The Night I Got Lucky (27 page)

S
unday afternoon was muggy, but the early evening was wil ow-tree cool. With Chris napping on the couch, I put on my running shoes, left the condo, and walked and walked and walked. I wasn’t sure what had drawn me outside. I had nowhere to be, no errands I needed to run.

As I crossed LaSal e Street, I figured it out. I couldn’t help but glance at the brick three-flat across the street. Blinda’s place. I’d walked by a number of times since she left on her trip, and her basement unit was always dark, the shades pul ed tight. Now, the drapes were open and there was lamplight from within. I fought the urge to head straight to her door and pound on it. Instead, I hurried home. Chris was stil asleep. I went into our bedroom and lifted the frog from my nightstand.

I looked at its little face, which I’d grown oddly fond of. I studied its legs that appeared ready to leap.

“Time to say goodbye,” I whispered.

I rushed back to LaSal e Street and crossed the road, hitting the buzzer for Blinda’s apartment.

“Hel o?” came Blinda’s melodic voice through the intercom.

“Blinda, it’s Bil y Rendal . Sorry to just stop by on a Sunday, but I saw your light was on and—”

The buzzer sounded. The door clicked open. I pushed it and moved to her inside door. And there she was, looking just like she always had. Her long blond hair was in need of a good brushing. She wore a flowing pink skirt in some kind of crinkly cotton material and a navy blue top with spaghetti straps.

“Bil y,” she said kindly, waving a hand inside. “I’m so pleased to see you.” She made it sound as if she’d been cal ing me for weeks, instead of the other way around. “Sit, sit,” she said, gesturing to her wool y red and orange couch. The place looked the same, too—yel ow candles flickering from the bamboo side tables, boxes of Kleenex at the ready.

“How was Africa?” I said to be polite. What I wanted to say was,
Where have you been? How could you give me that frog and then disappear?

“Africa was surreal and sublime and heartbreaking,” she said. “It always is.”

“Good,” I said. “Wel , I think that’s good, right?”

She smiled beatifical y. “It was good. And you, Bil y? How are you?”

“Huh. Wel .” Where to begin? “About the frog.”

She took a seat across from me. “Yes, the frog.”

“Why did you give it to me?”

“Why don’t you tel me what happened first?” Her green-blue eyes widened and she leaned forward, as if waiting for my answer with great interest.

I thought about demanding that she tel
me
everything first, everything she knew about the frog and why I’d received it, but I was struck with the thought that none of it real y mattered. The fact was she’d given it to me, it had changed me and eventual y I’d dealt with that change.

So I started talking. I told Blinda how everything had been altered after that one night. I told her about the last month and what I’d done after I couldn’t get rid of the frog—how I’d gotten my life back to the way I wanted it at this moment.

“Sounds like you’ve got it under control,” Blinda said.

“For now.”

She laughed, nodding. “I’m glad you realize that. Life is always a balancing act. There’s no goal line.”

I reached for my purse and removed the frog at the bottom. “Is that what you were trying to teach me when you gave me this? Were you trying to show me that no matter what you want or what goals you have, there wil always be something to deal with when you reach those goals? Were you trying to show me that no one’s life is ever perfect?”

“I’ve been told everyone learns their own message from the frog,” she said.

“What do you mean ‘everyone’?”

“Everyone who’s had him.”

“So other people have had this frog and been changed by it?”

She nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told. I was one of them.”

“Oh.” I stared at her, stumped. I wanted to ask,
What happened to you? Tell me your story.
But somehow I knew Blinda would only smile peaceful y and ask me a question in return.

“Wel , look, I’ve got to give the frog back.”

She shook her head. “No, no. You have to give it to someone else.”

“What? Says who?”

“That’s just how it works.”

“I already tried to give it to a museum.”

Blinda cocked her head a little. “What happened?”

“It came back.”

“I’ve heard that would happen if you weren’t truly done with it. Now that you are, you have to pass it on to someone else. An individual who needs it.”

“But I can’t give this thing to someone else.” I glanced at the frog. His eyes bulged up at mine. His slash of a mouth seemed to deepen in a grin. “He brought me hel .”

Blinda gave me a patient smile. “Is that real y true?”

I looked at the thing again. I rubbed the little bumps on his back, letting the last month swirl through my head. “It hasn’t been al bad. The things I wanted were legitimate. But after I got what I wanted, some things, like my job, weren’t how I imagined they would be. And others—” I frowned “—like having Evan flirt with me and my mom get her own life. Wel , they just brought their own issues. Mostly, I wanted to feel like I had some part in the course my life was taking.”

“But you did in the end, didn’t you?” Blinda asked. “You’ve created the world you’ve got now.”

I nodded.

“So, now you’ve got to pass him on,” Blinda said. “That’s how it works.”

Three weeks later, Alexa and I met for coffee at a diner on Lincoln Avenue; in fact, we met regularly for coffee or tea now, discussing Alexa’s dream of opening her own firm, fil ing her in on the gossip from Harper Frankwel . I’d also been going to the suburbs one night a week to see Tess and the kids, but it was nice to have a girlfriend in the city.

At each of the get-togethers with Alexa, I carried the frog with me, looking for the right opportunity to carry out Blinda’s mandate. Whenever I saw one, though, I began fretting—
Could I
do it? Should I do it?
It seemed reckless. Who knew what havoc the frog could wreak? And yet when I cal ed Blinda, she asked me to look around and see what the frog had brought me. And what I saw was a life that fit and a husband to share it with. I wanted that for Alexa, too. Or whatever her version of happiness entailed.

“I’m just nervous,” Alexa said now. “It’s nearly impossible to get money to start a business, you know?”

I nodded.

“I was turned down again for a smal business loan. And of course, I never heard from that Carlos Ortega guy I was hitting up for capital.” She shook her head sadly. Her hair was loose around her face. She wore white Capri jeans and a white blouse.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“I am, too.”

“It’l come together.”

“So why is nothing happening? I’m getting scared.” Her eyes darted to mine, then back down. She seemed slightly embarrassed by her confession. She rushed on. “And it’s not just professional y. I mean, I’m tired of living with my family. I’m tired of dating these neighborhood boys my mother keeps setting me up with.”

“Alexa, you’re an awesome person, and let’s face it, you’re gorgeous. You’re going to find someone.”

She blew on her coffee. “Someone like your Chris, huh?”

“Exactly.” Chris and I had been working hard to be honest with each other, to make time for each other. We’d begun to carry the packages of our marriage more careful y again. It was sometimes uncomfortable and foreign, but it was imbued with the low light of optimism, bringing our home a whole new kind of feeling. “You’l find a Chris for you,” I said to Alexa.

“I’m starting to doubt that.” She stared at the white mug of coffee in front of her, her eyes flat, her mouth downturned.

“Hey, look at me.”

She glanced up, her eyes stil emotionless.

“I think you’re going to get everything you want,” I said. “And I mean
everything.
It just might not be an easy road. Can you handle that?”

Her eyes flickered with passion now. “Are you kidding? I’ve never had an easy road in my life. I just want something to happen.
Now.
”

I sucked in a chestful of air, biting my lip. “I want to give you something.”

“A loaded handgun?”

“No,” I said, chuckling. I reached in my bag and found the frog, my hand closing over it. I looked up to meet her eyes, nervous. “Here you go.” I held out the frog, a scrap of jade in my pale hand.

Alexa took it. “That’s real y nice of you.”

I could tel she was underimpressed, and I couldn’t blame her. I remembered my own less than wondrous reaction when Blinda gave it to me.

“It’s sort of a…” I said. How to put this? “It’s a charm.”

“What kind?” Alexa turned it around and studied it.

“Trust me on this.” I closed her hand around the frog and gripped her fist in mine. “It’s a good luck charm.”

A
lexa Vil a moved through the darkened apartment. This was her favorite time, when the place was silent. When her mother, her aunt and al the kids were asleep. The apartment was never truly dark, due to the blazing streetlights outside, but with the blinds closed like now, those lights gave a yel ow radiance she found comforting.

She found her purse on the kitchen counter, next to a stack of dishes crusted with macaroni and cheese. Ignoring the dishes, she brought the purse back to her single bed. Across the room, in the other twin bed, two of her nieces slept soundly, their dark hair mingling on the white of the sheets.

Alexa switched on the tiny, bedside lamp and dug in her purse for her notebook. She’d just had an idea about a Hispanic university dean who might give her some work. Her fingers brushed past pens and lipsticks and her checkbook. The notebook seemed to be missing. But what did it matter? He probably wouldn’t want her PR services. Probably no one would.

She didn’t have an office yet or any capital to get one. The doubts about this path she’d chosen got bigger and bigger. She lay back against the headboard, feeling overwhelmed with a sense of futility.

Think positive,
she told herself, but it was tough. Listlessly, she reached for the purse again and pushed her hand deeper inside, her fingers closing over something smal and cool and smooth.

She sat up and took it out. She held it under the lamp’s circle of soft light. The frog Bil y had given her. An odd present.

She looked at it closer, she saw that it glittered in the lamplight, as if it was made from polished stone. Something about the frog struck her as charming. She studied it some more, turning it around in her hand.

Then she set it on her nightstand, right next to the lamp. Forgetting about her notebook, she turned off the light.

The next morning, Alexa helped get the kids ready for school and out the door. Once the place was quiet, she sat at her makeshift desk. She took a few deep breaths and rol ed her head from side to side. It was getting harder and harder to get herself going in the morning.

After a few more neck stretches, she reached in the milk crate to the side of the desk and took out a few files. She lifted her cel phone and switched it on. As she did so, it sprung to life in her hand, the screen lighting up pink then green then purple, the ringer chiming loudly through the apartment.

It was probably the second bank she’d applied to, tel ing her she’d been rejected for a loan. She sighed as she hit the answer button. She reminded herself of her internal promise to be professional, no matter what. “Alexa Vil a,” she said. “Good morning.”

“
Buenos dias.
This is Carlos Ortega. I’d like to talk to you about your business proposal.”

The Night I Got Lucky

Would you want to get everything you wished for overnight? What are those things you would ask for?

If al your wishes were granted, do you see any problems that would arise? Are al your desires realistic? Do they fit your personality and your life?

Why do we so often think the grass is greener on the other side? Have you, or someone you know, gotten what they wished for and found the grass wasn’t so green? How did they handle the situation?

Do you know anyone who, like Bil y, feels as if they’re trying to make things happen in their life but who is actual y rather passive?

For Bil y, the price of wish fulfil ment was the feeling that no one in her life had free wil . Would you want your wishes granted if the players in your life had no say in it?

What did you think about Bil y’s unresolved feelings for her absentee father? Do you believe that abandonment like that in one’s childhood can affect the adult?

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