The Wishing Game(6)

She knew what he needed, and it was the same thing she wanted for him—a mother. Not a foster mom with two sick babies who demanded every minute of her day. He needed a forever mom, and Lucy wanted to be that mom.

“Lucy, how much money do you have in your wish fund?” he asked while printing his name carefully at the bottom of his letter.

“Two thousand two hundred dollars,” she said. “Two-two-zero-zero.”

“Whoa…” He stared at her with wide eyes. “All scarf money?”

“Almost all of it.” Scarf money and any babysitting job she could get. Every day she thought about going back to waitressing, but that would mean never getting to see Christopher, and he needed her more than she needed money.

“How long did that take to make?”

“Two years,” she said.

“How much do you need?”

“Um…a little bit more.”

“How much?”

Lucy hesitated before answering.

“Maybe two thousand,” she said. “Maybe a little more.”

Christopher’s face fell. The kid was just too good at math.

“That’ll take you another two years,” he said. “I’ll be nine years old.”

“Maybe less? Who knows?”

Christopher dropped his head onto the letter he was writing to Carrie in Detroit. Lucy went over to him, lifted him out of his chair, and held him on her lap. He wrapped his arms around her neck.

“Squish,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. It would be two years until she was his mother the way things were going. At least two years.

“We’re gonna get there,” she said softly, rocking him. “One of these days, we’re gonna get there. You and me. I’m working on it every single day. And when we get there, it’ll be you and me forever. And you’re going to have your own room with boats painted on the wall.”

“And sharks?”

“Sharks all over the place. Sharks on the pillows. Sharks on the blankets. Sharks driving the boats. Maybe a shark shower curtain. And we’ll have pancakes for breakfast every morning. Not cold cereal.”

“And waffles?”

“Waffles with butter and syrup and whipped cream and bananas. Real bananas. Not paper bananas. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

“What else are we going to wish for while we’re wishing?” This was Lucy and Christopher’s favorite game—the wishing game. They wished for money so Lucy could buy a car. They wished for a two-bedroom apartment where they both had their own rooms.

“A new Clock Island book,” he said.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Masterson is retired, but you never know. Maybe he’ll surprise us one of these days.”

“You’ll read to me every night when I get to live with you?”

“Every night,” she said. “You won’t even be able to stop me. You can put your hands over your ears and scream, ‘LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU, LUCY,’ and I’ll keep on reading.”

“That’s nuts.”

“I know it. But I’m nuts. What else do you want to wish for?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“What? Our wishes? Of course they matter.” She pulled him back a little so she could meet his eyes. “Our wishes do matter.”

“They never come true,” he said.

“You remember what Mr. Masterson always says in the books. ‘The only wishes ever granted—’”

“‘—are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no one’s listening because someone somewhere always is,’” Christopher finished the quote.

“Right,” she said, nodding. It amazed her how well he remembered the things he read. He had a little sponge for a brain, which is why she tried to pour so much good stuff into it—stories and riddles and ships and sharks and love. “We just have to be brave enough to keep wishing and not give up.”

“I’m not brave, though. I’m still scared of phones, Lucy.” He gave her that look, that terrible disappointed-in-himself look. She hated that look.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, rocking him again. “You’ll get over that soon. And trust me, a lot of grown-ups are scared of their phones when they ring too.”

He rested his head against her shoulder again, and she held him close and tight.

“Go on,” she said. “One more wish, and then we’ll do homework.”

“Um…I wish for it to be cold,” Christopher said.

“You want it to be cold? Why?”

“So you can sell a lot of scarves.”





Chapter Two





It had been a long time since Hugo strolled the streets of Greenwich Village. How long? Four years? Five since his last art show? It looked just the same. A few new restaurants. A few new shops. But the neighborhood’s essential character was the same as he remembered—bohemian, bustling, wildly overpriced.

When he was a kid, he’d romanticized the idea of living in the Village, the stomping grounds of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol and so many other of his idols. What he wouldn’t have given to pile into one of the old prewar brownstones with a dozen other aspiring painters and eat, drink, and breathe art day and night. Pity the poor young artists who’d hung on to that fantasy. They couldn’t even afford to sleep in a box in the bottom of someone’s closet in the Village. Now that Hugo could afford it, he found he didn’t want it anymore. Or Park Slope or Chelsea or Williamsburg…