Hong Kong’s most famous markets, return to Georgia’s apartment, let the girls take a swim, and then have dinner together.

  Ian had spent half the night sitting near the window of their hotel room, Kate’s most recent letter in his lap. He had read her poem time and time again, still stung by her words, no longer necessarily feeling betrayed, but certainly disappointed. Did she think that he could so easily fall in love? Would she have dated nineteen months after his death?

  Now, as he held a coffee cup and descended into the city, Ian watched Georgia and Holly, noting their fashionable attire. They wore oversized sun hats and sleeveless dresses. Ian didn’t remember Georgia owning such nice outfits when they’d seen her in Manhattan, but maybe living in Hong Kong had rubbed off on her. Many of the young women nearby looked as if they were eager to compete in some sort of modeling contest. Deciding that he should take Mattie shopping for a proper dress, Ian squeezed her hand and hoped that she didn’t feel out of place.

  As Georgia chatted with the girls, Ian thought about her tears after her husband’s affair. Ian had seen those tears. He’d heard them. She was ruined but now seemed somehow redeemed. She had a successful career and a happy daughter, and acted confident and poised. How had she come so far? Was she so much stronger than he?

  Holly, walking purposefully and holding Mattie’s hand, led them from escalator to escalator. Responding in Mandarin to the street vendors who hawked food, clothes, and sunglasses, Holly hurried across a busy street, ignoring a red light. Growing up in Manhattan, Mattie knew that traffic lights were often disregarded, but that her father wouldn’t have liked her to run across such a street. Surprised that Georgia didn’t say anything, Mattie continued to hold Holly’s hand.

  Mattie’s gaze darted into the stores they passed. She’d woken up thinking of Rupee, feeling as if she had deserted him. Did he miss her? Was he lonely? She worried about him, and after breakfast she and her father had sent an e-mail to the orphanage’s director, inquiring about Rupee’s well-being.

  Seeing the wealth around her, Mattie wondered why some people were rich and Rupee was poor, why most children had mothers and hers was gone. She didn’t understand the unfairness of the world, even though she had asked her father about it many times. She wasn’t sure that he understood it either. When she asked him such questions, his answers came after long pauses, after his gaze had wandered around and come back to hers.

  Deciding to find Rupee something at the market, Mattie hurried alongside Holly, feeling much younger than her friend, even though she wasn’t. Holly seemed to act at least thirteen years old, Mattie decided. She knew her way around Hong Kong. She could speak Mandarin. She wore makeup and had her ears pierced.

  What Mattie didn’t realize was that she and Holly were similar. Since her father had left, Holly had watched other children. She’d wished that she lived with another family. She had hurt. But as the years had passed, she’d witnessed how her mother dealt with pain, and she had mimicked her mother—working hard, dressing nicely, pushing herself to be better and better and above criticism. When they had arrived in Hong Kong, Holly had never felt so out of place. Even with her school uniform, she looked the opposite of her classmates. She felt the opposite. And so she had learned, working on her Mandarin after school, doing her best to talk with locals, attempting to follow their customs and not her own.

  To Holly’s surprise, after a few months, something wonderful had happened—the locals had accepted her. They’d helped her with her pronunciation. They’d taught her how to haggle, how to use the bus system, where the best hiking trails were located. Her mother had always been with her, of course, but Holly became their leader. And entire weeks passed when she didn’t even think about her father. Thinking about him only made her sad.

  Holly guided Mattie past a pair of red gates and into an immense outdoor market. The first section they encountered was known by locals as “the dry area.” Wanting to shock her friend, Holly walked up to one of her favorite stands, which featured dried seafood. The gray-and-white skin of a large shark hung from a nearby rack, the skin spread open in the shape of a kite.

  Mattie looked up from the cobbled street, jumping backward when she spotted the shark. Holly laughed. “It’s been hanging there a week. Don’t worry.”

  The shark’s skin was perfectly intact, its gills and fins shining in the sun. “Why?” Mattie asked. “Why is that shark there?”

  Ian and Georgia moved closer, Ian smiling at the look on Mattie’s face. “This man sells dried shark to restaurants,” Holly said, pointing to a vendor who appeared to be as old as the worn cobblestones at their feet. “They love to eat shark here. Love it, love it, love it.”

  Mattie studied the rest of the man’s stall, which was covered with dried squid, octopus, fish, eels, and shrimp. She smiled at the vendor, who said something in Mandarin to Holly. Nodding, Holly giggled and replied in the same tongue. “What did he say?” Mattie asked.

  “He asked if you like sharks.”

  “Not to eat.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  Holly said good-bye to the vendor and again took Mattie’s hand, leading her deeper into the market. Many other stalls offered dried seafood—row after row of headless fish hanging by their tails from thick ropes. Holly turned to her right, proceeding down a different alleyway. Suddenly everything changed—stalls now offered immense displays of fruit and vegetables. Baskets held watermelons, apples, pears, oranges, kiwis, and many fruits that Mattie had never seen before.

  “Should we get some fruit?” Holly asked her mother.

  “Sure,” Georgia replied. “Maybe you can teach Mattie how to haggle Hong Kong style.”

  Holly smiled, pushing her bangs aside and readjusting her hair clip. “What do you want to eat, Mattie?”

  Mattie looked over the options and pointed to a watermelon. “How about that? We can have a seed-spitting contest.”

  Still grinning, Holly asked the vendor the price of the watermelon. “It’s fifty dollars,” Holly said, translating for Mattie.

  “Fifty dollars!”

  “Hong Kong dollars. Not American dollars, silly. There’s a big difference, you know.”

  Mattie nodded. Throughout their trip, her father had given her some local currency, and she was used to trying to calculate exchange rates. “That’s about . . . seven or eight American dollars, right?”

  “Right.”

  “What do you think, Roo?” Ian asked. “Reckon that’s a fair price?”

  Mattie shook her head. “It seems expensive. That’s a really little watermelon.”

  “Hold up four fingers,” Holly said.

  “What?”

  “Tell her that you’ll pay forty dollars for it.”

  Mattie shifted from foot to foot, unsure if she should really ask the woman for a lower price. The lady looked tired and her shirt was frayed. Mattie held up four fingers and then five. The vendor nodded, picking up the watermelon and setting it in a plastic bag.

>   “Forty-five dollars!” Holly said, laughing. “That’s too much. I don’t think we’ll have you do any more of our bargaining. No way is that a good idea.”

  Mattie watched her father pay the woman, glad to have given her an extra five dollars. “It looks . . . delicious.”

  “It’s the size of a grapefruit!”

  “It’s perfect.”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Let’s go find some fish.” She took Mattie’s hand and pulled her ahead. “But let me do the haggling.”

  The market, parts of it housed under canvas canopies, was little more than a series of connected alleys. Thousands of shoppers examined racks of fresh meat, plucked and roasted ducks, tanks full of darting fish, pig heads hooked and hanging by their noses, and buckets of live eels. Holly walked to a woman who held a large cleaver and chopped the bellies from flopping red snapper. After haggling with the woman in Mandarin for a minute, Holly asked her mother for two hundred Hong Kong dollars. Georgia, who loved to watch Holly bargain at the market, handed her the money.

  After a few more purchases, the group walked back to the escalators, which by now had switched directions. As they rolled uphill, Ian spoke with Georgia about her job while Mattie asked Holly how to say certain words in Mandarin. Ian watched his little girl struggle with the difficult pronunciation. Though Holly was an excellent teacher, he could see that Mattie wanted to learn faster than was possible. She had never excelled in academics, but she seemed eager to try to keep pace with Holly.

  Ian leaned closer to Georgia, lowering his face under her wide-brimmed sun hat. “Might you do me a favor?” he whispered, eyeing the girls in front of them.

  “What?”

  “Later, will you ask Mattie to show you her sketches?”

  Georgia nodded, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Every single one of them.”

  He remained close to her for a moment longer than was necessary. “Lovely,” he said, shifting back to his original position.

  Wondering why her ex-husband never had such thoughts, why he’d rather spend an hour at a black-tie event than look at anything Holly created, Georgia nodded. She watched Ian as his gaze traveled back to Mattie, thinking that if Kate hadn’t been one of her best friends, she would be interested in dating him, in pursuing what she no longer pursued. “Mattie has her sketches,” she said. “What do you have? Your company? Your work?”

  “My company? I sold it. I’m done peddling dried seaweed, though I fancied it for a while, to be honest.”

  “What, then? What do you have now?”

  “Roo. She’s my sketchbook.”

  Georgia smiled, watching crates of beer being carried into a restaurant near the escalator. “Well, you have a lot,” she said. “Whatever else we do, we’re going to leave the world with two beautiful girls.”

  He turned to her again, surprised and pleased. “That’s all I want.”

  The escalator ended. Holly led Mattie across a street, hurrying to another moving walkway. Carrying their shopping bags, Ian stepped around an idle taxi and followed the children. He wanted to talk more with Georgia, to seek her opinion, to confide in her. Unlike most everyone else in his life, she seemed to understand where he had come from and where he had to go.

  “When will you head back to the States?” he asked.

  She twisted her silver bracelet, the heat and humidity causing it to stick to her pale skin. “Head home? Not for a few years. Holly’s in a great international school. She’s doing so well. My job is a lot more ups than downs. And her school and my office are a five-minute walk from our apartment, so I see more of her here than I would back home.”

  “You don’t miss anything?”

  Georgia shook her head, though she missed plenty. “I’ve tried to move on. And Hong Kong is a good place for that.”

  Another street appeared, and Holly stepped off the escalator, turning right, walking toward a modern black-and-white building that might have been thirty stories tall. The girls skipped with excitement. Georgia smiled, struggling to keep up in her high heels, but glad that Holly and Mattie were having so much fun together.

  Ian followed Georgia inside the apartment building, his gaze sweeping over the marble floors, the uniformed concierge. The elevator was stainless steel inside, its walls unmarred by graffiti or scratches. Holly pushed the button for floor number twenty-six, and they began to rise. “Can we swim before lunch?” she asked, wanting to show Mattie the pool. “Please, please, please.”

  “Please, Daddy?” Mattie added, turning to Ian, her hand tugging on his.

  “I reckon we should ask our hostess.”

  Georgia stepped back as the elevator door opened. “Let’s have a snack, girls. And then we’ll swim.” She winked. “Reckon that’ll work?”

  As Holly and Mattie celebrated, Ian followed Georgia down a narrow but well-appointed hallway. Georgia walked to the last door, unlocking it and motioning her guests inside. Ian followed the girls, smiling as Holly showed Mattie around. The apartment was contemporary, its yellow walls highlighted by striking examples of modern art, its floor black marble. The top two-thirds of the far wall were dominated by large windows and provided a stomach-dropping view of the city. The living room featured red leather couches, a glass coffee table, and an oriental rug. The adjacent kitchen was small but boasted marble countertops, stainless-steel appliances, and a specialized wine cooler that held about ten bottles. To Ian’s surprise, he didn’t see a television anywhere. Instead, teak bookshelves occupied opposite corners of the living room.

  Mattie walked toward a window, careful not to press her dirty hands against the glass, but drawing close enough to look down. “Wow,” she said, watching cars and buses crawl below, wanting to sketch what she saw. “You’re like birds up here.”

  “There’s not much room,” Georgia said, helping Ian with the shopping bags, “but we sure love the view.”

  “It’s bloody beautiful,” he replied. As the girls ran to Holly’s room, he unpacked the bags, handing Georgia the watermelon, the fish, and a variety of vegetables. She put the fish into a small refrigerator and everything else on the counter. Then she picked up a remote control and pushed a few buttons, and jazz emerged from unseen speakers. She then began to slice and peel some apples, wanting the girls to eat before they swam.

  “Do you need anything?” she asked.

  “No. But what can I do to help?”

  “There’s nothing to do. Though I suppose you could ask the girls to put on their swimsuits. And you could do the same.”

  Ian thanked her for her hospitality and walked into the hallway, removing Mattie’s suit from his day pack. He smiled when he saw how Holly’s room was decorated—with green mountains and a castle painted on the walls. The fields around the castle were full of galloping horses, clusters of flowers, and girls in pretty dresses. Mattie stood next to one of the horses, tracing its outline with her forefinger. She was smiling, and he patted her back, handing her the swimsuit.

  “I fancy your room, Holly,” Ian said, noting a pile of textbooks on a nearby table. “What a lovely place to count sheep.”

  Holly pointed to her bed, which was high off the floor and covered with a pink spread. “This is where we read at night.”

  “Looks comfy. Mind if I take a nap?”

  “Daddy!” Mattie replied, turning to face him.

  “I’m just chewing the fat, luv.” He looked again at the castle. “Do you read every night, Holly?”

  “We always read.”

  “No idiot box?”

  “What?”

  “No television?”

  “We don’t have an . . . idiot box. We read to each other instead. My mom reads two pages, and I read one. We do that, back and forth, back and forth, until I get tired. Or I study Mandarin and she reads to herself.”

  “Good onya. That’s why you’re so smart, why you can speak two languages better than I can one. Now, why don’t you little ankle biters put on your bathing suits and we’ll go for a dip?”
/>   They nodded and he stepped into the hall. After walking to the bathroom, he shut the door behind him. The space was no bigger than a pair of coat closets nestled together but somehow it managed to contain a compact, deep bathtub that could also be used as a shower. A Western-style toilet was in the corner, complete with a heated seat. Ian undressed, feeling uncomfortable to be naked in Georgia’s home. He put on his swimsuit, which looked like a pair of old shorts, and a T-shirt. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, everyone else had gathered in the kitchen. Georgia wore a white cover-up, a red sun hat, and sandals. Holly had on a blue bikini while Mattie was in her faded yellow one-piece. It had never occurred to Ian to buy her a bikini, and he found himself wondering if she wanted one.

  After eating the sliced apples and some shrimp-flavored rice crackers, the foursome took the elevator up to the roof, about half of which was covered by a square swimming pool. To Ian’s surprise, the pool was empty of people. In the middle of the water rose a circular island surrounded by boulders and tropical flowers. White lounge chairs bordered the pool, and green umbrellas protected some of the chairs from the midday sun. Higher skyscrapers surrounded them on all sides, making Ian feel as if he were in a fishbowl.

  He smiled as Mattie and Holly jumped into the pool, but he wasn’t sure what to do when Georgia removed her cover-up. After glancing away for a moment, he felt foolish about averting his gaze and turned back to her. She wore a maroon-colored one-piece suit that seemed tailored for her athletic body but wasn’t too revealing. Ian avoided looking at anything but her face. His peripheral vision took in her arms, shoulders, and breasts, but he focused on her eyes. And though he saw enough of her to understand that she was attractive, nothing within him stirred. He still remembered Kate’s body as if it were his own, and the mere thought of another woman’s skin and softness made him feel traitorous.

  “Fancy a dip?” he asked, finally removing his shirt.

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll rest my legs, if that’s all right with you.”

  “No worries,” he replied, relieved that he wouldn’t have to swim with her. “I reckon I’ll frolic with the girls for a tick. If they’ll have me.”