* * *
There was less than a week left in my supposedly lucky month.
I hadn’t been paying much attention to the letter or my list, not since Bobby Dudderman had told me it was probably bogus. I stopped overthinking every little good thing that happened to me—every postponed exam, every bus I caught at the last second, every time Mom was in a ridiculously good mood for seemingly no reason at all. These were all normal, everyday things that would have happened with or without the letter.
I was tired of getting excited every time someone mentioned luck, tired of analyzing every chain of events—this happened, which caused that to happen, and then that led to the other thing. Everything that happened had been a coincidence. Sure, there’d been a lot of coincidences since I got the letter, but that, too, was just another coincidence. I decided to ignore the stupid letter. It wasn’t real.
Then I got the second one.
Are you kidding me? I thought when I walked into the kitchen that Wednesday morning and saw the envelope on the floor. Mom was still asleep, or maybe she was pretending to be asleep. Either way, it sure was a coincidence that she was sleeping late the day the second note was delivered.
I grabbed the envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out the letter. There were only two words on it. They were:
It’s real.
I spun around. This had to be a hidden-camera situation. I waved at the ceiling, thinking that’s where the cameras probably were, and muttered, “I’m onto you guys. I know it’s a joke, so you can stop now.”
The ceiling looked back at me blankly.
I was definitely going crazy.
Just as I’d been thinking the letter was fake, the letter writer read my mind, wrote another letter, and delivered it on a morning when Mom happened to be asleep. Explain that, Bobby the Dud. Show me the science behind that. Maybe wizards or fairies or angels really did exist after all. “Placebo effect” my butt.
I took Penguin for his walk, stopping at a bench near the dog park so I could analyze the new letter. It was delivered in the same kind of envelope as the first one—white, and squarer and smaller than your average envelope—and the paper was once again regular printer paper. I scoured it for more clues: a hair stuck to the glue on the envelope, or a stray fiber from someone’s coat. It was always a hair or a fiber that revealed the killer on those crime shows. But all I saw were the two words:
It’s real.
I held the paper to my nose. It smelled a little like cigarette smoke, but so did everything in the hallway. I held it up to the light to see if that made a difference, and that’s how I saw it. A tiny yellow stain at the very bottom edge on the back of the page. And who did I know with stained yellow fingers?
Fran.
That sneaky, sneaky superintendent! After our chat, I’d eliminated her as a suspect. Now, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed clear that the letters had come from Fran. Nobody else had the opportunity to slip things under my door, and here was her signature yellow stain. It had to be her. But why? I still couldn’t come up with a motive for her to leave me these strange letters, but at least now I had an actual, physical clue.
I was so busy analyzing the stain on the letter, I didn’t notice that Penguin was chomping on a chicken bone until I heard him making a choking noise.
“PENGUIN!”
I grabbed him and tried to pry his mouth open, but I wasn’t strong enough. Penguin was making the worst sounds I’d ever heard. He couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Help!” I yelled, freaking out. “He’s choking!”
A man in a red plaid lumberjack shirt ran over.
“Let me,” he said, straddling Penguin on the ground. He put his hands around Penguin’s rib cage and made a thrusting motion. Penguin’s eyes bugged out and he tried to wiggle away, but the man did it again, and a sliver of chicken bone popped out of Penguin’s mouth onto the ground.
Penguin looked up at the man gratefully and panted like he’d just run a doggie marathon. “Wrff,” he said, and sneezed.
I had never been so happy to hear my dog sneeze.
I started sobbing with relief. “Thank you,” I cried to the lumberjack man. “Thank you so much, thank you so much. If you hadn’t been there…”
“He’s okay, though. Everything’s okay.” He looked at me with kind eyes, and his voice was reassuring. “I’m glad I could help.”
I collapsed onto the bench, hugging Penguin and weeping into his fur. My whole body trembled. If Penguin had died, it would have been my fault, and I never would have forgiven myself.
There was no way my legs were going to carry me home. The day had already been fully bananas, and it wasn’t even eight o’clock. I called Mom.
She sounded fuzzy, until she heard me crying. Then she snapped into problem-solving mode. “What is it? What’s happening?”
I couldn’t catch my breath. My words came out in a stutter. “P-Penguin … a bone … he c-couldn’t…”
Mom didn’t understand me and started freaking out. “Oh no! Oh, no, baby, not Penguin…”
“No, he’s … There was a man…”
The nice lumberjack gently took the phone from my hand. “Hi there. Your dog is fine. He was choking, but we managed to get the bone out of his throat. Your daughter is hugging him right now.”
I could hear Mom’s cry of relief. “Thank you! I can’t thank you enough! Oh, God, thank you!”
“I’m glad I could help,” the man said, and handed me my phone.
“I’m coming,” said Mom. “Where are you?”
I described the location of the bench between sobs.
“Stay put. I’ll be right there.”
I hung up. Penguin’s savior sat down on the bench next to me. “I’m Conrad,” he said.
“I’m Emma,” I tried to say, but it sounded more like amammama.
“I like your dog’s name. Did you come up with it?”
I nodded.
“My dog was named Fergus,” said Conrad. “He was a little bigger than Penguin, but he had the same kind of black patches.”
I nodded again.
“He died last year. Peacefully, at home, of old age.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. It sounds weird, but that’s what you’re supposed to say to a person who’s lost someone. You’re not apologizing to them; you’re telling them you know they’re in pain and you wish they weren’t.
“Thanks,” said Conrad. “I miss him every single day.”
Penguin was back to nosing around, looking for other things he could choke on. I’d stopped crying and hyperventilating, but I was still hiccupping and shaking. I knew Conrad probably had to get back to whatever he’d been doing before I almost killed my dog, but I was glad he’d decided to sit with me for a minute.
“Here’s my mom,” I said as a crazy lady in pajamas and untied sneakers ran toward us.
She grabbed me and hugged me, and she did the same to Penguin. Then she turned to Conrad. “You must be the person who saved him,” she said. She tried to smooth her wild hair with one hand and failed. “Pardon my outfit. I’m Kate, and this is Emma, and of course Penguin. We are so, so grateful to you. Please, let us do something to thank you.”
“I’m Conrad,” he said. They shook hands. “And you’re welcome. No thanks necessary.”
“Oh, no, please. Let us do something, anything. I do tech support, I could give you some free hours, or we could … clean your oven or something…”
It was probably dawning on Mom, as it was dawning on me, that Conrad was tall, in great shape, and low-key gorgeous. I could tell she was kicking herself for being unwashed and unbrushed and half-dressed in front of this amazing guy, who was not just a hero but also a legit fox.
Conrad laughed and pulled out a business card from his wallet. It said CONRAD PALAIS, TECHNICAL SUPPORT SPECIALIST.
“Trade you,” he said, smiling. He handed her the card.
Mom laughed and patted her pajama pockets. “I s
eem to have left my wallet upstairs,” she said.
“Then put your number in my phone. We have to compare business strategies.”
Mom’s eyes widened just a smidge, then she got it together. “Of course,” she said. She entered her number into his phone and gave it back. “And please, if you think of a way we can try to repay you for your kindness, let me know.”
“I will,” he said. “The oven thing sounded pretty good, actually.”
I was finally composed enough to stand and speak like a human being. “You’re like the greatest person I ever met,” I said.
He smiled. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Emma. Kate, I hope we’ll be in touch soon. And Penguin…”
Penguin looked up at his savior and wagged his tail.
“Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
He winked and walked away. Mom and I stood there like dummies. Then she turned and hugged me tightly. “I’m so glad you guys are okay.”
“Me too.”
We started walking home. I checked the time—I would have to hustle, or I’d be super late for school.
Mom sighed. “We are so, so, so lucky that he was there to help you,” she said. “So, so, so lucky.”
“So lucky,” I agreed.
I put my hand in my pocket, where I’d stashed the new letter. I would never doubt my luck again. Whoever was behind it, whether it was Fran the Super or Dumbledore or Santa Claus—that didn’t matter. All that mattered were those two words:
It’s real.
Ten
That Saturday, Mom came to pick me up from an afternoon shift at Waggytail. I loved volunteering there on the weekend. Lots of people came in looking to adopt, and I got to help some of them decide which dog was right for them. It was wonderful (and just a little sad) when we had empty cages at the end of the day.
I saw Mom come through the door, but she didn’t see me. Wesley, one of the other volunteers, greeted her and asked her what kind of dog she was looking for.
“One that’s about four foot ten,” she said, looking around for me. “With dark hair, tan skin, and a phone stuck to her hand.”
Wesley stood there for a sec with a question mark floating over his head.
Then Mom spotted me. “Aha! There she is. She’s perfect. I’ll take her.”
I was finished with everything—I just had to grab the handy roll of masking tape and use it to get some of the dog hair off me.
Meanwhile, Mom chatted with Holly. “I might know someone who’s ready to adopt,” said Mom. “I’ll send him here as soon as he makes up his mind.”
“Great,” said Holly. “If he’s a friend of yours, I know he’ll provide a good home for one of our pups.”
As we walked to the subway, I wanted to ask Mom if the friend she mentioned was Conrad. I hoped so. Conrad was a miraculous dog-saving angel, and the more Mom thought about Conrad, the less she would think about “Dare.”
“Dare,” as in “I dare you to creep on my mom when you already have a girlfriend.”
Also as in “The guy we were on our way to meet at Herbie’s house so we could look over the archive.”
“The archive,” as in “all of Herbie’s old films and photos.”
Also as in “the excuse my mom and Darren kept using so they could FaceTime each other constantly and say it was ‘work-related.’”
Work-related, I scoffed to myself. I bet that’s what he tells his girlfriend, Pauline, when he calls Mom.
Lucky for Mom, I was on the case. Sure, Darren seemed like the Southern gentleman he claimed to be. He appeared considerate and funny and sweet. He acted kind of like a younger, less cranky, straight version of Herbie, who Mom liked so much. But he couldn’t fool me. Something about him was shady.
I mean, he looked innocent enough when we got uptown and saw him there, sitting outside on the front stoop, enjoying the evening air. He hopped up and smiled widely as soon as he saw us. “Hey, Kate and Emma, good to see you.”
I waved and kept my distance. He and Mom embraced briefly and pecked each other’s cheeks. Acquaintance kisses were permissible under Aunt Jenny’s rules, but I would have preferred to see a handshake. A handshake was businesslike, and this was business.
We followed Darren inside the house.
“I started looking at some of the film footage,” he said excitedly as he led us toward the dining room. “I can’t wait to show it to you. I kind of wish I hadn’t sold all the furniture, though. I had to improvise a screening room. Right this way…”
He presented the room with a flourish. Darren had purchased three beanbag chairs and set his laptop on a small carton. I noticed three individual bowls of popcorn by the chairs—Mom must have told him how much I loathe eating popcorn from the same bowl as other people, with their saliva-covered fingers touching my kernels. The separate bowls were a nice touch, but they were also a bad sign. My enemy was cleverer than I thought.
“Unfortunately,” Darren said, “the screen isn’t huge, so we’ll have to sit kind of close.”
HA HA HA! I’m weak. The “we’ll have to sit kind of close” thing was such a middle school move. No doubt, Darren wanted to sit close to Mom so he could yawn and stretch and casually put his arm around her.
“Oh, this is great!” Mom said cheerfully. She sat down on the middle beanbag, effectively ruining my plan to sit between them. I took the seat to her right, closer to the door.
Darren leaned over the laptop and opened a file. “It’s really incredible footage. We’re so lucky Herbie knew someone with a movie camera. This was state-of-the-art technology back then.”
The video started. It had no sound, just that clickety-clickety noise that very old movies have, and the picture was jumpy, like it was slightly sped up. The two handsome young men from the photo album sprang to life—Herb and Jack, together again, frolicking in the surf on Fire Island. The color of the film was faded like an Instagram filter, but the bright beauty of the day shone through.
Herb and Jack went from splashing each other to tossing around a football to doing a cancan dance with some other young men on the sand. The scenes went quickly and ran right into each other. There were Herbie and Jack in various settings: sitting on the deck of a beachfront home at sunset, toasting with their martini glasses to whoever was behind the camera, hugging in front of the fireplace.
“They loved each other so much,” Mom said wistfully. There was a pang of sadness in her voice.
“They were together for forty-five years,” Darren said. “They were best friends.”
The video clicked and jumped, and suddenly we were here in this house, where a holiday party was under way. The party was lit—you could tell by the way the women reared way back and laughed with their mouths wide open, and by the way the men had untied their ties and unbuttoned their shirts practically to their navels. The guests mugged for the camera as it came by: posing dramatically, performing silly dances, acting out silent melodramas. There was even a guy wearing a lampshade on his head, which he kept lifting so he could sip more of his drink.
Click. We were watching the same party, but now Herb and Jack were standing and making a toast to an elegant dark-haired woman seated nearby. The woman laughed and reached out her foot in its dainty, pointed-toe shoe to kick Jack lightly in the leg. He pretended to crumple from the blow.
“That’s Great Aunt Helena,” said Darren. “What a great old dame she was. She always used to give us kids the cherries from her drinks. And her drinks were strong. Me and my cousins spent every Thanksgiving drunk on cherries. I was heartbroken when she died.”
The picture jumped again, this time to a wedding ceremony in progress. The groom was Herb, the bride was Helena, and the best man was Jack, dressed to the nines in a shiny black tuxedo.
“Herbie married Helena?” I cried, dismayed. (Despite my tough exterior, I can still get deeply emotional about true love.) “How could he do that to Jack?”
“He had to,” Mom said. “In those days, your life was in danger if
you were openly gay. Lots of gay men had ‘arrangements’ with female friends so they could stay in the closet. Look, there they all are on the honeymoon cruise.”
The picture had jumped to footage of Herbie, Jack, Helena, and her maid of honor, waving from the top deck of a boat. Then they were playing cards, laughing as the wind threatened to whisk their hands away. The women won a game, rejoiced, and exchanged a long kiss. “See?” said Mom. “It worked out okay.”
Darren smiled nostalgically. “Uncle Herb wanted all his grandnieces and grandnephews to have what he and Jack had. He told me every time we talked, ‘Darren, when you find the right one, don’t ever let her go.’”
There was a meaningful silence. I’m pretty sure, if I hadn’t been there, violin music would have swelled from nowhere and they would have fallen into each other’s arms.
Fortunately, Darren’s phone rang.
He looked to see who it was, and his face got stern. Mom paused the video.
“Please excuse me,” Darren said, rising quickly and striding toward the hall. “I need to take a quick business call.”
Oh ho! Another business call! Darren sure was busy with business.
“I have to whiz,” I told Mom. “I’ll be right back.”
I acted like I was going to the bathroom, then reversed my course. Darren was standing a few feet down the hall, his back turned toward me. I silently crept closer so I could hear what he was saying.
“What do you want?” he said. He didn’t sound patient and kind and sweet. He sounded exasperated. “For cryin’ out loud, are you serious? The air conditioner is broken? Then call the repair guy!”
My eyes narrowed. This didn’t sound like “business.” It sounded like a household matter. Whoever was on the phone was chattering so loudly, I thought Darren might be talking to a rabid chipmunk.
“For God’s sake, Pauline. What am I supposed to do about it from here?” Pause. “I understand, but you don’t have to call me seventeen times! I’m trying to take care of some business here.”
Pauline.
“Business.”
Exactly as I’d thought.
Now the chipmunk on the phone sounded angry.
Lucky Little Things Page 9
