Lucky

by Marissa Stapley

  CHAPTER TWO

  Deep inside the Bellagio, Lucky sought out Cary; he was leaning against a distant bar, watching. She winked at him, then looked back down at her cards. The opponent to her left, a guy so young he had pimples on his chin, called the bet in their game of Texas Hold’em.

  “Two hundred.”

  She pretended to be thinking hard. The sounds of the casino rose around her: music, clinking glassware, laughter, a shout.

  “I raise to three hundred,” she replied. The pimply kid barely suppressed a laugh.

  “Ma’am, that’s an illegal raise,” the dealer said. “You have to double the bet.”

  “Right. Silly me! So I double it, then.”

  “Four hundred to you, ma’am?”

  “That’s right.”

  The dealer turned to the nondescript middle-aged man on Lucky’s right. He was wearing a wedding ring but had been ogling her since she sat down, making no secret of it. He raised, too, then tried to get a glimpse down the neckline of her dress. Lucky pretended to be so dim she didn’t notice. The fourth player, a man in a too-baggy suit, folded. So did the pimply kid.

  “I fold, too, I guess,” Lucky said, tossing her red curls over her shoulder. She could feel Cary still watching from across the room. She allowed herself to meet his eyes again; one corner of her mouth rose in a secret smile. When she had her new cards she nestled them against her cleavage, blocking the view of the middle-aged man beside her. Cary laughed. This felt good. She hoped Cary felt it, too. It was why she had wanted to come here: so they could both find a way back to each other before they took off.

  “Ma’am? Cards on the table, please.”

  “Oops. Sorry. Forgot that rule, too.” Lucky laid her cards flat and smiled at the man.

  The man with the baggy suit called pre-flop. In the past hour he’d raised only once. It meant he had a big card—not that it changed anything. When it was her turn, she raised to six hundred, then nodded, as if proud of herself for finally getting the hang of things.

  “Twenty-five hundred,” said the pimply kid.

  The middle-aged man called the pimply kid’s bet, and so did the man in the baggy suit.

  “I’m all in,” Lucky said, looking over at Cary. But he was talking to a man at the bar, their heads bent together, their expressions intense. A tingling of fear, a whisper in her ear. Who is that?

  “Excuse me? Hello?” The pimply kid was leaning in, eyes narrowed. “Are you bluffing?”

  She stared back at him wide-eyed, her hands clasped in front of her. “I can’t answer that, of course.”

  He shrugged. “I fold,” he said. The other two players folded, too.

  The dealer nodded at Lucky and slid the chips—nine thousand dollars’ worth—toward her. The pot was hers. Cary was alone again, leaning against the bar, staring off into the distance.

  “All right,” said the pimply kid. “Show us your aces, then, if you weren’t bluffing.”

  “I never said I wasn’t bluffing.” Lucky stood, flipping her cards as she did. They were terrible: a five of spades, a ten of diamonds. She looked down at her winnings, then shoved half toward the dealer as a tip—while he blinked in disbelief—and the rest over to the pimply kid. “Have fun. That was great. Thanks, y’all.” The players stared, astonished, as she turned and made her way toward the bar.

  “Hey, you should have kept those chips,” Cary said when she arrived at his side. “Looks like you won a lot.”

  “But why? We’re leaving tomorrow. We have enough money in our Dominica account. I’d have to show ID to cash these in. Plus, it was just for fun. The looks on their faces! Totally worth it.”

  His expression was hard to read. It was, she realized with a sinking feeling, his poker face.

  “Are you okay?” she said. “Who was that you were talking to?”

  “Oh, just some guy wanting to know where the bathroom was,” Cary said. He stepped closer. Now he was looking at her the way he had when they had first met, back when his gaze had made her feel like she was one of the wonders of the world. “I love you so much, you know that? You make everything fun. Come on.” He pulled her toward the bar. “You’re right. We’re rich. And we need to celebrate. Celebrate life. Bottle of ’85 Dom, please,” he said to the bartender.

  “Cary, no, it’s getting late, and we have an early flight—”

  “So we won’t go to bed, then,” Cary said with a laugh. “You said you wanted to have the best night of your life before we left, and the night is still young.” He reached for the bottle while she reached for him.

  “I just meant I don’t think we’ll finish it. We have to wake up so early to get to the airport. I thought we’d just go back up to the room and…” She kissed him and he turned his attention away from the bar.

  “We have plenty of time for that, Lu. Tomorrow, we run away. Tonight, it’s a party. Like it’s our last night on earth.” He planted one more kiss on her lips. As the bartender popped the champagne cork, Cary said to her, “Repeat after me: I just want to party all night.”

  She accepted her glass. “I just want to party.”

  “All night.”

  “All night,” she repeated dutifully.

  He grabbed the bottle and strode across the casino. They reached the exit and the security guard called out, “Hey, you can’t take that bottle—” but Cary handed him a hundred-dollar bill without breaking stride. Lucky took off her stilettos and dangled them from her fingers as she ran to catch up with him at the elevator bank.

  He pulled a card out of his pocket. It said STAFF ONLY. When they got on the elevator, he used it to access a restricted floor.

  “Where did you… Oh, never mind.”

  “That’s right, babe. You don’t need to know.”

  He took her hand as the elevator doors opened, pulled her down a hallway, to a door. It led to a rooftop with a staggering view of the city below.

  Cary walked to the edge and raised his arms, the bottle in one hand, his glass in the other.

  Gently, Lucky tried pulling him back, but he held his body rigid. “Be careful,” she said.

  Finally he stepped back, took her in his arms.

  “Are you ready to have an unforgettable night with me?”

  “It’s already been pretty unforgettable. I mean, I bluffed out all those guys—”

  He refilled her glass. “I want you to forget about everything else and just be with me. Fall in love with me again, Lucky. Tell me you love me, and will love me, no matter what.”

  “Of course.”

  “Always? No matter what?”

  “Cary, what’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m okay. This is just… I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “But we are. There’s no going back.”

  He lifted his glass and tapped it against hers. “No going back,” he said.

  They turned and faced the skyline. Far below, the lights of Las Vegas spilled out across the ground like jewels from an upended box, the glitter ending abruptly at the dark edge of the desert. She looked down at it and breathed deep; her fear became excitement. Something stirred inside her that felt like hope—the kind of hope a lottery ticket held just before you checked its numbers. Cary took her hand and led her down into the dark and steaming Las Vegas night that was suddenly just beginning.

  September 1992

  CHAPEL POND, NEW YORK

  It was done. Lucky and her father left the Sagamore Hotel a day before they had said they were going to, and didn’t say goodbye to Steph or her mother. The money order was in John’s shirt pocket. Lucky could see it. She tucked her nose back into her copy of The Elegant Universe so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, so she could pretend she lived in a different world, maybe even a different galaxy. They pulled up outside a bank. He went inside, and when he came out, he had a spring in his step and a thick envelope of cash in his hand. He locked the envelope in the glove compartment.

  “We’re really rolling in it now, kiddo
,” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Aw, come on. You’re still sulking?”

  More silence.

  “All right. Well, I have something that might cheer you up.”

  He drove an hour before pulling to the side of the road. She could see water glimmering behind a line of trees.

  “Behold, Chapel Pond,” he said when they got out of the car. But it didn’t look like any pond she had ever seen. It looked more like a lake, and was surrounded by cliffs that were dotted with climbers. Lucky peered up at them. How could you be that brave? The climbers moved ant-like up the rock slabs while falcons and hawks dove and swept around them.

  “You can swim here,” her father said, drawing her attention back to the water. “It’s cold and fresh and perfect. And see? None of them bobbles you hate.”

  “Buoys,” Lucky said, miserable, angry with him, and yet—he was right. It was perfect here. Her father was taking off his shirt, revealing his lanky frame. Women thought he was handsome, like a movie star. Steph’s mom had felt that way, which was why he had been able to charm her so easily and take her money.

  “This is today’s classroom,” her father said now. “You couldn’t ask for anything better, Luciana.” He didn’t often call her that.

  “She’ll hardly miss the money,” he had muttered the night before as they fell asleep, talking to her or to himself, she wasn’t sure. “Stephanie’s dad had money, and there was quite the life insurance plan, too.” But the money wasn’t the point. Her father had pretended to give Steph’s mother something: he had pretended to give her love. She was going to miss that. Lucky knew it.

  He pointed up at the climbers. “Some of the world’s greatest have climbed those slabs,” he said, drawing from a pool of random knowledge deeper than the glacial pond itself. It always amazed Lucky, all the things he knew. Even then, as sad and angry as she was, she drew toward him to listen.

  “There was a fire here once,” her father said. “A poet described it as ‘Dante’s Inferno.’ I read that somewhere. The fire was so hot it made the rocks break off and fall into the pond. Picture it. Sizzling and steaming as they hit the water. A lake of fire.”

  Lucky looked up at the climbers and imagined the fire, centuries ago, turning those cool-looking rocks into lava.

  “And now, look at it,” her father was saying. “All right again. Like the fire never happened. The world’s like that. What matters in one moment, it doesn’t matter the next. Things that fall apart eventually come back together again. Everything passes. You can be sure of that.”

  “Maybe we could be like that, too,” Lucky said. “Maybe we could change. What if we put a down payment on a house, settled down a bit, with all the money Steph’s mom gave us?”

  “Maybe, kiddo.”

  The water was clear at the sandy shore and black as a chalkboard in the depths. It was mirrorlike around the far edges, and Lucky knew she wanted to swim out there and sit on a rock she could see poking above the surface of the pond like a high table. She could sun herself like a turtle and try to forget.

  “Ready?” her father said. She nodded and followed him as he bounded down the beach, past a bleached-out tree skeleton that had toppled sideways in the sand. She plunged in; the water was the perfect kind of cold. She swam the way she had wanted to all week at the Sagamore. She swam toward the rock, going underwater for as long as she could stand, then surfacing and pulling in big gasps of air before diving back down. When she reached the rock, she found it was steeper than it had looked from afar. With determination, she pulled herself up to the top of it, her arms shaking with the effort.

  Her father was already waiting for her there. He offered her a hand up at the last possible moment. “Good job, Lucky,” he said. “Excellent work. I’m proud of you.”

  “Don’t,” she said, suddenly ashamed all over again. She moved away from him, preparing to dive into the water again and swim to shore, but he held her back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to give up something you really wanted, for us. I’m sorry it hurt you. I wish the world were a different place, but it isn’t. The odds are stacked against us and we have to grab what we can, when we can—even if it doesn’t always feel like the right thing to do. This was a real break for us, kid. Money like this means we can indeed start chasing after some of our dreams and not worry about small-time stuff for a while. And it was all because you sacrificed for it. That’s why I’m proud of you—not because you’re a good con artist, but because you did a hard thing. I love you, kiddo.”

  She was looking up as she listened to him speak, watching a climber reach the top of a ledge. Once he had made it, he stood on the edge and surveyed his surroundings. When he looked down into that pond, what did he see? Just a normal father and daughter, that was what. Two people who might soon swim to shore, get into their car, and head to their normal house and their normal life.

  “I’m doing the best I can on my own,” her father was saying.

  “Oh, Dad. I know you are. It’s okay.” She turned to him.

  “You’re all I’ve got, you know.”

  “You’re all I’ve got, too. Don’t be sad. I’m sorry.”

  He reached for her and they hugged, and she tried not to think about how she was the one apologizing to him. Somehow, the tables were always turning.

  “You’re tough, Lucky. You can handle anything.”

  He was right: she was tough. The odds couldn’t stay stacked against her forever. And when they changed, she’d truly be the luckiest girl in the world.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lucky stretched across the king-size bed and ran her hands over its silky sheets, searching for Cary’s warm skin. She lifted her chin and arched her back. “Morning, babe…”

  No answer.

  She opened her eyes. She was alone in the bed. She caught her reflection in the mirror on the wall: her hair was tangled and matted. Last night’s mascara was making its way down her face. She didn’t look like a person who belonged in a suite at the Bellagio; she looked like she’d crawled out of a dumpster. A wave of nausea hit. Way too much champagne last night.

  “Cary?”

  Silence.

  They had set their phone alarms for four o’clock in the morning so they could be at the airport by five. Hadn’t they? Lucky rubbed her forehead, then her eyes. When they’d returned to the hotel after their night out, there had been a man in the lobby, the same one who had been talking to Cary at the bar in the casino.

  “Who is that?” Lucky had slurred. Had Cary said something about the man being his new friend? If he had, in her champagne-buzzed state, nothing had seemed unusual about that.

  “Go upstairs,” she hazily remembered him whispering in her ear. “Now. And only open the door if it’s me. Get our bags ready to go, then close your eyes for a few minutes. I’ll be back soon, I swear.”

  She had passed out on the bed, expecting he would wake her when he came back up.

  Now there was sunshine pouring through the crack between the curtains. The clock on the nightstand said it was 10:23. She was supposed to be on a plane right now. Where was he?

  “Hello?”

  She listened for the shower: nothing.

  Maybe their flight was delayed. Maybe he was getting coffee and breakfast. She walked into the sitting room. His suitcase was still there beside hers by the door. She picked up her phone to try his number. His phone went straight to voicemail.

  Her stomach roiled again. She retched as she ran to the bathroom, barely making it before she was sick. What was in that champagne? Had Cary—

  No. He wouldn’t. Not Cary. Not to her. This was just a hangover.

  Eventually she lifted herself from the cool marble floor. She tried his phone again but it was still off. She turned on the television and switched it to the news channel so she could double-check the time: 10:45 now.

  “… David Ferguson and Alaina Cadence,” the newscaster was saying, using the
names they had gone by in Idaho. “Wanted for bilking dozens of senior citizens living in Boise out of savings, and laundering money. They were posing as an accountant and a restaurateur and are suspected to have already moved large sums to overseas bank accounts before fleeing. Retirement funds have been emptied out, lives have been ruined—and now the police have announced there are suspected connections to organized crime…”

  She turned. Her face was on the television. Cary’s face was there, too.

  WANTED FOR FRAUD, EMBEZZLEMENT, RACKETEERING, the news banner below their faces read.

  Her panic rose as she listened to the newscasters speak. Video footage showed news vans outside their house in Boise. She stepped closer. Why were they talking so much about seniors? It was a lie. It had only been the affluent, not the elderly. That’s what she and Cary had agreed on. That was what her father had always taught her: steal from the rich, give to the poor—yes, fine, a little like Robin Hood. What was so bad about taking from people who had so much more than they needed? The anchor on-screen kept talking, describing it all wrong. Lucky hadn’t done those things—at least, not all of them. Not racketeering, either.

  Cary. What did you do?

  Lucky turned the television off. She walked to the safe and peered inside. He hadn’t taken his passport, which meant he’d had another alias lined up, other forms of identification she’d never be able to guess. It meant he had been planning this for months, had never had any intention of escaping to Dominica with her, had always planned to leave her to atone for all this by herself.

  “No!”

  Her voice in the empty room was a bitter, lonely sound. She sank onto the bed and put her face in her hands. She was just as bad as all the marks her father had told her to keep an eye out for over the years. The ones who were easy to scam because if offered love, or friendship, or a good sob story, they willfully blinded themselves, they chose to trust. “Blind trust makes the world go ’round, kid,” her father would say. “And when it comes around to you, you grab that brass ring. Take what you can.”