Lucky Caller

by Emma Mills

“Why’d you pick volleyball for your one sport?”

  “Mm…” She considered for a moment. “I like the net.”

  “Okay, wasn’t expecting that. What is it about the net that’s so great?”

  “I guess I like the fact that it keeps you and your team together. And there’s no physical contact with anyone you’re playing against, so you’re not getting elbowed or knocked down or whatever. And I like that you’re … like, it feels as if you’re more part of a whole in volleyball. Like, you can definitely be a star in basketball, but with volleyball, it’s more about functioning as a unit all together instead of as individuals, if that makes sense.”

  “Yeah, for sure,” he said, and then looked toward me with a triumphant See? kind of expression.

  “What’s your favorite sport?” Sasha said loudly into the mic. Joydeep winced and then blinked over at her.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. Who else would I be talking to?”

  His lips twitched. “It’s soccer.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve established both of our favorite sports, maybe we should play a song.”

  “You don’t want to hear my, like, deep philosophy about soccer and teamwork and stuff?”

  “No, I’d way rather hear”—she leaned over to peer at the monitor—“‘Back for Good’ by Take That. Keep it tuned to 98.9 The Jam for more Sounds of the Nineties. We’ll be back with you soon.”

  I started the music, and Sasha slid her headphones off.

  “What was that?” she said to Joydeep.

  “What was that?” he replied. “Are your parents radio hosts too?”

  “They’re accountants. Hey, maybe next time, don’t force me on-air without my permission just because you’re annoyed at Nina.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and he did look genuinely sorry. “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. I just knew Nina’s answer to the favorite sports question would be really boring. That was good, though, right? As far as winging it goes?”

  “It was good,” I said. “It was actually really good.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Joydeep replied.

  “You sounded totally normal,” Jamie said, and paused, considering. “Maybe your problem so far has been that you’re talking to no one. As soon as someone else is there, you’re good at it.” He turned to Sasha. “And you’re really, really good at it.”

  “At what? Answering questions?”

  “Hosting. Being on-air. You’re a total natural. Why didn’t you want to host in the first place?”

  Sasha shrugged. “I don’t usually like that kind of thing. But … this was pretty okay.”

  “It was way better than okay,” I said. “You know, Mr. Tucker did suggest we have a co-host.”

  Sasha and Joydeep shared a look.

  “What do you say?” Joydeep said. “Will you take this audio journey with me?”

  “I don’t know how I feel about it when you put it like that,” Sasha said, fighting a smile.

  Joydeep adopted a serious expression—too serious, which turned it back into funny. “Sasha Reynolds … will you be my co-host?”

  Sasha considered it for a moment.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, a smile breaking out. “I’m in.”

  29.

  ROSE PICKED JAMIE AND ME up after the show, and when we were situated in the car, instead of heading right off, she looked over at me.

  “Mom’s with Dan, and Sid is at rehearsal. Do you guys want to get food?”

  I glanced back at Jamie. “Okay with you?”

  A look of surprise passed briefly across his face, and he nodded.

  We went to Sawasdee, a Thai place on the west side that Mom loved. It had the best decor—colorful satin tablecloths, flowers everywhere. The waiters wore brightly patterned shirts, and the spicy soup you got with every meal was Rose’s favorite.

  It was quiet after we ordered. Jamie was fumbling with his napkin.

  “How was the show?” Rose asked.

  It wasn’t terrible, in fact. Sasha joined Joydeep on-air for the rest of the links. Jamie was right—she was a natural. And somehow, even when Joydeep was reading PSAs or the weather or whatever, having Sasha there to make offhand comments or to react to stuff made Joydeep sound way more relaxed.

  “Surprisingly okay,” I replied. “How was class?”

  Rose shrugged. “It was fine.”

  That could mean anything. Rose was pretty tight-lipped about school these days. I never knew how to approach it. I was still the only one who knew how things had really gone last semester.

  It was last November when I found Rose in our room going through her portfolio. Mom and Sidney were out at a movie with the Dantist.

  Rose very rarely got upset—or at least she very rarely showed it. So when I walked in that night and she looked up, eyes red and ringed with mascara, I knew not only that something was wrong, but also that the something that was wrong had reached critical mass.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  She looked up from the portfolio, from the various scattered pages around her, and shook her head. “I’m just … not good at this.”

  “Are you kidding?” Rose had never seemed to suffer from a lack of self-confidence before. “You’re great at art. You know that.”

  “I’m not good at studying it,” she amended, voice hoarse. “I’m not good at being a student of it. Nothing is … It’s not at all like it was in high school. It’s not…” She shook her head. “It’s not what I thought it was gonna be, and I’m not good at it.” She swallowed. “I’m failing at it, actually.”

  “For real?” Rose failing a class was inconceivable. Any of us failing a class was hard to imagine—I wasn’t the best student in the world, but Mom hammered the importance of decent grades into us from coloring outside the lines age. We were all at least average or better in school, and Rose had always been the best.

  But apparently that wasn’t the case for Rose in college. She had nodded mournfully, looking back down at her portfolio. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Right now, across the table at Sawasdee, Rose contemplated Jamie.

  “Are you planning to go to school next year?” she said.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I got into Butler.”

  “Nice.” The waiter set down the soup in front of us, and Rose reached for her spoon. “Nina’s going to IUPUI, has she mentioned?”

  “I haven’t gotten my acceptance yet,” I clarified.

  “You’ll get in,” Rose said.

  “But there’s still financial aid stuff,” I replied. “If it doesn’t work out, I might go to community college.”

  Jamie nodded. “Nice.”

  “What are you gonna major in?” Rose asked him.

  Jamie shrugged, pulling his bowl closer. “I’m not sure yet. I don’t really care what I do, to be honest. I just want to make a lot of money.”

  It was so un-Jamie-like. I looked over at him.

  “For real? You? Cutthroat businessman fueled by capitalism?”

  He shook his head. “Not for myself. Not for, like, cars and watches and stuff.” He picked up his spoon. “I just want to be able to take care of them. My grandma and grandpa. Like how they’ve taken care of me. I just want them to not have to worry about anything, ever. Like, something comes up, it’s handled. Done. I got it.” He nodded, more to himself than to us. “That’s what I want.”

  Rose leaned back in her chair. “Maybe I need some kind of motivation like that,” she said. “Maybe I’m too selfish.”

  “You’re not selfish at all,” Jamie replied.

  “Thanks for that, but we haven’t hung out in a while.” Rose smiled wryly. “Maybe I’ve gotten way more selfish since then.”

  “I wouldn’t believe that,” Jamie said. “Just … based on your track record.”

  “Yeah? What’s my track record?”

  Jamie’s eyes shone. “Well, Iliana was the most generous bounty-hunter-slash-assassin-slash-rogue in the l
and.”

  “That’s it—I should be more like Iliana,” Rose said. “She always had her shit together.”

  “She definitely saved my life a bunch of times,” Jamie replied with a grin.

  30.

  FOR THAT FINAL GAME OF Kingdom in the autumn of my eighth-grade year, Sidney insisted that Jamie join us. And not only that, she made a big fuss about all of us dressing up.

  It was one thing to play a game like that when we were in fourth or fifth grade like Sid was. Rose and I were that age when we originally thought up Kingdom, after all. But now I was in junior high—and Rose had just started high school, for god’s sake!—and Sidney not only wanted us to play a make-believe game, but she also wanted us to do so while wearing costumes.

  That was our hard line. Rose refused to dress up, which meant that I refused too.

  “It’s enough just to play,” Rose said. “We don’t have to … wear special outfits for it or anything.”

  “Jamie will dress up!”

  “He won’t.”

  Sid was adamant: “He will!”

  He had answered neutrally enough to my text when I invited him to join us. That was a minefield in itself, figuring out how to even ask. I tried to explain that it was an important thing to Sidney, tried to make it sound like she dragged us into it, to convey that it was definitely embarrassing. But Jamie just texted back promptly: Sure. Let me know when. No reservations, no further questions.

  We picked a weekday afternoon purposefully so the game wouldn’t drag on. Mom was still at work, but Rose was in charge of us after school at this point. There was a short stretch of time between us arriving home on the bus and Mom getting back from work, and that’s the time we picked to play.

  A knock sounded at the door that afternoon, and when I opened it, Jamie was standing there in the hallway wearing jeans, a white button-down, a scarf tied into a belt, and snow boots. A worn plaid throw hung over his shoulders, fashioned like a hooded cape.

  “Where’s your outfit?” he said, frowning.

  Something in my chest seized uncomfortably, like my heart was temporarily too big for my rib cage.

  Sidney appeared at my side and jumped up and down, knocking me on the arm. “I told you! I told you he would dress up!”

  Rose appeared too, saw Jamie’s outfit, and her lips curved into a small smile. “Okay, Hapless. I guess we’re really doing this.”

  * * *

  Rose put on a pair of Mom’s old cargo pants and a bomber jacket. She took a belt and attached some stuff to it with hair ties—a ruler, a protractor, a TV remote, and a hairbrush.

  “Hairbrush?” Jamie said.

  “The bristles are blow darts.”

  “Nice.”

  I wore Rose’s eighth-grade formal dress—it was puffy and gold, with layers of tulle—with a pair of boots and threw her middle school graduation gown over it like some kind of wizard robe. Back in the day, Sidney’s Quad outfit had been made out of an old pillowcase, like some kind of bootleg Dobby. But this time she took one of Rose’s shirts, a long, dark plaid thing with rips in it, and wore it like a tunic, along with the knee, elbow, and wrist pads my mom insisted on after our dad got us skates for Christmas one year.

  “Armor,” she informed me. “In case we go into battle!”

  “So what’s our backstory?” Jamie said when we were all dressed and assembled in the living room. “Where have we been the last few years?”

  “Adventuring,” Rose said, at the same time that I said, “Counting our riches,” because even though the last game of Kingdom never had a definitive ending—it kind of just faded away—that’s where I would’ve wanted us to end up.

  “Who cares where we were?” Sidney said. “We’re back together now because Hapless has been put under a spell.”

  “What kind of spell?” Jamie said.

  “A witch cast a curse on you that makes you forget everything good in your life and in the world. You’ll forget things one by one until only the worst, most terrible memories and things remain, and it’ll drive you into a deep despair.”

  Rose and I blinked at each other. Sidney was ten. What did she know about deep despair?

  “That’s kinda dark, Sid,” Jamie said.

  She shrugged.

  “How long have I got?”

  “Until you’ve forgotten all the good stuff?” She paused to consider. “A few days, maybe.”

  “What do I lose first?”

  “Cake,” she said. “You forget about cake. All cake, in order, starting with the best kind of cake and ending with the worst kind of cake.”

  “What’s the worst kind?”

  “Fruitcake, at Christmas.”

  “And the best?”

  “Chocolate.”

  “No.” I frowned. “The best are those ones you see online where you cut them open and the inside is hollow and a bunch of M&M’s pour out.”

  “You’re both wrong. The best is vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, and the worst is carrot,” Rose said. “Regardless, you’ve lost every kind of cake.”

  “And your favorite book when you were a kid,” Sidney added. “And your best friend from school.”

  “Geez,” Jamie said. “How long until I lose mac and cheese?”

  “You just did,” she replied, and Jamie’s face split into a grin.

  “Ruthless. Okay.” He looked between the three of us. “What do we do first?”

  * * *

  The Eastman consisted of two towers joined together by a central lobby that housed the front desk, the leasing office, and the three ballrooms. There was also a small indoor pool on the west side of the building and the offices of a few businesses, all connected by a main hallway. It was a pretty nice building in terms of amenities, but parts of it were definitely wearing down a bit. My mom complained occasionally about the lack of upkeep, particularly in the units—paint peeling away on the ceiling, appliances wearing down. A screen on one of the windows in our bedroom had had a hole in it for ages. We hadn’t opened that window in years.

  Still, the rent was affordable, and it was either way nicer or way cheaper than a lot of other places around here—not too close, but not too far of a drive to the School of Medicine, where Mom worked.

  For Kingdom, we designated different areas of the Eastman as different parts of the kingdom. The pool was a swamp, and the mail area was a magical vault. Certain parts of the parking lot had their own designations—the area by the trees where the barbecue stood was a sacred glen, the concrete parts without shade were the Wilds. Even employees of the Eastman, albeit unknowingly, took part in our game.

  The front desk attendant had to walk the perimeter of the building every couple of hours. (“Expressly whenever I need to get a package,” Mom would say. “Somehow they always know, and they choose that exact moment to leave.”) We made that person—whoever it happened to be—into a member of the Evil King’s Watch. We would run and hide from them, track their movements, create plans to infiltrate their guard.

  For this particular game, this resurrected game, we entered the stairwell on our floor under Sidney’s direction: “We’re busting Hapless out of a tower,” she said. “Go up there, and we’ll come get you.”

  Jamie went ahead of us to the landing between the ninth and tenth floors.

  “How do we know how to find him?” Rose asked.

  “Magic intel.”

  “Do we know that he’s under the curse?”

  Sidney nodded.

  “How?”

  “Magic intel,” she repeated more insistently.

  “Who’s our magic source? Where is the intel coming from?” I said.

  Sidney looked annoyed. “A frog told me. A magical talking frog. He jumped out of a pond and he told me. Is that okay with you?”

  Rose hid a smile. “Lead the way.”

  When we started up the stairs from the ninth floor and found Jamie on the landing, he was sitting on the ground, slumped against the wall. With one look up at us—baffled, exhausted,
confused—I remembered how good at pretend he was.

  “What’s happening?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Sidney crouched by him. “You’ve been cursed, but everything will be okay if you do exactly what we say.”

  “You have my word,” he replied, all princely dignity. But then his expression sank back into confusion. “I have to get back to my castle. There are things I need to do. I have to see to my people and feed my dog. His name is…” He trailed off, looking off into the distance with a puzzled look on his face.

  “What?” Sidney prompted.

  “Sorry?”

  “His name is what?”

  Jamie’s brow scrunched. “Who?”

  Sidney looked at me in delight.

  “On your feet,” Rose said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I extended a hand to Jamie and he clasped it, grinning at me. “Let’s go.”

  31.

  Sasha: This is Sounds of the Nineties here on 98.9 The Jam. I’m Sasha.

  Joydeep: I’m Joydeep.

  Sasha: And tonight we’re highlighting songs from the year 1996.

  Joydeep: Quite a year.

  Sasha: Was it?

  Joydeep: I don’t know. I assume so?

  Sasha: We’ve also got some music coming up from Existential Dead, so if you’re a fan of them or of nineties music in general, keep it tuned.

  Joydeep: Hey, Sasha?

  Sasha: Hm?

  Joydeep: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

  Sasha: Are you trying to interview me right now?

  Joydeep: Well, as the brand-new Sounds of the Nineties co-host, I feel like we should, uh, give the listeners an opportunity to get to know you better.

  Sasha: Yeah, because they’ve learned so much about you so far.

  Joydeep: Well, I guess it’s an opportunity to get to know both of us, then.

  Sasha: You just want to practice for the interview with our mystery guest.

  Joydeep: Nah, I think we established I don’t really need practice, as our producer would probably agree. Can’t I be genuinely curious?

  Sasha: Oh my god. You have an article open called “Thirty-Three Interesting Conversation Starters.”