If Wishing Made It So (6 page)

After several weeks of exchanging e-mails and going to every movie showing at the Dietrich Theater’sFall Foreign Film Festival together, Hildy finally made up her mind that he would be ‘‘the one.’’ She didn’t get all goose bumps when he kissed her, but she enjoyed his company, and she believed he’d be a gentle lover.

During a weekend in early December when the earth was frozen hard as steel, she accepted his invitation to spend a weekend at a brand-new ski lodge in the Poconos. It was a special package deal that included lift tickets. Neither of them skied. His intent was clear.

Snow was falling lightly when they arrived at the hotel. Hildy had been nervous, but she hid her anxiety well. He had ordered wine, a nice California Chardonnay. He spared no expense. They got cozy by the roaring fire in their suite. Hildy leaned back against the sofa cushions. The professor began unbuttoning her blouse, his lips trailing little love bites up her neck. Her breath was quickening.

‘‘I’ve written some lines of poetry just for you,’’ he murmured.

‘‘Oh, how romantic,’’ she sighed. ‘‘Say them for me.’’ She closed her eyes to listen and willed herself to relax.

‘‘ ‘Thine eyes blind me,’ ’’ he recited. Hildy’s eyes flew open. The professor smiled, and he went on. ‘‘ ‘Thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound—’ ’’

Hildy sat up suddenly, and the professor’s face slipped down to her breasts. ‘‘
You
wrote that?’’ she asked.

‘‘Well, yes. Just last night,’’ he murmured, having slipped his hands under her shirt and reached around to her back to unfasten her bra. He sounded self-satisfied; he thought she had been impressed.

‘‘You! You!’’ Hildy huffed, her face turning red with outrage. ‘‘Plagiarist!’’ He had committed the worst transgression that she, as an English teacher, could imagine. He had stolen those lines.

Hildy pushed him away. She stood up, straightened her clothes, retrieved her suitcase, fortuitously never unpacked, and marched to the hotel’s front desk. The kind night clerk found a college student willing to drive Hildy home for forty bucks.

Had she not loved nineteenth century English poetry, she might not have known that Algernon Charles Swinburne had written the professor’s lines, not last night, but over a hundred years ago. The poem was called ‘‘Anactoria,’’ and to add insult to injury, the professor didn’t seem to know that the lines were written by a woman, Anactoria—to her lover, another woman, the famous Sappho of Lesbos. The poem was long, obscure, and contained scandalous imagery of not just girl-girl love, but sadomasochism.

And to think she had almost given her innocence to a man such as that!

After Hildy had carried the bike and all the packages into the summer cottage, barely enough time remained for the sisters to have an early dinner. Hildy had to drive Corrine back to the bus in Atlantic City by six thirty. They went out on the rear deck to eat the spinach quiche and salad of baby greens that Hildy had bought at the Dark Star Café early that morning.

Under a lapis lazuli sky now free of clouds, Corrine admitted that even if the next house was very close and kept the deck in shadow most of the afternoon, the location was ideal and the cottage livable. Then the sisters talked about other things, reminiscing about growing up and remembering their mother when she was healthy and young. They felt content to be in each other’s company, something their busy lives didn’t often allow since their mother’s death.

It was only when Hildy cleared the table and brought the dishes back into the kitchen to rinse them off that she moved her tote bag off the counter. As she set it on the worn linoleum floor, she spotted something shiny inside.
Oh, damn! I have to remember to bring that bottle into the casino when I drop Corrine off,
she thought. She lifted it out of her bag and held it up, once again thinking how pretty it was.

Just then Keats jumped up and began sniffing a piece of leftover quiche.

Hildy squealed, set the bottle on the counter next to the sink, and quickly snatched the plate away from the potential pie thief. At that moment, Corrine walked in and said it was getting late, and that they needed to hurry. Hildy grabbed her tote bag and retrieved her car keys. The sisters hurried out the door.

The bottle, its amber glass glowing as if it had caught a ray of late afternoon sunlight, remained on the kitchen counter. Hildy had forgotten it again.

Chapter 7

The spindly French Provincial-style chair creaked when Michael Amante shifted his weight. Unable to get comfortable, he stretched his legs out under the table and sank further into misery. He didn’t want to be at this boring luncheon for the lame-duck governor and the National Association of Realtors. He looked down at the slab of prime rib on his plate, the red juice congealing into little pools of fat. He picked up his fork and poked at it. He had no appetite.

He felt chilled too. He signaled a roving server and asked her to bring him a cup of hot coffee. He hoped it would warm him up. The air-conditioning in this hotel meeting room must be set at freezing. When he exhaled, Mike swore he could see his breath.

He had complained about the low thermostat to Kiki. She responded with an edge to her voice, acting as if he were incredibly stupid. She told him that the governor, a heavyset man with an oily face, must be kept cool so he didn’t sweat in the publicity photos she had been hired to take.

Mike shivered, sure that the air-conditioning duct must be right above his seat. He didn’t feel well at all. It crossed his mind that he might be coming down with a virus. He had this heavy feeling in his chest; it almost hurt to breathe. But he knew that wasn’t what was wrong with him. His condition reflected the state of his life; it hung around his neck like an albatross—a dead thing, a burden, something he didn’t want anymore. For the past few years, he had drifted along, making lots of money, but finding his job increasingly meaningless and his mood ever more bleak.

He knew he was bored with real estate. He had contemplated a career change for a long time now, but recently he had discovered a passion for an occupation that was worlds away from anything he had imagined he’d do.

The seed of the idea sprouted when he became friends with Jake Truesdale, the head of the private security company he had hired on one of his building projects. He liked Jake. The middle-aged black man from Newark and the young white guy from Pennsylvania had a lot more in common than anyone looking at them could have guessed.

But they were amazingly alike. They both ran to stay in shape, liked dogs and 1950s cars, and had the collecting gene. Jake poked through antique stores looking for railroadiana, a natural interest since his grandfather had been a Pullman porter under Eugene Debs. Mike searched for first editions of children’s books, especially those of Virginia Lee Burton who wrote
Maybelle the Cable Car
and his own favorite,
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

Since Mike was at the construction site a lot, they started eating dinner together most nights. Mike had became fascinated with Jake’s stories. He relished every detail about protection services, investigations, surveillance equipment, and crime detection.

When a backhoe and a skid steer were stolen from the building site, Jake brought him along to try to find the missing machines. They never got the equipment back, but they nabbed the thief and even connected him to an organized crime family in South Jersey. Mike enjoyed every minute of it.

Jake thought Mike had a knack for investigation, and late at night, while Jake watched the security monitors at the high-end condo project, they had talked about going into business together. They had similar outlooks and strong ethics. They were both adrenaline junkies; neither of them liked to sit in an office. For the past few weeks, Mike had started working with Jake every moment he could get away from his office. They were having a blast together. They had written up a business plan to become real partners.

But Mike’s new venture wouldn’t go over well with Kiki, who believed he was about to become the next Donald Trump. He wondered if his job switch could become a deal breaker. He hated to admit it, but if she decided to end the relationship, it might be the best thing that could happen.

To tell the truth, Mike had begun to feel panicky about Kiki. During the last month, she had begun hinting that they should actually set a date. Marriage to her made less and less sense to Mike. His feelings for her were complex and confused. She was a beautiful woman, and she came with a lot of perks, like comps at four-star hotels, easy entree to government officials, and introductions to movie stars. But she traveled all the time, and they spent more time apart than together. She didn’t want to start a family either. She made that perfectly clear. So what was the point of changing what they had and going ahead with a wedding?

The server poured coffee from a steaming carafe into the cup in front of Mike. He drank it black. The first sip burned his mouth. It was bitter. It fit his mood perfectly.

Then he thought back to what happened on the beach today. He smiled as he remembered. He couldn’t help himself. That Hildy had always been such a firecracker—one hundred twelve pounds of blue-eyed dynamite. She had been in everything in high school. Always on the move! Could not sit still for a minute!

He had been so crazy about her, but he had screwed up their relationship—a royal screwup, the worst one ever for Mike Amante. He really would like to talk to her, apologize for what happened all those years ago, and try to make it right. Fat chance of that happening now. She probably would never speak to him again.

He drained the last of the coffee. He felt better. Hildy was so doggone cute, even cuter than he remembered. And the spark was still there. The attraction he felt instantly had shocked him. It must have shown too. Kiki really had her claws out when he introduced her to Hildy.

The leaden feeling started in Mike’s chest again. What should he do about Kiki? It would be a hell of a mess to break up with her. Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. They even owned a Park Avenue apartment together.

He stole a look at his watch. He wished he had Hildy’s phone number. He knew she’d never phone him tomorrow, not after Kiki showed up, and he had acted like such an idiot. Maybe he could sneak away and make some calls. He’d try his old football buddy George Ide back in Lehman, and he’d call his mom. Somebody up there must have Hildy’s cell phone number.

Mike glanced toward the front of the room, at the raised dais where all the VIPs sat. The way the governor was flirting with Kiki, he’d be hot and sweaty no matter how cold the room was kept. Mike watched for a moment. Kiki was bending over to pick up some camera equipment and making sure the older man could see her cleavage. She was playing him like a violin. She would never notice if Mike went outside for a while.

When Hildy and Corrine got to the bus departure area at Caesar’s, the St. Vlad’s crowd wasn’t talking much. Nobody besides Hildy had hit a jackpot. Most of them had lost whatever they had. At six thirty sharp, the day-trippers shuffled slowly back into the Martz Trailways bus, heads hanging down. Father John, with his white dandelion-puff hair and apple cheeks, maintained an upbeat attitude as he stood by the bus door and helped the ladies with the step up.

Hildy knew all about St.Vladimir’s need for money. The roof of the great old brick church with its gold onion dome needed replacing. The dome itself needed regilding at an astronomical cost. The carpets were old and worn. The appliances in the church kitchen had been new in the early 1960s. Worse, the church was going to be in violation of the fire code if the wiring wasn’t entirely replaced by November first. With membership down to one hundred and sixty elderly parishioners, the doors of the century-old structure would probably close for good before Christmas.

‘‘It will take a miracle to save the church,’’ eighty-two-year-old Annie said, her eyes sad behind her glasses as she took Father John’s hand.

‘‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’’ Father John assured her. ‘‘Keep the faith. Somebody may hit the jackpot on our next trip.’’

‘‘Yeah, when pigs have wings,’’ Corrine whispered to Hildy as they dawdled at the end of the line, waiting until the very last moment to part.

‘‘Can’t they attract new members?’’ Hildy asked.

‘‘Fat chance. The old Slavic neighborhood in Edwardsville is just about gone. Zerby Avenue isn’t safe after dark anymore.’’

This subject bothered Corrine deeply. She and her husband had built a house in the more upscale community of Harveys Lake, but she still loved the old church and its parish, even though she didn’t attend it anymore. She started talking rapidly, fire in her eyes. ‘‘Drugs and crime are making the old people prisoners in their own houses. It’s the outsiders, coming in from Philadelphia and Allentown. They end up in public-assisted housing. No sense of community. And they aren’t what you call religious. The town’s not like it used to be when a bingo game happened every night of the week, and you could stroll down to Main Street for a pizza at ten without fear of being mugged.

‘‘Now the police sirens wail all night. Edwardsville has become a place without hope. It’s a shame about the church, but honestly—short of Father John’s miracle—I don’t think it can be saved.’’

Corrine stopped her tirade only when it was her turn to board the bus. Hildy hugged her sister hard, sad to see her go. The two of them were all that were left of their family, grown-up women, but orphans nonetheless.

Every bone in Hildy’s body ached with fatigue when she finally got back to her cottage at twilight. She had stopped at the supermarket on the boulevard to pick up some cat food, a carton of two-percent milk, a half pound of honey ham, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, and Skinny Cow caramel-swirl vanilla cones. When she opened the front door of her cozy summer place on Twenty-fifth Street, she smiled, anticipating some quiet relaxation on the deck while she gazed at the stars and enjoyed the ice cream.