Lucky

by Rachel Vail

  “I don’t hate her,” I told Ann more calmly, though as I was saying it, the image of Kirstyn twirling around in my green dress overwhelmed me. “It just really feels, to me anyway, like canceling the party is the right thing to do.”

  She sighed nervously. “You don’t think they’ll just go ahead and have it without us?”

  “No!” Yikes. Everybody would think they kicked us out. “No way.”

  “Yeah,” Ann sighed. “Zhara might actually be relieved if it’s cancelled.”

  I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt. “Has she said anything?”

  “You know Zhara. She would never say a bad word about anybody.”

  “Unlike us.”

  “Yeah. Unlike anybody,” Ann said.

  Why wasn’t I best friends with Zhara? I got the feeling at the beginning of this year that she wanted to be, but I held back. Stupid, stupid. She would never say anything bad about anybody. I probably even could have told her about Mom. Poop on a stick.

  “But I can sense Zhara sort of feels like the party is out of control, a little, too.”

  “So maybe she would agree with us,” I said, sounding pathetic. “And Gabrielle? I just don’t see her caring that much about the party, any of the details…She’s kind of, like, above it. Not in a snobby way, but, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ann said. “Totally. That’s why I think Kirstyn sticks to her like a barnacle—she’s terrified of being demoted to the second social rung next year, if Gabrielle ditches her. It used to be you for a while; now it’s Gabrielle.”

  It used to be me? Used to be?

  Ann shrugged. “Kirstyn’s got an alpha-girl magnet.”

  “It’s sad, really,” I finally managed to say, meaning: everything.

  “It is,” Ann said. “It really is.”

  I nodded. Kirstyn really had tried to make the party so elaborate and exclusive, to be the one true boss of us all, so desperate to be next to the alpha girl. So shallow! I suddenly couldn’t believe what a spoiled brat she was, or that I’d never let myself admit it.

  “Well,” I said. “We have to stand up for ourselves. We can’t keep letting ourselves get pushed around, right?”

  “I guess not,” Ann said, tilting her head sideways, quizzically.

  “No, we’re not. You know why?”

  “Why?”

  I jumped off my raft into the pool. The warm water came up to my waist. “Because nobody, nothing can intimidate us. We will never back down, we will never surrender. Especially not to moody, needy girls. We are warrior women!” I yelled, grabbing her raft. “We are Valkyries! We will not—ever—allow ourselves to be bullied or mistreated! Right?”

  Ann tumbled off the raft into the pool. When she came up, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and dabbed at her smeared mascara. “We’re what?”

  “We’re strong enough to stand up to her.” Her dunking had kind of ruined the flow of my rousing speech. It wasn’t her fault; I had startled her and maybe actually jostled her raft in my enthusiasm, but still I couldn’t help feeling slightly annoyed.

  “I hope so.” Ann shuddered a little, then said, “Well, my mother will be happy, at least.”

  “Oh, please,” I said, shivering a bit myself. “I think we’ll all be happy. Except, maybe, Kirstyn.”

  19

  SUNDAY MORNING, ACTUALLY afternoon, my father sat beside me on my bed. No matter how many times I pulled the covers over my head and cocooned inside there, he continued to tug them down again, telling me I had to get up.

  I opened one eye and squinted at him. He had pulled back the curtains so my room was flooded with light. I groaned, trying to pull the covers up over me again but then he got a better grip on them than I had and he wouldn’t let me.

  I told him I was sick, I told him to leave me alone, I told him this was a vacation weekend memorializing something so I deserved to be left alone to sleep in during it. He didn’t answer but he didn’t budge either, and didn’t ease his grip on my covers. I decided boring him to death would have to do, and consciously relaxed my face, eyes closed, resolved to outwait him. I didn’t want to wake up. Sleeping through the rest of the weekend was my best escape from thoughts of Tuesday morning.

  Just when I thought maybe he had left and it was a phantom feeling, not really him depressing the side of my bed, he said, “Kirstyn’s mother left a message on Mom’s voice mail.”

  My eyes were still closed and I concentrated on not moving any muscles, as I thought, fast, what that meant. Must be about the bounced check, which means he now knows I haven’t said anything to my friends yet about getting out of the party. Either Mom called Kirstyn’s mom back or Daddy did or neither of them did yet and I still had time to stop them from making the call.

  “About what?” I asked, fake-sleepily.

  “She said she wanted to talk about the graduation party.”

  “Did Mom call her back?”

  “Not yet,” he said, shifting slightly.

  Phew. “We’re canceling it,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I opened my eyes and sat up. “When Ann was over yesterday, we had a long talk about it and it turns out we just both felt like the party was out of control, anyway. She’s been really uncomfortable for a while about doing such an over-the-top expensive, elaborate party, and I think she was relieved that I felt the same way. You were right. It was too much. I think really everybody was feeling that and just needed someone to be like, you know what? We don’t have to do this!” I smiled manically at Daddy, who was looking at me very seriously. “So we cancelled the party. So, that’s all good, now.”

  Daddy nodded a couple of times slowly. He didn’t ask how the rest of the girls reacted or even if I had actually said anything to them yet.

  “So tell Mom not to bother calling Kirstyn’s mother back, because, well, there’s no party to talk about!” I tried to calm down because I was starting to scare myself. “Okay? I mean, Mom has enough to worry about, right?”

  “Okay,” he said simply, and patted my leg through the blanket.

  “Great, thanks, Daddy.”

  “You’re a good person, Phoebe.”

  “Yeah. I’m awesome.” In the past when things all fell into place so easily for me, it made me happy. I flopped back down and pulled the covers over my head. He had lost his grip on them in his misplaced moment of paternal pride.

  “It’s a beautiful day. You should be outside playing.”

  “Oh, please! Playing outside? How old do you think I am, six?”

  “I’ll make you a deal.” He grabbed the blanket and yanked it off my bed.

  “What?” I curled up, all exposed.

  “I will let you laze around all day today,” he offered, “do whatever you want, but tomorrow you come fishing with me.”

  “Ugh,” I said, although it actually sounded kind of nice. It had been years since I’d gone on one of his Memorial Day fishing trips. He and a bunch of his friends would all go out on their buddy Fonso Lombardi’s boat, chasing bluefish. They’d get up when it was still dark out, load up their cars with beer, soda, and junk food, and by dawn they’d already be out on Long Island Sound, shivering against the cold, mocking one another mercilessly and digging into the coolers, and occasionally fishing. A few years ago they got the idea it would be fun to bring their kids. Both my sisters and most of the other kids hated it, probably because they spent so much of the day throwing up over the sides of the boat. My sisters groaned from then on anytime Daddy mentioned fishing so I did, too. I had actually loved the whole day, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Last year he hadn’t even mentioned bringing us.

  “Deal or no deal?” he asked, my blanket in his hand.

  “Deal,” I said, groaning, as if it were the day in bed I wanted and not the next morning trudging out of my father’s car at the docks, bundled in fleeces and the comfortable quiet, then rocking in the rhythmic waves eating doughnuts at dawn. I tried to frown away my smile.

  “Okay,
then,” Daddy said, tucking me back in. “I’m glad it worked out with the party, sweetheart. Well done.”

  That got rid of my smile, fast.

  I stayed in bed most of the day, getting up only to go to the bathroom and, later, to eat some bean soup Gosia had made and left in the fridge. Nobody was around; the house was quiet. I went back upstairs, wrote my graduation speech—comparing our graduation class to soup, since my English teacher is totally into metaphors and soup was on my mind—and then fell hard asleep. I guess I really was tired. When my father woke me up, I thought it was midnight.

  “No, sweetheart,” he whispered. “It’s almost five. Time to go.”

  I blinked my eyes in the darkness but nothing was distinguishable from anything else.

  “Phoebe,” he said, a warning in his voice, but he didn’t have to worry; I was wide awake and felt better than I had in weeks.

  “I’m up,” I said. “Be ready in five minutes.”

  “That’s my girl,” he whispered, and kissed my forehead. When he closed my door, I bolted out of bed. In four minutes I was down in the kitchen, green and white swimsuit (who cares?) under layers of T-shirts and fleeces, a ponytail in my dirty hair, gulping down a big glass of orange juice. My father was bent over, zipping up the smaller of our two huge coolers. He winked at me and we headed out to the garage.

  The thought crossed my mind in the damp dark that I was lucky I hadn’t gone to the Hamptons with Gabrielle, Kirstyn, and Zhara, but I pushed that thought away as I helped load the bigger cooler into the trunk. They weren’t going to intrude on my day, not even in the negative. And it was not just the slight possibility Luke would be there with his father that had made me grab my lip gloss. I just didn’t want to get chapped lips. Seriously, wind, cold sea air…Even though he’d specifically said he was working with his mom Saturday, not Monday, Luke probably wouldn’t be on the boat anyway, which was just fine with me.

  Closing my eyes in the shotgun seat beside my father as we made our slow way down toward the shore, following the beams of our headlights, I felt confident that what lay ahead of me was a perfect stretch of hours, a gift of a day that had nothing to do with anything in my life, a break. I would fish and stuff my face with doughnuts, maybe get to steer the boat, work on my tan, maybe even catch a big ugly bluefish if I got really lucky. The possibility of being lucky felt real to me again, and I resolved to keep it, to breathe in the good salty smell of no worries, to hoard all the sweetness of this day before the end of all my friendships, to keep the whole day free of anything but easy.

  But, no.

  20

  NEITHER OF US SAID HELLO. I pretended not to see him. I’m not sure if he was pretending or just actually not seeing me. It was so early, and still dark, and really cold. I bent down to tie my already-tied sneaker as he and his father passed us.

  “Hey, Paul,” my father said to his father. “Hey, Luke.”

  I glanced up and caught their hands lowering from having waved in response. I can manage this, I told myself, grabbing the smaller cooler. No big deal if Luke is here, too. I took a deep breath of the salty air for courage and crunched across the gravel toward the boats.

  I shivered, stepping onto the boat behind my father, taking his hand.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  I shook my head. The good thing about men is they seem to feel no need to chat with one another. None of them even smiled. They all sort of grunted, at most, and settled into spots, their thermal cups of coffee (or in Daddy’s case, tea) gripped in their hands, their caps pulled low over their eyebrows.

  I was the only girl, the only female on the trip, and the only kid other than Luke. Fonso Lombardi clapped me on the back and told me he was glad to have me aboard again.

  “You’re not planning to puke this time, are you?”

  “Nope,” I said, and added softly because I couldn’t not, “I didn’t last time, either.”

  I don’t think he heard me; he was already onto his next back-clap: Luke. “You know Luke, right? Phoebe, Luke. You’re about the same age, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Good, good,” Fonso said, releasing our backs. He lifted his captain hat just long enough to swipe the meaty palm of his other hand across his big bald head. I tensed for his next questions, but thankfully he went to do something with ropes along with his first mate. Fonso is a great guy, I’ve always liked him and Luke’s dad best of Daddy’s friends, but still an adult is an adult and can therefore be counted on to make you feel like an absolute dork at the worst possible moment.

  Luke hadn’t even nodded. He could’ve nodded.

  My father and Luke’s sat beside each other in the stern of the boat. Luke and I each sat on the other sides of our fathers. I spread my knees and steadied myself for the slow trip through the marina. My father passed me his cup, offering to share his tea. I shook my head. Three years ago, when he forced Quinn and Allison to come, too, the three of us chattered the whole way out, having a great time, trying to cheer up all the glum-looking guys. Daddy’s friends teased him, later in the day, for living in a harem. By then my sisters were worn out and seasick, and Daddy threw his arm around me and took me up front and stood beside me while Fonso let me take the wheel. This time I wasn’t going to chatter. I pulled my cap lower, tightened my ponytail through the back hole, and looked out past the masts of the tethered sailboats, toward open water.

  An hour later, when the sky had turned white but the water was still black, the thrumming of the engine stopped. Its echo lingered in my ears as the mate brought out the gear for us all. He asked me if I knew how to work it and I told him yes, but nothing more. I hoped I remembered. I wasn’t about to be the one incompetent on board.

  Each of us took a position and dropped our hooks into the water.

  “Ten bucks apiece in the pot? First guy who catches something wins half, biggest fish gets the other,” Fonso announced, patting his huge, perfectly round belly. He glanced at me. “Or girl.”

  I nodded at him. All the guys muttered agreement.

  Fonso peered into the water as if he could assess the position of his hook in there. “I’m feeling lucky today,” he said, his deep voice echoing off the water. He reached into his huge cooler and pulled out a can of beer. The pop of the top was followed by a happy little fizzle. “Who else?”

  “I’m always feeling lucky,” my dad said, turning around. “Lucky is just being on the boat.”

  Fonso held the opened beer can toward Daddy.

  “Oh. No thanks,” Daddy said. “No beer before breakfast for me.”

  “So eat a doughnut first,” Fonso suggested.

  Luke’s father laughed. “Breakfast of champions,” he said, reeling in his line, checking his empty hook, and letting it back out again. Luke’s father, like Luke, is solid and strong, with tan-looking skin all year and dark hair, though Luke’s is a little wavier. But I wasn’t looking at Luke, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about him, either. I reeled in my hook and let it out again, reeled and lowered, thanking whatever powers exist for the chance to just do something mechanical all day long and not have to explain or be cool or witty.

  It’s Luke’s fault I turned around. I heard him laugh, or I thought it was him, and it messed up my rhythm. I just turned for a second to see what was so funny that he would kind of hiccup-laugh. I had been completely minding my own business before that moment, not thinking about the fact that he was directly behind me and ignoring me because probably he hated me and I had blown my last chance to get back together with him, for nothing. I was not even thinking how cute he looked in that old faded blue-gray sweatshirt that had clearly been his father’s because the cuffs were turned up a few times, and the washed-out green baseball cap with his dark hair curling a little bit around at the edges. No, not me, I was just fishing. But then he went and messed me up with that noise of his, or whoever’s, which might have been the clearing of a throat of the excuse me type, in which case it would have been rude to ignore it.

 
I am just not a rude person.

  So I turned around, which would have been fine and maybe nobody even would have caught my quick little glance behind me to see if someone was ahem-ing at me or not, if I hadn’t had my fishing rod in my hand at the time. With its hook out of the water.

  The hook was the actual problem, because it kind of got ahead of me and swung across the deck of the boat. I don’t even think I swung it; a breeze probably picked it up and whipped it across. From the way those guys reacted you’d have thought I suddenly pulled a rifle out from under my sweatshirt or something. Fonso grabbed the rod away from me, but by then it was too late.

  The hook was in Luke’s arm.

  He didn’t bleed all that much, since luckily he still had his sweatshirt on; the barbed point of the hook barely lodged in the skin just above his left wrist. His father was able to work it out in a second, maybe two. Luke looked pale but didn’t cry or scream like I probably would’ve. The mate brought over a first-aid kit and did a whole number with an alcohol wipe and a butterfly Band-Aid. Luke’s father kept trying to convince Luke to sit down for a minute but he was like, no, I’m fine, I’m fine.