The Fortune Cafe (A Tangerine Street Romance)

by Wright, Julie

  She’d presented them herself with her apologies. The brunch would now end up costing the hotel because the chairwoman felt they shouldn’t pay for the fish, but Lucy could only hope the move with the flowers was enough to offset any complaints that might filter through the ladies’ social set and put people off from future bookings. The hotel needed the opulent wedding receptions that came out of this bunch, and Lucy couldn’t burn any bridges.

  By the time her work day ended, she felt more like she’d just failed to broker peace with Sudanese war lords than like she’d managed the events office. A high-end luxury import company had hosted a preview for its biggest Bay area buyers and the A/V system had glitched so badly that the trainer had stormed off the stage in protest. And she’d had a cancellation for an event in the fall that would have earned the hotel into the six figures in revenue.

  On that call, she’d reached up to rub her lucky jade to remind her that it was going to be all right and almost broke into tears when her fingers found nothing.

  Now she was walking the two blocks to her apartment from her BART stop with her shoes in her hands because one of the heels had snapped off. She alternated between trying not to think too hard about what the stains on the sidewalk might be and trying not to cry.

  When she limped into the vestibule of her building, it was all she could do not to collapse in front of the mailboxes and stay there until she mossed over. Instead, she fumbled her mail key from her purse and shoved it into her mailbox. It would no doubt be full of notices that owed money to the DMV or the IRS, but she’d drop them on her foyer table and deal with it later. This night called for crawling into bed for a New Girl marathon.

  The mail key stuck, and she cursed. The refined ladies of the Nob Hill Society would have fallen over their perfectly sauced eggs if they’d heard the words coming out of her mouth, but she did not care. She couldn’t take one more thing going wrong, and she would bend this mailbox to her will if it was the last thing she did. She jammed the key into the lock again and swore even louder when her hand slipped, breaking her middle fingernail. She stepped back and held it up to inspect the damage.

  “Seriously, I said I was sorry about the milk delivery, but it wasn’t my fault,” a warm voice said from the lobby entrance. “No need to flip me off.” It was her neighbor, Carter, and he approached the mailboxes with a grin.

  She dropped her hand and laughed. “At least now you know how I really feel.”

  “What’s up, Lucky Lucy? I feel like I never see you around anymore.”

  “Probably because I’m never around anymore,” she said, barely stifling a sigh. “Wedding planning? Not my favorite.”

  “Even for the event queen extraordinaire, huh? If you can’t hack it, the rest of us are screwed.”

  She smiled again. “Hack. Good word. I’m hacked off. I would like to hack a few people.”

  He stopped short and backed up, pushing his hair out of his eyes. On his best days it looked like a nest of vaguely related cowlicks, so it fell back exactly where it had been. “I’ll just be going now.”

  “You’re not one of them. Stay, get your mail, enjoy the lovely surroundings.”

  “How gracious of you. This must be why they pay you the big bucks.”

  Lucy only shook her head. Whatever tech thing he did paid him enough to live on the same floor of the medium-niceish building that she did, but he still liked to tease her about her “high roller job.” Ha. It was a good job, one she could parlay into a great job, but not if she had too many more incidents like today. She’d parlay herself right into the street whether it was her fault or not. The thought depressed her again, and she decided her mail could wait.

  “Where you going, Lucy-Lou?” Carter called after her, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m not scaring you off with my bad luck funk, am I?”

  It was a running joke between them. Carter had been a disaster since he’d moved in the summer before. Anything that could go wrong for him did. Broken pipes, missed deliveries, birds breaking his window, and a bedbug problem that never seemed to affect anyone else. All of those incidents had bypassed Lucy, but they’d still made her wary of pushing her own good luck too much by association. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but one of her girlfriends, tipsy on wine, had told Carter all about Lucy’s luck as they chatted over the balcony. He’d teased her about it ever since.

  Lucy mustered another smile for him. “You’re not scaring me off. In fact, you should maybe run from me. I’ve never had such a bad day at work.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” He looked up from his envelope shuffling. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Everything that could go wrong did, plus a dozen things that shouldn’t have, all the way down to this.” She stuck her broken nail up again.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Sometimes a girl just needs to flip someone off, you know?”

  “Yes. Do it again. I’ll even act offended to make you feel better.”

  She lowered it instead. “I don’t remember ever breaking a nail before. I’ll have to cut them all off so they don’t look completely stupid with one stubby nail. Or maybe I can get just one acrylic nail on Stubby for my wedding. Can you even do that?”

  “Not my area of expertise, sorry. But I know a lot about being unlucky. I can tell you some of the perks.”

  “Yes, please,” she said, realizing that more than crawling into bed, she needed a good laugh. “Meet you on the balcony?”

  “See you there in ten.”

  “Deal.”

  He gave her a salute and headed up the stairs. She gave the mailbox a final try and got it open to find three bills. No party invitations or thank you notes or even really good coupons. Oh well. At least this day was almost over.

  Lucy climbed to her third floor apartment and opened her door on the first try with a disproportionate sense of relief. What had her life become in one short weekend that opening a door lock without difficulty felt like a major victory?

  Inside the door she dropped her new bills on the small accent table she’d found one weekend while hitting garage sales with her friends. They’d gone on a whim because none of them had done it since they were kids. While her friends all laughed at the kitschy stuff they found, she’d picked up this embellished table. Her friends had teased her for spending fifteen bucks on it, but she got the last laugh when it turned out to be an authentic Art Deco piece worth almost a thousand dollars.

  Minutes later, in her comfiest pajamas, she slid open her back door and stepped out onto her tiny balcony. It was barely big enough for two chairs and a café table, but she loved it anyway. Any time the San Francisco fog lifted, she could see the Golden Gate Bridge, especially when it was lit up at night. It would still be a couple of hours before it shone, but sitting out here with Carter to make her laugh felt like a pretty decent consolation prize. Running into him at the mailboxes— minus the accidental flip off— was her first piece of decent luck all day.

  He emerged on his identical balcony and smiled at her. “You didn’t have to get dressed up on my account.”

  “Says the guy who lives in shorts and free T-shirts.”

  He looked offended. “Hey. I like—” he stared down at his chest, “Boom Tax. One of my favorite... programs?”

  “You don’t even know what it is?”

  “It’s one of my favorite programs,” he said, his tone full of fake conviction.

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Um. They will, um, see, you give them, um. I don’t know what they do.”

  “Blow up your taxes, maybe.”

  “Like I need help with that,” he said, and it made her laugh.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be out here telling me why being unlucky is going to be the awesomest thing that ever happened to me?”

  “The perks are substantial. I’m not sure I want to share them. I don’t want you in this club.”

  She shrugged. “I’m here for a while whether either of us likes or
not. Might as well show me around.”

  His sigh was the same sound Blake’s mother had made at least a dozen times over the weekend. “Fine. First of all, it’ll get you lots of women. They feel sorry for you, and it brings out their nurturing instincts.”

  “Not sure I need helping pulling chicks, neighbor. Got anything else?”

  “Yeah. Free massages and new outfits are a pretty regular deal if you have bad luck. Every time you fly now, you’re going to get picked for a TSA pat down, and the airline will permanently lose your luggage.”

  She tried to keep a straight face. “I’ll stick with carry-ons.”

  “Doesn’t help. They’ve lost my carry-on. Twice,” he said, holding up three fingers and making her laugh again. “Just focus on the shopping you’ll get to do to replace everything. Several times.”

  “That sounds pretty fabulous. What else?”

  “I meet new people almost every time I leave the house. Granted, they’re paramedics, but depending on how complicated the extrication is, they can be pretty nice.”

  “Extrication? What— wait. I don’t think you’re joking about that one.” She’d seen him in an orthopedic boot and an arm cast at different points in the last year.

  “I’m not joking about any of it. People really don’t understand all the advantages of bad luck. It gives you super powers. Like all I have to do to make it rain is go on a bike ride, and it’ll be pouring before I’m halfway done.”

  A bubble of laughter rose up in Lucy’s chest. “Poor you.”

  “Poor me? Did I mention the increased popularity? Once people catch on that you’re one of us, you’re going to double your friend circle. They think it’s super handy to have us around. Try going to the movies with your friends. If they get in a different ticket line, no matter how long it is, they’ll get in twice as fast as you do.”

  By now, she couldn’t stop laughing. “I get it, I get it.”

  “I didn’t even get to your improved cardiovascular health because you will never get a close parking spot. Anywhere. Ever.”

  That one stung. She sat up. “I think I want out of this club.”

  “How’d you get in, anyway?”

  Her hand crept up to the empty hollow at the base of her neck. She wondered if this felt a tiny bit like phantom limb pain. She couldn’t process that her lucky jade was two hundred miles south. Today’s string of crappy events was just an aberration, she knew. Everyone had bad days, even if she couldn’t remember having one like this before. But she’d still feel better when her necklace was back. “Guess I just got lucky.”

  He choked on the drink he’d brought out with him. “Good one.”

  “Thanks.”

  He set the drink down and turned to face her, his shoulders squared like he was bracing himself to ask or tell her something, but his cell phone rang and a saved-by-the-bell look crossed his face. “Sorry, I might need to take this.” He glanced down at the call display, and his eyes flashed almost as brightly as the glow of the screen. “Hello? Yes, this is Carter Mackey.” He listened and his lips went from upturned edges to a Cheshire-level grin within seconds. “You’re kidding. That’s amazing. No, thank you. You won’t be sorry.”

  Lucy wondered if she should step inside to give him some privacy, but Carter shot her a smile that suggested he had no worries in the world, least of all her presence on the balcony.

  “Holy crap,” he said when he hung up, and it was the exact same way she’d said it when she won the ten thousand dollar lottery.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Everything is beyond okay. What’s the word for that?”

  “Splendiferous?”

  He made a face, but his grin wouldn’t have come off with a jackhammer. “Less girly.”

  “Super fantastic?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Stupendous?”

  “Incredible!”

  “Crazy cool!” she said, getting into the spirit.

  “Life-changing!” he shouted and threw his arms in the air like he’d just won an Olympic sprint.

  “Hooray!” she shouted back. “What are we celebrating?”

  He shoved his hands through his hair. She hadn’t thought it could look any crazier, but the strands poked out through his fingers like his hair had done meth.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said, and his hair was a wild nest of exclamation points, testifying to his shock. “I won. I won!”

  “What’d you win?”

  “I pitched an idea for an educational app, kind of an interactive game version of the Khan Academy. I just got the grant that’s going to let me work on it.”

  “Wow. I don’t think I knew you did that kind of thing.”

  He smiled, and a look she couldn’t read crossed his face. “I think there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”

  “Fair enough. And congratulations. Seriously, that’s awesome.”

  “Thanks. I’ve developed at least a dozen apps that do all the new economy stuff like connecting users with services, and that’s kind of fun. I know a couple of them have been great for small businesses. But I’ve been wanting to do something educational for a while now. I just couldn’t afford to not work on the profit-driving apps while I developed it. Now I can get it done way faster and not stress about making rent.”

  “That’s huge.” Their medium-nice building by San Francisco standards meant they had really high rent. “Lucky guy.”

  “Yeah. I think I like this role reversal.”

  She smiled, glad for him but not at able say the same of their switch without it tasting like a lie on her tongue. “Your app will be amazing.”

  “You sound pretty confident for someone who’s never seen my work.”

  She shrugged. “I know quality people when I see them. And quality people do quality work. It’ll be great. And on that note, I think I’m going to go in and sleep off this day. See you around, Carter.”

  “See you around,” he said, watching her more intently than usual.

  She slid open her door and was halfway through it when he called her name. She poked her head back out. “Yeah?”

  “It was great hanging out with you.”

  This time her smile came easily. “Yeah, you too.” She closed the door and shook her head. It hadn’t taken her long after Carter moved in to realize he was a lightning rod for bad juju to strike, and she’d always kept a polite distance, but her parting words to him were true. Her former bad luck neighbor had just become the only bright spot in her day.

  On Thursday, Lucy trudged home in even worse shape than she had two days before when she’d had to carry her shoes in her hands. She hadn’t thought that day could be any worse, but Thursday was making Tuesday look like a good dream.

  She reached the porch and stared up the five steps to the main door of her building. Might as well be Everest for all the energy she had. But if she didn’t go up the steps, she couldn’t fall into bed and let the huge tank behind her eyeballs drain its salty tears. She needed her bed for that— her bed and a full day off work. Or two. What was the standard amount of personal leave for someone who had just been dumped by her fiancé? Because right now staying in bed for the rest of her life sounded fan-freaking-tastic.

  Borderline mental breakdown aside, no way was she going to stand on the sidewalk looking as blank-eyed as the street people who regularly wandered by. She forced herself up the stairs, counting them down like they were the end of her hundred daily crunches. “Four more, three more, two, one.” She shoved her key into the lock and turned it. Nothing happened.

  She held up the key ring and squinted. She’d definitely used the right key. She bit back a growl and inserted it again. It turned halfway then the tumbler resisted. What the...? After a dozen more attempts she let out a frustrated yell that made her look as crazy as Shoe Man, the homeless guy who staked out their corner and fondled the same old pink Reebok like a bunny for hours a day. She pounded the locked metal door with the side of her fist.
It rattled and stayed locked.

  For two seconds it felt good to lose control and hit it. Then it hurt like hell, and once the first tear leaked out, the tank broke wide open, and she sank down on the top step, too worn out to even make noise as she cried. She knew she should care about whether the tears stopped before one of neighbors came home. But she didn’t.

  She leaned her head against the wall and let them flow, too tired to hold her head up, too tired to even hold her eyelids. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there by the time Carter called her name.

  “Lucy? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Lucy?”

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs, one of his hands reaching out like he was ready to brace her if she slid off the top step. She blinked and processed the question. Was she hurt? A laugh-sob escaped her. Yeah, she was hurt. But not how he meant.

  “I’m not hurt,” she said, and her voice came out thick and swollen.

  He climbed up to sit beside her, careful to leave several inches between them, like he was approaching a wild animal he didn’t want to startle. “You going to be okay?”

  She liked that he hadn’t asked her if she was okay. Just if she was going to be okay. Why did people ask if someone clearly in the throes of their world crashing down was okay? His was a much smarter question.

  She hadn’t answered it, she realized. “No.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll just sit here for a while.”

  She shrugged. She had no energy for talking. She had no energy for moving, or explaining. She wished she had no energy for thinking, but Blake’s face across the table two hours before played in her head on a loop.

  She leaned against the wall again and tried to keep her mind blank, but Blake wouldn’t stay out. His face popped up in every Blake-less image she tried to conjure, wearing the same sad expression he’d had at dinner.