Beginner's Luck

by Kate Clayborn

  I smile down at her, and for a second it feels as if we’re the only two people in this room. I wish we were. I wish I could ask her if she holds it against me, if she’s even a little afraid that I’d once been capable of something so awful. Instead, I say, “I’m good at what I do now. And it’s not all that different from working at the salvage yard.” I reach into my pocket to pull out the small talisman I’ve carried with me everywhere since I was ten. I set it on the table. It’s a small, octagonal prism, pale green, a half-inch at its widest point. “I found this going through the tear-down we had of an old chimney. Basically it was a big truck full of bricks, and my job was to knock as much cement off as I could, save the best bricks. But about halfway through, I found this,” I say, setting my index finger atop it, pulling it back toward me. “It’s not worth a whole lot, actually. This kind of piece is pretty easy to find. But it doesn’t belong in a bunch of bricks. And it would’ve been easy to overlook. I just caught it in the right light.” I smile to myself, remember running in to show my dad, who told me I should go back through the pile I’d already done, make sure I hadn’t missed anything else. “Anyways, the point is, I think of it this way: Jasper and I, we sort through a lot of bricks, and we find the gems. We help them go somewhere where they can shine.”

  “Kit’s the gem, huh?” says Zoe, suspicious as all hell.

  “Kit’s the gem.” I believe it. I believe Kit’s getting crushed working in that basement office, buried under the pressures of other people’s research and data collection. I believe if she had money and access and independence, she could be more successful than she’s ever imagined.

  “But—you’re not really thinking about this, are you, Kit? About going to Texas?” Greer asks.

  There’s still no hesitation. “No. I’m not going to Texas.” She looks over at me, gives me a half-hearted smile. “But that was a whole lot better than anything you’ve said to me so far, Tucker.”

  It’s another hour and a half before we leave the bar. The conversation had long since shifted away from work, and I was glad to have the spotlight off, to watch Kit as she interacted with her friends. The three of them told a long, winding story of how they all first met, something about a yoga mat, a hairbrush, and a goldfish in a bag, and they laughed so hard that I’d had trouble understanding some of what they’d said. But I didn’t care, because I like watching Kit laugh. She’d had to keep wiping her eyes and catching her breath, shimmying in her seat—everything about her in on the act of laughing, as though it’s not so common for her that her body’s accustomed to it.

  As we step out into the night air, even cooler now from the pounding rain that came down while we were inside, I know two things for sure, and they don’t necessarily sync up. First, I know that tonight I made a good impression on Kit and the people she deems most important to her consideration of anything I’ve been offering her on behalf of Beaumont. Second, I know that Kit’s not ever going to leave Zoe or Greer easily. The three of them interact as a family, like they have the weight of a lifetime of shared experience between them. Usually, when I scout talent like Kit, young professionals who are living in the towns where they did a degree or a postdoc, they aren’t hugely tied to their geographic location. They may have some fondness for the place, or even good friends or a partner, but they don’t have the kinds of ties that make them want to dig in for a lifetime.

  Kit is dug in. And Greer and Zoe are dug in right beside her.

  “Hey,” Kit says, lagging behind while Zoe and Greer walk ahead. They’re taking a cab back to Kit’s house, and I’m glad she won’t be heading back there alone. “I’m so sorry about what I said before. About you being a—a delinquent. That was really insensitive.”

  She’s looking up at me with such sincerity, her brow knit in concern. “You didn’t know,” I say, tucking my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “And anyways, I was a delinquent. So you weren’t wrong.”

  “I think it’s really great,” she says, punctuating the great with this firm nod of her head, really committing to that particular adjective.

  “You think it’s great that I’m a delinquent?”

  “I think it’s great that you…are you. That you’re this way now. That you made a mistake and you paid for it, and that you didn’t let that mistake determine your future.”

  It’s not a whole lot different from what other people—old teachers, Jasper, even my dad, though not in so many words—have said to me over the years about what I did. But coming from Kit, it feels different. I realize that I want Kit to know the best things about me, and if she has to know the worst ones, I hope she thinks of them this way.

  “Thanks.” Fuck—my throat feels tight. Somehow I always forget what thinking about that night does to me.

  Kit looks over her shoulder to where Zoe and Greer laugh at something Zoe has pulled up on her phone. “Ten to one that’s a video of a puppy playing with a lemon,” she says, smiling. “Zoe loves those.” She looks down, toying with the hem of her shirt. “I’d better get going. Thanks for coming out.” There’s a moment, I think, when both of us are wondering what the right goodbye is. A handshake would be ridiculous now—we’re friends—but a hug feels dangerous, too big, too close. So Kit gives a wave and a smile, and starts to head toward her friends.

  “Kit,” I call, once she’s a few steps away. She turns to look at me, a question in her eyes. I should not, I should not say what I’m about to say, but I guess almost always say the wrong thing around Kit, so at least I’m being consistent. “What I said before, about you being the gem?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re that—you’re that, anywhere. Even if you don’t go to Texas.”

  I don’t stick around to see her reaction. I just turn and hustle to my truck.

  Chapter 11

  Kit

  Over the next week, it’s hard not to hear Ben’s words in my ear every time I see him—you’re that, anywhere. And I do see him, a lot. We fall into a strange sort of rhythm, texting about our days, me ending up at the salvage yard or Ben stopping by to show me something for the house. There’s an easy, laughing cadence to the way we speak to each other, but we don’t shy away from the complexities of the business with Beaumont anymore, either. Last night, we’d debated for over an hour about corporate science—me giving Ben every example I could think of, from the food industry all the way to my own, where shoddy science had led to disastrous results, him offering an equal number of examples of for-profit scientists who’d changed the world, some of them, even, from Beaumont’s own ranks. Ben is smart, determined. He knows his company inside and out, and there are times, when he’s talking to me about what I could do at Beaumont, that I wish I could be someone else for him, someone who is going to give him a different answer.

  But we don’t only talk about work. We also talk about my house, about ideas I have, about what’s at the salvage yard to help make it happen. On Tuesday, I’d even asked him to come by while I met with the contractor who would be doing the kitchen, and my favorite thing about that had been the way he’d stayed entirely quiet during the meeting—this was my house, these were my decisions, and he’d never let the contractor think any different. Once we were alone, though, we’d gone through the information together, strategizing about what questions I’d ask, what I might change. Today, though, I passed on Ben’s offer to meet up at the yard to check out some new furniture inventory they have in, because all my attention needs to be here, on getting ready for my most important, longed-for guest.

  My brother is coming.

  I’m more nervous than I should be for Alex to arrive, tinkering with every last thing in the house so it’s exactly the way I want him to see it. Despite the many miles that separate us most of the time now, despite the strain that’s been between us for the last six months, he’s the person I’m closest to in the whole world, and I want him to feel about this house the same way I had when I’d
first seen it.

  And I also want him relaxed, happy—because part of this visit is going to be tough. When our numbers came up, I’d called Alex in tears—tears of panic and relief and guilt, and I didn’t even have to explain all of that to him. We’d lived through the same things. He knew why I couldn’t just take the luck joyfully, why I had such a hard time accepting it. And because of all that, he’d known exactly what to say to make it okay for me to take the money and move forward. He’d been in Australia then, an extended job he was doing for a conservation trust, and the line had been crackly and unreliable, but he’d stayed on with me until I’d calmed down enough to make some semblance of sense out of having all my financial problems—past, present, and if I was careful, future—wiped out in a matter of seconds.

  But as much as Alex was willing to listen to my panic, he wasn’t interested in listening to my proposal. Ever since I’d first floated it to him, he’d kept more-than-usual distance. Sure, we’d talked occasionally, standard check-ins we did about our dad, and he’d kept up with the emails we sent back and forth regularly since I’d left for college—short messages, photos snapped, links to interesting articles. It’d always been some small way of staying connected after so many years of being in each other’s pockets, or, I guess, me being in his, since Alex had always, always been the one to take care of me.

  But six months was the longest we’d gone without him coming to wherever I was for at least a couple days’ visit, and even when he’d been in the States for three weeks two months ago, he’d not managed to make it here. And I don’t think it was because of his schedule.

  I refold the blanket I have draped over the edge of the couch, smoothing it over the arm.

  “Hey, Martha Stewart,” Zoe says from the dining room, where she’s setting out plates. “You need to chill. It’s not a head of state.”

  “I know,” I grumble. Her presence is a balm but also another reminder of the stakes of this night. Despite the fact that Alex has been to town a couple of times before, he’s never met Zoe and Greer. So tonight, my surrogate and real families are finally coming together.

  I look around the living room, feeling pretty satisfied, overall. With the floors refinished and the windows replaced and Packy’s new coat of antique white paint on the walls, it’s not the crumbling wreck that the rest of the house still is at this point, and just today I’d hung pictures on the wall, including a special one over the mantel that I can’t wait for Alex to see. In here, it’s got the look of a home—my home, and I want Alex to recognize that, to see that I’m getting everything I need. If he knows that, maybe he’ll be more open to taking what I’m offering.

  I drift into the dining room, smoothing the front of my sundress, and Zoe sets down her stack of silverware and comes over to put an arm around me. “It’ll be fine,” she says, squeezing my shoulder.

  I nod, swallowing a sudden constriction in my throat. “Have you heard from Greer?”

  Zoe goes back to setting places, giving me the small comfort and then the distance that I need. “She’s on her way. She got stuck working on a group project at the library.”

  This probably means that Greer was the only member of her group actually working. Greer’s one glancingly negative report about college so far is the age difference between her and most of her classmates, the fact that she often took work more seriously than them. But, true to form, she’d never really blamed them. “They’re young,” she’d told us. “I don’t mind, and anyways, everyone makes mistakes.” I swear, Greer would give Voldemort the benefit of the doubt.

  “Okay. I’ve got everything set up in Alex’s room, and we’re set in here, and the food should be ready in”—I steal a quick look at my watch—“thirty minutes, so I think that’s about everything.” I catch the edge of Zoe’s knowing smile, and nudge her with my shoulder. “It soothes me,” I say.

  Right then, the sound of the house’s old mechanical doorbell rings out, and I smile to hear it, wishing I could have caught Alex’s expression when he twisted the handle. I know he’d love that old detail about the house as much as I had.

  When I open the door to him, it’s as if something fundamental shifts in my relationship to this house. I’d thought it was home before, but now, with my brother here on the threshold, I can really say, hey, this is where I live. This is where my life is. His jet-black hair is messy and his jaw is thickly stubbled, and he smells a little like airplane when I open my arms and wrap them around his middle, but I’ve never felt more glad to see him.

  “Hey, Tool Kit,” he says, squeezing me back before pulling away to look down at me with bright green eyes that I’ve always envied. I’d only ever seen a couple of pictures of Alex’s mom, and she was a knockout, tall and curvaceous and eyes exactly the same as Alex’s. “You look too skinny.”

  I laugh, just with the relief and joy I feel at having him say something so familiar, something he’s said to me since we were kids and he’d harass me about whether I was eating the lunches he’d packed for me.

  I’m ushering him through the door, grabbing bags off his shoulder and setting them down in the foyer before pulling him into the living room, and I know I’m chattering away, pointing out details about the house that are totally irrelevant at the moment someone is trying to take in a place for the first time.

  He hooks an arm around my neck and gently rubs his knuckles over my head. “Give me a minute, huh?”

  Zoe comes into the living room to introduce herself, shaking Alex’s hand and winking at me. “God, Kit,” she says, with no shame in her voice. “All your friends must’ve had massive crushes on him when you were growing up.”

  Alex smiles, his cheeks going briefly ruddy, and I laugh. “Oh, yeah. Massive.” This was partially true, since pretty much every girl in any one of my various high schools went silent and swoony whenever Alex showed up. But not many of those girls were my friends, since I was a temporary fixture everywhere, and anyways, I was too wrapped up in my schoolwork to think about anyone’s romantic interests. For a second, I have a distracting flash of imagining how it would’ve been if I’d seen someone like Ben Tucker in high school, of wondering whether he would have noticed me at all.

  I shake my head and refocus. I have no room for thoughts of Ben tonight. Instead, I wait for Alex’s eyes to snag on the picture above the mantel, and when they do, I’m not disappointed. He looks at me, then back at it, and I see him take a deep breath. It’s the first picture Alex ever developed on his own, a shot he took early one morning after an ice storm had closed nearly everything in town. I still remember him lying on his back in his too-thin coat, pointing his camera up at the sky, catching the clear-blue of it as the backdrop for the ice-encased branches of the lone elm tree that was out front of the complex we’d lived in for eight months when I was twelve, Alex seventeen. Somehow, he’d made it look as if we grew up in pastoral bliss, as if we lived in the kind of place where the wonders of nature could be appreciated. I’d loved that picture since he’d first brought it home to show me, an uncharacteristic gleam of pride in his eyes.

  “Looks good,” is all he says, but I can hear the catch of emotion in his voice.

  Zoe is pretty much allergic to this kind of loaded moment, so she takes over, asking Alex about his flight and his travels while I go grab him a beer from the fridge. I’m glad not to be giving him a full tour right away, since I’ll have to do a lot of explaining about the condition of other parts of the house, and anyway, I’m enjoying seeing Alex sitting on my couch, talking and laughing with my best friend.

  It’s about twenty minutes before the front door opens and Greer comes in, her hair mussed and her cheeks flushed pink, panting out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Traffic was total shit, and I had to park three streets over, and then your neighbor’s dog was out in the street, and I was trying to chase it down…oh.” She stops, noticing for the first time that Alex has stood from his spot on the couch and is wat
ching her with a smile.

  “Alex, this is Greer,” I say, stepping around him to usher Greer farther into the room.

  “I’m sorry!” she says again, her hand fluttering over her forehead. “I don’t usually use that kind of language.”

  “That kind of…?” Alex says, confused, and I laugh.

  “Greer, don’t worry. Alex has the foulest mouth of anyone I know.”

  “I don’t,” he says, a little sharply, cutting me a look before reaching out a hand to Greer. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  There’s a little ripple of silence while they shake hands, nothing like the easy joking that seemed immediate between Alex and Zoe. But I’m sure she’ll warm up. Greer has always been a little shy around new people, and Alex can be a bit intimidating.

  I excuse myself to the kitchen to check on our food, but also so I can have a second to take a deep breath, to take in the feeling that’s overwhelming me. This dinner, it’s already how I imagine a real family dinner, with food I’ve made from scratch and in a house that’s mine, with people I love talking and laughing in the next room. It’s what I dreamed of every day when I was growing up, when Alex and I would sit by ourselves on the living room floor of the apartment and eat hot dogs he’d chopped up and mixed with macaroni and cheese.

  I’m still nervous, but right now, I’m so happy I could cry.

  * * * *

  Things don’t really go to shit until much later.

  Dinner is great, even though I think I’ve over-salted the potatoes, and even though Greer has stayed relatively quiet, telling us she’s just tired from a long day of classes. Alex has asked about one thousand questions about the house, and Zoe delights in telling him about how I’ve been getting help from the Tuckers in doing some of the finer points of restoration.