Wish I Might

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  “I’ll be back in six weeks,” he says. “We can celebrate then.”

  “Six weeks? I thought you said a month.” I stop. This trip is important to Joseph. Don’t be a whining girlfriend, Willa. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Have a blast. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be waiting here for you. We’ll still have a few weeks before school starts. Time for picnics and movies and—”

  “Kissing?” he interrupts.

  I laugh. “Yes. Lots of time for that.”

  We walk back to our bikes. We hug good-bye.

  “Call me, okay?” I say, trying so hard to smile. “Every day. And text me every few hours or so. And send me the lyrics you’re working on. All of them. First drafts, even.”

  JFK bursts out laughing. “Gosh, my girlfriend is demanding for a little thing. Yes, ma’am. I’ll do my best. And you …” The tone of his voice gets serious. “You keep your head in those books you love reading and stay away from those lifeguards while I’m gone, do you hear me?”

  “Yes.” I laugh. “Don’t worry.” I think about my friends Tina and Ruby and their obsession with the college lifeguards who come to the Cape to work each summer. Not me. I’ve got my boy. “I’ll miss you,” I say, hugging him tight.

  “Miss you more,” he says with a sweet, sad smile.

  JFK turns to leave, then swings back again, his smile gone. “Be careful with that British kid, Willa. Brother or not, I don’t trust him.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m a big girl. Now hurry before you miss your flight.”

  I watch until I can’t see his bike anymore. I wipe away the tears. Get a grip, Willa. It’s only six weeks. Six weeks. That’s nothing. He’ll be back before you know it. I check my watch, good. I still have an hour before I’m due at work. My family owns the Bramblebriar Inn in town. I work a shift each day, helping out in the kitchen or serving meals. But in my free time, with JFK gone, I’ll need extra provisions of my two other favorite things: books and candy.

  Books and candy.

  Books and candy.

  All a girl needs for a summer so dandy.

  That, and a boyfriend, but he’ll be back soon.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sprites and Spirits and Sea Cretures

  Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made;

  Those are pearls that were his eyes:

  Nothing of him that doth fade

  But doth suffer a sea-change

  Into something rich and strange.

  — Shakespeare

  The little green ivy hands covering the old Bramble Library wave welcome, Willa; welcome, Willa as I walk up the stairs. Hopefully my friend Mrs. Saperstone is working today. She knows I’m trying to read a skinny-punch book a day for the month of July until I start my required Bramble Academy summer reading list in August.

  Skinny-punch is a phrase I invented for a book that’s fairly quick to read, but has a powerful impact. I want to write one of those someday.

  This morning I read Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. The image on the cover is striking. A young girl with old, old eyes in a fine wool coat emblazoned with the word Jude inside a yellow star. Jude, Jew. It is 1939. The girl is not even five years old when she overhears her parents talking about how unsafe it has become for Jews in Poland. The girl keeps brushing her doll’s hair as she listens.

  I couldn’t stop reading. I was riveted.

  Mrs. Saperstone is off, but Ms. Toomajian shows me the book that Mrs. Saperstone reserved for me behind the counter. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Journey to Change the World … One Child at a Time.

  “It’s the young reader’s edition of the New York Times bestseller,” Ms. Toomajian explains. “You should be able to read this version in a day. It’s a wonderful story, Willa. I couldn’t put it down.”

  “Thanks so much, Ms. Toomajian,” I say. “Can’t wait to start!”

  Next stop, candy—Sweet Bramble Books—the half-side candy store, half-side bookstore owned by my grandmother, Violet Clancy. I call her “Nana,” one of the very finest people on the planet.

  The bells chime a cheery greeting when I open the door.

  “Hey!” a little voice shouts from below.

  I look down, realizing I nearly toppled over a toddler who is sprawled on the floor sorting gummy worms into piles by color—red, yellow, green. He’s got quite a collection.

  The worm sorter starts to cry, and his father scoops him up.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “You’re fine,” the father says, smiling. He looks at his son. “I told you, Jimmy. You’ve got to keep your worms in the bag.”

  I laugh. Good luck with that.

  The store is packed with customers. I’m glad. Nana needs the business. The economy has hit some Cape stores hard. I tell Nana not to worry, though. Kids gotta have their candy. Teenagers and grown-ups, too.

  My grandmother is over at the fudge case slicing up an order. Kristen and Amy, Nana’s two best employees home from college for the summer, are busy at the penny candy and saltwater taffy bins. They smile and we nod hello.

  Nana’s face brightens when she sees me. “Willa, honey. Hi! Come give me a hug, shmug.”

  I want to tell my grandmother about the British boy on the beach, but she’ll get all worried, and I need more information first.

  Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff. Nana’s scruffy little black-and-white dog, Scamp, runs excitedly to greet me. He lies on his back, paws up, waiting for me to rub his belly. I oblige. “Hey, Scamp,” I say. “How’s it going?” He licks my hand. His nose is wet. I look to the window ledge for Scamp’s sister, Muffles. Sure enough, there’s the chunky, old, lazy, gray cat, fast asleep in her basket in the sun.

  “Good news, Willa,” Nana says, bagging the order and turning to me. “We finally won! I knew we would. And I have you to thank, honey. Your taffy tag sayings pushed us to number one!”

  Nana’s talking about winning the annual “reader’s choice contest” sponsored by Cape Cod Life magazine. People vote for all of their “favorite things” on Cape Cod, from best restaurants to best beaches to best candy stores. Nana’s been trying to win “Best Sweets on the Upper Cape” for a long time now. I came up with this idea to tie fortune cookie–like sayings onto our pieces of saltwater taffy—phrases like “Eat Taffy. Be Happy.” — and I guess people liked the little bonus. It’s funny how a few words strung together can make a person smile.

  “Oh, Nana, that’s wonderful.” I hug her. “Whoo-hoo! Congratulations!”

  “And we almost got best Upper Cape bookstore, too,” Nana says, face all flushed. “Sandwich and Falmouth beat me again, but I’ll nudge ’em out next year, just you wait. Your Dr. Swaminathan is cookin’ up some super ideas to build our book business.”

  Dr. Swaminathan is my English teacher at Bramble Academy. He’s working part-time for Nana this summer, and that’s a very good thing because Nana knows her taffy, but books? Ah … not so much. That was her husband, my grandfather Alexander Tweed’s bailiwick.

  Books? That man loved books. Gramp lived and breathed and treasured books. He and I were kindred spirits. Every Friday I’d come here after school and he’d make us lemon tea, no milk, no sugar, and we’d sit on that old couch over there, feet propped up comfy, and “book-talk.” Saying what we liked or didn’t about a certain story or author.

  Gramp always said I’d be an author someday. And that’s just what I want to do. I miss my gramp so much. He died of a heart attack last year. Nana was devastated. Me, too.

  Gramp’s always with me in spirit, though. Every so often I see a red bird perched on a branch, looking straight at me, eyes to eyes, and I smile.

  I love you, Gramp.

  I take a brown bag from the rack and begin filling it with my current favorite saltwater taffies—peppermint, lemon, and key lime pie—then move over to get a big scoop of red gummy fish, then some chocolates and penny candies.

  Tonight, after I meet Will on the beach and get to the bottom of what he’s d
oing here, I’ll go home and snuggle up in bed with this big old bag of sweets and Three Cups of Tea and try not to think about JFK. Stupid baseball.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” says a tourist woman to my grandmother. “Can you help me?” The lady is wearing a floppy straw hat and a bright pink Cuffy’s Cape Cod sweatshirt. Her face is red, sweaty, like she’s just come from the beach.

  “Do you have any mermaid books?” she asks.

  “Children’s books?” Nana says, motioning to Dr. Swaminathan, who is just passing by, to please come join this conversation. This is Dr. Swammy’s turf.

  “No,” the woman says. “Books about Cape Cod mermaids.”

  Dr. Swaminathan’s eyebrows rise up a notch, ever so discreetly. He is respectful and polite and would never make a customer feel foolish.

  Dr. Swammy clears his throat and adjusts his turban. “I’ll check the computer, miss. Follow me this way, if you please.” He turns back. “Oh, Willa, I’ve got some skinny-punches for you.”

  “Good thing, Dr. S., thank you,” I say. “I’ll be right over.”

  Books about mermaids? I bet the pink-shirted lady was up on the bluff at Popponesset Beach. I wonder what that was in the water after all.

  I tell Nana about the little tourist girl’s crazy claim.

  My grandmother nods her head up and down, smiling as she listens. “I bet the little sweetheart did see a mermaid.”

  “What?” No way. “Are you serious, Nana? Mermaids? You believe in mermaids?”

  Jimmy of the Gummy Worms is staring up at us, wide-eyed, grinning from ear to ear, his cheeks bulging with worms and another sticky fistful poised midair, waiting to hear Nana’s response.

  “Of course I do, Willa. I’m Irish. You are, too, honey. Angels … fairies … leprechauns … mermaids … We see all the sprites and spirits and sea creatures.”

  I grip Nana’s arm. I stare at her, incredulous.

  “What, Willa, what?” Nana says with a shrug and a laugh. “Don’t you ever see them? Please don’t tell me my superserious daughter, Stella, is raising a nonbeliever.”

  Jimmy smiles at Nana as if she’s Santa Claus. He proffers me a worm like he feels sorry for me. “Here,” he says, laughing. “Take it.”

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  “Come on,” he says. “Try one.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m good.”

  I check my watch. I’m late for work.

  “Gotta go, Nana. See ya later.”

  I get the skinny-punches from Dr. Swammy and head home to work.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Bramblebriar Inn

  I was a child and she was a child,

  In this kingdom by the sea;

  But we loved with a love that was more than love —

  I and my Annabel Lee …

  — Edgar Allan Poe

  There’s a photographer across the street from the Bramblebriar Inn. Mother said she was having new shots taken for the advertisements we run in the bride and travel magazines. The gardens are in full bloom. It’s a great day for pictures.

  I smile at the words on our Bramble Board:

  Summertime

  And the livin’ is easy.

  — Gershwin

  It’s my job to post inspirational messages on the board. I keep a collection of quotes in a blank book my stepfather, Sam, passed on to me. Sam started the tradition of the Bramble Board. It’s one of the things that makes our inn special.

  The Bramblebriar is a beauty if I do say so myself. The main house is three stories high; white with green shutters; four chimneys; thirty rooms; large, wide front and side porches wrapped around; all framed with pretty trees and flowers—deep blue hydrangeas, Cape Cod’s signature flowering bush, cascading pink roses, and happy Shasta daisies dancing in the breeze.

  There are seven other smaller guest lodges on the property; a big, old converted barn where we host receptions and dances and other events; acres of groomed grass for croquet and badminton and boccie; Sam’s amazing labyrinth walking circle; fields of wild-flowers; a swing set, sliding board, and seesaw in the children’s area; a pond for summer swimming and winter ice-skating; hammocks and benches; and wicker chairs and chaise lounges set casually about in relaxing spots. Birdbaths and bird feeders are everywhere. You couldn’t ask for a prettier home.

  The Gracemore estate was willed to Sam by his grandmother. Sam never could have afforded such a magnificent property on his schoolteacher’s salary, but in her will his grandmother said that of everyone in the family Sam was the one who truly loved Cape Cod the most and therefore the estate should be his. I like that kind of reasoning.

  When my mother and Sam got married, she took over the renovation of the estate. My mother, Stella, has exquisite taste in color, paints, and fabrics. She used to be one of the country’s most famous wedding planners. Now her main job is running the inn, where she still gets to weave her wedding-planner magic, since the Bramblebriar is one of Cape Cod’s most popular wedding venues. We hosted the wedding of Susanna Jubilee Blazer, of the millionaire Blazer Buick USA family, and the wedding of debutante Katie Caldor of the Caldor Creek chain of women’s clothing stores.

  When I was younger, much to my dismay, my mother wouldn’t let me get involved in her wedding planning business. She didn’t want my brain to get all loopy, dreaming of gowns and Prince Charmings and fairy-tale fluff. But now that I’ve proven myself a straight-A student with my sights set on college, the overly strict Stella has lightened up on the rules a bit.

  First, Mother let me help her with two weddings, Suzie Jube Blazer’s and then the wedding of our dear family friend, the former Bramble town minister, Sulamina Mum. I got to be the maid of honor in both of them! Mum and her husband, Riley, have moved to South Carolina. I miss her so much. I think it will be a long while before I see Mum, but Suzie Jube and her husband, Simon, have promised to come visit in August. Whoopee!

  When Mother saw that a bit of wedding work didn’t drain my brain cells, she let me handle a wedding all by myself, just last weekend.

  Sam’s sister, Ruthie, contacted us out of the blue to say she wanted to get married at the inn, with less than a month’s warning. My mother was already booked handling the Caldor wedding, so I offered to plan Ruthie’s wedding myself. And I must say, without meaning to brag, my wedding-planner debut was a success — not a glitch, hitch, or sloppy wedding gown stitch. (I sew a little secret something into the hem of each Bramblebriar bride’s gown for luck.)

  I set Ruthie and Spruce’s simple but elegant ceremony out in Sam’s backyard labyrinth and planned a delicious vegetarian dinner per the culinary preference of the bridal couple. The flowers were freshly plucked from the Bramblebriar gardens. Our assistant head chef and chief baker, Rosie, made her famous wedding cake, filled with my signature wedding charms, and my friend, Mariel Sanchez, nearly stole the bride’s spotlight with her exquisite singing.

  Mariel just moved here to Bramble this past year, but she and I are quickly becoming close friends. Tina Belle has been my best friend since I moved to Cape Cod, but lately she and Ruby Sivler seem to have way more in common. Boys and being beautiful, boys and being beautiful, boys and being beautiful. Little time for anything else.

  Mariel has a challenging life. She lives with her father and two younger siblings, three-year-old twins Nico and Sofia, in a crowded room at a scummy rundown motel called the Oceanview, on the outskirts of town. Mariel’s mother is off pursuing a career in acting. Mr. Sanchez was injured in an accident and moves about with difficulty in a wheelchair. A town van comes to take him to work each day.

  Mariel and I have very different family circumstances, but we have important things in common. We share a great love of reading and the ocean, and we are finding that we also share similar values, like we think people ought to care more about providing safe drinking water for human beings than serving designer water to pets. That was Ruby Sivler’s big dilemma last month—which designer water to serve at her parents’ new No Mutts About It
pet spa that just opened next door to the inn. They offer filet mignon dinners, deep fur massages, and “paw-dicures” to overnight poochie guests. Mariel and I love pets, but we rolled our eyes at the “paw-dicures.” Oh, please.

  Wait until I tell Mariel about the mermaid. I’ve no doubt she’ll believe.

  Mariel once told me the sweetest story about how when she was a little girl, her mother used to say that at the end of a beach day, when the tide sweeps all the pretty sand castles out to sea, not to be sad because the mermaids are waiting for them. The mermaids sing a song and turn the castles into cakes.

  Mermaid wedding cakes.

  I don’t believe in mermaids, but that’s such a pretty thought.

  Mariel also says that if you find a treasure on the beach when no one else is around, that it is a gift sent especially to you from the mermaids.

  When I found Salty Dog walking alone on the beach, Mariel insisted he was for me. A gift from the mermaids, she said. I had noticed a boat harbored just offshore that day and briefly wondered if the dog belonged to the owner of the boat. I know now that it was Will Havisham’s boat.

  I smile, remembering the spring morning I first saw Mariel. I was on the beach early. The fog was blanket thick. I spotted something swimming out past the jetty. It was such a chilly day I doubted it was a person, until, sure enough, Mariel popped her head out of the water and called to me.

  Later, when I described the encounter to Tina, about the strange girl with the dark eyes and long ringlety hair swimming in that cold, cold water, Tina said, “Maybe she’s a mermaid,” and we giggled.

  Inside the inn, my mother is at the registration desk checking in new guests, an attractive and well-dressed couple, locked arm in arm, in love.

  “I’ve put you in the Walden suite,” Mother says. “It’s one of our nicest. I think you’ll be pleased. Breakfast is on the sunporch from eight to ten. Fresh cookies and iced or hot tea from two to four. Complimentary appetizers at six, just a few minutes from now, and dinner is served from seven to nine. We’ll keep you well fed at the Bramblebriar.” She laughs. “I’ve taken the liberty of making you an eight o’clock reservation, assuming you might like some time to rest. I do hope you have a wonderful anniversary stay with us. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to make your time with us more enjoyable.”