If You're Lucky

by Yvonne Prinz

  Sharona pulled the phone book out of the drawer and started thumbing through it. “What’s the name of that laundromat again?” she asked quietly, running her finger up and down a page. “It’s Mister Soapy or Mister Sudsy or something. . . .”

  She wasn’t really talking to me. There is a velocity to Sharona that is more spectator sport than interactive. I gazed out the window, preoccupied. I’d been thinking about Sonia all morning. It kind of surprised me that she was still here in False Bay. I would have thought she’d have gone back to school by now. She had to have missed her final exams. Maybe she didn’t care. Anyway, I wasn’t one to talk. I’d worked the pity angle with my teachers in most of my classes. Easy enough. I’ve always been known as the “fragile” girl at school. Based on my colorful history, no one wanted to see how I dealt with the death of my brother. Some of my teachers made me write the final at home, and some of them just gave me a passing grade, but I never went back to class after Lucky died. Maybe Sonia would stay on for the summer. Maybe she could get a job around here somewhere. I could even help her find one. We hadn’t hung out as much as I’d have liked. I thought we’d be a comfort to each other but she’d been spending her days alone at home.

  The bell on the door tinkled. Our first customers of the day, a woman and two kids. The kids bolted for the taffy bins. They’d obviously been offered it as a reward for good behavior. On the weekends, a caravan of SUVs filled with families from the city passes through town on their way to Sea Ranch for the weekend. The younger couples go to Mendocino for romantic getaways with wine tastings and hot tubs.

  The kids knew the drill. They greedily filled a plastic bag.

  “No peanut butter!” commanded the little girl, watching her brother bury his arm in the bin.

  He looked at her defiantly and dropped a handful of peanut butter taffy into the bag. She pinched his arm hard enough to leave a bruise. I was shocked at the anger in her eyes as she did it. Her brother yanked his arm back and started wailing.

  “Retard,” she said, thrusting her chin out at him.

  I looked at the mom but she was texting on a phone that she’d just pulled from her oversized leather handbag.

  “Mom!” shrieked the little boy.

  “What?” said the woman, eyes still on her phone, thumbs tapping away.

  The little boy charged at his sister, kicking her in the shin. Now she was wailing too. Sharona and I exchanged a look. I felt a pang of sadness. Lucky was so generous with me when I was that age. At the first quivering of my lower lip he would grab me and turn me upside down or spin me around till I shrieked with laughter. There was no venom between us. We weren’t like these kids.

  The truth is, I don’t have the stamina for retail. I can barely muster up a smile, let alone be civil to the weekenders. To me, they’re all interlopers. Sharona, on the other hand, is endlessly patient with them. She stepped in and refereed the kids, cheerfully helping them fill their bag until the mom checked back in, digging through her bottomless handbag and producing a wallet. They finally left and I exhaled. Sharona picked up a few pieces of stray taffy off the carpet and went back to her chatter.

  Out the window I saw a car pull up. Two girls, about the same age as Sharona and me, walked across the parking lot. A boy waited in the car, looking moody, staring at his phone. The girls quickly filled a bag. They paid and got themselves back in the car. The kid burned rubber out of the parking lot. City kids always like to let you know that they have somewhere more important to be.

  Toward the end of last summer I met a city kid named Ryan. He was staying at his parents’ oceanfront vacation home, which was three times the size of my house. I guess I knew he was all wrong for me. I knew that he thought of me as a “townie,” exotic only because I was a country he hadn’t conquered yet. I didn’t care about that. I liked him. He was new and he was bold. I liked the way he threw his strong arm around me and pulled me close whenever we walked anywhere. He had loads of confidence. He was possessive. He wanted me to know that I belonged to him.

  I was a virgin and I wanted to have sex with someone who didn’t know about my past, someone who didn’t think I was crazy. When I told him it was my first time I thought he would be gentle with me and take it slow, but he unceremoniously swiped my virginity in the back of his dad’s new Escalade. I left a bloodstain on the beige upholstery. “Shit! My dad’s gonna kill me,” he said. I got most of it out with cold water, but I felt bad and embarrassed about the stain and I felt worse about the fact that I’d had sex for the first time with someone who cared about things like upholstery more than he cared about me.

  I didn’t hear from Ryan again after that. Having sex with him had summoned up emotions in me I hadn’t expected. I needed to talk to him. I called a few times but he never picked up or returned my calls. I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the grocery store, trying to buy beer with a thin wisp of girl in tow. Kara, at the checkout, was not going for it. She told them, No ID, no beer. I stayed hidden in the cracker section. Ryan stalked out of the store with the girl trailing behind. I heard her call him “baby” as she tried to console him. If Ryan were a local he’d have known that Clive, who works at Ralph’s gas station, will buy beer for anyone who pays him five bucks.

  As the day wore on, the constant jingling of the bell on the door started my head pounding. The headaches were back. They were caused by the meds Dr. Saul prescribed six months ago. The meds he had me on before these made me feel morose and sometimes made me think about killing myself, so Dr. Saul switched me to these. He told me that the headaches would go away soon. He said that three months ago.

  Sharona noticed. Even when she’s nursing a hangover, Sharona is thoughtful.

  “You okay? You look peaked. Is your head hurting again?”

  “A bit.”

  She came around behind me and gently massaged the tight tendons in my neck with her thumbs. I inhaled her mint gum and her perfume oil, a blend of patchouli and vanilla. Her hands were warm and soft and I didn’t care that they smelled like cigarettes.

  “Relax,” she said.

  I tried to.

  “When’s your next appointment with Dr. Frankenstein?” she asked.

  “Um, next week, I think.”

  “You should get off these meds. They suck.”

  “Mmmmm.” I didn’t want to get into how complicated it all was. I just wanted to enjoy her hands rubbing my tight muscles.

  “Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this. I met this guy last night, and he works at that casino in Graton, parking cars. He says that the tips are amazing: two hundred bucks a night sometimes. If people win they throw him a twenty just for getting their car. He’s going to talk to his boss and try and get me an interview.”

  “You’d quit this job?” I couldn’t imagine working here without Sharona.

  “Hell, yes.” She paused, realizing how that sounded. “ ’Cause, you know, I just need to make a lot more money. I mean, it’s not a sure thing or anything like that. It’s just . . . Anyway, he was drinking. . . . He probably forgot.”

  “No he didn’t.”

  “We’ll see. Does that feel better?”

  “Yes. Much. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” She squeezed my shoulders.

  The fog disappeared from the sky and a steady stream of optimistic weekenders came and went. I weighed a bag of taffy for a couple.

  “We are so bad,” the girl in tight jeans kept saying. “I’m going to be on the treadmill all weekend after this.” Her voice sounded like a squeak toy and she had a wide, bland face that was out of proportion with her wiry, toned body. I had to look away or I’d have said something rude. Out the window, I saw a guy pedaling along the highway on a weathered old bike. He wore a newsboy cap backward on his head and he had the unmistakable ease of a local: no bells and whistles on his bike, nothing slick about his clothes. I was sure I’d seen him somewhere before, but I couldn’t think where. He stopped pedaling and coasted past Sharona, who was smoking on the porch. H
e said something to her and she touched her hair as she responded. He nodded and gave her a friendly wave as he pedaled away.

  “Four-fifty.” I said to the couple. The guy gave me a credit card. Really?

  I handed the bag to the skinny girl and walked out onto the porch as the bicyclist slowly disappeared around the bend in the highway. He seemed to be in no particular hurry.

  “Who was that?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s cute.” Sharona stepped on her cigarette butt and kicked it off the porch with the toe of her boot.

  We stood there a moment. The couple headed back to their Porsche. They were undoubtedly on their way to a cramped B and B in Mendocino featuring calico quilts and a four p.m. complimentary wine and cheese tasting. I waved absently to them. I was still trying to figure out where I’d seen that guy before.

  Five

  Early Sunday morning in the kitchen at the Heron, I started on my first ever batch of lavender shortbread cookies. Jeff and Miles had recently returned from a trip to the city where a restaurant they dined at featured a cookie plate on the dessert menu. Jeff described it as “a divine assortment of tiny, exquisite cookies that sent him straight to heaven.” Anyway, not to be outdone, the Heron will now feature one on its dessert menu; nine dollars for a few cookies on a plate, with an edible flower for garnish (because the little cookies aren’t pretentious enough). We finally settled on lavender shortbread, tiny coconut meringues, and an espresso-chocolate-mint sandwich.

  I unwrapped the cold butter and dropped it into the industrial mixer on the stainless-steel prep table. It made a satisfying thud as it hit the bottom of the big metal bowl. That’s when I spied him again. I happened to glance out the pass-through window where the waiters pick up plates of food. Jeff and Miles were sitting at a table in the dining room working on their bills and staff schedules, as they do every Sunday morning, and he sauntered in. No hat. It was the hat that threw me off the day before. The guy was Fin, Lucky’s friend from the party. What’s he doing here? I wondered. The party was weeks ago. Hadn’t he said that he lived far away? Or had he? Actually, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember him saying anything about living anywhere.

  Jeff and Miles both shook his hand and looked happy to see him. I mean, really happy. He sat down at the table. I turned off the mixer, took out my iPod earbuds, and stood at the pass-through, watching. Karl, the short-order breakfast cook, walked over from the griddle and stood next to me.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Fin.”

  “Well, he better not be after my job ’cause. . . .”

  “No one wants your job, Karl.”

  “Just sayin’.” He went back to the griddle, grumbling to himself.

  Karl is only a year older than I am. He’s a little overprotective of his job here. Karl and Sharona dated for awhile. He tattooed her name onto his bicep and had to have it lasered off when she broke up with him. You can still sort of see it. Sharona stays away when Karl is working. I don’t mind Karl. His country potatoes with fresh rosemary are transporting.

  I smoothed my apron, grabbed a clean mug and a full coffee pot off the warmer, and walked out into the dining room, trying to look super casual. Fin’s eyes met mine and there was no doubt that he knew who I was. He even looked as though he might have been expecting me.

  “Georgia, hi.”

  “Hi.” I gestured with the coffee pot and he nodded.

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  I filled the mug and then I refilled Miles’s and Jeff ’s mugs too. They looked surprised. Serving coffee is not part of my job description, but then neither is removing a dead rat from a trap in the pantry and somehow I always end up doing it.

  Once all three mugs were filled, there was really no reason for me to be standing there. I hadn’t thought this through. A few awkward seconds passed where all three of them looked at me expectantly.

  “Okay, then,” I said and I walked away, carrying the pot. I risked a look back over my shoulder. Fin was watching me.

  Back in the kitchen, I observed him from my vantage point at the pass-through. His eyes were lively and expressive and his mouth stayed curved into that slight smile I remembered from the party. It was as though he were amused by life. The way he used his hands a lot when he spoke made him look like a foreigner. I could see Miles reacting to him too, leaning in, laughing. I knew Jeff would accuse him of flirting later.

  I was intrigued by this Fin person. I needed to know more about him. For just a second, I wanted to run home and e-mail Lucky and ask him who this guy was, but then I remembered that I can’t. Lately, I’d been managing better. I sometimes went five full minutes where I didn’t think about Lucky. And when I woke up in the morning, there were those few seconds where my mind was free of the heaviness, but then it always came rushing back to me. I had dreams about water pressing down on me and I’m panicking, trying to get air. Lucky is calling for help. I can see him but all the waving of my arms and legs doesn’t get me any nearer to him in the murky water. I wake up gasping in the dark.

  I went back to my shortbread, adding the sugar and creaming the butter till it lightened up to a pale yellow. I added the dried lavender and mint and watched it disappear into the butter, turning the mixture fragrant. I sifted in the dry ingredients and turned the mixer off when it formed a dough. I put my earbuds back in and lost myself to Sticky Fingers by the Stones. Suddenly Fin was standing right in front of me. I looked up and jumped, startled. He smiled and I pulled out my buds again.

  “Hey, Georgia. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He was wearing a weathered old suede jacket and his hands were shoved into the front pockets of his jeans.

  “Uh, that’s okay.” I smiled. “You can call me George. Most people do.”

  “Okay, then I will too, from now on. Jeff and Miles just hired me. I’m waiting tables here a couple nights a week so I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

  I was confused. “You’ll be working here?” I wiped my hands on my apron.

  “Yeah.” He looked around the kitchen.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve decided to stay on here. Lucky always talked about this place like it was something special, and now that I’ve seen it for myself I know what he meant.”

  I smiled. “Really? Special?”

  He nodded. “I love it here. Don’t you?”

  Did I? I wasn’t sure. Right now I felt anchored to it, but it wasn’t because I loved it; it was more because I was afraid to leave. I had a stack of abandoned, half-filled-out college applications in my desk drawer at home. I’d gotten as far as the first essay question: How have you grown or developed over the last five years? How had I? Had I? I’d only started filling them out because everyone at my high school was doing it. I had a different plan, though, a secret plan for the future that I’d shared with no one. I was stashing any money I could from my two jobs into a slowly growing bank account. My hope was that I could eventually apply for a scholarship to attend the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. They offered a two-year certificate program in the Baking and Pastry Arts. I’d immediately liked the sound of that when I started reading about it online. The campus was not that far from here. The main building was a massive stone castle called Greystone. I’d pored over the photos on the website of all the eager young students in their crisp chef ’s whites learning at the elbow of famous chefs and I imagined myself there with them, learning to make a perfect brûlée or a crème anglaise or a pâte a choux. But now that Lucky was dead, all the air had gone out of my plan. It felt like a fantasy, something someone like me could only dream about.

  Still, if I left this place, I could start over as a girl named Georgia instead of George, Lucky’s crazy sister. Maybe that’s why Fin was here, maybe he was starting over.

  “Sure,” I said, “I guess I like it here okay. It’s not for everyone though. You’ve probably noticed that summer never really arrives and it’s kind of . . . minimal and gloomy.” I looked out the wind
ow at the morning fog. “This is pretty much it for the next three months.”

  “I adore gloomy.” He grinned.

  “Me too.”

  “So we have that in common.” His eyes lingered on mine. He was so confident. It unnerved me. I’m drawn to confidence like a moth to a lightbulb. I’m in awe of people who are good at life.

  “You do look so much like Lucky, you know.”

  “I know.” I winced. He caught it.

  “Oh, jeez. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Did he have a slight accent? There was something subtle, off in the background, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

  Again he lingered on my face. “Maybe you and I could get a coffee sometime, get to know each other a little better. I have to confess, when I look at your face, I sort of feel like I know you already.”

  I wished so much that I could be the person he thought he knew. I was nothing like Lucky.

  “Sure. I’d like that. Whenever.”

  “Great.” He reached out and took a strand of my hair between his fingers.

  “You’ve got a bit of dough . . . here, got it.” He wiped it on his pants. Something about the way he did it seemed very intimate to me.

  “Well, I’d better go get my apron and then Jeff wants to show me his Japanese woodcut prints. I’ll see you later, George.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  That was the first I’d heard about Jeff ’s Japanese woodcut prints.

  Fin disappeared through the swinging kitchen door.

  I sliced silver-dollar-sized cookies onto the cookie sheet. Was it strange that Fin had suddenly arrived here? False Bay wasn’t really an adventure destination. Lucky had always left this place in search of excitement. He became restless if he stayed home too long. I wondered if Fin realized just how sleepy this town could be.

  I started on a new batch of cookies and quietly sang along to “Dead Flowers” on my iPod.