If You're Lucky

by Yvonne Prinz

  I sat down on the bed and typed “Yuri Sacula” into my browser again. Links to shows all over the world where Yuri had performed popped up. I clicked on them, one by one, and watched. Some of them were higher-quality videos from concert halls in Europe and some of them were grainy videos shot in smoky, crowded clubs. Everything about the way Fin moved, the way he smiled, the way he played guitar, it was all just like his dad. Between songs, Yuri would speak to the audience in French. He always had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  Holy shit. Fin was only ten when his parents died.

  I pulled the note I’d taken from the wooden box out of my pocket. It was written in a very feminine hand. The heavy linen paper was creased and looked like it had been read over and over. I laid it next to me on the bed and typed it carefully, word by word, into a French/English translation site. When I was done, I clicked “translate” and read the note:

  My sweet little sausage, I am sorry I wasn’t there to pick you up from school today. Your father and I had to take the train to Lyon this afternoon. He is playing a concert and then we will catch the train home late tonight. I will kiss you while you sleep and you will see me in the morning when you open your eyes. Be a good boy for Kiki and she will give you a nice piece of honey cake for your dessert. Sweet dreams. I love you very much. Mommy.

  I should never have taken the note. It obviously meant a lot to him. I had to get it back into that box somehow. I folded it up and tucked it into my pocket.

  I curled up on my side, thinking about Abel and the life he’d already lived by the time he was ten years old. And the life he’d lived after that. What had it all led him to? What had he become? A charismatic adventurer who moved around a lot, charming people everywhere he went? Or was he a coldhearted seducer who was hiding something awful? The idea that the latter could be true had been bubbling around in my brain for some time now, but I finally let it move to the forefront of my thoughts. Had Fin murdered my brother so he could have his life?

  I thought about the day my brother died as I gazed up at a famous surfer on a poster taped to the wall above Lucky’s bed. A wall of water as big as a building was coming up behind him. The spray from the top of the wave was raining down on him. My eyes became heavy.

  I guess I must have drifted off. When I woke up it was dark in the house. I sat up and called out “Mom? Dad?” I heard nothing. I put my feet down on the floor. Water rushed over them. There was water on the floor, at least an inch deep. It flowed in from the door. I jumped up and splashed through it in my bare feet. The house was empty. Where was everybody?

  I ran outside. On the road in front of my house a black car had crashed into a big oak tree. It looked like the car had knocked over a fire hydrant before it smashed into the tree. The front of the car was crumpled up against the tree and a fountain of water was shooting straight up from the hydrant. The car was old. It was the kind you see in black-and-white gangster movies. On the passenger’s side, a beautiful redheaded woman rested her head against the window. A tiny trickle of blood ran down her forehead. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully. There was a snowflake of shattered glass on the driver’s side with blood in the center. The back door of the car slowly creaked open and a frightened dark-haired boy peered out.

  “Little boy!” I called out to him. He looked at me and took off running. I ran after him.

  “Little boy, please stop!”

  A river of water gushed down the hill next to him as he ran. “Please stop. I want to help you!”

  He kept running. My bare feet were scraped and raw from the pavement. He reached the bottom of the hill and turned right on the dark, deserted highway. There was no one around. I was starting to fall behind.

  Finally, I called out, “Abel!” He stopped short and turned to look at me. He looked confused at how I knew his name.

  I closed in on him. He darted off the highway and ducked into the underbrush on the side of the road. I followed. I could hear him rustling in the dense growth. I got closer. I could almost touch him.

  “Please! I’m not going to hurt you!” I reached out for the sleeve of his blue shirt and held on. He turned around and spat “Lâchez-moi!” He yanked his arm away and quickly fought his way through the tangled undergrowth until he was in a clearing. He kept running. I watched him until he disappeared.

  “George,” I heard my dad’s voice. “George, come eat.”

  I slowly opened my eyes. I was still on Lucky’s bed. I rolled over and looked at the floor. It was completely dry. I got up and walked down the hallway and out the back door. My dad watched me from the kitchen, puzzled. I followed the walkway out to the street. There was no car, no water. There wasn’t even a fire hydrant. What was happening to me?

  I heard Fin’s truck rumbling up the hill as I stood there in the middle of the road. He pulled up next to me and rolled down his window. I couldn’t look at him the same way anymore. I felt ashamed. My fingers touched the note in my pocket.

  “You okay? You look a bit dazed.”

  Rocket was in the passenger seat.

  “I’m fine.”

  “So, uh, I was just at my place and it looks like someone broke in. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” He held my eyes with a look that made a chill run up the back of my neck.

  I shook my head. “Can I have my dog?”

  “Lucky’s dog? Sure.” He leaned over and opened the passenger door. Rocket jumped to the ground and ran up the path to the house.

  “Careful, George,” he said.

  I watched him watching me in his rearview mirror as he drove away slowly.

  Nineteen

  I called Dr. Saul’s voice mail and canceled my appointment. With every pill I didn’t take I felt stronger and I felt more awake. The headaches had stopped completely and tiny rushes of clarity fluttered through me like electric currents. I had the sudden urge to ride my bike. I found it out in the garage behind a rusted barbeque and some folding lawn chairs. It was covered in a thick layer of dust and both tires were flat. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ridden it. Lucky’s bike looked as though someone had ridden it yesterday. I decided to take his instead.

  I coasted down the hill to the post office to pick up our mail. There was a slip inside our PO box, a notification of a package. I went inside and handed it to Myrna, our postmistress and the town busybody.

  “Hang on a tic, dear. Lemme grab that for you,” she said.

  She came back with a shoebox-sized package. “Here you are. Looks like it’s all the way from Australia.” Myrna always reads return addresses. I’m pretty sure she reads all the postcards too and maybe even steams open personal mail. “Say hi to your folks, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, staring at the box.

  The return address said Brisbane. I sat on the bench outside and tore it open with my house key. Inside, a worn pair of Converse sneakers was nestled in a white T-shirt. I pulled out the T-shirt and held it up. It had Bugs Bunny on the front. I buried my face in it and inhaled, hoping to smell Lucky, but it smelled of laundry detergent. There was a note inside one of the shoes, just a few words, handwritten on a page raggedly torn from a lined notebook:

  Thought you should have these things. Lucky left them with me when he stayed at my place for a few weeks. We’re so sorry. We all miss him so much.

  Love, Jennifer

  I remembered Jennifer from Lucky’s e-mails and photos, a pixie-haired girl with a gap in her front teeth and freckles. Lucky liked her a lot. I pulled the T-shirt on over the shirt I was wearing.

  At the bottom of the box there was a book: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. I’d never heard of it.

  I picked up the right sneaker and slid my hand inside it. I came out with a few grains of sand between my finger and thumb. Lucky’s foot had been inside this sneaker, walking along a beach on the other side of the world. This exact sand had rubbed up against my brother’s foot, maybe even irritated him as he walked. I let the grains fall away to the groun
d. Inside the left shoe was a small Swiss Army Knife. I put it back. I took the book and flipped it open to the title page. It was inscribed:

  To Lucky,

  I’m sorry. I meant no harm. Enjoy the book.

  Your Evil Twin,

  Fin

  What had Fin done? Lucky was always very slow to anger and quick to forgive so it must have been something big, and signing it Your Evil Twin? What did he mean? There was nothing on the overleaf or even on the back describing the novel, but the first page was an author’s note and the first line said:

  “This is a novel, and a hoax autobiography at that.”

  I pondered that as I sat huddled on the bench, absentmindedly watching the post office comings and goings. I flipped through the pages of the book and stopped at a phone number written in a hurried scrawl across the top of the page. It definitely wasn’t Lucky’s handwriting. I wondered if Fin could have written it. The area code was 212. I dug out my phone and called the number. It rang several times and then a man picked up.

  “Professor Hastings,” said the voice.

  I froze. Maybe this was an old number, written by a student.

  “Hello?”

  “Uh, who am I calling, please?”

  “Professor Sam Hastings, NYU. Can I help you?”

  “Oh. Hi. I might have the wrong number. This is a real long shot but do you happen to know someone named Fin?”

  “No. Can’t say I do.”

  My brain rushed ahead of me. “How about Abel Sacula?”

  “Sure, I know Abe. Who is this?”

  I thought fast. “Oh, um, my name’s Georgia. Abel is a friend of my brother’s and I’m planning a surprise birthday party. I wanted to invite him but I can’t seem to find a number for him. A friend of my brother’s told me you might be able to help me. He gave me your number. He didn’t tell me you were a professor. I guess that’s what threw me.”

  “Aw, gee. I have no idea where Abe could be. I haven’t seen him in ages. He was friends with my younger brother, Kelly. They went to Julliard together. Actually, my dad knew him too. He runs an educational fund for foster kids. That’s how they met. Abe won a scholarship.”

  My head started spinning. Was Kelly the boy on the boat in the photo?

  “Tell you what. I’ll give you my dad’s number. He might be able to help you.”

  “That would be great,” I said, rifling through my backpack for a pen.

  He gave me his dad’s name—Winston Hastings—and recited another New York number to me. I wrote it on the back of my hand.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure. Good luck. Say hi to Abe for me if you find him, okay?”

  “I sure will. Thank you.”

  I kept the T-shirt on and put all the rest of the stuff from the box into my backpack. I pedaled along the highway toward my dad’s oyster farm. I was buzzing with everything I’d learned in the last five minutes. Fin, formerly Abe, was somehow friends with a wealthy family in New York. What happened to that friendship? And he was in a foster home for enough time to get a scholarship? He hadn’t mentioned that part of his story. I had an hour before I had to open up Katy’s and I absolutely had to get there on time today. I’d been late opening the store the last few days and I’d missed a few Katy calls. I’d lied and told her I was in the bathroom, but it was wearing thin.

  I hadn’t been to the farm since that day my mom and dad and I took the boat out to scatter Lucky’s ashes. I wasn’t really sure why I was going today. It wasn’t my intention when I left the house. My legs labored on the slight uphill grade of the road. I’d been so lazy about exercise for so long. The meds did that to me. I was excited at the prospect of getting in shape now.

  The farm is not a particularly nice place to visit, especially not on a day with mounds of fog hovering close to shore even though it was mid-July. A brisk wind whipped my hair back from my face and forced tears from my eyes as I pedaled up the highway. My fingers and my ears were numb. I wished I’d worn gloves and a hat.

  I turned into the drive and navigated around the potholes on the narrow dirt road. My dad’s silver truck was side by side with Fin’s red one, next to the shed. Eduardo, the delivery truck driver, was power washing the oysters that were to be delivered later today. He waved. I leaned my bike against my dad’s truck and looked out onto the estuary. My dad and Fin were out in the boat, pulling up seed cages to check the size of the oysters. Oysters grow at different rates so you have to manually pick out the ones that are market size and put the rest back in the water to mature. Both men were dressed in yellow waterproof overalls and long, heavy gloves. They had wool beanies on their heads. Fin must have been wearing Lucky’s gear. Their laughter traveled across the water. My dad was teaching Fin the oyster business. They still hadn’t seen me and I almost didn’t want them to. I went to the shed and took my dad’s binoculars off the hook by the door. I sat down at the wooden picnic table, which was coated in seagull poop. The fog was creeping closer and closer to shore. It blew across the storm-colored water like soft cotton balls. I turned the dial on the binoculars till my dad and Fin came into focus. The way Fin looked so sincere out there with my dad, so eager to learn, made me feel foolish about all the doubts I’d been having. I watched him laugh at a baby crab dangling from the index finger of his glove. He looked more appealing than ever.

  My dad was showing Fin how to measure an oyster. He used the little metal ruler that he carries with him everywhere. He put the ruler in his pocket and pulled out his shucking knife. My dad can get an oyster from shell to mouth faster than anyone. He pulled the top half off the bottom shell and expertly loosened the muscle that attaches the oyster to the smooth pearly inside. He handed it to Fin, who tipped it back into his mouth like he’d been eating oysters all his life. Maybe he had. Fin’s eyes closed and he smiled. My dad opened another oyster for himself. My binoculars drifted over to the right of them, toward the pier where the boat and stacks of seed cages are kept. I dropped the binoculars onto the rocks. I had to be seeing things. Was that Lucky sitting on the pier? Fog drifted over the dark, wet boards, blurring him for a few seconds, but when it passed I was certain I was looking at my brother. He seemed to be looking at exactly what I’d been looking at. I kept my eyes on him and reached to the ground for the binoculars. I quickly trained them on the pier again. Lucky was still there. He was sitting cross-legged on the wet boards. His favorite beach towel was wrapped around him, the one with the multicolored stripes. I stood up.

  “Lucky! Over here!” I called out to him. I waved and jumped up and down, but he didn’t see me. Maybe it was the fog, which was almost on shore now. I ran to the edge of the water, calling out to him again. I was up to my thighs in icy-cold water. My dad and Fin were trying to see me through the fog. I pointed at the pier.

  “It’s Lucky. Look! It’s Lucky!”

  They looked over to where I was pointing. I pushed off the slippery bottom rocks with my sneakers and started swimming toward the pier. I was still screaming Lucky’s name and choking and sputtering. My dad started the boat’s motor and steered it toward me. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t see what I saw. My clothes were heavy and waterlogged now and pulling me under. My legs were frozen; I couldn’t move them at all. My head dipped below the surface, and I opened my eyes. Lucky was four feet from my face. His hair was splayed out around his head and his eyes were bulging out in panic. He looked exactly like he did in my nightmares. The striped towel was behind him in the water, moving like a colorful sea creature through the turbulence. Lucky reached out to me. I groped the water, trying to take his hands in mine, but I needed to get closer. I tried to kick my legs but they were numb. The last thing I remember before everything went dark was a strong arm reaching into the water for me. Fin’s hand grabbed mine. He was grabbing the same hand I’d just written Winston Hastings’s number on in black ink. Then I was pulled up and out and away from Lucky.

  Twenty

  I woke up alone in a bed in a small room. I wa
s wearing a hospital gown. It seemed to be nighttime.

  I heard hospital noises from out in the hallway, doctors being paged, carts being rolled. I couldn’t remember exactly how I’d gotten there. I couldn’t see very well and I wondered what had happened to my contact lenses. I imagined them lying at the bottom of the estuary like tiny jellyfish. With a start I realized that I’d never gotten back to open Katy’s.

  I remembered being underneath my dad’s heavy canvas coat as his truck bumped along. I was soaking wet and shivering so hard that my teeth were chattering. My dad kept glancing over at me. He looked worried. It had been a long time since he’d seen me do something crazy. I must have scared the hell out of him. I vaguely remember him calling my mom on his cell, instructing her to call Dr. Saul.

  I tried to remember everything that had happened at the farm. If my dad and Fin hadn’t pulled me out of the water I could have touched Lucky’s hands. I wasn’t imagining it. He was there. He was that close to me.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. It was sticky with sea salt and hung in ropes. My body felt stiff and heavy, like I was still underwater. The door opened and my parents appeared. I felt sheepish when they smiled at me and asked me how I was feeling.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m sorry.” The grim look in their eyes was familiar. It had started appearing when I was nine and they were called to the school for the first time. There had been an incident. During dodgeball, which I loathed, Penny Michaelson threw a ball at me hard. She aimed for my head. She hated me. It hit my cheek with a sharp slap and jerked my head to the side, making my ears ring. My glasses flew off my face and hit the floor, shattering into pieces. The sting of embarrassment when everyone laughed was far worse than the sting on my cheek. I was a constant irritation in class. They were glad I was hurt. I put my hand to my face and felt a hot welt rising. I scurried underneath the wooden bleachers like a wounded animal. The gym emptied out and everyone went back to homeroom. Mr. Ligetti, our gym teacher, tried to coax me out, but I stayed there under the bleachers, rocking and weeping. I knew that the whole school was talking about me. This was something I would never live down. I felt so ashamed. Finally, after two hours, my mom showed up. She crawled under the bleachers in her skirt and sandals and talked quietly to me. She took me home. That was the first of many “episodes,” and though my parents wanted to believe that I was just going through a phase, I knew better. I wasn’t like anyone else in my class and I never would be. I couldn’t do the work. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t play nicely with other kids. Our family doctor, Dr. Garcia, put me on Ritalin then and I was labeled a weird kid.