If Wishing Made It So Read Online Free

clerk said as Hildy handed over three twenties to pay for her purchases.
    ‘‘How can you tell?’’ Hildy asked and retrieved the cap as soon as the clerk had rung it up. Standing in front of the mirror again, she twisted her hair into a knot and secured it with her new hat.
    ‘‘You have the look of a winner,’’ the girl replied. She leaned forward across the counter and whispered conspiratorially, ‘‘Don’t give it all back. Stay out of the casino!’’
    ‘‘I agree.’’ Hildy smiled so widely that a dimple appeared in her cheek. ‘‘I’m just going to take a walk. I feel lucky. Maybe this is the day I’ll meet my Prince Charming.’’
    ‘‘You go, girl,’’ the salesclerk said, and gave her a thumbs-up.

Chapter 3
    Back outside the store, Hildy kept smiling. The sun was breaking through the luminescent clouds. Bright patches of light zigzagged down the wide wooden boardwalk. Open-sided jitneys rumbled past. Bicycle rickshaws filled with tourists traversed the distance between casinos. And with the sun, crowds had appeared as if from nowhere. Couples walked along holding hands. Mothers pushed toddlers in strollers.
    A swift flow of melancholy welled up inside Hildy. She had no lover to hold hands with and no baby to take for a walk. For a split second, she wished she could see Michael Amante again. She quickly pushed the thought away. That was just the kind of foolish longing she had left her hometown to escape. She needed to savor her good feelings, not get all maudlin and weepy.
    At the end of Michigan Avenue, she spotted a pathway to the beach. She thought she might find solitude on the soft sands that lined the shore. In any event, it would be a great place to sit down and think about the things she could buy with her winnings and still have enough money left to cover her expenses until September.
    Once she came up over the dunes that acted as a barrier between the eroding effects of the water and the casinos, she could see the sea. She kicked off her flip-flops and carried them in her hand. It was easier to walk in the warm sand without them.
    She strolled a short distance before stopping just beyond the tide line. She carefully put down her tote bag and spread out her new beach towel. She sat on top of the picture of the orange sea horse and folded her arms around her knees, gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean.
    Contented, delighted, she looked seaward, a smile playing on her lips. She thought of Shelley’s lines written more than a century ago: ‘‘I see the waves upon the shore / Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown; / I sit upon the sands alone.’’
    After a few minutes, the sun had warmed the air. Hildy peeled off her hoodie and stuffed it in her tote, mindful of the precious check in its pocket. Underneath the hoodie she had on a white Penn State T-shirt with a Nittany Lion in navy blue stalking across her chest. She looked down at herself. She had owned this shirt since she was a college freshman. It was definitely time for a wardrobe update.
    As she stared at the vast ocean, her mind wandered and stopped paying attention to the dancing waves. She calculated how much of her winnings she could use for new clothes. She figured that five hundred dollars should buy her some nice sportswear, especially if she stuck to the sales racks. Then she’d take another three hundred and buy a sleek, light trail bike that was brand-new, not used and scratched up like the one she had rented. Satisfied with her decisions, she forgot about shopping and daydreamed for a while.
    Keeping her eyes on the horizon, she thought how modern-day Rome lay about four thousand miles due east from where she sat. Strangely enough, Caesar’s sat a few hundred feet behind her. The thought tickled her. She giggled to herself.
    Suddenly she noticed how rough and wind-tossed the ocean had become. The tide must be coming in. She shivered. Murky gray green and filled with whitecaps, the Atlantic wasn’t the placid