What You Wish For Read online

  I took him to the library. Where else? My beautiful, magical, beloved library … home of a million other lives. Home of comfort, and distraction, and getting lost—in the very best way.

  “Why don’t you show me your very favorite book in this whole library,” I said.

  He thought about it for a second, and then he led me to a set of low shelves under a window that looked out over downtown, then over the seawall, and out to the Gulf. I could see the stretch of beach where we’d just held the service.

  This was the nonfiction nature section. Book after book about animals, and sea life, and plants. Clay knelt down in front of the section on ocean life and pulled out a book, laid it out on the floor, and said, “This is it,” he said. “My favorite book.”

  I sat next to him and leaned back against the bookshelf. “Cool,” I said. “Why this one?”

  Clay nodded. “My dad’s going to take me scuba diving when I’m bigger.”

  My instant reaction was to doubt that would ever happen. Maybe I’d just known too many guys like Kent Buckley. But I pretended otherwise. “How fun!”

  “Have you ever gone scuba diving?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve only read about it.”

  Clay nodded. “Well,” he said, “that’s almost the same thing.”

  Talk about the way to a librarian’s heart. “I agree.”

  We flipped through the pages for a long time, with Clay narrating a tour through the book. It was clear he’d absorbed most of the information in it, and so all he needed was a picture to prompt conversation. He told me that the earth’s largest mountain range is underwater, that coral can produce its own sunscreen, that the Atlantic Ocean is wider than the moon, and that his favorite creature in the Gulf of Mexico was the vampire squid.

  I shivered. “Is that a real thing?”

  “It’s real. Its lower body looks like bat wings—and it can turn itself inside out and hide in them.” Then he added, “But it’s not really a squid. It’s a cephalopod. ‘Squid’ is a misnomer.’”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “did you just say ‘misnomer’?”

  He blinked and looked at me. “It means ‘wrong name.’ From the Latin.”

  I blinked back at him.

  “Clay,” I asked. “Are you a pretty big reader?”

  “Yep,” Clay said, turning his attention back toward the book.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met a third-grader who knew the word ‘misnomer,’ much less anything about its Latin origins.”

  Clay shrugged. “I just really like words.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Plus my dad does flash cards with me.”

  “He does?”

  “Yeah. My dad loves flash cards.”

  Honestly, I’d never worked very hard to get to know Clay. He was in the library a ton—almost whenever he could be—but he knew his way around, and he didn’t need my help, and, well … he was reading. I didn’t want to bother him.

  Plus, yes, also: I was afraid of his mother.

  It’s true in a school that even the kids who need help don’t always get it—so a kid who doesn’t need help? He’s gonna be on his own.

  At least, until now. Clay was going to need some love this year, and it would be right here waiting for him in the library, if he needed it.

  I don’t know how long we’d been gone—an hour, maybe—when Alice came running into the library, breathless, her face worried. She had on a black skirt and a black blouse—one of the only times I’d seen her not in jeans—and she almost didn’t look like herself.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, when she found us, bending over to breathe for a second before grabbing Clay by the shoulders and steering him out. “They’re looking for him everywhere! Tina Buckley is freaking out.”

  Oh. Oops. Guess we’d lost track of time.

  “Found him!” Alice shouted as we strode back into the courtyard, shaking Clay’s shoulders for proof. “Got him! He’s right here!”

  Tina plowed through the crowd to seize him in her arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, catching Babette’s eye as I arrived behind them. “We went to the library.”

  Babette waved me off, but that’s when Tina stood up and glared at me. “Really?” she said, all bitter.

  I lifted my shoulders. “We were just looking through Clay’s favorite book.”

  “You couldn’t—I don’t know—mention that to anyone?”

  “Everybody seemed pretty busy.”

  “Clay’s father was watching him.”

  Um. Sorry, lady. His father was not watching him. His father was taking business calls on his cell phone. At a funeral. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “You bet you are.”

  “I just wanted … to help.”

  “Well, you can’t help. But here’s one thing you can do. You can leave my family alone.”

  Leave them alone?

  What did that even mean? I lived with Babette. Clay was about to be in my third-grade library class. “How would that even work, Tina? I live on your mother’s property.”

  “Maybe you should find somewhere else to live.”

  But whatever this weirdness was with Tina, it had gone on too long. “No,” I said.

  She frowned. “No?”

  “No. That’s ridiculous. I’m not doing that. I love my carriage house—”

  “Garage apartment,” she corrected.

  “And I’m not leaving. Why would you even want me to? Would you really rather your mom be all alone in that big house than have me nearby?”

  We both looked over at Babette, who was back in her greeting line, now with her arm around Clay, who was watching us with his big eyes.

  “She wouldn’t be all alone,” Tina said.

  “Who would be with her?” I demanded. “You?”

  Across the courtyard, Kent Buckley was back on another call.

  I saw Tina’s eyes flick from Babette to Kent. I saw her take in what he was doing. I saw her nostrils flare—just the tiniest bit, enough to ripple across her composure for a second. I knew she was suppressing some rage. Her husband was talking on his cell phone during her father’s funeral reception. It wasn’t just inappropriate, it bordered on pathological.

  In a different context, I could have felt very sorry for Tina Buckley.

  But not today.

  She’d married that dude, after all—and no matter if it was a mistake, she chose to stay with him. Yes, I should have been more compassionate. But what can I say? I was grieving, too—and she’d done nothing all day but make it worse.

  When her eyes came back to mine, I jutted my chin in Kent Buckley’s direction, and then I said, “You think he’s going to let you look after your mom? He didn’t even let you out of the house when Max was alive.”

  Too much.

  Too soon.

  Tina went rigid. I saw her angry eyes turn to ice. And if I’d thought her voice had ever sounded vicious before, I now realized I hadn’t known the meaning of the word. All that rage about her husband she was suppressing? She found a place to release it.

  “Get out,” she said, like a snake. “Get out of here.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  She stepped closer and her voice was all hiss. “Get out—or I will absolutely fucking lose it right now.”

  Now the ice in Tina’s eyes had turned to fire. Crazy fire. Did I doubt that she would lose it? Did I think she was bluffing?

  I did not.

  I looked over at Babette—lovely, wise Babette, who was using every micron of strength she had left to hold it together. In the past decade, I knew, she’d lost her parents, a son, and now her husband. Did I want Tina Buckley to make things worse? Did I want to reduce the funeral of Max Kempner—the final punctuation mark on his long and extraordinary life—to a single image of his daughter screaming like a banshee in the courtyard?

  No. On all counts.

  And so I left.

  And that’s the story of how I got kicked out of the funeral of my beloved landlord, best-ever boss, and closest thing I’d had in years to a father.

  two

  Just over a week after the service, Kent Buckley called an all-faculty meeting to “detail our school-wide plan for moving forward.”

  I guess I should mention that, in addition to being Tina’s husband, he was also the chairman of the board of directors at the school. Honestly, I’d almost forgotten, myself—until he called us all in for a meeting by announcing that he was going to name Max’s replacement.

  Max’s replacement?

  Um. That would be Babette.

  When the king dies, power transfers to the queen, right?

  I didn’t see why the meeting was necessary.

  We gathered in the cafeteria at the appointed time. Babette, normally a front-row lady, took the very last seat in the back row, and sat slumped in a chair, her eyes looking dull, like it was all she could do just to be there.

  Alice came up front and plopped into the seat I’d been saving for Babette. She was wearing a shirt that said, I’VE GOT 99 PROBLEMS. JEALOUS?

  We waited for the meeting to start in an eerie, deflated, heartbroken silence.

  Kent Buckley wound up striding in fifteen minutes late, still talking on that damned Bluetooth, and even though he said, “Gotta go—gotta go—I’m taking the stage,” and hung up as he turned to stand in front of us, he left the Bluetooth in place on his ear.

  I swear: he left it there the whole time.

  Then he began. “We’ve all had a shock. Max’s sudden passing was a tragedy. This community is grieving,” Kent Buckley said, sounding like he’d just looked all those words up in a thesaurus. He’d contorted his face into such a bad facsimile of sympathy, I couldn’t look at him.

  He paus
ed dramatically, so we could all feel moved.

  “But,” he said then, “life has to go on.”

  I looked around to meet eyes with Babette, but her eyes were trained on Kent Buckley.

  “We have an opportunity here to make the most of this…”

  I could see him mentally searching for a synonym for “tragedy.”

  “Tragedy,” he finished.

  Oh, well.

  “But we’re going to need someone to take us into our next phase. We need someone to step into Max’s shoes and lead us forward. And I’m proud to report that I have found that person.”

  Why all this buildup for Babette? Kent Buckley didn’t even like her.

  “He’s been quite the rising star the past two years in Baltimore.”

  Wait—what? He? Baltimore? I turned to look at Babette. She snapped her eyes to mine, face totally stoic, and gave me a tiny, barely there head shake, like Don’t freak out.

  And then, before I had even turned back to Kent Buckley, I heard him announce to the room the name of Max’s replacement.

  “The new principal of the Kempner School will be … a rising star in the world of independent administration … a guy we were unbelievably lucky to get at this late date on such short notice…” Kent Buckley paused as if we were all having fun. As if a drumroll might magically come out of nowhere. Then he said, “Duncan Carpenter.”

  I don’t know if Kent Buckley was expecting cheers or clapping or what. But there was just silence. That name was just a name. It didn’t mean anything to anybody.

  Anybody except me.

  I knew that name.

  At the sound of it, I stood straight up in the middle of the room.

  Just popped right up.

  Just … burst upward, like a reflex. Like a leg at the doctor’s office.

  But then, unlike a leg, I stayed up—my brain frozen.

  Everybody stared at me. Including Kent Buckley, who was not exactly pleased.

  There was no universe where Kent Buckley would have been a fan of mine, given that I was his wife’s nemesis. But he really, especially detested me ever since the time he’d overheard me calling him a “douchebag” at a school function.

  In my defense, he was a douchebag, and I bet you nine out of every ten people would pick that exact word. But I guarantee you none of them would say it to his face.

  Not even me.

  Kent Buckley wanted me to sit back down. That much was clear.

  But I couldn’t.

  The name he’d just spoken was holding me suspended in shock.

  “I’m sorry.” I shook my head, as if to clear it. “Did you just announce Max’s replacement … and tell us that it would be … that it would be…”

  I paused at the impossibility of it.

  Kent Buckley had zero time for this. “Duncan Carpenter,” he repeated, like he was talking to a dumb kid.

  So many questions. I didn’t know where to start. “Do you mean the Duncan Carpenter?”

  Kent Buckley frowned. “Is there more than one?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  The whole room was watching. Was this a conversation that needed to happen right now?

  Um, yes.

  “Tall and lanky?” I asked Kent Buckley then, lifting my hand way above my head. “Sandy hair? Super goofy?”

  Kent Buckley’s voice was clipped. “No. Not ‘super goofy.’”

  Maybe we had different definitions of that phrase. I tried to clarify. “Like, wearing crazy golf pants?” I went on. “Or a tie with rubber duckies on it?”

  I was on borrowed time. “Just a normal suit,” Kent Buckley said.

  I paused. A normal suit. Huh.

  The whole room could tell I was having a moment. I don’t know a word, or even a category, for what I felt at the sound of that name, but it was more like a cocktail of emotions than any simple substance. Equal parts horror and ecstasy, with a twist of panic, and a little zest of disbelief—all poured over the cold ice of comprehension about what Kent Buckley’s announcement meant for my immediate future.

  It wasn’t good.

  The clock was ticking on everybody’s patience—Kent Buckley’s the most. Before I could ask another question, he pointed decisively at my seat, like We’re done here.

  I sat. More out of stupefaction than obedience. Then I stayed still, trying to will the adrenaline out of my system.

  Could there be more than one Duncan Carpenter in the world? I guessed it was possible. The world was a big place. But … more than one Duncan Carpenter in the world of independent elementary education?

  Less likely.

  The reality of the odds hit me.

  Duncan Carpenter was coming here. To my sleepy little town on Galveston Island. To replace my beloved principal and run my beloved school.

  The Duncan Carpenter.

  “He’s a stellar candidate,” Kent Buckley continued to the room at last, glad to have his rightful stage back. “An assistant principal that took a nightmare of a school and pulled it together in the course of one year. They counteroffered several times to keep him, but he needed a change of location for personal reasons, and he’s ours now. He’s going to get in here and shake things up. Give this place the kick in the pants it’s needed for so long.”

  Did our sweet little utopia of a school need a kick in the pants?

  No. Not at all.

  Of course, we would need somebody to be in charge. But why wasn’t it Babette? I guarantee every single teacher in that room would have voted for Babette.

  But this was Kent Buckley. He wasn’t asking us to vote.

  As far as he was concerned, his vote was the only vote that mattered.

  Are you wondering how it’s possible that Kent Buckley was the chairman of the board even though absolutely nobody liked him? Because, seriously: nobody liked him. Nobody liked his scheming, or his striving, or his ill-informed opinions on “what you people need.”

  But when I say nobody, I really mean the faculty and the staff.

  Let’s just say, we weren’t charmed by his BMW.

  He campaigned hard to get voted chairman, and while Max was alive, it wasn’t that much of a job. Max made all the decisions, anyway—and this school was as much a cult of personality as anything else.

  Max had known that Kent Buckley’s values were not in line with the school’s. But he just wasn’t too worried about it. “Just let him be the chairman. He wants it so bad.”

  So they let him be the chairman. And then, less than a year later, Max died on us. And now Kent Buckley, of all people—a guy who had never liked Max, or the school, and who only sent his kid here because it was the one thing his wife had ever insisted on in their entire marriage—was suddenly in charge.

  What. The. Hell.

  And his first decision was to hire Duncan Carpenter as our new principal.

  Which was … unexpected.

  I would have expected Kent Buckley to hire somebody weaselly and petty, like himself. But he’d hired Duncan Carpenter. Duncan Carpenter. Probably the most Max-like person I’d ever met … besides Max himself.

  It had to have been a mistake somehow.

  * * *

  In the wake of his announcement, Kent Buckley got some IT guys to project a photo of Duncan Carpenter up on a screen for us all to see. At first, I felt a buzz of relief.

  For a half-second, I thought: Never mind.

  The Duncan Carpenter I’d known had a lopsided smile, and perpetually mussed-up, shaggy hair—and he did something crazy in his official school portrait every year: deely boppers, or a fake punk-rock mohawk, or a giant stick-on mustache. The Duncan Carpenter I’d known had never taken a serious photo in his life. He had an irrepressible streak of joyful, anti-authoritarian naughtiness that he brought to every photo.

  Not this guy.

  No way was this guy Duncan Carpenter.

  This guy had perfectly trimmed hair, styled up in front in a neat, businessman’s coif. And a gray suit with a navy tie. And he was just … sitting there. He wasn’t even smiling.

  The guy in this photo was a stiff.

  But once my eyes adjusted, once I accounted for the missing mop of hair, and the missing Hawaiian-print tie, and the missing mischievous smile, I had to admit … the face was essentially a lot like Duncan Carpenter’s face. Different, somehow—but the same.

  His nose. His eyes. And definitely his mouth.

  I felt an electric buzz—part agony, part thrill—at the moment of recognition.