Lucky(53)

On one side of the driveway was a weathered shed, perhaps once painted red but now a streaky orange; on the other was a murky pond, then a fence, then a pasture containing three bedraggled horses and a bowlegged pony with a spiky mane. One of the horses trotted over to the fence and nickered at her.

She turned and kept walking up the drive. The camp itself came into view: two outbuildings and a few dozen mobile homes, some of them sided in white, gray, and brown, some of them with awnings and porches and small gardens crowded with ornaments. The closest one had a sign in the window that said WE DON’T CALL 911. Another one, faded blue, bore a sign that said OFFICE. Lucky’s heels sank into soft mud as she walked toward it.

“Gloria!” she heard a male voice call. She stopped walking.

“Wha’?” shouted a gruff female voice in return. Lucky followed the sound of it. Up ahead on the wide, dusty path, a woman was driving a golf cart like she was racing in the Indy 500. Lucky paused and watched as the woman hit the brakes in front of a man in a plaid shirt, open to reveal a potbelly so taut it looked painful. Gravel and dust flew up, dirty and devilish, enveloping the man entirely before settling back down.

“Toilet’s clogged in the bathhouse again, Gloria,” he said. Lucky stood, drinking in her first glimpse of her mother.

“And you can’t take care of it because…?”

“Because it’s your job. I don’t do plumbing.”

“That’s convenient. Apparently, nothing ’round here is your job, Gus. I should fire you.”

“You’re always threatenin’. Why don’t you just go ahead and damn well do it?”

“Fine, then. You’re fired. Get the hell outta here.”

Gloria hopped out of the golf cart and stood staring him down. She was taller than him, big boned, with messy, dun-colored hair. Finally he turned, walked to the river, and got into a tin fishing boat. After a few fruitless tries with the pull cord, he started the engine and chugged off into the afternoon. Lucky waited a few beats, then began to walk toward the woman.

Gloria spotted her. “Help you?” she said, without much interest. Lucky opened and closed her mouth but her words had turned to dust.

Looking into Gloria’s flat brown eyes, at her sallow skin, small nose, and thin lips that bore no resemblance to any of Lucky’s features, Lucky began to feel there had to have been some kind of mistake. But what had she expected, for her mother to be an older replica of herself, for there to be something profound in this moment?

Yes. She had expected that.

“Gloria Devereaux?”

“Maybe. Who’s asking?” She was peering at Lucky with narrowed eyes.

“I heard in town that you were hiring.”

“Who’d ya hear that from?” Gloria put a hand on her hip.

“In the diner,” Lucky improvised. “I heard someone say to someone else that Gloria from Devereaux’s was always threatening to fire Gus, and that one day she finally would. And I had just arrived in town and I thought to myself, well, maybe today is that day. And it is.”

Gloria looked amused now, or at least not quite as angry as she had before. “Ah, hell, I guess people’ve been expecting me to fire Gus for years. What’re your credentials?”

“Er, waitressing, mostly, but I also managed a—”

“You got any references?”

“Well—”

“Résumé?”

“Not exactly.”

“You fixing to use this place as a hideout from some maniac ex who’s going to show up and cause trouble?”

The lottery ticket was tucked into Lucky’s bra; she could feel the smooth paper against her chest. “No. No maniac exes to speak of. It’s just me.”

Gloria took a step closer. Lucky could smell something fetid, either her breath or the stench of the plunger she held in her hand. “And what’s yer name?”

“Sarah Armstrong.” She searched for a reaction to the last name Armstrong after she said it, but there wasn’t one.

“Sarah, this is a fishing camp and trailer park. It’s none too fancy—and those horses aren’t any great shakes.” Lucky nodded and stayed silent. “And it’s no damn fun, working here. No damn fun at all. You got that? In fact, to prove it to ya, if you really want the job, your first task is to unplug the goddamn toilet in the bathhouse. Up for it?” She extended the plunger and Lucky took it.

“If I can unclog it, am I hired?” Lucky asked.

“If you unclog it, you got yourself a deal. Ya get cash payment. Fifty bucks a day, paid weekly. And before you complain about that, lodging is included, which I’m assumin’ you need. I’ve got an empty cabin. Toilet doesn’t work, but you can use the bathhouse. Like I said, as long as you manage to unplug it.”

“Deal.” Lucky took the plunger and stalked toward the bathhouse. That is my mother, she thought, watching Gloria speed away in the golf cart. My mother has just asked me to unclog a toilet. She didn’t know whether to laugh or not. If you’d never had a mother, how were you supposed to know what to feel?



* * *




After Lucky succeeded at unblocking the toilet—an experience she did not want to relive, let alone repeat—Gloria returned and motioned for her to get in the golf cart. She led her toward a tiny cabin near the water with peeling white paint and green shutters. Then Gloria hit the brakes hard. Lucky’s eyes ended up full of grit. She wiped at them, trying to clear her vision.