Lucky(37)

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“I’d like to book a five-by-five,” Lucky said to the young man sitting behind the counter and glass at the storage facility. She slid the two Sarah Armstrong IDs toward him; he barely glanced at them, then slid the license and social security card back to her, as well as a clipboard and some forms in return.

“I saw your deal in the paper,” she said. She didn’t know about any deal but assumed there was one. There was always a deal of some sort, and her dad had taught her you were a fool not to ask.

“Right. It’s twenty-one dollars for your first month, plus a ten-dollar service fee.”

“Sounds fine to me. I only need the one month. And the locker has a code, not a key?”

“That’s correct.”

“And I can access it twenty-four/seven after today, with the code?”

“Also correct.”

“Okay, great. Just moving out of my boyfriend’s place and need to store a bit of stuff until my next place comes through.” When she had arrived, Lucky had walked around the back of the building and pulled some boxes out of the dumpster, filled with discarded items: books, clothes, papers, broken dishes, a set of encyclopedias. They sat outside the door now.

The young man just nodded, not at all interested in her story. “Cash or credit?” he asked.

“Cash,” she said, sliding two twenties under the glass and waiting for the change. She was officially broke. She filled out a form, and pocketed the pen while the young man was entering her data into his computer. Then he slid a sheet bearing the locker code under the glass. “It’s locker number forty-four, second floor,” he said. “You use that same code to get in the door when we’re closed.”

“Got it, thanks.”

She carried the first box and then the second up to the locker, opened it with the code, and went inside. She stood still, looking around. A millipede darted out from behind one of the boxes and startled her. Her eyes swept the empty room, up and down. There: above her head was the fire alarm. The smoke detector was covered by a metal cage, but she was able to stand on one of the boxes and slide her fingers inside, loosen the plastic cover, and insert the folded-up lottery ticket. She got down, took out the pen she had stolen from the counter, and wrote down the locker code on an old receipt, just in case. She encrypted it, made it look like a shopping list. 16234170 turned into:

16 mushrooms

2 pounds of spinach

3/4 pound white beans

170 oz. rice



She had the tape in her backpack, and an X-acto knife She cut open the paper on the inside cover of Les Misérables, then slid the receipt inside and taped it there before taping the paper shut. She left the knife in the storage room, in one of the boxes.

She put the book in her backpack, locked the storage room, and went back to the front of the building, where there was a pay phone and a phone book. When she had found the address for Priscilla’s Place, she started to walk.





August 1999

SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA



“You’re always there for me when I need you,” Lucky said to Alex. They were lying on a towel in the secluded area of the beach that had become their meeting place.

“Where else would I be, and what else do I have to do, except wait around to spend time with you, and come the second you call?” He kissed her, then gazed into her eyes. He had this way of looking at her that was so focused, so interested—as if every time he saw her, he was seeing her for the first time. “Where else would I want to be, except with the woman I’m falling in love with?” he murmured.

Woman. Falling in love. He made her feel like a grown-up. But she pulled away. “We barely know each other,” she forced herself to say, hearing her father’s voice—as little as she wanted to—telling her to be careful about whom she trusted. “How can we be falling in love?”

His smile widened. “Does that mean you’re falling in love with me, too?”

“Alex. I just think it’s a bit soon to know…”

He laughed. His ego clearly wasn’t wounded. He was so easygoing, so simple to be around. So sure about them. “Okay, okay. We need to get to know each other better, then. Less kissing, more talking, right? So, what do you want to know?”

“Maybe we can kiss and talk,” she said with a smile. “Where were you born?”

“Here.”

“Do your parents still live here?”

A shadow passed over his face.

“My parents died,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s just… still hard to talk about. Maybe it always will be.”

He reached up and traced her jaw with his finger, then kissed it.

“What were they like?”

“They were great parents. Real adventurers. My dad had a little Cessna he kept up at our cabin, out near Muir Woods. We used to spend our summers there, go out there on weekends whenever we could.”

“What happened?” she whispered, her heart aching for him. Imagine having everything—a loving family, two parents—and losing that.

“Engine failure. They crashed. I wasn’t feeling well that day, and I was only eight, so I stayed home, with a babysitter. And I… survived.”