“I do have a few friends,” Lucky lied, her heart aching at this one. “But… I’d need a computer to look them up.”
“We don’t have our own, but you’ll find one or two at the library,” Arlene said. “You can use my library card or Benson’s to get the internet access. Go tomorrow morning, between breakfast and lunch.”
At that point it was eight o’clock, and the stream of suppertime customers had trickled to almost nothing. Lucky’s feet were sore as she stood at the counter, counting her tips. The townspeople didn’t exactly tip generously, but at least they tipped a little. She had twenty-six dollars to her name now, plus whatever hourly wage the elderly couple was going to give her.
“You did a good job, young lady,” said Benson. He put down the newspaper he was reading. She caught a headline: MULTI MILLIONS LOTTERY TICKET—BIGGEST PAYOUT IN U.S. HISTORY—BOUGHT IN IDAHO STILL UNCLAIMED. Then he handed her a room key. “You’ll stay in room one-oh-six,” he said. “Has the nicest view—of the trees, not the parking lot. And we won’t hear of accepting any payment. You can stay as long as you need to.”
Lucky decided then and there that she wasn’t going to take anything from these strangers, nothing more than their kindness. It would be easy—and it would be wrong. And nothing from their customers, either, even though memorizing and recording the credit card numbers of truckers who passed through had crossed her mind many times that day.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the key. It was cool in her hand. It was the very thing she had wanted: a room to herself, somewhere safe to sleep. And she hadn’t had to do anything she hated herself for to get it.
“Happy to do it, Ruby. See you in the morning.”
* * *
Days passed, and the routine at the diner became pleasant. Lucky now knew everything about the business, from the safe combination, to the passwords for the bank accounts, to where Arlene and Benson set their wallets down during the day. And the only thing this made her feel was important.
She went to the library most afternoons. She created a fake social media profile and typed in names. Marisol Reyes was nowhere to be found. Priscilla Lachaise was, though. She had a Facebook profile and it led Lucky to a page for the shelter in Fresno, with a strangely cutesy “Priscilla’s Place” logo that made Lucky angry just looking at it. Who knew what scams Priscilla was running under the guise of reform? Lucky clicked through the photos of the shelter for a while, feeling increasingly skeptical as she did. Priscilla was a con artist through and through. People like that didn’t change, in Lucky’s experience. She was doing a hell of a job of pretending, though. Lucky had to give her that. She was a master.
And Cary had been her protégé. He was a master, too.
Lucky clicked out of the Priscilla’s Place page and typed a different name into the search bar: “Darla Dixon.” A private profile came up. Darla was smiling, holding a young child. Lucky squinted at the photo, but it was too small for her to get a good look at. She typed in “Stephanie Dixon,” but her page was private, too. However, her “About” information tab led to a business profile. Lucky clicked through. Stephanie Dixon-Carr, Realtor. She lived in Seattle now, not Bellevue.
Lucky remembered that Steph had wanted to be a veterinarian. She didn’t know Stephanie, the grown-up version of her old friend. Not at all. This woman in the photos she was looking at was a stranger.
Lucky took out her notepad and made a few notes, then logged off. If Stephanie was a stranger, that was going to make it easier to face her—if that was what she decided to do.
* * *
Lucky told Arlene and Benson she was going to be leaving. “Where’s that you’re going, then?” Benson asked, looking a little sad. “To see that friend in Bellevue you mentioned the other day?”
“Yeah,” Lucky said. “She’s in Seattle now. I’m going to go look her up.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Arlene said. “Benson and I were worrying about where you’d get off to next—but if you’re going to see a friend, that’s a good thing. You keep in touch, please. And you come straight back here if it doesn’t work out with the friend.”
At the end of her last day, Arlene pressed an extra hundred-dollar bill into Lucky’s hand and whispered for her to take care of herself. Lucky almost handed the money back—but she needed it too badly.
She asked for their mailing address and wrote it down carefully on her list of people to pay back.
“You’ll be hearing from me,” she promised. “One day, when everything is different. I promise.”
Then she went outside to wait for the bus.
* * *
When Lucky got to Seattle, almost six hours later, it was late afternoon. She found a consignment shop and chose her outfit carefully: black trousers; soft, subtly metallic leather flats; and a little clutch to replace her belt pack. She also found a costume shop that sold colored contacts. She chose blue. Her eyes were still distinctive, but in a different way now.
She hid her backpack in a bush down the street from the house she was going to. The lottery ticket was taped inside her shirt. She had put her small collection of IDs and what little money she had left into her pockets, bra, and purse. If the backpack was taken, so be it. But she hoped not.
She approached the house and stood in front of it for a moment. What if Steph recognized her right away, saw through her potential home-buyer facade? Lucky blinked several times against the gritty feeling of the contact lenses. She climbed the stairs and walked through the front door.
Several couples, small children in tow, were trailing out the door. Lucky started to take off her shoes.
“It’s all right, leave your shoes on.”
Lucky looked up at a woman with a sleek brown bob and a welcoming smile. She was holding out a hand for Lucky to take. “I’m Stephanie, the real estate agent.”
“Hi, Stephanie,” Lucky said. “Nice to meet you. This is a lovely house.” She turned away from her quickly, her heart pounding fast and hard.
“It is,” Stephanie said, behind her. “Take your time walking through. I need to tidy up a bit.”
“Thanks.” Lucky wandered the main floor, thinking that this house reminded her of an updated version of Steph’s house from when they were kids. Grown-up Stephanie went into the kitchen, her flats—similar to the ones Lucky wore—making soft sounds on the porcelain wood-look tile floors (heated, according to the property description in the flyer she now held in her hand) while Lucky moved forward to stand at the window, heart still racing.
In the other room, she heard a cell phone ring, and then Stephanie’s voice. “Hi, Mom. Is he really? Adorable. Yes, half hour or so. Just one last person here.”
Lucky stood rooted to the floor.
Footsteps behind her. Lucky turned and forced a smile.
“Would you like me to give you a proper tour of the upstairs?”
“Sure,” Lucky said. “That would be great.”
On the second floor, they stood in the doorway of a bedroom.
“Isn’t it sweet? Reminds me of the room I had as a little girl,” Stephanie said.
“Yes,” Lucky said. She cleared her throat. “I mean, I could see that. Any little girl would love this room.” She wondered if this bed was a trundle, too, with a mattress that could be pulled in and out for a friend who was almost like a sister to sleep on. She moved toward it and ran her hand along the smooth wood, searching for a handle until she found one. “My daughter would adore it,” Lucky said, straightening up and moving away from her memories. She crossed the room and stood by the window, pretending to check out the view of the yard.
“How many children do you have?”
“Two. A girl and a boy. Four and five.” At this lie, Lucky’s voice wobbled—and her hand rose instinctively to her stomach, the way it often had during the two-month period in Boise when she had been pregnant with Cary’s baby. She tried not to think of this time, of the loss. But in pretending to be a mother now, she had opened that wound. She fought
to smile again.
“How lovely. A million-dollar family. I have a son, but we’re hoping for another child.”
“Yes, well.” Lucky turned away from the window, composed herself. “I’m thinking of having a third, but my mom would probably move out on me if I did, and I sort of count on her for help with the kids.”
“Oh, that would be amazing,” Stephanie said. “My mom still works, so she can’t help with my son during the day—but she does babysit for me when my husband is working, like tonight.”
Lucky wished she could ask why Darla was still working. They’d had so much money, before. But as she remembered the house, the car, from days gone by, she realized it wasn’t enough to sustain anyone for a lifetime. Especially after some con made a serious dent in your bank account on his way out of town.
Lucky cleared her throat. “How many bedrooms did you say there were?”
“Three, plus an office. Here, let me show you.” Stephanie led Lucky down the hall to a bedroom painted a dark blue with electric-green accents and football pennants on the walls.
“My son would love this,” Lucky said, the pain from earlier now receded, her focus back on the story she was weaving about herself. “He’s a huge Seahawks fan.”
In Stephanie’s grin, Lucky saw the girl she had known. “I tried to convince the owners to paint out this dark color, but they wouldn’t do it. They said it would just be a matter of finding the right buyer.”
“Can I see the master?”
As Stephanie walked ahead, she talked about the brand-new Berber carpeting, the hardwood in the bedrooms, the wall sconces. Lucky could tell she was getting excited, thinking she had found the perfect buyer for this house. Enough was enough. Lucky had nothing for her—not yet.
“Listen,” Lucky said. “This is a great house—but I just realized, I have to go. It’s getting late, and I have to pick the kids up from a friend’s place because my mom is at swim class. I got so sidetracked, seeing this house, the sign saying it was for sale when I’d always admired it. It’s perfect for my family. You’re right, it feels like kismet. And I want to see it again, but right now… I can’t stay.”
“Kismet?” Stephanie cocked her head. “I don’t remember using that word.”
Lucky was backing out of the room. “I’ll call you. I’ll bring my husband and the kids to look at it. I’ll see you again soon, thank you for your time, bye.”
January 1999
SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA
The year Lucky turned seventeen, her father won a “houseboat” in a New Year’s Eve poker game in Palm Springs. When Lucky and her father arrived in Sausalito, where the boat was docked, they learned it was a decades-old thirty-five-foot Catalina live-aboard sailboat and not much of a prize: it wasn’t seaworthy.
“But at least it’s a roof over our heads,” John said, climbing down the steps and putting his rucksack on the kitchen table belowdecks in the tiny living space. There was a bench on one side of the table and behind it was a shelf. A lantern-like chandelier hung above the table; a rusted icebox was tucked beneath the bench. There was a tiny sink, but it didn’t work. There were a hot plate and a kettle, too. The bedroom consisted of a cabin belowdecks with leaky porthole windows and two long cushioned benches; mildew crept up from the cushion seams.
Lucky’s heart sank a little as she looked around. It wasn’t just that it was dingy. There was no privacy here, and as she inched closer to adulthood, she was craving it.
“Did you leave the corkscrew at home?” she heard someone shout a few boats over.
Home. Her father went out to the deck; she opened her backpack and began lining the shelf in the kitchen with her books. She put the last one on the shelf and reached deeper into the bag. Her father poked his head in the door and she zipped the backpack shut, fast. “Sun’s setting,” he said. “It’s really pretty. A little chilly, though. Grab a sweater.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” She put the backpack on one of the beds but didn’t unpack anything else.
When she stepped outside, he turned to her. “Hey, kiddo? You can have the room to yourself. I’ll just sleep on the kitchen bench, or out on deck when it gets warmer. You’re a young woman. I know you need a little privacy.”
“It’s okay,” Lucky said.
“No, it isn’t. Let me do this for you.”
“Dad, it’s okay.”
He said nothing more, just looked out at the San Francisco Bay. “Maybe this could be it,” he eventually said. The water was silver now, the sky above it a moody blue, streaked with garish pink. Houseboats lined the bay, hulking together in colorful clusters. Lucky looked down into the waves lapping against the side of the boat and thought she saw a sea lion swim by, grinning at her for a slip of a moment before diving down. She smelled grilled meat, and heard quiet laughter a few boats down. Maybe this could be it…
“It’s not exactly the dream house I always promised you. But it’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s very nice, Dad.”
A sailboat edged past them and docked. She heard a child call out, “Mom!”
Why are my eyes so green, and why is my hair so red? Who is my mother? Where is my mother? Lucky asked herself these questions all the time, but she never voiced them aloud anymore because her father didn’t answer her. Lucky would see mothers and daughters out in the world and understand that not always, but sometimes and really quite often, a mother was a soft, safe, beautiful thing. She didn’t have that. And she ached for it.
She thought of the stolen items in the bottom of her backpack: a Discman, a trendy watch, some dangly earrings. Why had she hidden them from her father? He knew she stole; he didn’t care. But these things felt like they were only hers. She didn’t want him to see who she really wanted to be.
She was hiding something else from him, too. But it was time to reveal it.
““I know I haven’t been in school for years, since we were living with… when we were in Bellevue,” Lucky began. “But I’ve been studying. I’ve kept up. I want to find out if it’s been good enough. So I want to take my high school equivalency—and then, if I do well, I want to take the SAT. And then… I want to apply to college.”
Her father nodded slowly. He didn’t seem surprised. “You’ve really thought this through.”
“It’s all I think about these days.”
“And I guess what you’re hiding in your backpack is more books.”
“Yes,” she lied.
“You didn’t need to hide this from me. I understand. And it’s fine. I’ll take care of things. You focus on studying.”
“I could still set up a tarot table, down at the wharf. Do that one day a week?”
“Nah, nah. That’s small potatoes. If you’re going to be attending college, I’m going to need some real money. But don’t you worry about it. Like I said, I’ll figure it out.”
She couldn’t believe it had been this easy. She had been sure he would say no, get upset and tell her she couldn’t just resign as his partner. But he didn’t seem bothered. And now she was going to start taking steps, on her own, to be a regular person with a regular life. That meant studying; that meant school. Diplomas and jobs.
Her father turned in a small circle on the tiny deck. “This place feels like it’s full of possibility,” he said.
And for once, Lucky had to agree.
* * *
John got a job at a seafood restaurant called the Sandbar, an iconic spot perched over an area of the beach littered with oyster shells glittering like broken and discarded treasure. He said his name was Johnny Starr, that he had wanted to be an actor, once—easy to believe, with his good looks, which never frayed at the edges the way his clothes did. He and his daughter, Alaina, had moved here from L.A. for a quieter life after a favorite uncle died and left him the boat.
It was still the low season, but the restaurant had a steady clientele of executives and local politicians. There was money to be made, John told Lucky, and as far as Lucky could tell all
he meant was tips. He was working at a real job. She would sit on the deck of their boat, layered in sweaters, and study, and he’d go off to work. Maybe he had been right. Maybe this was it. Their home.
When she looked back on this time later, it was as one of the happiest in her life.
Her father would come home at night with bags of leftover food from the restaurant—mostly sandwiches, omelets, fries, and salads, but sometimes a prawn, a crab cake, a pile of steamed Manila clams hidden beneath a leaf of butter lettuce, or a decadent pan-seared scallop atop a tangle of pasta. He’d count his tips while they ate, then hide the money in a lockbox he kept in the berth of the boat. She knew it wasn’t going to be enough to pay for college tuition, though.
“Maybe I’ll get a scholarship,” she mused.
“You just worry about passing those tests first, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“I want to help out, Dad. It’s bothering me. I can’t study twenty-four/seven. Maybe I could work a few days at the restaurant. Do they need a hostess?” The weather was getting warmer and the restaurant busier. John agreed that a little extra money might help. He talked to his boss and got Lucky two shifts a week seating guests at tables and helping the bussers to clear them after.
One afternoon when Lucky and her father were both working at the restaurant, a striking, elegantly dressed woman with black hair pulled back in a severe French twist came in for lunch. She had a girl with her about Lucky’s age who looked sullen and shy, shoving her hands in her pockets and toeing the welcome mat with scuffed combat boots.
“I want table eight,” the woman said to Lucky. “That one. By the window.” Lucky felt irritated, but the owner of the restaurant said the customer was always right—and table eight was empty. It was in her father’s section. Lucky rolled her eyes at him after she seated the two guests, and he shrugged and smiled.
Hours later, long after the lunch rush was over, they were still there. The girl was looking out the window, apparently bored. The woman was laughing as John stood by their table, talking animatedly.
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