by Lucy Finn
Corrine reached out with her free hand and fumbled around blindly until she found Hildy’s arm. She squeezed it. ‘‘Hildy, listen. Just give Bugs the bottle. The genie is a figment of your imagination.’’
‘‘No, he’s not.’’
‘‘Yes, he is.’’
‘‘No, he’s not.’’
‘‘Yes! Yes, he is!’’
‘‘No, he is not,’’ a deep voice boomed.
Corrine bolted upright, her eyes wide open. A big man wearing a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt and walking shorts stood in the doorway. Her cold compress hit the floor. Ice cubes skated across the tile. ‘‘Don’t kill us. She’ll give you the bottle!’’ she screamed.
Tony G.’s eyes sought Hildy’s. ‘‘Now I know who you take after. Your sister doesn’t listen either.’’
‘‘Corrine,’’ Hildy said, quickly standing next to her sister and putting her hand on her shoulder. ‘‘Relax. It’s okay. This is Antonius Eugenius. The genie I told you about. He likes to be called Tony G.’’
Corrine turned on Hildy. ‘‘Are you crazy! Are you out of your mind! He’s just some guy off the beach. Those clothes are straight from Ron Jon’s.’’ Her expression changed. She looked at her sister with pity. ‘‘Hildy, what load of garbage did he feed you, you poor gullible child? Did you give him money?’’
Then, bristling with outrage, she twisted her head toward Tony G. ‘‘Did you tell her you were a genie, you … you scam artist! I should call the cops, that’s what I should do. Hildy, give me your cell phone!’’
Tony G. smiled. He extended his camera phone toward Corrine. ‘‘Lady, here, you can borrow mine, but why don’t you wait a minute.’’ With that he tossed a handful of glittering particles outward. They formed a golden rainbow that turned into a shining arch above Corrine and Hildy and the chaise as well. The temperature in the room plummeted. The air around the genie became as liquid as mercury. It swirled and dipped in undulating waves. Then it disappeared. A warm breeze returned. Tony G. stood in the middle of the room with a laurel wreath on his dark curls, his sword at his side, a staff in his hand, and a toga on his magnificent body.
Corrine’s eyes rolled back in her head again and she sank unconscious to the floor.
After a few minutes Corrine had regained her senses and her pugnaciousness. She insisted on pinching Tony G.’s arm to see if he was real. She examined the iron sword he carried. She queried the purpose of the staff. (Tony explained that it was called a vitis, a symbol of authority that some centurions wielded like a policeman’s nightstick). She peppered him with questions. She demanded to see the bottle, which Hildy had been keeping in the refrigerator.
While Tony G. patiently bore Corrine’s relentless questioning, Hildy left to get the bottle for Corrine to inspect. She had just walked back into the enclosed sunporch when she saw a bronze Ford Fusion parked next to her red VW Beetle in front of the cottage. Had the thugs come for her again? Her heart raced as she got ready to sound the alarm. Then she saw Mike emerge from the driver’s seat.
She thrust the bottle toward Tony G. ‘‘Get in here, quick!’’ He complied in a flash, leaving a luminescent trail of silver that hovered in the air. The bell rang. Hildy handed the bottle to a dumbfounded Corrine and went to answer the door.
‘‘You didn’t call me,’’ Hildy said in lieu of hello.
‘‘You weren’t answering my calls,’’ Mike countered.
‘‘Should I have?’’ she said, as icy as the cubes in the lemonade.
Mike couldn’t understand why Hildy had to make this so damned difficult. He didn’t understand women at all. ‘‘Yes, you should,’’ he said. ‘‘Will you answer if I call you?’’
‘‘Okay, I will.’’ She started to shut the door.
‘‘Wait!’’
‘‘What? I thought we were done.’’
‘‘Hildy, come on. I drove all the way up here from Atlantic City to talk to you. I really need to talk to you.’’
‘‘Well, I have company.’’
Mike’s face darkened. ‘‘Is that count fellow in there? What’s he doing here?’’
Hildy flung the door open so Mike could see inside. ‘‘No, Corrine is here. Mike, you remember my sister, don’t you?’’
Mike sheepishly nodded his head. ‘‘Hi, Corrine. It’s been a long time.’’
‘‘Come on in here, Michael Amante,’’ Corrine ordered. ‘‘I would like to say something to you.’’
Mike stepped into the room. The air smelled like ozone after a lightning strike. ‘‘You visiting for a while?’’ he asked.
‘‘Just the afternoon. But sit down, will you? Do you know that you are killing your mother?’’
‘‘Corrine!’’ Hildy gasped.
Mike’s face paled. ‘‘Killing my mother? Is she sick? I haven’t been back to see her in months. Maybe I should call home.’’ He grabbed his cell phone from the holder on his belt.
‘‘Hold it!’’ Corrine ordered. ‘‘Let me ask you something. Why haven’t you been to see your mother in months? You can drive there in a couple of hours. She raised you alone after your dad died. She sacrificed plenty to get you through school. So what? You are too big and important to go home now that your name gets in the papers?’’
Guilt kept Mike from meeting Corrine’s eyes. ‘‘No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve been busy, that’s all.’’
‘‘Too busy to see your mother? She’s not getting any younger, you know. One of these days she may not be there for you to see her. Michael Amante, I’m really disappointed in you.’’
Mike felt terrible. He had missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and his mother’s birthday. He had sent her a present, but he knew in his heart that wasn’t right. He stared at his hands. ‘‘My mother and Kiki don’t get along very well, and Kiki doesn’t like to go up to Wilkes-Barre. She gets bored. She says there’s nothing to do. She says that my mother can come to us if she wants to see me.’’
‘‘That’s what Kiki says. Is that what you think?’’
‘‘No, I guess not.’’ He finally looked at Corrine. ‘‘I didn’t realize how deeply I was hurting Mom. I’ll call her later and I’ll get up to see her as soon as I can.’’
‘‘Michael, I’m not one to mince words—’’
‘‘You can say that again,’’ Hildy muttered under her breath. Corrine shot her a dirty look.
‘‘But the next time you call your mother should be when you tell her you’ve broken off your engagement to this Kiki person. Any woman who tries to drive a wedge between a son and his mother is selfish to the core. It shows her true colors. And another thing—’’
Oh-oh, Hildy thought, here it comes.
‘‘If you think you’re going to hurt my sister by playing with her emotions, you’ve got another think coming. Why, never in my life did I expect you, of all people, to—’’
‘‘Corrine!’’ Hildy interrupted. ‘‘It’s between Mike and me.’’
Corrine shut her mouth, pressed her lips firmly together, and crossed her arms over her chest.
‘‘Look, Corrine, I drove up here to talk to Hildy, so if she’ll come with me, we’ll go out for a while, and I’ll tell her what’s on my mind. I promise you I have no intention of hurting her.’’ He stood up and extended his hand to Hildy. She nodded and took it. They walked to the door.
‘‘Mike!’’ Corrine’s voice was sharp as a razor’s edge.
He paused and looked at her.
‘‘Remember. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. And I will personally send you there myself if you so much as give my sister reason to shed one tear. You hear me?’’
Mike nodded, and he and Hildy escaped through the front door as fast as they could.
Chapter 21
‘‘Where’s your big car?’’ Hildy asked as she hopped into the Ford.
‘‘I’m getting rid of it. I’m using a rental until my new car gets delivered,’’ he said, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.
‘‘You seem so pleased with yourself. What did you buy? A Lamborghini?’’
‘‘No, better,’’ he teased.
‘‘Not a Ferrari?’’ She was thinking what a waste of money that would be.
‘‘No, not a Ferrari.’’ He grinned.
‘‘What then? I give up. A Rolls? A Bentley?’’
‘‘A Prius.’’
‘‘No! You didn’t. Really? Why on earth did you buy a hybrid? The other day you didn’t seem to care at all about your carbon footprint.’’
‘‘A lot has changed since the other day, hasn’t it?’’ he said, and looked at her.
‘‘Yes. Yes, it has.’’ Hildy glanced down at her hands, suddenly shy.
‘‘You want me to park somewhere, and we’ll sit in the car and talk?’’ Mike asked as he drove to the corner.
‘‘Oh no!’’ Hildy cried, her high spirits returning. ‘‘I couldn’t bear to sit in the car on such a beautiful day. Let’s head down to Barnegat Lighthouse. It’s a very special place. I want you to see it. We can talk there. Turn left and keep going until you get to the end of the island.’’
‘‘Whatever you want, sure.’’ Michael started north past Ron Jon’s and the junction with Route 72. In minutes, they had left Ship Bottom and entered the adjacent town of Surf City, as its onion-shaped water tower clearly proclaimed.
Hildy provided a running commentary as Mike traveled slowly down the boulevard. The first thing that he absolutely had to see, she insisted, was Woodies Drive-In. There it was on their left. She pointed at the vintage white building through the windshield. Didn’t it look just like restaurants did in the 1950s? she asked. Maybe they should stop for a hot dog, a foot-long one just like they used to get at the Ranch Wagon in Dallas. Remember?
Mike absorbed her happy chatter like a sponge. Hildy didn’t talk about her meetings with movie stars or European royalty. She didn’t keep pulling down the visor mirror to check her makeup. She didn’t take out her cell phone and start making calls when he was right in the middle of a sentence.
He gladly pulled into Woodies. They went inside and ordered hot dogs with everything and Cokes with lots of ice. Then they finished off their meal with cones of soft vanilla ice cream, which they carried back outside. In the stifling temperature that hovered around ninety, the ice cream soon dripped all over their fingers, so Mike challenged her to a race to see who could lick the ice cream down to the top of the waffle cone fastest.
No biting, they said together. That would be cheating.
After two or three big licks, Mike had to quit because he got brain freeze. He made the funniest faces. Hildy laughed and kept licking. She won. She stuck out her white tongue at him. He couldn’t help himself; he grabbed her around the shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on the nose.
They got back into the rental car and a few blocks later, Hildy told Mike to slow down to see the How You Brewin’? Internet Café where she usually checked her e-mail and drank espresso.
‘‘Can we stop?’’ she asked, her blue eyes so irresistible he couldn’t say no. Inside, Mike hung around the front counter, while Hildy logged in on one of the computers and deleted all her junk mail. There wasn’t anything else in her mailbox, she informed him when she rejoined him just minutes later at the counter. She paid for her time on the computer and bought them two huge chocolate chip cookies, ‘‘for the road,’’ she said. Then they were off again.
When they were nearly out of Surf City and entering the next town of North Beach, she squealed and pointed to a store on the corner of an ordinary strip mall. ‘‘There’s Ciao Bella. The owner makes wonderful jewelry, and it’s not expensive either. And the clothing is really cute.’’
‘‘Do you want me to stop?’’
‘‘Oh no! I have all the clothes I can use right now. I just wanted to show it to you. I liked it, so, you know, I wanted to share it.’’
‘‘I don’t think I can use a wraparound skirt anytime soon,’’ he joked.
She gave him a little punch in the bicep. They both laughed, and then they exchanged glances and got very quiet. Mike reached over and put his right arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him, like he used to when they drove around in his pickup truck. The center console got in the way, but neither of them cared.
They rode along in a contented silence for a while, while the island narrowed even more until it was barely a city block wide. Suddenly Hildy yelled at him to stop the car.
‘‘Look! Do you see that!’’ She excitedly pointed at a newly constructed, grayish white house on the bay side of the road, nearly hidden by some scrub pines. The building was palatial. It had to cost more than a million dollars, but it had a giant plastic Slurpee container, or at least that’s what Hildy thought it looked like, stuck right in the middle of its front. The oddly shaped ‘‘tower’’ was sitting on an angle, as if someone had tipped it slightly to take a sip. Its flat roof looked exactly like a soda container’s lid too, and there was a round raised skylight smack in the middle of it that resembled the bubble where you’d insert a straw.
Mike leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering out of the car’s windshield in disbelief. ‘‘It’s definitely just like a big plastic soda cup. And that fence around the bottom makes it look as if it’s sitting inside a cardboard take-out carrier. I’ve never seen anything like it.’’
‘‘What were they thinking?’’ Hildy giggled.
‘‘I think it’s an homage,’’ Mike suggested with great seriousness. ‘‘This must be the home of the 7-Eleven Slurpee inventor. His millions were made from blue raspberry ice.’’
Hildy nodded gravely. ‘‘I do believe you are right, professor. It’s a brilliant and daring public tribute to one’s roots.’’ They looked at each other and smiled.
All the gloom that had been following Mike around for days, for months really, vanished. He looked at Hildy grinning at him, her dimples showing. She appeared even more adorable today in her shorts and simple top than she did all dolled up last night. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He realized he was in love, and he was, at last, a happy man.
At the very northern tip of the island, on the south side of Barnegat Inlet, ‘‘Old Barney’’ stood in the spot where it had been built in 1859, using a design created by General George C. Meade. For nearly a hundred and fifty years it had survived the eroding waves and the worst of hurricanes. It remained solid and stately at the edge of the sea, but was no longer a working light. Now it was open to the public.
Hildy showed Mike where to enter the state park’s parking lot. They quickly climbed out of the car and walked toward the lighthouse. Neither of them knew how it happened but they were holding hands.
Painted white on the bottom and a dark barn red on the upper half, Barnegat Lighthouse rose 172 feet above sea level. A sign outside warned that there were 217 steps to the top, and visitors should not attempt the climb if they:Have or had a heart condition
Have or had serious heart trouble
Have or had serious back trouble
Have or had recent surgery or illness
Are subject to dizziness
Are afraid of heights
They read the notice together. Mike kissed Hildy’s temple and said, ‘‘I may have a heart condition, but I don’t think it’s medical.’’
Hildy’s own heart skipped a beat at his words. ‘‘Should we go up to the top?’’ she asked. ‘‘I see a lot of people walking on the jetty, but I don’t think anybody else is crazy enough to climb those stairs in this heat and humidity.’’
‘‘So we’re crazy, you mean?’’ Mike teased.
‘‘Without a doubt. I really wanted to show you the view from the top. But it isn’t just the view. You’ll see. There’s history in the stairs. You can feel it.’’
Mike studied Hildy. She thrilled him, he had to admit it to himself. He was hooked but good. ‘‘You have a very vivid imagination, don’t you?’’
Hildy shook her head. ‘‘It’s not my imagination
. Mike, I’ve learned some things recently. One of them is that if you allow yourself to be open, you’d be surprised what exists in this world that most people think is just a fantasy.’’
‘‘I know you surprise me,’’ Mike said, pulling her close and gazing down at her. ‘‘You amaze me. You stupefy me. You dazzle me.’’
‘‘And you are so full of it, Mike!’’ Hildy disengaged from his arms and tugged him by the hand to the narrow door that led into the historic structure.
As it turned out, Mike truly was overtaken by a sense of awe once he stood inside. The yellow metal staircase spiraled upward as far as he could see, like a wild abstract sculpture. Their voices echoed off the brick walls. They started climbing. The risers were steep and narrow. They were grateful that they could rest on a landing about every twenty steps.
Sweat glistened on Hildy’s arms and legs by the time they reached the small chamber on the top where the famous Fresnel lens, six feet in diameter and ten feet high, once provided a beacon for ships sailing between New York City and Europe. Mike stopped to admire the part of it visible in the circular room.
Hildy waited a minute before pulling him away and leading him to a miniature door. It led to the widow’s walk outside and Mike had to duck down to go through it.
In the open air, high above the coast, the green-gray sea stretching to infinity below them, the wind howled with an unexpected ferocity. It whipped Hildy’s hair around her face. It rippled their clothing.
‘‘This feels so wonderful, doesn’t it?’’ she called to Mike over the noise of the wind.
‘‘It’s cooler than inside, but that wind is pretty strong, don’t you think?’’ he yelled back. They stood on a three-foot-wide ledge inside a cage made of iron bars. No one could fall from this high perch or be blown off by accident. It was easy to imagine that the powerful wind could have swept someone off if there were no bars.
Hildy had to shout to be heard over the rushing air. ‘‘It’s exciting! The energy just fills me up.’’ She spread her arms and let the wind encircle her.