Just My Luck

by Adele Parks

  “Get it, get it. Why not?” He gently strokes my cheekbone, which is the color of a thunderous cloud.

  Logan buys two different football kits. Manchester City and Real Madrid. It doesn’t take long at all, but he seems mad happy. Mum has gone to work, but I don’t think she’d have joined in on the spree even if she’d been here. Other than the clothes for the press conference, the only thing she has expressed any interest in buying is a book from The Folio Society. Apparently, they publish special-edition books with cool illustrations. She got one last Christmas off Dad: Atonement by Ian McEwan. She said she “might start collecting them.” What is she on? Start collecting them? Doesn’t she realize she can afford to buy the entire lot in one drop? We don’t need to eke anything out anymore. I don’t know how Mum can exercise so much self-control. I have no idea why she would want to. I tell Dad he should buy her the lot to surprise her, but he buys her just one, Wuthering Heights. “Your mum secretly loves a bad boy, and Heathcliff is the prototype,” he says, grinning. I grimace. That is not information I need. Then, just as he’s at the checkout, he pops Mansfield Park into the e-cart and murmurs, “It’s her favorite book. Two isn’t over the top, right?” My favorite book is The Fault in Our Stars. I don’t know if Ridley knows this. Ridley says his is Catch-22 but he’s never actually read it, it just sounds cool. His actual favorite is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

  Dad is buoyant today because last night he took a call from the lottery company who say Jennifer and Fred have now confirmed that not only had they pulled out of the lottery but that the Pearsons had pulled out of the syndicate before the win, too. He looks smug. I’m just relieved. Hearing their names makes me feel weird. As they are Ridley’s parents, up until very recently they were always associated with fun, happy times and specifically access to Ridley. Ridley has been part of my life forever and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love him, one way or another. At first just as a friend, and then... Well.

  People say we were like siblings because we shared paddling pools and chicken pox, but that was never true. I was always more aware of him and in awe of him than anyone is with a sibling. When we were tiny, I thought he came up with all the best games and plans. I followed him up trees and through streams. We built every Minecraft world to his specification. He is the first boy Megan and I ever kissed. We both kissed him on the same night. It was a long time ago, when we were younger and all just working out whether we were—I don’t know—people who might want to kiss or be kissed, I suppose. It was experimental and the experiment turned out to be conclusive. For Ridley and Megan, their kiss was just a bit of fun, a practice. For Ridley and me, our kiss was everything. We started to acknowledge that we saw each other differently. I don’t understand the raw need he lights in me. I just know that when I’m not with him, I’m not really anywhere. I don’t exist. I’m just flat. Then he walks into a room and I’m all the dimensions.

  At least, that’s how it was.

  Now money is the new Ridley, I guess. The things we’re buying, and the things we can do now we are rich, excite me. It’s not the same, obviously. I can’t kiss and suck and breathe in money. Money can’t cause me to burn. But somehow, one edged out the other. It’s just the way it is.

  I didn’t think I’d have to choose.

  I still think spending the money with Ridley would have been the best. The old Ridley. The boy I thought he was.

  I hate Jennifer and Fred for messing everything up. For trying to con us and pretend a third of the money was theirs. If they hadn’t done that, Ridley and I would have been fine! We’d have got over his initial reaction and he’d never have done what he did to me in the school toilets. And yeah, they’ve had a fit of conscience now and at least had the decency to do the right thing and come clean finally. But so what? It’s too late. It’s all too late. I wish there was a button, though, that I could press and just turn my feelings off completely. I have played Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” basically on loop. ’Cause #EvenAngelsHaveTheirWickedSchemes.

  How could he have stood by and let them hurt me? And the photos he took!

  I can’t forgive him. I switch up my playlist. Now I am all about Ariana Grande: #IWantItIGotIt.

  Dad is distracted by admin. He announces he has made an appointment at a private school. They are prepared to see him this afternoon. I think Mum will kill him for going without her, but he doesn’t seem to care when I point this out.

  “Do you want to come?” he asks me.

  “No, you’re all right. I don’t think this face makes the right first impression.” I try to wink, to pretend it’s not getting me down, but it backfires because winking hurts like hell.

  “Fair point,” says Dad. He kisses the top of my head, carefully, to avoid causing any twinges. “Will you keep an eye on Logan?”

  “Yeah.” The minute Dad has gone I beg Logan for his phone.

  Mine is obviously done for since it was flushed. He is at his computer, a blue glow shining on his nerdy little face. I have to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention and get him to take off his headphones. Like any normal teenager, he hates handing over his phone.

  “What will you give me?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. In the past, I’d offer a pound. We stare at each other for a moment and then simultaneously realize that we can no longer bribe one another with cash because we have loads of it. This makes us laugh and Logan gives me his phone.

  “If you post anything on my accounts, I’ll kill you.”

  “Fair.”

  I dash to my own room and then set about logging in to all my social media accounts that I can. By flushing my phone, Megan basically pushed me overboard and left me bobbing in the sea without a life jacket or even a crappy little whistle. Since we fought on that first day I told them about the win, I have been hopelessly and compulsively checking every form of communication about every three minutes to see if Ridley might contact me privately. Snaps, Insta, WhatsApp, Twitter, basic text messaging and even old-person Facebook. Since she flushed the phone, I can no longer feed this obsession. I guess Megan has done me a favor even though that’s the last thing she intended. She knows—everyone knows—how vital a phone is. She’s basically hacked off a limb. The thing is, I have not told my parents about the photos Ridley took in the loo. I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. They think that the worst he did was stand guard for teachers and they fecking HATE him for that. Especially my mother, I think she would rip him apart with her teeth if Dad and I allowed it. I don’t know why I’m protecting him. Or maybe I do. I have to know what he plans to do with them. Is he going to humiliate me and post them? Has he already done that? Or is it enough for him to know I know he has them? Does he just want to feel powerful again? I can’t imagine he’s wanking over them. I keep wondering, and this is bad. Are they a thing now?

  Ridley and Megan? Just the thought, just the suggestion, makes it difficult for me to breathe. No, surely not. She’s never fancied him. Or has she? I guess she wouldn’t tell me if she did. And he’s gorgeous. Why wouldn’t she fancy him? Megan always had this big thing about us telling each other everything about everything. Like we talked about period pain, how fat our thighs looked versus how fat they really are, what we’d like to do with our lives, the fact she gets a recurring blackhead in the middle of her back (which I always squeezed for her) and I grow a single persistent hair out of my nipple and even though I pluck it, it comes back. What is that about? Who gets tit pubes? That’s the sort of question we used to put to one another.

  There were things I didn’t tell Megan about Ridley.

  It became impossible to put into words the things we did to each other. The pleasure we got from one another. I didn’t hold back telling her about that bit of us because I’m ashamed of it—the opposite! I didn’t tell anyone because it’s so brilliant, so amazing and special! I’m protecting us. Other people would ruin it. Even Megan
. They’d say we were too young. They’d gasp, be shocked, horrified. They’d say once he got what he wanted, he’d leave me.

  Maybe they’d be right about that bit.

  Ridley wouldn’t go there. Would he? With Megan?

  Here’s the truth about Megan. She isn’t super pretty. I mentioned she didn’t get her mum’s looks. Well, she’s not even super funny, either, which is a shame because her dad can be quite a laugh. She is, however, super clever. Cleverer than I am and she’s all science-y, which is cool, especially for a girl (it should not matter, but it does because we’re not living in the future yet and people really do stereotype). I love—loved—seeing people get blown away when she talked about the space-time continuum or black holes or whatever. When we were eleven or twelve, that was just the best. Some dumb and arrogant boy would be going on about X-Men: Days of Future Past, naming all the mutants’ skills or something tedious, and Megan would casually start talking about the possibility of time travel, for real. Quietly arguing that if it was going to happen, moving forward in time was far more likely than back. Their faces! We’d practically burst, laughing about it.

  I loved Megan. And then Ridley. Oh, God. Help me.

  It wasn’t that I left Megan behind or moved on. I loved them both. It was just that what I feel—felt—feel for Ridley was something so different. So more.

  Like, everything about him gets to me. The way he smiles, laughs, eats an apple. Ridley moves in a way that is somehow both purposeful and also slack. It’s not that he learned this posed strut as a cool teen, it’s intrinsic to him and always has been. He’s a great sportsman, and boys who grow up being told they are brilliant at throwing and catching and saving and hitting balls just ooze a different, inimitable confidence and a trust in their bodies that nerdy kids never have. He knows where he wants to put his hands, his mouth. He knows where I want him to put them. It hurts. Thinking about it, his hands on my body and the fact that they won’t be again, that I’m no longer entitled to that, it causes me actual pain. Way more pain than when Megan’s thugs tried to rearrange my face.

  There is something I know I need to do. Like, very much more important than my nails or my brows, yet I haven’t. I daren’t. I can’t. It’s better this way. Not knowing for certain. Limbo is pretty liberating when you think about it. Being on the fence you get a view of everything. Once you jump down on one side or the other, half the world is inaccessible. Right? The point is, although I’m not the science geek, I’m not an idiot. Time travel is not a thing. You can’t undo the past. Time moves in one direction only and that relentless march has never been more poignant than now.

  I fight the overwhelming lethargy that invades my body whenever I think about this and stand up, walk toward the large number of shopping bags that are scattered on my bedroom floor. I haven’t got around to unpacking everything we’ve bought. I’m not even sure if I have enough hangers and space. Even in among all this mess, I know exactly where it is, though, and I’m drawn to it like a magnet pulls a needle on a compass. It’s nestled in a skinny plastic bag, hidden inside a quality cardboard bag, right at the bottom, below a pair of Guess jeans.

  The pregnancy test.

  CHAPTER 23

  Lexi

  I come home to a silent house. Logan is reading.

  “Where is my son and what have you done with his body?” I ask the alien invader.

  “Ha-ha.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  “A postapocalyptic world where a bunch of teens survive without parents but have an army of zombies to fight.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “It’s awesome, really gory and actually the kids do much better without parents.”

  “Funny boy.” I’m just pleased to see he’s reading, rather than playing video games as usual, but know better than to say as much. If I support an activity, I am condemning said activity to certain death.

  Emily is in her room. It isn’t clear what she is doing; she claims to be watching a YouTube tutorial on how to apply eyeliner, but there’s no sign of a screen. She’s just staring at the ceiling.

  “Everything okay?” I immediately want to kick myself. It is too general a question, unlikely to elicit an informative or a specific response.

  “God, yes, Mum. Why wouldn’t it be? We’ve just won the lottery.”

  “Right. I was thinking of doing some baking. Do you want to help?”

  “Bad day at the office?” I applaud her perception. She hasn’t noticed I’m home five hours early, but she does know that I often bake when I feel wobbly. There’s something about the rituals of weighing, sifting, stirring that I find extremely therapeutic. I cross my fingers, hoping that she’ll agree to bake with me. “Don’t fancy it today, thanks.” Her gaze stays focused on the ceiling.

  “Not even brownies? Or cupcakes? We could make those bake-in-the-mug cupcakes.”

  “Actually, Mum, if you fancy a cupcake you should probably just get some from Lola’s, you know, in Selfridges? They do delivery. They’re very on-trend.”

  “Okay, maybe I’ll look into it.” I won’t.

  I’ve spent most of the afternoon clock-watching because I figure six o’clock is an acceptable time to open a bottle of wine. The kids tell me that Jake is seeing a new school but neither of them know which one, and although I call him he doesn’t pick up. I assume it’s the local private school he’s visiting, but I don’t know for sure. For all I know, he might have made an appointment at Eton or Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Nothing would surprise me anymore. I’m irritated. He shouldn’t be looking at schools without me or the kids. He doesn’t get home until I’m a third of the way down the bottle of wine.

  I tell him about Ellie forcing me to take a leave of absence. I expect him to be insensitive and go on about how it’s a good thing because it will give me more flexibility and we can take more holidays. He blindsides me with understanding and thoughtfulness when he says, “Oh, Lexi, I’m really sorry about your job. I know it mattered to you.” I’m at the breakfast bar, nursing my glass. He stands behind me and massages my neck. He leans close and kisses my nape with extraordinary tenderness.

  “Thanks.” I realize this is the moment I should tell him about giving three million pounds away. I stay silent.

  Jake pulls away and claps his hands together. “Okay, right. Who feels like cooking tonight? No one. We need to go out for dinner.” He’s out of the room and calling up the stairs before I respond. “Kids, come on, we’re going to London. We’re going to find a really great restaurant and eat and drink too much.” They don’t need to be asked twice. I hear them scampering above me, running to bagsy the bathroom. Jake comes back into the kitchen and beams. “Emily needs an opportunity to wear some of those new clothes, right?”

  As is quite usual in our family, the teens are never simply compliant. After the initial excitement about the prospect of eating out at a cool restaurant, Logan is disgusted to hear he might have to wear school shoes because some of the places Jake is thinking of taking us to have a footwear policy that specifies no trainers. Then Emily has a mini confidence crisis because of her injured face and won’t believe us that her makeup covers the bruises. “You can hardly tell.” She’s right not to believe us. Her attempts at caking makeup over the wounds just draw the eye, but both Jake and I are well aware that to say so, whilst ticking the box of honesty, would backfire and escalate her panic.

  “I think it makes you look edgy,” says Jake. “Kind of heroin chic.”

  “Jake, that’s not a thing anymore and it’s hardly aspirational for our daughter, is it?” Jake winks at Emily and whether or not she understands that her dad is alluding to an anarchic vision of beauty, signaling drug addiction, she grins and dashes for the door.

  We call an Uber and as we are driven into London, Jake makes some phone calls and secures a dinner reservation at a restaurant called @, not “At” or “Arobase
,” just @. The name alone tells me the place will be so trendy it will be terrifying. Jake says that at the moment @ is reputed to be the most expensive restaurant in London. He beams. “It is fair to say that it is the sort of restaurant that only oligarchs and those with expense accounts visit. There’s a waiting list that’s three months long, but when I told them we were lottery winners they found us a table.”

  “Cool!” comments Logan, although I wonder what he’ll find on the menu that he’ll like. He’s a burger and chips boy, steak and chips on special occasions.

  It’s impossible not to be impressed. The ceiling towers metres above us, and the floor is vast, a place where people come to see and be seen. All the tables are round. And we are shown to a circular booth, which affords privacy. My guess is that this one table is always kept aside for the trail of pop stars, actors and VIPs that must want to drop by every night. The leather booth is dark blue, the round table is gold. It should be awful, garish and obvious, but I have to admit it’s stupendous, luxurious and startling. The room is swathed in various shades of shimmering fabrics that suggest a bygone era.

  “It’s like being on the set of The Great Gatsby,” says Emily, giggling. She’s completely forgetting to be a teen and showing her enthusiasm in spades. I can’t help but be thrilled by this. Any parent of a teen knows that a child’s mood dictates the success of the evening and it’s a relief to see her happy. There’s a lot going on in her world and I need to spend some time unpacking it, but there’s a lot going on in my world, too, so I haven’t quite got to the bottom of it yet. The large cardboard menus are as thick as magazines. In each dish there is at least one ingredient I don’t recognize, but we manage to order anyway as we largely depend on the recommendation of the staff, who are incredibly friendly and thankfully not the breed of waiters who feel their job is to rudely intimidate.