Was it good luck? Well, having parents like mine was the best thing that had ever happened to me, but I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with luck.
They took me back to a small, inexpensive hotel in town, since they said my dorm was covered with reporters.
I didn’t go back to school that day and I was so glad that it was a weekend after that. School problems could wait for Monday. Mom and Dad and I spent hours on end talking about old times in that hotel room. We ordered room service so we didn’t have to leave and deal with the press. We didn’t even have television, because it turned out not to work when we tried it, and the internet was out, too. But Mom and Dad told stories about me from when I was little, before they guessed that I had so much luck.
The time that I knocked over a pitcher of orange juice, which is my favorite, and then caught it before it reached the floor. By the handle, no less, and without spilling a drop.
The time I was playing with lit matches and for fun, started to throw them into the air one at a time, to juggle them. Only I’d never learned to juggle before, and I had no idea how to do it. Mom walked in and saw me with matches all over my head, caught in my hair, burning down, every one of them flame side out. She ran toward me, her mouth open.
I still remember seeing her like that, wondering what she was worried about. Wondering if she was mad that I’d used up all the matches in the pack. And feeling pleased that wherever I moved my head, I could see flickers of light like my own magic show. Mom threw water on me and I was mad about that, spluttering around, all wet. I was sure for a long time that it had been a very cruel joke on Mom’s part, until I was much older and was staring at a pack of matches one day and put my hands to my head and realized she had saved my life.
What would have happened if she hadn’t been there, I don’t know. I was lucky, but sometimes luck only goes so far. After that, I guess you have to depend on love.
While I was with them, I forgot about everything else. I didn’t think about Laura Chevely or Excel Pharmaceutical. Mom told me that Rob was out of jail, though Art was still in. Maybe that was safer for everyone involved, including Art himself. I figured Rob would call me when he was ready. For the moment, I was with my parents again, and I was myself in a way I hadn’t been in months.
“I want to come home,” I announced.
Mom stared at me.
“That would be nice,” said Dad cautiously.
“I mean it. I don’t care about being at St. James anymore.”
“But you have so many opportunities here—” said Dad.
“And all your friends,” said Mom.
I thought of Mabel and Arlee, whom I hadn’t seen at all. I needed to call them and talk to them, make sure they knew I was all right. “I’ll come back,” I said. “In a little while. But I want to be home after this, for a few weeks.”
“What if we stay here with you instead? Until things get worked out at the school. Then you can come home for the whole summer after your sophomore year,” said Dad.
Did I really care about the place I was at, so long as I was with them? “All right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”
“You know, your room is exactly the same as when you left,” said Mom. “And if you want to bring your Rob with you, we can make up the couch for him.”
I smiled at the thought of Rob sleeping on our couch, with the wires that poked out of the floral cushions. He could really get a taste of what it was like to be completely without luck then, if he wanted. I should have guessed the truth with him, but I hadn’t. What did it say about me that I hadn’t? About us? Were we doomed as a couple?
“I should call him,” I muttered. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t want to pick up the phone. I was afraid. It was Friday night by then, and it had been a full day since I had had any contact with him.
“Rob? Of course you should,” said Mom. “Do you want me to make sure you get through to him?” She was already reaching for the hotel phone. The landline was always safer for my parents than cell phones, which went in and out a lot for them.
“No, not yet, Mom,” I said. I didn’t want her to have to argue with Rob’s parents.
“Well, I’m sure it can all wait until morning,” said Mom. “Until you’re feeling up to it. I always say a little sleep is the best cure for everything.”
“OK,” I said.
We ordered room service and when there was a knock on the door a few minutes later, I thought I was safe opening it. But it wasn’t room service. It was Laura Chevely.
Mom invited her in, unfailingly polite. She still didn’t understand what Laura had done to me. Dad was trying to ask her nicely to come back later.
“Can you let me and Laura talk alone?” I asked.
It was showdown time. Her against me. She might have more luck than I did right now, but I didn’t care. That didn’t mean that she had won. I still had Rob, for one thing. I had my parents and myself. Those were things she could never take away from me.
“Are you sure?” Dad asked, Papa Bear that he was.
“I’m sure, Dad,” I said.
Laura gave me a snooty look, like she didn’t want to be around my parents. But that wasn’t why I was asking them to leave. I didn’t want them to get hurt by her. I figured if they were gone, all her anger would come down on me.
“Come on, Trudy’s a big girl. She can take care of herself,” Mom said, and pulled Dad into the bedroom.
When they were gone, I sat on the stuffed green velvet hotel lounger. Laura sat on the matching couch. She didn’t seem to notice how stiff it was, but maybe you don’t when your backside is already so—well, so tight.
“Your parents think a lot of you,” said Laura, as if she expected me to still believe that she was my friend.
“That’s the way good parents are,” I said, trying not to sound nervous. “In case you didn’t know.” As soon as I said that, I realized I didn’t know anything about Laura’s parents.
There was a long silence.
“So?” I said, getting tired of it first. “Why are you here?”
Laura took a vial out of her purse and set in on the table between our two spots. I had no doubt it held the bacteria that would take away all of my luck, purely because that’s the kind of thing that Laura would bring.
“Are you going to throw that on me?” I asked calmly. “Should I run away screaming that I’m melting?”
“That makes you the Wicked Witch of the West in that scenario. I don’t think it fits, do you?”
I shook my head and wished that Arlee and Mabel were here with me. There’s a time when a girl needs her friends, and this was it. But I was on my own.
Laura smiled, showing all her teeth. “Good, because I’ve always thought that was the problem with The Wizard of Oz. It’s supposed to be about Dorothy but the Wicked Witch is the only interesting character, the only one who doesn’t moan about what she doesn’t have. She’s already got what she needs. Power.”
“But she loses it in the end. When Dorothy pours water on her.”
Laura shook her head. “A cheap trick. That’s what movies always do when the villain is too powerful. They make up some stupid weakness and you’re supposed to believe it because you identify with the weak girl. Well, I don’t. In my version, the Wicked Witch gets the slippers and she goes back to Dorothy’s Kansas and takes over.”
Yeah, that sounded like Laura’s idea of a happily-ever-after ending. “And then what?”
“And then the world is a better place because all the stupid, weak people are out of it.”
I had always believed that goodness won in the end. But look where it had gotten me against Laura so far. “You think your luck is more powerful if you’re bad.”
“It’s not about good and bad. It’s about freedom. My luck is free. You have all these rules attached to yours about being nice to people and not flaunting your luck or hurting feelings. No wonder your luck isn’t as powerful as mine.”
I stared at the vial
. “So, what happens next?”
“You’re going to pour it on yourself,” said Laura.
“And why would I do that?” I said. “Just to be nice to you and save you the effort of doing it yourself?”
“No, silly. Because you love Rob,” said Laura. “And you know that he doesn’t have luck now. You’re going to want to be like him. And you want to prove to him that it doesn’t matter to you if he has luck. What more dramatic way to do it than to lose all of your luck?”
“I’ve already given up some of it,” I said.
Laura nodded. “Exactly. And now you’re going to lose the rest. Because you want to be like your parents and like Rob. And because you want to see how the world really is. You want to see how people treat the real you. And you especially want to know if you and Rob can be happy without any luck involved. Like your parents are happy.”
Would it be over, then? If I poured the vial over my head and let Laura Chevely have what she wanted, so she didn’t bother us anymore?
“You and Rob will be without luck for the rest of your lives, but you will love each other. You’ll be sure of each other. Isn’t that a just reward for all your goodness?”
I wanted to hit her. But I was afraid that with her luck and my lack of same, I would end up knocking myself out by landing wrong. I had to think this through very carefully. There was no way out of bad luck, but one could learn to compensate for it. Too bad I didn’t have much practice at that. Though I had more than Laura did, since I’d grown up watching my parents negotiate the world without luck.
“And Rob and I get kicked out of St. James, leaving you the queen bee there, is that it?”
Laura pressed her lips together and nodded. “Not as complicated as you might think.”
Well, I’m not sure if I would say that. “I could just get Art to tell me how to get our luck back tomorrow,” I said. “He knows the formula.”
“But if you do that, Rob will always wonder if you couldn’t love him without luck. And you will always wonder if you were weak not to take him as he is.”
I hated that she was right about that. I picked up the vial, toying with it.
“Plus, there’s your parents. If you do this, I will promise you that they will get the electric treatment. Sometime in the summer, I’ll make sure of it,” said Laura. “Excel Pharmaceutical will be testing the formulas and they are going to need test subjects for a good study. People who have no luck like your parents will be perfect because they are so untouched by luck. Now it’s not my company or even my parents’, but I have enough influence there that I can put some names on the early list.”
I wondered if she had as much control over Excel Pharmaceutical as she thought. Once she had brought them into this, she’d lost the chance to keep the results secret, and that meant that eventually, manipulating luck was going to be possible for everyone. Excel Pharmaceutical was going to end up filthy rich, but Laura herself was going to find that her role in the world was sadly changed. And as smart as she was, she didn’t see it, I don’t think.
“And I’m supposed to trust you why?” I asked. “You could say anything you want now, and then not follow through once I’ve done my part.” I’d seen more of Laura Chevely than I really wanted to, and nothing led me to believe I could trust her.
“Because I will enjoy seeing your parents have something that you don’t,” said Laura.
Well, that I believed.
“And what about your parents? What will happen to them once Excel Pharmaceutical is rich?” I asked, still staying shy of the larger issues.
“You want me to tell you a sob story about how awful they are? Then you can feel sorry for me?” I had the feeling as she spoke that this was the last thing that Laura wanted, but it sounded like it might be true. With someone like Laura, it was hard to tell.
“Were they awful?” I asked.
“Terribly. They gave me everything I wanted. All they asked that I be the perfect daughter in return. I’ve done very well at that so far, and this will be the final stroke. They’ll be more important than the Chilterns after this, and they’ll have more money than they know what to do with. Excel Pharmaceutical might not be owned by them, but they have plenty invested in it.”
Had she done all of this for her parents, after all? It made me wonder if she understood the implications of the discovery, after all, and if this was her final revenge for her parents. She gave them what they thought they wanted, and then watched them as they drowned in it?
“They’re still married?” I asked.
There was a sudden stiffness in her. “Of course,” she said. “Together forever. When you’re truly in love, you can’t stop hurting each other, can you?”
Was that her view of love or was that just what she wanted me to think was her view of love? I shivered a little, and decided it didn’t matter, in the end.
I opened the vial. I swirled it a little and stared down at the liquid inside. It looked like water. It smelled like—well, it smelled a little sour, and made me think of that scent in the air when a dentist is drilling on your teeth. But no so bad, really. No real hint of how devastating it could be.
Laura leaned closer. “Go on, Trudy,” she said. “Embrace love with all you are. The sweet and the bitter. The great and the terrible.” She had a poetic turn when she was full of herself, it seemed.
She thought of me as weak because I loved Rob so much that I would give up all my luck just to be like him, to make him feel better.
She thought she knew me so well that she leaned in to watch my glorious, self-sacrificing end.
And that was when I threw the liquid in the vial at her face.
Laura was so surprised that she didn’t gasp or even put her hands up to protect herself. Not that it would have mattered, in the end. Wherever the liquid landed, it was infecting her with lack of luck.
“Dorothy did have some power, after all,” I said.
Laura was dripping with the clear liquid and she lunged for me, I guess to try to get some of the liquid on me, but the lucklessness had already started working. She slipped on the floor and fell, banging her head hard. She groaned and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Mom came running out, but I kept her away from Laura. Laura might actually be more of a danger accidentally, from having so little luck, than she was on purpose. Either way, I was keeping Mom safe.
“But what happened to her?” asked Mom as Laura struggled to her feet, cursing me out.
“Precisely what she deserved,” I said.
Mom stared at me. “You can’t be as heartless as that, honey. We didn’t raise you that way.”
That hurt. How is that a mother can always make you feel like you haven’t done enough?
“Mom, she tried to take all my luck away. I just turned it back on her.” Not to mention everything she’d done before.
“Oh,” said Mom. “It’s just about luck, then?” And she sat down, calm again.
“She was going to hurt you?” asked Dad.
I nodded.
“Then good for you. I always taught you to stand up for yourself. Nothing feminine about a woman lying down in the dirt and taking a beating from someone who’s worth nothing.”
That’s my dad!
But he did get on the phone and called for an ambulance.
I waved to him and reminded him to say that there was a hazardous material involved, just so that the ambulance people didn’t get their luck taken away when they tried to help Laura.
After that, we all sat together. Laura was on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs, staring at me balefully. “You three country bumpkins,” she muttered.
“Looks aren’t everything,” said Mom, and she handed Laura a small mirror from her purse—without touching Laura’s skin. She put in on the floor and I pushed it over.
Laura picked it up and stared into it. Stunned, she put a hand to her beautiful face. It was still just as beautiful as it had been before, I guess. It wasn’t like acid had started to
eat away at her skin or anything. But with her hair standing out every which way and her clothes stained, somehow the whole effect wasn’t the same at all. She seemed pitiful instead of terrifying. Almost like the Wicked Witch’s deflated black cloak, in a heap on the floor.
Not that I would count Laura out just yet.
The EMT’s came in wearing Hazmat suits. Just before they took her away, she tried to spit at us, as if that would get the bacteria on us, too. But it splattered only on my mom and dad, and they didn’t care at all.
“Arrest her! She attacked me!” Laura shouted.
“You don’t look injured,” said one of the EMT’s. He looked at her like he thought she was insane.
“She took away my luck!” said Laura.
“Everyone knows that’s impossible,” said the EMT. “You should quiet down now, Miss.”
“But it’s true. She did it. If you knew who I was, you’d have to believe me. I’m Laura Chevely, of Excel Pharmaceutical.”
But the EMT either didn’t know the name or didn’t care. Laura’s luck had gone bad for now.
Soon Laura was gone and a couple of the EMT’s stayed to clean up the area.
The only thing I couldn’t figure was why Laura’s natural good luck hadn’t protected her from doing something as stupid as coming to me and giving me the chance to use that against her in the first place. On the other hand, I had learned from St. James that there were times in history when things happened that didn’t make any sense, if the people who had luck were the ones you thought they were. Some historians just worked around the rumors and said that it was obvious who had luck based on the results.
“We should have seen from the first that she couldn’t be any friend of yours,” said Dad, patting me comfortingly on the back.
“I’ll introduce you to my real friends,” I said, and I called up Mabel and Arlee. They came right over and we all had a grand time Friday night. They got permission to stay at the hotel with us overnight and we woke up Saturday morning.
Mabel went downstairs to check out the press waiting in the lobby. And to get donuts and Cokes. “They’re all gone,” she said when she came back up.
An Ideal Boyfriend Page 15
