Fran will give you the first letter six weeks after I go. I have a feeling you’ll be running low on hope around then, so this letter will tell you how lucky you are, and how lucky you will be. You’ll see: When you think of yourself as lucky, you notice all the good things in your life. You see all the connections between what you do and what happens next. You watch the amazing, mysterious, coincidental ways the world works, and you will be awestruck.
The letter will tell you to write down ten things you want to happen, because that’s the first step to getting what you want in life: deciding what that is. Some of those things will happen for you, some won’t, and some will turn into things you don’t want anymore.
Check your list, my dear. I hope you got the things you really wanted. If not, I hope you will.
The second letter will be delivered three weeks after the first. It will tell you to keep believing that good things can happen. Your hope may be wearing thin by then. I hope this second letter will make it thicker. If we’re lucky, the second letter will reach you when you need it most.
The third letter is in your hand, obvs.
Beloved Emma, I want you to know that luck is not a thing that happens to you. Luck is everything that happens to you. The good, the bad, the in-between. And luck is what you make happen. Luck is how you see the events of your life, and how you respond to them.
I learned a lot from this stupid cancer. Mostly I learned that to be a soul in a body is the luckiest thing in the world. Imagine: out of all the people who were never born, we got to live! We were given a chance to experience life—to think, to love, to feel. My God, Emma, every day on earth is a complete miracle. I wish I’d known sooner how lucky we are to be alive.
I can’t believe I’m going to miss out on all the lucky things that will happen for you in your life. And I wish I could be there for the bad things, too. When painful things happen, you’ll know that I am there with you in spirit. Literally.
Be good to yourself. And be good to your mom. And know that you were so, so good to me.
I love you,
Aunt Jenny
I finished reading the letter, and I pressed it to my chest. I wanted it to sink into my skin. Of course it was Aunt Jenny who brought magic into my life. She always had. I had the strongest sense of her presence—I heard her voice in my head, I saw her face in my mind, and I could feel her smiling at me as though she were right there in front of me.
Fran watched as I read the letter. She handed me a tissue. It almost looked like she could use one herself.
“Jenny was a very special person,” she said. “I wouldn’t have played messenger for anybody else.”
“Thank you, Fran.” I hugged her before she could stop me. She froze stiffly.
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” she muttered. “You got your letter—now scram.”
I ran upstairs with the letter. Mom was FaceTiming with Darren, but she stopped short when she saw my tear-strewn face. “Emma?”
I handed her the letter. She saw the handwriting and looked up at me, astonished. “What is this?” she asked, tears in her eyes. “When did this come? How did…? I don’t…”
“Read it,” I said.
Mom began to weep. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Kate,” Darren said gently via the laptop. “I’m going to let you go now. Call me later, or whenever you feel like it.”
Mom nodded and ended the call.
I sat down at the table next to Mom and took her hand. She squeezed it hard. When I was a little kid and I had to get shots at the doctor, she used to let me squeeze her hand until it was purple. Now it was her turn to hold on to me.
“No,” she said as she started to read. She put the letter down and cried. “No, no, no. Oh, Jenny. I can’t.”
“Mom,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s good. It’s really good.”
Mom shook her head no. “It’s too hard. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that she’s gone.”
“I know,” I said. I squeezed her hand this time. “But here she is.”
Mom nodded through her tears. She collected herself, and bravely started reading. Almost instantly, she collapsed again and put the letter down.
“Keep going, Mom.”
She tried again. And this time, she managed to keep reading. She cried and cried in big, hoarse gasps—at one point it almost sounded like she was laughing, she was crying so hard—but she kept reading. When she finished, she pressed the letter to her chest, just like I had. Then she looked up and spoke to the ceiling.
“I miss you so much, Jenny. I miss you so, so much. I wake up, and I can’t believe you’re gone. I feel like I’m missing a limb. You were in so much pain … I don’t want to be selfish. But I wish you didn’t have to go so soon. I wish you could have stayed…”
She was talking to Aunt Jenny like she was there in the kitchen with us. Just like I felt her, so did Mom. Mom talked and talked and cried and pounded her fist on the table and startled Penguin. I held on to her other hand.
And so we sat, crying and hugging and talking to Aunt Jenny. I told her all about the play, and Lewis, and how we saved Venice. Mom told her about Conrad the cad and Darren with the ex-girlfriend; about Brik and Derek, and Casey and her awful husband Ken, and all their mutual friends. We wept ourselves empty, until we were laughing again, thinking about all the good times we had together.
And I felt it all around me, strong as any physical force, sure as any miracle.
The impossible had happened. Aunt Jenny had come back, and she’d always be with us from now on.
Epilogue
It’s July now, and we’re here on Fire Island. We’re at the bay where the horseshoe crabs live, waiting for sunset, when we’ll let Aunt Jenny’s ashes go.
I’ve thanked her for the letters so many times now. Each time, I know she’s saying the same thing she always said, standing right here on this spit of sand as she pitched crabs back into the bay where they belonged. Live your life to the fullest, she says. That’s thanks enough for me.
It’s not just me and Mom and Penguin tonight. Darren’s here, and he brought Lancelot, the three-legged dog he adopted from Waggytail. Darren and Lancelot are living up at Herbie’s brownstone while he dissolves the business he had with Pauline and looks for a job in New York. I like having him around, most of the time, except when he and Mom are being all crazy-in-love with each other, and I’m like, Hi, this is awkward.
But it’s not like they can hide it. Everybody can see how happy Darren and Mom make each other. Mom’s still sad from losing Aunt Jenny, but she’s not lonely anymore. Tonight, as the still-shining sun turns the clouds rose gold, I hold one of Mom’s hands while Darren holds the other.
(Then there’s Grandma. While we’re over here holding hands, she’s struggling to keep Lancelot’s and Penguin’s leashes from tangling. They refuse to stop playing with each other, even though this is supposed to be a Serious Moment of Reflection. “These dogs need training,” she mutters, but I know she adores them. As long as they don’t bring sand into the house.)
The magic of Aunt Jenny’s letters ended over a month ago, but my good fortune kept coming. Melanie was able to explain to Ms. Engel what happened the day I missed rehearsal, and Ms. Engel grudgingly let me come back to play Nadine. Brooke, Geneva, and my other cast friends had extra rehearsals to help me catch up on what I missed. Then, five days before the play, the unthinkable happened: Jason, my leading man, was playing Ultimate Frisbee in the park, and he broke his leg.
“It’s just an expression!” Ms. Engel yelled in front of the whole cast and crew. “You’re not actually supposed to break your leg!”
Fortunately, Lewis’s “dad” (older brother) was able to cancel their “trip to the Philippines,” so Lewis was able to step in and play the role of Julian. And that’s how I wound up not kissing the handsomest guy in school onstage in front of everyone. Twice.
The reviews, btw, were sensational, except for Carter forgetting one or two of his lines.
“Sorry I blanked,” he apologized afterward. “All I could think of was ‘banana.’” And Lewis gave me two dozen origami roses as I took my bows. I don’t know who took more teasing for it: me from Brooke and those guys, or Lewis from his (now former) friends. But I know who doesn’t care at all: us.
Brooke’s coming out to the beach when she gets back from drama camp—alone. Our little cast cluster hasn’t been the same since Geneva and Harrison got together at the party after the show. (I KNOW.) Now they’re a couple, and we’re all still friends, but sometimes I feel like I’m at drama camp.
Vannah is visiting next weekend with her moms. She still doesn’t have a real phone, or any online activity, but at least her moms are letting her out of the house again, and she’s getting a fresh start at a magnet school for visual arts in the fall. We write each other letters now (hers are illustrated, mine have stick figures) at least twice a week, which is surprisingly fun. It’s really gratifying to get an envelope with your name on it, even if it’s not a lucky note with twenty bucks inside.
We even brought Herb and Jack with us to the beach. Mom finished scanning all their old photos, and she and Darren gave the originals and the film reels to the Fire Island Historical Society, which put them on exhibition at the community house for the summer. They made a four-foot poster of one photo to advertise the exhibit, so every time we pass the community house, we see Herb and Jack with their arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling and waving hello.
And when Lewis gets back from visiting his grandparents, he’ll come out for the day, and I’ll show him how to rescue upside-down crabs with a shovel. We’ll take a walk on the beach, we’ll wave to Bobby Dudderman and his new girlfriend, Lacy, and I’ll explain how the advent of plastic bottles led to a paucity of beach glass.
How lucky am I?
Acknowledgements
THANKS
Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin, Joy Peskin
ALSO THANKS
Nicholas Henderson
Aimee Fleck
Gene Hult
Erin Eisner, Isabelle Stern, Rachel Weiss, and Jonathan Yellen
Madison Cavone, Michael Cavone, Sofia DiGennaro, Julian Feign, Madison Forrest, Jill Frezza-Charbonier and her students, Gabriella Moncaleano, Gianna Perlman, Miles Perlman, Grace Rivkis, Gabe Safir, Simon Sinnreich, Vaughn Stout, and Trenton Wilson
Jill Abrahams, David Brouillard, Satia Cecil, Chris Donovan, Jen Dziura, Emilie Blythe McDonald, Bill and Laura Reynolds, Naomi Rivkis, Melissa Roth and Erik Seims, Tia Schellstede, Caitlin Schoenfeld, Kevin Scurry, and Anne Sussman
Dr. Robin Young
Larry and Sylvia Erlbaum
Bill Scurry
NO THANKS
Minky
Velvet
Waggytail Rescue is a real dog rescue organization based in New York City. Founded in 2004 by Holly DeRito, Waggytail is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit that has found homes for over five thousand animals. A portion of the proceeds from this book have been donated to Waggytail so they can continue to rescue dogs. If you’d like to donate money, foster or adopt a dog, or volunteer, please visit waggytailrescue.org.
About the Author
Janice Erlbaum is the author of two memoirs and a novel for adults. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two pesky cats. You can find her at girlbomb.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
LUCKY THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © 2018 by Janice Erlbaum
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2018
eBook edition, July 2018
mackids.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Erlbaum, Janice, 1969– author.
Title: Lucky little things / by Janice Erlbaum.
Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018. | Summary: Eighth-grader Emma Macintyre is mourning the loss of her mother’s best friend and struggling to keep her own friend from drifting away when she receives a mysterious letter telling her to list ten lucky things she would like to have happen.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042320 | ISBN 9780374306526 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Luck—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E752 Luc 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042320
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
eISBN 9780374306533
Lucky Little Things Page 13
