A Hilarious and Charming Feel-Good Read

by Saranna Dewylde

  Lucky swallowed hard. “Take the help, Gwen. I made this choice, but not on my own. I talked to my mother, to the godmothers.”

  “You didn’t talk to me. You didn’t ask me what I thought was best.”

  “You’re right, because I would never put you in that position. I love you, Gwen. I love those kids more than anything. I will not be the weapon he uses against you.”

  Gwen let out a small sob. “What am I going to do without you?”

  “You’re not without me. Not at all. This is only temporary. We’re going to be old and gray and living next door to each other just like we promised. Best friends. Forever.”

  “I will absolutely hold you to that promise. Tell me where else you’re going. Just so I know you’re safe.”

  “After I fix this part of my Grand Mal Fuckup, I’m going to talk to Nancy.”

  “She doesn’t deserve your apology.”

  “It’s not for her. It’s for me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with my life. Who I want to be. So this is a quest, you could say. I’m on a mission to reclaim myself.”

  “If you’d just said that to start with, I wouldn’t have been sitting here chewing my fingernails off with worry.”

  “Roderick has said he’ll help you in any way that he can. Let him. The godmothers, too.”

  “Any other orders, bossy pants?”

  “Yeah, kiss those monsters for me. Tell them I’m on a quest, if they ask. Tell them Aunt Lucky is going to be her own hero.”

  “I’m going to tell them that Aunt Lucky is our hero, too. Don’t stay gone too long, okay? I have Ever After gossip.”

  “Ooh, tell!”

  “Nope, not until you come back,” Gwen teased.

  “You know I travel for tea.”

  “Don’t we all?” Gwen was quiet for a long moment. “No matter what’s going on with me, you know if you need me, you can call.”

  “I know. I will. I’ll be back soon. Promise.”

  “Good. Or I’ll have to come kick your butt.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” Lucky said. “Love you.”

  “Love you more.” Then Gwen hung up so she got the last word.

  Lucky knew with every fiber of her being that she’d finally set herself on the right path. She found it a strange dichotomy that she was both ready to get all of this off of her chest, but still nervous at the thought of confession.

  When the car stopped, and the door opened, she’d never been more grateful to see a familiar face.

  Roderick held his hand out to her, looking every inch a corporate shark. That also gave her comfort. If she was swimming with a shark, the other predators couldn’t make her prey.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes and no. I kinda feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  “Hmm. There will be a man sitting to your left. His name is Anthony Searle. He’s the one who orchestrated the takeover, so if you puke, do hit him in the face. If you’re able to control the stream.”

  “So noted.”

  Roderick put his hand on her back to guide her through the glass doors and toward the elevator. He nodded to the security team, who simply nodded and allowed them to pass. Roderick entered a card into the control panel and hidden numbers lit up. He typed in a code, and the elevator doors closed.

  “If you have a chance, do you think you could persuade Gwen to accept my help? I can’t exactly follow through on that favor if she won’t speak to me.”

  “I spoke to her on the way here. She was just concerned about me.”

  “Yes, she thought I’d influenced your decision. That I was cruel to you.” Roderick cleared his throat. “I know I was harsh, but outright cruelty wasn’t my intention.”

  No, just cruel enough to get her to do what he wanted. Only she couldn’t be angry at him. She’d already proved she’d go to the same lengths to protect those she loved.

  “It’s okay. As you know, I’ve done things myself.”

  “I’d like us to be friends, Lucky. I don’t know what the future holds, but I think it’d be a boon to both of us to have the other in our corners.”

  “I’d like that.”

  The elevator stopped and opened into a small anteroom outside of a wall of glass. Four men and three women who looked like they guarded the gates to the afterlife sat in that room, all dressed in what looked to be the same suit.

  “Please tell me I don’t have to go in alone,” she said. “I know I’m supposed to slay a dragon here but . . .”

  “I’m running the meeting. I have to go in with you.”

  “You didn’t tell him I was here, did you?”

  “Of course not. He’d try and stop you. Look, we’ve bought up as many shares as we could, but the ones who will sway this in our favor are in this room. Not to add any pressure or anything. I think your confession could persuade them to sell to us instead of Searle.”

  “It’ll be nice to actually be the lucky charm instead of the cooler.”

  Roderick opened the door for her and Lucky stepped inside the room. It smelled of industrial window cleaner, burnt coffee, and a wisp of chocolate.

  He entered right behind her and motioned to a seat behind him, and she sat there, happy to have his body between her and the rest of the room.

  “That coffee smells like burning tar. Who did that?” Roderick asked. “You know HQ is only supposed to smell like fresh coffee and chocolate. Ransom leaves for five seconds and this is what you do?”

  “Ransom has a bigger problem than burned coffee,” Searle said. “He has a drowning cacao farm and a non-majority stock position in a company where the board has what we call a loss of faith in the CEO.”

  “I know what it’s called, Searle. Thank you for that update. Before we get into the business at hand—”

  “Where’s Payne? Why isn’t he addressing the board in this time of crisis?” a woman asked.

  “Amanda, he’s in Ecuador dealing with the plant. Before anyone says anything, no, we’re not cutting our losses. At least as long as Ransom is in charge. You should think about that. He doesn’t let anyone who works for him crash and burn. Searle can’t say the same thing.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of trying,” Searle spoke. “Investing is a risk. So if you lose, you lose. I’m not here to save anyone. We all know the risks.”

  “As I said, before we get into this today, I’ve brought someone to speak to you. May I present Lucky Fujiki?”

  Lucky swallowed hard and stepped up next to Roderick. She looked around the table and made eye contact with each person, even though Searle looked like he was about to ask her for a gold coin to cross the River Styx.

  “I’m Lucky Fujiki and I have a confession to make.”

  Searle’s laughter interrupted her. “Should we be in the same building with this woman? Just sitting close to her we might all get syphilis or something.”

  Rather than take offense or get angry, Lucky smiled. “No, you don’t get syphilis from sitting next to someone. They should’ve covered that in health class. Speaking to a further lack in your education, your mother should’ve taught you not to interrupt when other people have the floor. It’s not your turn yet.”

  Searle held up his gnarled hands. “By all means. I surrender.”

  “Thank you.” She looked back to each of the seven people around the table. “I’m afraid that I’ve not been honest.”

  Searle laughed dismissively, but she ignored him.

  She also ignored the tremble in her belly and her shaking hands. Instead, she made a tour of the room as she spoke.

  “Ransom Payne and I share a trio of adorable godmothers. You know that he’s an orphan, right? Well, they basically raised him. They’re just the loveliest old dears. Petunia, Bluebonnet, and Jonquil Blossom. They live together in the cutest cottage in the most ridiculous place you can imagine. Ever After, Missouri. The silliest thing, am I right?”

  “Yes, Miss Fujiki. That’s quite silly,” one of the men answered.

&n
bsp; “They started a little wedding planning business called Fairy Godmothers, Inc. A place where dreams come true. As you can imagine, a little town like Ever After hasn’t ever been on anyone’s radar.”

  “Don’t tell me this was some kind of publicity stunt gone wrong. I don’t buy it,” Searle said.

  Lucky wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she was tired of Searle’s nonsense. The fact that he breathed her air irritated her to start with, but she was doing her best. So she flicked the back of his ear.

  “If you insist on interrupting me like a child, I will treat you like a child. May I continue?”

  Searle didn’t say anything, and she could feel Roderick’s amusement echoing off of him in waves.

  “Yes, friends. It was a publicity stunt. If your dear old grannies were trying to start a business, wouldn’t you do anything they asked you to? They gave Ransom the seed money to start this business. So when they asked us both if we would pretend to get married for some good publicity, of course we said yes.”

  She continued to walk around the room. “You all can’t surely believe that another human being is bad luck? That’s superstitious silliness that has no place in an educated brain.”

  “I don’t know. You’ve got quite the track record,” Amanda said.

  “I do. Because I’m uncoordinated. That happens to a lot of us.”

  “How do you explain what happened to that reporter?” someone else asked. “That sounded like a lot of bad luck.”

  Lucky nodded. “That’s what it was. Just bad luck. That had zero to do with me.”

  “We could believe that if it were only one person. But that taken in conjunction with Nancy Slade?”

  “Coincidence. Not to mention, personal anecdotes do not scientific research make. I’ll spill some tea. Nancy Slade made her own bed by having an affair with a married man. That might be karma, but not bad luck. And even if you did buy into all of that, it doesn’t matter since Ransom and I definitely aren’t getting married. If you’re worried simply about my proximity to him, you have an option. You can let Ransom buy you out with a golden parachute. He wants his company back. I wouldn’t stand in his way.”

  “Is that a threat?” Searle asked.

  “No, not at all. It’s just when you see a human being who is as absolutely driven and devoted to a task as Ransom Payne, it would probably be easier to just get out of his way. For the rest of you, I think you’ve mistaken his kindness for weakness. Yes, Ransom has a very big heart, but he also knows that a company has two main assets. Money and people. He’s preserving the assets. In the long run, he’s saving money. He’s instilling a loyalty in his employees and by retaining them, he’s keeping quality standards by making sure he has skilled labor. He’s in Ecuador right now fighting for this company and the people who work here, while you’ve got Searle over here counting his stacks of gold like Scrooge.”

  She waited for her words to sink in before she spoke again. “I myself recently had to decide who I wanted to be and then make some changes in my behavior. Who do you want to be? Choose your actions accordingly.” She turned to look at Roderick for a moment. “And thank you for your time.”

  Lucky headed toward the door.

  “If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll see you out?” Roderick asked her.

  She nodded and waited for him outside the glass doors. She saw him hand out packets of proposals and what looked to be legal papers. Many of the people inside at that table turned to look at her before they put their pens to the papers.

  Lucky hoped that meant what she thought it did, that her speech had helped Ransom save his company.

  Roderick exited and walked her to the elevator. “I think it worked. We’ll get a majority. When we take the company private, Searle will want out, if he doesn’t already. You were wonderful in there.”

  “Thanks. I know I’ve been kind of on it with asking for favors lately, but could I hitch another ride in the chopper and maybe have the car service for a little longer?”

  Roderick raised a brow. “Are you planning on flying to Ecuador to chase him down? You’d have to borrow the jet for that.”

  Lucky looked down at her feet. “No, that’s finished. I need to visit Nancy and Melvin. I was serious when I told you I was going to fix this. I could travel commercial, but I have to get back to Ever After somehow when I’m done.”

  Roderick laughed. “I’ll call the pilot and let him know you have a couple stops to make.”

  “Thanks, Roderick. For everything.”

  Roderick opened the elevator for her. “Take care, Lucky.”

  Once she was back in the car, she gave the driver Nancy Slade’s address. Lucky could only hope that she was home, and that the woman would speak to her.

  The ride to Nancy’s neighborhood didn’t take long. She lived in a McMansion cul-de-sac that made Lucky’s artistic sensibility try to physically crawl out of her body to avoid looking at it a second more.

  As luck would actually have it, Nancy was getting out of her new Escalade and ushering the kids into the house when Lucky got out of the car.

  “Fire!” Nancy screamed as soon as she saw her. “FIRE!”

  Lucky held up her hands. “What are you doing? I’m just here to talk. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Fire!” she screamed again.

  Her children began looking around, ostensibly for the fire.

  “I don’t understand. Are you actually on fire?” Lucky searched for signs of smoke or flame.

  “No, you awful creature. People don’t respond to cries for help, so you yell fire.” Nancy directed her kids to go the rest of the way into the house and close the door. “You’re lucky I don’t call the police.”

  Was she lucky? She tried not to snicker, because this definitely wasn’t the time or the place.

  “I came to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “Did you?” Nancy eyed her like a hawk would a field mouse. “Well, I’m definitely not recanting what I said to that reporter. Every bit of it was true.”

  “As is the part where you had an affair with my best friend’s shitty husband.”

  To her surprise, Nancy’s stance relaxed and she rubbed a hand over her face. “I knew that was wrong before you cursed me. I was sorry for it before then, too.”

  Lucky was reminded again how she was on the right path.

  “Can you take the curse off? I know what I did was wrong, I’m just trying to raise my children and get by.”

  “I’m trying,” Lucky said.

  “I know Gwen left him. Is she okay?”

  Lucky debated answering. She wasn’t sure if this was some kind of ploy to get information for Jake to use against her or what exactly Nancy was up to.

  “Can you tell her I’m sorry?”

  “I’m discovering the way this works is that you have to do it yourself.”

  “I was so jealous of her. No matter what she did, what obstacles were thrown in her path, she still had this perfect life.”

  “The grass is always greener, I guess.” Lucky took a deep breath.

  Nancy nodded. “I actually miss the PTA meetings with her. Any challenge I had, I could just throw them at her and she’d find a solution. It’s boring as hell without her.”

  “That’s the ultimate crime, isn’t it? You can be as awful as you like as long as you’re not boring.”

  Nancy snorted. “That’s kind of my motto. But hey, I’ll apologize to her myself, but can you tell her I’m not with him? That’s important to me. He definitely wasn’t worth it.”

  Lucky decided to share a piece of news with her. Maybe she could help. “He decided to go for full custody.”

  “He what? I have a PI on retainer. If I dig up some dirt on him, maybe she’ll forgive me.”

  “She might.” Lucky nodded. “Thanks for hearing me out. You know, after the screaming.”

  “That’s what I’d want.”

  “Maybe after things settle down, you can bring your kids to Ever After. It’s a long way for a pl
aydate, but I think they’d have fun.”

  As a strange, stray thought formed in the back of Lucky’s mind, she had to wonder if maybe she was blood-related to her godmothers somehow. She had the strangest sudden urge to meddle.

  Nancy would be a great project for the godmothers.

  Lucky noticed that she’d started seeing the opportunities for love and forgiveness everywhere. She wanted to throw it all around like fairy dust.

  Maybe it was actual fairy dust, she didn’t know.

  Like Petunia said, love was for everyone.

  Even the awful Melvin James, who was next on her list of amends.

  Chapter 24

  Ransom was in the car on his way from his hotel to meet with the new Minister of the Interior, Elizabeth Serrano, when his phone exploded with texts from the godmothers, Roderick, and Gwen.

  Bluebonnet: Calllll mmmmmeeeeeeee. Naow.

  Roderick: Call me when you get a chance. Good news.

  Gwen: Call. Me.

  Ransom smiled to himself at all the different incarnations of the same general message. Bluebonnet had insisted that learning to text was learning another language and she’d thrown herself into it heartily.

  He found it completely adorable that even though she now knew how to speak that language that she still called them “texturals.”

  Ransom knew Roderick had some trick up his sleeve to get the last shares they needed, so he must’ve pulled it off, which was a frigging miracle. He could walk into this meeting with all the confidence of a man who had complete control over his assets and his company. He could make any promises he chose.

  Gwen’s text, however, seemed like an admonishment in itself.

  They were all going to have to wait until after his meeting with Ms. Serrano.

  His car rolled to a stop and a security force opened the door to greet him. He passed through their security procedures with little trouble. He’d been prepared. He didn’t have so much as a pen on him. The only things he carried with him were his phone and his Rolex. The first thing he’d bought himself when he realized he could not only pay rent, but buy a house, pay all of his bills, and still have money left over. It was a bit of a good-luck charm.