With a Little Luck: A Novel (34 page)

“But you could have been killed.”

“I was lucky. Always have been, even when I wasn’t.”

I stare at him. “What’s that even mean?”

“I’ve got a meeting, Berry,” he says. “But let’s have dinner tonight. We’ll solve the world’s problems.”

I walk to the elevator with him and say goodbye for now. He walks away confidently, and already I feel better about the Lambert genes I’m wearing.

Standing at the airport newsstand with a four-dollar bottle of Smartwater in my hand. (I know—how “smart” is it to pay four dollars for water? It’s ridiculous. But it’s my favorite brand, and they gouge you at the airport regardless. If it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston—then again, her taste in things, certainly men, may be questionable. Looks aside, I mean. Who’d turn down any of the guys she’s dated? Certainly not me.) I’m debating between
Us Weekly
and
Star
to thumb through on my trip home when I feel a buzz in my handbag. I pull the phone out and see that it’s Ryan calling.

“Hey,” I say. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he says. “I’m good. My mom’s test came back, and it’s benign. She’s fine.”

“That’s so great,” I say, hugely relieved.

“Yeah, I knew you’d want to know immediately, and I feel like a total baby for having you come over that night.”

“Please,” I say. “I’d be there … always …”

“Yeah,” he says, and I detect a sadness in his voice and a distance between us once again. Any closeness that we regained that night has disappeared in the light of a new day and a clean bill of health. “Anyway, Ber, I’m sorry, we’re coming back from commercial—I gotta run. But I wanted to let you know and say thanks again.”

“I’m really happy for you, Ryan. That’s great news.”

“Take care, Berry,” he says, and although he hangs up, I find myself holding the phone to my ear for an extra moment, wishing he was still on the other end.

“With all due respect,” Natalie says, “your dad’s a loser.”

“I know,” I say, now back on familiar ground, back across from Natalie, who now sounds different to me, though she hasn’t changed at all.

“So you basing your entire belief system on his messed-up shit is …”

“I know … I get it.”

“Loserish,” she continues.

“Enough with the name-calling.”

“The point is, you’re better than that. You’re better than him.”

Even though I know she’s right, I find myself feeling protective of my dad. As angry as I am … as much as he lets me down … he’s still my dad. The only one I have. I’m not about to bring up her
dad’s porn habit, but come on … it’s not like her dad’s Captain Perfect, either. Still, she’s right. I’ve based so much of my life on being afraid. What’s worse … all of my fears have been based on completely unfounded, silly, made-up hypotheticals. An existence based on fear of “what ifs.”

“He has his demons,” I admit. “But you’re right. I need to distance myself from his way of thinking.”

Natalie exhales a gigantic breath. “I gotta admit, I never thought I’d see the day. I’m proud of you.”

“Okay, come on.”

“I’m serious, Ber,” she says. “You’ve been like an emotional cripple.”

“That’s a little extreme.”

“I was putting it nicely.”

“Thank you?”

“Look,” she goes on. “This is good. This is growth. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Isn’t that what they say?”

“If I was an alcoholic,” I say.

“You’re a something-ic.”

“I’m something ick?”

“You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“This is big,” she says, with an encouraging smile. “I sense a change in you. A real one.”

“Yeah, so now what?” I ask.

“Now you be opposite Berry.”

“Bizarro Berry,” I offer.

“Yes.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I say.

“It means take charge. Do things you’re afraid of. Take your life back.”

“Yeah, I don’t need to do a bunch of shit that’s just tempting fate.”

“You’re not tempting fate,” she says. “You’re trusting yourself. You’re not living in fear.”

Her words are taking root. A self-confident, self-reliant me? I can almost picture it.

“That would be nice,” I admit.

“What’s your biggest fear?” Nat asks.

“That’s kind of a heavy question. You mean my biggest fear based on superstition, or …”

“Whatever—just your biggest fear.”

“What’s your biggest fear?” I ask her, eager to get out from under the microscope.

“Easy,” she says. “I fear that I will one day be hospitalized and unable to use my arms, or worse, in a coma and nobody will be there to pluck hairs out of my face.”

“Oh, I know,” I say. “I’m in the mirror, tweezing my freakin’ eyebrows like every single morning.”

“No,” she says with a grave look as she grabs my arm. “This goes beyond eyebrows. I grow hair in my mustache area like a wildebeest. And on my chin I have about seven hairs that require plucking at various times.”

“I had no idea.”

“It’s an albatross,” she goes on. “When I was young I was afraid of heights … and spiders … and my parents dying. Now I would eat a tarantula on top of the Empire State Building while my parents swan-dive off the deck in exchange for no facial hair.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

“It would be a toss-up,” she says.

“Look, let’s not talk about tarantulas and swan dives.”

“If I’m ever in a coma, will you pluck the hair from my face?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Every day?”

“If you require it, yes.”

“I require it!” she says vehemently.

“Then I will.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Nat asks, completely serious. “I mean, at some point this was going to need to come up, like a living will or something. I need to know that I can count on you.”

“Wow, did we just switch bodies?” I tease. “I thought I was the crazy one.”

“You’re the superstitious one. I am an ape descendant—the missing link. One is a mental case—I mean a choice—the other is an unfortunate existence.”

“Got it,” I say. “And calling me a mental case? Not gonna bode well when you’re in a coma.”

“Don’t go there,” she says.

“I’m just sayin’ … do me wrong and you could wake up with a goatee.”

“I will cut you.”

Nat’s right. It’s time for me to take my life back. But back from when? I’ve been this way since I was born. Now I have to start over? Learn to not be afraid? Not think I’m jinxing myself if I do this, that, or the other thing? I don’t even know what a life like that looks like.

We make a list of my fears and basically create tasks that will force me to face them. I start sweating at the thought of it, but Nat calms me down and assures me that nothing bad will happen. And that once I start and see that the sun still rises and sets, it will be freeing.

“We’re gonna test this right now,” Natalie says triumphantly.

“How so?”

“Go get an umbrella,” she says.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m serious,” she says.

“You’re going to make me open an umbrella in my house?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You have to,” she says.

“Come on, Nat,” I whine, even though I know she’s right about me getting past this stuff. But it’s still terrifying.

She ignores my whine and goes on. “You have to do an about-face, Berry. Open an umbrella indoors, break a mirror, adopt a black cat, and see that nothing bad will happen, and if it does, realize that it has nothing to do with the cat or the umbrella or the mirror.”

“I’m a dog person,” I say. “And besides, I don’t think Moose would appreciate sharing his space with a cat.”

“Go get an umbrella,” she repeats.

I sigh as I get up and walk to my closet. I know this is supposed to be a meaningful ritual. I know I have to take these steps. But I’m not a hundred percent ready to do this. Hell, I’m not fifty percent ready.

I take the umbrella out of my closet and walk over to Natalie. I know I can’t think about it for another second or it’ll never happen. I’ll just stay locked in my patterns.

So I just open it. And … it feels good. I feel relieved.

“Ta-da,” I say, twirling the umbrella.

“And look,” she says. “The sky isn’t falling.”

“It’s not like every bad reaction happens immediately.”

“Bad shit is gonna happen,” she says. “Whether you open umbrellas indoors or not.”

“I know.”

“But it’s not gonna happen because you opened the umbrella indoors.”

“Says you,” I tease.

“Well, we’re testing the theory.”

One week and three tests with Natalie later, nothing bad has happened. In fact, I get a job offer at another station without getting a manicure in my lucky color. I’m still wearing my horseshoe necklace because … some things are sacred, but all in all, I feel liberated. It’s a process, damn it. They don’t make heroin addicts go cold turkey. It could kill them. Or something like that. I don’t know, it’s been a while since I tuned in to
Dr. Drew
.

I don’t want to complain, because I know compared to most I’ve lived a very fortunate life. I have two parents who love me, a brother who’s now back in my life, and a roof over my head. I was raised in a loving household. For all of my dad’s issues, he cared for me. There was no abuse, and my parents did love each other the best they knew how. I had a good childhood. I was loved and nurtured. I was safe. I was protected.

But beyond all of my safety precautions was a cage. An impenetrable wall that was, yes, meant to keep me safe from harm but also keep me safe from life experience. I wasn’t taught to trust, I was taught to be on guard—always. From the most benign to the most intrinsic life experiences, all would come with consequence if
A
plus
B
didn’t equal
C
. If I did this wrong thing, said this wrong phrase, knocked on wood this many times instead of that many times … something would break, someone would leave, someone would die.

Being with my brother somehow put everything in perspective, brought it all home, and when I think about it, it all comes down to one moment—the root of it all—the thing that made me believe if I didn’t do some random thing, nothing would work out right. A silly little girl, watching my mother pack up our suitcases in Vegas as I cried and begged her to stay so we could be a family, I betrayed my father’s habit of tapping the door frame twice whenever leaving a room for good. We were leaving, but my hands were occupied and my mom was upset and I wanted to touch the wall to make things right. I thought if I could touch the wall like my dad taught me then we’d turn around and check back in, that my mom and dad would make up, that we’d stay a family intact.

But I didn’t tap the door frame. And my parents barely spoke from that day on. And I never stopped wondering if things would be different had I done that. If I had just tapped that wall two times. Was that superstition? Obsessive-compulsion? Maybe a combination of both, so deeply ingrained into my psyche from my father and his frightened way of life that while safe from harm, I lived a life that was entirely too safe.