Wishful Thinking Read Free Page B

ring.
    “I’ll take it,” he called out. “See you tomorrow!”

3
    H azel locked herself in a stall of the Ferry Building’s public restroom and hung the unopened garment bag from Posey’s shop on the door. She stared at its long, shadowy shape, trying to come up with reasons for leaving it zipped. Because unzipping it, she knew, would lead to trying the dress on. Trying the dress on would lead to wearing it, and once she was wearing it, she had little choice but to step out of the stall and exit the bathroom completely. And once she was outside, she knew where she’d end up. Her mother was in a restaurant less than the length of a football field away. And once she was in the same room with her mother—her mother!—she’d probably have to think of something to say.
    But first, she’d have to get dressed.
    Hazel ran her fingers through her hair, tugging at her auburn roots and squeezing her temples between the flats of her palms. She remembered the year she spent with Roy’s sister, Rae Ann, who lived on a lake up north. Rae Ann wasintent on teaching Hazel to dive, and had shouted encouragement while Hazel stood on the dock. Hazel had gripped the edge of the wooden plank with her toes and watched them turn from red to pink to white. She’d learned how to swim only a few months before and couldn’t imagine anything worse than propelling herself headfirst into the cold, murky water. Everything inside of her was screaming to stop, turn around. Go back.
    Eventually, she’d given up and taken the plunge. The cold shock of water stung her skin and she’d had a hard time catching her breath for a few moments afterward. But, in the end, she’d survived.
    Hazel took a deep breath and unzipped the heavy gray plastic, reaching both hands inside the garment bag.
    Right away, the dress felt different. Not “different” in the sense that Posey had done such amazing work that Hazel hardly recognized it. “Different” in the sense that it was a completely different dress.
    Hazel sat down on the toilet seat lid. She heard a strange noise, like a gasping, or a breathy cackle, and it took her a few seconds to realize she was laughing.
    Posey had given her the wrong dress! Of course she had. Of
course
Hazel would have nothing to wear. Of course she wasn’t going to meet her mother tonight.
    A wave of relief rolled up and over Hazel. She’d been given the gift of an excuse. An actual excuse, something that was totally and completely beyond her control.
    But quickly, the wave crashed, and Hazel was left shaking her head.
    Really?
Her mother, her birth mother, was in the room nextdoor, and she wasn’t going to meet her? Because of somebody else’s stupid mistake?
    She ripped the gown from the hanger and stepped out of her jeans, leaving them in a pile on the checkered floor. She pulled the dress up to her shoulders, wriggled her arms through the sleeves, slipped her feet into the boring black flats she’d found at Goodwill the week before, and pushed her way out of the stall.
    The bathroom was empty and there were mirrors on all three walls, sending Hazel’s reflection back and forth, deep into layers of glass. Hazel stood in front of a row of porcelain sinks, her breath trapped in her lungs.
    She turned around.
    Because, although she knew it defied the law of optics, she had no choice but to assume that the reflection she was seeing, over and over again, belonged to somebody else.
    The dress was stunning. She could see that now. It was a shimmery, teal green, and short, just like the other dress had been. But instead of abruptly ending at her knees, it sort of billowed out from her hips, giving her pale, slightly knock-kneed legs a shape. The neck was an easy, swooping cowl, and the delicate cap sleeves gave her usually sticklike arms the illusion of sleek contour.
    But more than the way it looked, Hazel couldn’t believe the way the dress felt. Usually, her clothes hung on her body uncomfortably. This dress felt like it