“Hi,” Layla and I say. I think she just gave me the up-and-down bitch glance.
“Layla’s been here awhile. She’s researching indigenous flowering plants.”
Awkward silence.
“That’s really cool,” I say. “I wish I could hang out, but I promised my uncles I’d help them before dinner. Nice meeting you, Layla. See you later, babe.”
He could have followed me, but he let me go. He stayed with Tits Number Three.
I slam the plates down on the long tables in the outdoor pavilion and stick bunches of flowers in vases because God forbid Wes caters an event that isn’t over-the-top perfect.
Enzo sends three What’s going on? texts. I ignore them and the What’s everybody wearing? text from Paige. Guests start arriving to crowd the bar and chug their mai tais, and I’m still in a sweaty tank top and running shorts. Mom’s going to die of embarrassment on her big night.
Gram and Janie nibble buttermilk biscuits with honey butter and play the word game while I search the pavilion for Enzo.
“Honey,” Janie says.
“That’s an easy one. This story is rated R because I was topless. But everybody’s topless in that particular village,” Gram says.
“I like this game,” Gloria says.
“Me too,” Vito says.
I think of the Gathering Wall. Me too. Me too. Me too.
The steel drum band plays in the background as people from the ship and island mingle, and Francesca steps onto the stage.
“What a treat to see so many faces I love in one place. Thank you, Billy and Wes, for preparing this gorgeous feast. I will certainly hire you boys for my next meet-and-greet in New York.” She claps her hands twice. “Now, before we begin, we have a little surprise for one of our beloved guests.”
I spot Enzo sitting with Ty and a group of island people. I don’t see Layla.
Francesca calls Mom up to the stage. “Trish, the floor is yours.”
Mom takes the mic. Her hand shakes a bit, and her face goes red. I’m getting anxious watching.
“Um. Thank you, Francesca. Bear with me. I prepared something to read.” She clears her throat. “Gloria is a Wishwell patient and a dear friend. She has lived a life of public service and devoted countless hours to helping those in need. One of Gloria’s greatest gifts is her talent for creative cooking. The problem is she stored all her recipes in her head. Until now.” Mom pauses and motions Roberta up to the podium. Roberta holds up a bound copy of These Fine Foods.
Gloria holds on to the minister with wide eyes and a cherry-lipped smile.
“I’m going to try to do this without tears,” Mom continues. “Gloria, you may have recognized the biscuits and honey butter. They’re yours. Everything Wes and Billy made today is from this book. Roberta and I wanted everyone to have a taste of your gift. We can’t wait to give this book to your children and grandchildren. Each recipe comes with a sweet Gloria story. And each story tells us how you healed others with your food. Thank you, Gloria, for sharing your gift with us.”
The minister takes Gloria by the arm and they walk slowly to the podium, where they embrace Mom and Roberta.
Mom looks down and scans the crowd. She sees me and waves, her face flushed with pride and contentment. There’s not even a hint of why are you dressed like THAT? in her expression. I feel bad for making fun of Gloria’s Chicken Cordon Bleu. It’s actually delicious. So are the lasagna and the stuffed shells and the sweet potato casserole and the fruit cobbler.
I text Mom: I’m so proud of you. Remember this feeling, because Dad and I think you’ve found your calling.
As I hit SEND, I get a text from Enzo: Are you finished with your jealous teen rage? It’s slightly endearing but let’s not let it ruin my plans?
I don’t reply. Why wouldn’t Layla pounce? She’s on an island in the middle of the Pacific, and he’s fresh meat. I leave the table during a heated conversation about anal bleaching.
“Yes, Vito. They’re all doing it.”
“Why on earth would anyone put bleach on their anus?” Gloria says. “That is yet another reason I’m glad I’m on my way out.”
Paige and her mom are at the playground near the beach, pushing Grace on a swing. Grace is shrieking with joy, unaware that her entire world is falling apart. Right now, life is a fast swing on a warm beach, and that’s all that matters.
“Maddie, come to the beach with us. They do beach movies for the families here, and tonight it’s Winnie the Pooh. It’s Gracie’s very favorite book. What are the odds?”
“I’ll walk you over there,” I say, looking down at a text from Janie.
We’re leaving. What are you doing?
“Isn’t this the most amazing place?” Paige walks with an unsteady gait because of the sandy incline. Of course, the tumor pressing on her brain doesn’t help. “It’s spring break meets a science fiction movie. Did you know they have volcanologists in residence right now who go into the volcano and test a new theory about lava chemicals curing cancer? And they have a bakery where they make yam croissants, and they do poetry readings at Walden Pond every Friday night?”
“Don’t you kind of feel like the island is alive?” I say.
“I totally know what you’re saying. It’s invigorating.”
Several families gather on the beach in front of a giant inflatable movie screen. The sun, almost below the horizon line now, paints a purple-pink backdrop for Winnie the Pooh. Paige’s mom and Grace plop down on a beach towel. Two bouncy-haired little girls run up and fawn all over Grace, who points at Lane and Uncle Babysitter as they walk our way with a big bag of popcorn.
Enzo texts a picture of a freckle-faced guy with a blond pubic-hair beard. The caption says Layla’s fiancé Ted. Then he writes, Caveman wants woman in kayak now.
I’m sorry, I text.
Forgotten, he texts. My stomach feels instantly better, and I wish I had some of Gloria’s buttermilk biscuits.
“Going kayaking, P. Don’t miss me too much.”
“Love you!” Paige snuggles in between Grace and Wes.
It’s almost dark when I reach the bend in the beach and practically crash into Jeb wearing a forehead flashlight. They’re all wearing forehead flashlights.
Enzo hugs me hard and whispers, “I’m all yours, Maddie.”
And I believe him.
We carry the kayaks over our heads. It’s a long walk down the beach, and it’s getting darker by the minute. We finally arrive at the mouth of the saltwater marsh that leads to the lagoons and get into the water. I’ve kayaked plenty in my life, always during the day and always at our rinky-dink lake club. Here it’s dark and murky, and the trees cast shadow creatures over our caravan of wusses.
“Please tell us there are no sharks in this water,” Jeb says.
“Not usually,” Enzo says. “I mean, it’s possible, but not likely.”
“I prefer impossible,” Janie yells from way behind us.
“How much longer? I’m dying back here,” Ty whines.
“It’s worth it. Stay with me, mates,” Enzo yells. “When we get there, you need to be silent. The quieter we are, the more brilliant they will be.”
“Okay,” Jeb yells at the top of his lungs.
“God, you’re annoying,” Camilla says.
We settle into the rhythm of paddles slapping water. It’s pitch-black now, except for the melon ball moon and the head flashlights. Enzo points out a bluish light. It gets brighter and fans out in front of us. “The phosphorescence comes from a colony of plankton that emit an eerie glow. They call them the fireflies of the sea, and they’ve found a home here on Wishwell Island,” he says.
The lagoon feeds another larger lagoon and then one larger than that. They’re all aglow.
“This is out of control,” Jeb says. “This is a legitimate snow globe moment.”
“Shh,” we all shush Jeb.
We turn off the headlamps and Enzo and I paddle to the middle of the largest lagoon. We stop and rest the paddl
es on the kayak. The stars fan out in waves, brilliant against the night. It’s impossible to know where earth and space begin or end. It’s one fantastic stretch of dark and light and streaming, glowing blues and greens. I am awestruck that life can give us such breathtaking beauty.
We turn and face each other. I look at Enzo, then out at the expanse of color radiating around us. Enzo dips his hand into the lagoon and drags it through the glow, making patterns in the water.
I press my forehead against his and we sit, knee to knee, forehead to forehead, breathing the same slow breaths. Suddenly he looks up, as if he just remembered something important. He stares at me with serious eyes.
“I love you, Maddie.”
“I love you, too, Enzo.”
TWENTY-THREE
ON THE WAY back through the marsh, Jeb and Camilla had a big fight after he tried to stand up in the kayak and tipped it over. He screamed like a maniac in four feet of water, and Ty and Enzo had to fish him out. Jeb should spend the rest of his life in Brooklyn.
We got back to the cabin, and Enzo said it again. Once might have been an accident. Twice makes it real.
Only two other guys have ever told me they loved me. Neither of them counted. My junior-year boyfriend, Brett, said it once right after I agreed to give him a BJ. My mouth touched his thing for less than one second before I bolted to Remy’s bathroom to brush my lips raw with her toothbrush in an act of messed-up germ logic. Brett told everyone he got a BJ, and I let him have his moment of glory because I knew he was too dumb to go to college, the mythical land of bountiful BJs.
Ethan said he loved me every time he was drunk and suffocating me with his dry humps. I never bothered to say it back.
Janie helps me process my first real “I love you” over a breakfast of toast and frozen yogurt on our balcony. “A guy saying he loves you in the middle of a bioluminescent lagoon in Oceania, while sober, counts.”
“What if he just feels sorry for me because of Gram?”
“That’s stupid.”
“What if he thinks it’s love but it’s only lust?”
“That’s possible. But, really, how do you tell the difference?” Janie crumbles her toast and sprinkles it over her frozen yogurt. “Just go with it. I’ve never seen you so needy, Maddie. Maybe you’re better off with somebody you can boss around, like Ethan.”
“I didn’t boss Ethan around.”
“You made him go out of his way to pick you up for school so you could play on your phone.”
“He liked picking me up for school.”
“Just be normal. A perfect guy loves you. Deal with it.”
Our bees vibrate at the same time.
“Uh-oh. Now what?” I say. “It’s not even eight in the morning.”
Wishwell guests, please come to the lobby. Pronto. Don’t worry. It’s all good. (You don’t need to put on your face for this, Gloria.) Eddie
We wait in the lobby like sleepy hotel patrons during a fire drill. I almost panic a little when I don’t see Aunt Rose, but then remember she’s accounted for in the freezer. Heinz is the only one not in pajamas. Paige’s dad and Lane drag a trunk off the elevator. Her mom follows them with Francesca, who is holding Grace. I have no idea what’s going on.
“You had better give me a grandchild someday, Enzo. This is delightful.”
She holds Grace’s drooling mouth up to Enzo’s cheek.
Paige texts me: Come meet me by the elevators.
I quietly slip away from the crowd and find a smiling Paige standing in the very spot I last saw Skinny Dave.
“Oh, you look so cute in your jammies,” she says.
“What’s going on, Paige?” I study her face. There’s grief behind the unrelenting smile.
“Little sis, I’m staying here, on Wishwell Island.”
I feel a massive sense of relief. “Oh, thank God.”
My birthday wish came true.
“All along, this didn’t feel right. Like I jumped into it too quickly.” She looks down at her bee and texts Lane to wait a minute. “I was so angry, Maddie. When I had Grace, they told me I couldn’t hold her, that it was too dangerous, because of the seizures. I was so mad at the universe, I just wanted to be done.”
I nod.
“And then my parents were suffering; all the stress was killing them. And poor, wonderful Lane, I don’t know, I just wanted to make it easy for them.”
“I totally understand.” I can’t stop staring at her, soaking up every last Paige second.
“But even though all the doctors told me this is terminal, and I get what terminal means, I’m not ready to let go. I’m not ready yet. If there’s a shred of hope, I’m going to hold on to it. Astrid convinced me last night that this is where I belong right now.”
“I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.” I reach over and hug Paige for as long as I can before she pulls away.
“I have something for you.” She wipes the tears with her T-shirt and pulls something from her shorts pocket. It’s a tiny anchor pin.
“An anchor, that’s so sweet,” I say.
“It’s my Delta Gamma pin.” She smiles and pins it onto my pajama top. “It symbolizes hope.”
“Oh, Paige.” There are no words.
“Now, this is not a gift. I need you to hold on to it for Grace. Lane will never keep track of it.”
I want to say, Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to be fine. But I don’t.
“I promise I’ll keep it safe.” I touch the pin. “Thank you, Paige, for being the best big sister ever,” I say.
She holds my shoulders and stares into my eyes. “We’re family now, Maddie.”
We make our way to the emotional crowd.
Wes can’t let go. He and Paige embrace Grace in a baby sandwich hug. Grace puts her pudgy little hand on Paige’s face to sop up the tears. “It’s okay, Gracie. We’re going to the fun playground.”
The engine rumbles, and they have no choice but to leave us waving frantically in our pajamas. We run up to the top deck and keep waving until Wishwell Island is a dot on the sea.
A group text comes just as Uncle Babysitter is starting to calm down. “‘We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet. ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.”—A. A. Milne
Janie and I discover the giant vat of jelly beans waiting for us in front of our door.
“I bet you can eat a bunch of those now, huh, you little ho bag?” Janie says.
I text Enzo from under the covers. Does Wishwell Island ever cure anyone?
Yes, he answers. I don’t press for details.
Yes is good enough for me.
Heinz finished the letters. All hands on deck in the ballroom. Aaron
“That’s our cue,” I say to Enzo.
We form an assembly line. Heinz is sitting at a table with a stack of letters, 531 to be exact, under a red stone paperweight. To add to the heartbreak, Heinz taped a sign to the table, written in shaky old-man script, that says Thank you, Wishwell Friends. For each letter, he lifts the paperweight, studies the paper, closes his eyes for a second, kisses the page, and hands it to Jeb or Janie, his trusty rollers. The next group neatly places them in the bottles.
The high-pressure tossing job goes to the young and virile team of Enzo, Burt, Wes, Billy, and me, which is a joke because Enzo is the only good thrower in the group. But we’re very careful. We know what’s in these bottles. We know they are the painful manifestations of a man’s guilt and grief.
As we hurl each fragile papier-mâché bottle into the sea, I wonder which ones Aunt Rose painted during her last moments on earth. I wonder what terrible things happened to those poor people Heinz turned in. I know the act of throwing letters into the sea can’t ever change anything, but somehow it matters. It matters to Heinz and it matters to the Wishwellians.
When we finish, there’s a collective sigh and a palpable emptiness. Dad and Bob pull chairs close to Heinz and the three of them stare out at the waves in silence. The rest of us file pas
t them. He shakes my hand and thanks me. I bend down and kiss him on the cheek. “I love you, Heinz,” I blurt out. I rush away, wondering why I just told a man I barely know that I love him.
Gloria and Mom surprise Heinz with Gloria’s signature dessert, a German cream-filled cake called Blitz Torte. Heinz eats his slice slowly, savoring each mouthful. The rest of us thrust our forks in like animals and squabble over every last crumb. It’s heaven in my mouth.
Enzo and I walk Gram to her cabin so Bob can sit awhile with Heinz. Gram’s room is cluttered with medicine bottles and heating pads. “Do you want me to stay, Gram? We can watch a movie.”
“No, that’s okay, honey. I’m conking out for the night. It’s been a long day.” I tuck her in like she’s tucked me in so many times, kiss her cheek, and quietly shut the cabin door.
“I need a massage. My throwing arm hurts,” Enzo says on our way to his room. We skip dinner and game night and karaoke and brunch. I blame it on the vortex, the most powerful force in the universe.
TWENTY-FOUR
WE GET A text to meet in the library. Heinz is already gone. He didn’t want a funeral or any kind of service. But we need to do something to say good-bye. It’s Gloria’s idea to write him a letter.
Dear Heinz,
You spent your long life steeped in guilt and regret. But to us you were gracious and kind. You allowed us to help you honor 531 lost souls, and we will carry you in our hearts always. We love you,
The Wishwellians
We all sign our names. Dad, Bob, Uncle Billy, Vito, and the minister sign The Rat Pack Poker Club next to theirs. Burt rolls the letter, and Dad places it in a papier-mâché bottle. Bob and Vito hold it for a minute and throw it into the sea. It is a perfect farewell.
When it’s done, Vito and Gloria gather us in the library and tell us they’re ready, and they want to go together because going together makes them brave. Vito’s Ornaments lose it in a mess of muddy eye makeup and wailing. The minister’s lower lip trembles. His hand shakes uncontrollably, and I feel sorry for him. I have a funny feeling it won’t be long before he’s next.
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