Wish I May (New Hope) Read online

  Arlen Fisher’s cabin is along the river just off New Dreyer Avenue. The original road was closed in favor of creating some common green space for the new construction. This, of course, was code for putting some distance between the old rough neighborhood and the ritzy new one.

  When I point to Arlen’s house from the trail, she frowns.

  “It’s really…small.”

  Her dad’s a rough man. Simple to the extreme. His cabin sits in the trees just beyond the flood zone. It’s small, no-frills, and falling apart.

  “Are you nervous?”

  She’s slowed her steps, consciously or not. “I’ve only seen him a handful of times since we moved.”

  That surprises me. Someone would have told me if she’d been back, as there aren’t exactly secrets in this town, but I would have expected that her dad took trips to Nevada to see all three of his girls. “Really?”

  She shrugs. “It wasn’t what we intended, but things just never worked out. You know my dad. He has other priorities.”

  I remember, vaguely. The man liked books and studying religious texts. He liked to spend his time meditating and his money visiting psychics and spiritual leaders. “That sucks.”

  “The road goes both ways,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s reminding herself of her own responsibility to the relationship or his.

  “How do your sisters feel about moving back here?”

  She leans over and picks up a gnarled tree branch. It’s as long as her legs, and its beautiful knots stand in contrast to the smooth skin of her hands. I already wish I had my camera.

  “He sent me my ballet slippers,” she says softly. “After he found out about Mom’s death. I didn’t even know he had them, and they showed up in this package—these tiny little slippers Mom and I had picked out together before my first lesson.” Her lips curve in a smile. “I was only five, and I remember him telling me, ‘If you want to be a ballerina, just believe you will be.’ It was always that simple with him.”

  Once, it was that simple with Cally, too. I was drawn to her because that unfettered optimism radiated from her. After spending my formative years in my cynical grandmother’s house, Cally was a breath of fresh air.

  I look up at the house. The sun has dropped in the sky, and the little cabin looms darkly in the shade of the trees. “Are you ready?”

  “I think so.”

  “Want me to wait here?” Again, I surprise myself. I should be itching to get away from her, from the reminder of what she did to me, but it all seems so long ago and unimportant under the pall of the crappy last couple of years. And next to the news of her mother’s death, my old resentment seems downright trivial.

  Her shoulders drop with her exhale. She’s nervous. “Thanks.”

  She maneuvers through the trees and up the steep wooden stairs to the house. After knocking on the door twice, she turns the branch in her hands, waiting, fidgeting, while I wait in the trees. This whole thing should feel much more awkward than it does.

  She knocks again, leaning forward this time to peek in the window.

  Two minutes later, she gives up and heads down the stairs.

  “Y’all looking for Fisher?” someone calls when Cally reaches me.

  Cally perks up. “Yes. Do you know when he’ll be home?”

  I recognize Mrs. Svenderson from my grandmother’s beauty parlor. She swats away gnats as she moves toward us. “Dunno when,” she says. “He just left, so I ’magine it’ll be a few days, least. Usually is.”

  I watch Cally as she digests this. Emotions flash across her face one by one—disappointment, sorrow, frustration, and finally anger, settling in around her jaw and eyes.

  “Thanks. I appreciate you telling me.”

  “I thought you were too good to come visit your old dad,” Mrs. Svenderson says. “What’s brought you here now?”

  Cally gives a polite smile but doesn’t answer the question. The old women around here don’t beat around the bush. They figure life’s too short, I guess, and ask what they want to ask.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Cally says, as if the woman didn’t just insult her. “Thank you for your help.”

  When she reaches my side, we turn together and make our way back along the river.

  “Did he know you were coming?”

  “He knew.” Again, anger flashes in her eyes, and it looks comfortable there, as if this Cally is angry a lot. The girl I knew wasn’t like that, but a lot can change in seven years.

  “Do you have a place to stay? Where are your sisters?”

  “I dropped them at the little motel back by the highway. I wanted to make sure Dad was ready for us. They’ve had enough surprises lately.”

  What motel by the highway? “Wait. The Cheap Sleep?”

  She shrugs. “Sounds about right.”

  Cally and her sisters certainly aren’t living large if that’s where they’re staying. “You know people don’t actually sleep there, right?”

  She chuckles. I like the sound of it. It’s not the girly laugh she used to have, but neither is it an adult’s carefully crafted facsimile of a laugh. It’s soft. Sweet. Honest. “We’ll be fine. It’s just for a few nights. Until Dad returns home and I can get them settled with him.”

  We walk in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the rush of the river and our shoes scuffing against the paved path.

  “Do you live around here,” she asks, “or are you in town with your grandmother?”

  When we cut back through my yard to her car, I nod to my house. “That’s mine.”

  It’s odd, seeing it through her eyes. I’m proud of the home I built—a two-story, brick behemoth with a gorgeous flagstone patio in the back—but as I watch her take it in, I’m almost embarrassed at the excess. Cally and her family never had much. In fact, they rarely even had enough. And now they’re staying at the Cheap Sleep, and her dad is living in that dilapidated old cabin. Not much has changed.

  She forces a smile. “It’s beautiful. I’m very happy for you.”

  She steps away, but I grab her hand fast.

  “Cally.”

  She turns to me, those big brown eyes, those perfect pink lips.

  There are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t want anything to do with her, but I have two, maybe three days before she disappears from my life again. Maybe for good this time. I can’t handle the idea of this being the end, and I’ll be damned if I’m letting her stay at that shitty motel. “Why don’t you and your sisters stay with me?”

  She snorts. “You surely don’t have room for us and your wife and two-point-four children.”

  “No wife. No kids. Just me and way too damn much space.”

  She shakes her head. “That’s sweet of you, but we’ll be fine. You’ve already done more than most would have.” She walks to her car, slides into her seat, and pulls away without another glance my way, leaving me alone with my memories of strawberry wine.

  STRAWBERRY WINE.

  I can practically taste it as I drive away from Will and back to the motel. It’s the taste of my old life. Of careless teenage rebellion and first love, of starlit nights on the dock behind the old warehouse on Main. William and I would sit on the cool concrete and sip strawberry wine he snagged from his grandma’s wine cellar (an impressive 500-bottle collection of Boone’s Farm). We’d watch the moonlight play off the water and drink straight from the bottle. Sometimes we’d just look at each other. On cloudy nights, we could hardly see at all and had to let our hands do the looking—his thumb skimming across my lips, down my neck, under my shirt.

  That was where I told him I loved him the first time. Where he splashed wine on my stomach and bent to lick it off. It was where he first unbuttoned my jeans and kissed his way down my body until he pressed his mouth—hot, wet, and so slow I wanted to die—right against the damp cotton of my underwear. And the night before I had to climb into the U-Haul with my mom and two little sisters, it was there on the dock that he kissed me softly, like I was this fra
gile thing he feared he might break. He ran his mouth down my neck and cupped my face in his hands and whispered, “Hello.”

  Strawberry wine, William Bailey, and a life so much simpler.

  When I get back to the hotel, my fifteen-year-old sister, Drew, is sprawled on one of the two double beds, tinkering with her iPod, earbuds in her ears. She’s wearing a white tank and cotton shorts that say “You Wish” across the back and show more of her ass than they conceal. Her long, dark hair falls over half her face like a curtain, hiding the features that look so much like Mom’s.

  “Did you find him?” she asks, lifting her head and popping out one earbud. “Dad better live in a big-ass house with a live-in cook and on-site spa.”

  I snort. “Okay, Pampered Princess.”

  “This so-called hotel is disgusting. Pretty sure they’re renting rooms by the hour here, Cally.”

  If Extreme Bitchiness were a sport, my sister Drew has spent the last month training to be the world champion.

  She’s dealing with losing Mom. It’s something I must remind myself of again and again. Instead of spending thousands of dollars we don’t have to visit a shrink, who would tell us this is her way of dealing with her grief, I just need to accept it. I need to be patient until my still-bitchy-but-much-more-bearable sister comes back.

  “He’s out of town,” I say. No need to tell her how unequipped the man is for company, let alone to take in and care for his youngest daughters. I couldn’t see much through the little window, but my view into the old living room let me know there wasn’t much to see. Books, books, books. Not even a fucking couch.

  We’ll figure it out. It’s a mantra I’ve all but worn out over the last seven years.

  “It’ll be okay.” God, I don’t sound the slightest bit convincing. Even I am unsure about the wisdom of my plan. But what am I supposed to do? Move them into my crappy little apartment in Las Vegas with my three roommates? Let Johnny teach Gabby how to roll a joint while lecturing Drew on the acceptable price of a dime bag? Or worse, beg Brandon to take me back so he can take care of us all? Fuck no.

  “Mom worked her ass off to get us out of this crappy little town,” Drew says.

  “So we’re rewriting history today?”

  “You really think she’d want you bringing us back here?”

  I don’t bother answering her. I’m sick of her painting Mom as the martyr she wasn’t, sick of defending my decision to track down our father, sick of trying to explain that there’s no money tree to harvest in order to allow her to keep living her old life.

  “Whatever.” Dismissing me with a roll of her eyes, Drew pops the earbud back in and snatches her cell off the end table. Her fingers fly across the screen, no doubt texting her friends back home about what a heinous bitch I am.

  If this is what motherhood is like, God can strike my ovaries useless right here and now.

  I spot Gabby in the corner, sitting on a battered wooden chair and peering out the window to the parking lot below. She’s ten but she was born premature and her tiny frame and baby features never seemed to catch up, so she looks younger than she is. She looks up at me and gives me a sad smile, as if in apology for Drew.

  My heart squeezes so hard and tight, my chest hurts and my lungs ache. I need those long, ragged breaths of a good cry and the bone-melting sleep that comes after. Every moment has been full since Mom died, and I haven’t given in to the temptation since the funeral. Crying is a luxury I’m saving for a private moment.

  “How about we order a pizza for dinner?” I force enthusiasm I don’t feel into my voice.

  “We had pizza for lunch.” Drew rolls to her back, never taking her eyes off her phone.

  She’s right. In an attempt to lighten their sagging spirits today, I made a lunch stop at Chuck E. Cheese’s. It failed miserably.

  I ignore her objection—pizza is cheap and something they’ll both eat—and look at Gabby. “Pizza and then maybe we’ll order a movie on Pay-Per-View, what do you say?”

  Gabby nods before returning her attention to the window and the parking lot below. What is she looking for? Or who?

  The doctor said that there’s nothing physically wrong with Gabby. “She can talk, she’s just choosing not to.” Then she recommended a therapist. Again.

  I dig my wallet out of my purse and count the bills, even though I already know exactly how much I have. Or, more to the point, how much I don’t have. I didn’t anticipate my father not being here, and I’m out of money. All I have left is two singles, a quarter, two nearly maxed out credit cards, and a bank account wiped clean by Mom’s funeral expenses. As it is, I’m going to need money from Dad just for the gas to drive home.

  I pull out the Visa and grab the phone book.

  Where the hell are you, Dad?

  The morning sun is hot on my back as I knock on the door to room 132 at the Cheap Sleep and hold my breath.

  What am I doing? Cally wants nothing to do with me, and she’s leaving town in a few days. I should be calling Meredith, the granddaughter of my grandma’s best friend since childhood. Meredith has everything going for her—the career, the family, the personality. Fuck, she’s even gorgeous, and—judging by some of the texts she’s sent me—a little dirty in the best of ways.

  But I’m not calling Meredith. I didn’t even respond to last night’s text—a creative promise of what she’d do for me if I came to her place tonight. No. Instead, I’m here, chasing after Cally. Again.

  My thoughts are cut off when she swings the door open. She’s dressed in cut-offs and a tank and her hair is tied back at the base of her neck.

  She freezes when she sees me. “What are you doing here?”

  I lift the box in my hand. “Donuts?”

  “Oh, thank Christ!” says a voice behind Cally. “If I have to eat another peanut butter sandwich, I’m going to retch.”

  A teenage version of Cally appears beside her at the door and snatches the box from my hand. She has Cally’s dark hair and is dressed in far too little. Her short shorts and tank reveal more than they cover. I’m tempted to offer her my shirt to protect her virtue.

  “Drew, don’t be rude,” Cally says.

  I raise a brow. “Drew? Holy shi—shoot.” Of course Cally’s sisters wouldn’t be the little girls they were when they moved away, but it’s still a shock. Drew was in grade school when they left town and now she’s got cleavage spilling out of her shirt.

  Drew snorts. “You can say ‘shit.’ We’re not babies anymore.”

  “Drew!” Cally scolds.

  “Gabby!” Drew calls, ignoring her older sister and opening the donut box. “Cally’s boyfriend bought us donuts.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Cally says, snagging a square glazed donut from the box. “Don’t eat too many. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “‘You’ll make yourself sick,’” Drew parrots.

  Gabby’s eyes light up as she looks into the box and draws out a chocolate croissant.

  “You really shouldn’t have,” Cally says.

  The little girl looks up at me with her big sister’s killer brown eyes and smiles, and I know I couldn’t regret this morning’s impulse if I wanted to.

  “Well done, sis. We’re in town less than a day and you’re already hooking up.” Drew pushes her palms to the ceiling in a “raise the roof” gesture. “My sister is a player, man. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Drew!” Cally says around a bite of donut. “Seriously!” Stepping onto the sidewalk with me, she pulls the door shut behind her. She puts her fingers to her mouth as she chews and swallows. “I apologize for Drew. She’s just looking for attention.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad I could save her from the horror of another breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches.”

  She smiles at me, a patch of sugary glaze just below her lip. “Why are you here—really?”

  Without thinking, I reach to brush away the glaze, and the space between us suddenly pulses thick with awareness.

&
nbsp; Her tongue darts out to lick her lip and skims my thumb. “We can’t do this.”

  “Why not?” I step forward, closing the small space between us, and slide my fingers into her hair so I’m cupping her face. It’s so easy to touch her like this. Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe I should stay far away from her. But I can’t. And I don’t want to. “Go out with me tonight, Cally.”

  “You know that’s not a good idea,” she whispers.

  “You’re leaving, I get that. I’m just asking for one night. You, me—” I smile because she’s already turning her face into the palm of my hand, already as drunk on the memories as I am. “—and some strawberry wine.”

  I SHOULD not go out with William Bailey. Nothing good can come of that.

  I don’t know how many times I’ve repeated these words to myself since he showed up at our hotel room this morning. Yesterday, I saw him and went from zero to lusty in one-point-five seconds, but I blamed his condition—sweaty, shirtless, generally mouthwatering in every way.

  I didn’t have that excuse this morning when he showed up looking so damn respectable in khakis and a deep blue polo the color of his eyes. With a freshly shaven jaw and those messy curls damp from his shower, he smelled of aftershave and soap. My panties didn’t stand a chance.

  So I’m still attracted to him. And he’s still attracted to me. But that doesn’t change what I did. And it doesn’t make a date with him a good idea.

  This is what I’m reminding myself of again and again as I push my cart through the produce section of the grocery store. This is what I’m repeating in my mind as I sip a cup of free grocery store coffee and catch myself holding the cheek he touched this morning.

  “Oh my God! Cally Fisher, is that you?”

  I’m getting sick of this reaction from random townies, but I plaster a smile in place and turn to the feminine voice asking the question. As soon as I spot the bouncing blond curls, my smile turns genuine and I screech. “Lizzy!” I throw out my arms and we run to each other, hugging like the BFFs we once were.