The Summer of Lost Wishes

by Jessa Gabrielle

  Chapter Ten

  I flip through the images of our soon-to-be furniture on my phone while Mom searches for a parking spot near the pier. Tourist season is in full swing because there’s not a vacant spot anywhere close by, and it doesn’t look like we’ll get out of this parking lot any time soon because we have to keep stopping for pedestrians.

  “I think the gray will look good in your room,” Mom says, leaning back in her seat. She motions for a mother and two children to go ahead and cross in front of us. “It’s light enough that it won’t look too bad with those tacky deer heads.”

  “So I’ve won the great deer head battle?” I assume. I glance her way, but she doesn’t look at me. Instead, she motions for a guy on a bicycle to ride by.

  Then Mom sighs. “I’ve decided to pick and choose my battles,” she says. “I know you’re going to fight for those damn deer, so I might as well fight for furniture and accessories that will look nice with them.”

  The taillights of a white SUV light up just ahead of us. Mom stiffens in her seat and stretches her neck to see if they’re leaving. Their reverse lights come on.

  “Thank God,” Mom says. “I didn’t think we’d ever find a parking place, and I didn’t want to walk a mile just to get here.”

  My phone dings with a notification. Then it buzzes immediately after. There’s a new text from Rooks – and a Facebook notification that he’s accepted my friend request.

  I open the text message. Stalking me online now, Davenport? I knew my charm was working on you.

  I instantly type up the first thing that comes to mind. You accepted the friend request, so obviously my charm is working too.

  I drop my phone back into my purse before Mom can inquire about who I’m texting. I don’t need any smart remarks about Rooks texting on the job. She slides into the parking spot previously occupied by the white SUV. She debates hiding her purse in the car, but she says she can’t afford another broken window. It’s not even a debate for me. I have buried treasure. The purse goes with me.

  Mom double checks that the car is locked before we walk up the steps to a picnic area above the beach. A few families sit at the tables eating lunch and discussing if they should spend the day at the beach or go on one of the boat tours.

  We descend the stairs on the other side of the giant gazebo and walk onto the sand amidst large beach umbrellas and volleyball nets. The ocean drifts calmly, pushing against the shoreline and pulling itself back out, a never-ending splash of aqua against the sand.

  “We used to come out here when I was a kid,” Mom says, slipping off her shoes. “It wasn’t nearly as busy back then. Fewer restaurants. Not much of a tourist town yet. This was my favorite spot.”

  She doesn’t venture into the crowd on the beach. Instead, she hangs back toward the small sand dunes lining the bottoms of the pavilions. A pier stretches out in the distance. Kids and adults stand close to the railing, tossing over fishing lines and pointing at the waves.

  “I actually met your dad out here,” she says.

  She stares into the distance, but I’m pretty sure she’s not watching the volleyball game up ahead. She’s somewhere else, maybe eighteen years ago, right here on this sand, in a bikini, maybe by a bonfire or playing her own volleyball game. And my absent father is somewhere nearby, sipping on a beer or tossing a football with his friends. Aside from a few pictures that Mom has shown me, I’ve never seen the guy. I wouldn’t know him if he walked up to me right this very moment.

  “Did you guys have the same friends?” I ask.

  I wonder if they started out like Seth and Hanna, opposite spectrums that somehow polarized at the same axis. I still can’t imagine the golden couple being anything less than genuinely golden.

  “Not really,” Mom says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I was working at this ice cream stand up that way. I think it’s still there. Seaside Scoops. He was a regular who always ordered a pineapple milkshake after he and his friends won their volleyball games.”

  She points up ahead, near the pier. There’s a small turquoise shed sitting in the sand, not too far from the parking lot but still close enough to the pier to seem like it’s ‘on the beach.’ A few picnic tables are scattered around it, in random places, as if there were more but they were washed away with the tides and these are all that remain.

  “The day he asked me out, they’d actually lost their game,” Mom tells me. “He ordered his usual and then asked for my phone number. Completely caught me off guard. We had two really great years together, though.”

  “Until I came along,” I say. The words sound harsh and terrible when they exit my mouth. That wasn’t how I intended them.

  “No,” Mom quickly interjects. “You were the best thing that came from that relationship. I don’t regret my time with him because it gave me you. You just happened to be the eye-opener that proved to me that he wasn’t all that I thought he was.”

  We stroll toward Seaside Scoops. The order window is trimmed in lime green, but the words are painted in bright pink across the top. A painting of an ice cream cone with double scoops is painted next to it.

  “Would you be offended if I tried the pineapple milkshake?” I ask.

  Mom laughs. “Not at all,” she says. “I brought it up, so that’s what I get.”

  While we wait in line, Mom speculates how much longer the renovations will take and whether or not she’ll be in business before school starts this fall. All talk of my sperm donor ceased upon my asking about pineapple milkshakes.

  After we order, Mom and I walk toward the pier. We pay the two-dollar toll, receive a starfish stamp on our hands, and venture on. A teenage couple snuggles up for a selfie just as we step onto the wooden flooring of the pier.

  “Summer love,” Mom says dreamily. Then she huffs and shakes her head. “I don’t want you to think your father didn’t want you. I know we don’t really talk about him much. He was just young, dumb, and not ready to grow up. He wasn’t ready to face adult responsibilities.”

  If he’d been a little older, a little more mature, things probably would’ve been very different. My mom never would’ve left Coral Sands, and my life in Tennessee would be non-existent. We wouldn’t be living in the Calloway Cottage now. I’d have grown up going to candlelight vigils every year, and I wouldn’t have faux deer heads covered in old sweaters waiting to be placed on my bedroom wall.

  “I think we turned out okay,” I tell Mom. I sip on the milkshake to keep from saying anything else that may make the conversation awkward.

  Further down the pier, a man pulls back on his fishing line, and a massive fish lands on the floor. It flops around, and a little girl screams. I sort of want to turn back now. I don’t want to be blasted by a flying fish.

  Fortunately, Mom seems to feel the same way because she stops and walks over to the railing overlooking the ocean. I join her, but we stand in silence sipping pineapple milkshakes for a few minutes before she finally speaks.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Mom says. “I’m torn between letting you make your own mistakes and stepping in to keep you from being hurt. I don’t want you to go down the same path I did falling for a pretty boy with a bad reputation, even though I know firsthand how tempting it is.”

  Oh, great. The awkward ‘dad talk’ has now turned into the ‘stay away from Rooks’ talk. Here we go again.

  “But I think you’re a good influence on the boy,” she says, completely surprising me. “Maybe having the right people around him and working with his dad will help him get back on the right track. So I’m not going to stop you from hanging out with him. Or whatever you kids call it these days.”

  I stir my straw in my milkshake and stare down at my flip-flops for a moment, trying to find the right words. I don’t know if I should thank her, reassure her, or just nod.

  “Are you sure they didn’t spike your milkshake?” I ask. Humor shouldn’t fail me now.

  Mom cracks a smile. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she says again. �
��But the first time he gets in trouble, he’s not coming back around. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. This summer is about fresh starts, so I’m willing to let him have one too, but I expect you to guard your heart like it’s your most prized possession.”

  She has no idea how skilled I am at guarding things these days. If I can guard ancient love letters like a hawk, my heart might as well be locked away in a vault somewhere. I’ve got this, Mom.

  “I’ll be careful,” I say. “Promise.”

  Mom gives me a somewhat sympathetic smile, like I have no idea how much of a silly little girl I am, but she has to let me figure it out on my own. Her smile quickly fades, though, and turns into an expression of panic or worry.

  “You!” someone shouts from behind me.

  I spin around and come face-to-face with the reason behind Mom’s concerned stare. The handle of his mop is aimed in our direction. We haven’t had the displeasure of meeting yet, but I’ve seen this man before. He was on the docks at Moonlight Harbor, glaring into me with evil eyes and scaring me out of my skin before we boarded The Dragon’s Jewel.

  I still don’t think he’s washed his hair since the last time I saw him. He wears a white T-shirt with an apron over it, just like last time. But now that I can see his face up close, he looks as if he’s been beaten by the waves, washed ashore, and left for dead. His skin is wrinkled from long hours in the sun, and his eyes appear hollow and frightening.

  “Go away!” he shouts. “You’re only making things worse around here. Haven’t we suffered enough?”

  His voice is gruff and sandy, like he’s swallowed sandpaper and hasn’t figured out how to use his newly damaged vocal chords.

  I dare to glance around us at the silenced crowd. Parents hold their children back while others try to pretend they’re not paying attention, although it’s clear that they are as they’re all holding their breaths.

  Mom inhales. “Frank, leave us alone,” she demands, her voice calm and steady. “We’ve done nothing to harm you or your family.”

  “You can’t let the dead rest!” he shouts, a growl still present in his voice. His face contorts like a bad CGI graphic transforming a human into a monster.

  “Frank,” Mom says sternly, stepping past me and blocking me with her arm just like the other parents have done to their small children. “If you come near me, my daughter, or our property, I will not think twice about calling the police. I am not scared of you, and you will not intimidate me. If you so much as threaten us one more time, I will be filing a police report for harassment, and you better not doubt me.”

  Frank mumbles something under his breath before he stalks away, stabbing his mop into the wood like a walking cane. Mom glances over her shoulder toward me, avoiding eye contact with the crowd.

  “We’re going home,” she says.

  I have no argument for that.

  “So, are we riding in silence or are you going to tell me who Frank is exactly?” I ask once we reach the first red light.

  The silence is pretty much killing me by now, and Mom hasn’t offered an explanation yet. She taps her nails against the steering wheel and then reaches for the remainder of her pineapple milkshake that’s melting in the cup holder. She sips it until we reach the next light. Then she glances at me.

  “Frank is a local fisherman. Well, he was. His family’s business went under, and last I heard, he was working as a janitor for one of the dock owners,” she says.

  “Was he around when the accident happened?” I ask.

  There’s no other explanation. He lashed out about not letting the dead rest and about causing pain. Clearly we’ve opened up some old wounds by moving in here. I just wish those wounds belonged to someone less creepy.

  Mom nods. “He was young when it happened, but he’s the brother of Warren Lancaster,” she says. “Not only did he lose his brother in the most horrific way but his family fell apart. His mom grieved herself to death. His father drank himself to death. The business went under. Frank might as well have not existed after Warren died.”

  I remember Warren simply because he was the oddball of the three guys. His family owned a seafood restaurant that he was destined to inherit. He didn’t have a path paved to the factory life. He was going to be something bigger. I can only imagine what the Lancasters’ business would look like today if it continued on throughout the generations. With or without the tragedy, they would’ve been successful.

  And maybe if his parents hadn’t given up on life upon losing him, they could’ve been successful for him. They could’ve honored him. Frank could have stepped up when he was old enough. I wonder if he’s angry because he lost his family or because his family cared so much about Warren that they let him flounder. Either way, I understand why he’s raging.

  “I don’t think we have anything to worry about,” Mom says to the dashboard. “He’s an old man who hasn’t dealt with what happened. He was eight years old. I can’t really say I blame him for turning out the way he has. In that moment, you either sink or swim, and he sank to rock bottom with the rest of his family. He never stood a chance.”

  I sip on the last few drops of pineapple milkshake until the straw brings nothing through but air. I wonder how scared I need to be of this guy.

  “Do you think he broke our window?” I ask. It doesn’t matter what she says, though. He’s definitely my number one suspect now.

  She shrugs. “It’s possible,” she says. “That would explain why nothing was taken. He wants to scare us away, not actually harm us. I don’t think he has it in him, but just in case, don’t go to the beach alone. And keep that baseball bat near your bed, just to ease your mind. Yes, I know Rooks gave it to you.”

  “Is that why you’re letting me hang out with him?” I ask.

  She sighs and nods in defeat. “I realized then that he obviously cares about your well-being, and I think that’s the best way he knows how to show it, for a sixteen-year-old boy,” she says. “So like I said, benefit of the doubt…for now.”

  Seth’s Letter

  I drove out to the Crane Pavilion today. It made me laugh when you knew exactly where I was talking about. I’ve been going out there since I was a kid. My dad used to take me out to see the cranes. He would tell me how they were much like humans in the way they fell in love and created families. Two cranes, monogamous. They’d actually care for the baby birds together. It was always sort of weird, for my dad to talk about birds mating and me being too young to understand it, but I guess he was trying to teach me a lesson about love. I’ve never asked.

  Each time I go out there to leave your next letter, I always secretly hope you’ll be there waiting for me. You never are, and I doubt you ever will be. I know you don’t want to risk the chance of us being seen together. Crane Pavilion gives me a sense of hope, though, because I know you’ve been there. You’ve been there leaving letters for me. For a moment in time, you were in that very spot, with me on your mind, just as I am with you on my mind.

  This is a little weird, writing letters to you. I’ve never written to anyone before. Maybe someday I’ll show up when you’re dropping off a letter, and we can sneak away. Maybe we can just never come back.

  Her Reply

  Do you ever think about actually running away? I have a million and one times. But lately, it plagues me more and more. I want far away from this small town. I want to go somewhere so big that I can get lost in the lights and no one would ever find me. It was a dream before, but now, after you, I crave that to be my reality.

  Do you believe there is such a place? New York or Chicago, maybe? Possibly even somewhere bigger – a place so big that they couldn’t find us no matter how hard they searched. I just want to find somewhere with lights and stars and music where I can dance all night.

  But here’s the real question. Would you go? Would you be willing to leave this life behind? I know your family has a plan for you. They’ve given you the blueprint to your future – the perfect factory job to supp
ort a family, the perfect home to raise your children, even the perfect future wife in Hanna. Could you really walk away from all that certainty just to be with me? Would you go?

  Chapter Eleven

  “It’s not Hanna,” I blurt out, as soon as Rooks steps into our foyer. “The letters. The girl. It’s not Hanna.”

  “Whoa,” he says, holding up a hand to stop me. “Slow down. Why didn’t you text me about this earlier?” He looks past me and smiles. “Hi, Ms. Davenport,” he calls out, waving to my mom.

  Shoot. She has a way of appearing at the absolute worst times. I turn around to see her staring at us. There’s no way I can have a private conversation right now, especially about secret scandals featuring Seth McIntosh.

  “Piper says you guys are going to the county fair,” Mom says, like she’s analyzing his reaction to see if I’m being honest with her.

  He nods. “Yes, ma’am. We’re meeting up with my friend Hector and his girlfriend Natalie,” he says. “She’s the mayor’s daughter.”

  He clearly added that line for good measure. I wonder if Mom realizes that Rooks has her figured out more than she has him figured out. Then I wonder if he’s used that pretty boy smile and endearing charm on the moms of a hundred other girls who didn’t want their daughters dating the boy with the reputation. I convince myself I’m the first and he’s a natural.

  “We won’t be out late,” Rooks says. “My dad has already reminded me that we have to work on your bay window tomorrow, so I can’t afford to stay out too late.”

  “Be careful,” Mom says. “I still don’t trust those carnival rides.”

  Rooks smiles. “I’ll be her back safely,” he assures her.

  I grab my smaller purse, the one I downsized to after lugging that other one around on the pier. This one contains just the essentials. And the letters. I hug Mom goodbye and hurry outside because I have to tell Rooks everything I know before we meet up with Hector and Natalie and all talk of the tragedy is banned.