The Lucky One

by Nicholas Sparks

  Like him, she was wearing jeans, but the creamy blouse she wore accentuated the sun-browned tint of her skin. Her honey-colored hair swept the neckline of her sleeveless blouse, and he noted that she was wearing a trace of mascara. She looked both familiar and tantalizingly foreign.

  Zeus padded down the steps, tail wagging and whining, and went to her side.

  "Hey, Zeus. Did you miss me? It's only been a day." She stroked his back, and Zeus whined plaintively before licking at her hands. "Now that was a greeting," she said, looking up at him. "How are you? Am I late?"

  He tried to sound nonchalant. "I'm fine," he said. "And you're right on time. I'm glad you made it."

  "Did you think I wouldn't?"

  "This place is kind of hard to find."

  "Not if you've lived here your whole life." She motioned toward the house. "So this is home?"

  "This is it."

  "It's nice," she said, taking it in.

  "Is it what you expected?"

  "Pretty much. Solid. Efficient. Kind of hidden."

  He acknowledged her double entendre with a smile, then turned to Zeus and commanded him to stay on the porch.

  He walked down the steps to join her.

  "Will he be okay outside?"

  "He'll be fine. He won't move."

  "But we'll be gone for hours."

  "I know."

  "Amazing."

  "It seems that way. But dogs don't have much sense of time. In a minute, he won't remember anything other than the fact that he's supposed to stay. But he won't know why."

  "How did you learn so much about dogs and training?" Elizabeth asked, curious.

  "Mainly books."

  "You read?"

  He sounded amused. "Yes. Surprised?"

  "I am. It's hard to tote books when you're walking across the country."

  "Not if you don't keep them when you finish."

  They reached the car, and when Thibault started toward the driver's side to open the door for her, she shook her head. "I might have asked you out, but I'm going to make you drive."

  "And here I thought I was going out with a liberated woman," he protested.

  "I am a liberated woman. But you'll drive. And pick up the check."

  He laughed as he walked her back around to the other side. Once he was settled behind the wheel, she peeked toward the porch. Zeus seemed confused about what was happening, and she heard him whining again.

  "He sounds sad."

  "He probably is. We're seldom apart."

  "Mean man," she scolded him.

  He smiled at her playful tone as he slipped the car into reverse. "Should I head downtown?"

  "Nope," she said. "We're getting out of town tonight. Just go to the main highway and head toward the coast. We're not going to the beach, but there's a good place on the way. I'll let you know when we're getting close to the next turn."

  Thibault did as she said, driving quiet roads in the deepening twilight. They reached the highway in a few minutes, and as the car picked up speed, the trees on either side began to blur. Shadows stretched across the road, darkening the car's interior.

  "So tell me about Zeus," she said.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Whatever you want to tell me. Something I wouldn't know."

  He could have said, I bought him because a woman in a photograph owned a German shepherd, but he didn't. Instead he said, "I bought Zeus in Germany. I flew out there and picked him from the litter myself."

  "Really?"

  He nodded. "The shepherd in Germany is like the bald eagle in America. It's a symbol of national pride, and breeders take their work very seriously. I wanted a dog with strong, working bloodlines, and if that's what you want, you'll usually find the best dogs in Germany. Zeus comes from a long line of Schutzhund competitors and champions."

  "What's that?'"

  "In Schutzhund, the dogs are tested not only in obedience, but in tracking and protection. And the competition is intense. Usually it lasts two days, and as a rule, the winners tend to be the most intelligent and trainable dogs of all. And since Zeus comes from a long line of competitors and champions, he's been bred for both those things."

  "And you did all the training," she said, sounding impressed.

  "Since he was six months old. When we walked from Colorado, I worked with him every day."

  "He's an incredible animal. You could always give him to Ben, you know. He'd probably love it."

  Thibault said nothing.

  She noticed his expression and slid closer to him. "I was kidding. I wouldn't take your dog from you."

  Thibault felt the continuing warmth of her body radiate down his side.

  "If you don't mind my asking, how did Ben react when you told him you were going out with me tonight?" he asked.

  "He was fine with it. He and Nana were already planning to watch videos. They'd talked on the phone about having a movie night earlier in the week. Made a date and everything."

  "Do they do that a lot?"

  "They used to do it all the time, but this is the first time since she had her stroke. I know Ben was really excited about it. Nana makes popcorn and usually lets him stay up extra late."

  "Unlike his mom, of course."

  "Of course." She smiled. "What did you end up doing today?"

  "Catching up around the house. Cleaning, laundry, shopping, that kind of thing."

  She raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed. You're a real domestic animal. Can you bounce a quarter on your bedspread after you make it?"

  "Of course."

  "You'll have to teach Ben how to do that."

  "If you'd like."

  Outside, the first stars were beginning to emerge, and the car's headlights swept the curves of the road.

  "Where exactly are we going?" Thibault asked.

  "Do you like crabs?"

  "Love 'em."

  "That's a good start. How about shag dancing?"

  "I don't even know what that is."

  "Well, let's just say you're going to have to learn quick."

  Forty minutes later, Thibault pulled to a stop in front of a place that looked to have once been a warehouse. Elizabeth had directed him to the industrial section of downtown Wilmington, and they had parked in front of a three-story structure with aged wide-plank siding. There was little to differentiate it from the neighboring buildings other than the nearly hundred cars parked in the lot and a small wooden walkway that led around the building, stringed with inexpensive strands of white Christmas tree lights.

  "What's this place called?"

  "Shagging for Crabs."

  "Original. But I'm having a hard time visualizing this as a major tourist attraction."

  "It's not--it's strictly for locals. One of my friends from college told me about it, and I've always wanted to go."

  "You've never been here?"

  "No," she said. "But I've heard it's a lot of fun."

  With that, she headed up the creaking walkway. Straight ahead, the river sparkled, as if lit from below. The sound of music from inside grew steadily louder. When they opened the door, the music broke over them like a wave, and the smell of crabs and butter filled the air. Thibault paused to take it all in.

  The massive building's interior was crude and unadorned. The front half was jammed with dozens of picnic tables covered with red-and-white plastic tablecloths that appeared stapled to the wood. Tables were packed and rowdy, and Thibault saw waitresses unloading buckets of crabs onto tables everywhere. Small pitchers of melted butter sat in the center, with smaller bowls in front of diners. Everyone wore plastic bibs, cracking crabs from the communal buckets and eating with their fingers. Beer seemed to be the drink of choice.

  Directly ahead of them, on the side that bordered the river, was a long bar--if it could be called that. It seemed to be nothing more than discarded driftwood stacked atop wooden barrels. People milled around three deep. On the opposite side of the building was what seemed to be the kitchen. What caught hi
s eye mostly was the stage located at the far end of the building, where Thibault saw a band playing "My Girl" by the Temptations. At least a hundred people were dancing in front of the stage, following the prescribed steps of a dance he wasn't familiar with.

  "Wow," he shouted over the din.

  A thin, fortyish woman with red hair and an apron approached them. "Hey there," she drawled. "Food or dancing?"

  "Both," Elizabeth answered.

  "First names?"

  They glanced at each other. "Elizabeth . . . ," he said.

  "And Logan," she finished.

  The woman jotted down their names on a pad of paper. "Now, last question. Fun or family?"

  Elizabeth looked lost. "Excuse me?"

  The woman snapped her gum. "You haven't been here before, have you?"

  "No."

  "It's like this. You're going to have to share a table. That's how it works here. Everyone shares. Now, you can either request fun, which means you want a table with a lot of energy, or you can ask for family, which is usually a little quieter. Now, I can't guarantee how your table is, of course. I just ask the question. So, what'll it be? Family or fun?"

  Elizabeth and Thibault faced each other again and came to the same conclusion.

  "Fun," they said in unison.

  They ended up at a table with six students from UNC Wilmington. The waitress introduced them as Matt, Sarah, Tim, Allison, Megan, and Steve, and the students each raised their bottles in turn and announced in unison: "Hey, Elizabeth! Hey, Logan! We have crabs!"

  Thibault stifled a laugh at the play on words--crab was slang for something undescribable picked up during sexual encounters, which was obviously the point--but was flummoxed when he saw them staring at him expectantly.

  The waitress whispered, "You're supposed to say, 'We want crabs, especially if we can get them with you.'"

  This time he did laugh, along with Elizabeth, before saying the words, playing along with the ritual everyone observed here.

  They sat opposite each other. Elizabeth ended up sitting next to Steve, who didn't hide the fact that he found her extremely attractive, while Thibault sat next to Megan, who showed no interest in him whatsoever because she was far more interested in Matt.

  A plump, harried waitress rushed by, barely pausing to call out, "More crabs?"

  "You can give me crabs anytime," the students replied in chorus. All around them, Thibault heard the same response over and over. The alternative response, which he also heard, was, "I can't believe you gave me crabs!" which seemed to signify that no more were needed. It reminded him of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where regulars knew all the official responses and newcomers learned them on the fly.

  The food was first-rate. The menu featured only a single item, prepared a single way, and every bucket came with extra napkins and bibs. Crab pieces were tossed into the center of the table--a tradition--and every now and then, teenagers in aprons came by to scoop them up.

  As promised, the students were boisterous. A running string of jokes, plenty of harmless interest in Elizabeth, and two beers each, which added to the raucous spirit. After dinner, Thibault and Elizabeth went to the restroom to wash up. When she came back out, she looped her arm through his.

  "You ready to shag?" she asked suggestively.

  "I'm not sure. How do you do it?"

  "Learning to shag dance is like learning to be from the South. It's learning to relax while you hear the ocean and feel the music."

  "I take it you've done it before."

  "Once or twice," she said with false modesty.

  "And you're going to teach me?"

  "I'll be your partner. But the lesson starts at nine."

  "The lesson?"

  "Every Saturday night. That's why it's so crowded. They offer a lesson for beginners while the regulars take a break, and we'll do what they tell us. It starts at nine."

  "What time is it?"

  She glanced at her watch. "It's time for you to learn to shag."

  Elizabeth was a much better dancer than she'd suggested, which thankfully made him better on the dance floor, too. But the best part of dancing with her was the almost electrical charge he felt whenever they touched and the smell of her when he twirled her out of his arms, a mixture of heat and perfume. Her hair grew wild in the humid air, and her skin glowed with perspiration, making her seem natural and untamed. Every now and then, she'd gaze at him as she spun away, her lips parted in a knowing smile, as if she knew exactly the effect she was having on him.

  When the band decided to take a break, his first instinct was to leave the floor with the rest of the crowd, but Elizabeth stopped him when the recorded strains of "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole began to waft through the speakers. She looked up at him then, and he knew what he had to do.

  Without speaking, he slipped one arm behind her back and reached for her hand, then tucked it into position. He held her gaze as he pulled her close, and ever so slowly, they began to move to the music, turning in slow circles.

  Thibault was barely conscious of other couples joining the dance floor around them. As the music played in the background, Elizabeth leaned into him so close that he could feel each of her slow, languid breaths. He closed his eyes as she put her head on his shoulder, and in that instant, nothing else mattered. Not the song, not the place, not the other couples around him. Only this, only her. He gave himself over to the feel of her body as it pressed against him, and they moved slowly in small circles on the sawdust-strewn floor, lost in a world that felt as though it had been created for just the two of them.

  As they drove home on darkened roads, Thibault held her hand and felt her thumb tracking slowly over his skin in the quiet of the car.

  When he pulled into his driveway a little before eleven, Zeus was still lying on the porch and raised his head as Thibault turned off the ignition. He turned to face her.

  "I had a wonderful time tonight," he murmured. He expected her to say the same, but she surprised him with her response.

  "Aren't you going to invite me in?" she suggested.

  "Yes," he said simply.

  Zeus sat up as Thibault opened Elizabeth's door and stood as Elizabeth got out. His tail started to wag.

  "Hey, Zeus," Elizabeth called out.

  "Come," Thibault commanded, and the dog bounded from the porch and ran toward them. He circled them both, his cries sounding like squeaks. His mouth hung half-open in a grin as he preened for their attention.

  "He missed us," she said, bending lower. "Didn't you, big boy?" As she bent lower, Zeus licked her face. Straightening up, she wrinkled her nose before wiping her face. "That was gross."

  "Not for him," Thibault said. He motioned toward the house. "You ready? I have to warn you not to expect too much."

  "Do you have a beer in the fridge?"

  "Yes."

  "Then don't worry about it."

  They made their way up the steps of the house. Thibault opened the door and flipped the switch: A single floor lamp cast a dim glow over an easy chair near the window. In the center of the room stood a coffee table decorated only with a pair of candles; a medium-size couch faced it. Both the couch and the easy chair were covered in matching navy blue slipcovers, and behind them, a bookshelf housed a small collection of books. An empty magazine rack along with another floor lamp completed the minimalist furnishings.

  Still, it was clean. Thibault had made sure of that earlier in the day. The pine floors had been mopped, the windows washed, the room dusted. He disliked clutter and despised dirt. The endless dust in Iraq had only reinforced his neatnik tendencies.

  Elizabeth took in the scene before walking into the living room.

  "I like it," she said. "Where did you get the furniture?"

  "It came with the place," he said.

  "Which explains the slipcovers."

  "Exactly."

  "No television?"

  "No."

  "No radio?"

  "No."

  "What do you d
o when you're here?"

  "Sleep."

  "And?"

  "Read."

  "Novels?"

  "No," he said, then changed his mind. "Actually, a couple. But mostly biographies and histories."

  "No anthropology texts?"

  "I have a book by Richard Leakey," he said. "But I don't like a lot of the heavy postmodernist anthropology books that seem to dominate the field these days, and in any case those kinds of books aren't easy to come by in Hampton."

  She circled the furniture, running her finger along the slipcovers. "What did he write about?"

  "Who? Leakey?"

  She smiled. "Yeah. Leakey."

  He pursed his lips, organizing his thoughts. "Traditional anthropology is primarily interested in five areas: when man first began to evolve, when he started to walk upright, why there were so many hominid species, why and how those species evolved, and what all of that means for the evolutionary history of modern man. Leakey's book mainly talked about the last four, with a special emphasis on how toolmaking and weapons influenced the evolution of Homo sapiens."

  She couldn't hide her amusement, but he could tell she was impressed.

  "How about that beer?" she asked.

  "I'll be back in a minute," he said. "Make yourself comfortable."

  He returned with two bottles and a box of matches. Elizabeth was seated in the middle of the couch; he handed her one of the bottles and took a seat beside her, dropping the matches on the table.

  She immediately picked up the matches and struck one, watching as the small flame flickered to life. In a fluid motion, she held it to the wicks, lighting both candles, then extinguished the match.

  "I hope you don't mind. I love the smell of candles."

  "Not at all."

  He rose from the couch to turn off the lamp, the room now dimly lit by the warm glow of the candles. He sat closer to her when he returned to the couch, watching as she stared at the flame, her face half in shadow. He took a sip of his beer, wondering what she was thinking.

  "Do you know how long it's been since I've been alone in a candlelit room with a man?" she said, turning her face to his.

  "No," he said.

  "It's a trick question. The answer is never." She seemed amazed by the idea herself. "Isn't that odd? I've been married, I have a child, I've dated, and never once has this happened before." She hesitated. "And if you want to know the truth, this is the first time I've been alone with a man at his place since my divorce." Her expression was almost sheepish.