Lucky T (26 page)

Just then her new BlackBerry beeped and she grabbed it off the tabletop. Incoming message from Dee, the display read. Automatically she smiled widely.

It said : How's the reconciliation going? I miss you!

"Is that lover boy?" her father asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Dad! Ick," Carrie said, wincing. Dads aren't supposed to say any phrase with the word lover in it.

She typed back a response quickly. Better than expected! Cal U 2nite! Miss U 2!

A horn honked on the street outside and Carrie and her dad looked out to find her mother waving from the window of her car. Her mom had offered to pick her up from Starbucks and drive her to Piper's, but Carrie knew she wasn't going to come inside and see her dad. Stil , it was okay--for now. Carrie couldn't solve everything in one summer. In fact, she had a feeling she should leave her parents' relationship up to them. They would figure out how to be around each other again eventually. And if they didn't, Carrie knew that she'd be all right because even though her parents couldn't be happy with each other, they both wanted their daughter to be happy.

"Well, looks like our time is up," her father said, standing and adjusting his tie. "Good luck with Piper, honey. I hope it all works out."

"Thanks, Dad," Carrie said, and gave him a tight hug. The familiar scent of Polo Sport made her smile. "I'll see you soon, right?"

"Absolutely," he said, not letting go of their embrace. "Seeing each other is never going to be a problem again."

"Lucky me," Carrie said, still breathing in the scent of her father's cologne.

Carrie stared at Piper's house as her mother pulled her car up to the curb. Her heart was break-dancing inside her chest. She had only talked to Piper for five seconds since she got back, and that was to set up this meeting. When they had spoken, Piper had sounded distant and almost wary. There was no telling what would happen.

"So . . . are you going to get out of the car and knock on the door, or are we just going to stare for a while and go home?" her mother asked.

"I'll be ready in a second," Carrie said, not moving a muscle. "Really."

There was a crash outside, as if a trash can had just fallen over, and suddenly a black cat raced by the car followed by a mangy-looking dog. Carrie's heart skipped a beat. Her mother put the car into first and turned her blinker on.

"Mom! What're you doing?" Carrie blurted.

"What?" her mother asked, startled. "That was a sign, right? That we shouldn't be here? I figured we were going home."

Carrie waited for her mother's eyes to crinkle or for her to laugh at her own joke. But then she realized that her mom was 100 percent dead serious.

"God, Mom!" Carrie said, covering her mouth with her hand. "You must think I'm really twisted!"

Her mom put the car back into park and looked at Carrie in confusion. "So you're telling me that the black cat thing had no effect on you whatsoever?

You don't have to ... I don't know, turn three times in a westerly direction, then eat a cinnamon stick or something?"

"Mom! Now you're just making stuff up," Carrie said with a laugh. "Besides, I'm over black cats. I'm working on all my superstitions."

The lines in her mother's face deepened. "What did they do to you over there?"

"I don't know," Carrie said with a shrug. "I guess I just realized life is too short to waste it on stuff like that."

"Wow, Carrie. I'm impressed," her mother said.

"Thanks," Carrie said, feeling a little rush of confidence under her mother's proud gaze. "Okay. I'm goin' in."

Then she picked up her Ganesha medal ion, kissed it, and got out of the car.

"Wait a minute, what was that?" her mother asked.

"For good luck," Carrie replied.

"I thought you were over superstitions," her mother replied, laughing.

"I said I was working on it," Carrie said, rolling her eyes as she slammed the door. "One thing at a time."

Shaking her head, Carrie's mother pulled away from the curb. Carrie took a deep breath, steeled herself, and walked up to Piper's front door.

It's just Piper, she told herself, attempting to calm her racing pulse as she rang the bell . What's the worst that could happen? She flips out on me and we wrestle for a little while before her brother call s his friends over and charges them ten bucks to watch us rol around in the dirt, smacking each other.

The door opened before the second bong had faded away. Carrie froze the instant she saw Piper's face. Her lips were pressed together, her eyes narrowed, and her eyebrows raised. She had her head cocked to one side and one hand still rested on the doorknob as if she wanted to be ready to slam the door in Carrie's face. In short, she looked really pissed off.

"You're fifteen minutes late," Piper said flatly.

Carrie's heart sank down to her toes. "Uh ..."

"That's fifteen minutes I've had to wait to do this."

Then Piper threw her arms around Carrie and hugged her so hard she thought her neck was going to break. Carrie heaved a sigh of relief.

"I'm so sorry, Piper!" she said.

"I'm sorry too!" Piper replied. "And I want you to know I haven't talked to Jason once all summer. Well, except the other day when I was at the pool and I needed him to get me a Band-Aid, but that's it. I promise."

"I don't even care," Carrie said with a laugh. "I missed you!"

"I missed you too!"

Carrie pulled back and whacked Piper's shoulder. "What the heck was that? Giving me attitude?"

"I had to do something to get you back for not writing me," Piper said with a mischievous grin.

"Do you have any idea the size of the coronary you gave me?" Carrie said, holding a hand to her chest. Her poor ticker was still pounding as if it had been given an electric shock.

"Probably about the same as the one I got when I heard you were in India!" Piper said, stepping outside and closing the door. "So . . . tell me everything. What did you do over there?"

Carrie sat down on the front steps and clasped her hands. As she started to come back down to earth, she couldn't believe she had been so nervous about this. After all the years she and Piper had been friends, she should have known everything was going to be fine. It was just as her mother said--

Piper was a sweet, amazing person. And they had been friends for too long to let anything as dumb as a guy come between them. They didn't need to have some sort of long, drawn-out Dr. Phil session to work things out. Al they needed to do was pick up where they left off.

"Well, in a nutshel , I hung out with a bunch of really cool kids, played basketball , did arts and crafts, solved a little plumbing crisis, did a little creative gardening, ate a lot of unbelievable food, saw an amazing sunset or two, and met the India Olympic basketball team," Carrie said. "Oh, and I fell in love with the most perfect guy in the history of guys."

"Whoa," Piper said. "And I was all excited to tell you about the new cafeteria tables at theater geek camp. Got any pictures?"

"I just happen to have a few right here," Carrie said, pulling out the folder of prints she had shared with her dad. "This is Dee," she said, pulling out her favorite shot of him laughing at the breakfast table.

"Oh . . . my . . . God," Piper said, her mouth dropping open. "He's like Brad Pitt, only waaaaay hotter. How'd you guys meet?"

Carrie laughed. "Actually, I just kind of bumped into him."

"Wow, Carrie. This place looks amazing," Piper said, starting to flip through the rest of the pictures. "Wait a minute, what's this?"

Piper handed her a picture and Carrie smiled.

"Oh, that's me and Doreen," she said.

"I know that, genius," Piper said sarcastically. "But why do you have your arms around each other? Are you both drunk?"

"What? No!" Carrie said, completely amused. "We actually got some stuff straightened out. I mean, at first there was these bloody duels and pistols-

at-dawn kind of stuff. But what can I say? We had a breakthrough."

"So Dor-mean and you are pals now?" Piper asked curiously.

"Yeah, and if you're cool with it, I thought all three of us could hang out together."

Piper took the picture back from Carrie's grasp and took another look. Then she giggled. "Carrie, you amaze me."

Carrie smiled, absently reaching up to touch her medal ion. She thought over all the things she had seen and done that summer. She thought about the kids, about Deena and Payal, about Mr. Banarjee, and about Dee. Leaning her head on Piper's shoulder to watch as the images of her last few weeks flipped by, she did feel amazed herself. She also felt relieved to have her friend back, happy to be home, and perfectly content with everything she had and everything she was.

Maybe this moment wouldn't last forever. Maybe everything wouldn't always be perfect. But just then she felt as if the world were clothed in lucky Ts.

"You know, I may have to start buying into this superstition thing of yours," Piper said, stopping on a picture of Carrie and Dee from her last morning there. "You do have all the luck."

"Yeah," Carrie said, putting her arm around Piper's shoulders. "I guess I really do."