Lucky(33)

“Maybe I’ll get a scholarship,” she mused.

“You just worry about passing those tests first, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“I want to help out, Dad. It’s bothering me. I can’t study twenty-four/seven. Maybe I could work a few days at the restaurant. Do they need a hostess?” The weather was getting warmer and the restaurant busier. John agreed that a little extra money might help. He talked to his boss and got Lucky two shifts a week seating guests at tables and helping the bussers to clear them after.

One afternoon when Lucky and her father were both working at the restaurant, a striking, elegantly dressed woman with black hair pulled back in a severe French twist came in for lunch. She had a girl with her about Lucky’s age who looked sullen and shy, shoving her hands in her pockets and toeing the welcome mat with scuffed combat boots.

“I want table eight,” the woman said to Lucky. “That one. By the window.” Lucky felt irritated, but the owner of the restaurant said the customer was always right—and table eight was empty. It was in her father’s section. Lucky rolled her eyes at him after she seated the two guests, and he shrugged and smiled.

Hours later, long after the lunch rush was over, they were still there. The girl was looking out the window, apparently bored. The woman was laughing as John stood by their table, talking animatedly.

“Got myself another job,” her father told her later as he counted his tips and Lucky sat on the boat’s deck, munching on slightly soggy fried clams from a takeout container.

“That awful woman who came in today?”

“What was so awful about her?”

Lucky shrugged. “I dunno. Thought she was kind of rude.”

“Her name is Priscilla Lachaise. She was with her associate, Marisol Reyes.”

“Associate? I thought it was her daughter.”

“Nah, they work together.”

“Doing what?”

“Some sort of call center. Sounds like a good business, a lot of opportunity for growth.”

“Is it legit?”

He didn’t answer the question. “They need a manager. Good money, too. High commission.”

Weeks passed, and her father started spending a great deal of time with Priscilla and Marisol—whom he called Reyes and treated like a kid sister, or a second daughter. He didn’t like to talk about whatever it was Priscilla had him doing at a rented office that he would only tell her vaguely was “downtown.” Once Lucky and her dad had been partners. Now it often felt like they were strangers. She spent her days alone on the boat studying, or sitting on the beach, her nose buried in her books.

One day in early March, John returned home with papers for her: a birth certificate, a passport, and a social security card, all under the name of Alaina Cadence.

“This is really you now, kiddo. Alaina Cadence. Nice, right? You can use these to sign up for your high school equivalency, to take your SAT—and to apply to college. What do you think?”

“How did you get these?”

“Priscilla. She’s a real gem.”

Lucky examined the birth certificate and thumbed through the passport. The possibilities dizzied her: not just school, not just college—but travel. She could go anywhere, do anything, with these papers. “Dad, I… don’t know what to say.”

“Ah, just start with thank you.”

“Thank you,” she said. But she also wanted to ask questions. What do you do for her, over there at the “call center”? Why do you tell me I need to make myself scarce when she comes here for your “meetings”? Why won’t Reyes ever look me in the eye?

She never asked any of this. And one day, she would come to regret it.



* * *




Lucky passed the high school equivalency test, and then started studying for the SAT. It was getting warmer, which to Lucky meant her time was running out: she had to take the test and apply to colleges within a month. She pilfered a bikini from a stall near their boat, and often brought her books and a towel onto the sand with her. Her skin turned golden in the California sunshine; her red hair turned paler, kissed with streaks. It tumbled down her back, almost to her waist.

“Reyes says you’re getting a lot of attention out there on the beach,” her father said to her one night.

“What, is Reyes spying on me?”

“I asked her to keep an eye out for you. She’s street smart, knows what to look out for around here. Lucky, you should be nicer to her. Pay her a little bit of attention.”

“Pay her attention when? I never see her. You’re either working with her, and you don’t want me around, or having your meetings with her and Priscilla, and you don’t want me around. Do you even work at the restaurant anymore?”

“I do two shifts a week.”

“I barely know you anymore, Dad. Reyes probably knows you better than I do.”

Her father sighed. “Don’t be jealous.”

“Why would I be jealous?”

“She’s not a bad kid. She’s just had a rough life. You and Reyes would be great friends, I think, if you’d just give her a chance.”

Lucky had never had a true friend—not since Steph, and that hadn’t been real. She told herself she was waiting for college. Alaina Cadence was going to have tons of friends in college.