The Summer of Lost Wishes (9 page)

“
My
closet wall?” I ask, trying not
to sound overly panicked, even though that’s exactly what I am –
especially now.

Mr. Carter nods a confirmation.
My
closet wall.

“Probably some kids, if I had to guess,” Mr.
Carter says. He shakes his head, as if he’s disappointed in them
although he doesn’t have a clue who they are. “This place has a
history, and now that it’s occupied, people are curious. That
doesn’t justify breaking and entering, but it looks like they were
just snooping around.”

“Then why would they put holes in my wall?”
I ask.

I know why. I know exactly why. This wasn’t
some kid snooping around or wanting to leave their mark on the
historic home. Whoever broke into our house was on a mission. They
knew exactly what they were looking for, and now they know that it
isn’t there.

Mr. Carter shrugs. “Your guess is as good as
mine,” he says. “The wall was already being torn down, so they
probably just wanted to add their own vandalism. Like I said, dumb
kids making dumb decisions.”

He excuses himself to talk to my mom while
we wait for the police to arrive and assess the scene. I’m sure
this will be a topic of discussion amongst the coffee tables at
Waterfront Café in the morning. Cop cars at the Calloway Cottage. I
want to crawl under a rock.

“Let’s walk over to my house,” Rooks says,
wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Your mom can handle the
police statement.”

We stroll across the yard to his house in
silence. When we reach his front porch, I sit down on the third
step and set my beach bag down next to me. Everything this burglar
was looking for is right here beside me, and I know they won’t give
up this easily. A few blue lights won’t keep them away if these
letters hold the secrets that this town has kept buried for fifty
years.

“They were looking for the letters,” I say,
as certain as my mom’s hatred for deer heads. “There’s no other
reason someone would break into this house, not touch a thing, and
only bother to tear my wall apart.”

Rooks shifts next to me, as if he’s
uncomfortable with the conversation. Maybe he’s afraid of talking
about it out loud. Whoever broke our window may be lurking in the
shrubs.

“Maybe they really were just goofing
around,” he says. “It’s the Calloway Cottage. Everyone’s curious,
you know?”

“You can’t tell me your mind didn’t go
directly to the letters,” I whisper.

He shrugs but refuses to admit it. If they
were looking for the letters, it means someone else knows that they
exist. And that they’re gone.

Rooks exhales and runs his hands through his
hair. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I’m sending you home with a
baseball bat tonight.”

I honestly didn’t think you’d agree to meet up
with me. I was sure you wouldn’t show, even after you agreed. I
just knew the moment I saw you riding on that camel that I had to
meet you. Maybe it was the lights or the way you were laughing, but
I knew you weren’t like any other girl I know. It was just
something about that moment. Something about the lights and the
smell of hot dogs. Something about the breeze off of the
water.

I can’t really capture it in words, but it’s
played in my head over and over like it was on the screen at the
drive-in. I can’t stop watching it. I knew it was only a moment
because you were with your friends and I was with mine. We wouldn’t
cross paths. We’d never speak. So when it all played out and
actually happened, it was like fate worked its way into my
life.

Everything fell in place as it should be. I
was mesmerized. Mesmerized by the way you talked, the way you
danced in circles, the way you ate your cotton candy. I can’t
believe people like you even exist in this world. I have to see you
again.

I don’t think I am completely sold on the idea
of destiny and fate. My family has been through so much to get we
where are now. Maybe some would say that destiny brought us here,
that fate had a hand in it all, but I just don’t know about that. I
do believe there is more to life than this, though. I just don’t
know how to catch it, how to reach out and grab it. It’s like that
‘moment’ you wrote about.

I feel like there’s more, like a ton of
falling stars, and it’s up to me to reach out and catch one before
it hits the ground and fizzles out. But I was never trained in the
business of catching falling stars. It’s like something needs to
change, maybe small and subtle changes, to make big things happen.
Like choosing to ride the camel on the carousel instead of a pretty
horse. Or putting mustard on your hot dog instead of
ketchup.

Maybe that moment you witnessed was another
falling star that I didn’t manage to catch. Or maybe I did. Maybe
that star was you. This scares me. I can’t lie. But I’m too
intrigued to turn around and run away.

“
How’d you sleep last night?”
Rooks asks, leaning against the railing on my front
porch.

I shoot him the best evil glare I can, but
it’s probably not very effective with my puffy, sleep-deprived
eyes. If I hadn’t been born with my mom’s vanity, I would’ve
skipped makeup altogether today because my eyes feel like someone
has built sandcastles in them.

“
I didn’t,” I say, even though I
did grab an hour or so here and there. I walk past him and sit on
the porch step. I wish I’d grabbed some sunglasses. The sun is too
bright this morning.

“
They’re not coming back,” Rooks
says from behind me. He sits next to me on the step. “Whoever it
was, they’re not coming back here. They’ll be too scared. And if
I’ve learned anything about your mom, she’ll have a
state-of-the-art alarm system in place by the end of the week. You
know that.”

The truth is,
he’s right. Mom was Googling local security businesses while
brewing her coffee this morning, mumbling all the while about how
no one will dare break her windows again. That’s how I knew she
meant business. She was in business mode
before
her first sip of black
coffee.

“
I know,” I say, following up with
a heavy sigh. “Mom is already working on it. But she’s also
freaking out about ‘that atrocious piece of wood’ that’s serving in
place of her window.”

Rooks laughs. He shields his eyes from the sun
when he looks toward me. “My dad’s already on that job,” he says.
“He knew your mom wouldn’t want to risk anyone dropping by and
seeing it.”

“
After the flock of blue lights
outside last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone drops by
today to give their condolences and welcome Mom back to town,” I
say. “You know, pretending to care when they just want to be
nosy.”

Personally, I feel safer with the wooden panel
than I do a glass window. So what if it doesn’t let in any natural
light? I can handle the darkness if I don’t have to deal with
ghosts from the past leaving holes in my walls.

“
So, any updates on the great
Coral Sands love story?” he asks.

When he dips his head to avoid the direct
sunlight, a streak of light glides over his blue eyes like a
rippling wave in the ocean. I wish I could tell him that I want my
own great Coral Sands love story, and I’d prefer he play the love
interest, but just the thought of saying such a thing makes my
cheeks flush with a sunburned kind of warmth.

Instead, I just nod stupidly. “I think this
was the beginning of their story,” I tell him. “They met by chance,
like they weren’t already together when the letters began. He
thinks they met by fate, like it was destined to happen. She’s not
so sure, but she’s too mesmerized by him not to pursue whatever it
is that they have.”

“
Scandalous,” Rooks says. He
raises his eyebrows for dramatic effect before laughing. “At least
we know it worked out…sort of. Damn. Never mind. I was headed
somewhere with that, but given their ending, I’m not even going
there.”

Maybe Seth and Hanna aren’t so much a tragedy.
Taken before their time, sure. Unfulfilled dreams, yes. But maybe
they were each other’s true loves and they were together until
death did them part. Maybe they were a true Romeo and Juliet story.
Young, tragic, in love, and not meant to be in the eyes of everyone
else.

But that can’t be true. They were the golden
couple when they died. So why weren’t they accepted in the
beginning? Scandalous may be more true than Rooks
realizes.

“
There’s something else,” I tell
him. I wish I had Hanna’s letter with me. “She doesn’t sign her
name. He does. She doesn’t. It’s like she didn’t want to put it in
writing in case someone found it. Instead of a name, there’s a
symbol. It looks sort of like a flower.”

“
Let me see,” he says, looking
around us to make sure no one is around.

“
It’s inside,” I say. I push
myself up from the steps. “Come on. I’ll get it.”

I push the front door open, but Mom calls my
name from the kitchen the instant I step inside. Rooks follows
behind me as we make our way toward her and Mr. Carter.

“
I want you to come with me
today,” Mom says, setting her white coffee mug on the counter. “We
need to pick out furniture for the rest of the house, and we need
to stay out of the way while these gentlemen work.”

Mr. Carter clears his throat and says he’s
going to step outside and call a friend of his to see if he has a
glass pane that will fit our broken window.

“
Go get what you need for the
day,” Mom says to me. She reaches for her mug again and takes a
sip. “As soon as I finish this cup, you and I are headed
out.”

Rooks tells me that he’s going to go see what
he can do to help his dad and leaves out the back door. So much for
showing him Hanna’s letter. I debate leaving them in his possession
today so he can steal glances on water breaks, but the thought of
leaving these letters here, away from my safekeeping, is too much.
I can’t leave them in this house when every instinct I have says
that someone is looking for them – and knows they’re
missing.

Thirty minutes and another cup of coffee
later, Mom stands in the doorway tapping her shoe against the
floor. That’s her way of telling me to hurry. It’s annoying, but
it’s one of her personality quirks, and I’ve learned to overlook it
for the most part. I’m just glad she’s not wearing heels
today.

“
We lucked out,” she informs me.
“Mr. Carter knows a local guy who’s a retired carpenter, and he had
a window pane that will fit. Free of charge. He’s going to help the
Carters install it today. This is just another thing I love about
small towns.”

I tell my mom that I’ll meet her outside and
immediately retrieve Seth and Hanna’s letters before we leave. I
wedge them deeply into my purse, like a greedy pirate who wants to
bury her treasure so far into the ocean floor that no one could
possibly find it. I slip on my flip-flops and hurry outside so Mom
won’t come back inside searching for me.

Mac waits in our wrap-around driveway when I
walk outside. He wears old man khaki shorts and a T-shirt from a
local seafood restaurant. The colors have faded, but I recognize
the logo from Walk The Plank.

Mr. Carter and Rooks help unload a large pane
of glass from the back of an old truck. Rooks shoots me a smile
before disappearing around the house with his dad.

“
Mr. Crawford, thank you so much
for helping,” Mom says, standing next to her car. The engine is
already running. “I thought I was going to have to spend my day
chasing after window panes.”

Mac laughs. “It’s not a problem,” he says,
shaking his head and slicing the air with his hand. “I have all
kinds of gadgets in my shed that I’ll never use, so I’m more than
willing to contribute to your new home. And please, call me Mac.
Mr. Crawford was my father.”

I open the passenger side door and drop my
purse onto the floorboard but don’t get in the car just
yet.

Mom exhales a sigh. “It’s nice to see someone
contribute something to this house aside from gossip and rumors,”
she says. “After the police were out here last night, I can only
imagine the tales that are spinning throughout the
town.”

I reach into the car and turn the air down a
notch so I can get in but still hear what they’re saying. It’s a
hundred degrees of hell outside, and the sunshine is proudly
blazing among the clouds. I wish it’d just rain instead today. I’m
sure it’d halt the remodel of our house, and Mom would have a
meltdown, but this Florida heat has to give.

Mac says the same thing about how our intruder
was probably just some kids snooping around, except he says it to
Mom instead of me. I wish I could leap out of the car and say,
“That’s what you think!” but I can’t. Mac doesn’t know about the
letters, and neither does Mom. They can believe it was a group of
teenage idiots all they want, but I know better. I know someone out
there has the key to unlock this mystery, and I have to find it
before they find me.

After the twenty-minute drive beyond the
outskirts of Coral Sands, Mom pulls into the parking lot of a
furniture warehouse. It’s a huge yet plain building. No fancy
signs. No pretty logo. Just a warehouse. I can’t believe my mom
would shop here for her ultimate interior design.

“
Kind of dull, isn’t it?” I ask as
I step out of the car. I squint my eyes behind my sunglasses. I
glance around for a sign, in case I missed it when we pulled in,
but I can’t see anything that even remotely hints to this being a
furniture store.