The Lucky Ones

by Anna Godbersen

  “But the game isn’t over!” Astrid protested. Her eyes rolled innocently to Victor, who was leaning against the wall behind Dave and watching her with arms crossed and an amused expression. She tried to appear a little confused and entirely surprised by this turn of events, as though all three of them had not seen her cheat. It hadn’t been much of a cheat, really. After her last shot, the white cue ball had bounced off the far embankment and seemed likely to hit the eight ball—which would have ended the game too soon for her liking—and she had only jostled the table slightly to change its course. Anyway, she wasn’t entirely successful at appearing confused; the way Victor was looking at her, she couldn’t quite control the smile that was tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “All the same.” Dave handed his cue stick to Victor and feigned a yawn. “I’m tired of it.”

  Most of the boys had gone with Charlie and Cordelia when they had driven off the property on whatever super-secret important mission they had been up all last night talking about. The rain had been intermittent since then, occasionally gusting across the lawn and splattering the windows, so the boys who were left came in to drink beer and talk about the local girls. But they had thinned out since, from ten, to five, to three. Now there were just two, but Astrid averted her eyes and fiddled with the lace hem of her dress as though she might be able to pretend she hadn’t noticed that.

  “They won’t call the boss’s girl a cheat, not to her face.” Victor lifted the cue up and rested it on his shoulders, with his arms dangling over it. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll keep on playing with you.”

  “Oh, to hell with them, they’re all goons with poor personal hygiene habits anyway.” Astrid flipped her hair and pranced across the room toward a sweating silver plant holder now being used as a champagne bucket. She refilled her glass and regarded him with her drink aloft. “I like to win, you know, and anyway I’ve always thought scruples were sort of boring, do you know what I mean?”

  Victor shrugged, as though he were considering her point of view but wasn’t convinced by it. In the moments of silence that followed, Astrid became aware of the labored wheezing of the ceiling fan (it had been straining against the tropical air all week) and also that the phonograph was no longer playing. The quiet unnerved her, so she exclaimed, “Odd weather!” and looked away.

  “Yeah, they were calling it a hurricane till yesterday. Knocked out some towns in the Carolinas. But we’re just getting the tail end. They say it’s going to hit this evening and be gone by tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” She took a gulp of champagne, which made her feel dizzy and happy and light-headed. As a consequence, she didn’t think to argue with Victor over what he said next.

  “I could teach you to play. Then you could win without cheating.”

  “All right, darling, teach me everything you know!” She giggled and came slinking back in the direction of the table.

  Victor slid the cue off his back. “The thing to remember,” he said, his voice growing low and official, “is that it’s all just geometry. Did you study geometry at that fancy school of yours?”

  “Classical geometry,” she replied without removing her lips from the rim of her champagne glass.

  “Well.” Victor whistled low. “You are fancy.”

  “You bet your life.” Astrid raised her chin and dragged her fingertips languorously along the walnut edge of the pool table.

  “Think I’d rather just take your word for it.” Victor winked and stepped backward. “You take my word on this: It’s a game of angles. You want the ball to go in the pocket, right? So for the ball to roll in a perfect trajectory from where it rests to the pocket, you have to hit it at the right angle.” He drew his finger over the green felt slowly, showing her how one would have to hit the white cue ball so that it would hit the green one, knocking it into the side pocket. “You see?”

  For a moment Astrid hesitated, but when Victor thrust the cue stick in her direction she took it and moved so that she could examine the green ball as he again traced a line to the side pocket.

  “Then, go back to the cue ball and get low to the table. Imagine you’re the ball. Look at the table from the ball’s point of view.”

  “I’m the ball? You must be joking.” Astrid hooted, but was met only with the brilliance of Victor’s teeth.

  “I’ll show you.”

  He moved around to her other side and, with a gentle palm between her shoulder blades, urged her to bend forward. Once she had, she saw what he’d been trying to explain: The balls lay before her like a model of the solar system, as though she were looking at the Earth over the shoulder of the moon. If she hit the Earth square on, it would bounce off the wall; she needed the moon to hit on the right side, so that the Earth would skew left. She raised her cue, ready to take her shot, but he gently corrected her.

  “Here, move this way,” he said, guiding her body left. She had always thought of Victor as such a slender fellow, almost as though he were no bigger than she was. But now she saw how much larger he was, really. His wingspan was so great that his arms went around her without touching her arms or back as he repositioned the stick in her hands. “And keep the cue low, closer to the angle of the table. Now, do you remember where the cue ball needs to hit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hit it with confidence—not so hard it bounces the green ball out, but with force.”

  “All right.” Holding her breath, Astrid drew one arm back; with an exhale she let it fly forward. The way the moon moved across the felt, the smack it gave the earth, and the clean silence with which the earth sank into the side pocket were all so gratifying that Astrid couldn’t help but leap back and jump up and down. “I did it!”

  “You did it!”

  She turned, and Victor was so close behind her that their chests almost touched. His smile was bright as hers, and for a moment she thought he might jump up and down, too. But he didn’t. He only stared at her with stars in his dark eyes.

  “Oh,” she said as her smile fell away. “Oh,” she repeated, once she’d managed to avert her gaze.

  “You’re a natural.”

  “Naturally fatigued,” she said quickly, and then laughed a weak laugh to hide the lameness of the joke.

  Victor stepped back and spoke with a formal intonation. “Yes, of course. I can give you another lesson some other time. If you want, that is.”

  “Perhaps.” Astrid turned and carefully placed the cue back on the table. “But right now I think I’d better go take a nap! Charlie is taking me out tonight, you know, and I’d better get a little rest first.”

  “I’ll escort you. As your bodyguard. Just to make sure you’re all right.”

  Astrid nodded distractedly and downed the remainder of her champagne. Had the idea been that this would make her feel drowsy, when in fact all of her senses were intensely alive? She knew that if she spoke her voice would be far softer and sweeter than was appropriate, so instead of replying she just let him follow her as she moved into the hall and up the stairs.

  As she climbed toward her bedroom she thought of Charlie and the way he had looked on the verandah that day and how jealous he used to get when she flirted with another boy. Usually she had been flirting, but that was a long time ago, before she was married, and she knew she ought not to flirt now. Yet she was acutely aware of the lightness of Victor’s feet against the floorboards, and the rhythm of his breathing, and his smell, which suggested that he had recently shaved with Ivory soap. All the inches between them suddenly seemed like an agony she wouldn’t be able to bear, and she wished that she were the girl she used to be, free to do as she pleased. But she wasn’t, she reminded herself, and Charlie would be taking her out tonight.

  Then she saw things as they truly were. This was just another moment, unconnected from all the moments in the past and all the moments yet to come. There was no one around, and Victor was a sweet boy, and she was doing nothing wrong, playing cards and croquet and billiards with him. So she pressed up o
n tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.

  She had meant it chastely (at least she thought she had), but he staggered backward as though the kiss had been a big, wet passionate one.

  “Good-bye,” he warbled.

  By then she was thinking about the softness and yearning in his lips, and she wanted to know what a big, wet passionate kiss with him would be like. Before she knew her own mind, she’d thrown her arms around his neck and they were joined at the mouth. A few seconds passed before his hands found her lower back, bunching up her dress there while the kiss went on and on.

  “Oh, dear.” She pulled back and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Sorry for what?” The chagrin that had been in her voice a few moments before was gone, and a mischievous glimmer passed over her eyes.

  When he hung his head she darted backward, opening the door behind her and slipping inside the darkened room. “See you later!” she called before slamming the door and running to the bed, where she threw herself down and wrapped herself in the covers and told her heart it had better stop causing such an uproar, or else.

  11

  “WAIT. PLEASE.”

  Cordelia’s heartbeat was so out of order that she’d been briefly deaf to the plaintiveness in Thom’s voice. But she saw now that his menacing tone had been all in her mind. Had she ever heard him say the word please and mean it? His face was almost unrecognizable, he wanted so badly for her to listen.

  “Wait,” he said again. “Let me explain.”

  “Explain what?” Her throat was scratchy, and her stomach felt weak in anticipation of what he might say—for a moment, he looked like he might ask if she could love him again.

  “How it happened—how my father’s man got into Dogwood.”

  “Oh.”

  Thom drew his hand over his face, and then words began to tumble from his mouth: “At first I thought it really was my fault—that they’d followed me, and that’s how they found out about the tunnel. I was ashamed, I think, and afraid that I might have something to do with it. That’s why I didn’t call or—or—I don’t know.”

  Cordelia closed her eyes and forced air into her lungs. “But how can you be sure they didn’t follow you?”

  “Because I made my father tell me. I went away for a while, and I thought about things, and I realized I couldn’t feel right about avoiding what had happened—that night. That’s why I was there, after they nabbed Astrid. I had to make sure for myself that it didn’t happen that way again. When I came back this time I told him I wouldn’t speak to him again unless he explained how he got into Dogwood.”

  By now Cordelia’s stomach was in such a knot that she couldn’t produce words, but she nodded at Thom that she was listening.

  “You see, my father always knew about the tunnel.”

  “What? How?” Cordelia demanded.

  “He knew because my mother grew up at Dogwood. It was her parents’ house, and she used to play in that tunnel when she was a child. Her family is one of White Cove’s best families, you know—her father was paranoid that thieves would come after him, or try to kidnap his daughter for ransom. So he had the tunnel built as an escape route.”

  To Cordelia, the idea of a child at Dogwood sounded bizarre and a little sad. She had never pictured it as anything but a bootlegger’s home, the staging ground for raucous parties. But that was shortsighted, she knew—who but the local aristocracy would build a house that grand? “Well,” she said eventually. “That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? My father owning your mother’s childhood home.”

  Thom blinked at her. “Darius never told you, did he? About how he and my father fell apart?”

  Slowly Cordelia shook her head.

  “I suppose you know that in the early days they were best friends. It was Dad’s outfit, but Darius was his right-hand man. Small-time operation, robbing banks mostly. Darius was just a driver most of the time. But as soon as they started making real dough, Dad got social pretensions, started going to parties with fancy people. That’s how he met my mother. I think he wooed her just to prove he could get a girl from the snooty set. Anyway, they eloped, and he took her back to Minnesota to show her off to all the little people where he came from. It was on the way back through Ohio that they met Fanny. The way Dad tells the story, you know he’s still sore about it—they saw her at the same time, sitting on a porch at sunset, and she was the most perfect girl either of them had ever seen. Beautiful, but brave, too. Of course, Darius had the advantage, not being a newlywed and all, and she chose him. When they left town, she went with them.”

  “That’s why they fell out?” Cordelia said incredulously.

  “No.” Thom took a long, painful breath. “When they got back to New York City, they’d spent all their loot buying bespoke suits and gold watch chains and showing off in the Midwest, and meanwhile Ma’s people had disowned her, and she was bitter about having a husband who didn’t really love her and living in a no-good part of town. For a while they tried to be family men and work normal jobs, but they weren’t cut out for it. Eventually they robbed a bank they probably shouldn’t have and had to hide out a long time in some shack out in the Pine Barrens. Funny to think we both must have been there and known each other as babies, isn’t it?”

  Thom rolled his eyes up to meet Cordelia’s, but she was so focused on his story that she wasn’t able to make any kind of expression.

  “There wasn’t much to do there but drink, and that’s what they mostly did,” he went on. “One night they had too much, and Dad got romantic with Fanny. Ma started screaming, and Darius was waving his gun around. He was threatening to kill Dad, and though he probably didn’t mean it really, the gun went off. Well, the bullet ricocheted off something and caught Fanny in the belly.”

  Cordelia’s hands flew to her face. “That’s how she died?” she managed to whisper.

  Thom was watching her carefully. “It wasn’t that bad a wound, just painful, but there was a bounty out for them so they didn’t get help right away. Five days later, when they finally found a doctor who promised not to ask questions, the gangrene had set in, and it was too late. Darius blamed Dad and never forgave him. He became obsessed with doing everything bigger and better than him, and they’ve been rivals ever since. Dogwood was the culmination of all that. Dad wanted to buy it to appease Mother for all the things he’d done, but Darius got there first. He bought Dogwood out of spite.”

  “But if Duluth knew about the tunnel all those years, why didn’t he come after Dad sooner?”

  Thom shrugged. “I didn’t ask him that. I think it had something to do with you coming back, how much you look like her, and that Darius was hell-bent on keeping us apart. All that opened the old wound, I guess, and Dad couldn’t have it.”

  Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut and told herself not to cry. What Thom had told her was so much, the whole story of her life, and she couldn’t stop herself from shaking, now that she heard it so plainly for the first time. “Oh, God,” she whispered hoarsely. “That’s so awful.”

  When she felt Thom’s arms around her she was too weak to do anything but lean into him. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing the hair that was becoming wet and clumped with tears away from her face.

  “He must have thought it was his fault. The way I thought it was my fault about him.” She looked up at Thom, as though hoping he might agree with her.

  But he didn’t seem to be thinking about that at all. His eyes glinted, and then he lowered his face to hers. He kissed her as though he had been thinking about kissing her for a long time, and she kissed him back thirstily, the way she might’ve drunk in the first glass of water after a winter’s hibernation. For a while she was lost in the sweet wetness of the kiss, her body melting against his. But when he pulled back smiling, the past few days came back to her—Max and Charlie, how she had been going to set things right—and her brow folded. It seemed to her that all her years had been calculated by some misgui
ded romantic so that she would end up here, in Thom’s arms.

  “This isn’t right,” she mumbled, stepping away from him. When she saw his crestfallen face she knew that she would never be angry at him again. But the truth didn’t change the animosity between their families, the ugly history they shared, nor the terrible thing that had happened. “I have to go.”

  She put her shoulder against the door and went out onto the deck. The salt spray met her face immediately, and she was grateful for the way it cooled her face after the warm kiss.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Thom had followed her and was squinting to the south. “Don’t think it will be safe in the little boat, not in a few minutes. That squall is moving fast.”

  Cordelia’s heart quickened. She wanted to be back with her brother, tell him that everything was set.

  Thom seemed to have anticipated her thoughts. “I’ll call ashore, talk to Dad. I know he’s waiting with Charlie; he can tell them you’re all right.”

  “No.” A moment ago her heart had been a fist, but now it opened. “No, that won’t be necessary.” The men on the other end of the deck were pointing at a dot growing large against the western sky. They didn’t speak about it, they just watched and waited. No rain was falling just then, and the wind was warm and dense. The restless weather made her skin tingle. “I’m glad we have a truce.”

  “I am, too.”

  They stared at each other for a few moments as the airplane grew larger and began to descend toward the surface of the water.

  “Did you know it would be like this?” He glanced sidelong at her question, and his lips parted. Hurriedly she added: “The ocean, I mean.”

  His lips closed and opened again as though he wanted to say something, but in the end nothing came out. She could now make out Max in the cockpit of the seaplane, and she stepped to the railing with her arm raised in greeting. She thought she saw him raise his hand back at her, but she could tell he was concentrating on how to land on the rough surface.