Lucky(19)

“Hope they catch them soon.”

Lucky had nothing to say to that. Her eggs arrived. She swirled the yolks around with her fork, too galled by a combination of shame and indignation to eat anything now.

“Hey,” said the female customer’s voice she had heard talking a moment before. “Look at that. The Multi Millions jackpot ticket got sold. Three hundred and ninety mil, holy geez.”

“Where, here in Arizona?”

“Nope. Idaho.”

Indeed, on two of the screens, Lucky could see the interior of a gas station convenience store, where a man stood holding one of those big novelty checks. She squinted at the screen, but it looked like any convenience store. Still, she kept watching. Her heartbeat quickened. Did the store look familiar? Was it the Idaho store she’d been in, where she’d bought her lottery ticket? That was the beauty of it. That, right there, was the grift itself: that moment of hope, that quickening of pulse, the what if, what if it’s me, what if it’s my ticket, what would I do with all that money, who would I become?

Lucky took the lottery ticket out of her wallet and smoothed it on the greasy table. Her numbers stared up at her.

“You all good here?”

She covered the ticket with her hand. “Just the bill, please,” she said to the waitress. A moment later, the waitress dropped it on the table. Lucky put the ticket back in her wallet, counted out enough money to cover what she owed and a tip, and stood, feeling dazed, like a person abruptly awakened from a dream.

Outside, the golden hour was over; the specks of dust had lost the light and gone back to being the dirt Lucky had always known them to be. She walked slowly. Her plan had been to go to the bus station after she ate, where a bus to Williams—which had a train station, and could get her wherever she decided to go next faster than a bus—was scheduled to leave in half an hour. But now, all she could think about was checking her lottery ticket.

She saw a sign ahead for the Daisy Mart convenience store and picked up her pace.

“Can I get a printout of the winning lottery numbers for this week’s Multi Millions draw?” she asked when she was inside, at the front of the line.

“Sure thing.” The cashier picked up a sheet beside the register. “Lots of people have been asking. I printed a bunch out. Here you go.”

Lucky glanced at the sheet, then looked up. 11-18-42-95-77. She knew those numbers. Those were her lucky numbers.

“Are you sure these are the right ones? For this week’s draw?”

“Positive, lady.”

Lucky rushed from the store and out onto the street. She stood, heart racing, palms sweating. She needed to go somewhere private and check the ticket against the printout, needed to see for herself that the numbers did indeed match.

There was a McDonald’s up ahead. Inside, she caught a glimpse of a television in the seating area, tuned to CNN. $390 MILLION LOTTERY TICKET SOLD IN IDAHO CONVENIENCE STORE STILL UNCLAIMED read the banner on the screen.

Lucky made her way to the restroom at the back of the restaurant. She closed and locked the door behind her and leaned against it, her breathing ragged, her body shaking.

She took the lottery ticket out of her wallet. There it was, an artifact from a world she had believed to be long dead, staring her in the face. You’re special. You’re magic. You’re lucky. There’s no one like you.

11-18-42-95-77.

She took the printout from the Daisy Mart out of her pocket and compared them.

11-18-42-95-77.

She had the winning ticket.

Lucky wanted to scream—but not in the way a person who had just discovered they had won the lottery normally would. If she came forward, she would be arrested. What good would the lottery ticket be then?

She folded the ticket and put it inside her shoe. Then she stood, staring at herself in the mirror in that familiar stance, the one that meant she had to think of something: a new identity, a new plan, a new path toward this glittering dream, something, anything.

Think of a name. Think of a story. Think.

But all she could do was stare at her own face. “Lucky.” She spat it at the mirror. She walked out of the restaurant and back onto the dark street, trying to move as if she had purpose—even though she felt more lost than she ever had before.





March 20, 1993

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON



Her father’s Buick backfired as it pulled up in front of Steph’s house. It was a roomy split-level ranch-style home with a manicured lawn and a long driveway, exactly how Lucky had pictured it. There were mountain peaks in the background; the sky was a watery blue, fading into dusk. The streetlights flickered to life and the kids who’d been playing catch or throwing sticks to dogs began to make their way inside—but a few of them stopped to look at the Buick, wary of its size, its rust, its rattles and booms. When it backfired again before her father turned it off, Lucky wanted to crawl under the back seat and hide forever—except crawling under the back seat would mean missing this: the way the setting sun reflected off clean windows; the way the butterflies meandered toward bushes, then rocketed back as if that were the last thing they had intended to do; the good cooking smells in the air, not onions and lard like the rooming houses she had lived in, but instead the scent of steaks on the grill and pies in the oven.

“All right, Andi,” her father said, cocking an eyebrow. “You ready?”