The Summer of Lost Wishes

by Jessa Gabrielle

  “And what exactly are we going downtown for?” he asks.

  “A costume,” I tell him. “You’ve seen the flyers plastered everywhere, right?”

  He nods. “You can’t miss them,” he says. “Coral Sands is all about their memorial celebration.”

  The memorial celebration, hosted at Town Hall by the mayor, reminds me of a town prom. We received an invite in the mail, but it was simply addressed to “Current Resident.” Still, I wonder how it felt to address an envelope to our address when an invite hasn’t arrived at our house in the history of its existence.

  This year’s theme is a masquerade party. Guests are encouraged to dress up and wear masks. The invite specified that this is not an event of mourning but an annual gathering of this town as a reminder of ‘the young lives lost that night’ and is intended to celebrate them and honor their memories. I’m not sure if Seth would approve of everyone laughing and drinking champagne while wearing masquerade masks in his honor. In fact, I feel like he’d be disgusted.

  But Seth McIntosh isn’t here to gawk at us and all our inappropriateness. So I’m going.

  “There’s a costume shop near the hardware store,” Rooks informs me once we’re driving through downtown. “We can start there if you want. I think they actually have a contract with Town Hall to order costumes each year that fit the theme.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I tell him.

  Town is busy today. The restaurants are crowded, with cars parallel parked on the streets because the parking lots are full. A group of people hurry across the street at the crosswalk, holding beach towels, coolers, and boogie boards. I wonder if people actually come here just for the memorial celebrations.

  Rooks taps on his steering wheel as we wait. “Any idea of what you’re looking for?” he asks, even though he probably knows nothing about costumes or dresses.

  “Not gray or silver,” I say. I already know all eyes will be on the new girl who moved into the beloved couple’s home. I’m not making it worse on myself. “I figure it’s too shark-like. I’m not even taking that risk.”

  “Smart move,” he says as we get a green light. “I’ll wait and see what you pick out before I get anything.”

  “You’re dressing up?” I ask, a bit surprised. “You do this often?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “No, but I’ve always wanted a jacket with coattails, sort of Phantom of the Opera-ish, but not…because it’s cliché and all guys take that route,” he says. “I’m hoping you’ll be creative and it’ll open up my imagination.”

  He pulls into the parking lot of Cornelia’s Costume Shop. Purple sparkling fabrics hang in the window like a bohemian wardrobe. A pink and orange scarf is intertwined with the purple cloths. This place looks like a gypsy tavern, and I kind of like it.

  “Looks like a crowd,” Rooks says, glancing at the other cars in the parking lot.

  They’re probably last-minute shoppers like me. If Mom had actually told me about the invitation and the theme earlier, I might have started Googling ideas or window-shopping sooner. Her excuse was that the Town Hall party is the same night as her Chesterfield decorating, so she didn’t give it a second thought – and she didn’t think I’d care to go. Maybe if Mom had spent more time observing me than analyzing Rooks, she’d have caught on. But she gave me her other credit card this morning and didn’t set a budget, so she’s completely forgiven.

  “It’s now or never,” I say, grabbing my purse. “Let’s go.”

  A windchime hangs near the entrance, slowly swaying when we walk inside. I prefer it over the usual ‘ding!’ that most businesses use. The shoppers are mostly female, all searching for the perfect mask to match their dresses or costumes.

  I decide to look at the masks first. I’d rather grab one now before they’re picked over. If all else fails, I can wear a shimmery black dress. It’ll match anything. Rooks follows me over to the wall of masquerade masks. A girl and her friend glance at us but return to their conversation about whether the butterfly decoration on a mask will be annoying or not by the end of the night.

  Cornelia has every kind of mask I could dream of – metal lace patterns, steampunk masks with clocks and gears, fantasy masks with butterflies and sparkles, masks with lace and pearls, others with peacock feathers, and any color you could imagine seeing in a fish tank of the most tropical fish on the planet.

  Yet I don’t like any of them.

  The girl with the butterfly mask decides against it and chooses a white lace and pearl mask instead. Her friend picks one that reminds me of an ice princess – white and pastel blue with clear rhinestones.

  “You really don’t like any of them?” Rooks asks, studying the wall. He grabs one from the shelving. “What about this one?”

  It’s turquoise with shading of lighter blues and greens. It sparkles across the cheeks with glitter. Tiny seashells and blue rhinestones decorate it.

  I shake my head. “It’s pretty, but it reminds me of my mom and all of her decorating. I don’t want to look like a mermaid. It’s overdone.”

  Rooks rolls his eyes dramatically before laughing and placing the mask back in its place. “You want to look somewhere else?” he asks. “This is probably your best bet, but some of the other places around here may have limited stock.”

  “It’s worth a try,” I say. I feel a little bit defeated. I thought something would just jump out at me screaming my name. “We can always come back,” I tell him.

  As we walk toward his truck, Rooks comments on a black and white phantom mask he saw inside and how the selection is slim for guys. He refuses to be a phantom, and I’m cool with that. I have plenty of phantoms in my head. That’s all I need.

  But then I see him – my real life phantom.

  “Hide!” I whisper in a hiss. I grab Rooks’ arm and duck down below his driver’s side door.

  He glances around but squats down next to me. “What are we hiding from?” he whispers. His eyes narrow at me, like I’m crazy or he’s confused or both.

  “Frank,” I whisper back, motioning my head toward the hardware store. “The creepy fisherman guy who screamed at my mom and me.”

  “Whoa. What?” Rooks asks, his voice in a normal tone. “You didn’t tell me about this. What happened?”

  I give him a quick version of Frank’s outburst toward us on the pier – how he screamed and people stared and my mom threatened him with the cops. I leave out a few details simply because the sun is reflecting off the pavement and burning holes into my flip-flops and I’m ready to seek refuge in the air conditioned truck.

  I pop up from by the truck and peek through the window to see if Frank is out of sight. His old truck sits in the hardware store’s parking lot, but he appears to have gone inside. I use this moment as my opportunity to rush around and secure a safe spot in the passenger seat.

  Rooks gets in and cranks up, turning the air on full blast. But he refuses to leave until I explain, play-by-play, what happened the other day. So I tell him everything – from the giant fish that flopped around on the pier to the pineapple milkshakes and how we talked about my dad. Then I tell him about Frank and the mop handle shoved in our faces. I quote the words exchanged between my mom and the fisherman. Rooks keeps an eye on my window, watching for whenever Frank makes his exit.

  “There’s another thing,” I say, glancing over my shoulder, as if Frank can hear me from next door. “I think he may know something about the letters. He made it very clear that he didn’t like us being here, opening old wounds by moving into our house, but then I got to thinking. Maybe it’s because he knows something.”

  Rooks nods. “We need to bridge the gap from the time of the tragedy to the time when the letters were put in the wall,” he says. He leans his head back against the headrest. “I wonder who found the letters afterward. But why give them to Frank? He was like what, eight years old?”

  I shrug, but I realize we’re covering fifty years of time. “You know, those letters may not have even been in the wal
l that long,” I rationalize. “We’ve been thinking they’ve been there for fifty years, and maybe they have, but what if someone found them later? They might have figured the house had been empty for decades, so it was the best place to hide them. We’ve been looking at it from the wrong angle.”

  I suddenly feel more hopeless about solving this puzzle than I did before. Anyone could have found his letters. His family may have or a friend who wanted some of his belongings. The person could have stumbled upon them, thought it made Seth look badly, and then hid them in the one place no one would ever look. Or maybe someone connected to Rosa came across them and wanted to keep her name out of it. The person behind the letters in the wall could have moved away or died by now. It could be a really simple cover up to protect Seth’s reputation and the memory of him with Hanna.

  “There he is,” Rooks says, pointing toward the hardware store.

  Frank tosses a coil of rope over the side of his truck. That sends up all kinds of red flags. Next he’ll have a roll of duct tape.

  “Don’t panic,” Rooks says. “He’s a fisherman. They use rope a lot.”

  An employee pushes out a cart with planks of wood and helps Frank load them into the bed of the truck. I tell myself he’s probably building something. A bench, maybe.

  But then the employee hands Frank an ax, and I audibly gasp.

  “You can’t tell me he needs an ax for fishing,” I say, turning toward Rooks and hiding my face from the window. “What’s he going to do? Chop the rope? Cut off fish heads?”

  I barely turn my head, keeping my hair over my cheek so he can’t see me if he looks over. I peer through the strands of my hair. Frank nods to the employee, places the ax behind the seat inside the cab of his truck, and glances around suspiciously before getting in.

  “Follow him,” I say. “Keep a distance so it’s not obvious, but follow him.”

  I don’t have to explain myself or defend my spontaneous decision. Rooks pulls out of the parking lot just a moment or two after Frank leaves the hardware store. He lets a yellow Beetle slip in between us before the first red light.

  Frank turns into the parking lot of a familiar location – Casa Garcia. He parks in a ‘take out only’ spot and locks his truck before going inside. Rooks parks across the street.

  “He’s going to kill Rosa,” I say, even though it makes zero sense and I realize it once the words formulate.

  “Or maybe he likes her food?” Rooks says. He seems sort of embarrassed that we followed the guy just for Mexican takeout.

  “You know it’s more than a coincidence,” I tell him. I shake my head in defiance.

  There’s no way anyone could convince me that Frank is casually buying fishing supplies and lunch. He just bought a serial killer starter kit, and now he’s canvassing Casa Garcia to study his future victim.

  “Here he comes,” Rooks says, his voice low, even though we’re across the street. “Looks like he has…takeout.”

  We remain parked in this spot until Frank cranks up his truck and eventually pulls back onto the main street of downtown. He doesn’t go far, though. He parks in a nearby parking lot, close to the docks. He gets out of the truck, food bag and a bottled water in hand, and cuts in between two buildings.

  Rooks throws his truck into DRIVE and zips down past the buildings to see where the fisherman went. An alleyway with two dumpsters is planted between the downtown businesses. It’s dreary, even on a pretty summer day like today.

  We pull around to the exit, but Frank is nowhere in sight.

  “Looks like he got away,” Rooks says. He pulls into an open lot to turn around.

  A vintage thrift store sits on the opposite side of the street. A shimmery yellow dress adorns the mannequin in the window. I wonder if they’d have something for the Town Hall party.

  “Detour,” I say, pointing toward Second Wind. “They may have something more unique than Cornelia’s did.”

  Rooks speeds across the street when there’s a break in traffic. He parks directly in front of the door, as there’s not nearly as big a crowd here as there was at the costume shop.

  “Lead the way,” he says, holding his arm out for me.

  The lady behind the counter asks if we need any help, but we tell her we’re just browsing for now. I stroll over to the dress in the window, but there’s no way I could pull it off. I’d have to be a brunette to wear that shade of yellow, and I’d need a much better tan.

  “Piper,” Rooks says, motioning me his way. “I’ve found what you’re looking for.”

  He holds up a masquerade mask – pink with sequins, feathers, a touch of lace, and a pink flower. The beak extends from the mask at a curved angle. It’s a flamingo.

  He smiles proudly. “You can’t deny this,” he says. “Am I good or am I good?”

  Oh, he’s so incredibly good.

  Seth’s Letter

  This is it. I’m going to do it. I’m ending things with Hanna. I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to tell her, but I won’t reveal our secrets. I like to think of it as setting her free, like I’m giving her a chance to run down a new path and find a new dream, one that’s her own.

  I don’t know how she will react. I don’t know how anyone will react. I hate to see her hurt because she doesn’t deserve that, but she also doesn’t deserve to be in a marriage with someone who loves someone else.

  But I’m doing this for us, so we can escape. So we can leave. I need you to be ready. I’m telling her now. I’m not waiting for graduation or after exams. I’ll deal with my family. I’ll pretend I’m stressed or scared. I’ll say I need time to process all of it. I’ll give them false hope. But the day after graduation, we are making our escape. Be ready.

  Rosa’s Reply

  I’ll be there. I have our IDs ready. It wasn’t easy, but the money you gave me was enough to convince my contact to do it. No one will know who we are, where we’re from, or what we left behind.

  We’ll be traces in the wind, remnants of falling stars and what used to be lost wishes. I’m scared, but I’m excited. I’m ready for this. It won’t be long before you can finally take me dancing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I wake up with my face buried into Rosa’s words. I jump up in a hurry, folding the letter and stashing it under my pillow. It takes a moment to realize where I am. I inhale sharply but exhale slowly. This is my new bedroom. Sunlight pours in from the balcony window. I can’t believe I completely crashed while reading her letter.

  After double checking that my door is locked, I retrieve the crumpled paper from under my pillow and reread the short paragraph. This was it. She was ready. They were really going to do it. All of her wishes were coming true. She finally caught a falling star.

  I don’t want to read the ending because I know what happened shortly after. I wish I could just stop here and be oblivious to what played out in the following days. I could believe that they made their great escape, went to a big city, danced under the lights of a nightclub, and lived happily ever after.

  A drill buzzes outside. I fold the letter and place it with the others, deep in the confines of my purse. There’s one piece of paper left, but I don’t have time to read it if I want to put on a fresh face before seeing Rooks today. Vanity wins again.

  Once I’m dressed and presentable, I stroll out onto the balcony to see Mr. Carter, Rooks, and Mac working on the fence that Mom wanted at the last minute. It’s a replica of the small fence I saw at the beach near the sand dunes. Mom made an offhand remark about how cute and rustic it was that day we drank milkshakes, but I never thought she’d actually want a weathered fence around our yard. She insisted that it was for privacy. Even if it’s not, she knows too well what lines to use on me because it worked.

  The scent of coffee fills the entire house once I step out of my bedroom. The dishwasher growls downstairs, and Mom’s voice floats in the air. She says something about tea light candles and seashells. She was up late last night carefully boxing up her decorations f
or this upcoming party in Chesterfield.

  I sort of wish it didn’t fall on the night of the Town Hall party. I’d feel better about going if she were close by. I don’t trust these townsfolk alone. I know Rooks will be with me, and he’ll guard me with his life. Mr. Carter will be a phone call away. But I feel like I’m taking on the world by myself now, a little baby flamingo out of the nest. Coral Sands versus the pink baby bird.

  Mom looks toward me when I walk downstairs. “Go try on the dress,” she says, strung out on excitement and coffee. “I want to see it on you in person. I loved the pictures.”

  Good morning to you too, Mom. I almost don’t take her seriously, but she stands up, abandoning her boxes of seashells, driftwood wreaths, and blue table cloths.

  She follows me back to my room, plops herself down on my bed, and waits while I change in the bathroom. The dress is perfect. It’s a shorter dress, a bit more fun and flirty than elegant. It’s a hot pink strapless with lots of sequins and a tulle skirt to give it that extra flamingo fluff.

  When I walk back into my bedroom, she jumps up with excitement like it’s my wedding day rather than a costume for a Town Hall masquerade party.

  “With the mask,” she says, reaching for it on the bedside table.

  Rooks found a perfect jacket with the long coattails he wanted. It’s charcoal gray and makes his eyes pop, even behind the dark phoenix mask he got at Second Wind. The lady at the checkout register made a lame remark about two birds flocking together, and I desperately hope no one says anything similar at the party.

  “Ohhhh, I love it,” Mom says dreamily, clasping her hands on either of her cheeks. “You’re the prettiest flamingo I’ve ever seen.”

  After she’s through admiring and oooh’ing and ahh’ing, I change out of the costume before anyone else can see me in it. Then I roam outside to see how the fence is coming along. Rooks wears an old T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and I melt instantly upon seeing his muscles with that power drill.