Getting Lucky (A Lucky Novella)

by Gioertz, Karina

  Just when I thought the moment couldn’t be any more perfect than it already was, I heard the locks click as Noah opened the car door and reached inside to put the key in the ignition. Seconds later, the radio set the whole parking lot a buzz with music. Noah took my hand and sent my body twirling over the pavement as we danced our official wedding dance, his lips mouthing the words I love you every time he spun me around and our eyes met. The deed had been officially complete…well, almost. There was still the matter of cake.

  Tara had arranged for us to celebrate back at our hotel where Noah had booked us a suite for the final night. When we got there, the room had been decked out with everything you needed to achieve just the right ambiance of romance and celebration. The catering crew had already set up food and beverages for eight and at the center of the table stood a cake that made me want to skip everything else and dive head first into its frosting.

  After a long night of celebrating, our friends said their good byes and headed back to the airport as Noah and I continued our new adventure by hitting the highway and taking my most memorable road trip to date.

  Looking back, the things I remember most about those twenty four hours in Las Vegas aren’t how delicious the cake tasted, or how beautiful my dress was or even how the size of my diamond took my breath away. It’s the way those who mattered most to me, showed me I mattered most as well when they dropped everything just to share in that moment with me. How the joy I felt that day, spilled over into everything else, resounding in laughter that still echoes in the back of my mind whenever I think it about it. And, most of all, I remember the look in Noah’s eyes when he said ‘I do.’ There was no fear, no hurt and no doubt left to speak of. It was only love. The kind of love Grandma Pearl had always promised I’d find. In that instant, I had known that she was there with us.

  To this day, any time anyone even mentions Las Vegas, Noah jumps on it, making sure that everyone knows about the time he went there himself. And he doesn’t stop there. He loves to recycle tacky Vegas phrases while he’s doing it, talking about ‘what happens in Vegas’ and ‘winning the jackpot.’ In the end he always laughs and says, “That’s the day I got Lucky.” And I smile to myself and think, so did I.

  Epilogue

  I've always loved this house, with its rustic charms and warm personality. Even though it has been repainted many times over the years, the worn edges of the outer walls still seem to show through as the paint continues to chip in those very same spots. Aside from the living room which seems to get an annual makeover and the main bedrooms, most of the interior walls weren’t much different. In fact, the kitchen and bathrooms were still covered in the same wall paper they had been plastered with sometime in the sixties. According to my mother, they’d had been around so long that they had come back into style…twice, but I didn’t exactly share that opinion. While she proudly proclaimed it was vintage, I tended to lean more toward old and used up. Not that I was pushing for any renovations. I’m just saying, let’s call it what it is – well worn. And that happened to be my favorite part. That’s what made this house my home. The wear and tear of the years were more than just scuff marks and chipped paints. They were traces of my past filled with the memories of four generations.

  This house was my Great Grandma Pearl's and when I was a little girl my mother must have told me a hundred different stories about her. In a way, she’s always been with me, even though I’ve never actually met her.

  It was hard to believe that come tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t be walking down those steps and strolling through this living room on my way to the kitchen. Instead I’d be nearly one thousand miles away at a new school, meeting brand new people and starting a new chapter of my life.

  For weeks I’d been trying to decide how I’d introduce myself. My real name was Gabriella, but in eighteen years, I’d never been called that. It had always been ‘Vegas’. I was seven before I realized that it wasn’t my name. And nine before I realized it was weird. After that I always told people that I was called that because I learned to play Black Jack at the tender age of five (compliments of Uncle D.) but the real reason, and naturally therefore embarrassing reason, was that Las Vegas was the place I had been conceived. Which apparently, was public knowledge around these parts because I’d seen the ‘congrats on your baby’ cards and every one of them had referred to me as Vegas, or Vegas Baby.

  In the end I’d probably just stick with it. So, I prepared myself to tell the black jack story over and over again…unless I came up with something cooler, but it was hard to beat a gambling toddler.

  Of course the whole name thing wasn’t nearly as big of an issue as I was making it out to be. Mostly, I was just using it to distract me from the things that were really freaking me out; like leaving my parents and younger sister Hanna. After all the times I’d complained about Hanna stealing my clothes and getting into my make-up, I knew there would be so many more times that I’d miss walking into my room and catching her knee deep in shoes and purses, digging through my closet. And my parents, well, they had been my foundation my entire life and I dreaded giving up the things I had grown to depend on, like midnight pancakes on a Friday night with my mom or hanging out with my Dad at the bar on a Monday afternoon before the doors opened for business. And Saturday brunches. God, I’d miss those! The tradition had been in place since long before I was born. Saturday brunch had meant a time for friends and family to gather. They had brought everyone together even in the times when life was taking us apart. I had enjoyed my first play dates with Jenna over Saturday brunch. I suppose it was only natural that we’d grow up to be best friends, given that our parents were as well. To this day, Mom and Tara still taught at the same school they had all met at.

  Of course, there was also Nathan. He was two years younger than Jenna and I, and he’d basically been annoying me since the first time Gabe and Danica brought him over (and yes, it was at a Saturday brunch as well). I vividly remembered the first time we met because he had reached up with his little fist and grabbed a handful of my hair. I knew right then and there that he would be a problem. And he had been ever since. Somehow it only seemed to get worse as he got older, and cockier…and disgustingly charming. As of late, he had taken up hitting on me for entertainment. Like there was any way I’d ever go out with him! Never mind that he was younger, he was also an arrogant jackass who was well on his way to growing into full-fledged player-hood, and I wasn’t about to get in line with all the dumb floozies already waiting for him to look their way.

  Maybe there was one thing, I wasn’t going to miss…although, if I was completely honest, part of me worried that maybe I’d miss Nathan most of all. But there was no way I’d ever tell him that… .

  About The Author

  Although Karina Gioertz has been writing for most of her life, it never quite registered with her as something out of the ordinary or worth pursuing, because it was so closely connected to who she was. It wasn’t until she became a stay at home mom and finally took the time to write an entire book from beginning to end, that she understood what all of those ideas she had been jotting down all those years were really for. Since then, she has written several books, including Country Girls, Lucky In Love and Blood Bound.

  While writing and motherhood have become her main focus over the years, she also enjoys many other creative activities such as painting and photography. Most sunny days she can be found in her courtyard working feverishly at painting and refurbishing old furniture…that is, of course, only if it wasn’t a suitable day to spend at the beach. ;-)

  Karina resides in sunny Florida with her family and two dogs. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via Facebook , Twitter as well as her website.

 

 

 
iv style = " -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share