Chasing Lucky

by Jenn Bennett

  His eyes narrow. Oh, he’s mad. Seething. Maybe something else.

  I should probably be careful. The curse. All that.

  But I tell you what. If this is seduction in a non-sexy way—I repeat, in a non-sexy way—it’s blissfully sweet. Okay, and it could be ju-u-u-st a little bit wrong, because he’s my childhood best friend. The tiniest, teeniest bit. Even if it’s not sexy.

  Because it’s not. Probably.

  But I try not to think about that too much.…

  I just smile up at him. “Think I was listening to the wrong gossip about you before. Don’t worry. I’m on the right track now. See you at twilight, captain.”

  CAUTION! DEEP WATER. NO SWIMMING OR DIVING: Sign posted in the harbor. The waterline stops at the bottom edge of the sign, making it nearly unreadable from a distance when waves crash. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)

  Chapter 11

  Boy-oh-boy, do I love golden hour. It’s the time either right after sunrise or before sunset when the light outside is great for photography. Everything looks nice and warm, the light is diffused, no harsh shadows. It’s kind of when the planet says, Go on: Take my picture Right now. Let’s remember this moment together.

  During a particularly excellent golden hour, while Evie is attending class at community college and Mom is nowhere to be found, I head out to meet Lucky behind his parents’ boatyard. All of the Karrases’ workers are gone for the day, so it’s deserted and quiet back here. And when I spot Lucky on the main dock, his back is to me, shoulders all lined in gold as he stares out over the shimmering harbor water; my pulse goes a little wild.

  In a moment of weakness, I give in to the temptation of spectacularly good light, uncap the lens of the camera around my neck, quickly get Lucky in focus, and photograph him. Only a few pictures—just to get warmed up. He’s wearing shorts. So am I, but I haven’t seen Lucky 2.0 in shorts. Or in anything but leather boots, to be honest. But the black low-tops he’s wearing right now sans socks are showing an awful lot of ankle, and I can see those ankles through the lens … and also that his legs are long and leanly muscled like his arms.

  But before I can lower my camera, he turns and catches me.

  Crap! Noooooo.

  Not good.

  I try to play it cool by quickly photographing a couple of other things as I walk over to meet him. The boatyard crane. A rusted chain. Don’t think I’m fooling him, though. Ugh. See? I should never take photos of people; it only gets me in trouble.

  “You know … I didn’t realize modeling was part of this job or I would’ve asked for extra,” he says as I approach.

  “Just doing some warm-up shots to test the light,” I tell him, seeming relaxed. Sounds good. Maybe he believes me. “Don’t get excited.”

  “I don’t like my picture taken.”

  “You used to.”

  “Well, I don’t anymore, so don’t waste film on me.”

  “It’s not film. I brought the digital,” I say, holding it up to show him. “I figure I’ll be taking a lot of motion shots, and besides, I can’t afford film right now, since I spent all my savings on chartering a fancy boat.”

  “Sounds like a problem, all right. Just so you know, the boat is definitely not fancy, and we don’t give refunds. So your money is g-o-n-e,” he spells out.

  I shrug. “The things we do for art.”

  “Is that what this is? For art?” He steps closer, scowling down at me in a dark T-shirt printed with a fierce wolf and anvil design—an advertisement for some local business on Lamplighter Lane. For a moment, my mom’s stupid superstitious mumbo jumbo about that bedeviled street floods my brain. She’d definitely take it as a sign. Warning! Stay away from this guy!

  “U-uh … ,” I stammer, trying to recover my wits. “You know I’m serious about my photography. In fact, you know lots about me. But I don’t know all that much about you. I mean, the new and improved you.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve been snooping around if you’re talking to Bunny … ,” he murmurs.

  I ignore that and crane my neck to see around him. “Which boat are we taking? I don’t want to lose the light.”

  He mumbles some mildly foul things under his breath and nods with his head, leading me down a short wooden dock to an ugly orange boat. Not a yacht. Not a houseboat. Not even one with a tarp to keep out the sun. Just a little boat with four seats, a motor, and a steering wheel.

  “This is your boat?”

  “Not mine,” he says. “It’s a boat. I would not name my boat ‘Big-Enough.’ ”

  He’s not kidding. I take a second look at the peeling letters on the side.

  “Okay, wow. It’s making the Fun N Sun look pretty good,” I say, glancing back at the boat sitting up on blocks, upon which we had our little tête-à-tête. “This is a family boat?”

  “ ‘Family’ isn’t a word I’d choose to describe it. But hey. It’s the boat my dad said I could use,” he says, holding up a key ring and shrugging as his mouth curls up into something I’d call a smirk. Yep. He’s smirking. What a jerk. A cute jerk, but … “We dock a lot of boats here. There’s a system. It’s complicated. It’s not like you can just put keys in a car and drive it out.”

  “I’ll bet it’s not,” I say.

  Smirk.

  “Besides. This one had a leak. We’re testing it out. So it’s a double-duty thing.”

  “A leak?”

  “We repaired it. It’s fine. We do good work. But it’s smart to test it.”

  Smirk.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Okay?”

  I nod. “Let’s go. It’s ‘big enough,’ right? I’m just taking photos.”

  He holds out a hand to help me inside. “Ladies first. Careful now. Don’t want to tip the boat over. Your choice of four seats here. Care to sit in the captain’s chair?”

  “Is that a nautical pick-up line?”

  “No. ‘Want to go for a ride on my dinghy?’ is a nautical pick-up line.”

  I pretend to gag. “A bad pickup line for a badly named boat—which, by the way, I refuse to say again during our outing today.”

  He laughs. “It’s so bad,” he admits. “The dude who owns it is a total dumbass. He doesn’t know anything about storing boats for winter. Remember that old rusted boat near the North Star with the holes in the bottom? It was almost that bad.”

  “Is the North Star still at the end of the Harborwalk, or has Beauty torn it down to make way for a new colonial museum?”

  “Think it’s still standing. I haven’t been out there in years. Not since … well, since you left, I guess. Hanging out in an abandoned boatshed is fine when you’re twelve and have company, but it’s a little depressing when you’re seventeen and all by your lonesome. People might mistake me for a meth addict or a prostitute.”

  I snort a laugh as I sit in a plastic seat, trying not to freak out that the boat doesn’t feel all that stable or that the water is … so close. I tuck my arms close to my body and peer over the edge. “What’s that smell?”

  “Fish. Or sealant. Fish and sealant,” he guesses, untying a rope from the dock and throwing it into the back. “The sealant was us. Fish was the owner.”

  The boat dips with Lucky’s weight as he plops down on the seat next to me, long golden legs stretching out near mine. He puts on a pair of dark sunglasses and starts the engine—it takes a couple of tries. When he backs up the boat, his arm grazes my shoulder as he turns in his seat to look behind us, but he doesn’t apologize. He just maneuvers the boat around without a word … and we’re off.

  For several moments, all I’m aware of is the purpled setting sun and the feel of the wind on my face. The salty harbor air in my lungs as Lucky navigates past sailboats and yachts darting around the coast, heading home or flicking on lights to stay out in the harbor for Saturday night booze-cruise parties. And we’re in the middle of everything. It’s thrilling and warm and wonderful, and the water ripples around us like lace as Lucky turns the boat sharply
and—

  My stomach lurches. I slam my hand on the side of the boat, clutching for balance.

  “O-oh dear,” I say.

  “You okay?”

  “Just a little dizzy.”

  He glances at me. “You’ve been on boats, right?”

  “Sure. The swan paddleboats at Witch Lake across town, which I vomited on, if you’ll remember.”

  Lucky laughs. “Are you serious? When we were, what? Ten? Wait … we never went on boat rides? That’s not possible.”

  “You were at the old boat-repair shop. We used to sit in that little fishing boat and pretend to fish off the pier until …”

  “Until you said the waves made you sick.”

  I moan. “You made fun of me.”

  “Oh shit,” he says, chuckling a little. “Josie … is this seriously your first time on a real boat?”

  “Maybe?”

  He slows down and looks at me, grinning under his sunglasses. “Really?”

  “Shut up! I don’t even know how to swim, okay?”

  “Of course you do. We used to go over to Leah’s pool every summer.”

  “And I sat on the steps while you splashed around in the deep end!”

  “How is that possible?”

  “No one ever taught me—that’s how! I can’t ride a bike, either. I haven’t had a normal family life like you. Latchkey Josie, remember? That’s what that stupid Golden called me when we were in sixth grade, and then everyone at school picked it up, even though no one knew what it meant. I didn’t even know! Mom had to come talk to the principal about it.”

  “I remember.”

  “So go ahead and laugh at me, I don’t care.”

  “I’m not laughing, jeez. Who said swimming and riding bikes had anything to do with normal families?”

  “Because that’s what normal families do! You see it on TV!”

  “You see pigs surfing on TV too. That doesn’t make it real! Jeez, Josie. If you’ve never been on a boat, why did you want to do this today?”

  I can’t answer. I’m too busy trying not to inhale the nauseating scents of old fish and new sealant, and everything is haywire and prickly. Cold sweat spreads over my skin.

  No, no, no … I can’t vomit. Not in front of Lucky. Not here. That would be humiliating. I shut my eyes and try to stop my stomach from revolting against me, curling up around my camera as I lean over my lap. “Gonna be sick.”

  The boat slows and comes to a stop. The engine shuts off. Waves lap against the boat.

  “Throw up over the side,” Lucky says in a calm voice, warm hand on my back between my shoulder blades. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall in.”

  I don’t say anything for a long time. Minutes. Longer. I just wait for the terrible clammy feeling to subside and the boat to stop bobbing in the water. His hand feels nice on my back, a gentle circular rub. Very soothing. I concentrate on that until my balance rights itself and the dizziness slows.

  “I’m okay,” I finally say toward my feet in a voice that sounds strange. “Mostly.”

  “You’re seasick. It’s an inner ear thing. Your brain is getting conflicting signals from your ears and eyes and sensory receptors, so everything’s scrambled inside. Some people get really scrambled, and that makes them feel sick.”

  “I’m scrambled, all right.”

  “It might help if you sit up and look at the horizon.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Seriously, Josie.”

  “I said no.”

  “Fine. What do I know? I’ve only been on boats all my life, born into an immigrant seafaring family that goes back for generations. We don’t get scrambled. But go on. You do what you’d like.”

  I groan. “Give me a minute, okay?”

  “Okay, okay.” He exhales dramatically. The soothing circles on my back slow and then come to a stop, as if he’s just realizing he’s been doing it.

  “That helps,” I tell him in small voice.

  “All right,” he says gruffly. But he begins rubbing my back again, and his hand is gentle.

  “Josie?”

  “Yes?” I say into my arms, cradling my camera.

  “Why did you arrange this boat charter if you get seasick?”

  “Clearly I didn’t know that,” I complain. “I wanted to help pay for the window. You refused. So I came up with this plan.”

  “A good, old-fashioned Josie scheme. Missed those.”

  “I thought I could take pictures,” I explain, hoping it sounds less … weird. “I didn’t know I got seasick.”

  He chuckles.

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No, no. Just picturing you interning at that magazine during Regatta Week, that’s all.”

  Oh my good God. “Is this a one-time thing, or are people genetically prone to it?”

  “You get used to boats. Usually. Some people never do.”

  Seagulls squawk as they fly near the Harborwalk. A small fishing boat motors past us. I finally dare to lift my head, and Lucky jerks his hand away. After a sickening moment when blood rushes back to where it belongs, I sit back in my seat and breathe. I’m okay. Not sick. Where’s the horizon? There. Okay. Not sure that really helps, because too many boats keep speeding past it, but at least we’re not moving.

  I shift my focus to a nearby sign that warns of deep water. People need a sign to tell them not to swim here? I swear, people will post a sign for anything. People are strange. Thank God for strangeness.

  Wish Lucky’s hand was still on my back.

  His sunglasses rest atop his head, and he’s twisted in his seat, one bare knee up between us, elbows resting behind him on the edge of the boat. He squints at me and says bluntly, “So … you talked to Bunny.”

  Right. That. “I ran into her. Your name came up, I didn’t—”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I wasn’t gossiping about you.”

  “No?” He studies my face with a curious kind of enjoyment in his gaze. “That’s disappointing to hear.”

  “She was telling me that some things I heard were wrong … and that you apparently are not the father of her child.”

  “No, I am not. Not hers, not anyone’s.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Not that there’s anything …” Ugh. Awkward. “I mean, if you …” One more time. “I guess I don’t know why people ever said that about you and Bunny to begin with?”

  “People say that because I drove her to an abortion clinic.”

  Oh.

  He shrugs lightly. “I found her crying. She needed someone to drive her and couldn’t tell her family. None of her friends would help, and the jackass who should have been helping had ghosted her. So I went with her and waited, and then I drove her back home in her car. We’re friends, that’s all.”

  I nod. “I see.”

  “Someone saw us coming out of the clinic. That’s how the rumor started.”

  “Assumptions aren’t facts,” I murmur, remembering things Bunny said.

  “No, but people sure do love to make them.”

  “They make a lot of them about you,” I note.

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t seem to mind. I think you want people to talk.”

  “That’s absurd. Why would I want that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say in a quiet voice. “Why would you?”

  He stares at me.

  I stare at him.

  And something hangs in the air between us. Something unsaid that I almost understand, but not quite. Something he wants me to understand. He’s looking at me as if he’s stranded alone on a deserted island and I’ve found his message in a bottle. Like he wants me to rescue him.

  But that can’t be right, can it? Because he’s the one with the savior complex—as Bunny said. He’s the one who rescued her … who took the fall for me. Why would he need help?

  Our boat bobs in the water, threatening another wave of wooziness and joggling my arm into Lucky’s leg that’s propped up between the sea
ts. I look down. The skin-to-skin contact is a shock. He’s so feverishly warm in the cool breeze blowing off the harbor. It feels … too intimate. As if I’ve crossed the line somehow by accidently touching him—which is ridiculous. It’s just a shin. Just my forearm. Nothing sexy. For the love of Pete, he was rubbing my back a second ago, practically a massage, which everyone knows is a million times more risqué, if we’re racking up steam points. Right … ?

  But when I tear my gaze away from where our bodies are pressed together oh-so-casually and look up into his eyes, I see something unmistakably different there. He feels it too. Not casual. Not casual at all. Not friendly. Not old pals catching up.

  What is this? What’s happening?

  I move my arm away, heart beating wildly against my ribs, and I pretend that nothing has happened. Because nothing has.

  I think the seasickness has seeped into my brain and caused a temporary malfunction. That’s probably all it is, right? Just need to breathe and stop thinking about it. I’ll be fine.

  Lucky clears his throat. “You know, you could’ve just asked to meet me at the Quarterdeck again. Less nausea. More coffee. No mothers involved in the meetup.”

  “Ah, well. I didn’t want to stalk you around the department store or creep around the boatyard, and I didn’t have your phone number.”

  “Tell me yours.”

  “What?”

  He lifts his chin, encouraging. “Go on. Tell me yours.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  I recite my number. “You’ll remember that without writing it down?”

  “Yep. Mind like a steel trap. Remember? I used to help you cheat on math tests.”

  God. He totally did. “Is that because you’ve turned into a genius?”

  He groans.

  “Evie said you got a perfect score on the SAT,” I say.

  “Gossip,” he says, dismissive.