Wishful Thinking (11 page)

Rosanna made sense. Rosanna was supposed to be her mother. They looked alike. They had similar interests. Not to
mention the fact that Rosanna was married and stable and, well, old enough to be her mother.

The more Hazel thought about it, the more she realized that she wasn’t just mad at Jaime. She was mad at Rosanna, too. Why
couldn’t
Rosanna have gotten pregnant? Why
couldn’t
Rosanna be her mother? She knew it wasn’t fair, and it definitely wasn’t Rosanna’s fault, but she couldn’t help it. It was the way she felt.

Hazel opened her eyes and walked to the railing. The curves of the island were just starting to come into view. She took a deep breath and went back inside. Jaime was asleep, her bony knees curled up beside her on the bench. The laces of one of her low-top sneakers were untied and hanging down near the linoleum floor.

Without thinking, Hazel reached for her camera. She’d thrown it into her bag yesterday, after being inspired by the portraits in Rosanna’s studio.

Hazel held the camera up to her eye, framing Jaime’s sleeping face in the lens. But, like a magnet, her eyes were drawn back to the one untied sneaker. There was something about the droopy laces that seemed so sad, and so young.

She squared the shot in the viewfinder and snapped the picture. Jaime didn’t move. Hazel lowered the camera and sat in the booth. With that one click, something had softened inside of her. She couldn’t blame Jaime for being scared. Maybe using Rosanna’s name was her way of protecting herself. Of keeping herself separate from the situation, for as long as she could.

Hazel could imagine doing something like that.

Plus, it was hard to stay angry at somebody so scared and alone.

Especially when that somebody was about to become your mother.

I
n all of the morning’s activity, Hazel had completely forgotten about Rosanna’s art show that evening. Jaime had an afternoon shift at the ice-cream shop, so Hazel caught the shuttle home alone, arriving just in time to help Luke and the others pack up the truck and head back into town.

The opening was held in an old hotel at the bottom of Main Street, and Hazel, Maura, and Craig spent most of the afternoon hanging paintings in the lobby and along the winding hallways of every floor. The idea was for guests to wander the halls on their way up to the rooftop lounge, which had been decorated with twinkling white lights and pink orchids nestled in every corner. Luke was in charge of the bar, while the rest of the crew served as on-call caterers.

It wasn’t until Hazel and Jaime’s third trip up in the service elevator that night, armed with trays of shrimp toasts and mini quiches, that either of them said anything about what had happened.

“How are you feeling?” Hazel finally managed to ask,
staring at her own reflection in the mirrored glass. Her auburn roots were thick at the top of her head, and her hair looked flat and strawlike from the sun.

“I don’t know,” Jaime mumbled. “Terrible. Disgusting. The same.”

Hazel stared at the glowing metallic numbers as the elevator carried them up.

“Did you read any of that packet?” she asked. Jaime had threatened to throw the materials from the clinic overboard as they were getting off the boat, and Hazel made her swear to at least look through the whole thing once.

“Cover to cover,” Jaime said, her voice slick and phony. “Did you know that my
baby
is already the size of a BB pellet?”

Hazel felt a lump growing in her throat, her knees turning to liquid. There was no way she could keep this up. BB pellet? That was
her
in there. How was she supposed to act like everything was normal, when she was living in some kind of sci-fi soap opera?

“Cool,” Hazel forced, only it came out shaky and sounded kind of like she was choking.

“Totally,” Jaime deadpanned as the elevator slammed into place. The doors started to click open, but Jaime jabbed at a button with her thumb, holding them shut.

“Listen,” she said, suddenly serious as she looked Hazel in the eye. “Obviously, I’m not telling anybody about this until, you know, I’ve thought about it more. Which means you’re not telling anybody, either. Got it?”

Hazel nodded quickly. “Of course,” she said. “Got it.”

“Good,” Jaime sighed. For a moment, her dark eyes were soft, and Hazel could almost see her own reflection in them.

The doors shifted open, revealing the twilight sky in purple
patches overhead. Hazel took a step outside but Jaime stopped her with a tight hand on the back of her elbow. “Wait,” Jaime barked, tugging Hazel back inside. “One more thing.”

Hazel turned, shifting the heavy tray from one open palm to the other. “What?” she whispered, glancing quickly from the crowd of guests on the roof back to Jaime.

Jaime took a deep breath and shook a few drooping curls out of her face.

“Just,” she said, so quietly it was almost nothing at all, “thanks. For today. Okay?”

And then she was gone, brushing past Hazel and strutting deliberately through the groups of women in linen and men in summery suits.

Hazel followed Jaime through the crowd, stopping to offer snacks to anyone with a tiny paper plate. She felt her lips forming an automatic smile and did her best to make small talk. But it was impossible to think of anything else.

“You must love working for Rosanna,” a guest would say, by way of conversation. And Hazel would nod, silently finishing the thought on her own.

I do. I used to think she was my mother.

“I just adore the portraits this year. Rosanna is so gifted, isn’t she?”

Yes. She is. But she’s not my mother.

The night slipped by in a fog. After Rosanna’s welcome speech, Hazel sneaked over to the bar to ask Luke for a glass of water. He had his hands full mixing drinks and being generally charming. It seemed like every older woman in attendance had posted up in his section, fawning over his clean khaki jacket and striped silk tie, or tousling his shaggy brown hair.

Hazel helped herself to the pitcher of water, silently agreeing with Luke’s admirers. He certainly cleaned up nice. The now-familiar sinking reminder that he was her cousin crept up inside of her … which was about when she realized that he wasn’t.

He wasn’t her cousin, because Rosanna wasn’t her mother. She and Luke weren’t related at all.

The revelation was so sharp and jarring that soon she was pouring water all over her wrist. She pulled the pitcher back and shook her hand dry behind the bar, hoping nobody had been watching.

“Thirsty?” Luke asked with a grin. He was reaching for a bottle of tonic water from the cooler when he caught Hazel in the act of cleaning up. “Try this,” he said, tossing her the cloth napkin he had tucked in the back pocket of his pants.

Hazel snatched the napkin out of the air and patted her forearm dry. “Th-thanks,” she stammered. She felt her cheeks reddening and hoped he wasn’t still looking at her. Yesterday they were cousins, and today he was making her blush? It was all too weird for Hazel to handle. She chugged a few sips of water and hurried back into the crowd.

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.

“Y
ou 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.