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…
Nothing like success to kill the fire that used to burn in his belly. Every flat, every condo, every brownstone he’d looked at that morning had seemed like a stranger’s home, and if he moved in, he’d be living a stranger’s life. Maybe he’d simply outgrown that old dream and hadn’t found a new dream to replace it yet.
Hugo abandoned his plan to apartment-hunt all day. Instead, he headed down to his favorite gallery in the city, the 12th Street Art Station, which managed to stay open despite the rent increases. He told himself he just wanted to see what was new, maybe grab a cup of coffee. He was always impressed by his ability to believe the lies he told himself.
Cool air slapped him in the face as he pushed through the glass doors and into the main gallery, all primary colors and funky faux cowhide rugs. He took off his sunglasses, slipped them into the case, and put on his other eyeglasses—a recent necessity he did not love.
The gallery had a new exhibit, classic movie monsters—Dracula, Frankenstein, the Blob—depicted as ancestral portraits with antique gilt frames. The show was called Great-Grandpa Was a Monster, and the artist was a twenty-three-year-old Puerto Rican woman from Queens.
Hugo liked her style and was impressed with her early success. Twenty-three? He hadn’t gotten his first solo show until twenty-nine.
Somewhere in the gallery, Hugo had a few paintings on display. He went from the main gallery to the Brick Room, where the art hung in black frames against exposed brick walls. There they were—a trio of paintings at prices so exorbitant he doubted they’d ever leave these walls. Which was fine by him. He was happy to see them in public. They were some of his best work, though not nearly as popular as his more recent paintings of Clock Island.
“I’ll have you know, Hugo Reese, it’s all your fault I can’t bring my daughter here.”
Hugo turned his head and saw a woman standing a few feet behind him. Black hair in a bob, brown eyes in a glare, and red lips in a tight line because she wanted to smile but didn’t want him to know it.
“Piper,” he said. “I didn’t know you still worked here.” A bald-faced lie.
“Part-time,” she said with an elegant shrug. “Something to do now that Cora’s started preschool. Her teacher asked if we could make a class field trip to the gallery. Because of you, I had to say no.”
She raised her eyebrow, but Hugo could tell she wasn’t angry. They were long past that.
“They’re very tasteful nudes.” He pointed at the trio of paintings he’d made of Piper over a long winter years ago. The poses were classical, a beautiful woman naked and lounging in bed. What made them Hugo Reese paintings were the bizarre scenes painted outside the large window—a circus of demon-faced clowns, a castle in flames melting like a candle, a single great white shark floating across the sky like a Zeppelin.
“It’s not the nudity that’s the problem. Cora’s scared to death of clowns.”