With a Little Luck: A Novel (6 page)

Nat doesn’t eat diner food—perish the thought—but she does drink coffee, and lots of it. How she’ll drink coffee from midnight to two a.m. and then lie down and go to sleep is beyond me, but she claims to have ADD and says that coffee has the opposite effect on her.

Tonight Nat walks in with a determined look on her face, her blond hair still tied back in restaurant mode, her normally gorgeous brown eyes (I know, most people hate brown eyes. Or maybe it’s just those of us who have them and wish we had something more exciting—but her blond hair/brown eyes combo is exceptionally pretty) oddly panicky—darting back and forth, and she looks around the restaurant as she makes her way toward me.

“It’s bad,” Natalie says, bracing me, as soon as she sits down.

I assume she’s going to tell me something bad happened to her—something along the lines of a customer ruining her poached salmon by asking for salt—because what could have happened in my life that she would know before me?

“Just tell me,” I say. I can handle it.

“So, Umbrella Guy?” she says, her face twisted to the side, like she’s not sure how to get the next part out.

“What?” I say. “He heard me on the radio? He came into the restaurant? He thinks I’m an even bigger loser than he apparently already thought I was, hence the never calling me? He was with a girl? A prettier and skinnier girl? What did she look like? I hate her already.”

“Berry, I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

“She’s a supermodel?
What
?”

“He’s dead.”

I blink a few times as it registers.
He’s dead? How? Why? When?
(The “when” is key. The “when” is my ego wondering if he died on his way home and that’s why he never called. But, no, it’s five days later. That can’t be how it happened.)

“They had a memorial service for him tonight,” she says. “A bunch of musician-type people. They reserved the back room at the restaurant. It was packed. Celebs and everything. They had these great flowers—”

“Nat!” I interrupt. “
How did he die?
Did he die driving home from my apartment?” This would be worse than I even thought. Forget that bad “open an umbrella indoors” luck—I might have essentially killed him by sending him home! “Please tell me my decision to not be a slut didn’t kill him.”

“You didn’t kill him. He died the next day. I got the whole story.”

“Well, what? What happened? Oh my God, I can’t believe he’s dead.”

“It was stupid. He was being stupid. He was shooting a video with some friends. Some band. They were drunk and racing go-karts, and apparently he stood up in his go-kart to celebrate his victory as he crossed the finish line. I guess he took off his helmet as he stood up in his seat, not realizing that he was putting all his weight on the accelerator, and … he crashed into the concession stand.”

“That’s … unbelievable.”

“I know.”

“Awful,” I say, still trying to wrap my head around it.

“I know.”

My breath catches, and I look at Natalie with dread.

“Oh, Jesus, here it comes,” she says, falling back in her seat.

“It was the umbrella he opened indoors,” I say. “I knew it. I knew it!”

“Next thing you’ll tell me is you weren’t wearing your lucky bandana because you had a bout of too much head sweat.”

“I don’t have head sweat.”

“Everyone has head sweat at some point or another. I get it at the hairdresser when they highlight. I can’t help it—all that pawing over my scalp, blech. And by the way, I notice you’re not wearing your evil-warding bandana. So …”

“So what?” This is about to turn into an inquisition, but I’m trapped.

“So what is it? Lucky shirt? Belt you were wearing when you won five bucks in an instant lottery scratch-off game? Pants you wore to see the Dalai Lama at the Hollywood Bowl and got a group blessing? Or some hidden gem—like a lucky suppository?”

I look away. It’s a sore subject, meaning she’s right, but it irritates me to have it talked about, almost as though her mention of it is leaching away the power. I hold up my arm and rattle my wrist.

Nat nods, waits. She wants to hear it. She always wants to hear it.

“The bangles I was wearing when the cable company gave me free premium channels for a year to apologize for accidentally shutting off my service.”

“I was going to mock you, but that really is lucky. My cable company usually says they’re sorry for my inconvenience and to please stop calling. At least stop calling and breathing into the phone and hanging up. I guess everyone has caller ID these days.”

She’s trying to lighten my mood, and it’s working. She motions for me to show her the wrist again, and traces the bangles.

“Still, this hardly qualifies as lucky clothing. I don’t think you’re holding true to your principles.”

“I can accessorize. Who says accessories can’t be lucky?”

“True,” she says. “My road bike came with a racing-seat accessory, and sometimes that makes me feel like I’m getting very lucky.”

“Stop it. You can’t tell me you don’t at least see the coincidence in this guy meeting me, opening the umbrella, and dying the next day. Not to mention the ‘Everybody Dies’ shirt!”

“You left out some critical details, like the fact that he was driving drunk, standing up in a go-kart with his foot on the accelerator. But, yes, I do see the coincidence. And it’s just that: coincidence. Accident. Fate sliding by. Oops—guy doing dumb thing dies. Stop the presses, we’ve got one for the ‘lighter side of the news’ section.”

Natalie, sensitive as usual. Meanwhile, I think I might cry. Not only because it’s very sad to hear of his death but because deep down, I can’t shake the notion that I had a hand in it, not only with the umbrella but with the post-umbrella chatter about him accepting all the unsolicited bad luck. Before I know it, tears are streaming down my cheeks.

“Oh, God, honey, don’t cry,” Nat says, waving the waitress over and getting a few more napkins for us. “This is why I was afraid to
tell you. Berry, he was drunk and being stupid. It had nothing to do with you or the umbrella.”

“Right,” I say. Now, more than ever, I believe everything I’ve always believed.

“But hey—the good news is he probably would have called you.”

“Hooray.”
Yeah
. Not quite as satisfying as you’d think. Gallows humor doesn’t really go with my self-pity. Or my Cobb salad.

The rest of our meal is a bit of a downer. There’s no good way to come back from news like that, so I just eat fast while she drinks coffee and then we ask for the check.

“Uh-oh,” she says, as she glances down at it.

“What now?” I ask, though I already know it’s bad. It can’t be good. I mean, how many people open a piece of mail and say, “Uh-oh,” and then you ask, “What is it?” and they say, “I’ve just inherited eighty million dollars.” Doesn’t happen.

“Nat, what?” I persist.

“Well, it’s nothing,” she says, conveniently crumpling the little strip of paper in her right hand and reaching for her purse. “Probably. No, Berry. Really. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

By this time, I’m practically shaking with curiosity and dread. “Natalie, tell me. You know I need to know.”

She sighs and turns her head slightly away, then very purposefully turns back and locks eyes with me.

“What do you make of this?” she says, smoothing the wrinkled bill on the counter between us with both hands.

“Um, well, I had …” I struggle with the restaurant’s abbreviations. “I had the salad and the iced tea.…”

“No, no, no,” she says, and then points to the bottom. “Look at the number.”

And there it is, staring back at me like the very eyes of the devil.
A total so unsettling I feel a literal chill spiriting through me. $17.17.

Seventeen seventeen! The split seven. Worse than a triple four or a reverse nine descending. Not quite as bad as a quadruple duple (four twos) or a runzie—five zeroes in a row in the middle of a number. But pretty bad.

I know Nat doesn’t believe in any of it, and she’s just pointing it out because she knows how upset I am and she cares about me. But this $17.17 I simply cannot abide. Not now.

I call over Ashley, the waitress who tells me almost every time I come in about how the audition she had that day is gonna be the one and how she’s going to finally “tell these assholes where they can go.”

“I’m so sorry to bother, but I think there’s maybe a mistake somewhere.”

She takes up the bill with a barely suppressed sigh and ticks off the items.

“Ah, you didn’t charge for the fruit,” I say, relieved that I’d spotted the problem. No dread split seven after all!

“No, we don’t charge for your side. You had the fruit in place of the muffin we normally serve with our big salads. That came with it.”

“Right …” I say dubiously. Natalie and the waitress eye me expectantly for a moment. “I don’t suppose … I wonder if you could charge for the fruit. Just, you know, the normal fruit charge.”

Ashley assumes that expression of profoundest concern and sympathy that waitresses and waiters get when they’re about to go back to the kitchen and tell everyone on the shift what a dumbass you are.

“I can’t because of the way they have the system programmed. If
I don’t actually request something from the kitchen, I can’t charge for it.”

I look up at her, pleading.

“So the only way I could charge you would be … if you actually ordered another fruit side.”

“No,” Natalie says. “You’re not going to buy something you’re not going to eat. I’m not going to watch you do that.”

I stare at Natalie, and she stares back. Ashley stands before us awkwardly.

“I’ll just give you two a minute to figure it out,” she finally says, and escapes back into the kitchen.

“I’ll eat the fruit later,” I say.

“It’s got to stop,” Nat says.

“Natalie, did my potential next boyfriend not die the day after he opened an umbrella indoors?”

“It was a coincidence, Berry,” she says, and sighs. “A total coincidence. And I wrestled with myself about telling you. Do I tell you to make you feel better about him not calling? Or do I not tell you because I know you’ll make yourself even more crazy with this stuff. I opted for the ego boost. Don’t punish me for that.”

My cellphone interrupts us. I look at the caller ID and see my dad’s number.

Now, if
your
father called you after midnight, you might automatically go into panic mode. Old men aren’t supposed to be up making phone calls in the middle of the night. They’re supposed to be half asleep in a big fluffy bed, watching Craig Ferguson make an ass out of himself. At this point in my life, I would pay for a little adrenaline rush when I see my dad’s number come up on the caller ID. Unfortunately, these calls became part of near-daily life so long ago that I know just what he’s after.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, trying hard to keep the resignation out of my voice. “What are you doing up so late?”

“How’s my lucky charm?” he says.

“Not feeling so lucky at the moment,” I tell him.

“Me neither. So let’s change it for both of us. I’m losing, baby. I’m losing big. Can you come by and just sit with me for a little bit? I know my luck will turn around.”

“Dad, it’s almost one a.m. I just got off work, and I’m tired.”

“Just stop by, then, on your way home? Give me a hug for good luck?”

How could anyone—anyone who loves her father, anyway; anyone who once idolized her father—say no to that?

“See you in a few,” I say, as I hang up and wave Ashley back over. “Could you please add a side of fruit to this tab and pack it to go? I’m going to bring it to my dad.”

“Sure thing,” she says, and I look back at Natalie, who rolls her eyes.

“Unnecessary.”

“Which, the extra fruit or the fact that I’m going to now drive half an hour so I can give my father a lucky hug?”

“Both.”

“Says you,” I say, as I take my to-go fruit, kiss Nat on the cheek, and walk to my car. She might be right about my dad, but she is dead wrong about the fruit.

To know and understand my relationship with my dad is, well, something I’ve strived to do myself for the majority of my life. I can’t explain why I jump when he calls, why I want to please him so badly, why I need his approval. I guess at its most base level, it’s your typical daddy issues. But that’s a term you usually hear when
someone has a strained relationship with her father, or when her relationship with her father and the issues that stem from it make her unable to have emotional connections. Unable to have successful romantic relationships. And I refuse to cop to that this early in my adult dating life. I’m no lost cause, so I don’t need to put a label on my problem. I think.